400 km square is 100 times the area, which means that with no clouds, and 24 hours of summer sun every day of the year, he could get what he thinks he's getting.
Alas, we don't get summer sun every day, nor do we get no clouds every day, nor do we get 24 hours of sunlight every day.
So he's still off by a factor of 10 or so.
It often amazes me that people who think of themselves as technically oriented and intelligent can't handle basic multiplication/division/addition/subtraction in analysing their own thoughts. And no, this isn't a dig at the parent, though it should have been obvious to him that the 400 km square (which is NOT what the OP said) wouldn't work either. It was, in fact, a dig at the OP.
Watch how those geiger counters are going ballistic miles from the plant. Whole cities are going to be ghost towns for our lifetime for sure.
Never used a geiger counter, I see...
Note that you can adjust the sensitivity level of those things so that the clicks come pretty much as fast or slow as you want, no matter the level of radiation you're actually measuring.
This is by design, by the by, so that you can turn up the sensitivity to find a very tiny source of radiation (say, a speck of Co-60 dust), or tune it down to only measure radiation levels sufficient to be hazards to humans.
the point is, because some people are hysterics or are illiterates does not change the fact that alarm is indeed the proper, intelligent reaction to fukushima
Why?
Seriously, why is alarm the proper, intelligent reaction to Fukushima? It's not like anyone has died or anything.
There was a five car pileup on the Interstate the other day. More people died in that one accident than have died as a result of civilian nuclear power generation in the USA, and Japan combined.
While the events at Fukushima are non-trivial, they pale to insignificance compared to, say, an earthquake followed by a tsunami that might kill 20,000+ people immediately and disrupt the entire global economy.
Which latter event doesn't really get all that much "viewing with alarm" these days.
400 sq/km of standard PV cells will match the current global generating capacity (~13TW).
No, actually it can't.
13 terawatts divided over 400,000,000 square meters requires that each square meter produce 32.5 KW of electricity.
Alas, the Sun only puts a bit more than ONE KW of solar energy on each square meter.
And solar panels aren't 100% efficient at turning light into electricity.
So, ignoring night, clouds, and downtime, you're still off by a factor of around 100. When you include night, clouds, and downtime, you're off by a factor of 1000 or so.
Social Security is self funding. That 700 billion comes out of the general budget. See the difference?
You're obviously unaware that the Social Security taxes are tossed into the General Fund and spent just like any other tax revenue.
Ditto Medicare taxes.
However, all that aside, if we were to not count SS and Medicare, and discount their tax revenue as well, we'd be talking (for 2010, as an example) $1.069 trillion in revenues and $2.229 trillion in expenditures. Note that in 2010 we had ~$1.036 trillion in non-SS, non-Medicare MANDATORY spending.
Which leaves us ~$33 billion left to fund the entire Federal government. Which means zeroing the entire Federal government except for mandatory programs and the Treasury Department and the Justice Department would still leave us a slight deficit.
Note also that zeroing all MANDATORY spending other than SS, Medicare, and the interest on the National Debt would still require an across the board cut of 34% in order to balance the books.
No? See, that's the deadliest political trap of all, the one the Republicans built their party on - "We'll have fun giving people tax cuts and we'll make the Democrats clean up the mess!" Then the Masses don't understand why things are so tough, and they elect in more Republicans who "ease the burdens of sacrifice" with more tax cuts.
And here I thought we should be discussing the Democrats' favorite game: adding new things the government does FOR you without raising taxes to pay for them (or cooking the books the way they did with Obamacare - thought it was clever that they added trillions in new spending on that one, but the spending doesn't kick in till after Obama is out of office, and not responsible for finding the money to pay for it)....
Another goal was increasing the # of people with HC. HC Reform does not just include lowering costs to everyone, but also expanding access to it to those that cannot currently afford it, or have lost coverage through a variety of ways, which that bill also dealt with somewhat.
You are conflating "Health Care" with "Health Insurance" here. They are not the same thing.
In addition, it should be pointed out that Obama's Healthcare bill (actually a Health Insurance bill) doesn't lower costs for everyone. Or even for anyone.
Funny how Americans (you're American, right?) started making so many jokes about the French surrendering the moment France became one of the most resistant to US behaviour over Iraq.
We were making jokes about France surrendering long before Iraq.
I'd love to get the Pollyanna nuclear cheerleaders here a ticket to Japan, so they can check out the damage for themselves and report back to us, if they survive.
Okay, schedule mine for a two week stay. I'd love to see Japan.
Note, for the record, that not one single person has died as a result of Fukushima.
