Fukushima out of the headlines

"A Cone of Silence has descended over Fukushima Daiichi and we continue to read virtually nothing in the MSM leading up to the 3 Anniversary which is now little more than a month away"

'Syndrome of denying radiation damage': Fukushima disappears from global headlines

Voice of Russia,

4 February, 2014

The aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster has been severely underestimated, according to the Global Research center. The article posted on its website cites 50 reasons why - quote – ‘we should fear the worst from Fukushima’. It was penned by Harvey Wasserman, an American journalist and advocate for renewable energy. The Voice of Russia talked to Harvey Wasserman – an American journalist and advocate for renewable energy, editor of http://www.nukefree.org/

The author maintains that Japan’s harsh dictatorial censorship coupled with a global media blackout is aimed at keeping Fukushima out of the public eye.

The impacts of these emissions on human and ecological health are unknown primarily because the nuclear industry has resolutely refused to study them, Mr.Wasserman writes.

He further states that this mindset described as ‘see no evil, pay no damages’ dates from the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. The bombings killed tens of thousands of people, with many dying later from radiation.

The article says the US military initially denied that there was any radioactive fallout or that it could do any damage. Nevertheless, the victims, including a group of US prisoners of war, were officially discredited and scorned.

The author points out that numerous attempts to draw public attention to the hazards of nuclear radiation have met with resistance from the nuclear and medical establishments. He goes on to say that by refusing to provide emission assessment, the industry systematically hides harmful health impacts at Chernobyl, Fukushima and other nuclear facilities, forcing victims to rely on isolated independent studies that are deemed ‘discredited’.

The authorities in Japan and other countries are trying to keep the Fukushima issue out of the public eye. Have these efforts been successful, in your opinion? Is it possible to conceal this kind of information?

Yes, Japan of course has passed the State Secrets Act and there are very-very serious penalties now for publishing information that Japan considers a breach to its national security, which includes Fukushima. In the middle of a very dangerous bring-down of spent-fuel from the pool at the Unit 4, the process was suspended.

We haven’t heard\seen any coverage of that whatsoever. And so, with the cooperation of the corporate media Fukushima has all but disappeared from the global headlines, but the situation there is still very dire.

Why does the nuclear industry refuse to study the impact of radioactive emissions?

This is a 70-year phenomenon dating back really to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, when the American military initially denied any radioactive fallout at all and they denied any health impacts of people who showed that they have been harmed by radiation from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They were essentially scorned by the military until the scientists went in and made it an irrefutable situation.

This syndrome of denying any radiation damage has stretched to the nuclear bomb tests, to medical X-rays and of course to the entire history of the nuclear power industry. For many years, really, until Fukushima the nuclear industry denied that the commercial reactor could explode.

Of course, Chernobyl exploded, but they said – well, that was a Soviet reactor. Now we’ve had four general electric reactors that have exploded at Fukushima. 

There are 400 reactors worldwide and we know now that they are all in danger of blowing up. The industry wants to continue building new reactors, they are terrified of renewable. And so, it is in their interest to keep out any news about health dangers.

If you are going to introduce a new drug, for example, you have to test it out and make sure that it is safe. But no one has ever done that for nuclear power and we have 400 these reactors in our ecosphere. So, the industry has done one thing very well over the past 70 years – it’s refused to establish a medical or epidemiological database for the impact of atomic radiation and that of course continues.

With that thought in mind, the official reports tend to downplay the effects of the Fukushima disaster. Do you think people believe them?

I don’t know what people believe. But you are exactly right, they have more than downplayed. They’ve denied pretty much any possible impacts from Fukushima. We actually have people running around saying – no one is going to be harmed by the radiation from Fukushima – even though it is many-many times greater than what came out of Chernobyl.

And we know of course what those impacts from Chernobyl have been and of course the industry denies that as well. I mean, the evidence coming from Ukraine and Belarus, especially among children, has been horrifying. And we expect more of the same from Fukushima.

Much of the radiation at Fukushima has been going into the ocean. 300 tons of radioactive water are pouring into the Pacific Ocean every day at Fukushima, and yet the industry is of course saying that this is miniscule and won’t have any impact.

We have to remember that the initial finding in 1956 by Dr. Alice Stewart that a single X-ray to a pregnant woman could double the leukemia rate among the children born. The most important finding of all is that essentially there is no safe dose of radiation.

