Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Congressman: Reactor Number 2 Has Melted Down
In an interesting "he said, she said" situation, Reuters noted:
The core at Japan's Fukushima nuclear reactor has melted through the reactor pressure vessel, Democratic Congressman Edward Markey told a hearing on the nuclear disaster on Wednesday.
"I have been informed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that the core of Unit Two has gotten so hot that part of it has probably melted through the reactor pressure vessel," said Markey, a prominent nuclear critic in the House of Representatives.
However, the NRC is denying this. Reuters subsequently reported:
A top official from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said on Wednesday it was not clear that Japan's Fukushima No. 2 nuclear reactor has melted through the reactor pressure vessel.
Earlier, Democratic lawmaker Edward Markey told a House of Representatives hearing on the nuclear disaster that the NRC had told him the core had melted through the vessel.
"That's not clear to us, nor is it clear to us that the reactor has penetrated the vessel," said Martin Virgilio, deputy executive director for reactor and preparedness programs at the NRC.
Did Markey misunderstand what the NRC was telling him? Or is the NRC covering up the situation by publicly denying what it told Markey in a private briefing?
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
French Green Clay How To Use This Radiation Protocol
French Green Clay How To
Use This Radiation Protocol
Dr. Janet Starr Hull
3-20-11
Update from Dr. Janet Starr Hull
4-2-11
Bentonite clays are also useful. However, they have a higher potential for clogging up one's elimination. Zeolite is from volcanic ash which has rough particles.
It is best to introduce clay (Frence Green being the best) to your body gradually, if you have never used clays before. For Days 1, 2 and 3, use 1/3 teaspoon; Days 4, 5 and 6, use 2/3 teaspoon, and Days 7 and on, use 1 teaspoon.
If you experience any unusual side effects after ingesting health clays, simply cut back on the daily amount you are using, but never stop trying to help your body eliminate toxins quickly and safely.
Go to http://www.frenchclayforall.com or Dr. Hull's website: http://www.detoxprogram.net for more information on the French Green clay. This is an education into a lifestyle change learn all that you can.
------
The radiation leaking from the nuclear power plants in Japan have raised new awareness in many countries around the world, and that's a very good thing because awareness brings change, and positive change keeps mankind moving forward. As a result of the nuclear disaster in Japan, people are learning new ways to prevent exposure to man-made radiation using natural clays.
The radiation circulating the planet is moving across many borders; it is circulating in everyone's air and water; it is impacting plants and animals in different countries, moving over miles of oceans, over islands, and crossing national borders. An important point to remember is that all people and every animal must find a way to detox from these global pollutants bridging manmade "borders and constructs." MANY people around the world have been ingesting natural clays for centuries to maintain general health and for detox purposes, and there is no better time than now to learn about the benefits of French Green clay.
"Growing up in Provence, South of France, the use of green ILLITE clay was a part of our lives. Mom made me drink it, would spray her plants with a clay/water solution, it was given to dogs, cats, horses... internally and externally.
After moving to the US and becoming fully involved in the horse world, I became aware of how little was known about the benefits of the green illite French clay. It is my hope to bring the clay and its healing properties into public awareness," writes Walter Badet, founder of http://www.frenchclayforall.com/.
Since 1996, French Green clay is the only clay approved for food use by the Conseil Superieur d'Hygiene de France. (French National Health Superior Counsel). The American FDA knows little of natural clays, but that does not mean they are ineffective or unsafe within US borders.
Whether ingesting food grade clays as a daily detox regimen or using natural clays when exposed to toxic radiation, all animals worldwide benefit from its natural ability to absorb toxins. When ingesting anything from a strawberry to prescribed medications every individual needs to be aware of how their body reacts to any substance, and most importantly, never overdo anything you eat or drink. I use one-teaspoon of clay daily on an empty stomach to cleanse my body, and I give a teaspoon of clay to my house pets and to the animals on my Wildlife Preservation.
I mix the purest French Green clay in 8-oz water and drink it down. I brush my teeth with it, too. If I am exposed to an unusual high level of toxins, such as radiation, I increase my daily intake of clay to once in the morning and again before bed, both on an empty tummy so the clay has nothing blocking its pathway to reach toxins circulating inside my body. Give your body about 20 minutes to absorb the clay, and then you can put food or drink in your stomach. Leave a bowl of clay water for your pets to drink throughout the day. Animals know when to drink the clay, but don't be surprised if they lap it up.
It is best to introduce clay to your body gradually if you have never used clays before. For Days 1,2 and 3, use 1/3 teaspoon; Days 4, 5 and 6, use 2/3 teaspoon, and Days 7 and on, use 1 teaspoon.
If you experience any unusual side effects after ingesting health clays, simply cut back on the daily amount you are using, but never stop trying to help your body excrete toxins quickly and safely.
Go to http://www.frenchclayforall.com/ and http://www.detoxprogram.net/ for more information on the French Green clay. Walter's French Green clay is the purest that I have ever seen! This is an education into a lifestyle change learn all that you can!
Use This Radiation Protocol
Dr. Janet Starr Hull
3-20-11
Update from Dr. Janet Starr Hull
4-2-11
Bentonite clays are also useful. However, they have a higher potential for clogging up one's elimination. Zeolite is from volcanic ash which has rough particles.
It is best to introduce clay (Frence Green being the best) to your body gradually, if you have never used clays before. For Days 1, 2 and 3, use 1/3 teaspoon; Days 4, 5 and 6, use 2/3 teaspoon, and Days 7 and on, use 1 teaspoon.
If you experience any unusual side effects after ingesting health clays, simply cut back on the daily amount you are using, but never stop trying to help your body eliminate toxins quickly and safely.
Go to http://www.frenchclayforall.com or Dr. Hull's website: http://www.detoxprogram.net for more information on the French Green clay. This is an education into a lifestyle change learn all that you can.
------
The radiation leaking from the nuclear power plants in Japan have raised new awareness in many countries around the world, and that's a very good thing because awareness brings change, and positive change keeps mankind moving forward. As a result of the nuclear disaster in Japan, people are learning new ways to prevent exposure to man-made radiation using natural clays.
The radiation circulating the planet is moving across many borders; it is circulating in everyone's air and water; it is impacting plants and animals in different countries, moving over miles of oceans, over islands, and crossing national borders. An important point to remember is that all people and every animal must find a way to detox from these global pollutants bridging manmade "borders and constructs." MANY people around the world have been ingesting natural clays for centuries to maintain general health and for detox purposes, and there is no better time than now to learn about the benefits of French Green clay.
"Growing up in Provence, South of France, the use of green ILLITE clay was a part of our lives. Mom made me drink it, would spray her plants with a clay/water solution, it was given to dogs, cats, horses... internally and externally.
After moving to the US and becoming fully involved in the horse world, I became aware of how little was known about the benefits of the green illite French clay. It is my hope to bring the clay and its healing properties into public awareness," writes Walter Badet, founder of http://www.frenchclayforall.com/.
Since 1996, French Green clay is the only clay approved for food use by the Conseil Superieur d'Hygiene de France. (French National Health Superior Counsel). The American FDA knows little of natural clays, but that does not mean they are ineffective or unsafe within US borders.
Whether ingesting food grade clays as a daily detox regimen or using natural clays when exposed to toxic radiation, all animals worldwide benefit from its natural ability to absorb toxins. When ingesting anything from a strawberry to prescribed medications every individual needs to be aware of how their body reacts to any substance, and most importantly, never overdo anything you eat or drink. I use one-teaspoon of clay daily on an empty stomach to cleanse my body, and I give a teaspoon of clay to my house pets and to the animals on my Wildlife Preservation.
I mix the purest French Green clay in 8-oz water and drink it down. I brush my teeth with it, too. If I am exposed to an unusual high level of toxins, such as radiation, I increase my daily intake of clay to once in the morning and again before bed, both on an empty tummy so the clay has nothing blocking its pathway to reach toxins circulating inside my body. Give your body about 20 minutes to absorb the clay, and then you can put food or drink in your stomach. Leave a bowl of clay water for your pets to drink throughout the day. Animals know when to drink the clay, but don't be surprised if they lap it up.
It is best to introduce clay to your body gradually if you have never used clays before. For Days 1,2 and 3, use 1/3 teaspoon; Days 4, 5 and 6, use 2/3 teaspoon, and Days 7 and on, use 1 teaspoon.
If you experience any unusual side effects after ingesting health clays, simply cut back on the daily amount you are using, but never stop trying to help your body excrete toxins quickly and safely.
Go to http://www.frenchclayforall.com/ and http://www.detoxprogram.net/ for more information on the French Green clay. Walter's French Green clay is the purest that I have ever seen! This is an education into a lifestyle change learn all that you can!
How High Are Radiation Levels in Japan?
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
How High Are Radiation Levels in Japan?
How high is the radiation from Japan's leaking Fukushima Daiichi complex?
As I noted on March 29th, radioactive cesium from Japan already rivals Chernobyl.
Greenpeace has measured very high levels of radiation some 40 killometers from Fukushima:
The Japan Times reports that there are extremely high levels of radiation in and around the nuclear plants:
Radioactive iodine-131 readings taken from seawater near the water intake of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant's No. 2 reactor reached 7.5 million times the legal limit, Tokyo Electric Power Co. admitted Tuesday.
