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giving us the rest of it is a new conservative ministration isn't power in
japan
and they're promising to reverse the previous administrations plans to
completely phase-out nuclear power
but twenty forty
the new government led by sheen's oh i'll bet is also promising to restart
nuclear reactors in this country
as long as they are confirm safe
spent less than two years the petition the disaster triggered nuclear meltdown
and left hundreds of thousands of japanese homeless and unknown number
poisoned by radiation
and in the coming months consequences of this disaster will be felt here in the
united states as millions of tons a tsunami debris some of which could be
react radioactive are expected to wash up
on our west coast
so should we be concerned
but the new job government of japan isn't taking the risks of nuclear power
seriously
giving camps joins me now he's the radioactive waste watchdog at the on
nuclear kevin welcome back
uh... so
this new government in japan
i don't
under said this is sort of half the nuclear question half a political
question i'm guessing you've been following this
i haven't been i don't understand how
newly elected government japan
tears after focus you know with the focus she was still
and i want to get to that too still
intolerant and so the record
could say it our we're not going to cancel randomly and what's what's what
is going on
well i think do you know there's major issues playing that
uh... triple disaster of earthquake tsunami and meltdowns
left japan in an economic freefall
for one thing
and so economic concerns may explain i mean it is a blow
that there's some you've got a menace coming and has approach clear history
remember the liberal liberal democratic party of japan rule from the end of
world war two
until a few years ago
and the democratic party of japan
ruled for a few years there
so here they're back the liberal democrat craddock party of japan making
promises that they can turn the economy around make everything better
but apart of their packages they are very pro nuclear uh... and like you said
in the intro
the previous parliament of japan did a major report many hundreds of pages long
that found that the actual cause of the nuclear
catastrophe was the collusion between the government
the regulator
and the industry
so they seem to at least at first blush be throwing all of that car
learned a lesson out the door
embarrassing to restart the reactors this is the liberal democratic party is
the word liberal as in the european meaning
more alike
milton friedman kind of
libertarian liberal was over there there is is actually what we would call the
republican party they're politically conservative economically conservative
hands when it comes to nuclear powered they are the ones who sat that's
collusion in place
beginning in the nineteen sixties and so it's a disputed territory
they're doing this because it involves taking money from the nuclear industry
were switched echo l
how tokyo electric power company
by a few months after the catastrophe began and marks of twenty eleven was on
the brink of bankruptcy
so japanese government had to step in and take it over for the most part
so incredibly tough guy was still in charge of the fukushima date she site
in charge of trying to keep the melted down course cool
worse doesn't happen trying to keep the pools from
collapsing and catching on fire and what's the status quo
well unit four still great concern because it's a building that is greatly
compromised at structural integrity and the worry is that a big enough
earthquake it simply topple the building
and wants the cooling waters lost from the pool
imac collapsed and this is the building with the waste in the ceiling
the wrote yeah stellar building all of the reactors have the same setup and
there's waste in all of these calls nothing like what we have in the united
states are pools are cramped much
more falls on the ones in japan but there's enough
in the uniform pool for example back
what's happened already
would be one twentieth of what that pork a disgorge unifier
and
what about this
nuclear waste that's heading for the united states we've
she's almost a year ago it seems you are on talents about nuclear waste was
getting the west coast it has dates
is this uh... second wave is a uh... what's what's going on
it'll be continual for a long time in the future
there's the surface uh... flotsam ends up some the floating materials
which side here at the mainstream media the past couple days there's this side
discounting that
all it's not radioactive there's no way to know that they could well be
radioactive another
piece of news that just broke today is that the crew members on the u_s_s_
ronald reagan
which was on the east coast of japan taking part in the rescue and recovery
after birth quicken tsunami eight of those crew members out of the five
thousand five hundred on
the aircraft carrier have sued
tokyo electric and the japanese government for the false information
that they were operating under in those first critical days of
that the disaster
because they were exposed on the back of that aircraft carrier to the radiation
coming off of japan
this was the shining radiation as opposed to the particularly those was
particulates this was gases uh... especially the radioactive iodine how
one thirty one was coming out in huge quantities at that point but the
japanese federal government
at the time was denying that they're gonna knock down so let's talk a lot
correct
they could have known within the first hours because they're a telltale signs
there radial isotopes that can only com
from the heart of a helicopter u_s_ aircraft carrier
now i have radiation detectors on board in this day of dirty bombs in
and and stand
in a small nukes that's a very good question i think they do and in fact the
japanese government asked the u_s_ government and military coming in
pretty much immediately
with their state of the art radiation detectors which are airborne
they're really designed to give tax
atmosphere bomb blasts so they can smith down to just blew up a nuclear bomb
and who who's responsible and what's going on how to find out what the
careers of two that's really directly
and those were deployed in japan and there was real time transmission and
that they get back to deal with headquarters here in d_c_
but we were any of its own telling us and they were telling the soldier the
sailors on board this ship
there was direct communication between the governments of the u_s_ and japan
and sulfur
you know experts to say that the flotsam in jobs and getting the last costa
north america is not radioactive there's no radiation monitoring going on
connections lost now
odd not all there are
create for chrissy mark
updates that are done once a month there once a season on various things like
milk supply the water supply
their we're refining
there still
the the worst of the emissions from focusing date you were in the first
weeks and months
but there are
continual problems they're their breakdowns in the cooling system so
there are still a missions there just nothing like
it's is for example fish the people on the west coast reading
contaminated with cesium and some of the other in season as a half-life of thirty
four thirty eight years did does not the two different
that's about thirty years so hazardous persistence of at least three hundred
years about six hundred years so that which got out which was massive
is in the food supply
and in fact because of bio cannulation that's gonna build up
as big fish eat little fish
were at the top
the food chain so we're gonna get the worst of that potentially and because of
the lack of monitoring or adequate monitoring
we don't really know what's going on
and real quickly we have
we have some some civilian monitor and only as a
network of people of the learning anything
there are people across the country in various places were trying to keep
tabs on paying but of course there's no funding these are non-profit
efforts uh... the federal government the united states has really been derelict
and its duty to protect our health
curling camps thank you so much for being with
keep up the good work again