{"id":55229,"date":"2015-03-16T12:00:25","date_gmt":"2015-03-16T12:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=55229"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:25:58","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:25:58","slug":"fukushimas-4th-anniversary-brings-hope-amidst-radioactive-ruins-as-renewable-energy-revolution-soars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/03\/fukushimas-4th-anniversary-brings-hope-amidst-radioactive-ruins-as-renewable-energy-revolution-soars\/","title":{"rendered":"Fukushima\u2019s 4th Anniversary Brings Hope Amidst Radioactive Ruins as Renewable Energy Revolution Soars"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fukushima’s Anniversary Should Remind Us Nuclear Power Poses Threat to Human Survival<\/em><\/p>\n

11 Mar 2015 – <\/em>The catastrophe that began at Fukushima<\/a> four years ago today is worse than ever.<\/p>\n

But the good news can ultimately transcend the bad\u2014if we make it so.<\/p>\n

An angry grassroots movement has kept shut all 54 reactors that once operated in Japan. It\u2019s the largest on-going nuke closure in history. Big industrial windmills installed off the Fukushima coast are now thriving.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A team of IAEA experts check out water storage tanks TEPCO\u2019s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station on Nov. 27, 2013. The expert team is assessing Japanese efforts to decommission the stricken nuclear power plant. Photo Credit: Greg Webb \/ IAEA<\/p><\/div>\n

Five U.S. reactors have shut since March 11, 2011. The operable fleet is under 100 for the first time in decades.<\/p>\n

Ohio\u2019s Davis-Besse<\/a>, New York\u2019s Ginna, five reactors in Illinois and other decrepit American nukes could shut soon without huge ratepayer bailouts.<\/p>\n

Diablo Canyon<\/a> was retrofitted\u2014probably illegally\u2014with $842 million in replacement parts untested for seismic impact<\/a>. Already under fire for illegal license manipulations and an avoidable gas explosion that killed eight in San Bruno in 2010, Pacific Gas & Electric has plunged into a legal, economic and political abyss<\/a> that could soon doom California\u2019s last reactors.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile,\u00a0Germany is amping up its\u00a0renewable energy generation<\/a> with a goal of\u00a080 percent or more by 2050.<\/p>\n

France\u2014once nuke power\u2019s poster child\u2014has turned away from new reactor construction and is moving strongly toward renewables.<\/p>\n

Worldwide the Solartopian revolution<\/a> is ahead of schedule and under budget. Predictions about its technological and economic potential are being everywhere exceeded.<\/p>\n

More than twice as many Americans now work in solar<\/a> as in coal mines. As the head of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund recently put it<\/a>: \u201cWe are quite convinced that if John D Rockefeller were alive today, as an astute businessman looking out to the future, he would be moving out of fossil fuels and investing in clean, renewable energy<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even America\u2019s Tea Party has developed a green wing promoting renewables<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Vital focus now centers on battery breakthroughs<\/a> needed to escalate rooftop solar, electric cars and other post-nuke game-changers.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s plenty of bad news. The State Secrets Act of Japan\u2019s authoritarian Abe regime renders unreliable all \u201cofficial\u201d information from Fukushima. Grassroots nuclear campaigners are under serious attack.<\/p>\n

At least 300 tons of radioactive water still pour daily into the Pacific Ocean. The utility wants to dump even more untreated outflow into currents that are already testing radioactive along the California coast. Details of fuel rod bring-downs and site clean-ups remain unknown.<\/p>\n

Thyroid damage rates<\/a> are soaring among downwind children. Abe is forcing evacuees back into areas that are seriously contaminated. Fukushima\u2019s owner (Tepco) is the #1 money funnel to his Liberal Democratic Party, which flips untold billions\u00a0back to the utility.<\/p>\n

More than 128,000 petitioners<\/a> asking that the world community take charge at Fukushima have been ignored by the United Nations since November, 2013.<\/p>\n

Throughout the world decaying reactors threaten our survival. Ohio\u2019s Davis-Besse containment is literally crumbling<\/a>.\u00a0 Diablo Canyon is surrounded by 15 known fault lines, one just 700 yards from the cores. New reactor sites in Finland, France and Georgia show slipshod construction, substandard parts and corrupted supervision that would make them instant threats should they go on line.<\/p>\n

Citizen activism challenges all that. Today Solartopian activists will picket Japanese consulates worldwide<\/a>.<\/p>\n

An evolving electricity boycott to \u201cunplug nuclear<\/a>\u201d and a growing grassroots demand for green energy herald a new era of people power.<\/p>\n

Four years after the endless Fukushima disaster began, that renewable revolution defines our survival.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a fight we can\u2019t afford to lose. It\u2019s a victory we must soon embrace \u2026 with the utmost relief and joy.<\/p>\n

____________________________<\/p>\n

Harvey speaks and writes widely on energy, the environment, history, election protection and politics. He teaches history and cultural & ethnic diversity at two central Ohio colleges, and is married with five daughters and five grandchildren. He works for the permanent shutdown of the nuclear power industry and the birth of Solartopia, a democratic and socially just green-powered Earth free of all fossil and nuclear fuels.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 ecowatch.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

11 Mar 2015 – Fukushima’s Anniversary Should Remind Us Nuclear Power Poses Threat to Human Survival – The catastrophe that began at Fukushima four years ago today is worse than ever. But the good news can ultimately transcend the bad\u2014if we make it so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[147],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55229","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=55229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55229\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}