soubriquet
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Posts posted by soubriquet
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I'm not an apologist. What happened was a major stuff-up (all organisations do that): a serious management, and closer to my heart an engineering failure. The events were both predictable and solvable. What is clear in hindsight is that the emergency power backup should have been in a bunker. That it didn't happen is a lesson.
Must do better. Steam boilers, bridges, aircraft.... the list goes on. Count the bodies, and try harder.
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Thanks for the clarification Metabo. Where are you? I'm in Yamagata. If it's based on blackouts and water stoppage, then I want mine waaaaaaah!
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And another one. Up down, that was close.
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Originally Posted By: Ocean11Is there any way of knowing that it's not going to be "worse than Chernobyl"? This isn't the only nuclear scientist with concerns. What happens if another series of quakes and tsunamis affects both Fukushima and another NPP at the same time?
Then the technical answer is that we are in "deepshit". The probability is very low, but we don't know it, and it can't be calculated.
Life isn't without risk. Thirty nine dead in Gemany from eating organic vegetables. That's 39 more than have died from Fukushima radiation. What happens if there's another outbreak of deadly mutant bacteria? -
A Becquerel is a rate of radioactive decay. One Bq is one nuclear decay per second. The IAEA here: http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html are reporting radioactivity at values ranging from 2.2 to 91 Bq/ m2 for Cs-137.
In context, the human body on average emits "4400 becquerels from decaying potassium-40 which is naturally present within the body." Wiki here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Becquerel
A Sievert is a dose which we receive. From the IAEA:
"Gamma dose rates reported specifically for the monitoring points in the eastern part of Fukushima prefecture, for distances of more than 30 km from the Fukushima Daiichi plant, showed a general decreasing trend, ranging from 0.1 µSv/h to 17 µSv/h (149 mSv/year), as reported for 31 May." I think they have those numbers the wrong way round.
Again, from wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sievert
"Average individual background radiation dose: 0.23μSv/h (0.00023mSv/h); 0.17μSv/h for Australians, 0.34μSv/h for Americans
The hourly doses are 1.6μSv/h (0.0016mSv/h, equivalent to 14mSv/year) in the city of Fukushima and 0.062μSv/h (0.000062mSv/h, equivalent to 0.54mSv/year) in Tokyo as of May 25, 2011
Dose from background radiation in parts of Iran, India and Europe: 50 mSv/year"
In English, if you lived at Fukushima Daiichi, you would be getting about 3 times the dose of people living in parts of Iran, India and Europe.
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Presley a little too contemporary? Here's Etta James, rather go blind. A classic torch song from a great singer.
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Yes. I see it covers the Joban from north of Mito, and the northern part of the Tohoku expressway. I presume it also cover the Ban-etsu expressway between Iwaki and Koriyama.
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Beer 2011. Great idea, I'm off to the fridge for a tinny of Kirin. Can't wait for autumn, and the Aki Beer.
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He's an over-reacting plonker. I got as far as "...worse than Chernobyl....).
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I guess a magnitude 6.7 is news. I found a report in the Grauniad, but not the Torygraph. Headline: "Small earthquake in Japan; no-one killed".
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No, Yamagata doesn't qualify. No idea where the line is.
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Yes. It woke me up, shindo 3 here. I've become quite sensitised to earth movement in the past few months.
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"What exactly is the "countryside"?"
Good question. Oishida has a population of about 10,000, but is the administrative area and includes a number of villages. The town population would be a little more than half that, I guess. It's not the same as living out in a farmhouse in Oz or the UK (done that). It's definitely a country town though. To get to work in our twin town Obanazawa, I have to go past rice and watermelon fields. Lots of watermelons.
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A fair amount of work but not an enourmous amount of chewed upness from what I saw of the section between the Yamagata and Ban-etsu interchanges. The remedial work mainly comprised laying wedges of tarmac to smooth the transitions between the elevated sections (which had compacted/subsided) and the bridges/farmers underpasses (which hadn't). It really was a roller coaster ride compared with my previous trips.
I checked out Nexco's website at the time. They had some photos up showing some bridges had become dislocated from their supports at the expansion joints. Also some sections where the road has slumped rather than settled. The Yamagata expressway was closed mainly because Nexco were concerned about avalanches and landslides. Clearly there needed to be some serious engineering and surveying carried out, not just patching.
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The Tohoku expressway was closed for something like a month after March 11th. Probably closer to 45 days in Fukushima and Miyagi. We had no fuel supplies for over two weeks, and very intermittent supplies for a further month. Everything had to be trucked in via Niigata or shipped to Sakata and trucked from there. Neither have an expressway connection.
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I like living in the country. I'm only leaving Oishida in a pine box.
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Ah yes, you did. She was filmed more recently, in early March. It was due to go to air on the evening of March 11th. That never happened.
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It's just a term referring to one's lady partner. It's probably seen as anachcronistic by some, but it is still used by some of us fossils. We aren't married, so I can't call her my wife.
Anyway, the local TV company wanted something using water melons. Melons can't be baked into cake, so she devised that confection.
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Ahh. It's from colonial India English, meaning the lady boss. In this case it refers to soubriquette. Sorry to be obscure.
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Here's the memsahib with a summer confection.
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Summer arrived today. Hot and sunny, clear skies all day. OK if you like that sort of thing.
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Your role in this is to supply the trews. That's all. Leave everything else to the good lady (practice your "yes dear's") and all will be well.
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Thanks. I checked the faq (honestly), but couldn't find anything. Perhaps a line could be added to help out the fossils?
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Just to annoy the young'uns, Here's Presley, Fool such as I, recorded in 1958. Listen for the guitar, Scotty Moore playing his Gibson. An absolute classic of understatement. The Jordanaires sing the backing vocals.
Linky thing never seems to work for me.
Arnie Gundersen...
in General off-topic discussions
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Thanks Chriselle. I'm inclined to trust wiki on the textbook physics, and the IAEA too. It is basic physics and all you need is a tool to go out and measure things. It's a free country and anyone can buy a geiger counter. With the right accreditation (or a good map at night) you could get right up close and check things for yourself.
We are a lot closer than you. I'm ignoring the internet on this. My area (Earth science) has enough loons already. I don't need to take on anti-nuclear conspiracists.