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Reuters: Fukushima, Chernobyl show how vast areas can be turned into nuclear wastelands

Published: December 1st, 2011 at 8:03 pm ET
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Emerging states try to end coal addiction with nuclear | Reuters

[...] On paper, nuclear power is an ideal energy source, producing next to no greenhouse gas emissions while churning out stable supplies of electricity. But, as Fukushima and Chernobyl have shown, an accident can quickly turn vast areas into nuclear wastelands, raises risks of radiation poisoning and leaves a massive bill for clean up. [...]

No mention of the serious problems with:

  • Spent fuel storage and ‘reprocessing’
  • Ongoing contamination occurring around nuclear plants during ‘normal’ reactor operations, not only during accidents
Published: December 1st, 2011 at 8:03 pm ET
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50 comments

Related Posts

  1. Nuclear expert: Fukushima “has turned even worse than it was in Chernobyl” — “Appears to have fit into the worst predicted scenario” May 26, 2011
  2. Nuclear Expert on Major US Radio Show: ‘When I do the numbers, it says Fukushima is as bad or worse than Chernobyl’ (AUDIO) March 31, 2012
  3. Study shows soil contamination from Fukushima meltdown comparable to Chernobyl: Kyodo May 24, 2011
  4. U.S. University: Low-level radiation appears to have had immediate effects on bird populations in Fukushima Pref. — Areas surveyed are mostly still open to human occupation — Worse than expected — More pronounced than Chernobyl February 8, 2012
  5. Study: Children’s respiratory problems at 700% previous levels, Hemorrhaging at 900% in areas contaminated by Chernobyl meltdown November 11, 2011
December 1st, 2011 | Category: Chernobyl Comparisons
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50 comments to Reuters: Fukushima, Chernobyl show how vast areas can be turned into nuclear wastelands

  • Bobby1
    December 1, 2011 at 8:19 pm

    “”If you want to be part of the climate change race and mitigation you basically have renewables and nuclear. Renewables are intermittent and you need a firm and reliable baseload technology. Renewables are not in a position to provide this yet,” said H. Holger Rogner, section head of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s planning and economic studies section.”

    More self-serving BS from the IAEA criminals, they want us to pay an arm and leg for a technology that is killing us, rather than have a green technology that you can use in your backyard.


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  • Al-Chemisto
    December 1, 2011 at 8:59 pm

    the more this “clean and green” crap comes pouring out of the sanctimonious MSM the more this smells like a set-up from jump street.

    if the players have to rad out Japan or epidemic out / AIDS spray a continent that’s how they play.

    /weren’t nothing Mortimer, i win the $1 bet right?/


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  • Mack Mack
    December 1, 2011 at 9:16 pm

    Partial list of contamined areas:

    —>Hanford Site in Washington State
    —>Nevada Atomic Testing Site
    —>Savannah River Site in South Carolina
    —>Marshall Islands – Enewetak and Bikini Atolls
    —>Jefferson Proving Grounds in Madison, Indiana
    —>Oak Ridge Reservation, Tennessee
    —>Idaho National Laboratory area
    —>Dugway, Utah Proving Ground – testing ground for munitions
    Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan – Soviet nuclear testing site – over 7,000 square miles
    —>Morsleben East German salt mines
    —>UK – Sellafield and the Irish Sea
    —>Sahara Testing Grounds in Algeria – French nuclear tests – IAEA said no further cleanup needed, but people in Algeria claim they are seeing high cancer rates and children born with abnormalities
    —>Mururoa and Fangataufa atolls in South Pacific – nuclear testing by France
    —>Japan – Tokai npp – barrels of uranium leaked in 1997 — Tokaimura uranium processing facility – in 1997, 80 workers contamined, 2 died
    —>Spanish coast near Almeria – contamined with plutonium from Am. B-52 bomber accident in 1966
    —>Three Mile Island in Harrisburg, PA
    —>Mayak plutonium plant in southern Urals – 80-tons of highly radioactive liquid waste exploded
    —>Superfund clean-up sites in the US
    —>France stores nuclear waste to Siberia
    —>Uranium mined and/or processed – Germany, France, China, India, Iraq, Japan, N. Korea, Pakistan, the U.S. in Richland, Washington and formerly at Lynchburg, Virginia, Netherlands, Russia, UK, China. Australia will be sending uranium to India, and Australia is working on enriching uranium through a laser process with the help of General Electric.
    —>Cesium contamination throughout Europe from Chernobyl
    —>Pacific Ocean contaminated from Fukushima radiation
    —>Italy dumped waste in Indian Ocean off coast of Somalia

    and nuclear test sites:

    http://www.atomicarchive.com/Almanac/Testing.shtml


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    • anne anne
      December 1, 2011 at 10:16 pm

