US orders news blackout over crippled Nebraska Nuclear Plant | Hacker News Reader

US orders news blackout over crippled Nebraska Nuclear Plant

nation.com.pk

23 pointsfebeling9 comments

This article is sourced from Sorcia Faal (http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/) who have an interesting set of 'news' articles.

They're also claiming that the US released a bio-weapon in Germany, so take with a pinch (small asteriod) of salt.

http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1494.htm

From reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/i345g/us_orders_ne...

Nebraskan here, in Omaha. People are advised to stay out of the river due to the raw sewage being pumped into the river, with the processing stations at capacity. There is little to no concern (in the area) of anything radiation related.

The second half of the article (about Obama's attack on the coal industry and that all Americans will suffer from higher electricity prices) seems very biased, which makes the first half (about nuclear power plant melt down) not very credible. I too would like to see more independent reports on this incident.

Can anyone provide a more credible source than a Pakistani newspaper? I did a quick scan on Google News and couldn't locate one.

Of course not, there's a media blackout!

On the other hand,

http://www.ketv.com/r/28281114/detail.html

Ockham's Razor, plus the fact that it would be pretty freaking coincidental to get two very similar nuclear disasters within the space of a few months, plus the fact that the government really doesn't have any incentive to try to cover up a nuclear disaster, plus the incredible lack of actual action at the plant, makes me think this is a totally made up story.

In fact I think I'll flag it.

I found a bit more analysis here:

http://techyum.com/2011/06/no-fly-zone-level-4-emergency-at-...

The NRC reports are all on their site as well.

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/e...

This may explain why they don't want people touching the river (from 6/13):

"OFFSITE NOTIFICATION DUE TO SEWAGE SYSTEM RELEASE

"At 0500 CDT, the lift station #4 sewage system, South of the Fort Calhoun Station Administration building, was released to the Missouri River. The release was a mixture of ground water and sewage; samples were taken by chemistry but dilution concentration is unknown. Approximately 105 gpm release started around 0500 on 6/13/2011. This condition is being reported pursuant to 10 CFR 50.72(b)(2)(xi) for an event related to the protection of the environment for which a notification of governmental agencies is required. Applicable governmental agencies have been notified per plant procedures."

The licensee notified the State of Nebraska at 1200 CDT. The licensee also notified the NRC Resident Inspector."

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/e...

Given the quotes used in the article such as "catastrophic loss of cooling","Level 4 emergency" and the ever mysterious "events" seem cherry picked to portray impending doom, it perhaps comes as no surprise that a verifiable source is neither referenced nor can be found.

Other articles referring to this 'cover-up' which do have references, refer to articles saying that there is no emergency at the plant.

Soon the baseless articles will just start referencing one and other and because mainstream news hasn't reported on the baseless allegation it proves to conspiracy nutjobs that the article is correct because there is a media news blackout.

It wouldn't surprise me if they tried to cover it up. After all, even the Japanese tried to cover-up how bad the situation really was. Since USA is a lot more invested in nuclear energy (and weapons) it's easy to see why they wouldn't want the media to make a big deal out of it whether it would be deserved or not. And since Obama is planning on adding 2 more nuclear plants, that would make it very tough for him to defend his decision during the election campaign.

But this is why I'm actually somewhat glad that a disaster like in Japan happened. If even with something like that it's hard to break the status quo thinking that "nuclear energy is the only thing that can replace coal energy", imagine how hard it would've been without that. It could've been a few more decades to really change the focus to something else. It took almost a century for people to focus on something different from gasoline to power cars, not because nothing else would've been technically possible (especially if they really tried), but because nobody would've used that technology in their cars even if it was possible.

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