Slashdot Mirror

(1) Safecast (unfortunately motivated by disaster, but most environmental monitoring spikes after such events): https://blog.safecast.org/ . (2) EnviroDIY (water quality and quantity related; believe they are developing data portal): https://www.envirodiy.org/ . (3) Wunderground has citizen network of weather stations. Not completely open, but they (proprietary company) update forecasts more often than gov't agencies due to automated data collection. The first example has been examined by peer-review ( http://iopscience.iop.org/arti... ). While absolute values are questionable with in situ sensors, the deltas with a large user base (and preferably different sensor manufacturers) would at least cause the academic community to raise their eyebrows.

Contaminating the whole Pacific Ocean? .... Were you absent the day they taught physics in physics class?

Meh... have a look at this, or is this not the Pacific?
http://blog.safecast.org/2014/...

This has been going on since before the plants were built. The reactors were so vulnerable to the earthquake/tsunami because they deliberately ignored the historical record of flooding in that part of Japan. The collective decision was made to ignore the worst case scenario.

After the earthquake, flood and power outage, the upper management was incompetently slow to make decisions because they were unwilling to think about loosing the plants and the likelihood of radioactivity being released. It was only the heroic action of the technical team at the site that averted a disaster worse the Chernobyl. They ultimately had to disobey direct orders to save the situation.

In the period after the so called 'shutdown' the authorities have been maintaining a delusional belief that they are doing an acceptable job and events are under control. Neither is true.

Delusional thinking is supported by not doing obvious monitoring procedures. It's magical thinking: if they don't know how bad it is, then things must be OK.

There is an ongoing failure to monitor radiation at the plant site, in the ocean and on the land. NGOs and international entities have been denied permission to do independent monitoring in the exclusion area and the ocean near the plant. One NGO Safecast has been doing radiation monitoring outside the exclusion zone and making the data available.

Quibbling about whether beta radiation is lethal is an example of delusional thinking. The fact that there are an entire spectrum of recently discovered radioactive water leaks is the critical information. None of these leaks were found in a timely manor. This happening two years after the reactor failure is appalling.

Tepco does not know how bad things are because they don't want to know. The rest of the Nuclear Village is not much better. The Abe government is putting significant effort into trying to restart other closed reactors at the expense of dealing with Fukushima. The Nuclear Regulatory Agency has no credibility, because they have done almost nothing to make Tepco more responsible. Tepco and the NRA have been hiding as much information from the public as they can, so no-one believes anything they say.

The prognosis is bleak. The situation is deteriorating, and two years have been wasted while ignoring the obvious. There does not seem to be any organization in Japan that has the leadership ability to manage the crisis. The likelihood of another very serious radiation leak is going up with time, not down.

It is completely possible that there will be a dramatic failure and an internationally chartered group will take over long term responsibility. This is in effect what happened at Chernobyl. See New Safe Containment.

My experience with Crash Space in LA has been that it has created a whole bunch of new stuff:

FlipBookKit, a Kickstarter-funded project, started there.

The bGeigie nano radiation detector (a part of Safecast.Org) was developed there, as well as products from ThingM such as the "blink(1)" USB-connected programmable status LED and the "blinkm" programmable smart 3-color LEDs.

Members of Crash Space have also shown up on TV shows such as Unchained Reaction.

Crash Space has several folks whose full-time job is working on various tech projects.

I don't believe what TEPCO says anyway.

Just follow Safecast. They do proper radiation measuring:

http://blog.safecast.org/worldmap/#/?&stv=true&mv=true&dt=true&cc=%235aa2d2&mz=8&lat=36&lng=140

Or, if I were living in Tokyo like the original poster, I could measure my area for FREE with the help of the Safecast community, as I posted earlier. But never let trivial facts get in the way of your blind dogma . . .

And thanks for the confirmation that Slashdot is full of a bunch of pro-nuke shills who are so insecure that they cannot even have a rational, non-sensational discussion on public monitoring of radiation . . .

Wow, that must be pretty embarrassing . . . being in YOUR field and having never heard of Safecast, the first community network for monitoring radiation. That area could be measured for free with the help of "experts." Perhaps an "expert" such as yourself should recommend people contacting a groups like that instead of sticking your nose up and saying their concerns are not worth being addressed?

But I understand your need to mystify measuring radiation. I mean, if measuring radiation becomes so easy that it just becomes another phone app, then how are you going to pay off that student debt of yours?

"However, contacting them would not help him, because he does not have a problem in the first place"
Since when was scientific observation inferior to political dogma!? Maybe he would feel better having objective measurements rather than just trusting you, who has nothing to lose (and probably live thousands of miles away). Maybe that, in itself, has value to him.

Safecast have found it worth their time to start measuring parts of Tokyo. Who knows what and where the yakuza have been dumping in the last 50 years!? How does his or anyone else testing threaten your love affair with nuke power?

Nice, so you consider yourself an "enthusiast" in this area, but you were unaware of the first community of radiation monitoring enthusiasts? Care explaining why you considered yourself qualified to respond to his post then?

No, the poster was asking how best to go about it. The correct geek answer was to tell him to get involved with Safecast. Your non-geek answer of "forget about it" indicates you are not up to date on state of the radiation measuring community. That, in itself, is to be expected of Slashdot posts, but then moderators blinded by politics mod your post up and, for a while, your post represents the only modded-up response to the question. That is why Slashdot in broken when it comes to anything nuclear related . . .

Alright, why not advise that he BORROWS one from an organization then? Like from Safecast?

And what misunderstanding? Maybe he has a kid that likes to play and eat mud and he noticed the 57 microSv/hr hotspot in Kashiwa. Who knows wtf is going on around Tokyo, but woudn't a legitimate geek response be to scientifically test the area, just in case? Your response is either non-geek like (for a geek site) and/or just playing "nothing to see here, folks" shill-speak.

You should contact Safecast. I believe they will even lend you a device and the data will be incorporated into their map.

Oh, yeah, and you asking Slashdot this question is like asking PETA how to skin a deer. Hope you have the persistence to scan through all the highly modded posts insulting your intelligence to actually find useful answers to your question . . .

So this doesn't specifically address your question about geiger counter testing, but if you're interested in the radiation levels in japan, and an attempt to crowdsource radiation collection, check out http://www.safecast.org/ Also, I recall reading somewhere that they were working with some group to create a DIY geiger counter. Might include some testing info as well.