Museum memorializing nuclear disaster opens in Fukushima town

The ‘disaster’ is still ongoing or are we expected to believe that radioactive strontium, uranium and cesium have just disappeared from Fukushima?

These elements have radioactive lives of thousands of years...

When you deal with radiations, people living in the area nearby can expect to have cancer even after 15 years since the tsunami. I'm afraid that in the next 5 years cases of cancer will increase in the population

Why waste all that money on a museum when the real thing is still there?

Fusion energy is the way to go!

Nobody is even close to a functioning fusion driven power plant. It is many decades away. 4th Generation fission plants are likewise a long way off. Some are just ideas and metal cooled reactors are an idea that experience showed to be a failure. The world need electrical power now. To provide that you have to use an existing technology that is known and can be built today.

So they have money to open a museum but there’s still people living in temporary housing for the last 9 years?

What happened at Fukushima and at Chernobyl are testaments to the consequences of human hubris. We think we are smart enough to handle nuclear energy safely, without regard to the unforeseen circumstances thrown at us by both nature and human nature.

At Fukushima, we failed to adequately plan for a natural disaster; a major earthquake followed by a massive tidal wave.

At Chernobyl, we failed to foresee the potential for outright human error.

Nuclear energy has a huge potential downside.

That said, the consequences of global warming, and the ability of nuclear energy to obviate that threat, might justify its continued use.

If it's been approved and exists, there is no way it is critical of the government in the way it should be, and probably even praises the government and TEPCO.

I wonder if the model shows the storage tanks where tens of thousands of tonnes of radioactive water is stored?

These elements have radioactive lives of thousands of years...

Well actually only uranium does.. Strontium has a half life of about 28 years and Caesium about 30.

On top of that you can actually clean up radioactivity if you remove the things that are contaminated. (Where to put it is a whole other question)

So to answer your question. They sort of have 'disappeared' from Fukushima since they've been mostly moved to new locations.

@ksteer

Well actually only uranium does.. Strontium has a half life of about 28 years and Caesium about 30.

Right, your observation that most of these elements are still discharging at full strength is correct.

Added to this is dispersion by weather and plant uptake which produces waste which in Japan is habitually burned, and the cycle begins again...

isn't the whole area "A museum that archives and exhibits items related to the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster" ?

Hi dbsaiya

Re: Who owns this museum?

Third paragraph, "The opening of the prefecture-run museum had been planned for this summer"

My guess is if the prefecture runs it, they also own it.

Can't see Fukushime Prefecture running someoneelse's museum, but it could be a third sector "amakudari" scheme.

At Fukushima, we failed to adequately plan for a natural disaster; a major earthquake followed by a massive tidal wave.

At Chernobyl, we failed to foresee the potential for outright human error

Good engineering learns from past mistakes. Something as simple as siting the auxiliary generators and their fuel on the high bluff behind the plant would have prevented the loss of cooling to the reactors. A nation can learn and go forward or run and hide. What is it? Don't overlook the fact that apparently nobody in Japan anticipated a tidal wave that high. Fukushima had a tidal wave barrier but it wasn't high enough. I still vividly remember watching tidal waves overtop other tidal wave barriers. A higher barrier would have spared the Fukushima plants from damage too. Learn and build better the next time. Running from the problem isn't going to advance a society.

Third to the last paragraph explains it all. Who owns this museum? One cannot explain the disaster and its aftermath with out addressing the cause and responsibility, namely TEPCO and the LDP. I hope the museum also shows all the subsidies the community received in return for accepting the nukes into their back yard.

but it could be a third sector "amakudari" scheme.

"could" be?

Fusion energy is the way to go!

Calm down guys.

The world is not going to end because of the Fukushima daichi meltdown.