Fukushima Floating Offshore Wind Turbine Starts Generating Power

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Fukushima Floating Offshore Wind Turbine Starts Generating Power

Posted by samzenpus on Monday November 11, 2013 @05:40AM from the power-up dept.

mdsolar writes in with news about a new wind-energy project off the coast of Fukushima. "A project to harness the power of the wind about 20 kilometers (12 miles) off the coast of Fukushima, site of the March 2011 nuclear disaster, began generating power on an operational basis today. The project, funded by the government and led by Marubeni Corp. (8002), is a symbol of Japan's ambition to commercialize the unproven technology of floating offshore wind power and its plan to turn quake-ravaged Fukushima into a clean energy hub. 'Fukushima is making a stride toward the future step by step,' Yuhei Sato, governor of Fukushima, said today at a ceremony in Fukushima marking the project's initiation. 'Floating offshore wind is a symbol of such a future.'"

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Wind power for rescuing crippled nuclear plant... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 05:42 · Score: 0

Sounds like there's an extra step involved.
Meanwhile... by StephenThomasKrausJr · 2013-11-11 05:44 · Score: -1, Troll

Nothing is happening at Fukushima Nuclear Plant. Wind power is great and all, but NOTHING has happened. Even the leak is minute in comparison to the damage done by the tsunami. Solar, Wind, Nuclear Fission and Fusion, that is the future gentlemen.
1. Re:Meanwhile... by edxwelch · 2013-11-11 06:00 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  You're wrong. Fukushima is still leaking fissile material into the sea: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/world/asia/with-a-plants-tainted-water-still-flowing-no-end-to-environmental-fears.html?_r=0
2. Re:Meanwhile... by StephenThomasKrausJr · 2013-11-11 06:06 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  And nothing has happened. The amount of radiation released from the leak, while the leak should be repaired ASAP, is minute and is still LOWER than the background radiation. http://tech.mit.edu/V131/N13/yost.html If you have taken College Chemistry, you'll know why even the radiation released from the leak is nothing compared to both the background radiation in the ocean due to dilution and not even a drop in the bucket compared to the radiation released from nuclear testing we conducted in the Pacific Ocean.
3. Re:Meanwhile... by LWATCDR · 2013-11-11 06:09 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  True and do the math as well.
  New Wind farm 2 mega watts with 7 more coming soon. And someday it maybe on gigawatt.... Someday.
  The Fukushima Nuclear Plant when working. 4,696 MWs Installed and over 7000 MW planned...
  So the windfarm is making less than 1/500th the power of the nuclear plant.
  
  --
  See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
4. Re:Meanwhile... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 06:11 · Score: -1
  
  That's what the frog said sitting in a pot of water.
5. Re:Meanwhile... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 06:12 · Score: 0
  
  Fukushima is still leaking fissile material into the sea
  I'm pretty sure they're not leaking "fissile" material - the article you quoted says "radioactive", not "fissile". I understand you're trying to look all educated and stuff, but least learn what the words mean before using them...
6. Re:Meanwhile... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 06:17 · Score: 1
  
  Environmental Fears != Environmental Facts.
  From the article, emphasis mine.
  Even the most alarmed of the scientists who were interviewed did not extend their worries about the new releases to human health. With more than 80,000 residents near the plant evacuated almost immediately after the disaster, and fishing in nearby waters still severely restricted, they say there is little or no direct danger to humans from the latest releases. But, they say, that does not rule out other impacts on the environment.
7. Re:Meanwhile... by Drethon · 2013-11-11 06:19 · Score: 1
  
  Only if that pot of water is just sitting under the sun in a field somewhere... we've survived for quite some time in that background radiation that is higher than the leak.
8. Re:Meanwhile... by GarethIwanFairclough · 2013-11-11 06:27 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  True and do the math as well. New Wind farm 2 mega watts with 7 more coming soon. And someday it maybe on gigawatt.... Someday. The Fukushima Nuclear Plant when working. 4,696 MWs Installed and over 7000 MW planned... So the windfarm is making less than 1/500th the power of the nuclear plant.
  Don't forget that the reactors were able to provide that power reliably and predictably, something which wind power could never dream of doing.
  As a friend of mine once said "Environmentalists might bat early, but physics bats last".
9. Re:Meanwhile... by edxwelch · 2013-11-11 06:36 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  No, the repairs will take a considerable amount of time. If you knew anything about radiation effects on humans you would know of the Linear no-threshold model - it predicts that exposing a huge portion of world population to small amounts of radiation is guarateed to have some health effects. It's estimated 300 tons of toxic water enter the ocean each day from Fukusima. Only an idiot would say that you can dump that into the environment without any consequences.
10. Re:Meanwhile... by angel'o'sphere · 2013-11-11 06:55 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  The radiation is a few hundret times higher than background radiation, or why exactly is there 20km forbidden zone and a 40km evac zone?
  In a 200km zone young couples get urged by authorities not to get children ... food grown in that area is not safe for children and young adults, people try to avoid it.
  
  --
  Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
11. Re:Meanwhile... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 07:08 · Score: -1
  
  Reading these replies is insane. I really think all you guys come here to convince yourselves that you are smart. I mean what the hell do you think they are gonna say? Oh, gee sorry, we have completely ruined the environment for humans for 10000 years? "They" said everything is fine. Well no shit!!!
  
  This is like saying "Ok" to the cop who has his boot on your neck while you're asking him what gives him the right to assault your family in your home without a warrant and his answer is "I do".
  
  If you spent 30 years building a career, and "they" asked if you like having that job, you would say whatever the hell they told you to say. Period. Any other response to that and you're lying. When are you all gonna wake the heck up? You are the slave and they are the master. They do whatever they want and you sit by and allow it because you convince yourselves that you are smart and therefore right. Normalcy bias is a closed loop of insanity. How do you like that logic pinhead?
12. Re:Meanwhile... by alexander_686 · 2013-11-11 07:47 · Score: 2
  
  What was the output of the first demonstration nuclear power plant? Probably not that much.
  Remember, this project is to evaluate the prospects first, generate power second. I am sure there are going to be many problems until they get the kinks work out. Only after offshore floating power plants have proven to work (which is a big maybe) will they crank up the assembly line and start churning these puppies out.
13. Re:Meanwhile... by DrXym · 2013-11-11 08:15 · Score: 1
  
  Nothing has happened except for the mass evacuation of 300,000 people, the > 1000 deaths which have been attributed to this evacuation, the 30km exclusion zone around the plant, the loss to industry caused by power shortages, the financial turmoil, the trashed reactors that must be made safe, the headache of decontaminating and decommissioning the entire site and the trillion yen bill at the end.
  I don't think there is serious debate that nuclear is a very important source of power, one that can not be discounted. But it would be wise for any strategy to make use of renewables whenever humanly possible. Perhaps Japan is now sufficiently motivated to show other countries how it can be done.
14. Re:Meanwhile... by cheesybagel · 2013-11-11 08:17 · Score: 1
  
  The generated energy from wind power increases with wind turbine blade size. The turbine blades are as large as the wings of a 747 already.
15. Re:Meanwhile... by alexander_686 · 2013-11-11 08:39 · Score: 2
  
  Not quite sure where you are going with this. It is not the physicals that I am concerned about, it’s the engineering.
  I have some knowledge of the installation of wind turbines in the Midwest. There were a lot of issues. The engineers factored in the top wind speed but did not factor in that it was gusty. Lots of burnt out generators, stripped gears, and cracked blades. It took a few years to work out the kinks.
  I know little about this particular install but I am willing to bet that getting the electricity off of the floating platform to mainland is going to be tricky. Salt water has its own batch of issues. I am not saying it can’t be economically done. Just that small scale testing will give the experience to figure out if it should scale.
16. Re:Meanwhile... by Joining+Yet+Again · 2013-11-11 08:43 · Score: 1
  
  Leaking less than background radiation - u wot m8? So Fukushima is actually an isotope cleanser?
  Man, you need to get these guys to hire you for PR.
17. Re:Meanwhile... by greg_barton · 2013-11-11 08:45 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, and the water has been raised 0.000001 degrees.
18. Re:Meanwhile... by greg_barton · 2013-11-11 08:46 · Score: 0
  
  Why? Simple: Fear.
19. Re:Meanwhile... by DemoLiter3 · 2013-11-11 08:58 · Score: 1, Flamebait
  
  Yes, we know about the famous LNT model. And we know that it's bullshit, and that only idiots still use it. So, your point is?...
20. Re:Meanwhile... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 09:07 · Score: 1
  
  This is because radiation is invisible, GE/Hitachi/Toshiba and news agency's are all trying to protect us against knowing the truth.
  This is just another "look at Fukushima its doing so good, and ignore the fact that we have three meltdowns, three coriums that we don't know nor will probably ever know the whereabouts, contaminating the groundwater, and poisoning our oceans"
  Just great isn't it... Masao Yoshida dies, throat cancer, Nothing to do with Fukushima, kids with cysts in their thyroids (way above the normal rate I might add) nothing to do with Fukushima, places in Fukushima still inhabited considered dead zones in Chernobyl.
  Call it whatever you want, but it saddens me every time people say this disaster is over or not a issue....
  Sooner or later, time will tell, and we will be kicking ourselves for not doing something about it rather than burying our heads in the sand and letting big media and the "players" do what they do best, protect big business profits over anything else. Sad world we live in isn't it.
  At least the plant is in a "Cold Shutdown" according to Tepco, I can sleep at night.
21. Re:Meanwhile... by LWATCDR · 2013-11-11 09:15 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  And what was the output of the first wind turbine? Wind turbines are not new at all.
  The largest wind turbine is the http://www.vestas.com/en/media/news/news-display.aspx?action=3&NewsID=3163 at 8MWs. So you would need 587 of these to match the nuclear power plant. Scaling them up much bigger is really not going to be practical as the blades are already 80 meters long. The idea of churning these puppies out is extremely optimistic Let's say they can make and install one of these monsters a month. To match the nuclear plants output would only take 48 years. Even if it takes 10 years for a reactor you could have 5 plants in operation in that time. Now think about world wide production. Factories that can make something like this will be limited in number. Just shipping the blades will be a huge task. Then the infrastructure of floating wind farms and the under sea power cables and maintaing the wind turbines in a marine environment. This is not as easy you may think and it is not because it is "new" but because of well known problems that intrinsic to the system.
  
  --
  See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
22. Re:Meanwhile... by angel'o'sphere · 2013-11-11 09:25 · Score: 2
  
  So, you had no reason of fear to live there? Go ahead, prices for houses are on an all time low.
  
  --
  Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
23. Re:Meanwhile... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 09:58 · Score: 0
  
  I think you are a liar. How much does a house in the 40km zone cost? Can it actually be bought? Yes, maybe it "would" be cheaper, if they were selling, but I looked and can't find Fukushima properties for sale anywhere.
24. Re:Meanwhile... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 10:10 · Score: 0
  
  The first demonstration nuclear power plants were negative power, as are a number of current smaller nuclear power plants (used for medical and research purposes).
25. Re:Meanwhile... by AmiMoJo · 2013-11-11 10:46 · Score: 2
  
  18 children have thyroid cancer and there are 25 more suspected cases. NHK is the Japanese national broadcaster, like the British BBC, BTW.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
26. Re:Meanwhile... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 10:47 · Score: 0
  
  One word: bias
  And LOTS and LOTS of it, while claiming to speak for science.
  Humbug and sharlatans. Two more words. Got more where that came from too.
  Pro-tip: Bio-accumulation over time. Nasty unpredictable effects over geographic areas and in various lifeforms.
  Why did USA stop screening for radiatian on imported foods again? Yeah, see above.
27. Re:Meanwhile... by AmiMoJo · 2013-11-11 10:48 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Are you aware that all Japanese reactors have had close to 0% output over the last few years?
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
28. Re:Meanwhile... by Luckyo · 2013-11-11 11:27 · Score: 1
  
  His point stands. Tsunami was the single biggest disaster to hit Japan in a long time. We're looking at millions displaced, over 30.000 dead, hundreds of thousands wounded, massive economic and infrastructure damage.
  Fukushima gets a lot of publicity because "nuclear is scary" for average people, but the amount of fear in comparison to actual threat is incredibly inflated. And on the other hand, amount of fear for natural disasters, that are several orders of magnitude more dangerous is "meh, not so scary, don't care".
  Tsunami got a whole lot less publicity than Fukushima did. Compare the damage those two events did. Fukushima is going to have to do something pretty damn huge in comparison to what it's doing now to become more than a small slice in the huge chart when comparing it to tsunami that caused it.
  We just had another disaster in the Philippines. It crippled most of the country. I'll bet you 100:1 that no one will remember it in just a few months. Yet we'll still be talking about Fukushima. At the same time, consequences of that disaster, just like (other) consequences of the tsunami in Japan are still huge.
  That's the big problem. Media blows things completely out of proportions because scaring people with word "nuclear" and "radiation" sells. Scaring people with word "tsunami" or "storm", not so much. It's a matter of proportionality, and it's completely out of whack in modern society. We are taught to fear largely inconsequential things, while largely ignoring huge threats.
29. Re:Meanwhile... by Krigl · 2013-11-11 11:29 · Score: 1
  
  Stop reading NY Times for scientific information, they're bunch of hacks. United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation specifically states:
  
  the Scientific Committee does not recommend multiplying very low doses by large numbers of individuals to estimate numbers of radiation-induced health effects within a population exposed to incremental doses at levels equivalent to or lower than natural background levels.
  That's just from the last year, after extensive research, but it's been assumed for the long time - there are many areas with pretty high radiation levels (Ramsar has 260 mSv/y, compare that with Fukushima) without any measurable health impacts. Except the Iitate village, most of that "terribly contaminated" area is about as much radioactive as Denver. If I recall correctly, those Washington lobbyists hanging around Congress get more ionizing radiation from the all the granite. So for the love of Feynman, learn to stop worrying and to check your sources.
  
  --
  Troll 2.0 Fear my asocial networking!
30. Re:Meanwhile... by Luckyo · 2013-11-11 11:33 · Score: 2
  
  Actually we know that it has no consequences, because we observe people, today, living in envirnments far more radioactive than those around Fukushima in amounts of millions. Take Mexico City for example. It's background radiation is far greater because it's situated so high. Yet there are no visible spikes in things normally associated with radiation, such as cancer.
  Let me repeat that: we KNOW that small increases in radiation exposure has no effect on health because we have millions upon millions living in such environments. Anyone arguing against this would be arguing against reality. Which is why no one except idiots talks about linear no threshold model.
31. Re:Meanwhile... by Luckyo · 2013-11-11 11:35 · Score: 1
  
  Did you read what he said? No wait, did you read what YOU just said?
  Leaking radiation is obviously not a part of background radiation. Therefore there is absolutely no conflict with that statement - leaking radiation can be less than background radiation.
32. Re: Meanwhile... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 12:21 · Score: 1
  
  Also let's not forget that windpower is much more dangerous than radiation. The turbines slow down the rotation of the earth. More nuclear ! It's SAFER !
33. Re:Meanwhile... by dbIII · 2013-11-11 14:38 · Score: 1
  
  Both the disadvantage and advantage of wind turbines is the small unit size. If one goes down it's no big deal. If you need another 2MW as the peak ramps up you just bring another one online instead of having it as spinning reserve. Maintanance schedules for wind turbines are short, but once again, since they are so small having a few down doesn't matter.
  There's no point comparing them to thermal power since they are a "flexible" peak load power source that is really competing with quite expensive per watt stuff that is effectively jet engines running on natural gas - little stuff that can be brought on line in under a minute. The other is relatively remote areas off the main grid where the local power may well be diesel - once fuel shipping costs go beyond a certain point it hardly matters how expensive the wind turbines are.
  
  A mix of energy sources for different purposes makes sense so the "587 of these to match the nuclear power plant" is a very naive comparison demonstrating either ignorance or a deliberate effort to mislead.
34. Re:Meanwhile... by khallow · 2013-11-11 15:25 · Score: 1
  
  But that was due to a failure in the political system not some problem of nuclear power.
35. Re:Meanwhile... by khallow · 2013-11-11 15:38 · Score: 1
  
  And if they install a hundred of these each month instead of just one a month, then you get the output of a nuclear plant inside of six months. You're speaking of "churning" out something which is easy to parallelize.
  
  And let's look at the actual economics here. Suppose we go with your original assertion that the team installs one wind turbine every month. That one small team creates a nuclear plant's worth in ten years of operations. An actual nuclear plant would require a far larger workforce and capital outlays.
  
  In addition, the team would be very experienced with most members, except for the newcomers, having dozens of successful installs under their belt. There also would be learning curve effects for both the manufacturer and installer making both faster and cheaper as more are successfully installed.
36. Re:Meanwhile... by Capsaicin · 2013-11-11 15:53 · Score: 1
  
  I mean what the hell do you think they are gonna say? Oh, gee sorry, we have completely ruined the environment for humans for 10000 years?
  Where did you get the figure of 10000 years from? They've ruined the immediate environs of human habitation for probably about 100-150 years I would guess (really depends how substantial the contamination is now).
  We are worried about Cs-137 and Sr-90 here so (given the shorter half-lives of the isotopes they decay to on their way to stability) an effective half life of 30 years. This is a terrible half-life from the PoV of creatures whose life-spans are in the order of decades.
  From there it's simply powers of two that any geek, even an Anonymous Coward should have little trouble dealing with. After 30 years 50% of the original radioactive substance has gone. After 90 years (3 half-lives) %87.5 percent of the radioactive substance is spent, after 150 years 97% is spent ... after 300 years we are talking around 1/100th of 1% of these isotopes remaining.
  However, that is not to say that the deployment of off-shore wind power is not good news. I just hope they don't melt in those highly contaminated waters :p.
  
  --
  Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
37. Re:Meanwhile... by Capsaicin · 2013-11-11 16:01 · Score: 1
  
  You Tube is not a peer reviewed journal (not is NHK). Can you provide a citation to a credible source for the claim that 18 (+/-25) have thyroid cancer who would not have got it but for Fukushima?
  And I came here to support wind power from claims that it induces baldness and loss of libido ... Sheeesh.
  
  --
  Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
38. Re:Meanwhile... by MrKaos · 2013-11-11 18:16 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  And nothing has happened.
  
  You may not be aware but you make several flawed assumptions with out of date information and it seems like you are trivialising an extremely dangerous accident. First of all the article postulates whether or not the cladding of the fuel rods have been split which by understanding the base characteristics of the reactor would reveal that they are simply because that is a consequence of the production of hydrogen in the reactor that caused the explosion in the first place.
  It also makes no mention of the spent fuel pools, that the loss of the back up power was because of an act of negligence on the part of the operator and, foolishly, declares that the accident is under control a mere four days after the accident.
  
  If you have taken College Chemistry, you'll know why even the radiation released from the leak is nothing compared to both the background radiation in the ocean due to dilution
  It seems ironic that you berate people for Chemistry knowledge because if you understood the true nature of the accident you would realise that the danger comes from the radionuclides as a radiation emitter as opposed to radiation and, that due to the chemical nature of radio isotopes, they bio-accumulate instead of dilute.
  
  --
  My ism, it's full of beliefs.
39. Re:Meanwhile... by AmiMoJo · 2013-11-11 20:28 · Score: 1
  
  You can't separate the two.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
40. Re:Meanwhile... by khallow · 2013-11-11 20:44 · Score: 1
  
  It still was a failure in the political system. That is also important because that sort of failure can happen with other human activities that also can't be separated from the political system.
41. Re:Meanwhile... by AmiMoJo · 2013-11-11 21:35 · Score: 1
  
  Interestingly the Rule of Law project rates Japan's regulation as better than the US'.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
42. Re:Meanwhile... by Eunuchswear · 2013-11-11 21:45 · Score: 1
  
  And nothing has happened. The amount of radiation released from the leak, while the leak should be repaired ASAP, is minute and is still LOWER than the background radiation.
  [citation needed]
  
  http://tech.mit.edu/V131/N13/yost.html
  
  That link has nothing to do with you claim. It is also very old, and as it turns out wildly optimistic.
  
  --
  Watch this Heartland Institute video
43. Re:Meanwhile... by delt0r · 2013-11-11 22:06 · Score: 1
  
  If what you say was true, no one would be allowed to live in Denver, or fly on a plane or have a xray.
  
  --
  If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
44. Re:Meanwhile... by delt0r · 2013-11-11 22:10 · Score: 1
  
  So you scale the infrastructure to move and manufacture *and* install the largest turbine ever built by 100x just like that? In the ocean? Can i have whatever it is your smoking because its really good stuff.
  
  --
  If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
45. Re:Meanwhile... by khallow · 2013-11-11 22:58 · Score: 1
  
  So you scale the infrastructure to move and manufacture *and* install the largest turbine ever built by 100x just like that? In the ocean?
  So what part of this can't scale? Some law of physics that we can have only so many barges in the universe?
46. Re:Meanwhile... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-12 03:16 · Score: -1
  
  So what part of this can't scale?
  
  The employees.
  Employees, unlike capital, have nasty anti-capitalist habits, like wanting to start families and think about saving money for retirement. All this translates to them demanding more compensation from you the employer.
  This demand does not scale well. The older the employees get, the more they'll ask. The more employees there are, the more likely they'll unionize and demand for even more things. You could be like Walmart and actively keep your employees in check, but that's a broken window fallacy: Walmart could have invested that money elsewhere if they didn't have to spend it to keep unions at bay.
  Employees also have a nasty tendency to attract the attention of non-employees: moral activists, politicians, rent seekers, regulators, etc. When they see you got a nice operation going, they'll look for ways to become meddling middlemen so they can get a piece of the action. The bigger you scale, the harder they try to take you down.
  In your suggestion to have one experienced team, that team will use their experience as a bargaining chip and demand more and more raises. The longer you stick to that one team the more leverage they have over you (from a system design perspective, you're creating a single point of failure). Or you hire more people but then you run into higher risk of unions and external pressure.
  Now, it's not to say large scale projects cannot be built, but it won't be done under a free market where employees, as explained above, can freely negotiate. Large scale projects would simply be too costly and risky to start in the free market. That's why even the wind turbine in TFS is only possible with funding from government, and why most of today's Big Business is in bed with Big Government.
47. Re:Meanwhile... by khallow · 2013-11-12 04:56 · Score: 1
  
  Ok, so I see two things to comment on. First, labor remains highly scalable despite your fantasy assertions to the contrary. There are plenty of thriving large scale industries which happen to be unionized such as auto manufacturing or construction.
  
  Second, what's "anti-capitalist" about demanding more for something you have like labor or capital? It's a natural tendency of anyone with something to trade to try to get more for what they have to offer.
48. Re:Meanwhile... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-12 06:19 · Score: 0
  
  First, labor remains highly scalable despite your fantasy assertions to the contrary. There are plenty of thriving large scale industries which happen to be unionized such as auto manufacturing or construction.
  I already addressed that in my last post (methinks you're the one living in a fantasy, pretending what I wrote that addressed that didn't exist). Those large scale industries with unions are heavily regulated by government.
  
  Second, what's "anti-capitalist" about demanding more for something you have like labor or capital?
  Again you demonstrate to be living in a fantasy, arguing with something I didn't say. I didn't say demanding more for something you have is anti-capitalist (though it isn't, raising prices on the same thing isn't capitalism, it's rent seeking)
  I was saying their desire to raise a family and think about retirement to be anti-capitalist. Demanding more is merely a consequence of that. Such thoughts are simply about consumption, not production or making a profit or owning more capital. For most people, they don't start families because they are pursuing some capitalist goal. It's rarely a primary reason. Those who do have economics as the primary reason (i.e marrying for money) are frowned upon. Really, if somebody did marry for money, they wouldn't need to ask the boss for a raise. Heck, they could just marry the boss or become the mistress... of course again such actions are frowned up by the moral nannies, who are anything but capitalists.
  
  It's a natural tendency of anyone with something to trade to try to get more for what they have to offer.
  What's natural != what's capitalist. But yes, I do agree that people by nature are not capitalist, and it takes a certain special kind of person to act capitalist, and keep his society from succumbing to socialism
49. Re:Meanwhile... by khallow · 2013-11-12 06:43 · Score: 1
  
  Again, I see no actual rebuttal of my original arguments. Labor clearly scales as has been demonstrated by industries much larger than wind turbine manufacture and installation. And it isn't at all "anti-capitalist" to try to get more in a trade.
Nuclear disaster and... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 05:44 · Score: 1

A project to harness the power of the wind about 20 kilometers (12 miles) off the coast of Fukushima, site of the March 2011 nuclear disaster
Wouldn't the big-ass-tsunami they had be even more notable.. for an offshore... anything?
1. Re:Nuclear disaster and... by demachina · 2013-11-11 05:52 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Tsunami's tend to only be bad where they hit coasts or shallow water. In the open ocean and deep water they move very fast but wave height is usually never more than a meter.
  
  --
  @de_machina
2. Re:Nuclear disaster and... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 05:59 · Score: 1
  
  Nope. Big-ass-tsunamis aren't that much of a problem until it becomes shallow and all the water is looking for somewhere to go.
  Also, since this has absolutely nothing to do with the Fukushima reactor, could we please avoid mentioning it just to cause sensational summaries?
  Or at least be consistent and add it to all summaries, including those about Tesla fires and Apple phones.
3. Re:Nuclear disaster and... by pr0fessor · 2013-11-11 06:10 · Score: 1
  
  I was thinking the same thing, bad weather is not uncommon in the area but wasn't mentioned in the article.
4. Re:Nuclear disaster and... by ArcadeMan · 2013-11-11 06:22 · Score: 1
  
  Or, since it's Japan, automatically add links to pregnant tentacle futanari furry porn hentai stuff websites?
  Sorry if I missed any fetiches.
  
  --
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5. Re:Nuclear disaster and... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 06:31 · Score: 0
  
  Sure, tsunamis have a lot of energy, but they occur only rarely, when they occur they momentarily provide much more energy than needed so you'd have to store the energy somehow, and harvesting their energy isn't exactly an easy task. Therefore I don't think a tsunami power plant would be worthwhile.
6. Re:Nuclear disaster and... by Alomex · 2013-11-11 06:37 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Indeed several people survived the Indian Ocean tsunami while in a small fishermen boat just a few miles off shore from areas that were completely devastated. They described a minor brow passing under them, without even realizing that it was a major tsunami.
  Same holds for the massive Sanriku Tsunami in 1896: "Fishermen twenty miles out to sea didn't notice the wave pass under their boats because it only had a height at the time of about fifteen inches,"
7. Re:Nuclear disaster and... by Solandri · 2013-11-11 07:01 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Here's what the Japanese 2011 tsunami looked like a few miles out at sea:
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdhfV-8dbCE
8. Re:Nuclear disaster and... by DexterIsADog · 2013-11-11 08:02 · Score: 1
  
  Sorry if I missed any fetiches.
  Nope, you got them all, including mine - grammar and spelling.
9. Re:Nuclear disaster and... by Joining+Yet+Again · 2013-11-11 08:48 · Score: 1
  
  Grammasochist?
10. Re:Nuclear disaster and... by ebno-10db · 2013-11-11 09:03 · Score: 1
  
  Some people are turned on by the strangest things. But, since the only harm is to the English language, which is already about as pure as a cribhouse whore, it's not my place to criticize.
11. Re:Nuclear disaster and... by Applehu+Akbar · 2013-11-11 10:31 · Score: 1
  
  The offshore wind turbines won't be destroyed by even a Tohoku-sized tsunami, because tsunami are insignificant out at sea. Rather, they will be destroyed by any of the typhoons that blow through the area every summer.
12. Re:Nuclear disaster and... by DexterIsADog · 2013-11-12 05:46 · Score: 1
  
  Parse me harder! (smack!)
  
  Yeah, you nailed it. Although I would have guessed a grammasochist was someone who gets turned on when their parents' mothers hit them.
Not unproven by AmiMoJo · 2013-11-11 05:45 · Score: 2

Offshore wind is hardly unproven. Wind turbines in general are well established and becoming a mature technology. The off shore part is also fairly well developed around the world and really just needs more cost reduction. There is no chance of it not working or anything like that, and it already economically viable.
Japan has vast offshore wind resources, with constant power available all year round.

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1. Re:Not unproven by phayes · 2013-11-11 05:56 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Really? FLOATING wind turbines are a proven technology? Well then, I suppose that given that this is the first floating deep water wind turbine that your assurances are all we need to know that all the major bugs have been worked out.
  
  --
  Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
2. Re:Not unproven by bob_super · 2013-11-11 05:57 · Score: 1
  
  The word you missed was "floating"
  It was hidden in the title and the summary.
3. Re:Not unproven by mdsolar · 2013-11-11 05:59 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  The "unproven" part is the floating platforms. And, in this case a floating transfer station as well. But it is true that these installations are becoming more common. And they seem to have an advantage in installation and maintenance since less rugged tow boats can be used for installation and maintenance can be done on shore. Eventually, I expect that these will be used to charge floating flow batteries or synthesize hydrocarbon fuels is the highest wind resource areas such as south of Iceland which are too remote for grid hookup. http://www.nrl.navy.mil/media/news-releases/2012/fueling-the-fleet-navy-looks-to-the-seas
4. Re:Not unproven by amiga3D · 2013-11-11 06:11 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  I was in Hawaii about 17 years ago and during my time there I took a tour around the island of Oahu. There was one location with many large wind turbines that were derelict. The tour guide told us about how the maintenance on those turbines far outstripped the value of the energy they reaped. I am sure technology has advanced since then but salt is still very corrosive and maintenance costs are still high. I'd say it's not proven until they've been up and running at least a decade or so.
5. Re:Not unproven by Mr+D+from+63 · 2013-11-11 06:29 · Score: 1
  
  Offshore makes sense because 1) the wind patterns can be favorable and 2) they don't take up land. The downsides compared to land based wind are transmission losses (depending on how far offshore) , the corrosive sea-spray environment, and the inconvenience of accessing via boat. By making sue of floating platforms, construction cost differences can be minimized.
  
  It would be interesting to see a good comparison of the lifetime costs of sea vs land based wind generation.
6. Re:Not unproven by angel'o'sphere · 2013-11-11 06:57 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, floating wind plants are a proven thechnology. There plenty of reference plants, e.g. in Norway. And if not: what exatly would you need proof for? What is the damn difference versus a fixed installation? Sigh ...
  
  --
  Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
7. Re:Not unproven by Alomex · 2013-11-11 07:37 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  I'd say it's not proven until they've been up and running at least a decade or so.
  Today is your lucky day. From wikipedia:
  The Middelgrunden offshore wind farm---with 20 turbines the world's largest offshore farm at the time it was built in 2000
  which is more than a decade ago.
8. Re:Not unproven by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 08:34 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Really? FLOATING wind turbines are a proven technology?
  YES. Ocean engineer here. It seems that wind turbines are not your concern, but the structure upon which it sits? Wikipedia has a decent summary of some of the offshore structures that are used (traditionally for oil platforms, but they can be used for anything). TLPs are a typical approach for something like this.
9. Re:Not unproven by H0p313ss · 2013-11-11 08:36 · Score: 1
  
  I guess this is why there are no new wind farms in Hawaii.... Oh wait!
  It looks like there were two small installations (totalling about 11MW) that were shut down, but there are over 200MW currently in production and more on the way.
  Remember that the early, small turbines that had very high blade speeds were extremely problematic.
  
  --
  XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
10. Re:Not unproven by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 08:42 · Score: 0
  
  The "unproven" part is the floating platforms.
  No. Just no. (facepalm)
  Floating offshore structures are extremely common. Many oil platforms that you know are "floating structures". For offshore wind turbines, at these depths TLPs are the structure of choice, in which case they are connected by cables to something on the seafloor.
  The "unproven" part, at most, depending on the location (which is not particularly well defined in TFA) is the depth at which these are being used, as the water is quite deep near the Japanese coast. Some structures, say TLPs, have only been used to certain depths, as things get more difficult the more deep you go, even for a floating structure.
11. Re:Not unproven by mrchaotica · 2013-11-11 09:10 · Score: 1
  
  Wind turbines are proven and barges are proven, so put a wind turbine on a barge and you're done.
  
  --
  "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
12. Re:Not unproven by ebno-10db · 2013-11-11 09:17 · Score: 1
  
  Offshore wind would be very suitable for the Mid-Atlantic Bight. BTW, that's a term I'd never heard before, despite living by it my entire life. It's roughly Cape Cod to Cape Hatteras. Apparently it has strong consistent offshore winds that are ideal. Watch out Midwest, you may not be the country's wind power capital for long.
13. Re:Not unproven by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 09:31 · Score: 0
  
  Even though I agree with the basic sentiment of what you're saying, a barge is actually a terrible idea for something like this. If nothing else, barges are designed for calm, shallow-water, where a monopile could be used. You'd probably sink a barge if you tried to tow it offshore, even with nothing on it.
14. Re:Not unproven by mdsolar · 2013-11-11 11:33 · Score: 1
  
  Floating wind powered structures used to be extremely common. The Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria, the May Flower and Arbella all raked the sky with sailcloth. Yet they could not be plugged into the grid. That is something we are learning to do now.
15. Re:Not unproven by InfiniteLoopCounter · 2013-11-11 12:03 · Score: 1
  
  Wind turbines produces little steady electrical current, and even if you go with peak energy production from these things and couple with solar there is a cost to the environment. A large wind farm that produces any sort of useful amount of electricity for private or industrial consumption takes the wind out of the environment as a system in the same way that damming a river takes the water out. You have a "dead zone" where there is little wind and above you have a much higher flow of wind, which can only lead to the wind above pushing down over some distance from the wind farm to fill the void and dumping down inland (because if you put the things too far out you would need really long cables). This would increase the temperature inland and has the potential to change weather patterns close to the surface of the earth (where is of course most important to us living there). Here's a video in the crazy greenie sinister tone, but might be what future environmentalists have to deal with.
  The environmental impacts of large scale wind energy production are pretty much completely untested for and could potentially be very bad. There has been little actual scientific research, and this has been almost entirely due to moneyed "greenie" groups (a single group in the US brings in yearly 100m dollars in income!) opposition to performing basic research in a proper scientific study.
16. Re:Not unproven by mikael · 2013-11-11 12:13 · Score: 1
  
  Wow, if they can have floating wind turbines, then it would be possible to have a floating processing plant to collect all that trash that was washed out to sea by the tsunami. Imagine having a whole fleet floating around that area the size of Texas, and just running sift pans through the ocean.
  
