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Nuclear weapons and nuclear power races on, despite serious safety risks

Plutonium Pie in the Sky: the Dangerous Delusion of New Nukes CounterPunch by JAMES HEDDLE MARCH 22, 2016

“……Faith-Based Nuclear Policy   According to a recent Cornell University study, there have been nuclear reactor 174 accidents worldwide since 1946.  The researchers rate the accidents in 2013 dollars and define an accident as “an unintentional incident or event at a nuclear energy facility that led to either one death (or more) or at least $50,000 in property damage.”

Based on their extensive data, they predict

*a 50% chance that a Fukushima event (or larger) will occur in the next 50 years

*a Chernobyl event (or larger) will occur in the next 27 years

*a TMI event (or larger) will occur in the next 10 years.

According to a Guardian study, a major nuclear accident has happened on average every 5 years since 1952.

Recently, alarmed at the failure of their repeated attempts to go through ‘proper channels,’ seven engineers at America’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) – which then Senator Obama dubbed in 2007 ‘a moribund agency’ – filed a petition as private citizens.

They stated that they have identified a long-undiscovered electrical design flaw common to virtually all U.S. nuclear plants that could prevent cooling and allow meltdowns to occur.  Their petition asks that the NRC mandate that plant operators either fix the problem or shut down the reactors.

Not to mention that twenty-three U.S. reactors share the same design flaws as those that melted down at Fukushima.

The obvious take-home lesson: because of the dependence of their cooling systems on off-site power supplies, every nuclear facility, wherever its geographic location, is vulnerable to grid blackouts from cyber attacks and extreme weather events, and constitutes both a potential terrorist weapon-in-place and danger to the entire planet, and should be treated as such by the ‘international community.’  Yet, a New Nuclear Weapons race and a New Nuclear Power race are both currently in progress………….http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/03/22/plutonium-pie-in-the-sky-the-dangerous-delusion-of-new-nukes/

March 23, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, Reference, safety