tsutsuji said:http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2012/ee/c2ee22019a John E. Ten Hoeve and Mark Z. Jacobson, "Worldwide health effects of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident", Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/C2EE22019A, Received 23 Apr 2012, Accepted 26 Jun 2012.
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/19/trying-to-tally-fukushima/ Some comments about the above article.
The collapse of the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant caused a massive release of radioactive materials to the environment. A prompt and reliable system for evaluating the biological impacts of this accident on animals has not been available. Here we show that the accident caused physiological and genetic damage to the pale grass blue Zizeeria maha, a common lycaenid butterfly in Japan. We collected the first-voltine adults in the Fukushima area in May 2011, some of which showed relatively mild abnormalities. The F1 offspring from the first-voltine females showed more severe abnormalities, which were inherited by the F2 generation. Adult butterflies collected in September 2011 showed more severe abnormalities than those collected in May. Similar abnormalities were experimentally reproduced in individuals from a non-contaminated area by external and internal low-dose exposures. We conclude that artificial radionuclides from the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant caused physiological and genetic damage to this species.
...Dr. Garwin uses the same numbers that I use, but he extrapolates forward in time 70 years to the continuing damage that residual radiation could cause, assuming that the radiation cannot be covered, cleaned or washed away, and that the population of Fukushima doesn't change. Moreover, he ignores the sort of argument that I have made about the Denver dose and includes in the calculation the numbers of deaths expected from tiny doses, assuming that even small exposures are proportionately dangerous. (This is an assumption that has also been adopted by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.)
I don't dispute Dr. Garwin's number, but I believe it has to be understood in context. If you apply the same approach to Denver , you have to take into account the fact that the Denver dose is delivered every year. Over 70 years, it sums to 0.3 rem times 70, or 21 rem per person. If you multiply that by 600,000 people (the current population of Denver) and divide by the cancer dose of 2,500 rem, you get the expected cancer excess in Denver. That figure is 5,000, over three times higher than Dr. Garwin's number for Fukushima.
I am uncomfortable with these large numbers of predicted deaths. They are based on a theory that assumes proportionality in the way that radiation increases the likelihood of cancer—a theory that has never been tested, will not be tested in the foreseeable future, and which is known to fail for leukemia.
I can't be sure that the theory is wrong, but I consider these relatively large numbers for Denver and Fukushima to be misleading. Remember that Denver has a lower cancer rate than the rest of the U.S., not a higher one. There is a strong argument for ignoring radiation dangers below the level of the Denver dose. In doing so, we would be ignoring risks that are unobservable and which we routinely ignore (and properly so) in other circumstances.
tsutsuji said:http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/genpatsu-fukushima/20120910/0640_ryou.html & http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/genpatsu-fukushima/20120910/index.html The number of seafood species fished off the Fukushima prefecture coasts as part of "test catches" has been brought to 10 species. The "test catches" began in June 2012 with only 3 species of octopus and whelk. The species added in September include horsehair crab and Japanese flying squid. Radioactive substances were not detected in these species in tests performed by Fukushima prefecture government. On 10 September 2012 at around 03:00 PM, 11 fishing boats came back to Matsukawaura fishing port in Soma City, carrying a 4300 kg catch. Some samples will be tested for radiations, and if the test result is OK, it will be sold for example on the local market from 11 September. It will be the first time that seafood suitable for eating raw coming from Fukushima waters is sold on the market.
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20120911_13.html "High levels of radiation have recently been detected in some fish types. A cod landed at a port in Aomori Prefecture in early August was found to be exposed to 132.7 becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogram. That was 1.3 times the government safety limit. Radiation 380 times the limit was detected in a rock-trout caught off Fukushima in early August. A black sea bream caught off Miyagi Prefecture, in July was 33 times over the limit".
zapperzero said:So, which is it? No contamination? Some contamination?
zapperzero said:http://www.city.koriyama.fukushima.jp/upload/1/4731_24_8syokuhinnitirann.pdf
everything in Koriyama is a bit dirty...
