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Page added on May 2, 2012
Fukushima still spewing massive radiation plumes; America in ‘huge trouble,’ says nuclear expert
During a recent Congressional delegation trip to Japan, Oregon Senator Ron Wyden witnessed with his own eyes the horrific aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, which we have heard very little about from the media in recent months. The damage situation was apparently so severe, according to his account, that he has now written a letter to Ichiro Fujisaki, Ambassador of Japan, petitioning for more to be done, and offering any additional support and assistance that might help contain and resolve the situation as quickly as possible.
The letter, which many experts see as the ominous writing on the wall for the grave severity of the circumstances, offers a disturbing glimpse into what is really going on across the Pacific Ocean that the mainstream media is apparently ignoring. While referencing the fact that all four of the affected reactors are still “badly damaged,” Sen. Wyden seems to hint in his letter that Reactor 4, which has reportedly been on the verge of collapse for many months now, could be nearing catastrophic implosion.
Imminent collapse of Reactor 4 could create a mass extinction event of both humans and animals
According to Christina Consolo, an award-winning biomedical photographer and host of Nuked Radio, Reactor 4 has remained in such bad shape that even a very small earthquake could quickly level the building, sending the fuel from more than 1,500 unused fuel rods into the environment. And with Reactor 4 still filled with the highest levels of radioactive MOX and other fuels, the consequences of this potential collapse could be far worse than anything that has happened thus far as a result of the earthquake and tsunami.
“[S]itting at the top of [Reactor 4], in a pool that is cracked, leaking, and precarious even without an earthquake, are 1,565 fuel rods (give or take a few), some of them ‘fresh fuel’ that was ready to go into the reactor on the morning of March 11 when the earthquake and tsunami hit,” writes Consolo. “If they are MOX fuel, containing six percent plutonium, one fuel rod has the potential to kill 2.89 billion people.”
Sen. Wyden is also asking U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Gregory Jaczko to assess how much additional assistance their agencies might be willing to provide to help Japan, and the entire world, avoid a nuclear catastrophe of Biblical proportions.
“The scope of damage to the plants and to the surrounding area was far beyond what I expected and the scope of the challenges to the utility owner, the government of Japan, and to the people of the region are daunting,” wrote Sen. Wyden in his letter, dated April 16, 2012. “The precarious status of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear units and the risk presented by the enormous inventory of radioactive materials and spent fuel in the event of further earthquake threats should be of concern to all and a focus of greater international support and assistance.”
13 Comments on "Fukushima still spewing massive radiation plumes; America in ‘huge trouble,’ says nuclear expert"
EnergyUnlimited on Wed, 2nd May 2012 7:00 am
“If they are MOX fuel, containing six percent plutonium, one fuel rod has the potential to kill 2.89 billion people.”
Presumably someone will pick a fuel road, dissolve it in acid and go around 2.89 billions of peoples with syringe to inject each one with a lethal dose.
Scaremongering in its worst.
KC82 on Wed, 2nd May 2012 10:09 am
This article is degrading the status of the website.
many things have the potential to kill. that doesn’t mean it will happen.
By what mechanism will this mass extinction take place?
The radiation has to be distributed. A single point source will not cause mass global extinction. The radiation itself will not travel far. So the source of the radiation (the fuel rod) must be distributed. This mechanisms is not mentioned in the article so this is indeed Fear Mongering.
BillT on Wed, 2nd May 2012 10:42 am
Actually, nuclear pimp, the rods only have to melt down, burn and send the resulting dose of radiation into the jet stream which will then carry it all around the world in a matter of days.
ALL nuclear reactors should be shut down and the fuel rods properly contained, but the profiteers…er…nuclear industry is sitting on the news so that this is not demanded by the public.
The government stopped reporting the levels to the public when they exceeded the safe levels last year. As a result, no one knows how much they are ingesting with every breath or bite of food or glass of milk.
dsula on Wed, 2nd May 2012 11:08 am
There are too many people anyways, the more are gone, the sooner, the better.
Norm on Wed, 2nd May 2012 11:16 am
Yeah, the first poster is a nuclear pimp, agree. Yeah the media is wayyy too silent. I do wonder about ‘scaremongering’ since any physics dep’t on the West Coast (i.e. U of Wa) could tell us if there’s excess radiation. I therefore presume there isn’t. Meanwhile the cracked precarious leaking fuel pool is something to be very scared of. The rods should be removed from it, but no progress is made. Real nuclear power would not be in a geometry that causes the solid rod to become ‘waste’ after using 1% of its energy content. Fukushima also proves that standard fuel rod reactors are a scam. A ‘real’ nuclear power system would be setup as a breeder, or as liquid fuel (so the fuel is being pumped thru the pipes) then its easier to reprocess. Then you wouldn’t have mountains of waste fuel rods waiting to poison us all after using only 1% of their energy content. Since nothing makes any sense anymore, and the Mitt Romney’s are going to rule the Earth then who cares anyway. Everything is now irrelevant now that society has been wrecked. Who cares if they burn up the fuel pool then. Irrelevant cause society is already in tatters.
Peak Oil Survival on Wed, 2nd May 2012 11:21 am
…and all it took was a photographer to warn the world.
Freddy on Wed, 2nd May 2012 11:54 am
Scaremongering at its worst… i think the nuke industry must start suing bs artist like Gundersen and others.
