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Fukushima Radiation Contamination Worse Than Initial Estimates

Summer Quarterly 2018
By Jack Loughran

Scientists using a new method of detecting radioactive particles have warned that there was a significant release during the Fukushima nuclear accident that could pose a risk to humans.

[The study was published in Environmental Science & Technology, Feb. 13, 2018.]

The method allows scientists to quickly count the number of cesium-rich micro-particles in Fukushima soils and quantify the amount of radioactivity associated with these particles.

The research, which was carried out by scientists from Kyushu University, Japan, and the University of Manchester, contradicts initial [government and industry] findings in the immediate aftermath of the 2011 Fukushima meltdowns.

It was thought that only volatile, gaseous radionuclides, such as cesium and iodine, were released from the damaged reactors. [*See Nukewatch’s related article Fukushima’s “Hot Particles” Travelled Extreme Distances.] However, it has become apparent that small radioactive particles, termed cesium-rich micro-particles, were also released.

Scientists have shown that these particles … contain significant amounts of radioactive cesium as well as smaller amounts of other radioisotopes, such as uranium and technetium.

The abundance of these micro-particles in Japanese soils and sediments, and their environmental impact, is poorly understood. But the particles are very small and do not dissolve easily, meaning they could pose long-term health risks to humans if inhaled.

At present scientists don’t know how many of the micro-particles are present in Fukushima. The new method makes use of a technique called autoradiography, which uses an imaging plate placed over contaminated soil samples…. The radioactive decay from the soil is recorded on the plate as an image, which is then read onto a computer.

The scientists say radioactive decay from the cesium-rich micro-particles can be differentiated from other forms of cesium contamination in the soil.

The scientists tested the new method on rice-paddy soil samples retrieved from different locations within the Fukushima prefecture. The samples were taken close to and far away from the damaged nuclear reactors, at four kilometers and 40 kilometers. The new method found cesium-rich micro-particles in all of the samples and showed that the amount of cesium associated with the micro-particles in the soil was much larger than expected.

“There is a need for further detailed investigation on Fukushima fuel debris, inside, and potentially outside the nuclear exclusion zone.”

— Dr. Gareth Law, Center for Radiochemistry Research, School of Chemistry, Univ. of Manchester

Dr. Satoshi Utsunomiya, associate professor at Kyushu University, Japan, and the lead author of the study, said: “When we first started to find cesium-rich micro-particles in Fukushima soil samples, we thought they would turn out to be relatively rare. Now, using this method, we find there are lots of cesium-rich micro-particles in exclusion zone soils and also in the soils collected from outside of the exclusion zone.”

“We hope that our method will allow scientists to quickly measure the abundance of cesium-rich micro-particles at other locations and estimate the amount of cesium radioactivity associated with the particles….” Utsunomiya said.

In March 2018, a Greenpeace survey found that even seven years after the catastrophic disaster, the people, towns and villages in the surrounding area are still being exposed to excessive levels of radiation.

Dr. Gareth Law, an analytical radiochemistry lecturer at the Univ. of Manchester in England and one of the paper’s authors, said in a news release, “Our research strongly suggests there is a need for further detailed investigation on Fukushima fuel debris, inside, and potentially outside the nuclear exclusion zone.”

—Loughran wrote this article for Engineering & Technology, May 25, 2018

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Fukushima’s “Hot Particles” Travelled Extreme Distances

Summer Quarterly 2018
By John LaForge
Black star shows tracks of alpha particles in an ape’s lung much like ours. Breathable hot particles of cesium, which emit alpha and gamma radiation, were spread long distances by Fukushima, Japan’s triple reactor meltdowns in 2011. Photo by Robert Del Tredici.

Contrary to reports that only gaseous radioactive materials were released by the triple-reactor Fukushima meltdowns in Japan in 2011, scientists reported early on that highly radioactive “hot particles” were released and carried long distances by wind.

“Cesium found 375 miles from Japanese plant,” read the headline in the Japanese daily paper Yomiuri Shimbun — and reprinted in dozens of US papers March 17 and 18, 2012. The report noted that radioactive cesium-137 was found in plankton 375 miles east of the destroyed Fukushima reactors. Researchers at the University of Tokyo’s Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute warned that “the radioactive cesium is likely to have accumulated in fish that eat plankton.” The cesium then bio-accumulates and bio-concentrates as the fish continue to consume bad plankton, and as bigger fish (tuna, cod, haddock, pollock, carp) eat smaller contaminated fish.

According to a 2012 report from Bellona Foundation, “radionuclides from the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant’s triple meltdown last year radioactively contaminated the entire northern hemisphere within days and the US west coast bore a significant brunt of so called hot particles, an independent scientific paper released yesterday claims.” (“Impact to US West Coast from Fukushima disaster likely larger than anticipated, several reports indicate,” Bellona, Sept. 19, 2012)

Earlier field sampling of vehicle air filters done in April 2011 by Marco Kaltofen, of the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, discovered breathable hot particles contaminated with cesium-137 in Seattle, Washington. (“Radiation Exposure to the Population in Japan after the Earthquake,” Marco Kaltofen, MS, PE, Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Worcester Polytechnic Inst., October 31, 2011)

Arnie Gundersen, a former nuclear reactor engineer with Fairewinds Associates, reported June 12, 2011 that, “Air filters in Seattle indicate that people there were absorbing five hot particles every day for the month of April [2011]. That means that that hot particle gets absorbed in your lung, or winds up in your intestines, or it winds up in your muscle, or it winds up in your bone [where it] constantly bombards a very narrow piece of tissue.”

