jsa-aerial comments

I wish people were more rational. I know radiophobia is a real thing and it has caused enormous harm, but at this point, people really need to pay attention to the science.  Geraldine Thomas and colleagues around the world should be required reading by anyone interested or involved in this topic - or at least they should take in one of her presentations. For example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOvHxX5wMa8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F_Qig4vnXA&t=1s

That's about 1/4 distance to the moon (avg). I'm not really sure what the significance of that distance is...

Hoping for a restoration (or whatever process is involved now) for Tarkovsky's Solaris and maybe Stalker, next.

That was done by MosFilm and both were released in new digital restorations last year. Sadly it was not 4K but 2K. Even so, I saw both of these in theatrical releases last year and they were quite stunning. Yes, a lot of that is simply the absolute brilliance of the films (Stalker in particular) themselves. I rate both better than 2001...

To nearly all the commentators here: science illiteracy - I see your loving it...

Definitely a great photo - showing the vehicle going transonic (moving from sub to supersonic)

So, McMaster gave rather different account on what Trump said

Actually he didn't. He gave an account that had nothing to do with the WP story. Read it and listen to McMaster. What he says didn't happen wasn't even part of the story. While it may not be totally irrelevant, it does not address in any way the substance of the story.

Is there a word for someone who gets mentally stuck 35 years ago and can't recognize present conditions?

Not sure, but in a couple years, 'trumper' might be submitted for it.

Religion has NEVER been the problem.........PEOPLE are!

Well, can't fault the last part, but I disagree with the first. Religions (in particular the 'Abrahamic religions') are the roots of all manner of major problems.

following the law of the land takes precedence over religious rights.

WTF? The first amendment clearly and explicitly protects all manner of religious rights. Since it is part of the constitution it 'trumps' all other 'laws of the land' - those passed by Congress and / or wet dreamed up by executive order. So, if this execrably conceived and implemented policy crosses the 1st amendment, it should be struck down. Of course, the US is not exactly the same 'nation of laws' it once was, so who knows?

an attractive alternative in a country with few natural resources.

You can't be serious - it's literally sitting on an ocean of energy

It would not be a surprise of some nation such as ...

Breeder reactors have been around for decades. Fast breeders dominated, most likely because they were a 'great' source of bomb grade plutonium.

Thermal breeders OTOH, in particular LFTR and other thorium cycle designs, are totally different and would be exceptionally attractive 'bridge' energy sources. Possibly even more than 'bridge'. Some great features: they have inherent safety (their default mode is shutdown, not pressurized, not need for containment dome/housing, cannot 'melt down'), no need for fuel rods, simpler reprocessing of the liquid fuel, able to burn current waste from crappy old fashioned LWPR, burn nearly 100% of fuel given them, waste is 2-3 orders of magnitude less than crappy LWPR, worst wast has around 30 year half life (so, in 300 years it would be less than background radiation) - not the 1/4M year crap from LWPR, and they can be built small and more locally located - no need for mind numbing jumbo plants serving massive areas, nor the stunning loss in transmission lines.

The basic ideas (and even proven demonstrators) have been around for 50 years. I will let you guess as to why they were originally 'supressed' (hint above), and why they still get little private sector attention. Some countries public sector have been finally looking back into these things since around 2012, including China and Japan.

China seems to be on a big push for nukes and if they had any sense, they would focus all attention on thorium cycle reactors. If they made great, easy to produce versions, it would be a massive game changer - in several areas.

“Withdrawing from trade agreements, talking about shaking up alliances, talking about pulling out of the climate change agreement, talking about pulling out of Iran - all of these make China look like the responsible stakeholder,” Paal said.

Hard to argue with that...

@tahoochi Yes, that is a decent article that contains information which 'somehow' is always conveniently 'forgotten' - or actively side stepped (as in the point about how none of this is ever put into American school history books). Also, in addition to the 7 5-star officers who opposed it, George Marshall also should be included in the list. Probably the saddest thing in all of this is that the end the US effectively accepted the one 'condition' of allowing the emperor to stay that would have ended hostilities in May 1945.

On the 'Class A war criminal' subject - two that definitely should be included are Curtis LeMay and Arthur Harris. At least LeMay admitted as much.

