Thousands evacuate as Fukishima nuclear emergency is declared

[Peter Lemkin]

Visually, Reactor No. 4 'leaning to the right' --4 reactors all still emitting 'significant amounts of radiation into the environment' --Radioactive sludge in sewage system in nearby city 10 May 2011 In a release of information tonight, the Japanese government has confirmed that work was started yesterday to 'shore up the structure of the building,' and 'specifically the upper floor.' Spent fuel pool is kept in Reactor No. 4. Fuel rods from three to four reactors are stored in No. 4, and 'this part of the building is beginning to lean.' Because of the explosion of Reactor No. 3, there are some questions about the structural integrity of the building of Reactor No. 4. (Video, RT interview with Dr. Robert Jacobs, Hiroshima Peace Institute)

An interesting development.....yes, potentially the most dangerous building - as it has, by far, the most nuclear material in it. Sadly, the construction 'technique' in the Mark I GE reactor buildings was to put the 'spent' fuel rods in tanks of water ABOVE the reactors [near the top of the building]....so if it tilts or falls over, it is this tank [containing all the spent fuel rods from all six reactors for all the years of operation] that will come a 'tumblin' down or at best leak the cooling water, with all of its highly radioactive substances in it. This monster is far from dead!...

[Ed Jewett]

FUKUSHIMA REACTOR 1: FULL MELTDOWN, REACTOR VESSEL BREACHED

May 13th, 2011

Via: Reuters:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/1...H520110512

One of the reactors at Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant has a hole in its main vessel following a meltdown of fuel rods, leading to a leakage of radioactive water, its operator said on Thursday.

The disclosure by Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) is the latest indication that the disaster was worse than previously disclosed, making it more difficult to stabilize the plant.
…
Based on the amount of water that is remaining around the partially melted and collapsed fuel, Matsumoto estimated that the pressure vessel had developed a hole of several centimeters in diameter.

The finding makes it likely that at one point in the immediate wake of the disaster the 4-meter-high stack of uranium-rich rods at the core of the reactor had been entirely exposed to the air, he said. Boiling water reactors like those at Fukushima rely on water as both a coolant and a barrier to radiation.

U.S. nuclear experts said that the company may have to build a concrete wall around the unit because of the breach, and that this could now take years.
"If it is assumed the fuel did melt through the reactor, then the most likely solution is to encapsulate the entire unit. This may include constructing a concrete wall around the unit and building a protective cover over it," W. Gene Corley, senior vice president of CTL Group in Skokie, Illinois, said on Thursday.
"Because of the high radiation that would be present if this has happened, the construction will take many months and may stretch into years," Corley said.
TEPCO should consider digging a trench around reactors 1-3 all the way down to the bedrock, which is about 50 feet below the surface, said Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer at Fairewinds Associates Inc of Burlington, Vermont, who once worked on reactors of similar design to the Fukushima plant.

He said this should be filled with zeolite, which can absorb radioactive cesium to stop more poisons from leaking into the groundwater around the plant.

"TEPCO seems to be going backwards in getting the situation under control and things may well be slowly eroding with all the units having problems," said Tom Clements with Friends of the Earth, a U.S.-based environmental group.

"At this point, TEPCO still finds itself in unchartered waters and is not able to carry out any plan to get the situation under control," he said.
Posted in Atrocities, Collapse, Energy, Environment |

http://cryptogon.com/?p=22313

[Ed Jewett]

Norwegian Institute for Air Research: Radiation Forecasts on the Zardoz' Subdomain

May 13th, 2011
Via: Dutchsinse YouTube Channel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haMePBnkJ...ded#at=166

(watch at full screen if possible)

http://cryptogon.com/?p=22317

[Ed Jewett]

The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster in Perspective

by Dr. Helen Caldicott

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?c...&aid=24730

r. Helen Caldicott's March 18th press conference in Montreal, sponsored by the Centre for Research non Globalization (CRG)

Our thanks to Felton Davis for the transcription from the GRTV Video recording and for the annotations.


This press conference organized by Globla Research was held in the context of Helen Caldicott's public lecture to Montreal on March 18, 2011.

First I want to present this report, produced by the New York Academy of Sciences, a report on Chernobyl. It can be downloaded.(2) They translated 5,000 articles from Russian for the first time into English. It seems that nearly a million people have already died as a result of Chernobyl, despite what the WH0(3) says and the IAEA.(4) This is one of the most monstrous cover-ups in the history of medicine. Because everybody should know about this.

Then we extrapolate through to Japan. Japan is by orders of magnitude many times worse than Chernobyl. Never in my life did I think that six nuclear reactors would be at risk.(5) I knew that three GE engineers who helped design these Mark I GE reactors, resigned because they knew they were dangerous.(6)

So Japan built them on an earthquake fault. The reactors partially withstood the earthquake, but the external electricity supply was cut off, and the electricity supplies the cooling water, a million gallons a minute, to each of those six reactors. Without the cooling water, the water [level] falls, and the rods are so hot they melt, like at Three Mile Island, and at Chernobyl.

So the emergency diesel generators, which are as large as a house, got destroyed by the tsunami, so there is no way to keep the water circulating in the reactors.(7) Also, on the roofs of the reactors, not within the containment vessel, are cooling pools. Every year they remove about thirty tons of the most radioactive rods that you can possibly imagine.(8) Each one is twelve feet long and half an inch thick. It gives out so much radiation, that if you stand next to it for a couple of minutes, you'll die. Not drop dead. Remember Litvinenko, the Russian, who got poisoned by polonium?(9) You'll die like that, with your hair falling out, and bleeding with massive infection, like AIDS patients die.

And [the spent fuel rods] are thermally hot, so they have to be put in a big pool, and continually cooled. The pool has really no roof.

There have been three hydrogen explosions, blowing off the roof of the building, not the containment vessel of the core, but the roof. And exposing the cooling pool.(10) Two of the cooling pools are dry. They have no water in them. Meaning that the nuclear fuel rods are covered with a material called zirconium. When zirconium is exposed to air, it burns, it ignites. Two of the cooling pools at this moment are burning. In the cooling pools are many times, like 10 to 20 times more radiation than in each reactor core. In each reactor core is as much long-lived radiation as would be produced by a thousand Hiroshima-sized bombs. We are dealing with diabolical energy.

E=MC2 is the energy that blows up nuclear bombs. Einstein said nuclear power is a hell of a way to boil water.(11) Because that is all nuclear power is used for, to boil water through the massive heat, turn it into steam, and turn a turbine which generates electricity.

Now when you fission uranium, 200 new elements are formed, all of which are much more poisonous to the body than the original uranium.(12) Although uranium is pretty poisonous. America used it in Fallujah, and in Baghdad. And in Fallujah, 80 per cent of the babies being born are grossly deformed.(13) They're being born without brains, single eyes, no arms... The doctors have told the women to stop having babies. The incidence of childhood cancer has gone up about twelve times. This is genocide -- it's a nuclear war being conducted in Iraq. The uranium that they're using lasts more than 4.5 billion years. So we're contaminating the cradle of civilization. "The coalition of the willing!"

In the nuclear power plants, however, there is a huge amount of radiation: two hundred elements. Some last seconds, some last millions of years. Radioactive iodine lasts six weeks, causes thyroid cancer. That's why people are saying, "Better take potassium iodide," because that blocks the thyroid uptake of radioactive iodine, which later can cause thyroid cancer.

In Chernobyl, over 20,000 people have developed thyroid cancer.(14) They have their thyroids out, and they will die unless they take thyroid replacement every day, like a diabetic has to take insulin.
Strontium-90 will get out, it lasts for 600 years. It goes to the bone, where it causes bone cancer or leukemia. Cesium lasts for 600 years -- it's all over Europe. 40 per cent of Europe is still radioactive. Turkish food is extremely radioactive. Do not buy Turkish dried apricots, or Turkish hazelnuts. The Turks were so cross with the Russians, they sent all their radioactive tea over to Russia after Chernobyl.(15)

Forty per cent of Europe is still radioactive. Farms in Britain, their lambs are so full of cesium they can't sell them. Don't eat European food.

But that's nothing compared to what's happening now. One of the most deadly [nuclear byproducts] is plutonium, named after Pluto, god of the underworld. One millionth of a gram, if you inhale it, would give you cancer. Hypothetically, one pound of plutonium if evenly distributed could give everyone on earth cancer. Each reactor has 250 kilograms of plutonium in it. You only need 2.5 kilograms to make an atomic bomb, because plutonium is what they make bombs with.