  --
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17. Re:Not unproven by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 12:56 · Score: 0
  
  Yet they could not be plugged into the grid. That is something we are learning to do now.
  Oh, don't be an ass....
  Having worked in the offshore industry for more than a decade, I would say that this is certainly non-trivial (nothing is trivial, when considering projects of such scale), but not the most difficult question of constructing offshore wind farms by any stretch of the imagination.
  Many of the issues you could easily raise regarding this are really the same as what exists for onshore wind... the biggest difference is transmission losses.
  Your quip about "such as south of Iceland which are too remote for grid hookup" makes little sense (in the long-term), as they are in fact discussing the possible installation of a 1 GW capacity cable from Iceland-UK. Most renewable energy today in Iceland basically comes from other sources, though.
  But feel free to tell us more about plugging cables into sockets. What's this black rope-like thing between my computer and the wall again?
18. Re:Not unproven by amiga3D · 2013-11-11 13:33 · Score: 1
  
  That could be it. It was 17 years ago.
19. Re:Not unproven by AchilleTalon · 2013-11-11 15:47 · Score: 0
  
  Proven until the next typhoon to hit the coastline of Japan.
  
  --
  Achille Talon
  Hop!
20. Re:Not unproven by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 18:35 · Score: 0
  
  "which is more than a decade ago."
  And the value of the energy produced is more than the cost of maintenance? How about without subsidies?
21. Re:Not unproven by Neil+Boekend · 2013-11-11 21:37 · Score: 1
  
  I would advise against placing floating battery packs in typhoon risk areas. If they rupture the chemicals would pollute heavily.
  I would advise a different energy storage system, for example a hydrogen plant. It could split clean water into hydrogen and oxygen and recombine it in a fuel cell to electricity. If this installation is damaged the pollution levels will be limited: the energy storage medium will simply explode, leaving no hazardous chemical traces. The efficiency would be a problem though.
  
  In most cases "If it fails it will explode and there will be no trouble" is wrong, but I think it is applicable here.
  
  --
  Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
22. Re:Not unproven by mdsolar · 2013-11-12 01:02 · Score: 1
  
  This is an interesting point. I'm not sure if typhoon risk areas coincide with really top wind resources far from any grid. You'd have to use your judgement: http://www.ceoe.udel.edu/windpower/resourcemap/index-world.html I like the Aleutians, south of Iceland, and just north of Antarctica. The flow battery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_battery would really just be the electrolyte aboard a ship that could maneuver out of the way of risky weather (as could the turbines with enough lead time). Obviously the Navy process for converting sea water to jet fuel does involve producing hydrogen. It would be tended by a tanker that could also maneuver. The efficiency trade off is between getting good use from the turbines (say 0.8 capacity factor) and taking a hit on the charge cycle efficiency which looks pretty good for a battery. For producing liquid fuels, it is more a matter of economics. Liquid fuels are not used efficiently but they are convenient. The Navy claims a $3-$6 cost per gallon using their rather expensive nuclear reactors. High capacity factor wind, even offshore, should be less expensive. Below $2/gallon production cost, such an effort should make money under current market conditions. Certainly, some fracking operations are running on a smaller margin.
  
  As it turns out, typhoon risk is something that a solar island project has been looking into. They do well along the equator in this respect. http://www.solar-islands.com/
Let the theories begin. by Kaenneth · 2013-11-11 05:46 · Score: 5, Funny

So... Japan set up a giant radioactive fan offshore and the Philippines gets hit by an incredibly powerful hurricane...
1. Re:Let the theories begin. by slashmydots · 2013-11-11 05:56 · Score: 1
  
  "Wind farms are slowly blowing the Earth out of orbit like a giant propeller!" - The Onion
2. Re:Let the theories begin. by bob_super · 2013-11-11 05:58 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Godzilla had to dry his hair
3. Re:Let the theories begin. by girlintraining · 2013-11-11 05:59 · Score: -1
  
  So... Japan set up a giant radioactive fan offshore and the Philippines gets hit by an incredibly powerful hurricane...
  Actually, given the levels of radioactivity in the ocean in the immediate vicinity of the disaster... eventually the giant fan may literally become radioactive. There is a very small chance it may even reach a level of radioactivity that requires special disposal when it is decommissioned; At least the infrastructure anchoring it. But this all assumes that the power company continues at its present rate of incompetence for the next 50 years, and that the Japanese government also continues at its current level of face-saving over the same time period, and that the international community also continues to show a marked lack of regard for the oceans. Okay, so maybe not a very small chance...
  
  --
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4. Re:Let the theories begin. by StephenThomasKrausJr · 2013-11-11 06:08 · Score: 2
  
  Yeah...still won't be that bad. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2013/08/130807-fukushima-radioactive-water-leak/
5. Re:Let the theories begin. by girlintraining · 2013-11-11 06:18 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah...still won't be that bad.
  Look, the holding containers for the radioactive water will have to be decommissioned and then buried, not recycled into scrap. It won't be dangerous to handle over the short term, but it will be a health and safety hazard. My point is that the same water is filtering into the ocean. Over the course of 50 years, that elevated radioactivity will have an effect on any concrete or metal in the water. It's unlikely given the volumes we're talking about that it would be radioactive enough to require a nuclear-decommissioning -- but, it is possible. It really depends on how close to the coast they put it, and the article didn't provide an exact position, so there's no way right now for me, at least, to correlate that with the ocean water samples taken in the area and hazard a guess. Based on limited data, I'd say there's no better than a 1 in 300 chance of any of the components becoming radioactive enough to breach international thresholds. But this is just an educated guess.
  Put it another way: You'd have to anchor hundreds of these in the general vicinity before one of them tested positive. My commentary was sarcasm towards the incompetence of the cleanup effort, couched in an amusing visual image. It's just not plausible for it to actually happen; But not impossible either.
  
  --
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6. Re:Let the theories begin. by camperdave · 2013-11-11 08:09 · Score: 2
  
  "It's a good thing these aren't giant light bulbs", said Mothra
  
  --
  When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Impressed by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 05:48 · Score: 1

That was relatively fast. In other countries, they'd still be debating whether such a construction should even be undertaken...
1. Re:Impressed by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 05:52 · Score: 1
  
  In the USA, the Republicans would kill it deader than dead. If it don't burn dead biomass, it ain't worth pursuing.
2. Re:Impressed by Maxo-Texas · 2013-11-11 05:54 · Score: 1
  
  Well many people with ocean views are not fans of offshore turbines.
  I personally think they look kinda cool.
  
  --
  She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
3. Re:Impressed by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 06:05 · Score: 0
  
  First US based wind farm opposed by Ted Kennedy, lifelong DNC member.
  What was that again?
4. Re: Impressed by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 06:11 · Score: 0
  
  He was a nimby
5. Re:Impressed by H0p313ss · 2013-11-11 06:24 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  At 20 km offshore, the first 30 meters (100ft) of the turbine would be below the horizon for viewers at ground level.
  
  --
  XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
6. Re:Impressed by H0p313ss · 2013-11-11 08:22 · Score: 2
  
  This article tells us that the tip this turbine rises 106 meters above sea level, so most of it would be visible... but the base itself would still probably be below the horizon I should think. Note that the article includes a photo and a YouTube video.
  While wind turbines are clearly not natural, they are clearly a heck of a lot easier on the eyes than the nearby industrial complex that includes the ill-fated reactor.
  Note that this is only the first turbine:
  
  Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. will install two more turbines, among the largest in the world with a diameter of 167 meters each, within two years. The three turbines, when completed, are expected to cover the power demand of more than 10,000 households
  10,000 households is not that much, so I think these turbines are roughly equivilant to the Ecotricity turbines in Swaffham, Norfolk. This first turbine is rated at 2MW, the first turbine at Swaffham was 1.5MW and the second was 1.8MW.( Though I would suspect that offshore winds would be more reliable..)
  
  --
  XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
7. Re:Impressed by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 09:06 · Score: 0
  
  First US based wind farm opposed by Ted Kennedy, lifelong DNC member.
  What was that again?
  Basically, they tried to put it in front of a bunch of rich people's houses. Hence even though they were years ahead of anyone else in the US, they're now behind because of crazy legal battles.
8. Re:Impressed by SydShamino · 2013-11-11 12:34 · Score: 1
  
  Cool, good thing there are no residents in Fukushima to complain, then. ~
  
  --
  It doesn't hurt to be nice.
9. Re:Impressed by Maxo-Texas · 2013-11-14 05:39 · Score: 1
  
  I had no idea a single turbine could produce that much electricity.
  The martha's vineyard discussion had given me the impression you would need a hundred or so fans in a huge farm.
  I do worry how well these turbines would do with a mega cyclone like the one that hit the phillipines.
  