I don't have a solution, and as far as I can see, neither does anyone else.

As mentioned before - burn it in LFTRs

For Japan, geothermal is something of a 'no brainer'. There have been studies which show that traditional (non fracturing) techniques could supply ~70% or so of all the country's current energy needs. If you go with newer techniques (which do make use of some fracturing and thus need serious caution here) the amounts available are several times all the country's energy needs.

As for the nuclear question. One thing that really really needs to have more awareness is liquid salt thorium cycle reactors. These are nothing at all like traditional light water solid fuel uranium/plutonium reactors. These were sort of mentioned in passing as 'new designs' but quickly disappeared from the discussion. Thorium cycle reactors eliminate basically all the really negative aspects of traditional reactors (which I would agree, just make no sense) and could certainly be a very positive facet to replacing fossil fuels. They do not require uranium (or worse, plutonium) and cannot produce bomb grade material. Thorium is vastly more available than uranium and thus solves the other dirty secret of traditional reactors - not enough fuel without resorting to breeders (aka bomb grade material makers). Thorium cycle reactors burn nearly all their fuel in a continual recycling process and so produce very little waste. That waste also is not full of isotopes with quarter million half lives and would decay to safe levels in 300-500 years (not great, but totally workable). Moreover, they can indeed burn the 'mountains' of waste created by old fashioned traditional reactors, thus contributing to a solution to an orthogonal problem. Lastly, the design and physics of them prevent anything like the catastrophic melt downs of traditional reactors and shutdown aspects are passive (no active intervention required).

Well, this

http://www.japantoday.com/category/podcast/view/asia-news-weekly-prof-park-yuha-paints-a-very-different-narrative-of-comfort-women-than-korean-version

and especially the links in it, cast a lot of doubt on much of the claims - the 200k+ number in particular appears to have been co-opted from other situations.

Since sake is grained based and brewed it isn't a wine. It's rather unique - brewed like beer, but taste much more like wine. IMO, nice examples can easily be as good as fine wines. I'm not in the biz, but I've heard 'barrel', 'keg', and 'cask' all used for beer, so barrel of sake seems fair enough. Is there a traditional term for this?

I'm with those who understand that the primary issue here is the total disregard for the constitution - the ultimate rule of law. As plenty have noted, there are rules and procedures in place to properly make this change (if you have the support) and they are just being side stepped. Of course, Abe and his minions don't have the support to legally change the constitution which is why they are pulling a page from the dictator's manual. It's really outrageous.

"Abe also has promised the U.S. the bills would pass in parliament by this summer."

This is also totally outrageous - we (the US) shouldn't have any say in this whatsoever. Just like Netanyahu shouldn't be trying to control the US congress. But this nonsense seems to have become rampant.

@Japan4life: When is Abe going to do something that a majority of the people want?

When he leaves office?

@Yuri: The reason is they need to keep Japan as a useful foe for local support.

@mistie: It has been a long practised tactic by politicians from many countries to push a foreign agenda when things at home aren't looking too rosy for whatever reason

This is really what it boils down to. Both Park and Jinping have serious issues with domestic simmering populations nearing boiling points. And if this past week (and the last couple months really) are an indication, Jingping may be in for some seriously rougher times ahead. Trotting out the 'bogeyman' (both internal and external) is, as mistie points out, a tried and 'true' technique to distract such populations. At the moment, they basically feel that they cannot afford to drop Japan as a useful bogeyman. This also is in large measure why you won't see anything specific about what would constitute a 'satisfactory apology'. Anything even remotely reasonable is too risky - Japan might actually satisfy it and that would be be too 'dangerous' for the foreseeable future.

@Jumin

Possibly (maybe even probably), but there are still some significant technological advancements that need to be achieved to make this really viable.

Yes. And this would provide significant improvement over energy loss of sending electrons down cables over large distances.

Better yet - forget uranium and use thorium cycle liquid salt reactors as a bridge. These are far more efficient, vastly reduce resulting waste products, and are smaller and more robust - safer.

