politics

Abe orders 2 Fukushima reactors scrapped; pledges safe Olympics

65 Comments
By Mari Saito

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65 Comments
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Allow me to prepare his post-look speech:

"I have been to the site and can guarantee that everything is under control. The plant poses no threat to humanity. We will strive to be more transparent in the future. We have a plan to decommission the plant". etc.

18 ( +22 / -4 )

“The prime minister has expressed hopes to take a firsthand look at the plant himself, so he can come up with appropriate instructions,”

Oh, so Abe is both an engineer and nuclear physicist now? How in the heck would you know mate? I doubt if you know the difference between poop and clay!

29 ( +31 / -2 )

Oh, so Abe is both an engineer and nuclear physicist now?

Oh ye of little faith. He's the Supreme Advisor!

12 ( +13 / -1 )

I am sure his findings are already written up.

15 ( +18 / -3 )

May I see him drink water from a puddle....that would assure me???

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Well, my fears are quelled. Glad that will be settled.

10 ( +11 / -1 )

Do you think this is some strange form of harikiri? If he does walk around the place like his is supposed to do he will be exposed to the radiation. I'm wondering if he will have the same equipment as regular employees have? Is he in danger of exposure? The guy is a political hack, but there is no need to kill himself. That being said, he has got to be getting just a glimpse of the problem unless he suits up and really walks through the place.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

http://youtu.be/dfaPhmFGvt8

I posted this on another story here. Listen to what Japanese farmers think about this whole mess. The fisherman should do the same, and the people should stand up to the lies.

13 ( +13 / -0 )

Hope he feasts on all the surrounding produce that's available just to show Fukushima's safe and everything's under control as he and he lackies purport.

12 ( +15 / -3 )

“The prime minister has expressed hopes to take a firsthand look at the plant himself, so he can come up with appropriate instructions,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said. Is PM Abe an "expert" in nuclear contamination abatement?

5 ( +7 / -2 )

If he can drink puddle water, I will feel better

1 ( +1 / -0 )

TEPCO said in a statement that Yamashita was referring to isolated incidents and had not contradicted Abe’s comments.

"everything is okay... except that" so don't worry...

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

They do need to expand and improve the ALPS (multi-nuclide removal system) and get it operating.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

He must be tired out after his performance before the IOC. Nice time of year this. Maybe he could do a spot of fishing while he's there. I'm sure the local fishermen will be more than happy to take him out.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Jimizo - I'm sure the local fishermen will be more than happy to take him out.

Take him out? Is that a pun?

4 ( +6 / -2 )

I will do my utmost to protect peoples health and the sea.

So will I Mr. Abe, so will I, however, though mine words may not reach as many people as yours, our "utmost" will amount to the same amount being done. Namely "nothing" The difference is that you COULD possibly make a difference whereas I am just a single person with no resources to do anything except repeat the same words as you.

7 ( +8 / -1 )

Of course we all know that him just looking at this will achieve nothing. But, some little joy in seeing him on the news in a radiation suit and all, standing there with a bunch of other goons nodding and (under mask) sucking teeth at the scale of the problem.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

So he's seen the situation for himself and is going to issue his valued advice to those who are actually engaged in the day-to-day struggle to contain the problem.

For some reason a certain chubby North Korean gentleman comes to mind....

4 ( +4 / -0 )

So he looked? Now what? that's it?

2 ( +4 / -2 )

Oh so he does this AFTER declaring to the world how it is under control.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

PM (king) Abe-Canute has issued his proclamation and will turn back the tide of radionuclides!!!!

Tune in next week.......

5 ( +5 / -0 )

What does he mean, he will scrap two reactors? The whole plant is past its use-by date and should have been decommissioned over ten years ago. This twit is off his face!!!

5 ( +6 / -1 )

Hilarious... Now we will be forced to watch the Olympics by candlelight.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

This twit is off his face!!!

Who dares question our decisive Supreme Advisor?!?!?!

6 ( +6 / -0 )

The No. 5 and No. 6 reactors escaped serious damage and TEPCO has been allowed to carry the facilities as an asset on its balance sheet.

Wow! Introduce me to your auditor!

