by Harsh Kapoor
To this day, contradictory estimations of the magnitude as well as the consequences of the Fukushima disaster continue to illustrate how an iron hand seems to tightly control information, in the ‘larger interests’, and the world’s major nuclear energy firms, pro-nuclear lobbies, Japan itself along with international authorities such as WHO, IAEA or CTBTO, seem to be engaged in the organised downplaying and retention of a precious information that citizens’ groups claim is already in their possession. Secrecy is built into the nuclear establishment’s mindset everywhere, and it prevails across the nuclear industry internationally.
Starting after WWII, in Japan itself, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombs victims were made invisible to the public eye and discriminated, and in the same go were their concerns regarding nuclear dangers; while the USA promoted their ‘Atoms for Peace’ programme in the war-battered country, the real push came in the seventies from Japan which went on to build 55 reactors.
Today, there seems to be grand collusion between high level technocrats (an influential nuclear lobby sits in Japan’s Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry; METI), and builders and operators of the nuclear plants (the Federation of Electricity Companies—FEPC; the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency—NISA; and the industrial groups that build the nuclear power plants—Toshiba, Hitachi, Mitsubishi). They fund the media to assure the public opinion that nuclear energy is perfectly safe.
The Japanese Democratic Party Government that came to power in 2009 (after a five-decade uninterrupted rule by the LDP) changed nothing. It had heavy support from Rengo, the power trade union federation whose key member unions are in the nuclear energy and electricity sectors.
Negligence, cover-up and falsification of data were routinely used to keep nuclear incidents away from public eye: in 2002, some 10 odd nuclear electricity companies were found to have been involved in such corruption or cover up of incidents dating 1970. Tepco, the owner and operator of the Fukushima plant, was one of the main accused and its officials had to resign. Between 2005 and 2009, there were over a dozen incidents in Fukushima. But the Japanese establishment imposed its preference for an invisible crisis management.
Japan and France have an interlocking nuclear connection. As far back as in the 1970s, the Japanese nuclear power utilities began shipping their spent fuel to France, to be reprocessed at Areva’s plant in La Hague (France is the principal stakeholder in Areva), and since 1999, France has been sending MOX—that is, mixed oxyde fuel—supplies to Japan. France has supported Japan’s nuclear programmes, especially building the reprocessing facility in Honshu. According to Areva, four of the 55 nuclear reactors in Japan function with MOX fuel, including one in Fukushima.
For long years, there has been a controversy over the safe use of MOX fuel in nuclear reactors. In May 2001, Greenpeace filed a case on the dangers of using MOX fuel supplied by Areva in the Fukushima reactor No 3.
However, the nuclear technocrats’ lobby is no less powerful in France than it is in Japan: in the early 1970s it imposed, without public debate, a nuclear energy economy in France that was developed at breathtaking pace in less than 15 years. Manufacture of pro-nuclear public opinion is big business particularly since it is the tax payer who pays for France’s nuclear electricity. Just this year, Areva spent 15 million euros on TV spots.
France in Damage Control over Fukushima
EVER since the Fukushima nuclear disaster struck on March 11, 2011, Tepco, the Japanese and French authorities and Areva, albeit slowly forced to admit the gravity of the situation, are doing their best to protect the nuclear energy sector from economic and political consequences. Sarkozy, the first head of state to visit Japan after the nuclear accident, took this occasion to publicly reaffirm his faith in the safety and pertinence of the nuclear option, and especially in the EPR reactors made by Areva, while the CEO of Areva who accompanied him had earlier stated publicly that ‘Fukushima was not a nuclear catastrophe’.
In sheer contradiction with these statements are the following facts: Areva evacuated its German employees in charge of the maintenance of Fukushima on the very next day of the accident ( March 12); France immediately called a Cabinet meeting to discuss strategies to protect the nuclear industry and its sales of nuclear plants to China, India, Libya, etc; the magistrate in charge for long years of a court case against the inaction and disinformation of the French authorities regarding the 1986 radioactive clouds from Chernobyl was all of a sudden evicted from handling the case; nuclear authorities have launched an information blitz, with daily press conferences for the past two weeks to counter growing public concern about the nuclear sector.
