Nuclear

As you read this, a terror attack has put atomic reactors in Ukraine at the brink of another Chernobyl-scale apocalypse.

Transmission lines have been blown up. Power to at least two major nuclear power stations has been "dangerously" cut. Without emergency backup, those nukes could lose coolant to their radioactive cores and spent fuel pools. They could then melt or explode, as at Fukushima.

ecowatch.com/2015/10/14/nuclear-power-bites-dust/

The chain reactor operator Entergy has announced it will close the Pilgrim nuke south of Boston.

The shut-down will bring the U.S. reactor fleet to 98, though numerous other reactors are likely to face abandonment in the coming months.

But Entergy says it may not take Pilgrim down until June 1, 2019-nearly four years away.

Entergy is also poised to shut the FitzPatrick reactor in New York. It promises an announcement by the end of this month.

As the first Democrat presidential debate finally approaches (on Oct. 13), America's nuke power industry is in accelerated collapse.

The few remaining construction projects in the U.S. and Europe are engineering and economic disasters.

Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders may address this in broad terms.

But as a nation we must now focus on the 99 dying U.S. reactors that threaten us all every day. In terms of our national survival, this is what Sanders and Clinton really must discuss.

At very powerful hearings in San Luis Obispo, testimony was submitted by Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne & Graham Nash. David Crosby testified in person, and his testimony was cited in the San Luis Obispo Tribune:

Musician David Crosby among speakers at Diablo Canyon hearing

BY DAVID SNEED
[email protected] 5, 2015

Ok. So we don't expect much from these mega-blockbuster disaster films.

But maybe just a hint about reality could spice things up. At least maybe a passing acknowledgement that the actual San Andreas could turn the Diablo Canyon nukes into a seething heap of radioactive rubble and permanently irradiate all of California?

Is that too much to ask, even of Hollywood?

Apparently so.

For the third time in a decade, a major fire/explosion has ripped apart a transformer at the Indian Point reactor complex.

News reports have taken great care to emphasize that the accident happened in the "non nuclear" segment of the plant.

Ironically, the disaster spewed oil into the Hudson River, infecting it with a toxic sheen that carried downstream for miles. Entergy, the nuke's owner, denies there were PCBs in this transformer.

Four years after the multiple explosions and melt-downs at Fukushima, it seems the scary stories have only just begun to surface. 

Given that Japan's authoritarian regime of Shinzo Abe has cracked down on the information flow from Fukushima with a repressive state secrets act, we cannot know for certain what's happening at the site.

The catastrophe that began at Fukushima four years ago today is worse than ever. 

But the good news can ultimately transcend the bad-if we make it so.

An angry grassroots movement has kept shut all 54 reactors that once operated in Japan. It's the largest on-going nuke closure in history. Big industrial windmills installed off the Fukushima coast are now thriving.

Five American nukes have shut since 3/11/11.  The US reactor fleet has dropped under 100 for the first time in decades.

New revelations about earthquake dangers have shaken the future of California's Diablo Canyon nukes.

In a rare move, Washington DC's Federal U.S. Court of Appeals will hear a landmark challenge to their continued operation.