Temperature rising in No. 4 spent fuel pool despite increased water injections (VIDEO)

Published: April 25th, 2011 at 3:36 am ET
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Monitoring rising temperatures, NHK, April 25, 2011:

The operator of the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is carefully monitoring the situation at the Number 4 spent fuel pool, where the water temperature is rising despite increased injections of cooling water. [...]

The utility firm had earlier limited the amount of water being injected into the pool to 70 tons a day, saying the weight of the water could weaken the reactor building[...]

The Number 4 spent fuel pool stores 1,535 fuel rods, the most at the nuclear complex.

Read the report and watch the video here.

Published: April 25th, 2011 at 3:36 am ET
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57 comments

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  2. Temperature of No. 4 pool rising nearly twice as fast as rate reported by Tepco June 30, 2012
  3. Nuclear engineer: Enormous amount of plutonium at No. 4 spent fuel pool in danger of catching fire; Pool is cracked and leaking (VIDEO) April 13, 2011
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  5. 220 Million Bq/liter of Cesium now in No. 2 Spent Fuel Pool — SFP No. 1, 2, & 3 “clearly have significant spent fuel damage” (VIDEO) August 28, 2011

57 comments to Temperature rising in No. 4 spent fuel pool despite increased water injections (VIDEO)

  • rami

    Just want to let everyone know how beautiful of an area Fukushima is. Wife and i were there last August/Sept.. We were surfing all around there. We were about 30 minutes north of the plant at Soma port for 5 days for her surf contest. It was awesome. Great people, food, and waves.. We also traveled up to Sendai for a few days and on the way back down we were searching out more surf. Camped right by the power plant and checked the waves all along the coast. One spot just south was the bluest water i had seen in Honshu and maybe Japan. Its heart wrenching enough to see the devastation from the tsunami, and now this has changed all our lives forever especially peoples in Nippon. Don’t give up hope & send positive energy, it works.. ..Ganbare Nippon がんばれ!!


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    • el insecto

      that is now a highly contaminated radioactive area, the radiation readings in the exclusion zone are high. due to all the dumping of radioactive water into the ocean, there is a radioactive plume in the pacific ocean heading here towards the united states. the effects on the sea life and the food chain are going to be enormous.

      http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/How-TEPCOs-3-million-gallons-of-radioactive-water-will-spread-trhough-the-Pacific-Ocean.png

      http://www.asrltd.com/japan/plume.html

      http://highboldtage.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/gyre.jpg


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      • Mothra

        The Japan to Pacific coast crossing period for blue fin tuna alone is 3 times every 600 days (not including Hawaii). The EPA says they will not test fish and refers us to NOAA. Debris is expected within the year from Alaska to Mexico via the Pacific gyre. Any tonage of radioactive contaminates dumped should appear in seaweed, phytoplankton, kelp feeder fish (sardines), predator fish and land birds who eat them and filter accumulators (mussels) within the year. It concentrates up the chain. Humans and breast milk are at the top of the chain. I-131 is already in Puget Sound and BC seaweed from run off after rainouts. By a year’s time it will be radioactive cesium, plutonium et al – the longer half-life beta and alpha contaminates from imported and migratory fish that don’t die off before reaching us.


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        • Mothra

          Of course, an additional pathway is composting contaminated fish for agriculture – on land, in soil. Also, the pet food market is less regulated for radionuclides. A proxy country can import it, can it and sell it to you that way. Alpha and beta particulates can keep on giving from the liter box to the doggie park… It lives on in cemetaries too.


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    • Don’t give up hope & send positive energy, it works.

      We need boots on the ground, not “hope” and other religious fallacies.

      http://atmc.jp/plant/rad/?n=4

      Reactor 4 radiation reading at the containment = 4250 Sieverts/Hour

      You need a lot of positive energy to overcome that puppy. Fukushima WAS a beautiful area. Soon there will be nothing left but cockroaches.


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      • Aftershock

        I disagree. There ARE miracles and at this point we need them! All the time, people who weren’t supposed to survive, recover and live- even come back to life when the odds were completely stacked against them…

        We must undertake and demand immediate concrete actions. But, we also need more positive energy and religion than ever to really deal with this because it already has transcended our mortal capacities and “half-lives.”

