FUKUSHIMA UPDATE 5.27.11

Latest family news: Kasumi and the girls will be leaving Ibaraki and coming to live near us later this week! Yay!

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Japanese superquake moved ocean floor 79 feet sideways and 10 feet up - and new data shows region is under more strain

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Fukushima Station Considered as Site for Nuclear Graveyard

“Tokyo Electric would need five years to complete decontamination of the reactors [that's expensive too!], which includes removal of hydrogen to prevent explosions, he said.

Building storage for radioactive waste at Fukushima could take at least 10 years, said Morokuzu, one of 50 people on a cleanup panel that includes observers from Tokyo Electric and the Trade Ministry. Tokyo Electric would need five years to complete decontamination of the reactors, which includes removal of hydrogen to prevent explosions, he said.
Japan’s three storage facilities for highly radioactive waste are at Rokkasho, at the northern tip of the country’s largest island of Honshu, and a nearby site at Sekinehama. The third site is at Tokaimura in Ibaraki prefecture, near Tokyo.”

But... but... what about all those experts, green and other colors, telling us for all lately  that nuclear power is so CLEAN! (You there, Sierra Club?) But it isn’t, is it it!!  And so CHEAP!! But it isn’t, is it!!! (Did you guys include the kind of actual econophysicopsychocosts we're seeing here and will see for the next decade and beyond? (Did your cost projections include sickness, death, loss of homes, loss of livelihood, emotional stress etc?)  And nuclear power is non-polluting!!! So why is it so expensive and toxic, deadly for children and everyone else, and why is it so what-the-hell-are-we-gonna-do-nowish? Why the silence?

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SURPRISE, SURPRISE!

Nuclear plant workers suffer internal radiation exposure after visiting Fukushima

"The government has discovered thousands of cases of workers [nearly 5000 so far!] at nuclear power plants outside Fukushima Prefecture suffering from internal exposure to radiation after they visited the prefecture..."

This is the first public mention of INTERNAL RADIATION [pdf] (the far more important kind) that I've seen in the media here; external radiation is minor in comparison. You leave external radiation behind; internal radiation becomes part of you. No wonder the nuclear powers that be never mention it; whole nations of formerly trusting subjects might seek residence elsewhere...

Which makes the following all the more egregious:

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Outrage as Japan lifts radiation limit for kids

"The new regulation means children can now be exposed to as much radiation as a German nuclear worker. 
The government argues the change is essential to keeping schools open in the Fukushima region.
According to Nobel Prize-winning group Physicians for Social Responsibility, the new limits mean exposed children now have a one-in-200 risk of getting cancer, compared with a one-in-500 risk for adults.
The decision provoked outrage from within Japan's government, with the prime minister's chief scientific adviser resigning in protest.
The government says it had no choice but to raise the legal exposure limit, saying about three-quarters of the schools in Fukushima have radiation levels above the old safety level of one millisievert.
The vast majority of schools would have closed, putting the education of hundreds of thousands of children on hold."

Apparently the Japanocracy feels that for children, higher risk of cancer is better than lower exposure to institutionalized, age-segregated education.

In such a malignant situation, subjecting the helpless children of un/misinformed parents to no choice at all could turn out to be a crime against humanity.

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Here's an alternative almost nonexistent in Japan, where authorities feel a more malignant future is better for the kids:

My top 16 tips for beginning homeschoolers

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And why could not Japan, with all its hot springs and active volcanoes, make use of this on a large scale?

Five hot, rockin’ geothermal companies

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The sun sets on Japan's nuclear age

"Furious parents from Fukushima Prefecture this month dumped irradiated soil from school playgrounds on the desks of government bureaucrats. More protests are planned in the sweltering summer months, when looming power cuts and leaking radiation from the ruined Fukushima Daiichi power plant will make life very uncomfortable for citizens in this densely populated, sprawling metropolis."

Hope this is true; be great never to set mind on Monju again...