CHERNOBYL, 1986
THREE MILE ISLAND, 1979
FUKUSHIMA, JAPAN, 2011... AND ONGOING, WORSENING
WHICH OF THE 450 AGING NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS ACROSS OUR WORLD WILL BE THE NEXT DISASTER?
IT COULD BE ANY OF THEM.
Nuclear Energy Around the World.
As of November 2016, 30 countries worldwide are operating 450 nuclear reactors for electricity generation and 60 new nuclear plants are under construction in 15 countries.
Nuclear power plants provided ONLY 10.9 percent of the world's electricity production in 2012.
LESS THAN 11%...AND FOR A LOUSY 10.9% BILLIONS OF LIVES ARE AT RISK EVERY SINGLE DAY.
WHILE THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA CONTINUES TO IGNORE THE NEW RECORD-BREAKING RADIATION LEVELS AT FUKUSHIMA, THEY ARE ALSO DOING A GREAT JOB IGNORING THE THREE RECENT EXPLOSIONS AND FIRES AT TWO FRENCH NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS...THREE IN LESS THAN 10 FULL DAYS.
ALSO IGNORED, TWO "INCIDENTS" AT AMERICAN NUKE FACILITIES AND ONE IN RUSSIA...BUT THOSE ARE NOT THE ONLY ONES RECENTLY.
TWO MORE, ONE HERE AND ONE IN RUSSIA, OCCURRED BACK IN NOVEMBER OF 2016.
ACROSS THE GLOBE, NUCLEAR REACTORS THAT WERE PUT TO WORK 40 TO 50 YEARS AGO, THAT WERE NEVER DESIGNED TO RUN THIS LONG, ARE CRACKING, LEAKING,, FAILING AND WE AREN'T BEING TOLD ABOUT IT.
WHY NOT?
BECAUSE IF THE CITIZENS OF EARTH DECIDED TO DEMAND THE CLOSURE OF ALL NUKE PLANTS, THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY WOULD NEVER BE ABLE TO AFFORD TO DISPOSE OF CURRENT WASTES, PAY TO MONITOR DUMP SITES FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS, AND CLEAN UP AROUND THOSE CLOSED SITES.
THEY RUN ON AND ON, IN KNOWN DISREPAIR, BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENTS OF THE WORLD DON'T HAVE THE GUTS TO MAKE THE INDUSTRY SHUT DOWN.
IT'S JUST THAT SIMPLE.
THE MEDIA IS IN COLLUSION TO KEEP THESE "EVENTS" AS QUIET AS POSSIBLE, BUT THE OLD WALL STREET JOURNAL DID GIVE ONE OF THE EXPLOSIONS IN FRANCE A FEW LINES ON FEB. 9.
Explosion Hits EDF’s Flamanville Nuclear Power Plant in Northern France
Incident comes when the safety of 58 reactors the company operates in France is being scrutinized.
PARIS—A fire and explosion forced French state-controlled utility Electricité de France SA, or EDF, to shut down one of the reactors of its Flamanville nuclear power plant Thursday morning, the company said.
Construction of the new reactor at Flamanville began in 2007 and was initially due for completion in 2012 but has been delayed several times, and its initial budget has more than tripled, to 10.5 billion euros ($11.2 billion)
THE OTHER NEAR MISS IN FRANCE THIS MONTH...CATTENOM.
Fire contained at building in France's Cattenom nuclear plant -EDF
Reuters UK-Jan 31, 2017
FEB.1, 2017
FROM THE LUXEMBURGER WORT
FIRE AT CATTENOM NUCLEAR FACILITY
Fire broke out in an administrative building located at the Cattenom nuclear power plant just over the Luxembourg border on Tuesday night.
Firefighters quickly put out the blaze which, according to an official statement from the plant, did at no point put the safety of personnel in jeopardy or any surrounding structures or buildings.
Cattenom nuclear power station poses "imminent danger"
Feb 26, 2016
The facilities date back to the 1970s. Because of their age, in the event of a meltdown, operators would not be able to lower the pressure in the primary circuit safely, the report said.
In the event of an external disaster, such as a plane crash, earthquake or flood, the report said the plant could not be safely secured.
IT WAS ADMITTEDLY WORSE THERE IN SEPTEMBER OF LAST YEAR.
Luxemburger Wort - Cattenom nuclear power station partially evacuated
Sep 26, 2016
Jul 9, 2016
Maintenance staff working at Cattenom nuclear power station close to the Luxembourg border left an emergency air purifier switched off for two weeks.
