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Fukushima Decontamination Cost Estimated $50bn, With Questionable Effectiveness
AmiMoJo writes "Experts from the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology studied the cost of decontamination for the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident, estimating it at $50 billion. They estimate that decontamination in no-entry zones will cost up to 20 billion dollars, and in other areas, 31 billion dollars. It includes the cost of removing, transporting and storing radioactive waste such as contaminated soil. The central government has so far allocated about 11 billion dollars and the project is already substantially behind schedule. Meanwhile the effectiveness of the decontamination is being questioned. NHK compared data from before and after decontamination at 43 districts in 21 municipalities across Fukushima Prefecture. In 33 of the districts, or 77 percent of the total, radiation levels were still higher than the government-set standard of one millisievert per year. In areas near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, where decontamination has been carried out on an experimental basis, radiation levels remain 10 to 60 times higher than the official limit."
You should read a history book that wasn't written in the U.S. by a nuclear bomb apologist.
The negotiations for Japans surrender started before the bombs were dropped. It is stipulated that one of the reasons the bombs were used anyway was to demonstrate the power of them to scare Soviet.
Regardless of the reasons both the targets were selected because they had a large population around them surrounded by high ground for the extra oomph. There were stronger military targets that could have been chosen, the amount of civilian deaths were intentionally high.
"...the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing." - Dwight Eisenhower
"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons." - Admiral William D. Leahy
"...the Japanese were prepared to negotiate all the way from February 1945...up to and before the time the atomic bombs were dropped; ...if such leads had been followed up, there would have been no occasion to drop the [atomic] bombs." - Herbert Hoover
"...when we didn't need to do it, and we knew we didn't need to do it, and they knew that we knew we didn't need to do it, we used them as an experiment for two atomic bombs." - Brigadier General Carter Clarke
Don't get me wrong, I don't try to defend Japans atrocities during/before the war, I'm just saying that one atrocity doesn't justify another.
Saw Edwin Lyman from the Union of Concerned Scientists several times on the TV after the disaster. He used it as an opportunity to call attention to regulation and safety procedures for reactors in the United States. He said current evacuation procedures for evacuation zones for nuclear reactors were insufficient. Physicians for Social Responsibility have a useful map for checking your proximity to a nuclear reactor http://www.psr.org/resources/evacuation-zone-nuclear-reactors.html From their site, "Current NRC regulations stipulate a 10 mile evacuation zone around nuclear plants. This is clearly insufficient and 50 miles has been recommended." They also note that 1/3 of all Americans live within 50 miles of a reactor.