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.

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

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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.

AMERICAN FUKUSHIMA

On 3rd anniversary of Fukushima, two authors report American reactors are unsafe at any speed. Shocking risk. Plus audio from March 2 XL Pipeline dissent protest in D.C. & letter from youth, via Bobby Wengronowitz. Radio Ecoshock 140312 http://tinyurl.com/lerpc6j

Yes, despite a punishing cold winter, thousands of Americans showed up at the White House to fight off the Keystone XL pipeline. They were mostly young, protecting their future against climate change driven by the Tar Sands, the dirtiest fuel on Earth. Over 350 people were arrested. I'll take you there.

But first, on the third anniversary of the worst nuclear disaster in the world, I'll talk with the authors of Fukushima, The Story of a Nuclear Disaster". But America is just waiting for it's own nuclear mega-disaster. Despite promises after March 2011, the U.S. industry is still stalling on safety critical fixes to aging reactors. It's just a matter of time.

I'm Alex Smith. Welcome back to Radio Ecoshock.

Listen to/download this program in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

THE FUKUSHIMA STORY BLOWS THE COVER ON AMERICAN REACTOR SAFETY

Interview with David Lochbaum, Union of Concerned Scientists

After the triple melt down of reactors in Fukushima Japan in March 2011, the American Nuclear Regulatory Commission did two things: they assured the public "it can't happen here" - and they promised a flurry of action to make reactors safer in the United States.

Now we have the first new book from nuclear experts explaining what happened at Fukushima. And we have a report that American reactors are still unsafe, still waiting for the next major melt-down.

Both come from David Lochbaum. He worked in U.S. reactors for 17 years. He was an instructor for the NRC. David is now Director of the Nuclear Safety Project, for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Read David's latest article "Nuclear Disaster American Style" here.

Half of reactors in U.S. don't meet fire regulations. This is as dangerous as a risk factor as the tsunami that broke Fukushima.

David writes:

"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission examined fire hazards during a briefing on July 17, 2008. An NRC senior manager informed the Chairman and Commissioners that “Approximately one-half of the core damage risk at operating reactors results from accident sequences that initiate with fire events.” In other words, the fire hazard roughly equals all other hazards combined. And that analysis assumed the NRC’s fire protection regulations were being met—the risk goes up when the fire regulations are not met.

Fire is a large risk for the same reason that flooding caused so much trouble at Fukushima. Fires and floods can disable primary safety systems and their backups. If workers are unable to recover disabled equipment or connect temporary replacements, reactor cores overheat and melt down.

The nuclear plant fire hazard is not speculative. In March 1975, a fire at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in Alabama disabled all the emergency systems for cooling the Unit 1 reactor and most of those systems for Unit 2. Only heroic worker efforts prevented both cores from melting that day.

The NRC did not want another nuclear plant to experience another fire as bad as, or worse than, the one at Browns Ferry. It adopted fire protection regulations in 1980 intended to manage the fire risk to an acceptably low level. In the late 1990s, the NRC’s inspectors discovered that dozens of reactors, including the two at Diablo Canyon, did not satisfy the 1980 fire protection regulations. In 2004, the NRC adopted an alternative set of fire protection regulations. Owners had the choice of satisfying either set of regulations. On December 29, 2005, Diablo Canyon’s owner notified the NRC that it opted to someday implement the measures necessary to achieve compliance with the 2004 regulations. As of today, Diablo Canyon meets neither set of fire protection regulations."

Fully one third of American reactors are not protected against flooding from upstream dam breaking. Another nuclear plant would be in severe danger if a DOWNSTREAM dam broke, because that would drain away the source for it's cooling water.

About one quarter of all American reactors in geologic danger zones are not protected against earth quake hazards.

Get the Executive Summary of the Union of Concerned Scientists report on the NRC and U.S. nuclear safety in 2013 here.

After Fukushima, David Lockbaum was on Radio Ecoshock June 1st, 2011. Here is a link to that show blog, and you can listen to/download that interview with David here. It's still important today.

David and co-author Susan Stranahan did an excellent interview for The Real News on American nuke safety. Find that here. Or watch it on You tube. They are also featured in this Washington's Blog entry.

You can buy the book "Fukushima: The Story of a Nuclear Disaster" here. Or get more details at the Union of Concerned Scientists web site.

In testimony relating to the C-10 group in Boston, and the Pilgrim reactor relicensing, David Lochbaum explained how the NRC stopped enforcing regulations in 1998, after Congress threatened to cut NRC funding. It's incredible how the nuke industry managed to use politicians to avoid spending money on safety fixes.

All this leads to the third big question about American reactor safety. After Fukushima, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission promised to be more vigilant, and get more problems fixed in American reactors. Yet the NRC oversight seems weak, where many safety matters are just voluntary for the companies involved. What happened to NRC Chair Gregory Jaczko, who wanted changes, and is the NRC fixed? Jaczko wanted things repaired to fast, so he got the boot.

I recently covered hearings where the NRC sought a generic environmental approval process for ALL nuclear reactors, instead of case by case - following a high court ruling. That's still on-going.

By refusing to be regulated, the nuclear industry is really gambling with the whole American economy, and maybe the world economy. Twenty percent of US electricity is being gambled on no plant having a really bad accident.

Look what happened in Japan after Fukushima. ALL nuclear plants were shut down. Imagine that happening in the U.S.

Here is another worthwhile article on this new Fukushima book.

Download/listen to this Radio Ecoshock interview with David Lochbaum in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

Finally, something that puzzles me, and confuses the public. A nuclear reactor produces huge amounts of power. But if outside electricity is cut off, even for short periods, the whole system risks blowing up or melting down. Why can't a reactor use it's own power to run the cooling system, water intakes, and all that?

Lochbaum says they could have been designed that way, avoiding total dependence on backup generators and batteries. But the electrical equipment within the plant would have to be a higher industrial grade, so this riskier design was chosen - to save money.

SUSAN STRANAHAN

Our next guest was the lead author of a team of reporters for the Philadelphia Enquirer. Their reporting on the Three Mile Island reactor accident in Pennsylvania on March 28th, 1979 won a Pulitzer Prize. Suasn has published in the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Fortune and Time magazines, and the Rolling Stone.

She's now a free lance writer living in Maine. Susan Q. Stranahan is co-author of the new book "Fukushima: The Story of a Nuclear Disaster".

America already had a nuclear reactor melt down. Perhaps you didn't know that. Even though I've followed nuclear affairs since before Three Mile Island, I only learned after Fukushima that there really was a melt-down inside those reactors in Pennsylvania.

It was four years before they could even get a camera inside Three Mile Island to see what happened. They found the fuel rods totally melted down, and some nuclear fuel escaped from the reactor. Yet most Americans still buy the original line that it was just a little release of radioactive steam.

Download/listen to this interview with Susan Stranahan in Cd Quality or Lo-Fi

One important aspect of this story is the huge amounts of extra debt accumulated by the Japanese tax payer. All the people who object to government debt, and higher taxes should really pay attention to nuclear safety. The Tea Party should be virulently opposed to nuclear power! When, not if, an even more serious nuclear accident strikes in the U.S., the American people are on the hook for any costs. That's because under the Price-Anderson act, the taxpayers are the insurance company for all 100 current plants, and those that have shut down. No private insurance company would touch the, for good reason. The risks are too huge.

The other story is about all the people who lost their homes, many possibly forever. Imagine part of America being closed.

It's also about the kids. Children are at risk of leukemia and other health problems, and no doubt they learned a new level of fear that day.

To my mind, there are three major scenes in the Fukushima tragedy. The opening act consists of decades where the risks were known and not dealt with. Then we have the technical story of what happened in nuclear terms. But the saddest part may be the failure of humans to react properly and rationally.

In both Fukushima and at Three Mile Island, the government's first reaction seems to have been to reassure the people that everyone is perfectly safe - to downplay the danger. As NBC News reported just last week, "U.S. Nuclear Agency Hid Concerns, Hailed Safety Record as Fukushima Melted". They knew it was bad, but told the public otherwise.