So any country that has a reactor, works with your uranium. You [Canada] are the biggest exporter of uranium in the world.(16) Canada sells two things: it sells wheat for life, and uranium for death. Plutonium is going to get out and spread all over the northern hemisphere. It's already heading towards North America now.

Radioactive iodine, plus strontium, plus cesium, plus tritium, and I could go on and on and on. When it rains, downs come fallout, and it concentrates in food. If it gets into the sea, the algae concentrate it, hundreds of times. And the crustaceans concentrate it, hundreds of times. And then the little fish, then the big fish, then us.(17)

Because we stand on the apex of the food chain. You can't taste these radioactive food elements, you can't see them, you can't smell them. They're silent. When you get them inside your body, you don't suddenly drop dead of cancer, it takes five to sixty years to get your cancer, and when you feel a lump in your breast, it doesn't say, "I was made by some strontium-90 in a piece of fish you ate twenty years ago."

All radiation is damaging. It's cumulative -- each dose you get adds to your risk of getting cancer. The americium is more dangerous than plutonium -- I could go on and on. Depends if it rains if you're going to get it or not. If it rains and the radiation comes down, don't grow food, and don't eat the food, and I mean don't eat it for 600 years.

Radioactive waste from nuclear power is going to be buried, I hear, next to Lake Ontario. It's going to leak, last for millions of years, it's going to get into the water, and into the food chains. Radioactive waste will induce epidemics of cancer, leukemia, and genetic disease for the rest of time. This is the greatest public health hazard the world has ever witnessed, apart from the threat every day of nuclear war.

Einstein said "the splitting of the atom changed everything, save man's mode of thinking" -- very profound -- "and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe." We are arrogant, we have a lot of hubris, and I think the reptilian mid-brain of some men's brains is pathological.(18)

We are in a situation where we have harnessed the energy of the sun. It is totally out of control. And there's simply nothing we can do about it.

NOTES

1) Helen Caldicott is the founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility, and is the author of "The New Nuclear Danger" (The New Press, 2002).

2) "Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe For the People and the Environment," Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
http://www.nyas.org/publications/annals/...3f44b3bfc1

3) "Health Effects of the Chernobyl Accident," World Health Organization. http://www-ns.iaea.org/appraisals/chernobyl.asp

4) "Consequences of the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident," International Atomic Energy Agency. http://www-ns.iaea.org/appraisals/chernobyl.asp

5) For a general description of the complex, including cross-sections of the six reactors, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_I..._accidents

6) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GE_Three
Excerpt: On February 2, 1976, Gregory C. Minor, Richard B. Hubbard, and Dale G. Bridenbaugh "blew the whistle" on safety problems at nuclear power plants. The three engineers gained the attention of journalists and their disclosures about the threats of nuclear power had a significant impact. They timed their statements to coincide with their resignations from responsible positions in General Electric's nuclear energy division, and later established themselves as consultants on the nuclear power industry for state governments, federal agencies, and overseas governments.

7) "Japanese Scramble to Avert Meltdowns as Nuclear Crisis Deepens After Quake," New York Times, March 12, 2011, By HIROKO TABUCHI and MATTHEW L. WALD

8) The design manual for General Electric boiling water reactors was posted as a PDF document on the "What Really Happened" website, and can be downloaded at: http://whatreallyhappened.com/content/ge...-operation

9) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_o...Litvinenko
Excerpt: Alexander Litvinenko was a former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service, FSB and KGB, who escaped prosecution in Russia and received political asylum in the United Kingdom. He wrote two books, "Blowing up Russia: Terror from within" and "Lubyanka Criminal Group", where he accused the Russian secret services of staging Russian apartment bombings and other terrorism acts to bring Vladimir Putin to power. On 1 November 2006, Litvinenko suddenly fell ill and was hospitalized. He died three weeks later, becoming the first confirmed victim of lethal polonium-210-induced acute radiation syndrome. According to doctors, "Litvinenko's murder represents an ominous landmark: the beginning of an era of nuclear terrorism". Litvinenko's allegations about the misdeeds of the FSB and his public deathbed accusations that Russian president Vladimir Putin were behind his unusual malady resulted in worldwide media coverage.

10) "Greater Danger Lies in Spent Fuel Than in Reactors,"
Keith Bradsher & Hiroko Tabuchi, NY Times, March 17, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/world/...spent.html

"Radiation Spread Seen; Frantic Repairs Go On,"
David Sanger & William J. Broad, NY Times, March 17, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/world/...intel.html

"U.S. Sees Array of New Threats at Japan's Nuclear Plant,"
James Glanz & William J. Broad, NY Times, April 6, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/06/world/...clear.html

"Focus on preventing explosions at Japan nuke plant,"
Mari Yamaguchi, Associated Press, April 6, 2011
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110406/ap_o...hquake_654

11) http://wisequotes.org/nuclear-power-is-o...boil-water

12) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decay_product

13) "US Accused of Using Poison Gases in Fallujah,"
Democracy Now, Monday, November 29th, 2004
http://www.democracynow.org/2004/11/29/u...ing_poison

"Evidence of Extensive War Crimes, Unprecedented
in the annals of legal history," Niloufer Bhagwat,
Global Research, December 11, 2004
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/BHA412A.html

"Depleted Uranium Weapons: Dead Babies in Iraq and Afghanistan Are No Joke," by Dave Lindorff, Global Research, October 20, 2009
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?c...&aid=15744

"The consequences of a US war crime:
Cancer rate in Fallujah worse than Hiroshima,"
Tom Eley, World Socialist, July 23, 2010
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jul201...-j23.shtml

"Research Links Rise in Fallujah Birth Defects and Cancers to US Assault," Martin Chulov, The Guardian/UK, December 31, 2010
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/12/31

14) "Chernobyl's Continuing Thyroid Impact,"
By Mary Shomon, December 15, 2003
http://thyroid.about.com/cs/nuclearexpos...hernob.htm

15) "Authorities lied on impact of Chernobyl in Turkey,"
Greenpeace Report
http://www.blackraiser.com/cherno.htm

16) WISE Report on the Worldwide Uranium Market
http://www.wise-uranium.org/umkt.html

"Why is Uranium Important to Canada?"
Canadian Nuclear Association,
http://www.cna.ca/english/pdf/nuclearfac...ranium.pdf

17) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioaccumulation

18) http://www.crystalinks.com/reptilianbrain.html

[Ed Jewett]

THURSDAY, MAY 12, 2011

Simulation Shows High Levels of Radiation Hitting the West in May

The Norwegian Institute for Air Research (Nilo) ran models and forecasts of the radioactive fallout from the Japanese nuclear accident for some time. Nilo has stopped providing such forecasts to the public.

However, Alexander Higgins discovered an internal page of Nilo's website showing high levels of radioactive iodine 131:

(Click for larger image). [See below.]

Because this comes from an internal - rather than publicly-released - portion of Nilo's website, it cannot be confirmed that these are real readings, as opposed to some sort of fictitious simulation. In other words, I can't tell if this is bad news ... or some Norwegian scientist's video game.

But given that the readings show high levels of radiation hitting much of the West this month, that the EPA has suspended all but routine radiation monitoring, that American states aren't really monitoring, that Canada has drastically slashed the amount of monitoring it is doing, and that the situation in Japan is worse than the Japanese have previously admitted, I had to post this information ... with appropriate caveats.





http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/05/s...ls-of.html

[Jonathan Mark]

Flyby News
Editor - Jonathan Mark
13 May, 2011 - Overbearing Critical Breaking News - Fukushima

Editor's Notes: The latest news on the meltdown from Japan nuclear disaster is suppressed by the overwhelming policies destroying our world. Please take action to help stop new nuclear power development. But, also, to reverse such a collapse we are confronting, the events of September 11, 2001 must resurface to expose the cover-up and worse crimes against humanity.

CRITICAL BREAKING NEWS

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Setbacks at Japan nuclear plant

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[Peter Lemkin]

The above post goes a bit 'wide' on the thread topic, methinks....if well meaning. Anyone following my and others reports on what has been going 'down' at the nuclear plant will not be surprised at the sudden admission by the Japanese 'authorities' that a partial meltdown had taken place in at least one reactor....[more likely in at least 3 of them!!!]. The situation remains dire [in the short and medium term]...and deadly [mostly in the long-term]. The piece by Caldecott really sums it all up, IMHO.

[Peter Lemkin]

One of the workers who was recently in the building surveying the damage, collapsed, was taken to hospital and there died. The company is saying it is not related to radiation exposure.....and I certainly can not say....but if it is not, I'd be very surprised and find it a very odd 'coincidence'!

