The view from Japan

I mentioned yesterday that the press is losing interest in the Japanese earthquake / tsunami, but that is not before trying their best to make something of it, in particular the nuclear fallout. Here is Lewis Page in The Register:

The Fukushima reactors actually came through the quake with flying colours despite the fact that it was five times stronger than they had been built to withstand. Only with the following tsunami – again, bigger than the design allowed for – did problems develop, and these problems seem likely to end in insignificant consequences...

The lesson to learn here is that if your country is hit by a monster earthquake and tsunami, one of the safest places to be is at the local nuclear powerplant. Other Japanese nuclear powerplants in the quake-stricken area, in fact, are sheltering homeless refugees in their buildings – which are some of the few in the region left standing at all, let alone with heating, water and other amenities.

Nothing else in the quake-stricken area has come through anything like as well as the nuclear power stations, or with so little harm to the population. All other forms of infrastructure – transport, housing, industries – have failed the people in and around them comprehensively, leading to deaths most probably in the tens of thousands

Needless to say, countries all over the world are ‘reviewing’ their nuclear power policy. However, with the Middle East at risk of going up in flames, we might be very grateful for nuclear power. Very grateful indeed.

Nuclear doubts

The Corriere della Sera’s perceptive cartoonist, Gianelli, highlights a serious peripheral fallout from the Japan earthquake: renewed suspicion over nuclear power.

Many countries, in particular Italy, are debating nuclear power again having unwisely signed up to the EU’s carbon limitation scheme, which is about to become even more stringent under the insane Connie Hedegaard, whose proposals have been estimated to cost an astonishing €270 billion per year.

Wind, hydroelectric and wave power are not going to solve Europe’s energy needs. If carbon emissions are to be reduced dramatically only nuclear power can do that.

Otherwise, carbon emissions can be reduced by winding down economic activity, scarcely tempting as we try to emerge from a recession.


The timing could scarcely be less fortunate.