On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 10:03 PM, Jarold McWilliams <oldja...@hotmail.com>wrote:
> Where do you keep getting this $600 billion dollar number? > The Japanese mass media, NHK, and The Japan Center for Economic Research. See: http://www.jcer.or.jp/eng/research/pdf/pe(iwata20110425)e.pdf This shows 20 trillion yen for the cleanup ($243 billion). Since this was written in April 2011, the estimated costs have climbed considerably, and far more land had to be abandoned. I estimated the cost to individuals in an earlier message. That is on the order of $250 billion. Based on Japanese history I doubt the government or the power company will pay anything to this group. They have offered families $12,000 each. Their strategy is clear: they will hire an army of lawyers and delay and stonewall until the people die. This is how Japanese industry dealt with previous cases of pollution at Minamata and similar cases, such as ex-U.S. POWs who demanded payment for slave labor during the war. > Most of the sources I've seen say it's around $50 billion. > It has cost more than that already, and they have hardly begun. The cleanup may not cost as much as anticipated because they are already saying it is impossible, and the only alternative is to abandon the towns and cities for 50 years or longer. In other words, there is no way to clean it up at any cost. > And Tepco is the 4th largest electric utility in the world, not the 1st. > I stand corrected. > Adding Chernobyl to nuclear's safety record is unfair. > No one would compare the two. I merely mentioned that Chernobyl reportedly dumped more radioactive garbage into the air and soil than all coal fired plants in history. I am pretty sure Fukushima did as well, since thousands of square miles are now at levels ~100 times background. > Solar costs about a $1/kwh without subsidies. > What does nuclear power now cost, taking into account the cost of Fukushima? In this report, Greenpeace uses mainstream, official sources such as the Japanese government and The Japan Center for Economic Research. Their numbers are as reliable as any. All official sources reportedly underestimate the likely cost by a wide margin. - Jed
