U.S. Nuclear Test 2012

While the world is watching the war in Syria and the supposed imminent deployment of chemical agents or the civil unrest in Egypt, the United States went ahead and performed another nuclear test in the desert: on ‘Friday [, 7 December] it was announced that the Nevada National Security Site had successfully detonated plutonium in a deep shaft Wednesday [, 5 December] to test the safety and effectiveness of US nuclear weapons, National Nuclear Security Administration officials said. The Pollux subcritical experiment was carried out by scientists at the Los Alamos, New Mexico national laboratory and the Sandia National Laboratories and involved a tiny sample of plutonium bomb material. Subcritical nuclear experiments have been conducted in the US since 1997 in order to help scientists understand how plutonium ages in the stockpile. They use chemical explosives to blow up bits of nuclear materials designed to stop just short of erupting into a nuclear chain reaction, also known as a criticality. The latest test used new diagnostic equipment that enabled researchers to collect more data then ever before’.[1]

While the man on the street is as clueless as always, some governments do know: ‘Iran has strongly condemned the US for carrying out a nuclear test in Nevada this week, saying the move threatens world peace and shows a hypocritical set of double standards set by Washington when it comes to nuclear research. The Iranian Foreign Ministry said the Wednesday detonation proves that US foreign policy relies heavily on the use of nuclear weapons, disregarding UN calls for global disarmament, PressTV reports. The experiment also drew criticism from Japan, with Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui wondering why the Obama administration carried out the test, despite saying he would “seek a nuclear-free world”’.[2]

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[1] “US nuclear test condemned by Iran, Japan” RT (08 Dec 2012).
https://rt.com/news/us-nuclear-test-nevada-criticism-582/
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[2] “US nuclear test condemned by Iran, Japan”.

Fukushima on the Loose: Radioactivity All Around

A couple of days ago, the guys at FKN NEWZ uploaded this video, published on Oct 19, 2012 by MsMilkytheclown1. In fact, quite some time ago, Thom Hartmann and also Greg Palast separately reported on the issues raised by the FKN NEWS crew, and I posted these items on my blog.[1]

But, there is more. The Russian propaganda machine that is RT came out with this report: ‘TEPCO, operator of the Fukushima nuclear facility, failed to confirm that radiation leaks at the plant had fully stopped. This came after a US report that irradiated fish are still being caught off the coast of Japan following the 2011 meltdown. The Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) told journalists Friday [, 24 October] they could not confirm that radiation had stopped leaking from the nuclear power plant struck by a massive earthquake and tsunami in March 2011. Still, they said that radiation levels in the seawater and seabed soil around the plant were declining. A recent article in the academic journal Science revealed that 40 percent of bottom-dwelling marine species in the area show cesium-134 and 137 levels that are still higher than normal. “The numbers aren’t going down. Oceans usually cause the concentrations to decrease if the spigot is turned off,” Ken Buesseler, study author and senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution told the Associated Press. “There has to be somewhere they’re picking up the cesium. Option one is the seafloor is the source of the continued contamination. The other source could be the reactors themselves,” Buesseler added. Radioactive cesium is a human-made radioactive isotope produced through nuclear fission of the element cesium. It has a half-life of 30 years, making it extremely toxic. TEPCO confirmed that the radioactive water used to cool the plant’s reactors leaked into the ocean several times, most recently in April. The plant is struggling to find space to store the tens of thousands of tons of highly contaminated water used to cool the broken reactors and prevent it from a meltdown. The company managed to collect the water used to cool the spent fuel rods and circulate it back into reactor cores, so the reactors are now being cooled with recycled water. However, groundwater is still seeping through cracks in basement where the reactor and turbine are stored, posing further dangers. With the groundwater seeping in, the volume of decontaminated water collected and stored at the Fukushima Daiichi plant could triple within three years, TEPCO told the AP. The accident at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant was triggered by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake that struck northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011. An enormous tsunami crashed onto the land, resulting in the flash-flooding of four of the plant’s six reactors, shattering the cooling system. This led to a series of oxygen blasts, and a partial meltdown of the reactor core. The incident was the biggest nuclear disaster in 25 years since the tragedy at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Multiple cases of contamination of air and seawater by radioactive material have been reported. Over 140,000 people were forced to leave an evacuation area 40 kilometers in diameter around the plant. Most of those people are still living in shelters. Full management of the disaster, including dismantling the reactors, is expected to take around 40 years’.[2]

