Posted on 02/10/2012 11:39:25 AM PST by ransomnote
What if you were promoting an industry that had the potential to kill and injure enormous numbers of people as well as contaminate large areas of land for tens of thousands of years? What if this industry created vast stockpiles of deadly waste but nevertheless required massive amounts of public funding to keep it going? My guess is that you might want to hide that information.
From the heyday of the environmental movement in the late 1960s through the late 1970s, many people were openly skeptical about the destructive potential of the nuclear power industry. After the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in central Pennsylvania in March 1979 and the explosion of Chernobyl’s unit four reactor in the Ukraine in April 1986, few would have predicted that nuclear power could ever shake off its global pariah status.
Yet, thanks to diligent lobbying efforts, strong government support, and a full public-relations blitz over the past decade, the once-reviled nuclear industry succeeded in recasting itself in the public mind as an essential, affordable, clean (low carbon emission), and safe energy option in a warming world. In fact, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has just cleared the way for granting the first two licenses for any new reactors in more than 30 years. The new reactors will be built at the Vogtle plant in Georgia, southeast of Augusta.
SNIP
In response, the nuclear industry and its supporters have employed sophisticated press manipulation to move the public conversation away from these thorny issues. One example is PBS’s recent Frontline documentary, Nuclear Aftershocks, which examines the viability of nuclear power in a post-Fukushima world.
What follows is a detailed critique of many of the issues raised in the program, which initially aired January 17, 2012.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
One problem with tuna is they try to catch the largest ones which over years will have the greatest build-up of toxic products. Any word on what has happened to our air as a result of Fukishima?
I was in the nuclear industry for over 20 years. The greatest threat I ever faced was Amory Lovins.
I’ve seen computer modeling re Fukushima in March. Showed Xenon throughout Northern Hemisphere for several days and modeling showed snake like wisps of radioactive Cesium and Iodine sweeping to AK and down the coast to Northern CA while some came laterally from the West to Central CA then moving inland. This sort of model doesn’t indicate altitude of fumes. I recall hearing that Boise Idaho had highest count of radioactive iodine in rainwater and that a location in VT dumped dairy milk for iodine or cesium (I forget) and some Hawaiian dairies added boron to cattle feed to lower contamination in milk. Those computer modeling programs I mentioned earlier were from Europe. The Ex-SKF blogger had 3 links to foreign agencies projecting airborne fallout but he noted that all 3 halted monitoring.
UC Berkley reported on Feb. 6 that contamination testing revealed radioactive cesium in San Francisco milk sample ‘highest since August’ and at 150% of EPA limit (EPA Maximum Contaminant Level for radioactive cesium in milk is 3 picocuries/L and this test found 4.5). Now I don’t know if it’s ‘highest since August’ because contamination continues to blow in from the west or because the cattle were given fodder that originally had higher amounts of contamination. Here’s the UC Berkely link: http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/UCBAirSampling/MilkSampling
ping
Thanks for posting the truth about nuclear power. The sheeple here can flame away, but Nuclear power is Insanity in its current form at least. As the article suggests- The sheeple have been well programed to think it is great. Yet it can do far more permanent damage than a nuclear bomb. These plants are getting older and being extended past their lifetime limits. It is simple fact that eventually events will happen that satisfy the makings of a disaster lasting thousands of years. If those makings be man made or some natural event, it does not matter. History shows that these kinds of events will happen. To put humanity at such risk results from either ignorance, or from being just plain dead in a spiritual sense. Very important is the fact that when such events happen then you can’t just turn the thing off and have the problem go away. The contamination and its effects on life are permanent for all practical purposes.
What is morally and spiritually important is to live within our means on power consumption. Any power we can not produce by some other means Should not be consumed by us. Sadly mankind seems to have no more ability to do that, then they do to live within their means in a financial sense.
The Japanese Civilians have learned their lesson. Unfortunately- Too late. Some day America is going learn its lesson- Also too late.
Hmmm.
I don't think they have.
The reactors are 40 years old, bad location and a bad design at that.
The reactors today are a much safer design and I would live near one. In fact, I did live near one, Rancho Seco, the same design as TMI and I wasn't worried.
I'm glad the Georgia company got a permit.
The professional protestors are going to try to get every mile they can out of this.
When someone uses the term ‘sheeple’ as if they are above the fray, makes me move on to the next post.
Well, the fact that the reactors were old and newer designs were safer was the excuse used to deflect attention from Chernobyl by nuke apologists on FR shortly after Fukushima blew up. We were assured melt-thru was impossible with the newer, safer design. And then melt-thru occurred on all three reactors despite the newer, safer design.
TEPCO was in trouble for falsifying safety inspections before this disaster. They were warned to retrofit the location of the fuel tanks. THey chose not to. A scientist provided TEPCO with a report demonstrating that catastrophic tsunami risk was present due to the historical occurrence of one in that region x years prior and the geology/activity of the area. TEPCO chose to ignore his data. TEPCO certainly knew it built on seismic faults. Shortly before Fukushima blew up, TEPCO celebrated a worker who showed them how to conceal damage to a reactor vessel at the foundry it was made (big dent in it meant it had to be discarded to the tune of millions of dollars and he showed them how to pull the dent out so it could pass inspection; he feels bad about that now, that one was intended for the fourth reactor at Fukushima). Once the disaster occurred, safety precautions and procedures were discarded: SPEEDI data projecting the path of the plume was not released to the public to avoid panic, Potassium Iodide was forbidden to be distributed but one mayor went against the directive and helped to protect the children in his district anyway.
So you see - ‘safety’ means nothing if the public cannot force the nuke companies to obey safety regulations, implement known retrofit needs, respond to tsunami risks given them in reports from scientists, distribute Potassium iodide etc. ‘Safety’ precautions are apparently just smoke and mirrors the nuke industry uses to silence the will of the public. Oh and Japan also built the largest nuke plant in the world on a seismic fault and didn’t know it until an earthquake knocked the plant offline. When Fukushima blew up, 25% of US nuke plants reported that they, too, had excessive amounts of nuke fuel suspended in pools above reactors and requested fed funds to develop a safer alternative. This, inspite of FEMA’s New Madrid fault etc. Safety? Right.
PS: THank you for including your picture - it makes our exchange a bit more like a conversation, a tiny little perk I didn’t know I would like.
They should have acted proactively and get things under control by strong-arming(or even breaking arms of) Japanese nuclear establishment. It would have done more good for them than spending most of their efforts on PR to play down Fukushima problems. It could have salvaged their reputation better than keep covering up for them. Those TEPCO boys should be shot.
I'm sure your mom thinks you're clever.
I was literally stating the fact that I like having a picture of a person before me when responding.
The leakage from Fukishima was much less than any of those large atmospheric nuke tests in the 1950s and 1960s — and the only precaution we had to take back then was not to eat snow, and some schools and other institutions stocked iodine pills.
My aunt was living in Reno, Nevada when the testing was being done. She said several times she and others would feel kind of sick for several days a few days after an explosion. I wonder if the population of Reno was ever sampled for radiation exposure?
And the latest line is the Japanese government is considering making it illegal to report radiation levels.
I sure hope the nuclear industry will institute some professional education programs for its workers. None of them know anything about Chernobyl when you’d think that topic would be required reading for the industry...if they cared about human life. Reading up on Chernobyl, they’d learn people died; at the start of Fukushima there WERE nuke apologists insisting that NO ONE died as a result of Chernobyl. Can you imagine? Being in the nuke industry and thinking not one person died as a result of Chernobyl???
If the nuke industry educates its workforce, they’d learn that the Soviet Union made it illegal for deaths to be attributed to radiation for two years following the event. They’d find out all about the pattern of mortality and suffering and come to realize that people alive today are still contracting illnesses (and dying as a result) from radiation released by Chernobyl more than 25 years ago and they will continue to do so for countless generations. Nuke apologists would be shocked to discover the genetic damage that ravages or ends infant life and that people living near the contamination can have babies with birth defects today due to that explosion almost a quarter of a century ago.
Oh the nuke industry workers are some of the most ignorant people I’ve ever posted comments to. I have tried hard to bring them up to speed by telling about state of the art research in the National Academy of Sciences BEIR and the composite report created by a group of scientists compiling all the known medical research for the region. Here’s a description of that report:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl:_Consequences_of_the_Catastrophe_for_People_and_the_Environment
Here’s the actual report:http://www.strahlentelex.de/Yablokov%20Chernobyl%20book.pdf
I think the very least the American public should demand from it’s nuclear workers is a)basic science information so that they no longer try to scare the public with bananas, air travel, medical x-rays etc. b)thorough knowledge of the BEIR VI and c)one read through of the PDF report I linked and d) an analysis demonstrating that the nuclear industry has intentionally deceived the public before, during, and after nuclear ‘events’ with particular focus on their abuse of the excuse “we didn’t want the public to panic.”
If we had an educated nuclear power workforce, they’d know that the horrible ramifications for human life in Japan are yet to come. They’d understand that the Japanese government is working hard to conceal and diffuse medically relevant information. The nuke force would not waste my time pretending that you really can coat the landscape, air, food, and water with radioactive waste and not have resulting human suffering.
Believe me, I know that nuke apologists are being intentionally deceptive each and every time they ask “How many people died as a result of the damage to the reactors at Fukushima?” But, the public isn’t fooled by it because of information sharing made possible by the internet. In fact, it just makes us furious to witness the absolute refusal and denial of responsibility on the part of nuke power advocates. Lie to my face about Fukushima while celebrating the announcement that the US will build new reactors; it makes nuke pimps feel good but doesn’t do the PR job they actually want.
Does anyone know a nuke pimp who admits and regrets the role that bad management played in Chernobyl? Anyone ever hear “I can’t believe the industry I love so much is responsible for such catastrophic human suffering in the Ukraine! And to think, it will continue for generation after generation...”? And now the nuke pimps are using the same deny and lie routine re Fukushima because it worked so well for them in Chernobyl??? I think the US deserves better from ‘so-called’ Americans in the nuke industry; let our US nuke force at least state publicly the truth about non-existant ‘cold shutdown’ in Fukushima because the longer they are silent in the face of obvious lies and deceptions, the clearer their primary loyalty to their industry to the detriment of their country becomes.
The fact that nuke pimps breezily deny the existence of the human toll in Chernobyl and are already hard at work distancing themselves from a disaster that isn’t even over yet in Japan infuriates me.
Oh and WHY would even waste my time asking me to compare the death toll from Fukushima, which was avoidable (had they retrofitted fuel tanks, responded to research indicating the tsunami risk, warned the public to shelter or flee, distributed potassium iodide, developed a ‘safety’ oriented work force instead of the one that got them reprimanded for falsifying safety reports, declined to build the plant on a seismically active area, etc.) and is yet to unfold, with the tsunami and earthquake? We just can’t trust nuke people; they simply have no conscience, no integrity.
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