PHOTOS, PAGE 1

       Editor and prime reporter is Doug Terry, a veteran television and radio reporter in   Washington, DC, (details below)

HOLLYWOOD VERSUS JAPAN

Here’s one thought that has crossed my mind this past week in regard to Japan: okay, Hollywood, how are you going to top this? I mean no disrespect to the horrors that the people of Japan are suffering. What I am referring to is the collection of amazing videos coming out of Japan of the tsunami. Indeed, the pictures fill me with sadness even more than the amazement at seeing them, but still, being a frequent and long time movie watcher, I am left thinking about how the movies haven’t ever managed to show scenes like those coming out of Japan.

This, of course, is not entertainment. People are dying in those scenes, even if you can’t see them directly. When a house or building is washed away, most likely there are people inside who will be dead very quickly. Some of the buildings remained intact, so if the residents were in the upper floors at the time or rushed up there, they might have a chance. Maybe.

I watched a video tonight that showed first cars and then trucks, boats and buildings being washed away. Evidently, some people had enough warning about the tsunami to move to higher ground, because the camera panned over to show a group watching the events develop.

The power of water is amazing, too. For those who have forgotten high school science, water weighs 62.4 pounds per square ft. and when you get that force moving, it really tears things apart. It goes anywhere it wants until it meets a force, like a hill, that dissipates the energy of the forward movement and sends it backwards toward the sea (causing more destruction in the process).  A tsunami rips buildings moving in, then rips them again moving back out with the same force.

The ongoing nuclear mess seems like the end of nuclear electrical power forever. It is not just one thing after another, it is disaster piled on disaster. Of course, the nuclear energy industry will come up with new solutions and different plant designs and then tell us that everything will just be fine. If one is paying attention, however, to the cascade of problems hitting the nuclear power plants in Japan, then it is impossible to ever think about such installations the same ever again. These disasters are exactly what opponents of nuclear power have been warning us about for the last 30 to 40 years: one thing gets set in motion and it escalates into disaster. No matter how hard you try, you can’t stop it.

It will take a long time to assess the scope of the nuclear disaster in Japan after it is over. Some countries have, even now, shutdown power plants of similar design while they assess their next move. Hey, wind power is looking pretty good at the moment, isn’t it? So are other alternatives, like solar. It was said a long time ago that staging a “managed” nuclear reaction was a pretty dumb way to get electricity to fry eggs or boil water.. Right now, that looks like a smart statement.

I work in technology on a regular basis. Science and complex systems interest me greatly, but I am not enamored of the idea of technology for its own sake. It seems to me we should ask ourselves occasionally if there is a simpler, less complicated way of getting something done. That certainly applies to nuclear power. This week, nuclear is going from being one of the top alternatives for electrical generation to being a big, big question mark. Anyone who says differently isn’t considering the whole picture, which includes the safety of the public when things go wrong.

Doug Terry, 3.15.11

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