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[sechan19]

The sound of the Gion Shôja bells echoes the impermanence of all things; the color of the śāla flowers reveals the truth that the prosperous must decline. The proud do not endure, they are like a dream on a spring night; the mighty fall at last, they are as dust before the wind.

~The Tale of the Heike~


Meltdown: The Japanese Earthquake and Fukushima Reactors (HuffPo).


I know they're going to do everything they can.
But I am so goddamn frightened.

Comments

[docjeed.livejournal.com]

Speaking as someone who peripherally works in the industry, that's an extremely lazy article. The newer types of reactors don't face the problems that Fukushima's do, and the Chernobyl reactors were bad designs from the start. It's certainly a higher-order tragedy, but the author is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I'm strongly of the opinion, considering global warming, that the Greens made a strategic error in opposing nuclear power, instead of trying to make it as safe as possible. It's easy to oppose, but less easy to improve.

I anticipate that some of the monitors I build will be used in the remediation and clean-up.

[reteva.livejournal.com]

Obviously I'm not qualified to judge the caliber of the article, so I'll accept your analysis of it. I do, however, think that the issue with nuclear power plants is not one of technological advance but of the human error factor. The danger comes from the incompetence, ignorance, or greed of human beings.

The people who live in the vicinity of the Fukushima power plant have been trying to get it shut down for years on the grounds that it was built over an active fault line. The power company that runs Fukushima and the government of Japan colluded in a policy of dismissing those concerns. Granted, that's not an original story line, but when it comes to the kind of dangerous toys these boys are playing with... I'd personally rather call it a day.

[docjeed.livejournal.com]

Agreed totally with human factors. The siting of reactors at Diablo Canyon is an incredible cluster-frell, but isn't MOST of Japan (if not all) in geologically-active areas? It's still possible to make those safe, even from a Richter-10 quake, though it's more costly. If you're going to be energy independent, I think nuclear should be one part of your supply, and there are ways to make it safer. I was stunned that there wasn't a system to IMMEDIATELY flood the reactor core with boron-saturated water (which nearly-immediately stops nuclear chain reactions).

That said, nuclear accidents are more like bogeyman: more scary than dangerous. If you're in the area, take your potassium iodide tablets, and you'll be fine. Typhoid and disease from the initial tsunami wave are more grave dangers. I think that Japan is more prepared than the U.S. likely ever will be for massive first response, and now is the time for them to shine.

What really scares me as much as anything is how dysfunctional the Japanese government has been over the past decade or so, with the political infighting. I have grave doubts that those responsible for ignoring the relevant safety problems will be brought to justice.