Ellis Henican Column, Newsday, March 13, 2011
The damage that could be seen was bad enough.
The many crumbling buildings, the massive walls of water, the terrible loss of life.
But the real doomsday scenario in the Japanese earthquake, the spectre of an unthinkable catastrophe, was largely invisible: The threat to Japan’s network of nuclear power plants.
A fire broke out at the Onagawa plant 45 miles north of Sengai. And a hydrogen explosion badly damaged the Fukushima Daichi nuclear facility outside Tokyo, sparking fears of a disastrous meltdown. No one could say for certain how much radiation was released.
But when power went out at the Diachi 1 reactor, the cooling system failed overheating the reactor fuel which contains most of the radioactivity in the plant. The concrete structure surrounding the reactor was destroyed – though not the critical steel container inside. As panic spread, officials ordered the evacuation of tens of thousands of people in a 12-mile radius.
And the U.S. nuclear-power industry immediately gasped.
After Three Mile and Chernobyl, the U.S. nuclear industry all but went to sleep for three decades. Most older plants kept operating, but no-nuke politics around Shoreham and elsewhere and utility investment decisions essentially ended talk of new plants. Lately, that has changed.
Foreign oil, fears of international terror, the BP oil spill, uproar in the Middle East — they’ve all been nudging nuclear power back into the energy conversation.
Until the earthquake in Japan.
Is nuclear safe? Should it replace oil and coal? What happens in a serious natural disaster?
As the earthquake clean-up in Japan begin, those issues are about to shake America again.
WHY STOP WITH DAYLIGHT SAVING?
1. Add 1,000 points to the Dow.
2. Knock 25 pounds off the scale.
3. Cut that pesky mortgage in half.
4. Give every high-school senior an extra 100 SAT points.
5. Reduce that Japanese earthquake to Richter 0.0.
ASKED AND UNANSWERED:
Predictable Headlines of the Week? Can anything top “Peter King’s Speech”?…Feeling safer yet?…How did sixth-grade spelling ace Naman Shakrani grow into such an amazing letter man? Was having a not-so-easy-to-spell first-and-last name any help at all?…Ronnie’s Hardware is closing in Franklin Square after 63 years? Would that have happened if more people drove past the Home Depot and actually bought something at Ronnie’s?…Those prayers for the ailing Yogi must have worked, huh? It ain’t over yet…How do Eric Mendelsohn’s former neighbors in Old Bethpage feel about his front-back theory of suburbia? To the “3 Backyards” director, front lawns are public faces, while backyards are a Freudian sketch of our twisted unconscious…Stupid publicity stunt or legitimate rider gripe? Kimon Stathakos’s suit against the LIRR over four snow-day disruptions this winter…Is smoking in a car with kids just another form of child abuse? Nassau legislators Judy Jacobs and Judi Bosworth believe so…If Land’s End is a tear-down, is any Gold Coast mansion safe?…In Huntington, the Town Board now says, sure, bulldoze the old Hotel Huntington for a drive-thru TD Bank? Do preservationists have any power at all?…Now that their names are in the paper, who should alleged pot-dealer robbers Tal Grinbaum, Ori Matalon and Jacy Baron have to fear more – Nassau prosecutors or Roslyn Heights marijuana entrepreneurs?
LONG ISLANDER OF THE WEEK
SAMANTHA KJAERBYE
It’s an iron rule of Long Island journalism: Wherever news breaks out in the world, someone from Long Island will be there. Fire, flood, war, pestilence – or cute little kitten stuck in a tree: Our people travel. There’s a local angle every time. So of course, when a terrible earthquake struck Japan on Friday, the shaking hadn’t even stopped when Rocky Point native Samantha Kjaerbye, 32, was hitting “send” on an email to Newsday. “We all crouched on the floor and prayed,” she wrote. “Streets are packed . . . Phone isn’t working, email is OK.” Thanks, Samantha, for helping to tell the story. Amid all the sadness, we’re glad you’re okay.
E-mail ellis@henican.com.
Follow him at twitter.com/henican