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Fukushima leak is 'much worse than we were led to believe'

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Fukushima leak is 'much worse than we were led to believe'

#11

Post by lmm »

veidr wrote: post #2

I'm so fucking sick of this. This level of ass-clownery makes Japan look so bad, and so diminishes its national prestige in the world, that it's almost like when Bush the junior was president of the USA. Yes, TEPCO is a private company. But it reflects on Japan the same way it would if the US government just left BP and Halliburton to decide entirely for themselves how to clean up the New Horizon oil rig disaster, wi…

>Except that the Fukushima disaster is about 100 times worse than the New Horizon spill.

Really? Everyone is terrified of the radiation bogeyman, but I'd bet there were more injuries and deaths as a result of New Horizon.

Re: Fukushima leak is 'much worse than we were led to believe'

#15

Post by Turbots »

lmm wrote: post #11
veidr wrote: post #2

I'm so fucking sick of this. This level of ass-clownery makes Japan look so bad, and so diminishes its national prestige in the world, that it's almost like when Bush the junior was president of the USA. Yes, TEPCO is a private company. But it reflects on Japan the same way it would if the US government just left BP and Halliburton to decide entirely for themselves how to clean up the New Horizon oil rig disaster, wi…

>Except that the Fukushima disaster is about 100 times worse than the New Horizon spill. Really? Everyone is terrified of the radiation bogeyman, but I'd bet there were more injuries and deaths as a result of New Horizon.

That's because the effects of radioactive contaminated ocean water is much, much harder to measure.

We still don't know what that much of radiation will cause the plankton, fish, bigger fish, and ultimately, us humans...

Re: Fukushima leak is 'much worse than we were led to believe'

#16

Post by jre »

I think there are similarities between the nuclear power debate and the GMO debate. In both case, I think it's stupid to be fundamentally opposed to the technology/research itself. But in both case, the industry is so fucked up (lies, too close ties with control authority, ...) that I don't trust them at all.

It seems to me this is partially a failure of our current economic system, where the incentives for the industry are towards minimizing costs / maximizing profits. This is fine for some other industries, but it seems to fail for areas where the impact of mismanagement is much more severe than a bankruptcy.

We have to find a way to make those critical industries transparent and honest so that citizens can trust them again.

Re: Fukushima leak is 'much worse than we were led to believe'

#17

Post by veidr »

[deleted] wrote: post #9
throwaway1979 wrote: post #8

Any HNer knowledgeable on the matter shed light into how bad this can get?

[deleted]

That's true, but these containment tanks are right next to the ocean. So pretty much everything that leaks is going into the ocean.

And they aren't going to be gone by the time the next tsunami hits, so I think it is roughly (and with their level of ineptitude and deceit, roughly is as good as we are gonna get) reasonable to think that it's all (300,000 tons of radioactive water and counting) going into the Pacific at some point...

Re: Fukushima leak is 'much worse than we were led to believe'

#18

Post by walid »

The worst part is that everyone wants to present their situation as being in control and not admitting that control over the situation was lost when the floods initially happened. If Fukushima was left to political entities to handle it, we'll end up with radioactive materials in everything all around the globe. Considering that today we eat food grown all over the plant, the worst part is the amount of radiation that will slip into our food supply.

Re: Fukushima leak is 'much worse than we were led to believe'

#19

Post by SuperChihuahua »

veidr wrote: post #17
[deleted] wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

That's true, but these containment tanks are right next to the ocean . So pretty much everything that leaks is going into the ocean. And they aren't going to be gone by the time the next tsunami hits, so I think it is roughly (and with their level of ineptitude and deceit, roughly is as good as we are gonna get) reasonable to think that it's all (300,000 tons of radioactive water and counting) going into the Pacific…

I deleted it because I forgot the water leaking out, but here's the original comment because it might be interesting.

"If I've understood everything correctly, it can't be as bad as the Chernobyl disaster. The only reason to why the radioactive material spread so far during the Chernobyl disaster was because the reactor core consisted of graphite, the graphite caught fire, and the dangerous material rose to the sky."

@jjsz The text is the same. What happened was that I deleted the comment before I saw that someone replied to it, and then it looked stupid with a good reply to a deleted comment.

Re: Fukushima leak is 'much worse than we were led to believe'

#20

Post by toyg »

lignuist wrote: post #10

Why is the japanese government letting TEPCO deal with the disaster on their own? Why is the rest of the world letting Japan deal with the disaster on it's own? Contaminating the Pacific Ocean constantly with radioactive water surely affects a lot of other states. This is something experts (TEPCO is obviously not in this position) should handle. The bill for handling the disaster could then be presented at a later ti…

The relationship between Japanese governments and corporations is much more incestuous than their Western counterparts'.

In any case, I don't think Tepco is completely alone in the cleanup effort, otherwise you wouldn't have people like Schneider talking about it. In fact, the irritation here comes from the fact that Fukushima continues to be a clusterfuck and everybody knows it... except TEPCO's PR people, who keep interpreting their best Chemical Ali impersonations.

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