Uranium and other radioactive materials, such as caesium and technetium, have been found in tiny particles released from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors.
This could mean the environmental impact from the fallout may last much longer than previously expected according to a new study by a team of international researchers, including scientists from The University of Manchester.
The team says that, for the first time, the fallout of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor fuel debris into the surrounding environment has been “explicitly revealed” by the study.
The scientists have been looking at extremely small pieces of debris, known as micro-particles, which were released into the environment during the initial disaster in 2011. The researchers discovered uranium from nuclear fuel embedded in or associated with caesium-rich micro particles that were emitted from the plant’s reactors during the meltdowns. The particles found measure just five micrometres or less; approximately 20 times smaller than the width of a human hair. The size of the particles means humans could inhale them.
The reactor debris fragments were found inside the nuclear exclusion zone, in paddy soils and at an abandoned aquaculture centre, located several kilometres from the nuclear plant.
It was previously thought that only volatile, gaseous radionuclides such as caesium and iodine were released from the damaged reactors. Now it is becoming clear that small, solid particles were also emitted, and that some of these particles contain very long-lived radionuclides; for example, uranium has a half-life of billions of years.
Dr Gareth Law, Senior Lecturer in Analytical Radiochemistry at the University of Manchester and an author on the paper, says: “Our research strongly suggests there is a need for further detailed investigation on Fukushima fuel debris, inside, and potentially outside the nuclear exclusion zone. Whilst it is extremely difficult to get samples from such an inhospitable environment, further work will enhance our understanding of the long-term behaviour of the fuel debris nano-particles and their impact.”
The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) is currently responsible for the clean-up and decommissioning process at the Fukushima Daiichi site and in the surrounding exclusion zone. Dr Satoshi Utsunomiya, Associate Professor at Kyushu University (Japan) led the study.
He added: “Having better knowledge of the released microparticles is also vitally important as it provides much needed data on the status of the melted nuclear fuels in the damaged reactors. This will provide extremely useful information for TEPCO’s decommissioning strategy.”
At present, chemical data on the fuel debris located within the damaged nuclear reactors is impossible to get due to the high levels of radiation. The microparticles found by the international team of researchers will provide vital clues on the decommissioning challenges that lie ahead.
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Reference: The paper ‘Uranium Dioxides and Debris Fragments Released to the Environment with Cesium-Rich Microparticles from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant’ is being published in Environ Sci Technol. 2018 Feb 13. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.7b06309.
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.7b06309
Energy is one of The University of Manchester’s research beacons – examples of pioneering discoveries, interdisciplinary collaboration and cross-sector partnerships that are tackling some of the biggest questions facing the planet. #ResearchBeacons
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A nuclear reactor burns and afterwards…they found radioactive material?….no way!!!
Our church has been taking kids in every year from Belarus for the last 7 years. The kids come here for the summer to get away from the radiation affects of Chernobyl. We have been told that by removing the kids for the summer, the long term impacts on their blood is reduced dramatically. The program is designed to take kids as early as we can get them and take them in every year until they become 18. We get about 30 a year. We have been told that by taking them as early as we can as they grow we are increasing the likely hood that they won’t develop a long term health issue’s related to radiation.
Please don’t believe everything you are told about radiation.
However, I don’t want to discourage you from performing charitable acts. Showing concern and helping children from a region where people are likely much poorer than you, will have a good chance of improving their prospects in life. You just don’t need to be frightened by stories about radiation in order to help other humans.
Have you actually done any actual research to find out how much the radiation in these areas has increased post Chernobyl?
If you do, you’ll find out that for most of that country, the extremely tiny increase disappeared years ago.
you have been told a bunch of cr@p.
Interesting use of teh passive…who told you?
some lefty inspired NGO or charity run by a failed political science graduate?
Good Lord, what were they using for fuel at Fukushima? Pink Himalayan sea salt?
Looks like they are finding radioactive buckyballs.
https://www.naturalnews.com/036204_Fukushima_radiation_California.html
Are they absolutely sure these particles came from the reactors? I was under the impression that none of the containment buildings had been breached. Isn’t it far more likely that these particles are from the spent fuel rods that were stored in cooling ponds external to the containment buildings. Several of these caught on fire after the rods had boiled off all the cooling pond water, if I recall correctly, and the first on site response following the reactor melt-downs was to pump tons of salt water into those cooling ponds to re-submerge the spend rods. Anyway, might not the smoke from those spent fuel rod fires have carried all these particles?
the hydrogen that blew the top off came from water reacting with red hot zirconium, so the cooling pipes that go into the reactor cool the core and in fact breach the containment were where the hydrogen got out and that would have been carrying micro particles of whatever.