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[1] “Near Nuclear Disaster in Nebraska, U.S.” A Pseudo-Ottoman Blog (22 June 2011).
http://sitanbul.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/near-nuclear-disaster-in-nebraska-u-s/
; “Fukushima: A Tale of Disasters Expected” A Pseudo-Ottoman Blog (25 June 2012).
http://sitanbul.wordpress.com/2012/07/25/fukushima-a-tale-of-disasters-expected/
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[2] “Fukushima owner says plant may be leaking radiation into sea” RT (26 Oct 2012).
https://rt.com/news/fukushima-leaking-radiation-sea-314/
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Fukushima: A Tale of Disasters Expected

The intrepid Mister Palast spins his tale like this: “On March 12 [2011], as I watched Fukushima melt, I knew: the “SQ” had been faked. Anderson Cooper said it would all be OK.  He’d flown to Japan, to suck up the radiation and official company bullshit. The horror show was not the fault of Tokyo Electric, he said, because the plant was built to withstand only an 8.0 earthquake on the Richter scale, and this was 9.0. Anderson must have been in the gym when they handed out the facts. The 9.0 shake was in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, 90 miles away. It was barely a tenth of that power at Fukushima. I was ready to vomit. Because I knew who had designed the plant, who had built it and whom Tokyo Electric Power was having rebuild it: Shaw Construction. The latest alias of Stone & Webster, the designated builder for every one of the four new nuclear plants that the Obama Administration has approved for billions in federal studies. But I had The Notebook, the diaries of the earthquake inspector for the company. I’d squirreled it out sometime before the TradeCenter [where the documents were kept] went down. I shouldn’t have done that. Too bad. All field engineers keep a diary. Gordon Dick, a supervisor, wasn’t sup- posed to show his to us. I asked him to show it to us and, reluctantly, he directed me to these notes about the “SQ” tests”.[1]

And in his inimical style, Palast enlightens us next: “SQ is nuclear-speak for “Seismic Qualification.” A seismically qualified nuclear plant won’t melt down if you shake it. A “seismic event” can be an earthquake or a Christmas present from Al Qaeda. You can’t run a nuclear reactor in the USA or Europe or Japan without certified SQ. This much is clear from [Gordon Dick’s] notebook: This nuclear plant will melt down in an earthquake. The plant dismally failed to meet the Seismic I (shaking) standards required by U.S. and international rules”.[2]  Fukushima was a disaster waiting to happen . . . and now four nuclear plants of the same type are set to be built in the U.S. Palast continues, “Here’s what we learned: Dick’s subordinate at the nuclear plant, Robert Wiesel, conducted the standard seismic review. Wiesel flunked his company. No good. Dick then ordered Wiesel to change his report to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, change it from failed to passed. Dick didn’t want to make Wiesel do it, but Dick was under the gun himself, acting on direct command from corporate chiefs. From The Notebook: ‘Wiesel was very upset. He seemed very nervous. Very agitated. [He said,] “I believe these are bad results and I believe it’s reportable,” and then he took the volume of federal regulations from the shelf and went to section 50.55(e), which describes reportable deficiencies at a nuclear plant and [they] read the section together, with Wiesel pointing to the appropriate paragraphs that federal law clearly required [them and the company] to report the Category II, Seismic I deficiencies. Wiesel then expressed his concern that he was afraid that if he [Wiesel] reported the deficiencies, he would be fired, but that if he didn’t report the deficiencies, he would be breaking a federal law’. . . . [Palast then goes on: ] The law is clear. It is a crime not to report a safety failure. I could imagine Wiesel standing there with that big, thick rule book in his hands, The Law. It must have been heavy. So was his paycheck. He weighed the choices: Break the law, possibly a jail-time crime, or keep his job”.[3]  What did Bob Wiesel do???

