Japan [Tag: Fucked]

[Ghambit]

I tried to buy a Prius the other day.   
So I investigated other options, even domestic...   

To make a long story short, this summer's car market is FUBAR between this and gas prices.

[Sand]

A "nice little tidbit" currently on German news (which I'm entirely too lazy to look for an english source for).

"Tepco, owner of the Fukujima Daiichi plant, neglected to check and maintain backup generators and backup pumps for years and falsified maintenance records. Officials cannot even tell if the tsunami disabled the generators or if they even worked to begin with" (emphasis mine).

A dimension that usually gets ignored in the pro- vs anti-nuclear flamewar: How trustworthy and reliable are the owners of such plants?

You should repost this in the political shouting match in the Politics forum, because this is very very very often overlooked by the pro-nuclear, pro-free market fairies crowd.

[Kail]

You should repost this in the political shouting match in the Politics forum, because this is very very very often overlooked by the pro-nuclear, pro-free market fairies crowd.

Could you maybe keep your slap fight confined to the politics board?  I generally prefer to keep my opinions of other people as positive as possible.

[Paelos]

This is going to end up there soon anyway.

[Trippy]

It was in Politics and moved back out here.

[Surlyboi]

It's been mostly civil and the truly political bits have been exiled to politics already.

[Sir T]

Is it time to say what does this mean on a global or local (to me) sence. Auto plants are shutting down because of lack of parts. Because we really need more peaple out of work. That they are gonna end up burying this in sand and concrete is a given yes? Another area that no one will live in for forever.  

Its hard to know without you being more specific in what you mean. One of the larger consequences of this is that a certain amount of the power generation of apan is permanently gone. Japan was a very heavily nuclear power state, and they had to be as they have no real access to power generation resources ( in a very real way they entered world war to to get safe access to Oil) Without power there's no making industrial parts. Without raw materials what were shipped in from the ports (which have been devastated) theres no making goods. I have no idea where the plants are in japan but with a little luck they were back from the coast and so could get going again as soon as those problems are solved, and they will. People are resilient and these things get recovered from surprisingly fast.

As to whether the area will remain contaminated that depends on a lot of things. Cherobyl is contaminated because the reactor caught fire and spewed a whole load of waste all over the countryside. This particular type of reactor is a different type and probably wont do that, but as we have seen there is a danger of explosions.Radiation itself is very transitory it just goes straight through you and is gone. its when you get particles that are radioactive that are blowing about in the atmosphere, coating everything is sight and you are breathing it in that there is problems. That's impossible to clean up completely and is emitting constant radiation.

The problem with the rods by the way is that they need to be constantly cooled as they are constantly reacting. A reactor is (in a very simple way) basically a giant steam engine that runs a generator. It the rods are not cooled they heat up and eventually they will melt into a big mass in the bottom of the reactor. If that happens its impossible to cool them as its basically a big mass that wont allow water circulation all around it, and it will continue to heat and could melt the bottom of the reactor and make its way outside. That's the big danger they are trying to stop. Entooming them in concrete wont stop the reaction or heating at all but it will help block the radiation. But its a last ditch effort.

I know that's not really giving you any real answers, but its giving you a sense of the factors and dangers as far as I know them.

You should repost this in the political shouting match in the Politics forum, because this is very very very often overlooked by the pro-nuclear, pro-free market fairies crowd.

Could you maybe keep your slap fight confined to the politics board?  I generally prefer to keep my opinions of other people as positive as possible.

Now that's a good attitude. I got so mad at some utterly stupid shit in the politics forum that I quit the board for three weeks very recently.

[Ironwood]

And did the stupid shit dissappear for 3 weeks also ?

 

[KallDrexx]

Ars Technica has an article about the current state of electronic manufacturing plants in Japan.

[NiX]

Given the likeliness of Japan facing more Earthquakes, I'd think some of those tech companies would consider shifting their production to the mainland.

[Jeff Kelly]

I mentioned it in this thread because I thought it to be relevant to the events transpiring in Japan. If we proactively move anything that might be controversial to politics we should just close all other subforums and post everything there.

