Thursday, June 30, 2011

Los Alamos Fire??? Let us Hope this Video is a Hoax...

Los Alamos Report: Toxic Waste Dumped Without Containment for 70 Years or So

http://www.ananuclear.org/Portals/0/documents/Water%20Report/waterreportlosalamos.pdf

Here is an excerpt from this damning and ultimately terrifying report produced by the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability:

Approximately 18 million cubic feet of radioactive and chemical solid wastes onsite were disposed of since 1943. “All of the radioactive waste and most of the chemical waste have been buried on the mesas of Pajarito Plateau where LANL is located. Radioactive liquid wastes were discharged to the canyons, initially with little treatment.” 

For many years, one method of disposal was “kick-and-roll”. The back of a truck was brought to the edge of a hole and barrels of waste were kicked. Wherever the barrels rolled tow as their final resting place. 

No protection was put in place to ensure contaminants did not spread from the barrel. It is not clear that today’s practices are more protective. 

An estimated 899,000 curies of low-level  transuranic wastes were buried at Los Alamos. It is difficult to estimate exactly the quantity of radionuclides buried onsite due to the inaccurate record keeping and alterations in the definitions of low-elevel waste in the intervening years. Disposal continues today in unlined pits and shafts, a practice declared illegal by the New Mexico Attorney General’s office in 2011....

Tons of plutonium were processed at LANL in the early years of development and again in the 1980s. After the Savannah River Site, LANL contains the second largest volume of plutonium-238 in the US nuclear weapons complex: this type of plutonium has a 90-year half-life, a very high activity and is extremely hazardous....

Majia Here: Read the Report.
Thank you Jon_NY for posting this link at Enews.




Fort Calhoun

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFnG3sg-aB0


Thom Hartmann talks to Paul Gunter, Director, Reactor Oversight Project - Beyond Nuclear (www.beyondnuclear.org) on the latest in the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station emergency.

This was upload on June 27 so is a bit dated but Paul provides 2 very important pieces of information.

First, the main threat at the plant, as explained in the interview, is flooding of the diesel generators. Diesel generators are being used to cool the plant's fuel rods. 

Water contamination in the diesel tanks would cut the fuel source for the generators. This would create "common mode failure"for the generators. 

Second, should common mode failure happen, the plant switches to the final set of emergency backup systems that can run (only!) 4-8 hours.

The danger of the cooling system failing is that the residual heat from the fuel rods would amplify and potentially result in a hydrogen explosion. 

I'm assuming that the rods reportedly taken out of the reactors a couple of months ago are in the spent fuel pools.

Spent fuel pools are particularly concerning if they burn. The good news is that I understand that the spent fuel pools take some time (days) to burn off enough water to actually burn.

So, hopefully all will go well at Calhoun and dire circumstances will be avoided.

What I am still unclear about is leakage of highly radioactive water from flooded, or leaking, spent fuel pools. Radioactive water could be leaking into the Missouri already.






Fukushima Cover-Up

Hat Tip Enews http://enenews.com/leaked-emails-show-british-govt-worked-with-nuke-industry-on-pr-campaign-to-downplay-fukushima-degree-of-collusion-truly-shocking


Revealed: British government's plan to play down Fukushima

The implication is that we will not be notified of any disaster unless that disaster is so overt, so undeniably VISIBLE that it cannot be denied. 

In that event, the truth--the scope of the event and its health implications--will be obscured, trivialized, marginalized, and denied.

Los Alamos Already Burned?

Rusty Shorts at Zerohedge posted this link for a youtube video that suggests that at least parts of the lab area burned already, particularly the area where the casks of contaminated waste were/are stored. This video certainly raises questions.

here is a link for air direction

The Mystery of Reactor Building #3

NHK is reporting "Progress in cooling Fukushima Daiichi spent fuel"
Excerpted: http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/30_03.html

"The operator of Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant appears to be making progress in its work to stabilize the facility's spent fuel rods. Tokyo Electric Power Company says a new cooling system for the No.3 reactor's spent fuel storage pool should be functional in a week.

"The March 11th accident crippled the cooling mechanisms that control reactors No.1 through No.4 and their storage pools. TEPCO has been working to install systems that will cool and circulate water inside the pools....

"Work to install a cooling system was completed at the No.3 reactor on Wednesday. A test-run is scheduled for Thursday...."


MAJIA HERE: I'm confused by this news. A week or so ago I posted a link to a video of high resolution pictures of reactor #3. The person narrating the video points out that much of building 3 is completely destroyed and there is certainly no evidence of a spent fuel pool or even a reactor in building #3.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZBYQ5opMLs



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_N-wNFSGyQ



Updates June 30

I CAN NO LONGER ACCESS MY BLOG USING INTERNET EXPLORER

I Hope I will still be able to access using alternative means.

If No New Posts are Visible Please Presume I've Been Completely Locked Out

NOW FOR THE NEWS

NHK: Circulation cooling system hits another snag
 http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/30_30.html
The newly installed reactor-cooling system at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has suffered another problem, as its water treatment equipment has stopped.

"The system that decontaminates and re-uses radioactive water from the facilities is believed to be the key to the stable cooling of the reactors.

"But Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, says the decontamination equipment stopped automatically on Thursday afternoon when the alarm went off.

"TEPCO says the problem turned out to be a malfunction of a gas exhaust on a French-made device that removes radioactive material from the water.

"The utility says the device was undergoing engineering work to prevent gases from flowing backward, when the alarm set off..."



 MAJIA HERE: Arnie Gunderson stated in his recent interview with Dr. Helen Caldicott that he is still concerned about a hydrogen explosion at unit #3 and spent fuel fires or building collapses in units 3 and 4.


There still has been no mention at all of the fire on Sunday. The jet stream is moving north across the US so people in the northern half of the US should watch the radnet data and assume levels are high if their cities are "under review" for any length of time

In other news, NHK is confirming blogger Ex-SKF's report about detectable radiation in Fukushima prefecture children's urine.

In the U.S. the problems continue at Los Alamos and on the Missouri.

E-News is reporting that the Los Alamos fire is within 2 miles of the plutonium waste

Propublica is reporting that nuclear plant inspections have found flaws in disaster readiness. Really?

And a bit of Propaganda from Iowa: Nuclear plants need scrutiny, not hysteria
PERSONALLY, I THINK RECENT EVENTS SHOULD PRODUCE VOCIFEROUS, IF NOT HYSTERICAL, OUTRAGE AND RESISTANCE


Children Have Radioactive Urine in Japan

Thank you blogger Ex-SKF for this tragic report.

http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/
Radiation in Japan: Radioactive Cesium from Urine Samples of 10 Children in Fukushima City

 From Sankei Shinbun (6/30/2011):

福島県内の保護者らでつくる市民団体「子どもたちを放射能から守る福島ネットワーク」などは30日、福島第1原発事故の影響調査のため福島市内の6~16歳の男女10人の尿を検査した結果、全員から微量の放射性物質が検出されたと発表した。

A citizens' group in Fukushima Prefecture "Fukushima Network to Protect Children from Radiation" tested the urine samples from 10 children in Fukushima City, age 6 to 16, and announced on June 30 that a small amount of radioactive materials was detected from all samples.

放射性セシウム134の最大値は8歳の女児で尿1リットル中1・13ベクレル、セシウム137の最大値は7歳男児で同1・30ベクレルだった。

The highest amount of cesium-134 was from an 8-year-old girl, at 1.13 becquerels per liter. The highest amount of cesium-137 was from a 7-year-old boy, at 1.30 becquerels per liter.

 MAJIA HERE: WHY ARE WE ALLOWING THIS TO HAPPEN?

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Updates

Los Alamos lab is creating back burns to avoid the fire spreading (hat tip Tacomagroove)
http://www.sfreporter.com/santafe/blog-2870-breaking-fire-detected-on-los-alamos-national-labs-western-corner.html

Sobering pictures of flooded Ft Calhoon
http://www.houseoffoust.com/fukushima/nebraska.html

Enews is reporting (from Kyodo press) that Tepco is trying to avoid an explosion in unit #3.by injecting nitrogen (but they have been doing this all week without success)
http://enenews.com/tepco-having-trouble-injecting-nitrogen-avoid-explosion-reactor-3-expert-concerned-about-possible-explosion-3

Ex-Skf http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/ reports
"Contaminated Water at #Fukushima Increased to Over 120,000 Tonnes"

"121,000 tonnes of highly contaminated water alone as of June 29, according to TEPCO, an increase of about 16,000 tonnes since the end of May."...


Counterpunch Issue on Nuclear Meltdowns

Counterpunch today has 2 articles on the ongoing nuclear emergencies surrounding us

Karl Grossman's essay "Meltdown as Speedbump: The Nuclear Gang Regroups"
http://www.counterpunch.org/grossman06292011.html

and

Harvey Wasserman's "We've Almost Lost Nebraska"
http://www.counterpunch.org/wasserman06292011.html

On another note, the jet stream is moving north so if you live in the northern 1/2 of the U.S. please check because Fukushima fallout may be worsening
http://www.weatherimages.org/data/imag192.html


Fire Adjacent to Los Alamos Lab

http://abcnews.go.com/US/los-alamos-fire-epa-testing-radiation/story?id=13953953
Hat tip Jeff Rense http://www.rense.com/

Fire is 2 miles from barrels containing radioactive waste

What else is in danger of burning.

An excerpt from the story
The Los Alamos facility -- the birthplace of the atomic bomb -- was shrouded in secrecy long before it was surrounded by smoke after the Las Conchas fire began Sunday.


"It contains approximately 20,000 barrels of nuclear waste," former top security official Glen Walp said. "It's not contained within a concrete, brick and mortar-type building, but rather in a sort of fabric-type building that a fire could easily consume.

"Potential is high for a major calamity if the fire would reach these areas," he added.


MAJIA HERE: ANONYMOUS at Ex-SKF offered this link to a review of the safety failures at Los Alamos. It is dated 2009

From the Project on Government Oversight

Defense Board Catches Los Alamos Trying to Dodge Plutonium Safety Vulnerability

http://www.pogo.org/pogo-files/alerts/nuclear-security-safety/nss-lanl-20091027.htmlOctober 27, 2009 (excerpted)

POGO has learned from sources that the Department of Energy (DOE) has been scrambling to delay a Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) report about a potential major threat to public safety posed by plutonium at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (Los Alamos). The Department was rushing to begin addressing the safety vulnerability and to release its own public statement before the DNFSB made its report public. DOE is reacting to the DNFSB’s report, which it posted to its website this morning, to Energy Secretary Chu about a safety vulnerability involving over 10,000 pounds of plutonium housed in Los Alamos’s Technical Area-55 (TA-55).


The vulnerability, safety controls that are insufficient to mitigate the release of plutonium to the public, has long been known and unaddressed by DOE and Los Alamos. Years ago, Los Alamos safety analysts determined that the building at TA-55 is so “leaky” that it could not prevent plutonium from being accidentally released. Last year, however, Los Alamos’s safety analysts further calculated that in the event of an earthquake and resultant fire,1 —a very real threat, as Los Alamos sits on top of a fault line—the dose to the public from the TA-55 plutonium facility could be over 100 times the acceptable level.


Current safety regulations require that safety controls be put in place if doses to the public approach 25 rem. Yet, a year later, DOE and Los Alamos had done nothing in response to the analysts’ findings that more than 2500 rem could be released in the event of an earthquake and resultant fire. Instead, DOE allowed Los Alamos to avoid dealing with this public safety risk by saying the government will accept the risk without forcing the contractor to impose any additional safety controls to protect public health. That is, until the DNFSB put DOE on notice that it is about to make the problem public. The same vulnerabilities exist at the other nuclear facilities at Los Alamos, including waste site TA-54 Area G which holds over 3,500 pounds of plutonium....






Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Experts Weigh In On Ongoing and Potential Nuclear Disasters

Dr. Kaku on Los Alamos
http://www.koat.com/news/28386019/detail.html

Excerpt:


Kaku said around 20,000 to 30,000 barrels of plutonium contaminated waste is stored at the lab. That waste includes everything from gloves to fuel rods, according to Kaku.


“'Plutonium is one of the most toxic particles known to science. A particle you can’t even see lodged in your lungs could cause lung cancer,' Kaku said. 'What we’re worried about is what happens when the fires go right into these buildings and perhaps pop open some of these 55-gallon drums.'

Right now, Los Alamos National Lab officials said dangerous materials in the lab are secure and do not pose a threat.


Kaku said no one has ever fully tested the lab under real fire conditions.


Read more: http://www.koat.com/news/28386019/detail.html#ixzz1QccxCyej

Gunderson on air discussion
http://stream.wbai.org/?

http://enenews.com/gundersen-intake-structure-that-cools-reactor-and-spent-fuel-pool-is-probably-most-vulnerable-part-of-ft-calhoun-nuke-plan-critical-that-it-stays-dry-video

The second link is for enews that is covering the talk. I missed Gunderson's interview unfortunately and will not be able to listen to it until tomorrow (assuming it is available then)

Perhaps the most disturbing thing I read today was a comment made by a very pro-nuke cheerleader at a Zerohedge article covering the 1 sievert radioactive water that is leaking from Fukushima.

Travis777 stated:
"Everyone will be expecting me to say don't panic, stop the hysteria and all that....but if Los Alamos catches on fire, yes, definitely panic. Pack your bugout ranch up and carry it somewhere else."

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/1-sievert-water-leaking-fukushima-full-body-radiation-checks-begin-across-prefecture#comment-1410436

Uh oh.

Additional lite reading can be found here (hat tip Whoopie for the 1st)

TEPCO: Will Someone Turn Off the Lights?

Jake Adelstein and Stephanie Nakajima 2:56 PM http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2011/06/tepco-will-someone-turn-lights/39364/

NRC, Nuclear Industry Rewrite History: AP Investigation http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/28/nrc-nuclear-industry-ap-investigation_n_885862.html





Fukushima's Children

I normally like Jeff Rense's interviews but this one with Tim Rifat is very disturbing: Fukushima: The End of the West as We Know It
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUjJxTevy6k

What is so disturbing is not the news that Fukushima is going to produce genetically damaged children in Japan, Canada, the U.S., and the northern  hemisphere in general.

What is so disturbing is Rifat's description of Fukushima's children as "degenerates" and "mutants."

Fukushima's children may be born with anatomical anomalies caused by DNA damage. They may develop cancer and they very may well suffer terribly.

But these children are not going to be degenerates. These children are not going to be mutants.

These children are victims.

The real degenerates are those who built these temples of doom and then silenced and discreditted those who tried to warn us of their terrible dangers.

We must fight any eugenics efforts to hide and marginalize Fukushima children in Japan and the across the rest of the world.

We must recognize that their suffering was caused by our greed, our disregard, our corruption and we must do all we can to enable them to live as best as possible.

We must see them and we must accept them and try to make up for what we have done to them.

--
I'm Responding to the pointed comment made by nobody special. (I cannot post a comment because of a problem with google blogger.) Youu are correct about the semantics. Unfortunately, the biological and normative senses of degeneration were linked in nineteenth century psychiatry. I'm quoting from my book on Governmentality:
Morel wrote: “Degenerations are deviations from the normal human type, which are transmissible by heredity and which deteriorate progressively towards extinction” (cited in Alexander & Selesnick, 1966, p. 162). By articulating mental illness within a somatic/medical framework and by linking “madness” and “idiocy” with hereditable degeneracy in behavior and mind, Morel ushered in a social paranoia of the contagion posed by all those deemed degenerate. The asylum served as a disciplinary space that could contain contagion and thereby protect the health of the larger population.

 

EPA Radnet Data June 28 9:49 AM

Phoenix and Yuma are under review. Poor residents of Yuma. The data for their city are never released so they must be bad, particularly given the city sits at the base of a small mountain range.

San Diego, Los Angeles, Bakersfield, and Fresno are still all under review.

My feeling is that the radiation readings are probably bad in the US west coast southland. Fukushima has had terrible releases recently. The jet stream is running low for a couple of days before moving upward around July 1
http://www.weatherimages.org/data/imag192.html

The fires are poisoning the air with particulates and perhaps releasing radiation from trees that were irradiated by above ground testing in the 50s and 60s. Let us hope Los Alomos' toxic dumps and labs do not burn also.

My kids and I are essentially sheltering in place, which isn't hard to do in AZ when it is 115 degrees outside. The air filters are going to hum all day...

250 Riot Police Have Been Dispatched to Tepco's Shareholder Meeting?

This is a tip from Apollo's Dad's post on Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/22/fukushima-nuclear-plant-ticking-time-bomb-japan-disaster-michio-kaku-_n_882166.html

The link to the original story is here
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/zoom/­20110628-O­YT9I00717.­htm

I cannot get the translator function to work correctly so I cannot verify. I hope they need a lot more police.



Monday, June 27, 2011

Rendered Wordless—Rendered World-less



I am rendered wordless by the escalating disasters around me.


I have been following these stories closely… (using a variety of excellent media sources including Enews most of all, Washington's Blog, Jeff Rense, Ex-Skf, Counterpunch, Nukefree, Low Level Radiation Campaign, Zerohedge, Huffington Post commentators, Globalresearch, etc.)


And I really cannot believe what I am reading.


Some of these headlines are making me think I’ve lost my mind and sunk into some nightmare like in Total Recall… Unfortunately, as was the case in that narrative, what seems a dream is, in fact, reality.


In Japan,

Fukushima residents' urine now radioactivehttp://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110627a2.html


“More than 3 millisieverts of radiation has been measured in the urine of 15 Fukushima residents of the village of Iitate and the town of Kawamata, confirming internal radiation exposure, it was learned Sunday.”


Yet, No Public Response to this Human Catastrophe.

Meanwhile, Utter and Complete Silence About the Massive Fire Yesterday!


AND in the U.S. I’ll Sample Headlines Researched and Aggregated by ENews


Local news shows ‘amazing’ and ‘terrifying’ images of wildfire that threatens Los Alamos nuke lab (VIDEO)
http://enenews.com/local-news-shows-amazing-and-terrifying-images-of-fire-threatening-los-alamos-nuke-lab-video



NBC News: “This has grown much more serious just in the last few hours” at Los Alamos nuke facility — Mandatory evacuations ordered — Fire Chief won’t say fire won’t go in lab (VIDEO)
http://enenews.com/nbc-grown-serious-last-hours-los-alamos-nuke-facility-mandatory-evacuations-ordered-fire-chief-wont-fire-wont-lab



“Report: Up to 30,000 drums of plutonium-contaminated waste stored in fabric tents above ground at Los Alamos dumpsite — Lab declines to comment”
http://enenews.com/report-30000-drums-plutonium-contaminated-waste-stored-fabric-tents-above-ground-los-alamos-lab-comment


What this means is an absolute inferno is headed for Los Alamos nuclear lab, which has been storing plutonium in 30,000 drums in fabric tents at the lab’s “dumpsite.” WTF?


I must really must be in a separate parallel universe. It somehow swallowed me.


Because for Los Alamos’ dumpsite to be threatened after Fort Calhoon was rendered dependent upon emergency generators because of uncontrolled flooding, which now has overwhelmed outer defenses…


flooding because the swollen Missouri is near a 500 year level. In its rage against dams, it is sweeping contaminants down into America’s granaries. American granaries help feed the world because there is no excess supply and with the drought in Australia, drought in China, and the unpredictable weather in Europe (especially Russia and the Ukraine) there is a global food deficit looming. Now America’s granaries are being flooded and contaminated with runoff containing such high amounts of hazardous substances, so hazardous that the state of Kansas issued a health advisory to the public to stay away from the water and to avoid any type of contact, including irrigation.


All of these events cannot be happening at once.


The world I lived in before was corrupted and vicious and people died of deprivation and starvation,


But that world was not threatened with seeming imminent nuclear-tipped environmental extinction through the convergent accumulation of crises.


And in that old world there was not a conspiracy of silence about what was happening, even on days when the radiation and the fire-produced particulates in the air brew toxic.


In this new world I have shared so much information with people about what is happening. 90% of those people do not ask me for updates and only listen politely when I volunteer information for their children’s safety.


This alien world is the worst kind of nightmare. It is a nightmare that assaults you with existential threats and then denies that they exist at all.


Will people simply start getting sick and die without asking any questions at all because it doesn’t happen in a single blow?


I see why some people who are following these events believe in conspiracies such as this is ‘all a planned strategy by the elites of rapidly depopulating the planet.’ I’m not saying I believe that conspiracy. What I’m saying is I get why people believe it.


The little remarked rape of nations going on by insatiable western capitalists (e.g., Greece) and fascist states (they come in different forms) certainly substantiates the belief that the elites are organized and utterly ruthless.


Yet, the reason I don’t believe that particular conspiracy about planned depopulation is because no one will survive the mega-crisis in the making….


We all are being rendered world-less.