Especially when you use MOX in a reactor, which is much more dangerous than regular nuclear fuel, because it has a fusion temperature much lower (hence the interest in nuclear process) than regular nuclear fuel and because its radioactivity is thousand times more dangerous.

And that's exactly what they're using in the 3rd reactor at Fukushima, the one which they now believe is slightly cracked open, thus the accident with the workers. And guess who is making MOX ? France's own AREVA comapny. Yay my country, way to go... -_-

So Tepco have announced that the 4 damaged reactors will be decomisioned asap.... you flooder them with seawater it will have corroded most of the bits. Theyre fooked, it would be easyier to build a new plant

any news about what will happen next? Will the area follow Chernobyl? Or radiation was not that bad to permanently seal off the area around the power plant?

Bit off-topic - but on solar for energy use; yeah that's not necessarily widely useful. Using solar energy to heat water though works very well in much more varied climates / conditions. [IF building standards also have proper insulation.] The system my parents have operates in one of the colder areas of Germany and it generates enough heat to be workable even in cloudy conditions. Their gas usage dropped by around 90% on a yearly average - the gas boiler is only used as a backup if necessary. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_water_heating

Won't circumvent the problem how to generate electricity, but I'd guess the other renewables are more likely to be more widely useful than photovoltaic for that, anyway.

Nobody knows yet. It depends on multiple factors, such as how fast the teams will be able to stabilize then control the faulty reactors. Anybody telling you what will happen next is as reliable as a fortune teller.

Which translates to a full life of 56 days.

Am I the only one now getting really annoyed with these "commiseration" adverts companies are putting out while also proclaiming they are doing what they can to quickly get things back to normal? It just seems so hypocritically when most such companies are now withholding products from the market -- that doesn't seem like they want things to quickly get back to normal to me.

I think the final straw was the McDonald's commiseration advert. I wonder if they're donating free food to all those now homeless and living in schools,etc.? Maybe I'm just a cynical old bastard, but this is really getting on my nerves now.

Oh and apparently moron Ishihara is now trying to get Hanami canceled, saying this isn't a time to be happy. Oh please. The sooner that geriatric is ousted the better.

They are trying to profit on the tragedy. The adverts are meant to say: "we are good guys we are helping. Please don't forget next time you are hungry okay?"

That's not really a bad thing. People do get help as both water and food is scarce and mcdonalds has access to massive quantities of long-life food so they should be a quite big contributor.
So even if McD does benefit from those ads in long run it really doesn't matter to people who are in need. and that's the only thing which really matters.

Also withholding products from the market is quite understandable idea. They do want things to go back to normal but everyone has limited number of goods which they can sell, donate and most important: Deliver. Northern ports are destroyed so whatever they were accepting and sending has to be picked up by other ports. Trucks, vans everything is being send up north where hundreds of thousands of people are in dire need of products. There is also shortage of fuel which will make deliveries to markets expensive preventing it from happening until situation stabilizes.
Nothing to complain about supermarkets being empty

Do agree you about Hanami. It is actually a perfect time to be happy. To take your mind out of the tragedy, to relax and gain energy to fight for another day.

From my understanding Tepco is going to ne nationalised

That only makes sense if the products need to be delivered. The problem is, most that are being canceled/held back, (in the case of domestic products) were already in stores -- they actually wasted gasoline sending the things back to distributors who then wasted more gasoline sending them back to the manufacturer. Sorry, but that makes fuck all sense.

And what of the digitally distributed items that are now canceled/held back, how the fuck is that helping?

As for the fuel shortage, remember it's only parts of the north that are effected -- and less and less so each day. There are plenty of distributors in the rest of the country who are fully capable of still carrying on business as normal.

Most other companies too, with branches in non-affected areas, have simply been delivering Jerry cans of gasoline up with their normal deliveries, to fill up company vehicles in areas such as ours.

Even the power grid problems only truly effect 7 prefectures and partially effect 2 others. And if the last week is an indication of anything, thanks to improving weather, black outs have all but ceased (at least until summer).

I know that the foreign press have had a field day making it sound like the whole country now looks like a scene from 2012, but that's simply not true.

I wish they listened to you and said true things, but we both know a tragedy is much more "selling" than a accurate news...

Oh, by the way, am I the only one starting to get sick about NHK's national news dealing with only two things: the Fukushima plant and the refugees? I mean, come on, yeah, those two topics are important enough to deserve a large part of the news, but nothing else happens in the country? There is no bird flu anymore? The volcano in Kyushu has decided to stop?

Sometimes, it's like I should feel sorry to be in Osaka and to continue to live...

And that is why I don't watch Japanese news programs when I can avoid it. They are so narrow-minded in their coverage of news items (and selection of news to cover) even at the best of times. They simply aren't worth the air time.

That sure is the feeling they giving out isn't it? Ugh. The second I have the money for a plane ticket, I'm outta here for a few weeks -- this is just driving me insane now.

It'll be Golden Week soon, what's the betting the government are doing their best to cancel that again (not that I can remember the last time I didn't have a ton of work dumped on me that needed to be done throughout that holiday).

yes the overall situation is pretty frustrating and and nerve grinding.
The Fukushima topic will stay for us for a while.

And "Golden week" is often mostly busy time for freelancers, since customers shove in their work and expect it to be finished when they return from holiday.

Night Life in Tokyo has gone back to pretty normal. People who want to party do it.
But casual afterwork drinkers now go back home directly after work.
In the mean time "saving energy" has become some kind of sport here.
Shinjuku etc is only dimly lit but people like it.
There is a website where you can monitor the power-demand level, but I don´t have the link right now.

You people in Japan really do not need to cancel your festivities. Apart from the human losses the rebuilding of infrastructure and economy will need a lot of effort in the next time anyway. So money for spending will be short anyway. Any extra happiness should be welcome.

Anyway, a question about the general mood: Do you still trust your goverment that it has done things right in the last time? Is there a general pessimism or rather optimistic kind of we will help ourselves out of it and eventually we will succeed or is it more like indifference (like is fate and you just have to continue and wait what will be the outcome)?