Friday, April 29, 2011

Godspeed, little book!

April 28th, 2011

Dear Readers,

There has certainly been a change in the weather. It's irradiated, and nobody likes it.

Opinion polls around the world are running strongly against nuclear power even in France and here in America. And that's despite the official lies, cover-ups, and secrecy that's been going on regarding Fukushima.

Or maybe it's because of those things, too. I always thought it was the lies about Chernobyl that did in the Soviet Union.

Either way, as the truth gets out, people everywhere are getting disgusted with nuclear energy. Thank God (and DARPA) for the Internet!

This evening at a Nuclear Regulatory Commission hearing in San Juan Capistrano, California, I handed out about 75 copies of a new book I've just completed, a pictorial called SHUT SAN ONOFRE.

You can download the (free) 20-page book here:

http://www.acehoffman.org/petitions/shut-san-onofre.pdf

(File size is about 7 megabytes.)

It's VERY new -- in fact, I only started writing it yesterday morning! Hooray for modern technology*!

The book includes more than 50 photos related to Fukushima which I've collected off the web over the past six weeks, and some information about alternative energy, wasted energy, the damage from Chernobyl, etc..

Fortunately a lawyer who also attended the (otherwise rather useless, as usual) NRC hearing is going to Sacramento (the state capital) tomorrow, and will try to put copies in the hands of staff members of our two senators! And a reverend who happens to be attending a national religious convention in Washington, D.C. will be doing the same thing next week! (I'll be overnighting a few copies to him tomorrow.)

Not bad for a book that still isn't even 48 hours old from original concept (for a one-page information sheet, but it grew...) to right now! Godspeed, little book!

I hope you enjoy it and I'll look forward to hearing any comments anyone might have. I'm sure there's room for improvement, but it was pretty well-received at the hearing.

(Note: In the back of the book are a few pages for collecting signatures, which are for when the book is printed. It's hoped that people will gather signatures and then send (or bring) the book to their elected officials. Anyone who would like to be sent printed copies at cost (including shipping) should contact the author.)

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman Carlsbad, CA

The author is a 54-year-old computer programmer, bladder cancer survivor, educational software developer, independent researcher, animator, videographer and writer. He has been investigating nuclear power for about 40 years. His in-depth book on nuclear power, The Code Killers, is also available as a free download from his web site: acehoffman.org

* Adobe CS5 In-Design running on a Pentium i-7-powered Gigabyte EX58-UD3R motherboard with 16 gigabytes of Corsair XMS3 DDR3 RAM and five 320 gigabyte Western Digital VelociRaptor Hard Drives (four as a single RAID system (striped and mirrored) plus another drive for the operating system). BFG G-Force graphics card, LG 1920 by 1080 monitor, Kensington Expert Mouse Pro trackball, Wacom tablet (not used for this project), Logitech keyboard. Thermaltake 750 Watt power supply (energy supplied in part by SONGS). USB3 tri-terabyte back-ups with Norton Ghost, of course. My browser of choice these days is Google Chrome, but I keep Firefox at-the-ready. And the Operating System? Gee, I wonder. I also wonder if the owner of that OS is still hot for the traveling wave nuclear reactor after Fukushima, that he spoke of so glowingly (yes, it's a pun) at TED just a few weeks before the nuclear disaster? His "TerraPower" reactors would ALSO create tons and tons of nuclear waste -- each microgram just as dangerous as a microgram (a lethal dose) of Fukushima's "spent" fuel.

-----------------------------------------

Ace Hoffman
Author, The Code Killers:
An Expose of the Nuclear Industry
Free download: acehoffman.org
Blog: acehoffman.blogspot.com
YouTube: youtube.com/user/AceHoffman
Carlsbad, CA
Email: ace [at] acehoffman.org

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Thursday, April 28, 2011

TODAY: (April 28 2011) 5 pm Protest/Inform Media and Appeal to NRC! Capistrano Unified School District Board Chamber

April 28th, 2011

Let the NRC know... San Onofre has got to go! The following was sent to me by Lyn Hicks, CREED.

Ace Hoffman Carlsbad, CA

-------------------------------------------------------- From: Lyn Hicks [mailto:lynharrishicks@cox.net] Sent: Wednesday, April 27, 2011 11:25 AM Subject: DESTRUCTION BY CHERNOBYL NUCLEAR DISASTER.doc FUKUSHIMA RESPONSE BY SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA CREED LEADERS REMINDER TO ORGANIZATION LIAISONS! April 28 5 pm Protest/Inform Media and Appeal to NRC Capistrano Unified School District Board Chamber 33122 Valle Road, San Juan Capistrano This high spirited event is the crest of two and a half years identification of on-site nuclear hazard roulette at San Onofre. The action was led by Gary and Laurie Headrick, founders of San Clemente Green and San Onofre Safety. On site safety issues were gradually brought to the arena of action, the San Clemente City Council Chamber. The focus leaders� testimony was recorded, and is available to officials and the public by links to city video archives. Headrick is coordinating the press-conference safety Issues and FOR A NUCLEAR FREE WORLD/ END NUCLEAR POWER/TRANSITION NOW/FAST TRACK TO RENEWABLES/ SUSTAINABLE ENERGY, other, themes. Thursday evening media event. Come and be part of the supporting backdrop, after you sign in to speak in NRC session.???. . Gene Stone, organizer of individual concerned residents, is compiling� list of Focus Leaders� urgent questions and comments for NRC microphone response. Official assessment of the Japanese six reactor conflagration and contamination has risen to most devastating rank (7) and radiation now surpassing the on-going, circling our planet ,destruction by Chernobyl nuclear disaster, commemorating the accident 25th year, anniversary, yesterday. Please communicate background info on both accidents to your organizations and respond their choices of action themes when we poll everyone. DESTRUCTION BY CHERNOBYL NUCLEAR DISASTER!!!! Ukraine�s President Viktor Yanukovyeh marked the 24th with announcement of government assessment that approximately two million persons are suffering Chernobyl caused illnesses, and that nongovernmental organizations are attributing to Chernobyl more than 700,000 early deaths. Concerns about genetic damage were raised more than a year ago concurrent with the Ukrainian president�s appeal for aid from the nuclear nations. Pictures showed children�s body deformities attributed to parental exposure to the Chernobyl explosion, and children in a hospital for child victims of cancer, and care facilities for children with severely damaged or destroyed immune systems News accounts reported the Ukraine president�s plea that the people of Ukraine could no longer afford to provide adequate medical care for those afflicted by Chernobyl. That plea was followed by an international appeal to the nuclear nations to subsidize a more effective containment for the nuclear radiation emitting Chernobyl remains. Requests by CREED researchers for report of international response have not been answered. Anyone who knows a diligent reporter, who will follow-up this one, please volunteer to accept and file info. and please reply/respond to this email. Committee to Bridge the Gap, contact in the 100 high hazard radius, has provided samples of needed protective actions. disclosed that the Environmental Protection Administration monitors that could measure radioactive iodine were not in place in California. CBG persistence disclosed that levels of radioactive iodine in rainwater were 25-100 times higher than EPA�s maximum contaminant levels specified in the clean water act. We must enroll our emergency planners in fast action to obtain appropriate monitors and place them were they can protect our children. WHAT ARE THE CAUSE/EFFECT SIMILARITIES BETWEEN CHERNOBYL, Fukushima AND SAN ONOFRE THAT WE MUST�GLIMPSE� TO PROVIDE INFORMED PUBLIC protective actions? Please reply email participation comments designating them as your personal, or your organization board, or membership, if that is requested in the polling. In peace process for nuclear free world Lyn Harris Hicks, CREED Advocate One more request: Please pick up the phone and call your favorite news reporter and invite him/her to cover this story.

=================================================

-----------------------------------------

Ace Hoffman
Author, The Code Killers:
An Expose of the Nuclear Industry
Free download: acehoffman.org
Blog: acehoffman.blogspot.com
YouTube: youtube.com/user/AceHoffman
Carlsbad, CA
Email: ace [at] acehoffman.org

-----------------------------------------

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

The first million is the hardest...

April 26th, 2011

Today's topics:

(1) The first million is the hardest... (by Ace Hoffman) (2) The Real Story: Chernobyl show to air on Earth Focus TODAY (3) Jeff Phillips (writing from New Zealand): Uranium mining over and under (4) Iris Cheng (Greenpeace): Chernobyl: distorted reality, and unanswered questions (5) Conrad Miller: Chernobyl 25th anniversary disaster (6) Google Earth Maps Out At-Risk Populations Around Nuclear Power Plants (7) Contact information for the author of this newsletter

---------------------------------------- (1) The first million is the hardest...: ----------------------------------------

April 26th, 2011

Dear Readers,

Today is the 25th anniversary of Chernobyl. Today, a quarter century ago, the ruthless murder of a million people began. And the cover-up.

How quickly we forget! How destined we are to repeat!

Today's commemorations around the world might have gone practically unnoticed by the mainstream media, save perhaps for a 60-second spot about a decaying sarcophagus, were it not for Fukushima.

Today we honor and remember the already-dead from Chernobyl:

1) The "liquidators" who helped clean it up (about 800,000 young men) who now die like flies of cancer, leukemia, and a thousand other stranger ailments.

2) The local citizens who were not told for a week or more that anything was wrong, even while the rest of the world knew because a nuclear reactor power company in Sweden had alerted the "free" public (that is, the Western media) several days after Chernobyl exploded, after the ill winds tripped their own monitors.

3) The people around the world who also MUST have died, in addition to the million who lived nearer the plant or were among the liquidators.

4) The descendents, for at least seven generations, of all these people -- that's how far the DNA is likely to show damage, perhaps even further down the line.

"The million" are only the ones that were reasonably easy to count. I use the term "easy" very relatively: WHO wouldn't count them -- for five years they didn't even start to take a half-hearted look. IAEA wouldn't count them (and probably prevented WHO from doing so). It would be bad for the promotion of nuclear power, their mandate and perceived mission. The nuclear industry didn't want them counted. The nuke-loving cash-strapped secretive militaristic Russian government certainly didn't want them counted. Nobody wanted them counted.

So they weren't counted. Not easily, unless the term is relative. People halfway around the world, not under Soviet censorship, propaganda, or oppression, were NEVER counted by anyone. Billions of Curies, tens of thousands of terabecquerels... didn't just disappear. Many of them were breathed in by someone. They killed people all over the world, and still do. So will Fukushima Daiichi.

Cover-ups and lies hide the million-dead from the ongoing Chernobyl horror. Some say it's only tens of thousands, some say "merely" thousands, and some -- the nuclear industry in America, for instance-- just three or four dozen.

Nobody says, "nobody died at Chernobyl" like they (lie) and say about Three Mile Island.

Until last month Chernobyl was the worst industrial accident in human history -- unless you believe the lies.

New pictures have reportedly been released of Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 -- the MOX reactor -- indicating the reactor pressure vessel itself had exploded last month (see Jeff's article, below).

The nuclear industry represents a small fraction of 1% of the human work force, even in America or France. These people could all be building wind turbines, except for those people who will have to guard the waste -- a cost society must incur forevermore, and which keeps getting more and more costly, and will continue to do so, at least until we stop making more waste every day.

It's time to stop the assault on human and other life. It's time to turn off the nukes.

Forced down our throats, and paid well to work there, society gave it a try.

Nuclear power has failed miserably. It's not enough to prevent new reactors, or even to prevent relicensing -- one unit at Fukushima had just been relicensed for another ten years just weeks before the catastrophe began. It's not enough to wait months and months for the "lessons learned" from Fukushima. It's not enough to be promised improvements, changes, more and better backup systems. All those are nice. But we need to close the reactors down forever.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman Carlsbad, CA

The author. 54. has, like you, seen far too many nuclear disasters (one is too many). Visit his web site: www.acehoffman.org to read his book online or as a free download: "The Code Killers", about the many ways the nuclear industry destroys humanity.

###

-------------------------------------------------------- (2) The Real Story: Chernobyl show to air on Earth Focus TODAY: --------------------------------------------------------

Earth Focus, the environmental news magazine of LinkTV, has produced a documentary called Chernobyl -- The Real Story. It features interviews with Dr. Janette Sherman editor and Dr. Alexey Yablokov who is a Councilor Russian Academy of Sciences and co-author of the book Chernobyl Consequences for People and the Environment published by the National Academy of Sciences. The documentary was produced by Raisa Scriabine, edited by Toni Genberg, Sean McAll and Dustin Harrison Atlas. Producer for LinkTV is Kim Spencer. The piece is made possible with support from the Wallace Genetic Foundation, the Marisla Foundation and the Park Foundation.

You can download the documentary (2.5 GB) here:

ftp://4.71.46.20/Web%20Deliverables/Earth%20Focus/Chernobyl%20wWrapper.mov

Username ftp-guest Password w3lc0me

If the direct link does not work, try this (username and password are the same):

ftp://4.71.46.20/

Click on Web Deliverables, then click on Earth Focus, then click on Chernobyl wWrapper.mov.

***************************************

Democracy Now! has a segment devoted to the 25th anniversary of Chernobyl featuring Dr. Janette Sherman and Dr. Jeff Patterson, the immediate past-president of Physicians for Social Responsibility:

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/4/26/chernobyl_catastrophe_25th_anniversary_of_worlds

###

-------------------------------------------------------- (3) Jeff Phillips (writing from New Zealand): Uranium mining over and under --------------------------------------------------------

At 11:33 PM 4/25/2011 -0700, synthaissance-owner@yahoogroups.com wrote: Re: [synthaissance] CHERNOBYL DAY/RUSSIAN TRANSLATION ASSISTANCE REQUEST ======================

"If we dig precious things from the land, we will invite disaster."

Today is the 25th anniversary of the reactor explosion/meltdown at Chernobyl in the Ukraine, which contaminated thousands of square miles of Russia's "bread-basket" and has already caused over a million premature human deaths, not to mention incomprehensible damage to non-human lives and marine and terrestrial eco-systems.

As the Fukushima nuclear debacle continues to unfold, and it's true nature is revealed, we are witnessing two parallel streams of extremes: unprecedented release of extremely dangerous radio-nuclides into the planetary biosphere that is by no means over, at levels that have long surpassed Chernobyl and may have already surpassed the sum total of all nuclear detonations since 1945; and unprecedented levels of corporate fraud, governmental deception, institutionalized cover-up and systematic brain-washing blitz using the Hitlerian 'big lie' technique. While carcinogenic and mutagenic levels of radioactive actinides and isotopes are disseminated throughout the biosphere, the leaders of the modern world tell us to watch tv and be happy.

That the public as a whole is so indifferent to this global catastrophe, the likes of which has never been experienced in the history of civilization, despite having been exposed to and having access to reasonably accurate information on what is happening, is to me beyond belief. We seem to be witnessing a totally new level of active denial and intentional unreality in the mass population. Although most people are relatively ignorant scientifically, by choice, and could not possibly explain why ionizing radiation is dangerous to life as we know it, most people do possess the deep-seated and almost common-sense intuition that it's certainly not good for us. So why do so few people seem to care at all about what is going on?

On this day in 1986 I was in the high desert of Arizona, at a place called Big Mountain, on the Navaho reservation. A group of us had gone there from Santa Cruz California in support of the indigenous people who were being forcibly relocated so that Peabody Coal could strip-mine their land. During the week we spent up there we met with elders and learned of the ancient prophecies, particularly those of the Hopi. We sang, danced and talked. I walked around with a Geiger counter taking readings of back-ground radiation as an F-111 fighter plane swooped over menacingly at less than 100 feet of altitude.

We learned that we were on the Grant Mineral belt, near a place called Black mesa, where the uranium for the first atomic bomb was extracted. We heard Hopi elder Thomas Banyacya tell us about the ancient prophecy, "If we dig precious things from the land, we will invite disaster."

We were out of touch with the outside world for a week, and when we came down to Flagstaff, we saw the biggest head-line possible for a newspaper: the Chernobyl meltdown. This is still the freakiest "synchronicity" of my entire life.

Ever since then I have undertaken to spread the word of nuclear awareness, and have realized this to be the single greatest threat to life as we know her on this planet. Astronomer Carl Sagan made a huge effort to create awareness of this situation, and contracted a fatal leukemia because of his massive number of personal protests at the Nevada Test Site. As a scientist, Sagan was fully aware that the Earth is the only planet we know of in the entire universe that is home to life; unfortunately, his belief was that the danger we faced was from all-out thermo-nuclear war. I don't think he was aware of the less visible but equally real form of "nuclear war" being waged in the form of DU and later from "geo-terrorism" environmental warfare techniques as envisioned by Zbigniew Brzezinski.

Central in the on-going battle of life against death, quite literally on this planet, is the unique down-under country of Australia. Home to approximately 40% of the world's entire uranium reserves, she has traditionally limited herself to 3 uranium mines. But in recent years mining interests and pro-nuclear power-brokers are storming the government and populace with 'safe and clean' propaganda designed to manufacture consent not only for expanded uranium mining, so that Australia can become the "Saudi Arabia of uranium", but worse, for the construction of dozens of nuclear reactors across her wonderfully subtle landscape, the power from which could easily be supplied by means far less necrophilous in nature, even including the totally taboo concept of "conservation." Moreover, more solar energy falls onto the surface of Australia than any other country, yet she has less solar technology than Germany.

The battle for the survival of life as we know her may in fact be under way right now in Australia, a battle within an historically and legendarily apathetic people who have a chance to rouse themselves from their beer and telly, to rise up and make a difference that DOES matter in a big way, the battle against their tendency to adopt an attitude of "no worries" even when confronted with not only the on-going genocide of their own indigenous people but themselves as well. Soon I'll be posting a more in-depth version of this story.

I have recently gotten in touch with Dr. Alexy Yablokov, co-author of the recent and excellent book on the long-term health effects of Chernobyl. Soon I will be posting excerpts from this book. Dr. Yablokov has agreed to do an interview with me and to answer some questions, but his English isn't very good and my Russian is nil.

I wanted to ask if anyone out there happens to be fluent in Russian or knows someone who is who might have a little time to translate a few paragraphs from English into Russian and then from Russian in to English? If anyone can help, you will be making a big contribution to the sharing of extremely important information, plus I'll send you some hand-painted rocks! Please get in touch if anyone can help with this.

Happy Chernobyl Day. By the way, photos just coming out show that Reactor #3 at Fukushima fully exploded very early on...this is the reactor itself, the one with the MOX plutonium fuel rods. This means that large amounts of plutonium have been going around the world in all those radiation clouds.

Jeff Phillips New Zealand

http://dolphinmatrix.com/Jeff/ http://picasaweb.google.com/therockist http://rachels-carson-of-today.blogspot.com http://www.synthaissance.blogspot.com/ http://tutunui-wananga.blogspot.com/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/synthaissance/ http://cryo-now.blogspot.com/ http://www.regainyourbrain.org/ http://thebrink-jeffphillips.blogspot.com/

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime." Mark Twain

"Politics is the entertainment branch of government." Frank Zappa

"Government is the public-relations branch of globalisation." K. Rubrick Shreddinger

"The only thing that's faster than light is simultaneity." J. Paul Serengeti "I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man's." William Blake

"On Spaceship Earth, there are no passengers: everyone is crew." R. Buckminster Fuller

###

-------------------------------------------------- (4) : Chernobyl: distorted reality, and unanswered questions: --------------------------------------------------

Blogpost by Iris Cheng - April 19, 2011 at 16:32

We have just returned after completing an important mission in Ukraine ­ taking around 70 journalists from 18 countries with us to Chernobyl, nearly 25 years after the nuclear catastrophe. It was one of the largest media trips Greenpeace has organized. These seasoned journalists asked critical and insightful questions, none of them easily moved.

But many of them were deeply disturbed by what they saw and heard ­ often by the mundane details that were mentioned matter-of-factly by the interviewees.

Like every year Ukraine government needs to spend between six to eight percent of the fiscal budget to cope with the consequences of Chernobyl.

Like how tens of thousands of Ukrainian children need to be sent away every year to uncontaminated areas for at least a month, in order to allow the body to get rid of some of the Cesium-137 accumulated through eating everyday food like milk, mushrooms, berry jam and meat.

Like how food sold in every market needs to be tested for radionuclide like Cesium and Strontium.

Like how children of Rokytne get tonsillitis several times a year because their immune systems are compromised by radionuclide. According to deputy head doctor from the District Hospital, two-thirds of the population of 53,000 he cares for is affected by Cesium-137 contamination in food. Rokytne is 300km away from Chernobyl, on the other side of the country.

Like how the local health and sanitary station in some areas need to make maps to tell local communities where the radiation hotspots are and thus unsafe to go.

Like how in school children are taught the practical steps of radiation safety, and do emergency drills with gas masks.

Like how young expectant mothers get advice about what food they need to avoid, in order to minimise radionuclide uptake, which causes deformity in the developing fetus. They need frequent checks and if the fetus develops serious deformity then it may have to be aborted.

Like how it is considered impolite to ask workers building the new sarcophagus about their personal radiation dose. If it reaches the limit then they cannot work, which means they lose their job.

Like how radioactive waste containment and management had become an important sector of the economy, because of the Chernobyl disaster. The original sarcophagus, hastily built in the months after the accident, is meant to only last 25-30 years and now at risk of collapse. Underneath, the destroyed reactor is still on site and cannot be dismantled because of its extreme radioactivity.

The consequences of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster lie in these mundane everyday facts. Life for these communities is brutally distorted, for centuries to come.

However, when I returned from Ukraine, I was hit by another distorted reality.

Nuclear proponents now claim that ­ despite the fact that the situation in the Fukushima nuclear plant is still not under control, despite the massive amount of radioactive water dumped into the sea with unknown consequence ­ Fukushima proves that nuclear energy is safe, because so far no one has been killed by the radiation?

I want them to say that to the doctors and the parents who are told that the state can now only afford to send children away for breaks in clean areas for 18 days per year. Nuclear supporters probably don’t know that it takes 50 days for the body of a child (100 days for adult) to get rid of half of its radioactive Cesium-137.

I want them to say that to the public health officials who are struggling to find funding to continue monitoring food contamination.

I want them to say that to the young woman who told us her favourite fruit is the blueberries from the forests. She knows they are contaminated by Cesium but she cannot help eating them sometimes.

I want them to take human life more seriously. There are 442 nuclear power plants in the world today and the majority are aging. There will be leaks, power outages, human errors, design flaws. The nuclear industry has no solutions to the radioactive waste problem. How many more life-crippling nuclear disasters will it take before the world gets rid of this outdated, dangerous and unnecessary technology?

Iris Cheng is a climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace International, based in Hong-Kong.

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/makingwaves/chernobyl-distorted-reality-and-unanswered-qu/blog/34331?utm_source=SilverpopMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Test%20-%20GPI%20Newsletter%20-%20April%202011&utm_content=&utm_source=SilverpopMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=GPI%20Newsletter%20-%20April%202011%20%281%29&utm_content

or:

http://tinyurl.com/3qg97lo

###

-------------------------------------------------- (5) Conrad Miller: Chernobyl Disaster 25th Anniversary In Fukushima's Radioactive Shadow: --------------------------------------------------

http://crestofthewave.createsend2.com/t/ViewEmail/y/A759F7E350A81800/55F0287C079F94AEC4DA2C823DDA3384

-------------------------------------------------- (6) Google Earth Maps Out At-Risk Populations Around Nuclear Power Plants: --------------------------------------------------

"If a nuclear power plant in the US were to have issues, who would be affected? In a partnership between Nature News and Columbia University, we now have a Google map that tells us the population sizes around plants so we can easily scan and see the number of people that could be affected should anything occur at the plants."

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/04/google-earth-maps-out-at-risk-populations-around-nuclear-power-plants.php

---------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------- (7) Contact information for the author of this newsletter:

-----------------------------------------

Ace Hoffman
Author, The Code Killers:
An Expose of the Nuclear Industry
Free download: acehoffman.org
Blog: acehoffman.blogspot.com
YouTube: youtube.com/user/AceHoffman
Carlsbad, CA
Email: ace [at] acehoffman.org

-----------------------------------------

Friday, April 22, 2011

Mother Earth is "hot"! We irradiated her!

Earth Day indeed...

April 22nd, 2011

Dear Readers,

The total volume of the earth is about 260,000,000,000 (260 billion) cubic miles.

The oceans are about 320,000,000 (320 million) cubic miles (average depth: about two miles). Thus, oceans comprise just over one tenth of one percent of the total volume of Earth (not counting our atmosphere), all of it very close to Earth's surface (maximum depth of the oceans: Just under seven miles).

The oceans contain about 97% of all the water on earth. Ice caps and ground water are most of the rest.

Fresh water rivers, lakes and streams amount to less than 1% of all the water on Earth.

All water is precious.

There are about 139,400,000 square miles of oceans on earth, and about 57,500,000 square miles of land area. A lot of Fukushima's radiation is now becoming fallout all over the earth, and will be in our environment for thousands of years: Plutonium, uranium, cesium, strontium, iodine, technetium, tritium... you-name-it, it's radioactive and has been released at Fukushima.

Only a tiny fraction of the total volume of the earth is ever used by humans. Everything's within a few feet, or a few hundred feet, of the surface, except for a few slightly deeper things such as mines, wells, and submarines. Virtually all the subways, sewers, building foundations, electric and data cabling, gas pipelines, and so on are closer to the surface than that. No living quarters, schools or factories are built deep underground under normal circumstances. Some crazy military projects maybe, but that's about it.

So we need to protect this fragile surface! We aren't doing a very good job. The nuclear industry's constant release of radioactive isotopes into the environment lays down a patina of poison which damages all living things.

We have scorned and scorched our mother earth! She's hot! We irradiated her!

We defiled her. We challenged her. We lost, of course. Now we suffer, and all her other beautiful creatures suffer, and once again, an enormous area has been created where no one can ever live again.

Birds fly in. Birds eat radioactive insects, rodents, reptiles -- many of which can survive much higher doses of radiation than the birds can. ("Yummm! Cockroaches! Get you fill at the abandoned diner in Fukushima!" yells one crow to another.)

In 20 years, maybe in 10, someone will go into the Fukushima exclusion zone, as they do around Chernobyl now, and take pictures and count animals per square mile, and pronounce the area a "thriving" wildlife sanctuary. They'll go in with rose-colored glasses about radiation's effects (or they wouldn't go in at all!) and they won't remove the glasses no matter what they see.

When an animal slows down because it gets cancer, does it get health care?

Of course not! It gets eaten!

(The cancerous part is sometimes avoided by the more delicate carnivores.)

Nothing to see.

3-legged ponies won't survive long in the wild.

Nothing to see.

The rose bush in my backyard produces many different colors of roses. Is that caused by its DNA constantly being damaged by radiation? No, that's just the type of rosebush it is.

There's variation everywhere. But what "produces" evolution is NOT random damage to our DNA! It's the semi-random joining of two DNA strands together in new sequences which produce all the variation we need in life. Why muck with such an exquisite system? The other method might work occasionally, but usually it just produces deformities, cancer, and pain.

Those who go into the "forbidden zones" see what they want to see.

So here's to Mother Earth.

There are 440 other Fukushimas waiting to happen (plus another thousand or so military reactors).

Earth day is a sham. A mockery. A sin. If we each devote only one day a year to saving Mother Earth, well then, as we can see, she doesn't stand a chance.

Ace Hoffman Carlsbad, CA

The author has seen a lot of Earth Days once a year, and has seen the earth suffer every day for 54 years... -------------------------------------

-----------------------------------------

-----------------------------------------

Ace Hoffman
Author, The Code Killers:
An Expose of the Nuclear Industry
Free download: acehoffman.org
Blog: acehoffman.blogspot.com
YouTube: youtube.com/user/AceHoffman
Carlsbad, CA
Email: ace [at] acehoffman.org

-----------------------------------------

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Measuring low-level radiation damage...

April 20th, 2011

Today's items:

(1) Measuring Radiation: From Becquerels to Sieverts, from birth to death by Ace Hoffman (2) Naoto Kan should resign. He's an international disgrace (plus: "LNT") by Ace Hoffman (3) Richard Bramhall: Guardian article: Dose is too simple a measure of risk (4) Is this what it takes? One dead, seven wounded in Jaitapur (India) nuclear protests (5) Michio Kaku: Blunder and Confusion at Fukushima Reactor... (6) Fresh leak fears as Japan rocked by ANOTHER earthquake (7) I bought a DIGILERT 100. It reads about 700 counts per hour. Is that bad? (8) Contact information for the author of this newsletter

--------------------------------------------------------------------- (1) Measuring Radiation: From Becquerels to Sieverts, from birth to death ---------------------------------------------------------------------

April 20th, 2011

Dear Readers,

What are Curies, Becquerels, Rems, Rads, Grays, Sieverts, Roentgens, Q, RBE etc.?

Here are some answers (quotes are taken from my book, The Code Killers (URL for free download: www.acehoffman.org ).

Let's start with a Curie: "An amount of radioactivity defined as 3.7 *10^18 decays per second... about equal to the radioactivity of one gram of pure radium. Replaced by the Becquerel (Bq)."

Becquerel: "Exactly one radioactive decay per second. Abbreviated Bq."

So those are just different measurements for the same thing: Radioactive decays per unit of time, regardless of strength or type of radioactive emission.

A Curie is a lot of radiation. A single Becquerel... not so much.

One Bq is equal to 27 picocuries, which makes sense because a picocurie (a millionth of a millionth of a Curie) is 0.037 disintegrations per second, and mathematically 0.037 times 27 equals (approximately) one. Radioactive disintegrations, of course, don't actually happen in fractional amounts. They either happen or they don't. WHEN they are likely to happen can be guessed at by the isotope's half-life, but it's only a guess.

But knowing the disintegrations per second doesn't tell you very much, really. To guess at the damage a given amount of radiation causes, you still need to know the average energy of the disintegrations. And of course, you need to know the type of emission: alpha, beta, gamma, x-ray, etc.. Each type has different properties, and each isotope's type(s) of emissions have average energy levels. Some occur together -- a gamma ray and an alpha emission. Some follow in short sequence: A beta emission followed by a gamma ray shortly thereafter.

Sometimes the decay product is also radioactive. This can go on for dozens of steps.

Gamma rays are very penetrating but have no mass and no charge. They are pure energy, traveling at the speed of light.

X-rays are less penetrating than gamma rays, having less energy, but are still damaging or "ionizing".

Alpha particles (also sometimes called alpha rays) are relatively massive (the size of helium atoms minus their two electrons) and don't travel very far before they've collided with so many things that they've slowed down, and become a helium atom out of place, grabbing two electrons and floating away. It's said that a single alpha decay has enough energy to visibly reposition a grain of sand on the beach.

Alpha particles travel at "only" about 98% of the speed of light when they are first emitted during a radioactive decay. Compared to beta particles, gamma rays and x-rays, that's slow!

Alpha particles are not much of an external radiation hazard because they can be blocked by a sheet of newspaper or dead layers of your skin (mucus membranes, eyes, and a few other exposed areas can be damaged by external alpha radiation).

But alpha particles released inside your body can do a lot of damage to molecules they collide with, and they have a double positive charge, which is also very damaging as they pass by many thousands of molecules before they slow down and capture two electrons.

Beta particles (also known as beta rays) are negatively charged particles which are ejected from the nucleus of an atom at 99.7% the speed of light or even faster. Beta particles are tiny: They are only as big as electrons, which is what they are once they slow down. Beta particles do most of their damage as their negative charge passes by other charged things -- protons and electrons.

When beta particles are traveling very quickly, their charge is not near any particular thing long enough to have any significant effect. Most of the damage occurs when they've slowed down most of the way. For this reason, the health effects for the exact same TOTAL energy "dump" per kilogram of body tissue for beta particles with low energy emission values, such as tritium, are HIGHER than for isotopes of elements with higher beta energy emission values.

But knowing the decays per second and the type of emissions, and their average energy levels, is still only a small part of understanding the potential damage from any particular radioactive release such as Fukushima Daiichi.

You also need to know the isotopic composition of the sample. Otherwise, you won't be able to estimate what the Bqs or Curies will be in a minute, or a day, or a year, or a thousand years. You need to know the half-lives of the isotopes that have been released, and the ratios of each isotope and each element.

A sample of plutonium-239 giving off one curie of radiation per hour (wow! that's a lot!) will give off about 99.999...% as much radiation tomorrow, or next year. But a sample of Iodine-131 giving off the same amount of radiation today, will give off half as much radiation in just eight days, and half as much as that -- a quarter curie per hour-- eight days after that. In a few months it will be gone completely.

But even knowing all THAT isn't nearly enough.

The next step is to estimate the absorbed dose. One measure of this is the Radiation Absorbed Dose or RAD. Grays are another way to measure absorbed dose.

But, absorbed dose still doesn't provide an estimate of the damage the radiation may do. For that, there is effective dose, which is measured in REM ("roentgen equivalent man") or sieverts. Background radiation varies greatly by location and other factors, but is usually given as almost a third of a REM per year, expressed as "320 millirem" for instance. How much that will go up because of Fukushima Daiichi is hard to estimate, but will surely be the subject of a future newsletter and much debate.

One additional, traditional, measurement of radiation is the roentgen (pronounced rent-gen (like rent again without the "a")) which is defined as 0.876 RADs "in air".

All of these yardsticks are blunderbuss attempts to estimate the potential damage from radiation as a function of energy dumped into the body. One rad equals an absorbed dose of 0.01 joules of energy per kilogram of body tissue. For ongoing radiation assaults, a time factor needs to be included: "1000 milli-sieverts per hour" or something like that. They might call that "one sievert per hour" too. Same thing. (About 6 sieverts or 6 grays, or about 600 rem or 600 rads, is considered a fatal dose, the slow and painful death coming within a few weeks of exposure. 400 to 450 rem received over a short time will kill about half the population that receives it within about 30 days.)

What is really happening when radiation damages the body, in large or small doses, is a very complex microscopic assault on living tissue. Certain elements concentrate in certain organs: Iodine in the thyroid, strontium in bones, astatine in the brain, etc.. If the percentage of radioactive strontium isotopes goes up compared to non-radioactive strontium isotopes (as it is in Japan today), the radioactive strontium will concentrate in bones and teeth. And, sometime in the future, the incidence of bone cancer and leukemia will increase.

So simply averaging the assault across "whole bodies" can miss things and is improper. Another adjustment factor is needed.

That's expressed by assigning each isotope of each element a Q (Quality factor) or RBE (relative biological effectiveness value), or the more modern "radiation weighting factor" (which works better with computers).

Analysts use these numbers to try to compare apples to oranges, or, more specifically, for example, tritium exposure in drinking water to an xray of your knee after you blow it out on the tennis court.

None of these values consider the effects of bioaccumulation: Radioactive isotopes build up in the edible portions of one living thing (strontium concentrates in beans, for instance) and are then eaten by another up the food chain to us, at the "top" (beans concentrate in Mexicans, for instance). When that happens, a dose that had been dispersed into the environment becomes concentrated again.

It's all a very inexact science, and that inexactitude is used by the nuclear industry to hide what is really nothing short of premeditated murder.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman Carlsbad, CA

The author has written extensively about nuclear power and is the author of several computer tutorials as well. His book, The Code Killers, is available online at his web site:

www.acehoffman.org

----------------------------------------------------------- (2) Naoto Kan should resign. He's an international disgrace (plus: "LNT"): -----------------------------------------------------------

April 20th, 2011

Dear Readers,

Many people think Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan should resign. He has bungled everything. He is an international fool.

The only slightly logical reason I can think of for him not to resign is it would, of course, add to Japan's chaos. But his support for nuclear power before Fukushima Daiichi, and his ongoing failure to inform the Japanese people -- and the world -- properly about the dangers they/we are facing, and his continued support for nuclear power throughout the rest of Japan even now, are each good enough reasons for him to resign in shame.

As shown in the quote below, PM Kan wants everyone in Japan to share in the radioactive misery of the northern prefectures by throwing caution to the wind (literally) and pretending everything is okay.

So what will happen is, for example, they'll take a farm's vegetables that are known to be highly irradiated, and mix them with vegetables from other farms that were not so badly hit, until the average level of radiation in the larger batch is low enough to pass inspection. Because inspections will be looking for averages: "Becquerels per kilogram."

The Japanese people are being encouraged -- made to feel it's their patriotic duty -- to slip as much of the hot stuff through as possible! Based on Kan's remarks, and on what happened (and still happens) throughout Ukraine after Chernobyl, and what happened after Three Mile Island to milk supplies (including for chocolate bars sold all around the world from nearby Hershey, Pennsylvania), that's what they will be doing -- are already doing -- in Japan.

And you can be sure of another rule of thumb, thank's to Kan's pronouncements: Sell the "hot" produce to foreigners, especially! Why? Because after all, the more you spread it around, the safer it is, right? If it's below legal limits, it's safe, right? So spread it around! Especially to countries that don't have a good inspection program in place. Or that just don't care.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan calls it a "sacrifice" while at the same time assuring everyone it's harmless. Eat some plutonium. Plutonium-laced spinach will make you strong. Enjoy it, even!

This "dilution solution to pollution" will not only be legal, it will be encouraged. Everyone is expected to figure that yes, they will get some poisons one day, but other days they won't. So it won't matter.

But it does matter.

Scientists agree that radiation is a "Linear, No Threshold" poison, so spreading the doses out among many people doesn't stop a single death (though it makes those deaths much harder to prove statistically, a phenomenon which the nuclear industry finds very useful). Lest you think LNT is fringe science, you should know that the US National Academy of Sciences has accepted the LNT threshold "theory" of radiation damage for many decades.

Linear no-threshold means that if one person receives one fatal dose of radiation, that person will presumably die. But if the same amount of radiation is spread out among a hundred people, or, say, a hundred thousand (a small city), or a million (a large city), divided out and distributed to everyone somehow (diabolically), one person (on average) will die from what would have been one fatal dose if given entirely to one person.

Furthermore, it doesn't matter if the total quantity is divided evenly or unevenly -- that only determines an individual's risk, not the total "communal" risk. According to the LNT theory, the total risk for the community -- one death -- remains unchanged regardless of how the dose is distributed. (NOTE: This theoretical example does NOT consider dilution in the environment, in which even more people will be exposed to the poison, but some of it will not come in contact with humans at all. By the same token, it also does not consider the billions of fatal doses that are being released from Fukushima Daiichi, it only considers the effects of ONE theoretical fatal dose. And it doesn't account for the many additional, non-fatal health effects of radiation such as inflammation, dementia, deformities, chronic fatigue syndrome, and many others.)

We don't purposefully, (at least, not often) experiment on humans even with tiny radiation doses, but the LNT data line has been indicated in thousands of different studies involving millions of lab animals who were "sacrificed" for science.

Sacrificed and apparently then utterly forgotten by society, along with the results of the studies they died so painfully for (the normal technique, when experimenting with dogs, for instance, is to remove their vocal cords first).

Because of the statistical nature of radiation doses (and many other poisons), even a so-called "fatal" dose may not be fatal. So for that reason, it's usually called a "normally fatal dose." And also for that reason, nearly all radiation damage approximations attempt to discover, not the fatal dose, but instead, the exact dosage that will be lethal for 50% of any exposed population (of beagles, fish, fruit flies, or whatever (the actual level is different for each species and each individual)). That level is known as the LD/50, and that method is used for studying many poisons besides just radiation.

Data from animal experiments, is compared against some very imprecise studies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki victims, and then used to estimate the damage that will be caused by any particular human exposure to radiation.

However, in those original Hiroshima and Nagasaki studies, damage to humans was grossly underestimated, especially for the very young. It was politically expedient to do so. Radiation damage estimates, especially for low levels of exposure, have been grossly (and correspondingly) underestimated ever since.

In the Hiroshima and Nagasaki studies, stillbirths and spontaneous abortions were not counted for the first five years after the bombings. This was a rather crucial oversight! For Chernobyl, actual doses were so poorly recorded or estimated, that all studies since then have been both difficult to design and easy to criticize as inaccurate. Instead the original bomb studies are still used as if they were unbiased and reasonably accurate.

(Eminent physician and nuclear physicist, Dr. John Gofman, used statistical studies of x-rays and subsequent patient health effects to study low level radiation damage to humans, but the larger health establishment, heavily reliant on x-rays and CT scans for their income, has ignored the late scientist's (and other's) findings. However, his results are available for consideration in several books he published during his long and distinguished career.)

With a poison which behaves according to the LNT model, dilution is the ONLY solution offered for such pollution, and it's not a very good one. Spreading LNT poisons into the environment IS premeditated murder, so you better have a pretty good reason for doing so, if you plan to do it. The nuclear industry excuses itself as "vital" because they produce electricity, which most certainly is very important.

But electricity -- and mountains of nuclear waste -- is ALL nuclear power plants produce. (One or two of them also produce a few medical isotopes, but that could be done just as well with a much smaller and safer reactor -- and ONE such reactor would be sufficient for the entire world. And, there are often other ways to obtain those isotopes or better yet, other medical procedures (such as MRIs) that can be done. So let's not get sidetracked...).

The promise from the nuclear power industry was NOT that "a little radiation is harmless" or that it's good for you. Those are excuses, and poor ones, that they like to use and want you to believe. The promise was that accidents like Fukushima Daiichi and Chernobyl simply could not happen. They promised the public, the regulators, the investors and the legislators that they had built enough safeguards into the system to make such accidents impossible.

Nuclear power is just one broken promise after another, yet even in the midst of a tragedy as large as Chernobyl or Fukushima Daiichi, statisticians and government officials can hide the deaths in reams of bad statistics.

Using their methods, nothing subtle can ever be statistically proven, or uncovered, or noticed, or anything -- the deaths are real, the cause may even be statistically obvious, but there will still be no "PROOF".

Scientists had to work very, very hard to prove the "LNT" theory -- it took 30 or 40 years for it to be accepted. Some highly qualified scientists still don't accept it. Still others believe that when microscopic clumps of billions of radioactive atoms known as "hot particles" irradiate a small area of living tissue, the harmful effect is greater than "merely" linear, and is "supra-linear".

Because Fukushima Daiichi is releasing trillions and trillions of "hot particles" every hour, and because these particles can travel all over the globe, the scientific debate about whether such particles actually cause a supra-linear effect is very important. But it doesn't negate the fact that "merely" a linear, no-threshold (LNT) rate means Fukushima Daiichi is the largest disaster in history, and will continue to kill for billions of years.

As will Chernobyl. As will Three Mile Island, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the uranium used in the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Libya, Palestine and elsewhere. As will the testing of such weapons in Guam, Puerto Rico, Okinawa, California, Hawaii, etc..

As will uranium mining. As will bomb testing. As will the entire nuclear industry.

Those who are in denial of the dangers of radiation poisoning should not be in charge of how MUCH radiation the rest of us are poisoned with!

But they are.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman Carlsbad, CA

The author has written a book about radiation called The Code Killers (referring to radiation's damage to the DNA code) that is available for free download from his web site:

www.acehoffman.org

-------------------------

At 07:36 PM 4/16/2011 -0700, Leuren Moret wrote:

Speaking at a news conference to mark one month since the massive earthquake and tsunami devastated the northeastern coast of the country, Japanese Prime Minister Kan said produce from the region around the Fukushima plant is safe to eat despite radiation leaks.

PRIME MINISTER NAOTO KAN: [translated] From now on, people should not fall into an extreme self-restraint mood, and they should live life as normal. To consume products from the areas that have been affected is also a way in which to support the area. We should enjoy the use of such products and support the areas that have been affected. I ask you to do this.

###

----------------------------------------------------------- (3) Richard Bramhall: Guardian article: Dose is too simple a measure of risk: -----------------------------------------------------------

At 01:15 PM 4/20/2011 +0100, "Richard Bramhall" <bramhall@llrc.org> wrote:

The science of radiation risk has had rough treatment in the Guardian recently. Today there's an article by LLRC's Richard Bramhall which suggests why opinions are so polarised. It's below this and at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/20/chernobyl-radiation-risk-dose-density?INTCMP=SRCH

It's short. That's all the space the editors would give it, but it makes the point: radiation risk standards are over-simplified; external radiation is reasonably well-understood, but internal radioactivity and micro-dosimetry are like the dark side of the moon.

The on-line edition has an extra paragraph about Wade Allison's book "Radiation and Reason". It's frequently cited as thorough, rational and authoritative, but it only deals with the moon's familiar face. Professor Allison's preface says, "many important topics have been omitted … in particular the subject of micro-dosimetry is treated rather briefly in spite of its importance for future understanding" (our emphasis). In fact he doesn't discuss micro-dosimetry at all, not even briefly. If people like George Monbiot, James Lovelock, Mark Lynas, Chris Goodall and Stephen Stretton would see the complexities they would understand why there are such wide disagreements about the effects of radiation on health. Maybe a more rational debate would replace the shouting and personal abuse (just look at the blog comments on-line today).

As soon as possible we will issue a statement about the Jim Green article which some people are circulating.

Guardian Wednesday 20th April 2011

The Chernobyl deniers use far too simple a measure of radiation risk:

Those who downplay the dangers of nuclear energy are wrong to focus only on dose. In his article on "the confusing world of radiation exposure", readers' editor Chris Elliott was right to point out that getting a whole year's sunshine in an hour would fry him to a crisp (Open door, 4 April). Radiation dose rate is important. What he didn't say is that "dose density" is important too. The "sievert", as Elliott says, is a dose unit for quantifying radiation risk. He did not add that it assumes dose density is uniform. "There are many kinds of radiation", he says, but he does not mention how they differ. In fact, external sources like cosmic rays and x-rays distribute their energy evenly, like the sun; others, notably alpha-emitters like uranium, are extremely uneven in the way they irradiate body tissue once they have been inhaled or swallowed. Because alpha particles emitted from uranium atoms are relatively massive, they slow down rapidly, concentrating all their energy into a minuscule volume of tissue. Applying the sievert to this pinpoint of internal radiation means conceptualising it as a dose to the whole body. It's an averaging error, like believing it makes no difference whether you sit by the fire to warm yourself or eat a burning coal. The scale of the error can be huge. Radiation protection officials fell into this averaging trap in 1941. The Manhattan Project, rushing to build the atom bomb, was creating many new radio-elements whose health effects were unknown. Summing them all ­ external and internal, alpha, beta, gamma or whatever ­ into a single dose quantity gave an impression of certainty and precision. Post war, the US National Council on Radiation Protection closed down its internal exposure committee because it took the complexities too seriously. From then on radiation effects were estimated from acute external radiation at Hiroshima and Nagasaki ­ studies which are entirely silent on internal radioactivity. In 1952 the US forced this mindset on to the newly formed International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) whose advice now has almost the force of international law. In 2004 the UK scientific committee CERRIE challenged the commission's view by reporting that dose could be meaningless at the scale of molecules and cells.

If one mentions published studies which show, for example, increased cancer in Sweden after Chernobyl or the doubled risk of child leukaemia near German nuclear power stations, health officials say the ICRP model doesn't predict them: "Doses were too small to be the cause." Chernobyl is an acid test of ICRP's risk model since, at around 2 or 3 milliSieverts, doses were close to natural background. If this level of fallout was proved to cause any health detriment, the ICRP model would fall and the economics of nuclear power would worsen dramatically. So Chernobyl denial is crucial to nuclear interests. George Monbiot's article quoted a UN committee on Chernobyl: "There has been no persuasive evidence of any health effect [other than thyroid cancer] in the general population that can be attributed to radiation exposure" (The unpalatable truth is that the anti-nuclear lobby has misled us all, 5 April). But this too is based on the flawed ICRP model; there is a lot of evidence and many scientists attribute it to the accident. Monbiot's recent blog (The double standards of green anti-nuclear opponents, 31 March) relies on his friends Mark Lynas and Chris Goodall who in turn cite Radiation and Reason, a book by Professor Wade Allison. But Allison's preface says, "many important topics have been omitted … in particular the subject of micro-dosimetry is treated rather briefly in spite of its importance for future understanding". Monbiot and colleagues should note that in fact Allison doesn't discuss micro-dosimetry at all. It's easy to spin something if you leave out the difficult, challenging science. ICRP has admitted that its model cannot be applied to post-accident situations. Fortunately the European Committee on Radiation Risk employs weighting factors to modify sievert-based doses for internal exposures. This won't cure the mess in Fukushima but it will mean better public protection.

###

----------------------------------------------------------- (4) Is this what it takes? One dead, seven wounded in Jaitapur (India) nuclear protests: ------------------------------------------------------------

Jaitapur is a new nuclear complex to be built in India, enabled in large part by the Indo US Civilian Nuclear Agreement of October, 2008. The French company Areva, subject of at least one bribery scandal (in Germany), is to be the manufacturer, with French financial institutions providing the money. The biggest hurdle appears to be the matter of culpability in case of a catastrophic accident: The French want none of it.

If built, Jaitapur would be the largest reactor complex in the world, with six reactors capable of producing 1650 megawatts of electricity each -- much more than current reactors. The site is known to be in a seismically active area and tsunamis are also a possibility. The Jaitapur reactors would be capable of a cascading nuclear accident that will make Fukushima Daiichi seem small by comparison.

The fishing would be ruined in the nearby oceans and the farming on the nearby lands, for miles around. Small compensations are being offered to those forced to leave. Around Jaitapur, barely 1% of the villagers have accepted compensation checks for their forced removal.

Protests turned violent when some protesters, who were expected to go toward the gates of the proposed complex, instead went to the police station and started burning police cars. Police reportedly first fired into the air, and then into the protesters when they reportedly ignored the warning shots. One protester was killed and seven wounded.

People are angry all over the world. It is a shame when the anger turns to violence of any sort, be it against police cars, or police, or each other, or anyone. But to let the situation continue, to allow nuclear poisons to be created when there isn't, and never will be, any safe way to protect humanity forever from those poisons, is a form of violence too.

Nuclear power is not necessary anywhere. There are clean energy solutions that could be implemented instead (wind, wave, solar...). Vastly safer solutions exist for India than nuclear power.

Only lies brought nuclear to where it is today. People fight pretty hard when they realize they've been lied to.

Report by Ace Hoffman

###

----------------------------------------------------------- (5) Michio Kaku: Blunder and Confusion at Fukushima Reactor: ------------------------------------------------------------

The "Sunday" he refers to is a few weeks ago, but it's a great little essay!

The following item was found at this URL: http://bigthink.com/ideas/31759#comments

Blunder and Confusion at Fukushima Reactor On Sunday

Michio Kaku on March 28, 2011, 12:53 PM

The utility at Fukushima (TEPCO) announced that radioactive water was found to be 10 million times normal levels at Unit 2, prompting evacuation of that site and world wide anguish and worry. This was a major story. Then, a few hours later, the utility made a rare apology and retracted that statement, stating that the water was only 100,000 times normal. What happened? How could the utility make such a blunder?

Only now is it possible to piece together the events that led to this unusual apology. First, workers at Unit 2 were astonished to find that radiation levels in the water were extremely high. This prompted them to evacuate the site immediately. Second, they rushed out so fast that they did not do a second measurement of the water. Third, the first readings were slightly incorrect. The workers got iodine-134 (with a half-life of 53 minutes) confused with iodine-131 (with a half-life of 8 days). Also, cesium-137 was also found in the water (with a half - life of about 30 years). Fourth, by confusing the two, they also got the wrong level of radioactivity. They found more iodine-134 that was actually present in the water. The shorter the half-life, the more radioactive an isotope is - the longer the half-life, the less the radioactivity. So their calibration of iodine-134 was incorrect, yielding the false number of 10 million. Fifth, the utility did not send in another crew to check the measurements, so they got their calibration wrong, but they went public with this incorrect number.

The main point, however, from the workers perspective, is that radiation levels are 1,000 milliseverts/hour. That does not change at all with this new calibration. This means that workers will come down with radiation sickness with only 15 min. of exposure. Some workers will die after 6 hours of exposure.

The meaning of all this is: if radiation levels continue to rise, and one day all workers are forced to evacuate, it means that the accident will be in free fall. If the workers abandon ship, and the cores will all be uncovered, then that is the point of no return; 3 nuclear power may inevitably have meltdowns making a tragedy worse than Chernobyl. Time is not on their side. Already, a new 6.5 earthquake has hit Japan, creating a small tsunami. Earthquakes, pipe breaks, cracks, etc. might cause radiation levels to increase until evacuation is unavoidable, then all hell might break out.

###

--------------------------------------------------------------- (6) Fresh leak fears as Japan rocked by ANOTHER earthquake: ---------------------------------------------------------------

http://tinyurl.com/42dz87u

Fresh leak fears as Japan rocked by ANOTHER earthquake

by Lesley Yarranton, Sunday Mirror 17/04/2011

RADIATION levels around Japan's stricken nuclear plant soared after another earthquake jolted the ­country yesterday.

Engineers fear the 5.9 quake may have caused fresh leaks at ­Fukushima Dai-ichi, north of Tokyo.

Levels of radioactivity rose sharply in seawater near the plant. It happened shortly after the Tokyo Electric Power Company had beefed up safety ­systems. TEPCO has been fighting leaks at the plant since it was crippled by a tsunami on March 11.

Politicians ­ reportedly considering breaking up the ­company ­ think the ­problems will get worse. A government adviser said yesterday: "We are far from the end. There will be mountains to climb."

###

------------------------------------------------------- (7) I bought a DIGILERT 100. It reads about 700 counts per hour. Is that bad? -------------------------------------------------------

My Digilert 100 radiation detector arrived yesterday. It is operational from 0.001 to 110 mR/hr (milliroentgens per hour) and is "optimized" for Cesium-137. It has a "Halogen-quenched Geiger-Mueller tube with mica end window" behind a wire mesh at the top. It detects alpha, beta, gamma, and x-ray emissions.

Neat-O!!

I've taken about a dozen hourly totals today (April 20th, 2011, Carlsbad, CA). they average just under 12 mR/hr, which is not considered a particularly alarming figure. There is a HEPA filter in the room. An outdoor measurement this evening registered about 10% higher over a period of one hour, and a room with a window cracked open slightly, and no HEPA filter, fell midway between the other counts. The detector is guaranteed calibrated within 15% of actual values.

I certainly wish I had bought this detector two months ago, so that I could compare these readings to normal background readings for this area. However, I find the apparent difference between indoor and outdoor values interesting in any case.

###

-------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------- (8) Contact information for the author of this newsletter:

-----------------------------------------

Ace Hoffman
Author, The Code Killers:
An Expose of the Nuclear Industry
Free download: acehoffman.org
Blog: acehoffman.blogspot.com
YouTube: youtube.com/user/AceHoffman
Carlsbad, CA
Email: ace [at] acehoffman.org

-----------------------------------------

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Japan's biggest problem...

April 16th, 2011

Dear Readers,

It's hard to say what Japan's biggest problem is right now.

Is it mud in Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1, which is preventing proper cooling? A criticality event and accompanying steam or hydrogen explosion of the reactor pressure vessel cannot be ruled out, which would spew much higher levels of deadly radiation throughout the site, likely causing complete abandonment -- leading to more meltdowns and spent fuel pool fires.

Cracks in the reactor pressure vessel of Unit 2? These cracks are causing highly radioactive water to leak out, making it difficult to approach many parts of units 1, 2, and 3.

Melted fuel in Units 1 through 3? That's all but confirmed.

Cracks in Unit 4's spent fuel pool? That's where the fuel had just been taken out of the reactor and is extremely "hot." They can't keep it covered because the pool is leaking.

The cesium-134 and 137, and Iodine-131 that's showing up in Unit 4's spent fuel pool? It indicates an ongoing chain reaction: A criticality! That's certainly very bad news!

The radioactive water that's evaporating and flowing into the ocean and seeping everywhere? In some places it's 100 million times more radioactive than the legal limits (billions of times above normal levels).

The aftershocks? There have been nearly a thousand since The Great Sendai Quake of March 11th, 2011.

The effects of those aftershocks on other nuclear power plants as well as on Fukushima Daiichi? That certainly could become their biggest problem very quickly.

Public apathy in spite of it all? That's always a killer, just like mob action is.

Public ignorance? Another killer.

A falling yen?

A plummeting world market for Japanese products, especially food products?

A criminal, inept, bankrupt Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO)?

More than likely, the biggest problem facing Japan is STILL the official lies and secrecy of the nuclear establishment: Government and industry working in collusion to downplay the seriousness of this accident, and to deny what this event portends for the future of nuclear power around the world.

We're only just learning how much information TEPCO and the Japanese government withheld right from the start: Lots. And we still haven't seen any American spy satellite thermal imaging from those first few crucial days. I find THAT very strange! But now we know why the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan ran away -- those invisible clouds were thick with poison in those early days. They still are.

I wonder what mattered most to the average Japanese citizen on March 10th, 2011, the day before the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear tragedy?

Were they thinking about how badly they should shut down Fukushima Daiichi and all the other old nuclear power plants they have in Japan -- about 55 -- and switch to renewable energy solutions?

Probably not.

Probably most Americans aren't giving it much thought now, either. If they think about it at all, they probably think switching off the nuclear power plants would be too difficult. But the only difficult part is convincing ourselves to do it! Overcoming the ignorant belief that it CAN'T be done is the hard part!

Right now, millions of Japanese are undoubtedly wondering if they should continue to live just outside the official exclusion zone for Fukushima Daiichi. Should they move further away? Where can they live in Japan that's NOT near a nuclear power plant? Not many places!

There are reports that the Japanese government has been bulldozing hot (radioactive) fuel into the ground, fuel which was blasted as far as a kilometer from the reactor complex (most likely, from the explosion in reactor unit 3).

Of course, retrieving the fuel isn't easy since you can't go near even a little pellet of it. It's speculated they were "just" bulldozing a "safe" (all things are relative, aren't they?) route to and from the reactor, and plan to pick up the fuel pellets later.

If they can find them.

Will they ever try to retrieve the fuel from the water? Maybe half-heartedly, but most will probably stay there, and drift with the tides, and kill dolphins, whales, tuna and every other creature that comes near, just as those pellets would kill us.

A dead zone will remain if they don't clean it up. Don't swim there. Tell that to the dolphins, supposedly the most intelligent animal on earth besides us. I can't believe we're all that much brighter, really. We show so few signs of intelligence these days...

What a mess!

What can we do?

Here is a link to a chart produced by LLNL, showing their estimate that Americans waste more than HALF the energy we "use"!

http://cdn.physorg.com/newman/gfx/news/hires/2011/usenergyuse.jpg

The chart shows that Americans waste more than TWICE the output of ALL our nuclear power plants combined!

Adding those two facts together, it's easy to conclude that we could shut down ALL the nuclear power plants in America -- and half the coal plants as a bonus -- if we JUST stopped wasting electricity!

And that's without making a single improvement in gas mileage!

And without a single improvement in the 0.11% of energy we get from solar power, or the 0.70% we obtain from wind, or the 0.37% we obtain from geothermal sources. Raise those properly, and we could close ALL the nuclear power plants and ALL the fossil fuel plants!

Is it "that simple"?

YES.

It's not even that hard.

Over 50 MILLION cars are produced each year around the world -- about 4 million of them in America. Plus trucks, buses, airplanes, buildings, roads, bridges., rockets and yes: Weapons. Lots of weapons. We may be in a slump, but there's lot's going on even so.

The average car lasts about ten years. With better maintenance (change your oil!) and fewer accidents (drive defensively!) we could easily stretch that to eleven -- without even building better cars -- couldn't we? (But if we DO want more reliable cars, I know where we can get them -- cheap! A whole boatload reportedly got sent back to Japan last week from Russia for being "twice" as radioactive as normal...)

If the assembly lines for one year's output of automobiles were converted to produce wind turbines instead, and one wind turbine equals 100 cars worth of effort (which I think is not unreasonable...) then America could build 40,000 wind turbines instead, in just one year.

At 5 megawatts each, and 20% duty factor, not unreasonable figures, that would produce an average daily output of 40,000 megawatts of energy. Pumped storage and other peaker plants would take up the slack on calm days and, of course, the better our national energy grid -- the more interconnected and reliable it is -- the better this plan will work.

I think we could build half a MILLION wind turbines in a year, not merely 40,000. And I think we could still turn out a few cars, too.

If not, perhaps Japan can help us automate our manufacturing procedures and improve the quality of our output?

I'm really sick of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Why don't we protect ourselves? Who needs another warning?

We've seen earthquakes recently in three of the four "corners" of the "Ring of Fire." The one that's missing is the United States' west coast, where San Onofre, Diablo Canyon, and I are all located.

And of course, we've also had another warning: Tsunamis in the Pacific Ocean which have already destroyed at least three reactors as radioactive smoke, steam and water billow and waft and spew, and will probably continue to do so for a decade or more. The 2004 tsunami that struck Indonesia damaged a nuclear reactor complex in India, thousands of miles away from the epicenter of the quake which caused the tsunami. Now we know how lucky we really were back then!

We also know what happens when no one pays attention. In the intervening years, all these old reactors could easily have been shut down. The warning could have been heeded.

Besides the earthquakes and tsunamis, we've had other warnings: The root causes of the nuclear catastrophes in Europe (Chernobyl) and the Far East (Japan) were, in a word, negligence. On that count, America's surely been VERY lucky! Negligence at the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant in Ohio in 2002 only caused a near-miss. Negligence, with or without an earthquake, tsunami, tornado, or terrorism to push it along, has been a factor in scores of near-misses at nuclear power plants in America and around the world.

Smart gamblers don't rely on luck. Smart gamblers either have an edge (a cheat), or they don't gamble more than they can afford to lose -- they play only for fun. At every nuclear power plant, somebody gambles with far more than they can afford to lose: Your life. They're betting your life that their luck will hold out, but luck never holds out forever.

Our fate doesn't have to be like that of Japan. Their's didn't have to, either -- they had plenty of warnings.

We've had plenty of warnings too. We COULD be different from the Japanese.

We could heed the warnings. We could learn from their tragic mistakes.

Or we can learn for ourselves, the hard way.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman Carlsbad, California, USA

The author has been learning about nuclear power since the 1960s. He was born in the mid-1950s. His highly acclaimed book on nuclear power issues, first published in 2008 and updated in 2010, is available for free download at his web site: www.acehoffman.org

---------------------------------------------------------------------- LLNL energy usage chart was found here: ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Article by Lisa Zyga in Physorg.com:

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-04-energy_1.html

----------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------- Contact information for the author of this newsletter:

-----------------------------------------

Ace Hoffman
Author, The Code Killers:
An Expose of the Nuclear Industry
Free download: acehoffman.org
Blog: acehoffman.blogspot.com
YouTube: youtube.com/user/AceHoffman
Carlsbad, CA
Email: ace [at] acehoffman.org

-----------------------------------------

Thursday, April 14, 2011

"What gores Japan's ox..."

April 14th, 2011

Dear Readers:

Drink to your health!

In the 1950s and '60s, people used to say: "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may be radioactive!" when they worried about "The Bomb". Or rather, when they didn't.

Well, here we go again. The Slow Bomb. A slow death for the reactors. Ten years or more.

How fitting. Radiation's effects are usually a slow death for us, too. Ten years or more.

Below is a letter about WHAT to eat and drink, from Dr. Rosalie Bertell, perhaps the most eminent scientist alive (or left, or perhaps ever) on the study of the damage to human health from radiation, and the author of the books "No Immediate Danger: Prognosis for a Radioactive Earth" (1985) and "Planet Earth: The Latest Weapon of War" (2005), as well as hundreds of articles, poems, chapters, etc.. Dr. Bertell, Grey Nun of the Sacred Heart, received her Ph. D. degree in Biometrics with minors in Biology and Biochemistry from the Catholic University of America, in 1966.

Here is a very brief biographical sketch of Dr. Bertell:

http://iicph.org/bio_rosalie_bertell

We are honored by, and thank Dr. Bertell for, her contribution to this newsletter.

Ace Hoffman Carlsbad, CA

----------------------------------------------------------

Today's items:

(1) Letter from Dr. Rosalie Bertell regarding protection from radiation (2) Press Release: Web site where USDA-grade KI can be purchased (3) Janette Sherman: Will Fukushima Be Worse Than Chernobyl? (from CounterPunch) (4) Ace interview on the Internet by Alex Smith, Radio Ecoshock (5) How the URL got messed up last time (excuses, excuses...) by Ace Hoffman (6) Contact information for the author of this newsletter

---------------------------------------------------------- (1) Letter from Dr. Rosalie Bertell: ----------------------------------------------------------

From: "Rosalie Bertell, GNSH" <rosaliebertell@greynun.org>

Subject: RE: Sayonara...

Dear Ace, I am telling people to use distilled water. It can leach out the radioactive heavy metals from cooked products. Fruits can be soaked in it. If there is some internal contamination it is safe to drink even for a pregnant woman. Do not reuse the cooking water but throw it on the ground where no food is raised. Internally keep up hydration so that the nuclear debris does not go back into storage in the bone. See enclosure! Rosalie Bertell

-------------------------- Enclosure: --------------------------

Dear Friends and Residents of this interdependent global home, I cannot give magical answers to everyone's needs at this time of crisis with the Japanese nuclear disaster. However, I can give you a few tips on how to listen to the official "expert" statements given on CNN or NHK or other networks, plus some tips on what to eat or not eat. LISTENING First, there is a great difference between medical use of radiation, with direct risk and benefit to a patient and the random distribution of a comparable dose to a large population. In the latter case the risk is magnified by the size of the population and the benefit goes to filling some general society benefit. Hence the individual harm may be sacrificed for the military or economic good of a country. How or why we must make this trade off has never been well understood by the public or well explained and agreed to by reasonable civil society. There is also a significant difference between internal contamination with radioactive debris from a nuclear disaster and direct irradiation from an external medical devise under the control of a professional who can ask for your consent, limit the exposure and take care of any problems which might unwittingly immediately occur. Medical radiologists keep no record of the long term results. When internal radioactive tracers are used in medicine they have short half lives (both biologically and physically) and are not similar to plutonium, uranium or thorium or other debris found in nuclear disasters. Nevertheless, both exposures can be significant, and require some consent by those at risk. Unfortunately, this prior consent is absent in a disaster! EATING AND DRINKING Persons with good general health and good basic nutritional health will fare better when the food, air or water is contaminated since the body normally chooses uncontaminated food when it is available to it. Avoid eating salads if you are suspicious of it being contaminated by fallout or contaminated water, and always wash carefully fruits and vegetables to remove any surface contamination. Do not take Potassium Iodide without medical supervision. The iodine 131 has a short half life, and probably will not travel very far from the source unless the release from the reactor is explosive, sending the debris high into the atmosphere. If there is radioactive iodine in milk then there probably also is cobalt 60, a very dangerous gamma radiation emitter. The inorganic cobalt is incorporated into organic vitamin B 12 in the udder of the cow and becomes much more dangerous especially to the liver when ingested in milk. Avoid fresh milk for the children, unfortunately! Be careful to get sufficient rest so that the body can undertake efficient repair of any damage. Keep hydrated with the best water available to you! Although it is true that alpha radiation, the primary radiation in early fallout, can be stopped by paper, when this same radioactivity is released inside the body it does at least 20 times the cellular damage as the equivalent dose of X-ray. This would be contact dose, the highest dose a radioactive atom can give. If you have distilled water available, or are able to prepare your own, use it for cooking vegetables that are from contaminated areas. This is clearly true in Japan, but also in the US since our bread basket is in California! It will leach out heavy metal debris. Throw out the waste water! You could also soak fruit in distilled water for the same reason. This is safe even for a pregnant woman and her fetus. If you live in or near to the contamination, use distilled water also for drinking. You can do this safely for up to two years. This was the only thing mentioned as helpful by the atomic veterans, that were deliberately exposed to nuclear radiation after WW II to see if they could function in a nuclear war. I like to hold the food in my hands and thank it for its goodness. Then I ask that it protect me from any harmful contaminants it holds. I think this a sort of modern Prayer before Meals, and not irrelevant under the circumstances. I wish you well, and especially hold in prayer the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and all the other radiation victims/survivors of our world, for they are terrified by this massive threat which they hoped no one would ever have to suffer again! Peace! Rosalie Bertell

---------------------------------------------------------- (2) KI: Press release about a new online availability: ----------------------------------------------------------

First (below, top) is my response to their press release, and then (below, bottom) is their press release. My gut reaction is: Definitely a company I would do business with (although I still have lots of KI from Y2K (remember Y2K?))! -- Ace

---------------------------------

April 14th, 2011

Dear samandy.com,

Thank you for sending me this, it's wonderfully written and I will include it in today's newsletter, which is about what people can do to protect themselves.

Regarding your press release, I do think KI's been recommended a lot longer than 10 years, though. Since Chernobyl at least. But the government's never been very good about passing it out and informing people about it.

We assume it's being passed out around Fukushima but it quite possibly was done too late, since the largest iodine bursts came early (we think, and not to say they aren't on-going...) and once the body takes up the radioactive Iodine, it's too late, and the KI is of much more limited value (which is NOT to say one should give up and don't take it if you have to start later!).

But it is to say that individuals and families really have to have it on-hand if they live near a reactor and even then, the officials never tell you when there's been a major release until it's too late! Regulators and plant owners need to admit it when it happens, so people can IMMEDIATELY take the KI -- and get out of Dodge!

Thank you again,

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman Carlsbad, CA

----------------------------

At 10:32 AM 4/14/2011 -0500, Sam Andy wrote:

Sam Andy

Contact: J. R. Sauer FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Telephone: (719) 269-3030 Or 1-888-331-0358 Email: jrsy2k@earthlink.net

www.samandy.com

Sam Andy Offers Protection Against Radiation

Potassium Iodide Added to Inventory of Survival Supplies and Storage Foods

A provider of long-term storage foods for over half a century, Sam Andyâ Foods, located in Canon City, CO has added vital protection, a 14-day supply of FDA approved, potassium iodide, as of April 11, 2011, to citizens in the event of a nuclear catastrophe such as the recent disaster in Japan. The firm's CEO, J.R. Sauer, says "The decision to make this inexpensive product readily available was prompted by "runs" on pharmacies or health food shops and long waiting lists for customers throughout the West Coast earlier this month" when it became apparent that radiation or wind-blown radioactive iodine from Fukashima had reached the U.S. from California to Washington state. Potassium iodide has been recommended by public health authorities as a protective measure against the uptake of radioactive iodine by the thyroid gland, potentially leading to cancer or other illness, for over ten years.

