From Wiki, "A May 2012 United Nations committee report stated that none of the six Fukushima workers who had died since the tsunami had died from radiation exposure. According to a 2012 Yomiuri Shimbun survey, 573 deaths have been certified as "disaster-related" by 13 municipalities affected by the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
It was the largest nuclear disaster since the Chernobyl disaster of 1986,[10] and the radiation released exceeded official safety guidelines. Despite this, there were no deaths caused by acute radiation syndrome. Given the uncertain health effects of low-dose radiation, cancer deaths cannot be ruled out.[11] However, studies by the World Health Organisation and Tokyo University have shown that no discernible increase in the rate of cancer deaths is expected."
Joe,
This is not the point you were making to which I answered.
You may not be realizing this, but the twisted logic to which you have to conform to keep defending Trump at any cost is apparently infecting you and impacting your ability to think straight and to have a balanced conversation on other topics also. A balanced conversation being one in which you admit when you are wrong and don't start with a premise that you know better than the person you are speaking with on any topic just because you are right by definition (i.e. Trump is innocent by definition because it's a political plot against him).
On Fukushima, there are several things:
- no, death were not caused by mass hysteria
- yes, all the evacuations were totally needed, and I personally think that more people should have been evacuated in a smarter way
- yes, the official number of casualties resulting from radiation is very low, but whether that is the true situation is object to serious debate and there are many contrary sources in Japan claiming that the actual numbers are much higher
- no it doesn't mean I am personally against nuclear as a key energy source but it has to be done the right way:
1. Without profit as the main driving motivation to operate the plants, we have seen how it has led to structural under-investment in maintenance and updates in Japan with major safety risks
2. Leveraging the best available technology, which is probably the French 3rd generation EPR power plants although these have proven very costly and difficult to manufacture/build well
3. With information shared in a totally transparent way to citizens
And why does it always have to be state-run? It is not like state run entities are incapable of disaster. Chernobyl was state run. And since when were companies not being held accountable? The last major energy screw up in the USA was the BP oil spill. They were ordered to pay out $5.5B; that sounds like a pretty serious dose of accountability.
And are government run entities always held accountable?
The key issue with private ownership of Nuclear reactors is three-fold:
- As mentioned above, it leads to prioritizing profit over safety. Fukushima is a very clear example of this,
- Private companies simply do not have the financial means to pay the actual cost of the consequences of a Fukushima like event, not event 10% of it. This means that the huge societal cost is not covered by anyone. People lose their homes and memories and don't get compensated for it although the private entity was making money on their back for years thanks to an exclusive license to operate granted by the people through the government. I am sure you understand how unbalanced this is,
- Private entities are intrinsically less transparent.
Cheers,
Bernard