10/12 early: AWACS coverage

This wire service graphic will probably be in a lot of newspapers today. The technology is amazing...

And I can't believe they're showing the enemy exactly the zone that won't be covered. East of Seattle, North of Denver, and West of Mpls will be the danger zone, not covered by any aircraft or radar. Cellar readers in Montana and North Dakota should be carefully watching the skies tomorrow.

(I'm kidding! I kid the Cellar readers!)

If terrorism should strike a nuclear power plant, the plant most likely to affect the Cellar is Limerick. Salem, Hope Creek or Peach Bottom would also cause some trouble. TMI 1 if prevailing winds are bad.

Re: 10/12 early: AWACS coverage

How does this map show the uncovered areas? It says their are 5 of these E-3s being used and each has radar coverage of 375 klicks. It would be hard for anyone without real good radar to know where any of these are at any given time.

Man, I need to change that sig. It's sort of not really appropriate anymore

Since I live about 10 miles west of TMI and was in the area for the "incident" there (as was Undertoad), I have thought about whether this is a bad area to be. TMI would abe a poor choice for terrorists because one of the reactors has been closed down since 1979.

I think they are very symbol oriented - like choosing the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as targets - and probably get ecxcited by the thought of destroying such symbols of western decadence and power.

Re: Re: 10/12 early: AWACS coverage

Quote:

Originally posted by sycamore This map is nice...for me to POOP on!

<i>How does this map show the uncovered areas?
</i>

It doesn't really, but I figure if they are concentrating on the metro areas and nuke plants, that's the section where they won't be watching. An AWACS plane could be in radar distance of Seattle and still not cover all of Montana.

That was a good joke Tony...

FOR ME TO POOP ON!

Hehe, the Hasselhoff one cracks me up every time too...

There is a nuclear power plant right near where I live. It's in Russellville, Arkansas, about 2 1/2 hours from here.
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From the looks of things, the only way to avoid them is to move west.
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-- juju

If the terrorists were to hit a nuclear plant and cause a release of radioactive material, they would have to deal with the wrath of all of the rest of the world. Perhaps they know that.

Actually, if you look closely, it seems like the only way to avoid being anywhere near nukes is to avoid being near people. Denver seems to be the only population center without one withing 100 miles or so.

The distribution of nuclear power stations seems to coincide fairly well with the distribution of populous areas -- which makes a lot of sense.

Of course, it seems like the best course of action, if you want to avoid being hit by a terrorist attack, is to live in the middle of nowhere -- but most people don't want that kind of life. That's why we all live on top of each other.

Juju, 2 1/2 hours is a long way off. You should be fine unless the winds are pointing directly at you after an accident. I was 19 miles away from Three Mile Island when it burped, now I'm 9 miles away from Limerick. Those are the types of distances that you would have to worry about.

Where I am now, they have a system of warning sirens in case of accident. They test them at 5% "strength" at 2pm the first Monday of every month. And at 5% "strength", you are nearly deafened if you are 100 feet from the siren.

Even in case of meltdown, you have about 5 hours to get away from the most serious danger zones. In that space of time, I would be able to walk far enough away, even if I had no vehicle.

Walk far enough away in 5 hours? A good reason to stay in shape.

I can see myself now putting 2 cats in my backpack and walking for 5 hours. I'm not sure what else I would take.

At the time of TMI, I had boxes with slides of my work that I had decided to take. Oh, and I would have taken Undertoad.

I visited a mothballed Nuclear powerplant for chemistry class in 11th grade and they said the the reactor cores had like 3 feet thick steel around them (it sure looked like it did). The "tour" guide said that the core could take a direct hit from a 747 or an internal nuclear explosion (not both) without being compromised. Wether or not thats true or whether or not old "nuke" plants are built this way who knows?

