Page 11 of 55 FirstFirst ... 78910111213141521 ... LastLast
Results 101 to 110 of 541
Like Tree29Likes

Thread: WHY IS'NT MSM REPORTING ON THE escalating DANGERS of Radiation, UPDATED


Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

  1. #101
    April
    Guest
    Thanks Kathyet!

  2. #102
    April
    Guest
    Gundersen: U.S. gov’t buying 14 Million potassium iodide pills used during nuclear disasters — “I don’t know why they placed this big order right now” (AUDIO)

    Published: January 12th, 2014 at 1:16 am ET




    Waiodide here

    Nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Energy Education, Jan. 6, 2014 (1:39:15): I don’t know why the government is buying 14 million KI tablets […] The United States has bought a large order — 14 million pills — but the interesting part about this is that the iodine from Fukushima Daiichi is gone. It decays away — in less than 90 days, there is no more radioactive iodine left. So the question is why are the buying pills now? Are they going to stock pile them for another nuclear accident, another nuclear bomb explosion? […] The pill doesn’t protect you from depleted uranium, it doesn’t protect you from cesium, or anything. The pills that the government is buying is just to protect you from radioactive iodine. When a nuclear plant shuts down, within 90 days there’s no iodine left. So, I don’t think they’re buying them for Fukushima Daiichi, but I don’t know why they placed this big order right now.
    Soon after 3/11 we provided Japan with 15 million potassium iodide pills:

    Full Gundersen interview for Coast subscribers here — For now it’s back up on YouTube here

    http://enenews.com/gundersen-govt-bu...ig-order-audio

  3. #103
    April
    Guest


    Published on Jan 11, 2014
    See Top 10 Fukushima Expert Quotes @ http://CVMCo.WordPress.com
    2014:"Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Threatens USA Coast To Coast Fukushima Style USA Nuclear Crisis" Compliments Of *General Electric, Dwarfs Chernobyl & 3 Mile Island COMBINED^ http://how.to.survive.radiation.infol...

    Three nuclear energy experts (Scott Portzline, Arnie Gundersen, and Kevin Kamps) in separate hours, discussed the status of the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, the cover-ups of scientific data, as well as general issues about nuclear power, and nuclear waste. Last week there was a spate of false reports about Fukushima's Unit 3 having new radiation plumes of steam coming from it, and that people living on the West Coast should prepare to evacuate, Portzline detailed. While this was a hoax, the climate of uncertainty around Fukushima has been created by the lack of truth from TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company), as well as the US government, and the International Atomic Energy Agency, he commented. "In my opinion, Fukushima is a level 8 on the international nuclear event scale, (the levels normally only go up to 7)," as there are multiple sources of radiation, and the situation requires international assistance and monitoring, Portzline continued...See Top 10 Fukushima Expert Quotes @ http://CVMCo.WordPress.com

    More Videos By CVMCo.
    [2014 Top 10 Fukushima Experts]
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mn8X...
    [FUKUSHIMA UPDATE] Nov/2013...
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoEK-...
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M60Zd...
    [NUCLEAR NEWS]
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVMtk...
    [Solar Storms]
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVe8I...
    [PUBLIC WARNING]
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2_8k...
    [EMP]
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d2_-...
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OIs6...
    [HISTORY]
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4Pz1...

    http://how.to.survive.radiation.infol...

  4. #104
    Banned
    Join Date
    Jun 2013
    Posts
    8,546
    Jan 6

    America Tonight

    Inside Fukushima’s ghost towns



    Will Japan's 'nuclear refugees' ever be able to go home? (part one)


    video at link below!!

    An abandoned intersection in the town of Namie, inside the Fukushima disaster exclusion zone. America Tonight
    Watch part two of this report and tune in all this week for America Tonight’s four-part investigative series about Fukushima's continuing fallout.
    Masami Yoshizawa is a lifelong rancher. His cattle and farm, nestled in the Japanese town of Namie, are his life.
    So when a major earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 led to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster just a few miles away from his farm, he had to decide whether to obey the government’s evacuation orders and leave his cattle. He decided to stay.
    “I had 330 cows to care for. I couldn’t flee,” he said.
    In the days that followed, the situation grew more dangerous. On March 15, explosions at Reactor 2 and Reactor 4 blanketed Masami’s farm and wide areas of Fukushima prefecture with cesium and other radioactive particles. But after seeing other farms abandoned, Masami still could not bring himself to leave.
    “I heard animals crying out. … Wherever I looked were scenes from a living hell,” he remembered. “I couldn’t do the same thing to my own cattle.”
    After testing positive for internal exposure to cesium 134 and 137, Masami has undergone careful monitoring at a radiation research hospital. His levels have since dropped.
    “Of course I was worried,” he said about his radiation exposure. “But I am not going to get hysterical or have a mental breakdown from it.”
    Masami is an exception. Most people in the area heeded the evacuation orders, fleeing in waves and leaving ghost towns in their wake. Almost three years later, tens of thousands of former Fukushima residents have yet to return.




    Frozen in time



    An elementary school in Namie city is left frozen in time, with writing still on the chalkboards.America Tonight

    An empty street in the city of Namie. America Tonight
    Leading up to the third anniversary of the nuclear disaster, America Tonight journeyed to the affected areas, which are separated into zones of higher and lower radiation risk. In the hardest-hit area, known as the “exclusion zone,” the streets remain virtually empty, eerily silent and frozen in time at the moment residents fled the quaking earth and incoming sea. The garbage and debris that litter the area defy the kempt and pristine neighborhoods for which Japan is famous.
    Residents can visit parts of the exclusion zone, like the city of Namie, but only for brief durations during the day to pick up important belongings.
    Outside the exclusion zone, some residents – mainly older ones – have returned. Parents with children are the least likely to return.
    Though many who fled in 2011 expected to return once the dust settled and the waters receded, even longtime residents have stayed away – afraid of what many call the “invisible enemy” that haunts hundreds of square miles around Fukushima Daiichi.




    "When our population dropped to 10,000, there wasn’t a soul in the streets. That’s when I wondered what would become of us."
    Katsunobu Sakurai
    Mayor of Minamisōma



    Estimates about how many “nuclear refugees” are scattered across the country range from 40,000 to more than 80,000. Many live in cramped temporary shelters and collect modest monthly compensation from the government as they wait for news about their towns.
    Katsunobu Sakurai, the mayor of Minamisōma, one of the affected cities, is trying to convince displaced residents to return. Before the disaster, 71,000 people lived there. “When our population dropped to 10,000, there wasn’t a soul in the streets,” he said. “That’s when I wondered what would become of us.”
    But Katsunobu, who said he never once considered leaving, believes no good comes from agonizing over the past. “I just focused on how to move the city forward into the future.”
    The mayor devoted himself to making sure the city had a future. His quest to rebuild his town has been helped by a massive, government-led effort to decontaminate Fukushima prefecture.

    A never-ending process



    Workers in the city of Minami Soma decontaminate an area by replacing the topsoil. America Tonight

    Decontamination after a nuclear disaster is not a simple process.
    To reduce the radiation, all of the topsoil must be scraped away and eventually replaced, with the collected soil then dumped at hundreds of sites around Fukushima. Contaminated shrubs must be pruned. Trees are cut down. Roofs are washed. The process is repeated until radiation levels decrease. The cost is about $10,000 per house.
    But because rain can bring contaminants down from mountains into areas where soil has already been removed, decontaminated areas can easily become re-contaminated, leaving cleanup crews feeling like the work is never complete.

    A worker collects contaminated debris in the city of Minami Soma. America Tonight
    In the past, the government issued estimates for how long it could take to decontaminate the 11 evacuated towns, but after falling behind schedule in eight of them, it no longer sets projections for completion.
    The government is helping to pay for the costs of the multi-billion-dollar decontamination efforts by selling shares of Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the operator of the ruined, ruinous plant.
    For Katsunobu, convincing his city’s residents that it is safe to return has been a tough sell. Despite decontamination efforts, radiation remained high in many parts, and a third of the population has yet to return to Minamisōma. Many remain skeptical that the government’s plan will actually work, distrustful of its promises.
    Even Masami, one of the few who made the decision to stay, doubts that residents will return to Namie. “How do you change this most contaminated area into towns where people can live?” he asked. “Our towns have turned into Chernobyl. … And if people return, what will they do? They won’t return.”




    ‘Nuclear divorce’



    Kaori Saito, who divorced her husband after he refused to leave Fukushima city, plays with her two sons in a park by their new home in Matsumoto city.America Tonight

    For those with a choice, deciding whether or not to return can take its toll.
    Kaori Saito was living in Fukushima city with her husband and two young children when the government ordered everyone inside after the explosions at Fukushima Daiichi.
    After they were allowed outside, she continued worrying about radiation, and about her children. “I think [my husband] believed I was overreacting,” she said.
    Though the government maintained Fukushima city was safe to live in, she did not buy it. “I heard, but didn’t believe it,” she said. “My youngest son had blood in his urine and stool… He kept catching colds ... and had a cough. But when I took him to a doctor, he told me there was no link to radiation. All the doctors there said that.”
    She constantly bathed her children, washed their clothes and traveled outside of Fukushima whenever possible. When her husband ignored her fears and refused to leave Fukushima, the strain was unbearable. She filed for divorce. Though there are no statistics, it is a kind of marital discord so common these days that the Japanese have a name for it: genpatsu rikon, or “nuclear divorce.”

