Slashdot Mirror
Japan To Be Without Nuclear Power After May 5
mdsolar writes in with a Reuters article about the continued fallout of Fukushima on the nuclear industry in Japan. "Japan will within weeks have no nuclear power for the first time in more than 40 years, after the trade minister said two reactors idled after the Fukushima disaster would not be back online before the last one currently operating is shut down. Trade Minister Yukio Edano signaled it would take at least several weeks before the government, keen to avoid a power crunch, can give a final go-ahead to restarts, meaning Japan is set on May 6 to mark its first nuclear power-free day since 1970. 'If we thoroughly go through the procedure, it would be (on or) after May 6 even if we could restart them,' Edano told a news conference, adding that whether they can actually be brought back online is still up to ongoing discussions. The crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, where a huge earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 triggered radiation leaks, has hammered public faith in nuclear power and prevented the restart of reactors shut down for regular maintenance checks, with all but one of 54 reactors now offline."
In comparison of what is already naturally in the world (ie. biosphere) it is less then a tiny amount of radiation. The amount is literally like dumping your swimming pool into the ocean and panicking that water level will rise.
Of course, the local contamination is Not a Good Thing, but that is a Japanese problem caused by Japanese safety measures.
If Fukushima had been a thorium reactor, Japan, and the rest of the world, would not have endured much of anything. Nor would there have been Chernobyl. Nor would there have been 3-Mile Island.
The facts are in, boys and girls, and thorium is at the top of sustainable energy production. Solar isn't even in the running and wind has proven to be costly, unreliable and a vast waste of land usage. The debate is over.
People denying that fact are akin to Holocaust deniers, people against civil rights and against gender equality. It's time for them to get into the current century and pull their heads out of the sand.