Inside The Dead Zone

Nov 12th, 2011

Coming just on the heels of  reports that iodine-131 is being detected across Europe, this news seemed worth passing along.

Via RT:

"Japan has opened the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to journalists for the first time since the disaster of last March. RT has obtained a video of the inside of the crippled complex.

On Saturday, representatives of the Japanese and international media – more than 30 reporters, photographers and cameramen – were taken on a tour of the facility which was the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 25 years.

Despite TEPCO’s assurances that the radiation leaks pose much less danger now, the visitors had to wear a full set of protective gear during the tour."

They have rendered a vast swath of their country uninhabitable. Think that word over. Uninhabitable. How long until we have our own? It's anyone's guess.

That said, try and picture this scene in Ohio. Or Illinois. Or California. Ask yourself, is it worth it?

Fukushima Continues...

March 28th, 2011

If you can give to support relief efforts in Japan, please do so by either clicking HERE or by texting any of the resources below the post.

From Kyodo news comes confirmation that yesterday's reported radiation readings were off by a factor of 100. This does not make us feel any better.

"The plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said early Monday that the concentration of radioactive substances of a pool at the No. 2 reactor was 100,000 times higher than usual for water in a reactor core, correcting its earlier analysis of 10 million times higher.
 
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told a press conference that the highly radioactive water found at the basement of the No. 2 reactor's turbine building is ''believed to have temporarily had contact with fuel rods (in the reactor's core) that have partially melted.''
 
The Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan, a government panel, said Monday in its recommendations to Prime Minister Naoto Kan that highly radioactive water in the No. 2 reactor's containment vessel could have directly leaked, raising concerns that polluted water could spread to the building's underground and to the sea.
 
The government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency also said Monday radioactive iodine-131 at a concentration 1,150 times the maximum allowable level was detected Sunday in a seawater sample taken around 1.5 kilometers north of the drainage outlets of the troubled No. 1-4 reactors."

In other news, there has been a dust-up between the Japanese government and Greenpeace over the groups calls for broader evacuations.

The American Red Cross: Text REDCROSS to 90999 to give $10.

Convoy of Hope: Text TSUNAMI to 50555 to give $10.

Feed My Starving Children: MANNA to 50555 to give $10.

GlobalGiving: Text JAPAN to 50555 to give $10.

Operation Blessing: Text BLESS to 50555 to give $10.

Project Hope: Text HEALTH to 90999 to give $10.

United Way Worldwide: Text JAPAN to 864833 to give $10.

Volunteers of America Southeast: Text VOA to 27722 to give $10.

World ReliefCorp of National Association of Evangelicals: Text WAVE to 50555 to give $10.

The Nuclear Question

March 21st, 2011
Please give to Japanese Relief HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE

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.

Akio Komori Director of TEPCO in Japan

TEPCO did. For decades, they institutionalized a predictable culture of venal greed that mars most huge industrial energy initiatives. Reports were altered. Corners were cut. Decisions were made to enhance profit over sustainability.

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.

There's no easy money in it.

San Onofre Nuclear Plant, West Coast U.S.A

More to come...

Sleep tight...