by David Safier
I'm plenty worried about the damage to the Fukushima nuclear power plant and the possibility of similar accidents in the U.S. and around the world. I've made that clear in multiple posts. But here's an article that takes that worry to a whole new level — Fukushima: It's much worse than you think.
Full disclosure: The article is from Al Jazeera English. But anyone who knows about the journalistic quality of much of Al Jazeera's work knows that doesn't discount its accuracy. However, to continue the disclosure, I googled some of the experts cited, and they are indeed experts, but they're firmly in the anti-nuke camp.
Let's start with the probable reactor melt-throughs. First we were told there were no meltdowns. Then we were told there were meltdowns. Then the Japanese authorities admitted to the possibility that the radioactive materials melted through their containment vessels, something which is never supposed to happen. This has all been reported in mainstream venues.
If that is true, according to Arnold Gundersen, a former nuclear industry senior vice president who has written about the dangers of nuclear power plants:
"Units one through three have nuclear waste on the floor, the melted core, that has plutonium in it, and that has to be removed from the environment for hundreds of thousands of years," he said. "Somehow, robotically, they will have to go in there and manage to put it in a container and store it for infinity, and that technology doesn't exist. Nobody knows how to pick up the molten core from the floor, there is no solution available now for picking that up from the floor."
The article reports the actual radiation emitted was far more than was originally reported, which has been reported elsewhere. But it also states that "hot particles" — "microns of caesium, strontium and plutonium isotopes" — have been found in car air filters as far away as Tokyo. These are the kinds of particles that can make it into people's lungs and lead to cancer, even though they're too small to detect with a geiger counter.
Here's the part I hope to hell is an exaggeration. The article indicates there has been a rise in infant mortality on the U.S. west coast, based on reports from "San Jose, Berkeley, San Francisco, Sacramento, Santa Cruz, Portland, Seattle, and Boise," which is 35% higher than normal. "[T]the report included the ten weeks immediately following the disaster." If there is any truth to the idea that the dangers have spread that far, that quickly, the health dangers in Japan, expecially for young children, must be truly frightening.
This is the worst stuff I've read so far, and I've read some pretty scary stuff in mainstream sources, which gets worse with every new revelation. I would like to hope the statements in this article are exaggerations, but I wouldn't count on it.
Discover more from Blog for Arizona
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Lantzelot, I always appreciate reading comments from the other side which are thoughtful, measured and honest. Your comments qualify.
I don’t know anything about these “experts,” which is a reason I was careful to say I can’t vouch for what they said in the Al Jazeera article. But fearmongers on one side, who have to struggle to get their message into wider distribution, are no counterbalance for industry and federal regulatory groups, here and in Japan, who can spread their soothing messages in the media. Days after the Fukushima incident, anyone who said any of the reactors were in meltdown would have been labeled a fearmonger and a kook. Likewise anyone who said the numbers we were hearing for the amount of radioactivity that escaped were far too low.
Nothing gives more credence to fearmongers and conspiracy theorists than inaccurate information from official sources which is then proven to be wrong. That’s why I keep the things Gundersen said in the back of my head in a “to be reconsidered at a later date” file rather than discarding them.
By the way, Rod Adams, who runs the blog Atomic Insights (yes, he is pro-nuclear like me) has written several times about Gundersen.
Here is a piece from February this year (i.e. a few weeks before Fukushima): http://atomicinsights.com/2011/02/arnie-gundersen-has-inflated-his-resume-yet-frequently-claims-that-entergy-cannot-be-trusted.html
And here is a recent one which addresses some of the claims in the Al-Jazeera article: http://atomicinsights.com/2011/06/arnie-gundersen-going-international.html
David, you are right, the article addresses more things than just the infant mortality issue. The events in Fukushima are indeed a scandal with new surprises every day. Anyone who is pro-nuclear (like myself) would be a complete moron if they do not question their position in light of these events, and there are many things to learn from this. There will most likely be a number of things to reconsider for the nuclear industry and governmental agencies responsible for safety regulations, if we are to continue with nuclear power.
But first we need the facts on the table.
Therefore I am not too excited about all these self-appointed experts that are seen in the media, making statements about this and that, and usually keen on inflating their own competence or CV. I have not followed Arnie Gundersen closely, but he seems to be one of them. Granted, he DOES have plenty of experience from the nuclear industry, but some of the things he is saying is just scaremongering or complete nonsense.
This surprises me, what is the purpose? And, he should know better than saying some of the things he says, if he has the competence that he claims. The situations is bad enough as it is without having him, Sherman & Mangano, Caldicot, Busby, and a few more, showing up in media with new “expert” alarms about things that may sound feasible to the general public, but most of the time only serves the purpose of scaring people into thinking like them. We know since day one that TEPCO is not to be trusted in what they say (and after all, it is a commercial company with first priority to make money), we have seen several times how they have withheld information, and their past track record is far from spotless. But these self-appointed experts who time and again are shown to lie, or have no idea what they are talking about, their claims have to be scrutinized closely. They portray themselves as the good guys, but I don’t see much of that in them.
Lantzelot, I appreciate the link. I looked at the Scientific American piece because I trust it to be founded in reasonable science. It pretty much debunks the infant mortality argument. I hope, as I said in my post, the mortality claim is overstated.
But the S.A. piece only debunks that one claim, not the overall concerns about dangers from Fukushima or the other statements in the Al Jazeera article. Here is the final paragraph:
“This is not to say that the radiation from Fukushima is not dangerous (it is), nor that we shouldn’t closely monitor its potential to spread (we should). But picking only the data that suits your analysis isn’t science—it’s politics. Beware those who would confuse the latter with the former.”
I would like to hope the statements in this article are exaggerations, but I wouldn’t count on it.
You can rest assure that it is an exaggeration. In fact, it is actually completely nonsense cooked up by people who seem to be more interested in keeping you afraid instead of giving you the opportunity to try to understand the issue by yourself. Several people have checked the numbers and find it to be cherry picking of the worst kind. Very strange behavior of a Medical Doctor, isn’t it?
Here is my version: http://nuclearpoweryesplease.org/blog/2011/06/17/shame-on-you-janette-sherman-and-joseph-mangano/
Here is a version from Scientific American: http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=are-babies-dying-in-the-pacific-nor-2011-06-21