Radiation, Ionizing

Japan and nuclear - what a mess -
   the newspapers say
     a) The nuke power stations were designed for a 6.5 earthquake
             Yeah - on the "Ring of Fire" ??
              The great "Tokyo Earthquake"
             a mere 90 years ago, was 7.9  on the Richter scale
          The Kobe earthquake of 1995 was 6.8
          The 1964 earthquake in Alaska  same "ring of fire", was 9.2
          The 2010 earthquake in Chile, same "ring", was 8.8
        That plant should never have been 
            - specified to survive only a 6.5 Richter earthquake
            - permitted to be constructed
         and should have been de-commissioned 
              and replaced with a more realistic design - long ago.

     b) tsunami - is a Japanese word -
           The Japanese have centuries of experience with
            ( off-shore ) earthquake(s) and tsunami(s)
           - apparently the power station's backup generators
                  - which started correctly and came up to power
             were swamped by the tsunami

      c) 11 water cannons are on the way to help
             - It took 'em 5 dayze and multiple explosions
                to recognize they had a cooling problem?

and on and on and on -

      a) Tokyo Power has a history of falsifying nuclear safety records
              - several middle managers fired 
              - then several year later a major management shake up after 
                     more falsified records are revealed

I have figured out why the Tokyo Electric Power appears so inept  :-)))

      a) they watch the U.S. bail out several companies "too big to fail"
           and figured out that they can get the government
           to replace their aging, destroyed reactors and support equipment
                 FOR FREE  :-))
          I wonder if they are voting themselves big bonuses 
            -similar to their American counterparts of failing organizations

       b) the original inept people
            who specified the crazy ideas of placing their:
             - spent fuel rods in third floor holding tanks
             - back-up diesel generators for cooling 
                   on the ground as tsunami bait
          have retired, and the next generation
              even more technically inept
          are using cheating and politics as their main tools.

The Japanese must have known they were living on "borrowed time".
I live "on" - 1/4 mile - from the Hayward Fault -
    My house structure (1996) is supposed to withstand 
           a 6.5 nearby earthquake,
        but I don't have a nuke power station in the garage.
   When "my" fault goes off - I expect damage -
        and not just dishes falling off the shelves  !!

From Wall Street Journal - Digital Network - March 23, 2011 
   "Tepco: Now Undecided On Year-End Dividend Payment 
     TOKYO (Dow Jones)--Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501.TO) said Wednesday
        that it has withdrawn its ..."
About as timely as anything else Tokyo Electric Power  has done recently -

Seemingly several hundred
     - Tokyo Electric Power middle and upper management
     - Japanese government "regulators"
would improve the world by committing
              hari kari   or seppuku.   




Darwin Awards should have another catagory
    - Major screw-ups that kill your relatives -

--Ed Thelen