Higher cancer risk continues after Chernobyl
NIH study finds that thyroid cancer risk for those who were children and adolescents when exposed to fallout has not yet begun to decline
National Cancer Institute | March 17, 2011
Nearly 25 years after the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, exposure to radioactive iodine-131(I-131, a radioactive isotope) from fallout may be responsible for thyroid cancers that are still occurring among people who lived in the Chernobyl area and were children or adolescents at the time of the accident, researchers say.
An international team of researchers led by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health found a clear dose-response relationship, in which higher absorption of radiation from I-131 led to an increased risk for thyroid cancer that has not seemed to diminish over time.
The study, which represents the first prospective examination of thyroid cancer risk in relation to the I-131 doses received by Chernobyl-area children and adolescents, appeared March 17, 2011, in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
“This study is different from previous Chernobyl efforts in a number of important ways. First, we based radiation doses from I-131 on measurements of radioactivity in each individual’s thyroid within two months of the accident,” explained study author Alina Brenner, M.D., Ph.D., from NCI’s Radiation Epidemiology Branch. “Second, we identified thyroid cancers using standardized examination methods. Everyone in the cohort was screened, irrespective of dose.”
The study included over 12,500 participants who were under 18 years of age at the time of the Chernobyl accident on April 26, 1986, and lived in one of three Ukrainian oblasts, or provinces, near the accident site: Chernigov, Zhytomyr, and Kiev. Thyroid radioactivity levels were measured for each participant within two months of the accident, and were used to estimate each individual’s I-131 dose. The participants were screened for thyroid cancer up to four times over 10 years, with the first screening occurring 12 to 14 years after the accident.
Standard screenings included feeling for growths in the thyroid glands and an ultrasonographic examination (a procedure that uses sound waves to image the thyroid gland within the body), and an independent clinical examination and thyroid exam by an endocrinologist. Participants were asked to complete a series of questionnaires including items specifically relevant to thyroid dose estimation. These items included residential history, milk consumption, and whether they were given preventive doses of non-radioactive iodine in the two months following the accident, to help lessen the amount of radioactive iodine that would be absorbed by the thyroid. Participants with a suspected thyroid cancer were referred for a biopsy to collect potentially cancerous cells for microscopic examination. If warranted, participants were also referred for surgery. In total, 65 of the study participants were diagnosed with thyroid cancer.
Researchers calculated cancer risk in relation to how much energy from I-131was absorbed by each person’s thyroid, measured in grays. A gray is the International System of Units measure of absorbed radiation. Each additional gray was associated with a twofold increase in radiation-related thyroid cancer risk.
The researchers found no evidence, during the study time period, to indicate that the increased cancer risk to those who lived in the area at the time of the accident is decreasing over time. However, a separate, previous analysis of atomic bomb survivors and medically irradiated individuals found cancer risk began to decline about 30 years after exposure, but was still elevated 40 years later. The researchers believe that continued follow-up of the participants in the current study will be necessary to determine when an eventual decline in risk is likely to occur.
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For more information about the NCI’s research related to the Chernobyl Accident, please visit: http://chernobyl.cancer.gov
For more information about radioactive I-131 from fallout, please visit: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/causes/i131
For more information about measure radiation dose, please visit: http://www.bt.cdc.gov/radiation/pdf/measurement.pdf
For more information about NCI’s Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, please visit: http://dceg.cancer.gov
The Nuclear Disaster That Could Destroy Japan … and the World
By HIROSE TAKASHI | CounterPunch | April 25, 2011
Translated by Doug Lummis
The nuclear power plants in Japan are aging rapidly; like cyborgs, they are barely kept in operation by a continuous replacement of parts. And now that Japan has entered a period of earthquake activity and a major accident could happen at any time, the people live in constant state of anxiety.
Seismologists and geologists agree that, after some fifty years of seismic inactivity, with the 1995 Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake (Southern Hyogo Prefecture Earthquake), the country has entered a period of seismic activity. In 2004, the Chuetsu Earthquake hit Niigata Prefecture, doing damage to the village of Yamakoshi. Three years later, in 2007, the Chuetsu Offshore Earthquake severely damaged the nuclear reactors at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa. In 2008, there was an earthquake in Iwate and Miyagi Prefectures, causing a whole mountain to disappear completely. Then in 2009 the Hamaoka nuclear plant was put in a state of emergency by the Suruga Bay Earthquake. And now, in 2011, we have the 3/11 earthquake offshore from the northeast coast. But the period of seismic activity is expected to continue for decades. From the perspective of seismology, a space of 10 or 15 years is but a moment in time.
Because the Pacific Plate, the largest of the plates that envelop the earth, is in motion, I had predicted that there would be major earthquakes all over the world.
And as I had feared, after the Suruga Bay Earthquake of August 2009 came as a triple shock, it was followed in September and October by earthquakes off Samoa, Sumatra, and Vanuatu, of magnitudes between 7.6 and 8.2. That means three to eleven times the force of the Southern Hyogo Prefecture Earthquake.
All of these quakes occurred around the Pacific Plate as the center, and each was located at the boundary of either that plate or a plate under its influence. Then in the following year, 2010, in January there came the Haiti Earthquake, at the boundary of the Caribbean Plate, pushed by the Pacific and Coco Plates, then in February the huge 8.8 magnitude earthquake offshore from Chile. I was praying that this world scale series of earthquakes would come to an end, but the movement of the Pacific Plate shows no sign of stopping, and led in 2011 to the 3/11 Earthquake in northeastern Japan and the subsequent meltdown at the Fukushima
There are large seismic faults, capable of producing earthquakes at the 7 or 8 magnitude level, near each of Japan’s nuclear plants, including the reprocessing plant at Rokkasho. It is hard to believe that there is any nuclear plant that would not be damaged by a magnitude 8 earthquake.
A representative case is the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant itself, where it has become clear that the fault under the sea nearby also extends inland. The Rokkasho plant, where the nuclear waste (death ash) from all the nuclear plants in Japan is collected, is located on land under which the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate meet. That is, the plate that is the greatest danger to the Rokkasho plant, is now in motion deep beneath Japan.