On July 18, 2011, Dr. Chris Busby, scientific secretary of the Low-Level Radiation Campaign in England and co-author of Fukushima and Health: What to Expect (Green Audit, 2011), said in an interview, “When we put the elements from the air filter next to x-ray film and we develop the film, we see different light sources and flashes of light. These are called ‘hot particles.’ They are very small. You cannot see them — they are almost like a gas. If they are in the car filters, because cars ‘breathe’ air — then they are inside of people, inside the lungs, inside the nose, inside the guts… and they will be causing significant harm.”

The journal Science of the Total Environment reported December 31, 2017 on a more recent and lengthier study in which detectable levels of hot particles of cesium-134 and cesium-137 were collected across Northern Japan and analyzed over a five-year period, from 2011 to 2016. (“Radioactively-hot particles detected in dusts and soils from Northern Japan,”) The hot particles were found in dusts and soils in over 80 percent of the samples. The study’s authors, Marco Kaltofena and Arnie Gundersen, said, “Some of the hot particles detected in this study could cause significant radiation exposures to individuals if inhaled. Exposure models ignoring these isolated hot particles would potentially understate human radiation dose.”

Proponents of nuclear power still get away with denying that such inhaled or ingested exposures cause harm. This is because when the cancers begin appearing 10, 15 or 20 years from exposure, no one can to prove they were caused by Fukushima’s hot particles. “Got cancer?” they ask. “Not our fault. Nuclear power is safe.”

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Cellphone Radiation and Cancer

Summer Quarterly 2018
Image courtesy of Dr. Om Gandhi, Professor Emeritus, Univ. of Utah, and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

Results of the largest-ever animal study of cellphone radiation have confirmed earlier evidence from human studies that the radio-frequency (RF) radiation increases the risk of cancer including brain tumors.

Scientific American reports, “The National Toxicology Program study dosed rats and mice of both sexes with RF radiation at either 1.5, 3, or 6 watts of [electromagnetic] radiation per kilogram of body weight, or W/kg. The lowest dose is about the same as the Federal Communications Commission’s limit for public exposure from cell phones, which is 1.6 watts W/kg.

“When turned on, cell phones and other wireless devices emit RF radiation continually, even if they are not being actively used, because they are always communicating with cell towers. The dose intensity trails off with increasing distance from the body, and reaches a maximum when the devices are used next to the head during phone calls or in front of the body during texting or tweeting.”

A panel of outside experts that reviewed the findings in March “concluded there was ‘clear evidence’ linking RF radiation with heart [tumors called] schwannomas and ‘some evidence’ linking it to gliomas [tumors] of the brain” Scientific American reported.

In a press release from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Dr. John Bucher said, “The tumors we saw in these studies are similar to tumors previously reported in some studies of frequent cell phone users.”

Olga Naidenko, senior science advisor at the Environmental Working Group, told Acres USA magazine, “These studies should have been done before more than 90 percent of Americans, including children, started using this technology day in and day out.”

Access the study here.

—Sources: Acres USA, April 2018; Scientific American, March 29, 2018; National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences press release, Feb. 2, 2018.

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Plutonium Missing from University Lab

Summer Quarterly 2018
Nuclear Shorts

Idaho State University’s nuclear engineering program, which works with the Energy Department’s Idaho National Lab, can only account for 13 out of 14 single-gram units of weapons grade plutonium it was using to test containers for radiation leaks. The plutonium was supposed to have been returned to the national lab, but after a thorough search cannot be found. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission fined the university $8,500. Plutonium is the most toxic material known to science and even a single atomic particle if inhaled or ingested can cause cancer.

Dr. Cornelis Van der Schyf, vice president for research at the university, sent a convoluted explanation for the malfeasance to the AP: “Unfortunately, because there was a lack of sufficient historical records to demonstrate the disposal pathway employed in 2003, the source in question had to be listed as missing,” he wrote. Plain translation: The plutonium and the record keeping are both lost.

Dr. van der Schyf went on to say, “The radioactive source in question poses no direct health issue or risk to public safety.” Of course, he is in a position to know this. The routine reassurance brings to mind the words of the great oceanographer Jacques Cousteau who said: “A common denominator, in every single nuclear accident … is that before the specialists even know what has happened, they rush to the media saying, ‘There’s no danger to the public.’ They do this before they themselves know what has happened because they are terrified that the public might react violently, either by panic or by revolt.”  —Associated Press; BBC News, May 4, 2018

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Chernobyl Anniversary Begs Comparisons to Fukushima

Photo: The cement tomb built in 1986 over the destroyed Chernobyl reactor No. 4 in Ukraine needed replacement by 1996. It finally got re-covered in 2016. Similar abandonment has been recommended for three wrecked General Electric reactors in Fukushima, Japan.

The radiation dispersed into the environment by the three reactor meltdowns at Fukushima-Daiichi in Japan has exceeded that of the April 26, 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe, so we may stop calling it the “second worst” nuclear power disaster in history. Total atmospheric releases from Fukushima are estimated to be between 5.6 and 8.1 times that of Chernobyl, according to the 2013 World Nuclear Industry Status Report. Professor Komei Hosokawa, who wrote the report’s Fukushima section, told London’s Channel 4 News then, “Almost every day new things happen, and there is no sign that they will control the situation in the next few months or years.”

Tokyo Electric Power Co. has estimated that about 900 peta-becquerels have spewed from Fukushima, and the updated 2016 TORCH Report estimates that Chernobyl dispersed 110 peta-becquerels.[1] (A Becquerel is one atomic disintegration per second. The “peta-becquerel” is a quadrillion, or a thousand trillion Becquerels.)

Chernobyl’s reactor No. 4 in Ukraine suffered several explosions, blew apart and burned for 40 days, sending clouds of radioactive materials high into the atmosphere, and spreading fallout across the whole of the Northern Hemisphere — depositing cesium-137 in Minnesota’s milk.[2]

The likelihood of similar or worse reactor disasters was estimated by James Asselstine of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), who testified to Congress in 1986: “We can expect to see a core meltdown accident within the next 20 years, and it … could result in off-site releases of radiation … as large as or larger than the releases … at Chernobyl.[3] Fukushima-Daiichi came 25 years later.

Contamination of soil, vegetation and water is so widespread in Japan that evacuating all the at-risk populations could collapse the economy, much as Chernobyl did to the former Soviet Union. For this reason, the Japanese government standard for decontaminating soil there is far less stringent than the standard used in Ukraine after Chernobyl.

Fukushima’s Cesium-137 Release Tops Chernobyl’s

The Korea Atomic Energy Research (KAER) Institute outside of Seoul reported in July 2014 that Fukushima-Daiichi’s three reactor meltdowns may have emitted two to four times as much cesium-137 as the reactor catastrophe at Chernobyl.[4]

To determine its estimate of the cesium-137 that was released into the environment from Fukushima, the cesium-137 release fraction (4% to the atmosphere, 16% to the ocean) was multiplied by the cesium-137 inventory in the uranium fuel inside the three melted reactors (760 to 820 quadrillion Becquerel, or Bq), with these results:

Ocean release of cesium-137 from Fukushima (the worst ever recorded): 121.6 to 131.2 quadrillion Becquerel (16% x 760 to 820 quadrillion Bq). Atmospheric release of cesium-137 from Fukushima: 30.4 to 32.8 quadrillion Becquerel (4% x 760 to 820 quadrillion Bq).

Total release of cesium-137 to the environment from Fukushima: 152 to 164 quadrillion Becquerel. Total release of cesium-137 into the environment from Chernobyl: between 70 and 110 quadrillion Bq.

The Fukushima-Daiichi reactors’ estimated inventory of 760 to 820 quadrillion Bq (petabecquerels) of cesium-137 used by the KAER Institute is significantly lower than the US Department of Energy’s estimate of 1,300 quadrillion Bq. It is possible the Korean institute’s estimates of radioactive releases are low.

In Chernobyl, 30 years after its explosions and fire, what the Wall St. Journal last year called “the $2.45 billion shelter implementation plan” was finally completed in November 2016. A huge metal cover was moved into place over the wreckage of the reactor and its crumbling, hastily erected cement tomb. The giant new cover is 350 feet high, and engineers say it should last 100 years — far short of the 250,000-year radiation hazard underneath.

The first cover was going to work for a century too, but by 1996 was riddled with cracks and in danger of collapsing. Designers went to work then engineering a cover-for-the-cover, and after 20 years of work, the smoking radioactive waste monstrosity of Chernobyl has a new “tin chapeau.” But with extreme weather, tornadoes, earth tremors, corrosion and radiation-induced embrittlement it could need replacing about 2,500 times. — John LaForge

_______________

[1] Duluth News-Tribune & Herald, “Slight rise in radioactivity found again in state milk,” May 22, 1986; St. Paul Pioneer Press & Dispatch, “Radiation kills Chernobyl firemen,” May 17, 1986; Minneapolis StarTribune, “Low radiation dose found in area milk,” May 17, 1986.

[2] Ian Fairlie, “TORCH-2016: An independent scientific evaluation of the health-related effects of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster,” March 2016 (https://www.global2000.at/sites/global/files/GLOBAL_TORCH%202016_rz_WEB_KORR.pdf).

[3] James K. Asselstine, Commissioner, US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Testimony in Nuclear Reactor Safety: Hearings before the Subcommittee on Energy Conservation and Power of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, House of Representatives, May 22 and July 16, 1986, Serial No. 99-177, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1987.

[4] Progress in Nuclear Energy, Vol. 74, July 2014, pp. 61-70; ENENews.org, Oct. 20, 2014.

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