More Propaganda Sep 23

Yesterday the WSJ reports in "Storm Strikes Central Japan" Sep 22 p. A10

"officials at the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, where engineers are still struggling with small radiation leaks due to the tsunami damage, said the typhoon's driving winds and rain caused no immediate problems there other than a broken security camera..."

Majia Here: Let us examine the outright lies first.

Number 1: Lie 1 is that the plant was damaged only, or primiarly by the tsunami. In actuality, the plant was in trouble before the tsunami hit. 

Arnie Gunderson of Fairewinds has reported quite extensively on this fact. His conclusion is that any sustained power loss causes the Mark 1 boiling water reactors to have a meltdown and, furthermore, these reactors are susceptible to melt-throughs because of holes engineered into the reactor containment structures. Visit Fairewinds and listen to his analyses to substantiate my claims made here. http://fairewinds.com/content/fairewinds-introduces-japanese-language-edition-and-identifies-safety-problems-all-reactors-

Number 2: Lie 2 is that the radiation leaks are small. In fact, the radiation leaks are NOT small. I wish they were. See the paragraph of data I paste at the end of this post.

Even NHK is reporting releases of "200-million becquerels per hour in the first half of September" http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20_39.html

And EPA levels for the US continue to remain high and are actually increasing in some areas, like California and Arizona. http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2011/04/12/realtime-epa-radnet-japan-nuclear-radiation-monitoring-every-us-city-single-page-16511/

Now that we have examined the outright lies, let us examine the other claims.

Number 1: The WSJ reports that Tepco claims the rain caused no additional damage.

However, radiation levels in Japan spiked during the time of the tsunami. http://fukushima-diary.com/
and http://enenews.com/report-radiation-level-spiking-around-tokyo-typhoon-nears-fukushima-plant/comment-page-1#comment-133531

Furthermore, we know from NHK reporting that Tepco was very concerned about additional water flooding the basements and thereby producing yet more highly radioactive water.

I strongly doubt that the terrible storm improved conditions at the plant and the storm most surely increased the radioactive water that Tepco is struggling to de-contaminate.

Number 2: The only damage reported was a broken security camera.

Before going blank, the security camera showed rain and a collapsing crane in the area of reactor #3. There is some debate about whether the crane was collapsed or collapsed unintentionally. Then the camera went black.

Given all the other outright lies in this WSJ report (asserted by Tepco), I see no reason why we should believe that the camera was broken by the storm. A more likely scenario is that the camera was disabled so that any substantial problems at the plant that occurred during the storm (or were feared that might occur) were not recorded.

...

data on releases

Japan Times reported on August 27 that Fukushima’s “Cesium Leak Equal to 168 '45 A-Bombs.”[i] As of September 2011, the situation at Fukushima continues to worsen. Dr. Chris Busby reported on the Russian television network RT on August 17 that air filters from Tokyo are showing levels of Cesium-137 that are 1000 times higher than the levels of that radionuclide found in the air at the peak of atmospheric atomic weapons testing in 1963.[ii] Busby also stated that plant emissions were reported to the Japanese Prime Minister by Tepco to be 10 to the 13 becquerels per hour.[iii] Likewise, during an interview with Dr. Helen Caldicott, broadcasted online in September of 2011, Arnie Gunderson stated that he had been told that Fukushima was currently emitting a gigabecquerel per day (gigabecquerel or GBq 10⁹ Bq), in radiation, which he described as over 2 billion decays per second a day.[iv] This radiation is contaminating Japan and the entire northern hemisphere as it is swept away by the Jet Stream. The latest data from Japan as of September 2011 has found 2,000 square kilometers to have radiation contamination levels at or in excess of 1 microsievert per hour at a measured height of .5 o 1.0 meter,[v] leading an annual external exposure rate of 8.76 millisieverts from soil contamination alone.

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[i]              “Cesium Leak Equal to 168 '45 A-Bombs: NISA Compares Contamination to Hiroshima Blast,” Japan Times (2011, August 27): http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110827x3.html.

[ii]             Dr. Christopher Busby interviewed by Russia Today (RT) and uploaded to YouTube “Christopher Busby: Chernobyl-like radiation found in Tokyo,” [RussiaToday] YouTube (uploaded 2011, August 17): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNzDg4O9dkw.

[iii]             Ibid

[iv]            Helen Caldicott interviews Arnie Gunderson: “Arnold Gundersen with a Fukushima update,” If You Love This Planet (2011, September): http://ifyoulovethisplanet.org/?p=4952.

[v]               “Up to 1/7 of Fukushima May Be Contaminated,” Mainichi (2011, September 15): http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110915p2g00m0dm114000c.html.