OT: Massive 8.9 quake in northern Japan

[Cap Mandrake]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

MIT NSE Nuclear Information Hub (http://web.mit.edu/nse/)

I assume they have posts going back to the beginning of these events and I plan to eventually start at the beginning and read forward.

Wow..that looks really informative.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: US87891

It is not their fault, it is just their occupation.

The reason it is their fault is that they claim to be the real journalists, who provide you with truth (not just the facts), etc. etc. Otherwise I agree with you. [8D]

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

The reporters are selected on the basis of the attractiveness of their hair and/or breasts, neither of which is highly associated with nuclear engineers in my experience.

Some reporters have other good points...

[Cap Mandrake]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

The reporters are selected on the basis of the attractiveness of their hair and/or breasts, neither of which is highly associated with nuclear engineers in my experience.

Some reporters have other good points...

She should go nowhere near the reactors. They don't need any more heat. My guess is she accidentally put on her little sister's jeans.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

The reporters are selected on the basis of the attractiveness of their hair and/or breasts, neither of which is highly associated with nuclear engineers in my experience.

Some reporters have other good points...

Sports reporter. Doesn't count. [:)]

[jeffk3510]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

The reporters are selected on the basis of the attractiveness of their hair and/or breasts, neither of which is highly associated with nuclear engineers in my experience.

Some reporters have other good points...

She should go nowhere near the reactors. They don't need any more heat. My guess is she accidentally put on her little sister's jeans.

[US87891]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

ORIGINAL: witpqs

MIT NSE Nuclear Information Hub (http://web.mit.edu/nse/)

I assume they have posts going back to the beginning of these events and I plan to eventually start at the beginning and read forward.

Wow..that looks really informative.

Dr. Josef Oehmen is a very good man and does not have any political axes to grind. Others at MIT that will have a good grip on this are Dr. Charles Forsberg, Dr. Kent Hansen and Dr. Linn Hobbs. If you are interested in this area and not just looking for fuel for your own pyre, I encourage you to Google these men and read what they may have to say.

[witpqs]

An ex-pat westerner teaching in Japan:

Japan Earthquake and the Irresponsible Foreign Media

Then over the last few days Ive been watching Japanese press events and thinking, OK, we know what’s happening now. But then you see the Western media reports and you think,”were they just watching the same news conference?” They’d obviously heard a very bad translation of the Japanese and just made up the pieces in-between. Phrases like 一所懸命 which means “try to your fullest” or “do the best you can” got translated to “furiously” or “desperately”, words which have totally different meanings.

[oldman45]

The coverage of this has been horrible to say the least. I watched BBC and I thought they did the best by saying this is what we know...... no hype or mistakes, just what they had gotten from the Japanese agencies. The US stations had their talking heads on with an axe to grind and between scaring the hell out of the clueless they served no purpose. Japan has a real problem but I they have tapped experts from around the world to come in and help. They will get a handle on this and once the smoke clears and only then will we be able to figure out what went wrong, what went right and how do we make them even safer.

[SargeantTex]

Well they would have a new story concerning that young lady if I had been there about the crazy pervert who was drug to death by this sports reporter!!![:D][:D][:D][:-][:-]

[rockmedic109]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

The reporters are selected on the basis of the attractiveness of their hair and/or breasts, neither of which is highly associated with nuclear engineers in my experience.

Some reporters have other good points...

I can read it! 1993!

What's that?

The date on the dime in her back pocket........

[ChezDaJez]

ORIGINAL: rockmedic109

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

The reporters are selected on the basis of the attractiveness of their hair and/or breasts, neither of which is highly associated with nuclear engineers in my experience.

Some reporters have other good points...

I can read it! 1993!

What's that?

The date on the dime in her back pocket........

Wouldn't that be a peso? Isn't she the Mexican reporter who claimed she was sexually harassed?

Chez

[jeffk3510]

It definitely isn't Ron Burgundy...

and I think the date is actually 1989

[SargeantTex]

are they on a golf course maybe she is the reason Tiger had such a crappy year she is a plant from a group of golfers to keep him distracted!!![:D][;)][:D]

[Mark VII]

Interesting talk you all have been having about the media over hyping the nuke plants. Yes the American networks tend to go "worse-case" on their reporting. CNN and FOX have both been over the edge. Yes, "is the radiation going to get to the U.S." had far more reporting than was needed.

I have seen plenty of stories about the plight of the survivors and people looking for family members. The relief efforts from across the planet is also high on the news. The people lost to the tsunami or earthquake are, well, already dead. The potential for fatalities from the nuke plants is unknown and real.

Funny thing, yesterday the U.S. State Department was urging U.S. citizens to stay at least 50 miles from the damaged nuke plants if not just leave Japan. The state department is also urging people to not travel to Japan. Another funny thing, military dependents are being urged to leave all of Japan. From AP, "The authorized departure offers voluntary evacuation to family members and dependents of U.S. personnel in Tokyo, Yokohama and Nagoya and affects some 600 people." Guess they are concerned about a wind change. They are sending air charters to help any U.S. citizen flee the country.

Interesting reaction if there is no danger from radiation. Wonder if the U.S. Government been watching the "bubble-headed-bleach-blondes" on TV and are over reacting.

ORIGINAL: Commander Cody

I think it's too bad the media conversation has drifted to the nuke plant, and the plight of numerous homeless people without power, food or water is being ignored. There's no sense of perspective--the tsunami killed one person in Oregon, which is one more person than radiation from Fukushima Daiichi will kill.

Here's another thoughtful article on Fukushima which jibes well with what an ex-GE nuke engineer who lives in Tokyo was telling me last night. He's not leaving Tokyo, by the way.

Cheers,
CC

[Cap Mandrake]

I think what is happening is the US is using national reconnaisance assets (patrol planes from Korea or Guam or even Japan to take air samples and airborne radioactivity readings...maybe even from subs..plus satellite imagery) to bypass the information bottleneck of Tokyo Electric Company which has a track record of being less than forthcoming, lying or falsifying records on previous small accidents.....and they are not liking what they find.

For eg., by taking air samples and looking at the ratios of isotopes found, they can make inferences if it coming from compromised spent fuel, from reactor fuel with a leaking contaiment structure or just vented radioactive gasses. The can possibly even tell which reactor it is coming from (for eg. Reactor 3, I think, has blended plutonium/uranium fuel and the others dont).

The US has taken the unusual step of publicly criticizing an ally at a very senior level. I suspect that decision was not taken lightly. If the US says most of the water is gone from reactor 4 spent fuel pool....then I believe it.....because it is a very bold claim and must be embarrassing to the Japanese government.

[witpqs]

I think that (sadly) the US Gov has enough bobbleheads of its own. I've also seen the other networks being just as outrageous over this event as the two mentioned. The US has also made plenty of criticisms of close allies, some well founded and some not. In this case maybe they are right, maybe they are wrong. Bringing people out is simply prudence, and might also be partly political - be seen doing something and a very popular something at that. It certainly can't hurt to bring people out and makes those people and their families feel a whole lot better. Does it make them safer? TEPCO & the Japanese government claim (latest report that I saw) the water in the pool at reactor 4 is at 84C temp, normally at 30C. I'm not sure what would be to gain by faking those reports if the pool was actually empty of water. Apparently there is room for some doubt about how much water is in the pool. We in the bleachers will likely only learn facts we can have confidence in after the event is over.

Except for very close to the worst compromised reactors (well inside plant boundaries), the radiation levels are still way within levels that would have no health consequences, even if the wind changed totally. A very serious situation, but remember that we can measure very small things, including very small amounts of radiation. Many people are shocked to learn about the small amounts of things that they breath in every day.

[Cap Mandrake]

This is true. I expereienced temporary amnesia about who is in charge in Washington. [:)]

If the pool really is 84C at atmospheric pressure it can't really be boiling, of course. Maybe the thermometer is stuck. [:)]

It does make one wonder what information the NRC had to make such a pronouncement. TDEC said at one point the fire in number 4 was a pump oil fire...maybe it was...but where did the big radiation spike come from at the same time? I remain very suspicious that there is deliberate underreporting or simple misdiagnoisis of problems by TDEC. Can you imagine the Hell those guys are going through at the plant?

[witpqs]

I try, but I hardly can. I imagine many are also worried about loved ones whose fate they don't even know!

I never saw the NRC's announcement and even then it might not reveal the source of their information or concern. It's also possible (in my mind, I don't recall reading/seeing this) that the pool is partially full. As far as the spike, I thought that spike (I hesitate to say "big" but it was the biggest yet and was certainly dangerous up close) was at reactor #3, which I assume is right next to #4? Don't know.

There's always room for humans to, um, 'finagle the facts' at least a bit and often more to make themselves look better or not so bad or to take the heat off their backs in a tough situation. In any situation like this it would be tough enough to have all factual information flowing quickly and smoothly even if there were no such human factor.

[ChezDaJez]

The US has taken the unusual step of publicly criticizing an ally at a very senior level. I suspect that decision was not taken lightly. If the US says most of the water is gone from reactor 4 spent fuel pool....then I believe it.....because it is a very bold claim and must be embarrassing to the Japanese government.

I take US information with a very large grain of salt. They are not on the ground and have no direct knowledge of the facts except as relayed by TEPCO and the Japanese government. Distant monitoring can only provide so much information. I highly doubt that even the Japanese experts on the ground at Fukoshima know exactly what is going on inside those reactors. Our "experts" in the US are all over the map on the state of the reactors. No one knows for sure.

I suspect that the decision to publicly criticize Japan was an attempt to placate the American people, to make us believe that Waashington is on top of things when in fact they don't know any more than most of the idiots presenting the news. The decision to offer evacuation to Americans living in Japan is simply another attempt to placate us.

Is it a dangerous situation over there... absolutely. Is there great potential for harm... absolutely. Is Japan doing everything they can to alleviate further release of radiation and damage... absolutely. But only time will tell if things will go from bad to worse or bad to better.

Chez