        Prayer has been proven scientifically to heal and reduce pain in double-blind clinical studies. Behave in ways that will make you deserving of a miracle when the chips are down. Pray for Japan and those plant workers. They need it!!! And we do, too!


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  • kx

    yes I loved Japan, but I would never camp next to a power plant. Even if it smell like flowers!


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  • Rami

    It was a fossil fuel plant just north. Tsunami wiped out all the trees and the beachgoer’s facilities. Surfers and campers that day weren’t fortunate enough to share your outlook.


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  • kx

    Im sorry to hear that


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  • Lloyd Hart

    Global Petition: End Fukushima’s Deadly Radioactive Fallout! Entomb Fukushima Now! http://www.change.org/petitions/end-fukushimas-deadly-radioactive-fallout-entomb-fukushima-now


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  • radegan

    Hmmm….so the fuel pool can only hold so much weight. It was designed to be filled, so clearly the structure is damaged and if you fill it to the top, it might collapse, so they limit it to so many tons of water a day. There’s a Hobson’s choice – too little water, it starts fission; too much water, the supports snap, or a weakened and cracked side wall gives way, and the pool collapses into a mess on the floor. Meanwhile, there’s that crack in the pool leaking out the water you put in, so the temp is rising and you can’t cool it by adding more water weight.


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  • 67Mopar

    This whole event has lost its “ZING”! Only a new explosion, or maybe another tsunami will keep me interested. I thought we were going to see people running around with their heads on fire and stuff? A huge reptilian creature rising from the depths of the ocean, blowing his white-hot radioactive breath on the unsuspecting cities below would have been a real treat! This hasn’t turned-out to be the huge catastrophe I thought it was going to be… It’s been a real let-down for sure. : – (


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  • 67Mopar

    Even Energy News is beginning to lose interest in this story I think. I told you; 60 days coverage at best – then it’s back to drinking beer, X-Box 360, and XNXX porno!


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    • Mothra

      And lo, class: Refer to holo record 678.43. The prevailing assumption of safety was the undoing of homo sapiens. They couldn’t see it, so they didn’t understand it. In the past, these events were preceded by dramatic explosions. The state authoritties were unprepared and lack of education coupled with profit motive, resistance to costs of remediation perpetuated psychological denial. Our ancestors had diversions to keep the masses pacified to ensure their own survival, an undistirbed revenue flow and decrease the competition for dwindling uncontaminated resources necessary for life – water and food at first. By the time public knowledge of the increased fatal cancers, decrease in live births and no longer ignorable disease and reproductive dysfunction had slowly manifested after latency, it was too late.

      For public response example, please refer to this comment record: 67Mopar April 28, 2011.


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    • Mothra

      You’ll also notice in media control strategy, by primetime news and prior each Sunday the information flow is decreased. Sundays are the editorial publication days. They also set the agenda for debate in the sucessive week. When you don’t want bad press, you tamp down disclosures by Thursday primetime and ramp up other news bylines. Trust me – there’s news: plutonium hit the US. It’s very heavy, but it’s here since mid-March with other officially unacknowledged news worthy radioactive contaminates: uranium and strontium. By not acknowledging their arrival, they don’t feel pressure to test and disclosure decreases further. But it’s still here and you’re drinking, breathing and eating it. No drama, just a quiet holocaust.


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  • Bob Rock

    Death is nature’s way of telling you to slow down. (Dutch proverb)


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  • curie-ous

    wow, there is NO coverage now in the major media outlets. Japan, where? Worst earthquake ever? Biggest Japanese death toll, financial, and infrastructure crisis since WWII. Tokyo is the most populated city in the world. And just the Worst Nuke accident in world history happening NOW!…

    That is beyond creepy. It leaves the impression that someone intentionally really doesn’t want the average person to have any warning or preparations… therefore, maybe preps may be even more effective than we realize, if they are trying to suppress them this much.


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    • Mothra

      The 6 corporations that own the MSM would be responsible for remediation and financial restitution for Fukushima damage. They also own the energy market and have sizeable investments over decades in future and present subsidized nuclear facilities before legislators they’ve donated money and time to. Why would you expect them to report on themselves? We’re talking about expecting them to risk trillions annually from taxpayers plus state military support and defense budgets to keep them in business for you to be notified that you’re at risk. The expectation that they or their paid legislators would disclose anything to you is irrational.


