Tepco can't stabilize reactors by year-end: report

[Fledermaus]

By MarketWatch
TOKYO (MarketWatch) -- Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501.TO) is coming to the view that it will be impossible to stabilize the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant by the end of this year, possibly affecting the timing for the government to consider the return of evacuees to their homes near the plant, Kyodo News reported, citing senior company officials.

The revelation that meltdowns had occurred at the Nos. 1 to 3 reactors at the plant, most likely with breaches to pressure vessels encasing nuclear fuel, has led the officials to believe that "there will be a major delay to work" to contain the situation, one of them said.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/tepco-cant-stabilize-reactors-by-year-end-report-2011-05-29

[aquart]

1. "Return of evacuees"???

I cannot believe they are pretending that will be possible.

[Poll_Blind]

2. The kind of lying that is going on over in Japan about this has reached...

...UN-resolution severity, IMO.

If we can get the UN to make resolutions about evil dictators bombing their own people, I don't understand what exactly is in the way by threatening sanctions against the Japanese government if one of their own corporations is literally setting off the world's largest dirty bomb and doing everything they can to hide it.

Aquart, I don't know about you, but I'm really starting to have a problem with these people. On a fundamental "You know, I think you're really trying to kill me and my family if it means you can make a buck" level. If the Japanese government wants to roll when them they they are both culpable in my opinion. I don't know how Japanese law works, but I'll bet if you drive the getaway car in a murder you're probably just as liable, just like here in the States.

PB

[PearliePoo2]

3. Word's largest dirty bomb exactly...

and yet when I turn on the TV wanting to learn more about this catastrophe, nothing but crickets.
Japanese Gov. and TEPCO: Criminal, ecological, terrorist bastards, is what they are.

[aquart]

6. I follow @ENENEWS on Twitter.

And I post their bulletins to FB.

[aquart]

5. In addition to normal average corruption...

You have a nation dealing with thousands of tsunami and earthquake dead. Thousands and thousands of displaced people. Orphaned children and animals. ALL the trauma that goes with losing your place in the world.

Could WE cope with the same percentage of people who have lost homes, families, and jobs? We're hanging on by a thread in the midwest.

Now add the unimaginable disaster of Fukushima. Fukushima evacuee children have been bullied and assaulted in their new schools. And a typhoon hit today. Fukushima Daiichi plant is leaking like a sieve and now number 5 nearly boiled. THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO. And they have no idea where to put the people. And it isn't ending.

Their food is contaminated but they're eating it. Their air, their water, their fields.

And my friend in Tokyo says they're trying to will themselves to evolve into radiation-resistant beings."Whatever that means."

They don't know what to do.

[Someguyinjapan]

7. Is your radiation-resistant friend Japanese?

Because that is just the sort of nonsense I've gotten accustomed to living over here for the past few years when the Japanese are confronted by the unthinkable, the unimaginable, and have no idea what to do in either situation.

And you are absolutely right, they don't know what to do. And they haven't from Day 1, and it is never going to change. The latest shenanigans involving this year's Typhoon #2 is more than enough evidence of that. God help us if an aftershock hits in exactly the wrong place. Something that these pro-nuke geniuses conveniently forget to talk about when they try and rationalize this all away as "not being all that bad".

[aquart]

13. Yes. She is.

[Poll_Blind]

8. I agree with everything you said except one point, which you didn't state specifically.

I agree that they generally don't know what to do. In this case, by "they", I mean the Japanese people. Right now, many Japanese have become sort of second-generation hibakusha. They just don't know it, yet.

All my sympathies, genuinely, to them.

I'm going to take all those hibakusha and I'm going to lift them up and out of what I'm about to say next: The Japanese government and TEPCO are criminal fiends engaged in an enterprise which empirically shows their wanton disregard for life if it falls outside of the profit margin. I thought the phrase "criminal fiends" sounded a bit stilted but they earn every bit of moustache-twisting evil it implies. TEPCO is a liar and worse, a misleading element. You mentioned that 5 had almost boiled off so you know about that- and probably also know that TEPCO knew that 5 was boiling off on Saturday, informed the Japanese government Saturday night and neither of them said anything till sometime on Sunday.

While TEPCO is the more evil of the two, the Japanese government is throwing-in with them and all of my sympathies for victims of this disaster (because everyone is a victim in a situation like this) evaporates for TEPCO and the Japanese government based on their actions. Their choices.

Continually, they show they have every intent of covering up something which not only threatens the lives of their citizens and their citizens' children, but they put us all at serious risk by their stonewalling and foot dragging.

I have no quibble with your evocative and sympathetic image of the confused state of Japan at the moment, as they deal with crisis after crisis, calamity after calamity. None at all. But the moment we come to TEPCO and the Japanese government, I cut them no slack.

I'm not saying you do cut them slack- I didn't catch you making the point specifically. But you have bad people making bad decisions at the helm of a ship which is lost at sea. I feed bad for the passengers but the captain and crew are criminally negligent to such a level, and with such regularity, that it passes from mere negligence into the realm of intent.

PB

[kristopher]

9. The problem is a global industry and it's strength, not a specific company or government.

In terms of handling this crisis the Japanese are almost certainly going to do BETTER than any other country where such a calamity might occur.

In other words, if you think this is bad, wait until the folks that brought you Deepwater Horizon have to deal with something similar.

