Japan 8.9 earthquake and Tsunami

Roberto Dobbisano · Post by **Roberto Dobbisano** » Sat Mar 19, 2011 5:23 am

Simon of the Playa wrote:***WELCOME TO THE I-80 PARKING LOT, WE ARE ALL OUT OF IODINE TABLETS, PLEASE ENJOY THE MUSIC WHILE YOU WAIT***

can't sit still · Post by **can't sit still** » Sat Mar 19, 2011 7:21 am

Kinetic, keep looking straight ahead and say what you're going to say. Some will appreciate it and some will disparage it. Some are even disparaging just to provoke a reaction. Something to think about. Some imput BS just to make noise,,, to be "seen". Some will drag you down just so you don't appear to be any "better" than them.

Here's a bit more news on the radiation protectant;
http://www.cbiolabs.com/publications.php

Roberto Dobbisano · Post by **Roberto Dobbisano** » Sat Mar 19, 2011 7:22 am

and some just like to post shit to see the stain.

GO THE FUCK AWAY.

Ugly Dougly · Post by **Ugly Dougly** » Sat Mar 19, 2011 8:09 am

BURY IT!

[youtube][/youtube]

cowboyangel · Post by **cowboyangel** » Sat Mar 19, 2011 11:12 am

Kinetic V wrote:Seriously? Facepalms? We get our resident nuclear safety person and a damn good civil engineer on here who could tell us facts about something that's got ultra high visibility and we get fucking facepalm shit.

Fuck you. Both of you.

Guess the sense of community must be dead as instead of sharing what you know we get this crap....and to think people blasted DVD for his content? At least he posted some shit that would make you think...but you two give us fucking facepalms.

I would say you suck...but your pics shout it louder than anything I can scream from my virtual soapbox.

Science is dead. Long live media spin and hype...and so much for helping truth try and catch up to the lies that make it halfway around the world before the truth can even get it's shoelaces tied. Opportunities....wasted. It's a damn shame.

Here's the best Japanese response to storage containment meltdown....fire hoses......Goddamn. Come on ISO....how about a comment on this approach? And what about physicist Miccio Kaku's call to bury the stupid shit reactor clusterfuck in sand and concrete? he sounded very pissed the other day on MSNBC....

by the way...these unfortunate firefighters are soon to be dead.

can't sit still · Post by **can't sit still** » Sat Mar 19, 2011 2:56 pm

Here's an interesting gif. It shows fore-shocks.
http://geofon.gfz-potsdam.de/geofon/ale ... n_h600.gif
This article seems to be informative;
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... ory?page=2

Isotopia · Post by **Isotopia** » Sat Mar 19, 2011 3:21 pm

by the way...these unfortunate firefighters are soon to be dead.

You see, that's not true. You've just made an assessment based on nothing other than what I suspect you've watched or heard in the news.

If you go up to my previous post with the map the graphic would leave many to suspect that - given the proximity to the reactor - everyone is going to die.

Certainly that was the case with Chernobyl but not the case here. The fire trucks shooting water into the containment building is - given the available options - a last ditch, Hail Mary pass to keep the exposed fuel bundles cool until electricity and pumping abilities can be re-established.

It goes without saying that this is new territory for EVERYONE. Obviously there's no instruction manual for dealing with this cascading clusterfuck.

Miccio Kaku can play arm chair quarterback all he fucking wants to. Certainly there'll be lots of time to make all those post-game calls once things are less catastrophic. But here is my opinion on what's currently going on: The tiger is in the house and at the moment how it got there is not nearly as important as how we choose to deal with the immediate threat of its presence. People are doing the best they can with what they have in a situation that is nothing short of a hell realm.

Remember that in spite of all the news about Fukushima Daiichi that there was a 9.0 quake and a tsunami that just killed more people in an hour than these crippled nukes are likely to ever harm. I don't mean to say that flippantly or to divert one's attention or to diminish the collective anxiety away from the unfolding tragedy but people have to understand that everything that can be done is being done. It may not seem enough to some and certainly never be to others but for now it is all they have and it has to be enough. That being said people I know are likely to be sent over there in within the next few days and I'm optimistic (as much as possible) that their efforts will result in positive results no matter matrix is used to measure their success.

