Halflife
by digby
I wish I could explain why nobody seems to care about this anymore, but I can’t. Even though I do, I find that I’m not writing about it even though I read whatever I can get my hands on. There must be some psychological resistance to facing up to it.
Anyway:
Radioactive soil in pockets of areas near Japan’s crippled nuclear plant have reached the same level as Chernobyl, where a “dead zone” remains 25 years after the reactor in the former Soviet Union exploded.
Soil samples in areas outside the 20-kilometer (12 miles) exclusion zone around the Fukushima plant measured more than 1.48 million becquerels a square meter, the standard used for evacuating residents after the Chernobyl accident, Tomio Kawata, a fellow at the Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Japan, said in a research report published May 24 and given to the government.
Radiation from the plant has spread over 600 square kilometers (230 square miles), according to the report. The extent of contamination shows the government must move fast to avoid the same future for the area around Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant as Chernobyl, scientists said. Technology has improved since the 1980s, meaning soil can be decontaminated with chemicals or by planting crops to absorb radioactive materials, allowing residents to return.
Would you believe that? I’m guessing that nobody with kids orwho hopes to have kids is going to live there. In fact, it will probably be inhabited, if it is, only by the elderly.
God, what a horror. I thought about it this week-end when I was on the central coast of California, one of the most beautiful landscapes in the world:
It’s true that California needs power. But we have a lot of sunlight and if Germany can do it, so can we. it’s time to get rid of them.
BTW: If you’re a Californian, check out this guy. And throw him some change if you have it.
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