From CNN:
Tokyo (CNN) -- Up a narrow flight of stairs in a modest, non-descript office building, three retirees sit in a cramped room, hunched over their computers and mobile phones. They look like the planning committee for a neighborhood senior breakfast, not the leaders of a 250-member team attempting to defuse one of the worst nuclear meltdowns in history.
But that's exactly what 72-year-old Yasuteru Yamada hopes his seniors group, the Skilled Veterans Corps, will do: help end the crisis at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. The group, consisting only of retirees age 60 and up, says it is uniquely poised to work at the radiation-contaminated plant, as the cells of an older person's body divide more slowly than a younger individual. "We have to work instead of them," says Yamada, referring to the estimated 1,000 workers currently at the nuclear plant. "Elders have less sensitivity to radiation. Therefore, we have to work."
Yamada is a former engineer for Sumitomo Metal Industries Ltd. and offers decades of experience, he says. A cancer survivor, Yamada says he values his life but wants to make a difference in the years he has left.
Yamada pauses as his mobile phone rings. He pops out his hearing aids to answer. Another call from the news media, he says, as he excuses himself briefly. Reporters from around the globe have called daily since Yamada announced the existence of his group. They, including this reporter, are calling because of what the prime minister's special adviser to the nuclear crisis publicly dubbed them, the "suicide corps." Goshi Hosono, at a news conference last week, told reporters that while the government was grateful for the offer, there is no immediate need for the elderly volunteers.
Masaaki Takahashi, 65, bristles at the name Hosono gave his team. "I want them to stop calling us the 'suicide corps' or kamikazes," he says. "We're doing nothing special. I simply think I have to do something and I can't allow just young people to do this."
Takahashi is currently tasked with logging the names of donors and volunteers. He says there are more than 900 donors and 250 able-bodied seniors who want to don the white radiation suits and enter the grounds of the plant...
The owner of the nuclear plant, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), tells CNN it is thankful for the offer from the seniors group. But it says they currently have enough workers to control the crisis.
But if Hikaru Tagawa is any indication, the plant is having trouble luring employees to the facility. Tagawa is a former temporary worker at Fukushima who lived just a few miles away, an area that is now a mandatory evacuation zone. When CNN met Tagawa, he was living at an evacuation center near Tokyo. "Nothing can make me go back to work there," he says, as his young daughter played nearby. He points out he has two young children and calls the levels of radiation "too dangerous."
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
30.6 Billion Metric Tons Carbon-dioxide Emissions - 2010
From USA TODAY:
Worldwide carbon-dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels reached a record 30.6 billion metric tons in 2010, an international energy group reports. (1 metric ton = 2204.6 lbs)
A reviving world economy was behind the 5% increase from 2008, mainly led by China's and India's growing industries, says the International Energy Agency, based in Paris. Hopes of dampening global warming are dropping with such increases, the agency warned.
"Our latest estimates are another wake-up call," said IEA economist Fatih Birol, in a statement. Emissions dropped slightly in 2009, following the previous record year.
"It is, I guess, remarkable how quickly emissions have rebounded following the recession," says climate scientist Myles Allen of the United Kingdom's Oxford University.
Despite hopes that the global recession could lead to more efficient and lower-emission energy use, he adds, "That seems to have been wishful thinking."
In May, a report from the U.S. National Research Council warned that "the risk of dangerous climate change impacts is growing with every ton of greenhouse gases."
Sea-level rise, heat waves and drought in Southwestern states could follow, the report warned.
Greenhouse gases, most notably carbon dioxide, raise atmospheric temperatures because they are transparent to sunlight but trap heat. Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide have risen about 23% since 1958, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration...
Worldwide carbon-dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels reached a record 30.6 billion metric tons in 2010, an international energy group reports. (1 metric ton = 2204.6 lbs)
A reviving world economy was behind the 5% increase from 2008, mainly led by China's and India's growing industries, says the International Energy Agency, based in Paris. Hopes of dampening global warming are dropping with such increases, the agency warned.
"Our latest estimates are another wake-up call," said IEA economist Fatih Birol, in a statement. Emissions dropped slightly in 2009, following the previous record year.
"It is, I guess, remarkable how quickly emissions have rebounded following the recession," says climate scientist Myles Allen of the United Kingdom's Oxford University.
Despite hopes that the global recession could lead to more efficient and lower-emission energy use, he adds, "That seems to have been wishful thinking."
In May, a report from the U.S. National Research Council warned that "the risk of dangerous climate change impacts is growing with every ton of greenhouse gases."
Sea-level rise, heat waves and drought in Southwestern states could follow, the report warned.
Greenhouse gases, most notably carbon dioxide, raise atmospheric temperatures because they are transparent to sunlight but trap heat. Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide have risen about 23% since 1958, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration...
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Tornadoes 2011
It's been a hell of a tornado year. The Tuscaloosa, Alabama and Joplin Missouri ones have been the worst ones so far. Yesterday we had 5 tornado warnings here in Indiana. While the storm did result in some damage to homes and trees, and a few people - it was nothing like the damage from the F5s.
Joplin, MO
Joplin, Mo
Warmer Ocean Fueling Tornadoes from Mother Jones/ Deep Blue Home:
The stats on tornadoes so far this year are horrifying. A record-breaking 482 people (and ABC News reports 1,500 are unaccounted for in Joplin, Missouri) have been confirmed killed as of 24 May.
We know that spring's a bad season for tornadoes. We know that La NiƱa years fuel stormy Aprils. But 2011 is redefining even those parameters.
Here's what NOAA has to say about last month alone:
April 2011 set anew record with a total of 875 tornadoes.
The previous April record was set in 1974 with 267 tornadoes.
The average number of tornadoes for the month of April during the past decade was 161.
The previous record number of tornadoes duringany month was 542 tornadoes set in May 2003.
NWS [National Weather Service] records indicate 321 people were killed during the April 25-28 tornado outbreak.
NWS records indicate 361 people were killed during the entire month of April 2011.
Leading up to April's extreme tornadoes were some extreme temperatures, noted Stu Ostro, Senior Meteorologist at the Weather Channel:
The temperature in Laredo reached 111 degrees the day prior to the peak [April] outbreak, the hottest on record at that location for so early in the season. Precipitation extremes have been extreme even by extreme precipitation standards, with April rainfall upwards of 20" in Arkansas and record levels on some rivers in the central US, juxtaposed with an exceptionally large amount of Texas being classified in extreme or exceptional drought.
Now May is racing to catch up to and maybe even pass April. Here's what NOAA finds so far:
The National Weather Service's preliminary estimate is more than 100 tornadoes have occurred during the month of May 2011.
The record number of tornadoes during the month of May was 542 tornadoes set in May 2003.
The average number of tornadoes for the month of May during the past decade is 298.
May is historically the most active month for tornadoes.
As I write, reports are rolling in about a new round of tornadoes—and deaths—in Oklahoma.
Sunday's horrific twister at Joplin, Missouri, was likely a multiple vortex tornado, says Thomas Schwein, deputy director of the National Weather Service’s Central Region, reports the Kansas City Star.
Jeff Masters' WunderBlog describes the Joplin tornado's nine-minute path thus:
A violent high-end EF-4* [Enhanced Fujita Scale] tornado [initial assessment] with winds of 190-198 mph carved a 7-mile long, 3/4 to one mile-wide path of near-total destruction through Joplin beginning at 5:41pm CDT Sunday evening.
*UPDATE: After surveying the Joplin tornado track, the NWS announced that its winds exceeded 200 miles per hour. This makes it the fourth EF-5 tornado this year, according to WonderBlog—and the most costly ever. Initial estimates: $1-3 billion.
So what's fueling this year's record-breaking tornado season? There are the usual suspects, which the Cliff Mass Weather Blog lists as:
Strong Instability
Large Vertical Wind Shear
Low Level Moisture
And then there are sea surface temperatures.
Unusually warm surface waters in the Gulf of Mexico—about 2 degrees Fahrenheit/3.6 degrees Celsius warmer than normal—may be a factor in this season's tornado frequency and strength, according to National Weather Service director Jack Hayes. Add that to an uncommonly southward jet stream track, reports Scientific American, and you've got a recipe for the kinds of disasters we've been seeing so far this year.
Warmer sea surface temperatures are also one of three reasons NOAA is forecasting a 65 percent chance of an above normal season—characterized as 13 or more named storms, 7 or more hurricanes, and 3 or more major hurricanes—in the Atlantic this year.
Lift
Joplin, MO
Joplin, MoWarmer Ocean Fueling Tornadoes from Mother Jones/ Deep Blue Home:
The stats on tornadoes so far this year are horrifying. A record-breaking 482 people (and ABC News reports 1,500 are unaccounted for in Joplin, Missouri) have been confirmed killed as of 24 May.
We know that spring's a bad season for tornadoes. We know that La NiƱa years fuel stormy Aprils. But 2011 is redefining even those parameters.
Here's what NOAA has to say about last month alone:
April 2011 set anew record with a total of 875 tornadoes.
The previous April record was set in 1974 with 267 tornadoes.
The average number of tornadoes for the month of April during the past decade was 161.
The previous record number of tornadoes duringany month was 542 tornadoes set in May 2003.
NWS [National Weather Service] records indicate 321 people were killed during the April 25-28 tornado outbreak.
NWS records indicate 361 people were killed during the entire month of April 2011.