Of course, today we do not X-ray pregnant women, even though the industry argued for 30 years that it is actually harmless. And we wear a bib when we have a dental X-ray and the X-ray technician leaves the room. And yet the industry wants us to believe that pouring in huge quantities of radiation is not going to harm anybody. It is just not credible.

In your opinion, do you feel that those 300 tons of wastes that are being dumped into the Pacific Ocean might have anything to do with the numerous reports of wildlife that is dying off in the west coast of America?

Yes, I believe that, first of all, we are having serious global warming problems and of course there is a lot of pollution in our oceans today, much of the water is very toxic. But the last thing you want to do is add in yet another lethal poison, which is the radiation. And when you add radiation into a situation where there already is bad pollution, you are really upping the ante.

And that’s what we believe is happening here. It is impossible to measure these impacts very precisely but we know that over time the radiation is going to add significantly to the damage being done by all the other forms of pollution in the oceans.

And we have to remember, of course, actually it has only been three years ago, on March 11th . And these radioactive materials that are pouring into the Pacific are going to be deadly for decades, if not hundreds of years. And we really won’t be able to understand the full impacts of this radiation for many-many years. Radiation causes cancers that don’t surface for 10-20-30 years.

Do you think people in Japan or elsewhere are aware of the health risks posed by Fukushima?

I think many are, but also think that the industry has done a very powerful counterattack, as it has done for 70 years by covering up the true damages. This is a phenomenon that we’ve lived with for many-many decades. The industry does not study the health impacts, it does not build epidemiological databases to follow the health of the people. They didn’t do it at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they don’t want to do it at Chernobyl and they will not do it at Fukushima.

So, it is a “see no evil, pay no damages” strategy. And that’s what we are seeing again at Fukushima. They are not even maintaining a database of people in the near area and they are not following the radiation that’s been released. And then, they turn around and say – well, there is no proof of any damage. If there is no proof, that’s because they not only do not look for proof but have attacked the people who are providing the proof.

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The consequences of Fukushima

50 Reasons We Should Fear the Worst from Fukushima

Harvey Wasserman

Ecowatch,

2 February, 2013

Fukushima’s missing melted cores and radioactive gushers continue to fester in secret.

Japan’s harsh dictatorial censorship has been matched by a global corporate media blackout aimed—successfully—at keeping Fukushima out of the public eye.

But that doesn’t keep the actual radiation out of our ecosystem, our markets … or our bodies. 

Speculation on the ultimate impact ranges from the utterly harmless to the intensely apocalyptic .

But the basic reality is simple: for seven decades, government Bomb factories and privately-owned reactors have spewed massive quantities of unmonitored radiation into the biosphere. 

The impacts of these emissions on human and ecological health are unknown primarily because the nuclear industry has resolutely refused to study them. 

Indeed, the official presumption has always been that showing proof of damage from nuclear Bomb tests and commercial reactors falls to the victims, not the perpetrators. 

And that in any case, the industry will be held virtually harmless.

This “see no evil, pay no damages” mindset dates from the Bombing of Hiroshima to Fukushima to the disaster coming next … which could be happening as you read this.

Here are 50 preliminary reasons why this radioactive legacy demands we prepare for the worst for our oceans, our planet, our economy … ourselves.

1. At Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1945), the U.S. military initially denied that there was any radioactive fallout, or that it could do any damage. Despite an absence of meaningful data, the victims (including a group of U.S. prisoners of war) and their supporters were officially “discredited” and scorned.

2. Likewise, when Nobel-winners Linus Pauling and Andre Sakharov correctly warned of a massive global death toll from atmospheric Bomb testing, they were dismissed with official contempt … until they won in the court of public opinion.

3. During and after the Bomb Tests (1946-63), downwinders in the South Pacific and American west, along with thousands of U.S. “atomic vets,” were told their radiation-induced health problems were imaginary … until they proved utterly irrefutable.

4. When British Dr. Alice Stewart proved (1956) that even tiny x-ray doses to pregnant mothers could double childhood leukemia rates, she was assaulted with 30 years of heavily funded abuse from the nuclear and medical establishments.

5. But Stewart’s findings proved tragically accurate, and helped set in stone the medical health physics consensus that there is no “safe dose” of radiation … and that pregnant women should not be x-rayed, or exposed to equivalent radiation.

6. More than 400 commercial power reactors have been injected into our ecosphere with no meaningful data to measure their potential health and environmental impacts, and no systematic global data base has been established or maintained. 

