Electricity Rationing Starting Monday In Tokyo 286
siddesu writes "Japanese officials are announcing a schedule for electricity blackouts to last from tomorrow until the end of April. Practically all suburbs of Tokyo will be affected by the blackouts. The 23 districts of central Tokyo seem to be exempt for the moment, but if supply is not sufficient, blackouts are possible. Electricity will be interrupted for about 3 hours a day in each area."
Just send BP engineers to fix reactor (Score:2, Funny)
Problem solved.
Tomorrow is already here! (Score:2)
Says my buddy in Japan in an e-mail 10 minutes ago when I showed him this Slashdot post: "This already started. Trains are stopped this morning because of this. Many traffic jam too due to people evacuating from kanto area"
Re:Tomorrow is already here! (Score:4, Funny)
So what happens to all the Pokemon in the Kanto region?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Monday is already here! (Score:4, Interesting)
When you made your post, it was already Monday in Japan. Trains had started to run more frequently on Sunday, but now the trains here (I'm in Japan at the moment) are running a much reduced schedule. The Narita Express (direct line from Tokyo to Narita airport) isn't running. Buses to the airport are sold out.
I took a taxi to Narita and was shocked at how quiet it is here. I surmise they have canceled a lot of flights.
Many shops are closed. Since the trains are on a very reduced schedules, people can't get to work.
The electricity shortage is going to have a big impact on GDP if it isn't solved soon.
Re: (Score:3)
Rolling blackouts suck. When I lived in Sri Lanka the reservoirs powering the hydroelectric dams in the North ran dry (drought) and rolling blackouts were implemented... hot, humid, crappy.
There's just something about sitting around trying to read with a flashlight or a candle (the latter sucks especially in a place that's already hot and humid) that makes you feel like you've been sent back to the middle ages... Although I have a feeling I'd be much better prepared to deal with this nowadays, what with my
Re: (Score:2)
Postponed indeed according to NHK. http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/14_10.html [nhk.or.jp]
Funny that in Kobe where I was nothing could be felt, while in Osaka a friend of mine did notice something.
B.
50hz vs 60hz (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder how much of the power capacity issues is due to Japan using a combination of 50Hz and 60Hz power preventing them from easily sending power between the two systems? Though I guess they could have a high voltage DC intertie betwen the two, so maybe it's not so significant after all.
Does anyone know why they haven't rectified (no pun intended, well ok, maybe a little) this situation years ago? Seems like there's lots of reasons for a country to have the same power standard.
Re:50hz vs 60hz (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the issue is more that most of the nukes are off-line and a good percentage of the transmission lines and facilities are just not there any more.
Check out these before/after shots [nytimes.com] (with a nifty little slider) to really understand that a lot of towns just are not there now.
Even with the best civil defence of any nation, this is going to be a long haul for Japan.
This is also a reminder of why, at least those in the US, should take http://www.citizencorps.gov/cert/ [slashdot.org]"?>CERT training, or what ever your local equivalent is. Oh, and get a ham radio and a license too and train with your local EmCommies.
Re: (Score:2)
I think the issue is more that most of the nukes are off-line and a good percentage of the transmission lines and facilities are just not there any more.
I haven't seen any reports claiming that most of Japan's nukes are offline, most of the nukes are in the southern part of the country that mostly escaped damage from the quake and subsequent tsumani.
I know that the Fukushima Daiichi (and Daini?) reactors are offline and they are working feverishly to try to prevent more serious problems there. I thought Tokai was offline, but they say they still have cooling power, so I'm not sure they are shut down. Are others also offline?
But still, Tokyo escaped most of
Re: (Score:2)
Re:50hz vs 60hz (Score:5, Interesting)
A large portion. There is probably more than enough capacity in the West to compensate for the offline power stations in the East, but there is no transfer capacity beyond about an order or two of magnitude below what is needed. The whole system has been operating on the assumption that at least some of the power stations in the North will remain running. As it is, both those on the South and the North coast in the Eastern part are down, and the capacity is insufficient.
Where it was planned to have transfer possible (e.g. The Shinkansen trains, for example, which can take power from both grids), there is less disruption. It is a sad example of bad planning due to historical accident. Japan uses two systems because back in the day, the Kansai electric company (Western Japan) got their generators from AEG in Germany, and Touden (TEPCO) in the East - from GE.
Re: (Score:2)
There is probably more than enough capacity in the West to compensate for the offline power stations in the East, but there is no transfer capacity beyond about an order or two of magnitude below what is needed.
Transmission is easy; convert the interior hold of an old container ship as a capacitor. I bet it could carry enough power to run Tokyo all week.
Re: (Score:2)
Transmission is easy; convert the interior hold of an old container ship as a capacitor. I bet it could carry enough power to run Tokyo all week.
I don't get it - is this some geek reference to a movie or video game? Or are you seriously suggesting that a container ship has enough volume to hold a capacitor large enough to power a large city for a week?
Re: (Score:2)
Transmission is easy; convert the interior hold of an old container ship as a capacitor. I bet it could carry enough power to run Tokyo all week.
Right. Doesn't that seem a little dangerous to you? All Godzilla has to do is short out the terminals and Zap! - No more Tokyo.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
As per the Japanese news, Japan is able to convert up to 1 million kW from 60 to 50 Hz, which is not enough to meet the 10 million kW gap in supply/demand. http://www.itmedia.co.jp/news/articles/1103/13/news013.html
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks for that link - I was wondering what the capacity of the 50/60hz grid interties was. 1GW is not much capacity.
Re:50hz vs 60hz (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder how much of the power capacity issues is due to Japan using a combination of 50Hz and 60Hz power preventing them from easily sending power between the two systems?
We have essentially 3 separate grids in the US, roughly East, West, and Texas. (Most of Texas is pretty much on its own.) Plus we have some long-distance high-voltage DC runs, both from Canada and up one down through Central California. NPR has a nice graphic, but in Flash: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=110997398 [npr.org]
The 50/60 Hz 100/90v division line in Japan dates to the year 1600 and the battle of Seki-ga-hara [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3)
> The 50/60 Hz 100/90v division line in Japan dates to the year 1600
> and the battle of Seki-ga-hara [wikipedia.org]
The 50/60 Hz division in Japan dates to the point where Siemens salesmen happened to arrive at one end of the country and General Electric salesmen at the other end. Literally.
sPh
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I have posted this before http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2035046&cid=35472440 [slashdot.org] but I will post an extract of it anyway again:
he reason that eastern Japan blackouts will be more bad than needed and Tepco's problems with their nuclear power plants comes in this report http://www.ieej.or.jp/aperc/pdf/GRID_COMBINED_DRAFT.pdf [ieej.or.jp] from APEC:
In fact, the overall transmission capacity to transfer power into Tokyo from neighbouring areas was quite substantial during the summer of 2003. Approximately 5,000 MW of power could have been transferred over transmission lines from Tohoku to the north, assuming the availability of surplus generating capacity. Another 300 MW of power could have been transferred from Chubu to the west, utilising DC links between the 50Hz and 60Hz power grids. (This amount will increase to 1,200 MW in September 2005, with the completion of new transmission lines.) So theoretically, as much as 5,300 MW in all might have been sent to Tokyo to make up for any capacity shortfalls...
Available firm transmission capacity into Tokyo will total 1,130MW as of September 2005 (930 MW from Tohoku and 200 MW from Chubu), about a fifth of the overall transmission capacity of 6,200 MW (5,000 MW from Tohoku and 1,200 MW from Chubu). So the ability of adjacent areas to make up for power shortfalls in Tokyo on an ongoing basis would be quite limited, even if adjacent areas had as much surplus generating capacity as the capital area required. (emphasis mine)
At best the Frequency Conversion Facilities can manage to provide 1200 Mw, give it or take. TEPCO owns at least 72 Gw of generating capacity, so at best they could get fro
Trains (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Trains (Score:5, Interesting)
There have been some issues with the announcements already :) My area (Setagaya district) wasn't on the list yesterday, but now they are saying rationing is possible here as well, from 1 to 5pm Japanese time. Trains are quite bad -- I live relatively near the city center, and now my station (Kyodo) is the last one a train goes to. People are walking from areas as far as 10 or 15 km to get on the local trains to Shinjuku.
No one seems to be complaining for the moment -- people went out to get to work as early as 5:30AM this morning. Maybe some will start to grumble if the rationing doesn't affect the center of Tokyo where the politicians live, though.
Re: (Score:2)
Doesn't look like the train systems have their own separate power supplies; pretty much the entire network outside of some central lines has been pre-emptively shut down. This has had the effect of reducing demand as people simply can't get to their places of work of leisure. I've never seen Tokyo this un-crowded outside of the New Year holiday; for a normal working Monday it's pretty catastrophic.
