I’ve seen some bad reporting in my day – some downright horrible reporting.   However, this might just take the cake.   It’s made even worse by the fact that this shameful article was in the New York Times, a once respectable mainstream news source.

It is so blatantly anti-nuclear and anti-corporate that it resorts to the most odious of lies in a very thinly veiled attempt to paint the entire nuclear industry as being a horribly socially irresponsible monster.   The reporter obviously an ax to grind, but reports this as news, not opinion.

I think TEPCO should sue them for slander, but that probably would do more harm than good.

Japanese Workers Braved Radiation for a Temp Job

Mr. Ishizawa, who was finally allowed to leave, is not a nuclear specialist; he is not even an employee of the Tokyo Electric Power Company, the operator of the crippled plant. He is one of thousands of untrained, itinerant, temporary laborers who handle the bulk of the dangerous work at nuclear power plants here and in other countries, lured by the higher wages offered for working with radiation.

They do not do “most of the dangerous work.” They do most of the work period. A nuclear plant is like just about any other industrial site. There are some jobs that require a great deal of skill and/or education, but there are a lot of unskilled jobs that range from sweeping floors to moving boxes to tightening bolts.

If you don’t believe me, go to any construction site.   You will see some skilled, experienced and educated individuals, such as the foreman, inspectors and welders.   However, you’ll also see a lot of laborers whose primary jobs include digging, cleaning up, moving around lumber, installing drywall and so on.

Yes, people are drawn to the nuclear industry because it pays highly. It’s not simply because they are “working with radiation.” The industry tends to offer good wages and benefits and working conditions that are at least as good as any industry and often much better.

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This is where the Linear Non-Threshold hypothysis has gotten us:

Via Al Jazeer (English):

‘No safe levels’ of radiation in Japan
Experts warn that any detectable level of radiation is “too much”.

Well that’s it. You can read the rest of the article if you like, but really you only need to read that far to get the point.

It’s pretty amazing who qualifies as an “expert” these days.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I just turned on a Geiger counter and it’s been making a few intermittent clicks due to detectable radiation. Apparently there are a lot of gamma ray photons whizzing by. I had better to panic.

There have been a number of downright shameful reports on the health consequences of the events at Fukushima-Daiichi, including this one, the worst I have seen yet from the Huffington Post:

Workers at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant are rightfully being hailed as heroes. A glimpse into their lives shows the high price they are paying to stave off a nuclear catastrophe — 12 hour shifts, very little food, deplorable sleeping conditions and an expectation that some of or all of them will soon die. It’s heartbreaking and telling that industry insiders refer to them as glow boys despite their immense sacrifice.

The Daily Mail has reported:

Nuclear workers accept their fate ‘like a death sentence’
Fears for their health as one expert says it is ‘perhaps a suicide mission’

…

The radiation levels at the plant entrance are at a level which will either kill the workers soon or cause them appalling illnesses in the years to come.
Experts have said that the airtight suits they are wearing would do little to stop the contamination.

The group remained behind after 700 of their colleagues fled when radiation levels became too dangerous.

Their identities have not been revealed, but experts said they are likely to be working class front-line technicians and firemen who know the plant the best.

It is thought that mostly older men have volunteered because they have already had children – younger workers might be rendered infertile by the high radiation doses.

Whilst the men are called the Fukushima Fifty, the group is thought to actually be 200-strong. They are doing four shifts in rotation, working on restarting the cooling systems.

Their heart-rending messages home were made public yesterday by Japanese national television, which has interviewed their relatives.

One relative said: ‘My father is still working at the plant. He says he’s accepted his fate, much like a death sentence.’

While the Mirror Reports:

And as the group of 180 prepare to pay the ultimate price for their heroic “suicide mission”, the brave workers have been rushing out heartfelt messages to their distraught families.

One, his body being bombarded with soaring doses of radiation but refusing to give up the fight, wrote to his wife: “Please continue to live well, I cannot be home for a while.”

And the Daily Record States:

The 180 plant workers – dubbed the Fukushima 50 because they work in teams of 50 – know their lives could end in terrible agony from exposure to radiation levels.

Radiology expert Keiichi Nakagawa, at University of Tokyo Hospital, said: “I don’t know any other way to say it, but this is like suicide fighters in a war.”

And Dr Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist, said: “It’s got worse. We’re talking about workers coming into the reactor perhaps as a suicide mission and we may have to abandon ship.”

These are only a few of the reports in major media outlets of this nature. Even the normally respectable National Geographic has been throwing around terms like “suicide mission.”

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To get this out of the way, let me start off by stating my opinion on the military intervention by the US and NATO in Libya.  I think it’s a bad idea.  While it is certainly a concern that Muammar Gaddafi has been using tactics that include targeting civilian areas in an attempt to suppress rebellion, it does no mean that bombing the Libyan military ultimately helps the situation. The US should have learned by now that using military force to intervene and effect regime change in the Middle East is very expensive, in terms of money, lives and in the commitment of national assets.

The US and our NATO allies really don’t have any direct interest in what goes on in Libya. The country is not an eminent threat to us, although it is possible instability could result in higher oil prices if it begins to affect the rest of the region. We certainly do not want to commit to any kind of ground campaign. We’ve only recently managed to start getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan has become a conflict which lacks leadership or direction. Becoming involved in the conflict in Libya is a can of worms we don’t need to open, and the prospect of ground troops, even in the roll of “peace keeping” is not a situation we want to get into.

Not only that, but much as we dislike Muammar Gaddafi, supporting the overthrow of the government of Libya is not sure to work to the advantage of the US or other NATO countries. It’s anyone’s guess what might take hold in the power vacuum and whatever regime may come to replace him could be peaceful and democratic or even worse than Gaddafi.

So I will come down on the side of this is a bad idea. You may disagree, which is fine. This is a political issue that is sure to have a number of sides and arguments.

However, there is another issue that has been raised, which is scientific, not subjective: Depleted Uranium.

Has depleted uranium been used in the airstrikes against Libya?  I’d say probably not, because, at least in the US military, the use of depleted uranium munitions is normally confined to anti-armor kinetic energy rounds. However, depleted uranium has been used in the past to adjust the center of gravity or add weight and other munitions, and since the airstrikes have included the French, British and other forces, I can’t really say for certain whether depleted uranium was used in any of the bombs dropped. It’s remotely possible that it was, although it seems unlikely.

However, what I can say is this: It doesn’t matter. Because regardless of whether a bomb is ballasted with lead, tungsten or depleted uranium, it blows up just the same and kills in exactly the same way, by shrapnel, over pressure and heat. And regardless of what metal it might contain, the toxicity and environmental effect is roughly the same.

Apparently some don’t get this.
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I have to say this is some of the most shameful reporting I have seen in a major news outlet in my entire life. Multiple news outlets are reporting a “massive explosion” at the Fukushima nuclear power station in Japan. The implication being that there has been some kind of explosion within the reactor or that dangerous levels of radioactive fallout are present.
Embedded Video Disabled. Please click to view.
The above CBS video starts off with footage of a very real and very dangerous fire that is burning out of control at an oil and gas refinery. At this time those flames do pose a very significant threat of producing a major explosion. There is some footage of the nuclear plant in the report as well and of billowing smoke that is being reported as an “explosion.”

In fact, this is not really an “explosion” in the normal sense of the word at all and it has nothing to do with the nuclear aspects of the plant. It appears to be the catastrophic failure of transformer equipment. Transformers are typically filled with large volumes of oil, which provides electrical insulation and helps to cool the transformer coils. If the transformer malfunctions, the oil can spill out or catch fire as a result of electrical arcs.

When the quake struck the power plant, it was producing electricity and many of the transformers were damaged. Transformer fires are known to produce large billowing clouds of smoke and sudden bursts of flames. The sudden eruption of fire may occur when the oil heats, either as a result of fire or a short circuit and eventually begins to boil. This will cause the oil to overflow the transformer and come out through vents. When this happens it immediately catches fire.

This is what is happening in this video. The transformer experiences a fault that causes it to overheat. Oil begins to burn slowly, but notice that after several seconds the oil has become so heated that it begins to spray out the top of the transformer. It ignites and creates a fireball.

