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IN TODAY’S SPECIAL RADIO REPORT: Natural disaster, humanitarian disaster, and now man-made disaster, as 50 nuclear plant workers are all that stand in the way of full nuclear meltdown at Fukushima in Japan … All that and more in today’s Green News Report!
Green News Report
with Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen
3/15/2011
‘Green News Report’ – March 15, 2011 | With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen... | Special Report: JAPAN on the brink of nuclear disaster · · · · · ‘Green News Report’ – March 15, 2011 | With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen... | Special Report: JAPAN on the brink of nuclear disaster
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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Politifact says GOP lies about gas prices; 5 myths about EPA agenda; House GOP votes to discard science; CA farmers: pesticides vs. new bike paths; Feb. 2011 the 17th warmest on record; New rare earths mines slated for NM; CA high-speed rail project hits another snag; Photograph farms, go to jail; Air pollution from coal kills 13k a year; Russian heat waves to become more frequent by 2060; Naomi Klein: Global warming & the Shock Doctrine… PLUS: How to get to 100 percent renewables globally by 2050….
STORIES DISCUSSED IN TODAY’S ‘GREEN NEWS REPORT’…
- Natural Disaster, Humanitarian Disaster, Man-Made Disaster in Japan:
- UPDATED Live Coverage of Japan’s Nuclear Disaster at BRAD BLOG.COM
- PM ADDRESSES NATION: RADIATION LEVELS RISING, EVAC ZONE EXPANDED, FIRE AT UNIT 4, ASKS FOR CALM | THIRD EXPLOSION AS BLAST HEARD AT FUKUSHIMA UNIT 2 (BradBlog.com):
LATEST: PM: ‘Radiation levels now danger to human health’
All but ‘critical’ workers evacuated from plant
Evacuations expanded, citizens asked to remain indoors
Fire at Unit 4
Unit 2 explosion confirmed in suppression chamber
Fuel rods half exposed
Core containment vessel may have been damaged… - Updated Full Coverage: JAPAN NUCLEAR CRISIS (Kyodo News)
- Japan Faces Potential Nuclear Disaster as Radiation Levels Rise (NY Times) [emphasis added]:
“We are on the brink. We are now facing the worst-case scenario,” said Hiroaki Koide, a senior reactor engineering specialist at the Research Reactor Institute of Kyoto University. “We can assume that the containment vessel at Reactor No. 2 is already breached. If there is heavy melting inside the reactor, large amounts of radiation will most definitely be released.”
- UPDATED: Status of quake-stricken reactors at Fukushima nuclear power plants (Kyodo News)
- Spent nuke fuel pool may be boiling, further radiation leak feared (Kyodo News)
- How a Reactor Shuts Down and What Happens in a Meltdown (Interactive) (NY Times)
- Japan’s Nuclear Emergency Explained (UPDATED) (Kate Sheppard, Mother Jones)
- Q&A: Dangers posed by Japan’s quake-hit atom plant (Scientific American)
- Millions Saved in Japan By Government Building Codes (Treehugger)
- Millions saved in Japan by good engineering and government building codes (Scienceblogs)
- Seawalls Offered Little Protection Against Tsunami’s Crushing Waves (NY Times)
- Crisis in Japan: Earth Institute Reactions (Earth Institute, Columbia Univ.)
- NRC: Fact Sheet on Biological Effects of Radiation (US Nuclear Regulatory Commission)
- CNBC’s Larry Kudlow Devalues Human Life With Japan Earthquake Freudian Slip (Vanity Fair)
- Economic & Political Impact: Criticism of Nuclear Energy & Safety Worldwide, While Clean Tech Stocks Jump:
- The Safety of Nuclear Power and Death of the Nuclear Renaissance (Oil Drum)
- Electricity too lethal to meter: So much for all that new nuclear energy we were going to build (Grist)
- Nuclear energy lobbyists scramble on Capitol Hill (CNN)
- S&P Warns Clients of Risks of Nuclear Energy Investments (Reuters)
- Nuclear renaissance melts down over Japan disaster (Globe & Mail UK):
After more than two decades of stagnation, the global nuclear power industry was just coming back to life. Power utilities had launched proposals for more than 300 new reactors, most of them in Asia, and dozens were under construction.
Then came the Japanese nuclear disaster, shocking the world with images of two explosions at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in northeast Japan, near the epicentre of Friday’s earthquake. The disaster threatens to end the nuclear renaissance. A slowdown has already begun.
