Published: August 15th, 2012 at 9:34 am ET
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Follow-up to: Gundersen: "I think people are beginning to think maybe we can never dismantle these plants, maybe we just fill them with concrete and walk away" (VIDEO)
Title: Interview with Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds
Source: SolarIMG
Date: August 12, 2012
At 25:45 in
Gundersen: At this point my mind is changing, and I think perhaps on Units 1, 2, 3, and 4 the best thing to do is to keep them cool for a couple more years and then entomb them for 300 and come back. Unit 4 is a different story, we’ve got to get the fuel out…
Listen here
Published: August 15th, 2012 at 9:34 am ET
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sending...
I said this months ago using radioactive protection elements Mark
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In 300 years it is unlikely that we will have the level of organized civilization with its technology and energy that we have now…that is, we are in a better position now to try to do something to "fix" fukushima than we will be 300 years from now.
Furthermore, we cannot allow Fukushima to pour poison into the Pacific – it is already destroying the Pacific ecosystem and denying us nutrition from seafood.
It's very worrying when Arnie throws the towel in like thi, and things must be worse than most of us already imagined and dreaded.
And to think that some people felt that our concerns were overblown!
Now I'm going to face-palm for five minutes.
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You are absolutely the ration!You may not be sure because it threatens jescze gorszymi effects. But such people as Arni, should know this. Of course, that the da sie do much more and better than in Chernobyl. (see pouring water on the reactors)You have only a little imagination and you know your engineering.
Understanding, therefore, you need to close all nuclear, because as it's what what, what you "professionals" diverts sie and with confidence from the issue, leaving it to other …
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Hi Charlie3, I agree. Imagine us having to clean up a nuclear disaster that happened in 1711.
By today, we'd have no idea it even happened.
No. Try to do your best NOW, admit it can't be really cleaned up, learn from it and leave this death-trap technology alone forever.
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Gee Charlie, I think you're right and will join you now for some face to palm time.
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Yeah moonshellblue, my keyboard starts to look worn out over here from my forehead.
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I am affraid that in 300 years all the oceans of this world will be far too contaminated from ruins of Fukushima and the next accidents that will occur innevitably.
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So what do people expect from the other 400 nuke plants worldwide?
Dr. Ernest Sternglass PhD; Childhood Cancers/Deaths Caused By Nuclear Power Plants; via A Green Road
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2012/04/dr-ernest-sternglass-childhood-cancer.html
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How do we cover all of this up?
Uranium Mining Legacy; Toxic Waste For 1,000,000 Years; via A Green Road
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2012/03/uranium-mining-legacy-toxic-waste-for.html
This is just the tip of the iceberg… mining, production, reprocessing, waste 'disposal', recycling… etc.
All of it generates HUGE amounts of radiation in all directions.
Just cover it up? PLEAAAAASSSSE…
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Entomb the reactors..how?
Fill them in?
Come back in 300 years?
Oh..please..
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yeah, when we talk about caesium 137 about 300 years…
lets just mention alpha/beta and gamma or even ignore those. just mention the counts per minute or micro or whole sieverts per hour..
Forget plutonium 238 and substances with a half life that exceeds human lives and genetic damage over 300 years, coz we are too stupid to understand the damage done generations long.. Act to forget what happens to your kids and theirs and theirs and theirs… let them forget
the damage done by previous people and act as if they did it all for the good of us all…
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Call it as it is after 3/11 TOP safe! as if we are talking about a condom brand! https://s3.amazonaws.com/ebid/upload_big/1/8/4/1317470149-18204-0.jpg
lets burn out the privatized nuke disaster! Save money! Waste life!
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how to fool people into a TOP SAFE myth into wrecking semens/ female eggs and cell devisions of all life to be safe from the nuke industry! FOR CASH!!
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Tell the people of Fuk U and Chernobyl it is all TOPSAFE!!!
http://www.euronuclear.org/events/topsafe/topsafe2012/index.htm
Why does anyone care about this acting it is okay with getting cancer nobody can prove it comes from the nuke industry?
Is having electricity more important than having kids with cancer????
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Wir haben es nicht gewusst.(we did not now).. to recall the famous words of germans who acted to have never known about the killing of the jews…
The nuke industry learnt so much from the Nazis!! also how to kill whole groups!!
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Wir haben es nicht gewusst.(we did not now).. to recall the famous words of germans who acted to have never known about the killing of the jews…
The nuke industry learnt so much from the Nazis!! also how to kill whole groups!!
WE have not known! keep on acting! do not react! accept!!
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We all accept nuke shit and pay tax for cancer of our next of kin and trust the system that kills us!
BRAVO!!
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Who cares to pay tax for their own demise?
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nukes is good for jobs and economy.. that is why people try to feed their family with money and radionuclides with shit from money that fucks up the thyroids and genes… is that worth wrecking kids for?
Call it love…
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America brought many Nazi scientists and physicists over to the US to finish what they had begun in Germany – development of the atomic bomb. So, if it looks like a page out of the Nazi playbook, it actually is.
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True, Vic.
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Forget cancer, it's a minor, but deadly, problem that time cures with deaths. No, the problem is DNA modification, PERMANENT DNA damage that the Russians have proven gets WORSE, generation after generation, even if the radiation is removed! Human children that survive to childbirth with MOST organs still functional, in the future, will look like this:
http://todayspictures.slate.com/inmotion/essay_chernobyl/img/6_nyc6985.jpg
or this:
http://www.thedailygreen.com/cm/thedailygreen/images/2I/chernobyl-child-lg.jpg
or this:
http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4006/5081121989_642a03e50b_z.jpg
Cancer will be of no concern when the human race is born like this. Japan knows this. Their doctors are aborting the monsters, already, hiding this reality.
Luckily, many beautiful Japanese children live far away from their homeland and could be a very valuable resource to repopulate their past-isolated race. Every time I see Japanese children here, I think of how lucky we would be if they breed with other Japanese decendents, not Americans, to preserve their beauty, which is simply astonishing.
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PS. (cont.)..please ..please…
This kind of talk makes my head hurt..head on the desk..agony.
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agreed Heart. This is the easy way out. They know the effects of airborne contamination are much more obvious to global monitors than what leaks into the ocean. Fuku's located on the shore people! Entombment will guarantee that what's been done cannot be undone.
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Pretty obvious that there will never be any decommissioning nor clean up of any units, it is just physically impossible. The 300 year figure is 10 half lives of cesium, so when all that decays off one could approach the problem from a radioactive standpoint. But once it is buried in concrete no one will ever go back and clean up the uranium or other isotopes that last forever. It will become a nuclear waste site that slowly oozes some level of radioactivity forever.
But it is not just unit #4 that needs to have it's fuel pool emptied. All the fuel pools need to be emptied for many reasons, most of all they are balanced 100 feet off the ground in buildings that are lucky to be standing.
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Hi chrisk9, I saw a graph which said the Pu-239 decay line is incredibly dangerous and reaches its peak activity in around 30000 years.
I feel depressed.
You make a good point about the fuel pools.
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Hi Chris- I have to agree with you on your points. I also figured that once they admitted it was unmanageable and Arnie had come to this conclusion that they would opt for entombment for an indefinite period-likely eternity?! During the next couple years that it takes them to offload the SFP's they should put together a sensible plan that includes layers of material including absorbents,high PF-rated materials for extra shielding,boron,etc. that might help with some of the "oozing"radioactivity you mentioned would be likely and with the right materials layered in between hardened concrete walls of the proposed "containment" that might also fill cracks in the hardened structure that form due to seismic activity,age and the effect of high radiation causing premature degradation of construction materials. It "could" work to at least give us all a break from the constant release levels,whatever they "really are"(?) for only as long as the amount of resources spent to ensure an immense & more than adequate structure, with the highest quality and engineering corps used for what is arguably the most imortant(& tricky) construction/engineering feat EVER with the most at stake for Earth's life forms as well! Just my 2 cents…Take Care-Be Well
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"they are balanced 100 feet off the ground in buildings that are lucky to be standing."
The salt water and constant earthquakes, combined with on-site neutrino exposure, will fix this.
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what they need to do is build large " Hot Cells " around each reactor building. inside cranes can dissasemble the reactor buildings bit by bit and remove all of the melted fuel in the process.
this will be crazy expensive and tepco knows this. what they are doing is trying to figure out the cheapest possible way to get this job done. problem is they will pay out more in compensation from lawsuits than they will save.
this mess could be contained enough and real work towards cleaning up could start if they would quit screwing around and just do what needs to be done. its amazing how bad the management is here. i mean how hard is it to figure out a game plan for 1-stop emissions and 2-clean up?
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Even if you do entomb you have to stop the leaks or the pacific ocean is toast and their goes the ecosystem and food for one third of the plant.
