Honda Civic Hybrid rant

[Rick Law]

The areas are not recommended for continuous living

Really? if you listen to some people here, you would think those places are heaven on earth,

Certainly a quiet place and I like quiet places.  Certainly far fewer arguments between neighbors...

To put it into perspective.  A couple of years back around 100meter (eyeball from TV screen) from the damaged building was measured at 9 microSieverts (uSv), about that of a trans-atlantic flight. Around 0.1 in Paris and 0.2 in New York (or London, forgot which).  That is the low end.  At the high end, Guarapari in Brazil is 20+.

I don't trust my aging eyes, let extend that to 1km instead of 100meters.  So, you can be a half time air-plane crew and get the same amount of radiation, get home the other 1/2 and get the same thing.  Or, live in Colorado and get 12uSv, a bit more than Chenobyl, Or live in Guarapari and get 2x that, or worst yet, go to the beach there and get 3x that.

(EDIT: reworded below in parenthesis)

So, from a radiation perspective, I would not mind - but resale value would be another story...
Not sure about radioactive material however (but judging from radiation, that could not be high).

Radiation is a firing (in flight) bullet.  Radioactive material is a loaded gun (that could and will fire itself at random).  Radiation absorbed by the ground is a bullet (that hit and stayed) in a sandbag.  I am not sure if this sandbag has a loaded gun in it.  In some area, where appropriate material exists, the energy could be absorb and re-emitted later.

[dannyf]

naturally occurring

Not sure why it matters if something is "naturally occurring" or not. Death is naturally occuring but most people probably don't desire it. Radiation from a nuclear detonation is naturally occurring (then, now or in the future) but sitting under an nuclear explosion is likely not so desirable.

Just because something is "naturally" occurring doesn't mean it wouldn't do harm to you.

[Rick Law]

Noting that the above is only exposure measurement, contamination is much harder to measure in a person after the event so instead much more stringent steps are taken to avoid contamination occurring. This gets back to the posts Mojo has been bringing up contamination hot spots, while they will typically present very low exposures to radiation the risk of contamination of people (through the food chain etc) is a more serious threat to public health and rightly needs to be dealt with carefully.

I'll continue to point out that contamination from other industrial sources dwarves that from the nuclear industry in its health impacts, but is extremely hard to measure so just gets ignored. Almost all industries are improving their impacts on the public (usually through government restrictions/requirements) so lets keep on improving in all areas. Trying to argue that because one specific industry or another has a trajectory of improving health impacts or sustainability against another specific industry is only short term or transitory, with money/compulsion/pressure anything can improve. What is changing is the communities acceptance/value of different things.

One example of a missing factor from all the factors is, we have not considered the deaths caused by cost increase which lowers our living standard.  If we all switch to the higher cost Solar/Wind, how many people will die from the cost factor alone?

Society changes, what is valued changes, these things are hard to predict.

This is interesting.  Obviously, the measurement techniques changed rather a lot from late 70's.  That it was not measuring different parts (of a body) was one reason why I felt it was not a good measurement.  Second reason is, uSv has to make certain assumptions about dormant genes and other non-active genes or segments/fragments of genes.  Many what we "thought to be useless" are now known to have some use such as control or as modifiers.  Thus, I am not sure uSv's assumption is to be trusted -- given how frequently we discover functions performed by what we "believe to be non-active" segments.

[Someone]

This is interesting.  Obviously, the measurement techniques changed rather a lot from late 70's.  That it was not measuring different parts (of a body) was one reason why I felt it was not a good measurement.  Second reason is, uSv has to make certain assumptions about dormant genes and other non-active genes or segments/fragments of genes.  Many what we "thought to be useless" are now known to have some use such as control or as modifiers.  Thus, I am not sure uSv's assumption is to be trusted -- given how frequently we discover functions performed by what we "believe to be non-active" segments.

The standards get updated every 10 years or so, as new data becomes available its incorporated back in. The particular gene is not so much of a concern as they all have relatively identical absorption/interaction across the energy spectra, weightings for body parts have shuffled around quite a bit though!

[johansen]

You still don't understand, do you? I'm not sure how many more ways it can be explained.

