Nuclear Disaster Like Fukushima Unlikely in U.S.

The odds now appear to be one major nuclear accident at least every 25 years. The stakes are visible in the destroyed and damaged areas around the Chernobyl and Fukushima complexes.

The US Corn Belt is one dam break away from disaster and permanent contamination and ruination. The Corps of Engineers was not taking the Calhoun and Cooper plants into consideration in its water management. Does anyone have an emergency plan to blow levees if needed? Are the materials and personnel on standby? Or are the bureaucracies too thick to do such a thing?

Above ground nuclear testing was ended largely because the fallout was increasing background radiation levels toward epidemics from mutating microorganisms in the environment. How much fuel was at the Fukushima Daiichi complex? Is it true it was about 3,400 tons? How much of it burned, how much will still burn, how much are those reactors still spewing? From a small survey meter, and with a limited knowledge, I find that the background level of radiation in SW Missouri appears, very roughly, to be about 70% higher than it used to be. Who knows for sure what the truth is, no government is monitoring it and virtually no sources reporting it.

If nuclear power is so safe, and the NRC and industry so keen, how come its been decades and there are scores of plants with known safety hazards which any intelligent person would have corrected by now?

How come nobody in the industry ever mentions Brown's Gas flame as a means to take the radioactivity out of radioactive wastes? Is it because the owners and managers of the industry and its regulatory lapdog are too greedy and would rather risk the world while managing waste forever, instead of reducing it to mere chemical elemental waste and dealing with it quickly and for good?

The nuclear industry is dangerous, because boiling water with fission is a Lake of Fire way to do it, and because there is not enough integrity in any current human governmental or economic sysem, to do it safely. There's always some greedy owner and his or her bureaucracy trying to keep from spending the money needed to even rectify known safety hazards.

Everyone who thinks nuclear power is safe ought to live in Fukushima Prefecture at least long enough to piss radioactive urine. They also ought to consider that Tokyo, a city of 13 million people, is now radioactive.

It's an industry guilty of negligent homicide, all the time, and if it weren't for the 'full faith and backing' of the already broke federal government, it would not exist.

John of 1:23PM July 16, 2011

Lessons this guy didn't learn

1) I agree Human suck, they are by definition imperfect yet they are the only thing we have to design, build and operate nuclear power plants so it is inevitable we are going to screw it up. Jack "the problems really began" when some morons got together and decided that earthquakes and tsunami the magnitude of Fukushima couldn't happen. Safe nuclear power requires intellectual integrity and perfection and human's don't have either of those things. The mighty dollar is always first when industry is involved if it isn't then they are out of business.

2) The NRC isn't a regulatory agency they are a nuclear industry lapdog 90% of their safety programs depend on reports from the people they are watching that is why we get near misses like the 2002 Davis-Besse RPV hole. You do know they found a football sized hole in the RPV head and only a 3/16 stainless liner remained? This plant operated for years and falsified it records to cover up the obvious signs of corrosion.

3)The US can't fix it's waste problem because burying the waste isn't a solution. The French are having radiation migrations problems at their burial sites that weren't supposed to happen.

4)Radiation remains a great unknown for the public by official design. It was known as early as 1947 that low level chronic exposure caused genetic damage. The WHO recommended that studies be done in Kerala, India due to it's high natural background level but along came the IAEA and their control of all health related radiation studies done by the WHO.

http://www.iicph.org/can_icrp_be_trusted

5) BS!!! You are full of it Texas is stalled because TEPCO was a major investor and they dropped out shortly after Fukushima happened along with other financial backers. Maryland's planned expansion was killed because it was discovered the French were the actual majority owners and that is illegal. Areva has recently decided to halt production at a Virginia reactor component plant this is a direct result of the turndown in the industry's prospects.

http://www.nuclearpowerdaily.com/reports/US_Nuclear_Industry_Was_In_Serious_Trouble_Before_Fukushima_and_Now_Is_Stalled_999.html

I would suggest people read this site for translated news straight from Japan this blogger has followed the accident from the start with a critical eye.

http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/

Mr.Happy of HI 9:34PM July 13, 2011

What you are saying about the quake being the cause and not the tsunami is further supported by the admission of TEPCO that radiation alarms about 1.5 km away from the reactors set to go off at high levels did so minutes before the tsunami hit.

What many don't know is that human error had already played a role in the manufacturing process of one of the containment vessels. The man who orchestrated the cover-up, Mitsuhiko Tanaka, tried to blow the whistle after Chernobyl but was ignored by government and company officials.

Don of NY 11:44AM July 09, 2011

The truth is nuclear is finished in the states not because of greenies or any other boogi man. The US is going broke and with out government funding nobody in the private sector will build them.

The US is no more prepared for what happen at Fukushima then the Japanese were. It just hasn't happened yet. And when it does they will be standing around looking just as useless as the Japanese are now.

Joe of CA 9:23PM July 08, 2011