Fukushima hysteria dies down as the media find that their alarmist and sensational reporting is not going to be sustainable.
Perhaps they will return their attention and their headlines to the victims of the earthquake and the tsunami in between the bombing raids on Tripoli.
As George Monbiot puts it in The Guardian:
As a result of the disaster at Fukushima, I am no longer nuclear-neutral. I now support the technology.
A crappy old plant with inadequate safety features was hit by a monster earthquake and a vast tsunami. The electricity supply failed, knocking out the cooling system. The reactors began to explode and melt down. The disaster exposed a familiar legacy of poor design and corner-cutting. Yet, as far as we know, no one has yet received a lethal dose of radiation.
Now George Monbiot’s views about energy in general, and renewables in particular, are usually quite ridiculous and ill thought through but where he is absolutely right is of course that in spite of the headlines and the apocalypse scenarios, “no one has yet received a lethal dose of radiation”.
The work at Fukushima is difficult and hazardous and it will test the courage and ingenuity of many – but it goes on even if all the headlines are gone —– Kyodo News:
Work to restore power and crucial cooling functions resumed Tuesday morning at the crisis-hit reactors at the quake-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, following suspension Monday after smoke was detected at its No. 2 and No. 3 reactors, its operator said.
Firefighters and the Self-Defense Forces also prepared to restart a mission later in the day to spray a massive amount of coolant water onto spent nuclear fuel pools at the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors, according to Tokyo Electric Power Co.
Although white smoke, possibly steam, was found to be continuously billowing from the buildings of the No. 2 and No. 3 reactors, the utility known as TEPCO found it does not obstruct electricity restoration work as radiation levels did not particularly surge at the site.
An external power source was connected to the No. 4 reactor in the morning, making it the fifth of the plant’s six reactors to have regained a power supply needed for the restoration of equipment such as a ventilation system to filter radioactive substances from the air and some measuring tools at the control room.
TEPCO aims to restore power systems to revive some key facilities such as data measuring equipment and functions at a control room by Wednesday for the No. 1 and No. 2 reactors and by Thursday for the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors, said Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, at a press conference.
Tags: Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, Japan, Nuclear power, Tokyo Electric Power Company
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