Today is supposed to be 42 degrees and sunny. You would never know that an earthquake measuring 8.9 on the Richter scale hit this morning off the northeast coast of Japan. 8.9 is a “wow”. The earthquake occuring underwater sets of a Tsunami with walls of water 23 feet high. Imagine a wall of water coming down the street as high as a two story house. And water keeps coming. The forecast is that Hawaii and even the west coast of the U.S, will be afffected. It kind of puts life in perspective.
I have always been interested in the engineering that goes into nuclear power plants. Japan gets 30 percent of all it’s power from nuclear. Apparently there are 4 nuclear plants directly in the line of the Tsunami. New nuclear plants are built to withstand earthquakes. I don’t know if a quake the magnitude of 8.9 is part of the design criteria. Tsunamis are another matter. A nuclear power plant has radio-active rods inserted into a core generating lots of energy (and heat). If the water cooling system for the core fails, potentially you get the “China Syndrome”. That means lots of radioactive water and air can released into the atmosphere. News services are reporting that evacuation is taking place around one of the nuclear plants. That is not good. If you think a tsunami is devasting, uncontrolled release of radio-active materials would be a disaster. At this point, there are no reports of radio active releases.
So when you get 3-4 inches of snow and have to shovel again, consider yourself lucky. There are bigger problems in the world.
I suppose the fanatics will cry “global warning” but ever since the earth started cooling millions of years ago, earthquates have been occuring in some form or another. I guess you have to decide.
Tomorrow night is “Spring ahead” time. You “workers’ of the world will lose an hour over the weekend and your time off will seem much too short. If you are retired, who cares.
Hug those close to you.
Love,
Dad