deleted

[ashmicro]

"Atomshite" Love it.

[fotorabia]

Scooters..my Aunt is the Secretary for the Isle of Islay Tidal Power Trust..shes a complete Tory..sports big diamonds and use to be a racing driver..so your characterization of people who believe in alternative energy as lentil munchers couldnt be further from the truth..

[scooters]

Scooters..my Aunt is the Secretary for the Isle of Islay Tidal Power Trust..shes a complete Tory..sports big diamonds and use to be a racing driver..so your characterization of people who believe in alternative energy as lentil munchers couldnt be further from the truth..

 

 

My rant is not aimed at people who believe in alternative energy, I believe in alternative energy as a valuable contrubutor.It is actually aimed at those deluded, soundbyte swallowing fools who seek to make political capital out of a natural disaster and who also are of the opinion that all our power issues will be solved by renewables and that nuclear power can be abandones in favour of windmills and wave machines as they can easily generate the power we need - they won't as North Sea gas reserves decline and oil has to be increasingly saved for transport and plastics our demand for electricity will increase exponentially- naturally there is a place for renewables as part of an integrated power system but they are not a solution that will come close to meeting the demands of the future 100%.

 

I'm not suggesting that the Islay Trust does this but have a friend who is also a tory voter (which I am not) he runs a windmill company and makes big bucks by taking advantage of tax loopholes and grants for the construction of such windmills and is cynical in his exploitation of both. I believe that this is a misuse of public funds based around environmental faddism - like the scrappage scheme - rather than part of a long term power strategy.

[scooters]

Luckily it's not soviet-style atomshite, so even if it does get a bit toasty it won't spit too much radioactive material into the atmosphere.

 

 

Sam Glover has a period car sticker from the old Soviet Union that translated reads:

 

"Faster Uranium for a Brighter Future!"

 

have a look at his photos from the restricted zone round Chernobyl - sobering indeed!

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31255613@N02/

[Tayne]

A friend of mine has been over as well.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8333696/se ... 761200660/

 

I kind of want to go as well.

[Lankytim]

Its simply awesome- all they need now is Godzilla to appear and it will be just like one of those old Japanese disaster films... I really feel bad for all those folks stuck there, it must be hell on earth.

 

Regarding nuclear power, there was a program on a while back about how far nuclear power would have moved along had there not been as much opposition against it from lentilists in the past, apparently their high profile protests caused massive under funding of the nuclear program meaning that decades on we are now facing a looming energy crisis because there arn't enough nuclear power stations and the cost of energy is getting higher and higher, not to mention the rapid depletion of the worlds resources and pollution that goes with energy from fossil fuels. Thanks hippies!

[fotorabia]

I fully agree lads..NZ is vehemently stuck in its 80s anti nuke past..but that was also to keep the Yank warships out..all our power is hydro or wind..but as soon as mini-reactor is mentioned ..you l get nailed by a handful of under cooked lentils..looks like the Japanese do have problems..its on a scale of 4 out of 7.. Chernobyl was a 6..and their doing the drink your iodine now children ..yuk..but gotta protect that thyroid gland..

[Guest]

I wouldn't worry about it that much, according to Sim City 2000 we're less than 9 years from receiving the Microwave Power Plant with the big satellite dish on it. With regards to the Japan situation, they just need to go back to their old save game and turn Disasters off this time.

[boobydoo]

The Japanese are a pretty resilient race and I bet they'll have everything back to normal in no time.

 

I was impressed with the film of the office girl trying to keep everything from falling off the shelf during the quake....most people would have just cowered under a table or stood screaming or something. Good on ya, lass!!

[autofive]

just seen this pic.....

 

[ashmicro]

I saw some Japanese Air Force fighter aircraft parked on a street today on CNN. It kinda reminded me of that film "The Day After Tomorrow" where the world's all fucked up and everything is in the wrong place.

 

My mate told me that his wife (who is Japanese) was in tears when she first saw the tv news. Thankfully, her family and friends live in an unaffected area.

[Cavcraft]

More trouble at the nuclear plant according to todays news. A few have been injured but (thankfully) no mention of any loss of life at the plant.

[ChinaTom]

Was chatting to a Asiana pilot this morning. Apparently, all the ILS settings need adjusting for Japanese airports now. Think he was winding me up though. Mind you, 8 meters is quite significant at the extremities, so maybe it's true.

