Will we ever get a straight answer out of anyone about what really happened, and how it will affect us? Nope.
HIGHLY radioactive water, endangering workers and hindering repair efforts at the Fukushima nuclear plant, was the result of a “partial meltdown” of the fuel rods in the plant’s No 2 reactor, Japan’s chief government spokesman admitted yesterday.
Chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano said the water was believed to have temporarily come into contact with the partially melted fuel rods inside the reactor.
After another day of unnerving aftershocks and fresh problems at the Fukushima plant, Mr Edano attacked the Tokyo Electric Power Company for its continued bungled handling of the crisis.
At a time like this, it’s such a distinct advantage to have a company trying to maintain its financial viability by blowing smoke up everyone’s ass instead of a government agency whose management just wants to get the job done.
That last line was ironic. We’re just screwed, no matter what.
I’ll just repeat a comment I posted at Corrente (slightly edited):
Prediction: We will get less firm information about Fukushima…than we did about Chernoyl. I’m basing this prediction on our government not desiring in any way to assist the USSR in covering up anythng about Chernobyl which might prove damaging to the then USSR government. Our government will do whatever it can (and can get away with) to assist keeping bad news about our allies, the Japanese government.
And our media will do what the government wants it to do.
Actually, this incident and our taking care to not embarrass the Japanese government might help the Pentagon to keep bases wherever they want to impose them….
The nuclear power industry is also anxious to put a doily on this catastrophe. It was stunning how quickly the comments sections of major online sites were filled up with nuclear apologists, offering everything from abuse to “liberals” to learned treatises on how we were all safe no matter what happened in Japan, and anyway, there used to be lots more background radiation in the world and humans are doing just fine and la-de-da don’t worry nuclear power is good for you.
They would poison every one of us for a buck.
Well, we finally got the cat off the roof, but she fell and broke her leg, and we had to take her to the vet.
Call back tomorrow when we find out more about how she is doing.