Sorai said:After scrolling through the document I see an overwhelming majority of non detections, with detection limits between 20 and 30 Bq/Kg for the most part, that is.
zapperzero said:http://www.city.koriyama.fukushima.jp/upload/1/4731_24_8syokuhinnitirann.pdf
everything in Koriyama is a bit dirty...
jarvik said:While I'm pretty sure I can pick out the columns for 137Cs and 134Cs activity, is there an English translation so I have a better idea of what all the measurements are from exactly?
tsutsuji said:"The first round of thyroid tests for about 80,000 children in Fukushima Prefecture found no direct effects from last year's accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant"
We conducted I-131 activity measurements in the thyroid of residents and evacuees during the period from April 12th to 16th, placing a 3-inch × 3-inch NaI(Tl) scintillation spectrometer at the neck of examinees. The study was approved by the Committee of Medical Ethics of Hirosaki University Graduate School of Medicine (Hirosaki, Japan). In total, 62 people aged from 0 to 83 years old (of which accurate information on age was unavailable for eight people) underwent the measurement with informed consent. Net thyroid and background count rates were determined from the detected gamma spectra measured for the most conservative dose assessment, we used thyroid equivalent dose coefficients for iodine in elemental form, as given by ICRP Publication 7116, and the thyroid uptake factor equal to 0.3. We found detectable I-131 activity in 39 of the 45 people evacuated from coastal areas, and in 7 of the 17 residents in Tsushima District. Figure 2 illustrates the distribution of thyroid equivalent dose in children and adults assessed using the equivalent dose coefficient by inhalation and by ingestion for their comparison16,17. Table 1 summarizes the range of I-131 activities and thyroid doses according to age. Thyroid equivalent doses by inhalation ranged from none detected (N.D.) to 33 mSv. The median thyroid equivalent dose for children (under 20 years of age) and adults was 4.2 and 3.5 mSv, respectively.
"There's no doubt there's a continued source of contamination," Buesseler says.
Mitsuo Uematsu, of the University of Tokyo, says this makes sense. Rivers wash contaminated sediments into the ocean
(...)
Aoyama says there is no evidence contaminated groundwater is leaking into the ocean
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22426-radiation-still-high-in-fukushima-fish.html
They found that as the study went on, the concentration of cesium found in stemflow and throughfall started to surpass that arriving through precipitation, suggesting that the radionuclides were being stored in the tree canopy and later seeping out. The authors determined that cesium-137 concentrations in the forest canopy would have a half-life of 620 or 890 days, depending on whether the trees were cypress or cedar.
tsutsuji said:http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2012GL052928.shtml Kato, Onda & Gomi, "Interception of the Fukushima reactor accident-derived 137Cs, 134Cs and 131I by coniferous forest canopies", Geophysical Research Letters, VOL. 39, L20403, 6 PP., 2012
tsutsuji said:Miyagi:
http://mainichi.jp/area/miyagi/news/20111217ddlk04040073000c.html A study of Miyagi prefecture rivers and lake has been released by the ministry of environment. Cesium was found in water only in one out of 138 tested locations, with 3Bq/kg. 11,000 Bq/kg was found in the mud at the bottom of Nanakita river in Sendai. As a whole, 21 locations were found with river mud above 1000 Bq/kg. The radiation is comparatively higher close to river mouths.
http://www.env.go.jp/jishin/monitoring/result_pw111216-1.pdf Miyagi prefecture river monitoring results
Tochigi:
http://sankei.jp.msn.com/region/news/111217/tcg11121702120004-n1.htm The ministry of environment released a Tochigi prefecture river and lake survey. In one location 1 Bq/l was found in water. 4900 Bq/kg was found in river bottom mud in Nikko. They also checked the Earth in areas surrounding rivers, and found 9400 Bq/kg of Cs137 in Nasu.
http://www.env.go.jp/jishin/monitoring/result_pw111216-2.pdf Tochigi prefecture river monitoring results