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“Just the tip of the iceberg”: Van emitting 110 uSv/hr — Ended up 370 miles from Fukushima in Kobe — “Dangerously radioactive” vehicles must be resold within Japan. The only flaw with these vehicles? They are “dangerously radioactive”, writes Richard Lloyd Parry for Australia’s The Times.
Though barred from export, used car dealers have resorted to re-registering vehicles to disguise the origin, and selling them to customers “who have no idea of the risk to which they are being exposed”.
One van was so radioactive that “sitting inside it for two hours a day will expose the occupant to more than the government’s recommended maximum dose over the course of a year”. It “emitted radiation at a level of 110 microsieverts an hour,” according to a reporter for the Asahi Shimbun. A car dealer told Asahi, “It is just the tip of the iceberg. If high radiation is detected, decontamination is too difficult. This is why such vehicles are auctioned within Japan.” enenews.com

@Majj, awesome finds!

Here's the new study : www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net

Fukushima Nuclear Plant Released Far More Radiation than Government Said

Global radioactivity data challenge Japanese estimates for emissions and point to the role of spent fuel pools www.scientificamerican.com

Hi :), today is a good day! U.S. dismantles last of powerful nuclear bombs
SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Reuters) - The United States dismantled the oldest nuclear bomb in its Cold War arsenal -- and one of the most powerful it ever built -- on Tuesday as part of President Barack Obama's nuclear security policy. A B53 bomb is seen in this handout taken October 19, 2011 and released October 20, 2011. (REUTERS/National Nuclear Security Administration/Handout) The magaton-class nuclear bomb the size of a minivan and weighing about 10,000 pounds was dismantled at a nuclear weapons storage facility outside Amarillo, Texas. "This was one of the largest bombs in the American arsenal," said Joshua McConaha, Public Affairs Director for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration. He said the exact strength of the bomb -- known as the B53 -- remains classified, but it is believed to have been many hundreds of times more powerful than the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945. Built at the height of the Cold War in the 1962, the bomb was designed to be dropped onto a target by a massive B-52 Stratofortress strategic bomber. McConaha says it contained about 300 pounds of high explosive surrounding the uranium, referred to as 'the pit.' "The world is a safer place with this dismantlement," said Thomas D'Agostino, Under Secretary of Energy and Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration. "The B53 was a weapon developed in another time for a different world. Today, we are moving beyond the Cold War nuclear weapons complex that built this type of weapons," he said. The process of eliminating the massive nuclear weapons, known as "the last of the big dogs," began 14 years ago. "It started with retiring a weapon from active or inactive service," McConaha said. "In this case, President Clinton did that back in the nineties, in 1997." Many B53s were retired before that, but a "significant number" had remained in the U.S. arsenal, McConaha said. In addition to challenges related to the bomb's massive size and awesome explosive punch, the dismantlement process was made more difficult by the weapon's use of older technology developed by engineers who have since died. The explosive is carefully separated from the nuclear materials, McConaha explained. Some materials will be reused, while most of the bomb will be shredded and disposed of. The number of B53s that were once in service, and the number that have been disassembled, remains classified, but McConaha confirmed that Tuesday's bomb was the final one.http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/10/26/worldupdates/2011-10-26T024541Z_01_NOOTR_RTRMDNC_0_-601232-1&sec=Worldupdates