The sample that yielded the high reading was taken Saturday, before Tepco announced Monday it would start releasing radioactive water into the sea [see this for background], and experts fear the contamination may spread well beyond Japan's shores to affect seafood overseas.
The unstoppable radioactive discharge into the Pacific has prompted experts to sound the alarm, as cesium, which has a much longer half-life than iodine, is expected to concentrate in the upper food chain.
According to Tepco, some 300,000 becquerels per sq. centimeter of radioactive iodine-131 was detected Saturday, while the amount of cesium-134 was 2 million times the maximum amount permitted and cesium-137 was 1.3 million times the amount allowable.
***
The level of radioactive iodine in the polluted water inside reactor 2's cracked storage pit had an even higher concentration. A water sample Saturday had 5.2 million becquerels of iodine per sq. centimeter, or 130 million times the maximum amount allowable, and water leaking from the crack had a reading of 5.4 million becquerels, Tepco said.
***
Masayoshi Yamamoto, a professor of radiology at Kanazawa University, said the high level of cesium is the more worrisome find.
"By the time radioactive iodine is taken in by plankton, which is eaten by smaller fish and then by bigger fish, it will be diluted by the sea and the amount will decrease because of its eight-day half-life," Yamamoto said. "But cesium is a bigger problem."
The half-life of cesium-137 is 30 years, while that for cesium-134 is two years. The longer half-life means it will probably concentrate in the upper food chain.
Yamamoto said such radioactive materials are likely to be detected in fish and other marine products in Japan and other nations in the short and long run, posing a serious threat to the seafood industry in other nations as well.
Indeed, high levels of radioactive cesium above the legal limits have already been detected in small fish called "sand lances" off the coast of Ibaraki, almost 100 miles south of Fukushima.
And NHK news points out that radiation levels are so high in some locations that they are literally "immeasurable":
A radiation monitor at the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says workers there are exposed to immeasurable levels of radiation.
The monitor told NHK that no one can enter the plant's No. 1 through 3 reactor buildings because radiation levels are so high that monitoring devices have been rendered useless. He said even levels outside the buildings exceed 100 millisieverts in some places.
How High Are Radiation Levels in Japan?
How high is the radiation from Japan's leaking Fukushima Daiichi complex?
As I noted on March 29th, radioactive cesium from Japan already rivals Chernobyl.
Greenpeace has measured very high levels of radiation some 40 killometers from Fukushima:
The Japan Times reports that there are extremely high levels of radiation in and around the nuclear plants:
Radioactive iodine-131 readings taken from seawater near the water intake of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant's No. 2 reactor reached 7.5 million times the legal limit, Tokyo Electric Power Co. admitted Tuesday.
The sample that yielded the high reading was taken Saturday, before Tepco announced Monday it would start releasing radioactive water into the sea [see this for background], and experts fear the contamination may spread well beyond Japan's shores to affect seafood overseas.
The unstoppable radioactive discharge into the Pacific has prompted experts to sound the alarm, as cesium, which has a much longer half-life than iodine, is expected to concentrate in the upper food chain.
According to Tepco, some 300,000 becquerels per sq. centimeter of radioactive iodine-131 was detected Saturday, while the amount of cesium-134 was 2 million times the maximum amount permitted and cesium-137 was 1.3 million times the amount allowable.
***
The level of radioactive iodine in the polluted water inside reactor 2's cracked storage pit had an even higher concentration. A water sample Saturday had 5.2 million becquerels of iodine per sq. centimeter, or 130 million times the maximum amount allowable, and water leaking from the crack had a reading of 5.4 million becquerels, Tepco said.
***
Masayoshi Yamamoto, a professor of radiology at Kanazawa University, said the high level of cesium is the more worrisome find.
"By the time radioactive iodine is taken in by plankton, which is eaten by smaller fish and then by bigger fish, it will be diluted by the sea and the amount will decrease because of its eight-day half-life," Yamamoto said. "But cesium is a bigger problem."
The half-life of cesium-137 is 30 years, while that for cesium-134 is two years. The longer half-life means it will probably concentrate in the upper food chain.
Yamamoto said such radioactive materials are likely to be detected in fish and other marine products in Japan and other nations in the short and long run, posing a serious threat to the seafood industry in other nations as well.
Indeed, high levels of radioactive cesium above the legal limits have already been detected in small fish called "sand lances" off the coast of Ibaraki, almost 100 miles south of Fukushima.
And NHK news points out that radiation levels are so high in some locations that they are literally "immeasurable":
A radiation monitor at the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says workers there are exposed to immeasurable levels of radiation.
