Deconstructing Nuclear Experts
Some May be More Dangerous Than Radiation
By CHRIS BUSBY | CounterPunch | March 28, 2011
Since the Fukushima accident we have seen a stream of experts on radiation telling us not to worry, that the doses are too low, that the accident is nothing like Chernobyl and so forth. They appear on television and we read their articles in the newspapers and online. Fortunately the majority of the public don’t believe them. I myself have appeared on television and radio with these people; one example was Ian Fells of the University of Newcastle who, after telling us all on BBC News that the accident was nothing like Chernobyl (wrong), and the radiation levels of no consequence (wrong), that the main problem was that there was no electricity and that the lifts didn’t work. “ If you have been in a situation when the lifts don’t work, as I have” he burbled on, “you will know what I mean.”
What these people have in common is ignorance. You may think a professor at a university must actually know something about their subject. But this is not so. Nearly all of these experts who appear and pontificate have not actually done any research on the issue of radiation and health. Or if they have, they seem to have missed all the key studies and references. I leave out the real baddies, who are closely attached to the nuclear industry, like Richard Wakeford, or Richard D as he calls himself on the anonymous website he has set up to attack me, “chrisbusbyexposed”.
I saw him a few times talking down the accident on the television, labelled in the stripe as Professor Richard Wakeford, University of Manchester. Incidentally, Wakeford is a physicist, his PhD was in particle physics at Liverpool. But he was not presented as ex- Principle Scientist, British Nuclear Fuels, Sellafield. That might have given the viewers the wrong idea. Early on we saw another baddy, Malcolm Grimston, talking about radiation and health, described as Professor, Imperial College. Grimston is a psychologist, not a scientist, and his expertise was in examining why the public was frightened of radiation, and how their (emotional) views could be changed. But his lack of scientific training didn’t stop him explaining on TV and radio how the Fukushima accident was nothing to worry about. The doses were too low, nothing like Chernobyl, not as bad as 3-Mile Island, only 4 on the scale, all the usual blather. Most recently we have seen George Monbiot, who I know, and who also knows nothing about radiation and health, writing in The Guardian how this accident has actually changed his mind about nuclear power (can this be his Kierkegaard moment? Has he cracked? ) since he now understands (and reproduces a criminally misleading graphic to back up his new understanding) that radiation is actually OK and we shoudn’t worry about it. George does at least know better, or has been told better, since he asked me a few years ago to explain why internal and external radiation exposure cannot be considered to have the same health outcomes. He ignored what I said and wrote for him (with references) and promptly came out in favour of nuclear energy in his next article.
So what about Wade Allison? Wade is a medical physics person and a professor at Oxford. I have chosen to pitch into him since he epitomises and crystallises for us the arguments of the stupid physicist. In this he has done us a favour, since he is really easy to shoot down. All the arguments are in one place. Stupid physicists? Make no mistake, physicists are stupid. They make themselves stupid by a kind of religious belief in mathematical modelling. The old Bertie Russell logical positivist trap. And whilst this may be appropriate for examining the stresses in metals, or looking at the Universe (note that they seem to have lost 90% of the matter in the Universe, so-called “dark matter”) it is not appropriate for, and is even scarily incorrect when, examining stresses in humans or other lifeforms. Mary Midgley, the philosopher has written about Science as Religion. Health physicists are the priests. I have been reading Wade Allison’s article for the BBC but also looked at his book some months ago. He starts in the same way as all the others by comparing the accidents. He writes:
More than 10,000 people have died in the Japanese tsunami and the survivors are cold and hungry. But the media concentrate on nuclear radiation from which no-one has died – and is unlikely to.
Then we move to 3-Mile Island: There were no known deaths there.
And Chernobyl:
The latest UN report published on 28 February confirms the known death toll – 28 fatalities among emergency workers, plus 15 fatal cases of child thyroid cancer – which would have been avoided if iodine tablets had been taken (as they have now in Japan).
This is breathtaking ignorance of the scientific literature. Prof. Steve Wing in the USA has carried out epidemiological studies of the effects of 3-Mile Island, with results published in the peer-review literature. Court cases are regularly settled on the basis of cancers produced by the 3-Mile Island contamination. But let us move to Chernobyl. The health effects of the Chernobyl accident are massive and demonstrable. They have been studied by many research groups in Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine, in the USA, Greece, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and Japan. The scientific peer reviewed literature is enormous. Hundreds of papers report the effects, increases in cancer and a range of other diseases. My colleague Alexey Yablokov of the Russian Academy of Sciences, published a review of these studies in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (2009). Earlier in 2006 he and I collected together reviews of the Russian literature by a group of eminent radiation scientists and published these in the book Chernobyl, 20 Years After. The result: more than a million people have died between 1986 and 2004 as a direct result of Chernobyl.
I will briefly refer to two Chernobyl studies in the west which falsify Wade Allison’s assertions. The first is a study of cancer in Northern Sweden by Martin Tondel and his colleagues at Lynkoping University. Tondel examined cancer rates by radiation contamination level and showed that in the 10 years after the Chernobyl contamination of Sweden, there was an 11% increase in cancer for every 100kBq/sq metre of contamination. Since the official International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) figures for the Fukushima contamination are from 200 to 900kBq.sq metre out to 78km from the site, we can expect between 22% and 90% increases in cancer in people living in these places in the next 10 years. The other study I want to refer to is one I carried out myself. After Chernobyl, infant leukaemia was reported in 6 countries by 6 different groups, from Scotland, Greece, Wales, Germany, Belarus and the USA. The increases were only in children who had been in the womb at the time of the contamination: this specificity is rare in epidemiology. There is no other explanation than Chernobyl. The leukemias could not be blamed on some as-yet undiscovered virus and population mixing, which is the favourite explanation for the nuclear site child leukemia clusters. There is no population mixing in the womb. Yet the “doses” were very small, much lower than “natural background”. I published this unequivocal proof that the current risk model is wrong for internal exposures in two separate peer-reviewed journals in 2000 and 2009. This finding actually resulted in the formation in 2001 by UK Environment Minister Michael Meacher of a new Committee Examining Radiation Risks from Internal Emitters CERRIE. Richard Wakeford was on this committee representing BNFL and he introduced himself to me as “BNFL’s Rottweiler”. No difference there.
Wade then turns to a comparison of contamination:
So what of the radioactivity released at Fukushima? How does it compare with that at Chernobyl? Let’s look at the measured count rates. The highest rate reported, at 1900 on 22 March, for any Japanese prefecture was 12 kBq per sq m (for the radioactive isotope of caesium, caesium-137).
A map of Chernobyl in the UN report shows regions shaded according to rate, up to 3,700 kBq per sq m – areas with less than 37 kBq per sq m are not shaded at all. In round terms, this suggests that the radioactive fallout at Fukushima is less than 1% of that at Chernobyl
But the IAEA themselves, not known for their independence from the nuclear industry, report that contamination levels out to 78km were between 200 and 900kBq/sq metre. And Wade has been rather selective with his data, to put it kindly. The UN definition of radioactively contaminated land is 37kBq/sq metre just as he writes, but actually, in all the maps published, the inner 30km Chernobyl contamination exclusion zone is defined as 555kBq/sq metre and above. This is just a fact. Why has he misled us? In passing, this means that there are 555,000 radioactive disintegrations per second on one square metre of surface. Can you believe this is not harmful? No. And you would be correct. And another calculation can be made. Since the IAEA data show that these levels of contamination, from 200,000 to 900,000 disintegrations per second per square metre, exist up to 78km from Fukushima, we can already calculate that the contamination is actually worse than Chernobyl, not 1% of Chernobyl as Wade states. For the area defined by a 78km radius is 19113 sq km compared to the Chernobyl exclusion zone of 2827 sq km. About seven times greater.
Now I turn to the health effects. Wade trots out most of the usual stupid physicist arguments. We are all exposed to natural background, the dose is 2mSv a year and the doses from the accident are not significantly above this. For example, the Japanese government are apparently making a mistake in telling people not to give tap water containing 200Bq/litre radioactive Iodine-131 to their children as there is naturally 50Bq/l of radiation in the human body and 200 will not do much harm. The mistake is made because of fears of the public which apparently forced the International Commission on Radiological Protection, ICRP, to set the annual dose limits at 1mSv. Wade knows better: he would set the limits at 100mSv. He is a tough guy. He shoots from the hip:
Patients receiving a course of radiotherapy usually get a dose of more than 20,000 mSv to vital healthy tissue close to the treated tumour. This tissue survives only because the treatment is spread over many days giving healthy cells time for repair or replacement. A sea-change is needed in our attitude to radiation, starting with education and public information.
But Wade, dear, these people are usually old, and usually die anyway before they can develop a second tumour. They often develop other cancers even so because of the radiation. There are hundreds of studies showing this. And in any case, this external irradiation is not the problem. The problem is internal irradiation. The Iodine-131 is not in the whole body, it is in the thyroid gland and attached to the blood cells: hence the thyroid cancer and the leukaemia. And there is a whole list of internal radioactive elements that bind chemically to DNA, from Strontium-90 to Uranium. These give massive local doses to the DNA and to the tissues where they end up. The human body is not a piece of wire that you can apply physics to. The concept of dose which Wade uses cannot be used for internal exposures. This has been conceded by the ICRP itself in its publications. And in an interview with me in Stockholm in 2009, Dr Jack Valentin, the ex-Scientific Secretary of the ICRP conceded this, and also made the statement that the ICRP risk model, the one used by all governments to assess the outcome of accidents like Fukushima, was unsafe and could not be used. You can see this interview on the internet, on www.vimeo.com.
Why is the ICRP model unsafe? Because it is based on “absorbed dose”. This is average radiation energy in Joules divided by the mass of living tissue into which it is diluted. A milliSievert is one milliJoule of energy diluted into one kilogram of tissue. As such it would not distinguish between warming yourself in front of a fire and eating a red hot coal. It is the local distribution of energy that is the problem. The dose from a single internal alpha particle track to a single cell is 500mSv! The dose to the whole body from the same alpha track is 5 x 10-11 mSv. That is 0.000000000005mSv. But it is the dose to the cell that causes the genetic damage and the ultimate cancer. The cancer yield per unit dose employed by ICRP is based entirely on external acute high dose radiation at Hiroshima, where the average dose to a cell was the same for all cells.
And what of the UN and their bonkers statement about the effects of the Chernobyl accident referred to by Wade Allison? What you have to know, is that the UN organisations on radiation and health are compromised in favour of the nuclear military complex, which was busy testing hydrogen bombs in the atmosphere at the time of the agreement and releasing all the Strontium, Caesium, Uranium and plutonium and other stuff that was to become the cause of the current and increasing cancer epidemic. The last thing they wanted was the doctors and epidemiologists stopping their fun. The IAEA and the World Health Organisation (WHO) signed an agreement in 1959 to remove all research into the issue from the doctors of the WHO, to the atom scientists, the physicists of the IAEA: this agreement is still in force. The UN organisations do not refer to, or cite any scientific study, which shows their statements on Chernobyl to be false. There is a huge gap between the picture painted by the UN, the IAEA, the ICRP and the real world. And the real world is increasingly being studied and reports are being published in the scientific literature: but none of the authorities responsible for looking after the public take any notice of this evidence.
As they say on the Underground trains in London: Mind the Gap. Wade Allison and the other experts I refer to need to do just this for their own sake. The one place that this gap is being closed rapidly and savagely is in the courts. I have acted as an expert witness in over 40 cases involving radiation and health. These include cases where Nuclear Test veterans are suing the UK government for exposures at the test sites that have caused cancer, they include cases involving nuclear pollution, work exposures and exposures to depleted uranium weapons fallout. And these cases are all being won. All of them. Because in court with a judge and a jury, people like Wade Allison and George Monbiot would not last 2 minutes. Because in court you rely on evidence. Not bullshitting.
Joseph Conrad wrote: “after all the shouting is over, the grim silence of facts remain”. I believe that these phoney experts like Wade Allison and George Monbiot are criminally irresponsible, since their advice will lead to millions of deaths. I would hope that some time in the future, I can be involved as an expert in another legal case, one where Wade Allison, or George or my favourite baddy, Richard Wakeford (who actually knows better) are accused in a court of law of scientific dishonesty leading to the cancer in some poor victim who followed their advice. When they are found guilty, I hope they are sent to jail where they can have plenty of time to read the scientific proofs that their advice was based on the mathematical analysis of thin air.
In the meantime, I challenge each of them to debate this issue with me in public on television face to face, so that the people can figure out who is right. For the late Professor John Gofman, a senior figure in the US Atomic Energy Commission until he saw what was happening and resigned, famously said: “the nuclear industry is waging a war against humanity.” This war has now entered an endgame which will decide the survival of the human race. Not from sudden nuclear war. But from the on-going and incremental nuclear war which began with the releases to the biosphere in the 60’s of all the atmospheric test fallout, and which has continued inexorably since then through Windscale, Kyshtym, 3-Mile Island, Chernobyl, Hanford, Sellafield, La Hague, Iraq and now Fukushima, accompanied by parallel increases in cancer rates and fertility loss to the human race.
There is a gap between them and us. Between the phoney scientists and the public who don’t believe what they say. Between those who are employed and paid to protect us from radioactive pollution and those who die from its consequences. Between those who talk down what is arguably the greatest public health scandal in human history, and the facts that they ignore.
Mind the Gap indeed.
Chris Busby is Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk. He is visiting Professor at the University of Ulster and also Guest Researcher at the Julius Kuehn Institute of the German Federal Agricultural Institute in Braunschweig, Germany. He was a member of the UK Committee Examining Radiation Risk on Internal Emitters CERRIE and the UK MoD Depleted Uranium Oversight Board. He was Science and Policy Interface leader of the Policy Information network on Child Health and Environment based in the Netherlands. He was Science and Technology Speaker for the Green Party of England and Wales. He has conducted fundamental research on the health effects of internal radiation both at the theoretical and epidemiological level, including recently on the genotoxic effects of the element uranium.
Updating Japan’s Nuclear Disaster
By Stephen Lendman | March 27, 2011
Japan’s March 11 earthquake/tsunami-caused nuclear disaster affects millions of people regionally and throughout the Northern Hemisphere. But you’d never know it from most major media reports, downplaying an unfolding catastrophe.
In fact, distinguished experts like Helen Caldicott long ago warned of inevitable nuclear disasters, especially in seismically active areas. On May 23, 2004, The Japan Times contributor Leuren Moret headlined, “Japan’s deadly game of nuclear roulette,” saying:
“Of all the places in all the world no one in their right mind would build scores of nuclear power plants, Japan would be pretty near the top of the list.”
“Japan sits on top of four tectonic plates….and is one of the most tectonically active regions of the world. (There) is almost no geologic setting in the world more dangerous for nuclear power than Japan.”
In 2004, Kobe University Seismologist/Professor Katsuhiko Ishibashi called the situation then “very scary. It’s like a kamikaze terrorist wrapped in bombs just waiting to explode.”
American cities like New York have no credible evacuation plans in case of nuclear disasters. Neither does Japan, its Fukushima response a clear example. In fact, however, there’s no adequate plan possible in cases of catastrophic nuclear events. How and to where do you transfer millions of people. Abandoning the technology alone can work, a possibility not considered, at least not so far.
Japanese nuclear engineer Yoichi Kikuchi told Moret about serious longstanding safety problems at Japanese nuclear facilities, including cooling system cracks in pipes from reactor vibrations. Operators are thus “gambling in a dangerous game to increase profits and decrease government oversight,” he said.
Former GE senior field engineer Kei Sugaoka agreed, saying:
“The scariest thing, on top of all the other problems, is that all the nuclear power plants are aging, causing a deterioration of piping and joints which are always exposed to strong radiation and heat.”
As a result, Moret, like Caldicott, said:
“It is not a question of whether or not a nuclear disaster will occur in Japan (or most anywhere); it is a question of when it will occur,” and if catastrophic enough, perhaps nothing can be done to contain it.
Moreover, all radiation, especially large amounts, is harmful, cumulative, permanent and unforgiving. Yet lunatic fringe, self-styled “nuclear experts” like Ann Coulter told Fox News host Bill O’Reilly that a “growing body of evidence (shows radiation) is actually good for you and reduces cases of cancer.” Even O’Reilly reacted skeptically to the “hormesis” notion. Wikipedia calls it:
“the term for generally-favorable biological responses to low exposures to toxins and other stressors,” including radiation.
Other toxins aside, no amount of radiation is safe. In her book “Nuclear Madness,” Helen Caldicott explained:
“Lower doses of radiation can cause abnormalities of the immune system and can also cause leukemia five to ten years after exposure; (other) cancer(s), twelve to sixty years later; and genetic diseases and congenital anomalies in future generations.”
“Nuclear radiation is forever,” she added. It doesn’t dissipate or disappear. Jeff Patterson, former Physicians for Social Responsibility president said, “There is no safe level of radionuclide exposure, whether from food, water or other sources. Period.” In 1953, Nobel laureate George Wald agreed saying “no amount of radiation is safe. Every dose is an overdose.”
On March 19, Ralph Nader’s “Nuclear Nightmare” article said:
“Over 40 years ago….the Atomic Energy Commission (now the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) estimated that a full nuclear meltdown could contaminate an area ‘the size of Pennsylvania’ and cause massive casualties.”
