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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'

#21

Post by panacea »

toyg wrote: post #20
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…

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

On a scale of 1 to [citation needed], guess where the answer lies.

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

#22

Post by veidr »

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.

Yeah, well, it's easy to make bets on events that will still be playing out hundreds of years after we are all dead, isn't it.

Radioactive contamination of the food supply, the oceans, and tens of thousands of people exiled from their hometown for the rest of their lives.

17 injured and 11 dead rig workers is easily comprehended and instant. Doesn't really mean that disaster was worse, though. Just easier to contemplate.

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

#23

Post by uptown »

Why are nuclear facilities frequently built near oceans and rivers? Is it due to the easy-access to water for cooling purposes? I've seen it in many places, and it just seems short-sighted in light of the potential to spread contamination when something goes wrong.

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

#24

Post by cygwin98 »

I don't know why Japan can get away with this for so long. I remember when the Chernobyl disaster happened, Soviet Union was shamed to death by all western media for years. I had high respect for the Russians for their great efforts to contain the damage. A great many of red army soldiers died when building a concrete substrate underneath the ruined reactor, which prevented the underground water from being contaminated by radioactive pollution. In contrast, the Japan government hasn't been capable to do this for the past two years, which is apparently irresponsible and shockingly incompetent.

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

#25

Post by kaybe »

uptown wrote: post #23

Why are nuclear facilities frequently built near oceans and rivers? Is it due to the easy-access to water for cooling purposes? I've seen it in many places, and it just seems short-sighted in light of the potential to spread contamination when something goes wrong.

Yes, that's the reason. Without massive amounts of water for cooling it's not possible to use current technologies.

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

#26

Post by caf »

toyg wrote: post #20
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…

I think you mean Comical Ali (former Iraqi Information Minister) rather than Chemical Ali (former director of the Iraqi Intelligence Service).

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

#27

Post by jjsz »

SuperChihuahua wrote: post #19
veidr wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."…

Completely changing the parent comment like that and making this comment on a child doesn't make sense to me. You should have added another parent comment, or added an "edit: __" in the original comment.

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

#28

Post by rwmj »

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…

You've not been paying much attention to the Japanese nuclear industry. This is the industry that allowed junior staff to mix nuclear materials together unsupervised, causing a chain reaction:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokaimura_nuclear_accident#In_...

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

#29

Post by yxhuvud »

cygwin98 wrote: post #24

I don't know why Japan can get away with this for so long. I remember when the Chernobyl disaster happened, Soviet Union was shamed to death by all western media for years. I had high respect for the Russians for their great efforts to contain the damage. A great many of red army soldiers died when building a concrete substrate underneath the ruined reactor, which prevented the underground water from being contaminat…

Japan is getting away with it because there is no radioactive rain impacting other countries.

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

#30

Post by [deleted] »

SuperChihuahua wrote: post #19
veidr wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."…

[deleted]
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