TEPCO, the owner/operator of the crippled nuclear power plant leaking radiation in Fukushima northern Japan has announced a plan that would bring the crisis under control within nine months and after that to allow some evacuated residents to return to their homes.
Tepco is vacillating about closing or not the melting nuclear plants with the radiation leaking reactors and the vast environmental damage. Quarter century after Chernobyl and still afraid to do the right thing…
The proposed road map for getting the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plant under control, was presented by the executive of the Tokyo Electric Power Company, and he included vague plans to cover the damaged reactor buildings to contain the radiation and eventually remove the nuclear fuel. Unfortunately they didn’t disclose how and with what they would cover the melting reactors, but a mix of concrete is the only remaining option.
Still the TEPCO plan says that in the first three months, the company hopes to steadily reduce the level of leaking radiation. The next three to six months after that, it hopes to get the release of radioactive materials firmly under control. Next something along the same lines ad infinitum.
Although international frustration and diplomatic condemnation have been mounting over Japan’s failure to resolve the nuclear crisis and for releasing radiation and radionuclides into the atmosphere and for dumping hundreds of thousands of tones of radioactive waste water into the ocean the TEPCO executives stay the course of inactivity. Because now – more than five weeks after the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami of March 11 knocked out cooling systems and caused series of hydrogen explosions at the Fukushima nuclear energy complex – the nuclear reactors and fuel ponds are not by themselves going to be stopping their radiation emissions, nor the plant is going to become, anywhere near safe enough, in order to mobilize workforce to cover even a small part of it….
Therefore it is a major mystery how TEPCO is proposing to do what they just said they will do. And do it in the space of a year….
Still Japan’s Trade Minister Banri Kaieda said some people from the area could return home within six to nine months, although this was immediately contradicted by TEPCO.
The minister said: Of course, some people will be unable to return home, but we will keep everyone informed.
But the company said it is focusing instead, on cooling the reactors and spent fuel pools, on de-contaminating water that has been filled with radiation, on mitigating the release of radiation into the atmosphere, ocean and soil, and on measuring and reducing the amount of radiation affecting the evacuation area.
In short, TEPCO said that Fukushima prefecture residents should not even think of returning back home till well after the New Year…
Both cases of good news – bad news are false.
These people are either directly and criminally lying or simply engaged in fantastically wishful thinking. We take the former view, because they know full well that in Chernobyl – with far less radiation released than Fukushima – people have not been allowed to return back into the exclusion zone more than two decades later. A quarter century later and there is no way home…
Nor are they to return in their lifetime…
The same will be true for Fukushima. No return ever….
Just go ahead and tell them the truth.
Why lie to these poor people?
Tell them the truth.
There is no going back home.
Not now – Not ever…
Let them get on with their Lives and become advocates of real Energy Security.
And here come the Americans:
US Secretary of State Clinton – diplomatically – expressed admiration and sympathy for the Japanese as she visited Tokyo today.
She first said to the PM to haul ass and cover the nuclear plant the soonest because the nuclear cloud is all over America now.
And then she told the reporters a slightly different story: ”We pledge our steadfast support for you and your future recovery. We are very confident that Japan will demonstrate the resilience that we have seen during this crisis in the months ahead…”
Right after her visit to Japan, TEPCO changed course 180 degrees. They said they will close the nuclear plant [eventually], contrary to their previously discussed complex phases plans to get the radiation under control, to clean up and to operate again the plant after nine months to a year.
Now they changed their tune again. Keep in mind that the US has drone airplanes flying thrice daily missions above the Fukushima plant and measuring the radiation emissions and the news isn’t good. The situation isn’t improving but deteriorating fast…
So the Americans come and run roughshod over the Japanese intransigence and get the plant finally declared ”bombed out” and ready to be entombed…
That’s how it’s done:
Apparently Clinton said: ”Either do it or we’ll bring in the Marines and do it ourselves”
And that’s the correct method to cover it up. Bomb it from the air with many – many tons of sand, boric acid and concrete and glass over and over again… until there is a mountain covering it.
And the depressed and incapacitated Japanese PM acceded to the US demands unhesitatingly.
Finally…
Still on other seemingly unrelated news, the Prime Minister Naoto Kan, fighting criticism over his administration’s handling of the disaster, has called resolving the nuclear crisis his “top priority.”
Aside from the cheerleaders vying for attention, the real work in the ground is hampered by high levels of radiation around and beyond the exclusion zone…
Forget the evacuation zone for now.
Yours,
Pano
PS:
Because Japan has begun planning for reconstruction and mulling on how to pay for the Nuclear Disaster, it has become evident that the cost of Nuclear Energy is far greater than anyone has ever presented in their nifty Powerpoints and Energy Security plans shopped around the various Energy Ministries and Parliaments around the world.
Even in Japan a country hugely reliant on nuclear energy, it now becomes evident that the real cost of nuclear energy is death and long term national destruction. Far from Energy Security, it becomes a source of insecurity and disaster.
And for those conference going and Energy security newfangled newbies, I have only one thing to say: Go see Fukushima in Japan and learn from it before you start being an apologist for evil.
This is the only thing that I have to say to all the greedy bankers favouring nuclear, to the geoengineers, to the power & utility nuclear energy cheerleaders, and the freshly hired nuclear errant boys, like Monbiot and Brand and the rest of the Monty Pythons: F___ You too.
And now even in Japan, Prime Minister Kan’s political opponents have now taken up serious, consistent and loud calls for his resignation.
They demand his immediate resignation over the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster. This comes five long weeks after the nuclear disaster and radiation gusher. A remarkably short time for Japanese political forgiveness…
The Japanese opposition politely refraining from criticism in the immediate aftermath of the disaster in a usual Japanese way of showing respect, national unity and deference, has now become seriously vocal seeing as the future of the country is threatened by the close relationship of opaqueness and criminality between the TEPCO and the ruling party.
The fact that the government claims there is no other way – besides the TEPCO way – forces the opposition to seek other alternatives, because they see no light at the end of the tunnel yet, on the dangerous and indecisive handling of the nuclear disaster by the current administration.
Still a nuclear plant of immense complexity that has been literally blown away and is barraged with daily mini explosions and major explosions, post quacke shocks, dangerous levels of radiation throughout, broken containment vessels, raging fires, radiated water floods, fuel rods blown around like so many pieces of scrap, blown instrumentation and useless chip controls and dead central systems and all other malfunctions, have hindered any real efforts to repair the melting Fukushima plant and to stem the runaway radiation leaks… that now threaten the whole Northern hemisphere.
What the future holds is not known except that much more radiation will be released into the atmosphere, air, water, ground and the ocean from Fukushima — than ever was released in any other nuclear disaster ever.
Chernobyl included…
Period.