In square miles, Pennsylvania is one-third the size of Japan. Nader said that “people in northern Japan may lose their land, homes, relatives, and friends as a result of a dangerous technology designed simply to boil water.”
On March 25, New York Times writers Hiroko Tabuchi, Keith Bradsher and David Jolly headlined, “Japan Encourages a Wider Evacuation from Reactor Area,” saying:
“New signs emerged Friday that parts of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant were so damaged and contaminated that it would be even harder to bring the plant under control soon.”
Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) measured seawater showing “the level of iodine-131 at 50 becquerels per cubic centimeter – 1,250 times the legal limit.”
Moreover, several workers were contaminated by water measuring 10,000 times above normal, according to the National Institute of Radiological Sciences. In addition, a senior nuclear executive said “a long vertical crack” running down the side of the reactor vessel (expected to enlarge) was detected “leaking fluids and gases.” The Times said, “There is a definite crack in the vessel – it’s up and down and it’s large. The problem with cracks is they do not get smaller.”
In addition, contamination is spreading, now affecting Tokyo water with elevated radioactive iodine levels, an alert saying don’t let infants drink it. Milk, vegetables, fruits, and likely all crops in northern Japan are affected. Further, on March 25, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper said:
“Iodine-131 detected in Tokyo hit 12,000 becquerels, compared with the previous day, a tenfold increase in both radioactive iodine and cesium.” In addition, “Hitachinaka City, Ibaraki Prefecture, saw the highest radioactive values recorded, with 12,000 becquerels of cesium, iodine and 85,000 becquerels.”
On March 25, the Takoma Park, MD-based Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) said:
“Radioactive iodine releases from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi reactors may exceed those of Three Mile Island by over 100,000 times….While Chernobyl had one source of radioactivity, its reactor, there are seven leaking radiation sources at the Japanese site. Together, the three damaged reactors and four spent fuel pools at Fukushima Daiicho contain (much) more long-lived radioactivity, notably cesium-137, than the Chernobyl reactor.”
Its half life is about 30 years. According to IEER president Arjun Makhijani, “This accident has long since passed the level of Three Mile Island.” Already, large parts of Honshu, Japan’s main island, have been affected. Even so, Japanese authorities haven’t been forthcoming about actual radiation releases that independent experts believe are extremely high and dangerous.
On March 26, government officials said predictions on when Fukushima could be stabilized aren’t known, spokesman Yukio Edano saying “this is not the stage for predictions.” According to IAEA head Yukiya Amano, “(t)his is a very serious accident by all standards, and it is not yet over.” Ending it “will take quite a long time.”
So far efforts to stabilize the damaged reactors haven’t succeeded. On March 24, Natural News.com writer Mike Adams headlined, “Radioactive fallout from Fukushima approaching same levels as Chernobyl,” saying:
“The radioactive (iodine-131) fallout is now as much as 73 percent of the daily radiation emitted from Chernobyl following its meltdown disaster.” For cesium-137, it’s 60%.
Monitoring in Hawaii, Alaska, California, Montreal and other cities are registering Fukushima fallout. Yellow rain in Japan was reported, much like what happened after Chernobyl. Whether it’s entirely radioactive isn’t known. Contamination, however, is spreading, yet “the nuclear industry says stop worrying….it’s all safe!”
On March 25, Natural News.com writer Ethan Huff headlined, “Ominous smoke plumes, contaminated water and food, but everything is just fine in Japan, suggest authorities,” saying:
“….black smoke….was seen billowing from Reactor 3, (containing) highly dangerous MOX plutonium fuel,” prompting an “evacuation at all four reactors.” No explanation was given.
In addition, Kyodo News said “mysterious neutron beams (were seen) coming from the plant 13 times since” the earthquake/tsunami, suggesting uranium and plutonium releases from damaged reactors and fuel rods.
Interviewed on March 17, nuclear expert Hirose Takashi doubts water sprayed on damaged reactors was effective, saying:
“If you want to cool a reactor down with water, you have to circulate the water inside and carry the heat away, otherwise it has no meaning. So the only solution is to reconnect the electricity. Otherwise, it’s like pouring water on lava.”
Moreover, by using salt water “(y)ou get salt. The salt will get into all these valves and cause them to freeze. They won’t move. This will be happening everywhere. So I can’t believe that it’s just a simple matter of reconnecting the electricity and the water will begin to circulate….I can’t understand it….Now it’s a complete mess inside….I’m speaking of the worst case, but the probability is not low….Only in Japan it is being hidden.”
“I hate to say it, but I am pessimistic….We have to think of all six (reactors) going down, and the possibility of that happening is not low.”
On March 26, Reuters headlined, “Radiation spikes in seawater by stricken Japanese plant,” saying:
“Radioactivity levels are soaring in seawater near (Fukushima), Japan’s nuclear safety agency said on Saturday….” On March 25, tests showed they spiked to 1,250 times normal. NISA official Hidehiko Nishiyama criticized Tokyo Electric (TEPCO) for not following safety procedures inside the turbine building. Throughout the crisis, TEPCO hasn’t given accurate information on the disaster’s severity, downplaying it instead.
As a result, independent experts express grave concerns that conditions are much worse than reported. They also believe it will take months perhaps to contain Fukusima. In the meantime, radiation keeps leaking and spreading, but it will be years before the real toll is known. Downplaying its gravity is scandalous.
~
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
Fukushima troubles affecting other nuclear plants
NHK World | March 26, 2011
Japanese electric power companies that operate nuclear power plants are facing difficulty in either restarting nuclear reactors in their checkups or transporting nuclear fuel to the power plants.
Municipal governments that host nuclear power plants are urging plant operators to freeze expansion projects and to review safety measures.
Hokuriku Electric Power Company has indicated that the firm has difficulty in rebooting two reactors at its Shika plant in Ishikawa Prefecture without the understanding of the prefectural government and residents. The reactors were taken out of operation for either mechanical trouble or regular inspection.
In western Japan, Kansai Electric Power Company has decided to postpone transporting nuclear fuel to one reactor at its Takahama plant in Fukui Prefecture from France.
The company cites difficulty in ensuring the fuel’s safe delivery because the government is busy handling the aftermath of the March 11th disasters and can’t provide the necessary safeguards for transport.
Kyushu Electric Power Company has delayed restarting its two reactors at the Genkai plant in Saga Prefecture.
Ichiki-Kushikino City in Kagoshima Prefecture, southwestern Japan, says it will ask Kyushu Electric to freeze planned construction of a new reactor at its Sendai plant until the safety of the plant is guaranteed. Most of the city is within 20 kilometers of the nuclear power plant in neighboring Sendai City.
Fukui Prefecture in central Japan has urged Japan Atomic Power Company, which runs Tsuruga Power Station, to do all it can to ensure safety of its plant.
The plant operator replied that it has just installed portable emergency power generators for its two reactors.
The company has also revealed new safety measures costing nearly 250 million dollars, including a plan to add pipes that supply water directly from a fire truck to one of its reactors and its spent fuel pool.
The reactor is a boiling-water type, the same as those at Tokyo Electric’s troubled Fukushima plant.
JAPAN: RADIATION ‘SAFE’, PRESS EVACUATES, INVESTORS SCARED
NO RADIATION THREAT SAYS MEDIA: REPORTERS PULLED OUT OF JAPAN
Meanwhile, Frightened Investors in the USA and Europe Seek Protection
by keith harmon snow | 20 March 2011
Reporting about the nuclear crises in Japan and around the world is getting curiouser and curiouser. Western media are heavily downplaying the threat of radiation in what amounts to an Alice in Wonderland fable of disinformation straight out of the rabbit hole.
Worried about profits and the the destabilization of the YEN and NIKKEI Index, the media is doing damage control to help keep people from flooding out of Japan and further destabilizing the Japanese economy. Given the evidence, the history of disasters and epidemics of disease, reporting that downplays Japan’s radiation threat is criminal.
Meanwhile, back in the U.S.A., frightened investors are seeking protections and insurances from industry and government. Wall Street is worried. This is getting curiouser and curiouser.
The irony: “art project” photographed in Tokyo depicts humans in states of decay, resembling images of children with deformed limbs born near Chernobyl. © Keith Harmon Snow, 1992
For example, on 20 March 2011, CNN ran a video story, “Facts whisper, fears scream during crises,” where their experts proclaim that fears of radiation are unfounded and misinformation abounds. CNN’s latest nuclear expert — Dan Polansky — calls this radiophobia: an irrational fear of radiation with no basis in fact. Even for the Japanese nuclear workers who are closest to the Fukushima hot zone, says CNN reporter Stan Grant, “radiation might make people sick, but it won’t kill them.”
Meanwhile, CNN describes Dan Polansky as a “nuclear expert”, who “specializes in weapons of mass destruction and knows about radiation.” What they don’t tell us is that Polansky works for the Georgia (USA) Department of Community Health, he studied at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL), and is a recent graduate of Radiological Emergency Planning at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Pretty good credentials, no doubt. Must be telling the truth. [Quack.]
