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Thread is about the various issues surrounding Japan in the aftermath of the recent earthquake. Don't bring the shit side of the internet to the thread, and post with the realization that this thread is very important, and very real, to your fellow members.
Do not post speculative and unconfirmed news you saw on TV or anywhere else. Generally the more dramatic it sounds the less likely it's true. |
On March 15 2011 19:50 fanta[Rn] wrote:Show nested quote +On March 15 2011 19:47 moochu wrote:On March 15 2011 19:30 Dimagus wrote:http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/78135.html-- In Ibaraki Prefecture, the amount of radiation at one stage reached 5 microsievert per hour, 100 times higher than usual -- In Kanagawa Prefecture, the radiation level shot up 10 times higher than usual. -- In Saitama, capital of Saitama Prefecture, the amount of radiation reached 1,222 nanosievert per hour, a figure about 40 times higher than usual. -- In Ichihara, Chiba Prefecture, the amount of radiation showed a two- to four-fold increase -- In Tochigi Prefecture's capital of Utsunomiya, the amount of radiation rose to 1.318 micro sievert per hour -- a figure 33 times bigger than usual and for reference how many times higher than usual does it have to be before it starts getting dangerous? http://twitpic.com/49mm4llook at this please
Sadly, this is partly misleading. You have to differentiate between direct and indirect harm caused by radiation:
The values in that table refer to direct consequences of radiation aka radiation sickness. With reghards to that, most people in Japan (the exception being the workers at Fukushima, probabaly) are currently not threatened.
However, there are indirect effects such as increased likelihood of Leukemia which has an average lateny of 4-5 years after exposure. Anoter example are radiation-induced tumors which may have latencies of 30-40 years after exposure to radiation.
A general estimate is that exposing a population to the dose of 1,000 mSv will increase the frequency of cancer by about 5%. The important thing is that - unlike direct radiation sickness - this is a stochastic process, meaning that slight increases in radiation will produce small increases in indirect ratiation effects (as opposed to no effects).
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On March 15 2011 20:23 Dimagus wrote:
Germany may have its own nuclear power agenda, but people forget that the only reason this situation occurred is because it was a two-fold disaster (earthquake + tsunami) that took out the backups.
It wasn't two-fold since there was only one cause. Strong earthquakes often cause tsunamis. There wasn't one natural disaster involved, which was not linked to the earthquake.
I see that the magnitude was huge and the location of the epicentre almost perfectly set to knock out those atomic power plants. Nevertheless they had to count with that.
Locating the equipment in a basement, if it indeed did happen, was quite a mistake. 
On March 15 2011 20:09 Fenrax wrote:
But they win. Germany powers down seven Nuclear plants and very probably withdraws from Nuclear Power technology very soon completely.
Important regional elections are soon and arguments (like ... that there are no Earthquakes in Germany) won't win these elections.
There's currently no legal basis for that, only politicians with a big mouth.
A complete withdrawal is not possible.
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On March 15 2011 20:55 sqrt wrote:Show nested quote +On March 15 2011 19:57 dump wrote:
A little bit off-topic, but reading the twitter feed on NHK is really disappointing.
We've always been notoriously xenophobic, but right now it's in full swing with people seeming to believe that the Japanese are the only people in Asia capable of compassion.
The exceptionalism needs to stop. Call me racist if you will but aside from Japan, and maybe Korea and Switzerland, I don't see any other country doing this. Look at the US or Europe, when something like this happens you have panic and looting. In order for a nation to react the way Japan does there needs to be a high standard of living and education, which, sadly, is only present in a very few countries. OT: I find all the info too confusing. No one seems to be able to provide any digestible information about the reactor.
I think the orderliness we're seeing in Japan is probably the result of earthquake training and experience. We sort of know what to expect. If this were a war, I think we'd probably see a lot more chaos, because we tend to associate war with pillaging, rape, guns, bombs, torture, nukes, murder, ritual suicide, starvation etc..
Likewise, Koreans are calm during prospects of war, but I think they might panic during an earthquake, because as my friend puts it, war is to Korea what earthquakes are to Japan.
I'm currently in the process of translating a philosophy of education book from English to Japanese, and I can assure you that we have our fair share of bizarre education problems too... but that's another topic, and a really touchy one at that, so I'll leave it at that.
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P.S. Buy Toshiba stock now.