Leading up to April's extreme tornadoes were some extreme temperatures, noted Stu Ostro, Senior Meteorologist at the Weather Channel:
The temperature in Laredo reached 111 degrees the day prior to the peak [April] outbreak, the hottest on record at that location for so early in the season. Precipitation extremes have been extreme even by extreme precipitation standards, with April rainfall upwards of 20" in Arkansas and record levels on some rivers in the central US, juxtaposed with an exceptionally large amount of Texas being classified in extreme or exceptional drought.
Now May is racing to catch up to and maybe even pass April. Here's what NOAA finds so far:
The National Weather Service's preliminary estimate is more than 100 tornadoes have occurred during the month of May 2011.
The record number of tornadoes during the month of May was 542 tornadoes set in May 2003.
The average number of tornadoes for the month of May during the past decade is 298.
May is historically the most active month for tornadoes.
As I write, reports are rolling in about a new round of tornadoes—and deaths—in Oklahoma.
Sunday's horrific twister at Joplin, Missouri, was likely a multiple vortex tornado, says Thomas Schwein, deputy director of the National Weather Service’s Central Region, reports the Kansas City Star.
Jeff Masters' WunderBlog describes the Joplin tornado's nine-minute path thus:
A violent high-end EF-4* [Enhanced Fujita Scale] tornado [initial assessment] with winds of 190-198 mph carved a 7-mile long, 3/4 to one mile-wide path of near-total destruction through Joplin beginning at 5:41pm CDT Sunday evening.
*UPDATE: After surveying the Joplin tornado track, the NWS announced that its winds exceeded 200 miles per hour. This makes it the fourth EF-5 tornado this year, according to WonderBlog—and the most costly ever. Initial estimates: $1-3 billion.
So what's fueling this year's record-breaking tornado season? There are the usual suspects, which the Cliff Mass Weather Blog lists as:
Strong Instability
Large Vertical Wind Shear
Low Level Moisture
And then there are sea surface temperatures.
Unusually warm surface waters in the Gulf of Mexico—about 2 degrees Fahrenheit/3.6 degrees Celsius warmer than normal—may be a factor in this season's tornado frequency and strength, according to National Weather Service director Jack Hayes. Add that to an uncommonly southward jet stream track, reports Scientific American, and you've got a recipe for the kinds of disasters we've been seeing so far this year.
Warmer sea surface temperatures are also one of three reasons NOAA is forecasting a 65 percent chance of an above normal season—characterized as 13 or more named storms, 7 or more hurricanes, and 3 or more major hurricanes—in the Atlantic this year.
Lift
"Electrons are fantastically round..."
From the Guardian.uk
After three months of experiments in a basement laboratory in London, scientists can confirm – with more confidence than ever – that the electron is very, very round.
In the most exquisite measurements yet, researchers declared the particle to be a perfect sphere to within one billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a centimetre. Were the electron scaled up to the size of the solar system, any deviation from its roundness would be smaller than the width of a human hair, the team said.
Abstruse as the experiment might seem, the work has profound implications for scientists wrestling with the mysteries of the cosmos. Even the slightest elongation of the electron can reveal what unknown particles might exist in nature, and even explain why matter won out over antimatter in the universe we observe.
The findings, published in the journal, Nature, already rule out some kinds of particles that theories suggested could pop into existence at the Large Hadron Collider at Cern, the European particle physics laboratory near Geneva.
"It's been hard work. We've been working on this for a long time and we've had a lot of ups and downs," said Jony Hudson, a physicist at Imperial College, London. "We have measured the shape really precisely. The deviations we were looking for are much smaller than the size of the electron. It is very, very round."
The concept of shape might seem obscure when it comes to a subatomic particle, but the rules are the same as for everyday objects. Pick up a pen, for example, and you feel its shape because electrons in the pen push back against the electrons in your hand.
And so it is with the electron itself. The particle is negatively charged, and the more evenly distributed the charge is around the centre of the particle, the more spherical it appears to be.
Scientists pursue ever more accurate measurements of the electron's roundness because any sign of it being mishapen could herald a major discovery. One leading idea known as supersymmetry, which says that every kind of particle we know has a heavy twin, requires the electron to have a slightly distorted shape.
"What's interesting is that the electron is so round it is becoming difficult for theories like supersymmetry to explain it," said Hudson, whose finding already rules out the existence of some supersymmetric particles.
Evidence that the electron is mishapen on a minuscule scale might also explain why the universe we see is made of matter instead of antimatter. At the birth of the cosmos, both were made in equal measure, but some subtle difference between the two caused antimatter to disappear. If the electron is elongated, it will behave differently to its antimatter counterpart, the positron. For example, each would wobble differently in an electric field.
"There must be a difference in the behaviour of matter and antimatter that we've not observed, and amazingly, the shape of the electron might just be enough to explain how the matter-antimatter imbalance built up over billions of years," Hudson said.
His team studied the roundness of electrons by measuring how much, or how little, the particles wobbled in an electric field. The rounder the electron, the less wobble it will display. In the experiment, electrons were anchored to a molecule called ytterbium fluoride and examined with a laser beam. Each measurement took only one thousandth of a second.
Running non-stop for more than three months, Hudson's team took 25 million measurements of electrons and averaged them out. They found no sign of the electron wobbling in the field, meaning it is more spherical than any previous experiment had shown. "To the best of our knowledge, with the experimental precision we have, the electron appears to be round," Hudson said.
In an accompanying article, Aaron Leanhardt at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, said the work provided a window "on the high energy soul of the cosmos".
"This work has important ramifications for the types of particles that can be discovered at high-energy accelerators, and may eventually help to explain the composition of the observable universe," Leanhardt wrote.
After three months of experiments in a basement laboratory in London, scientists can confirm – with more confidence than ever – that the electron is very, very round.
In the most exquisite measurements yet, researchers declared the particle to be a perfect sphere to within one billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a centimetre. Were the electron scaled up to the size of the solar system, any deviation from its roundness would be smaller than the width of a human hair, the team said.
Abstruse as the experiment might seem, the work has profound implications for scientists wrestling with the mysteries of the cosmos. Even the slightest elongation of the electron can reveal what unknown particles might exist in nature, and even explain why matter won out over antimatter in the universe we observe.
The findings, published in the journal, Nature, already rule out some kinds of particles that theories suggested could pop into existence at the Large Hadron Collider at Cern, the European particle physics laboratory near Geneva.
"It's been hard work. We've been working on this for a long time and we've had a lot of ups and downs," said Jony Hudson, a physicist at Imperial College, London. "We have measured the shape really precisely. The deviations we were looking for are much smaller than the size of the electron. It is very, very round."
The concept of shape might seem obscure when it comes to a subatomic particle, but the rules are the same as for everyday objects. Pick up a pen, for example, and you feel its shape because electrons in the pen push back against the electrons in your hand.
And so it is with the electron itself. The particle is negatively charged, and the more evenly distributed the charge is around the centre of the particle, the more spherical it appears to be.
Scientists pursue ever more accurate measurements of the electron's roundness because any sign of it being mishapen could herald a major discovery. One leading idea known as supersymmetry, which says that every kind of particle we know has a heavy twin, requires the electron to have a slightly distorted shape.
"What's interesting is that the electron is so round it is becoming difficult for theories like supersymmetry to explain it," said Hudson, whose finding already rules out the existence of some supersymmetric particles.
Evidence that the electron is mishapen on a minuscule scale might also explain why the universe we see is made of matter instead of antimatter. At the birth of the cosmos, both were made in equal measure, but some subtle difference between the two caused antimatter to disappear. If the electron is elongated, it will behave differently to its antimatter counterpart, the positron. For example, each would wobble differently in an electric field.
"There must be a difference in the behaviour of matter and antimatter that we've not observed, and amazingly, the shape of the electron might just be enough to explain how the matter-antimatter imbalance built up over billions of years," Hudson said.
His team studied the roundness of electrons by measuring how much, or how little, the particles wobbled in an electric field. The rounder the electron, the less wobble it will display. In the experiment, electrons were anchored to a molecule called ytterbium fluoride and examined with a laser beam. Each measurement took only one thousandth of a second.
Running non-stop for more than three months, Hudson's team took 25 million measurements of electrons and averaged them out. They found no sign of the electron wobbling in the field, meaning it is more spherical than any previous experiment had shown. "To the best of our knowledge, with the experimental precision we have, the electron appears to be round," Hudson said.
In an accompanying article, Aaron Leanhardt at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, said the work provided a window "on the high energy soul of the cosmos".
"This work has important ramifications for the types of particles that can be discovered at high-energy accelerators, and may eventually help to explain the composition of the observable universe," Leanhardt wrote.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Ten lessons from Chernobyl and Fukushima
BY DAVID KRIEGER (Miami Herald)
PMPROJPROGRESSIVE.ORG
Here are 10 lessons from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster 25 years ago and the Fukushima disaster this year.
1. Nuclear power is a highly complex, expensive and dangerous way to boil water to create steam to turn turbines.
2. Accidents happen, and the worst-case scenario often turns out to be worse than imagined or planned for.
3. The nuclear industry and its experts cannot plan for every contingency or prevent every disaster.
4. Governments do not effectively regulate the nuclear industry to assure the safety of the public. Regulators of the nuclear industry often come from the nuclear industry itself and tend to be too close to it to regulate it effectively.
5. Hubris, complacency and high-level radiation are a deadly mix. Hubris on the part of the nuclear industry and its government regulators — along with complacency on the part of the public — has led to the creation of vast amounts of high-level radiation that must be guarded from release to the environment for tens of thousands of years.
6. The corporations that run the nuclear power plants are protected from catastrophic economic failure by government limits on liability. If the corporations that own nuclear power plants had to bear the burden of potential financial losses in the event of a catastrophic accident, they would not build the plants because they know the risks are unacceptable. It is only when government limits the liability, as the Price-Anderson Act does in the United States, that companies go ahead and build nuclear power plants. No other private industry is given such liability protection, which leaves the taxpayers on the hook.
7. Radiation releases from nuclear accidents cannot be contained in space and will not stop at national borders.
8. Radiation releases from nuclear accidents cannot be contained in time and will adversely affect countless future generations.
9. Nuclear energy — as well as nuclear weapons — and human beings cannot coexist without the risk of future catastrophes. The survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have long known that nuclear weapons and human beings cannot coexist. Fukushima, like Chernobyl before it, makes clear that human beings and nuclear power plants also cannot coexist.
10. The accidents at Fukushima and Chernobyl are a bracing reminder to phase out nuclear energy. We need to move as rapidly as possible to a global energy plan based upon conservation and various forms of renewable energy: solar cells, wind, geothermal, and energy that is extracted from the oceans and the tides and the currents.
Poet Maya Angelou once said, “History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage doesn’t need to be lived again.” We need the courage to abandon nuclear power. No one should have to experience the wrenching pain of another Chernobyl or another Fukushima.
David Krieger is a councilor on the World Future Council and the chair of the executive committee of the International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/05/15/2216014/ten-lessons-from-chernobyl-and.html#ixzz1MQfxNvhg
PMPROJPROGRESSIVE.ORG
Here are 10 lessons from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster 25 years ago and the Fukushima disaster this year.
1. Nuclear power is a highly complex, expensive and dangerous way to boil water to create steam to turn turbines.
2. Accidents happen, and the worst-case scenario often turns out to be worse than imagined or planned for.
3. The nuclear industry and its experts cannot plan for every contingency or prevent every disaster.
4. Governments do not effectively regulate the nuclear industry to assure the safety of the public. Regulators of the nuclear industry often come from the nuclear industry itself and tend to be too close to it to regulate it effectively.
5. Hubris, complacency and high-level radiation are a deadly mix. Hubris on the part of the nuclear industry and its government regulators — along with complacency on the part of the public — has led to the creation of vast amounts of high-level radiation that must be guarded from release to the environment for tens of thousands of years.
6. The corporations that run the nuclear power plants are protected from catastrophic economic failure by government limits on liability. If the corporations that own nuclear power plants had to bear the burden of potential financial losses in the event of a catastrophic accident, they would not build the plants because they know the risks are unacceptable. It is only when government limits the liability, as the Price-Anderson Act does in the United States, that companies go ahead and build nuclear power plants. No other private industry is given such liability protection, which leaves the taxpayers on the hook.
7. Radiation releases from nuclear accidents cannot be contained in space and will not stop at national borders.
8. Radiation releases from nuclear accidents cannot be contained in time and will adversely affect countless future generations.
9. Nuclear energy — as well as nuclear weapons — and human beings cannot coexist without the risk of future catastrophes. The survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have long known that nuclear weapons and human beings cannot coexist. Fukushima, like Chernobyl before it, makes clear that human beings and nuclear power plants also cannot coexist.
10. The accidents at Fukushima and Chernobyl are a bracing reminder to phase out nuclear energy. We need to move as rapidly as possible to a global energy plan based upon conservation and various forms of renewable energy: solar cells, wind, geothermal, and energy that is extracted from the oceans and the tides and the currents.
Poet Maya Angelou once said, “History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage doesn’t need to be lived again.” We need the courage to abandon nuclear power. No one should have to experience the wrenching pain of another Chernobyl or another Fukushima.
David Krieger is a councilor on the World Future Council and the chair of the executive committee of the International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/05/15/2216014/ten-lessons-from-chernobyl-and.html#ixzz1MQfxNvhg
Fukushima Disaster Continues
Accurate data destroys optimistic TEPCO assessment, hampers cooling plan (Asahi.com)
Accurate data shattered the overly optimistic assessment of Tokyo Electric Power Co. concerning the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant and raised doubts about the company's game plan for ending the crisis.
Measurements from a recently installed water gauge provided conclusive evidence that the condition of the No. 1 reactor at the plant was much more serious than TEPCO officials have acknowledged until now.
TEPCO officials admitted on May 12 that a "meltdown" had occurred in the No. 1 reactor. Fuel rods had melted, and the molten fuel accumulated and caused small cracks at the bottom of the reactor pressure container, they said.
Until now, TEPCO officials only said that fuel rods were partially damaged and compiled a work schedule in April for restoring a stable cooling system based on that assumption.
Despite being unable to obtain accurate measurements from gauges in the reactors damaged in the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake, TEPCO officials still made those optimistic assumptions.
From immediately after the quake, the measurements from the water gauge at the No. 1 reactor showed very little change, casting doubt on the reliability of the instruments.
After workers entered the No. 1 reactor building and adjusted the water gauge, the data obtained showed water levels so low that the gauge was unable to measure it.
TEPCO officials concluded that water had accumulated in only about 20 percent of the volume of the No. 1 reactor's pressure container.
Other specialists had long warned that the situation at the No. 1 reactor was much more serious than the scenario that TEPCO officials were presenting.
At a news conference April 1, Shunichi Tanaka, a former vice chairman of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission, said all the fuel rods in the No. 1 reactor had melted, raising the possibility of damage to the pressure container.
TEPCO's latest measurements found the temperature of the pressure container was about 100 degrees. If the fuel rods had been exposed because of the low water level, the temperature should have been much higher. The only explanation is that the fuel rods melted, accumulated at the bottom of the pressure container and the melted fuel was cooled by the small volume of water at the bottom.
The No. 1 reactor is not the only one with problems. Small cracks have probably also developed at the bottom of the pressure containers of the No. 2 and No. 3 reactors.
Evidence of that possibility is the highly contaminated water found in the basements of the turbine buildings of the three reactors as well as underground trenches.
The contamination was likely caused by water leaking from the bottoms of the pressure containers of the three reactors.
TEPCO officials now admit that the measurements from the water gauges at the pressure containers in the No. 2 and No. 3 reactors are also unreliable.
While those water gauges will have to be repaired as soon as possible, TEPCO will also have to review its work schedule for cooling the reactors.
That will likely mean rethinking the plan to submerge the containment vessel of the No. 1 reactor in water to cool the pressure container within.
About 10,000 tons of water have already been pumped into the No. 1 reactor's pressure container, but about 3,000 tons of that water are unaccounted for. That likely means the water has leaked out of the containment vessel.
Moreover, if TEPCO continues to pump in water to the reactors to cool them, water contaminated with radiation will continue to leak out from the cracks at the bottoms of the pressure containers.
TEPCO officials have also not denied the possibility that melted fuel has leaked out of the pressure container. That would mean the volume of contaminated water will likely increase, making work in the reactor buildings much more difficult.
Setbacks at Japan nuclear plant(BBC)
A reactor at Japan's crippled nuclear plant has been more badly damaged than originally thought, operator Tepco has said.
Water is leaking from the pressure vessel surrounding reactor 1 - probably because of damage caused by exposed fuel rods melting, a spokesman said.
Contaminated water had also entered the sea from a pit near reactor 3 but this had now been stopped, he said...
He said there was likely to be a large leak in the pressure vessel, possibly caused by the fallen fuel.
"As for a meltdown, it is certain that it has crumbled and the fuel is located at the bottom (of the vessel)," he added.
The water is said to be leaking into the containment vessel and from there into the reactor building.
Experts said the announcement from Tepco did not mean that the situation at the plant had worsened because it was likely that the fuel had dropped to the bottom of the core soon after the 11 March earthquake.
Japan nuclear: Tepco halts Fukushima cooling plan(BBC)
Japanese engineers have abandoned their latest attempt to stabilise a stricken reactor at the Fukushima nuclear plant.
The plant's operator, Tepco, had intended to cool reactor 1 by filling the containment chamber with water.
But Tepco said melting fuel rods had created a hole in the chamber, allowing 3,000 tonnes of contaminated water to leak into the basement of the reactor building.
The power plant was badly damaged by the earthquake and tsunami on 11 March.
Cooling systems to the reactors were knocked out, fuel rods overheated, and attempts to release pressure in the chambers led to explosions in the buildings housing the reactors.
The government and Tepco (Tokyo Electric Power Company) said it would take until next January to achieve a cold shut-down at the plant.
Government spokesman Goshi Hosono said the latest setback would not affect the deadline...
Last week the government agreed a huge compensation package for those affected by the disaster.
Analysts say the final bill for compensation could top $100bn (£61bn).
_______
More info can be found @ Radiation Safety Philippines
Accurate data shattered the overly optimistic assessment of Tokyo Electric Power Co. concerning the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant and raised doubts about the company's game plan for ending the crisis.
Measurements from a recently installed water gauge provided conclusive evidence that the condition of the No. 1 reactor at the plant was much more serious than TEPCO officials have acknowledged until now.
TEPCO officials admitted on May 12 that a "meltdown" had occurred in the No. 1 reactor. Fuel rods had melted, and the molten fuel accumulated and caused small cracks at the bottom of the reactor pressure container, they said.
Until now, TEPCO officials only said that fuel rods were partially damaged and compiled a work schedule in April for restoring a stable cooling system based on that assumption.
Despite being unable to obtain accurate measurements from gauges in the reactors damaged in the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake, TEPCO officials still made those optimistic assumptions.
From immediately after the quake, the measurements from the water gauge at the No. 1 reactor showed very little change, casting doubt on the reliability of the instruments.
After workers entered the No. 1 reactor building and adjusted the water gauge, the data obtained showed water levels so low that the gauge was unable to measure it.
TEPCO officials concluded that water had accumulated in only about 20 percent of the volume of the No. 1 reactor's pressure container.
Other specialists had long warned that the situation at the No. 1 reactor was much more serious than the scenario that TEPCO officials were presenting.
At a news conference April 1, Shunichi Tanaka, a former vice chairman of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission, said all the fuel rods in the No. 1 reactor had melted, raising the possibility of damage to the pressure container.
TEPCO's latest measurements found the temperature of the pressure container was about 100 degrees. If the fuel rods had been exposed because of the low water level, the temperature should have been much higher. The only explanation is that the fuel rods melted, accumulated at the bottom of the pressure container and the melted fuel was cooled by the small volume of water at the bottom.
The No. 1 reactor is not the only one with problems. Small cracks have probably also developed at the bottom of the pressure containers of the No. 2 and No. 3 reactors.
Evidence of that possibility is the highly contaminated water found in the basements of the turbine buildings of the three reactors as well as underground trenches.
The contamination was likely caused by water leaking from the bottoms of the pressure containers of the three reactors.
TEPCO officials now admit that the measurements from the water gauges at the pressure containers in the No. 2 and No. 3 reactors are also unreliable.
While those water gauges will have to be repaired as soon as possible, TEPCO will also have to review its work schedule for cooling the reactors.
That will likely mean rethinking the plan to submerge the containment vessel of the No. 1 reactor in water to cool the pressure container within.
About 10,000 tons of water have already been pumped into the No. 1 reactor's pressure container, but about 3,000 tons of that water are unaccounted for. That likely means the water has leaked out of the containment vessel.
Moreover, if TEPCO continues to pump in water to the reactors to cool them, water contaminated with radiation will continue to leak out from the cracks at the bottoms of the pressure containers.
TEPCO officials have also not denied the possibility that melted fuel has leaked out of the pressure container. That would mean the volume of contaminated water will likely increase, making work in the reactor buildings much more difficult.
Setbacks at Japan nuclear plant(BBC)
A reactor at Japan's crippled nuclear plant has been more badly damaged than originally thought, operator Tepco has said.
Water is leaking from the pressure vessel surrounding reactor 1 - probably because of damage caused by exposed fuel rods melting, a spokesman said.
Contaminated water had also entered the sea from a pit near reactor 3 but this had now been stopped, he said...
He said there was likely to be a large leak in the pressure vessel, possibly caused by the fallen fuel.
"As for a meltdown, it is certain that it has crumbled and the fuel is located at the bottom (of the vessel)," he added.
The water is said to be leaking into the containment vessel and from there into the reactor building.
Experts said the announcement from Tepco did not mean that the situation at the plant had worsened because it was likely that the fuel had dropped to the bottom of the core soon after the 11 March earthquake.
Japan nuclear: Tepco halts Fukushima cooling plan(BBC)
Japanese engineers have abandoned their latest attempt to stabilise a stricken reactor at the Fukushima nuclear plant.
The plant's operator, Tepco, had intended to cool reactor 1 by filling the containment chamber with water.
But Tepco said melting fuel rods had created a hole in the chamber, allowing 3,000 tonnes of contaminated water to leak into the basement of the reactor building.
The power plant was badly damaged by the earthquake and tsunami on 11 March.
Cooling systems to the reactors were knocked out, fuel rods overheated, and attempts to release pressure in the chambers led to explosions in the buildings housing the reactors.
The government and Tepco (Tokyo Electric Power Company) said it would take until next January to achieve a cold shut-down at the plant.
Government spokesman Goshi Hosono said the latest setback would not affect the deadline...
Last week the government agreed a huge compensation package for those affected by the disaster.
Analysts say the final bill for compensation could top $100bn (£61bn).
_______
More info can be found @ Radiation Safety Philippines
Mississippi River Flood 2011
All the rain we were getting in April and still in May goes down into the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Louisville, Evansville, New Harmony, IN; Cairo, IL; Memphis, Vicksberg, MI; have been having flooding problems. Now the Morganza spillway gates have been opened to divert some of the water to the western part of Louisiana to spare Baton Rouge and New Orleans. The first time in 40 years. Of course this means that some people will be flooded who may not have been - but that fewer people altogether will be. It's sad all the way around.
A structure is seen nearly covered by floodwater from the Mississippi River, Tuesday, May 3, 2011, north of New Madrid, Mo. Many areas along the river in Missouri's bootheel are seeing significant flooding and ominous flooding forecasts are raising alarm from southeast Missouri to Louisiana and Mississippi. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
The Mississippi flood in Missouri and Tennessee
The Morganza Spillway - opened May 14th 2011
One of the scenarios considered possible regarding the opening of the Morganza Spillway
A structure is seen nearly covered by floodwater from the Mississippi River, Tuesday, May 3, 2011, north of New Madrid, Mo. Many areas along the river in Missouri's bootheel are seeing significant flooding and ominous flooding forecasts are raising alarm from southeast Missouri to Louisiana and Mississippi. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
The Mississippi flood in Missouri and Tennessee
The Morganza Spillway - opened May 14th 2011
One of the scenarios considered possible regarding the opening of the Morganza Spillway
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Jellyfish Dress
White grocery bags, green dry cleaner bags, and blue newspaper bags that may have wound up polluting the ocean have now been crafted into an aquatic-themed gown.
Photo by: Courtesy of RecycleRunway.com
Seen on Shine.yahoo
April Showers and Storms
April has been quite a month for storms. It has been the wettest April in Oregon and Ottawa and places in between.
Flooding is a problem around Louisville and other areas around Kentucky and Indiana. There have also been many tornadoes. Yesterday the South got hammered. From Yahoo news:
PLEASANT GROVE, Ala. – Firefighters searched one splintered pile after another for survivors Thursday, combing the remains of houses and neighborhoods pulverized by the nation's deadliest tornado outbreak in almost four decades. At least 290 people were killed across six states — more than two-thirds of them in Alabama, where large cities bore the half-mile-wide scars the twisters left behind.
The death toll from Wednesday's storms seems out of a bygone era, before Doppler radar and pinpoint satellite forecasts were around to warn communities of severe weather. Residents were told the tornadoes were coming up to 24 minutes ahead of time, but they were just too wide, too powerful and too locked onto populated areas to avoid a horrifying body count.
"These were the most intense super-cell thunderstorms that I think anybody who was out there forecasting has ever seen," said meteorologist Greg Carbin at the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla.
"If you experienced a direct hit from one of these, you'd have to be in a reinforced room, storm shelter or underground" to survive, Carbin said.
The storms seemed to hug the interstate highways as they barreled along like runaway trucks, obliterating neighborhoods or even entire towns from Tuscaloosa to Bristol, Va. One family rode out the disaster in the basement of a funeral home, another by huddling in a tanning bed.
In Concord, a small town outside Birmingham that was ravaged by a tornado, Randy Guyton's family got a phone call from a friend warning them to take cover. They rushed to the basement garage, piled into a Honda Ridgeline and listened to the roar as the twister devoured the house in seconds. Afterward, they could see outside through the shards of their home and scrambled out.
"To me it sounded like destruction," the 22-year-old said. "It was a mean, mean roar. It was awful."
At least three people died in a Pleasant Grove subdivision southwest of Birmingham, where residents trickled back Thursday to survey the damage. Greg Harrison's neighborhood was somehow unscathed, but he remains haunted by the wind, thunder and lightning as they built to a crescendo, then suddenly stopped.
Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley said his state had confirmed 204 deaths. There were 33 deaths in Mississippi, 33 in Tennessee, 14 in Georgia, five in Virginia and one in Kentucky. Hundreds if not thousands of people were injured — nearly 800 in Tuscaloosa alone.
A tower-mounted news camera in Tuscaloosa captured images of an astonishingly thick, powerful tornado flinging debris as it leveled neighborhoods.
"There's a pretty good chance some of these were a mile wide, on the ground for tens of miles and had wind speeds over 200 mph," he said.
...The loss of life is the greatest from an outbreak of U.S. tornadoes since April 1974, when the weather service said 315 people were killed by a storm that swept across 13 Southern and Midwestern states.
Flooding is a problem around Louisville and other areas around Kentucky and Indiana. There have also been many tornadoes. Yesterday the South got hammered. From Yahoo news:
PLEASANT GROVE, Ala. – Firefighters searched one splintered pile after another for survivors Thursday, combing the remains of houses and neighborhoods pulverized by the nation's deadliest tornado outbreak in almost four decades. At least 290 people were killed across six states — more than two-thirds of them in Alabama, where large cities bore the half-mile-wide scars the twisters left behind.
The death toll from Wednesday's storms seems out of a bygone era, before Doppler radar and pinpoint satellite forecasts were around to warn communities of severe weather. Residents were told the tornadoes were coming up to 24 minutes ahead of time, but they were just too wide, too powerful and too locked onto populated areas to avoid a horrifying body count.
"These were the most intense super-cell thunderstorms that I think anybody who was out there forecasting has ever seen," said meteorologist Greg Carbin at the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla.
"If you experienced a direct hit from one of these, you'd have to be in a reinforced room, storm shelter or underground" to survive, Carbin said.
The storms seemed to hug the interstate highways as they barreled along like runaway trucks, obliterating neighborhoods or even entire towns from Tuscaloosa to Bristol, Va. One family rode out the disaster in the basement of a funeral home, another by huddling in a tanning bed.
