It could be all over by Christmas if you believe TEPCO

In offering this drop of cloudy reassurance the nuclear industry's experts forget that some of us recall that 'those in the know' offered up the same untruth at the start of the 1914-1918 War.

The difference here is that TEPCO itself will more than likely be gone before Christmas, for bankruptcy is now staring the Japanese electrical giant in its mendacious and radioactive face.

TEPCO's secretive and invisible directors will doubtless get banker sized bonuses and other sweeteners to make the passage into retirement a little more comfortable. Perhaps a beach front villa in the 20 mile exclusion zone would be more appropriate?

What this latest TEPCO announcement probably means is that the radioactive cloud which has been wrapping itself around the northern hemisphere leaking its deadly cargo into the rain will continue to do so until the time when it all falls to Earth like snow on a Christmas postcard.

Anyone who hasn't run the model of the radiation cloud (viewed from the North Pole aspect) should do so NOW. What you will see is that the radiation in the sky above the Northern Hemisphere is one to two levels higher than it was before the Fukushima disaster.

What does this mean? Does it mean that the snowflakes that fell onto my face and tongue during my recent training run in the mountains were radioactive? It may well mean that! We just don't know. Only time will tell.

But I can tell you this - today the pigs of the Bavarian forests, traditional German fare, cannot legally be eaten. These animals contain double the amount of radiation per kilo of meat than the allowed maximum limit (and this is 25 years after the Chernobyl disaster when it rained in Bavaria, as it does, much of Bavaria being in the Alps).

It must follow that we humans (close relatives of the pigs) should not eat mushrooms and root vegetables unless we know they come from a reliable and safe source. And also don't forget the plight of the fish; I for one will not be eating any Pacific salmon or tuna in the foreseeable future.

The shame of the whole business, and it is a grim business, is that TEPCO continues to release misleading information.

The nuclear industry sprinkles its lies with truths; the result is that we don't know when they are telling the truth and when they are misinforming us - or playing it down. This is what their paid-for politicians and front-men TV experts are paid to do. They are the nuclear lobby's white shirts.

Truth is fast becoming a rare and precious thing - a rare thing in real danger of extinction.

Winston Churchill once pointed out that the first casualty of war is the truth. He might have added that truth will also be the first casualty of the nuclear energy industry's well-heeled lobby.

So will it be all over by Christmas?

If you take the question to mean: Will TEPCO's radiation be all over the planet by Christmas? You'd have to say 'Yes'.

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note:

On RT TV (see LINK) Dr Christopher Busby calculates that 400,000 people within 200kms of the Fukushima plant will develop cancers. He says that "the IAEA have downplayed the levels of contamination". If this is true, and there is no reason to doubt Busby who said almost from the outset that Fukushima was an incident rating a maximum 7 (as with Chernobyl) then the IAEA is criminally irresponsible. Is it time for the IAEA's Japanese leader here in Vienna to pack his bags and go home to face the rage that soon will be coming?

Here's a nice little story I've just caught up with:

Two days ago a tornado knocked out power to two reactors in a nuclear plant at Virginia, USA. Back-up generators were used to provide temporary power as operatives worked to restore full power to the facility. A spokesperson for the plant said there was no release of energy above "the usual minor releases". So you see, it's really very safe. No need even to mention it on the mainstream news. And those dependable back-up generators, they'll always there when we need them. . .won't they?