Government Has Been Covering up Meltdowns of Nuclear Power Plants for 55 Years
The entire idea of safe nuclear energy has arguably been a cover for nuclear weapons production … at the expense of our health and the environment.
Moreover, governments have been covering up meltdowns for more than 50 years.
Santa Susana
As a History Chanel special notes, a nuclear meltdown occurred at the world’s first commercial reactor only 30 miles from downtown Los Angeles, and only 7 miles from the community of Canoga Park and the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles.
Specifically, in 1959, there was a meltdown of one-third of the nuclear reactors at the Santa Susana field laboratory operated by Rocketdyne, releasing – according to some scientists’ estimates – 240 times as much radiation as Three Mile Island.
But the Atomic Energy Commission lied and said only there was only 1 partially damaged rod, and no real problems. In fact, the AEC kept the meltdown a state secret for 20 years.
There were other major accidents at that reactor facility, which the AEC and Nuclear Regulatory Commission covered up as well. See this.
Kyshtm
Two years earlier, a Russian government reactor at Kyshtm melted down in an accident which some claim was even worse than Chernobyl.
The Soviet government hid the accident, pretending that it was creating a new “nature reserve” to keep people out of the huge swath of contaminated land.
Journalist Anna Gyorgy alleges that the results of a freedom of information act request show that the CIA knew about the accident at the time, but kept it secret to prevent adverse consequences for the fledgling American nuclear industry.
1980s Studies and Hearings
In 1982, the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs received a secret report received from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission called “Calculation of Reactor Accident Consequences 2″.
In that report and other reports by the NRC in the 1980s, it was estimated that there was a 50% chance of a nuclear meltdown within the next 20 years which would be so large that it would contaminate an area the size of the State of Pennsylvania, which would result in huge numbers of a fatalities, and which would cause damage in the hundreds of billions of dollars (in 1980s dollars).
Those reports were kept secret for decades.
Other Evidence
Well-known writer Alvin Toffler pointed out in Powershift (page 156):
At least thirty times between 1957 and 1985—more than once a year—the Savannah River nuclear weapons plant near Aiken, South Carolina, experienced what a scientist subsequently termed “reactor incidents of greatest significance.” These included widespread leakage of radioactivity and a meltdown of nuclear fuel. But not one of these was reported to local residents or to the public generally. Nor was action taken when the scientist submitted an internal memorandum about these “incidents.” The story did not come to light until exposed in a Congressional hearing in 1988. The plant was operated by E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Company for the U.S. government, and Du Pont was accused of covering up the facts. The company immediately issued a denial, pointing out that it had routinely reported the accidents to the Department of Energy.
At this point, the DoE, as it is known, accepted the blame for keeping the news secret.
And former soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said on camera for a Discovery Network special (the must-watch “The Battle of Chernobyl“) that the Soviets and Americans have each hidden a number of nuclear accidents from the public:
Government Has Been Covering up Radiation Danger for 69 Years
The U.S. tried to cover up the destructive nature of radiation produced by nuclear weapons 71 years ago. As Democracy Now reports:
….Testing of a filter positioned before the HEPA system and removed several hours after the alarm showed 1,365 becquerels per cubic meter of americium and 672 Bq/m3 of plutonium. By Feb. 21, those levels fell substantially to 0.65 Bq/m3 of americium and 0.06 Bq/m3 of plutonium per day…..(For context, the Environmental Protection Agency’s actionable level of airborne contamination is 37 Bq/m3.)
Newly released lab tests of air filters from the Department of Energy’s waste repository in New Mexico documented a significant spike in radiation during an incident last month, although contamination in air that actually reached the environment was well below EPA standards.
The Carlsbad Environmental Monitoring and Research Center measured radionuclides in samples taken following a radiation alarm at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant on Feb. 14. The cause of the alarm remains under investigation, and testing recently revealed small internal doses among 13 people working there at the time. The alarm caused the ventilation system to immediately direct air through a bank of high efficiency particulate absorption filters. Testing of a filter positioned before the HEPA system and removed several hours after the alarm showed 1,365 becquerels per cubic meter of americium and 672 Bq/m3 of plutonium. By Feb. 21, those levels fell substantially to 0.65 Bq/m3 of americium and 0.06 Bq/m3 of plutonium per day.
The lab also tested filters on the other side of the HEPA system that provide an estimate of the amount of radiation that actually entered the atmosphere. A filter installed on the day of the alarm and removed four days later found levels of americium at 1.81 Bq/m3 and levels of plutonium at 0.224 Bq/m3. (For context, the Environmental Protection Agency’s actionable level of airborne contamination is 37 Bq/m3.) Scientists, who are continuing to sample air from WIPP, reported that contamination levels in the post-HEPA-filter air decreased exponentially over the following days.
A frank speech from 27 December 2013 that discusses the experience and lessons of Chernobyl not being accepted by the Japanese Government and organizations such as the IAEA in the crucial early stage of the nuclear disaster.
Mr Sugenoya breaks down the health mistakes that were made and the decisions that continue to be made.
The mistakes and lies of Chernobyl have caused children in Belarus etc to have increasing health problems and congenital defects even though the children are living in the supposed “Low level” contaminated areas.
Mr Sugenoya asks for support for the Fukushima childrens respite project from less contaminated Japanese municipalities.
Dr. Jerry Brown, director of the Safe Energy Project for the Santa Barbara-based World Business Academy, talks about the new study commissioned from esteemed epidemiologist Joseph Mangano. It reveals shocking cancer statistics in counties adjacent to the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. Link to a free pdf of the study: www.WorldBusiness.org
Don Hancock of Southwest Research and Information Center provides an update on the Valentine’s Day radiation release at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carlsbad, New Mexico. Thirteen above ground workers now know to have been exposed to Plutonium, Americium. How big was the release and how far did it go? And when will we know? www.sric.org for updates.
WIPP officials say they have yet to determine what caused the leak. The results of more air, soil, vegetation and water samples are expected in the coming days.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) – A union representing some 200 workers at the nation’s only underground nuclear waste dump said Tuesday its wants to be sure employees are safe when the repository reopens after a radiation leak that exposed at least 13 people.
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad has been off-limits to most workers for nearly three weeks. Only essential workers have been called to duty and others have been using the down time to keep current with regular training requirements at an off-site training center, said officials from United Steelworkers of America.
“What we’re trying to understand is what happened, where this contamination came from and then understand how to correct this problem and make certain that something similar is not going to happen again,” said Jim Frederick, assistant director of the union’s health, safety and environment department.
Some of the 13 workers who were exposed during the Feb. 14 night shift were union members. Another 140 employees showed up for work the following day, and union officials say if there’s any doubt about whether they were exposed, more tests should be done.
Paris, 5 March 2014 – This morning, across Europe, 240 Greenpeace activists have taken part in protests to highlight the risks of Europe’s ageing nuclear power stock. In a total of 6 countries; France, Sweden, Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands and Switzerland and the activists have carried out a series of different activities at nuclear facilities demanding that their governments stop extending the life-time of these old and decrepit nuclear reactors and instead invest in the clean and safe alternatives and support a 45% renewable target for Europe to 2030.
Today’s actions coincide with the launch of a major new independent report (1) commissioned by Greenpeace that exposes the scale of Europe’s ageing nuclear stock. The report found that out of 151 operational nuclear reactors in Europe (excluding Russia), 67 are more than 30 years old, 25 more than 35 years and seven of them over 40 years.
Analysis in the report shows that 44% of European nuclear reactors are over thirty years old. The average age across Europe is now 29 years, while a typical design lifespan of a reactor is 30 or 40 years. These findings raise the prospect of a new era of nuclear risk across Europe unless governments resist calls for reactors to be operated beyond their intended lifetimes.
Commenting of the report’s findings, one of the co-authors Jan Haverkamp said:
By asking to extend the lifetimes of their old and deteriorating nuclear power plants, the big European electricity companies are simply hoping to extract more profit from their nuclear cash cows, while leaving Europe’s citizens facing greater risks and enormous consequences in the event of an accident.’
‘The lifetime extension of European nuclear reactors would lock us into an old and dangerous energy source for decades. When they meet to discuss energy policy at a summit in late March in Brussels, European leaders must seize the opportunity to end the age of risk and pollution and support a binding renewables target to hasten the age of clean energy.’
The new report looks at the technical risks of ageing nuclear reactors and considers the economic and political factors relevant to reactor lifetime extension. It makes clear that in spite of upgrades and repairs, the overall condition of nuclear reactors deteriorates in the long term, not least because components key to safety such as the reactor pressure vessel and containment cannot be replaced. The likelihood of an accident and the number of potential complications therefore increase over time. However, decisions whether to extend the lifetimes of old reactors may be swayed by economic and political arguments, since old reactors have already paid back on their capital costs.