This appears to be what happened at the Fukushima nuclear power station. Transformer fires can be very visually dramatic, but they’re also not terribly uncommon and because of this power plants are designed such that transformers are physically isolated from other important structures, assuring fire can be contained. While it may destroy the transformer, it is nothing that a power plant can’t handle. It poses no threat to the nuclear components of the power station.

UPDATED: A separate explosion, probably caused by hydrogen gas occurred within the reactor building but outside the containment structure of reactor number 1.

UPDATE: Additional information confirms that transformers have been damaged, this accounts for some of the reports of smoke and fires, however, reports also indicate that an explosion may have occurred as the result of hydrogen used to cool the generator coils at the plant. This explosion did not damage the nuclear reactors. Details are still sketchy.

UPDATE 2: Still no official word on whether there was indeed a localized hydrogen explosion. TEPCO reports all reactors appear to be in safe condition.

UPDATE 3:EPCO confirms white smoke seen at turbine building 1. Two workers injured, but extent is unknown. Appears to have been a relatively small explosion. TEPCO information indicates exact cause not known. Hydrogen explosion appears to be speculation at this point. May have also been a steam rupture.

UPDATE 4: Additional reports from Japanrse officials continue to point to hydrogen as the likely cause of the explosion at the TEPCO plant. It seems that the explosion occurred in pumping equipment and may signal that there was some kind of thermal reaction between the zirconium alloy cladding and cooling water.

At this point the Unit-1 core may have sustained extreme damage and the unit appears to be a likely write-off. The plant sustained enormous damage from the huge earthquake. Damage to the core does not itself put the public in danger but it is expensive. Repairing the plant is going to take a long time.

UPDATE 4: (3:45 EST) Reports from NEI and other sources confirm an explosion occurred within the reactor building but outside the main containment structure. The explosion happened in a service area above the reactor’s containment structure. The reactor is still perfectly safe within multiple layers of containment and is not in danger of a major breach or any radiological incident.

Further reports are that the reactor experienced at least a partial uncovering of fuel and that cooling is now being provided by borated seawater which is being pumped directly into the reactor vessel.

This is getting very bad (the reporting) and special interests and anti-nuke propaganda groups are coming out of the woodwork and being interviewed as “experts.” I urge readers to please contact news organizations and complain about the quality of this reporting. I have done so already, and while this kind of thing is not always effective, this is an extreme situation where pro-science activists need to mobilize.

To news organizations looking for real “experts” who can explain the workings of modern reactors and what is going on, some suggestions:

Rod Adams
Ted Rockwell
Kirk Sorenson
Jeremy Whitlock

It seems like it’s come back into vogue again.   Back in the 1970’s it was considered very fashionable to show how smart you were by predicting just how horrible the future would be.    Resource depletion, climate change and overpopulation, oh damn that overpopulation!    The world would certainly be a terrible place to live in the future as our evil technology lead to more filthy humans living longer lives and ruining everything!

Well, it seems like this whole song and dance is now back as “top scientists” and “researchers” warn us of the bleak future we have in store.

Via Discovery News:

Earth Could be ‘Unrecognizable’ by 2050
A growing, more affluent population competing for ever scarcer resources could make for an “unrecognizable” world by 2050, researchers warned at a major US science conference Sunday.

The United Nations has predicted the global population will reach seven billion this year, and climb to nine billion by 2050, “with almost all of the growth occurring in poor countries, particularly Africa and South Asia,” said John Bongaarts of the non-profit Population Council.

To feed all those mouths, “we will need to produce as much food in the next 40 years as we have in the last 8,000,” said Jason Clay of the World Wildlife Fund at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

“By 2050 we will not have a planet left that is recognizable” if current trends continue, Clay said.

The swelling population will exacerbate problems, such as resource depletion, said John Casterline, director of the Initiative in Population Research at Ohio State University.

But incomes are also expected to rise over the next 40 years — tripling globally and quintupling in developing nations — and add more strain to global food supplies.

People tend to move up the food chain as their incomes rise, consuming more meat than they might have when they made less money, the experts said.

