The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[OakesCS]

They had to provide power. From all the choices—windmills to reactors and everything between—knowing full-well the geoscience of their own nation, they chose reactors.

ob,
the 1st sentence is definitely true but at the time that the reactor site was being chosen and constructed the concept of plate tectonics was in its infancy. If my memory is correct the 1st academic paper which effectively proved seafloor spreading and plate tectonics wasn't published until 1968 - 1 yr after construction was started on Fukushima.

Of course, they had plenty of prior experience with earthquakes and tsunamis so although they may not have understood the causation they certainly made the choice knowing the effects.

Sendai itself has previously been wiped out by a tsunami which extended 4 km inland.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historic_tsunamis
regards
Charlie

edit: my snarky comment was aimed at biowatch who immediately after posting 2 notes about redirecting the thread, promptly posted a reply about the helium balloons.