Antinuclear

Chilling reality of Fukushima nuclear situation is not accurately reported

The Worst Disaster That You’ll Never Hear Anything About, Criticl, 2 Aug 15 “………Immediately after the incident, a massive amount of misinformation was spread, with news outlets using a map from NOAA about wave height to depict the spread of radiation and a picture of a nearby burning oil refinery as one of the reactor in flames. Misinformation is rife after any disaster, and those in charge did an admirable job at first to redirect the conversation to what appeared to be the facts and reaffirm what seemingly was important to understand.

Notwithstanding, due to the amalgam of reluctance by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and the Japanese government to later accurately report the above facts coupled with the complicity in hiding the realistic risks and dangers, a catastrophe has only been allowed to get worse over the past couple of years. A lack of investigative journalism in Japan along with constraints of the government’s secrecy act creates a culture of apathy around the incident, which the rest of the world sadly is only all too happy to follow. A situation has manifested that continues to spiral out of control, one with no apparent solution and one that is going to have immense long-term consequences across the Pacific Ocean.

Fairewinds Chief Engineer Arnie Gunderson, himself a 44-year veteran of the nuclear industry presented recently that 3 nuclear cores are in direct contact with groundwater, and that this contaminated water is leaking out at a rate of “at least 300 tons per day”. Over 23,000 tanker truckloads of radioactive water have leaked into the Pacific since the tsunami and will continue to emanate, as the flow of groundwater is still unmitigated. TEPCO reported on July 17th that concentrations of Strontium-90, an extremely dangerous radioactive material that exhibits biochemical behavior similar to calcium, has spiked in the ocean outside Fukushima have spiked over 1,000% to new record highs.

As radioactive waste continues to cascade out, Japanese authorities have attempted to contain and cleanup the disaster at the expense of over half a billion wasted dollars. A 270 million dollar water decontamination system from France designed to remove radioactive cesium never was fully operational. Rubber gasket tanks quickly began to leak and underground pools failed within weeks. Water desalination equipment to the tune of 150 million dollars survived a measly six weeks, with one not making it out of the first few days. Even worse was a fresher attempt at radioactive water containment-an ice wall that had never been tried under such circumstances- that ended in failure. Unsurprisingly, TEPCO isn’t too keen to reveal the cost of the experiment. The Japanese conglomerate’s reports on the ice wall seemingly are written in invisible ink, giving no details as to the reason why the wall’s temperature had not decreased to the proper freezing point since April, or why the project was not successful.

The above malaises constitute the first four years into what is projected to be a 30-40 year cleanup, conservative estimates that hinge on a concrete plan coupled with functioning equipment that is actually effective. It’s readily apparent that the original budget of 1.6 billion dollars will be quickly blown away many times over, yet TEPCO, the government or the world at large shirks to admit that anything is wrong. The cleanup did cross an important milestone last December as an extremely risky procedure to remove over 1,500 fuel rods from reactor No. 4 was successful, but removing the cores from the three reactors that melted down poses a much more challenging (and dangerous) task, even more so if the rods are melted as predicted.

The consequences of the above failures are literally spreading across the globe. Dangerous levels of cesium-137 (which accumulates in muscles) have been discovered in mushrooms and berries along the west coast along with plankton living between Hawaii and the California coast. Predictions are that by 2020, significant levels of the aforementioned radioactive element will reach every corner of the Pacific. Vancouver news outlets reported back in 2012 that cesium-137 was found in large amounts among fish bought from Japan. Analysts estimate that the radioactivity of water along the west coast would double in five to six years, and even Russian chairman of the State Duma Committee for Natural Resources Maxim Shingarkin chimed in that seafood along the northwest coast of the U.S.A represents “a danger for mankind”. A plague of damaged thyroids has been noted among 40% of Fukushima’s children, allegedly correlated to the endless amounts of Iodine-131 spewed from the reactor.

In the midst of the worst nuclear disaster in a generation, the Japanese government plans by 2017 to lift evacuation orders and have residents return to an area with radiation dose levels comparable to the Chernobyl exclusion zone. The amount of decontaminated land is small and only represents an attempt to normalize the disaster to further a pro nuclear agenda. A sizeable amount of the Japanese population is opposed to a nuclear restart and the Abe Government has had immense help from the IAEA to downplay the radiological risks and perpetuate a myth of a return to regularity. Both the Shinzo Abe administration and TEPCO have a vested monetary and political interest in returning to nuclear normalcy in a country that is at towering risk for earthquakes and tsunamis. It’s clear that the authorities in charge of the recovery are more interested in constructing illusions of safety while wasting millions on ineffective solutions.

Right under our noses, Fukushima has reached the point where the reality of the situation is so chilling, that media can’t downplay it as being overhyped or fear mongered, because they know that the data doesn’t lie. Thus, they use their most treacherous tactic, simply choosing to ignore a disaster that isn’t getting better anytime soon. Like what you see? https://thefirsttruth.wordpress.com/

https://criticl.me/post/worst-disaster-youll-never-hear-anything-about-3562

August 3, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized