Four weeks to recall of Chernobyl [4/25-26/1986] —

U.S. president pushes nuclear power

Re-reporting, editing by Carolyn Bennett


Nuclear power creates massive quantities of radioactive waste. There is no way to put it on earth that’s safe. As it leaks into the water over time, it bio-concentrates in the food chains; in the breast milk; in fetuses, that are thousands of times more radiosensitive than are adults. One x-ray to the pregnant abdomen doubles the incidence of leukemia in the child. Over time, nuclear waste will induce epidemics of cancer, leukemia and genetic disease, and random compulsory genetic engineering. Moreover, we are not the only species with genes, of course: it is plants and animals. This is an absolute catastrophe, the likes of which the world has never seen before. —  Dr. Helen Caldicott —

HELEN CALDICOTT still calls nuclear technology “madness,” “an obscene technology.”  She appeared today in debate on the Democracy Now program. This is some of what she said.

“A new report from the New York Academy of Sciences has just translated 5,000 papers from Russian into English. … Up to a million people have already died from Chernobyl, and people will continue to die from cancer for virtually the rest of time.

“What we should know is that a millionth of a gram of plutonium, or less, can induce cancer, or will induce cancer. Each reactor has 250 kilos, or 500 pounds, of plutonium in it. … There’s enough plutonium in these reactors to kill everyone on earth.”

Nuclear

“…If you inhale a millionth of a gram of plutonium, the surrounding cells receive a very, very high dose. Most die within that area, because it’s an alpha emitter. The cells on the periphery remain viable. They mutate, and the regulatory genes are damaged. Years later, that person develops cancer. Now, that’s true for radioactive iodine, that goes to the thyroid; cesium-137, that goes to the brain and muscles; strontium-90 goes to bone, causing bone cancer and leukemia.… “

Coal

“Coal is a deadly substance and we must stop burning it. We must also not go from the global warming frying pan into the nuclear fire. … This is an obscene technology. Seaborg, who discovered plutonium, said it’s the most dangerous substance on earth. Each reactor has 500 pounds of plutonium, lasts for half-a-million years, causing cancer after cancer.”

Renewables

“…There’s enough renewable technology now, right now, which is relatively cheap, to supply the whole of the U.S.’s needs by 2040 without any carbon and any nuclear. We just need to have the politicians to get out of the pockets of the nuclear companies, the coal companies, the oil companies, and start funding renewable energy. Why isn’t there a solar panel on every single house in America, solar hot water systems, windmills everywhere? You know it would increase the GDP and employ hundreds of thousands of people throughout the world. This is the way to go — it’s the prescription for survival.”

Fukushima Daiichi-Chernobyl blow back, propaganda campaign  

On March 25, Dr. Caldicott wrote, “As I write this from Ottawa, two weeks since the earthquake and tsunami and the calamity that has befallen the Fukushima Nuclear Plant No 1, the situation has grown increasingly grave.…

“What we have also seen is a second tsunami of a different kind — a tidal wave of blow-back from the nuclear industry around the world, which has been rocked back on its heels by Fukushima but is now regrouping. There are claims that radiation is good for you; that nuclear power is still the only answer to global warming; and that fears about the safety of nuclear power are unwarranted and panic-stricken.

“…  There are billions and billions of dollars at stake for the nuclear industry, which has … managed to bamboozle governments around the world, much of the press, and many ordinary citizens into believing that nuclear power is green and clean. Nothing could be further from the truth. [However], the industry will not walk away from that money without a fight.”

Sources and notes

“‘Prescription for Survival’:  A Debate on the Future of Nuclear Energy between Anti-Coal Advocate George Monbiot and Anti-Nuclear Activist Dr. Helen Caldicott,” March 30, 2011, http://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/30/prescription_for_survival_a_debate_on

“A Medical Problem of Vast Dimensions,” posted March 26, 2011, http://www.helencaldicott.com/

HELEN CALDICOTT

Helen Caldicott, MD, physician, author, speaker

Medical and Nuclear Education/Public Advocacy United States

Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR): Founder and President, 1978-1983; President Emeritus, 1983-Present

Women’s Action for Nuclear Disarmament (WAND): Founder, 1980

Nuclear Freeze Voter Initiative Campaign: Co-Leader, 1980

STAR (Standing For Truth About Radiation) Foundation: Co-Founder, 1997; President, 1999-2000

Nuclear Policy Research Institute: President, 2001- Current

Australia and New Zealand: Initiated movement against French atmospheric tests, 1971-72

