Tokyo - A massive 8.8-magnitude quake hit the northeast coast of Japan on Friday, shaking buildings in the capital Tokyo, causing "many injuries", at least one fire and triggering a 4m tsunami, NHK television and witnesses reported.
There was also a warning of a 10m tsunami following the quake, Japan's biggest in 7 years.
The public broadcaster showed flames and black smoke billowing from a building in Odaiba, a Tokyo suburb, and bullet trains to the north of the country were halted.
Black smoke was also pouring out of an industrial area in Yokohama's Isogo area.
TV footage showed boats, cars and trucks floating in water after a small tsunami hit the town of Kamaichi in northern Japan.
"The building shook for what seemed a long time and many people in the newsroom grabbed their helmets and some got under their desks," Reuters correspondent Linda Sieg said.
"It was probably the worst I have felt since I came to Japan more than 20 years ago."
Quake upgraded
Passengers on a subway line in Tokyo screamed and grabbed other passengers' hands. The shaking was so bad it was hard to stand, said Reuters reporter Mariko Katsumura.
The US Geological Survey earlier verified a magnitude of 7.9 at a depth of 15.1 miles and located the quake 81 miles east of Sendai, Honshu. It later upgraded it to 8.8.
The Tokyo stock market extended its losses after the quake was announced. The central bank said it would do everything to ensure financial stability.
Japan's northeast Pacific coast, called Sanriku, has suffered from quakes and tsunamis in the past and a 7.2 quake struck on Wednesday. In 1933, a magnitude 8.1 quake in the area killed more than 3 000 people.
Last year fishing facilities were damaged after by a tsunami caused by a strong tremor in Chile.
Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world's most seismically active areas. The country accounts for about 20% of the world's earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater.
Just saw a video of the tsunami, washing away the buildings. Terrible! I feel for those people.
No1
Quote from: Bertie Horak on March 11, 2011, 08:33:27 AM
Just saw a video of the tsunami, washing away the buildings. Terrible! I feel for those people.
No1
Link to the video please Bertie.
Quote from: Henk Coetzee on March 11, 2011, 09:02:37 AM
Quote from: Bertie Horak on March 11, 2011, 08:33:27 AM
Just saw a video of the tsunami, washing away the buildings. Terrible! I feel for those people.
No1
Link to the video please Bertie.
Henk, go to News24.com. Video and images are available there.
Tsunami warning sirens go off in Hawaii
Honolulu - Hawaii scrambled to evacuate locals and tourists from the coastline late on Thursday after a massive earthquake off Japan triggered a tsunami alert, officials on the Pacific island state said.
"We have about four hours to clear the shorelines," said John Cummings of the Honolulu Department of Emergency Management. "This looks like this will be a very serious event."
Warning sirens went off at 21:59 (local time) and were to go off every hour on the hour afterwards. The first waves were expected to hit Hawaii around 02:55.
Authorities were arranging buses to evacuate residents and trying to open evacuation centres.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre, based in Ewa Beach, west of Honolulu, issued a widespread warning extending across virtually the entire Pacific Ocean, including Australia, Antarctica and South America.
Hawaii is about 4 000 miles east of the epicentre of Friday's earthquake.
News24.com crashed :)
CNN has the most up to date videos now, thanks Paul.
Here in Oz its the BBC coverage we are receiving! going to hurt a lot of people! feel for them all.
Tokyo - Belly-up ships, twisted cars and debris from shattered buildings on Friday crashed through the streets of Japanese port towns that were turned into black rivers by a monster tsunami.
A muddy river filled with rubble - some of it on fire and belching smoke - raced across rice fields and through towns, aerial television footage showed in one of the worst-hit areas, Miyagi prefecture.
A schoolboy was swept away there by the deadly waters and there were grave fears the toll would keep climbing sharply from the more than two dozen reported dead as a cold night settled over Japan.
The huge wall of sea water unleashed by Japan's worst quake on record hit the Pacific coast of Honshu island, sweeping away whole houses and turning harbour areas into scenes of utter devastation.
Water travelled hundreds of metres
The masses of water overwhelmed coastal defences and swallowed up many square kilometres of land in the region in scenes reminiscent of the devastation triggered by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
"I've never seen anything like this," said Ken Hoshi, a local government official in Ishinomaki, a port city in Miyagi prefecture.
"The water came as far as to the train station," hundreds of metres (yards) away from the coast, the 41-year-old official said as his city turned into a flood zone.
"I'm worried because I can't contact my family. But because it's my duty, I'm braced to spend the night here," he said from his fourth-floor office.
In nearby farming areas, the flood swept away houses like toys and devoured dusty fields still barren in early spring, before the deadly tide was stopped inland by the embankments of raised highways.
