Guest 699- Registered: 3 Jun 2010
- Posts: 292
#1
been watching the shocking pictures coming out of japan after the earthquake around 6am our time
sky coverage good , cnn even better
and 19 countries been advised of possible tsumami with waves of 18 feet
cnn even giving out high tide times for these countries and the time expected to hit
hawali 10am ish , north australia around 4pm our time
so must ask the question if a bad earthquake was to hiot the north sea say and we had a massive wave sent along english channel
has kent or dover got a tsunami warning system ? if so when is it tested for locals ?
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
#2
Good question, Ron, but to my knokledge there is no specific tsunami emergency warning in Britain and Europe. In many Pacific countries there is, by way of alarms along the coast.
#3
Can't believe that more people have something to say about this - this is a world disaster - you will find out soon enough - upto 2/3 years for the massive affects - what is going to happen to the next generation - is there any thoughts about this now - no - I guess it is all about the now - liek that ever worked x
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
#4
There was the great storm surge of 1953. The worse of that was, I think, felt up the Thames and in Essex. I suppose Dover and district might have been spared as the bulge of England is to the north at the Thames estuary.
I am sure that by now there is a wide network of sensors around the globe on the lookout for increased seismic activity. It is simply the way the world works that some quakes are slow to build up and others just blow right off. I did notice an item about a volcano going off in the Pacific during the week too. If we were to begin by releasing the pressure by controlled explosions at chosen volcano sites this would not do much for the war against global warming.
[Patent pending]
Bore holes could be used to create steam power, reduce the liquefaction of the crust thus thickening the crust. Dare not say more or it's by by trillions in royalties.
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
#5
Currently there is great concernt in Japan that one, or even two atomic plants, might go out of control, owing to a lack of cooling, as the water pumps were damaged by the earthquake.
Once a cooling system falls out, there are hours left to stop the melt-down, possibly a day, but by then the pumps must be restored.
An explosion has already occured in one of these atomic power stations, and the steel domes that cover them are the only last reserve to contain an atomic leakage if it comes to the worst.
I don't like atomic power stations, for this reason, they are NEVER 100% safe!
We need a new kind of wind-turbine, that is smaller, but robust, and can function in all winds. The present ones are too massive and fragile, and must be turned off in high winds. The Channel Tunnel receives almost all its energy from a French atomic power plant, and to a small extent from wind-power.
I have no doubt that before long there will be a great international campaign of governments and scientists to promote a review of energy production, as atomic power cannot be the solution, as we see now in Japan, but neither can fossile emergy be the solution, as it is: expensive, limited, and inquinative.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
#6
However, Tom, volcano activity is not necessarily related to sismic activity. The latter has to do with moving plates, whereas the vulcanic eruptions stem from an outburst of molten soil.
Am earthquake can be very deep beneath the Earth's surface, or closer to the surface. A lot depends on this factor. But no boring of holes could ever influence this process.
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
#7
Alexander, stick to the spreadsheets.
The plates move because at one edge crust is being created by an up-swelling of lava, this pushes one plate against another.
If we could tap into the heat at the up-swelling. In, admittedly, a big way we could reduce the inter-plate pressure. The only other way to reduce such pressure is by draining the lava via volcanoes. God-like. I know, but dotting these time bombs around the globe is no less god-like and dangerous all the way.
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Ross Miller
- Location: London Road, Dover
- Registered: 17 Sep 2008
- Posts: 3,709
#8
"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." - James Dean
"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,
While loving someone deeply gives you courage" - Laozi
Jan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,931
#9
I have just been watching the pictures, the devastation is truly awful and hard to comprehend, my heart goes out to those who are worried about family members and friends. We have now sent out our rescue teams to help the well equipped but overwhelmed Japanese.
According to the expert the explosion at the nuclear plant was a hydrogen explosion and was possibly the lesser of two evils, he did not seem unduly worried about the radiation problem.
I can vaguely remember the Canvey Island disaster in 1953 where a lot of lives were lost and I suppose the same thing could happen again around the long coastal areas of the UK.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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#10
So, nuclear power is safe, then. That's a relief.
This kind of event is heartbreaking. We spend so much time building our structures, creating the fabric that binds, and in an instant it can be gone. Those children, like the ones in Haiti, seperated from their loving families, are tragic figures. God protect them.
Guest 645- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 4,463
#11
Bern
We were monitoring events as the wifes elderly,but sharp witted, mother and family live in the Philippines in area known locally as Typhoon Bay!
Marek
I think therefore I am (not a Tory supporter)
Jan Higgins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,931
#12
Bern, I certainly hope so with Dungerness so close to us all.
Maybe I was not clear enough re Japan. He said the design of the building meant that the explosion went up and not downwards to the reactors. Still worrying though for those in the fallout area of those plants, they have enough to contend with at the moment.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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#13
I think I was being sarcastic about the nuclear power thing - I don't trust it, the people who PR it, or the governments whio monitor it. There is too much to lose now and in the future to trust such a dangerous energy.
Guest 673- Registered: 16 Jun 2008
- Posts: 1,388
#14
We have yet to see how this nuclear incident pans out but I doubt that it will cause Japan to reduce its investment in nuclear energy particularly since the other nuclear power stations seem to have held up well. Japan has little in the way of natural resources and imports vast quantities of coal and oil so nuclear power helps to reduce this enormous consumption. I have personally been to Japan scores of times on bulk carriers running coal from Aussie and Canada, plus cargoes of grain, iron ore, etc.
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
#15
jan,dover is sandwiched between dungerness and the 6 nuclear reactors at dunkirk.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
#16
Ed, Japan will be writing off a number of the damaged reactors, and I doubt they will replace them quickly, as they take years to build.
Other forms of energy producing infrastructure can be put in place in relatively short time, so I imagine there might be a further increase in oil prices, if Japan imports more oil to replace the atomic power plants for energy production.
This could contribute to increasing the recession in other industrialised countries, apart from all the upheaval in Libya.
With oil at over 100 pips a barel, and nuclear reactors anything other than 100% secure, and Germany's populace demonstrating against a planned decision of the German government to keep up production in nuclear power plants that by law are supposed to be closing down, I reckon that very soon there will be a decision to give wind and solar energy another go.
The cost of importing oil and gas to produce energy is too high, and coal would also increase in price if it is used in new power plants.
Guest 673- Registered: 16 Jun 2008
- Posts: 1,388
#17
I doubt if wind energy is the answer. Japan has shown little interest in wind turbines to date, apart from building them for other countries. Possibly this is because very tall spindly structures would seem highly unlikely to survive in an earthquake. The best place for windfarms is out to sea where the wind flow is stronger and unrestricted. Had there been any windfarms out to sea off Sendai then I imagine that we would be looking at pictures of collapsed windfarms in addition to all the other horrors. They would also have to be capable of withstanding the periodic typhoons. Any wind turbines constructed ashore on the coastal plains would have been exposed to having their foundations undermined by the tsunami had they survived the earthquakes.
Re the German protests. The government is a coalition whose Green constituent insisted that wind power be expanded immensely and nuclear power phased out. This is very difficult to achieve due to the inherent variability of wind power. There is a limit to the amount of wind energy that can be accommodated within a national grid as the fluctuations create instability. Also it cannot be depended upon to be there when you need it as we know from our big freeze this winter when there was almost zero output from the UK wind farms.
Consequently any increase of the installed wind power input to the grid has to be duplicated by the construction of conventional back-up delivering a similar output ready to take over when the wind is not blowing at sufficient strength, which is the great majority of the time. This is normally done by the construction of gas turbine power stations which can be turned on and off at the press of a button. Nuclear and coal powered power stations take days to increase or decrease output and are used to supply the base load. In consequence, Germany will become ever more reliant on the supply of gas, which they obtain from Russia, not the most dependable of suppliers.
Germany's transition to renewable power is an extremely expensive undertaking which will greatly increase energy costs to industry and the domestic sector alike. Angela Merkel was hoping to soften the blow by delaying the phasing out of nuclear power stations but the events in Japan are now causing a rethink.
Guest 675- Registered: 30 Jun 2008
- Posts: 1,610
#18
Read today that the Japanese earthquake has been reclassified as a magnitude 9.0 and that they are warning of a possible 7.0 or above in the next few days. The good news was the 60 year old gentleman found clinging to the roof of his house two miles out to sea.
Large plate tectonics, unfortunately, do not give all the answers as many of the larger plates carry many smaller plates. The British Isles are formed out of the collisions of four plates and there is also an old faultline running from centeral Switzerland, through Germany, alongside Dover and up through London. Quakes along that have been found from Roman times in London up to the 1600's in Lucerne.
http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/news/Channel-tsunami-warning/article-2670790-detail/article.htmlPolitics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.
Richard Armour
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
#19
Ed, you are fully right in your outlay of energy production.
Wind energy is unlikely to be used without back-up from gas, or even gasoline (diesel), which can also produce at a press of a button and be turned of likewise.
But wind and solar energy can reduce the the annual cost of electricity production. Solar energy would be easier to produce in hot countries, wind energy in Britain and northern Europe.
I am firmly convinced that before long we will see renewed research into these two forms of energy production, as research can provide new models, which are more capable and efficient.
The present wind turbines are too big and fragile.
It would not surprise me if, for example, a new replacement for Pfizer went into such research; and it could be the new "big one" of the future, the long-searched-for company that researches and finds patented models that could be produced here in Kent and Britain and sold world-wide.
Creating thousands of jobs!
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#20
very little let up for the japanese at the moment.
listened to a japanese academic on news 24 earlier, it was suggested to him that it would be better to rebuild well away from coastal areas. he replied that was not possible due to the importance of shipping and fishing to the economy. he suggested that much stronger structures be built so that after the next tsumani and evacuation people could go back and get working as quickly as possible.