ALSO BY WILLIAM T. VOLLMANN

You Bright and Risen Angels (1987)

The Rainbow Stories (1989)

The Ice-Shirt (1990)

Whores for Gloria (1991)

Thirteen Stories and Thirteen Epitaphs (1991)

An Afghanistan Picture Show (1992)

Fathers and Crows (1992)

Butterfly Stories (1993)

The Rifles (1994)

The Atlas (1996)

The Royal Family (2000)

Argall (2001)

Rising Up and Rising Down: Some Thoughts on Violence, Freedom and Urgent Means (2003)

Europe Central (2005)

Uncentering the Earth: Copernicus and the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (2006)

Poor People (2007)

Riding Toward Everywhere (2008)

Imperial (2009)

Imperial: A Book of Photographs (2009)

Kissing the Mask: Beauty, Understatement and Femininity in Japanese Noh Theater (2010)

The Book of Dolores (2013)

Last Stories and Other Stories (2014)

The Dying Grass (2015)

VIKING

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Copyright © 2018 by William T. Vollmann

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

“When the Wind Blows from the South” was first published in different form by Byliner in 2011.

“Harmful Rumors” first appeared in different form in Harper’s in 2015.

Maps and illustrations by the author

I will always remain grateful to Harper’s for helping to underwrite my documentary projects, on which I rarely break even.—WTV

ISBN 9780399563492 (hardcover)

ISBN 9780399563508 (ebook)

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers, Internet addresses, and other contact information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Version_1

Note to the Reader

Carbon Ideologies was envisaged as a single work. When the manuscript arrived, several times longer than its contractually stipulated maximum, my publisher asked me to cut it. But for some reason, I just didn’t want to. After anxious negotiations, Viking finally agreed to indulge me once more, and it was decided to break the book into two. (My gratitude is expressed in the acknowledgments section.)

This first volume, No Immediate Danger, contains a primer on global warming, and reportage about the wondrous effects of nuclear power in Japan. A subsequent volume, No Good Alternative, will deal equally cheerfully with coal, natural gas and oil.

As originally laid out, Carbon Ideologies ended with a section of definitions and conversions. What is the difference between a gamma ray and an alpha particle? How many gallons of Mexican crude oil would it take to do the work of a ton of bituminous Appalachian coal? Some of this information, particularly the items on heat, energy, efficiency and power, gets referenced throughout the whole work. Where then should it go? Viking and I decided to place it all at the end of the first volume, where it could find immediate use. To reduce expenses, it will not be reprinted at the end of the second volume.

The primer and the conversions section are both references. Anyone wishing to skip those can read between here and here.

Carbon Ideologies also contains about 129,000 words of source notes, citations and calculations. I am sorry to say that Viking could not justify the cost of printing these. Therefore, Carbon Ideologies will be the first of my books to contain a component which exists only in the electronic ether (see https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/carbonideologies). I will deposit a copy of that section in my archive at the Ohio State University.

All this renders the first volume particularly uninviting. It also makes that volume more practically useful, in exact proportion to its dreariness. Perhaps some unborn desperate generation will be helped by those pages in finally crafting a social code of thermodynamic work.

The title of Volume I was proposed by my editor, Mr. Paul Slovak. It refers to an official phrase often deployed by the Japanese authorities after the accident at Fukushima. I consider this an inspired title. The title for the second volume, No Good Alternative, was one of several that I proposed, and while the final result was not my first choice, it now rings aptly in my mind’s ear. Meanwhile, please let me reiterate that Carbon Ideologies is all one work.

WTV

Sacramento, April 2017

Near Dhaka, Bangladesh

A crime is something someone else commits.

John Steinbeck, 1961

Barcelona port facility

I dedicate this book to my daughter Lisa, who cannot live anywhere else but in our future.

Carbon Ideologies is a companion to Poor People and Rising Up and Rising Down, which I wrote some years ago. All three volumes use induction to generalize from subjective case studies into analytical categories of the phenomenon under investigation. Although I do take sides (against the ill-regulated abuses of energy, and not practically for anything), I strive not to judge individuals,* not even myself: Coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear power, haven’t I consumed them all?—Better an honest muddler than a carbon-powered hypocrite.

Contents: VOLUME I

Also by William T. Vollmann

Title Page

Copyright

Note to the Reader

Epigraph

Dedication

List of Maps and Illustrations

0. WHEN WE KEPT THE LIGHTS ON

—

About the “Primer” Section*

About Tables

About Photographs

—

PRIMER

What Was the Work For?

Power Wastage by Group-Driven Machine Tools, ca. 1945

About Waste

Power Wastage During Machining Operations at an Unspecified Toyota Factory, ca. 2000

Power Wastage by Devices in Standby Mode, 2000–2010

About Demand

What Was the Work For? (continued)

Ratios of Per Capita Power Consumption to Per Capita Gross Domestic Product

Comparative Energy Requirements, in multiples of 1 British Thermal Unit

About Power

Per Capita Power Consumption, ca. 1925 and ca. 2014, in multiples of the 1925 Japanese average

Comparative Power Requirements and Energy Usages, in multiples of what was needed per minute ca. 1975 to operate a plug-in vibrator

What Was the Work For? (continued)

Energy Required to Move an American Car One Mile, 1949 and 2010

Carbon Ideologies Approached

About Data

About Data Suppression

About Disbelief

“Consider It Good Fortune”

Carbon Dioxide Concentrations in Our Atmosphere, as Recorded at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, 1959 and 2004, in multiples of the 1959 value

Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Fuel Combustion, World and Selected Countries, 1971 and 2004, in multiples of the U.S. percentage increase over that period

Carbon Ideologies Defined

About Carbon

About Agriculture

The Three Most Dangerous Greenhouse Gases as of 2011, their percentage increases since 1750 and their percentages of total national emissions

About Industrial Chemicals

The Parable of Adipic Acid

About Manufacturing

Energy and Coal Requirements to Manufacture One Pound Each of the “Big Five” Materials, ca. 2013, in multiples of the energy needed for cement

About Transportation

The Three Most Dangerous Sectors of Human Activity, 2012–14

Maximum-Range Carbon Dioxide Emissions of Selected Aircraft, in multiples of the “Pampa” Argentine attack jet’s (2003)

About Power Plants

Innate Energies versus Actual Electric Power Generated: Oil, Coal and Natural Gas, in multiples of the energy loss for oil (U.S.A., 2014)

Comparative Power Efficiencies, in multiples of lowest gas-turbine efficiency as of 1957

Power and Climate

Power Generation’s Share of Greenhouse Gas Emissions for Selected Countries, 2007–14, in multiples of the 2012 European Union value

Primary Greenhouse Gas and Precursor Emissions from American Power Generation, 2014, in multiples of the value for nitrous oxide

About Solar Energy

Solar Energy En Route to Earth’s Surface, by seasonal angular alterations and by atmospheric absorption and refraction, ca. 1957, 1976

About Greenhouse Gases

Comparative Carbon Dioxide Emissions of Power Plants, 2014, in multiples of those released by natural gas facilities

Comparative One-Century Global Warming Potentials, in multiples of carbon dioxide’s

Comparative Responsibilities for Greenhouse Gas Emissions, 2007, in multiples of the figure for food production

About Fuels

Average Fuel Consumption in Moving One American Electric Light Rail Car One Mile, ca. 1979, in multiples of pounds of gasoline required

Carbon Dioxide Emissions of Common Fuels, in multiples of natural gas’s (2007)

Carbon Dioxide Emissions of Common Fuels, in multiples of lignite’s

Criticisms of Common Fuels, 1980–2012

Comparative Calorific Efficiencies, in multiples of the thermal energy of blast furnace gas

—

NUCLEAR

Nuclear Ideology

About Uranium

Calorific Efficiencies of Coal, Oil, Natural Gas, Uranium-235 and Plutonium-239, in multiples of the thermal energy of coal

About Nuclear Reactors

1. LOWER THAN FOR REAL ESTATE AGENTS

Comparative Measured Radiation Levels, 2014–15 (with Hiroshima readings from 2017), in multiples of lowest Sacramento interior reading

March 2011: When the Wind Blows from the South (Fukushima)

Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Fossil Fuels: Japan, U.S. and World, 1980 and 2011, in multiples of the 1980 Japanese value

February 2014: Harmful Rumors (Fukushima)

Relative Strontium-90 Concentrations in Perch Lake (Canada), 1963

October 2014, with a Hanford Excursion in August 2015: The Red Zones (Hanford, Washington; Fukushima)

Lowest and Highest Measured One-Minute Average Radioactivities in Selected Safe Cities, 2014–15

Concentrations of Radioactive Phosphorus at Hanford Nuclear Site, 1954–58

Other Concentration Factors at Hanford, 1954–58

Measured Radioactivities of Selected Drainpipes and Sewer Gratings, 2014–15

Comparative Average Radiation Levels, 2014, in multiples of the Sacramento average

Cesium Concentrations in Iitate Mushrooms, 2014

Cesium-137 Released in the World’s Two Worst Nuclear Disasters

How Radioactive Was It? or, Extracts from an Official Website

Normalization on the Rocks

Lowest and Highest Radiation Measurements in Selected Red Zone Cities, 2014

Their Standard Is as Arbitrary as Ours: Some allowable cesium concentrations in food, Ukraine and Japan

Postscript: Japan Sees the Light

Global Distribution of Nuclear Reactors in 2014, with added statistics

—

Definitions, Units and Conversions

Table 1: Commonly Mentioned Radiocontaminants in Fukushima

Table 2: Other Isotopes of Interest

Radioactivity of Selected Library Interiors, 2014–15

Dosimeter and Frisker Readings at Various Dental X-Ray Settings, 2015

Multiples of Outdoor Background Level at Dentist’s Office, 2015

Carbon Dioxide Emissions of Various Fuels When Producing 2013 American Winter Peak Electrical Load Capacity, in multiples of natural gas’s

Sources, Notes and Calculations

Acknowledgments

About the Author

For source notes to both volumes of Carbon Ideologies, please see: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/carbonideologies

List of Maps and Illustrations

MAPS

Fukushima Places Mentioned / here

Hanford Reach National Monument / here

ILLUSTRATIONS

Near Dhaka, Bangladesh / here

Barcelona port facility / here

0. When We Kept the Lights On

On display at the Kentucky Coal Mining Museum, 2015 / here

Transmission towers near Ruwais, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates / here

Glass facade, Sharjah / here

Primer

Retired derrick at Devon Oil and Gas Exploration Park, Oklahoma City / here

This Bangladeshi woman was harvesting corn and carrying it unassisted. Who would have begrudged her some electric help? / here

Commemoration of mobilized war workers, Hiroshima / here

Sales promotion, Dubai, United Arab Emirates / here

Petroleum mural in Cushing, Oklahoma / here

Pastry-making machine, Kyoto / here

Woman walking past the Flamingo substation, Las Vegas / here

The pleasures of electricity in Hiroshima: 1 / here

The pleasures of electricity in Hiroshima: 2 / here

Ammonium sulfate fertilizer, made by a famous petrochemical firm / here

Cauliflower vendor, Pakistan / here

Plastic items, Phillips Petroleum Company Museum, Oklahoma / here

The oil derrick and “horse head” on this sign near Cushing, Oklahoma, make vivid the fungibility of fossil fuels / here

Undies made in Thailand and sold in U.S.A. (82% nylon) / here

Steel wrenches in hardware store window, Sharjah Emirate, U.A.E. / here

Sharjah Corniche view / here

All five of the “big five”: paper cartons (enclosing plastic cups), with steel- and aluminum-containing cars and a two-tiered cementscape, in Poza Rica, Veracruz / here

All-aluminum shell of Sumida Hokusai Museum in Tokyo / here

Plastics in a supermarket, Kyoto / here

Paper fans for sale, Kyoto / here

View of Las Vegas freeway from my airplane seat / here

Model of coal-fired power plant, Kentucky Coal Mining Museum. The “smoke” is white cotton. / here

John E. Amos coal-fired power plant, Nitro, West Virginia / here

Refrigerators transported by dhow for sale, Dubai, U.A.E. / here

Awaiting fuel combustion in Kazakhstan / here

Nuclear

1. Lower Than for Real Estate Agents

Tepco’s infamous Plant No. 1 / here

When the Wind Blows from the South

A crossroads in Sendai / here

Self-Defense Forces soldier on corpse detail / here

Buddha in destroyed house / here

Members of the Hotsuki family in temporary housing / here

Mr. Utsumi Takehiro, Ishinomaki / here

Mr. Kawanami Shugoro / here

Mrs. Ito Yukiko / here

A neighbor of Mrs. Ito’s / here

Ishinomaki tsunamiscape / here

Dead fish by Mrs. Ito’s house / here

A temporary grave in Ishinomaki / here

Searching for bodies in Ishinomaki / here

Ishinomaki street / here

View of Kesennuma / here

Mr. Murakami Takuto, Oshima / here

Oshima. The topmost plate in the stack on the lowest shelf shows what level is. This china cabinet leaned alone in a field; the house was gone. / here

Searching for bodies in Oshima / here

Warning signs at the edge of the outer ring / here

Typical living quarters at Big Palette / here

Nuclear evacuees at Big Palette. These people arrived earlier, so they had more living space than was the rule (see previous photo). / here

Evacuees just outside Big Palette / here

Old man in the countryside near Tamura City / here

Inner ring checkpoint in Kawauchi / here

Recently abandoned house, Kawauchi / here

Across the river from the Fuel Hall in Hiroshima / here

Harmful Rumors

Black bags at the Northern Iwaki Rubbish Disposal Center / here

Black bags near Naraha; shadows of WTV and interpreter at lower left / here

Ruined pachinko parlor, Tomioka / here

Weeds and window, Tomioka / here

Nuclear checkpoint on Highway 6, Tomioka / here

Mr. Hamamatsu Koichi, Iwaki / here

Temporary housing near Hisanohama (north of Iwaki) / here

Ms. Kuwahara Akiyo, Tomioka Life Recovery Support Center, Iwaki / here

Decontamination “superior” and construction boss at a radioactive waste site near Iwaki / here

Snow-heaped entrance of abandoned home, Kawauchi / here

Kawauchi barbershop in April 2011 / here

The same in February 2014 / here

Central business district, Tomioka / here

Interior of garment shop, Tomioka / here

Dressmaker’s form and mannequin in garment shop, Tomioka / here

Across the street from the garment shop / here

Remains of Japan Rail station, Tomioka / here

Mr. Endo Kazuhiro in front of his former home, Tomioka / here

Frisking Mr. Endo’s daughter’s fishing rod / here

Hayama Shrine, Tomioka / here

Watching the anti-nuclear march, Iwaki / here

Anti-nuclear woman / here

Some of the marchers, with police escort / here

Tepco men watching the protesters present their demands / here

Shinjuku, Tokyo, 2014 / here

The Red Zones

Warning sign, Hanford, Washington / here

Typical air dose just off the Hanford Site: 0.001 micros a minute, or 0.06 micros an hour—the lowest reading the frisker could show. The building in this photo was downstream of the B Reactor. / here

Tom on the river / here

Frisking a bag of mostly dried Hanford mud / here

Frisking a grating in Tomioka / here

Red zone border marker in Tomioka. As you can see, the yellow zone’s air dose was 2.34 micros per hour. / here

Approaching the steps of White Bird Shrine, Iitate (3.14 micros) / here

Guard at entrance to Iitate red zone / here

The two shrine figures (3.08 micros) / here

A 21st-century crop on Mr. Shigihara Yoshitomo’s land / here

Portrait of Mr. Shigihara’s grandchildren (1.084 micros) / here

Mr. Shigihara in the parlor of his former home. He wears his dosimeter on a neck cord. / here

Frisking the hill with the ocean view (6.79 micros) / here

Mr. Yoshikawa Aki and Mr. Kojima living the dream in Tomioka. At this spot the radiation was a mere 0.5 micros per hour—less than 5 millis a year. / here

Weeds on highway at J Village / here

Deserted playground in Naraha / here

Black bags and half-built incinerators, Tomioka / here

A house in Tomioka, with pampas grass in foreground and background / here

Commencement of red zone. As the frisker shows, the air dose here in the yellow zone was 3.75 micros. To the immediate right of the warning sign, it was not significantly higher. In several other Tomioka locations the air dose rose within two or three steps after crossing into a red zone. / here

Tomioka street sign (1.054 micros) / here

Situation map at the Okuma Town office / here

“WELCOME TO OKHUMA” / here

A shop in the Okuma central business district / here

Central business district panorama / here

Mr. Tazawa Norio, former resident, dressed for the radioactive weather / here

Mr. Suzuki Hisatomo, one of the Okuma officials who guided me, affecting a more devil-may-care style with his coveralls / here

Frisking a tomb at Hen Jo Temple (7.00 micros) / here

The seashore at Okuma. Note the sheared-off crown of the pine tree. / here

Tsunami-wrecked Okuma house (7.40 micros) / here

Ruins and pampas grass by the fish hatchery / here

A grating by the hatchery, measured at 18.03 micros / here

My highest measurement in Japan (41.5 micros), with a fine view of my sad shoe covers / here

Plant No. 1, Reactors No. 1, 2 and 3 / here

Reactors No. 3 and 4 / here

Decontaminating the interpreter, who has already removed her protective suit / here

Tomioka: Afternoon rush at the Night Pub Sepia / here

The hole in the foliage, with the frisker going up from 2 to 7 micros / here

Central business district, Tomioka / here

Rorikon (“Lolita complex”) girls in Electric City, Tokyo / here

Definitions, Units and Conversions

Facade of Watt Electricals, Dubai, U.A.E. / here

0

When We Kept the Lights On

We all have in us the ghosts of long-vanished things, of fallen cities and marvelous machines.

Gene Wolfe, 1982

1

Someday, perhaps not long from now, the inhabitants of a hotter, more dangerous and biologically diminished planet than the one on which I lived may wonder what you and I were thinking, or whether we thought at all. This book is for them.

When I read another embrittled document predicting the disappearance of bison from the American Plains, my melancholy is untainted by urgency. Captive bison do survive, but the great herds have been gone since 1884. And as I write this book about coal, oil, natural gas and atomic power, I do my best to look as will the future upon the world in which I lived—namely, as surely, safely vanished. Nothing can be done to save it; therefore, nothing need be done. Hence this little book scrapes by without offering solutions. There were none; we had none.* All the same, it may not be uninteresting to learn what went on in the minds of buffalo hunters, Indian killers, coal miners, freeway drivers, homeowners and nuclear engineers.

In the time when I lived, it was still possible to meet Americans who disbelieved in global warming, although the ones I knew became shyer and rarer in about 2013. In 2016, they helped elect Donald Trump President, upon which their various carbon ideologies naturally came roaring back.

“We sure need a good Sierra snowpack this year,” said a contractor friend of mine. “Skiing was lousy last year and the year before. If we can only get some snow, that will make those global warming people shut up.”—That was just before Christmas. Come spring, the snowpack was 6% of what we had been calling normal. But why not call California a special case? Up in Washington the snowpack was a full 16% of what it should have been; and by May, “seeing things happen at this time of year we just have never seen before,” Governor Inslee declared a “statewide drought emergency.”—Fortunately, my contractor friend was vindicated, and those global warming people utterly foiled, for after a long dry year, the subsequent winter blew flurry-rich, and by January the Sierra snow level had reached 115%!

February turned unseasonably warm. The leftwing hoaxers got impudent again. As for the skeptics, they took strength in the fact that carbon forecasters of other stripes had been wrong before, in token of which I quote from my grandfather’s Mechanical Engineers’ Handbook, copyright 1958: Petroleum would soon run out! The peak of production in the United States should come about 1965 . . . World shortage of petroleum may be expected to begin about 1960.—If only!—As for coal, in predicting that American production would reach its height in about 1975 the Handbook was not far wrong, but it anticipated that a world shortage of total world fossil fuels . . . would be noticeable around that same year, which is precisely when a build-your-own-alternative-style-house primer warned us all: A Federal Power Commission staff study, released in January of 1975, concluded that natural gas production from the forty-eight contiguous states has reached its peak and will decline for the indefinite future.—We were all on the verge of getting cold!—But in 1993 the National Coal Association announced that “at present rates of use” our coal reserves can be expected to last nearly 250 years. There are about 1,000 tons of recoverable coal for every man, woman and child in the United States. Then came fracking, which afforded gas enough to toast us in our planetary oven.

On display at the Kentucky Coal Mining Museum*

In each of these dull and distant comedies, we got condemned to future deprivation, and then the diagnosis brightened! (I myself got cynical; I didn’t care; I chalked it up to financial manipulation.) In 1999 my atlas advised me that oil might last another 40 years if we were lucky. And in 2015, as I sat beside the automatic gas fire, writing Carbon Ideologies, Iran announced intentions to increase her gas output by 40% in the next five years, while coal prices fell farther; oil prices had just decreased again: There remained enough fossil fuels to choke us all! So why not deal sharply with pessimists, or refrain from dealing with them at all? Mr. Jonathan Lee, whose company rented out supertankers, felt as excited as a rookie because you are seeing history change before your eyes! China and India meanwhile began seizing a bargain opportunity to top off their petroleum reserves. The prior errors of prophecy proved that no one knew anything about anything; therefore, climate change was the merest hot air.

Not far from the disbelievers dwelled those who couldn’t be bothered about “an ecosystem somewhere.”* In 2016 a kindly barber told me: “I don’t really think none about it, although I have to say that when I see people pick up cigarette butts from the sidewalk I appreciate their caring, and people that care about the earth, I mean, that’s nice, and when I think about the polar bears losing their land, I do feel touched about that, because I care a lot about animals.” For him, an ecosystem was something to watch on television while he ate takeout pizza. He was a decent fellow who had never been consulted by the carbon vendors—whose systems of extraction and delivery had long since become invisibly ubiquitous.

In 2014 my friend Philip, a cheerful, hardworking realtor in his early 40s, allowed that global warming might exist, but that it was natural and “evolutionary”; the human race had little to do with it. For years we had drunk together and listened to each other, so I asked him to tell me more. “Why should I concentrate on anything that stresses me out?” he demanded, and when I saw that the subject might dent his cheerfulness, I changed it.

Kindred sorts reassured me that our new weather was “natural” and cyclical, and therefore required no action. Indeed, precious little action was taken. For more than 40 years, Homer City Generating Station in Pennsylvania has spewed sulfur dioxide from two of its three units completely unchecked, . . . because it is largely exempt from federal air pollution laws . . . Last year, the facility released 114,245 tons of sulfur dioxide, more than all of the power plants in neighboring New York combined. This pollutant was both a killer of many organisms and a dangerous “precursor” gas with unpredictable effects on the climate.* In 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency finally demanded that Homer City clean up. After threatening immediate and devastating consequences and losing a lawsuit, the utility found a way to comply—without even raising its electricity rates. When I read this tale in the newspaper, my first emotion was happy astonishment that mitigation had proved so practicable—after which I felt all the more amazed that Big Coal kept digging in its heels against reducing harmful emissions elsewhere—and was allowed to do so—while Big Oil and Big Frack behaved much the same. (As for Big Nuke, its mantra, as we shall see, was: No immediate danger.)—In 2017, a fellow who had repeatedly sued the EPA was appointed to run the agency. Well, after all, who gave a damn about some old ecosystem somewhere? (A newspaper item: Pounded Again, Coastal Town May Consider a Retreat. Just repairing and repairing the sea walls—it isn’t a permanent solution with the ocean coming ever closer to us. Those words used to be exotic, back when I was alive.) Who could say whether somewhere might be here? That ecosystem’s peculiarities had always lain beyond our ken. Although odorless methane might be accompanied by the scent of crude oil, and while carbon dioxide, that colorless gas with a faintly pungent odor and acid taste, sometimes heralded itself in jet trails and smokestack-clouds, both of these quickly vanished into our all-accepting sky. Then what? As a West Virginian pastor told me (you will meet him in the coal section): “Here you do see the smokestacks and you know that they do put off the smoke and everything, but it seems to me that the earth is so large and there are so many trees and everything that how could manmade equipment put up enough smoke to make a difference?” His question was absolutely reasonable. Answering it would have required the help of scientists, instruments and historical records. Even then, causation could never be proved. All one might hope to establish was plausible correlation with predictive value. Most of us were non-correlators; to us the clashing claims felt wearisome, complicated, inscrutable. It took me all my life merely to understand aspects of myself—and why shouldn’t the latest scaremongers be as wrong as the Cassandras of “peak oil”? In Bangladesh I met coal mine workers and even a labor union leader who had never heard of global warming; of course they asserted that there was “no alternative” to coal extraction. Indeed, they proved their own point.

I remember another courteous old West Virginian who had just been speaking cogently about his childhood, his coal miner father and the decline of coal extraction in Appalachia; he grew vaguer when I requested his views on climate change: “I’m sure it’s got something to do with the situation on TV”—meaning that he had seen television footage of weather-related disasters, and supposed that global warming might be part of the cause. “That’s part of the pollution problem,” he allowed. Then he added, and I failed to follow his logic, “That’s why the EPA is doing what they are, stepping beyond their authority, I think, in a lot of ways.”

“Do you think coal contributes to global warming?”

He reassured me: “They’ve got technology now that can cut all the pollution out.”

Had it only been so!—In fact it was so a little bit, as Homer City unwillingly proved—but our captains of fuel and electricity resisted even that little for all they were worth, which was plenty.

Anyhow, that good old man, who cannot be faulted for the incompleteness of his knowledge on greenhouse gases; and the disdainers of somewhere-nowhere ecosystems, the gloom-and-doom handwringers like me, the climate change deniers and the consoling weather-cycle asserters, we were all outnumbered by ordinary practical folks for whom cheap energy and a paycheck incarnated all relevance. One fellow wrote in to the newspaper: My son works in the coalfields of southern West Virginia[;] he supports my two grandchildren by mining the coal that keeps the lights on in America—this last phrase being often used by my nation’s carbon ideologues. So I know firsthand the importance of winning the war on coal that Obama declared five years ago. Whether it was truly Obama who started it, who our enemy was, and whether America’s lights might beneficially be dimmed here and there, failed to encumber him. The maintenance of his two grandchildren trumped other arguments; their needs caused him to know firsthand the small selfish thing that he knew. I will not celebrate him, but I decline to blame him, either. Why should his kin go hungry? (You in our future can go hungry instead; after all, we don’t even know you.)

In The Wall Street Journal’s “Notable & Quotable” section, a so-called “environmental writer” enlarged his argument into a carbon eulogy:

In 1971 China derived 40 percent of its energy from renewables. Since then, it has powered its incredible growth almost exclusively on heavily polluting coal, lifting a historic 680 million people out of poverty . . . A recent analysis from the Centre for Global Development shows that $10 billion invested in such renewables [as solar energy] would help lift 20 million people in Africa out of poverty. It sounds impressive, until you learn that if this sum was spent on gas electrification it would lift 90 million people out of poverty. So in choosing to spend that $10 billion on renewables, we deliberately end up choosing to leave more than 70 million people in darkness and poverty.

In other words, back when I lived, some of us believed that heavily polluting coal could somehow lift people out of poverty without impoverishing us in any more fundamental way. We believed that because it was convenient to believe it. So we kept the lights on.

2

A Russian woman opined that the winters of her city, Saint Petersburg, were often just as severe as formerly, but their duration had diminished from five to four months. Well, but what could such anecdotes prove? (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1911: As concerns the popular impression regarding change of climate, it is clear at the start that no definite answer can be given on the basis of tradition or of general impression.) I went to Mexicali for half a week, and found the nights hotter than I remembered, but a taxi driver who had lived there all his life insisted that temperatures were unchanged, although the humidity might have increased. (Across the border, another cab driver told me that his relatives in Algiers were now experiencing snow, which they had almost never seen; they loved it.) A fellow Californian who had backpacked the Sierras for decades returned from a hike in June, when he would have expected to see wet green meadows, and then snow at the high elevations; this time he told me: “A lot of trees dead and dying. Kind of alarming, actually.”—Again, these observations described only weather. They proved nothing about climate.—A businessman in Bangladesh asserted that 20% of his country would lie underwater within 35 years. (You from the future might know that more of it sank faster.) And as we waited to board our Amtrak train in Sacramento, I asked the old lady who stood beside me on the platform whether she believed in global warming, to which she said: “Oh, absolutely. Even the children are getting sunburned more easily. When you wear black pants you feel the sun sooner. We’ve done too many things not knowing what the effect would be.”

“What should we do about it?”

“Pray. That’s all we can do.”

That was how so many of us felt! We couldn’t make any practical difference. As the Unabomber calculated in his manifesto: When a decision affects . . . a million people, then each of the affected individuals has, on the average, only a one-millionth share in making the decision. So we couldn’t do anything. Or else we just didn’t want to. In 2015, when the price of crude oil decreased by half, the U.S. Congress might have increased the fuel tax, however modestly, and employed the proceeds on funding renewable energy (or, if nothing else, on building seawalls). In its customary elevated style, Time magazine announced how everything would actually play out:

CASHING IN: THE DROP IN OIL PRICES IS EQUIVALENT TO A $125 BILLION TAX CUT. HERE’S WHAT THAT MEANS: . . . BIG CARS ARE BACK.

Accordingly, solar energy stocks decreased in value; sales of hybrid vehicles declined. How could we help it that we liked big cars? There was nothing to do but watch the buffalo get slaughtered.

3

For awhile our powerlessness got represented and recapitulated up through various levels of government. In 2014 the Attorney General of West Virginia announced: The Office’s end goal is to stop the EPA from hurting our state, and if we can’t do that, we plan to at least gum up the works enough so that it limits the damage that the Obama administration can inflict on our citizens. The defiant frustration in his utterance, which played well to certain interests, must have been felt in greater measure by the White House’s feeble occupant. (Near the end of his second term he sadly remarked: “There’s this notion that there’s something I might have done that would prevent Republicans to [sic] deny climate change . . .”) You see, we were all feeble! A West Virginian delegate (who happened to be a coal miner) complained that Obama “speaks as though the Earth’s climate ends and begins at the shores of the United States, while willfully ignoring the fact that China is revving up its economy by using coal”—some of which came from the United States, a fact he willfully ignored. In other words, we Americans could hardly make a difference; therefore, nobody should make us try.*

Accordingly, carbon’s ideologues empowered themselves when and where they could. In 2015, a Wisconsin agency that manages thousands of acres of state land . . . banned its employees from working on climate change issues while on the job. The only person who voted against that ban, Wisconsin’s Secretary of State, was a scientist. In other words, he actually possessed the competence to determine whether or not our actions could “put up enough smoke to make a difference.” Remarking that climate change was in fact altering forests, he decried “the trend of public officials who, either out of ignorance or out of political expediency, deny climate change.”—And so denial led happily to silence.*

Meanwhile the Pope, who had also unfortunately been encumbered with scientific training, prepared to release a key policy document which is expected to blame mankind for climate change, a view which has enraged US sceptics who say religious leaders have no right to take part in a scientific debate.

In that year the Norwegian Parliament, the Church of England, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the French insurance entity AXA all decided to divest in varying degrees from coal-associated businesses; fortunately for order and tradition, these measures would have little or no impact on the vast market capitalization of most companies.*

So the War on Coal rolled on, until we all lost.

4

The future for which I write will most likely also be a more radioactive time. Just as we continued mining the coal, fracking the shale and drilling the oil that kept the lights on in America, not to mention Bangladesh, even as carbon dioxide levels crept up and up in our atmosphere, so it was that even after Hiroshima, Chernobyl and Fukushima, plenty of Japanese kept assuring me that nuclear power was “necessary.” (You will hear from them in this book.) It might have been “better,” at least. According to the first Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, low level radiation is probably less “dangerous” than the emissions from burning coal. Anyhow, I hope that you in the future have learned how to make your spent fuel rods safe.

5

As I shuttled here and there to write this book, I came to find certain effects of oil, coal, natural gas and nuclear power comparable if not exactly equivalent. All of them undermined you in one way or another—a matter invariably minimized by the corporate entities that produced them—and all were tolerated or even celebrated by people whose children they endangered, because how else could the lights stay on?

I who send this letter to the future hereby plead that we were no more evil or even selfish than anyone else. As a friend wrote to me: “Yes, I do want to have children—and I hope to leave them some kind of world to inherit, one where there are still birds and rivers and salmon.” Wasn’t her heart as good as yours?

Some of us lived in a fairly robust democracy of opinion, but lacked any democracy of ideas, let alone of policy. Our various educational systems failed to impart the minimum knowledge which a citizen would have needed to judge coal, nuclear power and other methods of keeping on the lights. This knowledge would have entailed some competence in the following procedures: carrying out simple mathematical conversions, marshalling facts, comparatively quantifying energies, emissions and efficiencies; performing risk-benefit analyses, deducing the specific material interests of each carbon ideologue, recognizing omissions, inaccuracies and outright lies, positing and testing relationships between facts, verifying and disproving all claims, including our own—and, most crucially, deciding what we needed to know, and how to seek that information.* Some apparent phenomena would still have resisted measurement and much would have remained arguable. But the less we measured, the more conveniently we could argue—while the threat continued to become a calamity. Some lonely soul in Florida whose basement kept flooding might blame the landlord instead of the climate—and who was I to dispute his theory? In President Trump’s time it got even better; his administration coined the phrase alternative facts. Meanwhile, each cool day disproved global warming anew—because in the time when I lived (and maybe every time), official communicators hindered us from learning the semantics of “experts,” while encouraging us to pretend that information could in and of itself be “entertainment,” so that any nuanced statement became inferior to an easy answer. The “experts” liked it that way, of course; so did the spin doctors and cost-cutters, the anti-secularists, politicians, industrialists, tired “consumers,” schoolchildren, wildcatters, go-getters, marketing consultants, advertisers and bought technicians.

To be sure, there were some experts, whose knowledge and integrity I will honor in these pages. We should have listened to them.

In Japan the people relied on their leaders great and small. An understanding of, say, radioactivity was not required. The officials in contaminated areas discouraged what were called harmful rumors. Citizens tried to believe in the goodness of corporations and the sincerity of cabinet ministers, or else shut out of mind what could not be helped. They lacked comprehension of the various waves and particles that threatened them, not to mention the units of measurement used in media pronouncements. We all learned to live with what we could not see. In the “red” zones, the word of the day was “invisible.” And in America, morning television kept the climate crisis invisible by emoting on and on about a man whose house collapsed in a sinkhole, or devoting 20 minutes of live aerial footage to a high-speed police chase. Should they express themselves on those urgent subjects, my fellow citizens might be rewarded with the momentary half-attention of strangers. They were rarely troubled for their opinions on anything that mattered.

Of course we did it to ourselves; we had always been intellectually lazy, and the less asked of us, the less we had to say. Again, we were no worse than others. (If anything, we might have been less rigid in our ideas than the Assyrians.) In our time the sky never stopped raining claims and counterclaims. We came to think that we had heard them all. Had we in the teeth of our complacent miseducation arrived at any common conclusion, we lacked the power to enact it. So we lived private lives, not worrying about the unpreventable, while the “experts” kept cashing in.

So did I. When I lived, the profit motive was unanswerable. An unemployed West Virginian told me: “Well, I can’t blame them coal companies for going away. I mean, business is business.”

For those who couldn’t aspire to profit, mere survival was even harder to argue with. An art teacher in that same county (the high school where he taught sat right on top of a mountaintop removal mine) remarked: “It’s cultural devastation to lose families in the coal mines and it’s cultural devastation to have families break up when men can’t feed their loved ones. When you make a product, and you base it on the labor of men’s backs, and then you take it away, you turn us into a Third World country.” Naturally he did not want the coal companies to take it away. Coal was poison, sure. It poisoned the rivers when it got cleaned. His solution: “Why do you clean coal? It’s got dust on it. Why not make the Chinese clean their own coal?”—He was another good man, who couldn’t see that what hurt the Chinese would eventually hurt us. Well, maybe he saw it and didn’t care. Were I in his shoes, or in his pupils’ shoes, I might have behaved the same. I might have said: “It’s going to be a hungry winter, and the baby’s sick, and I can’t pay the electric bill. Let me worry about my own.”—Isn’t that how it must be for you in our starving future?

We all lived for money, and that is what we died for.

Now that we are all gone, someone from the future is turning this book’s brittle yellow pages. Unimpressed with what I have written so far, he wishes to know why I didn’t do more, because when I was alive there were elephants and honeybees; in the Persian Gulf people survived the summers without protective suits; the Arctic permafrost had only begun to sizzle out methane; San Francisco towered above water, and there were still even Marshall Islands; Japan was barely radioactive, Africa not entirely desertified.

As I said, this little book makes not even the beginning of a solution. It is simply an attempt to give the main questions their due. When I began Carbon Ideologies I walked away from my nonfiction publisher, because my research had already cost more than the editor proposed to pay. So I spent my own money, and occasionally other people’s, to hike up strip-mined mountains, sniff crude oil, and occasionally tan my face with gamma rays. Had I been richer, I might have accomplished more—but what, exactly? To tell the truth, there were times when I longed to forget about some ecosystem somewhere. I knew I’d find no adequate personal answer to the question “What should we do?” But I felt ashamed of doing nothing.

Well, in the end I did nothing just the same, and the same went for most everyone I knew. This book may help you in the hot dark future to understand why.

WTV

2011–2017

Here I pause for one moment to exhort the reader never to pay any attention to his understanding when it stands in opposition to any other faculty of his mind.

Thomas De Quincey, 1823

Transmission towers near Ruwais, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

About the “Primer” Section

Actually, this book was not of the slightest value to human progress. Climatic change was not a practical problem. In any case, the book had been superseded.

George R. Stewart, Earth Abides, 1949

I promised to do my share to facilitate risk-benefit analyses. Now I will try to keep that promise.

Units of power consumption, measures and categories of greenhouse emissions and even compositions of fuels may change. However, the basic relationships between such quantities will not.

Being one of those pathetic creatures called “literary” writers, I never before got called upon to quantify peak load capacity or ponder the carbon content of dirty diapers. For much of Carbon Ideologies I will follow my custom, and tell stories of people and places. In the next 200 pages I have stepped back a little, until the trees became a forest. To endeavor to see what is is to abstract; this kind of seeing comes unnaturally to me, an in-the-moment-sighted fellow who would rather admire leaves than wonder how they grew. That I was not the only such being may be inferred from the fact that we called economics the dismal science; while those who did not get their livings from them frequently considered physics, arithmetic, ecology, engineering, chemistry, politics and waste disposal in the same light. All I could do was my blinking, nearsighted duty—which, at least as I understood it, meant taking hold of dismalness, until familiarity made it not only tolerable, but remarkable; the fog became a blur, then a pattern whose complexities rewarded me with a different kind of vision.

As Buddha once said, enlightenment confers no special benefit; nor is unenlightenment bad. Accordingly, I chose unenlightenment, which is to say attachment to the inhabitants of this world; and so I worried once it came to me that their position was deteriorating “faster than the worst-case scenario.”* There is nothing like imminent doom for sharpening a person’s interest in practicalities. Indeed, I may not be going too far to call the topics in this section necessities, at least for my contemporaries; in your sad future day they must partake more of the might-have-been and should-have-done. Thoreau called for books such as an idle man cannot read, and a timid one would not be entertained by, which even make us dangerous to existing institutions,—such I call good books. I would hope beyond my means, to imagine that Carbon Ideologies could do anybody the favor of making him dangerous, but maybe I can take credit for rendering this section as soporific to the idle as would be any other crowd of mathematical quantities. Following Buddha, I assure you that there will be no harm in skipping to here.

About Tables

Human eyes can perceive things only in the forms that they know.

Montaigne, “Apology for Raymond Sebond,” 1575–80

Again, not every reader likes them. Because I kept wondering what we should be doing, back in the days when I was alive, I began to ask such subsidiary questions as: “How dangerous is this? How wasteful is that?” It seemed best to answer quantitatively when I could. I tried to keep my numbers simple and clear. Wherever possible, I expressed comparisons in multiples of something near at hand, such as the radiation level in my studio, or the number of bricks that a Bangladeshi whom I had just interviewed could bake from a given amount of coal. Thus in these tables the multiples matter more than the units—which may be unfamiliar but are all explained, both as we go and in the end matter.* To see that pure methane contains by weight 1.7 times more heat energy than pure carbon may suffice you. If not, please turn to here for a definition of high heating value.

Please be advised that some of this book’s assertions and calculations depend on approximate numbers. For instance, the energy content of a ton of crude oil may vary by as much as 8%.* Estimates of power consumption in different nations, particularly over time, reflect differing assumptions. Climatologists alter their descriptive quantifications. A few very large figures might be “fuzzy” up to plus or minus 12 or even 15%.

In my own battle against spurious precision, I simplify numbers where I can. Thus, 105,775,826,160 tons of West Virginia coal becomes 105.78 billion tons—a procedure which will loosely be called “rounding to two significant digits right of the decimal point.” In the unlikely event that you crave more digits, check the source notes.

And again, since Carbon Ideologies is primarily a record of people’s experiences, if you skip my tables and their numbers, my point will remain clear enough; better yet, any mathematical errors might then escape your censure.

About Photographs

Survey . . . the most remarkable events that have shaken the earth and decided the fate of men. Alas! What remains of these . . . great exploits? The most real signs . . . are the traces they have left on our canvases in forming these pictures.

Tiphaigne de la Roche, Giphantie, 1760

I always thought it advantageous to our species that seeing was believing. The unseeable might require numbers to gain credence, as was the case with radiation, which all too many of the Japanese I met at Fukushima consoled themselves was invisible. Holding my pancake frisker* to some weed or drainpipe, and learning from the digital readout what stood so nastily at hand, thrilled me with healthy horror, and so I have included photographs of the frisker as it samples some object, in order that you, too (with or without the horror), may see and believe.

Much of this book is an attempt to witness. I believe with all my heart that the recollections of Mrs. Glenna Wiley, aged 89, who survived the Buffalo Creek flood of 1972—a disaster caused by a coal company’s negligence—will mean more to you when you see her portrait as she sits at her kitchen table with the door open and light shining in from the humid greenery; her dark eyes, her lean, wrinkled face, and her half-smile, which I call both polite and melancholy, may tell you something more than I have expressed; her slender, freckled arms and the hardworking hand in the foreground show that this woman has been much outdoors; the table’s bare wood, occluded in part by a coarsewoven placemat, is somehow of a piece with the “folk art” rooster on the paper towel dispenser behind her. Here is a gentle, trusting old lady who let me into her house although she had never met me nor had any notice of my coming; she offered me a soda and answered all my questions about an event whose associations must have been painful. I am hoping that this photograph* will help you believe and remember her.

Then there are the photographs of ordinary things. On the next page you will see part of a glassfronted building in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. Your first thought may be that this prospect (or dead end) exudes such familiarity that members of my generation would have lacked any apparent cause to look at it. As you will presently read,* glass, while not one of the “big five” energy-ravenous construction materials, still needed enough power, and gave off enough carbon dioxide, to call into question its unbridled manufacture. Meanwhile, this is a pretty facade, designed by someone who knew and cared about aesthetic factors. I took pleasure in recording its existence. You from the future may enjoy ogling its bygone luxury, which in its own way resembles the gold-and-white ornateness of Marie Antoinette’s boudoir, and which your world cannot afford.

Glass facade, Sharjah

And now, let us wander together through our predicament.

PRIMER

Retired derrick at Devon Oil and Gas Exploration Park, Oklahoma City

What Was the Work For?

We are the soul, of which railroads, copper mines, steel mills and oil wells are the body—and they are living entities that beat day and night, like our hearts, in the sacred function of supporting human life . . .

Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 1957

An internal combustion engine is a machine for converting chemical energy to mechanical energy by burning a fuel with air in a confined space and expanding the products of combustion, extracting energy as work. This definition, which combines straightforwardness and completeness into a kind of elegance, comes courtesy of a World War II primer for U.S. Navy midshipmen. The world in which I lived had long since been remade by just such machines, and by their cousins, which converted nuclear and calorific energy to electrical energy, likewise doing work. But what was the work for?

When my generation was alive, I used to wake up, reach out and turn a switch to light up my bedside. To you who can no longer live this way, this must sound as incredible as if I were to claim that I called on angels or that I could wander anywhere without a radiation meter. And I do admit that every now and then the bulb would burn out, while on rarer occasions the power would even fail, at which my essentially windowless dwelling grew rapidly unpleasant—too dark to read in; humid in summer, clammy in winter—but such perturbations remained so unlikely that each morning I flicked that switch with confidence: Somewhere, unknown mechanisms would do work on my behalf. My dressing table now being illuminated, I picked up the plastic pocket clock whose two slender silver batteries converted chemical energy into electricity for a year or more at a time, after which I removed them, threw them “away” and inserted new ones. That was how I knew the time. If it was already rising hour, I strolled to the bathroom and showered to my heart’s content. In those days I saw nothing wrong in letting a stream of hot water tingle the back of my neck even when I was clean; it did wonders for grogginess. One of my womanfriends loved to shower just to think. If you from the future are the losers for this, I am sorry. I think we felt a kind of grandness to have so many energies at our call, even if we rarely thought about our situation. Why shouldn’t they serve us faithfully? The sweet open friendliness of a young child, which can charm a smile out of an impatiently busy adult, derives from no sublimer cause than inexperience: The child has not yet learned that the world will refuse and reject him, then plow him under. And when my generation flourished, why should we have imagined that electric power would ever decline to fulfill our whims? That is why we were happier than you. I certainly enjoyed showering to warm up, showering to cool down, showering before and maybe again after making love, washing my hair whenever it felt greasy. My water heater, by the way, was electric-powered, because the contractor who installed it had explained that electricity would cost me less than gas. He was another one whose magic powers brought him joy. I used to like his smile when he fired off that hissing battery-powered gun of his: Great nails flew out, slamming themselves deep into boards, panels and beams, instantly in place as if they had been there forever, except that the nailheads were warm. There went his arc-welder, strengthening my window-bars and improving the evening with fireworks of sparks. He was a man of almost incredible endurance and physical strength, who helped me over and over. Sometimes he burned or gashed himself on my behalf. I loved to watch him fix things.* Had someone inquired as to whether a gas or electric heater was “better for the planet,” neither he nor I would have known the answer. (Here it is: Using electricity to generate . . . heat is extremely inefficient, said a solar energy handbook.) In any case, the shower proved nearly as reliable as a bedside lamp. I let the water run and run until its temperature suited me; then I stepped beneath that comforting flow. It is true that when someone else took a shower right before me, the hot water ran short, but that was on account of my economically small heater (58 gallons), not because of any lack of electricity in the world.

My stove employed gas because I had heard that electric stoves take forever to heat. Anyhow, gas was cheap; I used to prepay my bill with a check that (like my clock’s batteries) kept me at peace for two or three years. So here too I had something to anoint me with confidence. When did the gas ever not come on?—Had I compared my gas bill with my electric bill, perhaps I might have learned something about relative efficiencies, but probably not, with the pricing so arcane—therms versus kilowatt-hours—and the various appliances hardly comparable. All I can tell you is that showering and cooking were both easy. Whenever I fried an egg, warmed a can of soup or boiled water for my tea, I would open the valve on the wall, turn the burner dial all the way counterclockwise, strike a flame with my longhandled lighter (powered by a disposable natural gas cartridge, of course), and watch the ring of blue fire magically kindle itself! Then I reached into my refrigerator, which was a convenient machine that you in your day must lack; it saved me from going to the supermarket more than once a week; all one needed to do to prevent food spoilage was pay the electric bill. I took out eggs, chilis, tomatoes, spinach, herbs and cheese—I could buy them all year long!* A potato and an onion already sat diced up on the cutting board. The burner hissed; in my frying pan olive oil began sizzling. Another switch on the wall activated a fan, to evacuate the smell of cooking into the outside air. Making breakfast was delightfully labor-free, at least for me; my carbon-powered slaves did the work!—Afterward, unfortunately, I had to scrub out the frying pan myself.

Whenever my sheets and clothes got dirty, I threw them into a machine that spun them around in soapy heated water. Then I tossed them into a gas dryer. About 4% of the energy consumed in American homes went for clothes drying. How much energy it took to wash my clothes I never learned.*

On my roof sat a pair of great square machines; one was a two-ton and the other was a ton-and-a-half. They could cool or warm my place in almost no time. Although I was supposed to get them serviced every month, I let them go for years on end, and they went on faithfully just the same. I also enjoyed all the ceiling-light I wished for; I could even plug a plastic machine into the wall and call up music by artists living and dead. Unlike you from the future, I lived independent of nightfall and winter. Having camped outside from time to time, I knew enough to prize this home of mine whose electric light and warmth allowed me to anytime do anything one could at high noon in a mild summer. I often loved to sit at my kitchen counter reading or writing, while dusk drew in around me, until suddenly I would realize that no more sunset light showed itself through my blinds. The outer darkness made my carbon-powered fortress all the more delightful. For several more hours, internal combustion engines continued to sigh past me on the highway, then grew infrequent, while I sat on as long as I liked, nourished by heat and light.—I wanted another cup of tea. Why not? A turn of the valve and dial, a click of my igniter, and once more the burner hissed; in two minutes water was bubbling in my saucepan.

Disdaining to write drafts of this book on paper and then recopy them, which might have made my hands tired, I employed my slender, bright-screened and ever so convenient portable computer. Too bad that I had to buy a new one every three or four years! Whenever the power ran low, I plugged it into the wall.

Now I was lonely; I felt like chitterchatting with a woman I loved. Picking up my cordless phone, I dialled her up, then lay in bed at my ease, enjoying her voice. That was pretty pleasant, I can tell you! She detailed her cat’s latest tricks, and the book she was reading; we had time for those trifles when we were alive. Then before sleeping I returned the phone to its charging cradle, which drank endlessly from the wall. Do you from the future think me such a bad person, that I lived as many others did, in that easy way?

I slept at a temperature that suited me. (I liked to keep cool.) Another awakening, and I walked outside to get my morning coffee. I enjoyed that walk, because unlike you from the future, I lacked any necessity to move my limbs; I walked only for pleasure and because it was good for my heart.

Confess it, reader: Don’t you wish you could have what I did? Wouldn’t you have enjoyed a life of equally luxuriant selfishness?

What was the work for? Once upon a time, not long before or after the beginning of the 20th century, a little man named Lucien Lucius Nunn proved that sending high-tension alternating current over long distances could be safe, reliable and cheap. Shall I tell you his purpose? In an undated letter, he wrote:

Lessening man’s toil by the use of a wire in lieu of transporting coal in sacks over steep trails on pack trains is but one of many results already accomplished. To raise man’s efficiency—to reduce man’s toil—to give him time and means to love his family, his country, and his soul is the work to be accomplished . . .

These words touch me. He meant well, and I think he did well.

In India the work to be accomplished was more urgent than Nunn’s. A paper from 1876 on “Oudh Affairs” laid out the situation:

It has been calculated that about 60 per cent. of the entire native population . . . are sunk in such abject poverty that unless the small earnings of child labor are added to the small general stock by which the family is kept alive, some members of the family would starve. With the bulk of them education would be synonymous with starvation.

If electric power could somehow render their food more plentiful and hence cheaper, then educating their children would help rather than endanger them. A hundred and ten years later, a treatise on The Power Sector in India firmly insisted: Energy is a vital component of development. Together it ranges with the classical factors of production—land, labour and capital. And in 2016, when I was finishing Carbon Ideologies, India’s “development” continued, which meant that Indians drank in more and more power. A twilight of smog pressed down on Delhi; sometimes children struggled to breathe—but some of that derived from the illegal burning of crop waste; one couldn’t blame it on “development.”

In Africa, energy production between 1980 and 2011 increased nearly tenfold. Surely that benefitted agriculture, transportation, health services, education . . .

In 1965, the average time spent cooking and cleaning in American homes was 65 minutes. In 1995, it was 31 minutes. To raise man’s efficiency—to reduce man’s toil, that wish came true, thanks to electricity.

As for the hired toiler, the one who dug the coal our civilization burned, or the one who burned coal into coke, or shoveled coal into blast furnaces so that we could all build our pleasures on foundations of steel, I thought that the socialists got a great deal right when they said that our useful work defines the best part of us. That was why I felt fond of Kievsky Station’s murals of grains and of kerchiefed workers, and Ukrainsky Station’s mosaicked coal miners who overgazed the glass-smooth floor of circular and triangular insets as the rounded gilded portraited ceiling rose up and up.*—Like capitalists, Communists frequently turned work into misery and murder—one more reason why several of the friends who loomed largest in my respect were blue collar workers whose strength, craft, judgment and confident power got magnified by electric power and by the tools that it spawned. (Wherever possible,* capitalists replaced them with fossil fuels, which burned without sleeping or going on strike—but isn’t it happier not to consider that?) In his great poem “Smoke and Steel,” Carl Sandburg writes that at the heart of a steel bar lies smoke, the slang of coal and steel, of sheet mills speaking to rolling mills—and along with that smoke, the worker’s blood. When West Virginian ideologues insisted that coal miners suffered and died to “keep the lights on,” they, too, got something right. The pipefitters, oil drillers, truck drivers, engineers, frackers, inspectors, welders and other soldiers in my world’s myriad armies of resource extractors, their strenuous, risky lives deserved to be celebrated by poets.—Whenever I thought of the ancient Greeks, images of bronze spears and sacrificed cattle were prominent among my associations. And what might we remind you of? When I was alive, the smoke of carbon and the sweat and blood of those who burned it in order to bring our machines alive were too often forgotten by the so-called “consumers,” but you from the future who cannot forget our deeds, please blame our workers less than the rest of us. They sold their sweat for smoke, and we bought their smoke for the sake of our marvelous toys.

This Bangladeshi woman was harvesting corn and carrying it unassisted. Who would have begrudged her some electric help?

For instance: The modern American suburbanite of the late 1930s and early 1940s was leading an increasingly efficient lifestyle made more convenient by new household appliances and especially by the automobile.

Efficient—convenient—well, even if that might in some cases have meant “trivial,” where was the harm?

Another for instance (from the phone company in Abu Dhabi, 2016): Stay connected and entertained with the new eLife packages and enjoy special rates on TV, Internet and Telephone. Well, wasn’t staying connected and entertained worth cooking the planet for?

Even as we taught each other to burn more carbon fuels, we were reshaping the places where we lived. In one primer on the petroleum industry I saw a scale drawing of oil tankers, from the childishly tiny bauble of 34,000 deadweight tonnage, circa 1945, to the man-sized 540,000 DWT affair of 1975, “on order.” In case you ever wondered what that work was for, let me inform you that a 276,000 DWT tanker can carry enough oil in one trip to power a Volkswagen-sized car for 10 round trips to the sun. Reader, can you imagine anything more worthwhile? To satisfy demand, we had to set our tankers to ferrying oil back and forth. But how could such hulking ships avoid scratching their steel bellies against the bottoms of indigenous waterways? Of course we solved that difficulty. Many of our largest rivers have actually been turned into canals by the channelization work of the Corps of Engineers. These projects not only burned much carbon, at some profit to the vendors; they also (and this will be a leitmotif in Carbon Ideologies) gainfully employed armies of deserving, hardworking people. Furthermore, they consolidated the power of alert politicians. On this subject the petroleum primer deadpanned: Few members of Congress are likely to vote against multimillion dollar appropriations for construction in their home districts. And so we found more ways to cash in on carbon. The more of it we carried, the more we sold and used. We laid pipelines under every ocean on the planet. In electronic-eyed flying machines we spied out deep-buried coal, oil and natural gas. We refined them into new fuels and feedstocks. We turned them into electricity, for whose consumption we kept inventing new machines.

Although some of these devices sipped power with laudable frugality—for instance, the laptop computer on which I wrote this book required half the energy per given time that my body would have spent to walk upstairs*—their motors, silicon chips and generators frequently came to us with a robust thirst built in, because the sturdiest slaves tend to be voracious . . . and it often happened that in our hurry and lazy wastefulness, we let the fossil fuels they fed on go up in useless smoke:

POWER WASTAGE BY GROUP-DRIVEN MACHINE TOOLS, ca. 1945

(DEDUCTING IDLE MACHINES)

“In the group drive, the motor drives a length of lineshafting from which, in turn, the machine tools are driven by belts. The best arrangement for group drives is to divide the machine shop into small units, having a motor for each department or each type of machine.”

“Power available” is the “average power per machine”; “power used” is the “average power used in doing actual work.” Both figures are expressed in watts, the appropriate local unit for this rate of electrical consumption. [For BTUs per minute, the default unit of Carbon Ideologies, multiply × 0.056884.]

I calculate wastage by dividing the first number into the second, subtracting the quotient from 1.0 and multiplying the result by 100%.

24-inch Cincinnati drill presses, for small drilling on forgings.

[Power available: 360 watts. Power used: 70 watts.] Wastage: 80.56%.

No. 2 Horizontal Rockford boring mills, for boring bearings in aluminum cases.

[Power available: 1,620 watts. Power used: 300 watts.] Wastage: 81.48%.

1⅜-inch Gridley Automatics, for machining cast iron pistons.

[Power available: 1,520 watts. Power used: 270 watts.] Wastage: 82.24%.

Source: Machinery’s Handbook, 1946, with calculations by WTV.

I have read that in 2012, 61% of the energy generated in the United States accomplished no useful work whatsoever.*

About Waste

To condemn a thing thus, dogmatically, as false and impossible, is to assume the advantage of knowing . . . the power of our mother Nature; and . . . there is no more notable folly in the world than to reduce those things to the measure of our capacity and competence.

Montaigne, “It is folly to measure the true and false . . . ,” 1572–74

In such terms you from the future will surely tell our tale. But when we were alive we had our excuses.

Driving down the long dirt road between the airport and the Arctic town of Resolute Bay, Northwest Territories, my late friend David gentled the engine, and when we stopped for a few minutes he left it running, because the temperature was 20° below zero (that magic number when Celsius equals Fahrenheit), and if he shut it off it would not easily start again. (By the way, emissions of carbon monoxide, a greenhouse gas,* occur especially in idle, low speed, and cold start conditions.) He was a wise survivor and a generous helper whose advice minimized my frostbite. Was he wasteful, or simply prudent?

On a corner in my home town, a patrol car idled watchfully. The policeman saw a speeder, and rushed after him. How could he have managed that if the engine were off?

And what about the times when inefficiency could not be helped, and any production was heroic? In one foundry at the Kirov Works in Nazi-besieged Leningrad a war correspondent observed the following:

The girls, with patched cotton stockings over their thin legs, were stooping under the weight of enormous clusters of red-hot steel they were clutching between a pair of tongs, and then you would see them—and as you saw it, you felt the desperate muscular concentration and will-power it involved—you would see them raise their slender, almost child-like arms and hurl those red-hot clusters under a giant steel hammer.*

Under such conditions, what the work was for was quite simply resistance, defense, survival; therefore, its absolute wastefulness—of the workers themselves, who sometimes died for lack of calories; and of the equipment and procedures, which surely could have accomplished greater output had it not been for German bombs and undernourished, incompletely trained personnel—was no strike against it.—Do we cry “waste” when something can be done more efficiently somewhere, but not here?—In Leningrad the work struggled along, at the upper limit, not of its thermodynamic but of its known possible efficiency.

Commemoration of mobilized war workers, Hiroshima

As for those group-driven American machine tools of 1945 (immortalized for you in the work-stained pages of my grandfather’s Machinery’s Handbook), they certainly squandered power, all right—whose generation gave off extra global warming agents. Of course back then they could laugh off climate change in good faith—and as Carbon Ideologies will sadly show, even in the 21st century financial gains and losses usually defeated more fundamental considerations. So whenever that group drive came on line, probably in the strenuously ad hoc conditions of World War II, “waste” defined itself only monetarily. What was the work for, but profit? With electricity cheap (in 1947 it cost less than a cent’s worth of wall current to produce each dollar of retail value in manufactured goods*) and factory capital expensive, switching from group drive to individual power stations would have been not only wasteful, but anticompetitive, ruinous.

A 21st-century case may or may not fall into the same category: In 2002 the Germans (not that they were the only ones) began producing optical glass fiber with the aid of sulfur hexafluoride—whose molecules exerted the most active greenhouse effect we knew.* According to experts, 70% of the input SF6 quantities escape—why I cannot tell you. Would a more efficient trapping procedure have been cripplingly expensive, or for that matter mechanically impossible? If so, would “waste” be the appropriate description for our actual procedure? (You from the future might have preferred to call it negligent ecocide.)

What about when the primary aim of the work was socialist emulation? In 1958, as part of his Great Leap Forward, Chairman Mao directed the nation to overtake Great Britain in steel production within fifteen years. Whether or not the objective would be possible, it was certainly plausible—unlike the means: backyard steel furnaces! When an inspection tour arrived in Anhui Province, Mao’s private doctor grew “astounded”: The furnace was taking basic household implements and transforming them into nuggets called steel,* melting down knives into ingots that could be used to make other knives. And the “mobilized” peasants kept cramming more pots, pans and doorknobs in, rushing around with armloads of fuel, so that at night, all along the railroad tracks when the Chairman’s special train came by, the furnaces shone as far as the eye could see. Once all the coal had been consumed, in went peasants’ beds and chairs! There was no time either to harvest the produce, which rotted, or to refashion the new ingots into pots and pans; hence, people could not cook what little food they had. Starvation came. Even after Mao realized that the backyard steel was no good, for some time he kept quiet, because he still did not want to do anything to dampen the enthusiasm of the masses. Finally he told the residents of his old home town: “If you can’t produce good steel, you might as well quit.”

How much thermodynamic work had by then been accomplished by coal and wood in melting down useful objects into useless ingots? How much more work would have been required to recast them into something useful? How many tons of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide did their own invisible work? The latter was mostly a “precursor” which enhanced the warming capabilities of other gases, then faded away. But the former’s contribution to warming would continue for at least two millennia.—Mao’s backyard furnaces worsened our planet’s situation for nothing. (Had the enthusiasm of the masses led to something other than famine, I might feel kinder.) Here was waste of the militantly ignorant sort.

When I was writing Carbon Ideologies, it remained the shocking case that half the liquid metal which we processed into sheet metal ended up as scrap—which, to be sure, generally got recycled—but that squandered additional BTUs in order to melt it down again. Better designs and improved manufacturing technologies could have reduced some of these “yield losses.”

Sometimes we called upon electricity to carry out aesthetic work. I consumed considerable amounts of paper (whose manufacture required a surprising amount of electric power*) in making my so-called “art.” Then there was the “art” of interior design. Even when we were alive we knew perfectly well that clear glass globes absorbed 5 to 12% of the light within them, while cobalt-blue globes absorbed 90 to 95%. Would you from the future have had us outlaw blue globes? They were wasteful—but they certainly accomplished their predetermined effects in high-class restaurants and brothels.

When I made tea, I dumped the extra boiling water down my sink, believing that to be “better for the planet” than deploying harsh alkaline drain cleaners. Was that wasteful or not?

In 2016 two economists found that one-quarter of the food that is purchased in the state of Hawaii is wasted. Only 11% of the state’s edibles originated locally; the rest got flown or shipped in, thanks to internal combustion engines which produced greenhouse gases en route. The discarded food mostly ended up in landfills: 237,000 tons per year. So far as I can calculate, if the landfills were anaerobic the food in them might give off something like 68,730,000 annual pounds of methane (CH4),* which over each 20 years would heat our planet as well as 5.9 billion pounds of carbon dioxide. (Over 100 years the relative mischief would lessen—because CH4 broke down after 12 years, while CO2’s warming effect kept growing.) Why was this permitted? The economists explained: The root of individual food waste is personal preference. In short, the thermodynamic work of producing, packing, shipping, storing and disposing of uneaten matter was accomplished not for nothing, but for the sake of “freedom.”

You from the future, who must scrape by in a state of scarcity unimaginable to me, how would you judge the following recollection of ignorance and abundance, published in 1911? Forty years ago kerosene was refined for use in lamps, while gasoline was a by-product. Gasoline of 76° to 85° B[aumé] was disposed of in enormous quantities by burning it in the open air.* Was this more “wasteful” than dumping it into a river?

(Speaking of which, one history of the boom in Drumright, Oklahoma, reminisces about the glory days when surplus oil flowed down Tiger Creek and the Cimarron River became a lake of oil.)

Of the energy generated in an engine cylinder, from 2 to 24 per cent. may be lost as compared with the work which will be done at the fly-wheel. An engineer could tell us how much of that loss was thermodynamically inevitable. As for the residuum—the waste, that is—if your era discovered how to capture that energy, would you fault us for having “lost” it in ignorance?

And if when I was alive certain desperately undercapitalized people had burned fossil fuels cheaply and dangerously, further blackening our atmosphere in order to, as that Wall Street Journal editorial put it, lift themselves out of poverty, how would you judge them?—Perhaps it depended on what their work had been for.—If you declined to condemn them simply for profiting, would you do so if they lied about what they burned?—I have in mind the poverty-ridden territory of Puerto Rico, whose Power Authority kept burning (for decades!) the lowest-grade, filthiest fuel oil, appropriately called sludge, all the while falsifying air quality tests, and charging utility users for high-grade oil. The pollutant in question, sulfur dioxide,* is a colorless gas with a suffocating, choking odor, and eventually the Authority had poisoned the neighbors with 100 million pounds of it—more than any comparable set of power plants in New York or New Jersey. Adsorbed by dust,* some of the stuff got breathed in by people and animals, where on contact with moist lung tissue it became sulfuric acid. The gas itself impaired the photosynthesis of plants. Nor was that necessarily sulfur dioxide’s worst failing; one scientist went so far as to say:

Global warming during the 20th century was primarily initiated by a rapid increase in the rate of . . . emission of sulfur by man . . . The SO2 reduced the oxidizing capacity of the atmosphere, leading to an increase in methane, water, and other greenhouse gases.

And so I would call the work of electric power generation undertaken by the Authority criminally as well as wastefully done. But since those profit-seekers in the Fuel Procurement Office did lift themselves out of poverty, would you call them inefficient in relation to their purpose?

You from the future, who understandably despise us, and might well conflate these examples into one string of abuses—could you have intervened in our time, I’d bet you’d have subjected us to harshly sweeping simplifications—please let me ask you to fairly consider the perplexities in these matters of power and emissions. You now perceive, I trust, how limited must be the judgments of even goodwilled, thoughtful minds in the absence of expert knowledge. To best evaluate each efficiency, we would have required briefing on precisely how each process was being organized, which improvements were possible and which dangers were known at that time. (Sulfur dioxide’s were known quite well.) Sometimes our acts demand accusation, which this book promises to provide, but when I am unsure what else we could or should have done, I will leave the accusations to you.

To better consider this matter of what was possible, let us consider one last case of considerable apparent similarity to that of the group-driven machine tools in 1945:

POWER WASTAGE DURING MACHINING OPERATIONS AT AN UNSPECIFIED TOYOTA FACTORY, ca. 2000

(BEFORE PLANT REDESIGN)

“Note that most of the energy is consumed even when the machine is ‘idling.’”

CONSTANT ENERGY USE: 82.2%

Coolant: 31.8%

Oil pressure pump: 24.4%

Cooler, mist collector, etcetera: 15.2%

Centrifuge: 10.8%

ENERGY USE BY MACHINING: 17.8%

Source: Journal of Cleaner Production, 2005.

I suppose that the constant energy usage of 82.2% would not have counted as “wasteful” had the machining apparatus never idled. (Of course this procedure would have spent more power in total, and worn down parts more rapidly.) In fact, was it wasteful at all? Could uninterruptedly productive “constant energy use” ever enter our realm of deficient actualities?

The professor of mechanical engineering who supplied this data was named Timothy Gutowski, of MIT. You will frequently find his articles cited in Carbon Ideologies. When I sent him this table, he replied:

I would not characterize these energy usages as waste[;] each has a function: the centrifuge separates coolant from the chips, . . . etc. If you want to talk about waste, I suggest you consider the idea that there is a thermodynamic minimum to achieve a certain task. Then you could compare the amount of energy used to that thermodynamic minimum.*

He was surely right; I had been hasty to cry waste. I should have known whether the oil pressure pump and other constantly operating parts were themselves efficient, whether or not they could be idled or at least slowed in the absence of active machining work—in short, whether or not the whole thing could be done better.*

In addition, wrote Gutowski, you could consider the utility of a given task.

In other words, what was the work for, and how efficiently and intelligently was it done?

Not being an expert on anything, I came to realize that asking this question over and over would be my main contribution to Carbon Ideologies. Do you remember that German optical glass fiber manufactory? Why shouldn’t a 70% loss of sulfur hexafluoride be comparable to an 85.2% “constant energy use”?—But I rejected that; I had to, because I was a carbon ideologue, and sulfur hexafluoride was “dangerous.” No doubt the people who made Toyota automobiles and optical glass fibers would say that they accomplished useful work. So would the buyers and users of those products. Perhaps I could have been persuaded into feeling the same. Meanwhile, hordes of other products came into being through thermodynamic work—too many of them or too much of it, if one believed in climate change. Therefore, I had to conclude that even if some particular process was thermodynamically wasteful, waste might lurk within the purpose of the work.

From 1975 to 1985, the American chemical industry managed to accomplish an annual reduction of 4.2% in energy input per unit of output. I found this commendable; for a moment I even hoped again that someday everyone on earth could spend energy without limit or repercussions. In elementary school they had taught me that atomic power plants would facilitate everything, probably by about A.D. 2000, at which point there would be a moon base and we would flitter about in personal air cars. If power generators and industrial manufacturers kept getting more efficient, why couldn’t our demand continue to grow? Experts had identified for inspection and probable improvement many specific points in various production pathways: Add more insulation, precision test one’s compressors, convert pumps from single to variable speed drives, preheat air before it entered one’s boilers and furnaces, increase the accuracy of one’s energy use measurements.—All the same, absolute energy inputs kept going up.

I would argue that wherever thermodynamic efficiency was low, energy input was high, and the question “What was the work for?” lacked any better answer than “for short-term profit or pleasure,” then a given manufacturing process should have been branded wasteful.—You from the future would say: “It should have been prohibited.”

Example: In 2014 a science whizz breezily concluded: If I am making zero kilograms of ice per second, my ice maker [sic] would still draw 88 watts of power . . . Really, most machines still use electricity when they are not doing anything useful. Running that icemaker for a year would have called on a power plant in some ecosystem somewhere to burn 425 pounds of medium-grade commercial fuel oil—or nearly a barrel and a half of it, at 42 gallons per barrel—to enable that sole purpose. That meant that every active icemaker consumed nearly a barrel and a half of oil each year.

I knew a woman whose luxuriously high-capacity refrigerator had been embellished with a built-in icemaker. I never saw her use it. When I told her about the 88 watts, she refused to believe it. How could her icemaker consume electricity to do nothing? I asked whether she could turn it off while leaving the refrigerator running. She allowed that this would be impossible, and indeed I could see no separate switch for the icemaker, which accordingly went on doing its idiotic work.

POWER WASTAGE BY DEVICES IN STANDBY MODE, 2000–2010

This phenomenon is sometimes known as “vampire draw.” In this table I am overstating the actual wastage to an unknown extent, because some devices, such as telephone answering machines and motion detectors, must be ready to go into action at any time, and therefore are not wasting power. However, many machines consume power needlessly.

“Unplugging a device constantly consuming standby power saves a yearly 9 kWh for each watt of continuous consumption.”

All figures expressed in [% of total power consumption for appliances].

Japan, 2008. 6%. This equates to 285 kilowatt-hours [972,705 BTUs] per year.

France, 2000. 7%.

Britain, 2004. 8%.

California, U.S.A., 2002. “Over 15%” [“of statewide residential power consumption”]. This equates to “nearly” 1,000 kwh [3,413,000 BTUs] per year. “Our future estimate increases low power mode consumption [= standby mode] by 13%.”

Sources: Energy Conservation Center, Japan; ACEE, France; Department of Trade and Industry, U.K.; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Calif.; with calculations by WTV.

In this book I pay less attention to production than to consumption, at which I excelled when I was alive. And on that topic, the figure on American primary energy consumption in 2012—61% of it spent without doing useful work! (or, to quote the book in which I found this statistic, 61% wasted)—seemed, if not indefensible, at least demanding of investigation, given the future we were leaving you. What if the true figure had “only” been 50% or 20%? The neighbors should still have been worrying about it. Mine, at least, did not.

About Demand

Between 2000 and 2005, UK consumers on average increased the number of garments they purchase[d] annually by 33% . . . It is cheaper to buy a new pair of trousers than repair a hole in their pockets . . .

Julian M. Allwood et al., “Material Efficiency: A White Paper,” 2011

WHEN IN VEGAS SHOP AS THE ROMANS DO.

The opulence. The selection. The experience.

Where Las Vegas, 2016

In our time we heard a certain story so often that its peculiarity had worn down into a kind of active platitude. There was no questioning it because there was hardly any seeing it. Let me now pull into view one of its banal incarnations.

Sales promotion in Dubai

In 2016, when the Italian energy firm ENI was trolling off the Egyptian shore, a huge field of natural gas revealed itself. Very possibly, more than half a year’s entire global production could enrich someone.

This galvanized potential vendors, as you may imagine. A visiting researcher from Georgetown University informed us: “All around the region you are seeing activity. Israel doesn’t want to miss the boat.”

Fair enough. Didn’t everybody “all around the region” deserve to make an income? And why indeed should Israel forgo her share?

But to cash in, Israel would need to create a market. As the newspaper explained: Operators may need to find new destinations for the gas . . . Demand in Israel, while growing, is still relatively modest.

In other words, it would be necessary to stimulate demand. Israel would have to sell natural gas to people who had formerly gotten by without it. The necessary result: more global warming.

What Was the Work For? (continued)

A Battery of eleven Guns discharged by an electrified Phial of Water . . . Spirits kindled by Fire darting from a Lady’s Eyes (without a Metaphor) . . . Animals killed by [the Electric Fire] instantaneously (if any of the Company desire it, and will be pleased to send some for that Purpose).