In Concord, a small town outside Birmingham that was ravaged by a tornado, Randy Guyton's family got a phone call from a friend warning them to take cover. They rushed to the basement garage, piled into a Honda Ridgeline and listened to the roar as the twister devoured the house in seconds. Afterward, they could see outside through the shards of their home and scrambled out.
"To me it sounded like destruction," the 22-year-old said. "It was a mean, mean roar. It was awful."
At least three people died in a Pleasant Grove subdivision southwest of Birmingham, where residents trickled back Thursday to survey the damage. Greg Harrison's neighborhood was somehow unscathed, but he remains haunted by the wind, thunder and lightning as they built to a crescendo, then suddenly stopped.
Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley said his state had confirmed 204 deaths. There were 33 deaths in Mississippi, 33 in Tennessee, 14 in Georgia, five in Virginia and one in Kentucky. Hundreds if not thousands of people were injured — nearly 800 in Tuscaloosa alone.
A tower-mounted news camera in Tuscaloosa captured images of an astonishingly thick, powerful tornado flinging debris as it leveled neighborhoods.
"There's a pretty good chance some of these were a mile wide, on the ground for tens of miles and had wind speeds over 200 mph," he said.
...The loss of life is the greatest from an outbreak of U.S. tornadoes since April 1974, when the weather service said 315 people were killed by a storm that swept across 13 Southern and Midwestern states.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
"Bolivia enshrines natural world's rights with equal status for Mother Earth"
From the GuardianUK:
Bolivia is set to pass the world's first laws granting all nature equal rights to humans. The Law of Mother Earth, now agreed by politicians and grassroots social groups, redefines the country's rich mineral deposits as "blessings" and is expected to lead to radical new conservation and social measures to reduce pollution and control industry.
The country, which has been pilloried by the US and Britain in the UN climate talks for demanding steep carbon emission cuts, will establish 11 new rights for nature. They include: the right to life and to exist; the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration; the right to pure water and clean air; the right to balance; the right not to be polluted; and the right to not have cellular structure modified or genetically altered.
Controversially, it will also enshrine the right of nature "to not be affected by mega-infrastructure and development projects that affect the balance of ecosystems and the local inhabitant communities".
"It makes world history. Earth is the mother of all", said Vice-President Alvaro GarcĆa Linera. "It establishes a new relationship between man and nature, the harmony of which must be preserved as a guarantee of its regeneration."
The law, which is part of a complete restructuring of the Bolivian legal system following a change of constitution in 2009, has been heavily influenced by a resurgent indigenous Andean spiritual world view which places the environment and the earth deity known as the Pachamama at the centre of all life. Humans are considered equal to all other entities.
But the abstract new laws are not expected to stop industry in its tracks. While it is not clear yet what actual protection the new rights will give in court to bugs, insects and ecosystems, the government is expected to establish a ministry of mother earth and to appoint an ombudsman. It is also committed to giving communities new legal powers to monitor and control polluting industries.
Bolivia has long suffered from serious environmental problems from the mining of tin, silver, gold and other raw materials. "Existing laws are not strong enough," said Undarico Pinto, leader of the 3.5m-strong ConfederaciĆ³n Sindical Ćnica de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia, the biggest social movement, who helped draft the law. "It will make industry more transparent. It will allow people to regulate industry at national, regional and local levels."
Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca said Bolivia's traditional indigenous respect for the Pachamama was vital to prevent climate change. "Our grandparents taught us that we belong to a big family of plants and animals. We believe that everything in the planet forms part of a big family. We indigenous people can contribute to solving the energy, climate, food and financial crises with our values," he said.
Little opposition is expected to the law being passed because President Evo Morales's ruling party, the Movement Towards Socialism, enjoys a comfortable majority in both houses of parliament.
However, the government must tread a fine line between increased regulation of companies and giving way to the powerful social movements who have pressed for the law. Bolivia earns $500m (£305m) a year from mining companies which provides nearly one third of the country's foreign currency.
In the indigenous philosophy, the Pachamama is a living being.
The draft of the new law states: "She is sacred, fertile and the source of life that feeds and cares for all living beings in her womb. She is in permanent balance, harmony and communication with the cosmos. She is comprised of all ecosystems and living beings, and their self-organisation."
Ecuador, which also has powerful indigenous groups, has changed its constitution to give nature "the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution". However, the abstract rights have not led to new laws or stopped oil companies from destroying some of the most biologically rich areas of the Amazon.
Bolivia is set to pass the world's first laws granting all nature equal rights to humans. The Law of Mother Earth, now agreed by politicians and grassroots social groups, redefines the country's rich mineral deposits as "blessings" and is expected to lead to radical new conservation and social measures to reduce pollution and control industry.
The country, which has been pilloried by the US and Britain in the UN climate talks for demanding steep carbon emission cuts, will establish 11 new rights for nature. They include: the right to life and to exist; the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration; the right to pure water and clean air; the right to balance; the right not to be polluted; and the right to not have cellular structure modified or genetically altered.
Controversially, it will also enshrine the right of nature "to not be affected by mega-infrastructure and development projects that affect the balance of ecosystems and the local inhabitant communities".
"It makes world history. Earth is the mother of all", said Vice-President Alvaro GarcĆa Linera. "It establishes a new relationship between man and nature, the harmony of which must be preserved as a guarantee of its regeneration."
The law, which is part of a complete restructuring of the Bolivian legal system following a change of constitution in 2009, has been heavily influenced by a resurgent indigenous Andean spiritual world view which places the environment and the earth deity known as the Pachamama at the centre of all life. Humans are considered equal to all other entities.
But the abstract new laws are not expected to stop industry in its tracks. While it is not clear yet what actual protection the new rights will give in court to bugs, insects and ecosystems, the government is expected to establish a ministry of mother earth and to appoint an ombudsman. It is also committed to giving communities new legal powers to monitor and control polluting industries.
Bolivia has long suffered from serious environmental problems from the mining of tin, silver, gold and other raw materials. "Existing laws are not strong enough," said Undarico Pinto, leader of the 3.5m-strong ConfederaciĆ³n Sindical Ćnica de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia, the biggest social movement, who helped draft the law. "It will make industry more transparent. It will allow people to regulate industry at national, regional and local levels."
Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca said Bolivia's traditional indigenous respect for the Pachamama was vital to prevent climate change. "Our grandparents taught us that we belong to a big family of plants and animals. We believe that everything in the planet forms part of a big family. We indigenous people can contribute to solving the energy, climate, food and financial crises with our values," he said.
Little opposition is expected to the law being passed because President Evo Morales's ruling party, the Movement Towards Socialism, enjoys a comfortable majority in both houses of parliament.
However, the government must tread a fine line between increased regulation of companies and giving way to the powerful social movements who have pressed for the law. Bolivia earns $500m (£305m) a year from mining companies which provides nearly one third of the country's foreign currency.
In the indigenous philosophy, the Pachamama is a living being.
The draft of the new law states: "She is sacred, fertile and the source of life that feeds and cares for all living beings in her womb. She is in permanent balance, harmony and communication with the cosmos. She is comprised of all ecosystems and living beings, and their self-organisation."
Ecuador, which also has powerful indigenous groups, has changed its constitution to give nature "the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution". However, the abstract rights have not led to new laws or stopped oil companies from destroying some of the most biologically rich areas of the Amazon.
Monday, April 11, 2011
"Hiding From Shame, Addicted to Optimism: The Tyranny of Our Collective Comfort Zones"
by Phil Rockstroh on Common Dreams:
The technologies that inflicted upon the world the ongoing tragedies in both the Gulf of Mexico and Japan serve a dangerous addiction, an addiction to blind optimism, a habituation of mind that allows us to dwell within provisional comfort zones but renders vast spaces of the world into deathrealms.
After each catastrophe, there ensues a scramble to contain the damage leveled, as, concurrently, the apologist of the present system explain the anomalous nature of the event. Yet, this much should be obvious: Attempting to clean up the mess, after it occurs, as oppose to altering the way of life that incurs the damage, is analogous to an addict believing a few days in detox will serve as a solution to his addiction.
In the same way drug dealers are reliant on an addict's unwillingness to reflect on the carnage created in his life, as well as, the havoc reaped in the lives of those near him, engendered by his addiction, the small group of hyper-wealthy elites who benefit from the current system rely on collective cognitive dissidence (or, as it has been termed, the fear of fear itself) to dissuade the public at large from peering deeply into the pernicious situation.
One of an addict's biggest obstacles is his optimism i.e., he is convinced he can figure out somehow, someway to use his drug of choice in a less destructive way…and, by reflex, rebels against the deepening sorrow that he must change.
When large, powerful corporations create messes beyond their ability to control the damage wrought by their institutional cupidity, those in charge spare no expense aggressively confronting the problem…that is, of course, by means of public relations blitzes aimed at the general public, while tsunami-sized waves of campaign contributions flood the coffers of elected officials.
Apropos, a school of thought has developed in which framing the perception of a catastrophe supersedes all other considerations. An after the fact casuistry, possessed of crackpot optimism, similar to the following, is affected: Dated technologies were at fault in that particular mishap, but, not to worry, in the near future, new innovations will safeguard against similar calamities.
Sure thing: The future will be bathed in the benign light of new technological wonders; our dread will be washed away by sparkling clean coal. Magical technological innovations will soon render nuclear power so safe that the only danger to the general public will be posed by the risk of being smothered by its profoundly huggable properties...
(more)
The technologies that inflicted upon the world the ongoing tragedies in both the Gulf of Mexico and Japan serve a dangerous addiction, an addiction to blind optimism, a habituation of mind that allows us to dwell within provisional comfort zones but renders vast spaces of the world into deathrealms.
