Friday, April 29, 2011

Plutonium and Uranium Detected in the U.S.: The Highest Density in the Last 20 Years! California, Alaska, Hawaii, and Guam

Plutonium and Uranium have been detected in abnormal density measuring from the end of March to the beginning of April in Guam, Hawaii, and the US west coast, according to my close examination on the RadNet database of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This proves that Plutonium and Uranium, some of the most toxic materials, had dispersed from the Fukushima Diichi Nuclear Plant (and it also means that these materials have contaminated the ocean). While the government, mainstream media, TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company), and biased academia in Japan have closed their mouth tight about this fact (By the way, the US government also provides very limited information of radioactive substance in the main pages of the website that most of the people visit), it has already been spreading among net users, both ordinary people and specialists, by making it impossible to conceal the truth from us any more.

On this blog, I checked on concentration of the radioactive substance in the air detected by air-filter in California, Alaska, Hawaii, and Guam, where Plutonium and Uranium were detected (there is information that Plutonium was also detected in Washington State and Saipan, but I excluded these two areas here). I also want to note that most of the places had observations only up to three times since March 11, 2011, and somehow there has not been any report on the nuclear substance observation since the beginning of April (this has been criticized in the US). The following charts are made based on the EPA data.

* I encourage you to retrieve the data by going to the EPA RadNet database so you can confirm our argument is accurate. The result comes out when you select "Air Filter", "CA (state name)" and "Plutonium-239 (nuclide name)," for instance, and then click the "Search Database" button below. Results are also downloadable. Please note the differences of the units being used in the database. Data after March 11, 2011 are described in a unit of pCi/m3, not in a unit of aCi/m3 that you will see in data prior to March 11, 2011. I am strongly hoping that many people will check and verify the data as I am not a specialist in the nuclear field. 

1pCi : 1,000,000aCi
1pCi : 0.037Bq
1km3 : 1,000,000,000m3
aCi/m3 : Atto-Curie per cubic meter
Bq/km3 : Becquerel per cubic kilometer
Pu : Plutonium
U : Uranium


Chronological Graph on Concentration in the Air [aCi/m3]

Plutonium 239 in California (past 20 years)
*click to expand the graph

Uranium 234 in Alaska (past 20 years)
*click to expand the graph

Uranium 238 in Hawaii (past 20 years)
*click to expand the graph


Average Density in Air Before and After 3.11 [Bq/km3]


Compared with the average density of the past 20 years from 1991 to February 2011, Plutonium 239 in California 18 times, Uranium 238 in Alaska 17 times, Uranium 234 in Hawaii 30 times, and Uranium 238 in also Hawaii 50 times were detected all after March 11, 2011. Also, in Guam, Plutonium 239, Uranium 234, 235 and 238 have been detected for the first time in the history of the observation. So-called “half-life” of each material is this: Plutonium 239 for 24,000 years, Uranium 234 for 240,000 years, Uranium 235 for 700 million years, and Uranium 238 for 4.47 billion years. As you could see easily, these isotopes have almost endless life spans from human perspective. Both Plutonium and Uranium are extremely toxic radioactive substances that omit strong alpha-ray radiation. 

There are two reasons why I conclude that these radioactive materials came from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant. First, in the past 20 years, such sudden increase of radioactive materials, as indicated in the above graphs, has never been seen before March 11, 2011. Second, these regions where increased amount of Plutonium and Uranium were detected, are all closer to Japan. They are Guam, Hawaii, Alaska and California. Especially in Guam and Hawaii, the increases are even bigger than other States. For example, if you compare the numbers after the 3.11 between California (8700km=5400miles from Japan) and Guam (2500km=1550miles from Japan), Guam has detected 78 times higher Plutonium 239, 6 times higher Uranium 234, 16 times higher Uranium 235, and 13 times higher Uranium 238, than California. Plutonium and Uranium have yet not been detected along the East Coast (Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, etc.). Therefore, these two points of abnormal increase in radioactive materials and the locations of where these are detected can strongly indicate that this has been caused by the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant.

Conclusion: Some of the most brutal radioactive materials, Plutonium and Uranium, have been spread in the air from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant.


Plutonium and Uranium in Japan

Now, how about Japan? How much density of Plutonium and Uranium are in the air? Very unfortunately, we can do nothing but estimate it on our own as long as TEPCO, the Japanese government, mainstream media, and biased scholars continue to hide critical information in order to prevent public opinions from going more to anti-nuclear climate. Having said that, please understand that the calculations below are considerably rough due to very limited data that has been presented to the public.

As I have already blogged previously, according to the radioactive substance diffusion forecast by the Japan Metrological Agency (JMA), the lowest dilution-concentration in Japan’s adjacent sea was 1/100,000,000,000,000 density compared to the material density in the sky over the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant [this data is about Iodine 131]. It is most likely that the density value in Guam is much lower than 1/100,000,000,000,000 from geographic perspective. but here I am making an assumption that Guam’s density level was 1/100,000,000,000. By doing so [assuming the higher relative density in Guam] our calculation provides the very modest estimate on how much Plutonium and Uranium could be detected in Japan. According to JMA’s diffusion forecast of the radioactive materials in the air discharged from Fukushima plant on March 26, 2011, the density in Ibaraki prefecture [next to Fukushima prefecture] is 1/10,000,000,000 which roughly means 10,000 times more than that in Guam, and the density in Tokyo is 1/100,000,000,000 which roughly means 100 times more than that in Guam (the measurements in Guam were done from March 31, 2011 to April 1, 2011).

