Large Zone Near Japanese Reactors to Be Off Limits (Declared Uninhabitable, Possibly Decades)

[Hissyspit]

Source: New York Times

Large Zone Near Japanese Reactors to Be Off Limits
By MARTIN FACKLER
Published: August 21, 2011

TOKYO — Broad areas around the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant could soon be declared uninhabitable, perhaps for decades, after a government survey found radioactive contamination that far exceeded safe levels, several major media outlets said Monday.

The formal announcement, expected from the government in coming days, would be the first official recognition that the March accident could force the long-term depopulation of communities near the plant, an eventuality that scientists and some officials have been warning about for months. Lawmakers said over the weekend — and major newspapers reported Monday — that Prime Minister Naoto Kan was planning to visit Fukushima Prefecture, where the plant is, as early as Saturday to break the news directly to residents. The affected communities are all within 12 miles of the plant, an area that was evacuated immediately after the accident.

The government is expected to tell many of these residents that they will not be permitted to return to their homes for an indefinite period. It will also begin drawing up plans for compensating them by, among other things, renting their now uninhabitable land. While it is unclear if the government would specify how long these living restrictions would remain in place, news reports indicated it could be decades. That has been the case for areas around the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine after its 1986 accident.

Since the Fukushima accident, evacuations have been a sensitive topic for the government, which has been criticized for being slow to admit the extent of the disaster and trying to limit the size of the areas affected, despite possible risks to public health. Until now, Tokyo had been saying it would lift the current evacuation orders for most areas around the plant early next year, when workers are expected to stabilize Fukushima Daiichi’s damaged nuclear reactors.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/22/world/asia/22japan.html?_r=1

[WheelWalker]

1. Bummer.

[Demeter]

2. This is just the beginning

I predict the entire island will have to be abandoned.

[TheWraith]

3. I predict winged horses will fly out of my ass.

Both are equally likely.

[Downwinder]

4. Well, if you say so.

[christx30]

22. If you go over to that area

and get exposed to the radiation, the mutation might allow that to happen.

[Downwinder]

23. Are all mutations bad?

The Law of averages says that there must some good ones.

[christx30]

30. Well...

getting accelerated healing, or telekenisis, shape shifting ability might be nice. But most of the time ionizing radiation causes mutations with super powers like lukemia, liver damage, hair loss, or birth defects.

[Downwinder]

31. Telekenisis would be nice. That might be the only way to get

the fuel out of the basement.

[fascisthunter]

26. lol

[Nostradammit]

5. I'm sure there's room.

[Lasher]

8. Heh.

That's funny.

[WheelWalker]

17. DUzy

[JackRiddler]

19. Given your consistent record of being wrong every time so far ...

that you minimized the extent of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, you should perhaps learn to be more circumspect -- and less biased in the nuclear industry's favor.

[TheWraith]

21. I think you mean to say, my consistent record of being right.

When I pointed out that no substantive amount of radiation would reach the US.
When I pointed out that the dosages people were freaking out about held no real risk.
When I pointed out that the plant was not going to explode.
When I pointed out that working at the plant was not the suicide mission people claimed it was.
Et al.

All of which have been borne out by reality, whereas the people insisting that it was a worldwide cataclysm that would kill a million people are reduced to pushing conspiracy theories about how the truth is being suppressed, and talking hysterically about "hot particles" and "360 atoms of sulfur!"

In the period of time when people have been hyperventilating about Fukushima due to a handful of alarmists using horrendously bad science to justify scare tactics, the accident has not killed anyone except by mundane means like heart attack. In the same time period, twenty thousand people are dead in the US who had their lives ended prematurely due to coal. But guess which "problem" gets more attention?

[Karenina]

24. BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

[Downwinder]

25. You are working with too short a time frame. Do you require

instant deaths? The effects of the 50s tests have not been evaluated. Japan is doing the right thing in tracking those who have been exposed. Perhaps in 100 years we will know the results of the Fukushima meltdown. It cannot be evaluated yet because it is still ongoing.

[fascisthunter]

27. LOLOLOLOL....

oh my

[Devil_Fish]

33. Ummm....The plant did explode. Several times... NT

[Moostache]

6. Doubt THAT...but my ass is staying far away from Tokyo for sure. (n/t)

[av8rdave]

7. I'm there right now...nothing glowing yet

[oldbanjo]

11. I wouldn't want to be in Washington State or Oregon.

[aquart]

13. Apples? Cherries?

Anybody test them?

[indurancevile]

38. lol. based on what?

[Art_from_Ark]

36. I'm in Tokyo right now

Radiation levels here are normal.

[oldbanjo]

10. You are closer to being right than most

also there will be no safe drinking water in Japan.

[Harmony Blue]

15. Not the entire island but most for sure

Many called out alarmists with no solid reasoning, but the truth always creeps into false dreams.

[Art_from_Ark]

37. Most? Most of what? Honshu?

The 100,000 square mile island on which Fukushima Daiichi is located?

[cutlassmama]

16. +1

[fascisthunter]

28. maybe not the entire Island, but a huge chunk

and that would be catastrophic enough.

[Art_from_Ark]

35. A couple of hundred square miles is a huge chunk of alnd

but putting it into perspective, it's only about 2/10 of 1% of the entire island (of Honshu).

[Art_from_Ark]

34. The entire island?

All 100,000 square miles of it?

Really, I'm living on that island, 100 miles away from Dai-ichi, and no, where I'm living isn't about to be abandoned.

[on point]

9. But nuclear power is sooo cheap - if you don't include total costs over centuries!!

[aquart]

12. Decades? LOL! Try centuries.

[hunter]

14. I predict they'll build new nuclear plants there...

... as importing fossil fuels or shutting down their industrial society will be much less appealing options.

Between a rock and a hard place, Japan is.

So are the rest of us.

Personally, I'd like to see the end of consumerism in a positive way, where we all have better lives, fewer children, and less stuff, and not Mother Nature's or military way of genocide.

[JackRiddler]

20. I predict all one day will be revulsed by the false dichotomy...

of the big energy ideology that you here parrot.

The choice is not between coal and nuclear. This is a big lie.

Neither of these are actually choices. At most they delay an inevitable conversion to the available ecological and sustainable alternatives, or a collapse of the civilization that advocates of these poisonous energy sources claim to enable.

[hunter]

32. Numbers suck.

There is no "sustainable alternative" capable of supporting our existing consumer society. This civilization must pass away, and it will. There are no choices.

We can bury our toxic consumer society in a thoughtful way, so that nobody gets hurt, or we can crash and burn.

Being human, and collectively not much brighter than a colony of ants, the odds are we'll crash and burn.

[GliderGuider]

18. AFGE

"Another Fucking Growth Experience" for an immature human race. It's time to wake up and grow up, to start telling the truth and owning up to the consequences of our actions. We expect it of our children, should we not expect it from our politicians and CEOs?

[defendandprotect]

29. We need to be shutting down our own nuclear reactors -- 103 across US ... 2 in every state --

Global Warming's effects will be reaching new peaks -- we're about

at the 1960 mark -- imagine all we did after that time in creating Global Warming!


Glacier melts are producing more earthquakes -- and stronger earthquakes --

earthquakes generate new volcanic activity --


It's takes 6 months to properly shut down one of our nuclear reactors --

One year to shut down those in Fukushima --

and don't know if that includes appropriate WASTE disposal in either case!


Global Warming will bring more doughts/floods, changes in wind patterns and other

natural systems of nature, more storms, hurricanes, cyclones, tornados --

and of increasing severity.


Obama is planning to subsidize a new genertion of nuclear reactors in US --


Is there anything dumber than using nuclear power to boil water to create steam?