I'd rather be near Fukushima, than this toxic stew.
Posted on 03/18/2011 11:13:39 AM PDT by brityank
Fukushima one week on: Situation 'stable', says IAEA
Shameful media panic very slowly begins to subside
By Lewis Page • Posted in Physics, 18th March 2011 12:56 GMTThe situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear powerplant in Japan, badly damaged during the extremely severe earthquake and tsunami there a week ago, continues to stabilise. It is becoming more probable by the day that public health consequences will be zero and radiation health effects among workers at the site will be so minor as to be hard to measure. Nuclear experts are beginning to condemn the international hysteria which has followed the incident in increasingly blunt terms.
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Main killer in all this? The panic
Analysis
The Fukushima reactors actually came through the quake with flying colours despite the fact that it was five times stronger than they had been built to withstand. Only with the following tsunami – again, bigger than the design allowed for – did problems develop, and these problems seem likely to end in insignificant consequences. The Nos 1, 2 and 3 reactors at Daiichi may never produce power again – though this is not certain – but the likelihood is that Nos 4, 5 and 6 will return to service behind a bigger tsunami barrier.
The lesson to learn here is that if your country is hit by a monster earthquake and tsunami, one of the safest places to be is at the local nuclear powerplant. Other Japanese nuclear powerplants in the quake-stricken area, in fact, are sheltering homeless refugees in their buildings – which are some of the few in the region left standing at all, let alone with heating, water and other amenities.
Nothing else in the quake-stricken area has come through anything like as well as the nuclear power stations, or with so little harm to the population. All other forms of infrastructure – transport, housing, industries – have failed the people in and around them comprehensively, leading to deaths most probably in the tens of thousands. Fires, explosions and tank/pipeline ruptures all across the region will have done incalculably more environmental damage, distributed hugely greater amounts of carcinogens than Fukushima Daiichi – which has so far emitted almost nothing but radioactive steam (which becomes non-radioactive within minutes of being generated).
And yet nobody will say after this: "don't build roads; don't build towns; don't build ships or chemical plants or oil refineries or railways". That would be ridiculous, of course, even though having all those things has actually led to terrible loss of life, destruction and pollution in the quake's wake.
But far and away more ridiculously, a lot of people are already saying that Fukushima with its probable zero consequences means that no new nuclear powerplants should ever be built again. ®
Personal bootnote
As one who earns his living in the media these days, I can only apologise on behalf of my profession for the unbelievable levels of fear and misinformation purveyed this week. I have never been so ashamed to call myself a journalist.
Hit the Register Link to read it all.
Yes, there are other things that can and maybe could have been done, but all in all they performed beyond their design specifications - and for that we owe a great deal of gratitude to the engineers and contractors from forty years ago.
The usual culprits — Anderson and Shep — the disaster drama queens.
For your perusal.
Thanks for the good detail you have provided on the threads, I appreciate it.
Stateside - yes.
But the screaming faces in the rest of the world’s Maggot Media are just as bad!
I assure you this event has the attention of the retired nuclear enginner community. Like everyone else they are horrified by the crisis. I am certain they would be appreciative of your sentiment.
Has Shep “The Drama Queen” Smith reported any cases of cannibalism yet, as he did during Katrina? Roger Ailes is a dimwit for paying this laughable “reporter.”
After this reactor eventually gets dismantled they need to build a CANDU reactor to replace it.
CANDU reactors if they run out of water will simply shut down.
Thanks...great post!
Can't be. I've been reading on FR for an entire week that this is Chernobyl times 6.
*bump*
Good link. I just posted much the same thing here; http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2690669/posts?page=115#115
People need to drill down past all the emotional hype, extrapolations, imaginations, speculations, to objective primary sources to get the real story. When you get there you can see this nuclear disaster cannot rationally be put in the same catagory as Chernobyl. Some of the “windmills as giants” people have imagined would make Don Quixote insanely jealous.
The moment nuclear plant chief WEPT as Japanese finally admit that radiation leak is serious enough to kill people
In truth this situation is not over....though signs are completely promising they are still just signs at the moment.
I'd rather be near Fukushima, than this toxic stew.
Please -- take your screaming fist and smash those screaming faces! Thanks!! ;^)
I don't see this being "over" for at least a couple of months. It will take at least that long to get the pools stable and cool, and clear away the damaged infrastructure to effect repair. It just needs time and treasure - eventually both will be found.
That’s a very good point. There is more damage to Japan’s environment from all of her other infrastructure than from all of the nuclear power plants in both Japan and the US for the past fifty years!
LOL! Well, I have been old FRiend. I will say that many FReepers that were in a panic a week ago went out, read, became informed and are now some of the better sources on what is currently happening. Other FReepers seem to love the doom and gloom and panic mongering. Thank you for the post.
Including some who should know better like Mat Drudge apparently...
Agree completely. Apparently there are many FReepers that I have no desire to share a foxhole with if the S really does HTF.
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