For the last few months I've been on a mission to rid the world of the phrase"going forward". But now I see that the way forward is to admit defeat. This most horrid phrase is with us on a go-forward basis, like it or not.
Sunday, 17 June 2012
Fukushima reference Wikipedia
Radiation effects from Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster
"on the order of 1,000" people will die from cancer as a result of their exposure to radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi disaster
Concerns about the possibility of a large scale radiation leak resulted in 20 km exclusion zone being set up around the power plant and people within the 20–30 km zone being advised to stay indoors.
It could take "more than 20 years before residents could safely return to areas with current radiation readings of 200 millisieverts per year, and a decade for areas at 100 millisieverts per year"
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster
It is the largest nuclear disaster since the Chernobyl disaster of 1986
A few of the plant's workers were severely injured or killed by the disaster conditions resulting from the earthquake. There were no immediate deaths due to direct radiation exposures, but at least six workers have exceeded lifetime legal limits for radiation and more than 300 have received significant radiation doses. Predicted future cancer deaths due to accumulated radiation exposures in the population living near Fukushima have ranged from none to 100 to a non-peer-reviewed "guesstimate" of 1,000. Fear of ionizing radiation could have long-term psychological effects on a large portion of the population in the contaminated areas.
In October 2011, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said the government will spend at least 1 trillion yen ($13 billion) to clean up vast areas contaminated by radiation from the Fukuahima nuclear disaster. Japan "faces the prospect of removing and disposing 29 million cubic meters of soil from a sprawling area in Fukushima, located 240 kilometers (150 miles) northeast of Tokyo, and four nearby prefectures"
On 16 December 2011 Japanese authorities declared the plant to be stable, although it would take decades to decontaminate the surrounding areas and to decommission the plant altogether.
On 21 December 2011, the Japanese government released a roadmap for the cleanup activities, which predicted that the full cleanup will take 40 years
Going Green?:
As of September 2011, Japan plans to build a pilot floating wind farm, with six 2-megawatt turbines, off the Fukushima coast.[417] After the evaluation phase is complete in 2016, "Japan plans to build as many as 80 floating wind turbines off Fukushima by 2020."[417]
In 2012, Naoto Kan said the Fukushima disaster made it clear to him that "Japan needs to dramatically reduce its dependence on nuclear power, which supplied 30% of its electricity before the crisis, and has turned him into a believer of renewable energy".[291]
Sales of solar cells in Japan rose 30.7% to 1,296 megawatts in 2011, helped by a government scheme to promote renewable energy.Canadian Solar plans to build a factory in Japan and is currently in negotiations with local governments in Fukushima and Miyagi prefectures. The facility is expected to have a capacity of 150 megawatts of solar panels a year, could go online as soon as 2013
Nuclear power in Japan
Problems in stabilizing the Fukushima I nuclear plant have hardened attitudes to nuclear power. As of June 2011, "more than 80 percent of Japanese now say they are anti-nuclear and distrust government information on radiation".[10] Post-Fukushima polls suggest that somewhere "between 41 and 54 percent of Japanese support scrapping, or reducing the numbers of, nuclear power plants".[11] Tens of thousands of people marched in central Tokyo in September 2011, chanting "Sayonara nuclear power" and waving banners, to call on Japan's government to abandon atomic energy
Japanese nuclear incidents
During preparation of a uranyl nitrate solution, uranium in solution exceeded the critical mass, at a uranium reprocessing facility in Tokai-mura northeast of Tokyo, Japan. Three workers were exposed to (neutron) radiation doses in excess of allowable limits. Two of these workers died. 116 other workers received lesser doses of 1 mSv or greater though not in excess of the allowable limit
Tuesday, 5 June 2012
Terminal velocity
Why Aren't Mosquitoes killed by Raindrops?
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0604/How-military-might-benefit-from-study-of-hard-to-kill-mosquitoes
on average, raindrops have about the same diameter as their test subjects, wingtip to wingtip. But the raindrop weighs anywhere from 2 to 50 times that of the mosquitoes. By the time the drops approach the ground, they travel at between 13 and 20 miles an hour. Proportionally, that's like an encounter between a bus and a pedestrian at up to 20 miles an hour. .. with an impact from a raindrop, a mosquito can handle up to 300 Gs, the team calculates.
In the end, a combination of a mosquito's external skeleton and its status as a featherweight kept it from falling victim to rainfall.
the mosquito has hydrophobic hairs on its body and sprawling legs that create drag. This lets it slip out from under the raindrop before meeting a wet end.
..Rapid acceleration also produces the greatest risk to mosquitoes: flying close to the ground. When hit by a raindrop, they would accelerate into the ground with great force and without sufficient time to slide out from underneath.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/06/04/how-the-mosquito-survives-a-raindrop-collision/
See video at this site above.
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