Understandably, Japan too is now in crisis, with just two of its 54 reactors in operation. Its government is drawing up new energy plans, but the cities of Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe have already urged their main electricity supplier to cease its reliance on nuclear power.
The report of the first independent, authoritative inquiry into Fukushima – published this week in Japanese – will only increase concern. It shows that a true catastrophe was averted not through the inherent safety of the technology, as nuclear advocates have been claiming, but through good fortune and the heroism of workers on the site.
“It was extreme luck that Japan managed to avoid experiencing the most disastrous day,” reported Koichi Kitazawa, a former head of the country’s Science and Technology Agency and a prominent member of the inquiry. It showed that there could have been a “devil’s chain reaction” of nuclear explosions. If that had happened, said Yukio Edano, the chief cabinet secretary, Tokyo would have been “finished”.
He\’s mashed together two entirely different things.
The panel\’s report reveals that although the public was being reassured there was no reason to panic following the March 11 disaster, government leaders were contemplating worst-case scenarios, including evacuating the capital.
\”We were concerned that damage from the nuclear accident could lead to a massive series of chain reactions,\” Yukio Edano, chief Cabinet secretary at the time, told the panel, according to the report.
The government by March 22 had ordered experts to compile a disaster synopsis that projected radioactive fallout to spike drastically in a radius of 250 km from the stricken plant and prompt evacuations in Tokyo.
The government, the politicians, misinformed as they were, were worrying about such chain reactions, explosions and radiation. That is not the same at all as the scientists saying that such would, might or even could happen.
The Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant crisis was caused by Tokyo Electric Power Co.\’s lack of preparation for huge tsunami and exacerbated by conflicting levels of authority and downright \”distrust and meddling\” by high-ranking officials, an independent investigative panel reported Tuesday.
\”There were cases of excessive meddling (by the government) toward people working at the site,\” and such actions did more harm than good, said Koichi Kitazawa, former chief of the Japan Science and Technology Agency.
It\’s the reactions of the fuckwit politicians that he\’s complaining about, not the science of the damaged nucear reactors at all.
Doesn\’t that just beat it all? \”Respected\” journalist upends the meaning of an official report for some unknown reason. The worries about chain reactions and imminent disaster were politicians being ignorant but he\’s reported it as being a warning from scientists.
One might almost suspect him of having an agenda on this matter.
You have to watch these “agemndas” … dodgy things.
The tragedy is that Japan had a real life roleplay with weaselly lying politicians, incompetent nuclear organisations and criminally underfunded and ill prepared emergency services – Tokai-Mura 1999.
I was there. Terrifying the extent of local and national bs lies and prevarications. As in the tsunami and Fukushima, the only things to gain my respect were the resilience of the Japanese and the dedication of the emergency services.
A bit more education is needed. There can NEVER be a nuclear explosion from a nuclear power plant. And a nuclear chain reaction is the definition of a normal working power plant.
The meddling by the government also involved their extending the radius of the evacuation zone beyond that set out by the scientists – under pressure from western MSM who were all bleating about a potential china syndrome and Chernobyl levels of fall out
Related both to this thread and your abortion one: I understand that there was a spate of abortions across Eastern Europe after Chernobyl, brought on by the hysterical media coverage. Should those deaths be chalked up to MSM?
Still dead wood writers don’t get this wibbly wobbly webby thing.
Halfway through the article I realised it was Lean’s style. A quick Google of “Fukushima inquiry” and .003 seconds later I was armed with the facts rather than Lean’s opinion.
When has G. Lean Esq. ever let the truth get in the way of a good alarmist rant. He’s spent the last twenty years being feted and sucked up to by the whole alphabet of watermelon organisations. From reading his guff here I think he must have written the piece and then rung up his green mates and allowed them to sub it for him.
Personally, I’ve always considered Geoffrey Lean’s presence in the Telegraph to be part of the mysterious Barclay twins’ benignly misguided but little known “care in the community” project.
I’m not sure this project is working. I for one would not like to be standing in front of Lean on a crowded tube platform when there’s a train coming in.
Nuclear is the most divisive subject, isn’t it?
Did anyone else have my experience? I was travelling at the time so waiting around with the TV on and that clip of the steam release came around and around (TV1, TSR, BBC, etc). I argued with people that 20,000 dead from a natural catastrophe was a bit more important than 0 dead (yet) from a nuclear disaster.
I got the impression that the anti-nukes actually wanted people to die.
And of course when I said “ooh look the nukes have elected a new pope” I lost some “friends” and some business.
Stuff with a half life of 0.1 seconds is highly ionising, but there weren’t any civilians around (they were dead). Stuff which lasts 134 years half life didn’t escape, would be mildly bad for you in the long term. Try explaining this and you get…?
But, you see, it involves that difficult science stuff that all good greens gave up for Media Studies before A level. And the numbers are big – mega-Becquerels? Well mega-Watts are power stations so mega-Becquerels must be all of the nasty radiation stuff from that power station? Yes?
Oh, and we need to shut down all the nuclear power stations in the UK. Because most of them are on the coast and you never know when we’ll have our next tsunami.
My usual argument about this is – how far from nuclear power stations do the families of nuclear power station engineers usually live?
If you’re not talking to a socialist, you can then compare this to City of London commuting distances. Finance is clearly seen, by those that know it, as more hazardous to to spouse and kiddies than radiation.