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Note to anyone who might be wondering: my ex is about 700 miles away from the happenings in northern Japan, and about 250 miles away from the volcano that erupted the other day, so she's in probably the safest part of Japan right now, at least until Godzilla emerges from the waves...
(cue: http://www.godzilla.stopklatka.pl/dzwieki/godz1.wav)
Uh oh....
There's so much more ignorance than usual on TV and the Net these days in connection with the damaged nuclear reactors in Japan. Yesterday I saw Elliot Spitzer on CNN tell another reporter that he did not understand how wind could spread radiation, since he thought it went in all directions at once! Plainly he did not pay attention in Grade 10 science class, he was probably peeking down his neighbour's blouse. (The reporter said he didn't understand it either, until he asked a physicist.)
Anyway, the son of a friend of mine is a maintenance supervisor at a nuclear power plant in Ontario, and he posted this very clear explanation of how the Fukushima reactors work, what has happened there, and that there is a lot less danger than people think. He posted these.
http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/13/fukushima-simple-explanation/
http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/15/fukushima-15-march-summary/
Quote from the last entry, from a nuclear researcher:
"The lesson so far: Japan suffered an earthquake and tsunami of
unprecedented proportion that has caused unbelievable damage to every
part of their infrastructure, and death of very large numbers of
people. The media have chosen to report the damage to a nuclear plant
which was, and still is, unlikely to harm anyone. We won’t know for
sure, of course, until the last measure to assure cooling is put in
place, but that’s the likely outcome. You’d never know it from the
parade of interested anti-nuclear activists identified as “nuclear
experts” on TV.
From the early morning Saturday nuclear activists were on TV labelling
this ‘the third worst nuclear accident ever’. This was no accident,
this was damage caused by truly one of the worst of earthquakes and
tsunamis ever. (The reported sweeping away of four entire trains,
including a bullet train which apparently disappeared without a trace,
was not labelled “the third worst train accident ever.”) An example of
the reporting: A fellow from one of the universities, and I didn’t
note which one, obviously an engineer and a knowledgeable one, was
asked a question and began to explain quite sensibly what was likely.
He was cut off after about a minute, maybe less, and an anti-nuke,
very glib, and very poorly informed, was brought on. With ponderous
solemnity, he then made one outrageous and incorrect statement after
another. He was so good at it they held him over for another segment
The second lesson is to the engineers: We all know that the water
reactor has one principal characteristic when it shuts down that has
to be looked after. It must have water to flow around the fuel rods
and be able to inject it into the reactor if some is lost by a
sticking relief valve or from any other cause – for this, it must have
backup power to power the pumps and injection systems.
The designers apparently could not imagine a tsunami of these
proportions and the backup power — remember, the plants themselves
produce power, power is brought in by multiple outside power lines,
there are banks of diesels to produce backup power, and finally, banks
of batteries to back that up, all were disabled. There’s still a lot
the operators can do, did and are doing. But reactors were damaged and
may not have needed to be even by this unthinkable earthquake if they
had designed the backup power systems to be impregnable, not an
impossible thing for an engineer to do. So we have damage that
probably could have been avoided, and reporting of almost stunning
inaccuracy and ignorance. Still, the odds are that no one will be hurt
from radioactivity — a few workers from falling or in the hydrogen
explosions, but tiny on the scale of the damage and killing around it.”
Last Sunday night was Circuit Breaker again, and I had fun! Here's my set list:
Einsturzende Neubauten - NNNAAAAMMMM
DHI - Machine Altar Transmission
Chris and Cosey - Arcade (Extended Mix)
Kitchen and the Plastic Spoons - Filmen
Dead Musician - Nightmare (Leather Strip mix)
Pankow - Warm Leatherette
Master Program - Central Europe
Laibach - Achtung!
Einsturzende Neubauten - Fleisch "Blut/Hauth" Knochen
Front Line Assembly - Mindphaser (single remix)
Test Department - 51st State of America
Numb - Blood
Mostly suitably stompy, I thought. Though as usual I took the first shift so no one was dancing until the very end.
Got a new dishwasher and boy is it quiet. But I'm still paranoid about water and the house. Plumbing and electricity are my two least favourite things to deal with and they come together in a dishwasher. I wasn't too proud to let someone who knew what he was doing install it.
Poland 1939 game will be coming out at the end of March. Yahoo!
(cue: http://www.godzilla.stopklatka.pl/dzwieki/godz1.wav)
Uh oh....
There's so much more ignorance than usual on TV and the Net these days in connection with the damaged nuclear reactors in Japan. Yesterday I saw Elliot Spitzer on CNN tell another reporter that he did not understand how wind could spread radiation, since he thought it went in all directions at once! Plainly he did not pay attention in Grade 10 science class, he was probably peeking down his neighbour's blouse. (The reporter said he didn't understand it either, until he asked a physicist.)
Anyway, the son of a friend of mine is a maintenance supervisor at a nuclear power plant in Ontario, and he posted this very clear explanation of how the Fukushima reactors work, what has happened there, and that there is a lot less danger than people think. He posted these.
http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/13/fukushima-simple-explanation/
http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/15/fukushima-15-march-summary/
Quote from the last entry, from a nuclear researcher:
"The lesson so far: Japan suffered an earthquake and tsunami of
unprecedented proportion that has caused unbelievable damage to every
part of their infrastructure, and death of very large numbers of
people. The media have chosen to report the damage to a nuclear plant
which was, and still is, unlikely to harm anyone. We won’t know for
sure, of course, until the last measure to assure cooling is put in
place, but that’s the likely outcome. You’d never know it from the
parade of interested anti-nuclear activists identified as “nuclear
experts” on TV.
From the early morning Saturday nuclear activists were on TV labelling
this ‘the third worst nuclear accident ever’. This was no accident,
this was damage caused by truly one of the worst of earthquakes and
tsunamis ever. (The reported sweeping away of four entire trains,
including a bullet train which apparently disappeared without a trace,
was not labelled “the third worst train accident ever.”) An example of
the reporting: A fellow from one of the universities, and I didn’t
note which one, obviously an engineer and a knowledgeable one, was
asked a question and began to explain quite sensibly what was likely.
He was cut off after about a minute, maybe less, and an anti-nuke,
very glib, and very poorly informed, was brought on. With ponderous
solemnity, he then made one outrageous and incorrect statement after
another. He was so good at it they held him over for another segment
The second lesson is to the engineers: We all know that the water
reactor has one principal characteristic when it shuts down that has
to be looked after. It must have water to flow around the fuel rods
and be able to inject it into the reactor if some is lost by a
sticking relief valve or from any other cause – for this, it must have
backup power to power the pumps and injection systems.
The designers apparently could not imagine a tsunami of these
proportions and the backup power — remember, the plants themselves
produce power, power is brought in by multiple outside power lines,
there are banks of diesels to produce backup power, and finally, banks
of batteries to back that up, all were disabled. There’s still a lot
the operators can do, did and are doing. But reactors were damaged and
may not have needed to be even by this unthinkable earthquake if they
had designed the backup power systems to be impregnable, not an
impossible thing for an engineer to do. So we have damage that
probably could have been avoided, and reporting of almost stunning
inaccuracy and ignorance. Still, the odds are that no one will be hurt
from radioactivity — a few workers from falling or in the hydrogen
explosions, but tiny on the scale of the damage and killing around it.”
Last Sunday night was Circuit Breaker again, and I had fun! Here's my set list:
Einsturzende Neubauten - NNNAAAAMMMM
DHI - Machine Altar Transmission
Chris and Cosey - Arcade (Extended Mix)
Kitchen and the Plastic Spoons - Filmen
Dead Musician - Nightmare (Leather Strip mix)
Pankow - Warm Leatherette
Master Program - Central Europe
Laibach - Achtung!
Einsturzende Neubauten - Fleisch "Blut/Hauth" Knochen
Front Line Assembly - Mindphaser (single remix)
Test Department - 51st State of America
Numb - Blood
Mostly suitably stompy, I thought. Though as usual I took the first shift so no one was dancing until the very end.
Got a new dishwasher and boy is it quiet. But I'm still paranoid about water and the house. Plumbing and electricity are my two least favourite things to deal with and they come together in a dishwasher. I wasn't too proud to let someone who knew what he was doing install it.
Poland 1939 game will be coming out at the end of March. Yahoo!