They will entomb only because it is the cheapest solution and we all know how cheap they are.
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How do you entomb these monsters in the most seismic active place on Earth? What kind of concrete sarcophagus will survive 30000 years of <4 or 5 or 6 or 9 earthquakes? Even Chernobyl's sarcophagus is already crumbling from the intense neutron attack over the last 30 years. There is no material that is neutron proof for any length of time. It's a fantasy!
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If cooling could not be maintained in the reactors..how could the cooling to the spent fuel pools be maintained?
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Things that make ya go hmm, just like the recent request to acquire PI tablets in Harrisburg, PA. but not to take them unless told to do so by the government.
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Even the respected science magazine Nature has nothing nice to say about how this accident has been handled:
"Lax management of Fukushima clean-up intensifies concerns over Japan's nuclear future."
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v488/n7411/full/488253b.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20120816
The awareness is growing, and it's getting harder for the governments to cover this up. Try telling 424,000 scientifically inclined Nature readers that Fukushima isn't a lethal threat to the environment and their families.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_%28magazine%29
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If you look at the entombment efforts done at Chernobyl, the concrete tomb is breaking down now, cracking and leaking. It seems like a big band aid fix and won't really solve the problem. I admit I am not close to being very knowledgable on this subject, but why not fix it right the first time if there is such a thing as fixing it.
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There is no 'entombing' anything at Fukushima. With the constant liquefaction of the underlying geology, no structure can be built that will be light enough to not send the whole site into the sea prematurely. Unless this is the 'final' plan, which it very well may be. Out of sight, out of mind. That always works on the ignorant masses.
Yes the dome at Chernobyl need replacing. And that dome hasn't been subjected to daily injections of tons of corrosive salt water.
The Japanese are planning for abandonment. Pulling the fuel out of SFP #4 would be nice, but it will probably just go into the ocean anyway. The US is planning for martial law, as a reaction to planned economic collapse and the inability to hide the real threats from Fukushima.
Tell 130 million Americans their benefits are cut off, they've lost all their money, there's no more health care and their children are going to die from lethally radiated food, water and air, which they created in the first place.
Good luck with that, Mr. Next President.
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And Gundersen knows it. He doesn't need to be the whipping boy when this ship sinks. If he's as smart as we think he is, he's planning an extended vacation with his family as far away from all this as possible.
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The people who have the means and ability to remove themselves and their families from the Northern Hemisphere are lucky.
I for one and most of the people I know can't.
Hell, I don't know if luck has anything to do with anything anymore…I think this mess is going to devastate the whole planet, some of us will just go faster than others.
Now for trying to motivate myself to go to work and care about what I'm doing there because it really isn't important at all in the midst of all this.
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I read something that really helped, CBuck. Now it's all about 'creating memories'. When it hits the fan, all we're going to have is our memories, so make the most beautiful memories you can.
I wake up every day trying to create wonderful memories for the people around me, memories that will be meaningful for them that they can remember when things get bad.
Memories are the only things we take with us no matter where we go. We should make as many good ones as we can.
Just a thought.
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Thanks for that, it does help. There is no time to waste regarding anything anymore…
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This is the song I always turn to, have for years and years, when I get feeling overwhelmed and hopeless.
And right now, Fukushima to begin with, and all the other nuclear problems that are popping up lately are leaving me feeling a bit down. This song always helps to some degree or another. A classic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3sZfPSSNVg&feature=related
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Arnie was still pushing for a boron filled trench, just like a large bowl, excavated under the entire site as the most minimal step not long ago. I think he is coming to see that neither the technology nor the will exists by TEPCO to solve this with effective, expensive measures. The point of 300 years is in hoping some new and affordable technology has emerged by then to help. His public acknowledgment that everyone has so far failed, including international pressure to accept technical help beyond a small advisory team from Britain and the US, may spark some serious debate. TEPCO may find itself having to show a viable alternative to entombment. Entombment would mean that the nuke industry is batting 0 to 3. Every serious accident results in entombment.
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"Every serious accident results in entombment."
Not this one. Only land based reactors, not multiple failed NPPs on liquifying substrate, basically at this point sand and saltwater under constant earthquake duress.
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the Russians are working on a new casing as we speak and will use some new methods to encase the old concrete box
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"the Russians are working on a new casing"
No, the Ukrainians are working on a new "money-spring".
Please look at a map: Chernobyl is not in russia.
h.
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IMHO is this a metaphoric issue, and it means:
"We're out of options."
h.
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I agree.