    Share Will Japan's 'nuclear refugees' ever be able to go home? (part two)






    “My youngest son had blood in his urine and stool… But when I took him to a doctor, he told me there was no link to radiation. All the doctors there said that.”
    Kaori Saito



    “I felt like that if I stayed with him, I wouldn’t be able to keep my children from harm, and that’s how I got here,” she said of Matsumoto city, far from Fukushima’s radiation worries, where she now lives.
    Fukushima’s psychological trauma affects more than just marriages: In late 2012, a report from Japan’s education ministry showed that children from Fukushima topped national obesity rankings in multiple age groups for the first time. Among some age groups, the obesity rates were double the numbers from 2010. The change, the report found, could in part be attributed to a lack of exercise, as parents and schools kept children indoors in fear of radiation exposure.
    Another product of the trauma is one that few will openly discuss: the social stigma some in Japanese society harbor against people from Fukushima. Stories circulate about people from the area being rejected from giving blood, being asked to provide radiation level reports when applying for jobs and women being perceived as “damaged goods” when it comes to childbirth. Though no one has died directly as a result of the nuclear disaster, its harmful effects are wide-reaching.
    Kaori said she does not know if splitting the family was the right choice, but she is enormously relieved that she no longer has to worry about how radiation might be affecting her children. “The best thing about being here is seeing my children outside playing and laughing,” she said.
    When asked if she believed Fukushima city would ever be a safe place to live again, her pessimism was palpable. “Not in my lifetime. Not the same Fukushima that existed before… where you could eat the food without worry, where you could drink the water from the river. That would be wonderful. Someday.”
    Tune in Tuesday, Jan. 7, for part two of America Tonight’s Return to Fukushima series: Gangsters and slugs – the people cleaning up Fukushima.



    http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/s...d106-314931469

  5. #105
    Banned
    Join Date
    Jun 2013
    Posts
    8,546
    Jan 10

    America Tonight
    5 interesting facts about the post-Fukushima nuclear world

    by The America Tonight Digital Team















    A piece of wall art from The Abode of Chaos, a contemporary art museum in Lyon, France.Thierry Ehrmann/Flickr

    As soon as World War II came to a close, the world fantasized of harnessing the inferno of nuclear power for peaceful, useful means. The first reactors sprung up in the 1950s, and the quest for commercial nuclear technology took on the frenzied urgency of a Soviet arms race. The 1973 oil crisis further buoyed the idea of nuclear power as the homegrown energy of the future.
    But since its inception, commercial nuclear power has also provoked a kind of blood-curdling dread, and countries embraced the vision of a nuclear future to very different degrees. The 2011 catastrophe in Fukushima confirmed, once again, the nightmarish potential of nuclear power, and refigured the debate about nuclear across the globe. Is nuclear power a critical part of our energy future? Or a Cold War-flirtation bound for the history books? Here are some facts you may not know about the post-Fukushima nuclear world:

    Japan planned to get 60 percent of its energy from nuclear sources by 2100


    Anti-nuclear protests have dwindled in Japan since Fukushima.

    With few natural resources of its own, Japan was one of the most enthusiastic adopters of nuclear energy. Before Fukushima, Japan was the world’s third largest producer of nuclear power, with its reactors generating around 30 percent of the country’s electricity. The government’s goal was to cut carbon dioxide emissions by more than half between 2000 and 2050, and by 90 percent by 2100, thanks largely to an expansion in nuclear. Then, Fukushima happened. Japan shut down all 54 of its nuclear reactors -- later restarting two of them -- massively increased its oil and gas imports, resulting in a record trade deficit, and slashed its CO2 targets. Now, Japan is now the world’s second largest importer of fossil fuels after China, sparking a national debate over whether to restart its reactors.

    Germany aims to shut down all its nuclear plants in the next eight years


    A 2011 anti-nuclear protest in Cologne, western Germany. AP/Roberto Pfeil

    Other than Japan, no country was jolted as much by Fukushima as Germany. Europe’s largest economy has long been skeptical of nuclear power. It had a strong anti-nuclear power movement even before the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown blanketed large swaths of the country with radiation. Poll after poll has shown that Germans are frightened by nuclear power’s risks and optimistic about renewable alternatives. A phase-out was proposed in the late 1990s, and when Chancellor Angela Merkel shifted back towards nuclear power in 2010, the backlash was enormous and, at times, violent. A couple months after Fukushima, Merkel declared that Germany would shut down all 17 of its nuclear power plants by 2022.

    The average nuclear power plant in the U.S. is 33 years old

    A comic book cover from 1976. Leonard Rifas
    Americans weren’t rattled too much by Fukushima. Fifty-seven percent approve of the use of nuclear power to provide electricity, according to a 2012 Gallup poll, the same as before Japan's nuclear disaster. But that doesn’t mean we’re in a nuclear power-building boom. While the U.S. is still the world’s largest supplier of nuclear energy, its technology is vintage. Of the 100 reactors now operating in the U.S., all began construction in or before 1977.
    Nuclear reactors turned out to be not so economically viable. By the end of the 1970s, more than 120 nuclear reactor orders were cancelled, and between 1989 and 1998, 12 commercial reactors closed. In 1985, Forbes magazine declared that America’s nuclear program ranked as “the largest managerial disaster in business history.” But even with the fresh memory of Fukushima, there’s new optimism about nuclear power. Just a year after the disaster, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted the first license to build new nuclear reactors since 1978.




