Still more fluff, lies and radiation from TMI and the new nuke media machine

[ensho]

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_5316.shtml


Yet another “perfectly safe” release at Three Mile Island has irradiated yet another puff of hype about alleged “green” support for new reactors.

The two are inseparable.

In 1979, when TMI’s brand new Unit Two melted, stack monitors and other critical safeguards crashed in tandem. Nobody knows how much radiation escaped, where it went or who it harmed. Cancers, leukemia, stillbirths, malformations, asthma, sterility, skin lesions and other radiation-related diseases erupted throughout central Pennsylvania. Some 2,400 families sued, but never got a full public hearing in federal court.

Unit Two had operated just three months when it melted. By a 3-1 margin, three central Pennsylvania counties then voted that TMI-One, which opened in 1974, stay shut. But Ronald Reagan tore down that wall.

This week TMI’s owners were forced to evacuate 150 workers when radioactive dust “unexpectedly blew out of a pipe being cut by workers.” Exelon was “trying to determine exactly how and why it happened.”

As always, official announcements emphasize that the public was “in no danger.” That was an epic lie in 1979. This time Exelon’s Ralph DeSantis said things were rapidly “back to normal.”

DeSantis then said radiation could be quickly wiped off protective outfits, while “it takes two to three days for radiation to naturally leave the body of anyone who breathed it in.”

This is a ghastly lie. Among other isotopes, alpha and beta emitters -- especially from radioactive dust -- can easily lodge in the lungs and other internal organs long enough to damage cells and cause numerous forms of cancer, often lethal.

-long snip on the supposed green nuke power-

But as sure as radiation continues to pour from Three Mile Island, the hype about “green” support for atomic power will continue to spew, while the core of the environmental movement remains staunchly anti-nuke, especially as the price of Solartopian technologies continues to plummet.

“We can meet climate goals with efficiency and renewable technologies that are cheaper and much less risky than new reactors,” says Michele Boyd of Physicians for Social Responsibility.

Nuclear power, adds Anna Aurilio of Environment America, “takes us backward.”
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horribly true

[madokie]

1. If only the industry would have been honest from the get go

But then I guess nuclear energy never would have gotten off the ground to start with had they been.

[TheWraith]

2. More lies and misinformation in the guise of journalism.

"Nobody knows how much radiation escaped, where it went or who it harmed."

Yes, actually, SCIENTISTS know how much radiation was released. Because they're, you know, SCIENTISTS, and deal with facts rather than blind scaremongering on behalf of the coal industry. Scientific study has not been able to find one single death that's attributable to the radiation release from Three Mile Island.

Civilian nuclear power has never killed a single person in the US, yet people still scream and rend their garments in terror. The alternative, coal-fired power plants, dump MILLIONS of tons of poison directly into the air and the water, killing upwards of 70,000 people every year, but apparently those people don't count as long as the word "nuclear" wasn't involved.

[ensho]

4. the info of animal and human deaths have been suppressed

nt

[TheWraith]

6. Thank you for proving the conspiracy theory origins of this nonsense.

Apparently you seriously believe that EVERY SINGLE SCIENTIST IN THE WORLD with an expertise in nuclear physics, plus every amateur enthusiast with a Geiger counter within driving distance of central Pennsylvania, is part of a massive all-encompassing conspiracy of silence to hide the effects and tamper with all publicly available scientific data, in support of some vague, overarching goal of future evil.

And yet I bet you laugh at the global warming deniers when they make the same absurd claim.

[Pavulon]

7. you cant link one death certificate

that shows radiation as cod in commercial reactor programs.

[EOTE]

5. Yes, but how many people have died as an indirect result of radiation?

Sure, perhaps no deaths have been directly attributable to the radiation release at TMI, but what about those horrible, massive super-mutants that have been created from the fallout? Mothra? Mecha-Godzilla? Giddorah? The rampages of these horrific monsters could have been prevented if we simply respected nature in the first place. If we expect to implement nuclear power on a wide scale in this country, we better beef up our National Guard first.

[Odin2005]

3. -1. BS hysteria.

[HopeHoops]

8. The Harrisburg Patriot-News (very conservative paper) has covered this extensively. You're wrong.

The REAL scandal is that they didn't notify anyone for over 5 hours. The "radiation leak" turned out to be nothing of significance. Do some research before blowing smoke out of your ass.