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Page added on April 8, 2012
It’s Not Over: Government Plans for the Worst: Forced Evacuation of Tokyo
There is a report that the Japanese government has made it illegal for Japanese to purchase Geiger Counters for personal use claiming they are made in the U.S. and are inaccurate. If true, this certainly suggests the government wants to hide something—like radiation going off the charts in Tokyo.
A new commentary by Mac Salvo says that such off the charts radiation could hit Tokyo, because of the Fukushima nuclear accident. Writes Salvo:
While it has for the most part disappeared from mainstream view, the Fukushima nuclear disaster is anything but over. In fact, the situation in Japan has gone from bad to worse.
Bottom line: There is no way to contain the radiation.
Even more alarming is that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and other agencies have warned that the nuclear storage pools (the containment units that are being used to cool the nuclear fuel) have been damaged and may collapse under their own weight.
Such an event would cause widespread nuclear fallout throughout the region and force the government to evacuate the nearly 10 million residents of Tokyo and surrounding areas, a scenario which government emergency planners are now taking into serious consideration.
Salvo’s full argument for why this may occur is here
During the early days of the Fukushima disaster, some EPJ readers with strong nuclear backgrounds added comments to the then discussion. I am no expert in nuclear meltdowns, so I invite any readers, who have such a background, to comment again and evaluate Salvo’s warning.
Economic Policy Journal
11 Comments on "It’s Not Over: Government Plans for the Worst: Forced Evacuation of Tokyo"
Arthur on Sun, 8th Apr 2012 2:24 pm
Where on earth should the japanese government evacuate 10 millions of it’s citizens to? The entire elite is located in the capital. Evacuating Tokyo is like decapitating Japan and probably leads to the implosion of Japan as a major economic competitor on global scale. Japan already has more than 200% GDP debt-levels. One has to think of draconian measures like ordering fellow 140 million Japanese civilians to take one person in house as a guest until Tokyo is cleaned (is that is possible at all). It also very likely would mean the end of nuclear energy worldwide. Cynics might add that the US (involuntarily) nuked Japan for the third time with this failed Westinghouse-Toshiba design.
Arthur on Sun, 8th Apr 2012 2:27 pm
But reasding the comments in the original story, the story is probably BS.
BillT on Sun, 8th Apr 2012 3:34 pm
Actually, Arthur, I have seen the same comments in other sites and articles and if the plants are so hot that a robot only lasts 3 hours, it is off the charts as far as humans are concerned. Most of the food is showing higher levels of radioactivity, and forbidding the sales of Geiger counters is a sure sign that the government is covering up the worst. Or trying to.
Our own government is also downplaying the radioactivity falling on the Us. They stopped reporting the levels soon after the Fukushima accident, and have raised the ‘safe’ levels for food and water. The nuclear industry is running scared as country after country shuts down reactors and/or cancels orders for new plants. And about time.
Rick on Sun, 8th Apr 2012 4:07 pm
Nukes were a bad thing from the start — short-term gains, long-term problems. Of course fossil fuels too. Like Nicole Foss says, what’s going to happen to all these nuclear power plants when Peak Oil really kicks in. Make sure you live at least 80 miles away from one.
devils advocate on Sun, 8th Apr 2012 6:16 pm
The Japanese have a way of not telling the truth.
Bad News.
Kenz300 on Sun, 8th Apr 2012 6:47 pm
Japan will be dealing with this trillion dollar disaster for decades. The storage pools are now being seen for the danger they are. Since it has already been over a year since the disaster you would think that more progress would have been made.
This is the problem with nuclear technology. When it goes bad it goes really bad.
Had Fukishima been a solar plant or a wind farm the disaster site would already have been cleaned up and the 80,000 plus people that were evacuated would be back home.
DC on Sun, 8th Apr 2012 8:26 pm
Ken, id like to know how a wind farm or solar power station ‘disaster’ could conceivably cause 80k people to be evacuated in the first place…really Id like to know.
This part of the story that Japan is trying to ban people form taking radiation measurements, can we get any additional citations for that? If its true, it would be a very troubleing development indeed.
Newfie on Sun, 8th Apr 2012 9:44 pm
If the Tokyo region becomes uninhabitable then economic growth will drop sharply perhaps even trigger a depression. Unemployment will skyrocket. There will be millions of refugees. Japan may revert to a pre-industrial future. A step on the road to Olduvai.
SOS on Sun, 8th Apr 2012 11:44 pm
Obviously the nukes have drawbacks. Its fortunate we are living in a time of great technological change. New drilling technologies have emerged unlocking vast resources, especially natural gas.
BillT on Mon, 9th Apr 2012 12:16 am
SOS, those technologies do NOT mean that that gas will ever be tapped. There are so many variables at this point that there is no guarantee of anything except a dramatic downgrading of life in America and most of the developed world over the next decade or so. Tapping those sources requires machines and steel made by using oil and lots of it. Expensive oil.
Technologically, we could go to Mars also, but it is not going to happen. And for the same reasons…
Kenz300 on Mon, 9th Apr 2012 6:46 pm
The spent fuel rods storage seems to be as much of a risk for disaster as the reactor itself. There seems to have been little planning in that regard. Nuclear energy is too dangerous. One mistake and there is a world wide disaster.