Which Does Humanity need worse: A Bucket List or Mop and Bucket?

The Light of Hope

   Yes, we are contemplating human folly yet again, as we read more about the ongoing disaster at Fukushima, Japan. Why?   Because as global citizens we are obliged to make ourselves aware what is happening, and not allow ourselves  to be misled or distracted by less than honest propaganda,  red herrings, elections and politics, or manufactured war.


    We have been reading  that scientifically, carefully-measured  radiation levels around the damaged  nuclear reactors continue  to rise  in spite of best efforts  of our  "world-class nuclear community" and others  to contain the problem.  Radiation levels from the four  seriously damaged nuclear reactors, it turns out, are already  more than a bit disconcerting. 
    At over 4300 times the maximum allowable  limit, local sea water is  unimaginably contaminated,  but will optimistically be "diluted",  --or so advises the informed nuclear establishment.  Yet another "out of sight, out of mind" solution is the temptation; dilution, the engineer's dream.  Is everyone  deluded enough to imagine sea life wouldn't  mind a little radiation after all, --is that the message we shall pass to our grandchildren ? 
    Well, all right. Let's  stop it quickly and clean it up instead....  A traditional mop and pail isn't exactly going to do the trick.  How about some wishful thinking, a bucket list ?  All human beings need a bucket list of wonderful plans and objectives to be completed and achieved prior to heading into the Great Beyond.  
    Now "jumpers", brave souls -- volunteers from around the globe, Europe and North America, dedicated, serious men seemingly with a death wish to save humanity itself -- are volunteering to work on  the reactors  to attempt to stem the flow of radiation and clean up.  Reportedly,  water in the tunnels under the reactor is far too dangerous to step  into.  Brave men struggled in Chernobyl, valiantly trying to do the same thing.  They died trying, too.      
In this tragedy, which does humanity need worse, a bucket list or a very large high-tech  mop and pail?  It seems both, but  perhaps a miracle would be more appropriate.  I wonder;  since scientists and technology created the problem,  are creationists obligated to solve it ?  There will be plenty of opportunity to hope and much reason to pray.
  Over in Europe,  wild boars  harvested in the forests of Germany--  over 1500 kilometers (950 miles) from Chernobyl  are now found to be contaminated with Cesium-137,  a radioactive isotope originating from the disaster at  Chernobyl  that  still remains a serious problem after a "mere"  25 years . The mushrooms and plant life eaten by the wild boars are highly contaminated. Radiation levels in the meat of the animals and the plants are reportedly thousands of times higher than normal.  What does that tell us?  Should we  close our eyes to that statistic?  Play ostrich?   Radiation from Fukushima  has already been detected in Canada and the United States. Should we believe our "officials" that say, "nothing to worry about".   Should we allow "officials", unknown to us,  to silently raise "allowed radiation levels" in consumable products, protecting the nuclear industry using a blank cheque written on the health of all of humanity?  At Incoming Bytes we think not. The time for truth has come.

The sad fact of the matter is,  if Chernobyl is any example, neither "bucket list" or high-tech mop & pail  treatment, no matter how well applied, will offer a quick fix for the growing problem in Japan. 
     Let us jest  and contemplate briefly the commandeering of a fix,  a solution, smiling, brave jumpers,  a couple of garden hoses, sprinklers,  a few  helicopter water drops  --and a few more brilliant-devised systems to pump ever more water into the reactors  to keep things cool.   Water IS required for cooling so the damaged reactor cores  won't  overheat, melt down further, releasing ever more radiation in the process of melting and burning.   Burning  releases radiation into the atmosphere rapidly as the nuclear fuel  burns merrily away, hot enough to melt holes in zirconium fuel tubes, casings and steel containment. 
    Pumping more water obviously introduces  more water into the reactor, which  ultimately  becomes contaminated.  More contaminated cooling water.   We don't have to ask where the water will go, do we ?   If it does not evaporate into atmosphere as contaminated steam boiled off from the extreme  heat, it  will  leak out into the sea, and contaminate an even larger volume of  seawater, spreading ever further. 
 An engineered disaster with catastrophic results.  Nature may not forgive.  Salmon  and killer-whales, mollusks and seals, sea-cucumber and starfish alike may be easy to see, glowing in the dark as they mutate to the last individual, for many years. 
 "The deadliest catch" is already being harvested.  The "knowledgeable, educated, wise and informed global nuclear community is harvesting precisely the crop they cultivated.  Out-of-control radiation.  Water or not, at best, it is  a catch-22, and a deadly one.


     What ultimately may be a far darker harbinger of things to come than mere sea-water, radioactive numbers and glowing sea-cucumbers  --is the stark, cold,  right-now, in-your face reality rescuers are dealing with  in the contaminated zone ;  radiation levels in the  exclusion zone are so high that rescuers, in protective gear and equipped with radiation alarms,  cannot remain in the area for long enough to be efficient,  even to do the necessary and grisly job of recovering  now-contaminated bodies of the victims from the endless rubble of that horrific earthquake and tsunami. Cremation of such bodies releases further radiation into the atmosphere.  
    The area may ultimately be so contaminated with radiation that it could be a "no man's land"  for a very long time to come.  The beautiful lands will longer produce milk, agricultural products or  any food fit for human consumption as they have done for centuries.  Fish and seafood from the area will no longer be fit for human consumption.  
 Tokyo is only a couple of hundred kilometers from Fukushima.  Let us not even contemplate that potential future health risk and disaster. Ultimately, humanity must pay the piper for arrogance.

     There is ONE genuine solution for the problem of damaged nuclear reactors and the inevitable nuclear crises that develop from them, but globally, humanity must have the resolve and ingenuity to change  direction, and become hopeful and clever enough to adapt change  universally --and immediately.   
The correct solution is to actually learn from the disasters at Three-Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima--and  NEVER build another one. 
--Not in Japan, not in Darlington, Ontario, and nowhere else on the globe either. The price is too high in terms of potential danger, terms of health, and in terms of cost to humanity.  

The truth always comes out.   Nuclear reactors are NO LONGER an option under ANY TERMS OF REFERENCE. That's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it.

Fukushima Disaster : Will Humanity Learn ?

The Light can be Blinding

At times I cannot believe my eyes. The light from the west   is blinding.  I thought I misread the numbers.  
To report to readers of Incoming Bytes  that the  latest news from Fukushima  in Japan  is  good  or getting better  would be deceit,  dishonest and a lie.   To shout "the news is bad"  could be inflammatory, but would probably be a substantial understatement and closer to the truth.  The escaped nuclear dragon in Japan has become even more problematic and dangerous. 
    Levels of radioactive iodine  have been recorded at 3,355 times the legal limit in the sea water close to the failed  Fukushima nuclear reactors.  You know the story, the Magnitude 9.0 earthquake, the tsunami, the reactor system failures. The hydrogen explosions.   Lack of cooling, partial meltdowns,  fuel ponds catching on fire. Radiation. Brave men trying to stop it, reminiscent of Chernobyl 25 years ago.  Dead men walking.  Plutonium was also found. Four of the reactors will have to be scrapped.  The long-term environmental, potentially mutating and death-dealing damage caused by this event may actually be incalculable.  The core of at least one of the six reactors has  partially melted through the containment vessel,  and the reactor  continues to leak highly radioactive water.  The radiation will spread;  the 'engineer's solution to pollution is dilution",  and yes, ultimately it may  be "diluted"  giving lower  readings,  but the fact is, it will still spread far and wide, causing untold damage with  "See no evil" applied.
    Meantime, authorities seem to pretend not to know where the radiation "might be" coming from.   Perfect.  See  no evil, speak no evil, and hear no evil.   Problem is, radiation from that source has already reached North American shores.  
  No gamesmanship  is offered here, let us not be gullible and foolish enough to pretend that masked, dignified and profuse  apologies from engineers, specialists,  nuclear facility owners, operators, global nuclear associations or the elected  will ever be enough to reverse the damage from  what is progressing to be one of the worst, if not THE worst  nuclear events in history.  The die is cast. The fat lady is singing horribly. 
    It goes without saying this unbelievable disaster could have been totally avoided by not building these reactors in the first place, let alone engineering and building them in one of the most unstable geological damage-prone areas on the globe. We'll undoubtedly hear about apologies for that, too.  --And about the engineers knowing that a Tsunami could overwhelm the plants.... and...and....ad nauseum.  
    Words are not enough to describe that  arrogant insanity,  but, "wink wink" will take care of it,  everyone politely agrees, it will be 'fine' , after all,   "What do average people know,  they're  just  people, the uninformed,  the 'workers',  the quintessential global citizen more interested in shopping than science,  and they and their opinions certainly don't belong up there in the elite nuclear echelon, --do they?     
 I imagine it is thought behind closed doors that ordinary folk  should clearly have no  say in what happens in their world, the reason being that the impoverished  homo sapiens,  the same  disenfranchised unfortunate once called a hunter-gatherer,  but now  "ordinary citizen "  -- is considered to  lack enough information, knowledge or any ability necessary to  question, interpret, validate,  condemn or criticize  ideas  fabricated and  revered  by nuclear "authorities" as they  brazenly  hold out  " PROOF of Nuclear Infallibility, PROOF of Knowledge", PROOF of Guaranteed Nuclear Safety,  --and thereby being not obligated,  dismiss  any genuine expressions of concern from the common masses. 

The nuclear "elite" further assign grandiose purpose to their treacherous, elitist  billion-dollar  projects as they present circular, incontrovertible justification for doing what they, the  " Elite-Deemed-Knowledgeable and Infallible " arbitrarily choose to do to the environment for profit,  without regard to the potential disasters they and their pet dragons inevitably create for all the world to see, --for all the world to fear--and for all the world to ultimately suffer from.  

That the elite themselves  and their progeny will eventually  become victims of their own greed seems to have been totally overlooked and irrelevant  in the pursuit of greed and technological misadventure.  "No matter". they say.  
    Let us resist the incredible desire to reduce ourselves to name-calling or the use of choppy, unacceptable four-letter invectives, although observing  the seemingly unstoppable,  arrogant stupidity always tempts one to revert to such phraseology, to  point fingers angrily, and to generally raise hell.
    Shall we instead, meekly look forward to the future, hope and pray,  and gently  observe  there is an
"unnecessary, inexplicable, inherent  tendency"  for us  "public know-nothings"  to  criticize  large corporations,  government authorities and their fine projects?   Is that our  Achille's heel, a weakness  in the model we must keep foremost in our minds?  Should we be ashamed of ourselves for condemning that which will destroy us?      
     Nuclear  shakers & movers suggest,  even  insist nothing can go wrong, nothing can go afoul, never a mistake shall be made with their "safe"  poison-bearing projects,  and  loquaciously offer their scientific  reassurance and reasoning, when all evidence glaringly proves  otherwise.  They similarly and simultaneously proffer indignity and wounded demeanor if criticized, however meekly, -even by one of their own, who may have fortuitously  "seen the Light" and realized one can indeed  become blinded by staring into the sun,--the largest nuclear reactor close at hand.  The parallel should not be overlooked.   Never fly too close  to the sun with waxed feathers either. 
     Are the meek and "uninformed"  ever  right? It doesn't matter. They are this time,a  fact clearly demonstrated loudly  yet AGAIN, that in the nuclear industry,if cold, bitter fact is faced, disasters can happen, another incredibly horrific nuclear disaster has happened, and more  nuclear accidents, leaks,  and incidents, both minor and those major "improbable events " will continue to happen.
   Who is listening?  Who shall learn? Will humanity learn? 
  Not to allow ourselves to raise the collective blood pressure of humanity too high,  but current events are bound to be "the PROOF of the Pudding"  when human arrogance becomes a dominant, persistent and uncontrollable factor.  It seems some segments of humanity  must learn everything  the hard way. Apparently Human beings   are not that clever ,  highly educated in nuclear physics and the "art of other nuclear stuff" or   not .   It becomes ever more obvious  that if there is  any way possible to engineer idiocy,  accident and mayhem, environmental catastrophe and hypocrisy,  those seeking profit at the expense of humanity and the environment -- inevitably will do a fine job of screwing things up-without fail. 
    That's enough of that.  The pointed question must  be: 
"Will North Americans  learn from this catastrophe?  Apparently not.
     It is already clear that  Ontario has not learned, and has no intention of halting the nuclear agenda,   for they are still actively holding  the foolish, yet oh-so-classic  'public  pseudo-hearings" on expansion of Darlington. 
  The agenda?   " We're so generously listening to all of you uninformed people  here today who know nothing ..oops,,,,well, it's time for lunch,  this  hearing  is closed now, that should keep all of you environmentalist  idiots quiet now,  --and for the record, we intend to build anything we want, no matter what you said anyway, and no accidents will happen, we guarantee it..."  
Having  met  their social obligation and "justified" their existence with such finesse,   they will then proceed to hatch more death-dealing nuclear reactors at Darlington merely  because they can get away with doing so.   
To wit: Demonstrators objecting to the hearings were  arrested.  Not surprising, and totally predictable.
The radiation contaminating Japan is unacceptable .  Taking ANY chance on contaminating North America  is unacceptable.  Risking the lives of our children, our grandchildren and THEIR grandchildren and all generations to follow is unacceptable, and always HAS been. 

The fact IS, Nuclear reactors are now unacceptable under any term of reference .  

Take that to your "hearings".  

Third Explosion: Japan Nuclear Crisis Worsens: Now What?

I  imagine everyone  following the crisis in Japan  is already quite aware that a third  hydrogen explosion occurred yesterday at one of several  nuclear reactors damaged by the magnitude 9.0 earthquake .  This tragedy is already in epic proportions; in strength of aftershocks,  in loss of buildings and infrastructure damage. IN terms of  human losses , the horrific death toll from the earthquake and the tsunami  has now been estimated to exceed 10,000, and there are potentially greater problems developing. 


Radiation levels are rapidly on the rise as seemingly futile attempts are made to cool the damaged reactors.  The reactor cores have been exposed with no cooling systems or backup power generation systems  in working order,  causing severe heating and potential meltdown. 
Sea water has been pumped into the reactors, in a desperate, last-ditch  attempt to cool the overheated cores to prevent the zirconium-encased uranium fuel rods from melting.  Pumping in sea-water creates  hydrogen, which when mixed with oxygen, causes powerful explosions.   
The inevitable has happened, the inability of the nuclear facility operators to vent the build-up of hydrogen and pressure resulted in the latest explosion.  Bottom line, radioactive particulate matter is being dispersed on the winds. 

 Ever heard of "Three Mile Island?"  Ever heard of "Chernobyl",  the worst nuclear accident in history? The Japanese crisis has already been likened to Three Mile Island and the worst is yet to come.   A storage pond is on fire, spewing radioactive  contaminated material into the air.  Even spent fuel rods are dangerous; containing plutonium, cesium, and strontium,  the fuel rods, although encased in zirconium, can ignite and burn, releasing radiation into the atmosphere.  Spent fuel rods are stored in deep water pools to keep them cooled down.  In Japan, the 4o' deep storage pools are located about ten stories up, on the rooftop of the reactors. 

Imagine that. Just how clever was that design?   That seems like it might be "a little problematic "  to put it lightly.  One such pool has lost cooling capacity and is already burning, spewing radioactive matter into the sky.

The World Meteorological Organization (W.M.O.), reports that for now, radiation is blowing away from Japan and eastward into the Pacific Ocean.   Should the winds turn westward, a very large area of Japan can be very adversely affected. Approximately  500,000 people have already been evacuated. 


How far does radioactive particulate matter  travel?  Being pumped high into the atmospheric winds, such materials can travel thousands of miles.   If winds are predominantly east,  clearly the west coast of North America will eventually be subjected to some degree of risk.  The question is only "how much" and "when".   If the winds turn westward, great areas of Japan may be contaminated.  Why is this so critical?
  For the uninformed, radioactive material does not simply "go away".   It is dangerous  particulate matter, and cannot be  diluted in the same manner a liquid spill can be.  Although radioactivity can be measured carefully, monitored, or  dispersed,  it should not be foolishly ignored.   It can be  blown away by dry winds or  washed back  into the soil, "out of sight, out of mind",   --- but it does not "go away".  Radiation can can enter the food chain, causing mutations,  cancers, and death.  
It will be with us for 200,000 years or longer.  
This disaster was inevitable.  How can we prevent such horrific tragedies from happening again that involve nuclear facilities?

It seems to me this tragedy is an extremely good reason for humanity to re-think the whole approach we take to the generation of energy.  The biggest nuclear generator around, the sun --is  a few million miles away--and the energy we get from it is free.  

Let's get with it, people,  we CAN do it;  solar energy IS the way to go.

At Incoming BYTES  we continue to offer our sincere and heartfelt condolences to the people of Japan for their lost family members and extreme difficulties in this tragedy.  Our thoughts and prayers are with you.