Nuke Crisis : Level 7 on overall impact

[DaveinOlyWA]

Ok I guess the online edition of the paper is messed up because the real paper edition has the article on the front page...

http://www.theolympian.com/2011/06/20/1693129/ap-impact-us-nuke-regulators-weaken.html

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Federal regulators have been working closely with the nuclear power industry to keep the nation's aging reactors operating within safety standards by repeatedly weakening those standards, or simply failing to enforce them, an investigation by The Associated Press has found.

Time after time, officials at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission have decided that original regulations were too strict, arguing that safety margins could be eased without peril, according to records and interviews.

The result? Rising fears that these accommodations by the NRC are significantly undermining safety - and inching the reactors closer to an accident that could harm the public and jeopardize the future of nuclear power in the United States.

 

[AndyH]

You guys are being ninnies.. you dont like nukes, no mountain top stripping and no drilling in the Antartic.. not much left when the wind stops blowing and your Leaf sits uncharged. Next you will start bleating about lipo fires, sheezz drink some strong coffee and man up

Right - ninnies.

Is anyone thinking about drilling the antarctic? I mean, for more than 2-mile long ice cores that confirm that we're causing climate destabilization with our coal-burning habit, that is?

Some good news, smaller, safer modular nukes are in the news again:

Oh goodie! Take one pig, shrink it, add lots of lipstick and, well, it's still a pig with lipstick...

My solar panels don't cause asthma. My wind generator doesn't poison the water - even if it falls down.

For you Herm - to make you feel right at home:

http://www.coalcares.org/index.html

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITwWB3Za9Mo[/youtube]

Sociopath: A person, as a psychopathic personality, whose behavior is antisocial and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.

 

[AndyH]

Federal regulators have been working closely with the nuclear power industry to keep the nation's aging reactors operating within safety standards by repeatedly weakening those standards, or simply failing to enforce them, an investigation by The Associated Press has found.

Thanks Dave - I think.

Yuck.

Wind and geothermal are both less expensive than either coal or nuclear power. Why should we consider either any longer? What am I missing here?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=can-geothermal-power-compete-with-coal-on-price
http://cleantechnica.com/2011/04/07...mpaign=Feed:+IM-cleantechnica+(CleanTechnica)

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/55671.html#ixzz1Pse8sN3r

Wind power is already cheaper than new coal or new nuclear power. In the “wind corridor” — two states wide from Texas to the Canadian border — wind has now become cost-competitive with new natural gas generation, including tax incentives for all forms of energy production.

 

[Herm]

another AP hackjob on the Nuclear industry:

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20110621/D9O06S080.html

"AP IMPACT: Tritium leaks found at many nuke sites

BRACEVILLE, Ill. (AP) - Radioactive tritium has leaked from three-quarters of U.S. commercial nuclear power sites, often into groundwater from corroded, buried piping, an Associated Press investigation shows.

The number and severity of the leaks has been escalating, even as federal regulators extend the licenses of more and more reactors across the nation.

Tritium, which is a radioactive form of hydrogen, has leaked from at least 48 of 65 sites, according to U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission records reviewed as part of the AP's yearlong examination of safety issues at aging nuclear power plants. Leaks from at least 37 of those facilities contained concentrations exceeding the federal drinking water standard - sometimes at hundreds of times the limit."

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Money talks everything and body else gets the sh**!

 

[JRP3]

another AP hackjob on the Nuclear industry:

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20110621/D9O06S080.html

Seemed like a reasonable article to me. Where is the hack job if these plants have leaking pipes that are corroding?

 

[AndyH]

Of course there's absolutely zero connection with the power plant problem, right?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/...ler_n_913222.html#s288832&title=Earless_Bunny

A new-born rabbit without ears is held in Namie City, just outside the 30km exclusion zone of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station. The owner of the rabbit says it was born without ears on May 7.

 

[Reddy]

Report of very high (lethal) levels of radiation hotspots found recently at Fukushima:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-...on-reading-at-fukushima-plant.html?cmpid=yhoo

 

[HIOJim]

Report of very high (lethal) levels of radiation hotspots found recently at Fukushima:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-...on-reading-at-fukushima-plant.html?cmpid=yhoo

This is a sobering article.

