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Dr Helen Caldicott warns on the seriousness of the Japanese nuclear crisis

Caldicott: Japan may spell end of nuclear industry worldwide | Independent Australia, 16 March 11, People all over the world are watching updates on the Japanese nuclear emergency in growing horror and disbelief. Despite soothing words from nuclear energy industry promoters, each update today has signalled fresh disaster and even more drastic warnings. Anti-nuclear campaigner Dr Helen Caldicott says it could spell the end of the nuclear industry worldwide. David Donovan reports……The UK Telegraph has raised the spectre of a potential “nuclear nightmare” and is calling this the second worst nuclear disaster in history.

“The Fukushima crisis now rates as a more serious accident than the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in the US in 1979, and is second only to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, according to the French nuclear safety authority. After insisting for three days that the situation was under control, Japan urgently appealed to US and UN nuclear experts for technical help on preventing white-hot fuel rods melting.”

Dr. Michiko Kaku, a theoretical physicist at the City University of New York, yesterday offered a dire worst case scenario.

“The worst-case scenario is a steam/hydrogen gas explosion which blows the reactor vessels apart, sending uranium dioxide fuel rods and radioactive debris into the air. This might happen if the core is fully exposed for a few hours, which is a distinct possibility. This is what happened at Chernobyl, when such an explosion blew about 25 per cent of the core’s radioactive by-products into the air.”…..

Caldicott: Japan may spell end of nuclear industry worldwide | Independent Australia

March 17, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | general