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The French core cooling water radioisotope removal system has proved inadequate because of entrained radioactive particulate loading, I hear. The French system appears to be a straightforward high temperature ion exchange resin system.

One could add a depth filtration step to remove particulates. Borosilicate glass fiber filling comes to mind.

One problem with filtration and ion exchange is that regeneration of resin releases the trapped radioisotopes into the environment so the filter and ion exchange components must be replaced after one use and treated as, in the Fukushima case, high level radwaste. A very expensive proposition.

A distillation process would be more practical in terms of cost but I don’t believe such a system is available in the practical sense at this time. There is a lot of radwaste in the Fukushima reactor systems, in the order of
exabecquerels (one followed by 18 zeros nuclear decays per second).

I see posts from folks much more qualified than I on your Fukushima posts. Perhaps they would care to enlarge on my comments (which I consider uninformed).

Not unlikely. Indeed the situation is fragile.

Bipolar people generally have periods, which unfortunately can last their lifetimes, where they have a “chainsaw personality”. Sort of a “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” perpetrator personality where maximum hurt is intended and delivered. This is related to the “dysphoric mania” idea, when the sufferer is manic, alert and active and filled with rage and depressed at the same time. Theis very unhappy person generally is only interested in sharing the pain, with interest.

The use of recreational drugs and alcohol in any amount whatever hasten the progression of the disorder; unfortunately, alcohol will, in their younger days, cause a shift from dark depression to “euphoric”,”happy” mania or hypomania, so bipolars tend to “self-medicate” with alcohol, marijuana, etc., resulting in their disorder getting worse more quickly. The more alcohol and drugs are used the faster the downhill slide. You end up with a person with advanced bipolar disorder who is also an alcoholic.

I rather think Kim Il Sung and Jong Il were/are bipolar themselves. The elder Kim’s daughter is, and the younger Kim’s sister. The disorder runs in families.

Some experts think a large portion of the world’s population are bipolar - I have seen one in seven mentioned. If they stay away from drugs and alcohol they can do OK. Goering, Hitler, and Stalin did not.

Not all bipolars turn into monsters. Winston Churchill comes to mind, and he drank heavily.

Bipolars who abstain from alcohol and drugs can function fairly well for many years but tend to have a very dark view of human nature. This showed up as an intense realism in Churchill’s case. Less honorable men end up like the Glorious Leader and his son.

The disorder tends to progress with age until not uncommonly all they want to do is hurt people unless they are simply too depressed to care at all (not uncommon). The disorder is readily treated nowadays with mood stabilizers and other psychotropic drugs combined with absolutely no alcohol or recreational drugs.

From your post:
“...Kyong-hui was widely known to have suffered from severe alcohol addiction and depression.”

This sounds very much like someone suffering from bipolar disorder who has self medicated with alcohol over the years. Depression becomes unbearable in the 50’s and 60’s as alcohol becomes insufficient to trigger a “happy” mood swing. Manias and hypomanias become “dysphoric” instead of euphoric.

And, of course, bipolar disorder runs in families.

Depression and black rage becomes the norm and suicide the only out.

I think I am correct in this evaluation. I wish I thought otherwise. Such people are very, very far from rational. They are tired of living and not much afraid of dying.

I have some personal information on US nuclear weapons in Korea during the 1970's. The trigger was nearly pulled on at least several occasions. In South Korea's shoes, with Obama having Permissive Action Link control of all US warheads, I would most affirmatively get my own serious level nuclear weapon and delivery systems on line as soon as possible.

You think Obama would pull the trigger if the North invades? Hah. Give me a break.

Always interesting in Uigerland. China’s darkest dream is a modern military invasion out West to “free” the Uigers simultaneously combined with naval action along the seacoast.

Remember that MacArthur was relieved for planning an amphibious landing just a few miles from Tianjin after China came into the War on the side of North Korea. It would have worked like a champ.

Reports from China come in dribs and drabs about Chinese casualties in Kim il Sung’s War. Well north of a million dead, at an estimate.

Tiger, you have your links all pointing to the same url. Would like to read them, thanks.

Indeed.

I don’t expect that the PRK army generals are much impressed with Jong-eun. To say the least. If not Jong-eun, then whom? The doddering Pyong-il? If him, then whom afterward?

Jong-eun fancies that he has a subtle mind. His upbringing is unlikely to have made him aware of his own limitations. The Generals don’t want a North Korean Caligula.

Be some bloodshed after Jong-il is gone.

Lots of oil under those waters. East Asia continental shelf is huge and filled with good drilling prospects.

Viet Nam and China have a long running war going back before 100 BC. I find the two cultures quite distinct linguistically though I am no expert. The peoples are also morphologically different.

One in 320,000 with scrips off, one in 1.598 Million (unique) with scrips enabled for the Panopticlick site only. Panopticlick kept feeding me suspicious scripts, the latest Java release was going wild with detections.

