Hundreds of Japanese citizens are engaged in a crowd-sourced effort to measure Fukushima radiation

Nice article at Yes! Magazine by Erika Lundahl about Safecast, the citizen radiation monitoring in Japan: Measuring Fukushima's Impact: How Geeks and Hackers Got Geiger Counters to the Masses: Hundreds of ordinary people are contributing to a crowd-sourced effort to measure Fukushima's impact:

Hundreds of ordinary people are contributing to a crowd-sourced effort to collect data on radiation levels for scientists and ordinary citizens to use and interpret. The project was launched by SafeCast, an organization formed in the wake of the 2011 earthquake to supplement the sparse data provided by the Japanese government on radiation travel patterns.

"We were completely appalled that there was no way to get this data," SafeCast co-founder Sean Bonner said, "and that people couldn't see what was happening to their environment."

Through online collaboration with scientists and programmers, Bonner and his collaborators engineered an easily reproducible and highly accurate GPS-enabled Geiger counter, which they call the bGeigie. They distributed the first batch of 100 to volunteers who crisscrossed Japan in cars, delivery vehicles, and on foot, collecting data on radiation unmatched in scope and accuracy. To make the information from the bGeigies widely available, SafeCast publishes copyright-free maps of the readings that come in from the devices.

Michio Kaku on Fukushima's status & containment; parallels with BP Oil & Katrina; citizen-based radiation monitoring; clean energy; & Einstein

Some excerpts from Cindy Sheehan's interview with theoretical physicist Michio Kaku:

...Well I just got back from my 2-week trip to Japan and it was a grueling and exhausting trip. I ended up getting a high fever and having to stay in bed for a few days. Besides all that it was a very good trip and I learned so much about what is happening there with the Fukushima reactor meltdown and the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami.

But also about the very committed and dedicated organizing that’s happening there to organize and revitalize a new movement against nuclear power and of course nuclear bombs. It was very inspirational for me to be in Japan in Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the days that my country dropped two weapons of mass destruction on innocent populations there and to see how the survival instinct in human beings is so great and the way people worked together and rebuilt those cities and their lives after the disaster.

I think it should give the people of Fukushima a lot of inspiration and hope too that recovery from this disaster is possible...

Now remember that three of the cores have experienced 100 percent core melts and the only reason why we didn’t have a catastrophe beyond human imagination is because one of the reactor operators flooded the reactors with sea water going against the orders of his superior. So he actually went against the orders of a superior, flooded the reactor with seawater, destroyed the reactor as a consequence but managed save the reactors from breech of containment which would have been catastrophic.

CS:..I saw you on CNN saying that the people of the world have been lied to about what has been happening in Fukushima. What are your personal thoughts about that?

DMK: You know the Japanese people have been very trusting of their government up to a point. But they were lied to so many times, for so many people it’s the last straw. They’re buying Geiger counters...they’re buying radiation meters on their own. So they simply don’t trust the government anymore...

Radiation levels as you know are being picked up all over the city. Tokyo is 150 miles from the Fukushima site so radiation levels are low let’s be clear about that. However, radiation levels have been detected 200 miles away from the reactor site way past Tokyo...

I think it’s a national scandal the fact that the government is not supplying radiation counters for children in the area. The local governments are taking the initiative. On local government in the Fukushima area has bought toximeters for children as young as kindergarten age. Can you imagine a kindergarten child going to school with a radiation badge and having to be briefed by parents on what this radiation badge does?

So again, people are taking their own initiative. They don’t trust the government anymore. By the way, as the reactor accident took place back in March we physicists in the United States have our own computer codes and we were running simulations of the accident in the United States and we clearly realized that the government was either lying or deliberately withholding information or were simply incompetent concerning their press releases.

We knew there was significant core damage even when the government was saying there was almost no damage whatsoever. We knew how significant it was because of the radiation that came out of the reactor and with our own computers we could then show that the Japanese government and TEPCO were either deceiving the people or were simply incompetent. This information is now available and again it adds to the distrust of the people towards the government and towards TEPCO. The fact that they were lied to and the fact that people put their trust in the government and the utility only now, months later to find out they were exposed to large quantities radiation when it was totally unnecessary.

The latest scandal just a few days ago was the fact that as the accident was progressing the government was withholding data and not dispersing radiation counters especially in areas where the radiation was quite high. So the people were needlessly exposed to high levels of radiation in the opening hours of the accident.

CS: Do you compare or draw parallels between what happening in Fukushima to what happened between BP and the Gulf of Mexico disaster where the people of the United States and the people of the area were also purposely, or because of stupidity, not given the correct information?

DMK: Yes, and you can also make a parallel with Katrina and what happened there. Engineers who build these reactors who build these dykes and levees simply don’t believe that the hundred-year storm will take place in their lifetime. So at Katrina in New Orleans for example the engineers realized that their levees could not withstand a hundred year storm. But their attitude was, well it is a hundred year storm it’s not going to happen in their lifetime, it’s not going to happen in their grand kids lifetime so why worry about it. Then of course the hundred-year storm hit.

Same thing with the Fukushima reactor accident. Engineers clearly realized that giant tsunamis could overwhelm their facilities. But again, it’s not going to happen in their lifetime or their grand kids lifetime so why should they worry? So then of course there we have it. And of course of you prepare for the hundred year storm it’s very expensive and nuclear power would be economically unviable if people had to prepare for the hundred year earthquake, the hundred year storm, the hundred year disaster it would make nuclear power uneconomical if they had to meet those standards

Realize that we have five reactors in various stages of degradation in the area. The accident is not over my any means. The accident could start up all over again if there is a secondary earthquake or another pipe break. In a worse case scenario if there is a major pipe break or a second earthquake you would have to evacuate the workers. Because the pumps are not working at the site it means you have to manually insert the water over the reactors and without the workers it would be in free fall. At that point with an evacuation of all the workers water levels would begin to drop, the reactors would begin to melt again and we would have breech of containment. That is release of uncontrolled amounts of radiation into the environment and that is a catastrophe beyond comprehension.

Realize that at Chernobyl, 25 years ago, we only had one reactor and only 25 percent of the core vaporized and was sent into the air. Here we have three reactors with 100 percent core melt, various stages of melting through the containment structure and if it were to start again it could be much worse than Chernobyl, many times worse than Chernobyl.

Realize that even at Chernobyl it took 600 thousand workers. Let me repeat that number again, 600 thousand workers over a half a million workers to finally bring that reactor in to a semi state of stability. The accident at Chernobyl is not over by the way. The reactor continues to melt, the core continues to melt into the ground at Chernobyl but it took over a half million workers. Many workers only going in a few minutes at a time because of the high levels of radiation. Everyone got a badge and a metal from Gorbachev. But this is certainly no way to build a nuclear power plant.

In Japan we have 3 reactors in very bad shape and it’s not stable because the pumps are not working yet and it means that the accident could start up all over again.

CS: What is the solution Dr. Kaku?

DMK: Yeah, let me say that right now Unit 1 is being encased in plastic like saran wrap in order to at least contain some the radiation that continues to be emitted from Unit 1 because of a partial breech of containment. Now Hewlitt corporation has estimated that 10 years will be required for the clean up. Nobody believes that number because it took 25 years at Chernobyl and that accident is still not over. It took 14 years for Three Mile Island to be brought under control. The Hitachi corporation made an estimate of 30 years to finally clean up the 3 reactor accidents.

But privately in the United States many engineers are saying 50 to 100 years. 50 to 100 years to finally clean up these accidents. First they have to put a TV camera into the core to photograph the extent of the melting. Then you insert hacksaws to cut up the core into pieces. Then you have to extract each piece from the reactor. All of this done under water because it’s too radioactive to be exposed to the air. As you can imagine this will take decades to bring under control...

DMK:...maybe the United States can take a cue from what’s happening in Europe. The Germans have pretty much thrown in the towel after initially backing nuclear power. The government has decided now to phase out all nuclear power plants in Germany. Switzerland has decided to follow suit and follow the example of the Germans. Italy right now is teetering on the brink of following Germany’s example. And right now in the United States Barack Obama is going to have to decide what to do with the revival of nuclear power within the United States.

CS: Like in Japan, we need to revive our anti-nuclear power movement, which had a lot of success here in the United States, and I think this is a time when we can do it.

DMK: Also remember that Barack Obama has shut down the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste depository. This means at the present time there is no federal waste dump to put high-level nuclear waste from over 100 commercial reactors and also military reactors. So we are suffering from a case of nuclear constipation form nuclear waste that is backing up at every single nuclear site in the United States. And we’re storing it, storing it on site, which I think is a very dangerous procedure. This means that nuclear power cannot move forward until we have some resolution to the nuclear waste issue.

CS: What if your opinion about the Sun obviously has an unlimited potential to be harnessed then use that energy for our increasing power needs. What do you think is the viability of that technology?

DMK: As you mentioned, the Sun is going to shine for another five billion years till it finally uses up it’s hydrogen fuel and of course the Earth only uses a fraction of the sunlight that hits it from the Sun. Right now solar costs are still more expensive than fuel fossil costs. But fossil fuels are limited in quantity and quite erratic in price. Prices are rising while the cost of solar keeps dropping every year. At some point the two curves will cross and at the point renewable solar, hydrogen and wind technology will become just as competitive in the market place as nuclear.

Remember now to build a nuclear power plant takes at least 10 years. So this means you have to look at the economics not today, but the economics 10 years from now. And the economics 10 years from now for solar, hydro, geothermal, wind power is quite attractive. For example, people are buying up solar rights to the Sahara Desert now in order to build plants sometime on the future when prices go down for Europe. So some European investors are saying the even though today it’s not economical to solarize the Sahara Desert in the future it will be. And in the future they want to make sure they have the rights to capture sunlight in the Sahara Desert.

So I think that is what we are going to see. We are going to see markets forces kick in because people will realize 10 years from now solar power is extremely competitive with fossil fuel in all aspects and somebody’s going to make a lot of money because at that point renewable technology will be every bit as competitive as fossil fuels.

CS:... One of my heroes is Dr. Albert Einstein and I know you continue his work trying to find a unified theory. But Dr. Einstein also became increasingly a pacifist and he had a lot of pacifist rhetoric towards the end of his life and I’d like you to comment on that.

DMK: Well, I wrote a biography about Albert Einstein and, first of all, you have to realize when he was a teenager he was a draft resistor. Refused to be drafted into the Germany Army. So he was a man, even as a teenager, who put some of his political philosophy into play during World War 1. He was one of very few intellectuals to sign a manifesto against German entry into WWI. There were 100 German intellectuals who signed a manifesto for German entry--there were only three intellectuals including Einstein who signed the manifesto against WWI. During WWII he began to modify his position a bit and say that the German Army should be opposed, you simply can do nothing and allow this racist totalitarian entity to start to take over the world.

Then right after the bombing of Hiroshima he founded the first anti-nuclear organization. It was called the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists and it was the very first anti-nuclear organization formed right after the bombing of Hiroshima by Albert Einstein...

My favorite Einstein quotes is that “if a theory can not be explained to a child then the theory is probably useless." So all great theories, the theories of Newton, Einstein, all these great theories in principle can be explained to a child.

Hopefully in my I work I try to explain the excitement that we feel converging on this great theories that will one day answer these enormously important questions that even bedeviled Einstein. Is time travel possible? Are there other dimensions? Are there gateways to other universes? These are questions that Einstein actually wrote about and these are actually questions in principle that we can solve using string theory. So I think that we are in a great position now.

Distressed Fukushima Citizens Issue Global Appeal to Support Evacuation Plea; Safecast Project Provides Online Radiation Mapping

Parents of children living near the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear reactor, forced to watch their children go to school each day wearing radiation-measuring dosimeters, are pleading with the Japanese government to instead issue an official evacuation to safe areas in order to ease their fears of possible contamination.

The above YouTube video, which a group of concerned Fukushima citizens have asked to be spread worldwide, gives a glimpse of the agony that several of these parents are experiencing from concern about continuing nuclear radiation emissions from the plant.

The group has issued a petition to Japan's Prime Minister Kan and Fukushima Governor Sato to officially evacuate babies, small children and pregnant women living in "radiation hot spot" areas. The text reads as follows:

Prime minister of Japan Mr. Naoto Kan
The Governor of Fukushima Prefecture Mr. Yuhei Sato

We are concerned for the safety of babies, pregnant women and young children who are sensitive to radiation and are currently living in the area where high radiation has been detected.

That radiation level is higher then the level of the radiation controlled area (designed as lower than 0.6 µSv/hr) and the “individual radiation exposure controlled area” ( designed as lower than 2.3 µSv/hr) in Japan.

We respectfully request the following actions to be taken:

1) We strongly request that you evacuate infants, small children and pregnant women who are most easily affected by radiation. They need to be immediately evacuated further than 30km from the Fukushima nuclear power plant No.1.

2) In addition to the 30km radius, we are strongly requesting you evacuate infants, pregnant women and children from any "Hot-spot" located outside the 30km evacuation perimeter where high levels of radiation are detected.

3) The 20km limited radiation caution area around the Fukushima nuclear power plant needs to be drastically broadened. Currently, infants, small children and pregnant women who are easily affected by radiation are still living in the “radiation controlled area” where theyʼve measured an exceeded radiation dosage. These people need to be evacuated further than the 30km area as soon as possible. We request to extend the evacuation area, create a safely designed evacuation route and enact legislation to improve the locations that accept people from evacuation areas.

Government should utilize its political power to work on the area that needs to be evacuated. You have tobroaden and ensure the evacuation route, and also find new places where those people can live. Thank you.

The petition may be accessed and signed online via the Moms & Children Rescue Fukushima website here.

In the absence of official government action, the citizen group Safecast is presently working to provide radiation mapping of the area. During the initial days following the earthquake, tsunami and outbreak of the nuclear crisis, its members collaborated with the members of the Tokyo Hackerspace group in order to fashion their own Geiger counters, which they affixed to the windows of several cars and drove through areas near the Fukushima plant to take radiation measurements that they in turn uploaded onto an online radiation map they themselves had created. The group has also made the Geiger counters available to schools, orphanages, and other facilities in Fukushima prefecture in a move to help begin empowering residents through understanding the levels of radiation in their areas.

Safecast and Tokyo Hackerspace members display their hand-fashioned Geiger counters 

and explain mapping program during a recent workshop

A video regarding on the Safecast/Tokyo Hackerspace collaboration and their radiation mapping work may be viewed below. (The report, which is in Japanese, starts around the 15 minute mark).

The Safecast blog also include videos about various citizen action projects taking place in Fukushima, as well as information on how to get involved with its volunteer mapping project in Fukushima and beyond.

A gripping open letter (full text of letter edited before publication at The Japan Times) from a concerned father in Fukushima may be read at this TTT post here.

--Kimberly Hughes

Tokyo extends evacuation zone; raises nuclear emergency to Chernobyl-level

Greenpeace:

Just hours after our field radiation team held a press conference calling for further evacuation around Fukushima, the Japanese government announced that it will extend the mandatory evacuation zone around the stricken nuclear plant to 30km and evacuate the contaminated towns of Namie, Iitate and parts of Minamisoma within one month.

Reuters:

Japan raised the severity of its nuclear crisis to the highest level on Tuesday, putting it on a par with the world's worst nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in 1986 because of the amount of radiation released into the air and sea.

