The Nuclear Energy Scam

If Big Corporations didn't own the US government, would we pursue the path that Germany is on? Would the U.S. be enlightened enough to recognize that the only sensible path is renewables that are cost effective when compared to Nuclear Energy with all of its subsidies and loan guarantees funded by Americans?


NEW ALERT FOR FUKUSHIMA IN JAPAN DUE TO TYPHOON SONGDA

(AGI) After the consequences of the 11 of March earthquake and of the tsunami, the radiation leaks and the overheating of the reactors' core, a new alarm has been set off for the crippled Fukushima Daiichi 1 nuclear plant. Typhoon 'Songda' is approaching from the Filippines, where it caused at least 2 casualites and thousands of displaced people. The typhoon is heading with winds averaging 216 Km/h (around 135 mph) .

Typhoon Strengthens, May Hit Fukushima Nuke Plant
By Aaron Sheldrick and Tsuyoshi Inajima
Bloomberg

Typhoon Songda strengthened to a supertyphoon after battering the Philippines and headed for Japan on a track that may pass over the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant by May 30, a U.S. monitoring center said.

Songda’s winds increased to 241 kilometers (150 miles) per hour from 213 kph yesterday, the U.S. Navy Joint Typhoon Warning Center said on its website. The storm’s eye was about 240 kilometers east of Aparri in the Philippines at 8 a.m. today, the center said. Songda was moving northwest at 19 kph and is forecast to turn to the northeast and cross the island of Okinawa by 9 p.m. local time tomorrow before heading for Honshu.

The center’s forecast graphic includes a possible path over Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant, which has been spewing radiation since March 11 when an earthquake and tsunami knocked out cooling systems. Three of six reactor buildings have no roof after explosions blew them off, exposing spent fuel pools and containment chambers that are leaking.

The U.S. Navy Joint Typhoon Warning Center classifies storms as supertyphoons when their maximum sustain winds reach at least 150 miles per hour, according to the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory.


Power outages, downed communication lines knocked out most radiation monitoring systems in disaster areas
Kyodo
Most radiation monitoring systems in Fukushima, Miyagi and Ibaraki prefectures broke down temporarily after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, preventing local authorities from gauging the ensuing nuclear crisis, prefectural officials said.

Monitoring systems in other prefectures with nuclear power plants also face similar risks of a breakdown, requiring an urgent review, analysts say.

Twenty-two of the 23 round-the-clock radiation monitors installed around the crisis-hit Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant and at the nearby Fukushima No. 2 nuclear complex stopped sending data to the prefectural monitoring center about three hours after the quake, officials said.

While some monitors were broken by the magnitude 9.0 temblor or were washed away by tsunami, infrastructure disruptions such as downed communication lines and electricity outages were the major causes of the breakdown, one official said.

Although some of the monitors are equipped with satellite links as a backup, they also failed to send data, most likely because their antennas were damaged in the disaster, the officials said.

In Miyagi Prefecture, where the Onagawa nuclear power plant is located, four out of seven monitors broke down after being hit by tsunami.

The remaining three — which were positioned in high places — were able to transmit data through backup satellite connections, but the function was lost about five hours after the quake, officials said.

In Ibaraki, more than 40 monitors are set around the Tokai No. 2 nuclear plant and nearby nuclear facilities. Emergency batteries activated amid power outages but their power ran out about 20 hours later, halting monitoring for three hours until electricity was restored in the area.

"It is a general rule that radiation levels near the facilities are always monitored. It is a problem that all the equipment broke down," said an official of the prefecture's radiation monitoring center.

Massive nationwide protests call for an immediate end to nuclear energy

More than 100,000 demonstrators took to the streets in 20 cities across Germany on Saturday to call for a rapid end to nuclear power, even as a government-sponsored national commission is expected to recommend that Berlin abolish nuclear energy within a decade.

The Ethics Commission is set to announce the results of its final report on Germany's energy future, calling for nuclear power to be phased out by 2021.

Rainer Brüderle, head of the Free Democrats parliamentary group, called for certain conditions to be met before nuclear energy was phased out. Brüderle said the power grid for renewable energy needed to be expanded.

"If we don't accelerate the expansion of the grid for renewable energy, then we will ultimately fail in the end," he said.


Currently, only four of Germany's 17 nuclear power plants are operational. Chancellor Merkel ordered eight to be shutdown pending review while five more were shutdown for routine maintenance.

On Sunday, Merkel's coalition government will meet to agree on a timetable for the shutdown of Germany's nuclear plants.