[ExI] THE END for nuclear power

[Kelly Anderson]

On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 1:04 PM, Jeff Davis <jrd1415 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I want to be polite here.  I think you are in error.  The tsunami wave
> travels across deep water with a small amplitude. Then, when it
> reaches shallow water near shore, it piles up to its maximum height,
> and, as the photos from both Japan and the Indian Ocean tsunami show,
> it flows inland.  And of course houses and cars and most everything
> else is tumbled into flotsam.   I do not believe there is much in the
> way of a "shock" from the impact.

Yet, there is tremendous force, applied without rest.

> Not at all like the relentless
> pounding of wave after wave typical in a hurricane or other maximum
> intensity ocean storm making landfall.  Rather it seems to be a one
> time elevated water event of slightly  -- some minutes: 10, 15, 20, ?
> -- extended duration.  Consequently, I think a conventional earthworks
> berm, dike, levy, dam would suffice and survive.

Not in all cases.

>  Though only
> "anecdotal", I offer the Fukushima  plant and seawall -- so often seen
> in the news lately -- as an example.  Both plant and seawall seem
> entirely intact following the tsunami.  The plant was built strong and
> the seawall was built, well,...like a seawall.  I will leave it for a
> civil or hydraulic engineer to provide an authoritative opinion.

On the other hand, the sea walls at Sendai and Mirimasu(sp) were piled
up like a bunch of children's blocks. You also have the problem of
scouring eating out from below such walls, as was seen in Katrina. The
difference between a tsunami wave and a storm surge is that the
tsunami waves are fewer, larger, and more powerful.

>> "Bogus" problem of rising sea levels due to global warming??!  You are joking, yes?
>
> Regarding this, my characterization of the global warming ocean rise
> as "bogus", let me explain.  First, I refuse to get involved in the
> global warming discussion.  It is hysterical, and completely
> politicized.  Facts entangled with hysteria and political agendas.  A
> waste of time.  But I'll make an exception here.

There has been a sea rise of something like 9 cm in the 20th century.
Whether man caused or not is up for debate. Whether this is the normal
breathing of the planet, who knows. Our records don't go back far
enough to really know.

> It seems clear that anthropogenic greenhouse gases have been and
> continue to be generated, producing a substantial and significant
> increase in baseline levels.  This results in a rise in global median
> temperatures.  That said the process is gradual -- decades long in the
> making, and requiring -- IN MY OPINION --additional decades of
> indifference and inaction for the situation is to get out of hand.

There is increasing evidence that a tipping point could be reached
where things could shift rapidly. The big problem is Antarctica and
Greenland.

> A
> slow motion catastrophe is not a catastrophe at all but rather a
> "Henny Penny" "the sky is falling" human silliness and media event.
> When the ocean rises 12 meters in thirty minutes, you get a
> catastrophe.  When it rises 12 meters in fifty years you get an
> infrastructure project.  Thus the term "bogus".

The bogus part, IMHO, is the proposed solutions. Let's send money to
Africa to combat global warming. That's silly. Let's open an exchange
to buy and sell the right to pollute. Garbage. If it's a real issue,
then let's work on carbon dioxide sequestration. That's nature's
solution. It's called fossil fuels.

Now, the degree of the problem is politically amplified to an extreme
degree. Interestingly, the first person to take political advantage of
global warming was the very conservative Margaret Thatcher. Go figure.

-Kelly