Tag Archives: labor

Business/Economics, Fukushima, Technology

Effects of parts shortage in Japan will hit United States hard in April, the Dominoes are falling

“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!

Fukushima

Now 3 reactor turbine rooms filling with radioactive water, attempt to hook up single power source failed

NHK reporting that turbine rooms for reactors 1, 2 and 3 are flooding with radioactive water.

TEPCo now says they will have to try to hook up separate power sources to each reactor. The single power source they’ve been trying to hook up isn’t working out. They are waiting for new generators.

TEPCo now asking for Boric Acid. I’m wondering what happened to the Boric Acid that was sent from California’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, via the USAF.

TEPCo will switch to fresh water to cool spent fuel rod pools, on March 29.  Sea water is still being used.

TEPCo trying to pump water from turbine room condensers into storage tanks. When that is done they can pump the deadly water in the basements of the reactors into the condensers.

Fukushima

Bill Nye is right, Tokyo Electric now checking for Plutonium! NOW?

TEPCo has asked another company to check soil samples for plutonium. Plutonium is created when the uranium fuel rods are “jolted” during the fission process.  If reactor cores are breached, which many “experts” now believe, then plutonium should be detected outside the reactors.

Plutonium is bad. Depending on the type of plutonium isotope, the half life can range from 14 years to 80 million years!

As Bill Nye said in a CNN interview last week, all they can do now is dump concrete on the reactors.

Here’s more proof that corporations are idiots: TEPCo has not been able to detect plutonium, so they are contracting with another company to do the test.  The test will take several days, according to Japanese media reports.  Several days? When your dealing with plutonium you need to know yesterday!

TEPCo now says it will check soil twice a week for plutonium. NOW?  Why not from the beginning of the disaster you idiots! Plutonium is present in spent fuel rods, and three of the spent fuel pools blew up, remember?  That means plutonium was spread all over during the first week!

Fukushima, Technology

Panasonic shipping batteries INTO Japan

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.

Fukushima, Technology

Local governments in Japan lost all documentation in Tsunami, computers no help

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.

Fukushima, Technology

Retail stores cutting back on power, shoppers in the dark

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.

International

No more Daylight savings for Russia

“the need to adapt [to the time change] is connected with stress and illnesses.”-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev

This spring is the last time Russia will change its clocks. Come October they’ll be no daylight savings to deal with. In 1981 the Soviet Union started a daylight savings program. Russia continued the program, but more and more health studies, in Russia, are pointing to daylight savings as a cause of stress. Other scientists question those studies.

That fact is that, even here in the United States, a lot of people hate daylight savings.

In the U.S. the idea of daylight savings has been around since Benjamin Franklin. Since 1916 many countries have been experimenting with it.  And many of them think it’s time to get rid of it.

Fukushima

Video of Liquefaction in Action near Tokyo Disneyland, found the video on Youtube

I found the home video of liquefaction near Tokyo Disneyland, in Chiba Prefecture, on YouTube.

The two minute 39 second video shows sidewalks splitting, length wise, then moving in opposite directions. Water then begins to surge up from under the sidewalks and streets.  The person doing the videography starts running as more water comes up everywhere, even asphalt streets start to split.

People are down on the ground, screaming.  Keep in mind that Chiba Prefecture is between 137 and 200 miles from the where the 9.0 quake hit.

Tokyo Disneyland is still closed, after suffering damage from liquefaction.

 

Fukushima, International

Official Tsunami evacuation point was Death Trap, warnings were made

In an area of Sendai city, in north east Honshu, Japan, there are survivors who are glad they refused to go to the official tsunami evacuation point, an elementary school.  They are alive, but most of the people at the elementary school are not.

Based on computer modeling, disaster officials designated the elementary school as safe from tsunami.  The computer model said tsunamis would not reach so far inland, so the school was safe.  One survivor said he never understood that because the school is near sea level, he ran to a road that was much higher than the school, and survived. He says the tsunami went over the school’s second floor, people were inside.

A scientist, named Otomo (? think that’s his name), has been warning people for at least a year about the faulty claims by disaster officials.  Otomo uses geologic evidence, which shows that tsunamis did indeed reach far inland, past the school.  Officials ignored Otomo’s warnings.

This is an example of high tech ignorance, and arrogance.