| Monday
March 21, 2011 Good radiation chart -
Hi Jerry,
Here's a very easy to read radiation chart.
http://xkcd.com/radiation/
Thanks for helping control the hysteria.
-- E.C. "Stan" Field
Very instructive. Thanks
============
Nukes, overfishing, Stewart Brand, Server Sky
The unfiltered TEPCO press releases are terse but
useful:
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/index-e.html . Tepco has lives to save
and a power grid to rebuild. Spoonfeeding reporters, who don't accurately
report the information they do get, is not high priority. When in Tokyo,
visit TEPCO's museum in Shibuya district. Pick up their strange English
brochure "Let's Make Friends With Electricity". As an electronics tinkerer,
I have shaken hands with high voltage far too often :-)
The Fukushima Daiichi radiation releases are mostly
falling into the ocean off Japan. Fish are a large part of the Japanese
diet, and they heavily overfish these seas. Perhaps because of fear of
radiation, they will slow down for a while, and the fish populations will
recover. More gruesomely, perhaps the thousands of human corpses that washed
out to sea will not end up in shark stomachs on dinner plates in Japan.
Yuck.
Searching your site does not bring up Stewart Brand's
recent book "Whole Earth Discipline". A lot you will agree with and learn
from, from a different perspective.
My big project these days:
http://server-sky.com . Data
centers in orbit. Gigawatt space solar power used in situ. Applying Moore's
Law to space and energy. How thick does a satellite have to be? Microns or
less. How much does a megawatt of satellite power need to weigh? Kilograms
or less. Paraphrasing Ivan Bekey: "don't do with beams and struts what you
can do with light pressure and information". Lots of amazing discoveries
emerging from this oddball way of looking at things. Launch loop will
continue the cost reduction - other smart people are now advancing that
banner. Now to turn all that into a book.
Hang in there. I look forward to our meeting at
Worldcon 100. You will be 109, and at 88 I will still be "babes-in-dipes".
We will debate whether it should still be called Worldcon when the sites and
the attendees are mostly digital and off-planet ...
Keith
-- Keith Lofstrom
Integrated Circuits
===================
Oil concessions
Jerry:
Missiles in Gadaffy's home? Why?
I recall that it was just about a year ago that the
mastermind of the Lockerbie bombing was released to Libya due to alleged
health reasons. Perhaps not coincidentally, British Petroleum was soon
thereafter granted lucrative oil leases in Libya. One would think that the
Brits and perhaps the French would be grateful enough to support Gadaffy
against rebells and certainly not incite rebellion as someone has obviously
done. The evacuation of tens of thousands of Chinese workers from Libya
suggests that perhaps Gadaffy had reneged and granted the oil concessions to
China.
I expect that disaffected youths whose Arab and
African origins will not be mentioned will soon be torching Renaults and
Citerons in Paris.
Meanwhile, it is reported that the fighter jet that
the rebels shot down with a ZSU-23 was one of their own. I can't wait until
they bag a French Jet.
Jim Crawford
==
Two Different Wars in Libya
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12776418
http://blogs.aljazeera.net/live/africa/libya-live-blog-march-18
----
Most Respectfully,
Joshua Jordan, KSC
==============
A Report from Japan
Took our towels and left!
Dear Jerry,
We decided to take our towels and decamp to my
in-law's house south of Mt. Fuji on Thursday. The response to Fukushima
wasn't showing much progress and the threat of some kind of major release
from the containment pools started to look imminent if some progress wasn't
made. I wasn't so much worried about the radiation per se as being stuck in
Tokyo if some kind of shelter-in-place did come through. It may have been
irrational, but getting out definitely helped our peace of mind. We stopped
at a service area close to Mt Fuji and had a snack at the Starbucks there.
The atmosphere was noticeably different. People in Tokyo have been handling
it very, very well but there has been an undercurrent of tension. On the
plus side, we had a major meeting with a potential partner company right
before leaving Tokyo. Their accounting staff was supposed to be present but
had decided to stay home so we had a very productive meeting.
