Why Fukushima Can Happen Here
July 15, 2011
This is from Arnie Gundersen’s website http://www.fairewinds.com/updates.
I don’t know if you’ll be able to click through from here. If not, just go to the URL above and play the video with this title.
Why Fukushima Can Happen Here:
What the NRC and Nuclear Industry Dont Want You to Know
The well-known safety flaws of Mark 1 Boiling Water Reactors have gained significant attention in the wake of the four reactor accidents at Fukushima, but a more insidious danger lurks. In this video nuclear engineers Arnie Gundersen and David Lochbaum discuss how the US regulators and regulatory process have left Americans unprotected. They walk, step-by-step, through the events of the Japanese meltdowns and consider how the knowledge gained from Fukushima applies to the nuclear industry worldwide. They discuss “points of vulnerability” in American plants, some of which have been unaddressed by the NRC for three decades. Finally, they concluded that an accident with the consequences of Fukushima could happen in the US.
With more radioactive Cesium in the Pilgrim Nuclear Plant’s spent fuel pool than was released by Fukushima, Chernobyl, and all nuclear bomb testing combined. Gundersen and Lockbaum ask why there is not a single procedure in place to deal with a crisis in the fuel pool? These and more safety questions are discussed in this forum presented by the C-10 Foundation at the Boston Public Library. Special thanks to Herb Moyer for the excellent video and Geoff Sutton for the frame-by-frame graphics of the Unit 3 explosion.
Gundersen calls for a freeze
April 30, 2011
Arnie Gundersen is that rare breed — someone technically savvy but not blinded by what he knows. He is a severe critic of the nuclear industry — and he knows what he is talking about, because the came out of that industry.
Knowing what he knows, he says here, in typically low-pressure, rational style, that the time has come to put out the yellow flag, and put a moratorium on new nuclear construction. His yellow flag analogy is to car races, where there has been a pile-up. I think the yellow flag is a good analogy, but I would related in not to car wrecks, but to the flag ships used to fly to warn other ships that they were carrying the plague.
Orlov: Nuclear Meltdowns 101
March 29, 2011
This mordant, trenchant commentary from cluborlov.blogspot.com
FRIDAY, MARCH 18, 2011
I am no nuclear expert, and that is probably a good thing. I did do a lot of reading about Chernobyl back when it happened. And now I am, as I was then, and as I am sure many of you are, getting really fed up with incomplete, inaccurate, misleading and generally unsatisfactory explanations that are being offered for what is going on at Fukushima. Either information is not available, or it is a flood of largely irrelevant technical minutia designed to thrill nuclear nerds but bound to bamboozle rather than inform the general reader. And so, for the sake of all the other people who aren’t nuclear experts and have no ambition of ever becoming one, here’s what I have been able to piece together.
Five sites that will re-write history
July 27, 2010
One of the most interesting aggregator organizations is a set of websites managed by the nonprofit PEERS network (www.wanttoknow.info) Their archive of news articles: www.WantToKnow.info/indexnewsarticles. Below, five stories you didn’t see on television.
1) Lost city ‘could rewrite history’
January 19, 2002, BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1768109.stm
The remains of what has been described as a huge lost city may force historians and archaeologists to radically reconsider their view of ancient human history. Marine scientists say archaeological remains discovered 36 metres (120 feet) underwater in the Gulf of Cambay off the western coast of India could be over 9,000 years old. The vast city – which is five miles long and two miles wide – is believed to predate the oldest known remains in the subcontinent by more than 5,000 years. Debris recovered from the site – including construction material, pottery, sections of walls, beads, sculpture and human bones and teeth has been carbon dated and found to be nearly 9,500 years old. The city is believed to be even older than the ancient Harappan civilisation, which dates back around 4,000 years. Author and film-maker Graham Hancock – who has written extensively on the uncovering of ancient civilisations [said,] “Cities on this scale are not known in the archaeological record until roughly 4,500 years ago when the first big cities begin to appear in Mesopotamia. Nothing else on the scale of the underwater cities of Cambay is known. There’s a huge chronological problem in this discovery. It means that the whole model of the origins of civilisation with which archaeologists have been working will have to be remade from scratch,” he said.
Note: Dozens of manmade complexes found under the ocean have been found, yet mainstream archeologists are largely ignoring these finds because they don’t fit the academic consensus. For an interview with former Economist reporter Grahan Hancock, who finds lots of solid, astounding evidence of a lost civilization, click here.
2) ‘Lost city’ found beneath Cuban waters
December 7, 2001, BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1697038.stm
A team of explorers working off the western coast of Cuba say they have discovered what they think are the ruins of a submerged city built thousands of years ago. Researchers from … Canadian company [Advanced Digital Communications] used sophisticated sonar equipment to find and film stone structures more than 2,000 feet (650 metres) below the sea’s surface. The explorers first spotted the underwater city last year, when scanning equipment started to produce images of symmetrically organized stone structures reminiscent of an urban development. In July, the researchers returned to the site with an explorative robot device capable of highly advanced underwater filming work. The images the robot brought back confirmed the presence of huge, smooth blocks with the appearance of cut granite. They believe these formations could have been built more than 6,000 years ago, a date which precedes the great pyramids of Egypt by 1,500 years. “It’s a really wonderful structure which really looks like it could have been a large urban centre,” ADC explorer Paulina Zelitsky told the Reuters news agency.
Note: For an excellent discussion by former Economist reporter Grahan Hancock of this most amazing find which brings into question the accepted theories of civilization, click here.
3) Indian seabed hides ancient remains
May 22, 2001, BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1345150.stm
Marine experts have discovered a clump of archaeological structures deep beneath the sea off India’s western coast. Although the discovery has not yet been accurately dated, the structures are said to resemble archeological sites belonging to the Harappan civilisation, dating back more than 4,000 years. This is the first time man-made structures have been found in this part of the Arabian Sea which is known as the Gulf of Cambay. The images gathered over the past six months led to a surprising discovery - a series of well-defined geometric formations were clearly seen, spread irregularly across a nine-kilometre (five-mile) stretch, a little beneath the sea bed. Some of them closely resemble an acropolis – or great bath – known to be characteristic of the Harappan civilisation. A leading marine archaologist says that far more detailed investigations need to be done to confirm the exact date of the structures.
4) Tsunami throws up India relics
February 11, 2005, BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4257181.stm
Archaeologists say they have discovered some stone remains from the coast close to India’s famous beachfront Mahabalipuram temple in Tamil Nadu state following the 26 December tsunami. They believe that the “structures” could be the remains of an ancient and once-flourishing port city in the area housing the famous 1200-year-old rock-hewn temple. Archaeologists say they had done underwater surveys 1 km into the sea from the temple and found some undersea remains. “They could be part of the small seaport city which existed here before water engulfed them.” says T Sathiamoorthy of Archaeological Survey of India. Archaeologists say that the stone remains date back to 7th Century AD. They have elaborate engravings of the kind that are found in the Mahabalipuram temple. The temple, which is a World Heritage site, represents some of the earliest-known examples of Dravidian architecture dating back to 7th Century AD. The myths of Mahabalipuram were first set down in writing by British traveller J Goldingham … in 1798, at which time it was known to sailors as the Seven Pagodas. The myths speak of six temples submerged beneath the waves with the seventh temple still standing on the seashore. The myths also state that a large city which once stood on the site was so beautiful the gods became jealous and sent a flood that swallowed it up entirely in a single day.
5) Archaeologists probe legendary city
October 19, 2000, BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/978885.stm
Archaeologists have uncovered what they believe to be the remains of a long-lost ancient Greek city, Helike. Classical texts suggest that all its inhabitants perished when the city sank beneath the waves after suffering a disastrous combination of earthquake and tidal wave. Some scholars have speculated that the catastrophe may well have been the source of Plato’s story of Atlantis, a land that supposedly suffered a similar fate. During the summer, Greek and American researchers … began digging 3m deep trenches within an area of modern orchards and vineyards of about one square mile. These revealed archaic walls, classical ceramic fragments and, perhaps most significantly, evidence that the ruins had been submerged beneath the sea. “We uncovered archaic walls buried in clay containing sea shells,” said one of the researchers, Dr Steven Soter from the American Museum of Natural History.
Belief In Climate Change Hinges On Worldview
June 24, 2010
From NPR, via a friend. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124008307
Belief In Climate Change Hinges On Worldview
February 23, 2010
Over the past few months, polls show that fewer Americans say they believe humans are making the planet dangerously warmer, despite a raft of scientific reports that say otherwise.
This puzzles many climate scientists — but not some social scientists, whose research suggests that facts may not be as important as one’s beliefs.
Take, for example, a recent debate about climate change on West Virginia public radio.
Systems at a Turning Point
June 16, 2010
Rather than my reposting Bill Totten’s repost of a post from the Oil Drum website, allow me to point you to his website http://billtotten.blogspot.com/
For some reason, when I click on the link above, I get an error message that says it isn’t valid. If you do too, just copy the link and paste it in the address window and hit enter. That works for me.
And, in case by the time you read he has posted other things, the post I refer to is “Systems at a Turning Point.”
This seems to me very much on point. In some ways Ronald Reagan was good for the country; in many ways, he was a disaster, because in his zeal for individual freedom he somehow lost sight of the complementary and equally necessary value of community.
We’re paying the price now, and have been in all the years since.
Outdated Maps
June 12, 2010
From Dmitri Orlov’s Club Orlov — http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/. He titled this Lost Leaders, but it might equally appropriately be titled Outdated Maps
SATURDAY, MAY 29, 2010
Lost Leaders
It is embarrassing to be lost. It is even more embarrassing for a leader to be lost. And what’s really really embarrassing to all concerned is when national and transnational corporate leaders attempt to tackle a major disaster and are found out to have been issuing marching orders based on the wrong map. Everyone then executes a routine of turning toward each other in shock, frowning while shaking their heads slowly from side to side and looking away in disgust. After that, these leaders might as well limit their public pronouncements to the traditional “Milk, milk, lemonade, round the corner fudge is made.” Whatever they say, the universal reaction becomes: “What leaders? We don’t have any.”
Greer on Magical Thinking
June 3, 2010
I frequently cite John Michael Greer’s Archdruid weekly columns in The Context, which centers on political and social issues. But this week’s column spans the gap between social issues, on the one hand, and the nature and uses of consciousness in the world, on the other. So I posted the original on my other blog, which centers on consciousness, which I call I of My Own Knowledge.
See it here: http://hologrambooks.com/hologrambooksblog/
The bright boys create life
May 30, 2010
The Economist is a respected and consistently interesting magazine out of England. Stephan Schwartz is a respected and consistently interesting science editor whose daily SchwartzReport sends out notice of significant stories “that will affect your future. Here is one, well worth your while to read. Just click on the link. http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=16163006
The Economist may think that Frankenstein was not in attendance, but I don’t agree. We are nowhere near ready for the moral and ethical problems that will swiftly follow in the wake of this development. Hell, we haven’t even begun to deal with the ethical consequences of Monsanto’s genetically modified organisms!
On the one hand, I must admit up front that I don’t know anything about the facts in this case, so I don’t really have a right to an opinion. Nevertheless (naturally) I proceed to air my opinion: This has all the earmarks of the usual medical witch-hunts against practicing physicians who come up with objections to profitable and/or popular panaceas. From the New York Times.
Time will tell, perhaps.
British Medical Council Bars Doctor Who Linked Vaccine With Autism
Published: May 24, 2010
LONDON — A doctor whose research and public statements caused widespread alarm that a common childhood vaccine could cause autism was banned on Monday from practicing medicine in his native Britain for ethical lapses, including conducting invasive medical procedures on children that they did not need.
The General Medical Council applied its most severe sanction against the doctor, Andrew Wakefield, 53, who abandoned his medical practice in Britain in 2004 as questions intensified about his research and set up a center to study childhood developmental disorders in Texas, despite not being licensed as a physician there.
In January, after the longest investigation in its history, the council found several instances of what it said was unprofessional conduct by Dr. Wakefield. It cited his taking blood samples for his study from children at his son’s birthday party; he paid each child £5, about $7.20 today, and joked about it later. It also noted that part of the costs of Dr. Wakefield’s research was paid by lawyers for parents seeking to sue vaccine makers for damages.
Dr. Wakefield left the Texas center in February, but continued to speak out against his treatment in Britain, as he did in interviews in New York on Monday, when he called the British decision to strike him off the medical register an effort to “discredit and silence” him. He said he would appeal the decision, which will take effect, unless suspended for legal reasons, within 28 days.
The disciplinary tribunal’s action came after more than a decade of controversy over the links Dr. Wakefield and associates in Britain, as well as supporters among parents of some autistic children in Britain and the United States, have made between autism and a commonly used vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella. The suggestion of a link caused use of the vaccine in Britain and elsewhere in the world to plummet, a development that critics of Dr. Wakefield said contributed to a sharp rise in measles cases in countries where the vaccine was in use.
Most scientific papers have failed to find any links between vaccines and autism.
The furor was touched off by a 1998 article in The Lancet, a British medical journal. The journal retracted the study in February after the medical council in London concluded in January that Dr. Wakefield had been dishonest and that he had violated ethical rules.
The council said he had shown “a callous disregard” for the suffering of children involved in his research. The ruling banning him from practicing medicine on Tuesday was a sequel to the January finding.
Dr. Surendra Kumar, the medical council’s chairman, said that Dr. Wakefield had “brought the medical profession into disrepute” and that his behavior constituted “multiple separate instances of professional misconduct.” In all, Dr. Wakefield was found guilty of more than 30 charges.
“The panel concluded,” Dr. Kumar said, “that it is the only sanction that is appropriate to protect patients and is in the wider public interest, including the maintenance of public trust and confidence in the profession.” He said the sanction was “proportionate to the serious and wide-ranging findings made against him.”
The council also barred from practice one of Dr. Wakefield’s associates, Dr. John Walker-Smith, 73, who had been found guilty of professional misconduct and retired from medicine 10 years ago. A second associate, Dr. Simon Murch, was found not guilty of professional misconduct and allowed to continue practicing.
Dr. Wakefield resigned in February from his position as a staff researcher at Thoughtful House, an alternative medicine clinic in Austin, Tex. A spokeswoman for the clinic said she did not know where Dr. Wakefield worked now.
A 2007 annual report for the clinic has a picture of Dr. Wakefield looking into microscope with a caption that reads: “Where would we be without Dr. Wakefield and your entire team? Thank you for your courageous efforts in swimming against the tide. Without you we would still be hearing, ‘There is nothing we can do.’ Because of you we know the hope is great and the progress is attainable.”
In New York on Monday, Dr. Wakefield rejected the medical council’s findings. In an interview with the “Today” show on NBC, he described the ban on his practicing as “a little bump in the road” and said the council’s decision had been predetermined “from the outset.” He also said he would continue his research into the link between vaccines and autism.
“These parents are not going away,” he said. “The children are not going away. And I am most certainly not going away.”
Gardiner Harris contributed reporting from Washington.