    A quarter of New York City's electricity comes from nuclear power


    Gregory Jaczko, then-chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, talks with protesters outside the gate of the Indian Point Energy Center.Seth Wenig/AP

    Sitting on the Hudson River and less than 50 miles away from New York City, the Indian Point Energy Center produces 25 percent of the electricity for New York City and Westchester County. A variety of incidents in the last 20 years earned the Buchanan, N.Y.-based facility the title of one of the nation’s “worst nuclear power plants,” and energy consultants and experts have wondered aloud in the whether Indian Point could be the next Fukushima Daiichi. Now, Entergy Corp., the second biggest U.S. nuclear operator, is applying for a 20-year license renewal for Indian Point, and expects it to earn it within the next four years. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been a firm opponent of Indian Point, saying that the plant should be shut down, citing the risk in having to evacuate 20 million residents in the New York metropolitan area in the event of an accident. Former New York Mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg, on the other hand, have called Indian Point a vital part of the city. Giuliani’s lobbying firm, Bracewell & Giuliani, was even hired by Entergy to promote Indian Point. “When you compare the risk to what it brings back, 25 percent of the electricity, it seems to me the idea of closing it would be a catastrophe for New York City,” Giuliani said in 2012.

    Three quarters of France’s electricity comes from nuclear power

    More than any other country, France has thrown its chips in with nuclear. It’s the nation’s primary source of energy, and three quarters of the electricity coursing through French homes is born of sizzling radioactive uranium. In fact, France’s extraordinary investment in nuclear has made it the world’s largest net exporter of electricity. After Fukushima, then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced an audit of the country’s nuclear plants, but was unequivocal about the future of nuclear power. Ending nuclear power in France, he said, was “out of the question.” Politicians and the nuclear industry are also more than cozy in France. Électricité de France, the utility that operates all 58 of the country’s reactors, is 80 percent owned by the French government.

    We're likely a decade away from the "mini-nuke"


    Jose N. Reyes, co-founder and CEO of NuScale, one of the U.S. companies hoping to develop a miniature nuclear reactor.AP Photo/The Oregonian, Bruce Ely

    Following Fukushima, a bevy of ideas have been tossed around to help figure out the future of nuclear power technology. The concept that's garnered the most excitement is a reactor that's small enough so that its core can cool on its own -- insurance against a Fukushima-like accident. "The goal was simplicity," Jose N. Reyes, a co-founder and CEO of NuScale Power in Corvallis, Ore., told the New York Times last year. Even though the technology is likely still a decade away, Fluor, an engineering company specializing in power plants, has already invested close to $150 million in NuScale. Similar projects are popping up nationwide, but there remains concern about whether these miniature reactors bring with them a whole host of new risk factors. "My feeling is that if you're going to have a nuclear power plant, it'd better be a Rolls Royce," nuclear physicist Ed Lyman told NPR last year. "Nuclear power is a technology which is much more suited for large plants, centralized and isolated from populated areas in as small a number of places as possible."





    http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/america-tonight/america-tonight-blog/2014/1/10/fukushima-nuclearfuture.html


  6. #106
    Banned
    Join Date
    Jun 2013
    Posts
    8,546
    Jan 8
    The faces of Fukushima's fallout

    by The America Tonight Digital Team













    For almost three years, Fukushima has been in the throes of an ongoing nuclear disaster. In March 2011, an 8.9-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami triggered one of the worst nuclear meltdowns the world has ever known, which then morphed into the most ambitious radiation cleanup in history. It has been an effort of extraordinary manpower, technical gymnastics, human heartbreak, political strife and mind-melting expense.
    The scale of it all is difficult to swallow. But America Tonight traveled to the region and met some of the individuals who are most affected by, and affecting, the aftermath. Meet the people fighting to rebuild, the workers decontaminating the land, the families too terrified to return home, the advocates chanting “never again” and the people who have profited off it all.

    The ones who left



    America Tonight

    Kaori Saito lived in Fukushima city with her husband and two young children. After the disaster at Fukushima Daiichi, the government ordered people closest to the plant to evacuate and others just outside of that zone to stay inside. When her husband ignored refused to leave Fukushima, she filed for divorce. This type of marital discord is now so common that the Japanese call it “Genpatsu rikon,” or nuclear divorce.


    America Tonight

    Kaori constantly bathed her children, washed their clothes and took trips outside of Fukushima whenever possible. Divorcing her husband was difficult, she says. “I felt like that if I stayed with him, I wouldn’t be able to keep my children from harm,” says Kaori, who now lives in Matsumoto City, far from Fukushima, “and that’s how I got here.”


    America Tonight

    Tens of thousands who evacuated towns near the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant have yet to return home. These "nuclear refugees" are scattered throughout Japan, living in temporary facilities. One of those is Ichiro Kazawa, who fled his house when he saw the tide rushing out to sea – a sign of an incoming tsunami.


    America Tonight

    The tsunami destroyed Ichiro's home and forced him to live with and care for his mother. “I want to go home,” he said, “but I can’t because of fears of radiation from the nuclear accident."

