P2P Foundation

Fukushima, by all accounts, is turning out worse than the only comparable event in recent history, which is the meltdown at Chernobyl, in the Ukraine. More radioactivity has been released, and is still being released six months after the disastrous event, than ever was the case in Chernobyl.

It is not only reactors but stored “spent” fuel rods that are the problem. The spent fuel, stored in pools of cooling water. Arnold Gundersen, a licensed reactor operator with 39 years of nuclear power engineering experience, says the Fukushima nuclear plant likely has more exposed reactor cores than commonly believed.

“Fukushima has three nuclear reactors exposed and four fuel cores exposed,” he said, “You probably have the equivalent of 20 nuclear reactor cores because of the [spent] fuel cores, and they are all in desperate need of being cooled, and there is no means to cool them effectively.”
(See Full Meltdown: Fukushima Called the ‘Biggest Industrial Catastrophe in the History of Mankind’)

“The fuels are now a molten blob at the bottom of the reactor,” Gundersen adds. “TEPCO announced they had a melt through. A melt down is when the fuel collapses to the bottom of the reactor, and a melt through means it has melted through some layers. That blob is incredibly radioactive, and now you have water on top of it. The water picks up enormous amounts of radiation, so you add more water and you are generating hundreds of thousands of tons of highly radioactive water.”

Despite a huge and continuing release of radioactive material from the damaged plant, mainstream media tell us to go on our business as usual. US and Japanese government sources are telling us not to worry, but are those reports reliable?

Apparently the nuclear material from reactors and stored cores has melted and found its way down into the ground. “Workers at Japan’s Fukushima plant say the ground under the facility is cracking and radioactive steam is escaping through the cracks.”

Fukushima Ground is Cracking / Steam Rising – August 17, 2011

Japan is moving towards other forms of energy, away from nuclear. Apart from solar and wind, the option of getting heat directly out of the ground seems to be ideally suited for Japan. (see Quake-prone Japan looks at geothermal energy)

Meanwhile, with government data tainted by the need to protect energy choices that have already been made and invested in, direct monitoring by citizens seems to be the best option for protecting ourselves from the fallout that is creeping into our back yards.

Monitoring is a question of capability and reporting. Both are relatively weak although in the immediate aftermath of the disaster citizen radiation monitoring and reporting was talked up heavily. Radiationnetwork.com is apparently the only active site providing a space where such data can be collected, although there seems to be little recent activity. Just check out their map of Europe and see if you can find any active monitoring being done by out several hundred citizens here.

Availability of radiation detection equipment may well be an issue here. Geiger counters have been difficult to find, with orders backlogged and undelivered. Gamma Scout says on their site: Due to the unprecedented demand for our Gamma-Scouts our current order backlog is over 4 months. New orders will not be fulfilled for at least 4 months.

However, just recently I came across an interesting announcement. A Radiation Detector and App for the iPhone and the iPod touch is being launched. It will become available in September, according to the announcement.

“After connecting the Scosche RDTX-PRO with an iPhone or iPod touch users are prompted to download the free accompanying radTEST app. The app offers a consumer friendly meter display that shows radiation levels as safe (green), elevated (yellow) or dangerous (red). For the advanced user the digital display mode can be used to determine exact radiation levels. Users can also share their results using Facebook, Twitter and Google Maps.”

RDTX-PRO-screeshots-low-res

With wider availability of equipment such as this, perhaps citizen monitoring of radiation levels will finally become a realtiy.