Further to this post, here is an email that can be copied and sent to nuclear authorities.
They will need to receive many hundreds of these before they start to give it attention, so please spread this link widely.
I will add new addresses as I find them, but we can start today with :
iec-information@iaea.org (IAEA)
( WNA Outreach InitiativeDirector for Environment & Radiological Protection ) - email contact established, so email withdrawn from this page.
Dear [insert name or institution]
Emergency containment of Fukushima emissions
I am writing to express my concern that emissions of radioactive air and water from Fukushima are continuing, and are set to continue for many months.
This is not acceptable. The emissions can and must be stopped.
First, responsibility for the site should be taken over by the IAEA,as this is now an international problem. No expense should be spared in containing the radiation.
Second, in parallel with attempts to cool the reactors, measures to reduce and terminate emissions must be installed as a matter of urgency.
The technology needed to contain the radioactivity is simple, practical, and relatively cheap.
The essence is that contaminated air and water must be drawn off and filtered.
Ion-exchange resins are the prime candidate, but as many kinds of filter can be applied as may be helpful.
An outline of the engineering requirements are set out here: http://greenerblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/campaign-starts-for-emergency.html
Please respond with all due urgency to this reasonable request.
Sincerely
Thursday, April 07, 2011
Wednesday, April 06, 2011
Half Hearted Defence of Libyan People = no Exit Strategy for NATO
Journalists have been asking about the exit strategy from the UN R2P engagement in Libya ever since it started.
The answeris that the exit is bound up in the success of the mission.
The success of the mission depends on several factors - political actions such as blocking Libya State TV and recalling the mercenaries, and then military factors.
The fact is that NATO is sucking its thumb. Tanks and artillery have been pounding Libyas third largest city, Miserata, for many days. They are in the open, able to be hit, but only in the last 2 days has action been taken.
This half hearted action reflects a shade of opinion within NATO that actually sympathises with Gaddafi. Turkey is the main purveyor of this view within NATO, but there is also an unholy alliance in the commentariat between far right and far left, both of whom would prefer a laissez faire policy to human rights abuses.
Either the Allies pull their fingers out, or we are in for a long, bloody, drawn out human tragedy in Libya.
The answeris that the exit is bound up in the success of the mission.
The success of the mission depends on several factors - political actions such as blocking Libya State TV and recalling the mercenaries, and then military factors.
The fact is that NATO is sucking its thumb. Tanks and artillery have been pounding Libyas third largest city, Miserata, for many days. They are in the open, able to be hit, but only in the last 2 days has action been taken.
This half hearted action reflects a shade of opinion within NATO that actually sympathises with Gaddafi. Turkey is the main purveyor of this view within NATO, but there is also an unholy alliance in the commentariat between far right and far left, both of whom would prefer a laissez faire policy to human rights abuses.
Either the Allies pull their fingers out, or we are in for a long, bloody, drawn out human tragedy in Libya.
Campaign starts for Emergency Containment of Fukushima emissions
Below is an outline of the plan to stop emissions from Fukushima.
Please recirculate widely to get the concept running as a meme.
There is a letter here that can be sent to nuclear authorities.
Emergency containment of Fukushima emissions
Sadly, it seems that the situation at Fukushima is not under control*.
It is being suggested that emissions of radiation to the environment from the damaged reactors may continue for months.
This is not acceptable. The emissions can and must be stopped.
The alternative - cleaning up thousands of square kilometers of soil, not to mention marine contamination - would be prohibitively expensive in terms of environmental health and money.
First, responsibility for the site should be taken over by the IAEA, as this is now an international problem. No expense should be spared in containing the radiation.
Happily, the technology needed to contain the radioactivity is simple, practical, and relatively cheap. There are four main matters to be addressed :
Reactor Cooling
It is likely that attempts to cool the reactor will continue for a while, if only to maintain the illusion for TEPCO that the situation is under some kind of control.
The present method of cooling involves a linear process of inserting water, and discharging the resultant waste water to the marine environment.
This is not acceptable in the long term.
An alternative would be to recirculate the water, cooling it by passing it through a heat pump. This would be energy intensive, but would eliminate discharges to the ocean. It could also continued after the site is capped, if cooling coils in hot areas could be put in place. Whether such coils would be able to extract a significant amount of heat is questionable.
The alternative is to abandon cooling altogether. After all, it is not practical to continue cooling for many decades, which is the lenght of time that the reactors are expected to remain hot.
If cooling is abandoned, there will follow an accumulation of heat, and almost certainly downward migration of the melted fuel elements into the subsoil until the hot fuel makes contact with ground water.
This will result in steam formation, possibly at times with explosive force.
Ground water will be contaminated, and left to itself, will diffuse far and wide, eventually reaching aquifers from which water is abstracted for human use.
This must be avoided or mitigated.
Groundwater abstraction and treatment
Bore holes must be drilled to reach the ground water. Contaminated ground water must be abstracted and pumped through an ion-exchange resin and such other filters and processes as necessary to reduce contamination to as low a level as technically achievable.
The purified water can be recycled to the cooling effort if necessary.
Emissions to Air
Emissions to air can be stopped by covering the reactors and extracting the contaminated air and steam for treatment.
Reactor 2 still has intact secondary containment. The rectangular window in the containment should be fitted with a duct through which the steam can be drawn and passed to a series of filters. The filter design choice can be a combination of particle filter, cyclone, ion-exchange washing or any other suitable modality. It is simple, standard engineering. The filters can be changed, modified and added to according to experience.
Reactor 2 will be the pilot for the other, damaged reactors, which will need to be enclosed with fabric containment. Once this is in place, air extraction can begin, again being passed to filters.
The contaminated resins and filters will be stored as nuclear waste.
Entombment
Concrete has been suggested as a method of entombment. This is expensive and unyeilding in the event of explosion, with the result that the force of the explosion will be diverted downwards and laterally. It would present a barrier to further work if it is later decided that access to the reactors is necessary.
Therefore the preferred method is to use earth, which is cheap, and in plentiful supply. It will also dampen the force of any explosions that may occur.
Earth moving equipment and bulldozers should be mobilised now. Some earth can be obtained locally, scooping out a pond which may be used to hold contaminated water. Earth may also be brought from other sites in Japan, and stockpiled ready for use. This work can therefore start today.
Earth will be piled up around the walls of the reactors, and when complete, the reactors can be filled with boron sand.
When complete, the mounded earth can be capped with an impermeable fabric layer. An extraction duct can be passed into the interior of this layer, ensuring that all gases diffusing through the earth and sand will be captured, treated and stored.
Conclusion
The central object of the operation now is to limit and reduce the amount of radionuclides going to the environment.
It is feasible in engineering terms, and it is cheaper.
The challenge and difficulty will be to get the decision makers to initiate the containment process in a timely way. Political pressure from environmental NGOs, Green Parties, citizens, and engineers will be necessary for this to happen.
Please pass this letter on far and wide to anyone who may be interested.
For updates and feedback, email to rlawson@gn.apc.org, or search www.greenerblog.blogspot.com for "Fukushima". A Facebook page will be set up, with updates about this campaign, and contacts of people to write to.
Thank you for your concern and commitment to reducing the scale of the Fukushima disaster
Please recirculate widely to get the concept running as a meme.
There is a letter here that can be sent to nuclear authorities.
Emergency containment of Fukushima emissions
Sadly, it seems that the situation at Fukushima is not under control*.
It is being suggested that emissions of radiation to the environment from the damaged reactors may continue for months.
This is not acceptable. The emissions can and must be stopped.
The alternative - cleaning up thousands of square kilometers of soil, not to mention marine contamination - would be prohibitively expensive in terms of environmental health and money.
First, responsibility for the site should be taken over by the IAEA, as this is now an international problem. No expense should be spared in containing the radiation.
Happily, the technology needed to contain the radioactivity is simple, practical, and relatively cheap. There are four main matters to be addressed :
- Reactor cooling
- Groundwater emissions
- Emissions to air
- Entombment
Reactor Cooling
It is likely that attempts to cool the reactor will continue for a while, if only to maintain the illusion for TEPCO that the situation is under some kind of control.
The present method of cooling involves a linear process of inserting water, and discharging the resultant waste water to the marine environment.
This is not acceptable in the long term.
An alternative would be to recirculate the water, cooling it by passing it through a heat pump. This would be energy intensive, but would eliminate discharges to the ocean. It could also continued after the site is capped, if cooling coils in hot areas could be put in place. Whether such coils would be able to extract a significant amount of heat is questionable.
The alternative is to abandon cooling altogether. After all, it is not practical to continue cooling for many decades, which is the lenght of time that the reactors are expected to remain hot.
If cooling is abandoned, there will follow an accumulation of heat, and almost certainly downward migration of the melted fuel elements into the subsoil until the hot fuel makes contact with ground water.
This will result in steam formation, possibly at times with explosive force.
Ground water will be contaminated, and left to itself, will diffuse far and wide, eventually reaching aquifers from which water is abstracted for human use.
This must be avoided or mitigated.
Groundwater abstraction and treatment
Bore holes must be drilled to reach the ground water. Contaminated ground water must be abstracted and pumped through an ion-exchange resin and such other filters and processes as necessary to reduce contamination to as low a level as technically achievable.
The purified water can be recycled to the cooling effort if necessary.
Emissions to Air
Emissions to air can be stopped by covering the reactors and extracting the contaminated air and steam for treatment.
Reactor 2 still has intact secondary containment. The rectangular window in the containment should be fitted with a duct through which the steam can be drawn and passed to a series of filters. The filter design choice can be a combination of particle filter, cyclone, ion-exchange washing or any other suitable modality. It is simple, standard engineering. The filters can be changed, modified and added to according to experience.
Reactor 2 will be the pilot for the other, damaged reactors, which will need to be enclosed with fabric containment. Once this is in place, air extraction can begin, again being passed to filters.
The contaminated resins and filters will be stored as nuclear waste.
Entombment
Concrete has been suggested as a method of entombment. This is expensive and unyeilding in the event of explosion, with the result that the force of the explosion will be diverted downwards and laterally. It would present a barrier to further work if it is later decided that access to the reactors is necessary.
Therefore the preferred method is to use earth, which is cheap, and in plentiful supply. It will also dampen the force of any explosions that may occur.
Earth moving equipment and bulldozers should be mobilised now. Some earth can be obtained locally, scooping out a pond which may be used to hold contaminated water. Earth may also be brought from other sites in Japan, and stockpiled ready for use. This work can therefore start today.
Earth will be piled up around the walls of the reactors, and when complete, the reactors can be filled with boron sand.
When complete, the mounded earth can be capped with an impermeable fabric layer. An extraction duct can be passed into the interior of this layer, ensuring that all gases diffusing through the earth and sand will be captured, treated and stored.
Conclusion
The central object of the operation now is to limit and reduce the amount of radionuclides going to the environment.
It is feasible in engineering terms, and it is cheaper.
The challenge and difficulty will be to get the decision makers to initiate the containment process in a timely way. Political pressure from environmental NGOs, Green Parties, citizens, and engineers will be necessary for this to happen.
Please pass this letter on far and wide to anyone who may be interested.
For updates and feedback, email to rlawson@gn.apc.org, or search www.greenerblog.blogspot.com for "Fukushima". A Facebook page will be set up, with updates about this campaign, and contacts of people to write to.
Thank you for your concern and commitment to reducing the scale of the Fukushima disaster
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
Monbiot and Nuclear: Confusion between the Scholastic and Scientific methods
This is an excerpt from my book, Bills of Health (288pp, Radcliffe Medical Press, ISBN 1 85775 101 9), available from all good libraries, but hurry. I paste it here in the context of the controversy over the effects of Chernobyl, to show that respected scientists can make fundamental methodological flaws in assessing health effects of environmental pollution.
AUTHORITY vs HUMILITY
It is the intrinsic humility or vulnerability before the facts that science differs from systems based on authority.
Mediaeval scholastics depended on received opinion of great thinkers of the past - Aquinas, building on Aristotle, for instance - to the extent that a scholastic refused to look down Galileo's telescope because he feared that what he might perceive there would contradict the beliefs about the moon that he had accepted from his books. Ironically, there is a tendency for some scientists to think in precisely this scholastic fashion.
Two cardinal cases illustrate this point - Seascale and Camelford.
In the case of Seascale, a working party under the chairmanship of Sir Douglas Black was set up in 1983 to look into the alleged cluster of cancer cases in Seascale, near to the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing and nuclear weapons materials factory. He found that there was an "unusual but not unique" incidence of leukaemia in young people in the village. The report did not say so, but the chance of these cases being produced by coincidence would be about one in a million.
This observation would suggest the hypothesis that "The leukaemias are caused by physical agents in the vicinity". The second observation in the case is that the children of Seascale had a high level of radionuclides in the environment. Radionuclides are elements that are rare in nature, which are taken into the body and emit radiation often of the more damaging alpha kind. This fact suggests the hypothesis that "The leukaemias are caused by the radionuclides." According to the scientific method, further research should have been put in hand to attempt to disprove this hypothesis.
