The Price of Energy Consumption - The Renaissance of Renewable Energy - page 200

images of executives kneeling and bowing in front of displaced people was broadcast
worldwide and became yet another iconic image illustrating the problems with nuclear
power.
The prompt evacuation of the area around the reactors limited public exposure to
harmful radiation, yet, according to Hirooki Yabe, a neuropsychiatrist at Fukushima
Medical University, two years after the twin disaster, “the tsunami-area people seem to be
improving; they have more positive attitudes about the future” while “nuclear evacuees are
becoming more depressed day by day” (Brumfiel 2013 ) . Uncertainty, isolation, and fears
about future health are jeopardizing the mental health of the 210,000 residents who fled
from the nuclear disaster (Brumfiel 2013 ) .
Figure 6.10. An anti-nuclear power manifestation in Tokyo six months after the
Fukushima disaster. Source: 保守 at Wikimedia Commons.
From an environmental point of view, nuclear power is both hero and villain. Because it
avoids combustion, no carbon dioxide or air pollutants are emitted. A threefold expansion
of nuclear power could contribute significantly to staving off climate change by avoiding
1 to 2 billion tons of carbon emissions annually (Deutch and Moniz 2006 ) . Unfortunately,