Confidence Slips Away as Japan Battles Nuclear Peril

[Kalun D]

Source: New York Times

But less than a week later, a deluge of contaminated water, plutonium traces in the soil and an increasingly hazardous environment for workers at the plant have forced government officials to confront the reality that the emergency measures they have taken to keep nuclear fuel cool are producing increasingly dangerous side effects. And the prospect of restoring automatic cooling systems anytime soon is fading.

The continuing crisis also underscores the unprecedented scale and complexity of the problems facing Fukushima: a plant ravaged by a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and 45-foot tsunami, and three reactors and four spent fuel pools with no proper cooling system yet and containing more long-lived radioactivity than the Chernobyl reactor, according to the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, based in Takoma Park, Md.

This is why, despite the damage caused by the efforts so far, Japanese officials have little choice but to continue down the feed-and-bleed path. “The worst-case scenario is that a meltdown makes the plant’s site a permanent grave,” said Tetsuo Iguchi, a professor in the department of quantum engineering at Nagoya University. “In a small island nation like Japan, that’s just not an option. That is why the government is trying to prevent a meltdown at any cost.”

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/world/asia/30japan.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&ref=global-home

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Worse than Chernobyl, the ONLY bright spot is this means the end of Nuclear energy, but at such a sad and great cost.

[aquart]

1. If you think this is the end...

Then all I have to say is Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Japan STILL went with nuclear energy.

[Art_from_Ark]

2. "Atoms for Peace" laid the groundwork in the mid-1950s

For a country that has no substantial reserves of energy of its own, the prospect of producing huge amounts of electricity with relatively little fuel was too irrrestable.

[Kalun D]

4. Peace

turned to Hell

[Kalun D]

3. Different Kind of Radiation

Different circumstances.

a bomb is circumstances beyond control

a nuclear power plant was thought to be controllable. Now that that's so obviously wrong, combined with the fact of large losses of land in a crowded island country, the end is inevitable.

I predict it will be near worldwide, maybe not shutdown, but lack of growth. NIMBY will kill growth.

[Demeter]

7. That's What We Thought After 3 Mile Island, After Chernobyl

and still we have a Democrat advocating MORE NUKES!

The human species in aggregate may very well be too stupid to survive any more.

[OneBlueSky]

5. "this means the end of Nuclear energy" . . .

not if the monied interests behind nuclear energy have anything to say about it -- and they do . . . wait for the new campaign of "it can't happen here" and "it was a once in a million years event" and all of the other nonsense that will be sold to the American people -- much like laundry detergent and cell phones . . .

[truth2power]

6. If "it can't happen here" or "it's a once in a lifetime event" then the industry

should be able to find someone other than the US TAXPAYER to indemnify them in cas of an accident.

Oh, that's not possible??? Then they should STFU.

[Kalun D]

10. Since Three Mile Island

there's been no new nuclear power stations in the US. What do you think the chances of a new plant are here after Fukushima? LOLZ!!

Three Mile Island had no appreciable radioactive release.

Chernobyl was in Russia so people expected failure because of poor engineering/planning

Fukushima is in one of the most if not the most technologically advanced country on the planet.

They totally lost control of the beast. If it can happen in Japan it can happen anywhere.

Obama should stop painting himself as a bagman for the nuclear industry. He should quit pushing nukes because it's not going anywhere anyway, he's just making himself look bad.

[enough]

8. This will not put an end to nuclear power in the US. Here's the NRC on the subject:

http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wamc/news.newsmain/article/0/0/1781613/US.News/Japan.crisis.to.not.slow.relicensing.U.S..plants.NRC

Japan crisis to not slow relicensing U.S. plants: NRC
(2011-03-29)
(Reuters) -

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - There is no technical reason that the crisis at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant will slow down relicensing of U.S. nuclear reactors, a top official from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said on Tuesday.

Rather, the NRC will assess any changes required in light of the disaster and make changes immediately, outside the licensing process, Bill Borchardt, the regulator's head of operations, said at a Senate energy committee hearing.


.....


Nothing is going to change in the US nuclear industry without MASSIVE public pressure, and I'm not at all sure that will happen. Change will certainly not happen just because it would be intelligent.

[The Backlash Cometh]

9. Maybe a small island like Japan should have thought twice about

approving a nuclear plant?