Palast ends his piece on Fukushima and SQ thus: “I think we should all worry about Bob. The company he worked for, Stone & Webster Engineering, built or designed about a third of the nuclear plants in the United States”.[4]  The good folks at Wikipedia tell us that ‘Stone & Webster is an American engineering services company based in Stoughton, Massachusetts. Stone & Webster was founded as an electrical testing lab and consulting firm by electrical engineers Charles Stone and Edwin Webster in 1889. It was acquired by The Shaw Group in 2000. The company provides engineering, construction, environmental services, and plant operation and maintenance. The company has long been involved in power generation projects and has worked on most American nuclear power plants’.[5]  Not content with simply endangering the world with unsafe nuclear power plants, The Shaw Group recently proudly announced that ‘it has achieved substantial completion of the new Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center, a 585-megawatt clean coal-fired generating plant in Virginia for Dominion Virginia Power. As part of substantial completion, the plant was operated at its rated capacity and released to Dominion for commercial operation’.[6]  Nuclear energy is an unsafe method of boiling water, given that the nuclear waste material will have to be safely deposited . . . which seems like a contradiction in terms. At the same time, the company is also busy purveying other means to boil water using “clean coal”, a fuel that has been proven not to exist.

 

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[1] Greg Palast, “The Fukushima story you didn’t hear on CNN” Greg Palast (08 March 2012).
http://www.gregpalast.com/the-fukushima-story-you-didnt-hear-on-cnn/
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[2] Greg Palast, “The Fukushima story you didn’t hear on CNN”.

[3] Greg Palast, “The Fukushima story you didn’t hear on CNN”.

[4] Greg Palast, “The Fukushima story you didn’t hear on CNN”.

[5] “Stone & Webster” Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_%26_Webster
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[6] “Shaw Completes New 585-MW Clean Coal-fired Generating Plant in Virginia” News Release (12 July 2012).
http://ir.shawgrp.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=61066&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1714193&highlight
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Japan Restarts Two Nuclear Reactors

Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda announced that he had approved the restarting of two nuclear reactors to avoid an imminent energy crisis. All fifty of the country’s reactors were shut down following the meltdown at Fukushima. Before that, atomic energy produced nearly thirty percent of Japan’s electricity. Despit recent surveys showing most people in Japanwant to abandon atomic energy, the prime minister said he had no choice — parts of the country are facing a severe power shortage. After the prime minister’s announcement, thousands of angry protesters gathered outside Noda’s official residence to show their discontent. Ministers say the alternative to nuclear energy, fossil fuels, would drive up electricity bills, harm small businesses and still leave a severe power deficit. Noda is hoping that the promise of tougher safety measures will help avoid another Fukushima– but many do not agree with his decision. Al Jazeera‘s Dominic Kane reports (8 June 2012).

Japan: No More Nuclear???

Japan has decided to shut down all of its nuclear power plants .in the wake of the Fukushima disaster . . . . but will this now leave the country without power???  RT reports ‘Japan is set to turn off its last working reactor this weekend [, 5-6 May 2012], leaving one of the world’s largest industrial nations without a source of nuclear energy for the first time in almost 50 years. The government has bowed to public pressure following last year’s disaster at the Fukushima power plant after the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami. For more on the impact of the shut-down, RT talks to James Corbett, editor of The Corbett Report’.

