Is Japan Gonna Die?

[dr_mabeuse]

I recently learned a new word: agnotology. Agnotology is false science promulgated or presented in such a way as to discredit hard science. The word comes from studies on the climate "debate" (there is no debate. The earth is getting warmer, make of it what you will), and now we have this fine piece of nuclear engineering agnotology from this doofus.

I hardly need to point out how full of shit this guy is, because events as of Tuesday morning at 10:00 CST have already proven him wrong and misinformed. I worked on reactor safety and design at Argonne National Laboratory as a lowly technician early in my career, and while there've been significant improvements in reactor design since then (we're talking 35 years ago), these reactors are 40 years old, so I'm pretty familiar with them.

The main thing is, a total core meltdown is not the most likely disaster scenario. What this guy fails to mention is that in the Fukushima reactors, spent fuel is stored above the reactor core, and it contains all sorts of really nasty radionuclides other than Cesium and Iodine, and it's cooled by the same system as the core. The explosions we're seeing over there are either hydrogen or steam explosions, and while the containment vessels are designed to provide defense in depth (not, "defense of depth" as he calls it, which just means redundant safety systems), they're not designed to withstand multiple and repeated insults and overpressures. The exterior containment building, in fact, is built with a concrete "cap' that just sits on top of it and is designed to pop off in an explosion so as to direct the force of the blast upwards rather than down or laterally. It's a pop-top good for one use only.

Steam explosions are physical. They're what you get when water turns from a liquid to a gas in a closed vessel due to intense heat. The power of steam is impressive.

Hydrogen explosions are chemical, the result of igniting a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen to create water. They're happening because at a certain temperature, zirconium catalyzes the splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen. This hydrogen/oxygen mixture that collects in the primary cooling loop of a reactor is extremely explosive and unstable, and has to be vented to the atmosphere (it's not radioactive at all). If it's allowed to build up in one of the containment vessels and there's some ignition source (a spark, some hot steel), then the vessel becomes, in effect, a bomb. (NOT a hydrogen bomb, btw. That's something totally different.) Remember the Hindenburg?

Also, the uranium oxide used as fuel is technically a ceramic, but it's in the form of a fine powder compressed into pellets, so its melting point is hardly relevant. If the tubes rupture either through heat or explosion, you'll get a fine mist of UO2 particles floating down, radioactive as hell.

On top of that, they're pouring sea water on the cores now to try and cool them off. The ultra-purified water they normally use in the primary cooling loop can't become radioactive by exposure to radiation, but sea water contains all sorts of dissolved minerals that can. The sea water's probably pretty much turning into steam as soon as it hits the cores, and boiling off with all these irradiated minerals in it. It's just not good.

This guy's not only an uninformed asshole, he's a dangerous uninformed asshole. An agnotologist. If the only things crippled reactors produced is "short lived" Cesium and iodine then how does he account for what happened at Chernobyl and their estimated 10,000 cancers?

I've always been a proponent of nuclear power. I thought it was safe enough and that most of the problems had been ironed out. How the ultra-cautious Japanese could design these reactor to only withstand a 5.0 quake is hard to understand. And how they could fail to prepare for the tsunamis that invariably follow seaquakes is just incomprehensible. This is a major disaster and probably the end of nuclear as a viable energy source for a long, long time.

 

[stephen55]

I read an article yesterday about "the elephant in the room" in this whole situation and it was about the store of spent fuel rods.

There is an unholy amount of radioactivity in the form of spent fuel rods from all those decades of power production, stored on site.

 

[trysail]

Central England Temperature Record ( 1659-2010 )
Monthly Mean Instrumental Observations (°C.)

http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/cetml1659on.dat

http://judithcurry.com/2011/03/12/property-rights-and-climate-change/#comment-55535

By Willis Eschenbach

...we are discussing solutions to a problem which has not been shown to exist … after the null hypothesis is falsified, that’s the time to talk about possible solutions. Until then, it’s just auto-computeroticism...