Note also that not one single person outside the emergency workers working to contain Fukushima has even become ill as a result of Fukushima.
Note finally that more people died as a result of the wastewater plant wall collapsing in Gatlinburg TN than have died due to civilian nuclear power accidents in the USA. Or Europe. Or both combined....
Kids and teenagers don't deal well with forced social situations. They have cliques. They try hard to get in the ones they want to get in, and they try hard to keep people out of them that they don't think are deserving of it.
if they agree to provision to the budget bill that will outlaw the use of federal funds for abortion even though it is already federal law that funds cannot be used for abortion
So? What's the problem here? If it's already illegal, adding a line to the budget making it illegal is meaningless.
Seems to me that if the Dems don't want to add one meaningless line to the budget bill, that they might be of the opinion that the line isn't quite as meaningless as it seems.
Note, by the way, that even if the line were put into the bill, and it became law of the land, it could be overridden by any subsequent bill that included a line saying the opposite. It's not like laws can't be changed from one year to the next. Or one day to the next....
Personally, I've always thought that scaling weight by the square of height was pretty stupid. In the real world, volume (and weight) vary by the cube of the linear dimensions, not the square.
With my height, ideal weight using BMI would be around 150-160 pounds. The last time I weighed 160 pounds was when I was a teenager, and I was skinny as a rail.
And it also doesn't help that euthanasia is illegal over there. I know that if/when i get cancer, and it's terminal, that I'll off myself, I'm not planning on rotting away hooked on machines
Why bother? Once your doctor has diagnosed you as terminally ill, you have the option of "hospice care", which reduces down to "drug you into a (theoretically) no-pain coma, and let you die".
Face it, you always have the option of refusing care.
Those are State cigarette taxes. One must remember that there are also Federal Cigarette taxes. A bit more than a dollar a pack on that side, as of 2009.
They had a multi-stage backup system which was working till it was flattened by a mega-tsuanmi.
You mean like when you have backups of your computer which you haven't tested? Or maybe when you make backups on magnetic media to weather a solar storm? Building walls to hold the ocean back from an island is a sad joke guaranteed to have a painful punchline.
I know - we could test this stuff by deliberately disabling all the safety systems and then force the reactors into an unsafe condition to see if it recovers properly!
That would do the trick nicely, don't you think?
And a clue for those of you who are still clueless - that pretty much describes that last 48 hours that Chernobyl operated as a power plant....
If a tsunami or quake takes out GPS satellites in orbit 20km above the surface of the Earth I think accurate time-keeping will be the least of anyone's worries.
20km? I've got news for you - we have airplanes that fly that high.
GPS is a wee bit higher than 20km above the Earth's surface. Try 20000 km above the Earth's surface instead.
I'm surprised North Korea hasn't taken the opportunity to finish off Fukushima with light artillery,
Let's ignore the range issues here.
And let's ignore that NK isn't going to start an unwinnable war in order to cause thousands of Japanese to get cancer in twenty to thirty years.
"Light artillery" has a meaning in the real world. Among the elements of its meaning is that it fires shells that are, well, light.
As in, so light that they can only carry a few pounds of explosive.
As in, so light that they can't punch through the containment vessel, much less the concrete shell. You ARE aware, aren't you, that reinforced concrete makes dandy armour for anything you don't intend to move around much, right?
In other words, even ignoring that the Koreans would have to be complete morons with artillery that could shoot 1000+ km, when the shells landed they'd do very little more to the containment building that getting that many birds to nest on it would....
NK's donated $100,000 to Japan's Red Cross for this.. Or at least that's what several reputable websites have reported... what the freaky hell is up with that?
You didn't read the fine print. They donated $100k to Japan's Red Cross to help the Koreans who were in the area of effect of the tsunami at the time. Yes, there are Koreans in Japan pretty regularly.
What I find ironic is that by blasting stuff into the sun, we might just be able to 'push it over that hill' in a manner that won't be an issue for literally billions of years.
Just to put some numbers on the problem, the deltaV required to put something from low Earth orbit into an orbit that would brush the surface of the Sun is about 21350 m/s.
With chemical fuels, that means about 127 tons of fuel for every ton of stuff we want to blast into the Sun.
Assuming that we could build a rocket (rocket engine control system and tankage for 1016 tons of fuel) that massed no more than seven tons, we could dispose of one ton of waste with only 40 shuttle launches to put that all in LEO.
Note, for reference, that a rocket that massed no more than seven tons dry and carried 1016 tons of fuel could put 125 tons of payload in LEO. Which is another way of saying it's made out of pure unobtainium....