However, LLNL and INEL are two of the Department of Energy and Department of Defense top classified weapons laboratories, both also SUPERFUND sites of massive toxic nuclear waste. Work at national laboratories like INEL and LLNL requires high-level national security clearances: it looks like Daniel Polansky is another spook.
The Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) has produced some studies that show some incidence of disease around the Yankee Rowe reactor (Rowe, MA, U.S.A.), which is now decommissioned; but they have also helped to whitewash nuclear (and other) risks of modern day society.
This is indeed very curious.
The Harvard Center for Risk Analysis (HCRA) was founded by John D. Graham and specializes in advocating forms of risk-assessment widely criticized by community groups and legitimate health professionals. The Center gained funds from both industry and government agencies, including nuclear interests like: General Electric, the Edison Electric Institute, Electric Power Research Institute, New England Electric System (at least five nukes on the New England power grid) and Westinghouse Electric. GE and Westinghouse are two of the U.S.A.’s biggest nuke companies, and EPRI is a pro-nuke think tank that has produced propaganda about nukes for more than four decades.
Harvard School of Public Health and the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis are not the same thing. Harvard School of Public Health supports the nuclear industry and helps to downplay radiation threats at many levels. However, Harvard Center for Risk Analysis is an industry front producing junk science — spurious information posited as science — and debunking truth everywhere in the corporate media.
Looking a little deeper down the rabbit hole we find, for one curious example, that David Ropeik is an Instructor in the Harvard University School of Continuing Education, Environmental Management program. Ropeik is also a former affiliate at the Harvard Center for Risk Assessment (which he says he left in 2004).
According to his own public relations biography advertised on the BAYER CropScience web page [Bayer is the big German multinational pharmaceutical corporation], Ropeik has also worked closely with the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and he “has been interviewed on risk perception by ABC Nightline, National Public Radio, NBC Dateline, ABC 20/20, Fox News, CNN, CNN International, BBC, CBC, CNBC, Voice of America, and dozens of regional radio stations nationwide.”
He has also “taught courses on media coverage of risk issues at the Harvard School of Public Health, the Kennedy School of Government, the Neiman Fellowship Program at Harvard, the Knight Science Journalism Fellowship program at MIT, Boston University’s Program in Science Journalism, the Emerson College program in Health Communication, and to the National Association of Science Writers, the Council for the Advancement of Science Writers, and the Society of Environmental Journalists.”
A long-time member of the Society of Environmental Journalists, David Ropeik is now a private consultant in Risk Perception, Risk Communication, and Risk Management with Ropeik & Associates, whose nuclear clients include Entergy Power Corporation (owns the dangerously unsafe Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station), Edison Electric Institute, the Electric Power Research Institute, the American Nuclear Society, the Egyptian Nuclear Authority, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Nuclear Institute, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (who did a study on the incidence of disease on the radiation ‘pathways’ from the Yankee Rowe Nuclear Power Station), The Veterans Board for Dose Reconstruction, Department of Defense, and etc., and etc., and etc.
“Risk is a subjective affair,” reads the home page of Ropeik & Associates. “It’s not just a matter of the facts, but also how those facts feel. Understanding why some risks feel more frightening, and some less, is essential for communicating about risk effectively, and for tackling the human behavioral aspects of overall risk management.”
As far as the Society of Environmental Journalists, this is just another trade industry group, like any ‘Society of Professional This-or-That’, which maintains deep ties to industry and the media corporations that have censored and distorted the truth about radiation, nuclear weapons and nuclear power. For example, a look at their sponsors and foundation donors quickly leads to a large list of corporate interests, including nuclear corporations.
What a curious world we live in.
Given that there is “so little threat from radiation” in Japan, it is very curious that NBC pulled their entire news team out of Japan. Curiously, it seems that CNN’s Anderson Cooper also pulled out of Japan — and who could blame him! — and is now reporting on Libya from somewhere else (Hong Kong?).
On March 20, 2011, Japanese Officials confirmed radiation food poisoning. “Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said checks of milk from Fukushima prefecture, where the plant is located, and of spinach grown in Ibaraki, a neighbouring prefecture, surpassed limits set by the government… It was the government’s first report of food being contaminated by radiation since the March 11 quake and tsunami unleashed the nuclear crisis.”
Thousands of U.S. military families have also been evacuated from Japan under the U.S. Department of Defense ‘voluntary evacuation’ program initiated because of radiation concerns.
Meanwhile, on March 19, 2011 financial media began reporting that U.S. investors seeing the nuclear industry in Japan crash, burn and melt are frightened of Financial Losses due to Boring Utility Debt.
Curiouser and curiouser.
“Investors are seeking protection from a public backlash against nuclear power producers as the threat from earthquake-damaged reactors in Japan stokes calls by U.S. lawmakers to limit plants in this nation,” reported Bloomberg News.
“Utility companies, typically considered a haven among credit investors because of their resilience in economic downturns, are being punished as Tokyo Electric Power Co. struggles to cool damaged reactors. Environmental groups want limits on U.S. nuclear plants, and Representative Edward Markey is seeking a moratorium on facilities in seismically active areas. Nuclear-power executives say the nation’s reactors can withstand such disasters.”
Behind the scenes, corporations and money markets managers and futures investors are swapping debt portfolios and jockeying to maximize profits and minimize losses.
While the people of Japan suffer the fate of massive radiation emissions — ‘leaks’ is another term invested by the industry and used by media to downplay the invisible radiation dispersed near any reactor — the utility companies are portrayed as the victims. Utility companies are “being punished” and “investors seeking protection” are now the victims.
Curiouser, and curiouser, and curiouser.
~
March 23, 2011
Guns and Butter KPFA radio program interviews Kieth Harmon Snow
See also:
What They’re Covering Up at Fukushima
By HIROSE TAKASHI | CounterPunch | March 22, 2011
Introduced by Douglas Lummis
Okinawa
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?
He did the TV interview that is partly translated below somewhat against his present impulses. I talked to him on the telephone today (March 22 , 2011) and he told me that while it made sense to oppose nuclear power back then, now that the disaster has begun he would just as soon remain silent, but the lies they are telling on the radio and TV are so gross that he cannot remain silent.
I have translated only about the first third of the interview (you can see the whole thing in Japanese on you-tube), the part that pertains particularly to what is happening at the Fukushima plants. In the latter part he talked about how dangerous radiation is in general, and also about the continuing danger of earthquakes.
After reading his account, you will wonder, why do they keep on sprinkling water on the reactors, rather than accept the sarcophagus solution [ie., entombing the reactors in concrete. Editors.] I think there are a couple of answers. One, those reactors were expensive, and they just can’t bear the idea of that huge a financial loss. But more importantly, accepting the sarcophagus solution means admitting that they were wrong, and that they couldn’t fix the things. On the one hand that’s too much guilt for a human being to bear. On the other, it means the defeat of the nuclear energy idea, an idea they hold to with almost religious devotion. And it means not just the loss of those six (or ten) reactors, it means shutting down all the others as well, a financial catastrophe. If they can only get them cooled down and running again they can say, See, nuclear power isn’t so dangerous after all. Fukushima is a drama with the whole world watching, that can end in the defeat or (in their frail, I think groundless, hope) victory for the nuclear industry. Hirose’s account can help us to understand what the drama is about. Douglas Lummis
Hirose Takashi: The Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Accident and the State of the Media
Broadcast by Asahi NewStar, 17 March, 20:00
Interviewers: Yo and Maeda Mari
Yo: Today many people saw water being sprayed on the reactors from the air and from the ground, but is this effective?
Hirose: . . . If you want to cool a reactor down with water, you have to circulate the water inside and carry the heat away, otherwise it has no meaning. So the only solution is to reconnect the electricity. Otherwise it’s like pouring water on lava.
Yo: Reconnect the electricity – that’s to restart the cooling system?
Hirose: Yes. The accident was caused by the fact that the tsunami flooded the emergency generators and carried away their fuel tanks. If that isn’t fixed, there’s no way to recover from this accident.
Yo: Tepco [Tokyo Electric Power Company, owner/operator of the nuclear plants] says they expect to bring in a high voltage line this evening.
Hirose: Yes, there’s a little bit of hope there. But what’s worrisome is that a nuclear reactor is not like what the schematic pictures show (shows a graphic picture of a reactor, like those used on TV). This is just a cartoon. Here’s what it looks like underneath a reactor container (shows a photograph). This is the butt end of the reactor. Take a look. It’s a forest of switch levers and wires and pipes. On television these pseudo-scholars come on and give us simple explanations, but they know nothing, those college professors. Only the engineers know. This is where water has been poured in. This maze of pipes is enough to make you dizzy. Its structure is too wildly complex for us to understand. For a week now they have been pouring water through there. And it’s salt water, right? You pour salt water on a hot kiln and what do you think happens? You get salt. The salt will get into all these valves and cause them to freeze. They won’t move. This will be happening everywhere. So I can’t believe that it’s just a simple matter of you reconnecting the electricity and the water will begin to circulate. I think any engineer with a little imagination can understand this. You take a system as unbelievably complex as this and then actually dump water on it from a helicopter – maybe they have some idea of how this could work, but I can’t understand it.
Yo: It will take 1300 tons of water to fill the pools that contain the spent fuel rods in reactors 3 and 4. This morning 30 tons. Then the Self Defense Forces are to hose in another 30 tons from five trucks. That’s nowhere near enough, they have to keep it up. Is this squirting of water from hoses going to change the situation?
Hirose: In principle, it can’t. Because even when a reactor is in good shape, it requires constant control to keep the temperature down to where it is barely safe. Now it’s a complete mess inside, and when I think of the 50 remaining operators, it brings tears to my eyes. I assume they have been exposed to very large amounts of radiation, and that they have accepted that they face death by staying there. And how long can they last? I mean, physically. That’s what the situation has come to now. When I see these accounts on television, I want to tell them, “If that’s what you say, then go there and do it yourself!” Really, they talk this nonsense, trying to reassure everyone, trying to avoid panic. What we need now is a proper panic. Because the situation has come to the point where the danger is real.
If I were Prime Minister Kan, I would order them to do what the Soviet Union did when the Chernobyl reactor blew up, the sarcophagus solution, bury the whole thing under cement, put every cement company in Japan to work, and dump cement over it from the sky. Because you have to assume the worst case. Why? Because in Fukushima there is the Daiichi Plant with six reactors and the Daini Plant with four for a total of ten reactors. If even one of them develops the worst case, then the workers there must either evacuate the site or stay on and collapse. So if, for example, one of the reactors at Daiichi goes down, the other five are only a matter of time. We can’t know in what order they will go, but certainly all of them will go. And if that happens, Daini isn’t so far away, so probably the reactors there will also go down. Because I assume that workers will not be able to stay there.
I’m speaking of the worst case, but the probability is not low. This is the danger that the world is watching. Only in Japan is it being hidden. As you know, of the six reactors at Daiichi, four are in a crisis state. So even if at one everything goes well and water circulation is restored, the other three could still go down. Four are in crisis, and for all four to be 100 per cent repaired, I hate to say it, but I am pessimistic. If so, then to save the people, we have to think about some way to reduce the radiation leakage to the lowest level possible. Not by spraying water from hoses, like sprinkling water on a desert. We have to think of all six going down, and the possibility of that happening is not low. Everyone knows how long it takes a typhoon to pass over Japan; it generally takes about a week. That is, with a wind speed of two meters per second, it could take about five days for all of Japan to be covered with radiation. We’re not talking about distances of 20 kilometers or 30 kilometers or 100 kilometers. It means of course Tokyo, Osaka. That’s how fast a radioactive cloud could spread. Of course it would depend on the weather; we can’t know in advance how the radiation would be distributed. It would be nice if the wind would blow toward the sea, but it doesn’t always do that. Two days ago, on the 15th, it was blowing toward Tokyo. That’s how it is. . . .
Yo: Every day the local government is measuring the radioactivity. All the television stations are saying that while radiation is rising, it is still not high enough to be a danger to health. They compare it to a stomach x-ray, or if it goes up, to a CT scan. What is the truth of the matter?
Hirose: For example, yesterday. Around Fukushima Daiichi Station they measured 400 millisieverts – that’s per hour. With this measurement (Chief Cabinet Secretary) Edano admitted for the first time that there was a danger to health, but he didn’t explain what this means. All of the information media are at fault here I think. They are saying stupid things like, why, we are exposed to radiation all the time in our daily life, we get radiation from outer space. But that’s one millisievert per year. A year has 365 days, a day has 24 hours; multiply 365 by 24, you get 8760. Multiply the 400 millisieverts by that, you get 3,500,000 the normal dose. You call that safe? And what media have reported this? None. They compare it to a CT scan, which is over in an instant; that has nothing to do with it. The reason radioactivity can be measured is that radioactive material is escaping. What is dangerous is when that material enters your body and irradiates it from inside. These industry-mouthpiece scholars come on TV and what to they say? They say as you move away the radiation is reduced in inverse ratio to the square of the distance. I want to say the reverse. Internal irradiation happens when radioactive material is ingested into the body. What happens? Say there is a nuclear particle one meter away from you. You breathe it in, it sticks inside your body; the distance between you and it is now at the micron level. One meter is 1000 millimeters, one micron is one thousandth of a millimeter. That’s a thousand times a thousand squared. That’s the real meaning of “inverse ratio of the square of the distance.” Radiation exposure is increased by a factor of a trillion. Inhaling even the tiniest particle, that’s the danger.
Yo: So making comparisons with X-rays and CT scans has no meaning. Because you can breathe in radioactive material.
Hirose: That’s right. When it enters your body, there’s no telling where it will go. The biggest danger is women, especially pregnant women, and little children. Now they’re talking about iodine and cesium, but that’s only part of it, they’re not using the proper detection instruments. What they call monitoring means only measuring the amount of radiation in the air. Their instruments don’t eat. What they measure has no connection with the amount of radioactive material. . . .
Yo: So damage from radioactive rays and damage from radioactive material are not the same.
Hirose: If you ask, are any radioactive rays from the Fukushima Nuclear Station here in this studio, the answer will be no. But radioactive particles are carried here by the air. When the core begins to melt down, elements inside like iodine turn to gas. It rises to the top, so if there is any crevice it escapes outside.
Yo: Is there any way to detect this?
Hirose: I was told by a newspaper reporter that now Tepco is not in shape even to do regular monitoring. They just take an occasional measurement, and that becomes the basis of Edano’s statements. You have to take constant measurements, but they are not able to do that. And you need to investigate just what is escaping, and how much. That requires very sophisticated measuring instruments. You can’t do it just by keeping a monitoring post. It’s no good just to measure the level of radiation in the air. Whiz in by car, take a measurement, it’s high, it’s low – that’s not the point. We need to know what kind of radioactive materials are escaping, and where they are going – they don’t have a system in place for doing that now.
Douglas Lummis is a political scientist living in Okinawa and the author of Radical Democracy. Lummis can be reached at ideaspeddler@gmail.com
Life, Death and Anxiety in the Fallout Zone
What is the Meaning of “Safe”?
By BARBARA ROSE JOHNSTON | CounterPunch | March 21, 2011
In a nuclear crisis, life becomes a nightmare for those people trying to make sense of the uncertainties. Imaginably, the questions are endless.
Radiation is invisible, how do you know when you are in danger? How long will this danger persist? How can you reduce the hazard to yourself and family? What level of exposure is safe? How do you get access to vital information in time to prevent or minimize exposure? What are the potential risks of acute and chronic exposures? What are the related consequential damages of exposure? Whose information do you trust? How do you rebuild a healthy way of life in the aftermath of nuclear disaster?
And the list of unknowns goes on.
These questions are difficult to answer in the chaos and context of an ongoing disaster, and they become even more complicated by the fact that governments and the nuclear industry maintain tight control of information, operations, scientific research, and the biomedical lessons that shape public-health response.
This regulation of information has been the case since the nuclear age began, and understanding this helps to illuminate why there is no clear consensus on what Japan’s nuclear disaster means in terms of local and global human health.
Nuclear secrecy in context. In the initial hours after the earthquake and tsunami, the Japanese government and Tokyo Electrical Power Company issued statements reporting minor damage at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. In the days that followed, government and industry officials reported the “venting of hydrogen gas”, but that there was “no threat to health.” This reassurance of health safety was echoed when hydrogen gas explosions occurred at the power plant.
In fact, the hydrogen released is tritium water vapor, a low-level emitter that can be absorbed in a human body through simply breathing, or by drinking contaminated water. Tritium decays by beta emission and has a radioactive half-life of about 12.3 years. As it undergoes radioactive decay, this isotope emits a very low-energy beta particle and transforms to stable, nonradioactive helium. Once tritium enters the body, it disperses quickly, is uniformly distributed, and is excreted through urine within a month or so after ingestion. It produces a low-level exposure and may result in toxic effects to the kidney. As with all ionizing radiation, exposure to tritium increases the risk of developing cancer.
So, then, why no mention of tritium in the government or industry statements? Relatively speaking, the health effects of a low-level emitter like tritium are minor when compared to the other radiogenic and toxic hazards in this nuclear catastrophe. Such omission is a standard industry practice, designed to reassure the public that the normal operating procedures of a nuclear power plant represent no significant threat to human health.
