OT: Japanese Nuclear facilities leaking.

[Guest guest]

Japan has " lost control " of 4 out of 5 nuclear reactors at two facilities hit

hard by the earthquake. Radioactivity outside the buildings was reported earlier

at 8 times 'normal'--a six-mile radius has been evacuated. Potentially, this

could be the worst nuclear accident in history. If you have an iodine supplement

(even kelp) take it immediately at a maximum dose and be prepared for fallout

across North America in three days, lasting indefinitely.

It would be unprecedented to get accurate news about this event. Read and

share this fallout page:

www.polioforever.wordpress.com/fallout/

Read the following article:

TOKYO ELECTRIC TO BUILD US NUCLEAR PLANTS

The no-BS info on Japan's disastrous nuclear operators

by Greg Palast

New York - March 14, 2011

I need to speak to you, not as a reporter, but in my former capacity as lead

investigator in several government nuclear plant fraud and racketeering

investigations.

Texas plants planned by Tokyo Electric. Image:NINA

I don't know the law in Japan, so I can't tell you if Tokyo Electric Power Co

(TEPCO) can plead insanity to the homicides about to happen.

But what will Obama plead? The Administration, just months ago, asked Congress

to provide a $4 billion loan guarantee for two new nuclear reactors to be built

and operated on the Gulf Coast of Texas — by Tokyo Electric Power and local

partners. As if the Gulf hasn't suffered enough.

Here are the facts about Tokyo Electric and the industry you haven't heard on

CNN:

The failure of emergency systems at Japan's nuclear plants comes as no surprise

to those of us who have worked in the field.

Nuclear plants the world over must be certified for what is called " SQ " or

" Seismic Qualification. " That is, the owners swear that all components are

designed for the maximum conceivable shaking event, be it from an earthquake or

an exploding Christmas card from Al Qaeda.

The most inexpensive way to meet your SQ is to lie. The industry does it all

the time. The government team I worked with caught them once, in 1988, at the

Shoreham plant in New York. Correcting the SQ problem at Shoreham would have

cost a cool billion, so engineers were told to change the tests from 'failed' to

'passed.'

The company that put in the false safety report? Stone & Webster, now the

nuclear unit of Shaw Construction which will work with Tokyo Electric to build

the Texas plant, Lord help us.

There's more.

Last night I heard CNN reporters repeat the official line that the tsunami

disabled the pumps needed to cool the reactors, implying that water unexpectedly

got into the diesel generators that run the pumps.

These safety back-up systems are the 'EDGs' in nuke-speak: Emergency Diesel

Generators. That they didn't work in an emergency is like a fire department

telling us they couldn't save a building because " it was on fire. "

What dim bulbs designed this system? One of the reactors dancing with death at

Fukushima Station 1 was built by Toshiba. Toshiba was also an architect of the

emergency diesel system.

Now be afraid. Obama's $4 billion bail-out-in-the-making is called the South

Texas Project. It's been sold as a red-white-and-blue way to make power

domestically with a reactor from Westinghouse, a great American brand. However,

the reactor will be made substantially in Japan by the company that bought the

US brand name, Westinghouse — Toshiba.

I once had a Toshiba computer. I only had to send it in once for warranty work.

However, it's kind of hard to mail back a reactor with the warranty slip inside

the box if the fuel rods are melted and sinking halfway to the earth's core.

TEPCO and Toshiba don't know what my son learned in 8th grade science class:

tsunamis follow Pacific Rim earthquakes. So these companies are real stupid, eh?

Maybe. More likely is that the diesels and related systems wouldn't have worked

on a fine, dry afternoon.

Back in the day, when we checked the emergency back-up diesels in America, a

mind-blowing number flunked. At the New York nuke, for example, the builders

swore under oath that their three diesel engines were ready for an emergency.

They'd been tested. The tests were faked, the diesels run for just a short time

at low speed. When the diesels were put through a real test under

emergency-like conditions, the crankshaft on the first one snapped in about an

hour, then the second and third. We nicknamed the diesels, " Snap, Crackle and

Pop. "

(Note: Moments after I wrote that sentence, word came that two of three diesels

failed at the Tokai Station as well.)

In the US, we supposedly fixed our diesels after much complaining by the

industry. But in Japan, no one tells Tokyo Electric to do anything the Emperor

of Electricity doesn't want to do.

I get lots of confidential notes from nuclear industry insiders. One engineer,

a big name in the field, is especially concerned that Obama waved the

come-hither check to Toshiba and Tokyo Electric to lure them to America. The US

has a long history of whistleblowers willing to put themselves on the line to

save the public. In our racketeering case in New York, the government only found

out about the seismic test fraud because two courageous engineers, Gordon Dick

and Daly, gave our team the documentary evidence.

In Japan, it's simply not done. The culture does not allow the salary-men, who

work all their their lives for one company, to drop the dime.

Not that US law is a wondrous shield: both engineers in the New York case were

fired and blacklisted by the industry. Nevertheless, the government (local,

state, federal) brought civil racketeering charges against the builders. The

jury didn't buy the corporation's excuses and, in the end, the plant was,

thankfully, dismantled.

Am I on some kind of xenophobic anti-Nippon crusade? No. In fact, I'm far more

frightened by the American operators in the South Texas nuclear project,

especially Shaw. Stone & Webster, now the Shaw nuclear division, was also the

firm that conspired to fake the EDG tests in New York. (The company's other

exploits have been exposed by their former consultant, Perkins, in his

book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.)

If the planet wants to shiver, consider this: Toshiba and Shaw have recently

signed a deal to become world-wide partners in the construction of nuclear

stations.

The other characters involved at the South Texas Plant that Obama is backing

should also give you the willies. But as I'm in the middle of investigating the

American partners, I'll save that for another day.

So, if we turned to America's own nuclear contractors, would we be safe? Well,

two of the melting Japanese reactors, including the one whose building blew sky

high, were built by General Electric of the Good Old US of A.

After Texas, you're next. The Obama Administration is planning a total of $56

billion in loans for nuclear reactors all over America.

And now, the homicides:

CNN is only interested in body counts, how many workers burnt by radiation,

swept away or lost in the explosion. These plants are now releasing radioactive

steam into the atmosphere. Be skeptical about the statements that the " levels

are not dangerous. " These are the same people who said these meltdowns could

never happen. Over years, not days, there may be a thousand people, two

thousand, ten thousand who will suffer from cancers induced by this radiation.

In my New York investigation, I had the unhappy job of totaling up post-meltdown

" morbidity " rates for the county government. It would be irresponsible for me

to estimate the number of cancer deaths that will occur from these releases

without further information; but it is just plain criminal for the Tokyo

Electric shoguns to say that these releases are not dangerous. Indeed, the fact

that residents near the Japanese nuclear plants were not issued iodine pills to

keep at the ready shows TEPCO doesn't care who lives and who dies whether in

Japan or the USA. The carcinogenic isotopes that are released at Fukushima are

already floating to Seattle with effects we simply cannot measure.

Japan has " lost control " of 4 out of 5 nuclear reactors at two facilities hit

hard by the earthquake. Radioactivity outside the buildings was reported earlier

at 8 times 'normal'--a six-mile radius has been evacuated. Potentially, this

could be the worst nuclear accident in history. If you have an iodine supplement

(even kelp) take it immediately at a maximum dose and be prepared for fallout

across North America in three days, lasting indefinitely.

It would be unprecedented to get accurate news about this event. Read and

share this fallout page:

www.polioforever.wordpress.com/fallout/

Read the following article:

Heaven help us. Because Obama won't.

***

For Truthout/Buzzflash

Greg Palast is the co-author of Democracy and Regulation, the United Nations ILO

guide for public service regulators, with Jerrold Oppenheim and Theo MacGregor.

Palast has advised regulators in 26 states and in 12 nations on the regulation

of the utility industry.

Palast, whose reports can be seen on BBC Television Newsnight, is a Puffin

Foundation Writing Fellow for investigative reporting.

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