7. “Acceptable dose” standards for commercial reactors were conjured from faulty A-Bomb studiesbegun five years after Hiroshima, and at Fukushima and elsewhere have been continually made more lax to save the industry money.

8. Bomb/reactor fallout delivers alpha and beta particle emitters that enter the body and do long-term damage, but which industry backers often wrongly equate with less lethal external gamma/x-ray doses from flying in airplanes or living in Denver.

9. By refusing to compile long-term emission assessments, the industry systematically hides health impacts at Three Mile Island (TMI), Chernobyl, Fukushima, etc., forcing victims to rely on isolated independent studies which it automatically deems “discredited.”

10. Human health damage has been amply suffered in radium watch dial painting, Bomb production, uranium mining/milling/enrichment, waste management and other radioactive work, despite decades of relentless industry denial.

11. When Dr. Ernest Sternglass, who had worked with Albert Einstein, warned that reactor emissions were harming people, thousands of copies of his Low-Level Radiation (1971)mysteriously disappeared from their primary warehouse.

12. When the Atomic Energy Commission’s (AEC) Chief Medical Officer, Dr. John Gofman, urged that reactor dose levels be lowered by 90 percent, he was forced out of the AEC and publicly attacked, despite his status a founder of the industry.

13. A member of the Manhattan Project, and a medical doctor responsible for pioneer research into LDL cholesterol, Gofman later called the reactor industry an instrument of “premeditated mass murder.”

14. Stack monitors and other monitoring devices failed at Three Mile Island (1979) making it impossible to know how much radiation escaped, where it went or who it impacted and how.

15. But some 2,400 TMI downwind victims and their families were denied a class action jury trial by a federal judge who said “not enough radiation” was released to harm them, though she could not say how much that was or where it went. 

16. During TMI’s meltdown, industry advertising equated the fallout with a single chest x-ray to everyone downwind, ignoring the fact that such doses could double leukemia rates among children born to involuntarily irradiated mothers.

17. Widespread death and damage downwind from TMI have been confirmed by Dr. Stephen Wing, Jane Lee and Mary Osbourne, Sister Rosalie Bertell, Dr. Sternglass, Jay Gould, Joe Mangano and others, along with hundreds of anecdotal reports.

18. Radioactive harm to farm and wild animals downwind from TMI has been confirmed by the Baltimore News-American and Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.

19. TMI’s owner quietly paid out at least $15 million in damages in exchange for gag orders from the affected families, including at least one case involving a child born with Down’s Syndrome.

20. Chernobyl’s explosion became public knowledge only when massive emissions came down on a Swedish reactor hundreds of miles away, meaning that—as at TMI and Fukushima—no one knows precisely how much escaped or where it went. 

21.  Fukushima’s on-going fallout is already far in excess of that from Chernobyl, which was far in excess of that from Three Mile Island.

22.  Soon after Chernobyl blew up (1986), Dr. Gofman predicted its fallout would kill at least 400,000 people worldwide.

23. Three Russian scientists who compiled more than 5,000 studies concluded in 2005 that Chernobyl had already killed nearly a million people worldwide. 

24.  Children born in downwind Ukraine and Belarus still suffer a massive toll of mutation and illness, as confirmed by a wide range of governmental, scientific and humanitarian organizations.

25. Key low-ball Chernobyl death estimates come from the World Health Organization, whose numbers are overseen by International Atomic Energy Agency, a United Nations organization chartered to promote the nuclear industry. 

26. After 28 years, the reactor industry has still not succeeded in installing a final sarcophagus over the exploded Chernobyl Unit 4, though billions of dollars have been invested.

27. When Fukushima Units 1-4 began to explode, President Obama assured us all the fallout would not come here, and would harm no one, despite having no evidence for either assertion.

28. Since President Obama did that, the U.S. has established no integrated system to monitor Fukushima’s fallout, nor an epidemiological data base to track its health impacts … but it did stop checking radiation levels in Pacific seafood.

29. Early reports of thyroid abnormalities among children downwind from Fukushima, and in North America are denied by industry backers who again say “not enough radiation” was emitted though they don’t know how much that might be. 

30. Devastating health impacts reported by sailors stationed aboard the USS Ronald Reagan near Fukushima are being denied by the industry and Navy, who say radiation doses were too small to do harm, but have no idea what they were.

31. While in a snowstorm offshore as Fukushima melted, sailors reported a warm cloud passing over the Reagan that brought a “metallic taste” like that described by TMI downwinders and the airmen who dropped the Bomb on Hiroshima.

