Quote of the Day
You see things; and you say, "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?"
George Bernard Shaw
Something that Governor Jerry Brown (D-CA) Is NOT Cutting...
Courtesy of Dr. Perry's Carpe Diem blog: The average retired California public school teacher makes $51,072; you will be glad to know the average active teacher nationwide still makes more than a California retired teacher: $55,350. In fact, if you exclude teachers from New York, California, and Massachusetts, retired California teachers make roughly the same as the average active teacher nationwide, or better than roughly half of them (like the $35K teacher from South Dakota).
Something You Won't Hear on Fox News Channel
The fishing village of Onagawa, Japan, about 75 miles from Fukushima Daiichi, lost over 10% of its population of 10,000 in the massive tsunami almost 3 weeks ago. Where did hundreds subsequently go to find shelter? The local nuclear power plant. Among other things, its surrounding wall is nearly twice as high as Fukushima Daiichi's; it only lost some sloshed spent fuel pool water during the earthquake and a minor (non-nuclear) fire on site.
Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Incident Update
The big picture to stabilizing reactors 1 through 4 (the last only in terms of the spent fuel pool) is getting the cooling systems working. The contaminated puddles in turbine building basements have slowed down getting power restored to instrumentation and devices; some devices are also wet and must be repaired and/or replaced. Workers are trying to drain the contaminated water out of the first 3 basements. Contaminated water is worse in reactor 2, but they have not identified sources for the leaks.
The first topic I heard on Fox News coverage of today was a prospective resin spray over debris at Fukushima Daiichi resulting from earlier hydrogen explosions and other issues early in the crisis; this is to provide additional safety for on site workers. Many of the new updates I've seen on Fox News seem to be (coincidentally?) covered by the Kyoto News.
NEI notes:
- afternoon: [4/1/11 edit]. There is discussion of tanks being brought to the Daiichi site to handle any contaminated water from BOTH turbine room basements AND trenches/tunnels which can't be accommodated by current daisy chain pumping to the suppression pool surge tanks. One of the lessons learned is maintaining redundancy for backup power, in particular emergency mobile generators on hand.
IAEA reports on pumping from condensate storage to surge tanks for reactors 1 to 3 (i.e., first step in dewatering the puddles). One outlier external radiation reading to the northwest of the Daiichi site showing higher readings is being retested. Continuing food, milk and drinking water sampling show (higher) infant benchmarks being flagged in Fukushima prefecture, but rapidly stabilizing elsewhere.
Atomic Power Review notes:
- Wednesday morning: It looks as though TEPCO is trying to control the serious puddle/full trench at the front end by slowing the injections of coolant. A barge is reportedly being brought in to store contaminated water. Some sort of electrical fire under a pump panel at reactor 1 was detected and resolved; no impact on radiation level. There is confirmation from TEPCO that reactors 1 through 4 will be decommissioned. The government may also look at shuttering reactors 5 and 6 and stopping planned plants 7 and 8.
- Wednesday night: Some earlier water spraying was aimed at flooding the drywell with the objective of controlling for a possible failure, say of a reactor containment vessel. There is a discussion about why contamination is particularly an issue with reactor 2 and various hypotheses on the nature of the earlier explosion.
- Higher iodine readings offshore, thought to be coming from reactor 2.
The Hiroshima Syndrome blogger cites various sources updating statuses, noting that reactor pressurized vessels and spent fuel pools continue being sprayed/injected on an as-needed basis. He is skeptical about the effective Health Physics management since the contaminated water soaking 3 workers to their underwater should not have happened given waterproof characteristics to protective wear. He also pointed out the drop in seawater concentrations following the sandbagged trenches. (The late emerging spike in iodine reading seems to suggest to me a possible breach in the sandbag defense.) He also explains the reason for using the various backup pumps is that when the reactor temperature and pressure drop the steam-driven pumps don't operate.
My Fourth Nominee for Jackass of the Year 2011:
Congressman Edward Markey (D-MA)
Faithful readers know my description for this dubious award: "a progressive Democrat distinguishing himself with profound lapses of civility, personal ethics, or partisanship or the demonstrated ability to do or say outrageous things."
Yesterday, Congressman Edward Markey (D-MA) introduced a bill to put a moratorium on licensing for new nuclear power plants pending bureaucratic resolution of lessons learned from Fukushima Daiichi. What we know is Fukushima Daiichi has withstood a record-breaking earthquake and tsunami, far beyond design capacities, with no fatalities and involving a design over 2 generations old, and at most marginal impact on human health and the environment. Apparently one nuclear plant approval in over 30 years since Three Mile Island is too fast a pace for Congressman Markey. For pandering to the anti-nukes, ignoring the outstanding safety record of carbon-free, reliable nuclear power provided by over 100 American plants, lessening our dependence on unreliable foreign producers of fossil fuels, and politically exploiting fear, uncertainty, and doubt being stirred up by irresponsible American news organizations, Edward Markey has earned my undying contempt.
