The most disturbing sentence in the Oct. 16 Jiji article “Tepco’s toxic water failures pitiful [according to the Nuclear Regulation Authority]” is the last one: “Meanwhile, no community has volunteered to host the ‘final’ storage site.”
What mayor in his right mind would want his city to host a nuclear waste storage facility, one that will remain toxic for “tens of thousands of years”? Five thousand years from now, future archaeologists will be wearing sophisticated biochemical hazard suits whenever they venture out on a dig, thanks to the folly of 20th-century “atomic age man.” Why couldn’t mankind have waited until science developed the far safer nuclear fusion process before venturing into mass production of atomic energy?
The great pyramids of Egypt are only about 4,000 years old. Tokyo Electric Power Co. has proved to be the nuclear age’s “Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” but there’s nothing Mickey Mouse about radioactive contamination inundating the seas around Fukushima. Time for the Sorcerer to reappear and save the day.
The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer’s own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.
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