Japan Earthquake | Page 1371 | Liveblog live blogging

Japan Earthquake | Page 1371

But while the events, as such, became public, there was a continual attempt to downplay the severity by the authorities.
by bo 5/25/2011 9:23:01 AM

Well of course the nuclear industry was originally founded largely to provide Pu for nuclear weapons
by hudebnik 5/25/2011 9:24:03 AM

The first, was it 4 or 5, nuclear power plants were built in Hanford solely to produce PU for weapons. Energy came later.
by bo 5/25/2011 9:25:31 AM

*sigh* I still do not understand why this isnt the main topic of people's conversations and the main headline on the news! I was talking to my cousin today and she thought it was "all finished and all fine"!
by Angie 5/25/2011 9:25:45 AM

@angie - me too!
by hudebnik 5/25/2011 9:26:16 AM

And that Angie, is why whoever is doing PR for TEPCO will have work as long as there are crises to be managed. They made three nuclear meltdowns "go away"
by bo 5/25/2011 9:26:46 AM

@bo Yes they have done it very very well!
by Angie 5/25/2011 9:27:23 AM

Tho I have likened Tepco's containment strategy to a reactor, where all hell is taking place inside, but until the containment finally fails all you see is speculative hot air. The strategy has a few holes now though!
by hudebnik 5/25/2011 9:28:30 AM

It amazes me the ash cloud from Grimsvotn volcano , Iceland (which has today stopped erupting) has been headline news and still is and yet Tepco's radioactive clouds and sea in Fukushima get no mention
by elainekirk 5/25/2011 9:30:22 AM

@elainekirk Hell all we had was football as the main headline tonight! Big game on here atm.............Had to change the channel on the news before I threw something at the Tv.............
by Angie 5/25/2011 9:32:03 AM

@elainekirk no flights are delayed. Again, the RT interview posted below is one of the only places where there are continued questions, and at least they are asking why didn't the GOJ tell people before it was obvious.
by bo 5/25/2011 9:32:58 AM

@elaine - speaking as an ex media man (BBC) the problem is that resources are limited and the emphasis especially with 24/7 rolling news is on the new (and cheap to cover). Give me pictures!! Reactor blowing Japan sky high guaranteed on air. Continuing coverage of a 'leaking but not much change' story - never.
by hudebnik 5/25/2011 9:33:46 AM

Even to maintain Reuters fulltime blog would have needed 5 fulltime staff to mod it.
by hudebnik 5/25/2011 9:34:41 AM

That's the beauty of this blog, all 1370 pages of it. Big thanks to @all and @mods.
by hudebnik 5/25/2011 9:35:51 AM

@hudebnik Yes if they had big pictures I do think it would be different! People are visual..........most look and think it looks like crap but have no clue whats going on under the pile of rubble...........If you had flames and explosions people would pay more attention!
by Angie 5/25/2011 9:36:21 AM

Hence exciting volcano pics
by hudebnik 5/25/2011 9:36:43 AM

In the west, Chernobyl got more focus in the press because it was a way to attack Gorbachev and his new policy of glassnost (openness), so the news was busy carrying Cold War water as well as reporting on the events.
by bo 5/25/2011 9:36:48 AM

Rather than semivisible clouds of steam in a rotten picture at night
by hudebnik 5/25/2011 9:37:19 AM

@bo - also the 'incompetent Russians, this coudn't happen here angle'
by hudebnik 5/25/2011 9:38:02 AM

@hudebnik yes I recall, "we would NEVER build a reactor without conatinment" it could NEVER happen in the west.
by bo 5/25/2011 9:38:42 AM

@Jocke_Jensen, bingo! That's it (Mark I's world wide), thanks so much! :)
by Ian 5/25/2011 9:38:57 AM

But given the visual nature of the news, as you point out @hudebnik, you would think the earless bunny video would catch on
by bo 5/25/2011 9:39:27 AM

Translate article on Kan press conference translate.google.com
by elainekirk 5/25/2011 9:39:36 AM

@bo Too many people saying is a common thing to have earless bunnies........
by Angie 5/25/2011 9:41:23 AM

@angie - exactly - prove it in other words.
by hudebnik 5/25/2011 9:42:26 AM

@hudebnik Yep!
by Angie 5/25/2011 9:43:00 AM

@Angie what? (sorry, bad joke)
by bo 5/25/2011 9:43:10 AM

@bo, pro-nukers were saying that in the first days of this case too! Chernobyl had no containment, Japan is safe. A good point to get across is that Fukushima is a consequence of years to saying it can't happen. This wouldn't have happened if everyone believe it could and therefore abandoned nuclear decades ago.
by Ian 5/25/2011 9:43:29 AM

Sadly, malformed children would get more coverage but it may take a long time for that to happen and I very much hope it doesn't.
by hudebnik 5/25/2011 9:43:33 AM

@ian - absolutely. I keep saying that one of the biggest problems with nuclear is that almost all the safety precautions like containment are theoretical, they haven't been tested. Until now that is.
by hudebnik 5/25/2011 9:45:07 AM

@hudebnik As sad as it is I think you are right! @bo lol!
by Angie 5/25/2011 9:45:13 AM

@hudebnik, unfortunately mutations are mechanically inevitable consequence of this. There's no way around it.
by Ian 5/25/2011 9:45:49 AM

@Ian so the new version of that old canard is: Japan is in an earthquake zone, that could never happen here. The only reason that there is any continuing press about the spf's in the US.
by bo 5/25/2011 9:46:27 AM

@ian - oh they're just a natural genetic hazard, happen all the time. No significant increase etc etc
by hudebnik 5/25/2011 9:46:53 AM

@bo - you must have a lot of knowledge of the aftereffects of Hiroshima and nagasaki
by hudebnik 5/25/2011 9:47:37 AM

@ian - even now there is a lot of disagreement as to the actual genetic effects of Chernobyl, withe estimates of the extra no of deaths ranging up to 100,000
by hudebnik 5/25/2011 9:48:43 AM

@hudebnik, yup, nuclear power is post-market testing. Compare to medicine in the US where you first have to prove safety before you can expose the public to a new medicine. And even worse, at least with medicine people can choose to take or not take it, but of a nuclear accident, we cant' choose not to be exposed. Nuclear energy is fundamentally unethical!
by Ian 5/25/2011 9:49:04 AM

@bo - oh blast (sor
ry) where's our market gone??
by hudebnik 5/25/2011 9:50:06 AM

@hudebnik I would say a working knowledge, although more social than epidemiological
by bo 5/25/2011 9:51:49 AM

@hudebnik, and the largest meta-study of Chernobyl's health impact estimates a million casualties (mortality), and that's not counting morbidity : tinyurl.com
by Ian 5/25/2011 9:52:35 AM

@hudebnik Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment published by the New York Academy of Sciences in 2010 puts the number at 985,000 although this is highly contested.
by bo 5/25/2011 9:52:57 AM

From the press reports below it looks as if Japan is likely to abandon new nuclear plants
by hudebnik 5/25/2011 9:52:58 AM

We are going to have to wait and see what Japan does. What it says under pressure and what it does a year later may differ dramatically.
by bo 5/25/2011 9:53:35 AM

@bo - absolutely tho the summer will be an interesting test as 75% of Japanese nuclear plants are scheduled to be offline, 20% of total generating capacity.
by hudebnik 5/25/2011 9:55:06 AM

@hudebnik and summer is peak time for Japan. The heat and humidity are brutal and everyone has AC on, stores have it up high, etc...
by bo 5/25/2011 9:55:43 AM

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