Nuclear Meltdown Watch

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

Late 1957-

A massive radioactive waste explosion contaminates hundreds of square miles of the Urals in the USSR.

But the US and UK are just beginning their civilian nuke power programs to placate the public's horror of all things nuclear.
Hilarity ensues.

Just as the US's first plant is about to go online in Beaver County, Penn. we get 'Leave it to Beaver.'
Wish they'd left it alone.

[seemslikeadream]

Reactor 4 is falling apart

The wall of the south side is falling apart at reactor 4.
Reactor 4 is in the most serious situation. It is assumed that if another aftershock hits it to drop the spent fuel pool hung in the building, the entire area in eastern Japan would be too contaminated to be inhabitable.

On 12/2/2011 (JST), something like “fire” was observed beside reactor 4.
Since then, a strong light has been set toward Fukuichi camera as if it was hiding something by white out.

However, thanks to JNN Fukushima live camera, it was confirmed that the wall of reactor 4 was lost on the south side. At least since 12/5/2011, the wall is missing.

[hanshan]

...

this appears to be one of the things they(TEPCO) was hiding & was wondering when
it would come out

http://enenews.com/breaking-man-who-worked-at-reactor-no-3-says-nuclear-fuel-gone-from-spent-fuel-pool-no-3-great-skepticism-that-any-pellets-remain-video

Worker at Reactor No. 3 says nuclear fuel gone from Spent Fuel Pool — “Great skepticism” that any pellets remain (VIDEO)


Title: Ex-Fukushima Plant Worker Press Conference
Uploaded by: MrJapanjp
Uploaded: Dec 14, 2011
Speaker: Tomohiko Suzuki, Ex-Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Worker, Press Conference

At 47:00 in

“This is a scene from where I was working. You can see reactor 4 and 3. You can also the reactor 3 spent fuel pool. But I had great skepticism about what was actually in the pool. If there were any pellets inside there remaining”

http://enenews.com/paper-first-japan-debris-hits-canada-people-warned-about-radiation-police-told-geiger-counters-parts-bodies-will-begin-washing-about-year

Paper: First Japan debris hits US, Canada — People warned about radiation — Recommended for Police to have Geiger counters — “Bodies will likely begin washing up in about a year”



First debris from Japanese earthquake/tsunami reaches Olympic Peninsula, Olympic Peninsula Daily News, Dec. 14, 2011:

The first piece of debris that could be identified as washing up on the West Coast from the March 11 tsunami in Japan — a large black float — was found on a Neah Bay beach two weeks ago, Seattle oceanographers Curtis Ebbesmeyer and Jim Ingraham said Tuesday night.

Since then, the two researchers [...] have learned that the black, 55-gallon drum-sized floats also have been found on Vancouver Island.

Ebbesmeyer on Debris Threat

About a quarter of the 100 million tons of debris from Japan is expected to make landfall on beaches from southern Alaska to California
Possibly in volumes large enough to clog ports
Flotsam in a current travels an average of seven miles per hour
can move as much as 20 mph if it has a large area exposed to the wind

Many of those bodies and parts of bodies will likely begin washing up in about a year
Large items still in the water should be reported to the Coast Guard, as they may represent a hazard to boats and ships
Some shipping lanes have already been rerouted to avoid the worst of the debris
Ebbesmeyer on Radiation Contamination Threat

People should also be aware of the possibility of radiation contamination
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant leaked a large amount of radiation into the water
No one knows what levels of contamination there are in the currents, and the
[No one knows what levels of contamination there are in] items being carried in those currents
[Suggests] local police take steps to have sensitive Geiger counters available to scan items

The event was unprecedented, and no one knows yet what levels of radiation, if any, items have picked up
Ebbesmeyer on Importance of Debris to Japanese

“All debris should be treated with a great reverence and respect”
Families in Japan are waiting to hear of any items that may have been associated with their loved ones
May travel to the U.S. to meet those who found these mementos
Rafts of debris include whole houses which may still contain many personal items
Japanese are known for storing important personal mementos in walls
Even the smallest of traceable items may be the only thing associated with one of those people who were lost
Contact Ebbesmeyer at CurtisEbbesmeyer@comcast.net for assistance
“I have a translator to read things in Japanese”

...

