Fukishimi is not Chernobyl

Many newspaper articles have made the claim that the on going nuclear disaster at Fukishimi is the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. While this is certainly true, it is only because there have been very few nuclear disasters in the preceding 25 years. So far the Fukishimi disaster pales in comparison to Chernobyl. To understand the difference in scale, it only takes a few minutes to calculate the different levels of radiation emitted in the two cases. In Chernobyl according to the wikipedia page, the radiation levels ranged from .03 Sieberts in the control room to 50 Seiberts in the water in the feedwater room. (Full body exposer to 3 Seiberts of radiation is enough to kill someone in a matter of days.) On top of these problems, radioactive material was spewed into the atmosphere creating a radioactive cloud: Enormous quantities of nuclear fallout rained down on the nearby villages.
In Fukishimi they have noted radiation up to 14000 microsieberts or .014 Sieberts. This is still half the radiation in the control room and much less than the radiation in the other parts of the Chernobyl plant. The Japan radiation levels have quickly stabalized to around 400. All this is to say is that this is not at the level of Chernobyl yet. Obviously things could take a turn for the worse. We have to hope that the Japanese can keep the fuel rods cool enough so they don't melt or explode.

Does Krugman support Dominique Strauss Kahn for President?

Since when is the IMF — whose initials, the joke used to go, stood for “it’s mostly fiscal” — so open-minded?

One answer is that Blanchard is who he is — a big gun in the field, someone the IMF needs more than he needs the IMF, who has the kind of independence that lets him speak his mind.

Another answer is that Strauss-Kahn runs the IMF, and — aside from being Blanchard’s compatriot — he’s a political force in his own right, to an extent unusual for the Fund, and one with moderately interventionist instincts.

Whatever the explanation, I like the results: the IMF has been doing terrific research work, and has been a breath of fresh air in policy debates.