2011 Asia Business SA

According to The New York Times, Japan has released more than 11,000 tons (that's 22,000,000 pounds) of low-level radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean this week. What is "low-level?" Tokyo Electric says that the water has more than 100 times the radiation of the legal limit. But that's nothing compared to the water being pumped into the containers used to dump the water this week. Water with 1,000 times the legal limit will be filled into the containers used to dump this week's load.


While this may sound like a lot, the news article said that "[m]ixing radioactive water with uncontaminated seawater can lead to a rapid decrease in radiation levels," according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Still, the dumping has marine biologists nervous because the radioactive elements may be eaten by small fish, which in turn are eaten by larger fish, which means the problem may grow with time.


This all makes me wonder what will happen of the mighty Japanese seafood industry. Just like BP's oil spill caused economic havoc for Gulf Coast fishers, will this crisis be similar for their Japanese counterparts? --Philip Volmar

Radiation from nuclear power plants from Japan has caused a dramatic decrease in sales of seafood in its neighboring country, South Korea. Prices of all kinds of fresh seafood have gone down so much but no one really wants to buy them. Instead, people are switching to vegetables for their daily diet. However, people would still buy frozen seafood that was caught before the radiation outbreak. South Korean government has also banned the import food from areas around the nuclear plants.
No seafood…I guess no more sushi for us in Japan/Korea. Sad…

Week 5 post
My Nguyen

For those who are worried about the radiation, here is a link that you can check the radiation among Japan and Korea.

With more than 25,000 people dead or missing, Japan also has to suffer from the total cause of damage by the tsunami, estimating around 25 trillion yen or $309 billions. The fact that several countries, including China, the United States, etc. have banned some Japanese produce imports because of concerns about radiation has made the situation even worse. International companies have also moved their people out of Tokyo. Meetings, events have been cancelled. Tourists are not likely to come to Japan anymore. This is such a hard time for Japan but its people are strong and believe that “the sun will rise again.”

My Nguyen
Week 4 Post

1. This article is entitled Radiation in Food Rises and is in the March 21, 2011 edition of the wall street journal. I liked this article because of all the chaos that has been happening in Japan and seeing how it relates imports and exports. Some of the food supply near the nuclear reactor has been affected by higher than average radiation levels. While Japan imports much of its food it does export some of it too. This food that it could export has the potential to be contaminated and therefore other countries might not want to trade for those products. I also thought this article was funny because multiple times it said that even though the radiation is high it’s not high enough to even be harmful to humans. But because many people don’t understand radiation all they think when they hear the word is fear and death.
-Dustin Parkinson