I'm betting most our listeners don't know that in 2010, just before Fukushima, the NRC acquired a new building and hired a thousand more people, just to get ready for the promised nuclear renaissance. The U.S. Government is still promising $8.3 billion for new reactors in Georgia, but the re-birth of nuclear power in America has become more unlikely. That's partly due to public concern after Fukushima, but even more because low natural gas prices makes nuclear reactors completely cost impossible.

ARE YOU LIVING NEAR A GENERAL ELECTRIC MARK I REACTOR?

There are about 22 dangerous Mark I nuclear reactors still operating in the United States - the same basic design as leaked fuel out of containment at Fukushima. That's almost one quarter of the U.S. fleet of about 100 reactors operating today. As David Lochbaum tells us, the containment was built too small, to save money. And as Fukushima demonstrated, the way the fuel rods come up from the bottom of the reactor makes for weak seals where damaged nuclear fuel can escape. These need to be closed down as a priority. Find out what type of nuclear reactor is nearest you (that is, within a couple of hundred miles upwind...).

We must protect ourselves. The nuclear regulators won't do it, in any country. The nuclear industry is the fourth largesT donor to both political parties in the United States, behind big oil and big tobacco. No wonder both parties protect the industry - even from enforcement of obvious safety fixes!

KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE PROTEST - BOBBY WENGRONOWITZ

I get email at Radio Ecoshock, and its the best kind: feedback and ideas from you, the listener.

Bobby Wengronowitz from Boston told me he and a whole flock of students from the Boston area were heading to the U.S. capital to protest the Keystone XL pipeline. Though he's not an expert, Bobby took his sound recorder as a witness. In this picture, Bobby is attached to the Whitehouse fence, in the blue shirt, second from the bottom right.

On March 2nd, they marched from Georgetown to the capital, where they handcuffed their bodies to the Whitehouse fence. Hundreds were arrested. That's a big commitment in the U.S., where your criminal record can become part of your life. It's criminal now to demand a safe climate for young people, and the next generation to come. It's not criminal to blow up the climate with a giant pipeline from the notoriously dirty Canadian Tar Sands. It's all a matter of campaign donations I guess.

When he got back, Bobby wrote to his local paper of record, the Boston Globe. They never published his impassioned letter, so we will. Listen to clips on-scene from the protest, and Bobby's letter here.

It's almost enough to give us hope. Young people know. They care. They have not given up.

You can grab some good chants from the audio of that march, for your own climate protest. If the people of North Africa and the Ukraine can change the government, maybe Americans can boot out the climate deniers and fossil fuel apologists Congress. Maybe Americans can have a future.

I'm Alex Smith. Please support this program at our web site, ecoshock.org or the right hand top of this blog.

There are years worth of free mp3 interviews waiting for you at the web site - the voices of scientists, authors and activists from around the world. Help yourself, and help the future, with Radio Ecoshock.

Where Are We Really? Radio Ecoshock returns.

Analysis of climate situation by Paul Beckwith, U of Ottawa. Plus Arnie Gundersen updates Fukushima leaks and radioactive plume in the Pacific, heading for the U.S. Radio Ecoshock 130911 1 hour.

WELCOME BACK!

Welcome back to the Fall 2013 season of Radio Ecoshock, broadcast on more than 70 college and community stations around the world.

This is Alex Smith. Big news continues to pour in from around the world. We've got a lineup of guests, experts and activists, waiting to make sense of it all.

As I left for a break in July, I issued a special podcast on the global heat wave. If you missed that, join the thousands who download it from our web site at ecoshock.org. At the time of broadcast, the heat wasn't quite complete around the Northern Hemisphere. The Russian Arctic seemed still coolish, and no word from China, although Japan was suffering through record heat.

One week later, Siberia went into an extended heat alert with hundreds of fires. South East China went down to a killer heat wave, setting the highest coastal temperature records ever seen on the Pacific Coast of Asia.

So the circle went complete. I'm not sure if this is absolutely new, but in 25 years of reporting climate news, I can't remember a super hemispheric heat wave like this. We can't call it a global heat wave, because of course it's winter in the southern hemisphere. But we can call it global warming, and 2013 is the year when we entered into a certain phase of climate change.

