Slashdot Mirror
Why Onagawa Nuclear Power Station Survived the Tsunami
Kyusaku Natsume writes "While the town of Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture, was hit hard by the March 2011 tsunami, the nuclear plant it shares with the equally devastated city of Ishinomaki survived. The reason it did so is mostly down to the personal strength and tenacity of one Yanosuke Hirai, who passed away in 1986 and insisted that the plant should have been protected by a 14.8 m tall seawall. A great quote from the article: 'Corporate ethics and compliance may be similar, but their cores are different, from the perspective of corporate social responsibility, we cannot say that there is no need to question a company's actions just because they are not a crime under the law.'"
Laws and legal liability are a subset of social ethics. Just because you can do something legally isn't a vindication that you should do it.
Dear Fellow Hacker,
Unfortunately, I will be unable to provide the assistance you desire, as I have some serious concerns regarding the engineering work that has already been done on the project, and I doubt the current estimates provide an accurate foundation for future work.
Firstly, there is the estimate of "a hour or less" to read a Slashdot post. While I have spent an hour reading a comment before, it was the proofreading of my own essay-length point-by-point rebuttal. The referenced post is obviously not nearly long enough or detailed enough to require an hour to read, so I see this as an intentional over-estimate, seeking to receive a larger donation of time than is actually needed.
Second, you seem to have greatly underestimated the size of a hydraulic pump in comparison to a horizontal plane. You ask for "an hand in finding an hydraulic pump that is in an horizontal plane". A plane, being two-dimensional, has exactly zero thickness, which is not sufficient to hold even an atom of a hydraulic pump.
Finally, you appear to for the power requirements of a helicopter. Helicopters can of course be designed to have any amount of available power, but that is not my concern here. Rather, I question the efficiency of your design, as the engine will need extra power to compensate for the added weight of the extraneous "n"s that appear to be attached to your "a"s.
Yours sincerely,
Grammar Nazi
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
... we cannot say that there is no need to question a company's actions just because they are not a crime under the law.
The spirit of the Samurai still lives. This is good. I'd thought MacArthur had bled that out of the Japanese.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
The right thing to do is not necessarily the profitable or expedient thing to do.
To quote Richard Feynman, "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." Engineering must NEVER have its integrity compromised by issues of money, politics, law, marketing, religion, bureaucracy, or superstition. History repeatedly teaches this to us and yet we still obstinately refuse to learn. And the result is that people are injured or killed.
As a computer engineer, I am always a little jealous of the "all in a days work" attitude of good civil engineers. This is a bit of a puff piece, but the unfortunate fact is, we, as engineers, often can't or at least don't anticipate all possible problems down the line. This is an amazing story of success, but it just underscores the fact that this is exception, not the rule. Regardless, technology keeps marching and we can only hope to get better and better, despite governments' inadequacies.
I wonder if TEPCO will attempt to claim credit for something they didn't want to do.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
They should build a giant statue of Yanosuke Hirai as a reminder. My organization needs one also.
Table-ized A.I.
If you've read Professor Yunus's Book, "Creating a World without Poverty" in which he describes the concept of "Social Business" as an alternative to pathological profit-maximisation, you will fully appreciate his interpretation of "Corporate Social Responsibility" being synonymous with "Corporate Financial *irresponsibility*".
the damage caused by allowing Corporations to get so out of control at a National (and an International) level should by now be quite obvious, with these kinds of examples such as Fukushima. there is an alternative pathogen which consumes all resources and maximises its own gain to the absolute exclusion of all other considerations: it's called Cancer. Profit-maximising Corporations are a Cancer and should be treated as a disease.
While I'm far from disagreeing that nuclear power stations should be as safe as conceivably possible, what about the cities?
18 Cities were largely or completely destroyed by the tsunami (others merely to some small part). This is where people lived, this is where people died. Where is the scandal, where is the outrage about exposing some 500,000 to the risk of the on-rushing water? Where is the investigation why it could be that almost 20,000 people died?
There has been so much supposedly outraged talk about Fukushima Daiichi, about how anybody could expose the people to such risks, that it is grotesque that nobody is talking about the risk that was there, that was obvious, that killed people.
Interesting argument, but it relies on a logical fallacy that implies our wealth is derived from being free, and not from being a growing industrialized nation. China might be an argument against your supposition.
Other thought - while our country was "free" there were horrors, like rivers catching on fire from accumulated waste, and working situations like "the Jungle" by Upton Sinclair.
Our wealth is beng polarized by the new Oil Barrons, and wasteful wars, etc.
..........FULL STOP.