Japan's Theater Of The Nuclear Absurd, By Richard Wilcox
It’s bad enough that the Fukushima nuclear power plant no. 1 (FNPP#1) is leaking upwards of 160 billion becquerels of radiation into the ocean every day, including cesium, strontium and who knows what else on a list of dangerous isotopes (2). However, Japan’s prime minister continues to contradict himself, speaking with a forked tongue out of both sides of his mouth-with-foot-inserted. Fukushima was not a disaster waiting to happen: it was a foregone conclusion. For several years previous to 2011 I preached the dangers of nuclear technology. Most of my university students agreed with me and once they had the facts were dead-set against it. Some students did and still do believe that “the moon is made of green cheese” and “Japan needs nuclear power” but I have never been presented with a balanced model of empirical data to support such an argument.