Indonesia's big one 'on its way'

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/09/17/indonesia.quake/index.html

Indonesia's big one 'on its way'

Story Highlights
- Experts: 3 major quakes in past week increase chance of major disaster
- On the equator, Sumatra holds the deadliest stretch of ocean in the world
- Driven by the plate beneath the Indian Ocean, the entire coastline is flexing

By Hugh Riminton


PADANG, Indonesia (CNN) -- An international team of earthquake specialists says Indonesia faces another potential "giant" quake in the near future.

The scientists, including a team from the California Institute of Technology, says three major quakes in the last week have increased the likelihood of a major disaster.

<snip>

He has established a network of position-markers, linked by satellite, that show a constant creep, northeast, among the islands on Indonesia's Indian Ocean frontier. The first one was placed in August 2002.

The 30 measuring stations along Sumatra's western coast tell an ominous tale. Driven by the plate beneath the Indian Ocean, the entire coastline is flexing, as the earth literally bends. The pressures are already enormous, and at some point probably soon, they will become intolerable.

<snip>

Are they predicting double-digits?

may be pressing on tectonic plates increasing pressure incrementally and slowly.

but doubtful thats causing more/stronger earthquakes. The ocean is thousands of feet deep in most places. Sea level has risen comparatively little.

Toba is a weak point in the Earth's crust, right in the middle of all these massive earthquakes. The last time it went off, it caused an ice age and nearly drove mankind to extinction (paradoxically, this event may have been an evolutionary filtering event which created modern human society).

It would be a sad irony if human society were wiped out by the same volcano that hastened our development.

They apparently couldn't care less what a bunch of Western middle class brats think, especially of the type who couldn't care less about dangerous fossil fuel waste, dangerous fossil fuel terrorism or dangerous fossil fuel accidents.

For instance, there were acts of dangerous fossil fuel terrorism in Mexico last week. The anti-nuke contingent couldn't have cared less, and it was in Mexico. (Sometimes I think that you can't get into Greenpeace if you know where Mexico is on a map: Here's a hint: It's near New Mexico, and Texas, and Arizona, and California...so close they almost seem to touch.

The Gulf of Mexico is a place with a huge dead zone, caused by agricultural run-off from corn fields. Greenpeace knows all about corn. It's used to make ethanol.

For another instance, there was an earthquake in Japan a few months ago, and it shook a nuclear plant. You would have sworn up and down that all of Japan was wiped out by the nuclear plant from the level of stupid hysteria that surrounded the earthquake.

One hundred percent of the people who worked themselves up to a paroxysm of absolute hysteria on this subject have demonstrated time and time again that they couldn't care less about the people who died in the earthquake - zero of them from anything related to the nuclear power plant.

This set of reflexive anti-nukes said that the earthquake proved that nuclear power is unsafe, but made no such statement about buildings, even though 100% of the people who died in the earthquake were killed in buildings that were not nuclear power plants.

While the nuclear plant is shut, the Japanese are burning dangerous fossil fuels. There is not ONE anti-nuke who is worried about the deaths from the dangerous fossil fuel waste. Basically they couldn't care less.

In fact, if Indonesia ever builds a nuclear plant - and they will, because they couldn't care less about "renewables will save us" brats who think everyone on earth can afford $50,000 worth of solar equipment - and there is an earthquake in Indonesia, the usual anti-nukes will get hysterical about the nuclear plant, whether anyone is injured or not, and will, as usual, ignore the earthquake.

How does one get an anti-nuke to ignore earthquake fatalities? Build a nuclear plant where earthquakes occur.

Oh, and by the way. The IAEA went to the Japanese nuclear plants to inspect them. They found that the plants were far more robust than most of the other stuff in the area. There was no damage that put a single soul at risk, except of course, the people who will be killed by dangerous fossil fuel waste while the nuclear plant is repaired.

I note that Japan did not replace the lost power with really, really, really, really, really, really really cool solar and wind power revealed to mortal humanity by the Oracle as Walmart, whoops, I mean the Oracle at Snowmass.

I heard lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of stupid anti-nuke religious crap about how an IAEA inspection of something means that a disaster has taken place. The IAEA was right on Iraq, they are right on Iran, they are right on Indonesia, they are right on Nigeria, and they are right on Japan. You wouldn't know that from reading the Watchtower, whoops, I mean Greenpeace literature.

In fact, the IAEA has been going around the world inspecting stupid anti-nuke claims for quite some time. Mohamed El Baradei remains one of the strongest supporters of nuclear power there is.

ElBaradei has been very active in bringing nuclear power to Indonesia. It's a good thing too. The Indonesians need nuclear power.

Everybody does.

"{Indonesia} couldn't care less about 'renewables will save us' brats"

Actually, they care plenty. All this hoopla about biofuel has caused a surge in palm oil demand, leading to large swaths of prime rainforest being cleared on Borneo. Indonesia is cutting down their own forest to produce oil to feed the guilty conscience of Europe and the US. I imagine they're making quite a bit of money on this, so yeah, they do care.