After each catastrophe, there ensues a scramble to contain the damage leveled, as, concurrently, the apologist of the present system explain the anomalous nature of the event. Yet, this much should be obvious: Attempting to clean up the mess, after it occurs, as oppose to altering the way of life that incurs the damage, is analogous to an addict believing a few days in detox will serve as a solution to his addiction.
In the same way drug dealers are reliant on an addict's unwillingness to reflect on the carnage created in his life, as well as, the havoc reaped in the lives of those near him, engendered by his addiction, the small group of hyper-wealthy elites who benefit from the current system rely on collective cognitive dissidence (or, as it has been termed, the fear of fear itself) to dissuade the public at large from peering deeply into the pernicious situation.
One of an addict's biggest obstacles is his optimism i.e., he is convinced he can figure out somehow, someway to use his drug of choice in a less destructive way…and, by reflex, rebels against the deepening sorrow that he must change.
When large, powerful corporations create messes beyond their ability to control the damage wrought by their institutional cupidity, those in charge spare no expense aggressively confronting the problem…that is, of course, by means of public relations blitzes aimed at the general public, while tsunami-sized waves of campaign contributions flood the coffers of elected officials.
Apropos, a school of thought has developed in which framing the perception of a catastrophe supersedes all other considerations. An after the fact casuistry, possessed of crackpot optimism, similar to the following, is affected: Dated technologies were at fault in that particular mishap, but, not to worry, in the near future, new innovations will safeguard against similar calamities.
Sure thing: The future will be bathed in the benign light of new technological wonders; our dread will be washed away by sparkling clean coal. Magical technological innovations will soon render nuclear power so safe that the only danger to the general public will be posed by the risk of being smothered by its profoundly huggable properties...
(more)
Saturday, April 09, 2011
"U.S. Subsidizes Brazilian Cotton to Protect Monsanto's Profits"
by Emelie Peine From Think Forward via CommonDreams
On February 18, Republicans in the House of Representatives defeated an obscure amendment to the House Appropriations bill by a 2-to-1 margin. The Kind Amendment would have eliminated $147 million dollars that the federal government pays every year directly to Brazilian cotton farmers. In an era of nationwide belt tightening, with funding for things like education and the U.S. Farm Bill on the chopping block, defending payments to Brazilian farmers may seem curious.
In order to understand this peculiar political move, one has to look all the way back to 2002, when Brazil filed a case in the WTO challenging U.S. cotton subsidies. In 2004, the Dispute Settlement Body of the WTO found in favor of Brazil, ruling that government subsidies afforded U.S. cotton producers an unfair advantage and suppressed the world market price, which damaged Brazil's interests. After multiple appeals the WTO upheld the original ruling, and by 2009 the U.S. still had not reformed its cotton programs. Brazil then asked the WTO for permission to retaliate against the U.S. by imposing trade sanctions. The WTO decided that Brazil was entitled to impose 100-percent tariffs on over 100 different goods of U.S. origin. Even more importantly, however, Brazil was entitled to suspend intellectual property rights for U.S. companies, including patent protections on genetically engineered seeds.
In WTO language, Brazil was allowed to suspend its obligations to U.S. companies under the Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement. This constituted a major threat to the profits of U.S. agribusiness giants Monsanto and Pioneer, since Brazil is the second largest grower of biotech crops in the world. Fifty percent of Brazil’s corn harvest is engineered to produce the pesticide Bt, and Monsanto’s YieldGard VT Pro is a popular product among Brazilian corn farmers. By targeting the profits of major U.S. corporations, the Brazilian government put the U.S. in a tough spot: either let the subsidies stand and allow Brazilian farmers to plant Monsanto and Pioneer seeds without paying royalties, or substantially reform the cotton program. In essence, Brazil was pitting the interests of Big Agribusiness against those of Big Cotton, and the U.S. government was caught in the middle.
The two governments, however, managed to come up with a creative solution. In a 2009 WTO “framework agreement,” the U.S. created the Commodity Conservation Corporation (CCC), and Brazil created the Brazilian Cotton Institute (BCI). Rather than eliminating or substantially reforming cotton subsidies, the CCC pays the BCI $147 million dollars a year in “technical assistance,” which happens to be the same amount the WTO authorized for trade retaliation specifically for cotton payments. In essence, then, the U.S. government pays a subsidy to Brazilian cotton farmers every year to protect the U.S. cotton program—and the profits of companies like Monsanto and Pioneer.
In 2005, I attended the committee meeting of Brazil’s foreign trade ministry where Pedro Camargo Neto—a Brazilian trade lawyer and then-president of the Brazilian pork producers association—proposed suspension of the TRIPS agreement as retaliation for U.S. non-compliance with the WTO ruling on cotton. It was a brilliant political tactic, and dramatically shows the power of private firms in both countries to influence trade policy in the WTO. When I interviewed him as part of my dissertation, Camargo said the Brazilian cotton case would never have been launched without political pressure and funding from Brazil’s powerful cotton industry. Despite facing substantial resistance from the Brazilian government in launching the case, he said, “the producers were really backing it.”
Today in the U.S., taxpayers are bearing the cost of the cotton subsidies and the cost of failure to reform them. Although major news outlets called the payments yet another insane perversion of already insane U.S. agricultural policy, it clearly wasn’t just about preserving subsidies. In 2006, Steve Suppan anticipated the use—and drawbacks—of TRIPS suspension as a one of few tools of cross-retaliation available to poorer countries. However, because of the size of the market for genetically modified seeds there, TRIPS suspension was Brazil’s trump card. Apparently when the stakes are high enough for American business interests, the government will make sure that American taxpayers subsidize not just agriculture, but intellectual property, too.
On February 18, Republicans in the House of Representatives defeated an obscure amendment to the House Appropriations bill by a 2-to-1 margin. The Kind Amendment would have eliminated $147 million dollars that the federal government pays every year directly to Brazilian cotton farmers. In an era of nationwide belt tightening, with funding for things like education and the U.S. Farm Bill on the chopping block, defending payments to Brazilian farmers may seem curious.
In order to understand this peculiar political move, one has to look all the way back to 2002, when Brazil filed a case in the WTO challenging U.S. cotton subsidies. In 2004, the Dispute Settlement Body of the WTO found in favor of Brazil, ruling that government subsidies afforded U.S. cotton producers an unfair advantage and suppressed the world market price, which damaged Brazil's interests. After multiple appeals the WTO upheld the original ruling, and by 2009 the U.S. still had not reformed its cotton programs. Brazil then asked the WTO for permission to retaliate against the U.S. by imposing trade sanctions. The WTO decided that Brazil was entitled to impose 100-percent tariffs on over 100 different goods of U.S. origin. Even more importantly, however, Brazil was entitled to suspend intellectual property rights for U.S. companies, including patent protections on genetically engineered seeds.
In WTO language, Brazil was allowed to suspend its obligations to U.S. companies under the Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement. This constituted a major threat to the profits of U.S. agribusiness giants Monsanto and Pioneer, since Brazil is the second largest grower of biotech crops in the world. Fifty percent of Brazil’s corn harvest is engineered to produce the pesticide Bt, and Monsanto’s YieldGard VT Pro is a popular product among Brazilian corn farmers. By targeting the profits of major U.S. corporations, the Brazilian government put the U.S. in a tough spot: either let the subsidies stand and allow Brazilian farmers to plant Monsanto and Pioneer seeds without paying royalties, or substantially reform the cotton program. In essence, Brazil was pitting the interests of Big Agribusiness against those of Big Cotton, and the U.S. government was caught in the middle.
The two governments, however, managed to come up with a creative solution. In a 2009 WTO “framework agreement,” the U.S. created the Commodity Conservation Corporation (CCC), and Brazil created the Brazilian Cotton Institute (BCI). Rather than eliminating or substantially reforming cotton subsidies, the CCC pays the BCI $147 million dollars a year in “technical assistance,” which happens to be the same amount the WTO authorized for trade retaliation specifically for cotton payments. In essence, then, the U.S. government pays a subsidy to Brazilian cotton farmers every year to protect the U.S. cotton program—and the profits of companies like Monsanto and Pioneer.
In 2005, I attended the committee meeting of Brazil’s foreign trade ministry where Pedro Camargo Neto—a Brazilian trade lawyer and then-president of the Brazilian pork producers association—proposed suspension of the TRIPS agreement as retaliation for U.S. non-compliance with the WTO ruling on cotton. It was a brilliant political tactic, and dramatically shows the power of private firms in both countries to influence trade policy in the WTO. When I interviewed him as part of my dissertation, Camargo said the Brazilian cotton case would never have been launched without political pressure and funding from Brazil’s powerful cotton industry. Despite facing substantial resistance from the Brazilian government in launching the case, he said, “the producers were really backing it.”
Today in the U.S., taxpayers are bearing the cost of the cotton subsidies and the cost of failure to reform them. Although major news outlets called the payments yet another insane perversion of already insane U.S. agricultural policy, it clearly wasn’t just about preserving subsidies. In 2006, Steve Suppan anticipated the use—and drawbacks—of TRIPS suspension as a one of few tools of cross-retaliation available to poorer countries. However, because of the size of the market for genetically modified seeds there, TRIPS suspension was Brazil’s trump card. Apparently when the stakes are high enough for American business interests, the government will make sure that American taxpayers subsidize not just agriculture, but intellectual property, too.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
"Workers Give Glimpse of Japan’s Nuclear Crisis"
From the New York Times:
With the power out, trucks were parked in a circle with their lights on, creating a shadowy stage. A manager from the Tokyo Electric Power Company explained how the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant had been slammed by a mammoth tsunami and rocked by hydrogen explosions and had become highly radioactive. Some workers wept.