The error was eventually spotted two weeks later, on July 7, during an inspection
During the 2003 European heat wave, the plant was permitted to pipe the radioactive waste water used for cooling directly into the Moselle river...
Nuclear energy's "gift" to all who use that river for drinking water or anything else.
France's Nuclear Failures: The Great Illusion of Nuclear Energy
Sep 30, 2005, A PDF REPORT
Eight workers were exposed to radiation in March 2005.
ANOTHER PROMISE TO CLOSE FESSENHEIM.
France to close oldest nuclear plant (much to relief of the Swiss and the Germans)
24 JANUARY 2017
The board of state-owned electricity utility EDF approved a compensation package worth at least €400 million ($430 million) for the shutdown of the Fessenheim nuclear plant, a source close to the matter said.
EDF, which is 85.6 percent owned by the state, agreed the plan with the French government last August.
The closure of the twin-reactor plant is part of a plan to dramatically reduce the country's dependence on atomic energy.
The plant in Fessenheim on the border with Germany about 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of Strasbourg has been in operation since 1977.
Fessenheim, located on a seismic fault line, has worried French, German and Swiss environmentalists for years.
Last year Germany demanded that France close down Fassenheim following reports that a 2014 incident there was worse than earlier portrayed.
BUILT ON A KNOWN FAULT LINE AS ALL OF JAPAN'S AND MANY OF AMERICA'S NUKE FACILITIES WERE BUILT.
THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY AGENCIES JUST DON'T CARE.
Fessenheim is not the only French plant that has unsettled its European neighbours.
Luxembourg and Germany have also raised concerns over another power plant, at Cattenom, and the duchy has forwarded to the European Commission a study commissioned by Germany's Greens party, which according to Luxembourg "listed the plant's security problems".
Meanwhile, the Swiss canton of Geneva has filed a complaint against French nuclear plant Bugey located in the neighbouring French region of Ain, claiming that it "deliberately puts in danger the life of others and pollutes the waters".
BACK IN AMERICA, THE NEWS ISN'T MUCH BETTER.
Pilgrim Nuclear facility reduces power because of seawater leak.
Seawater leak forces reduced power at Pilgrim nuclear power plant, 7 Feb 2017
A seawater leak at Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station has prompted plant operators to sharply reduce energy output there.
Control room operators reduced power to about 50 percent on Monday afternoon, Feb. 6, after there was an indication of a leakage into the Plymouth plant’s condenser.
Nuclear material misplaced at Oyster Creek
Jan. 4, 2017
LACEY – The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission performed special inspections of Oyster Creek Generating Station after personnel found a box of uranium-containing monitors outside the nuclear power plant’s designated nuclear-containing Material Access Area.
The box of eight local power range monitors was found Oct. 6 under a pallet and other material inside the warehouse, where it mostly likely sat for decades, according to a letter from Exelon Generation to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Nothing on the box marked the contents as containing radioactive material, according to the letter.
The monitors, which measure power inside of the nuclear reactor, contained less than a gram of uranium-235, said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Uranium-235 is radioactive. If ingested or inhaled, it can cause cancer or serious damage to major organs in the body, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
It is the same isotope of uranium that is used within the plant’s fuel rods, said Dave Lochbaum, director of the Nuclear Safety Program for the Union of Concerned Scientists. With enough of the material, someone could make a dirty bomb or nuclear weapon, he said.
“You want to control this material so it doesn’t get into places it shouldn’t be,” Lochbaum said.
AND IN RUSSIA: JANUARY 26, 2017
Explosion at power plant in central Russian city near Ukraine
At least one person has died in an explosion at a power plant in the central Russian city of Penza, media are reporting, citing Emergencies Ministry sources. The blast caused metal structures to collapse over a 600-square-meter area.
“According to preliminary reports, a gas mixture exploded at the power plant,” TASS news agency reported, citing a source at the Emergencies Ministry of the Penza region.
The building of the TPP-1 power plant has been partially destroyed, and some 600 square meters of its roof are said to have collapsed, according to RIA Novosti, citing a source at Emergencies Services.
BUT, UNREPORTED UNTIL NOW, BACK IN NOVEMBER, RUSSIA HAD ANOTHER "ACCIDENT" .
6th reactor building of the Novovoronezh nuclear power plant, that was built based on an experimental reactor VVER-1200, could only work a few weeks at full capacity until an accident occurred.
Locals reported a powerful explosion at the nuclear power plant, reports Russian ecological media Bellona.ru.
At the same time, Russian state-owned media traditionally kept extremely silent regarding the details of the incident. In particular, news agency RIA Novosti reported that “the 6th power unit of Novovoronezh nuclear power plant was disconnected from the grid due to failure of the power generator.”