In far-northern Aomori, at least five ocean-going ships, some flipped belly-up to expose their red hulls, raced inland over shattered sea defences, rows of trees and harbour-side shopping streets.
Army deployed
In Ibaraki large houses were seen floating through the town, and elsewhere dozens of cars bobbed in the waters like corks.
The quake that triggered the tsunami tore cracks into roads, pushed manhole covers and their attached pipes out of the ground like small towers and dumped the contents of supermarket shelves on the ground.
Completing the apocalyptic scenes, elsewhere in Japan scores of fires broke out as gas mains were severed. An oil refinery was ablaze in Chiba prefecture outside Tokyo, belching acrid smoke into the skies.
As aftershocks kept rocking the country, the army deployed troops to help those in need, a rescue effort that became more complex as darkness fell.
Quote from: Henk Coetzee on March 11, 2011, 09:36:26 AM
News24.com crashed :)
CNN has the most up to date videos now, thanks Paul.
You welcome Henk
Only 44 dead so far.... there has to be more after seeing that wave rip through the countryside...all those cars bobbing like corks......
:nono1:
Here are some incredible pics....
LINK: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1365229/Japan-earthquake-tsunami-Fears-massive-death-toll.html
Indeed awful to watch ..
More dramatic pics.....
LINK: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1365546/Japan-earthquake-pictures-Devastation-rescue-workers-fight-fires-search-survivors.html
Quote from: SandyB on March 12, 2011, 03:19:06 PM
Indeed awful to watch ..
Yes Sandy!........ have stopped watching its depressing this is going into the thousands of people dead I know its the media's job to cove these disasters but they seem to be coming too frequent.
Too right Frank , its a bit of overload on the psyche , one has to create a bit of distance or we would all be suffering from terminal depression ... the other side of the coin ... read on... Sad fact is there are folk out there who actually relish in the misery of the situation ... My friend David stumbled upon a blog page with folk declaring that those yellow slant eyed chinks deserve what has happened etc etc ... hiding behind saying such as its " karma' etc ... I do believe in natural order karma etc .. the disasters we watch on the screen as observers may one day be us in the middle of a disaster being watched by the rest of the world , but yes .. for those on that offensive blog site have a heart and at least feel for those who has lost so much ,,, and remember that the wheel is round and what goes around comes around ,,,
Some would say karma at work...considering the inhumane ritual slaughter of dolphins by the Japanese, the whale hunting they still carry out, etc. etc. I can understand that, but this must be a USA blog , calling the Japanese in a derogatory fashion, that is actually meant for the Chinese.
Never saw a blog pop up, calling out karma to all the (insert 121 known derogatory terms for US citizens here) when Hurricane Katrina hit them.
Dear Mike,
I have been lurking on your site for a number of years now and have enjoyed the photos and the posts. Thank you. You have made many people around the world very happy. As perhaps the only ex-Oranjemunder living in Japan I guess it is time for me to come out of the woodwork and join the discussion about what is happening here.
At the beginning of this thread you raised the point of why nuclear plants are built in earthquake-prone zones. Since nobody has bothered to respond to this point, the reason may be obvious to all. However, allow me to put my spin on it using a perhaps inappropriate Oranjemund analogy. Why did apparently sane people leave the verdant glens (or grimy terraces) of Scotland, Wales, England, Ireland and many European countries and travel half way round the world to dig for shiny stones in a desert village, fenced in and shut off from almost all civic intercourse? The answer, of course, is that they did it for a better life, specifically to make more money than they could at home. It is reasonable to assume that they weighed the risks and the rewards, and that the latter won the argument. I believe Japan's decision to use nuclear energy has been made in a similar manner. As in most countries, the construction of nuclear power plants here has been accompanied by demonstrations and lawsuits, but as elsewhere the huge bribes paid to local communities where the plants are to be built always win the argument. The Japanese nuclear power industry has an international reputation for having superior safety nets in place for any natural disaster, which include annual typhoons and irregular volcanic eruptions. This reputation has in general been justified, although Tepco, the Tokyo Electric Power Co. that operates the Fukushima facility, has been caught lying to the people and government about problems at its plants. Last week's earthquakes and tsunami were unimaginable for almost everyone anywhere, just as nobody has imagined a tsunami sweeping across the Cape Flats or the Atlantis power plant, or half of Johannesburg sinking under its own weight into labyrinth created by the mines. This tragedy is still unfolding, and we may get lucky, but we quickly pulled our daughter from Tokyo anyway. What appears to have happened is this: The reactors shut down automatically when the quake hit, as scheduled. The quake itself caused some damage to the plant, but none that resulted in a radiation leak. However, he tsunami that followed soon after destroyed all the backup generators and pumps, etc.; irony of ironies, there was no electricity at the electric power plant. This caused the reactors (four are facing meltdown; two others nearby seem at this point to under control) to heat up. They have been trying unsuccessfully to cool the reactors using military equipment and are today dumped 30 tons of water on the reactors by helicopter, a dangerous job, and probably too little too late. By the way, last week's quake was not the Big One that people here have been expecting. That is forecast to occur off the coast south of Tokyo near the Hamaoka plant on the map on this thread. The boffins say there is an 87 percent chance of it hitting in the next dozen years. That means it can hit tomorrow. (I live between the Sendai and Genkai plants in the south of the country.)