If they had been allowed to vent that hydrogen of course, there would have been less release as the explosion would never have happened.
Reactor 3 wasn’t just a hydrogen explosion. I think there was first a hydrogen explosion and then what some think was a steam explosion coupled with a critical excursion. A lot of material was ejected into the atmosphere.
Reactor 3 reportedly has a long vertical crack in the containment vessel. It was a MOX fueled reactor; plutonium was ejected up to a mile away. In the picture below, the hydrogen explosion didn’t even get above the 100-meter exhaust stack, but the reactor 3 detonation cloud reached 3x that. The oval just above the building’s left roof corner was a bright flash, which didn’t occur in any of the hydrogen explosions.
http://enenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/r1_r3.jpg
This radiation is more dangerous than Fukushima radiation. Banning bikini will save more lives than banning nuclear plants 🙂
Fukushima radioactive water – the new energy drink (no kidding!) It contains the deadly cesium-137 radioisotope from nuclear fission. Wow I want to drink that!
Pah to dangers that diminish over time. Vertical drops and bodies of water are always with us and deadly dangers FOR EVER. The human invention of the staircase has killed more than nuclear power ever will.
I don’t believe a word these people say nor accept any evidence they present, because they are liars, thieves and activists. Nothing they present has any credibility. They’ve probably gone and got some soil samples form Chernobyl… They are that deceitful.
Hiroshima returned to background radiation within a year and was rebuilt. Chernobyl exclusion zone had some deformed smaller animals, now all eaten up by wolves, and it is now a thriving game park – the Serengeti of Europe. Many animals large and small thought to have been extirpated, now abound in the ‘park’ and 90 year old бабушка’s have been picking mushrooms and berries there for decades.
Red granite countertops are uranium ore at $200 a lb yellowcake, bananas and other foods get U, Th, K40 and Ra – probably enhances the flavor – nuclear plant workers live longer than average … As a kid with my friends over 70yrs ago I chewed asphalt tar found in blobs along the railway tracks, played with mercury in fun ways, melted lead in our coal fired furnace from a milkman’s horse “anchor” I found in the ditch in front of my home, had my wounds redded with mercurochrome, gargled with tincture of iodine for a strep throat. Some ecocorrupted professor from universities in UK taken over by the marxbrothers had this report written before the accident.
“approximately 20 times smaller than…”
Sorry, it’s pet peeve time. “20 times” something is BIGGER, not SMALLER, than whatever is being referenced. The right way to say this is “The particles found measure just five micrometres or less; approximately 1/20th the width of a human hair.”
“Watch a video of reactor 3 blowing up.”
This illustrates the difference rational fear and irrational fear.
I have a great deal of experience with radiation safety, industrial safety, and the BWR nuke plants. Industrial accidents happen quickly. I know of two hydrogen explosions (coal power plant, powdered metal processing) that resulted in multiple deaths.
I have personally been at risk since I have worked at both types of facilities. Since I have worked at many nuke plants, I am at risk from radiation exposure. The risk is very small from my accumulated exposure.
No one has been hurt by radiation from a US designed commercial or naval reactor. Some here are confused about the difference between actually being hurt and risk. It you are hurt you do not need a study to tell you.
Fear of pain is rational. Fear of zero risk is from zero exposure is irrational. Notice these clowns never bother to measure their exposure from their fabricated scenarios.
Get out – everything is worse than thought – otherwise they couldn’t get more government funds to study the problem.
Look at Chernobyl – it was suppose to be a desert waste land for hundreds of years – now it is an incredible nature preserve with unusually healthy wild animals. It has become a tourist attraction.
“After all that searching, only 3 specks found. After *back-dating the radioactivity 7 years*, the hottest was 87 Becquerels.
Context: most smoke alarms, which have saved countless lives from mundane housefires, contain ~37,000 Bequerels in a plastic box.”
You get more radiation exposure from the granite at Yosemite.
From this Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/OskaArcher/status/970075908030607360