As another major aftershock rattled the earthquake-ravaged east of the country, a fire broke out at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, although engineers later appeared to have extinguished the blaze. Developments in recent days suggest the operator of the stricken facility is no closer to restoring cooling systems at the reactors, which is critical to bringing down the temperature of overheated nuclear fuel rods.

An official at Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) said that based on cumulative levels of radiation released, the severity of the incident had been raised to 7, the worst on an internationally recognized scale...The month-long nuclear crisis that has gripped Japan following an earthquake and tsunami has claimed up to 28,000 lives and the estimated cost stands at $300 billion, making it the world's most expensive disaster.

Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) said the amount of radiation released into the atmosphere from the plant, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, was around 10 percent that of Chernobyl. However, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) warned the release could eventually exceed Chernobyl if leaks were not halted. "Radiation released into the atmosphere peaked from March 15 to 16. Radiation is still being released, but the amount now has fallen considerably," said Hidehiko Nishiyama, NISA's deputy director-general.

Greenpeace: Field team finds high levels of contamination outside of Fukushima evacuation zone; calls to widen evacuation

Image - Radiation expert Rianne Teule checks crops for contamination  (© Christian Åslund. Photo: Greenpeace)
Greenpeace: "Field team finds high levels of contamination outside of Fukushima evacuation zone":

Our radiation monitoring teams have discovered high levels of contamination in crops grown on the outskirts of Minamisoma city in Japan. The data was collected from the gardens of Minamisoma city residents, and registered well over the official limits for spinach and other vegetables. This is bad news amid already serious concerns over the health risks to residents and a lack of official information from Japanese government.

“In several Minamisoma gardens, the vegetables were too contaminated for consumption,” reports Rianne Teule, who is leading our food testing team. “The owner of one garden with contaminated spinach told us that she had received no information from authorities on the radiation risks to her crops, despite reports that government tests on plants in Minamisoma have been underway since March 18.”

The government has been publishing raw data from its own field monitoring. However, its assessment is far from comprehensive. Measurements taken by our radiation team in several parts of Minamisoma city show levels of up to 4.5 microSievert per hour, as opposed to the relatively low levels of 0.7 microSievert per hour recorded at the only official monitoring point in Minamisoma City.

While the Japanese government’s data might not be incorrect, it doesn’t actually give the public the full picture, nor does it adequately protect the health of people in Minamisoma. The people in Minamisoma have been advised to stay indoors or told they can leave on a voluntary basis. However, our measurements, which were taken between government monitoring points, show levels of contamination that indicate a risk to health and safety.

Our field monitoring team met with the Mayor of Minamisoma, Katsunobu Sakurai. He expressed his frustration, citing a lack of reliable information or clear advice from TEPCO and the authorities regarding risks this crisis poses to his community.

“TEPCO has been irresponsible. This was clearly demonstrated when it took 11 days for it to speak to us after the accident. The government has also not supplied us with any kind of report that we can understand,” said Sakurai. “We are asking the government to not only supply enough information about what has happened, but also that it guarantee that it will respond responsibly to possible future risks.”

Read the entire article and find more background here.

Greenpeace Radiation Experts: Call to Widen Evacuation Area around Fukushima

March 27 findings by Greenpeace radiation monitoring team:

Fukushima, March 27, 2011: Greenpeace radiation experts have confirmed radiation levels of up to ten micro Sieverts per hour in Iitate village, 40km northwest of the crisis-stricken Fukushima/Daiichi nuclear plant, and 20km beyond the official evacuation zone. These levels are high enough to require evacuation.

“It is clearly not safe for people to remain in Iitate, especially children and pregnant women, when it could mean receiving the maximum allowed annual dose of radiation in only a few days. When further contamination from possible ingestion or inhalation of radioactive particles is factored in, the risks are even higher.”

