Thousands Rally In Japan Against Nuclear Power

Source: AFP (via Common Dreams)



Read more: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/05/07-2

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DeSwiss



"We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a
community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect." ~Aldo Leopold

I want to discuss your signature line. I totally agree that we want a democracy or better yet our constitutionally controlled democratic republic. However, I am not certain what kind of economic system. Seems like a combination of regulated capitalism and socialism would work best.

We began the nuclear age by destroying Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- must have been

quite some salesman who talked them into this -- !!

PLUS, as has been made clear, the nuclear reactors at Fukushima were built to

withstand earthquakes in the range of 7.0 -- and they have known for a long while

that the seismic activity is increasing signaling stronger earthquakes.

That's why they had been talking about shutting down the Fukushima reactors!

And, some political action seems to have kept them open -- sadly -- because along

came this 9.0 -- or was it a bit more? At any rate it knocked the planet off its

axis by a few inches!! Among other problems --

Don't think people should have to risk death -- or polluting the rest of the planet --

in order to have energy. They have sunshine in Japan -- that should work.

And, trust someone is working on ways to increase solar energy --

Nuclear reactors aren't anything to play games with --

The last explosion at one of the Fukushima plants caused at least one of the storage

rods to be blown out -- it was found some distance away.

Heaven only knows what's really going on there -- and huge amounts of radiated water

is being dumped into Pacific!!

Ugh! :)

...and let them eat cake if they have no bread!

And even today, it started out sunny here in eastern Japan, but now it's cloudy.

...but not now. Oil, fossil fuels and radioactive elements being used to produce electricity from steam is old school. And these sources will be the death of the planet if we keep onto our present course. However, Japan has plenty of geothermal energy as it sits atop four tectonic plates that produces more steam and heat than they need (as their series of regularly erupting volcanoes will attest). Likewise, as an island, it is surrounded by one of the greatest sources of free energy (aside from the sun) that we have access to -- the ocean. Wave and tidal energy is not only available but more than adequate. It is estimated that the oceans alone http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcStpg3i5V8">could provide 40% of all the world's energy needs. And http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/technology_and_impacts/energy_technologies/how-geothermal-energy-works.html">geothermal (which ironically the highest percentage of global access points lie within the borders of the U.S.), can provide for the entire world's needs, provided we could workout a system for such an energy-sharing a grid. But then that's the problem. We don't like to share on this planet. The cancer of capitalism precludes using common sense.

So the reason why these sources aren't being considered? Because they're free and can't be owned or controlled.

- And. That's. The. Only. Reason.

is here today and yesterday. The others you mentioned are still a long way off from helping Japan feed it's energy needs. Again I am not trying to sell nuclear power, quite the contrary. And I agree that corporate control have a lot to do with the decisions of governments.

In 2008, nuclear power provided 11% of Japan's energy demand. Oil provided a whopping 48%.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/Japan/pdf.pdf

The problem with oil, among other things, is that now Japan has to compete with China and India for some of its oil supplies. So Japan is stuck with the nuclear option for now.

It is interesting that, even with the 6 Dai-ichi reactors completely shut down, as well as the nuclear facilities as Dai-ni, Tokai Mura, and elsewhere in the TEPCO service area, TEPCO (known locally as Tokyo Denryoku) has been able to make up most of the slack without too many disruptions (although there have been some). A lot of this, I think, has been the result of conservation efforts by stores, offices, nighttime businesses, and average citizens, but I imagine that they're also stepping up power production at some thermal plants. It will be interesting (?) to see what happens this summer, with predictions calling for increased demand that cannot be met at the present time (fortunately, the really unbearable part of the Japanese summer in Tokyo, Osaka, etc., usually only lasts for a month to a month-and-a-half).

It is also interesting to read about progress that Japanese and other researchers are making in generating electricity from sea waves and wind using dielectric polymers:
http://books.google.co.jp/books?id=jG-oa6p2qR8C&pg=PA155&lpg=PA155&dq=dielectric+elastomer+wave+generation+Chiba&source=bl&ots=KpepdvF3xT&sig=X7lfX0PNHyVrlEmlvBf-OrUdBnU&hl=ja&ei=llDGTei7AY2EvgPG25iuAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=dielectric%20elastomer%20wave%20generation%20Chiba&f=false

to exploit. Many dont understand that other countries have very limited energy resources. This was very instrumental in the lead up to WW II esp in Germany and Japan. Peoples get desperate when the feel they are being isolated from resources they need for their survival.

...Hey, let me have some of that "free" stuff you are smoking.

Sunshine is free. Go on out and fill your tank with it. In fact, fill the tank of the trucks that bring your food to the store you shop at, and fill the tanks of pumps that pump clean water to your home as well. What is that you say? Can't do it? Too bad. Go back to the 19th century.

Nothing is free. If tidal power was cheap we would be awash in it. In fact, to make it a go it take huge concentrations of capital (equipment, etc. - that someone owns and controls) and political power to produce the uneconomical subsidies required if tidal power is to be "profitable" (crony capitalism).

The cancer of sloppy thinking precludes using common sense.

uninhabitable.

Also in Ohio -- they put two nuclear rectors on Lake Erie -- a source of

drinking water!

Most of the plants in the US are aging and should be closed.

Just as these Fukushima plants should have been closed --- evidently there

was a political turn around on that somewhere along the line -- but that was

the plan. The Fukushima reactors -- and presume all of the Japanese reactors

have been built to withstand 7.0 earthquake while their scientists are telling

them that there is increasing seismic activity which will bring larger earthquakes.

This last one was 9.0!! Shifted our planet off its axis by a few inches!!

More than 350 aftershocks that I'm aware of and many of them still in high numbers.


Global Warming especially makes nuclear reactors an obsolete idea --

Looks like they pushed this idea to make nuclear power seem less dangerous tossing

people off the idea to "Ban the Bomb!" which should have happened.


We're also going to be impacted in various ways from this disaster -- pollution of

the Pacific - animal life -- radiation, of course -- we're all "Downwinders!" --



:)

That statement is completely the reverse of true.

...Got Coal?

They're simply not needed.

...we have plenty of coal we can mine and burn.

:thumbsup: protestors

but they only use a picture of a girl's head (which could have been taken anywhere) in the article?

They really should have used a better picture of the event.

Here's a YouTube video that better captures the spirit of the moment at Shibuya:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7239GtKpdY

lots of people. Liked the guy with the cabbage & onions on his head...

I wonder if the demonstration got very much press in Japan. Do govt and industry pay any attention? -- unlike here where there's no news coverage and nobody cares...

(one of Japan's Big Three national newspapers):

http://www.asahi.com/special/10005/TKY201105070547.html

Asahi cites organizers' estimate of 15,000 people in attendance.

As to whether or not government will pay attention, the event was held on a weekend, in an area frequented more by young people than by government officials, so it's hard to say.

include:
Gempatsu yamete-- Stop nuclear power
Inochi wo mamorou-- Let's protect life
Gempatsu iranai-- We don't need nuclear power

OK I will remember that one...;thumbsup:

I assume it's pronounced "ya/me/te"

Some people are also saying "yamero" (yah-may-ROH) which is even stronger than "yamete" in meaning

Gem-PAH-tsu (with the "g" pronounced like the "g" in girl) yah-may-ROH

...keep us posted

is an organic farmer who has been involved in the anti-nuclear movement since he was in college 30 years ago.