All posts tagged Radiation

Fukushima Dai-Ichi, Three Months On

First of all, let me come clean and admit that this particular post has been written, rewritten and edited quite a few times in the past few weeks, so it may be even more rambling than usual. My original intention, weeks ago, was to share what I know. Yet then I asked myself, what do I really know about this for sure? I realised that I would just be commenting on things I have heard Now that things have settled down a bit, at least as far as the release of information goes, it seems more sensible to talk. The situation is far from resolved; it will probably not be until next year at the earliest that the reactors achieve ‘cold shutdown’ and in the meantime, just recently the IAEA described the situation as ‘highly serious’. This may be a few notches down from the verdict ‘highly apocalyptic’, but it is enough to note that there is still a lot to be done there and we can only hope that the experts know enough to manage it stably and that prophets of doom on the issue are just as wrong as this guy. So what I write below is as based on expert opinion as I could make it, yet it is the rambling thoughts of someone who is definitely just a beginner when it comes to this issue.

An advantage of ‘social media’ has over ‘news media’ is that, having no deadline to fulfil, there is freedom to digest the news before commenting rather than having pressure to comment before all the facts are in. I should admit that many times I am tempted towards the latter, but the problem with it is that it so often can lead to passing on a misunderstanding, or faulty information. I’ve noticed that ‘special interest groups’ are especially guilty of making interpretations here which are convenient for their ideology. For instance, on the one hand there are people who very sincerely believe that nuclear power, with man’s limited level of technology, is just too dangerous to be toyed with, that the genie of nuclear power, with it’s promise of enormous and efficiently delivered energy risks unleashing a terrible threat along with it. To me, this is a very honest and cautious point of view, yet I still wouldn’t want it to colour the interpretation of reported facts, subconsciously up-playing dangers because it verifies their position.

Then there are others who promote nuclear power as the most feasible way to combat global warming, describing alternative fuel sources as being in their infancy and unable to efficiently deliver the vast amounts of power societies need now. They feel that relying only on fossil fuels in the meantime is just too risky, especially considering the tyrannical governments and unstable societies in many of the countries that are needed to supply them. Despite what some say, with all the associated costs, especially those of decommissioning old plants, nuclear power ends up being a very expensive energy source, but for any country with huge energy needs, it remains a strategically vital one. The question is, is it worth the risk of such accidents and can plants ever really be made in a way that’s safe from them? The answer on many people’s lips right now is ‘no’. It seems to me we need to find safer alternatives, yet in the mean time, we need to make nuclear as safe as humanly possible. If this pushes up the cost so that it’s not as economical as it might have seemed, then so be it; the immense, incalculable cost of a disaster is too great to risk. Whist it may never truly be enough, an expensive ‘insurance policy’ of extensive safety measures is a necessity, not an option and with it, inspection authorities with the power to enforce them.

In this area, we can see humankind charting a new future as we speak. Not only do people tend to see what they (often subconsciously) want to see, but just by the very act of looking, they alter the reality they perceive. We maintain here at Perfect Futures that realities experienced by Man are being made by him at both an individual or group level. In a free universe, ultimately nothing is ‘forced’ on anyone, though it may seem to be so. Positive thinking, being stress-free and optimistic will be a lot better for people’s health than diving into a sea of fear. Yet, a calm, rational, reasonable voice of concern is still well-worth listening to. Being positive isn’t about deluding yourself, it is more a case of being as proactive as possible and filtering out any fear (which is not to be confused with intelligent caution), to take a calm and realistic view of the situation.

What we Know Now

The first thing we would like to say here is probably to restate the obvious. This was a terrible accident at a nuclear plant woefully unprepared for a quite conceivable event- a large earthquake followed by costal tsunamis in a seismically-active region. Presumably, even though there is no way of actually stopping a Tsunami, it is possible to sufficiently protect a plant and it’s back up power generators from one. If not, then Japan really has to think carefully about continuing with their costal nuclear plants. some would jump quickly to one or the other sides of this assessment. Yet I’d stress that it isn’t an easy one to make, with Japan needing to import so much energy and the danger of, for example, oil being suddenly cut off being a grave one potentially), it is understandable that a reliable source of energy would be desired, which came in the shape of nuclear, which could continue to fulfil this role until a satisfactory replacement is found.