“Turning off the 6th unit at the night of November 10 was preceded by an explosion that smashed the turbine hall,” writes the local media “Notebook Voronezh”, citing eyewitness of the accident.
“Alarm systems in all vehicles in the area were screaming for at least 15 minutes. The generator in the turbine hall of the 6th unit burned down beyond repair. Also, a transformer blown, and all electrics burned. A state commission is working at the station, the situation is an emergency.”
Employees of Novovoronezh NPP deny the information about an explosion. They say that a loud sound was caused by a fault trip."
THREE MONTHS BEFORE, AUGUST 2016, THEY DROPPED AN ENTIRE NUCLEAR REACTOR DURING CONSTRUCTION OF A NUKE FACILITY IN BELARUS!
Lithuania demands to investigate the incident, while Minsk refuses to comment in details.
Thus, according to media reports, a housing of a nuclear reactor, which weights 330 tons, fell down from a height of 2-4 metres. The Ministry of Energy of Belarus confirmed that there was a “emergency situation” at the plant this month.
“Belarus avoids answering to questions about security, not willing to let the observers in, and it always causes us concern. Repeating accidents show that our fears were justified,” said the President of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaite.
The power plant is being built by Russian corporation Rosatom. It refutes the seriousness of the accident, and reports that the incident took place indeed, but the reactor vessel is intact, and ready for installation."
WHO KNEW THAT CHERNOBYL CONTINUED PRODUCING NUCLEAR ENERGY FOR 14 YEARS AFTER THE MELTDOWN IN 1986?
YES, IT DID!
It was reactor 4 that blew up in 1986.
Even after the meltdown, reactors 1-3 remained capable of producing electricity and Ukraine still needed power.
So for years afterwards people would come to work in the same plant that had irradiated much of Europe. The plant was given a less 'communist name', workers could no longer live in the immediate vicinity and work was required to contain reactor 4. But this not withstanding it remained a working power plant.
The final reactor was eventually shut down in 2000. The process of decommissioning it continues to the present day – including the construction of a massive steel sarcophagus to encase the concrete sarcophagus which encases reactor 4."
AND DURING NOVEMBER, THE U.S. ALSO HAD ANOTHER "NUCLEAR EVENT".
Electrical fault, fire triggers low-level emergency notice at Indian Point
November 8, 2016 An electrical fault and small fire in Indian Point Energy Center’s Unit 2 nuclear reactor Tuesday morning caused the plant’s owners, Entergy Corp. to declare and subsequently terminate a Notice of Unusual Event emergency notification.
10 VERY NEAR MISSES IN AMERICA IN JUST 10 YEARS.
MAY 24, 2016
Following the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, Greenpeace USA released a new report Tuesday on the 166 near misses at U.S. nuclear power plants over the past decade.
Of those incidents identified in 'Nuclear Near Misses: A Decade of Accident Precursors at U.S. Nuclear Plants', 10 are considered by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to be important precursors to a meltdown.
“Contrary to NRC commissioners’ claims, there is nothing safe about the nuclear reactors in the United States."
Thirty years after Chernobyl and five years after Fukushima, it is clear that these kinds of disasters could absolutely happen here. It is time for the NRC to listen to the whistleblowers within its own ranks and address these longstanding issues and vulnerabilities.
The report identified the following incidents as the top 10 near misses at nuclear plants between 2004-2014:
1. Browns Ferry 1 in Athens, Alabama: Residual heat removal loop unavailable; valve failure.
2. Wolf Creek in Burlington, Kansas: Multiple switchyard faults, reactor trip and loss of offsite power.
3. Robinson in Hartsville, South Carolina: Fire causes partial loss of offsite power & reactor coolant pump seal cooling challenges.
4. Fort Calhoun in Fort Calhoun, Nebraska: Fire in safety-related 480 volt electrical breaker due to deficient design control. 8 other breakers susceptible.
5. River Bend in St. Francisville, Louisiana. Loss of normal service water, circulating water and feedwater caused by electrical fault.
6. Oconee 1 in Seneca, South Carolina: Failure of Jocassee Dam would result in a meltdown.
7. Oconee 2 in Seneca, South Carolina: Failure of Jocassee Dam would result in a meltdown.
8. Oconee 3 in Seneca, South Carolina: Failure of Jocassee Dam would result in a meltdown.
9. North Anna 1 in Mineral, Virginia: Dual loss of offsite power caused by earthquake AFW pump out of service & failure of Unit 2 EDG.
