When Will Governments Act to Protect Us From Fukushima's Spreading Radiation?

[ensho]

http://counterpunch.com/roth05242011.html


Fukushima Goes Global


To a limited extent, you can protect yourself and others against cancer from radiation.(1) But such means offer limited protection at best, and meanwhile massive amounts of irreparable damage are being caused ongoingly by the Fukushima disaster. Here are the high points of the latest disclosures and findings:

First, there was a coverup, and that there were one or more meltdowns at the Fukishima site very early on, one of them even before the tsunami hit. Besides confirming the usual about reliability of official sources, a key conclusion to draw from that is that many reactors are even less safe than previously thought. Besides the four on the California Coast plus a number of smaller research reactors in their vicinity, all in line to be damaged by the earthquake and possible tsunami likely to happen sooner or later and possibly any time, there is at least one that was in danger of damage from the Mississippi flooding that just occurred last week.(2)

Second, it becomes clearer all the time that we don't have to wait for one of the reactors in the U.S. to blow to create serious danger and harm. Among nuclear experts not paid by the industry or employed by government sources essentially in league with the industry, one suggests that fuel rods were blown into the air and vaporized by early events at Fukushima, others may or have already melted down through their containment structures and are going who knows where, and massive amounts of radioactive water have been and continue to be released into the ocean. It also appears that far greater harm could yet be done by the Fukushima reactors, and neither TEPCO nor the Japanese Government are up to the task of preventing that. Harvey Wasserman, a longtime activist who edits the nukefree.org website, calls for an international effort to devise and implement a plan to contain the damage to the extent possible.(3)

-snip 3rd and 4th reason and various ways to try to protect yourself-

However, there is a limit to how much red wine, dark chocolate, or even Justice, can heal. It seems clear that massive amounts of irreparable damage are being caused ongoingly by the Fukushima disaster. My purpose in sharing this information and analysis is to inform you of the threat to your own health and that of your children and grandchildren, born, unborn or maybe just hoped for, to give you the tools to do as much as can be done to protect yourself and those you love, and to attempt to motivate you and others to become vocal and otherwise active in advocating that the U.S. Government begin behaving responsibly, first, by monitoring and disclosing accurate information about the situation at Fukushima, the ongoing releases of radiation and where the various radioactive elements are traveling; by cutting off (rather than continuing, as President Obama has proposed) the billions of dollars in subsidies, including the limitations of liability, without which nuclear power could not continue to operate; and by seeing to the shutdown and responsible decommissioning of nuclear reactors in the U.S. and the development of replacement sources of power, including conservation, and excluding biomass incineration, as the governments of Japan and Germany are now beginning to do.
-----------------------------

[Autumn]

1. When pigs sprout wings and fly

we are not a priority.

[ensho]

2. agree - only Barons matter

nt

[Lenomsky]

3. Exactly

[divvy]

4. How did they calculate the lesser damage?

I would be interested in knowing how they calculated the lesser damage that they released, before they decided they were melted down... How they decided the cores were melted down... And how they decided when they were melted down? We don't have any basis for any of this information. Also, remember that there isn't 3 meltdowns... There are 4. U4's core was in the fuel pool... It has melted down... U4 pool is broken... that core is not being adequately cooled and we don't even know where it is. I am not sire that we really know the status of U1-3. They are pouring water into he vessels... It is leaking out he containments... the RX vessel shells aren't very hot... There does not seem to be a lot of hydrogen being created. That is all we know... Is that enough to say that the core is being cooled and is stable? I am not sure. It isn't obvious to me. xxxxxx It is not surprising to me that the 3 cores melted down on the Units that were running. The Units were experiencing core uncovering... That caused the hydrogen that exploded when they tried to vent the RX vessel... Then they abandoned the site due to radiation exposure... Of course, the cores melted down. Why wouldn't they? In virtually all the accident drills I participated in (at least a dozen, maybe more... I didn't count them) that involved losing all the diesels to a Unit, the cores melted down. We drilled on it, because we had to practice evacuations... A core meltdown is about the only accident that can lead to releases of radiation large enough to warrant evacuation. We didn't, however, drill on the conditions they faced in Japan. They really had little to no chance of preventing a core meltdown in U1-3. Their very very small chance went to zero, when the operating crew heroes were pulled from the site. Bottom line is that these Units and none of the Units of this vintage design, whether BWR or PWR, were designed to run without AC power or trained people to respond to an accident. Xxxxxx I have great concern if Tepco doesn't know any more about the situation than what they have released. I also have some concern if they know more than they have released.

[ensho]

5. they know more - believe it

nt