Reactors 5 and 6 have the cooling back on and should
be no concern. They finally got enough equipment present and in use that the
water spraying started to have an effect. The power has been connected back
to Unit 2 and they're checking the equipment to see how much damage has
occurred and hopefully the pumps will be back on tomorrow. Unit 1 will be
powered from Unit 2. That leaves 3 and 4 as potential problems. 4 has
nothing in the reactor and the top is blown off so water can be sprayed into
the spent storage pool. 3 has been quiet to date. Storage pool problems seem
to be preceded by a hydrogen explosion, so if 3's storage pool becomes
critical the root will probably blow off first and then they can spray water
in at worst.
We are continuing to check the news but we will
probably head back to Tokyo this afternoon (Sunday). The situation looks to
have tipped in favor of bringing it under control without any more major
incidents. Lots of hot, nasty, dirty, dangerous work ahead but I have faith
in the workers once they have a viable direction.
I think I'm taking 3 major lessons away from this (as
regards power plant design):
1) Plants appear to be designed for no more than 24
hours without power. Had the diesels survived at Fukushima this would have
been a non-event. Had TEPCO been able to restore power within the first 24
hours this would have been a non-event. I'm sure that it's hard to imagine
that a power plant can be without power for a significant amount of time,
but it's been a week and they're just beginning to get the power routed back
in. The newer, passive cooling designs are looking better and better.
2) Planners may not be taking into account devastation
around the plant. Fukushima was mostly intact. The surrounding countryside,
roads, etc. were not.
3) The spent fuel storage pool is a major blindspot.
Certainly I always thought of them as just big pools with stuff sitting in
them, relatively inert and it's becoming obvious that people who should have
known better were thinking of them the same way. I think the pools need some
kind of containment structure. It definitely should be discussed and
analyzed better. Every plant in the world has a storage pool, don't they?
I've seen people renewing the call for 100% safety
from the nuclear industry. That's been the call for a long time and those
assurances have been given. Unfortunately, as we well know, nothing is 100%,
especially something so complex and dangerous as nuclear power. Cooking
stoves are not 100% and we've been using those for a long, long time.
Furthermore, once something has been declared as 100% safe there is no
incentive, in fact there is major disincentive, to look for problems to fix.
We need to accept that there's risk in everything. Living next to the
seashore looks to be more dangerous than living next to the nuclear power
plant.
Regards, Dave Smith Kakegawa, Japan
If it helps your peace of mind by all means do
it, but there is no radiation reaction necessity. On the other hand the
electricity that was being produced won't be, which means power shortages.
On the gripping hand, being on high ground given the probability of more
aftershocks and possible tsunamis is not unwise.
Good luck.
Jerry Pournelle
Whether or not leaving Tokyo was rational is
definitely debatable. Radiation, of course, isn't going to travel that far
and fallout should not be carried that far by the winds. However, people are
already stressed to the breaking point. Truck drivers are refusing to
deliver food and water into the areas around Fukushima adding to the
problems there. Were any kind of major problem at Fukushima announced, I
don't think I can predict the reaction in Tokyo. While there might not be an
actual problem, perception of a problem could create its own disaster. Tokyo
is, for all intents and purposes, impossible to evacuate and we saw three
options if a panic were to start: 1) Be ahead of the wave. 2) Be in the
crush or 3) stay behind and deal with the consequences (perhaps no
radiation, but empty stores and a dark, cold apartment). We chose 1.
Fortunately things are stabilizing, we had a couple of nights with a lot
less stress and my wife's mother was very happy to spend time with her
grandchildren. Generally a win all around for us.
We're going to pick up some staples before we head
back and I'm making damn sure the car's gas tank is full from now on!
Cheers, Dave Smith
Be well. God bless you.
==========
_The Legacy of Heorot_ for Kindle.
http://www.amazon.com/
The-Legacy-of-Heorot-ebook/dp/
B004Q9TC8C/jerrypournellcha
--- Roland Dobbins
==========
Nuclear robots
Hi Jerry,
Some thoughts on the use (or rather the lack of)
hardened robots in a damaged power plant. There is an intervention group
with the proper gear that was never called in. See my blog entry at
http://ballonbleu.blogspot.com/2011/03/robo-atomjacks.html
Regards, Frank Schweppe
========
Letter from England
I dreamt I was trying to comment
out portions of a program written two-dimensionally on a floor. It wasn't a
trivial exercise.
The current Government has
agreed to a referendum on the UK voting system ("first past the post").
