Pegasus Research Consortium

Nuclear Detonation Timeline "1945-1998" - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9lquok4Pdk)
Uploaded on Jul 12, 2010

The 2053 nuclear tests and explosions that took place between 1945 and 1998 are plotted visually and audibly on a world map.

As the video starts out detonations are few and far between. The first three detonations represent the Manhattan Project and the two bombs that ended World War II.

After a few representative minutes the USSR and Britain enter the nuclear club and the testing really starts to heat up.??Even though the video does not differentiate between sub-critical "safety" tests and full detonations, you get a good idea of the fever of the nuclear arms race.

The time line does not extend to tests by North Korea (October 2006 and May 2009.

Video credit: Isao Hashimoto www.ctbto.org/specials/1945-1998

The video was cleaned up, re-sized and edited to fit You tube's 10min limit by the folks at Bit of Fun.

Where's Teller when they need him? Interesting pro-nuke propaganda.

Is this where it all started?  How long ago was the box opened?  The following video is from National Geographic TV.

Space Race - The Untold Story "Secret Weapons"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1oqomXMJ3M

After all the shouting (http://www.hark.com/clips/gycxtkvjxh-foolproof-and-incapable-or-error) is over, the grim silence of facts remain.
Joseph Conrad 




To really understand the present, which was the future yesterday, one must learn from the experiences of the past.

We once were told something to the effect: "the present exists but for a fleeting moment, the past is but a memory - dead and gone forever; therefore, the only thing one can affect is the future."

QuoteEven if Chernobyl did kill 200,000 people, compare and contrast that with the numbers killed by smog every year...

We couldn't help but shudder when we read this. Gotta love the nuclear industry advocates' sense of responsibility.

Speaking of Chernobyl, let us wander down the halls of yesteryear for a moment, thinking that perhaps we might learn a thing or two.




Depending on which report one is to believe, there were over half a million liquidators (http://www.mirnyi.arwis.com/book_2/2_2.html) who cleaned up Chernobyl and the surrounding area after the accident. They were almost all young men at the time.

In an early 2000's study, 60,000 had died and 165,000-200,000 were believed to be permanently disabled, despite most only being in their 40's and 50's.

QuoteThus, speaking about liquidators, one should remember that the Chernobyl liquidators are a very vast group, embracing hundreds of thousands of people, most probably more than 0.5 million and less then 1 million. — "... there has never before been such a large population of workers exposed to radiation" (Goldsmith et al. 1997: 52; emphasis added).

In the city of Chernobyl there stands a simple memorial to the liquidators who rushed to reactor number four in the immediate aftermath of the explosion.




Nuclear's green cheerleaders forget Chernobyl at our peril (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/01/fukushima-chernobyl-risks-radiation)

QuoteI prefer the words of Alexey Yablokov, member of the Russian academy of sciences, and adviser to President Gorbachev at the time of Chernobyl:

'When you hear 'no immediate danger'
(from nuclear radiation)
then you should run away as far and as fast as you can.'

Should one desire further reading: Russian Chernobyl Expert Warns of Dire Consequences for Health Around Fukushima (http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/03/25-4)

QuoteFive years ago I visited the still highly contaminated areas of Ukraine and the Belarus border where much of the radioactive plume from Chernobyl descended on 26 April 1986...


It was grim.

We went from hospital to hospital and from one contaminated village to another.

We found deformed and genetically mutated babies in the wards;
pitifully sick children in the homes;
adolescents with stunted growth and dwarf torsos;
foetuses without thighs or fingers
and villagers who told us every member of their family was sick.

QuoteThis was 20 years after the accident but we heard of many unusual clusters of people with rare bone cancers. One doctor, in tears, told us that one in three pregnancies in some places was malformed and that she was overwhelmed by people with immune and endocrine system disorders.

Others said they still saw caesium and strontium in the breast milk of mothers living far from the areas thought to be most affected, and significant radiation still in the food chain.

Villages testified that "the Chernobyl necklace" – thyroid cancer – was so common as to be unremarkable; many showed signs of accelerated ageing.

QuoteThe doctors and scientists who have dealt directly with the catastrophe said that the UN International Atomic Energy Agency's "official" toll, through its Chernobyl Forum, of 50 dead and perhaps 4,000 eventual fatalities was insulting and grossly simplistic.

The Ukrainian Scientific Centre for Radiation, which estimated that infant mortality increased 20 to 30% after the accident, said their data had not been accepted by the UN because it had not been published in a major scientific journal.

Would one of the more-informed members please help us here and explain the 'process' of being accepted for publication in a major scientific journal?

How many of these 'accreditied' journals are there?

Is there an editorial board that makes a decision as to publishing 'controversial' information?

We found this:

"Requiring a paper to have been accepted for publication in a quality journal means it has at least passed a minimum requirement."

The question we have might be: Who exactly sets the bar for "minimum requirement?"

QuoteKonstantin Tatuyan, one of the "liquidators" who had helped clean up the plant, told us that

nearly all his colleagues had died or had cancers of one sort or another, but that no one had ever asked him for evidence.

There was burning resentment at the way the UN, the industry and ill-informed pundits had played down the catastrophe.

What he saw in those years, he says, appalled him:

young men dying for want of the simplest information about exposure to radiation;

the wide-scale falsification of medical histories by the Soviet army and the disappearance of people's records so the state would not have to compensate them;

the wholesale looting of evacuated houses and abandoned churches;

the haste and carelessness with which the concrete "sarcophagus" was erected over the stricken reactor;

and, above all,

the horror of seeing land almost twice the size of Britain contaminated, with thousands of villages made uninhabitable.

Will this horrible scenario be repeated in Japan?

From the information obtained to date, it appears eerily similar and suggests the possibility of more of the "same old same old."




"Everyone who helped on the clean up is now ill,"

says Tatiana, a senior doctor at the Dispensary for Radiological Protection at Rivne.

"The situation is worsening."

"In 1985, we had four lymph cancers a year.

Now we have seven times that many.

We have between five and eight people a year with rare bone cancers, when we never had any.

We expect more cancers, and ill health. One in three pregnancies here are malformed.

We are overwhelmed."

QuoteMoving up the scale, a 2006 report for Green MEPs suggested up to 60,000 possible deaths; Greenpeace took the evidence of 52 scientists and estimated the deaths and illnesses to be 93,000 terminal cancers already and perhaps 140,000 more in time.

Using other data, the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences declared in 2006 that 212,000 people had died as a direct consequence of Chernobyl.

At the end of 2006, Yablokov and two colleagues, factoring in the worldwide drop in births and increase in cancers seen after the accident, estimated in a study published in the annals of the New York Academy of Sciences that




Their findings were met with almost complete silence by the World Health Organization (long-time bedfellows with nuclear power advocates) and the nuclear industry.    ::)


"The New York Academy of Sciences in 2010 released the most significant and vital English language report on the deaths and environmental devastation caused by Chernobyl.

After pouring through thousands of reports and studies conducted in Eastern Europe and Russia, the Academy concluded that nearly one million people have died as a result of radiation exposure."





  :P

Anti-nuclear physician Dr. Helen Caldicott says that if fuel pool 4 collapses, she will evacuate her family from Boston and move them to the Southern Hemisphere. This is an especially dramatic statement given that the West Coast is much more directly in the path of Fukushima radiation than the East Coast.

23 March 2011
Fukushima Now 72,000 Times Hiroshima Radiation (http://www.rense.com/general93/72000.htm)

QuoteDr. Chris Busby, world famous physicist, said tests conducted at the respected Harwell Radiation Laboratory in England demonstrate that airborne radiation in Japan is 1,000 times higher than radioactive "fallout" at the peak in 1963 of H-Bomb detonations by nuclear powers.

QuoteWe have now all had time to evaluate what we believe is the truth behind the Japanese Nuclear Incident (or should I say disaster) and it has become clear that we have all been deceived by the Japanese Authorities, their nuclear establishment, the IAEA, the international pro nuclear groups and more importantly the so called experts that are invited onto the mainstream media channels to blast us with nothing more than total spin.

They all keep playing down this disaster without themselves fully understanding the implications on human health and the antiquated testing methods used in the assessment of potential victims.

In March, Busby had estimated that Fukushima radiation to be 72,000 times greater than what the United States released at Hiroshima.


"Let's wipe the Tokyo Electric Power Company and the General Electric officials and policy makers off the face of the Earth, as they manifestly deserve,"

And this sage advice was from eighteen (18) months ago - just two (2) weeks into this crisis!

And we were warned:




8 June 2011

Fukushima fuel rods melt-though worse than melt-down

source (http://www.examiner.com/human-rights-in-national/fukushima-fuel-rods-melt-though-worse-than-melt-down?CID=examiner_alerts_article)

QuoteAccording to a new but not publicly released government Fukushima nuclear disaster report to the International Atomic Energy Agency, nuclear fuel from the fuel rods has possibly melted through pressure vessels, creating the possibility of the radiation threat being even greater than in a core melt-down.

A 'melt-through' is "when melted nuclear fuel leaks from the bottom of damaged reactor pressure vessels into containment vessels--is far worse than a core meltdown and is the worst possibility in a nuclear accident."

Quote...when melted nuclear fuel leaks from the bottom of damaged reactor pressure vessels into containment vessels...

WTF?      >:(


So, we went to Wiki to see what was there, and were astounded to find that "the fix" was sadly, already solidly in place, Dear Reader.

Check this out against what we know to be the truth...


Nuclear Meltdown (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_meltdown)

Quote...TEPCO has announced the steps that will be needed for long-term core fuel removal although admits that

new technologies may have to be invented to accomplish the many steps of the plan...

Quote...In the second step the primary containment vessels will be inspected and the water leakage paths will be identified and sealed.

Once the containment vessels are air and water tight again, the next step calls for the containment vessels and pressure vessels to be be filled with water and a more permenent cooling system utilizing heat exchangers and water circulation will be installed.

The final step calls for the containment vessel and pressure vessels to be opened from the top (as is done during normal refueling) and for special robotic arms to descend and remove the melted fuel from the bottom of the pressure vessels as well as any fuel that leaked to the floor of the outer containment vessels.

But they admitted that the corium may be 18-60 meters below containment...

QuoteOnce the fuel has been removed the reactors can be demolished and the plant grounds can be fully decontaminated.

TEPCO admits that the plan goes far into "uncharted territory" and that new technologies and methods will need to be invented to accomplish these steps and that this may involve multiple decades of work.

In the more immediate future TEPCO hopes to begin removal of all fuels located in the spent fuel pools of Units 1 to 4 and transfer the damaged rods to the common spent fuel pool....

So the CSFP is undamaged and ready to accept these "damaged rods?"

QuoteDuring Fukushima indicident emergency cooling system has also been manually shut down several minutes after it started.[7]
...

From the way the descrption is worded, we suspect TEPCO/JAPGOV's hand in this erroneous listing.

Is there/does there exist a way to view this information pre-3/11-Fukushima?

Can the information uploaded since 3/11 be identified as to the source uploader?

By their (TEPCO) own estimates, the corium left the building (and all 'containment' vessels) with Elvis and is 'about' 18-30 meters below such containment!

And then we have the added problem that nuclear power plants represent the most likely and most devastating targets in war scenarios.

That means the harsh reality is any country with a nuclear power plant is hosting a nuclear bomb to which an enemy country just needs to add a fuse, and there are presently 104 nuclear power plants operating today in America - not that we have to worry about this type of thing in the United States, according to government officials.

Is there a way to address this insanity from a uniquely different viewpoint than has been tried - and apparently with little success - in the past?

Or, it could be just as simple as following the money and then shutting off that supply line.


For your consideration:




Government would pay interim spent fuel facility hosts handsomely (http://www.exchangemonitor.com/publications/sample/28%20New%20Build_email.pdf)

1 July 1989

QuoteCommunities that agree to host an interim storage facility for the country's spent nuclear fuel would have a lot to gain financially under the Nuclear Fuel Storage Improvement Act, a bill introduced July 1 by Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Mary Landrieu (D-La) that received support from industry this week.

The bill would consolidate U.S. spent nuclear fuel waste in two federal interim storage repositories until a permanent storage solution is found.

And here we were under the impression that all radioactive waste was stored on-site at all nuclear power facilities until a "permanent" solution/site is found.

Yeah, right ... another Yucca Mountain boondoggle.

Speaking of Yucca, just how much is the fund now and just exactly where is this money today?

Can we see it, touch it, feel it, please?

How about a simple copy of the ledger where the deposited funds are listed?

Quote...Around $7 billion was spent and much progress made, but Yucca was cut off from funding in May 2009 by President Barack Obama and energy secretary Stephen Chu.

Where, oh where is the radioactive waste going now?

Is any of it being trucked around the country to a location different from the nuclear facility where the waste was generated?

QuoteHaving submitted an 8600-page application to build Yucca Mountain under President George Bush and his energy secretary Sam Bodman, the DOE under direction from Chu and Obama moved to withdraw it in May.

Spending on Yucca is now set at the absolute minimum level, while the $24 billion balance of the fund remains with the US Treasury earning substantial compound interest of over $1 billion per year.

Let's see...that's a few billion more...so there should be about $30 billion available.

How does one actually verify that this is a correct and true amount and where is the entry on the ledger?

Is it really there?

Can we touch it?

Here is where O'Bama made sure the process is still in process with no real movement regarding the safe disposal of radioactive waste.





"Completing the work" at Yucca Mountain means what?

Does that imply that the money is conveniently tied up by legalize and not available to whatever entity is charged with the work?

Three U.S. federal agencies are charged with long-term stewardship of contaminants and contaminated areas.

Department of Energy (http://www.lm.doe.gov/) (DOE)
DOE manages about 24 million cubic meters of waste containing about


from the production of nuclear weapons.

Starting in the 1940s, DOE generated wastes and contaminated media from practices related to the production of nuclear weapons. Contaminants entered the environment through a number of pathways, including direct disposal into the groundwater through injection wells, disposal pits and settling ponds; through accidental spills and leaks from storage tanks; and from atmospheric releases.

DOE's Office of Long-Term Stewardship, established in 1999, was the first federal office devoted to protecting human health and the environment after the cleanup or stabilization of radioactive waste. Although most nuclear-weapon production has ceased, a large volume of groundwater, soil, sediment and bedrock contamination exists at more than 100 DOE waste sites across the country, and DOE has determined that long-term stewardship programs will need to begin at these sites within the next 70 years.



Hanford, WA, nuclear waste tank farm.


Department of Defense (http://www.environmental.usace.army.mil/) (DOD)
Since the early 1900s, the military has stored weapons and conducted military exercises at its installations, which have left contaminated soil and groundwater at more than 1,700 sites.

DOD practices long-term stewardship within its Office of Environmental Cleanup, which focuses on reducing risk to human health and the environment at active, formerly used and closing bases from pollutants due to past practices.

DOD operates cleanup activities at about 9,000 locations identified as Formerly Used Defense Sites (FUDS) and at active military installations. FUDS include sites containing industrial waste, such as fuels and solvents in groundwater or ordnance and explosive waste. FUDS are also sites that require building demolition and debris removal.

DOD estimates that more than 2,500 FUDS require some further action to remove this waste or reduce the risk from residual waste.

Environmental Protection Agency (http://www.epa.gov/superfund/) (EPA)
EPA administers the Superfund program, established by Congress in 1980 to locate, investigate and clean up the nation's worst hazardous waste sites that are abandoned or uncontrolled.

After a site is identified by various sources, including state agencies or citizens, EPA evaluates the potential for a release of a hazardous substance from the site. It then decides whether to place the site on the National Priority List (NPL), a roster that identifies the most serious sites in need of long-term cleanup. As of 2000, more than 1,500 hazardous sites were on the NPL, including some large DOE and DOD sites.

After remedial actions are completed at a site, EPA practices long-term stewardship through a program that includes groundwater sampling and monitoring to ensure that all actions are effective and operating properly. EPA and state environmental agencies have joint responsibility to regulate cleanup, monitoring and long-term stewardship of the NPL sites.

QuoteData generated by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) shows that the site is so porous that the mountain itself contributes almost nothing to waste isolation.

Instead, DOE relies almost completely on a system of engineering fixes, the most outlandish of which are waste disposal containers that must last for at least one million years combined with approximately sixty miles of tunnels lined with thousands of titanium drip shields that DOE does not plan to install for 100 to 300 years or more.

(http://i1073.photobucket.com/albums/w400/thorfourwinds/September%202012%20One/yucca-drawing.jpg)


   1.   Canisters of waste, sealed in special casks, are shipped to the site by truck or train.

   2.   Shipping casks are removed, and the inner tube with the waste is placed in a steel, multilayered storage container.

   3.   An automated system sends storage containers underground to the tunnels.

   4.   Containers are stored along the tunnels, on their side.



This is exactly the bravo sierra that portrays what is wrong in America.

What moron wrote that proposal, had somebody sign off on one million year containers and actually got it in print as something that DOE proposes?

And how much money has been spent already on Yucca?

OK, Zorgon, how much?    :P

QuoteNevada and independent scientists who have studied the composition of the proposed containers have shown they will corrode in a few hundred years or less.

Consider this: most of the fuel storage in the Unitied States is done with vertical fuel casks. Yucca mountain was designed for horizontal fuel casks. Over half of the fuel would have to be re-canned.

QuoteIn addition to the fundamental deficiencies of the site itself, Yucca Mountain is located thousands of miles from most of the accumulating waste, a factor which presents great risks to communities over the thousands of miles the waste would travel during the forty to fifty years such transportation would be required. Source (http://www.yuccamountain.org/pdf/nvag100412perspective.pdf)

In short, Yucca Mountain cannot perform the function for which it is intended.


"Indeed, the project is fraught with a host of insurmountable technical, safety, environmental, and institutional problems that simply cannot be engineered around or ignored."


Stick a fork in it and declare Victory!


Oh, wait a minute.

One might think that from the mountain (pun) of evidence presented, the Yucca Mountain debate is officially dead.

Just exactly where are these Interim Storage Repositories and what egregious amounts are being squandered in this ill-fated fiasco?





We have postulated many times in the past that perhaps a way to slow or completely stop the insanity of nuclear power is to demand a solution to the waste problem and provide proper public indemnification (insurance) in case of utility mishap (accident) that endangers we, the people.


These two points would considerably forestall future consideration and construction of new nuclear power plants.


Just look at the insurance angle, for example:

QuoteThe potential costs resulting from a nuclear accident (including one caused by a terrorist attack or a natural disaster) are so great that no nuclear power plant would be built if the owner had to pay for liability insurance that fully covered these costs.

The liability of owners of nuclear power plants in the U.S. is currently limited under the Price-Anderson Act (PAA). The Price-Anderson Act, introduced in 1957, was

"an implicit admission that nuclear power provided risks that producers were unwilling to assume without federal backing".

QuoteThe Price-Anderson Act "shields nuclear utilities, vendors and suppliers against liability claims in the event of a catastrophic accident by imposing an upper limit on private sector liability."

Without such protection, private companies were unwilling to be involved.

No other technology in the history of American industry has enjoyed such continuing blanket protection.  source (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_debate)

Follow the money!

QuoteIn case of a nuclear accident, should claims exceed this primary liability, the PAA requires all licensees to additionally provide a maximum of $95.8 million into the accident pool - totaling roughly $10 billion if all reactors were required to pay the maximum.

This is still not sufficient in the case of a serious accident, as the cost of damages could exceed $10 billion.

QuoteAccording to the PAA, should the costs of accident damages exceed the $10 billion pool, the remainder of the costs would be fully covered by the U.S. Government. In 1982, a Sandia National Laboratories study concluded that depending on the reactor size and 'unfavorable conditions' a serious nuclear accident could lead to property damages as high as $314 billion while fatalities could reach 50,000.

A recent study found that if only this one relatively ignored indirect subsidy for nuclear power was converted to a direct subsidy and diverted to photovoltaic manufacturing, it would result in more installed power and more energy produced by mid-century compared to the nuclear case.

This is of special interest:

"The world's nuclear fleet creates about 10,000 metric tons of high-level spent nuclear fuel each year."


And how much high-level spent nuclear fuel is generated by the nation's 104 commercial reactors?

Listen up, people.

The figures released by the USGOV do not add up.

QuoteHigh-level radioactive waste management concerns management and disposal of highly radioactive materials created during production of nuclear power.

"The technical issues in accomplishing this are daunting, due to the extremely long periods radioactive wastes remain deadly to living organisms."



(http://i1073.photobucket.com/albums/w400/thorfourwinds/September%202012%20One/Spent_nuclear_fuel_hanford.jpg)

Spent nuclear fuel stored underwater and uncapped at the Hanford site in Washington, USA.


"Of particular concern are two long-lived fission products, Technetium-99 (half-life 220,000 years) and Iodine-129 (half-life 15.7 million years), which dominate spent nuclear fuel radioactivity after a few thousand years.

The most troublesome transuranic elements in spent fuel are Neptunium-237 (half-life two million years) and Plutonium-239 (half-life 24,000 years).


Consequently, high-level radioactive waste requires sophisticated treatment and management to successfully isolate it from the biosphere.

This usually necessitates treatment, followed by a long-term management strategy involving permanent storage, disposal or transformation of the waste into a non-toxic form."

However, after 60 years of dilly-dallying around the problem, there is still no solution to this urgent, deadly situation.


"Governments around the world are considering a range of waste management and disposal options, usually involving deep-geologic placement, although

there has been limited progress toward implementing long-term waste management solutions."


This is partly because the timeframes in question when dealing with radioactive waste range from 10,000 to millions of years,

according to studies based on the effect of estimated radiation doses.

QuotePresently, waste is mainly stored at individual reactor sites and there are over 430 locations around the world where radioactive material continues to accumulate.

Experts agree that centralized underground repositories which are well-managed, guarded, and monitored, would be a vast improvement.

Really?

QuoteThere is an international consensus on the advisability of storing nuclear waste in deep underground repositories, but no country in the world has yet opened such a site.

Wonder why?

QuoteIt also would authorize a tiered payment incentive for communities to agree to host an interim storage facility: any city, county, or other local government would be paid $6 million for agreeing to host the facility, and in the time between agreeing to host the facility and the first receipt of a SNF waste shipment, would receive $10 million each year.

After operations at the facility begin, the host government would receive $15 million annually, and $15,000 per metric ton of used fuel received with a maximum of $25 million.

Finally, the local community would receive $20 million upon closure of the facility.

The first three communities that offer to host the facility will receive $1 million.

So, just how much money is on the table here?

$6 million on Agreement, $10 million per year 'interim payment', $15 million per year during operation, $15 million per metric ton of used fuel received (max. $25 million, which is 1.66 tons), $20 million upon closure of facility.

Ball-park estimate of $60-100 million.

Quote"The bill "addresses one of the most glaring failures of our national nuclear policy: what to do with the used nuclear fuel currently that is currently being stored at over 100 sites across the country," Murkowski said in a statement.

"This legislation makes good on the federal government's promise to provide a solution to the storage question."

Landrieu added,

QuoteUnfortunately, this effort has been delayed.

While we continue to work to find a permanent location for spent nuclear fuel, we need to make sure that we have an interim and safe storage option available."

more (http://www.exchangemonitor.com/publications/sample/28%20New%20Build_email.pdf)


"...over 100 sites across the country ..."

This could prove to be rather interesting.


Peace Love Light

tfw   (http://serve.mysmiley.net/animals/animal0028.gif) (//http://)





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I can't believe they're even considering a thorium reactor. Are they insane? The half-life is 14 billion years.

There's like 10 isotopes, but they never say it's a thorium isotope reactor.

Nuclear Waste and the States  (http://knowledgecenter.csg.org/kc/content/nuclear-waste-and-states)

1 August 2012

The electric ratepayers in dozens of states have been charged billions to build a site to store nuclear waste. As waste continues to be generated and stored on-site at power plants, the President's Blue Ribbon Panel on America's Nuclear Future has suggested new strategies to manage spent fuel and create sites for interim storage for waste.

In 1982 Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which directed the Department of Energy to initiate development and construction of a permanent repository to store the nation's nuclear waste. The legislation established a one-tenth of one-cent per kilowatt hour fee on electricity produced from nuclear power that would be deposited into a Nuclear Waste Fund to help pay for the construction of a repository.

Congress amended the Nuclear Waste Policy Act again in 1987 and selected Yucca Mountain, Nevada, as the permanent storage site. It established a timetable for shipments of nuclear waste to begin arriving in 1998—a timetable that has clearly lapsed, generating lawsuits from states and utilities because of the delay.

The politically charged debate surrounding Yucca Mountain, intense opposition from the state of Nevada, and the complex issues surrounding the transportation, storage and disposal of nuclear waste at the site culminated in the Obama administration's decision to formally withdraw the license application for the repository in 2009.




The Nuclear Waste Fund and Implications for States

   •   The cancelation of Yucca Mountain has left states with two conundrums: They are still storing nearly 70,000 tons of nuclear waste in cooling pools or dry cask storage—essentially huge, steel reinforced concrete tubes—on site at power plants, and their residents are still being charged for a repository that likely will not be built.

   •   Since 1983, ratepayers in 36 states with nuclear power plants have contributed more than $17 billion to the Nuclear Waste Fund for the construction of a permanent national repository.

   •   To date, approximately $24 billion remains from the more than $35 billion that has been collected in fees and interest over the life of the fund.

   •   In 2010, South Carolina and Washington, which have large amounts of both civilian and high-level Department of Defense waste and have collectively contributed more than $1.4 billion to the Nuclear Waste Fund, sued the Department of Energy in federal court arguing that the decision to remove the license application for Yucca Mountain was improper without a formal safety decision from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The litigation is ongoing as a federal appeals court heard arguments by the states in May 2012 after the initial suit was rejected by the District of Columbia Circuit Court.


(http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/img/ws4ef793ff.png)

Blue Ribbon Commission and its Recommendations

   •   President Obama in 2011 created the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future, comprised of a bipartisan group of public servants, policy experts and academics, to chart a new strategy for managing the nation's nuclear waste.

   •   The commission devised eight general strategies for policymakers, but states should pay particular interest to the following recommendations that will require action by the federal government:

   •   Develop a new, consent-based approach to siting future nuclear waste management facilities;

   •   Create a new organization outside the scope of the Department of Energy dedicated solely to implementing the nuclear waste management program and empower it with the authority and resources to succeed;

   •   Give the newly created organization access to the funds that nuclear utility ratepayers are providing for the purpose of waste management;

   •   Begin efforts to develop one or more underground disposal facilities for nuclear waste, as well as one or more consolidated surface storage facilities that would move waste away from reactors; and

   •   Prepare for the eventual large-scale transport of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste to consolidated storage and disposal facilities when such facilities become available.


Interim and Consolidated Storage

   •   Total volumes of civilian and defense nuclear waste already exceed the statutory cap of 70,000 tons that could have been sent to Yucca Mountain under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. Further complicating matters for states, the Department of Energy expects that a future disposal facility may need a capacity of up to 130,000 tons just to store commercial spent fuel.

   •   Prior to the Obama administration's 2009 decision to cancel Yucca Mountain, the Department of Energy determined that there would be a need for interim storage capability through 2056 due to limits on transportation and continued generation of spent fuel.

   •   Fifty-three facilities are licensed for dry storage of spent fuel, and in 2010 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission found that waste could be safely stored onsite 60 years after a reactor was decommissioned. Assuming that a reactor received a 60-year operating license, the waste could be stored on site for up to 120 years.6 A June 2012 decision by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals struck down this decision and found that the commission did an inadequate environmental review.

   •   Federal law governing nuclear waste allows for the construction of one consolidated storage facility, but only after a permanent repository has been licensed. Thus, Congress must pass legislation authorizing changes to the statute.

   •   The Senate's Fiscal Year 2013 Energy and Water Appropriations bill includes language that has bipartisan support for the Department of Energy to conduct a pilot program to license, construct and operate one or more consolidated storage facilities for spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste.

References:
"Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (PL 97-425), Section 302." (http://epw.senate.gov/nwpa82.pdf)

Steve Tetreault. "Judges Troubled by Yucca Shutdown, Uncertain on Recourse." (http://www.lvrj.com/news/judges-troubled-by-yucca-shutdown-uncertain-on-recourse-149896105.html)  Las Vegas Review-Journal.
May 2, 2012.

The Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future.  "Report to the Secretary
of Energy." (http://cybercemetery.unt.edu/archive/brc/20120620220235/http://brc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/brc_finalreport_jan2012.pdf)
January 2012, p.vii.

U.S. Department of Energy. "Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement
for Yucca Mountain." (http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/EIS-0250-S1-DEIS-Summary-2007_0.pdf) DOE/EIS-0250F-S1D.
October 2007. p. S-47.

Christopher Kouts, Principal Deputy Director, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste
Management. "Status Update on Yucca Mountain." (http://www.narucmeetings.org/Presentations/Kouts%20naruc%207-22-08.pdf) Presentation Before the National
Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners.
July 22, 2008.

Mark Holt. "Civilian Nuclear Waste Disposal." (http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33461.pdf) Congressional Research Service.
August 30, 2011, p. 12.



Peace Love Light

tfw   (http://serve.mysmiley.net/animals/animal0028.gif) (//http://)

new technologies may have to be invented to accomplish the many steps of the plan...

THIS... sums it up :P

We don't HAVE a cure for Fukushima

We don't HAVE a solution for waste storage

What we need...

We need that BATTERY that PAUL BROWN invented... the collector/storage device that uses the radiation directly from the waste


...Inventors GET BUSY

28 July 2012

Position Statement:
What Is Currently Happening to Fukushima Children? (http://fukushimavoice-eng.blogspot.ca/2012/07/position-statement-what-is-currently.html)

Consideration of thyroid disorders, pulmonary function, bone marrow function based on the studies from the Chernobyl nuclear accident, etc.

Michiyuki Matsuzaki, M.D.
Internal Medicine Department
Fukagawa Municipal Hospital, Hokkaido, Japan

May 19, 2012


1. Brief biography of author


Name: Michiyuki Matsuzaki   DOB: June 26, 1950
March 1975  M.D.(provisional), School of Medicine, Hokkaido University
April 1975  Internship and Residency, Internal Medicine 1, Graduate School of Medicine, Hokkaido University
June 1986  Executive Board Member of Hokkaido Physicians and Dentists Against Nuclear War
September 1986  Doctoral thesis for M.D. accepted, School of Medicine, Hokkaido University
April 2010  Head of Internal Medicine Department, Fukagawa Municipal Hospital, Hokkaido
April 2012  Professor of Clinical Administration, Asahikawa Medical University, Hokkaido
May 2012  Special member of Cancer Policy Board, Hokkaido Prefecture




2. Thyroid Disorders




Thyroid examinations of Fukushima children have been implemented as part of the "Fukushima Prefecture Health Management Survey" to monitor the health effects of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant nuclear accident.  The results of the thyroid examinations released on April 26, 2012 are summarized here.


(The official document in Japanese may be downloaded from the following link.)

http://www.pref.fukushima.jp/imu/kenkoukanri/240125shiryou.pdf



The implementation status of the examinations and the summary of the results are shown in the above document, the sixth report of Fukushima Prefecture Health Management Survey. 


(Translator note: As of the date of translation in late July, 2012, the seventh report was available, which covered further analysis of the same data from the sixth report.  For a complete description of the thyroid examination and analysis of data from both reports in English, please refer to this article. http://fukushimavoice-eng.blogspot.com/2012/07/thyroid-examination-by-fukushima.html)


Age distribution of the children who received thyroid examinations (average age of 10 in 4th or 5th grades), follow.


Ages 0-5:  9,826 children
Ages 6-10: 10,662 children
Ages 11-15: 11,466 children
Ages 16-18: 6,160 children


Actual examination findings are evidenced in the chart below.
"Nodules" comprised 1% and "cysts" 35.1%.




In regards to Fukushima thyroid examinations including children from babies and infants up to high school students, I would like to discuss the prevalence of "cysts" detected by thyroid ultrasound examinations in comparison to the research result reported in the past.



(2)  In 250 children ages 7 to 14, two children (0.8%) had thyroid cysts.
(Based on a study co-authored by Shunichi Yamapoopa)


(This paper may be downloaded from the following link.)

https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/endocrj1993/48/5/48_5_591/_article



Nagasaki University's study in 2006, co-authored by the current Fukushima University Medical School vice president Shunichi Yamapoopa, examined 250 children in Nagasaki prefecture with ultrasound.  Two children (0.8%) were found to have thyroid cysts.  (Cited in second paragraph on page 593 of the above study.)



(3) There are few incidences of thyroid nodules or cysts at birth. 

Thyroid abnormalities begin to gradually increase past age 5. 

By age 20, one in ten has thyroid nodules and/or cysts.  (Study by Mazafferri in New England Journal of Medicine.)


The study published in 1993 (Mazzarerri EL, et al. Management of a solitary thyroid nodule. N Engl J Med 1993 Feb 25) examined mostly Americans with ultrasound examinations and autopsy/biopsy. 

The study revealed that few thyroid "nodules" (The study defined both tumors and cysts as nodules.) were found at birth.  Incidence began to gradually increase past the age of five, proportionate with age, with one in ten having thyroid nodules and/or cysts by age 20. 


The graph below has been compiled from Figure 1 in this study: 

-represents the prevalence of thyroid nodules detected at autopsy or by ultrasound. 

-represents the prevalence of thyroid nodules detected by palpation.


In addition, the study stated that 25-35% of the "nodules" were "cysts.'



Prevalence of Palpable Thyroid Nodules Detected at Autopsy or by Ultrasound or by Palpation in Subjects without Radiation Exposure or Known Thyroid Disease.



The above graph indicates that the prevalence of thyroid nodules in children around the age of ten is about 1-2%.  Since 25-35% of them turned out to be cysts, the prevalence of thyroid cysts is estimated to be about 0.5-1%.



(4) Prevalence of thyroid cysts in Chernobyl children under the age of 18 was 0.5%.
(The Nippon Foundation study)


(The above article may be downloaded from the following link.)

http://nippon.zaidan.info/seikabutsu/1999/00198/contents/012.htm



From 5 to 10 years after the Chernobyl accident, Shunichi Yamapoopa, the vice president of Fukushima University Medical School, conducted ultrasound thyroid examinations in a total of 160,000 children in Gomel and surrounding areas with marked radioactive contamination. 

In this study, "nodules" and "cysts" were recorded separately: "nodules" mean solid tumors.  The results show that cysts were seen in 0.5% and also "nodules (solid tumors)" were seen in 0.5%.  Below is Figure 11 from this study, seen in above URL.




Figure 11. Dynamics of prevalence of abnormal findings by thyroid ultrasound examinations (1991-1996).



(5) Prevalence of thyroid "cysts" in Fukushima children is higher than in any other studies.


When the above four studies are tallied in one table, it becomes obvious that the result of the thyroid examinations of children in the "Fukushima Prefecture Health Management Survey" is astonishing. 






A "cyst" is a fluid-filled sac.  Cysts don't mean there is an immediate chance of developing thyroid cancer. 

However, it is apparent that something extraordinary is happening inside the thyroid gland, such as inflammation or changes in cellular properties.




(Section 2 Summary)

   1.   Summarizing the thyroid ultrasound examination results from Japan and overseas, prevalence of "cysts" detected in children around the age of 10 is approximately 0.5-1.0%.     
                                                                                           
   2.   The fact that 35% of Fukushima children (average age around 10) have thyroid cysts strongly suggests that these children's thyroid glands are negatively affected by undesirable environmental factors.             
               
   3.   There is a strong concern that waiting for further analysis of above data and the completion of follow-up examinations will lead to irreversible health damages in these children.   
                                               
   4.   Consequently, it is strongly desired that small children living in Nakadori (adjacent to the coastal region) and Hamadori (the coastal region) in Fukushima receive immediate implementation of preventive measures such as evacuation and more frequent screening examinations.         
                                                 
   5.   Based on above findings, a letter from Shunichi Yamapoopa to thyroid specialists all over Japan, instructing them not to offer second opinions to concerned families, can only be considered a repressive conduct:

a violation of human rights for those exposed to radiation and current patients.



3. Pulmonary Function


Sevendsen et al, from the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of South Carolina, demonstrated in 2010 that children who had been living in areas heavily contaminated with radioactive cesium have decreased pulmonary function.


(This article may be downloaded from the following link.)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2866691/?tool=pubmed



Svendsen et al. 137 Cesium Exposure and Spirometry Measures in Ukrainian Children Affected by the Chernobyl Nuclear Incident. Environmental Health Perspectives 2010 May;118(5): 720-725.


In this study, pulmonary function of 415 children under the age of 18 (mode age 8-9) was followed from 1993 to 1998.  The result showed that children who continuously lived in areas with the highest Cs-137 soil contamination (average 355 kBq/?) had 4-5% less forced expiratory volume in 1 sec (FEV1) than children who continuously lived in areas with the lowest soil contamination (average 90 kBq/). 


Forced expiratory volume per 1 sec (FEV1) is the portion of the forced vital capacity exhaled in the first second of forced exhalation.  Elementary school children can normally exhale over 3 liters in the first second of forced exhalation.  A decrease of 4-5 % FEV1 means a decrease of 100 -150 cc of absolute volume of exhaled air.


Normally pulmonary function peaks around age 20, and from then on, FEV1 decreases by 20-30 cc per year.

A decrease of FEV1 by 150cc means either an early aging of lungs or a failure of pulmonary maturity by 5-7 years.


Children who continuously live in areas of Ukraine with 355 kBq/? soil contamination will have pulmonary function aging five years faster than those living in uncontaminated areas.


Currently in Fukushima, which areas have Cs-137 levels of 355 kBq/ vs.  90 kBq/






This is a soil contamination distribution map created by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology last year and depicts the total soil concentration of Cs-134 and Cs-137(Bq/m2) calculated to the value estimated for August 28, 2011.


Deep blue indicates a soil contamination level of 60-100 kBq/, framing the hillsides of Nakadori: this is comparable to the "low contamination area" in the Sevedsen study.

Light blue indicates a soil contamination level of 300-600 kBq/, comparable to the highest contaminated areas in Ukraine.  All areas in Nakadori, such as Fukushima-city and Koriyama-city, have contamination levels somewhere between "low" and "the highest."

Therefore, children currently living in Hamadori (coastal region) and Nakadori (adjacent to the coastal region) are at risk of accelerated pulmonary aging by several years.


Furthermore, this study underestimates the effect of radiation exposure by using the control group in low contamination areas in comparison. 






4. Bone Marrow Function


The next study to be presented exhibits data about hematopoietic dysfunction due to radiation exposure in children who kept living in highly contaminated areas leading to leukopenia and anemia. 

This is a 2008 study published in Environmental Health by Dr. Stepanova from Scientific Center for Radiation Medicine, Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine.  It's a follow-up study of blood counts in 1,251 children living in Narodichesky region, Zhitomir Oblast, Ukraine from 7 to 11 years after the accident.