The assertion that low-level exposure to radiation represents no human threat is an artifact of Cold War-era science that was shaped to meet government and industry needs.
During the Cold War, scientific findings on health effects to nuclear fallout that contradicted the official narrative were typically censored. Scientists were not only punished for their work, they were also blacklisted — one example of this was American anthropologist Earle Reynolds whose work for the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission was censored in 1953 by the US government. His research showed that Japanese children who were exposed to fallout were not only smaller than their counterparts, but had less resistance to disease in general and were more susceptible to cancer, especially leukemia. The consequences of this censored history was examined in 1994 by the US Advisory Commission on Human Radiation Experimentation, which concluded that the radiation health literature of the Cold War years was a heavily sanitized and scripted version meant to reassure and pacify public protests while achieving military and economic agendas.
Decades of such control reinforced, again and again, the core message: Humans have evolved in a world where background radiation is present and is natural and beneficial at some level; any adverse heath effect of radiation exposure is the occasional and accidental result of high levels of exposure.
Cold War classification and the close nature of government, military, and industry agendas made it difficult to challenge the assumptions that underlie the “trust us” narrative. For example, the assumption that radiogenic health effects must be demonstrated through direct causality (one isotope, one outcome) meant science on cumulative and synergistic effects was not pursued. Discounting or ignoring the toxic nature of varied radioisotopes meant health risks were assessed and regulations promulgated on the basis of acute exposures and outcomes (radiation poisoning and deadly cancer).
There are other sources of conclusive data that allow a very different interpretation of the health hazards posed by a nuclear disaster. Several of these sources document radiogenic health outcomes that sharply contrast mainstream reports: Declassified records of US human radiation experiments and similar Soviet records; Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission records; new research conducted by Japanese scientists; long-term research on Chernobyl survivors; and research done for the Marshall Islands Nuclear Claims Tribunal proceedings.
But what does this mean? From this record of studied and lived experience, there are a few things that we know. For example, fallout and the movement of radionuclides through marine and terrestrial environments ultimately get into the food chain and the human body. The toxicity of contaminants and radioactivity in fallout represent significant health risks. Acute exposures are further complicated when followed by chronic exposure, as such assaults have a cumulative and synergistic effect on health and well-being. Chronic exposure to fallout does more than increase the risk of developing cancers, it threatens the immune system, can exacerbate pre-existing conditions, affects fertility, increases rates of birth defects, and can retard physical and mental development, among other things. And we know the effects of such exposures can last for generations.
Japan’s nuclear disaster demonstrates in powerful and poignant terms the degree to which the state prioritizes security interests over the fundamental rights of people and their environment. Japan’s response to its nuclear disaster — similar to other government responses to catastrophic events like Katrina and Chernobyl — has struggled to control the content and flow of information to prevent wide panic (and the related loss of trust in government), reduce liability, and protect nuclear and other industry agendas.
There are many lessons to be learned here, not the least of which is how to respond, adjust, and adapt to the hazards and health risks associated with life in this nuclear world. These responses will most assuredly include a demand for transparency and accountability — that is, governance that truly secures the fundamental rights of its citizens to life and livelihood.
As the world’s nations reassess nuclear power operations and refine energy development plans, now — more than ever — we need to aggressively tackle this question: How do we define the word “safe”?
~
Barbara Rose Johnston is an anthropologist and senior research fellow at the Center for Political Ecology. She is the co-author of The Consequential Dangers of Nuclear War: the Rongelap Report. Look for her latest book from Left Coast Press, Life and Death Matters: Human Rights, Environment, and Social Justice, released in July 2009. She can be reached at: bjohnston@igc.org.
Uranium tumbles on Japan crisis
By Carolyn Cui | People’s Daily | 2011-3-20
The most volatile market since the Japanese earthquake isn’t Japanese or U.S. stocks. It is uranium, which until Friday was a little-noticed pocket of the commodities markets.
Trading in uranium is often sporadic, with just a few dozen transactions taking place each month, and trading on the spot market totaling about $2.5 billion last year.
But the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, which have crippled a key nuclear plant and raised questions about the future of the nuclear-power industry, has changed all that—at least for now. Trading has soared as some hedge funds and banks unload their positions, traders said.
Almost three million pounds of uranium have changed hands in the spot market for the metal so far this week, five times more than the average volume, brokers said.
The result is that after an 80% run-up over the past eight months, uranium prices have tumbled. They reached a three-year high of $73 a pound in February, but dropped $13 earlier this week and fell to $49.25 on Wednesday, according to Ux Consulting Co.
Michael Goldenberg, director of nuclear fuels at Evolution Markets, a commodity broker, said the past few days have been “the busiest days” he has had since he started brokering uranium trades three years ago.
The flurry of activity in the uranium market reflects the divided thinking among market participants toward the future of nuclear power. Explosions and radiation leaks in Japan have worried some traders, who are dumping their uranium holdings amid fears that the Japanese crisis could stall expansion of the world’s nuclear programs.
At the same time, some utilities and even producers have stepped in to buy the metal in the belief that the demand for more nuclear plants will remain. A total of 65 nuclear units are under construction, mostly in China and Russia, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute.
Utilities haven’t been among the big sellers in recent days, said Jeff Faul, chief executive of Nukem, Inc., a trader of physical uranium. Mr. Faul said Nukem, of Danbury, Conn., hasn’t made any changes to its positions.
Most of the uranium traded in the physical market is in the form of uranium oxide concentrate, which is several steps away from being used as nuclear fuel. It isn’t very radioactive and buyers often store it at one of the four major uranium-storage facilities around the world.
After utilities buy uranium on the spot market, these facilities convert the oxide into a gas form of pure uranium, called uranium hexafluoride.
The gas, which is radioactive, is then enriched to become nuclear fuel. It is then transported to fabrication centers to convert into a pellet, which is put into a fuel rod that goes into a nuclear reactor.
Robert Mitchell, who manages the $36 million Green Energy Metals Funds, says uranium represents “a big position” of the fund, which owns both physical uranium and uranium-related stocks.
Though it has been a “tough time,” Mr. Mitchell hasn’t sold any of his uranium holdings. “No one knows how this movie is going to play out in Japan, but I think eventually rational thought will prevail,” he said.
Despite the bearish news in recent days, traders note that more than 400 reactors are still operating, consuming about 180 million pounds of uranium a year. The Japanese crisis prompted a drop of about 3% of the total uranium consumption. Nuclear power accounts for 14% of global electricity output, the Nuclear Energy Institute said.
“The world is not going to stop burning uranium tomorrow,” said Kevin Smith, director of uranium trading at Traxys Group, a New York-based physical trader and market maker of uranium.
Uranium Participation Corp., a $680-million Canada-listed fund that is invested in physical uranium, has lost about 26% of its market capitalization in recent days.
“UPC will continue to hold,” said Ron Hochstein, president of Denison Mines Inc., which runs the fund.
“It’s just a short-term impact. The fundamentals for the market are still very strong,” he said.
The Danger of Spent Nuclear Fuel
By ROBERT ALVAREZ | CounterPunch | March 21, 2011
The spent fuel pools at Units 3 and 4 at the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex are exposed to the open sky and might be draining. The radioactive dose rates coming off the pools appear to be life-threatening. Lead-shielded helicopters trying to dump water over the pools/reactors could not get close enough to make much difference because of the dangerous levels of radiation.
If the spent fuel is exposed, the zirconium cladding encasing the spent fuel can catch fire releasing potentially catastrophic amounts of radiation, particularly cesium-137 (Here’s an article I wrote in January 2002 in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists about spent fuel pool dangers.)
In October 2002, Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire, serving at that time as her state’s attorney general, organized a group letter to Congress signed by her and 26 of her counterparts across the nation. In it, they requested greater safeguards for reactor spent-fuel pools. The letter urged “enhanced protections for one of the most vulnerable components of a nuclear power plant its spent fuel pools.” It was met with silence.
In January 2003, my colleagues and I warned that a drained spent fuel pool in the U.S. could lead to a catastrophic fire that would result in long-term land contamination substantially worse than what the Chernobyl accident unleashed. An area around the Chernobyl site roughly half the size of New Jersey continues to be considered uninhabitable.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the nuclear energy industry strongly disagreed. Congress then asked the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to referee this dispute.
In 2004, after the NRC tried unsuccessfully to suppress its report, the NAS panel agreed with our findings. The Academy panel stated that a “partially or completely drained pool could lead to a propagating zirconium cladding fire and release large quantities of radioactive materials to the environment.”
Over the past 15 years, NRC has become too co-dependent on the industry it regulates. This has a lot to do with Congress, the nuclear industry lobby and its large amounts of money, which successfully rolled back the post Three Mile Island regulatory reforms of the early 1980s.. NRC is now much more dependent on industry self-reporting, much like what happened with the SEC and the banking industry before the economic collapse.
U.S. reactors are each holding at least four times as much spent fuel as the individual pools at the wrecked Daiichi nuclear complex in Fukushima. According to the Energy Department, about 63,000 metric tons of spent fuel has been generated as of this year, containing approximately 12.4 billion curies. These pools contain some of the largest concentrations of radioactivity on the planet. Merely 14 percent of U.S. spent fuel is in dry storage.
At this stage it’s critical that:
* The NRC hold off on renewing operating licenses for nuclear reactors, given our new found certainty that many sites in earthquake zones could experience greater destruction than previously assumed.
* The NRC promptly require reactor owners to end the dense compaction of spent fuel, and ensure that at least 75 percent of the spent fuel in pools operating above their capacity be removed and placed into dry, hardened storage containers on site, which are more likely to withstand earthquakes.
In our 2003 study, we estimated that it would take about 10 years to do this with existing technology, at an expense of $3.5 to $7 billion.
~
Robert Alvarez, an Institute for Policy Studies senior scholar, served as senior policy adviser to the Energy Department’s secretary from 1993 to 1999.
Chileans protest Obama visit, Nuke deal
Press TV – March 21, 2011
Chileans have held demonstrations to protest the upcoming visit of US President Barack Obama to the country following a recent nuclear deal between the two nations.
“This demonstration is to reject Barack Obama’s militaristic policies,” said a protest organizer.
The angry protesters organized two peaceful rallies on Sunday, complaining that the nuclear agreement was signed despite major nuclear crisis that developed in Japan following the huge earthquake and tsunami that struck the country on March 11, AFP reported Monday.
Chilean opposition lawmakers and environmentalists argue that the Friday agreement is too risky for their country, which lies on the Pacific Ring of Fire, and like Japan, is quite prone to devastating earthquakes.
The devastating 9-magnitude earthquake, followed by a monstrous tsunami that hit Japan earlier in March, caused radioactive leakage due to explosions in the nuclear power plants that resulted from malfunctioning cooling systems.
Chile experienced its own 8.8-magnitude earthquake just last year, which was also followed by a tsunami that claimed the lives of more than 500 people.
The Chilean demonstrators, numbering close to 2,000, held signs that read, “Nuclear energy is energy of death.”
Chilean President Sebastian Pinera and President Obama are set to meet Monday in the capital Santiago, where Obama is scheduled to deliver a speech on the Latin America.
Multiples Worse than Chernobyl
By Stephen Lendman | March 19, 2011
In Japan, cover-up and denial persist. In a March 18 press conference, Tokyo Electric’s (TEPCO) spokesman claimed water-dousing lowered radiation levels from 312 microsieverts per hour to 289. However, 48 hours earlier, chief cabinet secretary Yukido Edano said radioactivity levels were misreported in microsieverts instead of millisieverts – 1,000 times stronger.
Contrary to other reports, TEPCO’s spokesman also said water remains in Unit 4’s cooling pool. In fact, there’s none. Nothing the company says is credible.
In contrast, distinguished nuclear expert Helen Caldicott called Fukushima an unprecedented “absolute disaster,” multiples worse than Chernobyl. “The situation is very grim and not just for the Japanese people. If both reactors blow then the whole of the northern hemisphere may be affected. Only one (Chernobyl) reactor blew, and it was only three months old with relatively little radiation. (Fukushima’s) have been operating for 40 years, and would hold about 30 times more radiation than Chernobyl.”
It killed nearly one million people and counting, according to the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS). Yet the official IAEA figure was 4,000. NYAS’ report said:
“This is a collection of papers translated from the Russian with some revised and updated contributions. Written by leading authorities from Eastern Europe, the volume outlines the history of the health and environmental consequences of the Chernobyl disaster. According to the authors, official discussions from the (IAEA) and associated (UN) agencies (e.g. the Chernobyl reports) have largely downplayed or ignored many of the findings reported in the Eastern European scientific literature and consequently have erred by not including these assessments.”
In fact, IAEA and UN agencies lied, what’s ongoing now on Fukushima to conceal the greatest ever environmental/human disaster by far. Calling it a “diabolical catastrophe,” Caldicott, in fact, believes “(i)t could be much, much worse than” 30 multiples of Chernobyl. “In the northern hemisphere, many millions could get cancer.” Large parts of Japan may be permanently contaminated, not safe to live in.
Adding a hopeful note, she also thinks “the nuclear industry is finished worldwide. I have said before, unfortunately, the only thing that is capable of stopping this wicked industry is a major catastrophe, and it now looks like this may be it.”
In a March 16 “Destroyer of Worlds” statement, she added:
“The world is now paying – and will pay however severe Fukushima turns out to be – a grave price for the nuclear industry’s hubris and the arrogance and greed that fueled their drive to build more and more reactors. What’s more, having bamboozled gullible politicians, the media, and much of the public into believing that it is a ‘clean and green’ solution to the problem of global warming, the nuclear industry has operated facilities improperly, with little or no regard for safety regulations, and they have often done this with the connivance of government authorities.”
In fact, nuclear power isn’t “clean and green,” nor is it safe or renewable. “It is instead ‘a destroyer of worlds.’ It is time the globally community repudiated it….There is no other choice for the sake of future generations” and planet earth. Humanity has a choice – nuclear power or life itself.
On March 17, New York Times writers Norimitsu Onishi, David Sanger and Matthew Walf headlined, “With Quest to Cool Fuel Rods Stumbling, US Sees ‘Weeks’ of Struggle,” saying:
America’s “top nuclear official followed up his (day before) bleak appraisal of the grave situation at the plant, (cautioning) it would “take some time, possibly weeks” to make headway.
On March 17, Times writers David Sanger and William Broad headlined, “Radiation Spread Seen; Frantic Repairs Go On,” saying:
“….frantic efforts to cool nuclear fuel in the troubled reactors and in the plant’s spent-fuel pools resulted in little or no progress, according to United States government officials.”
Officials are also trying to restore power with no assurance doing so can help. Explosions, fires, and extremely high heat destroyed most or all plant equipment, likely including water pumps.
An unnamed source said, “What you are seeing are desperate efforts – just throwing everything at it in hopes something will work. Right now this is more prayer than plan.”
More likely, however, it’s deception, trying to convince public opinion that anything can work when, in fact, it may already be too late.
On March 18, Times writers David Sanger and William Broad headlined, “Frantic Repairs Go On at Plant; Little Progress in Cooling Fuel,” saying:
Radioactive “(s)team was again rising over another part of the plant, this time billowing from Reactor No. 2” that exploded on Tuesday. No explanation why was given.
Helicopter water drops failed. On Friday, military officials halted them at least for a day. Nuclear experts think they’re futile. Video evidence showed most water missed its target or evaporated before reaching it. Osaka University’s Professor Akira Yamaguchi said:
“7.5 tons of water has been dumped. We do not know the size of the pool, but judging from other examples it probably holds 2,000 tons. It does not mean the pool needs to be completely full, but maybe a third of the tank’s capacity is needed.”
America believes TEPCO “consistently underestimated the risk and moved too slowly to contain the damage.”
On March 18, Al Jazeera headlined, “Japan raises nuclear alert level,” saying:
Its “nuclear safety agency raise(d the) severity rating of (the) accident at Fukushima plant, signifying higher risk of radiation.”
However, Al Jazeera’s equating its seriousness to Three Mile Island or Chernobyl is willful deception. Fukushima is unprecedented, in uncharted territory, perhaps unstoppable. Guenther Oettinger, EU energy chief, called the site “effectively out of control, (facing) apocalypse.”
Al Jazeera claimed “prevailing winds are likely to carry any contaminated smoke or steam away from the densely populated Tokyo area to dissipate over the Pacific Ocean.”
False! Radiation levels in Tokyo are dangerously high and rising. Moreover, a radiation cloud will reach California by weekend, then spread across most of North America. Downplaying the disaster’s severity is scandalous and criminal. Besides dead zones and permanent environmental contamination, millions of illnesses and deaths are likely, though years will pass before accurate information is known.
Make no mistake, Japan’s government/industry cabal bears full responsibility for the greatest ever environmental/human disaster, an indisputable crime. They have blood on their hands as does America, other governments, and “Destroyer of Worlds” officials that that proliferate this technology from hell. Nothing short of banning it is acceptable.
~
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
Full Core Meltdown in Japan?
By Stephen Lendman | March 18, 2011
Possibly it’s ongoing and concealed. All along, Japanese and Tokyo Electric (TEPCO) officials downplayed or lied about the severity of the crisis. Virtually nothing they say can be believed.
Nor from the Obama administration, budgeting loan guarantees for new reactor construction instead of decommissioning all 104 nuclear plants because operating them risks full core meltdowns.
Partial or full ones gravely harm earth, air, water and food. Three hazardous Fukushima radioactive isotopes are especially problematic. University of Rochester Professor Jacqueline Williams, a radiation expert, says ingesting radioactive iodine-131 causes thyroid and other cancers. So does hazardous beta and gamma radiation from Cesium-137. Released Strontium 90 also causes leukemia and other cancers. Large amounts of all three are spewing daily.
Under a worst case scenario, millions of Japanese, Pacific rim and northern hemisphere people will be harmed, many gravely. Millions of deaths may result. The dangers of nuclear power can’t be overstated. Potentially, all planetary life is threatened. What better reason to end all commercial and military use now.
Wikipedia calls a nuclear meltdown “an informal term for a severe nuclear reactor accident that results in core damage from overheating.” Partial or full meltdowns result, releasing toxic atmospheric radiation.
Through nuclear fission, reactors generate high heat to produce electricity – essentially boiling water to create steam, used to run turbines and generate power. Unless controlled, dangerously high heat results.
Core meltdowns occur when heat generated exceeds what cooling systems remove, causing uranium and plutonium fuel to melt. At fault may be coolant problems, including accidents, fires, loss of coolant pressure, low coolant flow, or none at all from high heat causing evaporation. In other words, insufficient cooling elevates temperatures high enough to trigger melting and toxic atmospheric radiation releases.
Measured in rems (roentgen equivalent in man or mammal), it represents the amount needed to damage living tissue. All radiation is harmful, cumulative, permanent, and unforgiving. The more gotten, the greater the danger, especially doses over 100 rems, producing radiation sickness, including nausea, vomiting, headaches, white blood cell loss, and susceptibility to infection.
Doses above 200 rems cause hair loss and other harm. Above 300, significant internal harm, including damaged nerve cells, others lining the digestive track, the reproductive system, DNA and RNA. Severe white blood cell loss also results, the body’s main defense against infection, causing vulnerability to cancer and other diseases.
Moreover, radiation reduces blood platelets production, making hemorrhaging more likely. Doses above 450 rems kill half of those exposed. Above 800 assures death in days, weeks, or longer-term after painful illnesses, including leukemia and other cancers.
High atmospheric radiation levels threaten life over the short or longer-term. The more ingested, absorbed or inhaled, the greater the risk. Fukushima is spreading large amounts. If unstoppable, all bets are off.
On March 17, New York Times writers Norimitsu Onishi, David Sanger and Matthew Wald headlined, “High Radiation Severely Hinders Emergency Work to Cool Japanese Plant,” saying:
“Amid widening (global alarm), military fire trucks began spraying cooling water on (Fukushima’s) spent fuel rods.” Earlier, high radiation levels forced back police water cannon trucks. Japan’s Self-Defense Forces dumped tons of seawater on Unit 3, saying later it was ineffective. Unknown is whether anything can work. In day six, everything tried failed, raising grave doubts, a frightening prospect if true.
Panic throughout Japan is increasing. Some Toyko residents are fleeing. Everyone is scared. Radiation levels are spreading and rising. People are jamming airports to leave. Some embassies and companies are evacuating their personnel. Inbound flights are being canceled.
An anonymous nuclear industry official told The Times of India that TEPCO management is “in a full-scale panic, (not) know(ing) what to do.” On March 16, European Union Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger told an EU parliamentary committee:
Fukushima “is effectively out of control. In the coming hours, there could be further catastrophic events, which could pose a threat to the lives of people on the island,” and beyond.
In fact, global contamination is threatened. Obama said radioactivity wouldn’t reach America. He lied. It will reach California by weekend and spread east across the entire country and North America. The industry-controlled World Nuclear News warned of a “dramatic escalation in Japan.”
Compounding the threat, around 600,000 exposed Fukushima spent fuel rods are stored unprotected near the top of reactors, making them extremely vulnerable to melting. Nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen said if they catch fire, it “would be like Chernobyl on steroids.”
Several fires, in fact, erupted. Others could ignite any time. If one or more containment vessels ruptures, all bets are off. Fears are it already happened, making a bad situation far worse. Fukushima is an unprecedented disaster, in uncharted territory. Understating the potential catastrophic risk is irresponsible and criminal.
On Wednesday, US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) chairman, Gregory Jaczko, told a congressional committee that thousands of Unit 4 spent fuel rods have little or no protective water, meaning they’re exposed, melting, and spreading toxic atmospheric radiation. He added:
“We believe that radiation levels are extremely high, which could possibly impact the ability to take corrective measures.”
Fukushima has six reactors. All risk meltdown. Experts believe a full plant evacuation may be necessary, leaving reactor and spent fuel rods to melt down, a potential worst case unstoppable “China syndrome.”
Late Wednesday night, the US State Department announced a “voluntary” evacuation of government personnel dependents and other US citizens from northeastern Japan down to Tokyo and Yokohama. Charter flights will be provided. Numerous other nations are urging their nationals to leave.
Nuclear Power in America: How Safe?
On March 16, New York Times writer Matthew Wald headlined, “Nuclear Agency Tells a Concerned Congress That US Industry Remains Safe,” saying:
NRC chairman Jaczko “told two House Energy and Commerce subcommittees:
“We will continue to work to maintain (a high) level of protection.” Reactors are designed to withstand “the most severe natural phenomena historically reported,” perhaps forgetting his comments about Fukushima’s unprecedented disaster and its unpreparedness to cope.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu claimed:
“The American people should have full confidence that the United States has rigorous safety regulations in place to ensure that our nuclear power is generated safely and responsibly. The administration is committed to learning from Japan’s experience as we work to continue to strengthen America’s nuclear industry.”
Chu, in fact, is deeply compromised, a shill for nuclear interests since his days as director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), originally called the UC Radiation Lab. Today, the Energy Department runs it, continuing its radiation research, what it’s done since the 1940s with little regard for public safety or environmental concerns, as true under Chu. In fact, he was picked as Energy Secretary for his commitment to military and commercial nuclear power, mindless of the risks.
When asked in 2005 if fission-based plants should be part of the energy-producing portfolio, he responded:
“Absolutely,” displaying a cavalier attitude about its dangers in advocating for “recycling” waste, when independent experts say doing it spreads poisons causing cancer, genetic damage, and premature deaths.
Chu also has longstanding ties to BP and Big Oil that funded UC Berkeley’s Energy Biosciences Institute he founded a year before becoming Energy Secretary. On matters of oil, nuclear power, and other sources of energy, nothing Chu says is credible.
Obama also has longstanding nuclear industry ties, including with Chicago-based Exelon. On March 14, Bloomberg said it operates “17 reactors at 10 stations in Illinois, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, provid(ing) 20% of US nuclear capacity,” according to its web site. His former top political aide, David Axelrod, once lobbied for Exelon, and Rahm Emanuel, his former White House chief of staff, profited handsomely as an investment banker arranging mergers that created the company.
In his proposed budget, Obama includes $36 billion in industry loan guarantees for new facilities, free money. He’s committed to jump-start new construction, halted since Three Mile Island in 1979. Already takers are lining up, 20 or more applications pending before the NRC.
He and Chu downplay Fukushima, mindless of industry hazards, including 23 US nuclear plants at 16 locations using the same failed GE-designed Mark 1 containment vessels. Earlier the NRC called it susceptible to explosion and failure because of cost-cutting design failures. Its 1985 study warned that failure within the first few hours after a core meltdown was very likely. Its top safety official at the time said it had a 90% probability of failing if an accident caused overheating and melting. When reactor cooling is compromised, the containment vessel is the last line of defense. However, GE’s design is hazardous and unsafe.
No matter. In January 2011, Obama appointed Jeffrey Immelt, GE’s CEO, head of his outside panel of economic advisers, replacing Paul Volcker. He’ll also provide administration energy policy input. For him, Obama, Chu and other administration officials, public health, safety, and environmental protection are secondary to bottom line priorities. Unless popular outrage resists, America faces an inevitable nuclear nightmare, replicating or exceeding Fukushima.
~
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
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Genetic baloney in thick slices
MAYBE COULD BE INC.
By Jon Rappoport | No More Fake News | July 8, 2021
Gene research companies tend to come and go. They start out banging and popping like fireworks in the sky, and then they fade out—selling themselves to larger outfits who’ve hired better liars…
Once upon a time, it sounded easy. Start with a disease, find the gene responsible for the disease, and correct the problem.
Then, researchers wondered, was disease the result of one gene or a group of genes acting together?
Either way, the proof would be in devising cures for diseases using gene therapy. “Not yet, but soon…”
And regardless, the major need was: money. Lots and lots of money.
This need required good PR people. “We have to pump up the idea that we’re on the edge of tremendous breakthroughs. We’re always on that edge…”
This hype also needed to obscure the fact that there wasn’t (and isn’t) ANY gene cure for ANY disease. … continue
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