Incidentally we got to see the room that Homer works in aka. the control room. They said it would have been covered 24/7 and I think there is a back up room and a back up crew. It is kinda of stupid to publish a map with targets on it. It's sorta like the map with lights on it in Homer's office (Lenny:"Uh-oh, There goes Albany!")

I think the site in southern WA is the Hanford nuclear plant superfunds cleanup site, and I don't think there is a fuctional plant there anymore. Hanford used to be a weapons grade plutionium manufacturing plant. Put on the now contaminated Columbia river for cooling water.

Actually, wouldn't you just have to damage the intake for the cooling ponds? Maybe just dump some quick-dry cement in there and wait for the siren? I wouldn't think you'd have to damage the core directly. Then again, I've never put much thought into it...

Such countries exist? That's odd I can't think of any country that doesn't meddle for profit. Think of how many countries bug the U.S. for financial aid. Don't you think everyone of them is bullying smaller countries for cash as well? That's life.

What the terrorists did was jump the biggest dog in the pack. (Of countries that tend to dispense aid) Make no mistake they'd love to nail EVERY UN/NATO allied country.

On a side note, Juju drives slower than my Grandma. I live about eighty miles from the nuke plant in Russelville, and he lives less than seventy miles from me tops.

It's an impressive structure that I enjoy seeing from the highway when I drive through that area. It's amazing that mankind can make something like that and still kill each other in droves. You'd think we'd be over that by now...

Scary for you? We were pretty close! They announced over the PA system at school (high school, where I was at the time) that we were not to go outside between classes and not to linger outside at the end of the day waiting for the bus. Science teachers brought out their geiger counters and explained radiation and why it was hard to measure simple background radiation.

I remember two kids running outside across the campus between classes, and everyone saying how dumb they were. Despite the usual generational love of fear and danger, extreme peer pressures, etc. Almost everyone understood that this was different.

There wouldn't be a plume though. A nuclear plant can't act like a nuclear bomb; I forget why. But the worst case is the meltdown, where the rods that control chain reactions can't be inserted back into the core. In such a case the generated heat gets so hot that it melts everything until it sinks right into the ground.

That's what someone told me, anyway. So the major radioactivity leak happens after it's melted out of its containment. That's the time period you've got to get away.

Saw a bit of one of the night's TV news magazines where they demonstrated what would probably happen if a jet collided with the containment hull. The jet would turn into dust, basically, and wouldn't penetrate the hull.

Nevertheless there was a suggestion that anti-aircraft guns be located near the plants as a last resort. And another suggestion that it's Tom Ridge's call.

Depends, chenobyl blew its cap off and was a plum that covered 3/4 of europe. On the otherside that was not properly designed.

Nuclear Reactors - answering all previous posts

To correct some misconceptions.

TMI 2 resulted from a loss of coolant, a complete cutoff of the emergency cooling system, and control room actions that repeatedly thwarted automatic controls to recover. IOW much the same would happen if a jumbo hit the control room rather than the containment building.

What was to fix after TMI? The problem was top management - GPU - who knew nothing about nuclear power and whose cost control mentality was so ingrained that they would not replace that leaky valve during the maintenace shutdown. That maintenance period has just been completed the previous month, but because the valve cost too much money, then top management decided to not replace it.

TMI1 was not permitted to restart until all GPU management was replaced. TMI1 restart was delayed because the president of GPU refused to resign. The day after he finally did resign is the day that TMI1 got its license renewed for operation. That is the reason for TMI2's failure. Top management whose cost control mentalities were so dominant that TMI2 operators could not get any phone lines (they only had two) and could not place outgoing calls (all circuits were busy).

What would it take to get a high priority phone line into TMI2? A call from GPU top management to Bell of PA. GPU corporate would not even do that. Jimmy Carter finally solved TMI's phone problems by making Bell connect all TMI phone lines directly to the White House switchboard. Yes - it was GPU top management that caused the TMI2 meltdown.

A new core design was recently developed so that a reactor core could shut itself down automatically if it overheated. But that new design is not (as of yet I think) installed in any reactors.

A PWR containment dome is one of the hardest structures on the earth. But the explosion inside TMI2 was almost large enought to burst that structure.

For those of you in the TMI area - did you know that TMI operators were in such a panic over a possible second explosion that they planned to setup monitoring cameras and abandon the site. Therefore Jimmy Carter and wife appearred for a visit - to calm some very scared people. In fact, Carter was on-site being briefed by Denton during the hours that a second explosion was predicted.

Also for those in the TMI area - those emergency cooling pumps should not have survived pumping against closed valves. Eventually one pump failed. Had the second pump failed any time in the one year period after the meltdown, then China Syndrome would have restarted. Yes, the dirty little secret we know today - TMI2 was in that much trouble for up to a year after the event.

Nuclear reactors do not have fuel high enough in U-235 content to become a bomb. To make Uranium into bomb grade material, well, that is what they found in Iraq. It is an expensive, technically challenging, and energy consuming task to convert low grade power reactor fuel into weapons grade uranium. Converting weapons grade fuel back to low grade is easy which is why there is no uranium fuel shortage in todays markets.

Chernobyl is of completely different design. There is no containment dome. The Nuclear reactor is air cooled - much like a British nuclear reactor, long before TMI, that failed and spread radioactivity in a large agricultural area. Also Chernobyl type reactors use graphite as a moderator. But graphite is flammable only making a Chernobyl type design that much more dangerous. Chernobyl did not explode so much as it caught fire. The entire core disappeared - was spread out downwind in the countryside and into the plants basement.

One type of reactor that can make fuel is a breeder reactor. Fermi 1 was to be a breeder reactor that created electricity and more nuclear fuel. Breeders are unstable which is why Detriot was also almost lost to contamination by this major nuclear accident - before TMI.

The Europeans also tried to develop a breeder and failed - after the US gave up. Currently Japan is trying to develop a breeder which is why more than 50% of the world's Plutonium is currently in Japan.

How do you find nuclear power plants? They are marked on automobile road maps. Their existance and location is well documented in newspaper and magazine archives. Locating 100+ nuclear plants in the US is common knowledge.

sad fact number 207:
ExGPUMBA: I am sucha tightass i'd rather cause a nuclear meltdown than spend real money!
CorperateAmerica: You start tomorrow!

We've got a significant military presence and a significant influence on the Saudi government. We use their airspace for our military actions. Ditto for other neighboring countries.

Do we need to have a military presence in the reigon? Is that what our forefathers intended our government for? Is that what taxpayers want (or would want if they had more access to uncensored news)?

LOL
Hey, I'm all for alternative energy resources. That even made sense to me when I was a kid and Jimmy Carter was pushing for the research. And yeah the US throws its weight around ALOT in that region. But that's life.
Do you really question that other countries would do any different in our shoes? I mean damn, we push Democracy down everyones throats, yeah. We also push Capitalism like mad. We even have the audacity to try to make other countries clean up their human rights records. What bastards we are, eh?
Have you listened to what the mainstream Islamic people are saying? Have you listened to Bin Laden at all? He even called for a Jihad! The idiots not even a religious leader and he calls for a holy war???
C'mon dude, presenting people with someone to balme makes it truly easy to unify them, and make them fanatics ready to do his will. He's no different than alot of other madmen that came before. Actually there is one difference, it's much easier to do damage today than it used to be.

Yes there are US troops stationed in Saudi Arabia, a deeply Islamic country and home to many of the guys on board those planes. I think its more unsee 'occupation' that directly haivng tropps there, subtle influence etc.

Not only is oil gonna run out but Nuclear Power itself is deeply unprofitable and very unsafe. I remember reading a statistic about there on average with todays safty standards a 1/1000 chance of a major incident every milellium, now, times that but *how* many plants? Not good.

