"One year after Fukushima, independent scientists working for the UN say bluntly that irrational fears of radiation poisoning will cause far more harm than the radiation itself. Not a single individual from the Japanese public received a dangerous dose, according to the early and informal analyses by the scientists. (Conspiracy theories cannot survive against the constant independent radiation measurements uploaded on Twitter.) Even the 70 altruistic plant workers who stayed behind gained an additional cancer risk of just 0.002% -- effectively zero in a country where four out of ten people get cancer."

Facts win out

Japan Heading for Energy Death Spiral?

Tanaka's argument is mathematical at its core. He argues that if Japan does not find a way to 'turn on' its now shuttered nuclear energy reactors, not only will Japan's already sluggish economic condition be crushed with much larger oil and gas imports from Russia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East -- but because of the costs and risk uncertainty -- Japan's powerful manufacturing base may begin pulling out of the world's third largest economy.

Nobuo Tanaka is the Daniel Yergin of Japan and has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the patterns and vectors of energy production and consumption by all the major global energy actors. His warnings matter -- and yet Japan's political leaders, he believes, have not honestly talked with the Japanese public about the hard choices it faces and a possible economic unraveling that comes with the status quo national nuclear energy allergy.

Tanaka realizes that there is a legitimate debate to be had about the safety and management of Japan's nuclear energy facilities and that standards need to be improved and a national conversation has to take place -- but that a total rejection of nuclear energy will send Japan over a cliff as deindustrialization is triggered by energy shocks.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-clemon..._b_1391194.html