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

Abby Luby - Fukushima and the Age of Distrust

Fukushima and the Age of Distrust

 It's been a year since the catastrophic meltdowns at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants. The stark, dramatic images of the crippled reactors are hulking mountains of splintered shards forming a radioactive tomb. Videos and photographs of the tumultuous ruins are blatant messages about the dangers of nuclear power; the impacts of reported widespread contamination of farmlands and waterways are predicted to last for generations. Destruction from the earthquake and tsunami was biblical in its wake, causing three reactors to eventually melt down. Contaminated radioactive hot spots are still being found some 25 miles from the Daiichi reactors, rendering the area uninhabitable and prohibiting over 90,000 people who lived in the area from returning to their homes.

Read More:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Fukushima-and-the-Age-of-D-by-Abby-Luby-120312-367.html

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

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

3/11: Japan Marks Anniversary of Meltdowns, Tsunami in Day of Mourning, Protest

On the first-year anniversary of the Fukushima tsunami disaster people gathered in Japan and around the world for a day of mourning and protest.

Agence France-Pressereports:

Japan fell silent on Sunday to honour the 19,000 people killed a year ago when a huge earthquake sent a tsunami barreling into the coast, sparking a nuclear crisis at Fukushima.

Tearful families gathered in the still shell-shocked towns and villages across the country's northeast to remember those lost when the towering tsunami smashed ashore.

Read More:

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/03/11

UCS - Nuclear Regulatory Commission Needs a More Comprehensive Approach to Post-Fukushima Nuclear Safety, Report Finds

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is jeopardizing reform by failing to heed its post-Fukushima task force’s top recommendation to clarify its “patchwork” of regulations for “beyond-design-basis” events that reactors are not intended to withstand, according to a report released today by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). The report, “U.S. Nuclear Power Safety One Year After Fukushima,” also found that the nuclear industry is moving ahead with its own post-Fukushima initiative before the NRC has had time to determine whether it will adequately protect the public.

“The NRC has put the cart before the horse by not addressing its task force’s primary recommendation before doing anything else,” said Dave Lochbaum, director of the UCS Nuclear Safety Program. “By putting it off, the agency has potentially undermined the effectiveness of the other recommendations, which all hinge on this critical issue.”

For example, one of the other task force recommendations called on the NRC to require plant owners to implement measures enabling workers to better cope with a loss of off-site and on-site emergency backup electric power—a “station blackout.” The precedent comes from the NRC’s post-9/11 requirement that plant owners install portable diesel-fueled pumps and generators to protect their facilities from a prolonged station blackout caused by an aircraft attack. However, because the NRC defines an aircraft attack as a beyond-design-basis event, it did not require this equipment to meet high quality and reliability standards or be hardened to withstand other potential events, such as natural disasters. Indeed, post-Fukushima inspections have confirmed that at many plants some of the equipment would not survive earthquakes or floods.

Read More:

http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/nrc-needs-a-more.html

Cindy Folkers - The Demonic Reality of Fukushima

In the days following the March 11, 2011 beginning of the Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe, chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano repeatedly reassured the Japanese public, news media, and world community that there was “no immediate health risk” from mounting radioactive releases from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. His choice of words was very similar to the U.S. nuclear power establishment’s during the Three Mile Island melt down of 1979, as captured by Rosalie Bertell’s classic anti-nuclear primer No Immediate Danger? Prognosis for a Radioactive Earth.

However, as the New York Times revealed Monday, Edano and his colleagues at the highest levels of the Japanese federal government were actually worried about a worst-case scenario, a “demonic chain reaction” of atomic reactor meltdowns spreading catastrophic amounts of deadly radioactivity from the three operating units at Fukushima Daiichi (as well as multiple high-level radioactive waste storage pools there), to the four operating reactors and pools at Fukushima Daini (just 7 miles south, which itself avoided catastrophe thanks to a single surviving offsite power line; several offsite power lines were lost to the earthquake, and all diesel generators were lost to the tsunami), to the operating reactor and pool at Tokai (much closer to Tokyo). Regarding such a nightmare scenario, eerily similar to what Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa depicted in Dreams, the New York Times reported:

Read More:

HTTP://WWW.COUNTERPUNCH.ORG/2012/03/02/THE-DEMONIC-REALITY-OF-FUKUSHIMA/

John LaForge - Fukushima's Owner Adds Insult to Injury - Claims Radioactive Fallout Isn't Theirs

In the amoral milieu of the corporate bottom line, you can't blame Tokyo Electric Power Co. for trying.

Tepco owns the six-reactor Fukushima complex that was wrecked by Japan's March 11 earthquake and smashed by the resulting tsunami. It faces more than $350 billion in compensation and clean-up costs, as well as likely prosecution for withholding crucial information that may have prevented some radiation exposures and for operating the giant station after being warned about the inadequacy of its protections against disasters.

So, when the company was hauled into Tokyo District Court October 31 by the Sunfield Golf Club, which was demanding decontamination of the golf course, Tepco lawyers tried something novel. They claimed the company isn't liable because it no longer "owned" the radioactive poisons that were spewed from its destroyed reactors.

Read More:

http://www.truth-out.org/fukushimas-owner-adds-insult-injury/1325868945

P K Sundaram - A Fresh Indo-US Deal, To Subvert The Nuclear Liability Act

The United States and India have formed a Joint Working Group tasked to find ways for the US corporates to avoid nuclear liability in case of an accident. It is deeply disturbing to see the two countries, that are never tired of boasting their democratic credentials, blatantly undermining the constitutionally mandated suppliers liability provision for the nuclear companies.This is the third such attempt to get away with the liability clause. The first such attempt was made during legislating the Nuclear Liability Act in 2010. The government’s attempts to omit the supplier’s liability were exposed and resisted by sustained public pressure in and outside the parliament. Again in November 2011, while formulating the Rules to supplement this Act of the parliament, the government limited supplier’s liability to a “product liability period” of mere 5 years ! India’s eminent jurist Soli Sorabjee has called this move ultra vires and constitutionally invalid.

Not only the US, even Russia has refused to abide by any liability mechanism. In fact, the contention on nuclear liability was a key reason why the agreement for Koodankulam 3 & 4 reactors could not be inked during the Indian PM’s recent Russia visit. While the US keeps reminding of engineering the 2008 NSG exemption for India and, Russia has even tacitly offered to ease the impasse over the supplies of Enrichment and Reprocessing (ENR) technologies for India. France is also reported to have expressed strong reservations over the suppliers’ liability provisions.

Read More:

http://www.dianuke.org/now-a-fresh-indo-us-deal-to-subvert-the-nuclear-liability-act/