[Ghambit]

Back to what I was saying about car manufacturing.  Even if you search for a domestic car, especially hybrid tech, you'll come to find that there are a lot of big ticket items like transmissions that come out of Japan.  These places are closed right now.  So not only is Japanese manuf. almost at a standstill, but the disaster is creating a backlog of unfinished inventory for domestic cars.

The same can be said for a lot of tech. items too.

[ghost]

I mentioned it in this thread because I thought it to be relevant to the events transpiring in Japan. If we proactively move anything that might be controversial to politics we should just close all other subforums and post everything there.

That's generally what happens, if it isn't an absolutely silly topic or actually about games. 

[Sheepherder]

I mentioned it in this thread because I thought it to be relevant to the events transpiring in Japan. If we proactively move anything that might be controversial to politics we should just close all other subforums and post everything there.

So far I don't think anyone has criticized your post.  Emergency preparedness and pre-planning is germane to the topic.

[NiX]

Lady comes back to her ruined house, but all is not lost

[Lantyssa]

Lady comes back to her ruined house, but all is not lost

Awww.

[Mrbloodworth]

Poor guy!

I bet hes happy to see her.

[Bunk]

That's awesome. Brightened my day, thanks.

[Reg]

If that cat is anything like my cat he's not thrilled to be found. He's furious at the universe and pleased to have someone around to complain to about it.

[Sheepherder]

...Amongst many Japanese companies/executives, corruption is institutionalized to a point beyond some of the worst you see in the west.  The fact that their version of the Mafia operates openly and has public dealings with many corporations/politicians should give you insight into that.

First, I wouldn't rule out a dramatic CEO suicide yet.

Second, what constitutes corruption, and the degree to which organized crime is tolerated, changes from society to society and with time.  The Yakuza began (like the Mafia) as bodyguards for people with little recourse to government protection, peddlers of illicit goods, and operators of gambling parlours.  They've had centuries of legally sanctioned activity to establish themselves, there are certain societal norms that they do not violate, they police their own, and they actively crowd out far less savory individuals from mainland southeast Asia.  To compare them to the Mafia as it is known in the US is a stretch.

[MahrinSkel]

Like the Mafia was mythologized, maybe.  Don't sell drugs, families are off-limits, etc.  But where it only rarely *actually* behaved that way here, in Japan the Yakuza really do have strict codes of conduct, honor among thieves (and petty theft is one of the things that is below a Yakuza's honor).  Beating a weeaboo's teeth in because he's a rude dipshit who doesn't know the difference between a "performer" and "staff" (you can lust after one but not the other), no problem.  Killing him for the money in his wallet: completely unacceptable.

--Dave

[Teleku]

I know they aren't directly comparable, but I thought its a good example of the cultural difference.  The Yakuza deals in drugs, prostitution, and fucking kills people.  EVERYBODY knows this, yet they still operate in the open with no crack down.  It comes down to the culture of stability and compromise vs chaos.  All businesses work very closely together across a broad range of fields (much of that going back to the Zaibatsu's and Keiretsus), and all the execs follow a hierarchy.  The government and businesses cooperate with each other in a way that is far beyond anything we see in America.  The example that was brought up in Japan was how the US has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world, but the corporations pay some of the lowest taxes.  In the US, the government and buisnesses are at war, and have to fight each other over everything.  In Japan a few execs and politicians sit in a room, drink whisky, decide that this is the tax rate, and they all pay it without fighting. 

Because of this, the lines between government, business, and even crime, is very blurred.  Everybody follows the rules, and this leads to stability, which can lead to economic success.  The problem is that corruption is also fully institutionalized from the ground up.  Its very easy for somebody to falsify a report, and pass it up the line, and everybody accepts it.  There is also a culture of not questioning anything at all that the boss above you suggests.  Since everybody is in bed with everybody else, everybody gets great kickbacks as long as nobody rocks the boat.  This is why Japan has had a long string of major fuck ups from corporations doing highly illegal shit, and everybody was just going along with it.

