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The Canadian newspaper The Beacon is reporting that following recent media reports that radiation saturation has doubled local farms attempted to get their soil tested for nuclear fallout to be sure that the food that they are selling is safe.
Much to the surprise of the newspaper and the farmers private testing companies, government agencies and universities all refuse to test the soil or get involved on any level.
The newspaper points out that the refusal is particularly shocking following reports that [color=limegreen]Japan has admitted to covering up the amount of radiation released from the Fukushima nuclear power plant, now admitting to 100% nuclear meltdown in 3 nuclear reactors and a radiation release comparable to Chernobyl levels.
The Beacon says [color=limegreen]while no government radiation tests have been conducted, the Canadian health department insists that everything is fine and is there is no cause for concern.
Health Canada says no worries
Farmers in Central Newfoundland who were open to having their land tested for radiation contamination, will not have this work done by government agencies and private companies in Newfoundland and Labrador.
(...)
In the June 2 edition of The Beacon, it was discussed how the release of radiation from the Fukushima plant in Japan could potentially be poisoning Canadian soil, and possibly central Newfoundland. [color=limegreen]Evidence from various radiation monitors and news reports have shown that it has become a worldwide issue, and given that the airspace is shared, Canada and the U.S. have been directly affected as well.
Even though local farmers have not tested their soil and water, Nita Abbott of LA Farms, near Gambo, expressed an interest in having her land tested to ensure they’re selling a safe product.
The newspaper contacted private testing companies, government agencies, and universities to inquire if they would consider testing local farms. All of them said they were not interested in getting involved at any level.
Health Canada also reported that everything is normal.
Even though no official testing has been done in central Newfoundland, Ms. Abbott speculated, “I guess they feel they don’t have evidence to take it further.”
Worldwide concern
Even though central Newfoundland is considered safe, reports by numerous media establishments have shown that radiation saturation has doubled recently. According to a CNN report, Arnie Gundersen, Chief Nuclear Engineer, said hot particles are showing up in North America.
(...)
Nuclear engineers have also been finding hot particles or fuel fleas, which can cause cancer, around the world.
In Tokyo in April, measurements indicated that there are about 10 hot particles a day, which is a high level of concern in what a normal person would breathe.
[color=limegreen]In Seattle, for instance, it went down to about five hot particles a day, which can lodge into lung tissue, the digestive tract or bone, and over time can cause cancer.
(...)
Media reports south of the border suggest that Japan was downplaying the severity long after people were being affected.
To this, Health Canada is insisting there is no cause for concern.
...Michio Kaku: In the last two weeks, everything we knew about that accident has been turned upside down.
We were told three partial melt downs, "... don’t worry about it."
Now we know it was 100 percent core melt in all three reactors.
"Radiation minimal that was released."
Now we know it was comparable to radiation at Chernobyl.
And as far as evacuation, (we were told), 12 miles and that is it. You don’t have to evacuate more than 12 miles.
Now they find hotspots, 4 hot spots, outside the evacuation zone. 34,000 school children now have radiation badges when they go to school....
Fukushima ‘still a ticking time bomb’
(...)
CNN: As a reported within hours of the earthquake and Tsunami, with hours not even a day, there were already statements from the company (TEPCO) and International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) saying there had been safe shut down of all reactors and we know now of course in the end that simply wasn’t true. But from the very beginning they were trying to tell us that this was a safe situation.
Kaku: Within hours of the accident we now know it was like the Keystone Cops.
People that are clueless, headless, just running around crazy, not knowing what to do.
We can now reconstruct that accident minute by minute, hour by hour and we can see this chaos that erupted in the leadership ability.
CNN: What is happening to the people that are working there now?
Kaku: Well, as you know, workers are getting sent in and they are getting a years worth of radiation within just 10 minutes at a time.
At Chernobyl 600,000 workers had to be mobilized. Each one going in for just a few minutes and each one getting a medal from Gorbachev.
CNN: This Will Be A Hundred Year Cleanup? How long with this take to cleanup in your view?
Kaku: 50 to 100 years.
CNN: And we are not there yet. We are not even to the point of talking about the cleanup yet because they haven’t stopped the reaction.
It is still happening.
Kaku: Clean up hasn’t even started yet. They are not even looking at getting to cold shutdown until next year.
Cold shutdown is when boiling stops. There is boiling water right there at the reactor releasing radiation into the environment and releasing radiation into gigantic vats.
CNN: How are they storing and disposing of this stuff?
Kaku: That is the killer (pun intended?) because we have all of these vats that are filling up now and they may have to dump it into the ocean again. At that point the Chinese, the Koreans, the fisherman they get up all in arms because there is so much damage [ to the reactor cores] that every time you put water (into the reactors to cool the fuel rods that are melting down) it just leaks right out again, highly radioactive, and it is filling up at the site right now.
CNN: So what do they do with it?
Kaku: Right now, they are just counting the gallons as they pile up desperately trying to bring more vats in but once they saturate they are going to have to dump and at that point it is another crisis.
CNN: Lets talk about the radiation in the environment, in the atmosphere.
We have been told that it would be measurable but a miniscule amount on the US West Coast and around the world?
Is that true?
Kaku: It is still minimal around the world (based on what we are being told from government reported radiation readings). Most of the damage is concentrated within 20 to 50 miles of the reactor. That is where we have the hotspots, that is where we have 20 times normal amounts of (annual adult) radiation (limits) in school yards outside of the evacuation zone.
Kaku: But in New York City, (based off government released radiation measurements) you can actually see it in the milk. You can actually see it has iodine, 131, actually spiked a little bit in our milk in New York City, but it is very small.
CNN: Just even hearing that, though, even hearing that you can detect it, that there’s a catastrophe, the worst industrial catastrophe in history, we can see it in milk in New York, that’s frightening.
Kaku: That’s right. This could be the grand daddy of all industrial accidents topping Chernobyl at $200 billion, topping the Gulf Oil Spill at $15 billion, topping the Columbia and Challenger disasters out in space at about $10 billion.
This could be the world record holder for an industrial accident.
Kaku: Realize Chernobyl was one core’s worth radiation causing a $200 billion accident and it is still on going.
Here we have 20 cores worth of radiation.
Three totally melted, one damaged and the (rest in) spent fuel pools, 20 cores worth of highly radioactive materials.
...
GoneToPlaid
"Ticking time bomb" is correct.
If the melted cores do fully breach their containment vessels by literally burning their way through the bottoms of the containment vessels, then you can instantly have a situation where tons of molten core material hits the huge volume of water pooled in the bottoms of the reactor buildings.
The resulting explosion would obliterate what is left of the buildings and blow off the tops of the primary containment. It may be only a matter of time before this actually happens, and this is the reason why Kaku recommends the Chernobyl option of burying the cores with tons of boron, sand and concrete.
No, the reactors did not shut down immediately after the control rods were inserted. Inserting the control rods merely begins the weeks long process of eventually achieving cold shutdown. You need to do some research about nuclear reactors.
It is factually correct that the nuclear reactions have NOT been stopped. This is why far more radiation than was "expected" is showing up in the water filtration system which keeps breaking down.
In fact, it may be impossible to completely stop the nuclear reactions now that the cores have fully melted down into giant masses of molten slag since it is now impossible to moderate the nuclear reactions occurring at the center of the giant masses of molten core material.
Swarming Bee Theory
I give Mr. Kaku a lot of credit for making a continued effort to speak openly about the situation in Fukushima.
What does it take to see, really. What does it take?
I cannot believe there are people on here who expect to be taken as representing a real viewpoint and are still, in the face of THREE core meltdowns, containment pools blown into the upper atmosphere, etc, persisting with the fallacy that because no one DIED this month everything will be ok.
It is nothing short of insanity to persist with this debate over the merits of nuclear fission used in applications like this.
Nuclear fission as practiced today is an antiquated technology, dangerous beyond measure, as in LITERALLY beyond measure. Some of the components of radioactive waste have a half life of 200,000 years, some 700,000 years, some more that that. Far longer than any administration in the history of our good country, that's how long.
It is remarkable to me that the rabid right wing tea partiers etc are always whining about the country swinging left.
The truth is it is money and power.
If we turn our attanetion of it; smoodfedswskjjwejjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjl wjk
A pound of plutonium could kill every human being on the planet.
And yet we continue to allow ourselves to be drawn into arguments with self-serving profiteers, people and corporations with no fealty to the US or to life in general, but rather to profit at any cost.
This highly organized miliitant faction of the US government in concert with the multi national energy cartel is working hard to have us believe this is actually a rational and reasonable alternative to aggressively reducing our current demand (like in Las Vegas counties for ex) combined with a solid commitment to alternative energy development.
It's nuts.
There really is no good reason to continue.
All plants should be immediately shut down and decommissioned.
The nuke plants shouid be scrapped.
Immediately.
Fukushima 'still a ticking time bomb' – In the Arena - CNN.com Blogs
majia nadesan
Hi Michael I'm glad you responded to my comment because it provides proof my comment was posted before being taken down by some sort of censor.
I'm reposting. Let us see how long it is up this time.
First of all, it is not at all clear that workers at Fukushima have not died. Read the article: Contract workers registered with TEPCO have mysteriously disappeared from the contractor’s employment records. Mainichi: "Whereabouts of 30 nuclear power plant subcontractors unknown: Health Ministry" mdn.mainichi.jp...
Second, there is considerable evidence of ongoing fission at the Fukushima plant reactors given the ongoing production of Iodine-131, which has a 8 day half life.
See Gunderson’s Fairewinds updates www.fairewinds.com... and Washington’s blog for an essay with citations on ongoing criticality georgewashington2.blogspot.com...
Third, spent-fuel pool #4 is an ongoing cataclysmic disaster. Building #4 was damaged by #3’s explosion and the spent fuel pool in #4’s attic was reported by the NYT to be cracked.
This pool is full of rods and is leaking water and was recently found to be 2/3 empty, meaning there was a high likelihood that the fuel rods were exposed.
www3.nhk.or.jp...
Fourth, de-contamination of the radioactive water has not gone well and has had to be stopped over and over because of various problems www3.nhk.or.jp... www3.nhk.or.jp...
Fifth, radiation releases continue to be very large sankei.jp.msn.com...
“Estimates of the radioactive materials emitted double doors opening to the Fukushima No. 2 unit building 1.8 billion becquerels”
DISREGARD INDUSTRY TROLLS AND DEMAND TRUTH, TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY
Well, I spent three weeks following that Fukushima story doggedly... then in the end I found out three things...
1) Except for a handful of people and those that live in the area... NO ONE CARES...
2) We are still here... 1000's of nuke tests (especially near my home town) medical radiation, space radiation, CME's, cell tower radiation, microwave radiation... etc etc.. and we are STILL HERE.. and world population is increasing exponentially
3) Radiation is good for you