Claimed to be the largest concrete spraying trucks in the world, they will be on their way to Japan, after upgrades in California and South Carolina.
The two trucks are made in Germany, for spraying concrete for skyscrapers.
Kelly Blickle, a spokeswoman at Putzmeister America Inc., says similar types of trucks were also used on Chernobyl in 1986.
Officially the trucks will be spraying water, but if necessary, can spray concrete to entomb the reactors.
A Japanese industry analyst, interviewed on NHK, said most of Japan’s industries will be hurt more than thought by rolling blackouts.
For several days NHK has been running reports on different industries that would be affected by power outages. Some of those industries, like bread factories, would have to shut down for longer than the planned 3 hour blackout. This is because of the process for making bread. The bread factory official said they would end up being shut down for 6 hours.
Most factories need to control heat processes for a long period of time, and they can’t do that with power outages. It’s also interesting to see that most factories in Japan do not have any back up power source. Most of Japan’s industries are totally dependent on nuclear power.
The analyst said on NHK, that Japan’s industry must be prepared to move factories to other parts of Japan, or even to other countries. In the future Japan’s industries must be built so that they can operate independently of any single power source.
“This is the biggest impact ever in the history of the automobile industry.”-Koji Endo, Advanced Research Japan
Parts, from electronics, to mechanical parts for cars, to paint pigments, are shipped by slow boat. That means that the U.S., Europe and other parts of Asia have NOT begun to feel the true impact of the Japanese shut down.
Warehouses in Japan are almost out of the parts they had on hand at the time of the March 11 earthquake/tsunami, and the ongoing nuclear power plant disaster. Since then, Japanese factories have had trouble after trouble trying to get their factories restarted.
The United States, Europe and the rest of Asia can expect the full impact of Japan’s shut down to begin in April.
Many factories in Japan are without power to operate. Some factories have lost employees to the disaster.
This disaster in Japan reveals the weakness of a truly global economy. If one part of the chain breaks, it’s in trouble. It should be viewed more like dominoes, if one domino falls, others will be brought down with it. Japan has become the trigger domino, because it has basically become the parts supplier to the world.
Here’s why this is so bad for the worldwide auto industry: About 3,000 parts can go into one car. Those parts come from dozens of factories, and most are in Japan. But it gets worse, some of the “parts” are made up of many tiny parts. And, you guessed it, those tiny parts also come from dozens of other factories. It’s a friggin’ logistical nightmare, it’s a wounder the auto industry didn’t collapse because of parts supply issue sooner!
It’s not just cars. Get ready to see shortages of computers, video game systems, printer ink and even batteries. So much for a global economy! Can you say idiot in Japanese? It’s Baka!
Japanese company, Panasonic, is rushing to get batteries shipped into Japan.
Batteries for electronic items have run short after Japanese bought up all they could after the March 11 disasters.
Panasonic makes batteries in Japan, but even with increasing their production, they can’t meet domestic demand. Usually batteries are shipped by boat, because of their weight, but Panasonic is using airfreight.
Current battery shipments are coming from Indonesia and Thailand. The April shipments will be coming from Belgium and Poland.
The coastal towns along the north east coast of Honshu, lost all official documentation regarding their cities, and residents.
Not only “hard copies”, but everything stored on computers. All computers were destroyed by Mother Earth. Basically you would’ve had to store everything of importance inside a old fashioned bank safe.
So much for high tech.
In Japan, in order to cut back on the usage of electricity, many retail stores are cutting back on operating hours, and on lighting.
Japanese consumers have less time to shop, and in some stores, are shopping in the dark. Stores are keeping most of their lights turned off.
Consumers say they don’t mind, especially because they know it’s due to the triple whammy of disasters that have struck their country.
Even in the areas that are on the periphery of the natural disaster areas, in north east Honshu, trash collection has come to a near stand still.
Temporary trash dumps have been set up in parks and baseball fields.
The Japanese government has told people not to eat the vegetables, and not to drink the water, because of radiation contamination. At the same time they say “There is no immediate threat.”
What they mean by that is, that the levels, and types, of radiation contamination is such that you will not notice any bad effects “immediately”. However, if you continue to eat, drink, or expose yourself to even the lowest levels of contamination, over time you will suffer bad effects.
For example: Iodine-131 is a short life span radioactive isotope. It collects on your thyroid glands (just like iodide), and if it builds up will cause cancer. Even low levels of iodine-131 will build up on your thyroid if you keep eating, drinking, or exposing yourself to the contamination. This is why the Japanese government is telling people to stop eating the vegetables, and stop drinking the water, even though there is no “immediate” threat.
In other words, it’s still bad, bad, bad!
TEPCo said that Japan needs to prepare for rolling blackouts well into summer 2011.
The power shortage is a direct result of the nuclear disaster.
TEPCo is warning Japanese industries to make plans for the power shortage, such as reducing production.
Farnas Aerospace Company, and Iranian Aviation and Space Industries Association, have unveiled an unmanned flying saucer.
The spy flying saucer, called Zohal, is equipped with an auto-pilot system, GPS (Global Positioning System), two separate imaging systems with full HD 10 mega-pixel picture quality, and is able to take and send images simultaneously.