[Janice D. Soderling]

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.

[W.F. Lantry]

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

[Allen Tice]

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.

[Richard Meyer]

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

[Allen Tice]

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.

[Jayne Osborn]

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

[Allen Tice]

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.

[Janice D. Soderling]

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.

[Allen Tice]

bump......

[Skip Dewahl]

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?