Glowing Green with Outrage By Adam Smith OpEdNews Op Eds 8/27/2013 ”………Unfortunately the reality has been that the media have simply not been doing their job. The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) has been allowed to dictate the narrative of what is occurring with basically no oversight. It turns out that the site was never actually contained and radioactive water has been leaking with “no accurate figures for radiation levels.” You may say that since this issue is being reported by all major news organizations now, the media is doing their job albeit in a very tardy fashion.
However, that would be missing the reality that this leaking radiation water is the least of our worries vis-a-vis the plant. Much less reported by the media is what will be required by the clean-up crew to end this whole saga. Reliable old Reuters often provides the on-the-ground breaking scoops that our local media then report to us. Despite their well-deserved reputation, it seems that most media organizations have chosen to ignore their recent scoop about the dangers involved in the clean-up process.
Essentially,
Tepco needs to remove 1300 spent fuel rods, containing 14,000 times the
amount of radiation dropped onto Japan in WWII, from a dilapidated,
flooding, and collapsing power plant that still sits in an
earthquake-prone location. The whole process will take about 40 years
and cost about eleven billion dollars. Each rod weighs 660 pounds, is 15
feet long, and cannot get too close to each other or will trigger a
chain-reaction. If exposed to air, they may also trigger a
chain-reaction. Usually, when these rods are moved as part of normal
operations, a sophisticated robot is used to guide the work and ensure
accuracy down to millimeters. Due to the damage caused by the
earthquake/tsunami, this is not possible and the cranes will be operated
in a poisonously radioactive area by scared human hands with all of
their limitations. These rods will be removed individually, one at a
time, and a mistake on any of them could trigger an unstoppable
chain-reaction…….. http://www.opednews.com/articles/Glowing-Green-with-Outrage-by-Adam-Smith-
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