Comments on: Hungry for Power: Split Those Atoms!

By: Jason

Jason — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 05:18:00 +0000

I agree that many Japanese companies have a poor grasp regarding the importance of plausibility and completeness of their lies, however, Japan does not have many other alternatives when it comes to generating the amount of power that is, and will soon be, required by the consumers and businesses in the country.

Safety is certainly something we should worry about, but if an international body reports something is safe, that should be enough of a green light for a partial restart. If companies wish to lie about their accidents, perhaps the feds could assemble yet another powerless committee to draft some laws for the next Prime Minister to enact

By: billywest

billywest — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 04:17:18 +0000

Japan has a poor track record when it comes to nuclear power plant operations, especially when it comes to proper maintenance. What’s worse are the cover-ups after accidents or incidents, including Kashiwazaki. They immediately tried to cover up how much was spilled and the true amounts were discovered within the week. It’s not even done cleverly; it’s like a child who has accidentally broken a flower pot scooping up handfuls of potting soil off the carpet and tossing them behind the sofa and then saying, when mom walks in the room, “Just a little dirt spilled, Mommy!” That’s why there’s so much distrust regarding nuclear power among ordinary citizens in this country.

I support the use of nuclear power to generate energy as long as everything’s run kosher at the plants.

By: tornadoes28

tornadoes28 — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:01:59 +0000

I also agree. I have long felt that nuke power in modern plants is very safe. The power is extremely clean when compared to coal power plants. Without even thinking of global warming, the disease and death caused by air pollution from coal fired power plants worldwide is immense. They ALL need to be shut down. We can only do that with a mix of nuke power plants and clean energy such as wind, solar, etc.

By: Jason

Jason — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:28:56 +0000

The radioactive material that leaked into the sea is definately not one of those things that can be passed off as a “who cares” so easily, however, when you consider that this was the only external problem after a maximum yield earthquake occurred, you can’t complain with the outcome. Had the plant been designed like the one in Chernobyl, there’d be a 250-km no-life zone surrounding the operation.

As for cost, everybody is suffering. The owners of the plant are losing millions of yen every day, and the region is also losing lots of money at the same time. The nuclear plant was responsible for employing over 13,000 people (both directly and indirectly). Also, by having a nuclear plant in the city, both the prefecture and the community was able to receive money from the government. Now that the plant is not producing electricity, not only are there 13,000 people unemployed, but the region isn’t receiving the money it needs for other programs.

By keeping a working power plant that has passed the safety checks of both the Japanese energy production organization and the IAEA, the people of the region are losing and the people of Japan are now using power from higher polluting power sources to compensate for the loss.

This is one of those lose-lose-lose situations, and it doesn’t look like it’ll be over anytime soon

By: Nick

Nick — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 21:20:06 +0000

Oh, some radioactive material leaked into the sea? Ah, that’s no big deal, who cares!

With that much power being produced in one location, I can certainly see how it would be important to get it back online and I wonder why the people in charge are dragging their feet at letting that happen? Also, it must be costing the company that owns it an insane amount of money to have it sitting there not producing.