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6.46 uSv/hr in playground in Kashiwa near Tokyo enenews.com That is Fukushima City radiation levels.

I mean, the media loves scenes of mass demonstrations, particularly if they can find angry people shaking AK's, but you rarely heard from the "ordinary people".

Incoming Gchat.

@lillymunster Wow on Edano's report. The TORCH report on Chernobyl estimated the amount of I-131 and Cs-137 as 2,110,000 TBq. This was higher than most other estimates. This would make Fukushima = 5 Chernobyls so far.

@lillymunster I would add a note to that article pointing out the huge difference between the nature of the released isotopes at Chernobyl and the nature of the estimated potential emissions at Fukushima-Daiichi. The emissions at Fukushima-Daiichi are mostly short to medium half lived isotopes (between roughly 8 days for Caesium-137 to roughly 30 years for Iodine-131) whereas the emissions at Chernobyl were a mix of short, medium and long lived isotopes. The nature of the emitted isotopes dramatically determines the extent of the long term potential effects on the environment and people living near the affected areas. You should also emphasize that the estimates for Fukushima Daiichi refer to a worst case scenario where all the fuel would continue to perpetually release radioactive isotopes. Although that scenario is possible, it is unlikely (or at least we all hope so). The title about Fukushima might be a little misleading.

@Bobby1 A quick search on the internet will show highly contradicting estimates about Chernobyl. There is no consensual estimate. The best we could do would be to calculate an average of all estimates but even that would be highly inaccurate due to the highly diverging estimates available. And it is also hard to estimate the reliability of the chosen sources. But we could then calculate the error margin comparing the average of all estimates to the figure further away from the average. The error margin is enormous.

EURDEP steps up monitoring of post-Fukushima radiation ec.europa.eu
"The collected data showed that the maximum air concentration values were reached at the end of March over Poland: Iodine-131 (particulates) concentration values went up to 5-6 mBq/m³ whereas Cesium-137 values stayed below 1 mBq/m³. In normal conditions, air concentration levels for these isotopes stay below 1 μBq/m³." So Poland was also 5x background in March, just like the US was.

@Pedro Jesus You always take a very measured approach, and I appreciate that sensibility very much. I'm also a devil's advocate person kind of person, because it prevents a rush to judgement, but sometimes it becomes the "balanced news" kind of thing where one mentions the possibility to "balance" a story that really only has one accepted side. In this case though, TEPCO's own figures put it at 40% Chernobyl in the very first week. That would be after they knew they had melted down (about March 16th). I'd guess the odds are top-heavy on Fukushima being the worst ever.

@Pedro Jesus The TORCH estimate was high so the 5 Chernobyls is conservative. Lower estimates for Chernobyl would obtain a correspondingly higher multiplier for Fukushima.

@lilly cool. I'll tell my friend Joy, who assembled them.

@all There's a category at SimplyInfo called Peer Review that appears only one place on the menu, under Community, and posts nowhere else. When you get something to where you want eyes-on, post it in there for access.

@lillymunster OK, I'm glad you liked it. =)

@lillymunster Morning all! Quick question....have any numbers been released for the longer lived isotopes? I was under the impression tne data either hasn't been taken.(not likely) or hasn't been released. We know there was a release oF Plutonium and Strontium but I haven't seen any total estimates.

@Lilly Thanks....then we definitely can't say it's not worse than Chernobyl based upon numbers not released. I sincerely question their inadvertence to release those numbers. That alone sparks rumors.

WHOI Pacific Expedition off-shore of Fukushima: daily update June 18

"A preliminary accounting of the fruits of our labor so far includes: * More than 1,500 containers ranging from 50 milliliters to 20 liters filled from more than 300 logged sampling events, plus filters of samples as large as 1,000 liters * More than 3,000 liters of water samples weighing more than 3 metric tons that will be shipped to labs around the world after the ship returns to Hawaii * More than 100 tows resulting in about 50 pounds of biological samples [...]"

"Over the coming months 16 labs in seven countries will analyze samples for a laundry list of isotopes that includes cesium-134 and -137; strontium-90; iodine-129; tritium; uranium-236; plutonium-239 and -240; rutherium-103 and -106; radium-223, -224, -228, and -226; and neptunium-237."

"This will take time. Many of the instruments used to conduct these tests are extremely sensitive, but the amounts to be detected are extremely small—individual tests could require weeks and entire sample collections many months to complete. Some of the facilities required are highly specialized (one is deep underground to eliminate as much background interference as possible) and scheduling time on them will be a logistical challenge. A few of the methods used to measure trace amounts of some substances have also fallen out of practice as several of the isotopes themselves have faded from the environment after Chernobyl or the cessation of atmospheric nuclear weapons testing. Old techniques will have to be re-learned and some adapted to analyzing seawater or prepared biological samples."
www.whoi.edu

This report clearly shows how unreliable the information we've been getting on released isotopes from Fukushima-Daiichi can be. Most of them are actually rough estimates, not scientifically certificated readings.