The Fuel Pools of Fukushima: THE GREATEST SHORT-TERM THREAT TO HUMANITY

This detailed report by our Contributor Washington Blog must be read very carefully.

The World is at a critical crossroads. The Fukushima disaster in Japan has brought to the forefront the dangers of Worldwide nuclear radiation. The crisis in Japan has been described as "a nuclear war without a war". 

Nuclear radiation --which threatens life on planet earth-- is not front page news in comparison to the most insignificant issues of public concern, including the local level crime scene or the tabloid gossip reports on Hollywood celebrities.  

The implications of this report must be understood. Public opinion worldwide must be informed so that meaningful actions can be taken without delay in support of the Japanese teams. 

Read More:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=30207

Richard Black - Global fallout: Did Fukushima scupper nuclear power?

In the tense days nearly a year ago when smoke rose around the stricken Fukushima Daiichi power station as if from a battlefield, when hydrogen explosions tore the reactor buildings apart and workers fought for their lives and Japan's future, it seemed as though we might be watching the death throes of the nuclear dream.

In the wake of what is officially classified as one of the two worst nuclear accidents in history, ranking at Category Seven on the International Event Scale (INES), the "electricity too cheap to meter" vision of the 1950s appeared to be turning into a technology too costly to contemplate in terms of the human and financial balance-sheets.

Read More:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17287740

NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS: The Very Real Possibility of A Global Nuclear Catastrophe

Studies show that people are worry about the wrong things. We are terrified of things that will probably never happen, and underestimate the real dangers which face us. As we noted last year, the extreme vulnerability of nuclear power plants to solar flares is a very real threat which we must address:

Nasa scientists are predicting that a solar storm will knock out most of the electrical power grid in many countries worldwide, perhaps for months. See this, this, this, this, this, this and this. Indeed, the Earth’s magnetic field protects us from the sun’s most violent radiation, and yet the magnetic field fluctuates over time. As the Telegraph reported in 2008:

Large hole in magnetic field that protects Earth from sun’s rays … Recent satellite observations have revealed the largest breach yet seen in the magnetic field that protects Earth from most of the sun’s violent blasts.

Read More:

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29951

Matthew Stein - Four Hundred Chernobyls: Solar Flares, Electromagnetic Pulses and Nuclear Armageddon

There are nearly 450 nuclear reactors in the world, with hundreds more being planned or under construction. There are 104 of these reactors in the United States and 195 in Europe. Imagine what havoc it would wreak on our civilization and the planet's ecosystems if we were to suddenly witness not just one or two nuclear meltdowns, but 400 or more! How likely is it that our world might experience an event that could ultimately cause hundreds of reactors to fail and melt down at approximately the same time? I venture to say that, unless we take significant protective measures, this apocalyptic scenario is not only possible, but probable.

Consider the ongoing problems caused by three reactor core meltdowns, explosions and breached containment vessels at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi facility and the subsequent health and environmental issues. Consider the millions of innocent victims who have already died or continue to suffer from horrific radiation-related health problems ("Chernobyl AIDS," epidemic cancers, chronic fatigue, etcetera) resulting from the Chernobyl reactor explosions, fires and fallout. If just two serious nuclear disasters, spaced 25 years apart, could cause such horrendous environmental catastrophes, it is hard to imagine how we could ever hope to recover from hundreds of similar nuclear incidents occurring simultaneously across the planet. Since more than one-third of all Americans live within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant, this is a serious issue that should be given top priority.[1]

Read More:

http://truth-out.org/news/item/7301-400-chernobyls-solar-flares-electromagnetic-pulses-and-nuclear-armageddon

Harvey Wasserman - Nuclear Power's Green Mountain Grassroots Demise

In the wake of Fukushima, grassroots citizen action is shutting the worldwide nuclear power industry.

A Solartopian tipping point is upon us in the U.S., Europe and Japan which will re-define how the human race gets its energy.

States rights and local democracy are at the core of the battle.

The definitive breaking point looms in Vermont.

By mid-March a state board is likely to deny the Yankee reactor licenses to operate or to create radioactive waste.

