Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant, Part III

Common Dreams is reporting that the berm around Fort Calhoun nuclear plant has breached.

The story continues to be spun, suppressed, and misreported. I agree with many of the commenters who think this particular event may not be particularly dangerous. The coverage of the story is a bigger story. The dangers of building nuclear plants in floodplains along rivers (essential cooling water source) and the accumulation of residential growth and population in close proximity to nuclear plants is a big story. The essential unsafe nature of nuclear engineering, the problem with “mothballing” plants, disposing (where you gonna dispose of stuff that will be dangerous for thousands of years?) of waste, the collateral damage to public health by the occasional radioactive emission when an “event” occurs; these things are or should be a big story.

Dahr Jamail has an update story on Fukushima at Aljazeera. Thanks to my friend Pat Rasmussen at Temperate Rainforests for passing that one on.

There is an essay out about a spike in infant mortality that suggests Fukushima may have had some public health impact here on the Left Coast.

This is complicated stuff, but the handwriting is on the wall for those who want to read it: nuclear power is not safe or clean.