Greenpeace begins radiation monitoring in Fukushima

"Greenpeace radiation monitoring team begins Fukushima assessment"

A group of Greenpeace radiation experts has today started monitoring locations around the evacuation area that surrounds the crisis-stricken Fukushima/Daiichi nuclear plant, in order to assess the true extent of radiation risks to the local population.

“Since the beginning of the Fukushima nuclear crisis, the authorities have consistently appeared to underestimate both the risks and extent of radioactive contamination. We have come to Fukushima to bear witness to the impacts of this crisis and to provide some independent insight into the resulting radioactive contamination”, said Greenpeace team leader and radioactivity safety advisor Jan van de Putte.

“By providing honest, transparent and independent analysis of the threats to public health, we aim to provide an alternative to the often contradictory information released by nuclear regulators in the two weeks since the Fukushima disaster began unfolding.”

“Any attempt by authorities to play down the effects of the current crisis should be considered a dangerous deceit. In addition to coming clean on the true dangers of nuclear power, the smartest move for governments around the world is heavily invest in energy efficiency, and redouble their efforts to harness safe and secure renewable energy sources.”

The team are also making contact with and documenting the impacts on communities that have been evacuated from the area around the Fukushima nuclear plant.

Green Action: 6 journalists find high radiation readings in Futaba (location of Fukushima nuclear reactors)

Aileen Mioko Smith, director of Kyoto-based Green Action, is providing English-language updates from Japanese NGOs, news media, and direct reports from journalists in Fukushima:

Breaking on Fukushima I-2 Fukushima Update

It is now 16:05 Japan time (3:05am EST USA), 14 March, 2011
NHK: "All cooling at Fukushima Daiichi (Unit2) has been lost"

According to the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), a unit of Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), all mechanisms to cool the reactor was all completely lost at 13:25 (1:25pm) today. Since the internal pressure continues to be high, ways to secure the safety such as releasing the air from the containment to the outside is being considered.

5 members of the Japan Visual Journalist Association (JVJA) and Ryuichi HIROKAWA, editor-in-chief of DAYS JAPAN (magazine), arrived at Futaba Town where the Fukushima Daiichi reactors are located (the plants are located in both Okuma Town and Futaba Town) to undertake independent monitoring measurements.

We traveled to Futaba Town, arriving shortly after 10:00am Sunday, 13 March and began taking radiation readings. We took three types of radiation detectors, one each. The levels were extremely high.

According to Mr. Hirokawa, when measurements were taken near the high school at Futaba town, the measurements were higher than (the recording sounds like “higher than” but the wording is not 100% clear) when he had taken measurements approximately 200 meters from unit 4 at Chernobyl.

We went to the Futaba Town Hall to inform them about this situation, but because everyone had evacuated, there were no people there. At the front of the Futaba Town Hall, all our three radiation monitors went off scale and became inoperable (we could not take measurements).

We went to Futaba Kosei Hospital, the town’s hospital, where 4 people had been hospitalized the day before for radiation exposure. At the entrance of the hospital, stretchers were turned over, many things were scattered, a feeling that evacuation had been undertaken in a very rushed way. On the first floor, beds were overturned, vinyl pipes for blood injections were scattered around, many items were in disarray, showing that things were very rushed when they evacuated. When we checked the examination room, the levels were so high that measurements could not be taken.

We thought the town was deserted but met one elderly man on a bicycle. Talked about what we were doing. We told him that the place was very contaminated and that he should flee right away.

We saw two men in town, and one man went past us via motorcycle, and we saw one car, to my recollection.

We stayed in the town for about one hour, and those were the only people we saw.

We thought that when entering the town that there would be a security gate and that we would not be able to enter. However, this was not the case. We were just able to go right in. When we were leaving the town, we saw people entering the town. We stopped them to tell them not to go in. They were returning to get clothes, farmers were there to go give water to flowers. That was the situation, you could go in and out freely.

FIVE MINUTES INTO YOUTUBE. The visual begins with the meters. — (translation: Aileen)