Synthetic Oil ?! - (sigh...) Been There, Done That... The Left Brain Limps On...

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A news story appearing today in Yahoo, PhysOrg and other places. I will write a comment piece to follow this story in the next day or so.
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Spanish scientists search for "fuel of the future" 
original story here -  http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110331/bs_afp/spainenergyalternativeenvironmentresearch

ALICANTE, Spain (AFP) – In a forest of tubes eight metres high in eastern Spain scientists hope they have found the fuel of tomorrow: bio-oil produced with algae mixed with carbon dioxide from a factory.

Almost 400 of the green tubes, filled with millions of microscopic algae, cover a plain near the city of Alicante, next to a cement works from which the C02 is captured and transported via a pipeline to the "blue petroleum" factory.

The project, which is still experimental, has been developed over the past five years by Spanish and French researchers at the small Bio Fuel Systems (BFS) company.

NOT THE LATEST STARBUCKS BREW
A chemist quality controls fuel
generated at Bio Fuel Systems
 in San Vicente del Raspeig
in eastern Spain. 

At a time when companies are redoubling their efforts to find alternative energy sources, the idea is to reproduce and speed up a process which has taken millions of years and which has led to the production of fossil fuels.

"We are trying to simulate the conditions which existed millions of years ago, when the phytoplankton was transformed into oil," said engineer Eloy Chapuli. "In this way, we obtain oil that is the same as oil today."

The microalgae reproduces at high speed in the tubes by photosynthesis and from the CO2 released from the cement factory.

Every day some of this highly concentrated liquid is extracted and filtered to produce a biomass that is turned into bio-oil.

The other great advantage of the system is that it is a depollutant -- it absorbs the C02 which would otherwise be released into the atmosphere.

"It's ecological oil," said the founder and chairman of BFS, French engineer Bernard Stroiazzo-Mougin, who worked in oil fields in the Middle East before coming to Spain.

HERE WE GO AGAIN
Tubes filled with millions of microscopic algae
are seen at the Bio Fuel Systems plant in
San Vicente del Raspeig in eastern Spain.
US oil giant ExxonMobil plans to invest
up to $600 million in research
on oil produced from algae.

"We need another five to 10 years before industrial production can start," said Stroiazzo-Mougin, who hopes to be able to develop another such project on the Portuguese island of Madeira.

"In a unit that covers 50 square kilometres, which is not something enormous, in barren regions of southern Spain, we could produce about 1.25 million barrels per day," or almost as much as the daily export of oil from Iraq, he said.

BFS, a private company, hopes to negotiate "with several countries to obtain subsidies for the installation of artificial oil fields," he said.

Other similar projects being studied in other parts of the world.

In Germany, the Swedish energy group Vattenfall last year launched a pilot project in which algae is used to absorb carbon dioxide from a coal-fired power plant.

US oil giant ExxonMobil plans to invest up to $600 million in research on oil produced from algae.

Companies, in particular those in the aeronautic sector, have shown keen interest in this research, hoping to find a replacement for classic oil.
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Is Japan Doomed?

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Edgar Cayce, the "Sleeping Prophet," said Japan would eventually sink into the sea. Though his prediction (which also  included New York City) was for the late 1990s, well after his death in 1945, it appears that he may yet be proved right.

The question now seems to be: will it be by natural causes (acts of God)...or by design (acts of HAARP)?

You may be under the impression that Japan suffered one large 9.0 quake on March 11, 2011, and perhaps a few aftershock quakes. As you will see in the video below, Japan had 731 quakes between March 11 to March 23, most of them averaging 4.0 - 4.5 in magnitude, some of them over 6.0. As of today, March 30, the quakes continue (840 total). You can verify this for yourself at the Japan Quake Site.

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We are in an accelerated time period in which it is vital for us to come to terms with the natures of our perceived reality, and our true "reality" on this earth. We think we are in charge, but it is the Earth, a living, breathing, conscious being, that is really calling the shots and providing the "theater" that has been the backdrop of life for eons. We are now getting a different view. The closer we come to becoming enlightened of this reality, the less we will fear what is happening in the man-made world of political, social, and global decay.

Those who are convinced that life will go on business as usual and attempt to insulate themselves by traditional material means, or by getting to the top of the heap, will have fear and suspicion as their constant companions.

It is imperative at this time that we look within for answers...and not out there.





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About HAARP
If you've never heard of HAARP before, the video below is from Jesse Ventura's "Conspiracy Theory" show. It covers some basic information about the HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program) facility in Gakona, Alaska.




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MOX Fuel Rods Used In Japanese Nuclear Reactor Present Multiple Dangers

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Can you say Plutonium?

The mixed oxide fuel rods used in the compromised number three reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi complex contain enough plutonium to threaten public health with the possibility of inhalation of airborne plutonium particles. The compromised fuel rods supplied to the Tokyo Electric Company by the French firm AREVA. Plutonium is at its most dangerous when it is inhaled and gets into the lungs. The effect on the human body is to vastly increase the chance of developing fatal cancers.

Masashi Goto, a reactor researcher and designer for Toshiba, told the Foreign Correspondents Club in Toyko the mixed oxide (MOX) fuel used in unit 3 of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility uses plutonium, which is “much more toxic than the fuel used in the other reactors.”

Goto said that the MOX also has a lower melting point than the other reactor fuels. The Fukushima facility began using MOX fuel in September 2010, becoming the third plant in Japan to do so, according to MOX supplier AREVA.

Part of the process of making MOX fuel is to grind plutonium into a fine power before it is robotically inserted into fuel rods. Experts agree these tiny plutonium particles once airborne are extremely dangerous to human health.

Workers observing material at the Shaw-AREVA Mixed-Oxide Plant at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Photo: Shaw-Areva

One of the unique characteristics of mixed oxide fuel is that relatively little of the plutonium in the fuel rods is used up in the fuel cycle in a reactor. “When the plutonium in the fuel rods goes into a reactor for commercial power, a very little of it is going to be consumed. I don’t know what percentage, maybe half percentage or something like that, but it’s going to generate an extraordinary amount of contamination throughout the fuel rods…,” says William Lawler, an expert on radioactive waste.

The damaged number three reactor was undergoing its first fuel cycle using MOX at Daiichi. MOX fuel was first used in a thermal reactor in 1963, but it did not come into commercial use until the 1980s. One reason proponents of MOX reactor fuel support its use is because, once the fuel is burned in a reactor, it is so hot that terrorists would not be able to steal a fuel assembly.

Lawless, who worked at the DOE’s Savannah River Site and first exposed massive contamination there in the early 1980s, says MOX being used as a way of controlling weapons proliferation is a myth: “You will decrease the amount of plutonium minutely but you will increase the amount of waste inside the fuel rod greatly into something that is very contaminated for a long period of time and they think is that it would be too deadly to handle for a terrorist…This is not necessarily following the best scientific plan or the best engineering decision; this is more a political decision, the MOX.”

Robert Alvarez, a Fellow with the Institute of Policy Studies and former aide to the Secretary of Energy and former Senator John Glenn, explains that many in the nuclear weapons community see leftover plutonium from nuclear weapons as a resource that should not be squandered instead of the very dangerous substance that it is. Prior to the plans for the MOX plant for weapons-grade plutonium at the Savannah River Site, the excess plutonium was to be locked into large, molten glass logs and stored in a repository.

“The U.S. amassed 111.4 kg of plutonium from its nuclear arsenal; all the countries that are reprocessing have amassed 250 kg of plutonium with no place to go. The plutonium that has been used for MOX by the French is a very, very small fraction, and they have discovered that they can only use it once because this spent fuel is so hot and the cost of disposing of this spent fuel goes dramatically up compared to the other stuff. ..The French may be recycling 12 percent. The rest is sailing into burials as de facto radioactive waste. So there are dreams and there are realities. The reality is that this costs a lot of money. It is not working…,” Alvarez says.
The United States, Japan, and Europe do not have permanent repositories for high-level nuclear waste.  That is why so many used fuel elements were being stored at the Japanese reactor site.

Six months before the Japanese earthquake, Alvarez told DCBureau.org the idea of MOX fuel does not add up anymore. “They are largely overtaken by events and the system is just ill-equipped, unable, structurally fixed into decisions that don’t make much sense anymore…The only prospect that you have here, which you should not dismiss, is that it has the potential of rendering a large amount of plutonium into a form that makes it extremely useful to reuse. And that was the original intent of the MOX program. It was not meant to be a way to generate energy and make money. Because the money is losing, this plutonium has negative value. They probably know this might not work and cause problems to reactors, and they might shut down reactors and lose money.”

Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Okuma Photo: DigitalGlobe’s Firstwatch Imagery Report

The National Nuclear Security Administration, an autonomous agency inside the Department of Energy, is 85 percent of the DOE budget. It has partnered with an American firm, Shaw, and AREVA in France to build a MOX plant at the Savannah River Site to process weapons grade plutonium into MOX fuel. This $5 billion plant, still under construction, has been plagued with problems. A commercial partners, Duke Power, dropped out of the project after a test of a fuel array made by AREVA from weapons grade plutonian was stopped in the middle of a fuel cycle at a Duke Power reactor at Catawba, North Carolina.

Mixed oxide fuel is a combination of finely ground up plutonium particles and uranium oxide fabricated into fuel rods at an AREVA subsidiary in La Hague, France.  The fuel is made from reprocessing old reactor fuel. Reprocessing was abandoned by the United States in the 1970s because of the dangers of weapons proliferation.

The CIA has reported that Japan’s nuclear power program was not limited to the peaceful production of electrical power. The program had its roots in a secret weapons program that caused the CIA to conclude as far back as 1964 that Japan could assemble within months a nuclear weapon.
Because of the Japanese public’s fear of nuclear weapons, the various subsequent Japanese governments have kept the program secret and have repeatedly denied its existence when news organizations made inquiries.
Joseph Trento
MOX fuel rods used in Japanese Nuclear Reactor present multiple dangers

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Cesium? Iodine?...What About Plutonium?!!

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Until March 14, 2011, when the Fukushima nuclear power plant reactor houses were heavily damaged, most people had not much familiarity with radioactive elements like Iodine 131 and Cesium 137. Even now, unless one is a chemist or nuclear physicist, we know little about them, except that they are used in the manufacture of nuclear fuel. And that they are extremely toxic and lethal.

For this reason, since the nuclear accidents in Japan resulting from the 9.0 earthquakes on March 11, some "nuclear watchtower" websites have appeared throughout the world whose purpose is to measure levels of radiation through Geiger counters. Sites like Radiation Network, and EviroReporter. But so far they are only calibrated, apparently, to read levels of iodine 131 and cesium 137. The six reactors affected in Japan have been releasing these elements. But the third reactor (Reactor #3), because it has been using MOX fuel (mixed oxide fuel), has also been releasing small amounts of Plutonium. The watchtowers are not reporting these Plutonium levels. And as far as I know, no one is. Or no one is being allowed to report them.

One gram of Plutonium can "overdose" (read: kill ?) 1 Billion people. There are currently 6.7 Billion people, and this summer in July 2011 the world population will reach 7 Billion. You do the simple math about how much Plutonium it takes to kill off the world. It is not very much.

http://www.ccnr.org/max_plute_aecb.html#1

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"Plutonium – used in the fuel mix for one of the six reactors – has been found in soil at the plant - but not at levels that threaten human health, officials say over and over. I did not know there was such thing as safe levels of plutonium, did you?"  

          Dr. Mark Sircus - March 28, 2011

          http://blog.imva.info/medicine/betraying-humanity

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Conspiracy theories abound, about this and everything under the sun. We live in a fearful, suspicious world. When you get slapped in the head and taken advantage of enough times when you are young and naive, this is what happens. You become suspicious, of everything and everyone.

It is a sad, current state of affairs that we are ruled by secrets and deceptive information. Our leaders seem to believe that maintaining secrecy about what we know will protect us, or else our knowing too much will harm us. Yet we cannot afford to conceal any more "intelligence" information or to disseminate information on a "need-to-know" basis. We need to know what is being hidden from us. Hiding the information will not protect us. Knowing it will not harm us, but it may put our leaders out of a job. This much is either true or yet another conspiracy theory, that the reality and level of radiation poisoning needs to be concealed from us for our protection, so we don't all panic and run into the streets and steal everything from Wal Mart.

Of course, the ultimate conspiracy theory is that this is not being done for our protection at all, that the "global elite" want to kill off most of us to make more room on the planet for them. If that is true, then no wonder they are not letting any more information out than necessary.

(According to the Georgia Guidestones, the ideal population for the world is 500 million.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones)

But even if this is true, this is not the only philosophy in town. This is not the only reality in this world of all possibilities. The whole bedrock of the nuclear energy program since its inception is the idea that there is nothing else out there that is cheaper or more feasible to create electricity. Just as we still believe that gasoline and combustion fuels are the only way to get around, that cars are the only way to transport ourselves, we still believe that electricity must come from nuclear power to be plentiful. There are mavericks out there proving this idea wrong, but the general world doesn't know it yet, because the knowledge is not readily available, thanks in large part to the powers that be who control the dissemination of the knowledge.