Simon of the Playa · Post by **Simon of the Playa** » Sat Mar 19, 2011 3:23 pm

cowboyangel · Post by **cowboyangel** » Sat Mar 19, 2011 3:58 pm

Iso, I believe it was US experts that said the radiation levels near the plant were dangerous. Would you want be sitting any of those firetrucks? I realize they rotate the crews...I only hope that have enough staff to rotate effectively.

Here's the latest from Physicians for Social Responsibility:

Physicians for Social Responsibility Calls for a US Moratorium on New Nuclear Reactors, Citing Medical Risks -- Warns Any Radiation Exposure Is Unsafe ------
Note: On the original PSR.org webpage there is a "Take Action" link whereby you can conveniently send a letter-to-the-editor to your local newspapers. You can use their suggested letter, revise it, or write your own. The direct line to that page is: https://secure2.convio.net/psr/site/Lte ... te_id=7001

http://www.psr.org/news-events/press-re ... ocial.html

Physicians for Social Responsibility Calls for a US Moratorium on New Nuclear Reactors, Citing Medical Risks

Warns Any Radiation Exposure Is Unsafe

March 19, 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Aric Caplan | 301-998-6592
aric [at] caplancommunications.com

Washington, DC - March 19, 2011 â€“ Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) today called for a nationwide moratorium on new nuclear reactors in the United States and a suspension of operations at the nuclear reactors with a similar design as those involved in the disaster in Japan, as well as those on fault lines. PSR cited the medical risks associated with any level of radiation exposure regardless of how small. Lower doses result in less chance of harm than higher doses, but any dose level can put an individual at risk.

â€œThere is no safe level of radiation exposure,â€

Post by **AntiM** » Sat Mar 19, 2011 5:23 pm

Even of they are not in imminent danger, it does make for good sound bites:

Japanese nuclear worker on the news: "I am prepared to die to avoid meltdown."
Say it with me--I will not complain about my job today.

can't sit still · Post by **can't sit still** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 8:27 am

Here's a doc on the fuel rods. There are quite a few. http://www.nirs.org/reactorwatch/accide ... rpoint.pdf
This article talks about stored fuel rods. "Gundersen said the unit 1 pool could have as much as 20 years of spent fuel rods, which are still radioactive."
http://my.firedoglake.com/kirkmurphy/20 ... -steroids/
It does seem that some fuel rods are burning;
http://my.firedoglake.com/kirkmurphy/20 ... atch-fire/

This IS going to raise the background radiation level worldwide. Lest you have any doubts, you can blame it all on greed. The tech was proven years ago that Brown's gas will remove radioactivity from 'hot" materials. The Japanese witnessed a test that proved it removed radioactivity from cobalt.
The Canadian AEC believes that the tech works. http://pacenet.homestead.com/Nucwaste.html
All the bastards who make money off things like Yucca Flats block tech that makes their cash-cow obsolete.
http://inhabitat.com/new-nuclear-reacto ... mic-waste/
The PTB don't seem interested. http://www.innovativetech.us/100123/FutureProd-rw.htm
I posted this stuff before. Shoot, I even built a big Brown's gas generator. The science has been well know for years. http://pacenet.homestead.com/Transmutation.html
The American AEC won't even LOOK at the proofs.
It goes beyond greed and soars up to the highest levels of STUPIDITY. The greedy bastards and their families have to breathe the same air as the rest of us.

Simon of the Playa · Post by **Simon of the Playa** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 9:20 am

not if you're in Neue New York....

wedeliver · Post by **wedeliver** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 10:02 am

So, I picture a building with a building inside of it. The building inside houses the control rods and is made of thick concrete walls. How does pouring water on the outside of this building within a builoding cool anything.

We have all seen that the Outer building has been heavly damaged and I wonder how did the gases get built up inside that structure if the innner most containement building has not been damaged and breached.

I understand how they can get water to the spent fuel ponds. But if the containment structions has not been breached how does the water reach the control rods area to add water to that pool.

can't sit still · Post by **can't sit still** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 10:26 am

I believe that the spent rods are stored 70 ft. above ground level.

cowboyangel · Post by **cowboyangel** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 10:43 am

NATO and the US are pursuing a diabolical tyrant in Libya right now. Woopie. Could have frozen this guy out a long time ago. But see, we need his O-I-L

Notice how the partial meltdown of maybe 2 out of 6 stacked nuke plants in Japan is suddenly pushed down to news story obscurous.

We are fighting our own brand of tyranny here, it's called "corporate tyranny". PGE is pushing to extend Diablo Canyon Nuke plants operating lease to the next decade while requesting on site storage of spent fuel.

We have an enemy and its called "The Coal-Nuclear-Finance- Banking-Corporation"- especially the banking industry.

theCryptofishist · Post by **theCryptofishist** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 11:47 am

wedeliver wrote: How does pouring water on the outside of this building within a builoding cool anything.

Really? Imagine a room in a house that does not share any walls with the outside. Do you expect it to be warmer in the summer (assuming no ac) than in the winter (assuming no heat)?
Plus water is a pretty good conductor of heat. Much better than cement.

wedeliver · Post by **wedeliver** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 11:56 am

theCryptofishist wrote:
wedeliver wrote: How does pouring water on the outside of this building within a builoding cool anything.
Really? Imagine a room in a house that does not share any walls with the outside. Do you expect it to be warmer in the summer (assuming no ac) than in the winter (assuming no heat)?
Plus water is a pretty good conductor of heat. Much better than cement.

I guess pouring the water on the thing must be doing something, but if you have a building with 12" thick concrete walls, you might cool the exterior of that wall but it will not make anything inside it any cooler. At least thats how my brain sees it.

So, to me, if the water they are using on the reactors is actually cooling the control rods then, to me, it would seem there would have to be access for that water to make it inside of the reactor structor.

Does that make sense? I'm just trying to understand it all.

can't sit still · Post by **can't sit still** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 1:03 pm

Concrete doesn't do all that well with heat;
http://www.tpub.com/content/UFGScriteri ... 040096.htm
A modified version of an oxy-acetylene cutting torch was used for cutting open thick concrete bunkers.

Ugly Dougly · Post by **Ugly Dougly** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 1:11 pm

Read this
http://hawaiihealthguide.com/healthtalk ... 34ecf742b5

Hello My Lovely Family and Friends,

First I want to thank you so very much for your concern for me. I am very touched. I also wish to apologize for a generic message to you all. But it seems the best way at the moment to get my message to you.

Things here in Sendai have been rather surreal. But I am very blessed to have wonderful friends who are helping me a lot. Since my shack is even more worthy of that name, I am now staying at a friend's home. We share supplies like water, food and a kerosene heater. We sleep lined up in one room, eat by candlelight, share stories. It is warm, friendly, and beautiful.

During the day we help each other clean up the mess in our homes. People sit in their cars, looking at news on their navigation screens, or line up to get drinking water when a source is open. If someone has water running in their home, they put out sign so people can come to fill up their jugs and buckets.Utterly amazingly where I am there has been no looting, no pushing in lines. People leave their front door open, as it is safer when an earthquake strikes. People keep saying, "Oh, this is how it used to be in the old days when everyone helped one another."

Quakes keep coming. Last night they struck about every 15 minutes. Sirens are constant and helicopters pass overhead often.We got water for a few hours in our homes last night, and now it is for half a day. Electricity came on this afternoon. Gas has not yet come on.

But all of this is by area. Some people have these things, others do not. No one has washed for several days. We feel grubby, but there are so much more important concerns than that for us now. I love this peeling away of non-essentials. Living fully on the level of instinct, of intuition, of caring, of what is needed for survival, not just of me, but of the entire group.

There are strange parallel universes happening. Houses a mess in some places, yet then a house with futons or laundry out drying in the sun.

People lining up for water and food, and yet a few people out walking their dogs. All happening at the same time.

Other unexpected touches of beauty are first, the silence at night. No cars. No one out on the streets. And the heavens at night are scattered with stars. I usually can see about two, but now the whole sky is filled. The mountains are Sendai are solid and with the crisp air we can see them silhouetted against the sky magnificently.

And the Japanese themselves are so wonderful. I come back to my shack to check on it each day, now to send this e-mail since the electricity is on, and I find food and water left in my entranceway. I have no idea from whom, but it is there. Old men in green hats go from door to door checking to see if everyone is OK. People talk to complete strangers asking if they need help. I see no signs of fear. Resignation, yes, but fear or panic, no.

They tell us we can expect aftershocks, and even other major quakes, for another month or more. And we are getting constant tremors, rolls, shaking, rumbling. I am blessed in that I live in a part of Sendai that is a bit elevated, a bit more solid than other parts. So, so far this area is better off than others. Last night my friend's husband came in from the country, bringing food and water. Blessed again.

