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They needed about 200 airdrops, 2 have been successful. Radiation has made the rest fail.Quote:
Originally Posted by Husar
Firetrucks are held back because of radiation.
The skeleton crew are as-we-speak trying to clear a road for the fire engines.
Might come to the point where people get more or less ordered to sacrifice their lives.
<- This just in Swedish media.
**** me.
I must say I have the deepest respect for the skeleton crew remaining.
I have donned a NBC suit myself, and let me tell you - it is not very pleasant. It weights down on you and the easiest task becomes a heavy burden. The goggles fogs up as you start to sweat and since the sweat has nowhere to go you will bath in it inside the suit within minutes.
Now add complete darkness and heavy radiation. Fires and hard labour.
That is seriously living hell.
If you believe in some God, pray. If not, let your thoughts go out to these heroes. And if you happen to have a chance to help - do not hesitate.
I thought exactly that when I was reading BBC News this morning.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shibumi
It makes me so sad that some people may have to knowingly walk to their deaths. I don't have that kind of bravery.
An interesting contrast from those cable news shows I don't watch. MSNBC's pet lesbian does a pretty good job of explaining nuclear reactors for dummies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEttne65w6Y
Contrast and compare with the crazy fellow on Fox using M&Ms:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ps4285oykWg
Energy conservation and networking is the way forward.
A passive house can be heated just by turning on the telly, even if its freezing outside.
And no, electric cars and such do not pose an energy problem, as it will reduce the total ammount of energy required. The combustion engine in a car only utilizes around 15% of the energy in gas, the rest is simply wasted. A power plant, on the other hand, utilizes around 95% of the energy in that very same gas.
If we were to switch all cars to electric cars now, the energy savings would be a number bigger than what I can write.
But try getting North Americans to give up a go anywhere anytime vehicle. I think hybrids will be the better solution short term. And if/when electric car tech evolves to a point where it can be go anywhere anytime use them exclusively. I do agree about the rest, using less energy can be as good as switching to less polluting ways of producing said energy.
Surely a joke, with battery technology where it is right now. I believe there's a serious question as to whether or not there is enough lithium on the planet to accomplish your wish.Quote:
Originally Posted by HoreTore
Also the cost to pay for the amount of fossil fuel we'd have to burn to create the neccissary electricity for those cars would make up for those savings, seeing as there's no way nuclear energy will ever be trusted again.
Not to mention the environmental damage from extracting all those minerals, and the toxic by-products.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemur
A recent development. No reason to panic so far.
Source: Al JazeeraQuote:
"Diplomatic sources" have told Reuters that very low concentrations of radioactive particles - believed to have come from Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant have been detected on the US west coast.
The level of radiation was far too low to cause any harm to humans, they said.
One diplomat, citing information from a network of international monitoring stations, described the material as
"ever so slight" and consisting of only a few particles.
"It is very low level," another source in Vienna said.
I stumbled upon the blogs of Al Jazeera while searching for some information. They are quite good at updating the recent events, esp. the Libyan conflict.
Well, my personal opinion is that nuclear power plants are far from harmless. Of course, it is practically impossible to shut down all the nuclear power plants but this does not mean you should not work towards a more sustainable solution and try to reduce to use of NPP as much as possible. In a long term, nuclear energy is anything but not sustainable. I don't only mean the cases when things go wrong (and it is normal for things to get broken), I also mean the process of storing the radioactive materials. Taking care of a monster in your soil for thousands for years is not really a very good idea. Economically speaking, the long term profits of the nuclear energy are quite questionable.
Well, I give them credit for producing one of the few peices I've seen on the incident not to include the terms "desperate" and "frantic".
This is still being pegged at a level 5 on the INES scale- which is roughly the equivalent of Three Mile Island.