Note — here is a similar article from the Washington Post. They report: “The detection of the highly radioactive elements cesium-137 and iodine-131 outside the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant heralds the beginning of an ecological and human tragedy. The open question is whether it will be limited, serious or catastrophic. The two radioactive isotopes can mean only one thing: Two or more of the reactor cores are badly damaged and at least partially melted down.”
The New York Times this morning is reporting that partial core meltdowns probably occurred at Fukushima 1 and 3, and it’s being reported elsewhere that the same kind of cooling system trouble is now underway at Unit-2. From what I am reading these are all reactors located on the same site, notably, all designed by General Electric (creators of the exploding dioxin safety device, the PCB electrical transformer). The article seems to be a fairly comprehensive — if understated — summary on the situation, including descriptions of the uncertainty factors. Here is the link. There is a good basic video in with that article — it’s the one titled “Japan’s Nuclear Woes.”
I recognize this situation is frightening to those who have never experienced an environmental disaster and even to those who have. Some sources are reporting that yesterday’s explosion in Unit-3 knocked out cooling systems in Unit-2 (which was not previously involved, to my knowledge), my sense based on the facts and intuition is that the Japanese will be able to bring this under control with only partial meltdowns rather than ‘China syndrome’ type of total core melts. There is a big difference. In a partial core melt, the containment stays more or less intact and most of the radiation stays inside the unit.
In a total melt the uranium or mixture of uranium and plutonium breaches containment entirely and drops to the water table, where it explodes. This creates both a much larger underground plume and an airborne one. It’s true that both are happening now, but on a scale that is more likely to be mostly local. However, the extent of the situation is just coming to light, and a lot that we don’t know about has happened in these three fast days.
I marvel at the statements of some news sites such as, “Don’t worry, that was only a hydrogen explosion.” I know it may sound like I’m saying, “Don’t worry, that was just a partial meltdown,” which is sort of true. A partial meltdown is better than a total one. I am more interested in how the ‘safety’ considerations of engineers turned out to be just about all wrong — such as placing the switching station from main to backup power under the ground, assuming sea walls could hold back…a tsunami. So in a sense we are in a worst-case scenario where all the safety plans failed, and where there is a chain reaction of events.
We are not out of the woods yet. As Rachel Maddow explained in her broadcast Friday (if you watch no other TV, I strongly suggest you tune into Maddow weeknights at 9 on MSNBC), nuclear power is all a game of keeping control over something that is always about to run out of control. That is where we stand today, only the marvelous technology that is designed to keep that control ain’t there, and engineers have to resort to pumping seawater and dumping borax onto the cores because nothing else will keep the temperature down. I assure you that was not in the business plan.
awesome image, Hazel. you’ve got a date….
–j
RE: The 6 pm prayer thing, I don’t think it matters what timezone you’re in, if you just do it when it’s 6 YOUR time, then it would be a cascading prayer, hour after hour, day after day, almost continuous, an over all BIG prayer done all the time.
This article in our local paper this morning.
http://www.thestar.com/business/article/953618–ontario-urged-to-rethink-nuclear-plans?bn=1
Still, there’s a line from the song “Where have all the flowers gone?” that keeps going round and round in my head all weekend: “When will they ever learn, When will they ever learn?”
I don’t trust for one second any press releases from the Japanese authorities. Like most authoritative voices they are typically programmed to obfuscate for a variety of reasons. For one, the Japanese economy is in the tank and their stock market has already plummeted this morning, so they don’t want to upset that apple cart any more than necessary.
When will we ever learn to respond to tragedies such as this one in Japan, or Libya or wherever, with a greater sense of urgency to alleviate the human suffering at all costs and push politics aside. We really are a pathetic bunch what with Bradley Manning languishing in jail for having the courage to expose the lies our world operates on, with 20 million people still suffering in Pakistan after *their* horrendous floods, (and why have we put that tragedy on the back burner again?), while the people of Libya are currently being slaughtered by their *leader* and we could see that genocide coming several weeks back?
We should all be out on our streets screaming at our governments to waken the bleep up and get with the program. We are in a cul-de-sac and how do we get out of here, NOW?
It’s back to basic survival for all; that we all get to have a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs, and food on the table *for everyone.* That dude from Mexico who topped the list last week of the world’s richest people came in at something like 79 “BILLION?” — that’s what has to stop, such unfair amassing of wealth. The notion that one can acquire such obscene amounts of money, own 20+ houses, (one can only sleep in one house at one time for heaven’s sake) own an island here and there, a floating hotel on a ship, throw in owning an airline, a sports team…………..I mean we’re a sick bunch that we allow a few people to amass such wealth on the suffering backs of fellow human beings and they just don’t seem to give a damn. When will we ever learn?
