5/6/2011 | Japan radiation monitoring goes crowd, open source

Source: CNET
Date: May 6, 2011 5:51 PM PDT
By: Eric Mack

Safecast.org seeks to aggregate worldwide sensor information

(Credit: Screen capture by Eric Mack/CNET)

 

A new open and crowdsourced initiative to deploy more geiger counters all over Japan looks to be a go. Safecast, formerly RDTN.org, recently met and exceeded its $33,000 fund-raising goal on Kickstarter, which should help Safecast send between 100 and 600 geiger counters to the catastrophe-struck country.

The data captured from the geiger counters will be fed into Safecast.org, which aggregates radiation readings from government, nonprofit, and other sources, as well as into Pachube, a global open-source network of sensors. Safecast is one of the larger crowdsourced monitoring efforts, not unlike a similar effort in the United States that predated the Japanese disaster.
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5/6/2011 | Nuclear plant workers release unknown amount of radioactive tritium into Mississippi River

Source: NaturalNews.com Date: Friday, May 06, 2011 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer

(NaturalNews) Workers at the Grand Gulf Nuclear Plant in Port Gibson, Miss., last Thursday released a large amount of radioactive tritium directly into the Mississippi River, according to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and experts are currently trying to sort out the situation. An investigation is currently underway to determine why the tritium was even present in standing water found in an abandoned unit of the plant, as well as how much of this dangerous nuclear byproduct ended up getting dumped into the river. Many also want to know why workers released the toxic tritium before conducting proper tests.
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5/8/2011 | Reactor in Fukui Prefecture shut down after radiation levels spike

Source: asahi.com
Date:  May 8, 2011

BY KOSAKU ADACHI STAFF WRITER

The No. 1 reactor, front, and  No. 2 reactor at the Tsuruga  nuclear power plant in Tsuruga,  Fukui Prefecture.  (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

TSURUGA, Fukui Prefecture--A reactor at the Tsuruga nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture has been shut down May 7 for an emergency check following a jump in radioactive readings. Japan Atomic Power Co., the plant operator, said May 6 the irregular readings at the No. 2 reactor could indicate damage to fuel assemblies in its core. During scheduled maintenance May 2, radioactive noble gas was measured at 3,900 becquerels per cubic centimeter, 750 times normal, while iodine was two to four times normal. ... Read full article here

5/8/2011 | NEW video Spent Fuel Pool of reactor 4 Unit 4 at Fukushima Daiichi 8 May 2011

Status of the Spent Fuel Pool of Unit 4 of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station

4/30/2011 | The Crisis at Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant

Source: Professor Joseph E Shepard, Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, Caltech
Date: April 30, 2011
Presentation (.pdf): The Crisis at Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant

Fkushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant March 16, 2011

	Image by DigitalGlobe.

Crisis at Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant

On March 11, 2012, the Tohoku-Pacific earthquake and the resulting tsunami on the northeastern shore of Honshu created conditions that would ultimately result in the destruction of two-thirds of the generating capacity and severe contamination of the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant complex. The full extent of the radiological contamination is not yet known but areas up to 40 km from the site are now contaminated with serious social and food supply implications. Containing and cleaning up this accident will require a sustained effort over many years and at a substantial economic cost to Japan. This event has significant implications for nuclear electric power generation plans in Japan and is already having an impact worldwide on the nuclear power generation industry.
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