This has been driving me nuts, too. I've been searching for actual, real data from the reactor: what types of radioactive particles/material have been released, what concentration, where is it falling. Give me the science, dagnabit!

All I find are lots of meaningless adjectives.
-Blast

TEPCO's new releases (for what their worth)
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/index-e.html

International Atomic Energy Agency news releases - Best resource so far
http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html

Nuclear Regulatory Commission news releases
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/news/2011/

EDIT: Most current
http://nei.cachefly.net/newsandevents/in...in-that-region/

Here is an excellent article about BWR safety systems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_water_reactor_safety_systems

The one thing that stood out was;



So all the discussion about the integrity of the core reactor vessel about whether the core is breached/degraded etc in the various reactor buildings is a mute point in terms of actual radiation release from this accident. None of the so called nuclear media experts have actually mentioned this and no one seems to asking what happened to reactor nos 1 and 3 spent fuel reactor ponds during those huge explosions. No one has even asked when each reactor was last refueled. For example if one the reactors was refueled in the last week or two there will be very little radiation release potential from the inner reactor containment vessel if breached (fissile byproducts) compared the 1 week old pulled fuel that was now being stored in the storage pool.

There is also very little discussion about the added dangers of the 7% Plutonium MOX fuel in reactor No 3.

Some of the news agencies seem more or less objective than others at times but IMO all the major agencies have put drama and wow factor ahead of intelligent, objective information dissemination.

Is there a reliable, near real time, radiation map online?

Todays report from Tokyo shows some frustration by the ex pat living in Tokyo. Certainly he has a "bullet proof, young mans perspective", but does make an interesting observation about how Japanese language translations can get skewed in tone and meaning...

http://www.blogtv.com/People/TokyoCooney

You know it is a disaster because normally reliable information systems have broken down (among others). A defining characteristic....

Real time radiation map? Hah! Try glowinthedark.com. (That's a joke, son).

Here's an interview with a retired scientist from Sandia Labs whose specialty was the catastrophic failure of nuclear reactors:

http://blogs.knoxnews.com/munger/2011/03/ex-sandia-engineer-talks-about.html

tl;dr -- it will be months before we know whether the power company will get control of the situation. Best case scenario: what we've got now -- a failed reactor with damaged rods which will take years to clean up and dispose of. Worst case scenario: a Chernobyl style explosion which releases a plume of radiation which drifts south over the Japanese island. (If the plume drifts over the Pacific, Dr. Allen says that's a good thing because it will disperse harmlessly.)

Here's a comment from the news this morning ... about the radioactivity that's reaching California.

"A diplomat who has access to radiation tracking by the U.N.'s Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization told The Associated Press in Vienna that initial readings show tiny amounts of radiation have reached California. But it's not dangerous in any way — "about a billion times beneath levels that would be health threatening," the diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the organization does not make its findings public."

I'm not excited by the actual events - because I think that the levels of radiation reaching CA are indeed tiny.

But what's also noticeable is that we've got hordes and hordes of experts who have the data at their fingertips ... but none of them are saying what it actually is. The problem here is POLICIES, PROTOCOLS, LEGAL CONSTRAINTS, and MEDIA RESTRICTIONS.

But does this make any sense? Literally it means that the general public cannot get the info it needs ... when there is a major disaster going on somewhere in the world. Even when the global community is affected.

Pete #2

http://online.itp.ucsb.edu/online/plecture/bmonreal11/
March 16, 2011 - 80-minute video which provides an educational view of the nuclear disaster in Japan.

Ben Monreal's home page at UCSB: http://hep.ucsb.edu/people/bmonreal/bmonreal.html

Explains becquerels, curies, grays, and sieverts; alpha, beta, and gamma radiation; explains what the dosage levels mean (millisieverts per hour, for example) and how to translate that into what is harmful or fatal; explains that relations between dosage and cancer are not well known; explanation of failure of reactor (what happened at Three Mile Island, what may be going on at Fukushima [no one knows], what happened at Chernobyl); why Fukushima won't turn into a Chernobyl. Good explanation of why shelter-in-place works and when.

Conclusion: increased world-wide radiation is nil; worse low-level radiation effects come from burning coal; you now know how to count millisieverts and can make your own judgment on how to respond based on reports of radiation levels.

Professor Theo Theofanous discusses the problems with the reactors, showing a diagram of the reactors, explaining what potential solutions are, and giving his concerns about potential problems. In a post-presentation question, Professor Theofanous contrasts the earthquake/tsunami at Fukushima with an earthquake in California at San Onofre and Diablo Canyon.

His home page is at http://www.chemengr.ucsb.edu/people/faculty_d.php?id=14