The "more political thread" besides "Japan Earthquake: nuclear plants" scientific one

Dmytry

But how accurate are those estimates? We all know them are imperfect; nothing is perfect; and so on and so forth. In science, each number has error range.
When you say it is imperfect, please tell how much do you think it is imperfect. The "imperfect measurement" is a tautology.

In my opinion it's at best 'within same order of magnitude' sort of estimate. The dose near a rain drain can be order of magnitude higher than average [not as dramatically as in the video where Geiger counter is counting betas, but still quite dramatically thanks to inverse square law], the long term inhalation (of the deposited material that re-enters air) is very dependent to the weather, etc. The doses that kids can get, well, god knows, kids play in dirt, some types of dirt chemically absorb Cs-137, some do not. The distribution of radioactivity is a fractal with high 'roughness', there's huge variability down to 1m distances.
Then the food testing, beyond limit food will slip through occasionally [you cant test everything, just randomly chosen samples], how often? How do you know in advance how often? And what is the distribution of the doses? Then, there's the issue of wood ashes... do they use wood for heating at all or not? In the tsunami aftermath? Then there's the issue of the wreckage cleanup work that has to be done. And so on and so forth, and that's the things that i'd guess can change dose by more than factor of 2, and there's probably a lot of other important things I missed. The contamination level of radioactive boars in EU varies immensely - a few boars are heavily contaminated, most are harmless [strongly non-gaussian distribution btw], not a good situation for random sampling based testing.

It is not enough to calculate 'to the best of your knowledge' in science. You need also to provide the error range, and ideally distribution of the errors. In engineering too - I believe you do have ranges for uncertain numbers?

re: Sievert vs Gray, it just irritates me immensely to see a Geiger counter that advertises it's giving out Sv. The bloody thing doesn't even do Grays on gamma very well, the thing overcounts betas - yet it proudly says microSieverts/hour.

Drakkith

Interesting. Hopefully they will fix any issues before they come back online. (If they are going to that is.)

jlduh

More contamination on the grass in towns outside of the evacuation zone, and far outside!

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/13_01.html

NOTE THAT NIKKO CITY IS AT AROUND 170 kms FROM THE PLANT (SOUTH WEST) which is quite far... the other one is at around 100 kms same direction.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...696167&t=h&z=8

It seems that the winds are spreading the bad stuff in several directions, the North west has been severely touched, the South West could start to get the same scenario.

Over a long period of time (who knows when this crisis will be contained), we can fear that long life Cs-137 (ans maybe Strontium?) will accumulate here and there, like thin layers of small snow falls which would never melt and add weeks after weeks...

The only difference being this is invisible and dangerous snow...

Drakkith

I understand. But the issue isn't that it reads in microSieverts/hour. ANY measurement system will be just as accurate on that device as any other one. The key, I believe, is to make it as accurate as possible.

And? The fact is that the system is in use and it works, whether you agree with how accurate it is or not. Is there another way of doing it that works better in that situation?

Your entire post goes off on a tangent about things that aren't remotely close to dealing with counting sieverts on a geiger counter. Do you really think that they never took any of your situations into account when they designed the system and when they use it? Ludicrous!

You might not like the fact that there are error ranges and estimates and such, but in the end it doesn't matter. There isn't any other way of determining these things.

And just to make sure everyone knows my position, I'll say it again.

I think there were serious mistakes made in the running of the NPP's in Japan. I think there are currently and will be more mistakes made everywhere. But my opinion is that the gain is worth the risk as long we err more on the side of caution than we have in Japan.

Dmytry

Drakkith: What I do not like is that nobody is calculating or reporting the error ranges. There is an other way. Honest science. Where not only you tell the measurements, but you also tell how much (and how often by how much) it can be wrong.
Other thing that I do not like is this nonsense discussion where any error - be it off by up to an order of magnitude, be it to 1% tolerance, is equally 'imperfect'. You just don't distinguish between any degree of 'imperfect', and for you it makes absolutely no difference, it's all verbal reasoning from you, is it not? Yes/no, perfect/imperfect (and everything is imperfect), etc.

"Do you really think that they never took any of your situations into account when they designed the system and when they use it? Ludicrous!"
Do I think they haven't took any? No, they have, some of. Do I think they have took ALL ? No I don't! It is immense amount of work. It is just not doable, period. What is doable though, is a honest estimation of by how much it can be wrong. Hell, even a dishonest estimation of the error range is still a huge step forward compared to 'throw some numbers out and assure them that it is the best measurements that can be done'.