The Rokkasho plant was originally built with the very low earthquake resistance factor of 375 gals. (Translator’s note: The gal, or galileo, is a unit used to measure peak ground acceleration during earthquakes. Unlike the scales measuring an earthquake’s general intensity, it measures actual ground motion in particular locations.) Today its resistance factor has been raised to only 450 gals, despite the fact that recently in Japan earthquakes registering over 2000 gals have been occurring one after another. Worse, the Shimokita Peninsula is an extremely fragile geologic formation that was at the bottom of the sea as recently as the sea rise of the Jomon period (the Flandrian Transgression) 5000 years ago; if an earthquake occurred there it could be completely destroyed.
The Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant is where expended nuclear fuel from all of Japan’s nuclear power plants is collected, and then reprocessed so as to separate out the plutonium, the uranium, and the remaining highly radioactive liquid waste. In short, it is the most dangerous factory in the world.
At the Rokkasho plant, 240 cubic meters of radioactive liquid waste are now stored. A failure to take care of this properly could lead to a nuclear catastrophe surpassing the meltdown of a reactor. This liquid waste continuously generates heat, and must be constantly cooled. But if an earthquake were to damage the cooling pipes or cut off the electricity, the liquid would begin to boil. According to an analysis prepared by the German nuclear industry, an explosion of this facility could expose persons within a 100 kilometer radius from the plant to radiation 10 to 100 times the lethal level, which presumably means instant death.
On April 7, just one month after the 3/11 earthquake in northeastern Japan, there was a large aftershock. At the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant the electricity was shut off. The pool containing nuclear fuel and the radioactive liquid waste were (barely) cooled down by the emergency generators, meaning that Japan was brought to the brink of destruction. But the Japanese media, as usual, paid this almost no notice.
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Hirose Takashi has written a whole shelf full of books, mostly on the nuclear power industry and the military-industrial complex. Probably his best known book is Nuclear Power Plants for Tokyo in which he took the logic of the nuke promoters to its logical conclusion: if you are so sure that they’re safe, why not build them in the center of the city, instead of hundreds of miles away where you lose half the electricity in the wires?
Douglas Lummis is a political scientist living in Okinawa and the author of Radical Democracy. Lummis can be reached at ideaspeddler@gmail.com
Nuke protester murdered in India as police open fire on peaceful crowd
By Rady Ananda | COTO Report | April 22, 2011
Authorities responded to peaceful protest of a proposed nuclear power plant site in India by shooting at the crowd, killing one and injuring eight. Over sixty others were arrested. Killed by police on Monday, the body of 30-year-old Tabrez Sayekar was carried through the streets at a funeral march attended by more than 2,000 people on Wednesday. No one has been charged in his murder.
The Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL), along with the French nuclear energy giant, Areva, plan to build the world’s largest nuclear power plant complex generating nearly 10,000 megawatts of electricity in an agricultural area at Jaitapur in the Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra.
In December, the world renowned Tata Institute of Social Sciences published a social and environmental assessment of the proposed project conducted by Jamsetji Tata Centre for Disaster Management last April, calling it a potential disaster. According to DNA India, the report charges that the government has hidden and suppressed important and relevant information, and “has subverted facts” by labeling the proposed 968-hectare site as barren land though the locals use it for agriculture, horticulture and grazing.
“‘Farmers and horticulturists have spent lakhs of rupees to make the land cultivable over years and even the government has supported them. This includes Alfonso mangoes and cashews. Now, when the time has come for them to reap their investments, they are afraid of losing their land as the government now claims it is barren land,’ says the report. It adds that even the fisherfolk of the region are against the project.”
Even the level of seismicity was changed, from a high severity earthquake zone to moderate seismic severity zone.
“‘The government is not only hiding facts, but also manipulating them,’ the report alleges.”
NPCIL, an agency of the Indian government, defends the moderate label. “Seismicity is one of the key criteria in site selection for nuclear power plants and the Jaitapur site meets the requirements for siting as stipulated in the atomic energy regulatory board’s code on safety,” it said in response to TISS.
However, last month, Times of India reported:
“[T]he Geological Survey of India shows that between 1985 and 2005, there were 92 earthquakes [in the area].
“The ground is unstable, say activists and geologists, and there is no guarantee that the government’s safeguards will protect the people and ecologically sensitive Konkan coast from a nuclear disaster should there be another earthquake.
“Environmental activist Pradeep Indulkar said: ‘The third explosion at the Fukushima plant in Japan on Tuesday confirms that in the event of an earthquake, precautionary measures and safeguards will not avert a disaster. It is better not to have a nuclear power plant in this seismic zone region.’
“At Shivane village, 20 km from Jaitapur, Chandrakant Padkar remembers the day the earth shook and the road outside his house vanished. The unreported earthquake took place two years ago, and the village still bears the scars.”
Greenpeace India plans to deliver a petition to the Maharashtra Chief Minister on April 26, the 25th anniversary of the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, Ukraine. You can sign the petition here.
“Instead of ignoring and ruthlessly suppressing the protest against the Jaitapur nuclear reactor park, Prithviraj Chavan, Maharashtra Chief Minister, needs to scrap the project. The CM needs to know that he cannot build Jaitapur against the people’s will when alternatives exist.”
Sane Response to Deadly Energy Source
Nuclear power is the deadliest, costliest form of energy on record, according to Dr. Benjamin Sovacool of Project Syndicate. “Not counting the Fukushima catastrophe, there has been more than one nuclear incident and $330 million in damage every year, on average, for the past three decades.”
In a policy brief published in January, Sovacool notes, “The nuclear fuel cycle involves some of the most dangerous elements known to humankind. These elements include more than 100 dangerous radionuclides and carcinogens such as strontium-90, iodine-131 and cesium-137, which are the same toxins found in the fallout of nuclear weapons.”
