Fannie and Freddie didn't cause the meltdown. Period. Josh Holland pushes back against the pernicious falsehood that just won't go away:
"The entire subprime mortgage market was worth only $1.4 trillion in the fall of 2007, and that includes loans that were up-to-date. As former Goldman Sachs trader Nomi Prins noted in her book, It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bailouts, Bonuses, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street, the federal government could have bought up every single residential mortgage in the country – good, bad and in between – and it would have cost a trillion less than the bailouts..."
"What brought down the global economy was as much as $140 trillion worth of financial gimmickery built on top of the mortgage industry. It was the alphabet soup of the credit meltdown – the CDOs, default swaps and other derivitaves that made less than a trillion dollars of foreclosed loans into an economic weapon of mass destruction that would cost the American economy alone $14 trillion in lost wealth."
Coming less than two weeks after the stunning BBC interview with Alessio Rastani and his forecast of financial doom, IMF advisor Dr. Robert Shapiro adds to the sense of urgency (video below):
"If they can not address [the financial crisis] in a credible way I believe within perhaps 2 to 3 weeks we will have a meltdown in sovereign debt which will produce a meltdown across the European banking system. We are not just talking about a relatively small Belgian bank, we are talking about the largest banks in the world, the largest banks in Germany, the largest banks in France, that will spread to the United Kingdom, it will spread everywhere because the global financial system is so interconnected. All those banks are counterparties to every significant bank in the United States, and in Britain, and in Japan, and around the world. This would be a crisis that would be in my view more serrious than the crisis in 2008.... What we don't know the state of credit default swaps held by banks against sovereign debt and against European banks, nor do we know the state of CDS held by British banks, nor are we certain of how certain the exposure of British banks is to the Ireland sovereign debt problems."
March 29th, 2011 BREAKING 11:58am CST Please donate to Japan Relief by clicking HERE
The situation is increasingly disturbing at Fukushima. It seems likely that the entire Fukushima Dai-Ichi complex is a write off. From the reports of the last 30 minutes, it appears that the real question now is how bad the larger release of radioactivity is going to be when it eventually occurs.
From The Guardian: "The radioactive core in a reactor at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant appears to have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on to a concrete floor, experts say, raising fears of a major release of radiation at the site.
The warning follows an analysis by a leading US expert of radiation levels at the plant. Readings from reactor two at the site have been made public by the Japanese authorities and Tepco, the utility that operates it.
Richard Lahey, who was head of safety research for boiling-water reactors at General Electric when the company installed the units at Fukushima, told the Guardian workers at the site appeared to have "lost the race" to save the reactor, but said there was no danger of a Chernobyl-style catastrophe.
Workers have been pumping water into three reactors at the stricken plant in a desperate bid to keep the fuel rods from melting down, but the fuel is at least partially exposed in all the reactors.
At least part of the molten core, which includes melted fuel rods and zirconium alloy cladding, seemed to have sunk through the steel "lower head" of the pressure vessel around reactor two, Lahey said.
"The indications we have, from the reactor to radiation readings and the materials they are seeing, suggest that the core has melted through the bottom of the pressure vessel in unit two, and at least some of it is down on the floor of the drywell," Lahey said. "I hope I am wrong, but that is certainly what the evidence is pointing towards."
The major concern when molten fuel breaches a containment vessel is that it reacts with the concrete floor of the drywell underneath, releasing radioactive gases into the surrounding area. At Fukushima, the drywell has been flooded with seawater, which will cool any molten fuel that escapes from the reactor and reduce the amount of radioactive gas released.
Lahey said: "It won't come out as one big glob; it'll come out like lava, and that is good because it's easier to cool."
The drywell is surrounded by a secondary steel-and-concrete structure designed to keep radioactive material from escaping into the environment. But an earlier hydrogen explosion at the reactor may have damaged this.
