Tag: nuclear radiation

A Quarter of a Century Since Chernobyl (via The Truth Journal)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Twenty-five years. Twenty five years to absorb the lessons of the last nuclear disaster and it just didn’t work out. The ad nauseum repeating of the mantra, “It’s different here.” Whether they meant more modern equipment, better management, more incentives, better regulation, it turned out to be nonsense.

Going back to Chernobyl after all these years is not a comforting journey. It is a trip into a ghostly irradiated land measuring 10,800 square miles, a facet of the aftermath of a nuclear disaster carefully unmentioned by the proponents of nuclear power. That’s about a third the size of Panama or five times the size of Rhode Island. Does that make you comfortable?

How much agricultural land can we afford to lose permanently? We need a thorough intelligent discussion of nuclear power in the United States, not back rooms and lobbyists, a public discussion.

This is a good article and has an attached video.

James Pilant

A Quarter of a Century Since Chernobyl A quarter of a century has passed since the worst nuclear accident in history. On April 26, 1986, the Nuclear power plant at Chernobyl, Ukraine, in the then USSR, exploded leaking nuclear radiation about a hundred times the Nuclear explosion at Hiroshima. I cannot think of anything more but to say that the day reminds us why we should be so proud of Nuclear technology. After all, it allows us to make great changes to the way things work naturally … Read More

via The Truth Journal

Meltdown Caused Nuke Plant Explosion: Safety Body (via Nikkei.com)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I don’t know if this is correct. I hope not.

James Pilant

TOKYO (Nikkei)—The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) said Saturday afternoon the explosion at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant could only have been caused by a meltdown of the reactor core.

The same day, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501), which runs the plant, began to flood the damaged reactor with seawater to cool it down, resorting to measures that could rust the reactor and force the utility to scrap it.

Cesium and iodine, by-products of nuclear fission, were detected around the plant, which would make the explosion the worst accident in the roughly 50-year history of Japanese nuclear power generation.

An explosion was heard near the plant’s No. 1 reactor about 3:30 p.m. and plumes of white smoke went up 10 minutes later. The ceiling of the building housing the reactor collapsed, according to information obtained by Fukushima prefectural authorities.