It almost certainly will but Japan faces two issues that will tell the tale. The Japanese population is aging out of the work force. With little immigration and a negative birth rate, their population is declining.
"John R. Carroll" on Wed, 16 Mar 2011 00:45:22
-0700 typed >>> pyotr filipivich wrote:
Has been since 2005 (iirc). that was the first year (outside of the war years) when more people died, than were born in Japan.
Japan in 1945 "only" had human capital. A relatively young labor force, and not much else. I think Honda got his start selling salvaged engines attached to bicycles... But in 2011 - the Japanese population is older, and declining. Not a good thing.
It was, but not so thoroughly that people couldn't collect some of the melted sand that lined it:
Does anybody have a non-dumbed down page on these reactors?
I have a few specific questions
- where do they dump their waste heat? I see no cooling towers, so I assume it's the ocean, but who knows.
- what's the heat dissipatation of one reactor that's been shut off?
- what's the heat dissipatation of those cooling ponds hold used rods?
- where are all these cooling pumps even located?
- how does one run out of water?
See below
Maybe that's why they built them there or on rivers? Even then some need cooling towers lest they discomfort the fishies. The mandatory discharge temperature standards are stricter than those for baby bath water.
That depends on the age of the fuel. The heat comes from accumulated byproducts.
Again, age. The answer also involves [unspecified] security concerns. Ask the PIO.
Inside the shielding, the water is dangerously radioactive from Nitrogen-16 for a short while.
Not just water, specially treated water.
That's like saying it's a good thing that your house burned down.... If you had a heap of insurance and the house needed a whole bunch of repairs it might be a good thing but some of your family may have died in the fire.
John
It sure isn't a choice one would make to re-vitalize their economy. But WWII got us out of the Depression. That was an unintended consequence, too.
I'm loathe to talk about this too much because I think the focus should be on the human agony faced by the Japanese, and what we can do to help. But, as I said, it's an ironic angle on the whole thing.
PIO?
good links, thanks.
Well, there's also the question of where the rebuilding will be - right back in the same zones so it can happen again the next time, or with some thought to next time and some new agricultural land (or other thing that does not mind flooding too much) where things got wiped out, and facilities that really need to be right on the water on adequate stilts?
I'm sickened by the behavior of people in the US who build on barrier islands (that's "big, shifting sandbar" and an utterly unsuitable place to put anything that's not on wheels or disposable) and keep rebuilding in the same spot courtesy of federal flood insurance, treating each entirely credible, normal storm and its utterly normal sand movement as "incredible"...
'Don't know. Nuke and structural engineers are needed for that.
Me, too, although I think that federal assistance for flood insurance on barrier islands came to an end with a bill passed by Congress in 1981. I think it was for new construction, though, and that existing homes could still get it. I don't know the status of it today. I remember the year because it was the year my parents moved to a new house on Long Beach Island in NJ. I used to bitch at them for it but it was nice to have a place at the beach that my wife and I didn't have to pay for. d8-(
I think they will rebuild in place, but with far stronger structures, for lack of any other suitable place - it's not like there is any unused land in Japan.
To put a scale on this, the affected area is the coastline from Sendai to Tokyo, about 200 miles, by 2 to 5 miles inland (judging by published maps). This is somewhere between 200 and 1000 square miles of densely populated land that just got scoured clean.
In US terms, this would be equivalent to the coast from Northern NJ to Boston being scoured clean. Equivalent in land area, but the population density in Japan is a factor higher.
I don't care if people want to build on picturesque sandbars. I just don't want to pay for the required periodic replacement.
In the Boston area, we have plenty of rich old Yankees, and they love their beachfront property that has been in the family since the Mayflower. But those Yankees do understand - many of their fortunes were built as shipowners and merchants. The houses are cheaply (for them) built and furnished, in the full expectation that there will be major damage every twenty years or so.
Joe Gwinn
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