Last updated on March 1, 2013
All we have to fear is fear itself, not the fearmongers who spread it
The outcome of the events in Fukushima are far from over, and there are many facts that will take years before they become available. There are a number of things that can be handled better, not the least the flow of information from TEPCO and Japanese authorities.
Meanwhile, the suffering, fears and worries of the people affected is made even worse than it need to be, thanks to a number of fearmongers who exaggerate the effects.
We will not speculate here about the motivations of the fearmongers, some of them surely believe in what they are saying, even when proven wrong. Some of them seem to have a need to inflate their resumees, or refer to what sounds like scientific reasoning in order to impress people. And some of them claim to speak from a higher moral ground.
They may be right about a number of things, and sometimes they have correct things mixed into their gospel. But the main objective of it is not to give us good advice and proper information, the objective is to scare you into thinking like them.
The effects are clearly seen on a number of blogs and news sites, many times the commentary fields are full of discussions that completely have lost connection with reality. The fearmongers are referred to as trustworthy authorities in the field, no matter what crazy things that comes from their mouths.
Six months have passed since the events in Fukushima started. The first round goes to the fearmongers. They will surely continue with their dark gospels, in whatever forms they preach them. And we will have to counter more of their nonsense in the future. Only one thing is clear: We will not leave them unopposed.
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I think most people that are against nuclear power desided to be so at a young age. Their decision was not a informed one at that stage. They spoke out, uninformed, an solidified their beliefs.
Therefore from my perspective it is crazy that the schools don’t educate students in basic nuclear power safety to right the worst misconceptions. Also, if the power plant owners are serious about wanting to build new power plants they should think about minute-long commercials that educate about nuclear safety. That would be a better commercial than the greenwashing ones (you know with a wave power plant)
I actually wrote an essay about the dangers about radiation and nuclear energy in primary school. I remember having pretty much every darn teacher showing up giving me input and feed back during the work, got a good grade on it too.
Thank goodness my secondary school had better informed teachers and got me interested in proper sciences…
My point being, fear is ingraded in us early and it takes some effort to get rid of it!
I put it down to four things, all working together:
1. Lack of understanding of statistics2. Lack of understanding of basic science3. Distrust of science and scientists
4. A media which also exhibits all the above
Could live with 1 & 2, provided you had a reliable media and a good relationship with the experts. Similarly, if only 3 & 4 were true, you may disbelieve the experts but could still come to a sensible conclusion based on your own sound stats/science understanding.
Solution: Change one (preferably all) of the above.
Good luck with the media changing strategy. Nothing increases your viewer statistics like inflated head lines and hyperbole.
Compare the following:
“Accident at large industrial facility, no injuries or deaths in relation to the activities.”
With:
“Trippel nuclear melt down, four nuclear reactors exploded![picture of inferno from oil depot] According to esteemed scientist 5,000,000 deaths projected!”
Which would you believe the media would go with…Oh my golly, we already know the answer, don’t we?
I think it’s a sad indictment of where we’ve gone as a society in terms of reporting. Looking back at some of the newspaper reports of the 50s after the Windscale disaster we had then, it seems completely alien. Admittedly, secrecy over weapons would have played a part, however the newspapers reported the facts that they had available, none of the opinion nonsense or sensationalism that’s standard today.
You may not have heard of the MMR scandal, not being from the UK, but it’s an example of just how dangerous sensationalism in the press can be. There’s a guy called Charlie Brooker on TV who does shows about this particular topic, he’s quite good at making this kind of stuff entertaining.
Try this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFFtLp-NB-I
This episode actually contains reference to MMR (skip to 3 minutes).
I lived in the UK for a while…and yea, I know of the MMR scandal.
I am also an avid fan of The Depleatedcranium blog…
Not heard of that one. Will check it out. Thanks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsDldmSUdyo
Is Dr Tatsuhiko Kodama also someone you would like to dismiss as a fearmonger?
How utterly typical opf an opponent of nuclear power to try to divert attention away form arguments and facts that are embarassing to them. I have never seen any of you lot go “Well allright… that was silly of me… I won’t use that argument any more”. No, instead you just ignore the embarassing stuff and switch to something else.
Dr Tatsuhiko Kodama sounds like someone who is genuinely concerned, but is talking about stuff that he really doesn’t understand very well.
This guy is trained as a doctor of internal medicine, not a health physicist, not an epidemiologist, and certainly not an engineer. His work apparently requires him to be somewhat knowledgeable about the basics of radiation protection — e.g., he seems to be familiar with Japanese regulations for handling radioactive material — but that’s about it.
It’s rather telling that he is approaching this from an emotional level when he goes off into irrelevant digressions — for example, how many “Hiroshima-type atomic bombs” the “quantity of heat” is equivalent to — and in some cases, he makes statements that are truly bizarre — such as, the “diffusion of particles” is the “most difficult calculation in the field of fluid mechanics.” The diffusion equation was postulated and understood over 150 years ago. It’s something that is entirely approachable at the undergraduate level, so he couldn’t mean that, could he? Perhaps something was lost in translation.
Much of the rest of his testimony shows lots of concern, but little understanding of the science of radiation protection.
No, he’s not a Caldicott, who is hoping to sell more books and lectures, or a gun for hire, like Gundersen. He doesn’t appear to be a mentally unstable sociopath like Busby. He’s one of the poorly informed individuals out there screaming, “Think of the children!” without doing much thinking themselves.
No Lena. Kodama san is giving what is probably relevant critique, not the least regarding how the government is handling some aspects of the situation. There are several details in what he says that can be discussed (and the only thing that seems to make it to all anti-blogs is the number 29.6 times Hiroshima, as if it would explain anything), but unlike the people in our gallery he seems to know what he is talking about. He is working on site and sees problems that he addresses, based on his professional experience and concerns. He does not sit in a TV-studio on another continent and makes up scare stories about hot particles, corium, and the “extra dangerous” MOX-fuel in reactor 3. He does not inflate his CV. And he does not need to cheat with numbers in order to get his message through.
So let’s turn the question around to you Lena: Which (if any) of the people in our gallery above do you consider serious and worth listening to in these matters? If any, why do you trust them even though they have been caught with cheating and exaggerating? If none, what is your purpose of bringing in a person that we have not even mentioned into the discussion?
A few more questions come to my mind:
Is it possible to be anti-nuclear and see the difference between relevant concerns and fearmongering? Do you care about the difference?
Is it possible to be anti-nuclear and trust that many of us who are pro-nuclear actually care about the difference?
Anti-nukes are dismissed by pro-nukes because we are not all scientists, and the ones who are, are not the right kind of scientists. Why bother listening to a doctor of internal medicine if he’s not also a nuclear engineer …? We are regarded as too emotional, we are not well informed enough (which basically means as long as we say no to nuclear power we can be disregarded because we don’t know better.) Tatsuhiko Kodama, is a professor at the Research Centre for Advanced Science and Technology and Director of the University of Tokyo’s Radioisotope Centre, which I thought would make him a bit difficult, even for you, to ignore and dismiss. Regarding “difference between relevant concerns and fearmongering”, I do believe that the persons you label as fearmongers are genuinely concerned, want to get their points across and therefore jump at every opportunity to express their concerns. Pretty much like you then …
Lena – The real world doesn’t care whether you are a scientist, an engineer, a doctor of blah blah blah, or what your emotional or mental state is.
Considering that all of your arguments rely on either an appeal to authority or an appeal to your self-pity, you don’t have much of a leg to stand on.
The people shown in the article above are well-known charlatans who have profited greatly from frightening the ignorant and their arguments, methods, and so-called “facts” have been exposed over and over again as being either incorrect, incompetent, irrelevant, or downright fraudulent. Frankly, I don’t give a damn how “concerned” you think they are, because based on their past behavior, I can conclude only that their sole concern is their bank accounts and how quickly the scary stories that they tell are able to fill them.
Now, if you would like to talk about actual issues — with actual numbers and facts — instead of “what do you think of him,” then perhaps we could have a real discussion. Your pathetic whining and self-pity do not constitute a rational argument, however.
There where quite a few facts and figures in Dr Kodama’s speech as I recall. Why don’t you decide yourself which leg you want to stand on. No one can accuse you of whining, that’s for sure. But when it comes to being verbally abusive and throwing insults around you’re in a league of your own! Now you don’t care about titles, degrees, emotinal or mental state. Earlier this evening you dismissed Kodama because he’s a doctor of internal medicine, “not a health physicist, not an epidemiologist, and certainly not an engineer”. Chris Busby is according to you a “mentally unstable sociopath”. And who are you to judge? I guess you just dabble at psychiatry or else you wouldn’t diagnose for free.
There where quite a few facts and figures in Dr Kodama’s speech as I recall.
Your problem is that you stop there… with the existence of claimed facts and figures. You don’t stop to examine if they are correct and relevent. As long as they fit your opinion, you assume they are correct and relevent.
As Brian and others showed, many of they were not.
And who are you to judge?
Because we looked into his claims, his behavior and his actions.
Or are you trying to tell us that when we see someone constantly falsifying claims for the express purpose of making people feel fear and terror… that we are not allowed to express that we feel there’s something WRONG in that behavior?
@204332ba6f25db2f8006e0d6eaeb4541:disqus Anti-nukes are dismissed by pro-nukes because we are not all scientists
No, we are dismissing your message because your arguments for it are rubbish.
I couldn’t care less if you would be a triple nobel prize laureate. When you put forth claims that are equivalent of saying that the moon is made of green cheeze… then I will dismiss what you say. Do you think that is wrong of me?
It has nothing to do with titles; it has nothing to do with education; it has nothing to do with the opinion. It all comes down to the arguments; the facts; the data; the logical reasoning; the hindsight; the foresight… …and on examining yours, I have found they suck.
That’s why I dismiss what you have to say.
Why bother listening to a doctor of internal medicine if he’s not also a nuclear engineer …?
Because his arguments also suck. The fact that he is not a nuclear engineer (I am not one either mind you) is merely an explanation as to why his arguments suck.
We are regarded as too emotional
Well that’s all you have to show in the debate: emotions.
Your foremost weapon is FUD: Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt. Do you honestly think that</b< is how a debate at hugely important as this should be handled?! By trying to put FEAR into people and by making them look at their fellow humans and know nothing but doubt?!
I don’t. I think that is a disgusting way to put forth your opinion and try to make people join you.
I do believe that the persons you label as fearmongers are genuinely concerned
I don’t… quite simply for the simple fact that they do not try to solve the “problem”. I don’t think you are “concerned” either because the same applies to you. You don’t want to see a solution to the issies… and yes, there are issues with nuclear power… some pretty damned important ones too. If they had genuinely cared, they would have sought a dialog with teh principal actors here. They would have sought cooperation. Partnership. Working out a plan to see the end of the problems.
But they don’t care. You don’t care. You seek confrintation. Because they – and you -want only one thing: to promote their/your opinion.
For you guys, it’s all about the opinion. That’s why we go for the arguments instead. That’s what matters. That’s the only thing that matters. And that’s why we will keep fighting people like those in the gallery above with facts and arguments, to show expose them – and you – and your driving force: your desire to shove your opinion down everybody else’s throat by any means necessary.
Are you being serious? How are you not, in every way possible, trying to win people ower to your side? It’s the same with us who oppose nuclear power. I would however never shove anything down anyone’s throat. With a Japanese government and TEPCO who are equally economic with information to the public, they leave room for speculations and that is not good. I believe we can at least agree on that.
How are you not, in every way possible, trying to win people ower to your side?
Not in every way possible… because that would be dishonest and wrong.
I would however never shove anything down anyone’s throat.
Then why are you trying just that? Why is your behaviour perfectly consistent with someone that does not care about anything but the opinion? Why are you perfectly willfully ignoring uncomfortable facts data and arguments? Why are you supporting and promoting only claims that fit the opinion? Why are you only trying to promote an image of nuclear power and events surrounding it as doom and gloom? Why are you not seeking any kind of solution to the claimed issues with nucelar power other than abolishment?
Answer this in a believeable way, and I’ll find believable your claim that your anti-nuclear opinon is not the Alfa and Omega of your actions…
@ Lena:How are you not, in every way possible, trying to win people ower to your side? It’s the same with us who oppose nuclear power.This is an argument I have heard before from other members of Folkkampanjen. Is that all there is about, to win as many members to your side at any cost? Even with false arguments?Then you have misunderstood everything that we are doing, and why we are doing it.
Regarding “difference between relevant concerns and fearmongering”, I do believe that the persons you label as fearmongers are genuinely concerned, want to get their points across and therefore jump at every opportunity to express their concerns.
I partly agree with you, personally I believe that several of these people are doing what they are doing out of genuine concern. But that does not excuse them from cheating the way that they do. And if the errors are genuine mistakes, then they should be able to admit that and do more serious studies the next time, especially those who claim that they are doing science.
Instead they react aggressively and move on with the same methods as before. A recent example: Janette Sherman does not admit comments on her blog when I ask her to explain herself about the cherry picking of data, Joe Mangano still proudly boasts about the infant mortality hoax on his web pages. Both of them moan about us criticizing them for their lousy handling of data and ignoring “the elephant in the room”, then they repeat the same thing all over again and clearly show that they haven’t learnt a thing. So, are they willfully cheating or are they just incompetent? No matter which option is correct, the genuine concerns that they try to spread remains based on false assumptions and are worth zero. Should that be endorsed just because it comes from the anti-nuclear gurus? Should we respect their concerns?
I recently read a book by Chris Busby from 1995. By now I know a bit about his methods, so I am, to say the least, a bit sceptical about his writings, but even then his book is very convincing. There are many things in it that I would like to look up for myself in order to see if he is right about it or not. For most readers without a science background the book is probably even more convincing.
So let’s assume that every single word in the book is correct, that Busby’s genuine concerns are all true and that he is sincere. Then why does he feel the need to cheat and exaggerate now, and make bold statements based on sloppy studies? Why risking whatever credibility he has by cheating? Why should I bother about finding out if he was right 15 years ago when I can clearly see that he is repeatedly cheating now?
[as in the case with Sherman and Mangano, “cheating” can be replaced with “incompetence”, I do not know which option is correct]
Is any argument against (or for…) nuclear power valid even when it is false, as long as it supports the cause? We criticize the anti-nuclear movement when they use false arguments and fake data. We expect nothing less from the anti-nuclear movement if we stray the same way. But all we get is “payed by the nuclear industry”, “conspiracy”, “it is much worse than you think”, references to the fearmongers above, and so on.
This is not all about hard facts and numbers, feelings and genuine concerns are indeed also important. But not when they are based on cheating and intentional fearmongering.
Pretty much like you then …P-L-E-A-S-E elaborate, what do you mean?
Michael Karnerfors: Don’t know if you noticed, but I replied to Brian Mays. However it’s very sweet the way you stick together. Such team spirit!
It’s nauseating to see that of all the arguments put forth to you as to why your opinion needs revising, you gladly ignore them and just reply with this totally irrelevent quip instead.
Nuclear opponents in a nutshell: if anything is too uncomfortable to deal with… just pretend it didn’t exist in the first place.
It’s like dealing with creationists and zealous theists. The OPINION is everything. Anything that doesn’t fit the opinion can just be ignored. And here we see a prime example of this principle in action…
“There where quite a few facts and figures in Dr Kodama’s speech as I recall.”
Lena – Yes, and if you had read what I had written, you would have noticed that I addressed a few of those “facts and figures.” In one case, the “facts” he brought up make no sense at all (although I admitted that the problem could be in translation). Some of his other “facts and figures” are completely irrelevant.
“Earlier this evening you dismissed Kodama because he’s a doctor of internal medicine, ‘not a health physicist, not an epidemiologist, and certainly not an engineer’.”
I did no such thing. You asked for an opinion and I gave it. I merely stated his training as background for my comments on his testimony. This was useful, since it did explain why he said some things that he did, but my judgement was based entirely on the transcript of what he said.
You’re the only one who is making a big deal out of professional labels.
“Chris Busby is according to you a ‘mentally unstable sociopath’. And who are you to judge?”
I base my opinion (and this is a personal opinion, not a professional opinion, by the way) on what the man has written and said. For example, earlier this year in an opinion piece that was published on Counterpunch, Busby made the claim that, “Make no mistake, physicists are stupid.” This was in the course of a near incoherent rant whose purpose, as near as I can tell, was to make the case that science is somehow a religious belief and scientists are really priests.
That the man would go to such a befuddled effort alienate the scientific community while discussing a scientific topic is a clear indication of antisocial behavior. You would have to read the entire article, however, to get a full appreciation of the level of mental instability he exhibits.
Besides, look at the picture above! If that doesn’t scream “nutjob,” then I don’t know what does! If he were a nineteenth-century French painter, then I could understand the dorky beard and the beret, but he’s supposed to be a “radiation expert.” The only way he could look more insane is if he were dressed as Napoleon.
Careful Brian, I have a beard as well… 🙂
Seriously speaking, I’d prefer if we focus on what the man says instead of on his dress code. Since June Busby has frequented the RADSAFE mailing list, and I am quite disappointed in how many of the members of that list are more keen on personal insults rather than scrutinizing his claims. Ok, he keeps a rather low level himself there and started it off with some insults, but I have seen heated blog discussions between 14-year olds that hold a higher level.
As did I, about six months ago. 😉 Shaved it off for the summer, will probably grow it back in another month. Don’t let my picture fool you. I have nothing against beards or any kind of facial hair.
Making fun of his picture was just for laughs. My serious criticism was reserved for what he has written. Have you ever read his Counterpunch article from March of this year?
As someone who is trained in physics, he has directly insulted me; moreover, he has also insulted my profession with lies. Well, the gloves are now off (and they should be off when dealing with these charlatans … nuclear proponents have “played nice” for far too long against unscrupulous people who are not afraid to play dirty), and I reserve the right to ridicule this clown in any way that I see fit.
Actually, my beard is a direct effect of Fukushima, didn’t have the time to worry about shaving during that week. Then I made a joke about not shaving until we have 6 reactors with status cold shutdown in Fukushima, time will tell if I can keep it that long. My wife and some colleagues have recently referred to me as “caveman”…
The Counterpunch article is full of…words. Later on he had another one where he attacks George Monbiot. I really like the part where he writes “I am a scientist (unlike George) and my purpose is to find the truth about the consequences of these various alternatives.”, and then in the same article he refers to S&M’s infant mortality hoax. Some scientist indeed.
I guess that I should feel insulted as well, but I follow another path. Anyhow, I do laugh at your jokes about him. 🙂
I have no interest in advertising further nonsense from Counterpinch, but if anybody wants to read the mentioned articles:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/03/28/deconstructing-nuclear-experts/
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/06/20/what-s-the-nuclear-energy-for-george/
I think it is delivered that way, my old Paddington doll has a hat that you cannot remove without ruining the head…
Oops, our man seems to have had a recent shave as well, I am in the minority position among the three of us:
http://www.bsrrw.org/?page_id=1515
Yeah … I was already aware that he had shaved. I think he still wears the hat, however.
Well, I’ll be darned! Brian Mays appearing here!
Umm, guys, could you stop ganging up on the poor ‘Lena’. Having one of you beating her up verbally is bad enough as she is obviously completely unarmed for this debate…
Leuren Moret is quite easy to dismiss, she has stated that the earthquake was the result of “tectonic war-fare”. Good grief! I thought Busby was a nut, albeit a hard one…
Oh he’s been around for a while. 🙂
Leuren Moret is quite easy to dismiss, she has stated that the earthquake was the result of “tectonic war-fare”.
Of for the love of…
*facepalms*
Lena, even you have to feel it being pretty embarassing to be associated with that kind of nonsense.
Well I had never heard of the lady before so I did a quick Google search and found a very nice video of her mentioning CIA, HAARP and London banks.
*Doublefacedesk!!*
We have to upshift economically in the US and throughout the world. Nuclear power is our new fire and we must kindle it to fusion power and beyond. Now is the time to crush the greenie zero-growth agenda with real sovereign cooperation, China is willing, Russia is willing, and America just needs to remove a nut-job from office.. so lets do it!
This report from Lyndon LaRouche et. al. outlines the strategy that must be used:
http://larouchepac.com/node/19535
Please remember that this is a factual blog, though nuclear power is heavily politicised it is difficult to argue rationally about politics, please don’t drag this site in the mud. We have green luddites who manages to accomplish that perfectly well for us with out your intervention.
Unless you have any scientifically backed arguments, please go away…
I have to say that I am a bit confused by this issue. My background is electronics and I don’t struggle too much with basic nuclear physics. I would love a physicist to answer the questions I have about the practical safety of the Fukushima district.
a) if you have teenage children would you allow them to volunteer to work in Fukushima cleanup? (I have an acquaintance planning to do this, what should I tell him?)
b) would you encourage that little children to eat produce grown in Fukushima? Japanese mothers in the area are sourcing food from the south, Korea has destroyed some market gardens.
c) have you considered if the Petkau effect is relevant to the Fukushima area?
d) would you recommend that the no go zone be removed so that all can return? Given that Belarus and the Ukraine spend about 5% of their national budgets on Chernobyl I have been trying to guestimate how much this could cost Japan.
e) would you recommend that the no go zone remain as is? If so why? If so for how long?
f) do you consider reports of Americium-241 found months after the incident to be trustworthy?
A) Assuming they 1) want to 2) are of eligable working age and 3) are given proper and adequate training: yes. Going to Japan on a unique job opportunity whould be a pretty darn fantastic experience, not to mention they get to see the whole thing up close and get all the facts without having to have them filtered through people that have obvious interrests in putting a spin on the story. That goes especially for nuclear opponents.
If my kids got such an opportunity I would envy them.
B) Assuming the produce is properly screened and found to be free of contamination, yes. Screening for radioactive contamination is probably the easiest screening of all. You can do it with a cheap handheld unit and still get more than adequately accurate results.
