Fukushima: 9 Months later

With regards to airborne radiation and ground measurement, here is the reading at the NaI detector at KEK in Tsukuba showing a steady decline over the past nine months. This was expected as the source became under  control over time.

I note that the mapping situation has readily improved over the past few months: see for instance this ground measurement map at Fukushima Dai-Chi plant and in the region surrounding it (via the Japan Radiation Map)

Fukushima: TAMU Forecast March 31st, Analysis for Ibakari

The Texas A&M prediction maps for tomorrow are in:

Thursday, March 31

1. • 2011-03-31 12Z - forecast only
2. • 2011-03-31 06Z - forecast only
3. • 2011-03-31 00Z - forecast only
   
   

Please note that 06Z means 6:00 GMT or (6:00 + 9:00) 15:00 JST.

Yesterday, the prediction showed some trajectories going in the direction of Ibakari. Yesterday's map of the  region showed:

 Today's readings show the following map:

At first, there is no obvious difference using the color coding of that map. The historical charts in the same region show the following trend:

or a tiny increase of less than 0.2 microSv/hr at Takahagi. The map from Texas A&M is the one dated March 29th at 18 GMT or March 30 03:00 JST:

Fukushima: TAMU Forecasts March 30th, Source term around the plant.

The Texas A&M forecasts are in for tomorrow Wednesday March 30th:

Wednesday, March 30

1. • 2011-03-30 12Z - forecast only
2. • 2011-03-30 06Z - forecast only
3. • 2011-03-30 00Z - forecast only

Let us note that 06Z means 6:00 GMT or (6:00 + 9:00) 15:00 JST

From the IAEA press release:

Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident Update (28 March, 23:00 UTC)

Japan Confirms Plutonium in Soil Samples at Fukushima Daiichi.After taking soil samples at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Japanese authorities today confirmed finding traces of plutonium that most likely resulted from the nuclear accident there. The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency told the IAEA that the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) had found concentrations of plutonium in two of five soil samples.

Traces of plutonium are not uncommon in soil because they were deposited worldwide during the atmospheric nuclear testing era. However, the isotopic composition of the plutonium found at Fukushima Daiichi suggests the material came from the reactor site, according to TEPCO officials. Still, the quantity of plutonium found does not exceed background levels tracked by Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology over the past 30 years.

It is important to realize that plutonium is already in the background in large part because of atomic weapons test performed in the 1950s and 1960s in the atmosphere. These tests released plumes of these materials in the atmosphere. The TEPCO/Fukushima anlysis shows specifically that these soil samples have elements of the reactors as the composition of fissile material is different from the atmospheric tests of the 50-60s. From  wikipedia, here is historical account on the truely known toxicity of Plutonium:

....Several populations of people who have been exposed to plutonium dust (e.g. people living down-wind of Nevada test sites, Hiroshima survivors, nuclear facility workers, and "terminally ill" patients injected with Pu in 1945–46 to study Pu metabolism) have been carefully followed and analyzed.

These studies generally do not show especially high plutonium toxicity or plutonium-induced cancer results.^[88] "There were about 25 workers from Los Alamos National Laboratory who inhaled a considerable amount of plutonium dust during the 1940's; according to the hot-particle theory, each of them has a 99.5% chance of being dead from lung cancer by now, but there has not been a single lung cancer among them."^[94][95]...

Fukushima: Source Term Analysis in Seattle. Potential understanding of Unit 3 fumes.

[Update: The folks at the Unversity of Washington are now aware of this opportunity]

The arxiv blog just featured a paper that appeared on arxiv that points to an analysis of the plume that landed at the University of Washington in Seattle. The paper is at the end of this entry. A good summary is here, from the text:

Finally, there are a huge number of possible breakdown products from nuclear fission in a reactor and yet the Seattle team found evidence of only three fission product elements--iodine, cesium and tellurium. "This points to a specifific process of release into the atmosphere," they say.

Cesium Iodide is highly soluble in water. So these guys speculate that what they're seeing is the result of contaminated steam being released into the atmosphere. "Chernobyl debris, conversely, showed a much broader spectrum of elements, reflecting the direct dispersal of active fuel elements," they say.

If one checks the Texas A&M predictions, arrival in Seattle on March 17-18 can be assumed thanks to this map that assumes ejection around 12 GMT on March 13th (or 21 JST March 13th)

This would correspond to an event in Unit 3 according to this map.

The folks at University of Washington ought to be looking at the Texas A&M simulations to see if and when they are going to catch up elements of the plumes.

Unit 3 is still a concern today as an analysis of the water outside of the secondary containment has shown elements such as Technetium-99m (Thanks David).

To see if the plume contains some of these elements, we ought to be looking at the smoke that left unit 3. As per TEPCO's report:

At approximately 4:00 pm, March 21st, light gray smoke was confirmed arising from the floor roof of the Unit 3 building. On March 22nd, the color of smoke changed to somewhat white and it is slowly dissipating.

-At approximately 10:45 pm on March 22nd, the light in the main control room was turned on.

-At around 4:20 pm on March 23rd, our staff confirmed light black smoke belching from the Unit 3 building. At approximately 11:30 pm on March 23rd and 4:50 am on March 24th, our employee found no signs of smoke.

If one converts these dates from JST to GMT, we have:

7:00 am GMT March 21st: light gray smoke
7:20 am March 23rd: light black smoke

A simulation for the March 21st event was performed for 6:00 am and it shows that plume hitting Seattle tomorrow.

A simulation for the second event does not seem as conclusive.



The paper: Arrival time and magnitude of airborne fission products from the Fukushima, Japan, reactor incident as measured in Seattle, WA, USA by J. Diaz Leon, J. Kaspar, A. Knecht, M. L. Miller, R. G. H. Robertson, A. G. Schubert. The abstract reads:

We report results of air monitoring started due to the recent natural catastrophe on March 11, 2011 in Japan and the severe ensuing damage to the Fukushima nuclear reactor complex. On March 17-18, 2011 we detected the first arrival of the airborne fission products 131-I, 132-I, 132-Te, 134-Cs, and 137-Cs in Seattle, WA, USA, by identifying their characteristic gamma rays using a germanium detector. The highest detected activity to date is less than 32 mBq/m^3 of 131-I.

Fukushima: Texas A&M Forecasts Sat March 25, A Challenge ?, Other assessments and radiation monitoring networks

The Texas A&M forecasts are in for tomorrow:

Saturday, March 26

• 2011-03-26 12Z - forecast only

• 2011-03-26 06Z - forecast only

• 2011-03-26 00Z - forecast only

If the trend is correct, the plume is likely to be conveyed away from Japanese land for tomorrow. It also shows the plume aiming for the Philippines. If the plume is the same as it has been for the past week as it spread to the US, it will not yield appreciable dose. Ken Bowman, the initiator of the Texas A&M simulations let me know that I should not use the term aerosol simulation for his simulations "as they have no aerosol physics in them, just passive advection by the winds.". Thanks Ken for the correction.

I am wondering if we should not have some type of challenge that would ask people to show side by side  how simulations and sensor networks measurements could be compared. 

The DOE site about the situation in Japan is here. While they have provided data on the ground from their assessment team, I have not seen any result from plume simulations from their center at Livermore. Of interest is the mention in USA Today of an assessment performed by some IAEA/Japan team around Fukushima. I am not sure I have seen these results on the web.

Steve at the NeutronEconomy blog features a series of videos related to the events at Fukushima. Cheryl Rofer writes in the British Medical Journal blog.

In the meantime, I have come across two country-wide maps of interest for generic radiation sensor network monitoring who are seemingly not affected by the Fukushima plume.

• France (in particular this map seems to feature 432,118 measurements)
• Germany

Fukushima: Timelines, the Fog of Data, Comparing the DOE data and Texas A&M's simulations, Forecasts

The Neutroneconomy blog has an update on Dose Readings in Japan.and provides some analysis of the plumes and their detection. Also via the Neutroneconomy blog, R.C Hoetzlein provides a very nice timeline.

There is another one on the NYT.

Having a good timeline should allow us to make a better comparison with the Texas A&M simulations and readings on the ground. To the untrained eye it looks like there is only one set of sensors. However, the fog of data is fed from are several sensor networks. There are:

• The MEXT ( SPEED! network ) via Marian Steinbach's effort on the Japan Radiation OpenData
• Geiger Crowd network (contribute data and software here)
• Local prefecture networks as featured in this site.( Radiation Levels for Tokyo, Chiba, Saitama, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, Yamagata, Miyagi, Iwate )
• RDTN.ORG, uses SPPED! data and other networks
• Radiation Crowd Map.
• TEPCO readings (Thanks NeutronEconomy) only in Japanese it seems.
• Citizen centered networks linked to the internet through entities like Pachube (Pachube also get information from the SPEED! network thanks to Marian Steinbach's effort). This last network has issue on its own when it comes to getting peoples's sensors to the network. It includes the need for getting digital information from analog Geiger counters.

Beside the atmospheric ground measurements, there are also tap water measurements (see graphs).

We have updated a google maps featuring the MEXT data and some other data we  mentioned in the blog before:






View Fukushima Plume (Sensors and Measurements) in a larger map


The Radiation data from the SPEED! network can also be found on this map.