Labour is opposed as it prevents them from ruling as a minority party. <http://tinyurl.com/6eq5zdq>
I'm afraid I don't consider that a compelling argument.
Internal Ministry of Defence
politics affecting readiness. <http://tinyurl.com/5stfou9>
Stampede to university fees of
£9000/year <http://tinyurl.com/654v8yl>.
The universities least likely to charge the full fees are the ones
experiencing the largest cuts in funding. I had a suspicion it was headed
this way after a chat with a Tory politician last Christmas in London--I
went away wondering if we lived in the same universe. Of course I have had
the same reaction after talking with a trade union organiser--"Tax and
Spend!"
The UK Government would also
like the UK bachelor's degree reduced to two years. The current three-year
degree is regarded by North American colleges as equivalent to the four-year
bachelor's, but only if it includes a substantial research project during
the final year. The fact that the current UK bachelor's can be delivered in
two years should make you a bit suspicious, so let me walk you through the
figures: (1) A North American full-time student attends (theoretically) 12
hours of lecture or the equivalent per week for 36 weeks during the academic
year, for 432 contact hours per year and 1728 hours for a four year degree.
(2) A UK academic year is 24 weeks of teaching, with typically 9 or 10 hours
of contact time per week, or about 240 contact hours per year. The UK
doesn't have TAs, so lecturers handle tutorials. (3) 720 contact hours can
be delivered in two years by lengthening the academic year to the 36 week
standard or by shortening the nominal semester length to 8 weeks. Either
increases the lecturer workload by 50%, nothing else changing, which is the
real reason for the strike action. (4) UK students are required to take
A-levels as a prerequisite to university, usually in three fields. That
gives them the equivalent of an additional 240 contact hours at entry. So a
UK bachelor's degree is about half as much work as a North American degree,
and it shows. I don't think degree equivalency can be maintained.
--
"If academic research is not
devoted to finding the truth, it is a form of propaganda, and not
necessarily to be preferred to other forms, much cheaper and perhaps more
persuasive." (Russell 1993)
Harry Erwin
==========
'And that's the root of Tokyo's current electricity
problems: utility companies in west Japan are unable to make up for all of
the lost power.'
<http://www.itworld.com/print/140626>
---- Roland Dobbins
=========
'My guess is that all those automated, robotic trading
programming are picking up the same chatter on the internet about "Hathaway"
as the IMDb's StarMeter, and they're applying it to the stock market.'
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
dan-mirvish/the-hathaway-effect-how-a_b_830041.html>
-- Roland Dobbins
We are a long way from the
Cordwainer Smith story of the boy who bought the Earth. I think it
time someone did a serious analysis of the effects of computerized
speculative trading. I am quite sure there are Black Swans lurking in there.
===============
Logistics: China Enters The Big Leagues,
Jerry
China joins the big leagues:
http://www.strategypage.com
/htmw/htlog/articles/20110318.aspx
“China quickly mobilized military forces, and
commercial transport, to evacuate 35,000 Chinese citizens from Libya in
late February and early March. A Chinese warship was quickly summoned from
the anti-piracy flotilla off Somalia, to protect <http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htlog/articles/20110318.aspx>
the commercial ships quickly chartered to take most of these Chinese
expatriates out via the eastern Libya port of Benghazi. Others were moved
by chartered bus to Tunisia and Egypt, while a few thousand were flown out
using chartered aircraft, and four Chinese Air Force Il-76s flown in (via
Sudan, a Chinese ally).
“For the last two decades, China has been a growing
factor in the sea <http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htlog/articles/20110318.aspx>
and air transport industries, because of booming exports and raw materials
imports. Sending warships to the anti-piracy patrol for the past two years
was another exercise of China's growing global reach. But the prompt and
orderly evacuation of nearly 40,000 Chinese from Libya was a masterful
demonstration that China had entered the big leagues, as far as global
logistics was concerned.” <snip>
Res ipsa loquitur
Ed
More interesting is the question of what were
40,000 Chinese doing in Libya? What were they working on? It is likely to be
oil...
==========
Meanwhile, back on Mothra Island
World Nuclear News reports: Peach Bottom recognised
for habitat work 06 January 2011
Staff at Exelon's 1140 MW Peach Bottom nuclear power
station have been recognised by the Wildlife Habitat Council (WHC) for their
work in creating wildlife preservation areas and helping to stem the global
tide of biodiversity loss.
