Japan nuclear crisis higher level

Somebody voted that as OT, goodness knows why; I neutralized the weird vote.

And I sent it the other direction.

The damage caused and long term effects of the radiation leak will not become apparent for years to come,

There is some evidence that some radiation may IMPROVE life span and reduce the number of cancers! Please read the website I suggested in another post.

Me thinks that Grochy is being grouchy!

GA

Media are idiots and only idiots think they are not.

It's time people started looking at managing the factors to avoid a recurrence, not grandstanding on 20/20 hind sight.

But maybe fools have to follow this '20/20 process', to arrive at 'thinking future'.

If it's going to get you - it will - nothing you can do - it happened. Get the duck over it!

Meanwhile; why aren't we discussing what tech is around, that ameliorates the 'failure risk'?

Nice one PWSlack couldn't agree more.

Basically to many people on this earth using up finite natural resources 1st it was wood, then coal, finally oil now as that resource is in decline, nuclear plus other alternative forms of energy. I read a UN report somewhere towards the end of the 1990's that the estimated sustainable population of this planet is approx 1.1 billion, we now have 7.5 bn and projected to rise to 10 bn by 2050 hummm....can't see it myself.

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vegitarian is an old north American indian word for "bad hunter"

The world doesn't stop using roads despite the number of people killed on them each year.

The world doesn't stop flying because of air crashes.

The world doesn't stop using trains because of the occasional collision or derailment, despite them being headline news.

The world doesn't stop using oil because of Deepwater Horizon, Piper Alpha, Petrobras P38, Torrey Canyon, etc.

The world doesn't stop using cities because of the muggings, shootings, poor air quality and stressfull living conditions foreshortening lifespan within them.

And the world won't stop using nuclear power either.

This planet will remove humans by itself when it has had enough of them.....

What were you smoking to rant like this? Well sad but true...could not have said it better

GA.

And what about the tobacco? Have anybody see a government who ban the tobacco sell (just to smoke in some places, as if everyone had its own private piece of atmosphere. What is the influence in the air quality if many millions people smoke even they don´t do it next to me?)

¿An earthquake level 9 (Richter) in a Bophal like plant?

Good news are no news....

I don´t say the Fukushima accident has no importance at all, but it should be judged with some balanced mind.

Regards

Ooops! Forgot about tobacco!

Yes it does say that BUT, the headline to the link is "Japan says nuclear crisis stabilizing, time to rebuild", with the content of the article indicating good news and progress, not bad.

Below is an additional article from New Scientist that helps clarify this point.

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/04/fukushima-crisis-raised-to-lev.html

Some GOOD news this morning for us all.

GOOD NEWS? What is that? All I ever see on the 8:00 news is horror stories, doom, gloom, rape, murder, and the occasional disaster.

I'll take any good news I can get.

GOOD NEWS? What is that? All I ever see on the 8:00 news is horror stories, doom, gloom, rape, murder, and the occasional disaster.

Agreed, the media seems to put the worst spin on anything as possible. It seems like they are trying to panic the public. How can we make good decisions/choices with news that is wrong?

I think the Japanese jumped to a seven instead of a six so that they won't have to lose more face and bump it up again later if more goes wrong. I don't know what the criteria are, but some of the the fuel melted, boiled and evaporated and then spread over the Chernobyl countryside, that has not happened in Japan.

Note that the Japanese authorities are the ones who elected to boost the rating scale for the Fukashima Dai-Ichi accident to Level 7, primarily due to the discovery of strontium isotopes. The current total radiation release from this accident is on the order of 500,000 TBq. Chernobyl released 5,700,000 TBq - more than 11 times the total release from the Fukashima Dai-Ichi reactors.

This is not to minimize the accident, but to put it in perspective.

Also note that the total number of deaths attributed to Chernobyl is less than 50 (reports vary from 27 to 43) - all among the reactor staff and first responders who went in with no idea what they were being exposed to. In addition, it is estimated that there will be 4000 cancers among the 600,000+ residents of the region nearest Chernobyl. Not all of these will be due to the radiation, but there will be a higher rate than normal - some estimates put the incremental number at roughly 1000.

While Japan's disaster is certainly significant, it still has a LONG way to go to reach Chernobyl proportions.

I've read (but can't cite) that the extra cancers at Chernobyl were mostly due to a failure by local regulators to stop the sale of contaminated milk and issue enough iodine tablets.

The number of additional cancers is probably impossible to detect as the number will be well within the population's cancer statistical "noise".

That's not to say it's trivial, just not catastrophic.

Japan put its nuclear calamity on a par with the world's worst nuclear disaster,

"On a par" is simply inflammatory language! They both may now be classified as a Level 7; however, Japan's 3 reactors have emitted about one tenth of what Chernobyl did.

Please check the website: www.hiroshimasyndrome.com/fukushima-accident-updates.html.

I second that.

If New Orleans was any indication of how we might have handled this level of incident...

I can only assume there would be massive civil unrest, looting, pillaging, and far less people willing to give what little they have to others that may need it more if this happened in America. That said, I still love my country .

The one lesson to be learned from this is not even being discussed anywhere at the present time. How do we reduce the need for more and more power, be it from nuclear or other sources. Our world has become enthroned in power use. Lets put some of our sharp minds together and figure a way to reduce the consumption. Possibly by improving motors and apparatuses that use electricity and other forms of fossil fuels.

I don't think it's the apparatus's that need fixed.. It's the minds and habits of the people. And I don't know about you, but from what I've seen, that may well be impossible. People like things to be easy, and I think you will find great resistance if you try to take away the modern comforts people have become accustomed to.

I think you missed the boat by a few million years. The problem you seek to solve started when man developed the ability to control fire.

A more productive use of your time is to find a clean, ample source of renewable energy.

What we need to develop is a self replicating energy source that is useful. I know, some here will lambaste me to the wall of shame for even bringing this subject up. I know secretly many are working on such devices in dark garages. Someone has to find that Holy Grail power source.

The irony of the last 3 or 4 posts is all this energy derives from 'Sol'. It is in fact 'stored solar'.

Most of it should have stayed 'stored' and a great deal, has simply been wasted. But that also makes the price rise.

"Price", being the cost of gathering and using old solar; plus the cost of consequences.

Or the words hidden in all the "we want" is "as cheap" ^{_{(as we have deluded ourselves into thinking it is)}}