Expert: Japan's radiation could spread to U.S.
As Japan races to avert multiple nuclear meltdowns, one expert warned Sunday that radiation could spread to the U.S.
Joe Cirincione, president of Ploughshares Fund, told Fox News' Chris Wallace Japan's nuclear crisis is unprecedented.
"One reactor has had half the core exposed already," he explained. "This is the one they're flooding with sea water in a desperate effort to prevent it from a complete meltdown. They lost control of a second reactor next to it, a partial meltdown, and there is actually a third reactor at a related site 20-kilometers away they have also lost control over. We have never had a situation like this before."
"The worst case scenario is that the fuel rods fuse together, the temperatures get so hot that they melt together in a radioactive molten mass that bursts through the containment mechanisms and is exposed to the outside. So they spew radioactivity in the ground, into the air, into the water. Some of the radioactivity could carry in the atmosphere to the West Coast of the United States."
"Really?" a surprised Wallace asked. "I mean, thousands of miles across the Pacific?"
"Oh, absolutely. Chernobyl, which happened about 25 years ago, the radioactivity spread around the entire northern hemisphere. It depends how many of these cores melt down and how successful they are on containing it once this disaster happens," Cirincione replied.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission deployed two experts to Japan, but are downplaying the immediate danger.
Michael Sicilia, spokesman for California Department of Public Health, told AFP that there was no danger to California at the present.
"California does have radioactivity monitoring systems in place for air, water and the food supply and can enhance that monitoring if a danger exists," he said.
good old safe clean cheap nuke power plants, they are ALL accidents waiting to happen, add corporate greed and the risk increases exponentially. These are proven facts.
Just think what those Enron bastards might have done,(let happen), if a "nuclear incident" MIGHT have increased their phony stock prices. Remember how they first tried to blame Canada,(at the head of a long list), then it was proven they allowed and wanted the murderous Enron blackout to happen to increase stock prices.
When Chernobyl melted down the "experts" blamed inferior communist technology, when the nuclear power issue should have been settled.
This time it's facilities built by the undisputed masters of earthquake and tsunami resistant structures. The precise reason(s) for the catastrophic failure(s) of virtually every type of reactor thus far kind of makes it a no brainer. Until the increasingly greedy industry can PROVE beyond any doubt they are capable of building something as safe as they lie they do, NO MORE NUKES. And don't buy the BS line that their are no alternatives. If we make them shut down the reactors, clean them up and make them safe they will be bankrupted ten times over.......further proof of their lies.
They are like a two or three year old, can't even wipe their own nose let alone their backside, then lie when they've pooped in their pants............then say it doesn't smell that bad.
The first casualty of republicanism is the truth.
Party politics are not only undemocratic, they are antidemocratic.
If you don't factor in
- the economic and ecological costs of mining ALL the metals and fuels that go into the reactors.
- the damage to marine life by discharging hot water.
- the cost of storing spent fuel for hundreds of thousands of years.
- the damage caused by just one major meltdown.
But other than that, it's REAL cheap!
[especially if the taxpayers and not the industry pay for it all - SUCKERS!]
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
According to Harvey Wasserman the design specs included earthquake-proofing .. but not for an 8.9 jolt.
Nor for an 8.9 jolt plus a tsunami.
Nuclear reactor near a major active fault line? No problem.
Eleven nuclear reactors within a few miles of each other, near a major active fault line?
All storing their spent fuel on top of the active reactors?
What could possibly go wrong?
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
Yes, if some radiation leaks in Japan, it could spread to US. However, the amount that spread would be of no consequence whatsoever. It's still Fox News. Garbage in, garbage out.
is a Fox video doing on this site. Sure Chernobyl radiation spread around the world, but I don't recall it being a serious health concern here.
not all martyrs see divinity
Blows my mind....
We humans are going to destroy our fabulous planet. Bit by bit we're heaping pollution into our air and water. It's doesn't just disappear. One day the cumulative effect from all pollution will be too much for our planet.
We could slow it down and, over time, switch to safer alternatives, but there is no political will, in any country, to do so.
far left loon >.<
We're a pretty pathetic bunch, really...
by an ad for duct tape, plastic sheeting, radiation posioning medication, gas masks and of course - gold.
wow, anybody who doesn't know radation clouds tend to spread all around the world is new to the world of 'nucular' science.
from Pacific Nuke Testing in our soil here to last us the next 100 years.
How is it that a hedge fund manager (master of the universe) is considered an authority figure regarding nuclear power?
What special knowledge does he have to contribute?
Why Fox News?
but it is obvious the lemmings (friends and followers) flock to guys like this in droves.
I haven't a clue why other then their brain cells keep shrinking daily.
This "expert" is an obvious fear-monger and dink.
Anyone who keeps using "COULD" in sentences needs to be ignored.
If not slapped around a little.
I thought this was an informative, easy to understand article:
Nuclear Experts Explain Worst-Case Scenario at Fukushima Power Plant
At 1:30pm EST on March 12, American nuclear experts gathered for a call-in media briefing. While various participants discussed the policy ramifications of the crisis, physicist Ken Bergeron provided most of the information regarding the actual damage to the reactor.
all Fox Viewers to prepare for mass suicides and the Koolaid will be available at all Fox News Outlets Nationwide in 12 exciting and tasty colors?
"Really?" a surprised Wallace asked. "I mean, thousands of miles across the Pacific?"
Derp derp-a-derp? Yes, really, Wallace. Congratulations, you've learned a little bit of rudimentary 5th-grade science today.
I live in San Diego county. On Friday I had a sit down with my wife and said, "If even one of these reactors melts down and that core hits the water table, the radioactive cloud could travel here in a matter of days. So you should not be surprised if I come to you and say load up the car."
I have also ordered a supply of potassium iodide, which I should have anyway living 12 miles from San Onofre.
My wife, bless her heart, said, "As long as we're together I'm not afraid." I love that woman.
"Someday somebody related to some of these sufferers, these victims, these collaterally damaged souls, may try to kill you. And I have to tell you, I think you’ll have it coming." - Christopher Cooper
just ask your nearest politician or Flock's News Channel watcher.
"Trust no one, Mr. Mulder." - Well-Manicured Man
President Obama and progressives.
Too much government regulation in Japan, too.
Wait for it.
Let the free market step in to save us!
On a global basis, this isn't likely to be anything close to the fallout from the few hundred megatons of atmospheric nuclear testing in the 40's, 50's and 60's. It isn't even likely to be as bad as Chernobyl in terms of total radiation release. But it's still very, very bad...
Let's see... if FOX hasn't found a way to pin the quake, tsunami and melt-down on:
a) same-sex marriage
b) watermelon (get it?) tree-hugger commies
c) Barack HUSSEIN Obama
and all the 'News Networks' are sprouting endless ads for clean, SAFE, domestic and reliable Natural Gas...
Makes you kind of go HHHMMMMmmm?
Other scary idea (from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/12/j...)
“It is also not the first time there have been problems at Fukushima. There have been reports of a loss-of-power incident in June last year. I have also seen suggestions that one reactor at the complex began using MOX (mixed plutonium-uranium) fuel starting in September.”
BTW: http://arts.nationalpost.com/2011/03/13/psych...
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/Einstein.htm
I've been on Daily Kos and they are doing a very good live blog on the matter. Which is scary as one would think. Various pro-nuclear posters over there keep claiming that the plants over in Japan could never go up like in Russia. Then again no one thought that a Russian plant would go like that....
all the Techno Triumphalists who claimed tech would save us from things like this happening.
I mean certainly you have some gadget the size of a walkman to supply power to those plants cooling generators don't you?
We Believe!
of the US? If they existed, I'm sure they would be cut-- like NOAA and tsunami warning systems-- under the 'Thugs anyway. Hear no evil...
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
He says Three Mile Island almost melted down.
Wrong. It did melt down.
If you meant to imply that it was a FULL melt down, YOU are wrong. It was a PARTIAL meltdown which was mostly contained. Still a disaster but nothing close to the scale of a full meltdown...
On the bright side, 50 foot tall beautiful women will then abound throughout the Golden State.
Hah! You'd wish!
but remember how pissed off that one was?
PS: Don't forget 'The Incredible Shrinking Man' and 'Them!'
me-oww!
...an expert of some sort said that if they are using sea water in an attempt to cool the core, the situation is pretty much un-fixable. Sea water, is a last resort and will corrode everything inside.
Government + the Federal Reserve = organized crime
Mike Wallace must question whether this scumbag idiot piece of slime sprang from his loins.
the purpose of which is to let us know when we're well and truly f**ked.
That is all.
And you are surprised by that how?
Now who the hell said nuclear power was a good idea anywhere?
NOBODY 2012
the half life of 3 melted down reactors? Anyone .....anyone?
Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
This has to be a sad first...
Come on seriously, even if this goes Chernobyl (which it won't because of the way the plant is built and used) the fallout for the US would be next to meaningless.
The poster of this article should be ashamed for blatantly and cheapishly pushing his agenda through what is a major natural disaster.
ps: MountainMan23, In France the electricity price (80% from Nuclear) already takes into account cost of building plant/fuel/storing spent fuel & deconstructing the plant .... and its still cheaper then other types of energy (yes even Wind & sun power for now)
I'd really like to have C&L stay a quality site for left leaning issues, but its sadly slipping.
First thing I thought was how funny C&L was using a FOX news clip for this argument. Any other time FOX mentions anything, it's completely discounted and/or made fun of. A new low for C&L.
Reach the US? Unlikely, unless everything we know about physics is wrong. If everything we know about physics is wrong, this site cannot exist, because computers can't work. If the internet implodes in the next minute, THEN worry.
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