Published: March 11th, 2012 at 12:38 am ET
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Title: Greg Palast – The Lies and Fraud Behind Nuclear Plants
Upload Date: March 6, 2012
At 7:45 in
- A tsunami crashed through and destroyed the emergency diesel generators at Fukushima, that’s why it melted down, who could have expected that?
- Except its not true.
- Go and look at Google Earth and see where the generators are. They were no more wet than the washroom here at 80 St. Marks.
- I wouldn’t go in barefoot, but you don’t need a swimming suit.
- They made it up
- Why did they fail?
- The answer was they commit suicide
- Emergency diesel generators taken off of old cruise ships
[See report below for more]
Title: Tokyo Electric to Build US Nuclear Plants
Source: Greg Palast
Date: March 14, 2011
I need to speak to you, not as a reporter, but in my former capacity as lead investigator in several government nuclear plant fraud and racketeering investigations. [...]
These safety back-up systems are the ‘EDGs’ in nuke-speak: Emergency Diesel Generators. That they didn’t work in an emergency is like a fire department telling us they couldn’t save a building because “it was on fire.” [...]
Back in the day, when we checked the emergency back-up diesels in America, a mind-blowing number flunked. At the New York nuke, for example, the builders swore under oath that their three diesel engines were ready for an emergency. They’d been tested. The tests were faked, the diesels run for just a short time at low speed. When the diesels were put through a real test under emergency-like conditions, the crankshaft on the first one snapped in about an hour, then the second and third. We nicknamed the diesels, “Snap, Crackle and Pop.”
(Note: Moments after I wrote that sentence, word came that two of three diesels failed at the Tokai Station as well.)
Read the report here
Published: March 11th, 2012 at 12:38 am ET
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Spectacular. Old cruise ships, eh? Well, THOSE are bound to be workhorses when you need 'em… not.
Got me wondering again which plant it was that got the rating "upgrade" from NRC and bought Sheron-Harris' old generator (Siemens was running a great nuclear flea market at the time). Sheron-Harris in turn bought TMI2's old generator after it had been sitting idle for more than 30 years in the middle of the Susquehanna River. I'm sure they got a hell (and I mean that literally) of a deal on it…
http://www.southernstudies.org/2010/01/nc-nuclear-plant-gets-deal-on-meltdown-era-three-mile-island-generator.html
What could possibly go wrong?
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You hear that North Carolina? Your lives are dependent on a God damn yard sale generator!!
Shut em all down NOW!
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Cash for Clunkers!
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If people's lives weren't depending on those generators I'd laugh. When lives depend on your engine starting you buy a new engine, you don't buy second hand. This is incredible and it shows just what a total disregard for safety the industry has. It says it all. The last line of defence standing between North Carolina and melt down is a clapped out second hand generator from a previous melt down.
Wake up America! The Nuclear industry may destroy you like it has Japan. How can you trust these guys? North Carolina may be the next Fukushima.
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Go, Palast!
The reality of this never gets any better, does it? It only seems to get worse.
Sadists. They must get pleasure from others' pain, as they are so very thorough in creating the conditions that produce that pain.
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NoNukes, there is another way of describing these #*^@#!…if…..you don't mind me saying so sir…..
"Hellbound"
( HellRaiser )
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Everything out of the mouth of TEPCO and the Japanese government this past year has been a lie. Everything. When will they be held accountable by the people of Japan and the world?
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I forwarded this material in another format in the past.
Palast is bar none, the best investigative journalist left on the planet still in the pay of a major mainstream media outlet.
Everybody needs to see his work and this disclosure.
Also a video called A is for Atom, which you can find on the internet, was a documentary produced by Adam Curtis years ago and ran on BBC, Palasts tie to mainstream media, also underscores the inane insanity of nuclear power and, in particular, it underscores how engineers knew since minute one, that despite the redundancy built into back up systems there were anomolies that could not be protected against when things go wrong and that most of the redundant back ups were incapable of preventing particular problems if ever being effective at all.