4 ( +4 / -0 )

What a sudden and forthright commitment to nuclear safety!

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

The clue is in the last paragraph - “The future of Japan is on your shoulders. The government will step forward and take concrete measures, so I am counting on you,” he said.

They are going to encase the reactors in cement lol.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

haven't the comments changed here since 2011

1 ( +1 / -0 )

"TEPCO has been allowed to carry the facilities as an asset on its balance sheet."

"As of April, the company listed 745.5 billion yen ($7.5 billion) in nuclear power generation assets. Those included the No. 5 and No. 6 reactors as well as the utility’s Fukushima Daini nuclear plant and Kashiwazaki Kariwa - the world’s largest nuclear plant - in northern Japan."

Does TEPCO use the same accountants as Olympus did? It seems that nuclear power plants in Japan these days are not assets but liabilities. Any competent person working for a bank would spot this blatant inflation of assets.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Why don't they bury it with concrete? I'm no expert (unlike the majority of posters here) but wouldn't that do some good?

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

SenseNotSoCommonSep. 19, 2013 - 07:22PM JST

Wow! Introduce me to your auditor!

The auditor is Shin-Nihon Kansa Hojin, which is a Japanese subsidiary of Ernst and Young. The auditors report has a long list of disclaimers.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Cannot bury Fukushima like they did in Chernobyl because Fukushima is too close to the ocean water. If they bury it with cement, the radiation will continue to melt right into the Pacific Ocean! Chernobyl was surrounded by land so it was possible to have no radiation leakage under the ground and cement. Fukushima will never be controlled, how sad for Japan.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Although the government purports that this is a containment and remediation process, it is clear that is it a cover-up still yet.

Now more than two and a half years since the man-made (TEPCO) catastrophy occured, the result of non-truth-telling, obfuscation, and inaction, the situation has spiraled out of control beyond anyone's imagination, and perhaps beyond the possibility of containment.

Abe is quoted as saying that he "ordered the scrapping of two Fukushima nuclear reactors",

Meanwhile: "TEPCO President Naomi Hirose promised that the company will make a decision on the decommissioning of the two reactors within the year". That statement is not saying the reactors will be scrapped. It clearly states that it is TEPCO who will make the decision whether to do so, or not.

Abe will be long gone before Fukushima is fixed. He will be remembered by his party for faithfully towing the company line. He will be hailed by Japanese Big Energy and big business who are all invested into TEPCO. But, Abe will not suffer as the ruined and displaced of Tohoku have. He will not endure the same fate as the generations that inherit these problems. He will just be another name in the long list of Japanese Yes-Men prime ministers. He'll retire comfortably, somewhere far from Fukushima.

Isn't anyone paying attention to all this double-talk?

4 ( +4 / -0 )

52atomsrgodSep. 19, 2013 - 08:09PM JST

Fukushima will never be controlled, how sad for Japan.

The government plan to contain the contaminated underground water is to make a wall of frozen soil surrounding the site. It may work.

By the way, do you know what the experts of US NRC advised for Japan? They advised to pump out the ground water before it touches the highly contaminated water beneath the plants. http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/japan-balked-at-steps-to-control-fukushima-water-in-2011-memo-shows

TEPCO did as advised only to find pumping just draws the highly contaminated water to the well and stuck with more contaminated water.

-4 ( +1 / -5 )

Yeah CH3CHO, the only reason there is contaminated water laying around in pools is because of the crappy cheap tanks they are using to contain it. There should be no contaminated water outside the tanks. TEPCO is not cleaning up this disaster. They are making it worse!

1 ( +4 / -3 )

Are you telling me after over 2 years, and after all that's been going on, they were still planning to use them? LOL....

just speechless...

2 ( +5 / -3 )

Disillusioned, you forgot the deadly contaminated water around the melted down core somewhere under the plant.

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

“I will work hard to counter rumors questioning the safety of the Fukushima plant,” he said.

Rumours?