9uSv in what form and over what time? On a aircraft it is mostly things like cosmic rays and solar radiation that is not being absorbed by the atmosphere. It hits you for the duration of the flight, and most of it is absorbed by your skin so your organs are protected. When the aircraft lands that's it, no more exposure.

At Fukushima the source of the radiation is tiny particles of various elements in the soil, on the wind and in the wildlife. You know how if you don't clean your house for a while dust builds up? Some of that is dust from outside, and near Fukushima Daiichi it contains much higher levels of radiation than most places. You know how dust causes allergic reactions in many people? That's because it gets inside their bodies. Once this material gets inside your body it sits there emitting radiation indefinitely, and because it is inside you the normal barriers that protect your organs like skin and flesh don't help.

your error here is also evident. a cosmic ray from space, makes it through 1/4th inch of aluminum, has a 50% change of hitting another 5mm of aluminum and then gets absorbed in you skin? not so.

in any case, the ongoing problem at fukulongtime, is the fact they refuse to acknowledge what happened.
the hot particles that were no doubt causing the chronic nosebleeds reported by japan's "alternative media".. (which is also a sign of acute radiation exposure)
we don't know how many were affected.
I keep hearing doomsday reports of the number of people found with cancerous nodules in various organs, like the thyroid; even if you divide the "reported" numbers by 10 or 100, you still are left with a big, big mess, that is going to be affecting millions of people directly.

[Rick Law]

To put it into perspective.  A couple of years back around 100meter (eyeball from TV screen) from the damaged building was measured at 9 microSieverts (uSv), about that of a trans-atlantic flight. Around 0.1 in Paris and 0.2 in New York (or London, forgot which).  That is the low end.  At the high end, Guarapari in Brazil is 20+.

You still don't understand, do you? I'm not sure how many more ways it can be explained.

9uSv in what form and over what time? On a aircraft it is mostly things like cosmic rays and solar radiation that is not being absorbed by the atmosphere. It hits you for the duration of the flight, and most of it is absorbed by your skin so your organs are protected. When the aircraft lands that's it, no more exposure.

At Fukushima the source of the radiation is tiny particles of various elements in the soil, on the wind and in the wildlife. You know how if you don't clean your house for a while dust builds up? Some of that is dust from outside, and near Fukushima Daiichi it contains much higher levels of radiation than most places. You know how dust causes allergic reactions in many people? That's because it gets inside their bodies. Once this material gets inside your body it sits there emitting radiation indefinitely, and because it is inside you the normal barriers that protect your organs like skin and flesh don't help.

Can you understand the difference now? Background radiation from things like rocks or radiation from transient sources like air travel or x-rays is very different to the type of exposure you would get from living near Fukushima Daiichi. It's a good job the authorities stop people like you from living there, for your own safety.

Mr. Chan,

I would be impolite if I merely ignore you.  I was going to reply to your earlier post but I have no idea what you are talking about.  Besides, it is just wrong to argue about something "I suspect you mean".  If we are to discuss, I rather discuss something you actually said.

I didn't reference Fukushima since I don't know the value and trend there.  As you read correctly, I was referring to Chenobyl. 9uSv day-in, day-out, 24 hours per day.  So what?  640000 live in Denver Colorado, they get 12uSv day-in, day-out, 24 hours per day.  There are people who find it worth-while to go to the beach at Guarapari getting 30uSv, and over 100,000 people live in the town getting 20uSv day-in, day-out, 24 hours per day.  In either Guarapari or Denver or any high elevation, apparently, people there feel they have other bigger problem to worry about.  If radiation is the sole worry, people will be safer moving from Denver to Chenobyl.

You said we accumulate radiation, I failed to see how.  Yeah, we can store energy in the form of fat.  But I don't know how human store and accumulate high energy particles.  What does the human body use to contain the particles?  I suspect you mean the damage is accumulative.  DNA change is more than merely accumulative.  It is even inheritable.  So what?  By itself, DNA doesn't copy perfect.  As long as the damage is not beyond that of natural level, (Denver vs Chenobyl, 12uSv vs 9uSv), who cares?  There is no point in worrying about one tea-spoon of sugar in your coffee while consuming sugar-cane by the dozen, is there? 

