Shit just got real. The spin? It is not harmful to human health. Oh really? We can't wait for Kan to eat some plutonium on national TV to confirm this.
Just headlines from Reuters for now. More shortly.
From zero hedge - Now Updated:
TEPCO found the plutonium a week ago, and is now getting around to telling the world about it? Cover up? Plutonium found in five different locations.
TEPCO vice-president Sakae Muto told journalists at the company's latest briefing that test results showing the plutonium came from samples taken a week ago.
http://www.zerohedge.com/...
Updated from Bloomberg:
Tokyo Electric Power Co. found plutonium contamination in soil near the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant that was tested, Sakae Muto, vice president at plant operator, said at a press conference shown on a webcast today.
The plutonium probably came after the accident at the reactors following Japan’s strongest earthquake and tsunami, he said. The radioactive substance shouldn’t have any impact on human health, he said.
I wonder if he took any questions at that webcast press conference?
Not to worry no impact on human health. Sounds like the biggest credibility gap of the the 21st Century to me, and considering we've had the Bush presidency.......
Off the top of my head I recall the fissile isotopes of plutonium have a half life in the area of 124,000 years.
Update report from Japanese news conference:
Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) admitted to the possibility in its early March 28 press conference that the steel Reactor Pressure Vessels that hold nuclear fuel rods in the Reactors 1, 2, 3 at Fukushima I Nuclear Plant may have broken. TEPCO explained the situation "Imagine there's a hole." Because of this "hole", contaminated water that's been poured into the Pressure Vessels to cool the fuel rods continues to leak, it is assumed.
In the Reactors 1, 2, and 3, the water level within the Pressure Vessels are not rising as much as desired. TEPCO admitted in the March 28 press conference that the reason why the Pressure Vessels haven't been filled with water was "probably a hole near the bottom, that's the image we have". Asked why there was a hole, TEPCO answered they did not know.
http://www.zerohedge.com/...
Update from the American Nuclear Society:
At the time of the magnitude 9.0 earthquake, Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 was operating with 32 mixed oxide (MOX) fuel assemblies and 516 low enriched uranium (LEU) fuel assemblies in its reactor core. In other words, less than 6% of the fuel in the Unit 3 core was MOX fuel. There were no other MOX fuel assemblies (new, in operation or used) at the Fukushima Daiichi plant at the time of the accident.
MOX fuel assemblies were loaded into Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 for the first time in the fall of 2010. The MOX fuel had been used for less than five months at the time of the accident.
snip
All reactor cores contain plutonium; those cores loaded with some MOX fuel contain more. Mixed oxide (MOX) fuel is comprised of a blend of uranium oxide and plutonium oxide.
MOX fuel is predominantly uranium, with average concentrations of plutonium that range from 3-10%. The presence of plutonium produces modest changes in some physical characteristics of the fuel material such as thermal conductivity.
This is from an overnight Bloomberg report:
Radiation levels that can prove fatal were detected outside reactor buildings at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant for the first time, complicating efforts to contain the worst disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.
The story does not directly link this to plutonium, but it might be that plutonium was part of that source of deadly radiation.
http://www.bloomberg.com/...
Last freebie from the NYTimes:
TOKYO — Highly contaminated water is escaping a damaged reactor at the crippled nuclear power plant in Japan and could soon leak into the ocean, the country’s nuclear regulator warned on Monday.
The discovery raises the danger of further radiation leaks at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station and is a further setback to efforts to contain the nuclear crisis as workers find themselves in increasingly hazardous conditions.
Radiation measuring 1,000 millisieverts per hour was detected in water in an overflow tunnel outside the plant’s Reactor No. 2, Japan’s nuclear regulator said at a news conference. The maximum dose allowed for workers at the plant is 250 millisieverts in a year.
The tunnel leads from the reactor’s turbine building, where contaminated water was discovered on Saturday, to an opening just 180 feet from the sea, said Hidehiko Nishiyama, deputy director-general for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.
The contaminated water level is now about three feet from the exit of the vertical, U-shaped tunnel and rising, Mr. Nishiyama said.
Going behind the pay wall in a few minutes, so I'm not linking it.