- Japan disaster could wreak havoc on the global supply chain
- Bingaman wants fast NRC reactor safety review, eyes hearing (The Hill)
- Clean-energy shares jump for 2nd day after Japanese atomic accident (Bloomberg)
- Nuclear Power Stocks Get Killed All Over Again, Japan-Watch (PKN, NUCL, URA, USU, CCJ, SHAW, URRE, GE) (Wall St. 24/7)
- European Leaders Put the Brakes on Nuclear Power — but Not U.S.:
- European leaders backing away from nuclear power. Obama and DOE’s Chu are doubling down on it
- White House says Obama won’t back off nuclear energy (The Hill)
- Germany to Reconsider Nuclear Policy: PM Merkel Sets Three-Month ‘Moratorium’ on Extension of Lifespans (Der Spiegel)
- With 34 Reactors in At Risk Zones, France Wonders If It’s Hostage to Nuclear Power (Treehugger):
Those who have long opposed the use of nuclear power have been outspoken in the last few days, presenting the disaster in Japan as a cautionary tale. Cecile Duflot, the National Secretary of the French ecological party Europe Ecologie-Les Verts (whose website bears the headline: “Act Today to Not Be Radioactive Tomorrow”) told Reuters: “The nuclear risk cannot realistically be mastered. We are hostages of nuclear power in our own country.”
- Nuclear Plants in Europe Are Delayed (NY Times)
- In Light of Fukushima, Switzerland and Germany Say No More Nuclear (Video) (Treehugger)
- Critics Question Safety of US Nuclear Plants, Esp. in Earthquake-Prone California:
- G.O.P. Cuts Could Hit Tsunami Warning System, Foes Say (NY Times)
- Taxpayer Meltdown?: Taxpayers, Not Utilities, Liable for Most of the Bill (National Journal)
- Greg PALAST: Tokyo Electric to Build US Nuclear Plants: The No BS Info on Japan’s Disastrous Nuclear Operators (Truthout.org)
- Between BP and Japan, is Barack Obama snakebit on energy policy? (Politico):
President Barack Obama’s energy agenda appears to be jinxed.
While Japan’s nuclear meltdown may be an ocean away, the industry has quickly become the latest example of a policy in peril not long after the White House embraced it.
- Remembering California’s Nuclear Meltdown: Background and context for the nuclear-power crisis in Japan. (Miller-McCune)
- Bingaman wants fast NRC reactor safety review, eyes hearing (The Hill)
- Critics Question Safety at CA Nuclear Plants (Riverside Press-Enterprise)
- Southern Cal. nuke plant is right on water
- SoCal Nuclear Plant Built for 7.0 quake, 25-ft tsunami
‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (Stuff we didn’t have time for in today’s audio report)…
- Politifact finds Republican claim to be false; Republicans don’t give a sh*t (Grist)
- EPA’s Jackson lays out five ‘fictions’ about the agency’s agenda (The Hill)
- House GOP rejects amendment that says climate change is occurring (The Hill)
- Rep. Burgess (R-TX) cites unscientific online poll as evidence against climate science (Climate Progress)
- Fresno Co. farmers push to halt new bike paths (b/c their pesticide spraying would make passerby-bikers sick) (High Country News)
- OAA’s NCDC: combined global land & ocean avg. surface temperature for Feb. 2011 – 17th warmest on record
- Rare earth mining claims staked out on NM’s Otero Mesa (High Country News)
- CA High-Speed Rail Project Suffering Communications Breakdown (High Country News)
- Iowa Bill Would Send You To Jail For 10 Years For Exposing Animal Cruelty on Farms (Treehugger)
- Air Pollution From Power Plants Kills 13,000 People Per Year (Huffington Post Green)
- “My Fear is that Climate Change is the Biggest Crisis of All”: Naomi Klein Warns Global Warming Could Be Exploited by Capitalism and Militarism (Democracy Now!)
- NOAA: Monster crop-destroying Russian heat wave to be once-in-a-decade event by 2060s (or sooner): Exclusive: NCAR’s Trenberth challenges the attribution analysis, “Many statements are not justified and are actually irresponsible.” (Climate Progress)
- How to get to 100 percent renewables globally by 2050 (Grist)
http://www.countercurrents.org/head150311.htm
one quake, one tsunami, two nuke plants…and japan
Imagine if it hadnt been japan!
Obama is still pushing the nuclear option…and you thought he was clever. A crisis is an oppportunity so they say in china, well here is an opportunity to get rid of nucler power forever. esp in quake zones. If rich tech-savvy quake-hardened tsunami-familiar japan is traumatised , how would any other nation fare?
some god news:
‘The use of seawater indicates how serious the situation is, since it blocks any further commercial use of the reactors. They have been written off in a last-ditch effort to prevent an even greater disaster.’
and some bad:
‘By Monday morning Japan time it was being reported that a total of six reactors along Japan’s northeast Pacific coast were experiencing breakdowns in their cooling systems, with technicians forced to declare states of emergency or use emergency backups. Another six nuclear reactors have been shut down as a precautionary measure while they are inspected for earthquake damage.’
http://www.wsws.org/articles/20...pers-m14.shtml
‘The nuclear power industry in Japan, as throughout the world, is conducted on the basis of private profit, giving the corporate owners, suppliers and operators a continuing incentive to cut corners on safety in order to fatten their bottom line””especially since special government waivers free the industry of financial liability in the event of a catastrophe.
