Monthly Archives: March 2011

Japan quake, tsunami, nuke news 06

Continued from here

Ana’s feed starting Friday 8 PM

TEPCO has raised the occupational limit of radiation for its workers to 150mSv/hr. Some workers have already been exposed in excess the old limit of 100mSv/hr. Workers who have been exposed to the limit will not be sent back in. -NHK morning broadcast

Saturday:

Those in the 20-30km evacuation zone have been advised that if they need to move, they should do so in vehicles, rather than on foot, they should cover their mouths, cover their bodies, and stay out of the rain. This new advisory was issued when it was learned that people thought they could not leave their homes. – NHK

Kyodo news, breaking: Spinach near nuke plant found with high radiation levels: gov’t official 15:13 … Radiation-contaminated spinach poses no immediate health risk: official 15:20 … Edano to talk about contaminated food issue around 4 p.m.: vice minister 15:25 …

Notes on water-spraying: 100 additional firefighters have been brought into the rotation. As of today, 60 tons of water have been sprayed at reactor no.3 – much of it is assumed to have evaporated already. In order to beat the evaporation curve, a 7 hour shift must be completed. … The batteries of the water-cannon truck have been depleted – it is now drawing energy from the US pump truck which has “very strong batteries.” … A new vehicle, made in Germany and used for high-pressure concrete spraying, is on the way. It is the same type as was used at Chernobyl. … (all above from NHK midday broadcast)

Edano presser: “I should mention milk and spinach.” … n Fuk. Pref. at 5:30pm yesterday, emergency monitoring detected high levels of radiation in milk production. This morning, 11am, in Ibaraki Pref., enviro. monitoring center detected high radiation levels in 6 samples of spinach. In both cases, amounts exceed the limit stipulated in health safety law. … The ministry of health instructed that investigations should be conducted as to whether these products have been transported. … A task force will collect data and send it to ministries to decide if limitations are necessary. … If consumed for a year, total radiation taken into the body would be equal to a CT scan. If consumed for a lifetime, this may cause a health hazard. But only if consumed over a lifetime, “so I ask for your calm behaviors.” …

Details on contaminated food samples:

  • Milk samples were taken from Kawamata, just outside the 30km evacuation zone. All samples contained iodine 131, at 3-7.5 times the health standard of 300 becquerel.
  • Spinach samples were taken from 80-100km to the south of the Daiichi plant.
  • Cesium 137 was found in one of the samples.
  • TEPCO apologizes for high radiation levels in some food.
  • Also, traces of radioactive iodine were found in tap water in and around Tokyo.
  • Correction: Iodine 131 found 3-5 times over the limit in milk, 3-7.5 times the limit in spinach.
  • (NHK evening broadcast)

(Ana’s Feed is a collection of Analiese Miller’s facebook status entries posted as she takes in the news live in Japan.)

News and blog Links:

Continue reading Japan quake, tsunami, nuke news 06

The Story of Nuclear Boy

So that Japanese children can be traumatized by the Fukushima in a more appropriately Freudian way and never really learn to love properly:

Personally, I think this would be more accurate if Nuclear Boy was sitting next to three or four Diaper Genies on fire.

See also this post at Class:M … “At first glance, the cartoon does an exemplary job explaining the situation to Japanese schoolchildren too young to understand half-lives and the role of water as a coolant and moderator in boiling-water reactors. But there’s a gaping omission right at the beginning….

Hat Tip Ana and The Intersection.

Paul (the movie)

See Paul. I won’t tell you why, but I will tell you this: Drive out of your way if you need to in order to see the film at a theater that will be filled mainly with very Christian Christians. Then, as you watch the movie, pay attention to the audience.

You’ll love the movie, and you’ll love the audience … reaction. Trust me on this.

Remembering Red River Flooding

This is the time of year the Red River floods (or not). This is an item that appeared on Quiche Moraine last year during flood season:

A Simple Assignment
Red River Flood

Mike Haubrich

This was a simple assignment, really. Drive to Lakeville, examine a car for flood damage and send an estimate to the insurance company. It was a car that had been transported from East Grand Forks, Minnesota to Lakeville. It was owned by a married couple with two kids, people evacuated when the Red River crested nearly five feet higher than estimated and swamped the entire city of East Grand Forks. People who were refugees of the 1997 flood.

I watched the flood news on TV. The Red River of the North wrested control from human attempts to subdue it. It called out “This is MY valley, and I will have my way with it this year.” I had not seen such a flood in all of the time I live in the Red River Valley. The flood of 1979 was close.

Read More

Death of a Russian Cosmonaut

Starman: The Truth Behind the Legend of Yuri Gagarin is coming out next month and it sounds pretty amazing.

…The space vehicle is shoddily constructed, running dangerously low on fuel; its parachutes — though no one knows this — won’t work and the cosmonaut, Vladimir Komarov, is about to, literally, crash full speed into Earth, his body turning molten on impact. As he heads to his doom, U.S. listening posts in Turkey hear him crying in rage, “cursing the people who had put him inside a botched spaceship.”…


Read more here

Father Knows Best. Depending on the father, of course

Skepchick Evelyn (who also comments here now and then) is writing an interesting series of posts that consist of interviews by her of her dad, an Nuclear Engineer, regarding what is going on in Japan. I think this link is probably the best way to get to them.

Speaking of Skepchicks, you should check out this post. It’s amazing. Yet mundane. You will, like, totally LOL. Hebbo.

The Water is Rising

The amount of water available to produce floods is at a much higher than average level for Minnesota, including the Minnesota, Red, Mississippi and Saint Croix river drainages, not to mention smaller rivers and streams. As I write this personnel at the National Weather Service are dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s on watches and warnings for this area.

The snow pack has been melting for a few days and continues to do so, and is actually doing it at a nice pace. The melting stops over night as it gets cold, and only slowly resumes until the warmest part of the day, then slows down again. If the melting stays like this, flooding will be reduced. If it rains and gets very warm, we’re screwed.

It will be interesting to see how Fargo and other communities along the Red River react to there being no significant flooding, should that happen. Will the hundreds who have spent thousands of hours messing around with sand bags over the last couple of weeks take credit for stopping a flood that didn’t happen? Will he good citizens of the Red River Valley realize that they spent piles of time and money for something that didn’t happen, and thus, experienced a costly non-flood that would not have happened if the floods were not an issue? What I’m getting at, here, is the prospect that even in years when there is no flood, the threat of a flood is real, and costly, and that cost (monetary, emotional, social) should be considered when thinking about things like “do we move our homes and businesses out of the flood zone?”

The next few days will stay cold at night and not too warm during the day, but tomorrow there will be enough rain to hasten snow pack disintegration. There may be some flooding in spots, therefore, on Sunday. We are expecting more rain mid week, but still temperatures will be cool and Wednesday’s rain may actually fall as the frozen stuff (a.k.a. snow). And, remarkably, next weekend it will snow a bit more, and over the next 10 days, the high temperature will not pass about 40F and the lows will be below freezing almost every night across most of the state.

This means that a) the flooding may end up not being as bad as it could be, if enough snow pack gently melts away and b) the original forecasts, dating back a week or so, of major flooding happening in early April seem right. But do beware: Tomorrow’s rain may be a problem for you, depending on where you live.

Don’t drive into the water. Sounds like simple advice but some of you will, and some of you will ruin your cars or die or some other stupid thing. We have a whole warehouse of Darwin Awards.


Here’s a nice list
of flooding related resources from WCCO.

This is not something you see every day

One day I was walking along a path dedicated to philosophers in Kyoto, Japan, with my friend Hitomi. It was interesting that there even was a path dedicated to philosophers. It made me think deeply about paths, which at the time was the subject of my PhD Thesis. Suddenly, earning a Doctorate of Philosophy with a specialization in Paths made sense. But that feeling wore off quickly enough when we something rather unusual unexpectedly appeared in the sky.
Continue reading This is not something you see every day

Japan quake, tsunami, nuke news 05

… continued …

Ana’s Feed

Starting about midnight, March 17th

Today’s chopper missions over Daiichi have been canceled.

The IAEA has asked Japan to cooperate with the international community. Kan says he will do the utmost to overcome the crisis – vows to disclose more info to the int’l community. -kyodo news

The new electrical cables are on site, but radiation may prevent the workers from connecting them. Readings of 20mSv/hr. are regular. – NHK

2 more fire trucks and 1 borrowed US pump truck have cycled through . -NHK

4AM March 18th

“High radiation detected 30km from nuke plant” – NHK

“Japan has raised the accident level at a stricken nuclear plant from four to five on a seven-point international danger scale for atomic accidents.” -BBC

รข??”renewed nuclear chain reaction feared”

5PM March 18th

TEPCO is very sorry about this disaster of mother nature.

News Links

Fukushima one week on: Situation ‘stable’, says IAEA: Shameful media panic very slowly begins to subside

The situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear powerplant in Japan, badly damaged during the extremely severe earthquake and tsunami there a week ago, continues to stabilise. It is becoming more probable by the day that public health consequences will be zero and radiation health effects among workers at the site will be so minor as to be hard to measure. Nuclear experts are beginning to condemn the international hysteria which has followed the incident in increasingly blunt terms.

GE defends reactors in Japan nuclear crisis

‘Minuscule’ Amounts of Radiation From Japan Detected by California Station

Japan still ‘racing against the clock’ to prevent nuclear meltdown at Fukushima

L.A. says it’s prepared for radiation from Japan, though no problems are expected

Rand Paul’s budget eliminates agency that regulates nuclear safety

Union of Concerned Scientists Releases Report on the NRC and Nuclear Plant Safety in 2010

Japan’s death toll climbs to nearly 7,000

Current Status of the Nine Nuclear Reactors Damaged in Japan’s Earthquake and Tsunami

For more information and essays about the Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Reactor problems in Japan CLICK HERE.

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