In a disturbing revelation, Global Research is reporting that the nuclear disaster at Fukushima is uncontainable. Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has announced that 300 tons of radioactive groundwater is flowing daily into the Pacific Ocean and there is nothing they can do to stop it. ~Ed
Fukushima – It Only Gets Worse
In an unsurprising but clearly disturbing revelation, Global Research is reporting that the nuclear disaster at Fukushima is uncontainable. Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has announced that 300 tons of radioactive groundwater is flowing daily into the Pacific Ocean and there is nothing they can do to stop it. Furthermore, despite Tokyo Electric Power’s (TEPCO) previous statement that things were contained, it is suspected that the leaks have been ongoing since the disaster occurred in March 2011.
Since the onset of the disaster, it is estimated that 20 to 40 trillion radioactive tritium bequerels have leaked into the Pacific Ocean. More dangerous but as yet unmeasured amounts of cesium and strontium have leaked and continue to leak into the Pacific and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Nothing. This makes Chernobyl pale in comparison.
Three of the reactors at the Fukushima plant went into meltdown after the earthquake and tsunami hit, and a fourth reactor was severely damaged. The fourth contains tons of highly radioactive water. If another large earthquake or natural disaster occurs, the impacted structural integrity of the reactor will almost certainly fail, the fuel rods will most likely catch fire and radioactive emissions will be released, adding to an already catastrophic situation.
Make no mistake. This is a global disaster. Just because you don’t live in Japan is no reason to feel safe from the effects of the ongoing crisis. With the unprecedented and uncontainable amount of radioactive contamination flowing daily into the ocean, there is no way it can all be dispersed.
According to the report in Global Research, the contaminants, particularly strontium, bioaccumulates in algae and in fish. Strontium-90 acts like calcium, going straight to the bone. The food chain is being affected and there is no stopping it.
Iodine-129, one of the other radioactive isotopes spewing from the damaged nuclear facility, has a half-life of 15.7 million years. That’s way worse than the half-life of strontium-90, which is a mere 28.8 years. But when you’re talking about poisoning the Pacific Ocean what’s a few million years? At this rate, we won’t have to worry about the next few million years. The effects of this ongoing tragedy will overcome us before the strontium is rendered harmless.
National Geographic reports that scientists at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmounth and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute estimate the contamination could reach the western coast of North America in three to five years. That may have been optimistic. Already, newborns living in Hawaii and along the west coast of the United States, as well as Alaska and British Columbia, have shown an alarming rate of hypothyroidism. This is just the beginning. Who knows where it will end.
The future of the entire planet is at stake and that is not an empty statement. In our hubris, we have believed that we could solve any problem, master any situation, but now we are bearing witness to the folly of that overblown opinion of ourselves. And yet, there are still those who tout the benefits of nuclear power. They call it “clean” energy. I include our president in that group. What is clean about an energy source that can poison an entire planet? The Fukushima plant was “safe” and the nuclear plant at San Onofre California has been deemed ‘safe.” All the nuclear facilities around the world have been pronounced “safe.” There is nothing safe about a nuclear plant in an earthquake zone. Or a tsunami zone. Or a tornado zone. Or an area attractive to terrorists. Natural disasters happen and there is nothing we can do about them. What we can do is insure that a natural disaster or a terrorist attack doesn’t cause another man-made disaster that becomes uncontrollable.
The only questions that remain are these: Do we have the will to do away with nuclear power altogether? Is it already too late?
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Ann Werner is a blogger and the author of CRAZY and Dreams and Nightmares. You can view her work at ARK Stories.
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http://samuel-warde.com/2013/08/fukushima-it-only-gets-worse/
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