[Occupymendocino] [Fwd: Update about 'West Coast Senators: : Investigate the ongoing danger from the Fukushima nuclear reactors' on Change.org]

[agnes at mcn.org]

Occupiers,
 This petition is important re nuclear fallout from Fukashima.
Agnes


---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Update about 'West Coast Senators: : Investigate the ongoing
danger from the Fukushima nuclear reactors' on Change.org
From:    "Carol Wolman" <mail at change.org>
Date:    Mon, May 6, 2013 8:44 am
To:      agnes at mcn.org
--------------------------------------------------------------------------


Dear Friends,
The following article, following an inspection by the IAEA, gives the long
term prospect for Fukushima Daiichi, comparing it to Chernobyl.  Again,
TEPCO's inability- indeed, Japan's inability to deal with the problem
without outside help is emphasized.  A Senate investigation by concerned
senators would open up the process to a more robust and helpful dialogue. 
Please continue to circulate this petition.
<a
href="http://www.change.org/petitions/west-coast-senators-investigate-the-ongoing-danger-from-the-fukushima-nuclear-reactors/?utm_source=supporter_message&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=petition_message_notice"
rel="nofollow">http://www.change.org/petitions/west-coast-senators-investigate-the-ongoing-danger-from-the-fukushima-nuclear-reactors/</a>
Thanks, Carol Wolman, MD
Fukushima Response Bay Area

<a
href="http://www.climatecentral.org/news/japans-fukushima-faces-long-road-to-repair-15897"
rel="nofollow">http://www.climatecentral.org/news/japans-fukushima-faces-long-road-to-repair-15897</a>
Japan’s Fukushima Faces Long Road to Repair
Published: May 5th, 2013

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By Paul Brown, Climate News Network

The cleanup after the catastrophic nuclear accident two years ago at the
Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan is not going well. Radioactive cooling
water is leaking into the ground from at least three vast storage tanks,
and the vulnerability of the plant to further accidents was revealed when
a rat chewed through an electric cable, cutting off vital cooling.

Those setbacks came as a 12-man team from the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) in Vienna toured the stricken plants to assess the
country’s efforts to make safe, clean up and eventually dismantle the
crippled reactors.

 An imminent International Atomic Energy Agency report is expected to make
depressing reading – for Japan and for other nuclear energy states.
Credit: flickr/IAEA Image Bank
Within Japan there is alarm at the situation and criticism of the Tokyo
Electric Power Company, Tepco. Even government safety officials say the
company is not demonstrating that it is competent in dealing with a
problem that will probably take decades to solve, judging by other serious
nuclear accidents.

Spent nuclear fuel melted into lumps of unknown size will remain dangerous
for hundreds of years, and so far no one has devised a method of
retrieving it.

Tepco admits only that the leaks are a “crisis” but says has it has
kept the stricken reactors stable by injecting water continuously. 
Without the water the spent fuel inside the reactors could overheat,
causing another potential radioactive release.

But it is the massive amount of radioactive water that is becoming part of
the problem, because it cannot be discharged into the sea without
breaching international law and risking contamination of fish stocks.

Instead it is pumped into reservoirs that have been inadequately lined,
and it is from three of these that the radioactive leaks of thousands of
gallons are continuing. Pumping the reservoirs dry to solve the problem
will take weeks.

Still seeking safety
Comments by Shunichi Tanaka, chairman of Japan’s Nuclear Regulation
Authority, summed up the current situation: “The Fukushima Daiichi plant
remains in an unstable condition, and there is concern that we cannot
prevent another accident. We have instructed Tepco to work on reducing
some of the biggest risks, and we as regulators will step up
monitoring.”

 Washing down a potentially-contaminated U.S. aircraft carrier’s flight
deck off Japan, 2011.
Credit: U.S. Navy
Even without the leaks and the rats, just keeping the plant safe following
the damage inflicted by the earthquake and tsunami two years ago is
keeping 3,000 laborers busy. They work in difficult contaminated
conditions in an area isolated from normal life. A large perimeter round
the plant is off limits.

The 160,000 people who used to live nearby and were evacuated when the
scale of the disaster became apparent are unlikely to be allowed to return
for years, if at all. There is still little information about the extent
of the contamination.

Even without the safety fears, the costs of dealing with the problem will
be enormous and a drain on Tepco’s finances for decades. How to bring
the reactors to a safe, stable state remains an unsolved problem.

The last serious nuclear accident, Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986, is still
causing concern, and international efforts to make the reactor safe are
continuing. That reactor exploded, spilling radioactive dust over a vast
area of Europe. Again an exclusion zone was established while emergency
repairs were carried out.

Today there is still a huge area known as the dead zone around the reactor
while the international community pays for a scheme to try to keep the
reactor safe for another 100 years or so. The initial cap or sarcophagus
built to cover the reactor is in danger of crumbling and causing another
radioactive release.

50 years of uncertainty
The latest plan to avoid this happening involves building a giant concrete
arch that will be moved on rails over the stricken reactor to contain any
further collapse. The arch is being constructed away from the sarcophagus
to avoid the continuing radiation and will be wheeled over it.

 The 160,000 people who used to live nearby and were evacuated when the
scale of the disaster became apparent are unlikely to be allowed to
return for years, if at all.
Credit: flickr/IAEA Image Bank
At 270 meters across, 150 meters long and 100 meters high it is the
largest moveable structure in the world.  There are hopes that it will be
completed in 2015, but even this is seen as only a temporary solution. The
cost is estimated at around $1.5 billion.

How long completely cleaning up a nuclear accident on the scale of
Fukushima will really take is anyone’s guess. In 1957, before Chernobyl
had even been built, there was a serious fire at Windscale in the United
Kingdom at a reactor built to provide plutonium for Britain’s first
generation of nuclear weapons.

The fire burned out of control for only three days before being
extinguished. Fifty six years later, the melted fuel remains inside the
reactor, or Pile Number One as it is called. Over the years several
attempts to remove it and make it safe have been started and abandoned, on
safety grounds.

The site remains guarded and monitored inside the Sellafield nuclear
plant, as Windscale is now known, its future still uncertain, its lurking
danger all but forgotten by the outside world.

That was one small reactor on fire more than half a century ago. The
Fukushima accident involved four much larger reactors, but with similar
problems – large quantities of melted fuel which have yet to be
recovered. The present generation’s grandchildren may still be wrestling
with the problem at the end of this century.

Paul Brown is a joint editor at Climate News Network. Climate News Network
is a news service led by four veteran British environmental reporters and
broadcasters. It delivers news and commentary about climate change for
free to media outlets worldwide.

Posted in Causes, Greenhouse Gases, Impacts, Oceans & Coasts, Flora &
Fauna, Health, Business, Energy, Nuclear, Landscapes, International
Comments
By Curt Clay (Coos Bay, OR, 97420)
on May 5th, 2013

The sea around the plant is radioactive,  they are about to release even
more radioactive water, and it continues to vent radioactive isotopes that
make it across the sea and pass “in waves” over the west coast of
America.

Perhaps there should be a moratorium on PhDs related to nuclear power
unless they aim specifically to address the issue of what to do with the
waste, still piling up and threatening the health of us all.




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