In other words, disposing of things in the Sun is a fantasy. It's easier to push it to solar escape speed and watch it head out into the dark forever....
even if we had a fleet of shuttles orders of magnitude larger.
If we had a fleet of shuttles orders of magnitude larger (say, 300), we'd be having a shuttle launch pretty much every day.
Which means, for example, that we'd have boosted about 70,000 tons of cargo to orbit over the last decade.
Which means massive (by our standards) orbital infrastructure. And probably several deep-space vehicles assembled in orbit. At least.
Plus, of course, if we had that much stuff in orbit, it's likely that some of the shuttles would have been modified to be people-lifters. Say, 60 passengers per.
The biggest problem with building a handful of shuttles then stopping is that we constrained our ability to do anything in space to the limits imposed by three shuttles. A larger fleet would have expanded our limits, rather than contracting them....
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400 km square is 100 times the area, which means that with no clouds, and 24 hours of summer sun every day of the year, he could get what he thinks he's getting.
Alas, we don't get summer sun every day, nor do we get no clouds every day, nor do we get 24 hours of sunlight every day.
So he's still off by a factor of 10 or so.
It often amazes me that people who think of themselves as technically oriented and intelligent can't handle basic multiplication/division/addition/subtraction in analysing their own thoughts. And no, this isn't a dig at the parent, though it should have been obvious to him that the 400 km square (which is NOT what the OP said) wouldn't work either. It was, in fact, a dig at the OP.
Never used a geiger counter, I see...
Note that you can adjust the sensitivity level of those things so that the clicks come pretty much as fast or slow as you want, no matter the level of radiation you're actually measuring.
This is by design, by the by, so that you can turn up the sensitivity to find a very tiny source of radiation (say, a speck of Co-60 dust), or tune it down to only measure radiation levels sufficient to be hazards to humans.
Why?
Seriously, why is alarm the proper, intelligent reaction to Fukushima? It's not like anyone has died or anything.
There was a five car pileup on the Interstate the other day. More people died in that one accident than have died as a result of civilian nuclear power generation in the USA, and Japan combined.
While the events at Fukushima are non-trivial, they pale to insignificance compared to, say, an earthquake followed by a tsunami that might kill 20,000+ people immediately and disrupt the entire global economy.
Which latter event doesn't really get all that much "viewing with alarm" these days.
Think about it....
No, actually it can't.
13 terawatts divided over 400,000,000 square meters requires that each square meter produce 32.5 KW of electricity.
Alas, the Sun only puts a bit more than ONE KW of solar energy on each square meter.
And solar panels aren't 100% efficient at turning light into electricity.
So, ignoring night, clouds, and downtime, you're still off by a factor of around 100. When you include night, clouds, and downtime, you're off by a factor of 1000 or so.
Good try, though.
As a resident of N'Awlins, I feel I must point out that the disaster response after Katrina was far better than the media made it seem to be.
Pretty much like Fukushima, in fact. Things are blown out of proportion, much scare-mongering is occurring.
You're obviously unaware that the Social Security taxes are tossed into the General Fund and spent just like any other tax revenue.
Ditto Medicare taxes.
However, all that aside, if we were to not count SS and Medicare, and discount their tax revenue as well, we'd be talking (for 2010, as an example) $1.069 trillion in revenues and $2.229 trillion in expenditures. Note that in 2010 we had ~$1.036 trillion in non-SS, non-Medicare MANDATORY spending.
Which leaves us ~$33 billion left to fund the entire Federal government. Which means zeroing the entire Federal government except for mandatory programs and the Treasury Department and the Justice Department would still leave us a slight deficit.
Note also that zeroing all MANDATORY spending other than SS, Medicare, and the interest on the National Debt would still require an across the board cut of 34% in order to balance the books.
Food for thought....
And here I thought we should be discussing the Democrats' favorite game: adding new things the government does FOR you without raising taxes to pay for them (or cooking the books the way they did with Obamacare - thought it was clever that they added trillions in new spending on that one, but the spending doesn't kick in till after Obama is out of office, and not responsible for finding the money to pay for it)....
You are conflating "Health Care" with "Health Insurance" here. They are not the same thing.
In addition, it should be pointed out that Obama's Healthcare bill (actually a Health Insurance bill) doesn't lower costs for everyone. Or even for anyone.
We were making jokes about France surrendering long before Iraq.
Presumably as opposed to meters of thin concrete?
Water has a tenth-thickness of 36" for gammas, much less for neutrons, and basically stops alphas and betas cold.
Steel has a tenth-thickness of 4" for gammas.
Lead 2".
You won't generally need meters of protection from anything unless you're storing an active nuclear power plant in your backyard.
Okay, schedule mine for a two week stay. I'd love to see Japan.
Note, for the record, that not one single person has died as a result of Fukushima.
Note also that not one single person outside the emergency workers working to contain Fukushima has even become ill as a result of Fukushima.
Note finally that more people died as a result of the wastewater plant wall collapsing in Gatlinburg TN than have died due to civilian nuclear power accidents in the USA. Or Europe. Or both combined....
And this is different than adults how?
So? What's the problem here? If it's already illegal, adding a line to the budget making it illegal is meaningless.
Seems to me that if the Dems don't want to add one meaningless line to the budget bill, that they might be of the opinion that the line isn't quite as meaningless as it seems.
Note, by the way, that even if the line were put into the bill, and it became law of the land, it could be overridden by any subsequent bill that included a line saying the opposite. It's not like laws can't be changed from one year to the next. Or one day to the next....
My thanks, sir!
Personally, I've always thought that scaling weight by the square of height was pretty stupid. In the real world, volume (and weight) vary by the cube of the linear dimensions, not the square.
With my height, ideal weight using BMI would be around 150-160 pounds. The last time I weighed 160 pounds was when I was a teenager, and I was skinny as a rail.
Why bother? Once your doctor has diagnosed you as terminally ill, you have the option of "hospice care", which reduces down to "drug you into a (theoretically) no-pain coma, and let you die".
Face it, you always have the option of refusing care.
Those are State cigarette taxes. One must remember that there are also Federal Cigarette taxes. A bit more than a dollar a pack on that side, as of 2009.
Which Article of the Constitution forbids States to go bankrupt? Just did a quick skim, and didn't see anything that stood out.
So, most people get into accidents every day, right?
No? Every year?
No?
Frankly, considering the number of cars on the road and miles driven annually, I'm surprised there are so few automobile accidents ...
I know - we could test this stuff by deliberately disabling all the safety systems and then force the reactors into an unsafe condition to see if it recovers properly!
That would do the trick nicely, don't you think?
And a clue for those of you who are still clueless - that pretty much describes that last 48 hours that Chernobyl operated as a power plant....
20km? I've got news for you - we have airplanes that fly that high.
GPS is a wee bit higher than 20km above the Earth's surface. Try 20000 km above the Earth's surface instead.
Let's ignore the range issues here.
And let's ignore that NK isn't going to start an unwinnable war in order to cause thousands of Japanese to get cancer in twenty to thirty years.
"Light artillery" has a meaning in the real world. Among the elements of its meaning is that it fires shells that are, well, light.
As in, so light that they can only carry a few pounds of explosive.
As in, so light that they can't punch through the containment vessel, much less the concrete shell. You ARE aware, aren't you, that reinforced concrete makes dandy armour for anything you don't intend to move around much, right?
In other words, even ignoring that the Koreans would have to be complete morons with artillery that could shoot 1000+ km, when the shells landed they'd do very little more to the containment building that getting that many birds to nest on it would....
You didn't read the fine print. They donated $100k to Japan's Red Cross to help the Koreans who were in the area of effect of the tsunami at the time. Yes, there are Koreans in Japan pretty regularly.
Just to put some numbers on the problem, the deltaV required to put something from low Earth orbit into an orbit that would brush the surface of the Sun is about 21350 m/s.
With chemical fuels, that means about 127 tons of fuel for every ton of stuff we want to blast into the Sun.
Assuming that we could build a rocket (rocket engine control system and tankage for 1016 tons of fuel) that massed no more than seven tons, we could dispose of one ton of waste with only 40 shuttle launches to put that all in LEO.
Note, for reference, that a rocket that massed no more than seven tons dry and carried 1016 tons of fuel could put 125 tons of payload in LEO. Which is another way of saying it's made out of pure unobtainium....
In other words, disposing of things in the Sun is a fantasy. It's easier to push it to solar escape speed and watch it head out into the dark forever....
If we had a fleet of shuttles orders of magnitude larger (say, 300), we'd be having a shuttle launch pretty much every day.
Which means, for example, that we'd have boosted about 70,000 tons of cargo to orbit over the last decade.
Which means massive (by our standards) orbital infrastructure. And probably several deep-space vehicles assembled in orbit. At least.
Plus, of course, if we had that much stuff in orbit, it's likely that some of the shuttles would have been modified to be people-lifters. Say, 60 passengers per.
The biggest problem with building a handful of shuttles then stopping is that we constrained our ability to do anything in space to the limits imposed by three shuttles. A larger fleet would have expanded our limits, rather than contracting them....