News from #Fukushima is a slow drip of terror. Recently there have been several releases concerning the failure of TEPCO to create and sustain the ice-wall. A big failure that has very little coverage. And this week the report that the ground water will be filtered then dumped into the Pacific. #FAIL #ChrisBohjalian . . . → Read More: Close your eyes, hold hands
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I have recently been reading a lot about the potential for rapid collapse of idustrial society. As an exercise in compare and contrast I decided to read the classic Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Gibbon. Gibbon is of course a man of his times. His prejudices, in favor of monarchy over republican forms of government, against people of color (Arabs, . . . → Read More: Arms in the decline and fall There are serious arguments that Nuclear power is the answer to global warming. In December 2013 Scientific American noted: The low-carbon electricity produced by such reactors provides 20 percent of the nation’s power and, by the estimates of climate scientist James Hansen of Columbia University, avoided 64 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas pollution. They also avoided spewing soot and . . . → Read More: Nuclear power as the solution to global warming With so many slow motion disasters coming at us sometimes it is hard not to despair. And then someone will say the most absurd thing and I have to laugh, ruefully, sadly at the profound depths of human folly. TEPCO, that fount of acumen and honesty has come out with a press release in which they thank the fishing industr . . . → Read More: So long and thanks for all the fish That bastion of eco-terrorism the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has updated it’s thinking on the true costs of nuclear decommissioning: The Yankee Nuclear Power Station in Rowe, Massachusetts, took 15 years to decommission—or five times longer than was needed to build it. And decommissioning the plant—constructed early in the 1960s for $39 million—cost $608 million. The plant’s spent fuel rods are still stored . . . → Read More: Nuclear Decommissioning True Costs Fukushima is out of the news mostly but the problem has NOT gone away. The spent fuel in Unit 4 continues to be housed in a perilous state. The building seems to be sinking, due to seismic damage, about 80 cm – 2.5 feet – so far. The situation is not stable and should be condiered to be deteriorating. The damage of another . . . → Read More: Fukushima Unit 4 Problems New article by Elizabeth Douglas at InsideClimate News interviews Peter Lam who has an impressive background as a Nuclear Industry regulator. Lam changed his mind on the use of probability statistics in nuclear disaster preparations. He says: One can plan for a lot of things, but things don’t always happen according to what you plan for. … Sure, I think everybody’s doing the . . . → Read More: Nuclear power is an unforgiving technology Fukushima is still in the news. Reuters reports today that the initial estimates of the amount of radiation released are now known to have been 2 and a half times too low. Tepco will be nationalized due to the exceptionally large losses after the accident. Reuters also reports what we first surmised the clean up will probably take 30 years. In the meantime . . . → Read More: Fukushima Mon Amour The New York Times takes up the report which I commented on yesterday about the possibility of the China Syndrome. Molten nuclear fuel may have bored into the floor of at least one of the reactors at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the complex’s operator said Wednesday, citing a new simulation of the accident that crippled the plant in March. … . . . → Read More: China Syndrome – Update 
This is the first that i have read of the potential for a core escape into the earth’s crust at Fukushima. In an article on Fukushima Diary, Uehara Haruo, called the Architect of Reactor 3, warns of a potential for hydrovolcanic explosion. I read a translation of the source page for this information at the livedoor site. Piecing the Google translation bits together . . . → Read More: Fukushima – China Syndrome? |
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