Good afternoon, everyone. I’d like to welcome you to the Human Race Nuclear Energy Museum. I’m going to give you a tour of the Museum. First of all, I’m going to tell you a little bit about this site and nuclear energy in a historical context of human beings. Right, so originally it was Los Alamos where human beings first exploded a nuclear weapon as a test. But the weapon was left to be secret until atomic bombs actually devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This stimulated other countries, the winners of World War II to launch a foolish race toward the development of nuclear weapons, which was enlarged by a historical background of the Cold War. On the other side, however, countries that lost World War II prohibited themselves to poses and develop nuclear weapons, and instead they headed toward constructing nuclear energy plants in the name of the so-called “peaceful use of nuclear energy.” Please look at this. You are looking at a control room of the previous nuclear energy plant. There used to be a lot of computer and highly developed intelligent machines. Technicians and designers, that is, white coloured workers in the plantes, were very proud of the room, and whoever visited looked at the room, almost all of them expressed their great excitement at power of scientific technology and admired the system of nuclear energy plants. Now, if you’d all like to follow me, um, I’ll take you down to the exhibition. Watch yourselves here now, be careful of the low ceiling ...
All right. Is everyone here? I’d now like to tell you something about the system of nuclear power plants. Basically, they consisted of six systems: Nuclear reactors; Steam turbine; Generator; Main coolant pump and forced circulation pump; Safety valves; and Feedwater pump. Nuclear power plants were so sophisticated and complex that they were very fragile even to a small accident. Nevertheless, promotors of the nuclear energy industry succeeded in making widespread people believe in the safety legend that catastrophic accidents never happen in nuclear energy plants although they didn’t understand what was happening within plants. At the end of 20th century and the beginning of 21st century, three big nuclear accidents happened, but most human beings didn’t understand what they confronted. I told you that Nuclear power plants were so sophisticated and complex and people put their trust on such system, buy massive nuclear energy industry is supported by great sacrifice of numerous day manual labourers who worked under consistant contamination of radioactivity in nuclear energy plants. Their existence itself testifies that a clean and safe image of the nuclear energy industry is just an illusion. Now, if you’d like to come this way....
Right, let me tell you a bit about the manual labourers who worked in nuclear energy plants. We’re standing now in front of the models which show exactly how they worked. Their job was mainly to clean radioactive contaminated pools and other equipment and divide radioactive contaminated waste into burnable or unburnable by hand. They were given special protective suits and masks, but such things was not enough to protect their lives at all, for the masks were often defective and suits got even more contaminated by poor cleaning. To make matters worse, most workers didn’t have any basic knowledge about what they should do in an emergency such as a critical accident. In an early critical accident in a nation, for example, workers died of acute radiation disease from their exposure to Cherenkov radiation, which is characterized with a flash of “blue light,” because they brought a bucket full of dangerously enriched uranium by hand. Over here you can see the monument of the plant where “blue light” of Cherenkov radiation was first flashed in the nation. Despite the worst critical accident, however, the nation never stopped its nuclear energy policy, which caused uncountable tragic accidents.
Please gather round. I’d like to draw your attention to the monuments. Working in nuclear plants was an extremely dangerous job... New workers had to quickly get used to working in dirty rooms with bad ventilation, that it, the worst labour condition as well as the nuclear industry’s exploitive system with fears of death. Large percentages of their wages were taken as a kick-back by some local firms, the privileged few and groups of gangs firmly connected with big electric companies running nuclear plants. This was also a part of the basic system. The electric companies always put economic efficiency ahead of manual labours’ lives, for the companies regarded their workers as just replaceable parts of their plants. Even after a critical nuclear accident led by a massive earthquake and tsunami at the beginning of 21st century, they kept on protecting nuclear energy industry itself rather than human rights and unconditionally hired lots and lots of manual labourers. As a result, this forced more and more workers exposed to radiation under an incredibly dangerous situation, but the big companies could easily find substitute workers due to a high rate of unemployment which had been usual for some decades. Can you guess what their life expectancy was? Some celebrated their 50th birthdays, but there were many others who only lived eight years after engaging in some dangerous jobs at the plant. It was a scandal; finally Keiko Aoyama, one of a few journalists of the 21 century, wrote about it in the middle of the century, which enlightened the underground and drove millions and millions of global workers to move toward a great solidarity beyond national borders.....
In the Human Race Nuclear Energy Museum in 2250.
