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Japan's Nuclear Power Hara Kari (Will Japan shut down its Nuclear Industry forever?)
American Thinker ^ | 05/07/2012 | Ron Lipsman

Posted on 05/07/2012 7:21:18 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

Any discussion of Japan and nuclear power is complicated by that country's history as the only nation ever to suffer a nuclear attack. That event continues to haunt the venerable Pacific nation. This is an immutable truth that one must accept regardless of which side one is on concerning the legitimacy of the US attack 67 years ago.

That said, the Japanese nation nevertheless staked much of its economic destiny on nuclear power. Beginning more than four decades ago, Japan deployed over 50 nuclear power plants to feed the energy needs of its densely packed population. Very limited in domestic fossil fuel sources and running one of the world's leading economies, the country's reliance on substantial nuclear power facilities made eminent sense.

And for over 40 years, this decision redounded to the benefit of the nation and its people. But alas, nuclear tragedy struck again in the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. The reactor at Fukushima was damaged and a partial meltdown ensued. People died, land areas became contaminated and the safety of the country's nuclear power plants was called into question.

Japan instituted a series of rigorous tests that all of its plants would have to pass (to ensure that they could withstand quakes and tsunamis) before they would be allowed to continue operating. One by one, reactors have been halted to perform the tests. Not one has been restarted, and recently the last operational reactor was taken offline. There isn't a single nuclear power plant operating in Japan today; and it is unclear when, if ever, any will start back up.

Here are some important points to keep in mind:

* The overwhelming percentage of the casualties last spring resulted from the quake and the tsunami, not the reactor meltdown.

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Japan; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: earthquake; japan; nuclearpower; tsunami
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1 posted on 05/07/2012 7:21:29 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Japan began its hara kari ceremony when it legalized abortion.


2 posted on 05/07/2012 7:24:38 AM PDT by Savage Beast ("You can, in fact must, shout fire in a crowded theatre. It just has to be the truth. " J. Goldberg)
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To: SeekAndFind

Japan began its hara kari ceremony when it legalized abortion.


3 posted on 05/07/2012 7:24:38 AM PDT by Savage Beast ("You can, in fact must, shout fire in a crowded theatre. It just has to be the truth. " J. Goldberg)
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To: SeekAndFind
The overwhelming percentage of the casualties last spring resulted from the quake and the tsunami, not the reactor meltdown.

This is true, because zero people have died as a result of radiation poisoning. A recent report indicates that of the 573 "disaster-related" deaths that occurred, exactly 573 were due to the evacuation and not to radiation. Some people may suffer ill consequences later in life due to the radiation dose they received, but there have been no fatalities due to radiation in this incident. However, the mass global hysteria has certainly contributed to many deaths.
4 posted on 05/07/2012 7:30:22 AM PDT by flintsilver7 (Honest reporting hasn't caught on in the United States.)
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To: SeekAndFind

So, instead of nuclear are they going to go with exercise bikes connected to alternators?


5 posted on 05/07/2012 7:37:30 AM PDT by cuban leaf (Were doomed! Details at eleven.)
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To: SeekAndFind

So, instead of nuclear are they going to go with exercise bikes connected to alternators?

It will add a whole new meaning to the phrase “rice burner”.


6 posted on 05/07/2012 7:37:56 AM PDT by cuban leaf (Were doomed! Details at eleven.)
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To: cuban leaf

I had one of those bikes. It had a little generator on the front wheel that would run a very weak headlight..


7 posted on 05/07/2012 7:48:19 AM PDT by Eric in the Ozarks
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To: cuban leaf

No,they are going to deploy ocean wave driven generators along all the islands’ entire coastlines!!!

Rational and human just don’t seem to get together often.


8 posted on 05/07/2012 7:52:24 AM PDT by hoosierham (Freedom isn't free)
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To: SeekAndFind

meanwhile, the NE USA is swimming in natural gas which is tanking in price and everyone from NY State to the Greens are battling any further development of gas and LNG export terminals.