[Poll_Blind]

10. I'm trying to make the distinction in culpability between "The Japanese" and TEPCO and/or ...

...the Japanese government.

In terms of handling this crisis the Japanese are almost certainly going to do BETTER than any other country where such a calamity might occur.

In other words, if you think this is bad, wait until the folks that brought you Deepwater Horizon have to deal with something similar.

Your second sentence first, you may be right. I'm not sure that that changes or inflects anything I assert, though.

Your first sentence, though. The Japanese government is still tacitly coming to grips with the atrocities committed by their country during WW II. Japanese culture is a beautiful thing, but like the racism in American culture which is too-often swept neatly under the rug to maintain our internal portrait of "who we are", the Japanese are still dealing (and poorly) with some heavy elements of their past that don't give me any reason to believe (especially given their recent choices) that they will be any more forthcoming or open about the grim situation now.

And that's not to the rest of the world, that's to their own people.

PB

[kristopher]

11. Are you under the illusion that the WWII atrocities are somehow secret?

All I see is you engaging in Japan bashing and trying to shift the blame from the nuclear industry to the users of the nuclear industy's product.

IOW, you're blaming the victims. If you want to bitch about something meaningful, then go after their #1 salesman, Sarkozy. It was his "visit" that dried up coverage. The French government stands to lose a huge revenue stream if nuclear power is left in the dust.

[Poll_Blind]

12. Not secret to the rest of the world, no. But the Japanese govt. still has difficulty publicly...

...acknowledging their role in the atrocities. Unlike, for instance, Germany.

I've gone through great lengths to separate "The Japanese" people from TEPCO and the Japanese government. If you insist on pretending otherwise, good luck. Same with my alleged attempt to "shift the blame from the nuclear industry to the users of the nuclear industy's product". This is nonsensical, though it does bring up a point that not only have the TEPCO/Japanese govt. used an extremely dangerous means of power production but they've defended its use and covered up continued exacerbations of the deadly problem.

Victims? Hardly.

My disgust and anger in this situation exists in sufficient quantities that the salesman, the corporate consumer and those corporate and governmental organs participating in the post-facto coverup will not be shorted their share.

I doubt you'll have much success recruiting an army who view Sarkozy and France as the root of this problem when the most damaging behavior is home-grown in Japan.

:shrug:

PB

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[madokie]

19. You know I just realized it but you're right since Sarkozy's visit coverage has indeed

dried up. Here in Oklahoma its as if nothing has happened but yet when I look at the maps showing where the radiation is carried on the wind currents it comes right over our heads. I'm old and probably won't live long enough to get cancer from this nuclear catastrophe but I've got a grand child who is only 4 and I worry for her.
I can take comfort in knowing that I was one of the protesters of a nuclear plant that didn't get built near here.

[aquart]

14. My Japanese friend told me the Japanese are a peaceful people.

Didn't understand why I laughed.

[kristopher]

16. I understand why...

You're uninformed and prejudiced.

[Someguyinjapan]

17. Try telling that to the Koreans and Chinese

They are still waiting for a state-level (as in from the emperor) apology for the war crimes the Japanese inflicted on them during WWII . No need to apologise for them, kris.

[kristopher]

18. Perspective isn't an apology.

It is amazing how blind many here are to their overt racism. If comparing actions the Japanese engaged in 60-80 years ago to the up to the minute list of US atrocities isn't enough to make the point for you, nothing will.

[aquart]

20. On my soap opera list

When a poster can't get around the fact that their favorite character, having been arrested for prostitution for instance, can reasonably be called a whore, the response is ALWAYS to call the challenger's favorite a whore, based, because it's a soap, on perfectly reasonable evidence.

The fact that there are two whores working the street doesn't make one of them a nun. And wearing a nun's habit because the entire world took away her heels and fishnet stockings does not restore her virginity.

[kristopher]

21. You need to review the thread...

The issue was the supposed distinction between the government/Tepco and "the people".

The matter of war crimes was a red herring that had nothing to do with the point being made. The poster had used a pointless smear that is a favorite of Japan haters to deflect the issue; and bringing the comparison with the US into the picture was to demonstrate that the selection of that particular criticism into the discussion was an example of the irrationality that typifies racism.

As does your defense of that poster's actions.

[Someguyinjapan]

22. And when I hear the Japanese say "We are a peaceful people"

That indicates to me they have no perspective at all. Stop trying to rationalize or defend the atrocities of the Japanese by comparing them to those committed by others; it in no way lessens the enornity of what they have done.

And they weren't "actions", kris, they were war crimes. Your very choice of mitigating language betrays your sentiment somewhat

[kristopher]

23. I see you changed your socks.

[FBaggins]

4. Sure it will be.

There are essentially two evacuations. One for those within a given radius (regardless of radiation levels) and one outside of that radius where levels are nevertheless higher than a given level.

The areas (within or without that radius) where ambient radiation is above a given level (where annual dose would be expected to be above 20 mSv) will remain evacuated even if/after the plant is stabilized. But the areas that are currently evacuated simply because they are within a given distance of the plant but are NOT above the radiation limits (south and west of the plant) could see people return... but NOT while the plant is still in some danger of additional releases.

So the OP is essentially correct. A delay in stabilizing the plant will delay many thousands of people in their hope to return to their homes. Homes that in many cases are no more irradiated than where they were evacuated to... but which are within 30 km (or whatever) of a plant that has not been stabilized.