I'm also amazed at the lack of coverage of this story in the mainstream media. Two weeks after the tsunami it disappeared; even on the NY Times you had to dig to find anything.

 

[AndyH]

http://climatecrocks.com/2011/08/04...4-high-radiation-at-fukushima-in-perspective/

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN7B8D_BRWE[/youtube]

 

[LEAFfan]

My wife is from Japan and she found a recent video by a university professor that says the Japanese government isn't telling how bad the radiation really is and the govt isn't even using any computers to gather data, but still continues to use 50-100 yr. old data that they collected back then. The actual radiation fallout is over 300km which includes Tokyo and it is going and has gone farther west than the govt is saying too.

 

[AndyH]

New study maps spread of Fukushima fallout

http://lightyears.blogs.cnn.com/2011/11/14/new-study-maps-spread-of-fukushima-fallout/?hpt=hp_t2

It is likely that radioactive cesium from the disaster at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant spread across much of northern and eastern Japan and could damage agriculture in several provinces, according to estimates released Monday.

The NAS paper has diagrams/maps:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/11/11/1112058108.full.pdf+html

 

[AndyH]

In-car video of tsunami...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUdGfplrbKU[/youtube]

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

that video is absolutely amazing! the fact that he was able to recover the tape is amazing as well. just wondering how far the car moved after he left it?

 

[cwerdna]

I haven't watched this yet but my TiVo's set to record it: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/nuclear-aftershocks/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

Quote from Tivcommunity about this

PBS has an episode of Frontline called "Nuclear Aftershocks" that talked a lot about Fukushima and if such a disaster could happen here in the US.

There was a bunch of footage of Fukushima that I hadn't seen before. There were also interesting tidbits of information, like the fact that after the generators were lost, they sent workers into the parking lot to pull car batteries so they could get some small amount of power for valve control and instrumentation.

You can watch the episode at the link above, or through the PBS iPhone and iPad apps. I'm sure the episode will be repeating on your local PBS station, too.

Someone did reply and said it was a good show.

 

[AndyH]

Frontline will air Fukushima documentary this evening.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/japans-nuclear-meltdown/

Filmmaker was interviewed on NPR's Fresh Air today:
http://www.npr.org/2012/02/28/147559456/one-year-later-inside-japans-nuclear-meltdown?ft=1&f=13

One 'interesting' comment from the interview is that they're still very concerned about what would happen in the event of another tsunami...

 

[davewill]

I haven't watched this yet but my TiVo's set to record it: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/nuclear-aftershocks/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. ...

Thanks for the head's up. I just sent a request for that one to my TiVo.

 

[AndyH]

http://coalitionforpositivechange.com/stamets-fallout-mycoremediation.pdf

Paul Stamets' recommended bioremediation plan for Japan

Many people have written me and asked more or less the same question: “What would you
do to help heal the Japanese landscape around the failing nuclear reactors?”

The enormity and unprecedented nature of this combined natural and human-made
disaster will require a massive and completely novel approach to management and
remediation. And with this comes a never before seen opportunity for collaboration,
research and wisdom.

The nuclear fallout will make continued human habitation in close proximity to the
reactors untenable. The earthquake and tsunami created enormous debris fields near the
nuclear reactors. Since much of this debris is wood, and many fungi useful in
mycoremediation are wood decomposers and build the foundation of forest ecosystems, I
have the following suggestions:

6) Plant native deciduous and conifer trees, along with hyper-accumulating mycorrhizal
mushrooms, particularly Gomphidius glutinosus, Craterellus tubaeformis, and
Laccaria amethystina (all native to pines). G. glutinosus has been reported to absorb
– via the mycelium – and concentrate radioactive Cesium 137 more than 10,000-fold
over ambient background levels. Many other mycorrhizal mushroom species also
hyper-accumulate.

 

[cwerdna]

Frontline will air Fukushima documentary this evening.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/japans-nuclear-meltdown/

Filmmaker was interviewed on NPR's Fresh Air today:
http://www.npr.org/2012/02/28/147559456/one-year-later-inside-japans-nuclear-meltdown?ft=1&f=13

One 'interesting' comment from the interview is that they're still very concerned about what would happen in the event of another tsunami...

Thanks! I just found out about the above from Tivocommunity. I've been watching it online. So far, it's pretty good.

Will have to check out the NPR story.