But, as I pointed out in December 2012, Turkey was intending to have Russia and Japan build two nuclear power plants in Anatolia, each plant in close to a Fault Line where earthquakes are common occurrences.[1]  Negotiations between Turkey and Japan stopped following the Fukushima disaster, but Turkey Minister for Energy and Natural Resources Taner Yıldız is not one to give up easily . . . Last month, the Xinhua news agency reports that Yıldız ‘said . . . [that further] talks will be held with countries such as Japan, South Korea and China, and the [Turkish Energy and Natural Resources] ministry’s officials would visit China . . . to discuss details. The minister added that the nuclear power plant would be built in line with standards of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the European Union. Turkey plans to build two nuclear power plants in the next decade. In May 2010, Turkey and Russia signed a deal for the construction of Turkey’s first nuclear power plant in Akkuyu, a small town on the Mediterranean coast. The project is expected to cost about 20 billion U.S. dollars. Russian state-owned atomic power company ROSATOM is likely to start building the Akkuyu nuclear power plant in 2013 and the first reactor is planned to generate electricity in 2018. Turkey started talks with Japan last year to build its second nuclear power plant in the Black Sea coastal province of Sinop in the north. However, the talks were interrupted after the massive earthquake that hit Japan in March last year’.[2]

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[1] Cfr. “Bad News Travels Far: Turkey and Japan to build Nuclear Power Plant”A Pseudo-Ottoman Blog (26 December 2010).
http://sitanbul.wordpress.com/2010/12/26/bad-news-travels-far-turkey-and-japan-to-build-nuclear-power-plant/
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[2] “Turkey to hold int’l talks on building nuclear power plant” Xinhua (13 April 2012).
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2012-04/13/c_131525825.htm
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Fukushima Once More: More Dangerous Than Ever

Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear joins Thom Hartmann. More than a year into the nuclear crisis at Fukushima – radiation levels have now reached their highest point yet. What does all this mean – and what should nuclear supporters in America be taking away from the continuing crisis?

 

Near Fukushima, a Big ‘Guessing Game’ Over Long-Term Risks

Sunday, 11 March 2011, marks a year since a massive earthquake and tsunami struck Japan, causing a partial meltdown of nuclear reactors at the Fukushima plants. In the first report in a series on Japan’s recovery, Miles O’Brien documents the country’s cleanup attempts as scientists decide whether residual radiation could be potentially harmful.

Conversations w/Great Minds Stephanie Cooke – The Nuclear Age

This Sunday will mark the one year anniversary of the beginning of the Fukushima nuclear disaster – and a year on – the disaster continues to devastate the people and nation of Japan. Towns and cities within miles of the Fukushima plant are still covered in a fine layer of radioactive dust – and have been turned into nuclear wastelands – devoid of life. Those lucky enough to have survived the earthquake and tsunami are now battling radiation poisoning and the probability of cancer and birth defects. As hundreds of thousands of people across the world prepare to commemorate the tragedy over the course of the next month – we need to ask ourselves – is nuclear power really worth enduring such a horrible and deadly disaster? Will there ever be a way to make nuclear power a safe form of energy – or do we need to move away from it all together? Tonight we have a special edition of Conversations with Great Minds – featuring Stephanie Cooke. Stephanie is one of the world’s top reporters and authors on the issues of nuclear energy and the use and history of nuclear weapons and is a real industry insider. Her articles on nuclear topics have appeared in a variety of publications – including Readers Digest – The International Herald Tribune – and GQ magazine. Stephanie first began her reporting career in 1977 at the Associated Press – and later moved to London where she covered the Chernobyl disaster for Business Week. She returned to the United States in 2004 to complete her most recent book, In Mortal Hands: A Cautionary History of the Nuclear Age. Currently – Stephanie is the editor of Nuclear Intelligence Weekly – part of the Energy Intelligence Group (9 March 2012).

 

Fukushima Final??? A Cold Shutdown Unlike Any Other

The BBC’s Stephen Sackur relates how Japan’s government has now declared that it has the Fukushima disaster under control . . .

In spite of Japanese optimism and the BBC’s positive report, Nature’s Geoff Brumfiel critically remarks that “in truth, cold shutdown will mean very little in any practical sense for what goes on at the plant. Nor is it likely to change the fate of the thousands of evacuees who were forced to leave their homes after the Fukushima crisis”, adding that “[a]s of 15 December, temperatures in the three reactor vessels known to have melted down were well below 100°C. According to the latest data from the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum, which tracks the reactors’ vital statistics, unit 1 is now at 38.3°C, unit 2 is at 68.7°C and unit 3 is at 64.1°C. The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), which runs Fukushima, had imposed an additional requirement that the release of radioactivity is ‘under control and public radiation exposure by additional release is being significantly held down’. It has been months since any major release from the reactors, and it seems reasonable to consider this condition achieved as well. But this is a cold shutdown like no other. Under normal conditions, operators could, theoretically at least, walk away from a reactor once cold shutdown is achieved. No more water needs be circulated, and as long as no one tries to restart the reactor core, it would sit there indefinitely. This is certainly not the case at Fukushima. For one thing, the reactors are leaking, and TEPCO must continue to inject water at the rate of around half-a-million litres a day, according to its latest press release. Moreover, the plant continues to pose an environmental risk, as evidenced by a recent leak from a system designed to decontaminate water flowing out from the core”.[1]

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[1] Geoff Brumfiel, “Fukushima reaches cold shutdown” Nature (16 December 2011).
http://www.nature.com/news/fukushima-reaches-cold-shutdown-1.9674
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Fukushima Disaster Fallout

Just a few days ago, Kurt Nimmo wrote that ‘the architect of Fukushima Daiichi Reactor 3, Uehara Haruo, was interviewed in Japan [on 17 November]. He warned that a “China Syndrome” situation is inevitable at the plant. Haruo said that considering eight months have passed since the tsunami and the crippling of the nuclear plant without any improvement in the condition of the reactors, it is likely melted fuel has escaped the container vessel and is now burning through the earth. On September 20, 2011, Hiroaki Koide, assistant professor at Kyoto University’s Research Reactor Institute, estimated that material from the nuclear fuel rods may be twelve meters deep underground at reactors one and three. Haruo said debris is spreading in Pacific Ocean. On November 15, tons of radioactive debris reached the Marshall Islands. If the fuel reaches an underground water source, Haruo explained, it will result in the contamination of water, soil and the sea. More catastrophic, underground super-heated water will ultimately create a massive hydrovolcanic explosion’.[1]

The China Syndrome

Jane Fonda’s movie scared a lot of people back in its day, and now, according to Uehara Haruo, a real life Chine Syndrome is about to transpire. But as Nimmo points out “media in Japan and the alternative media have covered this story over the last few days, it has been uniformly ignored by the corporate media. Fukushima is no longer news worthy”.[2]  At the beginning of November, the YouTube user Living Enrichment posted the below topical warning, particularly relevant for New York state but also registering the fallout of Fukushima.

Marco Kaltofen, a Massachusetts Registered Professional Engineer engaged in the investigation of nuclear material release, made these declarations at the end of October: “The Fukushima nuclear accident dispersed airborne dusts that are contaminated with radioactive particles. When inhaled or ingested, these particles can have negative effects on human health that are different from those caused by exposure to external or uniform radiation fields . . . A field sampling effort was undertaken to characterize the form and concentration of radionuclides in the air and in environmental media which can accumulate fallout. Samples included settled dusts, surface wipes, used filter masks, used air filters, dusty footwear, and surface soils . . . Isolated US soil samples contained up to 8 nanoCuries per Kg of radiocesium, while control samples showed no detectable radiocesium”.[3]  Is the Fukushima disaster slowly spreading its wings across America???  Will Fukushima turn out to be a disaster that far extends the boundaries of Japan and Asia???

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[1] Kurt Nimmo, “Massive Hydrovolcanic Explosion Inevitable at Fukushima” infowars (22 November 2011).
http://www.infowars.com/massive-hydrovolcanic-explosion-inevitable-at-fukushima/
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[2] Kurt Nimmo, “Massive Hydrovolcanic Explosion Inevitable at Fukushima”.

[3] “University Researcher: U.S. topsoil with up to 8,000 pCi/kg of cesium from Fukushima — Over 10,000% higher than highest levels found by UC Berkeley” enenews (01 November 2011).
http://enenews.com/university-researcher-topsoil-8000-pcikg-cesium-fukushima-10000-higher-highest-levels-found-uc-berkeley
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