Interesting Links for 09-12-2013

[andrewducker]

• Dammit - I want the Technomancer Digital Wizard Hoodie. And to be 12 again.
  (tags: technology clothing awesome )
• Why Life Does Not Really Exist
  (tags: life science meaning complexity )
• Some fascinating writing on interrogation
  (tags: interrogation )
• I have no idea what you're supposed to do if your child is a psychopath (warning: All the trigger

Comments

[nojay]

TEPCO generate and supply about 40% of Japan's electricity, especially to Tokyo and environs. With the loss of about 15GW of nuclear capacity they're desperately trying to fill the gaps to keep the lights on, factories running and all the other things expected of a top-rank first-world nation that depend on electricity (water treatment, sewage, trains, street lighting, elevators and escalators in a visibly-greying nation etc.)

Without the nukes they can only burn fossil fuel faster to meet the demand, and some of their fossil stations are older mothballed plants that were only held in reserve for just such a calamity. The Hirono project, for example, was needed to upgrade and replace a lot of 1970s-era coal-burning tech but it brings another 600MW of "clean coal" generating capacity online. The dash for coal is because it's a lot cheaper than gas at the moment due to a collapse in the price worldwide caused by everybody switching from toxic coal to less-polluting gas. Japan can't afford the luxury of only burning gas, hell TEPCO even burn some fuel oil and crude oil... figures from the TEPCO website say they burned 264 million litres of fuel oil and 96 million litres of crude oil in the month of November this year.

As for government oversight TEPCO is pretty much run by the Japanese government these days at both the boardroom level and on the ground. Given the peculiarities of the political system in Japan that's not saying much in terms of ability or competence...