nuclear-news

Japan’s “wide area incineration” plan to manage radioactive debris

Japan’s Latest Nuclear Crisis: Getting Rid of the Radioactive Debris The Atlantic, JUN 4 2012“.……While the government insists on the necessity of removing rubble from the earthquake region as quickly as possible, critics point out that the government plan calls for 80 percent of the debris to be burned locally, and say that transporting only 20 percent of the feared waste to incinerators around the country makes little sense. After all, if the goal is to remove debris from the area, why is the vast majority of it staying there?

Part of what makes it difficult to gauge the actual necessity of “wide area incineration” is the government’s massive PR campaign to promote the idea. In what Japanese newspapers called anunusual move , the Ministry of the Environment budgeted more than $17 million to promote  wide area incineration. The government’s solicitation for a campaign of billboards, newspaper ads, and TV spots explains, “Due to the challenges of promoting ‘wide area incineration,’ there is a need to gain the understanding and support of the populace concerning the necessity and urgency of ‘wide area incineration.'”

It’s still not clear why the Japanese government has decided against a policy of containing, rather than dispersing, the radioactive debris. Even if radiation levels were safe, as the authorities claim, the financial and political costs of the plan are tremendous. Japanese tabloids and blogs buzz with theories about the state’s true motivation, speculating that the program is meant to bolster struggling municipalities, as well as transportation and sanitation companies, who could use the government cleanup funds as financial stimulus. Japan has allotted approximately $5.5 billion for cleanup efforts  in 2012 alone.

Containment would also mean solidifying the already-worrisome invisible border between “contaminated” and “un-contaminated” areas, with the former unfairly stigmatized. This subjective differentiation, called “rumor damage” in Japanese, currently affects everything from land prices to the value of local produce, and has already dealt a crippling blow to the Tohoku economy. Maybe that’s part of the “wide area incineration” motivation: rather than dooming an entire region to long-term “contaminated” status, it makes every region in Japan share the burden of the radiation taboo. If everyone is “contaminated,” then, in a relative sense, no one is. http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/06/japans-latest-nuclear-crisis-getting-rid-of-the-radioactive-debris/257963/#

June 6, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Japan, wastes