What the Fuku?

I see the bureaucrats presiding over the grim aftermath of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan have started openly dumping radioactive water into the ocean. There's quite an outcry, and rightly so, about what that will do to the environment. Tokyo Electric and the government are pooh-poohing the danger, but they've been nothing but a pack of lying scoundrels since the earthquake hit.

I've got to say, the new stuff going into the sea now is nothing compared to what's been going in all along. You don't have a triple meltdown in a nuclear power complex right next to the ocean without continuous seepage of nasty, nasty radioactive material into the water. The meltdowns destroyed the concrete pads under the plants. it's a straight shot from there to the ocean for the melted-down fuel, transported by the constant shower of cooling water.

Don't let all the hand-wringing about the tritium in the water from the tanks distract you from the immense amount of much more toxic, much longer-lived radionuclides that have been released over a dozen years, and are still being released to this day. Yes, it gets diluted, but if you're unlucky enough to ingest just a tiny bit, it may kill you. And the salmon we catch and eat around here have been swimming most of the way over to there.

"Safe, clean, cheap atomic energy" has turned out to been nothing of the sort. Kids, remember that as it makes its inevitable comeback in the world of the changed climate.