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The post-nuclear / Ignacio Ramonet democratic Show

Fukushima mark, atomic energy, the end of an illusion and the beginning of the post-nuclear. Rated now level 7 or higher on the international scale of nuclear incidents (INES), the Japanese disaster and is comparable to that of Chernobyl (occurred in Ukraine in 1986) for its "significant radiation effects on human health and the environment. "

The magnitude 9 earthquake and massive tsunami that on March 11, with unprecedented brutality, northeastern Japan was punished not only led to the current catastrophe in the central Fukushima they blew all the certainties of supporters of civil nuclear energy.

With dozens of construction of nuclear plants provided in many countries, the nuclear industry, interestingly, was experiencing its most idyllic time. Essentially for two reasons. First, because the prospect of "peak oil" before the end of this century, and the exponential growth in energy demand by the "emerging giants" (China, India, Brazil) made her replacement power excellence (1).

And second, because the collective awareness of the dangers of climate change caused by greenhouse gases, led paradoxically to opt for nuclear power also considered as "clean", not generating CO2.

These two recent arguments, were added the familiar: the energy sovereignty and less dependence on oil producing countries, the low cost of electricity thus created, and it may seem unusual in the context present, the security, with the pretext that the 441 nuclear plants in the world (half of them in Western Europe), have only suffered in the last fifty years, three major accidents ...

All these arguments, not necessarily absurd, have been shattered after the huge scale of the disaster of Fukushima. The new panic worldwide, is based on several observations. First, and contrary to the Chernobyl disaster, blamed in part for ideological reasons, the collapse of Soviet technology vilified, "this calamity occurs in the core and hyper world where it is supposed, to have been Japan, 1945, the only country affected by the military atomic hell that their authorities and their staff have taken all possible precautions to avoid civilian nuclear disaster. Then, if fittest have not been able to avoid it, is it reasonable that others keep playing with nuclear fire?

Second, the temporal and spatial effects disaster Fukushima terrified. Because of the high radioactivity, the areas surrounding the plant will be inhabited for millennia. The areas a little further away, for centuries. Millions of people will be permanently displaced to less contaminated territories, having to abandon forever their property and industrial holdings, farming and fishing. Beyond the region itself martyr, the radiation effects will affect the health of tens of million Japanese.

And no doubt, of many residents Koreans, Russians and Chinese. Without excluding other inhabitants of the northern hemisphere (2). This confirms that a nuclear accident is never local, it is always global.

Third, Fukushima has shown that the issue of alleged "energy sovereignty" is very relative. Since nuclear energy production is a new contingency: the "technological dependence".

Despite its enormous technical advance, Japan experts had to go to U.S., Russian and French (as well as specialists from the International Atomic Energy Agency) to try to control the situation. Moreover, the planet's resources to uranium (3), the basic fuel, very limited and it is estimated that at current rates of exploitation, the world's reserves of this mineral will be depleted in 80 years. So, while that of oil ...

For these reasons and others, proponents of the nuclear option must admit that Fukushima has radically altered the wording of the energy problem. Now focus on four imperatives: stop build new plants, the dismantling of existing within a maximum period of thirty years to be extremely frugal on power consumption, and gambling to fund all renewable energies. Only then may save the planet. And Humanity.

(1) Fukushima Before the accident, it was estimated that the number of nuclear power in the world increased by 60% by 2030. China, for example, currently has 13 nuclear plants in operation producing just 1.8% of the country's electricity, in January decided to build between 2011 and 2015, 34 new plants or one every two months ...
(2) radioactive particles from the central western Europe fell Fukushima few days after the disaster, and although authorities said they "did not constitute a health hazard, several experts stressed that have accumulated on the vegetables, particularly those of large leaves such as lettuce, the consumption of these was a risk.
(3) A nuclear reactor is only a system for heating water. It uses atomic fission of uranium 235 (U235) that rupture, the fission through the so-called "radioactive decay" produces a huge release of heat energy. You have to know that 156 tons of rock, providing a single tonne of uranium ore that yields a single kilo of uranium ... Of that kilo, only 0.7% is U235, which is needed in power: that is to 7 grams of U235 must be removed thousand kilos of ore and 156 tons of rocks! Read Eduard Farré and Salvador Rodríguez López Arnal, Almost everything you want to know about the effects of nuclear energy in health and environment, El Viejo Topo, Barcelona, \u200b\u200b2008, and Paco Puche "Farewell to nuclear energy" Rebellion ( www.rebelion.org ), April 18, 2011.