It's still cooking, with the hottest days of summer in Toronto Canada striking in mid-September (beach time!) and more records expected in Vancouver. Strange... what could it be? I'll have lots more on all that later in the program, as we do a climate run-down with Paul Beckwith, a postgrad climate scientist at the University of Ottawa. Paul is a favorite climate correspondent, really linked in to the latest in both extreme weather events and the latest science behind them.

Download this Radio Ecoshock show in CD Quality (56 MB) or Lo-Fi (14 MB)

FUKUSHIMA'S TANK FARMS - LURKING DEATH FOR THE PACIFIC OCEAN

No doubt you've heard more about the continuing nuclear disaster at Fukushima Japan. Three reactors melted down in March 2011. A fourth had a fire and explosion in the fuel storage area. Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, has been struggling to contain radiation leaks ever since. Is Japan safe? Is the Pacific being polluted with radiation? What about the whole Northern Hemisphere?

I'm Alex Smith. Radio Ecoshock welcomes back nuclear expert and whistle-blower Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates.

Arnie Gundersen

Here is a brief wrap up on what I think is the world's worst nuclear disaster. Three reactor cores have escaped out of the containment. Nobody knows where this glowing hot stuff is.

Thousands of tons of groundwater are passing through the highly radioactive melted "corium" every day. Some of that is being captured by TEPCO and put into an endlessly growing tank farm. The rest is leaking into the Pacific Ocean.

In August TEPCO admitted it was missing 300 tons of highly radioactive water from one of it's tanks. You see, they only had two men checking all those tanks, which are hastily built (and not ready for any earthquake). The people checking the tanks did not even wear a dosimiter, so there is no way of knowing how much radiation they were exposed to.

Now with the leak exposed, TEPCO has promised more inspectors. It's a joke. This Japanese utility, as Arnie Gundersen tells us, is a nuclear plant operator (and not a very good one) - not a world-class engineering firm. Plus, they have gone more or less bankrupt, and don't have the budget to handle this situation.

Finally, after a lot more press and international concern, the Japanese government is going to add more fund, but not much more, because they are broke too.

If these tanks rupture in a big way, or if the fuel rod storage ponds suspended in the damaged building Four at Fukushima Daiichi collapse, the whole Northern Hemisphere will be bathed in radiation. Surely this is an international issue which requires a huge response. But both our media and our governments are downplaying the risk.

What a joke that Tokyo, which was bathed in radiation that will last at least 50 years (during the March 2011 accident) was awarded the Olympics! Tokyo, the city that shines at night! If there is a major leak at Fukushima, Tokyo will be evacuated by 2020 anyway. Even during the 2011 accident, the government considered evacuating the city.

In a previous Radio Ecoshock interview, Gundersen said the Japanese should start unloading nuclear fuel bundles from Reactor 4, before that building collapses. TEPCO has been building a stronger outside structure to hold the heavy cranes, after the original cranes collapsed.

Arnie is a nuclear fuel rod expert. He worked as a nuclear engineer and executive in exactly that field. Gundersen warns the fuel rods have likely been damaged during the accident. One or several may break during attempted extraction, releasing highly radioactive gases. The whole site would have to be evacuated for a time. Expect more air-borne radiation releases, for Japan, and for the whole hemisphere.

I asked Arnie when the plume of radioactive water that has been leaking into the Pacific non-stop since the accident two and half years ago - will reach the west coast of the United States and Canada. Maps of ocean currents show the worst radiation will hit California and the Baja Peninsula. Arnie thinks it should arrive sometime in late 2014 - and he says that radiation in the ocean is 10 times more than we got from all the atomic bomb testing. Sure it will be diluted in the Pacific, but a whole ocean has been poisoned.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/01/fukushima-radioactive-plume_n_3853604.html Meanwhile, all the fish that bioconcentrate radioactivity, predator fish like salmon and tuna, are feeding out there in the Pacific. Do you think we can get either the American or Canadian governments to test our fish for radioactivity? Canada promises it won't do testing. If the U.S. is testing, they are not releasing the data. Consumers don't know what they are getting. It's time for a little transparency, and governments that protect their people rather than the nuclear or fishing industries.

BETTER NUCLEAR NEWS IN THE UNITED STATES

Arnie Gundersen has repeatedly been an expert witness in the effort to get the dangerous and aging Vermont Yankee reactor closed. It's located on the sea, 5 miles south of Brattleboro in New England, and owned by Entergy Corp.

Just like Fukushima, the Vermont Yankee plant is an old-style General Electric boiling water reactor. Under the thick concrete pipes are leaking. It's damn dangerous.

Finally, Entergy has announced that in 2014, when the current batch of nuclear fuel would have to be replaced, the Vermont Yankee reactor will shut down instead. That's great news for New England and the planet.

The sad news is Entergy wants to wait 60 years to decommission the plant! So this radioactive mess will sit there for another generation. Our grandchildren will pay huge costs for the power we used today. That's an inter-generational crime.

AND THEN THERE'S THAT LITTLE CLIMATE PROBLEM...

Climate change has certainly shown up on planet Earth in a big way these past few months. Records are falling so fast, with so many new changes, its beyond our ability to track it all. Let's do a recap of some big climate news with one of our popular guests, Paul Beckwith.

Paul is a PHD graduate student in the Laboratory for Paleoclimatology and Climatology, and part-time Professor, at the University of Ottawa in Canada. He has a Masters in Physics as well.

We start with Paul's prediction that the Arctic sea ice could break up this year, if there was a significant Arctic storm as well. That didn't happen. Although the ice retreated to levels that would have been astounding a decade ago, it didn't meet last year's record.

Paul says the climate is zig-zagging back and forth unpredictably. Last year temperatures over the Arctic Ocean were quite high, while land temperatures up north were cooler. This year was the opposite. It was coolish over the ice itself, while land temperatures in Alaska, Canada's north and Siberia hit new records in some places.

Science, Beckwith says, will have to be flexible, learning from the instability.

Methane was quite high over the Arctic again this year, more than double the pre-industrial levels. There was no mega-burst (yet). Most of the methane came from melting of permafrost on land where snow cover was lost very early in the season.

We talk about the grossly under-reported floods in the Russian far east, especially along the Amur River. These were floods not seen before. President Putin flew out to speed up some action to help the many evacuees. The worst hit area was in the republic Buryatia, located in the south-central Siberia along the shore of Lake Baikal and on the border with Mongolia.

At the same time, there were hundreds of forest fires ranging in Siberia.

Of course, most of us are only interested in our local area. Fires in Yosemite California get lots of coverage. Fire and floods in Russia? Not so much. Paul points out that's a huge problem when we are trying to deal with global climate change. People push their local politicians for action (or maybe they will eventually) but only if they get hit themselves.

There's lots more to this interview with Paul Beckwith, as we cover some of the extreme weather events this past summer, and in fact this past week. Nobody can keep up with it all. That alone is further evidence that climate change has arrived.

Beckwith is breaking the mold of the climate scientist who keeps quiet for years, and then releases a paper with results. He's more like the communicator the late Stephen Schneider suggested in his book "Science As a Contact Sport". We can't wait 6 years for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to publish out-of-date results says Beckwith.

One of the best ways to keep up with Paul is through his Facebook page. He also blogs for Arctic News, Sierra Club Canada and others.

I agree. I'd like to see buildings full of full-time scientists on every continent charged with the duty of tracking climate change, today, and in the distant past. This is a planetary emergency, and so far we have a tiny budget, volunteer scientists, and governments who are out promoting fossil fuels as the next big job wave! It's like planned extinction.

On the other side, millions and millions of people know the climate is not right. They are waking up. Will a demand for change come in time?

THANK YOU TO ALL ECOSHOCK SUPPORTERS - AND PREPARE FOR CHANGE

Many thanks to all the people who donated or signed up for our monthly Radio Ecoshock membership at our web site, ecoshock.org. I haven't had time to thank you all personally.

This past month has been almost constant turmoil for me. Aside from vehicle breakdowns, we are renovating and preparing to move out of Vancouver, to a rural village. More about that in coming shows.

One week ago, the main hard drive on my production computer died. I'm working on the fly from an ancient box out of our basement. Without the help of Radio Ecoshock listeners I'm not sure we could afford the repairs.

The refurbished audio computer should be back online in a week or so. My next show may be right out of a moving van.

These changes in my personal life seem to echo from the big changes happening on the planet, and in our society. I tell myself we are all going to need fall-back plans, preparation, and an ability to adapt or move, perhaps on short notice.

Our parents and grandparents went through two world wars and a great depression. If my reading of the climate, energy, and economic scene is correct, they had it easy. Expect to enjoy life, sure, but expect to struggle as well.

I'm Alex Smith. Thank you for joining me in this new season of Radio Ecoshock.

Our music clips this week came from the marvelous Suvarna, plus "Till the Day Is Done" by REM.

Preparing Personal Solutions

Are your clothes safe? Alina Bartell, owner of The Natural Clothing Company advises on fabrics, chemicals, and organic clothes. Dr. Joe Alton, MD on learning emergency medicine "when help doesn't come". Woody Tasch helps develop local food with "slow money". Radio Ecoshock 130703 1 hour.

Radio Ecoshock is back with more local solutions for global problems - from the Mother Earth News Fair.

This time I've picked three of the most intriguing interviews. Each seemed at first like a small problem, and each guest - all feature speakers at the Fair - takes us much deeper, into the industrial and financial mess - and out again with practical things we can do.

DOWNLOAD/LISTEN TO THIS RADIO ECOSHOCK SHOW in CD Quality (56 MB) or Lo-Fi (14 MB)

Download/listen to my interview on organic clothes with Alina Bartell in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

Download/listen to Joe Alton, MD on emergency medicine in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

Download/listen to Woody Tasch on "Slow Money" in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

LISTEN TO THIS RADIO ECOSHOCK SHOW RIGHT NOW (courtesy of archive.org)



ORGANIC CLOTHING - ALINA BARTELL

Alina Bartell surprised me. I mean, do we really need "organic clothes"? Our discussion went from the poisoned fields of Asia and Central America through the industrial fashion machine that feeds the store shelves. The Earth and the workers are damaged at every step.

"Organic" clothing means more to Alina than just a lack of chemicals when you buy it, although that's important too. She started her search for safe clothing after her son developed difficulties. Alina and her husband moved to the country, changed to the purist possible foods, and their child improved.

But many Americans suffer from allergies and skin reactions to the chemicals used in clothing manufacturing. There is a residue of pesticides. Did you know that cotton is the most sprayed crop in the world? Alina tells us cotton occupies only 3% of farm land, but uses almost 25% of farm chemicals. It is not uncommon for pesticides to be sprayed on cotton while workers are in the fields below. There are very high disease rates, especially cancers, in some cotton growing areas.

Since the seventeen hundreds, woven materials like cotton have been treated to make the fabric strong enough to handle machine handling. It is called "sizing" and it used to be common starch. Now sizing is a wide-ranging combination of chemicals. That is why we know enough to at least wash a new shirt of dress before wearing it.

Rayon is made out of wood, combined with chemicals to press it out into fabric. Where did that wood come from? Alina says wood fabric like Rayon can come from sustainable forestry. Or you can buy clothes made out of bamboo. I felt a bamboo t-shirt, and it was soft like very fine cotton.

That is preferable to all-oil fabrics like nylon or polyester. These are made straight from crude oil - not a bi-product, but from crude oil. Did you know nylon manufacturing is a major, MAJOR source of greenhouse gas emissions?

We all need clothes, and every type of fabric comes with it's costs and compromises. The best we can do, Bartell says, is find out where the fabric comes from, was it made safely and ethically? Is it chemical-free?

Apparently the market for organic clothing has not yet taken off. There are only a few organic cotton producers left in America, for example. You will pay more for organic clothing - but the earth benefits, and the clothes should last a long time if well cared for.

You can contact Alina Bartell for more information at her web site.

EMERGENCY MEDICINE - WHY IS IS SUCH A SECRET? JOE ALTON MD

Joe Alton MD

I'll be frank. At first I thought Dr. Joe Alton, and his wife "Nurse Amy" were kind of fringe characters. Having met Joe, and listened to his story, I've changed my mind.

