Thursday, March 8, 2012

Trying to Make Sense of Fallout Deposition in the US


How much fallout has been deposited in the US?

In March the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission had an estimate from the DTRA (the Defense Threat Reduction Agency) that a one year old child in California would assimilate over the course of 1 year a thyroid dose of 40 millisieverts, from Iodine-131 alone.[i]

What are the ANNUAL ASSIMILATION PROJECTIONS for the levels of  STRONTIUM, CESIUM, URANIUM, and PLUTONIUM exposure for children and adults in California and other parts of the US?

How much radiation fallout are we really going to be exposed to in our food, water and air?[ii]

We will probably never know how much fallout we are being subjected to because of the extent of censorship over what exactly has happened at the Fukushima plant—e.g., how many spent fuel pools have burned and how many reactors actually exploded into the air.

We do know that there is evidence that spent fuel pool #3 at Fukushima was destroyed in the explosion.[iii] Spent fuel pool #4 is likely to collapse and burn, if it hasn’t already. The NRC transcripts indicate that during the early days of the disaster this pool was believed to be empty of water and burning. Whether it remains intact today is unclear.

We do know that 3 meltdowns occurred in reactors 1-3 and it seems that at least 2 of these meltdowns were actually melt-throughs that breached all levels of containment (in units 1 and 2). Suspicion abounds that the common spent fuel pool and units 5 and 6 have also suffered problems.

Furthermore, it appears that other nuclear plants in Japan had significant problems and, yet, we have been deliberated blinded to the extent and nature of these problems.

Finally, our ignorance has been ensured by deliberate NRC efforts to stop private laboratory testing of the fallout in the US.[iv]

Our ignorance enables daily life to continue as normal, until it doesn’t.

What happens when a rise in significant birth defects becomes undeniable?

What happens when thyroid disease and cancer skyrocket in children?

What happens when auto-immune disease rates quadruple?

I agree with someone who commented at Enenews recently, asserting that this scope of this disaster is not going to escape notice, especially because our cultivated ignorance prevents remediation.

I still don’t know how bad it is, but I am getting rather alarmed by the conversations leaking out in the form of declassified NRC audio transcripts.

I repeat my mantra that openness (i.e., transparency) and accountability are the only values that can ensure a way forward.

I shudder to think what will happen when the population realizes that the illnesses of their children were exacerbated by a deliberate strategy of government censorship, denial, and trivialization.

Useful Resource:

Fukushima Cancer Risk Underestimated Arnie Gunderson & Ian Goddard [full version]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFMAT8D6mOA


[ii] (Sources provided by Enenews.com)  US Geological Survey http://bqs.usgs.gov/fukushima/

One study published in the Journal of Environmental Radioactivity “Radionuclides from the Fukushima Accident…” by Lujaniene et al., represents fallout visually found here http://www.happysmile.se/dokument/science_plutonium_litauen.pdf

Another study documenting xenon on southern hemisphere Title: Xenon-133 and caesium-137 releases into the atmosphere from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant: determination of the source term, atmospheric dispersion, and deposition Source: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics; Atmos. Chem. Phys., 12, 2313–2343, 2012  can be found here http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/12/2313/2012/acp-12-2313-2012.pdf

 [iii] Asahi Flyover: No spent fuel pool seen in Reactor No. 3 — SFP ‘must’ be in center of screen, however we can’t see any of it (VIDEO) http://enenews.com/developing-asahi-flyover-spent-fuel-pool-reactor-3-sfp-be-center-screen-video

[iv]  "US Regulator: We’ve got to stop labs from testing for Fukushima radiation — “Tell them to back off” — Worried about them talking to press about ‘consequences
http://enenews.com/nrc-weve-stop-labs-testing-fukushima-radiation-directors-knock-doe-cool-worried-about-talking-press-about-consequences


2 comments:

  1. I agree with all this, but have one quibble: when the NRC staffer was referring to reigning in the labs, he was referring specifically to the national laboratory system (Oak Ridge, Lawrence Livermore, Idaho National Lab, etc.) These are DOE-run, mostly through Office of Science and NNSA. They're not private laboratories.

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