The end of the empire of Japan

[Sir Bandelot]

Then don't complain when people call you a hatemonger.

I'm not complaining. I'm proving that you are incorrect. And I do so, not with my personal opinion but with some evidence from the link, showing the economic and political situation in Japan, and how those factors affected the outcome of this disaster. And I stand by what I've said here, proud and true, when you marginalize people into mere worker drones with no vested interest in a career, because you want to preserve the bottom line, that's all you get... the bottom line.

And I say this now, not to you Tim G because clearly you don't want to believe what I say, you are fixated on a mere word but to anyone else here who cares to listen... beware of this. It is the way things are moving along in our society. The natural evolution of corporatism, or any movement that seeks to marginalize the value of human intelligence is ultimately failure by its own hand. We too are reaching the point where profit margins mean more than the loss of peoples lives and livelihood, and where it's necessary to keep people at the lowest wage in order to maintain a viable business operation. Streamlining, the sometimes call it. While it works, it works. But when it fails, that's when the real business is at hand. Then no one has the competence to make an important decision, not enough options available, insufficient forethought to deal with emergencies, neglected contingency plans, too many rules with too many exceptions for the ill-informed to understand. Finally in the end men of brain and brawn will come and hack you to pieces. For further info see Roman Empire

[TimG]

And I do so, not with my personal opinion but with some evidence from the link, showing the economic and political situation in Japan, and how those factors affected the outcome of this disaster.

And you think that article justifies calling Japan a 'facist state'? Hardly. The problems with temporary workers is a huge problem in Japan but has been brought on by the need to survive - not a desire for more profits. If the companies did not lower their labour costs they would close their doors due to competition from other countries. Of course, you didn't consider this possibility because you don't actually have a job that depends on being able to compete with low cost rivals.

[Sir Bandelot]

And you think that article justifies calling Japan a 'facist state'? Hardly. The problems with temporary workers is a huge problem in Japan but has been brought on by the need to survive - not a desire for more profits. If the companies did not lower their labour costs they would close their doors due to competition from other countries. Of course, you didn't consider this possibility because you don't actually have a job that depends on being able to compete with low cost rivals.

I do consider this possibility. I am however doubtful that operating reactors is a highly oompetitive market. And any situation where the desire for cost-cutting overrules safety, results in lack of proper training, market or not does not seem accepatible to me.

[TimG]

I do consider this possibility. I am however doubtful that operating reactors is a highly oompetitive market. And any situation where the desire for cost-cutting overrules safety, results in lack of proper training, market or not does not seem accepatible to me.

Now you are arguing that TEPCO is a special case which demonstrates that your original attempt to label Japan as a 'facist' state was nonsense.

In any case, TEPCO does not set it rates for electrity. If it wants to stay in business it must cut costs. All businesses must do that and some do it better than others. In the TEPCO case there are arguments to be made that they did it poorly. But that is a quite difference argument from your original 'facist state' claim.

[Sir Bandelot]

Now you are arguing that TEPCO is a special case which demonstrates that your original attempt to label Japan as a 'facist' state was nonsense.

In any case, TEPCO does not set it rates for electrity. If it wants to stay in business it must cut costs. All businesses must do that and some do it better than others. In the TEPCO case there are arguments to be made that they did it poorly. But that is a quite difference argument from your original 'facist state' claim.

Again I do not support the notion that cutting costs is more important than maintaining safety standards. How can anyone want to run a high tech, high risk business like a nuclear reactor using temps. Farmers and fishermen. Because that is the way that the whole of the Japanese economy works.

There's the difference. TEPCO should have been a special case, but sadly it was not.

Although, I still haven't figured out why a nation that uses robotics in its industry as extensively as Japan does, didn't do so here. One can only assume, because there was no profit to be made at all. Cheaper to use the temp workers as biological bots and treat them as dime-a-dozen. That's how I see it, and the information coming out also confirms it. So there's no inconsistency in any of my claims. The problem is complex, and subtle. Not just, all one thing.

[TimG]

Again I do not support the notion that cutting costs is more important than maintaining safety standards. How can anyone want to run a high tech, high risk business like a nuclear reactor using temps.

The problem that Japan has is the 'lifetime employment system' which makes it impossible to sack workers. This forced more and more companies to rely on temps since the cost of taking on permanent workers was simply too high. I am not saying it is right - but that is why almost all Japanese companies use temps for most of the work they do. The way to fix this problem is to end the 'lifetime employment system' and make it possible to get rid of permanent workers. I suspect this is the opposite of what you think is the answer.

Although, I still haven't figured out why a nation that uses robotics in its industry as extensively as Japan does, didn't do so here. One can only assume, because there was no profit to be made at all.

The reason is apparently face saving. They did not want people to believe that plants were unsafe in normal situations and using robots could have given that impression.

In any case, there is a simpler explanation: the more people they could employ from the local community the more political support they would get. So they had an incentive to hire as many workers as they needed even if they had no specialized skills (hence the farmers and fishermen).

Also, I don't have a link at the moment but TEPCO has apparently told the Japanese government that it is ignoring the 250mSv limit they authorized and sticking with the 100mSv limit. The reason is they claim that their employees would not accept the higher limit. Not exactly the response you would expect from a company did not care what workers think.

Edited April 11, 2011 by TimG

[Sir Bandelot]

Also, I don't have a link at the moment but TEPCO has apparently told the Japanese government that it is ignoring the 250mSv limit they authorized and sticking with the 100mSv limit. The reason is they claim that their employees would not accept the higher limit. Not exactly the response you would expect from a company did not care what workers think.

http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/tepco-contractors-reject-higher-radiation-dose-limit-for-workers

Meanwhile in Canada, the annual limit for nuclear energy workers whole body dose, is 20 mSv.

[TimG]

Meanwhile in Canada, the annual limit for nuclear energy workers whole body dose, is 20 mSv.

So? US workers have a 50mSv limit. Does being closer to an arbitrary line make them more at risk?

[Sir Bandelot]

So? US workers have a 50mSv limit. Does being closer to an arbitrary line make them more at risk?

So. These are annual limits. These workers at the reactor will get exposed to the full annual limit in mere minutes, or less.

There is a dose-rate component to the radiological effects. These technical details are not discussed in a regular news article, but in Canada the maximum permissible dose rate is 25 micro-sieverts per hour, for nuclear energy workers.

[TimG]

These workers at the reactor will get exposed to the full annual limit in mere minutes, or less.

It really depends on what dose rate you are talking about. Only 21 workers have exceeded these limits to date and have been pulled out of the plant as a result. So the radiation levels are not that high on a continuous basis. This diagram puts radiation in context:

http://xkcd.com/radiation/

It also claims the average additional dose for a worker at the Fukushima plany is 3.5uSv/day but it varies a lot.

Edited April 12, 2011 by TimG

[Tilter]

Without breaking into radiation discussions or how many billions it will take them to recover ---- they will. The Japanese are far more resilient than a lot of the rest of us, have been in similar situations many times (Hiroshima, Nagasaki etc,) innumerable earthquakes & Tsunamis and are still around as one of the leading manufacturing nations and they have become that in about 100 years.

[GostHacked]

Well, I guess OFFICIALLY it's reached Chernobyl. Status is now at level 7.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/04/11/reports-japan-decides-raise-nuclear-crisis-alert-level-7-highest-equal/

TOKYO -- Workers at Japan's tsunami-stricken nuclear power complex discovered a small fire near a reactor building Tuesday but it was extinguished quickly, the plant's operator said.

The setback was a further sign that the crisis at the plant has not abated, and came as Japanese nuclear regulators planned to raise the severity of the accident to the highest level, 7, on par with the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.

If some of you waited for the government information to be given to you in order to take action, a good deal of you would be dead.

[TimG]

Well, I guess OFFICIALLY it's reached Chernobyl. Status is now at level 7.

The definition of Level 7 is this:

Major release of radio­active ­material with widespread health and environmental effects r­equiring implementation of planned and extended ­countermeasures.

Which is fair. But that does not mean it is equal to Chernobyl by any stretch of the imagination. The press reports also make it clear that the situation is well on its way to being resolved without anything like the panic that ensued at Chernobyl.

The rating reflects the initial severity of the crisis not the current situation which has seen radiation levels drop dramatically.

If some of you waited for the government information to be given to you in order to take action, a good deal of you would be dead.

What a nonsense statement. The actual level assigned to the incident is immaterial to the response after the event. Edited April 12, 2011 by TimG

[bush_cheney2004]

Which is fair. But that does not mean it is equal to Chernobyl by any stretch of the imagination. The press reports also make it clear that the situation is well on its way to being resolved without anything like the panic that ensued at Chernobyl.

...and exactly how the scale was designed to be implemented....over time...as circumstances require....not wild ass guesses by Chicken Littles.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/12_05.html

[TimG]

...and exactly how the scale was designed to be implemented....over time...as circumstances require....not wild ass guesses by Chicken Littles.

Some more detail:

The official, who was not named, said the amount of radiation leaking from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant was around 10 per cent of that in the Chornobyl accident.

1/10th the size of Chernobyl but that won't stop GostHacked from comparing the two.

[wyly]

post to the left-

"

As for the body count. Thousands is a little high, maybe around one thousand is a little closer."..."The Japanese plants are no way as bad as the Three Mile Island accident, which didn't even release large amounts of radiation from the plant."... "Once they start hooking up the plants primary cooling systems today the "crisis" will fade."..."We won't even go into his claims that the Japanese nuclear reactor crisis has surpassed Chernobyl or that the crisis level had reached 6 out of the scale of 7, all of which turned out to be false."

tim g-

" There is no evidence of failed plans at this point. All we have are a few minor radition leaks which pose no health risk.

BTW - I define a 'failure' as a major health or environmental problem. I do not count damage to the facility as a 'failure'."

now a level 7-well done experts

toadbrother-

"To repeat one more time, this is a Three Mile Island style failure, not a Chernobyl style failure."

[TimG]

There is no evidence of failed plans at this point. All we have are a few minor radition leaks which pose no health risk.

So? At the time everything I said was accurate. The situation changed a few days later when the cooling pools started leaking radiation - a event that none of the chicken littles predicted either. You, GostHacked and others were harping on the reactors and claiming that a meltdown was happening and that would spew radiation everywhere. In the end, the containment held and there were no major leaks from the reactors themselves (although #2 appears to be having problems from damage to the torus - not the containment vessel). Edited April 12, 2011 by TimG

[WIP]

So? At the time everything I said was accurate. The situation changed a few days later when the cooling pools started leaking radiation - a event that none of the chicken littles predicted either. You, GostHacked and others were harping on the reactors and claiming that a meltdown was happening and that would spew radiation everywhere.

For my part, I was taking a break from posting on Fukishima Daichi because the lack of consistent, verifiable information from the Japanese government and TEPCO was making it impossible for outside analysts to determine how the recovery effort was going. During a anti-nuclear protest in Tokyo yesterday, some of the protesters said that the Government has only issued one report on cesium levels since the crisis started, and has failed to provide updated numbers for radioactive cesium since then. And, the officials seem to have been following a pattern of trying to sell the most optimistic forecasts to the world, and backtracking and admitting to greater problems only when independent radiation measurements challenge their credibility. They have consistently tried to give us the impression that the leaks and radiation releases were just temporary setbacks, and everything would be brought under control soon. But, this disaster is still unfolding, and agreeing to finally increase the exclusion zone and the nuclear crisis alert level to 7, is something they should have done a week or two ago, since it was inevitable that the disaster, which has so far released radiation amounts about 10% of Chernobyl would eventually overtake Chernobyl, as TEPCO is now having to admit: Japan raises nuclear crisis alert level .

The big difference between Chernobyl and Fukushima, is that the former involved a sudden meltdown and explosion of one reactor..releasing a massive amount of radiation in a short period of time. Fukishima involves three reactors in various stages of meltdown, and one high-level radioactive waste pool that has already caught fire and released large amounts of hazardous radiation -- and it is still possible that the other high-level radioactive waste pools will do the same. Another big problem is that Fukushima is located near densely populated areas, not out in the middle of the woods like Chernobyl. A Washington Post report on the Level 7 story states that there is a warning that more than one country may be effected by hazardous radioactivity releases.

In the end, the containment held and there were no major leaks from the reactors themselves (although #2 appears to be having problems from damage to the torus - not the containment vessel).

Does anyone actually have measurements and other evidence to verify this story? Or is this more wishful thinking with fingers crossed, like so many of the previous optimistic assessments!

[bush_cheney2004]

....Does anyone actually have measurements and other evidence to verify this story? Or is this more wishful thinking with fingers crossed, like so many of the previous optimistic assessments!

No...that's the whole point...we won't know the entirety of containment breaches and contamination levels for months and years. Cleanup, even with an exclusion zone, will take a decade. Anybody in a faster hurry than that can just announce our pending doom on internet forums.

[GostHacked]

No...that's the whole point...we won't know the entirety of containment breaches and contamination levels for months and years. Cleanup, even with an exclusion zone, will take a decade. Anybody in a faster hurry than that can just announce our pending doom on internet forums.

When dealing with this kind of thing, one should assume the worst, prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Obviously the quake and tsunami did not make things easy for them. I called it near the beginning of this thread, and I the information released since then has proven me right for the most part so far. It's called being realistic, if the rest of you chose to live in a fantasy world where the government tells you everything is ok there is nothing to fear, then that will do you more harm than good.

[Post To The Left]

Another big problem is that Fukushima is located near densely populated areas, not out in the middle of the woods like Chernobyl.

How is Chernobyl out in the woods? It is around 100km from Kiev a city with a 2001 census was 2,611,300 and Mazyr also about 100km away has over 100,000. There has to be other large cities even closer.

Edited April 12, 2011 by Post To The Left

[bush_cheney2004]

How is Chernobyl out in the woods? It is around 100km from Kiev a city with a 2001 census was 2,611,300 and Mazyr also about 100km away has over 100,000.

Indeed...the now abandoned nuclear city of Pripyat had about 50,000 workers/residents at the time of the accident. "Out in the woods" must mean something different in Canada.

[TimG]

Does anyone actually have measurements and other evidence to verify this story? Or is this more wishful thinking with fingers crossed, like so many of the previous optimistic assessments!

Third parties (including Greenpeace) have measured the radiation levels and they are consistent with the government's claims. The only oddity found was an asymmetrical radiation pattern that left many areas in the evacuation unaffected but one village outside the evacuation was contaminated more than the surrounding area.

BTW: If there was a 'cesium' story to report I am sure Greenpeace would have been all over it. The lack of news indicates there is nothing to report.

Here is the greenpeace map.

To put those greenpeace numbers in context: the natural radiation on earth varies from 1-20uSv/hr. At 4uSv/hr it would take 3 years to exceed the limits set limits set out for nuclear workers in Canada yet we know that the vast majority of the radiation will not be around in 3 years.

Edited April 12, 2011 by TimG

[WIP]

Third parties (including Greenpeace) have measured the radiation levels and they are consistent with the government's claims. The only oddity found was an asymmetrical radiation pattern that left many areas in the evacuation unaffected but one village outside the evacuation was contaminated more than the surrounding area.

BTW: If there was a 'cesium' story to report I am sure Greenpeace would have been all over it. The lack of news indicates there is nothing to report.

No, the lack of news only indicates that information from inside the forbidden zone is tightly controlled by TEPCO and the Government. The cesium contamination the refugees were asking about was soil contamination, not atmospheric measurements. There was one examination that found cesium 137 in nearby soil samples in the days after the evacuation, and then nothing more several weeks later while they are sitting in evacuation shelters wondering if they will ever be able to return home. A more recent report is even more troubling: a few days ago, an examination of soil 30 km from the plant found small amounts of radioactive strontium, which has a half life of thousands of years, rather than the 30 year half life of radioactive cesium. http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110413p2g00m0dm009000c.html

[GostHacked]

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/175921.html

Kan made the announcement on Thursday saying the no-go zone covers an area of 20 kilometers (12 miles).

“The designation of the zone as off-limits is aimed at enhancing government control of the area to which evacuees have been temporarily returning home on their own to collect belongings despite fears of radiation, which continues to leak from the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi plant," a report said.

--

However, the UN nuclear monitors say the safety-zone is not sufficient enough to protect the public from health hazards. They have advised Japanese authorities to double the radius of the no-go area to 40 kilometers.

--

This comes as radioactive iodine levels in seawater near the Fukushima plant have hit a new record of almost 5,000 times the legal limit.

--

Japan's Tokyo Electric Power Co. announced on Sunday that it will manage to reduce radiation leaks from its Fukushima plant within three months and to also cool reactors and control the radiation within six to nine months.

Six to nine months? How much radiation will be emitted from the plant in that time frame?

And why do most reports only talk about the iodine-138 radiation.