Food Shock

Summary: British & American scientists, including Joshua Elliot from Chicago, warn climate could bring "food shock" by hitting key crop areas. Will famine return? Maria Gillardin hosts reports from nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen from Fukushima Japan, site of world's worst nuclear accident.

Don't say you haven't been warned.

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JOSHUA ELLIOT AND FOOD SHOCK

What if extreme weather events, made stronger by climate change, hit a couple of major world food-growing regions? We go into "food shock". Let's explore what that can mean.

On February 12th, 2016 in Washington DC, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancment of Science, a group of British and American scientists provided their latest report on the fragility, and resilience of the global food system. We are joined by one of the presenters, Dr. Joshua Elliot, from the Computation Institute at the University of Chicago.

Dr. Joshua Elliot

You can find these reports at the Global Food Security blog, at foodsecurity.ac.uk. For example, here is the main report I used: "Extreme weather and resilience of the global food system" which comes as a handy .pdf file in your browser.

Try this blog entry on the program from Tim Benton.

And check out Tim Benton's blog post on UK food security here. I say that because (a) the UK government is a major sponsor of this study/report and (b) as Dr. Elliot tells us, the UK has only TEN DAYS worth of food supplies!

The long-time grain watcher Lester Brown warned for years that rice was within a half degree of it's upper growing limits already. What happens if the world rice zones become too hot for that crop? Joshua Elliot thinks the rice crop will be able to continue past heat limits, because it is generally underwater, which cools it.

This teleconference I recorded with Lester Brown, at the time head of the Earth Policy Institute is a good intro to his work, and continues to be heavily downloaded now 5 years later. Download full conference in CD quality (22 minutes) here.

Brown also warned that world grain stocks could only supply a few months of food at best. It appears we can't cover a whole year of bad crop losses. Should we be creating a long-term food reserve, as the ancient Egyptians did?

That turns out to be a very thorny idea. If there was a centralized food stock, maybe somone would use it to dictate political changes to a starving country? Anyway, most countries do not want to give up control of their own food sources. Remember when Russia experienced a huge crop loss in the heat wave of 2010, the Russians cut off food exports to make sure they could feed their own people. That was one driving factor in the "Arab Spring" revolts in Tunisia and Egypt, both of which import large amounts of grain, which is subsidized for the poor. When prices went up, the patience of the people went down.

So an international food bank seems unlikely at this time.

I AM NOT OPTIMISTIC ABOUT WORLD FOOD SUPPLIES

Unlike my guest, I am not a techno-optimist about our coming food supply. Just in: a new report says 75% of world crops depend on pollination. Yet 40% of pollinators like bees and butterlies are threatened by "total extinction". Bat and bird pollinators are also disappearing.

That is just one driver, not counting heat beyond crop limits, extreme weather events including floods and droughts, human encroachement on nature everywhere, expanding human population, the list goes on and on. Personally, I expect to witness mass famine again in my lifetime, as seen in the 1960's in China in 1959, and Ethiopia in 1984, but hitting more countries. Even in developed countries, it seems likely food will become a much larger part of our budget, and at times difficult to afford for millions.

I have food insurance in buckets in the basement which will last at least 30 years. We grow more of our own food every year. We are plugged into a network of local food producers and community gardens.

In the interview, Joshua Elliot mentioned the United Kingdom has a scant 10 days of food provisions. If the ships and planes stop for any reason, the country is in danger. Food backups in all countries have dropped dangerously low, just at a time of growing threats to agriculture as usual. I say: don't take food for granted.

FUKUSHIMA NUCLEAR DISASTER - STILL DEVELOPING - ARNIE GUNDERSEN

We're coming to the fifth year after the start of the world's biggest nuclear disaster. In March 2011, three reactors at the sea-side complex at Fukushima blew up. I covered it extensively on Radio Ecoshock, and one of my best sources has been nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Energy Education. Find my 2014 blog summary of continuing Fukushima threats here, and you can listen to or download that feature interview with Arnie here.

Nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen

Now Arnie is back in Japan, checking out the radiation, the impacts, the human costs, and efforts by the operator TEPCO to stem continuing radiation running into the Pacific Ocean. His first telephone reports have been compiled by a hard-working California radio producer, Maria Gillardin. She hosts TUC Radio. Previously Maria was a leading producer at KPFA Radio in Berkeley, and was founding producer of the public affairs program "Making Contact".

Radio Producer Maria Gilardin

TUC Radio stands for "Time of Useful Consciousness". Be sure to support Maria as an independent radio maker, at tucradio.org. You can find still more telephone reports from Fukushima by Arnie Gundersen at fairewinds.org.

Remember, the nuclear accident at Fukushima was not an event in history. Even now, five years later, this horrible outpouring of radiation continues.

It took four years for the government of Japan to admit that ALL the plutonium-laced nuclear materials in Reactor Three were blown into the air in the first days. That went to Japan, to the Pacific Ocean, and around the world in the stratosphere.

As Arnie tells us in detail, the human health impacts of the Fukushima disaster are still not widely known, and still covered up by the Japanese government. It's proving impossible to handle all the radioactive materials. Look for the government to start incinerating even more, which just means dumping dangerous radioactive particles over a wider area.

Every day a throng of workers try to find more space to store still more highly radioactive water. Every day they fail, and some drains into the Pacific Ocean. We have no idea how this will end, or if it will ever end in this century, or the next. A nuclear melt-down is forever in human terms, and this was three melt-downs.

As Helen Caldicott wrote in her book, nuclear power is not the answer to global warming or anything else.

I'm Alex Smith. Thank you for listening, and caring what happens to this planet.