"The reason we are concerned is that they are detecting water outside the containment area that is highly radioactive and it can only have come from the reactor core," Lahey added. "It's not going to be anything like Chernobyl, where it went up with a big fire and steam explosion, but it's not going to be good news for the environment."
The radiation level at a pool of water in the turbine room of reactor two was measured recently at 1,000 millisieverts per hour. At that level, workers could remain in the area for just 15 minutes, under current exposure guidelines."
March 28th, 2011 12:39pm CST If you can give to support relief efforts in Japan, please do so by clicking HERE
Michio Kaku, writing for Big Think, dissects yesterday's confusion at the Fukushima complex which we reported HERE and HERE.
"First, workers at Unit 2 were astonished to find that radiation levels in the water were extremely high. This prompted them to evacuate the site immediately. Second, they rushed out so fast that they did not do a second measurement of the water. Third, the first readings were slightly incorrect. The workers got iodine-134 (with a half-life of 53 minutes) confused with iodine-131 (with a half-life of 8 days). Also, cesium-137 was also found in the water (with a half - life of about 30 years). Fourth, by confusing the two, they also go the wrong level of radioactivity. They found more iodine-134 that was actually present in the water. The shorter the half-life, the more radioactive an isotope is - the longer the half-life, the less the radioactivity. So their calibration of iodine-134 was incorrect, yielding thefalse number of 10 million. Fifth, the utility did not send in another crew to check the measurements, so they got their calibration wrong, but they went public with this incorrect number."
The money quote from his piece comes next:
"The main point, however, from the workers perspective, is that radiation levels are 1,000 milliseverts/hour. That does not change at all with this new calibration. This means that workers will come down with radiation sickness with only 15 min. of exposure. Some workers will die after 6 hours of exposure."
March 28th, 2011 11:55am CST
If you can give to support relief efforts in Japan, please do so by clicking HERE
Remember, there is absolutely, positively no reason whatsoever to worry at all. Not even a teensy weensy bit. After all, most experts and a wide variety of cartoons agree.
"Low levels of radioactive iodine believed to be from Japan's disaster-stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant have been detected in the atmosphere in South Carolina, North Carolina and Florida, officials said on Monday.
"There is no current threat to public safety," said Progress Energy spokesman Drew Elliot.
Monitors at Progress Energy's nuclear plants in Hartsville, South Carolina, and Crystal River, Florida, picked up low levels of radioactive iodine-131. So did Duke Energy's monitors at its two nuclear facilities in South Carolina and the plant in Huntersville, North Carolina.
"If there were radiation coming from one our own sites, we would be seeing other types of radiation than iodine-131," Elliot said. "Other nuclear stations throughout the East Coast all started picking this up within the last week. It all points to something coming from overseas.
"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency both say it poses no threat to public safety," he said.
Trace amounts of radioactive iodine have also turned up in rainwater samples in Massachusetts, California, Pennsylvania and Washington state."
"Three types of plutonium have turned up amid the radioactive contamination on the grounds of the earthquake-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, its owner reported Monday.
The plutonium is a byproduct of nuclear reactions that is also part of the fuel mix at the damaged No. 3 reactor.
It was found in soil at five different points inside the plant grounds, the Tokyo Electric Power Company said late Monday."
March 21st, 2011 10:40am CST Please give to Japanese Relief HERE, HERE,HERE,HERE and HERE
The catastrophe at Fukushima continues. From CNN: "Gray smoke spewed Monday out of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant's No. 3 reactor, a setback that came despite fervent efforts to prevent the further release of radioactive materials at the stricken facility. Those who had been working nearby were evacuated to safety shortly after the smoke was spotted around 4 p.m. Monday , a Tokyo Electric Power Company official told reporters. This is the same reactor that has been authorities' top priority -- and concern -- in recent days. Hidehiko Nishiyama, an official with Japan's nuclear and industrial safety, said measurements taken soon after the smoke was spotted did not indicate any spike in radiation. He said that there was no evident explosion, and no one was reported injured."
