Nukes in the news!

The really great news for the nuclear industry just continues to pile up

First, it is becoming obvious that something is seriously wrong with the Fort Calhoun nuclear facility north of Omaha on the Missouri River:

A shocking report prepared by Russia’s Federal Atomic Energy Agency (FAAE) on information provided to them by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) states that the Obama regime has ordered a “total and complete” news blackout relating to any information regarding the near catastrophic meltdown of the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant located in Nebraska.

And sure enough, here is the NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) just issued by the FAA:

!FDC 1/6523 ZMP NE.. TFR, FORT CALHOUN NUCLEAR POWER PLANT BLAIR,NE Pursuant TO 14 CFR Section 91.137(A)(3) To provide a safe environment for FLOOD RELIEF EFFORTS Effective immediately until further notice SFC- 3,500 MSL Aircraft flight operations prohibited within 2 NMR 413113N/0960438W

It is complete and transparent bullshit that the no fly zone has anything to do with "flood relief efforts." Why not upstream or downstream of the plant?

The second item of interest is that the Fukushima situation is worse than authorities have been letting on:

"Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind," Arnold Gundersen, a former nuclear industry senior vice president, told Al Jazeera. 

Japan's 9.0 earthquake on March 11 caused a massive tsunami that crippled the cooling systems at the Tokyo Electric Power Company's (TEPCO) nuclear plant in Fukushima, Japan. It also led to hydrogen explosions and reactor meltdowns that forced evacuations of those living within a 20km radius of the plant. 

Gundersen, a licensed reactor operator with 39 years of nuclear power engineering experience, managing and coordinating projects at 70 nuclear power plants around the US, says the Fukushima nuclear plant likely has more exposed reactor cores than commonly believed.

Finally, for the hat trick, there is another troubled plant in Japan that occurred before the earthquake:

TSURUGA, Japan — Three hundred miles southwest of Fukushima, at a nuclear reactor perched on the slopes of this rustic peninsula, engineers are engaged in another precarious struggle. 

The Monju prototype fast-breeder reactor — a long-troubled national project — has been in a precarious state of shutdown since a 3.3-ton device crashed into the reactor’s inner vessel, cutting off access to the plutonium and uranium fuel rods at its core. 

Engineers have tried repeatedly since the accident last August to recover the device, which appears to have gotten stuck. They will make another attempt as early as next week.

My efforts to interview Julie Rosen, the champion of the bill to lift the nuclear moratorium in Minnesota have been thus far rebuffed.