Pandora's Atomic Box Score: On the Nuclear

www.commondreams.org...

This is really a hit piece on the documentary that CNN is running and bankrolled by Big Business but it does have an update on the fuel rod removal at reacator 4 at Fukushima:

Meanwhile Tokyo Electric Power postponed its potentially apocalyptic bring-down of the radioactive fuel rods at Unit Four.

"More tests" were needed, they said. This week the U.S. Department of Energy will meet on how to aid an untried engineering exercise whose failure doom the planet. But if it can be done at all, it will take the entire global community to bring this beast under control.

I'm looking for more information on this but have to go to work soon so it may take a while.

I have another thread under Fragile Earth for reviews of this Film "Pandora's Promise" and if you've seen it (I have not) please share your thoughts here:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

A liitle on the backing of the film:

Pandora's Promise was largely bankrolled by Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen, whose buddy Bill Gates has bet big on the mythic "new generation" reactors.

And a bit of commentary on that backing and the PR campaign surrounding the film:

CNN dumped a ton of hype on Pandora's Promise, and made no real attempt to hide its own pro-nuke bias. Lead-up debates were heavily weighted toward the industry, whose push for a new generation of reactors will ultimately go nowhere.

The scenario is obvious: Gates and his fellow mega-rich will pour into various theoretical atomic technologies a few hundred million dollars. They'll write it all off their taxes. They'll demand immunity for any accidents. It'll all run billions over budget and years behind schedule. Then they'll leave yet another radioactive mess for the rest of us to clean up.

and Mr. Wasserman's review and conclusion:

This movie maker needs to revisit Fukushima and report on those fuel rods flying in the sky, the river of radiation pouring into the oceans and the lethal long-lived poisons spewing into the air we breathe. As Hesiod says, when the original Pandora opened her forbidden box, "the Earth and sea were full of evils."