...One by one, the majority of the “individual arguments” have all been dismantled and dismissed. The accuracy of the models, the Himalayan glaciers, the underlying climate math, the Hockeystick, the “Jesus Paper”, the IPCC itself, the claimed temperature changes in Antarctica, they have been weighed and found very wanting. What “cumulative weight” is there of discredited arguments? If there is any “cumulative weight”, it is the cumulative weight of unsuccessful attempts to establish the AGW hypothesis. People have been trying unsuccessfully to falsify the null hypothesis for a quarter century now … I find the cumulative weight of that quite persuasive...


...people have been trying for a quarter century to disprove the null hypothesis. Read up on that, as your comments seem to indicate that you don’t understand it. You keep claiming that GHGs are causing all kinds of strange weather … but whenever we examine the weather, it’s the same as it’s always been. Yes, there’s less ice in the Arctic … and there’s more ice in the Antarctic, and the global total is unchanged. Where is the evidence that GHGs are a problem, much less a catastrophe?...


...The problem, you see, is that there is very, very little evidence that man is warming the planet. There’s plenty of evidence that the planet has been slightly warming, overall, for a long time. But no evidence of unusual weather. No evidence of a human effect. So please, bring out the evidence. (Remember that computer model output, while interesting and possibly useful, is not evidence. For example, the fact that a computer program says your stock portfolio will make lots of money, while it is encouraging, is not evidence that you will soon be rich, you probably shouldn’t buy the new BMW quite yet.)

http://judithcurry.com/2011/03/12/property-rights-and-climate-change/#comment-55535

 

[LettersFromTatyana]

This guy's not only an uninformed asshole, he's a dangerous uninformed asshole. An agnotologist. If the only things crippled reactors produced is "short lived" Cesium and iodine then how does he account for what happened at Chernobyl and their estimated 10,000 cancers?

I think that's a bit unfair to him. He wrote an email to a relative in Japan. He based his words on the information that was available at the time, and was probably trying to calm a relative who had been through hell; in fact, if he had relatives in Japan, he may have even been trying to convince himself that everything was going to be okay.

I doubt he intended for his email to be used as "fact" by thousands of people. I kind of feel bad for the guy.

Given the chance to re-write his email even a day or so later, I bet that he'd re-phrase much of what he said. His email has now been moved and edited by the good folks at MITs Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering.


Now, the media who are picking his email up and running with his words as fact, instead of checking with actual experts? They are dangerous, uninformed, agnotologist assholes. There's no doubt about that.

 

[trysail]

Okay. Here are your choices:

1. Build more fossil fuel-fired electricity generating plants,
2. Build nuclear electricity generating plants,
3. Delude yourself into thinking that solar or wind solves the problem,
4. Freeze in the cold and the dark.

That's it; those are the choices.

 

[stephen55]

Damn!!!

trysail is pasting stock market trends...again...

 

[stephen55]

Okay. Here are your choices:

1. Gather more firewood.
2. Kill more deer and bears for their skins.
3. Delude yourself into thinking that fossil fuel-fired or nuclear powered electricity generating plants will solve the problem.
4. Freeze in the cold and dark.

That's it; those are your choices.

(circa. 10,000 BC Luddite cave painting)

 

[LettersFromTatyana]

They're weather trends, not stock trends.

And since I'm a bit annoyed that they invaded what had been a rational thread about something completely different...

It appears to me that the first shows clear evidence of warming.

The second is a blatant misprepresentation of evidence (full chart here). Tsk tsk; Tufte would not approve.

The third is... I don't even know where that came from, since it doesn't match the site's own graph, built from the same data (found here).

And the fourth, a quote, is from a known liar.

It took less than a minute to double check these "facts." I'm all for rational debate, but you can't be a part of said debate if you can't even be trusted to adequately copy and paste.

By the way, dr_mabeuse, I don't think I thanked you for that awesome word. What was it? An agnotologist?

 

[trysail]

Don't forget how this subject was raised in this thread. I do not intend to address it further.

And the fourth is from Wllis Eschenbach...

"It's Not About Me"
by Willis Eschenbach ( an informal curriculum vitae )
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/28/its-not-about-me/


_________________



This is an extraordinary statement. I had not seen it until now. By the way, according to Wikipedia, Petr Chylek holds a Ph.D. in physics from the University of California ( Riverside ) and is currently a researcher at Los Alamos.


