The news seems to be ominously quiet about the fact that the Japanese government recently admitted that about 300 tons of highly radioactive water has been leaking into the Pacific every day. They are not specifying since when.
Photo by StarAfrica.com
When I look at the above picture I am in disbelief. If water like this leaked in my yard I’d get to work on it. If this type of stuff leaked out of a storage tank containing highly radioactive water, I’d call 911 and run like hell. But the Japanese didn’t notice this?
Photo by Engineering and Technology Magazine
Each tank holds about 1000 tons of water. That’s about a quarter of an Olympic size pool. There are about 350 such tanks at the plant right now, all full of radioactive water. The tanks are made of steel plates connected with bolts, rather than being welded. Engineers suspect that the ground is sinking, causing the tanks to shift and start leaking. Several tanks have started leaking.
At this time the Japanese government admits that it estimates that about 300 tons of water are leaking into the ocean every day. 300 tons is about 1/12th of an Olympic size pool – every day.
Imagine the disaster if the ground shifts again at Fukushima, perhaps as a result of another earthquake, and the steel-plate-bolted tanks all start leaking? What would the Tokyo Electric Power Company do then?
To me this is evidence that no one company can be trusted to do the right thing when some massive disaster hits it. We saw that with BP and the gulf oil spill. We now see it with Fukushima.
They’re acting like a teenager who just crashed his dad’s car on a joy ride.
Yet, when it concerns radioactive material, the results are deadly, for decades.
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