Japanese Tsunami

[Schöneboom]

It is good to know that even if we cannot personally be there to lend a hand, we have there people helping there now (USN ships, UK's SAR team), with more on the way.

There is no place in this world that is immune to natural disaster, and one day, it could be our turn. So perhaps the thing to do is see how you can prepare now. I've been trained for the Emergency Response Team at my company (First Aid, etc.). Wherever you are, such training is surely available. Who knows, you may save a life one day.

[krashkart]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Dammit...I just want to get on a plane and go there to help move stuff around. I'm no paramedic, soldier or anything special, I just want to help move stuff, I can left heavy stuff.
I'd probably just get in the way though....

Frustrating though...

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

I feel the same way. Wish I could do something.

Ditto.

[TorpX]

Originally Posted by Skybird

It is like it always have been and probably always will be: it is a highly risky technology that can only reduce risks, but not rule them out. And in case of disaster striking, it strikes really hard.

It does seem nuclear technology is inherently risky and no amount of tinkering can alter that. The state where I live has more that it's share of nuc plants and according to TV reports are similer to those Japanese types. I've never been an anti-nuc before, but I have strong doubts about them now.

They have been sold as "cheap energy" and "clean technology", but coal plants don't seem so bad to me now. Really, the nuclear plants have shown to be beset by problems; safety problems, cost problems, waste problems, decommisioning problems.....

[Gargamel]

Originally Posted by TorpX

They have been sold as "cheap energy" and "clean technology", but coal plants don't seem so bad to me now. Really, the nuclear plants have shown to be beset by problems; safety problems, cost problems, waste problems, decommisioning problems.....

Problem with coal is twofold. 1) It's dirty and a pollutant, and the release of the pollutants is required in the energy making process. Then there's the global warming argument to go with that, which we are not going to discuss here. 2) The cost vs output to procure the fuel is hugely inefficient when compared to nuclear.


Anyways.......

Here's a really good article on whats going on there now, and it answers some of our questions we've had: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12726628

[Oberon]

I presume that you'll be avoiding cars and aircraft too? After all, when they go wrong, they go wrong in a big way, and I'd wager that more people have died since 1986 from aircraft and car accidents than from radiation.

I'll tell ye all a little story.
I moved up to Suffolk in 1992, I was eight at the time and we moved into a sleepy little village called Snape, but on the horizon was this great white semi-sphere which was slowly being built, I found out that this was a nuclear power station, but it looked nothing like the other one I'd seen at Dungeness. So, when I went to Middle School, I went into their library and looked up about nuclear power. That, was a blessing and a curse, because I read up about all the horrible things, I read about Chernobyl, about radiation poisoning and its effects and I became absolutely terrified at the thought of Sizewell blowing its top one day.
It was around that time that we went to the visitors centre at Sizewell, and I learnt more about nuclear reactors, I touched a core rod, I played with a Geiger counter, I operated a simulated nuclear power station (and broke it every damn time) and I saw how the reactor turns water into steam to power a generator (done through a boiling kettle turning a fan which powers a lightbulb, simple yet clever display). I also saw a pond nearby where nature was flourishing, kept preserved by the owners of the station, all in all it was a lovely little place. I went there a few times, and later I got to go on a school tour around the power station, I stood and looked over the reactor room from a walkway above it, I stood in the turbine room with earphone protectors because of the noise (naturally I removed them briefly to get an idea of the noise...it wasn't nearly as noisy as I thought but I guess constant exposure wouldn't be good), and as we entered and left we were all scanned at the turnstiles for radiation.
Of course, this was all rather bias, after all it was the power station doing the tour, but it did work, it made me more relaxed about it. Alas, post 9/11 the visitors centre is closed which is a shame but understandable.
Now, I'm not a big fan of nuclear power, I find nuclear waste to be terrible (although I do ponder if we couldn't drop it down a geothermical vent into the magma under the Earths crust...but then again I'm not so sure how long the radiation would last...whether that would just create radioactive lava which would then erupt and solidify into radioactive ground) and I find it annoying that it'll be another sixty years before they can start demolishing Sizewell A, but at the same time electricity prices are high enough as it is, and we were to shut down all our NPPs and go green then only the rich would be able to run anything with electricity, either that or we'd go down the South African route and start doing rolling blackouts. Either which way it wouldn't be much fun and to start getting near the amount of power we get from our NPPs we'd have to cover every hill with Windmills, every river with dams and every flat surface with solar panels and the expense of that...well...no government would do it. China is the worlds biggest exporter and user of green energy (believe it or not) but it's a fraction of what they get from their coal, oil and nuclear PPs.

Now, I'm not going to turn this thread into a pro and anti nuclear row, because I can understand both sides of the argument and indeed both are right, but it is beyond our control and if we spend our lives in fear about it, then that will rob us of enjoyment over an event which may never happen. If it does happen, then is the time to deal with it, but until then, what can you do? I live in the shadow of Sizewell B, I can see it from the beach here, I see it whenever I go to work, and yes, some days I do ponder...particularly when the news reports that the damn thing has been leaking again, but, I can't move because house prices are too high, and NBC suits are also too expensive, so if the balloon goes up...well...dang.

Anyway, like Neal says, let's not go down this road guys, ok?

[Gargamel]

If we are going to do a pro/anti nuc argument, spin it off into another thread.

[RickC Sniper]

Originally Posted by Gargamel

Here's a really good article on whats going on there now, and it answers some of our questions we've had: [URL

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12726628[/URL]

I learned something from this very good article.

"The explosion... wasn't a terribly important event," according to Malcolm Grimston from the Energy Policy and Management Group at Imperial College, London."The building was designed to fall outwards" - preventing damage to the thick steel containment vessel inside."

It explained to me why the damage to that containment building that blew up was so uniform.

[Gargamel]

Originally Posted by RickC Sniper

It explained to me why the damage to that containment building that blew up was so uniform.

Apparently it happened again.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...MPLATE=DEFAULT

And from what I'm reading in this article... they are losing control of 4 more reactors???

[Gargamel]

TOKYO (AP) -- Japan's chief cabinet secretary says a hydrogen explosion has occurred at Unit 3 of Japan's stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. The blast was similar to an earlier one at a different unit of the facility.
Yukio Edano says people within a 12-mile (20-kilometer) radius were ordered inside following Monday's. AP journalists felt the explosion 30 miles (50 kilometers) away.
Edano says the reactor's inner containment vessel holding nuclear rods is intact, allaying some fears of the risk to the environment and public.
The No. 3 Unit reactor had been under emergency watch for a possible explosion as pressure built up there following a hydrogen blast Saturday in the facility's Unit 1.
More than 180,000 people have evacuated the area.

[CCIP]

And now if everything else wasn't enough, a volcano has also erupted in southern Japan...
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2...14/3162909.htm

[Gargamel]

Originally Posted by CCIP

And now if everything as if else wasn't enough, a volcano has also erupted in southern Japan...
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2...14/3162909.htm

[Feuer Frei!]

New Tsunami warning for Japan has now been cancelled.
Thank God for that.

SOURCE

[Gargamel]

Japans evacuates space station control center


http://news.discovery.com/space/japa...mkcpgn=rssnws1

[Torplexed]

Originally Posted by Gargamel

Japans evacuates space station control center

Probably not a good idea in the long term. With all these staggeringly disastrous events happening to the Japanese Islands the only future may be in an off-world colony.

[Castout]

I do not know what to say the tsunami damage is massive. They lost their families there. And their homes and cars and boats.

And the earthquake damaged the several reactors. Pretty scary when you take into account Japan is arguably the most ready nation to brace with a large earthquake. There was simply no way to protect from tsunami.