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Actually, there is one thing that Pallast missed. Its been reported here on Enenews last year that eye witness accounts from workers present during the Fukushima quake say that pipes burst, radiation was released and the plant started melting down immediately after the quake and before the Tsunami hit. Cooling pipes had already ruptured. So even if their generators had worked, at least one of the reactors was finished anyway. There were explosions before the Tsunami hit and elevated radiation was detected a km a way before the Tsunami hit. Long before the Tsunami arrived workers were clambering over the perimeter fence expecting the site to blow due to the ruptured pipes and explosions early on. All just earthquake induced. Nothing to do with flooding, and even if the clapped out generators that likely would never work had been any good, it was too late. If your cooling system doesn't hold water you can have all the backup diesel generators in the world and it won't help you.
Fascinating that Pallast reckons the generators were in an area that would have been unaffected by the flooding. The Tsunami right through has been a convenient excuse to blame anything on. Next thing you know they'll be blaming that Tsunami for the global financial crisis, or the bankster bail outs, or the decline in the education system, or crime rates. Yep, that Tsunami caused a lot of problems.
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Whether it was the case at Fuku or not, Pallast's declarations are very important anti-nuke argument. If the plants depend on a constant energy source, and if the source is knocked out by a solar storm, tornado, hurricane, earthquake, hacker, over loaded power grid, etc. and he is saying that the back up energy source is very unrelyable,then we can either fight to shut them all down or count our days and those of our children…cause these events will happen.
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When caught out like this they can always say "now we've fixed it", now we've fixed the generator, or "now we've made it earthquake safe". It seems the problems are more than just technical though. This is an industry that consistently fakes safety records, falsifies data and consistently lies to cover up problems, safety breaches, bad maintenance, you name it.
When these big corporations get caught lying, they need to lose everything and guys need to go to jail. Without that, nothing will change. These nuke companies consistently lie, and they need to be shut down. They cannot be trusted to maintain safety, so they should not operate. Its that simple. They need to be made an example of and their executives need to start facing the death penalty over safety breaches. Actually, they need to lose everything financially as well. A clear message has to be sent. An example needs to be made. Without that, the lies and deception will continue until America has a Fukushima event.
The point is, we can argue over safety and back up systems, and breaches of rules. But there is also the matter of corruption and lies. The latter cannot be fixed. If you have crooks running an industry, that can only be sorted out by removing them. The corruption is so widespread and so serious, the industry needs to be shut down. Aside from its destroying the genome, and aside from it being the most expensive form of power generation, its not an industry that is safe in private hands.
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Yes, they are completely corrupt, and yes, the nuclear industry needs to be shut down.
But get this straight: this industry is almost wholly government owned. See the article about the Simi Valley plant (http://enenews.com/los-angeles-area-meltdown-cesium-137-up-to-1000-times-higher-than-standard-plutonium-also-detected-between-chatsworth-and-simi-valley) that mentions the owner is the Department of Energy (along with Boeing, see why below).
Also it's government that waves the insurance requirements for nuke plants (the 1955 law was mentioned here on ENENews a few days ago). No insurance company would cover a nuke plant, so the government just steps in and waves the requirement! How corrupt is that?
TEPCO and Boeing are just a facade, a means to extract all the profits for a few individuals with the state's complicity, while everybody else gets to pay for the losses.
The crooks running the nuclear industry are the same one running the government, and the whole thing is corrupt because giving a group of people power over everyone else is a bad idea. Read some Rothbard, he explains it well.
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President Eisenhower – Farewell Warning About Military Industrial Complex http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2012/08/president-eisenhower-farewell-warning.html
The Art of Deception: The Cult of Nuclearists, Uranium Weapons and Fraudulent Science; via A Green Road
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2012/03/primer-in-art-of-deception-cult-of.html
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Or a terrorist with a $20 steel chain from Sears flinging it onto the primary substation….well, it really is that easy, although there probably is some security, yet a determine individual who isn't scared of death…just saying, this nuke stuff is a joke.
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Contributing to the height of the tsunami is the fact that Japan's eastern coast sank from the earthquake and the many landfills along the coast of Japan liquified.