With regards to the source term, the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, Cheryl Rofer  has a take on the white smoke coming out of the plant:

The puffs of smoke that have caused temporary evacuations of the control rooms have not been accompanied by increases in radiation. A gray or black color could indicate a fire, while white “smoke” is more likely steam.

From the FEPC reports, the spent fuel pools at Units 2, 5, and 6 are at acceptable temperatures. Water is being added to the pools at Units 3 and 4, but no temperature is given. The reactor cores in Units 1, 2, and 3 remain partially uncovered by water, but the fact that their containment is holding pressure suggests that there are no large breaches. 

Marian Steinbach has started putting the readings she obtained from the SPEED! network into a small video. This is outstanding. If we could include all the data from all the sensor networks and have a similar video from the plumes, I am sure we could begin to infer something

Here is the SPEEDI Radiation Data Animation - Draft (Mar 20, 00:00 to Mar 23, 15:20 UTC)

As I was looking at the trajectory computations by the fine folks at Texas A&M and the aerial assessment provided by DOE yesterday, I am in need of an explanation: Namely, if you look at the DOE measurements, there is red corridor going up on the left of Fukushima Dai-ichi:

yet when one check the Texas A&M simulations, only a period of potentially six hours provided this region to the exposure to the plume.namely:

The three days worth of simulation by Texas A&M and covered by the DOE survey are:

Saturday, March 19
• 2011-03-19 18Z - analysis + forecast
• 2011-03-19 12Z - analysis + forecast
• 2011-03-19 06Z - analysis + forecast
• 2011-03-19 00Z - analysis + forecast
Friday, March 18
• 2011-03-18 18Z - analysis + forecast
• 2011-03-18 12Z - analysis + forecast
• 2011-03-18 06Z - analysis + forecast
• 2011-03-18 00Z - analysis only
Thursday, March 17
• 2011-03-17 18Z - analysis only
• 2011-03-17 12Z - analysis only
• 2011-03-17 06Z - analysis only
• 2011-03-17 00Z - analysis only

Finally, here are the new Texas A&M forecast for today and tomorrow (times are in GMT).

Friday, March 25
• 2011-03-25 12Z - forecast only
• 2011-03-25 06Z - forecast only
• 2011-03-25 00Z - forecast only
Thursday, March 24
• 2011-03-24 18Z - forecast only
• 2011-03-24 12Z - forecast only
• 2011-03-24 06Z - forecast only
• 2011-03-24 00Z - forecast only

Fukushima: U.S. Department of Energy Aerial and Ground Monitoring Data

The U.S Department of Energy just issued a press release and a presentation that featured aerial and ground measurement data. In the presentation there is also a mention of a ground US monitoring station deployed by their Consequence Management Response Teams near Fukushima. (Download the presentation here)

Fukushima: Texas A&M simulation vs ground measurements

One of the "raison d'etre" of this blog is to compare ground measurements from government or citizen sensor networks and the diverse computational simulations used to model man made or natural plumes. While the French ISRN has performed some computations, its own sensor network is likely to not going to be able to pick up the radiation as it is likely to be in the background when it reaches metropolitan France. At Texas A&M,   Kenneth Bowman, Cameron  Homeyer have continued providing computation of the transport of aerosols from the Fukushima plant. How do these computations compare with the readings from the different government owned sensor networks ?. In particular, how do these measurements compare with the two events listed in the Texas A&M maps.?

The fire at Reactor 4 took place at 9:40 am March 15 JST (0:40 March 15 GMT) while the explosion of reactor 2 took place earlier at 6:10 a.m (21:10 March 14 GMT) that day (see here for references)

Tuesday, March 152011-03-15 00Z - analysis only (time of reported fire in reactor #4)

According to the trajectories, four ticks later (12 hours later) it is over Ibakari prefecture. The first peak is at 6 AM JST on March 16th (21:00 GMT March 15th). While the red tracks goes south, the green and blue stays over that prefecture and are a therefore consistent with the peak recorded there at 6AM JST (21 hours later). But that measurement is also consistent with the explosion at reactor #2.(24 hours later) as can be seen in the following map.

Monday, March 14 • 2011-03-14 21Z - analysis only (time of reported explosion in reactor #2)

So from a first reading of these maps, it does not look feasible to evaluate which of these two accidents is contributing to the measurements on the ground. Let us also not that the days after may 16, 17, the aerosols went over the pacific ocean.thereby reducing the dose to the land.

Fukushima: New plumes, SPEED measurements and Cs and I measurements in Tokyo.

