TOP SECRET ARMY VIDEO THE PENTAGON WONT RELEASE

9/11 Goes to Court

rmy Officer Takes Bush Officials to Court over 9/11
2011 MARCH 30
by Steve Beckow
Thanks to Jeannie A.

Amidst Growing World Doubts About 9/11, Career Army Officer Takes Bush Administration Officials to Court April 5th Represented by the Center for 9/11 Justice
PR Newswire, March 23, 2011, http://tinyurl.com/49tezb7

NEW YORK, March 23, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — A December 2010 poll conducted by the prestigious Emnid Institute, and reported in the German magazine “Welt der Wunder,” revealed that 89.5% of German respondents do not believe the official story of 9/11.

The issue is heating up in America as well, and will soon be heard in court.

Top Secret Military Specialist April Gallop saw disturbing things up close that have not been reported in the media.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, she was ordered by her supervisor to go directly to work at the Pentagon, before dropping off her ten-week-old son Elisha at day care.

Amazingly, the infant was given immediate security clearance upon arrival.

The instant Gallop turned on her computer an enormous explosion blew her out of her chair, knocking her momentarily unconscious.

Escaping through the hole reportedly made by Flight 77, she saw no signs of an aircraft – no seats, luggage, metal, or human remains. Her watch (and other clocks nearby) had stopped at 9:30-9:31 a.m., seven minutes before the Pentagon was allegedly struck at 9:38 a.m.

The 9/11 Commission reported that “by no later than 9:18 a.m., FAA centers in Indianapolis, Cleveland, and Washington were aware that Flight 77 was missing and that two aircraft had struck the World Trade Center.”

Why then were there no anti-aircraft defenses, Gallop asks, or alarm warnings inside the Pentagon?

Gallop was briefed by officials not to tell her story in public; she also received an email from a Fox News reporter who had been told by the Pentagon not to interview her.

Gallop now believes that officials within the Bush Administration conspired to destroy the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and WTC 7 – the third building brought down at 5:20 p.m. that day – with pre-placed explosives detonated after the planes hit.

On April 5th, 2011, at 11 a.m., at the Federal Courthouse at 141 Church Street in New Haven, Connecticut, the case of Gallop v. Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Myers will be heard by the United States Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.

Gallop’s case relies on virtually all forms of evidence admissible in court, but significantly, on published scientific evidence that residues of these explosives were found in the rubble after the attacks. In its totality the proffered case establishes that the government hypothesis – that the buildings collapsed due to fire in combination with the airplane impacts – is scientifically untenable.

In addition, Ms. Gallop will, through photographic and other physical evidence, as well as the testimony of a multitude of military and civilian survivors, demonstrate the impossibility of her having lived through the attack on the Pentagon if it had taken place as the government and the defendants claim.

German Federal Judge, Deiter Dieseroth, stated in December 2009 that:

“No independent court has applied legal procedures to review the available evidence on who was responsible for the attacks.”

Also, that “it is not acceptable for a constitutional state…to declare war, bomb a foreign country, and place it under military occupation,” without first identifying suspects.

Dieseroth also said the U.S. “was under burden of proof” that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the attacks, yet the FBI admits it has no evidence presentable in court to back this up.

The stakes in this case are epic, including the possibility of an overwhelming transformation of the world’s understanding of history, not to mention American citizens’ relationship with their government.

Media contact: William Veale centerfor911justice@gmail.com, 292929@msn.com, 510-845-5675, 925-212-3678

SOURCE Center for 9/11 Justice

From The Council of 12…

From The Council of 12…
March 14, 2011, http://www.spiritualunfoldment.net/Channeled-Messages.html

There is much that Your eyes need to see. You are being deceived. This is a time of the curtains being drawn and the Light being let into Your dark houses. So much of what the media tells You is false. It is propaganda driven by the agenda to keep You all asleep and obedient. You must wake up to what is happening around You. Too many of You don’t want to believe this is the Truth, too many of You want to turn a blind eye because the thought of change, and the thought that the world You know is a lie, scares You to death. This is a time of transition, but You cannot transcend that which You do not first look at. Know thy enemy, and Love It. You may say, but in Reality, there is no enemy. This is true, when in terms of Spirit. If You think that every man on this planet has Your best interest in mind, then You are being naive. The only way to come out of ignorance is with Knowledge.

Now, this is not to say Your focus should be directed upon that which is not in alignment with Love and Truth. Quite the contrary, but, if You are sitting in a dark room, too afraid to turn on the Light, because You may see things in this room that scare You, make You question Your beliefs, or require that You change … then You will never come out of the ignorance, which is darkness, and emerge into The Light.

And sadly, this is where many of You are now… You know there is something there in the shadows, but You also know that if You turn on the Light within and without, You will be faced with things You have been intentionally avoiding. So You sit, pretending day in and day out that everything that is happening around You is out of Your control. You are being controlled, but that is only possible as long as You sit in the dark–too afraid to turn on the Light.

