Monday, November 14, 2011

Koodankulam NPP : Lessons from Fukushima via Economist

Usually that *venerable* magazine, Economist, is to be found on the side of Business & Industry including Nuclear Industry. But it too finds itself compelled to leak bad news to protect itself from the vulnerability of losing face the way Fukushima NPP did.
 
Kalams, Narayanswamys, Manmohans, Jains, should all be first asked to stay at the Koodankulam plant permanently; and only when they do that let them talk about Nuclear power.
 
"This week Yasuhiro Sonoda of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan drank a glass of water from the Dai-ichi plant in an attempt to play down safety concerns.".
 
Japanese leaders are used to hara-kiri. Would Indian worthies emulate their example?
 
Sadanand.
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The twilight zone

Its owner fears not just radiation leaking out of the Fukushima plant, but also bad news

 

IT IS another world beyond the roadblocks stopping unauthorised traffic from entering the 20km (12.5-mile) exclusion zone around the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. The few people inside are dressed in ghostly white protective suits. Town after town was abandoned after March 11th, and spiders have strung webs across the doorways. An old lady's russet wig lies in the road, lost perhaps as she took flight after the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster. Outside the "Night Friend" nightclub in Tomioka, 9km from the nuclear plant, this correspondent was confronted by an ostrich with a feral glint.

Journalists are supposedly barred from the exclusion zone, though sympathetic evacuees, many furious with the authorities about their state of limbo, help provide access. Some of the 89,000 displaced residents have been given one-day permits to go home and each collect a box of valuables. To an outsider, the size and recent prosperity of the abandoned communities is striking. As well as the rice paddies, now overrun with goldenrod, are large businesses and well-built schools for hundreds of children.

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