Then I was going to come home and engage in another prolonged rant about how bad it sucks to be at the laundromat at 6:35 on a Friday morning, and how having to pay $9 to do 4 loads of wash is a hidden expense I really didn't plan for...
But then I got home to happy, smiley daughters who volunteered to help put their clothes away, and some of my frustration went away. And then, before I could get fired back up again, I was reading the latest updates from Japan, where they would give their left arm to be able to get laundry done for $9.
I have thus far avoided any discussion of what happened in Japan...mostly because with my 18 years of Nuclear experience, I might accidentally let some facts get into a very emotional discussion. Plus, what's the use. There are two sides to the argument...Nuclear Power plants are something we need for the future, and we just have to deal with the risks, or Nuclear Power Plants are bad, and will make us all die from cancer.
The people that get it, get already. If you don't get it...then no amount of facts will convince them. It's kind of like gun control that way.
Once again, it's a matter of dealing with reality. There is not much that humans can design that will stand up to 9.0 Earthquakes and 40-foot tsunami's It is not a criteria you design for...even in California, you plan and design for 6.5-7.0 earthquakes, and then pray something stronger hits far enough away you survive.
I keep hearing on the news that in the end, things in Japan will end up being 'worse than 3-Mile Island, but not as bad as Chernobyl'. That is a null comparison...in terms of I-131 released(what everyone is worried about ending in in their thyroid) 3-Mile Island released 15 Curies...Chernobyl released 17,000,000 Curies...over 6 ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE worse...the gulf there is big enough to put the Grand Canyon in. A better comparison might be the Green Run testing done at Hanford in the late 40's...when OUR government released 8,000 curies of I-131 to let the Air Force practice plume tracking.
Things in Japan are not comparable to Chernobyl. Every effort is being made to minimize exposure...I have seen training videos of Chernobyl...soldiers were flat out lied to about the risk. Last I had heard, the 50 volunteers that had stayed on sight in Japan had been extended up to 60 Rem of allowed exposure...for reference purposes, the US Legal Occupational Exposure limit if 5 Rem...most companies will establish a local control level at 10% of than, and work up from there. The 50-50 dose(where 50 percent of people exposed could be expected to die) is in the 450-550 Rem range. These workers who have remained on site deserve to be treated as heroes...but it's not like they have signed their own death warrants yet.
Perhaps the person most sobered by all this is my wife. Part of the last few days has been me explaining to her that if this ever happened on my ship, or at the Shipyard, or if something similar happened Hanford...that I would be one of those 50 guys.
Yup...doing laundry is A-okay.
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