Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Memory Lane


I just posted an "ancient" screenshot (from 2012 or before) of unit 4 with a blue glowing orb inside here http://majiasblog.blogspot.com/2015/07/wondering-about-unit-2.html



I was reviewing old newspaper clippings today of Fukushima and I thought I would share this report from March 19, 2011 published in the Wall Street Journal (Gautam Naik 3/19/2011 Next 48 Hours are Critical for Plant Getting 'Stable'):
"Unit 4, where some 250 tons of used fuel are stored, 'remains a major safety concern,' the IAEA said on Thursday. The Vienna-based group said that had no information about the current level of water in the spent fuel pool at reactor 4.

'No water temperature indication from the unit 4 spent fuel pool has been received since 14 March, when the temperature was 84 C,' the IAEA added, 'No roof is in place.'

A typical spent fuel pool temperature is kept below 25 C under normal operating conditions."
Majia here:  The IAEA admits in this passage that there was no water in the pool for at least 5 days.

I guess it really doesn't matter much what happens now because in 2011, 3 reactors and at least 1 spent fuel pool released unprecedented radionuclides into the environment and our governments will never admit the scale of the disaster, even if the entire Pacific ocean ecosystem dies.

Nuclear is a technology of death and destruction.











3 comments:

  1. I share your sentiment at the end there. Really a shame. As a species we had so much potential to do better than this.

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  2. I also share your distress:
    is truth more powerful than money ?
    in time, absolutely
    right now it's up to us to decide
    save the world or suffer the consequences...

    fr'instance, they just turned the ice breaker back at St John's bridge in Portland !

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  3. Currently reading your book Fukushima And The Privatization of Risk. It is quite clear that the people who are in a position to purchase nuclear power plants as well as the companies that can supply them are careless. Not necessarily careless by ordinary standards but careless by the standards necessary for safe use of nuclear power -- assuming there is such a thing which I now doubt. Some of those people occupied high positions in the gov of the USA in the 1950's. We often hear that back then they did not know these things; but I do not believe that to be true. What they really mean is that the voices of caution were not listened to by the decision makers. But this is human nature which for thousands of years has displayed the same basic behavior. Nuclear power has simply demonstrated once again the limits of what can be expected of people, and those limits occur too far away from working with atomic energy or genetics or many other things. We can not be idealistic at the start without being very disappointed towards the end. By now we should know that one way or another science and technology will provide the wrong people who always exist with powers beyond their ability to be responsible. Just look how Monsanto has gotten control of Congress and is prepared to poison a whole society of millions.

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