Bring Troops Home From Iraq & Afghanistan, Use Them Instead to Help Japanese and Libyan People
Abel
exactly what Japan's earthquake/tsunami nuclear disaster means,
explained by someone who I think is the classiest lady on earth:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#42041051
On March 11, 2011, a very powerful magnitude 9 earthquake struck 80
miles off the east coast of Japan, as hundreds of powerful aftershocks
continued to be felt for several days afterwards, thru out the
country. This is the most powerful earthquake to have ever hit Japan
in its entire history, it has crippled major roadways and train
transportation services, shut down airports, cut off landline phones
as well as cell phone service, and caused major interruptions of
electrical power. All in all, the earthquake has killed thousands of
people and caused hundreds of billions of dollars in property damage,
and still more ominously - about a dozen nuclear power plants have
been damaged.
Japan is a country that depends on nuclear power plants to supply one-
third of their electricity needs. What we are talking, when it comes
to nuclear power, is to tame the fury of atomic power. Theoretically,
the heat generated by nuclear fission has no upper limit, when fission
occurs the fissioning material will just go on getting hotter and
hotter, until it will completely melt or vaporize whatever is in its
path. Depending on how much power a nuclear reactor produces, a
countervailing force has to be implemented so as to cool down and
normalize the destructive force at hand. And then there is the
dangerous radioactive waste produced by this fission, which is an
unavoidable byproduct. The Sun in our solar system is a nuclear
fission model, or an "exothermic atomic reaction".
We are talking about sheer Hell, and that heat must be controlled with
an extra ordinary series of measures, which involves the cooling of
that nuclear reactor. And if that nuclear fuel is not cooled properly,
than what we are going to have is a nuclear meltdown, or a nuclear
explosion, the likes of which the world has never seen. A good movie
to reference is "The China Syndrome", see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FxtBJ59Jm8
As you can see, electricity is needed to keep cooling a nuclear power
plant, so that it doesn't explode to the high heavens or melt down
thru the earth. But what happened here, in Japan, is that the
electricty was knocked out, by the powerful earthquake. So a back up
system kicked in, a Diesel powered generator, to make up for that
electricity loss. But then this back up system, the Diesel generator,
was also knocked out by the earthquake. So a 3rd back up system kicked
in, a battery powered system, but that battery was set up to keep
cooling the nuclear core for only 8 hours. At the end of that 8
hours, it looks like the nuclear power operators got desperate, and
they started to release the valves and let the heat/radiation escape
out into the atmosphere. And now the race is on, to prevent a nuclear
meltdown in the middle of a horrible catastrophe.
On a per capita basis, Japan is, by far, the most productive country
in the world. With a population of only 130 million, Japan is about as
productive as the country of China which has a population of about 1.4
billion.
In all likelihood, the Japanese, as brilliant a people as they are,
would have, today, been ruling the world, if they were not stopped by
the power of the atomic bombs which were dropped on them in August 6th
and August 9th of 1945, thus forcing them to surrender and abruptly
ending the 2nd World War. Japan is the only country to have suffered a
nuclear bombings, and as such has been unequivocal in its opposition
to such weapons. They should have steered clear away from anything
nuclear, but they didn't. Why?
Japan has the world's 3rd most powerful economy, only recently
overtaken by China, but Japan has absolutely no energy resources of
its own and Japan has in recent years become more and more heavily
dependent on nuclear power to supply its growing energy needs. But
Japan's dependence on nuclear energy especially soared in response to
the skyrocketing oil prices that followed the Arab oil embargo of
1973. Current plans call for 50% of Japan's electricity to come from
nuclear plants by 2017, up from about 30 percent today. The country
has 54 nuclear reactors.
Currently, about half of all the nuclear power plants in the world are
located right here in the US. There are many different kinds of
nuclear power plants, but it's important to understand the fission
process to understand how it works. A nuclear power plant uses
controlled nuclear fission. .
Tokyo Electric has been grappling with the dangerously damaged cooling
systems of several GE designed nuclear power plants. The U.S. Energy
Department said it was "in close contact" with its Japanese
counterparts and will "provide whatever assistance they request to
help them bring the reactors under control."
Tokyo Electric Power Co., owner of two of the most heavily damaged
nuclear power stations, is grappling with their biggest emergency at
the Fukushima Daiichi's Unit 1 reactor, as they are trying to tame
ultra-high temperatures from exposed fuel rods, and they have at times
delayed repair operations as still more earthquakes and after shocks
continue to rock the area. Further complicating matters is the fact
that many of the employees working inside the damaged reactor
buildings have been hospitalized already for radiation poisoning.
Hundreds of thousands of residents have been evacuated from a 12 mile
radius around two nuclear power complexes, and preparations have been
made to distribute potassium iodide pills, and people in the
surrounding area have been warned to stay inside and to cover their
mouths if they ventured outdoors.
My heart goes out to the millions of people thru out Japan, who are in
desperate need for shelter, food, medicine, clean water and my heart
especially goes out for those who are desperately trying to find and
re-unite with lost relatives:
http://japan.person-finder.appspot.com/?lang=en
This earthquake/ tsunami/nuclear-power catastrophe is the worst
possible blow to the country of Japan and to Japan's economy, as Japan
is one of our closest allies and biggest trading partners, so any
damage to Japan's economy is bound to damage America's economy too.
Japan also will, inevitably, reduce its reliance on nuclear power,
after all this, which means that it will increase its reliance on
Middle Eastern oil, and that will create more of an energy shortage
and drive the price of oil even higher still.
My advice to President Obama is to fast track us out of the hopeless
military quagmires of Afghanistan and Iraq. Afghanistan is a
worthless country, and a deadly quicksand trap that every empire thru
out history has disappeared into when they set foot there. And as for
Iraq, we should have left it immediately after Saddam Hussein was
toppled, and that is when the Iraqi people loved us, they don't love
us any more. We should leave Iraq now, they will have to solve their
own problems at this point. We can't do any more for them. What
America really needs to do now is concentrate our military to help the
people of Japan and to help the people of Libya. Our military would
be better used on these humanitarian missions. Yes, getting rid of
Qaddaffi, that's a humanitarian mission too. But we should leave
Libya alone, immediately after Qaddaffi is gone, just as we should
have left Iraq alone, immediately after Saddam Hussein was gone.
Abel Malcolm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKocJpta0TA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q6C8US20jI
http://library.thinkquest.org/17940/texts/fission_power/fission_power.html
Abel
> Currently, about half of all the nuclear power plants in the world are
Let me correct myself here. That remark is probably outdated.
Actually, about one-third of all the nuclear power plants in the world
are located right here in the U.S., not one-half. It is Japan,
America and France together that account for half of all the nuclear
power plants in the world.
From Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power )
"Nuclear power provides about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of
the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together
accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity".