It should come as no surprise that more bad news has been published concerning the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster. Because our mainstream media are averse to discussing this subject, it is often necessary for one to search around on the Internet to keep up with the latest revelations concerning the extent of this tragedy.
Almost immediately after the Fukushima crisis began, the news reports sent my BS detector on overdrive. On March 14, three days after the incident, I made this observation:
A good deal of the frustration experienced by those attempting to ascertain the status of the potential nuclear hazards at Fukushima, was obviously due to the control over information flow exercised by the Japanese government. I began to suspect that President Obama might have dispatched a team of Truth Suppressors from the Gulf of Corexit to assist the Japanese government with spin control.
By May 12, my suspicions were confirmed. Our government and the mainstream news media were “controlling” the Fukushima story in a very perfidious manner:
More recently, Vivian Norris reported on what she had learned about the extent of radioactive contamination resulting from the Fukushima events in the Huffington Post. In the middle of the piece, she took a step back and shared a reaction that many of us were experiencing:
Why is this not on the front page of every single newspaper in the world? Why are official agencies not measuring from many places around the world and reporting on what is going on in terms of contamination every single day since this disaster happened? Radioactivity has been being released now for almost two full months! Even small amounts when released continuously, and in fact especially continuous exposure to small amounts of radioactivity, can cause all kinds of increases in cancers.
In the United States, the EPA has apparently become so concerned that the plume of radioactivity may have contaminated fish, which are being caught off the Pacific coast and served-up at our fine restaurants – that the agency has decided to cut back on radiation monitoring. That’s right. Thorough radiation testing of water and fish causes too much transparency – and that’s bad for business. Susanne Rust of California Watch discussed the reaction this news elicited from a group called Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Public Employees – uh-oh!).
The most recent bit of bad news about Fukushima comes from Geoff Brumfiel, whose report appears in both Nature and Scientific American. Here are some highlights from Mr. Brumfiel’s article:
The disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in March released far more radiation than the Japanese government has claimed. So concludes a study1 that combines radioactivity data from across the globe to estimate the scale and fate of emissions from the shattered plant.
The study also suggests that, contrary to government claims, pools used to store spent nuclear fuel played a significant part in the release of the long-lived environmental contaminant caesium-137, which could have been prevented by prompt action. The analysis has been posted online for open peer review by the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.
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The new model shows that Fukushima released 3.5×1016 bequerels of caesium-137, roughly twice the official government figure, and half the release from Chernobyl.
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Japanese estimates rely primarily on data from monitoring posts inside Japan3, which never recorded the large quantities of radioactivity that blew out over the Pacific Ocean, and eventually reached North America and Europe. “Taking account of the radiation that has drifted out to the Pacific is essential for getting a real picture of the size and character of the accident,” says Tomoya Yamauchi, a radiation physicist at Kobe University who has been measuring radioisotope contamination in soil around Fukushima.
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The new analysis also claims that the spent fuel being stored in the unit 4 pool emitted copious quantities of caesium-137. Japanese officials have maintained that virtually no radioactivity leaked from the pool. Yet (Andreas) Stohl’s model clearly shows that dousing the pool with water caused the plant’s caesium-137 emissions to drop markedly (see ‘Radiation crisis‘). The finding implies that much of the fallout could have been prevented by flooding the pool earlier.
The Japanese authorities continue to maintain that the spent fuel was not a significant source of contamination, because the pool itself did not seem to suffer major damage. “I think the release from unit 4 is not important,” says Masamichi Chino, a scientist with the Japanese Atomic Energy Authority in Ibaraki, who helped to develop the Japanese official estimate. But (Lars-Erik) De Geer says the new analysis implicating the fuel pool “looks convincing”.
The latest analysis also presents evidence that xenon-133 began to vent from Fukushima Daiichi immediately after the quake, and before the tsunami swamped the area. This implies that even without the devastating flood, the earthquake alone was sufficient to cause damage at the plant.
The Japanese government’s report has already acknowledged that the shaking at Fukushima Daiichi exceeded the plant’s design specifications.
The Union of Concerned Scientists provided this disturbing information about cesium-137:
Cesium-137 is another radioactive isotope that has been released. It has a half-life of about 30 years, so will take more than a century to decay by a significant amount. Living organisms treat cesium-137 as if it was potassium, and it becomes part of the fluid electrolytes and is eventually excreted. Cesium-137 is passed up the food chain. It can cause many different types of cancer.
Because an unfortunate number of Americans would rather read about the Kardashians than cesium-137 or the Fukushima disaster, one must know where to look when attempting to familiarize oneself with the latest revelations on this subject. Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer of Fairewinds Associates, provides regular updates on Fukushima.
The truth is out there!