The Anti-Nuclear Lobby & International Media Coverage of Fukushima

Sure if you have the ability to build the hoover dam ten times over.
In Norway’s case, 90% of that is hydro… which Japan hasn’t neglected.
But to put this into perspective, the combined power output of Norway’s hydro plants is less than that of the 2 Fukushima nuclear sites… themselves only a percentage of Japan’s power consumption.

It’s a bit disingenuous to compare the power needs of Norway (5mil) to Japan (120mil).

@James – I don’t think you get my point. I am not against you criticizing these articles but it all seems so one sided and I think that some people who follow your blog and there are quite a few I believe may be led to think that there is nothing to worry about and that they would be foolish to leave Tokyo/Kanto because of this issue. I say that you are as well reading the “fox news” version as reading this blog. Maybe even better off, because if Fox News makes you leave and it turns out to have been the wrong decision you will still be OK but if Japan Probe convinces you to stay and it turns out to be the wrong decision you will regret it for the rest of your short life.

You mention Iitate in one reply here and say that you would probably leave it but there are other Iitates out there that we don’t know about yet.

BTW, here is the “Fox News” type reporting that I trust (somewhat at least): http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/04/83451.html?om_rid=Cg2qiH&om_mid=_BNnFnQB8aHleSN

So the people who left are foolish or misinformed according to you. I think that you probably don’t know why people are leaving. Probably think that the articles you read in online newspapers are about people running away from the nuclear wasteland are representative of the people who have left or are leaving. (Why believe those articles when you don’t believe the others?) I have met quite a few people who have left (mostly Japanese) and their reasons seem quite rational. They left because of being tired of having to check if it is OK to give their baby water. They are tired of wondering if they are getting the whole story or about getting it on time. They are leaving because it may get worse than now and they might as well get out now, at least for a while. That seems pretty reasonable to me considering that people have been getting information late and being misinformed by TEPCO and/or local government.

“…….decision you will regret it for the rest of your short life” Nice use of sound bite. Hope you are proud of that one. (Other readers, if you haven’t already, check the original message for the conditional. )

There are private citizens and organizations like Greenpeace out there measuring radiation levels on a daily basis. If somewhere in Japan is highly radioactive and “we don’t know about it yet,” we will know about it rather quickly. This isn’t the USSR: any private citizen, anti-nuclear activist, or journalist can buy a geiger counter and perform their own readings.

This just comes across as naive. We may not be the Soviet Union but this is not a Hollywood movie where droves of concerned citizens band together with thousands of Geiger counters protecting society by scouring the countryside for radiation. Think random spot checks.

You say that “fear is what keeps us alive,” and that is certainly the case – when there is actually proof of serious danger that we should fear. Irrational fear and decision making based on paranoia are not helpful and do not save lives.

Err. I agree. Another silly point though. You don’t need to tell that the readers that irrationality or paranoia is unhelpful. I think all your readers understand the meanings of those words.

But to answer my first question it seems you do have an agenda. I don’t know why though but that’s not important.

I do believe that people who have fled the Tokyo area because of radiation are misinformed or foolish, and I’m willing to stand by what I have blogged. I hope that people who read this site feel that I’m sending such a message, because that’s exactly the kind of message I am trying to send.

BTW (the post you linked to was submitted to my site. The submitters name was removed. I didn’t have time to fact check it but was there some false reporting in there?)

James, something you should mention. People that leave Tokyo by airplane are probably exposing themselves (and their babies) to more radiation than they would receive if they stayed. [This depends on where they go. A very short flight, to S. Korea, say, would not incur as much dose as a long flight, say to L.A.]

The radiation exposures that people receive on airplanes are not harmful; I am merely illustrating a point. Namely, that the doses to people in Tokyo and in general anywhere outside the evacuation zone are quite small.

Also, the thing about tap water for the babies was based on iodine levels–the government limit was 100 Bq/L, and that limit was set based on an assumed full year of consumption of water at that level. In other words, exposure to slightly higher levels for a short period would give a baby a dose well below the gov’t dose limit. In the end, the tap water advisory was only in place for a day or two.

Furthermore, the iodine isotope that causes the most concern has an eight-day half life. Since it has been 31 days, that’s about four half lives. After four half lives, the iodine inventory has decayed to 1/2*1/2*1/2*1/2 = 1/16 the initial amount. This decay will continue; that is one of the nice parts of short-lived radionuclides. Unlike some chemical toxins, which remain toxic forever, short-lived radionuclides basically burn themselves out and become inert.

There is a lot of science around radiation that can be used to assuage fear. Fear is a bigger problem than radiation for pretty much everyone in Japan at this point other than the workers at the Fukushima site. In fact, for more on the negative consequences of fear, take a look at some of the UN documents about Chernobyl’s fear-related consequences–the fear of radiation led to more widespread health effects [depression, alcoholism, unnecessary abortions] than the radiation itself.

To be more exact, fear proportional to the risk of harm is a healthy control that protects us from danger and keep us alive (rationally), methinks.

LOL. Why?

In some places I believe they do receive even more scrutiny than nuclear power but what I meant was why this topic “The Anti-Nuclear Lobby & International Media Coverage of Fukushima” should be a discussion about coal residue or coal-mining.