32. Though it denies the sailors on the Reagan were exposed to enough Fukushima radiation to harm them, Japan (like South Korea and Guam) denied the ship port access because it was too radioactive (it’s now docked in San Diego).

33. The Reagan sailors are barred from suing the Navy, but have filed a class action against Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), which has joined the owners at TMI, the Bomb factories, uranium mines, etc., in denying all responsibility.

34. A U.S. military “lessons learned” report from Fukushima’s Operation Tomodachi clean-up campaign notes that “decontamination of aircraft and personnel without alarming the general population created new challenges.”

35. The report questioned the clean-up because “a true decontamination operations standard for ‘clearance’ was not set,” thereby risking “the potential spread of radiological contamination to military personnel and the local populace.”

36. Nonetheless, it reported that during the clean-up, “the use of duct tape and baby wipes was effective in the removal of radioactive particles.”

37. In league with organized crime, Tepco is pursuing its own clean-up activities by recruiting impoverished homeless and elderly citizens for “hot” on-site labor, with the quality of their work and the nature of their exposures now a state secret. 

38. At least 300 tons of radioactive water continue to pour into the ocean at Fukushima every day, according to official estimates made prior to such data having been made a state secret.

39. To the extent they can be known, the quantities and make-up of radiation pouring out of Fukushima are also now a state secret, with independent measurement or public speculation punishable by up to ten years in prison.

40. Likewise, “There is no systematic testing in the U.S. of air, food and water for radiation,” according to University of California (Berkeley) nuclear engineering Professor Eric Norman.

41. Many radioactive isotopes tend to concentrate as they pour into the air and water, so deadly clumps of Fukushima’s radiation may migrate throughout the oceans for centuries to come before diffusing, which even then may not render it harmless. 

42. Radiation’s real world impact becomes even harder to measure in an increasingly polluted biosphere, where interaction with existing toxins creates a synergy likely to exponentially accelerate the damage being done to all living things.

43. Reported devastation among starfish, sardines, salmon, sea lions, orcas and other ocean animals cannot be definitively denied without a credible data base of previous experimentation and monitoring, which does not exist and is not being established.

44. The fact that “tiny” doses of x-ray can harm human embryos portends that any unnatural introduction of lethal radioactive isotopes into the biosphere, however “diffuse,” can affect our intertwined global ecology in ways we don’t now understand.  

45. The impact of allegedly “minuscule” doses spreading from Fukushima will, over time, affect the minuscule eggs of creatures ranging from sardines to starfish to sea lions, with their lethal impact enhanced by the other pollutants already in the sea. 

46. Dose comparisons to bananas and other natural sources are absurd and misleading as the myriad isotopes from reactor fallout will impose very different biological impacts for centuries to come in a wide range of ecological settings.

47. No current dismissal of general human and ecological impacts—”apocalyptic” or otherwise—can account over time for the very long half-lives of radioactive isotopes Fukushima is now pouring into the biosphere. 

48. As Fukushima’s impacts spread through the centuries, the one certainty is that no matter what evidence materializes, the nuclear industry will never admit to doing any damage, and will never be forced to pay for it (see upcoming sequel).

49. Hyman Rickover, father of the nuclear navy, warned that it is a form of suicide to raise radiation levels within Earth’s vital envelope, and that if he could, he would “sink” all the reactors he helped develop. 

50. “Now when we go back to using nuclear power,” he said in 1982, “I think the human race is going to wreck itself, and it is important that we get control of this horrible force and try to eliminate it.”

As Fukushima deteriorates behind an iron curtain of secrecy and deceit, we desperately need to know what it’s doing to us and our planet.

It’s tempting to say the truth lies somewhere between the industry’s lies and the rising fear of a tangible apocalypse.

In fact, the answers lie beyond.

 assurances that this latest reactor disaster won’t hurt us fade to absurdity.

Defined by seven decades of deceit, denial and a see-no-evil dearth of meaningful scientific study, the glib corporate

Fukushima pours massive, unmeasured quantities of lethal radiation into our fragile ecosphere every day, and will do so for decades to come. 

Five power reactors have now exploded on this planet and there are more than 400 others still operating.

What threatens us most is the inevitable next disaster … along with the one after that … and then the one after that …

Pre-wrapped in denial, protected by corporate privilege, they are the ultimate engines of global terror. 

——–

Harvey Wasserman’s next piece is on how Fukushima threatens our human freedom and material survival. He edits www.nukefree.org, and wrote Solartopia! Our Green-Powered Earth. 

