Friday, May 6, 2011

Fukushima Update May 6

http://falloutphilippines.blogspot.com/2011/05/radiation-levels-in-unit-2-torus-is.html

The excellent blog Radiation Safety Phillipines has analyzed the most recent data on temperatures inside the reactors. The blog reports on data posted there that "Radiation levels in the unit 2 torus are over double from two days ago"


The blog notes that the radiation reading was "130 Sievert/hr vs 55.8 Sv/hr on Wednesday. This assumes a reading from within the torus, and that the sensor hasn't malfunctioned somehow..."


The blog explains the radiation risks: How hazardous is 130 Sv/hr? At that dose rate, just under 3 minutes of exposure (whole body) results in certain death within a few months time."

The Wall Street Journal reports 5/6 page A11 on workers entering unit 1 yesterday. "Radiation levels Thursday ranged from 8 to 100 millisieverts per hour." Annual exposure for US nuclear workers is set at 50 millisieverts according to the journal.

(I'm still unclear as to how it dropped so significantly from 1120 millisieverts on April 27 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-27/tokyo-water-radiation-falls-to-zero-for-first-time-since-crisis.htmlunless the drop can be explained from the water entombment but if so where is all the excess radiated water going?)

The journal reported that samples of sea water found Cesium-134 at 90,000 becquerels per kilogram and Cesium-137 at 87,000 becquerels per kilogram.


The IAEA reports on radiation deposition from April 22 to May 2:


For the period 22 April to 2 May, deposition of I-131 was detected in eight prefectures, ranging from 1.8 Bq/m2 to 89 Bq/m2. Deposition of Cs-137 was detected in 13 prefectures in the same period, the values reported ranging from 1.3 Bq/m2 to 92 Bq/m2. The reported values show that variable deposition of radionuclides was still occurring in certain prefectures.
http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html

Radiation in Phoenix, according to the EPA radnet, continues to be above normal on many days. Beta readings posted this week  were as follows: 5/3 33 (normal); 5/4 137 (high); 5/5 66 (above average); 5/6 112 (high)

These data do not reflect real time results but they do indicate a trend of continued fallout

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.