THE DEATH OF NUCLEAR POWER

SUMMARY: Lead author of "World Nuclear Industry Status Reports" Mycle Schneider on new Nuclear Leap Forward in China. Famous activist Helen Caldicott on plan to make S. Australia a world nuclear dump; and dangerous nuke waste in St. Louis, Missouri. Radio Ecoshock 160127

A tiny but powerful number of scientists, applauded by a few famous greens, urge us to accept nuclear power. They see it as the salvation of our civilization, our climate, our future.

It isn't happening. As you'll hear, nuclear power is shrinking, not expanding. World-wide, major nuclear companies are going bankrupt, or soaking up billions more of your taxes, or both.

Expert Mycle Schneider looks into secrets of the Great Nuclear Leap Forward in China. Remember, after Chernobyl and Fukushima, an accident anywhere in the world can irradiate the Northern Hemisphere. China's new untested reactors are your reactors. Their radiation can land in your backyard.

All our lives, we've been told the problem of storing nuclear waste for a million years will be solved by science and technology. Instead, you will hear how hot waste from 70 years ago continues to threaten and poison a suburb of St. Louis Missouri. Dr. Helen Caldicott also reports on the mad rush to turn beautiful South Australia into a nuclear waste dump for the world.

Boiling water with reactors has become a time-bomb, a failed technology, a path better not taken, a threat and a burden to all succeeding generations.

This is Radio Ecoshock. I'm Alex Smith.

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MYCLE SCHNEIDER: THE NEW NUCLEAR LEAP FORWARD IN CHINA

“Nuclear energy costs are cheap because we lower our standards.”

- He Zuoxiu, in the Guardian newspaper, May 25, 2015.

While our heads are filled with day-dreams of Hollywood stars and nightmares of financial collapse, China is taking another "Great Leap Forward". China is building to become the world's largest nuclear-powered economy. A Chinese nuclear expert says the burst of reactor construction brings, quote, "the 'most probable' period for a nuclear accident in China forward to between 2020 and 2030." [Hu Zuoxiu 19.03.2013]

In fact, He Zuoxiu, who has been a government supporter and well known scientist in the nuclear field, has called the current rush to nuclear expansion in China "insane". He's 88. He can get away with it.

The risks to very heavily populated parts of China are huge to unimaginable. As we learned from Fukushima, an accident anywhere can launch radiation around the Earth.

What is going on with nuclear power in China? From Paris, our guest Mycle Schneider makes it his business to know. He's the lead author of "The World Nuclear Industry Status Reports." Schneider has advised European governments and members of the European Parliament on energy issues.

China has become an experimental lab for untested nuclear reactor technology. All the dreams of nuclear scientists are either planned or already under construction in China. There are plans and hopes for "pebble reactors" and "thorium" plants. The experiment becomes even larger when we consider so many countries, all with their different technologies, are part of the new nuclear boom in China.

The Taishan reactor complex is just one example. There the French company Areva is providing 3 European Pressurized Reactors (EPR's). These are allegedly "3rd generation" designs (although Mycle says there are very few advances over current second generation models).

Mycle Schneider



Experience? They have never run one of these reactors for a single day, and their track record is atrocious. The EPR at Flamanville in the far north of France (just across the channel from Britain) was begun in 2007. It's completion date kept getting delayed and delayed, by years and years. Now they say it will be finished in 2017 - oops, now it's 2018.. But that's unlikely. Areva has recently admitted finding a serious design flaw in the inner reactor. It's so serious, Mycle suggests they might have to tear down and rebuild. The French regulator published information on this flaw, but it has not been communicated to the Chinese people.

The original cost of this single EPR reactor was supposed to be 3.3 billion euros. Now it's over 10 billion euros and who knows what the final cost will be, if it opens.

The situation of Areva's reactor at Olkiluoto in Finland is even worse. This is what Wiki says about it:

"According to Financial Times in December 2014 construction of unit 3 has descended into farce as it is currently expected to open nine years late and several billions of euros over budget."

China has also contracted to buy a couple of experimental, never-before-built "third generation" reactors from Westinghouse Nuclear, now majority owned by Toshiba corporation of Japan. It's the AP-1000. Who knows what it will cost, when it will be completed, and most importantly, if this design is safe?

Mycle Schneider also worries whether China can find the technical culture needed to run reactors flawlessly. Sure China turns out zillions of engineers every year, but none of them have been nuclear operators.

China joins other countries like France in having the builders, operators, and regulators all part of a government-owned structure. Very little is known about this industry in China. There is no transparency, and little room for citizen oversight or complaint. I'll have more to say about that in another program.

Schneider points out that the world has fewer operating reactors (supply power to the grid) now than existed in 2002, even with the construction boom in China. That's because old nuclear plants are being closed in many countries, and not replaced. It's a dying technology.

The few nuclear reactor makers are being killed off in the stock market. Nuclear shares are now at pennies on the original dollar. That's another serious worry. For example, the La Hague nuclear fuel reprocessing site, again in northern France, has the largest supply of high-level nuclear materials in the world. It's run by Areva. Areva stocks have been hammered so low, and their sales so poor, that the company has announced big job cuts. When hundreds of staff are sent home from La Hague, Mycle asks "what were they doing that will not be done now?" Is safety being cut as well? What happens to all the reactors being built or operated by financially failed companies?

That alone is one reason why nuclear power is not a solution for global warming. The economic costs are far too high, and not enough could be completed before lasting damage has been done by the carbon economy it means to partially replace. It's too late.

The big reactor makers were almost toast in the west, despite billions in government subsidies. But they counted on a "nuclear renaissance" in China to survive. Schneider points out the Chinese have been blunt about their game. They are "technology shopping". They buy a couple of reactors from everybody (including from Canada) - and then break down the engineering so they can do it all themselves. There is no big market for reactors in China for any western company.

