'Suicide squads' paid huge sums to stabilise nuclear reactor

[jpak]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/suicide-squads-paid-huge-sums-to-stabilise-nuclear-reactor-2256741.html

Workers at Japan's stricken nuclear plant are reportedly being offered huge sums to brave high radiation and bring its overheated reactors under control, as plant operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, battles to stop a spreading contamination crisis which could see another 130,000 people forced to leave their homes.

Radiation has already found its way into milk, vegetables and tap water and is leaking into the sea around the complex. Government tests found yesterday that small quantities of plutonium, one of the world's most dangerous elements, have seeped into soil outside the plant.

<snip>

Subcontractors to several companies connected to the plant have reportedly been offered 80,000 to 100,000 yen a day (£608 to £760) to join the operation, according to one former plant worker. "They know it's dangerous so they have to pay up to 20 times what they usually do," said Shingo Kanno, a seasonal farmer and construction worker who was offered work at the complex by a subcontractor but refused. "My wife and family are against it because it's so dangerous," he said.

The team of men inside the complex have been dubbed "samurai" and "suicide squads" in the popular press. They have been joined by Self-Defence Force troops and an elite team of fire and emergency service workers, who have used hoses, water canon and helicopters in a bid to cool the reactors since the crisis was triggered by the 11 March earthquake and tsunami.

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[flamingdem]

1. Someone saw a Tepco "help wanted" ad for restoration work at $5,000 a day nt

[Common Sense Party]

2. If I knew I had a terminal disease, I'd sign up and work as many days

as possible, so my family could get the money when I'm gone.

[flamingdem]

5. You could report back to us and we'd really be in the know

I believe they have good health insurance over there.

[HubertHeaver]

7. I would want to be paid upfront.

Remembering my anti-nuke days in the late seventies...I wish I could remember the names of a few of the pro-nuke knuckle-heads so I could remind them this melt-down is exactly what we were trying to prevent.

[flamingdem]

8. They're still around spouting their "facts" with reckless arrogance nt

[TheMadMonk]

15. Thie FACT is in your bid to avoid nuclear power...

...there have been many many anti's who have made it perfectly clear, that a GUARANTEED million plus deaths over 1/2 a generation (respiratory illnesses from fossil fuels), or a probable 100m plus (dead and displaced by rising sea levels) over the next 2-3 generations, are the price they are willing to have the rest of us pay to give them/you peace of mind.

The fact is, you blythely and confidently raise the spectre of a million or more dead per event, when so far, in over 50 years of civilian nuclear power, the total butcher's bill is less than 100,000 (upper end of credible estimates for Chernobyl) with most of that still to come in the next 50 years, from an accident which was no accident, in a plant which was an accident waiting to happen.

Absent that event, but including this one (as it stands to date), the DEMONSTRATED casualty rate drops to 10,000 or less over the last 50 years. The demonstrated safety record puts nuclear power comfortably ahead of even air travel, the watch industry of civilian safety.

Yes, it is possible, by stringing together enough extremely low probability events, to create million plus death scenarios.

Yes the social disruption is huge, but it is easily demonstrated that apart from the evacuations, most of the precautions being taken are erring by up to 2 orders of magnitude on the side of paranoia. And I don't fault that at all. What I fault is the mindset which shreiks "Too much, is still not enough!"

What is happening inside the power plants is being reported in terms of direct and acute exposure: ie. n hours will give one year's permissible exposure; x minutes will cause radiation burns; y hours is lethal. These numbers are extremely important in managing the risk to the workers on the spot, but of little relevance to you and I.

What is happening OUTSIDE is being given in terms of permissible long term public exposure limits. These limits are purely regulatory and are set based upon the assumption that any exposure will continue for a full year or more. They are also set low enough that they lie comfortably within the limits of variation for natural exposure.

Low level contamination 2-5 (or even 10) times those limits is not an issue unless people wallow in it for months or even years on end.

Months or years that won't happen, because this event will be resolved one way or the other before they can happen. If the lid can be kept on for a little longer, the amount of heat produced in the cores will drop, which in turn will slowly bring the pressure inside the reactor vessels down.

And if recovery does ultimately prove impossible, a million cubic metres of fibre reinforced concrete WILL bury the mess.

[kristopher]

16. Facts.

Why should we build nuclear?

At this point it is up to the supporters to justify it.

1. nuclear power isn't "cheap" it is expensive;

2. learning and new standardized designs will not solve all past problems - waste, safety and proliferation are part and parcel of the technology;

3. the waste problem is a real problem, even if we’d follow the lead of many other nations and “recycle” our spent fuel;

4. climate change does not make a renaissance "inevitable";

5. there are other ways to provide electricity than with large-scale “baseload” sources of generation - "baseload" is in reality nothing more than an economic construct that developed around centralized generation and a distributed approach is technically far superior;

6. there’s every reason to worry that a rapidly expanding global industry will put nuclear power and weapons technologies in highly unstable nations, often nations with ties to terrorist organizations.



When are you going to either abandon the fallacious claim that nuclear is needed to address climate change or provide some analytic proof of it?

There ARE no studies that show nuclear as either a necessary or desirable part of the solution to climate change. NONE.

At best, it is identified as a POTENTIAL solution in studies that make no effort to discriminate among those options.

Why not provide evidence and shut the critics down?

Your certitude must be based on something, what is it?

[kath]

11. Speaking of old anti-nuke days, lately I've been thinking of Jackson Browne's "Before the Deluge"

a lot...

[madokie]

12. I wonder how I'd get there

I don't have a passport and doubt I could get one but I doubt they'd want an old bastid like me anyway

[angstlessk]

3. samurai is a good name, since it has such a good

connotation in Japan....I do not care if they are paid a million dollars a day...they face death every day...and I am sure they are not working for themselves, but for their families....

[aquart]

10. Take the millions out of GE's executive bonuses.

That would work well.

[BillyJack]

4. g-d help them, g_d bless them....those that CHOOSE to sacrifice themselves....

....the needs of the MANY far outweighs the needs of the one. It's 'logical' but still very very difficult. :cry::

[flamingdem]

6. I recommend googling for the email letters from the workers, some were published nt

[BillyJack]

14. What an odd response. n/t

[jimlup]

9. Nuclear mercenaries

[txlibdem]

13. The Judean People's Front?!? Splitters!

"They know it's dangerous so they have to pay up to 20 times what they usually do," said Shingo Kanno...

But the three injured workers claim they knew nothing about any dangers... This quote shows the lie in their claims. Those three are a disgrace to the true heroes mentioned in the last paragraph of the OP.