Somehow at this time I realize from direct experience that there is indeed an enormous Cosmic evolutionary step that is occurring all over the world right at this moment. And somehow as I experience the events happening now in Japan, I can feel my heart opening very wide. My brother asked me if I felt so small because of all that is happening. I don't. Rather, I feel as part of something happening that much larger than myself. This wave of birthing (worldwide) is hard, and yet magnificent.

Thank you again for your care and Love of me,

With Love in return, to you all,

Anne

Does it seem like BRC to you?

Simon of the Playa · Post by **Simon of the Playa** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 2:55 pm

aye, therin lies the rub...

Post by **Eric** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 3:09 pm

On the radiation fears, this graphic pretty much sums it up. Look at it full size!

Iso- how accurate does it look to you?

motskyroonmatick · Post by **motskyroonmatick** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 3:20 pm

theCryptofishist wrote:
wedeliver wrote: How does pouring water on the outside of this building within a builoding cool anything.
Really? Imagine a room in a house that does not share any walls with the outside. Do you expect it to be warmer in the summer (assuming no ac) than in the winter (assuming no heat)?
Plus water is a pretty good conductor of heat. Much better than cement.

Not only is water a very good conductor of heat the change of state of water to steam consumes a large amount of energy. This means cooling.

My opinion is that the plant operators are doing a good job of dealing with the situation. At times I have wondered what on earth is going on over there and felt that approaches to a complex problem seemed rudimentary. Then I remind my self that this is a scenario that no one drilled for. It has been necessary to improvise in ways that I'm sure the operators never even came close to imagining being necessary. This is how we learn what it is going to take to make plants safer. It is a terribly hard lesson to learn but in the end I believe it will make all future nuclear power plants safer as the lessons learned here are put to constructive use.

I'm definitely disappointed by all the knee jerk reactions going on in the media and by governments as to hyping up the impending dangers and everything just short of freaking out about the ills of nuclear power. If a measured approach were taken I'd feel much better about the capabilities of governments to make rational management decisions and media to be constructive rather than the opposite. This is nothing new though.

I'm still a supporter of electrical generation through nuclear energy. I think that to be responsible we need to finally come up with a storage and disposal plan for the waste produced.

wedeliver · Post by **wedeliver** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 4:29 pm

Not trying to beat a dead horse, but after getting a headache trying to understand the above chart I thought I could try and better explain my question.

To fishy's example, a room inside a house with no walls to the outside. Picture inside this room there is a furnace going full blast, heating up the room and the walls. Sure pouring water on the walls will cool them, but it does not (in my small brain) have any effect on the "furnace" that is going full blast inside that room.

Sorry to be stubborn but I am trying to understand, to me it would seem the only way you could have any kind of effect on that "Furnace" would be to have holes in the walls of the room so the water could enter the room and provide its ability to conduct heat and cool the furnace. From what I understand, with just water to cool, it can take up to 5 years for the heat to be reduced enough to allow close inspection of the unit. Now I also have been lead to believe that there can be no holes in the containment vessel otherwise the radiation level could become very very high.

Here is a link that has possiblities.

http://radiationnetwork.com/

Isotopia · Post by **Isotopia** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 6:25 pm

Iso- how accurate does it look to you?

It was posted earlier on another board yesterday.

My comment was that it is one of the most succinct, substantive and useful graphics that I've seen in a very, very long time.

Someone absolutely nailed it as far as the information that it conveys.

theCryptofishist · Post by **theCryptofishist** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 6:59 pm

Okay, the analogy doesn't work for you.
In a general sense, if the system is big enough, so the reactor core, the rest of the complex, then cooling the big part rapidly will also cool the hot small part. Or if you like the sea water is adding mass to the big part, making the whole colder.

motskyroonmatick · Post by **motskyroonmatick** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 7:02 pm

wedeliver wrote:Not trying to beat a dead horse, but after getting a headache trying to understand the above chart I thought I could try and better explain my question.

To fishy's example, a room inside a house with no walls to the outside. Picture inside this room there is a furnace going full blast, heating up the room and the walls. Sure pouring water on the walls will cool them, but it does not (in my small brain) have any effect on the "furnace" that is going full blast inside that room.

Sorry to be stubborn but I am trying to understand, to me it would seem the only way you could have any kind of effect on that "Furnace" would be to have holes in the walls of the room so the water could enter the room and provide its ability to conduct heat and cool the furnace. From what I understand, with just water to cool, it can take up to 5 years for the heat to be reduced enough to allow close inspection of the unit. Now I also have been lead to believe that there can be no holes in the containment vessel otherwise the radiation level could become very very high.