Navy's ships are extremely useful (Score:5, Interesting)
The US Navy's aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships are an important part of relief efforts because they're mobile helicopter launching platforms. In a disaster, helicopters (and V-22 Ospreys [wikipedia.org]) are the only good way to get around.
When President Obama said something in response to the earthquake, the first thing he said was that aircraft carriers were on their way:
Here's a report from today on defense.gov:
The Navy just spent $662-million renovating the USS Enterprise. They're going to "throw it away" in 2 years, because it's an expensive ship to operate. I propose dedicating this ship to disaster relief. They can keep it in Hawaii, remove the fighter jets, and load it with heavy lift helicopters and everything that could possibly be needed in any type of disaster. Japan needs a lot of tents right now, but there probably aren't many in the Ronald Reagan's inventory.
This is an evolution of my posts here last summer, "To Save the Gulf, Send the Enterprise" - thank you all for visiting, the feedback, and the +1's. :)
When Disaster Strikes, Send the Enterprise [sendtheenterprise.org]. Or at least do a proper study, before throwing the ship away.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Interesting proposal. They'd still have to strip out a lot if they went along with the plans to re-purpose a carrier from a Navy warship to something like a Peace Corps ship. And even then there would be some kind of restriction where the Navy would want to remain in charge because it's nuclear powered. Also my experience with that ship is that holds and such are far from automated, the cargo elevators (for things like food stores) aren't reliable - so you need like 50+ people to hump boxes down to the free
Re: (Score:2)
some stuff already down.. (Score:2)
A game I play (Final Fantasy 11) has taken their servers, etc... offline for at least the next week, starting Saturday evening their time.
Also a lot of extraneous power usage (lighting monuments, for example) has been shut down as well.
Naval nuclear energy (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Fukushima Daiichi plant No.3 reactor now on fire?? (Score:2)
I have been a proponent of nuclear here on Slashdot for a very long time, and hopefully the issues with the reactors aren't as bad as the news that is dribbling out. However, this terrible disaster has caused me to have a lot of long thoughts about nuclear energy in general and I am quite sure that the situation in Japan looks terribly unappetizing. Hopefully Daiichi Number 3 is not on fire right now, and that the combined synergies of the Japanese government, the U.S., and other wealthy nations can come to
Re:Fukushima Daiichi plant No.3 reactor now on fir (Score:4, Interesting)
This should help a little:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=beware-the-fear-of-nuclearfear-2011-03-12 [scientificamerican.com]
Re: (Score:3)
That the destruction hasn't been worse, or even that the reactors have held mostly intact this long is a testament to Japans stringent design codes and standards
The Fukushima reactors have remained intact throughout the quake and tsunami -- a quake seven times more powerful than they were designed for. Ironically, the point of failure were the fossil fuel backup generators that were installed to cool the reactor cores after they were scrammed as a precautionary measure -- those were washed away by the tsunami and the truck-mounted replacements could not be connected properly...
Re: (Score:3)
In addition to the link Doctor_Jest provided you, there's some things to keep in mind. It's highly unlikely that this could ever get to Chernobyl levels no matter what. The Chernobyl reactor did not have a containment shell, when the core melted down and the cooling water vaporised into steam there was nothing to contain the explosion, so it took out the surrounding structure easily and spread massive amounts of radioactive material into the environment. The Japanese reactors all have containment shells,
Re: (Score:3)
One single-point-of-failure stands out. The diesel generators were under the building, so depended on the seawall. Battery capacity was apparently quite small.
One report said there was a safety device to ignite hydrogen before too much built up, but it required electricity from the mains. The story seems a bit fishy, as electricity has been restored and Unit 3 still blew up. Had the gases been too great to ignite for more than two days?
Most critically, the decision whether to vent radioactive gas vs. try to
Re: (Score:2)
A radical policy would be too allow one unit to keep running if the plant was expected to lose mains and diesel. After all, we have seen they do not shut down quickly enough to prevent problems. The NYT says it will take one year now of bathing and radioactive venting to cool down the pile.
But I doubt these plants are set up to power themselves anyway. I seem to recall they depend on the grid to make it all work.
Donate (Score:2, Informative)
Donate and help:
USA Redcross Japan Fund (Credit Card or Amazon Payments):
https://american.redcross.org/site/Donation2?idb=0&5052.donation=form1&df_id=5052 [redcross.org]
Redcross Japan (Via Google Crisis Response, using Google Checkout):
http://www.google.com/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html [google.com]
And capital letters? (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
And text?
Re: (Score:2)
Followed by....
Teletypes?! OH. We should have BEEN so lucky to have teletypes! With their keyboards and type-written text! We had nothin' but morse code and telegraph keys. And we LIKED it that way.
(Telegraph keys?! With electricity?! Pure luxury! We used semaphore!)
Re: (Score:2)
I know this game.
Semaphore? In my day we sent messages by Pony Express.
Pony Express? I used to have to get a horse and a map and deliver the message myself.
Horses and maps? How spoilt ye modernists are these days -- we used to wander around aimlessly on foot until we found who we were looking for.
Wandering around on foot? I recall a time when we had to swim in the ocean because we didn't have lungs!
Swimming in the ocean? In my day we performed all communication by DNA replication.
DNA replication? What are y
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You had days?
Re: (Score:2)
You had punctuation marks
Re: (Score:3)
odd, someone said that just before you showed up.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd think everyone would just use their portable devices during the outages and then recharge the devices once power is restored, effectively shifting the load to the on-grid period.
Think commercial and manufacturing uses, Refridgeration, Lighting, Heat, Servers, Electric Rail.
Re:Will this really reduce power usage? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd think everyone would just use their portable devices during the outages and then recharge the devices once power is restored, effectively shifting the load to the on-grid period.
Even in japan with all of its cool electronic devices, mobile devices account for a tiny portion of the overall grid load.
Think refrigerators, washer/dryers, cooking appliances, electric heating, lighting, plus all of the industrial users.
My Android cell phone battery holds around 5 watt-hours of power (double it if you want to account for charging and other efficiency losses). My (American) refrigerator uses around 1600 watt-hours of power per day. So charging my phone uses a fraction of the power used by my refrigerator.
Re: (Score:2)
Uh, yes, and GP used them right. GP's talking about the amount of energy the battery holds and the refrigerator consumes, not about power.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Portable devices use piss for power, by virtue of being portable.
Using the microwave for enough time to warm up a TV dinner uses far more power than fully charging everything portable I own. Well, I have more laptops than normal folks so maybe that doesn't quite hold true. but the point remains.
Say 5 minutes at full tilt in a 1000W microwave = 300kJ.
A 50Wh laptop battery has 180kJ
A mobile phone's 1Ah li-ion batt has 13kJ, etc. So I could completely charge my phone 23 times for the same amount of juice. (wel
Re: (Score:2)
Yep. Also, please take the elevator up when there's power, so that you only have to go down by foot. Same with breathing-assist apparatus: take big gulps of air while you can, then try for that apnea world record.
Re: (Score:2)
Portable devices are typically 'less' than their always connected counterparts.
They also tend to be more energy efficient since they want to stretch the life of the batteries.
There are also less portable devices than wired devices in most cases.
And the idea is that everyone is going to draw all the power they can when its on, and they accept that, so they manage it by simply limiting the duty cycle so that you just don't have the time to suck down the same power you normally would.
Re:Sounds like there will be a baby boom in 9 mont (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Negative population growth isn't a problem on an over populated island thats completely incapable of sustaining itself without the rest of the world providing imports for it.
Re: (Score:2)
Have you thought about founding an oil company? I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Re:Sounds like there will be a baby boom in 9 mont (Score:5, Insightful)
If Japan had deficit spent more on earthquake research, they might have been able to avoid this disaster.
They did. Their buildings are much more earthquake-resistant than any other country. This was an extremely powerful quake, one of the most powerful recorded, there's inevitably going to be damage. Anytime you have an extremely powerful natural disaster, you're going to encounter problems. Aside from fusing the earth's plates with nukes or moving the entire island away from the fault lines, I don't know what you're suggesting they could have been more proactive about.
Re:Sounds like there will be a baby boom in 9 mont (Score:5, Insightful)
Too true. I live in Ireland, and a discussion came up about what would happen if an earthquake+Tsunami of that magnitude hit this country close to say, Dublin.
My conclusion was that you would basically have to write off the whole state. Half the buildings would collapse, Dublin would be submerged, and there would be no infrastructure or competence to mount a rescue or recovery operation. Those not killed in the mass collapse of buildings, would die soon after from starvation and disease. The response of most of the population would be, naturally, to emigrate.
