Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Turning the Lights On

We are supposed to believe that the ongoing disaster in Japan is nearly over since power cables were restored and lights were turned on in a control room.

However, read a little more and strange inconsistencies emerge in this story. For instance:

"On Tuesday, an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) senior official, James Lyons, said he could not confirm that the damaged reactors were "totally intact" or if they were cracked and leaking radiation.

"We continue to see radiation coming from the site... and the question is where exactly is that coming from," Mr Lyons told a news conference

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12825342

Since satellites and flyovers are closely monitoring the state of the reactors someone is either lying or the radiation is so bad that no one can get close enough to answer this question about the source of the radiation. This doesn't seem like good news to me.

Then there is a rather disturbing headline story at Counterpunch
http://www.counterpunch.org/takashi03222011.html
You Get 3,500,000 the Normal Dose. You Call That Safe? And What Media Have Reported This? None!" What They're Covering Up at Fukushima
By HIROSE TAKASHI
Introduced by Douglas Lummis

The interview includes the following passage from Takashi about the good news concerning the lights:

Hirose: Yes, there’s a little bit of hope there. But what’s worrisome is that a nuclear reactor is not like what the schematic pictures show (shows a graphic picture of a reactor, like those used on TV). This is just a cartoon. Here’s what it looks like underneath a reactor container (shows a photograph). This is the butt end of the reactor. Take a look. It’s a forest of switch levers and wires and pipes. On television these pseudo-scholars come on and give us simple explanations, but they know nothing, those college professors. Only the engineers know. This is where water has been poured in. This maze of pipes is enough to make you dizzy. Its structure is too wildly complex for us to understand. For a week now they have been pouring water through there. And it’s salt water, right? You pour salt water on a hot kiln and what do you think happens? You get salt. The salt will get into all these valves and cause them to freeze. They won’t move. This will be happening everywhere. So I can’t believe that it’s just a simple matter of you reconnecting the electricity and the water will begin to circulate. I think any engineer with a little imagination can understand this. You take a system as unbelievably complex as this and then actually dump water on it from a helicopter – maybe they have some idea of how this could work, but I can’t understand it.

I imagine the people in Japan are getting tired of the endless spin and equivocation coming from the plant officials and politicians.

This story line is reading very similarily to the narrative exposed in the Battle for Chernobyl, a must see video available at youtube.

I know that I am getting tired of it all and wish someone would really illuminate the situation with some transparency...

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