My thoughts on Japan.

[xiphias]

Besides, "Holy fuck," and shock at the scale of the destruction, of course. Entire coastal towns are just gone.

But one thing I note is how safe nuclear power is. I mean, there are other options I like better; nuclear energy still has the problems of where to put the waste, and radioactives are not a renewable resource and all, but still -- this is among the most hideous things the Earth has thrown at us in recorded history, and the nuclear reactors we're worried about were right near the end of their operating life cycle and were built with a lot less safety stuff than the ones we're building now -- and the Japanese are STILL largely controlling the reactors. I mean, not perfectly, but still. They're holding. That's pretty incredible.

The main thing I don't like about nuclear reactors -- and fossil fuel plants also have this problem -- is that they're "point-source failures". If ONE nuclear reactor goes out, it takes out a MASSIVE chunk of the power grid. When people do things like put turbines and photo-voltaic panels on their houses, that gives a level of distributed power generation, which can help mitigate that. Oh, we're not going to be able to get rid of major power plants any time soon, but I like the idea of everybody being able to at least generate SOME of their own energy.

Another thing I note is how much of the country is still standing, due to their incredible earthquake-resistant building codes. This is an example of how government regulation saves lives.

There is vast, vast damage. But the fundamental infrastructure is still, largely, in place. And that's because of careful planning and regulation.

Earthquake, tsunami, potential nuclear plant meltdowns. And they're still functioning.

At this point, the main thing to worry about is that earthquakes, tsunamis, and nuclear explosions are what tend to wake Gojira up.

Comments

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

Go go Gojira!

[ron_newman]

Seems too early to call the reactor containment a success. (btw, want to check out the MIT Nuclear Engineering Department's briefing on the subject today at 4 pm?)

[gingicat]

Yeah, what I was hearing on the news this morning sounds pretty worrying. But the fact that all of this is happening days after the earthquake & tsunami rather than all at the same time does imply good maintenance and design.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

npr has a couple useful timeline / what's going on now things up. I linked to them today

[edited - not used to it being 2011 not 2010]

edit2: cs monitor timeline. And new to me -- the quake was upgraded to a 9. Wow.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

That and those reactors were pretty much the only things left standing after the earthquake/tsunami. They were engineered for large earthquakes but 8.9 right off the coast was beyond even reasonable predictions. In fact they did okay through the earthquake (well, maybe offline#4's coolant pool problem was more earthquake than tsunami) and it was the /generators/ that had issue after the tsunami. And a 23 foot wall of water's pretty hard to plan against.

Re the generators someone commenting on one of the npr articles figured that water covered and got into the fuel reserves, then sank to get between the fuel and the intake.

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

I thought Gojira did wake up, and that was the cause of everything going on, but they were hiding it from the rest of the world.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Another thing I note is how much of the country is still standing.

Um. Japan is the size of the entire state of California. Most of the country is still standing because even a 9.0 can only go so far.

There's an awful lot of rescue still to be done, and it's a race against the clock. Even the best infrastructure is hard pressed to deal with all the rot that comes with post-earthquake cleanup. Sanitation will start to become an issue soon, as crowded as Japan is.

All the major auto manufacturers in Japan (for just a sample) have shut down their plants to do inspections.

I absolutely agree with the nuclear issue. But please don't minimize too far.

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

Partially cultural. If the Japanese focus on some idea/goal they are pretty much unstoppable. Case in point - the Japanese soldier lurking in the jungle, twenty YEARS after the end of WWII.

But yes, pretty damn amazing.