(This article may be downloaded from the following link.)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2459146/


Stepanova et al. Exposure from the Chernobyl accident had adverse effects on erythrocytes, leukocytes, and, platelets in children in the Narodichesky region, Ukraine: A 6-year follow-up study. Environ Health. 2008; 7: 21-.




The study revealed that children living in high contamination areas (350-879 kBq/) had a 20% less leukocyte count (5,810 vs. 6,870) than those living in low contamination areas (29-112 kBq/).  Platelet count and erythrocyte count were also less by 5-10%.


Currently in Fukushima, areas around Nakadori indicated in deep blue in the previous map is similar to low contamination areas and Kawamata-machi (outside edge of Iitate-mura) area in green is similar to high contamination areas.


Therefore, what we need to medically assume from this study is that there is a possibility that hematopoietic function of the bone marrow might be suppressed for a long time in children who are currently living in Hamadori and Nakadori of Fukushima. 

Leukopenia reduces body's resistance against bacteria and viruses. Low red blood cell count can cause anemia more easily. Low platelet count interferes with blood coagulation when hemorrhaging from injuries.


Moreover, we must take into consideration that, if there are any children with illnesses or disabilities currently living in Fukushima Nakadori and Hamadori, this degree of effect on bone marrow function might exacerbate their existing conditions.


Furthermore, this study underestimates the effect of radiation exposure by using the control group in low contamination areas as comparison.  Therefor, we must be prepared to face much greater health damage in reality



(Sections 3 & 4 summary)



   1.   Fukushima Nakadori area continues to have radiation contamination comparable to highly contaminated areas in Chernobyl.


   2.   Chernobyl epidemiological studies indicated that children who keep living in such areas have serious abnormalities in pulmonary function and bone marrow function.



   3.   It is clear that an immediate evacuation from highly contaminated areas is imperative in order to prevent a possibility of irreversible health damages in children with future potential for life and improved health.

(http://i1073.photobucket.com/albums/w400/thorfourwinds/AUGUST%202012/fukushimavoiceLOGO.jpg)

FukushimaVoice: What Really Happened in Fukushima:
A Report From a Medical Care Provider (http://fukushimavoice-eng.blogspot.ca/2012/07/what-really-happened-in-fukushima.html?spref=tw)


July 27, 2012
What Really Happened in Fukushima:
A Report From a Medical Care Provider


Part 1

Wednesday, December 21, 2011


I am a medical care provider. 

At my workplace we began taking care of patients from the evacuation zone from Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in the evening of March 11, 2011.

The president of the hospital where I am employed says people live longer when irradiated and Fukushima people now will be healthier because of radiation hormesis.


There is no argument allowed. 


Since this statement comes from a physician, many people believe this in Fukushima.


Those who were contemplating on evacuating from Fukushima are now in a mental state that is not even conducive to thinking about it any longer. 


This was becoming obvious beginning in April or May, 2011, and it might have been a coping mechanism for mass psychology and dangers. 

However, it is entirely different now.  I feel they are no longer capable of avoiding dangers.


This is what I heard from a clinical laboratory technician at work.  Thyroid ultrasound examinations for children, which have already been done in my town and which will be held in other cities from now on, are being performed by Fukushima University Medical School Hospital laboratory technicians who have only done blood tests before.


In other words, they are being done by people who have never used ultrasound equipment before.


Technicians are being dispatched from Fukushima University Medical School.  For instance, there is a whole body counter car stationed in Kawamata-machi, Date district, where a part of the town is a deliberate evacuation area.  There are physicians and clinical laboratory technicians stationed there, and they are all young.

Currently there is "that" Yamapoopa stationed at Fukushima University Medical School.

After being dismissed as the radiation advisor for Fukushima prefecture, he became a vice president for Fukushima University Medical School.  The reason not a single Fukushima physician even mentions medical care for radiation exposure is because of the power of Fukushima University Medical School. 




Yamapoopa and Fukushima University Medical School are planning on creating a cancer center (already publicized).  Minami Tohoku General Hospital in Koriyama-city, which has been introducing Gamma Knife and PET for cancer treatments on a large scale, has not had any say.  It is obvious this is because of Fukushima University Medical School.

I have also learned the following from a radiology technician in mid-March, 2011. 

Test anomalies began to show in Kanto summer of 2011 also.  But in mid-March, X-rays for a particular patient began to show white spots.  They didn't show up if the patient was undressed.  They didn't show up in X-rays of other patients who were examined at the hospital.  This particular patient was actually not even an evacuee but a resident who lived 45 kilometers from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The technician initially thought they were dust specks, but they were clearly bright spots. It was determined that clothes hung up to dry outside must have radioactive materials attached to them.  This "finding" was reported as such to the hospital president as well as the prefectural office. 

At the time we had no idea what was going on at Fukushima Daiichi, and it was reported as a proof that "the radioactive materials have reached as far as here," but it was never publicized.
     


Part 2
Thursday, December 22, 2011


Please let me explain about what happened immediately after the earthquake.

On March 11, 2011, we began to have more and more evacuees from Futaba-machi.

At the time, the media reported that nobody needed decontamination for high radiation levels after evacuees were "screened."  However, some evacuees had already discarded all the clothing and belongings, decontaminated (showered), and had brand-new clothes on.  There were some who evacuated without screening examination because the system wasn't available.  There were some elderly evacuees who were carried to the hospital by Self-Defense Force soldiers in protective clothing.  They did not go through screening.

We accepted both inpatients and outpatients without any manual or instruction for medical care for radiation exposure. 

However, Fukushima University Medical School Hospital only accepted the seriously injured (essentially refusing to accept evacuees) and


the Red Cross medical team said "we were told by the headquarters not to provide medical care for those exposed to radiation."


They stayed for three days, but the Red Cross medical team went to another prefecture without seeing any patients.

More and more evacuees were coming in.  There was a talk of making this hospital a screening center in order to provide adequate screening examinations, but it was stopped by Fukushima University Medical School.  By the way, what was called screening examination was contamination examination of body surface by gamma survey meters.

As a result, the screening center was established at a nearby evacuation center.  Those who were determined to require medical care for radiation exposure were sent to Fukushima University Medical School.  Soon after Minami Tohoku General Hospital was also designated as the screening center.


Incidentally there is something important I would like to add. 

There was a "thyroid examination" of children from Iitate-mura and Kawamata-machi at the end of March, 2011, but it was just like this screening examination. 

Of course there was nothing abnormal found.  The children had taken a shower and changed their clothes beforehand.

The thyroid examination was carried out because there were many children who evacuated from Kawamata-cho.  Residents from Iitate-mura and Kawamata-machi did not receive stable iodine tablets even though evacuees from near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant had taken them.

Soon the residents began to be required to go through screening examination.  More people were being denied entry into other areas for evacuation: they were told they needed proof of normal screening examination.  They went through screening examinations by staff of National Institute of Radiological Sciences (NIRS) at each evacuation center.  They should really screen thyroids or the back of hands, but what they did was a less detailed scanning.  That's how they did the examination because it was assumed to be "okay."

Yamapoopa went around declaring "It's safe." after March 20, 2011.  He said he would conduct children's thyroid examination, and he repeated said, "Everything is fine."



(http://i1073.photobucket.com/albums/w400/thorfourwinds/AUGUST%202012/FukushimaRadioasctive.jpg)


Fukushima Radioactive Contamination Symptoms Research (FRCSR): The research and collection of data due to the Fukushima nuclear accident. We have a monthly report that can be viewed at the end of the month by anyone interested.

Our website is not just for those affected by Fukushima but also for anyone in the world that may have been exposed to radiation. Our hope is to improve the situation of those who are suffering from radioactive contamination anywhere in the world.

Please contact us by e-mail if you have any questions or valuable information on these matters. This website is located in the United States of America and protected by the U.S. copyright laws.


This month a big characteristic is a change in the number of symptoms per person. 


The whole group saw an increase from 3.96 symptoms to 4.5 symptoms per person.  The children's group went from 3 symptoms to 3.6 symptoms per person.  Also, the addendum to prior reports revealed progression of symptoms in the form of worsening symptoms or a new onset of symptoms. 

Both in the whole group and the children's group, the top three symptoms were in bronchi, skin, and general, and the numbers have markedly increased. Also infections are increasing, suggesting decline in the immune competence. 

Japanese doctors warn of public health problems caused by Fukushima radiation. (http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/08/201181665921711896.html)



Residents of Ohkuma-cho attend a memorial service for the victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami on 24 July 2011 in Ohkuma-cho, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, 20 km from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant [EPA]


Scientists and doctors are calling for a new national policy in Japan that mandates the testing of food, soil, water, and the air for radioactivity still being emitted from Fukushima's heavily damaged Daiichi nuclear power plant.

"How much radioactive materials have been released from the plant?"

asked Dr Tatsuhiko Kodama, a professor at the Research Centre for Advanced Science and Technology and Director of the University of Tokyo's Radioisotope Centre, in a July 27 speech to the Committee of Health, Labour and Welfare at Japan's House of Representatives.

"The government and TEPCO have not reported the total amount of the released radioactivity yet,"

said Kodama, who believes things are far worse than even the recent detection of extremely high radiation levels at the plant.

There is widespread concern in Japan about a general lack of government monitoring for radiation, which has caused people to begin their own independent monitoring, which are also finding disturbingly high levels of radiation.

Kodama's centre, using 27 facilities to measure radiation across the country, has been closely monitoring the situation at Fukushima - and their findings are alarming.


According to Dr Kodama,

the total amount of radiation released over a period of more than five months from the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster is the equivalent to more than 29 "Hiroshima-type atomic bombs" and the amount of uranium released "is equivalent to 20" Hiroshima bombs.




Kodama, along with other scientists, is concerned about the ongoing crisis resulting from the Fukushima situation, as well as what he believes to be inadequate government reaction, and believes the government needs to begin a large-scale response in order to begin decontaminating affected areas.

Distrust of the Japanese government's response to the nuclear disaster is now common among people living in the effected prefectures, and people are concerned about their health.

Recent readings taken at the plant are alarming.

When on

August 2nd readings of 10,000 millisieverts (10 sieverts) of radioactivity per hour were detected at the plant,


and is enough radiation to kill a person within one to two weeks after the exposure.

10,000 millisieverts (mSv) is the equivalent of approximately 100,000 chest x-rays.




The operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), that took the reading, used equipment to measure radiation from a distance, and was unable to ascertain the exact level because the device's maximum reading is only 10,000 mSv.

TEPCO also detected 1,000 millisieverts (mSv) per hour in debris outside the plant, as well as finding 4,000 mSv per hour inside one of the reactor buildings.

The Fukushima disaster has been rated as a "level seven" on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES). This level, the highest, is the same as the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986, and is defined by the scale as:

"A major release of radioactive material with widespread health and environmental effects requiring implementation of planned and extended countermeasures."



UPDATE:

Gundersen: Level 8 on INES Scale is needed for Fukushima-like disasters (VIDEO) (http://enenews.com/gundersen-recommends-level-8-on-ines-scale-for-multi-unit-disasters-like-fukushima-video)

QuoteArnie Gundersen: There is a citizen scientist in Pennsylvania who has suggested, and I think it is a great suggestion, that we add a level to the international nuclear scale to address the fact that when more than one nuclear plant is having an accident, the whole world needs to mobilize to solve the problem. I am sure you know that Fukushima Daiichi and Chernobyl were both considered Level 7 accidents which is the worst that could happen.
[...]
it was a multi-unit accident and it also affected many sites. Well, that affects how many resources are brought in from outside and that is why Scott Portzline's recommendation that we add a level to the nuclear accident scale is so important. So Mr .Portzline is recommending, and I agree with him, that we really need one more rung on the international emergency scale. We need a Level 8.
[...]
the International Atomic Energy Agency needs to admit that there are circumstances beyond a Level 7, a Level 8, where international co-operation is critical.  If only the international community had had a Level 8 and recognized that it was not just a single plant or a single site that was in jeopardy, and that, in fact, 14 nuclear reactors at 4 different sites were in jeopardy.  The world might have been able to minimize the consequences at Fukushima Daiichi and minimize the exposure to the Japanese population if only the international community had acted faster.

The Fukushima and Chernobyl disasters are the only nuclear accidents to have been rated level seven on the scale, which is intended to be logarithmic, similar to the scale used to describe the comparative magnitude of earthquakes. Each increasing level represents an accident approximately ten times more severe than the previous level.

Doctors in Japan are already treating patients suffering health effects they attribute to radiation from the ongoing nuclear disaster.


Dr Yuko Yanagisawa, a physician at Funabashi Futawa Hospital in Chiba Prefecture, told Al Jazeera.

She attributes the symptoms to radiation exposure, and added:

"We are encountering new situations we cannot explain with the body of knowledge we have relied upon up until now."

"The situation at the Daiichi Nuclear facility in Fukushima has not yet been fully stabilised, and we can't yet see an end in sight,"

Yanagisawa said.





Gee whiz, Wally, where do you think it's going?




Health concerns

Al Jazeera's Aela Callan, reporting from Japan's Ibaraki prefecture, said of the recently detected high radiation readings:

"It is now looking more likely that this area has been this radioactive since the earthquake and tsunami, but no one realised until now."

Workers at Fukushima are only allowed to be exposed to 250 mSv of ionising radiation per year.

Junichi Matsumoto, a TEPCO spokesman, said the high dose was discovered in an area that does not hamper recovery efforts at the stricken plant.

Yet radioactive cesium exceeding the government limit was detected in processed tea made in Tochigi City, about 160km from the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, according to the Tochigi Prefectural Government, who said radioactive cesium was detected in tea processed from leaves harvested in the city in early July.

The level is more than 3 times the provisional government limit.

Yanagisawa's hospital is located approximately 200km from Fukushima, so the health problems she is seeing that she attributes to radiation exposure causes her to be concerned by what she believes to be a grossly inadequate response from the government.

From her perspective, the only thing the government has done is to, on April 25, raise the acceptable radiation exposure limit for children from 1 mSv/year to 20 mSv/year.

"This has caused controversy, from the medical point of view," Yanagisawa told Al Jazeera. "This is certainly an issue that involves both personal internal exposures as well as low-dose exposures."

Junichi Sato, Greenpeace Japan Executive Director, said:




"The Japanese government cannot simply increase safety limits for the sake of political convenience or to give the impression of normality."






Fukushima reopens beach after nuke crisis (http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/world/fukushima-re-opens-beach-after-nuke-crisis/story-e6frfkui-1226428145902)

FUKUSHIMA prefecture has opened its first beach to swimmers since last year's nuclear disaster after judging the water to be safe.



Not everyone agrees with the idea.

About 1,000 people descended on Nakoso beach on Monday.

The beach is about 65 kilometres south of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, where three reactors melted down after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

The opening was celebrated with beach volleyball games and hula dancers from a nearby spa.



Cheers returned to a beach in Fukushima Prefecture for the first time in two years Monday after all bathing beaches in the northeastern Japan prefecture were closed last year after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami and resultant nuclear crisis.


Iwaki city official Joji Kimura says negligible radiation was detected in water at the beach. Airborne radiation was measured at 0.08 microsieverts per hour, far below dangerous levels.

Swimming had been banned at all beaches in Fukushima prefecture since March 2011.

On the Marine Day national holiday, the Nakoso beach in Iwaki was filled with families with children as well as young men and women.

While the prefecture has 17 bathing beaches, Nakoso is the only one that was reopened, because debris disposal and facility restoration have not proceeded well.

Beside the conventional water quality check, the Fukushima prefectural government measured radiation levels in late June. No radioactive cesium was detected in sea water, and air dose rates at the beach were low at up to 0.07 microsievert per hour.

Yosuke Shirado of Iwaki said he is concerned about radiation levels due to the nuclear crisis at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s disaster-hit Fukushima No. 1 power plant.




Lest we forget:





Fukushima Daiichi Radioactive Seawater Update (http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=fukushima+radioactive+plume&view=detail&id=641D24760C4234B777E33868AD9434CC81063932&first=71)

Radioactivity levels in the seawater outside of the troubled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant continue to ignite concerns over the spread of highly radioactive material in the surrounding seawater.

From the Washington Post: "Samples taken 360 yards offshore from the plant Friday showed radioactive iodine levels 1,250 times the legal safety limit. The levels of iodine-131 in the water had been closer to 100 times the limit this past week."

Attention has turned to cleaning up stagnant, highly contaminated water found in turbine rooms outside the reactors. Pools of the radioactive water have been found at the plant's units 1 and 3. Similar standing water at units 2 and 4 is being tested for radioactivity.




Japan's Nuclear Crisis likened to Chernobyl. Asian Markets Dip in Response (image courtesy googlenewslive.com)


"The unusually high rates of radiation found in the turbine rooms —

and now in the ocean

— have fueled concerns that water may be seeping from at least one of the reactor cores, leaks that could release longer-lasting and much riskier forms of contamination."

Government officials have stated that they are not sure whether the primary containment vessels have been breached. Experts say it could be from reactors or from cooling pools where used nuclear rods are stored.

Nuclear experts have also suggested that the high levels of radioactivity in the surrounding waters could also be attributed in part to emissions in the air.

Officials continue to stress that contaminants will become diluted as currents carry them farther offshore.

However, the elevated radiation levels in the water pose a serious concern for Japan's large fishing industry, with the possibility that other countries could impose bans on imports.

Fishing has already been banned in the area around the plant.

"I don't believe the levels we detected today would...cause a direct problem," Nishiyama said.




ASR modeling of the radioactive seawater tells a different story, cause for serious alarm. While these models do not estimate levels of radioactivity in the surrounding waters, the assumption that nearby currents will quickly dilute the radioactive material does not appear to be accurate.




Instead our model shows radioactive sea water slowly drifting south at an average of 0.2 m/s in an low energy area between the Kuroshio Current, the Japan coastline and an large eddy formation further up in the north. 


Update on Thursday, March 31, 2011 by Nick Behunin

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said that seawater collected roughly 300 yards from the Fukushima Daiichi station was found to contain iodine-131 at


the highest levels reported so far.




On Sunday, a test north of the plant showed 1,150 times the maximum level, while a test one day before showed 1,250 times the limit in seawater taken from a monitoring station at the plant.

Responding to these concerns, ASR Limited, a New-Zealand based marine consulting and research firm, has developed computer models able to accurately predict the spread of the contaminated material.

"We've based our simulations on daily updates of the local winds and currents.  This information is then fed in to our model to predict how fast and how far the radioactivity will spread, and what its concentrations will be" Says ASR Scientist Laurent Lebreton who developed the model.


PRESS RELEASE  (http://blog.asrltd.com/storage/ASR_Fukushima_PressRelease.pdf)

Authoritative current estimates of the health effects of low-dose ionizing radiation are published in the Biological Effects of Ionising Radiation VII (BEIR VII) report from the US National Academy of Sciences.

The report reflects the substantial weight of scientific evidence proving


there is no exposure to ionizing radiation that is risk-free.


The BEIR VII estimates that each 1 mSv of radiation is associated with an increased risk of all forms of cancer other than leukemia of about 1-in-10,000; an increased risk of leukemia of about 1-in-100,000; and a 1-in-17,500 increased risk of cancer death.

Dr Helen Caldicott, the founding president of Physicians for Social Responsibility,

(and our first Earth Aid Concert (http://www.thelivingmoon.com/forum/index.php?topic=1405.0) Twitter Follower)

a group that was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985, is equally concerned about the health effects from Japan's nuclear disaster.

"Radioactive elements get into the testicles and ovaries, and these cause genetic disease like diabetes, cystic fibrosis, and mental retardation," she told Al Jazeera.

"There are 2,600 of these diseases that get into our genes and are passed from generation to generation, forever."

So far, the only cases of acute radiation exposure have involved TEPCO workers at the stricken plant. Lower doses of radiation, particularly for children, are what many in the medical community are most concerned about, according to Dr Yanagisawa.

"Humans are not yet capable of accurately measuring the low dose exposure or internal exposure," she explained, "Arguing 'it is safe because it is not yet scientifically proven [to be unsafe]' would be wrong. That fact is that we are not yet collecting enough information to prove the situations scientifically. If that is the case, we can never say it is safe just by increasing the annual 1mSv level twenty fold."

Her concern is that the new exposure standards by the Japanese government do not take into account differences between adults and children, since children's sensitivity to radiation exposure is several times higher than that of adults.


Al Jazeera contacted Prime Minister Naoto Kan's office for comment on the situation.

Speaking on behalf of the Deputy Cabinet Secretary for Public Relations for the Prime Minister's office, Noriyuki Shikata said that the Japanese government "refers to the ICRP [International Commission on Radiological Protection] recommendation in 2007, which says the reference levels of radiological protection in emergency exposure situations is 20-100 mSv per year.

The Government of Japan has set planned evacuation zones and specific spots recommended for evacuation where the radiation levels reach 20 mSv/year, in order to avoid excessive radiation exposure."

The prime minister's office explained that approximately 23bn yen ($300mn) is planned for decontamination efforts, and the government plans to have a decontamination policy "by around the end of August", with a secondary budget of about 97bn yen ($1.26bn) for health management and monitoring operations in the affected areas.

When questioned about the issue of "acute radiation exposure", Shikata pointed to the Japanese government having received a report from TEPCO about six of their workers having been exposed to more than 250 mSv, but did not mention any reports of civilian exposures.

Prime Minister Kan's office told Al Jazeera that, for their ongoing response to the Fukushima crisis,

"the government of Japan has conducted all the possible countermeasures such as introduction of automatic dose management by ID codes for all workers and 24 hour allocation of doctors.

The government of Japan will continue to tackle the issue of further improving the health management including medium and long term measures".

???


Shikata did not comment about Kodama's findings.

Kodama, who is also a doctor of internal medicine, has been working on decontamination of radioactive materials at radiation facilities in hospitals of the University of Tokyo for the past several decades.

"We had rain in Tokyo on March 21 and radiation increased to .2 micosieverts/hour and, since then, the level has been continuously high,"

said Kodama, who added that his reporting of radiation findings to the government has not been met an adequate reaction.

"At that time, the chief cabinet secretary, Mr Edano, told the Japanese people that






Kodama is an expert in internal exposure to radiation, and is concerned that the government has not implemented a strong response geared towards measuring radioactivity in food.

"Although three months have passed since the accident already, why have even such simple things have not been done yet?" he said. "I get very angry and fly into a rage."

According to Kodama, the major problem caused by internal radiation exposure is the generation of cancer cells as the radiation causes unnatural cellular mutation.

"Radiation has a high risk to embryos in pregnant women, juveniles, and highly proliferative cells of people of growing ages. Even for adults, highly proliferative cells, such as hairs, blood, and intestinal epithelium cells, are sensitive to radiation."




Children are at greater risk ?

Early on in the disaster, Dr Makoto Kondo of the department of radiology of Keio University's School of Medicine warned of "a large difference in radiation effects on adults compared to children". Kondo explained the chances of children developing cancer from radiation exposure was many times higher than adults.

"Children's bodies are underdeveloped and easily affected by radiation, which could cause cancer or slow body development. It can also affect their brain development," he said.

Yanagisawa assumes that the Japanese government's evacuation standards, as well as their raising the permissible exposure limit to 20mSv "can cause hazards to children's health," and therefore "children are at a greater risk".

Nishio Masamichi, director of Japan's Hakkaido Cancer Centre and a radiation treatment specialist, published an article on July 27 titled: "The Problem of Radiation Exposure Countermeasures for the Fukushima Nuclear Accident: Concerns for the Present Situation".

In the report, Masamichi said that such a dramatic increase in permitted radiation exposure was akin to "taking the lives of the people lightly".

He believes that 20mSv is too high, especially for children who are far more susceptible to radiation.




Caldicott told Al Jazeera.


In early July, officials with the Japanese Nuclear Safety Commission announced that approximately 45 per cent of children in the Fukushima region had experienced thyroid exposure to radiation, according to a survey carried out in late March.


The commission has not carried out any surveys since then.


"Now the Japanese government is underestimating the effects of low dosage and/or internal exposures and not raising the evacuation level even to the same level adopted in Chernobyl," Yanagisawa said.




"People's lives are at stake, especially the lives of children, and it is obvious that the government is not placing top priority on the people's lives in their measures."

Caldicott feels the lack of a stronger response to safeguard the health of people in areas where radiation is found is "reprehensible".




Dr Yanagisawa is concerned about what she calls "late onset disorders" from radiation exposure resulting from the Fukushima disaster, as well as increasing cases of infertility and miscarriages.

"Incidence of cancer will undoubtedly increase," she said. "In the case of children, thyroid cancer and leukemia can start to appear after several years. In the case of adults, the incidence of various types of cancer will increase over the course of several decades."

Yanagisawa said it is "without doubt" that cancer rates among the Fukushima nuclear workers will increase, as will cases of lethargy, atherosclerosis, and other chronic diseases among the general population in the effected areas.

Yanagisawa believes it is time to listen to survivors of the atomic bombings. "To be exposed to radiation, to be told there is no immediate effect, and afterwards to be stricken with cancer - what it is like to suffer this way over a long period of time, only the survivors of the atomic bombings can truly understand," she told Al Jazeera.


Radioactive food and water?

An August 1 press release from Japan's MHLW said no radioactive materials have been detected in the tap water of Fukushima prefecture, according to a survey conducted by the Japanese government's Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters.

The government defines no detection as "no results exceeding the 'Index values for infants (radioactive iodine)'," and says "in case the level of radioactive iodine in tap water exceeds 100 Bq/kg, to refrain from giving infants formula milk dissolved by tap water, having them intake tap water ... "


Dr Nanao Kamada, professor emeritus of radiation biology at Hiroshima University, has been to Fukushima prefecture twice in order to take internal radiation exposure readings and facilitated the study.

"The risk of internal radiation is more dangerous than external radiation," Dr Kamada told Al Jazeera. "And internal radiation exposure does exist for Fukushima residents."