The monitor told NHK that no one can enter the plant's No. 1 through 3 reactor buildings because radiation levels are so high that monitoring devices have been rendered useless. He said even levels outside the buildings exceed 100 millisieverts in some places.
Features Radiation No Safe Levels
Features
'No safe levels' of radiation in Japan
Experts warn that any detectable level of radiation is "too much".
Dahr Jamail Last Modified: 04 Apr 2011 15:46
Email ArticlePrint ArticleShare ArticleSend Feedback
According to the US Department of Energy, no level of radiation is so low that it is without health risks [EPA]
In a nuclear crisis that is becoming increasingly serious, Japan’s Nuclear Safety Agency confirmed that radioactive iodine-131 in seawater samples taken near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex that was seriously damaged by the recent tsunami off the coast of Japan is 4,385 times the level permitted by law.
Airborne radiation near the plant has been measured at 4-times government limits.
Tokyo Electric Power Company, the company that operates the crippled plant, has begun releasing more than 11,000 tons of radioactive water that was used to cool the fuel rods into the ocean while it attempts to find the source of radioactive leaks. The water being released is about 100 times more radioactive than legal limits.
Meanwhile, water that is vastly more radioactive continues to gush into the ocean through a large crack in a six-foot deep pit at the nuclear plant. Over the weekend, workers at the plant used sawdust, shredded newspaper and diaper chemicals in a desperate attempt to plug the area, which failed. Water leaking from the pit is about 10,000 times more radioactive than water normally found at a nuclear plant
Thus, radiation from a meltdown in the reactor core of reactor No. 2 is leaking out into the water and soil, with other reactors continuing to experience problems.
Yet scientists and activists question these government and nuclear industry “safe” limits of radiation exposure.
“The U.S. Department of Energy has testified that there is no level of radiation that is so low that it is without health risks,” Jacqueline Cabasso, the Executive Director of the Western States Legal Foundation, told Al Jazeera.
Her foundation monitors and analyzes U.S. nuclear weapons programs and policies and related high technology energy, with a focus on the national nuclear weapons laboratories.
Cabasso explained that natural background radiation exists, “But more than 2,000 nuclear tests have enhanced this background radiation level, so we are already living in an artificially radiated environment due to all the nuclear tests.”
“Karl Morgan, who worked on the Manhattan project, later came out against the nuclear industry when he understood the danger of low levels of ionizing radiation-and he said there is no safe dose of radiation exposure,” Cabasso continued, “That means all this talk about what a worker or the public can withstand on a yearly basis is bogus. There is no safe level of radiation exposure. These so-called safe levels are coming from within the nuclear establishment.”
Risk at low doses
Karl Morgan was an American physicist who was a founder of the field of radiation health physics. After a long career in the Manhattan Project and at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, he became a critic of nuclear power and weapons. Morgan, who died in 1999, began to offer court testimony for people who said they had been harmed by the nuclear power industry.
“Nobody is talking about the fact that there is no safe dose of radiation,” Cabasso added, “One of the reasons Morgan said this is because doses are cumulative in the body.”
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) published a report in 2006 titled Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR) report, VII Phase 2. NAS BEIR VII was an expert panel who reviewed available peer reviewed literature and wrote, “the committee concludes that the preponderance of information indicates that there will be some risk, even at low doses.”
The concluding statement of the report reads, “The committee concludes that the current scientific evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that there is a linear, no-threshold dose-response relationship between exposure to ionizing radiation and the development of cancer in humans.”
This means that the sum of several very small exposures to radiation has the same effect as one large exposure, since the effects of radiation are cumulative.
For weeks engineers from Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) have been working to restore power to the plant and have resorted to having seawater sprayed on radioactive fuel rods that have been at risk of meltdown.
Despite this, Japanese officials conceded to the public on March 31 that the battle to save four crippled nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has been lost. On March 29 a US engineer who helped install the reactors at the plant said he believed the radioactive core in unit No. 2 may have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on to a concrete floor.
Tepco’s chairman, Tsunehisa Katsumata, said they had “no choice” but to scrap the No’s 1-4 reactors, but held out hope that the remaining two could continue to operate, despite the fact that he admitted the nuclear disaster could last several months. It is the first time the company has admitted that at least part of the plant will have to be decommissioned.
But the government’s chief spokesman, Yukio Edano, repeated an earlier call for all six reactors at the 40-year-old plant to be decommissioned. “It is very clear looking at the social circumstances,” he said.
Even after a cold shutdown, scrapping the plant will likely take decades, and the site will become a no-man’s land.
