Japanese reactor problems as of 3-15-11

As a subscriber to "Friends of the Earth" website, what follows is their analysis of the problems. They are serious!

I have always been pro nuclear energy, but this does give me pause.... We may learn a lot by the Japanese experience in how to safely harness this great energy source which provides 20% of our energy needs. The reactors in Japan are for the most part very similar to those we have in this country also made by GE.

We should remember that when one deals with energy, there is always danger such as coal mine disasters, oil field blowouts as we've seen recently, etc. But without energy we don't have electricity, fuel for our cars, trains or airplanes.

We consume 25% of the world's energy to feed our perhaps over-abundant life styles, so we must live and learn - and rejecting any source of energy is not reasonable without serious consideration.

Dear Allan,

Please continue to check our website for more information. You can send us questions by clicking here.

I wish I had better news for you on the tragic disaster in Japan. As its magnitude becomes more apparent, please join me once again in sending thoughts or prayers to the people of Japan.

As earthquake recovery is beginning in the city of Sendai and the surrounding Miyagi Prefecture, the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi site is growing grimmer by the hour. When we last wrote to you, our focus was on reactors #1 and #3 at the Fukushima Daiichi site, where there are six reactors total. At the time, hydrogen explosions had occurred at the buildings in which reactors #1 and #3 are housed, and the government and TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) officials were fighting to regain control of the reactor cooling in order to prevent a total meltdown. We are fairly certain that fuel rods in both these reactors have at least partially melted.

Since then, significant problems have occurred at reactors #2 and #4. Reactor #2 experienced an explosion worse than the previous explosions -- it may have damaged the reactor casing itself. News reports, as well as information from our colleagues in Japan, indicate that the fuel rods at reactor #2 have been partially or fully exposed due to loss of coolant. Without circulating water to keep the fuel rods cool, they can heat to temperatures as high as 2000 degrees Celsius and melt into a molten pool of radioactive slag. This slag has the capacity to burn through containment vessels and then emit high amounts of radiation and radioactive materials into the environment. We are still seeking information that describes the true extent of the damage.

In addition, the pool containing used nuclear reactor fuel rods at reactor #4 caught on fire, leading to radioactive releases high enough to endanger the brave workers and first responders who remain on-site attempting to prevent full meltdowns. The spent fuel rods need to be kept cool for several years after they are removed from a reactor. Recent reports indicate that the spent fuel pool at reactor #4 is at its boiling point and could be unapproachable. We are beginning to hear reports that the spent fuel pools at reactors #5 and #6 are heating up as well. This situation is still fluid, but problems with spent fuel pools could limit workers' capacity to gain control of the reactors. If additional fires and explosions occur at the pools, they could lead to massive radioactive releases.

Following our first update, we heard from many members asking about the impact of the radiation from the reactors in Japan and what implications this has for the United States. We are talking to experts and compiling information and resources on our website. But I want to offer an important caveat: the Japanese government, as well as TEPCO, may not be providing accurate information about radiation readings and our understanding of the situation depends on their reports.

I wish I had better news. I hope from the bottom of my heart that the Japanese government and the utility and its brave workers are successful at gaining control of the reactors and spent fuel pools. Unfortunately, if the situation gets worse, we are likely facing a human and environmental catastrophe.

Regards,
Erich

Erich Pica
President, Friends of the Earth

Moore's speech in Madison...

America Is NOT Broke ...the Madison speech by Michael Moore

Delivered in Madison, Wisconsin on Saturday, March 5th, 2011. Video available here.

America is not broke.

Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe so that you'll give up your pension, cut your wages, and settle for the life your great-grandparents had, America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash. It's just that it's not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich.

Today just 400 Americans have the same wealth as half of all Americans combined.

Let me say that again. 400 obscenely rich people, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer "bailout" of 2008, now have as much loot, stock and property as the assets of 155 million Americans combined. If you can't bring yourself to call that a financial coup d'état, then you are simply not being honest about what you know in your heart to be true.

And I can see why. For us to admit that we have let a small group of men abscond with and hoard the bulk of the wealth that runs our economy, would mean that we'd have to accept the humiliating acknowledgment that we have indeed surrendered our precious Democracy to the moneyed elite. Wall Street, the banks and the Fortune 500 now run this Republic -- and, until this past month, the rest of us have felt completely helpless, unable to find a way to do anything about it.

I have nothing more than a high school degree. But back when I was in school, every student had to take one semester of economics in order to graduate. And here's what I learned: Money doesn't grow on trees. It grows when we make things. It grows when we have good jobs with good wages that we use to buy the things we need and thus create more jobs. It grows when we provide an outstanding educational system that then grows a new generation of inventors, entrepreneurs, artists, scientists and thinkers who come up with the next great idea for the planet. And that new idea creates new jobs and that creates revenue for the state. But if those who have the most money don't pay their fair share of taxes, the state can't function. The schools can't produce the best and the brightest who will go on to create those jobs. If the wealthy get to keep most of their money, we have seen what they will do with it: recklessly gamble it on crazy Wall Street schemes and crash our economy. The crash they created cost us millions of jobs. That too caused a reduction in tax revenue. Everyone ended up suffering because of what the rich did.

The nation is not broke, my friends. Wisconsin is not broke. Saying that the country is broke is repeating a Big Lie. It's one of the three biggest lies of the decade: 1) America is broke, 2) Iraq has WMD, and 3) The Packers can't win the Super Bowl without Brett Favre.

The truth is, there's lots of money to go around. LOTS. It's just that those in charge have diverted that wealth into a deep well that sits on their well-guarded estates. They know they have committed crimes to make this happen and they know that someday you may want to see some of that money that used to be yours. So they have bought and paid for hundreds of politicians across the country to do their bidding for them. But just in case that doesn't work, they've got their gated communities, and the luxury jet is always fully fueled, the engines running, waiting for that day they hope never comes. To help prevent that day when the people demand their country back, the wealthy have done two very smart things:

1. They control the message. By owning most of the media they have expertly convinced many Americans of few means to buy their version of the American Dream and to vote for their politicians. Their version of the Dream says that you, too, might be rich some day -- this is America, where anything can happen if you just apply yourself! They have conveniently provided you with believable examples to show you how a poor boy can become a rich man, how the child of a single mother in Hawaii can become president, how a guy with a high school education can become a successful filmmaker. They will play these stories for you over and over again all day long so that the last thing you will want to do is upset the apple cart -- because you -- yes, you, too! -- might be rich/president/an Oscar-winner some day! The message is clear: keep you head down, your nose to the grindstone, don't rock the boat and be sure to vote for the party that protects the rich man that you might be some day.

2. They have created a poison pill that they know you will never want to take. It is their version of mutually assured destruction. And when they threatened to release this weapon of mass economic annihilation in September of 2008, we blinked. As the economy and the stock market went into a tailspin, and the banks were caught conducting a worldwide Ponzi scheme, Wall Street issued this threat: Either hand over trillions of dollars from the American taxpayers or we will crash this economy straight into the ground. Fork it over or it's Goodbye savings accounts. Goodbye pensions. Goodbye United States Treasury. Goodbye jobs and homes and future. It was friggin' awesome and it scared the shit out of everyone. "Here! Take our money! We don't care. We'll even print more for you! Just take it! But, please, leave our lives alone, PLEASE!"

The executives in the board rooms and hedge funds could not contain their laughter, their glee, and within three months they were writing each other huge bonus checks and marveling at how perfectly they had played a nation full of suckers. Millions lost their jobs anyway, and millions lost their homes. But there was no revolt (see #1).

Until now. On Wisconsin! Never has a Michigander been more happy to share a big, great lake with you! You have aroused the sleeping giant known as the working people of the United States of America. Right now the earth is shaking and the ground is shifting under the feet of those who are in charge. Your message has inspired people in all 50 states and that message is: WE HAVE HAD IT! We reject anyone who tells us America is broke and broken. It's just the opposite! We are rich with talent and ideas and hard work and, yes, love. Love and compassion toward those who have, through no fault of their own, ended up as the least among us. But they still crave what we all crave: Our country back! Our democracy back! Our good name back! The United States of America. NOT the Corporate States of America. The United States of America!

So how do we make this happen? Well, we do it with a little bit of Egypt here, a little bit of Madison there. And let us pause for a moment and remember that it was a poor man with a fruit stand in Tunisia who gave his life so that the world might focus its attention on how a government run by billionaires for billionaires is an affront to freedom and morality and humanity.

Thank you, Wisconsin. You have made people realize this was our last best chance to grab the final thread of what was left of who we are as Americans. For three weeks you have stood in the cold, slept on the floor, skipped out of town to Illinois -- whatever it took, you have done it, and one thing is for certain: Madison is only the beginning. The smug rich have overplayed their hand. They couldn't have just been content with the money they raided from the treasury. They couldn't be satiated by simply removing millions of jobs and shipping them overseas to exploit the poor elsewhere. No, they had to have more -- something more than all the riches in the world. They had to have our soul. They had to strip us of our dignity. They had to shut us up and shut us down so that we could not even sit at a table with them and bargain about simple things like classroom size or bulletproof vests for everyone on the police force or letting a pilot just get a few extra hours sleep so he or she can do their job -- their $19,000 a year job. That's how much some rookie pilots on commuter airlines make, maybe even the rookie pilot who flew me here to Madison today. He told me he's stopped hoping for a pay increase. All he's asking for now is enough down time so that he doesn't have to sleep in his car between shifts at O'Hare airport. That's how despicably low we have sunk! The wealthy couldn't be content with just paying this man $19,000 a year. They had to take away his sleep. They had to demean him and dehumanize him and rub his face in it. After all, he's just another slob, isn't he?

And that, my friends, is Corporate America's fatal mistake. But trying to destroy us they have given birth to a movement -- a movement that is becoming a massive, nonviolent revolt across the country. We all knew there had to be a breaking point some day, and that point is upon us. Many people in the media don't understand this. They say they were caught off guard about Egypt, never saw it coming. Now they act surprised and flummoxed about why so many hundreds of thousands have come to Madison over the last three weeks during brutal winter weather. "Why are they all standing out there in the cold?" I mean, there was that election in November and that was supposed to be that!

"There's something happening here, and you don't know what it is, do you ...?"

America ain't broke! The only thing that's broke is the moral compass of the rulers. And we aim to fix that compass and steer the ship ourselves from now on. Never forget, as long as that Constitution of ours still stands, it's one person, one vote, and it's the thing the rich hate most about America -- because even though they seem to hold all the money and all the cards, they begrudgingly know this one unshakeable basic fact: There are more of us than there are of them!

Madison, do not retreat. We are with you. We will win together.