Japan was the most important subject discussed at the G8 meeting in Deauville 26./27.5.11.
Discussed behind closed doors and no official statement at all, only Arcady Dvorkovich, Russian presidential aide, commented “world economies will go into recession unless Japanese companies can relocate production quickly”.
Behind this statement lies the fact that electronic components are very sensitive to radiation, and the world depends on these made in Japan. You can no longer produce these in Japan in future and in many locations not now already.
Sony has revised its prognosis for 2011 to a $3.200 million ($3.2bn) loss from $858 million profit. Loss of factories in Japan and costs for new factories in other parts of the globe are the reason.
During the month of May 2011 Japanese firms have spent more on foreign acquisitions than in the previous three years, Toshiba and Takeda have spent $16bn last week in Switzerland only. These acquisitions happen at an unprecedented speed.
Takeda, Japan’s largest pharmaceutical company anticipates that importing countries will not increase “radiation safety levels” for pharmaceuticals and components for ever. Takeda has lost substantial production capacity through the Fukushima disaster already and calculates on further losses over the coming months.
Bank of Japan governer, Masaaki Shirakawa, leaves no doubt that Japan will support its companies with limitless capital – and the stockmarket reacts accordingly.
Where will the New Tokyo be?
There are indications that southern Peru is the chosen location. The former president of Peru, Alberto Fujimori, a Japanese national, is still in prison for corruption and human rights violation. His daughter Keiko will win the presidential elections next week.
There is no opposition to “Nuevo Tokyo” and financial arguments outweight all others. Bolivia also favors this development as a new Japanese territory bordering Bolivia and Chile will give Bolivia easy access to the sea.
Nuevo Tokyo needs electricity. Thankfully a solution to this problem has been found some six weeks ago already. President Obama sold its new puppet regime in Chile a nuclear power station that will supply electricity for 20 million Japanese and will help to make them feel at home.
Historically Peru and Chile have been vehemently opposed to nuclear power. Both experience frequent earthquakes and tsunamis. Not even the dictator Pinochet could be convinced that nuclear power is a good idea, dictators have no suicide bomber mentality which appears to be a privilege of so-called democracies that crave for cheap and clean electricity for their manipulated voter masses. The people of Chile are confused, to say the least, but are reassured that US nuclear technology is save and the humanitarian aspect of helping the Japanese people has priority.
Until now the world believed that former democratically elected president Allende was killed by US bombs in 1973 and replaced by General Pinochet, one of the most brutal dictators in the history of Chile and South America but a reliable ally of the USA. President Obama instigated the exhumation of Allende, then forensics will prove that Allende shot himself while US bombs were dropping on the presidental palace. This will help to reconcile – now that friends and family of Pinochet are back in power. There is no effort too large to earn the Nobel.
Luckily I’ve got friends in Lima and don’t need a hotel room. You couldn’t get one, Japanese company executives got there first. The US$ gained drastically against the Euro recently but lost against the Peruvian Nuevo Sol, $ = 2.75 today compared to 2.77 on March 11.
Want to buy real estate in Lima? …… you are too late!
All indicators point to Japan moving fast, very fast.
Why the rush?
Igor Ostretsov, Deputy Director of the Russian Institute of Nuclear Engineering explains:
in Chernobyl, graphite which is part of the reactor’s nuclear core burnt out and vanished into the atmosphere, one big bang and the worst is over, for the remainder you can spend the next few milleniums building sarcophags around it.
In Fukushima you have three melted down reactor cores, not one but three covering a considerable floor area. These will emit radioactivity for longer than humanity can think – it accumulates, disperses and makes everything in its path uninhabitable. If you can get close enough you can built the first containment bunker – then start building the second one and hope to have it completed before the first one bursts – then built the third, the fourth, the fifth – future generations will be building without any recollection of why they are building.
Imagine the Romans had invented nuclear power and had had their Fukushima. Rome would be covered in a containment structure by now that would be the largest building on the planet by far.
This is the scenario above ground, and there is a scenario below ground which is completely off the media radar.
I quote from American Geophysical Union, published 12/2010:
Thousands of self-ignited coal fires, naturally occurring coal fires, and coal fires resulting from human activities persist for decades in underground coal mines, coal waste piles, and un-mined coal beds. These uncontrolled coal fires occur in all coal-bearing parts of the world and pose multiple threats to the global environment due to emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) such as CO2, CO, CH4, and other toxic substances such as mercury (Hg).
Estimates of the amount of coal that is involved globally range between 20 and 600 Mt using simple calculations, the only published peer-reviewed estimate of CO2 and Hg emissions from coal-fires in the United States (U.S.) are between 14 to 290 Mt/yr and 0.1 to 11.5 t/yr, respectively.
In comparison, the U.S. coal-fired power plant fleet -the largest known anthropogenic source of CO2 and Hg to the atmosphere in the U.S.- emits ~2.4 Gt, and ~45 t annually, respectively.
Underground nuclear tests cause underground coal fires. Coal deposits may have a temperature of 70 degrees celsius already, 80 degrees are needed to ignite coal. A bit of pressure, friction and heat will do it easily. Hence an underground explosion may have a range of thousands of miles.
China estimates to loose about 225 million tons a year, a multiple of what they mine.
The situation in India is not much better. The town of Centralia in Pennsylvania had to be evacuated in 1981 already, route 61 burst open, gases escaping from the ground made life impossible. But in this case nuclear underground tests in Nevada were not to blame, it was kids playing with matches twenty years earlier, or something like that.
The effect under ground of three melted down reactors in Fukushima are not yet imaginable, but scientists are working on it. No matter what they’ll come up with there is nothing you can do, you can build above ground but not below. You may be able to prevent an explosion above ground but not below.
So we have a contaminated atmosphere and a damaged earth crust that will keep moving,
leaving us to examine the seas at a later stage.
Meanwhile we put the emphasis on saving the Japanese industry in order to save the economy of the world. In the wake of globalisation Japanese companies can function anywhere, neither do they need Japanese people nor Japanese ground.
People in any country have become dispensable in the view of big business unless they function as customers. Is it economically viable to evacuate the entire Japanese population now? Sooner or later countries will impose radiation load limits and you won’t be able to get off the plane or boat to enter those countries.
What will radiation loads do to our DNA? This is scientifically documented to a certain extend. A far more urgent question is “Could there be a way to protect DNA or heal?”