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Cluster Fukushima. "Only two things are infinite: The Universe and human stupidity. And I'm not certain about the former." —Albert Einstein.
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"Only two things are infinite: The Universe and human stupidity.And I'm not certain about the former." —Albert Einstein
WELCOME to Fukushima, where the radiation's so bad it can be fatal within 20 minutes. The tsunami may have happened some 33 months ago, but the fallout just keeps getting worse.
Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant experienced full meltdowns at three reactorsin the wake of an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
The nuclear catastrophe we were all told was “no big deal,” has now escalated into the worst nuclear disaster in the history of human civilization.
Japanese media is reporting that the intensity of radiation levels is now at its highest levels ever.
Never in the history of humankind has the planet been confronted with such a grave set of circumstances. Fukushima represents all that can go wrong when scientific applications and technological advancement within a crude industrial context have gone awry.
Just as humankind learned from the folly of dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Fukushima has served as an example of how not to implement nuclear power generation.
Another earthquake could cause a disaster 10 times worse than that experienced in Chernobyl.
Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind, as highly radioactive gases and liquids continue to be released into the environment unabated. The scope of this problem is almost unimaginable.
The radioactivity on site has been measured at 25 Sieverts (Sv) per hour. A total dose of two Sv is regarded as severe radiation poisoning. Six Sv produces a 100 per cent mortality rate after 30 days of suffering.
The water used in a desperate bid to "cool" these fuel rods has been steadily leaking into the soil and seeping into the nearby Pacific Ocean.
Clean-up workers have begun the process of moving 1533 fuel rods from the raised cooling pool in Reactor 4 of the crippled plant. This is considered a vital task as the weakened structure is likely to topple in any future big earthquake. If it collapses, the fallout would likely be10 times worse than that experienced in Chernobyl.
The process involves 36 volunteers using a crane to reach down into the pool to pluck the fuel assemblies out of the pond and lift them into a waiting protective cask. These are then trucked to a nearby - more secure - storage facility. The process is expected to last well into 2014. And that's just for one reactor.
There are three other reactors needing similar attention. They have similar numbers of fuel rods. All were running at the time of the tsunami and suffered differing degrees of "melt-down."
The containment and retrieval process is using vast quantities of water to keep the fuel rods "cool." So much, in fact, there is nowhere left to store it.
Tepco has already cut down the forest surrounding the plant. In its place are 1000 massive metal storage tanks holding 360,000 tons of radioactive water. It needs storage for a further 270,000 tons.
Radiation contamination of the harbor alongside the Fukushima plant has been steadily rising in the past three years. Leaking groundwater and accidental spills during the clean-up operations are the most likely contributors.
Rainwater appears to be the biggest problem. Storms have been filling the low-lying areas and basements of the wrecked nuclear plant with water. This water then leeches through the ground to the nearby coast.
Tokyo has the largest greater metro population in the world at about 34.3 million. Tokyo has the largest GDP of all major cities in the world – larger than both New York City and London. Tokyo is the economic/financial capital of the world’s 3rd largest national economy, as well as the primary economic engine of East Asia.
There is no discernible end in sight to this tragedy, radiation will continue to seep into the Pacific Ocean for decades. These toxins will remain dangerous for hundreds of generations and will disperse throughout the planet. The sickness and contamination resulting from the disaster will last for hundreds of generations.
Reactors 1, 2 and 3 experienced a full melt-through. A "melt-through"is far worse than a core meltdown and isthe worst possibility in a nuclear accident. Hotspots contain up to 500-700 times what is normal.
The No.1 reactor's core began suffering damage three hours after the March 11 earthquake.Five hours after the earthquake, the pressure vessel of the No. 1 reactor was damaged. Fuel rods at the heart of reactor No. 1 melted almost completely in the first 16 hours after the disaster struck.
A "major part" of the fuel rodsin reactor No. 2 melted and fell to the bottom of the pressure vessel(a melt-through) 80 hours after the earthquakeand tsunami.
The same thing happened within the first 60 hoursat reactor No. 3
Radioactive substances rose to about 5 kilometers when a low pressure system passed over eastern Japan on March 14-15. The substances were blown eastward by a jet stream traveling at a speed of some 3,000 kilometers a day, arriving on the US West Coast on March 18, in Iceland on March 20, and many other European countries on March 22.
From the great and magnificent whales to the variety of microscopic life, this entire vast ecosystem has been poisoned.Yet, we will never know the immense extent of death and destruction that Fukushima caused to it.
Even knowing that the ocean food chain is contaminated with radioactivity, this was not reported by mainstream media. Everything that lives near the Pacific will be at risk to some degree.
Across the nation and world, stocks of popular food fish are collapsing, so that more than half could be effectively fished to "commercial extinction" by mid-century. The familiar species we have come to know at the fish counter will no longer exist in numbers high enough to catch.
The ocean ecosystem is undergoing vast changes as whole schools of fish, whole categories of predator and prey, are being wiped out. Fisheries experts say even if the salmon fishery remained wide open there would not be any salmon left to catch. Salmon may already be commercially extinct.
Something is killing the starfish in record numbers on the West Coast, affecting waters from Alaska to Southern California, causing millions of starfish to fall apart and melt away. When it strikes it kills nearly every sea star in the area. It’s happened so rapidly that some species are just missing.
Canadian Pacific Fishermen Catch No Sardines in 2013. Commercial fishermen off the coast of British Columbia came home this fall without having caught a single sardine! This is having repercussions all the way up the food chain. The sardines drive the whole system, supporting virtually everything.
Pacific Herring are now dying off in record numbers as well, bleeding out from their eyeballs, faces, fins and tails. Everything eats herring—from whales to striped bass to seabirds. Without abundant herring stocks, the ocean food web doesn’t work.
Hundreds of sea turtles are washing up dead on Pacific coast — Dogs stop breathing and die almost instantly when eating them!
These animals are suffering from ‘beta burns,’ which are caused by significant external exposure to ‘beta emitters’ such as radiostrontiums, which were released in copious quantities into the Pacific Ocean.
Contaminated water from Fukushima reactors could double radioactivity levels of US coastal waters in 5 years.
Scientists say the only safe level of radiation is zero. YET, governments set ‘safe limits’ for radiation in food well above zero???
Two and a half years on and all Tepco does is pour 100,000 gallons of water a day on the rubble covering the three melted nuclear cores.
Dumping sea water on them was largely unsuccessful. We will never know how many millions of tons of radioactive water were dumped into the Pacific Ocean.
This "treading water" by Tepco brings the world no closer to a solution to the present danger of the melted cores of three nuclear reactors represent.
The “Elephant's Foot" is a blob of corium that was cooled before it burned through the basement of the Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor.
There is speculation that the three melted cores may have already or may in the future reach a state of criticality; meaning reach a state of nuclear chain reaction.
The Pacific Ocean has become an enormous radioactive garbage dump of incalculable proportions that are beyond any remediation currently known to science.
So, the fishing industry is catching and selling various fish and crustaceans that are radioactive.Profits always trump our safety and well-being.
Fish captured just 12 miles from the Fukushima nuclear plant were contaminated with 258 times the level government deems safe for consumption. The fish registered 25,800 becquerels of cesium per kilogram.
A study of 15 Pacific Bluefin Tuna caught off San Diego in August 2011 found radioactive cesium 10 times higher than in fish caught in previous years.
So, the fishing industry is catching and selling various fish and crustaceans that are radioactive.Profits always trump our safety and well-being.
While millions will develop various radiation-related illnesses (cancers and diabetes, as well as radiation-induced miscarriages, stillbirths and birth deformities) over the next decades, the coffers of the medical profession, pharmaceutical companies, and nuclear industry will be bursting with profits.
A new study reports that the Fukushima radiation plume contacted North America at California “with greatest exposure in central and southern California,” and that Southern California’s seaweed tested over 500% higher for radioactive iodine-131 than anywhere else in the U.S. and Canada.
This massive and frightening crisis is the result of no precaution, no prevention, and no care or concern for human or any other kind of life on our planet.
