Japan
 

I am sure this is on everyone's mind, but no thread has been put up about it, so I will.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/wo...ml?_r=1&emc=na

I don't know that we have any members in Japan, but we have members who have lived there and since we are an international community I'd be surprised if we didn't have other members who had friends there.

And indeed, it concerns us all.

Janice,

I have friends in Tokyo, and in the North. It's one thing to say 'this is the end of nuclear power as we know it,' it's quite another to think that nuclear cloud is heading for Stu and his wife. On the other hand, Alex lives in Zushi. This morning, as he was typing, another earthquake hit. It just all seems so unrelenting, and then there are the countless lost. Another friend has a son and daughter-in-law there, and he hasn't heard from them. Everyone's hoping it's just because the power's out, as they're well away from the shoreline.

It's actually hard to focus on much else. And now they say another reactor's on fire. It seems to get worse from minute to minute...

Thanks,

Bill

Food for thought: apart from the reactor problems, there is the historical example from 1707, when an estimated 8.6 level quake preceded the last major eruption by Fuji by about 49 days. Tokyo and the wider urban sprawl far exceeds anything present in 1707. It puts one in mind of the Lisbon earthquake that inspired Voltaire's Candide, and of course the possibility of a replay of Pompeii in the vastly overbuilt modern Naples area.
Here's one link more or less at random to the 1707 matter: Fuji.

On the matter of reactor use and design and what should be  vs. what is likely to be in New York or elsewhere, I am an interested amateur but wish to withhold comment.

The amount of death and destruction is staggering. How terrible for all the suffering humanity in Japan.

I haven't followed the news reports in great detail, but I did hear an American scientist/nuclear engineer being interviewed on TV the other day. As concerns the nuclear reactor meltdowns, this commentator said what surprises him most is that nuclear plants have emergency backup generators that are designed to take over and keep the core cool in just this sort of scenario, but for some reason they failed to operate in the Japanese plants. The man was quite amazed at this significant malfunction, especially since the Japanese are typically so efficient in such matters.

Richard

I suppose I could allow this cold observation:

Whatever Can go wrong, Will go wrong; and given time and unexpected changes*, what Will go wrong, Shall go wrong.

It's those laughable Unknown Unknowns that get us every time.

*PS: A perfectly good example of a Known Unknown that has not been sufficiently discussed is the unknown effect of rising sea-levels from polar melting on the static pressures that ride on tectonic plates.

It is an open question, as far as I know, what the impact of the greater mass of seawater now appearing will have on previously "dormant" earthquake coastal faultlines, specifically the Ramapo Fault that is proximal to the Indian Point nuclear complex north of New York City.

And now they've got SNOW to contend with, as well. How much more awful can it get?

These links aren't an attempt to answer your entirely valid question, Jayne. However, they might be of interest. A very great deal has been learned since 1957, but still, reactors have been built near known earthquake faultlines (as with the Indian Point complex just upriver from New York City). There are always seemingly good reasons for doing technical things: in this case, cooling water from the Hudson River. There's always a good reason.

Tom Tuohy obit.

Thomas Tuohy, the man who... obit.

Tom_Tuohy (Wikipedia).

The Windscale Fire (Wikipedia)

Chiefly for nerds : Wigner Effect (Wikipedia).

PS: It might have escaped mention, or perhaps he was too hurried to take a mirror, or maybe there wasn't one handy (?), but it's pretty much SOP to use as a minimum a mirror at 45 degrees to view anything radioactive. You can stay behind whatever shielding there is, and still look at the beast. Also, there was no mention of any long-term radiation-related injuries. Perhaps it was not thought important.

Thank you, Allen, that was new information to me. What a hero.

Jayne, it will get worse. if not the volcano explosion, then the long-term effects of radiation, or both.

I don't understand the calculated risks of huge oil tankers and nuclear plants. Murphy's law and all its corollaries.

bump......

Yeah, rely on cowfarts and tilting at windmills for your source of fuel and you'll all be huffing and puffing while you take to the interstate on your bicycles. Fanatics are present in all societies. They were present when Three Mile Island burped, the which they embellished into a monstrous explosion and effectively ended any new plants from being built in the US since 1979. The same people were also cheering on the demise of the Shah, as they are now doing with the uprisings in the Arab world. I can't help but notice that no one but no one in the media has pointed out that at every revolt I've seen reported on the news, old men with white beards and turbans somehow managed to get themselves into the forefront. Think they'll look favorably on women's emancipation when they overthrow the dictators, eh, girls?

Deleted by moderator -

Skip, about the revolutions. The point you are making was taken up in one of our threads a while back.

About bikes. Lots of people in Europe ride bikes for short and even longish trips--like half an hour to an hour's cycling to get to work in the morning. It's really good for one's health.

About Three Mile Island. It wasn't a burp. Neither was Chernobyl. I'll spare you the poem, but here is a "background statement" to a poem I had online a few years back.

On “Summer Comes to Chernobyl”:
Radioactive emissions carried by wind and heavy rains caused
a significant percentage of the Cesium-137 released in the
Chernobyl disaster of April 26, 1986, to fall on the northern
coastal and inland areas of Sweden, and on southwest England
and Wales.