You said we can store potassium separately and make it "relatively harmless".  I can't figure out what potassium you are talking about, how and why?  K40 is what I was referring to.  I know all the main organs of the human body and I don't know any organ specifically for radioactive material.  I suspect you mean liver - that is where we store our junk.  But alcohol and "yellow liver" probably kill far more of us than radioactive liver.

You worry about radiation absorbed into/by the ground.  Why?  if it is absorbed, done, gone.  The energy is gone - unless it happens to hit something that could store and re-emit the energy later.  The contamination that you worry about is some what valid - as long as we don't dig it out and spread it in tiny packages around town/the-world, there is no issue.  Even if it does spread, when the original dose is of limited energy, the re-emitted dose of energy cannot exceed that of the absorb energy unless it hits fissile material.  (Or the material has energy-ready-to-emit, which could have been emitted by many other means.)  So, worst is over and it is on a downward curve defined by the half-life.  Another, surprise surprise.  You add up all the nuclear waste created by nuclear power and that would be less than the nuclear waste created by coal.  To make that decision, one has to learn that almost anything you dig out of the ground is to some extend radioactive.  The earth itself is a giant nuclear reactor.

Yes, I really don't get what you are saying.  But I understand where you are coming from.  There is indeed no need to incur more risk than necessary.  My position is: except when the act of avoiding the risk is causing more damage than the "avoided" risk could have caused.  This is where my negative sentiment about our lack of education in how to judge.  Comparing one risk verses another, comparing one damage verses another, comparing the cost of avoid one risk (thus reducing resources for other risk) so forth.

We have departed far enough from the original topic.  [Edit: moved to where it belongs... touch pad moved by cursor by mistake]  Besides, it is just wrong to argue about something "I suspect you mean".  If we are to discuss, I rather discuss something you actually said.  If you start a new thread, I would be happy to join in.  It would be impolite to ignore you, it would be impolite to hijack a thread also...

Rick

[SeanB]

Whether a material is stored depends on the chemical properties of the material. Calcium is stored preferentially in the body, and any radioactive with a similar chemical action to it will also be stored in the bones. Thus Strontium, Barium and Radium will also be stored in bones, and they definitely do have radioactive isotopes. Iodine is naturally stored in the thyroid, and has radioactive isotopes that will also be stored, and is very important to the body so definitely is stored. Other metals like potassium and sodium are present in all cells, and chemically Rubidium, Cesium and Francium will also take part in the cellular chemistry and in many cases they will be preferred chemically in these reactions, and will stay around and not be excreted but will build up with time.

Thus with a build up of these heavy isotopes that have various decay periods you will have a long term exposure, and this will be throughout the body and will unfortunately will be very likely to do damage with time. There is very little that can be done to remove them as well, other than flushing the body with a lot of potassium and sodium, and doing dialysis to remove them after chelating the heavy metal with potassium permanganate ( and going purple in the process for years) and doing a few rounds to reduce levels somewhat. Not something you can do easily on a large scale.

[Rick Law]

Whether a material is stored depends on the chemical properties of the material. Calcium is stored preferentially in the body, and any radioactive with a similar chemical action to it will also be stored in the bones. Thus Strontium, Barium and Radium will also be stored in bones, and they definitely do have radioactive isotopes. Iodine is naturally stored in the thyroid, and has radioactive isotopes that will also be stored, and is very important to the body so definitely is stored. Other metals like potassium and sodium are present in all cells, and chemically Rubidium, Cesium and Francium will also take part in the cellular chemistry and in many cases they will be preferred chemically in these reactions, and will stay around and not be excreted but will build up with time.

Thus with a build up of these heavy isotopes that have various decay periods you will have a long term exposure, and this will be throughout the body and will unfortunately will be very likely to do damage with time. There is very little that can be done to remove them as well, other than flushing the body with a lot of potassium and sodium, and doing dialysis to remove them after chelating the heavy metal with potassium permanganate ( and going purple in the process for years) and doing a few rounds to reduce levels somewhat. Not something you can do easily on a large scale.

