Japan earthquake.

[kuhla]

Getting most of my coverage here: http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/

 

Most of the kind of stuff I've seen:

 

 

 

 

[Malaphax]

I might suggest moving this to the serious discussion board. Yea, I watched a bit of Al Jazeera's coverage that you linked. That's probably the biggest natural disaster I've seen. The amount of damage and destruction is pretty immense, and seeing it live made it somewhat surreal.

 

Economically, I wonder how this will affect markets, not only the Japanese market, but also international ones as well. I have a feeling futures on first aid supplies as well as food/water will see a jump when so many humanitarian and aid groups begin to mobilize. Also although I imagine that unharmed sections of japan will continue on working "normally" I'm sure certain products and distribution will be effected.

 

Socially, I wonder if we won't be able to compare what is arguable a much worse natural disaster and the response to it, to something like haiti. My bet is that because japan has an actual infrastructure set up, we'll see a much more effective rebuilding. Where as other more impoverished countries/areas, it's rather hard to rebuild, because what existed there previously was often shanty towns and structures that aid organizations would not consider safe.

 

On a side note, between Al Jazeera's coverage of the middle east and the fact that they provided an excellent news stream last night, my respect for them has increased quite a bit. To me, they seem to be doing a good job and their english language channel seems like a viable alternative to the BBC, whom I hold in rather high standing.

[kuhla]

Socially, I wonder if we won't be able to compare what is arguable a much worse natural disaster and the response to it, to something like haiti. My bet is that because japan has an actual infrastructure set up, we'll see a much more effective rebuilding. Where as other more impoverished countries/areas, it's rather hard to rebuild, because what existed there previously was often shanty towns and structures that aid organizations would not consider safe.

I don't think it's remotely comparable to Haiti. Civilized population with existing infrastructure vs the opposite. I expect Japan to pull through this without major issue or impact aside from rebuilding and mourning for the dead.

 

On a side note, between Al Jazeera's coverage of the middle east and the fact that they provided an excellent news stream last night, my respect for them has increased quite a bit. To me, they seem to be doing a good job and their english language channel seems like a viable alternative to the BBC, whom I hold in rather high standing.

Al Jazeera streams their channel live online for free, unlike some other news agencies, which makes it a quick source to jump to when online for streaming news. This morning Fox, CNN and CBS where alternating coverage between Charlie Sheen and Japan. It was pretty disgusting.

[T1no]

after all that news Japan is prob the most prepared country for earthquake.

[Malaphax]

Yes, japan is near/on the ring of fire and experiences massive amounts of seismic activity. So they learned to build structures with better resistance, they have sirens to warn of tsunamis and earthquakes and generally all of their systems in place work fantastically. But considering the scale of the earthquake, even they are having trouble. The certainly have plenty of preparation, but disasters of that magnitude are in a category all of their own.

[kuhla]

I'm actually now curious about the nuclear power plant situation. For those that don't know here is what I heard on the radio:

 

* When main power is cut, reactor immediately starts shutting down ie. goes into a cool-down-phase which takes many many hours.

 

* When main power is cut, diesel generators kick in to provide power to the elec pumps that circulate the water used for cooling down.

 

* The diesel generators are apparently outside (fucking genius) and were destroyed by the tsunami.

 

* The only thing that is now powering the elec water pumps is batteries which should be running out right about now....

 

* This is too soon and the reactor is still hot. Chances of components melting (melt down) are high.

 

* Water in pump system is very hot right now and (as usual) slightly radioactive. Most of it is steam. Pressure is building up and they may consider releasing some of it to the open atmosphere but that means small radioactive material being released and less water in the system.

 

Worst case scenario: Melt down, which means the plant is pretty useless after that because stuff will be beyond repair, and some small radioactive release from the cooling system. It is not chernobyl (Y U NO WATER?!) so nothing is going to explode.

[kuhla]

EDIT: Disregard that, stupid media is hyping all sort of stuff out of proportion everyday.

[kuhla]

This has been a pretty good source for news too: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nhk-world-tv

[kuhla]

I usually don't like Jason Mick's articles but I felt the conclusion to this one was pretty solid if not a little obvious.

 

source - http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=21114

 

At Three Mile Island, the U.S. learned the hard way not to put vital controls in the hands of plant operators. Operators almost created a meltdown, when they accidentally disabled necessary cooling. That was due to the poor quality of indicators.

 

As the result, the nuclear community learned to automate shutdown processes.

 

Ultimately the Fukushima disaster illustrates the need for sealed backup generators. The containment procedures in all their modern glory are useless if the backup power goes out. And, if possible, it shows that it is desirable to build new nuclear plants farther from the sea and from fault lines (though this could cause costs to increase).

 

As the fight to avert meltdown plays out, the final damage won't be known for weeks to come. But the international community is already reacting.

 

At this time it's vital not to overreact to this worse case scenario.

 

The disaster does illustrate that nuclear fission power is far from failsafe, particularly older reactors -- even if retrofitted with modern controls. Ultimately the international community needs to work towards fusion power, which should be much safer and cheaper.

 

At the same time, it's important to consider that there's a great deal of background radiation released from the burning of fossilized coal and that mining fossil fuels has led to many a great loss of life and resources as illustrated by recent coal and oil disasters.

 

And nuclear power is far less expensive than solar or wind power in base costs, and generally less expensive even after all the red tape that increases plant creation costs by an order of magnitude in the U.S.

 

There's no easy answers here. Oil and coal power emit dangerous nitrogen and sulfur-containing gases and carbon dioxide into the ozone. And their fuel is dangerous to obtain. But they're cheap. Solar and wind power are relatively safe, but they're expensive and offer inconsistent power. Nuclear power is cheap and produces no emissions normally, but it can be a danger in the case of natural disaster or malicious attack.