KingM on Wed, 2nd May 2012 1:37 pm
This article is crap and not based on science or logic. We’ve got enough to worry about without silly stuff like this.
Cabra1080 on Wed, 2nd May 2012 2:43 pm
Why are they letting 1,565 fuel rods just sit there and go to waste? Why not use them at another nuclear facility or sell them to another power company that can use these type rods? If they have been damaged then get them reprocessed. Hey, these things are expensive!!!
BillT on Wed, 2nd May 2012 3:08 pm
“… Reactor No. 4, which no longer has any water cooling the material, contains approximately 135 tons of fresh fuel that’s accelerating toward catastrophic meltdown.
The total amount of material including unused fuel and nuclear waste is upwards of 4,277 tons of nuclear material at Fukushima, or 20 times the material in Chernobyl when it went decidedly Hindenburg.
Regardless of the media’s desire to generate ratings, they’ve shown a remarkable acumen for not comprehending unintended consequences. Their coverage of the Trayvon Martin situation and Rodney King’s attacker’s trial inflamed tenuous situations.
In the case of Fukushima, this situation could literally destroy all life on Earth, and yet a Google News search turns up one story by CBS on the radioactivity in nearby towns rendering them uninhabitable for the next decade, while literally every other source covering the situation is new media.
Once it became known radiation was spreading from the facility, the Japanese government repeatedly increased the levels at which human health is at risk as if radiation poisoning is determined by arbitrary guidelines. Radiation has been detected over the west coast of the U.S….”
http://www.collegian.com/index.php/article/2012/04/public_deserves_to_be_informed_of_looming_fukushima_disaster_and_ron_pauls_delegate_success
“… Experts say the areas inside the evacuation zone will have to remain uninhabited throughout the years of contamination. All collected soil and other waste will be stored in the Fukushima Prefecture, in an “interim facility” with an estimated capacity of up to 28 million cubic meters.
Despite official information, some reports suggest the Japanese government is seriously downplaying the real amount of radioactive substances that leaked from Fukushima. Radioactive emissions from the crippled nuclear power plant may be five times higher than the numbers released by the authorities.
The Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics journal published a report that suggests the figures of radiation released into the atmosphere could be underestimated by almost 80 per cent. The report says only 19 per cent of radioactive cesium-137 fell on Japanese soil, while the remaining amount ended up in the Pacific Ocean. Only some two per cent of cesium is believed to have reached foreign lands…”
http://rt.com/news/fukushima-emission-consequences-report-075/
“…Some say the problem is compounded by government propaganda accentuating the benefits while neglecting to inform about the dangers of nuclear waste.
“The first thing the government should do is let the citizens know the real cost of nuclear energy. Until now the priority has been to profit from energy. The PR machine of the government has been emphasizing the benefit of nuclear energy and the citizens have been brainwashed to believe in it,” ecological economist Yoshihiko Wada said.
Now in the wake of an international crisis, there are allegations that the government and the power companies have worked out a deal to help each other, and that the media has been bought off.
“The TV channels need the money from advertisements and the nuclear energy companies pay a lot off. Without this money they cannot survive, and for that reason they have shut up about the situation. The newspapers have this problem as well,” says Hiroaki Idaka.
If true, such a policy keeps the important information hidden from the people, saving face for those in charge…”
http://rt.com/news/japanese-government-people-radiation/
“…TEPCO, the bailed out owner of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, is trying to shove rate increases of 17% down the throats of its commercial customers—while rationing power at the same time. Power shortages will spread across most of Japan this summer as the last of 54 nuclear power plants will be taken off line in a few weeks. While pressure is building to restart some of them, public distrust and resistance run high, particularly after revelations seeped out about the nuclear industry’s controlling relationship with its regulators. Japan Inc. at work. The conspiracy had squashed stiffer regulations for nuclear emergencies. Five years later, the people of Fukushima paid the price. For that fiasco, the emails that documented it, its deadly and ongoing impact, and the anger it caused, read…”
http://www.testosteronepit.com/home/2012/4/2/a-new-beginning-in-japan-glimmers-of-false-hope.html
How does one get news when it is controlled by the giant corporations that sell nuclear plants and use them to produce nuclear materials for bombs, for profit? You pick up bits and pieces from many sources OUTSIDE the western countries. What I read tells me that it is not over and if there is one more large quake there, the world will not be able to ignore it. As quakes happen there frequently, I suspect we will hear more about Fukushima before long.
Kenz300 on Wed, 2nd May 2012 5:25 pm
TEPCO is bankrupt and will soon be taken over by the government. I wonder how much the lack of finances of TEPCO have been a factor in the delay in dealing with the spent fuel rod pools. This disaster is took place over a year ago and there still is no end in sight. The taxpayers of Japan will be paying for their nuclear disaster FOREVER. Nuclear energy is too dangerous and too costly.
Newfie on Wed, 2nd May 2012 8:10 pm
Storing spent fuels rods in a pool of water on top of the nuclear reactor. Brilliant. Industrial civilization seems determined to destroy itself.
Dr.M.R.Iyer on Thu, 3rd May 2012 2:08 pm
“Presumably someone will pick a fuel road, dissolve it in acid and go around 2.89 billions of peoples with syringe to inject each one with a lethal dose.”
The most appropriate remark! I would suggest the Senator to add all the plutonium that is stockpiled in US (could add all the chemicals as well) and imagine that would be injected into every world citizen then we have somewhat a more graphic description!!