Uranium from the soil of Aizu Wakamatsu

A surface soil sample was personally taken from the edge of the hard standing in the car park by a church in Aizu Wakamatsu in July 2011. Aizu Wakamatsu is approximately 100km west of the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

The Uranium-238 daughter Thorium-234 and Uranium-235 daughter, Thorium-231 were measured in this sample, which means Uranium-235 and -238 were here as well.

Uranium-235 is, of course, a decay product of Plutonium-239 which was a component of the MOX fuel in Fukushima Reactor 3. Plutonium-239 cannot be detected by gamma spectrometry. Although caution should be exercised in drawing this conclusion on the basis of the exact ratio since the peaks are weak, it would suggest there is far too much enriched Uranium here, which is of concern. A sample will be sent for Mass spectrometry
(ICPMS) to follow this up.

The total Uranium concentration is also quite high at 112 Bq/kg (expected is about 10 to 20 Bq/kg). The matter of the Uranium contamination requires more research.

 

aizugammarept4

About this site

This website updates the latest news about the Fukushima nuclear plant and also archives the past news from 2011. Because it's always updated and added live, articles, categories and the tags are not necessarily fitted in the latest format.
I am the writer of this website. About page remains in 2014. This is because my memory about 311 was clearer than now, 2023, and I think it can have a historical value. Now I'm living in Romania with 3 cats as an independent data scientist.
Actually, nothing has progressed in the plant since 2011. We still don't even know what is going on inside. They must keep cooling the crippled reactors by water, but additionally groundwater keeps flowing into the reactor buildings from the broken parts. This is why highly contaminated water is always produced more than it can circulate. Tepco is planning to officially discharge this water to the Pacific but Tritium is still remaining in it. They dilute this with seawater so that it is legally safe, but scientifically the same amount of radioactive tritium is contained. They say it is safe to discharge, but none of them have drunk it.

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