Here is a link that has possiblities.

http://radiationnetwork.com/

I believe that water was being applied to the structures to fight fires and in an attempt to fill the pools that contain the spent fuel rods. If my memory serves me correctly the spent fuel rods are being stored in open top pools in elevated rooms next to the reactor core. Again if my memory serves me correctly... water supply or circulation to those pools ceased when the reactor lost power. Water was lost over time to heat fueled evaporation and or loss of integrity to the water tightness of the pools and plumbing systems that support holding the spent fuel rods in a continuous water bath.
Aha! Here is a diagram of the reactor building.

I think in essence you are correct with the potential futility of spraying water on the exterior of a room containing a heat source. It would seem that it would be more appropriate to apply water directly to the heat source. It seems to me that there was no way to apply water directly to the core with the lack of pumping functionality that not having electrical power to the pumping system caused. Since direct cooling was not an available option then indirect cooling through applying water to the structure around the core would probably be considered the next best thing. It probably would not have a dramatic positive effect but it seems any amount of cooling of the reactor core no matter how little would be valuable if only to buy time to work on other options. It seems sea water was directly injected in to a core via pump truck or another method Monday March 14 at 21:00 hours. So there is/was ability to deliver sea water to cool the cores directly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_o ... _accidents

The wikipedia time line is pretty grim indicating many mistakes were made.

cowboyangel · Post by **cowboyangel** » Mon Mar 21, 2011 9:27 am

As it may be premature to begin rolling out the doomsday scenario, it may also be premature dusting off the nuclear energy can do no harm folder.

Let's see how this plays out. Nes pas?

Ugly Dougly · Post by **Ugly Dougly** » Mon Mar 21, 2011 9:52 am

I watched an NHK special last night about the situation. They seem intent on making three out of six reactors "okay" (with electrical power and pumps) but seem to neglect the three reactors that are not "okay". Aren't these plants also in danger of giving off radiation?

They also said that one of these plants is using plutonium. Doesn't this change the scenario?

cowboyangel · Post by **cowboyangel** » Mon Mar 21, 2011 2:00 pm

cowboyangel · Post by **cowboyangel** » Mon Mar 21, 2011 2:56 pm

In This Nuclear World, What Is the Meaning of "Safe"?
Barbara Rose Johnson | Friday 18 March 2011

In a nuclear crisis, life becomes a nightmare for those people trying to make sense of the uncertainties. Imaginably, the questions are endless.

Radiation is invisible, how do you know when you are in danger? How long will this danger persist? How can you reduce the hazard to yourself and family? What level of exposure is safe? How do you get access to vital information in time to prevent or minimize exposure? What are the potential risks of acute and chronic exposures? What are the related consequential damages of exposure? Whose information do you trust? How do you rebuild a healthy way of life in the aftermath of nuclear disaster?

And the list of unknowns goes on.

These questions are difficult to answer in the chaos and context of an ongoing disaster, and they become even more complicated by the fact that governments and the nuclear industry maintain tight control of information, operations, scientific research, and the biomedical lessons that shape public-health response.

This regulation of information has been the case since the nuclear age began, and understanding this helps to illuminate why there is no clear consensus on what Japan's nuclear disaster means in terms of local and global human health.

Nuclear secrecy in context. In the initial hours after the earthquake and tsunami, the Japanese government and Tokyo Electrical Power Company issued statements reporting minor damage at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. In the days that followed, government and industry officials reported the "venting of hydrogen gas", but that there was "no threat to health." This reassurance of health safety was echoed when hydrogen gas explosions occurred at the power plant.

In fact, the hydrogen released is tritium water vapor, a low-level emitter that can be absorbed in a human body through simply breathing, or by drinking contaminated water. Tritium decays by beta emission and has a radioactive half-life of about 12.3 years. As it undergoes radioactive decay, this isotope emits a very low-energy beta particle and transforms to stable, nonradioactive helium. Once tritium enters the body, it disperses quickly, is uniformly distributed, and is excreted through urine within a month or so after ingestion. It produces a low-level exposure and may result in toxic effects to the kidney. As with all ionizing radiation, exposure to tritium increases the risk of developing cancer.