And the earthquakes……….are we forgetting that many nuclear bombs get tested underground? Do we think Mother Earth is OK with that………..that we can explode nuclear bombs on our ocean floors and not have any repercussions? Planet Earth has had it and She wants us to shout out that we’ve had it too, and to do something about it. Our smoke alarms are going off but who’s coming to put out the fires?
Check out a video “The Elder Brother’s Warning” by Alan Ereira from the BBC — you can find it on Youtube as one option for watching. The prophecy of the Kogi Mamas from the Sierra Nevada is chilling and it looks like we’re in the throws of it. Yes I’m angry, yes I’m frustrated, but yes I am going to sit on a chair at 6pm tonight and every night and breathe myself into a state where I can pray with those who are awake and working for a better world. I pray for all my fellow human beings who are at the edge and trying to survive, and I also pray for those who have the power to alleviate so much suffering but are disconnected inside. I pray for their reconnection. That we all rehumanize ourselves and turn this show around, with truth to power, compassion to hate, courage to fear and forgiveness to denial.
Thank goodness for someone like Eric and his team at PW, who speaks for the trees and for us all, encouraging us to waken up and do something about it. Events are unfolding and we can no longer ask “When will we ever learn?” but that we actually do something about it….
..Thank you Rob..
Well this is just precious. It reminds me of my bad joke this morning walking to my office and announcing to my assistant: we’re throwing away all our appliances and getting GE.
This is from The Register in the UK. I love how they summarize the current situation as “a writeoff.” Author apparently has not heard of plutonium involved.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/14/fukushiima_analysis/
..I think it’s necessary that sea water is being used to cool the plants. I also realize that the Ocean is NOT an infinite sinkhole for human waste. This will spread, through our global waterways. I’m not a bio-geo-physicist, but I’m also not an idiot. (I’m just the dude who cut school to hang out at the library, bookstore, and coffee shop.)
..Oil spills; nuclear spills.. our oceans are getting their asses kicked. There Are serious consequences.
..Something, (global, personal) is coming to a head to be worked out. I can’t put my finger on it now, but each, And, Everyone of us will have to be involved.
(Hazel, J, Lo, the link IS infinite.. timing’s still cool. I’m holding this one hard, and my soul is aching from the stress. Keep playing those strings. The more of us on the wavelength, the less tense it is for all of us. Thank you.)
Jere
To inform without dis-empowering can be a fine line to walk at times. On a personal level, I feel many things in response to the unfolding events in Japan, which themselves seem part of a larger, unstoppable pattern of paradigm death and rebirth, with its attendant pathos of tragedy and potential.
I feel grief for the human loss, as when I witnessed newly released footage from Japan’s NHK TV via the BBC showing the tsunami smother an entire city like the hand of God–watching some run for higher ground; some inexplicably stand directly in its path, perhaps unable to comprehend the sight of their city literally disappearing before their eyes; and some running back to rescue what appeared to be sheep, only to be swept away by the rising tide of destruction, while the wails of witnesses ring out on the audiotape. Its been heartbreaking to bear witness to this from afar, and I have been watching and reading all of it, virtually on the hour since the disaster began. At moments I feel overwhelmed. But I have always felt that there is value in bearing witness. Even if we can’t directly intervene to help the suffering, I believe a sense of humanity dictates that we must bear witness nonetheless. And I believe witnessing with an open heart in a very real sense brings part of us to those suffering, as consciousness itself alters what is observed; as a heart with eyes offers something of itself as a kind of traveling prayer. I am them, in their drowning and survival and loss and hope. I pray for them, and for us.
And yes, I feel foreboding for the potential fallout in that region and beyond. I think of my nieces here in this country, their future, what kind of environment they’ll live in. And pondering where I would want to be in the event of similar man-made or natural disasters here in the US. Probably near my family in the Midwest.
Beyond that, I also observe the drama with a measure of detachment, taking the long view of human history. I know at my core that this is an inevitable shift from one era to another. I know at some level it needs to happen. Whether it needed to happen this way is almost a moot point now. There is life in death, and regardless of how this pans out in Japan, that island nation will never be the same. The earth will continue to do her dance as she must, and the world as a whole will change forever in response. The fact that we’re alive now to be part of it is both humbling and hopeful in a way radically new to us.
I keep hearing CSNY’s refrain “We have all been here before” in the background of my mind. And we have been, even though this is all new at the same time. Within that paradox, amidst the waves of grief and shock and fear and hope and denial, we get to keep choosing how to respond to an earth and a history that won’t pause for us, but which can sweep us away like so much debris in an instant. And create new lands for us to plant seeds in.
Once years ago, a close friend asked me–“What is novelty?” I stumbled over an answer then, too foggy of mind to give more than secondary answers that I knew didn’t satisfy him. He died very suddenly not long after that. Much later I awoke from a dream of him with what should have been the obvious answer: its the New. Novelty is that which is New.
a good one: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/03/14-5
I applaud you, Eric, for maintaining a healthy balance while keeping us informed.
ah, time zones….i guess i figured 6pm in any/all zones would be easiest. sort of synchrony with a cascading effect? my sense is that it will feel positive to join together in this way wherever we are….
Lokta:
I’m in Santa Fe, NM, so it’s mountain standard time. I also just do it when I go outside at random times, I don’t think there’s really a BAD time to do it, but it’s wonderful to focus with others at a certain time to send healing and love out.
Hazel, would like to join in. I’m in Nova Scotia, Canada, so would be helpful if I knew your time zone….with thanks.
It is tricky how to handle this kind of incident from the standpoint of being committed to positive, creative change. My intent is neither to make predictions nor to raise the level of fear on the planet — nor do I think it’s ethical to contribute to ignorance. Suppressing shadow material is the deepest cause of both grief and generalized fear.
I am personally not fearful about this situation, and I am optimistic that we are learning something important. But that, we shall see. The extent to which those bankers, politicians and engineers learn whatever they learn from this will follow from we regular folk getting it. Covering environmental catastrophes since 1983, the most frightening thing I’ve noticed about them is not the corporate or government mentality but rather the willful ignorance and of the people who are exposed or affected; their tendency to give up their power on the spot. That power starts with awareness.
Speaking to PW user Kristal, I do not follow an “ideology” but rather my own editorial policy of reporting what I personally (as editor) assess to be the most significant story, and the most salient facts, following my demonstrated news judgment and inner guidance, both cultivated over a lifetime. I assure my readers: I do not violate my inner guidance. I will also not filter something from your awareness based on some external ideology, and I will do my best to state my sources, to verify when possible, and to use dependable ones.
From here, we have the project of how to take what information we have, combined with the ideas we have, combined with our commitment to growth, and set our intentions to build a better, safer and more abundant world. This would begin with a developing a personal reality that extends outward. Planet Waves is a place to raise personal awareness and it is also a meeting place, a place to exchange ideas — and a stretch of wide open creative territory where many — indeed, anyone with creative and loving intentions whose work is in integrity (again, my assessment as editor) may contribute.
I publish another website called Dioxin Dorms. Carol van Strum, the lady in Oregon who throws firecrackers at bears when they come to steal her apples, wrote our mission statement. It’s not exactly Esther Hicks, but along with a good dose of abundance consciousness that allows me to contribute a bit toward her goat chow habit every month, I find it empowering.
Well said, Rob.
Cool, Hazel….I’ll join you and ask others also.
–j
Jbird:
My friends and I have been sending the healing out every evening since this happened, when we get home from work, roughly 6 pm. I think a lot of people are getting together in groups here and there doing these.
The US has now moved one of its aircraft carriers from the region after its sensors detected radioactive fallout 100 miles off the coast of Japan; a fallout range the Japanese government did not report. The current consensus among several leading nuclear experts is that these reactors will be venting radioactive steam for weeks, if not months to come. Though there are distinct differences between this situation and that of Chernobyl, it is also true that some associated with the nuclear industry and its governmental overseers have a long history of downplaying the severity of nuclear emergencies and their health impact on widespread populations. Such misinformation is not uncommon in the world of nuclear power advocates and operators.
From a combination of the many sources I’ve read covering this event and my own intuition, my take is that Japan’s nuclear emergency is devolving into a radioactive version of last year’s Gulf oil spill, with far wider consequences.
As has been mentioned on this forum, the nuclear power industry has always been based on a lie–that atomic power is controllable and safe. It should come as no surprise then when a cloud of lies and/or wishful thinking on the part of some experts emerges in the wake of such a crisis. Yet the deeper truth is that such power plants are both the legacy of a blind post-war technological hubris, and a dishonest PR campaign created to put a falsely beneficial face on the deadly reality of atomic weaponry’s by-products. The atomic power industry has been built on as unstable a foundation as the Fukushima power plants themselves. The operative logic behind this energy form is that the technology works really well–until it really, horrifically, doesn’t.
And for every reactor built on that volcanic island in an active earthquake zone, there are more in the US and elsewhere built on volatile locations. Yes, the land there was cheap, for obvious reasons. Yet it rattles one’s minimal threshold of common sense to see governments make such dangerous choices over the decades, time and time again. Equally amazing is the fact that we are actually splitting atoms to boil water to create vapor that spins turbines which generate electricity. We have clumsily harnessed the power of the sun only to remain enmeshed in the age of steam. And at such a huge cost. As a friend sagely expressed it recently, we were fools to think we could tame the stars.
Also mentioned here is the reality that there is no such thing as a local nuclear incident. I personally believe the months ahead will show widespread fallout from these meltdowns–and the crisis in Japan is far from over. Some of that toxic cloud may reach other nations around the Pacific Rim, including the west coast of the Americas. It may ultimately travel further inland on this continent and others, depending on prevailing wind and rain patterns. And it’s effects will change the lives of many in the short and long term.
We live on a tiny planet that grows smaller with each incident of this nature. The irony is that crises like this illustrate humanity’s essential interdependent relationship with itself and the earth more broadly than does individual inner awakening. Through the lessons of loss, after ages spent believing in the myth of separation, we finally begin to see ourselves embedded in an inescapable web; one revealed not by a common vision, but a shared vulnerability.
It has taken a deep, collective act of denial to pretend we could cage cosmic fire to keep the lights burning. Now circumstances force us to relinquish that lie in order to live in the light of a harsher truth. What’s the half-life of truth? How fast does memory rust?
Half, thanks for your long vision. There’s way too much info out there to take in sensibly. Information overload is a real phenomenon, at least in my brain.
I am wondering if anyone out there with access to facebook/twitter/etc. would feel like organizing some kind of concentrated prayer/meditation moment for as many folks as possible to send collective positive and healing energies into what has been really chaotic flow…it seems that anything at this point is better than me just trying to pray alone.
anyone? set up a time and spread the date far and wide?
Agreed kristal.
However, please check the below link.
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/03/201138152955897442.html
Unfortunately, the levels of secrecy in play mean that we aren’t getting reliable information about the longer term effects through the mainstream. So, some exploration is required at this stage. What’s the limit? Ah….
Sensationalism ebbs and flows like the tides. It is the long term situation we must raise reliable awareness of.
One of the unfortunate psychological consequences of bombardment with sensationalism is that we all get suckered that there is only an incident worthy of attention when the media overdose us with said attention. The corollary is that when focus is shifted there is no longer an issue. Really?
The corrective formula is: (1) Do not believe the initial, ideology-selling, overreach phase – it is to be handled circumspectly.
And, (2) Do not believe the subsequent silence, where the true longer term realities will languish and get suppressed if anyone tries a rake up.
Basically, invert the emphasis and you will excise the emotional overload tactic of manipulative power.
The link above illustrates the reality clearly: You have to trawl for it – Al jazeera, no less! 😉
Water level in the unit 2 is rising, good indication that the total meltdown can be avoided. I have faith in Japanese people.
I recall similar fear factors at play during the gulf oil spill. I Guess that was not the end of the world, or the country or the oceans even. 8/11 keeps getting beat like a dead horse…….its over, its past….release it. EVEN if the worst case scenario happened……….like Chernobyl………which is not possible now and THAT has been widely explained how that cannot happen now……….there is NO danger for the US. BUT….if you choose to be fearful….go out, grab some cheap potassium iodide and protect yourself and move on to something to make you feel better.
An atmosphere of fear does nothing but create more fear and in the event something else in this world happens……..which it is going to……..and soon…..you will be left distracted and ill prepared to react calmly.
I’m writing a book…..America..a consciousness of fear…..in the end it will be the fear that consumes you not some major disaster.
Eric you post the frauds esther’s links all the time and yet keep your focus on fear…..seems very contradictory. I know fear sells well, but you really can choose to take a more balanced view of things.
Our world is changing…rapidly….we’ve only seen the beginning but fear will serve no one, education, facts and things you can do to prepare should something happen in your own back yard would serve the public more at this point.
xoxoxoxox
NHK has just reported that the reactor core in the unit 2 is largely exposed suggesting that there is some level of meltdown in the Unit 2. They are still trying to fill the sea water to avoid the damage to the whole unit.
All in all, it is like being a “little pregnant.”