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After a week of limited coverage of "unimaginable levels" of radiation inside the remains of collapsed Unit 2 at Fukushima[...], Nuclear-News.net reported February 11 that radiation levels are actually significantly higher than "unimaginable".
Continuous, intense radiation at 530 sieverts an hour (4 sieverts is a lethal level), was widely reported in early February 2017--as if this were a new phenomenon. It's not. Three reactors at Fukushima melted down during the earthquake-tsunami disaster on March 3, 2011, and the meltdowns never stopped. Radiation levels have been out of control ever since. As Fairewinds Energy Education noted in an email February 10:
Although this robotic measurement just occurred, this high radiation reading was anticipated and has existed inside the damaged Unit 2 atomic reactor since the disaster began nearly 6 years ago.... As Fairewinds has said for 6 years, there are no easy solutions because groundwater is in direct contact with the nuclear corium (melted fuel) at Fukushima Daiichi.
What's new (and not very new, at that) is the official acknowledgment of the highest radiation levels yet measured there, by a factor of seven (the previously measured high was 73 sieverts an hour in 2012). The highest radiation level measured at Chernobyl was 300 sieverts an hour.
[...] This coverage relates only to Unit 2's melted reactor core. There is no reliable news of the condition of the melted reactor cores in two other units.
[...] Whatever is actually going on at Fukushima is not good, and has horrifying possibilities. It is little comfort to have the perpetrator of the catastrophe, TEPCO, in charge of fixing it, especially when the Japanese government is more an enabler of cover-up and denial than any kind of seeker of truth or protector of its people.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday February 22 2017, @07:56PM
Somebody has a math problem. You state the energy consumption (in 2013) was 3.89e+20J and your proposal only generates 1.3e+18J Look again at the exponents and clarify, you obviously didn't mean that so something was botched as you transferred the math from the calculator to the input box.
Now spitball the cost to cover the ENTIRE Sahara with collectors and be sure to factor in the disapproval of the current inhabitants... people who already have some violent tendencies... BEFORE some elite Westerners come rolling to displace them from their ancestral homelands. But iron legions of the damned to brutally suppress the locals aren't cheap.
Now comes the hard part. Try to guess what the effect of totally changing such a large area of the Earth will have on the local climate. A lot of people live fairly near to the Sahara, shifting wind and rain patterns will have a cost, they will certainly sue to be made whole.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday February 22 2017, @09:47PM
And my proposal generates 1.3e+18J /day and the energy consumed in an entire year is 3.89e+20J.
The last I checked, the year has in excess of 300 days.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Thursday February 23 2017, @04:38AM
Ok, I missed the shift in units. Knew you had actually worked some numbers there.
After pondering a few hours though, I find it amazing how people fret about some CO2 emissions that are inside the recorded geological variation and then many of the same folks will calmly discuss paving the entire Sahara like it was a viable idea without consequences. And all that plastic tubing? You aren't going to like being reminded of where that stuff comes from. Hint: there is a lot of it under that sand.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday February 23 2017, @05:15AM
Heh, did I tell you I'm a selfish bastard? I think I did.
My mindset: if you have enough energy, many other things are simple (or simpler anyway). If you can get that energy without having to depend on someone all the time, it is only you to be responsible on the success/failure of whatever you are trying to achieve. The fact that this independence also imply a degree of sustainability (because otherwise you'd be dependent on something which may be gone when you expect this the least) is secondary.
Hah! Don't you believe for a second that I was doing anything but fooling around - such a thing would have more engineering, technological and organisational problems that the hyperloop. Take it as intellectual masturbation to show that theoretically, one would have enough "waste surface" and resources on this Earth to sustain "solar energy capture" by using Chlorella alone. I did not suggest this is the way to go, otherwise why would I have listed other ways of energy storage?
If you have and can control enough energy, you don't need it: you'll synthesize hydrocarbons out of thin air (with CO2) and water.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 23 2017, @04:22PM
He's a shrill shill this jmorri man, a shrill shill indeed!
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday February 22 2017, @10:03PM
Somebody missed "My turn now to fool around.".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford