"Our island is on a few major faults with a bigger one offshore.
We cannot build nuclear reactors all over the place! Do you
want a hundred Hiroshima's?"
Professor, Kobe University
--Research Center for Urban Safety and Security
ishi@kobe-u.ac.jp
Another expert said: "The full extent of the danger may become apparent only over the next few days" John Large, the engineer who led the risk assessment team for the raising of the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk, told British News that said that an explosion at the second Fukushima reactor would pose a greater risk because it is an MOX type reactor, using mixed oxides containing plutonium for fuel. He warned that a radioactive release from a Chernobyl type incident takes several days to develop, and by that time the wind could be in a southerly direction, taking any emission cloud towards Tokyo and its 20 million inhabitants. through the prism of a terrible natural calamity, it has illuminated the contradictions of the capitalist social order in which it takes place.
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OLD REACTORS LIKE
OLD SWEETHEARTS BLOW UP AND SPEW. When the
romance is over they can KILL YOU! WHACHA GONNA DO? ANSWER: Have them arrested
before they can!
If this third reactor squeezing its haunches for a big belch blows before
they can flood it with sea water and kill it like a vampire with a clove
of garlic, does California lose its produce industry? Are American cities
without drinking water as all aqueducts are open to the sky?? Is Japan
going to be a country with no nuclear power? No lights? Right now, 54 reactors
take care of Japan's electrical needs... Or did. Might they build conventional
electrical generators, re-do the industry from the ground up? Because you
gotta forgetabout that reactor being useable again if it touches sea water.
They're nursing them, right now, watching the pressure at that third reactor,
trying NOT to have to put corrosive sea water on the things when they heat
up. That's risky & my instinct tells me that in this MADOFF era ..GREED
will win. MONEY/ investment and going broke Vs. you know, taking a risk
with lives? Who decides? The bosses are in charge. CEO decisions. If GOD
is a bungler, how much more is some CEO for a nuke corp? Let's go on reading
the article: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/mar2011/pers-m14.shtml
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"The nuclear power industry in Japan, as throughout the world, is
conducted on the basis of private profit, giving the corporate
owners, suppliers and operators a continuing incentive to cut corners
on
safety in order to fatten their bottom line”especially
since special government waivers free the industry of financial
liability in the event of a catastrophe.
The Fukushima reactor is based on a 40-year-old design by General
Electric, now much less than state-of-the art. This
outmoded design is replicated at a half dozen other nuclear facilities
in Japan and at least 21 in the United States, including the
Toms River, New Jersey power reactor, 55 miles east of Philadelphia
and
90 miles south of Manhattan.
The operator of the Fukushima complex, Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO),
has
a poor record of compliance with safety
procedures. In 2003, all 17 of its nuclear plants were shut down
temporarily in a scandal over falsified inspection reports.
Another scandal over falsified data emerged in 2006.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Critics have long expressed deep
concern about safety at many of Japan's nuclear
facilities, some of which date back to the 1970s and 1980s. Fukushima
has long been on critics' radar, but so has the Hamaoka plant,
just 100 miles southwest of Tokyo, which perches on an
active fault line.
Japanese seismologist Katsuhiko Ishibashi of
Kobe University resigned
from a committee setting safety guidelines for nuclear
reactors in 2005 because his concerns over building nuclear reactors
on
earthquake fault lines were being ignored. He told the
Times, Japan is an earthquake-prone archipelago, and lining its
waterfront are 54 nuclear plants. It's been like a suicide
bomber wearing grenades around his belt.
The heavy reliance of Japan on nuclear power”the 54 plants account for
30 percent of current power generation, a figure that
is projected to rise to 50 percent by 2030 as more plants are built”
is
the byproduct of decisions made by the Japanese ruling
elite over the past four decades. In 1973, when an Arab-Israeli war
triggered an oil embargo by the OPEC countries,
staggering the world economy and particularly Japan, nuclear power
made
up only a small fraction of Japan's energy supply.
As the World Nuclear Alliance notes on its web site, Japan was
dependent on fossil fuel imports, particularly oil from the
Middle East (oil fuelled 66 percent of the electricity in 1974). This
geographical and commodity vulnerability became critical
due to the oil shock in 1973. Re-evaluation of domestic energy policy
resulted in diversification and, in particular, a major
nuclear construction program. A high priority was given to reducing
the
country's dependence on oil imports.
In a rationally planned global economy, the placement of dozens of
nuclear power plants on the most active geological fault
zone on the planet --- and in one of the most densely populated
regions --would be considered an act of gross negligence, if not
insanity. But in the capitalist economy of rival nation-states, it
was
imperative for the Japanese bourgeoisie to secure an
adequate domestic energy supply, as the country has little oil and
gas
and insufficient coal.
Moreover, the Japanese ruling class had previous experiences with energy
crises well before 1973. As far back as World War
II, one of the major driving forces of the decision of Japanese
imperialism to launch preemptive war against the United States
was the Roosevelt administration's embargo of US supplies of fuel and
scrap metal in retaliation for Japanese inroads into China.
Despite the admitted technological prowess of Japan, the world leader
in
adapting construction methods to the
earthquake-proofing of its buildings, as well as the high degree of
preparedness of the population, this natural disaster has laid
bare not only tectonic fault lines, but social ones.
Both the profit system and the capitalist nation-state are incapable
of
ensuring the safety, health and wellbeing of the world's
people, even in a country as advanced as Japan. Only the adoption of
a
truly scientific and global perspective based on the
abolition of capitalism and the nation-state and the establishment
of a
rationally planned and socially owned economy on a
world scale offers a way forward for mankind.
SEE THE HUFFINGTON REPORT:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/13/japan-onagawa-nuclear-plant-state-of-emergency_n_835059.html
On TV expert said, if the world built enough Nukes to give us all energy
in 20 years the planet would be OUT of the URANIUM needed to run them.
So what's the point?
Didja ever hear the expression 'shoot yourself in the foot?' That's
NUKES.
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