"But the issue isn't that it reads in microSieverts/hour. ANY measurement system will be just as accurate on that device as any other one."
Suppose you had a ruler that reads in calories, you measure size of the fruit with it. Well, the distance measurements on that ruler can be accurate, but the calorie on that ruler are not. You can, however, use the ruler that reads in centimeters (or inches), with a conversion table (for different fruits), to obtain calories far more accurately.

unlurk

jlduh, I have no interest in joining this thread.

I'm interested in the technical aspects of Fukushima, not the politics.

As such there are aspects of Fukushima that might be compared to Three Mile Island or Chernobyl or SL1 or any number of sites or events.


I only wondered if that documentary was considered a "fringe" video made by nutjobs or not.

You are living in France so I thought you might have some knowledge of the subject matter.

BTW
2, 3 and 4 are each spewing steam at the moment.

Drakkith

It isn't reported because it only serves to confuse almost everyone and cause even MORE panic. The average person doesn't like any possibility of errors, no matter how inevitable they are. (In my experience at least) This doesn't make it dishonest to me. I guess it does to you.

Incorrect. I have no idea why you would believe this. Any errors that are outside of whatever is reasonable given the situation are unacceptable.

I disagree. It is entirely possible to accurately calculate reasonable estimates.

Except that you can use your conversion table before you measure to ensure that your marks are accurate before you measure. If we didn't know what kind of fruit it was beforehand, that would be different.

I use the word reasonable here because every situation is different and must be looked at individually.

Susudake

I'm going to revisit this, not because I'm so concerned that I might (be seen to) have contradicted myself, but because it's simply a false comparison.

Saying there's a "complex" of any kind does not mean everyone within this complex acts in unison, that it's a monolithic well-greased machine. The military industrial complex term appears to date to Eisenhower's speech:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militar...strial_complex

and more recently other writers have added different societal sectors to the term, usually academic (google it and you'll find writings, at least on the web, about that factor), security, and political.

The intimate relations between the military and nuclear sectors go back to the begining of the nuclear age.

So, in sum, the MIC concept, at least, is well-established and supported by no small amount of evidence; adding other sectors less so, yet it's not something I just pulled out of my hat.

On the other hand, when one member of this forum states or strongly implies that two others think exactly alike based on a couple of statements by one of them (this statement about Dmytry and me was originally made after I'd made one or two posts) then they are being inaccurate.

So you have a bit of information being used arrive at an erroneous conclusion, vs. decades of information, books, the statements of a former POTUS/highest ranking general during WWII etc.

One would think this difference would be obvious.

Susudake

I wrote:

So since you've stated that there isn't, in contradiction to many others (try the google, it's pretty cool), it's a fact. Right.

And you're not responding to my point.

I wrote: FWIW I think you are, I just think you a) have blinders on and b) are rhetorically out of your depth.

same, non-responsive.

So as long as the have a bit of scientific mindset they're not clueless. I'll agree somewhat, and would counter that people with ONLY a scientific mindset are equally clueless, except that such generalizations are not only full of contempt but also utterly simplistic and unrealistic.

and

That kind of naivete has nothing to do with being unscientific. Moreover, the kind of utter disregard for those who don't share your mindset (sound familiar?) you're displaying here is destructive, but more interestingly exactly the kind of contemptuous/hubristic attitude that has being a major factor in getting us into deep doo-doo over and over (see Chernobyl, TMI, Macondo, FDI).

I'll go further and ask: how much death and destruction, how much pollution, how many babies and children blown apart by mines, cluster bombs, irradiated by DU munitions and exploding nuclear plants, etc etc etc has been caused by artists?

Poor performances, ugly, poorly-executed paintings, unlistenable music aside, just how much harm have these clueless artists wreaked on the world?

Now about that engendered by (99% well-meaning) scientists and engineers?

I'm not advocating a return to the stone-age. Technology is wonderful as long as it doesn't endanger our lives (or genetic heritage). But arrogant, contemtuous engineers who think, conversely, that the blueprints in the lab transfer perfectly to the messy reality outside have done much more harm to the world AND to the future of technology than any group of "clueless artistic-types."


First, you begin numerous responses to people with very disparaging words, the "nonsense" in this case being a perfect example.
Then, it's a huge assumption you're making that there's this clean, clear break between "facts, numbers" etc and how those facts and numbers affect the real world when applied to it.