Benjamin Franklin, 1751

The first So Truly Real baby doll so lifelike, she “breathes!” . . . A mechanism tucked inside the doll raises and lowers her tiny chest . . . Ashley looks and feels so real, from her baby-soft RealTouch vinyl skin to her delicate wisps of hand-applied baby hair.

Advertisement in National Enquirer, 2016

Because electricity was as inexhaustible as the buffalo herds, needless consumption of power provoked fewer complaints than you from the future might suppose. For exactly the same reason that we rarely studied where our water came from and whence our wastes departed, we “consumers”—who like other organisms went about our business of self-aggrandizement, reproduction and survival by taking whichever energies lay ready at hand—mostly used machines without comprehending how they worked, so that their efficiencies escaped our concern. A Japanese lady turned on her electric space heater for me because I had the flu; how extravagantly or frugally that glowing device spent current in order to accomplish its assigned thermodynamic work meant less to her than being a caring hostess. Meanwhile a tired Pakistani guest worker in Abu Dhabi, dwelling in a “bedspace” with six or ten other men* and driving a taxi for 12 hours at a stretch, in order to support his distant family and maybe see them once a year, operated his assigned internal combustion engine without any thought, much less ability, to improve its mileage, never mind reducing its carbon emissions; when I asked him what to do about global warming, he replied, as had several Indian colleagues, that we should stop burning petroleum and start using “electric” cars, as if “electricity” had nothing to do with the fuel-hungry power plants that generated it. (Magic, explained a science-fiction author, is a practical science, or, more properly, a craft, since emphasis is placed primarily upon utility rather than basic understanding.)—As for you, you may not care why we ruined you (which is the subject of this book).* Everybody’s indifferent to something. On the production side, for instance, who cared about burning extra BTUs of carbon when they claimed so trivial a fraction of the total financial expense? In 2011 two technologists (one of them Professor Gutowski) wrote that the seemingly extravagant use of materials and energy resources by many newer manufacturing processes is alarming and needs to be addressed alongside claims of improved sustainability from products manufactured by these means. For instance, carbon nanotubes are one of the most energy intensive materials humankind has produced. But the electricity cost in this case is on the order of 0.2% of the price.

None of my neighbors craved to own carbon nanotubes. Almost nobody could have told me what they did or in which products they could be found. (I’ll tell you one: scanning probe microscopes.)* Well, out of sight, out of mind!

When we were alive, we often heated residential buildings by means of single-setting steam boilers which could only bring the top floors up to a comfortable temperature if they made the lower apartments so hot that even in midwinter their inmates needed to open windows!—Why didn’t we install locally controllable radiators? Because waste was “cheaper.” (This happened in New York; likewise in western Siberia.)—The managers of workplaces did perhaps draw up energy budgets, for the sake of profit; as for us “consumers,” so long as the heating bill got included in the rent, we didn’t care. And why notice whether the new refrigerator drew more or less energy than the old? For that matter, how could we figure that out from a utility bill which typically broke down charges only into peak and off-peak kilowatt-hours, fees and taxes? If this month’s bill was higher than last’s, the reason might have been a change in electric rates, two extra dryer-loads of clothes because our nephew was home from college, or, yes, the new refrigerator—which possibly indeed drew more, because our manufacturers could sell more toys more often by building them stronger, stranger, louder, brighter, cooler, faster-cycling, with capabilities we’d never thought to long for. And so a certain radio in 2012 drank in 11 times more current than its 1975 ancestor.*—We were willing enough to be seduced—since, as Dr. Johnson expressed it back in 1750, when our greenhouse gases first began their rise, something more is needed to relieve the long intervals of inactivity, and to give those faculties, which cannot lie wholly quiescent, some particular direction. For this reason, new desires, and artificial passions are by degrees produced.

Perhaps our new desires could have been satisfied without voltage. But any such notion was futile, hence absurd. Energy is vital to our modern way of life, explained the National Coal Association. Very often, the energy we use daily is in the form of electricity.

And there were always new ways to spend electricity!—Before sockets, plugs and generators, we’d spent energy just the same. In 1849, a single Cape Cod lighthouse burned 800 gallons of oil each year—what kind I cannot say, whale most likely, but whatever it was, you can trust that it gave off carbon dioxide when it combusted. That purpose was worthwhile enough (for humans if not for whales): the prevention of shipwrecks. Meanwhile, other work demanded to be accomplished as soon as we’d conceptualized it. For much the same reason that we used to keep slaves, we now ran machines, whose thermodynamic work got cheaply and conveniently disposed of.—Looking about him in 1904, the historian Henry Adams could see that the new American,—the child of incalculable coal-power, chemical power, electric power and radiating energy, as well as of new forces yet undetermined—, must be a sort of God compared with any former creation of matter, including Dr. Johnson. And existence kept getting better: Between 1870 and 1990, per capita energy use in America more than tripled!* Maybe it should have, or at least harmlessly might have; perhaps (although I doubt it) everyone who inhabited the planet in 1870 could easily and pleasantly, without burdening our atmosphere, have increased energy consumption by a factor of five, eight, or at least two. But these factor-calculations were never made; the vendors let us go on trusting—not merely because it enriched them, but because neither we nor they perceived the far-off limit—that we could spend as much current as we could buy.—And thanks to population increase, between 1870 and 1990 our absolute energy consumption rose almost 21 times.

Mural in Cushing, Oklahoma

Therefore, how efficient or irresponsible we might have individually been made no difference: Greenhouse gas concentrations increased absolutely.—And you know why: Electricity is essential to economic and human development, explained an Australian government report.* You see, it supports industrialisation, improved access to clean water, sanitation and basic health as well as better education services. Some of that was debatable. Industrialization had a way of polluting water. By concentrating people in cities, it created slums. Nuclear and fossil-fueled power plants were actually hazardous to their workers and neighbors. But most of us did prefer electricity whenever we could get it. Andrey Platonov, 1939: We saw a light in the gloomy dark of a destitute and barren space—the light of man . . . we saw wires hung on old wattle fencing; and our hope for the future world of communism, . . . a hope which alone made us human—this hope of ours turned into electrical power . . . And so it was that in each two days of 2009, the world burned the entire oil output of 1990.

What was all that work for, and what should it have been for? In 1991, had we devoted all of our electric power to this task,* we Earthlings could have electroprocessed nearly 9.7 million pounds of titanium every minute—or else left 131.8 trillion icemakers on standby mode as they busily vampirized our current. Meanwhile, as I sat in my climate-controlled room writing Carbon Ideologies, one out of four people in India lacked access to electricity. This is clearly a major barrier to economic and social progress, and . . . providing universal access has been a major priority for policy-makers. Accordingly, the policymakers provided access. Between 1980 and 2015, India’s power consumption quadrupled, making that nation the world’s third largest energy user. But blackouts there still lasted for hours or days. What could the policymakers do but generate more power?

You from the future may consider my “what could they do?” a sarcastic rhetorical trick—as it sometimes is, but not always. Professor Gutowski and his students once computed the annual energy budgets of various American lifestyles as of 1997. A very earnest Buddhist monk (estimated income $8,500, estimated expenditures $13,000) could get by using 113.8 million BTUs. A homeless person lived nearly as frugally at 118.5 million. Next came a five-year-old child at 123.3 million BTUs (she loved her toys). They were all doing pretty well compared to the coma patient and the senator (2.37 and 3.51 billion BTUs!). Gutowski now pointed out the sad fact that even though the monk’s energy use constituted a mere one-third of the 1997 national per capita average, it was still almost double the global average energy use.*

Furthermore, such a level, we believe, is not obtainable for the average American on a voluntary basis. Which brings us to our second point; due to the combined effects of [energy] subsidies and rebound, the magnitude of possible reductions in energy use for people in the United States by voluntary changes in spending patterns appears limited.

The coma patient certainly lacked any say in the matter. Most likely, so did the nursing staff. As for the senator’s energy use—nearly 58 times the global average (never mind his jet-setting carbon emissions)—perhaps that was also necessary to do whatever politicking he did. What about the homeless American? Fast food and plastic were not necessarily what he desired, although he became habituated to them. He took what he could get, growing fat and losing teeth. Police tore down his camps and destroyed his possessions—no use owning anything of value. He lived in trash and left trash behind him. Shall we blame that on demand?

Gutowski’s findings disheartened but also comforted me, because I could reiterate to you from the future: See how they made us do it! It was never our fault!

In 1967 the President’s Science Advisory Committee found that American farmers could grow three times more food per unit of area than their Asian and African counterparts—but at a cost of 10 times more mechanical energy, which came (of course) from fossil fuels. Wasn’t feeding multitudes well and cheaply a worthwhile use of thermodynamic work?

If so, then why not, for instance, super-size the growing, harvesting, processing, packing and cooking of our edibles? Between 1997 and 2002, this form of American energy consumption ballooned more than six times faster than total domestic energy use! We powered, for instance, frozen, canned, and snack food technologies—because when I was alive, it would have been un-American not to keep things ready and cold.—In 1993, 14.9% of my fellow citizens owned two or more refrigerators; in 2005, 22.1% achieved that distinction, which we commemorated with greenhouse gases.

Shall we blame capitalism, then? Well, the Communists sought something comparable—to be established from the top down:

The rate at which the population is supplied with refrigerators will increase from 32 per 100 families in 1970 to 64 in 1975 . . . By the end of the five-year-plan, the sale of automobiles to the population will have increased more than sixfold . . . In the next few years, the production and sale of ready-to-cook products, pre-cooked items, concentrates and other items that make the home preparation of food easier should be developed on a broad scale.

In fact, what we all aspired to was simple: an unlimited supply, which could therefore accommodate an unlimited increase in demand.

In 1920 an American correspondent had asked Lenin: “When do you think Communism will be complete in Russia?” The latter replied that 10 years of national electrification would be required. “All our industries will receive our motive power from a common source, capable of supplying them all adequately [italics mine]. This will eliminate wasteful competition in the quest of fuel, . . . without which we cannot hope to achieve a full measure of interchange of essential products in accordance with Communist principles.”

Capable of supplying them all adequately! That’s what they all wanted, back when they were alive.

So let’s not invoke national peculiarity alone as we wonder why it was that in 2002, Americans spent 287,604 more BTUs per capita than in 1997 on the manufacture, distribution, preparation and disposal of sugar and sweets. That was the equivalent of an extra 69 pounds of coal apiece. Diabetes had long since become commonplace among us, but sweets tasted so delicious!—I used to like to take my daughter out to the ice cream parlor. And at Halloween it was just plain neighborly to buy giant bags of individually wrapped candies to make the trick-or-treaters happy. It never crossed my mind that I was doing wrong.

By 2007, American grain and bakery products were getting trucked a significantly greater average distance than a decade earlier: from 122 to 262 miles. As for “meat, fish and preparations,” they used to travel 137 miles; now they had to go 243.* What was that work for? It must have benefitted drivers, mechanics, highway maintenance crews, refrigerant manufacturers, tire salesmen and the managers of large supermarket chains.

We accomplished other wonders during those years. For instance, in our homes and even in restaurants we increasingly outsourced manual food preparation and cleanup activities to the manufacturing sector, which relied on energy-using technologies. As a result, 16,000 food service preparation positions disappeared, although I grant that “food manufacturing industries” offered 4,800 new positions. In other words, the net loss was 11,200 jobs. Well, well, but hadn’t Lucien Lucius Nunn called for a reduction of toil? (Who was toiling for us?—Mr. Carbon.)

And even as our toys put more people out of work, whoever could bought more toys, because back when I was alive, economies needed to expand without limit! The people who sold could hardly stay in business unless they kept selling. Products ought to wear out; new demands had to arise—Gross Domestic Product must go up!

In general, said the National Coal Association, each percentage increase in Gross Domestic Product . . . has resulted in just over a 1 percent rise in the demand for electricity, a trend that is expected to continue for the foreseeable future.

Were that fundamental to the human condition, ratios between electric demand and GDP* would everywhere approach some constant value. In fact, when I considered the countries mentioned in this book (adding Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia for benchmarks), it turned out that their ratios of per capita power consumption to per capita GDP varied considerably. Saudi Arabia’s was more than 40 times Afghanistan’s:

RATIOS OF PER CAPITA POWER CONSUMPTION TO PER CAPITA GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT,

from Central Intelligence Agency Data, Inset with United Nations Human Development Indicators,

2008–09 and 2012,

arranged in increasing order of per capita GDP

All population figures are July 2012 estimates. All GDP per capita figures are 2011 estimates. All gross power consumption figures (which the CIA calls “electricity consumption”) are from 2008 or 2009, converted by WTV from kilowatt-hours into BTUs. The figures are rounded here, for the reader’s convenience. Unrounded figures, which appear in the source notes, were used in actual calculations.

Per capita power consumption was computed by dividing total power consumption by population.

The ratio “Power : GDP” means “BTUs consumed per capita in proportion to GDP per capita” and was computed simply by dividing “Per capita power consumption” by “GDP per capita.”

The two multiplier headers in large type both set Afghanistan at 1, the first larger numeral for GDP per capita, the second for ratio of “Power : GDP.” Thus for Bangladesh <1.70>, <1.89> means that that country’s per capita GDP was 1.70 times Afghanistan’s, and its Power to GDP ratio 1.89 times Afghanistan’s.

Had the National Coal Association’s aphorism been correct, all the “Power : GDP” headers should have approached the same value.

The United Nations indicators of human development come from a 1997 report, energy use being only one of several indicators. “Low development” calculation excludes India. “Medium development” excludes China. All express per capita power consumption [again, converted by WTV to BTUs per minute].

<1>, <1>

Afghanistan

Population:

30,419,928

Total power consumption:

788.74 billion [BTUs]

Per capita power consumption:

25.93 thousand [BTUs]

GDP per capita:

$1,000 = <1>

Power : GDP:

26 [BTUs per $1 of national income]

= <1>

<1.70>, <1.89>

Bangladesh

Population:

161,083,804

Total power consumption:

13.45 trillion

Per capita power consumption:

83.48 thousand

GDP per capita:

$1,700

Power : GDP:

49

U.N. indicator of “low human development”: 501,711 BTUs per capita.

Producing this amount of electricity in a power plant would require 120 pounds of coal, 84 pounds of oil or 63 pounds of natural gas per person.

U.N. indicator of “medium human development”: 3,532,455 BTUs per capita, or 7.041 × “low development.”

84 pounds of coal, 588 pounds of oil or 441 pounds of natural gas.

<11.80>, <14.44>

World

Population:

7,021,836,029

Total power consumption:

31.02 quadrillion [or 31,024,170,000,000,000]

Per capita power consumption:

4.42 million

GDP per capita:

$11,800

Power : GDP:

374

<15.1>, <13.76>

Mexico

Population:

114,975,406

Total power consumption:

619.46 trillion

Per capita power consumption:

5.39 million

GDP per capita:

$15,100

Power : GDP:

357

U.N. indicator of “high human development”: 7,884,030 BTUs per capita, or 15.71 × “low development.”

1,878 pounds of coal, 1,314 pounds of oil or 984 pounds of natural gas.

<24.0>, <40.18>

Saudi Arabia

Population:

26,534,504

Total power consumption:

663.49 trillion

Per capita power consumption:

25 million

GDP per capita:

$24,000

Power : GDP:

1,042

<34.3>, <25.90>

Japan

Population:

127,368,088

Total power consumption:

2.934 quadrillion

Per capita power consumption:

23.04 million

GDP per capita:

$34,300

Power : GDP:

672

<48.0>, <32.62>

United States of America

Population:

313,847,465

Total power consumption:

12.768 quadrillion

Per capita power consumption:

40.68 million

GDP per capita:

$48,100

Power : GDP:

846

<49>, <35.67>

United Arab Emirates

Population:

5,314,317

Total power consumption:

240.89 trillion

Per capita power consumption:

45.33 million

GDP per capita:

$49,000

Power : GDP:

925

Sources: United Nations Development Programme, 1997; Central Intelligence Agency, 2013; with calculations by WTV (verified by Ben Coleman, Marshall University)

This table does bear out the National Coal Association’s fundamental premise: The higher the per capita GDP, the greater the per capita power consumption.

In his glowingly self-defensive treatise on fracking, the CEO of Breitling Energy Corporation asserted that between 1950 and 2011, American energy consumption per real dollar of Gross Domestic Product declined by 58%. How this sort of GNP compares with the per capita kind, I, a non-economist, am unfit to tell you.* Presumably the rich would consume the greatest proportion of GDP; and since American inequality increased in those years, this trend would grow ever less relevant to any dependence of average prosperity on electric power usage.

Well, even so, when we were alive it was certainly the case that we expected our economies to “grow”—and we expected new toys. In the words of Motor Trend magazine: We all have at least one dream car, and probably several.*

In this connection the International Energy Agency offered an axiom not quite parallel to and more alarming than the National Coal Association’s: CO2 emissions have been clearly linked to economic growth.

From this historical fact it was certainly convenient to deduce, as so many carbon ideologues did, that economic growth cannot continue without continuing the growth of CO2 emissions.

A textbook case was China, where strongly increasing electricity production is the main driver for record high CO2 emissions.*—But the Mexican government put it most grandly of all: As shown in Figures II.24 to II.26—and if three figures show a thing contiguously, how can it not be true?—a higher level of human development is associated with a higher level of emissions per capita.*

How dare you deny us our high level of development! We approached perfection, and that is why you now retreat from rising acid seas. We accomplished great works.

What was the work for? Well, where did the work go? Here are some answers:

COMPARATIVE ENERGY REQUIREMENTS,

in multiples of 1 British Thermal Unit

All levels expressed in [BTUs per pound.] I have used the high heating value* where it is available.

• = One of the “big five” materials, which used the lion’s share of energy in manufacturing. see here.

Electroprocessing energies were originally expressed in kilowatt-hours. To consume this amount of current [1 kWh = 3,413 BTUs] a power plant at typical ⅓ efficiency would have needed to burn 3× as many BTUs as indicated here (see here). Thus, to electroprocess 1 lb of chlorine with 1952 technology would have required [3 × 5,120] BTUs of fuel—or, for instance, 0.8 lbs of medium grade fuel oil, whose energy (see here) is 18,570 BTUs per lb. Figures over 5,000 rounded to nearest 10. Over 1 million rounded to [decimal +] 2 significant figures.

Multiples above 10 are rounded to the nearest whole number.

* For a definition, see below, here.

< 1

Energy to keep warm 1 lb of water for a minute in a 40-gallon electric heater, purchased ca. 2011.* [0.065 BTU. But assuming a typical ⅓ efficiency in the power plant that produced this electricity, 0.195 BTUs of combusted fossil fuels would be required.]

< 1

Energy to move each poundweight of an unspecified “semi” moving truck 1 mile in 2016, loaded weight 70,000 lbs, average speed unspecified, average fuel consumption 6 miles per gallon. [0.40 BTUs per pound.]

< 1

Energy to move each poundweight of an unspecified “new” mid-1970s heavy rail train 1 mile. “Propulsion energy” per “vehicle-mile” stated at 75,000 BTUs. Weight of an Amfleet I coach car, introduced into service in 1975, was 106,000 lbs. [0.7075 BTUs per pound.]

1

Definition of 1 BTU. See header 3.

1.5

Energy to move each poundweight of a winning-class American stock car 1 mile in the 1952 Mobilgas Economy Run from Los Angeles to Sun Valley, loaded weight 4,000 lbs, average speed 40.7 miles per hour, average fuel consumption 21 miles per gallon. [1.1516 BTUs per pound.]

1.6

Energy to move each poundweight of a 2017 XT5 AWD 3.6 “Platinum” Cadillac, average fuel consumption 21 miles per gallon, curb weight 4,025 lbs. [1.586 BTUs per pound.]

1.6

Energy to move each poundweight of a 2017 “F-Pace” Jaguar, average fuel consumption 20 miles per gallon, average of its 2 possible curb weights 4,025 lb. [1.586 BTUs per pound.]

2.6

Energy to move each poundweight of a typical mid-1970s automobile 1 mile, average fuel consumption 12 miles per gallon. “Propulsion energy” per “vehicle-mile” stated at 11,000 BTUs. (Average weight in 1975 was 4,060 pounds.) [2.62 BTUs per pound.]

3

Energy to raise the temperature of 1 lb of water by 1° Fahrenheit. [Definition of 1 BTU.] [Assuming that same ⅓ efficiency in the power plant, 3 BTUs of combusted fossil fuels would be required.]

11

Energy to perform 1 “delivered horsepower per hour” of farmwork using a one-cylinder gasoline-powered tractor, ca. 1911, per pound of tractorweight: 1.273 pounds of 70 specific, 64 Baumé gravity gasoline, at period HHV of 20,000 BTUs per pound. Estimated tractorweight: 7 tons. [Energy needed for entire tractor: 25,460 BTUs or about 13 BTUs per pound.]

60–155

Specific cutting energy* for machining 1 lb of various aluminum alloys, ca. 2011. Note: From here to end of table, I rely on stated manufacturing energies. To estimate actual power plant inputs, multiply × 3.

245–344

Specific cutting energy for machining 1 lb of various nickel alloys, ca. 2011.

415

Energy required in 1975 to produce a pound of sulfuric acid (concentration unspecified).

426

Energy to make 1 lb of cement (type unspecified), 2013. An astonishing improvement over the process of 1950. See 4,131.

The values within these lines [430 to 13,000 BTUs per pound] reflect typical manufacturing energies for plastics, metals and composites, ca. 2010.

500

Average energy required ca. 1958 to heat from 2,000–2,400° F 1 lb of steel in an ingot heating furnace. Parroted from my grandfather’s Mechanical Engineers’ Handbook. Gutowski kindly ran this calculation for 2016 technology and got 276 BTUs/lb.

1,750

Average heat required ca. 1958 from fuel per lb of steel in a batch in-and-out furnace, 2,000–2,400° F.

1,750

Energy to make a pound of “common brick,” 1975.

2,464

Energy to make 1 lb of Portland cement, U.S.A., 1990.

2,706 [= 0.793 kWh]

Average energy needed to manufacture $1 worth of American products, 1947. Again, to make this much electricity, a power plant would have had to burn 3× as many BTUs, or more than ½ lb of Appalachian coal. The fact that the customer paid only 0.7452 cents for this thermodynamic work, with its associated economic, social and environmental costs, goes far to explain what we did to our planet.

3,600

Energy to heat 1 lb of iron [from air temperature?] to 5,000° F and vaporize it, ca. 1958.

4,131

Energy to make 1 lb of Portland cement, U.S.A., 1950.

5,120

Energy to make 1 lb of chlorine by electroprocessing in 1952.

8,600–10,750

Energy to make 1 lb of “ordinary” steel from pig iron in 2010.

8,900

Energy to make 1 lb of rayon by electroprocessing in 1952.

9,900

Energy to make 1 lb of paper, 2013.

10,350

Energy to make 1 lb of liquid chlorine in 1975.

13,760

Average energy to make 1 lb of plastic, 2013.

30,720

Energy to make 1 lb of aluminum by electroprocessing in 1952. Probably a U.S. figure.

39,980

Energy to make 1 lb of aluminum, 2013. Probably a global average figure.

68,260 [= 20 kilowatt-hours]

Energy to make 1 lb of titanium by electroprocessing in 1952. Each American “consumer” used about this much energy per day in 1975.

122,000

Energy to make 1 lb of aluminum ingot in 1975.

429,920

Energy to complete chemical vapor deposition process, “an important step in the production of electronic grade silicon,” upon 1 lb of material, ca. 2011.

15.48 million

Energy to make 1 lb of carbon nanotubes, ca. 2011. This is equivalent to the high heating value of 121 gallons of gasoline.

About Power

We stand naked and exposed in the face of our ever-increasing power, lacking the wherewithal to control it.

Pope Francis, Encyclical Letter of 2015

[Subsequent to the Chernobyl fiasco of 1986,] [c]ountries of the former USSR have been encouraged by the International Atomic Energy Agency . . . and the United States to shut down . . . [Chernobyl-style] reactors, but as of early 1995 demands for electrical power have prevented such action.

Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology, 1994

Those 68,260 BTUs required to electroprocess that pound of titanium back in 1952 could have been applied slowly or quickly;* either way they would have performed their work.—But had the factory staff set out to produce so many pounds per hour, their machines would have needed to do work at a given continuous rate. The same would apply had they wished to listen to the radio in the front office:

Luxury is right. Her mother brings her ironing over every Tuesday, because we have the electricity. The last baby, her mother stayed with us a week and she never went to bed till two o’clock in the morning, listening to the radio . . . The old lady won’t believe it that the music comes from Chicago, through the air.

What the old lady “consumed” was not a commodity but an experience: electric power creating fleeting sounds, moment after moment, at her will.

Power is amount of work done per unit of time. When I was alive, my homeland’s unit of power was the watt.

1 watt = 1 joule* per second = 0.056884 BTUs per minute

In heat-equivalents, a watt expresses the energy in one match tip entirely burnt every 17 and a half minutes.

If none of its inherent energy were lost to electricity generation, and we could combust it with preposterous slowness, a pound of “average” Appalachian coal [at 12,500 BTUs] could give off 1 watt continuously for nearly 153 days.

By definition, a 100-watt lightbulb consumed 100 joules per second, which worked out to 5.6884 BTUs per minute. Twelve thousand simultaneously shining 100-watt bulbs would burn in one minute the same amount of energy as was needed to make that pound of titanium.*

Since the watt is an open-ended measure of continuous energy consumption, we require a different measure for absolute energy consumed. This latter is the watt-hour.* Two bulbs rated at the same wattage will draw the same amount of power. But the one that shines for a shorter interval will use less energy—fewer watt-hours.

An American radio from the 1950s might be rated at 60 watts. If someone played it for 15 hours, the power it spent would equal (60 × 15) or 900 watt-hours—a figure which in our day would be expressed in an electric bill as 0.9 kilowatt-hours.

A kilowatt is 1,000 watts. A kilowatt-hour inventories the result of 1,000 watts being consumed for the space of an hour, or 500 watts spent for two hours, or any other equivalent of 1,000 joules:

1 kilowatt-hour is equivalent to 1 kilowatt × 1 hour, or 1,000 × [0.056884 BTUs/minute] × 60 minutes

Hence this simple conversion:

1 kilowatt-hour = 3,600,000 joules = 3,413 BTUs

But what does a kilowatt-hour really “mean”? How can one conceptualize it?

Since one BTU indicates the amount of energy needed to warm a pound of water by 1° Fahrenheit, then 1 kilowatt-hour could correspondingly warm 3,413 pounds of water—more than 409 gallons.

Should you happen to have 2,650 hundred-pound sandbags on hand, please open your trap door and let them all tumble 10 feet. The work thereby accomplished on them by gravity adds up to 1 kilowatt-hour. This quantity is rather staggering. Imagine what would be left of you after a 265,000-pound weight fell 10 feet onto your head!—But our electric-powered toys could slurp up a kilowatt-hour almost effortlessly—which cost us next to nothing (never mind the future). A children’s illustrated book enthused: Today, electricity is such a familiar and convenient form of energy that it is simply called “power” . . .

Pastry-making machine, Kyoto

In 1952, one kilowatt-hour could power a sewing machine for about eight hours or a vacuum cleaner for three. It could percolate 40 cups of coffee, or keep a 40-watt bulb shining for 25 hours.* At our typical ⅓ efficiencies, a pound of Appalachian coal burned in a power plant would produce 1 kilowatt-hour, with a few BTUs left over.

We liked to keep the lights on in 1952.—Back then, we had carbon to burn. A pound of kerosene contained within it enough energy to generate 5.8 kilowatt-hours—nearly 20,000 BTUs.*

PER CAPITA POWER CONSUMPTION, ca. 1925 and ca. 2014,

in multiples of the 1925 Japanese average

All levels expressed in [kilowatt-hours and BTUs]. 1 kWh = 3,413.0 BTUs. I provide both units since kWh are the default in power reports.

All figures over 10 rounded up to nearest whole digit.

ca. 1925

1

Japan [88 and 300,344] (kWh and BTUs).

1.60

Germany [141 and 481,233].

5.36

United States [472 and 1,610,936].

5.60

Norway [493 and 1,682,609].

6.95

Canada [612 and 2,088,756].

7.96

Switzerland [700 and 2,389,100].

ca. 2014*

77

Japan [6,764 and 23,084,798]. An increase of 77×.

82

Germany [7,192 and 24,545,108]. An increase of 51×.

83

Switzerland [7,315 and 24,966,095]. An increase of 11×.

139

United States [12,186 and 41,590,610]. An increase of 26×.

163

Canada [14,351 and 48,979,963]. An increase of 23×.

267

Norway [23,486 and 80,157,718]. An increase of 48×.

Satisfying each Canadian’s electric appetite throughout 2014 would have required:*

Michigan brown peat: 4,885 pounds; or,

West Virginia bituminous coal, Pocahontas No. 3 bed: 3,666 lbs; or,

diesel fuel: 2,343 lbs = 362 gal; or,

gasoline: 2,174 lbs = 384 gal; or,

methane (primary constituent of natural gas): 1,890 lbs = 49,309 cu ft; or,

nuclear fuel: 0.00012374 lb = 1/505 of an ounce.

Sources: U.S. Department of Commerce, 1925; Central Intelligence Agency; 2014, with calculations by WTV.

Although the tools, appliances and toys that we owned all did measurable amounts of work (as when we ran a vacuum cleaner over the hall rug), we never had to worry (unless they were battery-powered) how much electricity they required.* We just plugged them into the wall! They drank in current, each according to its rated need, and as long as we wished them to work, they would, hour after hour, without limit, until we got tired of them or they wore out. Then we bought new ones, which were built even “better,” because they could do more work.

Not all of us were careless and thoughtless. The government regulators who imposed efficiency standards and the engineers who met them deserve praise. Some appliances truly did become better, accomplishing more work while using less energy. Here is one such story: Between 1947 and 2008, American refrigerators grew in size by 159%—and by 1974 they were bolting down more than 400% more electric power than in 1947. Four ecologically conscious engineers from Stanford accordingly advised us: In general, old small refrigerators use less energy than the big new ones.—Then (in part because of what we called “the Arab oil crisis”) manufacturing standards kicked in. Of course most “consumers” hardly knew or cared—but the 2008 models drew less power than the dinosaurs of 1947—so much less that keeping older models running often became the wrong choice.

Building a refrigerator took energy—this much to smelt and shape the steel, that much for the glass, so much for the refrigerant, etcetera. Call the sum of all such the manufacturing energy.

Once some “consumer” bought it and plugged it in, the machine began drinking electric power, as it would do almost without letup throughout its entire working life. Let that consumption be named the use energy.

The sum of these is the embodied energy.

A refrigerator made in a certain year might stay in service for a decade, consuming ever more embodied energy. The manufacturing energy remained fixed forever, while the use energy grew second by second. If the householder who owned it cared about “some ecosystem somewhere,” she might strive to do good by nursing it as long as possible, delaying the time when the climate-changing CFCs or HCFCs from its dismantled guts rose up into the atmosphere,* and likewise putting off the necessity to smelt more steel and produce more glass for the sake of a new toy. All the while, her present refrigerator’s ratio of use energy to manufacturing energy increased. Oh, she meant well—but she might be doing harm. And if the intuitively laudable approach of retaining one’s workhorses, living frugally, declining to escalate demand, were wrong, who could blame her for throwing up her hands? When I was writing Carbon Ideologies, my friends said, “Bill, what’s your solution?” and “Bill, what’s the point of all this arithmetic?” and “Bill, if there’s no hope why even think about it?” (Of all the excuses I heard for doing nothing about climate change, the last one actually touched my heart.)

Four technologists (one of them Professor Gutowski) who studied the relative contribution of each lifecycle stage of the product from cradle to grave concluded, as one might have predicted, that the use phase of [a] refrigerator is the largest contributing phase in regards to energy consumption. Better, then, to junk a 1974 model refrigerator and buy one from 1983, writing off the double expense of manufacturing energy for the two appliances, than to replace failing components, keeping the old one loyally humming and throbbing—and spending significantly more carbon-emitting electricity over its nine-year average useful life than would the model from 1983.

But keeping an old fridge running was the right thing to do in 1956 and the wrong thing in 1992.

If a householder’s room air conditioner, washing machine, refrigerator and dishwasher were all 1981 models, and if she replaced them with 2008 models, she might save herself—and our atmosphere—from the effects of 213 million wasted BTUs: many dollars, 4,900 gallons of heavy grade fuel oil burned in a power plant, and more than 20 tons of carbon dioxide.

Woman walking past the Flamingo substation, Las Vegas

Wearing our clothes out, right into rags, was always best; while replacing an electric motor usually saved more energy than repairing it. As for retreading our automobile tires, that strongly depends on the boundary conditions of the analysis.

Meanwhile we lived our own lives, buying toys and plugging them in. This was our glory—in the developed world, at least, where we still had all the power we could pay for. Where that power came from was no business of ours. (Where did it come from? I quote from Power and the Plow, 1911: Possibly the most stupendous discovery in the history of the world was that heat from burning materials could be made to do the work of plants and animals.)

What an apt word, power!—Here are some ways we spent it:

COMPARATIVE POWER REQUIREMENTS AND ENERGY USAGES,

in multiples of what was needed per minute ca. 1975 to operate a plug-in vibrator

[From American sources, unless otherwise stated.]

All levels expressed in [BTUs per minute]. Early-21st-century U.S. electricity assumed to be 115 volts. Note that some devices such as refrigerators cycle on and off, while others receive only intermittent use; hence while these comparisons are accurate per minute of operation, they prove nothing in regard to longer-term power consumption. Unless otherwise stated, these are rated figures. “Typically, the input power for a microwave oven is 50% higher than its rated power.”

These estimates come from many different sources and are not utterly consistent. For instance, compare 1.87–2.49 to 4.0, and 289.48 billion to 299.39 billion.

The symbol <H> indicates that a longer block of energy consumption has been broken up into assumedly equal increments of BTUs/min. This may be an oversimplification. For instance, the refrigerator in 2.4 must do more thermodynamic work than usual after the door has been opened in order to put away groceries.

The symbol <C> is a reminder that in a given case some or all thermodynamic work was supplied or could be supplied non-electrically—by combustion. For instance, much of the total U.S. energy consumption for 1990 went not to electric power but motor power: burning gasoline in vehicle engines.

All comparative headers over 10 rounded up to nearest whole digit. Absolute figures over 200 rounded likewise. Absolute figures and comparative headers over 1 billion rounded to 2 significant digits.

<1

<C> 1 watt [0.056884 BTUs/min]. Please recall that a watt is a unit not of energy, but of energy consumption. 1 watt = 1 joule per second.

<1

Operating a certain medium-quality rechargeable drugstore electric toothbrush, purchased 2015 [0.051].

<1

<C> The amount of heat to be withdrawn from 1 pound of water in order to form ice in 24 hours. [Based on definition of a refrigeration ton.] [0.100 BTU per minute].

<1

<H> Operating a passive infrared sensor LED motion detector light, purchased 2015 [1.74].

1

Enjoying a plug-in vibrator, ca. 1975 [2.28 BTUs per minute].

1.6

<C> Sleeping: metabolic requirement of a human body [3.67].

1.5

Operating a popular brand of laptop computer, purchased 2014 [3.43]. Compare with 359.

1.87

Operating a “consumer” grade sewing machine, ca. 1975 [4.27]. Compare with 629.

1.87–2.49

<C> “A typical adult male at sustained labor is estimated to produce 75 to 100 watts of power.” [4.26 to 5.69]. Compare with 2.95 and 4.0.

2

Operating a radio, ca. 1975 [4.56]. Compare with 22.

2.4

<H> Operating refrigerator, ca. 1961 [5.53]. Compare with 3.8, 5.9, 419.

2.5

Powering a 100-watt lightbulb, by definition [5.69].

2.95

<H> <C> “A moderately active human adult requires about 3 million cal[ories] [= 3,000 “food calories” or kcal] every 24 hr.” [8.27].

3.7–4.7

<C> Removing 1 cubic inch [per minute] of brass, using a round-nosed lathe tool, ca. 1945 [8.48–10.61 BTUs per minute].

3.8

<H> Operating refrigerator, 1969 [8.69]. Compare with 2.4, 5.9, 419.

4.0

<H> Sweeping the floor: metabolic requirement of a human body [9.2]. Compare with 1.6, 1.87–2.49.

5.9

<H> Operating refrigerator without freezer, ca. 1975 [13.37]. With frostless freezer: [25.31]. Compare with 2.4, 3.8, 419.

7.5

<H> Running home freezer, hair dryer or color television,* ca. 1975 [17.05].

9.3–14

Activating 15-pound power hammer, ca. 1945 [21.09–31.82].

9.5

<H> Operating a 40-gallon electric water heater, purchased ca. 2011 [21.7].*

13

Operating a certain brand of electric corn popper, 1956. “It’s 25% bigger and much faster than many poppers of this type. Full 500-watt heating element (not just 400 watts) gives faster popping and fluffier, more tender popcorn. No stirring or shaking!” [28.44].

13

<H> Average per-minute power consumption by William T. Vollmann during December 2014 [28.92]. Compare with 16.

13

Operating a vacuum cleaner, ca. 1975 [30.72]. Compare with 34, 1,048.

15

Operating a cell phone charger, ca. 2012 [34.13].

16

<H> Average per-minute power consumption by William T. Vollmann during December 2013 [36.26]. Compare with 13.

19–33

<C> Removing 1 cubic inch of cast steel, using a round-nosed lathe tool, ca. 1945 [42.42–76.35].

19

<H> Operating a heavy-duty blender, purchased 2012 [42.51].

21

<H> “American average” household power consumption (about 20 kilowatt-hours per day), ca. 1975 [47.4]. Compare with 31.

22

Listening to a radio, ca. 2012 [51.2]. Compare with 2.

25

<C> 1 kilowatt [56.884].

26

<H> Average power consumption “for a single family residence” in Sacramento, California, 2016 [59.3]. “S[acramento] M[unicipal] U[tility] D[istrict], through its energy efficiency programs for customers, set an aggressive goal in 2007 to accomplish 15 percent energy reduction in 10 years. SMUD is on track to meet or exceed that goal next year.”

29

Operating .75 horsepower air compressor, purchased ca. 1999* [66.33].

30

Running a dishwasher, ca. 1975 [67.69].

31

Operating a 11 × 14" photographic dry mount press, mfg. ca. 1970s [71.105].

31

Average American household power consumption, 2010 [71.7]. Compare with 21.

32

<H> Operating a window air conditioner, ca. 1975 [73.95].

33

<H> Operating a “Fan-forced Non-Automatic Electric Heater,” 1956 [75.08].

34

<H> Using a home electric broiler, ca. 1975 [78.22].

34

Operating a hypoallergenic vacuum cleaner, purchased 2010 [78.50]. Compare with 13, 1048.

35

<H> <C> Per capita American “food-related energy flow,”* 2002 [78.92]. Compare with 284.

81

<H> <C> Per capita American energy use, including burning wood for fuel, 1870 [184.87].

93

<H> <C> Accomplishing average work with a bulldozer of 29-inch width and 14-inch head movement, ca. 1945 [212].

93

<C> Operating a horizontal boring, drilling and milling machine with a 2.5-inch-diameter spindle, ca. 1945 [212].

100

<C> Rated capacity of Parsons steam turbine dynamo, 1884: 4,000 watts at 100 volts d.v. [228].

105

<H> <C> Per capita American energy use, 1900 [240].

132

Operating a LG front-loading dryer, electric model, purchased ca. 2015 [301]. “Tumble driers [sic] are hugely energy inefficient and should be avoided if at all possible.”

161

Operating a Samsung front-loading dryer, DV42H5 series, gas model, purchased ca. 2015 [367].

180

Operating a 24-inch LCD television, ca. 2012 [410].

194

<H> <C> Per capita American energy use, 1950 [443].

270

<H> <C> Per capita American energy use, 1990 [616]. This is 3.33 times the comparable figure for 1870; see 81. For 1990 per capita figure, see 67.84 billion.

284

<H> <C> Per capita American overall “energy flow,” 2002 [647]. Compare with 35.

292

Cooking on a home electric range, ca. 1975 [667].

359

Operating a desktop personal computer, ca. 2012 [819]. Compare with 1.5.

372

<C> Accomplishing average work with a bulldozer of 63-inch width and 20-inch head movement, ca. 1945 [848].

372–465

<C> Operating a horizontal boring, drilling and milling machine with a 9.5-inch-diameter spindle, ca. 1945 [848–1,061].

419

<H> Operating a 12-cubic-foot refrigerator, ca. 2012 [956]. Compare with 3.8, 4.8, 5.9.*

465–651

Activating a 1,000-pound power hammer, ca. 1945 [1,060–1,485].

629

Operating a light commercial sewing machine, purchased ca. 2010 [1,434]. Compare with 1.85. This figure, calculated per usual procedure, strikes me as far too high.

688

Flying the first Piper Cub two-seat airplane at full engine capacity (“a whopping 37 horsepower”), 1938 [1,569].

897

Operating a hedge trimmer, ca. 2012 [2,044].

898

Powering the 5 screens of a multiplex movie theater, ca. 2009 [2,047].

1,048

Operating a vacuum cleaner, ca. 2012 [2,389]. Compare with 13, 34.

1,347

Operating a small microwave, ca. 2012 [3,071].

1,497

Operating a hair dryer, ca. 2012 [3,413].

1,796

Operating an espresso machine or a dishwasher, ca. 2012 [4,096].

2,096

Operating a large microwave, ca. 2012 [4,779].

7,442

<C> Capacity of an Illinois Central 1930 model 100,000-lb electric locomotive, 400 continuous horsepower [16,967].

11,102

<H> <C> Average U.S. electric production, week of June 17, 2015 [25,313].

126,510

<C> Capacity of a Virginian 1948 model 1,033,800-lb electric locomotive, 6,800 continuous horsepower [288,442].

2.29 billion

<H> <C> U.S. energy consumed in paper manufacture, 1988 [5.23 billion].

5.44 billion

<H> <C> U.S. energy consumed in refining petroleum, 1988 [12.39 billion].

67.84 billion

<H> <C> Total U.S. energy consumption, 1990 [154.68 billion]. For corresponding per capita figure, see 270.

74.85 billion

<H> <C> World energy consumption rate, ca. 1950: 3 terawatts [170.65 billion].

The following two entries vary by under 4%. Presumably we actually used more energy in 1991 than in 1990. Hence this small lesson in approximation errors.

289.48 billion

<H> <C> World energy consumption amount, 1991, converted as usual to the necessary per-minute rate, and computed from a different source than the next entry [660.01 billion].

299.39 billion

<H> <C> World energy consumption rate, ca. 1990: 12 terawatts [682.61 billion].

498.98 billion

<H> <C> World energy consumption rate, ca. 2015: “About” 20 terawatts [1.14 quadrillion].

748.47 billion

<H> <C> World energy consumption rate, ca. 2050 (ca. 2015 projection): 30 terawatts [1.71 quadrillion].

Circa 2010, per capita manufacturing power consumption was increasing by a steady 1.2% per year all around the globe.

And so a little picture-book on electricity, written for the benefit of American first-graders, did well (or at least appropriately) to end as follows: People everywhere need more and more electricity each day. Scientists keep looking for new ways to make electricity.

What Was the Work For? (continued)

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Advertisement in National Enquirer, 2016

Machines kept our thoroughfares clean when I was alive. Before dawn, streetlights protected me; day and night I could push a button whose signal would halt traffic so that I could cross even the busiest street. At all hours I would spy my fellow humans riding to and fro, enabled by internal combustion engines that perfumed the neighborhood with gasoline and diesel. It was marvelous how many of us there were. We were experienced in our way, much like cockroaches, and our experience assured us that we could keep going nearly forever in just this fashion; so too our children. When my daughter turned 16, I took her to the Department of Motor Vehicles so that she could hazard her driver’s test on a touchscreen; once she had passed and I had paid, she took a different test and I paid again—after which she was allowed to burn all the gasoline she could afford.

On this subject, please do give credit to the automotive engineers of my time: In little more than half a century they made gasoline perform almost 35% more apparent work* than before:

ENERGY REQUIRED TO MOVE AN AMERICAN CAR ONE MILE, 1949 and 2010

Assuming gasoline’s calorific efficiency = 112,500 BTUs/gal.

1949: 8,654 BTUs

[13 miles per gallon]

2010: 6,429 BTUs

[17.5 miles per gallon]

Sources: Prentiss, 2015; Mechanical Engineers’ Handbook, 1958, with calculations by WTV.

And what was that work for?—My daughter drove to school and back; she picked up her mother at the airport; how could I label this unworthy use?—I myself quite often let carbon power take me to a place for no better reason than that I felt like travelling there. (Perhaps you think that I should avoid this subject, but when I lived we were none of us ashamed.) Whenever I wished (and had enough money), I flew to Japan in a great metal airship that spewed carbon dioxide as it went. How much of that greenhouse gas should I have taken responsibility for?* There were many of us all together in this vessel, and mostly we sat bored and annoyed during those nine or 16 hours, while the power that carried us through the air labored unobserved. If the flight grew turbulent, then someone’s baby might cry; and when the turbulence worsened, then perhaps a few frail or phobic passengers turned pale, remembering that we all continued aloft only through some mystery, and that should the mystery fail, we would plummet screaming into the ocean. The air grew calm again, and we resumed our indifference to jet propulsion. I suppose that sort of ride has been discontinued.

In middle age I happened to grow curious about nuclear accidents (in my day they were novelties), so when I got to Japan I would hire a $600 taxi ride into this or that red zone. A battery-powered dosimeter kept me conveniently abreast of the harm I was inflicting on myself. Sometimes when I wandered past ruined houses, photographing whatever I liked with a battery-powered camera that even rewound the film for me, or measuring radiation with my scintillation counter (after six months that excellent device still had plenty of chemical energy in its first pair of batteries), the white-gloved driver became anxious, especially at night; he would sit in the car with the engine running; at half a block’s distance I could smell the exhaust. Well, that was his lookout. I didn’t pay for the gas.

There were bullet trains in Japan, and glowing vending machines with ice coffee or piping hot soup. I have been told that up to 10% of that nation’s electricity went to ready lights on various machines and appliances. In the convenience stores the freezers were doorless, so that we could feel the coolness beside the hotness and be tempted. Toilet seats warmed themselves at the touch of a button. (Thoreau: We will sit on a mound and muse, and try not to make those skeletons stand on their legs again. Does nature remember, think you, that they were men, or not rather that they are bones?) There were escalators, too. I loved all that.

And sometimes I went to Mexico to be entertained by oil extraction. At night the taco stands and tiny sope restaurants shone blue with gas-jet flames. Women sat ready to pound out tortillas with their hands and throw them on the griddle. Cauldrons of lard kept themselves on the boil. Often no customers were present, but one had to be ready, so the gas burned merrily on. In the center of town rose towers of peach-orange refinery flame.

There were movies wherever I went, thanks to electricity. And in West Virginia, where it pleased my fancy to look at coal mines, I often got to ride around in a car. (Walter J. Boyne, 1988: A curious aspect of the automobile has been the manner in which men and women of all countries view it—not in terms of need, but of desire.) I myself was never one to emote about the way the 5.2 liter, twin-turbo V-12 storms to its 7,000-rpm redline or the barrel-chested boom from the exhaust on the way there (that hymn celebrates the 2017 Aston Martin DB11), but without a vehicle dedicated to my personal goals I could not have written vivid descriptions of places for Carbon Ideologies.—It was wise to pay attention to the fuel gauge, but there would always be a gas station, and as long as I had money the wheels kept turning my way. Every motel room I checked into was warmable or coolable to taste, no matter how poorly insulated the building might be. Oil stayed cheap, and natural gas also; who wouldn’t rather burn carbon than put in solid walls?*

So that was how I lived, and you who live after me may well agree that whether it was good or bad, it was certainly a pleasant life.

Carbon Ideologies Approached

Life as we know it is not limitless in its capacities . . . Actually, its manifestations are confined to a small range on the thermometer.

Loren Eiseley, 1969

Was this Earth in any sense entrusted to us, or merely, coincidentally, made our available prey?

Once upon a time, the issue under contention between these opposing views was moral, spiritual, aesthetic. Hence in my youth I heard environmentalists called elitist, sentimental, selfish and racist, while loggers, miners and trawler-fishermen were accused of insensitivity; their ways of making a living deprived us of “wilderness” which hypothetically enriched our secret “natures.” So the pleasures of a forest trekker got weighed against the projected needs of power generation; the practical advantage of situating an observatory atop a certain mountain might be litigated against by the Indian tribe to whom that mountain was sacred; jobs offered by the local paper mill did or did not measure up against tourist dollars driven off by the stink. And as usual, money generally weighed greater than anything, and competing moneys confused us all.

What a country it must have been before the lumber men came! Sherwood Anderson is writing about Appalachia. He goes on: . . . The mountain men were always talking of the spruce forests of former days. Many of them worked in the lumber camps. They speak of soft moss into which a man sank almost to his knees, the silence of the forest, the great trees. Meanwhile the coal men investigated the ground where the great trees had been. Wherever it paid them, they sliced off mountaintops, choking the hollows and streams with poisonous rubble, and if the result was uglier than before, well, at least somebody made a profit.

Presently arose two sharper queries. The first was: Were humans guilty of outright ecocide? If so, to what extent might this be a crime? What “value” was, for instance, the life of the spotted owl?—This got easily settled in economic terms; the owl’s worth was zero.

However, the issue of financial value failed to go away. Hence the second query: What if unregulated taking were damaging somebody’s investment? In 1876 John Muir warned: Strip off the woods with their underbrush from the mountain flanks, and the whole State, the lowlands as well as the highlands, would gradually turn into a desert. This effect being so evident, at least to him, toward century’s end he drew an optimistic conclusion: The slow-going, unthrifty farmers, also, are beginning to realize that when the timber is stripped from the mountains the irrigating streams dry up in summer, and are destructive in winter; that soil, scenery, and everything slip off with the trees: so of course they are coming into the ranks of tree-friends.

The pleasures of electricity in Hiroshima

But were they? And if they were, was that good enough to meet a future-dweller’s definition of stewardship?

More decades of happy material accumulation passed by, until the issue further sharpened itself: Might our actions actually be imperiling us? Who could believe such a ridiculous thing? And yet this worry asserted itself ever more pressingly—although we wriggled to avoid it.

In 1968 a scientist wrote: Increasingly, there is but one way into the future: the technological way. The frightening aspect of this situation lies in the constriction of human choice. In fact we had more choices than ever before.

What mainly fretted us about our fossil fuels was that they might run out. In 1981, a good decade after my biology textbook noted that highways, gas stations and parking lots now cover more of the surface area of the U.S. than do homes, stores and schools, a report on automobiles in America’s urban zones advised:

Transportation is heavily dependent on the use of oil derivatives* . . . In contrast, a variety of energy sources can generate electricity. A rational allocation of energy resources, therefore, might be to limit the use of liquid hydrocarbons in electric power generation and place major reliance instead on coal and uranium, augmented by hydroelectric and solar energy.

Yes, that was the “rational” way to get by, all right! By then several dozen of us had heard about contamination in “some ecosystem somewhere,” but we had to get on with our lives. Don’t say we didn’t try to be good; several commuters even rode “rail rapid transit” powered by electrical energy! (More than 30 years later, as I flittered from Poza Rica to Oklahoma City to Dubai for Carbon Ideologies, I kept meeting people who thought we should abandon fossil fuels in favor of “electricity”—as if electricity emerged new and clean from nowhere all by itself!) To tell the truth, our lives were unthinkable without internal combustion engines—whose fuels polluted the atmosphere as follows: With respect to both carbon monoxide and nitrous oxide pollution, not to mention sulfurs and particulates, coal came out the worst in grams emitted per car-mile, followed by residual oil, then natural gas. As for carbon dioxide, how could that be a pollutant? In its “rail rapid transit” report (1979) the U.S. Department of Transportation did not mention it. For in those days there were so many other ways that we could have done for ourselves that climate change hardly stood out!—In 1972, in a science-fiction novel called The End of the Dream, the saturnine Philip Wylie asked what our work was for and expressly disliked the answer: It was politically impossible in the late 1970s to compel even part of industry to suspend production for a mere twelve to eighteen months to make essential changes in its techniques, even to save the environment. The American citizenry . . . was addicted to consumerism. So were other nationalities.—What happened next? As Wylie imagined it, children got cooked to death when an overheated nuclear reactor had to cool itself with massive quantities of river water (the “power interests” hushed it up because so far it involves, mostly, a small number of slum kids, most of them Negro or Puerto Rican); then came the nitrogen oxide inversion layer in Manhattan that killed 1,200,000 . . .—and then, because the seas were like a chemical warehouse factory, with a million compounds in stock that were stirred together, outcome unknowable, and because certain manufacturing processes used world-wide in the making of cheap dyes killed some obscure marine protozoa that had kept them in check, came the vibes:

A great shadow, lightish, goes under my boat and past it for, maybe, a hundred feet . . . And the vibes start squirming out by the million. Looks like macaroni—. . . a vibe gets Amy while she’s just ready to scram . . . Then the follow-upper types arrive and you can’t see nothing, no dress, even, for the white wriggling mess is all over her.

They struck all over the world:

Japan managed fairly well, its population already reduced to a tenth of its peak by the Rice Blast . . . Some cities, such as Cincinnati, where it was believed the invasion could not occur, were hit at night and virtually depopulated before dawn, amidst scenes of incredible panic and rout.

But never mind the vibes, who were presently undone by other pollution; for by 2010 the seas had risen more than two hundred feet . . . Meanwhile the atmosphere, staggering under a cloak of coal-mine-fire pollution, began to deposit a rising volume of toxic compounds produced by volcanic activity.*

Near the end of my life the predictions in that final paragraph seemed likeliest. We had been using the oceans for sewers; we polluted land and air left and right . . . and for all I know, you from the future will conclude that climate change was not the worst of it. (From The Japan Times, 2013: Dense clouds of yellow dust from China were forecast to begin reaching Japan on Friday. From the same paper, 2014: Yellow dust linked to more emergency room trips. Maybe you’ve even met the vibes.)—In that era we used to entertain ourselves with all kinds of post-apocalyptic visions. George R. Stewart’s Earth Abides imagined a plague that wiped out most of us; Neville Shute’s On the Beach described our extinction after a thermonuclear war; John Brunner’s The Sheep Look Up retailed the destruction of America from pollution, greed and technological incompetence. A Stanford University biologist says the race between food production and population growth needs is already lost: by 1985 hundreds of millions of people will starve to death.—One or more of these events could still happen in your time. As for other scenarios, they mostly derived from our failure to answer that question: What was the work for?

A hazy reply did come from the advertisements in Inc.: The Magazine for Growing Companies (you see, our companies had to grow). Trying to sell us a 1985 Toyota cargo van (2,500-pound payload), some genius urged: Pack it full. Fuller. Pile it high. Higher. Why not? We’d let carbon do the work! Meanwhile some other Pied Piper was peddling computers: COMPAQ could have stopped here . . . but we didn’t. Introducing the new COMPAQ DESKPRO 286. More features, more speed, more power—courtesy of a fossil or nuclear plant in some ecosystem somewhere.—We liked that; we piled it all higher.

As climate change progressed, for a very long time it masked itself. The “coal-mine-fire pollution” imagined by Wylie would have been immediately unpleasant; but those wide white plumes I saw rising from the skirt-shaped smokestacks of the John E. Amos coal-fired power plant in Nitro, West Virginia, did not so much as tickle my throat; and a lady who lived with them nearly in her back yard said: “Well, I been here all my life and it never bothered me.”* And for a long time it did not bother the rest of us, either.

What “it” was the 17th-century seeker Van Helmont used to call gas sylvestre, while Black a century later referred to it as “fixed air.” Of course “it” was carbon dioxide.

In my 1976 Encyclopaedia Britannica lay two adjoining entries. The one on “climatic change,” which presented our planetary situation much as would the literature at the Kentucky Coal Museum almost 40 years later, spoke of warming and cooling cycles. Then it told our fortunes:

The cool-moist trend of the 1960s was of sufficient magnitude and universality to suggest that the next few decades will continue to be on the cool side in high latitudes and on the moist side in the tropics. Winters will more often than not be colder and snowier than average, and more summers will be either cool or wet.

But the entry on “climate” guessed in the other direction:

It seems that the 10 percent increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from the 1890s to the 1960s should tend to maintain a somewhat warmer climate (on the average, the effect should be about 0.3° C or 0.5° F) than that of the last century.

When I happened upon this passage in 2016, I was disagreeably amazed. In 1976 we knew that CO2 concentrations had been increasing for seven decades—a long opportunity to have thought something and perhaps even done something.—Well, but as the first entry showed, even in 1976 we did not quite understand what those concentrations entailed.* The prophet of the cool-moist trend might not have been an ideologue at all; he resembled one of those period science-fiction writers who could penetrate Venus’s clouds only with speculations. Why shouldn’t Venus be warm and moist, rainy and jungly and crawling with, for instance, intelligent amphibians? Being an Earth-like planet with a thick atmosphere, Venus was presumably well endowed with oceans . . . Until the 1960s, the commonest picture . . . was one which resembled the primitive Earth: steaming coal forests, swamps and—sometimes—even dinosaur-like reptiles of great size. In many ways it is unfortunate that the concept of Venus as a new Earth had to die, as it did once we’d linked the microwave radiation emitted by Venus to hideous heat. Mariner 2 verified these readings; then came the Soviet landers, most relevantly Venera 7, which reported a surface temperature of nearly 900° Fahrenheit before falling silent.* Wondering and hesitating, the 1976 Britannica finally took a chance: Perhaps the most promising explanation for the high surface temperature is . . . the so-called greenhouse effect—for the Venusian atmosphere contained not only significant sulfur dioxide,* which can increase global warming, but also, coincidentally enough, carbon dioxide (to the tune of 96.4%). The clouds let the sunlight in, but not out, and so the planet became, whether or not it had ever otherwise been, unliveable. Preliminary calculations suggest that such a runaway greenhouse effect could have occurred on Venus but not on the Earth because of the difference in distance from the Sun of the two planets and the consequent difference in the rate of temperature buildup.* Well, then, we could go back to sleep—especially since our ordinary thermometers and shortlived terrestrial weathermen could prove no global temperature increase.

In 1980, when it happened to be said that the United States accounts for roughly one half of the world’s total consumption of energy and produces substantially less than it consumes, the United Nations and Petro-Canada held a symposium. They invited resource extractors from around the world, and even a few bleeding hearts. It must have been the end of November in Montréal, whose famous winter chill would have set reassuringly in, when the man who would soon publish all their papers under the happy title Long-Term Energy Resources addressed them:

“Very often the point is made that the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere will lead to a ‘greenhouse’ effect, an increase in temperatures worldwide, and the melting of the polar ice caps. This theory is frequently mentioned, including in some of the papers submitted to the Conference, but it is a theory that is out of date.”

And he invoked the climatologist Dr. George Kukla, who had opined that carbon dioxide may have a cooling effect. Unfortunately, Dr. Kukla could not be present (I would have loved to read his remarks), but his name must have been as good as gold—for thanks to him the greenhouse effect was now forever disposed of!—The moderator continued: “I mention the latest research . . . in order, if possible, to eliminate discussion of CO2 from the Conference.”

To eliminate discussion of CO2 from the Conference! To you from the future that must ring high-handed, and worse! You might accuse him of censorial ignorance, or of covering up for his petrochemical pals; in hindsight it does ring to his discredit that very often the point about CO2 was being made in his hearing, and yet he determined to eliminate discussion of it.

Well, please forgive him. In his defense, and ours, I would remind you that environmental change, which must be accelerating in your time, remained deniable to, and denied by, our multitudes who lived their own lives, being served by unseen sectors of a far-flung, hyper-specialized economy, whose unintended effects were correspondingly invisible; so that even in the second decade of the 21st century, when I was writing Carbon Ideologies, it seemed not at all preposterous to follow ancestral tradition, and make my own short life the measure. Had I done so, my daughter would have been happier—for how tedious I was, to go on and on about gloomy abstractions! Yes, cities were growing and forests were slimming out; we could see that, but how could we be expected to grasp these slower alterations, especially when our most ironclad climatological records went back only a century or so? As you will see when we get to the sixth-grade science standards of the West Virginia Board of Education,* such changes could be stoutly denied, and the denials maybe even believed in by some of the deniers. In 1969 a paleontologist who certainly tried to take the long view concluded:

If the cause of these glacial conditions . . . is directed by recurrent terrestrial or cosmic conditions, then man, unknowingly, is huddling memoryless in the pale sunshine of an interstadial spring . . . He is a survival from a vanished world, a denizen of the long cold of which he may yet be the returning harbinger.

Meanwhile our lives ran on, as yours probably will, with little concern for someone else’s dark future.

That moderator of the Long-Term Energy Resources symposium was, as were we all, a devoted specimen of faith. And just before this he had recited our common creed:

“Modern industry cannot operate without electricity, and . . . electricity is today a necessity for our communications system and social life.”*

What was the work for?—I refuse to reply: Merely for consumerism, profiteering and reptilian greed! For when L. L. Nunn wrote so long ago of lessening man’s toil by the use of a wire,* his heart had been right. (Does that photograph of the old Bangladeshi woman sweatily and wearily clutching her shocks of corn mean nothing to you?)—And at the symposium in Montréal another good man now rose to speak. He was the Chief Scientist of the United Kingdom Department of Energy. And he said: “Energy planners must never forget that hoped-for increases in the standard of living of the world’s poor will result in increased energy consumption to replace physical labor and prevent the exhaustion of limited wood resources.”

You from the future, are you listening? Please don’t say that we ruined you entirely out of selfishness! Now hear the pleadings of some altruists from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, published in 1982: Not to use oil and gas for as long as they are readily available would be an act of irresponsibility and inhumanity on the part of those governments struggling to provide for poor, expanding populations.

During the previous year, our planet’s citizens had produced 285 quadrillion BTUs of primary energy (we casually called them “quads”). Does that figure bear more weight in italics? I could truthfully equate it with 57 billion barrels of oil, but would that assist any merely human understanding? A single barrel of oil (42 gallons, 159 liters, 296 pounds internal weight) is barely comprehensible at something like 6.5 million BTUs*—just enough (supposing the impossibility of perfect efficiency) to have manufactured 95 pounds of titanium in 1952. Why not say that we refined Himalayan mountains of carbon-based substances, which our high priests offered up in smoke?

The Oak Ridge altruists now admitted: Burning fossil fuels will increase the level of CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere. This could become a problem a half century from now . . . Intensive research is needed to increase our knowledge about the factors that affect accumulation of CO2.

(From the National Academy of Sciences, 1979: At present, the most serious man-made impact on climate in the next few centuries is believed to be produced by the increasing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, as a result of burning fossil fuels . . . Fortunately, it appears that the temperature changes due to increased CO2 will not be detectable as such before the year 2000.)

So they knew! Reader, when you get to the coal, oil and fracking chapters of Carbon Ideologies, where you will hear, for instance, a certain lobbyist expressing his “reservations as to man’s contribution” to climate change, which “has always occurred and will always occur; I’m intrigued and even find it a little humorous when I hear people say that the winters today are not what they were when I was a child,” please remember that more than 30 years before, back in 1982, these brains at Oak Ridge wrote in black and white: Burning fossil fuels will increase the level of CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere.

In their defense, intensive research is needed to increase our knowledge.

(From a biology textbook published in 1967: The rapid, very voluminous release of CO2 by man-made combustions today may increasingly affect global climates . . . Carbon dioxide . . . has a “greenhouse effect,” which in some measure probably contributes to the present warming up of the earth. So even in 1967—49 years before I went to Oklahoma and found people still denying it—a professor at Brown University was referring to “present warming”—but in some measure probably did not equal certainly.)

To comfort us, the Oak Ridge boys now prepared two curves of projected carbon dioxide concentrations over time, the higher-sloping one (which would have thrilled the ideologues you will meet in West Virginia) labeled COAL USE TO MEET ALL ENERGY DEMAND and the lower one 1975 FUEL MIX. Even the all-coal curve stayed obediently below 400 parts per million in the year 2000—as in fact happened. The caption read: It is very improbable that atmospheric CO2 will reach 500 ppm before 2030.

(In 2030 I was by some definitions still alive, but 71 years old. So what did I matter?)

The Oak Ridge boys further calmed the waters: And even in the high CO2 case, a level of 700 ppm (which may prove to be acceptable) is not exceeded in 2050.*

(Translation: They did not care about anyone alive after 2050. You were not in their department.)

It is fairly clear that no serious climactic changes will result from fossil fuel use in this century. After that they would be safely off the job. For the present, fossil fuels will continue to be used while the potential consequences of the CO2 problem are investigated.

So we kept right on investigating. Then we died.

About Data

The literature review supports the oft-heard assumption that conversion of grassland to cropland leads to losses of soil carbon stocks, and that conversion of cropland to grassland enriches soil carbon stocks. Nonetheless, results can be adduced that support the opposite assumption.

Greenhouse Gas Inventory, Germany, 1990–2007

I was the first one back in 2002 to tell the truth about the global warming stuff and all of that. And my own granddaughter came home one day and said “Popi . . . , why is it you don’t understand global warming?” I did some checking and . . . the stuff that they teach our kids nowadays, you have to un-brainwash them when they get out.

Sen. Jim Inhofe* (Republican–Oklahoma), 2016

As for that CO2 . . . well, do you remember Wylie’s ocean of a million compounds in stock that were stirred together, outcome unknowable? Our atmosphere was another such ocean. With respect to pollution a chemical technologist advised us: Modeling only the gas-phase dynamics over an area like Los Angeles requires solving about 500,000 simultaneous, nonlinear equations. So how could you complain if we didn’t get it right?

Hindsight is always sharpest, they say—especially once the seer wakes up to the fact that past actions are cooking him alive! In this book I shall doubtless make plenty of errors, for which I ask your forgiveness. My data sources will never be in perfect concord; quantifications of the menace of methane altered but remained unsettled during the writing of Carbon Ideologies; coal’s categorizations varied down the decades—and I, well-meaning but sometimes clumsy with numbers, may have dropped a zero or three in my conversions, even though I reviewed them twice. My handheld radiation meter evinced during calibration a tendency to underreport low-level energy fields by 4% (in the red zones of Japan it probably did better). Underfunded, ageing and absent-minded, crossing my fingers that my paid math-checkers and unpaid science Samaritans would save me, I did what I could; and if time proves my data wrong, I hope that my comparative method of cost-benefit analysis will remain useful to you.

Why did I believe in global warming? Regarding its tally of slowly but remorselessly increasing annual mean temperatures, the 2006 CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics swore that the 95% confidence interval . . . since 1951 is +/− 0.12° C. The compilers were, after all, scientists. Had they assured me with 95% confidence that the Earth was flat, well, I would have had to believe that, too.

And so, at least on my own behalf, I ask you to regard the follies of the 20th century with some tolerance. The two opposing entries in the 1976 Britannica are evidence that we “didn’t know.”

But then . . . I mention the latest research . . . in order, if possible, to eliminate discussion of CO2 from the Conference. For your sake (and mine), the bias should have been the other way.

Moreover, it is fairly clear that no serious climatic changes will result from fossil fuel use in this century. For the present, fossil fuels will continue to be used . . .

What did the data actually reveal, back in that day? If you like, tell the story differently than I! Asking these ghosts from our past for certainty and accuracy about climate change is demanding too much. Their data disturb me, in a blurred and muted fashion. Their comments on the data disturb me more.

About Data Suppression

We can be silent witnesses to terrible injustices if we think that we can obtain significant benefits by making the rest of humanity, past, present and future, pay the extremely high costs of environmental deterioration.

Pope Francis, Encyclical Letter of 2015

Someone of goodwill might adduce that up until a certain date (if you like, 1967, 1982 or—stretching the case—2007), the dangers of greenhouse gases remained debatable even to future-thinking educated persons. Had resolute certainty come earlier rather than later, the human race might have preserved many of its privileges. Every now and then a question of a certain mournful interest used to hover around my face: How much was known and deliberately concealed by carbon ideologues?

In this book you will read about serious accidents involving all of our four major fuels.* In each case, the magnitude of the pollution was grossly understated in the newspapers. Had it been overstated half the time, I would have been less suspicious. Even as matters stood, that hypothetical individual of goodwill might have sighed: “Oh, well; they probably did it to prevent panic.”

But selfishness is near about as reliable as gravity.

For 18 years, a Mr. Honma Ryu worked on behalf of Japan’s second largest advertising agency, Hakuhodo. Here was the procedure allegedly followed by organisms of his pay grade:

If an incident occurs in a factory or a plant and the press reports it, Dentsu* directly intervenes and visits the business department of the newspaper in question . . . We ask them politely to try to speak less about the case, not to put the article on the front page, or [else] to publish it in the evening paper which is less read.

Mr. Honma asserted that Dentsu holds 80% of the market for nuclear advertising in Japan.

Five years after the Fukushima disaster, which Carbon Ideologies will discuss in detail, pro-nuclear advertisements began to appear in the Japanese press. The message of all these advertisements is identical, revealing the hand of Dentsu behind the scenes . . . According to Honma Ryu, . . . they are part of a campaign to closely monitor all information published on nuclear power, as well as to quasi-guarantee that local newspapers will limit the voice of opponents.

What if carbon ideologues of a profit-minded stripe had made visits to opinion-shapers, decade after decade, and asked them politely to speak less about this book’s theme?

If they did a good job, their efforts would have passed unrecorded.

About Disbelief

None of us really believe it’s ever going to happen—not to us.

Nevil Shute, On the Beach, 1957

But let me exculpate those concealers a little, by further implicating myself: Even as the data aligned with ominous consistency—and, yes, even when the actual effects upon the climate began to obtrude themselves upon our coarse perceptions, my heart went out to the ones whom we cruelly called “global warming deniers”—not to all of them, of course, not to those who were bought and paid for, but unhesitatingly to people, who, like me, had not ”done anything wrong.” I wished them to be correct! I mention the latest research . . . in order, if possible, to eliminate discussion of CO2 from the Conference. Having denounced that procedure because it propagated a dangerous error, let me say again: If only we could have burned carbon harmlessly forever!

A physicist once explained: No theory can ever be proved to be correct; it can only be proved to be incorrect.

And indeed, the deniers and disbelievers kept saying: “You can’t prove that global warming is real!”

But that physicist also remarked: A theory is of little value if it cannot make precise and unambiguous predictions. And if it could, then it did have value. The theory of interest to us predicted that if atmospheric carbon levels rose, mean temperatures would go up.—But if they went up trivially, or imperceptibly, why not eliminate discussion of CO2 from the Conference?

In August 2017, Hurricane Harvey struck Houston, whose flooding was shocking, Biblical, overwhelming, unprecedented, etcetera. Science had predicted that a warming atmosphere could hold more moisture, increasing the likelihood of heavy rains. That prediction was unambiguous but not necessarily precise. Had global warming caused Harvey, or merely enabled it—or did global warming remain a “theory” with plausible but not definite correlations to this particular storm?

If the theory ever grew aggressively convincing, then Houston’s harried city planners might be compelled to limit new “development” across runoff-absorbing wetlands. You can’t blame them for avoiding that! Although they would surely avoid the term climate change, they might start implying that there were changes in the climate. (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1889: It is a strange art that can thus be practised; to talk for hours of a thing, and never name nor yet so much as hint at it.) They might even have to dike and retrench.—You from the future must be laughing, to read that they hoped to pay so little!—But for a fact, there remained no immediate danger, not even then in 2017, and certainly not 37 years earlier, when members of that sympiosium in Montréal had been soothed by Dr. George Kukla to the effect that carbon dioxide may have a cooling effect.

The measurements at Mauna Loa Observatory, far off and irrelevant, were of a piece with the farther-off wearisome geometries deriving from a brain which once mathematized in a cruder observatory at Torun; I am thinking of Copernicus, that cautious solitary who built on the geometries of long-dead stargazers in a treatise (1543) whose iconoclasm was ambiguous and in fact has been called a last effort to “save the appearances,” of planets and stars, including our own sun, orbiting around us in perfect circles (or, if need be, circles within circles), for the sake of God’s glory, in which we, thus centered, had up until now been comfortingly included. Copernicus uncentered the Earth, setting it in explicit motion around the sun—and the inconspicuous unraveling of Aristotle and Scriptural literalism became shockingly manifest. Cautious and pious, he preserved what little he could: And so the sun, as if resting on a kingly throne, governs the family of stars which wheel around. In other words, the universe’s center remained reassuringly near at hand. Then came Galileo, Kepler, Newton—and in 1851 Foucault’s pendulum finally provided visible proof of our world’s rotation. It is not for me to retell that long story here. But at the end of the 20th century, as the implications of the Mauna Loa measurements foamed in greater and lesser temperature-waves to attack our sandcastles, we became characters in a counterpart comedy: Another of our complacencies found itself condemned to die!—Well, it declined to. For the rest of my days and longer it struggled on, in the customary and even laudable fashion of any life-loving thing. It defied and rejected doom!

Before Copernicus, and for a good while after, we had believed in our sure and static place in the cosmic order. Determined to keep hold of that, some refused to look through Galileo’s telescope. We accused Copernicus of heresy (fortunately for him, he had already died), and burned Giordano Bruno at the stake. Damaged and angry, we lived on, still grasping at a kindred notion: that “nature” was ours, for our use, without repercussions.—What was the work for? That was nobody else’s business! And so in 2016 the Republican nominee for President, who like his predecessor the decider knew what needed to be true for the sake of inertia and short-term corporate welfare, explained to the electorate: “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”

If he were wrong, and our old way of working and being had to perish to save us from doing the same, how could we face the future? I lay in bed writing these words at dawn in my hotel in Dubai, watching the dusty sky glare ever more greyly in at me while my laptop, having sipped electricity on the other side of the world, made my words shine upon the screen as if I had asserted something important, and the air conditioner pulsed soothingly overhead. How could I write Carbon Ideologies if I didn’t stay cool? Especially since I felt so jet-lagged just now—and don’t tell me about the carbon dioxide I had spewed jetting over here—because I was officially on assignment for a magazine!