      How about :
      Novaya Zemlya

      “It was the site of the October 30, 1961 explosion of Tsar Bomba, the largest, most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated….”

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novaya_Zemlya


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    • anne anne
      December 1, 2011 at 10:20 pm

      How about:
      “Lop Nur Nuclear Weapons Test Base

      “The first Chinese nuclear bomb test, codenamed “596″, was tested at Lop Nur in 1964. The PRC detonated its first hydrogen bomb on June 17, 1967. Since 1964, the lake has been used as a nuclear test site. Until 1996, 45 nuclear tests were conducted.[7] The headquarters of the test base is at Malan, about 125 km (78 mi) northwest of Qinggir.[8]…”
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lop_Nur


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    • anne anne
      December 1, 2011 at 10:24 pm

      How about:
      “Pokharan-II refers to test explosions of five nuclear devices, three on 11 May and two on 13 May 1998, conducted by India at the Pokhran test range. These nuclear tests resulted in a variety of sanctions against India by a number of major states.
      “On 18 May 1974, India exploded its first nuclear device code named Operation Smiling Buddha. After about a quarter century, on Buddha Jayanti, 11 May 1998, Operation Shakti was carried out. Shakti (शक्ति in Sanskrit meaning ‘Strength’), is also the name of the Hindu Goddess of strength. Shakti was the codename of a thermonuclear device that was exploded in Pokhran as part of Pokhran-II….”
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokhran-II


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    • anne anne
      December 1, 2011 at 10:34 pm

      Former nuclear weapons storage in Feodosiya

      “….The radiation level in storages with these safes was so high, that the tungsten filament would get burned out in just thirteen minutes because of the the neuron bombing. The maximum permissible time that a person could spend there was 43 seconds….”
      http://englishrussia.com/2011/10/17/former-nuclear-weapons-storage-in-feodosiya/


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    • Fall out man!
      December 1, 2011 at 10:52 pm

      The last of the Chernobyl contaminated farms in Scotland have only just been allowed to sell their meat again 25 years after Chernobyl. That release happened this year. The meat is still partially contaminated, but now falls below the EU’s safety levels for radioactive meat that can be sold. There are still farms in Wales that cannot sell meat today.

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-15783517
      http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scottish-sheep-farms-finally-free-of-chernobyl-fallout-2020059.html

      Scottland is a long way from Chernobyl.

      In fact the article above is very misleading. It implies that nuke power is only a problem when it goes wrong. In reality there are higher rates of still birth, cancer and no doubt many other diseases amongst people living near Nuclear power plants that are operating perfectly well with no problems.

      Furthermore the plants are constantly spewing out Krypton gas which lowers the conductivity of the atmosphere. It is expected that will have an effect on the climate, but no one knows quite what that effect will be.

      They all leak radioactive gases and the health effects on surrounding populations are serious. Furthermore, that is permanent degradation of the human genome and there is no coming back from that. Every generation people on average accumulate 60 new mutations that have such minor effects that they cannot be selected upon. It creates something called “Genetic load”. Eventually those tiny mutations will lead to the extinction of all life on earth. Nuclear power hastens that process. That is the dirty little secret of population genetics.

      Then of course there is the problem of Nuclear waste disposal.

      The Nuke industry was the first to fund the idea of man made global warming. It was the US Department of Energy (Nuke Industry) that funded the fraudulent University of East Anglia climate unit to start up. The one that got caught in their leaked emails planning how they would deceive…


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      • xdrfox
        December 1, 2011 at 11:36 pm

        After 25 years the sheep are deemed safe to eat again !

