Posted on 03/30/2011 9:04:55 PM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
Japanese officials have conceded that the battle to salvage four crippled reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant has been lost.
The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power [Tepco], said the reactors would be scrapped, and warned that the operation to contain the nuclear crisis, now well into its third week, could last months.
Tepco's announcement came as new readings showed a dramatic increase in radioactive contamination in the sea near the atomic complex.
Tens of thousands of people living near the plants have been evacuated or ordered to stay indoors, while the plant has leaked radioactive materials in to the sea, soil and air.
On Thursday, the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] suggested widening the 30-kilometre exclusion zone around the plant after finding that radiation levels at a village 40 kilometres from the plant exceeded the criteria for evacuation.
An emotional TEPCO chairman apologised for the anxiety the crisis has caused.
"We apologise for causing the public anxiety, worry and trouble due to the explosions at reactor buildings and the release of radioactive materials," he said. "Our greatest responsibility is to do everything to bring the current situation to an end and under control."
He said the "dire situation" at the plant was likely to continue for some time.
The country's nuclear and industrial safety agency, Nisa, said on Thursday radioactive iodine at 4,385 times the legal limit had been identified in the sea near the plant, although officials have yet to determine how it got there. On Wednesday the measurement had been 3,355 times the legal limit.
On Tuesday, a US engineer who helped install reactors at the plant said he believed the radioactive core in unit 2 may have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on to a concrete floor.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
So, when does the evacuation of Japan begin?
Cleary, with pluranius and hydrangeus seeping into the ground water of the Atlantic ocean, the Japanese should invade the island of Midway, Guam, and Tahiti for refuge. Pearl Harbor, watch out, you’re next.
Unless Godzilla and Rodan get there first!
Anyone with half a brain knew that the reactors that had sea water pumped in were immediate write-offs. This has been discussed here at FR since the beginning.
In short, the headline and lead-in sentence are simply not news.
It will begin now, probably already has. It will start with managers of factories making decisions to move factories and employees off Japan in search of functioning power and transportation networks. The global JIT network makes these decisions necessary quickly. This will cause employees to leave, and families, and it will then become a trend where the young will leave for a better place, and the elderly will stay in Japan.
We should be quietly increasing our H1-b immigration levels to accommodate some of these.
The left coast has room.
I still think nuke power makes sense.
Huh? I thought they were trying to minimize the leaks, not save the plant. To me it was toast when they poured salt water in it, everyone said so
If levels go too high the other 5 will have to be abandoned...nobody will be allowed to work there.
I sure hope they got 'em real stable and are in the process, RIGHT NOW, of installing remote controls on them.
Otherwise this will turn into one of Bidens' BFDs.
Yup, Open up the sites of the 1942 camps!
Is Japan going from the third place economically to maybe 10th?
When they started putting sea water on them spelled the end.
Oh now, that’s just *$&#@&$ SPIFFY!!!
They may have been near the end of their lives anyway...in any event, the cost of the clean-up and entombment will probably dwarf the cost of the equipment. You can bet that this will be done to something a heck of a lot better than Chernobyl standards. The Japanese can’t really afford to write off a big “dead zone”.
Not instantly, but the trend was that Japan is in decline due to debt and demographics before the earthquake. The earthquake can do nothing but accelerate that.
The region that was hit is an agricultural region that had a big population drain of young people even before the quake. One report I read stated that in one refugee shelter, the youngest man in the shelter was in his 50s. And how will agriculture work going forward? The tsunami poured a bunch of salt water on the fertile valleys for miles inland, dumpd a bunch of crap on the fields, and finally probably dragged away the topsoil on the way back out and dumped it at the bottom of the ocean. And of course, the region around the reactors are going to be off limits to agriculture for a long long time. How is that region going to bounce back? Freshly printed stimulous Yen, of course, but that won't really build GDP.
Salvage? Did the press really believe any of the four reactors would be operational again?
“On Tuesday, a US engineer who helped install reactors at the plant said he believed the radioactive core in unit 2 may have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on to a concrete floor.”
Did he see it or was alcohol involved.
Thank they are saying that these reactors will never be returned to use, rather than they will get worse, full melt down, etc.
This headline is getting posted every day. They’re barely even making an attempt to rearrange the words now.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.