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Mt. Fuji Volcano In 'Critical State' After Quakes

Posted by Soulskill on from the everybody-tiptoe-around-the-mountain dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Mount Fuji, in addition to being a picturesque landmark and an important part of Japanese culture, is also an active volcano. Its last eruption was just over 400 years ago, but its location — where the Eurasian, Pacific, and Philippine tectonic plates meet — mean it will always have potential for eruption. A new study (PDF) has examined the pressures around Mount Fuji in the wake of several recent earthquakes, including the magnitude 9 tremor that unleashed the destructive tsunami in 2011. The researchers now say the volcano is in a "critical state." According to the study's lead author, "The volcanic regions are the ones where the fluids trapped in the rock – boiling water, gas, liquid magma, which cause an eruption when they rise to the surface – exert the greatest pressure. The seismic waves add to this pressure, causing even more disturbance." They have no way of predicting when an eruption might happen, but the potential seems greater than ever.

151 comments

  1. Who wants to bet... by KingOfBLASH · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...this thread erupts with first posts?

    1. Re:Who wants to bet... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So far yours is the only one. Too bad there's always at least one stupid first post.

  2. Solution! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    need more nuclear power to cool it!

    1. Re:Solution! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Nuclear power + Active volcano = Godzilla!

    2. Re:Solution! by rossdee · · Score: 1

      "Yes and no tsunami will hit any reactors on a mountain!"

      No tsunamis, but lahars, pyroclastic flows and lava are probably more dangerous to a reactor

    3. Re:Solution! by RabidReindeer · · Score: 1

      "Yes and no tsunami will hit any reactors on a mountain!"

      No tsunamis, but lahars, pyroclastic flows and lava are probably more dangerous to a reactor

      Well, if seawater hits a nuclear plant, chances are that radioactive steam will be the result. On the other hand, if ash or molten rock envelopes one, it will probably either A) seal the radioactivity in. B) melt it apart, bringing the fuel geometry to sub-critical mass. Although it is, of course possible that the plant would simply crack open, with the same results that you'd see on earth-faulted land or with water incursion. That is, a plume of radioactive gas or steam.

      Still, there's a limit to how close to an active volcano people are willing to live, so the really hot zone (in both senses) would not be as direct a threat to people or livestock.

    4. Re:Solution! by LVSlushdat · · Score: 4, Informative

      Still, there's a limit to how close to an active volcano people are willing to live, so the really hot zone (in both senses) would not be as direct a threat to people or livestock.

      Tell that the millions in Mexico City, right under the "Popo" volcano or Seattle, not far from Mt Rainier.. If/when those blow, those cities are in deep kimchi... Of course, those pale in comparison to the Yellowstone caldera.. if THAT one blows, at least the western part of the USA has a BIG problem....

      --
      THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
    5. Re:Solution! by RabidReindeer · · Score: 1

      You forgot Aetna. But I was thinking more of the zone where the "blessings" of the volcano are more immediate. Like Monserrat.

    6. Re:Solution! by Narcocide · · Score: 2

      ... Of course, those pale in comparison to the Yellowstone caldera.. if THAT one blows, at least the western part of the USA has a BIG problem....

      I hate to have to mention this, but if Yellowstone goes, the western part of the USA will be someone ELSE's problem; at minimum, the entire rest of that hemisphere - this is assuming the whole planet doesn't just pop like a zit and crack in half at that point. Most models suggest this would be an extinction level event.

    7. Re:Solution! by steelfood · · Score: 1

      If yellowstone blows, the rest of the world would have the big problem. It'd basically start a nuclear winter. The last time one of those supervolcanoes blew, only something like 10% of the human population at that time survived.

      Western USA would merely cease to exist.

      On the other hand, it'd be just in time to counteract the effects of global warming.

      --
      "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
    8. Re:Solution! by lgw · · Score: 1

      Well, if seawater hits a nuclear plant, chances are that radioactive steam will be the result. On the other hand, if ash or molten rock envelopes one, it will probably either A) seal the radioactivity in. B) melt it apart, bringing the fuel geometry to sub-critical mass

      C) Radioactive rock monsters! Don't you know that rationality has no place in discussions of nuclear power? Next thing you know, you'll be pointing out that Fukushima was a quite minor footnote in the story of the tsunami and the damage it wrought.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    9. Re:Solution! by Russ1642 · · Score: 1

      Mount Nyiragongo is probably the next volcano to cause large scale destruction.

    10. Re:Solution! by tibit · · Score: 1

      When the Yellowstone caldera blows, then everyone will have a problem. You'll have temperate temperatures around the tropics, and subtropical temperatures on the equator. Glaciers will be covering the Alps and Rockies (yes, the whole thing). And so on. Central and Northern Europe will be uninhabitable, and so will be Canada and a lot of North America. And so forth.

      --
      A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
    11. Re:Solution! by KonoWatakushi · · Score: 5, Informative

      With an abundance of sustainable and reliable energy, survivability of an event such as a volcanic winter would be drastically increased. Energy is the only limiting factor in producing a 100% self-sufficient and self-contained living environment, not only in space, but on earth as well. Energy availability would be instrumental in facing such a disaster, and with adequate preparation we could manage quite comfortably.

      However, if the green dream of a world powered exclusively by renewables were realized, humanity would have no hope whatsoever. The lights would go out indefinitely, and any sort of civilization would promptly collapse, with only a handful surviving in miserable conditions. Renewables are not reliable, and are incapable of sustaining civilization through such a crisis.

      While efficiency is a laudable goal (to which most engineers already aspire), eking by with extreme conservation is highly anti-productive, and exacerbates environmental and societal problems. Energy is not a disease to be eradicated, but a resource essential for enabling greater levels of recycling and reuse, and ultimately a sustainable high quality of life with minimal environmental footprint. With prosperity, population also tends to level off, solving that problem as well.

      Energy is only a problem when it is derived in an environmentally destructive manner, as with mining and extraction of fossil resources, or the vast and inefficient collection, storage, and distribution infrastructure for wind and solar. These sources also require extensive mining for the raw materials comprising the infrastructure, and the fuels required for transportation in both cases.

      Owing to a far superior energy density, nuclear energy necessitates very little mining and supporting infrastructure. Molten salt reactors like LFTR use nuclear fuel roughly 200 times more efficiently than todays LWRs, and with passive safety and no need for water cooling, they can be sited virtually anywhere. For perspective, a 1GWe LFTR plant would be roughly the size of a Walmart. Incidentally, there are upward of 10,000 Walmarts, which would accommodate 10TW of LFTR power production--enough to provide for 10 billion people at US per capita power consumption.

      Each year, a 1GWe reactor would only consume about a ton of thorium, and produce about a ton of fission products. All of the fuel required to power the world for a year could be mined at a site not much larger than a Walmart itself. However, it could instead be recovered from the tailings of rare earth or other mining already in progress. (For reference, a metric ton of thorium fits in a sphere 55cm (or 1.8ft) in diameter.) A plant could easily have decades worth of thorium on hand.