Nuclear power could be made to be safer, but there has been little interest in that concept since 1979.

tT?ay "alternative energy" I don't mean nuclear; I was more thinking along the lines of hydrogen fuel-cells or other modern/clean technologies. I'm no scientist; I just know what I've picked up on NPR, Slashdot, AlterNet.org, and the like, but it sounds to me like the technology is here and we just need to put it into widespread use.

whit:
C'mon dude, presenting people with someone to blame makes it truly easy to unify them, and make them fanatics ready to do his will.

Uh, are you talking about OBL giving his followers someone to blame? Because that same thing is happening in America! Within hours of the attack, his name was on all the news stations. Remember, there has still been zero conclusive evidence against him. He's said we deserved it, and that he's happy about the attack, but thats no surprise. He was probably happy after McVeigh's bombing too, and lots everyone from Jerry Falwell to ME has said we had it coming (though for somewhat different reasons...). I'm not saying he's an innocent guy (he's certainly guilty of SOME terrorist acts, or so I'm told), but I would just think with the "Intelligence" infrastructure we've got we could dig up just a smidgen of proof against the guy IN THIS TERRORIST ACT. And the fact that we can't do that makes me wonder if he's really the guy, or if we're just being given a enemy to direct our rage at.

Of course, now that we've spent hundreds of millions (billions yet?) bombing Afghanistan, and killed countless civilians (including UN aid workers), Curious George can't exactly pull out and say "yeah, the real guilty parties are actually over here. Sorry about all that!".

The Taliban has said repeatedly that they are willing the negotiate, if we can just show them some proof bin Laden was involved. We (supposedly) have the proof; why not just show it to them? "National Security Concerns". Well, little kids wearing rags are getting blown the fuck up because of our precious national security, and our national 'security' can't even keep people from getting Anthrax in the mail. Does the fact that americans would rather watch coverage of "America Strikes Back" than "America Peacefully Negotiates" have anything to do with it?

whit:
And yeah the US throws its weight around ALOT in that region. But that's life.
So people can get real angry and crash airplanes into us, and "thats life" too? Because us "throwing our weight around" and them crashing planes into shit are sorta inter-related issues. You can't just brush it off; bombing the fuck out of some kids in the desert isn't gonna stop terrorists. Even if we killed off all the known terrorists, new people would follow them. We need to look at WHY there are millions of people who think the U.S. is evil, and that all Americans are scum.

Are YOU and ME benefiting from an economy that relies on their oil? If we started using (readily available) other energy sources, would it hurt us that much? President Bush's family is certainly benefiting. They've got a lot of money in the oil industry. I'd be just as happy with my car being powered by hydrogen. We could've started moving to cleaner energy years ago, but because our leaders have bussiness interests elsewhere we're now at "war".

I'd continue but I'm at work...
(this "new war" has really cut in on the workplace-productivity; I've probably spent more time reading+posting on various boards in the last month than the previous year combined!)

Heh, you tell 'em MaggieL!

Leif you continue to talk about both the plight of the kids and new energy resources. When and if we FINALLY move on to something better those kids are screwed. Oil is the major export of the region by far, what income will they have when we don't buy anymore?

Personaly the need for alternative (read as BETTER) energy sources has been a pet peeve of mine for a while. Not only does George have alot of cash in oil, so did Gore. I agree completely that the reason we haven't moved on is political. I've actually agreed with several things you've said but you haven't seemed to notice. I might even suggest you do some background and find out who the Isreali's say was behind it, I htink you'd find it interesting.

Anyway, let me explain why I said, "That's life." The U.S. is a nation, it's primary funtion is the welfare of it's own citizens. We are not responsible for improving their lives. Most of the world feels we should do more to help them but we haven't dealt with alot of problems at home. If they don't like the way we've acted, then fine. Let them use diplomatic means. If that doesn't work then they're just SOL. We don't like alot of things China does, but last time I checked we didn't hijack planes and fly into their buildings. We cope.

