Three weeks ago MGx reported a study which then rated the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster a Chernobyl level event. Fukushima involves three reactors and spent fuel pools whereas Chernobyl involved only one reactor. Thomas Breuer of Greenpeace Germany says “…depending of course about the spread between the three reactors, each of these reactors could be rated as a INES scale 7 accident, because the INES scale does not even consider a multiple accident, what we are seeing here in Fukushima”.

Democracy Now interviews Breuer who criticizes the Japanese government for not heeding their warnings to expand the evacuation zone sooner. Expanding the evacuation zone will displace more than a million people and force the extended condemnation of wide areas of land. This raises the cost per kilowatt hour of the electricity once generated at Fukushima DaiIchi Nuclear Power Plant to levels beyond any government’s ability to subsidize.

So, it is now clear that, since we did our field research, we warned the government that there are a lot of cities and villages outside the 20-kilometers evacuation zone where the radiation levels are so high that people need urgently to be evacuated, especially children and pregnant women, because they are the most vulnerable part of the population to radiation. And so, they have to do that now. They have to screen the whole Fukushima area, where there are other hot spots which need to be evacuated.

And then they have to—what they haven’t done so far—really, really explain to people who are still living there what to do, how to behave. So, we were approached from a lot of farmers during our field work, asking us whether we can come to their fields and do food testing, because they have no idea whether they still can eat the food or sell it or whatsoever.

Meanwhile, President Obama continues to push for a nuclear renaissance despite the horrific environmental damage one single reactor can have on the globe. How long would the US government wait before warning citizens to evacuate?

THOMAS BREUER: So, it’s not understandable how one can push for nuclear renaissance, especially if you dig into the whole industry. It’s, first of all, not compatible with democracy, because the open society, as we are living in, they cannot deal with nuclear, because they are so vulnerable to terrorism and to accidents that there will be always a clash with democracy at the end of the day. And so, Obama should look what is happening in Germany. So, Angela Merkel, even though she used to be quite pro-nuclear, as well, after the accident, she understood the real risks of nuclear power plant, and she closed down immediately eight of the 17 reactors in Germany. And I think that’s a responsible way to deal with nuclear: it has to be closed down.

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