 

It's important not to turn a blind eye to this disaster, but it's equally important not to overreact.

[Jedi2155]

I was overreacting a little bit but other than the first few hours I always felt we should go nuclear. Modern SCRAM controls are far more effective in case of power outages. I was told by my coworker a long time ago that modern reactors have the control rods held by very powerful electromagnets against power springs. If the power goes out to the magnets, the springs immediately launch the control rods into a fully closed state thus stopping a meltdown. I don't recall what type of reactor he was referring to (if it was a land based power generator or one on a submarine) but more or less it was a more modern and far more effective way of preventing a melt down.

[kuhla]

I was overreacting a little bit but other than the first few hours I always felt we should go nuclear. Modern SCRAM controls are far more effective in case of power outages. I was told by my coworker a long time ago that modern reactors have the control rods held by very powerful electromagnets against power springs. If the power goes out to the magnets, the springs immediately launch the control rods into a fully closed state thus stopping a meltdown. I don't recall what type of reactor he was referring to (if it was a land based power generator or one on a submarine) but more or less it was a more modern and far more effective way of preventing a melt down.

Everything in Japan worked perfectly from a technical point of view: Earthquake occurs and the automated systems immediately being shutdown. Main power cuts out and backup generators turn on immediately. At this point everything would have gone perfectly if it wasn't for the tsunami that wiped out the generators.... even then the system went to battery backups for all the good that did (I have no idea if it did any but doesn't much seem like it did for the short time it worked). Disasters like this might as well be "wrath of god" level scenarios. How can you plan for that?

 

It was disgusting on the radio today hearing that germany and france have put all new nuclear reactor plans and extensions on hold pending "extensive and costly safety reviews" which means the cost of those will skyrocket. On top of all this the NPR host was dropping "chernobyl" every 5th sentence and then had the balls to have experts on the show say that nothing like chernobyl could happen. Times like this I do find myself raging a bit.....

[T1no]

ugh, this blowing up business is not gonna stop looks like. they even said the gov and the people that run the plant is kinda sketchy.

[Jedi2155]

Massive radiation leak probably from a fire in the 4th reactor. Great tragedy for nuclear reactors.

[kuhla]

source - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/business....html?src=busln

 

Germany on Tuesday became the first European country to shut down nuclear plants in the wake of the crisis in Japan as the European Union made plans to test all 143 nuclear power plants in its 27 member countries.

 

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said that seven older plants that began operating before 1980 would be temporarily closed and that the time would be used to study speedier adoption of renewable energy.

.....

 

On Saturday, about 50,000 protesters formed a human chain from the state capital, Stuttgart, to that reactor. On Monday, an estimated 110,000 people demonstrated in 450 towns across Germany against extending nuclear power.

 

*sigh*

[Jedi2155]

Obama still going nuclear based on Washington post articles....

[Jedi2155]

My coworker suggested this reasonable article on why we still need nuclear.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/03/16/sjod...?iref=allsearch

 

I want nuclear, no question about it, and I believe its worth the risks especially with modern reactor designs. I never once went back on this belief throughout the whole ordeal. I was merely questioning its soundness as I did not understand the full design of the Fukushima reactors and the exact causes of the disaster. Gen 3 reactors are far safer than these Gen 2 reactors.

[Malaphax]

A short and simple article about the attitudes we hold towards energy:

 

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2011/04/05/1...ow-costs-in-tow

 

I do agree that energy although a commodity is in many ways unique and should be treated as such. It is funny to hear people think that some magical new form of energy production will happen in the future, they have no real basis for that belief but so many people seem to think that we'll just switch over to solar or wind powered and be ok. I really do hope we still keep pushing forward with nuclear power, it's far too good of a method to simply ignore.

[kuhla]

"The badly damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant has been upgraded from 5 to 7 on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale. That's, in case you were wondering, out of seven?the only other nuclear crisis to reach the same level is Chernobyl."

 

Similar blurps can be found at whatever news source you frequent.

 

This is so dumb. The Radiological Event Scale seems more like a "hype" scale. Even looking at worst case scenarios that have been proposed the Japanese nuclear situation is nowhere even close to Chernobyl in scale. It just cannot be put on the same level. Is the situation bad? Of course. Will there be lasting physical damage to the surrounding area (radiation)? Probably yeah. Even with all that I'm wondering if it's a matter of hype or if people have really forgotten how bad Chernobyl was.

[Malaphax]

I agree, it seems like fear mongering, honestly they probably have to follow some bullshit guidelines, but why totally jump past 6? I think it's a huge disaster definitely, but I also think that the fallout is not severe enough to be compared with Chernobyl.

 

The only thing that will ever match/surpass Chernobyl in scale would be an actual nuclear attack.

[Jedi2155]

I'm in agreement right here that the whole situation should not have been lumped with Chernobyl and have been given a 6 rating at worst. I don't see how they could rate each 3 reactor's at 5 and 1 reactor at 1 and gave the whole situation a 7.....that is seriously hype train.

[Jedi2155]

http://www.turnerradionetwork.com/news/99-pat

 

If this is true then...

Wow.....I'm surprise the designers didn't think of the dangers of checking the water for radiation. Definitely a big oversight since most heavily armored vehicles/ships have NBC protection.

I'm still kind of uncertain about but found a reddit on it here:

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1swnk5/51_sailors_from_uss_ronald_reagan_suffering/

*edit*

I thought they would've check and here it is describing more detail on what happen complete with youtube video links of the detectors going off.

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/Military/comments/1sxgsn/51_sailors_from_uss_ronald_reagan_suffering/ce2e5j2