A quake, tsunami and nuclear nightmare

Not so much motivated by Japan’s tsunami and earthquake and nuclear reactors heaving smoke from hydrogen explosions. I’m steeled to respond to the surge of stupidity coming from shining examples of industry shilling as the New York Times and that toad named Mitch McConnell. Listen to this blowhard Republican leader: “I don’t believe that making energy policy based on something in another country is how we should make policy. Right after a major environmental catastrophe is not a very good time to be making American domestic policy.” Sure, the nuclear plant in Vermont, built by the same company as the one now exploding in Japan – General Electric — has nothing to do with Japan. Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant is 38 years old, a year younger than the Fukushima Daiichi plant. State legislators voted to close the facility, an almost identical twin to Japan’s. Constant tritium leaks, plus state citizenry who want the plant done for, isn’t even in McConnell’s mindset. Here’s a contrast in character: Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin. “My heart goes out to the people of Japan. Extraordinary crisis and everyone’s worst nightmare, when they have aging nuclear power plants in their country or their state. We have an aging nuclear power plant here, owned by Entergy Louisiana, a company that we found we can’t trust. This asks all of us to reexamine our policy of irrational exuberance when it comes to extending the lives of aging nuclear power plants.” Yet another perspective, from CNBC’s Larry Kudlow: “The human toll here looks to be much worse than the economic toll, and we can be grateful for that.” The problem here is the nuclear industry, like tobacco pimps, has put scientists and politicians (and the media) in its pocket. The insurance payout for a nuclear disaster caused by, say, a GE-designed plant in the US, with the same safety systems as Japan’s plant, is $12 billion. Guess who pays the rest for death, pollution, loss of livelihoods and long-term devastation? The U.S. taxpayer. Chernobyl, if you read about the human deaths, is more than just cities and hundreds of square miles that are uninhabitable for centuries to come. Japan is not much bigger than the area ruined by Chernobyl. Think about my neck of the woods, Tucson, not that far from the San Onofre nuke plant between San Diego and L.A. Think about the San Andres earthquake fault line. The New York Times or NPR, or all points between and right of them, or none of the mainstream or corporate press will report a book that purports that nearly 1 million people worldwide died from exposure to radiation from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. It’s the 25th anniversary next month, and everyone, including GE engineers, pointy-headed politicians and jaded journalists, should be reading this New York Academy of Sciences-published book, “Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment,” compiled by Alexey Yablokov of the Center for Russian Environmental Policy in Moscow, and Vassily Nesterenko and Alexey Nesterenko of the Institute of Radiation Safety, in Minsk, Belarus. It shares details of more than 900,000 people dying early deaths by nuclear contamination. In one quarter of a century. When an energy source produces that sort of death and environmental damage, and for Japan, dysfunction, when it fails, the price of a gallon of gas can be $6 or $100 for that matter. Life is worth more than this non-renewable, heavy energy-dependent, polluting industry called the Nuclear Lobby. One expert who’s been speaking on news platforms like Al Jazeera and Democracy Now is Arnold Gundersen, a 39-year veteran of the nuclear industry. He’s the main engineer at Fairwinds Associates and has worked as a nuclear plant operator and expert witness in the Three Mile Island investigation. “Within 90 days, the iodine health risks disappear, because that will decay. But the nasty isotopes —cesium and strontium — will remain for 30 years. And they’re volatile,” Gundersen said. “After Three Mile, strontium was detected 150 miles away. That ends up in cow’s milk and doesn’t go away for 300 years. The releases from these plants will last for a year, and will contain elements that will remain in the environment for 300 years, even in the best case.” It makes sense that McConnell and the nuclear industry won’t see Japan as a learning experience or teachable moment. Iodine and cesium were already in the environment before the first unit exploded. “When you see that, that’s clearly an indication that the containment has breached,” Gundersen added. If a meltdown happens, and with prevailing winds, nothing will be inhabitable for 30-plus years within 20 miles, AND the nasty isotopes will head to our Pacific Coast, and inland. Chernobyl affected the groundwater of Kiev, 80 miles away. There’s nothing to mitigate the toxicity, and the radioactive fallout lasts for 300 years. GE’s CEO, the McConnells, the tea baggers, the nuclear industry shills, they won’t read books or hear interviews with someone like Nobel Peace Prize-nominated pediatrician Helen Caldicott, host of “If You Love This Planet,” on KYRS-FM. Dr. Caldicott has sparked interest about the risks of nuclear technology and global environmental collapse with her work with Physicians for Social Responsibility. I’ve worked with this organization, and PSR has thousands of doctors teaching about the medical implications of nuclear war and nuclear power. The Obamas and Limbaughs and Clintons and Bushes never have the Dr. Caldicotts of the world over for dinner. “Unfortunately, radioactive elements are invisible to our senses – taste, smell, and sight. Also unfortunately, the incubation time for radiation-induced cancer is five to 60 years, a long, silent latent period. No cancer ever denotes its specific cause,” the Australian Caldicott said. “Among biologically active elements routinely released from nuclear power plants are tritium which lasts for more than 100 years (there is no limit to the amount of tritium that escapes); xenon, krypton, and argon which decay to cesium and strontium; carbon 14 which remains radioactive for thousands of years; cesium 137 – radioactive for hundreds of years; and iodine 129, with a half life of 15.7 million years.” The World Nuclear Industry Status Report published in 2009 shares that the nuclear industry continues to face huge construction costs. The Olkiluoto, Finland, reactor is three years behind schedule and 55 percent over budget ($7 billion). Globally, the 435 commercial reactors provided 5.5 per cent of the international commercial primary energy production in 2008. Spent fuel rods at Fukushima are getting hot and could start burning, according to energy experts. So, if those so-deemed spent rods – these are highly radioactive and unstable — burn, then massive amounts of radioactive material might be released into the atmosphere and then this would parachute across the Northern Hemisphere. So, as anyone close to Mitch McConnell could tell him, unlike nuclear reactors, spent fuel rods are put in pools that aren’t in hardened or sealed structures. Officials with Green Action Kyoto met with Fukushima plant officials and government representatives last year, and basically dismissed Green Action’s concerns. Close to home, Akira Tokuhiro, professor of nuclear engineering at the University of Idaho, is an expert in nuclear reactor engineering, design and safety who has been monitoring the situation in Japan. According to the Tokyo-borne Tokuhiro, in a UI press release, the situation is both dire and emblematic of that island’s reliance on energy. His concepts of sustainability and energy development show the dichotomy between scientists who are proponents of nuclear energy and scientists who favor research and development in different directions: “Commercial nuclear energy is a highly-regulated global enterprise of industrialized nations. For Japan, a nation without energy resources, this is a painful decision; that is, to replace the power of some 50 nuclear plants by some other energy source. For the rest of the world and the global nuclear enterprise, this incident will delay and add cost to building new reactors. I thus see that we are inching our way toward higher energy prices and possible energy shortages as early as 2020-2030,” Tokuhiro said. “As with fossil fuels, if we are not determined to construct new U.S. nuclear power plants in the near-term and foreseeable future, we will undermine our energy security and economic sustainability. Our only choice is to use less energy and go back to the lifestyle of the ‘50s and ‘60s when life was not ‘open’ 24/7/365 days a year.” All that potential loss of life and territory for an industry so potentially volatile, one that relies on a first-level safety net called the electrical grid is not exactly confidence inspiring. When that electrical network went kaput after a 9.0 quake, the second safety net kicked in — diesel generators. But the tsunami swamped the generators. Batteries lasted eight hours, and now the cores are in meltdown mode. Not a great advertisement for a nuclear renaissance.