The damage done to Earth by nuclear accidents and waste is permanent, for a mere 20-30 years of electricity, a dirty secret that the nuclear industry has not resolved. In the U.S., for example, the waste is stored in holding pools at four to five times the pool’s capacity.
Despite the world’s clean water shortage, Sovacool reports:
“Nuclear plants use 25-50% more water per unit of electricity generated than fossil fuel plants with equivalent cooling systems…. The average US plant operating on an open–loop cooling system withdraws 216 Million litres of water every day and consumes 125 Million litres of water every day.
“Nuclear plants and uranium mining also contaminate water and the methods used to draw the water and exclude debris through screens kill marine and riparian life, setting in place a destructive chain of events for ocean/river systems.”
Der Spiegel writes, “The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, for all the attention it gets, is far from the only nuclear no-go area on the planet.” In its recent catalogue of several now-uninhabitable spots on the planet as a result of nuclear use, leaks, waste and accidents, Spiegel documents thousands of square miles in the U.S., Germany, Kazakhstan, Japan, India, Britain and Northern Africa contaminated by radiation, areas which produce high rates of birth defects and cancers. Their report doesn’t even touch the depleted uranium used in the Middle East by the U.S. and its allies.
While we watch Fukushima’s radiation fall on the northern hemisphere, contaminating our milk and water in the U.S., Canada and Europe, it’s notable that, like previous nuclear accidents, governments lie about the severity. Fifty years after the UK’s worst nuclear disaster, experts advise that the radiation released was twice what was originally reported.
Chernobyl was no different, as a recent book published by the New York Academy of Sciences reveals. Government authorities reported 3,000 casualties from that disaster, but in Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, the authors conclude that, based on now available medical data, 985,000 people died as a result of the Chernobyl disaster, as of 2004. The researchers based their conclusions on 5,000 radiological surveys, scientific reports and health data.
Because of the Fukushima nuclear meltdown, EnviroVideo released a video based on that book: “Chernobyl: A Million Casualties.” Watch it at http://blip.tv/file/4922080.
Neither is Japan any different. Engineer Keith Harmon Snow writes:
“In a recent WikiLeaks diplomatic cable, politician Taro Kono, a high-profile member of Japan’s lower house, told U.S. diplomats that the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (MITI) — the Japanese government department responsible for nuclear energy — has been ‘covering up nuclear accidents and obscuring the true costs and problems associated with the nuclear industry.’ In 2002 ‘the chairman and four executives of TEPCO, the company that owns the stricken Fukushima plant, resigned after reports that safety records were falsified.’”
Corporate-run governments will not stop destroying the planet for profit. It is up to humanity to do all in its power to end the ongoing ecocide. Sometimes this means putting your life on the line, as Tabrez Sayekar did on Monday, just short of the 25th Anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
The People Who Brought You Fukushima
Same Old Tricks From the Nuclear Gang
By SAUL LANDAU and JACK WILLIS | April 22, 2011
For 60 years the nuclear industry has promised the world cheap, safe and clean energy. As the Japanese government continues to extend its nuclear evacuation zone and with the eerie glow of the Fukishima plant as background, the pushers of nuclear power – including the President – still demand subsidies for new plants of Congress. As another Chernobyl-size disaster looms, the energy-fixated “problem solvers” continue to suffer from both temporary blindness and long-term amnesia – ignoring or down-playing the history of nuclear “mishaps.” […]
From the 1950s on, for example, “thousands of workers were unwittingly exposed to plutonium and other highly radioactive metals at the Department of Energy’s Paducah Kentucky Gaseous Diffusion Plant. Workers … inhaled radioactive dust while processing the materials as part of a government experiment to recycle used nuclear reactor fuel.” (Washington Post, August 22, 1999)
In July 2000, wildfires near the Hanford facility hit highly radioactive waste disposal trenches, raising airborne plutonium radiation levels in nearby cities to 1,000 times above normal. (http://www.lutins.org/nukes.html)
Compare those “little accidents” (multiply by a thousand) with the Chernobyl and now Fukishima catastrophes or with those who got cancer from the Three Mile Island (Pennsylvania) “mishap.” http://www.albionmonitor.com/9703a/3milecancer.html
The government nuclear agencies have shied away from doing the long-term studies of the impacts of low-level radiation. Indeed, in the 1970s they de-funded a study under the guidance of University of Pittsburg scientist Dr. David Mancuso when it became apparent he would find that the “precautions” taken were insufficient, and that low-level radiation (at government levels) had deleterious affects on human health.
The government did no health follow-up after the numerous “little” leaks, fires and “mishaps” that occurred routinely at the Rocky Flats plutonium trigger and Hanford nuclear weapons installations. Oh, they did at least check the radiation badges of the employees.
In 1981, we made a Public Television documentary: “Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang.” In it, we documented how government officials obfuscated their failure to provide, as they promised, “cheap, safe and clean” energy and safe work environments in and around nuclear weapons facilities.
Jacobs had earlier reported on how the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and its successor three-letter agencies lied about, distorted, and then classified (thereby withholding) reports on the health impact of low level radiation.
One example provided in the film was Sergeant James Gates, who described how the army positioned men near the blast and had them cover their eyes. Bates said: “the blast threw me 15 feet into the air. It made all of us sick.” In 1978, he had terminal cancer.
Jacobs interviewed “downwinders” – those living in cities directly in the path of nuclear fallout after the Nevada tests. They described how hot hailstones pelted them after the blasts. Jacobs interviewed a man on horseback who told of large tumors growing from his neck right after his exposure.
In the 1950s and again in the early 1970s, Paul Jacobs inspected the government’s claims and then wrote award-winning articles featuring interviews with St. George, Utah residents. In this city directly east of the test site, Jacobs found inordinate numbers of cancer cases and a nuclear-nervous public. (“Clouds from Nevada,” The Reporter, May 16, 1957; (“Precautions Are Being Taken By Those Who Know,” The Atlantic, Feb. 1971)
In the film, Jacobs described how he surreptitiously acquired a classified document from a Public Health office in Las Vegas that revealed the Atomic Energy Commission knew “low-level radiation” constituted serious health hazards. Later, he found de-classified internal memos indicating why the government classified the health report: to keep the public from having to choose between nuclear tests and getting cancer.
