Is there a point at which your public pronouncements are so far out of line with reality that not only does no one believe you but there is no remaining benchmark for truth left?
How do you get enough radiation to get hospitalized when you haven’t been near the Fukushima reactors?
In another development, two Japanese tourists who arrived in China on a flight from Tokyo are being treated in hospital for high radiation levels.
It remains unclear how the two may have become contaminated as neither traveller is reported to have been within 240km of the Fukushima plant, says our correspondent.
Meanwhile, Chinese news agency, Xinhua, has reported that abnormal radiation levels have been detected on a ship arriving from Japan to Xiamen port in Fujian province.
U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham was home Tuesday, talking about one of his favorite subjects: nuclear energy and why it’s the best way to power South Carolina and America.
Aware that events in Japan have increased concern about nuclear safety, Graham took the media on a tour of Duke Energy’s Oconee atomic power station to show why he thinks nuclear energy needs to be expanded.
Graham said the visit reinforces his belief that a nuclear disaster like that in Japan could not happen at Duke’s three reactors. Graham said the U.S. will learn some lessons from Japan but should not slow the push to develop new reactors.
A few weeks ago Congress just guaranteed all loans made to finance nuclear reactors and agreed to indemnify the owners if they have a meltdown.
Further down –
This nuclear plant, I live five miles away’’ from, said Graham, R-S.C. “I’ve lived in this area all of my life. A lot of the people I have grown up with and went to high school with work here. I have faith in the American nuclear power industry.’’
Graham said the plant “cannot explode like a nuclear bomb.”
It might be better if it did. A meltdown at a nuclear plant throws hundreds of times more radiation into the environment than a nuclear explosion.
Further down in the article –
“If you showed me a reactor site where there was never a safety concern, I’d be suspicious,’’ Graham said. “The fact that we’re identifying safety concerns independent from the company itself, and the company is getting on top of it, is reassuring.’’
We are “identifying safety concerns independent from the company?” He’s reassured that they don’t have a handle on all their safety concerns? What does he thinks these things are, Easy Bake Ovens?
The senator faced criticism Tuesday from anti-nuclear activist Tom Clements, who disputed that all of the problems were resolved. Clements also said the press event was little more than an attempt to advance an industry on which Graham relies for campaign funds.
Clements gave reporters data showing that Graham has received in the past two years about $40,000 in campaign contributions from those sympathetic to the nuclear industry, such as major power companies. Clements, who is with Friends of the Earth, raised those questions during a press briefing after the tour.
“The reason people in the nuclear power industry support me is because I believe in what they do,” Graham told Clements. “I don’t get any money from your organization because I disagree with you.”
And we close with the basic philosophy of American government. If you give me money you get what you want.
Nuclear energy should not be a major factor in the future of American energy production. Do you know why? It’s too expensive and it requires massive subsidies and insurance from the government. Did I surprise you?
Look at the dollar amounts. Look at the incredible amounts of federal money necessary to launch these giant white elephants. Notice how little discussion is taking place about disposing of nuclear fuel or taking care of shut down plants.
These things are a budgetary disaster of the first magnitude.
Why are we buildng them? The corporations building nuclear power are better organized and have given more money than their competitors. In our government, the decision is almost always determined by campaign contributions not rational analysis.
Americans voting with their “shovels?” This is hardly a statement in favor of nuclear power or disaster preparedness in the United States. Of course, it is probably the American idea that if you throw enough money at a problem you can fix it. (We only believe that now about certain subjects.) It might be better to have a FEMA that we can trust but after the disaster in Louisiana, that kind of trust is never coming back.
James Pilant
Sales of deluxe doomsday bunkers up 1,000% from CNN
A devastating earthquake strikes Japan. A massive tsunami kills thousands. Fears of a nuclear meltdown run rampant. Bloodshed and violence escalate in Libya.
And U.S. companies selling doomsday bunkers are seeing sales skyrocket anywhere from 20% to 1,000%.
Northwest Shelter Systems, which offers shelters ranging in price from $200,000 to $20 million, has seen sales surge 70% since the uprisings in the Middle East, with the Japanese earthquake only spurring further interest. In hard numbers, that’s 12 shelters already booked when the company normally sells four shelters per year.
“Sales have gone through the roof, to the point where we are having trouble keeping up,” said Northwest Shelter Systems owner Kevin Thompson.
The release of two types of radioactive particles in the first 3-4 days of Japan‘s nuclear crisis is estimated to have reached 20-50 percent of the amounts from Chernobyl in 10 days, an Austrian expert said Wednesday.
That’s not encouraging. The numbers 20 and 50 percent are not as wide a variance as might be thought. They are referring to two different kinds of radiation.
The Austrian institute’s Dr Gerhard Wotawa stressed the two isotopes from Fukushima he had sought to estimate — iodine-131 and caesium-137 — normally make up only one tenth of total radiation.
Based on measurements made at monitoring stations in Japan and the United States, Wotawa said the iodine released from Fukushima in the first three-four days was about 20 percent of that released from Chernobyl during a ten-day period.
For Caesium-137, the figure could amount to some 50 percent.
The crisis continues. As I said yesterday, the Japanese utility company and the government are unwilling to give an accurate view of the disaster. So, one day we hear encouraging news which will be partially or totally dispelled by the next day’s news.
(AP) Tokyo’s utility company says black smoke has been seen emerging from Unit 3 of the crippled nuclear plant in northeastern Japan, prompting a new evacuation of the complex. Officials with Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Wednesday that workers from the entire Fukushima Dai-ichi plant have been temporarily evacuated. Operators of the power station have been desperately trying to cool the reactors and spent fuel pools at the plant after it was damaged by this month’s tsunami, which knocked out power to the cooling systems.
The good news is that electric power is available at the six nuclear plants. The bad news is that some of the plants are so damaged the pumping systems no longer function. And the further bad news is that the sea water used to cool the plants apparently ran back into the ocean with a high level of radioactivity.
You must recall, of course, that the Japanese have been unfailing optimistic when anything went their way in this mess. So, I strongly suspect that things have not improved as much as they imply.
But I very much want to say how grateful I am that a meltdown is more likely to be avoided now.
Power lines to all six nuclear reactor units at Japan’s quake-stricken Fukushima Daiichi complex have been connected, its operator said, but electricity has not yet been turned on.
Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) warned on Tuesday that equipment still had to be checked before power could be properly reconnected, which would mark a significant step in bringing the reactors back under control.
Engineers have also been able to cool a spent fuel pool that was nearly boiling, bringing it back to 105 degrees after dumping 18 tonnes of seawater into a holding pool.
However fears have been raised over the possibility of radiation in seawater near the reactors in northeastern Japan, with reports that some radioactivity has been detected in the sea.
Experts are concerned about sea water that has been used to cool the reactors and their spend fuel ponds after the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami on March 11.
Radioactive iodine in the sea samples was 126.7 times the allowed limit, while caesium was 24.8 times over, Kyodo news agency said. But TEPCO said that still posed no immediate danger.
“I’m interested to know how this water is being disposed… if it is being disposed or just allowed to drain to sea,” Najmedin Meshkati, a nuclear and environmental expert at the University of Southern California, told the Reuters news agency.
The nuclear crisis is Japan, while severe, does not warrant any immediate changes in the U.S, a top U.S. nuclear official said Monday.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s executive director for operations, Bill Borchardt, said officials have “a high degree of confidence” that operations at the 104 nuclear reactors in 31 states are safe. He said inspectors at each of the plants have redoubled efforts to guard against any safety breaches.
I feel all better now. “A high degree of confidence” and “redoubled efforts.” Is this some kind of bad disaster movie where the Russian Premier forgets to tell the United States of a doomsday device because it’s his birthday?
We can hope that we get through the Japanese crisis without a meltdown. But there is no way, any objective observer can believe that the nuclear industry isn’t about to have its most dramatic shakeup.
Let me remind you for the umpteenth time – none of this was supposed to be able to happen. It was outside the realm of possibility. You can go to the internet, date a search before the earthquake and tsunami, run nuclear safety as a search, and pull up dozens of studies and hundreds of web sites explaining the complete and total improbability of a nuclear meltdown – not to mention, the most vicious slurs as to the motives and intelligence of those questioning nuclear power.
So, the world of nuclear energy is going to have a shake up. Unfortunately, there is no possibility of any discussion as to whether or not nuclear power should be a part of this nation’s energy policy. That decision has already been made and it’s carved in stone.
So, we can only hope that changes are made that render a U.S. nuclear disaster less likely.
I was waiting for “Grand Strategy: The View from Oregon” and J. N. Nielson’s take on the disaster at the nuclear plants in Japan.
He did not disappoint.
Please read this excellent piece.
James Pilant
Wednesday Previously in Impossible Desires I attempted to point out some of the ways in which industrial accidents are intrinsic to industrialized civilization. The recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan that has caused so much death and destruction is a particular case in point. Japan has one of the most advanced industrialized economies on the planet. It is second to none in the development and implementation of high technology. Moreover, the J … Read More
It appears virtually no American politician has lost any faith whatsoever in nuclear power. It also appears from numerous pro-nuclear power commentators that none of Japan’s problems could happen here (although their plants are based on U.S. designs and we have 54 virtually identical ones).
Please read the first “happy, happy, U.S. Number 1” story and then compare it with story number 2 and 3.
It gives an excellent picture of our American beltway political fantasy versus unpalatable facts.
James Pilant
Graham: U.S. nuclear regulations are ‘gold standard’ (via McClatchy)
Sen. Lindsey Graham said Thursday that the Japanese crisis hasn’t shaken his confidence in nuclear power and praised President Barack Obama for moving ahead with federal loan guarantees to build new plants.