That is why I asked (in my reply) "what potassium..."  I suspect he was not distinguishing K40.  There is, to my knowledge, no one ever die of radiation eating bananas.  You eat that many, other problem will hit first.

That was my whole point - risk balancing.  Hack, sitting here typing is a risk.  The ceiling fan (which was installed to save energy over air conditioning) could fall and hit my head.  I took that risk because I save money.  One more trip outside (to make up the extra electrical cost) would probably be more risky than the fan.

World is full of risk.  Living is a risk...  I suspect our drive toward zero risk (increase cost) will reduce standard of living world wide.  The reduction in standard of living itself will cause a lot of life deaths in the process.  It is this zero risk without consideration to cost that I object.

[SeanB]

I am all for nuclear power, but it has dangers that are very real, and so does any other source of power. You can however do nuclear and reprocess, and this way you get a lot of power out, and likely Thorium is going to be the way to do so, as it has the potential to have a reactor that will both be reasonably safe if left alone, and which is pretty good at burning up a lot of otherwise unused fuel. You can also burn the DU inside it as well to generate power, though the entire inner core will be very unhealthy for any living thing aside from the radiophiles that have been found living inside reactor cores. But at least it does not run at insane pressures and you can easily separate the helium generated out to either vent or use for industry.

Remember there are quite a few submarine nuclear reactors sitting on assorted parts of the deep ocean, and those have not leaked appreciable amounts, though the old USSR has a big issue with the rusting hulks that have sunk at the moorings in various harbours dumping nasty chemicals in the environment. Not much radioactives, but the nasty stuff like dioxin, PCB and lead paint.

[dannyf]

-would be impolite if I merely ignore you.-

but you would be in good company.

[Rick Law]

This is interesting.  Obviously, the measurement techniques changed rather a lot from late 70's.  That it was not measuring different parts (of a body) was one reason why I felt it was not a good measurement.  Second reason is, uSv has to make certain assumptions about dormant genes and other non-active genes or segments/fragments of genes.  Many what we "thought to be useless" are now known to have some use such as control or as modifiers.  Thus, I am not sure uSv's assumption is to be trusted -- given how frequently we discover functions performed by what we "believe to be non-active" segments.

The standards get updated every 10 years or so, as new data becomes available its incorporated back in. The particular gene is not so much of a concern as they all have relatively identical absorption/interaction across the energy spectra, weightings for body parts have shuffled around quite a bit though!

re: standards get updated every 10 years or so...

That is reassuring.  Some day, (star trek), perhaps we can measure the exact mutations.

[miguelvp]

Oh No! I did eat a banana with lunch!

Are we talking about nuclear cars now?

back on non topic since it's not a hybrid, my wife want to get an Elio

http://www.eliomotors.com/

84 mpg (not electric but gas, or petrol however you wanna call it) so  672 miles range (1081.48Km for the non US peeps) on an 8 gallons (about 30 1/4 liters) of gas (or petrol) at 6,800 USD, powered by a 0.9 liter 3 cylinder 55 Hp engine (or motor)

It's a motorcycle class since it has less than 4 wheels, (great for toll way rates) speeds over 100 mph (160.9Km/h) and 0-60mph (not converting it) in under 10 seconds (seconds for the rest of you :p ).

Sits two but more like a fighter plane (front back) and can even hold groceries (or drive alone to fill the back seat as well).

Probably not for other places but in Chicago, and probably most of Europe this type of vehicles will work (at half the price of the smart for two)

[Artlav]

Hm.
A week ago i was reading this thread and it spoke about hybrid cars.
And now there are 7 pages of discussion on nuclear power, out of the blue.

So, new kinds of hybrid cars are incoming?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleon

On topic, i don't get it why there is a series hybrid - an IC motor with an electric one on the same shaft.
How does that increase MPG?

The other type - an IC engine running at it's optimal efficiency point turning a generator to run a traction electric motor - does make sense, but the first one does not seem to add up.

[sunnyhighway]

On topic, i don't get it why there is a series hybrid - an IC motor with an electric one on the same shaft.
How does that increase MPG?

The electric motor has three functions: starter motor, generator, helper motor.