[eyeno]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSTeQIP8 ... detailpage

[Avalon]

Thoughtful advice on the personal memorabilia, though I wonder how much is contaminated by hazardous waste at this point.

Posters, please shorten your URLs using something like TinyURL. Long links like Hanshan's above are really messing with the formatting and readability.

[StarmanSkye]

I found this recent press-release by a freelance journalist who kept a hidden A/V record & detailed notes of his experience as a contract-worker at Fukushima to be very informative, providing a wealth of perceptions and insights re: the actual conditions workers are facing there.


This includes: routine falsification of dosimeter readings to enable workers to work there longer, workers paying for their own stem-cell extraction as insurance in the event of serious radiation injury, the exploitation of workers by Yakuzza organized crime gangs, routine information falsification, cover-up and censorship by the many contractor-companies involved to meet unrealistic TEPCO and government expectation, the almost total lack of any real progress being made to contain or remediate the disaster, and the VERY serious nature of the ongoing crisis which is not being accurately reported.


These are the kinds of observations and details only available from an insider with intimate first-hand experience who isn't under an effective gag-order. Bravo! Also, congrats to the courageous writer who risked his health to find and share an intimate level of first-hand truth, who resisted indulging in cheap sensationalism and rabid fear-mongering.

A very sobering and reflective glimpse thru the eyes of the guys who are on the front-lines of an unfolding disaster, contradicting what would seem to be official nonsense TEPCO is now reporting about having reached cold shutdown despite having 3 runaway cores that are still MIA and a fuel-pool weakened and poised to collapse in the event of another earthquake tremor.

English translation included.

************

[eyeno]

According to neurosurgeon Dr. Russell Blaylock, among others, the Curcumin in Turmeric Root is highly protective against radioactive contamination. I take two half teaspoons a day. I get it from frontiercoop.com for $7.30 a pound. I buy several pounds at a time and put it into quart Mason jars and store it in the vacuum Mason Jars. Its also good for the body in many other ways. Protective against cancer, stroke, and other maladies. I buy the Turmeric Root that is labeled as coming from Allepey, India because its higher in curcumin content. The curcumin in Turmeric Root has been studied by as many as 688 different medical studies and has been proven to be effective against many types of cancer.

http://www.examiner.com/human-rights-in ... inton-pact
Radiating Americans: Fukushima rain, Clinton's secret food pact


Government agreed to downplay Fukushima radiation

Fukushima is far from stabilized according to energy advisor veteran with 39 years of nuclear power engineering experience, Arnie Gundersen who told Solar IMG Saturday that Americans, not just in the northwest, are unaware of being rained on with Fukushima nuclear hot particles and eating Fukushima contaminated food because the US government has deliberately minimized the catastrophe, partially due to a pact Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signed with Japan. Gundersen, with a team of other scientists, intends to prove government statements about Fukushima are false.

"The United States came up with a decision to downplay Fukushima," said Gundersen who is awakening the public with information such as hot particles in rain will continue falling in the U.S., not just in the Pacific Northwest, for another year, and mentioning high-level fallout in Oklahoma a few days ago.

Gundersen told SolarIMG that high-level people he knows in the State Department said Hillary Clinton signed a pact with her counterpart in Japan agreeing for the United States to continue buying food from Japan, despite that food not being properly tested for radioactive materials.

"So we are not sampling the food coming into the United States," he said, repeating, "The US government has come up with a decision at the highest levels of the State Department, as well as other departments who made a decision to downplay Fukushima."

In April, the month after the powerful tsunami and earthquake crippled Japan including its nuclear power plant, "Hillary Clinton signed a pact with Japan that she agreed there is no problem with Japanese food supply and we will continue to buy them so we are not sampling food coming in from Japan" according to Gundersen.

Due to this high degree of secrecy enshrouding the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, that Gundersen said is ongoing, he has called on Americans with Geiger counters to send samples to him for an independent research team's study.

Gundersen says the new study will prove that what the U.S. government is telling Americans is false.

