NH #497: Nuclear Numnutz of the Year SPECIAL for 2020!

Libbe HaLevy 

00:00:01

2020, what a year? Fascist famines, frauds and floods, riots, plagues. It’s starting to sound like what Moses did to Pharaoh and the nuclear industry. Well, they continue to push for money, money, money to feed the expansion of that deadly seat that we all share

Announcer

00:00:26

Clear hot seat. What are those people thinking? Nuclear hot seat. What have those boys been breaking their hot seat? Ms. Sinking, our time to act is shrinking, but it’s

Libbe HaLevy 

00:00:56

Welcome to nuclear hot seat. The weekly international news magazine, keeping you up to date on all things nuclear from a different perspective. My name is Leiby Halevi. I am the producer and host as well as a survivor of the nuclear accident 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, our annual numb nuts of the year. I’ll look back at 2020 through the lens of nuclear, hot seats, most popular feature numb nuts of the week. Today’s Tuesday, December 29th, 2020. And here is this week special nuclear hot seat, numb nuts of the year. I’ll look back at 2020s, nuclear news from a different perspective, starting out with this week’s brand new, new

Libbe HaLevy 

00:02:01

Us news and world report searched the country to come up with the healthiest community in America. And what did they find? Los Alamos that’s right. The birthplace of the atomic bomb, where since April of 1943, they’d been working with highly radioactive and toxic materials at the Los Alamos national laboratory, or Lanel that it’s called. And those radioactive toxic materials. Those are pollutants that have been released into the air, the water, the land, and the land is porous. So when it rains, all of that deadly stuff drains into the real grand watershed. Now the newspaper focused on the beauty of the land, the outdoor sports, the high median income, an average of $115,000 a year. And the fact that just about everybody in that county has health insurance. Well, it’s a good thing. They do. According to Joni errands of concerned citizens for nuclear safety in NGO that focuses on Lamel of this dubious accolade for health.

Libbe HaLevy 

00:03:10

She states considering educational levels, income levels, and recreational opportunities is all well and fine, but us news must include the health, wellbeing and economics of people who live downwind and downstream of these communities. By the way, 22% of the residents in adjacent real Reba county live in poverty, Aaron’s goes on Los Alamos county is the location for the only us department of energy facility in America, capable of fabricating, radioactive plutonium triggers for nuclear weapons. Those activities have spread radioactive, toxic and hazardous pollution into the air, water and soil over the past 77 years impacting the health and wellbeing of workers and neighbors, and Lanel continues their operations without adequate plans to clean up the mess that is threatening regional drinking water supplies. So, Hey, it might look like a good place to live, but if you want to risk the longterm health and safety of you and your family for a good hike, some nice scenery and some carcinogenic waste, then you along with us news and world report are this week’s no.

Announcer

00:04:26

Okay. Your hot seat,

Libbe HaLevy 

00:04:31

By the way, if you ever want to know the real radiation and toxic pollution impact on a community, talk with local veterinarians about the cancer rate in dogs, it can be a real eye-opener. So that’s what a fairly typical weekly numb nut sounds like. I promise for the rest of the show, we’ll go light on the theme and the final stinger, but I’d like to provide an explanation while the entire nuclear industry is deserving of numnuts designation and many of the major stories we follow every week qualify big time for that level numnuts of the week is reserved for special stories that feature outrageous overstepping of logic, insanity, greed, misguidedness stupidity, or misguided stupidity short-sightedness heck all the ills that the nuclear industry is guilty of. Plus a healthy dose of ridiculous capitalism numnuts of the week is my chance on every show to have a good old rant, and hopefully for you to have a laugh or a jaw drop or a sad head shake at the insanity of an industry whose ultimate end product is the end.

Libbe HaLevy 

00:05:46

No matter what they call it. Nuclear is about the extermination of life because, Hey, it’s not just the fireball of a nuclear weapon, but the everlasting impact of the radiation, it leaks everywhere, like snapped from a toddler’s nose. I get to narrate the weekly stupidity. You get to listen, we get to commiserate and all those trolls who lurk in my audience get to call me shrill. Note that only women get called shrill, never men. And when you look up the synonyms for shrill, you get penetrating acute sharp, intense, well, Hey guys, thanks for the compliment and keep listening because you also might learn a thing or two in any event. This is a stroll through the storm and cluster. That was 2020 from a different perspective, leading to our announcement of numb nuts of the year. Let’s take a look at radioactive waste. Numnuts Surrey because Radway strengths along with the wizard of Oz as that little man behind the curtain that we’re not supposed to pay any attention to, but it’s there undeniably inevitably probably eternally and the nuclear industry does a great job of doing a bad job with it.

Libbe HaLevy 

00:07:05

Take this story about Fukushima from last January eight, episode 4 46 in a true perversion of renewable energy concepts. Japan is going to use radioactive Fukushima wood to generate power. The country admits that this will help Japan’s goal to repopulate the region that has been struggling to restore its population after the earthquake and tsunami interesting that the writer did not at that point mentioned the radioactive contamination and its ongoing nature from Fukushima Daiichi and the triple meltdown in March of 2011. And while the wood will be reduced in volume by 99.5%, that Ash is still going to have radioactivity in it. Shrinking the volume does nothing to the radio activity except concentrate it. But Japan is touting this as a great way to make a lot of clean energy. And that’s why anybody who believes in this lame brain scheme, you are this week’s

Announcer

00:08:10

Okay. Your hot seat

Libbe HaLevy 

00:08:15

In the UK. Here’s what they’re doing or not doing about radioactive waste from nuclear hot seat, 4 54 on March 3rd got too much radioactive waste hanging around, Hey, just dump it in the nearest large body of water, preferably an ocean. That’s what they say. They’re going to do with the radioactive water from Fukushima Daiichi over in Japan. And now here comes England. The UKs ministry of defense is planning to increase discharges of radioactive waste into the Firth of Clyde pristine coastal waters off Scotland. By up to 50 times, the waste comes from the Royal Navy’s submarines and from the processing of Trident nuclear warheads. According to the ministry of defense, the proposed discharges were within permissible limits. Yeah. Who gave permission and he’ll give them permission to give permission. The Clyde basis. Naval commander said that proposed annual limits for discharges were being reduced where practical, what does that even mean?

Libbe HaLevy 

00:09:27

He also said there would be no radiological hazard for any member of the public. Nobody can promise that nobody. And that’s why you Cay ministry of defense. You are this week’s none like radioactive waste. Transportation is always a problem because it takes place on public roads, waterways, railways, and someday soon might or probably will be coming to an area near you think that won’t be a problem. Listen to this. Numnuts from number four 70 on June 25th, backers of the proposed so-called interim nuclear waste storage sites, meaning dumps in New Mexico and west Texas claim that it will be perfectly safe to ship the accumulated high level radioactive waste from nuclear reactors all across the country. So let’s take a look at that so-called safety factors. Shall we? On Friday, June 19 in Andover, Vermont, a truck carrying a new empty storage cask for nuclear fuel rods.

Libbe HaLevy 

01:10:37

That was on its way to the shuttered Vermont Yankee plant in Vernon, Vermont crashed and overturned according to the head of the company, which took part in the recovery of the truck and its cargo. It appeared that the driver had slowed the vehicle down for the road construction area where Combs made the lane too narrow for the truck. As the driver moved over in his lane, his wheels ran into the Lomi disturbed earth on the shoulder and began to tip the load was top-heavy and it went over. Imagine if it had carried a full load of so-called spent fuel rods, which are still highly radioactive, the exact things that Holtec wants to be able to transport to west Texas or New Mexico, the total weight of the rig and the empty 125,000 pound nuclear storage cask was a total of 210,000 pounds or 105 tons. Writing the truck took two full days.

Libbe HaLevy 

01:11:44

And we’re just learning that on June 4th, a rail car that was carrying low-level radioactive waste, caught fire in Bedford park, Illinois, just 11 miles from Chicago’s midway airport flames engulfed approximately 10% of the car. And it took five and a half hours before the fire burned itself out. It contained zirconium fuel cladding that at one point contained enriched fuel. So there was uranium present. The debris and combustible waste that was being carried was also contaminated with radioactive material. So there you have it, a glimpse into our shared possible future, which is why anyone who supports the two proposed so called interim waste storage sites in the Southwest and thinks that transporting it across country is going to be no big deal. You are out of your minds. And that is why you are this week’s numbness. And if the nuclear industry is having problems with anything, nuclear, just give it another name and poof, the problem doesn’t go away.

Libbe HaLevy 

01:12:58

But the majority of people are put off the scent and just don’t notice. And that lets them get away with slow motion murder from nuclear hot seat. Number 4 85 on October 17, Utah corporation energy fuels is importing 136 tons of radioactive material from Japan. And the public is not allowed to comment on this because energy fuels is calling the material from the Japan atomic energy agency or not waste. And the Utah department of environmental qualities, uranium mills radioactive materials program agreed because the white Mesa mill already has a permit to process or put that in quotes. It wasn’t required to submit a plan for the 136 tons of Japanese uranium, loaded sands, resins and carbon leftover from experimental nuclear extraction techniques as well as natural uranium bearing oars. Once again, semantics in service to nuclear industry malfeasance and public danger. And that is why this week, Utah department of environmental qualities, uranium mills, radioactive materials program, and energy fuel resources, USA, Inc. You are this week’s.

Libbe HaLevy 

01:14:19

And sometimes we get to win one. Even if it’s probably only temporary, here’s a snippet from a United States numnuts episode 4 61 from April 22nd. The U S nuclear regulatory commission is facing protests. After proposing that low-level radioactive waste be disposed of in commercial landfills, not explicitly designed to hold it rather than it licensed radioactive waste sites. Like I said, that was in April, but just this past week comes news that federal regulators are withdrawing a nuclear waste that had prompted an unusually widespread chorus of opposition from those who worried justifiably that the plan could have led to radioactive waste being shipped to local landfills across the U S under the plan facilities without specific licenses to handle radioactive waste could have taken it anyway, isn’t that special. But the proposal sparked a wave of pushback from an unlikely Alliance of state regulators, environmental groups, and even Texas based waste control specialists, a prominent company in the business of nuclear waste management WCS wrote informal comments to the NRC.

