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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 03/12/2011 : 10:21:28 [Permalink]
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Oops! Republicans pick today to try and slash funding for tsunami monitoring
They do say that timing is everything—via a press release sent out today by House Republicans:
"House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers today introduced a Continuing Resolution (CR) to fund the federal government at current rates for three weeks –until April 8 – while cutting $6 billion in spending. [...]
-$99 million – NOAA – Operations, Research, and Facilities
-$18 million – NOAA – Procurement Acquisition and Construction"
Yeah, that NOAA. The ones tasked with monitoring and warning Americans about natural disasters ... like tsunamis.
Maybe they could have Bobby Jindal go on T.V. and explain why. |
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 03/12/2011 : 11:19:31 [Permalink]
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| An English teacher in Japan named Ryan McDonald has been featured a few times on CNN today, and he's now stating that there's no food to be found and the last thing he ate was a Cup-O-Noodles 12 hours ago. This was mighty worrisome until Google revealed that he lives in Fukushima prefecture, home to the damaged nuke plant and some 250 km north of Tokyo. I mean, it still sucks that people are going hungry (and sucks more that people are dying), but I've got more direct concern for my wife's well-being than random media correspondents. CNN needs to do a better job of reporting where their reporters are reporting from. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
 Posted - 03/12/2011 : 11:21:24 [Permalink]
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Japan has a lot of quakes and is probably the best prepared country in the world. If you look at the videos, for the most part (and I'm assuming this is Tokyo and not up north) the people are pretty casual about the whole thing. Remember that by the time it hit Tokyo it wasn't the force of an 8.9 other than the durration, which is usually longer in bigger quakes and can itself cause more damage no matter what the Richter scale says it is.
Even here in California, there would have been much more destruction from the quake itself, though we are getting better with stricter building codes.
But the Tsunami. That's another thing... |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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sailingsoul
SFN Addict
2830 Posts |
Posted - 03/12/2011 : 11:27:56 [Permalink]
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First I want to say a glad you wife was not at risk and safe Dave.
Well in spite of what CNN is saying. This is a topic I have read somewhat up on and this is why I am 100% against the nuclear option for electric energy production. If this is the result of the core melting down then the real consequences can not be hidden from the world the way that Russia did when they suffered the Chernobyl disaster or the NRC did with the "Three Mile Island" accident.
When Chernobyl first occurred, Russia hid the event completely from the public until the radiation spread beyond it's own borders and the cat was let out of the bag, by detector outside Russia. To this day the real and complete repercussions of that disaster has been "sweaped under the rug" by Russia. That government has greatly down playing the damage done and the total number lives lost.
With the "Three Mile Island" accident I believe few people in the general public know that the core at TMI actually sustained a partial core melt down but not beyond 40% in a report I've read. With the TMI accident, had the operators not completely ignored all the information presented on their instruments and restarted started the cooling pumps when they did (contrary to information at hand) the core would have continued to melt down and after it melted through the containment vessel, which it started to do, a area not greater that of Pennsylvania could been rendered inhabitable for a very long time due to the radioactive material that would have been released. Keep in mind the ONLY thing the reactor does is boil water, in a nuclear electric plant and there are other immensely more benign methods to boiling water than with reactors and their risks.
Is this the event that will put the final nail in the nuclear coffin, I hope so. If not I feel it is only a matter of time until a disaster causes sufficient damage to enough landmass that the nuclear electric option of electric power generation is abandoned. Until it is I see them as ticking time bombs with much more horrific results than the sunami that caused this. I really hope my fears are unwarranted on this. However only time will tell, as the fact are not in dispute. SS |
There are only two types of religious people, the deceivers and the deceived. SS |
| Edited by - sailingsoul on 03/12/2011 11:29:19 |
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sailingsoul
SFN Addict
2830 Posts |
Posted - 03/12/2011 : 11:55:25 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
CNN is reporting that the explosion wasn't in a reactor building, but in an out-building.
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I would like to know if it was "in an out-building" why is Radiation level rising at Fukushima nuclear plant in quake-hit Japan . I could be from steam being released from the reactor itself, which would be far better as long as it sops with that.
edit to add,,,
I not surprised to hear them saying how there are redundant safety systems in all reactors. They didn't help at all with TMI. Still, I will be greatly relieved if this is not that bad in the end. SS |
There are only two types of religious people, the deceivers and the deceived. SS |
| Edited by - sailingsoul on 03/12/2011 12:01:15 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 03/12/2011 : 13:55:46 [Permalink]
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That video was from Friday at 12:37 EST, almost 22 hours before the_ignored's post about the explosion, above. The story Ig linked to says that officials were saying the radiation levels had dropped.| I not surprised to hear them saying how there are redundant safety systems in all reactors. They didn't help at all with TMI. Still, I will be greatly relieved if this is not that bad in the end. SS |
So will I. One commenter that CNN had on seemed pretty exasperated with the CNN anchor's repeating of Japan's reassurances about the situation. Dumping sea-water into the reactor to cool it, he says, is pretty much a last-ditch measure since it's likely to render the reactor unusable. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 03/12/2011 : 14:32:52 [Permalink]
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| Okay, CNN is now reporting that they are dumping sea-water on the reactor, which means that all other procedures to bring the core temperatures down have failed. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 03/12/2011 : 16:55:28 [Permalink]
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| Goody, there's a whole second set of reactors with cooling problems, announced about four hours ago, but CNN is only reporting it now. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
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Randy
SFN Regular
USA
1990 Posts |
Posted - 03/12/2011 : 20:41:23 [Permalink]
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Latest bad news...China Syndrome?
Winds now at Tokyo CST 9:43p.m. 9mph easterly....
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/12/japan-earthquake-live-blog-death-toll-rises-amid-widespread-destruction/
[9:54 p.m. ET, 11:54 a.m. Tokyo] A meltdown may have occurred at at least one nuclear power reactor in Japan, the country's chief cabinet secretary, Yukio Edano, said Sunday.
He also said that authorities are concerned over the possibility of another meltdown at a second reactor.
"We do believe that there is a possibility that meltdown has occurred. It is inside the reactor. We can't see. However, we are assuming that a meltdown has occurred," he said of the No. 1 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility. "And with reactor No. 3, we are also assuming that the possibility of a meltdown as we carry out measures."
Edano's comments confirm an earlier report from an official with Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, who said, "we see the possibility of a meltdown."
A meltdown is a catastrophic failure of the reactor core, with a potential for widespread radiation release. However, Toshihiro Bannai, director of the agency's international affairs office, expressed confidence that efforts to control the crisis would be successful. |
"We are all connected; to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, to the rest of the universe atomically."
"So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?"
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson |
| Edited by - Randy on 03/12/2011 21:08:46 |
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Japan