Alton and Amy put out a series of You tube videos under the name "Doom and Bloom". The bloom part came from their origins as gardeners. Alton is a Master Gardener in the state of Florida. He's also a genuine surgeon, a fellow of the American College of Surgeons. Amy is a registered practical Nurse, with further training and lots of experience in midwifery.

Their basic premise is our fragile and high-priced medical system (at least in the United States) may not always be there when you need it. Just think of the three days or more in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. You couldn't call 911. No ambulances were in service, the hospitals were closed. What if a loved one had a huge gash from blown debris? Would you be helpless?

The Altons also worry a financial or political crash could make medical care unavailable. Plus there are homesteaders and farmers who live too far away from a hospital to treat a serious injury.

Now that you think of it, it's a bit strange none of us are taught any health care these days. Schools don't teach it. Maybe as a Scout or a Guide you might learn how to dress a serious wound.

Dr. Joe thinks the medical establishment is holding on to essential information a little too tightly. By all means, he says, if there is a hospital available, seek professional treament from the system. But if not, why no prepare in advance with some training of your own? They have published a handbook called "The Survival Medicine Handbook (2nd edition)."

Here is their You tube video about that book.

As "Dr. Bones" and "Nurse Amy" the pair put out a series of You tubes with basic information we can all understand. Since there has been a heat wave going in the U.S. West, with lots more heat waves to come with climate change, I ask Dr. Joe about the signs and treatment of heat stress and the sometimes fatal heat stroke.

You can learn about that right in this radio interview.

This medical pair also compile lists of equipment you might need to help your family and your neighbors in a disaster. You can complete your own kits, at different levels, using their lists for free. Or you can buy the equipment from them. Some doctors and emergency workers buy their disaster packs to take to developing countries that have been hit with a hurricane, earthquake or other disaster.

My rating: their presentation is quirky but interesting; the information they teach is important. I'm going to take a look at my own medical supplies, and learn what I can from their videos and site materials.

WOODY TASCH AND SLOW MONEY

Woody Tasch

Woody Tasch is a man who worked the finance industry, and then reevaluated his life. He longed to find a way to stimulate the growth of local food-sheds, with local finance. That developed into his book "Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms and Fertility Mattered."

But he didn't stop there. Tasch has crossed the country helping seed slow money organizations. These are non-profits who try various ways to hook up small investors and people in the local food chain. Customers might be a Community Supported Agriculture organization, a small "truck" farmer, an organic dairy, and so on.

The investors are ordinary people who want to put part of their investment money into making sure there is local food that is good to eat. Woody doesn't recommend putting ALL your money into one of these small ventures (he doesn't). He also recommends diversifying, investing in several ventures.

These small loans are kind of the American equivalent to the "Grameen" banks established by Professor Muhammad Yunus in Benglash, and now issuing micro-loans (as little as $50) to people in developing countries all over the world. In the United States a "small loan" might be $14,000 required to buy a used refrigeration truck needed to get produce to the market.

Tasch recommends two different styles of Slow Money. In North Carolina, there is a match-maker linking up investors to food producers needing money. Carol Peppe Hewitt has become a whiz at linking people up. She's written a book "Financing Our Foodshed: Growing Local Food With Slow Money."

At Slow Money Maine, it's a different story. They hold meetings where people looking for small loans make presentations in front of a crowd of possible investors. Slow Money in California does the same, with perhaps a couple of hundred people showing up for a meeting in a tent on a farm.

There has been a national Slow Money conference, where dozens of presenters get five minutes each to make their pitch, hoping to lure the investment money they need.

This isn't a way to get rich. It has risks like any investment - but it's probably no riskier than the stock market. Plus, you are not sending your money to strangers, who may invest in ways to harm the world, on the far side of the Earth. Slow Money investors know exactly who is getting the money, why, and that it will help the local community in eco-safe ways. That's got to be the future of our financial world, if we are going to survive.

Plug in here.

THANK YOU LISTENERS!

My thanks to the listeners who chipped in to pay my gas to the Mother Earth News Fair. We ended up with a bounty of interviews with thought-leaders in the underground movement to found a new and sustainable civilization. All these things are seedlings now, but they will grow into mighty things.

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I'm Alex Smith. Let's meet again next week.