Not that facts typically mean much, but this should be reading material for anyone really interested in the history:

http://thediplomat.com/2014/09/the-ccp-didnt-fight-imperial-japan-the-kmt-did/

Especially for the CCP revisionists and their supporters...

yes, but even if japan maxed out all of these "alternatives" it wouldn't solve the energy problem. until god

Nope - studies have shown, even using traditional techniques, geothermal alone could cover 100% of Japans current energy needs. Newer techniques could boost this to 5x-10x, however there are plausible earthquake issues with these in certain circumstances. Costs would be significantly cheaper than traditional nuclear.

Fusion (while still something of a 'Holy Grail'), even with the most optimistic projections, isn't in any remotely foreseeable future. ITER is well behind schedule and likely to become even more so - it's just damn difficult stuff. OTOH, certain thorium cycle liquid salt reactor designs could be a plausible option in places.

@Gary Raynor

Thanks for the information. Interesting - and 'deflating' :-/

currently, CPI is 0 in Japan

After checking some more, it isn't really clear what it is right now, but seems somewhere between 0.5 and 1.2 depending on who is, and how they are, counting. It's also not at all clear where it is headed...

So the big, rich companies are raising wages (by less than the increase in consumer prices, mind you)

Well, currently, CPI is 0 in Japan, so 2% raise is more not less. Things could change, indeed it could go negative again, but for the near/mid term, this raise should be net positive.

I think keidanren members are only something like 2% of all companies in Japan.

Does anyone here, have the percentage they employ?

Three cheers for Obama he is kicking major A$$! Just imagine what he could do if repubs put their country before their prejudices!

Or more appropriately 'their own self centered, self absorbed, narcissistic interests'. But then they wouldn't be Republicans (capital 'R').

One things for sure - looking over most of the comments here (and the up/down votes), it's pretty clear that most on here know significantly less about the issues than Abe and Co. And that's saying a lot - and it is much scarier than this report...

WRT the water issue, this (decontaminating and releasing) is what everyone with experience and knowledge has been urging since pretty much day 1. The major reasons being, 1) you can't store an indefinite amount of water for indefinite period of time; 2. The decontaminated water will be below the standards thresholds on all nucleotides with the exception of tritium; 3. The tritium amounts, while not a good thing in any respect will be far below that released by US/French nuclear air testing in the pacific. This isn't a case of two wrongs make a right, but that while bad it isn't anywhere near as bad as what you already had in the first place; 4. Fixating on the water has distracted and therefore delayed the real task (as some have mentioned here) of dealing with the cores. That is the real issue concerning whether or not you can ever really 'fix' the mess. While dealing with and removing the various existing rods is important, even that is ancillary to the cores.

WRT the comments here, I would say Zichi and Mike O'Brien are trying to relate facts without trying to inflame the discussion. While I can understand the rather (overly?) emotional reaction of some others, that doesn't really help what is a bad enough situation as it is.

From investment point of view, Japan may now review which destination is the best Vietnam, Thailand or China.

or ... Japan?

But in the end, this is just symbolic. For practical reasons, those Chinese officials won't ever see the inside of a court.

Most likely - unless they visit a country with extradition treaty with the US (admittedly a mind boggling bone head move). Another very funny symbolic aspect not mentioned in the article is that apparently "Wanted Posters" for each of these clowns were also issued. Maybe someone will snap some photos of these - along side the usual thieves, embezzlers, etc. - and post on Pinterest or something. That would be a hoot!

...you cannot build enough windplants to power...until another source of energy is discovered nuclear is the cleanest one out there

Geothermal. Japan is sitting on (literally...) an ocean of energy. Even using conservative traditional techniques there is enough to supply the entire country. It is nearly as clean as nuclear wrt greenhouse emissions. Worst case safety is far better than nuclear. And after initial capital investment (which is also less than comparable NPP), the energy is basically free - no fuel costs at all.

One of the more disturbing aspects of this is how, to put it kindly, oddly it was reported. As others have pointed out, this was a COSPLAY conference. The LDP apparently had a presence there and the "LDP staff" who led the guy up there were clearly total idiots, but to report this as an 'LDP conference' with someone pretending to be tojo is pretty lame. It's this kind of stuff that gives the 'press' a bad name...