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Maybe the workers have already left? Long vacation?
from Webcam Forum:
ChasAha -
August 15, 2012 at 9:26 am ·
I agree, from my perspective, I have seen no workers or crane movement that I can recall since (around the time of) the yellow lid removal.
Note DATE:
Wotcha –
August 13, 2012 at 2:20 pm ·
"I didn't see any workers around yesterday…"
Full comment here:
http://enenews.com/forum-fukushima-webcam-discussion-thread-june-30-2012-present/comment-page-11#comment-279701
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13/08 to 16/08 is an annual break period to honour the dead ancesters so it is possible that the less activity is because of that. People are visiting family back home and family cemetary etc
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I was thinking entomb the TEPCO officials first.
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Now that's funny.
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I wonder when finally some "official" or politician will say what we all already know: this is not about money. There is not enough money in the world to fix this.
This is far beyond somebody writing bills. Money is paper.
They need to finally start an international effort to contain this mess as good as possible. Damn it.
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And can you really just entomb SFP4 as-is all rickety and toxic and full inside? Sounds like a reach to me – at least for 4.
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BnB, i'm thinking that either corporate competition and greed are just too high to allow sharing, even in the face of death and disaster…or, as someone posted many weeks ago on such a joint effort, TEPCO really does not want anyone seeing how bad it really is.
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What a FukuSarcophagus will look like:
Foundation: Pound in twin steel cofferdams 100' apart and 100' deep into bedrock. Run this around Buildings1,2,3,&4. Excavate material from between cofferdams. Fill with reinforced borated concrete, following markww ideas. Remove from site all spent fuel from Common SFP; and remove fuel assemblies from SFP4, (and from SFP1,2,&3 if possible). Bore slant holes under Coriums1,2,&3. Inject boron to moderate coriums, and to keep them where they are in the bedrock. Fill reactor buildings, reactors, and containments with borated sand, to extent possible. Super heavy structures can be built even on sand or sandstone foundations, as was the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_Khalifa#Architecture_and_design
Walls: Install a wall 300' high and 100' thick on the foundation. Reinforced concrete. Build in butresses to keep weight of concrete the structure from tipping or sinking. Fill area between walls with reinforced concrete to complete the 300' tall sarcophagus. Perhaps build in membranes to capture and keep in vapors or smoke. Use Japan Armed Forces to do the work. Come back after 300 years to see what more needs to be done. Thanks Arnie. What we're doing at Fuku ain't working.
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Sounds like you've put together the best plan so far, pn. I remember several decades ago a TV science program about symbols and whether future generations could understand current day symbols. The show especially focused on nuclear radiation. The rad symbol along with the skull and crossbones painted on all the walls was the program's conclusion. Something like that could complete your idea of how Fukushima could be entombed.
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BUILD coffer dams and dams in the ocean for about 2 miles 200 feet thick and 100 foot high and into the bedrock of the Ocean with navigation lights and pump boron and elements into the water behind the dam to clean up the radiation,
As to the rest of the Pacific i am working on some theories too on Paper MARKWW
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@philipupnorth: Sounds like a plan. How much is that going to cost? Should we start having bake sales?
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It would require so much baking they would have to build more reactors.
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The FukuSarcophagus will cost plenty. Big Brutus power shovels digging sandstone out of the ground. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Brutus.
Think in terms of using an Army of workers. A dozen onsite concrete plants pumping concrete into the worksite through pipes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_plant
Barges of sand and reinforcing steel queued up off shore from the harbor entrance. Since this is affecting the entire world, the entire world will have to pay. (Except for the nuclear industry, which will be hard at work to decommission over 400 reactors worldwide). Fleets of heavy trucks hauling containers of spent fuel assemblies away. 24/7/365 shifts working round the clock. Will take a year (maybe two) to complete.
Cost? The thing I liked about the way the Soviet Union responded to Chernobyl was that nobody seemed to concerned about the cost of the Sarcophagus. They knew the nature of the emergency, and knew that time was not on their side. They just did what was necessary to get this job accomplished. Fast.
What has happened so far in Japan? TEP.gov gives priority to readying other nukes to go back on line. Their plan was to take 30 years to deal with Fuku. They are taking weekends off. They say they can't send in more workers because the site is too contaminated. Time to hire the Russians and Americans to get this job done. Invade Japan and get to work. Japan will be ever so happy to turn Fuku over to any who would take it on.