According to the MHLW, distribution of several food products in Fukushima Prefecture remain restricted.

This includes raw milk, vegetables including spinach, kakina, and all other leafy vegetables, including cabbage, shiitake mushrooms, bamboo shoots, and beef.

The distribution of tealeaves remains restricted in several prefectures, including all of Ibaraki, and parts of Tochigi, Gunma, Chiba, Kanagawa Prefectures. Iwate prefecture suspended all beef exports because of caesium contamination on August 1, making it the fourth prefecture to do so.




Due to caesium contaminated straw, beef exports have been banned in four Japanese prefectures (EPA)

Jyunichi Tokuyama, an expert with the Iwate Prefecture Agricultural and Fisheries Department, told Al Jazeera he did not know how to deal with the crisis. He was surprised because he did not expect radioactive hot spots in his prefecture, 300km from the Fukushima nuclear plant.

"The biggest cause of this contamination is the rice straw being fed to the cows, which was highly radioactive,"

Tokuyama told Al Jazeera.


Kamada feels the Japanese government is acting too slowly in response to the Fukushima disaster, and that the government needs to check radiation exposure levels "in each town and village" in Fukushima prefecture.

"They have to make a general map of radiation doses," he said. "Then they have to be concerned about human health levels, and radiation exposures to humans. They have to make the exposure dose map of Fukushima prefecture. Fukushima is not enough. Probably there are hot spots outside of Fukushima. So they also need to check ground exposure levels."

Caldicott said people around the world should be concerned about the ongoing nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

Radiation that continues to be released has global consequences.

More than 11,000 tonnes of radioactive water has been released into the ocean from the stricken plant.




Scientists warn that tuna caught off the Pacific coastal prefecture in northern Japan are now at risk of being radioactive (EPA)

"Those radioactive elements bio-concentrate in the algae, then the crustaceans eat that, which are eaten by small then big fish," Caldicott said. "That's why big fish have high concentrations of radioactivity and humans are at the top of the food chain, so we get the most radiation, ultimately."

On August 6, the 66th anniversary of the US nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan said:




We will thoroughly look into the cause of the [Fukushima] accident, and to secure safety, we'll implement fundamental measures while also decreasing the degree of dependence on nuclear power generation, to aim for a society that does not rely on nuclear power."

But doctors, scientists, agricultural experts, and much of the general public in Japan feel that a much more aggressive response to the nuclear disaster is needed.

Kodama believes the government needs to begin a large-scale response in order to begin decontaminating affected areas. He cited Japan's itai itai disease, when cadmium poisoning from mining resulted in the government eventually having to spend 800 billion yen to decontaminate an area of 1,500 hectares.


"How much cost will be needed if the area is 1,000 times larger?"








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Britain to build Europe's first nuclear plant since Fukushima | Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/20/us-britain-nuclear-hinkley-idUSBRE99J03T20131020)

20 October 2013
(Reuters) - Britain is set to sign a deal with France's EDF for the first nuclear plant to start construction in Europe since Japan's Fukushima disaster raised safety concerns worldwide, at a cost estimated at around $23 billion.

Under the deal, expected to be announced on Monday, the French utility will lead a consortium, including a Chinese group, to construct two European Pressurised Water Reactors (EPRs) designed by France's Areva.

Industry estimates, based on other nuclear projects, put the cost at around 14 billion pounds or more than 16 billion euros.

EDF's long-time partner China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN), possibly in combination with China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), is expected to have a 30 to 40 percent stake in the consortium, with Areva taking another 10 percent, according to newspapers including France's Les Echos and Britain's Sunday Telegraph.

EDF and the British prime minister's office declined to comment on the media reports.

(snip)

George Borovas, nuclear specialist at law firm Pillsbury, said Britain is a unique environment for nuclear, given political support, a relatively strong economy and an existing nuclear fleet.


he said.



For your consideration:

QuotePlutonium records discrepancy
On 17 February 2005, the UK Atomic Energy Authority reported that 29.6 kg (65.3 lb) of plutonium was unaccounted for in auditing records at the Sellafield nuclear fuel reprocessing plant. The operating company, the British Nuclear Group, described this as a discrepancy in paper records and not as indicating any physical loss of material.

They pointed out that the error amounted to about 0.5%, whereas International Atomic Energy Agency regulations permit a discrepancy up to 1% as the amount of plutonium recovered from the reprocessing process never precisely matches the pre-process estimates. The inventories in question were accepted as satisfactory by Euratom, the relevant regulatory agency.

:P

And what about this?

QuoteIn 2003 it was announced that the Thorp reprocessing plant would be closed in 2010. Originally predicted to make profits for BNFL of £500m, by 2003 it had made losses of over £1bn.[91] Subsequently Thorp was closed for almost two years from 2005, after a leak had been undetected for 9 months. Production eventually restarted at the plant in early 2008; but almost immediately had to be put on hold again, for an underwater lift that takes the fuel for reprocessing to be repaired.[92]

In November 2008 Sellafield was taken over by a new consortium (US company URS Corp., French firm Areva and the UK company Amec) for decommissioning, as part of a 5-year £6.5bn contract.

In October 2008 it was revealed that the British government had agreed to issue Sellafield an unlimited indemnity against future accidents; according to The Guardian, "the indemnity even covers accidents and leaks that are the consortium's fault."

The indemnity had been rushed through prior to the summer parliamentary recess without notifying parliament.[93]

In 2009 Sellafield decommissioning accounted for 40% of the budget of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority – over £1.1bn.[94]

In 2013 a critical Public Accounts Committee report stated that the private consortium managing Sellafield has failed to reduce costs and delays. Since 2005 the annual costs of operating Sellafield had increased from £900 million to about £1.6 billion. The estimated lifetime cost of dealing with the Sellafield site had increased to £67.5 billion.[95][96][97]

And this?

QuoteSellafield's (http://readtiger.com/wkp/en/Sellafield#MOX_fuel_quality_data_falsification) biggest decommissioning challenges relate to the leftovers of the early nuclear research and nuclear weapons programmes.[98] Sellafield houses "the most hazardous industrial building in western Europe" (building B30) and the second-most (building B38), which hold a variety of leftovers from the first Magnox plants in ageing ponds.[98]

(http://www.thelivingmoon.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10005/Disused-plutonium-reactor-001.jpg)

The disused plutonium reactors at Sellafield are a 'slow-motion Chernobyl', according to Greenpeace campaigners against nuclear energy. Photograph: Robert Brook/Alamy/Alamy


Some of the problems with B38 date back to the 1972 miners' strike: the reactors were pushed so hard that waste processing could not keep up, and "cladding and fuel were simply thrown into B38's cooling ponds and left to disintegrate."[98]

Some of the problems date back to the original nuclear weapons programme at Sellafield, when Piles 1 and 2 were constructed at breakneck speed, and safe disposal was not a priority. Building B41 still houses the aluminium cladding for the uranium fuel rods of Piles 1 and 2, and is modelled on a grain silo, with waste tipped in at the top and argon gas added to prevent fires.[98]

The Sellafield MOX Plant
Construction of the Sellafield MOX Plant (SMP) was completed in 1997, though justification for the operation of the plant was not achieved until October 2001.[30]

Mixed oxide, or MOX fuel, is a blend of plutonium and natural uranium or depleted uranium which behaves similarly (though not identically) to the enriched uranium feed for which most nuclear reactors were designed. MOX fuel is an alternative to low enriched uranium (LEU) fuel used in the light water reactors which predominate in nuclear power generation. MOX also provides a means of using excess weapons-grade plutonium (from military sources) to produce electricity.

Designed with a plant capacity of 120 tonnes/year, it achieved a total output of only 5 tonnes during its first five years of operation.[30]

In 2008 orders for the plant had to be fulfilled at COGEMA in France,[31] and the plant was reported in the media as "failed"[32][33] with a total build and operation cost of £1.2 billion.[34]

On 12 May 2010 an agreement was reached with existing Japanese customers on future MOX supplies.[35] In July 2010 Areva was contracted to design and supply a new rod line to improve reliability and production rate.

On 3 August 2011 the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority announced that the MOX Plant would close, due to the loss of Japanese orders following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.[36]

However Japanese orders for MOX have recommenced as of April 17, 2013, being supplied by the Sellafield MOX plants main competitor, the French MOX fuel vendor COGEMA owned by Areva.[37]

And what about this?

Between 1950 and 2000 there were 21 serious incidents or accidents involving some off-site radiological releases that warranted a rating on the International Nuclear Event Scale, one at level 5, five at level 4 and fifteen at level 3. Additionally during the 1950s and 1960s,

there were protracted periods of known, deliberate, discharges to the atmosphere of plutonium and irradiated uranium oxide particulates.[45]

These frequent incidents, together with the large 2005 Thorp plant leak which was not detected for nine months, have led some to doubt the effectiveness of the managerial processes and safety culture on the site over the years.

Sellafield in popular culture
Music
In 2010 Post-Punk group Spear of Destiny wrote the song "Windscale" on their album Omega Point which referenced the fire in 1957.

In 1992, rock bands U2, Public Enemy, Big Audio Dynamite II, and Kraftwerk held a "Stop Sellafield" concert for Greenpeace to protest against the nuclear factory. Stop Sellafield: The Concert was later released that year on VHS in the UK, and all proceeds went directly to Greenpeace.

On their 2005 live album Kraftwerk preface a live performance of Radioactivity with a vocoder voice announcing: Sellafield 2 will produce 7.5 tons of plutonium every year. 1.5 kilogram of plutonium make a nuclear bomb.

Sellafield 2 will release the same amount of radioactivity into the environment as Chernobyl every 4.5 years.

One of these radioactive substances, Krypton 85, will cause death and skin cancer.[99]

(snip)

EDF operates 15 nuclear reactors in the UK following its 12.5 billion pound takeover of British Energy in 2008-2009.

(snip)

Direct market support for new nuclear plants is unprecedented in Europe since liberalization started two decades ago, and Britain will be the first country to seek consent from the European Commission's competition department for this.

Earlier this month the Commission ruled out including a reference to nuclear power in revised state aid rules, an indication the UK request could be difficult.
Critics say that by freezing the power price for a nuclear plant for decades ahead, the government is taking huge risks.

"Why would anyone begin to imagine that you know what the price of wholesale electricity will be in be 2058?" said Tom Burke, environmentalist and former government energy adviser.

For EDF too the project is a major risk. At the EPR reactor EDF is building in Flamanville, France, costs ballooned from a budgeted 3.3 billion euros in 2005 to 8.5 billion euros late last year. An EPR built by Areva in Olkiluoto, Finland, has suffered similar overruns and is also years behind schedule.

(snip)

British finance minister George Osborne signed an agreement in China on Thursday allowing Chinese companies to enter Britain's nuclear power sector.

China, which is developing its own reactor, sees the Hinkley Point deal as a first foot in the door in Europe and hopes to use the British reference to sell nuclear plants worldwide.

Eventually, this could bring it into competition with EDF and Areva, on whose technologies the Chinese designs are based. ($1 = 0.6178 British pounds, $1 = 0.7302 euros)

Lest we forget...




The total number of days between Friday, March 11, 2011 and Friday, April 27, 2012 is
413 days.


The radiation poisoning of we, the people, our children, pets, food, water and our land
has continued unabated - 24/7/365

- for 1 year, 1 month, 2 days ... which is:

•   35,683,200 seconds
•   574,720 minutes
•   9,912 hours
•   59 weeks

Once again, are we any closer to a solution to the Fukushima multiple melt-throughs disaster/fiasco spewing life-altering clouds of radiation 24/7/365?   


OK, let's try a different tactic to share what we feel is important to understand at this precise time in history. This is not a drill or dry-fire exercise. The balloon has dropped, people, and it's called  Nukushima. (http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/img/mm4f2323dd.jpg)




Once and for all, we're going to put to bed the theory being bandied about by the MSM that Fukushima is no worse than Chernobyl and 'not to worry.'

Now, armed with the sword of the just, we have come to slay the nuclear beast from hell.

"The government is going to turn off the radiation detectors, raise the official EPA limits of radioactive exposure, urge Americans to avoid preparing for fallout, and then pretend absolutely nothing is wrong."

There has been a unbelievable amount of disinformation bandied about regarding the Fukushima nuclear disaster with the cover-up previously hinted at now taking center stage with government agencies of other nations now proven complicit in cooperation with Japan while the international nuclear industry sided with TEPCO's (Tokyo Electric Power Company) disinformation and denial campaign.

QuoteFew people know that the Pacific Northwest got whacked hard by fallout from the Fukushima disaster with radiation rates hundreds of thousands of times higher than normal background radiation.

The damage from this is not something that the corporate media or the government is talking about.

It mysteriously disappeared from the radar almost immediately.

Dr. Caldicott referred to this as a process of "cover-up and psychic numbing."

Looks like it may be working.

We'll start with sharing this video from Jeff Rense interviewing Michael Collins (EnviroReporter.com) on
25 April 2012.







In reality, of course, TEPCO has nothing under control...NOTHING!




This unconscionable travesty has amounted to an undeclared nuclear war perpetrated on all life on Earth by an uncaring, death-dealing conspiracy composed of (among others) the JAPGOV/TEPCO/IAEA/NISA, the USGOV/EPA/FDA/NOAA/CDC and the MSM worldwide.

Quote"Let's wipe the Tokyo Electric Power Company and the General Electric officials and policy makers off the face of the Earth, as they manifestly deserve."

Dr. Chris Busby, world famous physicist, said tests conducted at the respected Harwell Radiation Laboratory in England demonstrate that airborne radiation in Japan is 1,000 times higher than radioactive "fallout" at the peak in 1963 of H-Bomb detonations by nuclear powers.

In March, Busby had estimated that Fukushima radiation to be 72,000 times greater than what the United States released at Hiroshima.

QuoteThe Nuclear Regulatory Commission just approved two new nuclear power plants this week (4/2/12) in South Carolina in addition to the two approved earlier this year in Georgia.

Dr. Caldicott talks about the dangers and hidden costs of nuclear power then tells the awful truth in minute detail about the actual scale of the Fukushima disaster and compares it to the nuclear disasters of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.

(http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/img/pw4f9d5bf3.png)

Recent studies estimated that a million people have died so far from Chernobyl. 
See also: www.helencaldicott.com

Experts: Fukushima 'off-scale' lethal radiation level infers millions dying (//http://Experts:%20Fukushima%20'off-scale'%20lethal%20radiation%20level%20infers%20millions%20dying%20-%20National%20Human%20Rights%20%7C%20Examiner.com)

They are counting on the fact that their 26-year disinformation campaign on Chernobyl has worked and the public will dismiss the continuing calamity at Fukushima as easily.

Let's keep up the pressure of the truth.

Never forget what a nuclear "accident" really means to life on Planet Earth!




Fukushima Daiichi reactors contain radiation equal to "a thousand Hiroshima bombs" | The Vancouver Observer (http://www.vancouverobserver.com/world/asia/2011/03/14/fukushima-daiichi-reactors-contain-radiation-equal-thousand-hiroshima-bombs)


We have presented information on a continuing basis confirming that the world's governments, MSM, nuclear "watchdog" agencies such as NISA and the NRC and the entire Nuclear Industrial Complex are involved in a literal life-and-death struggle to maintain the worldwide cover-up and are working together to keep this horrible, life-altering, multiple melt-through toxic radiation catastrophe minimized and essentially secret.


And just when we thought that it couldn't get much worse, we were stunned once more
and sent down another twisting path on our journey through this nuclear hell.

We are now researching information on the "disappearance" of mutant infants and other "undesirables" by unscrupulous doctors who, rather than being on the side of humanity, ethics, justice-for-all and upholding their sworn Hippocratic Oath and bearing the brunt of telling the truth, are instead continuing the myth that the Fukushima wind-borne radiation fallout has not affected the genetic matrix of the unfortunate victims of this deadly travesty by "off-the-books" child delivery and subsequent disposal of "damaged goods."   




This is one story that will not be swept under the rug, not on our watch, to be sure. We've asked Dr. Helen Caldicott to weigh in here and assist with this project ... soon to be a portion of our upcoming opus, "Fukushima Chronicles:The Last Nuclear Accident On Planet Earth."

It is up to us as a collective effort to effect change and that is exactly what we, as Operation Survival, are manifesting: a sharing of new ideas, visual experiences and futuristic concepts unparalleled in human history, we humbly offer EARTH AID (http://www.thelivingmoon.com/forum/index.php?topic=1405.0) as a dynamic, multi-dimensional vision of the future, being readied for the present, to overcome the waste of the past.




As we have stated innumerable times, our elected officials and media talking heads have been systematically breaking the law and allowing people to die for lack of their information dissemination!




This information must be continually brought to light if we, the people, are going to have a fighting chance to survive Fukushima - the world's greatest environmental challenge.

We must be informed in order to formulate any credible plan. We cannot sit idly by and assume our elected officials will actually perform their job with ethics and integrity, tell the truth and protect we, the people.   




Perhaps a few more headlines will assist in understanding the scope of this challenge as they seem to portray the situation rather succintly:

Most Important Video of the Year? Asahi TV: "Unbelievable" — If Unit 4 pool gets a crack from quake and leaks, it would be end for Tokyo (http://enenews.com/important-video-year-asahi-tv-unbelievable-unit-4-pool-crack-leaks-during-quake-be-tokyo-japan-expert-doesnt-be-large-quake-already-shaken-many-times-serious-problem)


L.A. Times: Speculation that "supercritical fission event" occurred at Fukushima reactor irradiating plutonium, says nuclear expert — Explosion so massive investigators found fuel rod fragments a mile away (http://enenews.com/l-a-times-speculation-that-supercritical-fission-event-may-have-occurred-at-fukushima-reactor-irradiating-plutonium-explosion-so-massive-investigators-found-fuel-rod-fragments-a-mile-away-ex)


AP Headline: "Japanese govt kept meltdown risk secret" — NISA spokesman replaced after letting it 'slip out' during press conference (http://enenews.com/ap-headline-japanese-govt-kept-meltdown-risk-secret-nisa-spokesman-replaced-after-letting-it-slip-out-during-press-conference)




We keep hearing all the comparisons being floated about regarding the amount of radiation spewed from Chernobyl and Fukushima.

We posted this one year ago...


For your consideration:

For the first two days after the accident, the wind blew east from Fukushima towards monitoring stations on the US west coast; on the third day it blew south-west over the Japanese monitoring station at Takasaki, then swung east again.

QuoteEach day, readings for iodine-131 at Sacramento in California, or at Takasaki, both suggested the same amount of iodine was coming out of Fukushima, says Wotawa: 1.2 to 1.3 × 10 to the 17th becquerels per day.

In the 10 days it burned, Chernobyl put out 1.76 × 10 to the 18th becquerels of iodine-131, which amounts to only 50 per cent more per day than has been calculated for Fukushima Daiichi. It is not yet clear how long emissions from the Japanese plant will continue.

11 March to 20 June = 70 days.

50% more per day means that Chernobyl put out twice as much Iodine-131 per day than has been calculated for Fukushima Daiichi - but only for 10 days.

Let's take the lower estimate of 1.2 x 10 to the 17th becquerels per day x 70 days:

If our figures are correct, that means that Fukushima Daiichi has already spewed forth
350% as much Iodine-131 as Chernobyl.

And it is still spewing continuously - 24 hours a day - with no end in sight - contaminating all the foodstuffs in the fields in North America.

QuoteSimilarly, says Wotawa, caesium-137 emissions are on the same order of magnitude as at Chernobyl. The Sacramento readings suggest it has emitted 5 × 10 to the 15th becquerels of caesium-137 per day; Chernobyl put out 8.5 × 10 to the 16th in total – around 70 per cent more per day.

5 × 10 to the 15th becquerels of caesium-137 per day x 70 days:

If our figures are correct, we conclude that Fukushima Daiichi has already spewed forth about 500% as much Cesium-137 as Chernobyl.

And it is still spewing continuously - 24 hours a day - with no end in sight - contaminating all the foodstuffs in the fields in North America.

This cannot bode well for the inhabitants of Planet Earth.


Ask any of these children - unwilling participants in the nuclear industry's "Chernobyl experiment" about the dangers of radiation.




Fukushima Emergency what can we do?: Nuclear Expert Says Fukushima Radiation Coming To USA, Massive Cover-Up Under Way (http://fukushimaemergencywhatcanwedo.blogspot.com/2011/09/nuclear-expert-says-fukushima-radiation.html)

QuoteMillions of gallons of contaminated water are being dumped into the Pacific in addition to radiation particles floating on air streams. So ocean currents are assisting air currents, exposing the world to excessive radiation.

A nearby Japanese university has tested soil samples in the area and discovered the radioactive contamination is deeper and higher than originally anticipated.

Unanticipated higher readings done by third party groups imply earlier industry and government cover ups that downgraded or withheld readings.

Fukushima risks Chernobyl 'Dead Zone' — Over 5,000,000 becquerels per square meter of Cesium-137 outside 20 km zone (http://enenews.com/fukushima-risks-chernobyl-dead-zone-5000000-becquerels-square-meter-cesium-137-20-km-zone)




What type of psychopath can justify taking this kind of chance with the future of humanity just to boil water?

These people literally have our fate in their hands, unless we do something about it sooner than later.




Japan gov't finds 165 locations over wide area with cesium-137 exceeding Chernobyl evacuation levels — Data shows radiation could be "spreading to other areas" (http://enenews.com/japan-govt-finds-165-locations-wide-area-cesium-137-exceeding-chernobyl-evacuation-levels-data-shows-radiation-could-be-spreading-other-areas)



It is unlikely residents will ever return.

The outright blackmailing of schoolchildren's parents is not only abysmal, but totally unethical and immoral.




Japanese Seniors Become Radioactive Waste Dumps (http://news.3yen.com/wp-content/images/rad-rice.jpg)

Seniors urged to eat Fukushima rice to help farmers, protect young people

QuoteLet them eat rice... radioactive rice.

Japan's efforts to the battle plague of old people—two Japanese will be retired for every three persons working*— has resulted in some creative thinking for using the elderly as radiation waste dumps for all the unsold, glow-in-the-dark, radioactive rice from areas around the Fukushima nuclear meltdown.

QuoteA Tokyo senior is waging an individual effort to get elderly people to eat rice grown in Fukushima Prefecture to help local farmers struggling with rumors that their crops are radioactive, and to make sure the grain isn't consumed by more vulnerable younger generations...

Going along with the delusional mantra that 'all must share the burden of the radioactive debris', let's build with "recycled cement".

QuoteThe government decided on a new plan on April 11 to give priority to using disaster debris including concrete bits when tsunami-control forests and parks are built and roads and ports are repaired (as part of the public works) in the areas affected by the March 11, 2011 earthquake/tsunami.

The government will introduce a new competitive bidding scheme for public works that will give preference to companies who will promise the use of recycled cement. As the wide-area disposal of the debris outside the disaster-affected areas is proceeding with difficulties, the government wants to show its commitment by introducing these plans.

Radioactive Cesium found in newly constructed housing in Namie, Japan (http://enformable.com/2012/01/radioactive-cesium-found-in-newly-constructed-housing-in-namie-japan/)



The city found that the radioactive cesium level on the first floor was 1.24 microsieverts per hour, which is higher than outside.  The officials say that the gravel used on the first floor came from a stone-crushing site in Namie Town in a no-entry zone near the crippled plant.


In case you're wondering what "recycled cement" is, it's the cement that contains ashes from burning the debris.

As long as the density of radioactive cesium in the final product is less than 100 bq/kg, the cement is good to use anywhere in Japan. Recycled cement is already being produced, using the ashes from incineration plants.

Mix and dilute, that's the strategy.

And to further encourage more municipalities in Japan to accept the disaster debris, Goshi Hosono's Ministry of the Environment will subsidize trips to Miyagi and Iwate for the municipal officials and residents.

The money will come from the current and future taxpayers, many of whom do not want to have disaster debris brought to their cities and towns.

Ultimate insult.


Not quite.




This is what the nuclear advocates would rather you not see and understand the real tragedy of nuclear energy gone wrong.




Yasumi Iwakami Interviewing Dr. Shuntaro Hida, Who Says "There Is Nowhere to Escape in Japan" (http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2012/04/yasumi-iwakami-interviewing-dr-shuntaro.html)

QuoteDr. Hida said something that Hiroaki Koide of Kyoto University has been saying from the beginning of the nuclear disaster.

He said, "There is nowhere to escape in Japan, because Japan is too small. Not all people in Fukushima can relocate."

Dr. Hida's advice to Iwakami and people in Fukushima, and anyone who feel he/she is affected by radiation, is to lead a healthy life - get up early, eat at regular time, sleep well, enjoying the company of family and friends.??

Well, by trying to appear calm in the face of the largest disaster (natural and nuclear), Japanese people as aggregate lost the opportunity to finally wake up from more than two decades of stupor and stagnation.

For that majority, all they hope to do is to live like nothing happened. Dr. Hida's advice is quite appropriate in that regard, although it does make sense to strengthen the immune system to fight the effect of radiation.

There is an undeclared nuclear war perpetrated on the peoples of Earth by an uncaring, death-dealing conspiracy composed of (among others) the JAPGOV/TEPCO/IAEA/NISA, the USGOV/EPA/FDA/NOAA/CDC and the MSM worldwide.


TEPCO has never given the real figures on how many millions of gallons of radioactive water has been released into the Pacific Ocean.




Contract workers report more radioactive water leaked into ocean at Fukushima Daiichi (http://enformable.com/2012/03/contract-workers-report-more-radioactive-water-leaks-into-ocean-at-fukushima-daiichi/)




Currently, both of the cesium adsorption apparatus, the water desalinations (reverse osmosis membrane, and evaporative concentration apparatus) are still shut down.

TEPCO did not release adequate information related to the radiation levels to provide any levels or reference values.


(http://www.easyfreesmileys.com/smileys/computer-22.gif) (http://www.easyfreesmileys.com/skype-emoticons.html)


From the "we told you so department":

3 April 2012 - One year after the fact:

Japan kept 10 trillion becquerel per hour calculations secret for over a year (http://enformable.com/2012/04/japan-kept-10-trillion-becquerel-per-hour-calculations-secret-for-over-a-year/)


April 9th, 2011 – Japanese evacuation radius may not protect the health of the general public longer than 2 weeks (http://enformable.com/2012/04/april-9th-2011-japanese-evacuation-radius-may-not-protect-the-health-of-the-general-public-longer-than-2-weeks/)




Top Japanese Officials endorse new nuclear safety standards created in less than one week (http://enformable.com/2012/04/top-japanese-officials-endorse-new-nuclear-safety-standards-created-in-less-than-one-week/)

QuoteThe government is accelerating plans to give it's the official nod to the restart of the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors at the Ohi plant in Fukui Prefecture after the Japanese Nuclear Safety Commission approved the results of Kansai Electric's first-stage stress tests on the two reactors in March.

Yukio Edano is popular in many illustrations in Japan Newspapers.

QuoteJapanese Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano is perhaps most famous for having stated at a news conference only two days after the March 11 disaster that, "There is no risk to inhabitants of the area (Fukushima)."
(...)
Japanese officials are concerned that if all of the nation's nuclear power plants are shut down, that the rising sentiment in the island nation will prevent any of the commercial reactors to start once again.

"They want to avoid setting a precedent of the country operating without nuclear power because it will create a huge barrier in terms of restarts," said Jeffrey Kingston, director of Asian Studies at Temple University's Tokyo campus.

"People will question why we need it," he said.

When will the citizens of the world finally grow a pair and STOP this Keystone Cops death-comedy of errors?


May we remind you of recent awareness in Japan?




Japan Being Pushed Into Revolt Over Fukushima Radiation (http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2012/03/28/japanese-pushed-corner-revolt-107632/)

The Japanese are finally noticing that they are surrounded by the invisible walls.

Since the bubble ended in 1992, Japan has been in a long recession, called Japan's lost 20 years.

Leaders changed like revolving lanterns.

Japanese citizens became aware that their voice is not reflected in the political situation but they tried to ignore the fact and indulged themselves in the fading prosperity.




Tens of thousands of protesters pack a park during the anti-nuclear demonstration in Tokyo.

However, they cannot ignore it anymore.

Since 3/11, their government has been trying to kill the people instead of saving them.

They have concealed SPEEDI data which showed where people should be evacuated from and instead are having people remain in hotspots.

The government has engaged in a campaign to cover up the information about the nuclear radioactive fallout having set the food regulations to save the producers instead of the consumers.

In a futile attempt to protect their own lives and the lives of their children the Japanese have put forth countless petitions, demonstrations, and discussions but none of them have been effective.




Over one hundred thousand people are marching against the government in central Tokyo.

The Japanese have not felt the necessity of revolt this much since the last Japanese revolution in the mid-19th century.

Japanese citizens are finally starting to become aware that they have been quiet for too long. They are trying to recall how to stand up against the power.

On 3/11/2012, 14,000 people demonstrated in Tokyo and made a human chain to surround the Japanese parliament.

A man in the chain asked the police if the anti-nuke movement is getting slow.

The Police whispered "It's not getting slow".

They think it was a remarkable achievement to have even made it into 2012 without any violent clashes.

The police don't think it is going to stay this way for too much longer.

Instead, they think it's rather to become much more "active" because the people are more and more aware that the mass media is busy at manipulating information.




Ignored: Cries To Change Nuclear Policy Fall On Deaf Ears

NHK is censored from projecting a pro-nuke or anti-nuke viewpoint.

Currently Japan's social networking sites leads the social consensus.

The world has changed.

However, the fact is that the consensus of the people cannot affect the political decisions of the government.




Massive Anti-Nuclear Protests Ignored For Over A Year

On 3/11/2012, Japanese Prime Minister Noda gave a speech urging all of Japan to help with the disposal of radioactive debris by accepting it for disposal.

It is assumed now that the radioactive debris will be spread all over Japan and even to Okinawa by April.

There are even an unconfirmed reports that they radioactive debris has already been taken their and buried in landfills.

People in Okinawa are now starting to complain they are becoming sick as a result, complaining of nosebleeds and sore throats.

Utter ignorance of public officials keeps the situation growing worse regardless of the petitions and enlightening movement of the citizens.



This video exemplifies the frustrations of the Japanese people who are beginning to feel that they are being cornered into revolt over the Fukushima radiation and are taking their pleas to the street.


In Okinawa, there are approximately 10,000 people evacuated from the main islands of Japan.

For them, Okinawa is the last radiation haven.

At the end of World War II, Okinawa was the last battlefield between Japan and the US.

Now, in 21st century, Okinawa is becoming the last battle field between radiation pilgrims and Japanese government.

At this moment, it's highly likely that citizens will fail.

Contaminated food is still served at school lunch and being sold on the shelves of the supermarkets.

Decontamination is becoming a profit making business that only done when it is beneficial for the government and regardless of the safety of the people.

It is a concrete fact that people can no longer any recourse to change the situation legally...


OK, so what is the latest news from the asylum?

Fukushima radiation detected 400 miles away in Pacific Ocean at levels 1,000 times higher than previous readings (http://fukushimaemergencywhatcanwedo.blogspot.com/2012/02/fukushima-radiation-detected-400-miles.html)

Areas near nuclear plant may be unlivable forever, gov't says (http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/areas-near-nuclear-plant-may-be-unlivable-forever-govt-says)

Cesium contamination affects forests over 80 km from Fukushima Daiichi – Namie levels spike up to 4,400,000 bq/kg in leaves (http://enformable.com/2012/03/cesium-contamination-affects-forests-over-80-km-from-fukushima-daiichi-namie-levels-spike-up-to-4400000-bqkg-in-leaves/)

Fukushima school will have swimming class outside (http://fukushima-diary.com/2012/04/fukushima-school-will-have-swimming-class-outside/)

Following up this article...330 ?Sv/h in river-head area of Minamisoma

QuoteMinistry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology decided to let school have swimming class outside this summer.

There are 660 of public elementary school, junior high school and high school in Fukushima. Though some of the schools quit swimming class by using pools outside last year, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology told the board of education that using pools outside is not harmful this year.

As of April, the safety limit of tap water was changed from 200 Bq/L to 10 Bq/L.

BBC News - Japan's obsession with perfect fruit (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-radio-and-tv-17352173)

(...) There are apples, the size of a child's head, with evenly red, blemish-free skin on sale for 2,100 yen, or $25.

That's each, not for a bag. Senbikiya Queen Strawberries come in boxes of twelve perfectly-matched fruits at 6,825 yen, $83.

Even on a slow day they sell 50 boxes.

Then there are the melons, each perfect, of course, and topped with identical T-shaped green stalks. They're 34,650 yen, or $419, for three.
(...)




Farmer Masaomi Suzuki has to keep the temperature constant to achieve the perfect crop.

Little wonder Mr Suzuki rejects the idea that $100 melons are expensive. No way, he says. They're a bargain.

Ms Ishikawa deals in domestically-grown fruit as well as imports. But she has no doubt where the money is.

"It's the mind of Japanese," she says. "Japanese-made is better."


Except when it comes to building nuclear power plants...   :P


Perhaps this will help understand the world today.

It worked for us.

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/to-those-influencing-environmental-policy-but-opposed-to-nuclear-power/?_r=0

The Climate Change crew is now pushing nuclear power harder than ever.  They were on CNN yesterday.

Welcome to a world gone mad.

Quote from: Eighthman on November 08, 2013, 01:14:02 PM
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/to-those-influencing-environmental-policy-but-opposed-to-nuclear-power/?_r=0

The Climate Change crew is now pushing nuclear power harder than ever.  They were on CNN yesterday.

Welcome to a world gone mad.

Greetings:

From your link; this is classic dissembler technique.   :P

QuoteRenewables like wind and solar and biomass will certainly play roles in a future energy economy, but those energy sources cannot scale up fast enough to deliver cheap and reliable power at the scale the global economy requires.

While it may be theoretically possible to stabilize the climate without nuclear power, in the real world there is no credible path to climate stabilization that does not include a substantial role for nuclear power.

Thor, I posted the link to this thread on my facebook page in hopes of getting this information out there.  You do a phenomenal job in your content and presentation of the material.  It is information that is sorely needed since mainstream media is silent.

Quote from: spacemaverick on November 08, 2013, 06:24:06 PM
Thor, I posted the link to this thread on my facebook page in hopes of getting this information out there.  You do a phenomenal job in your content and presentation of the material.  It is information that is sorely needed since mainstream media is silent.

Greetings:

Coming from you, my friend, that is indeed high praise and we thank you.

BTW, feel free to link your Fukushima threads anytime you post here, as perhaps not everyone  knows of your other endeavors.   :P

Great idea on FB link; here's our Twitter test Tweet to see if it shows up as linked to our FB page and then on to Peggy link if it isn't already there.





Now is the time to press on as CNN has stirred the pot quite well.

The World Must Take Charge at Fukushima (http://www.thelivingmoon.com/forum/index.php?topic=5453.msg75886#msg75886)

Pandora's Promise - Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora's_Promise)

Pandora's Promise is a 2013 documentary film about the nuclear power debate, directed by Robert Stone. Its central argument is that nuclear power, which has historically been opposed by environmentalists, is actually a relatively safe and clean energy source which can help mitigate the serious problem of anthropogenic global warming.[2][3][4][5]

The title is derived from the ancient Greek myth of Pandora, who released numerous evils into the world, yet as the movie's tagline recalls: "At the bottom of the box she found hope."



Another potential Invitee/PRC Member to THE ROUNDTABLE, IMHO...:P

This gentleman is someone to watch and share his wisdom...what do you think?    ???
(As usual, typography highlights are courtesy tfw    ;D)



Published on Nov 15, 2013
http://www.agreenroadproject.org

The movie Pandora's Promise is another example of green washing.



They use some 'converts' to the nuclear industry to try and make some points and expand the use of 'next generation' nuclear power plants.

The only problem is that the problems have not been solved, and the same issues that caused over nuclear 100 accidents so far.

Why All Nuclear Power Plants Must Be Shut Down
http://tinyurl.com/agrshut

Index And About A Green Road Project...
Or http://tinyurl.com/agrabout

Spiritual, Interfaith, Consciousness; How To Create Heaven On Earth
Or http://tinyurl.com/agrspirit

Holistic Living And Green Energy
Or http://tinyurl.com/agrgreen

Exploring the Inner and Outer Mysteries of Life
Or http://tinyurl.com/agrmys

Peace, War, Human Rights, Justice, Prisons
Or http://tinyurl.com/agrjustice

Drugs, Medicine and GMO's?Or
http://tinyurl.com/agrdrugs

Global Corporations And The 1%; Art And Science Of Deception
Or http://tinyurl.com/agrcorps??

Nuclear Accidents, Recycling Nuclear Weapons/Fuel
Or http://tinyurl.com/agrnuk

Individual Radioactive Elements/Isotopes, USA Radiation Exposure Prevention and Reversal, Music?Or http://tinyurl.com/agriso

Low Dose Radiation Dangers/Symptoms For Children And Adults
Or http://tinyurl.com/agrchild

Uranium Mining and Enrichment - Nuclear Bomb -Nuclear Fuel Manufacturing
Or http://tinyurl.com/agrmine

Low Level Nuclear Radiation In Food And Water, Geiger Counters
Or http://tinyurl.com/agrfood

Effects Of Internal Low Level Nuclear Radiation
Or http://tinyurl.com/agrrad

Animals and Low Level Radiation Effects
Or http://tinyurl.com/agranim

Nuclear Reactor Recertification
Or http://tinyurl.com/agrrecer

Long Term Storage Of Nuclear Fuel, Nuclear Waste
Or http://tinyurl.com/agrstore

Another nail in Michael Moore's coffin.   :P


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5LVLUo8VyA

Michael Moore & Robert Stone at The Traverse City Film Festival - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5LVLUo8VyA)

Published on Sep 16, 2013
Pandora's Promise Director, Robert Stone, talks with American Filmmaker, Michael Moore, about the film and the importance of including nuclear in the energy mix to combat climate change at The Traverse City Film Festival this past July.

More on wind and solar here: The world can be fully powered by alternative energy in 20-40 years, Stanford researcher says (http://enenews.com/shutting-down-enenews-com)

More on Pandora's Promise here: Paper: CNN's nuclear propaganda film "is dishonest to its core" — It's "actually an infomercial" (http://enenews.com/cnns-nuclear-propaganda-film-is-dishonest-to-its-core-pandoras-promise-is-actually-an-infomercial) as well as Another Take on Pandora's Promise (http://enenews.com/shock-cnn-to-air-nuclear-power-propaganda-irrational-fears-of-nukes-systematically-debunks-the-myths-and-misinformation) and also The Guardian: Pandora's Promise doesn't live up to the hype (http://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2013/dec/09/review-pandoras-promise-doesnt-live-up-to-the-hype).

This should be pinned so it don't go away!

Just MHO

Permission to link this to a post in Earths Banner forum?

Gold on yah and keep up the shout!