Fukushima Decontamination Cost Estimated $50bn, With Questionable Effectiveness 221
AmiMoJo writes "Experts from the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology studied the cost of decontamination for the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident, estimating it at $50 billion. They estimate that decontamination in no-entry zones will cost up to 20 billion dollars, and in other areas, 31 billion dollars. It includes the cost of removing, transporting and storing radioactive waste such as contaminated soil. The central government has so far allocated about 11 billion dollars and the project is already substantially behind schedule. Meanwhile the effectiveness of the decontamination is being questioned. NHK compared data from before and after decontamination at 43 districts in 21 municipalities across Fukushima Prefecture. In 33 of the districts, or 77 percent of the total, radiation levels were still higher than the government-set standard of one millisievert per year. In areas near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, where decontamination has been carried out on an experimental basis, radiation levels remain 10 to 60 times higher than the official limit."
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Hmmm (Score:1, Insightful)
LIES! all lies! (Score:2, Insightful)
Nuclear power is still the cheapest and best option there is! /greed
I mean... It's not like the power company has to pay that 50 billion right?
Nuclear is not a good option until it can be run completely seperated and insulated from the failings of humans and human greed. The money we've spent cleaning up the few nuclear problems we've had in the short time nuclear power has been around could have gone a long long LONG way to something much cleaner and safer.
How many wind farms could you build for just 50 billion? How many solar panels would that buy? 50 billion into fusion research would be neat.
Don't get me wrong tho. Nuclear could be perfect. If it were run by robots or something... Who don't cut corners, build on the cheap, get lazy, forget maint, take bribes or any of the other silly shit humans do.
But so long as it's humans.. And more precisely human businesses that run nuke plants.... We shouldn't do it.
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
When you talk about technologies that have brought suffering, lots of suffering was caused in Japan (and other places) by incendiary bombs made with napalm, which is petroleum derived. Should Japan not use petroleum products either?
Re:Hmmm (Score:4, Insightful)
Except that a nuclear bomb and a nuclear reactor are only the same in that they have the same Joe Sixpack/media stigma attached to both of them. Here, let me use an analogy.
Not building a nuclear reactor in Japan because of the previous use of the atomic bomb due to concerns of insensitivity is roughly the same as the United States of America not building the Saturn V because the use of rocket propelled grenades against troops in Vietnam. Completely different devices for completely different ends.
So where are the fanboys now? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's an interesting exercise to look back at the comments posted here during the week of the disaster.
Another thing the fanboys cannot tell is the difference between not liking a 1970s era nuclear power plant run badly and not liking nuclear power in general. Calling for safer reactors is not cheering blindly for the team so is an enemy in their eyes.
Re:So where are the fanboys now? (Score:3, Insightful)
Like I commented above, this still makes the 'contaminated' areas have lower radiation exposure than somewhere like Denver. Not sure why everybody is so scared and up-in-arms. I'm no fanboy, but do I think nuclear is one of the safest power generating methods we have at our disposal.
Re:Hmmm (Score:3, Insightful)
A coup that failed and that wasn't predicted before the bombs were dropped. It was completely irrelevant to the justification for dropping the bombs.
As far as anyone could tell it was just as likely the overaggression of the bombs that caused the officers eagerness to not surrender.
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
That statement is just as silly as if you said 'OH, well bullets kill, and are made of metal, maybe no one should use metal there either?!'
Well, that's pretty much the statement that you made.
I happen to live in Tokyo. The amount of actual damage from Fukushima is pretty small. They currently have a radius of 20 km from the plant closed off. That's not very big. Let's not forget that the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami killed over 30,000 people. No one has died as a result of the radiation from Fukushima to date and current estimates are that it's not going to be very many, even when you look at the lifetime increased risk from cancer.
The comparison to petroleum is reasonable. BP claims to have spent, so far, $11B cleaning up the Deepwater Horizon spill and may wind up spending $37B which is in the same ballpark as the Fukushima mess. Is it acceptable? No. There were a number of ways that the Fukushima disaster could have been avoided. However, in the scale of industrial accidents, it's not that far out of line and it's killed a lot fewer people than other notable disasters, like Bhopal, and in the context of the overall disaster, it simply grabs the most headlines.
Your statement "Japan had first hand experience with how deadly radiation is. They should know the risks better than anyone, and I think the risks weren't worth it." is just as silly as your original point and is just as silly as the statement you yourself called out as being silly.
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you take X-Ray exams? Do you fly with an airplane? Do you eat bananas? You should start to get your facts straight. The effect of nuclear bombs and nuclear reactors are significantly different. We had very little real nuclear catastrophes and on total the casualties are low, if you need the info, Wikipedia can help you out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents [wikipedia.org]
Let's compare Deepwater Horizon to the Fukushima Daiichi.
Fatalities: 11 vs 0 (no significant increase in cancer risk projected, except two worker with added 10%)
Effect on Environment: the Gulf flora and fauna where almost fully eradicated vs minor radiation pollution, not more than some natural sources
If you think people should stop using nuclear power in japan. Well then start to advocate that all bordering the Gulf of Mexico to stop using cars.
Re:Hmmm (Score:2, Insightful)
No-one has any idea how many people this disaster has, or will, cause. Just as the exact number of deaths and disabilities from the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan, or for that matter from the use of agent orange in Vietnam.
All I know is that I will NEVER trust people to run fission power stations as people cut corners and lie. They do so when government owned, and they do so when owned by a company.
TEPCO have consistently lied about the details of this problem, including denying leakage into the ocean, and denying that there had been meltdown (or two). Two years later there is still unexplained steam rising from parts of the plant. At one stage they were pumping in huge amounts of seawater to cool the thing down. Where do you think it went?
So, they may have a 'radius of 20km' from the plant closed off, which by the way is 600 square kilometers (assuming a half circle), but would you trust that statement with your life?
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