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Sunday, March 13, 2011

Perspective on the Japan earthquake

This article is by a guy from the US living and working n Japan. He's a regular contributor to Hacker News, a social news site for people interested in technology and startups, and is very well respected there. Worth your time:

http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/03/13/
some-perspective-on-the-japan-earthquake/

Phil Rand

I recommend it to your attention. A couple of extracts:

See, the thing that people don�t realize is that Honshu is massive. It is larger than Great Britain. (A country which does not typically refer to itself as a �tiny island nation.�) At about 800 miles long, it stretches from roughly Chicago to New Orleans. Quite a lot of the reporting on Japan, including that which is scaring the heck out of my friends and family, is the equivalent of someone ringing up Mayor Daley during Katrina and saying �My God man, that�s terrible � how are you coping?�

The public perception of Japan, at home and abroad, is disproportionately influenced by Tokyo�s outsized contribution to Japanese political, economic, and social life. It also gets more news coverage than warranted because one could poll every journalist in North America and not find one single soul who could put Miyagi or Gifu on a map. So let�s get this out of the way: Tokyo, like virtually the whole island of Honshu, got a bit shaken and no major damage was done. They have reported 1 fatality caused by the earthquake. By comparison, on any given Friday, Tokyo will typically have more deaths caused by traffic accidents. (Tokyo isalso massive.)

The instant response � scramming the reactors � happened exactly as planned and, instantly, removed the Apocalyptic Nightmare Scenarios from the table.

There were some failures of important systems, mostly related to cooling the reactor cores to prevent a meltdown. To be clear, a meltdown is not an Apocalyptic Nightmare Scenario: the entire plant is designed such that when everything else fails, the worst thing that happens is somebody gets a cleanup bill with a whole lot of zeroes in it.

Failure of the systems is contemplated in their design, which is why there are so many redundant ones. You won�t even hear about most of the failures up and down the country because a) they weren�t nuclear related (a keyword which scares the heck out of some people) and b) redundant systems caught them.

The tremendous public unease over nuclear power shouldn�t be allowed to overpower the conclusion: nuclear energy, in all the years leading to the crisis and continuing during it, is absurdly safe. Remember the talk about the trains and how they did exactly what they were supposed to do within seconds? Several hundred people still drowned on the trains. That is a tragedy, but every person connected with the design and operation of the railways should be justifiably proud that that was the worst thing that happened. At present, in terms of radiation risk, the tsunami appears to be a wash: on the one hand there�s a near nuclear meltdown, on the other hand the tsunami disrupted something really dangerous: international flights. (One does not ordinarily associate flying commercial airlines with elevated radiation risks. Then again, one doesn�t normally associate eating bananas with it, either. When you hear news reports of people exposed to radiation, keep in mind, at the moment we�re talking a level of severity somewhere between �ate a banana� and �carries a Delta Skymiles platinum membership card�.)

There is more. As I write this the news reporters are saying that "Japan is struggling to prevent a meltdown." The same reporters yesterday told me there had already been a meltdown. Today they say "A partial meltdown may have happened." Experts from the Union of Concerned Scientists come on to explain the China Syndrome. Another explains the terrible consequences of detecting cesium off the reactor site. Perhaps so; but I would find that astonishing, because I have yet to hear that the actual reactor vessels have been ruptured. There is clearly excess radioactivity exposure to the workers at the plant, and possibly to some people living near the plant. How much is never stated. Perhaps it is more than a Delta Skymiles platinum cardholder gets in a year, and perhaps not: none of the new reporters seems to have that information.

We do know that the Japanese government is evacuating people from around the power plant. On the other hand the area from which they are being evacuated is all torn up, there are no working roads, there is no fresh water, n0 electricity, and no operating food distribution system: it might be easier to feed those people in refugee areas than to set up a system to maintain them in place.

The overwhelming response of Japanese engineering to the challenge posed by an earthquake larger than any in the last century was to function exactly as designed. Millions of people are alive right now because the system worked and the system worked and the system worked.

That this happened was, I say with no hint of exaggeration, one of the triumphs of human civilization. Every engineer in this country should be walking a little taller this week. We can�t say that too loudly, because it would be inappropriate with folks still missing and many families in mourning, but it doesn�t make it any less true.

Perhaps this from someone living in Japan is overly optimistic and is pooh poohing the dangers to come, but it does not seem so to me. On the one hand we have the breathless reports of the media. On the other we have the above report from someone who lived in Japan.

On the gripping hand, Japan is as well prepared as a bunch of bright people well aware of the dangers can be. There is no part of the United States as well prepared for disaster of this magnitude: it's now rated at 9.0, about the same as the Lisbon earthquake and tsunami of 1755 that was so destructive that it made Voltaire doubt the existence of God. That doubt among the philosophes had a profound effect on the course of the French Revolution.

We wait to hear and we wish them well.

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Dealing with Libya

Gaddafi has never been our friend, although he was scared into acting properly toward us, He once respected the United States and its president.

The fighting in Libya continues, So far it has been indecisive, Gaddafi took, and may have lost, the town of Brega in Libya. This is reminiscent of 1941 when Field Marshal Erwin Rommel opened his great offensive against the Brits at Al Agheila and continued the Afrika Korps campaign to El Alamein in Egypt. Gaddafi is no Rommel, and his mercenaries are not an Afrika Korps or even the Italian expeditionary force; but then there is no Montgomery or Waverly among the rebels, and certainly nothing like the Imperial forces of Brits, Anzacs, Indians, and Egyptians who opposed Rommel. Gaddafi will have supply problems, and like Rommel the further east he goes the longer and more vulnerable his supply lines, but his troops have much the same general orders: "If you can't think of anything else to do, find an enemy and kill him."