The WHC's Wildlife at Work certification was awarded
to a number of programs at the plant, including the construction of bat
habitats, a butterfly garden and the installation of motion sensor cameras.
Russell Seitz
Mothra! So!
========
SKYTea scores Superior Ratings at
North American Tea Championship!
Please celebrate with us!
No.1 Special Masala Chai scored a superior rating of
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The website is almost finished! Ummm, I didn't design
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<http://www.sky-tea.com/> for
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We are very excited, having just launched, to take the
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and telling everyone about us. We really appreciate all you who follow us on
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Warm Regards, Jeni
- SKYTea Co.
www.sky-tea.com <http://www.sky-tea.com/>
Full Disclosure: Jeni (JQ) is my one time starlet
grand niece.
===========
"I also note that Germany has shut down the seven
older of their seventeen plants in response. I guess they're afraid of
tsunamis over their design limit."
The German reactors were already operating past their
design life and had been granted an extension, over major opposition. The
ones being closed are part of 17 plants than had been given a 12 year
extension last year.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12745899
So, the move is political. (Surprise, surprise,
surprise!)
Lee Keller King
==========
Libya and congress
Jerry,
Watching the events unfolding in the Middle East, I
have a question, which you have already asked and I think needs to be
answered.
Where IS Congress in all this? Were they consulted?
Then why aren't they helping the President make his case? Were they not
consulted? Then why aren't they raising hell about it?
How can I get an answer from my representative? If I
send a letter or a phone call, I'm going to get a form letter.
Republicans mock President Obama for going to Rio, but
they've been so invisible during this crisis we may need to start putting
their faces on milk cartons.
Respectfully,
Brian P.
I suspect Congress is stunned. And the President is
not in the country. Governors have no executive power when they leave their
state, but that does not apply to the President of the United States of
America, who can order the Navy to fire missiles while he is in Brazil.
==
Question answered.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/
news/150901-boehner-wants-obama-
to-explain-us-role-in-libya
So they weren't consulted, evidently, and don't know
why we're there. I realize it's too late to unring the bell, but shouldn't
Congress be more involved in these questions ? Isn't the War Powers law on
the books specifically so they can jerk the rug out from under an
adventurous president?
Respectfully,
Brian P.
It would be useful to know what the mission is. I
would also like to know if there are any people in all the world that the
United States does not have the obligation to protect. I can understand war
against Gaddafi with the goal of apprehending or killing him. I can
understand war against Libya with the goal of conquering the oil fields and
raising an American flag over them as compensation for the Barbary Pirate
actions against the people of the United States (pity that Somalia has no
oil). I do not believe the latter policy is useful, and I am not sure that
hanging Gaddafi is worth what it will cost (was taking off Saddam Hussein's
head by tearing it off when he was dropped too far worth a $Trillion
$Dollars?). I do suspect that if we are to engage in wars of assassination
there might be better tools for the job. Delta Force offense, Secret
Service defense, and do remember that the enemy always gets a vote.
I don't like Gaddafi, but I didn't like Saddam
either. I suspect that putting out a contract on Saddam Hussein would have
cost a lot less than a $Trillion $Dollars. I would guess that a billion
dollars and a US passport -- bring me his head or proof that you killed him,
no questions asked -- would do it. Indeed, I suspect that offering a billion
dollars to the first winner of a fair election might be a good old college
try at nation building...
I have no idea what the mission is in Libya, but I
do think we had better be prepared to furnish the victors a lot of
ammunition to fire in the air.
===============
US Troops under foreign command -
Hi Jerry,
You'd asked: "Does anyone know why the President seems
anxious to put American forces in combat under a foreign general?"
I believe that the political strategists are in
control of the White House. First, they dither, then they support it with
words, but not a resolution in the UN, then we have the resolution and wait
until the 8th anniversary of the Iraq war (that must have been on purpose),
then support it with missiles, not planes, then with planes, but they don't
want to take responsibility, so they're trying to abdicate command and
control. They're afraid that Obama will be blamed 1) By Americans for
getting us into another war in which we have no compelling national
interest, and 2) by the Arab world (note: not the royal dictators) for
attacking yet another Muslim country. I fully expected the Arab league to do
what they've done - goad the US into doing their dirty work for them, but
then playing the other side of the populist aisle to protect their own
positions.