The review of new nuclear power plants is already underway worldwide but don't hold your breath that much will be learned from this "accident." Hiroshima and Nagasaki didn't stop people from making bigger and better bombs. So Mike, any slowdown in Namibia's uranium exports will likely be short-lived. My take on this is that it is better to be a few cents poorer and leave the uranium and plutonium in the ground. Please do not read into the above that I in any way support nuclear power. The only thing nuclear that I am in favor of is the family. Also, I do not mean to equate the impulse to immigrate with nuclear disaster. It just seems to me that the analogy was apt for this site.
With regard to the "Some would say karma at work...considering the inhumane ritual slaughter of dolphins by the Japanese, the whale hunting they still carry out, etc. etc." post on another thread, the Japanese do not indulge in a ritual slaughter of dolphins. I have not seen the movie. However, the fishermen of one town in Japan about the size of Oranjemund kill the dolphins and then eat the meat. The dolphins are killed to protect fish supplies and for food. This does not make me happy either, but some perspective is necessary. Japanese people enjoy dolphin shows at aquariums (now isn't that humane pastime) and dolphin and whale watching around the world as much as anyone else, and spend millions doing it. If you want ritual killing of dolphins and whales check out what the Faroe Islanders do to prove their manhood.
My apologies for the Pepe-like length of this post. Think of it as therapy for someone saddened and exhausted by the destruction of a country and people he loves. That's my shout.
Ian Smith
CDM: 1954 to 1969
Japan: 1978 till death do us part
Thanks for that input Ian ,,,
Thanks Ian for the interesting post. My posts were what I got from News24.com and thought it was worth while sharing it with others.
I really feel for the Japanese and all living in Japan, my sincere condolences to all those that have lost loved ones in this disaster. My thoughts and prayers are with you all.
This is awesome stuff to get a perspective of someone living in japan, for a number of years. Obviously you have your ear to the ground there, just like we do in out home towns/communities, countries, and will know more than the average outsider.
Japan is not the only country to build a nuclear facility on or close to a fault line, believe it or not, the most active fault line in Southern Africa runs 8 km from Koeburg, and is called the Milnerton Fault line. It has been active in the last 200 years, and a devastating earthquake took place were the Milnerton racecourse used to be in the turn of the 19th century. ( I live 500 meters from the old Race Course, and never knew this myself until a couple of months ago) What was the thinking behind the placement of the Koeburg Nuclear facility?
Coming back to my statement about the ritual slaughter , let me back it up.
You have not see the Movie? Look for the Oscar-winning documentary The Cove, and its not a movie, its a factual documentary, were animals were harmed, and no trained actors were involved.
Watch the trailer here, if you can stomach it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gso-ySP20h4&feature=related
In the quiet harbour town of Taiji, Japan, an unpublicised annual ritual that has been around for ages gets underway. Between early September and March each year, the fishermen and local community engage in a tradition that goes back centuries, the mass slaughter of up to twenty thousand small whales and dolphins. The majority of the world is unaware this is happening. The cove is blocked off from public access. Press and cameras are not allowed inside and the local media does not cover the event.
During drive hunts, migrating pods of dolphins and other small whales are first panicked and confused by loud banging, then herded, by the hundreds, into shallow coves and butchered, one by one, by fishermen. Every year, some 20,000 small cetaceans of several species, some of which are endangered, including bottlenose dolphins, striped dolphins, spotted dolphins, Risso�s dolphins, short-finned pilot whales, white-sided dolphins and false killer whales, are killed or taken in the drives, sometimes illegally.
This cruel and inhumane practice is sanctioned and controlled by the Government of Japan, which claims that these animals compete with the fishermen and slaughtering them is a means of pest control, but no evidence for this claim exists. The dolphins are processed and used as pet food or fertilizer, and the government is encouraging the consumption of dolphin meat. In fact, the hunts would be economically unviable without the sale of live dolphins captured during the drives to dolphinariums in Asia and elsewhere.
There is abundant scientific evidence that drive hunts inflict incredible pain and suffering on highly intelligent, self-aware, and socially complex animals. The hunts have been universally condemned on both welfare and conservation grounds, but repeated requests to end them, from the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and numerous other scientific and conservation organizations, have been ignored.
The World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA), the professional organization that represents over 1,200 zoos and aquariums around the world, and the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) in the United States, have also condemned these hunts. WAZA explicitly prohibits member organizations from procuring animals from drive hunts. Now, marine scientists, WAZA, and AZA have joined with other non-governmental organizations to bring an immediate end to drive hunting.
Motivation for the slaughter of whales and dolphins :
The Taiji whale and dolphin hunts continue because the fishermen receive immense profits. Whales and dolphins slaughtered for meat may reach as much as 9000 US dollars each at market. However, scouts from international aquariums and captive dolphin programs are now using the event to procure live dolphins, which trade at upwards of 100,000 US dollars each.
The local perspective, Taiji's reaction :
The position of the local fishermen, traders and government appears mixed and confused. Local government claims the slaughter is a cull, designed to reduce the population of small whales and dolphins, so reducing their negative impact on local fish stocks, whilst the fishermen and traders talk of tradition, citing western interference as ethnocentric ideas of acceptable sources of food, dolphin being a local delicacy. This position seems at odds with the fact the dolphin meat is traded as whale. Thereby, hiding its origin from the buying public, who are unaware that the meat is contaminated. Due to interaction with marine pollution, whale and dolphin meat contains high levels of Mercury and PCB's. This poses a real threat to the health and safety of those who consume the meat.
"The Japanese dolphin drive hunts are an abominable violation of any standard of animal welfare, and these hunts inflict measurable pain and suffering on animals that are intelligent, sentient, and socially complex," said Diana Reiss, Senior Research Scientist and Director of the New York Aquarium's Marine Mammal Research Program."The Japanese dolphin hunts are an assault on intelligent, sentient, and emotional beings with brains that should make us all stop and think" said Lori Marino, Senior Lecturer in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology at Emory University.
(http://readersupportednews.org/images/stories/article_imgs2/1714-taiji-dolphin-slaughter-090310.jpg)
Not just Japan
The Danes barbaric right of passage in to manhood
The Faroe Islands, part of the Danish kingdom, have been practising whaling since 1580. Each year during the summer months, hunts called "grindadráp" in Faroese, take place. They are considered a right of passage into manhood on the islands. Small whales and dolphins are surround with a wide semicircle of boats and driven slowly into a bay or to the bottom of a fjord. They are then driven fully ashore or close enough to the shore that they can be secured and killed from land. The whales and dolphins that are not beached were often stabbed in the blubber with a sharp hook, called a gaff. Once ashore the whales and dolphins are killed, by cutting the dorsal area through to the spinal cord with a special whaling knife called a "grindaknívur".
(http://i2.squidoocdn.com/resize/squidoo_images/590/draft_lens6943652module63424702photo_1_1255694143whales_and_dolphins_1.jpg)
(http://i3.squidoocdn.com/resize/squidoo_images/590/draft_lens6943652module63424702photo_5_1255694145whales_and_dolphins_5.jpg)
Can we seriously say, as the Japanese, Norwegians and Icelanders do, that these animals are robust enough to be hunted again? They claim we sentimentalise these creatures.
After all, they say, we kill cows and pigs - what's the difference? Well, those are domestic animals. They are also slaughtered humanely. It is impossible to kill Dolphins in a trap or a whale humanely on the high seas.
It is also immoral, if you accept that these are sentient creatures - capable of grief, complex social lives and a language of their own. Perhaps, in years to come, we'll even learn how to interpret whale speak.
I'm not sure I want to be around if we do. I don't think I could bear to hear what they have to say.
Thanks for the wonderful insight Ian, I appreciate it, although I will never stand for the slaughter of Dolphins, etc. I cannot clearly judge, as I am not there to witness it, and to see the real impact it has on the local population, as you might gather from the show, foreigners are strictly forbidden in that area, and makes you wonder what they have to hide.
Great posts - thanks Ian and Henk.
Me for one wont be watching the movie - it's enough to be called a hyena hugger, just now I'm a barnacle stuck to a whale as well... just joking....
Just to know it's happening gives me the deepest sorrow, and pity on the animals (any animals), with growing disgust in "humanity" - .....humane - such an ugly word - much like saying grace at the table to give thanks for the food - not really thinking about it, just completing the same rhyme as yesterday...
And tradition? Please, any intelligent being (which we humans are supposed to be) should be able to see that "traditional practices" might actually be a bit barbaric and adjust/change accordingly without losing respect for their ancestors, still honoring them in a different way.
