Japan and the Globe: Okaerinasai - Welcome back, life?

Japan and the Globe: Okaerinasai - Welcome back, life?

By: Franz J. T. Lee

Fearing a human stampede, panic and desperation, as excuse not to tell the truth to the masses may be very noble, however, not to inform millions of global wage workers about the real state of affairs of corporate imperialism, about planned, man made massacres and disasters ...  this is really criminal.

In fact, across the centuries, the ruling 'creme de la creme' never told the 'wretched of the earth', the 'miserables' and 'outcasts' the truth as dominated classes. As historical process, these 'speaking tools'  know very little about their mortal quo vadis, about their future, that is, their progressive pauperization and eventual extermination in a mode of destruction, based on master-slave relationships.

Must first a disaster happen which could wipe Japan off the metropolitan map before we go onto the streets to protest against capitalism and its atomic energy Moloch?

The ruling class, the world elite, the herrenvolk, the master race, has a lot of things to hide from the public, hence, its Achilles Heel is the Truth. There is nothing that Capital fears more than the Truth. This is why we have to seek the famous needle in the haystack in order to get to know what exactly occurred in Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, and what is occurring now in Fukushima. We will discover that those who don´t see the imminent danger, as a result of' 'total denial', are precisely those who are living right 'on the edge' of radioactive existence. They need some distance, literally and urgently; they are sitting at the foot of the warning lighthouse, they cannot see the perilous radioactive tsunamis coming nearer by the second.

This has nothing to do with the 'gospel truth', 'revelations', Illuminati conspiracy or 'black magic', on the contrary, the dangerous truths stare humanity in the face, in broad daylight.

It concerns all of us, the Northern Hemisphere, the Southern Hemisphere, the global sphere. Who sows a radioactive wind, will reap a cancerous, deadly storm. 

* There exist hundreds of old, vulnerable, leaking atomic reactors on Mother Earth, and many more are planned to be constructed.

Until today, we still are reaping the effects of: 

* nuclear bombs ignited high above the Earth and which caused an extension of the Van Allen Belts, 

* those which fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 

* atomic tests conducted by the United States, the Soviet Union, France, South Africa, China,  in the atmosphere, deserts and oceans, 

* the radioactivity set free and radioactive wastelands caused by mining uranium

* the radioactive contamination of land, groundwater, air by the employment of depleted uranium weapons 

All of all these cumulative factors together poison and cripple life, spell doom.  

There is no way to clean up this radioactive mess imposed on us by  corporate profit seekers of military and 'civil' kind. It's a silent, invisible killer which is going to outlast us.

According to the law of probability the very existence of the above mentioned factors already verifies that ruling class man is suicidal, is hell bent on extinguishing life on planet Earth. The reckless producing of radioactive contamination  by the major metropolitan powers is one of the most heinous crimes against nature and society, against precious life. We need not search for life on other planets when we destroy life all over on our planet, from Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Irak, Gaza and Libya, to Chernobyl and Fukushima. Also, we do not develop 'Life Sciences', but rather 'Death Technology', including atomic plants. 

However, in Japan, as happens in a flourishing capitalist economy, the managers used to greet each other with a proud: How is business? This is the real global context of the Fukushima disaster. Business as usual, never mind the consequences. Those who are suffering the results of this corporate dictate are, as always, the working classes, and it is the workers who sacrificed their very lives in Chernobyl and now Fukushima to save what still could be saved, and to show us what is still human, humane and humanist. However, many do not know, will never know for what they have been toiling, 'living', and why they are slowly dying of cancer. This disaster is a sad tragedy for all humanity, for all life on the planet.

But let's remember that the danger of demise has threatened life on our planet before.  

In planetary prehistory we have had some huge, natural cataclysms or 'extinction events' over the last millions of years; one of which destroyed almost 95% of the planet's species.  We do not know whether 'the fittest' survived, whether only the 'white children of God' were saved or whether only the 'black, sinful children of Ham' escaped the tsunamis, but what we should know is that the next huge cataclysm will be man-made.

So, what are we waiting for to stop it from happening?

Will we further promote the radioactive poisoning of our planet? Will we further promote the rupturing of our ocean's seabeds by deepwater drilling? Will we further let corporations keep pushing the envelope as is being done from this summer on when BP resumes drilling in the Gulf of Mexico? Will we further allow them to massively dump poison into our oceans once they have messed up big? Shall we wait until the corporations have ruined our land, air, skies, oceans, life? Who talks about the Gulf of Mexico today? Who talks about the Niger Delta today? 

Is it not time to stop the planetary pollution of the sea, land and air; the destruction of the ozone layer, the destruction of what remains of our health by dangerous vaccinations, the spraying of chemicals into the air we breathe; the threat to life from the existence of stockpiles of arms of mass destruction, depleted uranium weapons, white phosphorous bombs, and not to mention the geophysical weapons? Only then, we could say: Okaerinasai - welcome back - life!

For more information, we publish interesting posts on the Edge Forum of the Asia Times.

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Asia Times / The Edge : The Nuclear Debacle in Japan

http://www.atimes.net/The-Edge/Japan/179657-THE-NUCLEAR-DEBACLE-IN-JAPAN-2011/Page-2.html
   
#179700
SAYONARA TOKYO - R.Sauder + SAYONARA JAPAN - F.Lee 1 Day, 21 Hours ago     Karma: -18 

Excerpt from SAYONARA JAPAN:

Hence, what are the main elements of the Fukushima cataclysm?

* This ghastly disaster of Tokyo will last for months, before it could somehow be 'controlled'; the radio activity on the islands generated by the 'dirty bomb' plutonium will outlive humanity; it is known that the half-life of plutonium 239 is 24 000 years.

What is sure is that every single day the radiation levels are soaring towards maximum heights. More and more radioactivity will be falling out on 35 million people in the Tokyo region, which is only 160 miles away from Fukushima:
"The inevitable consequence of that will be a dramatic withering of the cultural, social, commercial and economic life of the huge Tokyo megalopolis. As more and more people abandon Tokyo it will become a radioactive shadow of its former self. Of course the economic implications of that for global finance and commerce are immense, Tokyo is one of the three major centers of high finance in the world, along with London and New York, so its abandonment therefore has ineluctable repercussions that will rock the modern, global civilization to its core." (2)

Do we know that already 25 foreign governments have shut down their embassies in Tokyo? That others have moved to Osaka to try and escape atomic radiation? Do we still remember that the U.S. Navy had offered on March 17th to evacuate 87,000 personnel?

Yes, the situation is very serious indeed.

A few days later, on "March 19th the U.S. Military has begun a voluntary evacuation of up to 200,000 military personnel and their dependents from Japan. " (3)

International bankers are fleeing, are leaving the radioactive country.

The truth is simply that "the evacuation of Fukushima, of Tokyo, of Japan has already begun. The next step would be to evacuate the whole planet.

Sayonara, Japan! As Marx stated:
in to this world, 'capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt.' Now it is leaving Japan soaked in radiating blood and dirt!...'

Alea jacta est ... Is the game over? Will and could we wake up now and annihilate capitalism? And there we go ... more earthquakes, more tsunamis to come ...

Footnotes:
(1) www.threeworldwars.com/nwo-timeline1.htm )
(2) See: Event Horizon Chronicle -
Sayonara, Tokyo. eventhorizonchronicle.blogspot.com/2011/03/sayonara-tokyo.html.
(3) (Ibid.)

ORIGINAL SOURCE:
franzjtlee.blogspot.com/2011/04/sayonara...alist-game-over.html

posted by Armando Rozário ¹²³ Cabo Frio, Brazil - April 08, 2011;

P.S. Congratulations Richard.....Bravo Franz....two excellent reports!
        
