Many years back as part of the anti-nuke movement in the 70s when it was the heyday of unlimited nuclear power touting energy too cheap to measure, we warned that there were many areas of the globe that would eventually have to be cordoned off and left forever as "national sacrifice areas" where human habitation was no longer possible. We argued that every step along the way from mining, fabricating, testing and use nuclear power and weapons production was leaving a trail of intense radioactivity that would be around long after humans had gone the way of the dinosaurs.
It was said that the term "National Sacrifice Area" was actually a phrase taken from some Trilateral Commission report possibly penned by Samuel Huntington but I never found the reference to that in Trilateral Commission docs but the name was catchy so we used it a lot.
Of course, we were right, just like those of us in the anti-war movement in the 60s were right about Viet Nam but that didn't stop wars and nuclear power and weapons from raging out of control until the present time.
Well, it appears we now have many areas of the globe that now qualify for that title. They are truly areas of the globe sacrificed to nuclear madness. People just aren't able to live there any longer or shouldn't be living there any longer but still do out of necessity. This is just a shortlist off the top of my head this fine Monday morning in NOCAL:
- In the 50s and 60s it was the Nevada desert and the pristine lagoons of the Marianas where atomic vets were forced to watch nuclear explosions just a few miles away from ground zero.
- The same can be said for wherever it was in the USSR that the Soviets did their above ground testing.
- The four corners region of the US is still home to highly radioactive waste piles from decades of uranium mining.
- Various nuclear labs around the country where nuclear accidents have left areas with extremely high levels of radiation essentially forever.
- The Hanford complex leaking huge amounts of radioactive elements into the Columbia River.
- The TVA reactors and pretty much the immediate area around any and all reactors anywhere. People should not be living there.
- Then there was a nuclear waste dump in the Urals gone critical.
- Three Mile Island.
- The area around Chernobyl.
- The area of the Pacific where the French insisted on continuing open air nuclear testing long after it was necessary to their nuclear weapons program.
- And now what is truly the grandaddy of all the nuclear sacrifice areas the 20 miles around the Fukushima Dai-Ichi six reactor complex. (Although that 20 miles has got to be raised someday soon).
Michio Kaku, who I knew way-back-when and thought was kind of crazy but brilliant, had it right immediately after the accident when the reactors were going off like popcorn. (I still remember a particular hearing about the Prairie Island nuke outside the twin cities when the utility brought out one of their "expert" engineers who openly ridiculed us for putting forth the notion that a reactor could actually blow up. This was just before Three Mile Island and it's hydrogen explosion.) Amazingly enough Kaku was allowed on ABC right after the nukes went critical and said very simply that it would be necessary to bury all six reactors immediately in concrete coffins and get everybody at least 50 miles away and keep them out forever or else they would die. I knew he was right when it was first reported that TEPCO couldn't control the temperatures in a couple of their reactors. If you can't control the temperatures then these things will melt-down which is exactly what they have all done - all the lies from TEPCO and the Japanese government notwithstanding.
Nobody lives around Chernobyl. No one can ever return to Bikini atoll. And no one should live around the tailing piles on the Navajo res except that's where they have lived for hundreds of years and they wont leave. And from now on into geological time no one will be living anywhere close to the Fukushima complex. Humans aren't particularly good at thinking in geologic time which nuclear power requires. Half-lives in the thousands of years just don't compute for a lot of people.
There are literally hundreds if not thousands of sites all over the globe that have been rendered unfit for human habitation for millennia to come. All there so we could have energy too cheap to measure and energy/utility companies could make reactor vessels full of cash.
But even with the news black out now about the melt-downs at Fukushima and all the lies and deception practiced on the Japanese people, there is the amazing story out of Germany that Chancellor Angela Merkel is shutting down 7 nukes immediately and phasing out the rest by 2020. Switzerland has followed suit and I assume many other industrialized countries will also come to their senses and end nuclear power forever. Unfortunately the US, France, China, India and Russia probably wont. But who knows. Merkel said it was "Japanese helplessness" in the face of this on-going disaster that brought her to such a momentous decision. An actual glimmer of hope in fighting nuclear (nukular if you speak Republican) madness.
I remember as a young boy touring the San Onofre nuke under construction in SOCAL and wondering just exactly what this huge complex was for. (Boiling water!) It didn't make any sense to me but I figured, hell, Ready-Killowatt must know what he's doing. But now there are enough of these national sacrifice areas around the globe that we can no longer ignore the threat to humanity these reactors and weapons pose. In the immortal words of Michio Kaku screaming at the top of his lungs Shut'em down! Shut'em all down!