Ominous Enviro News Updates
There might be more fresh oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico; meanwhile, the Feds are reportedly gagging marine biologists from releasing info on dolphin deaths possibly related to last year's spill:
The gag order was contained in an agency letter informing outside scientists that its review of the dolphin die-off, classified as an "unusual mortality event (UME)," had been folded into a federal criminal investigation launched last summer into the oil spill.
"Because of the seriousness of the legal case, no data or findings may be released, presented or discussed outside the UME investigative team without prior approval," the letter, obtained by Reuters, stated.
On problems associated with industrial civiliation's other main way of powering itself, Fukushima iodine-131 release levels have reached 73 percent of Chernobyl, and cesium-137 release levels 60 per cent of Chernobyl, with the ongoing situation "still very unpredictable," says Japan's prime minister.
Editor's Note: We invite comments and request that they be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of Reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason at any time.
-
Every environmental disaster we face reminds me that governments spend millions of dollars building secured, self-sustaining shelters for the very people whose bullshit decisions get us into these messes in the first place.
-
Wow Gregory. Way to sound like a giant douche bag. Not that I'm all for unnecessary regulations, but it's kind of fucked up when scientists aren't allowed to be honest about the harm caused by industrial accidents.
The free market can't function properly if exchange of information is not allowed to happen. Unless we can accurately weigh all the benefits and risks involved in various types of energy production, the market can't make good decisions about which sources of energy to support.
Pretending off-shore drilling accidents are harmless (bacteria is magic!) is just as stupid as thinking current "green technology" can meet all our energy needs (windmills are magic!)
-
Why do you hate magic? Magist.
-
Magic power plants kill the spirit realm while producing weapons grade materia. Christ, do you want Iran to get access to Meteor? Although, technically Shahab means "meteor"...
-
Omnislash!
-
LET the scientists tell their stories, and then let us all astonish at how few people care that some fucking dolphins died. So...what. I want cheap gas. I will personally strangle every living creature on earth (sans humans) if it will put money in my pocket. And most people are like me...they've just been cowed by the PC crowd into not admitting it.
-
If you leave out the exception for strangling humans, you pretty much have US Mideast foreign policy down pat.
-
Re: 1980 Redux,
I will personally strangle every living creature on earth (sans humans) if it will put money in my pocket.
You can personally strangle a whale? I would certainly pay money to see that! -
Well, you have me there OldMexican. I said I'd do it, so I at least have to give it the old college try.
-
[M]eanwhile, the Feds are reportedly gagging marine biologists from releasing info on dolphin deaths possibly related to last year's spill
The Feds are getting kinky with the marine biologists... -
Odds are that primary containment has failed at Fukushima #3. This is about as bad as the situation can get, as the exceedingly toxic MOX (mixed oxide) fuel would be directly exposed to open atmosphere. The only option would be to try and entomb the reactor Chernobyl-style, which will cost a lot of workers their lives.
-
Failure of primary containment is now suspected at reactors #1 and 2 as well, and the Japanese are now enlarging the evacuation area. The containment vessels may have been ruptured by brittle stress fracture - the intense heat from the fuel followed by bathing the steel vessel in cold seawater to cool the reaction.
-
I wondered if the sea water was a mistake. Did it contribute to the inelastic process?
-
If you mean in terms of inelastic molecular collisions, then yes the seawater would have greatly reacted with the metals in the containment vessel and the supporting equipment. Using seawater was pretty clearly an act of desperation as Tokyo Electric had to know it would destroy a tremendous amount of capital.
-
No, I really didn't mean for monetary but for the sake of containment. Was there any other choices? It seemed back and white-the regular water vs. sea water. Could a chemical have made a difference?
-
The only non-water coolant I can think they might have conceivably used is molten sodium, which is actually much more efficient but has the nasty side effect of becoming volatile under certain conditions, including when coming into contact with seawater. It's also not something you can typically find on hand in large quantities.
The engineers probably chose seawater because they simply didn't have enough freshwater to quickly cool the reactions and time was of the essence. A choice between bad and worse.
-
I'm not chemically savvy but I knew they used soda-acid in early fire extinguishers. I supposed the lesson of this disaster is to have redundant fire systems
-
The heat from the decaying radioactive material would vaporize the soda. The only way to stop the process is to keep the fissile material cool.
-
So something that can smother the fire but resist the heat. I was just thinking of the tiles that were used for re-entry by NASA.
It would be interesting to see if any of their research could be applied to future nuclear disasters
-
feel
-
Comparing oil to nuclear is stupid. It's coal that is the "other main way of powering itself".
-
If Iodine and cesium levels are continuing to rise that would indicate either the fuel in use or the spent fuel rods are continuing to overheat and burn. Something still isn't getting coolant.
-
So have zero people still died yet?
-
Unfortunately radiation doesn't kill quickly.
-
Fukushima iodine-131 release levels have reached 73 percent of Chernobyl, and cesium-137 release levels 60 per cent of Chernobyl
That's a misleading statement when you neglated to account for the fact that Chernobyl also released large amounts of particulate matter containing many other radiactove elements. The reactor core was on fire.
Fukushima's releases have largely been *confined* to I-131, Cs-134 and Cs-137, since the only releases have been of gaseous fission products.
-
Neglected.
-
obama lied, dolphins died
-
Your post is really good providing good information. Food for fertility I liked it and enjoyed reading it.Keep sharing such important posts.Natural laxative foods