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On March 15 2011 21:05 Perscienter wrote:Show nested quote +On March 15 2011 20:23 Dimagus wrote:
Germany may have its own nuclear power agenda, but people forget that the only reason this situation occurred is because it was a two-fold disaster (earthquake + tsunami) that took out the backups. It wasn't two-fold since there was only one cause. Strong earthquakes often cause tsunamis. There wasn't one natural disaster involved, which was not linked to the earthquake. I see that the magnitude was huge and the location of the epicentre almost perfectly set to knock out those atomic power plants. Nevertheless they had to count with that. Locating the equipment in a basement, if it indeed did happen, was quite a mistake.
Yeah that's definitely a case of human error.
Strange too, considering it's not the first time that a tsunami accompanied an earthquake. Tsunami's a Japanese loan word, after all...
This isn't the first case of human error at a Japanese nuclear plant, by the way. There was a much-less-serious but disturbingly clumsy in Ibaraki about 10 years ago.
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From live report of Reuters:
The IAEA says data from Japan suggests falling radioactivity at the Fukushima plant.
That didn't fit really well with the news of TEPCO personnel leaving the control room due to high radiatons, isn't it?
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On March 15 2011 21:10 dump wrote:Show nested quote +On March 15 2011 20:55 sqrt wrote:On March 15 2011 19:57 dump wrote:
A little bit off-topic, but reading the twitter feed on NHK is really disappointing.
We've always been notoriously xenophobic, but right now it's in full swing with people seeming to believe that the Japanese are the only people in Asia capable of compassion.
The exceptionalism needs to stop. Call me racist if you will but aside from Japan, and maybe Korea and Switzerland, I don't see any other country doing this. Look at the US or Europe, when something like this happens you have panic and looting. In order for a nation to react the way Japan does there needs to be a high standard of living and education, which, sadly, is only present in a very few countries. OT: I find all the info too confusing. No one seems to be able to provide any digestible information about the reactor. I'm currently in the process of translating a philosophy of education book from English to Japanese, and I can assure you that we have our fair share of bizarre education problems too... but that's another topic, and a really touchy one at that, so I'll leave it at that.
Not to derail too much, but last time some Japanese friends visited I took a look at one of their English books, and it was filled with oppressive sounding phrases like "I failed the exam because I didn't study enough". Every phrase was like that  I thought it was weird and kinda funny at the same time, but I have no idea if it's representative. I'd have expected "Where is the toilet?" and that kind of stuff.
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It seems that the high radiation problem is limited at the Reactor n.4,
A roundup of that Kyodo news on the no.4 reactor:
Radiation levels at the reactor have become too high for normal work in the control room. Workers cannot stay in the room long and so are going in and out alongside monitoring from a different room.
Also
More detail on those IAEA figures (12:00):
The IAEA say a radiation does level of 0.6 mSv per hour was observed at the main gate of the Fukushima plant at 0600 GMT, down from 11.9 mSv per hour six hours earlier.
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On March 15 2011 21:19 hugman wrote:Show nested quote +On March 15 2011 21:10 dump wrote:On March 15 2011 20:55 sqrt wrote:On March 15 2011 19:57 dump wrote:
A little bit off-topic, but reading the twitter feed on NHK is really disappointing.
We've always been notoriously xenophobic, but right now it's in full swing with people seeming to believe that the Japanese are the only people in Asia capable of compassion.
The exceptionalism needs to stop. Call me racist if you will but aside from Japan, and maybe Korea and Switzerland, I don't see any other country doing this. Look at the US or Europe, when something like this happens you have panic and looting. In order for a nation to react the way Japan does there needs to be a high standard of living and education, which, sadly, is only present in a very few countries. OT: I find all the info too confusing. No one seems to be able to provide any digestible information about the reactor. I'm currently in the process of translating a philosophy of education book from English to Japanese, and I can assure you that we have our fair share of bizarre education problems too... but that's another topic, and a really touchy one at that, so I'll leave it at that. Not to derail too much, but last time some Japanese friends visited I took a look at one of their English books, and it was filled with oppressive sounding phrases like "I failed the exam because I didn't study enough". Every phrase was like that I thought it was weird and kinda funny at the same time, but I have no idea if it's representative. I'd have expected "Where is the toilet?" and that kind of stuff.
Hah. It's sort of a running joke amongst students in Japan, because there's a constant tug-o-war between the "needs more homework" and the "down with homework" camps 
Speaking of which, neither me nor any of my Japanese friends seem to be able to focus on homework right now... we're all glued to the news.
Interesting to note that the earthquake happened on graduation days at most schools. On any other weekday prior, all the kids would have been at school when it hit. I wonder how that would have changed things...
I remember when I was in grade school here in Vancouver, they had our parents write comforting notes and put them in envelopes along with family photos and bring them to school so that we would have something to keep us calm in the event of an earthquake.
Not sure it worked, I was already freaking out at the thought.
