nuclear-news

Evacuation from a nuclear disaster is a one-way ticket.

Britain is now going down the same route. The debate is complex, but it must not assume the same thing couldn’t happen here. That’s what they said in Japan after Chernobyl.

Japan’s nuclear disaster: a long half-life Life without neighbours, or Fukushima’s traditional livestock and fishing industries, would be a shadow of its former self guardian.co.uk, 28 February 2012 As the people of Pripyat, a once bustling Soviet city built for the workers of Chernobyl, will tell you, evacuation from a nuclear disaster is a one-way ticket.
Nearly 26 years later, time is frozen. The hammer-and-sickles still
hang from the lamp-posts as they did on the day the town’s residents
were told to get on the buses. A similar fate awaits many of the
80,000 evacuated a year ago from Fukushima. The Japanese government is
raising hopes of an early return to the evacuation zone, and there are
parts of villages to which former residents could move back this
spring – if they wanted to. But life without neighbours, or the
region’s traditional livestock and fishing industries, would be a
shadow of its former self.

Much of this area – particularly towns like Okuma, near the perimeter
of the stricken nuclear plant – is as doomed as Pripyat. As our
reporter found out when he was allowed in on Tuesday, groceries sit
untouched on the shelves of a convenience store, cars abandoned in a
supermarket car park. The only signs of life are the beeping monitors
alerting visitors to the invisible foe. It could take decades for
cleanup workers to get all the fuel out of the reactors – if indeed
they ever succeed….. With just two of its 54 nuclear reactors in
operation, Japan is importing coal and oil as if there is no tomorrow
– and no Kyoto protocol, whose emissions targets it will now not meet.
Japan’s overreliance on nuclear power as a “clean” alternative to
coal- and oil-fired stations should give the world pause for thought.
Britain is now going down the same route. The debate is complex, but
it must not assume the same thing couldn’t happen here. That’s what
they said in Japan after Chernobyl.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/28/japan-nuclear-disaster-fukushima-editorial

February 29, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | general