Prepping for 700 'Fukushimas'

Even if the grid went down from a flare the plants should still have their onsite backup power, which could be extended along as they can receive new tanks of diesel.

 

The best preparation is to sell me your house at a steep discount. I'll let you live in it for free until 2014. After that, should you survive the fear-mongering and doomsaying, your rent will go up considerably.

The nice thing about this solar scare business is its absolutely impossible to blame it on man's industrial output. Given that, it won't have much political value to anyone and will soon be forgotten.

 

This industry has stellar record of reiterating commitments.

When it comes to response to actual unanticipated natural events, as we just witnessed, the record is much less shiny.

I bet your nearby nuclear plant has no adequate radiation detectors. Should unthinkable happen again, the workers will again stroll in the darkness with "uh oh, our dosimeters went offscale high because idiot managers thought that having fields of more than 20 rem/h is never going to happen".

 

Utter nonsense. All plant workers entering the RCA are issued programmable digital alarming dosimetry. Stationary rad monitors are located at all steam transfer points to monitor for radiation release and personell safety.

As for track record of unanticipated events, the nuclear industry has quite a good track record, considering the number of people who have or will die of radiation from commercial reactors in the history of commercial nuclear power is zero (excluding soviet run ones, which were known for disregarding worker and public safety to save cost to the government).

 

Don't want to start this (again), but there's some nonsense I just can't ignore: And tens of thousands of people who have lost their homes due to the remarkably "good track record" of nuclear plants don't count?

 

Are you serious? How many people do you think have been displaced because of Fukushima? One hint: The number's close to six digits.

 

I think it's actually the other way around. There are no major port cities in the exclusion zone, the next nearest port city which was hit hard by the tsunami is Minamisoma in the north, just outside the zone.

As for the numbers - the IRSN report from May 2011 states that the total population inside the 20km exclusion zone was around 85'000. Since the zone is entirely off-limits, those 85'000 is a near-certain number. Moreover, since the zone is a half sphere, and since the plant itself is covering a good chunk of the coast, most people lived not at the coast and therefore not at places where the tsunami could've done damage. Furthermore, the major population centers inside the zone (Futaba, Tomioka, Okuma, with at least 35'000 people) escaped, according to google earth images, nearly unscarred since those towns are far away from the coast.
Yes, there's been tsunami damage. But if you look at satellite images of the exclusion zone, you'll realize that only a very small part of all houses in that area were affected.
The newest number I'd heard was 90'000 displaced, which seems like a good fit overall. The 85'000 of the zone plus several thousand residents of Namie.

Basically: Use google earth to look at the towns and houses inside the exclusion zone. Compare the number of the buildings affected by tsunami damage to the buildings which are uneffected. And then decide for yourself which disaster displaced thousands and which displaced tens of thousands.

 

That were not already killed or displaced by the tsunami and earthquake? The death toll alone was over 15,000, all due to the earthquake and tsunami.

 

Look at my post above. Jesus, people. Use your mind. One look at a map tells you that more than 90% of the people inside the 20km zone were nowhere near the tsunami's "destruction zone".

 

The tsunami was not the only thing that killed and displaced people; the 9.0 earthquake also had some impact.

 

Now you're beginning to make things up. The death count of the massive 9.0 earthquake didn't exceed 100 people. And if the earthquake would've been bad enough to displace tens of thousands of people in a half sphere of only 20 km, then Japan would've been and would still be on the brink of humanitarian catastrophe.

I don't deny that the tsunami and earthquake must've displaced people. But it's neglectable compared to what the nuclear disaster did. And even IF (and that's an IF the size of at least half the pacific) the earthquake and tsunami together displaced 45'000 people inside this 20km sphere, then there were STILL 45'000 others who were displaced by contamination. To quote NUCENG "Half of a big number is still a big number".

 

Please quote my passage that you claim is fabricated.

Do you have a source for that claim? If true it would be unprecedented.