Sorry, wrong topic.... thanks anyway for great posts!
Just an observation, but those pics cannot be Japan, don't see any Asian folk there, save for a bunch of white Europeans.... just an observation....
Yes, Ian, Thanks for letting us have your comments, first hand......
First pic is in the Cove, with Japanese fishermen, I did not want to post more, because they aint pretty.
You can view the pics here, and some videos as well.
http://www.japannewstoday.com/?p=919
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/animals/new-video-reveals-dolphin-hunt-just-as-brutal-as-ever-20110119-19wpr.html
There is nothing in a culture that grants it instant respect and instant acceptance. If they commit atrocities and claim it's their culture then tough luck, but they need to change - there is no alternative.A code of basic ethics is universal for the species (it is, despite different manifestations of the same rules), and cultural inhibitions or rules have nothing to do with ethics. And when it comes to animals I believe in a "gradation of suffering", meaning that the more the animal is capable of suffering the more it is immoral to kill it (for food only I mean, any other sort of killing is out of the question). It also comes down to sentience, and brain to body ratio.
And there is a good deal of evidence those people are murdering creatures who have strong family ties, a great deal of empathy, understand love and frienship, and can understand and despair because of what is done to them.
Now I have totally hijacked this forum, Sorry Michael, but there is some relevance here, being all Japanese and so forth.
Henk, The debate is good, So good, that I reckon, Mr. Molloy on the nightshift will be having a wee word or two to say..... allgood
How come , the pic at the top, only has European looking types clubbing the dolphins, are the Japanese booking in tourists for dolphin beating sessions?
Back to the debate, you can all shoot me down, but I am in favour of Nuclear Power, but surely one cannot build power reactors along a fault line and expect nothing is gonna happen? Sure I can built a nuclear station in the middle of the Namib desert , and it could get hit by an asteroid, but the chances of the Namibian reactor getting hit are far greater than the Japenese one getting whacked by a tsunami/earthquake......
Just my 2 cents, are-you-there
First pic is the Japanese in the Cove, look at the links, and you will see the rest of the pics.
The second and 3rd picture is of the The Danes barbaric right of passage in to manhood, as the heading and the story above the 2 pics suggest.
I am also in favor of Nuclear power, the burning fossil fuels and coal powered stations are damaging our planet at an astonishing rate now, with global warming not being a myth no more.Location is od utmost importance, but the only drawback I see, is that only water can cool these power stations down, hence the reason them being build next to oceans, and bodies with huge amount of water.Koeburg could have gone up much further north, away from the Milnerton Fault line, and away from the risks of Tsunamis and Cape storms.
I would love to know why the built it were it is today.
Read the article Bill .. read or is the long Monica satisfying nose getting in the way of clear reading ??? image201
Oi! Leave Monica and Bill's nose outta this....
I always thought, that Namibia was the perfect spot for nuclear power stations, huge barren coastlines along a cold Atlantic coastline, we are smack bang in the middle of the African plate, fault lines are miles away, we are one of the world's largest Uranium producers, heck! we could have a string of these plants along the coastline, generating enough power for the entire African continent.... think of the revenue that the country would generate, obviously the greens won't like the idea of the Namib being spoilt by these stations, but then they can always go live on Mars.... lekker barren there.....
Just my thoughts....
Although the DRC has 60 percent of Africa's hydroelectric potential, only 7 percent of the country's population has access to electricity. Lack of local demand has led the DRC to export to SINELAC, Angola, Burundi, the Congo, Rwanda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. In 2001, electricity production was 5.243 billion kWh, of which 3.839 billion kWh was consumed and 1.097 billion kWh was exported.
The DRC has the potential to produce 150,000 megawatts of power, approximately three times Africa's present consumption. The Congo river is the most magnificent wealth of the country. Second only to the Amazon river in terms of water volume, it stretches a distance of almost 4,300 kilometres. For electricity production as well as water, the potential of the Congo river remains largely unused.
The Inga Falls on the Congo river has a potential generating capacity that equals that of all Southern African countries put together. There are plans to raise the generation capacity of the Inga hydroelectric power station to 44,000 megawatts by 2010. The African Development Bank has agreed to supply funding of US$58 million towards the modernisation of Inga hydropower station.
The government has agreements with South Africa's Eskom to strengthen the Inga-Kolwezi and Inga-South Africa interconnections, as well as to construct a second power line that will supply power to Kinshasa. The Kinshasa city electricity distribution network will be managed by Eskom. A feasibility study looking at how to make use of this electrical potential by exporting it to Angola, Namibia, Egypt and South Africa is also being conducted.
The State-owned Société Nationale d'Electricité (SNEL), established in 1970, is responsible for electricity generation, transmission and distribution.
Other organisations generating electricity include SINELAC which was established by Burundi, Rwanda and Zaire to develop international electricity projects.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/congo-rapids-to-power-africa-italy/story-e6frg6so-1111113171666 (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/congo-rapids-to-power-africa-italy/story-e6frg6so-1111113171666)
Stennie, Whilst I like the idea, the biggest drawback, is that the project would be situated smack bang in the middle of darkest Africa..... I would not want my country relying on another country to generate my power..... we all know how unstable African countries tend to be.......
are-you-there
During construction of the Koeberg power station I naively ran a newspaper campaign opposing it. I say naively because I wasn't aware then that the station's main purpose was to produce enriched uranium for nuclear weapons. For that reason no campaigning journo was ever going to stop it.
Nevertheless the articles attracted a considerable amount of support in the Western Cape though as it turned out later largely from wine-growers and other Nimbys who didn't seem to understand the big issue.
One of my pieces mentioned the fault line, whereupon I had an invitation from the station PR officer to view a series of rock cores drilling on the sites before construction began. They showed no signs of rock fractures for several thousand years. Some months later the Tulbagh quake struck. The rest is history, the exceedingly well paid French construction company ran a cartoon in their on-site staff magazine showing a hard-hatted engineer staring at a cracked container housing. The one word caption read: "merde". Then they carried on building as if it nothing had happened.
But quakes aside, nuclear power as an energy source is not a renewable energy. Sorry to burst your balloon Mike, but I think in the long term Oranjemunders would benefit more from tourism. Apart from being extremely uneconomical and unsafe, nuclear energy is highly unsustainable in terms of savings on energy and greenhouse emissions; in fact, worse than a gas-fired electricity generating plant (see source at end of this piece).
A report published in 2008 shows that in order to replace fossil-fuel energy use and meet the future energy demands, nuclear energy must increase by 10.5 percent each year from 2010 to 2050. This large growth rate creates a "cannibalistic effect", where nuclear energy must be used to supply the energy for future nuclear power plants.
Joshua Pearce, a physicist at Clarion University of Pennsylvania, finds he cannot balance the books if nuclear power option is taken in preference to renewable energy sources. The enormous amounts of energy needed for mining and processing uranium ore, building and operating the power plant simply cannot be offset in a high growth scenario. In particular, growth limits are set by the grade of uranium ore available.
For safety reasons and scale of operation, nuclear plants are usually situated far away from users. This means that transmission over long distances incur a loss of at least 6 percent of the electricity generated. For the same reasons, most of the heat produced, 60 percent or more, is also wasted. This waste heat, Pearce reminds us, directly warms the earth.
The lifecycle assessment (LCA) Pearce carried out shows that nuclear energy costs between 16 to 55 g CO2e/kWh, based on current practice in the United States with regard to mining and enrichment of uranium ore, and does not include reprocessing or decommissioning, but includes spent-fuel disposal and the deconversion of depleted uranium (back to U3O8). It falls short of a genuine "cradle-to-grave" LCA.
The 'reactor' processes include construction of the power plant and operation where the fuel is burnt and the heat produced used to drive a turbine/generator to produce electricity. Operation costs includes controlling the fission process so it doesn't go 'critical' as in an atom bomb, and making up materials and chemical and non-radioactive waste management.
The 'back end' processes are the most demanding, and also often ignored. They include first of all retrieving spent fuel, de-conversion, and storing it at the reactor site for further reprocessing or disposal. Nuclear wastes from power stations will remain dangerous to humans for generations, which is why they have to be stored permanently. Also included is the cost of decommissioning the power plant once its useful and safe lifetime is over.
The nuclear industry is effectively ignoring decommissioning, which involves a long drawn-out and demanding series of step. First, the reactor has to be cleaned up and safeguarded for a cooling period of 30-100 years after closedown. The radioactive parts of the nuclear island have to be dismantled after cooling, and the radioactive scrap and rubble packaged to prevent the illegal trade in radioactive scrap, which is already a problem today.
The spent fuel removed from the reactor has to be stored for at least 30 years in heavily protected and safeguarded facilities, bearing in mind that one reactor produces during its lifetime an amount of radioactivity equal to about 10 000 exploded nuclear weapons. Corrosion and leaking fuel pins may pose a problem in addition to protection against terrorist attacks. The spent fuel then has to be packaged in containers able to last for many thousands of years in contact with hot and salty water under continuous nuclear radiation.
A stable geological repository has to be constructed to isolate the spent fuel from the biosphere for hundreds of thousands of years. Over a period of decades, the canisters with the spent fuel will be placed into boreholes in the floors of the numerous galleries in the repository, and when fully occupied, the galleries and access tunnels have to be filled up with bentonite and closed forever.
Even if exceedingly large repositories are constructed, larger than the planned Yucca Mountain repository in the USA, a new repository has to be opened every ten years, and a full one closed up.
In addition, each uranium mine has to be reclaimed, an area which could be up to about 100 km2. The tailings, containing large amounts of chemically and physically mobilized radioactive species, have to be isolated from the groundwater and the air. Existing reprocessing plants such as Sellafield in the UK and La Hague in France will have to cleaned up and dismantled. This activity will be extremely demanding. In the UK alone, the estimated costs are about £73 billion and rising.
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/TheNuclearBlackHole.php
Henk,
Thanks for your response. Your position on cetaceans is now bloody clear. The annual Iki cetacean slaughter is not news to me. I edited an article about it approximately 30 years ago for a Tokyo newspaper.
With regard to your statement, I fell into my own trap. I tiptoed around the issue instead of facing it head on, because I really, really did not want to get into religious issues on this or any other forum. However, since I opened this can of worms let me try to close it quickly. My understanding of your quote goes like this: Since you invoke karma in relation to the earthquake/tsunami disaster you are presumably either Hindu or Buddhist. If your religion leads you to believe that the disaster is karma for centuries of cetacean slaughter by the Japanese, that is your right. Being neither Hindu nor Buddhist, I do not share that opinion. If you are not Buddhist or Hindu, and still invoke karma, you are on a very slippery slope. Anyone can invoke karma for anything, good or bad, to suit any position. Basically, my plea is for a more considered use of language, especially in times of suffering, on this forum. Again, if you believe that the Japanese had it coming to them, that is your right. I beg to differ. Hope this clarifies my concerns about the statement.
Ian
Bob,
Thanks, this explains in layman's terms so many things I did not know, and yes you are 100% correct, Nuclear is NOT the way to go. It sounds like it contributes much more to harm than good over a period of time, and we all know that we are looking out fro the generations to follow.
Ian,
Here is what I said:
Quote from: Henk Coetzee on March 15, 2011, 05:07:16 AM
Some would say karma at work...considering the inhumane ritual slaughter of dolphins by the Japanese, the whale hunting they still carry out, etc. etc. I can understand that, but this must be a USA blog , calling the Japanese in a derogatory fashion, that is actually meant for the Chinese.
Never saw a blog pop up, calling out karma to all the (insert 121 known derogatory terms for US citizens here) when Hurricane Katrina hit them.
I had no intention of trapping you, at all, I used the words "some say" as that statement started to pop up everywhere, specially from the Green activists,1000's of Animal anti Cruelty sites,Anti whaling campaigners etc. I am not a follower of either Hindu or Buddhist, and would not know how to evoke Karma even if I tried. I dont believe this tragedy has anything to do with cetacean ritual killings, if it had, Norway should have been worse off.
The Japanese, in my opinion, are the most sophisticated, educated,well mannered, civilized and behaved people on this planet today. Their past wrong doings, against China, the Philippians and other Countries and people during the 2nd Word War, cannot be held against them, and I dont view it in that sense, just like the people of Germany/Russia today can not be blamed for WW2 .
I truly feel sorry for them, as, in again my opinion, they are the last nation on earth that deserved this tragedy. Even now, faced with the most terrifying ordeal, the cold, the shortages of all the basics,they are still civilized, and are not rioting against their Government, like most other nations would have done by now. I have been there in Osaka in 1994, been to the Konosuke Matsushita museum and factory, I worked for Matsushita Electrical Company for 5 years and I have a good understanding of the Japanese Culture.
That said, I still think the slaughtering of Dolphins and anything else in the nets during their "culling season" is a barbaric annual ritual, that needs to be stopped,most Japanese citizens dont even know about it, and as one video shows, how horrified and disgusted they were themselves, after seeing the footage of the culling .
I would love to hear hear more from you Ian, and I am sure other Forums members will want to as well, you have a brilliant insight on what is going on there, and I would rather listen to what you have to say, than the spiced up Hollywood style news we get to hear and see. Please share your thoughts on the headline stories, is the Japanese Governmental agencies not telling the whole truth on the Nuclear disaster, what is the impact on Tokyo, as we get reports of thousands fleeing the city. How are you managing with the power cuts, and how much is that affecting the productivity and economy were you are. Seeing that the busiest fishing port is destroyed, what impact does that have on the availably of food in the near future for the Japanese Citizens .
I will cherish your opinions on the above, Thanks for the time you put in to chat to us Ian.