That was the scene at J-Village, 12 miles south of the plant, on the night of March 15. Hundreds of firefighters, Self-Defense Forces and workers from Tokyo Electric Power convened at the sports training center, arguing long and loudly about how best to restore cooling systems and prevent nuclear fuel from overheating. Complicating matters, a lack of phone service meant that they had little input from upper management.
“There were so many ideas, the meeting turned into a panic,” said one longtime Tokyo Electric veteran present that day. He made the comments in an interview with The New York Times, one of several interviews that provided a rare glimpse of the crisis as the company’s workers experienced it. “There were serious arguments between the various sections about whether to go, how to use electrical lines, which facilities to use and so on.”
The quarreling echoed the alarm bells ringing throughout Tokyo Electric, which has been grappling with an unprecedented set of challenges since March 11, when the severe earthquake and massive tsunami upended northeastern Japan. It is also an insight, through interviews, e-mails and blog posts, into the problems faced by the thousands of often anxious but eager Tokyo Electric Power employees working to re-establish order.
Many of them — especially the small number charged with approaching damaged reactors and exposing themselves to unusually high doses of radiation — are viewed as heroes, preventing the world’s second-worst nuclear calamity from becoming even more dire.
But unlike their bosses, who appear daily in blue work coats to apologize to the public and explain why the company has not yet succeeded in taming the reactors, the front-line workers have remained almost entirely anonymous.
In the interviews and in some e-mail and published blog items, several line workers expressed frustration at the slow pace of the recovery efforts, sometimes conflicting orders from their bosses and unavoidable hurdles like damaged roads. In many cases, the line workers want the public to know that they feel remorse for the nuclear crisis, but also that they are trying their best to fix it.
“My town is gone,” wrote a worker named Emiko Ueno, in an email obtained by The Times. “My parents are still missing. I still cannot get in the area because of the evacuation order. I still have to work in such a mental state. This is my limit.”
...In Tokyo, bosses at Tokyo Electric ordered transmission and distribution teams to prepare their gear, including tons of batteries, cables and transformers. On March 14, workers were told that the assignment was dangerous and that they could opt out. Few did. Many workers felt duty-bound to go to Fukushima, particularly those with families who were directly affected by the earthquake and tsunami.
One worker said in an interview that he left for Fukushima on March 15. His convoy had free rein on the highways, which had been cleared for utility vehicles. The local roads were slower going because parts of some streets had literally disappeared.
After heated arguments about how to proceed during the impromptu meeting at J-Village, teams on March 16 went to the Daiichi plant. Everyone wore a mask and special suit. There, they jury-rigged a connection that carried electricity from a nearby substation to the plant.
“I wanted to plug in the cable as soon as possible so the plant would have power again, but the nuclear people wanted to check the safety of various instruments first,” the worker said. “I was so excited to do something that I couldn’t stand the slow speed of the decision making.”
...At J-Village two days later, several dozen Tokyo Electric workers who had completed their tasks were killing time when their boss walked to a white board where their to-do list was written. Next to the last item, he wrote the character “ryo,” which means “good” or, in this case, “completed.”
“I’ll never forget the moment when the manager told us we were done,” said the longtime Tokyo Electric veteran present that day. “Everyone started yelling and crying.”
Many of the workers also used their cellphone cameras to take pictures of the white board and the character, which was circled in red ink. Lacking beer, the worker and his friends celebrated by sharing two bottles of Coca-Cola.
...But like several false dawns in the effort to control the plant, the work they did to extend electrical power to the facility has yet to provide the turning point it once seemed to promise. The main reactor buildings are either too badly damaged, or too laden with radioactivity, to readily reconnect plumbing and electrical systems. And fellow workers at the plant now face even more severe hazards in keeping the reactors cool by pouring water on the fuel in the reactors and spent fuel pools.
Even in the Tokyo office of the power company, the lights and heaters are shut off to save energy. Many people wear coats at their desks and go home when it gets dark. The nuclear crisis is far from over; their company faces possible bankruptcy or nationalization, and many workers fear for their paychecks.
With the power out, trucks were parked in a circle with their lights on, creating a shadowy stage. A manager from the Tokyo Electric Power Company explained how the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant had been slammed by a mammoth tsunami and rocked by hydrogen explosions and had become highly radioactive. Some workers wept.
That was the scene at J-Village, 12 miles south of the plant, on the night of March 15. Hundreds of firefighters, Self-Defense Forces and workers from Tokyo Electric Power convened at the sports training center, arguing long and loudly about how best to restore cooling systems and prevent nuclear fuel from overheating. Complicating matters, a lack of phone service meant that they had little input from upper management.
“There were so many ideas, the meeting turned into a panic,” said one longtime Tokyo Electric veteran present that day. He made the comments in an interview with The New York Times, one of several interviews that provided a rare glimpse of the crisis as the company’s workers experienced it. “There were serious arguments between the various sections about whether to go, how to use electrical lines, which facilities to use and so on.”
The quarreling echoed the alarm bells ringing throughout Tokyo Electric, which has been grappling with an unprecedented set of challenges since March 11, when the severe earthquake and massive tsunami upended northeastern Japan. It is also an insight, through interviews, e-mails and blog posts, into the problems faced by the thousands of often anxious but eager Tokyo Electric Power employees working to re-establish order.
Many of them — especially the small number charged with approaching damaged reactors and exposing themselves to unusually high doses of radiation — are viewed as heroes, preventing the world’s second-worst nuclear calamity from becoming even more dire.
But unlike their bosses, who appear daily in blue work coats to apologize to the public and explain why the company has not yet succeeded in taming the reactors, the front-line workers have remained almost entirely anonymous.
In the interviews and in some e-mail and published blog items, several line workers expressed frustration at the slow pace of the recovery efforts, sometimes conflicting orders from their bosses and unavoidable hurdles like damaged roads. In many cases, the line workers want the public to know that they feel remorse for the nuclear crisis, but also that they are trying their best to fix it.
“My town is gone,” wrote a worker named Emiko Ueno, in an email obtained by The Times. “My parents are still missing. I still cannot get in the area because of the evacuation order. I still have to work in such a mental state. This is my limit.”
...In Tokyo, bosses at Tokyo Electric ordered transmission and distribution teams to prepare their gear, including tons of batteries, cables and transformers. On March 14, workers were told that the assignment was dangerous and that they could opt out. Few did. Many workers felt duty-bound to go to Fukushima, particularly those with families who were directly affected by the earthquake and tsunami.
One worker said in an interview that he left for Fukushima on March 15. His convoy had free rein on the highways, which had been cleared for utility vehicles. The local roads were slower going because parts of some streets had literally disappeared.
After heated arguments about how to proceed during the impromptu meeting at J-Village, teams on March 16 went to the Daiichi plant. Everyone wore a mask and special suit. There, they jury-rigged a connection that carried electricity from a nearby substation to the plant.
“I wanted to plug in the cable as soon as possible so the plant would have power again, but the nuclear people wanted to check the safety of various instruments first,” the worker said. “I was so excited to do something that I couldn’t stand the slow speed of the decision making.”
...At J-Village two days later, several dozen Tokyo Electric workers who had completed their tasks were killing time when their boss walked to a white board where their to-do list was written. Next to the last item, he wrote the character “ryo,” which means “good” or, in this case, “completed.”
“I’ll never forget the moment when the manager told us we were done,” said the longtime Tokyo Electric veteran present that day. “Everyone started yelling and crying.”
Many of the workers also used their cellphone cameras to take pictures of the white board and the character, which was circled in red ink. Lacking beer, the worker and his friends celebrated by sharing two bottles of Coca-Cola.
...But like several false dawns in the effort to control the plant, the work they did to extend electrical power to the facility has yet to provide the turning point it once seemed to promise. The main reactor buildings are either too badly damaged, or too laden with radioactivity, to readily reconnect plumbing and electrical systems. And fellow workers at the plant now face even more severe hazards in keeping the reactors cool by pouring water on the fuel in the reactors and spent fuel pools.
Even in the Tokyo office of the power company, the lights and heaters are shut off to save energy. Many people wear coats at their desks and go home when it gets dark. The nuclear crisis is far from over; their company faces possible bankruptcy or nationalization, and many workers fear for their paychecks.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Radiation Disaster at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant
Photo from the Institute for Science and International SecurityThe March 11 earthquake and tsunami was enough of a disaster in itself. One of the effects of 10 meter tsunami was to knock out the system that cooled the nuclear facility at Fukushima. The plants automatically shut down with an earthquake - but a tsunami of that size was not anticipated. Without cooling, there has been explosions and some amount of melting and release of radiation.
The presence of radiation has made it difficult to have people working at the plant to fix the problems because of the high levels of radiation around the plant. Based on the sievert level (see below) - there are limits to how much a person should be exposed to in an hour, in a day, in a year.
From the BBC ->"After Tuesday's explosions and fire, radiation dosages of up to 400 millisieverts per hour were recorded at the Fukushima Daiichi site, about 250km north-east of Tokyo. Later, a reading of 0.6 millisieverts (mSv) per hour was recorded at the plant's main gate, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said."
Radiation has spread out app. 15 miles. The US advised an evacuation of 50 miles out. France advised it's citizens to leave the country. Tokyo is about 150 miles away. People have been concerned about the wind direction - as far as radiation spread. It has mostly gone out over the ocean so far.