It takes around seven pounds (3.4 kilograms) of grain to produce a pound of meat, and around three to four pounds of grain to produce a pound of cheese or eggs, experts told AFP.

“More people, more money, more consumption, but the same planet,” Clay told AFP, urging scientists and governments to start making changes now to how food is produced.

Population experts, meanwhile, called for more funding for family planning programs to help control the growth in the number of humans, especially in developing nations.

The WWF. Why am I not surprised? This organization, which was once reasonably moderate and even sane in the environmental sector is now racing to catch up with others when it comes to anti-humanism and dire predictions of a world ruined by mankind and technology. More money? More consumption? The horror! That there would be more wealth and more people could be comfortable and even enjoy a luxury or two! What will we do?

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Recently someone wrote me an email asking me what I thought of Lutec and the claims made by this group. For those who don’t know, Lutec is an Australian company that several years ago claimed to have created a device capable of generating more power than it consumed, using circuitry connected to a kind of motor-generator. While they never demonstrated the machine running on its own, without external power, they claimed that the input power was considerably less than what was output.

If this were actually true, the machine should be able to power itself and still have power to spare. Even if it needed some kind of external “priming” power, or a power source or some kind of power source to buffer a non-constant power output, this could be easily accomplished with a simple system of capacitors or batteries. Thus, an “energy amplifier” could also be an “energy producer,” if such a device existed.

Based on what their website states, they seem to not understand this:

This remarkable patented technology has many possible applications. It can amplify all existing or new electricity stations production. This is done by simply adding the technology to the existing or new power stations distribution sub stations. It can therefore be applied to and amplify any size power station regardless of the type of fuel being used. It will be equally effective with coal, oil, gas, and solar, wind, and diesel, nuclear or hydro power stations.

The LEA technology can be just as effective in other applications. The input power can be supplied to a LEA system from a normal wall plug outlet, or from other types of generator or battery supply. The input causes synergistic internal events in the patented LEA motor/generator/amplifier system to increase the amount of electricity it receives at no further cost. (See the How It Works page)

The LEA technology is proven to Amplify electricity. Please note the LEA is not the same as the Lutec 1000 generator and although the patents that cover the LEA are applicable to both, the electricity amplifier is quite different from the generator.

Having made some big claims and gotten a fair amount of press, the company and system seem to have gone into a kind of stagnation, probably because the system doesn’t actually work. Still, there are those who cling to the idea and claim that it’s just a matter of putting the Lultec machine into production to end humanity’s energy problems forever.

Unfortunately there’s a big problem: The inventors of this machine made some mistakes and miscalculations. The demonstrations shown on Youtube and elsewhere are probably genuine films of the output of the Lultec machine powering light bulbs or other devices. The problem is that the machine is actually consuming significantly more power to do so than it is outputting.

This video does a pretty good job of showing their mistake…

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In defense of the reputation of the community of Port Hope, Ontario, a community whose safety and livability has been slandered repeatedly, and in the defense of reason and science, here is a response to a recent editorial by the infamous Helen Caldicott.

In the interest of being sure not to be called evasive, all parts of this editorial will be independently addressed and responded to.

I challenge Ottowa Citizen or any other paper to publish a response, which I can provide in a format which is more traditional of a newspaper editorial publication. I’m only asking for the opportunity to refute these claims and show “both sides” of the story, which news outlets seem to always pride themselves on doing.

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Despite the growth of scientific and technical education and achievement in India, the country still has a food solidly in the dark ages, in part thanks to a government that seems to do more to encourage than discourage superstition.   Ripe with healthfraud like homeopathy, Indians have suffered enormously due to the persistence of superstition-based scams in their country.

Yet even considering how bad things can get in India, I am left at a loss having read this news report.

Via the Times of India:

Astrology is a science: Bombay HC

MUMBAI: Astrology has been debunked by most world scientists including India’s renowned physicist Prof. Yash Pal. However, it is “science” in India.

The Bombay High Court reaffirmed this on Thursday when it dismissed a PIL that had challenged astrology as science.

The PIL was filed by an NGO, Janhit Manch that had sought action against ‘fake’ astrologers, tantriks, practitioners of Vastu shastra etc.

“So far as prayer related to astrology is concerned, the Supreme Court has already considered the issue and ruled that astrology is science. The court had in 2004 also directed the universities to consider if astrology science can be added to the syllabus. The decision of the apex court is binding on this court,” observed the judges.

Yeah, you read right. And I thought that law makers trying to get “intelligent design” into the curriculum were bad. Hell, at least they have been shot down by the courts. But apparently in India, the courts have ordered that astrology should be considered for inclusion in scientific instruction.

I can’t imagine how this must play with the various professors and scientists in India who actually are seeing a court order their institutions to consider astrology a science. Despite how boneheaded this court is, there are many very learned Indians and institutions of higher learning have been growing by leaps and bounds in recent years. The frustration of having some idiot superstitious judge step in and try to undo it all must be maddening.

The judges also took on record an affidavit submitted by the Union government. The Centre had in its affidavit stated that astrology is 4000 years old ‘trusted science’ and the same does not fall under the preview of The Drugs and Megical Remedies Act (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954.

“The said Act does not cover astrology and related sciences. Astrology is a trusted science and is being practiced for over 4000 years,” said an affidavit filed by Dr R Ramakrishna, deputy drug controller (India), west zone.

“The said Act is aimed at prohibiting misleading advertisements relating to drugs and magic remedies. The Act does not cover and / or relate to astrology and / or allied sciences like Palmistry, Vaastu Shastra etc. In view thereof, a purported ban on practices promoting astrology and related sciences sought by the petitioner, which is a time tested science more than 4000 years old is totally misconceived and unjustifiable,” says the affidavit.

The (PIL) filed by Janhit Manch and its convener Bhagwanji Raiyani, along with his associate Dattaram Kumkar, had questioned the validity of predictions by many well-known astrologers.

The PIL, which ran into more than 100 pages pointed to several cases, including that of Indira Gandhi and Charan Singh becoming prime ministers, despite opposite predictions.

Representing the Union government, advocate Advait Sethna told the court that even the SC had accepted that astrology was a science and many universities had included it as a subject.

Advocate for Maharashtra government, Bharat Mehta too supported the stand taken by the Union government. Mehta submitted an affidavit filed by the food and drugs administration (FDA) department which said that necessary action is being taken against the guilty under the Drugs and Megical Remedies Act.

The PIL had urged the authorities to ban articles, advertisements, episodes and practices promoting astrology and its related subjects like vastu, reiki, feng shui, tarot, palmistry, zodiac signs and rashifal.

“Trusted science…for over 4000 years” Is that all it takes? The fact that something has been around for a long time and was trusted in ancient times makes it immune from ever becoming non-trusted?

I’ve got some news for Ramakrishna: There are lots of things that were believed thousands of years ago and are now considered hogwash. One thing about science is that it does not stand still and ideas that are found to be flawed are rejected regardless of their age. Not that this is a new thing, though, most serious scientists have rejected astrology for hundreds of years.

Maybe we should bring back bloodletting, witch burning, virgin sacrifices, geocentrism and all the other ideas that were trusted for thousands of years before we knew any better.

Finally, to the judges involved: you may want to reconsider your decision in light of your charts for the past day. Here’s your horoscope: The stress of the daily grind has been getting to you. Be careful about making big decisions. It would be better to wait until you’ve had time to relax and think them through. Now might be a good time to break from the routine by contacting some old friends and enjoying some activities you haven’t done in a while. Tonight: stay home and go f*** yourself.

This is not the first time I’ve complained about the quality of the content on the History Channel, or as it now is called, simply “History.” However, recently things have gone from dumb to absolutely moronic, as the channel is now running the show “Ancient Aliens” almost daily. In case, the title does not clue you in, it’s a rather one-sided show presentation of the supposed evidence that generations of humans past were contacted by extra-terrestrial visitors and that this influenced their culture.

Here’s just a small sample of what kind of thing the series contains:

Damn… I feel dumber every time I see a video from it.

However I also feel compelled to answer a number of the contentions made by the series.
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