A Green Degree Blog: New Angles On Sustainability

July 18th 2012

Japan Has Reached Tether’s End, But Can It Afford To Fall Apart Now?

Japan has always been a nation that many others look up to in their strives towards achieving a society that is happy and content with its position in things, which can stand up to most problems and smash right through them without a second thought. As a country, the Japanese are renowned for their extreme politeness, obedience and determination in doing what is expected for their proud country, a trait some see as borderline subservience, and others as the key to a successful government and industrial powerhouse.

However, it’s easy for us to forget the Japan has been through some tragically harsh times in its history, especially in recent times. I feel it a shame that, in many cases, we ignore these facts because of the developed status that Japan holds, sitting high as one of the most technically and economically advanced countries in the world, which can cloud reality. Japan has experienced horrible conflicts, extreme natural disasters and serious economic downturn, the last of which many of us had the pleasure of partaking in too, and now more than ever is this the case. Even so, despite their hardships, the Japanese people sure now how to rise from the ashes, more powerful than before and with an even stronger resolve to live on; it’s something of a personality that the entire world recognises. This however, seems to be changing.

The past two years have been undoubtedly hard for the humble nation. Recovering from poor economic climates, Japan was hit by one of the biggest ever recorded earthquakes, only to be followed up with an equally record-breaking and devastating tsunami. As the Fukushima-Daiichi plant blossomed radiation, thousands were relocated in an instant from the huge quarantine area imposed by the government, and even now many are not allowed back to their homes and see no hope of that changing anytime soon. Whilst this happened, horrendously high numbers of people were killed by the quake and tsunami, a combination of nature frightening in its ability to trash whole towns and render the landscape unrecognisable.

Despite this, the Japanese, although wounded, did what they do, and began to rise from the rubble, the composed and determined people we are used to seeing. We applauded them for their courage, and vilified their government. Now more than ever, the effects of this are being rapidly unwound. With all nuclear reactors shutdown in Fukushima’s wake, a shortfall of 30% in the nation’s electricity generation capacity was instantly apparent, and fears of blackouts nationwide set in.

Posted at 9:59am and tagged with: Japan, Fukushima, Energy, Nuclear, Polite, Global, Economy, Earthquake, Tsunami, Protest, Government, Politics, Flooding, Weather, Determination, Japanese, Society, People, Tokyo, Rich, Mistake, Daiichi, fossil fuel, Oil, Coal,.

July 9th 2012

Fukushima All Down To Human Error, Not Nature’s Wrath

http://02varvara.wordpress.com/2011/03/29/a-photo-essay-two-weeks-after-the-japanese-tsunami-the-russian-report/04j-tsunami-two-weeks-later-29-03-11-fukushima-npp-fukushima-prefecture-tohoku-region/

With Japan turning on the first of potentially many nuclear reactors shut down in the wake of the horrendous Fukushima disaster, the entire ordeal has come round full-swing and back under public scrutiny once again. Many of the Japanese public have rallied against this switching back on, of what is deemed as crucial supplies of electricity with the coming warm summer, and the whole country has been experiencing protests and demonstrations the likes of which are rarely, if ever, seen within the kooky nation.

Unfortunately, the flipping of the nuclear switch could not have come at a worse time in terms of global public opinion, with the release of the final report from the Japanese government pertaining to why and how Fukushima came to not only lose all power including backup, but to explode in quite an impressive fashion, spraying the surrounding landscape with nuclear fallout, albeit resulting in no deaths or serious injury, at least up until now. The conclusion of the investigation was brutal and to the point - nature was not to blame, but poor regulation, collusion between multiple governing bodies, safety issues and a complete lack of any effort to solidify the plant against possible disasters. In short, it was manmade.

(http://www.treehugger.com/energy-disasters/fukushima-disaster-declared-manmade-final-report.html)

Going further, the report finds that since 2006, the plant executives and safety managers knew full-well that a large tsunami had the potential to severely damage the plant and shutdown the seawater pumps which lead to the hydrogen release and explosion. When the disaster struck, they were “quick to blame the tsunami and that further investigation into the earthquake impact was needed”.

In the end, it was seen that a lack of care for public welfare and an apparent focus on mitigating risk to the organisations involved ultimately led to poor handling of the situation both before and after the incident, with safety protocol and radiation measures all but ignored in the proceeding weeks. So all in all, it was a haymaker to the face of all those governing bodies tasked with dealing with Fukushima, and any talk of nature being the prime suspect were all but swept under the rug in an instant. Silly, naughty Japanese government.

Personally, I feel this report, of which I’m sure was extremely professionally handled and undoubtedly raises some serious questions over safety and nuclear regulation worldwide, still takes the issues far too deeply into the human end of things. Yes, safety measures were weak and outdated with little likelihood of being updated, and the ridiculous amount of dotted lines and red tape the nuclear fission process has to go through almost certainly leads some to cut corners, but there are other issues afoot.

When the earthquake struck, it was far beyond even the most extreme projections the Japanese officials had tested, hitting a whopping 9.0 on the Richter Scale, making it not only in the top five world’s largest quakes, but the largest Japan has ever recorded. Combine this with the shallow depth at which it struck, just 20 miles below sea level and only 43 miles off the coast, and the tsunami produced reached heights only Hollywood movies could conceive. In effect, it was a perfect storm of natural disasters.

Posted at 10:33am and tagged with: fukushima, nuclear, disaster, nature, human, error, japan, government, safety, regulation, energy, carbon, renewables, solar, wind, biomass, earthquake, tsunami, daiichi, chernobyl, germany, feed-in-tariff, planning, stupid, science, technology, politics,.