[ RadSafe ] Fwd: [New post] Comparing Fukushima nuclear meltdown to the Chernobyl one

[Roger Helbig]

Does anyone know William Boardman outside of Global Research?  This
piece downplaying Chernobyl in comparison to Fukushima is typical of
the misleading information put out by so-called Global Research in
Montreal.

Roger Helbig

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: nuclear-news <comment-reply at wordpress.com>
Date: Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 10:46 PM
Subject: [New post] Comparing Fukushima nuclear meltdown to the Chernobyl one
To: rwhelbig at gmail.com


Christina MacPherson posted: "Fukushima Meltdowns: A Global Conspiracy
of Denial By William Boardman Global Research, Reader Supported News
January 05, 2014 ".......Chernobyl 1986 and Fukushima 2011 are not
really comparable  Chernobyl is the closest precedent to Fukushima,
and it’s n"
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New post on nuclear-news

Comparing Fukushima nuclear meltdown to the Chernobyl one

by Christina MacPherson

Fukushima Meltdowns: A Global Conspiracy of Denial By William Boardman
Global Research, Reader Supported News January 05, 2014
".......Chernobyl 1986 and Fukushima 2011 are not really comparable
Chernobyl is the closest precedent to Fukushima, and it’s not very
close. Chernobyl at the time of the 1986 electric failure and
explosion had four operating reactors and two more under construction.
The Chernobyl accident involved one reactor meltdown. Other reactors
kept operating for some time after the accident. The rector meltdown
was eventually entombed, containing the meltdown and reducing the
risk. Until Fukushima, Chernobyl was considered the worst nuclear
power accident in history, and it is still far from over (albeit
largely contained for the time being). The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone of
roughly 1,000 square miles remains one of the most radioactive areas
in the world and the clean-up is not even expected to be complete
before 2065.

At the time of the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami, the
Fukushima plant had six operating reactors. Three of them went into
meltdown and a fourth was left with a heavily laden fuel pool
teetering a hundred feet above the ground. Two other reactors were
undamaged and have been shut       down. Radiation levels remain
lethal in each of the melted-down reactors, where the meltdowns appear
to be held in check by water that is pumped into the reactors to keep
them cool. In the process, the water gets irradiated and that which is
not collected on site in leaking tanks flows steadily into the Pacific
Ocean. Within the first two weeks, Fukushima radiation was comparable
to Chernobyl’s and while the levels have gone down, they remain
elevated.

The plant’s corporate owner, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), in
turn effectively owned by the Japanese government after a2012
nationalization, began removing more than 1,500 fuel rod assemblies
from the teetering fuel pool in November, a delicate process expected
to take a year or more. There are additional fuel pools attached to
each of the melted down reactors and a much larger general fuel pool,
all of which contain nuclear fuel rod assemblies that are secure only
as long as TEPCO continues to cool them. The Fukushima Exclusion Zone,
a 12-mile radius around the nuclear plant, is about 500 square miles
(much of it ocean); little specific information about the exclusion
zone is easily available, but media coverage in the form of disaster
tourism is plentiful, including a Google Street View interactive
display.

Despite their significant differences as disasters, Chernobyl and
Fukushima are both rated at 7 – a “major accident” on the
International Nuclear Event Scale designed in 1990 by the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). That is the highest rating
on the scale, a reflection of the inherent denial that colors most
official nuclear thinking. Designed by nuclear “experts” after
Chernobyl, the scale can’t imagine a worse accident than Chernobyl
which, for all its intensity, was effectively over as an accident in a
relatively short period of time. At Fukushima, by contrast, the
initial set of events was less acute than Chernobyl, but almost three
years later they continue without any resolution likely soon.
Additionally Fukushima has three reactor meltdowns and thousands of
precarious fuel rod assemblies in uncertain pools, any of which could
produce a new crisis that would put Fukushima clearly off the scale.

And then there’s groundwater. Groundwater was not a problem at
Chernobyl. Groundwater is a huge problem at the Fukushima plant that
was built at the seashore, on a former riverbed, over an active
aquifer. In a short video, nuclear engineer Arnie Gunderson makes
clear why groundwater makes Fukushima so hard to clean up, and why
radiation levels there will likely remain dangerous for another
hundred years........http://www.globalresearch.ca/fukushima-meltdowns-a-global-conspiracy-of-denial/5363827

Christina MacPherson | January 7, 2014 at 6:46 am | Categories:
history | URL: http://wp.me/phgse-g2o

http://nuclear-news.net/2014/01/07/comparing-fukushima-nuclear-meltdown-to-the-chernobyl-one/