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Fukushima Finally Reaches Cold Shutdown
mvdwege writes "The BBC reports that the reactors at Fukushima have reached cold shutdown, meaning they no longer need active cooling to stay at safe temperatures. Plans can now be made to start the cleanup of the site. Unfortunately, TEPCO has also admitted not all problems were out in the open until now; an estimated 45 cubic meters of contaminated water have leaked out of cracks in the foundation of a treatment plant."
authorities can't be trusted??? mighty wide brush you're painting with, and I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Conservative who is wary of anyone who runs for public office, so for me to say that is pretty substantial... what constitutes an "authority" in your mind, and why are they incapable of being trusted in a crisis? Who else would be better in this circumstance, private enterprise? /I can't believe I have to put it this way, but this is one of those times when a centralized government is absolutely needed to fix a problem
It's not possible the cracks were opened up by the, what was it, 9.0 magnitude earthquake, the 45 foot wall of water that came ashore shortly after that, and all of the 7+ magnitude aftershocks?
thank you, I guess, for pointing out that earthquakes and tsunamis do indeed suck and destroy stuff. People will just get compensations and move on to somewhere else. There were definately WORSE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster) disasters than this and It is worth taking for what it is. Also there are areas that are intentionaly and knowingly made into deserts/toxic lakes or whatever, and it's no disaster at all... so... 12 miles radius is not that big of a chunk to ward off and let smolder in ruins, wouldn't be the biggest or out of proportion dead-zone of the world.
Meanwhile, half a million people are homeless, about twenty thousand are dead. And all everybody cares to talk about is that some nuclear reactors weren't safe enough (through neglect of safety updates during the last three decades) to withstand a tsunami. If you criticize TEPCO for neglecting tsunami protection, why don't you criticize the whole Japanese government for neglecting tsunami protection along all of the coast?
What a relief! I wonder when they'll start moving people back into Fukushima Prefecture.
Fukushima prefecture is 14500 km2 and 2M inhabitants less than 8% of the territory and 3.5% of population have been evacuated.
I can't wait to sink my teeth into some Fukushima vegetables and I know you feel the same way
Most of the japanese would be perfectly OK eating food from Fukushima prefecture without fear-mongering idiots scaring a gullible population with occasional radiations level in food lower than one would find in a simple banana or brazil nut.
When do you suppose that 12 mile radius exclusion zone will be lifted? This decade or next?
Exclusion will be lifted next year for all areas with less than 20mSv/y of radiations level, that's more 80% of the evacuated area. Also half the radiations are due to Cs-134 with a half-life of 2 years. That mean all zones will be available in less than a decade, including municipalities like Namie or Iitate.
Now that we've decided that the maximum radiation dosage for a Japanese child is the same as an American nuclear worker, it's only a matter of time before they play in the shadow of Fukushima again!
There's a big difference between what you are allowed to receive every years during your carreer and a maximum environmental exposure that could hypothetically only happen one year. I'm sure the inhabitants of Ramsar who live with a natural radioactivity level of more than 100mSv/y would be laughing a lot at this.
And let's not forget how much better Tokyo is with 30% less electricity.
Yeah sure I wonder how any other energy production facilities would have fared facing the same earthquake and tsunami. Do you really think the Japanese government will be dumb enough to replace nuclear plants with tenth os thousands of off-shore tsunami-proof windmills ...
http://www.transparency.org
Nothing can remove that scar from my mine. I try to laugh about things like this, but it's really very difficult. I hope this is the last ever nuclear emergency in the world, but I doubt it will be.
I dont think anyone wants to belittle how terrible cancer or radiation poisoning are, but when you take a dose of perspective and remember that the earthquake+tsunami (one of the most powerful events in recorded history as quakes go) killed some 16,000 people, injured another 6,000, and a further 4,000 are still unaccounted for, the Fukushima event becomes a mere blip. A plant was destroyed (as were another 125,000 buildings), the background radiation increased a bit, and some people may have gotten "slightly worrying" doses of radiation that will likely have no long term effects.
The big travesty about the whole thing was that the immediate international response by the media seemed more focused on "OHNOES WHAT ABOUT US? RADIATION IS COMING" and "hah, see, nuclear IS bad" rather than on focusing on the scale of the devastation caused by the tsunami and the relief efforts. I think I saw a few videos of the wave, and heard one or two stories on the recovery (almost ALL linked in some way with the Fukushima issue), compared with the months of debate on NPR about how we shouldnt have nuclear in our country (conservative media was not innocent in all of this either).
Its enough to make anyone feel bitter and cynical about our media.
How about the fact that rather than address radiation making its way into food and water, they merely raised the allowable amount of radiation in food and water?
This might blow your mind... but often policy makers have to juggle multiple and conflicting priorities at the same time.
In the case of the Japanese Crisis you had a country devastated by an enormous disaster with people freezing in makeshift shelters with inadequate food and water.
Now you could say "sorry everyone you don't get to eat today." Or you can say "Here is some food that's irradiated above what in a normal situation we would expect but over a short period of time is a better alternative than hunger and malnutrition."