Part of the Ascension process is exposure. This is an exposure of limiting beliefs and of dark forces that have been working to enslave the planet for a long, long time. The time of this reign of power is over. The veils are being lifted and the lies and deception are being exposed. Now, in many of You this, in and of itself, will cause fear. This need not be. You need to trust that the very Powers of Light working to expose this reign of fear are the Powers that are assisting You in the transition and transcendence. What You see and hear may shock You. Much of what You see and hear will seem like it comes from a science fiction novel. We assure You, it is not.

There is a grand scheme that has been masterminded by dark forces for a long time, but We must come to You, with illumined Heart and say, there is an even GRANDER SCHEME and it is of The Divine. Never has it been written that the dark would overtake the Light. It is impossible. It is in Your doubt and Your questioning of its power, that the darkness even has power. If You believed in the True power of the Light, to 1/10th of the degree that You believed in the power of the Dark, there would BE NO DARK. This is what You must understand. You are empowering it. We are urging You to stop.

We call upon Your Leaders to resign from the reign of terror. To these Leaders We say, “There is no hope for You.” Those who are worshipping the dark forces shall be turned over to the very energy their minds have empowered. This is not punishment; this is the choice that has been made. This is the real descent into hell. For let it be known now, that when Your body ceases to exist, and the time to transition is upon You, if You have spent Your life worshiping darkness and negativity, it is to this place in Your mind You shall go. Heaven and hell are not decided by God, they are decided by YOU. Where You go when You leave this physical plane is entirely up to YOU. If You want to call hell a place, that is up to You, truly it is a state of mind, and for many of You, this already IS Your hell… but it doesn’t have to continue.

We understand how heavy this conversation is, and wish not to scare You, but rather enlighten You to what is really happening around Your world. When You ‘die’ the thoughts that You think are what determine where You will need to go next. Please think about this. Many of You are going to church and following a religious path that does not teach You how to think. They tell You what to think and scare You with fearful thoughts should You fail to obey. This is not the way of the Universe.

The Universe is Love. The Universe gives to You what You have given to it… in terms of thoughts and feelings. This being said, if You spend Your life, doing what the church tells You to do, but all the while are thinking negative and judgmental thoughts… You are not going to ascend to a place beyond Your own level of thinking and feeling. This must be understood. You cannot skip levels. You must learn to control Your mind. This is step one.

When You can transcend the mental chatter, and move into a space of Heart-centered feeling… then You shall transcend the mental plane. If You leave Your physical body, through the process of earthy death, You are not going to go to a place in spirit that is beyond Your current level of understanding just because You are in Spirit. This is a misunderstanding. You are in the physical to learn how to become feeling Beings. You are here to learn to choose Love above all things. If You pass from the physical into the spirit, and You have not learned this, You are not going to ascend to a space that is of Pure Love. That is not in alignment with the consciousness You held when You left the physical body.

This may frighten many of You, but truly it is all about Your consciousness and Your vibration. You must learn Your lessons before evolving into the Higher Realms of Consciousness. This is why We say, if You focus Your thoughts on killing and judgment, then how are You going to be a vibrational match for the Higher Planes? For Heaven? It is impossible. Your thoughts are Your power. When You transcend Your thoughts and You become a FEELING BEING, then Your feelings are Your power. Do you See?

This is a time for all of You to make a choice. We cannot make this choice for You, for on the level of soul, each of You are individuals on a Path to Higher Learning and Ascension. You have a choice in what happens to and around You, in fact, it is all up to You. When the time of Judgment comes to pass, and the Gates of Heaven open up before all of You, only Your thoughts and Your consciousness can save You. The judgment is not about any of You being ‘judged.’ For God is not a judging and condemning God. The day of Judgment will be nothing more than Your own thoughts being reflected back to You.

If these thoughts are hateful, envious, prideful, fearful, and in any other way out of alignment with Your Higher Self, then You shall proceed to the next place within a time and a dimension where You can further learn how to Love. It is that simple. There is no burning hell fire that shall swallow You up…unless that is what You spend Your time thinking about and fear experiencing. For let Us say now, as We have said to You before, You WILL BE FACED WITH YOUR FEARS. This is how they will be transcended. If You fear a biblical hell filled with fire, demons, and torture… then the reflection of the Universe will show You what You currently hold as a reality. It will be up to You to work through those illusory fears and overcome the limiting beliefs You hold about Who and What God is.

If however, You are focused on Love, Light, and Being of service… then You shall see that reflected back to You as a Heaven. What You believe is what You create for Yourselves. Over and over We have told You this. Many of You still do not believe this. You wish desperately for something or someone ‘outside’ of Yourself to save You. This is not going to happen, because the Universe exists within You. Yes, the entire whole of All That Is lives and breathes within You. How can that be You ask? Because You are NOT a body. You only think You are. You are spirit, inhabiting a body, and when You are not in that body… You are celestial Light, inhabiting every star and every corner of All That Is, with and AS ALL THAT IS. You are not separate… You are indeed Divine.

