Global Research Editor's Note
This detailed report by our Contributor Washington Blog must be read very carefully.
The World is at a critical crossroads.
The Fukushima disaster in Japan has brought to the forefront the dangers
of Worldwide nuclear radiation. The crisis in Japan has been described
as "a nuclear war without a war".
Nuclear radiation --which
threatens life on planet earth-- is not front page news in comparison to
the most insignificant issues of public concern, including the local
level crime scene or the tabloid gossip reports on Hollywood
celebrities.
The implications of this report must be
understood. Public opinion worldwide must be informed so that
meaningful actions can be taken without delay in support of the Japanese
teams.
Spread the word. Forward this report far and wide. Post it on Facebook.
It
is essential to put pressure at all levels of government, nationally
and internationally to take all actions necessary to avert an impending
catastrophe, which in a very real sense threatens the future of
humanity.
Michel Chossudovsky, April 9, 2012
For further background analysis, see
GLOBAL RESEARCH'S ONLINE I BOOK ON FUKUSHIMA
 |
Fukushima: A Nuclear War without a War: The Unspoken Crisis of Worldwide Nuclear Radiation
- by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky - 2012-01-25
|
|
GR ONLINE READER. The dumping of highly
radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean constitutes a potential trigger
to a process of global radioactive contamination... Eventually all
major regions of the World will be affected.
|
"Based on U.S. Energy Department data, assuming a total of
11,138 spent fuel assemblies are being stored at the Dai-Ichi site,
nearly all, which is in pools. They contain roughly 336 million curies
(~1.2 E+19 Bq) of long-lived radioactivity. About 134 million curies is
Cesium-137 — roughly 85 times the amount of Cs-137 released at the Chernobyl accident
as estimated by the U.S. National Council on Radiation Protection
(NCRP). The total spent reactor fuel inventory at the Fukushima-Daichi
site contains nearly half of the total amount of Cs-137 estimated by the
NCRP to have been released by all atmospheric nuclear weapons testing,
Chernobyl, and world-wide reprocessing plants (~270 million curies or
~9.9 E+18 Becquerel). It is important for the public to understand that
reactors that have been operating for decades, such as those at the
Fukushima-Dai-Ichi site have generated some of the largest
concentrations of radioactivity on the planet." (Robert Alvarez,
former Senior Policy Adviser to the Secretary and Deputy Assistant
Secretary for National Security and the Environment at the U.S.
Department of Energy)
The Greatest Single Threat to Humanity: Fuel Pool Number 4
We
noted days after the Japanese earthquake that the biggest threat was
from the spent fuel rods in the fuel pool at Fukushima unit number 4,
and not from the reactors themselves. See
this and this.We
noted in February:
Scientists say that there is a
70% chance of a magnitude
7.0 earthquake hitting Fukushima this year, and a 98% chance within the next 3 years.
Given that nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen says that an earthquake of
7.0 or larger
could cause the entire fuel pool structure collapse, it is urgent that
everything humanly possible is done to stabilize the structure housing
the fuel pools at reactor number 4.
Tepco is doing some construction at the building … it
is a race against time under very difficult circumstances, and
hopefully Tepco will win.
The structural integrity of the damaged Unit 4
reactor building has long been a major concern among experts because a
collapse of its spent fuel cooling pool could cause a disaster worse than the three reactor meltdowns.
***
Gundersen (who used to build spent fuel pools)
explains that there is no protection surrounding the radioactive fuel in
the pools. He warns that – if the
fuel pools at reactor 4 collapse due to an earthquake – people should
get out of Japan, and residents of the West Coast of America and Canada
should shut all of their windows and stay inside for a while.
Germany’s ZDF tv quotes nuclear engineer Yukitero Naka as
saying:
If another earthquake occurs then the building [number 4] could collapse and another chain reaction could very likely occur.
(Unit 4
contains plutonium as well as other radioactive wastes.)
Mainchi
reported on Monday:
The storage pool in the No. 4 reactor building has a
total of 1,535 fuel rods, or 460 tons of nuclear fuel, in it. The
7-story building itself has suffered great damage, with the storage pool
barely intact on the building’s third and fourth floors. The roof has
been blown away. If the storage pool
breaks and runs dry, the nuclear fuel inside will overheat and explode,
causing a massive amount of radioactive substances to spread over a wide
area. Both the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and French
nuclear energy company Areva have warned about this risk.
A report released in February by the Independent
Investigation Commission on the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident
stated that the storage pool of the plant’s No. 4 reactor has clearly
been shown to be “the weakest link” in the parallel, chain-reaction
crises of the nuclear disaster. The worse-case scenario drawn up by the
government includes not only the collapse of the No. 4 reactor pool, but
the disintegration of spent fuel rods from all the plant’s other
reactors. If this were to happen, residents in the Tokyo metropolitan
area would be forced to evacuate.
Former Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport
and Tourism Sumio Mabuchi, who was appointed to the post of then Prime
Minister Naoto Kan’s advisor on the nuclear disaster immediately after
its outbreak, proposed the injection of concrete from below the No. 4
reactor to the bottom of the storage pool, Chernobyl-style.
***
“Because sea water was being pumped into the reactor,
the soundness of the structure (concrete corrosion and deterioration)
was questionable. There also were doubts about the calculations made on earthquake resistance as well,”
said one government source familiar with what took place at the time.
“[F]uel rod removal will take three years. Will the structure remain
standing for that long?
Asahi noted last month that
- if Unit 4 pool gets a crack from an earthquake and leaks, it would
be the end for Tokyo.
Kevin Kamps said last month:
Unit 4 storage pool… The entire building is listing
including the pool. What they have is steel jacks underneath the pool to
try to keep the floor from falling out or the pool from flipping over.
If that cooling water supply is lost, it will be just a few hours at most before that waste is on fire.
135 tons outside of any radioactive containment. They would be direct
releases into the environment. 100% of cesium-137 could be released to
the environment.
Former U.N. adviser Akio Matsumura – whose
praises have been sung by
Mikhail Gorbachev, U.S. Ambassadors Stephen Bosworth and Glenn Olds,
and former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State and Goldman Sachs co-chair
John C. Whitehead –
notes:
The unit suffered enormous damage during the
tsunami—a hydrogen explosion blew the roof off, leaving the highly
radioactive fuel pool exposed to the open air. If another high level
earthquake hits the area, the building will certainly collapse. Japanese
and American meteorologists have predicted that such a strong
earthquake is indeed likely to hit this year.
The meltdown and unprecedented release of radiation that would ensue is the worst case scenario that then-Prime Minister Kan and other former officials have discussed in the past months. He warned
during his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos that such an
accident would force the evacuation of the 35 million people in Tokyo,
close half of Japan and compromise the nation’s sovereignty. Such
a humanitarian and environmental catastrophe is unimaginable. Hiroshi
Tasaka, a nuclear engineer and special adviser to Prime Minister Kan
immediately following the crisis, said the crisis “just opened Pandora’s
Box.”
The current Japanese
government has not yet mentioned the looming disaster, ostensibly to not
incite panic in the public. Nevertheless, action must be taken quickly.
This website over the last year has published a running commentary from
scientists explaining why Reactor 4 must be stabilized immediately, who
might be able to accomplish such a task, and why the situation has
largely gone unnoticed. We believe an independent, international team of
structural engineers and other advisers must be assembled and deployed
immediately. Mounting public pressure would force the Japanese
government to take action. We hope these resources are helpful in
educating the public about the crisis that we face.
As the eminent German physicist Dr. Hans-Peter Durr
said ten months ago, if the spent fuel pool spills, we will be in a
situation where science never imagined we could be.
Matsumura was told that if the
fuel pool at unit 4 collapses or the water spills out, so much radiation
will spew out for 50 years that no one will be able to approach
Fukushima:
Even more dramatically, Matsumura
writes:
Japan’s former Ambassador to Switzerland, Mr.
Mitsuhei Murata, was invited to speak at the Public Hearing of the
Budgetary Committee of the House of Councilors on March 22, 2012, on the
Fukushima nuclear power plants accident. Before the Committee,
Ambassador Murata strongly stated that if the crippled building of
reactor unit 4—with 1,535 fuel rods in the spent fuel pool 100 feet (30
meters) above the ground—collapses, not
only will it cause a shutdown of all six reactors but will also affect
the common spent fuel pool containing 6,375 fuel rods, located some 50
meters from reactor 4. In both cases the radioactive rods are not protected by a containment vessel; dangerously, they are open to the air. This would certainly cause a global catastrophe like we have never before experienced. He stressed that the responsibility of Japan to the rest of the world is immeasurable. Such a catastrophe would affect us all for centuries.
Ambassador Murata informed us that the total numbers of the spent fuel
rods at the Fukushima Daiichi site excluding the rods in the pressure
vessel is 11,421 (396+615+566+1,535+994+940+6375).
I asked top spent-fuel pools expert Mr. Robert
Alvarez, former Senior Policy Adviser to the Secretary and Deputy
Assistant Secretary for National Security and the Environment at the
U.S. Department of Energy, for an explanation of the potential impact of
the 11,421 rods.
I received an astounding response from Mr. Alvarez [updated 4/5/12]:
In recent times, more information about the spent
fuel situation at the Fukushima-Dai-Ichi site has become known. It is my
understanding that of the 1,532 spent fuel assemblies in reactor No.
304 assemblies are fresh and unirradiated. This then leaves 1,231
irradiated spent fuel rods in pool No. 4, which contain roughly 37
million curies (~1.4E+18 Becquerel) of long-lived radioactivity. The No.
4 pool is about 100 feet above ground, is structurally damaged and is
exposed to the open elements. If an earthquake or other event were to
cause this pool to drain this could result in a catastrophic
radiological fire involving nearly 10 times the amount of Cs-137
released by the Chernobyl accident.
The infrastructure to safely remove this material was
destroyed as it was at the other three reactors. Spent reactor fuel
cannot be simply lifted into the air by a crane as if it were routine
cargo. In order to prevent severe radiation exposures, fires and
possible explosions, it must be transferred at all times in water and heavily shielded structures into dry casks..
As this has never been done before, the removal of the spent fuel from
the pools at the damaged Fukushima-Dai-Ichi reactors will require a
major and time-consuming re-construction effort and will be charting in
unknown waters. Despite the enormous destruction cased at the Da–Ichi
site, dry casks holding a smaller amount of spent fuel appear to be
unscathed.
Based on U.S. Energy Department data, assuming a
total of 11,138 spent fuel assemblies are being stored at the Dai-Ichi
site, nearly all, which is in pools. They contain roughly 336 million
curies (~1.2 E+19 Bq) of long-lived radioactivity. About 134 million
curies is Cesium-137 — roughly 85 times the amount of Cs-137 released at the Chernobyl accident
as estimated by the U.S. National Council on Radiation Protection
(NCRP). The total spent reactor fuel inventory at the Fukushima-Daichi
site contains nearly half of the total amount of Cs-137 estimated by the
NCRP to have been released by all atmospheric nuclear weapons testing,
Chernobyl, and world-wide reprocessing plants (~270 million curies or
~9.9 E+18 Becquerel).
It is important for the public to understand that
reactors that have been operating for decades, such as those at the
Fukushima-Dai-Ichi site have generated some of the largest
concentrations of radioactivity on the planet.
Many of our readers might find it difficult to
appreciate the actual meaning of the figure, yet we can grasp what 85
times more Cesium-137 than the Chernobyl would mean. It would destroy the world environment and our civilization. This is not rocket science, nor does it connect to the pugilistic debate over nuclear power plants. This is an issue of human survival.
There was a Nuclear Security Summit Conference in
Seoul on March 26 and 27, and Ambassador Murata and I made a concerted
effort to find someone to inform the participants from 54 nations of the
potential global catastrophe of reactor unit 4. We asked several
participants to share the idea of an Independent Assessment team
comprised of a broad group of international experts to deal with this
urgent issue.
I would like to introduce Ambassador Murata’s letter
to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to convey this urgent message
and also his
letter to Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda for Japanese readers. He emphasized in the statement that we should bring human wisdom to tackle this unprecedented challenge.
Ambassador Murata’s letter says:
It is no exaggeration to say that the fate of Japan and the whole world depends on NO.4 reactor. This is confirmed by most reliable experts like Dr. Arnie Gundersen or Dr. Fumiaki Koide.
Anti-nuclear physician Dr. Helen Caldicott says that if fuel pool 4 collapses, she will
evacuate her family from Boston and move them to the Southern Hemisphere. This is an especially dramatic statement given that the West Coast is much more
directly in the path of Fukushima radiation than the East Coast.
Will humanity rise to the occasion, and figure out how to stabilize fuel pool number 4 before catastrophe strikes?
Or will modern civilization win a Darwin award for
failing to pay attention to the real threats?
GLOBAL RESEARCH'S ONLINE I BOOK ON FUKUSHIMA
|
Fukushima: A Nuclear War without a War: The Unspoken Crisis of Worldwide Nuclear Radiation
- by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky - 2012-01-25
|
|
GR ONLINE READER. The dumping of highly
radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean constitutes a potential trigger
to a process of global radioactive contamination... Eventually all
major regions of the World will be affected.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=30207 |
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