Monthly Archives: March 2016

Three Mile Island. 37 Years. What have we learned??

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On March 28, 1979 there was a meltdown at the Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear plant in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. – though this meltdown was not actually understood and acknowledged by the industry until a few years later. The denial was very big & very stubborn. Risks to the local population were completely downplayed, denied & minimized.

Like so many people, I was pretty much asleep at the time of the TMI accident. I don’t mean literally asleep; I mean I was too busy with my own little life to really pay attention to what was going on in the big world around me (a perhaps somewhat typical citizen absorbed in my own work & personal life, at that time).

But “the authorities” lied to the public so completely about what was really happening in Pennsylvania that day that even if I’d been less self-absorbed, the accident would likely have barely registered on my (or most people’s) personal radar screen.

One thing the accident did contribute to was a chill on new nuclear plant construction (although in the documentary mentioned below, Arnie Gundersen explains that it was actually economics that did in new nukes. That is to say, they are just too damn costly).

Rather than building new reactors in North America, what we do now, mostly, is keep pushing geriatric ones well beyond what they were designed for. Like the ones at Pickering, hmmm? (Many relevant Pickering postings listed on this page). Darlington too, of course. Billions to “refurbish” (i.e., rebuild) them. Refurbishment: what you need to know.

Well. I could go on.

Let’s just say, here are some links I can recommend you check out on this 37th “anniversary” of the TMI meltdown.

Must-see?

The 2012 documentary ‘The Atomic States of America’

Really. You must watch!

It will inform, educate & surprise you … possibly even break your heart (learning about young children who contracted serious, deadly cancers on Long Island, due to tritium leaks/plumes that ended up in their families’ wells).

Interview clips with

  • Arnie Gundersen (Fairewinds)
  • Helen Caldicott (M.D. & decades’ long opponent of nuclear power)
  • David Lochbaum (Union of Concerned Scientists)
  • Alec Baldwin (well-known actor who lives on Long Island)
  • Writer Kelly McMasters (on whose book Welcome to Shirley – a memoir from an atomic town, the documentary is loosely based)
  • Eric Epstein, a stubborn, feisty & articulate activist who lives near TMI & has been educating the public for 31 years (his group: Three Mile Island Alert) — see Nuclear Hotseat link above!!
  • Randy Snell (Shirley resident, father of a daughter who got cancer very young & miraculously survived; he did a ton of work on Long Island to connect the dots & educate others) … & please note, it was not just children who got cancer at astronomical rates.
  • & others in another community deeply affected by tritium leaks from a nuke plant
  • Politicians who still say we need nukes.        Info about the waste issues involved.

++ much, much more.

Just watch!!!!

 ** At the end of the film, it’s mentioned that

  • It cost $1. billion to defuel Unit 2 at TMI in 1990
  • It’s estimated it will cost $836.9 million to decommission & decontaminate it
  • The reactor operated for 90 days.

Other Relevant Postings on this Blog

Well, most of them, really!

But maybe these ones in particular:

 

p.s. the 4 common elements to the 3 big nuke accidents? From the Fairewinds item mentioned above?

Four Lessons from 5 Meltdowns (18 minute video from April 2015 at the Uranium Symposium)

Key overarching one? Expect the unexpected

The 4: 1. Safety systems will fail 2. Emergency planning will fail 3. People will die 4. Risk is grossly underestimated

p.p.s. what have we learned?? Nothing, really. We just keep doing the same damn stupid stuff, over & over, year after year, decade after decade. We think we’re so darn smart, eh? But we are not. We are really, really not.

It’s shocking, really.

Fukushima: 5 years In. What Have We (Not) Learned?

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March 11, 2016 marks 5 years since the start of this neverending nuclear disaster that has shaken Japan and the world. There are many misconceptions about the nuclear disaster, its causes & its endless repercussions.

Some things, however, are not open for debate.

1. The nuclear disaster has been shown to be “man-made” – could & should have been prevented, in other words, but due to the dangerous collusion among government, nuclear industry & the far-flung “nuclear establishment,” became inevitable. (See posting here, ‘Fukushima: what really happened?’) Another, similar disaster could occur at any time, given the world’s hundreds of aging, decrepit reactors, and this global issue of collusion/regulatory capture.

2. Emergency planning & response were utterly inadequate to deal with the nuclear crisis in Japan. This too is a common feature of all nuclear jurisdictions. Even here in Ontario? Yes. Emergency planning is every bit as inadequate here.

3. Reports on the # of people evacuated vary, but around 160,000 Japanese citizens were evacuated from their homes. The evacuations were messy, ill-planned and poorly executed. Many people died during careless evacuations. Some people were sent into the very areas where the radioactive plume was heading, and some communities were left for weeks in areas with very high levels of contamination before evacuation orders were issued.

Nearly 100,000 people in Japan continue to live away from their homes.

The Prime Minister of Japan recently told his citizens all they need to do is put on a happy face. “The cure for radiation is a smile,” he said.

Shameful.

4. There is much common ground between the effects of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster (April 26, 1986) & those of the Fukushima accident. Many people are living in areas of high contamination. They are eating food that contains radioactive contaminants. They are becoming ill from both, with a wide variety of illnesses (cancer being far from the only one), & these populations are going to continue facing health risks & consequences for decades. In Japan, people are now being coerced into returning to areas of high contamination. (See Greenpeace reports linked in below.)

Nuclear messes can’t be cleaned up. The industry basically just moves waste around from one place to another. A recent New York Times article ‘Playing Pass the Parcel with Fukushima’ spells this out clearly. The waste in Japan is simply being schlepped around from one location to another. This is not a “solution”! It’s a way of making money for the nuclear clean-up industry (very profitable for them, of course), & it means simply re-contaminating new communities & endangering everyone within range of its transportation & its current (temporary) location (much of it in bags that will last a few years at most). Oh yes, let’s not forget that it is also being incinerated.

Nuclear fallout is forever. It’s long past time for us all to be 100% clear on this point by now, surely!

5.  We do not seem to be learning from these disasters (well, some jurisdictions are! A number of countries are now phasing out nuclear energy, Germany notable among them) … though the lessons are surely as plain as the noses on our faces.

We keep right on using this dangerous energy source that emits poisons into air & water even during routine operations, putting drinking water supplies at risk and creating endless quantities of nuclear wastes there is no solution for. Wastes that will remain toxic & dangerous for longer than human beings have walked on the Earth.

Preposterous.

Shame on us.

Information Links

Below are links to a large # of information sources about the situation in Japan.

These include articles, a news release, recent documentary, & a podcast with voices from Japan.

All of them of very recent vintage.

Events

are taking place all over the world to mark this anniversary.

Interesting & no doubt very partial list here.

Documentary Showings in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area)

The Japanese community in Toronto has shown two documentaries that focus on the impacts of the March 2011 earthquake & tsunami.

The documentary ‘A2-B-C’ (about health impacts to Japanese children from the nuclear disaster) is being shown in

  • Pickering, March 10th
  • Toronto, March 11th
  • Beaches community, March 13th

Following these film showings, the lessons we need to take from the Fukushima accident, for Ontarians, will be discussed by knowledgeable speakers.

(see previous post for more details)

 

Finally…

Never again?

Until the lessons from Chernobyl & Fukushima are truly absorbed & appropriately acted on, the best we can hope for is that the next (inevitable) nuclear accident will not take place in our own backyard.

Given the age of Ontario’s nuclear fleet & our government and the nuclear industry’s determination to keep it on life support?

Faint hope, I’m afraid.

Very faint, indeed.

 

** Many pithy quotations about inadequate nuclear emergency planning & the causes of the Fukushima disaster here

 

The Links

Recent conference: Berlin Congress: 30 years of Chernobyl, 5 of Fukushima

TORCH 2016 -Chernobyl Health Report

Analysis: The legacy of the Fukushima nuclear disaster-Carbon Brief

Court Orders One of Japan’s Two Operating Nuclear Plants to Shut Down

Crippled Fukushima Reactors Are Still a Danger, 5 Years after the Accident

Fairewinds Posts on 5th Anniversary (Arnie Gundersen on a Japanese tour)

(Against the Will of the People; final Fairewinds item from Japanese tour 2016)

Five Years Living with Fukushima – report from Physicians for Social Responsibility

FIVE YEARS AFTER: ‘Don’t abandon us,’ victims of Fukushima nuclear accident say

Five Years After Fukushima, ‘No End in Sight’ to Ecological Fallout

Five years on, cleanup of Fukushima’s reactors remains a distant goal

Five Years After the Fukushima Accidents: Thinking about Nuclear Power and Safety

Former Tepco bosses charged over Fukushima meltdown

FUKUSHIMA AT 5 CHORNOBYL AT 30-Kraft NEIS

Fukushima: A Nuclear Story (1-hour Passionate Eye documentary shown on CBC TV this week)

Fukushima nuclear disaster evacuees establish liaison group for lawsuit plaintiffs

Fukushima – Deep Trouble

Fukushima: Tokyo was on the brink of nuclear catastrophe, admits former prime minister

Fukushima Report: 10,000 Excess Cancers Expected in Japan as a Result of 2011 Reactor Meltdowns, Ongoing Radiation Exposure (from Physicians for Social Responsibility)

Fukushima Keeps Fighting Radioactive Tide 5 Years After Disaster

Fukushima ‘Decontamination Troops’ Often Exploited, Shunned

Fukushima: They Knew

Fukushima’s ground zero: No place for man or robot

Fukushima Five Years On: Not a Comedy of Errors, a Calamity of Terrors

Fukushima Five Years After: Health Researchers Turn Blind Eye to Casualties

Greenpeace items

How is Fukushima’s cleanup going five years after its meltdown? Not so well.

Japanese Citizens Celebrate Victory — Shut Down Nuclear Power Plants (YouTube)

Japan’s nuclear refugees face bleak return five years after Fukushima

No bliss in this ignorance: the great Fukushima nuclear cover-up

Nuclear Hotseat # 246 – Fukushima 5th anniversary – Voices from Japan (podcast)

‪No Nukes News – great compilation item!

On Forgetting Fukushima

Playing Pass the Parcel With Fukushima

Radioactive waste fire in Namie, Fukushima

The mothers who set up a radiation lab

The NRC Seven: Petitioning the NRC over Safety

When the Unthinkable is Deemed Impossible: Reflecting on Fukushima (by a former member of the NRC – U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission)

14 Groups Call on Canada’s PM to Fix Nuclear Law & Oversight

Five Years After Fukushima, U.S. Nuclear Safety Upgrades Lagging

MARY OLSON’s POSTS from Japan & note: they are must-reads!! These posts describe encounters with people affected by the accident, including evacuees. Ms. Olson makes this very personal. Please read them!