We come to You today with this Message because it is time for the Truth and it is time that You awaken to the world of darkness You have created. There are dark forces of energy at work, playing in the realms of Your mind, and because You have allowed this to be so for so long, You have forgotten that You are only dreaming. There was a time, long ago, when most of You knew You were only dreaming this dream so that God could experience Itself as Love… but over time, corruption has happened, and so many of You have fallen into a deep, deep slumber.

The dark energies of this earth are being called into the Truth of The Light. They are being held accountable for what they have created. And now this can be seen as many of You are waking up to what has really been allowed to go on in Your world. You are all being held accountable. This is what karma is. You are not being punished, no, that is never a word a Being of Love would use. You are simply being held accountable, on every level, for every unloving thought You CHOOSE TO HOLD. This is the reality of what is happening on Your earth, in truth. There is nothing more or less going on here. You can sugar-coat this all You like, but the truth of the matter is this: what You are experiencing is as a direct result of the thoughts and feelings each and every one of You has individually and collectively chosen to hold in place of love. Plain and simple.

When You talk about Gaia and “Her” transition and “Her” shedding You take the heat and accountability off of Yourselves. You displace all of that and act once again as though You have no part in this. You seem to either look at this as being detached from Mother earth and what ‘She’ is going through… or You seem to feel You are being violently punished because ‘She’ is angry for what You have done to the earth. The truth is, neither of these are actually what is happening. You have created this all by Yourselves, and now when everything is coming back in reflection for You – in such a way You cannot run and hide—You all want to blame someone else. ‘It’s the Gov’t. It’s the greedy corporate people, it’s the people who don’t care about the environment.’

Let Us say now, there is not one of You who is completely innocent from what has now become of Mother earth. Why? Because all of You have feelings of negativity to overcome. That is why You came to the earth. You have created martyrs of Yourselves in many ways, rather than stopping to look at how You played a role in creating the current state of affairs.

Do not mistake Our speaking to You about dark energies as [if] We are blaming or judging. This is not true. We are pointing the finger at each and every person on the planet who has not taken a personal account of what he or she may have put out in terms of thoughts, words, and actions to create this state of destruction and chaos. And this finger isn’t an angry and condemning finger, it is simply to say, before You spend one more moment looking around Yourself for someone to cast blame and throw stones at, perhaps You should look at how You think and speak every day.

Because this is truly it, Dear Ones. This is where You are powerful and have given up Your power to the dark energies of which We speak. Every word You utter out of anger is an energy that strengthens the forces that seek to destroy this planet. You have the choice right here and now to make a change. You do not need to change the world, in fact, You shouldn’t even be focused on changing ANYTHING other than Your own thoughts. We mean this most seriously. The life of this planet and every living thing upon it is in a state of peril, let Us help You by illuminating, without question, where the real problem lies…within You-YOUR mind. The world You see is a world You have co-created. God, the Loving Being of Graciousness and Free Will has given all of You the ability to use the very gift of thought to create. It is with this thought You paint upon the canvas of Your individual and collective lives what You truly want to see.

Your thoughts, not aligned with God, produce hell on earth. Your thoughts, aligned with God and Love, create Heaven on earth. And all of this starts WITHIN. No one should be focused on any other living soul’s change until they have fully and completely mastered their own mind. If You are focused on Your brother’s negativity, and have not yet mastered Your own, then You are a hypocrite and nothing more. We want to release You all to Love, knowing that You ARE powerful enough to make this happen for the world, as a Whole. But, You must understand that You are sitting with the keys and do not know what to use them for. You have the power, but are just giving it away out of ignorance.

There doesn’t need to be any violence or protest, that again, re-inforces the power of the dark. So many of You do not get this. You think if You go out, highly charged with emotion You will create change. You are creating NOTHING more than more of the same. Do You hear Us? You are empowering what You do not want and giving Your energy over to the darkness You want so much to vanquish. That which You resist persists. If You say “NO!” the Universe doesn’t hear this. It just hears I want more of this please because I haven’t learned how to control my mind.

The greatest power You all have is stillness and turning within. If You were to stop the mental chatter for just one hour a day, Your world would change dramatically, if not over night. But instead, You chatter, chatter, chatter, feeding the ‘beast’ more of Your energy by sharing negative dreams all around the internet. This is not true for all of You, for We cannot make a blanket statement, but, for the most part, in an act to wake people from the dream, You are only empowering it. This is what We wish to illuminate here to day.

So many of You are passionate about saving the earth, and this is a wonderful thought, but the earth doesn’t need to be saved BY You, she needs to be saved FROM You. This is not to sound as harsh as it may to Your unconscious ears, but it is You, Dear Children, who have killed the planet…and while it seems a good thought that You rush in and save Her… She is safely in the Hands of God now, as what is happening is the reckoning. You are simply living out now what You have set into motion long ago. This is Your dream being shown to You, on a world screen. You don’t like what You see? You don’t change the images on the screen. You change what is being shown through the projector. That is what You think and how You feel.

