灾后一年的日本(2/2)
灾后一年的日本情况Hints:
Thorne Lay
seismologist
University of California
Santa Cruz
Georgia
Three Mile Island
Pennsylvania
翻译：chshhj
校对：lahmmsc
组长：天地一沙鸥wp
答疑：enigmabachhttp://t1.g.hjfile.cn/listen/201203/201203140834451101759.mp3No one has died from radiation as a result of the accident in Japan. Some scientists and government officials say radiation levels even close to the disabled power plant are safe. But since the disaster, officials have faced growing distrust among the Japanese public.
Japan also finds itself facing huge costs for cleaning up after the nuclear disaster and for paying damages to victims. Before the accident, nuclear power produced 30% of Japan's energy needs. Now some people think the accident will be the end of the nuclear power industry in the world's third largest economy.
Thorne Lay is a seismologist with the University of California, Santa Cruz. He says engineers had underestimated the chances that a great wave could drown the emergency power systems at the Japanese plant.
"Those are mostly design weaknesses that, you know, a good engineering think-through might say, well, let's put the backup power at very high elevation so that it could not possibly get drowned out."
Mr. Lay says scientists are better able to predict earthquake risks in some areas than they were in the past. Still, he says, they cannot provide decision makers with all the answers.
In the United States, a nuclear plant is being built in Georgia. This is the country's first new one since the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in Pennsylvania in 1979.
Safety is not the only concern. The cost of building a nuclear plant and producing electricity from it is much higher than other sources of power.日本的这次事故中，无人死于核辐射。一些科学家和政府官员表示，即使是损毁的核电站附近的辐射水平也是安全的。但自这次灾难后，日本官员面临着日本民众对其持续增长的不信任。
日本也发现自己面临的是进行灾后清理工作以及对受害者赔偿方面上的巨额支出。事故发生前，核电占到了日本能源需求的30%。目前，一些人认为这次事故发生后，日本这个世界第三大经济体将面临在核电产业发展上的终结。
索恩•雷(Thorne Lay)是加利福尼亚大学圣克鲁斯分校的一名地震学家。他认为工程师们低估了巨浪带给日本核电站应急电力系统的风险。
“这更多是设计上的缺陷，众所周知，一个工程学意义上的全面考虑可能会是这样，让我们把备用电源安放到非常高的高海拔地区，这样它们就不可能会被淹没了。”
雷先生表示，和过去相比，科学家现在能够更好地预测一些地区的地震风险，然而他们不能给决策者提供所有答案。
在美国乔治亚州，一座核电站正在兴建中。这是1979年宾夕法尼亚州三哩岛核事故以来，美国兴建的第一座新核电站。
安全并不是人们唯一关注的问题。核电站建设和生产电力的花费远远高于其它电力来源。
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