[Magda Hassan]

TEPCO admits nuclear meltdown occurred at Fukushima reactor 16 hours after quake

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) admitted for the first time on May 15 that most of the fuel in one of its nuclear reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant had melted only about 16 hours after the March 11 earthquake struck a wide swath of northeastern Japan and triggered a devastating tsunami.
According to TEPCO, the operator of the crippled nuclear power plant, the emergency condenser designed to cool the steam inside the pressure vessel of the No. 1 reactor was working properly shortly after the magnitude-9.0 earthquake, but it lost its functions around 3:30 p.m. on March 11 when tsunami waves hit the reactor.
Based on provisional analysis of data on the reactor, the utility concluded that the water level in the pressure vessel began to drop rapidly immediately after the tsunami, and the top of the fuel began to be exposed above the water around 6 p.m. Around 7:30 p.m., the fuel was fully exposed above the water surface and overheated for more than 10 hours. At about 9 p.m., the temperature in the reactor core rose to 2,800 degrees Celsius, the melting point for fuel. At approximately 7:50 p.m., the upper part of the fuel started melting, and at around 6:50 a.m. on March 12, a meltdown occurred.
On the reason why it took over two months after the earthquake to reveal the information, TEPCO said it had only been able to start obtaining detailed data on the temperature and pressure in the reactor for analysis in early May.
Junichiro Matsumoto, a senior TEPCO official, said, "Because there is similar damage to the fuel rods at the No. 2 and 3 reactors, the bottoms of their pressure vessels could also have been damaged." He said the utility would carry out similar analysis on the two reactors.
Hiroaki Koide, professor of nuclear safety engineering at Kyoto University, was critical of TEPCO.
"They could have assumed that when the loss of power made it impossible to cool down the reactor, it would soon lead to a meltdown of the core. TEPCO's persistent explanation that the damage to the fuel had been limited turned out to be wrong," he said.

Click here for the original Japanese story
(Mainichi Japan) May 16, 2011

[Peter Lemkin]

TEPCO admits nuclear meltdown occurred at Fukushima reactor 16 hours after quake

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) admitted for the first time on May 15 that most of the fuel in one of its nuclear reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant had melted only about 16 hours after the March 11 earthquake struck a wide swath of northeastern Japan and triggered a devastating tsunami.
According to TEPCO, the operator of the crippled nuclear power plant, the emergency condenser designed to cool the steam inside the pressure vessel of the No. 1 reactor was working properly shortly after the magnitude-9.0 earthquake, but it lost its functions around 3:30 p.m. on March 11 when tsunami waves hit the reactor.
Based on provisional analysis of data on the reactor, the utility concluded that the water level in the pressure vessel began to drop rapidly immediately after the tsunami, and the top of the fuel began to be exposed above the water around 6 p.m. Around 7:30 p.m., the fuel was fully exposed above the water surface and overheated for more than 10 hours. At about 9 p.m., the temperature in the reactor core rose to 2,800 degrees Celsius, the melting point for fuel. At approximately 7:50 p.m., the upper part of the fuel started melting, and at around 6:50 a.m. on March 12, a meltdown occurred.
On the reason why it took over two months after the earthquake to reveal the information, TEPCO said it had only been able to start obtaining detailed data on the temperature and pressure in the reactor for analysis in early May.
Junichiro Matsumoto, a senior TEPCO official, said, "Because there is similar damage to the fuel rods at the No. 2 and 3 reactors, the bottoms of their pressure vessels could also have been damaged." He said the utility would carry out similar analysis on the two reactors.
Hiroaki Koide, professor of nuclear safety engineering at Kyoto University, was critical of TEPCO.
"They could have assumed that when the loss of power made it impossible to cool down the reactor, it would soon lead to a meltdown of the core. TEPCO's persistent explanation that the damage to the fuel had been limited turned out to be wrong," he said.

Click here for the original Japanese story
(Mainichi Japan) May 16, 2011

Not saying as much as I could about the bullshit that they didn't know at the time [two months ago!...when others outside of Japan knew!!!], what we are talking about here, now is really a Chernobyl on steroids. Due to the luck (sic) that there was no major explosion, as at Chernobyl, the radiation will leak out more slowly...but the total amount of radiation is hundreds or thousands of times that of Chernobyl. They need to start entombing the whole think ASAP! There is NO other way.....NONE!