     
#179702

Tepco’s Reactors May Take 30 Years, $12 Billion to Scrap

Damaged reactors at the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant may take three decades to decommission and cost operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. more than 1 trillion yen ($12 billion), engineers and analysts said.

Four of the plant’s six reactors became useless when sea water was used to cool them after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami knocked out generators running its cooling systems.

The reactors need to be decommissioned, Tepco Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata said today. He couldn’t give a timeframe. All the reactors, including Units 5 and 6, will be shut down, and the government hasn’t ruled out sealing the plant in concrete, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters today in Tokyo.
The damaged reactors need to be demolished after they have cooled and radioactive materials are removed and stored, said Tomoko Murakami, a nuclear researcher at the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan. The process will take longer than the 12 years needed to decommission the Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania following a partial meltdown, said Hironobu Unesaki, a nuclear engineering professor at Kyoto University.

“Lack of public support may force the decommissioning of all six reactors,” said Daniel Aldrich, a political science professor at Purdue University in Indiana. Tepco “will try to salvage two if it can find public support, which may be unlikely.”
The damaged reactors will take more than a few weeks to stabilize, Katsumata, who took charge of Tepco’s response after President Masataka Shimizu was hospitalized, told reporters.

Kan’s Criticism

Prime Minister Naoto Kan yesterday blamed inadequate tsunami defenses at the plant for the world’s worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986, saying that the safety standards set by Tepco were too low. Efforts to cool fuel rods at the four reactors have been hindered by detection of radiation levels that can prove fatal for a person exposed for several hours.
The utility is focusing on bringing the crisis at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant under control and can’t comment on the power station’s future, Naoyuki Matsumoto, a spokesman for Tepco, said by telephone yesterday.
Japan is studying various ways to cool water at the plant’s reactors and fuel-rod ponds, Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano said. It will take “considerable time” until the temperature drops and is stable, he said.
Covering the plant with fabric and removing contaminated water to a tanker are among options under consideration for reducing the threat from radiation, Edano said.

‘Considering Possibilities’

“Specialists are considering various possibilities and means to contain the nuclear power plant situation and minimize radiation effects in surrounding areas and harm to health,” he said. “We haven’t reached a conclusion about what means are possible or effective.”
Japanese authorities rated the Fukushima accident a 5 on the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 7-step scale for nuclear incidents, under which each extra point represents a 10- fold increase in seriousness.
At Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island in 1979, one reactor partially melted in the worst U.S. accident, earning a 5 rating. Its $973 million repair and cleanup took almost 12 years to complete, according to a report on the World Nuclear Association’s website. More than 1,000 workers were involved in designing and conducting the cleanup operation, the report said.

Chernobyl Sarcophagus

Ukraine is unable to fund alone the cost of a new sarcophagus to cover the burned out reactor at Chernobyl, due to be in place by 2014. The 110 meter-high arched containment structure has a 1.55 billion euro ($2.2 billion) total price tag and the London-based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has so far raised about 65 percent of that.

The Fukushima reactors may take about three decades to decommission, based on Japan’s sole attempt to dismantle a commercial reactor, said Murakami of the Institute of Energy Economics.
Japan Atomic Power Co. began decommissioning a 166-megawatt reactor at Tokai in Ibaraki Prefecture near Tokyo in 1998 after the unit had completed 32 years of operations, according to documents posted on the company’s website. The project will be completed by March 2021, or after 23 years of work, and cost 88.5 billion yen, the documents show.
Japan Atomic took three years through June 2001 to stabilize and remove nuclear fuels from the reactor core.
“It looks indisputable that Tepco will go ahead and dismantle the four reactors, and costs may exceed 1 trillion yen,” said Murakami, who worked at Japan Atomic for 13 years and was involved in the decommissioning of the Tokai plant. “Removing damaged fuels from the reactors may take more than two years, and any delays would further increase the cost.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-30/tokyo-electric-s-damaged-reactors-may-take-30-years-12-billion-to-scrap.html

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P.S. IT IS A REAL NIGHTMARE....FUKUSHIMA IS KAPUT !
re-posted by Armando Rozário ¹²³ Cabo frio, Brazil - April 08, 2011.


Japanese officials estimate about 57 million litres of highly radioactive water have accumulated and hundreds of thousands of litres are added daily as the operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, continues to feed coolant into the leaky structures

TOKYO: For nearly four weeks, Japanese emergency crews have been spraying water on the damaged Fukushima nuclear reactors in a desperate attempt to avert the calamity of a full meltdown.

The improvised solution to one nuclear nightmare is spawning another: what to do with the millions of litres of water that has become highly radioactive as it washes through the plant.
The water being used to try to cool the reactors and the dangerous spent fuel rods is leaking through fissures inside the plant, seeping through tunnels and passageways to the lowest levels, where it is accumulating into a sea of lethal waste. No one is sure how to get rid of it safely.

''There is nothing like this, on this scale, that we have ever attempted to do before,'' says Robert Alvarez, a former United States assistant secretary of Energy.

Japanese officials estimate about 57 million litres of highly radioactive water have accumulated and hundreds of thousands of litres are added daily as the operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, continues to feed coolant into the leaky structures.

Ultimately, the water will have to be stored and processed and the highly radioactive substances solidified, a job that experts say almost must be handled in a specially designed industrial complex. Cleaning the water could take many years, if not decades to complete. The cost could run into tens of billions of dollars.

The immediate problem facing the Japanese is how to store all that water until the reactors and the spent fuel pools are brought under control. The plant's main storage tanks are nearly full. To make space earlier this week, the company released 11.5 megalitres of the least contaminated water into the ocean, expecting that its radioactive elements will be diluted. But international law forbids Japan from dumping contaminated water into the ocean if there are viable technical solutions available later.

So the plant operator is considering bringing in barges and tanks, including a so-called megafloat that can hold about 9.5 megalitres. Yet even using barges and tanks to handle the water temporarily creates a future problem of how to dispose of the contaminated vessels. US and Japanese experts say the key to solving the disposal problem involves reducing the volume of water by concentrating the radioactive elements so they can be solidified into a safer, dry form. But waste experts disagree on exactly how to do that.

The difficulty of concentrating and then solidifying the contaminants depends on how much radioactivity is in the water, the type of isotopes in the water and whether the work can be done on site. Edward Morse, a professor of nuclear engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, said the water needs to be diverted soon into a concrete-lined holding pond, where natural evaporation can help reduce its volume.

Even there, it could take up to 10 years before the radioactivity would decay enough for the material to be handled, he said. Building a storage pond ''buys you time''.
Other experts disagree, saying exposing the material to open air could allow iodine and other volatile substances to drift off the site, adding to the remote contamination that is already spreading dozens of kilometres from the plant.

Nuclear power plants normally have systems in place to treat tritium on site. But the condition and capacity of that at Fukushima are not known.Professor Morse and Youichi Enokida, a nuclear chemist from Nagoya University, contend that if the water can be concentrated, it can then be rendered into a dry form or even turned into glass, as is planned at other contaminated sites around the world. This process, called vitrification, is expensive and requires a small scale industrial facility to accomplish.

The alternative - processing the waste elsewhere in Japan - is likely to be controversial. ''The fishermen will protest, this is inevitable,'' Professor Enokida said.
Professor Morse said there would be at least six months of emergency stabilisation, about two years of temporary remediation and up to 30 years of full-scale clean-up. Furthermore, the high levels of ground contamination at the site are raising concerns about the viability of individuals to work at the site in coming decades.
A workforce in the hundreds or even thousands would take years or decades to clean up, experts said.

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/containing-a-calamity-creates-another-nuclear-nightmare-20110408-1d7qn.html