I also agree that the bombing has been heavy handed and clumsy. Yes lot's of innocent's have died. No question we need to do better. I however don't forget the fact that I don't have a better idea. Do you?

There seems to be enough evidence linking the hijackers back to al-Qaeda, which is headed by bin Laden. In addition, from what I understand, there is solid evidence linking bin Laden to the bombings of the American embassies in Dar-es-Salaam and Nairobi. This alone should compel the Taliban to surrender bin Laden for these crimes. The US was very clear: surrender bin Laden or you're getting bombed. No negotiation. Why should there be in a situation like this? They had almost a month to surrender him. Not to mention, the US was and is dropping FOOD to feed their people. The Taliban cannot even feed its own people.

I'm the last person to advocate war, but let's be realistic here. We're in a military action with several countries in order to capture Osama bin Laden. Innocent lives will be lost...but you have to use the least of the evils. If we send troops into Afghanistan right now, we would lose countless soldiers. We could negotiate until Jesus comes back with futile results. So, option #3. Furthermore, it's not like the US is TRYING to hurt innocent civilians.

Innocent civilians were killed during the Kosovo conflict (the Chinese consulate?), but I didn't hear many people complaining then.


And Jerry Falwell is a puke, period.

The US has taken absolutely remarkable steps to ensure that civilians don't get hurt. They do things like find the target they want to take out, and map the pattern of the explosion that will be caused to determine whether the blast will take out second stories of civilian structures. They actually select the bomb that will have the least destructive blast pattern to civilians.

Meanwhile, the anti-aircraft guns of the Taliban, often fired at night at targets they can't even see, do not have such carefully worked-out trajectories.

The Taliban has probably out-killed the US in civilian deaths by a factor of 10 to 1. Meanwhile, the US did another incredible thing - it apologized for the civilian deaths.

This is a remarkably civilized war, in which the technology of munitions is a major factor in the diplomacy. And each night is a new round of bombing, each day both sides get their latest say - not just to each other, but to almost everyone in the world who is listening.

I understand how you feel. As UT pointed out our military is doing it's best to minimize civilian casulties. But the fact remains that we are calling this a war for a reason. In war no one is safe, yes I know that includes myself, my friends and my family.
The fact is that when we started anyone with any sense braced for serious and numerous terroist actions.Frankly, I'm shocked that we haven't seen more than a few anthrax scares. The rules of war never preclude civilians getting killed. It's sad, and the US is trying to reach a higher standard on this. We're just not there yet.

Let me be plain, I have a four year old daughter. When I look at her I know that an Al-Queda terrorist with a crop duster and a suit case full of disease could kill her and everyone else in the city tomorrow. I also know that individual would truly believe her death (as an infidel) would get him a free trip to heaven. This is why action of some sort is necessary. My heart goes out to the inoccent victims of our attacks. Again, I simply choose to believe that our military is acting from the best information it has, and is making every attemt to minimize casulties. I choose to believe that George really does have a case against Bin Laden.

I haven't dismissed that someone else might have done it, nor have I dismissed that Bin Laden would do worse should he have the opportunity. This man and these people want you, me and our children dead. Our actions are in self-defense. Yes it's brutal and has killed innocents, but it's the best we can manage. If you have a better idea then step up. If not understand then understand that given a choice between leaving my daughter in (even very minimal) danger or letting the neighbors of murderers (and yes even their kids) die I will choose my daughter every time. If this makes me a monster than so be it. If you have a child look that child in the eye and then explain why inaction is acceptable.

Let's just hope and pray that in the future we can do better.

civilians

I think the civilian casualties are pretty light on their side compared to what they have been on our side.

We didn't want this war. We would have been perfectly happy to have had Sept. 11 be just another day, and not attack Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, our hand has been forced. You can't waltz into our biggest city, blow down the biggest buildings with everyone inside, and walk away thinking nothing will happen. We HAVE to fight now.

The Taliban know that civilian casualties make great propaganda. If they themselves wanted to reduce this, they could move their forces out of the cities into neutral territory. We would never attack a city of just civilians any more than we'd bomb a refugee camp.

Why don't the Taliban do this? They know it would be suicide. If we know a site is just Taliban fighters, we would immediately strike there. They know that by mixing themselves into the civilian population we won't attack as fiercely, we'll have to be very careful.

They are using their own civilians as human shields, just as Iraq did in the Gulf War. They are also using Islam as a shield, sleeping in their mosques at night, because they know that blown-up mosques also make great propaganda and we won't hit them there.

Cowards.

Re: civilians

• Terrorism n. The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.

Setting aside the justification for the bombings on the Taliban, let's talk about our goals, and how we are meeting them with the actions that we are taking.

This fanatical army, from what I understand, is a distributed one. Like as in peer to peer and gnutella. Many different cells or 'nodes' operate independently. There is no central server.

So, just as suing one guy in America for sharing files on gnutella isn't going to stop a guy in Russia from sharing files with a guy in Germany -- So bombing an organization in Afganistan isn't going to stop the machinery of terrorism. You're attacking a single node.

If I bomb Earthlink's headquarters, does the internet stop functioning? Of course not! Lots of people are pissed off at us. If you kill the
"leaders", all the pissed off minions are not going to just go home and eat peanut butter and jelly sandwitches.

Re: Re: civilians

well heck then

Pull the army out, send in the RIAA!

"In other news today, the Taliban army has been sued for vicarious infringement of human rights by allowing terrorists to operate from within it's borders. The Taliban argue that no such activity takes place, that all operations are legal. The RIAA states that in random samplings of Taliban activity, 99% of activity was terrorist in nature.

In anticipation of the demise of the army, Taliban fringe group activity has risen dramatically recently...."

Re: Re: Re: civilians

Re: Re: Re: civilians

You guy's seem to be forgetting that these are TRAINED terrorists. They got their training in Bin Laden's camps IN Afganistan. Al-Queda is largely based there and what we have to gain is ending the training in that area. Basicaly forcing them to set-up shop elsewhere. This will take some time and alot of money. George's claim is that as soon as they try to set-up elsewhere we'll use our political influence to get said country to help and chase them out again.

This is all common knowledge. George has stated as much in his speeches.

Simple question: Which is more dangerous, a bunch of untrained psychos full of hate with limited funds or a bunch of well-trained well-funded terrorists with a solid information base?

[replying to juju] I think that particular spin is coming from the public, not public officials or even the media. Every time Bush has talked about terrorism, it has constituted a very long term war, the dead-or-alive retrieval of bin Laden only being one aspect of it.

But since getting their butts kicked seems to be a historically effective approach to terrorists, let us go and kick some butts. Besides, since intelligence is now paying attention, any upsetting the apple cart may cause more of the network to be exposed.

And from a psychological point of view, it should hurt recruitment if nothing else. There's no fun joining a gang when that gang is getting its ass kicked.

And from the sounds of things, not everyone in this organization is driven by religious fanaticism. What was one of the last stops before 9/11? A strip bar, where there was booze drunk and brags laid down. Not model Muslims. Furthermore, there is some evidence that not all the hijackers believed they were on suicide missions.

BTW on those 500,000 Iranian kids who've apparently died - so says the UN - I thought that was the result of diplomatic efforts to stop the possible production of chemical and biological weapons?

When you're dealing with the leadership of a nation, and that leadership does absolutely reprehensible things, what are you going to do? You hate to hurt the people not responsible, but we've only seen MORE trouble from assassinating the two-bit dictators who wreak havoc. If Hussein cared more about 500,000 kids than we did, he would make an effort to re-join the civilized world where diplomacy is how things are done.

Lastly, bin Laden is not really concerned about those kids either. He just wants to bring Persians into the fold by claiming they have complaints and should be warring against the west with him.