I’ll let the article speak for itself and you decide.
James Pilant
One of Obama’s largest campaign donors since 2003 has been the Exelon Corporation, a nuclear power company. Obama’s former chief of staff, David Axelrod, previously worked as a consultant for Exelon. As a state Senator in Illinois, Obama skillfully played both sides of the nuclear debate, but ultimately did the industry’s political dirty work after a leak at an Exelon plant was exposed, causing public outrage. Obama put forward a bill requiring l … Read More
This is certainly evidence of how seriously the United States is taking the nuclear crisis in Japan.
James Pilant
Massive pumps departing U.S. for Japan nuclear plant, By Vivian Kuo, April 8, 2011 Atlanta (CNN) — Two of the world’s largest concrete pumps will depart the United States later this week as part of the effort to resolve the crisis at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, officials said. Each pump weighs 190,000 pounds and has a boom reach of over 227 feet, and can pump water and concrete at massive rates. They will be loaded aboard enor … Read More
Apparently not all current nuclear problems are in Japan. Mexico too has nuclear power and it does not seem to prosper there.
This is a fascinating article which was very much a surprise to me. But that’s the great pleasure of the thousands of internet sites – the opportunity to learn.
James Pilant
Yikes… yesterday’s 6.5 – 6.7 Richter scale earthquake in Veracruz State (felt throughout the southern and eastern parts of the country, but certainly not here on the northwest coast) did only “minor” damage to Mexico’s one and only nuclear power plant… or so we’re being told. Laguna Verde is “only” twenty plus years old, and has supposedly been being upgraded the last few years. Officially it has a good safety record, although, just over a w … Read More
I think we can all join in the thoughts enunciated in the letter sent below to nuclear regulators in the United States.
It’s a call to learn from the Japanese disaster and to address the problem of nuclear waste.
James Pilant
Dear Kevin, On the morning of March 11, I watched with horror as the news came in from Japan about the tragic earthquake and tsunami and their many victims. The power outage at a Japanese nuclear power plant was a footnote to these first reports, so it was hard to comprehend that the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl was underway. Over the last four weeks, the workers at the Fukushima nuclear power facility have acted heroically to g … Read More
Can We Produce Enough Energy with Green Sources or Must We Rely on Coal, Oil, and Nuclear? Ask a Scientist – April 2011 J. Fishman from Scottsdale, AZ, asks “Can we produce enough energy by using green sources, such as wind and solar power, or must we continue to rely on coal, oil, and/or nuclear energy?” and is answered by Jeff Deyette, Assistant Director of Energy Research and Analysis. In the past year we’ve seen too many examples of just how … Read More
Look at it if only to observe the beautiful layout of the blog.
James Pilant
Strong aftershock rattles disaster-weary Japan By JAY ALABASTER and TOMOKO A. HOSAKA, Associated Press – Thu Apr 7, 7:07 pm ET SENDAI, Japan – A big aftershock rocked quake-weary Japan late Thursday, rattling nerves as it knocked out power to the northern part of the country and prompted tsunami warnings that were later canceled. The quake was initially measured at magnitude-7.4, though the U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colo., later downgrade … Read More
My father tells me that the news from Fukushima is all over the cable news. I wouldn’t know. I’m careful not to watch. I prefer my sources, BBC, Reuters, the New York Times, McClatchy, AP and a few others. The 24 news programs generate a lot of nonsense and I only occasionally use clips.
For my taste there should be more news about these events in the more regular media.
James Pilant
From the New York Times –
Experts estimate that about seven tons an hour of radioactive water is escaping the pit. Safety officials have said that the water, which appears to be coming from the damaged No. 2 reactor, contains one million becquerels per liter of iodine 131, or about 10,000 times the levels normally found in water at a nuclear plant.
“There is still a steady stream of water from the pit,” Mr. Nishiyama said, but workers would continue to “observe and evaluate” the situation overnight.
The leak underscores the dangerous side effects of the strategy to cool the plant’s reactors and spent fuel storage pools by pumping them with hundreds of tons of water. While much of that water evaporates, a significant portion also turns into dangerous runoff that has been discovered in various parts of the plant, endangering workers at the plant and hindering repair efforts. On March 24, three workers were injured when they stepped into a pool of radioactive water in one of the plant’s turbine buildings.
In recent days, workers have tried to clear the contaminated pools, but have struggled to find places to store the water. Meanwhile, levels of iodine 131 that are over 4,000 times normal, as well as levels of cesium 137 that are 527 times normal have been detected in seawater taken 1,080 feet away from the plant, raising fears of damage to sea life.
Tokyo Electric has said it has little choice but to pump more water into the reactors at the moment, since the normal cooling systems at the plant are inoperable and more radioactive material would be released if the reactors were allowed to melt down fully or if the rods caught fire.