So far today, there have been reports of produce contamination in he Ibakari prefecture and the fact that two plumes formed and were the reasons for the evacuation of workers at Fukushima. One should note that the detector at Fukushima are not being given in the SPEED network and so we get to see only readings further away from the plume source. As one can see from the report above,  there have an increase in the dose rate on March 21 in the Ikabari prefecture. A similar trend can be found in the detection performed for Cesium 137, Cesium 134, iodine 132 and iodine 131 performed in Tokyo. From the data [1], one can categorize the following days with background level measurements: March 17, March 18  March 19,  March 20 while March 15, March 16, March 21 show much larger contributions. We should remain with an above average contribution for March 22. 

The background levels are estimated by comparing the values to the background values at UCBerkeley. Let us note that these measurements are extracted because each of these elements have a specific gamma signature. Geiger counters being considered for monitoring the plume do not detect the same thing. In particular, in Geiger counters, there is no discrimination in energy.

If we take the measurements of the SPEED network for Hairando (south of Tokyo), the jump seen in the Cesium and Iodine measurement above do not show up on that network's measurement in the same area (Tokyo).

This maybe an issue of wind patterns. One can also regret that while there are a few models looking into the plume displacement over the whole globe, there seems to be scant simulation focused only on Japan.


[1] Source: Department of Health and Welfare, Tokyo

Fukushima: Japanese Radiation Monitoring Data Google Maps Mashup, Fukushima source term

Marian Steinbach decided to scrape the radiation monitoring data from the Japanese Radiation Monitoring Network (SPEED) we featured earlier here, so that people would be able to use these data for potential mash-ups. ( see An Update on Radiation Data from Japan ). Then, Geir Engdahl put this data in a google maps. The data is refreshed every ten minutes.

Eron Villarreal has put this data in a data dashboard using Tableau Software.

In particular south of Fukushima, near the town of Hitachinaka, we can see:

Here the dose is in nanoGray/hr. 3000  nGy/hr is equivalent to 3 microSv/hr given a weighting factor of 1.

It would be great if any simulations performed by any of the outfits we have mentioned earlier were to provide their data in a format that can fit a Google Maps mashup format (if you are one of these researchers but don't know how to go about this please contact us).

In other news, Cheryl Rofer seems to point to a drastic reduction of effluent from the Fukushima plant as cooling is being restored to most reactors and pools.    

Fukushima: Taiwan Real Time Radiation Monitoring Data / No realtime data from Radiation Monitoring Network in Canada, Korea, China

The Taiwan Radiation Monitoring Center offers real-time radiation data.

• The whole island
• NPP1
• NPP2
• NPP3
• NPP4

No real time data can be found for the following countries:

• Health Canada provides a site with a link to measurements performed at different stations in Canada. However, most of the measurements are a year old.
• The Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety (KINS) does not have a realtime monitoring network available on the web.
• The People Republic of China Ministry of Environmental Protection has released doses of several cities in China for March 17th, 2011 but there is no real-time data.
• The CTBT Organization (a United Nations Organization) dedicated to monitoring compliance of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by signatories has a series of monitoring stations but it does not provide associated data to the general public.

Fukushima: U.S. EPA Radiation Monitoring Network, Japanese Nuclear Emergency:Page

The United States Environmental Protection Agency has a network of radiation monitoring stations all over the country. They have set up a page entitled Japanese Nuclear Emergency: Basic Radiation Facts From EPA. By clicking through several menus items one can get directly to:

Radiation Air Monitoring Data

• Daily Data Summary

• Summary of Data from Air Monitoring Stations

• Map of Radiation Air Monitoring Stations

The current readings in Southern california can be found here. The google maps version is here.

Fukushima: Estimates of potential exposures in Fukushima area

[ Update: Cheryl Rofer provides some context to this NYT map in NRC Webcast Monday and How Not To Do Modeling]
The NY Times has published a map of the estimated potential exposures around Fukushima area from a simulation, along with expected symptoms of exposure to those levels. Also listed is the population living in those area before the earthquake. From the site:

The American Embassy recommended on Wednesday that Americans within 50 miles of the Fukushima reactors evacuate, based on an analysis by the Nuclear Regulartory Commission. The recommendation was based on a model that predicts potential radiation levels depending on whether the containment vessels remain intact, weather patterns, and other factors. Here are the results of the model on March 16.

NY Times新聞は以下の記事で、福島の近くの予測地図があります：地震まえの人口密度、放射線、症候。

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/16/world/asia/japan-nuclear-evaculation-zone.html


Mentioned sources:
Nuclear Regulatory Commission;
Environmental Protection Agency;
Robert Meck, health physicist, Science and Technology Systems;
LandScan 2009 population dataset/UT-Battelle (population estimates)

Fukushima: Radiation dosage readings from the radiation monitoring posts at RIKEN Wako Institute

Radiation dose rate readings at RIKEN in Tokyo.