MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
The possibility of a global nuclear catastrophe as a result of the ongoing crisis at Fukushima is not only a real threat to untold lives in Japan and around the world, it is a model example of why nuclear power of any sort should not be privatized -- and should only have limited uses within governmental programs.
As reported on Monday on BuzzFlash at Truthout, the potential nuclear radiation release from "repairs" at Fukushima threaten the globe. "Nuclear Crisis at Fukushima Could Spew Out More Than 15,000 Times as Much Radiation as Hiroshima Bombing," Harvey Wasserman, a longtime anti-nuclear advocate, wrote on BuzzFlash. Truthout posted a follow-up story today that states, "We’re in very apocalyptic territory, with a wide and unknown range of outcomes."
It's hard to analyze the nuclear industry rationally when the private company, TEPCO, in Japan has just thrown up its hands and admitted it does not have a full-proof plan to prevent a nuclear disaster of proportions not yet seen. You can bet the Japanese government which has been assuring the world that everything was under control had a role in inviting international assistance in keeping Fukushima from creating a nuclear nightmare.
What is a private power company, TEPCO, doing in charge of "repairing" Fukushima anyway? How did we turn over an energy source that can threaten the survival of life on earth to private companies?
That's a good question indeed.
This is one of those true stories of how private enterprise benefited from government funded research and then profited off of it, claiming how much private industry contributes to the public marketplace. But in this case, particularly, the creation of harnessed nuclear power through the Manhattan project led to the transformation of atom splitting into nuclear power plants.
And governments around the world are still pouring billions into research on atomic energy. Much of these taxpayer funds end up enhancing the work done to design and contruct privately-owned nuclear power plants. That's not an argument for the government taking over nuclear plants, as Chernoybl evidences, but it debunks the notion that private nuclear power plants would even exist without billions and billions of dollars in taxpayer funding and subsidies.
In an article featured in The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, "Nuclear denial: From Hiroshima to Fukushima," Professor Charles Perrow comes to the conclusion that "Governments and the nuclear power industry have a strong interest in playing down the harmful effects of radiation from atomic weapons and nuclear power plants."
In his commentary for BuzzFlash, Harvey Wasserman called for global intervention to prevent an international thermonuclear fallout. Wasserman, for years, has gone beyond that in advocating for a moratorium and eventual elimination of nuclear power -- not to mention bombs.
The genie is out of the bottle.
It's time to stuff it back in.
In the meantime, no private company should have a license to utilize or develop nuclear power. TEPCO has shown that, as have the designers of its aged plant.
As long as there is profit in nuclear power (and that comes from the government sub-contracts too), there is the constant threat of massive radiation spread around the globe at anytime.
And then the work begins on dismantling the use of nuclear weapons and any research that is not peaceful -- if one can ever distinguish the one from the other.