It would take awhile—far too long, I fear—for that convenient, selfish optimism of ours to die; longer still before the stink of its decay grew so intolerable that we had to bury it somewhere, after which we turned, resolutely I hope, to the ever more daunting requirements of our continued existence on Earth.

And I did not want to. I always hated funerals! Far easier to refute Copernicus, whom hardly anyone read, than to resist the evil temptation of peering through Galileo’s telescope! Like the “global warming deniers,” or any patient with a diagnosis of “terminal,” I preferred to put off the bad days.

“Consider It Good Fortune”

We may be moving now towards a warmer phase. Half a million years hence this may be a much sunnier and pleasanter world to live in than it is to-day.

H. G. Wells, The Outline of History, 1920*

. . . and he felt reassured by the thought of New York in its ring of sacred fires, the ring of smokestacks, gas tanks, cranes and high tension lines.

Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 1957

So we believed what suited us.—If winters were going to be colder while the climate would get warmer, on the average life would remain average, which is to say accompanied by a reliable rise in Gross Domestic Product.

And somewhat as GDP went up, which was usually gently and arithmetically, so upslanted that graph of monthly average carbon dioxide concentrations at Mauna Loa: a line, more or less, not a curve.

You from the future know all this, so I will trouble you merely with the first number and the last:

CARBON DIOXIDE CONCENTRATIONS IN OUR ATMOSPHERE,

as Recorded at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii,

1959 and 2004,

in multiples of the 1959 value

All levels expressed in [parts per million].

1

1959: 315.98

1.068

2004: 337.38

Source: CRC Handbook, 2006, with calculations by WTV.

Quite innocuous! A 7% increase over nearly half a century!—I admit that by this point the United Nations “Millennium Ecosystem Assessment” had announced:

A consistent decline in average species abundance of about 40% between 1970 and 2000 . . . Between 12% and 52% of species within well-studied higher taxa are threatened with extinction.

But why worry about some ecosystem out there somewhere? And who could finger greenhouse gases? Doomsters had already fingered deforestation, pesticides, overgrazing, acid rain and other such improvements to our planet, which, yes, we were turning into a chemical warehouse factory, with a million compounds in stock that were stirred together, outcome unknowable. And even if carbon dioxide could someday, somehow injure us, well, it is fairly clear that no serious climatic changes will result from fossil fuel use in this century.

Unfortunately, that figure for 2004, courtesy of the latest volume of the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics available in my hometown library, was nearly 147% higher than the planetary average over the last 800,000 years.—Projecting back to 1750,* scientists worked out preindustrial chemical equilibrium values of 280 ppm. From 280 to 337 parts per million gets only to 120%! Well, the two climatologists who cried out their 147% had set preindustrial levels at 230 parts per million. So was the 1750 baseline actually, and what were we going to call acceptable? This question will occupy us when we visit the contaminated zones of Fukushima: What was “normal background” radiation supposed to be, and how high a dose would prove “dangerous”? Some ideologues called making such determinations practical and necessary; counter-ideologues called them fiddling while Rome burned.—But we could breathe as well as ever before, and the climate seemed hardly altered beyond the bounds of everyday weather fluctuations . . .

Back in 1965, when some people still believed that Venus might be cool enough to support the existence of swamp monsters, a certain Roger Revelle advised the American government that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels might increase by 25% at the century’s end. What an alarmist! For the third time I insist that the rise didn’t even reach 7%!—Unfortunately, after 2004 it steepened. In a decade it achieved 26.5%—400 parts per million. The last time our planet had seen such concentrations, the oceans were 82 feet higher.—And so Revelle was correct after all, although to be sure he had gotten 10 years ahead of himself.*

But if CO2 concentrations had been rising since before I was born, why was there no perceptible warming during most of my lifetime? Two climatologists explained: In earlier years, other factors were stronger than the relatively small forcing from carbon emissions.

It could have been as early as 1951, although it might not have been until 1970, or even 1971, that the Earth began to absorb more heat than it sent back into space. But it is virtually certain, concluded climate scientists, that the Earth has gained substantial energy from 1971 to 2010. The estimated increase in energy inventory between 1971 and 2010 is 274 . . . × 1021 J[oules] (high confidence), with a heating rate of 213 × 1012 W[atts] . . . over that time period.

By my calculation, 274 × 1021 joules equals something like 260,000 quads. But why worry? As you may remember,* in 1981 alone, global energy production had been 285 quads. So this increase in energy inventory totaled merely 919 times more than the entire global energy production of 1981! It was as if we had burned 10½ trillion tons of West Virginia coal in the course of those 39 years—174,000 tons each second—well, thank goodness global warming remained entirely debatable!

CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS FROM FUEL COMBUSTION, WORLD AND SELECTED COUNTRIES, 1971 AND 2014,

in multiples of the U.S. percentage increase over that period

All figures are in [metric] megatonnes (MT). 1 MT = 2.2 billion lbs. To approximate total carbon dioxide emissions, add 30%.

All listed nations will figure significantly in this book.

Each header is a multiple of the American increase of 21%. All figures over 10 rounded to nearest whole digit.

1

U.S.A., +21%

1971: 4,288.1

2014: 5,176.2

+2.76

Japan, +58%

1971: 750.7

2014: 1,188.6

+6.29

World, +132%

1971: 13,942.2

2014: 32,381.0

+17

Mexico, +360%

1971: 93.7

2014: 430.9

+98

Bangladesh, +2,048%

1971: 2.9

2014: 62.3

+329

United Arab Emirates, +6,916%

1971: 2.5

2014: 175.4

−1.23

Germany, −26%

1971: 978.2

2014: 723.3

Source: International Energy Agency, 2016, with calculations by WTV.

In 2016, when I was finishing Carbon Ideologies, the atmosphere’s CO2 concentration struck 407.42. That was nearly 29% over 1959—not to mention 43% over 1750. As you know far too well, it kept climbing.

No, the graph of annual global mean temperature from 1856 to 2004 was definitely not a line anymore, but a rising curve—although it had goodheartedly consoled us with an awful lot of jigjaggings up and down, varying from below 13.5 to as high as 14.6° Celsius, so that we could plausibly postpone certainties and decisions.—In 1856, the world average was 13.621° C. Not until 1938 did it first cross the line above 14°, after which it dipped lightly back down into the 13s no less than 10 times, sometimes for years on end, the last occasion being 1978, two years after that pair of Britannica entries were published.—How could I blame the Britannica anymore?

A.D. 2004 found us averaging 14.455° Celsius—less than a 6% temperature increase over 148 years! Like carbon dioxide concentrations, that was pretty negligible; why not keep believing in cool summers and snowy winters?

In Tokyo, annual mean temperatures between 1876 and 2011 inclusive rose tremblingly when plotted as “11-year running means” and steadily when idealized into a “long term trend”; either way, they had gone up from about 13.25 to 16.5° C. The considerable time over which these observations had been logged gave them worrisome credibility. (To be sure, one must give fair credit to the famous “heat island” phenomenon of Japanese urbanization: dark pavements, concentrations of body and engine heat, local leaks of waste heat from air conditioners, power plants, etcetera, all made central Tokyo warmer than the ricefields, villages and managed forests of the periphery.) In 2015 the Meteorological Observatory predicted that by century’s end about [a] 3° C increase will be seen in . . . average temperature . . . Tokyo (15.4° C) will become [like] Kagoshima (18.6° C).—Well, but which figure should we name correct? Was Tokyo’s present temperature 16.5° or 15.45°? Asserters of snowy winters loved such contradictions.

At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology they compiled a world manufacturing CO2 plot, concluding that the pattern shows a period of gradually increasing CO2 emissions from 1970 to 2002, followed by a relatively sharp rise after 2002. What if mean temperatures followed suit?

Very possibly we were ruining ourselves! Grieving on your own behalf for the best of reasons, you from the future might (if you are insufficiently embittered) make the mistake of grieving for us. But as a great novelist pointed out:

We are inclined sometimes to wring our hands much more profusely over the situation of another than the mental attitude of that other, toward his own condition, would seem to warrant. People . . . suffer, but they bear it manfully . . . We see, as we grieve for them, the whole detail of their blighted career, a vast confused imagery of mishaps covering years, much as we read a double decade of tragedy in a ten-hour novel. The victim, meanwhile, for the single day or morrow, is not actually anguished.

That describes our period’s optimistic American President, George W. Bush, the one who had styled himself the decider. When I was alive we mostly remembered him for launching the wicked and disastrous second Iraq War. (He bore that victory manfully, all right.) But another of his decisions proved yet more brilliant. In 1997 the U.S. had agreed to join 36 other developed nations in reducing greenhouse gas emissions per the famous Kyoto Protocol. Reneging on his campaign promise, and blindsiding his own nominee at the Environmental Protection Agency, the decider, having been warned by his political “base,” decided against ratification. As he explained: I did not believe . . . that the government should impose on power plants mandatory emission reductions for carbon dioxide, which is not a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. No, he wasn’t anguished at all! The Times of London concluded: The country that emits 25 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide with less than four percent of its population is not going to slow down. Well, and why should we? Who could prove that scientists knew more about science than deciders?

For one thing, global warming continued to mask itself. One might suppose that if temperatures were creeping up all over the world, then new heat records should be trumping the old ones. But for a long time we managed not to go the way of Venus. Some heroic meteorologist had measured the world’s highest thermometer reading—58° Celsius, or 136° Fahrenheit—in Aziza, Libya, on September 13, 1922. The highest reading in California*—134°—occurred in 1913. At that time there were 2 billion humans on Earth. Come the new millennium, with our population between 6 and 7 billion, that Libyan reading remained unsurpassed.* Some stretches of cool years scientists later associated with a transfer of heat from the upper to the deeper ocean—but that was merely some hypothesis about some ecosystem somewhere—and two climatologists at the conservative Cato Institute reassured us: Consider it good fortune that we are living in a world of gradually increasing levels of atmospheric CO2. The effects of this increase on food production are far more important than any putative change in climate.*

Indeed, it was good fortune for maize, beans, rice, wheat, soybeans. Those crops loved carbon dioxide. Meanwhile, in 2015 and then again in 2016, delightfully gentle winters in the state of Maine extended the season for maple syrup production. Now, wasn’t that lucky?—Of course the day might come when Earth was too hot for any plants at all. But not yet, my friends—not (we hoped) while we were alive! And so one highly successful fracker and CEO (who for all his evident enjoyment of public pontifications declined to be interviewed for Carbon Ideologies) cited Richard Tol, a prominent economist* with Sussex University, who had conveniently concluded that climate change would be beneficial up to a warming of 2.2° C, as measured from 2009.

Just the same, our farmers began to watch for aphid-transmitted viral diseases. Five more generations of aphids every year (the result of shortening winters) would keep our agronomists on the defensive. Tomato necrosis and citrus tristeza were already worsening on the Iberian Peninsula, where warming is double the global average.—Well, who were we to complain, compared to you? I wonder what you find to eat—while in my day the weather was frequently droughtless and stormless, and we could still call on bee-pollinators . . .

Gradually, other signs loomed up. Agricultural statisticians noted: November 1999 will go down in the record books as the warmest November ever in many Minnesota communities. But what was Minnesota to the rest of us? So we laughed that off.—In Canada, six main glaciers have been shrinking since standardized measurements of their mass began at various times during the 1960s and 1970s. Now it was 2010, and they were still receding.* What that country’s chief statistician delicately called “changes” in glacial mass had come to be considered among the most robust indicators of climate change. Why, those shivering Canadians ought to be grateful!—The Central Intelligence Agency’s Factbook for 2012 dared to define desertification as the spread of desert-like conditions in arid or semi-arid areas, due to overgrazing, loss of agriculturally productive soils, or climate change, and presently Time magazine saw fit to run the following little item in the “Trending” column: The contiguous U.S. experienced its warmest winter on record in 2015–16, with average temperatures 4.6° F above the 20th century average . . . But that was not so bad, either! In January I went for coffee and the bakery girl remarked happily on the pleasant sunny weather. Her life was getting better, not worse.

May 28, 2017, marked potentially the hottest temperature ever recorded in Asia: 129.2° Fahrenheit, datelined Turbat, Pakistan. But that still fell short of the Libyan reading from 1922! Sixteen of the 17 hottest years ever recorded have occurred since 2000, scientists say, and 2016 was the hottest since modern record-keeping began in the 19th century . . . Well, but if they were the hottest, why didn’t they leave Libya in the shade? Our arithmetic being democratic, we could declare that a lonely maximum proved less than an average, and so we got along in life.

And consider it good fortune that we are living in a world of gradually increasing levels of atmospheric CH4. Well, not even the Cato Institute said that. The way to talk about methane was: Consider it nature’s fault.—In 2001 a British chemist comforted us that while rising carbon dioxide (and monoxide) concentrations did come from fossil fuel burning, methane, which molecule for molecule was far more dangerous, derived from paddy fields and cows. Now, how could those be problematic? And the chemist summed up:

Human contributions . . . are still a minor component compared with natural sources: most carbon dioxide comes from plants, microbes and animals, while methane is given off by swamps, marshes and termite mounds.

Much the same could be said about sulfur dioxide: Global climate change, prior to the 20th century, appears to have been initiated primarily by major changes in volcanic activity. Again we could plead innocent.

By 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change grew

very clear on the following point: observations and measurements unambiguously indicate that the climate system is warming and that humans are primarily responsible for this trend. And the trend has intensified in recent years . . . If dangerous impacts of climate change are to be prevented, global warming must be constrained to no more than 2° C in comparison to preindustrial levels . . . By 2050, global emissions will have to be reduced by 50–85% in comparison to relevant levels in the year 2000.

As you know, we pushed them the other way. Consider a certain Table 5: Global per capita consumption of energy, materials, products, and services in 2010, and average annual growth rates for these goods . . . : The table shows positive growth in every variable, with GDP, energy, and emissions totals growing at ~1.5% per year, but with all industrial measures ahead of this . . .

Carbon Ideologies Defined

When would this thing seem real? Maybe it seemed real in the big cities, but his worm’s-eye view frustrated his curiosity and sense of drama.

C. M. Kornbluth, Not This August, 1955

You see, some of us wanted to keep blow-drying our hair, while others enjoyed buying cheap sludge oil and selling it to the neighbors as better stuff, and a few bright actors simply hated to stop making titanium. So what were we supposed to do?

Many of this question’s contradictory answers derived from the various ideologies of energy production, which in honor of their most quotidian, useful and ultimately infamous member I will refer to as “carbon ideologies.” To be precise, they were “ideologies about carbon.” Some of them favored the production of carbon emissions, and the rest opposed it. By my definition, nuclear power, solar energy, coal mining, oil extraction, fracking, tidal electricity and wind turbines could all be named carbon ideologies—for “what to do about carbon” was becoming the question of the day—or at least a question to yawn over, when we were not judging some actress’s latest facelift.

Mr. Sam Hewes, Vice-President of the Bank of Oklahoma, once told me:* “I think that we’re all ideologues, and we all have a set of beliefs. I have learned that when you in any way attack somebody else’s reality, they’re either gonna leave you or attack you. I think, because of uncertainty and not really knowing, there are people that believe fully, one side or another side. So I think, the winner’s gonna be the people that are gonna convince the others that they are right, although they don’t know, either. Those that think that global warming is an unbelievable issue and we’re almost at the tipping point where we can’t recover, there the model that they have in their head says that we have to do everything that we can to shut down oil. I see this in churches all the time. They make decisions not based on facts and then they call the other side illogical, just because they don’t believe the same thing. Well, the other side are not irrational. They’re just . . . Science is the new religion.”

Or perhaps our religion was prosperity.

How should people live?—For a long while most of us had answered: Not by bread alone, but also by electricity.*

Coal, the reliable workhorse, ubiquitous oil and the new ideology of natural gas all promised to keep life easy. Nuclear power offered to solve the matter by producing energy without creating greenhouse gases. Ideologues of presumed good faith advanced their respective agendas by way of the free market. We all bought what they sold.

About Carbon

When they have discovered truth in nature they fling it into a book, where it is in even worse hands.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Notebook E, 1775–76

Who would I be to denigrate carbon?—Not myself!—for by mass it was the second most common element of my own body, with only oxygen being more conspicuous. (Consider in opposition cesium, whose radioisotopes played such baleful roles in Japan. When we were alive, that element made up two millionths of a percent of a typical human carcass. Your body surely contains more.) As one chemist rhapsodized: No element is more essential to life than carbon, because only carbon forms strong single bonds to itself that are stable enough to resist chemical attack under ambient conditions. Those bonds, like our economies, could extend almost indefinitely onward. Carbon compounds thus became so numerous* and interesting that we devoted an entire subdiscipline to the carbon family: organic chemistry. And by the way, combustion to carbon dioxide and water is characteristic of organic compounds. Prominent among the latter was that large and thriving clan, the hydrocarbons—which is to say, substances composed strictly of carbon and hydrogen atoms—for instance, that dangerous greenhouse gas CH4, more popularly known as methane.*

An oil geologist explained: Molecules with five to twenty carbon atoms are liquids: crude oil. Molecules with fewer than five carbon atoms are . . . natural gas. There you have it.

From our fossil fuels we made new substances almost at pleasure, festooning atoms to our carbon chains. Production procedures could even be altered based on the latest market price of this or that hydrocarbon. Example: One common type of acrylic plastic showed off 15 carbon atoms per molecule. Our chemists could have synthesized it out of either oil or natural gas. Didn’t that prove our intelligence?

In our planet’s crust, carbon made up a respectable 200 parts per million—another source insisted on 480 parts per million—and in seawater (at least up near the ocean’s surface), it showed itself (as carbonic acid*) to the tune of 28 milligrams per liter. But throughout the days of my life, each liter held less carbon than it used to—because the solubility of carbon dioxide lessens in warmer water. As one scientist put it: Ocean temperature is . . . the primary natural control for atmospheric CO2 concentration. In other words, as the temperature of our oceans crept up, they released more greenhouse gases, which further heated the planet, forcing still more carbon dioxide out of solution—a pretty feedback loop.

Accordingly, carbon dioxide rose up out of our water; it thickened in our air. Humans burning fossil fuels and manufacturing cement are releasing 7.8 gigatons of carbon into the atmosphere yearly. So I once read, back when I was alive. Later on we released more.

Since fossil fuels occupy most of Carbon Ideologies, permit me to leave them alone for now. As for cement, we used to make that stuff in order to thicken our traces upon the earth. In olden times we took silica, and later on we used silica and alumina together, to render lime more adherent and waterproof. Lime comprised the mortar in our cement, and this recipe from 1910 tells how we made it: When pure chalk or limestone is “burned,” i.e., heated in a kiln until its carbonic acid has been driven off, it yields pure lime. This slakes violently with water, giving slaked lime, which can be made into a smooth paste . . . and mixed with sand to form common mortar. Upgrading sand into amorphous silica, we obtained our uncommon mortar, which was cement. (Concrete is a paste of water, aggregate—sand, crushed slag and the like—and cement, which then sets into a hard construction material of high compressive strength.) The liming process was easy if slow, and cheap as long as we declined to count the cost paid by you in the future after the carbonic acid went invisibly upward—0.785 pounds or more for every pound of lime produced.* It was nothing; it was only carbon.

By the way, the CO2 emitted by roasting limestone did not complete the tally of our carbon expenses in this process—because heating each pound of the stuff into lime cost us 3,800 British Thermal Units, which we could pay in half a pound of dried white pine, or three ounces of heavy grade commercial fuel oil, or five ounces of West Virginia coal, cash on delivery and smoke up the chimney!*

Between the commencement of the Industrial Revolution and 2011, we offered our planet eight petagrams* of cement-smoke carbon—about 17.6 trillion pounds. But why fret? That was only 1/47 of our total CO2 emissions.

In 2008, Canada’s cement works sent up 6,600 metric kilotons of carbon dioxide—merely 1/83 of her total contribution to atmospheric progress . . .*

That year, Portland cement was Oklahoma’s second most valuable product of “non-fuel mineral production,”* so why would the Sooner State stop making it? Cement-making released more CO2 than any other American industrial business except for the steelmaking trades. The reason was argue-proof: Cement continues to be a critical component of the construction industry.

I myself was an enthusiastic consumer of this stuff. In the final months that I was drafting Carbon Ideologies, it happened once again that “good fences make good neighbors,” so after his strong and gentle helper had broken regularly spaced deep square holes, partly with a pickaxe and partly with a drill, through the asphalt of my parking lot, my contractor friend towed behind his truck a slowly rotating concrete mixer, and I came out to watch, admire and help place the steel poles, after which the mixer spewed grey slurry into the wheelbarrow, and the helper began to shovel it down around each pole, the contractor pounding and stirring air bubbles out of the stuff, then tamping it just right. Once it had set, he would pound in the polecaps and weld on the downcurving double ribbons of heavy chain, so that no one (I hoped) could dump garbage in my parking lot anymore. Enjoying the company of those strong men who did what I could not, I listened first to a tale of an ancestor who had invented and possibly patented an improved concrete mixture containing ground-up oyster shells, then to a sketch of some early morning alcoholics who refused to guarantee their own cement (at which the contractor demanded, “Well, what can you do?”). Then the helper, happy to have gotten this extra work in order to buy Christmas presents for his family, patiently gathered up the excavated dirt, while the contractor drove away to return the mixer.—How much had that operation damaged the planet? (I fall back on the words of Pastor Blevins in West Virginia: “How could manmade equipment put up enough smoke to make a difference?”) To begin to calculate that, I would need to know how much cement I had paid for. I asked for the weight; the contractor said he had no idea; anyhow it came by the yard. So I dismissed that issue, preferring to find peace in my new perimeter.

In Japan, the single largest category of industrial carbon dioxide emissions was limestone in . . . cement production: 40%.* And up went our smoke.

Unfortunately, cement-making was but one element in our highly obscure and heterogenous catalogue of misdemeanors. Hence the length of this “Primer” section. And smoke rose up.

How could we have locked it away again?—By planting more trees.—But we would never have wished to solidify it entirely. As a mid-20th-century soil textbook unnecessarily fretted regarding that contingency: Without consumers and decomposers to release the fixed carbon, the atmosphere would be depleted of carbon dioxide, life would cease, and the cycle would stop. Oh, we were releasing it, all right; we took our inspiration from Venus.

The consumers were those organisms that took in various forms of carbon—as carbon dioxide in the case of plants, and as sugars and such for animals. The decomposers were the insects and microorganisms that teemed in the soil, breaking down dead things, thereby liberating their stored carbon. The most prevalent organic compound on our planet (thanks to photosynthesis) was cellulose. Like sugar, it consisted exclusively of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Its basic formula was C6H10O5, chained together a great number of times to make each molecule. A hundred pounds of straw contained 40 pounds of carbon. Bury it in dirt, and necrophores would consume it, emitting from their tiny bodies a good 26 pounds of carbon dioxide.* The rest stayed underground—for awhile.

Sewage sludge was 50% “degradable organic carbon.” Diapers were 24% DOC in Germany and 70% in Japan. (Does this discrepancy say more about diapers or about comparisons?) Japanese plastic bottles were 62.5%. Can you guess where that carbon went?

In 1916, two scientists from Rutgers marveled to learn that every two days or so, provided that they were fed continually, certain bacteria could generate their own dry weight in carbon dioxide.—In short, we hardly needed to worry about depleting the atmosphere of carbon! Again, we should have planted more trees.

On this subject I want to say that circa 2015, the forests of the contiguous United States sequestered 173 teragrams* of carbon per year, offsetting 9.7% of C emissions from transportation and energy sources. That was insufficient; we needed to extend our forests. Hence the following: We project a gradual decline in the forest C emission sink over the next 25 years . . . to 112 teragrams of carbon per year—a reduction of 35%. (Our behavior was beautifully consistent.) Sequestration in eastern regions declines gradually while sequestration in the Rocky Mountain region declines rapidly.

. . . But what was carbon? Does it help to learn that the 1976 Britannica called it a true nonmetal in every sense, or that its melting point exceeded 6,500° Fahrenheit, by which point platinum and even tungsten had long since puddled?—Two technologists expressed a more magical fact: Essentially any organic material can be thermally transformed to carbon.

Table sugar (C12H22O11) tastes rather different from anthracite—but pour sulfuric acid over it, and it will begin bubbling and simplifying, all of its hydrogen and oxygen molecules combining into steam (for 22 H’s and 11 O’s transform perfectly into 11 H2O’s), until only carbon atoms remain. The sucrose has gone gold, then brown, and finally black. The sulfuric acid, having done its catalytic part, lies in a puddle from which rises a ready-to-burn island purer than coal!

Not all such transformations need be thermal. Photosynthesis makes oxygen out of carbon and light; respiration and decomposition produce carbon dioxide.

Ancient decompositions, deep-buried so that their carbon remained trapped, gradually became hydrocarbons. Hence the fact of relevance to this book, again courtesy of the 1976 Britannica: Carbon is widely distributed as coal and in the organic compounds which constitute petroleum, natural gas, and all plant and animal tissue.

Carbon was ubiquitous, innocuous and sometimes even precious. It could be black or transparent. As the 1911 Britannica explained: It is found native as the diamond . . . , graphite . . . ,* as a constituent of all animal and vegetable tissues and of coal and petroleum. It also enters (as carbonates) into the compound of many minerals, such as chalk, dolomite, calcite . . . and spathic iron ore.

The Britannica continued: It is also found to a small extent in the atmosphere.

A small extent—how could anything be wrong with that? Don’t you see why we took our world so easy, back when we were alive?

About Agriculture

In a real way the energy for potatoes, beef, and plant produce of intensive agriculture is coming . . . in large part from the fossil fuels rather than from the sun.

H. T. Odum, 1967

My crop of corn is but a field of tares . . .

Chidiock Tichborne, 1586

In 1971 an ecologist warned: Man is now unwittingly beginning to speed up decomposition (1) by burning the stored organic matter in fossil fuels and (2) by agricultural practices that increase the decomposition rate of humus.

Both actions, of course, kept increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.

In 1970, our busy human doings sent 8 billion tons of that gas upward. Six billion tons were the combustion products of fossil fuels. The other 2 billion tons derived from cultivation of the land for agriculture.

CARBON AND DECOMPOSITION

You see, we used to till the soil. We even supposed that we were thereby “improving” it!* We turned over the top, so that grasses and other plants of no value to us would die and decompose, nutrifying the dirt. We broke up clods, then plowed, because the more finely divided the soil, the more readily plants grew. Doesn’t that sound harmless? Pulverization changes the hard soil into a deep mellow seed-bed . . . It enlarges the feeding area of the roots, by placing more plant food and moisture within easy reaching distance . . . It promotes bacterial action in the soil, the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen by bacteria, and the change of plant food from the insoluble to the available form.

And in those deep mellow seed-beds we planted and we fertilized. A humus-grubber once explained that soil is the interface between the living and the dead—where plants combine solar energy and carbon dioxide of the atmosphere with nutrients and water from the soil into living tissue. We rendered that interface more permeable. More oxygen sank in, which facilitated crop production (plants need to “breathe in” oxygen through their roots—as do their aerobic root-bacteria); and more carbon gases rose out.

The carbon came both from the soil itself—which could contain anywhere from 0.08 to 38.0%—and from the respirations of those plants and bacteria, which “breathed out” carbon dioxide just as we did. Why did they? Let me quote a textbook from 1967:

The least stable, hence most energy-rich, carbon combinations are the hydrocarbon groups* . . . The most stable carbon combination on the contrary is CO2 . . . In general, therefore, we may predict that usable respiratory energy will result from conversion of hydrocarbons

into “hydrogen-free groupings”* such as CO2. In other words, for exactly the same reason that a powerful hydrocarbon fuel such as gasoline gives up its energy rapidly when burned, meanwhile releasing carbon dioxide and steam, so an energy-filled hydrocarbon such as the fatty tissue of a dead mouse yields hydrogen atoms bit by bit to the ants and other teeming necrophores which it nourishes, gaining oxygen atoms in exchange, until it has been decomposed to pure carbon, carbon dioxide and water. The molecular bonds of carbon dioxide contain less energy than those of any fat; hence carbon dioxide will never turn back into fat of its own accord; only an input of new energy—from the sun, mediated by photosynthesis—can accomplish that.

(When we “consumers” were alive, we, too, stabilized substances by vampirizing their energies—sucking sugars out of lollipops, calories out of avocados, heat out of coal. Up went carbon dioxide.)

Some carbon became vegetable matter. The first stage in the formation of plant tissue is the union of carbon with oxygen and hydrogen combined as water. Indeed, where would cellulose be without carbon and its chains? And for as long as the plants were alive, that carbon remained “sequestered,” as we had anxiously begun to put it. Then what? We picked up our crops and sent them away, with their carbon inside them.

And what about the husks and stalks, moldy oranges and wilted lettuce? Mature plant residues that provide the raw material for microbial decomposition contain about 50 percent carbon.* Well, we composted them, which decomposed much of their cellulose into carbon dioxide and water.

As for the produce we fed on, we turned it into excrement, which accomplished similar changes. Either way, whatever fixed carbon our crops had preserved reentered the soil (or the water).—Oh, yes, occasionally we did burn them for fuel; up rose their carbon dioxide.

Carbon-rich soils inhabited by “fungal-dominated decomposer communities” and roofed with a diversity of vegetation best retained their carbon. That minimized global warming. Sometimes the carbon mineralized, which safely sequestered it. (Soil organic carbon has been called the largest terrestrial C sink.) Or roots might drink it in, transforming it to biomass. That was harmless, while it lasted. After its host died, decomposers would get it if they could—being always drawn to any dead thing: Most consider that microbial life in soils exists largely under starvation conditions. We tilled the soil precisely so that they could have at it! In short (I quote the Encyclopedia of Agriculture and Food Systems), cultivation reduces the mean residence time of carbon as tillage speeds up decomposition and mineralization. Accelerated decomposition meant more decomposers turning dead organic matter back into water and carbon dioxide. Sometimes our doings sent half the mineralized carbon straight up into the sky!

According to the Foundation for Deep Ecology: Our crops . . . were beneficiaries of the energy released as nutrients stored in the carbon compounds in the soil now became available . . . And so it was at this moment that the carbon compounds in the soil were exposed to more rapid oxidation. Carbon dioxide headed for the atmosphere . . .

Why not send up even more of the stuff? (In our way we were ingenious.) So we fertilized the soil which we had tilled. (Indeed we needed to, because there were getting to be too many of us.) More rapid oxidation meant more rapid metabolic activity, by worms, bacteria and plants. Tilling shuffled around the carbon and oxygen, but that wasn’t good enough. In the words of Garden Manures and Fertilizers (1949):

All the chemical and biological processes are going on so much faster in the cultivated than in the uncultivated soil. All our cultural operations are designed to speed up growth and to obtain a high return of fruit, flowers or vegetables . . . This has to be paid for . . . by replenishing the soil with manures which restore and maintain the organic-matter status . . .*

So we paid—as did you. Assessment from 1994: Conservative estimates indicate that about 30% of world food production is directly attributable to fertilizer use. Well, what were we supposed to do? For God’s sake, did you expect us to distribute resources fairly, or practice birth control?

Ready to hand among our repertoire of fertilizers lay, for instance, ammonium sulfate, which according to Garden Manures and Fertilizers “supplies nitrogen”—one of the three essential substances most likely to be deficient in the soil.*—There can be no proteins without nitrogen; indeed, I could have called this book Nitrogen Ideologies; and a handbook on sugar beet production explains: Of all plant nutrients, an application of nitrogen . . . has the most spectacular effect on the appearance of the crop. Leaf color changes from pale green or yellow to dark green. All ammonia compounds contain nitrogen. So bring on the ammonium sulfate! In 1973 the United Nations advised Thai farmers to employ the stuff as a top dressing for maize and a basal dressing for peanuts. We didn’t stop there.

Ammonium sulfate fertilizer, made by a famous petrochemical firm

The nitrogen in ammonium sulfate (or for that matter in the gardener’s old standby, bone meal) arrives in the soil as ammonia (NH3), which soil bacteria transforms into plant-usable nitrates. But one waste product of those microbes is, as usual, carbon dioxide.

The merest tenth of a gram of ammonium sulfate in 100 grams of soil will increase its carbon dioxide production by 500%.* Two early-20th-century American scientists discovered that 1,000 pounds of this chemical applied to an acre of dirt produced far more than its own weight of carbon dioxide: 1,472.4 pounds, to be exact.

Come to think of it, our manufacturing procedure for ammonium sulfate began with the coal we had already roasted in coking ovens* preparatory to steel manufacture—and burned coal releases considerable carbon dioxide, not to mention that other greenhouse gas, carbon monoxide.

Another fine fertilizer is sodium nitrate, which Garden Manures and Fertilizers assures us can be assimilated by plants at once. The two American scientists found that 1,285 pounds of it would release 1,411.5 pounds of carbon dioxide per acre.

Ammonium nitrate, highly regarded because of the rapid agronomic response, accomplished comparable atmospheric wonders.

By the late 20th century we had laid pipelines of chilled anhydrous ammonia (82.2% nitrogen) from Louisiana all the way up to Idaho; another ammonia pipeline entered the Corn Belt from Oklahoma and Texas.

In 1991, and other years before and after, we managed to spread 85 million tons of nitrogen-based fertilizers on the fields of our planet. Shall we estimate their carbon dioxide pollution at, say, 119 million tons? And should it be relevant that at least half the fertilizers we deployed got wasted—leached and volatilized away?

When appropriately fertilized, tea-bushes emitted 4.7 times more carbon dioxide than did most other Japanese crops—and nearly 10 times more than paddy rice. Should we have stopped drinking tea?—We preferred not to. According to the “Fertilizer Outlook” section of the 2008 MeisterPro Crop Protection Handbook:

Nutrient demand is on the rise worldwide. [Here my heart began to pound with excitement.] The world’s population is forecast to increase to . . . 9.4 billion by 2050 . . . The International Fertilizer Association expects world fertilizer demand to increase by 3.1% to 159 million tonnes . . . in 2006–07, and continue to grow to 172 MT by 2010–11,* with most of the increase occurring in Asia.

AGRICULTURAL METHANE

Nor was CO2 the only climate-changing excretion of our agricultures. Methane, or CH4, which volume for volume turned out to be a more dangerous greenhouse agent than CO2,* may be generated under anaerobic conditions. It particularly derived from rice.

A Fertilizer Guide for the Tropics and Subtropics (1973) proclaims: Rice has always been the most important grain crop in the world, even more so than wheat. Or, as the Khmer Rouge used to sloganize in totalitarian Cambodia: When there is rice, there is everything.—Like coal in Appalachia, rice in Japan was a cultural talisman. Its tending and consumption perpetuated a very particular carbon ideology. When I asked my Japanese interpreter how life without rice would be, she answered: “We can survive, of course, but we’ll miss it. Rice paddies are our original landscape. Every Japanese has some kind of landscape that makes you feel nostalgic, and for me for sure, and maybe for many others, that landscape includes rice paddies.”—Her “nostalgia” is represented in Saigyo’s 12th-century tanka about being lonely in mountain moonlight, lost in a silence disturbed only by clackers scaring away birds from the ricefields; and in Yosa Buson’s elegant 18th-century haiku about May rain: paddy by paddy, it has turned into darkness.—No doubt those paddies darkened so mysteriously because their farmers had flooded them. Rice thrives best in standing water, in which CO2-producers drown. (This explains rice’s prizeworthy restraint in carbon dioxide emissions.) The winning decomposers are anaerobic bacteria. Nourishing themselves on pure hydrogen—we yearned for our cars and power plants to do the same—they break down organic matter in their own bucolic fashion, exhaling its carbon asmethane—maybe 40 billion pounds’ worth, or, as might be, 200 billion. Those were 1997 figures.—In 2013, rice farming caused 50% of Japan’s methane emissions.

Do you remember that 100-pound bale of straw with its 40 pounds of inherent carbon?* Call it the poor man’s ammonium sulfate. Some rice farmers liked to enrich their fields with rice straw before letting the water in. A report at a Filipino symposium judged that straw’s effect on rice yield has been greater than that of compost—a happy encomium. As it decayed, straw nutrified the rice-roots with delicious nitrogen salts. This enrichment method was popular in Indonesia, where it increased mean methane emissions by 47% in one type of soil, by 87% in another. From Sumatra’s paddies the methane pollution measured eight to 12 times worse, leaving Indonesian researchers to admit: The amount of emissions may have been markedly underestimated.

Not wishing to fall behind the rice farmers, dairymen aggrandized their herds wherever that would pay.* Each cow belched up (or farted, depending on which source you prefer) two liters* of methane per minute. Not surprisingly, 25% of all carbon-equivalent emissions from milk were enteric methane. Depending on how one computed methane’s global warming potential, this might have been another marked underestimation.