Have just read your response Henk, and also reread the other posts related to the quake on the forum. I owe you all an apology; firstly for not acknowledging the many expressions of sympathy for the tragedy taking place here. Thank you all for caring. The expressions of sympathy from around the world are taken to heart here. People of many nationalities have been killed, not only Japanese, some of whom may never be identified, or even found. I must also apologize for joining the forum in the worst state of mind imaginable. My coming on this forum at the time I did was an impulsive reaction, and inexcusable for someone who should have known better. My apologies especially to Henk for this. However, yesterday was the Spring Equinox, a public holiday in Japan, and in the south of the country where I live the cherry blossoms have started to bloom. Spring is a time of renewal and hope for Japanese people, among whom I should probably be counted, and so for the first time in 11 days, I woke up this morning feeling "normal".
Japanese people are used to dealing with disaster, and will pull through this one too. Quite frankly, it may be the kick in the butt that they have been needing. For twenty years the country has stagnated in self-satisfaction and with appallingly weak political and economic leadership. Where I live, we face no hardships but I will be going to Tokyo this weekend for a few days, if the reactors keep their cool. My long-suffering spouse thinks I am insane to even think of going, but go I must to my home of 25 years. Our daughter will also be going back this week. Will post if there is anything interesting to report.
Ian
Thanks Ian!
Apologies were not expected at all, I think it was all a misunderstanding, and I would have reacted the same way, thinking that my people are being attacked and even degraded while they are down and out.
Its sad to see the mass graves that are being prepared now, I know its an impossible task to keep all the deceased in mortuaries until they are identified,the sheer volume of victims of this disaster does not make it remotely possible. Its also sad that the words attention has been grabbed now by the happenings in Libya, and the Japanese Disaster is been moved to page 3 news. Japan will stand up, rebuild, the resilience of the Japanese population must never be underestimated.
Have a safe journey, and give us your insight and opinion, its hard to follow the news, to many inconsistencies, etc.
Thanx again Henk and Ian for great posts.
Yes, it's amazing how one tragedy caused by MAN (or shall I say A man), can replace another great tragedy caused by mother nature. The current situation in Libya makes me angry, disgusted and confused. However, the Japanese disaster still fills me with sorrow, empathy and heartache, and I'm sure they will rise again to remain on the top of my list of hard-working, efficient, most modern/evolved societies on this planet.
Here's my wish that the sorrow will be transformed into remembrance of souls lost, and a new bloom like the cherry blossoms will signify rebirth, a new cycle, and life.
THANKS FOR PUTTING IN WORDS WHAT YOU FEEL BERTIE AND THANKS FOR THE SHARING , THOSE THOUGHTS ARE ECHOED BY MYSELF ...
Thanks Bertie and I say AMEN!!!!
An interesting on what I mentioned before .. I attach a doc copy of facebook comments from the same friend that engaged the highly prejudiced ... note the slant toward pearl harbour .. note when the quakes hit california did the Japanese do the same ,,, actually dont know ,, they could have thrown in Hiroshima , nakasaki .. the horror pics of flattened wasteland etc ...
Then in the following post I put the words of someone that replied ... his words humble those of us that
harbour prejudice toward anyone ... trust me not an easy path ... seems he has travelled it and yes most probably does it but still tries to warn against it ...
You will have to scroll into the document ..
HERE THE RESPONSE SENT TO ALL BY CHARL ... READ ... BY THE WAY NOTE I DISCREETLY REMOVED THE AMERICANS ASSHOLES FROM THE DOC ..
I absolutely agree that the people that wrote those revolting anti-Japanese diatribes on FaceBook are truly disgusting specimens of 'humanity'.
However, I also find it incredibly offensive, as an American that cares, supports and helps people in need, that the person who compiled this list is being just as narrow and bigoted towards the American people in general with that last nasty tagline: "Americans - Assholes of the World". Really?
The author of the piece is no better than those anti-Japanese Americans he quoted, by being so sweepingly judgmental against all Americans. In effect, he/she is exactly the same as those they revile, by slandering an entire nation because of the actions of some. Does this not sound sort of like what he/she released their vitriol about?
Hint to the original author of the piece: think about HOW and WHAT you write before you do. I do believe you owe civil and decent Americans an apology!
- Charl
WE SHOULD ALWAYS THINK BEFORE WE WRITE ESPECIALLY ON THE NET ... TRUST ME I HAVE BEEN THERE ,..
On Mar 24, 2011, at 8:09 AM, David Calthorp wrote:
This is so sad ...the human race does just not appear to make any spiritual progress in the light of what these people are saying !!!!! Understanding ,empathy , compassion and humility are obviously foreign to the hearts and minds of these and.... I would presume many more lurking in the undergrowth of so called civilized society ! ........