SNAFUkushima: Updating Meltdowns

[unhappycamper]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/SNAFUkushima-Updating-Mel-by-William-Boardman-Corporate_Earthquake_Fukushima_History-140530-797.html



Three Years and Counting -- Still FUBAR and Deteriorating

SNAFUkushima: Updating Meltdowns
By William Boardman
General News 5/30/2014 at 16:37:49

There's not much new to say about Fukushima. It remains an out of control disaster with as yet unmeasurable dimensions that continue to expand. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that everything new about Fukushima is just the same-old same-old getting worse at an uneven and unpredictable rate. Either way, it's not good and, while it's worse in degree, it's not yet apparently worse in kind, so that's one reason you don't hear that much about it in the news these days.

Whatever the full truth is about Fukushima, it's probably unknowable at present. And it might remain unknowable even if there was total transparency, even if there were no corporate, institutional, governmental, and other layers of secrecy protecting such enemies of the common good as profit, capital investment, and weapons development.

Secrecy and false reassurance have always been an integral part of the nuclear industry in all its manifestations. In January 2014, Tokyo Shimbun reported yet another example of nuclear opposition to honesty: the Fukushima prefecture government and the government-run Fukushima Medical University signed a secrecy agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a United Nations agency that "is committed to applying the highest ethical standards in carrying out its mandate," or so it claims. The IAEA's press release about the agreement is bland and inoffensive. According to Shimbun, each party to the agreement has the right to designate any information as confidential, specifically mentioning data about thyroid cancer in children or other facts that might "stir up anxiety of residents."

~snip~

RADIOACTIVE WATER is beyond control and unmeasured

Clean groundwater has been flowing into the Fukushima nuclear plant complex since before the earthquake/tsunami of March 11, 2011, led to the meltdown of three of the four reactors at Fukushima Daiichi and the cold shutdown of the two reactors at Fukushima Daini at the same site. Once clean groundwater enters the site, some portion (or perhaps all) of it is contaminated by radioactivity, primarily from the three melted down reactors.

[2naSalit]

1. Weeeee!

The decline of the species is coming sooner than later. The sad part is that, like mass shooters and suicide bombers, we seem to feel the need to take a bunch of others with us.

[hunter]

2. What's out of control?

It's a big expensive mess, and they are cleaning it up.

There's toxic crap leaking out of industrial and mining sites all over the world without any effort at all to clean it up. What's so special about Fukushima?

[FogerRox]

3. Might have something to do with 2 perforated reactor vessels

or as Chekov says "Nuclear Wessels".

[defacto7]

4. You always seem to like shuting down comments

that expose problems with Fukushima, but I guess that's your opinion, OK.

But your last statement is a blatant simple fallacy of "two wrongs make a right". No they do not. At least don't make that mistake.

[hunter]

5. Proccupation with Fukushima, or even nuclear power in general...

... distracts from the greater ongoing catastrophe of our high energy, industrial, consumer society.

Of what use is condemning nuclear power when the use of fossil fuels is expanding?

It's all bad.

I'd have right to be concerned if I lived near Fukushima,

As it is, I live near giant natural gas power plants, and that gas is obtained in ways that are as damaging, or more damaging to the earth than nuclear power. It might be even worse if my power came from a coal plant, but with fracking, maybe not.

I like to see the big picture. There's no way out at this point, the earth is going to change radically, seas are going to rise, certain places will become uninhabitable.

The problem to solve is not nuclear power, the problem is adapting to the catastrophe we've created in ways that are gentle to the earth, and to ourselves.

[GliderGuider]

6. ^^^ This.

nt

[defacto7]

7. Point taken

and I agree. Making light of the Fukushima disaster and it's wrongful handling is not an argument for your perfectly excellent point about the fossil fuel problems and pro vs. con nuclear issues.

Yes, it's all bad.

[FBaggins]

8. Conversely...

... some people seem to take nonsense at face value as long as it purports to "expose problems with Fukushima".

Let's take this one as an example:



...led to the meltdown of three of the four reactors at Fukushima Daiichi and the cold shutdown of the two reactors at Fukushima Daini at the same site.

Daiichi had six reactors. Daini was not "at the same site" and had four. You've got to ask yourself... if the guy is that clueless about even the most basic facts at this point... what is his opinion worth?

TEPCO started to remove fuel assemblies in late 2013, moving them to safer fuel pools on the ground. Removal is scheduled to be complete before the end of 2014. But TEPCO said it had removed only 9 percent of the spent fuel so far and the delicate, dangerous process continues.

More easily-verifiable facts... yet the author appears to have no interest in checking. Just under 2/3rds of the assemblies in unit 4 have now been removed. It's interesting that his "guiding principle" is "nobody really knows anything". Apparently that means that it's ok to just make it up as you go along. Reading some of his older nonsense about DU makes this clear.

Another easy sign is the multitude of times that an author will say things such as "out of control disaster" or that is it "getting worse". These are statements with no rational meaning... but they sound good (or more precisely... they sound bad).