Comments on: Japan earthquake info

By: The Jamhole Free Comedy Podcast from Kalispell Montana | Ep 470: The Dirtball The Jamhole

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 04:20:16 +0000

[...] know what else did NOT cause this destruction? The moon. Huge thanks to the Bad Astronomer, Phil Plait for putting this nonsense to rest. The super moon? [...]

By: Skeptikai

Skeptikai — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 13:54:19 +0000

Thank you so much, Phil, for writing about this. I hope more people understand the magnitude of the dire situation in Japan right now. I’m writing my account on my website, if anyone is curious to know what it’s really like there now.

By: Joseph G

Joseph G — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 18:55:12 +0000

@Sid: Teh Google is showing me that Robert Alvarez isn’t exactly a dispassionate observer – he’s anti-nuclear in every way, shape, and form. He also speaks about nuclear power as being a proliferation risk, even though that’s a vast oversimplification that only applies in certain cases.

By: Hold on Japan | The Large Idea Collider

Hold on Japan | The Large Idea Collider — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 03:45:35 +0000

[...] time. That makes it very hard to get back up. If you feel the need to help, Phil Plait has compiled a list of organisations through which you can donate to help. Personally, I will be giving money through the account CERN [...]

By: Elmar_M

Elmar_M — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 00:22:17 +0000

Sid, where are you getting that information from? Both France and Japan are recycling a lot of fuel, regularily. I see the castor transports go to the refurbishing plants all the time.
And the right wingers are generally against nuclear power and prefer oil and coal. I am definitely not a right winger, at least not for the US, for Europe maybe, but the world is different here.

By: Sid

Sid — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 23:07:12 +0000

http://www.fpif.org/articles/nuclear_recycling_fails_the_test

Joseph. Recycling isn’t as easy or magical as you and the right wing think tanks want you to believe. France recycles zero these days and the act of recycling releases significant radioactive waste.

By: Blog de Astronomia do astroPT » Terramoto provocado pela super-Lua?

Blog de Astronomia do astroPT » Terramoto provocado pela super-Lua? — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 22:14:48 +0000

[...] mais sobre isto, em inglês, aqui, aqui, aqui, aqui, aqui, aqui, aqui, aqui, e aqui.Deixem-me ser claro: isto é um perfeito DISPARATE!Não há qualquer ligação entre uma coisa e [...]

By: Chris Winter

Chris Winter — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 22:09:08 +0000

Two more links to information on the Japanese reactors:

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/default.aspx

http://morgsatlarge.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/why-i-am-not-worried-about-japans-nuclear-reactors/

By: Elmar_M

Elmar_M — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 21:44:43 +0000

Here is an article from Scientific American on the topic:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste

The Wikipedia article on fossil fuel power plants also has a paragraph on the topic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_power_station

By: Elmar_M

Elmar_M — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 21:27:45 +0000

Joseph, it is true, coal power plants do release a lot of radioactivity besides all the other crap they do into the air. Of course this is usually not talked about.
I dont have exact and official numbers, but one source once told me that for each and every coal plnat the amount of radioactivity relased during normal operation every year, was in the realm of the radioactivity released by the 3 mile island plant during the accident.
About 30,000 people die of the effects of the crap blown into the air by coal power plants every year in the US allone…
In comparison only some 4,000 deaths worldwide can be atributed to the radiation released by the Chernobyl desaster.
People die of gas explosions pretty much all the time. When one or two people die in a gas explosion somewhere, it is usually not even more than a footnote in the local news, because it is so common. It almost never makes it into international news (unless many people got killed). People have absolutely no problem with having gas in their houses or condos…
It is pretty irrational if you think about it.

By: Heather

Heather — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 20:30:45 +0000

I have to agree with Elmar_M here, people are overreacting. The banana allegory is quite precise, and try to think logically as well – do you think that if some big radiation catastrophe had to occur, the governments would let it slide? We’d all be evacuated by now, or dead.

So yeah, I think we can all live a with a little bit of radiation (we already do) and if not…well..think of it as Fallout 4

Heather

By: Joseph G

Joseph G — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 20:15:49 +0000

@94 Elmar: I read somewhere (and this may be totally apocryphal) that the usable energy content of the uranium, thorium, et al fissiles in coal fly ash is higher then the energy content of the coal that that it’s in! Not only do coal plants release radioactives into the environment, but it’s stuff we could actually be using. I think the only reason they aren’t doing so is that it’s still cheaper to mine it then to separate the stuff from the fly ash…

By: Joseph G

Joseph G — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 20:15:18 +0000

@98 Ken: I’m sorry! That sounds like an awful situation to be in.
We’re all hoping for the best for your family.

By: Elmar_M

Elmar_M — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 19:59:23 +0000

This is an interesting comparison for people that are having a problem grasping the concept of radiation and how bad it is.
Simply measure the radiation in “bananas”. Many things we eat are naturally radioactive. Bananas are quite radioactive due to a rather high concentration of potassium and therefore also the radioactive isotope potassium 40.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose

So if you do the math, then the radiation at the Fukushima plant spiked up to 30 bananas a day and then fell back down to 1 to 2 bananas per day.
I think we all can live with that
Banana- quote courtesy of Next Big Future (nextbigfuture.com).
I have to remember that one!

By: Ken

Ken — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 18:40:56 +0000

I’m very worried for some of my family there. I lived in Japan for 10 years up until May of 2009 when my wife (who is Japanese) and I decided to come back to the US so that I could finish up school, and introduce our children to their American grandparents. I’m very close to my wife’s family, as being an American with no American family members over in Japan, I relied on them for many things (helping us get through two miscarriages, and other issues that life tosses randomly at people). In fact, her Aunt lives near where the quake and tsunami hit, and we haven’t been able to get any information on how her Aunt or her Aunt’s family are doing, or whether they are alive or not.

It’s very stressing and worrisome… ;-(

By: Messier Tidy Upper

Messier Tidy Upper — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 15:05:37 +0000

@94. Elmar_M :

Anyway, the world has two options: Nuclear power, or global warming. Which one shall it be?

We’ll have both – actually we already do. Anthropogenic Global Warming is already occurring – and, yes, we need to forget our phobias and adopt nuclear power as one small step in mitigating it and as an alternative preferable to burning coal and oil with the consequences of doing that.

On this issue I agree with you, Elmar_M.

By: Messier Tidy Upper

Messier Tidy Upper — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 14:25:23 +0000

Overwhelming. Dreadful. Beyond words.

I stayed in Japan for 6 months – Okayama towards the southern part of the main island (Honshu) near the inland sea area. That was many years ago now. Still really feel for the people affected. For the tens of thousands who have lost property and, worse, lost family and friends. For those still fighting the nuclear reactor problems or the areas at risk there. My thoughts go out to you.

First the floods in Queensland & Victoria in my nation, then the Christchurch earthquake just across the ditch from us & now this. What a horror start to the year with so many natural disaster bringing so much death and suffering to so many. Anything I can say or do seems utterly inadequate against all this.

By: TechyDad

TechyDad — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 13:18:19 +0000

@Gunnar,

I was actually hoping someone would correct my math because something felt off about those figures. I wonder what kind of actual force that tsunami hit with. There was one video that the news kept playing that showed it hit a two story building and destroy it like it was made of toothpicks. Has the force of the tsunami been estimated at all?

By: Elmar_M

Elmar_M — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 10:51:41 +0000

I am more concerned about the 10,000 + people in the US allone that die of lung cancer every year because of the dirt those coal power plants blow into the air. The anti- nuclear movement is completely unfounded. Chernobyl was an exceptional accident made because of exceptional mistakes during botht he design and the operation of the reactor AND during the desaster itself.
Anyway, the world has two options: Nuclear power, or global warming. Which one shall it be?

By: katwagner

katwagner — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 04:41:36 +0000

Oboy Elmar, you don’t even want to get me started on coal. Take a look at the piece in the NYTimes titled My Polluted Kentucky Home, published last week. You know, it’s not just our lives I’m talking about here. You know about mountaintop removal, right? Kentucky, West Virginia – about 450 mountains removed for the coal underneath; fouling creaks, streams, and water supplies. Songbirds are losing their habitat so we are losing, no, the world is losing some of them.

By: flip

flip — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 04:22:02 +0000

#55 MichaelL

I’ve lost my copy somewhere in my mess of a house… but I’m pretty sure this is the same article I read:
cosmosmagazine.com/node/3928/full

Note: it starts by talking about avalanches, which leads into the discussion on glaciers and earthquakes.

By: Elmar_M

Elmar_M — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 00:59:16 +0000

Here is another link, that might be of interest to you all. It explains very well what happened in Fukushima:
http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/13/fukushima-simple-explanation/

By: Elmar_M

Elmar_M — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 00:35:32 +0000

You all think that’s OK because Japan needs the energy. Oh I see now.

Well nothing happened, at least not so far and with every hour that goes by, the risk of a larger failure gets lower. The evacuation is simply a savety precaution, though I dont really seee a chance for any dramatic catastrophies happening. Considering that the earthquake and the Tsunami probably killed 10,000 people, the nuclear reactors have proven to be rather save.
Oh, btw, I think that this is absolutely OK, because Japan does need the energy. I mean nobody complains about the coal power plants in their backyards and coal causes much more deaths every year than nuclear power (as reactors) ever has.
Here is a very nice comparison of the different energy sources and the deatsh per Twh. It is a real eye opener. On this list, nuclear is among the savest, by far!
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all-energy-sources.html

By: katwagner

katwagner — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 23:08:58 +0000

Well Joseph G, the Japanese around the Di-ichi reactors are out of there now. Everyone within a 12 mile radius. Everything I’ve read says those plants were built to withstand an earthquake, but not a 9.0 one. And the cooling systems weren’t built to withstand a tsunami because they didn’t think that would happen. But it did. So? You all think that’s OK because Japan needs the energy. Oh I see now.

By: Joseph G

Joseph G — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 22:19:14 +0000

There’s also the absolute travesty that the US doesn’t reprocess its nuclear fuel. With reprocessing and fast reactors, we could close the fuel cycle (getting 60 times as much juice per gram of fuel) – with all the spent fuel we already have waiting for disposal, we could be energy self-sufficient for a substantial period of time! Apparently, anti-proliferation groups have been opposing all fuel reprocessing in the US, which I for the life of me can’t understand. So France and Japan reprocessing their fuel is a proliferation risk? So having casks of spent fuel sitting around is somehow safer? I don’t follow.
Somehow, the US has gone from the world leader in nuclear technology to being 40 years behind the rest of the industrialized world, and ironically, the people who seem to be most afraid of nuclear waste are the very reason that we have so damn much of it.