    The ones who stayed



    America Tonight

    Masami Yoshizawa is an exception. When explosions at the Fukushima plant blanketed his farm with cesium and other radioactive particles, he chose not to obey the government’s evacuation orders and stayed in the town of Namie. “I had 330 cows to care for. I couldn't flee,” the lifelong cattle rancher told America Tonight.


    America Tonight

    After testing positive for internal exposure to cesium 134 and 137, Masami has undergone careful monitoring at a radiation research hospital. His levels have since dropped. “Of course I was worried,” he said about his exposure. “But I am not going to get hysterical or have a mental breakdown from it.”


    America Tonight

    Almost everyone in the town of Namie heeded the evacuation orders. Masami is one of the few people still living there today. Although he made the decision to stay, he doubts that many of his neighbors will return. “How do you change this most contaminated area into towns where people can live?” he asked. “Our towns have turned into Chernobyl. …And if people return, what will they do? They won’t return.”


    America Tonight

    Katsunobu Sakurai, the mayor of Minamisōma, one of the affected cities in Fukushima Prefecture, is trying to convince displaced residents to return. Before the disaster, 71,000 people lived there. “When our population dropped to 10,000, there wasn’t a soul in the streets,” he said. “That’s when I wondered what would become of us.”


    America Tonight

    But Katsunobu, who said he never considered leaving, believes no good comes from agonizing over the past. “I just focused on how to move the city forward into the future.” The mayor devoted himself to making sure the city had a future. His quest to rebuild his town has been helped by a massive, government-led effort to decontaminate the prefecture.


    America Tonight

    For Katsunobu, convincing his city’s residents that it is safe to return has been a tough sell. Despite decontamination efforts, radiation remained high in many parts, and a third of the population has yet to return to Minamisōma. Many remain skeptical that the government’s plan will actually work and are distrustful of its promises.

    The ones doing the dirty work




    There are about 50,000 itinerant laborers – or “nuclear gypsies” – doing the dirty work of decontamination. Most of them are subcontractors, unskilled and poorly paid. Many of these workers were lured into these undesirable jobs by the promise of a $100 a day extra in government-funded disaster pay, but the subcontracting company often pockets that money and charges extra for equipment and lodging. Once these workers reach their radiation limit for the year, they’re “thrown away.”

    The ones who are swindling



    Asahi Shimbun/AP

    The Japanese mafia, known as the Yakuza, is one of the largest criminal organizations in the world, and has craftily infiltrated the Fukushima cleanup industry. With hundreds of subcontractors that make it hard to monitor the money trail, most of the estimated 50 Yakuza gangs in Fukushima leapt to the task of recruiting workers – sometimes through unseemly means, like rounding up the homeless. They can then skim their wages, keep the profits and even violently retaliate against those who object.

    The ones stopping nuclear



    America Tonight

    Former Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s advisers were telling him that 50 million people might have to evacuate if the situation at Fukushima Daiichi further deteriorated. The nuclear disaster forced Japan’s then-prime minister to reconsider his stance on the energy source. After leaving office, he made it his mission to rid Japan of nuclear energy.


    America Tonight

    Four more former prime ministers joined Naoto's cause – and their mission has been successful so far. All of Japan’s nuclear reactors have been forced offline, but that has driven up energy prices. Paul Scalise, a University of Tokyo energy policy expert, says Japan’s national security is at stake and predicts that at least some of the nuclear reactors will come back online in the next few years.

    The ones backing nuclear



    America Tonight

    Japan’s nuclear industry has mounted a drive to bring their reactors back online. Current Prime Minister Shinzō Abe has joined forces with them, reversing the preceding administration’s efforts to rid the country of nuclear power by 2030.



    America Tonight

    “Based upon the lessons of the nuclear accident, we must create a new culture to improve safety,” the prime minister said. “And in addition, after making sure that it is safe, we must restart nuclear energy.” Abe is aggressively promoting Japanese technology abroad, recently signing agreements to sell nuclear reactors to Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and India.
    Tune into America Tonight’s four-part investigative series about Fukushima's continuing fallout, this week at 9 p.m. ET.




    http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/s...imaseries.html

  7. #107
    Banned
    Join Date
    Jun 2013
    Posts
    8,546
    videos at link below
    Jan 9

    Japan’s nuclear crossroads: Restart the reactors?

    by Michael Okwu @MichaelOkwu , Aaron Ernst @aaronernst











    Should Japan embrace nuclear power again? (part one)



    Watch part two of Michael Okwu's report and the other installments of our four-part investigative series about Fukushima's continuing fallout.
    Naoto Kan was staring down the prospect of Tokyo becoming a ghost town.
    Immediately after Japan was socked by the one-two punch of a major earthquake and a tsunami in March 2011, the prime minister’s advisers were telling him that almost a third of the country's population might need to evacuate.
    “I had experts simulate a worse-case scenario showing how far the accident could spread,” he told America Tonight though a translator. “If conditions were to deteriorate, there were 50 million people within a 250-kilometer radius of Fukushima Daiichi, all those people would have to evacuate.”
    As Japan’s nuclear nightmare began to unfold, Kan learned that the nuclear plant had lost all power and all cooling capabilities. Within days, three reactors at Fukushima had melted down and multiple hydrogen explosions ripped through the plant.
    People in Japan and around the world held their breaths as the disaster was slowly brought under control.
    “We were walking a knife’s edge, wondering whether the worst-case scenario would occur or not,” Kan said.

