Hosono Goshi, special adviser to Japanese Prime Minister Kan Naoto, said attempts to control Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant will take “several months”. Hosono also said that the plant is still “critical”.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano Yukio, admitted that the government, and Tokyo Electric, have not been forthright with the public about how bad the situation really is. Edano said that it was time for a “highly independent” panel to review the situation at the damaged nuclear plant.
Text: AAron Hutchins
Photos by: Alex Hutchins (click on the pics to make them bigger. More pics, including plaques that explain HTRE, in the Galleries section, click on the INL Nuclear Power Site)
Barely noticeable from the two lane highway, sitting literally in the middle of nowhere, a brick building with some strange caged objects next to it. Getting any closer doesn’t help you identify the metallic two story tall objects, behind locked fences with barbed wire on top. They seem extraterrestrial. Perhaps some ancient Alien visitors left behind their space vehicle?
HTRE-3
It’s like something out of X-Files. But this isn’t Area 51, in Nevada. It’s not Roswell, New Mexico. It’s eastern Idaho, and today is windy and cold. As my son Alex said, “It’s Big Wind.”
As far as ‘ancient’ goes, well, some people might think 1950s is ancient. That’s when the strange twisted metal craft first appeared. Extraterrestrial? Many people in the 1950s thought the scientists of the day were out of this world with their crazy ideas, like nuclear powered jet aircraft.
Taking Exit 93 off Interstate 15, turn west towards Arco. Stay on Highway 26 for about 40 miles. As you drive the lonely 40 miles you’ll pass the big “Welcome to the INL” sign. Then you’ll come to an intersection, make a left, just follow the arrows to Arco. You’ll see building complexes to your right, that’s part of the main Idaho National Laboratory complex.
INL Entrance
At that point pay attention to your left. You should see a lone building in the distance, EBR-1, the world’s first nuclear reactor. That’s where the strange alien vehicle looking things are. There should be a left turn lane coming up, with signs for EBR-1. Make the turn, then another left turn lane, again follow the sign for EBR-1.
It’s a desolate place, my son and I were the only ones there that windy, cold day. We passed a couple of parked cars on the roadside, with no one in them, out in the middle of nowhere, mmm.
EBR-1
There they are, like something left behind, and forgotten, by some advanced species, in the middle of the vast, windy East Idaho desert, HTRE-1, 2 & 3. The three huge Heat Transfer Reactor Experiments units making up world’s first nuclear powered turbine engine. Intentionally twisted metal, big pipes, gigantic turbos, and two little jet engine exhaust at the back. Don’t think these guys are safe, they’re radiation warning signs all over. Many of the openings and fittings are sealed off. Even the giant weld seams on the reactor have been recently coated with a white colored material.
Nuclear powered jet engines and the lead-lined train that pulled them.
Some people would say that only an evil scientist would come up with such a thing. Maybe they’re right? General Electric spent one billion taxpayer dollars on the project, before it was canceled by President Kennedy in 1961. And that’s 1950s dollars, whew!
There are several informational plaques that give the visitor more understandable, and more interesting, info than what I found on the internet. Like “Operation Wiener Roast”. They actually burned a nuclear turbine engine to see if dangerous levels of radiation would be spread if a nuclear powered aircraft crashed.
Operation Wiener Roast
Testing of the reactor turbine was successful, but an actual aircraft was never developed. The program was conducted in Idaho, in Test Area North, of what is now called the INL. The project was managed by the U.S. Air Force and the Atomic Energy Commission. There’s lots more information on the signs, you need to go there to look for yourself.
One things for sure, this archeological find proves that the U.S. government spent taxpayer dollars on some really far out stuff in the 1950s.
Radiation signs next to jet engines.
Lead-lined train in the Arco desert in Eastern Idaho. Photo by Alexander Hutchins.
GHOSTLY NUKE TRAIN ROLLIN’ ‘CROSS IDAHO DESERT
“Notwithstanding the tragic loss of life in the Gulf of Mexico, we achieved an exemplary statistical safety record as measured by our total recordable incident rate and total potential severity rate.”-Transocean, LTD
Transocean, one of the companies involved with the BP (British Petroleum) oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, gave it’s executives pay raises and bonuses, for having their “best year” ever for safety!
Can you say “What the F**k!” Let me remind you that 11 people were killed on 20 April 2010, after an explosion on the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon platform. Nine of those killed were Transocean employees. And they say they had their best year ever? If that was their best year ever then they need to be investigated big time. How many other people have died while working for Transocean?
Also, the disaster isn’t over with. There are still plumes of stuff coming up from the bottom of the Gulf. The well that the Deepwater Horizon was drilling at the time of the explosion may have been capped, but there are reports that plumes are coming up from other areas, that might have been caused by previous drilling by the Deepwater Horizon platform.
More proof that corporations don’t give a crap about you.
Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric, met with Tokyo Electric chairman Katsumata Tsunehisa on Sunday.
TEPCo officials said GE’s Immelt offered ‘maximum’ support for dealing with the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which GE designed.
According to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, there are 23 nuclear plants in the United States that are similar in design as Fukushima Daiichi.
Immelt will meet with the Japanese Economy Minister on Monday. Under Japanese regulations, if the design of the plant is proven faulty then GE can be sued.
Immelt has also been pushing for taxpayer supported nuclear plant development in the U.S. The Guardian newspaper recently reminded people that Immelt once said that investors are not willing to take on the risks of nuclear power, and that those risks should be handled by the government (taxpayers). In other words, capitalist investors know nuclear power is a bad bet.
According to former Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, General Electric paid no U.S. taxes in 2010. He also wants Jeffery Immelt to resign from President Barack Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.
After three days of intense searching by about 20,000 U.S. and Japanese military personnel, only 78 bodies were found.
It was hoped the low tide would reveal more of the missing.
At this point, Japanese national police say there is more than 15,000 people missing. And that is based on reports from living relatives. Police say that the actual number is much higher, because entire families were washed away in the March 11 tsunami, leaving no one to report them missing. Also, documentation of residents in the hardest hit prefectures, were also washed away.
The death toll, so far, going by numbers presented at the prefectural level, is more than 10,000. Again, that is expected to go up as bodies are found.
‘‘Can’t you increase the number of examiners? The lives of farmers are at stake! It’s a matter of whether they can live tomorrow!’’-Sato Yuhei, Governor of Fukushima
The governor of Fukushima Prefecture is blasting the government for dragging its feet with the ongoing nuclear crisis. Especially when it comes to the safety of farm goods.
In response to the governor’s complaints, national government officials simply confirmed that they are short on staffing and equipment, for use in this specific nuclear crisis. Another way of admitting that the government was not prepared.
Coco Ichibanya, in Japan, had to shut down its curry plant for a week, because of the disasters.
The plant has restarted, but only for pork curry, beef curry production is still halted.
Tokyo Electric Power Company officials are concerned that Reactor 1, Fukushima Daiichi, could still build up explosive hydrogen gas.
To counter the problem they plan on injecting nitrogen into the containment vessel on Tuesday.
Another case of relatively low tech coming to the rescue. Tokyo Electric Power Company now using a type of polymeric powder to soak up contaminated water at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
The poly kitty litter, which is used in disposable diapers, can soak up to 50 times its weight.
Workers are using it in the cracked pit connected to Reactor 2.
According to Human Rights groups, and the United Nations, thousands of people in Mexico have been disappeared since the Drug War began, and the Mexican government is one of the suspects.
Those people being disappeared are not drug dealers, or drug runners, but human rights activists, oil workers, journalists and even migrant workers. The traditional ‘right’ leaning Mexican government has always viewed human rights activists as left wing commies, and more of a threat than illegal drug dealers.
To put the current situation in perspective, Mexico’s own National Commission on Human Rights, documented the disappearance of 532 people (disappeared by the government) thought to be rights activist in the 1960s-1970s (during the Cold War). Since 2006 more than 3,000 people have been disappeared.
In 2006, right wing President Felipe Calderón, went on the war path, officially against the drug lords. Is it a coincidence that the Mexican government’s so called war on drugs is actually killing and disappearing civilians?
The facts are that since the Mexican Drugs War began, the people being targeted are civilians, including U.S. citizens. Far more civilians have been killed than drug dealers. Keep in mind these killings are not from aerial bombing, but from shootings and beatings, and other means, by police, soldiers and drug gangs. That means the killers had to specifically target the victims.
To put it in perspective: In all of Afghanistan, in 2010, there were 2,421 civilian deaths (Congressional Research Service). In just one Mexican city, Ciudad Juarez, there were 3,111 civilian deaths. That’s one Mexican city compared to all of Afghanistan.
Total deaths in the Drugs War, according to Mexico’s Federal Attorney General’s office, just for 2010, is 12,456 people by the end of November. And that does not count people disappeared.
In the city of Saltillo, there are 118 documented cases of disappearances since 2007. The government security forces are believed to be involved in at least 25 of those. Human Rights Watch documented 12 cases of disappearances in the state of Nuevo León, in which government military personnel and police are believed to be involved.
Hypocritically the Mexican government signed the UN International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, in 2008. To be fair, not all disappearances are linked to the Mexican government, but it sure is strange that there should be skyrocketing numbers of civilian killed and disappeared, since the Drugs War started in 2006. Are both the Mexican military and police, and the drug gangs, that bad at finding their targets?