But... this conclusion would probably hold for most other western states as well. We all remember Hurricane Katrina. The mantras of free market solutions and small government have left most western nations with barebones disaster response capabilities. A major Earthquake, Tsunami, Hurricane or firestorm in the wrong place could probably turn most western countries into Haiti within hours.
By contrast, the Japanese need only put up with power cuts. Nuclear plants aside--they have a well developed emergency response infrastructure. No skyscrapers collapsed and people actually got a warning that a Tsunami was coming, despite the nearness of the epicentre. The army was out collecting people the very next day. Again, compare this response to what happened in New Orleans.
Japan was far more prepared than any other Western nation, and their preparations have paid off. Pray your country is never visited with a disaster of this magnitude.
I love a sunburnt country... (Score:3)
A major Earthquake, Tsunami, Hurricane or firestorm in the wrong place could probably turn most western countries into Haiti within hours.
I assume you are excluding Australia. Major earthquakes are the worst natural disasters and thankfully are very rare here. However cyclone Yasi was on par in strength and size to Katrina, most of the buildings in it's path stayed intact because government regulations demand cyclone proof housing and all the older houses had already been blown away in previous cyclones. Cyclones, floods, drought and firestorms are a way of life down here, we usually have 2-3 cyclones cross the coast each year, a really major
Re:Sounds like there will be a baby boom in 9 mont (Score:5, Insightful)
We all remember Hurricane Katrina. The mantras of free market solutions and small government have left most western nations with barebones disaster response capabilities.
I see what you did there. Katrina had zero to do with "free markets" and everything to do with corrupt local officials and just plain shitty citizens. I suppose "Schoolbus" Nagin didn't get a lot of press overseas. Look him up. A similar storm, Rita hit Texas a year or two later and the government responded adequately, and Texas is a poster boy of small government. I suppose that didn't make the news in Europe - inconvenient truths and all
Re: (Score:3)
We all remember Hurricane Katrina. The mantras of free market solutions and small government have left most western nations with barebones disaster response capabilities.
I see what you did there. Katrina had zero to do with "free markets" and everything to do with corrupt local officials and just plain shitty citizens. I suppose "Schoolbus" Nagin didn't get a lot of press overseas. Look him up. A similar storm, Rita hit Texas a year or two later and the government responded adequately, and Texas is a poster boy of small government. I suppose that didn't make the news in Europe - inconvenient truths and all
Can't mod you up, so I'll just add something. Being small is actually useful for organising things. That's what the big government people don't get. I'm sure the government had enough people/equipment to do better than they did, but that's all made harder by having a big coordination job.
Re:Sounds like there will be a baby boom in 9 mont (Score:5, Informative)
The building codes are the strictest in the world, schools and businesses have multiple earthquake drills a year, there are educational earthquake and tsunami centers all over, they have the military do training drills...well, I don't know exactly how often, but I see it a LOT. The coasts are barricaded with concrete tetrapods to take the kick out of oncoming tsunamis, and they seem to keep adding tetrapods on top of the old ones. They have air raid sirens at the ready, and they drill them fairly regularly (again, I don't know the frequency in hard numbers, but it's frequent). A week before the earthquake, my son came home from kindergarten telling me how hikinamis are much worse than tsunamis---they teach all this shit to the kindergarten kids to keep them prepared. And so on and on and on.
Would you kindly inform us in concrete terms what the Japanese should have done that they didn't to prepare for the seventh worst earthquake in recorded history?
(*) By "this country" I mean Japan.
Re: (Score:3)
"Anytime you have an extremely powerful natural disaster, you're going to encounter problems."
Only difference is with wind generators, you only risk making a dent in the shrubbery.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
generations paid into the fund huge sums of money
Sure, but you're missing a crucial piece of the equation. Unlike personal savings, rightly or wrongly, state managed pension plans depend on two things -
1) The contributions people made into the pool during their working lives
2) The contributions being made into the pool by people who are still working
If however, the number of individuals in #2 continue to shrink, well you're in trouble.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You have just described all insurance, public or private.
Social Security is a multi-generational insurance policy. It is currently solvent enough to pay the current level of benefits until 2037 and 80% of ben
Re: (Score:2)
That's probably a good thing. Japan's population is aging. Whilst for the past half century the population was growing, over the next half century projected to decline such that 2050 will have a lower population than 1950.
Re: (Score:2)
OK then, how about:
North Japan is Best Japan!
Re: (Score:3)
Less poverty and a better education system?
Re: (Score:2)
The Japanese are civilized? And have been for many hundreds of years?
Re: (Score:2)
That wasn't particularly noticeable during WWII.
The Japanese have a very strong culture of obeying authority, regardless of whether that authority is leading them to do good or bad. Part of that culture involves being very keen on reporting any transgressions of their neighbours, no matter how trivial, to the authorities.
For sure they have a much lower crime rate than the rest of the world, and that's a good thing. But it's a side effect of a culture that isn't necessarily positive. And many of the other si
Re: (Score:2)
Obeying authority is what some people consider "civilized".
Sad but true.
Re: (Score:3)
Culture [cnn.com]
“Looting simply does not take place in Japan. I’m not even sure if there’s a word for it that is as clear in its implications as when we hear ‘looting,’" said Gregory Pflugfelder, director of the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture at Columbia University.
Japanese have “a sense of being first and foremost responsible to the community,” he said.
To Merry White, an anthropology professor at Boston University who studies Japanese culture , the real question i
Re: (Score:2)
It's an honor thing. It's not that Japan is being stubborn or just refusing to accept help for no good reason. For them, accepting help would be a display of weakness, which is heavily frowned upon. The Japanese highly value honor and humbleness. They don't like to ask others for things like that because it feels like taking charity. They see more honor in pulling themselves up by the bootstraps and overcoming through their own hard work and solidarity.
Remember that these are a people who, for many cen
Re: (Score:2)
Mod Parent down. (Score:2)
Nothing prevented them from obeying the law and handing it to the people in the US who had the same skills.
Re: (Score:3)
Honor only goes so far, is it honorable to let your countrymen and woman die because you are too stubborn to accept help from other nations when your infrastructure is failing and the simple lack of fresh water and food will kill people?
And you're right, it's not unkind or stubborn, it's downright stupid. Save your people, work on saving face afterwards
Re: (Score:2)
And that's why we saw so many nations involved in aid and rescue after Katrina. The response there was totally people first, face later.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Honor only goes so far, is it honorable to let your countrymen and woman die because you are too stubborn to accept help from other nations when your infrastructure is failing and the simple lack of fresh water and food will kill people?
And you're right, it's not unkind or stubborn, it's downright stupid. Save your people, work on saving face afterwards
Just because you and I don't agree with a cultural practice, doesn't make it wrong.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
that pride also makes them nod and say yes when negotiating with western partners, even when that means LYING to your face. Its more honorable to lie directly into your face than to disagree lol.
Not to mention honor demands from them covering up nuclear accidents (Monju).
Re:This is a good reminder (Score:5, Insightful)
It's an honor thing. It's not that Japan is being stubborn or just refusing to accept help for no good reason. For them, accepting help would be a display of weakness, which is heavily frowned upon. The Japanese highly value honor and humbleness. They don't like to ask others for things like that because it feels like taking charity. They see more honor in pulling themselves up by the bootstraps and overcoming through their own hard work and solidarity.
What a load of bullshit honestly. There is already US search teams on the ground in Japan and US search aircraft carriers of the coast of Japan providing landing platforms and US airbases provided backup airfields for commercial flights that couldn't land. Hardly seems like not accepting aid to me.
Remember that these are a people who, for many centuries, had a proud tradition of disemboweling themselves when they screwed up in order to restore their family's honor. That's pretty hardcore dedication to honor. So I don't figure their refusal for help as unkindness or stubbornness. It's just their tradition and ways, and I respect that, so I really don't feel offended at all at their saying "No thanks."
Seppuku was a warrior tradition started around the 12th century which lasted for about 700 years. It probably started with a belief that the soul is contained in the stomach and was thus linked to religious practice and later evolved into an honorable way to serve out a death sentence. It's worth remembering though that at the height of their power and refinement in the Edo era, the warrior class never made up more than 10% of the population and even then were mostly bureaucrats and it's doubtful that every warrior believed in the practice of seppuku. It was only in the Meiji-era that it was elevated and romanticized as a form of traditional martial morality and national morality. In other words, 90% of the population never practiced it in the first place. Of the remaining 10% who made up the warrior class for many it was probably a gruesome and fearful but honorable way to serve out a death sentence and not something they would consider otherwise. Or in other words nobody anywhere near serious about sociology or at all knowledgeable about Japan uses a hugely romanticized and elevated in pop. culture custom to judge the actions of modern Japanese (except maybe to matters of support for the death sentence as a form of criminal punishment although even that is questionable. After all lots of other countries also support it). It's like using the extremes of Victorian upper class moral codes as a lens through which to judge the modern British.
Here let me give you some more realistic reasons, which have actually been discussed in the Japanese media, as to why foreign aid workers aren't so helpful:
Re: (Score:2)
Goddamn I wish I had some mod points right now. +5 informative, +5 historical accuracy.
I tip my hat to you sir.
Re: (Score:3)
Thank you for your wonderful example also of over-generalizing, and utterly failing to look at facts.
1- There may be a good reason why the help offered (which is what ?) does not help with the issue at hand (which is what ?). Any help from any one does not help with any and all problems.
2- This has nothing to do with genital mutilation and such, but please don't let that derail your rant.
3- If you want to talk multiculturalism, you may want to try and weight both sides of the issue. I think the gist is that
Re:This is a good reminder (Score:4, Insightful)
Losing mod points, but yes, this. There is a HUGE logistical challenge in managing searches like this, and adding in people that don't know the language or the area at all just needlessly complicates managing the search. The Japanese are accepting help where help makes sense, but the mythical man month applies just as much to search and rescue as it does to software engineering.
Re: (Score:2)
Some people (not parent poster) use this argument to excuse female genital mutilation, the burka, virtual house arrest for women, honor killings, and "The Jersey Shore". I'm not advocating invasion over these horrible "cultural traditions", but can't we at least start with, "that's wrong - you shouldn't be doing that"?
Sure. But then again Americans are very bad at accepting when the rest of the world points at what they do wrong, saying "that's wrong - you shouldn't be doing that".
Re: (Score:2)
Re:This is a good reminder (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you have some bizarre notion that other nations offered to beam their electrons at Japan but got turned down?
This doesn't have anything to do with refusing help or not, it has everything to do with large amounts of critical infrastructure being damaged or destroyed.
Re:This is a good reminder (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think Japan actually refused help. The first BBC video I watched of the nuclear accident was news about the US military airlifting (not just offering) coolant to the overheating reactor. I'm pretty sure the Japanese would be more than willing to accept aid that comes with no strings attached.
Besides, as another poster implied [slashdot.org], this is a story about rotating blackouts ("offered to beam their electrons"). Portable generators are at best a stop-gap measure that begs the question of where you get the fuel to power it up. More practical would be food, tents, first aid, portable toilets, used clothing, and maybe search-and-rescue robots.
Re: (Score:3)
Indeed. They are quite capable of handling this, as they have been preparing for this event for years. They also seem a little hesitant to accept all help (they did accept some, in particular dog rescue teams), likely as they do not want too many unknowns in the way of their own efforts.
And on top of all that, the Japanese are remaining calm and organized. No Looting, stealing kids (e.g. Aceh), mass panic or the likes. Bringing in a boatload of foreigners from all over messing about without too much coordin
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Several nuclear powered warships from allies could temporarily provide a significant portion of the lost power. And at reasonable rates, too; I'm sure with the US Navy's budget problems they might be convinced to rent-a-carrier for a few months at the right price. Whatever their temporary economic woes, Japan should be good for it.
Re: (Score:2)
Several nuclear powered warships from allies could temporarily provide a significant portion of the lost power. And at reasonable rates, too
I can't find generating capacities for their nuclear power plans, but a Nimitz class aircraft carrier can deliver 190MW of power from the reactors to the shafts (via steam), so even if you could convert all of that steam to electricity that would account for a tiny fraction of the power that the nuclear power plants can generate.
Fukushima Dai-ichi has 4.7GW of generating capacity.
And there's the problem of figuring out where to plug it in even if you could find enough ships to generate even 1GW of power.
Re: (Score:2)
And would they beam the electricity through a distribution grid that is destroyed to houses which don't exist anymore?
Or did you think all they'd need to do would be to have an ensign run down to some magical hookup in downtown Tokyo with a big extension cord?
Re:Japan is a religious country. (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know what it would have to do with anything, but in any case you could not be more wrong.
Islam (muslims) account for about 0.1% of the population.
The majority say they do not have a religion and do not believe in any god. Though culturally many are non-practicing buddhists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_religion [wikipedia.org]
P.S. You're very ignorant.
a other name for rolling blackouts (Score:2)
a other name for rolling blackouts
Re: (Score:3)