
Anti-nuke protesters surround Japanese parliament - iProject
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Anti-nuke-protesters-surround-Japanese-parliament-3744215.php
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serichsen
They can protest however they want, they will not change the basic facts: that
a country with Japan's population density needs dense power---a lot of power
from as little land as possible.

Keeping existing nuclear plants for as long as possible, while the next
generation of nuclear plants is being actively developed, is a sane choice for
any country, but especially for Japan.

Of course, I can see the incredulous voices "How can you say that, when in
Fukushima etc.". However, please see (again) the facts: radiation death toll
is still zero. Compare that to the death toll from pollution, if Japan had
built coal plants instead of nuclear plants all those decades. For numbers,
google "deaths per terawatthour".

~~~
darien
I think the point is that Japan can live without nuclear power. As a
collectivist society, Japanese have voluntarily cut down on energy usage.
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/05/japan-nuclear-
react...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/05/japan-nuclear-
reactors_n_1483084.html) However losing the nuclear industry in Japan will
harm the economy and increase the unemployment rate at a bad time (everytime
is a bad time for a debt nation).

Sanity has really little to do with the situation.

~~~
potatolicious
Unless Japan has gone back to an agrarian economy and are lighting up oil
lamps at night, I doubt they've reduced their power consumption by anything
other than a token amount. A speed bump in the need for more power generation
capacity.

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dvhh
The pause in nuclear power plant caused a steep rise in oil import, some
alternative energy (And probably cause a huge commercial deficit for japanese
international trade). Even if right now the japanese are trying to reduce
their consumption, by approx 15%, it won't be sufficient on the long term for
the japanese industry to remain competitive. I am already seeing big japanese
company de-localizing. In the building where I work (in japan), they installed
solar panels on the roof, but these panel only provide like less than 10% of
the power need in the best case ( and even less for the rest of the day, and
it is not like we use high powered laser, nor particle collider).

So if japanese wants to live without nuclear power, that would be with a
growing national debt, a faltering industry, and huge sacrifice in lifestyle.
I am not sure that japanese are willing to live with these.

I think the biggest issue is mostly trust in the japanese governement and the
company running the nuclear plant, especially Tepco that lied to the public
and probably the government until the situation was to obvious to lie (the
powerplant was near the epicenter of the earthquake, it was impossible that
with this magnitude it wasn't even slightly damage).

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jrockway
Ironically, you never see headlines like "Anti-nuke protesters boycott the
power grid" or "Anti-nuke protesters build world's largest solar power plant."

What I hate about democracy is that it rewards complaining rather than problem
solving.

~~~
pgeorgi
Why should "anti-nuke protesters" boycott the power grid? It's necessary no
matter what energy source is used (though its topology can look very
different).

~~~
anamax
> Why should "anti-nuke protesters" boycott the power grid?

For the same reason why folks who object to social program {X} are called
hypocrites if they use said social program.

It's a neat argument form. Force someone to pay for your way of doing
something and then call your opponents hypocrites for not having the money to
do it their way.

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drucken
There is still a lot of (perceived) covering up and lack of information
release going on in Japan around the Fukushima incident. Much of it never
makes it to the mainstream news.

For example, relatively recent reports of

\- doubled estimates of radiation released
([http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-05-24/fukushima-s-
esti...](http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-05-24/fukushima-s-estimated-
radiation-leak-doubles-versus-government))

\- local government reports of a significant proportion of Fukushima children
(36%) with abnormal thyroid growths
([http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/9410702...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/9410702/Nearly-36pc-
of-Fukushima-children-diagnosed-with-abnormal-thyroid-growths.html)).
Something which should be extremely rare under normal circumstances and should
solicit worldwide expert help.

There are also other reports of issues such as significant outbreak of
diabetes in children of temporary dwellings in Fukushima but they are
difficult to substantiate since not or no longer in formal Japanese press.