    A wrenching reversal


    With few natural resources of its own, Japan had been one of the most enthusiastic adopters of nuclear energy. At that moment, it was the world’s third largest producer of nuclear power, with its reactors generating around 30 percent of the country’s electricity. And Japan has made ambitious targets for its carbon dioxide emissions over the coming decades, based largely on a big expansion in its nuclear program. But that close call prompted the prime minister to suddenly reassess everything he believed about nuclear energy.
    “I came to believe that we should halt further operation of nuclear energy that entailed such huge risks,” Kan said.
    The human fallout from the nuclear accident also haunted Kan, as he met people from the disaster zone who had been forced to abandon their homes and livelihoods with no notice.
    “The majority of people were still far from where they used to live, their families were torn apart, and they were leading a very harsh life,” he said. “I felt that the biggest political responsibility for it all lay with me. We can’t have another nuclear accident. I came to believe that the only way to keep that from happening, is to get rid of nuclear energy itself.”

    Share Should Japan embrace nuclear power again? (part two)






    The economic reality


    Once an enthusiastic supporter of nuclear energy, former Japan Prime Minister Naoto Kan would later change his beliefs on the topic. America Tonight
    After leaving office later in 2011, Kan made it his mission to rid Japan of nuclear energy. Four other former prime ministers – including the influential Junichiro Koizumi – have since joined him. The political movement he helped build has forced all of Japan’s 50 reactors offline. Their success, however, has come at a price.
    “They went scrambling to replace [nuclear power] in order to avoid blackouts, and brownouts, by firing up coal, [liquid natural gas] and, to a lesser extent, oil-fired thermal plants,” said Paul Scalise, a Japanese energy policy expert at the University of Tokyo.
    The sudden shock of losing nuclear has driven up Japan’s electricity prices. Greenhouse gas emissions have spiked and the country has a trade deficit for the first time in decades, due to massive imports of fossil fuels.
    And such a surge in dependency on foreign fuel means there are national security questions to consider.
    “The national security reasons basically stem from Japan's over-reliance on fossil fuels, because it has no viable natural resources of its own to increase dealing with its economic demand for electric power,” Scalise said. “Consequently, the industry would like to see these reactors get online sooner rather than later. “
    But Japan’s nuclear industry has mounted a drive to revive its reactors. Current Prime Minister Shinzō Abe has joined forces with industry leaders in reversing the Kan administration’s efforts to phase out nuclear power by 2030.
    “Based upon the lessons of the nuclear accident, we must create a new culture to improve safety,” Abe said in a speech last year to Japan’s Parliament. “And in addition, after making sure that it is safe, we must restart nuclear energy.”
    Scalise thinks at least a few of Japan’s nuclear plants will come back online in the next two years as the economic pressures continue to mount.




    A local fight


    Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's support of nuclear has received pushback from local politicians. America Tonight
    Massive protests by an overwhelming anti-nuclear public have failed to sway Abe’s administration. So local politicians have taken up the fight.
    Niigata Prefecture is home to the world’s largest nuclear complex. Like the Fukushima plant, the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant is also overseen by the Tokyo Electric Power Company.
    Hirohiko Izumida, the governor of Niigata, has stymied TEPCO’s efforts to restart the plant’s seven idled reactors, saying the company has engaged in “institutional lying” about what it knew when during the Fukushima disaster.
    “TEPCO knew on March 12(2011) that fuel had melted down, but they continued to lie for almost two months,” he told America Tonight through a translator. “They haven’t made an accounting of the past. We first need to determine why they lied, and how to rectify the situation. If we don’t do that, I worry that another accident could happen again.”
    Izumida said Japan’s largest utility has to acknowledge mistakes made at Fukushima before he’ll let them restart the plant.
    “TEPCO needs to reflect upon the experience of the Fukushima accident, and come up with a policy based on that reflection,” he said.




    The future of nuclear


    After reaching deals to sell nuclear reactors to Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and India, Abe, right, has vested interests in nuclear power globally. America Tonight
    In spite of resistance from local leaders like Izumida, the size and power of anti-nuclear protests have dwindled in Japan.
    “Those who are against nuclear energy don’t speak up, so the anti-nuclear movement doesn’t increase,” Eiji Oga, a protester, told America Tonight.
    While nuclear power is on pause in Japan, vested interests have set their sights globally. Abe recently signed agreements to sell nuclear reactors to Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and India. And major manufacturers like Hitachi are vying for a share of the $1 trillion international market, as 370 new reactors are slated to be built by 2030.
    Japanese nuclear manufacturers received around $48 billion in international orders in 2012. New technology and reactor designs, they say, ensure that this time will be different.
    “We learned a lot from what happened,” Hitachi engineer Masahito Yoshimura told America Tonight, “and we applied what we think are the necessary countermeasures into our technology, so the technology is always improving to overcome any events that happened in the past.”