To help Americans come to terms with the present and ongoing Fukushima catastrophe, the former nuclear industry senior vice president who earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in nuclear engineering, who holds a nuclear safety patent, and was a licensed reactor operator, Arnie Gundersen recently featured on his Fairwinds website a new documentary short titled, "Dial 'M' For Meltdown." (See the embedded video on this page left.)

Brian Rich created the video to ensure the history of commercial nuclear power was documented and presented to a younger generation.

"I found most of the public was turned off by the complex nature of Nuclear Physics, even if what they didn't know was going to kill them and their loved ones," reported Rich.

One reason millions will die from Fkushima is what some experts in July called scandalous collusion to cover-up the horrendous facts about the nuclear holocaust occurring.

Fukushima stabilized? Many children to suffer thyroid cancer in three to five years

"The reactors are better than since the accident," said Gundersen, but "they all have holes on them, so they are not holding water."

"Until a couple of weeks ago, they had to constantly add water. Now there's a system in place that's cleaning the water enough that they can pump it back into the reactor."

Gundersen stated that the reactors are still creating "an enormous amount of waste" and that "the filters are hotter than a pistol."

"I still believe water is leaking into the ocean and I know water's leaking into the ground table," he said.

Gundersen said it is a concern that there are indications that there is still iodine on site plus, 'enormous amounts of iodine have been in the water."

"There's an awful lot of kids that are going to have thyroid problems in the next three to five years as the result of this."

Kicking the nuclear can, Worst to come: Unit 4, Contaminated food and water, Children and cancer

Gundersen admits that he is "becoming increasingly concerned" about Fukushima impacting not only Japanese but also Americans.

He listed his major concerns related to Fukushima impact in the United States: Unit 4; radioactive beef, soil and rain; burning contaminated materials; and raising dose amounts.

According to Gundersen, Fukushima's Unit 4 is "very fragile and could topple" in another earthquake.

Off-site releases that have already occurred are a problem, he said.

Each Japanese prefecture is "doing its own thing" instead of a whole of government approach resolving the radiation problem and protecting the people.

"There is radioactive beef. There's radioactive soil. There's going to be radioactive straw."

"The Japanese are not sampling enough," said the nuclear expert, and Fukushima food is being bought by unwitting Americans.

The government increased the amount of "acceptable limits of radiation" a person can have, including raising child amount to the same as adults.

"For every 250 REM, you can expect a cancer," he said. "So for every 10 men... one of those 10 will get cancer as a result of working at Fukushima."

"They've got 8,000 people on site.

"We seem to think, 'Well, they're not sick now, so let's not worry about it,'" said Gundersen. "Now for these guys, it's 50 to 50% that the workers will get cancer."

"Statistically they are worse off because they work there."

"Same holds true for the rest of the population," he stated.

"I'm estimating over the next five years, you're going to see a 20% increase in lung cancer. You're not going to be able to say a person's individual cancer came from Fukushima, but when you look at northern Japan, whatever the rate would have been, there will be a 20% more."

Burning contaminated materials results in what Gundersen referred to as "kicking the can."

"The Japanese are allowing the contaminated material to be burned as long as it's less than 7000 Becquerels. What they're also allowing is, if you have a high concentration material and a low concentration material, you can average those two out."

The radioactive contaminated material being burned in one prefecture in Japan goes into the neighboring prefecture and contaminates it.

"It eventually ends up into the Pacific Northwest, either into B.C., Oregon, Washington or California. The process of burning the radioactive material means they're kicking the can down the road."

Gundersen furthered, "The accident isn't over. It's continually throwing back up the cesium which is already on the ground and into plants."

"It's going to get worse now with the straw harvest," he said, speaking about the Japanese rice harvest to start in September.

"After the rice is harvested, the straw, like the rice it grew, will be contaminated. With a half-life of 30 years, you're not going to let it set in your barn for 300 years. You're going to burn it."

According to Gundersen, the contaminated straw is going to be burned and that will kick it into the next prefecture and then, over to the United States and Canada where it will come down in the rain.

"Kick the problem to Hawaii or British Columbia or Oregon," he said.

"A rainout is when a radioactive cloud passes over an area and, due to a coincidental rainstorm, the hot particles get dropped on the soil."

"We're going to see another year of these rainouts."

In British Columbia a few weeks ago, "Geiger counters were going off the scale" according to Gundersen who added that the "only conclusion you could come to was industrial burning in Japan."

Proving government wrong calls for citizenry participation

"I'm working with scientists to definitively prove what the government health officials say is wrong," Gundersen stated, adding that the public can help do that.

He said that, "now with lots of citizens having Geiger counters," they can help with the new study by wiping a surface one meter by one meter with a cloth after a rainout, and placing that cloth under the Geiger counter.

"If you get a positive reading on the cloth, I'd like to see the cloth," he said.

Gundersen advises people taking samples to note the location and time the sample was taken, and to wrap the sample in a triple layer of foil before mailing it to Fairwinds.

Brian Rich stated about Gundersen and his wife, Maggie, "Meeting Arnold Gundersen and his wife Maggie only opened my eyes to the dangers our country and civilization face because of decisions made decades ago and the lies created to further the nuclear agenda."

"Their constant truthful testimony against the nuclear industry... should be a real awakening to the public at large."



Learn more by doing: Contact Gundersen through Fairwinds for further instructions about helping with the research: fairewinds.com/. See ENENEWS Energy News for regular radiation updates from Fukushima and United States nuclear power plants.

Also see:

Exclusive Karl Grossman interview: Fukushima Fallout over US Censored News
'Scandalous collusion': Gov't, nuclear industry planned Fukushima cover-up
Nuclear whistleblowers: Stop lying about Fukushima
Prestigious doctor: US nuclear 'Baby valley of death,' Millions to die (video)
Experts: Fukushima 'off-scale' lethal radiation level infers millions dying
Big energy radiation from Fukushima, Gulf oil, fracking: 13 protections (Information about preventing radiation injury/death
Baby death spike in W. Canada blamed on parents not radiation
45% Fukushima children in study have thyroid radiation
“Very high concentrations” of hot particles in Pacific NW during April, May — Includes plutonium and americium (AUDIO) June 29, 2011
Radioactive releases may continue for a YEAR or more even after fission has stopped: New York Times March 14, 2011
Winds have turned, hot particles to head south from Fukushima — Advice is to leave Tokyo if Unit No. 4 collapses (AUDIO) June 4, 2011
US Department of Energy lab in Pacific Northwest has “declined” to make nuclear fallout results public, after initially releasing data April 6, 2011
Gundersen: Water boiling up from hole in floor at Unit No. 1 (AUDIO) June 29, 2011

[slomo]

No disrespect to my family, my friends and my fellow Americans, but there is some poetic justice in Japan sending radioactive clouds to the United States.

[Iamwhomiam]

True, slomo, true. However, we're not yet halfway into the unstoppable Fukushima nuclear disaster. The true impact is barely imaginable, its horror's so great, what's sure to come.

[eyeno]

True, slomo, true. However, we're not yet halfway into the unstoppable Fukushima nuclear disaster. The true impact is barely imaginable, its horror's so great, what's sure to come.

More true words never spoken. This will give cancer, at the least, to a huge percentage of the people in every country in the Northern Hemisphere.

I had a picture of of the radiation circling the northern hemisphere like a merry go round. It drops from the atmosphere with the moisture. A never ending cycle for the next few thousand years. Actually, considering the half life of these particles this will affect humanity for the next few million years most likely.

I might try to dig up the picture, maybe not. Its so depressing to see. If you pull a satellite pic of the northern hemisphere jet stream and set it in motion it becomes apparent how dire this truly is.

And, now we have all these casks of spent fuel stored around the world at most of these reactors to deal with too, and they WILL become a problem as time passes.

Some really stupid assholes, playing with the power of the Sun, have screwed humanity for a time period to come that is almost unfathomable. These people that run this place are damn maniacs.

[smoking since 1879]

Fission does not power the Sun, it works by fusion. </pedant>

[seemslikeadream]

RPHP releases new journal article on U.S. mortality after the Fukushima meltdowns

After 4 p.m. EST, click here to listen to December 19, 2011 news event via streaming audio

Click here to read the December 19, 2011 press release

Click here to read the article in the December 2011 International Journal of Health Services by Joseph Mangano and Janette Sherman (the 28th published by RPHP), on the increase in reported U.S. deaths after arrival of fallout from the nuclear meltdowns in Fukushima, Japan

[slomo]

RPHP releases new journal article on U.S. mortality after the Fukushima meltdowns

After 4 p.m. EST, click here to listen to December 19, 2011 news event via streaming audio

Click here to read the December 19, 2011 press release

Click here to read the article in the December 2011 International Journal of Health Services by Joseph Mangano and Janette Sherman (the 28th published by RPHP), on the increase in reported U.S. deaths after arrival of fallout from the nuclear meltdowns in Fukushima, Japan

SLAD, I am suspicious of the way this report is being marketed. I am in NO WAY apologizing for the nuke industry and I agree with Iamwhomiam that this is one of the worst disasters ever to befall the planet. However, I abhor lack of rigor. First, any deaths in North America, at this time, are going to be purely statistical. I.e., recognizable only as a statistical blip, not actual demonstrable cases. I have a pretty good idea of how "14,000 excess U.S. deaths in the 14 weeks after the Fukushima meltdowns" would be calculated, and I would say that that number is too small to detect reliably. This could be normal fluctuation: "The 2010-2011 increase for infant deaths in the spring was 1.8 percent, compared to a decrease of 8.37 percent in the preceding 14 weeks." Calculating excess mortality from airborne risks is extremely complex and at times controversial, as one can see by simply perusing the last 25 years of literature on risks from particulate matter.

Subsequent measurements by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found levels of radiation in air, water, and milk hundreds of times above normal across the U.S. The highest detected levels of Iodine-131 in precipitation in the U.S. were as follows (normal is about 2 picocuries I-131 per liter of water): Boise, ID (390); Kansas City (200); Salt Lake City (190); Jacksonville, FL (150); Olympia, WA (125); and Boston, MA (92).

First, these are maxima, not averages. Second, while it is true that these are above normal background, 1 picocurie = 0.037 Bq, so "hundreds of times" is on the order of about 5 Bq. To put it in perspective, one banana has 15 Bq of radioactive potassium. (Yes, I know, the whole banana thing again.) So, it's like saying that you can kill a baby (through radioactivity) by giving her a steady diet of bananas. Furthermore, I am suspicious of researchers who issue press releases as "Epidemiologist Joseph Mangano, MPH MBA... Mangano is executive director, Radiation and Public Health Project, and the author of 27 peer-reviewed medical journal articles and letters." OK, fine, in a grant setting I will say "Epidemiologist Slomo, PhD, author of 80-something peer-reviewed journals" and maybe even in a press release I might give my credentials, but knowing what I know about the field, "MPH, MBA" is not impressive, given the fact that PhDs still disagree how to deal with risks from particulates; to be fair, Mangano is PubMed Indexed, as is the journal he published this work in, so the statistical methodology may be OK, but I worry that he is simply promoting his website.

I don't mean to downplay the risks. In its current configuration (i.e. not counting the imminent disaster of Unit 4) this will be a public health issue for North Americans, to say nothing of the actual disaster of monstrous proportions this represents to the Japanese. However, overstating the risks or prematurely attributing deaths to Fukushima actually harms the cause of making people aware of how awful this really is.

Edit: fixed math mistake.

[eyeno]

I had similar thoughts slomo. At this point in the game it seems like it would be hard to definitively link 14,000 deaths to Fukushima. Not that I doubt Fukushima is killing people in the U.S., because I believe it will. Just not sure how it could be accurately measured and linked to Fukushima with certainty this early in the game.

[hanshan]

...

Thoughtful advice on the personal memorabilia, though I wonder how much is contaminated by hazardous waste at this point.

Posters, please shorten your URLs using something like TinyURL. Long links like Hanshan's above are really messing with the formatting and readability.

will do Avalon. tx for the heads up


...