They waited until the worst possible time to intervene
- right after the rebels no longer had a credible chance of winning. If we'd
have gone in early, they might have won (not to say that would be better),
and a bit later there'd have been no point. But having goaded them with
words, Obama trapped himself into doing 'something' or risk being compared
to Bush and the Iraq rebels. I'm stunned that the market is up today - we'll
see what happens with oil prices as this drags into a third front in the
neo-con crusade to liberate the world. This, quite simply, is not good.
The White House is in desperate need of adult
supervision.
Regards,
Doug
P.S. I'm very glad we're not traveling to Europe this
summer for vacation. I expect the terrorist response to happen some weeks or
months from now.
=========
Cuius regio, eius
religio.
Just a note: "Cuius regio, eius religio" meant that
"whose prince, his religion." That is, whatever religion the prince wanted
to practice would become everyone's state religion. The Elector-Duke of
Bavaria was staunchly Catholic, so Bavarians remained Catholic. The
Elector-King of Saxony preferred Lutheranism, so Saxony became Lutheran. The
Elector-Markgraf of Brandenburg chose Calvinism; then changed his mind and
chose Lutheranism, and his subjects had to follow suit. The fooferaw between
Lutherans and Calvinists continued until Bismark finally forced them into
the combined "Evangelische Kirche," which is a Lutheran church with a coat
of Calvinist paint.
It also seems unfair to call them "The Wars of
Religion." The German Princes did not declare themselves independent of the
Empire because they had become Protestant. They became Protestant because
they wanted to become independent of the Empire. Remember, the Pope was
financing the "Protestant" side. The same is true of the Wars of the French
Succession. The three great Houses shifted alliances and usually included
both Catholics and Huguenots on both sides. "Paris is worth a mass," Henri
Bourbon famously declared, and blithely changed his religion to suit his
ambition.
MikeF
The problem with writing about one thing and using
something else as an illustration when there's no longer any agreement over
history is nearly insoluble. Your first paragraph is correct, and my
translation of the Latin phrase used by my correspondent, while literally
correct, didn't make it clear that it applied to rulers, not to just anyone.
Whether the Thirty Years War was one of religion is
a far more complex matter. The Emperor was raised by Jesuits and applied his
intolerance of heresy in Austria with good effect: he then tried to apply it
to Bohemia and caught a tiger. He had to be bailed out by Spain and the
Catholic League (which as you point out was not really on the Pope's side,
the alliance that let Don John of Austria win at Lepanto being over and
done). Certainly some of the Princes in Germany chose religions for
political purposes, and in Sweden the choice had been made long before
Gustavus came to the throne, and his intervention on the Protestant side was
political (for the German Liberties, etc. and for control of the Baltic) --
as well as induced by the exhortations and subsidies paid him by Richelieu
in France. Richelieu was a Cardinal but a French Cardinal who happened to be
the Chief Minister. Even so, the Thirty Years War was as much over the Edict
of Restoration as anything else, and the Emperor's insistence on that --
This could go on for a long time, and when done we
probably would not settle much. The Thirty Years War was more political than
religious perhaps, but the sheer viciousness of it was certainly intensified
by religious fervor. Wallenstein's biography in Wikipedia is a good argument
for not relying on Wikipedia for accuracy: it makes him "religious but not
zealous" when so far as I know there is no evidence that he had any sign of
a conscience; but that is another story. The atrocities of the Thirty Years
War were enormously exacerbated by armies supporting themselves by living
off the land. But I ramble.
I can agree that the Thirty Years War was as much
political as religious. Beyond that would require a much longer discussion
and would not be very relevant to the point I was trying to make about
today's wars. Thanks.
===========
"Excess" radiation and cancer
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/coulter031711.php3
"There is...burgeoning evidence that excess radiation
operates as a sort of cancer vaccine."
So maybe those TSA full body scanners are good for
people's health if not their privacy.
Charles Brumbelow
Bringing up the enormously complex question of
radiation hormesis, which is established in principle, but nearly as
controversial in science/policy disputes as anything I know of. At some
point I will do a long essay on the subject.
============
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