A decade or so after the accident, I heard a radio discussion
concerning the correlation between the Chernobyl fallout and
a high incidence of deformed children born in England. The
program took root in my mind and, as I recall, provided the
impetus for this poem some months later.

I believe that a majority will choose not to read a poem that
smacks of propaganda. Nor do I wish to be associated with the
writing of propaganda. I am, however, concerned about the
on-going breakdown of our planet, including nuclear emissions
and waste disposal.

A recent study indicates that Swedish children born in the
months following the Chernobyl disaster suffered mental
impairment from the radioactive fallout. Another shows a
statistically determined correlation between radioactive fallout
from Chernobyl and an increase in cancer cases in the exposed
areas.

The UN estimates that the consequences of this fallout will not
be fully seen for another 50 years.

Signed
Girl

One more thought on this thread. Physics: reactor physics, the physics of seismology and oceanography, atmospheric physics and chemistry as well, none of them play politics or even understand human existence. We don't exist for them, neither you nor I.

They are not "conservative" or "right wing," or "liberal" or "lefty."

They are what they are, whether we understand them or not, and whether we like them or hate them. It's fine to emote about them, but -- I cannot emphasize this enough -- they operate without feeling in incredibly powerful ways.

Our ancestors, if they lived to produce viable children, did not seriously defy the immutable facts of life, even if they hated them. And I bet they did. Those who were successful learned from the mistakes of those who were stubborn in the face of earth, wind, and fire.

Girls??? Girls????

Huh.

I suppose the women here in America and the rest of the industrialized nations really shouldn't be too concerned about the white bearded turbaned men over there when we've still obviously got a long way to go right here.

Oh, great, so when it's 95 degrees out, I'll ride my bike to the supermarket, enter the store drenched in sweat, eyes burning from perspiration that my lashes dabbed in when I foolishly blinked, all the while possibly chaffing at the dermal creases, cool off while I'm getting what I need, then pay, only to end where I began by sweating again, etc., when I get home. And don't even get me started about rain and wind and numbing cold, not to mention dodging cars, and man's/girl's best friend.

About Three Mile Island. It wasn't a burp.

Yes, it was.

Neither was Chernobyl.

I agree on that one (save for the deformed Swedes and Brits) which was built by The Communist Party = socialists, not capitalists. Nuff said.


I suppose the women here in America and the rest of the industrialized nations really shouldn't be too concerned about the white bearded turbaned men over there when we've still obviously got a long way to go right here.

Uh, would you prefer, "eh, you guys"?

"Oh, great, so when it's 95 degrees out, I'll ride my bike to the supermarket, enter the store drenched in sweat, eyes burning from perspiration that my lashes dabbed in when I foolishly blinked..."

You'd rather your eyes were burning from radiation, I suppose.

I get the sense that you could probably use the exercise, though I confess I recoil at the image of your particular 'dermal creases'.

Nemo

Why are you responding so angrily, Skip? It is true that not everyone can bike down to the supermarket and maybe you can't. But I don't think you will need to worry about dodging cars when you bike to the supermarket. In a biking society there are special lanes for bikers; it is possible to design communities for bikers, train commuters and walkers.

If commmunities are designed so that cars are not the only alternative for getting around (one big person in each big car) the population might be healthier.

Instead of huge air-conditioned supermarkets several miles away in a mall, you might have a small neighborhood grocery and shoe shop and bicycle repair shop and when you walk in, the clerk will say, "Hi Skip, how ya doing in this heat? You're looking real healthy since you started biking every day. So. What can I do for you, my friend?"

If you think Sweden is a communist country, you have flunked the history test and need to take the class again.

But I think I am in the wrong lane.

Best regards
Girl

Let's cool the heat please. The real heat is in Japan, which is supposedly what this thread is about.

Skip you are out of order on "girls". Please get the message. You are causing offense for no reason. If there ever were women who liked being called "girls" by men, they've long since made it to the great harem in the sky, so let's leave that phase of human history behind.

I must confess that I hadn't actually looked at the link you started the thread with, Janice; now that I have I'm not so confused by some of the posts that have appeared (or disappeared!). I'd just assumed the thread was about the disaster in a general sense and I have no comment to make on reactors.

While I'm here, though, one thing that really surprised me: the first footage I saw was a mobile phone film, taken in a supermarket, where lots of bottles of wine had smashed into the aisle. Two shop assistants were spreading their arms across the shelves - to stop any more bottles falling off - and I remember thinking: F**k protecting the stock, just get the hell out of there! The building was still shaking.

Oh, (groan) sorry, Bill, I found myself starting to lose the will to live after a minute or so of that. I just couldn't waste 4 minutes 34 seconds of my precious time on this earth on it.
Nuff said.

I sitting in my apartment in downtown Los Angeles wondering if there is a meltdown of the nuclear reactor, which seems more likely every day, what effect it will have on us on this coast. If you remember the meltdown at Chernobyl effected people from Scandinavia to Greenland. God have mercy on the suffering people of Japan.

Apologies for the cartoon's grossness
 

http://xkcd.com/875/
Put cursor on graphic for a further message.

Allen,
You gave an apology for the cartoon's grossness but the big question is - why did you even bother to post this rubbish? There's enough real stuff to see and read about the catastrophe.

Nolo contendere. Ramapo, etc. Sorry if you didn't feel it was appropriate.