Thursday, March 17, 2011

Japan Nuclear Crisis


Even the Chinese government has suspended it's nuclear power construction program to learn more about what has gone wrong in Japan, but George Monbiot argues that this shouldn't stop us from pursuing nuclear power with certain safeguards. However, the facts are that large earthquakes are possible perhaps anywhere though their probability within any timeframe is lower away from plate boundaries. Many, if not most, coasts are potentially exposed to tsunamis and the chain of events at Fukushima makes me at least wonder how vulnerable nuclear sites, and particularly spent fuel storage areas, are to other threats such as war and terrorism. Not that I haven't wondered about this before of course, but usually have heard reassuring commentary when such concerns have been raised.

P.S.
Our university banned all travel to Japan this morning...

P.P.S.
By far the best coverage I have found of the crisis is on the Guardian newspaper website.

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