The end-game of all this nuclear "business" is sadly predictable. Taxpayers, somewhere, will pay and pay to prop up existing reactors, and then pay more or less forever for whatever dismantling and storage can be done. The current players will long-since be bankrupt. The nuclear sales executives will have run away.

All of this comes as the nuclear industry tried desperately, including at the Paris climate talks, to promote their industry as the answer to global warming. They didn't even make the agenda. The public doesn't want it. It's not happening. It's a dead-end.

Be sure and check out Mycle's interview. It's an eye-opener into a nuclear business built on secrecy and incredible risks. He's been an advisor on nuclear and energy to the French, German, and Belgian governments. His reports and expertise are in demand. He knows.

Download, listen to, or share this 27 minute Radio Ecoshock interview with Mycle Schneider in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

Use this small URL to pass on the Lo-Fi version of this interview. Tweet on! http://tinyurl.com/z5288cx Here are a few links to follow up:

List of Mycle's publications here.

Check out the World Nuclear Industry Status Report web site.

You can find out more about nuclear energy in China with this January 2016 update "Mind the China Effect".

HELEN CALDICOTT ON EVERLASTING NUCLEAR WASTE

In a populated suburb of St. Louis Missouri, nuclear waste from American bomb-making is washing into surface water. Now all that radioactive mess is threatened by an underground fire just 1200 feet away.

If that's the best the United States can do, what chance does Australia have, with their grand plans to make South Australia a dumping ground for the world's nuclear waste? It's time for another round of nuclear madness, and the doctor is in. That's Doctor Helen Caldicott, the most famous anti-nuclear campaigner in the world.

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Dr. Helen Caldicott

Along the way, Helen tells us about her role in founding the anti-nuclear movement in Australia in the 1970's. Then she spent 20 years in Boston. There she revived a dead non-profit called "Physicians for Nuclear Responsibility" and built it into an anti-nuclear powerhouse.

Helen met for over an hour with President Ronald Reagan. Sensing he knew little about nuclear weapons, she explained not only was any nuclear exchange unwinnable, it would cause a catastrophe where medical treatment was not an option. Reagan after that began talks with the Soviets to reduce nuclear weapons, and reduce political stress points. We owe a part of our survival of that mad nuclear age to Helen Caldicott.

Not that we are safer now. Nuclear weapons continue to be built all over the world, some in very unstable countries and/or dictatorships. The tension between nuclear neighbors has spread from just Russia and the West to places like Pakistan and India. Just yesterday, January 26th, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists announced the "Doomsday Clock" would remain at 3 minutes to midnight.

Helen continues to warn the world about the danger of nuclear weapons, but that is not why we talked this week on Radio Ecoshock.

First the Australian state of South Australia has a mad idea to replace the car plant jobs they lost. The government is pushing to become the nuclear waste dump of the world. There is a complicated back story, but that's the bald fact.

How they would do this has not been announced. So far it looks like a shed in the desert is the likely plan! South Australia called their own Royal Commission to get submissions on the project. Most of the submissions came from pro-nuclear people. The aboriginal people - who still own the land! - could not make direct entries to the Commission, because they lacked the Justice of the Peace system that was required. Their voices were ruled out.

The Royal Commission is due to release it's predestined "report" on February 15th. On February 16th Helen Caldicott will make an answering speech in Adelaide. It's all very sad.

BACK TO OLD ST. LOUIS

We've been told and told that there will be a new technical solution for nuclear waste. Here is a situation in America which shows what a great lie that is. The original nuclear waste from constructing the atomic bombs dropped on Japan - that waste is still very potent and dangerous. A great deal of it was just dumping in the ground near the airport in St. Louis Missouri.

It was badly looked after. A few tarps cover the ground. Rainstorms wash radioactive waste into local streams, and from there into rivers. The wind blows radioactive materials around. A recent study by scientists, including nuclear scientist Bob Alvarez, checked out an area about 200 kilometers around the St. Louis site near Bridgeton, a suburb. They found lots of radiation. The title is: "Tracking legacy radionuclides in St. Louis, Missouri, via unsupported 210Pb "[Lead] You can read more about that study here.

Guess what. There is a higher incidence of many kinds of cancer around this West Lake landfill site. Our old un-friend Exelon is the allegedly responsible party for this nuclear mess.

Now the kicker. An underground fire has been burning for years in the regular landfill site right next to the nuclear dump. This fire is now burning less than 1200 feet from the nuclear waste! If the atomic materials burn, you can count on radiation spreading far and wide. The US Environmental Protection Agency is proposing a wall be built underground to deflect the fire, but really nothing has been done.

You can hear a local resident and columnist Byron DeLear describe the St. Louis situation here in the Nuclear Hotseat #237 with Libbe HaLevy, from January 6, 2016, here on You tube. (You have to scroll well into the program, but don't! The whole show is very revealing about the U.S. nuclear industry.)

So like the good doctor going to where the sick patient is found, Helen Caldicott is going to St. Louis. She'll help bring the spotlight back where it belongs, on this utter failure to protect even the first nuclear waste created by humans.

Tune in to all things Helen at helencaldicott.com. Be sure to check out the latest book edited by Helen Caldicott: "Crisis Without End, The Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe."

MY CONCLUSION

Any more money spent on nuclear power is a waste of the dwindling fuel, resources, and carbon space in the atmosphere. Humans will have to be very fortunate to care for the existing plants over dozens of generations. Given our history, our failed economics, and the magnitude of climate disruption developing, some reactors, somewhere, will blow out, one by one, or in concert.

I hope I am not one of the unlucky evacuees if the radioctive tanks blow up at Hanford in Washington State. I hope none of you are predestined to abandon a whole region of your country, with all the beloved places, experiences, and resources lost to humans. Accepting that risk is a betrayal of Nature. It is a betrayal of whatever or whoever initiated the possibility of ever-lasting evolution of life somewhere in space.

That's what I think. That's how I feel.

I'm Alex Smith. Thank you for listening to Radio Ecoshock again this week.

At the end of the program, I play a bit from "Talkin' End Game It's The Radioactive Song" by Michel Montecrossa.

AVOIDING THE WORST: FUKUSHIMA'S PLUME AND AMERICA'S MOST DANGEROUS REACTOR

SUMMARY: Nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen: Fukushima continues to irradiate the Pacific. Plume reaching West Coast. Where is next American Fukushima? Diablo Canyon in California? Then Naomi Klein's new vision "This Changes Everything".

Welcome to Radio Ecoshock and what a show we have for you this week! Arnie Gundersen covers the world's worst nuclear dangers, from the on-going poisoning of the Pacific Ocean by the melt-downs at Fukushima Japan, to America's disaster-in-waiting - right in California. Oh yeah, and the nuclear plume is hitting the West Coast right now.

Then we'll talk through the battle of capitalist profits versus the climate, and all of nature. Our guest will be Naomi Klein, author of the new book "This Changes Everything".

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ARNIE GUNDERSEN WITH NEW NEWS ABOUT FUKUSHIMA AND UNSAFE AMERICAN REACTORS

We get an update on the Fukushima mess from our favorite correspondent, Anrie Gundersen. He's a former nuclear industry executive who now gives expert testimony on reactor safety. His videos on the web site fairewinds.com are the best anywhere. This interview ranges from Japan to California reactors unsafe at any speed, and even to the possibility of a massive nuclear melt-down right near New York City. Why not... Tokyo is already radioactive!

We begin by talking about the impact of the big typhoons that just swept over the site of the Fukushima nuclear disaster complex. There were two typhoons in a row, Phanfone and Vongfong. The second one dumped 10 inches of rain (254 mm.) in 24 hours - right on to a site where groundwater running through the melted reactor cores is already overwhelming TEPCO's ability to pump it into temporary storage tanks.

Three hundred tons of radioactive water runs off the site each and every day into the Pacific Ocean. It was much more during these two storms. The operator hasn't said how much more, but we know in one previous incident Fukushima leaked 600 tons of water into the Pacific, twice the "normal" highly nuclear runoff. We also know from other news reports that new record high levels of radiation was measured after these typhoons in various trenches and wells. Consider the giant amounts of radiation previously measured at Fukushima, we don't wan't to hear about new record highs.

The Japan Times reported "Tritium up tenfold in Fukushima groundwater after Typhoon Phanfone"

"Some 150,000 becquerels of tritium per liter were measured in a groundwater sample taken Thursday from a well east of the No. 2 reactor. The figure is a record for the well and over 10 times the level measured the previous week."

"Tepco also revealed that, at a separate well also east of the No. 2 reactor, a groundwater sample was giving off a record 2.1 million becquerels of a beta ray-emitting substance, nearly double the level from a week earlier.

The cesium activity in the sample was 70 percent higher at 68,000 becquerels."

There was even worse news after Typhoon Vongfong, one of the strongest in a generation.

Arnie Gundersen makes this stunning statement: just one month after the accident "there were things they could have done back then. I recommended pumping down the groundwater, but between the pumps and the nuclear reactor [they should] have something called a zeolite trench. Zeolite is a really good material - it's volcanic - that would capture all the radioactive Cesium, and most of the other isotopes.

Well I was told three years ago that Tokyo Electric didn't have the money. It's one of those 'pay me now or pay me later'. Because they didn't keep that groundwater under control three years ago now they are paying the price."

Arnie says the total releases from Fukushima now are much higher than from the Chernobly nuclear accident in the Ukraine in the 1980s. It is without a doubt the world's worst nuclear disaster.

One sign of that: the site is so highly radioactive that even now, three years later, nobody knows where the nuclear cores of those 3 reactors are. Within about a year and a half, the world saw photos of the nuclear cores at Three Mile Island (in Pennsylvania) and Chernobyl. There are no such photos, or any kind of record, of the reactor cores at Fukushima.

By the way, a Korean government report estimates Fukushima may have released up to 4 times as much Cesium as Chernobyl did.

Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds.org

EARTHQUAKE RISK OF STORAGE TANKS

Every week, TEPCO has to construct two new giant storage tanks to hold still more radioactive water pumped from the site. There is a vast tank farm on the hill above the former reactors. But, Gundersen warns, these temporary tanks are not "seismically qualified". That is, they are not intended to withstand a serious earthquake. If such a quake hits Fukushima, "they'll all fail and run down into the Pacific en masse, which would be an insult to the Pacific which has never occcured in the history of the world". But hey, what are the odds Fukushima will be hit by a major earthquake (again)!

ANOTHER UNTOLD PROBLEM

Arnie Gundersen is the only person I've heard raising yet anothe serious problem arising from this triple reactor melt-down. Major media have completely missed the fact that TEPCO is filtering out up to 90% of the major radioactive materials. Essentially, they are reconstituting nuclear cores in these filters. But what will they do with this brand new form of super-radioactive waste? Where will the filters be stored safely (for at least 300 years)? What place in Japan will have that dark honor? The filters contain not just cesium, but uranium and plutonium. They may need 250,000 years to be really safe.

When the water is filtered, with just 10% of the radiation left, the Japanese want to dump it, and probably already are dumping it, straight into the Pacific Ocean. As Gundersen says, they think 90% is good enough. If any other nation, in any other circumstance, was dumping even that 10% of radioactivity into the ocean (how much is it?) - there would be international outcry. Japan is using the Pacific as a nuclear waste dump.