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Just curious, did any other country announce something similar to germany?
The argument "Hey, on the other side of the world something of a magnitude no one expected happened, therefor there are huge problems in one of their nuclear power plants (which are, according to the INES, still "just" a 4 and not higher) we'll do the most logical thing possible: Shut down some of our nuclear power plants to buy our power supply from the by a large margin better maintenainced nuclear plants in eastern europe!!" sounds rather... weird to me.
"Weird" might be another word for "inspired by political interest, not by logical thinking" in this context.
Also there should be mentioned that there are quite some people going on the streets in germany protesting against the nuclear power plants here which will be kept online. Oh, well, I better find some hiding to survive our next earthquake over here. =/
Source about shutting down pre-1980 nuclear power plants in germany:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/15/us-germany-nuclear-merkel-idUSTRE72D51520110315
Edit: Just read that it is an official INES-6 now. Nevermind that part I wrote above.
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On March 15 2011 21:10 dump wrote:Show nested quote +On March 15 2011 20:55 sqrt wrote:On March 15 2011 19:57 dump wrote:
A little bit off-topic, but reading the twitter feed on NHK is really disappointing.
We've always been notoriously xenophobic, but right now it's in full swing with people seeming to believe that the Japanese are the only people in Asia capable of compassion.
The exceptionalism needs to stop. Call me racist if you will but aside from Japan, and maybe Korea and Switzerland, I don't see any other country doing this. Look at the US or Europe, when something like this happens you have panic and looting. In order for a nation to react the way Japan does there needs to be a high standard of living and education, which, sadly, is only present in a very few countries. OT: I find all the info too confusing. No one seems to be able to provide any digestible information about the reactor. I think the orderliness we're seeing in Japan is probably the result of earthquake training and experience. We sort of know what to expect. If this were a war, I think we'd probably see a lot more chaos, because we tend to associate war with pillaging, rape, guns, bombs, torture, nukes, murder, ritual suicide, starvation etc.. Likewise, Koreans are calm during prospects of war, but I think they might panic during an earthquake, because as my friend puts it, war is to Korea what earthquakes are to Japan. I'm currently in the process of translating a philosophy of education book from English to Japanese, and I can assure you that we have our fair share of bizarre education problems too... but that's another topic, and a really touchy one at that, so I'll leave it at that.
That's so funny. Explain us please, how exactly can you compare the way countries face different event, while thoses events will most likely not occur in many countries ?
In France, during the last tempest (I think it's 2002), most of the electrican who were in retirement came to repair the electricity network for free. During WW2, some helped the nazis to get the french jews, others did the exact opposite. You cannot judge what a nation is gona do, the "people" you see in your everyday life are completly different in difficult situations.
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On March 15 2011 21:15 dump wrote:Show nested quote +On March 15 2011 21:05 Perscienter wrote:On March 15 2011 20:23 Dimagus wrote:
Germany may have its own nuclear power agenda, but people forget that the only reason this situation occurred is because it was a two-fold disaster (earthquake + tsunami) that took out the backups. It wasn't two-fold since there was only one cause. Strong earthquakes often cause tsunamis. There wasn't one natural disaster involved, which was not linked to the earthquake. I see that the magnitude was huge and the location of the epicentre almost perfectly set to knock out those atomic power plants. Nevertheless they had to count with that. Locating the equipment in a basement, if it indeed did happen, was quite a mistake. Yeah that's definitely a case of human error. Strange too, considering it's not the first time that a tsunami accompanied an earthquake. Tsunami's a Japanese loan word, after all... This isn't the first case of human error at a Japanese nuclear plant, by the way. There was a much-less-serious but disturbingly clumsy in Ibaraki about 10 years ago.
It is the first time Japan experiences a 9.0 earthquake though. The complete lack of human error would be surprising, it's expected, doesn't mean someone needs to be crucified for it. It's hard to point fingers, we don't have the knowledge of what the japanese actually prepared for, we don't know how unlikely this situation actually was.
After all this is over, I'm sure they will review their security standarts and we will probally know if this should have been prevented or if it was an unimaginable unlucky string of events. I just don't believe something that caused so much destruction and death is something people expected. If it were, the nuclear plant seems a small mistake compared to others.
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On March 15 2011 21:27 Ingruz wrote:It seems that the high radiation problem is limited at the Reactor n.4, Show nested quote +
A roundup of that Kyodo news on the no.4 reactor:
Radiation levels at the reactor have become too high for normal work in the control room. Workers cannot stay in the room long and so are going in and out alongside monitoring from a different room.