      Of course, the picture wouldn't be complete without considering the waste. A single GWe of generating capacity is enough to power a sizable city, producing 1t (metric ton) of fission products per year. One might worry that these are going to accumulate and produce an intractable problem, but in reality the radioactivity is constantly disappearing, and will reach a steady state when the creation balances the decay. As 83% of the fission products of a LFTR are stable after a decade, and the rest no more radioactive than ore in 300 years, the sum total of waste produced for one GWe of power, will gradually build up to, yet never exceed 59t after 300 years. This is a trivial amount, which is still overstated as many of the fission products have uses. (radioisotope thermal generators, sources for medicine or food irradiation, etc.) Even if politics prevents doing something useful with it, it could still be safely stored in a small room on site.

    12. Re:Solution! by omnichad · · Score: 1

      While efficiency is a laudable goal (to which most engineers already aspire), eking by with extreme conservation is highly anti-productive

      No...this means we'll have enough coal leftover if and when Yellowstone finally blows.

      There's no doubt that nuclear fuel is useful, but that's completely off-topic to the point you started out making.

    13. Re:Solution! by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      We seem to be an extinction-level event ourselves. The human race, and much of civilization, would survive Yellowstone. Not that it would be fun or painless....

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    14. Re:Solution! by Reziac · · Score: 1

      So have there been any efforts to tap active volcanoes for energy production?

      Your post gave me the peculiar (and perhaps ridiculous) notion of siting a nuclear production facility IN the volcano (a bit of land no one cares to inhabit anyway, and if not of the explosive type, perhaps a better containment area than most).

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
    15. Re:Solution! by KonoWatakushi · · Score: 1

      That coal should be left in the ground, and not foolishly burned for energy. It is criminal to turn such a valuable concentrated carbon resource into ash, particulate, and CO2 and disperse it into our environment. Incidentally, there is more than 10 times the energy recoverable from the traces of uranium and thorium within the coal, than from combusting the coal itself. Of course, that isn't available if we mix the ash into sidewalks and roads, and such. (and it still contains some of the other nasties which didn't make it into our air or water already.)

      The point is that there will never be "enough" coal if we continue using it as an energy source. It might last for a while, but conservation is still not sustainable. Conservation will only drive up prices for energy and preclude using it for energy intensive processes like recycling. Even producing the steel, concrete, and rare earths necessary for renewables is highly energy intensive and entirely dependent upon heat from fossil fuels today. Those renewables are also exposed to the elements and need to be recycled every decade or two. We are already reverting to burning trees, and it is only going to get worse until more people accept that nuclear power.

      Anyway the crucial point is that nuclear provides reliable energy 24/7 through severe weather or natural disasters and with a minimal environmental footprint. They are among the most robust structures in existence, and molten salt reactors would be even more resistant to damage. (Granted, the transmission infrastructure is still vulnerable, and that is another reason why it should be minimized.) Even coal and natural gas plants can be taken off line by severe weather. During the recent polar vortex, it was nuclear which kept the lights on in New England.

    16. Re:Solution! by KonoWatakushi · · Score: 1

      The problem, is that there aren't enough of them. ;) More seriously, that is basically what geothermal does, and it is useful where available. Exploration and drilling are expensive though, and suitable sites are limited. Interestingly, while the environmental effects are minimal compared to fossil fuels, they are still not as benign as with nuclear. Drilling releases greenhouse gasses trapped deep in the earth, among other things including radon. (Hence both geothermal and fracking put out more radioactivity than nuclear plants, though still nothing to panic over.) Fundamentally though, geothermal is merely indirect nuclear, taking advantage of the decay of thorium and uranium within the earth itself.

    17. Re:Solution! by Reziac · · Score: 1

      Yeah, part of what I was thinking is... you can hardly get more nasty than a volcano's environment, so it's not like you can pollute it.

      For many years I lived in the SoCal desert where the ground was naturally radioactive. After that, nothing worries me. :)

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
    18. Re:Solution! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The plume will go eastward not west.

      ItÃ(TM)s not the only dangerous caldera though. Wish there was a way to release pressure safely.

    19. Re:Solution! by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      in comparison to the Yellowstone caldera.. if THAT one blows,

      It's not "if", it's "when".

      Trust me on this ; I'm a geologist. If you want to set a time limit on it - say, 100 years - then you can talk about probabilities and an 2if", but without a time limit, you're talking about "when". There no reason to believe that the area has gone quiet, and plenty of evidence of continuing magma movement in the sub-surface.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
    20. Re:Solution! by omnichad · · Score: 1

      It might last for a while, but conservation is still not sustainable.

      An oddly strict definition of conservation....not using it at all would fit under the definition of conservation. Or saving it all for a global emergency to survive a volcanic winter when solar and hydro give out. That's what I was getting at. There's no reason we shouldn't know where it is and be ready to mine it just in case.

      I said nothing against going to nuclear as a primary fuel source. It's perfectly feasible except for one small problem - no one will do it or approve it. With that standing as a major roadblock to this day, we still need to conserve what we're using.

    21. Re:Solution! by khallow · · Score: 1

      That coal should be left in the ground, and not foolishly burned for energy. It is criminal to turn such a valuable concentrated carbon resource into ash, particulate, and CO2 and disperse it into our environment.

      If you're not using it, then it's not valuable. And that carbon concentrates just fine in living plants. The argument that burning coal pollutes is fairly sound. The argument that we have a bunch of highly valuable carbon that we'd be using for some other purpose, if we weren't burning it first, just doesn't make sense.

  3. Great by kruach+aum · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm leaving for Tokyo later this month. At least is easier to pronounce than Eyjafjallajokull.

    1. Re:Great by theVarangian · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'm leaving for Tokyo later this month. At least is easier to pronounce than Eyjafjallajokull.

      Eyjafjallajökull let's not forget the umlaut...

    2. Re:Great by CastrTroy · · Score: 4, Funny

      Thanks. That makes it a whole lot easier to pronounce. It's so obvious now.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    3. Re:Great by stjobe · · Score: 1

      It's not actually that hard to pronounce, "ey-a fjell-a yo-cull" is close enough.

      "Fu-dji" is probably still easier though ;)

      --
      "Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley
    4. Re:Great by Luckyo · · Score: 4, Informative

      On a serious note - it's actually very easy to pronounce. You just need to think of it properly - three separate words.

      Eyja Fjalla Jökull.

      It's actually a limitation of our brain. We can manage words up to reasonable length, and after that, we have to switch to far less efficient general abstraction instead of specialized brain centres. To avoid this limitation, slice the word into manageable pieces and you will find it very easy to pronounce once your task-specific brain centre handles it.

      This is the same thing as trying to do the math on 7*8 versus 78*87.

    5. Re:Great by Goaway · · Score: 1

      Oh, you want to be pedantic? Let's be pedantic, then!

      Scandinavian languages don't have "umlauts". "Umlaut" is a concept from German, where vowels are modified into different forms and marked with an umlaut mark. Other languages, however, just borrow these typographical forms to represent vowels with similar sounds. However, while German considers the vowels a and ä to be variations on the same letter, Scandinavian languages consider these to be separate letters entirely, and place them differently in alphabetical orderings.

      Thus, there is no "umlaut" in Eyjafjallajökull, there is merely an "ö" rather than an "o".

    6. Re:Great by aevan · · Score: 2

      Eyja Fjalla Jökull

      Isn't that how you summon a Deep One?

    7. Re:Great by CastrTroy · · Score: 1

      I think it has more to do with the fact that I am an English speaker and it has letter groups I'm not accustomed to seeing together. EyjafjallajÃkull has 16 letters. An example of an English word with 16 letters would be "conservationists". It's quite easy to read because my brain breaks it up into letter groups that occur often in English. Groups like con, and tion, and ist occur all over the place and therefore make the word easy to recognize. EyjafjallajÃkull on the other hand doesn't have any common letter groups I would normall see in english. I don't even know how to properly pronounce Eyja or fja. The only part that's really familiar to English speakers is alla, and perhaps kull. Combine that with the j that sounds like y (does that mean y sounds like j?) and it makes the word quite difficult to read for non-native speakers.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    8. Re: Great by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, you're even more off. The double l in Icelandic is pronounced like a "dly" of sorts.

    9. Re:Great by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      "Eyja Fjalla JÃkull." Wow...that didn't help at all. I'm sure to you it looks perfectly reasonable, but to anyone who doesn't speak your obscure language, it looks like a cat walked on the keyboard.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    10. Re:Great by theVarangian · · Score: 1

      Oh, you want to be pedantic? Let's be pedantic, then!

      Scandinavian languages don't have "umlauts". "Umlaut" is a concept from German, where vowels are modified into different forms and marked with an umlaut mark. Other languages, however, just borrow these typographical forms to represent vowels with similar sounds. However, while German considers the vowels a and ä to be variations on the same letter, Scandinavian languages consider these to be separate letters entirely, and place them differently in alphabetical orderings.

      Thus, there is no "umlaut" in Eyjafjallajökull, there is merely an "ö" rather than an "o".

      In Icelandic 'o' and 'ö' are fairly subtle variations on the same sound, the difference betwee 'o' and 'ö' is only a matter of moving your tongue about 4-5mm forward. Icelandic is near near-isomorphic with with Ancient Norse to the point where some Icelanders can actually stumble their way through inscriptions transcribed into modern alphabet from rune stones over a thousand years old and many can read 12-13th century manuscripts similarly transcribed to modern alphabet pretty clearly, in fact teenagers in Iceland are sometimes required to read portions of sagas in the original medieval Icelandic in secondary school. You can consider Icelandic as something akin to a modern dialect of Ancient Norse whereas the modern Scandinavian languages on the other hand have evolved very far from the original Ancient Norse. The difference is about the same as between modern English and the language spoken in the UK in the 10-13 century. Come to think of it an Icelander would probably have much better luck reading early medieval English than a modern English person. Try getting a Norwegian, Swede or Dane to read a 13th century Icelandic saga manuscript and you'd not have much luck either.

    11. Re:Great by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      You mean Huji?

    12. Re:Great by fisted · · Score: 1

      It's actually a limitation of our brain. We can manage words up to reasonable length,

      Your brain. Not our brain. Now get off my lawn, I've got the Rindfleischetikettierungsueberwachungsaufgabenuebertragungsgesetz to read.

      Best wishes from Germany

      --
      CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
    13. Re:Great by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      Same thing. Slice into individual words. I don't speak Icelandic at all, and I speak only a bit of German, but word rules are pretty much the same. It's a combination of words. Finnish has the same thing as well.

    14. Re:Great by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Roughly: Ae-ya Fya-tla Yo-cootle

    15. Re:Great by PensivePeter · · Score: 1

      The letter is a distinct "Ö" (pronounced in IPA as "ø"). There is no umlaut in Icelandic and unlike the German, cannot be written alternatively as "oe"
      Just sayin' ...slow news evening...but otherwise correct observation!

  4. Potential greater than ever? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I doubt the potential is greater now than it was during the 1707-08 eruption.

    1. Re:Potential greater than ever? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I doubt the potential is greater now than it was during the 1707-08 eruption.

      Yeah, I thought the summary was a bit long winded, FLEE FOR YOUR LIVES! MOUNT FUJI IS ABOUT TO BLOW! would have been shorter and more to the point.

    2. Re:Potential greater than ever? by NatasRevol · · Score: 2

      I don't know, that eruption doesn't sound that bad. In fact, there wasn't even any lava flow.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...

      This potential one has already had higher intensity earthquakes, 9 vs 8.2. That's almost an order of magnitude larger.

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    3. Re:Potential greater than ever? by RockDoctor · · Score: 1
      Lava is rarely a problem from volcanoes. It's the ash falls, rain and lahars (mud flows, from the ash and rain) that cause the real damage.

      What was last century's score card? Something like 55000 to ash falls (of various types), mud flows and lahars, and a few hundreds to lava flows.

      Don't confuse "spectacular" and "dangerous". That can kill you if you worry about the spectacular and don't attend to the dangerous. As, I'm sure, Seattle will discover as people fret over lava flows from Mt Rainier (not a problem) while living on the flood plains of the lahars, which they'll have under an hours warning to evacuate when the next eruption happens.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
  5. volcano by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    How stupid do you have to be to live next to an active volcano.

    1. Re:volcano by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      not stupid - just a bad choice in parents. I cannot blame them, my decision was no better.

    2. Re:volcano by zeroryoko1974 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Ask someone from Seattle

    3. Re:volcano by LVSlushdat · · Score: 2

      Ask someone from Seattle

      Or Mexico City... It has Popocatépetl just down the street.. Arguably the most dangerous volcano in North America...

      --
      THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
    4. Re:volcano by istartedi · · Score: 2

      Ask someone from Seattle

      Ask someone from the entire central US. Yellowstone's "next to" is pretty large when you consider the projected ash fall from a major eruption. Aside from that, the knock-on effect on food supply and weather would have global consequences, so I guess we're all pretty "stupid".

      --
      For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
    5. Re:volcano by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Metals, minerals, fertile ground and naturally warm water during winters might persuade most adventurers. I'd hate to see an explosive eruption of the mountain to ruin that scenery. No more pretty postcards. Also I wouldn't want to be the Shinto priest trying to explain to the people why the eruption destroyed their holy mountain.

    6. Re:volcano by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 2

      Yellowstone is the "most dangerous" because it is really acting up lately and is considered to be a ELE capable Super Volcano. In fact, Yellowstone may be the biggest volcano threat in the world.

      It just doesn't scare people because "Old Faithful" sounds so reassuring.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    7. Re:volcano by RockDoctor · · Score: 1
      Active volcanoes have risks. These can be managed.

      You may not be able to conceive of managing such risks, but that's your failing.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
    8. Re:volcano by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      In fact, Yellowstone may be the biggest volcano threat in the world.

