Nuclear lessons for Malaysia (Part 2) (via For A Better Malaysia)

To use or not to use nuclear power? This article focuses on Malaysia but the issues are the same everywhere on our planet.

Costs, safety, and most important, trust, are the primary elements. That trust is on the list might surprise you. But I can’t help but feel the soothing hand of corporate PR every time I read some right-wing blog’s assurances that the amount of radiation is inconsequential and the constant, continuous claims that the technology is better now. Didn’t they say that after Chernobyl? Didn’t they say that after Three Mile Island, etc? It’s one of the classics, reassuringly pointless.

I am tired of PR. If the nuclear industry had ever been in anyway honest over the last fifty years I would feel differently but there is no trust here and without trust there can be no agreement.

This posting is an intelligent analysis and I enjoyed it.

James Pilant

Radiation is invisible and cannot be recalled. In a nuclear crisis, there will be many questions about radiation. As the Japanese people are now discovering, it is a nightmare trying to make sense of the uncertainties. How do you know when you are in danger?How long will this danger persist?How can you reduce the danger to yourself and your family?What level of exposure is safe?How do you get access to vital information in time to prevent or mini … Read More

via For A Better Malaysia

New Paradigms Needed (via Zielona Grzybnia)

Thinking allowed! Wow, I’d like to see more of this.

This essay is entirely correct. We are in the middle of a new age and those that wave the flag while endlessly repeating the failed answers of a disastrous last fifty years are simply out of touch. We are going to have to change and pretense doesn’t cut it.

It’s time to go to the next step. What are the paradigms? Let’s state what the basic principles are going to look like from the worm’s eye view.

As a member of the intelligentsia, I get the new paradigm thing. Around here, paradigms come and go like falling leaves.

Whether I understand them or not is not that important. How can they be stated in a way that is persuasive to a new generation? How can they be stated in such a way that those clinging to the nonsense of the past will realize they have to move on?

Read the essay. I’m sure we will see more from this blog.

James Pilant

Through all its history humanity has been facing challanges which often seemed unsolvable. Nevertheless, we have been able to achieve a solution every time so far – sometimes better, sometimes worse, but we’ve done it. Today again we face a whole spectrum of huge challanges: the climate change with all its facettes. Biodiversity reduction due to general damages to ecosystems all over the world. Poverty and undernourishment. There are many proposa … Read More

via Zielona Grzybnia

Clash of Civilizations (via This African Life)

I am fascinated by the world, by all the people and different ways of thinking and doing. But I’ve never gone anywhere. I’d like to go to South Korea. Bizarrely enough, although I have known Koreans (and liked them) the main reason I want to go is because I have fallen in love with the Korean cinema, Sassy Girl, Windstruck, and Cyborg She among others.

Well, here is someone who is traveling and talking about it.

Ethiopia is exotic to me and I’m sure to most Americans. It sounds fascinating.

This is a good essay and I hope you enjoy it.

James Pilant

It has now been more than seven months since I arrived in Africa and I have to say that living here is starting to have a noticeable impression on me.  I have adopted various Ethiopian mannerisms and quirks to the point that a few people in my town now call me Nach Habesha—white Ethiopian.  For instance, I now clap loudly at restaurants to get a waiter’s attention. This is something that, having worked in the service industry for a decade and a h … Read More

via This African Life

Chernobyl Stalkers (via L’appel de Fukushima)

I had heard that the Titanic disaster and the First World War were both predicted by novels, but this is the first that I’ve heard that Chernobyl was predicted by a film.

I pity the poor souls who feel obligated to make a living by stealing high radiation scrap from a nuclear dead zone.

On the other hand, the future may hold that kind of existence for many millions.

James Pilant

The people most affected by the explosion of Reactor Number Four on the morning of April 26,1986, soon learned that the event known as Chernobyl was predicted by a feature film made seven years earlier. Stalker, by Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky, explored the limits of our technical explanatory power against the backdrop of a mysterious force that can only be approached on foot, by forest “stalkers” who have learned to accept its risky gifts. … Read More

via L’appel de Fukushima

Media has moved on, but not Japanese (via News and Brews)

This is the only beer related post having to do with the disasters in Japan that I have found. It’s not bad.

I do agree the Japanese have not moved on. The disaster continues there as recovery is handicapped by the ongoing nuclear problems. American media has a tawdry interest in current events however inconsequential. So, in America, it may well appear that the crisis is over.

No, not for quite some time.

James Pilant

The 9.0 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami that hit Japan on Mar. 11 has mostly disappeared from the collective conscious of American mainstream media. Many news outlets have shifted focus to Syria or Yemen–both very important stories in their own right. However, Japan is still recovering from the natural disasters that struck their shores over a month and a half ago. It severely damaged nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Power P … Read More

via News and Brews

TVA plant’s old design brings fresh worries | The Tennessean | tennessean.com (via In Frog Pond Holler)

It’s definitely true that the old designs need a new look in the aftermath of Fukushima. I’m curious to see how the utility is going to handle this.

James Pilant

Critics argue that safety and reliability issues are raised by the old design, the deterioration of work already done, the cannibalizing of plant parts and a failure to keep tight controls over the site. Some also question the need for another TVA nuclear plant. In the wake of Japan’s nuclear crisis, TVA staff delayed asking for a board vote for funding to complete Bellefonte. Still, more than 500 workers are busy on the site with engineering, as … Read More

via In Frog Pond Holler