In 1977, Jacobs’ doctors and his friend Linus Pauling (a chemistry Nobel prize-winner) concluded that Paul (a non-smoker) developed lung cancer during his exposure to “low level radiation” around the Atomic Test Site.
After 74 years, the evidence would lead one to conclude that “cheap safe and clean” sounds more like a condom ad than a believable promise from the nuclear gang. The public should think of two words that have been uttered in nuclear plants when “mishaps” occur. “Oops” and “duh.” And remember, there’s at least one Homer Simpson.
Saul Landau and Jack Willis also worked together on WILL THE REAL TERRORIST PLEASE STAND UP available through Cinema Libre Studio.
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Fukushima’s Boiling-Water Reactors Continue to Boil and a Sarcophagus Looms
By Mina Hamilton / Dissident Voice / April 20th, 2011
Japan’s Disneyland reopens.
Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan makes a plea to his countrymen to “live life as normal”.
It would be churlish to deny scared kids or worried parents a hug from Mickey Mouse, if that’s what might console. But the proliferation of fantasies regarding the stricken Fukushima Daiichi plants continues at a ferocious pace – and behind-the-scenes, plans for a sarcophagus solidify.
The New York Times talks of the possibility of returning the land to a “greenfield” state. Denis Flory, a Deputy Director General of the International Atomic Energy Association insists Fukushima is not Chernobyl. At a recent meeting, Flory explains, “At Chernobyl a nuclear reactor exploded. In Japan… there may be…” The Deputy Director pauses and looks abashed, “some leaks, but containment is here.”
This absurd claim is made, despite the fact that the International Atomic Energy Association’s own data asserts that 70% of the radioactive fuel in reactor no. 1 is damaged. In reactor no. 2, 30% of the fuel is damaged and it’s 35% in reactor no. 3. (Damaged means crumbled, cracked and/or melted fuel. It is now accumulating at the bottom of the reactor vessels and impeding cooling of, as yet, undamaged fuel.)
Meanwhile, a spokesman for Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency opines that high radiation readings above the irradiated fuel pool at reactor no. 4 may be from “rainwater.”
And, Big News, on Monday, April 18, TEPCO admits its month-long, much-ballyhooed effort to cool the reactors isn’t working, hasn’t worked and won’t work. A new cooling system will have to be designed and installed to bring the temperature of the fractious reactors under control.
A staggering admission.
The term boiling-water-reactor has a new punch. At the Fukushima plants water inside reactors vessels 1, 2, and 3 is hot. In the hottest reactor the water temperature is 338 degrees Fahrenheit, well above the boiling point. (The other two reactors aren’t much cooler.) Weeks and weeks of spraying by helicopters and pumping have been to little avail.
Take the Japanese government’s, TEPCO’s, and the world media’s hard labors to create the belief that the situation is “improving.” Combine this comforting notion with good-old, ordinary denial, with a highly understandable human desire to deny the magnitude of the tragedy, and it’s hard to keep one’s eyes fully open, right on-the-ball.
But here it is before our eyes: Three reactors still reeling out-of-control. Three reactors whose coolant is at a roiling boil — much like the bubble-filled and steam-generating water all of us know from cooking up a bit of pasta for dinner. One of these reactors, no. 2, has a steel containment vessel that may be cracked. Plus, at reactor no. 4, one steaming, over-heated, spent fuel pool the concrete support of which is a tad sketchy.
Unlike our pasta water, in the case of the Fukushima reactors, the boiling water is contaminated with fission products such as cesium, strontium and plutonium. And said water with its toxic load has to go somewhere, i.e. outside the reactor. So at Fukushima there is an ongoing program of what in nuclear parlance is called “feed and bleed.” Or, in simple language, feed water into the reactor vessel and release radioactive steam to the environment. And then there’s the advertent leaks to adjacent turbine buildings, outside ditches, and, alas, the ocean.
The current TEPCO estimate is that this will go on a long time. Month in and month out. Probably, until December. Regular burps of radiation into the atmosphere and regular releases of radioactivity into the ocean for 6 to 9 months?
That’s the short term outlook.
The longer term is 10 to 30 years to remove all the fuel, cut up the reactor vessels, cart the contaminated pieces of steel away, cut up the contaminated concrete and lug that away, take the intact fuel somewhere (the Rokkasho reprocessing facility?) and do what with the damaged fuel? Leave it in place, as was done at Chernobyl? Where, 25 years after the Chernobyl explosion, radioactivity is currently seeping out, requiring the emplacement of a second, larger sarcophagus?
Fukushima, Chernobyl. It’s not a pretty picture.
In the meantime, why not cover-up those ugly skeletal remains at Japan’s crippled plants? With some improvised coverings and, down the road, a sarcophagus or two or three?
Recently, the sarcophagus-approach came a couple of steps closer with the arrival in Japan of two immense concrete pump trucks.
Each of these behemoths, known as 70z’s, weighs 190,000 pounds. They are manufactured by a German company, Putzmeister. In 1986 this company was responsible for the construction of the concrete sarcophagus around the graphite reactor at Chernobyl.
The 70z’s weigh so much they had to be transported by Russian Antonov’s, the world’s second-heaviest cargo planes. Previously used to transport the Russian space shuttle, the planes were specially sent from Russia to the US to pick up the hefty pumps. And where did these pumps come from in the US? From Los Angeles, CA and Atlanta, GA.
One of the pumps was pulled off of the construction site for the MOX-fuel fabrication facility being constructed by the French-government-owned company, Areva, at the US Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. To interrupt a $4.86 billion dollar project (already 5-years behind schedule and $3 billion over-budget) is unprecedented.
Obviously, arrangements were made at high levels of the US, French, Russian and Japanese governments for the deal to go through. What was particularly telling about the deal?
It was already in the works by the end of March. At a time, when the Japanese government and TEPCO were endlessly intoning about getting the stricken Fukushima reactors “under control,” already the giant concrete pumps were being readied for transport to Japan.
