Antinuclear

Since the election of President Trump, certain words have taken prominence in our lexicon: “alternative facts”, “gaslighting”, “normalization”. But the techniques these words represent have been used by the nuclear industry and its purveyors in government since the Cold War love affair with nuclear weapons began.

And as we deal with the continuing fallout 6 years after the Fukushima, and 31 years after the Chernobyl, catastrophes began, the nuclear industry continues to put these techniques to good use. They have labeled “radiophobic” those who question nuclear power or who refuse to move back to contaminated areas or eat contaminated food. They shame people into taking health risks and socially isolate those who refuse to comply. They sell the lie of decontamination despite the fact that what has been decontaminated one day, may be recontaminated the next.

Women and children are often the focus of these “normalization” techniques. And they are…

Naohiro Masuda, head of decommissioning for the damaged Fukushima

On March 2, 2016, five years after the meltdown caused by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, Naohiro Masuda the Chief Decommissioning Officer of the Fukushima nuclear plant said that operators have yet to locate where the melted nuclear fuel has gone: “There are melted fuels in units 1, 2 and 3,” Masuda said. “Frankly, we do not really know what the situation is for these (melted fuel), nor where it has gone.”

One year later the melted fuel has not yet been located with certainty. The two major problems are first to find where it is, and if found how to remove it from where it is. Both jobs rendered extremely difficult by high levels radiation frying the robots’ electronic semiconductors….

How will melted fuel at Fukushima plant be removed?

The Mainichi answers common questions readers may have about how…