By F. Grey Parker
I have received hundreds of e-mails over the last several days from readers wondering "where" I had gone and, more pointedly, why I had "stopped covering" the events at TEPCO's Fukishima Dai-Ichi and Dai-Ni facilities. I have been right here.
Let me start by saying this: I believe the concepts of nuclear power make perfect sense. Surprised? Don't be. We're dealing with provable physics. It's not subject to whim or ideology. Science does what it does.
Science is verifiable, it is repeatable and it is consistently obedient to elemental laws. What I don't believe in is man. The limits of each cannot achieve parity. Bottom line.
I oppose nuclear energy as an option more fervently now than ever before. My long-time, two-fold argument against it not only remains unchanged but has been utterly affirmed by the events in Japan. The question of workable spent fuel storage and the limits of human discipline render the pursuit of this thing we can do extremely unwise. The profit motive as we tend to demonstrate it also renders our species nearly unworthy of the knowledge itself.
The atom doesn't lie. Industrialists seeking the shortest path to the largest treasure do.
At times, immediate safety was secondary to the steady flow of favorable quips about "growth" by the CEO. These are the obvious risks when unbridled greed is improperly regulated in capital driven systems. We have dealt with this flaw in our nature in arguably every endeavor where a few sought to enhance their wealth by enticing the many.
Sometimes, though, the stakes really are just too high.
Meet "the spent fuel rod":
There is no question that the energy demands of world society are at the breaking point. But know this. The disaster of failing to meet the future has already happened. What I have described before in this space as "Hoover Dam Thinking" is no longer possible as the global economy is presently defined.
Please give of what you can to support relief efforts in Japan. Click HERE and HERE.
It should be assumed at this point that the Japanese energy corporation responsible for the Fukushima Dai-Ichi complex, TEPCO, is just plain covering their asses. The only recent official release at their site as of this posting doesn't reference reactor #2 in any meaningful way. Check out their public pronouncements HERE.
Linked via CRIEnglish: "Hourly radiation was measured at 8, 217 micro sievert at the front door of Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said Tuesday.
A TEPCO official told a televised press conference that the figure was three times higher than the amount of radiation a person receives in his natural state within a year.
The rise in radiation was detected after an explosion was heard at the No. 2 reactor of Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant at 6:10 a.m. Tuesday (2110 GMT Monday).
The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said the suppression pool of the reactor might have been damaged at No. 2 reactor.
A rise in radiation was monitored near the nuclear plant shortly after the blast, said the agency. The radiation fell to 882 micro sievert after briefly rising as high as 965.5 micro sievert, topping the legal limit of 500.
But the agency said that the radiation will not immediately affect people's health at the levels of above figures."
"Tokyo Electric said late yesterday that a malfunctioning valve made it impossible to inject seawater into the reactor. The water levels inside its containment vessel fell and left its fuel rods exposed - perhaps completely exposed - for some hours. In reactor No 2, which is now the most damaged of the three at the Daiichi plant, at least parts of the fuel rods have been exposed for several hours, which also suggests that some of the fuel has begun to melt. Government and company officials said fuel melting has almost certainly occurred in that reactor, which can increase releases of radioactive material through the water and steam that escapes from the container vessel. In a worst case scenario, the fuel pellets could also burn through the bottom of the containment vessel and radioactive material could pour out that way - often referred to as a full meltdown. "There is a possibility that the fuel rods are heating up and starting to melt," said a Tokyo Electric spokesman late last night, in a news conference televised on public broadcaster NHK. "It is our understanding that we have possible damage to the fuel rods." The extreme challenge of managing reactor No 2 came as officials were still struggling to keep the cores of two other reactors, No 1 and No 3, covered with seawater. There was no immediate indication that either of those two reactors had experienced a crisis as serious as that at No 2. By last night, officials said that radiation readings around the plant reached 3,130 micro Sievert - the highest yet detected at the Daiichi facility since the quake and six times the legal limit. A Tokyo Electric official had then described the situation as improving. "We do not feel that a critical event is imminent," he told a press conference. Industry executives in America who were in touch with their counterparts in Japan last night grew increasingly alarmed about the risks posed by the No 2 reactor. "They're basically in a full-scale panic" among Japanese power industry managers, said a senior nuclear industry executive. "They're in total disarray, they don't know what to do."