The Fukushima reactor is based on a 40-year-old design by General Electric, now much less than state-of-the art. This outmoded design is replicated at a half dozen other nuclear facilities in Japan and at least 21 in the United States, including the Toms River, New Jersey power reactor, 55 miles east of Philadelphia and 90 miles south of Manhattan.
The operator of the Fukushima complex, Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), has a poor record of compliance with safety procedures. In 2003, all 17 of its nuclear plants were shut down temporarily in a scandal over falsified inspection reports. Another scandal over falsified data emerged in 2006.’
did u know:
‘Hamaoka plant, just 100 miles southwest of Tokyo, which perches on an active fault line’
another disaster waiting to happen. Who are the corporate/scientific lion tamers who thought: lets perch our nuke reactor on an active fault line?
Sad, but Kudlow’s elevating economics above humanity is but a reflection of the vice-into-virtue philosophy of the billionaire class.
Worthwhile read in this Los Angeles Times editorial, Nuclear fails the test.
At present, the nuclear disaster scale goes from 1-7.
This one is going to be an 8.
plunger
To date, Fukushima has been rated 6. Chernobyl had been rated 7.
From the LAT link
They are not designed to withstand a man-made disruption which can exceed naturally occurring limits.
HAARP technology has demonstrated its ability to cause disruptions of great magnitude. There is also evidence (see Kudlow) that individuals can posess the insane cruelty needed to unleash a weapon like HAARP to cause unimaginable suffering on others.
The only question left is, would anyone actually do it?
FDL reporting another fire and explosion at #4…
http://my.firedoglake.com/scare...t-4-fuel-pond/
… AP quoted as saying that TEP indicates that the first fire at #4 was never actually extinguished.
David Rockefeller has stated his wishes throughout his lifetime (Eugenics, Communism, etc). I have no reason not to assume that all of the unrest and upheaval we are seeing was on his bucket list, and at his advancing age, are being expedited to please him and his City Of London and Rothschild co-conspirators. The only way to get the people to beg for a new “order” is to cause untold disorder. I simply choose not to attribute anything to coincidence.
Big Dan has documented the potential of HAARP’s role extensively:
http://bigdanblogger.blogspot.c...h-12-2011.html
http://bigdanblogger.blogspot.c...h-15-2011.html
From my perspective, Karl Rove is the Architect – the key strategist for the GHW/Rockefeller conspiracy – and has been calling the tune for a decade:
http://www.plungerspeaks.blogspot.com/
I’m inclined to believe the opposite of whatever the “news” says, and I’m proven correct more often than not. 150,000 people marched on the capitol in Wisconsin, and according to the news coverage it received – it never happened. An earth quake and tsunami prevented its coverage.
What a coincidence.
“The steel wall of the pool seems to show damage. All the surrounding equipment, including the two cranes, has been destroyed. There is smoke coming from reactor No. 3, and steam coming from the spent fuel pool next to it. That indicates that the water in the pool is boiling. And that means the spent fuel rods are getting hot and could start burning.”
If the spent rods start to burn, huge amounts of radioactive material would be released into the atmosphere and would disperse across the Northern Hemisphere.
Unlike the reactors, spent fuel pools are not””repeat not””housed in any sort of hardened or sealed containment structures. Rather, the fuel rods are packed tightly together in pools of water that are often several stories above ground.
“With damaged [fuel rod] pools, we are talking about things that were never considered a credible threat,” said Alvarez.
Aileen Mioko Smith, director of Green Action Kyoto, met Fukushima plant and government officials in August 2010. “At the plant they seemed to dismiss our concerns about spent fuel pools,” said Mioko Smith. “At the prefecture, they were very worried but had no plan for how to deal with it.”
Remarkably, that is the norm””both in Japan and in the United States. Spent fuel pools at Fukushima are not equipped with backup water-circulation systems or backup generators for the water-circulation system they do have.
The exact same design flaw is in place at Vermont Yankee, a nuclear plant of the same GE design as the Fukushima reactors. At Fukushima each reactor has between 60 and 83 tons of spent fuel rods stored next to them. Vermont Yankee has a staggering 690 tons of spent fuel rods on site.
http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/