A brief description of my tweeting experience – Short and sweet! But here is a little breakdown on the issues discussed/tweet linked.
OK! I am grey haired and get my phone hacked a lot so tweeting came a bit late in the day and my interest was stirred after my boss (The dear sweet little old lady blogger who allows me to create mayhem on her blog) was wearing her fingers out tweeting
The subject of all these tweets concerned possible future of dainty little Thorium reactors replacing the nasty big ogre like uranium reactors.
Of course the reason I believe that the push is for thorium
is that the corporations want to keep the nuclear fuel cycle going even if the uranium based reactors get switched off.
The Oslo Fjord has been polluted from time to time from this reactor with mainly Beta bearing radionucldes according to the EURDEP radiation mapping. But the pollution doesnt begin there for the type of fuel that is actually being burnt.
The nuclear waste that is burnt in this reactor starts out as spent fuel rods as well as “hot” nuclear materials. These spent fuel rods are melted in nitric acid and the useful radionuclides are removed.
This spent fuel processing takes place at limited locations and Sellafield in the UK is one such place as well as La Hague in France. NO2 pollution levels are the highest in the UK with the European Union berating the UK for this pollutant that has been increasing over recent years. This pollution has caused real deaths and is a matter of public record.
Of course, the emissions from Sellafield and La Hague comes to some some 4000 T/Bq (admitted) if memory serves me right. Bottom line, it is a lot of liquid and air emissions.
Whilst in London in 2011 and 2012 I found myself with a Gieger counter and during the course of measuring for radioactivity in the air I happened to notice that the NO2 air pollution increased with the radiation readings that I got.
I was able to track this pollution as well as others during 2012 using pollution maps and EURDEP as well as my trusty gieger counter and looking at other gieger readings throughout Europe. These pollutants seem to travel together.
The Fennovoima consortium’s application for the planned Hanhikivi nuclear power plant will be reconsidered by Parliament. The municipality of Pyhäjoki will also re-evalute the plan.
Minister of Economic Affairs Jan Vapaavuori announced that the Fennovoima consortium on Tuesday filed revisions to its application for a decision-in-principle. These reflect significant changes to the size and ownership of the project since the legislature originally gave the green light to the project in 2010.
Since then, the German utility E.ON has dropped out, being replaced by the Russian state firm Rosatom. A number of smaller stakeholders have also pulled out. The plan now calls for a smaller facility of a different type than that specified in the original application.
Vapaavuori said he expected the cabinet to take a stand on the issue in June so that MPs can consider it when Parliament reconvenes in September.
The Greens have suggested they could leave the government if it approves the revision, which they consider a fundamentally new project. The government agenda agreed in 2011 stipulates that it will not propose any new nuclear ventures to Parliament.
After choosing a site, researchers must study the density, porosity and heat conductance of the rock there, and characterize any fractures and groundwater movement. Modeling and experiments help to determine how the rock will respond to the heat generated by the nuclear waste.
A radiation leak has raised questions about the safety of the United States’ only deep nuclear-waste repository, and has given fresh voice to scientists calling for more research into underground waste storage.
On 14 February, radioactive plutonium and americium leaked out of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, New Mexico, where thousands of drums of contaminated material from the US nuclear-weapons program are stored in salt beds more than half a kilometer below the surface. The health and environmental impacts seem to be minor, but 13 employees have tested positive for low-level contamination. The Department of Energy (DOE) and its contractors are still working on a plan to re-enter the WIPP and find out what caused the leak.
The incident also brings renewed attention to a problem that policy-makers have been avoiding: what to do with a mounting stockpile of spent fuel from commercial reactors, which is currently stored at reactor sites. In 2010, the DOE mothballed plans to develop Yucca Mountain in Nevada, which since 1987 had been designated as the future site of an underground repository (see Nature473, 266–267; 2011). Researchers at the DOE and universities want to explore a variety of alternatives. But they say that they have been hobbled by small budgets and the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which prevents the DOE from investigating any specific site apart from Yucca Mountain.
“Basically, all of the old ideas have come back out of the woodwork,” says Michael Driscoll, a nuclear engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. “But the first thing we need is Congress to wrestle with this and revise the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.”
For now, researchers are pursuing generic repository science that does not conflict with the law. In one large proposed experiment, DOE scientists wanted to assess whether salt beds at the WIPP could store radioactive waste that is hotter than the material they currently hold. In 2011, the team began developing a $31-million experiment that would have tested how the salt deforms when it is heated, and how water moves through it.
Ukraine: Country could restore its nuclear arsenal – Svoboda MP
Svoboda MP Mikhail Golovko spoke in Kiev Tuesday, about the need to defend Ukraine’s sovereignty, even if that would mean restoring its nuclear arsenal. He admitted that this would not be easy since world powers would have to agree to it.
Golovko also said that Ukraine could consider becoming a member of NATO.
“There is an invisible pressure and is an oppressive atmosphere which encroaching on freedom of speech. We hardly say here is a very dangerous situation or it is good for children to evacuate. People like me are really the minority.”
In June, 2012, I went to the Fukushima Forum at the Iwaki City in Fukushima, Japan where I was born in. I heard victims’ voices which were facing against the power and they were very smart and new. They accumulated their knowledge and experiences from the past experiences of Minamata disease and Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the forum, one guy who had lived near Fukushima Daiichi insisted on the importance of self-decision among people’s distrust of everything including the government, the congress, bureaucrats, industries, and the media.
In late September of 2013, I interviewed Setsuko Kuroda who was a member of Women from Fukushima Against Nukes and appears on the documentary “Women of Fukushima.” I am sorry for a late report and my English skill.
Q: Please tell me about the beginning of the Women from Fukushima Against Nukes?
A: After the accident, everybody evacuated here and there and I also evacuated once. Then, I returned here (the Koriyama City in Fukushima). We wanted something to do by those who lived here. I called Ruiko Mutoh (the representative of The Complainants for Criminal Prosecution of the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster) and Seiichi Nakate (the representative and mediator of Citizen’s Conference of the Support Child and Victims Law in The Nuclear Accident) to organize the meeting. At that time, radiation level in front of the Koriyama station was very high. It was the beginning that various movements were starting rapidly. So we did a protest meeting but there were sparse audiences in late April, 2011.
Q: What was the policy of the protest meeting?
A: We were not in dead silence.
Q: Did you already know people were in initial radiation exposure including iodine?
A: Yes. There were no big movement yet so we were in gloom. We wanted to express our anger and sorrow in the appreciable way. We were discussing about a sit-in in front of the prefectural office or Tokyo where more people would see us all over the country. While doing this, members were increasing. At the time, the youth gathered and started the No Nukes Tent in front of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Then, we decided the Three Days Sit-In there. Women who were good at the Internet mailed to spread our event information, women who were good at designing handouts created a handout, and we were discussing what we would do. Women from Fukushima exceeded over a hundred in a twinkling. It was our passionate debut on 28 to 30th October, 2011.
Q: I watched the closed meeting of the Women from Fukushima on YouTube. One member reported the situation of Chernobyl, one member reported the law of compensation for damaged assets, and other members also reported other issues. It looked very meaningful meeting. In the negotiation with bureaucrats of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on YouTube, I was so impressed by and understood clearly Ms. Kazue Morizono’s words “We, Women from Fukushima, have studied entire human history during a year.” I was surprised at the tremendous efforts how your group have accumulated knowledge, information, and experiences.
A: I had a chance to go to Chernobyl and reported it in the meeting. We have two regular meetings in a month. One is for decision making and one is for just a chat which we have known it is rather important. Facing each other with tea is very significant.
Q: How is recent situation?
A: After the event above, Women from Fukushima became famous abruptly among the antinuclear movements in Japan. Each splendid woman has innovated herself promptly. There are many problems such as the Fukushima Collective Evacuation Trial, the Complainants for Criminal Prosecution of the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster, Fukushima Network for Saving Children from Radiation, information for evacuation, safe food, and so on. So each woman has her own ground to act. It looks a little vague but it is good. Women from Fukushima should be humans to connect each movement like an ameba. The important is women’s flexibility, in other words, sloppiness which connects various movements against nukes. We have a huge annual event on March. Various people, citizens’ groups, and individuals come to the event from throughout the country and bring their plans to act and we organize workshops in two big venues. It will take hold. Women from Fukushima rent venues and schedule the event. It is a hard work for us.
Over 15,000 people whose lives here totally destroyed due to the meltdowns at Fukushima caused by TEPCO but in the opinion of the Japanese prosecutors no one is at fault.