If You truly want to change the world, then You need to stop DOING and start learning how to BE STILL and QUIET. For many of You the excuses will begin to flood in now. As this message in its entirety will have pushed Your egos into a tight corner under an intense Light. The truth is this: Your world has been created by thoughts… if You TRULY want to help, then You must CHANGE YOUR THOUGHTS. It is that simple. That is the lesson You are here to learn.

You are being shown, with great intensity what You collectively believe. This is what You are seeing in Your world.. You believe in war, You believe in an eye for an eye, You believe in greed and taking, You believe in killing, You believe in punishment and guilt, You believe in hell but not heaven, You believe money is power, You believe You are powerless, You believe it is all hopeless. You believe in inequality … How do We know this? Because this is what We observe You creating and engaging in, on every level of Your mind. This need not be. Do You believe that if You dare change Your mind that You may actually SEE that change before You? If You do not, then You will need more time to learn this lesson, and there is no judgment in that.

We are speaking to those of You today who are TRULY hungry for change. Those of You Who want to BE Who You came here to BE. There are powerful negative forces who do not want You to know this information. They do not want You to be empowered for any reason. You have empowered them this long, and now, with this information, You CAN dis-empower them. Many of You will refute this information, saying there is no darkness, and again, We say to You, upon Your earth, in the realm of YOUR mind, there IS a dark energy at work and whether or not is succeeds is entirely up to YOU. Each and every one of You is now going to be held increasingly more accountable for what You are putting into the collective.

AGAIN, this is not punishment, this is just The Universe showing You in a more direct way what it is You think, feel, and believe. If it seems overwhelming in Your personal life, if Your private world seems to collapse, then You are not living in alignment with the Truth of Your Being, and right now the earth is moving back into alignment with God/dess…You will be forced to do the same. Anything that is a lie, or is not done out of integrity, will be exposed for You to face. You may feel defensive and angry when Your ego worlds fall apart, but You must understand the Nature and purpose of being on this earth. It is to LEARN TO BE LOVE. If You are not learning the lesson, You will be forced into a situation that requires You to ‘do it over.’ If You resist this, You will find even greater suffering and pain as Your experience. If You are completely honest and transparent with Yourself and God, You will find it is much easier to let go of what Your little self created. The Reward is a life of Heaven on earth.

This is all for now, for We know there will be many feathers that are ruffled, but remember Dear Ones, We come in Love, and if You are not in alignment with the Truth, the Truth will hurt. We only wish to empower You.

With Love from Above, so It can BE anchored below,

We Are The Council of 12″

SaLuSa 21–March–2011.

SaLuSa 21–March–2011.

Events move on towards the inevitable changes that will see your future fulfilled. These are not easy times but you knew that part of your experiences would include this period. Your confidence in the outcome arises from your faith in us and the Creator, and the many higher Beings that have accompanied you all through your lives. You know that nothing can alter it, and those of you that desire to ascend will do so. Unlike previous times when such opportunities have arisen, you are assured that Ascension will take place. In fact it has been carefully planned on a Universal scale, and is to be an enormous event that happens very rarely. For you it has been a long time coming, but you have been spared a conscious memory of previous occasions. In the scheme of things time is not linear, but all is in the Now. The past, present and future are One, and you can move into whatever aspect of it that you wish. The future is full of probabilities which are why you will sometimes learn of different versions of it. It is you ultimately that attract the one that fulfils the vision created through your consciousness.

It is very important that you keep focused upon the Light that is bringing harmony to the Earth. The Light is streaming in and required more than ever at this time. It is an important period where with so much going on, you need to be in the world but not of it. Be a centre of Light so that you bring calmness to others who are in fear of the outcome. Speak to others of the necessity of changes and the great benefits they will bring. There will be rumors of catastrophic events as the dark Ones play upon people’s fears, but assure them that they are intended to distract them from the truth. Everything has been foreseen, and ordained in such a way that the affects will be limited. If there is doubt remember that Man could have destroyed the Earth on more than one occasion in the last century, yet it did not take place. You are not only guided to fulfill your task of taking the Earth through to Ascension, but also helped to enlighten people around you. You have never been left alone to suffer the consequences of your actions, and compassion and love has been given to you in a never-ending flow.