There is no need for a starter motor, the electric motor takes care of that.
If the car breaks or goes downhill, energy goes to the battery because the electric motor is now used as a generator. And as a side effect, less wear and tear of the brakes.
If the car accelerates or goes uphill, energy goes from the battery to the wheels. The ICE can be less powerful (read lighter in weight) while the entire drive-train is stil capable of delivering the same amount of power.

As a result, less fuel is needed without gaining (much) weight or losing performance.

[Rick Law]

But I don't know how human store and accumulate high energy particles.

Go back and read what I wrote again. For example, the thyroid gland absorbs calcium and stores it. That's why so many children from the Chernobyl area had to have theirs removed or developed full blown cancer, and why they are checking all the children around Fukushima. It is a well understand process.

Mr. Chen,

Since the first couple of reading did not afford me an understand of what you attempted to say, further re-read is pointless.  To discuss "what I thought you mean" would also be pointless for reasons stated prior.

If you were my student, I would have more of an obligation to understand your submission.  But we are peers in a forum.  I have the luxury of not carrying on pointless discussions.  So, let us just leave it at that and get back to topic in this thread.

I would not consider it "a lack of manner" if there is no further reply since I am asking for for no further discussion off-topic.

Rick

[Rick Law]

Mr. Chen,

Okay, I'm calling troll on this one. My bad for getting suckered in to replying more than once.

Back to cars, I wish Nissan would release a higher capacity Leaf.

Mr. Chen,

Please do not misunderstand.  I turn formal whenever a discussion gets heated.  Behaving formal reduces the chance of getting vicious and forces me to behave in a "gentlemanly" manner.  I found it to work well for me.

Rick

[gildasd]

Last thing I'll post in this discussion:

I am no partisan of nuclear power, but it pisses me of that all kinds of fission based generation gets put in the same "Nukelar=Bad" dustbin.

Different forms of power stations and generation are vastly different. It's like comparing a coal kitchen stove with a tea cup on top with a modern two stage gas power plant.
Both are fossil fuel, and heat up water but that's were the similarity ends.

I am an environmentalist, it affects every life choice I make (even my power supply contract is "NO COAL") yet I am critical and have read a lot about this tech.
I think it is "environmentally friendly" to ban the worst technology (ie Fukushima with no gravity cooling in case of total power loss AND shitty efficiency), by promoting the best ones (surgenerateur) as a natural stepping stone to totally clean energy.

The current totally "no nuclear at all cost", as seen in Germany; is just pushing extra use of Lignite thus radioactive dust and a crap load of CO2, even if it is done in another country (ie Poland) to look good on paper.
I do not consider the end of nuclear as it is done in Germany to be a victory for the enviroment in any shape, way or form.

[reagle]

Wow, how did this thread get that far off course? On a positive note, after writing my giant blog post and sending a link to a local dealership, they persuaded Honda to replace the battery under warranty. Only took four years of complaining and still well within the 10yr/150k warranty. Oh well, at least the car now is driving normally!

[zapta]

... America is not very typical though because fuel prices are ridiculously low, there isn't much cost to polluting (in most countries cars that pollute pay a lot more tax) and many people don't seem to care about their health or the future.

... or they don't share your apocalyptic beliefs.

[grumpydoc]

For example, the thyroid gland absorbs calcium and stores it.

ITYM Iodine

Perhaps ironically I-131is, of course, a treatment for thyroid cancer.

[SirNick]

Not all that ironic.  Cancer treatment is mostly poison meant to kill the cancer, preferably before it kills the patient.

[grumpydoc]

Not all that ironic.  Cancer treatment is mostly poison meant to kill the cancer, preferably before it kills the patient.

All drugs are poisons, it is only a matter of dose.

The unique thing about many cancer drugs (and in fact other cancer treatments as well) is that the dose required to kill the patient is actually less than the dose required to kill the cancer.

[denelec]

All drugs are poisons, it is only a matter of dose.

Everything is a poison. Even water. It is only a matter of dose. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dose_makes_the_poison

[grumpydoc]

My mother had her's removed (cancer) and now can't produce enough calcium......

Ah, that's the parathyroid glands you're thinking of.