One of the (so far) little covered aspects of the Japan/nuclear story is the potential for longer term economic fallout from the accident.
In the event of a larger radioactive release, in particular with an unfortunate shift in prevailing winds, the real or perceived impact of radio-active contamination of Japanese facilities or fields, could raise doubts in consumer’s minds about a range of Japanese products, from industrial to agricultural. The impact for one of the world’s largest export economies has not, to my knowledge, been analyzed.
Tokyo (CNN) — Nissan has started scanning vehicles made in Japan for traces of radioactive material, a company official said Friday.
“Looking ahead, we will continue to implement all appropriate measures to reassure the public that all products from our company remain within globally accepted safety standards and until we are confident that any risk of contamination is completely removed,” said Simon Sproule, corporate vice president of marketing for Nissan Motor Company.
Sproule said the monitoring began this week.
Sources inside the company said there is virtually no risk of contamination from a car and no potential health risk to customers, but testing began because of public concern.
Assuming a “best case” scenario, in which the nuclear plant continues to seep radiation, while cooling over the next few weeks and months, with prevailing winds carrying radionuclides “away”, ie out to sea, there will undoubtably be an impact on the ocean food chain near and around the Japanese islands.
To my knowledge, no one has analyzed the impact of bio-concentrating radioactive materials in the ocean food chain, on a nation that depends on sea food and sea vegetables as export commodities, and for major parts of it’s traditional diet.