Thursday, January 31, 2019

Nuclear Waste Across the Pacific


I've been crazy busy and not able to post much but lots going on across the nuclear front.

Fukushima Daiichi webcam 1 indicates that the area around unit 1 is really steamy, as I demonstrated in screenshots yesterday.  Perhaps the cause is the ice wall or some other effect of ongoing work. I don't know, but the increase in emissions visible on that cam has been marked. Cafe Rad Lab has a good daytime photo of emissions from unit 3 or 4 (hard for me to tell exactly).

Meanwhile, in the US it appears that President Trump authorized a secret shipment of radioactive waste from South Carolina to Nevada that was so secretive that states were not notified despite significant safety hazards when transporting nuclear waste across the country.

Moreover, Nevada didn't want the waste and sought to block it:
Trump administration secretly shipped weapons-grade plutonium from S. Carolina to Nevada. USA Today, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/01/31/doe-plutonium-nevada/2730361002/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatodaycomnation-topstories

The Department of Energy disclosed Wednesday that it has shipped one-half metric ton of weapons-grade plutonium from South Carolina to the Nevada National Security Site, despite Nevada's objections.

The Justice Department notified a federal judge in Reno the government had already trucked the radioactive material to the site 70 miles north of Las Vegas when Nevada filed a request for an injunction to block the move in November.

Wow.  Apparently the State of Nevada has no sovereignty whatsoever when it comes to nuclear.  Nevada has had to learn this lesson the hard way, beginning with atmospheric testing.

Unfortunately, nuclear madness exists because nuclear annihilation is too scary for most people to think about in realistic terms. The need to bury its horrors enables those who see nuclear as the one ring to control them all.

Peaceful and collective social activism against nuclear needed for a sustainable future. Otherwise we will never escape this ring of power.