Endless Fukushima catastrophe: 2020 Olympics under contamination threat

Fukushima 2013As the escape of radiation at Fukushima seems virtually unstoppable, there are still steps that governments all over the world should take to prevent worst case consequences. One of them would be canceling the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

Scientific estimates predict that the radioactive plume travelling east across the Pacific will likely hit the shores of Oregon, Washington State and Canada early next year. California will probably be impacted later that year. Because the ongoing flow of water from the reactor site will be virtually impossible to stop, a radioactive plume will continue to migrate across the Pacific affecting Hawaii, North America, South America and eventually Australia for many decades.

We are only talking about ocean currents, however, fish swim thousands of miles and don’t necessarily follow the currents. As noted in Part I, big fish concentrate radiation most efficiently, and tuna have already been caught off the coast of California containing cesium from Fukushima. Seaweed also efficiently concentrates radioactive elements.

As I contemplate the future at Fukushima, it seems that the escape of radiation is virtually unstoppable. The levels of radiation in buildings 1, 2 and 3 are now so high that no human can enter or get close to the molten cores. It will therefore be impossible to remove these cores for hundreds of years if ever.

Buildings 1, 2 & 3

If one of these buildings collapses, the targeted flow of cooling water to the pools and cores would cease, the cores would become red hot and possibly ignite releasing massive amounts of radiation into the air and water and the fuel in the cooling pools could ignite. It is strange that neither the US government in particular nor the global community seem to be concerned about these imminent possibilities and exhibit no urge to avert catastrophe.

Similarly the global media is strangely disconnected with the ongoing crisis. Most importantly, the Japanese government until very recently has obstinately refused to invite and collaborate with foreign experts from nuclear engineering companies and/or governments.

Building 4

This structure was severely damaged during the initial quake, its walls are bulging, and it sank 31 inches (79cm) into the ground. On the roof sits a cooling pool containing about 250 tons of hot fuel rods, most of which had just been removed from the reactor core days before the earthquake struck. This particular core did not melt because TEPCO was able maintain a continuous flow of cooling water, so the rods and their holding racks are still intact, but geometrically deformed due to the force of the hydrogen explosion.

The cooling pool contains 8,800 pounds of plutonium plus over 100 other highly radioactive isotopes. Instead of this core melting into a larval mass like the other three cores, it sits exposed to the air atop the shaky building. A large earthquake could disrupt the integrity of the building, causing it to collapse and taking the hot fuel rods with it. The cooling water would evaporate and the intrinsic heat of the radioactive rods would ignite a fire as the zirconium cladding reacted with air, releasing the radioactive equivalent of 14,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs and 10 times more cesium than Chernobyl.

 

AFP Photo / TEPCO

 

Not only would the Northern Hemisphere become badly contaminated, but the Japanese government is seriously contemplating evacuating 35 million people from Tokyo should this happen. TEPCO has constructed a steel frame to strengthen the shaky building in order to place a massive crane on the roof so they can extract the hot rods by remote control. This operation is always performed by computer and a remote manually-controlled extraction has never been attempted before. If the rods are deformed, a rod could fracture releasing so much radiation that the workers would have to evacuate or, should they touch each other, a chain reaction could release huge amounts of radiation.

I defer to Arnie Gundersen, a nuclear engineer in whom I have great faith. He says that a 2-meter thick zeolite wall should be constructed some distance from the reactors on the mountainside, which would effectively absorb the cesium from the water surrounding the reactor cores so it could not get out and further pollute the pure water descending from the mountain. At the same time, channels must be constructed to pump and divert the unpolluted mountain water into the sea. Then the three molten cores and their associated buildings could be immersed in concrete as the Soviets did at Chernobyl, and the situation could possibly be neutralized for about 100 years. What our poor descendants will then decide to do with this radioactive rubbish dump is beyond my comprehension.

However, as one Japanese official said, “If we just buried them no one would look at another nuclear plant for years.” An interesting reaction, so it is perfectly obvious that despite the calamity, they still want to pursue the nuclear option.

North America and Canada the EPA should immediately start monitoring the fish routinely caught off the west coast and it must also, as a matter of urgency, establish many effective airborne monitors up and down the west coast and across the US continent, so that if there is another large release of radiation it will be effectively measured and the information rapidly passed on to the public. The same holds true for Canada.

The US and Canadian governments must forthwith ban imported food from Japan, unless each batch is monitored for contamination, and the food grown in the US and Canada needs to be effectively monitored pending another major accident. The US has allowed food measuring up to 1,200 Becquerels per kilo to be sold in the US from Japan, while the Japanese allowable concentration for food is only 100 Becquerels per kilo. What does the US government think it is doing purposely exposing people to radioactive food? This situation must be urgently amended.

 

An aerial view shows the Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s (TEPCO) tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and its contaminated water storage tanks (top) in Fukushima, in this photo taken by Kyodo August 31, 2013.(Reuters / Kyodo)

 

Nuclear Olympics

Given these impending problems, how can Japanese Prime Minister Abe possibly say that Tokyo will be safe for the Olympics? He actually said that “there is absolutely no problem” and “the situation is under control.” Does he not understand that parts of Tokyo are already radioactively contaminated and that his government is dumping ashes from the incineration of thousands of tons of radioactive debris from the tsunami and earthquake into Tokyo Bay? Is this what the athletes will be swimming in?

What if there is another major release of radiation before the Olympics? Young fit people who have spent years in rigorous training must, under no circumstances be exposed to radioactive air, food or water. And how can Abe possibly consider spending all that money housing people in expensive accommodation and constructing stadiums etc. when his own people – 160,000 Fukushima refugees – live in shacks and millions still live in highly radioactive zones and when the Fukushima complex is out of control?

Originally published: https://rt.com/op-edge/fukushima-catastrophe-nuclear-olympics-883/

14 thoughts on “Endless Fukushima catastrophe: 2020 Olympics under contamination threat”

  1. Uk is joining the Pacific trading group. They need to pioneer a Manhattan style project in tandem with the others to save the Pacific rim otherwise there will be no human culture and then no human life. Eric’s and morality has already died. Before the graveyard we will have the wailing house and for house read globe with the ultimate in the killing word globalisation

  2. Dear Helen,
    What would be the environmental impact of the continual burning of radioactive waste in Japan on the rest of the northern hemisphere? Would this material circulate and then be rained down on countries or the oceans?
    If so, is the agriculture of the northern hemisphere slowly being more and more contaminated by the burning of this nuclear waste?
    Yours sincerely,
    Lee Anderson

    1. Well, of course, this is a democratic way to spread the radioactive elements into the air, food and water for all to enjoy!!!!!!!! It depends, of course, which way the wind is blowing, whether it is raining etc, so it is impossible to really prognosticate the eventual effects to humans, animals and/or vegetation.

  3. Ethical Wealth Management

    Abe and the rest of the Japanese governments since 1892 have been in the pockets of the Yakuza. It is they who profit from building, staffing, maintaining, repairing and ultimately from dismantling these evil nuclear monstrosities. There will be no change until the Japanese people rise up against them. And without information, which is being denied to the Japanese people, this is unlikely. So EVERYONE do what you can, spread the word, to the JAPANESE.

  4. It is necessary for every country to accept refugees in greater numbers from increasing chaotic industrial scenarios, weather chaos and unforseen future events. If the probability of a nuclear power plant calamity is now around 50% per year, and, as with Fukushima, the consequences are not confined to any one country, then shouldn’t the forums of the United Nations, and the International Human Rights Courts, deal with the corporations and governments that insist on promoting this threat to all life on earth?
    Will jellyfish inherit the earth again?
    Will your grand children and great grandchildren have viable offspring? Or not?

  5. May God Bless you.
    Yes, we have created a mess. I once spoke to a man who made atom bombs, and when I asked why did you do that, he said with belief and a conviction ‘once there was one there had to be another”. Such an ultimate response for an ultimate tool of finality. The reason I asked him what he done for a living was due to the red etheric lightning bolts comming from his body. I now recognise this as radiation in the etheric body. I have some ideas and would like to know more about minerals in particular Lugols solution as a helpfull treatment.
    Meybe there is a plan, , and looking at the focus of most people it has to be this big and catastrophic, and how we deal with this now is the bottom line.Consciousness is the only key.

  6. In the passed,Governments,The Nuclear Industry and general population have basically ignored the anti nuclear group,almost as if we were telling them that the sky is falling for no reason… God Bless us all when when the sky is filled with waste..

  7. In a recent video I heard Ms. Caldicott saying that it may be necessary to evacuate the entire Northern Hemisphere. If that happens, who will maintain all of the hundreds of nuclear power plants throughout that hemisphere? The answer is: “No one.” They will all eventually melt down.

    Fukushima is just the beginning.

    1. Now we see why inspired prohets centuries ago were moved to write of the current warring world’s ending and of need for a ‘new heavens/firmament and a new earth’. Something obviously also beyond human capabilty

  8. Dr. Caldicott —

    I want to first recommend myself by writing that I studied Russian in school
    and have read a few authors in Russian, especially two novels which I read by Dostoevsky. I went to school in Ann Arbor, Mich. and at that time (1969-
    1971) there were lots of powerful hallucinogenic drugs available. I sipped some “electric cool-aid” unwittingly at a Halloween party in 1970 and had a cosmic vision. My main insight from this is that Shiva is the pathway to God. God’s message to me was, “Go back and help others.” (I always
    temper this insight with another insight from Robert Heinlein, “The world resents any attempt to help it.” )

    While in Ann Arbor I tried to read a book by Norman O. Brown, Life Against Death. I was unable to read the whole thing then. Brown was a neo-Freudian and, although I had an avid interest in Freud (I am gay and I was seeking some help from him), I could never make much sense of Freud’s own writing and I turned to books which attempted to explicate Freud’s thought. I also found reading Life Against Death to be quite difficult. However in later years, I returned to the Brown book and was able to finish reading it with a great deal of satisfaction. I came away with this single sentence insight from Brown explicating Freud in Civilization and Its Discontents: The genital organization of the adult ego is an organization of the death instinct. The genital organization of the libido into adult sexuality
    is an organization of the death instinct. I actually don’t know the path Freud followed to come to this final conclusion at the end of his life, but I trust Dr. Browns assessment In Life Against Death.

    I think this insight from Freud may help us to explain why straight men seem determined to keep on fathering children at all costs and no matter the consequences and it seems to me that an obvious manifestation of the death instinct is nuclear power.. The population explosion necessitates nuclear power. The population explosion and nuclear energy are both manifestations of the death instinct working through the egos of straight men. (I remember how you took the engineers who design these monstrosities to task for being such a bunch of psychotics and idiots.)

    I hope that you will get to read this and thank you for your attention and for helping me to get this off my chest.

    Yours truly,

    Tom Grier
    Albuquerque, NM, USA

  9. Numerous studies on Pub Med indicate that Sulfur protects against radiation. The Japanese government should bury the crippled reactor under a mountain of sulfur. There is a lot of yellow dirt (sulfur dioxide) in Hawaii that they could bring to Japan for this purpose. My friend Patrick McGean attempted to bring this idea forth via the comments section on Japan Times website, but is being blocked from further posting even though his idea has merit.

    We are all also being exposed to insane levels of Fukushima radiation any time we fly in a plane, yet the EPA is doing nothing to warn air travelers of this danger. Please see my alert about this here http://ymlp.com/zQQdry Please also see this alert I sent out on this topic http://ymlp.com/zrAXXp it includes a very thought provoking warning by Marc Sircus, L Ac in Brazil. Dr. Caldercott, please communicate with me about this, what is your email address? What is your phone number?

  10. Graham Swallow

    Surrender NOW!

    Why Japan must surrender:
    * something must be done
    * it’s pride that’s stopping things being done
    * it must come from the top down
    * it must happen NOW
    *
    * historical echoes are a strange coincidence
    * it’s a metaphor that fits the closest, and profoundly
    * nuclear is a force bigger than any nation

    Who must declare the surrender:
    * it must come from the top down
    * I dont know how that works in JP

    How:
    * return the Olympics 2020 prize
    * follow through (every citizen and official)
    * be proud to do the right thing, even when it pinches

    How:
    * the truth must be told
    * seek responsibilities, not resignations
    * seek heads, not heads
    * seek help, outsiders may be needed

    Why:
    * to save the worlds pollution
    * to save Japans soul
    * to save the worlds soul

    The 3 or 4 cores from Fukushima,
    hang by a burning thread, in a toppling building,
    about to spill into the Pacific.
    That will pollute all fish in the north pacific,
    that will escalate food prices, health costs,
    cause endless cancer misery, etc, etc.
    Then spread to the southern hemisphere, Chile, and the Atlantic too.
    It may even go airbourne, which is worse.

    This is a PR/SPIN nightmare.
    A loss of face that Japan simply cannot accept,
    that the worldwide nuclear industry wants to put off,
    and one that the Olympics 2020 hosts cannot accept.
    If it can be avoided for just a year or two more …
    so the 2020 people pretend it doesnt exist.

    For all the usual reasons, it is a disaster that governments go into denial over.
    There is a general ‘downplaying’ of the extent of the problem,
    and that includes avoiding the measurements that prove the problem is there.
    Mis-recording illnesses, switching detectors off, locking tuna samples in customs.

    Worldwide:
    The world needs to see nuclear for what it is.
    The world needs to see other technologies for what they are (GMO etc).
    The world needs truth over profit.
    The world needs to save it’s soul. Truth and reconciliation helped SA.
    The world does not need this pollution.
    The world does not need cancer misery.
    The world does not need to hide stuff behind a new background level.
    The world needs to see personal responsibility for CO2 (everything).
    The world needs to see personal responsibility for resource depletion.
    The world needs to see personal responsibility for war-like behaviors.
    The world needs to retool without corporate SPIN.
    The world needs a good example to live up to.

    In Japan:
    Individuals in the chain of command (doctors, engineers, bankers),
    will follow the lead of their managers, and their bosses, all the way up.
    For the greater good, they will do as they are expected to.
    It’s their patriotic duty, to obey beyond their personal perception.

    The only way to do the right thing is for the very top to make a general decree.
    Then the whole chain of dominoes will flip over. (fingers crossed).
    Each individual, will be proud to do, and enabled to do the right thing, proactively.
    If that costs face, it is what it is.

    Medical monitoring will be properly reported.
    Radiation reading will be properly reported.
    Financial predictions will be openly guessed.
    International help will be sought.
    Monitoring devices will be installed properly at the right places.
    (No device, no indicator, no record, no problem)

    Whilst Tokyo is dreaming on a nice clean 2020 Olympics,
    the truth will be suppressed. It’s human nature on a national level.
    Its not just a question of the COST of the Olympics, its the SPIN.
    Personal responsibility, on a national level, means handing back the prize,
    focusing on the true problem, which is pollution,

    Japanese have never been shy of intense cost, nor loyalty,
    which is why the basic decree must come from the top.

    ((a catchy logo here. Preferably by a Japanese national ))

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *