edit: changed title from ‘False Fukushima Fears’ to ‘Exaggerated Fukushima Fears’, sacrificing my lovely alliteration as others have pointed out that it would be too much to say that the fears of radiation leakages are unfounded, but merely to say that this is the least bad option given previous precedent as cynesthesia has pointed out.

Image is of the large array of water storage tanks holding the tritium-contaminated water.

This week’s preamble is very kindly provided by our beautiful poster @cynesthesia@hexbear.net, with some light editing. In periods where not much of earth-shattering importance is happening in the news, I hope to do this more often!


In 2011, the Fukushima nuclear incident occurred. Since then, water has been used to cool radioactive waste and debris, which contaminates the water with radioactive isotopes. Currently, TEPCO, the Japanese energy company that is reponsible to Fukushima, is storing about 1.3 million m3 of contaminated water (equivalent to about 500 Olympic swimming pools for our American friends) in about 1000 tanks. Approximately 100,000 m3 of contaminated cooling water is generated per year to this day. TEPCO doesn’t want to store escalating volumes of nuclear waste for decades until half-lives are spent. This would mean adding substantial storage capacity every year at increased cost and risk of tank spills.

The contaminated water includes heavier isotopes like caesium as well as hydrogen’s isotope, tritum. Caesium is a big atom at 137 molar mass (we love our tremendous atoms, folks) while tritium is heavy hydrogen and has only a molar mass of 3 (pathetic, low energy). The TEPCO people are using water treatment to remove heavy isotopes from water, but not tritium. The large adult isotopes are easy to remove with treatment but tritium is incorporated into water, so it blends in with the others. The treated Fukushima water contains low levels of the big isotopes but still contains tritium.

Isotopes release radiation that damages the body’s cells. The longer an individual molecule containing an isotope is in a body, the more likely it is that the isotope will go BRAZAP and release radiation that fucks up the cells. Bioaccumulation is a toxicology term for how certain contaminants can accumulate in the food cycle. For example, algae eat contaminants, then the algae is eaten by bugs, then bugs by fish, then fish by people. Isotopes that are bioaccumulative like our large adult son caesium are more hazardous. Tritium is not bioaccumulative because it is effectively part of water. Water cycles through bodies quickly - that’s why you sweat and pee and get thirsty. spray-bottle

Fukushima water would be treated and then then mixed with seawater at a ratio of 1:800 before it is pumped 1km offshore. Each year approximately 166,000 m3 of treated water will be released, which will draw down the volume of contaminated water being stored over a few decades. Real-time stats associated with the release are found here. At the point of discharge, water contains about 207 Bq/L of radioactivity, about 16 times greater than the 10-15 Bq/L background level in the ocean overall. Drinking water guidelines for tritium radioactivity range from 1,000-10,000 Bq/L, if one were to drink seawater.

In wastewater treatment terms, this is a small amount of dilution in a very large body of water. It is unlikely to have any measurable impact per the terms of Western science. In the context of mother nature taking yet another one for the team and environmental distress, this sucks. In the context of making the best of a shitty situation, the Fukushima water release is peanuts compared to the many other environmental liabilities that are not addressed. For example, the Hanford Site is an example of a nuclear wastewater storage facility gone/going wrong in Oregon.


Ending note by 72: By far the biggest impact of the release of this water won’t be its direct effects, but those on commerce and international relations. Almost half of Japanese aquatic exports go to China, comprising 8% of all Japanese firms shipping goods to China, and they have now been cut off due to their anger at Japan. Perhaps this reaction and the cancellation of imports was inevitable, as nuclear power and radiation in general is a poorly understood, frightening, and thus easily exploitable topic in every country. China is not the first country to use a misunderstanding of radiation risk to try and achieve a goal - Germany seems very pleased with itself - and they will not be the last.