The next thing we have to look at is what actually happened. We now know that there were not just one, but three meltdowns and that at Unit One and quite possibly at the others as well, it was total- leaving an intensely radioactive blob at the base of a leaking containment vessel. There is even some talk of a ‘melt through’, in which it has melted through through the containment vessel, possibly even through the concrete underneath it and reaching unknown depths, the so-called ‘China Syndrome’, in which people wondered if an unstoppeable core could pass all the way through the Earth, or at least to an unknown depth. Then there are also the additional dangers posed by the fuel storage pools, damaged by the earthquake and hydrogen explosions, which contain many advanced products of the nuclear reaction in their tightly-packed fuel rods and are prone to become reactivated (attain criticality) and even explode if allowed to overheat too much; not in a nuclear explosion, but in a conventional one.

The details behind this have been shrouded in mystery by Tepco for some time and in fact are still only being drip-fed out. It’s conceivable that they simply don’t know, or at least not for sure and are waiting for confirmation. It’s also possible that they are worried about incriminating themselves if serious mistakes were made, a possibility which makes you wonder if the system that keeps outside agencies relatively at bay is a good one, if they can withhold evidence at will, though what to me is more probable is that they are in fact reasonably transparent with the government and international atomic energy agency (IAEA), yet there has been a conscious choice to slowly release information when it is thought people are ready to absorb it without panicking. When there is an immediate potential danger, like within the 20km around the plant or highly contaminated food, action is taken. Yet in terms of revealing the facts as to what happened, which are thought to be too alarming and could provoke panicked reactions that could have terrible economic effects, it is being decided to slowly reveal the truth. Whether this is ethical or not is questionable, I am more on the side on the public’s ‘right to know’, but considering their position, it is an understandable choice. Some people compare this to ‘boiling a frog’; you increase the heat slowly, so it doesn’t suddenly jump out.

For example, it was pretty obvious to people arount the world and especially to visiting experts that there were (and still are, as I speak) multiple meltdowns in progress, that cooling was intended to slow down but could no longer fully prevent. Yet it may well have been decided that this is a truth that people just couldn’t be trusted to handle, so it was held back until lots of lesser bad news was digested first, the same way one might give small drops of a bad-tasting medicine before a big gulp is administered. In terms of the response, it seems to me that they reacted as well as they could have done when you take into account their limited resources. Yet it also shows the essential problem with nuclear power- even an ‘exemplary response’ (as described by the IAEA) is still woefully inadequate, with contamination spreading wide and far, poisoning crops and having an effect we are only beginning to gauge. The myths of impervious containment structures, failsafe safety systems and diaster response teams proved to be empty promises when the forces of nature were unleashed upon the plant.

With a lack of official transparency, one person I turned to to fill in the blanks has been Arnold Gunter. None of us can see the future, perhaps we wouldn’t want to if we could, but he may well have some important things to say about what has already happened and the delicate nature of supposedly well-protected plants. In this video, we can see one of his main points of contention with the official line that Unit 3 had a hydrogen explosion like those suffered by units 1 and 2, is his claim that it was a ‘moderated prompt criticality’; that despite being outside of the reactor, the fuel rods became ‘active’ and fuel-producing again when they no longer received enough cooling. He says that it was an explosion at Unit 3’s fuel rod pool that sent a cloud of extremely toxic radiation over the pacific and deposited parts of fuel rods as far as a mile inland. The evidence seems to increasingly support this, with the fuel rods in Unit 4 being intact, but pieces found a mile away, though I have to admit that as someone new to the whole world of nuclear power and the accidents that occur with it, I’m not really the best judge. Even so, his claims are coherent, calmly delivered and to my mind very plausible and I wouldn’t be surprised if the official story changes to something a lot more like his claims.

In the early days of the incident, I did a lot of research into the accidents in Russia- Chernobyl and the Mayak Reactor near Kyshtym and found the later had some similarities. It also featured a large explosion (though much larger than Fukushima had) and also involved a lack of cooling to nuclear materials. It was covered up for decades, something that was impossible in the case of chernobyl and would be inconcievable in our interconnected world of today. Apart from not wanting to cause panic, there was a strong urge to save face, in that case the face being the Soviet Unions. Yet people don’t change, even in different systems. In fact, cover-ups are something TEPCO is also notorious for, being far more concerned over the years with the image their nuclear-based products have than with dispensing with timely information. Until now, this is something they have largely gotten away with, as the inadequate safety measures had yet to be put to the test. It seems that this period is over and a lot of people are even wondering if nuclear power in Seismically-active Japan can really ever be safe.

Tepco can be credited with meeting the Tokyo area’s electricity needs over the past decades- no small task for such a resource-poor country. Yet we have to wonder what has been going on in this secretive company, that has been entrusted with some of the most powerful and delicate technologies known to modern man. In their history of using nuclear power, there have been not just a few, but over 200 safety breaches that they have attempted to conceal from the public, including in them localised mistakes that could well have be seen as precursors to this one. With the lack of any centrally co-ordinated team in Japan to deal with such accidents, TEPCO was forced to rely on fire brigades and help from other countries, help that they thankfully accepted rather than trying to keep saving face. To make matters worse, the situation isn’t particularly different with the other electrical companies in Japan. The urge to pretend that everything is okay can lead to vital issues being left unresolved.

We can’t blame this accident and it’s continuing effects on an Earthquake or Tsunami. They are not sentient beings that deliberately targeted the plant, but predictable natural phenomena in the vicinity which, despite their unusual intensity, regularly appear there. It seems much more plausible to blame a culture of concealing earthquake vulnerabilities the nuclear plants had, even in the courtroom, in order to save the massive expenses needed to better proof the plants against them and obtain viable emergency equipment to deal with the aftermath of potential problems. An article in the New York Times goes into this in some detail.

The practice of allowing former government officials to get cosy retirement jobs in the company, the now infamous practice of ‘am’ seems also to be flawed, as it is unrealistic to expect people with vested interests in a company’s financial success to approve funding for safety measures for hypothetical situations they might think too unlikely to be worth funding. The regulators and whistleblowers made many points, which had they been heeded may well have minimised this tragedy. Looking at the cost not only to those living around the plant, but to the company itself, with it’s liability in the billions, surely it can be seen that their listening to objective criticism, often very bravely offered in the face of threats, would have saved them in the long run? Yet even now we see the continued retreat into an incestuous way of doing things, with independent or critical reporters bared from press conferences. When people only talk to themselves, or to those who can be trusted to say ‘yes’ at every opportunity, how can they learn the truth, whether or not it is what they want to hear?

Even now, we are only beginning to find out what happened in the early days of the accident, learning facts that are not necessarily the same as what we had been lead to believe. It seems that it wasn’t just the apocalyptic Tsunami that cased the damage, but the earthquake itself, which the plant was supposedly built to withstand. As anyone who has been following this will know, the meltdowns started before the Tsunami hit, due to the earthquake- an earthquake the plant was supposedly designed to withstand. Safety equipment seems to have been rendered useless without electricity and manual controls for valves and water cooling inoperable. Filters to let out explosive hydrogen gas simply couldn’t open when their power was gone- yet their very exoistance was to help deal with a cooling crisis that a lack of power was likely (we now know, invevitable) to cause.

