Fukushima ground water "beyond human control" - former US chief nuclear regulator Dr. Gregory Jaczko

[JohnyCanuck]

From an ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corp.) news report:

Doubt over Fukushima safety claims

TIM PALMER: The former chief nuclear regulator in the United States has delivered a damning verdict on the ability of Japanese authorities to stop contaminated groundwater from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant from flowing into the sea.

Asked about comments by the Japanese prime minister that the situation at Fukushima was under control, Gregory Jaczko replied that the surging groundwater "was beyond human control".

Speaking to foreign journalists in Tokyo, Dr Jaczko warned that a planned underground ice wall around the site would also fail to stop the water becoming contaminated.

snip

GREGORY JACZKO: What was unleashed was a force beyond human control. What you can do is try and mitigate that but you can't really control it. You cannot control groundwater.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-25/doubt-over-fukushima-safety-claims/4979554

[chervilant]

1. O, but doncha know:

the radionuclides in that groundwater are no more dangerous than the dose of radiation you'd get from eating a banana! Why worry? (Do I need the sarcasm thingy?)

Or, we might hear from the one(s) who think gas fracking and coal are "far worse problems," and "where's our outrage" about those issues -- as though concern about Fukushima precludes activism on other ecological disasters.

Fukushima is radically altering our environment. We cannot predict how bad it's going to get. And, we cannot trust TEPCO, the IAEA, the corporatist governments, or MOST officials to tell the truth, because historically they haven't.

(Give it a little while... The pro-nuke crowd will show up to condescendingly denigrate our concern AND our intelligence.)

[Jackpine Radical]

5. What's the alternative? Wind turbines kill birds.

A wingnut sent me something about how environmentalists are hypocrites for backing solar because of bird & bat kills.

Of course, cars on the roads kill 1000x more birds than wind turbines ever will, especially the newer ones. But proportion is one of the missing senses on the far right.

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. I have said it before and I will say it again

industrial wind, as currently configured, has serious issue. It does not help either when many of the plants are authorized in sub optimal zones, (and I am being charitable to the two in this county that are running, shall we say far less than the EIR said they would)

We are fools if we do not open our eyes to that reality.

As to the birds, well again, the industry is not helped when just recently the chief study person in Cal, and NV was convicted for fraud by the Feds, among other things. So you have to start to doubt the industry's low take numbers.

Don't worry, the media will mostly ignore these two.

[chervilant]

25. Wind turbines?

Are you obfuscating? I don't think voicing concern about the Fukushima catastrophe should evoke snide asides about 'alternatives.'

Fukushima should be the focus of the M$M, AND the scientific community--particularly the nuclear physicists (and their sycophants) who've routinely lied about the costs and dangers of nuclear power.

As workers prepare to move those spent rods, the people who are nearest to Fukushima must wonder if they too will have to leave abruptly, abandoning their homes and belongings for the foreseeable future.

[Jackpine Radical]

27. Did you happen to read my post before responding to it?

[Zorra]

12. And solar panels make too much waste and are extremely inefficient!

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. Yup, eat more banannas

[heaven05]

2. so as to not frighten

the citizens of japan and the world at large, slooowwwly the truth of the enormity of this human profit driven incompetence will come out. When Godzilla comes out that ocean, know that everything is FUBAR.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

13. "human profit driven incompetence will come out". Eloquent because it's true.

[allan01]

3. re:Fukushima ground water "beyond human control" - former US chief nuclear regulator Dr. Gregory Jac

star trek owned by paramount .

[Jerry442]

4. The harsh reality may be...

...that there is no alternative to simply existing in an environment with an elevated level of radiation, no matter how awful the consequences.

Fortunately, we'll still have Fox News to tell us everything is just dandy.

[Jackpine Radical]

6. The alternative is dying in it.

[Jerry442]

11. Yup.

You could imagine an experiment where you keep increasing the background radiation levels on a population while observing the effects. Obviously, at some level, the population would go extinct.

It would be a really gruesome experiment to actually do. I hope we're not.

[Jackpine Radical]

16. Goddamit, I wanna be in the placebo control group!

[unhappycamper]

7. Fukushima should give the 2020 Olympics a nice 'glow'.

I wonder if they will have radiation gear for visitors?

[dixiegrrrrl]

22. did you see the logo for those Olympics?

[Octafish]

8. What does he know?

The truth, which he speaks -- and why he got fired.

[drynberg]

9. PREDICTIONS OF FUKISHIMA ARE TOO FUZZY, BUT KEEP YOUR EYE ON FAIREWINDS.COM TO GET THE BEST

Take on the current status...and it ain't even close to good or "under control". Take a look at the hundreds of temp tanks next to the four reactors, and how spent fuel is way up in the air without even a roof, exposed...waiting for the next quake/tsunami on the edge of the Rim of Fire...heaven help us. Deceit and lies certainly aren't helping.

[Zorra]

10. That this would happen is as predictable as the sunrise.

It is definitely going to happen again, somewhere else.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

14. How is it that the international super-rich don't seem be be concerned about this?

[Hydra]

17. They're planning on moving underground

There are various reasons for that plan, I doubt this one was on the original list but it probably sealed the deal.

[dixiegrrrrl]

23. There was a time when I found that hard to believe....

but then I read about the 1% in China who created and pay for their own private organic food gardens, not available to
the "little people".

Organic gardening here is a hush-hush affair in which the cleanest, safest products are largely channeled to the rich and politically connected.

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/16/world/la-fg-china-elite-farm-20110917

[Hydra]

24. It's hard to believe until you really grasp how much money the 1% have stolen

And what that can buy them. Even here on DU, a lot of posters really don't get the difference between having a $250k+ per year income and having $100 mill+ in assets.

The power that buys them is godlike. They can and will do insane things to keep their power and privilege...and while some of them are not the sharpest knives in the drawer, they are capable of working together and planning long term.

There's been no secret that they want most of us dead. 95% of us in fact. I find it entirely convenient to that sort of thinking that we are having these kinds of man-made disasters that will make it impossible to live in more and more places.

[florida08]

15. this just makes one angry as hell

Between these outdated plants, including the ones we have here in the US, and the fracking fluid that's being released into ground and river water we're all just going to die from cancer.

[bvar22]

20. The Lesson from Fukushima:

[font size=3]As long as we continue to use Nuclear Plants,
Fukushima, and WORSE, will happen again,
and again,
and AGAIN.[/font]

Man has never built a Fail Safe machine.

We will also be killing our children if we continue to use Coal & Oil.
We live in interesting times.

[Democracyinkind]

21. This has me thinking twice about taking that job in Tokyo....

[defacto7]

26. I will continue to remain reticent

for the time being. zzzzzzzzzzip.