Is a bit odd. The TV just said it was a comment from the power company

Some of that fast-setting concrete would be the go I'd say, maybe bypass the screeding.

Has Sarah Palin given us her insight yet.

Not yet but Michael Palin has said "Bloody hell".

Busy managing the careers of his ghastly children, far more important in the grand scheme of things.

Have seen on tv that some countries,China, Phillipines etc have set up these radiation detectors along the coast. As the wind is blowing offshore,taking the escaped radiation across the pacific,anyone know if Aus will do the same. Just a thought??

Not a chance Japan is freakin' miles away from Australia.

LOL the secret is in the name. An N95 only filters 95% of airborne particles and even then only if its correctly fitted.

But I'm not seeing many people wearing N95's. Most people are wearing those tie-on masks that aren't even airtight. You can see the gaps very clearly. They're next to useless.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JustBecause

To be fair they probably haven't done one that is an earthquake followed by a tsunami!

To be honest I would be extremely surprised if they hadn't - it's a logical DBE to consider for a country prone to earthquakes, but you're probably (almost certainly) right if you meant they haven’t done one for this magnitude of earthquake and this size of tsunami.

Most developped countries have some form of basic environmental monitoring anyway so they would know if anything came over, & it would probably be beefed up now on the offchance. Not to mention all the armchair enthusiasts with their ebay radiation monitors. The world found out about Chernobyl from Norway not Ukraine. This is why there is no point trying to cover anything up as it will be detectable elsewhere.

Indonesia already has research reactors.As does N Korea, which is a worry as it's so closed off.

Yes, you’re right there are “safe” alternatives but even they have some inherent risk and could under certain extreme circumstances go wrong. ETA: And I cant think of any sensible person who would disagree that Japan experiencing the 5th largest earthquake in recorded history is an extreme circumstance.

And in some cases those alternatives are not practical for the particular situation that countries find themselves in. As an example, you might say Japan should be using wind technology or solar technology but given they are extremely short of land and both those options are very land intensive that’s not feasible for them. They could perhaps use hydro but that’s not really safe either. Neither are Coal fired power plants; oil fired plants are a bit better but still not 100% safe either. Everybody (not just governments) calculates risk daily. You do it every time you get behind the wheel of a car or decide to ride your bike to work or get on an aeroplane for your annual vacation. You know you could be in a crash and be injured or even killed but you still do it. Why do you expect Govt to be any different? They take calculated risks just like you and every other person on this planet does.

It'd be a right PITA for the exercise managers to set up!

I'm pretty sure Stephen Seagal should eat the fuel rods.

Its got nothing to do with that. People kneejerk and panic based on what the media report and we all know how accurate the media is

People in America buying and injesting KI tablets at the moment is just silly cos the protection only lasts for 24 hours and even if a chernobyl-like radiation cloud was to come from Fukushima which cant happen cos Fukushima is a totally different type of nuclear reactor, but for the sake of discussion lets say it could; it will still take a few days to get to North America, by which time how many people will have used up their supply of KI tablets and be unprotected against radioactive iodine? and that's not even going into Caesium and Stronium and ......

A lot of it is about people feeling less helpless in the face of an incident they are being told hourly by the media is a huge disaster that they personally can do nothing about other than "take these itty bitty tablets and you'll be right" I just luuurve the media think I might go buy me some shares in an iodine tablet factory

mmm, not really - relatively simple I would think. After all you dont have to simulate the actual earthquake or the actual tsunami, just the effects and there's enough data worldwide to give a fairly accurate body of knowledge as to what they might be.


you could even do computer modelling for some of it. We were doing that on some of the French and British reactors 20 years ago and computing capability has increased manyfold since then.