7/1/2011 Wildfire distance to toxic (nuclear and otherwise) waste dumps on Los Alamos National Lab grounds

Date: 7/1/2011

Below is the MDA (Materials Disposal Areas) map from the Los Alamos Study Group website. For a detailed description of each MDA click on the map:

To visit this map page directly click here

The USDA Forest Service provides wildfire detection data which can be downloaded and viewed in Google Maps. In order to see the distance between the Las Conchas wildfire to the nuclear (or chemical/explosive) waste dump sites on the grounds of the Los Alamos National Lab I overlaid the inverted image of the above map on top of the Google Map with the fire detections data from the USDA Forest Service. Since the overlaid image is inverted (for better clarity) the original MDA map colors are transformed from red=>blue, green=>red, black=>white etc.

Here is the composite map, showing only detections 0-6 hours old (darker red) or 6-12 hours old (lighter red):

The data set I used was for GOES and obtained by clicking the "Current" link next to "Fire Detections:".

There is a light red square (6-12 hour old detection) just about touching the biggest blue blob (biggest red blob from the original Los Alamos Study Group Map).

Following is the Technical Area map from Los Alamos Study Group:

To visit this map page directly click here

I did a similar overlay of the technical areas on top of the 0-6 hour and 0-12 hour fire detections:

The light red square (6-12 hour old detection) is right on the North edge of TA-82, TA-03 and TA-43.

Finally here is the composite that combines the MDA (Material Disposal Areas) map with the Technical Areas map:

7/1/2011 (Video) New Analysis of Unit 3 Fuel Pool Video Reveals Top of Fuel Bundle

Source: Fairewinds Associates
Date: July 1, 2011
by: Arnie Gundersen

A video first released by TEPCO in April has been re-analyzed by Ian Goddard and appears to reveal a handle found atop a single nuclear fuel bundle. This raises more questions about the condition of any fuel still remaining in the Unit 3 fuel pool.

6/30/2011 Revealed: British government's plan to play down Fukushima

Source: UK Guardian
Date: Thursday 30 June 2011 21.36 BST
by: Rob Edwards

Government officials launched a PR campaign to ensure the accident at the Fukushima 

nuclear facility in Japan did not derail plans for new nuclear power stations in the UK. 

Photograph: AP

 

British government officials approached nuclear companies to draw up a co-ordinated public relations strategy to play down the Fukushima nuclear accident just two days after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and before the extent of the radiation leak was known.
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