Libbe HaLevy 

01:15:32

In July. We regret to find ourselves in such definitive opposition to an NRC staff proposal. We are not accustomed to being in this position, boys that ever an understatement, but the pushback worked and for now radioactive waste will not be sanctioned to come to your neighborhood dump. We’ll see how long that holds and for all of you pushing back against it. Well done. So what to do with radioactive waste? Well, shoot, let’s just recycle it. Here’s a series of serious suggestions starting out with episode number four 60 from April 16. So the fissile and Haim nuclear reactors in France, both number one, which closed in March. Number two, which is closing in June, have of course, piles of nuclear waste. What to do with it. Well empowered. The French government has announced that its new techno center proposes to recycle metal from the dismantled plant and others around Europe, into everyday household items.

Libbe HaLevy 

01:16:42

Like what you might ask like casseroles and toasters and stoves and box Springs, maybe even belt buckles. It’s the French government’s twisted way of recategorized nuclear as renewable. But think of the advantages. I mean the casseroles, you wouldn’t have to heat them, just put the food in and the radiation would cook it by itself. Toasters wouldn’t have to plug them in ever same with stoves heat by themselves back Springs. I’m not too sure about, but belt buckles, man, if that’s not birth control, I don’t know what is in episode four 80 from September 2nd, radioactive waste was proposed to be recycled into batteries. Here’s the latest Chilton convince you that radioactive nuclear waste is good for you. A company called N D B is touting nano diamond self-charging batteries. Each one powered a small piece of recycled nuclear waste. Not only do they disguise the radioactive nature of these batteries with two buzzwords in a hyphen between nano diamond, but they claim that they will last anywhere from a decade to 28,000 years.

Libbe HaLevy 

01:18:09

How’s that for a spread and they won’t need another charge until beyond the half-life of plutonium. There are PR talks about it being indestructable totally safe in an electric car crash and that’s at the heart of each cell is a small piece of recycled nuclear waste, high grade nuclear waste. That would be dangerous, difficult, and expensive to store with a very long half-life and leave nothing behind. But quote unquote, harmless byproducts does the 1950s she’ll phrase too cheap to meet her in reference to nuclear energy ring, a bell, just more propaganda blah-blah-blah and that’s why, oh the heck with it, the nuclear industry in all of its manifestations is this week’s

Libbe HaLevy 

01:19:05

And if batteries and bent Springs aren’t to your liking. Here’s another suggestion from nuclear hot seat, number 4 87 on October 21st, 2020, the environmental non protection agency has announced that it will allow what it is calling limited use of a radioactive byproduct of phosphate mining to be used in the building of roads. Isn’t that special? A billion tons of the solid substance phosphide gypsum is piled high in mountains called stacks throughout Florida. The spokesmodel for the Florida industrial and phosphate research Institute said of radiation it’s low-level and we all know how dangerous low level radiation can be. If you listen to this show with any frequency, the fertilizer Institute, a group, which calls itself the voice of the fertilizer industry. So many opportunities here for non-broadcast worthy puns, but I will restrain myself. The fertilizer Institute actually got the EPA to say that in making its determination, reusing the substance for roads is no riskier than keeping it in a stack. Except the stacks are monitored, separated from homes, schools, people, children, pregnant women, women who want to get pregnant. Men who would like to have a sperm count and so many others. And that’s just a short list of the possible repercussions from exposure to low level radiation. And that is why not only fertilizer Institute, but the environmental non protection agency. You are this week’s no.

Announcer

02:20:44

Okay. Your hot seat

Libbe HaLevy 

02:20:49

Concerned about nuclear safety at shutdown nuclear reactors. Don’t be Riddick. Here’s the numnuts from episode number 4 91, November 19th, 2020 at the highly radioactive wreckage of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. The triple meltdown from March 11th, 2011, a worker accidentally pressed the emergency stop button on the monitoring equipment for continuous vision reaction criticality in the fuel debris. This vitally important warning system was stopped for three hours before anybody noticed. And in that three hours, the pressure doubled while I am not a scientist, my intuitive nature leads me to believe that this was not a good thing, that perhaps it was pointing to the fission restarting in the reactor at a dangerous situation that didn’t have any kind of warning bells and whistles on it. So it could be ignored for three hours. It’s not so much that individual worker, but TEPCO Tokyo electric power company that not only can’t run a nuclear reactor, they can’t run recovery from a nuclear reactor in a way that’s going to be safe for anybody.

Libbe HaLevy 

02:22:10

And you’re planning on going to the 20, 21 Olympics or we’re dealing with the exact same thing here in the U S at Santa Ana, Fran Southern California, not only are they burying 73 stainless steel canisters, each five eighths of an inch thick that’s all. And each one filled with an equivalent of H or Noble’s worth of radiation. Only 100 feet from the Pacific ocean waterline. They’ve taken out the warning sirens and there’s so much more numb. Nuts are at Santa. No freight would take half a program just to go through it. And we’d done so many times, but here’s another example of warning system. Numnuts Surrey episode number 4 94 from December nine. Exelon has announced that siren tests will be discontinued in January as part of three mile Island’s decommissioning process. The 96 sirens are all located within a 10 mile radius of TMI and supposedly are there not to signal to evacuate, but a warning to tune to a local emergency alert, broadcast television or radio station.

Libbe HaLevy 

02:23:18

So yes, TMI is shutting down the, they are no longer splitting atoms to create heat, to boil water, to spin a steam turbine generator in order to generate electricity boys that the long way around or what, but there are still fuel pools that are filled with highly radioactive used, said radioactivity capable of being released into the atmosphere. Should anything go wrong there there’s also the highly radioactive containment vessel that if something should go wrong, there’s an earthquake. There’s a crack, there’s a terrorist move. It could be releasing radiation as well. So why take the warning system offline on the off chance that nothing will go wrong ever that people need to be warned about, but Hey, it’s all part of saving every possible penny that they can so that Exelon executives can keep their bonuses and to heck with the safety of anybody who happens to still be living in that area. And all of this, the combination of both stories is the reason why yes, you Exelon are this week’s

Libbe HaLevy 

02:24:35

We’ll continue with nuclear hot seat, special numnuts of the year 2020 in just a moment. But first people ask me how I keep doing nuclear hot seat week after week after week coming up on episode number 500, next month through the years, I’ve given lots of glib answers like I can’t not. Or how do you look away from a train wreck to all? You gotta do something during COVID lockdown, but the truth is I consider it a privilege to be bringing you this information. I started the show because I was reading so much taking in all the post Fukushima bad news that I had to have a way to get it out of me. So I sat in my living room, talked into a microphone and thought maybe a handful of people somewhere or another might be willing to listen. Now, the show is broadcast over the Pacifica audio port network downloaded in 123 countries that we know of.

Libbe HaLevy 

02:25:35

And we’re working to update that stat. And in recent weeks, the show has ranked at number one through number 50 of business podcasts listings in such far-flung places as Bolivia, Mongolia, Indonesia, Czech Republic, Sweden, and whoever signed up to our database from Fiji. Thank you. And of course, we’ve got the usual suspects in the U S Japan, Canada, UK, basically. There’s no place in the world, untouched by nuclear issues and nuclear hot seat covers them all on a rotating magazine format as best we can. And thank you. You are listening as we escape 2020 and move forward. So will the show, but it can only be done with your help. A donation of any size will keep us in the full upright position, feeling you in every week on nuclear numb, nuts, Surrey and evils. So right now, while the spirit is upon you go to nuclear, hot seat.com and click on the big red donate button, be it a one-time support or a recurring donation of as little as $5 a month, know that your donations are essential to my ability to continue this work.

Libbe HaLevy 

02:26:51

So whatever you can do to help please do and know that I am deeply grateful that you’re listening and that you care now back to our annual special nuclear hot seats, numb nuts of the year food glorious food, except if there’s radiation involved, Japan’s got a lock on the problems of radiation in food, or at least it did according to our numnuts last year, if you like sushi, here’s our numnuts from episode number 4 48 on January 22nd. And note that this took place before the 2020 Olympics were canceled. Japanese supermarket chain, Ian company limited Asia’s biggest retailer by sales aims to start selling eco certified sushi this year, just in time for an expected surgeon, tourists during the radioactive Tokyo Olympics, Japan has lagged behind Europe and the United States and adopting policies on traceability and sustainability fisheries, but said nothing about testing for radioactivity, Korea, sushi, president Kunihiko Taneka also defended the safety of the seafood in Japan, including those from Fukushima site of the 2011 nuclear disaster proudly claiming that Kora sushi planned to open a restaurant in Fukushima, meanwhile, South Korea, one of six countries that refuses to touch anything that comes out of the ocean near Fukushima has its Olympics committee planning to buy radiation detectors and ship homegrown ingredients to Japan for its athletes during the Olympics, because of concerns over radiation in the food, you may want to believe in push the belief that everything is a okay with seafood from Japan, but let’s just get that clock ticking, counting down to what people’s health is going to be.

Libbe HaLevy 

02:28:51

And let’s track it. Anybody who eats sushi, let alone sushi in Japan, including fish from Fukushima, perhaps eaten in Fukushima. Let’s find out what your health is like in 3, 5, 10, 15, 20, and more years from now. And whether you’re going to look back at that meal and go, gee, that was not particularly smart. And that’s why Cora sushi and Ian company limited you are this week’s none like can’t have sushi without rice. Even if it does come from Fukushima prefecture, this is from nuclear hot seat, 4 83, September 23rd, 2020. And it’s ongoing struggles to erase all memory of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear and resulting radiation contamination of the land in that prefecture. The prefecture itself has announced it’s got a new high quality rice. It’s going to be putting out on the market in an attempt to rebrand itself. The new brand labeled puku war, I, which translates into luck.

