- Conditions at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant are
deteriorating and the doomsday scenario is beginning to unfold. On Sunday,
Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) officials reported that the levels of
radiation leaking into seawater at the Unit 2 reactor were 100,000 times
above normal, and the airborne radiation measured 4-times higher than government
limits. As a result, emergency workers were evacuated from the plant and
rushed to safe location. The prospect of a full-core meltdown or an environmental
catastrophe of incalculable magnitude now looms larger than ever. The crisis
is getting worse.
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- If spent fuel rods catch fire from lack of coolant, the
intense heat will lift radiation plumes high into the atmosphere that will
drift around the world. That's the nightmare scenario, clouds of radioactive
material showering the planet with lethal toxins for months on end. And,
according to the Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics of Vienna,
that deadly process has already begun. The group told New Scientist that:
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- "Japan's damaged nuclear plant in Fukushima has
been emitting radioactive iodine and caesium at levels approaching those
seen in the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident in 1986. Austrian researchers
have used a worldwide network of radiation detectors designed to
spot clandestine nuclear bomb tests to show that iodine-131 is being
released at daily levels 73 per cent of those seen after the 1986 disaster.
The daily amount of caesium-137 released from Fukushima Daiichi is around
60 per cent of the amount released from Chernobyl. ("New Scientist",
March 24 ---thanks to Michael Collins "They said it wasn't like Chernobyl
and they were wrong")
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- So, volatile radioactive elements are already being lofted
into the jet stream and spread across continents. What's different here
is that the quantities are much larger than they were at Chernobyl, thus,
the dangers are far greater. According to the same group of scientists
"the Fukushima plant has around 1760 tonnes of fresh and used nuclear
fuel on site" (while) "the Chernobyl reactor had only 180 tonnes."
The troubles at one nuclear facility now pose a direct threat to humans
and other species everywhere. Is this what Obama meant when he called nuclear
power, "Safe and green?"
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- This from CNN:
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- "Authorities in Japan raised the prospect Friday
of a likely breach in the all-important containment vessel of the No. 3
reactor at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, a potentially
ominous development in the race to prevent a large-scale release of radiation."
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- And this from the New York Times:
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- "A senior nuclear executive who insisted on anonymity
but has broad contacts in Japan said that there was a long vertical crack
running down the side of the reactor vessel itself. The crack runs down
below the water level in the reactor and has been leaking fluids and gases,
he said....
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- "There is a definite, definite crack in the vessel
- it's up and down and it's large," he said. "The problem with
cracks is they do not get smaller." (Thanks to Washington's Blog)
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- So, there's a breach in the containment vessel and radioactive
material is being released into the sea killing fish and marine life and
turning the coastal waters into a nuclear wasteland. This is from the Kyodo
News:
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- "Adding to the woes is the increasing level of contamination
in the sea near the plant....Radioactive iodine-131 at a concentration
1,850.5 times the legal limit was detected in a seawater sample taken Saturday
around 330 meters south of the plant, near a drainage outlet of the four
troubled reactors, compared with 1,250.8 times the limit found Friday,
the agency said.
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- Nishiyama told a press conference in the morning that
he cannot deny the possibility that radioactive materials are continuing
to be released into the sea. He said later that the water found at the
basement of the turbine buildings is unlikely to have flowed into the sea,
causing contamination." ("Woes deepen over radioactive water
at nuke plant", Kyodo News)
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- Predictably, the media has switched into full "BP
Oil Spill-mode", making every effort to minimize the disaster and
to soothe the public with half-truths and disinformation. The goal is to
conceal the scale of the catastrophe and protect the nuclear industry.
It's another case of profits over people. Still, the truth is available
for those who are willing to sift through the lies. Radiation has turned
up in the Tokyo water supply, imports of milk, vegetable and fruit from
four prefectures in the vicinity of Fukushima have been banned, and the
evacuation zone around the plant has widened to an 18 mile radius.
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- Also, monitors have detected tiny radioactive particles
which have spread from the reactor site across the Pacific to North America,
the Atlantic and Europe...According to Reuters: "It's only a matter
of days before it disperses in the entire northern hemisphere," said
Andrea Stahl, a senior scientist at the Norwegian Institute for Air Research."
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- Here's more from Brian Moench, MD:
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- "Administration spokespeople continuously claim
"no threat" from the radiation reaching the US from Japan, just
as they did with oil hemorrhaging into the Gulf. Perhaps we should all
whistle "Don't worry, be happy" in unison. A thorough review
of the science, however, begs a second opinion.
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- That the radiation is being released 5,000 miles away
isn't as comforting as it seems.... Every day, the jet stream carries pollution
from Asian smoke stacks and dust from the Gobi Desert to our West Coast,
contributing 10 to 60 percent of the total pollution breathed by Californians,
depending on the time of year. Mercury is probably the second most toxic
substance known after plutonium. Half the mercury in the atmosphere over
the entire US originates in China. It, too, is 5,000 miles away. A week
after a nuclear weapons test in China, iodine 131 could be detected in
the thyroid glands of deer in Colorado, although it could not be detected
in the air or in nearby vegetation." (Washington's Blog)
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- The smoldering Fukushima hulk is a perpetual death machine
poisoning everything around it--sea, sky and soil. Here's a clip from the
Collin's article:
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- "...The soil contamination is really high. Soil
found 40 kilometers away.... the levels on the soil were very high-in fact,
a thousand times iodine, 4,000 times the cesium standard. And we just got
a report from the Kyoto Research Reactor Institute, Dr. Tetsuji Imanaka,
that said that-he had to look a little bit more into the sampling of the
Japanese government, but depending on how the sampling was done, this level
of contamination in the soil could be twice the amount that was compulsory
evacuation for Chernobyl. Aileen Mioko Smith, March 24 (thanks to Michael
Collins "They said it wasn't like Chernobyl and they were wrong")
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- Twice as high as Chernobyl already, and the disaster
is likely to persist for months to come. Things are getting worse, much
worse.
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- The Japanese government has been downplaying the crisis
to make it look like they have matters under control, but it's all a sham.
They control nothing. The rescue mission has been a flop from the get-go
and now things are at a boiling point. The emergency effort has been overtaken
by events and now it's a matter of "wait and see". We're approaching
zero hour.
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- So why the cover up? Why is the media trying to soft-peddle
the real effects of a nuclear cataclysm? Does the Japanese government really
believe they can make things better by tweaking their public relations
strategy? They should focus on saving lives and abandon "perception
management" altogether. This is from the Union of Concerned Scientists
website:
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- "Our assessment is that the Japanese government
is squandering the opportunity to initiate an orderly evacuation from larger
areas around the siteespecially of sensitive populations, like children
and pregnant women. It is potentially wasting valuable time by not undertaking
a larger scale evacuation at this time."
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- The Japanese government is trying to protect the powerful
nuclear lobby. The same is true of Obama, who continues to promote nuclear
energy even while radiation belches from battered Fukushima. He's not thinking
about the public; he's thinking about the deep pocket constituents who
fill his campaign coffers.
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- Japanese workers are putting their lives on the line
to regain control of the broken facility, but with little success. The
probability of another fire, another monstrous explosion, or a full-core
meltdown increases by the day. The Fukushima fiasco is gaining pace putting
tens of thousands of people at risk of thyroid cancer, childhood leukemia
and other life-threatening ailments.
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- On Saturday, Japan's prime minister, Naoto Kan, said
the situation at the Fukushima nuclear plant was ''serious''. That might
be the understatement of the century.
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- Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached
at: fergiewhitney@msn.com.
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