Led education campaign among Australian labor unions about medical and military dangers or uranium mining, 1975-1976

Led public New Zealand education campaign, with Dr. William Caldicott, resulting in the official New Zealand nuclear-free policy, 1982

Founded Green Labor, a new section within Australian Labor Party, 1988

Ran as Independent Candidate for Australian Federal Parliament, 1990

Founding Patron, Parents Protecting Our Children Against Radiation, Lucas Heights, NSW, 1998

Founder, Our Common Future Party (OCF), Australia 2000

http://www.helencaldicott.com/about/cv/

Glenn Theodore Seaborg (b. 1912 Ishpeming, Michigan, U.S.; d. 1999, Lafayette, California) — American nuclear chemist best known for work on isolating and identifying elements heavier than uranium. With coworkers, Seaborg added (1940–55) 10 new elements that encompass atomic numbers 94–102 and 106, of which plutonium (94) is the best known because of its use as a nuclear explosive and for nuclear power.  Seaborg was chair of the Atomic Energy Commission (1961-1971); the American nuclear-power industry developed rapidly during that time. [Seaborg, Glenn T.  (2008). Encyclopædia Britannica. Deluxe Edition.  Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica]

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Japan, USA persist in “safe” nuclear delusion

We remember Japan and its people, and more dangerous government-corporate mendacity

Editing, re-reporting, minor comment by Carolyn Bennett

Two thousand bodies turned up in a single “northeastern region of Miyagi.” Millions have been “left without water, electricity, fuel or enough food. Hundreds of thousands more are without homes following Japan’s tsunami that has drowned whole towns.

Today, Agence France-Presse is reporting, “a new explosion at a stricken nuclear power plant hit Japan as it raced to avert a reactor meltdown after a quake-tsunami disaster that is feared to have killed more than 10,000 people.”

The report says, “Explosions have rocked two overheating reactors at the ageing Fukushima plant, located 250 kilometers (155 miles) northeast of Tokyo, after the cooling systems were knocked out by Friday’s 8.9-magnitude quake.

“A first explosion blew apart the building surrounding the plant’s number-one nuclear reactor on Saturday” but, according to officials, “the seal around the reactor itself remained intact.” The whole truth, as with Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, has not yet come to light.

“A U.S. aircraft carrier deployed off Japan (160 kilometers (99 miles) northeast of the power plant) for relief efforts shifted its position,” AFP reported, “after detecting low-level radiation from the malfunctioning Fukushima plant.”

The current administration in Washington, however, according to Nuke Free dot org, is asking the U.S. Congress, that is, the American people, to fund “$36 billion in new loan guarantees to build more commercial nuclear reactors,” without disclosing “exact plans for dealing with a major nuclear reactor disaster.”

The administration has also failed to “[identify] the cash or human reserves needed to cover the deaths and destruction caused by the owners of nuclear reactors.”

Nuke Free editor Harvey Wasserman recalls some of the history, common untruths, and human impact across the world of the “safe” nuclear delusion.

USA

“In 1986, the Perry nuclear plant, east of Cleveland, was rocked by a 5.5 Richter-scale shock,” much weaker than Japan’s quake, but the Ohio “quake broke pipes and other key equipment within the plant. It took out nearby roads and bridges. An official state commission later warned that evacuation during such a quake would be impossible.…

“Numerous other American reactors sit on or near earthquake faults. Had the massive 8.9 Richter-scale earthquake that has just savaged Japan hit off the California coast, it could have ripped apart at least four coastal reactors and sent a lethal cloud of radiation across the entire United States.

“The two huge [California] reactors each at San Onofre and Diablo Canyon are not designed to withstand such powerful shocks,” Wasserman said. “All four [California] reactors are located relatively low to the coast. They are extremely close to major faults and are vulnerable to tsunamis like those now expected to hit as many as fifty countries.” 

RUSSIA

“The most definitive recent study of [Russia’s] 1986 Chernobyl disaster puts the death toll at 985,000. The accident irradiated a remote rural area; the nearest city, Kiev, was 80 kilometers [50 miles] away.

“Heavy radioactive fallout spread from Chernobyl blanketed all of Europe within a matter of days.” Also within days, “fallout hit the jet stream and on to the California coast, thousands of miles away; it then reached all the way across the northern tier of the United States of America.”

USA nuclear is JAPAN nuclear

On the Democracy Now news program, today, Wasserman reiterated the volatile and inescapably dangerous nature of nuclear power for any nation and all countries.

Japan is not Russia, he said, referring to the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Japan is “a highly advanced country” yet it “cannot cope with nuclear power plants.” In the United States, he said, “Every nuclear plant is susceptible to this kind of damage and this kind of disaster.”

There are reactors in the United States that “are approaching 40 years old.” Some of these very old reactors are virtually identical to Fukushima 1. Nevertheless, owners of these plants across the United States are “going in for license extensions, asking the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for and getting approval to extend the life” of these plants.

In Japan, the nuclear industry assured the Japanese people that their reactors — and “there are 55 reactors in Japan, all of which are on earthquake faults and near the ocean” — could withstand exactly these kinds of events.  


However, what happened in Japan had been predicted, Wasserman said, and the same is true for United States, especially concerning the Diablo Canyon reactors in California where owners are seeking license extension.

To continue this delusion of “safe” nuclear, to continue extending the life of thee killers “is unconscionable,” Wasserman says, especially seeing “what has happened in Japan.”

It “has to be stopped … Every nuclear plant in the United States is susceptible to this kind of damage and this kind of disaster, and it’s time that they are shut.”

Sources and notes

“Japan reels as second blast rocks nuclear plant” (By Hiroshi Hiyama, AFP News), March 14, 2011,

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/japan-reels-second-blast-rocks-nuclear-plant-20110314-024920-661.html

“Japan’s Quake Could Have Irradiated the Entire U.S.,” Mar 11, 2011, http://www.nukefree.org/editorsblog/japans-quake-could-have-irradiated-entire-us

“Japan Facing Biggest Catastrophe since Dawn of Nuclear Age,” March 14, 2011,

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/14/japan_facing_biggest_catastrophe_since_dawn

Harvey Wasserman is editor of Nuke Free dot org, a longtime anti-nuclear activist, and a senior advisor to GreenPeace-USA. Wasserman is author of SOLARTOPIA! Our Green-Powered Earth

CHERNOBYL

NUCLEAR

Initially the Chernobyl accident caused the deaths of 32 people. Dozens more contracted serious radiation sickness; some of these people later died.

Between 50 and 185 million curies of radionuclides [units, quantity of radioactivity, radiation] escaped into the atmosphere—several times more radioactivity than that created by the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.

This radioactivity was spread by the wind over Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine and soon reached as far west as France and Italy. Millions of acres of forest and farmland were contaminated; and although many thousands of people were evacuated, hundreds of thousands more remained in contaminated areas. In subsequent years, many livestock were born deformed; among human beings several thousand radiation-induced illnesses and cancer deaths were expected in the long term.

The Chernobyl accident occurred on April 25–26, 1986, when technicians at reactor Unit 4 attempted a poorly designed experiment. On April 27, 30,000 inhabitants of Pryp’yat began to be evacuated.

A cover-up was attempted. However, on April 28, Swedish monitoring stations reported abnormally high levels of wind-transported radioactivity and pressed for an explanation. The Soviet government admitted there had been an accident at Chernobyl.

The 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in the Soviet Union was at the time the worst accident in the history of nuclear power generation. The Chernobyl power station was situated at the settlement of Pryp’yat, 10 miles (16 km) northwest of the city of Chernobyl (Ukrainian: Chornobyl) and 65 miles (104 km) north of Kiev, Ukraine. The station consisted of four reactors, each capable of producing 1,000 megawatts of electric power. It had come on-line in 1977–83.

Chernobyl accident.  (2011). Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Deluxe Edition.  Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica

THREE MILE ISLAND

NUCLEAR

Three Mile Island nuclear power station situated in the Susquehanna River near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, U.S., is site of the most serious accident in the history of the American nuclear power industry.

An automatically operated valve in the Unit 2 reactor mistakenly closed, shutting off the water supply to the main feedwater system (the system that transfers heat from the water actually circulating in the reactor core). The time was 4 p.m., March 28, 1979.

This caused the reactor core to shut down automatically, but a series of equipment and instrument malfunctions, human errors in operating procedures, and mistaken decisions in the ensuing hours led to a serious loss of water coolant from the reactor core.

As a result, the core was partially exposed, and the zirconium cladding of its fuel reacted with the surrounding superheated steam to form a large accumulation of hydrogen gas, some of which escaped from the core into the containment vessel of the reactor building.

The cleanup of Unit 2 continued until 1990. Damage to the unit was so severe, however (52 percent of the core melted down), that it remained unusable.

Three Mile Island.  (2011). Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Deluxe Edition.  Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica.

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