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JAIF has a new update www.jaif.or.jp

Hi, all. I've started a draft listing of useful links that we can use to construct a sidebar widget or some such animal here as navigational aid, to help minimize scrolling up and down or searching for links and conserve bandwidth usage. Please contribute constructively. It's here:
goo.gl

Seems like many of us are in the Midwest. I see people posting from Illinois(such as myself), Kentucky, Missouri, etc. We all have nuclear power plants in the area. We all think we're safe, we don't have hurricanes, or quakes or tsunamis here, or do we? Recorded history is extremely short. Look into NLE 2011, it's a FEMA exercise to practice responding to an earthquake at the New Madrid fault line. I didn't even know it existed or that we were vulnerable here, but it appears it does and we are. You can't plan for everything. Unless you can make a nuke plant that can gracefully fail under extreme seismic activity or with long term power loss you can't convince yourself its safe. It's just one thing that I've been thinking about since this incident in Japan. We really need to evaluate risk on different scales and with longer views of history.

Pumping out water from the basement, to where? The sea I guess. The last time the New Madrid fault line moved, it cause the Mississippi to run backwards and it rang church bells in Boston. No one really lived there then though.

@tippytoe Hi! yes, the New Madrid quake in the late 1800's caused the Mississippi River to run backwards for awhile. That would sure mess up a cooling system or two.

@Everyone- HERE you all are!! Been searching and looking and being frustrated! About the new JAIF release: "Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station has been in serious condition since some units lost cooling function. TEPCO is trying to recover components for cooling that should be driven by external AC power. However, working condition in high radiation area is so bad and there is no prospect of accomplishing the work for this recovery. (05:15, March 26)" OMFG. Are they saying (finally) that they are going to cement the damn thing??

Glad you made it Meretisa! Nice to meet all of you.

Here's a link to NLE 2011 for those in the midwest: www.fema.gov Lots of us seem to think, duh, they built reactors on fault lines, they should have planned for this. Well, many of us have reactors in our backyards and don't know live on fault lines. I post this info just so people who live in these areas have an awareness, so that we can make sure our local politicians and utilities have plans for 'unexpected scenarios'. Anyway, enough of my rambling, that was just one thing I wanted to get out for those who want to hear.

I hope that is a common sentiment around the world, that the more you know about it, the more you don't want it. The consequences are too grave.

@George You're my hero. thanks a million. @all what a great group of people. Going to sleep, see you later.

Nuclear power is great until you factor in two externalities: 1) the cradle-grave costs associated with mining, processing, safe handling, and appropriate long term (very) disposal of the fuel; and 2) human error, which cannot be completely eliminated. Even if you could eliminate #2 I believe the total costs of #1 exceed the value of all the power produced. You sure can make a big mess in a hurry . . .

@tippytoe My background's geology and geography. New Madrid fault is a sleepy giant. Last event 100+ years ago caused the Mississippi River to run backwards for days. Formed last Caddo in Texas and felt for hundreds of miles. Things weren't all built up then.

Nice to see this.

Safety team neglects risk. www.yomiuri.co.jp

I OPINION: Its the greed of the companies that own them that make them dangerous, the same as in any industry, especially in tough economic times, there is more of a tendency to cut corners. Government agencies and regulatory bodies show time and time again their capacity for corruption and lax oversight. Its human nature, and we are not responsible enough as a species in my opinion to have anything with such capability for destruction by so few that has the potential to devastate so many.

@George Are you paying alot for this blog? maybe people would be willing to chip in to help via paypal or something. Thanks for setting this up.

On a lighter note.. Idiots on TV. Nancy Grace VS. Weatherman - Argue Radiation. www.youtube.com

This may have been posted here before- but it is fascinating and answers many questions that people have been asking on the site. www.ustream.tv

@Jim Carver, exactly the point. Those who think you can plan for everything based on our last hundred or so years of history are sorely wrong. The New Madrid Fault Line is one scenario that emergency planners need to be aware of. Another one that comes to mind is the Carrington Event of 1859, a massive solar flare that hit the earth and destroyed our budding Telegraph system. Experts seem to agree if that hit the earth today it has the capacity to take out the electrical grid completely and for an extended amount of time. How can any expect to tame a nuclear power plant in such a scenario. I know Japan has records going back many centuries for tsunamis. If anyone had paid attention they would have known an event such as the one that just occurred was possible, and in fact happened around 700 or 800 AD (I forget the year). Anyway, I'm no expert, but I do have a grasp on history. Just make sure that people who are involved in the Nuclear industry as also aware of the possibilities before they convince you nuclear power is safe and they have accounted for everyting.