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Safecast was born after the Fukushima meltdown to crowdsourceradiation measurements. But why stop at radiation? Now theorganization aims to measure all the things in the air that might killus.
After the tsunami drove ashore in Japan in March 2011, smashing the Fukushima Daiichinuclear power plant, there was almost no public information about radiation leaking from
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from the public. Safecast was born a week later. The organization, led by a fewresourceful citizens, decided to make their own radiation sensors and stream the data tothe web.Today, the Tokyo-based team of more than 100 volunteers is branching out. "We havequite a task ahead of us at the moment," writes Sean Bonner, one of the co-founders ofSafecast. "With radiation, we found something that we were shocked to find wasn’t alreadyavailable for people, and felt that we could contribute something. I’d like to think that ournext steps will be in a similar vein, focusing not on existing data but rather on creatinguseful data that doesn’t yet exist."Safecast is now looking at getting new sensors up and running for air pollution--particulatematter or other contaminants--in the next three months. It will be applying the samephilosophy to other pollution that it applied to radiation: putting the collection and control ofcritical information into the hands of citizens.The preferred method is hacking together new devices from cheap, effective components."Some of our devices are literally a collection of raw parts that we wired together, but theyare raw parts that anyone can buy," says Bonner. For example, Safecast combinedoff-the-shelf commercial radiation monitors and custom devices to create its own networkof radiation sensors. Data is comparable to that collected by nuclear scientists, saysSafecast, as they use professional-grade sensors (the LND7317, or 2" pancake) installed
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Funded by a Kickstarter campaign and grants, Safecast is now deploying more than 300sensors across Japan and has collected more than 3 million data points. Its maps arebeautiful, if disturbing, renderings of the fallout from Fukushima Daiichi, the strickennuclear power plant, and its distribution across the country.Eventually, we may see the same for global pollutants around the world.
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MICHAEL J. COREN
Michael Coren covers science, economics and the environment. He is the cofounder ofthe multimedia production studio + newsroom MajorPlanet Studios. He ...Continued
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