In all: it is unequivocal that China is massively exaggerating the risks of this water’s release. However, the bellicose rhetoric and actions of Japan, South Korea, and America are a much greater danger to the region, and none of the three seem to be in any hurry to try diplomacy instead of increasing military budgets and gearing up for war.


It’s that time again - every two months I give myself a week off, to rest and recalibrate. Your regularly scheduled programming will resume next week.

Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Links and Stuff

The bulletins site is down.

Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists

Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Add to the above list if you can.


Resources For Understanding The War


Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.

Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.

Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.

Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.

On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.

Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.


Telegram Channels

Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.

Pro-Russian

https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.

https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.

https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.

https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.

https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.

https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.

https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.

https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.

https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.

https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.

Pro-Ukraine

Almost every Western media outlet.

https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.

https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.


Last week’s discussion post.


  • LargePenis [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    52
    ·
    1 year ago

    New cuck n chad rankings, a bit late this time as I’ve been busy with work. This edition is dedicated to Prigozhin, a chad that God took too early.

    Russia - Ukraine cuck n chad power ranking

    Gigachad Chad Neutral Beta Male Virgin Cuck
    Lukashenko (Forever chad) Ukrainian cannon fodder (these guys deserve the little success) Zelensky (moderate Ws for the Z-man this week with the F-16 deal and some counter-offensive progress) ⬆️ Shoigu (gangster-style killed Prigo to hide his cuckness) Dmitry Utkin (rest in piss nazi)
    Empty spot in honor of Prigozhin 🕯🕯 SuriyakMaps (good neutral objective maps) Challenger tanks (haven’t exploded yet, but sadly Bri*ish) Putin (flexed on his main hater Prigo, still missed the BRICS meeting) ⬆️ The Russian government (neolibs neolibbing as usual)

    International cuck n chad power ranking

    Gigachad Chad Neutral Beta (Fe)Male Virgin Cuck
    Bashar Al Assad (guaranteed spot for the Lion as always) Niger coup dudes (they’re riding the wave excellently tbh) Gunther Fehlinger (his commitment to the bit makes me respect him) “Israeli” soliders that defect because fascism = bad (lmao) Fatima Al Momen (Kuwaiti influencer that did DUI and killed three young dudes, then falsely them accused of sexual assault)
    Brace Belden (got the coup manual right, and beefing with lawyers on Twitter) BRICS+ Pro Max (expansion = good, but empowering ghouls like Sisi and MBZ isn’t good imo) Pope Francis (he’s weirdly good for a pope sometimes) Alan Dershowitz (this pedophile is still alive) Luis Rubiales (sexually assaulted World Cup winning woman, then blamed cancel culture)
    Fulton County (formally arresting Trump and his goons is hilarious, nice that they actually did it) Donald Trump (even getting arrested boosts him, even his mugshot was cool) ⬆️ Bernie Sanders (this man’s history is much better than his current constant cuckery for Biden) Vivek Ramaswamy (he’s so scummy) Ron DeSantis (he’s done folks, zero charisma from this loser)
    • edge [he/him]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      37
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      smh not giving Prigo Virgin Cuck for getting on a small aircraft trueanon after pissing off his bosses. And Putin deserves at least Chad for doing it so publicly.

      • LargePenis [he/him]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        38
        ·
        1 year ago

        I get your argument about Putin. My reasoning behind Putin not getting a better ranking is that he indirectly created the conditions for the uprising, barely did anything on that day, allowed Prigo to roam free in St. Petersburg and Belarus after the coup attempt, and then killed him in a such cowardly manner instead of arresting him and executing him in the Red Square like a chad would do. All that makes Putin a cuck imo, especially after not even having the balls to go to South Africa for the most BRICS summit ever.

        Prigo gets that little grace period after death where we remember the good and funny in a person. Next ranking will feature a more objective view of Prigo’s beautifully complicated psst.

    • IceWallowCum [he/him]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      I wonder what the soldiers at the frontlines think of today’s ranking. I’ve heard the Pentagon ghouls are livid that Assad is still in gigachad territory