Please give of what you can to support relief efforts in Japan. Click HERE and HERE.
The London Telegraph is reporting this more frightening detail:
"The government also reported apparent damage to part of the container shielding the same reactor at Fukushima 250 kilometres (155 miles) northeast of Tokyo, although it was unclear whether this resulted from the blast.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters the suppression pool of the number-two nuclear reactor appeared to have been damaged.
This is the bottom part of the container, which holds water used to cool it down and control air pressure inside."
"A third explosion in four days has rocked the earthquake-damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Japan. The blast on Tuesday at Dai-ichi Unit 2 follows two hydrogen explosions at the plant - at Unit 1 and Unit 3 - as authorities struggle to prevent the catastrophic release of radiation in the area devastated by a tsunami.Water levels have dropped precipitously inside Unit 2, twice leaving the uranium fuel rods completely exposed and raising the threat of a meltdown, hours after a hydrogen explosion tore through the building housing Unit 3.
The latest explosion was heard at 6.10am on Tuesday (8.10am AEDT), a spokesman for the Nuclear Safety Agency said at a news conference.
The plant's owner, Tokyo Electric Power, said the explosion occurred near the suppression pool in the reactor's containment vessel. The pool was later found to have a defect.
International scientists have said there are serious dangers but not at the level of the 1986 blast in Chernobyl."
"At a news conference Monday afternoon, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, John Roos, said U.S. experts are working closely with Japan and that staff from the Department of Energy and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission are consulting with the nation. The staff includes experts in boiling-water nuclear plants, the type used at Fukushima.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said there is no danger of radiation drifting as far as the West Coast of the United States.Four nuclear plants in northeastern Japan have reported damage. Operators lost the ability to cool the three reactors at Dai-ichi and three more at another nearby complex using usual procedures, after the quake knocked out power and the tsunami swamped backup generators."
"Engineers had begun pumping seawater into the reactor at the facility, the third reactor to receive the last-ditch treatment, after the plant's emergency cooling system had failed and the fuel rods
had been partially exposed to the air.
But apparently something went wrong and the injection of water failed. Workers were scrambling to re-immerse the fuel assembly before more damage is done to the reactor core.
No one knows how much damage has been done to the fuel rods, either in this reactor, No.2, or in reactors No.1 and No.3, where engineers began pumping in seawater over the weekend.
Officials have called the situation a partial meltdown because they have detected minute quantities of radioactive caesium and iodine - byproducts of the nuclear fission that powers the reactor - outside the plant.
That may mean simply that the zirconium cladding that sheathes the uranium fuel pellets has cracked due to heat from being exposed to the air, allowing small quantities of the radionuclides to escape, or it may mean that the fuel pellets themselves have partially melted.
As long as the reactor containment vessel remains intact, however, no one will know until workers can physically examine the fuel rods for damage."
"Experts called the injection of seawater and neutron-absorbing boron into the site's three crippled reactors units a desperation move never attempted before in the industry.
It amounted to sacrificing the reactors in an attempt to maintain the structural integrity of the reactor and its encasing concrete containment structure and prevent a potential uncontrolled major radiological release. Three other Fukushima Daiichi reactors had been shut down for planned work before Friday's 8.9 earthquake and were not part of the crisis.
"I would describe this measure as a Hail Mary Pass but if they succeed, there is plenty of water in the ocean and if they have the capability to pump this water in the necessary volume and at the necessary rates ... then they can stabilize the reactor," said former Energy Department official Robert Alvarez, according to press accounts of his press conference Saturday."
March 14th 2011 1:20am CST UPDATE 3/14/11 7:10am CST Please CLICK HERE to find information to donate to Japanese relief efforts.
Aerial view of 2nd incident
Late yesterday afternoon CST, word began to spread that a second Japanese reactor was in critical condition. By mid evening, it had been reported that it was Fukushima Dai-ichi reactor number 3. Somewhere between 11:00pm and 11:10pm CST this reactor experienced a hydrogen explosion and possible meltdown.
It is still being reported that the containment structure is not ruptured. The footage below is the most recent of that event.
March 14th, 2011 12:52am CST UPDATE 3/14/11 7:10am CST Please CLICK HERE to find information to donate to Japanese relief efforts.
Only time will tell...
As we watch the ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan and deal with conflicting information and patent errors, as well as one outright hoax, some very learned scientists have written and spoken out against rampant alarmism.
We hope and pray that they are correct. Most prominent, is this piece from Business Insider by MIT research scientist Dr. Josef Oehman which has gone viral:
"I have been reading every news release on the incident since the earthquake. There has not been one single report that was accurate and free of errors (and part of that problem is also a weakness in the Japanese crisis communication). By “not free of errors” I do not refer to tendentious anti-nuclear journalism – that is quite normal these days. By “not free of errors” I mean blatant errors regarding physics and natural law, as well as gross misinterpretation of facts, due to an obvious lack of fundamental and basic understanding of the way nuclear reactors are build and operated. I have read a 3 page report on CNN where every single paragraph contained an error.
We will have to cover some fundamentals, before we get into what is going on."
I cannot begin to stress the importance of his scientific critique. The piece is long but highly recommended as it breaks down the actual physics and materials involved in this crisis.
Please also read Professor Barry Brook's work referencing the Oehman essay and adding to the understanding of the particular activity within the type of reactor found in the Fukushima Daichi complex.
The diagram above shows the design used at Fukushima Daiichi
USAToday notes: "Cynthia McCollough, a medical physicist and professor at theMayo Clinicin Minnesota, notes that theInternational Atomic Energy Agencyhas rated the danger from the damage in Japan a 4 on a 7-point scale. That's lower than the risks caused by the meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979, which rated a 5, and the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, which rated a 7. Thousands of people did develop thyroid cancer after Chernobyl."
Mar 13th, 2011 11:50pm CST UPDATE 3/14/11 7:10am CST Please CLICK HERE to find information to donate to Japanese relief efforts.
We reported earlier on the possibility of serious danger at Fukushima reactor #3. There has been an explosion event but the core's containment structure is reportedly intact at this time.
Business Week reports: "The vessel containing the radioactive core of Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima Daiichi No. 3 reactor is intact after a hydrogen explosion at 11:01am local time, Chief Cabinet Secretary Ykio Edano said.
The possibility of a large radiation leak is very small, even as radiation levels at the reactor are rising, Edano, the government's main spokesman, said at a press conference. Tokyo Electric said one worker was injured and seven are missing after today's explosion at the station 220 kilometers (135miles) north of the Japanes capital."
International Business Times reports: "Japanese officials had been injecting seawater into overheating nuclear reactors on Sunday, in an attempt to relieve pressure at the plant.
The number 3 reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 plant may have been deformed due to overheating, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said earlier in the day. He denied that there had been a "meltdown" at the plant."
"Tokyo Electric Power Co. said a meltdown is possible at its Fukushima Dai-Ichi No. 3 reactor where a hydrogen explosion occurred, injuring six workers."
Below is raw video of the event. I hesitate to post untranslated feeds, but this is the only footage available at this time.
March 13th, 2011 5:45pm CST UPDATE 3/14/11 7:10am CST Please CLICK HERE to find information to donate to Japanese relief efforts.
HAT TIP to Louis who stayed up all night trying to get a response from ARS. by F. Grey Parker
It's become very difficult to determine what the truth is coming out of Japan. It would seem that in an effort to limit panic, the Japanese government's management of the ongoing nuclear emergency is having the opposite effect.