  --
  She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Wish there were more details by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 05:49 · Score: 0

The Bloomberg article doesn't really go into the practical aspects of this, like expected average power output, mean time before turbine maintenance in a highly corrosive environment, or safety during adverse weather. Anyone got more info?
Hmmmm by slashmydots · 2013-11-11 05:55 · Score: 1

This is completely unrelated and random and not a shot at anything but um...how much power does it generate from radioactive wind? Is it more or less?
1. Re:Hmmmm by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 08:02 · Score: 0
  
  The amount of power will be the same, but the electricity will be radioactive.
2. Re:Hmmmm by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 13:00 · Score: 0
  
  And in answer to the next question: yes, your TV will still work but you will now have to wear a lead-foil hat.
Breakthrough science by bluefoxlucid · 2013-11-11 05:56 · Score: 0

Wind power: producing as much power as six nuclear reactors from just one turbine!

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hmm by dale.furno · 2013-11-11 06:01 · Score: 1

How about an article with a picture of the thing. You know how us Americans don't like stories without pictures. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=japans-offshore-wind-power-rises-within-sight-of-fukushima-nuclear-plant
i just took a wonderful shit by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 06:01 · Score: -1

my ass feels so relaxed and empty
Um... by Covalent · 2013-11-11 06:06 · Score: 1

...I know, I know...tsunamis and typhoons don't cause much damage 12 miles from shore. But still, doesn't this seem like a somewhat poor location for a floating wind turbine? It's not anchored to the seafloor, which means that typhoons and storms could push it close to shore, and we've seen the kind of debris that can be produced by a tsunami.

Japan may not have a lot of power options, but it seems like this might not be the best choice...

--
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1. Re:Um... by mdsolar · 2013-11-11 06:16 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  The platforms are moored. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_wind_turbine
2. Re:Um... by angel'o'sphere · 2013-11-11 07:00 · Score: 1
  
  *facepalm* of course it is anchored to the sea floor, or how do you think it is keeping its position when it is operating? Hint: when it operates wind is blowing at it :)
  
  --
  Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
3. Re:Um... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 08:07 · Score: 0
  
  You could always keep the platforms in place using a couple of motors and a GPS control system. In fact, if you had the platform head into the wind, the apparent windspeed would increase and you'd get even more power out.
Re:Wind power for rescuing crippled nuclear plant. by ackthpt · 2013-11-11 06:07 · Score: 1

I'm sure the first thing they did was throw the manual over their shoulder...

--

A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Metric vs Imperial by ArcadeMan · 2013-11-11 06:19 · Score: -1, Offtopic

If my account is set to Canada, I should only see "A project to harness the power of the wind about 20 kilometers off the coast of Fukushima".
If you wish to see "A project to harness the power of the wind about 12 miles off the coast of Fukushima", which frankly is a system designed for children, Slashdot should convert it for you according to your account settings.
Isn't there a Web standard that should do all of this automatically anyway? If there isn't, why the fuck not? Discuss below.

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1. Re:Metric vs Imperial by GameboyRMH · 2013-11-11 07:07 · Score: 1
  
  http://www.the-converter.co/
  
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I Give Up by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 06:21 · Score: 1

I believe we should be reducing our carbon output, but wind turbines are a sick joke. Here in the UK we're paying over double the price per unit of electricity than they're paying in nuclear heavy France, and that's entirely thanks to the green levies on energy. If the government were using this money to build nuclear power plants I would find it acceptable, but they're pissing it down the drain building wind farms.
Why are we bankrupting ourselves by spending vast amounts of money on inefficient methods of power generation? Why are we risking blackouts by relying on an entirely inconsistent approach that puts us at the mercy of nature? Why are we rejecting scientific advancement and falling back to ineffective technology from the middle ages?
The whole thing angers me so much that I'm tempted to start burning things purely out of spite.
1. Re:I Give Up by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 06:47 · Score: 0
  
  UK suck at energy generation. Bet on U.S Natural gas, oil, Solar, Wind, Batteries!
Your bias is showing by ZeroSerenity · 2013-11-11 06:27 · Score: 0

Bloomberg calls wind power "unproven technology". What are you, fox noise?

--
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1. Re:Your bias is showing by bigwheel · 2013-11-11 07:06 · Score: 1
  
  See above comments. FTFA: "to commercialize the unproven technology of floating offshore wind power" Keyword: floating.
  Don't blame your reading skills on Fox.
2. Re:Your bias is showing by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 09:39 · Score: 0
  
  See above comments. FTFA: "to commercialize the unproven technology of floating offshore wind power" Keyword: floating.
  Yup. Now if only there were some books, engineering societies, companies, or institutes that one could consult that specialize in the construction of offshore structures....
Or by sunking2 · 2013-11-11 06:32 · Score: 1

It's a giant fan blowing all the radiation to the West Coast.
Symbolic and symbolic only by goodmanj · 2013-11-11 06:38 · Score: 2

Oh, that's nice. Add another *five hundred* turbines and you'll come close to matching what was lost when the nuke plant shut down. On a windy day.
The public tends to vastly underestimate the energy output of wind turbines. I'm not arguing that wind is pointless -- far from it! But two wind turbines is just an empty symbolic gesture. Two thousand wind turbines ... now you're talking.
1. Re:Symbolic and symbolic only by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 08:39 · Score: 0
  
  Wind power generation is an extremely high maintenance activity. I mean ridiculously costly and time consuming to keep the damn things running. Now multiply that by 2000. Worst Idea Ever. Wind power is fail.
2. Re:Symbolic and symbolic only by jez9999 · 2013-11-11 09:22 · Score: 1
  
  You mean vastly overestimate.
  
  --
  == Jez ==
  Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
3. Re:Symbolic and symbolic only by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 10:24 · Score: 0
  
  Wind power generation is an extremely high maintenance activity. I mean ridiculously costly and time consuming to keep the damn things running.
  So is having a girlfriend. Still worth it.
4. Re:Symbolic and symbolic only by AmiMoJo · 2013-11-11 10:25 · Score: 1
  
  Your numbers are more than double the actual number of turbines required. That nicely demonstrates how quickly wind turbines are improving.
  Anyway, so what if we need a lot of them? There is plenty of space and the total cost is still lower than nuclear, including all maintenance etc. It's not like anyone will be fishing there any more. I don't see a problem.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
5. Re:Symbolic and symbolic only by olau · 2013-11-11 10:47 · Score: 1
  
  True, but these are prototypes. So of course you don't put 2000 of them up at once, it's not like it's in Denmark where there are currently about 500 offshore non-floating wind turbines.
6. Re:Symbolic and symbolic only by Citizen+of+Earth · 2013-11-11 11:23 · Score: 1
  
  Two thousand wind turbines ... now you're talking.
  Wind turbines only generate about 20% of their rated power on average, so you're going to need ten thousand instead of two thousand of them. Also, they can go for days on end generating zero power, so you'll also need to build a 4.7-GW nuclear-power plant to back them up.
7. Re:Symbolic and symbolic only by Krigl · 2013-11-11 12:17 · Score: 1
  
  Two thousand wind turbines ... now you're talking.
  That's when the real trouble begin. Most of the ./ users seem to be from anglophone countries and hold some amusing views about the state of "Energiewende", but I can assure you, as someone living next to Germany, you wish to remain at just two. It's not German problem only, it's a problem for Poland and Czechia as well - we have to install unbelievably expensive phase shifters just to protect our grid from German "exports" (yes, those shiny figures of German electricity exports usually contain so called "physical exports", better sounding name for overflow). That's not Fox News propaganda, that's decision of Czech and Polish governments, made to simply maintain basic level of stability in our transmission systems.
  Germany's planning Brobdingnagian build-up of new lines, but, if you believe they'll make those 3600 necessary kilometers until 2020, when they managed only about hundred since 2007 or 08, I got a bridge to sell ya.
  One last tidbit cause I got a stage to build in a few hours and should catch some sleep - those new power lines (and new dams and pumped-storage plants) are already vehemently protested by the same green groups that push for massive windmill/PV build-up. Talk about inconsistency.
  
  --
  Troll 2.0 Fear my asocial networking!
8. Re:Symbolic and symbolic only by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 21:42 · Score: 0
  
  I would argue that every nuclear power plant is a prototype....so there!
9. Re:Symbolic and symbolic only by goodmanj · 2013-11-12 04:05 · Score: 1
  
  "Your numbers are more than double the actual number of turbines required"
  Total output of all Fukushima nuclear plant units = 460+4*784+1100=4700 MW
  Output of turbine currently installed = 2 MW
  Turbines needed to match nuke plant output = 2350, when all are operating at full capacity.
  My 500 figure was assuming 7 MW turbines, but those haven't actually been installed yet.
  "Anyway, so what if we need a lot of them? There is plenty of space and the total cost is still lower than nuclear, including all maintenance etc. It's not like anyone will be fishing there any more. I don't see a problem."
  Oh, I'm all for building another thousand turbines, I hope they do. But nobody's ponied up the money to build them yet: my point was that what's been done so far has negligible impact.
10. Re:Symbolic and symbolic only by goodmanj · 2013-11-12 04:09 · Score: 1
  
  Wind power generation is an extremely high maintenance activity. I mean ridiculously costly and time consuming to keep the damn things running. Now multiply that by 2000. Worst Idea Ever. Wind power is fail.
  As far as I can tell, an individual turbine isn't so bad, but wind is high maintenance because you need a lot of them. The "times 2000" factor is already in there, so no fair putting it in twice.
  As for high maintenance, have you been inside a nuke plant recently? It's not exactly a one-man operation.
  My point is, if you're going to claim something is high maintenance, you have to say "compared to what?"
So..offshore power it is by triffid_98 · 2013-11-11 06:39 · Score: 2

You know, I do believe the US developed these "Floating Offshore Platforms" that generate power some time ago, we just decided to put nuclear reactors and F-16's on ours.
1. Re:So..offshore power it is by ebno-10db · 2013-11-11 09:08 · Score: 1
  
  To be picayune, F-16's are not carrier based planes. Try F/A-18's, and in the not so distant past, the vastly superior F-14's.
2. Re:So..offshore power it is by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 09:30 · Score: 0
  
  I think you will find that the F-16s are actually vastly superior - in terms of profits for the MIC, which is all that counts.
3. Re:So..offshore power it is by ebno-10db · 2013-11-11 09:44 · Score: 1
  
  That's true but. but at least, unlike F-35's, F-16's can actually fly.
Laugh by koan · 2013-11-11 06:42 · Score: 0

Why an international army hasn't landed at Fuckedupshima to take over the plant from the obviously incompetent corporation is beyond me.

--
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
No and Yes by mdsolar · 2013-11-11 07:02 · Score: 1

Maine put in a floating wind turbine this summer. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/04/us-floating-wind-turbine-maine_n_3380208.html but Maine's governor recently wrecked an expansion of offshore wind there as well. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/15/maine-offshore-wind-project_n_4101271.html
If it's floating,does it also generate hydropower? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 07:08 · Score: 0

Either I am not seeing it or it's not mentioned, couldn't a "floating" wind farm also generate hydropower from the water passing by too?
Did you even read the title? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 07:10 · Score: 3, Interesting

And also miss the entire name of the place and the news about it: The nuclear power plant has gone unexpectedly offline.
Unless you're trying to claim that they PLANNED for the power station to go critical, your statement:
"Don't forget that the reactors were able to provide that power reliably and predictably"
Is completely asinine.
1. Re:Did you even read the title? by GarethIwanFairclough · 2013-11-11 07:33 · Score: 1
  
  And also miss the entire name of the place and the news about it: The nuclear power plant has gone unexpectedly offline.
  Unless you're trying to claim that they PLANNED for the power station to go critical, your statement:
  "Don't forget that the reactors were able to provide that power reliably and predictably"
  Is completely asinine.
  That's some pretty twisted logic right there. I mean, who the hell would plan on a disaster at the very thing which they designed and built? No, my statement not asinine, but yours is. My statement is actually perfectly reasonable.
  But then again, you're an AC, so one should not take much notice of you.
  Doesn't this make this entire comment asinine and/or redundant?
2. Re:Did you even read the title? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 08:28 · Score: 0
  
  You do realize that the same natural disaster which caused the damage at the nuclear plant would have completely and utterly destroyed the wind farm being discussed in the article, right?
  The nuclear plant survived an earthquake significantly more powerful than it was designed to (going into emergency shut-down as planned), and was only defeated by the following tsunami several meters higher than the largest known to have hit the site when the plant was being designed which overwhelmed the protective sea wall and flooded the site, including the emergency backup generators which were situated in a basement, to better protect them in the event of an earthquake.
  The reactors *were* able to provide that power reliably and predictably, right up until a pair of natural disasters hit which were significantly larger/stronger than the site was designed to survive. 'Ooops.'
  And still, there are no known deaths or injuries due to the radiation being leaked from the site, and the folks who are actually *informed* about what's going on still don't expect there to be any.
3. Re:Did you even read the title? by LWATCDR · 2013-11-11 09:18 · Score: 2
  
  Maybe not. If the wind farm is in deep water and floating it might have been just fine. The landing for the undersea power cables would be IMHO the most likely failure point.
  
  --
  See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Extraordinarily expensive solution by Solandri · 2013-11-11 07:16 · Score: 2

According to TFA, the initial turbine has a 2 MW capacity. Offshore wind has about a 0.3-0.4 capacity factor. Nuclear has a 0.9 capacity factor. So to replace the 4696 MW the Fukushima nuclear plant could generate, you'd need (4696*0.9) / (2*0.35) = 6038 of these 2 MW turbines. Even if you go with the larger 7 MW turbines they're planning as a follow-up, you'd need 1725 of those.

Considering they've set aside $222 million to build and operate these three turbines for 5 years, a full replacement for the nuclear plant's generating capacity would cost $167.5 billion. Realistically I expect that price would come down if they did roll it out on that scale. But even land-based wind turbines are about $1.8 million per MW of capacity. So the 12000 MW of turbines you'd need to replace the Fukushima nuclear plant would have a baseline cost of $22 billion before you added the floating platforms and adapted them to survive in a saltwater environment and lay down power cables to bring the electricity back to shore.
1. Re:Extraordinarily expensive solution by mdsolar · 2013-11-11 07:36 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  The capacity factor for Japanese nuclear power is zero and prior to the accident it was around 0.8.
2. Re:Extraordinarily expensive solution by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 07:46 · Score: 0
  
  Why aren't they spending that money to clean up the radioactive mess first? I don't understand.
3. Re:Extraordinarily expensive solution by cheesybagel · 2013-11-11 08:26 · Score: 1
  
  So how well would the floating platforms withstand a tsunami?
4. Re:Extraordinarily expensive solution by Mysticalfruit · 2013-11-11 08:43 · Score: 1
  
  the tsunami would pass right underneath it. Because water isn't compressible, out in the open ocean away from the shore, a tsunami is just a shock wave moving through the water. At best it'll raise the water level by a meter. A moored platform would bob a bit and that would be that.
  
  --
  Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
5. Re:Extraordinarily expensive solution by ebno-10db · 2013-11-11 09:11 · Score: 1
  
  Very well. A few miles off the coast, a tsunami wave is so low that you'd be lucky to recognize it. They're only destructive when they hit the coast. OTOH, typhoons are another matter.
6. Re:Extraordinarily expensive solution by Mr+D+from+63 · 2013-11-11 09:15 · Score: 1
  
  This cost analysis does not consider the number of times they would need to be replaced during the 40-60 year operating life of a nuclear plant, or the cost of spinning reserve required to back up the wind generators. To be fair, it also does not discuss the fuel cost differential, although that is relatively small and would have limited impact on the general conclusion. Nor does it compare lifetime operating costs, of which a large portion is staffing. I imagine it would require a staff of about 500 to manage and maintain 1725 large windmills and associated infrastructure. That is comparable with the average number of people required to operate a nuclear plant. Even if that number is off, it is not likely to tilt the scale much either way.
7. Re:Extraordinarily expensive solution by mrchaotica · 2013-11-11 09:38 · Score: 1
  
  Withstand a tsunami? Easily. Not so sure about a typhoon, though...
  
  --
  "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
8. Re:Extraordinarily expensive solution by BranMan · 2013-11-11 09:39 · Score: 1
  
  12 miles off-shore a tsunami is barely a ripple on the waters surface. It only becomes a wave when it hits the shore.
9. Re:Extraordinarily expensive solution by AmiMoJo · 2013-11-11 10:37 · Score: 1
  
  No-one is suggesting that these turbines will be a full replacement for the nuclear plant. Just because one wind farm does not replace the thing it happens to be built next to doesn't mean it isn't worth having. The whole point of renewables is to distribute energy production, and in a country that was heavily reliant on one type of highly centralized generation that is now completely fucked the Japanese know why that is important.
  The $222m figure is for R&D, not the normal build/operation cost. On-shore wind is already cheaper than nuclear and off-shore wind is comparable, but getting cheaper.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
10. Re:Extraordinarily expensive solution by olau · 2013-11-11 11:10 · Score: 1
  
  Offshore wind has about a 0.3-0.4 capacity factor.
  In Denmark it's about 0.45-0.55. You can't really compare the costs of 3 prototype units with a full-scale rollout.
  As for the total price, the nuclear plant you're comparing it to would probably be pretty expensive to build today too. In the UK, they're tossing 25 billion USD in Hinkley Point C at 3200 MW nameplate as far as I can tell.
11. Re:Extraordinarily expensive solution by olau · 2013-11-11 11:14 · Score: 1
  
  This cost analysis does not consider the number of times they would need to be replaced during the 40-60 year operating life of a nuclear plant, or the cost of spinning reserve required to back up the wind generators.
  That's a bit one-sided. The nuclear power plant is going to need repairs and upgrades too, and it also needs backup. The latter should be self-evident given the current situation.
  Currently wind turbines are sold with 20-25 years guarantees, but nobody really knows how long they're going to last.
12. Re:Extraordinarily expensive solution by mdsolar · 2013-11-11 11:39 · Score: 1
  
  Here in the US, wind power is putting nuclear power out of business. http://will.illinois.edu/nfs/RenaissanceinReverse7.18.2013.pdf So, your cost estimates may be a little off.
13. Re:Extraordinarily expensive solution by Mr+D+from+63 · 2013-11-11 12:10 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, nuclear can have expensive upgrades, but not a wholesale replacement that would be the relative equivalent of a turbine generator replacement. The largest replacement in a typical nuclear plant is steam generators, once or twice in 40 to 60 years, a couple hundred million dollars each time, only a small percentage of a total plant build cost.
14. Re:Extraordinarily expensive solution by Mr+D+from+63 · 2013-11-11 12:22 · Score: 1
  
  No, gas is the price challenge for nuclear, and if the playing field were even, solar and wind would not stand a chance in the fight. I do find it highly ironic that a solar advocate would take credit for the price deflation resulting from burning of fossil fuels. The only market impacts due to renewables are result of forced purchases and huge incentives, not actual cost basis pricing.
  