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Japan is using its' financial resources to help the rich get richer, not fix their nuclear issues. It turns out Japan is the only country buying US Treasuries in bulk:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/presenting-shocking-source-us-treasury-demand-past-year
Japan can't afford to fix Fukushima, when they're busy buying the debt of the world's largest debtor. The US skims this money and gives it to the large banks, who in turn give it to the world's wealthiest families. Once there's nothing more to steal, lights out.
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Just how much will Fuku cost the world?
Possible destruction of the Pacific Ocean fishing industry which used to provide 71% of the world's seafood.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_fisheries
Possible loss of the Japanese Main Islands, which are so contaminated they are no longer inhabitable.
http://www.ushousingupdate.com/japan_vs_usa_housing_crash_model.htm
Possible exacuation of the largest city in the world, Tokyo. (Which should have happened on 311).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_city
Possible destruction of the third largest economy in the world, Japan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)
Destruction of the agriculture industry in California, Oregon, and Washington.
What am I up to so far? MORE THAN ENOUGH to pay for the FukuSarcophagus many times over! Get moving, Earthlings, before it is too late!
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@philip: never confuse any action as being the solution…
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Aftershock: ?
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Not just in California, Oregon and Washington. The US was blanketed at high altitude via Fuku radiation in the jetstream, and fell in the rain. This is not a 'West Coast' problem, it's a national problem.
Like this:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/summarizing-americas-record-drought-one-picture
Although, the radiation is worse in high-altitude areas, like Denver. So much for the 'safety' of the evacuation caverns at the Denver Airport. Missed that one, eh, morons?
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Is Gundersen having a break down and not able to see the reality of not just the Fukushima Nuclear Plant crisis, but all the nuclear energy plants? These poorly designed, poorly placed, poorly maintained plants are world wide and without the solution when a crisis hits. If tomorrow, we are faced with more leaking, leaching plants, what do we do? The damage has already begun and continues in Fukushima and we have a government more concerned with profit vs people. For goodness sakes they are purposely marketing contaminated food to their own people and other nations.
In Louisiana, we have discovered that with the blessings of the government, a salt cavern has been used to store petroleum products and RADIOACTIVE debris. The government and the company knew for at least a year that there were problems which eventually became evident when the cavern began to develop into a massive sinkhole. The gulf states are known as Cancer Alley because of petroleum industry caused cancers. This is another fine mess that was caused without the knowledge of the residents. Would Gundersen have the same advice to simply fill them and abandon them for a future time? We do not know all the secret hiding places around the world that have been used to store nuclear debris with no concern for the environment or people.
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double plus good Michele…
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@ Michele- If you want to call facing reality as having a breakdown, then i guess Arnie is. He's probably pretty tired by now running all over hell and back trying to get the industry and the world to take this crisis seriously. The fact is, no technology has been developed so far to fix this and the engineering solutions to have properly contained this, such as boron trenches, were not forthcoming since TEPCO has been allowed to choose the course we all must follow. Entombment, at least, may buy us some needed time. It might even get us out from underneath TEPCO since they would, then, likely have to surrender the plant.
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Hey Michele,
I post the following again in case you missed it.
http://enenews.com/nbc-pretty-clear-gone-wrong-ecosystem-japan-researcher/comment-page-1#comment-279561
August 14, 2012 at 4:43 pm • Reply
Michele,
I read an article on the poor crop of cherries this year from your area. I was shocked when I read that producers in the region were planning on importing cherries from Poland to make cherry preserves for various restaurant chains and store shelves.
http://m.startribune.com/business/?id=162410096
Recall that Japan received a shipment of 1,000 cases of blueberry preserves from Poland – tested them and found they exceeded their very high safe radiation limits (from Chernobyl) of 100 Bq/kg.
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2012/04/blueberry-jam-from-poland-with-220-bqkg.html
You can bet that cherries from Poland are also highly radioactive from Cs-137 uptake because plants accept it like they do potassium since the valance electrons in these two elements are the same.
The global economy is going to kill us all. There is no way to tell where your food is really coming from anymore.
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Maybe Arnie's right. Maybe not. I don't think anyone knows, and I really don't think anyone will ever know, because this is such a mess there probably is no good way to deal with it, only a least bad one.
Three hundred years from now, there might be an advanced civilization on this planet. Maybe there will not. If there is, teachers will explain what happened, and students will exclaim, "Those greedy bastards!" If not, primitive people will sit around campfires telling stories about "Those Greedy Bastards."
It's got so you can't even write a poem about a butterfly without dealing with plutonium.
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You are right, nobody knows what to do, what exactly is happening, etc. I don't think throwing concrete will solve anything unless they plan on getting under the corium which would be a death sentence for the workers and is probably way too late to even attempt. What an awful mess the poor ocean and the children that should have been evacuated over a year ago. My heart breaks.
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If the science is right then people able to reproduce successfully – will. The ones affected will under or not produce and their lineage will dissolve with them.
There seems to be no magic answers with this disaster.
Its already too late to even get hysterical about it.
I think we are going to be okay (I hope!) and it will be different times.
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Some people will be able to reproduce successfully, but there's over a 50% chance their children will be genetically mutated. On a long enough timeline (and not very long in the scheme of things), we will run out.
But with all the life forms with quicker reproduction rates running into extinction before us, there might be nothing left to eat.
And what will be left to eat is all radioactive now. It is too late, and the initial problem will be billions of people getting hysterical. Maybe that's what all the bullets are for:
http://www.infowars.com/social-security-administration-to-purchase-174-thousand-rounds-of-hollow-point-bullets/
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TimeIsShort, i think your dark picture is being achieved at a far greater and immediate rate through agricultural toxins, species exploitation, and habitat destruction. The radiation addition over the last 70 years into this mix certainly makes surviving the other three a close call.
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I love your last sad line, GeoHarvey. It captures the essence of the situation in this moment much like an haiku.
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"Letter to the bank manager"
3:02 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANquX0YHFhw
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Honestly if you look at "cancer" as a whole it really is attributable to the nuclear industry and weapons programs. The cancer rates have sky rocketed since we have done all the open air tests and "Power Plants" have been built to feed the nuclear arms industry.
We have for over half a century been told nothing but lies by our elected officials and the nuclear industries they protect about the need and safety of nuclear.
If you haven't noticed as bad as Japan and Fukushima truly are we should ALL be worried about a real nuclear war and its more than likely going to start with western intervention into Iran's nuclear program.
There have been a lot of reports that aren't even being commented on by the west about nuclear missiles being supplied by Putin to Cuba. This has gone completely ignored by the western media and "officials". In my opinion if they aren't talking about it, it is more than likely the truth and they don't want to scare us like the original cuban missle crisis.
We are going to ALL be killed by nuclear in one form or another whether its fallout from Fukushima or a nuclear missle landing in time square or breathing depleted uranium munitions. Everyone in the world should be begging their elected "officials" to end this madness and bring us away from minutes to midnight.
I sincerely apologize to the admin if this goes to far off topic, however I personally feel like screaming and this seemed to be a relevant place to do it.
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I don't see this happening. And this isn't Chernobyl.
There are 3 reactors in meltdown right next to the ocean. And right next to faults that could move at any time. Even if you built something around this, another tsunami comes in, we're going to be right back where we started.
You're going to have to find some way to contain the cores and remove them.
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in a few months Arnie might be canvassing the blow it all into the deep blue sea option too.
don't worry, in 300 years we will all be space faring colonists far from Earth leading a utopian existence, just like they thought we'd have the technology by now to deal with the spent fuel rods being stored in the spent fuel pools. / sarcasm
chernobyl cover mark 2 (in only 25 years), only 12 more resurrections to go to make 300 years, I assume each one bigger than the last and covering the others like a Russian Doll, and Oh what a gal.
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Work_on_new_Chernobyl_sarcophagus_to_start_next_month_999.html
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So, given the cleanup costs – how economical was this power plant in terms of $/kWhr?
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Clean-up/containment hasn't even started, and can't even be done, so "clean-up" costs can't be computed. Adding in subjective cost estimates for current and future medical care, business losses, re-location and other costs, computing a $/kWhr economic cost metric is a fantasy whose time has passed.
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too expensive to meter
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GE – Life, too cheap to meter.
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Good slogan, TIS.
The cost is only 8 – if you're willing to look at it sideways, through a Tepco lens.
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Clever.
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A very serious entombment plan needs to begin now because any clean-up plan will inevitably fail. One doesn't clean up a nuclear spill. The cores cannot be approached by any technology we currently have for another few hundred years. Without a boron bowl trench underneath and around the site, entombment is fruitless. We simply may not be able to wait around until a better option becomes available to us. Nuclear energy production exceeds our ability to cope with it. So, good answers are going to be hard to come by.
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There is nothing to be done about gene mutation. Everyone gets it.
One of the industries that keeps on giving.
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