Accident

[Brian Ellis]

I am furious with the media.

In Japan, a steam escape from a turbine in a power station caused the death of some workers, an unfortunate accident, but one that has happened many times in many countries. Normally, this would not be international news and even in national newspapers, it would be a small paragraph on p. 3.

THis one made international news (I saw reports on two European TV news channels, including headlines in one). Why? Because the gasket blowing happened to occur in a nuclear power station. Yet the same thing has happened in gas-fired, coal-fired and oil-fired power stations and probably in wood-fired and geothermal ones, as well.

It is totally irresponsible of the media to make it headline news, just because the steam was generated in a secondary circuit connected to a nuclear reactor, as if the latter were the cause.

Can something be done to put the media's church back into the middle of the village?

[TransformX]

Here it was on the news sideline saying that 7 workers died from a steam leak and that no radioactive radiation leakage or danger of such radiation was found.

[schmosef]

I saw it on CNN this morning. They framed it as part of a growing concern for Japan's aging Nuclear power plants. They said that the pipe that burst hadn't been inspected since the 90s and that there might be some issues of negligence involved.

[Sasq]

Havent seen the news today.
Yes as Schmo said, anything Nuclear Power related is big news here.
All of the Reactors (bar 1 i think) in the Kanto region were shut down last year due to leaks, fraudulent inspection records, faults and untrained employees.

If someone sneezes in a N. Power station here at the moment it makes it to page three.

Pretty much were all sitting around waiting for another Chernobyl

[MultimediaMan]

This was an industrial accident, nothing more.

Yes, the media over there and here is sensitive to this sort of thing mainly because they haven't a clue on how a Reactor works.

Let them report this in the dark and see how things fare.

[VJ]

Originally posted by TransformX
Here it was on the news sideline saying that 7 workers died from a steam leak and that no radioactive radiation leakage or danger of such radiation was found.

Same here... (on different stations)

Jörg

[The PIT]

As Sasq says it's big news in Japan as theres growing movement to move away from Nuclear power.

One or two reports say such mistakes/accidents are not too uncommon due short cuts insafety with is an series issue when dealing with Nuclear power.

[schmosef]

Hey, have you guys seen the China Syndrome? A good movie that could have been great with better pacing/editing.

[UtwigMU]

There were short reports here as well.

Besides they also reported that in Japan they are organizing referendums in various cities to prevent further building of nuclear plants.


My thought:
Since Japan has traditionally been dependant on raw material and energy imports, there are few alternatives to nuclear power.