Earthquake and tsunami in Japan

[Captn' Red]

Nuclear energy is awesome, it's clean, and effective.

Also it's really safe, when you don't build em in a DAMNED TSUNAMI HOTSPOT.


Been studying nuclear physics lately, even played around with some radioactive compounds in the physics lab today. It made for an awesome facebook status. xD


But seriously that shit will fuck you up.

[0235]

woah! are we saying that nuclear is clean and good?
yay! people that think the same as i think. think of all the crap that has happened with oil, the gulf of mexico for example, yoet people dont stop using oil or coalfired powerstations. yet with nuclear, one bad thing and people never want to use it again.

[Kov]

http://xkcd.com/radiation/

Saw this. I wish the international news would grow up and stop scaremongering everyone with the radiation stuff.

[Silent K]

Have people figured out yet how to deal with nuclear waste, or are we still shortsighted enough to simply say, "If we put it out of sight for a while, we'll forget about it and everything will work out."?

[0235]

@ silent K, i think that that is what we are still doing with it. just leaving it alone for now. which is silly, its got to have some uses.

@ kov wow!! i havnt seen that before, even though im an avid XKCD reader!

[Captn' Red]

lol only use that nuclear waste got is killing your cells.

Chernobyl is to blame why nuclear physics hasn't advanced as much as it could have,
thanks to it and the big scare around it it's been hard to get funding for projects and such.

I read somewhere that thanks to the big nuclear scare we lost 15 years of technical advancement in the field.


We use like 5% or something of the actual energy that nuclear energy can give us.
Just imagine what 15 years would have given us.


And stashing away the waste down in some mountain is much better than pumping it out in the air, like with oil. At least we can get to it once we know how to deal with it. And it's not like there's massive amounts of it.

[SpringMaBob]

There was a News Paper over here in the UK which caught my attention which were quite sad.
Theres this Middle School and there about 30 Kids there bin waiting over 1 week waiting for the parents too arrive and still have hope on that but they know it's not going to happen.
Quite sad if you ask me.

[Tragic]

CA getting a lot of rain... Perhaps radioactive stuff is raining onto my head.

Can I be Wolverine now? lol

[Silent K]

Lol luckily I'm west of Fukushima (for a few more days), so you're probably getting more radiation than I am. Thank you, eastern-blowing winds.

[Flyvåpnet]

On 26th April 1986, 25 years ago next month, an accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (Державне спецiалiзоване пiдприємство) in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (Українська Радянська Соціалістична Республіка) began a chain of events now known as the Chernobyl disaster.  Although blame for the precipitating event was at first assigned to control-room workers, the actual causes were poor reactor design and a prevailing culture of bureaucratic secrecy which kept vital information from ever reaching those who most needed to know.  A good albeit technical explanation of factors which brought about the accident can be found in the Portable Document File The Chernobyl Accident: Updating of INSAG-1.

Please click on the image to view its full size.

Many of the plant's workers sacrificed their lives in heroic efforts to avert disaster following the initial explosions.  Fault has finally been placed higher up the chain of command, where it belonged all along; but this reassessment came too late for those who were hastily and wrongfully accused of procedural violations and whose lives were soon taken from them by that silent killer, radiation poisoning.

Please click on the image to view its full size.
Panorama of the abandoned city of Pripyat

Sadly, residents of Chernobyl (Чорнобиль) and Pripyat (При́п'ять) were forced to evacuate their homes on only a moment's notice.  You can hear the evacuation announcement for Pripyat here.  Pripyat became a "ghost town" nearly overnight and can never be occupied again.

Please click on the image to view its full size.
ICRIN > Home > Radioecological Information > Map

Hundreds of thousands of people from throughout the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик) converged on the stricken area and worked under extremely-hazardous conditions, in order to mitigate against the radiological catastrophe caused by the power-plant accident.  Those courageous men and women are known as the Liquidators (Ликвида́торы) and deserve our respect for having placed the good of others above their own safety.

Please click on the image to view its full size.
Badge and medal received by each of the Liquidators

One far-reaching result of that power-plant accident has been the establishment of a Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Exclusion Zone (Зона відчуження Чорнобильської АЕС).  Let us hope a similar zone need not be permanently established in Japan!  Let us also not forget the courage and dedication of the so-called Fukushima 50.

=^..^=

[Kov]

http://www.japanquakemap.com/

[Flyvåpnet]

Kov, that's an excellent map!  Thanks for the link.  By the way, the evacuation notice for Pripyat in my previous post apparently translates as:

"For the attention of the residents of Pripyat! The City Council informs you that due to the accident at Chernobyl Power Station in the city of Pripyat the radioactive conditions in the vicinity are deteriorating. The Communist Party, its officials and the armed forces are taking necessary steps to combat this. Nevertheless, with the view to keep people as safe and healthy as possible, the children being top priority, we need to temporarily evacuate the citizens in the nearest towns of Kiev Oblast. For these reasons, starting from April 27, 1986 2 p.m. each apartment block will be able to have a bus at its disposal, supervised by the police and the city officials. It is highly advisable to take your documents, some vital personal belongings and a certain amount of food, just in case, with you. The senior executives of public and industrial facilities of the city has decided on the list of employees needed to stay in Pripyat to maintain these facilities in a good working order. All the houses will be guarded by the police during the evacuation period. Tovarishchs, [Comrades] leaving your residences temporarily please make sure you have turned the lights, electrical equipment and water off and shut the windows. Please keep calm and orderly in the process of this short-term evacuation."



=^..^=

[Flyvåpnet]

Kov, one good link deserves another; so here's one, courtesy of our very own Orion!

NERV極秘資料 - 電力使用状況

Brief explanation in English:

Tokyo's Power Supply Monitored By Neon Genesis Evangelion
With the blackouts, Tokyoites might want to keep track on the region's power source. Here's how they can do it in style. Evangelion style.



=^..^=

[Kov]

Oh wow, how did I missed that one. Thanks for sharing Fly.