Japan wasting time on Fukushima

Japan has been and still is wasting time in Fukushima, instead of confronting the most serious catastrophe in Japanese and maybe all Human history it is avoiding to deal with it, pretending that the problem is much smaller than it really is and trying to stop an elephant with a net for mosquitoes. 

In truth it cannot be blamed only on Japan or the Japanese Government (I don't care about TEPCO: the Government can intervene it whenever they want - they should have done it a month ago in fact) but in all the pro-nuclear governments of the World which are all wishful thinking  and have been wishful thinking for the last 50 or more years. 

Arnie Gunderssen said that in his latest broadcast: that the Nuclear Industry and associated politicians have been in denial for decades, that their worst case scenarios were a joke in comparison with the worst cases we have got in this half century of nuclear power. Talking specifically to the USA (but could apply anywhere else), he said that there must be a freeze of all license renewals. 

The USA actually only gets a slim 8% of its energy needs from nuclear power, so it's pretty much easy to take off and replace... just that the Pentagon needs all those nuclear plants for military reasons: to be able to build and renew that nuclear arsenal able to destroy all relevant life on Earth many times.

But what really evidences how bad is it and how infective is the Japanese government being are the strong criticisms that General Nikolai Antoshkin, who was in charge of the air operation which quelled the Chernobyl monster by means of dropping tons and tons of sand on the deadly reactor (at the cost of the lives of the pilots, who volunteered for the operation in a heroic manner that seems out of fashion, specially among the rats who populate the Nuclear Industry and Nuclear Lobby). 

Antoshkin, quoted in The Telegraph, says that the Japanese authorities reacted in slow motion (indeed they are still doing the same: we all can see that). He seems annoyed that in advanced Japan, people, refugees from a natural and nuclear disaster, are cramped in sport facilities. One would expect something better from he third largest economy on Earth, an economic, technological and cultural powerhouse. And one would have expected also a much more effective reaction. 

But no. I have lost all the respect I could ever have regarding Japan with this matter. Of course, Fukushima is an unprecedented monster but the reaction from Tokyo has been pathetic, insultingly bad, criminally slow and specially a continuous denial of reality. 

Reality is stubborn, we know. And the leaders of Japan should have known as well. One of the problems is that instead of the government ruling on TEPCO (even manu militari if need be) it seems it is TEPCO who is ruling on the government. That could be ok if TEPCO knew what it is doing but they are obviously not any more capable than the government of the Japanese state.

So who is really in charge? I do not know but this guy, Masataka Shimizu, seems the main boss of TEPCO:

He looks a bit scary admittedly. Unlike his supposed political boss, Naoto Kan, who instead looks pitifully powerless in spite of holding the, nominally, most powerful office in the whole Empire of Japan.

However Shimizu seems to have been ill since March 13 (what a coincidence!), so the headlessness of the whole authority network is even more aggravating.

On an apart, something I find odd (now looking at Kan's file) is that all these people in power are born in the 1940s and so... they are true dinosaurs! I would expect people born in the 60s or at most in the 50s... these people are just too old. Over 60 y.o. should not be allowed to hold charge, either political nor private: it's unwise. And more people in their 30s and 40s should be leading, really.

But anyhow. This is just a hurried review of the most important industrial catastrophe ever. It does not just dwarf Chernobyl, but the Deepwater Horizon, Bhopal... 

I cannot meditate on every single detail or facet of this overwhelming brutality, For that, I recommend you to follow Energy News. 

But I do hope that, somehow, the pro-Nuclear activists from around the World sacrifice their lives (if need be) to quell this nuclear disaster. I reckon that it is even more complex than Chernobyl but Japan is not less powerful in principle than the USSR was, so it should be able to at least contain it somehow. 

What I reject is that a single innocent life (children typically) is lost instead of that of a greedy Pro-Nuclear businessman, journalist, technician or politician... These should shield with their bodies the new generations if need be because theirs is the only fault.