Knowledge is Power. Knowledge is ammunition for the fight. And make no mistake. We are at war, not with Muslims or Jews or any ideologies. Knowledge is the real battlefield. We are at war with those people and institutions capable of financing all of the wars of the last century. There are enough books and literature out there to establish definite core relations between these people who represent corporations, banks, and private interests. Collectively they are better known as the Global Elite. Like the Wizard of Oz, they are especially proficient at implementation through sublimation, while hiding and convincing the masses to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

We can no longer afford to be blind, oblivious, complacent, and ignorant. Our world and our lives are at stake. Magician's tricks have been  happening all around us for decades, and we are still the duped audience. We have been hypnotized and led in false directions, asleep, drugged through pills and food and drink, distracted though TV, Hollywood films, and shallow journalism. We have been led to believe a history of the world that never existed as written. All things have become parodies of all things. Current events are highly skewed, having in common death, bloodshed, and whatever is the shock and awe du jour.  Sex and violence are still the top influences on the list.

We, the people of the world, are being raped, and told to lay back and enjoy it.

~ Michael Schwaba
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Japanese Authorities Admit Deadly MOX Plutonium Reactor Is Leaking

Has cover-up of leakage been ongoing since massive March 14 explosion?

Article by:
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Friday, March 25, 2011

While the mass media has all but dropped its interest in the Fukushima crisis to focus on Libya and meaningless side-issues like the death of Elizabeth Taylor, the nuclear nightmare only worsens, as Japanese authorities admit that reactor number 3, which is the only reactor to contain MOX plutonium, is now leaking.

“Japan’s nuclear regulator said one reactor core at the quake-damaged Fukushima Dai-Ichi power plant may be cracked and leaking radiation,” reports Bloomberg.

“It’s very possible that there has been some kind of leak at the No. 3 reactor,” Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman at the Japan Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said in Tokyo today. While radioactive water at the unit most likely escaped from the reactor core, it also could have originated from spent fuel pools stored atop the reactor, he said.”

The water now leaking from reactor number 3 has radiation levels 10,000 times above the level of normal reactor water. Yesterday, two Fukushima technicians received instant radioactive burns when they stepped in the puddle of water, as it burned right through their boots.

The leakage of plutonium and uranium from reactor number 3 is the nightmare scenario that many experts predicted would turn the situation at Fukushima from a crisis to a catastrophe.

The dire consequences of any major leak in reactor number 3 are exemplified by the fact that 4,000 tons of water have been dumped on the reactor, five times more than any of the other five units.

Reactor number 3 runs on MOX or Mixed Oxide fuel, a mixture of plutonium and uranium. Plutonium is the most deadly radioactive isotope known to man, and MOX is two million times more deadly than normal enriched uranium. The Half-life of Plutonium-239 in MOX is 24,000 years and just a few milligrams of P-239 escaping in a smoke plume will contaminate soil for tens of thousands of years.



On March 14, reactor number 3 was hit with a massive explosion that sent debris hurtling hundreds of feet into the air in an orange fireball. Authorities claimed that the explosion was caused by a build up of hydrogen pressure and that the blast did not damage the reactor containment unit. Is the damage to the reactor only recent, or have the Japanese been covering up the leak for almost two weeks since the explosion?

According to the Nuclear Information Resource Center (NIRS), “In the event of such accidents (involving the accidental release of MOX), if the ICRP (International Commission on Radiological Protection) recommendations for general public exposure were adhered to, only about one mg of plutonium may be released from a MOX facility to the environment. As a comparison, in [sic] uranium fabrication facility, 2kg (2,000,000 mg) of uranium could be released in the same radiation exposure.”

In the case of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, the vast majority of the plutonium was not released during the explosion and subsequent fire.

As part of the bizarre sweeping apathy that the mass media has cultivated over the last week surrounding the Fukushima crisis, the threat of MOX plutonium has been completely downplayed.

Similarly, the longer the crisis drags on and the worse it gets, the less the media pays attention, despite disturbing reports of yellow rain now falling in Tokyo and surrounding areas. Just like the victims of Chernobyl, Japanese authorities are telling the people that the substance is merely pollen.

Radiation emitted by the Fukushima reactors is already approaching Chernobyl levels.

“Iodine-131 is being released at daily levels 73 per cent of those seen after the 1986 disaster. The daily amount of caesium-137 released from Fukushima Daiichi is around 60 per cent of the amount released from Chernobyl,” reports the New Scientist.

According to a new study by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), “Nearly 25 years after the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, exposure to radioactive iodine-131(I-131, a radioactive isotope) from fallout may be responsible for thyroid cancers that are still occurring among people who lived in the Chernobyl area and were children or adolescents at the time of the accident.”