_____________________
http://scienceofdoom.com/2009/12/13/understanding-the-flaw/

Date: Mon, 07 Dec 2009 08:28:38 -0700
From: Petr Chylek
To: xxxxxxxx
Dear Climate People:

FYI below is a letter that I sent on Saturday to about 100 top climate research experts including Jim Hansen, Steve Schneider, Phil Jones (UK) and other superstars. Till now I got 14 replies which are about 50/50 between supporting of what I said and defense of the IPCC process.

Greetings,
Petr

=====================

Open Letter to the Climate Research Community

I am sure that most of you are aware of the incident that took place recently at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU). The identity of the whistle-blower or hacker is still not known.

The selected release of emails contains correspondence between CRU scientists and scientists at other climate research institutions. My own purely technical exchange of emails with CRU director Professor Phil Jones is, as far as I know, not included.

I published my first climate-related paper in 1974 (Chylek and Coakley, Aerosol and Climate, Science 183, 75-77). I was privileged to supervise Ph. D. theses of some exceptional scientists – people like J. Kiehl, V. Ramaswamy and J. Li among others. I have published well over 100 peer-reviewed papers, and I am a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the Optical Society of America, and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Within the last few years I was also honored to be included in Wikipedia’s blacklist of “climate skeptics”.

For me, science is the search for truth, the never-ending path towards finding out how things are arranged in this world so that they can work as they do. That search is never finished.

It seems that the climate research community has betrayed that mighty goal in science. They have substituted the search for truth with an attempt at proving one point of view. It seems that some of the most prominent leaders of the climate research community, like prophets of Old Israel, believed that they could see the future of humankind and that the only remaining task was to convince or force all others to accept and follow. They have almost succeeded in that effort.

Yes, there have been cases of misbehavior and direct fraud committed by scientists in other fields: physics, medicine, and biology to name a few. However, it was misbehavior of individuals, not of a considerable part of the scientific community.

Climate research made significant advancements during the last few decades, thanks to your diligent work. This includes the construction of the HadCRUT and NASA GISS datasets documenting the rise of globally averaged temperature during the last century. I do not believe that this work can be affected in any way by the recent email revelations. Thus, the first of the three pillars supporting the hypothesis of manmade global warming seems to be solid.

However, the two other pillars are much more controversial. To blame the current warming on humans, there was a perceived need to “prove” that the current global average temperature is higher than it was at any other time in recent history (the last few thousand years). This task is one of the main topics of the released CRU emails. Some people were so eager to prove this point that it became more important than scientific integrity.

The next step was to show that this “unprecedented high current temperature” has to be a result of the increasing atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels. The fact that the Atmosphere Ocean General Circulation Models are not able to explain the post-1970 temperature increase by natural forcing was interpreted as proof that it was caused by humans. It is more logical to admit that the models are not yet good enough to capture natural climate variability (how much or how little do we understand aerosol and clouds, and ocean circulation?), even though we can all agree that part of the observed post-1970 warming is due to the increase of atmospheric CO2 concentration. Thus, two of the three pillars of the global warming and carbon dioxide paradigm are open to reinvestigation.

The damage has been done. The public trust in climate science has been eroded. At least a part of the IPCC 2007 report has been put in question. We cannot blame it on a few irresponsible individuals. The entire esteemed climate research community has to take responsibility. Yes, there always will be a few deniers and obstructionists.

So what comes next? Let us stop making unjustified claims and exaggerated projections about the future even if the editors of some eminent journals are just waiting to publish them. Let us admit that our understanding of the climate is less perfect than we have tried to make the public believe. Let us drastically modify or temporarily discontinue the IPCC. Let us get back to work.

Let us encourage students to think their own thoughts instead of forcing them to parrot the IPCC conclusions. Let us open the doors of universities, of NCAR, NASA and other research institutions (and funding agencies) to faculty members and researchers who might disagree with the current paradigm of carbon dioxide. Only open discussion and intense searching of all possibilities will let us regain the public’s trust and move forward.

Regards,
Petr Chylek

 

[stephen55]

They're weather trends, not stock trends.

...whoosh...

 

[trysail]

...whoosh...

...whoosh...

 

[trysail]

"When it danger or in doubt,
run in circles,
scream and shout."​

http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=aTMKD7CXOJhs


‘Worst Case’ Nuclear Disaster Hangs on Unlikely Events
By Mehul Srivastava and Adi Narayan

March 16 (Bloomberg) -- For Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s stricken nuclear reactors to release catastrophic amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere, a rare chain of events needs to happen.

Averting a full-scale meltdown -- which scientists say isn’t likely -- depends on cooling the uranium-containing rods at Fukushima Dai-Ichi’s Reactor No. 2, said S.K. Malhotra, a scientist at India’s Department of Atomic Energy in Mumbai. A worst-case outcome may occur if overheating in the reactor culminates in the rupture of the steel lining protecting radioactive material.

“In the worst scenario, an explosion could occur inside the steel pressure vessel, fuel bundles melt down and the radioactivity is exposed,” Malhotra said in a phone interview. “I would say there is a 10 percent probability still.”

Japan, which has no significant oil and gas resources, is struggling to avert a meltdown at the power plant after the earthquake on March 11 caused a tsunami that disabled critical cooling systems.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan said the danger of radiation leaks increased at the nuclear facility, located 135 miles (220 kilometers) north of Tokyo. That sent the nation’s Topix stock index to its biggest two-day drop since 1987 as concern grew over the government’s ability to contain the crisis.

Fuel Rods
Tokyo Electric has struggled to keep the reactors flooded with water to prevent them becoming so hot that they melt through their steel casing. The partially submerged fuel rods are generating heat, turning water into high-pressure steam inside the core of the plant.

If hot enough, they also start a chemical reaction with their protective coating which produces a small amount of radioactive byproducts, and increases pressure within the core. That pressure is released by letting this combination of steam and gas flow into external chambers, one of which, in reactor unit 2, was rocked by an explosion at about 6 a.m. local time yesterday.

The explosions are frustrating cooling efforts at the nuclear facility, and may have damaged a key containment chamber, said Toshihoro Bannai, director of international relations at Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

Rods inside three of the reactors have been partially exposed, according to Tokyo Electric. The fuel rods in reactor No. 2 were not fully submerged in water for at least 5 1/2 hours at that time as the utility reduced the number of workers because of increased radiation risks, the company said.

‘Cooling Problem’
“What we are looking at is a long-term cooling problem,” John Prince, a former member of the Safety Policy Unit of the U.K. National Nuclear Corp., told reporters in Adelaide, Australia.

The cooling process stopped after diesel generators pumping water to the plant were disabled by the tsunami, according to information Japanese authorities shared with the World Association of Nuclear Operators.

As the water supply stopped, temperatures inside the core rose, causing a buildup of pressure steam inside a containment area. Some of the vapor was vented to relieve the pressure, leaking a small amount of radioactive material into the environment.

Radiation outside the plant dropped to 0.6 millisieverts per hour from 11.9 millisieverts per hour, the agency said yesterday. Radiation peaked at 400 millisieverts per hour earlier in the day, the International Atomic Energy Agency said yesterday.

Equipment Debilitated
The temperature inside the core is “likely to be stable,” said Bannai at Japan’s safety agency, adding that most of the measuring equipment was “debilitated.” Engineers have used secondary generators to pump seawater and boron into the core of the 40-year-old boiling-water reactor...

more...

http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=aTMKD7CXOJhs

 

[trysail]

​

 

[stephen55]

...whoosh...

Not at all and I appreciate Tatyana's efforts at investigating your pastes.

As she hasn't been around Lit all that long I'll just tell her, perhaps unnecessarily, that pointing out your misuse of cut and paste is about as useful as telling ami not to outright lie.

ami thinks that a discussion about a science issue is over when he insists that there is no science behind the issue. If that doesn't work, he makes up lies. When caught in the lie, he carries on with it anyway.

You think that endless cut and paste of graphs, charts and comments from whoever supports your view is the be-all and end-all of debate. Of course, trying to pass off a 100,000 line computer program to model climate as having only about forty lines is also in your arsenal.

And now you give us...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-...japan-hangs-on-string-of-unlikely-events.html

‘Worst Case’ Nuclear Disaster Hangs on Unlikely Events

Thank god. It's good to know that what's been happening at that nuclear plant up until now has been business as usual.



How about...

‘Worst Case’ Titanic Disaster Hangs on Unlikely Events

'Worst Case' Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster Hangs on Unlikely Events

‘Worst Case’ Twin Tower Disaster Hangs on Unlikely Events

'Worst Case' Bhopal, India Chemical Disaster Hangs on Unlikely Events

 

[JackLuis]

WHo cares about Japan?

The world is not going to lack Toyotas, if Japan melts down.

If they don't solve the Ivory Coast problem, the world is going to be short of Chocolate!

"Ouattara supporters advance on Gbagbo stronghold in Abidjan on another day of heavy fighting in Cote d'Ivoire."

Let's not loose sight of the important things.

International sanctions such as a ban on European ships using Ivorian ports, together with the near-collapse of the local banking sector, mean supplies of the country's cocoa to world markets have virtually dried up.

 

[stephen55]

The world is not going to lack Toyotas, if Japan melts down.

If they don't solve the Ivory Coast problem, the world is going to be short of Chocolate!

Chocolate is important.

But Honda makes the world's best personal snow blowers. Trust me! Over the decades I've tried them all. And at my age, I'll be damned if I'm going to shovel the stuff, much less go back to a Sears snow blower!!

And if I win the lottery and buy a bigger place, deeper into the bush with a Jesus long driveway, I'm gonna want a Kubota riding tractor with a snow blower attachment. John Deere sucks!

Note the enclosed cab. It has a great heater in there as well.

 

[stephen55]

And now back to the thread...

Agnotology (formerly agnatology) is the study of culturally-induced ignorance or doubt, particularly the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data. The neologism was coined by Robert N. Proctor, a Stanford University professor specializing in the history of science and technology.

Its name derives from the Neoclassical Greek word ἄγνωσις, agnōsis, "not knowing" (confer Attic Greek ἄγνωτος "unknown"), and -λογία, -logia.

More generally, the term also highlights the increasingly common condition where more knowledge of a subject leaves one more uncertain than before.

A prime example of the deliberate production of ignorance cited by Proctor is the tobacco industry's conspiracy to manufacture doubt about the cancer risks of tobacco use. Under the banner of science, the industry produced research about everything except tobacco hazards to exploit public uncertainty.

(The three wise monkeys (from left to right: hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil) an icon used by Proctor and Schiebinger in their 2005 conference “Agnotology: The Cultural Production of Ignorance”.)


Some of the root causes for culturally-induced ignorance are media neglect, corporate or governmental secrecy and suppression, document destruction, and myriad forms of inherent or avoidable culturopolitical selectivity, inattention, and forgetfulness.

Agnotology also focuses on how and why diverse forms of knowledge do not "come to be," or are ignored or delayed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnotology

A great word and a great find, doc. It helps to explain a lot about what passes as "science" around here.

 

[trysail]

blah, blah, blah

You continuously demonstrate why you are a perpetual contender for the AH's leading misologist. What is most amusing is your obvious self-control issues. I'll bet that was greatly appreciated in the practice of medicine. Did you have tantrums in the OR?


I remain incredulous ( but amused ) that anybody could possibly believe that 200 lines of code from GISS ModelE was a complete program. You're either dumber than a box of rocks or the most gullible buffoon who ever came down the pike. Obviously, I seriously overestimated your analytical abilities. It would be nice to see a reason to change that opinion but you somehow manage to continuously reinforce it.


I have asked you ( repeatedly ) to put me on your ignore list so I don't have to deal with your continuing imbecilities and behavioral issues.

 

[sr71plt]

Wow, three whole paragraphs from Trysail (albeit short ones) without stealing and reposting someone else's property. *Applause*

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I think that's a bit unfair to him. He wrote an email to a relative in Japan. He based his words on the information that was available at the time, and was probably trying to calm a relative who had been through hell; in fact, if he had relatives in Japan, he may have even been trying to convince himself that everything was going to be okay.

Okay. If he just wrote that as a personal, off-the-cuff letter, than I do indeed apologize, and you can take my insults and apply them to trysail, who should be informed that the laws of physics are not determined by economics, nor are they concerned with maintaining his personal wealth.

And thanks for that totally irrelevant but colorful graph showing us that the worst at Fukushima hasn't occurred yet. I guess that's supposed to prove that it won't.

You could at least tell us what a Sievert is and how it compares with a Gray, a Roentgen, a Curie, and a rad.

 

[3113]

Awesome Post, Dr. M!

I worked on reactor safety and design at Argonne National Laboratory

Dr. M! A science geek and Jewish! Swoon You're the son-in-law my parents always wanted for me. Alas, I found you too late. Ah, what a marriage we could have had...bottles of shared anti-depressants on the nightstands, and two super-smart goth kids

Awesome post. Thank you for the science lesson.

 

[3113]

‘Worst Case’ Nuclear Disaster Hangs on Unlikely Events

Thank god. It's good to know that what's been happening at that nuclear plant up until now has been business as usual.

How about...

‘Worst Case’ Titanic Disaster Hangs on Unlikely Events

'Worst Case' Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster Hangs on Unlikely Events

‘Worst Case’ Twin Tower Disaster Hangs on Unlikely Events

'Worst Case' Bhopal, India Chemical Disaster Hangs on Unlikely Events

Okay, Stephen, you not only get several for that, but I'm gonna name you my hero for the month Perfect.

John Deere sucks!

Ack! Quiet you fool! Do you want to be burned at the stake as a communist? (By the way, do you happen to watch "Mad Men"? There's an awesome--and wacky--episode involving a John Deere mower in the third season...

Wow, three whole paragraphs from Trysail (albeit short ones) without stealing and reposting someone else's property. *Applause*

He'd been practicing. I think we should all be very proud of him and the great progress he's made.

who should be informed that the laws of physics are not determined by economics, nor are they concerned with maintaining his personal wealth.

Are you sure? 'Cause I'm pretty sure things are heavier and moving slower ever since we moved into a bear market....

 

[stephen55]

I remain incredulous ( but amused ) that anybody could possibly believe that 200 lines of code from GISS ModelE was a complete program. You're either dumber than a box of rocks or the most gullible buffoon who ever came down the pike.

As I recall (it was a while ago that I checked out the program) you were the one who presented it as a complete program, part of your agnotological program to misinform. If you don't believe NASA (or anyone else) can write a program to model climate, feel free to say so. Just have the decency not to imply they did it in less than a few hundred lines.

As for me being a misologist (I had to look it up), I hardly think so. I have no fear or hate of reason or logic. I just don't appreciate, much less value, yours. Back in that thread, I posted that if (I think it was) 95% of the world's climate scientists believe human activity is effecting climate, then to us mere laypersons, that's worth accepting. You will undoubtedly continue to cut and paste your disagreement. My going with the opinion of nearly all the climate scientists in the world doesn't make me illogical or irrational.

Feel free to put me on ignore. When I see agnotology, especially from you or ami, I will pounce.

Even imbeciles with behavioral issues need a hobby.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Dr. M! A science geek and Jewish! Swoon You're the son-in-law my parents always wanted for me. Alas, I found you too late. Ah, what a marriage we could have had...bottles of shared anti-depressants on the nightstands, and two super-smart goth kids

Yes, and I'm filthy rich too of course, from my control of all the world's media outlets, stabbing Germany in the back in WWI, and precipitating the Great Depression and the Credit Collapse of '08!

Now I've got to go boil up some Christian kids for Passover and work on those plans for world domination by homosexual negro feminists. It's a busy life, but a full one...

See you under my boot heel, suckers!

--Hymie Mabeuse

 

[TE999]

The Surgeon General sounds the alarm and the west coast isn't about to be caught napping.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/03/1...dden-increase-potassium-iodide-sales/#comment