The 1995 System(The method of `legal` systematic corruption which still exist today just in a slightly different form) http://www.jpri.org/publications/work…
Mari is facing charges stemming from speaking out on radiation in Japan and advocacy for families relocating children out of the areas contaminated by radioactivity from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi reactor site, operated by TEPCO.
The group ETHOS in Japan supports the decision by some to stay and live in contaminated areas. Sadly, some of these families feel they have no choice due to economics and other factors. Certainly young children have no choice. ETHOS advocates monitoring radioactivity, but well established science supports Mari’s views that there is no safe dose of radiation and that children need to be protected. We support open discussion, access to information and free choice. We ask the Prosecutor to agree that writing and speaking about these issues are not a crime.
Please Stand With Mari as she stands for precaution, protection and the rights of children to a healthy future. THANK YOU.
The late nuclear physicist Vassili B. Nesterenko (2 December 1934–25 August 2008) was hounded and persecuted by the KGB because he published inconvenient truths: research about the consequences of Chernobyl. Here is a short article about his achievements and here is his Wikipedia entry.
“….At a lower level, but also dangerous, there is the CEPN with Lochard. His project ETHOS has failed in Chernobyl : the children became more and more ill, and more severely ill. In the final report, they censured the medical report of the paediatrician, because the project was accompanied with the deterioration of health of the children….” (Full article below)
THIS INFO IS NEARER THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER INFORMATION
“…..In effect, ETHOS had learned everything from Nesterenko and had collected his data in order to now supplant him. A real case of plagiarism but with one fundamental flaw: the ETHOS mission, as conceived by the French nuclear lobby had an insurmountable statutory limitation, that prevented it from taking any action in the area of health: ETHOS was not qualified to treat the population medically: (4) What was it doing, in that case, at Chernobyl?I began to understand more when a friend, a sociologist, who had some involvement with ETHOS, told me that Jacques Lochard, leader of the ETHOS project, was employed by the CEA and had defined its task in this astonishing phrase. “We need to occupy the territory…”http://independentwho.org/en/2014/02/05/chernobyl-model-fukushima/
Pr. Michel Fernex is a Swiss medical doctor from the Medical Faculty University of Basel. Born in Geneva in 1929. Member of Physicians for Social Responsibility and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW). He worked at the World Health Organization (WHO) as member of the Steering Committee on Tropical Diseases Research for 15 years. In 1986, facing the reality of the WHO which attempted to downplay the consequences of the Chernobyl accident instead of helping the population, it compeled him to demand the independence of the WHO from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Since 2007 he has been a leading campaigner of Independent WHO. With Solange Fernex, his wife and member of the French Green Party, Vassily Nesterenko, founder of the Institut Belrad, and film director Wladimir Tchertkoff, he also founded in 2001 the NPO Children of Chernobyl Belarus (Les Enfants de Tchernobyl-Belarus) to support the Institute Belrad as well as the independent recherches of the consequences of Chernobyl accident.
Q1. What were the policy measures undertaken by the IAEA in Chernobyl after the nuclear disaster in 1986?
In Chernobyl, the IAEA arrived soon. Together with Prof Pellerin, delegate from the WHO, they proposed to change the established limits of protection for external irradiation for professional workers in atomic industries and apply them for the population, ignoring that families living in contaminated areas were soon to suffer more from internal irradiation than external. The Soviet Union refused to increase the limits of 5 to 10 or even 20 mSv/year, which would delay the evacuations and would have increased risks for radio-induced diseases. The risks of cancers are only a small part of pathologies occurring, as we learned from Chernobyl.
They did not encourage the distribution of stable iodine to the children, which was recommend by Baverstock, doctor at the WHO. They did not accelerate the evacuation of populations at risk, but waited until the irradiation reached higher doses. They minimized the risk for the population. They financed the Ministry of Health to discourage independent research.
The French lobby arrived later than in Fukushima, with an NGO, the CEPN with M. Lochard, representing Electricité de France with 56 atomic reactors, the CEA which developed the French Bomb, and Areva which builds atomic power plants, stores atomic waste in La Hague, and sells uranium, plutonium and MOX. In the UN hierarchy, the IAEA remains on the top, other agencies have to follow. Even the FAO has to agree, when limits have to be imposed for food.
Their goal is to reduce the costs of the catastrophe and to reduce the impact of Chernobyl on the further sale of atomic power plants.
nuclear-news 