NH #561: Chernobyl Radiation Lab Destroyed, Radioactive Forest Fires, History with Kate Brown + Fukushima 7.3 Earthquake Damage

Libbe HaLevy

00:00:01

Nuclear Ukraine week four, the radioactive remains of the Cher noble nuclear power plant. Continue to be a hotspot of concern in the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. While everyone from the Russian military to officials at rose, Otum the Russian state nuclear corporation to the international atomic energy agency, loudly deny any claims that she noble has killed or harmed more than a handful of people. It takes an award-winning author and historian of environmental and nuclear history who did her own research at 27 Eastern European medical archives on your Nobles health effects. And she tells you

Kate Brown

00:00:46

When they found catastrophic results, which was a major epidemic of children with thyroid cancer, very rare cancer among kids, one in a million normally get it suddenly in a small area of Northern UK, they had 20 kids and the Soviet doctors handed the foreign experts, 20 biopsies. They didn’t believe that this could possibly be thyroid cancer among so many kids. They brought ’em home to have examined and sure enough, they found that these were cancers, but then in their report, they said, we heard some rumors about thyroid cancer among children. And we found those rumors to be anecdotal in nature. But what they were sitting on was hard evidence and they had other evidence of 30 more kids in Belarus. And that indeed turned out to be the tip of the iceberg of what became a big epidemic and thyroid cancer among kid.

Libbe HaLevy

00:01:32

And that is just the start. So when Kate brown author of manual for survival, Acher noble guide to the future, not only tells you this, but so very much more. You begin to realize that not only in Northern Ukraine and Belarus, but everywhere on this planet, there is a giant uncomfortable seat that unfortunately we all share

Announcer

00:02:00

You clear seat. What are those people thinking? New, clear, hot seat. What have those boys been drinking? New Claire hot seat. The is sinking. Our time to act is shrinking, but the activists are licking new Claire hot it’s Deba.

Libbe HaLevy

00:02:31

Welcome to nuclear. Hotsy the weekly international news magazine keeping you up to date on all things, nuclear from a different perspective. My name is libi Hala. I am the producer and host as well as a, of the nuclear meltdown at three mile island from just one mile away. So I know what can happen when those nuclear so-called experts get it wrong. This week, we continue coverage of the nuclear aspects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine taking an historic look at tri noble, how bad it was before this war began and what its health impacts have already been to give us a sense of how much worse it still could be. Under current circumstances, we revisit an interview with Kate brown author of the best selling manual for survival Acher noble guide to the future to gain her insights into the ongoing aftermath of that deadly nuclear disaster.

Libbe HaLevy

00:03:30

We’ll also hear from author activist, Harvey Waserman on how activist across different platforms can assist each other in getting our talking out to the public, as well as an upcoming event where we learn to do just that we will also have nuclear news from around the world, numb nuts of the week for outstanding nuclear bone headedness and more honest nuclear information. Then we will ever get out of a Russian oligarch. All of it coming up in just a few moments today is Tuesday, March 22nd, 2022. And here is this week’s nuclear news from a different perspective. Starting with this late breaking story out of Ukraine, Russian military forces have destroyed a new laboratory at the chin noble nuclear power plant that among other works to improve management of radioactive waste. This according to the Ukrainian state agency, responsible for the tri noble exclusion zone, the laboratory contained quote, highly active samples of radio nuclides that are now in the hands of the enemy, which we hope will harm itself and not the civilized world.

Libbe HaLevy

00:04:39

The agency said another worrying development Ukraine’s nuclear regulatory agency said on Monday that radiation monitors around the plant had stopped working. There is additional concern because forest fires broke out around the Cher noble nuclear site on Monday, March 21st, raising fears, raising fears of radi contamination and spread in the smoke from the burning of contaminated plants, at least seven fires within the plant’s exclusion zone were observed on satellite imagery from the European space agency. Lawmakers blamed the Blas on Russian forces that captured the site in February Ukrainian officials and fire fighters could not carry out their usual functions in the area to extinguish the fires because of Russian control of the plant. It warned that fires within a 10 kilometer or 6.2 radius of significant radioactive waste and contamination could pose particular damage. Nuclear experts said could also threaten critical electricity transmission lines, which were recently repaired according to Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the union of concerned scientists, the facilities themselves greatest vulnerability is a loss of power.

Libbe HaLevy

00:05:59

An NAGO Adam Ukraine state. One nuclear company said that Russia’s seizure of the area meant crews were no longer able to monitor radiation levels there. According to Reuters, Argo, Adam also stated radiation levels in the exclusion zone and beyond including not only Ukraine, but also other countries could significantly worsen. If there is any good news out of Tru noble. It’s the fact that on Sunday, March 20th, after about 600 hours inside in a hostage situation, 64 people were allowed to leave the Tru noble nuclear power plant. After more than three weeks, without a break, 50 shift workers were among those allowed to go. And they were replaced by 46 employee volunteers from Ukraine, this amounts to about half the staff at the site that actually runs the safety systems at the facility. As yet, it is UNC clear when or whether the remaining workers will be able to rotate out the state nuclear regulatory inspectorate of Ukraine has said that some maintenance and repairs at she noble could not be carried out because of quote, the psychological moral and physical fatigue of the personnel anonymous.

Libbe HaLevy

00:07:17

The online on hacktivist group has hacked into the website of rose AUM, defacing the website, but also putting out the assurance that I have not put the operation of any nuclear reactor at risk will have links up to several articles on Ukraine, including what comes after Russia’s attack on a Ukrainian nuclear power station by Carnegie, senior fellow mark Hibbs, nuclear information service, joining Ukrainian calls for sanctions on Russian nuclear industry. Russia’s energy cloud. Doesn’t just come from oil and gas. It’s also a key nuclear supplier and a key article from the New York times as Russia in what’s the risk of nuclear war quote. It’s not zero. And in Japan on March 16, a pair of earthquakes hit the Fukushima region, a magnitude 7.3 followed by a slightly weaker quake. It hit offshore in the same area as the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. The tsunami alarms did go off, but the two that hit were both under one meter in height and did no further damage.

Libbe HaLevy

00:08:28

Current reports from the quake are one death, 88 injured and 2 million homes that lost power. A series of radioactive waste containers stored outdoors at Tecos Fukushima site were and tilted by the earthquake eight one meter square containers. Toppled over four of them were damaged and the contents exposed as low dose used protective clothing. The coolant pumps for spent fuel pools were shut down at the number one and number three reactors with pump operations recovered after two hours, warping of a panel opening in a door at the number one reactor building that releases pressure in emergencies to prevent hydrogen explosions. And what has been described as a fist sized space in that panel opening, but quote, no radioactive substances were confirmed to have leaked. According to TECO. I just question their use of the term. Not confirmed there, we’ll have this week’s featured interview in just a moment, but first the baby has arrived.

Libbe HaLevy

00:09:35

Clear hot seats, new website is up and running, and I think it’s terrific, faster, way more searchable. And now with transcripts, there’s a more robust and flexible player for each episode, a media section, even a humor page. This revamp has required close to a year planning and more than six months of work because you can’t use a cut and paste template for a website with 560 recordings and counting more importantly, we’ve installed state of the art behind the scenes functionality to help the show its topics and interviews be found on Google’s first page search engine optimization on steroids. Now it’s still a work in progress so far. We’ve loaded episodes back to January of 2021, along with transcripts. And there are some of our classic cornerstone shows up as well. The rest will be rolled out over the coming weeks and yes, we will be proofreading too, especially the scripts needed, but the site will function as an oral archive of our history told in weekly updates over the past 11 years and become a roadmap to find the people issues and actions that make up the community of those who think nuclear is not exactly a good idea.

Libbe HaLevy

01:10:56

I don’t think I need to tell you how important this is or how expensive it’s been, not only design and implementation, but the monthly charges. We now need to maintain the site, which have at least doubled. So if you’ve ever thought about donating to nuclear hot seat, do it now, nuclear hot seat.com and click on the smaller, but still red donate by any amount can help. And you can set up a sustaining donation for as little as $5 a month help us. So we can help you to understand nuclear issues on a weekly basis and know that whatever you do to help, I am deeply grateful that you’re listening and that you care. Now, here’s this week’s featured in, in looking at the future. We must understand the past and there is no more important place to do that right now than in Ukraine. And specifically at Cher noble, while everyone from roseum to the international atomic energy agency are downplaying the dangers there, especially to health.

Libbe HaLevy

01:11:56

Some people know more about your Noble’s truth. And this week we have one of the best of them. Kate brown is the author of the award winning manual for survival Acher noble guide to the future. Arguably one of the best books on sure. Noble that has ever been written. She is an historian of environmental and nuclear history at MIT and the author of Pluto Topia, which won seven major awards here. She shares information that is as timely now as it was when we spoke on Monday, April 15th, 2019, Kate brown. I am so thrilled to have you here today on nuclear hot seed.

Kate Brown

01:12:36

It’s great to be here, Libby. Thanks for inviting me,

Libbe HaLevy

01:12:39

Figuring out the truth about Cher. Noble was an enormous complex mind boggling project. What drew you to this area of research in the first place and how did you get started?

Kate Brown

01:12:50

Originally? I was interested in the nuclear security state. And so I started, I wrote a book called Pluto Topia about the first two cities in the world to produce plutonium. And while I was working that story, these I wasn’t interested in, in health or environment, but these farmers who lived down wind and down river from these two plutonium plants, the Soviet and American one were telling about their health problems and they thought it very similar strain health problems and similar across this huge divide between the Siberian Soviet site and the Eastern Washington American site. And I, so I started working to try to figure out what that meant to if they were right, what scientists thought. And I got a little bit into that story when I, in that book, Pluto, Topia, but I felt like I didn’t really get the, so this is almost a sequel.

Kate Brown

01:13:38

And I thought, well, Cherno was a civilian site. It wasn’t a military site. So it was more, more open. It, it exposed far more people and it was later, it was in the 1980s rather than the, you know, the forties and fifties and sixties. So I went into the archives and found his sort of Kandi of health records in many points. I was the first to check out these records cause it was pLS����