However, in view of the slow response of the government to Katrina and other civil defense measures, many people feel safer providing for their own immediate families. With five aging (30-39 years) U.S. nuclear reactors on or close to identified earthquake faults, protective steps need to be considered. There are four nuclear reactor sites along the West Coast ­ one nuclear reactor site in Washington, two in California and one in Arizona and several more close to the New Madrid fault in the center of the country. (from: http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/energy/blogs/nuclear-power-and-earthquake-zones-overlap-in-the-us)

Potassium iodide blocks the uptake of radioactive iodine. Growing children are especially vulnerable to this danger. As this product has a long and stable "shelf-life", it is recommended that individuals living within 10 to 50 miles of a nuclear reactor or research facility have a 14-day supply on hand in case of a failure or accident. For more information, including research data, readers are urged to contact Sam Andy, toll-free, at 1-888-331-0358 or visit our website at: www.samandy.com. We are glad to discuss this product, the need for it and how to use it. ###

TO IGNORE THE FACTS DOES NOT CHANGE THE FACTS. -- Anonymous

"EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED TO EVERYTHING ELSE -- and we really ARE 'all one' (as in one big family) so what gores Japan's ox gores the rest of us, eventually." -- Avalon Bruce, M.P.H.

---------------------------------------------------------- (3) Janette Sherman: Will Fukushima Be Worse Than Chernobyl? (from CounterPunch): ----------------------------------------------------------

This originally appeared in Counterpunch in late March, but is well worth reading: http://www.counterpunch.org/sherman03242011.html

The Public Has a Right to Know

Will Fukushima Be Worse Than Chernobyl?

By Dr. JANETTE SHERMAN, MD

A little over six months ago I wrote: " Given profound weather effects (earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, etc.), human fallibility, and military conflicts, many believe that it only a matter of time before there is another nuclear catastrophe. Nuclear fallout knows no state or national boundaries, and will contribute to increase in illnesses, decrease in intelligence, and instability throughout the world. The economic costs of radioactive pollution and care of contaminated citizens are staggering. No country can maintain itself if its' citizens are economically, intellectually, politically, and socially impoverished." [My submission was rejected… too alarmist? ]

While 25 years separates the sites and the events that led to the catastrophes at Fukushima and Chernobyl, the effects will be very similar ­ and will remain so for years to decades to centuries.

After Chernobyl, there was a delay in collecting and releasing information. The nuclear industry and many governments are reluctant to alarm the public, but the public has a right to know what the risks are and if possible to avoid ­ as much as possible ­ those risks.

The science of radiobiology is not new. When we know the identity of a radioisotope, we can predict how it will interact with living matter ­ human, animal or plant. Decades of research have confirmed that radioisotopes become deposited in various parts of living systems.

In humans, I-131 and I-129 concentrate in the thyroid, Cs-137 in soft tissue, and Sr-90 in teeth and bones.

Key to understanding effects is the difference between external and internal radiation. While external radiation, as from x-rays, neutron, gamma and cosmic rays can harm and kill, internal radiation (alpha and beta particles) when absorbed by ingestion and inhalation, releases damaging energy in direct contact with tissues and cells.

There is serious concern for the workers at the Fukushima plant, because of their proximity to the disabled reactors and to the fuel rods that have lost their protective cover of water. Some of the Fukushima workers, as with the "liquidators" at Chernobyl are exposed to dangerous levels of gamma and neutron radiation.

Those not in close proximity to the those sources of radiation will be spared some of the intense exposure, but will not escape the exposure from radionuclides that emit alpha and beta particles, as well as gamma radiation. These enter the bodies of humans by inhalation and ingestion of food and water.

Of the Chernobyl "liquidators" the young and healthy men and women who worked to stop the fires and to contain the release of radioactivity from Chernobyl, by 2005, some 125,000 of the estimated total of 830,000 were dead (15%) mostly from circulatory, blood diseases and malignancies.

Children born to liquidator families were seriously affected with birth defects and thyroid diseases, including cancer, and loss of intellect. But other children, based upon the research of multiple researchers, it is estimated that in the heavily contaminated areas of Belarus only 20% of children are considered healthy, placing an enormous burden upon governmental resources to provide medical care and education for those affected.

Many pro-nuclear critics have downplayed the risks from Chernobyl attributing concerns to "radio-phobia" but documentation of disease is not limited to the human population. With few exceptions, animal and plant systems that were studied demonstrated structural abnormalities in offspring, loss of tolerance and viability, and genetic changes. Wild animals and plants did not drink alcohol, smoke or worry about compensation.

When a radiation release occurs we do not know in advance the part of the biosphere it will contaminate, the animals, plants, and people that will be affected, nor the amount or duration of harm. In many cases, damage is random, depending upon the health, age, and status of development and the amount, kind, and variety of radioactive contamination that reaches humans, animals and plants.

For this reason, open and transparent data must be collected and maintained for all biological systems ­ human, animal, plant. We must have international support of research on the consequences of the Fukushima and support of Chernobyl research must continue in order to mitigate the ongoing and increasing damage. Access to information must be transparent and open to all, across all borders. The WHO must severe its' cooperation with the IAEA, in place since 1959, and assume independent responsibility in support of international health.

Given the emerging problems from the Fukushima nuclear plants and the continuing and known problems caused by the Chernobyl catastrophe, we must ask ourselves: before we commit ourselves to economic and technologic support of nuclear energy, who, what and where are we willing to sacrifice and for how long?

Janette D. Sherman, M. D. is the author of Life's Delicate Balance: Causes and Prevention of Breast Cancer and Chemical Exposure and Disease

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1560328703/counterpunchmaga

and is a specialist in internal medicine and toxicology. She edited the book Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and Nature

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1573317578/counterpunchmaga

written by A. V. Yablokov, V. B., Nesterenko and A. V. Nesterenko, published by the New York Academy of Sciences in 2009. Her primary interest is the prevention of illness through public education. She can be reached at: toxdoc.js@verizon.net and www.janettesherman.com

This originally appeared in Counterpunch: http://www.counterpunch.org/sherman03242011.html

###

---------------------------------------------------------- (4) Ace interview on the Internet by Alex Smith, Radio Ecoshock: ----------------------------------------------------------

I plan to create a You-Tube video with the audio track and post it on You-Tube, but in the meantime, I've posted Alex Smith's mp3 audio track at my web site here:

http://www.acehoffman.org/audio/ecoshock/ES_Ace_Hoffman.mp3

-----------------------------------

At 05:25 PM 4/13/2011 -0700, Alex Smith wrote:

Hi Ace

You should have received via yousendit.com a download mp3 of our chat.

You have my permission to post this at your site, or send it on to others. There are no ads (though it does give my web site, as well as yours, at the end).

The full 1 hour Radio Ecoshock show for this week is now ready and being distributed.

After a brief introduction, I run

1. Arnie Gundersen interview

2. News recordings, mostly from English language Japanese TV about the site, government response, and various eye-opening admissions

3. An interview with California nuclear activist Ace Hoffman (a chat)

4. More suggestions of conspiracy, such as:

* a political fight to unseat PM Kan;

* the possibility that Japan's nuclear power industry is also secretly preparing nuclear materials for their own bomb, if ever needed;

* a fight described in Bloomberg between nuclear alliances (and countries) to get the multi-billion dollar, decades long contract to "dismantle" the Fukushima 1 site.

5. I also play clips from a song about Fukushima by a Bob Dylan tribute artist in Germany. Find that song here on You tube.

The CD quality version of this week's Radio Ecoshock show is 56 MB here:

http://www.ecoshock.net/eshock11/ES_110415_Show.mp3

The Lo-Fi 14 MB version is here:

http://www.ecoshock.net/eshock11/ES_110415_Show_LoFi.mp3

The blog which describes some of this, with a whack of links, is here:

http://www.ecoshock.info/2011/04/fukushima-nuclear-mutiny.html

Use those links or files as you wish.

Thanks so much for talking with me. You made me feel better, sort of like calling a friend.

Alex Smith Radio Ecoshock http://www.ecoshock.org

###

---------------------------------------------------------- (5) How the URL got messed up last time (excuses, excuses...) by Ace Hoffman: ----------------------------------------------------------

April 14th, 2011

World Nuclear Association attempts to track who uses their articles by sending people to a different address from the actual one. They do that with their articles, too. That's why, when I give the URLs for their articles, I use the print versions, which they don't seem to have figured out a way to track.

On today's earlier email, I partially prevented WNA from tracking who used their attempt to "stack the deck", by sending the email in "plain text" format, as I always do, but the software tacked on the period at the end of their URL and I didn't notice (I had used the email to vote, forgetting about their tracking mechanism...). Hopefully most of you figured it out.

It's interesting to note that WNA wants to track the newsletters they send out so carefully. Isn't it? As of 10 minutes ago (345 pm PST, April 14th, 2011) voting was still open and the "201" address below worked for two people.

Sincerely

Ace Hoffman Carlsbad, CA

follow-up: At 11:19 AM 4/14/2011 -0700, John Carpenter wrote: Ace, URL still not working....."reset" message. Bests, John

-------------------------------

Yeah, not for me either.. and I just used it before I sent that... hmmmmmmmm

This is the URL as it worked. Totally the same now....

http://www.economist.com/debate/days/view/681

And the voting was neck-and-neck until the WNA flooded it (actually, I think the anti-view was ahead...).

Thanks,

Ace -------------------------------

Another possible URL: http://www.economist.com/debate/debates/overview/201

----------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------- (6) Contact information for the author of this newsletter:

-----------------------------------------

Ace Hoffman
Author, The Code Killers:
An Expose of the Nuclear Industry
Free download: acehoffman.org
Blog: acehoffman.blogspot.com
YouTube: youtube.com/user/AceHoffman
Carlsbad, CA
Email: ace [at] acehoffman.org

-----------------------------------------