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Re: [xmca] Japan
It is indeed good to hear that so many members of this community in Japan are safe.
I do not wish to be alarmist, but I am troubled by the reporting coming out of Japan concerning the nuclear reactors. It appears that neither the government nor the company running the reactors is providing the kind of details needed to back up their reassurances. And both have motives, political and financial, for downplaying what may be a more serious situation than they will admit.
This is, of course, a familiar pattern (as with the Gulf Oil spill in the US, for example, and many other cases). The information that is coming out seems worrisome. Three reactors are functioning without proper cooling, at least two probably already have some melting of parts of their fuel rods. Using seawater to cool them is a desperation measure; it means there is no chance these reactors will ever function again. The pressure inside the reactors is very high, making it hard to pump in the water, and the pumps they are using are from fire-fighting equipment, which are not designed to press against the internal pressure in the reactor containment vessels. The gauges to indicate the water level in the reactor, and so how much of the rods is exposed and not being cooled (the condition for a more serious meltdown) are not functioning, so the process of pouring water on the reactor and releasing the resulting steam is happening largely blind.
Altogether this suggests that every possible contingency must now go well to avoid a still more serious problem. Somehow that does not seem likely. I have read that there are warnings of a possible second quake. That would be very bad. Any serious mistake with the cool-down could lead to further melting and possible damage to the inner containment vessel.
No one is saying how much fission by-products are being detected outside the reactors. No one is saying to what extent the rods have already melted. No one is talking about worst-case, or even worse-than-best-case scenarios. And no one, yet, seems to be talking about the longer term. It may not be possible to "clean-up" this situation, ever, even if there are only partially melted rods. I suppose there must be a plan for this contingency, but it's hard to imagine what it could be. Encase the reactor core in a giant block of steel and concrete and hope it never melts on its own or gets cracked open by another quake? Take it out to sea and dump it in a deep-ocean trench? We all know the difficulty of longterm containment of used fuel rods, even if they are not melted. What is the scenario for "disposal" of ones that are? What happened to them at Chernobyl? is it all still sitting there?
I do hope people will think about these questions and ask for answers, and maintain a healthy skepticism towards official assurances, until we find out what's really going on.
JAY.
PS. For those who want to know, the problem with the fuel rods melting is that they are made of a high percentage of highly enriched, i.e. concentrated, highly radioactive material (uranium or plutonium) which is (a) highly poisonous, (b) highly radioactive, (c) maintains its radioactivity for millennia, (d) melts at a relatively low temperature, (e) generates enough heat to melt itself just because it is so concentrated, and even without nuclear fission taking place. Once it melts, it is difficult to contain its radioactivity or handle it or dispose of it. You would have to dissolve it bit by bit in acid, dilute the resulting solution, and then find a way to permanently contain the resulting sludge or liquid. Alternatively, you try to pack it up in a lot of shielding and dump it somewhere. The best solution I've ever heard of is to put it in a rocket pointed at the sun and let it fall in. But that is ridiculously expensive. The nuclear power industry seems to be based entirely on the wishful thinking that nothing like this is ever going to happen. If there is a way to clean up a nuclear reactor meltdown, even a partial one, I'd be very curious to know what it is -- and if it's ever been tested.
BTW, while I have a PhD in physics, I am not an expert on reactor technology, but I do have a lot of experience doubting official assurances and finding out later that this was not groundless.
Jay Lemke
Senior Research Scientist
Laboratory for Comparative Human Cognition
University of California - San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, California 92093-0506
Professor (Adjunct status 2009-11)
School of Education
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
www.umich.edu/~jaylemke
Professor Emeritus
City University of New York
On Mar 13, 2011, at 9:46 PM, David Kellogg wrote:
> This is just to say that I have heard from Professor Yuji Moro of the University of Tsukuba, near the nuclear reactor at Fukushima and he is alright, though busy making rice balls and mizo soup for the many homeless in the area.
>
> Professor Moro wrote, with Professor Park Dongseop, a wonderful article on the ZPD in MCA 13:
>
> Park, D.-S., & Moro, Y. (2006). Dynamics of situation definition. Mind, Culture and Activity, 13, 101- 129.
>
> More recently, Professor Moro had an article with Shenji Kagawa on Spinozic reconsiderations of activity theory in the volume "Learning and Expanding with Activity Theory", Sannino, Daniels, and Guttierez (eds), CUP.
>
> David Kellogg
> Seoul National University of Education
>
>
> --- On Sun, 3/13/11, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> From: mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [xmca] Japan
> To: "White, Phillip" <Phillip.White@ucdenver.edu>, "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Date: Sunday, March 13, 2011, 1:07 PM
>
>
> Indeed good to hear from all over the xmca world. Our many lchc friends are
> also ok, at least with respect to immediate destruction. The longer term
> consequences
> may leave no one unscathed.... and ought to, at least, get humanity to stop
> and consider.
>
> mike
>
> On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 1:01 PM, White, Phillip
> <Phillip.White@ucdenver.edu>wrote:
>
>> Good to read, Valerie. In the meanwhile I'll back-channel you. Later.
>> P
>> Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: "valerie A. Wilkinson" <vwilk@inf.shizuoka.ac.jp>
>> Sender: "xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu" <xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>
>> Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2011 09:59:36
>> To: 'eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity'<xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>> Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>> Subject: RE: [xmca] Japan
>>
>> Thank- you, Philip, and all of you. I am south of Tokyo, so pretty far
>> from
>> Sendai and I am OK, and yes, we could really feel it and it touches all of
>> us. I hope others are OK too. The aftermath is still unfolding from that
>> brief devastating one minute and some seconds.
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
>> Behalf Of White, Phillip
>> Sent: Saturday, March 12, 2011 4:00 AM
>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>> Subject: [xmca] Japan
>>
>>
>>
>> What a calamity in Japan. I hope that Vandy is doing well, as well as all
>> other XMCA-ers living in Japan just now.
>>
>> phillip
>>
>>
>>
>> Phillip White, PhD
>> University of Colorado Denver
>> School of Education
>> phillip.white@ucdenver.edu__________________________________________
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