While you were distracted with the “Government Shutdown”, Syria, African Terrorist and Miley Cyrus, more radioactive material has been leaking into the Pacific ocean and potentially destroying the environment we need to survive. However, this isn’t the main story line around the world, despite this having the potential to change life on earth forever.
I’m sure you remember back in 2011, there was a devastating earthquake and tsunami that rocked Japan causing several leaks in their nuclear power plants. There was wide spread panic and pledges to do something about it, but as time always does it caused us to forget. Or is that all the distraction of the media?
More importantly, a new leak has been discovered at Fukushima recently. Apparently the leak i coming from overfilled storage tanks, according to operators.
The was a miscalculation in the capacity of the tanks in addition to being tilted on unlevel ground and thus the new spill, leaks are happening.
The estimates right now put 430 liters (100 gallons) of radioactive water leaking from the take and potentially into the sea. This water could mix with drinking water, swimming water, and more around the world. The wide spread effects are unknown and almost impossible to calculate.
From BBC News: One of the largest leaks took place in August, when Tepco discovered a leak of at least 300 tonnes of highly radioactive water at a different part of the plant.
The latest leak was discovered by workers late on Wednesday.
Tepco official Masayuki Ono said: “We would like to apologise that we have to announce that we’ve had another leak in our tanks today.”
“This is partly because we’ve had to fill our tanks to the brim in order to deal with the difficult management of rain water overflow following [a typhoon],” he added.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said that Tepco had failed to deal with the leaks successfully.
“It’s actually leaking so of course we can’t say that [Tepco] have been properly dealing with the issue. It should not be leaking at all,” he said.
The 2011 disaster knocked out cooling systems to the nuclear plant’s reactors, three of which melted down.
Not sure what is more important to you these days, but if our water and environment is being damage around the world, we might want to tune in and pay attention. This crisis is clearly not going away, but it seems our attention span has.
What is still bewildering to me is the fact that nuclear energy isn’t being eliminated and cleaner, alternative sources of energy not pursued. There is clearly enough technology and resources available to do so.
When we wake up as citizens of the world?
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