edit: changed title from ‘False Fukushima Fears’ to ‘Exaggerated Fukushima Fears’, sacrificing my lovely alliteration as others have pointed out that it would be too much to say that the fears of radiation leakages are unfounded, but merely to say that this is the least bad option given previous precedent as cynesthesia has pointed out.
Image is of the large array of water storage tanks holding the tritium-contaminated water.
This week’s preamble is very kindly provided by our beautiful poster @[email protected], with some light editing. In periods where not much of earth-shattering importance is happening in the news, I hope to do this more often!
In 2011, the Fukushima nuclear incident occurred. Since then, water has been used to cool radioactive waste and debris, which contaminates the water with radioactive isotopes. Currently, TEPCO, the Japanese energy company that is reponsible to Fukushima, is storing about 1.3 million m3 of contaminated water (equivalent to about 500 Olympic swimming pools for our American friends) in about 1000 tanks. Approximately 100,000 m3 of contaminated cooling water is generated per year to this day. TEPCO doesn’t want to store escalating volumes of nuclear waste for decades until half-lives are spent. This would mean adding substantial storage capacity every year at increased cost and risk of tank spills.
The contaminated water includes heavier isotopes like caesium as well as hydrogen’s isotope, tritum. Caesium is a big atom at 137 molar mass (we love our tremendous atoms, folks) while tritium is heavy hydrogen and has only a molar mass of 3 (pathetic, low energy). The TEPCO people are using water treatment to remove heavy isotopes from water, but not tritium. The large adult isotopes are easy to remove with treatment but tritium is incorporated into water, so it blends in with the others. The treated Fukushima water contains low levels of the big isotopes but still contains tritium.
Isotopes release radiation that damages the body’s cells. The longer an individual molecule containing an isotope is in a body, the more likely it is that the isotope will go BRAZAP and release radiation that fucks up the cells. Bioaccumulation is a toxicology term for how certain contaminants can accumulate in the food cycle. For example, algae eat contaminants, then the algae is eaten by bugs, then bugs by fish, then fish by people. Isotopes that are bioaccumulative like our large adult son caesium are more hazardous. Tritium is not bioaccumulative because it is effectively part of water. Water cycles through bodies quickly - that’s why you sweat and pee and get thirsty. 
Fukushima water would be treated and then then mixed with seawater at a ratio of 1:800 before it is pumped 1km offshore. Each year approximately 166,000 m3 of treated water will be released, which will draw down the volume of contaminated water being stored over a few decades. Real-time stats associated with the release are found here. At the point of discharge, water contains about 207 Bq/L of radioactivity, about 16 times greater than the 10-15 Bq/L background level in the ocean overall. Drinking water guidelines for tritium radioactivity range from 1,000-10,000 Bq/L, if one were to drink seawater.
In wastewater treatment terms, this is a small amount of dilution in a very large body of water. It is unlikely to have any measurable impact per the terms of Western science. In the context of mother nature taking yet another one for the team and environmental distress, this sucks. In the context of making the best of a shitty situation, the Fukushima water release is peanuts compared to the many other environmental liabilities that are not addressed. For example, the Hanford Site is an example of a nuclear wastewater storage facility gone/going wrong in Oregon.
Ending note by 72: By far the biggest impact of the release of this water won’t be its direct effects, but those on commerce and international relations. Almost half of Japanese aquatic exports go to China, comprising 8% of all Japanese firms shipping goods to China, and they have now been cut off due to their anger at Japan. Perhaps this reaction and the cancellation of imports was inevitable, as nuclear power and radiation in general is a poorly understood, frightening, and thus easily exploitable topic in every country. China is not the first country to use a misunderstanding of radiation risk to try and achieve a goal - Germany seems very pleased with itself - and they will not be the last.
In all: it is unequivocal that China is massively exaggerating the risks of this water’s release. However, the bellicose rhetoric and actions of Japan, South Korea, and America are a much greater danger to the region, and none of the three seem to be in any hurry to try diplomacy instead of increasing military budgets and gearing up for war.
It’s that time again - every two months I give myself a week off, to rest and recalibrate. Your regularly scheduled programming will resume next week.
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
Links and Stuff
The bulletins site is down.
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can.
Resources For Understanding The War
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Telegram Channels
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Last week’s discussion post.
To celebrate one year of Joe Bidens America blowing up it’s allies infrastructure and getting away with it virtually clean, I demand awarding a month-long maximum ultra cuck status to Olaf Scholz in the Chad-cuck rankings.
