Our hearts go out to the people of Japan, who are suffering the horrendous effects of a massive earthquake and devastating tsunami.\u00a0\u00a0Watching the news clips of the natural disasters in Japan makes us realize yet again the enormous power of nature and the limits of our capacities to control such power.\u00a0\u00a0Large buildings, roadways and bridges buckled before the shockwaves of the earthquake.\u00a0\u00a0Cars and trucks, even houses, seemed like small toys when they were swept away by the tsunami wave hitting the Japanese coastline.<\/p>\n
In Japan, electric power has been knocked out for millions of people.\u00a0\u00a0But the dangers are far greater than those associated with the temporary loss of power.\u00a0\u00a0Some of Japan\u2019s 55 nuclear reactors lost primary and backup power, which in turn led to core cooling problems, partial meltdowns and radiation releases within the reactor control rooms and into the atmosphere, with possibly far worse radiation releases still ahead.\u00a0\u00a0Three of Japan\u2019s 55 nuclear power reactors have reportedly experienced explosions.\u00a0\u00a0Over 200,000 people have been evacuated from around the damaged nuclear power plants.<\/p>\n
So far, there has not been much reporting on problems with spent fuel storage pools, but these pools that hold used fuel rods could prove to be the most dangerous of all facets of the disaster.\u00a0\u00a0They contain vast amounts of radiation, several times the amount in a reactor core.\u00a0\u00a0If these spent fuel pools lose their cooling source, they could spew radiation into the atmosphere, creating a tragedy of even greater proportions than did the 1986 nuclear accident at Chernobyl in the Ukraine.<\/p>\n
The major lessons to be drawn from the tragedy in Japan are: first, nature\u2019s power is far beyond our ability to control; second, the nuclear industry, in Japan and elsewhere, has arrogantly pushed ahead with their dangerous technology, assuring the public there is no reason for concern; third, the reassurances of self-interested nuclear \u201cexperts\u201d are not to be trusted; and fourth, the nuclear power plant failures in Japan are a final wake-up call to replace nuclear power with safe, sustainable and renewable forms of energy.<\/p>\n
There are 440 commercial nuclear power plants in the world.\u00a0\u00a0Of these, the US has 104, nearly twice as many as Japan.\u00a0\u00a0Many of the US plants are of the same design as those that are failing in Japan.\u00a0\u00a0President\u00a0Obama\u2019s\u00a02012 budget calls for $36 billion in loan guarantees to subsidize new nuclear power plants.<\/p>\n
California, known for its propensity for earthquakes, has two nuclear power plants, one at Avila Beach, north of Santa Barbara, and one at San\u00a0Onofre, between Los Angeles and San Diego.\u00a0\u00a0Both plants are located near major fault lines.\u00a0\u00a0The Diablo Canyon power plant at Avila Beach is situated near the San Andreas and\u00a0Hosgri\u00a0fault lines.\u00a0\u00a0The San\u00a0Onofre\u00a0plant is located less than a mile from the\u00a0Cristianitos\u00a0fault line.\u00a0\u00a0Diablo Canyon is designed to withstand a 7.5 magnitude earthquake and San\u00a0Onofre\u00a0to withstand a 7.0 magnitude earthquake, but as Japan has shown us earthquakes can come in larger sizes.<\/p>\n
We know that we humans cannot control earthquakes.\u00a0\u00a0Nor can we control tsunamis or other natural disasters.\u00a0\u00a0What we can control is our own technologies and we can say \u201cNo\u201d to technologies that are catastrophically dangerous.\u00a0\u00a0Natural disasters and nuclear power plants are a deadly mix.\u00a0\u00a0Disasters intentionally caused by terrorists could also result in the release of radiation from nuclear power plants.<\/p>\n
Mother Nature has given us a deadly warning that it is past time to end our reliance on nuclear power and invest instead in solar power, the only safe nuclear reactor that exists \u2013 93 million miles from Earth.\u00a0\u00a0The question is: Will the disaster in Japan open our eyes to the need for change, or will we be content to continue to tempt fate and simply hope that we do not become the next place on the planet where nuclear power fails catastrophically?<\/p>\n
_______________<\/p>\n
David Krieger is a TRANSCEND member and president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation<\/a> (www.wagingpeace.org<\/a>), an organization that has worked since 1982 to educate and advocate for a world free of nuclear weapons. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The major lessons to be drawn from the tragedy in Japan are: first, nature\u2019s power is far beyond our ability to control; second, the nuclear industry, in Japan and elsewhere, has arrogantly pushed ahead with their dangerous technology, assuring the public there is no reason for concern; third, the reassurances of self-interested nuclear \u201cexperts\u201d are not to be trusted; and fourth, the nuclear power plant failures in Japan are a final wake-up call to replace nuclear power with safe, sustainable and renewable forms of energy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,198],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transcend-members","category-kudankulam-anti-nuclear-satyagraha-india"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10867\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}