Everywhere I look, I see dumb people
Mar. 15th, 2011 12:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mercy_angel_09Y'know, maybe it's because I grew up down wind of a nuclear power plant that I'm not having the same same "ZOMGODWTFBBQKFCLOLLERSKATESPANDABEAR NUCLEAR MELTDOWN IS COMING!!!11!!11!1!11!!!" reaction as everyone else. When I took my environmental science class in junior college, we spent a great deal of time talking about nuclear power and its impact on the environment. This was probably because we were located less than twenty miles from a working power plant and had the opportunity to tour their training facility and ask questions along the line of, what would it take to send our facility into meltdown?
Our guide was quite candid with his response.
The first was, "Well someone like Homer Simpson, for example. But let me assure you, no one that dumb will ever be hired here. Not even as an administrative assistant."
The second was, "An earthquake that measures about a 9.0 on the Richter scale would do that."
We were silent, looking amongst each other wondering if we really could get hit by an earthquake of that magnitude. Our guide chuckled at our apparent wonder at if we were really living on the knife's edge.
"For what it's worth," he said with a grin, "that will probably NEVER happen."
"How can you be so sure?" one of my classmates asked.
Our guide smiled at us reassuringly. "Do you have any idea how much basalt we're currently on top of?" he asked.
"A lot?" someone guessed.
"A lot, yes," he agreed. "Like, two miles, a lot."
We tried to process what it meant to be living on top of two miles of basalt. When I took geology the next year, it finally sunk in. Basalt allows vibrations to travel easily, as when the molten basalt cools it forms into six to eight sided columns that have no problems about jostling against each other if properly motivated. However they won't actually move - just vibrate. So earthquakes of a low magnitude that most people wouldn't even feel in LA (such as a 2.0) are felt here. But other than some minor vibrating, NOTHING MOVES. It would take an earthquake of a much higher magnitude (like a 9.0) to make us actually MOVE.
I should note that we live about one hundred miles or so from the Cascade mountain range and that the Cascades are part of the Ring of Fire. Like Japan and New Zealand.
Yup, earthquake country.
He then assured us that the engineers and operators were constantly going through training, including the "Worst Case Scenario" which, of course, was total meltdown. Even the lowly administrative assistants, and, as I was informed this weekend, the accountants, go through the training of what to do should the worst ever happen. And it happens regularly. Like, every six weeks or something like that. The point is, we are prepared for the worst.
When our guide took us outside to look at the rows upon rows of solar panels, he was enthusiastic about the options of solar energy, but he also gave us a grim warning.
"These panels are built to be darn near indestructible. But they have to be. Should a panel break, we'd need a HAZMAT team and as much funding for clean-up as it takes for the tank farms. There's a reason why the panels sit on a large concrete pad." He then brightened. "But if you're curious, a 250 pound man could sit on top of them and not break the glass."
Oh yeah, because that was so comforting.
Back in class we talked about other nuclear disasters. My professor explained that while Three Mile Island was an issue, the ultimate fall-out wasn't nearly as bad as the media had made it out to be. I learned later in my Twilight of the Soviet Union class that Chernobyl was a combination of substandard construction, safety practices and the government sticking their nose where it didn't belong.
(Long story short, the Kremlin said, "Hey, pull out the rods. We want to see what will happen when you do." The engineers went, "Uh, no. They'll warp and we'll never get them back into the cooling system and we'll have total meltdown." The Kremlin said, "Do it, or we'll fire you and find someone who will." The engineers sighed and went, "Fine, but don't blame us when the shit hits the fan." They pulled out the rods as instructed, the rods warped and couldn't be put back into the cooling system, and the reactor with its substandard construction allowed the fallout to be much more massive than it would ever be in the U.S. My father-in-law spent three years working with the Ukrainian government in an attempt to get other power plants up to code (by U.S. standards, but was also working with British and French agencies, if I'm not mistaken) so they wouldn't end up with another Chernobyl. When he left he informed us that there was still a long way to go.)
Ultimately, my state has more to fear from Mt. St. Helens or Mt. Rainer blowing than from a nuclear meltdown. Seattle has it wrong, for the record. Because if Mt. Rainer blows, Seattle and Tacoma (and most of the Sound) will cease to exist. If Hanford goes into meltdown (which is unlikely), Pasco, Richland and Kennewick will most likely have to be evacuated, but communities further out would be fine. Seattle wouldn't get any radiation fallout. (Not that they believe you when you tell them that, but then you just have to smile and pat them on their greasy hippie heads and tell them that they're special little sunflowers and that they should never, ever change.)
Japan lives with earthquakes and has been living with earthquakes for a very long time. They're certainly not stupid enough to have not prepared at all for this "worst case scenario" and I feel that there's very little that we actually have to worry about. And until they announce full on meltdown, that useless speculation will only increase paranoia and fear. Misinformation being fed to the masses is not what we need right now.
Our guide was quite candid with his response.
The first was, "Well someone like Homer Simpson, for example. But let me assure you, no one that dumb will ever be hired here. Not even as an administrative assistant."
The second was, "An earthquake that measures about a 9.0 on the Richter scale would do that."
We were silent, looking amongst each other wondering if we really could get hit by an earthquake of that magnitude. Our guide chuckled at our apparent wonder at if we were really living on the knife's edge.
"For what it's worth," he said with a grin, "that will probably NEVER happen."
"How can you be so sure?" one of my classmates asked.
Our guide smiled at us reassuringly. "Do you have any idea how much basalt we're currently on top of?" he asked.
"A lot?" someone guessed.
"A lot, yes," he agreed. "Like, two miles, a lot."
We tried to process what it meant to be living on top of two miles of basalt. When I took geology the next year, it finally sunk in. Basalt allows vibrations to travel easily, as when the molten basalt cools it forms into six to eight sided columns that have no problems about jostling against each other if properly motivated. However they won't actually move - just vibrate. So earthquakes of a low magnitude that most people wouldn't even feel in LA (such as a 2.0) are felt here. But other than some minor vibrating, NOTHING MOVES. It would take an earthquake of a much higher magnitude (like a 9.0) to make us actually MOVE.
I should note that we live about one hundred miles or so from the Cascade mountain range and that the Cascades are part of the Ring of Fire. Like Japan and New Zealand.
Yup, earthquake country.
He then assured us that the engineers and operators were constantly going through training, including the "Worst Case Scenario" which, of course, was total meltdown. Even the lowly administrative assistants, and, as I was informed this weekend, the accountants, go through the training of what to do should the worst ever happen. And it happens regularly. Like, every six weeks or something like that. The point is, we are prepared for the worst.
When our guide took us outside to look at the rows upon rows of solar panels, he was enthusiastic about the options of solar energy, but he also gave us a grim warning.
"These panels are built to be darn near indestructible. But they have to be. Should a panel break, we'd need a HAZMAT team and as much funding for clean-up as it takes for the tank farms. There's a reason why the panels sit on a large concrete pad." He then brightened. "But if you're curious, a 250 pound man could sit on top of them and not break the glass."
Oh yeah, because that was so comforting.
Back in class we talked about other nuclear disasters. My professor explained that while Three Mile Island was an issue, the ultimate fall-out wasn't nearly as bad as the media had made it out to be. I learned later in my Twilight of the Soviet Union class that Chernobyl was a combination of substandard construction, safety practices and the government sticking their nose where it didn't belong.
(Long story short, the Kremlin said, "Hey, pull out the rods. We want to see what will happen when you do." The engineers went, "Uh, no. They'll warp and we'll never get them back into the cooling system and we'll have total meltdown." The Kremlin said, "Do it, or we'll fire you and find someone who will." The engineers sighed and went, "Fine, but don't blame us when the shit hits the fan." They pulled out the rods as instructed, the rods warped and couldn't be put back into the cooling system, and the reactor with its substandard construction allowed the fallout to be much more massive than it would ever be in the U.S. My father-in-law spent three years working with the Ukrainian government in an attempt to get other power plants up to code (by U.S. standards, but was also working with British and French agencies, if I'm not mistaken) so they wouldn't end up with another Chernobyl. When he left he informed us that there was still a long way to go.)
Ultimately, my state has more to fear from Mt. St. Helens or Mt. Rainer blowing than from a nuclear meltdown. Seattle has it wrong, for the record. Because if Mt. Rainer blows, Seattle and Tacoma (and most of the Sound) will cease to exist. If Hanford goes into meltdown (which is unlikely), Pasco, Richland and Kennewick will most likely have to be evacuated, but communities further out would be fine. Seattle wouldn't get any radiation fallout. (Not that they believe you when you tell them that, but then you just have to smile and pat them on their greasy hippie heads and tell them that they're special little sunflowers and that they should never, ever change.)
Japan lives with earthquakes and has been living with earthquakes for a very long time. They're certainly not stupid enough to have not prepared at all for this "worst case scenario" and I feel that there's very little that we actually have to worry about. And until they announce full on meltdown, that useless speculation will only increase paranoia and fear. Misinformation being fed to the masses is not what we need right now.