Gundersen: "So by filtering the water, they've reduce the liquid problem, but they've created a huge solid radioactive waste problem that no one... you've got an exclusive here Alex. No one in the world is talking about where in the world are they going to store all of these filters for a quarter of a million years."

REMOVING THE OUTER SHELL OF REACTOR 1

TEPCO needed to reduce the continuing airborne emissions of highly radioactive materials floating out of the wreck of the Number One Reactor building. They constructed a fabric shell around the building (which also hid the wreckage from international photographers). Now that shell is absolutely loaded with radioactivity. The company is in the process of removing it. We discuss the dangers.

This week, an unexpectedly high gust of wind shook a crane removing the cover, and tore a large hole in it. It's a very risky operation. Gundersen says without the cover, more radioactivity will be carried away by the winds.

THE HUMAN HEALTH IMPACT: SECRECY IN JAPAN

Alex: In these first few years after the nuclear meltdowns in Fukushima, we've heard almost nothing about the impacts on people in that region. There are accounts of strange tumors, kids dying, pets dying. What have you heard, and can we ever expect an honest accounting from Japanese authorities?

Gundersen: That's a pretty good summary, frankly. We continue to get information from people who live there about cancer rates and illnesses in general. Not just cancer. You know we think of radiation as a cancer-causing thing, but it also causes many other ailments."

Arnie then tells us about a woman 30 miles from Fukushima who has grown and stored seeds for a very long time. Now three years after the accident, she is see "gargantuism" (a.k.a. gigantism) in plants. When plants (or animals) mutate to become abnormally large, or have certain organs or parts growing very large, this is a sure sign of genetic damage caused by radiation.

Gundersen: "We are also working with doctors in Japan. Some brave doctors are saying that they are being threatened, that their hospital rights have threatened. If you tell your patient 'this illness is radiation related' you will lose your right to practice, and things like that. So there's an enormous pressure on the medical community to tell the patients that what they are experiencing is not at all related to radiation."

They key, Gundersen says, is statistics. We haven't received real verifiable date on cancer rates and other illness from Japan, since the reactor accident. We're not likely to get it. It turns out that under a prior agreement, all the statistics and reports have to go first to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) who must approve them. "Article Two of the IAEA's Charter, is to promote nuclear power" Gundersen tells us.

WILL ANYONE BE PROSECUTED FOR THE ERRORS AND LIES OF FUKUSHIMA?

Reuters news service reports Japanese prosecutors are once again considering criminal charges against executives from the Tokyo Electric Power Company, TEPCO. Last year they said "no charges". But a special citizens' panel is forcing them to reconsider. The almost invincible insider reputation of TEPCO is legendary. Is there any chance those who allowed this disaster to happen will be exposed to justice?

Gundersen thinks it's unlikely under the Japanese system of authority that any charges of TEPCO executives will be successful. The charges, if any, would not be for allowing the accident to happen (e.g. they knew the sea-wall was too low...) - but for hiding the true risks after the accident (and thereby endangering people's health). Lawyers in Japan are progressive, Gundersen thinks, but the judicial system is legendary for its conservative nature.

Shortly after this interview, we received news that the Japanese prosecutors have delays their recommendation about charges for another three months. Don't hold your breath.

Gundersen has a chance to speak in depth with former Prime Minister of Japan Naoto Kan, who was in charge at the time of the accident. Kan said he got bad information from both TEPCO and MITI, the organization responsible for nuclear matters. TEPCO wanted to abandon the site, Kan told Gundersen, but the Prime Minister said "no".

IS TOKYO RADIOACTIVE? MOVE THE 2020 OLYMPICS?

We also talk about the move by former Japanese Ambasador Mitsuhei Murata to have the 2020 Olympics held somewhere other than Tokyo, due to the continuing health risks. I ask Arnie whether Tokyo is radioactive.

Gundersen: "Yes Tokyo is radioactive. I've spoken to Ambassdor Murata. My problem is we worry about the exposure to Olympic athletes who are going to be there for three weeks, what about the exposure to the people who live in Tokyo for the last ten years - nine years, from 2011 until the two thousand twenty Olympics. I'm afraid it's a little bit elitist to worry about visiting athletes who are going to be there for three weeks, when in fact 35 million people are exposed to this radiation for nine years.

Now I think the government of Japan should be aggressively cleaning up Tokyo. But to do so would spread fear, and that in turn would stop the Olympics, which would then crush nuclear revival that the [current Prime Minister] Abe regime is so desiring. It's so desirable to the Abe regime to get those nuclear plants running again."

WHY TOKYO IS RADIOACTIVE?

Why is Tokyo radioactive? You would need to scan back through my past Fukushima shows, and the special podcasts I sent out at the time to get the details. All of that is available at my web site at ecoshock.org. Just type "Fukushima" into the search box there.

In a nutshell here are just some of the pathways radioactivity took to get to Tokyo:

1. In the first days of the accident, most of the radiation was blown north and west, but there were some reversals of wind, where the radiation was carried south and bathed Tokyo with nuclear particles. These were measured around the metropolis at that time. Various Japanese corporations considered moving their head offices out of Tokyo (some did). It later came out the whole government considered moving out of Tokyo.

2. For weeks after the accident, and especially after three reactor buildings blew up, there was continuing air-borne radiation of Tokyo.

3. The hills around Tokyo, were also bathed in radioactivity. Each successive rainstorm brought more radiation into the city. Tokyo has a vast amount of undergound water. Some of the city is build out over what was the ocean. Radiation was measured in the underground water.

4. More difficult to quantify, large amounts of radioactive materials were dumped or burned after the accident. Some radioactive hot sewage sludge was trucked around the country. So was radioactive cement, which used that sludge. Some of all that arrived, as almost everything does, in the hub of Tokyo.

The point is this: radioactivity doesn't go away like yesterday's news. It lasts and lasts, for decades, even generations. Residents of Tokyo hosed down some hot spots, but the city never really admitted the magnitude of the problem. There was no massive clean up of Tokyo (which would help but couldn't get it all). Perhaps this was not done to avoid alarming the population, or to save the economy, which would have crashed in Tokyo was abandoned. So this giant metropolis remains radioactive, worse in some places than others. In my opinion, pregnant mothers should go to a less polluted area, and perhaps raise children to at least the age of 5 before returning.

THE SENDAI NUCLEAR PLANT AND VOLCANOES

The Japanese authorities released a report saying the Sendai nuclear plant would not experience a volcanic eruption for the next 30 years. That's convenient, because that would be the expected operating life of this reactor site, if it is restarted. How polite for the volcanoes to wait!

However, on September 27th, there was an unexpected major eruption by another volcano not so near to Sendai. And influential volcanologists in Japan said there is absolutely no way to predict when a volcano will go off, and certainly no 30 year guarantee. br>
Gundersen says the real risk to Sendai is not so much that a volcano would immediately destroy the nuclear plant. The problem is a volcano can dump twelve feet or more of ash on the site, and on all roadways leading to it. It could become impossible to keep cooling the reactor core. If that is not cooled, it blows up, just like Fukshima did. The cooling system has to be kept going at least 5 years without any pause, even after the reactor is shut down. That applies to the nuclear reactor near you! Not that it matters if there is a reactor near you. Fukushima blew radioactive particles around the Northern Hemisphere, and as we are about to find out, the radioactive plume from the leaking site is just now reaching North America.

FUKUSHIMA'S PLUME HITS NORTH AMERICA

This spring of 2014, a citizen found a sample of Cesium-134 in a park in British Columbia, Canada - inland from the ocean. What does that tell us? Unlike Cesium-137, which lasts a long time, Cesium-134 only lasts about two years. That means this particle arrived from Fukushima. I think it may be from continuing airborne radiation, but Gundersen suggests it came from the original blowout three years ago.

Gundersen told us in previous interviews that his company Fairewinds tested automobile air filters from Seattle Washington after the accident and found highly radioactive hot particles in those filters. We know from another Radio Ecoshock interview that radioactivity from Fukushima was found in seaweed, and in Vancouver, Canada. Similar Fukshima radiation was found in California, and in fact in many U.S. states including Pennsylvania, and those in New England.

Now we're looking at a new wave of radiation reaching the West Coast. The slowly moving ocean currents are finally bringing the first part of the radioactive plume to Canada and the United States.

A Canadian research scientist named John Smith just told the meeting of the American Geophysical Union that this group has measured a radioactive plume from Fukushima in Canadian waters. The blog Live Science reports: "Smith and his colleagues tracked rising levels of cesium-134 at several ocean monitoring stations west of Vancouver in the North Pacific beginning in 2011. By June 2013, the concentration reached 0.9 Becquerels per cubic meter, Smith said. All of the cesium-134 was concentrated in the upper 325 feet (100 m) of the ocean, he said. They are awaiting results from a February 2014 sampling trip."

There's a long list of proof and sightings.

Ken Buesseler, the senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, had to arrange crowd-funding to measure this radioactivity in the Pacific. The American and Canadian governments don't appear to care. So far Buesseler says the radiation found is weak, and not yet dangerous. We're still in the early days. Buesseler set up this web site.

Gundersen says he receives a lot of worried calls and emails about the safety of West Coast beachs. This follows a couple of erroneous reports of high radioactivity on California beaches which turned out to be not from Fukushima, but left over from Cold War days. Yes, radioactivity from atmospheric atomic testing is still with us - which shows how long lasting any radioactivity is! Thanks to the Japanese experiment with nuclear power, the Pacific will still be more radioactive long after you and I are dead.

However, don't panic surfers! Gundersen says the risk is still very, very low for people swimming in the Pacific. Go for it, if you can stand the cold water. The fish living there are not so lucky. The bottom feeders especially will soak up radioactivity, and this will bio-concentrate as these are eaten by other predators. Is that why the local pod of killer whales (Orcas) in southern British Columbia did not have a baby in two years? The pod just had their first birth, but the baby died soon after. There may be many factors at work, but increased radioactivity in the Pacific is not good for marine mammals. Nobody disputes that.

Gundersen also suggests that fresh water fish in British Columbia, and likely the whole West Coast, may also be accumulating radioactivity. The place to test, if anyone cares, would be bottom-dwelling feeders like Catfish, who live in waters above a dam. The runoff from the surrounding mountains would accumulate in those dam lakes.

Arnie says he won't eat any fish from the Pacific until the government starts testing, and releases the actual data found, so he can make an informed decision about his own health.

THE NEXT FUKUSHIMA IN AMERICA

So what American nuclear plant will blow up? There's a too long list of possible candidates. All American plants were built at least 30 years ago, and many are operating on extentions granted by the NRC. All that concrete, all those pipes and equipment deteriorating.

NEW YORK CITY AT RISK

That doesn't even include known design flaws. Arnie and I were talking about earthquake risk and of course the last remaining California reactors at Diablo Canyon. Then he surprised me with this:

"By the way, we think of earthquakes as something that happens in California, but the plant with the highest what we call 'core damage frequency' is actually Indian Point. [38 miles from New York City - Alex] It's only a mile away from a Richter point 7 and a half earthquake fault that wasn't discovered until after it was built. So we could have an East Coast earthquake at Indian Point, which would be disastrous."

We talk about the unsafe storage of 1600 tons of nuclear waste at the now-closed San Onofre nuke plant in California. Gundersen says that waste needs to be put into casks right away. The nuke materials in casks at Fukushima were not damaged by the earthquake or the tsunami.

