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From Japan (Again): A Warning to the World
A reporter, describing the devastation of one city in Japan, wrote: “It looks as if a monster steamroller had passed over it and squashed it out of existence. I write these facts ... as a warning to the world.” The reporter was Wilfred Burchett, writing from Hiroshima, Japan, on Sept. 5, 1945. Burchett was the first Western reporter to make it to Hiroshima after the atomic bomb was dropped there. He reported on the strange illness that continued to kill people, even a full month after that first, dreadful use of nuclear weapons against humans. His words could well describe the scenes of annihilation in northeastern Japan today. Given the worsening catastrophe at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, his grave warning to the world remains all too relevant.
The disaster deepens at the Fukushima complex in the aftermath of the largest recorded earthquake in Japanese history and the tsunami that followed, killing thousands. Explosions in Fukushima reactors No. 1 and No. 3 released radiation that was measured by a U.S. Navy vessel as far away as 100 miles, prompting the ship to move farther out to sea. A third explosion happened at reactor No. 2, leading many to speculate that the vital containment vessel, holding uranium undergoing fission, may have been breached. Then reactor No. 4 caught fire, even though it wasn’t running when the earthquake hit. Each reactor also has spent nuclear fuel stored with it, and that fuel can cause massive fires, releasing more radiation into the air. The cooling systems and their backups all have failed, and a small crew of courageous workers remains on-site, despite the life-threatening radiation, trying to pump seawater into the damaged structures to cool the radioactive fuel.
President Barack Obama had hoped to usher in a “nuclear renaissance,” and proposed $36 billion in new federal, taxpayer-subsidized loan guarantees to entice energy corporations to build new plants (adding to the $18.5 billion already approved during the George W. Bush administration). The first energy corporation in line to receive the public largesse was Southern Co., for two reactors slated for Georgia. The last time new construction on a nuclear power plant in the U.S. was ordered, and ultimately built, was back in 1973, when Obama was a seventh-grader at the Punahou School on Honolulu. The Three Mile Island disaster in 1979 and the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 effectively shut down new commercial nuclear projects in the U.S. Nevertheless, this country remains the largest producer of commercial nuclear power in the world. The 104 licensed commercial nuclear plants are old, close to the end of their originally projected life spans. Plant owners are petitioning the federal government to extend their operating licenses.
These licenses are controlled by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). On March 10, the NRC issued a press release “regarding renewal of the operating license for the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station near Brattleboro, Vt., for an additional 20 years. The NRC staff expects to issue the renewed license soon.” Harvey Wasserman, of NukeFree.org, told me, “The first reactor at Fukushima is identical to the Vermont Yankee plant. ... There are 23 reactors in the United States that are identical or close to identical to the first Fukushima reactor.” A majority of Vermonters, including the state’s governor, Peter Shumlin, support shutting down the Vermont Yankee reactor, designed and built by General Electric.
The Japanese nuclear crisis has sparked global repercussions. Protests erupted across Europe. Eva Joly, a French member of the European Parliament, said at one protest, “We know how to get out of the nuclear plants: We need renewable energy, we need windmills, we need geothermal, and we need solar energy.” Switzerland has halted plans to relicense its reactors, and 10,000 protesters in Stuttgart prompted German Chancellor Angela Merkel to order an immediate shutdown of Germany’s seven pre-1980 nuclear plants. In the U.S., Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., said, “What is happening in Japan right now shows that a severe accident at a nuclear power plant can happen here."
The nuclear age dawned not far from Fukushima, when the United States became the sole nation in human history to drop nuclear bombs on another country, destroying Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. Journalist Wilfred Burchett described, for the first time, the “atomic plague,” writing: “In these hospitals I found people who, when the bomb fell, suffered absolutely no injuries, but now are dying from the uncanny after-effects. For no apparent reason their health began to fail.” More than 65 years after he sat in the rubble with his battered Hermes typewriter and typed his warning to the world, what have we learned?
Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
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15 Comments so far
Show AllThe problem with this article is that it accentuates the problem with older reactors and a certain design, leaving room for the supposition that if we build newer ones with different designs, all will be peachy! Thanks, Amy!
Wrong tense in the third paragraph, Amy !
Judging from Obama's comments this week it is not the case that "Obama had hoped for a nuclear renaissance", implying that Obama's hopes have suddenly changed. The reality is that Obama continues to zealously promote the expansion of taxpayer subsidized nuclear power.
What have WE learned?
If WE means the US electorate, WE have learned whatever the nuclear industry propagandists want us to learn...that the lights will go out if we don't build more nuke plants.
I don't think that is intended. It certainly does not follow. There are extra problems with certain older plants, and in general with plants that have been running for many years, and therefore with the older plants.