In the meantime Greenpeace doesn't seem to think there's too much to worry about

Yes, things are very bad at Fukushima but it’s not the Apocalypse

Greenpeace,

24 January, 2014

There have been a number of news stories recently about the radiation escaping into the ocean at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant that have raised great concern. Some are worried about how escaping radiation  may or may not be affecting ocean eco-systems around the world.

Since Greenpeace has been working on the Fukushima nuclear crisis since it first began in March 2011, we can offer some thoughts on people’s concerns.

We have sampled sealife along the Japanese coastline, both from the Rainbow Warrior and in conjunction with local fishermen and Japan's food cooperatives.

You can find some of the results of our independent measurements, including analysis of fish samples, on our Radiation Surveys – Fukushima webpage.

A map compiling our on-land radiation readings

We have a number of marine biologists and radiation specialists on our team whose findings and assessments we share with scientists and academic researchers.

There are many reasons to be concerned about the continuing impacts of the disaster on people and the environment. These include the ongoing leaks of contaminated water from the damaged Fukushima reactors into the ground and ocean, the unresolved issue of how to reliably store huge volumes of contaminated water, as well as the massive amounts of radioactive material produced by the decontamination efforts in FukushimaPrefecture.

Then there is the plight of over 100,000 evacuees. Their lives are in limbo.  After nearly three years, they still have not received proper compensation from either the government or the corporations responsible for the accident.  

Many people have been exposed to significantly elevated levels of radiation. Thousands of square kilometers have been contaminated and will be for many decades to come by radioactive fallout from the accident.

Then there are the challenges of dismantling the whole crippled nuclear power plant whose melted reactors still have lethally dangerous nuclear fuel inside them. 

These alone are enough to conclude that the situation is really, really bad. 

However, there are also stories that exaggerate the risks and create news of potential catastrophies that are well beyond reality. Given that people's trust in public authorities has been shaken (and not without a reason!), one can often find alarming but unconfirmed information on social media.

Most recent have been the stories of rumours about ongoing nuclear reactions inside the crippled Fukushima reactors and vast radioactive contamination of the Pacific Ocean and the west coasts of the US and Canada.  

We have checked these stories and our conclusion is clear: these are not stories based in fact. For example, while unprecedented amounts of radioactive cesium have ended up in the Pacific Ocean, significantly contaminating sediments and fisheries along the Japanese coastline, there is no plausible mechanism that could transport significant levels of contamination across the Pacific to reach beaches in the US, Canada or Australia.

Yes, there are detectable traces of those radioactive isotopes in US waters, but they are at very low levels, and their contribution to radiation doses is far below the natural background radiation level.

This does not necessarily mean they are completely safe (no radiation dose is low enough to be 100% safe), but the additional risks they present to living organisms, including humans, are negligible. Certainly, these levels are not causing radiation sickness, deformities or mass deaths of ocean life. 

That is why we continue to focus on the big post-Fukushima problems in Japan itself. This is where you can occasionally still catch a fish whose contamination exceeds the official standards.

While the frequency of such catches has indeed fallen since 2011, they still occur and send a reminder of the ongoing risks and need for precautionary measures when it comes to seafood from Japan's northeastern coastline.

But to repeat: the idea that contamination from Fukushima presents a risk to the coastal waters and their ecosystems of the US, Canada or Australia is seriously over-stretched.

(Follow what Greenpeace does about the Fukushima nuclear crisis on this blog, where we also publish a twice weekly digest of news from the region. Also follow us on Twitter at @nukereaction.)

Jan Beránek is the leader of Greenpeace International’s Energy Campaign

Fukushima DNA Mutations..."Move along...Nothing to see here folks.

Gundersen, Caldicott and Wasserman interviewed

This interview features Arnie Gundesen, Helen Caldicott and Harvey Wasserman

Progressive Commentary Hour – 12/16/13

Special broadcast on the conditions at Fukushima and its present and long-term threats

Arne Gundersen is founding chief engineer of Fairwinds Energy Education, a non profit organization dedicated to educating the public about nuclear power and other energy issues. In the past he was an energy advisor with 39-years of nuclear power engineering experience and a former nuclear industry senior vice president. During his industry career, Arne managed and coordinated projects at 70-nuclear power plants around the country. Now an independent nuclear engineering and safety expert, Arne has provided testimony on nuclear operations, reliability, safety, and radiation issues to the NRC, Congressional and State Legislatures, and Government Agencies and Officials throughout the US, Canada, and internationally. In 2008, he was appointed by the Vermont Senate President to be the first Chair of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant Oversight Panel.He is regarded as one of the leading nuclear experts who is conveying the truth about the dangers of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants and the global threats from the on-going release of radiation. His website is FairWinds.org