The powers that be are generally speaking unaware of what is bringing about the chaotic conditions upon Earth. Often they are spiritually ill equipped to understand the implications of what they see happening and of necessity they will make way for those who do, and have the interests of all people at heart. We know who they are, and they will be protected to ensure that they can take their place of leadership when the opportunity arises. It does not mean that every person at present in such a position is going to be replaced as some are of the Light, but unable to exercise their desire to lift Mankind up. The time of such changes is not far away, and once they commence it will bring a whole new approach in the way you are governed. With other benefits that you are expecting, the scenario will rapidly change to one of positive expectations, as at last you will see the way forward. Our eventual presence and opportunity to speak with you will clear the way for cooperation between us, and much will be achieved in next to no time. All of these things are moving towards manifestation, and you can be sure that the Galactic Federation is fully prepared for its role in your preparation for Ascension.
As individuals your contribution to the changes is important, and it is best served by sending out your Love and Light to wherever it is needed. The Middle East is an area that for ages past has accumulated much negativity, and it needs help to clear it. We can help in that respect but a mass sending of Light from you will best serve the interests of the people in that region. You are grasping how important and powerful the Light is, and no matter how many weapons are lined up against people they are no answer to it. The Light is the most powerful “weapon” that you can respond with, and it is an unending supply that you can draw through yourself. The Light can accompany your prayers or meditations thus empowering them with your love. You are All One, and as such there should be no discrimination between one soul to another as to whom you send it to. Love is the healing balm that can cure all ills, and you can apply it to all forms of life. The Earth has been a difficult place for many animals to exist, and they equally deserve your love. There is everlasting life so in actual reality no death, but all living things do nevertheless benefit from receiving love. Kindness and compassion are much needed at this time, and when those thoughts are sent out they do have an uplifting affect.

Man is naturally a benign Being, and it is only the lower vibrations that have introduced the negative traits that have pulled many souls down. There is no longer any reason to continue living at that level, as you can rise up with the new energies coming in. You are not victims but willing participants, and there is every opportunity to lift yourselves up. Think about what you say and the way that you act, and move on from judgement and criticism of another person. Most people are trying their best in difficult circumstances, and because the end times present an opportunity to clear karma, have undertaken much more than they might normally do. In reality there is no such thing as an easy life, but you tend to measure that by a persons wealth that can be a burden or a blessing depending on how it is used. In the near future you will be sharing the wealth of the world fairly, and it will create a society of equal opportunity and eliminate the class distinction that now exists.

Dear Ones, there is a revolution taking place in your world, and consciousness levels are rising and pointing you in the right direction. It is the final battle of this cycle, and you have taken the opportunity to reach the stage whereby you can leave the cycle of duality forever. When you have learnt the lessons it has to offer, the experience gained elevates your consciousness to a higher level. When it is reached the lower vibrations become uncomfortable and no longer serve you any purpose. In such circumstances you are ready to leave duality, for a new level that is more in line with your own and your needs.

I am SaLuSa from Sirius, and much admire your tenacity and determination to win through the remaining challenges that confront you. We are with you all the way, and great times are approaching as you achieve success.

Thank you SaLuSa.
Mike Quinsey.

Gregg Braden on Consciousness

Report on the Japan Nuclear Reactors

This is an outstanding explanation. Anyone can follow it by focusing. I read a book many years ago about the actual safety of nuclear power plants, built correctly. Note that the galactics for years have stopped nuclear war stuff but not power plants, of which there are probably at least hundreds worldwide. Thank you, Mark!

----- Original message -----
From: "Mark

All-
This is from my office manager Ann, whose husband Steve works at Los Alamos National Lab. It's a long narrative but very interesting concerning the catastrophe in Japan.


