This study draws lessons regarding technological countermeasures to radioactive contamination caused by the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant accident. It focuses on contamination measurement, ...efforts to limit dispersal, decontamination, and storage of radioactive materials. The report analyzes technological successes and identifies capability gaps that could be redressed through novel technologies or improved use of existing technologies.
This book—the culmination of a truly collaborative international and highly interdisciplinary effort—brings together Japanese and American political scientists, nuclear engineers, historians, and ...physicists to examine the Fukushima accident from a new and broad perspective. It explains the complex interactions between nuclear safety risks (the causes and consequences of accidents) and nuclear security risks (the causes and consequences of sabotage or terrorist attacks), exposing the possible vulnerabilities all countries may have if they fail to learn from this accident. The book further analyzes the lessons of Fukushima in comparative perspective, focusing on the politics of safety and emergency preparedness. It first compares the different policies and procedures adopted by various nuclear facilities in Japan and then discusses the lessons learned—and not learned—after major nuclear accidents and incidents in other countries in the past. The book's editors conclude that learning lessons across nations has proven to be very difficult, and they propose new policies to improve global learning after nuclear accidents or attacks.
Revolution in Rojava Knapp, Michael; Flach, Anja; Ayboga, Ercan
10/2016, Letnik:
57734
eBook
A new kind of society is being built in Syria, but it’s not one you would expect. Surrounded by deadly bands of ISIS and hostile Turkish forces, the people living in Syria’s Rojava cantons are ...carving out one of the most radically progressive societies on the planet today. Western visitors have been astounded by the success of their project, a communally organised democracy which considers women’s equality indispensable and rejects reactionary nationalist ideology whilst being fiercely anti-capitalist. The people of Rojava call their new system democratic confederalism. An implementation of the recent ideology of the imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan, it boasts gender quotas of 40 percent, bottom-up democratic structures, deep-reaching ecological policies and a militancy which is keeping ISIS from the gates. Revolution in Rojava is the first full-length study of this ongoing social and political transformation in Syrian Kurdistan. It is the first authentic insight into the complex dimensions of the revolution. Its authors use their own experiences of working and fighting in the region to construct a picture of hope for Middle-Eastern politics and society, and reveal an extraordinary story of a battle against the odds.
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident has had an impact on the development of nuclear power around the world. While the accident was followed by thorough technical assessments of the ...safety of all operating nuclear power plants, and a general increase in safety requirements has been observed worldwide, national policy responses have been more varied. These responses have ranged from countries phasing out or accelerating decisions to phase out nuclear energy to countries reducing their reliance on nuclear power or on the contrary continuing to pursue or expand their nuclear power programmes.This study examines changes to policies, and plans and attempts to distinguish the impact of the Fukushima Daiichi accident from other factors that have affected policymaking in relation to nuclear energy, in particular electricity market economics, financing challenges and competition from other sources (gas, coal and renewables). It also examines changes over time to long-term, quantitative country projections, which reveal interesting trends on the possible role of nuclear energy in future energy systems.
The 2011 Mw 9 Tohoku‐Oki earthquake, recorded by over 1000 near‐field stations and multiple large‐aperture arrays, is by far the best recorded earthquake in the history of seismology and provides ...unique opportunities to address fundamental issues in earthquake source dynamics. Here we conduct a high resolution array analysis based on recordings from the USarray and the European network. The mutually consistent results from both arrays reveal rupture complexity with unprecedented resolution, involving phases of diverse rupture speed and intermittent high frequency bursts within slow speed phases, which suggests spatially heterogeneous material properties. The earthquake initially propagates down‐dip, with a slow initiation phase followed by sustained propagation at speeds of 3 km/s. The rupture then slows down to 1.5 km/s for 60 seconds. A rich sequence of bursts is generated along the down‐dip rim of this slow and roughly circular rupture front. Before the end of the slow phase an extremely fast rupture front detaches at about 5 km/s towards the North. Finally a rupture front propagates towards the south running at about 2.5 km/s for over 100 km. Key features of the rupture process are confirmed by the strong motion data recorded by K‐net and KIK‐net. The energetic high frequency radiation episodes within a slow rupture phase suggests a patchy image of the brittle‐ductile transition zone, composed of discrete brittle asperities within a ductile matrix. The high frequency is generated mainly at the down‐dip edge of the principal slip regions constrained by geodesy, suggesting a variation along dip of the mechanical properties of the mega thrust fault or their spatial heterogeneity that affects rise time.
Key Points
Low and high frequency earthquake slip can be spatially complementary
A single earthquake can involve a diversity of rupture styles
The deeper portions of a megathrust fault are rheologically heterogeneous
Turkey is on the front line of the war which is consuming Syria and the Middle East. Its role is complicated by the long-running conflict with the Kurds on the Syrian border - a war that has killed ...as many as 80,000 people over the last three decades. In 2011 President Erdogan promised to make a deal with the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party), but the talks marked a descent into assassinations, suicide bombings and the killing of civilians on both sides. The Kurdish peace process finally collapsed in 2014 with the spillover of the Syrian civil war. With ISIS moving through northern Iraq, Turkey has declared war on Western allies such as the Kurdish YPG (People's Protection Unit) - the military who rescued the Yezidis and fought with US backing in Kobane. Frontline Turkey shows how the Kurds' relationship with Turkey is at the very heart of the Middle Eastern crisis, and documents, through front-line reporting, how Erdogan's failure to bring peace is the key to understanding current events in Middle East.
The GPS/acoustic seafloor positioning has detected significant postseismic movements after the 2011 Tohoku‐Oki earthquake (M9.0), just above the source region off the Pacific coast of eastern Japan. ...In contrast to the coastal Global Navigation Satellite Systems sites where trenchward‐upward movements were reported, the offshore sites above the main rupture zone in the northern part of the source region exhibit landward displacements of tens of centimeters with significant subsidence from almost 3 years of repeated observations. At the sites above around the edge of the main rupture zone, smaller amount of trench‐normal movements was found. Although the terrestrial movements were reasonably interpreted by afterslip beneath the coastal area, these offshore results are rather consistent with effects predicted from viscoelastic relaxation in the upper mantle, providing definitive evidence of its occurrence. On the other hand, the results in the southern part of the source region imply superposition of effects from viscoelastic relaxation and afterslip.
Key Points
Postseismic seafloor movements after the Tohoku‐oki earthquake are detectedSeafloor above the main rupture zone moves landward, opposite to coastal areaLandward movements are dominantly affected by viscoelastic relaxation
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