[Richard]

The media are so desperate for that power station to blow I think they'd do it themselves if they knew how.

[Lankytim]

How are they going to get all those beached ships back into the sea?? Or will they just gas axe them to bits and have a big weigh in?

[messerschmitt owner]

How are they going to get all those beached ships back into the sea?? Or will they just gas axe them to bits and have a big weigh in?

some will be put on low loaders and transported to the sea again - not wanting to sound uncaring, but there's nothing in the way!

 

Others will be cut up on the spot

[AnthonyG]

Any gypsies near Japan? - they'll find a way to lash anything onto a Transit Tipper.

[Claypole]

Wondered why I'd not had any metal stolen this week.

 

[Cavcraft]

 

Sorry for the plagiarism.

[Lankytim]

Just had a thought, bet the price of scrap metal goes through the floor as China hoovers up the sudden glut of scrap steel from Japan- theres got to be millions of tons of it!

[wuvvum]

Slightly O/T, but is it just me or does Emperor Akihito look like he's been put together in Photoshop? His head is about five sizes too big for his body.

[M'coli]

I thought he looked like a marionette from Joe 90!

[Craig the Princess]

Firstly it's a horrible double-whammy suffered by the Japanese people and my condolences go to those affected.

 

soap dodging pricks....I've been spending quite a lot of time with nulcear pump design engineering in the last 3-6 months and the safety standards are very high - bear in mind that a 30foot fuckinng wave travelling at 70 mph hit those buildings and they are still in one piece.

 

Speaking as a non-soap dodger (just out of my steaming hot shower powered by an oil-fired boiler), they don't look quite one piece anymore. I'm releaved safety standards are very high though, I would hate to think a anyone would have an incentive to cut corners to save a few quid on nuclear energy. (But then why did Tepco falsify 29 safety records at Fukushima in 2002?)

 

More pish and wind seems to be talked about power generation than anything else - fat is we NEED nuclear power - it is the only clean and reliable source

 

Clean, the only waste is highly radioactive waste products that need to be stored until the great-great-great-great grandchildren are long gone.

 

What these Type 2 driving, faux retro smelly horribles don't get into their thick single issue fanatic skulls is that we have NO CHOICE but to build nuclear power unless you want Mr Putin to be boiling your fucking lentils for the next 50 years at £10 a therm.....Pricks.....

 

Aneurin Bevan said this island is made mainly of coal, and he was right. Give the nuclear industry's massive subsidies to coal mining and carbon capture. Japan has lost £385bn in two days due to a "minor" incident, a big accident could fuck the economy royally, especially if it occurred near London. It's not total fantasy to suggest a terrorist could target a nuclear plant.

 

Would it not be better to have uk-coal powering the country (supported by evil wind, wave and solar technologies where possible) than roll the dice on nuclear with the costs of set-up (massive subsidies), running (security of sites and waste, cost of waste reprocessing/storage), dismantling (lift span c.40-50 years) then storing the waste for x hundred years securely.

 

That's another thing...by munching all these mung beans, brown rice and fucking lentils THEY are adding to green house gasses - I mean it takes FUCKIN hours to cook these fekkers - why can't they stick to celery???

 

Selfish arses in their Priuses.....

 

 

cunts

 

 

making fucking political capital out of an act of nature/god - they should be sent over there with a fucking mop and told to start sweeping up

 

 

It looked like the only person (and I don't know you, having a sherpa autosleeper should mean you aren't a cunt) making political capital on this thread was you in your stout defence of nuclear power. But hey it's ok, it's only a small isolated incident.

 

 

Slightly O/T, but is it just me or does Emperor Akihito look like he's been put together in Photoshop? His head is about five sizes too big for his body.

 

You're right, he looked like his head was close to the camera but his body was far away.

[M'coli]

Lies and untruths about power generation will always be told where there is an economic will to create a fast profit. This land, as the great Nye said, is made of coal, but why should we use it all up when there are countless generations of people to come on this earth? Nuclear power is the future of power generation - just how far into the future we have to look is a different question, whether it be 10 years or 10,000 years - it's human nature to use up one resource and then look to another to exploit. We're on the fossil fuel gravy train until we either die or run out of it totally, unless we learn to be sustainable, and that's not going to happen when we have the growth-based economic model.

 

Humans only learn how to be sustainable when they've exhausted a source, the Native North Americans are the perfect example of this: they arrive in a continent just before the continent's megafauna become extinct. I don't think it's a coincidence that this occured, but it taught them that they have to manage what fauna they have left to survive.

