NYT-1201: STATE OF THE ART A Thermostat That's Clever, Not ...

ut many evacuated residents must accept that it wo
n’t happen in their lifetimes.”
To judge the huge scale of what Japan is contempla
ting, consider that experts say residents can retu
rn home safely only after thousands of buildings a
re scrubbed of radioactive particles and much of t
he topsoil from an area the size of Connecticut is
replaced.
Even forested mountains will probably need to be d
econtaminated, which might necessitate clear-cutti
ng and literally scraping them clean.
The Soviet Union did not attempt such a cleanup af
ter the Chernobyl accident of 1986, the only nucle
ar disaster larger than that at Fukushima Daiichi.
The government instead relocated about 300,000 pe
ople, abandoning vast tracts of farmland.
Many Japanese officials believe that they do not h
ave that luxury; the evacuation zone covers more t
han 3 percent of the landmass of this densely popu
lated nation.
“We are different from Chernobyl,” said Toshitsuna
Watanabe, 64, the mayor of Okuma, one of the town
s that was evacuated. “We are determined to go bac
k. Japan has the will and the technology to do thi
s.”
Such resolve reflects, in part, a deep attachment
to home for rural Japanese like Mr. Watanabe, whos
e family has lived in Okuma for 19 generations. Th
eir heartfelt appeals to go back have won wide sym
pathy across Japan, making it hard for people to o
ppose their wishes.
But quiet resistance has begun to grow, both among
those who were displaced and those who fear the c
ountry will need to sacrifice too much without gua
rantees that a multibillion-dollar cleanup will pr