      Personally, I'd go for Vesuvius being the biggest threat around (2 million or so people in the blast zones). But I'm not particularly familiar with Popacatapetl and Mexico City, so I'd have to put that one on the table too.

      Yellowstone might be able to destroy North America (in the sense of "unfit for human habitation" for centuries), resulting in around a half billion deaths. [SHRUG] There's another 6+billion to go. Our species has been down in the low thousands before and come back (probably the result of climate change ; possibly due to volcanic forcing).

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
    9. Re:volcano by zeroryoko1974 · · Score: 1

      Yes, and it could blow anytime, in the next 100,000 years or so

  6. racist html by kruach+aum · · Score: 1

    For some reason it won't let me type mt. Fuji in kanji.

    1. Re:racist html by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Eyjafjallajokull won't let you type mt. Fuji in kanji? Why would you want to type it anyway? It's an English language website. Unless you really want to show off that you know one of the world's most common languages, I guess.

    2. Re:racist html by Mr+Foobar · · Score: 1

      For some reason it won't let me type mt. Fuji in kanji.

      --
      -> I dislike sigs...
    3. Re:racist html by Mr+Foobar · · Score: 1

      Weird. It previewed the three kanji, but on submission it won't display them.

      --
      -> I dislike sigs...
    4. Re:racist html by kruach+aum · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Your inability to correctly interpret simple anaphoric references would make you fail a Turing test.

    5. Re:racist html by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lol, same happened to me. No Kanji for sashdot. Only invisible ones:

    6. Re:racist html by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      According to tlhIngan (30335) in post #47460141

      Unicode is also supported. It does actually work, just that the whitelist of allowable Unicode codepoints is small. Adding in extra codepoints is on an as-needed basis. You're not likely to see those new emoji anytime soon.

      So it is working as long as you count "not allowed" as "working".

    7. Re:racist html by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      You guys must be new here. There's no Unicode on Slashdot at all.

    8. Re: racist html by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      Someone downmod this nigger loving faggot troll

    9. Re:racist html by NatasRevol · · Score: 2

      "working as designed" which is a metaphor for "not a bug, no sir".

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    10. Re:racist html by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      So it is working as long as you count "not allowed" as "working".

      The reason was it was first full Unicode, then a bunch of trolls abused it to screw up page formatting, which was switched to a blacklist. Then they figured out other ways to abuse the codepoints to do even stranger things to the layout, at which points the devs simply gave up and switched it to a whitelist.

      It was only until about 2 or 3 years ago that the whitelist was applied on comment entry - you could still find the old comments that screwed up the layout and see them. But as of then, they switched it so display also went through the filter (or they filtered all the comments) so even those comments don't screw up anymore.

      If you want, use Google to search for "erocS", or even prepend it with a colon, and optionally a number (e.g., 5:erocS).

      E.g. - http://hardware.slashdot.org/c...
      http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...

      Just like clbuttic, erocS is actually the reverse of "Score", which if you look at the header of a comment, you'll understand what they did.

    11. Re:racist html by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      another reason to use TFBeta...

    12. Re:racist html by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Damn straight. You can't spell ASCII without Amurca!

      Fuck Yeah!

    13. Re:racist html by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fuck beta

    14. Re:racist html by s0nicfreak · · Score: 1

      Because there is no kanji for "mt. Fuji"... you have to type fujisan or fujiyama
      /badjoke

    15. Re:racist html by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      Those evil Iceland volcanoes have their fingers in everything!

    16. Re: racist html by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      You fail too, you're obviously a computer program.

    17. Re:racist html by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      Not even other more popular encodings.

    18. Re:racist html by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      It's just shitty coding by Slashdot. Those of us who aren't American have been complaining about it, fruitlessly, for years. It's been something that I've been asking them to fix since I signed up, about 2 million accounts before you did.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
    19. Re:racist html by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      Ah, a vaguely comprehensible description of the problem. Thank you - that's more informative than anything I've seen on the topic in - what is it, 15 years?

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
  7. .. not in italy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://www.foxnews.com/science/2012/10/22/italian-court-convicts-7-scientists-for-failing-to-predict-earthquake/

    [...]They have no way of predicting when an eruption might happen[...]

    1. Re:.. not in italy by Luckyo · · Score: 2

      They were convicted for making statements that earthquake will not happen, which caused people to not prepare and react appropriately. It was still pretty messed up, but it's nowhere near as bad as faux news makes it sound.

    2. Re:.. not in italy by Mathinker · · Score: 1

      > They were convicted for making statements that earthquake will not happen

      And they actually made such statements? Or, perhaps they merely said that "as far as science knows, the probability of an earthquake is no larger than, say, last year". The whole thing looked like a witch hunt to blame someone for damages which were caused by natural causes, because no politician is going to get up in front of the electorate and actually tell them "Sorry, there is a very small chance that large numbers of people in our country could die from X, Y, or Z and there is no practical way to prevent these dangers."

      It frankly looked like scientists sacrificed on the stage of security theater.

  8. Solution! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yes and no tsunami will hit any reactors on a mountain!

  9. Um... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    They have no way of predicting when an eruption might happen, but the potential seems greater than ever.

    They say they can't predict it, then in the same sentence predict it. Amazing.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    1. Re:Um... by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      They say they can't predict it, then in the same sentence predict it. Amazing.

      They say they can't predict it, and then they don't. They only say that it seems more likely than ever before. Then you fail to read. Sadly, not amazing, nor unusual.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:Um... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 0, Troll

      They are predicting that it is getting close to an eruption. That's a prediction. Perhaps you were expecting the actual date of the eruption, but to qualify as a prediction they only need to anticipate some aspect of its future behaviour in some way.

      From OED:
      Predict
      VERB

      [WITH OBJECT]
      Say or estimate that (a specified thing) will happen in the future or will be a consequence of something

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    3. Re:Um... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      They say they can't predict it, then in the same sentence predict it. Amazing.

      They say they can't predict it, and then they don't. They only say that it seems more likely than ever before.

      And that's a prediction.

      Then you fail to read. Sadly, not amazing, nor unusual.

      Oh internet, so fast on the useless attacks. Will there be a day when people keep it civil?

    4. Re:Um... by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Informative

      And that's a prediction.

      If the water in your kettle is hotter than it's ever been before, then you know it's closer to boiling than it ever has been before. You can say that without announcing the time at which it will boil, or even whether it will boil. And that's why it isn't a prediction.

      Oh internet, so fast on the useless attacks. Will there be a day when people keep it civil?

      That day will have to come after people start R'ing TFA and understanding it before posting. But in fact, I was perfectly civil. I may have misstated the case slightly, however. He may have read the article, and simply failed to understand what he read. I don't want to attribute to one type of incompetence what is actually due to another.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    5. Re:Um... by neurovish · · Score: 1

      They have no way of predicting when an eruption might happen, but the potential seems greater than ever.

      They say they can't predict it, then in the same sentence predict it. Amazing.

      It only seems that way....like somebody was sitting there looking at Mt. Fuji and got the willies.

    6. Re:Um... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can say that without announcing the time at which it will boil, or even whether it will boil. And that's why it isn't a prediction.

      Using the definition of prediction in AmiMoJo's post (which you ignored... why?):

      Say or estimate that (a specified thing) will happen in the future or will be a consequence of something

      Your estimation may never come to fruition, but it was still a prediction. It is pretty obvious, and if you were intellectually honest you would concede. But after you said he/she usually fails to read, it gets more difficult, isn't it?

      But in fact, I was perfectly civil.

      It is because you actually believe that that the internet has mostly negatively toned comments. Lack of empathy.

    7. Re:Um... by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      Using the definition of prediction in AmiMoJo's post (which you ignored... why?):

      In fact, I used it as my guide.

      Your estimation may never come to fruition, but it was still a prediction.

      They said it was more likely, they did not say how much more likely it was. Thus, they did not in fact make an estimate. You want words to mean things that they don't mean, to support your argument.

      It is because you actually believe that that the internet has mostly negatively toned comments. Lack of empathy.

      Civil discourse does not mean never pointing out a fault or a flaw. Criticism is an absolute necessity for progress.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    8. Re:Um... by wbr1 · · Score: 2
      Okay. You have a full 2-liter soda bottle. You drop it from hip height to the floor. The shock releases dissolved gas, increasing the pressure in the bottle. Now pick it up and drop it again. And again.

      At some point the bottle will fail and the soda will erupt.

      Can you say on which drop? Can you say how it will fail (split seam, pinhole rupture that expands, cap failure?)

      No? But you can say that it likely will if the behavior continues.

      Lets take another example, say HDD failure. Any HDD will fail, at some point. Is it head failure? Bearing failure? Temperature damage to the media? You do not know, but you can say it WILL fail.

      So, nice troll attempt, but it falls flat.

      --
      Silence is a state of mime.
    9. Re:Um... by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

      On the first drop of the bottle the cap loosens slightly but stays in place. The bottle hisses as some of the pressure is released. When you pick it up awhile later and drop it again, the pressure has mostly equalized, but a second drop, and it hisses some more. A little while later you pick up the bottle which is now full of flat soda.

    10. Re:Um... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Okay, maybe you're not a native English speaker... but this sentence:

      They have no way of predicting when an eruption might happen, but the potential seems greater than ever.

      Generally means this:

      They have no way of predicting the exact date an eruption might happen, but the potential seems greater than ever.

    11. Re:Um... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh fuck off, you pedantic twat.

      Someone said something that could possibly be construed as being incorrect, ambiguous or inconsistent on the internet ... OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!

    12. Re:Um... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I was rolling a 20-sided die, and I needed a six. Now I've switched to a six-sided die. I keep rolling. I can't say when I'll get a six; but the potential seems greater than ever.

      The situation is directly analogous, and I'm not predicting a damned thing.

    13. Re:Um... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In that scenario, the bottle failed on the first drop. It just wasn't a catastrophic failure, it was just a failure to 'maintain grip' on the lid.

    14. Re:Um... by NeutronCowboy · · Score: 1

      You might be able to use a dictionary, but you clearly lack reading comprehension. A prediction, to qualify as any sort of useful prediction, requires some bit of information that can be acted on. What they said was that the odds of Mt Fuji blowing up increased, but we have no idea by how much or how that would translate into an actual date.

      Furthermore, they didn't say that it got close to an eruption, but that the odds increased. Put down the dictionary, and pay more attention to what you read.

      --
      Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
    15. Re: Um... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just don't switch to 4-sided dice...

    16. Re: Um... by omnichad · · Score: 1

      As long as you put a 6 on one of those four sides, I don't see a problem.

    17. Re:Um... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh internet, so fast on the useless attacks. Will there be a day when people keep it civil?

      Well, you see. It's like predicting an eruption at Mt. Fuji. We don't even know if it will ever happen. Unlike Mt. Fuji though, it does not appear to be getting more likely.

  10. Fukushima by MrKaos · · Score: -1

    Reactor 4 spent fuel cooling pool contains 1500 spent Mox fuel rods. Any seismic activity large enough to threaten the stability of that structure introduces the risk of a plutonium fire fueled by several hundred tons of mox fuel. A storage facility near it contains another 6000 spent mox fuel rods. The smoke of the fire is plutonium oxide and chloride which is fatal to humans at doses of 1-10 micrograms.

    There is little doubt that if that happens at Fukushima the fallout would be carried by the jetstream over the US and, eventually the entire Northern hemisphere.

    This is the potential consequence that has not been spelled out.

    --
    My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    1. Re: Fukushima by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yay DOOM! I haven't had good fallout training since the 1980's.

      How much will the US put on the military game board to keep China from taking Japan while its still toasty? China doesn't like Japanese anyway so the volcano is doing them a favor.

      Do volcanos count toward Global Warming???

    2. Re:Fukushima by MrKaos · · Score: 0

      Reactor 4 spent fuel cooling pool contains 1500 spent Mox fuel rods. Any seismic activity large enough to threaten the stability of that structure introduces the risk of a plutonium fire fueled by several hundred tons of mox fuel. A storage facility near it contains another 6000 spent mox fuel rods. The smoke of the fire is plutonium oxide and chloride which is fatal to humans at doses of 1-10 micrograms.

      There is little doubt that if that happens at Fukushima the fallout would be carried by the jetstream over the US and, eventually the entire Northern hemisphere.

      This is the potential consequence that has not been spelled out.

      You can mod the facts down, however it won't change the consequences or make it any less real.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    3. Re:Fukushima by MrKaos · · Score: -1

      Reactor 4 spent fuel cooling pool contains 1500 spent Mox fuel rods. Any seismic activity large enough to threaten the stability of that structure introduces the risk of a plutonium fire fueled by several hundred tons of mox fuel. A storage facility near it contains another 6000 spent mox fuel rods. The smoke of the fire is plutonium oxide and chloride which is fatal to humans at doses of 1-10 micrograms.

      There is little doubt that if that happens at Fukushima the fallout would be carried by the jetstream over the US and, eventually the entire Northern hemisphere.

      This is the potential consequence that has not been spelled out.

      How many mod points do the Nuclear shills today?

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    4. Re:Fukushima by khallow · · Score: 1
      It's worth noting that the magnitude 9 earthquake didn't come close to threatening the stability of the cooling ponds. So you're looking for a much bigger earthquake in a region that already released most of its geologically built up energy in a magnitude 9 earthquake.

      There is little doubt that if that happens at Fukushima the fallout would be carried by the jetstream over the US and, eventually the entire Northern hemisphere.

      Because obviously, Japan will forgot how to pump water. A few diesel generators and some hose means that your scenario doesn't happen - even if you somehow came up with the huge earthquake and the structural failure.

    5. Re:Fukushima by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 1

      Facts matter little to the FUD mongers.

    6. Re:Fukushima by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Hmm, a quick bit of research finds that MOX fuel rods are basically PuO2, which doesn't do the pyrophoric thing - it's stable in dry air, heats up slowly in the presence of water vapor.

      Which at least suggests that the panic at the thought of a Pu fire is a bit exaggerated....

      Note also that spent fuel rods have rather less Pu in them than you might think, since most of it has been burned in the nuclear reactor before it became "spent".

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    7. Re:Fukushima by ericloewe · · Score: 1

      They didn't forget, bureaucracy stalled the process until the buildings started exploding.

    8. Re:Fukushima by Artifakt · · Score: 1

      Obviously, Pu oxide is a common result of reaction with either atmospheric O2 or splitting H20 used to try and cool the burning plutonium. But where does the Chlorine potentially come from, salt in sea water? It sounds like you're describing a risk where at least part of it is specific to plants that might be either inundated by the sea or catch fire and have sea water pumped in to put it out, but I'm far from sure if that's actually what you mean. Is the point here that we are equally screwed whether a plant is on/near a seacoast or not, or that inland plants might be somewhat safer?

      --
      Who is John Cabal?
    9. Re:Fukushima by muridae · · Score: 1

      A storage facility near it contains another 6000 spent mox fuel rods. The smoke of the fire is plutonium oxide and chloride which is fatal to humans at doses of 1-10 micrograms.

      There is little doubt that if that happens at Fukushima the fallout would be carried by the jetstream over the US and, eventually the entire Northern hemisphere.

      How many tons is that 6000 spent rods? Then remember exactly how big the Pacific Ocean is and how large, comparatively, a microgram is. A microgram is only 10^-12 of a ton, area crossed is a square fall off rate.

      Could it immediately pollute the ocean and cause problems? Sure! Would the fall-out in the ocean cause a long term problem? Not unless there is way more than I expect from those fuel rods; the ocean is huge! One third of the Earth's surface, over half of the salt water on Earth; and you are worried about the toxins that humans failed to plan for when a volcano that's been dormant for a long history suddenly might be a little closer to eruption? Be worried about the loss of life from the volcano going off, and the loss of life from the climate change that a large eruption would cause (famine, loss of utilities, etc).

      Or, if you must be scared of nuclear stuff, be scared of the fall out from all the nuke warheads and fuel stored close enough to Yellowstone that would be vaporized in the expected eruption.

    10. Re:Fukushima by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      Obviously, Pu oxide is a common result of reaction with either atmospheric O2 or splitting H20 used to try and cool the burning plutonium.

      Yes, and also contact with sea water. The plutonium fire is uncontrolled criticality in the atmosphere. It is thermally hot as a result of the neutrons smashing around into more fuel. You are right that the nature of such a fire will instantly split water into hydrogen. The main issue from PUO2 is breathing it in, it is not very soluble however it can still bio-accumulate.

      But where does the Chlorine potentially come from, salt in sea water?

      Yes, some of the plutonium particulates will encounter sea water to produce plutonium chloride. Some has already been produced when sea water was used to cool the reactor in the first part of the accident. If we face a pu-fire the proximity of the ocean will be a factor in how much chloride is produced.

      This is the stuff that is really concerning. It is extremely soluble and will readily bio-concentrate because it presents as iron to a metabolism. This means sea grass, fish and crustaceans will all consume it, then predators will consume them. At Chernobyl a dead zone in the forests around the site were formed from the fallout so it is reasonable to expect something similar, and probably much larger, in the ocean.

      It sounds like you're describing a risk where at least part of it is specific to plants that might be either inundated by the sea or catch fire and have sea water pumped in to put it out, but I'm far from sure if that's actually what you mean. Is the point here that we are equally screwed whether a plant is on/near a seacoast or not, or that inland plants might be somewhat safer?

      This threat is Fukushima specific as the structure of the spent fuel pool for reactor 4 has been severely damaged (by the explosions and tsunami) and is 3 stories above the ground on concrete pylons so is in an extremely precarious position. I believe there is an effort underway to remove the spent fuel however I think a long term solution isn't even being considered that can mitigate this threat.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    11. Re:Fukushima by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      Reactor 4 spent fuel cooling pool contains 1500 spent Mox fuel rods. Any seismic activity large enough to threaten the stability of that structure introduces the risk of a plutonium fire fueled by several hundred tons of mox fuel. A storage facility near it contains another 6000 spent mox fuel rods. The smoke of the fire is plutonium oxide and chloride which is fatal to humans at doses of 1-10 micrograms.

      There is little doubt that if that happens at Fukushima the fallout would be carried by the jetstream over the US and, eventually the entire Northern hemisphere.

      This is the potential consequence that has not been spelled out.

      Hello fanbois and shills, troll me with your mod points.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    12. Re:Fukushima by CaptnZilog · · Score: 1

      Reactor 4 spent fuel cooling pool contains 1500 spent Mox fuel rods.

      Correction, contained. It now has less than 400 as they've been removing them.

      Reactor 4 spent fuel pool status

    13. Re:Fukushima by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      Reactor 4 spent fuel cooling pool contains 1500 spent Mox fuel rods.

      Correction, contained. It now has less than 400 as they've been removing them.

      Reactor 4 spent fuel pool status

      Thank you for the information, that is great news. I hadn't seen it because I see this was only reported a week ago. 400 is still a serious threat though so let's hope the process is continued until the threat is all removed.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    14. Re: Fukushima by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yay DOOM! I haven't had good fallout training since the 1980's.

      How much will the US put on the military game board to keep China from taking Japan while its still toasty? China doesn't like Japanese anyway so the volcano is doing them a favor.

      Do volcanos count toward Global Warming???

      your words are, fecal in origin dripping from your chin

    15. Re:Fukushima by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      Reactor 4 spent fuel cooling pool contains 400 spent Mox fuel rods. Any seismic activity large enough to threaten the stability of that structure introduces the risk of a plutonium fire fueled by several hundred tons of mox fuel. A storage facility near it contains another 6000 spent mox fuel rods. The smoke of the fire is plutonium oxide and chloride which is fatal to humans at doses of 1-10 micrograms.

      There is little doubt that if that happens at Fukushima the fallout would be carried by the jetstream over the US and, eventually the entire Northern hemisphere.

      This is the potential consequence that has not been spelled out.

      C'mon you slimey chickenshit mod troll, even my corrected facts trump your pathetic fanboi crap.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    16. Re:Fukushima by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      Facts matter little to the FUD mongers.

      Well, you run off and get some. Pick up a clue while you're at it.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    17. Re:Fukushima by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      Hmm, a quick bit of research finds that MOX fuel rods are basically PuO2, which doesn't do the pyrophoric thing - it's stable in dry air, heats up slowly in the presence of water vapor.

      And what do you expect happens when you put a bunch of them in close proximity and take the moderator away. An outdoor nuclear reeactor without control rods. This is what you do in a nuclear reactor, there is no magic that will change a FUEL ROD's behaviour or properties when it's outside a reactor. On their own, fine. Bunch them together, take away the moderator, criticallity.

      Which at least suggests that the panic at the thought of a Pu fire is a bit exaggerated.....

      Or actually a real risk that you wern't aware of until you saw my post otherwise why would there be such a effort to extract the fuel rods at all. Maybe, the people who do know also have enough influence and understanding of the situation to excert that kind of pressure on the Japanese Diet.

      Note also that spent fuel rods have rather less Pu in them than you might think, since most of it has been burned in the nuclear reactor before it became "spent".

      .

      Fuel rods are more toxic when they come out compared to when they go in and much more radioactive. The burn-up rate for a PWR is 0.3%, yes point zero three of a percent. So I think there is more pu239 there than you expect.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    18. Re:Fukushima by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      A storage facility near it contains another 6000 spent mox fuel rods. The smoke of the fire is plutonium oxide and chloride which is fatal to humans at doses of 1-10 micrograms.

      There is little doubt that if that happens at Fukushima the fallout would be carried by the jetstream over the US and, eventually the entire Northern hemisphere.

      How many tons is that 6000 spent rods?

      Roughly 850 tons on site.

      Then remember exactly how big the Pacific Ocean is and how large, comparatively, a microgram is. A microgram is only 10^-12 of a ton, area crossed is a square fall off rate.

      8.5^14 fatal doses. More than enough to go around and around.

      Could it immediately pollute the ocean and cause problems? Sure! Would the fall-out in the ocean cause a long term problem?

      Absolutely. I described the effects which would last as long as the decay period, which is 25,000 years as it is cycled through the food chain over that time through bio-accumulation - assuming it lasts that long.

      you are worried about the toxins that humans failed to plan for when a volcano that's been dormant for a long history suddenly might be a little closer to eruption?

      I would characterize it as concerned enough to agitate for action. Though another poster pointed out that the fuel rods are being removed at a pace that indicates that this threat is actually understood. The revised figure is 400 in the spent fuel pool, still quite a large threat however, great news there and hopefully a threat that is resolved soon!

      Be worried about the loss of life from the volcano going off, and the loss of life from the climate change that a large eruption would cause (famine, loss of utilities, etc).

      On a purely vicarious level an eruption of Mt Fuji wouldn't affect me, a pu fire would.

      Or, if you must be scared of nuclear stuff, be scared of the fall out from all the nuke warheads and fuel stored close enough to Yellowstone that would be vaporized in the expected eruption.

      I am not aware that Yucca mountain is operational and the DOE characterized it as unsuitable, let me know if you have a link indicating otherwise. If it were operational and fully stocked it would present an ongoing threat that would dwarf this one (which is one of my chief objections to the facility) however both scenarios pose a threat so serious that it would be like comparing being crushed by a 850 ton rock to a 70,000 ton rock, you are equally dead.

      On reflection its a possible solution to the Fermi Paradox.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    19. Re:Fukushima by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      It's worth noting that the magnitude 9 earthquake didn't come close to threatening the stability of the cooling ponds.

      The damage to the foundations mean the entire building leaning over. TEPCO's status page for the reactor reveals they are building a support structure to stop the spent fuel pool from falling.

      So you're looking for a much bigger earthquake in a region that already released most of its geologically built up energy in a magnitude 9 earthquake.

      I see your supporting your adgenda as a Nuclear apologist again.

      Because obviously, Japan will forgot how to pump water. A few diesel generators and some hose means that your scenario doesn't happen - even if you somehow came up with the huge earthquake and the structural failure.

      A plutonium fire splits the hydrogen and oxygen and the water ceases to exist, so that simply won't work

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    20. Re:Fukushima by khallow · · Score: 1

      I see your supporting your adgenda as a Nuclear apologist again.

      At least, I don't go bug-eyed and rant four times about the shills modding down a single post (and the modding in question is as flamebait and off-topic, looks like appropriate modding to me).

    21. Re:Fukushima by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      I see your supporting your adgenda as a Nuclear apologist again.

      At least, I don't go bug-eyed and rant four times about the shills modding down a single post

      Of course you don't, you never present any facts of value.

      And, as usual, your "argument" is easily demolished so the only thing you have left is your predictable ad-hominem attack, to which you readily resort.

      (and the modding in question is as flamebait and off-topic, looks like appropriate modding to me).

      Well you would say that because the science and reality of the situation doesn't fit into the agenda you promote.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    22. Re:Fukushima by khallow · · Score: 1
      Ah, yes. Your hypocritical ad hominems are quite pointless, you should know. And what "science and reality" went into you going off your rocker here?

      It's so peculiar a failure mode that I have to quote the whole thing:

      All this "NIMBY" greenpeace anti nuke fags really just don't know what they are taking about, anyone who knows about nuclear reactors will tell you that they are really great, super reliable and that the only reason that we have to pay for electricity is because it's waaay too cheap to meter it from a nuclear reactor and the utilities had to pay for meters.

      I've often thought, "I would like some strontium 90 on my breakfast cereal" because it is tasty and good for you, plus you will win every fart contest. Recently it was conclusively *proven* that not only can you get a great suntan from the core of a reactor, but that radioisotopes have Vitamin C in it, so my advice to people would be if you are feeling a bit of a sniffle coming on, get yourself to a local nuclear reactor and ask to cuddle up to a couple of fuel rods and get toasty.

      Chernobyl and Fukushima proved how safe Nuclear power is and we should all want one near us. Whilst evacuations of these areas have occurred Bruce Willis proved that you won't die at all from fallout from a nuclear reactor in "A good day to die hard". He lived and was stronger so we should move people back there so they grow up to be just like Bruce Willis.

      Nuclear is perfectly safe and we can all have a nuclear future, in our back yards, today!

      You really need to learn how to reason with someone who doesn't fully share your worldview. Free association babble just doesn't work.

    23. Re:Fukushima by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      Ah, yes. Your hypocritical ad hominems are quite pointless, you should know. And what "science and reality" went into you going off your rocker here?

      It's called - being sarcastic - and having a laugh. There is nothing ad hominem about that post, it's modded troll because people feel threatened by something they don't understand. Including you.

      It's so peculiar a failure mode...

      When you encounter something so absurd, sometimes an equally absurd response is the only sane thing.

      You really need to learn how to reason with someone who doesn't fully share your worldview. Free association babble just doesn't work.

      Well I learn a little more every day. I don't have any animosity to you personally, and I actually agree with some of your posts unrelated to nuclear things. I just wish you would post some evidence to support your position, because you never do.

      I don't expect you to understand parody, however it is a great cherry on the cake of my day that you read it - because that's how I feel when I read every one of your posts.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
  11. Light 'em up by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1

    "Oooh look, incendiary rounds! Gotta try these out at the range!" - God

    --
    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    1. Re:Light 'em up by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      We should expect meteors?

  12. It's over 9000 by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 2

    The only thing missing from this breathless article was an animation of a scientist inspecting a piece of monitoring equipment, watching the needle bury itself, and screaming "it's over 9000!!!"

    1. Re:It's over 9000 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And I thought the only thing missing was blaming it on nuclear power.

  13. Relieve pressure? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Has anyone tried to pre-emptively relieve the pressure in volcanoes so they never erupt? Could probably use that hot magma in some sort of thermal electricity generator too.

    1. Re:Relieve pressure? by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 1

      >> Haz (tap that magma)... thermal electricity generator...?

      Yes, this guy: http://is.gd/8w8Rjo

    2. Re:Relieve pressure? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's called fracking..... Creates a lot of small harmless earthquakes apparently.

    3. Re:Relieve pressure? by higuita · · Score: 1

      you have at least to extract the gas, that is very dangerous and turn a calm volcano into a explosive one... drilling is hard, as it too depth and too hot... explosions could help for the final steps, but even the small breach, at that depth, can cause the critical failure and a full eruption ... even if manage to do it, injecting huge amount of water to extract the heat it would only extract a very small quantity of the total, remember that there are volcanos under water too. Also, cooling one side might just deflect the magma flow to other place, creating more quakes, and create a new volcano where you really don't want.

      --
      Higuita
    4. Re:Relieve pressure? by skydyr · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Part of the problem with trying to relieve the pressure is that many eruptions occur because of gases suspended in the magma. Once the pressure drops enough, the gas ceases to be soluble in the magma and it's the expansion of the gas that causes the violent eruption. It follows that relieving the pressure could easily trigger the eruption you are trying to prevent in this case. Whether this is the actual cause of an eruption in a specific case is dependent on the volcano, I believe, and is implicated in the more explosive ones, as opposed to the gentler flowing eruptions found with others.

  14. Mt. Miyajima? by superflippy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Mt. Fuji is more well known, but I wonder how all this seismic activity is affecting Mt. Miyajima in the southern part of Japan? It's another active volcano, one I visited in the 90's. It was actively smoking at the time, and surrounded by lava beds.

    --
    Your fantasies contain the seeds of important concepts.
    1. Re:Mt. Miyajima? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What about Mt Midoriyama?
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasuke_(TV_series)

    2. Re:Mt. Miyajima? by steelfood · · Score: 1

      Considering Miyajima is in the south, away from all the geological activity farther up north, the effect of the earthquakes will not be nearly as great.

      Then again, volcanoes are an unpredictable thing. Even minor shifts of the crust can have major implications, if the shifting, however minor, is just right. Sometimes, it's a matter of when. But I'm sure there are instruments monitoring these things. If there was any change detected, it'd be on the news as well.

      --
      "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
    3. Re:Mt. Miyajima? by albacrankie · · Score: 1

      Are you sure it wasn't you that was smoking at the time?

      Perhaps you mean Sakurajima?

    4. Re:Mt. Miyajima? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Argh! I've always hated that translation. It means " Mount Green Mountain"

    5. Re:Mt. Miyajima? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mt Miyajima is not an active volcano, there are many active volcanoes in Japan though.

  15. Tectonic Clickbait FTW! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Dicedotastic.

  16. Can't they just... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...dig little holes in the ground to let out the steam?

    1. Re:Can't they just... by afeeney · · Score: 1

      As I understand it, by the time you reach the steam, you've gone deeper than most drilling equipment can go and gotten hot enough to melt most drills. Worse, you can't safely predict the results of releasing that much pressure, especially since there's no reliable way of imaging what you're drilling into at that depth and heat level.

    2. Re:Can't they just... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      AFAIK the steamy part is just ground water being heated by the magma. The actual magma is what has to be released to relieve pressure. If you could actually vent magma, you'd simply be initiating the eruption. That said, if you've got Tokyo on one side and lightly populated land on the other, and you could control which way an explosion went, there might be some value in that. It's going to erupt no matter what though, and controlling the direction is either beyond our technology, or if we could use thermonuclear weapons to direct it that'd be impolitic. Just what Japan needs--more nuking.

  17. Frack It by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They keep saying that fracking triggers small earthquakes to relieve the pressure build up that would have resulted in a larger earthquake. Wouldn't this be a good test case to prevent a natural disaster?

    1. Re:Frack It by American+Patent+Guy · · Score: 1

      No, it wouldn't be a testcase at all because you'd have no idea whether you had succeeded, or whether natural geology relieved the pressure on its own.

  18. Critical state? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    Try rebooting it.

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  19. uh oh by slashmydots · · Score: 1

    I don't even need to google it or check in any way to see if people are dumb enough to still live near it. Somehow, deep down, I just know they are. I bet their property values just dropped a bit too.

  20. Likely effects by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Tokyo would get a lot of ash, but it's way too far away for lava to be an issue. It would be an enormous mess, and transportation would be affected, but people wouldn't be in a Pompei situation. Probably, secondary earthquakes would be the biggest issue.

    On the other hand, if it erupts in the summer, during climbing season, a fair number of people could die right on the mountain. And there are a lot of towns and people who live much closer to Fuji than Tokyo. They'd be in more danger.

  21. Nordic Nerd... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    living in his mom's basement? :D

  22. I'm fine with it blowing up Japan... AFTER by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They make Magipoka season two and Spice and Wolf season 3.

  23. Typo or Wrongo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Should read "just over 300 years ago."
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historic_eruptions_of_Mount_Fuji

  24. Typical /. Denial No Mention of HAARP Threat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No mention of how twitchy the fingers are of those positioned on the HAARP buttons around the world might be, anxious to complete this story with a direct hit of pulsed ultra low radio wave frequencies.under that beautiful Mountain until she blows, decrying they told us so while secretly toasting amongst themselves as if they were a cog in some great natural mystery in the cosmos.

    Watch out for the telltale irridescent clouds over Mt Fuji.

  25. We now know the precursor of eruptions, though. by MtViewGuy · · Score: 1

    I think thanks to more recent research by geologists, we now know that most volcanic eruptions occur after a series of very specific types of earthquakes around the volcano. This is why seismic sensors are placed all over many Japanese volcanic mountains, for example Mt. Aso and Sakurajima on Kyushu and both Mt. Fuji and Mt. Asama (since both mountains if there is any major eruption could seriously affect the Tokyo metropolitan region).

  26. No Geochemical signs? by bbsalem · · Score: 1

    I glanced at the links and saw some geophysical data but no geochemical or in situ data, in particular the kinds of data used on other magmatic arc stratoform vents where there is a change in the amount and composition of gases being emitted and local geophysical signs like deformation. Connecting regional tectonics, a strain field, to the behavior of one system contained within is going to be difficult without other signs. Maybe the article is a call for Japan's geophysists to do the kind of in situ monitoring to give them some warning that an eruption might be coming.

  27. Language by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nobody wins this debate. We will all be speaking Chinese in 40 years.......well maybe. Anyway back to the point of Fuji .....I just visited a local nuclear power station an the construction going on is huge. Tsunami walls, covers for emergency generators ....it's coming back and the most japanese don't know. ...as for me ......it's clean cheap.....and dare I say safe and reliable. Say that in Japan and you will cause a stir