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      • 67Mopar

        Now you’re beginning to understand what fascism is all about! Not that I’m knocking it mind you… I’ll take fascism over communism any day of the week! At least with fascism there’s a better chance of having educated people placed into key positions – vs. a White House full of Rosie O’Donnell wanna-be’s, social workers and community organizers who wouldn’t know a debit from a credit!


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        • 67Mopar

          I’ll bet they know where to score some really good weed though!


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        • Mothra

          I’d prefer fascism to this – it’d be an upgrade. At least fascism seeks to promote the state it operates from – not this. We had fascism, but it devolved into global corporate despotism.


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        • Mothra

          It turns out that each governing model has it’s pros and cons within different systems. Education, healthcare and energy policy flourish under socialism. Communism collectively works for agriculture. Democracy works for regulation. Capitalism for industry and business innovation. Fascism works for defense. Despotism only works for despots at the expense of all other systems.


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      • curie-ous

        I agree that money is a major factor. Self-reporting & self-regulation doesn’t work.
        But, I think it’s more than that here. There is something really vengeful and deviant about this scenario.

        After all, what is the value of ALL the money in the world if it becomes radioactive and can injure and kill you and your loved ones/offspring? And where and on what can you spend such money safely with an eye to the future??? No more vacations to Hawaii, for starters!…

        Even the wealthiest top 1% CEOs who can protect their health will suffer greatly due to being lonely, empty, and having a far diminished quality of life if this ‘accident’ wrecks the world at large.

        Even the worst corporate profiteers strongly desire for their children to be healthy and able to fully enjoy life outdoors… EVERYONE loses here and money can’t buy your way out of the profound loss.


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  • curie-ous

    what they are not saying, is saying a lot to me!


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    • Mothra

      Yes. Fukushima is the biggest news of my lifetime. The lack of coverage in light of that is surreal and speaks volumes in what is not disclosed. We have to claw and scratch independently for anemic information that affects our lives signifigantly. Twilight Zone.


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  • xdrfox

    In the Chernobyl disaster zone, life and death is still bleak

    By SERGEI L. LOIKO
    Los Angeles Times
    Published: Sunday, Apr. 24, 2011
    Last Modified: Sunday, Apr. 24, 2011

    STARY VYSHKOV, Russia — STARY VYSHKOV, Russia-After Svetlana Ivanova and her husband moved to this village in southwestern Russia 17 years ago, they laughed when they found out what locals called the $4 monthly payment for living in the contaminated Chernobyl zone: funeral money.

    Then one warm spring afternoon three years ago, her husband, Pyotr Ivanov, came home from a job-seeking trip to Moscow, put on a clean white shirt, stepped out into the garden “for a smoke” and hanged himself.

    “I remembered this sad joke when I buried my husband,” she said. “I don’t think the….
    http://www.sacbee.com/2011/04/24/3575500/in-the-chernobyl-disaster-zone.html

    Japan’s Nuclear Nationalism
    Japan has pushed nuclear energy hard—at the expense of safety
    Shikha Dalmia | March 29, 2011

    Nuclear advocates are dismayed that radiation fears over Japan’s Fukushima plant might kill an industry that has a better safety track record than virtually any other. But the public in Japan and elsewhere has every right to question the safety of nuclear power that everywhere receives massive government support. The Japanese government, in particular, has aggressively pushed nuclear in its quest for energy independence, perverting with political considerations the market’s natural ability to take safety issues into account….
    http://reason.com/archives/2011/03/29/japans-nuclear-nationalism


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  • xdrfox

    WHY IS THERE A COVER-UP?

    Recently the Prime Minister Naoto Kan of Japan says:

    “From now on, people…should live life as normal,”

    and should

    “consume products from the areas that have been affected”

    in order to

    “support the area.”

    This statement was made about the same time Fukushima was reclassified as a level 7 accident, the same as Chernobyl. Who does he think he is kidding? Let’s go back to normal only weeks after Japan has experienced a nuclear major disaster?

    Still, we should not be surprised. The banks and companies behind the nuclear power industry are some of the biggest in the world, and in each country…
    http://www.presstorm.com/2011/04/the-great-fukushima-cover-up/#more-2707


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  • xdrfox

    Chernobyl, 25 Years Later It’s Not Over Yet
    By Michael Lemonick
    April 22, 2011
    On the morning of April 28, 1986, radiation detectors began spiking off the charts at the Forsmark nuclear power plant in the Uppland region in east-central Sweden. The obvious and terrifying initial conclusion: somehow, the plant’s safety systems had failed, releasing radioactive material into the surrounding environment. But as engineers ran one diagnostic after another, it quickly became clear that the problem lay elsewhere — and while the government tried to deny it at first, “elsewhere” was soon revealed to be Reactor no. 4 at the Chernobyl power plant near the town of Pripyat, in Ukraine, which was then part of the Soviet Union.

    Engineers at Chernobyl had been performing a…
    http://www.onearth.org/article/chernobyl-25-years-later-its-not-over-yet

    Chernobyl studies put USC scientist in demand

    Sunday, Apr. 24, 2011
    By SAMMY FRETWELL
    Tim Mousseau has run across a chilling pattern of death and sickness in the wildlife that once flourished at Chernobyl, site of the world’s worst nuclear accident.

    Twenty-five years after the disaster depleted animal populations in the northern Ukraine, many species near Chernobyl remain scarce — and of the wildlife that still exists, many animals suffer from tumors, deformities and genetic damage, according to research by the USC scientist.

    Now, Mousseau’s findings, once ignored by…
    http://www.thestate.com/2011/04/24/1790611/chernobyl-studies-put-usc-scientist.html


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  • 67Mopar

    Amerika! Amerika!


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  • Dan

    The info comes out in dribs and drabs and can be confusing to piece together the enormity of this. This is a nuclear plant 40 YEARS OLD. But they stored ALL of the nuclear waste at that site for 40 years now and did not even protect it with a containment dome? By now, “1,535 fuel rods”? What were they thinking?? That we are the power company so how can OUR electricity (for the cooling system) go down? How can our three back-up systems fail? Well, they lost their own electricity and all three back-up systems failed. Now it sounds like there is enough “spent fuel” (= nuclear waste) in reactor 4 alone to fry the world many times over. Are we headed for a nuclear winter without even having gone through a war? Is this the truth of it? Can any be more forthcoming??


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    • bluejayway

      What were they thinking?? That we are the power company so how can OUR electricity (for the cooling system) go down? How can our three back-up systems fail?

      that is an open question, but the preliminary and/or sketchy information is that the fuel tanks for the back-up generators were destroyed/washed-away by the tsunami.

      Idiotic Placement Of Fuel Tanks Doomed Fukushima
      By BRUCE UPBIN
      This satellite photo of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant before and after the quake/tsunami tells a damning story. The red box shows where the fuel tanks for the entire site were placed, powering the generators counted on to pump water into reactors and spent-rod wells to keep the rods from overheating and going critical. Only a dike separated the tanks from the wrath of the ocean. What kind of genius planners locate fuel tanks at the edge of a tsunami-prone sea? We’re talking a matter of yards here. A small shed a few meters behind the tanks was left unharmed. This whole disaster was compounded 100x by bad design.

      Fukushima Simple Explanation

      before – after satellite photos fukushima reactors


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  • xdrfox

    @ Dan
    Things will continue to deteriorate and more accumulation will be the rule of the days ahead, risk assessment will also be higher per day, going through life at any normalcy will be exposure of the particles per square yard in air and on ground water increasing daily ! It is said 70 Billion particles have been released so far.
    http://www.renseradio.com/listenlive.htm


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  • Thomas Wells

    Nuclear FOOL rods.


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  • Rose

    Yeah…fools for buying all the lies that nuclear power is clean energy. Yeah, clean until something goes wrong! Clean until it creates the worst toxic radioactive waste imaginable! Yeah, clean alright! The two words shouldn’t even be used in the same sentence. ALL nuclear power plants should be shut down, and OUTLAWED from this day forward!!! IMHO…
    Well people, guess we didn’t realize they ARE waging nuclear war on the world afterall, and we’ve been waiting for a mushroom cloud….


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  • It will cost a lot of money but can’t we de-enrich all these fuel rods (from every nuclear plant and send them up on BIG rockets for a one-way trip to the centre of the sun?


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  • Moonshelblu

    Does anyone know if the gauge for reactor one is broken as the dose is off the charts:http://atmc.jp/plant/rad/ go to separate dose for unit one. Just curious.


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  • Moonshelblu

    I guess this is the reason:Reactor 4 overheating, losing water, 70% of fuel rods in Reactor 1 damaged
    Posted on April 25, 2011 by Aaron Hutchins| Leave a comment
    TEPCO also says that Fukushima Daiichi’s reactor 1 is more damaged than thought. They believe that 70% of reactor 1′s fuel rods are damaged, and they are having trouble maintaining water levels. They have been injecting water at a rate of 6 tons per hour. TEPCO wants to try building a new heat exchanger building, to cool the water they are injecting. In fact TEPCO is having major problems keeping all the reactors cool


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  • They need to give up on the nuclear reactor idea, they’ve proved themselves incapable of running one. Just construct a custom-built nuclear fuel rod cooling plant on nearby abandoned irradiated land, and start moving the fuel rods to it once it’s commissioned.


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    • Moonshelblu

      We all need to start building Thorium LFTRs which would eat up the nasty spent fuel rods and can be shut down not melt down. Why are we not using this technology. Could it be Money?


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  • Rose

    What is being done here is nothing short of criminal. These reactors should be buried immediately! Is it just me, or do these reactors seem to have been placed strategically? Someone had to know if they went, or WHEN they went, the U.S. is directly downwind, and would receive large amounts of life altering radioactive fallout. From this point on, our water, food and air will be polluted with these poisonous elements. We all know what this means. What are we to do? Go out and dance in the rain? “The bread basket of the world,” destroyed in one fell swoop, and who will feed us? But we HAVE to eat, so we will eat our poisonour fare, and our children, their lives changed forever. Yeah, we can bury our heads in the sand, and pretend nothing is happening, and you’re right! Nothing is happening, they are letting this thing spin out of control for a reason. Just like everything else, few things of this magnitide happen by, or are left to chance without a diabolical reason. This elusive enemy whom we cannot see, taste, or smell, will sooner or later affect the entire planet!!!


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    • tony wilson

      rose…
      i am sure if it is as bad as you say it would be on the news.
      if it was that bad you would have the us army and navy working with the japanese mobilized forces.
      you would have a massive command and control centre at Kadena Air Base.
      where the greatest minds in the industry would gather to work out a plan.
      using hundreds of robots using real time video streaming.
      at chernobyl the scientists,military and nuclear engineers stayed in the town near the reactor.

      if this was serious you would not have these guys leaving japan.
      because they have know work to do as things are a ok.

      Chemical Biological Incident Response Force
      http://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/earthquake-disaster-in-japan/marine-corps-nuclear-team-wraps-up-mission-in-japan-1.141944

      and if it was serious and effected the usa surely barry obama your rather disconnected golf loving president would have said something.
      with a tear in his eye he would have given one of those rousing my fellow americans we will prevail speeches.
      the japanese government and tepco executives have assured us president Barry Soetoro (obama) that everything is a ok.
      not to worry cos things can and are getting better day by day.
      the steam and water release is a natural healthy occurrence in the life of the biosphere.
      obama asked you to believe in change,he asked you to embrace hope,throw off the shackles Cynicism and doubt.
      change has come my friends but it is the slow lingering dna affecting kind.

      I don’t take a dime of their [lobbyist] money, and when I am president, they won’t find a job in my White House.
      Barack Obama

      It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to where we are today, but we have just begun. Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today.
      Barack Obama : )


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  • todd

    @Rose
    They can’t bury them.


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  • Rose

    We are in dire trouble…….


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  • Jack

    Thank You Mothra for the Gary Null Fallout PDF. http://www.laka.org/docu/boeken/pdf/6-01-4-80-46.pdf
    ———
    I need to follow my own advice as I urge evrybody to make
    hard copies of all these valuable documents.
    We need records of what has happened, and these valuable
    replies and discussions reveal great info for Health, Food, survival.
    We are going to need these printed out. This is some of the most
    valuable publishing that could possibly be printed for a future
    without corporate power generation.


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  • Rose

    By golly Tony Wilson, I think you’re right!
    Okay everybody….
    BREATHE DEEPLY, BREATHE VERY, VERY DEEPLY!
    And remember kids, eat your veggies and drink your milk!!!
    Cos this is as good as it gets!!!

    If you haven’t seen it yet, have a look on youtube at a video called, You won’t hear this on mainstream news!!! (Nuclear Fallout)


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