However, in the Report itself the causation hypothesis was rejected on the grounds that the expected rates of leukaemia, which are theoretical calculations based on assumptions of release rates, estimates of received doses, and assumptions about the relative biological effectiveness (leukaemia causing potential) of alpha radiation, are only one fortieth of the dose needed to produce the observed damage. In other words, the reasoning was that there were more leukaemias than theory would predict, the theory was right, and therefore the radiation was not the cause. The corollary to this line of reasoning is that the more leukaemias were found at Seascale, the more innocent the radiation. This is perverse, since radiation is known to be able to cause leukaemia in humans. The perversity arises because the method used was not scientific, but scholastic. It assumed that all we need to know about radiation is in the textbooks, and that new findings are to be compared to the textbooks, rather than the textbooks to be compared to new observations. The unscientific nature of the logic is clinched by the nuclear scientists' argument that more cases would be required to make a statistically significant cluster. More cases would on this logic mean that Sellafield was more innocent. This would mean that the hypothesis that "The Sellafield emissions did not cause the leukaemias" was unfalsifiable, and therefore not scientific.
This line of official reasoning was repeated in the case of the Camelford disaster, known officially as the Lowermoor incident. On the 6th of July 1988, 20 tonnes of concentrated aluminium sulphate solution were discharged into the treated water reservoir at Lowermoor, Cornwall, which serves the town of Camelford. Local residents and holidaymakers who drank the water experienced a variety of acute effects, and a lesser number also remained ill for a long time thereafter. Six months later a committee was set up under Dame Barbara Clayton to provide independent expert advice to the Secretary of State for Health . The group noted that this incident was unique in the history of pollution; there was no previous experience of humans taking in this particular cocktail of ionic lead, zinc, copper, aluminium, and sulphate. They also noted that the symptoms of the people was also unique. They had wide ranging problems, with sore/dry mouth, felt unwell and tired, had stomach aches, were very thirsty, had nausea and vomiting, itching, sore eyes, and mouth ulcers. The persistent effects noted by the group were aches and joint pains, memory loss, poor concentration, speech problems, depression and behavioural problems in children, hypersensitivity, rashes and mouth ulcers, and gastrointestinal disorders. These symptoms do not fit into any recognised diagnostic category. So the observation is a unique toxic insult, and a unique resultant syndrome. Hypothesis: that the toxins caused the illness. Surprisingly, instead of testing this hypothesis by advising on necessary medical and scientific studies, the group opened their textbooks, and looked up the effects of each of the ions as they are known in isolation. In each case they found that the ion in those concentrations were incapable of causing those effects. On this evidence, book-based scholastic theory that did not relate to mixtures of ions, they concluded that the cocktail was incapable of causing the illness. There was specific scientific evidence of deposition of aluminium in the bones of one affected case. The group specifically advised against following up this lead.
The group concluded that their book-learning could not account for the illness and that ergo, the symptoms were due to "anxiety". There was no psychiatrist in the group to advise on this point. As a result of the public outcry that followed, the Clayton Group was reconvened, and came to the conclusion that they had been quite right in the first place.
Years later, the affected citizens were given out-of-court settlements in compensation for their suffering.
This incident occurred when South West Water was being prepared for privatisation.
It emerges from this that the statements of scientists, especially those working at the behest of Government, are not necessarily "scientific" but statements based on their authority as eminent and respectable scientists. The confusion comes about not through cynicism or bad faith, but because in the complexity of detail, the simplicities of the method are lost to view.
AUTHORITY vs HUMILITY
It is the intrinsic humility or vulnerability before the facts that science differs from systems based on authority.
Mediaeval scholastics depended on received opinion of great thinkers of the past - Aquinas, building on Aristotle, for instance - to the extent that a scholastic refused to look down Galileo's telescope because he feared that what he might perceive there would contradict the beliefs about the moon that he had accepted from his books. Ironically, there is a tendency for some scientists to think in precisely this scholastic fashion.
Two cardinal cases illustrate this point - Seascale and Camelford.
In the case of Seascale, a working party under the chairmanship of Sir Douglas Black was set up in 1983 to look into the alleged cluster of cancer cases in Seascale, near to the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing and nuclear weapons materials factory. He found that there was an "unusual but not unique" incidence of leukaemia in young people in the village. The report did not say so, but the chance of these cases being produced by coincidence would be about one in a million.
This observation would suggest the hypothesis that "The leukaemias are caused by physical agents in the vicinity". The second observation in the case is that the children of Seascale had a high level of radionuclides in the environment. Radionuclides are elements that are rare in nature, which are taken into the body and emit radiation often of the more damaging alpha kind. This fact suggests the hypothesis that "The leukaemias are caused by the radionuclides." According to the scientific method, further research should have been put in hand to attempt to disprove this hypothesis.
However, in the Report itself the causation hypothesis was rejected on the grounds that the expected rates of leukaemia, which are theoretical calculations based on assumptions of release rates, estimates of received doses, and assumptions about the relative biological effectiveness (leukaemia causing potential) of alpha radiation, are only one fortieth of the dose needed to produce the observed damage. In other words, the reasoning was that there were more leukaemias than theory would predict, the theory was right, and therefore the radiation was not the cause. The corollary to this line of reasoning is that the more leukaemias were found at Seascale, the more innocent the radiation. This is perverse, since radiation is known to be able to cause leukaemia in humans. The perversity arises because the method used was not scientific, but scholastic. It assumed that all we need to know about radiation is in the textbooks, and that new findings are to be compared to the textbooks, rather than the textbooks to be compared to new observations. The unscientific nature of the logic is clinched by the nuclear scientists' argument that more cases would be required to make a statistically significant cluster. More cases would on this logic mean that Sellafield was more innocent. This would mean that the hypothesis that "The Sellafield emissions did not cause the leukaemias" was unfalsifiable, and therefore not scientific.
This line of official reasoning was repeated in the case of the Camelford disaster, known officially as the Lowermoor incident. On the 6th of July 1988, 20 tonnes of concentrated aluminium sulphate solution were discharged into the treated water reservoir at Lowermoor, Cornwall, which serves the town of Camelford. Local residents and holidaymakers who drank the water experienced a variety of acute effects, and a lesser number also remained ill for a long time thereafter. Six months later a committee was set up under Dame Barbara Clayton to provide independent expert advice to the Secretary of State for Health . The group noted that this incident was unique in the history of pollution; there was no previous experience of humans taking in this particular cocktail of ionic lead, zinc, copper, aluminium, and sulphate. They also noted that the symptoms of the people was also unique. They had wide ranging problems, with sore/dry mouth, felt unwell and tired, had stomach aches, were very thirsty, had nausea and vomiting, itching, sore eyes, and mouth ulcers. The persistent effects noted by the group were aches and joint pains, memory loss, poor concentration, speech problems, depression and behavioural problems in children, hypersensitivity, rashes and mouth ulcers, and gastrointestinal disorders. These symptoms do not fit into any recognised diagnostic category. So the observation is a unique toxic insult, and a unique resultant syndrome. Hypothesis: that the toxins caused the illness. Surprisingly, instead of testing this hypothesis by advising on necessary medical and scientific studies, the group opened their textbooks, and looked up the effects of each of the ions as they are known in isolation. In each case they found that the ion in those concentrations were incapable of causing those effects. On this evidence, book-based scholastic theory that did not relate to mixtures of ions, they concluded that the cocktail was incapable of causing the illness. There was specific scientific evidence of deposition of aluminium in the bones of one affected case. The group specifically advised against following up this lead.
The group concluded that their book-learning could not account for the illness and that ergo, the symptoms were due to "anxiety". There was no psychiatrist in the group to advise on this point. As a result of the public outcry that followed, the Clayton Group was reconvened, and came to the conclusion that they had been quite right in the first place.
Years later, the affected citizens were given out-of-court settlements in compensation for their suffering.
This incident occurred when South West Water was being prepared for privatisation.
It emerges from this that the statements of scientists, especially those working at the behest of Government, are not necessarily "scientific" but statements based on their authority as eminent and respectable scientists. The confusion comes about not through cynicism or bad faith, but because in the complexity of detail, the simplicities of the method are lost to view.
Fukushima: time for the IAEA to take direct responsibility for the operation.
TEPCO have just dumped 11,500 tonnes of radioactive water into the sea, in order to create space for the 60,000 tonnes of more highly radioactive water that has accumulated in the reactors.
Traces of radioactivity is showing up in samples of edible fish.
This discharge of radioactivity to the environment can and must be stopped.
First, it is time for the IAEA to take over direct responsibility for managing the Fukushima rescue operation. By dumping to sea, TEPCO is making it an international problem.
The present situation is that control has been lost. The fission process is starting up again in at least one of the reactors, which means ever greater heat, more leakage, and more radiation which means more difficulty in getting close enough to do remedial work.
This means that we probably have to abandon all hope of keeping the reactors cool.
The hot fuel will burn its way down to the water table, forming steam, which will leak out through the soil, possibly sometimes with explosive force.
So what can we do? I have heard unconfirmed reports that ther is a US plan. Bomb it. Yes, you heard: Bomb Fukushima. From the side you understand, so it tips over into the sea, which will automatically cool it, and also disperse it so that the fission reaction stops.
I only mention this to show how desperate people are getting, and to show how sensible is the Emergency containment solution I am putting forward here.
The principle is that, given the reaction itself is out of control, we must apply ourselves to controlling the emissions to the environment.
These emissions occur in two main ways: air and water.
Air Pollution
I have dealt here with the solution to air emissions: cap the reactors with fabric, draw off the contaminated air, filter off the radioactivity, and store.
This atmospheric emissions solution should start tomorrow with Reactor No 2, pictured below:
Photo: REUTERS / Japan Defense Ministry
The rectangular window should be fitted with a duct through which the steam can be drawn and passed to a series of filters. The filter design choice can be a combination of particle filter, cyclone, ion-exchange washing or any other suitable modality. It is simple, bog-standard engineering. The filters can be changed, modified and added to to the heart's content of the engineers involved. Reactor 2 will be the pilot for the other, damaged reactors, which will need the more challenging fabric containment before their gases can be captured.
Traces of radioactivity is showing up in samples of edible fish.
This discharge of radioactivity to the environment can and must be stopped.
First, it is time for the IAEA to take over direct responsibility for managing the Fukushima rescue operation. By dumping to sea, TEPCO is making it an international problem.
The present situation is that control has been lost. The fission process is starting up again in at least one of the reactors, which means ever greater heat, more leakage, and more radiation which means more difficulty in getting close enough to do remedial work.
This means that we probably have to abandon all hope of keeping the reactors cool.
The hot fuel will burn its way down to the water table, forming steam, which will leak out through the soil, possibly sometimes with explosive force.
So what can we do? I have heard unconfirmed reports that ther is a US plan. Bomb it. Yes, you heard: Bomb Fukushima. From the side you understand, so it tips over into the sea, which will automatically cool it, and also disperse it so that the fission reaction stops.
I only mention this to show how desperate people are getting, and to show how sensible is the Emergency containment solution I am putting forward here.
The principle is that, given the reaction itself is out of control, we must apply ourselves to controlling the emissions to the environment.
These emissions occur in two main ways: air and water.
Air Pollution
I have dealt here with the solution to air emissions: cap the reactors with fabric, draw off the contaminated air, filter off the radioactivity, and store.
This atmospheric emissions solution should start tomorrow with Reactor No 2, pictured below:
Photo: REUTERS / Japan Defense Ministry
The rectangular window should be fitted with a duct through which the steam can be drawn and passed to a series of filters. The filter design choice can be a combination of particle filter, cyclone, ion-exchange washing or any other suitable modality. It is simple, bog-standard engineering. The filters can be changed, modified and added to to the heart's content of the engineers involved. Reactor 2 will be the pilot for the other, damaged reactors, which will need the more challenging fabric containment before their gases can be captured.
Water Pollution
Again, the engineering for this is simple. I am grateful to an engineer, @BottomfedBhudda (yes, I know) for this.
We drill two holes, one deep, one shallow.
The aim of the deep one is to lower the level of the ground water. It will yield cold, clean, fresh (or brackish) water which can be used for the cooling operation. Lowering the ground water will give more time before the radionuclides come in contact with it - because once the groundwater is contaminates, radiation will diffuse through aquifers to remote sources of water.
The shallower drill will pick up contaminated water filtering down from the reactors.
This contaminated water will be passed first through a physical filter to trap particles, and then a series of ion-exchange resins and any other process that would reduce, including chemical reactions designed to precipitate out the dissolved radionuclides.
Again, the treated water can be fed back as coolant.
So, much can be done to mitigate the Fukushima disaster. The engineering is simple. The most difficult bit is to get the message through to the decision makers in a timely way.
Why no action from Coalition on Libya State TV?
Following on from this letter, I have just written again to my MP, John Penrose (WSM, Con) on the subject of Libya State TV. I would ask everyone who wishes to see a swift end to Gaddafi's regime to copy, customise and send to their own MP. Use www.writethem.com if you do not have th eMP's direct email address.
Dear John
I am writing to express my astonishment and frustration that Gol Gaddafi's Libya State TV propaganda machine is still spreading his distorted view of reality across Libya.
A week has passed since the following exchange was recorded in Hansard:
I have heard no substantive arguments against this line of action, though I imagine there may be some kind of gentleman’s agreement among governments along the lines of “I will not jam your signal if you will not jam mine”. Clearly this convention no longer holds now that Ghaddafi is subject to a UN R2P action and no longer seen as a legitimate ruler.
Could it be that the Government is unwilling to transgress into the liberty of Nilesat to make a profit? If so, this reason should be tested in the court of public opinion. The people might take a different view of the balance of private profit and the importance of defeating Gaddafi.
Please take this matter up with the PM, the Defence Secretary and the Foreign Secretary as a matter of urgency.
Sincerely
Dear John
I am writing to express my astonishment and frustration that Gol Gaddafi's Libya State TV propaganda machine is still spreading his distorted view of reality across Libya.
A week has passed since the following exchange was recorded in Hansard:
---
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD): It is not just tanks and planes that Gaddafi uses against his own people but the poisonous propaganda on Libyan state TV carried on NileSat, which threatens to undermine hopes for future peace in that country. What can be done to ensure that all Libyans, especially those in Tripoli, can access independent media on which to base their understanding of current events?
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD): It is not just tanks and planes that Gaddafi uses against his own people but the poisonous propaganda on Libyan state TV carried on NileSat, which threatens to undermine hopes for future peace in that country. What can be done to ensure that all Libyans, especially those in Tripoli, can access independent media on which to base their understanding of current events?
The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman makes a vitally important point. We want to do everything we can to try to make sure that people can access independent media, which have had a huge impact on these events. But also, frankly, we should take a tougher approach to Libyan state television, which, as far as I can see, is actually working on behalf of the regime that is terrorising and brutalising its own civilians. The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point that we should pursue urgently.
---
A week later, nothing has happened. How urgent is urgent?
We can be sure that if Churchill had been offered the chance of stopping Goebbel's propaganda it would have happened the next day.
Everyone is feeling anxiety and doubt about our involvement in Libya. Journalists are obsessing about the exit strategy. The fact is that the exit strategy is implicit in the success of the campaign. Blocking Libya State TV is an effective, cost-free, non-violent means of assisting this success. It is extraordinary that the thorny question of arming the rebels is under discussion while the matter of shutting down Gaddafi's propaganda machine is on the back burner, as indeed are other diplomatic means. There is the question of countries who are sending mercenaries, and also now we learn that Chadian regulars are in the country. Has anyone taken this up with Chad in any way?
Could it be that the Government is unwilling to transgress into the liberty of Nilesat to make a profit? If so, this reason should be tested in the court of public opinion. The people might take a different view of the balance of private profit and the importance of defeating Gaddafi.
Please take this matter up with the PM, the Defence Secretary and the Foreign Secretary as a matter of urgency.
Sincerely
Monday, April 04, 2011
George Monbiot, Helen Caldicott and the Nuclear Consensus
There is a debate on Democracy Now! between Helen Caldicott, the anti-nuclear medic, and George Monbiot.
Basically George takes the broad consensus of the high level scientific community that discounts the effect of internal emitters, and the work of Ukrainian scientists. The latter are set aside because they were not published in the right journals.
So he believes that the deaths from Chernobyl were about 50, not 1,000,000.
He is stuck with the a false analogy between climate change science controversy and the radiobiology controversy.
This is interesting.
The fact is that the scientific community can and does get things wrong. That's how science moves: there is a consensus, new evidence comes along, there is a battle, and the consensus shifts.
With climate change, the consensus was that man-made CO2 cannot affect the climate. Over the last 30 years a huge body of evidence has built up showing that we can. This new view is resisted by politically motivated diehards, who rely on cherry-picking data to support their battered case.
With radiobiology, the old view is that external radiation should only be reckoned with, and internal emitters should be set aside. Predicted effects of a given amount of radiation on populations can be calculated from 50 year old datasets from the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and new empirical data that suggest greater damage are discounted.
Nuclear scientists tend to prefer the scholastic to the scientific method.
[Update:
This means that they estimate the amount of radiation that people have received, go back to tables based on the single dose of gamma radiation received by people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and from that calculate how much disease should have been caused. If there is more disease than their calculations allow for, it is put down to chance. This is scholastic, because it assumes that all truth is already known and written down.
The scientific approach on the other hand looks in detail at the radiation dose given to people affected by Chernobyl fallout, looks at the incidence of disease, compares the disease with levels existent before the disaster, and also makes comparisons with similar populations who were not affected by Chernobyl.
This requires an enormous amount of work. Much data collection was carried out in the Ukraine, but it was not published in Western, English language journals, and ended up being discounted by the UN report.]
The challenge for George Monbiot is to look at the work of Yablokov and be open to the data he has suggested that the effects of Chernobyl are far greater than the models espoused by the nuclear industry predicts.
The other question he needs to answer is whether he accepts that nuclear power should now take out fully comprehensive insurance, instead of the 1% insurance it currently enjoys.
I have tweeted both these questions to George, who has ignored them. If they questions are put to him repeatedly, he will have to address them.
[update 5th April;
A brisk debate has started over this matter. George has attacked Helen Caldicott's evidence. In an effort to get a cool overview, I have gone to the TORCH report commissioned for Green MEPs.
It seems reasonable, stressing the scientific uncertainties, in marked contrast to George, who seems very certain that only 56 or so died.
I think Monbiot's weakness is the difficulty in getting scientific data on epidemiological matters. It takes a massive amount of expensive work. Much work was published in non-English journals, which do not then reach the mainstream "peer-reviewed" journals.
This is going to be a messy and time consuming business. At present my priority is to prevent the escape of Fukushima radiation to the environment.
Estimates of the cancer burden in Europe from radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident.
Update ends]
Basically George takes the broad consensus of the high level scientific community that discounts the effect of internal emitters, and the work of Ukrainian scientists. The latter are set aside because they were not published in the right journals.
So he believes that the deaths from Chernobyl were about 50, not 1,000,000.
He is stuck with the a false analogy between climate change science controversy and the radiobiology controversy.
This is interesting.
The fact is that the scientific community can and does get things wrong. That's how science moves: there is a consensus, new evidence comes along, there is a battle, and the consensus shifts.
With climate change, the consensus was that man-made CO2 cannot affect the climate. Over the last 30 years a huge body of evidence has built up showing that we can. This new view is resisted by politically motivated diehards, who rely on cherry-picking data to support their battered case.
With radiobiology, the old view is that external radiation should only be reckoned with, and internal emitters should be set aside. Predicted effects of a given amount of radiation on populations can be calculated from 50 year old datasets from the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and new empirical data that suggest greater damage are discounted.
Nuclear scientists tend to prefer the scholastic to the scientific method.
[Update:
This means that they estimate the amount of radiation that people have received, go back to tables based on the single dose of gamma radiation received by people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and from that calculate how much disease should have been caused. If there is more disease than their calculations allow for, it is put down to chance. This is scholastic, because it assumes that all truth is already known and written down.
The scientific approach on the other hand looks in detail at the radiation dose given to people affected by Chernobyl fallout, looks at the incidence of disease, compares the disease with levels existent before the disaster, and also makes comparisons with similar populations who were not affected by Chernobyl.
This requires an enormous amount of work. Much data collection was carried out in the Ukraine, but it was not published in Western, English language journals, and ended up being discounted by the UN report.]
The challenge for George Monbiot is to look at the work of Yablokov and be open to the data he has suggested that the effects of Chernobyl are far greater than the models espoused by the nuclear industry predicts.
The other question he needs to answer is whether he accepts that nuclear power should now take out fully comprehensive insurance, instead of the 1% insurance it currently enjoys.
I have tweeted both these questions to George, who has ignored them. If they questions are put to him repeatedly, he will have to address them.
[update 5th April;
A brisk debate has started over this matter. George has attacked Helen Caldicott's evidence. In an effort to get a cool overview, I have gone to the TORCH report commissioned for Green MEPs.
It seems reasonable, stressing the scientific uncertainties, in marked contrast to George, who seems very certain that only 56 or so died.
I think Monbiot's weakness is the difficulty in getting scientific data on epidemiological matters. It takes a massive amount of expensive work. Much work was published in non-English journals, which do not then reach the mainstream "peer-reviewed" journals.
This is going to be a messy and time consuming business. At present my priority is to prevent the escape of Fukushima radiation to the environment.
Estimates of the cancer burden in Europe from radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident.
Update ends]
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