On March 31, a spokesman for the company providing concrete for the MOX Fuel facility, was quoted in the Augusta Chronicle, “Our understanding is, they are preparing to go to the next phase and it will require a lot of concrete.”
March 31? “A lot of concrete?”
Of course, it never did make sense that such huge pumps would be necessary for cooling purposes. (Albeit the amazing stretch of the 70-meter crane would reduce radiation exposure of workers, as would impressive remote-control features.)
But why the need for the giant behemoth pumps flown in by Russian super-cargo plane? After all this was the company that poured concrete for the 10-mile-long Gotthard Tunnel burrowing under the Alps, between Switzerland and Italy. The company that, after the 1989 California earthquake, rebuilt the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. The company that built the world’s highest tower, the Burj Dubai.
And the only company in the world to have experience building a giant, nuclear- sarcophagus.
After the pumps arrived in Japan, a company spokesman was still saying the giant pumps were for cooling the Fukushima reactors. (For weeks a somewhat smaller pump, also a Putzmeister, was pouring water into the wrecked irradiated fuel pool of reactor no 4.)
When pressed by a CNN reporter, the spokesman admitted pouring concrete was a “plausible scenario.”
Throughout the disaster of the past five, going on six weeks, TEPCO, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency and the Japanese government have seemed bumbling and inept to the point of absurdity. Behind the bland announcements, the silly re-assurances was a different reality: three-plus weeks ago, detailed, complicated plans were being made to stop some key work at the MOX fuel plant in South Carolina and arrange for the special transport of the immense concrete pumps to Japan.
What other secret plans are currently underway – that we will hear about a month from now, if we’re lucky?
What exactly is the proposed design for the sarcophagus or sarcophagi? Drawings up on the TEPCO site suggest a three-sided structure, one with a top and sides – but no bottom. That means the distinct possibility of melted fuel, if it is left on-site (as happened at Chernobyl), migrating downwards toward vital water tables and/or washing out to contaminate the sea. Toxins washing-down and out, continuously, for decades and decades and…
Japanese refugees in the required and voluntary evacuation zones, critics in the Japanese government, Japanese environmentalists, Tokyo residents, fishermen, abalone-divers, dairy farmers, agricultural workers and citizens of the world must demand more transparency regarding these critically important plans.
If the Fukushima clean-up project is left to the nuclear boys-in-the-back-room, the plan is bound to be contaminated. Contaminated by thinking distorted by the bottom-line – and warped by the desire to protect the nuclear industry.
Let’s not let that happen.
~
Mina Hamilton is a writer based in New York City. She is a contributor to several books including Critical Mass:Voices for a Nuclear-Free Future and Deadly Defense, an analysis of contamination issues at nuclear weapons facilities in the US. She can be reached at: minaham@aol.
Atomic Deserts
Everyone knows about Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and, now, Fukushima. But what about Semipalatinsk, Palomares and Kyshtym? The world is full of nuclear disaster zones — showing just how dangerous the technology really is.
A Survey of the World’s Radioactive No-Go Zones
By Michail Hengstenberg, Gesche Sager and Philine Gebhardt | Der Speigel | April 12, 2011
Wednesday, Mar. 28, 1979. In the Three Mile Island nuclear power station in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the nightmare scenario of nuclear physicists was about to unfold. At four in the morning, employees in the control room noticed the failure of a pump in the reactor’s water cooling loop. When a bypass valve failed to trip, water stopped flowing to steam generators, resulting in an emergency reactor shutdown. But the reactor continued to generate so-called decay heat. A relief valve opened automatically but then failed to close, allowing coolant to flow out at a rate of one ton per minute. The control panel erroneously indicated that the cooling system was functioning normally, meaning technicians initially failed to recognize the problem.
By 6 a.m., the top of the reactor core was no longer covered in cooling water — and the fuel rods began to melt. At the last moment, a technician noticed the problem and closed the relief valve. A full-scale meltdown was only barely averted.
Still, the series of events had a devastating effect: Not only was radioactivity released into the atmosphere, but contaminated coolant escaped into the nearby river. Cancer rates in the local population later rose dramatically. In addition, large parts of the reactor and the power plant site were contaminated. The clean-up operation in Harrisburg took 14 years and cost more than $1 billion. And the reactor ruins are radioactive to this day.
The case is instructive. It was the result of tiny construction errors and a small dose of human error. And now, as the world watches on in horror as the catastrophe in Fukushima continues to unfold, the debate on the safety of nuclear power has been reignited. The area around Fukushima will likely remain contaminated for decades, if not centuries. And many are once again wondering if the returns from nuclear technology justifies the risks. How can anything be considered under control which can so quickly mutate into an apocalypse?
Sadly, though, disasters like Three Mile Island and Fukushima are not as rare as one would hope. There have been plenty of atomic accidents resulting in significant radioactive leaks, spills and explosions. And the Chernobly Exclusion Zone, for all the attention it gets, is far from the only nuclear no-go area on the planet. A look at some of the worst incidents is enough to demonstrate just how high the price of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons truly is. … continue
Trials of Globalization: And We All Melt Down
We are now on the brink of the mother of all meltdowns in more ways than one.
Last weekend, The Times quoted Alan Hansen, a nuclear engineer and executive vice president of Areva NC, a unit of Areva, a French group that supplied reactor fuel to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plan, who spoke before a private gathering at Stanford University. “Clearly,” he summarized, “we’re witnessing one of the greatest disasters in modern time.” What the on-going release of cancer-causing radioactive fragments means in terms of human health and the environment is only beginning to come to light.
It’s certainly not my expertise. What I do know is that, on top of the terrible calamities brought on by the tsunami and the scary portents of the radiation spewing into the air, the ocean, and into the ground surrounding Fukushima and beyond, we are facing an economic juggernaut that is likely to shatter the world’s fragile recovery. You don’t take out the world’s third biggest economy – until recently, the second — with no impact, despite the recent assurance by that reliable sage Timothy Geithner that the crisis in Japan would not hinder the U.S. recovery. (Meanwhile, Tim’s banking buddies are busy reviewing their clients’ exposure.)
Up until the last few days, media and stock market pundits continue to drool over the prospect of some $310 billion worth of new business anticipated to rebuild earthquake and tsunami-ravaged Japan. Newsweek featured an article by Bill Emmott, a former editor of The Economist, stating:
“Typically, if economic effects are measured simply by gross domestic product, natural disasters cause a short-term loss in output, thanks to the destruction of offices and factories and the disruption to transport links, but after just a few months they actually act like an economic stimulus package.”
Needless to say, these are far from typical times, and this is no typical disaster. Faced with the loss of a critical supply partner, many companies around the world are confronting a quite different reality. Japan is suffering huge shortages as production capacity shrivels and logistical issues mount–particularly in the are of transportation. The Financial Times reports that Japanese manufacturing activity plummeted to a two-year low in March, according to the Markit/JMMA purchasing managers’ index, which hit its worst low since its inception in 2001.
We’re not just talking about the now infamous Japan-made five components that go into the iPad 2 or the wafer material needed to manufacture semiconductor chips or the metallic paint needed to produce shiny red and black cars. I can attest that companies of all sizes find themselves in the same pickle, with normally efficient Japanese production and transportation chains hobbled by power interruptions, radiation fears, earthquake damage, and severe after-shocks. These days, many global shipping lines won’t even dock at Japan’s busiest ports, Tokyo and Yokohama, for fear of radioactive contamination. And that’s not just being paranoid. If their hulls pick up any radioactivity, they could be barred later from other ports, for example in the U.S.
Meanwhile, we’re scrambling here in the US. I can tell you first-hand, it’s not so easy to just trip over to Europe or China, and duplicate parts and processes proprietary to the secretive and justifiably possessive Japanese. It will take at least some months or more for global factories, big and small, that rely on their goods and expertise for even a small fraction of their processes to retool.
March’s U.S. employment numbers may look good to some, but wait until the impact of this economic tsunami starts to hit. Already, automakers as far afield as Louisiana, Mexico and Belgium are facing temporary shutdowns due to lack of parts. What happens when government treasuries already drained by the global banking industry have only empty hands to show the long-term and newly unemployed?
Worse, we face the specter of growing inflation as goods grow scarcer and the costs of developing alternative supply chains start to kick in. Semiconductor chip prices, which affect the price of everything from cars to iPods, already rose in March as a direct result of earthquake-induced scarcities, according to iSuppli Market Research. Compounding the problem, China is already resorting to price controls in a futile bid to quell its soaring inflation and, equally contrived, the U.S. Fed continues to pump cash and dump it into our non-performing banks.
Oh, and what about that big payday when we all get to rebuild the land of the rising sun? This goes way beyond scorched earth, people. Even if that private gathering of nuclear wonks at Stanford was wrong, and the environmental and health impacts in northern Japan prove to be negligible, there is still the question of how they are going to muster the moohlah for a vast reconstruction project. That’s on top of sharing the insurance burden of Fukushima with Tepco, the utility that owns the plant.
Newsweek’s Emmott is sanguine on this score: “Insurance pays for some of it, government spending and private investment the rest.” Already, the Japanese central bank offered a loan program worth $11.7 billion to financial institutions in the disaster area. But, bear in mind that the Japanese government has the highest debt of any developed country, running 200% of GDP.
Of course, Emmott has an answer for this too, suggesting the Japanese simply “borrow more” (sure ‘nuff) and impose a “special reconstruction tax”, assuming that the “Japanese people will be entirely prepared to make sacrifices and share the burdens”. Go tell that to the angry hoards gathering daily outside Tepco headquarters.
It’s possible the government will have to start cashing out their U.S. T-bills, which is a whole other story, since Japan and China have financed our government’s profligate ways for the past decade or so. One thing for sure is that foreign governments are not likely to rush into Japan with huge coffers of cash any time soon. The U.S. and European taxpayers are in no mood to spring for someone else’s Marshall Plan. And given their wretched history, China would be an unlikely savior for Japan, although strange things do happen.
To be fair, Emmott did get one thing right when he asserted, “The first, and most fundamental, lesson from other natural disasters is that the economy is the least important thing to worry about.” Under the circumstances, it’s not all that comforting a thought.
~
*The anonymous author is a journalist and businesswoman who lives in the Philadelphia area, who contributes occasionally to This Can’t Be Happening.
Powerful Aftershock Rocks Japan
By Stephen Lendman | April 9, 2011
Measuring 7.1 (one or more other reports said 7.4), rocked northeast Japan, causing more damage and disruption to a devastated area. It cut electricity to four million homes, disrupted power at two nuclear facilities, and according to Kyodo News:
“Radioactive water spilled from pools holding spent nuclear fuel rods at the Onagawa power plant in Miyagi Prefecture,” according to Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA).
For up to 80 minutes, power was lost at Onagawa and the Higashidori nuclear facility. “A small amount of contaminated water spilled on the floor (inside) all three (Onagawa) reactors….In all, water spilled or leaked at eight sections of the plant,” also run by Tokyo Electric (TEPCO). In addition, blowout panels designed to control pressure were damaged in reactor number three’s turbine building, TEPCO saying a complete damage assessment was ongoing.
Moreover, a Rokkasho village (Aomori Prefecture) spent nuclear fuel disposal facility also lost power temporarily. The extent of nuclear facility damage is unknown, except for sketchy and unreliable official reports.
As always, they say damage, new or earlier, poses no dangers. Already, in fact, Fukushima caused potentially apocalyptic ones, covered up to conceal their gravity, extending far beyond Japan and the Pacific rim.
Other reports also downplay them, including from The New York Times and Al Jazeera, often indistinguishable from and as unreliable as BBC, headlining (on April 8) “Japan quake causes radioactive spill,” saying:
“A powerful earthquake in northeast Japan rocked a nuclear plant, causing a small amount of radioactive water to spill, but the operator said there was no immediate danger,” case closed.
On April 8, New York Times writers Hiroko Tabuchi and Andrew Pollack were just as deceptive, headlining, “Millions Without Power After Japan Aftershock,” saying:
TEPCO said “it had found no new damage (and no) increase in radiation levels” at any plant affected. Instead of explaining the situation’s gravity, the report merely said concerns “remain high.”
On the Progressive Radio News Hour’s April 7 broadcast, nuclear expert Karl Grossman discussed worrisome issues raised by his mentor, nuclear physicist Dr. Richard E. Webb, the world expert on nuclear plant explosions. In his work, writings and 1976 book titled, “The Accident Hazards of Nuclear Power Plants,” he explained the dangers, saying in his introduction:
“Nuclear power plants present a hazard to the health and safety of the public because they are subject to accident, such as an explosion, in which harmful substances called radioactivity could be released to the atmosphere as dust and expose a large population to lethal or injurious radiation.”
His main conclusion was that “the full accident hazard of each type nuclear power reactor has not been scientifically established, even for the most likely of serious accidents.”
Specifically, “the theory underlying the industry’s safety calculations has not been experimentally verified, nor are the necessary experiments planned….This shortcoming is one of the two chief concerns of this book.”
“The other, and more important, concern is that there are accident possibilities not considered for licensing which are more severe than the design basis accidents and that these have not even been theoretically investigated for the course they each could take….”
In other words, reactor containment systems aren’t designed for the worst potential accidents. As a result, each operating reactor anywhere “appears to have an enormous potential for public disaster.”
Thirty-five years later, little has changed. Many American reactors are as vulnerable as Fukushima’s, and no plans are in place to handle worst case scenarios, too potentially catastrophic to imagine but are very real, likely, and sooner or later, inevitable as long as nuclear plants keep operating.
Webb estimated the “theoretical magnitude of the worst consequences of the worst conceivable reactor accident,” a disturbing consideration but important. Moreover, he said it’s not as unlikely as might appear, given America’s passion with nuclear roulette – a ticking time bomb technology, accidents waiting to happen.
Widespread fallout depends on rainfall, he explained. Without it, contamination is better contained. Nonetheless, his worst possible accident scenario is as follows:
(1) a lethal radiation cloud a mile wide, extending 75 miles;
(2) evacuation or severely restrictive living conditions for an area the size of Illinois, Indiana and Ohio combined (120,000 square miles), lasting a year or longer; and
(3) severe long-term agricultural restrictions because of strontium 90 fallout over a land mass the size of half the land east of the Mississippi River (500,000 square miles), lasting one or more years, with dairy farming prohibited “for a very long time” over a 150,000 square mile area.
Other considerations involve genetic damage and LMFBR (Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor) accident consequences, especially for plutonium, the most toxic substance known by far. A millionth of a gram ingested can kill.
In addition, “the maximum distance downwind from a reactor accident” related to the above estimates is about 1,500 – 2,000 miles. “Hence, a nuclear reactor accident can affect distant communities as well as those nearby.”
Moreover, the above estimates aren’t maximum ones, as weather conditions can raise them. As a result, disaster levels depend on the amount of released radioactivity into the atmosphere “in the form of a very fine, light dust (particles one micron diameter in size) so that it can disperse over a wide area before fallout.”
Also, the higher the fuel temperature, the stronger the explosion and greater fractional radioactivity release in the form of a finer dust. Contingency plans don’t take these factors into consideration or the effects on food, water and human health.
On April 4, the web site eyreinternational.com quoted Webb’s analysis of a spent fuel rod accident, what occurred disastrously at Fukushima, saying:
“160,000 square miles (is) rendered uninhabitable (the size of California) by Cesium-137 alone; 338,000 acres of land ruined agriculturally because of Strontium-90 fallout; 200,000 square miles ruined by plutonium contamination alone – a lung cancer dust hazard.”
The site says after making these calculations, Webb concluded that radiation is much more harmful than he assumed, believing that within 48 hours of a major reactor accident, 30 – 100 million people potentially could be harmed by radioactive atmospheric, water and soil contamination. In other words, the most dire scenario is too frightening to imagine. Possibly it’s now unfolding in Japan, what the fullness of time will reveal.
~
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
A Slow Agonizing Death
Ace Hoffman’s Nuclear News Blog | April 5th, 2011
Dear Readers,
It’s been more than three weeks now, and things are STILL getting worse at Fukushima Daiichi. The world’s news media, and the tired public, may be trying to move on, but Fukushima is still spewing radioactive poisons at ever-increasing rates, pushing itself back onto the headlines day after day…
Now there are confirmed radiation readings around the plant that are millions of times higher than the legal limits. Not just higher than background or “normal” limits, but millions of times higher than legal limits. The mega-catastrophe we all hoped to avoid forever is unfolding, and not one bright nuclear scientist or engineer seems to know how to stop it.
So much for the experts.
Damned experts.
According to physicist Dr. Michio Kaku — one of the good guys — three reactors are either already melting down or in eminent danger of doing so, and a spent fuel pool may be, as well. He doesn’t seem to think anything can stop it now: Molten fuel, dripping from broken reactor pressure vessels, spewing radioactive smoke and steam for years to come…
But it could still get even worse than that: There could be a violent steam explosion. Or two, three, four… Oh God, or six. And then Daini will be unapproachable, just a few miles way. So there will go four more. In preparation, are they emptying the spent fuel pools at Daini at this time? No. They are happy to have achieved cold shutdown of those four reactors, and just keep riding out the aftershocks and the radiation wafting over from Fukushima Daiichi, waiting until somebody says they can turn the reactors on again. That’s their new plan. Go back to being stupid as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, it’s a slow, agonizing death of the reactors at Daiichi, and for those trying to stop it, many, perhaps all, of them will go through their own slow, agonizing death because of their efforts, as well. For the sake of others.
Despite their “heroism” — and I put the word in quotes only because, the day before the “natural” disasters that led to the man-made failures, these are the same people who could have REALLY done something to prevent this tragedy, like blow the whistle on the safety violations and the illogical locations of the diesel generators and all sorts of other things. But now, truly, they are heroes, and let’s hope their efforts succeed. Otherwise, or rather, even in spite of it, many others will also suffer and die because of this tragedy that is unfolding in our lifetimes.
Other species will suffer, too. Birds fly by the reactors constantly. They have not obeyed the evacuation orders one bit.
How far do they get after they fly directly in the plume, or drink the water from the ponds and puddles? Or feast on the radioactive corpses that litter the area?
Do the birds then fall into the sea, to be eaten by fish which we then will consume, still hot with radioactivity?
Do they fall on the land, to spoil the ground dozens or even hundreds of miles away — thousands, if they are migratory species of birds?
There are radioactive “hot spots” all over the reactor site.
And why are they dumping 350,000 barrels of radioactive water into the oceans when an empty tanker could have been brought nearby during the past few weeks, and the water could have been put there and held for decades or filtered of large particles and left long enough to let the fast-decaying products emit their deadly particles and rays, before releasing to the oceans? An old tanker wouldn’t cost all that much! Of course, then they’d need another… and another… and another…
I realized, late last night, that the reactor operators at TEPCO at the time of the tsunami and I have something in common. No really, we do!
You see, they called their colleagues and coworkers offsite and told them that the plant was going to melt down if they didn’t get help quickly. Big help. Generators, pumps, and people. They called the government. They even asked for the U.S. military to come help them protect the public because the reactors are going to melt down if you don’t come help!!!
People at the other ends of the lines — people who should be on trial today for mass murder, at the very least, negligent mass murder — told the plant operators they were “on their own” and would have to solve their problems themselves.
Undoubtedly, the plant operators said the plant would melt down if you don’t listen to us! Again came the response, for we all know the result.
But you know what? That’s JUST what I’ve been saying all along! “The plants are going to melt down unless YOU do something! I can’t do it myself!” That’s been my exact message all along, too!
San Onofre, Diablo Canyon, Davis Besse and all the rest: They’ll all melt down sooner or later, if we don’t shut them down instead. But no one activist, citizen, whistle-blower or politician can do it themselves. We need to all pull together on this. Improving safety won’t be good enough. Oh sure, it’s a good idea. But it won’t suffice. Shut-down might not even suffice, but it’s much, much more likely to keep us all safe.
The odds are currently approximately 100% that this will happen again and again. The arrogance of the pro-nuclear side right now, less than a month into this tragedy, proves it.
It doesn’t require an earthquake plus a tsunami plus poor design plus the arrogant indifference of key people on the ends of the phone lines. All those are just the triggers THIS time. Davis Besse almost melted down in 2002 without any of THOSE triggers, it was just an overlooked leak that went on for a surprisingly short amount of time, which almost cost America half of Ohio. (Maybe more. There is an incredible amount of spent fuel stored there, as at every reactor.)
What it really takes for a meltdown is just public indifference. If the plant near you isn’t shut down, then it will melt down sooner or later. Might it make it to the end of its license? NO! Because its license WILL BE EXTENDED. There is a 100% track record on license extensions so far.
These plants won’t be shut down by their operators. They won’t be shut down by the regulators.
If there is one “lesson to be learned” that we can all take away already, it’s that the nuclear power plant operators will stop at NOTHING short of meltdown. Consider that dozens of exactly-similar nuclear reactors to the ones in Fukushima, in at least as dangerous and as populated areas, are still operating 24/7 all around the world, it’s obvious that the next reactor to be shut down permanently will probably do so of its own accord, on its own schedule, whenever it pleases.
Damned reactors.
Sincerely,
Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA
Radiation and Everyday Life
The FDA is Asleep at the Switch
By ROBERT ALVAREZ | CounterPunch | April 4, 2011
Recently, a senior scientist with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) made this comment to the news media about radioactive fallout being detected in milk in the United States from the nuclear catastrophe in Japan:
“Radiation is all around us in our daily lives, and these findings are a miniscule amount compared Fukushima-Daiichi to what people experience every day. For example, a person would be exposed to low levels of radiation on a round trip cross country flight, watching television, and even from construction materials.”
No matter how small the dose might be, it is disingenuous to compare an exposure to a specific radioisotope that is released by a major nuclear accident, with radiation exposures in every-day life. The FDA spokesperson should have informed the public that radioactive iodine provides a unique form of exposure in that it concentrates rapidly in dairy products and in the human thyroid. The dose received, based on official measurements, may be quite small, and pose an equally small risk. However, making a conclusion on the basis of one measurement is fragmentary at best and unscientific at worst. As the accident in Fukushima continues to unfold, the public should be provided with all measurements made of radioactive fallout from the Fukushima reactors to allow for independent analyses.
Moreover, the FDA has been asleep at the switch when it comes to protecting public health from medical radiation exposures. According to the National Council on Radiation Protection, radiation exposures to the American public from medical devices, which the FDA regulates, have soared by nearly 600 percent since 1982. In 2002, the NCRP estimated that the public received an extra 53 millirem (0.53 mSv) per person per year from medical radiation sources. In 2006, the NCRP estimates that this dose has jumped to 300 millirem (3mSv)–nearly three times the annual dose allowed by the U.S. EPA from nuclear facilities.
The single largest contributor responsible for half of this dose to the American public is from Computed Tomography or CT Scans, whose use has skyrocketed over the past several years. According to a study in the Archives of Internal Medicine, as many as 29,000 future cancers could be related to CT scans performed in 2007 alone.
According to several articles in the New York Times, an alarming number of people have been severely overexposed to CT scans. FDA has yet to comment on how this may be affecting the health of the Americans in every-day life.
Robert Alvarez, an Institute for Policy Studies senior scholar, served as senior policy adviser to the Energy Department’s secretary from 1993 to 1999.
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Not Hamas-Israeli conflict: The Palestinian cause belongs to the world
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | October 15, 2023
This, in his thinking, could only mean one thing: “Never before has Israel stood more honored and revered by the nations of the world.”
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