Mitigating Fukushima's Dangers, 42 Days In 245
DrKnark writes "Tepco has released more information about their plan to stabilize the Fukushima reactors. They are basically facing 4 problems: ensure long term cooling of the cores; ensure cooling of the spent fuel pools; prevent release of radioactive material; and mitigate the consequences of the releases that will continue for a while."
Mitigating my ass. (Score:2, Interesting)
http://video.godlikeproductions.com/video/Japan_Nuclear_Crisis_Dr_Michio_Kaku_41311?id=5f6b79d071f3c70b40c [godlikeproductions.com]
there are people STILL downplaying this, believing what industry shills are drumming like morons.
Sarcasm... (Score:2, Interesting)
For some reason, people are terrified of the safest form of power generation that is in common use, but have no problem with the US military using Uranium bullets to shoot Iraqi citizens by their thousands.
thousands..really? ..killed with depleted uraniun anti-tank bullets? thousands?
Re:No, thanks (Score:4, Interesting)
IIRC two people were killed at the plant by the earthquake. Both the earthquake and tsunami were of much greater magnitude than anything considered by the designers.
It's interesting that no attempt has been made to compare damage at this plant with that at other industrial plants in Japan. The press has also been silent on toxic chemical spills resulting from the earthquake and tsunami.
Quite possibly... (Score:4, Interesting)
Thousands of civilians killed? Yes. [wikipedia.org]
Thousands of civilians killed by U.S.? Again, yes.
The IBC project released a report detailing the deaths it recorded between March 2003 and March 2005[72] in which it recorded 24,865 civilian deaths. The report says the U.S. and its allies were responsible for the largest share (37%) of the 24,865 deaths.
Thousands killed by DU ammunition? Possibly.
Thousands affected by the continuous effect radiation from DU ammunition? Almost certainly.
When you measure something in thousands of tonnes you can safely say that it WILL affect large areas of land and large numbers of people.
And 4.468 billion years is a long time.
The use of DU in munitions is controversial because of questions about potential long-term health effects.[4][5] Normal functioning of the kidney, brain, liver, heart, and numerous other systems can be affected by uranium exposure, because uranium is a toxic metal.[6] It is weakly radioactive and remains so because of its long physical half-life (4.468 billion years for uranium-238). The biological half-life (the average time it takes for the human body to eliminate half the amount in the body) for uranium is about 15 days.[7] The aerosol or spallation frangible powder produced during impact and combustion of depleted uranium munitions can potentially contaminate wide areas around the impact sites leading to possible inhalation by human beings.[8] During a three week period of conflict in 2003 in Iraq, 1,000 to 2,000 tonnes of DU munitions were used.[9]
Re:No, thanks (Score:3, Interesting)
even if you count when things go wrong it still looks better than most of the alternatives.
For a parallel.
Many people are afraid of flying.
Why? it doesn't make a great deal of sense, you're more likely to die driving to the airport than while on the plane unless you live really close to the airport or you're going on a really long flight.
It's irrational.
But here's the thing.
When there's a plane crash hundreds of people die all at once.
When there's a plane crash it makes the news worldwide.
When you're on a plane it's someone else in control(the pilot).
Even when the plane doesn't crash if something goes wrong everyone hears about it.
Getting to your destination is still safer by plane by a wide margin if you're going long distance.
but people are still afraid of it.
Because you don't hear about all the road deaths.
They barely make the local news.
people don't die in their hundreds in car crashes.
they die less than half a dozen at a time.
In total vastly more people die on the roads but you only hear about the ones in your local area.
And people can convince themselves that they are in total control on the road, they ignore the chance of someone else doing something stupid and driving into them or something unexpected happening.
Nuclear is kind of like that.
It kills far less people per terawatt than most other sources even counting Chernobyl.
But when anything goes wrong it makes the world news.
It can kill lots of people when it goes wrong all at once but in normal operation it's vastly safer.
Other sources of power kill in ones or twos and only make the local news.
But they kill a lot of people per year.
a coal miner here a gas worker there and every now and then someone dies installing panels on their roof.
Plus there's the sexy aspect: radiation is scary and invisible, coal smog is boooring.
If I'm sitting watching the news beside someone who's terrified of flying as a story breaks about a plane crash am I wrong if I simply say
"It's still safer than the other options"
even if the person who thinks flying is more dangerous is pointing at it and saying
"look! look! I told you it isn't safe! Driving everywhere is the far safer way to travel! how can you say that after seeing that disaster!!!"
I'm in favour of nuclear because it's still safer than most of it's competitors.
It would be nice to be in control of your power generation but that's a pipe dream. If you don't live decently close to the equator solar panels on your roof are nothing but an expensive status symbol.
"Distributed" is a nice sounding word but in reality it doesn't make the problems with a flaky little grid based on dirty little community generators go away.
Re:The supreme scrumpyolyness of delish! (Score:4, Interesting)
No, he posted to the story he meant to.
You'll see this kind of trolling, using brand new accounts and very very long off-topic or nonsensical posts whenever there is a story that may have implications that could negatively impact a corporation or industry sector. I believe they are intended to disrupt discussion of those stories. You'll see them very often in stories that discuss telecom companies or energy industry.
I believe they are paid trolls, from organizations like New Media Strategies (or their darker cousins) who, instead of astroturfing or writing positive things about their clients, exist only to disrupt serious discussions of things that could be construed to negatively impact their clients.
I could be wrong, but I've been seeing this pattern. You'll also see a pattern where an offtopic post is followed by a string of anonymous or very new accounts being very repetitive and responding to the original offtopic post, creating a long section that many people just won't bother to scroll through and will just abandon the potentially hot story.
Yes, I'm paranoid. I believe paranoia is an appropriate reaction to life circa 2011.
Re:No, thanks (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, nobody has followed up the story of the burning refinery of Cosmo Oil at Chiba, very close to Tokyo that burned for a week, or the other 2 refineries washed away by the tsunami in Miyagi prefecture, what stand was left to burn.
Re:Mitigating my ass. (Score:2, Interesting)
Never heard of this guy before, but I did watch the interview.
Not impressed at all. As you say, very sensationalist, and a complete attention whore.
As someone still in favour of (new and existing) nuclear power, I hope the "anti-s" can come up with people better than this - they do have a a point of view worthy of serious consideration and debate. But guys like this aren't helping that. To be honest, I think the way this guy presents himself is damaging to the viewpoint he represents.