Dancing French Nuclear Can-Can will come at a Heavy Price
FRANCE signed a major contract with the Indian Government for a purchase of six EPR reactors for a nuclear plant site in Jaitapur in Maharashtra; given the extraordinarily large quantity of plutonium content needed in reactor fuel for the EPRs, they are possibly the most dangerous nuclear reactors.
India’s nukedom present the French nuclear industry as a model. There is a not so bright side that the Indians should know before they proceed to take the nuclear road with French involvement.
As elsewhere, there is an uncanny silence in France around nuclear matters. Decision-making elites are pro-nuclear, so are practically all MPs, regional or local elected bodies and all political formations from Left to Right to Centre, as well as interest groups that include mainstream media, consumers’ organisations and major national trade unions—even the communist CGT union which is a key actor in the nuclear energy plant operator EDF. This explains why citizens in France are still so ill-informed regarding health hazards.
However, as most nuclear plants in France are now old and subsequently present a higher risk of radioactive contamination for the 30,000 workers of the nuclear sector, the nuclear plant operators have massively turned towards sub-contracting the highly dangerous tasks involving repair, maintenance and modifications, thereby escaping the strict health and safety norms; today, subcontractors maintain 80 per cent of the French nuclear industry as opposed to 50 per cent in the 1970s. With privatisation, France now faces workers protesting the erosion of their rights and the increased dangers and risks to public safety when the time cycle of tasks is reduced.
Nuclear France is a water guzzling machine: state owned EDF withdraws up to 19 billion cubic metres of water per year from rivers and lakes, that is, roughly half of the fresh water drawn in the country. While the average Indian nuclear reactors are about 200 MW in size, the proposed French EPRs are 1500 MW and will consume even more water.
Additionally, there are problems with the waters used for cooling reactors, since it hotter when released back into the water sources. These problems increase in hot weather: during the heat wave that affected France in 2003, 17 nuclear power reactors had to be scaled back in operation or turned off, because of the rapid rise in rivers or lakes temperature that would have affected wild life fauna and flora. What will happen in India, where the weather conditions are much hotter?
France had nearly 200 uranium mines that are now all shut. But over 160 million tonnes of nuclear residue from the mines were disposed off and given away to the construction and building industry to be used as land leveling: there are stadiums, parking areas, roads, town-ships that have used this radioactive residue and people who live on it do not know.
Today, France imports uranium from its former African colonies, mostly Niger, and the ecological and social costs are hidden, as Areva which runs mines in Niger does not maintain epidemio-logical health records of communities in the mining regions.
Although France pretends that nuclear energy guarantees the country’s energy independence, securing continued access to these crucial resources has obvious consequences on France’s foreign policy and on its eventual military presence in Africa. Trouble has been brewing uranium mining areas in Niger. The recent kidnapping and assassination of two Areva engineers in Niger point at the fragility of this ‘independence’.
The numerous nuclear incidents and accidents that occured in France have been underplayed: in 1969, in Saint Laurent des Eaux, Loire et Cher, there was partial fusion of 50 kg of uranium, and the same accident happened again in the same plant in 1980 when 20 pounds of radioactive fuel melted. Some 400 EDF employees were sent to clean the site, but since then EDF has decided to call on the sub-contractors of such risky interven-tions. Similarly on December 27, 1999, the Blayais nuclear plant near the city of Bordeaux was struck by the storm Martin, followed by a flood; the plant was surrounded by water and cut off from the world for 13 hours, with 50 employees. 3 of the 4 reactors were considered lost.
In 2008, a uranium leak contaminated 100 workers in Tricastin: a documentary film RAS Nucleaire records inspectors being told to ignore malfunctions, employees hiding incidents for fear of sanctions, work teams feeling no longer responsible due to growing externalisation of tasks point to growing risks for collective security.
‘Small’ incidents have multiplied, with about 100 level one alerts a year, but the soft pro-nuclear propaganda makes risky industry acceptable. In India too, there is an accepted culture of post-hazard compensation rather than risk prevention. Bhopal still stares in our face.