You might want to make a copy of this post. When someone is carefully explaining to you as if to a small child that while there have been problems, this kind of thing (meltdowns, leaks, etc.) couldn’t happen in the United States – While he is consigning you to the ranks of the unrealistic tree huggers who unlike him don’t deal with the “real world,” you might wave this in front of his often unseeing eyes and watch a momentary doubt pass like a wedding veil briefly over his face. He’ll think for a moment about claiming that the NRC is also a bunch of tree huggers but decide against it. Then smiling he will regain the offensive by saying, “Thats why it can’t happen here. Our guys are better than there guys when it comes to safety. See right there in the paper. You’ve proved mycase.”
At this point, give up on persuasion. Give up on logic and reason. You are dealing with a religion, a belief that the real world involves cruel often vicious decisions and when someone raises a moral or ethical question or even a simple fact, they are to be considered, “unrealistic.”
They believe that we must be cruel and unflinching, ever striving to be tougher and less principled than our enemies, who are everywhere.
I am willing to consider nuclear power as a part of an energy policy but I want careful safeguards and real assurances. The PR nonsense and hack formulaic writing gives me that impression that once I am consigned to the anti-nuclear wackos, my concerns are irrelevant.
If that is going to be the level of discourse, then I don’t want any nuclear power anywhere on this planet.
The concerns of many that there were problems in safety have been ratified cruelly by events. And yet I read over and over again how this is just a bump in the road while listening to the insults directed against those who committed the greatest crime possible in the dispute over nuclear power, being right.
The Wolf Creek nuclear power plant is among three in the United States that need more intensive oversight, the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told Congress on Thursday.
NRC chairman Gregory Jaczko stressed that all 65 nuclear generating stations, which have a total of 104 reactors, are operating safely. But Jaczko said Wolf Creek and two others need a higher level of review because of continuing problems with safety systems and unplanned shutdowns.
Jaczko told a House Appropriations subcommittee that the three plants “are the ones we are most concerned about.” The other two are the H.B. Robinson plant in Hartsville, S.C., and the Fort Calhoun plant near Omaha, about 180 miles northwest of Kansas City.
This crisis just keeps on going. I want an end to it. I want everybody to be okay, unhurt, undamaged. But I am not going to get my wish. The people who created this disaster were so smart, so well placed and so well financed that all warnings no matter how factual bounced off of them.
Those who opposed nuclear power from the fringe to the most respectable were consigned as unrealistic tree huggers.
Well, the treehuggers got it right.
But I tell you, I feel pain every time I come across another article that talks about how this is just like getting another chest x-ray a year and that compared to stepladders and animal attacks the casualties have been few.
There comes a point at which this kind of commentary moves from the average to the mediocre, from opinion writing to caricature.
Even when they admit some unfortunate fact, they still conclude with, “It can’t happen here.”
It can’t happen here. It can, does and will. Human stupidity is a common characteristic. Add human stupidity to the semi-eternal capabilities of radiation and you have a very bad mix indeed.
Tens of thousands of Japanese may never be able to return to their homes and possessions. A thousand of the dead from the tsunami and earthquake cannot be gathered from the area. They rot uncared for.
This is the reality, a reality which will be denied over and over again. It’s already being denied.
The advocates of nuclear power will hope that in time this will all go away. Memories will fade, new PR, friendly hack articles will appear and nuclear power will be heralded as the cure for our problems.
And then some more will be built – until the next “accident.”
Radiation levels spiked inside and outside the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant Thursday, slowing work on the facility once again and once more throwing into doubt the integrity of the containment vessels that hold the fuel rods.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. officials said levels of radioactive iodine in water at the plant spiked to levels 10,000 times permissible limits, preventing workers from getting near the water.
Engineers have been pumping water out of the tunnels in the basements of the facilities and into holding areas in an attempt to permit access to areas where workers are trying to restore electricity to the cooling pumps that could ultimately bring the situation at the stricken facility under control. But they cannot do so when radiation levels are that high.
If you’re wondering why trace amounts of radiation has been found in Washington state, check out these photos. The most trashed reactor, No. 3, above, is actually in reasonable shape while the one that looks the most undamaged, No. 2, has probably already melted down. Draw your own conclusions about the safety of nuclear power. View Photos. … Read More
One of Obama’s largest campaign donors since 2003 has been the Exelon Corporation, a nuclear power company. Obama’s former chief of staff, David Axelrod, previously worked as a consultant for Exelon. As a state Senator in Illinois, Obama skillfully played both sides of the nuclear debate, but ultimately did the industry’s political dirty work after a leak at an Exelon plant was exposed, causing public outrage. Obama put forward a bill requiring l … Read More
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