Highly radioactive water leaking, neutron beams in Fukushima

Neutron beams have been observed coming from the Fukushima plant. What does this mean? It means fission, which is a nuclear reaction that would take place in overheated rods. The neutron beams could either be leaking out through cracks in the reactor vessels or from fission reactions taking place in the spent-fuel pools.

Also of concern are the anonymous "Fukushima 50" nuclear workers who stayed on to try to avert disaster. Most of them are older workers. They are heroes, no matter what radiation dose they end up absorbing, their willingness to sacrifice their health and safety for that of others is heroic.

Three workers this week stepped into highly radioactive water while attempting to hook up electricity. One of the workers had high-sided boots and the other two had lower-sided boots. Those two ended up in the hospital with possible radiation burns on the skin of their feet/legs where the water soaked into their boots. Most official reports deny that the workers received anything higher than 100 milliseiverts exposure. A TIME blogger reports that the workers' dosage tags showed about 175 millisieverts each. One commenter on that article, "squeaksqueak" states (edited for brevity):

"Press reports suggested that the hospitalized workers had been exposed to doses 10,000 times above normal. But the only reliable information on the dosage received by the workers comes from a TEPCO press release, which states that the trio suffered radiation exposure between 170 millisieverts and 180 millisieverts."

No. I was watching NHK World when the information came out. I wrote it down. But I have to say I just about fell out of my chair when I wrote down the numbers.

The radiation in the water that the workers were exposed to was 3.9 MILLION Bq/cc. It was then stated in the news conference that this is 10,000 times the amount of radiation that would be in water in a reactor that is working normally. This is a very important point. It clearly shows that this water that had leaked out of the reactor had been exposed directly to the reactor fuel, which could only have happened if some of the fuel rods melted and the protective coating oxidized off. Otherwise it could not have been so highly irradiated. The estimated radiation exposure was 173-180 millisieverts between the three men. The surface of the water measured 400 millisieverts.

At the hospital, after decontamination, the workers were still radioactive, and that measurement was around 150 millisieverts.

The most recent report is that the feet of the two men were exposed to 2-6 sieverts (2,000 to 6,000 millisieverts). This is usually a fatal amount of radiation exposure if it is full body exposure, so the fact it was only their feet that were exposed likely makes a huge difference. It will take a couple weeks for some symptoms to appear.

A further explanation of a small point. The 173-180 millisieverts exposure the three men had was 173 for one, 179 for another, and 180 for the third. This is the exposure they had from the radiation in the air in that room. This would have been shown on each person's meter.

Two of the men had additional radiation exposure from the water that leaked into their boots.

Every summer I go to the mammography place for my annual dose of 3 millisieverts.  Add this to the average American dose and I end up with about 5 to 6 millisieverts of exposure each year after age 40.