The ocean around Fukushima, Japan is contaminated with radioactivity levels almost unheard of, at 5,000,000 times the legal limit,(read 5 MILLION times the legal limit) and even 7,000,000 times the legal limit, the numbers, which are unbelievable, change daily depending upon the "engineer's solution to pollution, which is dilution".
Water, seaweed, fish, the --whole works is contaminated, throwing a very large potential wrench into the future of the Japanese fishing and seafood industry for many years to come. Countries are already banning Japanese sea products.
Clearly fish that are contaminated to the point they are not fit for human consumption will not only be unsafe for humans, but unfit for the natural food chain, and in turn, unfit to produce and support offspring, which may undergo mutation; the further up the food chain the contamination goes, the higher the concentrations shall be.
Realistically, at this sad point in history there is no predictable, safe end for this tragedy, there is literally no end in sight to this problem. We shall undoubtedly praise God when brave men risking life and limb stop nuclear leaks, and the world flinches, but looks away as Japan dumps 15,000 tons of radioactive water into the ocean, and will do so again, repeatedly if necessary. Dumping contaminated water will make more room for more cooling water required, which will in turn become contaminated, ad infinitum, and we shall be reluctantly obligated to turn face when they have to dump THAT too. Humanity will clearly "look away" again and again.
If such an occurrence happened in the middle of the United States of America, or for example, in Canada, along Lake Ontario, at Pickering, where would WE dump 15,000 tons of radioactive water? Into Lake Ontario while nobody is looking? How about at Darlington?
Let's face it, it might be a one in 20 MILLION chance of anything happening, but people DO win lotteries. It therefore becomes a BET, a sickening gamble, where the nuclear industry bets their safety record against the lives of MILLIONS of Canadians and Americans.
Can the the nuclear industry world-wide guarantee there will never be another nuclear incident? Clearly not, therefore they have no moral authority to put our lives on the betting table.
End of story.
It seems this should be the final death knell of the nuclear industry, three strikes, you're out; the only logical, viable, and sensible strategy is to source energy from clean, renewable sources, wind, solar, hydrogen, and other clean technologies, --but we will not do that, clean technology is not exciting enough or daring enough to lure big money, it is not challenging enough to revered, arrogant scientists who pride themselves in challenging, big scientific feats. Being closer to fools, sheep that follow and lemmings that race to jump to their deaths over high cliffs, civilization will likely continue to ALLOW the dirty nuclear industry to keep polluting, more, and more. The question is why? in the old west, reckless, dangerous people were quickly dealt with by frontier justice.
There is facing us, therefore, unlimited contamination at this point, coupled with very limited hope. Why? A lesson has not been learned, there is already grumbling "commentary" suggesting that a return to coal and other technologies would "damage the environment" by contributing to global warming, the old 2 degree change in world temperature argument. Such proponents of nuclear energy suggest shall exploit that myth and conveniently "save us all" and avoid that problem by keeping the nuclear industry "alive and well" even if it is as dangerous as hell." .
At Incoming Bytes we believe building any more nuclear reactors is not a reasonable option under any circumstance; it is not a reasonable option under any terms of reference, since all nations receive sunshine; all nations have winds.
Who would be glaringly foolish enough to resurrect coal technology when SOLAR and WIND technology is so easily available? Who can ignore the fact that Spain, as an example, gets the majority of it's power from solar sources?
We can complain endlessly that it takes large amounts of money to build wind generators and solar stations. It costs money to build a solar system on your roof that will run your home and pump clean solar energy into the grid, and it costs about a million dollars to build a very large wind generator. Shall we conveniently ignore the proven fact that it costs many $BILLIONS to build an unsafe nuclear reactor that is virtually guaranteed to fail at some point in the future?
The NEW questions for the day are:
" Where are WE going to dump OUR radioactive, contaminated water?" Where are we going to dispose of spent fuel bundles?
Ans: NOT in MY back yard, you're not.
It is not a matter of "if" we will have to dump some radioactive water, and dispose of thousands of highly radioactive fuel rods. It's just a matter of WHEN. You'll have to figure it out. The Japanese people have proven that to be the ultimate truth.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