Dr. Helen Caldicott is perhaps the single most articulate and passionate advocate of citizen action to counter the nuclear and environmental crises. She has a medical degree from the University of Adelaide and was a pediatric instructor Harvard Medical School until 1980 when she resigned to work full time on the prevention of nuclear war. She co-founded the Physicians for Social Responsibility, an organization of 23,000 doctors committed to educating their colleagues about the dangers of nuclear power, nuclear weapons and nuclear war. Dr. Caldicott has received numerous awards, was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by Linus Pauling and has 21 honorary degress. The Smithsonian has named Dr. Caldicott as one of the most influential women of the 20th century.

She has written many articles and books, her latest being “Nuclear Power is Not the Answer to Global Warming or Anything Else.” Her website is www.HelenCaldicott.com

Prof. Harvey Wasserman is a professor of history at Columbus State College and Capital University in Ohio. He is an investigative journalist, author and has been a national voice in the anti-war and anti-nuclear movements for over four decades. He is also a senior advisor for Greenpeace USA and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service and founder of Solartopia.org, a grassroots endeavor to promote a green-powered earth. Among his many books are “George W Bush vs. the Superpower of Peace” and his articles appear frequently on Counterpunch, Alternet, NukeWatch, Huffington Post and others.

Harvey can also be heard every Monday afternoon at 3 pm Eastern as host of “Green Power and Wellness” on the Progressive Radio Network. His website is Solartopia.org

Fukushima

“The boron between the nuclear fuel has disintegrated. It was never designed for the temperatures it’s seen and it was never designed for saltwater. So there’s no assurance that you’ve got boron neutron absorbers between the nuclear fuel rods. So you’ve got what we call an inadvertent criticality — you’ve got the chance of the nuclear fuel pool becoming a nuclear reactor when it didn’t want to be, as they pull these rods out. So they have to be extraordinarily careful that they dont snap a rod and extraordinarily careful that as they’re pulling these rods, that the dont get an inadvertent criticality”

Arnie Gundersen interviewed by Harvey Wasserman

FUKUSHIMA and the fall of nuclear power with ARNIE GUNDERSEN and MICHAEL MARIOTTE fill this riveting hour as we get to the bottom of the Unit Four fuel pool. A long-time nuclear engineer, Arnie explains at www.Fairewinds.org much of the only reliable technical information about what’s happening at Fukushima. Executive Director of the Nuclear Information & Resource Service since shortly after Chernobyl, Michael sorts through the realities of reactor operations and waste management at www.nirs.org. If you are at all concerned about our global future, don’t miss this show.

"Chernobyl Was Transparent Compared to Fukushima": Harvey Wasserman on Ongoing Crisis

By Laura Flanders, Truthout

Truth-Out

19 November, 2013

The operators of Japan's devastated Fukushima nuclear plant have announced plans to remove 400 tons of highly irradiated spent fuel from the site, in an unprecedented operation that began Monday November 18. Nuclear researcher Harvey Wasserman believes that the highly risky procedure, in fact, the entire plant needs to be taken out of the hands of the operators- Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO).

In this interview with GRITtv, Wasserman explains how the fuel rods at Reactor Number Four have been stored since the earthquake and tsunami that hit the Fukushima Daiichi Plant in March of 2011. They can't heat up, be exposed to air or break without releasing deadly gas, but the cooling pool they've been resting in is leaky and potentially corroded by seawater and could never withstand another tremor or quake. The cooling pool is also 100 feet up.

"These rods have to be brought to the ground. It's never been done under these kinds of circumstances," says Wasserman. But as a 40-year activist in the field, Wasserman is especially concerned about the operators, TEPCO.

"I believe we got better information from the Soviet Union about Chernobyl than we're getting from TEPCO and the Japanese about Fukushima," he told GRITtv.

 A petition with more than 150,000 signatures was delivered to the United Nations earlier this November, calling for the world to take action. But who? As he points out, the International Atomic Energy Agency" has a mandate to promote nuclear power."

What does all of this say about the prospect of safe nuclear power and the "new generation of plants" the Obama administration endorses? And what about the Tokyo Olympics? Wasserman's answers aren't reassuring.....[ ]