9 posted on 05/07/2012 7:55:35 AM PDT by PGR88
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To: hoosierham

I’ve heard talk of the US working on putting wind farms on the northern Atlantic seaboard far enough out that people on land would not even see them. I don’t know if that is economically feasable, but if it is, it may actually be relatively practical. The Oceans are really like an enormous desert. There aren’t many birds to cut up. There isn’t all that much boat traffic out there.


10 posted on 05/07/2012 7:57:49 AM PDT by cuban leaf (Were doomed! Details at eleven.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Funny, no mention of the whole 50 Hz and 60 Hz fiasco that generally wracked havok with their entire grid.

Imagine having about 50% of the country on each grid, and having huge power-stations that could, in the event of a brown-out help change the frequency from 50 to 60Hz to help ride out a power surge.

Now, knock out one of the grids with a natural disaster ... golly, now you have not only a huge demand for energy for recovering form a natural disaster, you have the added mess of keeping the two incompatible power systems up and running - simultaneously.

I submit that if Japan had either gone 50 Hz, or 60 Hz (I really don’t care which) - their problems would have dimminished by well over 75%.


11 posted on 05/07/2012 8:03:17 AM PDT by Hodar ( Who needs laws; when this FEELS so right?)
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To: flintsilver7

What ever happened to the Fukushima 50? Anyone of them suffered from radiation sickness yet?


12 posted on 05/07/2012 8:03:42 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: PGR88
the NE USA is swimming in natural gas

Not just the Northeast.


13 posted on 05/07/2012 8:05:01 AM PDT by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
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To: thackney

For the first time in my life, the US is capable of producing sufficient domestic energy to eliminate imports.

And the shale/resource plays are how it can be done.


14 posted on 05/07/2012 8:16:36 AM PDT by LucianOfSamasota (Tanstaafl - its not just for breakfast anymore...)
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To: Savage Beast

[ Japan began its hara kari ceremony when it legalized abortion. ]

The UN is evil, it was pushing this shit on the Japanese starting in the early 1950’s with “family Planning” and then later with abortion.


15 posted on 05/07/2012 8:40:31 AM PDT by GraceG
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To: thackney

Orbital Solar is the ultimate Power source, till then, drill baby drill and burn baby burn those hydrocarbons!

With orbital solar WE could be come the wolrd’s energy supplier and if someone pisses us off enough we can just shut down their power satelites like OPEC shuts down our oil.

I would love to see the saudis squirm when we shut down down their microwave power downlink.


16 posted on 05/07/2012 8:43:08 AM PDT by GraceG
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To: cuban leaf

They will erect windmills and more windmills all the way as far as the eye can see like they have done in West Texas.

They look like sh*t and it is alleged that they have caused climate change as observed by record droughts in Texas.


17 posted on 05/07/2012 8:58:53 AM PDT by 353FMG
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To: 353FMG

When we took the southern route from Seattle to drive to our home in KY every single state we drove in had windmill farms except for New Mexico. And that is probably because we only cut acroos the northwestern corner of the state.


18 posted on 05/07/2012 9:03:45 AM PDT by cuban leaf (Were doomed! Details at eleven.)
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To: cuban leaf

Yeah practical. To place and operate windmills in a marine environment is horribly expensive, way more then the land based ones which are themselves ridiculous as a source of dependable electricity.


19 posted on 05/07/2012 10:27:41 AM PDT by Kozak (The means of defence against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home JM)
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To: Kozak

—Yeah practical. To place and operate windmills in a marine environment is horribly expensive, way more then the land based ones which are themselves ridiculous as a source of dependable electricity.—

I have no idea about the costs. As long as a private company is willing to try it and some private investor is willing to fund it, I say let ‘em have at it. If they get wildly rich, they can keep their after tax earnings. If they fail, well, that’s why they call it “risk”.


20 posted on 05/07/2012 10:35:18 AM PDT by cuban leaf (Were doomed! Details at eleven.)
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