The Great Unwind

Occupy, Violence and the State

2011-10-28T06:10:37Z

The fractious news media cackle over the Occupy movement’s motives and the hygiene of its participants continues to raise the ire of astute internet citizens everywhere. Commenter coffee100 summed up the controversy over the recent Occupy violence in Oakland with wit and brevity:

Every time there is any possibility of a genuine substantive conversation in this country, someone shouts “Obama” or “Tea Bagger” or “Democrats are to blame” or “Republicans are the problem” and all thought ceases while everyone re-aligns their position to side with their team.

Stop it. Just stop. The slogans and the mascots are the problem. It is distracting us from what we should be paying attention to. This isn’t about your side. It’s about Americans.

A man was attacked and injured exercising his Constitutionally protected right to petition the Government for a redress of greivances. That is the problem and nothing else. It has nothing to do with Obama and the Republicans or red states or blue states or any of that manufactured shit.

Every last elected official in the Federal Government should be voted out of office at the earliest opportunity. That there isn’t lectern-pounding outrage in Congress at the events of the last week is proof enough none of them are fit to serve.

Well said, sir.

Bretton Woods 2011: Larry Summers and Martin Wolf

2011-04-12T20:39:50Z

In which Larry Summers speaks remarkably candidly about the problem of regulatory capture. You can almost see the words Timothy Geithner on his lips. Alas he stops short of issuing a mea culpa (starting at about 24:33):

Let the extortion begin..

2011-04-11T16:38:14Z

The Hill is reporting that Speaker Boehner is preparing to demand further budget cuts as a requirement to raising the debt ceiling for the US government. This comes hot on the heels of the weekend concessions made to the budget arsonists as President Obama ceded them the argument that budget cutting is necessary for job creation, despite strong evidence to the contrary. It is going to be a long, hot summer.

Presentation by Areva Nuclear Engineer on Fukushima Accident Modeling

2011-04-05T00:15:36Z

The Washington Post and the New York Times have separately produced two new articles regarding the forensic reconstruction of the Fuskushima Daiichi accident by different teams of nuclear scientists around the world. Buried in the Times article was a reference to a slide show presentation presented by nuclear engineer Dr. Alan Hansen who is employed by the french nuclear power firm Areva and is currently a visiting professor at Stanford. Elements of the slide show are reported to have been developed by Dr. Mattias Braun with Areva’s German Unit. The slide show does indeed give a detailed account, complete with diagrams, explaining how the accident has likely unfolded so far:

The New York Times article quotes Dr. Hansen as having told the Stanford crowd, “Clearly, we’re witnessing one of the greatest disasters in modern time.” From the presentation’s language, the spent fuel pools continue to represent the largest potential source of fission product release.

Iodine-131 data from CTBTO monitoring stations

2011-04-13T18:11:19Z

I found these two interesting graphics on the website of Germany’s Federal Office for Radiation Protection.

The first graph shows the concentration of airborne Iodine-131 at monitoring stations around the northern hemisphere. It is very interesting to see how quickly the Iodine-131 concentration reached relative equilibrium across the northern hemisphere (with the exception of Japan):

The second image shows the spatial-temporal detection of Fukushima origin radionuclides at each testing station. Unfortunately no associated data for each station is being published yet.

In addition, the U.S. EPA has published detailed data for a number of radionuclides (*PDF*) from its RadNet monitoring network for western U.S. monitoring stations. Interestingly, the data for Dutch Harbor, Alaska show cartridge based monitors have detected I-131 an order of magnitude greater (2.8 pCi/m3) than that detected by filter based monitoring equipment (0.20 pCi/m3) at the same location and date (both values are very small). No explanation for the discrepancy is provided, but similar trends are apparent from other stations using both types of equipment.

Radiation Monitoring in Tokyo

2011-03-29T23:29:49Z

The Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Public Health has published radiation monitoring data for the city of Tokyo (air distance of approximately 150 mi. from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant) taken during the period 3/18-3/23. The level of I-131 atmospheric fallout has increased by 3-orders of magnitude from the beginning of the accident to 35,700 bq/m2 as of 3/23. The level of Cesium-137 measured in Tokyo peaked on 3/22 at 5,300 bq/m2 and then dropped to 335 bq/m2 by 3/23.

In comparison, levels of Cesium-137 measured in the air at Vienna, Austria on April 30th 1986, four days after the Chernobyl disaster (approximately 640 air miles) measured 9.7 bq/m2 while levels of Cesium-137 measured as ground deposition in South Finland (also approximately 600 air miles) on May 6-7, 1986 measured 40,000 bq/m2.

Reference article with a great overview of the sources, health and ecological impacts of natural and nuclear energy related radionuclides in the environment (PDF): Radionuclides in the Great Lakes Basin.

