The end of the empire of Japan

[DogOnPorch]

Thanks to shale gas nuclear is not viable in NA anymore. In a country like Japan the alternatives are expensive enough to make nuclear viable - at least until they figure out how to exploit those methane hydrates off their coast.

I have no issue with modern coal and gas plants but coal will run out eventually. Plus there is that CO2 issue so nuclear is better from that perspective. My main issue are the lunatics that claim that we can replace coal/gas/nuclear with renewables. If these people get their way they will cause more human suffering than a1000 fukushimas.

I like the cut of your jib, Tim.

[WWWTT]

Thanks to shale gas nuclear is not viable in NA anymore.

Then why are billions being spent at Darlington?

Oh and by the way, the project will use 30 million man hours to complete and will be the largest project in NA!

But according to you, it's not viable???

Ok then, if you say so.

http://ca.yhs4.search.yahoo.com/r/_ylt=A0oG7oe.yMlSP1MASbUXFwx.;_ylu=X3oDMTBybnZlZnRlBHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMQRjb2xvA2FjMgR2dGlkAw--/SIG=11kps3h0n/EXP=1388984638/**http%3a//www.opg.com/nb/index3.asp

WWWTT

[TimG]

Then why are billions being spent at Darlington?

Nuclear costs a lot to build and almost nothing to run. If a nuclear installation is already built it will often be more cost effective to upgrade it rather than build and run new gas plants. This is especially true in a province where the governing party caves to nimbys and blocks the construction of new gas plants.

[WWWTT]

Not sure if this is true, you be the judge.

http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1729.htm

If it is, then Japan is in a world of hurt!

WWWTT

[WWWTT]

Nuclear costs a lot to build and almost nothing to run. If a nuclear installation is already built it will often be more cost effective to upgrade it rather than build and run new gas plants. This is especially true in a province where the governing party caves to nimbys and blocks the construction of new gas plants.

No this is much more than just an expansion!

Not only that, NA has numerous atomic energy plant locations, so there can be expansions/additions all over the US according to your changing story.

But I do agree that it is more feasible to build a new nuke where an older one existed.

WWWTT

[GostHacked]

Nuclear costs a lot to build and almost nothing to run. If a nuclear installation is already built it will often be more cost effective to upgrade it rather than build and run new gas plants. This is especially true in a province where the governing party caves to nimbys and blocks the construction of new gas plants.

Pickering in Ontario cannot start one one reactor because of cost.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickering_Nuclear_Generating_Station

Partial shutdown

On December 31, 1997 the four Pickering A reactors were shut down by Ontario Hydro and placed in lay up, suspending work on upgrades to the shutdown system. As a result the federal regulator, the Atomic Energy Control Board, because of the decision to delay the upgrade of the emergency shutdown systems at the station, required the corporation to obtain regulatory approval before restarting the units.[1] Ontario Hydro committed to restarting the units, but the project underwent long delays and large cost over-runs.

Premier Mike Harris asked former federal energy Minister Jake Epp to study and make recommendations on the problems with the Pickering restart. Mr. Epp acknowledged the large cost over-runs and delays attributing blame to bad management. The Epp Review estimated the cost of restarting the remaining reactors at $3 – 4 billion and supported the continuation of the project.

Upon election in 2003 the government of Dalton McGuinty was not immediately prepared to proceed with the restart of Pickering A. On December 16, 2003 the McGuinty government tasked the Ontario Power Generation Review Committee with reviewing the structure of Ontario Power Generation and the restart of the Pickering A reactors. The Committee included former federal finance Minister John Manley as chair as well as Peter Godsoe, a former CEO of Scotiabank, and Jake Epp.

On March 18, 2004 the OPG Review Committee released its report, attributing the blame for cost over-runs to bad management. The report recommended proceeding with the restart of the Pickering “A” reactors, bringing unit 1, 2, and 3 online sequentially. The report suggested that the restart of units 2 and 3 should be contingent as to whether “OPG will be able to succeed at the Unit 1 project.”[2]

The Sierra Club of Canada criticized the report for not attributing any blame to the problems of nuclear technology, noting that there were no energy or environmental experts appointed to the panel.[3]

Numerous changes in executive-level staff and project management strategy were made for the follow-on project to refurbish Unit 1. The experience of refurbishing Pickering A Unit 1 was significantly different from Unit 4, with a much tighter adherence to schedule and budget. Unit 1 was returned to service in November 2005, providing 542 MW of generating capacity for Ontario's electricity system.

In August 2005, the OPG Board of Directors announced that Units 2 and 3 would not be refurbished due to specific technical and cost risks surrounding the material condition of these two units.

San Onofre in California was shut down because they could not repair the reactors due to cost.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Onofre_Nuclear_Generating_Station

The plant's first unit, Unit 1, operated from 1968 to 1992.[5] Unit 2 was started in 1983 and Unit 3 started in 1984. Upgrades designed to last 20 years were made to the reactor units in 2009 and 2010; however, both reactors had to be shut down in January 2012 due to premature wear found on over 3,000 tubes in the recently replaced steam generators. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is currently investigating the events that led to the closure. In May 2013 Senator Barbara Boxer, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said the modifications had proved to be "unsafe and posed a danger to the eight million people living within 50 miles of the plant,” and she called for a criminal investigation.[6]

Southern California Edison announced on June 7, 2013 that it would "permanently retire" Unit 2 and Unit 3, citing "continuing uncertainty about when or if SONGS might return to service" and noting that ongoing regulatory and "administrative processes and appeals" would likely cause any tentative restart plans to be delayed for "more than a year." The company stated that "Full retirement of the units prior to decommissioning will take some years in accordance with customary practices. Actual decommissioning will take many years until completion."[7]

[WWWTT]

To much to clean up - to much to rebuild...suffering a recession along with large international debt...Japan is now offically back in the stone age..No one can imagine the extent of the material damage - not to mention environmental damage due to human junk washed back into the sea after the wave returns from whence it came...Empires rise and fall...Yesterday Japan fell...Nature builds you up and nature takes you down - the lord gives and the lord takes it away...Looks like the hand of God via mother nature has brought Japan to it's knees - a culture were status - pride and money - along with a sucide rate that is horrific amoungst slightly failed students does not deserve to exist...and now it is gone.

Looks like Oleg Bach nailed this one!

Kind of almost like he had some clare voyance

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=040_1384817880#vWHzXRhkT1ezziKJ.01

This sounds like it's getting much worse then better unfortunately. If there is another quake anywhere near 9mag. they're done for.

Not only will Japan "recover", but it will grow stronger as the best prepared nation on the planet for earthquakes and tsunamis. Remember, Nagasaki and Hiroshima recovered nicely too.

And as for this prediction. Proof that brainwashing works!

WWWTT

[TimG]

I see the 9/1 truthers have moved onto coverage of fukushima.

[GostHacked]

Looks like Oleg Bach nailed this one!

Oleg called it indeed. As did many others.

Kind of almost like he had some clare voyance

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=040_1384817880#vWHzXRhkT1ezziKJ.01

This sounds like it's getting much worse then better unfortunately. If there is another quake anywhere near 9mag. they're done for.

And as for this prediction. Proof that brainwashing works!

WWWTT

Claravoyance ,, one word!!

I have a question.

We have been told 3 cores melted down. 1, 3 and 4. #4 was not operational as it was in the process of getting refuled and all the rods from the core were moved to the storage pools. So how can #4 meltdown if there was nothing in the reactor? And if 3 did meltdown and 4 was not one of them, which other one melted down?

German computer models predict the whole Pacific ocean will be contaminated within 6 years.

Another thing I learned about wine, is that they use tritium as a way to measure how old wine is. Anything before the nuclear age is tritium free. Anything after that, all wines contain trace amounts of tritium, the most deadly form of these radioactive particles, because it cannot be filtered out. It's too small to filter out.

......

Recently I collaberated on a track with a rapper from New Zealand. And it's all about Fukishima.

https://soundcloud.com/openheartmachine-ohm/openheartmachine-feat-saru-g

Interesting parts of the track are the rants from a Kevin Blanch. A nuclear activist. The first part of the track includes a rant he did days following the tripple disaster. Calling the meltdowns right away. Then the later part of the rant includes another youtube clip in which he is indicating it is now over 900 days of ongoing radiation release.

This is no conspiracy, this is happening. Because 'conspiracy theorists' did not hide the fact for months of not one, but three complete core meltdowns. You want to trust anything else they say soley based on that? What else have they lied about or covered up?

Edited January 7, 2014 by GostHacked

[GostHacked]

http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/b-c-scientists-baffled-by-sudden-deaths-of-thousands-of-starfish-1.1635301

Published Saturday, January 11, 2014 10:25PM EST

The mysterious disappearance of hundreds of thousands of starfish all along the Pacific Coast has left researchers in British Columbia scratching their heads.

Marine experts in Howe Sound say thousands of starfish, which once over-populated the shores of northern Vancouver, have been dying in record numbers from an unknown epidemic since early September.

Donna Gibbons, a researcher at the Vancouver Aquarium, told CTV News that she first noticed the problem last fall during a routine dive in which she found a large number of sea stars – commonly known as starfish-- with missing limbs and decaying internal organs.

Within weeks of the discovery, Gibbons said the sea stars had all gone.

“They went from healthy, to melting, to completely gone,” she said.

“So we think whatever hit them was like a wildfire and it hit them really quickly.”

We are seeing this kind of thing with a lot of aquatic life in the Pacific. IF these people are not testing for radiation poisoning then they will never find the cause.

Edited January 12, 2014 by GostHacked

[TimG]

We are seeing this kind of thing with a lot of aquatic life in the Pacific. IF these people are not testing for radiation poisoning then they will never find the cause.

You are absolutely delusional if you think relatively minor radiation releases across the pacific can have any effect on the BC coast. Whatever the cause - its not radiation.

[GostHacked]

You are absolutely delusional if you think relatively minor radiation releases across the pacific can have any effect on the BC coast. Whatever the cause - its not radiation.

I am not the one who is delusional. Radiation is not something they are even testing for. And they should.

They are not removing anything from any of the reactors. Cores melted down and the rods were exposed and burned off. This is all a hoax.

[TimG]

I am not the one who is delusional. Radiation is not something they are even testing for. And they should.

Why? There is no scientific rational for doing so. Your paranoia is quite ridiculous.

[GostHacked]

Why? There is no scientific rational for doing so. Your paranoia is quite ridiculous.

Here is why it should be tested. It's not paranoia, it is happening. You have not been able to show anything to say I am wrong, other than just making that statement.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/radioactive-bluefin-tuna-crossed-pacific-to-us/

AP) LOS ANGELES - Across the vast Pacific, the mighty bluefin tuna carried radioactive contamination that leaked from Japan's crippled nuclear plant to the shores of the United States 6,000 miles away — the first time a huge migrating fish has been shown to carry radioactivity such a distance.

"We were frankly kind of startled," said Nicholas Fisher, one of the researchers reporting the findings online Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The levels of radioactive cesium were 10 times higher than the amount measured in tuna off the California coast in previous years. But even so, that's still far below safe-to-eat limits set by the U.S. and Japanese governments.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/28/us-japan-nuclear-tuna-idUSBRE84R0MF20120528

We have also seen comparisons of this to radiation in bananas. Anyone who uses this analogy is a complete idiot. You cannot compare uranium or plutonium, or cecium, or tritium to what is in a banana.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/radioactive-water-at-fukushima-creeps-toward-pacific-1.1346158

Deep beneath Fukushima's crippled nuclear power station, a massive underground reservoir of contaminated water that began spilling from the plant's reactors after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami has been creeping slowly toward the Pacific.

Now, more than two years later, experts fear it is about to reach the ocean and greatly worsen what is fast becoming a new crisis at Fukushima: the inability to contain vast quantities of radioactive water.

The looming crisis is potentially far greater than the discovery earlier this week of a leak from a tank that stores contaminated water used to cool the reactor cores. That 300-ton leak is the fifth and most serious from a tank since the March 2011 disaster, when three of the plant's reactors melted down after a huge earthquake and tsunami knocked out the plant's power and cooling functions.

But experts believe the underground seepage from the reactor and turbine building area is much bigger and possibly more radioactive, confronting the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., with an invisible, chronic problem and few viable solutions. Many also believe it is another example of how TEPCO has repeatedly failed to acknowledge problems that it could almost certainly have foreseen — and taken action to mitigate before they got out of control.

[-1=e^ipi]

I am not the one who is delusional. Radiation is not something they are even testing for. And they should.

They are not removing anything from any of the reactors. Cores melted down and the rods were exposed and burned off. This is all a hoax.

Here is an article to help calm your delusion.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/11/16/fukushima-radiation-in-pacific-tuna-is-equal-to-one-twentieth-of-a-banana/

If you are that concerned about radiation then I suggest you avoid bananas.

[GostHacked]

Here is an article to help calm your delusion.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/11/16/fukushima-radiation-in-pacific-tuna-is-equal-to-one-twentieth-of-a-banana/

If you are that concerned about radiation then I suggest you avoid bananas.

Not even in the same categorey. Total bull.

[TimG]

Here is why it should be tested. It's not paranoia, it is happening. You have not been able to show anything to say I am wrong, other than just making that statement.

Can can't prove their aren't mermaids in the ocean either. But I do know the the amount of radiation leaked into the ocean is insignificant when compared to the volume of water so it cannot possibly be a concern. Edited January 12, 2014 by TimG

[-1=e^ipi]

Not even in the same categorey. Total bull.

I know, the radioactivity you get from eating bananas is far greater than anything you would get from fukushima.

Here I'll do some calculations for you cause clearly you don't understand the concept that the pacific ocean is really really big:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_effects_from_the_Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster#Total_emissions

"On 21 April, TEPCO estimated that 520 tons of radioactive water leaked into the sea before leaks in a pit in unit 2 were plugged, totaling 4,700 TBq of water release (calculated by simple sum, which is inconsistent with the IAEA methodology for mixed-nuclide releases^[66]) (20,000 times facility's annual limit).^[66][84] TEPCO's detailed estimates were 2,800 TBq of I-131, 940 TBq of Cs-134, 940 TBq of Cs-137."

I-131: has an 8 day half life and releases 971 KeV of energy upon decay

Cs-134: has a 2 year half life and releases ~1600 KeV of energy upon decay

Cs-137: has a 30 year half life and releases 1176 KeV of energy upon decay

Note that: "The primary releases of radioactive nuclides have been iodine and caesium".

The majority of I-131 has already decayed due to it's short half life, while over half of the Cs-134 has decayed due to the 2 year half life and fukushima being 3 years ago.

So approximately 9.4 x 10^14 Bq of Cs-137 and an equivalent amount of Cs-134 was released in 2011. Now, 3 years later, this would leave approximately 0.33 x 10^14 Bq of Cs-134 and 8.77 x 10^14 Bq of Cs-137 in the ocean. Given the decay energies, the power produced from radioactive decay (of the radioactive materials released into the pacific ocean by fukushima) is approximately 173.7 W.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Ocean

Now the pacific ocean has an area of 1.65 x 10^14 m^2. If the radio active isotopes have spread across the surface of the pacific ocean then the power produced from radioactive decay from radioactive isotopes released into the ocean by Fukushima per unit area of the pacific ocean is 1.05 x 10^-12 W/m^2.

http://physics.nist.gov/PhysRefData/XrayMassCoef/ComTab/muscle.html

Now the mass energy absorption coefficient around 1 MeV for human biological tissue is approximately 0.002 m^2/kg. This means that a human on the surface of the pacific ocean will receive about 1.05 x 10^-15 Gy/s of additional radiation from radioactive isotopes released into the pacific ocean by Fukushima.

Edit: just wanted to add that I divided the radiation reaching the human by a factor of 2 since for radiation coming from a large thin plane, half will go up and half will do down.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sievert

Using a weighting factor of 20, this means that a human in the pacific ocean receives 2.10 x 10^-14 Sv/s or 6.63 x 10^-7 Sv/year.

A human on earth receives about 3 x 10^-3 Sv/year from natural background radiation (cosmic radiation, terrestrial radiation, etc.), though this can vary from approx 1.5 x 10^-3 Sv/year to 4.5 x 10^-3 Sv/year depending where on the earth's surface you live.

Therefore, (using this rough approximation) radioactive isotopes released in the pacific ocean from Fukushima Daiichi result in sea life today in the pacific ocean receiving approximately 0.022% more radiation than they would without Fukushima Daiichi.

I hardly consider this 'poisoning the ocean'.

Edited January 16, 2014 by -1=e^ipi

[Bonam]

Good analysis, -1=e^ipi. However, GostHacked "doesn't like math". In fact, the vast majority of the population do not understand the idea that a number can be small and therefore the effects described by that number can be negligible. People just hear the words "radiation" or "nuclear" and freak out. You can't argue against that with numbers and facts and reason. You can only plan around the known public response. For nuclear power to be politically viable in democratic countries, there can never be any noteworthy incident at a nuclear reactor, at all. A single incident can cripple the entire industry for decades if not permanently. Hence nuclear power plants must be built to regulations and standards unheard of for almost any other technology. This in turn raises the cost of nuclear energy by orders of magnitude. People are willing to tolerate tens of thousands of yearly deaths due to coal and oil, due to smoking, due to car accidents, but even 1 death (or even no deaths at all) by radiation portends the apocalypse.

That's actually one of the most frustrating things about human societies... the complete inability to evaluate risks in their proper context, and thus the complete inability to prioritize action and response accordingly.

[GostHacked]

Can can't prove their aren't mermaids in the ocean either.

Really?

I know, the radioactivity you get from eating bananas is far greater than anything you would get from fukushima.

You cannot make a comparison of a banana to plutonium or uranium. Would you eat a banana or the equivelant in uranium? Which one is more likely to give you cancer?

[GostHacked]

And for those who like banana comparisons..

http://agreenroad.blogspot.ca/2012/03/radioactive-bananas-peeling-mystery.html

Genetically, humans, animals and plants have 'adapted' to solar radiation, plus all natural background radiation, including potassium. All living beings have evolved in this environment, so we all have repair mechanisms in our DNA to handle this small amount of low activity 'natural' radiation and the small amount of genetic damage this causes. And yes, this radiation does do damage.

However.. There is a HUGE difference between the potassium in a banana, natural solar radiation and the radioactive Cesium, Iodine or 1,200 other man made but invisible radioactive contaminants found in food, soil, water, plants, animals and humans thrown out of a reactor after a nuclear accident.

First and foremost, potassium is potassium. It is 'natural' and has always been around in our environment. It has a low activity rate. A banana not only potassium, but also many other co factors as well as other minerals that add health building value which one cannot ever get from radioactive cesium exposure.

Edited January 13, 2014 by GostHacked

[TimG]

And for those who like banana comparisons...

A cop out. Radiation is radiation. The only difference is Potassium has a long half life because it emits lower energy radiation than Cesium but the energy difference does not mean much if the stuff is ingested. Bottom line: there is no evidence that low levels of radiation from any source is dangerous. As long as the doses are low there is nothing to worry about. Edited January 13, 2014 by TimG

[GostHacked]

A cop out. Radiation is radiation.

Would you rather eat a banana or some uranium?

[-1=e^ipi]

Good analysis, -1=e^ipi. However, GostHacked "doesn't like math". In fact, the vast majority of the population do not understand the idea that a number can be small and therefore the effects described by that number can be negligible.

That's actually one of the most frustrating things about human societies... the complete inability to evaluate risks in their proper context, and thus the complete inability to prioritize action and response accordingly.

Yeah, this pisses me off too. Too much of the voting population does not understand math.

You cannot make a comparison of a banana to plutonium or uranium. Would you eat a banana or the equivelant in uranium? Which one is more likely to give you cancer?

Bananas contain the radioactive isotope K-40.

Would you rather eat a banana or some uranium?

Your question is dumb in the context of your claims of Fukushima Daiichi poisoning the ocean.

How does a 0.022% increase in the radioactivity of the Pacific Ocean constitute the end of the world?

Maybe a better question is, which is more radioactive? A banana or a fish from the pacific ocean?

[GostHacked]

Would you eat a gram of K-40 or a gram of uranium? The comparison is terrible. We've been living with potassium for centuries. We have not been living with uranium, plutonium, tritium and the like for very long.

Cleaning up after a banana is easy. Cleaning up after a nuclear accident... well Chernobyl is still an ongoing issue. They are about to put a new cover on it. Japan says it will take 40 years before they can to anything. TEPCO is saying 2020 at the earliest to remove the cores from any of the reactor. However good luck with recovering a core from #1, 3 or 4. Not going to happen.

Yes we live with constant background radiation. That is not the issue, never was and cannot be compared to radiation given off from nuclear reactors.

Which is more likely to cause you cancer? A banana or uranium?