If that happens, a Vermont shutdown could mark a critical moment in establishing state power over an atomic reactor. A critical domino would fall -- as it has in Japan and Europe -- and we will begin taking down old reactors all across the U.S. Four new reactors barely under construction will go down with them, making inevitable the end America's age of atomic power.

Read More:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harvey-wasserman/post_3127_b_1353253.html

Fukushima: The Disaster That Could Have Been Prevented

Fukushima Ceremonial Vigil at Indian Point Nuclear Facility, Buchanan, New York. March 11, 2012.

Richard Schiffman - Obama’s plan for nuclear sanity

“Iran Worried U.S. Might Be Building 8,500th Nuclear Weapon,” read the headline. This frontpage banner in the satirical weekly The Onion may not have gotten the number exactly right. The Obama administration reported in 2010 that the US possesses 5,113 warheads in the stockpile and an additional 4,500 retired, but not yet dismantled, making the grand total even higher than the spoofers had guessed.

While media pundits in the U.S. warn darkly of Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, America itself is regarded as the main nuclear threat in much of the world today. The United States argues that it needs these weapons to deter attacks on itself and its allies, and that it would only use them to prevent or respond to such an attack. But people in other countries wonder why Americans need so many of them — secreted away in missile silos, on submarines and in bombers, computer-targeted to obliterate their cities at the turn of a key.

Read More:

http://mondediplo.com/blogs/obama-s-plan-for-nuclear-sanity

Robert Alvarez - No Nuclear Nirvana on the Horizon

Is the nuclear drought over?

When the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) recently approved two new nuclear reactors near Augusta, Georgia, the first such decision in 32 years, there was plenty of hoopla.

It marked a "clarion call to the world," declared Marvin S. Fertel, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute. "Nuclear energy is a critical part of President Obama's all-of-the-above energy strategy," declared Energy Secretary Chu, who traveled in February to the Vogtle site where Westinghouse plans to build two new reactors.

But it's too soon for nuclear boosters to pop their champagne corks. Japan's Fukushima disaster continues to unfold nearly a year after the deadly earthquake and tsunami unleashed what's shaping up to be the worst nuclear disaster ever. Meanwhile, a raft of worldwide reactor closures, cancellations, and postponements is still playing out. The global investment bank UBS estimates that some 30 reactors in several countries are at risk of closure, including at least two in highly pro-nuclear France.

Read More:

http://www.otherwords.org/articles/no_nuclear_nirvana

Greg Palast - The Fukushima Story You Didn't Hear on CNN

Here was the handwritten log kept by a senior engineer at the nuclear power plant: 

Wiesel was very upset. He seemed very nervous. Very agitated. . . . In fact, the plant was riddled with problems that, no way on earth, could stand an earth- quake. The team of engineers sent in to inspect found that most of these components could "completely and utterly fail" during an earthquake. 

"Utterly fail during an earthquake." And here in Japan was the quake and here is the utter failure. 

The warning was in what the investigations team called The Notebook, which I'm not supposed to have. Good thing I've kept a copy anyway, because the file cabinets went down with my office building ....

Read More:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101715893

Masahiro Matsumura - After the earthquake: changing Japan

On the first anniversary of the huge earthquake that hit Japan's northeastern Pacific coast, its people are still coming to terms with their grief and trying to work out what the disaster meant for the nation.

Although 3/11, as it's become known, was a bolt from the blue, the country – located in one of the world's largest and most active volcanic zones – had long expected a great earthquake and tsunami to occur sooner or later. It was well prepared for the type of disaster that would happen once every 100 years, but not for a far greater one-in-a-1000-years one. No wonder the catastrophe overwhelmed Japan's well-laid plans for protecting people, buildings and infrastructure.

Fail-safe measures to cope with a super-disaster are practically beyond the nation's wealth: the worst-case scenario is sequential or even simultaneous occurrence in the greater Tokyo metropolitan area, the central Pacific coast and the southwestern Pacific coast.

Read More:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/11/japan-tsunami-earthquake-recovery-future