There is no contaminant that screams out its presense quite like radioactiove contaminants does, long before they even begin to affect health. If we could screen for other contaminants in the environment – such as for instance dioxins and heavy metals – at such rediculously low concentrations as we can with radioactives contaminants, people would very quickly forget about radiation and start worrying about other stuff.
C) The claimed effect that Dr. Abram Petkau supposedly found is one of several models for low-dose/low-intensity radiation, LNT being another, and radiation hormesis being yet another. But seeing that we constantly live with radiation from space, the groud, air and the produce we eat and have done so for… well… the beginning of life on this planet, I’d be very surprised if it has any relevance in this particular instance.
D, E) That’s for the Japanese radiation protection authorities to decide. Seeing that the surveys are ongoing and the results are not in yet, it’d be very presumptuous of me, half-way around the Earth, and without even the preliminary data – to make any recommendation on the subject.
F) I wouldn’t know… I havn’t read them. But seeing that americum is commonly present in smoke detectors and not very mobile in the envronment, I will readily admit I would from the onset be doubtful of any claims that say americum has traveled from Fukushima, Japan to CONUS.
I would not at all be suprised that Am-241 is found all over the place in the pacific region and continental US, it has been spread around by the numerous nuclear weapons tests performed during the cold war. If it was from Fukushima, very unlikely. The Petkau effect is an interesting anomaly which still only presents itself in radiation doses that are quite high, relatively speaking.
Yes the Petkau effect is interesting, what drew my attention to it is that he was a nuclear insider with nothing to gain from publicizing his findings.
The really hard part in getting my head around toxicity of all types is that I am not a biologist. All of my life I have been trained in linear cause and effect thinking. For example 1ppm of substance ‘a’ found in the blood is not toxic, but 10ppm is, therefore toxicity increases linearly as dosage increases.
The more I read about toxicity the more I find that linear cause and effect thinking can’t always be applied. I am sure these limitations affect physicists and chemists as well.
I personally doubt that there is any reliable dosage model in play – maybe I am just a doubter!
Al
Al,
Which reports about Am-241 are you referring to?
Hello Lantzelot,
This was from Tepco:
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/11042711-e.html
I am trying to ascertain if fission is occurring outside of the reactors. I suppose a better test for this is the presence of an isotope with a shorter half life like iodine-131.
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/09/radioactive-iodine-in-sewer-sludge-in.html
If it is true that I-131 was found as late as August, can I assume that fission is happening externally? If so, is that bad??
Thanks for your consideration and time
Al
Hello Al,
Regarding the I-131 detected in Oshu, please see my comment on the EX-SKF entry. This is just my reasoning so I could be wrong, but if there was something to hide from the authorities (conspiracy theories are quite common in the commentary lines of this blog), why would they raise suspicion by publishing these data at all?
Regarding the Am-241 I am happy to see that you are not reffering to Arnie Gundersen’s claims.
The levels detected are very low. Roughly it corresponds to the radioactivity if you grind the Am-241 source in your smoke detector and distribute it evenly in the top 5 cm of soil over 100 football fields. It could very well be from nuclear tests, but I am not sure about this.
Hello again Al,
Update on my previous comment regarding Am-241:
After a bit of googling I can confirm that the Americium seen in the TEPCO measurement is most likely due to the atmospheric nuclear tests in the 1950’s and -60s.
The reported value is 0.033 Bq/kg soil. Not a lot, but what is the “natural” level due to the nuclear tests?
From this document (http://www.ead.anl.gov/pub/doc/americium.pdf, you can find similar information in other documents of similar kind) we get:
“Average americium-241 levels in surface soil are about 0.01 picocuries (pCi)/g.”
A bit of conversion to the same unit is necessary:
0.01 picocuries per gram of soil is:
0.01*10^(-12) pCi/g * 3.7*10^(10) Bq/Ci * 1000 g/kg = 0.37 Bq/kg
So, the natural level is about 10 times the value reported by TEPCO in Fukushima. Does this mean that we instead should be suspicious because the value is so low? Probably not, local variations will surely differ substantially, and we do not know much about the nature of the measured sample. The fact that the sample from the waste disposal facility is lower than the one from the playground probably means that the ground has been changed more there, this is after all an industrial site.
I would not at all be suprised that Am-241 is found all over the place in the pacific region and continental US, it has been spread around by the numerous nuclear weapons tests performed during the cold war.
If it was from Fukushima, very unlikely.
The Petkau effect is an interesting anomaly which still only presents itself in radiation doses that are quite high, relatively speaking.