Fukushima

fighter_mage_thief

I was watching a few clips today on the problem in Fukushima. Just thought I'd share.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Al8w7fZYo8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m36lxZBe4_8&NR=1&feature=endscreen

Gilgalahad

I'm familiar with this brilliant lady even though so many people think she's a nutjob, her facts are proven quantities and she's not a "scare" jockey, she's trying to open people's eyes to the dangers and to change people's thinking to force politicians and rich fucks who only care about $$$ to wake up and start doing something about it.

hornap

Sixteen thousand people died during earthquake and tsunami, and people are ignoring casualties, and keep talking about safe power plant. I don't get it.

Gilgalahad

The victims have not been forgotten at all at least not by me though the media got bored with it quickly enough because it didn't happen to north america...it happened to japan. Katrina was in the news and still is and yet how much media coverage and how long did it last for Fukushima. Not long at all before the NA media considered it old news.

All of this work deals with the aftermath and how many more people will die and/or perhaps how to prevent some of those future deaths . But the political and economical will just isn't there, just like it still isn't there about climate change(though it's slowly getting there now that it's too late) as crusaded by Al Gore. It's more expedient to just cover this shit up for the sake of "preventing panic" blah blah bs. The victims of the initial disaster will never be forgotten but we have to learn to get past that and start looking at the repercusions. Sorry if i sound preachy i've been following these things since Chernobyl happened in....86? i think it was.

Mortianna

@hornap

Most people will choose to believe in an attenuated construction of "reality" that comforts them than to critically evaluate the status quo and realize that the ship is sinking.

Moomintroll

hornap said:

Sixteen thousand people died during earthquake and tsunami, and people are ignoring casualties, and keep talking about safe power plant. I don't get it.

Geological disasters are terrible, hopefully they will be more predictable in the future, but they are outside human control.

We choose where to build nuclear reactors however. Building them in highly geologically active areas may condemn future generations for thousands of years, to radiation poisoning from nuclear fallout. Not just in the location of these disasters, but anywhere that the sea or the atmosphere transports it, or where foodstuffs are exported from anywhere affected.

Gilgalahad

Moomintroll said:

hornap said:

Sixteen thousand people died during earthquake and tsunami, and people are ignoring casualties, and keep talking about safe power plant. I don't get it.

Geological disasters are terrible, hopefully they will be more predictable in the future, but they are outside human control.

We choose where to build nuclear reactors however. Building them in highly geologically active areas may condemn future generations for thousands of years, to radiation poisoning from nuclear fallout. Not just in the location of these disasters, but anywhere that the sea or the atmosphere transports it, or where foodstuffs are exported from anywhere affected.

That is precisely the point Dr. Caldicott illustrates in the 2nd, 58min vid that FMT posted. Well worth the time to hear the whole thing.

Cheesebelly

You see, people fail to see the fact that Nuclear Power *is* in fact safe, unless there are external factors messing around with it. With nowadays' technology, a second Chernobyl can't happen anymore - not sure if the statistics are 100%, but they should be close. For instance, the tragedy in Japan didn't cause any immediate deaths due to the reactor's instability, although cancer cases did increase if I am not mistaken.

But the fact stands that sadly there are more immediate threats to humankind than Nuclear Power. Shutting off all Nuclear Power plants is no permanent solution, as we'd need to focus on pollution again if that were to be the case (and who likes nice acid rain that pierces through one's skull in an everyday's life, right?)

We just need to wake up, think well of possible solutions and after that, we can start shutting off possible dangerous sources of energies. Right now, I think Nuclear power is what keeps us running. Certainly is so for my country as a nuclear power plant is flooding us with 60% of our daily energy. The other bigger sources are in fact giant Coal Power Plants, the third source is Hydroelectric. But without that Nuclear Power Plant, my country would be in pretty darn bad situations.

Solar power could be a solution, if only we could work with it at 100% efficiency. But alas, that is not the case.

At any rate, I'm a chemist and certainly power sources are outside my field of expertise, so I might have said a lot of crap, but it's crap I hear from sources like newspapers, so blame the journalists! XD
We shall see. My bet is that we'll all be buried before we see a solution. Might sound pessimistic but it's not - it's just realistic

Moomintroll

Hey, I don't think anyone is taking a dig at nuclear power. But please let's not build nuclear reactors where accidents are likely to happen!