        Two decades after Chernobyl, Scottish sheep get all-clear

        Jul 4, 2010 … An aerial shot from back in 1986 of the Chernobyl nuclear plant the home of … levels of radioactive contamination in sheep on all Scottish farms …
        http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/health/two-decades-after-chernobyl-scottish-sheep-get-all-clear-1.1039073

        How other countries are doing

        Chernobyl: country by country S-Z
        (The Humus Project: The effects of Chernobyl contamination on the soil.) … and Ag-110 in lambs grazing pasture in NE Scotland contaminated by Chernobyl fallout. ….. initial activities in pure rainwater to 500000 Bq/l; raw farm milk to 2900
        Bq/l. …
        http://www.davistownmuseum.org/cbm/Rad7b4.html


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      • majia
        December 2, 2011 at 12:16 am

        Fallout man can you provide me some sources for the genetic load?

        I am writing on Fukushima and would appreciate the help!

        Thanks for your comments–they are instructive!

        Everyday I’m thankful for all the posters at Enenews…


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        • anne anne
          December 2, 2011 at 8:47 am

          Successful Biological Invasion despite a Severe Genetic Load
          http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0000868
          You can click on the right for the rest of article
          Jump to
          • Abstract
          • Introduction
          • Results
          • Discussion
          • Materials and Methods
          • Supporting Information
          • Acknowledgments
          • Author Contributions
          • References


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        • Fall out man!
          December 3, 2011 at 1:11 am

          Hi Majia,

          Here is a recent book on the subject by Dr JC Sanford, the geneticist who invented the “Gene Gun” around which a whole industry making genetically modified organisms has been built.

          http://www.amazon.com/Genetic-Entropy-Mystery-Genome-Sanford/dp/0981631606

          I have a paper on it in a science journal at home and will dig that paper out to post back here later. The paper summarizes things pretty well without having to purchase a book. Some years ago there was another book put out regarding the degradation of the male Y chromosome and pointing out that all sexually reproducing organisms with an X and Y chromosome arrangement like mankind would eventually die out due to genetic decay of the Y chromosome before other Chromosomes decayed. The reason being that when a couple have kids, there is only one Y chromosome so repairs cannot be made against a paired chromosome for that one. As a result the Y chromosome decays more quickly than the others. That book as I recall left it as a mystery as to why that would be and why we aren’t all dead yet.

          Sanford’s book however lays it on the line. Life started out complex, and its been degrading ever since. The implications of that for the nuclear industry are very serious. Genetic decay is a very dangerous and irreversible process. Increasing that with large releases of radiation makes all life less viable and brings all organisms closer to extinction. Hence my comment that life is devolving, not evolving. Ionizing radiation breaks down the genome and while we have extraordinarily good repair mechanisms, every generation a higher load of genetic errors build up. Most mutations are apparently neutral and cannot be selected upon. They just build up as genetic load. Furthermore, the vast majority of mutations (if not all of them) involve a loss of information. Nuclear fallout will not “speed up evolution” as I’ve actually seen biologists claim of Chernobyl. It will speed up the decay of our genome.


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          • majia
            December 3, 2011 at 1:26 am

            Thank you Fallout Man

            the book looks interesting. I am going to order it. I collect books… too many to count…

            I think NK cells play a big role in this process and they have been implicated in autism…


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            • Fall out man!
              December 4, 2011 at 1:44 am

              Hi Majia,

              That’s good, I’d be interested to hear what you think of it. Here is a publicly available and short (but fascinating in my view) paper on how over time mutations are leading all life closer to extinction.

              http://creation.com/mutations-are-evolutions-end

              As I mentioned above. Most mutations are so minor in the damage they do as to be impossible to select upon. Models of mutations (eg, the Mendell’s Accountant software) and selection in populations show that that by any reasonable estimates, the more mutations that occur, the faster life moves to extinction. (see comment at end of article above)

              When one realizes that (and the brief paper above looks at a variety of related areas of evidence that make sense when you think it through), then anything that increases the mutation rate in mankind is very serious indeed.

              Each generation is slightly weaker than the last as it stands. But with fallout from disasters like fukushima and radioactive emissions from normal working nuclear power stations all adding to the mutation rate, Nuclear power is weakening all life on earth. It is accelerating genetic decay.

              Nuclear power accelerates genetic decay and is an absolute disaster in that the damage it does is irreversible.

              Tragically I’ve seen academics claim Chernobyl is some kind of wonderful evolutionary experiment. They think the increased mutation rates there will lead to wonderful new creatures that will tolerate radiation and evolve faster. In reality, what we see around Chernobyl is much weaker creatures, carrying a higher genetic load.

              Radioactive emissions from working well maintained nuclear power plants do permanent genetic damage to the populations around them. Natural selection cannot fix that since most mutations are too minor to be selected upon individually.

              When you realize that, there can be no argument. Nuclear power must end.

              http://creation.com/mutations-are-evolutions-end


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          • anne anne
            December 3, 2011 at 3:18 am

            Quotation from amazon.com:
            “Dr. John Sanford, a retired Cornell Professor, shows in ‘Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome” that the ‘Primary Axiom’ is false. The Primary Axiom is the foundational evolutionary premise — that life is merely the result of mutations and natural selection. In addition to showing compelling theoretical evidence that whole genomes must in fact degenerate over time, this book strongly refutes the Darwinian concept that man is just the result of a random and pointless natural process.”


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        • anne anne
          December 3, 2011 at 3:59 am

          Heavy genetic load associated with the subspecific differentiation of japonica rice (Oryza sativa ssp. Japonica L.)
          http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/content/57/11/2815.full.pdf


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    • majia
      December 2, 2011 at 12:21 am

      Does anyone know if anything happened earlier this year before Fukushima?

      I recall reading a comment by someone that radiation levels were actually way up in December and January in many areas of the country.

      When I recently did a radnet search for Phoenix I found evidence that levels were highly elevated early in 2011.

      I know that my local plant leaks tritium regularly but I had no idea that it could leak that much.

      I wonder if there was a nuclear accident somewhere that wasn’t reported.

      I wonder how often that happens?

      I also wonder whether there might be some kernels of truth in that strange narrative provided by the Finnish guy about plants everywhere having problems because of methane hydrates or something like that…


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  • lam335 lam335
    December 1, 2011 at 9:42 pm

    “Emerging power see nuclear as bridge to renewables”

    This is a fallacy. Nuclear is like a cancer. Once the plants take root, they are extremely hard to get rid of since the industry comes to own its regulators, who in turn keep extending the plant licenses. It takes so long and costs so much to build the nuke plants, that the operators are determined to operate them for as long as they possibly can.

    If you go nuclear, be prepared to get stuck on the nuclear track, even if you originally intended for it to be only a temporary “bridge” until some other power sources seemed more viable.


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  • lam335 lam335
    December 1, 2011 at 9:46 pm

    “… as Fukushima and Chernobyl have shown, an accident can quickly turn vast areas into nuclear wastelands, raises risks of radiation poisoning and leaves a massive bill for clean up.”

    The references to “radiation poisoning” is annoying. Pro-nukers seize upon it and say that very few get radiation poisoning in accidents. Of course, acute radiation poisoning is NOT the biggest risk to the broader public from nuke plants. It is the long list of other diseases that can result from the exposure, most especially cancer and leukemia, but also, for example, heart problems (i.e., “Chernobyl heart”) and other types of thyroid disfunction in addition to thyroid cancer.


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  • FUKUSHIMAHELL
    December 1, 2011 at 10:28 pm

    im not being funny here but if tepco are saying the molten lava is going to be called a cold shutdown on december 16th according to the web,because the water has cooled the reactors and done its job for 6 months. why has the lava burned through all the containments if the water has achieved cold shut down?
    im lost. you cant have a cold shutdown if the water has never worked can you.
    we know the water didnt work because the lava melted through the whole lot.
    so how can it be a cold shutdown?


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  • Tacomagroove
    December 1, 2011 at 10:48 pm

    http://emsnews.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/fukushima-enters-china-syndrome-meltdown-is-destroying-cement/#more-13499

    Breaking;
    All the news from Fukushima is very bad. This will continue for the rest of our lives. Like Chernobyl, the tendency for urgency will drop over time as people get used to the mess and a fatalist feeling of nothing can be done spreads deeper and deeper just like the present ‘China syndrome’ (sic) event. Of course, this movement towards the center of the earth due to gravity means it will metaphorically come out the other side in the US, not China.

    The fact remains, we are possibly witnessing something much more dangerous than Chernobyl. Chernobyl dumped immense amounts of toxins and radiation across all of Europe. But Fukushima is more insidious: it is entering the water table of the biggest ocean on earth, the Pacific, and Japan’s water table which the population needs to use for business, agriculture and living in general.

    Just this week, TEPCO released, only in Japanese, a report on this China Syndrome event. They finally have admitted to what I claimed would happen: the containment vessels are being systematically eaten by a molten mass of core materials. They are, as I explained in the past, chemically reacting with cement which is not rock but rather, is a water-permeable material that reacts to heat which is why fireproof materials have to be used when building incinerators, for example.

    Here is one news story from this last two weeks about the continuing dangers at Fukushima. The Dragons that live in these reactors have to be groomed and fed water or they will roar back into full bellow: Architect of Reactor 3 warns of massive hydrovolcanic explosion | Fukushima Diary.
    Here is a great video explaining some of the chemical reactions going on in Fukushima when oxygen interacts with the formerly sealed materials: Hydrogen buildup at Fukushima? What does it mean & why does it happen? on Vimeo


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  • God
    December 2, 2011 at 1:26 am

    The spent fuel pool in #4 as collapsed.


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  • God
    December 2, 2011 at 1:30 am

    #3 busted through containment months ago.

    #1 obviously is somewhere in the ground.

    #4 is a forgone conclusion (lets not talk about it)

    5 and 6 have gone to. No one will say it, so I will. Their gone.


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  • God
    December 2, 2011 at 1:33 am

    Sorry to be brutally honest…

    Japan is finished.


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  • dosdos dosdos
    December 2, 2011 at 1:34 am

    Tepco Says Earthquake Didn’t Damage Critical Units at Fukushima Reactor
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-02/tepco-says-earthquake-didn-t-damage-critical-units-at-fukushima-reactor.html

    TEPCO study shows water level in spent fuel pool was dangerously low
    http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20111202p2g00m0dm032000c.html

    First radiation limit set for school meals (finally!)
    http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20111202a1.html


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  • God
    December 2, 2011 at 1:37 am

    Who was providing the cooling to 5/6? Or power for that matter?

    6 Nuclear meltdowns. Book it.

    Even the Emperor is sick with Leukemia.

    Stop fooling yourselves.


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  • God
    December 2, 2011 at 1:44 am

    And keep thinking you’re watching live feeds of that area…You’re not.


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  • God
    December 2, 2011 at 2:05 am

    Even if that cam is legit rx#3 looks like it has melted into the ground. This could be a loop from months ago.

    Come on…let’s get real.


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  • God
    December 2, 2011 at 2:16 am

    Look @ #3 It’s MELTING.


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  • God
    December 2, 2011 at 2:27 am

    I will host a family of 3.

    I have more than enough room.


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  • Mark
    December 2, 2011 at 3:25 am

    Oh as far as nuclear accidents go honourable mention must go to my country, Canada. We had the first melt down December 12, 1952 — INES Level 5 – Chalk River, Ontario, Canada – Reactor core damaged

    Also we mine and process uranium into fuel rods and have nuclear reactors powering Ontario and Quebec maybe other eastern provinces. So I’m sure there is excess radiation in Canada as well.
    Cancer rates are higher in the east where reactors are and lower in the west where they are not. BC even has moretorium on uranium mining. We have the lowest cancer rates in Canada.

    Modern solar panels could be installed in every house and the cost included in the mortgage. There would be a huge energy savings just in no energy lost due to transport through the cables from far away central power plants. Add some wind power and let fossil fuel and hydro fill in the gaps and you could certainly get rid of risky nuclear and cut down on green house gasses.

    God Bless


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  • Mark
    December 2, 2011 at 3:29 am

    In the 1890′s a third of the homes in Southern California had solar water heaters.


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  • risabee risabee
    December 3, 2011 at 1:25 am

    May He strike thee with His noodly appendage for that impertinence, jimbojamesiv. Hast thou no shaminess? ^_^


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