It’s so baffling living in Germany, I’m still weirded out how nobody is even talking about it. “uhm yeah, that happened, was probably Russia, nevermind we didn’t need it anyway…”
NAFOs malding that Russia… built a school.
I felt sick to my stomach after listening to the school principal brag about the school providing additional education and some new incredible activity clubs that Mariupol didn’t have before for free.
Yeah, how horrible of them. That’s absolutely evil!
What the heck does it even means? Additional endogcrination?
endogcrination
The $&@# build a school on top of the building they destroyed!
Because they’re just supposed to leave an empty lot there?
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The guys who had the contract to run garbage trucks in Kherson for years are in trouble. For running garbage trucks in Kherson during Russia’s presence there. Apparently the Kiev regime would rather have it that the citizens of Kherson lived in filthy and unsanitary conditions than allow Russia to rule a city with basic sanitation.
Municipal management is now genocide and is just as bad, if not worse, than the holocaust. Idk what the Jews and Russians are complaining about (/s hopefully obviously, but I’ve seen libs say whatever is happening in Xinjiang is worse than the holocaust and we’re just standing by and letting it happen)
endogcrination
endogcrination
all these dogs need to be euthanised
I’m more of a cat guy but all it takes is a nice dog to endogcrinate me and I’ll scratch their ears for as long as they want
Top reply
The lenin of the 1930s who forced collectives on Ukraine farming and took the grain ; starving to poverty and often death in Ukraine . Lenin avenue . What will the kids learn at this school about history .
Ukraine Bros sure know history
lenin of the 1930s
I fucking wish Lenin had lived into the 1930s…
One of first things i sae in the comments was a nafo-brained loser seeing a woman in a dress and going “WHO IS THIS WICKED HARLOT???”
But enough about Ukraine, here’s the real important news:
‘Conserve food and water’: No access in or out of Burning Man after storm
Burning Man conditions are bordering on disaster with over 70,000 people trapped and sheltering-in-place after rains turned the playa into an undrivable mud pit.
I don’t know why, but i keep having conversations with people that turn to the ukraine conflict. I guess it’s because i have a reputation for knowing what’s going on around the world (largely thanks to you beautiful folks
). But it’s incredible the amount of ignorance people have about history, geography, and political realities. I guess i can’t blame them, as they likely have other, more serious concerns than reading a dozen books or staring at an rss feed, but man, i love the news crew. You guys keep me informed and on top of things, and the more i read, the more i feel i can give opinions on things.Also, i ran into an actual nafo guy at work, and when he brought up the ukraine conflict, i didn’t want to stay and debate him, so i just told him that Galicia belongs to the poles and left.
US caught straight lying or someone else caught playing both sides and getting burned as a result? Both are possible.
Indonesia rubbishes Pentagon’s ‘joint statement’ on China and Russia
“There is no joint statement and no press conference. What is important for me to underline is that our relationship with China is very good. We respect each other, we already have mutual understanding. I conveyed that in the US,” he said, adding “We are close friends with China, we respect America, and we seek friendship with Russia.”
A hexbear user tries to escape life in the European Union. Colorized, circa 2023
Here’s something to yell at your local liberal to give them brainworm whiplash:
“Lvov belongs to Poland. It only became part of Ukraine after red fash Stalin invaded Poland with his best friend Hitler. Why do you support Soviet imperialism?”
Liberals will bitch and cry about the Soviets invading Poland and in the same sentence spout their Ukrainian revanchist Nazi talking points
Oped by a ukrainian communist about the degradation of working conditions/state capacity in ukraine. This is describing a failed state in every aspect except military enforcement of the states existence
Imagining chuds buying Tequila just to pour it out to own Mexico if we do invade
Anheuser-Busch owns Grupo Modelo so we’d probably have some fun Bud Light/Modelo/Corona/Pacifico crossover stuff too
They don’t have rights to sell Modelo in the US for some reason.
Anhueser-Busch backs a successful coup to end the war in a bid to protect its breweries. Drinking age is reduced in an effort to firmly secure its future market share, and an Anhueser-Busch beer monopoly is established via government contract on newly nationalized college campuses.
Seeing the US get a taste of the way they have treated LATAM for the past 200 years would be oh so poetic
I like that this thread and the other megathread don’t seem to get much traffic from other instances. It’s refreshing to come in here and read conversations about world news without having to argue with random libs
I actually don’t think I’ve ever seen a post from a non-hexbear user in these threads, it’s kinda weird
Really? They’re rare but seems to be at least one a day. Got one from programming.dev just a few hours ago https://hexbear.net/comment/3867997
And it was a based take even! oo la la
Yeah the federated users that end up commenting in here are always on the reasonable end of the geopolitics understander scale, somehow the newsmega is a fantastic lib filter.
oi that’s me you’re talking about
The megas are the only threads with hundreds of comments where I don’t have a sense of foreboding before I click on them
I think pinned threads don’t show up in all, so people from other instances have to actively seek the mega out
lucky, I had to just last night
It’s also so funny to me. There’s so many dumbass libs that wanna “debate” current events, but somehow they never go where that discussion is happening. It’s like they know they’re uninformed
Just so you know, the news mega is behind three layers of defensive lines, and if the libs somehow miraculously broke through all of them and overran the rest of the site, this is where we have all agreed to retreat to and make our last stand… this is our Stalingrad if worst comes to worst.
Ancap candidate, and likely future president of Argentina said: “A Company can pollute a river as much as they want”.
He left us with another glorious quotes such as “Where is the damage? Where is the problem? That, in reality, speaks about a society that has an over abundance of water”, “The problem lays in the fact that there is no private property over water, when there is a lack of water, someone will see a business opportunity there and will claim property rights over it. You will then see how the pollution problem will be fixed”.
Eternal suffering to all fascists and market fundamentalists. May Destiny be merciful with our people, because I am are sure capitalists wont be.
Anyone else finished the new season of Blowback? Gotta say it really affected my outlook on China and its domestic extremism problem. Definitely more of a fuck around/find out vibe given that they also helped train fundamentalists in the country next door. Such an unnecessary self-own. I’m gonna need to stew on this for a while but I’m curious if anyone else noticed this/had thoughts.
My dad and I are probably the only two people in my state who care about the coups in Africa and the war in Ukraine. It literally seems like everyone else in America does not know or does not care.
We leftists might think we seem weird to others for being so heavily invested, but honestly just think how weird the Slava Ukraina libs look and sound like to the average American
I have been trying to compile from Western mainstream press coverage about the events leading up to Maidan as well as the post-Maidan Minsk agreements, and I am starting to think I might lose my sanity just doing this.
Here’s a recurring pattern in how the presses cover the events:
Russia, trying to adhere to the “proper rules” by engaging in the agreed Normandy Format (even though clearly for their own selfish national interests): “Putin clearly has secret imperialist ambitions to restore the Tsarist Soviet Empire, sure he still showed up to all the meetings and performed his due responsibilities, but we have to be very suspicious of the ulterior motives behind Putin agreeing with moving forward the peace agreements.”
Ukraine, not even bothering to implement Minsk citing “Russia just gives me bad vibes”: “You are so right, Ukraine is right not to trust Russia’s motivations behind Minsk. Russia gives out too much bad vibes, and there is nothing wrong at all with Ukraine not adhering to the international agreements that they themselves have signed.”
And I thought vibes-based politics only exist on the internet.
Belarus claims Poland violated its airspace. Probably won’t cause anything, but it sure is fun having potentially WW3 starting events every couple months.
Airspace violations is like the table salt of saber rattling. Gonna take a lot more than that to start WW3
I threw a paper plane in Fujian and violated Taiwan’s air space
“Taiwan shoots down International Space Station, claims ‘invasion of airspace.’”
Exclusive: U.S. to send its first depleted uranium rounds to Ukraine -sources
I have mentioned this before, but as a reminder: the primary danger of Depleted Uranium (DU) ammunition is not radioactivity. Rather, it is the toxic dust particles that form when the round hits a vehicle or building. Anyone who enters such an enclosed area contaminated with DU particles is at risk of serious health consequences if they breathe them in. Drinking water contaminated with DU is also dangerous. Those dust particles will essentially never go away on their own, since the half life of DU is over 4 billion years.
Objectively, the people of Ukraine will have been much better off if Boris Johnson never threatened / talked to Zelensky and had them reject making peace with Russia. They’ll still lose all the same territory if not more, and what remains of Ukraine will be left in far worse condition.
Firing DU rounds creates toxic gas, so
is even poisoning our brave slava ukrainiesThe “let’s poison Ukraine… For Ukraine”
This war helps neither Ukraine nor Russia.
Think, Kharkov, think. What will you still have after 500 years?
I’ll still have you, DU rounds
