Plutonium found on Fukushima plant grounds

The above poster states:
Back in the DAY, my lab section, pulled some paper clips, nails or something of the sort, out of (one of) the on-campus nuclear reactors, and did it in an hour.

However, that isn't what CTBTO is doing.

In the classic physics demonstration done by the above poster, they were dealing with a single material of known composition. It is easy to plot the decay curve in this case.

However, CTBTO is analyzing a fallout sample of multiple materials of unknown composition; that is they don't know what fraction of the sample is Strontium-90 and what fraction is Cesium-137. That is what CTBTO has to determine.

The distribution of radionuclides in the fallout is a function of the energy of the incident neutron that caused the fission that produced the fission products. The distribution is known as the fission yield curve. Courtesy of Harvard University, the following shows two fission yield curves. The upper curve is for low energy (thermal) neutrons as found in a reactor. The lower curve is for neutrons of energy 2 MeV, the energy of neutrons emerging from fission.

http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/1976AuJPh..29..125C/0000128.000...

So the upper fission yield curve is characteristic of the fallout from a reactor accident, and the lower fission yield curve is characteristic of the fallout from a nuclear explosion. The "valley" of the explosion curve is not as deep as the reactor curve, so the peaks are not as high since the sum over all fission products is 100% for both curves.

So there is a slight difference in the yield values for the most common fallout constituents like Strontium-90 and Cesium-137. CTBTO has to determine from their samples of Fukushima fallout whether the distribution is more like the upper curve or the lower curve.

If you just want to plot a decay curve for a single material of known composition, then measurements to 5% error would be fine, and high resolution counting is not needed, so one can have short counting times.

But if one is attempting to distinguish between two cases that are separated by a 1% difference; then clearly 5% error measurements don't have the resolution to discriminate between cases that are 1% different. The counting time requirements are much higher for the needed higher resolution.

Hence, the lesser counting time requirements of the simple physics class demonstration have nothing to do with the more stringent requirements for the analysis that CTBTO did. Our resident anti-nuke didn't know that and once again demonstrates inferior intellect and inferior command of the science. It seems that any time scientific principles and processes are discussed, the anti-nukes never shirk from giving us another demonstration of their abject stupidity.

Perhaps, instead of requiring the pro-nuclear side to prove that the FDU-3 explosion was not a nuclear explosion; in other words "proving a negative"; we should have the anti-nuclear side prove to us that it was a nuclear explosion.

Idiot anti-nuke Arnie Gundersen attempted to prove it was a nuclear explosion, but only showed us his shallow understanding of the scientific principles. For example, idiot Gundersen told us that the single high explosive hydrogen gas was responsible for the implosion of the nuclear fuel, "just like it happens in a nuclear weapon". However, that's NOT how it happens in a nuclear weapon. Nuclear weapons use "explosive lenses" with 2 or more explosive compositions in order to implode their nuclear fuel:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosive_lens

In general, it is a device composed of several explosive charges that are shaped in such a way as to change the shape of the detonation wave passing through it, conceptually similar to the effect of an optical lens on light. The explosive charges that make it up have different rates of detonation.

With idiot Gundersen's abortive attempt at an explanation discredited and disposed of; perhaps the anti-nukes would attempt another "explanation".

Most of the followers of this forum consider BRAWM to be "honest brokers". What does BRAWM have to say? We have this from Tim of BRAWM:

http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/node/5556#comment-18311

With regard to claims that there were nuclear explosions, even if this were true, this would decrease the 137 to 134 ratio, because of the shorter half-life of Cs-134. Our measurements, however, show an increase in this ratio, which is why we are confident it did not come from Fukushima.

Let's have some scientifically justified explanations from the anti-nukes as to their "explanation" of what happened, instead of the unsubstantiated, vacuous claims that everybody is lying except them and the people they like.

However, I predict that the anti-nukes answer will be another chance for them to demonstrate how incredibly stupid they are.

The idiot above posted:

It does NOT require a 'half life' to establish radionuclide contamination.

I didn't say it did nitwit!!!

I stated that if you observed for a half-life, you would see half the decay curve.

I didn't say that one needed to see half the curve in order to derive a measurement.

That would have been immediately apparent to anyone when I stated that 2 weeks to a month or more was reasonable for something with a 30 year half-life.

I didn't say it took 30 years to make a determination for a 30 year half-life.

However, that 30 year half-life means that the counting time precludes immediate results.

In addition to poor reading comprehension, our resident dimbulb also assumes facts not in evidence. Why would anything I post here reflect on an employer?

First, I'm retired and don't have an employer. Certainly the Universities that have previously employed me surely can't be held responsible for what I do as a retiree.

Even if I had an employer, today is a holiday for most employers that employ scientists, so why would what someone did on their day off reflect on an employer?

Perhaps we should define the term "useless idiot" for the poster above who contributes literally nothing of value to this forum..