Pandora's Promise - CNN 9:00 PM-EST November 7, 2013

[thorfourwinds]

Thursday, 7 November 2013
9:00 PM Eastern Standard Time

Discussion thread here   

[thorfourwinds]

"...window into Armegeddon..."









"...a boutique power source built by executives
that didn't know too much about it..."

[thorfourwinds]

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.

[thorfourwinds]

[thorfourwinds]

[VillageIdiot]

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

[spacemaverick]

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"

[thorfourwinds]

After all the shouting 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."

Even 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 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.

Thus, 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.

"To those who saved the world."

Nuclear's green cheerleaders forget Chernobyl at our peril

I 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

Five 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.

This 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.

The 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?"

Konstantin 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."

Moving 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

985,000 people had so far died
and the environment had been
devastated, possibly forever.

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."

Nuclear energy is completely safe
because computers, not humans,
are in control

 

[thorfourwinds]

Fukushima
fuel pool number 4
is, indeed,
the top short-term threat
facing humanity.

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

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.

We 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

According 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."

...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

...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...

...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...

Once 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?"

During 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

1 July 1989

Communities 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?

...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?

Having 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.

Why are the power companies
still allowed to utilize this
"too cheap to meter" power source?

"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 (DOE)
DOE manages about 24 million cubic meters of waste containing about

900 million curies

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 (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 (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.

Data 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.

   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?   

Nevada 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.

In 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

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:

The 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".

The 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

Follow the money!

In 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.

According 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.

High-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."





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.

Disposal of nuclear waste
is often said to be
the Achilles' heel of
the nuclear industry.

Presently, 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?

There 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?

It 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.

"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,

"To advance nuclear technology,
we must get serious
about establishing a permanent
nuclear waste repository.

Unfortunately, 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


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

This could prove to be rather interesting.


Peace Love Light

tfw   

Liberty & Equality or Revolution

"In a time of universal deceit
telling the truth is considered a revolutionary act."
George Orwell

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WAR IS PEACE
SLAVERY IS FREEDOM
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

[VillageIdiot]

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.

[thorfourwinds]

Nuclear Waste and the 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.




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."

Steve Tetreault. "Judges Troubled by Yucca Shutdown, Uncertain on Recourse."  Las Vegas Review-Journal.
May 2, 2012.

The Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future. "Report to the Secretary
of Energy."
January 2012, p.vii.

U.S. Department of Energy. "Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement
for Yucca Mountain." 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." Presentation Before the National
Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners.
July 22, 2008.

Mark Holt. "Civilian Nuclear Waste Disposal." Congressional Research Service.
August 30, 2011, p. 12.

Peace Love Light

tfw   

Liberty & Equality or Revolution

[zorgon]

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

THIS... sums it up

We don't HAVE a cure for Fukushima

We don't HAVE a solution for waste storage

[zorgon]

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

[thorfourwinds]

"Nobody has died
and nobody has got sick at Fukushima..."

Robert Stone, "filmmaker"

28 July 2012

Position Statement:
What Is Currently Happening to Fukushima Children?

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 cysts found
in 35% of Fukushima children
examined with an average age of 10.

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. 

This is because
one-third
of the children
had developed "cysts."

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. 

We must therefore
be prepared
to face much greater
health damage in reality.

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.

This is the lesson
we must all learn
from the tragedy of Chernobyl.






tfw
Peace Love Light
Liberty & Equality or Revolution

FALLOUT CLOCK - Elapsed Time since March 11, 2011, 2:46 PM - Fukushima, Japan

[thorfourwinds]

"I have become Death,
the destroyer of worlds"

Robert Oppenheimer, quoting the Bhagavad Gita,
on witnessing the first atomic bomb test, 1945

FukushimaVoice: What Really Happened in Fukushima:
A Report From a Medical Care Provider


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. 

Physicians in Fukushima
who are not self-sufficient
are not allowed to provide
medical care for radiation exposure,
and those who are self-sufficient
left Fukushima.

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."






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. 

This decline in the immune competence
is thought to be triggering the worsening of symptoms
and the new symptoms.