The Nuclear Core Has Finally Been Found … Scattered All Over the World
Washington’s Blog
Fukushima did not just suffer meltdowns, or even melt-throughs …
It suffered melt-OUTS … where the nuclear core of at least one reactor was spread all over Japan.
In addition, the Environmental Research Department, SRI Center for Physical Sciences and Technology in Vilnius, Lithuania reported in the Journal of Environmental Radioactivity:
Analyses of (131)I, (137)Cs and (134)Cs in airborne aerosols were carried out in daily samples in Vilnius, Lithuania after the Fukushima accident during the period of March-April, 2011.
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The activity ratio of (238)Pu/(239,240)Pu in the aerosol sample was 1.2, indicating a presence of the spent fuel of different origin than that of the Chernobyl accident.
(“Pu” is short for plutonium.) Fukushima is 4,988 miles from Vilnius, Lithuania. So the plutonium traveled quite a distance.
Today, EneNews reports that a fuel fragment from Fukushima has been found in Norway:
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions, Atmospheric removal times of the aerosol-bound radionuclides 137Cs and 131I during the months after the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant accident – a constraint for air quality and climate models, May 2012: Hot particles (particles that carry very high radioactivity, e.g., fragments of the nuclear fuel) were present in the FD-NPP plume.
Elsevier (academic publisher) — Fukushima Accident: Radioactivity Impact on the Environment, Pavel P. Povinec, Katsumi Hirose, Michio Aoyama, 2013: Paatero et al. (2012) estimated that a significant part of the Fukushima-derived radioactivity is in hot particles from autoradiogram of a filter sample from 1 to 4 April 2011 at Mt. Zeppelin, Ny-Alesund, Svalbard.
Poster for Alaska Marine Science Symposium (Arctic Ocean and Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands) — Fukushima fallout: Aerial deposition on the sea ice scenario and wildlife health implications to ice-associated seals, Jan. 20, 2014: Exposure to fallout while on ice in 2011[...] Models suggest pinnipeds may have been exposed while on ice to the following: [...]Hot particles, nuclear fuel fragments, were detected in air samples taken in Svalbard, Norway (Paatero et al. 2012).
See also: Gundersen: This video “confirms our worst fears” — Scientist: Reactor core materials found almost 500 km from Fukushima plant — 40,000,000,000,000,000,000 Bq/kg — Can travel very, very significant distances — Hot particles found in 25% of samples from Tokyo and Fukushima (VIDEO)
Fukushima is 10632 kilometers – or 6,606 miles -from Svalbard, Norway.
Moreover, the distance is actually much further … because it took a circuitous route from Fukushima to Norway.
As ENENews reports:
(Paatero et al. 2012) Journal of Environmental Radioactivity, Airborne fission products in the High Arctic after the Fukushima nuclear accident: It is evident that the plume arriving in Svalbard did not come from Europe but directly from North America [...] [Hot particles are] either fragments of the nuclear fuel or particles formed by the interactions between condensed radionuclides, nuclear fuel, and structural materials of the reactor [...] Based on the total beta, 137Cs and 134Cs activity content [...] on the filter it can be estimated that a significant part of the activity related to Fukushima was in hot particles. So far the authors are not aware of any other reports concerning hot particles from the Fukushima accident. [...] the radionuclides emitted into the atmosphere were quickly dispersed around practically the whole northern hemisphere within a couple of weeks.
In other words, the hot particles from Fukushima traveled to North American, and then to Europe.
This is only logical.
We noted 2 days after the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami:
The jet stream passes right over Japan. The jet stream was noticed in the 1920′s by a Japanese meteorologist near Mount Fuji, and the Japanese launched balloon bombs into the jetstream to attack America during WWII.
(Indeed, U.S. nuclear authorities were very concerned about the West Coast getting hit by Fukushima radiation … but they covered it up.)
So the Fukushima hot particles traveled from from Japan to the West Coast of North America … and then were carried by wind currents from there.
It’s approximately 5,000 miles from Fukushima to the closest part of North America. It’s another 4,298miles from San Francisco to Svalbard, Norway.
So the hot particle traveled roughly 9,298 miles from Fukushima to Norway.
That’s a long way – and crosses both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans – as shown by this rough mock-up using Google maps:
This is not a total surprise, given that – on April 2, 2011 – the Norwegian Institute for Air Research modeled releases from Fukushima hitting Norway and other parts of Europe:
And a March 2011 model from the French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safetyshowed the same thing (click link for video animation).
Postscript. In response to a reader who doubted that plutonium could travel so far, please note the following:
- The BBC points out that Fukushima reactor 3 was highly unusual in that it burned a plutonium and uranium fuel mixture called “MOX“
- The amount of radioactive fuel at Fukushima dwarfs Chernobyl
- A Japanese nuclear reactor designer and various scientists think that the explosion of reactor 3 – the one with plutonium – was a nuclear explosion
- Highly radioactive black “dirt” has been found all over Japan. The Journals Environmental Science & Technology and Journal of Environmental Radioactivity both found that the highly radioactive black substances match fuel from the core of the Fukushima reactors. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission agrees
- As discussed above, the jet stream wind current goes straight from Fukushima to the West Coast of North America. So if material from the explosion made it up the jet stream, it could be carried thousands of miles from there
Link:
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/05/nuclear-fuel-fragment-fukushima-found-europe.html
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