The Solution That Might Save Japan and the World From Radiation

Hetep and Respect Curtis interesting find.

The bad guys created this death to humanity for profit that last for a million years. Now we learn that their is something (nature trying to correct human error) that can make it less dangerous and the experts have been studying it for years but did not bother to tell us.

Now these would not be the same Republican criminal corporation that do not want us to Win The Future by going green in America.

I think I just got one of my top ten issues for the 2012 Election.

4. Ban the building of Nuclear Plants in America (launch win/solar grid system)

Hi Curtis -- thanks for this interesting article. I've forwarded it to some progressive scientists and ecology activists to find out more about it. Although this may turn out to be a hopeful find, as you know I am especially wary and on the lookout (ahead of time) for unexpected consequences. (See Edward Tenner's great book on that subject of Unexpected Consequences) .... In the meantime, I've almost completed a long article on Fukushima. Here's a section on President Obama and his relationship to the nuclear industry (pretty much the same as George Bush's). - Mitchel

THE “OBAMA CONNECTION”

The nuclear nightmare is entirely man-made and profit driven. There is nothing “natural” about it. It is the result not just of technology gone “inexplicably” haywire but, predictably, of a certain kind of technology --- a centralized, metered and capitalist technology, very expensive but made economically profitable only due to a boatload of government subsidies to the nuclear industry.¹

And yet, even amidst the current catastrophe, and even as the radical government of Venezuela halts its nuclear program,² the U.S. government is dead-set on constructing new nuclear power plants. Like Wall Street brokerage house Goldman Sachs, nuclear reactor operator Exelon Corporation -- one of the largest employers in Illinois where Obama was Senator (a state that gets approximately half of its electricity from nuclear power, more than any other state) -- was one of Barack Obama's big­gest campaign donors. The company donated over $269,000 to his political campaigns.

The company currently runs 10 operable reactors at six sites. The Quad-cities Nuclear Power Plant, located on the banks of the Mississippi River, is a GE Mark-1 plant, with the identical design and nearly the same age as the Fukushima reactors. Exelon barely averted disaster at its Braidwood nuke in Joliet, IL last year -- caused by several problems that they had refused to correct, including a poor design that led to repeated floods in buildings housing safety equipment, a poor design that allowed vented steam to rip metal siding off containment walls, and undersized electrical fuses for vital safety equipment, according to the NRC.³

As candidate for president, Obama knew about the deadly dangers of nuclear power. “I start off with the premise that nuclear energy is not optimal and so I am not a nuclear energy proponent,” Obama said at a campaign stop in Newton, Iowa on December 30, 2007. “My general view is that until we can make certain that nuclear power plants are safe. ... I don’t think that’s the best option. I am much more interested in solar and wind and bio-diesel and strategies [for] alternative fuels.”⁴

As he told the editorial board of the Keene Sentinel in New Hampshire on November 25, 2007: “I don’t think there’s anything that we inevitably dislike about nuclear power. We just dislike the fact that it might blow up …and irradiate us … and kill us. That’s the problem.” But as president, he hired a nuclear power proponent out of the national nuclear laboratory system, Steven Chu, as his energy secretary. Chu, who had been director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, minimizes -- indeed denies -- the impacts of radioactivity, as do many of the atomic physicists in the national laboratory system. Obama’s two top White House aides, meanwhile, had been deeply involved with what is now the utility operating more nuclear power plants than any other in the U.S., Exelon, Inc. Rahm Em­an­u­el, his former chief of staff, was an investment banker central to the $8.2 billion corporate merger in 1999 that produced Exelon. David Axelrod, senior advisor and chief political strategist, was an Exelon PR consultant. Frank M. Clark, who runs ComEd, helped advise Obama before he ran for President and is one of Obama's largest fundraisers. Candidate Obama received sizable contributions from Exel­on executives including John Rowe, its president and chief executive officer who, in 2007, also became chairman of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear industry’s main trade group. As Forbes magazine wrote, “Ties are tight between Exelon and the Obama administration,” noting Exelon's political contributions and Emanuel’s and Axelrod’s Exelon links.⁵

Upon becoming President, Obama appointed Exelon CEO John Rowe to his Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Energy Future.

Not surprisingly, given who funded his campaigns, as president Obama betrayed his campaign statements and began promoting “safe, clean nuclear power.” He pushed for multi-billion dollar taxpayer subsidies for the construction of new nuclear plants, and made them a central part of his energy policy. He now proposes allocating $36 billion in federal loan guarantees to jump-start the construction of new nuclear reactors. Unfortunately, he has maneuvered some who have argued fervently for the need to cut greenhouse gas emissions and to reduce or reverse global warming, such as NASA scientist James Hansen, into supporting his pro-nuclear policies by falsely posing “nukes vs. coal/oil” as the only option. Opponents of nuclear power argue, in contrast, for funding and development of sustainable energy alternatives and not for expansion of oil or coal-burning power plants.

The Nuclear Energy Institute praises legislation that would facilitate the development of a new round of small, scalable nuclear reactors. The legislation, sponsored by Democrats as well as Republicans,

was introduced March 8 in the U.S. Senate. The Nuclear Power 2021 Act (S. 512) was introduced by Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.), along with Sens. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Mark Pryor (D-Ark.). The legislation directs the Secretary of Energy to implement programs to develop and demonstrate two reactor designs, one fewer than 300 megawatts of electric generating capacity and the other fewer than 50 mega­watts. This public-private, cost-shared program would facilitate the design certification by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of two small reactor designs by the end of 2017 and the licensing of the reactors by the end of 2020.⁶

Even as the nuclear nightmare plays out in Japan, the President, the nuclear industry and its proponents in Congress bull ahead, disregarding the potential for causing global catastrophic events. Just as former President George W. Bush increased allowable arsenic in drinking water, the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) reports that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under Obama “is preparing to dramatically increase permissible radioactive releases in drinking water, food and soil,” in preparation for what they are calling 'radiological incidents.'⁷

This is taking place without announcement entirely behind closed doors, warns PEER, because this plan is considered 'guidance' and does not require public notice as a normal regulation would. The radiation guides (called Protective Action Guides or PAGs) “are protocols for responding to radiological events ranging from nuclear power-plant accidents to 'dirty' bombs.” Under the new guides, drinking water, for example, would allow a huge increase in public exposure to radioactivity, including

• A nearly 1000-fold increase in strontium-90;

• A 3000 to 100,000-fold hike for iodine-131; and

• An almost 25,000 rise for nickel-63.

The new radiation guidance would also allow long-term cleanup standards thousands of times more lax than anything EPA has ever before accepted, permitting doses to the public that EPA itself estimates would cause a cancer in as much as every fourth person exposed.⁸ These relaxations of radiation protection requirements are favored by the nuclear industry and allies in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Energy Department.

1Just because nuclear power was used by the former Soviet Union and is widespread in China, etc., does not make it less of a “capitalist technology.” Some discussion of that concept can be found in Mitchel Cohen, The Capitalist Infesto: Is Marx's Critique of Science and Technology Radical Enough?, Red Balloon Pamphlets, 2010. Also (separately) please note that the designer of the Fukushima nuclear reactors as well as many here in the U.S., the General Electric Company, paid no taxes at all in 2010 even though it made billions in profits.

2Venezuela is suspending development of a nuclear power program following the catastrophe at a nuclear complex in Japan, President Hugo Chavez announced. Reuters, March 16, 2011. Venezuela “had hoped that a planned Russian-built nuclear power plant would provide 4,000 megawatts (MW) and be ready in about a decade. But Chavez said events in Japan showed the risks associated with nuclear power were too great. 'For now, I have ordered the freezing of the plans we have been developing ... for a peaceful nuclear program,' he said during a televised meeting with Chinese investors.”

3Union of Concerned Scientists, op cit.

4Karl Grossman, “Behind the Hydrogen Explosion at the Fukushima Nuclear Plant,”

5Jonathan Fahey, “The President’s Utility,” Forbes, January 18, 2010. Rahm Emanuel “was hired by Rowe to help broker the $8.2 billion deal between Unicom and Peco when Emanuel was at the investment bank Wasserstein Perella (now Dresdner Kleinwort). In his two-year career there Emanuel earned $16.2 million, according to congressional disclosures. His biggest deal was the Exelon merger.”

6“NEI Welcomes Senators' Legislation to Advance Development of Small Reactors,” Nuclear Energy Institute, March 09, 2011.

7Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), “Radiation Exposure Debate Rages Inside EPA,” April 5, 2011, news/news_id.php?row_id=1325

8ibid. Also, Brian Moench, MD, “Radiation: Nothing to See Here?”, Truthout, March 25, 2011 -- a popular compilation of the dangers of radiation.

Radiation good; human race bad.

Considering the amount of radiation there already is I don't think even a world effort could make this feasible.