After Fukushima: Enough Is
Enough
Fukushima Power Plant
EMF Protection Devices
Magnetic Field Detector
December 2,
2011
The nuclear
power industry has been resurrected over the past decade by
a lobbying campaign that has left many people believing it
to be a clean, green, emission-free alternative to fossil
fuels. These beliefs pose an extraordinary threat to global
public health and encourage a major financial drain on
national economies and taxpayers. The commitment to nuclear
power as an environmentally safe energy source has also
stifled the mass development of alternative technologies
that are far cheaper, safer and almost emission free — the
future for global energy.
When the Fukushima Daiichi reactors suffered meltdowns in March,
literally in the backyard of an unsuspecting public, the
stark reality that the risks of nuclear power far outweigh
any benefits should have become clear to the world. As the
old quip states, “Nuclear power is one hell of a way to boil
water.”
Instead, the nuclear industry
has used the disaster to increase its already extensive
lobbying efforts. A few nations vowed to phase out nuclear
energy after the disaster. But many others have remained
steadfast in their commitment. That has left millions of
innocent people unaware that they — all of us — may face a
medical catastrophe beyond all proportions in the wake of
Fukushima and through the continued widespread use of
nuclear energy.
The world was warned of the
dangers of nuclear accidents 25 years ago, when Chernobyl
exploded and lofted radioactive poisons into the atmosphere.
Those poisons “rained out,” creating hot spots over the
Northern Hemisphere. Research by scientists in Eastern
Europe, collected and published by the New York Academy of
Sciences, estimates that 40 percent of the European land
mass is now contaminated with cesium 137 and other
radioactive poisons that will concentrate in food for
hundreds to thousands of years. Wide areas of Asia — from
Turkey to China — the United Arab Emirates, North Africa and
North America are also contaminated. Nearly 200 million
people remain exposed.
That research estimated that
by now close to 1 million people have died of causes linked
to the Chernobyl disaster. They perished from cancers,
congenital deformities, immune deficiencies, infections,
cardiovascular diseases, endocrine abnormalities and
radiation-induced factors that increased infant mortality.
Studies in Belarus found that in 2000, 14 years after the
Chernobyl disaster, fewer than 20 percent of children were
considered “practically healthy,” compared to 90 percent
before Chernobyl. Now, Fukushima has been called the
second-worst nuclear disaster after Chernobyl. Much is still
uncertain about the long-term consequences. Fukushima may
well be on par with or even far exceed Chernobyl in terms of
the effects on public health, as new information becomes
available. The crisis is ongoing; the plant remains unstable
and radiation emissions continue into the air and water.
Recent monitoring by citizens
groups, international organizations and the U.S. government
have found dangerous hot spots in Tokyo and other areas. The
Japanese government, meanwhile, in late September lifted
evacuation advisories for some areas near the damaged plant
— even though high levels of radiation remained. The
government estimated that it will spend at least $13 billion
to clean up contamination.
Many thousands of people
continue to inhabit areas that are highly contaminated,
particularly northwest of Fukushima. Radioactive elements
have been deposited throughout northern Japan, found in tap
water in Tokyo and concentrated in tea, beef, rice and other
food. In one of the few studies on human contamination in
the months following the accident, over half of the more
than 1,000 children whose thyroids were monitored in
Fukushima City were found to be contaminated with iodine 131
— condemning many to thyroid cancer years from now.
Children are innately
sensitive to the carcinogenic effects of radiation, fetuses
even more so. Like Chernobyl, the accident at Fukushima is
of global proportions. Unusual levels of radiation have been
discovered in British Columbia, along the West Coast and
East Coast of the United States and in Europe, and heavy
contamination has been found in oceanic waters.
Fukushima is classified as a
grade 7 accident on the International Atomic Energy Agency
scale — denoting “widespread health and environmental
effects.” That is the same severity as Chernobyl, the only
other grade 7 accident in history, but there is no higher
number on the agency’s scale.
After the accident, lobbying
groups touted improved safety at nuclear installations
globally. In Japan, the Tokyo Electric Power Co. — which
operates the Fukushima Daiichi reactors — and the government
have sought to control the reporting of negative stories via
telecom companies and Internet service providers.
In Britain, The Guardian
reported that days after the tsunami, companies with
interests in nuclear power — Areva, EDF Energy and
Westinghouse — worked with the government to downplay the
accident, fearing setbacks on plans for new nuclear power
plants.
Nuclear power has always been
the nefarious Trojan horse for the weapons industry, and
effective publicity campaigns are a hallmark of both
industries. The concept of nuclear electricity was conceived
in the early 1950s as a way to make the public more
comfortable with the U.S. development of nuclear weapons.
“The atomic bomb will be accepted far more readily if at the
same time atomic energy is being used for constructive
ends,” a consultant to the Defense Department Psychological
Strategy Board, Stefan Possony, suggested. The phrase “Atoms
for Peace” was popularized by President Dwight Eisenhower in
the early 1950s.
Nuclear power and nuclear
weapons are one and the same technology. A 1,000 megawatt
nuclear reactor generates 600 pounds or so of plutonium per
year: An atomic bomb requires a fraction of that amount for
fuel, and plutonium remains radioactive for 250,000 years.
Therefore every country with a nuclear power plant also has
a bomb factory with unlimited potential.The nuclear power
industry sets an unforgivable precedent by exporting nuclear
technology — bomb factories — to dozens of non-nuclear
nations.
Why is nuclear power still
viable, after we’ve witnessed catastrophic accidents,
enormous financial outlays, weapons proliferation and
nuclear-waste induced epidemics of cancers and genetic
disease for generations to come? Simply put, many government
and other officials believe the nuclear industry mantra:
safe, clean and green. And the public is not educated on the
issue.
There are some signs of
change. Germany will phase out nuclear power by 2022. Italy
and Switzerland have decided against it, and anti-nuclear
advocates in Japan have gained traction. China remains
cautious on nuclear power. Yet the nuclear enthusiasm of the
U.S., Britain, Russia and Canada continues unabated. The
industry, meanwhile, has promoted new modular and “advanced”
reactors as better alternatives to traditional reactors.
They are, however, subject to the very same risks —
accidents, terrorist attacks, human error — as the
traditional reactors. Many also create fissile material for
bombs as well as the legacy of radioactive waste.
True green, clean, nearly
emission-free solutions exist for providing energy. They lie
in a combination of conservation and renewable energy
sources, mainly wind, solar and geothermal, hydropower
plants, and biomass from algae. A smart-grid could integrate
consuming and producing devices, allowing flexible operation
of household appliances. The problem of intermittent power
can be solved by storing energy using available
technologies.
Millions of jobs can be
created by replacing nuclear power with nationally
integrated, renewable energy systems. In the U.S. alone, the
project could be paid for by the $180 billion currently
allocated for nuclear weapons programs over the next decade.
There would be no need for new weapons if the Russian and
U.S. nuclear arsenals — 95 percent of the estimated 20,500
nuclear weapons globally — were abolished.
Nuclear advocates often paint
those who oppose them as Luddites who are afraid of, or
don’t understand, technology, or as hysterics who exaggerate
the dangers of nuclear power.
One might recall the
sustained attack over many decades by the tobacco industry
upon the medical profession, a profession that revealed the
grave health dangers induced by smoking.
Smoking, broadly speaking,
only kills the smoker. Nuclear power bequeaths morbidity and
mortality — epidemics of disease — to all future
generations.
The millions of lives lost to
smoking in the era before the health risks of cigarettes
were widely exposed will be minuscule compared to the
medical catastrophe we face through the continued use of
nuclear power.
Let’s
use this extraordinary moment to convince governments and
others to move toward a nuclear-free world. Let’s prove that
informed democracies will behave in a responsible fashion.
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