You have good taste. Sutherland and Sills were great voices.

Your images remind me of a nameless ROK Marine Sargent from my Viet Nam days. I learned much from that man. What I learned from him is a big part of why I am still alive.

He was a fellow with great leadership ability. His platoon of mostly draftees was very fortunate to have him (although I am sure they didn't hold him in the esteem he deserved.)

A very scary dude.

Perhaps my nameless ROK Marine Sargent is at the root of my respect for Koreans. He even had a minute to spare for an idiot American GI.

Operating inside North Korea is obviously mind shatteringly dangerous and difficult. Some guys seem to thrive on pressure like that, others become, shall we say, “unreliable” or “loose cannons”.

I prefer to give Mr. Jeong the benefit of the doubt. I wish him a peaceful retirement and long life; he has earned both.

This is just “normal” Japanese “groupthink”. Normal Japanese mass hysteria. Could be some sort of mental defect caused by massive inbreeding. They suffer from severe herding behavior.

Japanese actions during the Pacific War, when looked at through this lens, make perfect sense. Made times very tough for many decades for many, many people (Koreans especially, Chinese too, of course.)

Remember Japan well though I haven’t been there in forty years. Excellent place to learn about human nature, though such understanding puts you “on the outside looking in” in any society you live amongst. Humans are not at their best in crowds, and nothing special when not. “Less than angels but more than animals”? I can’t agree with the second part.

I pointed this out in an earlier post on one of your threads. The emergency cooling heat exchanger could not be put on line right after the quake and had to be taken off line after ten minutes, long before the arrival of the tsunami. Almost certainly this was caused by mechanical damage inside the primary containment.

It is necessary to build reactors to survive a magnitude 11 quake without damage. Better would be to design for a magnitude 12 event.

No reactors in the world are built to such specifications.

Good example of Mao’s dealings with those he considered rivals or potential rivals.

Gao was the Shaanxi Soviet honcho as I recall. One of the sentimental Marxist-Leninist types, totally out of their depths with the true master of Power.

Interesting.

The radiocaesium will migrate rapidly downward with rainwater, etc. The rainy season has started in Japan, and probably the surface radioactivity will be much lower on average later this year.

The usual radiocaesium remediation is removing an adequate layer of topsoil I understand.

Caesium being so water soluble and forming strongly positively charged ions I would expect you could mix the topsoil thoroughly with water and separate the caesium from the water with hydrogen ion exchange. A big messy job.

Once you had a reasonably dry concentrate I expect it would form a stable portland cement concrete containment. Keep it dry for a few hundred years....

Excellent analysis. Very much in tune with my understanding of Chinese politics - policy - diplomacy. “The more things change the more things stay the same”, as Sun Tzu might have put it.

Very interesting about the Shanghai Gang. I keep half an eye on them. They are certainly the key to Kim Jong-un’s staying in power. So the Kims do the Grand Kowtow.

The Kims are classic paranoids, but is it really paranoia if they are really out to get you? Heh.

The Southerners still resent the Northern barbarians conquest ending the Song Dynasty. I think this is the key to understanding Chinese politics. Mao was a pure Southerner, and boy did he resent the Northerners trying to boss him around. Whew. Never forgave, never forgot, for sure.

Just amazing that Zhou Enlai (a northerner)was able to stay alive. Mao sure kept him on a short leash. One smart and cagy cookie was Mr. Zhou.

It is conceptually easy to contemplate mass evacuation of 70,000 people but a big decision politically. This problem was sort of in the middle of “have to address now” and “let’s kick the can down the road”. The Japanese were looking for more consensus, as usual.

It’s a big job doing a real radiological survey over such an area. My own point of view is that where you have several million becquerels per square meter of caesium 134 and 137 you should evacuate everyone under 30 or 40 years of age until you can fence off areas contaminated at about 200,000 becquerels per square meter or more. 20 millisieverts per year won’t hurt anyone who knows what they are doing. For instance, don’t eat the dirt. Wear a dust mask. Keep your skin clean. Don’t eat food grown in the area. It is OK to feed animals contaminated food and eat them but don’t eat anything but muscle and maybe fat. This should be fine but should be monitored as needed.

My guess, leaving fully competent opinion for others, is that the earthquake mechanically damaged the reactor core.

I just can’t see an alternative with the cooling condenser being shut off due to massive containment pressure changes ten minutes after the neutron absorbing shutoff rods were inserted. If the core were undamaged the shutdown process would have proceeded at that point in time as it had in previous emergency shutdown safety drills, that is, “normally”. It is as if the core fuel element tubes had changed their effective surface area and/or separation distance, or that the neutron flux absorber rods did not insert properly.

One hopes someone with more background than I will satisfy my curiosity -