Japan’s Nuclear Emergency – Lastest release figures compared with Chernobyl

2011-03-29T23:30:22Z

Data from the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization’s (CTBTO) monitoring stations are beginning to accumulate sufficiently to estimate the quantity and type of radionucleotide release from Fukushima Daiichi, and the data indicate that the accidental release is quite substantial:

In the phase of March 12 to 13, the Fukushima emissions were mostly transported to the Pacific, eventually hitting the CTBTO station in Sacramento/California. In the phase March 14 to 15, on the other hand, most of the emissions were transported inland, hitting the CTBTO station in Takasaki, Japan. Based on simulated dilution factors and measurements, we were able to have a first rough source estimate.
Regarding Iodine-131, the picture is relatively homogeneous. A source term of 10^17 Bq per day would explain the measurements in Takasaki as well as Sacramento. The total 4-day emission of 4 x 10^17 Bq is on the order of 20% of the total emissions of Iodine-131 that occurred during the Chernobyl accident. Regarding Cesium-137, the situation is a bit different. In the cloud eventually propagating to the United States, the ratio of Iodine-131 to Cesium-137 was about 30. This is similar to the Chernobyl accident. In Takasaki, however, this ratio was four. This would indicate a much larger Cesium-137 release in the second two-day period after the accident. Taking this together, the source terms would be about 3 x 10^15 Bq during the first two days, and 3 x 10^16 during the second two-day period. In sum, this could amount to about 50% of the Chernobyl source term of Cesium-137.

Source: http://www.zamg.ac.at/docs/aktuell/Japan2011-03-22_1500_E.pdf

Based on the accumulating evidence, it will be interesting to see if Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency will be forced to again raise it’s accident severity rating from 5 on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES).

Japan’s Nuclear Emergency – Facts and Figures

2011-04-12T03:57:51Z

The mainstream media coverage of the unfolding nuclear disaster at Japan’s damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has been disappointing to say the least. From fear mongering to apologist soliloquies about the safety of commercial nuclear power, the up-to-the-minute facts have been hard to come by. Here are some excellent factual links from agencies, industry professionals and news organizations that are producing timely updates about the status of the Japanese efforts to bring the situation under control:

Japan Atomic Industrial Forum – producing a table with daily updates of the status of each reactor complex

All Things Nuclear, a blog from The Union of Concerned Scientists is producing thoughtful and detailed analysis of the accident’s likely causes and potential impacts

ZAMC – the Austrian Weather Service, in an official capacity for the Incident and Emergency Center of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is producing real time updates on the status of possible weather transport of radionuclides dispersed by the wind (English PDF translation at the bottom of the page)

Update 3/28: Germany’s Federal Ministry of the Environment, Society for Plant and Reactor Safety – provides graphs and maps of the affected regions (this is a google translate page, you need to download the figures directly from the original URL to see the graphics)

Update 3/29: Germany’s Federal Office for Radiation Protection is producing a number of informative charts and graphics regarding the CTBTO detection data throughout the northern hemisphere, including this animated map showing the detection of radionuclides by date:

Update 4/11: SIROCCO, at the request of the IAEA, is now modeling radionuclide dispersion into the pacific ocean.

TEPCO is operating a live web camera showing the Fukushima Daiichi facility from a distance

Update 3/29: The U.S. EPA is deployed a new map based RadNET interface and has begun publishing detailed radionuclide monitoring data for selected stations from the U.S. west.

Update 4/11: The U.S. EPA has a new, dynamically updateable table of radionuclide contamination readings here.

A private citizen in Tokyo – graphing the real time output of a Geiger counter (CPM units) with wind speed and direction and weather updates

~~NHK, Japan’s National News service is running a 24hr (not always live) english language stream on UStream~~ – the stream has been disabled

Update 3/30: NHK’s New’s Science and Culture Division is now publishing regular updates on radionuclide concentrations found in the air and sea water samples from around Fukushima Daiichi.

Update 4/3: Additional sources of radiation monitoring levels within Japan:

Unknown Japanese source #1
Unknown Japanese source (Tokyo) #2
MEXT Data by Prefecture

The UC Berkeley Department of Nuclear Engineering is posting daily updates on the levels of various radionuclides present in air, rain water, tap water and milk samples collected in the Bay Area. The data is very interesting because it gives us a clearer picture of how the particulate fallout is washed out by rain and bio-accumulates as a result of the food chain. The data time series is much more complete than what has been posted to date by the EPA.

Though less complete, the UW Physics Department is posting similar data from air monitoring in Seattle, WA.

Chris Dodd quietly joins MPAA

2011-03-04T22:28:35Z

An apropos follow-up to GQ’s story The Day The Movies Died, Chris Dodd has become chairman and CEO of Hollywood’s lobbying arm, the MPAA.

Chris Dodd shows how Washington works

Mad World

2011-03-04T22:08:30Z

More grave news from the Middle East region, including reports that a Saudi protest organizer, Faisal Ahmed Abdul-Ahadwas, has been killed by government forces. Saudia Arabia could see significant protester actions planned for late next week.

The western diplomacy effort continues to face a major test of its capacity to buffer against the numerous popular uprisings in the region. All this amidst growing mainstream recognition that western energy policy is culpable in perpetuating otherwise unsustainable middle eastern regimes.