So, then, why no mention of tritium in the government or industry statements? Relatively speaking, the health effects of a low-level emitter like tritium are minor when compared to the other radiogenic and toxic hazards in this nuclear catastrophe. Such omission is a standard industry practice, designed to reassure the public that the normal operating procedures of a nuclear power plant represent no significant threat to human health.

The assertion that low-level exposure to radiation represents no human threat is an artifact of Cold War-era science that was shaped to meet government and industry needs.

During the Cold War, scientific findings on health effects to nuclear fallout that contradicted the official narrative were typically censored. Scientists were not only punished for their work, they were also blacklisted -- one example of this was American anthropologist Earle Reynolds whose work for the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission was censored in 1953 by the US government. His research showed that Japanese children who were exposed to fallout were not only smaller than their counterparts, but had less resistance to disease in general and were more susceptible to cancer, especially leukemia. The consequences of this censored history was examined in 1994 by the US Advisory Commission on Human Radiation Experimentation, which concluded that the radiation health li terature of the Cold War years was a heavily sanitized and scripted version meant to reassure and pacify public protests while achieving military and economic agendas.

Confronted by the forces of regression, Truthout brings you the kind of news that drives real change. Please support us in this fight: make a tax-deductible donation today.

Decades of such control reinforced, again and again, the core message: Humans have evolved in a world where background radiation is present and is natural and beneficial at some level; any adverse heath effect of radiation exposure is the occasional and accidental result of high levels of exposure.

Cold War classification and the close nature of government, military, and industry agendas made it difficult to challenge the assumptions that underlie the "trust us" narrative. For example, the assumption that radiogenic health effects must be demonstrated through direct causality (one isotope, one outcome) meant science on cumulative and synergistic effects was not pursued. Discounting or ignoring the toxic nature of varied radioisotopes meant health risks were assessed and regulations promulgated on the basis of acute exposures and outcomes (radiation poisoning and deadly cancer).

There are other sources of conclusive data that allow a very different interpretation of the health hazards posed by a nuclear disaster. Several of these sources document radiogenic health outcomes that sharply contrast mainstream reports: Declassified records of US human radiation experiments and similar Soviet records; Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission records; new research conducted by Japanese scientists; long-term research on Chernobyl survivors; and research done for the Marshall Islands Nuclear Claims Tribunal proceedings.

But what does this mean? From this record of studied and lived experience, there are a few things that we know. For example, fallout and the movement of radionuclides through marine and terrestrial environments ultimately get into the food chain and the human body. The toxicity of contaminants and radioactivity in fallout represent significant health risks. Acute exposures are further complicated when followed by chronic exposure, as such assaults have a cumulative and synergistic effect on health and well-being. Chronic exposure to fallout does more than increase the risk of developing cancers, it threatens the immune system, can exacerbate pre-existing conditions, affects fertility, increases rates of birth defects, and can retard physical and mental development, among other things. And we know the effects of such exposures can last for generations.

Japan's nuclear disaster demonstrates in powerful and poignant terms the degree to which the state prioritizes security interests over the fundamental rights of people and their environment. Japan's response to its nuclear disaster -- similar to other government responses to catastrophic events like Katrina and Chernobyl -- has struggled to control the content and flow of information to prevent wide panic (and the related loss of trust in government), reduce liability, and protect nuclear and other industry agendas.

There are many lessons to be learned here, not the least of which is how to respond, adjust, and adapt to the hazards and health risks associated with life in this nuclear world. These responses will most assuredly include a demand for transparency and accountability -- that is, governance that truly secures the fundamental rights of its citizens to life and livelihood.

As the world's nations reassess nuclear power operations and refine energy development plans, now -- more than ever -- we need to aggressively tackle this question: How do we define the word "safe"?

Copyright Â© 2011 Bulletibran of the Atomic Scientists.

Barbara Rose Johnston is an environmental anthropologist at the Center for Political Ecology in Santa Cruz, California. Her efforts to document the human environmental impact of nuclear weapons testing and the experiences of hosting the Cold War nuclear enterprise are published in her edited volume Half-lives and Half-truths: Confronting the Radioactive Legacies of the Cold War (SAR Press, 2007) and the co-authored book Consequential Damages of Nuclear War: The Rongelap Report with Holly Barker (Left Coast Press, 2008). Her most recent book is Life and Death Matters: Human Rights, Environment, and Social Justice (Left Coast Press, 2011).
Source URL: http://www.truth-out.org/in-this-nuclea ... -safe68620

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