Meltdown: rumours? Melt-through: rumours? Ground water contamination: rumours? Diverted money from cleaning: rumours? Faulted dosimeters: rumours? Yakusa's lead in nuke meat supply: rumours? Massive "tainted" water leak from day one: rumours? TEPCO and J-Gov incompetency: rumours? Discarded advices to address ground water flow: rumours? False promises refugees can go back home: rumours? Unfair compensations to the nuke victims: rumours?

Everything under control: NOT even a rumour!

7 ( +7 / -0 )

Considering what has already happened there, the decommissioning of these two reactors should have happened a long time ago, since that area is now basically off-limits to humans anyway for at least 30 years. This is an irrelevant token gesture from Abe. The fact that TEPCO have only been told now, 2 years after the worst nuclear disaster in a quarter century, to prepare a time-frame shows just how little resolve this government and TEPCO have for actually solving the problem and letting go of nuclear power. This gesture is meaningless until actual action is taken.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

The fact that TEPCO have only been told now, 2 years after the worst nuclear disaster in a quarter century, to prepare a time-frame shows just how little resolve this government and TEPCO have for actually solving the problem and letting go of nuclear power. This gesture is meaningless until actual action is taken.

@Magnet... what action would that be?

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Yeah, he'll work hard to quell the rumors alright. It's all under control, isn't it Abe-San? You should be a farmer Abe cos you can spread BS very thickly far and wide! Should we also mention media censorship at a governmental level Abe-San? Should we mention that any employee that spoke negatively about the disastrous clean up operation is now unemployed? But, I believe you Abe-San. I believe you are a two-faced liar!

5 ( +6 / -1 )

"TEPCO President Naomi Hirose promised that the company will make a decision on the decommissioning of the two reactors within the year, Abe said."

Why is this even a decision? Know, we all know TEPCO is trying to get back into the black while demanding bailouts and refusing compensation, but there is no way in hell the two reactors should be anything but scrapped. What do they expect to do, repair and restart them?? Good on Abe for saying they should be scrapped, and it's nice to see the international pressure is having a bit of an effect, but my guess is this is the usual lip-service and he'll "leave it in the hands of the operator as to what to do".

Next, please scrap TEPCO.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Abe is getting aggressive again against the so-called rumours after a relatively quiet period. Most likely a post victory blues, while realizing that all the lies he told made the job to get the OGs, while the situation is tragic.

Get ready for soon coming very bad official news about Fukushima.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

I am not taking a stance either-way on this, and I am not proclaiming my beliefs about it. However...I have often read (particularly recently) factual documentgs about Japan's LDP Party historically knowing about, and consenting by written Agreement to, the US Military storing nuclear bombs in various locations around Japan, Okinawa, and outer islands. Further, I have read that Japanese and American governments colluded to transport and store nuclear matter and wastes at Fukushima for decades. I have read documents that indicate Japanese companies have been hired by the governments of Japan and USA to manufacture nuclear weapons parts and components at their factories in mainland Japan. I have read that Japanese government officials admitted to having so much nuclear fissile matter that they could easily create up to 3000 nuclear warheads within 24-hours of an emergency-need occuring. I have read that Japan's space program (JAXA, JRANSA, etc.) is really just a cover for their testing of Rocket technologies for lofting these warheads into international airspaces. Further, I have recently read that not only has Japan continued forward with their Nuclear Weapons Programs at break-neck speed, that it has produced so much weapons-grade Plutonium at Fukushima (combined home-grown and USA-provided) that when the Tsunami hit, this is the reason that there is so much devastation at Daiichi...and the reason that Japan's government refuses to allow any significant foreign corporate involvement in the Fukushima environmental remediation efforts. Of course Japan's government has consistently denied all of these facts for decades (since Nixon and PM-Sato Eisaku first signed the Agreement which traded the Okinawan land back to the Japanese in exchange for future rights to continue storing nuclear armaments in Japan) because it flies in the face of Japan's Constitution. My questions are...do any of the Japanese people care? Do Japanese people ever read these news and comments, or is only the Ex-Pats in Japan and those foreigners that have ties to Japan that read it? Do Japanese people ever investigate this info through Internet Google Searches (e.g. Okinawa nuclear bomb), and then question their government on it? Do the Japanese people really want to remain a nuclear-free country, or is it all just a convenient ruse? What are your thoughts?

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

Well, incredible. TEPCO has been allowed to claim for 2.5 years that reactors surrounded by staggering levels of radiation are an asset on their balance sheets. No wonder the crime rate in Japan is so low; almost nothing appears to be illegal here.

3 ( +6 / -3 )

It is nothing compared to us military expenses.

-4 ( +0 / -4 )

Now, which is it?

"Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ordered the scrapping ..."

OR

"I have directed them ....."

BIG DIFFERENCE.

And also:

"TEPCO President Naomi Hirose promised that the company will make a decision on the decommissioning of the two reactors within the year,.."

Looks like the tail is wagging the dog.

Stop. Forgot. We are talking about the scum that run tepco.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ordered the scrapping of two Fukushima nuclear reactors that survived the 2011 tsunami

In order for them to concentrate on this, I have directed them to decommission the No. 5 and No. 6 reactors that are now halted, Abe said.

and then this:

TEPCO President Naomi Hirose promised that the company will make a decision on the decommissioning of the two reactors within the year, .

So they are going to decide to decommission or not OR they have agreed to decomission and are figuring out when to implement it?

Both interpretations are "out there", to say the least.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

well, the PM has already been the salesman for nuclear technology, then he became a team member for the Olympic bid leaving the G20 summit while it was still on, lastly he became a nuclear adviser. can be good for him as he is the boss on everything.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Must be almost time for Mr Abe to visit Stephen in Canada and Barack in the States, to seek supreme guidance.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

interesting- i read comments on how no one in central government does anything, i read how the PM is not interested and i read comments against Fukishima daily. yet the PM comes in and makes the call - a decisive one - and gets bashed.

after all the caterwalling against nuclear energy and he is telling tepco to scrap two good reactors- and instead you are complaining again.

and if he said - start them up- then you would complain

as for the decomissioning process- it is not easy and not something you do in a week or two - but this does point to more days without air conditioning and heat .....

-8 ( +1 / -9 )

@ kuuku.

Yep, all this experience will look good on his resume.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

praack: No offence, but have you just landed on planet Japan?

The two Daichi reactors you are quoting as good are located in one of the most dangerous place on planet earth with 3 corium having a trip somewhere in the NPP basements. The cooling system is out of order and they will try to empty the SFP #4 as of November.

PM has not made any decisive call, there is nothing else to do. Thus just a gesture to give the impression of controlling the site. Seems it works...!

Actually, it looks like you are confused between rector #5 & 6 and the emptying of the SFP #4.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Abe orders 2 Fukushima reactors scrapped; pledges safe Olympics

It should read as pledges safe Japan.

I guess this article suggests that Japan was hoping to reuse Fukushima Daiichi. I am just SPEECHLESS. What a moron country.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

Pledge....yep that will do it? He is my hero.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

decommissioning those 2 were a given, another tsunami that is much smaller in size could wipe them out. I'm more interested in what are they going to do with Fukushima Daini?

4 ( +4 / -0 )

It’s natural to complain when these fiascos just keep happening and no one takes responsibility. From the contradictory remarks between Abe and Tepco, in a couple of years what we can count on is a restart of the plants. And, by that time we can add another unique feature of the J people which is they all can glow in the dark.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Just been rattled by a biggie centered on Fukushima.

We're right behind you, Supreme Advisor... (gulp)

1 ( +2 / -1 )

All in all it's just another brick in the wall.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

What a laugh! They were totally unrepairable anyway. So, what else does one do with things that are not repairable? Scrap them of course. Some what is all this big deal about ' ordering ' them to be scrapped?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Abe is promoted Canada to sell oil to Japan. Also, Iranian oil will be imported to Japan. Remind you, U?SA does tno have any say in Iran, Looks like he will change Japanese energy need from Nuclear Energy to Oil energy. Many people here do not want Abe's plan to scrap TEPCO believing Abe lieing. But when I learned about his Canada trip and US acceptance of Japan to import oil from Iran, I kind of believe Abe planning to h get rid of nuclear energy business. Energy supply companies can change their business with oil? There is no Solar Energy plan in Japan?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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