Tonnes of nuclear waste sit at the site of the nuclear reactors, and enclosing the reactors by injecting lead and encasing them in concrete would make it safe to work and live a few kilometres away from the site, but is not a long-term solution for the disposal of spent fuel, which will decay and emit fission fragments over tens of thousands of years.
Near the plant, the radiation levels dangerously escalated to 400 milliseiverts/hour. Considering background radiation is on the order of 1 milliseivert per year, this means a yearly background dose every 9 seconds, based on industry and governmental “allowable” radiation exposure limits.
That compares with a national “safety standard” in the U.S. of 250 millisieverts over a year. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says a single dose of 1,000 millisieverts is enough to cause internal hemorrhaging.
Meanwhile, more than 168 citizens organizations in Japan submitted a petition to their government on March 28 calling for an expanded evacuation zone near the Fukushima nuclear disaster site. The groups are also calling for other urgent measures to protect the public health and safety.
Residents of evacuated areas near the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant have been warned that they may not be able to return to their homes for months as Japan’s nuclear crisis stretched into a third week.
The neighbourhoods near the plant will remain empty “for the long term”, Yukio Edano, the country’s chief cabinet secretary, said on April 1.
Though he did not set a timetable, he said residents would not be able to return permanently “in a matter of days or weeks. It will be longer than that”.
The official evacuation zone remains only 20 kilometres, while the government has encouraged people within 30 kilometres to evacuate.
Yet levels of cesium-137 in the village of Iitate, for example, have been measured at more than twice the levels that prompted the Soviet Union to evacuate people near Chernobyl. Iitate is 40 kilometres northwest of Fukushima.
Radioactive Iodine has already been found in the tap water in all of Tokyo’s 23 wards.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission had already recommended an 80-kilometre evacuation zone for U.S. citizens in Japan.
Fukushima as Chernobyl
This month marks the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
“There are still no-go areas there, and the workers town has long since been abandoned, and we are seeing radioactive refugees from there, like we are now seeing generated in Japan,” Dr Kathleen Sullivan, a disarmament educator and activist who has been engaged in the nuclear issue for over 20 years told Al Jazeera, “Tepco is trying to cover their rear-end, and the Japanese government is being cagey about it, and I believe people don’t understand that radiation is a major problem and issue.”
Dr Sullivan, cited Albert Einstein, who said, “The splitting of the atom changed everything, save man’s mode of thinking; thus we drift towards unparalleled catastrophe.”
“So we don’t understand this mistake because of the timeless invisible nature of the problem that radiation is,” Sullivan, who has been an education consultant to the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs, added.
Some experts have warned of a nightmare scenario where clouds of radioactive material could spread lethal toxins across the planet for months on end if the spent fuel rods catch fire due to lack of coolant.
The Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics of Vienna told New Scientist on March 24: “Japan’s damaged nuclear plant in Fukushima has been emitting radioactive iodine and caesium at levels approaching those seen in the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident in 1986. Austrian researchers have used a worldwide network of radiation detectors – designed to spot clandestine nuclear bomb tests – to show that iodine-131 is being released at daily levels 73 per cent of those seen after the 1986 disaster. The daily amount of caesium-137 released from Fukushima Daiichi is around 60 per cent of the amount released from Chernobyl.”
The same group of scientists stated, “The Fukushima plant has around 1760 tonnes of fresh and used nuclear fuel on site,” while, “the Chernobyl reactor had only 180 tonnes.”
According to a report from the New York Academy of Sciences, due to the Chernobyl disaster, 985,000 people have died, mainly from cancer, between 1986-2004.
Monitors have detected tiny radioactive particles which have spread from the reactor site across the Pacific to North America, the Atlantic and even Europe.
Andrea Stahl, a senior scientist at the Norwegian Institute for Air Research, told Reuters, “It’s only a matter of days before it disperses in the entire northern hemisphere.”
Tens of thousands of people living near the plant have been evacuated or ordered to stay indoors, while radioactive materials have leaked into the sea, soil and air.
Last week also marked the 32nd anniversary of the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster in Middletown, Pennsylvania, in the United States.
250,000 years of radiation
Sullivan explained that when dealing with long-lived radioactive materials, in addition to carcinogens there are inter-generational effects that include the mutation of the genetic structure of life.
“This is permanent and irreversible,” she added.
Sullivan uses Fukushima reactor No. 3 as an example, because it is fueled with Mox fuel uranium and plutonium. Plutonium has a half-life of 24,000 years, which means it is carcinogenic and mutagenic for up to 250,000 years, or 12,000 human generations.
A radioactive half-life means that in this case, in 24,000 years, half of the ionizing radiation will have decayed, then in another 24,000 years half of that radiation will decay, etc.
“That’s not really understandable or explainable in a conventional sense of knowing,” Sullivan said, “We have to apply our moral imagination to 12,000 generations to even begin to understand what we are doing in this moment.”
'No safe levels' of radiation in Japan
Experts warn that any detectable level of radiation is "too much".
Dahr Jamail Last Modified: 04 Apr 2011 15:46
Email ArticlePrint ArticleShare ArticleSend Feedback
According to the US Department of Energy, no level of radiation is so low that it is without health risks [EPA]
In a nuclear crisis that is becoming increasingly serious, Japan’s Nuclear Safety Agency confirmed that radioactive iodine-131 in seawater samples taken near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex that was seriously damaged by the recent tsunami off the coast of Japan is 4,385 times the level permitted by law.
Airborne radiation near the plant has been measured at 4-times government limits.
Tokyo Electric Power Company, the company that operates the crippled plant, has begun releasing more than 11,000 tons of radioactive water that was used to cool the fuel rods into the ocean while it attempts to find the source of radioactive leaks. The water being released is about 100 times more radioactive than legal limits.
Meanwhile, water that is vastly more radioactive continues to gush into the ocean through a large crack in a six-foot deep pit at the nuclear plant. Over the weekend, workers at the plant used sawdust, shredded newspaper and diaper chemicals in a desperate attempt to plug the area, which failed. Water leaking from the pit is about 10,000 times more radioactive than water normally found at a nuclear plant
Thus, radiation from a meltdown in the reactor core of reactor No. 2 is leaking out into the water and soil, with other reactors continuing to experience problems.
Yet scientists and activists question these government and nuclear industry “safe” limits of radiation exposure.
“The U.S. Department of Energy has testified that there is no level of radiation that is so low that it is without health risks,” Jacqueline Cabasso, the Executive Director of the Western States Legal Foundation, told Al Jazeera.
Her foundation monitors and analyzes U.S. nuclear weapons programs and policies and related high technology energy, with a focus on the national nuclear weapons laboratories.
Cabasso explained that natural background radiation exists, “But more than 2,000 nuclear tests have enhanced this background radiation level, so we are already living in an artificially radiated environment due to all the nuclear tests.”
“Karl Morgan, who worked on the Manhattan project, later came out against the nuclear industry when he understood the danger of low levels of ionizing radiation-and he said there is no safe dose of radiation exposure,” Cabasso continued, “That means all this talk about what a worker or the public can withstand on a yearly basis is bogus. There is no safe level of radiation exposure. These so-called safe levels are coming from within the nuclear establishment.”
Risk at low doses
Karl Morgan was an American physicist who was a founder of the field of radiation health physics. After a long career in the Manhattan Project and at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, he became a critic of nuclear power and weapons. Morgan, who died in 1999, began to offer court testimony for people who said they had been harmed by the nuclear power industry.
“Nobody is talking about the fact that there is no safe dose of radiation,” Cabasso added, “One of the reasons Morgan said this is because doses are cumulative in the body.”
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) published a report in 2006 titled Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR) report, VII Phase 2. NAS BEIR VII was an expert panel who reviewed available peer reviewed literature and wrote, “the committee concludes that the preponderance of information indicates that there will be some risk, even at low doses.”
The concluding statement of the report reads, “The committee concludes that the current scientific evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that there is a linear, no-threshold dose-response relationship between exposure to ionizing radiation and the development of cancer in humans.”
This means that the sum of several very small exposures to radiation has the same effect as one large exposure, since the effects of radiation are cumulative.
For weeks engineers from Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) have been working to restore power to the plant and have resorted to having seawater sprayed on radioactive fuel rods that have been at risk of meltdown.
Despite this, Japanese officials conceded to the public on March 31 that the battle to save four crippled nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has been lost. On March 29 a US engineer who helped install the reactors at the plant said he believed the radioactive core in unit No. 2 may have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on to a concrete floor.
Tepco’s chairman, Tsunehisa Katsumata, said they had “no choice” but to scrap the No’s 1-4 reactors, but held out hope that the remaining two could continue to operate, despite the fact that he admitted the nuclear disaster could last several months. It is the first time the company has admitted that at least part of the plant will have to be decommissioned.
But the government’s chief spokesman, Yukio Edano, repeated an earlier call for all six reactors at the 40-year-old plant to be decommissioned. “It is very clear looking at the social circumstances,” he said.
Even after a cold shutdown, scrapping the plant will likely take decades, and the site will become a no-man’s land.
Tonnes of nuclear waste sit at the site of the nuclear reactors, and enclosing the reactors by injecting lead and encasing them in concrete would make it safe to work and live a few kilometres away from the site, but is not a long-term solution for the disposal of spent fuel, which will decay and emit fission fragments over tens of thousands of years.
Near the plant, the radiation levels dangerously escalated to 400 milliseiverts/hour. Considering background radiation is on the order of 1 milliseivert per year, this means a yearly background dose every 9 seconds, based on industry and governmental “allowable” radiation exposure limits.
That compares with a national “safety standard” in the U.S. of 250 millisieverts over a year. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says a single dose of 1,000 millisieverts is enough to cause internal hemorrhaging.
Meanwhile, more than 168 citizens organizations in Japan submitted a petition to their government on March 28 calling for an expanded evacuation zone near the Fukushima nuclear disaster site. The groups are also calling for other urgent measures to protect the public health and safety.
Residents of evacuated areas near the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant have been warned that they may not be able to return to their homes for months as Japan’s nuclear crisis stretched into a third week.
The neighbourhoods near the plant will remain empty “for the long term”, Yukio Edano, the country’s chief cabinet secretary, said on April 1.
Though he did not set a timetable, he said residents would not be able to return permanently “in a matter of days or weeks. It will be longer than that”.
The official evacuation zone remains only 20 kilometres, while the government has encouraged people within 30 kilometres to evacuate.
Yet levels of cesium-137 in the village of Iitate, for example, have been measured at more than twice the levels that prompted the Soviet Union to evacuate people near Chernobyl. Iitate is 40 kilometres northwest of Fukushima.
Radioactive Iodine has already been found in the tap water in all of Tokyo’s 23 wards.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission had already recommended an 80-kilometre evacuation zone for U.S. citizens in Japan.
Fukushima as Chernobyl
This month marks the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
“There are still no-go areas there, and the workers town has long since been abandoned, and we are seeing radioactive refugees from there, like we are now seeing generated in Japan,” Dr Kathleen Sullivan, a disarmament educator and activist who has been engaged in the nuclear issue for over 20 years told Al Jazeera, “Tepco is trying to cover their rear-end, and the Japanese government is being cagey about it, and I believe people don’t understand that radiation is a major problem and issue.”
Dr Sullivan, cited Albert Einstein, who said, “The splitting of the atom changed everything, save man’s mode of thinking; thus we drift towards unparalleled catastrophe.”
“So we don’t understand this mistake because of the timeless invisible nature of the problem that radiation is,” Sullivan, who has been an education consultant to the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs, added.
Some experts have warned of a nightmare scenario where clouds of radioactive material could spread lethal toxins across the planet for months on end if the spent fuel rods catch fire due to lack of coolant.
The Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics of Vienna told New Scientist on March 24: “Japan’s damaged nuclear plant in Fukushima has been emitting radioactive iodine and caesium at levels approaching those seen in the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident in 1986. Austrian researchers have used a worldwide network of radiation detectors – designed to spot clandestine nuclear bomb tests – to show that iodine-131 is being released at daily levels 73 per cent of those seen after the 1986 disaster. The daily amount of caesium-137 released from Fukushima Daiichi is around 60 per cent of the amount released from Chernobyl.”
The same group of scientists stated, “The Fukushima plant has around 1760 tonnes of fresh and used nuclear fuel on site,” while, “the Chernobyl reactor had only 180 tonnes.”
According to a report from the New York Academy of Sciences, due to the Chernobyl disaster, 985,000 people have died, mainly from cancer, between 1986-2004.
Monitors have detected tiny radioactive particles which have spread from the reactor site across the Pacific to North America, the Atlantic and even Europe.
Andrea Stahl, a senior scientist at the Norwegian Institute for Air Research, told Reuters, “It’s only a matter of days before it disperses in the entire northern hemisphere.”
Tens of thousands of people living near the plant have been evacuated or ordered to stay indoors, while radioactive materials have leaked into the sea, soil and air.
Last week also marked the 32nd anniversary of the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster in Middletown, Pennsylvania, in the United States.
250,000 years of radiation
Sullivan explained that when dealing with long-lived radioactive materials, in addition to carcinogens there are inter-generational effects that include the mutation of the genetic structure of life.
“This is permanent and irreversible,” she added.
Sullivan uses Fukushima reactor No. 3 as an example, because it is fueled with Mox fuel uranium and plutonium. Plutonium has a half-life of 24,000 years, which means it is carcinogenic and mutagenic for up to 250,000 years, or 12,000 human generations.
A radioactive half-life means that in this case, in 24,000 years, half of the ionizing radiation will have decayed, then in another 24,000 years half of that radiation will decay, etc.
“That’s not really understandable or explainable in a conventional sense of knowing,” Sullivan said, “We have to apply our moral imagination to 12,000 generations to even begin to understand what we are doing in this moment.”
Monday, April 4, 2011
The hard truth is that even low levels of radiation can hurt you badly, even kill you.
The hard truth is that even low levels of radiation can hurt you badly, even kill you.
You don't have to believe me. Listen to Jeff Patterson, DO, immediate past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility:
"There is no safe level of radionuclide exposure, whether from food, water or other sources. Period. Exposure to radionuclides, such as iodine-131 and cesium-137, increases the incidence of cancer. For this reason, every effort must be taken to minimize the radionuclide content in food and water." (9)
You want to know where this is going?
In late 2011 and early 2012 the first babies conceived during the ongoing nuclear crisis will be born in northern Japan, which is now being saturated with high levels of radiation.
You want to know what nuclear radiation does to babies? Look at these photos of what the nuclear fall-out from the depleted uranium munitions used by the United States military has produced in Iraq.
(Warning: very graphic images, not for viewing by children or the faint of heart.)
http://www.xs4all.nl/~stgvisie/VISIE/extremedeformities.html
And these:
http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2003/DU-Baby2003.htm
That is the ghastly fruit of American foreign and military policy, of more than 60 years of nuclear engineering by the military-industrial complex.
Look at the photos in the links above. Think of them the next time you salute the American flag, or sing the Star Spangled Banner, or send money to the IRS, because when you do that you are paying for American troops to do these things, and you are praising the darkly wicked system that produces these unspeakably horrific crimes.
It's your money, and from here on you can never say that you didn't know, that you had no idea these things were happening, in your name as an American and with your money, because now you do know.
The age of innocence and feigned ignorance is over. This is what the nuclear industry is doing to the human race, whether through the American military on foreign battlefields, or through the willful, criminal negligence of the nuclear power industry.
These matters are of soul defining importance. What are you going to do about it?
Notes
1) http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/82200.html
2) http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20305-caesium-fallout-from-fukushima-rivals-chernobyl.html
3) http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=604AB3FA803FF3647DF6E34EC5E8C8A0
4) http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/04/01/3179487.htm
5) http://chronicle.augusta.com/latest-news/2011-03-31/srs-concrete-pump-heading-japan-nuclear-site
6) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1371793/Fukushima-nuclear-plant-entombed-concrete-Japan-admits-battle-crippled-reactors-lost.html
7) http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.35c2caa5efa0e183b7b38a2d0e2b7f40.191&show_article=1
(8) http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110329a8.html
(9) http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23902
You don't have to believe me. Listen to Jeff Patterson, DO, immediate past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility:
"There is no safe level of radionuclide exposure, whether from food, water or other sources. Period. Exposure to radionuclides, such as iodine-131 and cesium-137, increases the incidence of cancer. For this reason, every effort must be taken to minimize the radionuclide content in food and water." (9)
You want to know where this is going?
In late 2011 and early 2012 the first babies conceived during the ongoing nuclear crisis will be born in northern Japan, which is now being saturated with high levels of radiation.
You want to know what nuclear radiation does to babies? Look at these photos of what the nuclear fall-out from the depleted uranium munitions used by the United States military has produced in Iraq.
(Warning: very graphic images, not for viewing by children or the faint of heart.)
http://www.xs4all.nl/~stgvisie/VISIE/extremedeformities.html
And these:
http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2003/DU-Baby2003.htm
That is the ghastly fruit of American foreign and military policy, of more than 60 years of nuclear engineering by the military-industrial complex.
Look at the photos in the links above. Think of them the next time you salute the American flag, or sing the Star Spangled Banner, or send money to the IRS, because when you do that you are paying for American troops to do these things, and you are praising the darkly wicked system that produces these unspeakably horrific crimes.
It's your money, and from here on you can never say that you didn't know, that you had no idea these things were happening, in your name as an American and with your money, because now you do know.
The age of innocence and feigned ignorance is over. This is what the nuclear industry is doing to the human race, whether through the American military on foreign battlefields, or through the willful, criminal negligence of the nuclear power industry.
These matters are of soul defining importance. What are you going to do about it?
Notes
1) http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/82200.html
2) http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20305-caesium-fallout-from-fukushima-rivals-chernobyl.html
3) http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=604AB3FA803FF3647DF6E34EC5E8C8A0
4) http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/04/01/3179487.htm
5) http://chronicle.augusta.com/latest-news/2011-03-31/srs-concrete-pump-heading-japan-nuclear-site
6) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1371793/Fukushima-nuclear-plant-entombed-concrete-Japan-admits-battle-crippled-reactors-lost.html
7) http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.35c2caa5efa0e183b7b38a2d0e2b7f40.191&show_article=1
(8) http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110329a8.html
(9) http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23902
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