    Those who are against nuclear energy don’t speak up, so the anti-nuclear movement doesn't increase.
    Eiji Oga
    Protester against nuclear power



    But the push to restart nuclear energy comes too soon for people like Sato, a decontamination worker who was exposed to radiation yet saw his “danger pay” skimmed off by organized crime groups.
    “If they were truly sorry, why are they saying that they will restart the Kashiwazaki nuclear power plant?” he told America Tonight. “First they need to resolve the problems at Fukushima Daiichi.”
    The same goes for Masami Yoshizawa, the cattle rancher who risked radiation to stay in the hot zone with his cattle, which are now contaminated and unsellable.
    “Simply put, there is no hope for our village of Namie,” he said. “The government wants to take us back to the age of nuclear energy. They want to restart the reactors, export nuclear technology and put a lid on the Fukushima nuclear disaster.”
    For Kan, his successor’s administration is learning the wrong lesson from the tragedy of Fukushima.
    “Until 3/11, I felt the same way about nuclear energy that Prime Minister Abe does,” he said. “But since realizing that my way of thinking had been wrong, I no longer feel we should be selling nuclear energy either domestically or internationally.”
    He is confident that now is the time to transition to renewables.
    “Japan can supply sufficient energy without nuclear power,” he said. “Over half of Japanese citizens are demanding that, but whether or not that voice will be crushed will be decided in the next one or two years.”
    And Kan is confident about who will prevail.
    “I believe that in the not-so-distant future, Japan will stop using nuclear power,” he predicts. “I believe that to be true.”

    http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/s...ereactors.html



  8. #108
    Banned
    Join Date
    Jun 2013
    Posts
    8,546
    Monday, January 13, 2014

    Take 10 Minutes To Inform Yourself On The Fukushima Crisis

    Expert Helen Caldicott clearly explains...

    Jeff Roberts
    Activist Post

    The single most articulate and passionate advocate of citizen action to remedy the nuclear and environmental crises, Dr Helen Caldicott, has devoted the last forty two years to an international campaign to educate the public about the medical hazards of the nuclear age and the necessary changes in human behaviour needed to stop environmental destruction.

    Born in Melbourne, Australia in 1938, Dr. Caldicott received her medical degree from the University of Adelaide Medical School in 1961. She founded the Cystic Fibrosis Clinic at the Adelaide Children’s Hospital in 1975 and subsequently was an instructor in pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and on the staff of the Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Boston, Mass., until 1980 when she resigned to work full time on the prevention of nuclear war.

    In 1971, Dr Caldicott played a major role in Australia’s opposition to French atmospheric nuclear testing in the Pacific; in 1975 she worked with the Australian trade unions to educate their members about the medical dangers of the nuclear fuel cycle, with particular reference to uranium mining.

    Dr Caldicott has received many prizes and awards for her work, including the Lannan Foundation’s 2003 Prize for Cultural Freedom and twenty one honorary doctoral degrees. She was personally nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Linus Pauling – himself a Nobel Laureate. The Smithsonian has named Dr Caldicott as one of the most influential women of the 20th Century. She has written for numerous publications and has authored seven books. It’s undeniable, Caldicott knows what she’s talking about with regards to the nuclear crisis at hand.


    The video is from 2011, and it showcases Caldicott’s dire warning about the Fukushima disaster. Her speech presents the crisis in clear light, giving no sugar-coating to the current rug-swept topic.

    It’s time for us to stop denying our environmental and social responsibility. We cannot coin Fukushima information as “fear mongering” any longer. The message needs to get out to as many people as possible so that we can come together with a solution that, at the very least, slows any further damage from occurring.




    Source:
    http://www.helencaldicott.com/

    Jeff Roberts writes for Collective-Evolution, where this first appeared.

    http://www.activistpost.com/2014/01/...urself-on.html

  9. #109
    April
    Guest
    Fukushima Update: The Nuclear Disaster That Won't Go Away

    Sunday, 12 January 2014 10:35 By Beth Buczynski,
    Reporters wear personal protective gear while touring the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan, Nov. 7, 2013. (Photo: Tomohiro Ohsumi / Pool via The New York Times)
    When was the last time you heard an update about the Fukushima nuclear disaster on the evening news? Yeah, that’s what I thought. You might take the silence to mean that everything’s fine, but it’s not. In fact, if the little blips and pieces of news coming out of Japan are any indication, things are far from fine, and are getting worse by the second. Those of us in other countries, even on the other side of the world, may soon get our own taste of nuclear fallout.
    Imminent Meltdown?
    On New Year’s Day (nearly three years after the initial incident) operators of the Fukushima plant reported that “plumes of most probably radioactive steam” had been seen rising from the reactor 3 building. According to RT.com, “the Reactor 3 fuel storage pond still houses an estimated 89 tons of the plutonium-based MOX nuclear fuel composed of 514 fuel rods.” Unfortunately, high levels of radiation inside the building make it nearly impossible to determine the source of the mystery steam. Although TEPCO, the plant’s operator, claims there’s no increased danger (small comfort from the people who admitted to the world that they have no control over the situation), most agree that the plant is just seconds away from another disaster.
    Farmland Contamination

    <strong>



    Just a year after the nuclear disaster, Japanese farmers were allowed to return to their fields near the plant. This despite government estimates that it could take as long as 40 years to clean up the farmland around the Fukushima plant. Despite claims that the area has been cleaned up, the farmers themselves know that they’re simply growing food stuffs in contaminated soil. Although all farm produce must be checked for the cesium level prior to shipping (below 100 becquerel is considered “safe”), the farmers refuse to eat it themselves and are stricken with guilt over selling it to their countrymen.
    Seafood Industry Threatened
    Toward the end of last year, U.S. scientists and wildlife specialists officially became worried about Fukushima’s impact on the fishing industry. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s all one big ocean. If a massive amount of contamination is dumped into the ocean on one side of the world, rest assured it will eventually make it’s way to the other. We saw this with physical rubble from the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, and the same currents are bringing the invisible contaminants as well. Fish, especially salmon, must migrate through the radioactive plumes coming off Fukushima before being harvested on North American coasts. Some believe this represents an eventual health crisis, and that it’s no longer safe to eat fish from the Pacific Ocean
    Radiation in U.S. Snow and Beach Sand
    If you live in a landlocked state, you might think you’re safe from toxic fish and Fukushima fallout, but that’s not necessarily the case. Just days ago, snow falling in Missouri was found to contain double the normal radiation amount. No snow where you live? You’re not out of the clear yet. Early in the New Year, Infowars reported on a YouTube video that showed background radiation at a Coastside beach reaching over 150 micro-REM per hour. Health officials in San Mateo County confirmed the spike but remain ‘befuddled’ as to its cause.
    http://truth-out.org/news/item/21169-fukushima-update-the-nuclear-d...

  10. #110
    April
    Guest
    Fukushima Update: The Nuclear Disaster That Won't Go Away

    Sunday, 12 January 2014 10:35 By Beth Buczynski,
    Reporters wear personal protective gear while touring the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan, Nov. 7, 2013. (Photo: Tomohiro Ohsumi / Pool via The New York Times)
    When was the last time you heard an update about the Fukushima nuclear disaster on the evening news? Yeah, that’s what I thought. You might take the silence to mean that everything’s fine, but it’s not. In fact, if the little blips and pieces of news coming out of Japan are any indication, things are far from fine, and are getting worse by the second. Those of us in other countries, even on the other side of the world, may soon get our own taste of nuclear fallout.
    Imminent Meltdown?
    On New Year’s Day (nearly three years after the initial incident) operators of the Fukushima plant reported that “plumes of most probably radioactive steam” had been seen rising from the reactor 3 building. According to RT.com, “the Reactor 3 fuel storage pond still houses an estimated 89 tons of the plutonium-based MOX nuclear fuel composed of 514 fuel rods.” Unfortunately, high levels of radiation inside the building make it nearly impossible to determine the source of the mystery steam. Although TEPCO, the plant’s operator, claims there’s no increased danger (small comfort from the people who admitted to the world that they have no control over the situation), most agree that the plant is just seconds away from another disaster.
    Farmland Contamination

    <strong>



    Just a year after the nuclear disaster, Japanese farmers were allowed to return to their fields near the plant. This despite government estimates that it could take as long as 40 years to clean up the farmland around the Fukushima plant. Despite claims that the area has been cleaned up, the farmers themselves know that they’re simply growing food stuffs in contaminated soil. Although all farm produce must be checked for the cesium level prior to shipping (below 100 becquerel is considered “safe”), the farmers refuse to eat it themselves and are stricken with guilt over selling it to their countrymen.
    Seafood Industry Threatened
    Toward the end of last year, U.S. scientists and wildlife specialists officially became worried about Fukushima’s impact on the fishing industry. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s all one big ocean. If a massive amount of contamination is dumped into the ocean on one side of the world, rest assured it will eventually make it’s way to the other. We saw this with physical rubble from the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, and the same currents are bringing the invisible contaminants as well. Fish, especially salmon, must migrate through the radioactive plumes coming off Fukushima before being harvested on North American coasts. Some believe this represents an eventual health crisis, and that it’s no longer safe to eat fish from the Pacific Ocean
    Radiation in U.S. Snow and Beach Sand
    If you live in a landlocked state, you might think you’re safe from toxic fish and Fukushima fallout, but that’s not necessarily the case. Just days ago, snow falling in Missouri was found to contain double the normal radiation amount. No snow where you live? You’re not out of the clear yet. Early in the New Year, Infowars reported on a YouTube video that showed background radiation at a Coastside beach reaching over 150 micro-REM per hour. Health officials in San Mateo County confirmed the spike but remain ‘befuddled’ as to its cause.
    http://truth-out.org/news/item/21169-fukushima-update-the-nuclear-d...

Page 11 of 55 FirstFirst ... 78910111213141521 ... LastLast

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •