Nuclear Experimentation – Year 69

Taipei nuclear protesters - The Nuclear Era - Year 69 In Review

By  Ethan Indigo Smith

Contributing Writer for  Wake Up World

On 16th July 1945, 69 years ago, the United States Army set off the Trinity detonation in New Mexico,  the beginning  of the infamous Manhattan Project.

69 years later, nuclear experimentation has proven to be a failed experiment at every step, and the inextricable nuclear fuel and nuclear war cycles to be a deadly chain of meltdowns,  bombings and denials. And still nuclear experimentation industrialists tout the ‘safety’ and ‘cleanliness’ of nuclear energy, when the facts of its commercial and wartime destruction tell us  nothing could be farther from the truth.

In reality, the same destructive energy that powers one, powers the other.  Nothing on our planet is more deadly and volatile than nuclear.  The entropy caused by nuclear experimentation of both kinds permeates the elements and rattles all life at an  atomic level, negatively altering our biological heritage, our land, and our health – everything we  value.

Meanwhile,  alternative energy technologies are systematically suppressed  while  the threat of nuclear warfare continues  to escalate – both for the benefit of the oligarchy.

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Learn more: We Have Sustainable Energy Technology – the Problem is the Oligarchy

Nuclear experimentation risks  our very biology and  benefits only those making money from it.  It  is not the will of the masses, for the masses. It  is oligarchical fascism at its worst; environmental gambling in the most extreme manner imaginable, using our lives and planet as collateral.  But it is not unique in this way;  all energy systems of our oligarchical society mine, refine and distribute deadly concoctions to  financially benefit a select  few, at the cost of the entirety.

In reality, there is very little difference in the operations of petrolithic and nuclear institutions; only that the nuclear experiment has proven to be more immediately  deadly and destructive.  Nuclear uranium pits are similar to petroleum drilling and fracking (mining using dangerous chemical to displace natural gas, destroying water tables and causing earthquakes)  and  their modes of refining delivery are all hazardous experiments which risk the lives of many.

This risk is so severe that perhaps nuclear experimentation supersedes the importance of every other societal predicament we face today. It is potentially more deadly than war, and more immediate than our environmental problems. One meltdown and….

Failing Energy Systems

It is not so much of a stretch to say that the world’s oligarchical energy systems of the worst set of social institutions, anywhere, ever.

The latest fracking trend, the public’s resentment of it, and the institutional clamp down on even speaking on its dangerous  potentials without legal repercussions, really illustrates  the nature of the  relationship between  oligarchical institutions and people they rule. The oligarchy proposed a dangerous energy system and, when opposed, distorted the science,  threatened anyone who questioned it,  and went  about their dangerous business.[www.ca.news.yahoo.com].

The same secretive and distorted presentation is typical of  the nuclear experimentation industry too, only more intensely, being also tangled with the military industrial complex.

Over 3 years since its initial meltdown, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear infrastructure is still degrading and the radiation still spreading. Little has changed there, and  there  is little being done. The nuclear nations and corporations of the world have not actively united to diffuse the apocalyptic threat that is the six reactor facility of Fukushima One  (there is a second Fukushima nuclear experimentation facility nearby).  The effect  has not diminished; all that has changed is that  we have learned more about this  catastrophe, despite the efforts of government  and media institutions.

From Day 1, the majority of the world’s nuclear institutions have remained silent and downplayed the environmental catastrophe – designed by GE, sponsored by the USA, run by TEPCO, propped up by the Japanese government and staffed  with  unlucky Yakuza contractors. [www.youtube.com/watch]. In fact the  Japanese government even introduced new laws  stifling the freedoms  of media and public to speak on the matter,  deceitfully luring the majority of the world into a confused and apathetic non-response, for maintenance of the status quo, mostly.

It appears the nuclear industry is considered too big to fail. In reality, it is too dangerous to continue.

Despite its  apparent block-out on mainstream media, over time, we have learned that there was a triple meltdown, triple melt-through, and triple meltout of reactors 1, 2, and 3. We have learned that  Reactor 3 contained tons of MOX fuel  (basically plutonium),  and that the tons of  Pandora particles produced will burn  everything they come in contact with, forever — or the next million years or so, to be more specific.  We have learned that governments of the world would rather deny  their mistakes and continue their  risky, self-serving industrial agenda. And we have learned that the people of the world are seeing through the propaganda….

Learn more: GE Spokesperson Speaks to WuW About Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster

Institutions vs. the Will of The People

Despite massive public opposition, some institutions in Japan actually still have elements within them who  seek to reignite their  closed reactors instead of decommissioning them entirely. Following the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown, the Japanese people protested in massive numbers against the failures of government and nuclear regulators. Three years later, protests  continue as  the Japanese government considers restarting two reactors at the Sendai power plant. [www.america.aljazeera.com/articles].

Although Japan is in the most thermally active region on Earth (remembering geothermal heat can be used for energy) its institutions remain  focussed on dangerous nuclear initiatives, now  considering ways to  mitigate only the financial risk  of nuclear experimentation – the international Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage. [www.nuclear-news.net]. This convention effectively indemnifies nuclear manufacturers and operators  from  the ‘accidents’ that are  inevitable in their nuclear experimentation, holding operators responsible for only nominal costs and insuring the short-term continuation of what is clearly  an  unsustainable industry. And  it  does  nothing to improve the safety standards of nuclear operations.

The Nuclear Era - Year 69 In Review - Water canons turned on protesters in TaipeiWith Fukushima still burned in their recent memories, the people of the nuclear nation of Taiwan are  engaged in  massive collective  protests of over a planned fourth nuclear reactor experiment there.  [www.nbcnews.com/news].  The Taiwanese people reason discontinuance of the nuclear experiment there, because their country is located in  the volcanic region, the  Pacific  Ring of Fire, just like all the reactors and experiment sites in Japan and the West Coast of the U.S.A.

In the U.S.A. fascist institutions continue to reinforce the status quo of the nuclear experiment at every turn. Old and leaking reactors are having their operation time extended, and new reactors are being built, all with the generous support of government. In fact one new facility in Georgia is being paid for with a $6.5 billion loan signed off by the President himself.  [www.ajc.com/news].

Learn more: Why Governments Promote Deadly Nuclear Energy (and Ban Beneficial Hemp)

Many nuclear experimentation facilities with out-of-date reactors continue to operate with extended federal permission and federal insurance, many of which, including Indian Point Power Generation outside New York City, are the same design as reactors at Fukushima, with spent fuel pools retrofitted post-construction to hold more ‘spent’ fuel rods than their original design specification.  (The term ‘spent’ in the nuclear experimentation industry means so hot it has to be cooled for the next, ever.) In short, they’re patching old  reactors,  pushing them  beyond their  limits, and hoping they  will hold up — and  indemnifying  themselves for when they fail.

Clearly, nuclear is big business.  In year 69, US$335 billion was set aside in the United States budget for the  routine  maintenance of the US nuclear armament. [www.reuters.com/article].  And in Illinois, a state already with 11 nuclear reactors at 6 experimental sites, a recent Bill in support of more  nuclear power generation  experiments  is  gaining political momentum,  a move which would not just extend the dangerous nuclear industry in Illinois but economically stomp on any alternative renewable energy initiatives in the future. [www.lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs].

Is this truly the will of the People? A nuclear future, run by corporate thugs and negligent governments?

Nuclear Warfare and Propaganda

Until now, the U.S.A. and the world community have have been conned  into  an overall apathetic response to the nuclear experimentation industry, our thinking  steered by skewed data, media manipulation, and government and corporate  spin.  Because information on nuclear experimentation events is  mostly quelled, or twisted  for prime-time, our collective  complacency to the rampant criminality  and  outright immorality of nuclear experimentation continues.

Major media institutions have been negligent in their under-reporting of the truth, with Fukushima being the best (and worst) example. And the media’s  silence  is not by accident; with the obvious example of Japan’s secrecy laws  aside,  the non-delivery of information in general has been  an essential part of long-term survival the nuclear industry. It’s realities are considered simply too horrific – and too bad for business – for public broadcast.

It has been proven beyond a shadow of doubt that the nuclear fuel and  weaponry cycles are unsustainable madness. With reactors being pushed increasingly beyond their limits, and further meltdowns inevitable,  decommissioning  the nuclear experimentation industry is among the single most pressing  issues of our time  –  and all time. And yet government controlled ‘journalistic’ institutions are ignoring the issue and  belittling its  un-ignorable tragedies.  And by  doing so, they become just  cogs in the nuclear machine.

Learn more:  3 Years After Fukushima: Behind the Skewed Data and Vested Interests

But, increasingly the dirty nuclear experiment is being exposed, and with failure after failure,  it is becoming more difficult even for nuclear zealots to deny the dangers inherent in  this experiment. Increasingly, the world is realizing this industry, like so many, benefits  only the few at the cost of many.  Increasingly the public is  realizing it has been lied to about the science  of nuclear energy and weaponry. And increasingly we are realizing  that global nuclear experiment must cease in its entirety  —  or it will cease entirety itself.

But it is our collective inaction  to the radiological contamination of our  world and the invisible destruction it causes, which allows its continuation.

Year 69 of a 1,000,000  Year Waste  Cycle

In the span of a matter of weeks, two major releases of radioactivity began in the United States of America.

A  series of releases at the Hanford storage site, where waste from nuclear weapons manufacturing is ‘stored’, sickened 36 over a matter of months. Even without accidents, the mere presence of the  Hanford storage site threatens the ecological future of the ‘region’, a threat that will remain in place so for the next umpteen thousand generations or so. But explosions and radiological releases not uncommon  at Hanford, so  we should expect  further accidents there if current trends continue.

A  second release was required  at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (‘pilot’ meaning experimental), a plant which was not expected to experience any problems like this for ten thousand years. The pilot operation is a deep underground disposal plant, and the underground explosion (touted as impossible) released americium and plutonium into the atmosphere above ground.

