Fukushima Cleanup, 5 Years On (bbc.co.uk)

AmiMoJo writes: Today is five years since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant was damaged by an earthquake and tsunami, leading to a series of meltdowns. Nearly half a million people were evacuated at the time, with 100,000 still unable to return to their homes. The government has set a goal of 20mSv/year before people are allowed to live in affected areas again, and while progress is being made hotspots are still a problem in many areas. Reconstruction has been largely waiting for decontamination to be completed, allowing homes and businesses to fall into ruin. Those who do wish to return find their communities gutted, with essential services and jobs gone. Meanwhile, engineers are still unable to determine exactly what happened at Daiichi, particularly what saved reactor 2's pressure vessel from exploding. The initial reports were scary even before the nuclear plant problems were evident. Engadget notes that even now, the worst part of the cleanup remains a grueling work in progress, tough even for robots. Reader the_newsbeagle writes, too, with a link to the New York Times' take on the 5-year mark, and notes that The state and location of the melted fuel inside the reactors is still a mystery. The meltdown zone is too dangerous for human workers to enter, and robots have had limited success navigating in the wreckage. So Japan is recruiting subatomic particles called muons to map the reactors' insides. These particles, born of cosmic rays, constantly stream down from the atmosphere, passing through most matter unimpeded. But their occasional interactions with the subatomic components of uranium allow physicists to locate the blobs of the deadly stuff.

Comments

The trade was a fair one.

[Anonymous Coward]

A small amount of nuclear contamination in exchange for saving millions of tons of carbon from entering the atmosphere and a lesson in how to prevent this ever from happening again is a good trade, imo.

Re:The trade was a fair one.

[phishybongwaters]

You do realize this is actually killing off an entire ocean right? You do realize eating ANYTHING from the Pacific Ocean is very very risky... right? You do realize the halflife of some of these contaminates right? Small amount? Did you read the article? Did you read anything related to this disaster? Half of Japan should have been, and still be, evacuated, it will be causing thyroid cancers and untold others for decades. Chernobyl was an explosive event, yes, but considerably less than fukishima on all honest accounts relating to the nuclear material released, we had several reactors fully melt down, and as such, the material escaped the containment vessels and that's all we know. Well wait, we also know that these plants are so close to the ocean that it's very likely for the cores to melt right throw and into a ground water source, which would cause a massive hydrogen explosion (similar to what actually happened at atleast 1 of the reactors). And that my friend would essentially make Japan completely inhabitable for hundreds or more years. Radiation from this even, deadly cescium and other compounds, was detected as far as central canada for christ sake. People like you scare the shit out of me. Carbon can be reclaimed. Nuclear material can not. Carbon doesn't cause mutations and cancers, nuclear material does. Carbon doesn't continue to react outside of the reactor leaking gamma and beta rays (yes, the same ones that made the Hulk), nucelar material and did in the case of fukishima. You sir are very ignorant of this subject.

"highly contaminated"

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, the "highly contaminated" is bullshit. It's minimally contaminated, but idiots like you would ban bananas if they weren't cute and yellow.