I am writing this text (Mar 12) to give you some peace of mind regarding some of the troubles in Japan, that is the safety of Japan's nuclear reactors. Up front, the situation is serious, but under control. And this text is long! But you will know more about nuclear power plants after reading it than all journalists on this planet put together.
There was and will *not* be any significant release of radioactivity.
By "significant" I mean a level of radiation of more than what you would receive on - say - a long distance flight, or drinking a glass of beer that comes from certain areas with high levels of natural background radiation.
I have been reading every news release on the incident since the earthquake. There has not been one single (!) report that was accurate and free of errors (and part of that problem is also a weakness in the Japanese crisis communication). By "not free of errors" I do not refer to tendentious anti-nuclear journalism - that is quite normal these days. By "not free of errors" I mean blatant errors regarding physics and natural law, as well as gross misinterpretation of facts, due to an obvious lack of fundamental and basic understanding of the way nuclear reactors are build and operated. I have read a 3 page report on CNN where every single paragraph contained an error.
We will have to cover some fundamentals, before we get into what is going on.
Construction of the Fukushima nuclear power plants
The plants at Fukushima are so called Boiling Water Reactors, or BWR for short. Boiling Water Reactors are similar to a pressure cooker. The nuclear fuel heats water, the water boils and creates steam, the steam then drives turbines that create the electricity, and the steam is then cooled and condensed back to water, and the water send back to be heated by the nuclear fuel. The pressure cooker operates at about 250 °C.
The nuclear fuel is uranium oxide. Uranium oxide is a ceramic with a very high melting point of about 3000 °C. The fuel is manufactured in pellets (think little cylinders the size of Lego bricks). Those pieces are then put into a long tube made of Zircaloy with a melting point of 2200 °C, and sealed tight. The assembly is called a fuel rod. These fuel rods are then put together to form larger packages, and a number of these packages are then put into the reactor. All these packages together are referred to as "the core".
The Zircaloy casing is the first containment. It separates the radioactive fuel from the rest of the world.
The core is then placed in the "pressure vessels". That is the pressure cooker we talked about before. The pressure vessels is the second containment. This is one sturdy piece of a pot, designed to safely contain the core for temperatures several hundred °C. That covers the scenarios where cooling can be restored at some point.
The entire "hardware" of the nuclear reactor - the pressure vessel and all pipes, pumps, coolant (water) reserves, are then encased in the third containment. The third containment is a hermetically (air tight) sealed, very thick bubble of the strongest steel and concrete. The third containment is designed, built and tested for one single purpose: To contain, indefinitely, a complete core meltdown. For that purpose, a large and thick concrete basin is cast under the pressure vessel (the second containment), all inside the third containment. This is the so-called "core catcher". If the core melts and the pressure vessel bursts (and eventually melts), it will catch the molten fuel and everything else. It is typically built in such a way that the nuclear fuel will be spread out, so it can cool down.
This third containment is then surrounded by the reactor building. The reactor building is an outer shell that is supposed to keep the weather out, but nothing in. (this is the part that was damaged in the explosion, but more to that later).
Fundamentals of nuclear reactions
The uranium fuel generates heat by nuclear fission. Big uranium atoms are split into smaller atoms. That generates heat plus neutrons (one of the particles that forms an atom). When the neutron hits another uranium atom, that splits, generating more neutrons and so on. That is called the nuclear chain reaction.
Now, just packing a lot of fuel rods next to each other would quickly lead to overheating and after about 45 minutes to a melting of the fuel rods. It is worth mentioning at this point that the nuclear fuel in a reactor can *never* cause a nuclear explosion the type of a nuclear bomb. Building a nuclear bomb is actually quite difficult (ask Iran). In Chernobyl, the explosion was caused by excessive pressure buildup, hydrogen explosion and rupture of all containments, propelling molten core material into the environment (a "dirty bomb"). Why that did not and will not happen in Japan, further below.
In order to control the nuclear chain reaction, the reactor operators use so-called "control rods". The control rods absorb the neutrons and kill the chain reaction instantaneously. A nuclear reactor is built in such a way, that when operating normally, you take out all the control rods. The coolant water then takes away the heat (and converts it into steam and electricity) at the same rate as the core produces it. And you have a lot of leeway around the standard operating point of 250°C.
The challenge is that after inserting the rods and stopping the chain reaction, the core still keeps producing heat. The uranium "stopped" the chain reaction. But a number of intermediate radioactive elements are created by the uranium during its fission process, most notably Cesium and Iodine isotopes, i.e. radioactive versions of these elements that will eventually split up into smaller atoms and not be radioactive anymore. Those elements keep decaying and producing heat. Because they are not regenerated any longer from the uranium (the uranium stopped decaying after the control rods were put in), they get less and less, and so the core cools down over a matter of days, until those intermediate radioactive elements are used up.
This residual heat is causing the headaches right now.
So the first "type" of radioactive material is the uranium in the fuel rods, plus the intermediate radioactive elements that the uranium splits into, also inside the fuel rod (Cesium and Iodine).
There is a second type of radioactive material created, outside the fuel rods. The big main difference up front: Those radioactive materials have a very short half-life, that means that they decay very fast and split into non-radioactive materials. By fast I mean seconds. So if these radioactive materials are released into the environment, yes, radioactivity was released, but no, it is not dangerous, at all. Why? By the time you spelled "R-A-D-I-O-N-U-C-L-I-D-E", they will be harmless, because they will have split up into non radioactive elements. Those radioactive elements are N-16, the radioactive isotope (or version) of nitrogen (air). The others are noble gases such as Argon. But where do they come from? When the uranium splits, it generates a neutron (see above). Most of these neutrons will hit other uranium atoms and keep the nuclear chain reaction going. But some will leave the fuel rod and hit the water molecules, or the air that is in the water. Then, a non-radioactive element can "capture" the neutron. It becomes radioactive. As described above, it will quickly (seconds) get rid again of the neutron to return to its former beautiful self.
This second "type" of radiation is very important when we talk about the radioactivity being released into the environment later on.
What happened at Fukushima
I will try to summarize the main facts. The earthquake that hit Japan was 5 times more powerful than the worst earthquake the nuclear power plant was built for (the Richter scale works logarithmically; the difference between the 8.2 that the plants were built for and the 8.9 that happened is 5 times, not 0.7). So the first hooray for Japanese engineering, everything held up.
When the earthquake hit with 8.9, the nuclear reactors all went into automatic shutdown. Within seconds after the earthquake started, the control rods had been inserted into the core and nuclear chain reaction of the uranium stopped. Now, the cooling system has to carry away the residual heat. The residual heat load is about 3% of the heat load under normal operating conditions.
The earthquake destroyed the external power supply of the nuclear reactor. That is one of the most serious accidents for a nuclear power plant, and accordingly, a "plant black out" receives a lot of attention when designing backup systems. The power is needed to keep the coolant pumps working. Since the power plant had been shut down, it cannot produce any electricity by itself any more.
Things were going well for an hour. One set of multiple sets of emergency Diesel power generators kicked in and provided the electricity that was needed. Then the Tsunami came, much bigger than people had expected when building the power plant (see above, factor 7). The tsunami took out all multiple sets of backup Diesel generators.
When designing a nuclear power plant, engineers follow a philosophy called "Defense of Depth". That means that you first build everything to withstand the worst catastrophe you can imagine, and then design the plant in such a way that it can still handle one system failure (that you thought could never happen) after the other. A tsunami taking out all backup power in one swift strike is such a scenario. The last line of defense is putting everything into the third containment (see above), that will keep everything, whatever the mess, control rods in our out, core molten or not, inside the reactor.
When the diesel generators were gone, the reactor operators switched to emergency battery power. The batteries were designed as one of the backups to the backups, to provide power for cooling the core for 8 hours. And they did.
Within the 8 hours, another power source had to be found and connected to the power plant. The power grid was down due to the earthquake. The diesel generators were destroyed by the tsunami. So mobile diesel generators were trucked in.
This is where things started to go seriously wrong. The external power generators could not be connected to the power plant (the plugs did not fit). So after the batteries ran out, the residual heat could not be carried away any more.
At this point the plant operators begin to follow emergency procedures that are in place for a "loss of cooling event". It is again a step along the "Depth of Defense" lines. The power to the cooling systems should never have failed completely, but it did, so they "retreat" to the next line of defense. All of this, however shocking it seems to us, is part of the day-to-day training you go through as an operator, right through to managing a core meltdown.
It was at this stage that people started to talk about core meltdown. Because at the end of the day, if cooling cannot be restored, the core will eventually melt (after hours or days), and the last line of defense, the core catcher and third containment, would come into play.
But the goal at this stage was to manage the core while it was heating up, and ensure that the first containment (the Zircaloy tubes that contains the nuclear fuel), as well as the second containment (our pressure cooker) remain intact and operational for as long as possible, to give the engineers time to fix the cooling systems.
Because cooling the core is such a big deal, the reactor has a number of cooling systems, each in multiple versions (the reactor water cleanup system, the decay heat removal, the reactor core isolating cooling, the standby liquid cooling system, and the emergency core cooling system). Which one failed when or did not fail is not clear at this point in time.
So imagine our pressure cooker on the stove, heat on low, but on. The operators use whatever cooling system capacity they have to get rid of as much heat as possible, but the pressure starts building up. The priority now is to maintain integrity of the first containment (keep temperature of the fuel rods below 2200°C), as well as the second containment, the pressure cooker. In order to maintain integrity of the pressure cooker (the second containment), the pressure has to be released from time to time. Because the ability to do that in an emergency is so important, the reactor has 11 pressure release valves. The operators now started venting steam from time to time to control the pressure. The temperature at this stage was about 550°C.
This is when the reports about "radiation leakage" starting coming in. I believe I explained above why venting the steam is theoretically the same as releasing radiation into the environment, but why it was and is not dangerous. The radioactive nitrogen as well as the noble gases do not pose a threat to human health.
At some stage during this venting, the explosion occurred. The explosion took place outside of the third containment (our "last line of defense"), and the reactor building. Remember that the reactor building has no function in keeping the radioactivity contained. It is not entirely clear yet what has happened, but this is the likely scenario: The operators decided to vent the steam from the pressure vessel not directly into the environment, but into the space between the third containment and the reactor building (to give the radioactivity in the steam more time to subside). The problem is that at the high temperatures that the core had reached at this stage, water molecules can "disassociate" into oxygen and hydrogen - an explosive mixture. And it did explode, outside the third containment, damaging the reactor building around. It was that sort of explosion, but inside the pressure vessel (because it was badly designed and not managed properly by the operators) that lead to the explosion of Chernobyl. This was never a risk at Fukushima. The problem of hydrogen-oxygen formation is one of the biggies when you design a power plant (if you are not Soviet, that is), so the reactor is build and operated in a way it cannot happen inside the containment. It happened outside, which was not intended but a possible scenario and OK, because it did not pose a risk for the containment.
So the pressure was under control, as steam was vented. Now, if you keep boiling your pot, the problem is that the water level will keep falling and falling. The core is covered by several meters of water in order to allow for some time to pass (hours, days) before it gets exposed. Once the rods start to be exposed at the top, the exposed parts will reach the critical temperature of 2200 °C after about 45 minutes. This is when the first containment, the Zircaloy tube, would fail.
And this started to happen. The cooling could not be restored before there was some (very limited, but still) damage to the casing of some of the fuel. The nuclear material itself was still intact, but the surrounding Zircaloy shell had started melting. What happened now is that some of the byproducts of the uranium decay - radioactive Cesium and Iodine - started to mix with the steam. The big problem, uranium, was still under control, because the uranium oxide rods were good until 3000 °C. It is confirmed that a very small amount of Cesium and Iodine was measured in the steam that was released into the atmosphere.
It seems this was the "go signal" for a major plan B. The small amounts of Cesium that were measured told the operators that the first containment on one of the rods somewhere was about to give. The Plan A had been to restore one of the regular cooling systems to the core. Why that failed is unclear. One plausible explanation is that the tsunami also took away / polluted all the clean water needed for the regular cooling systems.
The water used in the cooling system is very clean, demineralized (like distilled) water. The reason to use pure water is the above mentioned activation by the neutrons from the Uranium: Pure water does not get activated much, so stays practically radioactive-free. Dirt or salt in the water will absorb the neutrons quicker, becoming more radioactive. This has no effect whatsoever on the core - it does not care what it is cooled by. But it makes life more difficult for the operators and mechanics when they have to deal with activated (i.e. slightly radioactive) water.
But Plan A had failed - cooling systems down or additional clean water unavailable - so Plan B came into effect. This is what it looks like happened:
In order to prevent a core meltdown, the operators started to use sea water to cool the core. I am not quite sure if they flooded our pressure cooker with it (the second containment), or if they flooded the third containment, immersing the pressure cooker. But that is not relevant for us.
The point is that the nuclear fuel has now been cooled down. Because the chain reaction has been stopped a long time ago, there is only very little residual heat being produced now. The large amount of cooling water that has been used is sufficient to take up that heat. Because it is a lot of water, the core does not produce sufficient heat any more to produce any significant pressure. Also, boric acid has been added to the seawater. Boric acid is "liquid control rod". Whatever decay is still going on, the Boron will capture the neutrons and further speed up the cooling down of the core.
The plant came close to a core meltdown. Here is the worst-case scenario that was avoided: If the seawater could not have been used for treatment, the operators would have continued to vent the water steam to avoid pressure buildup. The third containment would then have been completely sealed to allow the core meltdown to happen without releasing radioactive material. After the meltdown, there would have been a waiting period for the intermediate radioactive materials to decay inside the reactor, and all radioactive particles to settle on a surface inside the containment. The cooling system would have been restored eventually, and the molten core cooled to a manageable temperature. The containment would have been cleaned up on the inside. Then a messy job of removing the molten core from the containment would have begun, packing the (now solid again) fuel bit by bit into transportation containers to be shipped to processing plants. Depending on the damage, the block of the plant would then either be repaired or dismantled.
Now, where does that leave us? My assessment:
* The plant is safe now and will stay safe.
* Japan is looking at an INES Level 4 Accident: Nuclear accident with local consequences. That is bad for the company that owns the plant, but not for anyone else.
* Some radiation was released when the pressure vessel was vented. All radioactive isotopes from the activated steam have gone (decayed). A very small amount of Cesium was released, as well as Iodine. If you were sitting on top of the plants' chimney when they were venting, you should probably give up smoking to return to your former life expectancy. The Cesium and Iodine isotopes were carried out to the sea and will never be seen again.
* There was some limited damage to the first containment. That means that some amounts of radioactive Cesium and Iodine will also be released into the cooling water, but no Uranium or other nasty stuff (the Uranium oxide does not "dissolve" in the water). There are facilities for treating the cooling water inside the third containment. The radioactive Cesium and Iodine will be removed there and eventually stored as radioactive waste in terminal storage.
* The seawater used as cooling water will be activated to some degree. Because the control rods are fully inserted, the Uranium chain reaction is not happening. That means the "main" nuclear reaction is not happening, thus not contributing to the activation. The intermediate radioactive materials (Cesium and Iodine) are also almost gone at this stage, because the Uranium decay was stopped a long time ago. This further reduces the activation. The bottom line is that there will be some low level of activation of the seawater, which will also be removed by the treatment facilities.
* The seawater will then be replaced over time with the "normal" cooling water
* The reactor core will then be dismantled and transported to a processing facility, just like during a regular fuel change.
* Fuel rods and the entire plant will be checked for potential damage. This will take about 4-5 years.
* The safety systems on all Japanese plants will be upgraded to withstand a 9.0 earthquake and tsunami (or worse)
* (Updated) I believe the most significant problem will be a prolonged power shortage. 11 of Japan's 55 nuclear reactors in different plants were shut down and will have to be inspected, directly reducing the nation's nuclear power generating capacity by 20%, with nuclear power accounting for about 30% of the national total power generation capacity. I have not looked into possible consequences for other nuclear plants not directly affected. This will probably be covered by running gas power plants that are usually only used for peak loads to cover some of the base load as well. I am not familiar with Japan's energy supply chain for oil, gas and coal, and what damage the harbors, refinery, storage and transportation networks have suffered, as well as damage to the national distribution grid. All of that will increase your electricity bill, as well as lead to power shortages during peak demand and reconstruction efforts, in Japan.
* This all is only part of a much bigger picture. Emergency response has to deal with shelter, drinking water, food and medical care, transportation and communication infrastructure, as well as electricity supply. In a world of lean supply chains, we are looking at some major challenges in all of these areas.
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Dr. Steven J. Greene, Physics Division, Subatomic Physics Group, P-25
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Mail Stop H846, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545

Turning Missiles into Toys and Symbols