Estimated Concentration of Plutonium and Uranium in Japanese Air [Bq/km3]
* Dilution: density level compared to the air above Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant (B = billion)

It is safe to say that density of Plutonium and Uranium in the air of Japan is much higher than the density detected in the United States. The Japanese government admitted this disaster is Level 7 status [it took one month for them to admit it] due to the total amount of Iodine 131 and Cesium 137 dispersed, but it is also as serious as the Chernobyl disaster by considering the varieties of radioactive materials [and it probably is more serious considering the number of people who will suffer]. The damage to the human body caused by internal exposure from inhaled or ingested Plutonium and Uranium is enormous, while the alpha ray that is omitted from these substances can only fly very short distances, which makes it very difficult to detect them by simply monitoring radiation [radioactive ray] level in the air. A fatal risk can occur if these substances get inside our body not knowing that they are already everywhere around us, but the Japanese government has been rejecting to measure Plutonium and Uranium level in Japan. The unbelievable decision of the “tentative safety standard” for schoolyard by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology could unnecessarily make 1 in 1,000 children suffer from cancer in the future, and this controversial standard has not even taken account the damage of internal exposure by radioactive materials. I have previously blogged about the damages of internal exposure in 10 years and 20 years by comparing data from the Chernobyl accident.

Now, the truth is out. What do you do, TEPCO and Mr. Madarame (Chair of corrupt Nuclear Safety Commission, Japan)!!


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Note: I updated the post with some revises and additions because there are things that I had found since the first post. In the previous post, I made two versions of charts by being unsure about using whether "Result Amount" (below RA) or "Minimum Detection Concentration" (below MDC). In the RA results, I found there are negative numbers in the EPA data, and I was not sure what it meant to have negative numbers in detected value. Then, I found the definition of RA in the EPA site, which made me confident that RA is the one indicating detected values of materials. I, therefore, removed the all previous information resulted by the MDC calculation. This does NOT change my previous conclusion, "In the United States, there was a significant increase in Plutonium and Uranium in the air." Also, there are people in Japan who have commented that MDC means "detection limit" but the interpretation is not accurate. According to the EPA site, MDC means the minimum value below which error could occur more than 5%. Error could occur in any detected values so it is not a big deal to focus on whether it has a chance of over 5% error or less. The factor of MDC should be kept in mind, but this definitely does not mean we can ignore the RA values that is less than MDC. Why? Because RA that is less than MDC does not signify they detect zero value of material or this does not mean they cannot technically detect materials. In addition, I noticed since starting to sort my graphs in chronological analysis, the MDC values were added in the EPA database only since 1992. Finally, separated from some of you who have given me advises and suggestions with good faith, a few people, who are probably from the "Village of Nuclear Industry [industrial-academic-political complex of nuclear interests]" are desperately trying to get us confused by spreading hoax using a word “a big lie” about the fact here. One professor from University of Tokyo immediately denied our argument but it turned out he just got confused about two different measurement units [aCi and pCi] that are used in the EPA database. I trust our fellow, ordinary people's, better sense. 
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Postscript: Part of  EPA’s database Results Missing in an EPA's PDF document

It has been pointed out that the EPA has provided summaries of measured detected findings by a PDF document since March 11, 2011. And I found a gap between the PDF document and data we can obtain from their database. In more accurate words, some data is missing in the PDF document.

For instance, the PDF document contains two detection values of Uranium 238 in California (0.000014pCi/m3 and 0.000019pCi/m3), and these numbers are also found from the EPA database. The EPA database, however, has one more detection value of 0.0000186pCi/m3 from March 25, 2011 (MDC is consistent), and this is not included in the PDF document. Likewise I found many data missing in the PDF document. It is obvious that the PDF document was created for the public by excluding a part of data that can be obtained in the database. The same thing can be said about Plutonium as well. In the PDF document, detection values are ALL described as "ND" somehow, but if you look at the EPA’s Radnet database, you can find detection values of Plutonium. Please do not get tricked by this "ND," which does not mean zero detection, but it means their definition of "undetected" based upon uncertain criteria. It may be interesting to know what kind of political interest is working behind the use of "ND" in terms of Plutonium detection, but here I am just showing you raw data from EPA’s database. Needless to say. raw data is much more trustable than any summarized documents filtered by bureaucrats.

The points I focused when examining the database is when and where the detected values increased. It is irrelevant and missing the mark here if you want to say, "hey, the detected absolute values in the U.S. are so tiny so don't worry" or "hey, it's better now compared to the time that nuclear weapons testing has been done in Nevada and other States so don't worry" (according to Wikipedia, the U.S. nuclear weapons testings were conducted from 1945 to 1992). Let me emphasize this again: detected values of Plutonium and Uranium have abnormally increased after March 11, 2011 compared to the past 20 years of data and these increases happened in the regions closer to Japan. Therefore, these materials are considerably coming from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant, and this indicates a really serious matter for Japanese people.

I hope that many people spread this critical fact so that more people understand the seriousness of what is happening in Japan and the vicious manipulation by nuclear interest.