Mahrin:  I'm assuming you were referencing the friend I mentioned who got his teeth knocked in.  Just for the record, it was just a normal club, not one of those sorts of clubs.  He was dancing with some girl on the floor, but I guess she was one of the Yakuza guys GF or Groupie or something.  I wasn't there, so I don't' know if he was being a douche bag or not, but he is normally a pretty good guy, so I kind of doubt it.  Also, he's black.  Which is good for picking up Japanese women.  Japanese men, however, kind of tend to be very racist cunts sometimes.

[ghost]

Lady comes back to her ruined house, but all is not lost

Awww.

I thought this was going to be some kind of heartwarming story and then it was a goddamned cat. 

[Bunk]

[Sand]

Reports this morning of radioactive iodine found in Tokyo water supplies. Levels are now above the safety limit set by the government for children.

[ghost]

I think Lantyssa's point is still valid-  do we know if they were testing the water before now?  It may have been there all along off and on due to another reason. 

That's still kind of scary though. 

[Merusk]

If their system is like ours, they were probably testing for it regularly, yes.  We test for uranium, radon, arsenic so I'd imagine they'd test for radioactive iodine regularly since they have a recommended level for it.

[Ghambit]

I wonder if the radiation in the water is an indicator of a borked containment (at least the suppression pool breach) or simply particulate falling within rain.

[Arthur_Parker]

I think Lantyssa's point is still valid-  do we know if they were testing the water before now?

source

The Gunma prefectural government said it had detected the substances for the first time since it began testing tap water for radioactive materials in 1990.

I'm just answering the question (the levels I've seen reported so far aren't really a cause for concern, imho).

[Sheepherder]

Depends on what happens to the concentrations long-term.  If it's just a momentary spike I'd be more concerned about whatever shit might have been washed into the water system by the tsunami.

[Merusk]

I'm just answering the question (the levels I've seen reported so far aren't really a cause for concern, imho).

The rates are apparently about double the recommended level for infants.  I heard on NPR this morning they're concerned about infants because the iodine doesn't flush out of the body, accumulates over time and the effects aren't seen for decades.  Infants fall into that segment of the population where they're so small that a small amount to us is big to them, and have the longest lifespan for those decades to matter.  So I can see while it's not a big deal for most, it most certainly would be for them.

[Arthur_Parker]

It's more of a concern because people are concerned, but yeah I wouldn't drink the water either.  I'm more worried about what they find at the plant.

[Typhon]

Depends on what happens to the concentrations long-term.  If it's just a momentary spike I'd be more concerned about whatever shit might have been washed into the water system by the tsunami.

Unless something is replenishing the radioactive iodine it will be essentially gone in two weeks because it has a half life of 8 days.

[Jeff Kelly]

The EU limit for food is 600 Becquerel/kg (Becquerel is defined as the average number of decays/s) and for milk and baby food it's 380 Becquerel/kg.

A few things

1. The EU limit is three times that of the japanese limit for baby food (Japan: 100 Bq/kg, EU 380 Bq/kg) and twice that for normal food (300 vs 600), so the water would be safe to consume if checked against EU standards (highest value was 210).

2. Most game and wild fruit and mushrooms found in central europe today is still a whole lot over 600 Bq/kg and therefore unsafe for consumption (contamination is always checked) a legacy from the Chernobyl disaster.

[Arthur_Parker]

Extremely high radiation found in soil

Japanese authorities have detected a concentration of a radioactive substance 1,600 times higher than normal in soil at a village, 40 kilometers away from the troubled nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture.

The disaster task force in Fukushima composed of the central and local governments surveyed radioactive substances in soil about 5 centimeters below the surface at 6 locations around the plant from last Friday through Tuesday.

The results announced on Wednesday show that 163,000 becquerels of radioactive cesium-137 per kilogram of soil has been detected in Iitate Village, about 40 kilometers northwest of the plant.

Gakushuin University Professor Yasuyuki Muramatsu, an expert on radiation in the environment, says that normal levels of radioactive cesium-137 in soil are around 100 becquerels at most. The professor says he was surprised at the extremely high reading, which is 1,630 times higher than normal levels.

He warns that since radioactive cesium remains in the environment for about 30 years it could affect agricultural products for a long time. He is calling on the government to collect detailed data and come up with ways to deal with the situation.

http://www.mext.go.jp/component/english/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2011/03/23/1304097_2310.pdf

Check out page 2.