Libbe HaLevy 

03:30:00

Laugh. Two words that one does not usually associate with Fukushima. The new rice is labeled as brimming with Fukushima pride, and it’s meant to compete with the most luxurious rice strains in Japan. While anyone who disses Fukushima agricultural products is accused of being fear-mongering and being against the farmers of Fukushima. At the same time, there are ongoing citizen monitoring groups that are measuring food and the soil in the area for radioactivity. Some of these are referred to as grandma and grandpa labs, because those are the people who have transformed themselves into citizen scientists in order to determine whether the food they eat and the water they drink and the soil they grow, things in is, or is not radioactive. This is necessary because keep in mind, radiation is measured officially as happening external to the body, but if you eat it, drink it or inhale it, it becomes internal to the body and that much more deadly.

Libbe HaLevy 

03:31:09

So those officials who are pushing high quality rebranded rice from Fukushima as the latest high end luxury goods without providing measurements, data and the impact of what that rice would do, if there’s any radioactivity in it, and it gets inside a human body, all of you who are complicit in that, you are this week’s numbness. And if you’re looking to have a peach of a time in Japan, head on down to Fukushima for a real sweet treat, at least that’s what they’re promising from nuclear hot seat. Number 4 75, July 29, a peach full of sugar helps the radiation go down. At least that’s what a farmer in Fukushima prefecture is hoping that’s because fifth generation peach farmer Koji for Yama has been striving to decontaminate the region’s reputation by growing the world’s sweetest peaches. He’s also getting big publicity about it, which means that he’s probably a favorite of the 2021 Olympic committee, but to quote nuclear, hot seats, French friend, and journalist Arivale Courtois, you have to be either a masochist or suicidal to play Russian roulette by eating those Fukushima prefecture peaches agreed eBay. It was a sweet piece of propaganda that got out into the world. And that’s why Koji for a Yama. And whoever wrote this article, you are this week’s none

Announcer

03:32:48

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Libbe HaLevy 

03:32:49

There’s lots of nuclear stupidity to go around when it comes to nuclear reactors, every country wants one. It’s the illusion that they’re playing in the big boys’ club. When all they’re doing is buying into the generation of a toxic legacy from which they will never be free. Here’s one example from nuclear hot seat, 4 71 from July 1st, the latest country angling for nuclear technology, Rwanda, which is working in collaboration with Russia to share nuclear technology expertise. members of the Rwandan parliament oppose the project saying nuclear energy is dangerous and expensive. They raised concerns on the source of funding, nuclear waste management, and how the potential nuclear explosions will be mitigated and how Rwandans will directly benefit current government counters that the acquisition of nuclear technology will help boost major sectors of the economy, such as agriculture, health, education, sciences, and industry, no darlin. It makes you a pawn of Russia for forever because you can’t fuel a nuclear reactor with other than whoever created that nuclear reactor to begin with you can’t use aftermarket replacement parts. You will forever be tied to Russia for a combination of the parts and the training of personnel for these nukes part of an arms race on the ground. And that’s why whoever in Rwanda is still considering this proposition. You are this week’s

Libbe HaLevy 

03:34:37

It has occurred to me that all this push by the United States, China and Russia, to sell nuclear reactors to previously nuke free countries has a potentially sinister subtext. If a new country buys its technology from say China, it needs China to train its personnel and to provide replacement parts. That’s because there’s no such thing as aftermarket fuel rods and off-brand, you can buy for less through a competing dealer. So a country that buys nuclear technology is forever indebted and under the influence, if not control of the country, that supplies them with the goods and knowledge in the first place. And that bond is forever because when push comes to political shove, if China wants something out of say, Rwanda and Rwanda doesn’t want to provide it, China can just turn its back and deny replacement, parts, training personnel, everything needed to keep the damn things running in that way.

Libbe HaLevy 

03:35:39

The Hawking of nuclear technology might be seen as an invisible arms race from which there can be no exit strategy possible. It’s a deal with the devil. When you get a nuke one that the devil will inevitably win. So for any country considering getting this technology that hasn’t had it in the past, just say, no, of course there are other stupid offshoots of nuclear. Take this story out of Chernobyl from nuclear hot seat, four 50 on February 5th. What’s the latest tourist hotspot Chernobyl ever since the HBO series showed how horrific and the radioactive contamination that followed was, people just can’t wait to visit the scene where it happened and take selfies with the invisible radiation that’s going to wreck their health and their genetic downline. The guardian, a British paper just published a series of tourist photographs, including some at a souvenir shop with a radiation symbol plainly displayed.

