Any concerns about Plutonium?
Does anyone have any thoughts or concerns about the potential of airborne Plutonium from Reactor #3 reaching us here on the west coast/ North American continent in tiny amounts? I understand it only requires breathing in a smaller than dust particle to get fatal lung cancer.
I thought BRAWM was testing
I thought BRAWM was testing this weeks ago... where are the results??
Still waiting
http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/node/3779
In an interview with Israel
In an interview with Israel National News, Melman said there was no doubt the situation in Japan is very serious. "The core of reactor number 3 melted. This is a reactor fueled by plutonium and if this material is released, the damage to the environment will be very serious. The danger of plutonium is exponential compared to uranium."
Melman noted the similarity between the disaster in Japan and the disaster which occured in Chernobyl. "It's exactly like what happened at Chernobyl. The situation in this reactor is very similar, except that in Japan most of the population has been evacuated. But the consequences in the coming years we already know. There is a radioactive cloud over Tokyo at the moment."
Published: 03/16/11, 11:03 PM / Last Update: 03/17/11, 1:12 AM
Has Mr Melman given any new
Has Mr Melman given any new assessment of the situation since March 16th?
Relatedly
Hanford was one of the secret sites built for the Manhattan Project. One of the reasons Hanford was selected was because the Columbia River provided needed cooling waters for plutonium production.
All of the production reactors, except the N Reactor, were "single-pass" reactors. Water was pumped from the Columbia River, through the reactor tubes to cool the uranium fuel, and then out of the reactor through large pipelines back into the river. Between the reactors and the river, the cooling water (effluent) was held in large tanks (retention basins) for short periods to allow the short-lived radionuclides, picked up in the reactors, to decay and for thermal cooling of water. Lower concentrations of longer-lived isotopes from these units remained in the cooling water and were discharged directly into the Columbia River.
The Columbia Riverkeeper reviewed a 1954 report (Doc.#HW32809) by the Atomic Energy Commission and General Electric. The CRK cites this report in a recent report on Hanford and the River, saying that:
[I]n 1954 alone, it was estimated that almost 3 million curies (2,913,000) were released into the Columbia. Concern was expressed in that document about the high radioactivity in the River, with projected increases 5 to 10 fold. If these estimates were correct, between 15 million and 30 million curies of radiation were released to the Columbia River annually in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
The CRK report continues its summary of the 1954 document, reporting that officials considered closing the Columbia River to fishing, noting a public relations nightmare. DeBruler summarized this section of the 1954 report, saying that officials "suggested that because of the public relations problem, that they do nothing." The river remained open to fishing.
Compare the above figures to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, where from 50 to 250 million curies were released, according to the Chernobyl Info website.
9/11 reveals unequivocally
9/11 reveals unequivocally that honest government in this day and age is a hoax. Maybe it always was.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/engineers-request-permission-speak-free...
Plutonium, again. And again.
This has come up many times. Today, in fact: See:
http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/node/4117
It did not get here from Fukushima, but has been here before...
Yes
Yes, I for one am very concerned about it.
You can watch the video on Fairewinds Associates, about the fine mist and particle dust already showing up here in the US.
I don't know who has more hard date on this topic but indeed it is very important.
Just because it has been
Just because it has been detected before does not mean additional airborne Plutonium from Fukushima isn't reaching North America. This is becoming a major concern of mine now that I know reactor 3 is/ has been in meltdown and there has been an explosion. So I bump the request for BRAWM team's plutonium test results and continue to ask for this data from govt monitoring agencies.
Plutonium, continued
Yes, #3 was running MOX fuel. But, the others created plutonium during their regular operations. Plenty of pluto there for everyone. And it melted weeks ago. And it is not coming over now. I'd hazard a guess that they might find it in the local seawater, if they looked specifically for it, since they are, out of necessity, continuously "rinsing" the core/corium to keep it cool.
There are plenty of things to worry about, this is not one of them.
I would like to believe
I would like to believe you... But what makes you think Pu did not get airborne? Burned out fuel rods were stored on top (yes!) of the roofs of the reactors and vanished with the early explosions. Does anyone know if these contained MOX?
MOX
The MOX was not used until very recently, so the spent fuel pools would not have any in them. HOWEVER, all spent fuel will have plutonium in it, and at least one of the pools probably caught fire, so some did escape.
I don't think the majority of forum participants would argue that some plutonium escaped the reactor buildings, or even the plant site. What has been repeatedly shown, from a variety of sampling methods and sources, is that it is not turning up in North America.
Also noted many times is how above-ground nuclear testing, which did not stop until the 1980's, provided all of us with plenty of it already.