Despite UN and World Health Organization studies that claim Chernobyl led to a maximum of 9,000 deaths and 200,000 cases of radiation sickness, more contemporary studies have shown that nearly a million people have been killed from cancers caused by the disaster over the course of the last 25 years.

Original post here.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/japanese-authorities-admit-deadly-mox-plutonium-reactor-is-leaking.html

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Nuclear Armageddon (another "inconvenient" truth)

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By Dr. Mark Sircus

March 25th, 2011

None of us could have calculated in our wildest dreams the likes of what is happening and still yet to happen in northern Japan. The 9.0-magnitude quake and tsunami laid waste to Japan’s industrial northeast on March 11 triggered a huge nuclear disaster. Many of us feared something like this might happen in the nuclear industry someday.

And now it has happened and we can all start saying prayers for the men, women and children in Tokyo and the rest of northern Japan. The entire world is struggling to determine the fallout effects of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, along with many ensuing and complicating problems. We really have no idea the mess the Japanese are in and how bad this is all going to get.

Countries across the world have shunned Japanese
food imports as radioactive steam leaked from a
disaster-struck nuclear plant, straining nerves in Tokyo.

The desperate attempts to contain the fallout from the shattered atomic Fukushima Daiichi plant are failing and no one is truly talking about how long-lasting and widespread the radiation’s effects may be. Day after day we hear of setbacks; on the 21st it was a pool holding spent nuclear fuel heated up to the boiling point. Then it was another fire and forced evacuation of the plant yet again by men who are risking their lives in a desperate attempt to bring the disaster under control.

It is now near the end of the second week and what we are hearing is that the contamination is spreading further and further from the plant and now the anxiety levels of the Japanese is going off the Richter scale. The effects are going to be pervasive, profound, and critical on a scale never seen by a modern culture.

German shipping companies are avoiding Tokyo Bay
area ports due to radiation fears and Japan could face
severe supply chain bottlenecks as vessels get diverted.

The principal elements that have been released from reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant are iodine 131 and cesium 137. Cesium is very dangerous because it is long-lived and travels easily through the food chain, continuing to emit particles for centuries once it is released. The media is programming in tranquility and calmness while nuclear contamination spreads and gets worse. The Japanese are a much disciplined people not prone to panic but sometimes a measure of panic will drive people to act instead of vegetating in indecision.

A rise in radiation levels in faraway Tokyo’s tap water spurred deepening fears about food and water safety. Radiation in Tokyo’s tap water rose to twice the level acceptable for infants 12 days after the nuclear accident and we can expect contamination levels to get worse with each passing day. The water in Tokyo already contains 210 becquerels of iodine-131 per liter making it unacceptably dangerous for children to drink. Soon, if not already, it will be undrinkable for adults if present trends of contamination continue, which they undoubtedly will. It hardly pays to be either optimistic or pessimistic about this one. The nuclear dice have been thrown and they are crashing down most on the citizens of northern Japan.

Many distant villages were contaminated with iodine-131 fallout from the Chernobyl accident, and local cows ate grass that contained the radiation. Children who drank milk from those cows ended up with high rates of thyroid cancer. So it is not really a good idea to be complacent no matter where you are on planet earth today with a large nuclear power station running out of control.

The New York Times published on the 24th, “Despite the frequent rain in recent days, it was not entirely clear why the levels of iodine were so high, said a senior Western nuclear executive, noting that the prevailing breezes seemed to be pushing radiation out to sea. “The contamination levels are well beyond what you’d expect from what is in the public domain,” said the executive, who insisted on anonymity and has broad contacts in Japan. It was possible that the levels were an indirect indication that the problems at the plant were deeper than had been publicly acknowledged.” Hints don’t get any louder than this.

Fallout from a damaged power plant has already reached halfway around the globe to Iceland and is expected soon to touch down in France and the rest of Europe. According to the absence of reports from the United States one could imagine that America escaped untouched but we all know that is not true—they are just not talking about it. If you look enough though you will see that increased levels of “safe” radiation has fallen on the North American continent. If anyone actually wants to know, hard core science insists that there is no level of radiation that can be considered safe.

The fact is radiation levels around the world will go up but in certain places they’ll go much higher than in others. Fate chose the wrong nuclear power station to destroy because it is the largest with unimaginable tonnages of spent nuclear fuel on site. It’s a setup for nuclear Armageddon.

There is a growing suspicion that the full effects of the radioactive release have been downplayed to the public. Everyone who works with nuclear radiation pretends its safe, when it’s not, and that includes just about every doctor and dentist in the world.

The world’s most significant nuclear accident occurred 25 years ago at Chernobyl, Ukraine. Although its effects are now well-documented, many forget how thoroughly the damage was covered up at the time. To avoid panic, the Soviet authorities grossly downplayed the risks to those living near the plant, as well as those who lived hundreds, and even thousands, of miles away. In the months that followed, high levels of radiation were detected as far away as Scotland.

Contamination will be most intense in the areas local to the nuclear power station. It’s a foregone conclusion that the entire northern half of Japan is threatened as is most of its food and water supply, yet the Japanese are told to remain calm and sit in their homes. Will the government allow their citizens to slowly succumb to the radiation sickness that will surely come or will they come to their senses and start a wholesale evacuation of northern Japan?

Areas continents away are reporting levels of contamination that are still considered safe but that’s what the Japanese in northern Japan are being told. Every report you read will tell you (or the Japanese) that it is only safe amounts though already 220 kilometers away in Tokyo it’s no longer safe at all for the children. Staying indoors is neither a solution nor a preventive treatment.

The most dangerous accident that humanity has ever witnessed is happening but don’t worry, the nuclear power industry is safe. The elites’ media team will have a hard time double speaking this one. You will see their editorial hands moving every time you see the word safe.

If you want to close your eyes for a second and imagine what is really going on over in northern Japan just imagine the invisible level of energy and radiation like a hot fire radiating out in 360 degrees of direction, including right down into the ground and the waters below, sending death rays (yeah sure, safe ones) hundreds and now thousands of miles away. So powerful is this nuclear firestorm that hundreds of miles away it’s unsafe for the children to be drinking the public water. In twelve days the contamination has spread powerfully into the local area where it is becoming unsafe to live. It’s an invisible fire but a deadly one.

Everything is safe to the monsters that have enriched themselves by poisoning humanity and polluting the world. This is a dramatic book about many converging forces that are breaking across the neck of humanity. It really does not help our present world situation that it is mostly psychopaths who roam the top of the human heap and it has always been that way. We have trusted the wrong people and organizations and now we will pay for that huge mistake.

Denial is the name of the toxicity game that industry has played for well over a hundred years. To the chemical industry, then the petrochemical one, on into the pharmaceutical universe and then the atomic one those who make money from toxic substances deny that there is any problem with them in terms of health.

Do you think we can relax with the authorities and have confidence that they will get it all under control? Can they stabilize the situation? Or will it get explosively worse?
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Japan Quake Map - an observational tool

http://www.japanquakemap.com/

On the 11th of March 2011, the world's media reported a massive earthquake off the East coast of Japan. It turned out to hit magnitude 9 on the Richter scale, and caused a devastating tsunami; the region's nuclear power facilities have been experiencing major difficulties since the earthquake and tsunami triggered a series of events leading to massive overheating, with complete nuclear meltdown still a possibility.

The Japan Quake Map presents a time-lapse visualization of the Sendai earthquake and its aftershocks, primarily to help those outside the affected area understand what the people of Japan are experiencing. It plots earthquake data from USGS on a map using the Google Maps API, with the size of the circle denoting the magnitude (the higher the magnitude, the larger the circle) and the colour showing the focal depth (see the legend below the map).

How to use the Map

The map will start playing through the earthquakes, starting on March 11 2011, once it finishes loading. The controls to the right allow you to play/pause the animation, jump to the start or end of the sequence, or adjust the playback speed. You can also use the links above the map or the "Show Day" dropdown box and links to the right to view quakes from a specific time period.


http://www.japanquakemap.com/
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Radiation: Nothing to See Here?

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Thursday 24 March 2011

Radiation: Nothing to See Here?

by: Brian Moench, MD, t r u t h o u t | News Analysis

Administration spokespeople continuously claim "no threat" from the radiation reaching the US from Japan, just as they did with oil hemorrhaging into the Gulf. 

Nothing to see here?
Children are screened for radiation at a public health center
in Yamagata Prefecture of Japan, March 17, 2011.
(Photo: Ko Sasaki / The New York Times)

Perhaps we should all whistle "Don't worry, be happy" in unison. A thorough review of the science, however, begs a second opinion.

That the radiation is being released 5,000 miles away isn't as comforting as it seems. The Japanese reactors hold about 1,000 times more radiation than the bombs dropped over Hiroshima.(1) Every day, the jet stream carries pollution from Asian smoke stacks and dust from the Gobi Desert to our West Coast, contributing 10 to 60 percent of the total pollution breathed by Californians, depending on the time of year. Mercury is probably the second most toxic substance known after plutonium. Half the mercury in the atmosphere over the entire US originates in China. It, too, is 5,000 miles away. A week after a nuclear weapons test in China, iodine 131 could be detected in the thyroid glands of deer in Colorado, although it could not be detected in the air or in nearby vegetation.(2)

The idea that a threshold exists or there is a safe level of radiation for human exposure began unraveling in the 1950s when research showed one pelvic x-ray in a pregnant woman could double the rate of childhood leukemia in an exposed baby.(3) Furthermore, the risk was ten times higher if it occurred in the first three months of pregnancy than near the end. This became the stepping-stone to the understanding that the timing of exposure was even more critical than the dose. The earlier in embryonic development it occurred, the greater the risk.

A new medical concept has emerged, increasingly supported by the latest research, called "fetal origins of disease," that centers on the evidence that a multitude of chronic diseases, including cancer, often have their origins in the first few weeks after conception by environmental insults disturbing normal embryonic development. It is now established medical advice that pregnant women should avoid any exposure to x-rays, medicines or chemicals when not absolutely necessary, no matter how small the dose, especially in the first three months.

"Epigenetics" is a term integral to fetal origins of disease, referring to chemical attachments to genes that turn them on or off inappropriately and have impacts functionally similar to broken genetic bonds. Epigenetic changes can be caused by unimaginably small doses - parts per trillion - be it chemicals, air pollution, cigarette smoke or radiation. Furthermore, these epigenetic changes can occur within minutes after exposure and may be passed on to subsequent generations.(4)(5)(6)

The Endocrine Society, 14,000 researchers and medical specialists in more than 100 countries, warned that "even infinitesimally low levels of exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals, indeed, any level of exposure at all, may cause endocrine or reproductive abnormalities, particularly if exposure occurs during a critical developmental window. Surprisingly, low doses may even exert more potent effects than higher doses."(7) If hormone-mimicking chemicals at any level are not safe for a fetus, then the concept is likely to be equally true of the even more intensely toxic radioactive elements drifting over from Japan, some of which may also act as endocrine disruptors.

Many epidemiologic studies show that extremely low doses of radiation increase the incidence of childhood cancers, low birth-weight babies, premature births, infant mortality, birth defects and even diminished intelligence.(8) Just two abdominal x-rays delivered to a male can slightly increase the chance of his future children developing leukemia.(9) By damaging proteins anywhere in a living cell, radiation can accelerate the aging process and diminish the function of any organ. Cells can repair themselves, but the rapidly growing cells in a fetus may divide before repair can occur, negating the body's defense mechanism and replicating the damage.

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Comforting statements about the safety of low radiation are not even accurate for adults.(10) Small increases in risk per individual have immense consequences in the aggregate. When low risk is accepted for billions of people, there will still be millions of victims. New research on risks of x-rays illustrate the point.

Radiation from CT coronary scans is considered low, but, statistically, it causes cancer in one of every 270 40-year-old women who receive the scan. Twenty year olds will have double that rate. Annually, 29,000 cancers are caused by the 70 million CT scans done in the US.(11)(12) Common, low-dose dental x-rays more than double the rate of thyroid cancer. Those exposed to repeated dental x-rays have an even higher risk of thyroid cancer.(13)

Even properly functioning nuclear plants emit a steady stream of radiation into nearby water and atmosphere, which can be inhaled directly or ingested from soil contact, plants or cows milk. Many studies confirm higher rates of cancers like childhood leukemia, and breast and thyroid cancer among people who live in the same counties as nuclear plants, and among nuclear workers.(3)

Beginning with Madam Curie, the story of nuclear power is one where key players have consistently miscalculated or misrepresented the risks of radiation. The victims include many of those who worked on the original Manhattan Project, the 200,000 soldiers who were assigned to eye witness our nuclear tests, the residents of the Western US who absorbed the lion's share of fallout from our nuclear testing in Nevada, the thousands of forgotten victims of Three Mile Island or the likely hundreds of thousands of casualties of Chernobyl. This could be the latest chapter in that long and tragic story when, once again, we were told not to worry.

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Footnotes:

1. "Fukushima Daiichi reactors contain radiation equal to a thousand Hiroshima bombs," Vancouver Observer, March 14, 2011; Ira Helfand, Robert Alvarez, Ken Bergeron and Peter Bradford (former member of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission), on behalf of Physicians for Social Responsibility.

2. Rosenthal E. Radiation, "Once Free, Can Follow Tricky Path," The New York Times, March 21, 2011.

3. International Commission on Radiological Protection.

4. Huang YC, Schmitt M, Yang Z, Que LG, Stewart JC, Frampton MW, Devlin RB, "Gene expression profile in circulating mononuclear cells after exposure to ultrafine carbon particles," Inhal Toxicol, 2010 May 27. (Epub ahead of print.)

5. Baccarelli A, Wright R, Bollati V, et al, "Rapid DNA Methylation Changes after Exposure to Traffic Particles." Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med., April 2009; 179: 572 - 578.

6. Zhong Y, Carmella S, Upadhyaya P, Hochalter JB, et al, "Immediate Consequences of Cigarette Smoking: Rapid Formation of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon Diol Epoxides Chem. Res. Toxicol.," Article ASAP DOI: 10.1021/tx100345x publication date (web): December 27, 2010.

7. "Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals: An Endocrine Society Scientific Statement," 2009.

8. Bartley K, Metayer C, Selvin S, et al, "Diagnostic X-rays and risk of childhood leukaemia," Int. J. Epidemiol. (2010) 39(6): 1628-1637, first published online October 1, 2010, doi:10.1093/ije/dyq162.

9. Bailey H, Armstrong B, de Klerk N, et al, "Exposure to Diagnostic Radiological Procedures and the Risk of Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia," Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev, November 2010, 19:2897-2909; Published online first, September 22, 2010.

10. Shuryak I, Sachs R, Brenner D., "Cancer Risks After Radiation Exposure in Middle Age," JNCI J Natl Cancer Inst Volume102, Issue 21, Pp. 1628-1636.

11. Berrington de González A, Mahesh M, Kim K, et al, "Projected Cancer Risks From Computed Tomographic Scans Performed in the United States in 2007," Arch Intern Med, December 14/28, 2009; 169: 2071 - 2077.

12. Smith-Bindman R, Lipson J, Marcus R, et al, "Radiation Dose Associated With Common Computed Tomography Examinations and the Associated Lifetime Attributable Risk of Cancer," Arch Intern Med., 2009; 169(22): 2078-2086.

13. Memon A, Godward S, Williams D, et al, "Dental x-rays and the risk of thyroid cancer: A case-control study," Acta Oncologica, May 2010, Vol. 49, No. 4: 447–453.

EnviroReporter live monitor from Santa Monica, CA:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/live-radiation-monitoring-from-west-la

Online TV Shows by Ustream

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Yellow Rain In the Land of the Rising Sun

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Yellow Rain Falls In Tokyo? Pollen Excuse Exact Same As Chernobyl Yellow Rain Lie

The Intel Hub
March 24th, 2011

While the Japanese government continues to say that the yellow rain seen in Japan was simply “pollen,” many have been reminded of a very similar occurrence after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

Almost on que, the Japan Meteorological Agency has confirmed the rain to be pollen after receiving hundreds of calls from concerned citizens.

The ‘‘yellow rain’’ seen Wednesday in the Kanto region surrounding Tokyo was caused by pollen, not radioactive materials as many residents had worried, the Japan Meteorological Agency said Thursday, reported the Japan Times.

That’s right, according to so called experts, enough pollen to cause hundreds to report their findings, rained down on Tokyo at the same time as a devastating nuclear disaster has released high levels of radiation at least 20km from the nuclear plant.

This explanation has reminded many of the yellow rain that hit after the Chernobyl disaster.

Similar to the explanation in Japan, government officials claimed that the yellow radioactive rain that fell in Gomel, Belarus was merely pollen and nothing to worry about. We now know that was a bold faced lie.

Women and children actually played in the puddles of yellow rain after the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl.
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Remembering Chernobyl – Yellow Rain:
“We all jumped in the puddles with the yellow stuff. … You don’t see (it in) the air, it doesn’t materialize. But when you see the yellow dust, you see radiation,” Antonina Sergieff said.

The accident was originally caused by a small testing error that resulted in a chain reaction in which highly pressurized steam literally blew the top off of a nuclear reactor.

The result was the release of 100 more times radiation than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, according to the United Nations issue brief on Chernobyl.

Among the unstable elements released were iodine-131, caesium-137, strontium-90 and plutonium-239. Scientists say that exposure to such elements, especially in such high doses, impairs critical cellular functions and damages DNA.

When these elements first reached Sergieff 20 years ago, they came in the form of yellow rain.

It was not long after that residents in her hometown knew it wasn’t simply “pollen” – which is what government officials assured them, she said.
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