Fukushima a stake through nuclear industry’s heart

Despite the managed media campaign by Tokyo Electric Company, the Japanese government and nuclear industry flacks worldwide, the 11 March 9.0 on the Richter scale earthquake, followed by a tsunami that off-lined TEPCO’s six reactor Daiichi Fukushima nuclear power complex represents a global mortal blow to the nuclear power industry, which had been optimistic of a renaissance following worldwide concerns about global warming. While TEPCO’s PR spin doctors along with Japanese government flacks will continue to parsimoniously dribble out information about the real situation at the stricken reactors while blandly assuring the Japanese population and the world that all is well even as nuclear lobbyists bleat “it can’t happen here,” all but the most obtuse are beginning to realize that catastrophes at nuclear power facilities, whether man-made (Chernobyl) or natural (Fukushima) have radioactive pollution consequences of potentially global significance.

It is the long-term consequences of the dispersal of radioactive reactor core fissionable material and, in the case of Fukushima, spent reactor fuel, that no amount of spin doctoring can diminish, and far from being environmental propaganda from eco-terrorists, has been a concern of specialists for decades, but those voices rarely reach the mainstream media, many of which are owned by massive corporations deeply invested in the revival of nuclear power. Fukushima a stake through the nuclear industry’s heart