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Actually there are so many interesting things in that video and another story on Pallast's site its hard to know where to start. If US Nuke companies will pay staff off to lie about passing earthquake tests and Pallast caught a company out due to honest guys blowing the whistle, how many plants have employed guys who weren't that honest? Remember Tepco had already been in trouble for faking safety records and they only got caught out over that due to a whistle blower working for an American contractor.
You can bet Nuke plants all over the place are simply time bombs and safety systems are just window dressing.
Then there was Pallast's comments about the fraudulent charging for non existent spare parts. Where do you start? When you deal with companies that dishonest, how on earth can you trust them to build something that has to be 100% safe or it could wipe out a nation? Obviously you cannot trust them with that sort of responsibility. No private corporation can be trusted with that. Its simply not logical to do so. How can the US Govt use those same fraudsters to build a new generation of nuclear suicide vests? They should be in jail, not receiving billions of dollars of government money. If these revelations are not enough to stop the latest round of Nuclear power plant building going ahead then the US government is run by the corporations and not the other way around.
This industry may well be the final nail in America's coffin. Sadly, its already pushing Japan into the incinerator down at the crematorium. The whole board of directors of those companies should be in jail. I'd go further. They should be facing the death penalty. Lying about safety systems in a Nuclear Power Plant is tantamount to mass murder. Sooner or later it will cause mass casualties.
The head guys of Shaw Construction and TEPCO should be facing the death penalty. Anything less is not true justice.
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How do you think WE can stop these crazy individuals from continuing to destroy the planet? What do we need to do?
I would rather die fighting the nuclear industry than die from the radiation it produces.
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+1,000 many moons!!!
I'll go Ya one more,….I'd rather FORCE them to shoot me 'going after them', than LET them kill me (like they are), and get away with it, (like they are). In the later death,….it will NEVER be attributed to them. In the former,…death would at least have HONESTY!
Give me honesty, or give me death!
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+1,000 Both many moons & StillJill…
The Masque of Anarchy
"Stand ye calm and resolute,
Like a forest close and mute,
With folded arms and looks which are
Weapons of unvanquished war.
And if then the tyrants dare,
Let them ride among you there,
Slash, and stab, and maim and hew,
What they like, that let them do.
With folded arms and steady eyes,
And little fear, and less surprise
Look upon them as they slay
Till their rage has died away
Then they will return with shame
To the place from which they came,
And the blood thus shed will speak
In hot blushes on their cheek.
Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you-
Ye are many — they are few"
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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ALERT – Japan Is Beginning To Break Apart And Sink – Liquification – Evacuate Now.mp4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6dxP-tbJCg
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Part of the earthquake caused the sinking of the Japanese archipelago
http://poleshift.ning.com/profiles/blogs/part-of-the-earthquake-caused
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Yes Anne,…didn't 'we' here see a video recently of that very thing? The low parts now,…in Japan, are sucking (sink-hole like),…sucking the plates, earthern matter, etc,….and it is said that, that will cause the higher ground to topple over like a top heavy lady,…..spilling the whole Maryanne into the Pacific.
It sounds pretty LOGICAL to me. I don't want ANYONE to die that way!
Evacuate now,…pretty please! Make it an adventure. Tell yourself one last little lie,…"Hey, let's go on a six month vacation to,….", K? K!
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I really liked Pallast's work on the 2000 election, but here he is not helping the cause with his lack of facts and conspiracy theories. He may have seen the plant on Goggle Earth, but 30 years ago I used to watch the sun come up over the ocean every morning after my shift there. The plant is very close to sea level with very little protection from the sea. The emergency generators would be expected to be flooded with a large tsunami at their location (and that design is stupid).The generators did not come from some cruise ship, and him using one lone phone source is not sound reporting. And they test the hell out of them all the time, and it is very rare for them to fail.
I do not argue with sound factual arguments, and after seeing Fukushima I agree we need to shut them all down. But that cause is not helped with this kind of irrational and untruthful reporting. It is difficult for many people to understand that unsound beliefs and arguments hurt the anti nuclear cause greatly and create doubt about valid and truthful points. Let the hate come.
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Nuke emergency diesels are 'tested' by turning them on for a few minutes at low power.
Emergency nuke generators are not designed to work in an emergency at full power.
Paraphrased from 'Vulture's Picnic', Greg Palast, pp. 294-297.
Apparently true for all nuke plants, according to Palast.
If for no other reason, get the book just to read Chapter 10. Everything else is just a free extra.
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Filthy liars.
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Pants on FIRE !
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Mega Quake predicted in 11 days? This does not sound very good and is the world's Nuclear Reactors prepared if this "Mega Quake Prediction" occurs?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdqimuL-ZoM&feature=youtu.be
The US sites and some are on that there Madrid Fault line too.
http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/reactor-map/embedded-flash-map.html
Spread the word…
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@obewanspeaks, prepare, preparation, what's that? TEPCO: All the nuclear power plants were put together according to the directions on the side of the box!
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Nuclear power gets such a bad rap. There isn't one shred of evidence that proves radiation has caused any cancers or diseases. It's all speculation. It never harmed anyone just do your research. They are already claiming that there has not been one death reported as a result of radiation attributed to the Fukushima Daiichi explosions but the the deaths were tsunami related!
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Chernobyl Mutations
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRrBU2rF-2s
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You should check out this forum on Enenews.com
FORUM: Effects of low level radiation
http://enenews.com/forum-effects-of-low-level-radiation
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Chernobyl Heart [article and video]
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/chernobyl-heart/
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Interview With Prof. Dr. Busby And Leuren Moret – Fallujah, Fukushima And The Global Radiation Catastrophe … And The Fascist New World Order
February 2012 interview.
http://nwopodcast.com/fetz/media/jim%20fetzer%20real%20deal-moret%20busby%202012.mp3
http://www.infiniteunknown.net/2012/02/23/interview-with-prof-dr-busby-and-leuren-moret-fallujah-fukushima-and-the-global-radiation-catastrophe-and-the-fascist-new-world-order/
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Have you volunteered to help with the clean up at Fukushima Daiichi?
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The Concept of Genetic Load:
"If our hereditary burden is maintained by recurrent mutation, any permanent increase in current radiation levels would proportionately increase such ill effects eventually…." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1932396/pdf/ajhg00553-0084.pdf
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Conservation consequences of Chernobyl and other nuclear accidents
19 October 2011
“Given that each slightly deleterious mutation is expected to result in a selective genetic death, and that an average fruitfly under normal conditions may carry as many as 80 mutations, the number of mutations in animals and plants around Chernobyl and hence the number of selective deaths is bound to be much higher. There is empirical evidence for highly elevated mortality rates and dramatically increased rates of reproductive failure in contaminated areas, consistent with the expected high frequency of selective deaths due to mutations. The average slightly deleterious mutation is present for 33–167 generations in Drosophila, so if these estimates are qualitatively similar in other organisms, we can expect that mutants will disperse outside contaminated areas resulting in the spread of mutations well beyond the reach of contamination with radionuclides. Therefore, it should be possible to document the gradual spread of mutations from Chernobyl. We consider that the Chernobyl disaster and other nuclear releases may have significant consequences for population size and population viability of many species due to the large number of selective deaths. These effects remain to be investigated. Finally, comparative analyses of birds revealed that species with high mitochondrial DNA substitution rates had short dispersal distances, suggesting that mutations will spread relatively short distances when they are common, but will spread longer distances in species when they are rare….”
http://cricket.biol.sc.edu/chernobyl/papers/Moller-Mousseau-BC-2011.pdf
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Good job ladies and gentlemen, nothing like negative reinforcement to get get the right response!
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I just want to correct a factual error he made. Exelon, not the Southern Company, is the largest nuclear company in the country:
http://www.exeloncorp.com/energy/generation/nuclear.aspx
Since I live downwind of their home state of Illinois, I am not at all happy about this fact.
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