I wonder how this will impact Japanese society down the road? Not in terms of radiation issues, but in terms of trust of their national institutions.
According to the article, more than a quarter million people have been evacuated overall in Japan, and the National Police Agency reports 10,489 people had been confirmed dead and 16,621 were missing.
Prayers out.
It is going to have a world wide impact on the use of nuclear energy. The fix to all this is always be prepared for the absolute worse thing that can happen and be ready to apply it almost instantly after a disaster.
Since this particular plant is located next to the ocean, I would suspect that one of the major sources of contamination is run off. The area is not contained anymore and all that water that is being pumped in has got to go somewhere.
I don’t think it has sunk into the general world wide population, what has really happened, yet.
That’s the 64,000 dollar question, isn’t it?
I think that by and large the Japanese public understands that the national government is doing the best it can under the circumstances and I don’t anticipate any long-term trust issues there.
TEPCO, on the other hand, is going to face a lot of hard questions and I would not be surprised if the company is nationalized, at least temporarily. I would also expect to see senior executives charged with a variety of crimes due to the inspection falsifications and other issues. They’re going to be hammered hard.
Their culture of authority demanding to not be questioned is largely at fault.
I wonder how this will impact Japanese society down the road? Not in terms of radiation issues, but in terms of trust of their national institutions.
Thats a great question...the Japanese have historically been a very compliant people. This could lead to a little more free thinking and even a "question authority" mentality.
One of the things I've been wondering over the last few days is, if this situation might lead people around the world to be more receptive to nuclear power. I know that sounds crazy right now but we keep getting so many "end of the world" headlines that most folks outside of Japan think that millions are going to die from radiation. If, after all is said and done, very few die and the land around the Dai-Ichi plant does not need to be evacuated long term then maybe folks will think that the world can indeed live with nuclear power.
The truth of the matter is that without nuclear power the world will stagnate both economically and in quality of life. If nuclear can be perceived as something that can be controlled and as having issues that are bad but not uncatastrophic then people might be willing to agree to continuing its use.
~10,000 died in the tsunami. If there are any problems with trust in national institutions, why wouldn’t it be because of that fact, rather than the constantly hyped problems with Daiichi?
No doubt, it is a serious, serious situation. But it seems to be getting better daily. And the biggest problem would be the ongoing Chicken Little-ism and shoddy, over-hyped reporting.
IOW, a no-brainer way to cool. This is rapidly becoming a non-event.
I’m all for nuclear power, but if one can’t envision a scenario at *least* as bad as Fukushima and plan accordingly then one has no business even being near a thermostat, to say nothing of planning energy strategy.
I *want* nuclear power here in California, but damn, any moron can see that a 9.2 is a *when*, not an *if*.
This is about the absolute worse that could happen. Ancient reactors, poorly located, hit with one of the worst earthquakes in history, followed by a killer tsunami, in a plant that had repeated safety violations.
And at this point, not one person has died from the radiation, and only a couple people were killed at the plant from the initial earthquake/tsunami. And we are debating radiation levels getting to the point where there MIGHT be a small increase in cancers.
Meanwhile, they have returned to freshwater cooling at 2 of the 3 formerly operating reactors, and are nearly switched back on number 2. They have a large supply of fresh water arriving today by barge.
They have some major radiation to clean up, and tough times ahead. But this shows that nuclear, far from being the most hazardous, is one of the safest generating capabilities we have. If a tsunami hit a coal mine, it would have drowned more poeple than will die from this nuclear accident. A failed dam killed more people. gas explosions killed more people.
Nothing to see here. Radiation is good for you. So is cigarette smoke and corexit. sarc/