Libbe HaLevy 

03:36:44

The problem is that as you will hear in today’s featured interview, this models, dangerous behaviors that could be duplicated or embellished upon by visitors to Japan, for the Olympics torch relay, or the games themselves coronavirus permitting the boundaries around the radioactive zones are not secure. A determined idiot, like the host of dark tourist, a series on Netflix, a man who ignored warnings and got himself in a serious radiation zone on camera. Those people could go and dance around in a radiation zone that is four times or more higher than what is allowed at the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Mm mm can’t wait to see their babies presuming they can even have any thrill seekers, serious thrill seekers can just as well get their adrenaline fix by bungee jumping, running with the bulls in Pamplona or going on armed into Walmart in an open carry state. But Hey, what you can’t see can’t hurt you unless it’s radiation.

Libbe HaLevy 

03:37:53

And then, oh brother. And that’s why any tourist dumb enough to go into Chernobyl or any other radiation zone like Fukushima in order to get their jollies? You are this week’s none. That’s the 2020 radioactive Olympics provided story. After story about nuclear stupidity, the IOC scheduled preliminary softball matches to take place in Fukushima prefecture. Something we’ll be hearing more about in next week’s show. But worst of all, they scheduled the Olympic torch run to take place for three days through the Fukushima evacuation and radiation zone in areas still too hot for people to live as the wave of COVID-19 began to rise. The pressure to cut back on the torch run started to rise as well though, as you will hear, not many people took heed. This is from nuclear hot seat, 4 57, March 24th. When the flame first landed in Japan, close to 200 people gathered to watch and pictures of the crowd showed children with no masks or other protections from the Corona virus.

Libbe HaLevy 

03:39:04

When the flame was displayed in Sendai, which is only 66 kilometers or 41 miles from Fukushima close to 52,000 people stood in line for hours waiting for one minute where they could take a selfie with the flame only as of late Monday, March 23rd, was it announced that the torch relay would not be canceled, but downsized to a lit lantern in a car that drives the route with no runners, no torches and no spectators. Next I predict it will be turned into a big lighter in a clown car and will be canceled as soon as it has gone through Fukushima for three days, just to show how quote unquote recovered things are none.

Libbe HaLevy 

03:39:49

And regarding that torch run, George Takei best known as playing Sulu on the original star Trek got me good. This is from nuclear hot seat, number 4 58, just one week after the previous numnuts George Takei known internationally as Sulu in the original star Trek series, as well as for his ongoing snarky social media presence has just announced that he has been chosen to be the final torchbearer to light the eternal flame at the radioactive Tokyo 2021 Olympics TK wrote on his Facebook page. Just today. I am honored beyond belief to have been selected, to be the final torchbearer who will light the Olympic flame in Tokyo in 2021. This will be such a unique moment before the eyes of a billion people lighting. The torch is a symbol of hope for the future in 2021 in Tokyo, no George, no. Or as Sulu might understand the prime directive from star Trek prohibits its members from interfering with the internal and natural development of alien civilizations.

Libbe HaLevy 

04:41:05

Okay? It’s not alien it’s Japan, but still by your being in Japan, conned into lighting the torch as a symbol, that everything is a okay, and that country, you will be giving support and comfort to the nuclear industry’s narrative and interfering with the ability of Fukushima survivors to avoid being forced, to return to highly radioactive lands, to receive an ongoing dose of radiation that will damage their health, the, of their children, their unborn children, and any generation that actually manages to be born after that, June not set up the Japanese Fukushima evacuees for disease and death. It will be an ugly legacy for you and Sulu and destroy all the good you’ve done until now. Turn down Japan. George turned down the Olympics do not allow yourself to be used by them and stand with the evacuees from Fukushima. That is the statement you need to make. And one that will live long and honorably beyond any thrill you might receive from lighting that flame as for this week’s award, the Olympic torch relay committee and its evil minions at Dentsu public relations, which I’m certain dreamed up. This heinous manipulation of you, George, all of them are this week’s no.

Announcer

04:42:29

Okay. Your hot seat. I’m like

Libbe HaLevy 

04:42:34

Pretty good head of steam. Huh? The only problem was that I neglected to notice the date that to Chi posted it April 1st. Yep. It was an April fool’s joke. And I got to be the fool. I did post a retraction the following week and have lambasted to Kai through posts and messages for his unfunny joke, which gave comfort to the nuclear enemy. Unfortunately, this post is inevitably going to show up again, as we approach April 1st, because Trekkies around the world want to rejoice, just don’t fall for it. I already did that well enough for all of us. The nuclear industry keeps inventing and pushing forward its bad ideas. If big old reactors are too large, expensive time consuming and neon too impossible to build any more. They go onto promoting SMRs small modular reactors, which are small modular nuclear reactors only. They don’t like to use that word of it’s possible to avoid it because it makes a lot of people nervous.