 

There are other reactor designs that could have been built there - but the US dollar won.

[CreepingJesus]

It's a real tragedy for the folks in Japan, that this has happened. While I'd question the wisdom of setting up in the worst tectonic minefield on the planet, I have to admire their tenacity and persistence.

However, I can't resist making a few anti-nuclear points, in answer to some of the pro's.

1) Nuclear isn't 'clean'. The required fuel isn't spirited in by pixies; it's mined in foreign lands. Mining inherently isn't a 'clean' activity, and the 'foreign lands' bit brings up all sorts of geo-political fuel security issues. Then there's transportation and processing, which are energy consuming events. Argument blown, without even mentioning OMGZNUCILARWAIST. Except just then.

2)Nuclear isn't 'safe'. It's as safe as it can be. Which, given that every single component in the chain is designed, made, controlled, and maintained by humans, is as much as to say, 'not 100%'. Now, before anybody jumps down my throat about this, I'll say I'm sure that said humans are skilled individuals, with the best intentions. But the road to hell is, as they say, paved with good intentions.

The operators at Three Mile Island wouldn't have intended to cause a disaster, I'm sure. But a man-made valve and some man-made software let them down that night, and they were very lucky indeed that it didn't turn out worse. Playing with fire at Windscale (yes, pun intended) proved that human operators can play fast and loose with the tools at hand, but thankfully a man-made filtration system mitigated the potential disaster. Again; lucky,lucky,lucky. Human failings and a botched modification job saw Chernobyl light up the Ukrainian sky: the worst disaster yet, and one that refuses to go away - the sarcophagus constructed in '86 is nearly 25 years old, and getting past its' best. The funds needed to finish the job are short. Fantastic. So much for the nuclear power industry looking after its' own.

So, however safe something is, there's always a way for it to go wrong. Throw in the overwhelming power of Mother Nature, and we have Fukushima. Say Fukushima had been coal-fired: sadly, there would still have been loss of life. But we'd mourn the dead, clear up the site and get right back on with it. But it isn't, it's nuclear. So if it really goes tits-up (and I hope it doesn't), that'll be loss of life, and a large patch of land condemned for a very long time. That's bad enough in a big country like the USA or Ukraine, with loads of land to spare; quite another for a small island nation like ourselves or Japan.

So...nuclear, thanks, but no thanks. We should make the best use of the ones we have, then draw a line under that episode. Hmmm...methinks there's a Tarka Dhal in my tea-time plans

[Mr Lobster]

How are they going to get all those beached ships back into the sea?? Or will they just gas axe them to bits and have a big weigh in?

 

They aren't.

 

Anything bigger than a fishing boat and theres no realistic way of getting it back into the water. Only realistic way forward with a ship weighing a few thousand tonnes thats on the land is to cut it up in situ. See also Riverdance at Cleveleys which was on the beach but couldn't be dragged a couple a hundred metres back to sea.

[dollywobbler]

Yeah, I do hate the way that nuclear is seen as 'clean' and 'safe.' How people think we can just ignore the waste products is beyond me. Concrete is not a particularly carbon-free past-time and it's just a disaster waiting for a future generation. Coal isn't really that friendly either though.

 

Doesn't mean I have the answer though!

[Richard]

They aren't.

 

Anything bigger than a fishing boat and theres no realistic way of getting it back into the water. Only realistic way forward with a ship weighing a few thousand tonnes thats on the land is to cut it up in situ. See also Riverdance at Cleveleys which was on the beach but couldn't be dragged a couple a hundred metres back to sea.

 

Even if they're actually in the sea, like this one my brother in law prepared earlier, it's not usually possible to get them afloat again.

 

679 Wreck by Max 66, on Flickr

[Tayne]

Your bro-in-law did that?

 

Its a picturesque wreck now, he might not appreciate this photo though.

 

Failed Beacon by Tayne, on Flickr

[ChinaTom]

Just received a few pics from one of the factories in YingJiang (not Japan; this one was in South Western China and on the same day) that I used to work in. Pretty catastrophic by all accounts - how the boiler didn't blow I don't know. Some of the guys and girls I used to see every day still missing presumed buried.

 

one stack down - fell on the ash handling area burying the chaps in there

This stack will be down on the next aftershock

as will this one.

 

This was my office

 

3 other factories nearby in similar states.