Incidentally, for the record in the event some want to allege that I am a shill for the nuclear power industry: I do not work (nor have worked) for any nuclear power plant, and I own no direct investments in relevant miners or utilities. My interest in nuclear power goes back to when, after my first Master's degree, I was selected as a math instructor candidate at the Navy Nuclear Power School, which has provided training for NCO's and officers serving on our nuclear-powered submarines.
The "Slippery Slope" Argument and Libya
I mentioned in passing in yesterday's post one of FNC's morning hosts, Gretchen Carlson, making repeated references to the slippery slope argument, e.g., if the US assists the Libyan revolutionaries, it is morally required to intervene whenever another government commits an injustice against its own people. What stimulated revisiting the slippery slope argument was listening to conservative Tucker Carlson, Daily Caller founder and a Dennis Miller radio talk show substitute host, rant derisively against American military involvement in Libya, including Speaker John Boehner (R-OH)'s support and military conservatives (e.g., John McCain). Once again, we are asked, "How is this in America's national interests?"
This commentary is not intended to be a full response, but I would like to go beyond the surface-level talking points.
First, I would distinguish between short-term and long-term interests. I myself accept the limitations of America's resources and realize that we cannot be the world's policeman; in fact, the ubiquitous presence of American power is an issue with many foreign citizens and a motivating factor for Obama's egalitarian style of diplomacy (including the infamous apology tour). I have argued that the UN process with any permanent member of the Security Council willing to exercise its trump card in defending crony interests is impotent in responding to rapidly-evolving events on the ground, in this case with Libyan revolutionary forces. Clearly there is no effective regional leadership to provide stabilization, e.g., in Africa or the Arab League.
We do have resources in the area, and I think it is hypocritical, particularly in terms of the French alliance during our own Revolutionary War, to argue that we have to turn away from even limited assistance because Qaddafi is not murdering American citizens or attacking our property or personnel. This is an abandonment of international leadership, which is not in our interests. Does this mean that any two-bit dictator is our puppet master and can pull our strings by any ugly threat against the human rights of his country's citizens? No. I'm certainly not arguing it's an exclusive responsibility. But as cosmopolitans, we have a vested interest in the international recognition and protection of unalienable human rights, especially as our citizens work in or visit other countries.
Second, our potential activities are constrained by context. For example, we may not approve of certain human rights policies in Russia and China, both nuclear-armed and with formidable militaries; obviously our actions must take into account an adversary's available resources, including technologies and personnel. In other contexts, there may be limited access (e.g., airspace flyover rights), limitations of weapon technologies, the nature of relevant impacts on any allies in the region, regional stability, the nature, scope and evidence of alleged human rights abuses, the likelihood of mission success, etc.
We can use an analogy like being a witness to a crime, say a vicious physical attack on a child, woman or senior citizen. If the criminal is 6'9" and weighs 480 pounds or has a lethal weapon in his possession, we risk becoming victims ourselves by interceding.
In essence, we have the diplomatic equivalent of the Serenity Prayer:
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
I don't think it's necessary or even possible to establish an exhaustive decision tree regarding the potential use of military force. In the real world, a President often has to cope with imperfect (incomplete, conflicting, poor quality) information; clearly this was a problem in the setup for the liberation of Iraq.
Third, we need to recognize that the use of military resources or force may be necessary in contexts beyond direct national interest or imminent attack. We may have obligations to allies through our treaties, international/coalition activities, humanitarian efforts, and/or contribute to global economic security (e.g., guarantee safe sea lanes). I think in particular the Middle East has been a volatile region, and Qaddafi's desperate attempts to retain power is potentially destabilizing with possible refugee issues, e.g., France and Egypt.
Do I think the anti-war folks or the isolationists will be satisfied? No. But the world has changed; we are not insulated by two vast oceans on our east and left borders--we can conduct business across continents at the blink of an eye; we account for nearly a quarter of global GDP and have the world's largest economy despite a much smaller percentage of its population. The idea that we can simply melt away in the background of over 100 nations is a state of denial.
Do I believe Obama satisfied his critics? No. I think first of all, he needs to avoid setting unrealistic expectations. Second, he has to downplay any defensiveness and not sound professorial and abstract. Third, keep the message simple: the issue is Qaddafi, not the US, and Qaddafi should do the right thing and go into exile. Less is more.
Political Humor
Instead of calling our mission in Libya a war, the White House is calling it a "kinetic military action," which sounds better than "potentially endless quagmire." - Jay Leno
[I can hardly wait to hear Fed Reserve Chair "Helicopter Ben" Bernanke refer to quantitative easing as "kinetic economic activity" instead of leading to "potentially ruinous hyperinflation"...]
President Obama spoke about our role in Libya. He’s not sure when the war will end, what happens when we win, or how much it will cost, but other than that it was quite informative. - Jay Leno
[President Obama spoke about our role in Libya. We didn't know when the speech would end, what questions about Libya were resolved by the speech, or what would happen in Libya after the speech, but some viewers liked his new political spin moves during "Dancing (Around the Libya Issue) With the President". Asked to judge the speech, Qaddafi said that Obama's performance was a little pitchy, hit a few flat notes, and didn't add anything new to the justifications cited for the original Iraq no-fly zone.]
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Beach Boys, "Help Me Rhonda"