THE MOST DANGEROUS REACTOR IN AMERICA: DIABLO CANYON, CALIFORNIA

Now to America's biggest nuclear risk: the Diablo Canyon reactors half way between San Francisco and Los Angeles, right on the coast.

Gundersen: "Diablo Canyon is in my mind the most dangerous reactor in the United States. It was known when they built the plant that ground accelerations of .4 G - [which is] four tenths the acceleration of gravity - could hit the plant. And that's the way they built it.

Well, as they were building it, they discovered other earthquake faults that were much nearer to the plant that could double that, to .75 G. They didn't change the plant, they just changed the numberical analysis to make the plant fit an earthquake that was twice as severe."

The two reactors at the Diablo Canyon site. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.





INSTRUMENT CHATTER - THE EARTHQUAKE RISK NO ONE WANTS TO TALK ABOUT

TRANSCRIPT:

Gundersen: Fairewinds just produced a report that we sent to the NRC. The big thing that they're ignoring is not the gross collapse of the [reactor] building in the event of a Richter .7 G earthquake. It's something called 'instrument chatter'.

It's really not spoken about very often in nuclear circles, but hopefully Fairewinds can bring it to the forefront. You know you have switches on the wall that turn the light on. Well they have switches in nuclear plants too. We call them 'relays'. And if the ground shakes, the relays turn on and off without any human intervention. Now we found an NRC report that shows that the NRC has said there's a hundred percent probability that in the event of an earthquake, some of those relays are going to end up in the wrong position. So if you want a pump to be 'on' the relay's going to be 'off'. If you want a pump to be 'off' the relay's going to be 'on', because this relay chatter will cause them to bounce back and forth, and at the end of the earthquake they won't be in the right position.

It's a really serious problem that has been un-analyzed at Diablo Canyon. In my opinion, Diablo Canyon should be shut down until they analyze that problem. But of course that would be a four or five year effort and they may as well throw in the towels. So they are choosing to ignore the problem rather than really analyze this relay chatter issue.

Alex: This is the first I've heard of this. I guess we can say we are breaking this on Radio Ecoshock.

Gundersen: You are. You are. You know it's in the deep bowels of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's files, but they don't want to talk about it either. People who work with relays have seen them buzz. We'll be posting a video in the next couple of weeks about relay chatter. They routinely will buzz when they are not working right, when the springs are worn and tired, they'll sit there and go bzzzz.

Well, in the event of an earthquake that will happen anyway, even if it's a brand new relay, because they'll just bounce. The switches will turn on and off, on and off, and then when the earthquake ends there's no guarantee they'll be where you want them to be."

So what? If a series of pumps need to be on, to cool the reactor, and the quake leaves them off, the reactor could heat up and blow. These reactors are such complicated systems, that we are not talking about one or two switches that some human will reset. We are talking about a vast system of interdependent switches that will reset themselves in chaotic patterns. It may not be easy to recover... in time.

We go on to discuss a report by David Lochbaum, a nuclear expert working with the Union of Concerned Scientists. Lockbaum says Diablo Canyon has never met basic fire regulations, and the NRC doesn't make them meet the standards. Why can anyone operate a nuclear reactor with faulty fire protection? Arnie Gundersen says Diablo Canyon falls into Region Four of the NRC, which has a history of being lax about enforcing nuclear regulations.

The other trick, applied to dozens of American reactors which fail to meet safety standards, is to "grandfather" them. They are built, it's too expensive to fix (the operators say) and so they must be safe, even though they aren't. That's the kind of nuclear logic that led to the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.

DIABLO CANYON VIOLATES FEDERAL LAW

Gundersen: "We published a ... I think it's about q 45 page expert report that was sent to the NRC about a week and a half ago, with a legal filing that was sponsored by Friends of the Earth. Basically we determined that Diablo Canyon never should have been allowed to run. Because it violated a federal law. It's called 10 CFR 50. That's a nuclear law and it's part 50-59, which basically says that when you know a plant has problems, and you change your analytical approach to solve that problem, the public has a right to know it.

That didn't happen at Diablo Canyon. The public was not informed that Pacific Gas and Electric, the owner of Diablo Canyon made gross changes in all of the assumptions in order to get Diablo Canyon qualified to a much larger earthquake. The argument should have been made in 1980 and now Friends of the Earth is taking forward the argument 35 years later."

HOW TO SHUT DOWN NUCLEAR - INSTALL SOLAR!

I asked Arnie Gundersen how can we finally shut down these aging dangerous reactors, before another Fukushima happens in America. His answer surprised me: install as much solar power as you can, personally, as a community, as a State.

It turns out nuclear plants actually lose money at night. They only make money supplying electricity during peak usage hours during the day. That's exactly when solar produces it's peak power. If enough solar power comes on line, nuclear plants will no longer make money. That's when they shut down.

You can also help concerned Californians trying to get the dangerous Diablo Canyon reactors closed forever. Contact Mothers For Peace, check out this article, or watch a video about it from EON here.

The Friends of the Earth document on Diablo Canyon is here. The Petition to the NRC just filed by Friends of Earth is here. Arnie recommend his latest video talk, given in San Francisco at the WAVE conference. Find it here, on his web site at Fairewinds.org

Please listen to this whole interview. There's more than I could capture in one blog.

Download or listen to this Radio Ecoshock interview with Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds.org in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

NO NOTES FOR NAOMI KLEIN

Speaking of limitation - apparently Blogger only allows posts of reasonable length, or it chokes. So I'm not going to include my notes on the Naomi Klein interview. She was brilliant as always, pointing out capitalism seems unable to do what is necessary to avoid a global climate disaster. It's a wide-ranging interview with Klein, and I hope more original than the generic Klein interviews now swamping the Net.

Learn which big green groups take money from fossil fuel companies, and which "green" billionaire isn't living up to his 3 billion dollar pledge. Find Naomi's new book "This Changes Everything, Capitalism Versus Climate Change" here. Everyone will be reading it, it's already a hot topic of discussion here and on many blogs around the Net.

Download or listen to my interview with Naomi Klein in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

This is Radio Ecoshock. Post your comments in this blog. If you have tips, or ideas for guests, contact me through our web site at ecoshock.org - or just write me. The address is radio //at/// ecoshock.org

That's it for this week. Find Radio Ecoshock on Facebook. Subscribe to @ecoshock on Twitter. Look for our popular Soundcloud page. Get all our past shows as free .mp3 downloads at the web site ecoshock.org.

I'm Alex Smith, saying thank you for listening, and caring about our world. And please don't forget to answer the call for our (hopefully short) fall fundraiser. Details here.

Growing the Life You Want To Live

From the Mother Earth News Fair, we hear about Life on the "Farmstead." Lisa Kivirist turning your dreams of small scale food into a living in Wisconsin. Lisa has tips for us all. Then we go solar with author and speaker Dan Chiras, plus solar electrician Brad Burkhartzmeyer - the questions you would ask are answered.

Download/listen to this Radio Ecoshock Show in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

Download/listen to my interview with Lisa Kivirist in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

Download/listen to my interview with Dan Chiras in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

Download/listen to my interview with Brad Burkhartzmeyer in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

Listen to this Radio Ecoshock right now (courtesy of archive.org)



LISVA KIVIRIST "ECOPRENEUR"

Lisa Kivirist and John Ivanko

Let's meet Lisa Kivirist.

There were so many useful angles to this interview. For one thing, we learn about the transition out of the city. But what will you do there to survive and pay the bills? Lisa and her husband John Ivanko managed a balance of food production, local business, and book writing - successful for the past 17 years.

They've developed and then written about "ecopreneurship" - developing an income from what you love to do - and what is good for the Earth. Oh and by the way, Lisa and John run a "carbon negative business". They soak up more carbon than they emit. Isn't that the only way to a future?

Their latest book is "Rural Renaissance: Renewing the Quest for the Good Life". If you want to learn from this dynamic couple personally, book into their top-rated green bed and breakfast outside Monroe, Wisconsin. Find their web site here.

Just one of the many tips that impressed me: setting a time after the Christmas feasting to really eat up all those supplies you bought in bulk, or stored away from the previous season. A time of buying no food, but working up good recipes from what you have.

Linda is an experienced and engaging speaker, and we had some laughs along the way. Enjoy this one!

DAN CHIRAS - ALTERNATIVE ENERGY EXPERT

Dan Chiras

Radio Ecoshock continues from the Mother Earth News Fair in Puyallup Washington. Does it pay to go solar? Dan Chiras worked alternative energy for three decades, writing 30 books in the process. Dan visited me in the Radio Ecoshock mobile studio.

Dan is a 30 year veteran of the battle to bring clean green energy to America. Currently he's the Director of the Evergreen Institute located in Gerald, Missouri. Dan also has two blogs in Mother Earth News magazine.

His first blog is on building Net Zero energy homes. In fact, if you search for "Dan Chiras Net Zero Energy" you'll land in his Mother Earth News blog. Or you can go to the Mother Earth News web site and find the blog here.

One of Dan Chiras's many books that appealed to me was "Things I Learned Too Late in Life".

His second Mother Earth News blog is called "Dan Chiras on Loving Life". It may sound corny, but Dan thinks a positive love for people and all Nature can be healing for the planet.

Behind all that, are mountains of books, articles, You tube videos, and public appearances by Dan Chiras - absolutely crammed with plans and tips to install everything from solar to wind and beyond.

In our interview, we concentrated on solar energy. On of our previous off-grid guests suggested the real place to start is not solar electricity, but "solar thermal" even just to heat hot water for your home. We talk through all that, and Dan gives us a lot in a short interview.

MORE SOLAR POWER WITH BRAD BURKHARTZMEYER<br>

Brad Burkhartzmeyer

We just have time to squeeze in a few minutes with a very experienced solar designer and installer from Washington State, Brad BurkHartzmeyer.

Brad founded Sun's Eye solar power which has installed lots of solar juice in area of Tacoma Washington, and beyond. It becomes apparent during our interview the importance of checking out the training and credentials of your solar installer. Maybe the guy down the road is not your best choice. Some states require a trained electrician, with more courses on solar installation. Others do not. Buyer check it out!

In the program I only had time for just a sample from my full 18 minute interview with Brad Burkhartzmeyer. We talk about roof angles, solar water heating and more. Get the full interview as a free mp3 download here.

If you've ever considered solar power, give that interview a listen.

At one point I was wondering. Brad suggested the average full solar power system costs between twenty and thirty thousand dollars. Twenty thousand for a solar system? No way I thought. Then I get in my $25,000 car which will break down in three years and costs thousands to run every year. Maybe a lifetime supply of sun power would be a better buy.

Plus, the system will pay for itself, and can even turn a profit, if your local provider allows meters that can run backwards, paying you for the extra power you produce. A nice check coming in.

We know electricity rates will just go up and up. With solar you get a guaranteed low rate, which just gets more competitive as time goes by.

At the Mother Earth News Fair, the whole mobile radio studio was powered by the sun. Join me won't you, in the clean energy revolution?

THANK YOU LISTENERS!

You can help support this program, at our web site, ecoshock.org.

My thanks to listeners who made it possible to record so many great guests at the Fair.

I'm Alex Smith, saying there's lots more Radio Ecoshock coming next week. Let's meet again then.

We finish up the program with a small slice of sun-loving music by Vastmandana, out of Oakland California.