The biggest thing is simple: they corrode, and what is inside gets outside.
Over $50 billion in subsidies for an industry that at best harms the environment and at worst kills people. That makes sense. Why not leave the financing to Wall Street, the "free market" and all. Because no one on Wall Street will put up a dime unless the US government backs everything more than 100%.
I agree with the French member of parliament that we need wind, solar, and other alternatives. But no one talks about effective solutions like insulation and building codes that require houses to be self-sufficient. If our building technology had kept up with cars, much of our energy crisis would not exist.
Tom, I agree with your post, but keep in mind that the nuclear industry has very powerful lobbyists working diligently to squelch any possibility of alternative sources of energy. We have the technology for those other sources, but the lobbyists are working overtime to make sure that nuclear energy stays on the table.
The world -- at least that part of the world where industrialization plans and deals and arrangements are made -- has had plenty of warnings, years of warnings. But their ability to scoff it off and believe their own b.s. reassurances remains in place. It's not that no one talks about this stuff, it's that those up top don't listen. They are incapable of "getting it" that the destruction capable of being wrought will get them too. They think they're too high up for that.
Oh those on top get it alright. They just don't care. People are as disposable as garbage. Witness the destruction of the middle and working classes, job exportation, repeal of safety and environment regulations, contempt for the poor, unemployed, and homeless. Compassion and human decency mean nothing to the ruling elite and those who own and operate corporate USA. It's the American public who don't get it. The plantation owners just don't need us anymore. And when disaster strikes, the elites will take refuge in their secure underground shelters while the rest of mankind goes extinct.
I'm posting the following on all the nuke articles:
The truth is, science as it is employed practically is no more or less moral than religion; in fact, what we have going in this era is a melding of science and religion called scientism.
Adam Curtis has a documentary for the issue of nuclear power in the realm of politics and big business. It's the fifth part of his "Pandora's Box" series, called "A is for Atom," and a good history lesson that shows how power trumped logic and morals in the development of nuclear energy in the US, Russia, and the UK. But naturally I assume that this is no longer the case, and we can proceed with newer nuclear technology, which of course has figured all the problems out and is not subject to financial or political pressure.
You can access a good quality version of this and most of Curtis's documentaries through archive.org.
Real democracy requires some effort on the part of the citizenry. Americans would rather sit before their TVs (beer in hand, of course) or go shopping. Participating in the political process is not something they'd prefer to expend their energies on.
Even if a man-made technology like fission power COULD be made safe, and I don't believe it ever can, there is still the issue of the poisonous radioactive waste left over from the reactions. There is no way that stuff will ever be safe this side of 10,000 years or so .....
I just read this comment on another site. It is amazing how much our government is lying to us about. And that Idiot Chu just came out to talk about "responsible and safe" nuclear power generation in the US. Germany gets it. They have just annouced that they will shut down 8 nuclear power plants before June of this year and accelarate the switch to alternatives.
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Hartson Doak says
Mar 16, 2011 10:12 AM
I was a Quality Control Nuclear inspector. The last job I had while in the industry was the Joliet power plant in Illinois. The project was to remove all the pipes in the plant because they ALL had microscopic cracks. These pipes through out the plant. To get an idea of these inter-granular stress cracks, take a paper cup and draw a mass of wiggly lines all over the outside of the cup. These are the cracks that STARTED on the inside of the cup and have gone though to the outside. These pipes had radioactive residue on the outside that came from the inside. All of these pipes are now weakened. EVERY nuclear power plant over 25 years old has these cracking pipes. ALL the power plants in operation in the US are over 25 years old. NONE of them are safe. I moved to Hawaii to get as far as I could to distance myself from them.
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I hope the good people of Vermont are reading this. Close Yankee NOW!
Here is the link for the article and the above comment:
http://www.care2.com/causes/environment/blog/germany-closes-7-aging-nuclear-plants-as-eu-calls-for-nuclear-plant-stress-tests/
Agelbert, your inspector is complaining about the results of one of about 35 types of corrosion that all of the metal plumbing of all these plants are subject to. The metals succumb more quickly to one or another corrosion in response to various water treatments, and power companies have had a fine time cataloguing, looking for ways out of investments and ways to hedge their bets.
Here's a pretty decent explanation of IGA, or InterGranular Attack:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergranular_corrosion
Thanks for the warnings but as you can see, nobody's gonna listen. We're just gonna have more coal and nuclear power plants until it's impossible to continue. Any questions?
I for one do not believe Mother Nature was responsible for the Quake, or at least had help, that created the catastrophe. There are two countries in mind that wish all others have no nuclear plants so they will have power over all .
Have you considered Lex Luthor?