The rebels have said they don't want help, only now, well, yes, they'll take a no fly zone. This from the people who arrested and deported the British SAS liaison force that landed in Benghazi "looking for hotel rooms." Rebels managed to shoot down a Gaddafi airplane, apparently piloted by a Syrian. We also hear stories of soldiers of fortune from Belorus and Timbuktu. The President of the United States says that Gaddafi is unacceptable and has to go. Debates on imposing a no-fly zone continue. And in Egypt where the revolution was acceptable they burn Christian churches every day or so. In Tunisia the well maintained Synagogue in Carthage cannot gather a minyan and is used as a museum. The old Christian community is pretty well gone.

Last week there were rebel posters in Benghazi proclaiming that Libyans don't need any stinking help, Libya will liberate itself. Libyans protested outside the Arab League headquarters demanding (1) no foreign interference, and (2) a no-fly zone.

We may now predict that the United States, having been told not to interfere in Libyan internal affairs, will be blamed when Gaddafi's forces retake rebel areas and hang protestors from the lampposts. This ought to take about a week. Perhaps two weeks. The President of the United States will declare this unacceptable. The President is now saying Gaddafi is unacceptable and threatening him with the world court, which will certainly give Gaddafi an incentive to hold fast.

The fate of Libya will not be decided in Libya. We have now run the experiment: if you have bags of gold, and you are willing to pay the soldiers enough, you need take no heed of the people, absent foreign interference. Of course you are considered unacceptable, so for you there is no choice: there is no safe place of exile. http://af.reuters.com/article/
libyaNews/idAFLDE72A24U20110311 . If there is outside interference you will have to seek a spider hole. The way to avoid outside interference is to get nukes fast. We have been teaching that lesson for decades. Gaddafi has learned it. His forces thought to bring gasoline trucks and spare ammunition, and are not in the habit of firing into the air. He knows he will be hanged if he loses. He knows his children will be hunted down and killed. He saw that happen in Iraq.

Brian Suits is predicting that there will be cheering in the streets when the Gaddafi armies enter Benghazi. For my view, see the story originally published as "His Truth Goes Marching On," incorporated into Prince of Mercenaries, which was incorporated into the omnibus volume The Prince. (And yes, I am working on getting Kindle editions of those books published. There are rights ownership problems and conflicting marketing strategies. I'm working on it. Subscribe if you want to help.) Absent an Egyptian army, or British SAS units in place in Benghazi, that is the likely outcome. The Brits, having been humiliated in their attempt to offer help, aren't likely to come back. The French have a carrier in the Med and the Foreign Legion, but they are not likely to intervene.

When the dust settles, you will see China come back to Libya. China has evacuated 32,000 Chinese citizens from Libya; the planes flew into Tripoli full of something; they were emptied and flew out of Libya full of Chinese. One can only guess what China furnished as the price of getting their citizens out. Note that China has a UN veto over any UN action against Libya. I suspect that by the time the United Nations Criminal Court takes any action, the Libyan civil war will be long over. It is not likely that China will condemn the Libyan government for using force to hold on to power. The Party is watching with great interest...

The fate of Libya is the Gaddafi dynasty absent international interference. Interference could come from the United States or from Egypt, but the US won't act without the consent of the UN. What the Egyptians want is not clear. What happens next is well beyond my ken, but I do not predict an outcome favorable to the West. I pointed out a long time ago that when you intervene in foreign disputes rather than invest in developing your own resources, you sow the wind. We have sown the wind. Now the world reaps.

One last note: had the US built 100 nuclear reactors of 1000 megawatt capacity it would have cost less in blood and treasure than the Iraqi war even if one of those reactors melted down.

=======================

In Wisconsin there is a faction of Democrats who want things decided in the streets rather than in the Capitol building. It's an interesting test of constitutional government. When one rolls those dice, the results are usually unpredictable as to who will be the winner, but it is trivially correct to predict that they will be considered unfortunate. But the Democratic Senators have returned, in triumph it is said. Stay tuned.

============

We should not let the confusion about the nuclear problems in Japan cause us to lose sight of the magnitude of the disaster. A 9.0 can be expected to be followed by an aftershock approaching 8.0. An 8.0 would level most of the cities in the United States or anywhere else in the world. Fortunately for Japan the destruction was 200 miles north of the really dangerous area, and none of the Tokyo skyscrapers suffered any real damage.

Japan is prepared and well equipped, but it is still victim of the 7th largest earthquake in the history of the world. Casualties are lower than you would expect anywhere else in the world, but there are still casualties. They deserve our best wishes and prayers.

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See mail for other data from Japan.

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2200: nothing more definitive on the TV news, but it's pretty clear that the total devastation areas in Japan are the size of a large county in the US. The lights are back on in Tokyo, with some rationing. The other nuclear plants, having scrammed when the shake was detected, are coming back on line. The one was all right until the tsunami overwhelmed the sea wall and drowned out the diesels. The lesson there is obvious.

Japan will recover. The nuclear damage is extensive but it will be mostly economic, not ecological. The disaster was large, and the estimates are in the order of $60 billion. Contrast that with TARP or the cost of the Iraqi War to put things in scale. Japan has been hurt, but the Japanese are industrious and intelligent. Japan is not crippled.

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