Warnings have been addressed to the French authorities: an EDF study states that the back up generators of 19 reactors are at risk of malfunction, scientists alerted that 16 reactors are at serious risks of flooding, Paris’ police headquarters claim that there are no plans in place to protect people in case of an accident in a nuclear plant while seven sites comprising 18 reactors are within a radius of 225 km, the group Sortir du Nucleaire revealed that in 2007 EDF falsified the seismic data so as not to have to undertake expensive upgradation work, etc.
France did not solve the problem of nuclear waste storage: its waste was and is largely still sent to the former Soviet Union. A project of storage in Burne was opposed by the population.
But the La Hague Reprocessing Plant, in Normandy, is functioning: it reprocesses reactor fuel. MOX (mixed oxide fuel) is made from reprocessing spent fuel; and contains a very high degree of plutonium and this reprocessing results in massive releases by factors of several thousands compared to radioactive releases from nuclear reactors, of radioactive gases and liquids and the creation of solid waste. So-called low level wastes are discharged into the English Channel and into the air, while they often contain highly radioactive and long lived isotopes, in violation of the 1970 London Dumping Convention. Discharges from the La Hague as well as the UK Sellafield reprocessing plants resulted in contaminating beaches and seas as far as the Artic Circle. Two independent medical studies found elevated rates of leukemia among young people living around La Hague and similarly around Sellafield. The sea around La Hague has been measured 17 million times more radioactive than normal sea water. La Hague routinely releases a highly toxic radioactive gases including concentrationq of krypton-85 found at levels 90 000 times higher than in nature. Some 83 metric tons of plutonium is stored in La Hague, making it a very dangerous location.
French Anti-Nuclear Voices
WHILE France does not allow the public to make an informed opinion regarding the health and ecological costs of the nuclear energy option, small but vocal organisations campaign for transparency and alert public opinion. Among them are 700 groups that are part of the network Sortir du Nucleaire, the Observatoire du Nucleaire, the citizen’s independant nuclear lab CRIIRAD that was set in response to the Chernobyl disaster, Greenpeace France, ACDN. Working against huge odds, they face witchhunts and intimidation of activists, court cases filed against them, breaking into their offices, thefts of their computers and computer surveillance. People seem to have forgotten the 1985 the French secret service bombed and sunk the ship Rainbow warrior (belonging to Greenpeace) in distant New Zealand.
The extraordinarily high quality of public documentation generated by these groups on the dark underside of the French nuclear programme merits emulation by others internationally.
Conclusion
AFTER Fukushima and on the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, the ‘business as usual’ ways of the nuclear establishment should not go unchallenged. The 1959 accord between the IAEA and WHO has to be revoked for the WHO to independently monitor and engage in public research over health and safety long term effects of Fukushima. The 1994 Convention on Nuclear Safety must be revised giving high powers to the IAEA to conduct safety checks on all functioning nuclear power reactors across the globe, till they are decommissioned.
As the tight official wraps over nuclear matters prevent credible independent information, the Indian civil society must demand a full scale independent review of the unaccountable ways of its nuclear energy sector and a moratorium on all reactor construction. India’s nuclear industry be made to come under the purview of the Central Information Commission. A parliamentary committee must call for a full hearing on safety of India’s nuclear installations, including uranium mines and radioactive waste storage and transport activities. Misleading declarations of Indian public servants in wake of the Fukushima accident should be challenged in court by citizens groups.
The author is an independent political activist who was till recently based in France. He is the founder of South Asia Citizens Web – www.sacw.net
~~~ Build a Bigger Breakwater NOW Please ~~~
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk209/DistantThunderbolt/Japan%20Reconstruction/Fshima7000circle1a_zpsf6b66b14.jpg
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Timeline of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster Evacuations; 10+ Million People Should Have Been Evacuated On 3/11
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2014/06/timeline-of-fukushima-evacuations-10.html
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Hi Doc Goodheart , just wondered if you have any info concerning the corium which was visible from reactor 4 equipment pool which flowed out and was clearly visible. Did TEPCO just cover it up with one go their tents? I’m hoping they have placed lead shielding or the like over that area but it would be difficult as it flowed along the side of the building Thanks in advance
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Yeah I’ve wondered about that too. But there is sooo much mis/dis-information around reactor 4. I question weather or not there was ever any fuel rod removal in that building…how? They never acknowledged the melt-out. No one ever mentions the meltdown in unit 4..and that one is all but caught on camera.
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“Three times the amount of Chernobyl”? Didn’t he leave off two or three zeroes? Or was it just three times “at first”? This is ongoing devastation to the ocean alone that land-bound Chernobyl had no capacity to do.
It’s good he is speaking out, but (as usual, it seems,) it is way downplayed.
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Fukushima Decommissioning Worker Conditions Deteriorating; via A Green Road http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2012/11/fukushima-decommissioning-working.html
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Event Peak Radiation Reading In Bq/m³
2,400 Nuclear weapons testing peak – 100 Bq/m³
Chernobyl caused a peak reading of – 1,000 Bq/m³
Fukushima caused a peak reading of – 180,000,000 Bq/m³
Chernobyl was around ten times worse than 2,400 nuclear bombs going off.
Fukushima was around 180,000 times worse than 2,400 nuclear bombs going off.
2014 – Fukushima Ocean Radiation Compared To Chernobyl and 2,400 Open Air Nuclear Bomb Tests; via @AGreenRoad
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2013/05/fukushima-radiation-measured-in-pacific.html
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unbelievable, Goodheart. Please tell me these numbers are wrong. Seems they’re now going beyond our wildest projections…
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Those figures are frightening, Dr Goodheart! And I try not to use such words as I think they can engender paralyzing emotions. But to give comparative figures like this makes it almost certain that we will become extinct along with most other contemporary life forms on the planet.
These ‘experts’ opinion that we have 3x the release from Chernobyl does strike me as a rather simplistic form of radionuclide accounting. You know, there was one reactor that melted down at Chernobyl and three (that the authorities are admitting to) at Fukushima…So 1×3=3. That really fills me with confidence that these ‘experts’ are really paying close attention to this crisis/catastrophe (not!).
No matter how much Kool-Aid I drink, from time to time, I cannot escape the inexorable march of logic that dictates to me that we are in deep trouble on this planet. We are loosing our food and fresh/clean water supplies. We require more and more and more energy to try to make our personal environment livable. But the production of that energy makes our planet even more uninhabitable. IMO this is the biggest underlying conundrum that faces our planet and until we can implement technologies that give us relatively cheap to free clean energy which, for really all non-destructive purposes (and most of them to) is electricity, we are poised on the edge of oblivion.
But instead I’m confronted with Big Brother telling everybody that everything is fine, just move along with your own(ed) lives.
Crazy.
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Yeah, and that will work nicely for the nuclear cabal, their shills and apologists. Well, let’s see three times Chernobyl, that translates into 12,000 people dead, since the WHO’s official position on Chernobyl was 4000.
No truth, no data…no problem SSDD
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I think the general calculation, WNTF, is always add 10 zeros. That puts it into a ‘conservative’ range.
Anything larger than that is obviously wrong, according to .gov experts.
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Sorry I short-changed the zeroes. Mea culpa. New calc sounds about right.
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WNTF, did you see this link? Spells it out fairly straight forward
http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/6913
But there is a huge range of theorized radioactive release in Chernobyl. When I mention Chernobyl, people quickly tell me its an animal paradise! So the problem is more than accurate numbers…the problem is the brains/psychology of the masses…
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The idea that the Chernobyl exclusion zone is an animal paradise is a myth. The area has reverted to a more natural state in the (relative) absence of humans, and wild animals have returned. However there is extensive evidence of environmental abnormalities including deformities, low populations of some species, and suppressed growth and decomposition rates. See for example
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/forests-around-chernobyl-arent-decaying-properly-180950075/?no-ist
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correct, NoFixedID…
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Full disclosure I was one of those people who googled Chernobyl immediately after 3/11 and got all the ‘Chernobyl = nature paradise’ pages pull up and naively stopped searching. Combined with my parents’ telling me ‘it’s in cold shutdown now’ – I lost the first 1.5 years to oblivion and avoidable radiation exposure.
The ‘Chernobyl returnee grandma’ story is also effective too.
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Lots of catching up to do since then, obviously. Thanks enenews and thanks everyone.
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…..
Zero risk? no plants.
Take that “danger potential”
Set sun, wind, tides free
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hey, there is some hope….check out this new process to convert nuclides into stable elements, developed by a japanese scientist at Mitsubishi Heavy industries. Palladium nano-film is used to convert cesium into praseodymium; he says a similar process should work for strontium 90 and others.
http://www.kitco.com/ind/Albrecht/2014-06-18-Palladium-Used-To-Transform-Radioactive-Waste-Into-Rare-Earth-Element.html
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maybe technology can help … we should be looking for any help anywhere …
smarter option? to pillory the criminal nuclear cabal and shut their bodacious Ponzi scheme down right now … while there is still some hope!!!
peace ‘newsers! Take the fight to ’em … every day … every moment … every platform …
Nuclear is soooooo unnecessary … Take that Bechtel and your little dog, GE, too!!!
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I say we start searching for the mythical Swan that can separate milk from water. Maybe she will know how to separate the sea from the hundred or so radionucleides that have been pouring in the Pacific for 169 is it, weeks now. Not to mention the criminal and industrial pollution of a couple centuries. Maybe there’s a mythical creature that can unweave a hundred years of lies, that would be nice, too. Or we can rely on the oh so wonderful technology invented by clueless and compartmentalized scientists, who, if you haven’t noticed got us into this mess and seem to have no problem lying to the public about it for a stipend. I’m sorry if I sound bitter, but, vitrifie this, what has been done cannot be undone. They cannot decontaminate the hydrologic cycle. It is in the ocean, the mist, the air, the rain, the fog, the rivers, it’s in the ionosphere, it’s everywhere and it’s invisible. Make your peace with God. They gambled and we all lost.
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NFV “maybe technology can help”? So far to date, these geniuses haven’t been able to come up with anything better than caveman…bury your sh#t in the ground. Hell, these technological wizards with boat loads of PhD’s in nuclear physics and engineering, can’t even engineer/dig a hole that works.
The whole scenario of nuclear power is beyond insanity. For me, beyond insanity is death. That’s where all this is going, and in short order sorry to say.
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wxman:
There are fundamental problems with the Palladium nano film concept.
The shear volume and quantity of radioactive material at Fuku (et al) is beyond the scope of scaling up his process.
It does have promise for contained material, yet not for the chaotic situation at Fuku, let alone what Fuku (et al) has dispersed in to the ocean and atmosphere already.
As a design engineer, I have spent decades reading of stories like this one. Few of them ever become a practical reality. Most have inherent flaws in terms of reproduceability, economics, and actual implementation.
Note that he is projecting practical application 10 years out.
So multiply that by at least 2 or 3.
Even if what he has could be made to work within a year or two, that would still be 4 to 5 years late…i.e. the genie is out of the bottle. His discovery can not put the genie back in to the bottle.
It can, at best, sterilize the genie before it ever gets out of the bottle.
Recall:
Nuclear energy will be too cheap to meter.
Traffic jams will be a thing of the past because we will all be flying helicopters.
Cold fusion
Every house will have a nuclear reactor to replace the furnace.
Antibiotics will wipe out disease.
Antibiotics will get rid of all STDs.
TV will replace the classroom for education.
Computers will create the paperless office.
A hydrogen based energy source to replace petroleum fuels.
(Source being horribly confused with storage).
Here endeth the rant of the day.
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albeit, an awesome one, fireguyjeff…
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they told the german people the same things towards the end of ww2
kept offering them hope that great new super weapons would soon be reeking havoc on the allies – same old bs; hope & change
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Mitshubishi Heavy Industries. The same people that helped destroy SONGS at San Onofre.
Here’s how it works. Discover some new ‘life-saving’ technology. Brag about it in the news. Government comes in and throws billions at it, not caring if it works or not, but the contractors all skim off hundreds of millions. Repeat, and repeat, and repeat . . .
Just like the vitrification plant at Hanford. I think they’re up over a half-trillion dollars, and NOTHING. Lots of bonuses, though, and raises for all the upper offices. And something about increased contributions . . .
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Radha Roy (now deceased) already did this. Could never check out his patents, but maybe they were stolen and hidden.
The Roy process worked with small quantitative amounts, really small. He said he could convert plutonium to non-radioactive lead. Don’t know what this other scientist is doing. Now if we could just have an “everywhere” machine, or just do an un-do on the food chain. I’m all for hope, and such avenues should be pursued, even if it would de-contaminate small amounts of food. But the mix of radionuclides is so complex, and contamination getting so ubiquitous, that unclear where this could go.
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While I can’t comment on the efficiency of the system (and can they, really, I might ask?), palladium right now is over $800/oz., which I don’t consider prohibitive or an impediment considering the need. Not as bad as gold, or platinum. The films are nm in thickness, though I wonder how this would transalte scaled up.
“Iwamura expects the process can be scaled up within ten years, provided that a large enough budget will be available for the entire time period.”
Abundance of Palladium:
◦Earth’s Crust/p.p.m.: 0.0006
◦Seawater/p.p.m.:
■Atlantic Suface: N/A
■Atlantic Deep: N/A
■Pacific Surface: 1.9E-08
■Pacific Deep: 6.8E-08
Personally, I’d like to see it work and scaled up quickly. Should I ask for a show of hands here who would feel that a pace of 10 years just for the research to single scale-up might be much too long? It’s going to hell pretty quickly and though it may be compared to the beginning, scaled back, now it’s still much too much at a steady state. And I’m sure the cam watchers would have an issue about my expression ‘steady state’, that it’s not that at all.
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Shaker:
The amount of palladium needed for a scaled up system would simply multiply by the scale up factor.
The nm thickness aspect wold stay the same.
The scaled up version would be a combination of larger surface area films
and paralleling a lot of systems.
Think of it like how much of a challenge it was to get small LCD displays and then the goal of trying to make TV screen sizes.
The price of palladium is likely to be a small/liveable percent of the development and manufacturing cost due to how thin the monolayer is.
Not to be a buzzkill, but my analogy is sort of like making the big screen TV while your audience is going blind.
Like I said, the genie is out of the bottle with no way to get it back in. And it does not grant any wishes. Yet many will wish they had not encountered the genie.
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I want to know why has this kind of tech is being ignored,brushed aside?im no rocket surgeon,but something real must be done !The world is dying an inch at a time .Good link wxman2001.
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Well at least this lie is a start. This again fails to mention the TONS of spent fuel that Chernobyl did NOT have on site however.
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Also omits the MOX fuel.
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Oct/2013 Cancer at Malibu: 3 teachers have been recently diagnosed with thyroid cancer, another 3 with thyroid problems. Also reported are hair loss, rashes, and bladder cancer. Migraines are epidemic. Several parents stated their kids are sick with cancer and other ailments. Malibu high school is one block from the Pacific ocean. People living 20 kilometers from the ocean are subject to breathing in seaspray. Americum, Plutonium, and Cesium migrate 20 kilometers inland. If you are interested, this info came from a site called Bobby1’sBlog. A friend emailed it to me so I don’t have a direct address.
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My wife grew up in Malibu, born Feb. 14, 1960 … first years in Bakersfield, Whittier, then Eureka … then after four years old all Carbon Beach … takes thyroid supplements regularly …
Her brother just sold his house one mile from Malibu High … “Juan de something” … apparently the school was built on some nasty fill … Rocketdyne and Hughes are nearby … as is Pepperdine etc. etc.
Not saying they didn’t get dosed from Fuku-puppy … but there may be more to this Malibu High story … … we need more information, which the EPA, DOE, US Gov’t et al are withholding …
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I just posted also about my friend from Santa Barbara being ill, daughter[16] with throat/abdominal cancer, dog died of it. This is the perfect site to tell the stories of these emerging illnesses. Since the ‘real’ world is in denial, at least the people here and the ones that are curious and new here, will have the opportunity to tie radiation with sickness. Many may think it’s lame, but people just don’t get the whole ‘invisible death’ thing.
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