BRAWM team - Please interpret latest IAEA update

Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 2011-04-18 12:00

Source: http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html

As of 16th April, no white smoke was seen to be coming from Unit 1 although white smoke was still observed coming from Units 2 and 3. As of 16th April white smoke was also visible in Unit 4.
Q: Can you explain the continuous, sustained smoke coming from the various units? Does this equate to radioactive releases that will eventually be transported to the U.S. West Coast?

In accordance with NISA Release 94, TEPCO took water samples from the spent fuel pool of Unit 4 on 12th April, in order to examine the conditions. The sample was taken by using the arm of the concrete pump vehicle. At the same time, the temperature of water in the spent fuel pool of Unit 4 was measured with a thermistor attached to the arm of the concrete pump vehicle. The activities for I-131, Cs-134 and Cs-137 were 220 Bq/cm3, 88 Bq/cm3 and 93 Bq/cm3 respectively.
Q: Can you put these measurements into context?

‹ User's Guide: Radionuclide Carcinogenicity Epa Tellurium-132 ›

Without verifying the data

Submitted by dchivers on Mon, 2011-04-18 12:19.

Without verifying the data you present:

The conversion from cm^3 to L is 1000, so:

220,000 Bq/L I131
88,000 Bq/L Cs134
93,000 Bq/L Cs137
In the spent fuel water.

Our rainwater measurements (averaged approximately):
5 Bq/L I131 (release-dilution factor of 44,000)
0.3 Bq/L Cs134 (release-dilution factor of 293,333)
0.3 Bq/L Cs137 (release-dilution factor of 310,000)

The difference in the release-dilution for cesium relative to iodine is most likely due to the low vapor pressure of iodine relative to cesium. This also assumes what we are seeing (what we saw) is due to a release from water with similar isotopic concentrations as the spent fuel pools, which is dubious at best.

I don't have knowledge of the white smoke and if it is correlated to releases.