Libbe HaLevy 

04:43:41

The modular makes it sound like Legos. And now they’re touting meltdown three new nukes for designs that have not even been built, let alone tested. And of course, no one is talking about the forever legacy of radioactive waste that will be produced. Here’s just one S M N R numb nuts from nuclear hot seat, number 4 72, July nine, the nuclear industry always on the lookout for the next way. They can scam big bucks out of the government by some incredible promise says that they have come up with a new fuel, which they call nuclear power balls and that they may make meltdowns of thing of the past. These theoretical new nukes, none of which has been designed, let alone built will be fueled by what is being called Tereso T R I S O, which consists of millions of submillimeter sized grains of uranium individually wrapped in protective shells.

Libbe HaLevy 

04:44:48

Industry press releases refer to it as a radioactive Gobstopper, whatever that’s supposed to mean. Each particle of fuel has three alternating layers of graphite and a ceramic called Silicon carbide. And each particle is smaller than a poppy seed promoters claim that a combination of new reactor designs, plus this new fuel, you will have essentially created an accident proof reactor, which brings to mind what they used to say about the Titanic before it was built. And it doesn’t help their case that the name of this miraculous new fuel comes from the Spanish tree SAR, which means to crack or chip going to have to do a cost benefit analysis on rebranding, that name and all of this is why anyone who is touting these buckyballs of Teresa as the way to create nuclear safety in the future, you are this week’s nun in nuclear. The bottom line is that it all comes down to politics.

Libbe HaLevy 

04:46:00

It’s the politicians who make the financial decisions of what to do with our taxpayer dollars, passer block laws and regulations hedge their bets against how much money they’re friendly neighborhood nuclear interests will or will not give to their reelection campaigns. And this cuts across party lines, showing both Democrats and Republicans to be as tone deaf and bamboozled by propaganda as the other, the Democrats made it official this summer during their national convention from nuclear hot seat, 4 79, July 27, the democratic party during their national convention released the party platform, which stated that when it comes to energy, they favor a quote technology neutral approach that includes existing and advanced nuclear. It’s the first time since 1972, that the democratic party has said anything positive in its platform about nuclear energy and they shouldn’t have done it. Nuclear is not carbon neutral from your Rainium mining to transport, to manufacture, to purification, to the debris that gets left over from all nuclear reactor operation to what has to be done to store is nuclear intense.

Libbe HaLevy 

04:47:18

The darn things don’t even run on the energy that they produce. They’ve got to import it from the grid and where’s that grid energy coming from. It’s not coming from nuclear sources. And unfortunately in this country, we don’t bother to look at what a combination of solar and wind and geothermal and hydro electric and all the other genuinely renewable sources can do to generate that electricity. So it’s usually carbon-based electricity that runs nuclear reactors. This is short-sighted numb nuts, rebased on propaganda false information. And who knows how much Monday under which table to which Democrats until suddenly now we’re supposed to be in favor of nukes. Well, I got to tell you when it comes to numb nuts, this is top of the line and that’s why democratic party and the ass hats behind this particular plank in your let’s fall through the floorboards, into the abyss platform.

Libbe HaLevy 

04:48:17

You are this week’s Mike, and to those who look to Alexandria, Ocasio, Cortez, and the green new deal to save us guess again, episode number 4 67 from June 3rd. Oh, Alexandria Ocasio, Cortez who slipped you? The Kool-Aid the nuclear Kool-Aid to drink. AOC is now mouthing off saying that nuclear is possibly part of the green new deal. No, no, no, no. And oh yeah, no nuclear is not green can never be green and can never be part of a genuine green new deal. And that is why a O C it breaks my heart to say it, but do you darlin our, this week’s none like, and now with the formerly anti-nuclear president, like Biden coming out in favor of nukes in the green new deal, well, we won’t be lacking for numb nuts in the coming year. And then there’s evil. Numnuts the lies and recasting of history that seemed to imbue our nuclear roots with a golden almost holy glow of goodness.

Libbe HaLevy 

04:49:34

In this bookend to this week’s numnuts on Los Alamos county being cited as the healthiest place to live in America comes this numnuts from July 22nd, episode number 4 74, which happened just in time for some truly awful anniversaries. I hope you’ve got a strong stomach. Lisa Gordon Haggerty who leads the national nuclear security administration that oversees the nation’s nuclear programs has said that the Trinity tests that detonated the first atomic bomb 75 years ago led to great progress in science, national offense, and even peace. Keeping a direct quote. I hope I can impart how it contributed to the betterment of humanity. Oh, what betterment like 200,000 dead from the blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki radiation deaths that follow and continue to this day, the release of deadly radioactive plutonium with a half-life of 24,000 years. How does that contribute to the betterment of humanity and peacekeeping Lisa Gordon Haggerty? Because the only thing I see it contributing to is making you this week’s

Announcer

05:50:48

Okay, your hot seat.

Libbe HaLevy 

05:50:52

And as a footnote, there were 23 new active cases of COVID-19 this week at national nuclear security administration sites. The second consecutive week of double digit increases, of course the NNSA does not specify the locations where the new cases were reported because the less, you know, the less you can do about it. And now nuclear hot seats, 2020 numb nuts of the year.

Libbe HaLevy 

05:51:30

Donald J. Trump and his entire administration. Now, before you go nuts, no that I’m not letting his predecessor Barack Obama off the hook because he also took colossal steps immediately after he took office to ramp up and modernize our nuclear arsenal modernizing quotes, but the trail of nuclear blunders by the still current president boggles the mind and terrifies the heart. We don’t have time to be all-inclusive, but here are just a few of the highlights. Even before he took office. Trump said of our nuclear arsenal. If we have nuclear weapons, why can’t we use them? He followed Obama’s lead and continued to order the department of energy to enhance the U S nuclear weapons arsenal. He canceled America’s participation in the intermediate range, nuclear forces treaty, which stopped an entire class of mid range nuclear weapons that Russia could have used to put Europe, the UK and the middle east in terrible danger, withdrew America from the Iran nuclear deal, in which Iran agreed to shift its nuclear program from weapons production to peaceful commercial use for 10 years, tensions between the us and Iran in the wake of that decision have steadily risen and reached a boiling point in the early days of 2020 sparking fears of war.

Libbe HaLevy 

05:53:01

He threatened North Korea, this back in August of 2017 with fire and fury like the world has never seen escalating tensions between the two countries and reviving the real chance of war with the world’s newest nuclear armed nation. Not only pulled the us out of the open skies treaty, which used specially equipped unmanned aircraft to arterial surveillance flights, to monitor military forces and activities of 36 countries. He has since ordered the special planes to be destroyed, smashed down to scrap. So there’s no chance of them being revived in a new administration, pushed for more uranium mining, uranium stockpiling, which we don’t need increased plutonium PIP production, which are nuclear weapons triggers talked about resuming nuclear weapons, test explosions. Plus there’s all that money to the nuclear industry, $11 billion tucked inside. The most recent COVID stimulus package is just one example of it. And there is so much more, here’s the big question in a nuclear sense because of this president’s actions, are we as a country, more secure or less secure than we were four years ago? And the answer is less far, far less. And remember, Trump is still the only person in the world with irrefutable in controvertible on Blockable access to nuclear launch codes, which gives him the ability to nuke any target we’ve got within 15 minutes of deciding to do so. And no one can stop him. All of this is why in the waning days of your administration, Donald J. Trump, you have the dubious honor of receiving nuclear hot seats, 2020 numb nuts of the year.

Libbe HaLevy 

05:55:09

This has been nuclear hot seat for Tuesday, December 29th, 2020. I have a whole set of acknowledgements here, thanks to Joanie errands for her insights about Los Alamos counties, toxic legacy, and why it’s not such a healthy place to live for help with numnuts of the year. Jim Torson Lonnie Clark, bill Smyrna. You support me in so many ways. I want to thank the nuclear hot seat, weekly posting heroes, Tara Johnson, Douglas for keeping the cats herded Pam mall, Wesley strobing, Patty amino. Tara is retiring to RV around the country with her husband socially distance, of course, and we’re in need of more people to help us post the show, get it out so that everybody can find it. So if you’ve got about 15 minutes a week, you can be instrumental in helping get nuclear hot seat into the world, as well as be joining with a fun group of people who post you are my heroes.

Libbe HaLevy 

05:56:08

So if you’re interested, shoot me an email or a Facebook message to take one of our few remaining spots to all of my guests and those of you who have brought them to my attention. Wow, I could not do it without you. This sharing of the expertise, insights, thoughts, suggestions, and yes, even humor has helped us get through another year of tracking the madness that is nuclear. And I literally could not do it without you gratitude, always for our theme song and numb that stinger to merrily Weeber and John Barnard. I wrote the word Sten, hummed the Diddy, but they turned it into music and recorded it for me at Winslow court studio in Hollywood. Now, for those of you out there who may not be on our mailing list, if you want nuclear hot seat delivered via email every week, it’s easy. Go to nuclear, hot seat.com the yellow box.

Libbe HaLevy 

05:57:04

That’s an opt-in and sign up for weekly email links to the latest show. We also need your participation. So if you have a story lead, a hot tip or a suggestion, someone to interview, send an email, please email, not Facebook. This one, send it to [email protected]. And if you appreciate weekly verifiable news updates about nuclear issues around the world, take a moment and go to nuclear, hot seat.com. Look for that big red button, click on it, and anything will help and know that we will really appreciate your support. This episode of nuclear hot seat is copyright 20, 20 Leiby Halevi and hardest street communications, all rights reserved, but fair use allowed. As long as proper attribution is provided. This is Libby Halevi of heart history, communications, the heart of the art of communicating, reminding you that we need all of you in the coming year and years. So unless you live in COVID free New Zealand and you know who you are, Kevin Hester stay home. When you can mask up social distance, wash your hands, stay healthy, stay alive, and whatever you do when it comes to this nuclear, wake up call, don’t go back to sleep because we are all in the nuclear hot seat,

Announcer

05:58:27

Clear hot seat. What are those people thinking? Nuclear hot seat. What have those boys been breaking their hot? See Ms. Sinking. Our time to act is shrinking, but the visceral Hotsy it’s the bomb.