Fukushima–We’re All Chernobyl’ Now
by Matthew Payne on March 30, 2011
The evidence is becoming increasingly obvious that Fukushima is a first-class nuclear disaster and experts are now using terminology such as “worse than Chernobyl’” and phrases such as “pack of lies” (see the RT of a conversation with Dr. Christopher Busby of the European Committee on Radiation Risks). Busby makes the very pertinent point that Fukushima is not Chernobyl’ because the population density around any reasonable Fukushima “exclusion zone” is …
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Fukushima–Past the Point of No Return?
by Matthew Payne on March 28, 2011
UPDATE (3/29): I present, in the interests of balance, the views of Dr. Alexander Sich in the Diplomat concerning how Fukushima is nothing like Chernobyl’. Actually, most of what he says is accurate but in my mind not particularly germane. At the moment Fukushima is precisely 1/10th a Chernobyl since that is what reputable scientific organizations have measured the release of radiation as. I should also note that Sich, an …
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Fukushima Update–Letting the Demon out of the Box
by Matthew Payne on March 27, 2011
UPDATE: Seems the radioctivity is only 100,000 times normal levels, not 10 million as earlier reported. I feel so much better now–obviously 100,000 normal is no big whoop. Right? Right.
Not that we really can trust anything we’re being told (see this post) since we are still playing pattie-cake with conflicting information. For instance, as this New York Times’ article indicates, Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency reported …
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Fukushima Update–Lies and the Lying Governments Who Tell Them
by Matthew Payne on March 26, 2011
This comment by Mistermix at Balloon Juice really says it all about the withholding of bad news from Fukushima. I have very little to add to this except who ever had workers standing in radioactive water for two hours where they were exposed to 2-6 sieverts (!!-not milli- or microsieverts) of radiation should be tried for murder.
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Fukushima–Not Out of the Woods
by Matthew Payne on March 24, 2011
This news report from the New York Times gives a sense of the difficulties Japan’s “Nuclear Samarai” battled in their efforts to contain the Fukushima accident. The story is far more interesting for discussing the role of salt water in salt build-up. The salt water reacts to the heavy metals in the core building up crusts around the fuel rods:
Crusts insulate the rods from the water and allow them
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A Sad Day for the BBC–So Much For Russia.
by Matthew Payne on March 23, 2011
The BBC ended its Russian service today. Back in the day, listening to it was the sort of thing dissidents went to work camps for. It was one of the few things the Kremlin was/is ever worried about. It was an invaluable source of news to citizens behind the Iron Curtain on events as disparate as the Berlin Crisis, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Prague Spring, the Afghan War, Solidarity, Chernobyl’, the August Putsch, the shelling …
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Fukushima Update
by Matthew Payne on March 21, 2011
UPDATE (3/21): Well, so much for good news. A cloud of smoke rose from reactor 3 at Fukushima yesterday and caused a temporary evacuation from the site. Why so edgy? That’s the plant with the MOx pox–the one with the plutonium. Somehow that little development convinced the PM, Naota Kan, that discretion trumped valor and he cancelled his photo-op.
Meanwhile, the radioactivity in diary products and vegetables clearly exceed …
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Why Your Life Sucks–Productivity vs. Wages
by Matthew Payne on March 19, 2011
I’m planning to get back on Fukushima patrol later in the day (quick note–they still haven’t got the power back up), but I could not let this graph pass without comment (h/t Huffington Post–even if the idiots over there hired Andrew Breitbart):
Observant readers will note that the level of productivity spiked during the worst part of the recent economic crisis, precisely when firms were starved for investment in …
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Fukushima and a voice from Chernobyl’
by Matthew Payne on March 17, 2011
UPDATE 3 (3/17): It seems like we reached a tipping point in the last 24 hours. Now the regular media is taking very seriously the “C” word and voices like Michio Kaku on ABC (h/t Crooks and Liars) is giving very blunt assessments of how badly things could go and emphasizing the dangers of the spent fuel ponds. While it is completely wrong to equate this disaster with …
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Fukushima–New Bad News
by Matthew Payne on March 13, 2011
UPDATE 3: The spent fuel rods have burned, though reports are the fire has now been extinguished. There is no upside to this–massive amounts of radiation have been released. I’m not preparted to say we’re in Chernobyl’ territory yet, but with three possible meltdowns and a burning spent fuel pool, this is pretty much the nightmare scenario. Beware all happy talk coming from TEPCO and various governments over the …
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Japan’s Nuclear Crisis and The Spectre of Chernobyl
by Matthew Payne on March 12, 2011
UPDATE 3: Here is a great summary of the situation for now from the Guardian. Some germane points, Fukushima 3 almost certainly is in partial meltdown or pre-meltdown. The only reason you undertake the hideously dangerous venting of gas from the core is if you fear the steam pressure is going to expose your core and you only get such excess steam if you can’t cool the core. Venting, …
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Republicans–The New Bolsheviks
by Matthew Payne on March 11, 2011
So, the other day when I posted a query as to whether we could refer to radical Republican plans to strip unions of their rights and suppress local democracy as fascism yet. Seems, at least in New Hampshire, I got the wrong totalitarianism. State Senator Martin Harty (R–of course), responded to a constituent’s request to protect mental health services that “the world is too populated” and it contains “too many …
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