Summary of conditions put together by Greenpeace as of March 18th:
Overall, with possible exception of spent fuel pool of reactor #3, the status of all facilities is very similar to yesterday, which is a bad thing. Major uncertainty relates to amount of radiation already being released to air and sea, to risk of a violent fire in the cladding of the fuel rods as the spent fuel pools are exposed for hours, as well as to the behavior of the reactor cores as water levels remain low.
Good news is that the violent release of radioactivity due to fire or explosion feared yesterday has not happened yet. Power is still not restored to the facility, but some progress has made to bring off site power and more equipment. This means more effective cooling could be established in some days. At least until that happens, the situation remains critical and unpredictable.
Reactors 1-3: water level in reactors low (about half of fuel rods exposed), no grid power, seawater injection apparently ongoing. Fuel rods have certainly damaged and are releasing radioactive substances.
Fire department has brought in 30 more trucks, at least one reported to be a “Super Bomber” able to shoot to a distance of 2 kilometers. Yesterday police trucks were unable to operate close to plant because of high radiation levels, only SDF (Self Defense Force) trucks that can be operated from inside the cabin were used.
Spent fuel pools of units 1&2: Water levels in Unit 1 are decreasing. Steam was reported from unit 2, expected to be boiling.
Spent fuel pool of unit 3: Water in #3 almost depleted, but Tepco hopes some water is left. Fuel rods have certainly damaged, releasing radioactive substances. The reactor buildings are heavily damaged, allowing releases directly to outside air.
Spent fuel pool of unit 4: Water level very unclear.
Spent fuel pools of units 5&6: Temperatures still rising, water left but level unclear.
Worst case scenarios
* The zirconium contained in the fuel rod cladding can react violently with air, if exposed for hours. This fire would release and spread very large amounts of radioactivity high up in the air. Wide disagreement on the probability of this happening.
* A large amount of molten fuel accumulates at the bottom and a nuclear reaction starts. Very low probability and can be prevented if there is any borated water in the pool.
* Reactor boils dry, molten core breaches reactor pressure vessel and comes in contact with the water in the containment, which boils rapidly causing a steam explosion.
* A major risk is an event (e.g. increased release of radioactivity from a spent fuel pool due to overheating) that raises local radiation levels to completely intolerable levels - preventing further work to restore cooling.
Tepco seemed to suggest that encasing the plant in concrete is an option if cooling efforts fail (according to Reuters live feed).
Wind
Local wind speed slowed down considerably in the morning but direction remained towards the sea. Winds towards Tokyo are still feared for Sunday.
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A more detailed summary can be found @ Reuters
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There was 3 Mile Island, there was Chernobyl, and now this. This situation has made it clear that all nuclear plants need to have their systems and possible catastrophic scenarios more thought out. There are many plants of the same type in the US - where people have warned of this and this sort of possible problem and yet - nothing has been done to fix and avert the potential problem.
Clearly more people need to accept that nuclear energy poses very extreme risks to people and the environment.
About that Radiation and Sieverts:
The sievert (symbol: Sv) is the SI derived unit of dose equivalent. It attempts to quantitatively evaluate the biological effects of ionizing radiation as opposed to the physical aspects, which are characterised by the absorbed dose, measured in gray. It is named after Rolf Sievert, a Swedish medical physicist renowned for work on radiation dosage measurement and research into the biological effects of radiation.
Frequently used SI multiples are the millisievert (1 mSv = 10−3 Sv = 0.001 Sv) and microsievert (1 Ī¼Sv = 10−6 Sv = 0.000001 Sv).
An older unit of the equivalent dose is the rem. In some fields and countries, the rem and millirem (abbreviated mrem) continue to be used along with Sv and mSv, causing confusion. Here are the conversion equivalences:
1 Sv = 1000 mSv (millisieverts) = 1,000,000 Ī¼Sv (microsieverts) = 100 rem = 100,000 mrem (millirem)
Single dose examples:
Eating one banana: 0.0001 mSv
Sleeping next to a human for 8 hours: 0.0005 mSv[1]
Dental radiography: 0.005 mSv[2]
Average dose to people living within 16 km of Three Mile Island accident: 0.08 mSv; maximum dose: 1 mSv[3]
Mammogram: 3 mSv[2]
Brain CT scan: 0.8–5 mSv[4]
International Commission on Radiological Protection recommended limit for volunteers averting major nuclear escalation: 500 mSv
International Commission on Radiological Protection recommended limit for volunteers rescuing lives or preventing serious injuries: 1000 mSv
Hourly dose examples:
Approximate radiation levels near Chernobyl reactor 4 and its fragments, shortly[clarification needed] after explosion are reported to be 10–300 Sv/hr
Yearly dose examples:
Living near a nuclear power station: 0.0001–0.01 mSv/year
Living near a coal power station: 0.0003 mSv/year
Cosmic radiation (from sky) at sea level: 0.24 mSv/year
Natural radiation in the human body: 0.40 mSv/year
New York-Tokyo flights for airline crew: 9 mSv/year
Total average radiation dose for Americans: 6.2 mSv/year
Current average limit for nuclear workers: 20 mSv/year
Lowest clearly carcinogenic level: 100 mSv/year
Elevated limit for workers during Fukushima emergency: 250 mSv/year
Dose limit examples:
Criterion for relocation after Chernobyl disaster: 350 mSv/lifetime
Public dose limits for exposure from uranium mining or nuclear plants are usually set at 1 mSv/yr above background.
Symptom benchmarks
Symptoms of acute radiation (within one day):
0 – 0.25 Sv (0 - 250 mSv): None
0.25 – 1 Sv (250 - 1000 mSv): Some people feel nausea and loss of appetite; bone marrow, lymph nodes, spleen damaged.
1 – 3 Sv (1000 - 3000 mSv): Mild to severe nausea, loss of appetite, infection; more severe bone marrow, lymph node, spleen damage; recovery probable, not assured.
3 – 6 Sv (3000 - 6000 mSv): Severe nausea, loss of appetite; hemorrhaging, infection, diarrhea, peeling of skin, sterility; death if untreated.
6 – 10 Sv (6000 - 10000 mSv): Above symptoms plus central nervous system impairment; death expected.
Above 10 Sv (10000 mSv): Incapacitation and death.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Global Warming & Earthquakes?
I was skeptical - but it sounds like it could be so....
Japan quake ranks as 5th largest since 1900
PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — The massive earthquake that struck off the coast of Japan Friday ranks as the fifth largest in the world since 1900, scientists said.
The magnitude-8.9 "megathrust" quake is similar to what happened during the 2004 Sumatra quake that spawned a killer tsunami and the earthquake last year in Chile. In all these cases, one tectonic plate is shoved beneath another.
Such earthquakes are responsible for the most powerful shifts in the Earth's crust.
Japan is at particular risk, sitting in the "Ring of Fire" — an arc of earthquake and volcanic zones stretching around the Pacific where about 90 percent of the world's quakes occur.
"The energy radiated by this quake is nearly equal to one month's worth of energy consumption" in the United States, said U.S. Geological Survey scientist Brian Atwater.
Today’s tsunami: This is what climate change looks like
So far, today's tsunami has mainly affected Japan -- there are reports of up to 300 dead in the coastal city of Sendai -- but future tsunamis could strike the U.S. and virtually any other coastal area of the world with equal or greater force, say scientists. In a little-heeded warning issued at a 2009 conference on the subject, experts outlined a range of mechanisms by which climate change could already be causing more earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic activity.
"When the ice is lost, the earth's crust bounces back up again and that triggers earthquakes, which trigger submarine landslides, which cause tsunamis," Bill McGuire, professor at University College London, told Reuters.
Melting ice masses change the pressures on the underlying earth, which can lead to earthquakes and tsunamis, but that's just the beginning. Rising seas also change the balance of mass across earth's surface, putting new strain on old earthquake faults, and may have been partly to blame for the devastating 2004 tsunami that struck Southeast Asia, according to experts from the China Meteorological Administration.
Even a simple change in the weather can dramatically affect the earth beneath our feet:
David Pyle of Oxford University said small changes in the mass of the earth's surface seems to affect volcanic activity in general, not just in places where ice receded after a cold spell. Weather patterns also seem to affect volcanic activity - not just the other way round, he told the conference.
Scientists have known for some time that climate change affects not just the atmosphere and the oceans but also the Earth's crust. These effects are not widely understood by the public.
"In the political community people are almost completely unaware of any geological aspects to climate change," said McGuire.
This means a world in which we are warming the earth by pumping greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere at a pace that is unprecedented in Earth's history is also a world in which the consequences of climate change could come hard and fast, including tsunamis and earthquakes.
Parts of the earth that are now rarely affected by tsunamis, such as northern coastal regions, could be hit by "glacial earthquakes," in which glacier ice crashes to earth in massive landslides.
"Our experiments show that glacial earthquakes can generate far more powerful tsunamis than undersea earthquakes with similar magnitude," said Song.
"Several high-latitude regions, such as Chile, New Zealand and Canadian Newfoundland are particularly at risk."
It's often difficult to visualize what climate change-related disasters might look like, but the images pouring out of Japan are yet another reminder of the specter of storm surges supercharged by more powerful weather and rising seas, and even climate-change caused tsunamis. (All of America's coastal cities are vulnerable to these impacts -- including, in this remarkable animation, New York City.) Right on the heels of Brisbane, Snowpocalypse, and Australia's record dust storms, we have yet another reminder of what an Earth transformed by climate change could look like.
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