Today I learned about Fuel Fleas

---CNN's John King:
Arnie Gunderson, with us live...
What do you make of this news now? (That Japan's doubled its radiation exposure estimates.)


---Arnie Gunderson:
I'm not surprised. They're saying now... These are all calculations. The instruments were blown to smithereens. So they're calculating what these exposures were.


---John King:
...As we try to judge the fallout, 
not only in Japan but (we'll see what that government report says) but we've talked about some radiation, relatively low amounts, very low amounts, making its way across the Pacific. 


You've seen evidence of what's called 'hot particles' showing up on the US West Coast, Seattle for example. 
What are we talking about, and how worried should people be? 


---Arnie Gunderson:
Well the radiation initially comes out as a big cloud of gases and that's what you can measure with a geiger counter. 


But now what we're finding are these things called 'hot particles' and in the industry we call them 'fuel fleas' because they're incredibly small. They're smaller than the thickness of your hair. 


In Tokyo, in April, measurements indicate that there's about 10 hot particles per day in what a normal person would breathe. And it's interesting because in Seattle, it didn't go down that much. It was about 5 hot particles/day. Because most of the time, as we've talked about back in April the wind was blowing toward the West Coast. That's why we were warning to wash your lettuce and things like that. 


Now what that means is that these hot particles can lodge in your lung, or in your digestive tract or your bone, and over time cause a cancer. But they're way too small to be picked up on a large radiation detector. 


---John King:
And so, do you believe there are enough of them that people on the West Coast of the United States need to be worried, or is it a very minor concern? 


---Arnie Gunderson:
Well the average person breathes in about 10 cubic meters a day. And the filters out there for April show that they were breathing in, per day, about five particles. Now, these are charged, which is why we call them 'fuel fleas' too and they latch onto lung tissue. 


I'm still advising my friends to wash all of your vegetables to make sure you can get it off, but short of that, we're at a point now where your just can't run from the particles that are still in the air. 


---John King:
Well we'll keep watching that. I want to show our viewers some satellite images we have of then and now, satellite images of the nuclear plant on March 14, compared to May 25. When you look at this, three months since, do you get the sense looking at the new photos number 1) first and foremost, do things appear to be under control right now? 


---Arnie Gunderson:
No, the units are still leaking, the difference in the picture though is that it was cold in March, so you could see steam, sort of like breathing on a cold day. Now it's hot, so you don't see the steam coming out of the plant but they're still emitting radioactive gases and an enormous amount of radioactive liquid. 


So the only thing that's going to make this go away is time. They're going to need another year or so before this radioactive material cools down to the point where it doesn't boil anymore. 


And until it stops boiling you're going to be cranking out steam and you're going to be cranking out radioactive liquid.

Reference: Rigorous Intuition - Nuclear Meltdown Watch (p 75)