In fact, the containment may well have been compromised in hours- the same containment we were daily reassured was ‘impregnable’. All of this makes the early decision to resort to poring on tonnes of corrosive seawater, a measure considered desperate, all the more understandable. Which makes us think- if even the equipment to deal with emergencies fils when needed, if the containment is unreliable, if only due to weak spots such as seals, who is to say that other, ‘better’ designs won’t reveal their weaknesses when put to the test? Are we really, truly ready to build ‘safe’ reactors in an extreme situation (which I am afraid needs to not just encompass natural disasters, but also operator errors, unforeseen equipment failures, or even terrorism)? If we are, fine, new ones will be better, but if not, alternatives need to be found as quickly as possible. These could well be renewable energy sources, but they may include the seemingly safer Thorium reactors being developed, which don’t melt down.

Conclusion

All of this only reinforces the view I have come to have that nuclear technology is a uniquely powerful one in the history of mankind and can only be safely handled by mature people and societies, perhaps even more so than those we now have. It’s obviously something we desire for our electricity appetites, but are we ready to handle it safely, transparently, responsibly? It is a serious test, not only for the localised actors, but for all mankind, if only because the radioactive releases involved quickly become international, if not global. Already, radioactive particles from Fukushima have been found as far away as France, where pregnant mothers are being cautioned about certain foodstuffs. Even a small danger should be avoided if possible, the same way such mothers would avoid alcohol or tobacco.

Yet, in all of this, there are hopeful signs. Humanity wants to have a future and is willing to take these matters seriously. Now that it has happened, tremendous efforts are being made to mitigate the effects of the accident, some of them truly heroic and, hopefully, none of them in vain. Seeing the danger, other countries are improving their safeguards (or claiming to, everyone wants to save a buck, it seems) and making large investments into renewable sources, which is being seen as a safer wave of the future. Germany has even shut down their aging reactors and plans to make a complete move to renewables. Where there is a will, theer’s a way.

The suspension of Hamaoka plant is another sign, something undertaken when it became clear just how dangerous an earthquake can be to such a plant. We have to applaud Prime Minister Kan on having the foresight to cut through the red tape and force a decision there, even though the more gentle process of the courtroom could have achieved this earlier and also in a way that could have transformed the legal landscape in which Japan’s plants exist. The sign that we are moving in the direction of far greater safety measures is a silver lining to this cloud. An accident with the wind blowing inland would have been far worse, rendering vast stretches of Japan uninhabitable for generations. The spectre of this happening at Hamaoka was just too great to risk. Let us hope that such an event is less likely than ever at this point and that the issues that remain at Fukushima are resolved as calmly, quickly, smoothly and above all gently as possible.

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Entering a Strange Period

Now that I have the things I need over the next few days, it is a strange period here. Suddenly, Japan seems to be as fixated on the dangers posed by the stricken nuclear plants as the rest of the world. Just about everyone I know spent this evening inside, with their place closed up. no, we aren’t in the ’emergency zone’. Just some low-level radiation managed to drift towards the Tokyo Area from a plume of smoke from a fire at the number 4 reactor. The dangers it poses are apparently (at least with limited exposure) negligible, but on the advice of the French authorities, who are seen as being more cautious and also more candid than the ones here, people didn’t want to take any chances. Despite my scientific scepticism, neither did I. I wonder how much of it is coming from anti-nuclear sentiment and how much is based on facts, but there is a growing fear of what could unfold. At any rate, knowing everyone is inside has led to a strange sense of community- conversations that would otherwise be in a coffee shop are had over a phone, or by computer messages. Perhaps it’s just today, but I foresee much more of this taking place, especially if more places close, because less people try to go to them, because more places are closed… and so on. Whenever ordinary life does return, perhaps as soon as a week or two, perhaps longer, it will inevitably be influenced by this strange period.

