April 25th, 2007

Dear Readers,

Tomorrow is the 21st anniversary of the start of a silent slaughter.  Chernobyl kills to this day, and will continue to do so halfway to forever.

The nuclear industry denies every latent cancer death, every leukemia, every heart ailment, every tumor of any sort.  Even the unhappy souls who have survived, but whose lives have been ruined by Chernobyl, are denied the dignity of a valid reason for their depression.  They are told it's all in their head.

Tomorrow may ALSO be the start of ANOTHER Chernobyl -- ANOTHER round of silent slaughter.

The disaster will creep up on us, amidst adamant official government denials from every country with a reactor of their own, whose reputation they will want to protect.

It will creep up on us amidst weak media coverage by poorly-educated reporters, who will believe that their main function will be to prevent panic.  And to some extent, they'll be right about that.  Their time to say the right things, things that might have stopped the horror, will have past.

Just like last time.

Of course, next time, camera-phones will probably capture some of the tragedy as it unfolds.  But even camera-phones and the Internet will not be able to show the horror, because of the odorless, colorless, tasteless nature of nuclear poisons, and because of the years-later pain and suffering of cancer, leukemia, and many of the other health effects, and because of the fierce heat which accompanies virtually ALL nuclear disasters and wafts the poisons high into the air, landing dozens or hundreds (or thousands) of miles away, making positive identification of the victims impossible.

Such a disaster has become EVEN more likely, at least in America, because yesterday, in a brazen abdication of their responsibilities, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission ruled that new nuclear reactors will NOT have to be designed to withstand airplane strikes from "big airplanes" (Matthew Wald, New York Times).

New reactors will NOT be required to be designed with true (but unaffordable and/or impossible) robustness.  Instead, the nuclear industry will be allowed to come up with things like emergency dilution plans, so that any radiation released in an accident can be quickly diluted below the threshold for regulatory concern.  To make this easier to accomplish, the regulatory limits will be temporarily raised after ANY accident, in order to accommodate the additional release of radioactive materials.

If emergency dilution is not possible, then spreading the total radioactive release out over time will suffice.  According to the NRC's philosophy, a month-long disaster, for example, is preferable to a two-day disaster, even if the total radioactive release and eventual health effects are expected to be virtually identical.  The difference of about 28 days (in this example) can get you an operating license.

But if nuke engineers cannot prove (to the satisfaction of the NRC) that they can stretch the ensuing accident out over a couple of weeks or months, then an UTTERLY UNWORKABLE plan of evacuation for the people living 5 to 10 miles around the plant will still suffice!

And if THAT's not possible?  Believe me, THAT's possible!

There are reactors which now have millions of people within 30 miles of them, and tens of millions of people living within 50 miles.  The fallout from a reactor accident could force the permanent evacuation of major cities dozens or even HUNDREDS of miles downwind of the plant.  But as long as the 5 or, at most, 10-mile radius is considered rural, or has some exit routes, that's good enough for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to give out a licence to operate, or to continue to operate, a reactor.

These alternative plans are called "mitigation plans" but really they are ALL just closing the barn door after the horses have gotten out.  And these are the four horses of the Apocalypse we're talking about!  Mean ponies.  You don't want THEM getting out!  But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, with the one word "practicable" as in "to the extent practicable" has eliminated the need for new nuclear reactors to be designed safely.  Period.

Any fool in a large airplane can destroy a nuclear reactor, and the plant will have been designed LEGALLY as if the threat did not exist!  New nuclear plants will also be vulnerable to "inside jobs," missile attacks, ground-based attacks, and a thousand other risks. (Gee, they're going to be just like the CURRENT CROP of reactors!)

Yesterday's vote by the NRC was characterized -- by the NRC staff -- as an additional step towards plant security in the wake of 9-11.  Actually, it is just the opposite:  It gives plant designers specific permission to ignore the realities of the world, giving them even more opportunities than before to commit genocide with federally-mandated immunity.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman

Carlsbad, CA