10. Byron 2 in Byron, Illinois: Transformer & breaker failures cause Loss of Off Site Power, reactor trip and de-energizing of safety buses.
“If the NRC can’t even accurately track near meltdowns why should the public have any confidence that they can prevent them?"
IT'S A NUCLEAR DILEMMA... A NIGHTMARE
Fifty years after the United States launched a bold plan to invest in nuclear power, most of the promises of clean, inexpensive energy have failed to materialize. Plants often cost far more than projected and took years longer to build — driving up rates for consumers. Many plants never were completed, instead becoming a debt utility companies passed on to ratepayers.
Of even greater concern to the nuclear watchdogs: the vast and growing piles of spent nuclear fuel. There still is no known way to store used fuel long-term that guarantees it won’t leak during the tens of thousands of years some components remain radioactive.
At shuttered plants across the country, towns will be left with several hundred tons of nuclear waste in the form of highly radioactive spent fuel.
The Government Accountability Office calls the hot and highly radioactive stuff one of the most hazardous substances created by humans. Some components stay radioactive for tens of thousands of years.
“If not properly contained or shielded, the intense radioactivity of spent fuel can cause immediate deaths and environmental contamination, and in lower doses can cause long-term health hazards such as cancer,” the accountability office said in a 2012 study of spent fuel done at Congress’ request.
More than 70 percent of the spent fuel in the United States currently remains at reactor sites, squeezed into tightly racked storage pools that were designed for much smaller loads.
U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who has long fought for tighter industry controls, said the agency gambles with the public’s health.
"What price do residents pay for living near operating nuclear facilities?” he wrote in a statement. “We should know that answer.”
Plant owners, however, hope to keep lucrative reactors online despite their age. Most already have extended their reactor licenses for another 20 years beyond the initial 40 they were allowed to operate. And at least two already have indicated their intent to go for another extension, which would allow the plants to continue until they are 80 years old."
DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT THAT SAYS?
THE VERY AGENCIES AND 'COMMISSIONS' CHARGED WITH PROTECTING ALL OF US ARE INSTEAD PROTECTING THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY AND GRANTING THEM SO MANY FAVORS, SO MUCH LEEWAY THAT THERE MIGHT AS WELL NOT BE A SINGLE REGULATION WRITTEN FOR THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY.
WHAT DOES ALL THIS TELL US?
IT TELLS ME THAT HUMAN LIVES COME SECOND AFTER NUCLEAR INDUSTRY PROFITS, THAT NONE OF OUR GOVERNMENTS ARE LOOKING OUT FOR OUR SAFETY BUT ARE, INSTEAD, MAKING SURE THE NUCLEAR ENERGY AND NUCLEAR WEAPONS MAKERS DON'T GO BROKE, DON'T HAVE TO SHUT DOWN AND LEAVE OUR GOVERNMENTS STRUGGLING TO BURY RADIOACTIVE WASTE, CLEAN UP FAILED FACILITIES, MONITOR DUMP SITED FOR ETERNITY.
WE HAVE TO FACE IT AND DECIDE WHAT WE INTEND TO DO TO SAVE OURSELVES AND OUR FUTURE, PEOPLE OF EARTH.
NOBODY IS GOING TO HELP US LIVE OVER THIS SILENT NUCLEAR WAR BEING WAGED AGAINST ALL OF US...WE ARE ON OUR OWN.
NOW WHAT?
WHATEVER WE DO, WE MUST START NOW!
ONE MORE FUKUSHIMA WILL FINISH US, MY FRIENDS.
OUR BODIES WERE NOT DESIGNED TO GLOW IN THE DARK FROM FALLOUT.
______________________________
A POSTSCRIPT:
MENTIONED ON THE SAME PAGE AS THE WALL STREET JOURNAL'S SHORT PIECE ON THE FRENCH EXPLOSION WAS THIS...300 MORE DEAD WHALES...AND I SAT HERE WEEPING, I ADMIT IT, BECAUSE I AM CONVINCED THE FUKUSHIMA RADIATION, THE OIL SPILLS, THE DUMPING OF CHEMICALS INTO OUR OCEANS ARE KILLING MARINE LIFE OUT THERE.
THEY HAVE NO PLACE TO RUN TO, NO ESCAPE...
NOR DO WE, MY FRIENDS...NOR DO WE.
Hundreds of Whales Swim Aground in New Zealand, 250 TO 300 DEAD
2/10/2017, 7:59AM
More than 400 pilot whales were found beached at Farewell Spit in New Zealand on Friday. The Department of Conservation estimated the number of dead whales at about 250 to 300.
//WW
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