Tuesday, January 17, 2012

PBS: Fukushima Only 10% of Radiation of Chernobyl


This is an outright lie that Fukushima only released 10% of the radiation released by Chernobyl.

One reactor was involved at Chernobyl, while at least 3 were involved at Fukushima plus at least one burning spent fuel pool. Fukushima is ongoing. Chernobyl is contained (at least presently).

The propagandist are able to lie about releases because the official data were revised so many times and hide important omissions and caveats. 

For example, the Wall Street Journal reported that “Japan Mis-stated radiation” (Sep 9, 2011 p. A14): “The Japanese government initially underestimated radiation releases from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, in part because of untimely rain, and so exposed people unnecessarily, a report released this week by a government research institute says
Furthermore, the propagandists can simply state that the total amount of radiation released from Fukushima was less because they only count the radiation released in the first 5 days of the disaster.

Finally, the propagandists always neglect releases into the sea

For example, “Sea Radiation From Fukushima Seen Triple Tepco Estimates” Reuters Sep 9 2011 http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/09/us-japan-tepco-idUSTRE7882E720110909 "Radioactive material released into the sea in the Fukushima nuclear power plant crisis is more than triple the amount estimated by plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co, Japanese researchers say."

MAJIA HERE: I'm not going to do a systematic analysis right now because its late and I need to go to bed. However, I am going to paste some data from my notes that problematize the trivializing comparison made by PBS

FIRST HERE IS A STUDY THAT CALLS INTO QUESTION JAPAN'S OFFICIAL DATA. It relies exclusively on data gathered in the US from the earliest days of the disaster only.

Fallout forensics hike radiation toll Published online 25 October 2011 | Nature 478, 435-436 (2011) | doi:10.1038/478435a http://www.nature.com/news/2011/251011/full/478435a.html
Global data on Fukushima challenge Japanese estimates.
[Excerpted] …. The latest report from the Japanese government, published in June, says that the plant released 1.5 × 1016 bequerels of caesium-137, an isotope with a 30-year half-life that is responsible for most of the long-term contamination from the plant2. A far larger amount of xenon-133, 1.1 × 1019 Bq, was released, according to official government estimates.
The new study challenges those numbers. On the basis of its reconstructions, the team claims that the accident released around 1.7 × 1019 Bq of xenon-133, greater than the estimated total radioactive release of 1.4 × 1019  Bq from Chernobyl. The fact that three reactors exploded in the Fukushima accident accounts for the huge xenon tally, says De Geer.///The new model shows that Fukushima released 3.5 × 1016  Bq caesium-137, roughly twice the official government figure, and half the release from Chernobyl. The higher number is obviously worrying, says De Geer, although ongoing ground surveys are the only way to truly establish the public-health risk….

EXPERT OPINION ALSO CALLS THE OFFICIAL DATA INTO QUESTION

Matthew Penney Jul. 01, 2011. Japanese Cancer Expert on the Fukushima Situation
 http://japanfocus.org/events/view/100

[EXCERPTED]"Japan's leading business journal Toyo Keizai has published an article by Hokkaido Cancer Center director Nishio Masamichi, a radiation treatment specialist. The piece, entitled “The Problem of Radiation Exposure Countermeasures for the Fukushima Nuclear Accident: Concerns for the Present Situation”, was published on June 27 
Former Minister for Internal Affairs Haraguchi Kazuhiro has alleged that radiation monitoring station data was actually three decimal places greater than the numbers released to the public. If this is true, it constitutes a “national crime”, in Nishio’s words. He follows with, “Giving us the truth once is much more important than saying ‘hang in there Japan!’ a million times.”

SECOND JAPAN HAS NOT EVACUATED NOR DECONTAMINATED, LEADING ONE TO BELIEVE IT IS BECAUSE THEY SIMPLY CANNOT REACT EFFECTIVELY TO THE DEGREE OF CONTAMINATION

Chernobyl’s Evacuation Zone was 5 millisieverts a year. Japan has set their evacuation zone at an incredibly high 20 millisieverts per year http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110610a6.html

Japan Times reported in June that Greenpeace measured 9 microsieverts per hour in many public spaces in Fukushima with a high of 45 microsieverts an hour near a school yard

9 microsieverts per hour X 24 X 365 days = 78840 microsieverts per year
78.84 millisieverts per year
45 microsieverts per hour x 24 x 365 = 394200 microsieverts per year
394.2 millisieverts per year

COMPARE THESE LEVELS WITH THE WHOLE BODY DOSE LEVEL CITED BY THE IAEA FOR CHERNOBYL CITIZENS INSIDE THE EXCLUSION ZONE

Whole body doses received from external radiation from the Ukrainian part of the 30-km exclusion zone showed an average value of 15 millisieverts.” (source OECD, 1995) http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Booklets/Radiation/radsafe.html

THIRD: SOME OPINIONS

Al Jazeera's Steve Chao reports from the Japanese capital of Tokyo.
 At least one billion becquerels a day of radiation continue to leak from Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant after the March earthquake and tsunami.”

“Experts say that the total amount of radiation leaked will exceed amounts released from Chernobyl, making Fukushima the worst nuclear disaster in history.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBkrIgJUWLk
 
 
Fukushima is Worse than Chernobyl – on Global Contamination Partial Japanese Text here Asia pacific Journal http://japanfocus.org/-Chris-Busby/3563
2011, july 8 Chris Busby Interview by Norimatsu Satoko and Narusawa Muneo

"Fukushima disaster involved a lot more material than Chernobyl where only 200 tons of fuel was involved. "I believe that in the explosions at Fukushima Daiichi, huge amounts of spent fuel were blown sky high. The ground contamination out to 100 km at Fukushima is worse than Chernobyl, the dose rates higher. And Fukushima has contaminated Tokyo with 35 million people. The population of the 200 km radius is also enormous, about 10 million. Most of the Chernobyl stuff fell away from big population centers. Luckily it went north and west and not to Kiev which is south. Fukushima is still boiling its radionuclides all over Japan. Chernobyl went up in one go. So Fukushima is worse…."
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Fukushima Radiation Alarms Doctors. Dahr Jamail. Al Jazeera http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/08/201181665921711896.html
[excerpted] "How much radioactive materials have been released from the plant?" asked Dr Tatsuhiko Kodama, a professor at the Research Centre for Advanced Science and Technology and Director of the University of Tokyo's Radioisotope Centre, in a July 27 speech to the Committee of Health, Labour and Welfare at Japan's House of Representatives.

"The government and TEPCO have not reported the total amount of the released radioactivity yet," said Kodama, who believes things are far worse than even the recent detection of extremely high radiation levels at the plant....
“Kodama’s centre, using 27 facilities to measure radiation across the country, has been closely monitoring the situation at Fukushima – and their findings are alarming. According to Dr. Kodama, the total amount of radiation released over a period of more than five months from the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster is the equivalent to more than 29 ‘Hiroshima-type atomic bombs’ and the amount of uranium released is ‘equivalent to 20’ Hiroshima bombs
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From Kilotons to Millisieverts: Japan’s Nuclear Legacy. August 9 2011 Truth Dig. Amy Goodman
In recent weeks, radiation levels have spiked at the Fukushima nuclear power reactors in Japan, with recorded levels of 10,000 millisieverts per hour (mSv/hr) at one spot. This is the number reported by the reactor’s discredited owner, Tokyo Electric Power Co., although that number is simply as high as the Geiger counters go. In other words, the radiation levels are literally off the charts. Exposure to 10,000 millisieverts for even a brief time would be fatal, with death occurring within weeks…”
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SEE ALSO

1 comment:

  1. Can you comment on recent studies from Fukushima and Tokyo Universities publicised 25 jan 2012? Cheers, chris.poynton@gmail.com

    (Below is post from a permaculture forum trying to find natural solutions for Japanese nuclear contamination, possibly using 2011 proposal from US fungi expert Dr Paul Stamets ... see full thread at http://forums.permaculture.org.au/showthread.php?10987-Paul-Stamets-Fungi-to-the-rescue-in-Japan!/page3)

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    Japanese researchers are starting to quantify the contamination. The following press release from a Wall Street Journal website of 25 Jan 2012 paints a picture that perhaps the contamination is not as intense as we might have expected???

    (Can someone comment on these studies? I cannot find more detail on their availability.)

    http://www.marketwatch.com/story/per...sis-2012-01-25

    The press release includes only a brief description of results from Fukushima University and Radioisotope Center of University of Tokyo as follows:

    -- Determining that uranium and plutonium contamination was extremely limited, in the vicinity of the reactors, and not widespread

    -- While radioactive iodine is completely gone from affected sites, the bulk of remaining contamination comprises long half-life cesium-134 and -137

    -- Cleaning up radioactive soil depends on varied terrain -- and requires different protocols depending on variables such as abundance of site vegetation, and other related factors

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    END QUOTE

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