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© Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Melted nuclear fuel seen inside Fukushima No. 2 reactor
By MARI YAMAGUCHI TOKYO©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.
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CrazyJoe
Seven years of downplaying the effects of Fukushima to make it seem okay is a crime against humanity by the nuclear industry, the governments that support it, and the media outlets who seems to play along with the cover- up.
Who locates a nuclear power plant near a beach known to experience tsunamis on an island constantly jostled by earthquakes?
Yubaru
You already know the answer to this question! Nuclear power was one of the reasons Japan became the economic power it did back prior to and following the bubble. The greed for energy to fuel the economy and industry without considering the potential disasters waiting to happen took precedence over safety.
I just hope that a lesson was learned, but with Abe's push to restart the reactors around the country, I fear another one is just waiting to happen. God forbid it does, but IF one does occur, the fingers can point directly at him this time!
kurisupisu
Is it a sign of insanity to continue to do the same dangerous acts again and again without realising the dire consequences?
gelendestrasse
Everybody seems to forget that if the cooling pump backup generators hadn't been located in the basement where they got flooded then none of this would have happened. Nuclear power isn't the problem, rotten engineering and terrible management is.
Yubaru
And if those plants had been traditional power plants non of this would have happened either!
Nuclear power plants are disasters waiting to happen, particularly in a country that builds them on fault lines, has earthquakes somewhere in the country on nearly a daily basis, and the potential for disastrous tsunamis as well.
kwatt
Wonder how these strong radioactive messes are taken out of there and dump them to where?
Goodlucktoyou
Exactly my concern @kwatt. highly radioactive waste is being burnt in Osaka and materials used to build an island in Osaka bay. Abe has been pressuring prefectures to take it. Amori, the biggest storage place for spent fuel is full. Everything should kept there in Fukushima and sealed in concrete and replaced every 20 years for 10000 years.
Disillusioned
Nuclear power isn't the problem, rotten engineering and terrible management is.
Actually, the biggest problem with nuclear power is storage of the spent fuel rods. It takes up to a thousand years for them to become lead and safe. The main promotion point for nuclear power is the reduced CO2 emissions. However, the masses of nuclear waste are going to create a huge problem for future generations. There have many suggestions for how to deal with nuclear waste. The most interesting is to load it all onto rockets and send it to the sun, which is ridiculously and prohibitively expensive. Nuclear power never was, will be or can be a cheap, safe and reliable source of energy.
sf2k
no, it was the wrong engineering decision to allow nuclear power on such a disaster prone country when other options exist especially for such a geothermally rich nation
zurcronium
The three go together in Japan without question. It is a corrupt industry to its very
core (no pun intended, melted or othewise). As long as there are nuke facilities in Japan
we must live in fear of being killed by radiation poisoning.
I also recall TEPCO lying over and over again that there was no meltdown occurring
at Fukushima. All a part of the lies and corruption of the nuclear industry.
katsu78
Erm, fair enough if someone wants to oppose nuclear power, but putting very mild understatement of the situation in the same category as wide-scale torture and genocide is a bit much, don't you think?
I mean, are the legions of armchair-nuclear physicists on the Internet who predicted that these rods must be melting through to the center of the Earth also guilty of crimes against humanity? After all, they were even more wrong.
Disillusioned
Hey Katsu78! If it were not for the actions of Ex-PM Kan screaming at the TEPCO bosses to get their assets back into the site and cool the rods this 'China Syndrome' scenario could very well have been a reality. Let's not forget, the TEPCO bosses ordered a complete evacuation of the site.
katsu78
Yeah... the "China Syndrome" is utter fantasy with no basis in science. So though I strongly supported Ex-PM Kan, to suggest that he was responsible for stopping a "China-syndrome" scenario makes about as much sense as claiming he stopped the tooth fairy from doing a strip-tease on Tokyo Tower.
Nadège Moyon
I honestly don't understand why they did not build a sarcophage around them. A big cube tank to isolate for fifty years the whole zone. We have the tools today to build the underground isolation tank. It a heavy ingeneering work but this way they would not have worry about fusion and would have been less expansive in man and yen.
In the future preparing the possibility to lift them and put them under water should be considered
Slickdrifter
Ah man.
This can't be good for Mother Earth. Why are we being kept in dark about this?
Greed is the root of all evil.
Paul Martinforeign correspondent
Are Tepco directors EVER gonna be held accountable or are they impune from scrutiny or responsibility ?