Above: Joe mounting the Solarcast Nano within sight of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. This week Safecast installed one of our new Solarcast Nano realtime radiation sensors at a site inside the exclusion zone in Okuma, Fukushima, just 2 km from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi reactor. We currently have 15 fixed realtime sensors in…
Southern California Wildfire Zones on the Safecast Map
The horrific wildfires currently burning in the Southern California region have already been devastating for some and have many others understandably concerned. In addition to the damage from the fires themselves, smoke inhalation could present health risks to people in the area. Safecast currently has 30 Solarcast units deployed in the LA area, which are…
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Ruthenium coverup continues
Several days ago, we published our first blog post about the notable release of Ruthenium-106 that was detected in Europe in late September-early October of this year. As we noted, detections of Ru-106 were confirmed by over 30 countries, and careful analyses performed independently by the national laboratories of France, Germany, and the Czech Republic…
About that radioactive plume of Ru-106….
Above: The map released by IRSN on Nov. 9, 2017. Please note that it does not show the extent of the Ru-106 plume itself, but the likelihood that any of the grid points is the origin of the release. Updated Nov. 17, 2017, with information regarding a closed IAEA assessment made in mid-October, which was…
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Safecast Report 2017, Part 2.1 now available
The second installment of the 2017 Safecast Report is now available for download. Part 2.1: Situation Report — Issues at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Powerplant (FDNPP) is a 66-page A4-size print-quality pdf that provides a detailed description of conditions at the damaged powerplant. Sections are devoted to the overall plans for decomissioning, the spent fuel pools, contaminated…
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Data for Development
Safecast was happy to be asked by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) to contribute a case study about our project to their new publication, Case Studies on Data for Development. The case study collection is part of the OECD’s larger 2017 Development Co-operation Report: Data for Development. The authors note: With the unfolding…
A Long Safecast Weekend
Above: Joe preps a drone for a pre-programmed flight in Tomioka. Safecast’s work involves so much technical knowledge that our online team discussions literally run 24 hours a day. Developing and maintaining the hardware and software side is very geeky work and occurs largely in the digital realm. But getting it out into the real…
Safecast Report 2017, Part 1 now available
Part 1 of the Safecast Report 2017 is now available for download as a print-quality PDF. The report has grown in size, and in contrast with previous years, we are making it available in sections for easier download and reading. A combined version will also be available. Section 2: Situation Report – Intro and 2.1- Issues…
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The hottest drive: Safecasting the newly reopened Route 114 in Namie
Above: National Route 114 runs through the current exclusion zone in Namie. The area remains evacuated but the road was recently reopened for public use. National Route 114 in Namie was reopened to public access on Sept 20th of this year. The route, also known as the Tomioka Highway, is a primary thoroughfare which runs…
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New Safecast Kickstarter Campaign Launched!
Above: A prototype bGeigie Raku (left) pictured alongside a bGeigie Nano (right) Safecast just launched a new Kickstarter campaign to find development of the bGeigie Raku, our latest-generation bGeigie mobile radiation detector. Kickstarter invited us to participate in their new Kickstarter Gold program, which just launched today, and brings together new proposals from iconic past…
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