Graham said four new reactors planned for South Carolina and Georgia — two in each state — have different designs than the Fukishima Daiichi plant facing possible core meltdowns at as many as six reactors.
“These new designs are completely different than the Japanese reactors built in 1971,” Graham said. “The new designs do not depend on electrical pumps or mechanical systems to cool the reactors. The water going into the cooling system is gravity fed, so it’s not reliant on electricity to cool the reactor.”
House Assistant Democratic Leader Jim Clyburn said the Japanese catastrophe will deliver “important lessons,” but he also pushed back against calls from some lawmakers to freeze all permitting of new nuclear plants in the United States.
“I have absolute confidence in the rigorous inspection and licensing regime in place at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,” Clyburn, of Columbia, said. “I remain convinced that a clean energy future will not be possible without an investment in a diverse set of energy sources, including a renewed commitment to nuclear energy.”
U.S. nuclear plants store more spent fuel than Japan’s (via McClatchy)
U.S. nuclear plants use the same sort of pools to cool spent nuclear-fuel rods as the ones now in danger of spewing radiation at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant, only the U.S. pools hold much more nuclear material. That’s raising the question of whether more spent fuel should be taken out of the pools at U.S. power plants to reduce risks. Workers in Japan have been struggling for days to get water into the spent-fuel pools at the plant, so that the fuel rods won’t be exposed to the air, burst into flames and set off a large radiological release.
Experts are debating whether America’s spent fuel pools would fare as badly or worse in an accident, and whether they could be made safer.
Fourteen safety-related events at nuclear power plants required follow-up inspections from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the NRC reported in 2010. These “near-miss” events “raised the risk of damage to the reactor core – and thus to the safety of workers and the public,” concluded a new report, “The NRC and Nuclear Power Plant Safety in 2010,” by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
The biggest radioactive risk right now comes from the byproducts of fission. Tokyo Electric Power Company, which runs the reactors, has reported releases of both iodine-131 and cesium-137, the two primary radionuclides that nuclear fission creates. According to Hutchinson, strontium-90 has also been detected, and the presence of cesium and strontium indicates fuel melting.
Iodine-131 moves through the atmosphere more easily than cesium-137, but it has a half-life of only eight days, according to Classic. That means it would be all but gone within weeks. Cesium-137, on the other hand, attaches itself to particles or debris. That means that eventually cesium-137 will fall out of the air onto the ground, and there it will stay until it decays. The isotope’s half-life is about 30 years, so it would be a long time before an area it traveled to would be free from radiation. Depending on the level of radiation, the area would have to be sectioned off or the material dealt with by a hazardous waste disposal team. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, exposure to radiation from cesium-137 near a nuclear accident site could significantly increase the risk of cancer. Trace amounts of cesium-137 are already in the environment worldwide, mostly because of nuclear weapons testing in the 1950s and ’60s, but most of that has decayed.
Iodine in food is absorbed by the body and preferentially concentrated in the thyroid where it is needed for the functioning of that gland. When 131I is present in high levels in the environment from radioactive fallout, it can be absorbed through contaminated food, and will also accumulate in the thyroid. As it decays, it may cause damage to the thyroid. The primary risk from exposure to high levels of 131I is the chance occurrence of radiogenic thyroid cancer in later life. Other risks include the possibility of non-cancerous growths and thyroiditis.
The risk of thyroid cancer in later life appears to diminish with increasing age at time of exposure. Most risk estimates are based on studies in which radiation exposures occurred in children or teenagers. When adults are exposed, it has been difficult for epidemiologists to detect a statistically significant difference in the rates of thyroid disease above that of a similar but otherwise unexposed group.
The risk can be mitigated by taking iodine supplements, raising the total amount of iodine in the body and therefore reducing uptake and retention in tissues and lowering the relative proportion of radioactive iodine. Unfortunately, such supplements were not distributed to the population living nearest to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant after the disaster,[6] though they were widely distributed to children in Poland.
The effects of exposure to Cesium-137 : from Wikipedia –
Caesium-137 is water-soluble and chemically toxic in small amounts. The biological behavior of caesium-137 is similar to that of potassium and rubidium. After entering the body, caesium gets more or less uniformly distributed through the body, with higher concentration in muscle tissues and lower in bones. The biological half-life of caesium is rather short at about 70 days.[4] Experiments with dogs showed that a single dose of 3800 μCi/kg (approx. 44 μg/kg of caesium-137) is lethal within three weeks.[5]
Accidental ingestion of caesium-137 can be treated with the chemical Prussian blue, which binds to it chemically and then speeds its expulsion from the body.[6]
Is there a point at which your public pronouncements are so far out of line with reality that not only does no one believe you but there is no remaining benchmark for truth left?
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