http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/06/24-0


Published on Friday, June 24, 2011 by PR Watch

Jun 24 2011 What Happened to Media Coverage of Fukushima?

by Anne Landman

After a few weeks of covering the early aftermath of Japan's earthquake and tsunami, the U.S. media moved on…

U.S. politicians, like Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, have made disappointing and misleading statements about the relative safety of nuclear power and have vowed to stick by our nuclear program
other countries, like Germany and Italy, have taken serious steps to address the obvious risks of nuclear power -- risks that the Fukushima disaster made painfully evident, at least to the rest of the world.

Problems Multiply

A June 16, 2011 Al Jazeera English article titled, "Fukushima: It's much worse than you think," quotes a high-level former nuclear industry executive, Arnold Gunderson, who called Fukushima nohting less than "the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind." Twenty nuclear cores have been exposed at Fukushima, Gunderson points out, saying that, along with the site's many spent-fuel pools, gives Fukushima 20 times the release potential of Chernobyl.

Japanese authorities only just recently admitted that nuclear fuel in the three damaged Fukushima reactors has likely burned through the vessels holding it, a scenario called "melt-through", that is even more serious than a core meltdown. Months of spraying seawater on the plant's three melted-down fuel cores -- and the spent fuel stored on site -- to try and cool them has produced 26 million of gallons of radioactive wastewater, and no place to put it.

…the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), finally managed to put in place a system to filter radioactive particles out of the wastewater, but it broke down soon after it started operating. A filter that was supposed to last a month plugged up with radioactive material after just five hours, indicating there is more radioactive material in the water than previously believed.

Meanwhile, TEPCO is running out of space to store the radioactive water, and may be forced to again dump contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean. TEPCO already dumped some water into the ocean weeks ago, amid protests from fisherman, other countries and environmental organizations. …the utility will still have to deal with the pile of radioactive sludge the process will produce. The plan they've come up with to deal with the sludge is to seal it in drums and discard it into the ocean, which may cause even more problems.

Greenpeace has already found levels of radiation exceeding legal limits in seaweed and shellfish samples gathered more than 12 miles away from the plant. The high levels of radiation in the samples indicate that leaks from the plant are bigger than TEPCO has revealed so far.

Domestic Nuclear Worries
For Americans who think "out of sight, out of mind" or "it can't happen here" when it comes to Fukishima and its ramifications, think again. Janette Sherman, M.D., an internal medicine specialist, and Joseph Magano, an epidemiologist with the Radiation and Public Health Project research group, noticed a 35% jump in infant mortality in eight northwestern U.S. cities located within 500 miles of the Pacific coast since the Fukushima meltdown.

They wrote an essay, published by CounterPunch, suggesting there may be a link between the statistic and the Fukushima disaster. They cited similar problems with infant mortality among people who were exposed to nuclear fallout from Chernobyl. Sherman and Magano urge that steps be taken to measure the levels of radioactive isotopes in the environment of the Pacific northwest, and in the bodies of people in these areas, to determine if nuclear fallout from Fukushima could, in fact, be related to the spike in infant mortality.

Tensions are also rising over two U.S. nuclear reactors in Nebraska located on the banks of the Missouri River, which is now at flood stage. On June 20, the Omaha, Nebraska World Herald reported that flood waters from the Missouri River came within 18 inches of forcing the Cooper Nuclear Station near Brownville, Nebraska, to shut down. Officials are poised to shut down the Cooper plant when river reaches a level of 902 feet above sea level. The plant is 903 feet above sea level.

The Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant, 20 miles north of Omaha, issued a "Notification of Unusual Event" to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on June 6 due to local flooding.

That plant is currently shut down for refueling, but will not restart because of the flooding. Compounding worries over these two plants is a shortage of sand needed to fill massive numbers of sandbags to hold off Missouri River floodwaters. One ton of sand makes just 60 sandbags, and hundreds of thousands of sandbags are needed to help save towns along the river from flooding.

Sand is obtained from dredging the riverbed -- and the companies that sell sand can't dredge the river while it is flooding. These plants are already in a risky situation, and the flooding in Nebraska could easily be worsened just by a summer afternoon cloudburst.

Global Support for Nuclear Power Drops; Some U.S. Reactors on Borrowed Time

The relative safety of nuclear power in the U.S. is tenuous, despite what some politicians have claimed. A big problem is that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has been working with the nuclear power industry to keep our country's reactors operating within safety standards, but they've been doing it by either weakening those standards, or not enforcing them at all.

A year-long investigation by the Associated Press (AP) revealed that the NRC has acted appallingly, extending licenses for dozens of aging U.S. nuclear plants despite their having multiple problems, like rusted pipes, broken seals, failed cables and leaking valves. When such problems are found, the NRC will weaken the standards to help the plants meet them instead of ordering them to be repaired to meet current standards.

The nuclear industry argues that the standards they are violating are "unnecessarily conservative," and in response, the NRC simply loosens the standards. Just last year, for example, the NRC weakened the safety margin for acceptable radiation damage to nuclear reactor vessels -- for the second time.

Through public record requests to the NRC, the AP obtained photographs of badly rusted valves, holes eaten into the tops of reactor vessels, severe rust in pipes carrying essential water supplies, peeling walls, actively leaking water pipes and other problems found among the nation's fleet of aging nuclear reactors..
© 2011 Center for Media & Democracy

Ban AC altogether. Totally unnecessary.

For healthy people of standard age . . . sure. Old people of ailing health . . not so much.

See item 1) limit population

Ok - I am not that callous. Let's say AC only after age 55.
Like early bird dinners.

See my earlier post - the book by Bernard Cohen. It's fabulous
in dealing with this.

I am not anti-nuke at all. But nuclear energy definitely poses
a lot of risks and challenges so it is always better to reduce
our energy consumption. We all waste way way way too much energy.

But I think there is a rational place for nuclear energy as a
part of the global energy requirement.

How do you know about other people's energy use habits?

I don't have AC, so what you are suggesting wouldn't impact me. But I am repulsed by the idea of anyone deciding what someone else should do with their money. If I have the money and want to run 20 AC units all day for a single room, while simultaneously running 21 heaters and 30 TVs, I don't see how it's anyone's business but mine and the electric company. I'm pretty sure that as long as my bill gets paid, they won't care how much energy I use.

here is one reason why the coal plants should be outlawed... this is happening all over texas..

http://www.shaggybevo.com/board/showthread.php/79987-Texas-Pecan-trees-dying

after all how many people died in the reactor accident in Japan?

First, probably all the workers who had to go back in when the fuku-whatever started flooding. They're already dead, but just haven't tipped over yet. Then there all those who will be getting cancer over the next years. Chernobyl is still claiming victims.

There is also a big difference between types of radiation. The press treats Beta the same as Gamma (with lots of scary words thrown in like "deadly" with no concept of the difference. Most of the radiation dealt with in Japan was the far less serious Beta.

Fact is, most people don't know that there are several different types of radiation and all have different abilities to harm.