Nuclear Safety & Climate Change Linked?

On the 66th anniversary of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, Yoko Ono speaks up with her idea for her disaster-scarred country
Japan – abandon nuclear energy for renewables and tap the geothermal energy
beneath the unstable ground of the volcanic island nation. While American writer Anthony Orlando says climate change and nuclear safety are
inextricably linked. “A warmer climate leads to more severe storms, which
increases the chances of a Japan-style nuclear meltdown. Either we need to get
out of the nuclear energy business or reduce our greenhouse gas emissions — or
both.”

Straits Times (6 August 2011):

Yoko Ono says Japan should look at Iceland

Tokyo – Yoko Ono has an idea for her
disaster-scarred country Japan – abandon nuclear energy for renewables and tap
the geothermal energy beneath the unstable ground of the volcanic island
nation.

The artist and widow of John Lennon is in
Japan for the first time since the March 11 quake and tsunami sparked a nuclear
crisis, and as the country remembers the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki.

With her new exhibition, The Road Of Hope,
she says she wants to stress that Japan, having rebuilt itself after World War
II and the atomic bombings, can also emerge stronger from the quake and
Fukushima radiation disaster.

‘Japan suffered the Hiroshima and Nagasaki
situations, and now this,’ she told AFP in an interview. ‘Right now it’s
horrible and of course we have to abolish it,’ she said of Japan’s atomic
energy programme. ‘This is not just something that happened to Japan, it
happened to the world. We’re all in it together, not just Japan.’

Like a growing number of Japanese, Ono
favours a shift toward renewable energy such as wind, solar and geothermal
power, which she said she became familiar with in another tectonically unstable
country, Iceland. One of Ono’s projects is the Imagine Peace Tower near
Iceland’s capital Reykjavik, a memorial to Lennon, who was gunned down outside
their New York apartment in 1980.

The stone monument – which has the words
‘Imagine Peace’ carved into it in 24 languages – sends a column of light far
into the sky using electricity from Iceland’s geothermal energy grid. Iceland
produces over 80 per cent of its energy from geothermal and hydro-power, and it
uses the hot steam from the earth for 90 per cent of indoor and water heating.
The country aims to be fossil-fuel free by 2050. – AFP

Source: www.straitstimes.com

By Anthony Orlando in Sun Sentinel (5 August
2011):

It can’t happen here.

The Japanese tsunami was a freak occurrence.
Once in a thousand years. It can’t happen to our nuclear power plants.

But freak occurrences are happening more
often nowadays.

It all started with heat. Last year tied the
record for the hottest surface temperature. It’s hardly a coincidence that 2010
also set the record for the most precipitation over land. Hot air warms the
oceans, evaporates the water, carries the water in clouds and empties over land
in the form of rain or snow. It was all in your middle school textbook.

Some of that precipitation was frustrating,
like the unusually ferocious snowstorms that pummeled the East Coast. Some was
downright dangerous, like the tropical cyclones that are increasing in
intensity.

Or the Atlantic hurricanes whose season is
lasting longer and whose geographic range is expanding. Or the strongest
non-coastal storm on record in the United States, which dealt 67 tornadoes to
Minnesota in October 2010.

Or the summer monsoon in China that lasted
longer than ever before, killing 1,911 people, leaving behind $18 billion in
damage and setting off landslides that killed another 2,137 people. Or the
floods in Pakistan that killed 1,985 people and did $9.5 billion in damage. Or
the Queensland flood in Australia, which killed 35 people and did $30 billion
in damage. Or the heaviest rains that Colombia has seen in 42 years, killing
528 people, racking up $1 billion in damage, and leaving 2.2 million people
homeless. Or the heaviest daily rainfalls in Nashville, Tenn., history,
flooding the city, killing 30 and leaving $2.4 billion of damage.

That was then. This is now, when we open the
newspapers to read that 11,000 residents of Minot, N.D., evacuated just before
water spilled over the levees. Last month, it was the tornadoes that erupted
across the country, generating more damage (estimated at $4 billion to $7
billion) than any spring weather disaster in U.S. history.

There’s no escaping the facts: Weather is
becoming more extreme, more costly, and more deadly.

But surely our nuclear reactors are safe. We
protect them from severe weather. It can’t happen here.

Not according to a recent AP investigation, which
found example after example of regulators loosening regulations instead of
enforcing them. Inside our power plants are brittle vessels, leaky valves,
cracked tubing, and corroded piping — and they’re increasing.

Another AP investigation found that three out
of every four nuclear sites have leaked radioactive tritium, sometimes into the
groundwater. The government responded that they’re not sure how to detect or
stop the leaks.

In the coming months, you’re going to hear
presidential candidates talk about climate change. You probably won’t hear them
say much about nuclear safety. But the two are inextricably linked. A warmer
climate leads to more severe storms, which increases the chances of a
Japan-style nuclear meltdown.

Either we need to get out of the nuclear
energy business or reduce our greenhouse gas emissions — or both.

But don’t worry. It can’t happen here. Can
it?

Anthony W. Orlando runs a blog at

http://www.anthonyworlando.com.

Source: www.sun-sentinel.com