Wednesday February 15, 2012

the_harper's past comments

  • 0

    the_harper

    @Realteacher - I saw very little machinery in use in rice fields in Ibaraki when I lived there. It seems that a lot of Japanese farmers have very small plots and simply can't afford the machinery. In China I saw rice paddies still being ploughed manually with the help of water buffalo. So I'm not sure where "Most rice is planted and harvested by tractor or combine" in Asia. As to the fact that the farmer is 86 and still doing the hard work - he probably can't afford to retire either, and it's unlikely his kids are farming.

    Posted in: The old-fashioned way

  • 0

    the_harper

    Coal seam gas is naturally occurring, but some methods for extracting it are not environmentally friendly.

    Posted in: Chiyoda awarded contract for LNG plant in Australia

  • 0

    the_harper

    @ kurisupisu - the spent fuel pools aren't leaking radiation because they are well below the boiling point of water. It's possible that some radiation is still leaking from the breaches in the pressure vessels, but as long as the water in them is kept below boiling point, the amount of radioactive material lost should be small. Radioactive material doesn't just fly away on its own! The water which they are filtering has been used to cool the cores, so by removing the radioactive material from the water, they are also treating the water in the pressure vessels. The point of the exercise is to set up a closed loop in the process of cooling the cores.

    Sadly, all of this could have been avoided if there had been an effective passive cooling system.

    Posted in: Ion system achieving water cleanup goals at the Fukushima nuclear plant

  • 0

    the_harper

    Give that engineering team a medal for creating a working system in only five weeks! I assume they were modifying an existing design, but it's still impressive.

    @gogogo - it's evaporated waste water that is carrying the radioactive material into the air. If you clean the waste water, you also effectively clean the air.

    @whiskeysour - is Japan being invaded by radiated slugs? Next we'll have to start looking for Godzilla and Mothra. Seriously though, presumably Japan has waste processing facilities which will eventually be required to process the radioactive sludge.

    Posted in: Ion system achieving water cleanup goals at the Fukushima nuclear plant

  • 1

    the_harper

    I'm not defending TEPCO, but maybe everyone is forgetting that the region was hit by a record earthquake and tsunami. Presumably the government will have to take over the company when it becomes financially impossible for it to continue to operate.

    Posted in: TEPCO reports Y571.8 bil loss

  • 3

    the_harper

    Pretty much every onsen I've been to has hot water running out of the ground and into the drain. How much of that energy is captured for anything other than hot baths? None, that I've observed - even in an onsen in Nagano in mid winter, the hot onsen water went into the drain and electricity was used to heat the rooms. You don't have to use the hot water to generate electricity - you can use it to save electricity. It's still geothermal power. Every bit of electric load you take off the grid helps just as much as generating more electricity. Geothermal doesn't have to be used on a massive scale - just putting the energy of that water to use instead of wasting it would make a significant difference, at least locally.

    Posted in: Yoko Ono says Japan should look to geothermal energy

  • -2

    the_harper

    Are the figures in the diagram for beef grain-fed or free range? There's got to be a huge difference between the two. Are the carbon footprints on the Tuna taking into account the fuel of the boats to catch the fish? Is that why they're so high? What about farmed fish (not Tuna)?

    I'd certainly agree that Japan needs to improve the consumption of vegetables. The vast majority of the Japanese diet seems to consist of rice and protein. However, most "western" countries need to move to a healthier, lower environmental footprint diet too.

    Posted in: How to eat well and save the planet too

  • 1

    the_harper

    BlueWitch, your husband is a lucky guy!

    As to the photo - what a shame that police uniform isn't standard for female police in Japan. At least in Akihabara!

    Posted in: Cosplaying around

  • 0

    the_harper

    I'm amazed that so many people can see the facts presented in a place like the museum in Hiroshima and still believe that the use of nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and the often forgotten Nagasaki were justified - even by the social norms of the time.

    A number of people have posted here saying that Hiroshima was a valid target because there was a significant military presence in the city. Perhaps they don't know that Hiroshima, Nagasaki and a number of other potential targets were intentionally left untouched by conventional bombing raids so that after the atomic bombs were dropped, all the damage could be attributed to the atomic bombs. This alone contradicts those who claim that the bombs were not dropped as an experiment. Perhaps also these same people don't know that Enola Gay was not alone in the sky - other aircraft flew alongside and dropped instruments to record the effects of the atomic bomb.

    Did the USA drop the bombs to save American lives? Absolutely. One bomb could achieve what took entire squadrons dropping incendiaries. Was a full scale invasion of Honshu necessary? Not really - US forces were in a position to burn Japanese cities down with incendiaries until the Japanese government capitulated. More people died in the firestorms in Tokyo alone than died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. Did the US use the bomb to save Japanese lives? Hardly. The other major consideration which has been mentioned was that the Russians were preparing to invade Japan. The US needed to force Japan to capitulate quickly, but also wanted to send a warning to the Russians.

    The use of the weapons was justified in the minds of those who made the decision at the time. I think the key thing which someone suggested above was that as far as the people making that decision were concerned, it was just another kind of bomb. However, all sorts of things felt to be justified in war are still war crimes.

    Posted in: Do you consider the A-bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to be war crimes?

  • 0

    the_harper

    Of course if the car is used to supply power during the day and is charged at night you get to drive it... oh. Don't get me wrong - I think this is a great idea as a temporary measure to provide emergency power to a house in an emergency. Presumably in the long term for a house it would be better to have a set of storage batteries and an inverter.

    Posted in: Nissan unveils new power supply system through LEAF

  • 2

    the_harper

    Surely they need to test the rice, not just the water?

    Posted in: Gov't to test rice crop in 19 prefectures for contamination

  • 0

    the_harper

    Really good bread takes a long time to make and uses good quality flour and yeast. Bread from a machine will be better if the ingredients are better, but you can't ever expect it to produce the kind of bread a bakery takes many hours to make. Most people would prefer fresh bread which is still hot from a bread machine to something out of the supermarket though!

    Posted in: For home bakers

  • 2

    the_harper

    I can think of a lot of corners on Japanese roads which would be impossible to negotiate in a stretch HUMV. Actually, I can think of a lot of roads which would be too narrow for it to fit into in the first place! I'm glad that most vehicles on the road in Japan are practical and efficient.

    Posted in: Supersize me

  • 1

    the_harper

    It won't matter how high the sea wall is if the pressure vessel is damaged or depleted fuel stores leak or the emergency generators are flooded or the generators run out of fuel...

    Article Unavailable

  • 5

    the_harper

    I've seen photos of a person who was decapitated while riding a trail bike by hitting a wire strung across a track. The rope could still easily be fatal for an elderly person - the fall alone could kill them. I'm glad the police are treating it seriously.

    Posted in: Gang of teenagers injure elderly cyclist with rope

  • 0

    the_harper

    How about the headline "Fujitsu testing computer assisted Mandarin cultivation"?

    or "Fujitsu testing cloud computer assisted Mandarin cultivation"?

    That would explain a bit more clearly than using the inapropriate ICT acronym. The cloud computers are being used to analyse data collected using smartphones. Smartphones are still computers - very portable ones.

    Posted in: Fujitsu begins testing of ICT-enabled mandarin cultivation

  • 0

    the_harper

    @hereandthere - any future grid needs to be a mix of energy sources. Look up nano antennas to see one future possibility in solar efficiency - even if they only achieve 50% efficiency it would be enough to sink fossil fuels. Kyocera should be congratulated for doing their bit to reduce their impact on the peak load.

    Posted in: Kyocera starts operation of 230kW solar power generating system at Fukushima plant

  • 3

    the_harper

    @Cactus - Why do you have to make a positive thing into a negative? Personally I'm looking forward to cleaner and quieter cities with electric vehicles.

    Posted in: Mitsubishi Motors introduces major improvements to i-MiEV new-generation EV

  • 0

    the_harper

    Great photo, Jeff!

    Posted in: Purple Fuji

  • 0

    the_harper

    Hurrah! Finally the possibility of a major geothermal project in a country with probably the most freely available geothermal energy in the world close to major population centres. But - it's just a study, not a project to build anything. :(

    Posted in: Idemitsu, Inpex to jointly develop geothermal energy in Hokkaido and Akita

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