Panic buying has made toilet paper and bottled water no longer the cheap items you unthinkingly get, but hot commodities. apparently, on Amazon, alcaline batteries are available for the princely sum of 16,000 yen… quite a hike from their 100 yen price just a few days ago. Under them was a thread of angry comments about the attempt to profiteer, but ultimately it was a shocking example of the law of supply and demand. It meant my cheap batteries I bought just in case I need them are worth more than some of my camera lenses. Quite a change!

in case there’s anyone who doesn’t know, repeated hydrogen explosions and a brief fire have afflicted the seemingly well-designed Fukushima Dai-Ichi Nuclear Plant, raising the spectre of a ‘melt-down’. The results of that no-one really knows for sure, though the hope is that it would only be local. Yet locally, even it would seem to be a catastrophe of it’s own. The radiation levels there are sky-rocketing and the advice given to people nearby, many of whom can’t evacuate because of lack of fuel to travel with, is so restrictive that one wonders if it is even possible to follow. Not leaving one’s place means an impossibility of getting fresh supplies, with no-one coming to deliver new ones. I suppose in time the levels could go down, but the question is, can people hold out until then? Just imagining people being stuck out there with no-where to go is terrible to think of, though there seem to be plans to evacuate them as soon as possible. It would be worse than the Tsunami in a certain way, as you wouldn’t be wither saved or dead, you would be somewhere in between, not knowing what would come next.

I can’t help but feel for and admire the people who are probably sacrificing their lives by staying in the reactors, doing whatever they can to prevent them exploding. Many factors led to them being built out there. Ironically, a major one was the anti-nuclear movement galvanising opposition so that only the most poor and remote towns would agree to their construction. no all very understandable, you might think, but when you see that this led to them being built in an area unusually prone to Earthquakes and Tsunami, you have to wonder if a better solution than always caving in to popularism could be found. In the case of Japan (and probably France), nuclear power is a strategic necessity, Japan simply couldn’t afford to meet all it’s energy needs through using oil. Not to mention the memories of the ‘oil shock’ of the Seventies, in which it became less obtainable due to Middle-Eastern boycotts. Anyway, seeing them devote their time and their lives to these last-ditch efforts, which may well not succeed at this point, but should at least mitigate the damage, is moving to consider.

In case anyone is wondering, the levels far away, such as here can’t be and will never be comparable, simply because of the dilution of the radioactive material. I could envision a dangerously toxic plume, I just knew one would develop, but it isn’t comparable with the very light remainder of it that made it to Tokyo. The very fact that the plants powered off means that the potential disaster is nowhere near Chernobyl. Yet in the short term, even a smaller risk is an unacceptable one for many people, so wind patterns and what actually happens at the stricken site will make a difference to their behaviour. I just hope this period is very short term, as I wonder if the local economy could handle people staying in all the time. Here, other issues are more prevalent, such as panic buying, the shortage of petrol or Toyu heating oil and the cuts to train services which keep people from going to work (which in turn reduces their electricity usage).

Of course in all of this, I talk as though I know a lot more about the situation and factors involved than I actually do. From sheer necessity, I did online research to get a perspective that seems to me, at least. to be reasonably realistic. I feel that like so many things in my life, this is a distraction from my ultimate purpose, yet at least, I suppose, it is a different distraction with different lessons to be learnt. I actually think it would be better (if we could), if we spent more time reflecting on the immense relief effort taking place to rescue Tsunami survivors, or even more so, learning from their experiences. I heard stories of people going unconscious and then feeling something hit them in the back, prompting them to grab onto an antenna or signpost, which turned out to save their live; even better, with the black-out, their body went into an automatic mode. One of Yuko’s neighbours told of their son’s wife, a nurse, stumbling into his house days after it hit, covered in mud yet unable to remember of anything that happened, let alone how she managed to make the long journey home.

These are dramatic stories, with very important messages of just what it means to be a human being on this planet, pulling through by a hair, though seemingly in the grip of a higher power, sometimes one activated through some kind of unconscious trance. They are stories worth looking into. They bring meaning to what would otherwise be a rude invasion of chaos into our ordinary lives.

A Developing Situation

This is just a quick post about what it’s been like for me being here over the past couple of days. Being use to a ‘normal’ life, the spectre of so much potential danger hanging over me is leading to a surreal quality to everything. I have to stress the word potential, as of course, everything could turn out to be alright and of course, I hope that’s the case.

Yesterday, I met Yuko in Otakanomori for shopping and lunch. The trains were running fine, though there were less people around than you would expect. It was strange to see the whole shopping center closed, presumably to save electricity, with all it’s lights and heating needs requiring just too much. Some other shops and restaurants were open though and we had a nice lunch there. I felt strange eating out when there are so many disasters going on in Japan, but what are you going to do? They are still running a restaurant, depending on customers to do so and they need our support to keep going.

We were planning to get a new small, portable computer for our trip, so as to travel lighter and have something that has a longer battery life than most laptops. So it being a mere 25 minutes away by the Tsukuba Express to get there and, not really knowing hen we would be in such a good position to do so, we decided to head on down there. The atmosphere there was just like any Sunday. There may have been a few less people, but it was active and bustling, many shops open and girls dressed in maid costumes enticing in customers. Going there with Yuko was a very different experience, as the staff really wanted to explain to her the pros and cons of each computer. We went around, trying different models, generally wanting the lightness and battery life of a netbook, but not it’s limitations. In the end, we went for a lovely Toshiba CULV (consumer ultra-low voltage, power-efficient) 11.6-inch dual-core ultra-portable, that seemed to be the best compromise, whilst still ensuring the use of full Windows 7 functions, with it’s HD screen.

Whilst the atmosphere was fun and dynamic as ever. there were a few more strange-feeling anomalies. Yodobashi Camera had all it’s usually vivid neon lights turned off. In fact. the only way to see it was open was the window-lights and a scrolling message around it saying something along the lines of “don’t worry, we’re open, we have just turned off our neon to save electricity”. We got onto the wonderful, comfortable Tskuba Express and headed home, happy we had taken the chance to go down there.

Back in the suburbs, the sense of impending doom returned. turning on the TV, there was more news about the stricken reactors in Fukushima, with reassurances that the emitted radiation was low-level, but no possible guarantee that it would always stay that way. Aftershocks rocked the apartment and news came in that there is a 70% possibility of a level 7 aftershock in the next 3 days, after which it would drop to 50% and keep receding. I added elements to my ’emergency bag’, kept by the door at all times, with some more warm clothes and another charged iPhone battery.

Today, we were able to use the car to get some more supplies. The local train line (Tobu-Noda) was stopped, again to save power, not just on the train but on the massive usage offices have. Luckily, my neighbourhood has an almost fully-stocked Belx, where I could get fruit, vegetables, bottled drinks and others. Yet there was no more bread or mineral water, or milk. The place was due to close at 2:00, before a projected 2-hour power-cut. Nearby was a Matsumoto Kyoshi. For some reason they had canned goods still, but no tissues, the entire row was wiped clean, though as I already have plenty, I just got some wet-wipes. We got some other practical necessities from the 100 yen shop- a small bucket, for using bath water to flush number-2’s during a power-cut in the event the water stopped flowing as it was dependant on pumps (which makes for excellent water-pressure, providing the electricity is around). One disturbing thing was the fact that all the petrol stations we passed were closed and they had run out of Toyu heating gas. Neither were ‘gas bombe’, canisters of gas for small stoves available. Apparently they had been the first thing to sell out and the shop owners had no idea when they’d get them again. If gas and electricity became cut off, as has happened in other areas, options for heating food would become very limited.

Coming home, we made some arrangements. We filled the bath with water in case it was needed during an outage. We also made some tea, kept in a thermos, with another larger thermos holding hot water. I made sure I had a bunch of torches ready and my laptops and phones were topped up. You see, with the outage, you might not know for sure if it would come on again when you were expecting it and these devices are essential, not just for amusement but for communication (though without internet or phone lines, I would be in the dark for a bit). I unlocked a convenient door, in the case that it would be needed in a sudden quake- not something I would expect, but under the circumstances be prepared for. Then came my favourite touch, a ring of motion-sensing LED lights spread around the apartment. put into always-on mode, so I wouldn’t have the spookiness or possibility of accident of total darkness (something that nearby street lighting meant I never usually had).

We watched the TV, seeing ever-changing projected times for the power-cut, which in the end was deemed unnecessary in our area due to power savings from not using some train lines and less people going to work. It was an anti-climax I was very pleased to hear of, not only for me, but for places like small hospitals or mothers with small kids to feed, who might not be fully prepared, or even aware of what to expect. Having power let me do Skyping, Facebook and so on and exposed me to more news.

It seems that foreign companies aren’t satisfied with the official reassurances of the Japanese government regarding their reactor’s radiation leakages, not only the current venting of steam, but the potential of much worse radioactive fallout being emitted, that could travel very quickly by wind to the Tokyo area. It seems that the sheer power of nature defied the well-researched designs of the plants, faced with one of the largest Earthquakes on record, as well as colossal Tsunami. Cooling down afterwards seems to be a real problem, with having the energy onhand to keep pumping seawater over them, with the failure of their own coolers taking place repeatedly, seems to be a real challenge. Although I accept the official statements that what has been emitted so far is not too dangerous, at least from a large distance, that isn’t to say that a serious meltdown could be relied upon not to release a ‘toxic plume’, that might head inland rather than out to sea. Reading on the internet, the opinion of experts seems to be a bit divided, although they seem pretty unanimous that since the reactors have automatically shut down, their level of heat and radioactivity is nothing like that emitted by Chernobyl.

New news that two rods became exposed in the second reactor is not exactly reassuring. I really take my hat off to all the brave TEPCO workers who are in many cases making the ultimate sacrifice by doing whatever they can do. But, like everyone else, my fear is- what if it’s not enough? The usual fail-safes seem to have failed and the innovative alternatives, such as the sea-water with boric acid, is an untested alternative to the usual, powered cooling, plus the power to do so is apparently lacking, with insufficient pumps for all the reactors and one of them actually containing MOX fuel, which mixes the more deadly plutonium with the uranium.

So I hope everything will be okay. We are in an unprecedented situation and everyone involved in sear and rescue or trying to tame the reactors is doing an amazing job. Yet the sheer risk remains and some governments are advising their nationals not just to not travel to this region, but not even to stay here. Companies are moving their staff further south where possible. A telling development was the fact that a US aircraft carrier moved itself further from the coast when it detected too-high levels of radiation from a plume emitted from one of the various hydrogen explosions. Friends are talking of going to other areas of Jndsapan for a while, something I’d contemplate, except for the fact that I have a plane to catch a few days from now and want to remain in decent reach from the airport. Plus I am comfortable and ready to be where I am. I don’t honestly know how high the risk of fallout is, but I understand that rain would be most dangerous and just limiting how often I am outside over the next few days would help.

I just hope the next few days and beyond re navigated safely, by me and the wonderful people around me, by Japan and even by the world, as presumably a radioactive plume could go wherever the wind would blow it. Not only that, but any serious interruption to Tokyo’s functioning would have difficult effects on Japan as a whole, as it’s by far the economic heart of these islands, financing the rescue operations going on elsewhere. It’s hard to believe how overwhelmed Japan is by all these current and potential calamities. Yet it’s amazing to see how well they are being born, not just stoically, but calmly and generally in good humour. Everything you see destroyed today will be just as quickly rebuilt tomorrow, without even a hint of complaint. I just hope the safety features of reactors and sea defences (such as access to high ground) are improved, and if this means listening to the critical comments of whistle-blowing workers, so be it. Safety is just as important as prosperity- in fact the two intimately depend on one another.

Please all stay safe!

Gideon

Perfect Futures

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