Radioactive waste to dangerous to bury in the ground!

Nearly 50,000 tons of sludge at water treatment facilities has been found to contain radioactive cesium as the result of the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Over 1,500 tons is so contaminated that it cannot be buried for disposal.

Water treatment facilities in eastern and northeastern Japan have been discovering sludge containing cesium.

The health ministry says there is 49,250 tons of such sludge in 14 prefectures in eastern and northeastern Japan.



A total of 1,557 tons in 5 prefectures, including Fukushima and Miyagi, was found to contain 8,000 or more becquerels per kilogram. This sludge is too radioactive to be buried for disposal.

The most contaminated sludge, with 89,697 becquerels per kilogram, was discovered at a water treatment facility in Koriyama City, Fukushima.

The ministry says 76 percent of the roughly 50,000 tons of radioactive sludge is being stored at water treatment plants and they have no ways to dispose of most of it.

It says more than 54,000 tons of additional sludge has not been checked for radioactive materials.

The ministry plans to study how to dispose of the radioactive sludge.

Just how much radiation can we handle...

From www.treehugger.com

How Much Radiation Exposure Do You Normally Get Every Year?

If you've even been half paying attention to the news this morning on the situation of the nuclear reactors damaged by the Japanese earthquake it'd be hard to miss all the talk about exposure to radiation--at the plant and in the vicinity, a US navy vessel moving away after detecting higher than normal radiation levels, people in Finland stocking up on iodine tablets fearing a spreading radiation cloud, talk of a cloud spreading across the Pacific to reach the United States.

Like many people I wasn't up on what normal levels of radiation exposure are, but some quick digging gave some very illuminating answers. So, here's what you're exposed to on an annual basis:

You Receive ~620 Millirem Per Year

According to stats from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission average yearly exposure is roughly 620 millirem--half of which comes from natural sources (cosmic radiation, from the soil, radon, etc) and half comes from manmade sources. Note that geography can play a big part in that. In Colorado, for example, natural radiation exposure can be 1000 mrem per year due to higher altitude.

Some perspective: NRC limits "occupational radiation exposure to adults working with radioactive material to 5,000 mrem per year" and anything below 10,000 mrem is considered a low dose of radiation. In the Chernobyl disaster the 134 people working in the plant to put out the fire received 80,000-1,600,000 mrem--28 of them died within three months of exposure.

More? Listing of Common Radiation Exposures & EPA: Sources of Radiation Exposure

New York Times has a good rundown of the danger posed by various radioactive isotopes that may or may not have been released, or may yet be released.

Image: NRC

Back to what's going on in Japan: LA Times reports that the aircraft carrier that moved in response to detecting elevated radiation levels experienced exposure equal to what a person might receive in one month from natural sources, so perhaps 26 mrem, and that the contamination was "easily removed with soap and water."

Yesterday, TreeHugger reported that exposure in Japan was equal to about one year of natural radiation (Christine explained that this was about 35-40 chest x-rays)--so perhaps 310 mrem.

UPDATE: Newer reports of radiation levels at the front gate of the Fukushima power plant place them significantly higher than earlier information--at that location radiation equivalent to three years of normal exposure in one hour have been detected.

UPDATE 2: BBC News reports that "radiation dosages of up to 400 millisieverts per hour were recorded at the site" and notes "A single dose of 1,000 millisieverts causes temporary radiation sickness such as nausea and vomiting."

On differing units used in measuring radiation

Though the USNRC uses millirems and variants in discussing radiation exposure, the current internationally preferred unit is the sievert and its subdivisions of millisievert and microsievert. For conversion: 1 millisievert = 100 mrem.

More on Nuclear Power:
Nuclear Threat Worsens as Japan Response to Earthquake and Tsunami Damage Continues
Nuclear Blast From The Past: Tectonics of Science, Politics, War & Climate Change

Holy Fukushima... Nuclear Power Plant FAQ's

Its difficult to keep up with the rate at which this disaster is unfolding...

We all know that exposure to nuclear radiation is bad and that's why we have to wear those lead apron if we get an X-Ray...

We all know that Chernobyl was bad and should never have happened, again...

Our friends at www.treehugger.com have the basic FAQ's and supporting documents CLICK HERE

Read up and get Nuclear smart...

Nihon Gambate!

In this tradgic time, the above Signatures trailer is Japan at its very best!

Nihon Gambate! (Ne- hon Gam-ba-teh) Translates to... Try your best Japan!

Earthquake, Tsunami and now Nuclear Fallout are all bad enough by themselves...

I had the fortune of living in Japan in 1997 - 1998 when the Winter Olympics where on and Hokkaido had some 27 meters of pow, scoring some super deep sessions well before the droves of Australian snow hounds had sniffed out the goods...

I also had the pleasure of immersing myself deep into their fascinating and rich culture and loved exploring their unique and mysterious ways...

Japanese have such a beautiful ability battle through and to communicate their ideas... In challenging or trying times they would say "Gambate", which literally mean "face the challenge" and / or "try your best" and / or "chin up"...

I think any of these are fitting under the terrifying circumstances...

Natural Disaster and Nuclear Power Plants DON"T mix!

How many Chernobyl's will it take to learn???

Nihon Gambate!

Here's a picture of the Tsunami's wave reach below

And here's an image of the projected Nuclear Fallout over the next week or so...

Holy Fukushima! It doesn't make sense, does it?