In 2014, the storage cycle for weaponry and fuel related nuclear waste is only beginning; we have reached year 69 of a million year long process of entropy and risk. Based on their 69 year track record, it is apparently that nuclear zealots don’t have the  knowledge to safely manage the resulting nuclear  waste for even 1/10,000th of the time required.

In reality, our nuclear waste  is a problem today, and will remain a problem  for countless generations to come.

Learn more: Nuclear Gets Expensive: the Astonishing Cost of Radioactive Waste

Order of Increasing Magnitude

Disasters like Fukushima, Hanford,  the more  recent radiation leak in New Mexico at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant  (Pilot meaning experimental and  Isolation now being a misnomer of wishful thinking)  and many others around the world, are like radiological ovens  –  the closer you are to it the hotter you become, but the heat radiates out in all directions.  According to what we know there are several leaking storage tanks at Hanford, and three loose reactor cores at Fukushima. And who knows what happened to fuel pools at Reactors 1 and 2? It’s too hot to go there.

Maybe we should all get used to these accidents that nuclear zealots proposed would  never happen. After all, their underground repositories, a short-term solution at best,  do not work anyway. The supposed storage tanks at Hanford need repair, replacement and urgent attention. And that’s just what the media is talking  about.

Three reactors melted down into the pacific three years ago, and finally  in the last few months it is  coming out that, yes, the China syndrome indeed occurred. There are ongoing releases of highly radioactive material into the Pacific Ocean. There are still six fuel pools with extremely deadly radioactive materials that must be dealt with. This is an ongoing catastrophe the world needs to address, instead of allowing the oligarchs  to lie about their policies of  environmental destruction  – and get away with it.

Fukushima is the worst nuclear and environmental catastrophe disaster ever, yet  with little to no media scrutiny, the world’s institutions are doing  nothing about the ongoing  contamination  of the Pacific Ocean. In the mainstream media  has to refer to the Fukushima crisis,  they refer to it as the ‘2011 disaster’ and the ‘worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl’. It has been the chorused theme, as if dictated by an unseen hand. In reality, Fukushima is many times worse than Chernobyl – by an order of increasing magnitude – and should not be referred to in past  the  tense. And it  could still get much worse.

The Final Word

After the last year, the only way  nuclear supporters  can even attempt to justify continuing the nuclear experiment, is by lying and suppressing the truth. And it’s already happening in Japan;  anyone who speaks out that Fukushima was (and is) a paradigm event is forcibly managed through the Secrecy Act, essentially mandating fascism.

Learn more:  Is Nuclear Experimentation Fascism?

The truth is, every  nuclear nation has their own Hanford and WIPP that must be dealt with, sooner or later. Nuclear programs are unstable and produce nuclear waste – that is the reality. And while  the best solution nuclear science can come up with to deal with nuclear  waste is put it in a hole and let future generations deal with it, that  waste is not just dangerous to humanity today but to humanity’s future.

If you’re an activist, I beg you to research the burden of nuclear experimentation and its environmental hazards when things go correctly, and the permanent devastation when things go wrong. If you’re a politician I beg you insist on disarmament and decommissioning of nuclear power generation experimentation now. If you’re a corporatist who values your  existence politically or monetarily, remember that first, life is biological  and must continue for an economy to exist.

Radiation levels around the world are on the increase, nuclear experimentation must be ceased. Surely we  can agree on the importance of maintaining  life.

Touting the impossibility of potentials and then watching these potentials unfold is par for the course.

Individuals have the power to steer institutions, but only when we stand together.

Learn more:  The Pandora’s Box of the Nuclear Industry

updated September 2014

Previous articles by Ethan:

About the author:

Ethan Indigo SmithAuthor, activist and Tai Chi teacher  Ethan Indigo Smith  was born on a farm in Maine and lived in Manhattan for a number of years before migrating west to Mendocino, California. Guided by a keen sense of integrity and humanity,  Ethan’s work is both deeply connected and extremely insightful, blending philosophy, politics, activism, spirituality, meditation and a unique sense of humour.

The events of September 11, 2001 inspired him to write his first book,  The Complete Patriot’s Guide to Oligarchical Collectivism, an insightful exploration of  history, philosophy and contemporary politics.  His more recent publications include:

  • Tibetan Fusion  a book of simple meditative practices and movements that can help you access and balance your energy
  • The Little Green Book of Revolution  an inspirational book based on ideas of peaceful revolution, historical activism and caring for the Earth like Native Americans
  • The Matrix of Four, The Philosophy of the Duality of Polarity  on the subject of the development of individual consciousness
  • 108 Steps to Be in The Zone  a set of 108 meditative practices and  steps toward self discovery and individual betterment, including techniques to develop balance, transmute sexual energy and better the self
  • and the controversial book,  Terra-ist Letters, a work that humorously contrasts the very serious issues of global nuclear experimentation promotion  and global  marijuana prohibition

For more information, visit Ethan on  Facebook  and check out  Ethan’s author page  on Amazon.

 

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