Also Show nested quote +
More detail on those IAEA figures (12:00):
The IAEA say a radiation does level of 0.6 mSv per hour was observed at the main gate of the Fukushima plant at 0600 GMT, down from 11.9 mSv per hour six hours earlier.
I wonder if we could get more statements and updates from the IAEA. They're probably the most impartial and knowledgeable people around.
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On March 15 2011 20:55 sqrt wrote:Show nested quote +On March 15 2011 19:57 dump wrote:
A little bit off-topic, but reading the twitter feed on NHK is really disappointing.
We've always been notoriously xenophobic, but right now it's in full swing with people seeming to believe that the Japanese are the only people in Asia capable of compassion.
The exceptionalism needs to stop. Call me racist if you will but aside from Japan, and maybe Korea and Switzerland, I don't see any other country doing this. Look at the US or Europe, when something like this happens you have panic and looting. In order for a nation to react the way Japan does there needs to be a high standard of living and education, which, sadly, is only present in a very few countries. OT: I find all the info too confusing. No one seems to be able to provide any digestible information about the reactor.
Superiority and nationalism are cheap and easy ways to keep morale high. Surprising that they can still pull it off considering the lack of faith in government in that country but I guess its that collectivism and harmony thing the Japanese have going on. You need to remember that even unaffected people have had their lives disrupted by power shortages and lack of services so giving them nice things to read about their country stops them getting restless and frustrated at other people.
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On March 15 2011 20:45 Maenander wrote:Show nested quote +On March 15 2011 20:30 furymonkey wrote:On March 15 2011 20:23 Dimagus wrote:
Germany may have its own nuclear power agenda, but people forget that the only reason this situation occurred is because it was a two-fold disaster (earthquake + tsunami) that took out the backups.
The earthquake forced an auto-shutdown of the reactors, removing the primary power, and then the tsunami (which hit land less than 20 minutes later) damaged the backup diesel generators. After that there was only emergency batteries that would last for 8 hours, and they weren't enough to operate cooling systems for 3 reactors. More batteries and mobile generators reached the plant 13 hours later, but they couldn't connect the generators because the switching equipment was in the basement, which was flooded by the tsunami.
Insufficient power led to insufficient cooling which led to a heat and pressure buildup and the current situation. That was pretty interesting, I didn't know their switching equipment was flooded. Orignally I thought it was pretty big fail that they bought in generator with completely different plug/spec. These are valuable expereinces for the whole world to learn. Actually if that is what occurred I find it really troubling. A two-fold disaster? A tsunami and an earth quake of that magnitude, which naturally go hand in hand, were to be expected in Japan at one time or another. Switching equipment in the basement sounds like a horrible idea. I guess some heads must role after that event.
Sure you might expect it, but then again the chances are pretty slim and nuclear reactors are built on that principle to make the chance of anything happening really really small. So the small small probability of a huge earthquake hitting happened, the minimal probability of all failsafes failing happened, alright... so where are we now, still just minor damage in comparison to anything and especially the earthquake and not really any realistic probability it will escalate much worse than it is.
My conclusion is, wow it's darned safe almost nothing happened even though the worst circumstances were present and the energy spent on making it as safe as it actually is proved worthwhile. Compare it to the damage of the earthquake and tsunami, it's 100-1000 times worse at least in terms of casualties and real damage. The effort should thus be on preventing accidents happening on the casualties directly from the earthquake and tsunami not a nuclear reactor which is darned safe in spite of everything.
So even if these things can be expected to happen the money and effort to make it even safer than it is is not worthwhile since this is kind of a worst case scenario and yet nothing in comparison to the real danger really happened.
Edit: Is it really a 6 now? Cannot believe it whatsoever when I read the scale and what the effects correspond to, especially as the next level is 100k plus deaths and this is like, null as of yet from the radiation and very very little damage outside the actual area of the powerplant. Need to read more about Three mile and compare them...
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On March 15 2011 21:30 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On March 15 2011 21:10 dump wrote:On March 15 2011 20:55 sqrt wrote:On March 15 2011 19:57 dump wrote:
A little bit off-topic, but reading the twitter feed on NHK is really disappointing.
We've always been notoriously xenophobic, but right now it's in full swing with people seeming to believe that the Japanese are the only people in Asia capable of compassion.
The exceptionalism needs to stop. Call me racist if you will but aside from Japan, and maybe Korea and Switzerland, I don't see any other country doing this. Look at the US or Europe, when something like this happens you have panic and looting. In order for a nation to react the way Japan does there needs to be a high standard of living and education, which, sadly, is only present in a very few countries. OT: I find all the info too confusing. No one seems to be able to provide any digestible information about the reactor. I think the orderliness we're seeing in Japan is probably the result of earthquake training and experience. We sort of know what to expect. If this were a war, I think we'd probably see a lot more chaos, because we tend to associate war with pillaging, rape, guns, bombs, torture, nukes, murder, ritual suicide, starvation etc.. Likewise, Koreans are calm during prospects of war, but I think they might panic during an earthquake, because as my friend puts it, war is to Korea what earthquakes are to Japan. I'm currently in the process of translating a philosophy of education book from English to Japanese, and I can assure you that we have our fair share of bizarre education problems too... but that's another topic, and a really touchy one at that, so I'll leave it at that. That's so funny. Explain us please, how exactly can you compare the way countries face different event, while thoses events will most likely not occur in many countries ? In France, during the last tempest (I think it's 2002), most of the electrican who were in retirement came to repair the electricity network for free. During WW2, some helped the nazis to get the french jews, others did the exact opposite. You cannot judge what a nation is gona do, the "people" you see in your everyday life are completly different in difficult situations.
I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to get at, but I suspect you misinterpreted my comment too.
You can to some extent judge how people will react to a situation, as that's the only reason you'd ever try to influence how they'd react to begin with. The Japanese invest a lot of time, thought and money into how to deal with earthquakes and what they entail, so we know that we can be calm.
We know how we react to war, because there was a fair amount of crime in Japan after WW2 -- though much of it was thefts and scams. It certainly wasn't very orderly in many places, that's for sure.
Meanwhile, as I'm freaking out at the rising tensions between North and South Korea, my (South) Korean friends are all very calm and rational about the whole situation. Many if not most of us in Japan have never even seen a gun in our lives outside of games and TV.
None of this is to say that any one nation's people are the only that know how to react correctly; that's the opposite of what I said earlier. What I'm saying is that mass preparedness for a particular scenario undoubtedly improves the situation that follows.
Heck, I had to call 911 three times last year, and the only time I completely panicked and lost control was when I called due to a fire that nearly burnt my house down. I've dealt with stalkers and threats, with grandparents dying of heart attacks, with indescribable pain, but never with a fire.
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On March 15 2011 21:18 Ingruz wrote:From live report of Reuters: Show nested quote +
The IAEA says data from Japan suggests falling radioactivity at the Fukushima plant.
That didn't fit really well with the news of TEPCO personnel leaving the control room due to high radiatons, isn't it?
Radiation is something that builds up. A person who recieves 200 milisieverts per day, for ten days will have the same health risks as someone who had been exposed to 2000 milisieverts for one day only. They have to move the guys out or they'll die. I don't know if you've tried to stop a nuclear meltdown with nausea and risk of internal bleeding; but I can only imagine that it doesn't help the situation
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Also there should be mentioned that there are quite some people going on the streets in germany protesting against the nuclear power plants here which will be kept online. Oh, well, I better find some hiding to survive our next earthquake over here. =/
The dumb thing is these same groups protest against coal, oil, and natural gas, and now against nuclear energy which is a much cleaner replacement for the former ones and something everyone should transition to until a better solution is found. Where the fuck do they think we are actually going to get all of our energy from? Do they want to go live in the woods for the rest of their life? Its a bunch of kids and brainwashed adults that have no grasp of the big picture.
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On March 15 2011 21:30 r.Evo wrote:Just curious, did any other country announce something similar to germany? The argument "Hey, on the other side of the world something of a magnitude no one expected happened, therefor there are huge problems in one of their nuclear power plants (which are, according to the INES, still "just" a 4 and not higher) we'll do the most logical thing possible: Shut down some of our nuclear power plants to buy our power supply from the by a large margin better maintenainced nuclear plants in eastern europe!!" sounds rather... weird to me. "Weird" might be another word for "inspired by political interest, not by logical thinking" in this context. Also there should be mentioned that there are quite some people going on the streets in germany protesting against the nuclear power plants here which will be kept online. Oh, well, I better find some hiding to survive our next earthquake over here. =/ Source about shutting down pre-1980 nuclear power plants in germany: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/15/us-germany-nuclear-merkel-idUSTRE72D51520110315Edit: Just read that it is an official INES-6 now. Nevermind that part I wrote above.
Majority of german voters want nuclear power gone despite knowing that the figure on their electricity bill will go up. The issue of nuclear power phase-out was already resolved by past governments. The way I see it, people are only flipping out because the current government was trying to take the phase-out decision back and thus ignoring the wishes of voters.
Anyways... please stop discussing german domestic politics in this thread. Despite it being off-topic, it keeps cropping up every other page and now I couldn't keep myself from replying anymore.
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EPT
