Pages

Thursday, March 13, 2014

WIPP's Radiation Detection Equipment Was Overwhelmed By Explosive Plutonium Release

It was (and still is) mathematically and physically impossible for the exhaust air sampling equipment used at DOE's WIPP facility to measure or even accurately estimate the totality of the Radioactive weapon's grade Plutonium which was released into the air during the Valentine's day underground explosion.

Any calculation of the size of the Plutonium release based on WIPPs exhaust sampling data is at best only an educated guess.The short of it is that the system was not designed to be able to quantify the radioactive releases which started on Valentine's day.

The sampling equipment used by DOE WIPP was basically designed to estimate how much radioactive material a human could have inhaled had that person been standing inside the exhaust vent. Given the current situation, that's sort of like trying to estimate the size of Tsunami by measuring how much salt water a person standing on the beach could have drank during the Tsunami.

The air samplers used by DOE WIPP intake approximately 70 cubic meters of air per day, not coincidental a human breathes in roughly 70 cubic meters of air per day. The WIPP exhaust system on the other hand, has the capability to exhaust 28,800,000 cubic meters of air per day. The problem with trying to figured out what was in nearly 29 million cubic meters of air when you only sampled only 70 cubic meters is obvious to most people, especially when the release was non uniform and explosive in nature.

Two things are key in understanding why DOE WIPP's exhaust air sampling is not up to snuff:

(1) The "Nyquist sampling theorem" [NST]

(2) Applying NST to sampling a physically continuous process involving a potentially compressible gas flow containing potentially discontinuous densities of radioactive materials, all of which may be disturbed by the sampling process itself .


We list the above for anyone who wants to figure out and verify the math of the simplified explanation we offer below.

In video terminology, the problem with WIPP sensors is that the frame rate they are using to sample the system is not matched to the frame rate at which the system is operating. The result being missing data, pixelation, skewing, aliasing, and etc.

In data rate terminology, the exhuast is outputting information at Gigabit rates and the sampling system is capturing data in kilobit rates. The result is that the receiver is overwhelmed and misses data, yet it appears as if it is supplying useful data.

In real physical terms, to even attempt to accurately capture the radioactive nature of the exhaust stream, the sampling system air intake draw must at all times match the velocity of exhaust system so as to not alter the radioactive density of the sampled stream. The simplest way to visualize this sampling concept is to think of how people get on and off of contentiously moving amusement park rides like the Haunted Mansion at Disney World.

To safely extract people from the Disney's Haunted Mansion Ride, people step out of their continuously moving carts onto a continuously moving sidewalk whose velocity is exactly matched to that of the carts. In the same manner, to preserve the airborne density of continuously moving radioactive exhaust air at WIPP, the sampling system must have its draw velocity exactly matched to that of the radioactive exhaust stream.

Either under sampling or oversampling the stream damages the measurement density; just akin to how a person might be damaged when stepping off of a moving ride and onto a moving side walk which is moving either too fast or too slow relative to the ride's velocity. Of course, the problem becomes even more complex when the radioactive release is explosive in nature. Unfortunately, based on CEMRC's data, it's clear that WIPP only has a very rudimentary exhaust air sampling system which has no hope of identifying how much Plutonium was released into the environment.


So having hopefully read through our analysis, it should be abundantly clear the DOE WIPP doesn't really know how much Plutonium was released into the air, their best guess only serves to underestimate what actually happened. Toss in the fact that WIPP has no clue what was released via the other non monitored shafts at their facility.  And it should be clear that any assurances of safety fall short of what the data can actually mathematically support; even if one assumes that WIPP / DOE/ CEMRC analyze the data honestly. Unfortunately, the data they have released does not mesh well (if at all) with the narrative they are pressing on the public.

In the end,  watch the following video of smoke billowing out of the Salt Shaft at WIPP during the 2/5/14 fire, and consider that if they had only measured the smoke coming out of the exhaust stack WIPP would have claimed that little or no smoke was released.
Direct link to WIPP fire video: http://www.tout.com/m/7go08x



 Source data:




2 comments:

  1. Interesting post about the sampling velocity... where did you get the information regarding the the air samplers and the WIPP exhaust system and is it verifiable? (DOE WIPP air sampler intake approximately 70 cubic meters of air per day & the WIPP exhaust system on the other hand, has the capability to exhaust 28,800,000 cubic meters of air per day.) thanks.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. the ~70 cubic meters per day sampling rate can be calculated directly from the numbers that CERMC reported, as they reported the sampling time, the gross measurement and the gross/cubic meters sampled.
      The exhaust rate is based on WIPP's EPA permit and assumes all three fans are running.
      The sources can be found by following the source link.
      There is some new information that AFTER the HEPA filters were turned on that ventilation was down to 1 fan, we are still following up on that info.

      Delete