  That article you wrote has a bunch of flaws and misconceptions. It is pretty obviously non-objective, just look at the adjectives and qualifiers used throughout. No objective professional writes that way. Too bad the author has no real world experience in power asset analysis. You can learn more about the many flaws of that paper if you desire, it just takes a little critical analysis. I see you have latched on to it already, so that may be a challenge.
15. Re:Extraordinarily expensive solution by mdsolar · 2013-11-11 12:48 · Score: 1
  
  You don't seem to have read it.
16. Re:Extraordinarily expensive solution by Mr+D+from+63 · 2013-11-11 12:54 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, I absolutely have read it earlier this year when it came out.
17. Re:Extraordinarily expensive solution by mdsolar · 2013-11-11 13:28 · Score: 1
  
  Then I guess you missed what it had to say about wind power and how it affects the price of electricity.
18. Re:Extraordinarily expensive solution by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 13:38 · Score: 0
  
  You're just putting big numbers together without context.
  
  According to TFA, the initial turbine has a 2 MW capacity. Offshore wind has about a 0.3-0.4 capacity factor. Nuclear has a 0.9 capacity factor. So to replace the 4696 MW the Fukushima nuclear plant could generate, you'd need (4696*0.9) / (2*0.35) = 6038 of these 2 MW turbines. Even if you go with the larger 7 MW turbines they're planning as a follow-up, you'd need 1725 of those.
  Well, if the UK can build about 1000 a year or so, I think that it's not so bad for Japan to attempt something similar.
  
  Considering they've set aside $222 million to build and operate these three turbines for 5 years, a full replacement for the nuclear plant's generating capacity would cost $167.5 billion. Realistically I expect that price would come down if they did roll it out on that scale. But even land-based wind turbines are about $1.8 million per MW of capacity. So the 12000 MW of turbines you'd need to replace the Fukushima nuclear plant would have a baseline cost of $22 billion before you added the floating platforms and adapted them to survive in a saltwater environment and lay down power cables to bring the electricity back to shore.
  Even assuming your numbers are right (and those $222 mil are not just for running three turbines...), it still comes several times cheaper than the capital costs of building the same amount of power from nuclear reactors. You know the Darlington station in Ontario cost $14 billion CAD for only 3.5 GW? Not to mention that the cost to clean up Fukushima is estimated around $100 billion....
19. Re:Extraordinarily expensive solution by SydShamino · 2013-11-11 15:29 · Score: 1
  
  I'm relatively certain that at least two of Fukushima's nuclear reactors need something more akin to "wholesale replacement" than a new "steam generator".
  
  --
  It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Hurry Up Fusion by MildlyTangy · 2013-11-11 07:35 · Score: 1

I wish we would hurry up and crack cheap hot-fusion powerplants. Cheap, safe, abundant, and limitless electricity would be a key enabling technology to carry us forward and away from fossil fuels. So many Big Problems could be solved with copious amounts of environment-friendly electricity. It would be the saviour of the human race ( the question is, do we deserve to be saved?)
1. Re:Hurry Up Fusion by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 08:05 · Score: 0
  
  I wish I had a pony.
2. Re:Hurry Up Fusion by ebno-10db · 2013-11-11 09:12 · Score: 1
  
  I wish we would hurry up and crack cheap hot-fusion powerplants.
  They're 20 years in the future.
3. Re:Hurry Up Fusion by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-11 09:35 · Score: 0
  
  You forgot to mention 'electricity too cheap to meter'
4. Re:Hurry Up Fusion by olau · 2013-11-11 11:23 · Score: 2
  
  Cheap, safe, abundant, and limitless electricity
  It's probably not going to be cheap, not in our lifetime, and it produces radioactive material comparable to a fission plant (although of course with some differences) so I'm not sure how it qualifies as safe either.
  The truth is that we already have access to close to limitless energy in renewable sources. And the tech for harvesting it is falling in price year by year.
Re:If it's floating,does it also generate hydropow by eyenot · 2013-11-11 08:04 · Score: 1

That could be done, sure. You would need to allow free rotation of the base of both the air and water blades relative to some shared flotation base. This way, the vaned blades could turn into currents without interrupting each other.
It would be best if it were fixed to a tower, to offer the most resistance to currents. Otherwise the wind and water currents might fight against keeping a tether taut.
Even better than vaned blades, you could use a vertical-axis helical turbine for the wind, and you could use the Cetus blade [Cetus Energy: http://cetusenergy.com.au/Technology/TheCetusTechnology/tabid/96/Default.aspx ] in the water which would probably generate power no matter which way the current was passing.
The platform's bouyancy would just need to counter the force of the combined masses and gravity.
I suppose a design like that could be tethered and would often be found in some optimal location, systematic to the two different currents. But, this design would also probably be very expensive to license, as most of the more efficient vertical axis turbines are patented (and the Cetus blade certainly is.)
So it might be cheaper and might deliver substantially more power output if it were a stationary tower.

--
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
So Leaked Nuke Water at Work?? by laohuangniu888 · 2013-11-11 08:19 · Score: 1

thousands of tons of contaminated nuke water leaked, that got to help A LOT.
One 2MW turbine is a demo by Animats · 2013-11-11 09:49 · Score: 1

This sounds like a Vesta WindFloat 2MW turbine. Is this really a Mitsubishi product?
1. Re:One 2MW turbine is a demo by olau · 2013-11-11 11:30 · Score: 1
  
  From the photos, the platform doesn't look like a WindFloat.
  Mitsubishi and Vestas recently announced a joint venture in offshore turbines, though.
And if you have to put it in SOME back yard... by Ungrounded+Lightning · 2013-11-11 09:54 · Score: 1

Fukushima has an advantage as a site: Since it's depopulated due to the radiation hazard, there's nobody to complain about how "those ugly windmills are ruining my view".

--
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Tell that to the people who had to move out by dbIII · 2013-11-11 14:18 · Score: 1

Do you really think all those people moved out as some sort of green propaganda instead of as a response to a real danger?
Your post reveals more about your state of mind than anything on the ground in Japan.
Keep adding... by elkto · 2013-11-11 15:38 · Score: 1

Only 12521 more wind turbines more to go and you will be able to equal the reactors output.

Footnotes:
https://www.wind-watch.org/faq-output.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_Power_Plant
Need of blood examination among children in Tokyo by Anonymous Coward · 2013-11-12 01:54 · Score: 0

Dr. Mita addresses the need of blood examination among children in Tokyo
11 November 2013 World Network for Saving Children from Radiation
Dr. Mita, Mita Clinic in Tokyo: Our patients mostly come from Tokyo. Reference value of white blood cells for healthy children is 4000, but it has shifted to 2500. It is lower than the threshold value of 3000. We think these points at a serious problem.
And when these children spend some time in West Japan, they get better. But our real hope is to have not just children but also adults move away from Tokyo. The adult conditions are definitely different compared to how it was before the nuclear accident.
With elderly people, it takes more time for asthma to heal. The medication doesn’t seem to work. We also see more patients with diseases that had been rare before; for example, polymyalgia rheumatica. Before the nuclear accident, we had one or less patient per year. Now, we treat more than 10 patients at the same time.
http://www.save-children-from-radiation.org/2013/11/11/title-dr-shigeru-mita-addresses-the-need-of-blood-examination-among-children-in-the-kanto-area/
Re:Wind power for rescuing crippled nuclear plant. by LifesABeach · 2013-11-12 03:43 · Score: 1

I hope no one trips over the extension cord to shore.
Re:Wind power for rescuing crippled nuclear plant. by ackthpt · 2013-11-12 07:30 · Score: 1

I hope no one trips over the extension cord to shore.
Examining the coast of Japan, water depth, I expect the only being capable of this is Godzilla or a Kaiju.
I'm curious how this thing would withstand a typhoon.

--

A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar