Fifteen atomic reactors in Ukraine currently spew out massive quantities of radiation, alongside the smoldering ruin of Chernobyl Unit 4.
War could easily - and soon! - turn each into a nuke of mass destruction, blasting into the eco-sphere clouds lethal fallout far in excess of actual A-Bombs, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Like the rest of the global fleet, Ukraine's reactors are sitting ducks set to explode. They symbolize a monumental technological failure, left in the radioactive dust by the rise of renewables. But a devious, deceitful industry is desperate to kill green power, even if its dirty, decayed rump reactors could mushroom as you read this.
The essential unity between atomic power and weapons has been set since birth. France's Macron now explicitly argues that "peaceful" reactors are needed to sustain the French atomic weapons program.
Cesium fallout from the four exploded Fukushima reactors exceeds that from Hiroshima and Nagasaki by a factor of more than 100. A compendium of studies at Chernobyl indicates a human death toll of more than a million. People and animals died in droves at Three Mile Island. After six decades of development, no US "Peaceful" atomic reactors can get private insurance against the liabilities of a catastrophic accident.
But the 400 nukes operating worldwide (93 in the US) threaten just that.
They burn at 571 degrees Fahrenheit, heating the planet. They spew carbon 14 and other greenhouse gases as they gouge their fuel, burn their innards and plague us all with unmanageable wastes.
Construction began on ALL US nukes at least thirty years ago. They're embrittled, cracked, under-maintained, obsolete, ticking time bombs. Many are operating far beyond original design specs. Their workforces are aging and retiring. They sit in earthquake zones and flood plains, vulnerable to hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, sabotage, war.
Attempts to build more of these old-style water-cooled clunkers have catastrophically failed at Olkiluoto in Finland, Flamanville in France, V.C. Summer in South Carolina (abandoned at a cost of $10 billion), Vogtle in Georgia"where two reactors that may never open have soared past $30 billion, potentially bankrupting the Peach State.
Powered with a mix of plutonium, the explosion at Fukushima Unit Three threw up a familiar mushroom cloud. Millions of gallons of radwaste there are poised to be poured into the Pacific.
Yet the nuke industry wants to paint itself green. It hides its massive carbon emissions"ignores the gargantuan quantities of heat and wastes each reactor pours into the eco-sphere".kills billions of land and sea creatures every day.
The reactor industry's clearest present danger centers on its non-stop radiation releases and millions of tons of radioactive offal that can't be managed.
But possible war in Ukraine (or elsewhere) could dwarf Chernobyl in a matter of moments. As both the Russians and the Ukrainians well know, these are pre-deployed Atomic Bombs, easily turned apocalyptic by conventional weapons, advanced cyber-attack or simple incompetence.
The latest stab at reviving this zombie technology centers on "Small Modular Reactors." Some models are meant to be cooled by liquid sodium, which has already caused an explosive 1959 radiation release at Santa Susana, north of Los Angeles, and a 1966 melt-down at Fermi I, south of Detroit.
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