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I wouldn't be surprised if they have a "war room" in some high rise in NYC or Washington DC tracking how many times they succeed in getting "this can't be Chernoybl" into the newsstream and the bloggerstream. And you can probably gage how bad Fukushima is by their having decided to resurrect "Chernoybl" in the public's mind--an event that the nuke industry's P.R. divisions had worked so hard to send into oblivion. It was a bold move to reignite the horrors of "Chernoybl" as a way to dampen people's totally sensible fear of nuclear power, as explosion after explosion, and fire after fire, and damaged core after damaged core, occurs in Fusushima, with the obvious imminent risk of not one but SIX "Chernoybls" all packed closely together at one site.
Chernoybl had obvious design flaws some of which have been corrected in other nuke plant designs. We're looking at the failure of one of those corrections in the blown off roofs at Fukushima, of the outer containment structures in two of its plants and the blown out wall of another. So much for keeping the radioactive material of the "spent fuel pools" and damaged cores out of the atmosphere. We're looking at another correction in the backups for the water pumping systems, all of which got blown out by the earthquake/tsunami, last Friday, creating the situation today, a week later, of at least two damaged reactor cores, several fires in "spent fuel pools," on-going release of radioactive steam and plain threat of a conflagration at the site that could send all of the nuclear material in six reactor cores and six "spent fuel pools" into the atmosphere.
Another correction was the suppression chamber under the reactor cores. At least one of them has been damaged. Furthermore, parts of the Fukushima facility have become so "hot" that workers can't even get near some of its plants to know what exactly has occurred and to try to cool it down.
Fukushima's most obvious design flaw is storing the "spent fuel" rods in the same building as the reactor core, rather than burying them in concrete/steel casements far away from the reactors. Another is the close packing together of the reactors/spent fuel pools at one site. (Both of these were "cost-saving" measures.) Another was failure to understand--or failure to care--that a 9.0 earthquake/tsunami could happen in Japan, one of the most earthquake-prone countries on earth. This earthquake/tsunami just blew most of Fukushima's safety features away, in one fell swoop.
The nuke industry is touting "it can't be Chernoybl" on the bet that Japanese engineers and workers can prevent the worst case scenario--general conflagration--by suicide. And then they hope that the rest of us will forget what these workers had to do, to keep Japan from becoming a waste land, poisoning swaths of the Pacific Ocean and sending toxic clouds of nuclear radiation to other countries. We won't know them when they die. We won't know others when they die who were not evacuated soon enough or far enough. In addition, impacts from the radioactive steam clouds that have already been released and are still being released are unknown and it is very likely that nuke-invested governments, including our own, are lying about them.
The nuke industry is placing this bet--mentioning "Chernoybl" and its horrors upfront, as the "bogeyman"--BECAUSE the worst case scenario is so possible. As each stage of this horror is followed by the next, they want us to think, "Everything's okay, it's not yet Chernoybl." They want to be able to say, "See, nuclear power is safe because they stopped it from becoming Chernoybl." And even unto the final conflagration--if, God forbid, that occurs--they will be saying this--"can't be Chernoybl," "not yet Chernoybl." And they will be saying it through the months and years of struggle to "contain" this disaster to a Level 6 nuclear disaster ( "Chernoybl" being Level 7), and all the contamination that that will mean, causing many non-dramatic illnesses and deaths, here and there, and poisoning of Japanese and other fisheries over many decades. (Where is all that sea water being used to flush these nuclear plants going?!) A slow-moving rather than dramatic, "Chernoybl"-like disaster, which will be portrayed as a victory--a vindication, reason for celebration, license to build more nuclear plants everywhere for the profit of the few at the risk of all life in the vicinity of each plant and all life on earth.
The truth is that there is no way to make nuclear power "safe" anywhere. That is the truth that the nuke industry does not want you to think about. They rattle "Chernoybl" in your face as a distraction. But we are looking at six times Chernoybl, as the worst case, at Fukushima, and Level 6 as the "best case" (on-going pollution and death at a slower pace). The RISK of nuclear power is not a one-off risk--of 10 workers or a 100 workers' lives, or loss of a power facility or long term, remediable pollution (such as coal). The risk is unremediable, very long term, massive destruction of life on earth. That is a risk that we should not be taking, and, if not for the filthy corruption in this industry and our governments, we would not be taking it.
And Japan is by no means "contained" at a Level 6 right now. The risk (as with Chernoybl) is fire. Fire is by no means under control at Fukishima, and even if a water pumping system is restored, the fragility of water pumping infrastructure at nuke plants has already been demonstrated (what if another earthquake hits, or gages, valves and vents continue failing? --nuclear fuel needs CONSTANT water cooling, with tons and tons of water). This situation could easily and quickly go to Level 7--massive exposure of people and sea life.
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