Together, they create the exact impression of the one-sided, out-of-touch-with-reality, arrogant contemptuous scientist/engineer the very people you despise rail against.


And this is the whole point: you can't debate on this thread in such a black-and-white fashion while demonstrating such a lack of respect for those who disagree.

I've read your responses re technical aspects on this thread, and it's obvious you're well-schooled, but even then you're pretty caustic in refuting others.

Obtaining a BA/MA/PhD in literature (to take one example) means years of debating often absolutely debatable points--what did Shakespeare/Dickens/Joyce mean when he wrote this? One garners evidence the best one can and then makes a case with it--kind of like scientific research. But, as I stated before, many if not most people endeavoring in the humanities realize in the end it's all opinion--just better-supported or not-so-well supported opinion--so at least a modicum of self-doubt is not just helpful, but necessary to succeeding. The best scientists have this too, yet so many have this utter confidence in science as the sole source of the truth, which inexorably leads to dismissing non-scientists as clueless, as you have above.

Back in the day all students had to study a core curriculum of humanities, but with the increasing dominance of science and hi-tech in the world this has pretty much stopped. As a result most people in the tech-world these days have little or no education in the humanities. To me this is a monumental tragedy and is a factor in creating potentially monumental catastrophes like FDI.

You no doubt are of the opinion that I'm going way overboard. Well, this is an opinion thread, isn't it. If that's too messy for you perhaps you should stick to technical issues.

Drakkith

Your previous statement implies that all these complexes are all purposely doing harm to everyone, and then lying about it and spreading false information all on purpose. This ignores the fact that each of those complexes are made up of thousands of individuals whose ideals, beliefs, morals, etc are all diverse and range all over the place.

Knowing this, AND based on personal experience in some of these "complexes" myself, i guarantee you that your catchall statement is hideously incorrect. For every person that lies, cheats, and steals their way around there are dozens of honest people that work diligently and provide the best information possible.

Drakkith

That's because you don't have a point. Not one I can see at least. Please elaborate if you do.
There isn't anything to respond to. It's just you assuming that I have blinders on or whatever. So again, I don't care.


I'm not disregarding anyone. You're the one continually bringing up pointless statements and judging entire groups of people.

As I don't know of any reliable way of finding out how many artists have been in the military, I can't tell you. But I'd bet there were a few.

How about all those that promote violence and such? Plenty out there.

How many poets, artists, songwriters, painters ETC have inspired rebellion, war, ETC in history? How many non scientists/engineers have made incorrect choices based on ignorance or dismissal? Or based purely on religious views? Plenty. EVERYONE is capable of making bad decisions or doing harm to someone else.

Have I linked any specific numbers? No. That's because I understand that no matter what I type up here on my computer, it won't be close to being accurate because I'm not there. I don't have the needed information.

Like you've been doing this whole time? I don't have any problem with your stance. Trust me, I'm not responding to you merely because you disagree with me. I'm attempting to point out WHY certain things work and others don't. And I will most definitively point out when people make assumptions about broad groups (like you have) for no good reason.

Sure. And if this was the case here I wouldn't have a problem. However this isn't the case. All I've seen is one person (including myself) after another spew random opinions about without any evidence to back any of it up. And on top of that, any evidence linked against that view is immediately disregarded as inaccurate because "people aren't trustworthy" or whatever. I try very hard to make sure that when I dispute something I do it for a reason and not merely because I don't believe it's accurate. Unless of course it's something only opinion based, and then I will try to explain why I believe their view is incorrect the best way I can.

Truth? What truth is there except science? Science at its base is a search for truth! It also includes things like humanities! How and why people act the way they do, different cultures, it all is encompassed. So I really don't know what you mean when you say that so many have this confidence as science as the sole source of truth, as I've never known anything else to be "truth".

I have no idea whether this is a factor or not. All I can say is that all in all safety is MUCH better nowadays than it has ever been.

That's fair. If this is going to be an "opinion thread" then I will post accordingly. I was unaware this thread was mostly opinion based.

jlduh

To all: you should read the first posts i have written for starting this thread, i think it should be useful to avoid misconception about this thread and understand in which conditions it has been created and what is expected to be seen.

http://www.physicsforums.com/showpos...90&postcount=1

http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=486089

Again this Fukushima disaster is a very special one and most of us are very affected by what happens there, but we are also left with very little resources to act and even understand what happened, what's happening, and what will (possibly) happen: the scale of this accident 5' reactors hit at the same time, more than 10 cores involved with several in a very bad state or probably in current meltdown, in an area with very high densities of population, this has NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE and in fact is out of proportion of most of our resources (reources on site to try to contain the situation, but also resources here on this forum to analyse the situation). We have to admit that.

If you read the main thread and consider the PF guidelines, based on the very specific kind of this situation as described above, i can guarantee that this thread woud be "quiet like a dodo" ,as someone recently wrote with some humour, if only restricted to pure facts or theories published in some reviews and so on! Why? Well because this main thread is just trying to keep contact with what happens there (and in fact will be an unvaluable and incredibly useful record of all the events in the future) and that this situation is right now mainly beyond any scientific explanations and approaches, also because most of the infos we get are from Tepco and proved to be (for various reasons...) very inconsistent, unreliable, full of mistakes, and very incomplete (complete analysis of all the isotopes found are very scarce for example, this would be a big help for the SFs for example: WHY?).

I wrote some days ago a message to explain why, in my opinion, more and more moderate members were getting frustrated and even upset even if they were trying to stay as much as possible on the analysis of facts, numbers, and parameters:

http://www.physicsforums.com/showpos...postcount=6792

This should explain why this "more political" thread can have its interests in the current and very special situation happening at Fukushima. It's also here to try to keep the main thread as "clean" as possible on facts and analysis, but again what makes this main thread very alive (this is the only place most people find on the net to continue to follow this subject on a day by day basis from the technical standpoint, and this gives PF a very good visibility and gives high credit to this forum!) is the amount of information collected and recorded and debated here, which are not, let recognize it, always as "pure" as some scientific approach would like them to be, but because this is just not possible... This Fukushima is a worldwide accident and the scale of it, and the way it started and the way it evolves, are the main reasons of this being like that.

So please consider this more political thread as it should be, regarding what i explained, and avoid entering into too personal disputes which are boring IMHO.

Also, if this kind of thread has no interest from your standpoint, you can also simply avoid it

jlduh

Even if this could have done in far better conditions of course (i mean that we shouldn't wait for a tsunami and a nuclear crisis to do it of course, because these are tough conditions for citizens...) this crisis is probably going to lead to good measures to work on energy efficiency and energy saving programs:


Govt sets summer power-saving target at 15%

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/13_18.html

rowmag

Yes, this is a good thing. Everybody went on an energy conservation binge after the earthquake to minimize the need for blackouts, and it was pretty successful, but I think the big challenge this summer will be to see how well fans can replace air conditioners.

jlduh

Gov decides about the structure to be put in place to help Tepco pay compensation:

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/13_14.html

This is quite fuzzy to say the least. For sure Tepco has two big levers in its hands in case of bankrupcy: the risk of lack of supply AND the risk of leaving the state with 4 crippled reactors on its back. Would be interested to see what will be the final key ratio for financing this structure, between nuclear industry contributions and state contributions. Anyway, at the end, the ones who will pay are the citizens or the users (which are both the same). The only question is to know the contrinution of private nuclear shareholders in the compensation financing.


Why doesn't nuclear industry have a mutual compensation system (mutual insurance) being feed by nuclear companies, to be used in that kind of accident? Even if it proved not sufficent, oil industry have something like that in place i think. It can also be done with a kind of reinsurance mutual fund, like ASSURPOL in France (even if i think the nuclear industry is not in this system either in France: nuclear risks are so big that the insurance for consequences is a real problem, but one way or the other, this has to be adressed -and its better if it is before hand!- and costs to be included in the total cost of the produced energy through nuclear plants):

http://www.assurpol.fr/index.php?page=general

jlduh

This news confirms go into the direction of 2 points already mentionned in this thread, the latter being just above:

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/13_20.html

It seems that not only us here are saying this...

Well, this is precisely what i was mentionning in the post above!

jlduh

Some more contamination of tea leaves:

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/13_39.html

Damn, this info is really a breaking news to me, not because of the levels (even it there are sufficiently high to make them unsafe!) but BECAUSE OF WHERE THEY HAVE BEEN MEASURED:

KANAGAWA prefecture is south of Tokyo!!!!

I located Odawara on this map for example:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...392334&t=h&z=7

So this is around 330 kms south west of Daichi plant!

Minami Ashigara, also listed in the article, is even further

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...392334&t=h&z=7

The scale at which unsafe deposits are falling is enlarging day after day...