NITROUS OXIDE, or THE VILLAINIES OF CAULIFLOWER

Meanwhile, from our manure-heaps—not to mention all those volatilizing nitrogen fertilizers—and for that matter even from our dishwater*—rose the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide, NO2, which despite its lack of carbon atoms managed to trap solar radiation 264 times more efficiently than did CO2. In fact, it was our third most dangerous greenhouse gas. Fossil fuels gave it off in varying quantities as they burned. From the tailpipes of our cars and trucks it became smog.* But I must not badmouth the stuff unreasonably—for my dentist once fed it to me as a “fun” anesthetic.

Food production caused 80% of all NO2 pollution, thanks to nitrogen fertilizers—whose greediest clients were winter wheat, cauliflower and above all Brussels sprouts. I often sautéed those latter two vegetables in the wok my daughter had given me; and as they sizzled over the ring of blue gas-flames I felt quite happy and healthy, as if I were doing something good.

Cauliflower vendor, Pakistan

In Germany a round 1% of the nitrogen in their soil became nitrous oxide and got away. In Japan, the single greatest source of NO2 emissions was “agricultural soils,” which released 29%. “Manure management” gave off another 20%. With their customary breeziness, the Americans combined both categories into “agricultural soil management”: 78.9% of their entire nitrous oxide contribution for 2014.

Regarding manure, it is essential for it to be half rotted before it is dug in. The reason for this admonition (once more, courtesy of Garden Manures and Fertilizers) is that manure prematurely plowed under actually reduces the fertility of the soil. Unfortunately, leaving it to half-rot above ground generates more nitrous oxide. In 2008, about 13% of Canada’s agriculture-related emissions of nitrous oxide derived from “manure management.” That endangered us as much as 10.3 million pounds of carbon dioxide.

Manure not only gave off nitrous oxide; it was also a methane-emitter. In the U.S., methane emissions from manure management increased by 64.7 percent since 1990 . . . since the general trend in manure management is one of increasing use of liquid systems, which tends to produce greater CH4 emissions. Hence the following headline, whose alarmism, founded on both enteric fermentation and on nitrous oxide from manure, might have been hyperbolic:*

Rearing cattle produces more greenhouse gases than driving cars, UN report warns.

“LAND USE CHANGES”

Tilling, flooding and manuring the soil weren’t all. We cut down trees at pleasure, to make room for new fields or to sell off timber. (You see, necessity required us to enlarge our populations and economies.) Deforestation has been called one of the largest anthropogenic sources of emissions to the atmosphere globally—for where those trees had been, busy necrophores set about altering the soil as usual, turning dead matter into carbon dioxide, water and heat, while the sulfurs went to sulfates, and certain humans hopefully made a living.

We grazed and grubbed 38% of the ice-free land acreage of our planet, then kept at it. As a result of land-use changes (so they blandly put it), the Germans sent up more than 13 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2007 alone. That figure represents the sum of loss of forest biomass . . . and stock losses in organic soils. (An additional 3.1 million tons were released from wetlands, and 15.5 million from grasslands). When I was alive, our greenhouse gas reports bore a line item called “LAND USE, LAND USE CHANGES AND FORESTRY.” In 2007, there went 13.24% of Germany’s entire greenhouse emissions, not counting methane or nitrous oxide.*

In 2014, half the territory of the European Union happened to be farmed. That meant that half of it emitted more greenhouse gases than would uncleared land.

Sometimes we set fires, either to clear new cropland more conveniently, or to nutrify the soil, or, best of all, because it paid. This sugarcane field in Rhodesia is being burned just prior to harvesting. If not burned, . . . 5 to 10 tons per acre or more . . . of leaf trash would be left, too much to plow under . . . Cutting and cleaning the cane without prior burning is slower and more expensive and also exposes the harvesters to the perils of venomous snakes—ditto for a field in Venezuela.* In addition to heat-absorbing carbon particles, the smoke contained carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane.

THE THREE MOST DANGEROUS GREENHOUSE GASES as of 2011,

their percentage increases since 1750 and their percentages of total national emissions

All percentages [e.g., +40%] expressed in carbon dioxide equivalents [at the 100-year global warming potential of 25 for methane, in order to leave source figures as they are], and exclusive of LULUCF (see here). For 20-year methane damage figures, multiply × 3.07. National emissions coded as follows:

M = Mexico, 2002. Includes LULUCF since this category was not separated out in original.

EU = European Union, 2012

J = Japan, 2013

U = U.S.A., 2014

1st

Carbon dioxide: +40% [to 390.5 ± 0.2 ppm]. Global warming potential: 1 [by definition].

M: 74%

EU: 82–83%

J: 93.1%

U: 80.9%

2nd

Methane: +150% [to 1,803.2 ± 2.0 ppb]. “The massive increase in the number of ruminants, the emissions from fossil fuel extraction and use, the expansion of rice paddy agriculture and the emissions from landfills and waste are the dominant anthropogenic CH4 sources. Anthropogenic emissions account for 50 to 65% of total emissions.” GWP: 28 [100-year estimate]. At least 86 [20-year estimate].

M: 23%

EU: 8–9%

J: 2.6%*

U: 10.6%*

3rd [except for Japan]

Nitrous oxide: +20% [to 324.2 ± 0.2 ppm]. “N2O has overtaken CFC-12 to become the third largest W[ell-] M[ixed] G[reen] H[ouse] G[as] contributor to R[adiative] F[orcing].”* However, such natural sources as oceans and soils might have equaled or outweighed the anthropogenic ones (as of this writing, our measurements showed a high range of uncertainty). GWP: 264. EU: 82–83%

M: 2%

EU: 7.3–7.5%

J: 1.6%

U: 5.9%

A number of other substances were far more dangerous, volume for volume, but not yet abundant. “HFCs, PFCs, and SF6 [see here] all continue to increase relatively rapidly, but their contributions to RF are less than 1% of the total by well-mixed GHGs.” In Japan, however, HFCs now reached 2.25%—a greater abundance than nitrous oxide’s.

Sources: Greenhouse Gas Inventory Mexico, 2002; IPCC, 2013; EU greenhouse report, 2014; Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015; U.S. EPA, 2016; with calculations by WTV.

How planet-damaging was agriculture? One good faith reply might have been: Bad, but not terrible.—Between 2002 and 2011, global net* carbon dioxide releases from land use change averaged about 1⁄9 of our total releases from cement-making and the burning of fossil fuels—about 0.9 metric gigatons, or “only” ¾ of the entire 2011 carbon dioxide emissions of Japan.

(That excluded methane and nitrous oxide, of course).

However, for a century and more our farmers had been burning fossil fuels.

FLIPPING THE SWITCH

Would unmechanized agriculture alone have destabilized our climate? How can I say? That question grew moot about the time that my grandfather was born. Here is a steam plowing contest in Winnipeg in 1908: Tons of coal and carloads of water are sent into the thin air, and between sunrise of one day and nightfall of the next three hundred and twenty acres of virgin land are doubled in value by breaking. The coal, of course, became among other substances carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane. The broken prairie grew suitably oxygenated, so as to speed up its own rate of carbon dioxide emissions.—Oh, and by the way, at the competition influential men from the largest oil corporation in the world sat watching, being keenly interested in the question of mechanical power on the farm as affecting the market for liquid fuels.

Such was our progress; and in 1952 a 4-H handbook confessed that the whole agricultural industry now depends so much upon electrical energy to supplement muscle that many farms would be unable to compete in the present economy without it.

A treatise from India (1986) elevated our dependence into grandeur: No progress is possible without an increase in agricultural production. This has meant a steep rise in energy utilisation, to enable the countries to produce not only fertilisers for upgrading production* but also to provide diesel for pump energisation and mechanisation.

The 2002 American Electricians’ Handbook drew up a “typical computed load” of 15 kilowatts for a dairy barn, large size, including milk house and one 7½-hp motor. The “probable maximum demand” was 17 kilowatts (about 967 BTUs per minute), so any canny farmer would lay in copper wire of appropriate thickness and conductivity for that work.* At the merely “typical load,” every hour of lighting, refrigeration, mechanized milking, pasteurization and hot-water-washing would drink down 51,195 BTUs’ worth of current—generated in power plants by 12 pounds of West Virginia coal, or eight pounds of diesel fuel, or (nowadays) six pounds of natural gas!—And don’t forget the accompanying “farm residence” at 13 kilowatts (another 11 pounds of coal per hour) with six kilowatts on reserve. Meanwhile, lighting in the poultry house serves to increase egg production in addition to providing light for seeing. One light should be installed for each 200 ft2 of floor area . . . Sunlamps should be installed over feeding troughs. How many more kilowatts now? We didn’t count; electricity was cheap!

As you might have guessed, irrigation, fertilizer application and pest control were ever more often accomplished mechanically. An ecologist warned: Crops highly selected for industrialized agriculture must be accompanied by the fuel subsidies to which they are adapted! And in 2005, an oilman who, not foreseeing fracking, unnecessarily fretted that we would run out of his favorite substance, advised us that 80 percent of an Iowa corn farmer’s costs is, directly and indirectly, the cost of fuels.

All of these follies and necessities ran up our carbon bill. One estimate for 2008 pegged our agricultural production at 19–29% of global anthropogenic . . . emissions, releasing 9.8–16.9 Pg [petagrams]* of carbon dioxide equivalent . . . to the atmosphere.

While we warmed our planet in that way, we simultaneously fouled our nest with various industrial emissions.

About Industrial Chemicals

Let us suppose that last night you experienced a very romantic interlude. A candlelit dinner for two preceded by a very dry martini. Soft background music on the stereo and finally, total intimacy for you and your companion. A chemical analysis of your activities would reveal that the candles, the alcohol in your drink, the record you listened to, the clothing you wore, the paint on your walls, the soft carpet underfoot, and even the aspirin you took the following morning were all petroleum derivatives.

Bill D. Berger and Kenneth E. Anderson, Modern Petroleum, 1978

You see, we were makers and doers—and proud of it. We synthesized any number of products to sell to each other. Our favorite chemical feedstocks were hydrocarbons.

Here is a picture I took at the Phillips Petroleum Company Museum in Oklahoma. All items depicted are plastic, derived from natural gas.

They could as well have been fashioned out of coal or oil.* Our fossil fuels lay so ready not just for burning but also for reshaping! It was a wonder what they made possible—and you from the future, sourly preparing for the next meter of sea-rise, have reason to condemn us because you’ve paid more than we for the products that sustained, entertained, nourished, poisoned and defined us.

In case you are wondering what proportion of our fossil fuels became chemicals instead of smoke, here are two statistics from 2014: in France, a mere 14%; in the Netherlands: 49% of all petroleum, and an unspecified fraction of natural gas and coal.

I wish that you could have gazed back with me upon our fabrication processes with their vast economies of scale—which, again, reduced our costs and increased yours. (U.S.A., 1978: A single $15 barrel of crude may be turned into consumer products worth almost $300.) For that matter, I would have liked to flit from vat to vat, in order to describe for you the strangest acts of creation.—Did you know that we could refine propylene, not to mention detergents, out of crude oil—antifreeze from ethene—rubbing alcohol from propane? Improving petroleum into ethylene gas which we next bubbled through a solvent, then catalyzed, we made polyethylene, which was familiar to most of us as the plastic material of packaging films.* Kind souls affixed chlorine atoms to that stuff, so that I could have my polyvinyl chloride shower curtain. (It was getting grubby; my guests kept advising me to throw it out and buy another one.) Other wonder-mongers switched out ethylene’s hydrogen atoms for fluorine atoms, and here came Teflon!

These transmutations remained as unseen to me—and most of my neighbors—as the carbon dioxide we exhaled. By the time I wrote Carbon Ideologies, industrial security officers tended to frown on public tours, thanks to terrorism, journalism, activism and corporate espionage. So this brief “About” section will retail no vivid descriptions. Instead, let me touch on the greenhouse gas emissions of a few of our favorite petrochemical processes:

The oil derrick and “horse head” on this sign near Cushing, Oklahoma, make vivid the fungibility of fossil fuels

When, for instance, we synthesized ammonia for our fertilizers and other techno-necessities, the reaction liberated carbon dioxide: 3,630 pounds of it for every ton of nitrogen we threw in. Thus half a percent of Germany’s greenhouse emissions for 2007—only half a percent! (What this “primer” section of Carbon Ideologies intends—to shine its wavering light across global warming’s dark mountain of hydra-heads—is more necessary than possible. How many half-percents would you find it tolerable, much less useful, for me to picture? While we fretted about power plants, German ammonia manufacturies, hidden behind more frightening monster-heads, exhaled their discreetly baleful half-percent.) They employed both heavy fuel oil and natural gas as their feedstocks. The Austrians, who used natural gas only, emitted less than half as much CO2 per unit weight of ammonia. The British, who started from hydrogen, were even easier on the atmosphere.—But surely we could make ammonia however we wished!* In Kansas and in various localities of India (circa 1979), the high-emissions petroleum route had pencilled out best. Such choices represented what we meant by “the free world.”

Another “for instance”: Our hydrogen plants incidentally released carbon dioxide—and how could we get by without hydrogen, which was so convenient for making nitric acid?

Had I asked my neighbors what we needed nitric acid for—or ammonia—99% of them would have gone blank. They bought what they wanted when they wanted it. Its origin did not interest them. Why, just the other morning I sat on the edge of the bed while a woman rolled on her nylon stockings and neither one of us thought about nitric acid!

In 2007, production of that stinging-smelling liquid donated 0.94% of Germany’s nitrous oxide. Since the planet wasn’t warm enough to suit us, nor our chemical plants as profitable as in best-case projections, we helped Germany—and looking back on those years, I take inexpressible comfort in the fact that humans kept right on being human. In 2012, Greece emitted 35 times more nitrous oxide per unit volume of nitric acid than did the United Kingdom—in other words, the Greeks were 35 times more wasteful than the British—while we Americans, not quite in the vanguard, were merely 27 times worse. Nobody thought to centralize or rationalize nitric acid production.

Meanwhile, synthetic natural gas proved as practical to make as it was convenient to burn. So we did both, not worrying about a little carbon dioxide along the way.

Sometimes we felt like mixing sulfuric acid with dolomite. (Has that desire ever overcome you?) Up came carbon dioxide.

What next? We put our heads together. One of our favorite corporate slogans was innovation.* So through which new means could we excrete carbon gases into the atmosphere?

As our technocrats realized, carbon dioxide provides soft drinks with a pungent taste, acidic bite, and sparkling fizz.* Well, let’s fizz them up, then!—In 1860 the annual American per capita soft drink consumption was 16 ounces; by 1990 we had gotten it up to 47.5 gallons! That was “creating a demand” for you! In our vending machines and supermarkets, hordes of soft drinks waited fizzily for thirsty customers. The average 2-L soda bottle maintains an internal pressure of roughly . . . 5 atm[ospheres] of CO2.* Once some “consumer” unsealed that bottle, out went the carbon dioxide, and up into the atmosphere!

Let a dye chemist in Madras have the last word: The economics of scale provided the great advantage of reduced cost, which in turn stimulated more applications and demands, thus advancing petrochemical production to ever greater heights.

The Parable of Adipic Acid

But I can’t believe that any group which is rooted in the principles of freedom and service can have gone very wrong.

C. M. Kornbluth, The Syndic, 1953

Pantyhose, whose semi-ethereal protein-like* substance had the ringing name nylon 6,6, was derived from two chemicals: hexamethylene diamine and adipic acid. Let us briefly consider the latter:—a water-soluble, sour-tasting crystalline white solid with a melting point of 303.8° Fahrenheit. (Reader, I hope that your mean surface temperatures remain below any such figure.) Have you heard of that inconspicuously influential substance? Sometimes we called it hexanedioic acid. Each molecule contained 10 hydrogen atoms, four oxygen atoms and six carbon atoms.

Being a peachy-keen feedstock for synthetic lubricants, urethane foams, plasticizers, you name it, it sprang into commercial importance in the 1940s. Food grade adipic acid is used to provide some foods with a “tangy” flavor, and justifiably so: After all, its aqueous solution could corrode certain steels.—In the mid-1990s, 3,500 tons a year went for “food acidulant” in American jams, jellies and gelatins.* It must have been good for us, being one of the purest materials produced on a large scale.

Now, what else could we do with it? (In other words, how could we muck up some ecosystem somewhere?) Heating it comprised the best route to cyclopentane and its derivatives, whose profitable uses I shall spare you. In that process, clouds of carbon dioxide got “lost”—but only to our atmosphere. As our decider President used to say, “Bring it on!”

Most of it was destined for nylon. What a treat to watch adipic acid* combining with the hexamethylene diamine so that we could see a pallid syrup forming, settling out into something resembling melted cheddar cheese! Making use of the way that carbon links to itself, and even joins chains to chains, thereby thickening into those long strands which, as pantyhose should, resist oxidation and bacteria, industrial magicians deployed what they called “the nylon rope trick”: Polyamide produced at the interface may be pulled continuously from the open vessel in a startling demonstration of polymerization chemistry.

Each pound of nylon cost “only” 18,700 BTUs of power or heat—awfully close to the innate energy of a pound of fuel oil—but, as I keep on reciting, our power plants had to burn three pounds to do each pound’s worth of thermodynamic work. So, a pound of nylon required three pounds of heavy heating oil, which sent up 10 and a half pounds of carbon dioxide. That was just the beginning.

There was nylon in the hose of my air compressor, nylon in my father’s fishing line. The 1956 Sears, Roebuck catalogue couldn’t stop pimping it out! Reader, would you like a Cordtex brassiere? Nylon styles are lined with beautiful nylon sheer and stitched with nylon thread. This lining in underbust offers extra support. (How lovely!) And for outerwear, why not Gleaming Rayon Velvet?

NOTHING STARS in the firmament of evening fashions like the glowing loveliness of jet black velvet . . . it’s the epitome of glamour when topped with an exotic hood and lined in immaculate white—the body of the lining in nylon fleece, the sleeve lining in rayon and acetate velvet.

In short, we had no choice but to continue making adipic acid.

I once met an elegant high-ranking Japanese geisha whose wardrobe largely consisted of her grandmother’s handwoven silk kimonos. The fabric looked new; the designs were unfailingly beautiful.—Rarely did nylon “intimates” show any such durability, either of style or of physical integrity. The panties in the photo below were fading more with each wash. Their owner had begun to tire of them. That was as it was supposed to be. As an article in Resources, Conservation and Recycling concluded:

All current economic systems are predicated on growth and . . . it is almost impossible to imagine a different system emerging . . . [B]usiness models in production companies are oriented towards growing sales volumes, so are strongly motivated to . . . build in “planned obsolescence” to product designs. Thus, material efficiency . . . will . . . be opposed by . . . businesses unless they can reclaim value through some other activity.

Undies made in Thailand and sold in U.S.A. (82% nylon)

To be sure, this might have been bad news for our climate—but, reader, don’t glare at me like that! It was wonderful news for adipic acid.

We made so much of the stuff that it sometimes got shipped in 200,000-pound hopper cars. (Don’t you call that success?) By 1990 a 130,000-ton manufacturing plant had been announced for Western Siberia. Another was up and coming in South Korea. The continued buildup of capacity in nylon-6,6 intermediates, especially in the Far East, attests to the confidence in continued growth by the major participants.

Adipic acid was another of those marvel-chemicals which not only offered myriad profit-making applications but could be produced in any number of ways—from cyclohexane, or cyclohexene, phenol, butadiene, whatever, as dictated by shifts in hydrocarbon markets. (It also emerged in automobile exhaust, but since we had not yet figured out how to collect and sell that form of it, we simply emitted it, mile after mile, entirely gratis—and up it went. Fortunately, it was invisible.)

In our chemical factories, no matter how or from what we made our adipic acid, there came a moment when we needed to oxidize its hydrocarbon precursor in nitric acid.

As you have read,* producing that already generated nitrous oxide. Now the nitric acid must be put to work.—Adipic acid manufacture reduced it to nitrogen dioxide and nitrogen oxide—which could both be captured and reconverted to nitric acid—and to pure nitrogen—which was harmless—and, most relevantly, to what has been called “considerable” nitrous oxide. Up it rose.

In 2007, adipic acid production emitted (in carbon dioxide equivalents) 0.55% of Germany’s greenhouse gases.*

Once again, any reasonable know-nothing might protest that 0.55% of a nation’s environmental misdemeanors was so trivial that our attention should have been spent on more conspicuous culprits such as fuel combustion. (In the Appalachian chapter you will hear a lobbyist say: “You can shut all 12 hundred coal-fired power plants down in this country today and you will effectively reduce less than 4% of CO2 emissions.”)*—One might argue that since Germany’s manufactures of adipic acid had released three times more nitrous oxide in 1990 than in 2007, the latter figure should even be celebrated. At first, even I believed that, back when I was alive. Any decrease in waste, or increase in efficiency, which to my mind comes close to the same thing, is inherently good—and round about 1993, German chemists had invented two new ways of decomposing almost all the nitrous oxide into oxygen and nitrogen. Why not be glad when anything got done? To be honest, I could not blame that coal lobbyist for expressing frustration toward government and environmental “activists.” “That’s where I have a disconnect with the President and the EPA,” he told me. “I do not buy the statement that the U.S. must demonstrate leadership. I think we have been providing leadership throughout my entire adult life!”*—And so I felt grateful to Germany for “providing leadership” in decreasing adipic acid’s nitrous oxide emissions. It had not even been 20 years yet since the most progressive nations (not mine) had signed the Kyoto Protocol, and this fable promised well: In one country, for one category of activity, one kind of greenhouse pollution had been reduced.

Now for the sad part: Considering industrial process emissions as a whole, Germany admitted defeat, as a result of “economic trends.” And what could anyone do about those? To date, a counter-trend has been achieved only in the case of N2O emissions. It is the result of emissions-reduction measures by adipic acid producers, measures that took effect as of 1997. And yet that trend as well is being increasingly offset by production increases.

About Manufacturing

Iron thoughts sail out at evening on iron ships . . .

Malcolm Lowry, before 1958

And when, instead of reacting them, we burned our favorite fossil fuels in the service of industrial production, CO2 boiled invisibly upward and outward as always. I have already celebrated cement-making’s multi-century outgassings.* Other processes accomplished comparable benefits. The titanium dioxide in my toothpaste and the glass in my windows both cost considerable carbon dioxide to make. (Circa 2012, our “global energy inputs” went slightly more to titanium than to glass.)

A molten ton of glass cost you somewhere between 120 and 208 pounds of carbon dioxide. One cause of emissions (here glass imitated cement) was lime, which prevented the network of fine oily cracks called “crizzles.” Another was the fuel in the kiln: We had to heat the raw materials into the range of 2,400° to 2,750° Fahrenheit before they fused into glass. Strange to say, after an exuberant guest threw a baseball through my kitchen window, we drove to the hardware store, then replaced the pane for pennies!—because you were paying the carbon cost.—A store in San Francisco sold glass dildoes; one of them reputedly saved a woman’s life when her husband peeked through it and recognized colon cancer, so didn’t that justify glass’s carbon emissions?—I hope that you have at least inherited a few of our windowpanes. Maybe you pried them out of drowned properties and fitted them into your caves.

Our annual energy expenditure on glassmaking was the merest 30th of that used to produce steel.

In his best-selling Outline of History (originally published in 1920), H. G. Wells sang out: Nothing in the previous practical advances of mankind is comparable in its consequences to the complete mastery over enormous masses of steel and iron* . . . To-day in the electric furnace one may see tons of incandescent steel swirling about like boiling milk in a saucepan.

The Germans believed that the iron and steel industry . . . is the second important CO2-emissions source . . . in the area of process combustion. Like adipic acid, in and of itself it barely added to the burden we laid upon you. For that matter, summing up steel, aluminum and various chemical manufactures all together accounted for less than 10% of all Germany’s greenhouse gases. No immediate danger, my friends! Puff by puff, our atmosphere warmed up, even as Gutowski and his colleagues wrote with bleak eloquence:

Manufacturing is now . . . 200 times larger than it was in 1800 on an absolute scale and approximately 30 times larger on a per capita scale . . . The enormous material flows . . . rival natural geologic flows . . . World industry now uses ~190 exajoules [about 180 Q-BTUs] of primary energy, approximately one-third of all energy used globally, and emits ~14 billion tonnes [15.4 billion U.S. tons] . . . of CO2 and 50 M[ega]t[ons] [55,115 U.S. tons] of SO2, or almost 40% of all global anthropogenic emissions from energy and industrial processes each year . . . Furthermore, global manufacturing is growing and increasing its energy use and carbon emissions.

But could these enormous material flows be slowed or narrowed through some kind of categorical analysis? In much of Carbon Ideologies it becomes my sad task to multiply discouragements and bewilderments: We destroyed ourselves not simply because we burned too much steam coal or heavy commercial fuel oil in our power plants, but also because we followed sound agricultural practices, and because we made useful and beautiful things of all sorts. We composted garbage, which was surely a good deed, and in case of rain we wisely carried our nylon raincoats. We published books, which kept me employed. So many customary behaviors imperiled us that the most radical solutions might not have been radical enough. (As Death tells Apollo when the latter tries to save a woman’s life: You may not have all that you should not have.)—Manufacturing, however, presented us with certain potentially hopeful simplicities:

Gutowski et al. asserted that most energy is used in industry to make a few key materials, for which energy is a significant driver of cost. They called those key materials the “big five.” Steel was one of those.

Steel wrenches in hardware store window, Sharjah

Reader, wouldn’t you like to see the big picture without peering through either flat or window glass? The “big five” were the big picture:

ENERGY AND COAL REQUIREMENTS TO MANUFACTURE ONE POUND EACH OF THE “BIG FIVE” MATERIALS, ca. 2013,

in multiples of the energy needed for cement

Unbracketed figures express BTUs required to produce 1 lb of the material.

[Bracketed figures] are [lbs of coal burned in a power plant to generate sufficient energy to produce 1 lb of the material].* Assumed inherent energy (HHV) of coal: 12,500 BTUs/lb.

All multiples over 10 rounded to nearest whole digit.

1

Cement:

426 BTUs

[0.1 lb coal]

Making it released 8% of worldwide CO2 pollution in 2015. Furthermore, when formed into concrete, cement was often reinforced with bars of another “big five” material, steel.

23

Paper:

9,888

[2.4]

“Most of the paper we produce is thrown away and not recycled.”—Pope Francis, 2015. The “default half-life” for paper in Japan (after which half of it would be disposed of) was two years. Incinerated or left to rot, it then gave off carbon dioxide. [Meanwhile, we often whitened our paper with titanium dioxide pigment, whose manufacture released more carbon dioxide. In the U.S., production increases of TiO2 led to emission increases: 47% more in 2014 than in 1990.]

25

Steel:

10,748

[2.6]

“In terms of climate change, . . . the most important metal is iron . . . because steel is the single largest energy user and carbon emitter in the world materials sector.” [Nitrous oxide was another greenhouse gas associated with steelmaking.] . . . “The top seven CO2-producing manufacturing nations are also the top seven steel producers, and, with the exception of Japan, they are in the same order.”*—Timothy G. Gutowski et al., 2013.

32

Plastics:

13,758

[3.3]

“Plastics . . . are produced by the conversion of natural products or by the synthesis from primary chemicals generally coming from oil, natural gas, or coal.”—American Chemistry Council, 2016. In other words, not only were plastics energy hogs when manufactured, they also derived from the three major (non-nuclear) carbon ideologies of resource extraction. Their source materials inevitably emitted carbon dioxide and methane, and sometimes (as we have seen with nylon) nitrous oxide.

94

Aluminum:

39,983*

[9.6]

The manufacture of this marvelously useful material not only consumed large quantities of energy, but also often released sulfur hexafluoride, which molecule for molecule was the most potent greenhouse gas known.* “The increase in total SF6 emissions in recent years is due to use of pure SF6 in aluminum production; in the 1990s, that gas was used solely as an additive.”—German greenhouse gas report, 2009. Moreover [quoting the same source], “production of primary aluminum continues to be the largest source of PFC emissions in Germany.” PFCs, or perfluorocarbons, showed global warming potentials thousands of times worse than carbon dioxide’s.

Sources: as given, with calculations by WTV.

The “big five” released 56% of the world’s industrial carbon dioxide. To put it another way, they caused 20% of all energy and process related CO2 emissions—because we had to have them everywhere:

Sharjah Corniche view

After a pleasant morning stroll along the Corniche of Sharjah City, enjoying the view across the Khalid Lagoon—concrete, glass, aluminum and steel incarnated in sunstruck mosques and in skyscrapers whose stacked horizontal rectangles of windows distinguished them with beauty and a similitude of awareness—I sat down on a four-planked steel bench, resting my back against its advertisement which invited me (at an unstated cost in carbon dioxide) AROUND THE WORLD WITH SATA, which placed on the same island the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, the Dome of the Rock, the Great Pyramid, you name it, while a jet looped around the scene in order to weave a happy contrail—and as two black-robed women* passed by, each carrying her own plastic bag of something, I sat watching the cars and tried to count uncountable construction cranes atop partially risen towers.* Without this extravagance of steel, glass, aluminum and plastic, how would our future look? Wishing to tell you all about it, I expended as much paper as I could.

All five of the “big five”: paper cartons (enclosing plastic cups), with steel- and aluminum-containing cars and a two-tiered cementscape, in Poza Rica, Veracruz

At first I felt heartened by the disproportionate effects of the “big five.” Surely it would be more practical to improve manufacturing efficiencies and reduce unnecessary uses of these few items than to address the emissions of dozens or thousands of other commodities! I trust you will forgive me for this lapse into hopefulness. (Henry James, 1870: We cry out for a little romance, a particle of poetry, a ray of the ideal.) Now I promise to wade back into chilly accuracy.

WHY WE HAD TO KEEP MAKING CEMENT

“Best available technology” could have reduced the energy needed for all but one “big five” member by a third, more or less. The exception was cement—which, so it happened, was the only one that could not be efficiently recycled.* So we kept producing it: 1,056 annual pounds for each human alive, with prospective yearly increases of 4.6%.

. . . AND ALUMINUM

Even though Gutowski singled out steel for its ubiquity, aluminum (as the preceding table shows) was the devouring king, because pound for pound, its manufacture consumed the most energy of the “big five”—94 times more than cement. Whenever we made it,* we emitted carbon dioxide (2,374 pounds per ton) and four other greenhouse gases. And yet the sheer utility of this strangely beautiful metal was staggering, in everything from spacecraft to bridge decks. Its alloys resisted corrosion marvelously, which enhanced their durability, and thereby saved energy which would have gone for remanufacturing. On the average, an aluminum structure weighed only half as much as its counterpart in structural steel. This reduced energy inputs in transportation, not to mention the gravitational stresses on that streetlamp or industrial roof mobile home. In addition, my friends felt sure that riding their aluminum-framed bicycles was “good for the planet.” Who was I to nay-say? Surely they did less harm than making or driving a car . . .—Meanwhile, striking a blow for pure aesthetics, the 1956 Sears, Roebuck catalogue invited us to drool over the New Jumbo Carrier Cake Cover of Lustrous Sunray Aluminum . . . lightweight, rustproof, and a solid 4 pounds of it (which must have burned 40 pounds of coal) for $4.89—not to mention an automatic playing card shuffler, made of heavy gauge steel . . . constructed to give many years of dependable service.

In the phone book for Abu Dhabi I once saw an advertisement for Widest Steel Industries LLC: All kinds of Stainless Steel, Aluminum & Carbon Steel structures with 10[,]000 MT* Annual Capacity. Based on the table above, this company would have needed to burn between 4.5 and 17.1 trillion gallons’ worth of medium grade fuel oil to fulfill its stated possibilities.*

All-aluminum shell of Sumida Hokusai Museum in Tokyo

Through recycling we could have reduced by a stunning 94% the manufacturing energy requirements of aluminum.* But what you from the future don’t realize is that our economies needed to grow, oh, yes; demand kept rising, and how could we disappoint that? Smelling opportunities and profits, we refused to sit around waiting for our aluminum-bearing products to get obsolete so that someone might tear them out of yesterday’s bridges; hence there was no good alternative; so please don’t tell me that we should have dethroned the king of the “big five”!

. . . AND STEEL

What about steel? In 1980, the world’s recycling rate for that metal was 60%. By 2006 it had sunk to 34%, even as the manufacturing rate kept ascending by 8% a year: We needed more steel! Every year, we produced 440 pounds of it* for each person on Earth.

. . . AND PLASTICS

As for plastics, why couldn’t we recycle, for instance, those 82% nylon feminine underpants depicted in the previous section? Here our difficulty was the antithesis of the one that steel presented us. Plastics wore out quickly; their owners would have been happy to return them to the vat. But they came in so many varieties that separating them out for reprocessing was more trouble than it was worth.* Better to start fresh!

Plastics in a supermarket, Kyoto

. . . AND PAPER

Nor could we give up paper, without which such inexpressible confusion must ensue, warned John Dickinson back in 1768; we kept fighting the good fight against confusion; by 2013 we needed 127.6 pounds of paper per capita, so that credit card companies could send out junk mail.

Paper fans for sale, Kyoto

THEREFORE

As you see, we were helpless. We had no choice but to wipe out the buffalo herds.

Gutowski and his colleagues considered trends and crunched numbers, then projected the results into half a dozen alternate futures. They concluded: Under all six scenarios, the allowable accumulated emissions resulting in peak warming of 2°C will have been surpassed by the industrial sector by 2050, with annual emissions continuing to rise for all but the lowest population scenarios beyond that date.

About Transportation

Transportation is the major culprit of air pollution accounting for over 80% of total air pollutants . . . Traffic emissions contribute about 50–80% of NO2 and CO concentration in developing countries.

European Journal of Scientific Research, 2009

Even the most vibrant experiences become slightly faded over time. What was once new starts to feel programmatic. Which explains why those who are searching for something fresh are heading to Guadalajara.

Travel + Leisure, 2016

We choose to go to the moon because it is profitable!

Bob Richards, CEO of Moon Express, 2017

Surely our entire way of doing things didn’t need to be done over! I much preferred to continue living in the way that had always worked so pleasantly for me, for instance taking the bullet train to Hiroshima, the man across the aisle from me reading a snow-white newspaper whose Japanese characters large and small, bolded, bannered or simply laid out within closed rectangles, brought something like satisfaction to his nearsighted squint; meanwhile the train accelerated into a long ear-popping tunnel, pallid blue Kanji crawled across the black information screen, and we all rode at ease in our bright warm world. I let down the plastic tray (stated load limit, 10 kilograms), looked out my oval window as we emerged into a winter morning of concrete, glass, aluminum and steel—Shin-Kobe already!—and after a brief stop we were flying ahead again, the motor’s cadence rising far less gratingly than it would have on one of our diesel-powered passenger trains back home; so I settled back, zooming beautifully through the morning.

In the unlikely event that I ever felt called upon to write rank errors simple and large, transportation would have been in the first main category:

THE THREE MOST DANGEROUS SECTORS OF HUMAN ACTIVITY, 2012–14

These categories appeared in formulaic greenhouse inventories.

All percentages calculated excluding LULUCF [see “Agriculture,” below, this table]. Since not all activities are listed, percentages =<100%.

G = Germany, 2007

EU = European Union, 2012 [EU-15 and EU-28]

J = Japan, 2013

M = Mexico, 2012

U = U.S.A., 2014

1st

“Energy”: Defined as “combustion and fugitive emissions,” this flabby category includes electricity production through the use of fossil fuels, most forms of transportation, residential heating, leakage from natural gas pipelines, etc. Were it better broken down, we would see that the primary subcategory was power generation; the second, transportation.

M: 70.4%

G: 80.9%

EU: 79–80%

J: 89.5%

U: 83.6%

2nd (or 3rd)

“Agriculture”: As described in its chapter above—but excluding what was called “land use, land use change and forestry”(LULUCF), which referred to the conversion of cropland into settlements, which emitted carbon; and the planting of trees, which sequestered it, and so on.

M: 8.3%

G: 5.38%

EU: 10–10.3%

J: 2.8%

U: 8.5%

3rd (or 2nd)

“Industrial Processes”: Manufacturing and chemical engineering, including steel- and cement-making, adipic acid production, etc. Global per capita CO2 emissions: 0.99 U.S. tons in 2010, and rising by 2.5% per year.

M: 9.4%

G: 12.14%

EU: 6.7–7.3%

J: 6.2%

U: 5.5%

2nd (for Mexico only)

“Waste”: Industrial, municipal, and hazardous. Sewage, dumps, etc., etc.

M: 11.85%. “Emissions from solid waste disposal and wastewater management and treatment underwent significant increases between 1990 and 2002, with 115% and 85%, respectively, brought about by better management . . .” (my italics).

Sources: Mexican greenhouse report, 2002; German greenhouse report, 2009; Japanese greenhouse report, 2015; IPCC, 2013; EU greenhouse report, 2014; U.S. EPA, 2016; with calculations by WTV.

Having now, as my grandfather used to say after we had admired the “headlights” of TV anchorwomen, “solved the world’s problems,” I returned to zooming through my easy life, enjoying passing skyscrapers and ricefields.

You see, in our time we took it for granted that as long as we (and you) could pay, we had the right to be carried wherever we pleased. That our non-monetized costs would be payable by you, whose various potential distresses never troubled our sleep, made travel all the better. In this connection my mind turns to Calabar, Nigeria, which from the standpoint of Carbon Ideologies was one of this world’s most bucolic transportation centers. In 2009 two researchers found that

the five monitored air pollutants when compared with . . . [a]ir quality index . . . were in the range of: CO—poor to moderate and moderate to poor in different locations. SO2*—was from very poor to poor, NO2—from very poor to poor, PM10 [small particles] and noise level was poor at all locations . . . The study concludes that transport-related pollution in Calabar is indeed significant with possible severe health consequences.

The study did not conclude that carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide might incur other possible consequences. And with noise elevated into one of the five “pollutants,” carbon dioxide got deleted from the list—so there must not have been any. Let us celebrate the miraculous smog of Calabar!

In 2002, “road transportation” comprised 18.81% of all Mexico’s emissions; in 2007, 14.13% of all Germany’s. These faraway realities could not quite penetrate the wall of boredom with which my egotism defended itself. To be sure, I could remember starting and stopping on a wide highway in the Tijuana smog; diesel fumes had nauseated me in stalled traffic on the Autobahn . . .—but invisible, near-odorless carbon dioxide stayed joyously inconspicuous in such experiences, and just now, as I sat at my kitchen table in Sacramento, breathing fresh-smelling air and hearing each car breeze past me like a sea-wave, I wished to hurry away from this particularly dreary page of Carbon Ideologies.—In 2013, 15.3% of Japan’s greenhouse emissions came from rail, air, water or road transportation; of these, “road transportation” made up 89.9%. Tired out by that calculation, I strolled to the refrigerator to eat a handful of blueberries trucked in from Salinas. How else was life supposed to be, with 31% of Canada’s energy consumption billed to transportation, while the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for its part explained: When electricity-related emissions are distributed to economic end-use sectors, transportation activities accounted for 33.4 percent of U.S. CO2 emissions* from fossil fuel combustion in 2014? Most of those “activities” (83.3%) consisted of the doings of cars and trucks. Their emissions kept going up and up.

For a long time my continent had been special. In North America (1980 data), 41.8% of our total refinery output went for motor gasoline. That figure did not exceed 19 percent . . . in any other region of the world. But the rest of the world began to imitate us.

In terms of the overall trend, continued the EPA, from 1990 to 2014, total transportation CO2 emissions rose by 16 percent in the U.S., due, in large part, to increased demand for travel . . . Well, so what? Climate change might still turn out to be a leftwing figment. And even if it did someday mar some ecosystem somewhere, do remember that travel demand created jobs! Squinting and smiling out at us from the upper righthand corner of a glossy free magazine, the Las Vegas Host Committee Chairman, who used to be Mayor, gloated that come Labor Day weekend, nearly 307,000 people will travel to the destination. These visitors will generate nearly $206.5 million in direct visitor spending, and several greenhouse gases.

GERMANY HOLDS THE LINE

Germany, as usual, presented a miracle: After the 1990 benchmark, since growth in miles travelled outweighed improvements in vehicle fuel consumption, her transportation sector could not help gassing out ever thicker greenhouse clouds—but between 2000 and 2007, “road transportation’s” emissions* actually declined by 4.5%: 30 million tons!

The likely reasons . . . include reductions in specific fuel consumption, a marked shift toward diesel vehicles in new registrations, continual increases in fuel prices, use of biofuels—and consumers’ growing tendency to travel to other countries in order to make their fuel purchases.

Setting aside the last factor (which the ever inventive German language called Tanktourismus, gas tank tourism), I saw fit to admire one group of humans for making a moderately estimable beginning. Or let me more accurately admit that I longed to exaggerate my belief in them. They had let me down with their adipicacid emissions,* but why hold a grudge? Let them be heroes of harm reduction. Then I could trust my friends and neighbors when they promised me: “No immediate danger!”

In this spirit I sought out the latest greenhouse inventory available. Five years had passed, and Germany now shared the fortunes of the European Union. Under the category “road transportation” I found the following: The second largest key source of all categories in the EU-15[,] accounting for 20% of total GHG emissions in 2012. Between 1990 and 2012, CO2 emissions from road transportation increased by 11% in the EU-15.

That wasn’t pleasant. But where stood Germany in the EU-15?

The Member States Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom contributed most to the CO2 emissions from this source (77%). All Member States, except for Germany (−3%) and the United Kingdom (−1%), show increased emissions . . .

So Germany still held the line, but what a feeble line it had become! Given our predicament, even minus 99% might not have sufficed.—In 2012, German road transportation released 145,826 gigagrams (call it 321,487,999,60 pounds) of CO2.—At least minus 3% was still a minus.

“AND CONTINUED TO RISE”

As for sky travel, the most glancing tabulation conveys the same point:

MAXIMUM-RANGE CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS OF SELECTED AIRCRAFT,

in multiples of the “Pampa” Argentine attack jet’s (2003)

All levels expressed in [pounds of CO2 released if entire fuel capacity were burned]. I have plugged in the emission coefficient of 18.4 lbs carbon dioxide per combusted gal of kerosene-based unleaded JET A-1, the “most commonly used aviation gasoline for turbine engines.” A different calculation (given in the source notes) yields 25.5 lbs per gal. Note: Airplane fuel’s “total global warming impact is significantly higher [than its volume of use would suggest], due to vapor trails and the other effects of burning fuel at altitude.”

Levels in <angled brackets> = <total fuel capacity, in U.S. gallons>.

1

“Basic jet trainer/attack jet” LMAASA AT-63 Pampa, Argentina, [9,807 lbs] • <533 gal.>.

1.14

“Multirole fighter” Dassault Rafale [English name: “Squall”], Mark 2, M02, France, [11,187] • <608>.

96.79

“Wide-bodied airliner” Boeing 777-200LR [“ultra-long-range version],” U.S.A., [949,256] • <51,590>.

Sources: Jane’s, 2003; Plane & Pilot, 2017; with calculations by WTV.

Air travel showed me that we had transformed parts of our world into many-crystalled excrescences of carbon-emitting “big five” materials. Sometimes I seemed to be gazing down on an immense circuitboard. The awe-inspiring ugliness created by our modes of travel, production and habitation do not directly bear on Carbon Ideologies. But as you study the following photograph, I ask you to ask yourself: “What was the work for?”

Knowing that it behooved me to be humble, and maybe or maybe not ashamed, but at least honest with you that in spite of detailing these bad practices, I was no better, and actually worse, than most of the other human beings who lived on Earth when I did, because I, an American, was richer than most, using more steel and flying in jet planes without caring for limits, I still could not refrain from telling you this: In 2010, global per capita carbon dioxide from transportation reached 1,804 pounds, and continued to rise by 0.4% per year.*

View of Las Vegas freeway from my airplane seat

But all such ill effects, like those from agriculture, were dwarfed by those from electricity generation.

About Power Plants

The larger the amount of power transmitted, the better on the whole is the commercial outlook.

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1911

Steam is really just a medium of exchange, like money in an economy.

Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology, 1994

Both nuclear and fossil fuel plants generated steam, whose pressure spun turbines, which in turn drove electrical generators.

Fossil fuel plants created their steam by means of combustion. In other words, they burned oil, coal or natural gas—thereby producing greenhouse agents such as carbon dioxide. Their steam typically rose up to do work at a surprisingly low 100° Fahrenheit—and an outright astonishing 2,400 to 3,500 pounds per square inch: equivalent to pressures from a mile to a mile and a half beneath the ocean!* How our engineers safely, continuously exploited such forces, so that the thermodynamic work they did became not merely quotidian, but expected (“consumers” were at a loss whenever their power switches failed to induce instant magic), was a story I would much rather be telling than this one. To increase and enable productivity is, in and of itself, a noble act. But yesterday’s forgotten triumphs became today’s unregarded perils.* Meanwhile that high-pressure steam whirled the turbine blades at, for instance, 3,600 revolutions per minute, keeping our lights happily on.

As an electricity primer explained: Efficiency improves when the source temperature is raised. Additionally, turbine blade wear is reduced as the moisture content in the expanding steam is reduced. Both are accomplished by adding heat to the steam . . . Of course, adding heat required additional fuel.

For their part, nuclear plants employed the heat of radioactive fission to make their steam. Boiling water reactors produced steam directly in their cores, at around 1,000 pounds per square inch. Pressurized water reactors operated at 572° F, with their pressure at 2,000 to 2,500 pounds per square inch.

Model of coal-fired power plant, Kentucky Coal Mining Museum. The “smoke” is white cotton.

From a standpoint of continuous innate energy, nuclear fuels were superior almost beyond comprehension—whereas fossil fuels simply burned, then burned out. But from a moment-by-moment thermodynamic standpoint, nuclear and fossil fuel plants were comparably inefficient. The majority of their heat was wasted.*

I asked the “Public Information Specialist” at my local utility company why that had to be, to which he replied: The simple answer is enthalpy of vaporization or latent heat of vaporization. This is the energy (enthalpy) that is absorbed when we convert water to steam. The Rankine Cycle is the classic power plant model to review this thermodynamic cycle which converts heat into mechanical work in a closed loop system.

In that closed Rankine loop, wet steam, having done work upon the turbines, enters a condenser which chills it back down into saturated water in preparation for recompression and reheating. And here a thermodynamicist relates the sad truth: No process is possible whose sole result is the absorption of heat from a reservoir and the conversion of this heat into work.

Penny-saving approaches to turbine design, artificially low fuel prices (for instance, exclusion from expense calculations of global warming’s cost), diversion of kinetic energy from useful work, which occurred thanks to exhaust pressure; heat loss in the condenser, antipollution measures, temporary load reductions and other realities took their own various bites out of efficiency; anyhow, there you have it, not quite as concisely as the “Public Information Specialist” told it.—He was a fellow in a hurry, who helped me for no reason that I can see, excepting conscientiousness. And in his hurry he certainly remembered which issues to avoid. Herewith, my favorite of our question-and-answer sequences:

Q. What would you say to people (such as most of the residents I have interviewed in the Appalachian coal country) who disbelieve in human-caused climate change?

A. SMUD*’s vision is to provide our customers and community with innovative solutions to ensure energy affordability and reliability, improve the environment, reduce our region’s carbon footprint, and enhance the vitality of our community.

That made me sorry for him. If you from the future have studied the dates of our decline, you might be incredulous or merely contemptuous to learn that his for-attribution utterance went out not in 1906 or 1976, but 2016.

But he was on point about the Rankine Cycle, which kept dragging down SMUD’s “vision,” not to mention the yearnings of competitor utilities, into our smudgy human realm.—While I was busily kicking lumps of coal down the dirt roads of Appalachia, the U.S. Energy Information Administration compared the energies available in coal, oil and natural gas as delivered to the power plants to the energy actually generated by them for electricity. Those three sad ratios of loss remained nearly the same:

INNATE ENERGIES VERSUS ACTUAL ELECTRIC POWER GENERATED: OIL, COAL AND NATURAL GAS,

in multiples of the energy loss for oil

(U.S.A., 2014)

All levels expressed in [BTUs per pound].

The “innate energies” are what the EIA calls “fuel heat contents (for fuels received by electric power industry in 2014).” These approximate the default yardstick of this book: high heating values [HHVs].* As a cross-check, just right of each EIA figure I give an HHV in italics for a specific comparable fuel, as copied from the table of Calorific Efficiencies here.

I have calculated the “actual” electric power figures from an EIA fact sheet called “How much coal, natural gas, or petroleum is used to generate a kilowatthour [sic] of electricity?” [One kWh = 3,413 BTUs.]

Let “energy loss” = [1−(actual / innate)] × 100%.

1

Oil

Innate:

EIA figure: 19,857.

Mexican crude: 18,755.

Actual:

6,930.

Energy loss: 65.10%.

1.017

Coal

Innate:

EIA figure: 9,710, a surprisingly low value

West Virginia “average”: 12,500.

Actual:

3,282.

Energy loss: 66.20%.

1.032

Natural gas

Innate:

EIA figure: 24,718 [BTUs per lb].

Dry American: 24,646.

Actual:

8,109.

Energy loss: 67.19%.

Sources: Mechanical Engineers’ Handbook, 1958 (light Mexican crude); U.S. Department of Energy, 1982 (dry American natural gas); West Virginia Coal Association, 2013 (average for coal); and U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2016 (all power figures); with calculations by WTV.

(But I defined efficiency in one way, while a power plant’s stockholders might choose another. We carbon ideologues loved to deploy prebaked figures, in order to confirm our positions. And the more efficient we were, the less you from the future should blame us.)

The work required of the fuel to ensure that a turbine could do practical work continued to be more than we unknowing “consumers” imagined; and as I lay down in the hotel room in Kyoto, chilled from my morning walk through drips of melting snow, it suited me to increase the temperature by a degree or two Celsius, glad that those grey clouds were now on the other side of the window, while the relevant generating station operated somewhere entirely out of mind.

John E. Amos coal-fired power plant, Nitro, West Virginia

And what was the work for?

To manufacture a 2010-model desktop computer we had to burn up to 660 pounds of coal in some power plant. (Of the electric power thus generated, 95% went to make the silicon chip inside the plastic tower.) One of our most characteristic toys, a refrigerator, required somewhere between 1,000 and 1,400 pounds—or we could equally have sizzled away 700 to 1,000 pounds of heavy grade commercial fuel oil. (Of course more than 80% of that refrigerator’s substance was steel and plastic—two members of the “big five.”)

What if we could have manufactured durable, sufficient-powered, low-emissions refrigerators at a cost of only 50 pounds of coal apiece? Such improvements, made in most or many areas of energy use, might have ameliorated the future in which you find yourself. I suspect that what Gutowski called best available technology would not have sufficed. That still more wistful conditional, a necessary beginning, entailed subjecting all methods of energy generation to determined, even obsessive scrutiny. In this connection, please bear with me through another table, which shows that we could and did improve, fivefold:

COMPARATIVE POWER EFFICIENCIES,

in multiples of lowest gas-turbine efficiency as of 1957

Energy required to produce 1 kilowatt-hour of electric power, expressed where possible in [BTUs of combusted fuel].

Since 1 kilowatt-hour = 3,413 BTUs, wherever I could I expressed the corresponding efficiencies as the ratio of BTUs out to BTUs in. Thus for the steam-electric power plant the quotient of 3,413 and 10,500 is 32.50%, which I call the efficiency.

Natural gas efficiency units were not stated. They were probably per gallon or per cubic foot, not per pound. Thus comparisons between natural gas and other fuels are only approximate.

1–1.5

In an American gas-turbine power plant, burning oil “of lower grade” and therefore of half the cost of diesel, at 140,000 BTUs per gallon, “excluding waste-heat recovery,” ca. 1957 [27,000–18,000 BTUs per kWh generated].

Efficiency: 12.64–18.96%.

2.25

In an American diesel-electric power plant, burning 26 API oil, ca. 1957 [12,000* BTUs.]

Efficiency: 28.44%

2.57

In an American steam-electric power plant at “relatively high load factor,” burning coal at 13,000 BTUs per lb,* ca. 1957 [10,500 BTUs].

Efficiency: 32.50%.

2.64

In a Japanese nuclear reactor, ca. 2011, two-thirds of the heat energy was wasted (not converted into electricity), and simply caused thermal pollution. This figure comes from an anti-nuclear source.

Efficiency: 33.33%.

< 2.85

In a natural gas power plant, ca. 2002.

Efficiency: “Less than 36%.”

3.09

“The overall efficiency of [American] electric power plants consisting of coal-fired boilers and steam turbines has plateaued at about 39%,” ca. 1993. “The addition of pollutant control equipment has . . . lowered the effective efficiency of the plant.” At 12,500 BTUs per lb, the input energy would be [8,751 BTUs].

3.16

“Best” “fossil fuel” power plant,” ca. 1976.

Efficiency: “About 40%.”

3.16–3.56

In a combined-cycle thermal energy generator, ca. 1974. “This uses the exhaust heat from a gas turbine to produce steam for a conventional generator, electricity being produced in both stages.”

Efficiency: “40–45%.”*

> 3.32

In a natural gas power plant, ca. 2012.

Efficiency: “More than 42%.”

3.56–3.96

“Ultra-supercritical and advanced ultra-supercritical plants,” ca. 2012.

Efficiency: “More than 45–50%.”

4.67–4.83

Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco)* Kawasaki thermal plant, 2016.

Efficiency: 59–61%.*

Sources: Mechanical Engineers’ Handbook, 1958; Hirose, 2011; Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology, 1993; Britannica, 1976; Prentiss, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 1974; West Virginia Coal Association, n.d.; Australian government, 2015; Tokyo Electric Power Company, 2016; with calculations by WTV.

I heard efficiencies up to 80% being spoken of: Systems typically produce electricity or mechanical power and remove the waste heat for heating, air conditioning and other applications. Examples are gas turbines with heat recovery units or steam boilers with steam turbines. Indeed, our “Public Information Specialist” placed his own utility’s best effort nearly in that same range:

Q. How efficient is SMUD’s power generation? How close is it to the thermodynamic maximum? How much more efficient could it theoretically become?

A. SMUD’s most efficient power plant is Cosumnes Power Plant. It is a 2 x 1 Combined Cycle plant and its Net Heat Rate (Btu/kWh HHV*) at full load is 6,719 at 61F and 6,748 at 104F. This would calculate out to a 51% efficiency rate.

I would have liked to view this facility and learn exactly how its efficiency had been calculated—only half of those BTUs wasted!—but the “Public Information Specialist” stood prepared to indulge me only so far: You may see and photograph from the public road the Cosumnes Power Plant . . . I declined myself that pleasure.

Power and Climate

There was nothing he could do to help her . . . Regret was illogical . . . but the empty ship still lived for a little while with the presence of the girl who had not known about the forces that killed with neither hatred nor malice. It seemed, almost, that she still sat small and bewildered and frightened on the metal box beside him, her words echoing . . . in the void she had left behind her: I didn’t do anything to die for—I didn’t do anything—

Tom Godwin, “The Cold Equations,” 1954

In and of themselves, power plant emissions were not so bad, given other abuses of the atmosphere. Consider Canada. In 2008, that nation released 603,000 kilotons of carbon dioxide into the all-accepting azure, of which only 130,000 (not quite 22%) came from “electricity and heat generation”*—for as we have seen, transportation and manufacturing must do their respective parts: 30-odd percent apiece. Then came the gracious contributions of commercial and residential energy use. That was only the beginning of my inventory, so I stopped looking around me.

POWER GENERATION’S SHARE OF GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS FOR SELECTED COUNTRIES, 2007–14,

in multiples of the 2012 European Union value

Rounded to the nearest 2 digits right of decimal point.

1

European Union, 2012: 25% (for “public electricity and heat production” of EU-15).

1.20–1.56

U.S.A., 2014: 30–39%, “the largest portion” (“heat production” not necessarily included.)

1.36

Germany, 2007: 33.89% (for “public electricity and heat production”).

1.61

Japan, 2013: 40.3% (for “public electricity and heat production”).

Sources: EU greenhouse report, 2014; U.S. EPA, 2016; Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 2007; Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015; with calculations by WTV.

These figures were problematic enough . . . but had you lived when I was alive, I fancy my tables and numbers would have been as drearily remote to you as they were to me while I patiently, uselessly marshalled them. Even I in my deluded toil can barely imagine that you will trouble to turn over these data, even with your boot, since you are busy enough scouring dead beaches for food. So let me cut to the chase: Throughout the world, power grids grew and grew. They simply had to.

Between 1980 and 2013 American winter peak load capacity increased by 63%, from 572,195,000 to 921,966,000 kilowatt-hours—3.146 trillion BTUs, most of which came from fossil fuels. We lived up to the highest ideals of the Rankine Cycle: To generate our 3 trillion BTUs we wasted 6 trillion more. Burning 674,286,420 pounds of pure carbon* (which is moderately more energy-rich than West Virginia coal) would have produced enough electric current—and offered up 500 million pounds of carbon dioxide . . .

PRIMARY GREENHOUSE GAS AND PRECURSOR EMISSIONS FROM AMERICAN POWER GENERATION, 2014,

in multiples of the value for nitrous oxide

All figures in thousand metric tons [KMT]. 1 metric ton = 1.1023 U.S. tons.

All figures over 10 rounded up to nearest whole digit.

<1

Methane: [?] This must ignore natural gas leaks.

1

Nitrous oxide: 2,178 [KMT]

1.6

Sulfur dioxide: 3,485

992

Carbon dioxide: 2,160,342

Source: Energy Information Administration, 2016, with calculations by WTV.

If you are wondering why this had to be, let the “Public Information Specialist” solve the question:

Q. For what purpose is electricity most essential?

A. Electricity is a basic component of advanced civilization.

About Solar Energy

Look at the bright side always and die in a dream!

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Anima Poetae, entry from 1804

Of course the partially fruitless work of power plant turbines was an ordinary case. We accepted that one-third of everything we demanded got withheld from us—because electric power was cheap!—and the most superficial browsings into thermodynamics show that inefficiency cannot be avoided.—From an Olympian vantage point, solar energy might be said to do even less work than coal or nuclear:

SOLAR ENERGY EN ROUTE TO EARTH’S SURFACE

by seasonal angular alterations and by atmospheric absorption and refraction, ca. 1957, 1976*

in comparison to the thermal energy [insolation] received in space

All levels expressed in [BTUs per minute per square foot].

—

“The total solar energy reaching the earth is much greater than the energy requirements of all the world’s population . . .”

—Farrington Daniels, 1964

One estimate for this total solar energy is 9.9 quadrillion [9,897,816,000,000,000] BTUs per minute, or 174,000 terawatts.

“The sun delivers energy approximately 4,000 times faster than we use it.”

—Mara Prentiss, 2015

100%

Just above the atmosphere and normal [perpendicular] to the sun’s rays [7.37 BTUs/min-ft2]. Loss: 0%.

67%

“At most, 67 per cent . . . may reach the earth’s surface at noon on a clear summer day.”—Eugene P. Odum, 1971. [4.94]. Loss: 32.97%. But the solar expert who reviewed this chapter in 2017 asserted that a good 77% actually strikes the ground.

23.6%

At ground level in the continental United States in summer, high value [1.74]. Loss: 76.39%.

20.7%

Ground level at Stillwater, Oklahoma, June [1.525]. Loss: 79.31%.

18.0%

General amount of insolation striking planet’s landmass [1.327]. Loss: 81.99%.

17.0%

Ground level, continental United States in summer, low value [1.25]. Loss: 83.04%.

10.4%

Ground level, continental United States in winter, high value [0.764]. Loss: 89.63%.

7.3%

Ground level at Stillwater, Oklahoma, December [0.538]. Loss: 92.70%.

4.7%

Ground level, continental United States in winter, low value [0.347]. Loss: 95.29%.

Sources: Mechanical Engineers’ Handbook, 1958; Encyclopedia of Agriculture and Food Systems, 2014; IPCC, 2013; Farrington Daniels, 1964; Darling and Sisterson, 2014; Odum, 1971; Leckie et al., 1975; Dr. Canek Fuentes-Hernandez, 2017; with calculations by WTV.

Nor does the diminution of solar energy end when it strikes a particular surface. Physicists have invented the lovely concept of a blackbody, “an ideal substance capable of absorbing all the thermal radiation falling on it.” It must also be able to emit all the radiation it absorbs. There is no such thing. Hence further energy losses.

But here I had better quote a senior research scientist at Georgia Tech’s Strategic Energy Institute. His name was Dr. Canek Fuentes-Hernandez; I paid him to read this chapter, and it is well that he got something out of it, for he had to clean up several obsolete ideas and amateurish misconstruals—doubtless not the only such to soil Carbon Ideologies. Regarding the table he wrote: The losses you state . . . are somewhat irrelevant since even if year-round 96% of the total solar energy received . . . was lost on its way to earth’s surface, we would still get by collecting the remainder for a few months to fulfill all our current yearly needs.

Could solar power preserve us, then, from our hot dark future? On this subject one might without irony utter the word “progress.” High up on my most spiderwebbed bookshelf, an oversize paperbound eco-tract expressing 1975’s idea of self-sufficient living lamented that we’re going to have to wait a few more years, until solar cells become quite a bit cheaper, before self-sufficiency in electricity will be feasible in the city. Hence it consigned home solar energy to space heating only. Forty-two years later, as I finished this less than idealistic screed, a newspaper advised me that millions of Americans now get their electricity, at least in part, from . . . solar panels[,] . . . thanks to their sharply declining cost—while beneath an awning just outside a “big box” hardware store in Sacramento, two babyfaced salesmen stood pimping out silicon-based solar roof tiles for home electricity (whose efficiency they estimated at “around 20%”). So drink in sunny rays of hope, and postpone your engagement with the darkness! All the same, most everyone I knew, by some coincidence, still intended to wait a few more years to solarize. Why rush? There was no immediate danger—nor any immediate salvation; for even if we could have immediately solarized our planet’s greenhouse emissions down to zero, existing levels of carbon dioxide ensured continued warming. A U.S. government climatologist wrote me this reminder—and in the chapter about greenhouse gases I shall repeat it: Over 2000 years, the cumulative amount of heat retained in the Earth system from CO2* emissions is about 8 times larger than if we count only the first 100 years. Hence only a Manhattan Project to partially decarbonize the atmosphere would have kept your climate as it was when I was alive. Too laborious—we preferred other delusions!

Carbon Ideologies largely neglects solar power, that being associated with decentralization and environmental benignity. Indeed, solar is an ideology of hope—not my department. But let me at least introduce it, as a foil to nuclear, oil, natural gas and coal.*

A solar collector succeeds to the extent that it approaches a blackbody: It must capture the widest possible spectrum of electromagnetic wavelengths, then re-transmit them into some energy-generation system. The more closely both input and output approach 100% efficiency, the better founded the hope.

Carbon black acrylic paint does an excellent job at 94% absorbance and 83% emittance; while zinc oxide white, as might be expected from what is literally the near opposite of a blackbody, absorbs merely 12 to 18%, although it does emit 88%. So paint your collector black! The substrate might be copper, which offers high thermal conductivity—170.35 times that of ice and 16,042 times that of rigid foam polyurethane—although aluminum is perhaps the best and cheapest material for direct reflection of sunlight. Thus our aspirations in pre-photovoltaic days.

In the winter of 1959–60, a certain solar house in Denver received 226.86 million BTUs (mBTU) upon a 600-square-foot collector area. This was equivalent to the inherent energy of 18,149 pounds of average-quality West Virginian coal—but total incidence when collection cycles operated was only 161.33 mBTU, while useful collected heat came in at 55.72 mBTU, or 24.56% of what had originally fallen on the collectors—worse than the 30-odd percent that a traditional power plant could have burned out of that coal . . . or less than 2% of the original solar radiation reaching the top of our atmosphere. A hairsplitter could thus argue that the Denver house’s use of energy was 98% inefficient.*

In another mid-century experiment, English sugar beets, under intensive cultivation during favorable growing conditions, got their own solar energy efficiencies measured. It turned out that only 7.7% of the light falling upon them could be converted through photosynthesis. The fraction which became food energy was 5.4%. Hawaiian sugarcane and Israeli maize performed worse.

But why should that waste matter, with so much solar insolation to go around? Two early-20th-century steam plow enthusiasts belted out the good news: The sun stores up power enough in an acre of plants, in a single season, to plow, sow, and harvest that acre for a century—if those plants are converted into alcohol fuels (efficiency: half of gasoline’s, then burned in a one-cylinder engine. You from the future may see something wrong with that picture.*

Decade after decade, our fossil-fueled power plants’ ratios of uncaptured to utilized carbon combustion energy ensured an obscenity of greenhouse gas releases, and even when we worked fossil fuels more directly and completely, for instance by burning coal in a stove on a winter night, up went carbon dioxide regardless. Meanwhile, solar energy’s dwindlings from searing glory in the near-vacuum of the outer thermosphere down to mildness upon land and sea elegantly powered our ecosystem: our sugar beets and other solar collectors neither brought the sun closer, nor made it burn any hotter.

How efficient a solar collector was our planet itself? From the standpoint of simple energy retention, as my table shows, not very. And thank goodness for that! Otherwise Earth would have been far too hot before the game started.

Where did the heat go? Quantities ricocheted off the dark side of the planet. (On the daylit side, new solar radiation made good the loss.) Meanwhile, Earth kept sunshine busy doing thermodynamic work. Consider one case from Canada’s Ottawa River Valley. When I was alive, Perch Lake (46°02' N, 77°22' W) consisted of a modest body of water, about 4,800 square feet in area, and some six and a half feet deep. (For all I know, in your time it has become a desert.*) From the beginning of May through the end of October, Perch Lake used to receive not quite 150,000 BTUs of solar radiation per square foot. In other words, over those six warm months each square foot of the lake took in as much energy as would have been liberated by the complete burning of more than 10 pounds of pure carbon, or not quite 3 pounds of rocket fuel. So why didn’t Perch Lake boil away? Two scientists traced what work the sun actually did there. 80% provides latent heat of evaporation—the same energy sink that pilfered the useful work of our steam turbine power plants—and 20% provides sensible heat lost to the atmosphere.

As went Perch Lake, so went the world—for most of the planetary surface was ocean, which absorbed heat into its water, some of which accordingly evaporated, in the process generating thermal winds which moved air and water about. Seawater distilled itself into clouds; clouds rode the thermals until it came time to rain; thus the dynamic equilibrium which our “civilizations” commenced to alter. To be sure, even without us there had been disconcerting wobbles in the cycle, such as Ice Ages. But from our ephemeral human perspective there was or had been a steady balance, which Fourier in his Preliminary Discourse (1807) summarized with pleasing concision:

The radiation of the sun in which this planet is incessantly plunged, penetrates the air, the earth, and the waters; its elements are divided, change in direction every way, and, penetrating the mass of the globe, would raise its temperature more and more, if the heat acquired were not exactly not balanced by that which escapes in rays from all points of the surface and expands through the sky.

Greenhouse gases, of course, increased energy retention. Had that great power station called the Earth been amenable to human microcontrol, we would have been thrilled to improve its heat into tame electricity, allowing us to acquire new desires and ramp up demand beyond our current greediest extrapolations.

Instead, we locally concentrated the sun’s radiation, in hopes of servicing demand.

For a long time I blamed solar’s slow progress in the U.S.A. on political inertia, insufficient economies of scale and modest efficiencies. But then the politicians enacted financial credits for renewable energy in any number of states. The cost of solar tiles began to decrease. Best of all, efficiencies increased.

Carbon-blacked copper plates became, oh, so 20th century! Nowadays we aggrandized solar energy onto a bank of molten salts, to significantly increase their temperature and . . . boost the efficiency of the heat engine (generally steam turbine) used to generate electricity. Solar heating grew almost quotidian. Better yet, we employed photovoltaic cells, which were, as Dr. Fuentes-Hernandez defined them, devices that absorb light for its direct conversion into electricity. Thus the dream, to ban the other four ideologies’ harmful byproducts, and with refined passivity to sustain ourselves from sunlight!

Photovoltaics’ output is only limited by the absorption properties of the material[s] used to absorb light (typically these materials do not transform light into heat, but rather into light again; in other words, they have very high photoluminescence efficiencies. Before I turn to their two disadvantages, let me praise their potential for the smallest energy payback time than any other technology, including wind. This is because, compared to other energy sources, they require little to be produced, maintained, and decommissioned. Therefore, certain carbon ideologues would hate them.

How these extraordinary devices were made, and even what they were made of, I had better not tell you, for in five or 10 years I would already be out of date. Since this book is already less simple than it aspired to be, why not omit some details? What mattered was the theme, the goal, or, as a self-reverencing executive might say, the “vision”: Excite and satisfy demand!

In 1964, Farrington Daniels had hoped for 10% efficiency in solar electricity. In 1972, an automobile engine man declared: Today’s best [solar] cells convert into electricity only about 11 or 12% of the sunlight striking them. In April 2014, the corporation Okamato fabricated a silicon solar cell that reached 25.6 percent efficiency, breaking a 15-year-old world record of 25.0 percent.

Dr. Fuentes-Hernandez now sent me graphs: Thin films of gallium arsenide outperformed gallium arsenide crystals; next came mono-silicon, followed by poly-silicon; those four frontrunners clocked in at not far under 30% efficient. Remember, he wrote me proudly, that efficiencies here are those of directly converting light into electricity.

That year a scientifically trained anti-nuclear activist in Tokyo had already assured me that the efficiency of solar power generation is increasing rapidly, and currently the highest is about 20% (module conversion efficiency). And this number is expected to go higher. For industrial use the highest efficiency would reach about 50%. It is considered that 45% has already been reached in the research level. Why not? According to those graphs, the new Fraunhofer ISE/Soitec multi-junction “research cell” was 46.0% efficient.

Determined to make his field of expertise, so to speak, shine, Dr. Fuentes-Hernandez (who in fact called solar second-best, after nuclear fusion) insisted:

For a coal fired boiler operating with high pressure steam at a temperature of around 540°C, the maximum theoretical efficiency is 64%. [As Carbon Ideologies glumly reiterates, the actual efficiencies of coal power plants have generally been half of that.] Since nuclear uses steam as well, the maximum conversion efficiency is not that much different. The direct conversion of solar energy into electricity in a single photovoltaic cell is limited to around 34%. However, using multiple cells, the maximum theoretical efficiency is about 69%, not too different from that of coal or nuclear.

And that was not all. Skewering our carbon follies like the zealous solar ideologue he was, he continued:

If we are willing to claim that the efficiency of fossil-fuels or nuclear is around 60%, and neglect the efficiency of converting solar energy into the biomass that produced these fuels or the efficiency of production of uranium through natural or artificial processes, then we may as well neglect all external losses prior to the absorption of electromagnetic radiation into a solar cell. If we do so, we could claim that the efficiency through which a . . . photon . . . of absorbed electromagnetic energy is converted into electricity is in fact nearly 100% (or even higher if we consider that physicists have discovered . . . singlet exciton fission, whereby 2 electrons can be produced per photon absorbed) . . .*

It seemed as if we could triumph over physical necessity itself! If that were only so (and maybe in your time it will be), we could return to the edifying task of deciding how to squander electric power. And if it became harmlessly abundant there would be no more talk of squandering it. In Volume II you will meet a Bank of Oklahoma Vice-President who says of oil: “I’m trying to let you know how cheap this is!” In that spirit, Dr. Fuentes-Hernandez now addressed the issue of costs and investments:

. . . Solar energy is so plentiful that if . . . we could collect [it] for 1000 h (~1/8 of the number of hours in year) we would collect 1 TW/km2.* . . . We would need an area of around 120,000 km2 (about the area of North Korea) to fulfill the entire world demand if we had 100% efficient photovoltaic cells, or about the area of Peru (1 285 000 km2) . . . [assuming] an efficiency of around 10% (commercial modules are at around 17%) . . . Around 2.7% of the world land is already occupied by urban development . . . In the US, in 2000 . . . about 250 000 km2 [were] covered by urban developments. If . . . only half [this] area . . . were covered with 17% efficient photovoltaic cells[, t]his would supply about 106 TWh/day, or 38,690 TWh in a year, about 3 to 4 times the amount of electric power consumed in the US in 2016 (40 quadrillion Btu = 11 000 TWh . . .)

Unfortunately, we had not yet learned how to store the sun’s energy in batteries the way we could hoard it in heaps, tanks and barrels of fossil fuels. Even Dr. Fuentes-Hernandez had to admit this as the only compelling reason to keep using non-renewable energy sources that operate 24/7.

What about that North Korea–sized reserve of photovoltaic cells? A certain young, bespectacled public relations man for an unfortunate, hence infamous Japanese nuclear company* reminded me: “Japan is an island country, unlike other countries operating this [solar grid] system on a larger scale.” In other words, where could the Japanese situate their electromagnetic plantation? “And when it rains,” he continued, “the solar power will be zero.”

Perhaps if the issues of storage and siting were solved we could air-condition ourselves and our crops in solar-powered hives even as global temperatures continued to rise. (Emerson: Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion.) Better yet, I would make of this book a forgotten error. Solar tiles on every roof and solar-charged battery systems would guarantee a photovoltaic paradise! Unfortunately, as carbon dioxide from fossil fuels increased the heat-retention efficiency of our atmosphere, a bad old story continued to be told, whose gloomy ending you in my future can see all too well.

In my most embittered moments I would never have imagined a concerted and well-funded lobbying campaign by traditional utilities . . . to reverse incentives for homeowners to install solar panels. In 2017, President Trump’s new Energy Department decided to “study” the matter—in other words, I suspect, to kill those incentives utterly. The department’s appointee happened to be a former economist at the Institute for Energy Research, a nonprofit funded by the ultraconservative Koch brothers, who profited (to say the least) from fossil fuels. But for all I know, their onetime employee (a Mr. Travis Fisher) might have been highly objective. It must have been coincidence that he had already called clean energy policies “the single greatest emerging threat” to the electric power grid. Perhaps he truly could have explained his intentions and instructions so as to prove that he lacked any animus against renewable energy. Instead, like most of the high-placed carbon ideologues whom you will meet in this book, he refused to comment.

About Greenhouse Gases

The greatest things in the world are brought about by other things which we count as nothing: little causes we overlook but which at length accumulate.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Notebook A, 1765–70

A greenhouse gas is so defined because it traps solar heat, thereby warming the planet. In our oversimplified carbon ideologies, we often spoke as if there were only one such substance. Specifically, when we expressed our worries about “burning carbon,” we tended to mean that ubiquitous carbon dioxide, which may practically be considered a signature not only of respiration, volcanism, fertilization, cement-making and chemical engineering—but most relevantly here, of combustion—for it certainly found its way up from all of our smokestacks, no matter which fossil fuels we burned:

COMPARATIVE CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS OF POWER PLANTS, 2014,

in multiples of those released by natural gas facilities

All levels expressed in [grams of CO2 given off per kilowatt-hour generated]. 1 kWh = 56.88 BTUs.

The Cirebon figures may display spurious precision, given that the others must be rounded approximation.

1

Natural gas [400 g CO2 / kWh]. [Another source claims baldly: “Combustion of natural gas emits about half the CO2 that coal generates at equivalent heat output.”]

1.5–1.75

Oil [600–700].

2.14–2.19

“New technology” Cirebon coal power plant, Kanci Kulon, Indonesia [856–76].

2.5

“Old technology” coal [1,000].

Sources: Charleston Gazette, 2014; Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology, 1994; with calculations by WTV.

These figures go far to show why coal was not the wisest energy source, back in the days when we were alive.

They also imply that if we had to burn carbon, natural gas would have been our best choice. And indeed, in the ringing words of one syndicated columnist: Natural gas emits about half as much carbon as coal and can transition us to truly clean power.—What she wrote might have even been true—in a leak-proof world.

Carbon Ideologies has already mentioned methane and nitrous oxide. Let us call back to mind the first of these.

Like CO2, methane (CH4) contains only one carbon atom per molecule. All the same, its ability to effect global warming was 20 times worse than carbon dioxide’s—or 21—or 33—or even 86 times worse! (Interested parties uttered whichever numbers suited them.)* It was natural gas’s most common component—and our natural gas pipelines were notorious for ineffective seals. On occasion we used to simply burn the methane in “remote” gas wells because the pipeline gathering systems needed for such gas tend[ed] to be prohibitively expensive. That was better than letting it leak, but still harmfully careless. As a leading carbon ideologue confessed:

The flaring of about 1 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas, or about 30% of production, is happening right now in the Bakken Shale play, one in which my company is invested. We’re flaring natural gas in certain areas of the Bakken because there’s no way to capture the gas through a pipeline, and the Bakken oil can’t be produced without flaring that gas. We’re wasting that resource . . . It’s been estimated that Bakken flaring wastes more than $1 billion per year in natural gas production values.

And to those few of us who did not care about production values (you from the future won’t count) he admitted:

Purposeful venting or flaring of natural gas for lack of market is wasteful and puts huge volumes of methane into the atmosphere. According to the International Energy Agency, flaring and venting of methane amounts to the emission of 1.1 billion metric tons of CO2-equivalent per year . . .

So that was unnerving. Meanwhile, nitrous oxide caused its own difficulties. Considering the trio en bloc, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded:

Concentrations of CO2, CH4, and N2O now substantially exceed the highest concentrations recorded in ice cores during the past 800,000 years. The mean rates of increase in atmospheric concentrations over the past century are, with very high confidence, unprecedented in the last 22,000 years.

But treating them as the root cause of our doom was an only moderately unwarranted simplification.

Yes, carbon dioxide was by volume the worst. In 2007, that gas made up 87.9% of all German greenhouse emissions. In 2013, it comprised 93.1% of Japan’s contribution to climate change.* At that period, in the course of each hour it warmed the Earth by half a BTU per square foot.* A dozen burning match tips in a day—who would feel such trivial heat? In the course of a century, to be sure, its steady, inconspicuous power (which climatologists called its radiative forcing) might alter our future, but I was pushing 60; I’d soon be dead. As for you, reader, you must have begun to sweat . . .

As you remember,* carbon dioxide concentrations had been increasing ever since 1750. As they rose, CO2’s radiative forcing power likewise strengthened. By 2100, it might be 3 or 5 times worse than it was in 2011; thus two of several climatologists’ scenarios. Of course there was no immediate danger; we carbon ideologues of all stripes went on uttering our jackdaw cries without much inconveniencing each other.

Let this 100-year effect of CO2, as exerted by a given quantity (a ton, or 100 tons), be called its global warming potential. And let it be quantified as 1.

The global warming potentials of other greenhouse gases might be lesser or greater than 1. As carbon dioxide’s absolute forcing ability grew, the GWPs of those rival climate change agents, being relative, proportionately decreased. However, were their absolute forcing strength to increase in consequence of their own rising concentrations or due to chemical interactions, then scientists would adjust their GWPs upward. (Thomas à Kempis, circa 1413: Carefully observe the impulses of nature and grace, for these are opposed to one another . . .)

Thus inconstant, arbitrarily defined and subject to wide calculation and projection uncertainties, the GWP nonetheless remained a useful simplication that any of us could comprehend, had we bothered to.

When I first encountered the shockingly high GWPs of methane, the halocarbons, nitrogen trifluoride and the rest of them, it seemed as if I had just perceived a legion of new enemies.

Reviewing this chapter, Dr. Pieter Tans at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration wrote me:

CO2* is easily the most important [greenhouse gas] that needs to be tackled. It is very unfortunate that the I[ntergovernmental] P[anel on] C[limate] C[hange] came up with the 100-year time horizon. [See next table, beginning here.] They might have done that with the idea that in 100 years future generations would be so technically advanced that they could “undo” the CO2 already emitted. Or perhaps, the responsibility of our generation for the future of our planet and its ecosystems does not go beyond 100 years. The problem is that the residence time of the additional CO2 emitted in the combined “atmosphere plus oceans” system is thousands of years. Therefore there will be plenty of time for slow feedbacks to come into play, such as ice cap melting, permafrost melting in the Arctic, to name a few.

Yes, carbon dioxide was the worst, so far. Maybe Dr. Tans would be proven right a century from now, and it would continue to be the worst.—Methane and nitrous oxide were identifiably harmful—but too many of the most dangerous compounds we released into our atmosphere had names, purposes and concentrations known only to specialists.* What made their effects still more obscure was that (like all greenhouse gases) they operated one way in the short term and still another over their entire chemical lifetimes. As usual, we took their good qualities on faith, that being less tiring for us and for the entities that made and sold such substances.

Our refrigerators contained chemicals with ominous global warming potentials. They obviously had nothing to do with “burning carbon,” so we wasted scant anxiety on them. Besides, they excelled at arresting food decay! A compressor, powered (through cord, outlet, transformers and wires) by fossil fuels or nuclear heat in some inconspicuous generating station, readied these unseen chemicals to absorb heat, after which they were permitted to expand, which automatically cooled them, which sucked away heat from our food, and then it was back to step one again, all courtesy of electricity on demand!

Once upon a time, ammonia used to chill our milk and butter for us. In H. P. Lovecraft’s horror tale “Cool Air,” it could even keep a dead man alive. But that “environmentally benign refrigerant”* stank; besides, it was corrosive and poisonous; so our engineers invented chlorofluorocarbons of all sorts—so many that we distinguished them with hyphenated numbers—for instance, CFC-12, which by the last decade of the 20th century took pride of place in “the vast majority” of refrigerators in the world.* The trade name for the whole group was “Freon,” and so until the basic patent ran out they were known as “the Freons.”* They announced themselves as elegantly as did certain actresses with their custom-blended “signature perfumes”—for thanks to their chlorine atoms, the slightest wisp of them would burn with a deep green flame.—Oh, what excellent work they did, and in such a fine cause! The Freons are colourless, odourless, nonflammable, noncorrosive gases or liquids of low toxicity, enthused my 1976 Britannica, and one scientific survey lumped them all wistfully together as an almost perfect industrial chemical. How prudent, that “almost”!—An illustrated guide to product manufacturing explained that as gases in the chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) group, which includes freon, waft upward into the stratosphere . . . they gradually decompose, releasing chlorine atoms, which in turn can destroy 10,000 ozone atoms apiece, drastically decreasing our protection from skin-cancer-causing ultraviolet rays and injuring food crops. The Americans, who in those days still believed in climate change because they were not called upon to do anything about it, calculated that at the 1976 emissions rate, CFCs would make global warming 10% worse. So all of us together phased out the CFCs, replacing them with hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HFCs), which “have zero O[zone] D[epletion] P[otentials]s and low-to-moderate G[lobal] W[arming] P[otential]s.” But some people’s definition of “low-to-moderate” was not mine. Please make up your own mind when you see the next table.

(Wouldn’t you have liked it if the industry had weighed in? Through an intermediary—just in case I was on some blacklist—I “reached out,” as we used to say, to seven large American refrigerator manufacturers, politely inquiring how harmful to “some ecosystem somewhere” their products might be. Six companies never replied; as for the seventh, that industrious intermediary, who was also my friend, contacted its “media company,” then reported: Got her on the phone, she said no, client wouldn’t want to participate, 5-27-16.—Anyhow, wasn’t it better not to know? Thus I consoled myself, wishing I weren’t writing Carbon Ideologies. It was an especially warm July day—108° Fahrenheit, with more of the same scheduled for tomorrow—so I opened the fridge and drank a nice cold beer.)

Refrigerators transported by dhow for sale, Dubai

The CFCs contained chlorine, fluorine and carbon. The HCFCs (and their kindred HFCs) contained hydrogen in addition, which rendered them less susceptible to shedding predatory chlorine atoms. HCFC-22, for instance, did less than five percent of the damage to the ozone layer that CFC 12 does.—Molecule for molecule, they were all variously worse than carbon dioxide:

COMPARATIVE ONE-CENTURY GLOBAL WARMING POTENTIALS,

in multiples of carbon dioxide’s

(Time Frame: Within 100 Years After Release*)

Each numerical header [such as 1 for carbon dioxide] is the actual GWP. All figures over 10 rounded up to nearest whole digit. After nitrous oxide, all levels rounded to 2 significant digits.*

According to the IPCC, uncertainties for very long GWPs may reach +/− 35%.

• = Targeted [in Kyoto Accords and annexes] for tracking and reduction. The Kyoto Protocol Gases were carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, HFCs, PFCs and sulfur hexafluoride. Nitrogen trifluoride was later added to the list.*

+ = “Precursors.” These substances cause warming more indirectly than directly, by affecting the production or aggregation [in clouds] of other greenhouse gases. Among these is ozone, which I have not tabulated here due to its complexities of generation and altitude dependence.

<1

Ammonia [?].

“The use of ammonia, which is considered an environmentally benign refrigerant, will continue to play an ever increasing role.” [Of course CO2 is released during the manufacture of synthetic ammonia from fossil fuels.] The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change asserted that this chemical might actually exert a cooling effect.

Atmospheric lifetime: <1 year.

1

• Carbon dioxide.

The favorite villain of most carbon ideologues.

Atmospheric lifetime: Once thought to be 120 years. We were dreaming. Dr. Pieter Tans to WTV: “Over 2000 years, the cumulative amount of heat retained in the Earth system [from CO2] is about 8 times larger than if we count only the first 100 years . . . I have taken into account that approx. 83% of the current CO2* emissions eventually end up dissolved in the oceans, leaving only 17% in the atmosphere after 2000 years. That number is based on well understood ocean carbonate chemistry. However, the transfer to the oceans occurs very slowly, and I have not estimated how long it takes for dissolution of calcium carbonate minerals to neutralize the added carbonic acid. Estimates are that it may take 3000–7000 years. In other words the factor 8 that I mentioned could still be larger. On the other hand, carbonic acid is another word for dissolved CO2, and neutralization means that the oceans can hold the extra carbon while atmospheric CO2 is back to preindustrial chemical equilibrium values of 280 ppm.”

2–3

Water vapor.

Contributes to warming only in the upper atmosphere. “Currently, water vapour has the largest greenhouse effect . . . However, other greenhouse gases, primarily CO2, are necessary to sustain the presence of water vapour in the atmosphere.”

Atmospheric lifetime: 10 days.

3

Propane*.

A component of natural gas.

Atmospheric lifetime: <1 year.

3

Isobutane.*

A component of natural gas.

Atmospheric lifetime: <1 year.

3

N-butane.*

A component of natural gas.

Atmospheric lifetime: <1 year.

3–7.6

+ Carbon monoxide.

A common emission from incomplete fossil fuel combustion. Between 1969 and 1980, U.S. exhaust emission standards reduced its per-mile concentrations by nearly 12/13. Many European emissions factors (EFs) also fell. [Average EF of German aircraft kerosene, “all flight phases (LTO and cruising flight), 1992–2015”: 1 pound CO given off for every 108.69 pounds of fuel burned.] According to Japan Tobacco Inc., 1 cigarette emits 0.055 grams [1/8,246 lb]. Considered both a greenhouse gas and a “precursor” whose indirect effect is to increase levels of other GHGs. Concentrations vary by continent. GWP range is global average, including direct and indirect aerosol effects.

Atmospheric lifetime: [?]

21–25 or higher (86 over the first 20 years)

• Methane, which is CH4.

The primary constituent of natural gas. Also an automotive tailpipe pollutant. Released by garbage, flooded ricefields, manure, etc.

Atmospheric lifetime: 12 years. Or, if you prefer, “the atmospheric lifetime of methane has increased 25–30% during the past 150 years to a current value of 7.9 years, implying gradually decreasing oxidizing capacity” of our planet, thanks to sulfur dioxide pollution.

77–93

• HCFC-123, which is CHCl2CF3.

A hydrochlorofluorocarbon used as refrigerant and also as a “blowing agent” to polymerize,* for instance, the foam insulation in refrigerators. A substitute for CFC-11.

Atmospheric lifetime: 1.3 to 2 years. But over 20 years its GWP is a horrendous 273.

80–238. [In subsequent tables I use the IPCC 2013 value of 159. But the true number might be negative.]

• + Nitrogen oxides, collectively abbreviated “NOx.”

A group of chemicals similar to nitrous oxide, and similarly derived from soils, fuel combustion, etc. Considered both greenhouse gases and [especially nitrogen dioxide] “precursors.” “NOx . . . emission control has both a cooling (through reducing of tropospheric ozone) and a warming effect (due to its impact on methane lifetime and aerosol production).” In other words, leave it to the experts. Concentrations vary by latitude. GWP range is global average, including direct and indirect aerosol effects.

Atmospheric lifetime: [?]

124–140

• HFC-152a, which is CH3CHF2.

A hydrofluorocarbon used for refrigeration and for dusting computer keyboards. “Quite toxic.”

Atmospheric lifetime: 1.4 to 2 years. But over 20 years its GWP is 437.

264–310

• Nitrous oxide, which is N2O. In subsequent tables I use the IPCC 2013 value of 264. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency called it “approximately 300 times more powerful than CO2.”

[Not the same as the various nitrogen oxides—see above—which are also greenhouse gases.*] “Generated by the action of microbes on nitrogen that leaches or runs off as nitrate from synthetic fertilizers, organic fertilizers, . . . etc.” A widespread decay product of aerated manure, sewage, compost, etc. “Increasing mainly as a result of agricultural intensification to meet the food demand for a growing human population.” Sometimes used as a commercial refrigerant. Laughing gas. Ca. 2007, 10% of global emissions derived from anesthetic use. Released during the production of nitric acid (for fertilizers) and adipic acid (for nylon).* Ammonium nitrate explosives give it off. Employed in semiconductor manufacture. Also, as it happens, a component of automotive smog. (In 1979, traveling at 60 mph on “freeways and surface arterials,” American cars emitted 3.59 grams of it per mile; American trucks gave off 13.52.) “Responsible for immune system impairment, exacerbation of asthma and chronic respiratory diseases: reduced lung function and cardiovascular disease.” “The increase, at least since the early 1950s, is dominated by emissions from soils treated with synthetic and organic (manure) nitrogen fertilizer . . .” Average rate of rise: 0.75 ppb per year.

Atmospheric lifetime: 114 years. Another source gives 131 years.

549–1,500

• HCFC-22.

A replacement for the dreadful CFC-12. Not only a refrigerant but also a “feedstock for . . . synthetic polymers.”* Ca. 2013 this chemical caused the most warming of any HCFC. In 2014, according to the U.S. EPA, “ozone depleting substance substitute emissions and emissions of HFC-23 during the production of HCFC-22 were the primary contributors to aggregate hydrofluorocarbon . . . emissions.” At time of writing, this compound was the main driver of the increase in all HCFC emissions.

Atmospheric lifetime: 12 years. Over 20 years its GWP is 5,160.

650–3,800

• 507 series, HFCs 32/125, hydrofluorocarbons.

Sometimes used as a commercial refrigerant.

Atmospheric lifetime: 4.9 to 29 years. Over 20 years the GWP of HFC-125 is 6,350.

1,300–1,430

• HFC-134a.

Another replacement for CFC-12. Widely in use in air conditioners at time of writing, although in Germany it was wisely replaced by isobutane. In Japan, “HFCs,” possibly including this one, were “emitted from manufacturing, accidents, and disposals of automatic vending machines.” Sometimes found in metered-dose medical inhalers.* Between 2005 and 2011, atmospheric concentrations more than doubled, to 62.7 parts per trillion. At time of writing, this compound caused the most global warming of any HFC. “The largest emissions occur in North America, Europe and East Asia.”

Atmospheric lifetime: 14 years. Over 20 years its GWP is 3,830.

1,600–2,310

• HCFC-142b.

A hydrochlorofluorocarbon which “can be used as alternative feedstocks for vinylidene fluoride manufacture.”

Atmospheric lifetime: 17.9 to 19 years. Over 20 years its GWP is 5,490.

4,000–4,750*

CFC-11, which is CCl3F.

This fully halogenated chlorofluorocarbon made up 63% of the 1986 CFC market. Used as a “blowing agent” and refrigerant. “Extremely desirable for use with centrifugal compressors.” “Whereas a typical refrigerator/freezer might use 6 oz. (170 g) of CFC-12 as refrigerant, it uses 2 lbs (0.91 kg) of CFC-11 in the blown foam.”—Substituted for by HCFC-123.

Atmospheric lifetime: 45 years. Over 20 years its GWP is 6,730.

4,800–6,130

CFC-113, which is CCl2FCClF2.

A fully halogenated chlorofluorocarbon used as a solvent in dry cleaning, and a low-viscosity cleaning agent in electronics manufacture and metal finishing. Substituted for by HCFC-225ca/cb.

Atmospheric lifetime: 85 to 90 years. Its 20-year GWP is 6,540.

6,630

• PFC-14, which is CF4.

See description of PFCs.

Atmospheric lifetime: 50,000 years.

7,000 to 10,300 [one source lumps them at 7,400]

• Various perfluorocarbons (PFCs).

Used to etch semiconductors. Also appear as uranium enrichment and aluminum smelting byproducts.

Atmospheric lifetime: 1,000 days to 50,000 years. The 500-year GWP of PFC-318 (life: 3,200 years) is 14,700.

7,100–10,900

CFC-12, aka R-12, which is CCl2F2 (sometimes called “freon,” although “Freon” was the trade name for a group of CFCs).

In the 1930s, “facing the problem of replacing methyl chloride and ammonia in household refrigerators, researchers found that dichlorodifluoromethane (CFC-12) was the best alternative as a safe, stable gas whose liquefied state had low compressibility. In addition, it was not flammable.” It was even odorless. Also used as an industrial refrigerant. Truck and trailer refrigerators employed it. A 1990s scientific survey alleged that an automobile air conditioner “contains about three pounds of freon [=CFC-12], compared to the few ounces used in home refrigerators.”—“Traditionally used in medium (-15° C) to high (15° C) temperature refrigeration, while HCFC-22 has been used for temperatures down to −35° C . . .” “Reacts vigorously with molten aluminum.” At one time CFC-12 was the third largest contributor to global warming. Replaced by HCFC-22 and HFC-134a, whose GWPs, as this table shows, were still many times worse than CO2’s.*

Atmospheric lifetime: 100 years.

8,700

• Perfluorocyclobutane, a PFC.

One of several unsalubrious PFCs. See perfluorocarbons, above.

Atmospheric lifetime: [?]

8,970

PFPMIE, or perfluoropolymethylisopropyl ether.

One of the PFPEs, “a family of perfluorinated fluids used mainly in industrial applications.”

Atmospheric lifetime: At least 800 years. The 20-year GWP was 4,692; the 500-year GWP was 31,694.

11,700–12,400

• HFC-23.

A refrigerant and a semiconductor etching gas. “For process-related reasons, production of HCFC-22 produces up to 3 % HFC-23 as a byproduct . . . [E]ven when the HFC-23 is subjected to further processing (for example, to produce refrigerants) or is collected and then broken down into other substances, some HFC-23 is always released into the atmosphere.” Ca. 2013, most releases came from East Asia, with “developed countries” emitting “less than 20% of the global total.”

Atmospheric lifetime: 222 years.

11,700–14,400

CFC-13, which is CClF3.

A fully halogenated chlorofluorocarbon sometimes used as a commercial refrigerant.

Atmospheric lifetime: 400 to 640 years. The 500-year GWP is 16,400.

16,100

Nitrogen trifluoride, which is NF3.

A byproduct of fluorocarbon production and semiconductor manufacture. Added to the Kyoto Protocol’s greenhouse list in 2012. From 1990 to 2013, Japanese emissions of this chemical increased 41 times.

Atmospheric lifetime: 500 years.

22,800–23,900

• Sulfur hexafluoride, or SF6.

An electrical insulator; common in switching systems [which have a minimum 40-year working life]. “Allows for more compact substations in dense urban areas.” Also “blown over molten magnesium metal to induce and stabilize the formation of a protective [oxidized] crust.” Sometimes employed to make semiconductors; frequently used in aluminum manufacture. Up through the 1990s it was pumped into high-end auto tires “for reasons of image” [my italics]. A cushion in sports shoes (since replaced by nitrogen). In Japan it made a fabulous “insulating medium in the radar . . . of . . . [the] Airborne Warning and Control System. When the plane ascends, SF6 is automatically released . . . into the atmosphere to maintain the appropriate pressure difference between the system and the outside air. When the plane descends, SF6 is automatically charged into the system from an SF6 container on board.”—“Used as a tracer gas” in certain British environmental studies since “it is currently the only viable way to measure emissions of methane from ruminant livestock individuals at pasture.” SF6 is another of the perfluorocarbons. “The most potent greenhouse gas the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change . . . has evaluated.” In Germany, “since 1975, SF6 has been used to enhance the soundproofing properties of multi-pane windows. In such use, the gas is inserted into the spaces between the panes.”* This folly was banned in 2007–8, but the Germans increased its application in solar collector manufacture. In 2012, American SF6 emissions were 8.4 teragrams of CO2-equivalent, or about 0.13% of the national greenhouse total.

Atmospheric lifetime: 3,200 years. The 500-year GWP is 32,600.

Sources: Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology (1994); Encyclopaedia of Weather and Climate (2002); Environmental Science and Technology (2006); International Panel on Climate Change (2007) and (2013); U.S. Department of Transportation (1979); U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (2014); reviewed by Dr. Pieter Tans, NOPA, and Mr. Ben Coleman, Marshall University

I am sorry that I could not make my table simple, complete or accurate. There were already many other compounds in the air just then, such as that old warhorse carbon tetrachloride (merely 3,480 times worse than CO2, and an excellent feedstock for Freon)—indeed, so many substances that I never heard of them all!* So I could only point, not show.

How could the 100-year global warming potentials of a substance vary so much?—Because some computations were newer than others.—As for the confidence levels of plus or minus 35%, such were our best efforts in those days.—But why did CFC-113, whose atmospheric life* was about 90 years, do in 20 years more damage relative to CO2 than it did in a hundred?—Maybe it was how it decayed. By some such magic I explained all these matters to myself.

And why did I omit sulfur dioxide? It certainly deserved to be on the list:

There have . . . been two dozen times during the past 46,000 years when major volcanic eruptions occurred every year or two or even several times per year for decades. Each of these times was contemporaneous with very rapid global warming. Large volumes of SO2 erupted frequently to overdrive the oxidizing capacity of the atmosphere . . . These are the times of the greatest mass extinctions.

But since that warming agent deployed its own disputable peculiarities upon our planet, I packed it off to Volume II.* (Volatile organic compounds get their moment on II:352.)

In any event, back when we were alive, most of us rarely read tables such as this. To be sure, the well-meaning expert chemists who in their zeal to profitably please had unleashed CFCs and HCFCs now pored over their latest results, concluding optimistically: The structure of a molecule affects both its lifetime and radiative forcing. The results present herein may assist with the future design of molecules which have shorter lifetimes and lower radiative forcings but which still retain useful function. Most of these substances were unknown to us who had complacently benefitted from their use; the magnitude and duration of their warming seemed peculiar, abstract, improbable; considering such figures bred confusion and despair—and as for their actual present effects, in say, 2011, those were still so minute that we could pull our usual trick of making future generations pay.

In their long-lasting ability to harm us, the worst of these substances reminded me of nuclear waste. The 50,000-year activity of PFC-14, with its warming power 525,560 times worse than carbon dioxide’s in the first century alone (after that who could say?), how was one supposed to weigh that against the radiation emitted by, for instance, the “uranium legacy site” of Mailuu-Suu, Kyrgyzstan?* We etched semiconductors, sold and used them, then threw them “away,” at which point the PFC-14 that had served us had barely begun its climate change. Meanwhile the Soviets enriched their ore at Mailuu-Suu, then went out of business. Two investigators from the International Atomic Energy Agency concluded: The probability of landslides that potentially can destroy the tailings containment is high . . . Erosion of riverbanks and destruction of tailings containment is only a matter of time[;] consequently fortification of the riverbanks . . . [is] only a short-term solution. Fortunately, the site of TSF No 15 has the potential to become (after reconstruction) a safe disposal site sustainable over the time span of 200–1000 years recommended for final disposal of tailings. Only a thousand years! That would be over before we knew it! The . . . valley . . . appears . . . sufficiently spacious to be expanded to receive . . . possibly up to 1 million m3* [35.3 million cubic feet] . . . of additional tailings.—Now for the Strategic Action Plan for Complex Remediation of Uranium Legacy Sites in Mailuu-Suu:

No national strategy for long-term solutions.

National infrastructure lacking—no clear roles and responsibilities.

But if there was no national strategy, there was also (I am proud to say) no immediate danger. The people of Mailuu-Suu breathed in radioactive dust, and got irradiated from the scrap metal they collected from their “legacy site” . . . while PFC-14 contributed its subtle mite to our atmosphere. I never heard anyone complaining!

Atmospheric concentrations of HFCs, PFCs and sulfur hexafluoride were rising steeply, but the entirety of their combined mischief had not yet accomplished 1% of the warming carried out by the so-called “well-mixed greenhouse gases”: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and the halocarbons.*

Between 1990 and 2012, HFC emissions in the EU-15 nations more than doubled. Between 2005 and 2011, nitrogen trifluoride levels had nearly doubled, but remained under one part per trillion. Sulfur hexafluoride emissions were at least twice the reported values, but so what?

By 2013 the HCFCs and CFCs made up 11% of our global warming brew. In Japan, hydrofluorocarbon emissions rose by 99.4% between 1990 and 2013, mostly due to increased deployment of refrigerators and air conditioners. But they still constituted a mere 2.3% of that country’s greenhouse gas pollution.

So it was with our human calamities, back when we were alive. Once upon a time, when World War I pushed against the creaking walls of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a young officer-to-be told his friend: Each question branches out into more and more questions, and once you start, you get nowhere. One thing I’ve noticed, though, is that the more narrow-minded a person is, the more easily he’ll find a way through this maze. He’ll declare confidently, for instance: We’ll soon teach the Serbs their lesson, and that’ll be that.

As for our most effective carbon ideologues, how did they render the crooked straight?—By omitting.

Excluding agriculture from consideration certainly eased our worries. Forgetting about refrigerants was another path-straightener.*

And why fuss over such chemicals as nitrous oxide, which did not have a single atom of carbon in their molecules?—Besides, water vapor contributed more to global warming than other greenhouse gases—so my encyclopaedia said. That entry might have been out of date; but even so, why should you from the future blame us for water vapor? Above all, why ever ask what on earth the work was for?* That would have led nowhere, all right!

Carbon Ideologies now promises to bring you on a delightfully easier journey, in which precipices will be screened off behind simplifications, while our puttering narrative vehicle will be cushioned with consolations. For the most part this book will live up to its name, ignoring hordes of lesser known greenhouse gases. In 2014 the European Union put us straight: The most important energy-related gas is CO2 that makes up 78% of the total EU-15 GHG emissions. CH4 and N2O are each responsible for 1% of the total GHG emissions. And Dr. Tans of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration insisted in his letter to me:

[Many of] the other greenhouse gases . . . have much shorter residence times than CO2. My conclusion has to be that climate change is primarily about cumulative emissions of CO2. That has nothing to do with an ideology. We should of course try to lower emissions of non-CO2 GHGs but they are truly secondary on the expected time scales of climate change.

He had spent decades studying just such matters—his official title was “Chief, Carbon Cycle Greenhouse Gases Group”—and for a fact my heart would have felt easier if he’d erased every other greenhouse agent from our ledger of trivial gains and looming losses. However, the main lesson I, a trivially obtuse non-scientist, have taken from the history of climate change is that reality continually surprised us—because we always underestimated! Why shouldn’t some half-known gas be the one to actually finish us off? Having said so much, and with that longish preceding table paying off my conscience, I turned thankfully away from, for instance, perfluoropolymethylisopropyl ether. My maze of worries would become a broad, well-lit tunnel once I further limited my concerns—as this book will immediately do. Every now and then I may look over my shoulder at methane or at certain volatile organic compounds—but at least, thank God, this primer is nearly done with.—How shall I leave its wide web of problems? Naturally, with a table!—We knew that burning away rain forests and tilling the soil incurred costs quantifiable as follows:

COMPARATIVE RESPONSIBILITIES FOR GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS, 2007,

in multiples of the figure for food production

1

Food production [14%].

1.21

Deforestation [17%].

4.93

Energy consumption [69%].

Total: 100%.

Source: Encyclopedia of Agriculture and Food Systems, 2014, with calculations by WTV.

Focusing on only 69% of the picture saves time and eases my digestion. Therefore, the remainder of Carbon Ideologies simply considers four fuels, as follows:

About Fuels

Fuel—petrol and benzine! That’s all we need!

Fyodor Vasilievich Gladkov, Cement, ca. 1920

A fuel is an energy-rich substance which yields up its energy when combusted, giving off energy-poor byproducts. In the case of nuclear fuel, please replace “combusted” with “fissioned” or “irradiating,” and note that its byproducts may still contain perilous amounts of energy. So it may be simpler to say: When we were alive, a fuel was a means of enriching the seller.*

Bonhams’ modern and contemporary African art auction, initiated in London in 2009, grossed more than [1 million pounds] for the first time in 2013 . . . Nigerian collectors placed very high bids; 80 percent are in oil and gas, remarked the director.

Fuels were so lucrative because they were ubiquitous in our makings and doings. In 2010, fuel combustion produced 4.8 U.S. tons of carbon dioxide for each person on Earth, with an annual increase of 1.7%. In 2012, it caused between 79* and 80%* of all CO2 emissions in the European Union. In 2013, it produced 95.4% of Japan’s CO2 emissions. It would be logical to say that if CO2 was dangerous, then so were fuels—nuclear fuels once again excepted; those were even safer than swimming with sharks.

The primary greenhouse gas emitted by human activities in the United States was CO2, representing approximately 80.9 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions. The largest source of CO2, and of overall greenhouse gas emissions, was fossil fuel combustion.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2016

But what did my rival carbon ideologues say? I quote the Heartland Institute:

Affordable, reliable, and plentiful energy enables us to protect the environment while also creating jobs and the goods and services we need. Expensive and unreliable energy, like the kind produced by ethanol and commercial wind and solar companies, destroys jobs and harms the environment. [How did solar power harm the environment? By being less efficient and more land-intensive than fossil fuels.]

Fossil fuels are the foundation of economic growth and prosperity. Taxing them or making them more scarce causes economic growth to slow, makes food and other essential goods more expensive, and many of the good things we take for granted are lost.

This last paragraph was true—but not in some “universal” sense; it was true on account of our present sociotechnical organization. We have seen how necessary we made fuels as chemical feedstocks and fertilizers; many of the good things we take for granted did depend on them. Ever since Neanderthal times, carbon combustion had decomposed animal proteins for the convenience of our digestions. Then came slash-and-burn agriculture, metallurgy, etcetera. As direct combustibles, fossil fuels appeared irreplaceable in our engines and purpose-built utility plants—but in my time I also heard of nuclear-powered cars, power station redesigns, and even the hypothetical retraining of unemployed coal miners—for in point of fact, “you can do anything. Can you do it at a point where it is economic to do?” I am quoting Mr. Sam Hewes, a kind and rather jolly Vice-President of the Bank of Oklahoma (his interview appears in the oil section).* “You can turn gas into electric and sell it as oil where there’s tremendous gas reserves,” he said, “but how do you get gas from one place to another?”

Carbon Ideologies offers no scenario for replacing nuclear and fossil fuels. (Nor have I any practical idea of how we might have saved the free-roaming buffalo herds.) Whatever “solution” I could have proposed in 2017 would have been found wanting before the oceans rose even one more inch! But even though I rest proudly on my laurels as a nay-sayer, I will at least compare fuels against each other.

RULES FOR FUELS, AND WHY WE BROKE THEM

Other factors being equal (such as cost, abundance and risk), if we had to generate power by creating heat, we might as well employ whichever substances produced the most heat per unit of mass or volume—not to mention the least greenhouse emissions for their thermodynamic work.

But those “other factors” could not be equal. It would seem preferable when roasting limestone for cement to feed the kiln with commercial packaging waste at 56,854 kilograms of CO2 per terajoule,* rather than recycled tires at 97,319 kilograms; because by this measure the second fuel threatens nearly twice the atmospheric harm of the first.—Well, what if (as might be the case in a district of auto body shops and wrecking yards) old tires were cheaper and more abundant than packaging waste, so that our competitors were burning those, and offering their cement at prices we in our slavish desire to be good could not match?*—Then I would ask how cheap they proved to you who must now cope with what all of us left behind.

Here is how another carbon ideologue (who happened to be a physicist) arrived at his particular conclusion:

Nuclear power is essential . . . The risks of nuclear power are far exceeded by the actuality of fatalities from political instability due to global warming. We are at almost half a million deaths and counting in Syria alone. The civil war there was precipitated in large part by the worsening (due to global warming) of a drought that began in 1998.

Once again, I must call upon you in my unknown future to say what our nuclear idylls left behind. Modern reactors, wrote the just-cited ideologue, are far safer than those in Chernobyl or Fukushima. How did he know? What was his prospective gain and loss?—All I can do here in my dead past is to grope at partially informed trial balances.

That fuels vary widely in their heat-making capacities is evident.—But in our day, judging the calorific efficiencies of fuels against each other was not straightforward. They sold us coal by weight; oil, gasoline and diesel by liquid measure; and the various natural and unnatural gases by volume at a given temperature and pressure. Each form of comparison projected its own truth. In 1979, 0.29 gallons of diesel fuel or 0.32 gallons of gasoline had to burn so that an American electric light rail car could roll one mile. So it would seem that gasoline was 10% less efficient than diesel—and indeed, three devout diesel men wrote a book in order to crow that diesel fuel (their loving italics) contains more heat energy (BTUs or joules) than does gasoline . . . However, the two liquids varied in density. When the same information was expressed through relative weights, it transpired that to move the car that single mile took 1.29 pounds of gasoline and 2.04 pounds of diesel—which rendered gasoline 158% more efficient.*

AVERAGE FUEL CONSUMPTION IN MOVING ONE AMERICAN ELECTRIC LIGHT RAIL CAR ONE MILE, ca. 1979,

in multiples of pounds of gasoline required

(Energy needed: About 4.1 kilowatt-hours, or 13,993.3 BTUs.)

1

Gasoline, 1.29 lbs. Converted from 0.32 gal.

1.20

Natural gas, 1.55 lbs. Converted from 37.20 cu ft.

1.58

Diesel fuel, 2.04 lbs. Converted from 0.29 gal.

2.40

“Manufactured gas,” 3.10 lbs. Converted from 74.40 cu ft.

2.47

Coal, 3.18 lbs.

Source: U.S. Department of Transportation, June 1979, with calculations by WTV.

Alcohol versus kerosene made a comparable conundrum.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration liked to express the matter in a ratio of BTUs of combusted fuel per kilowatt-hour of potential power consumption. (In that respect, oil, natural gas and coal were even at between ten and eleven thousand.) Someone could have preferred terajoules per virgin weight or of gasified volume. The main thing was to pick a standard, and devoutly mistrust anybody who compared apples and oranges.

Carbon Ideologies will continue to use BTUs per pound.* Professor Gutowski advised me against this; but since the American government had failed decades before to change from pounds to kilograms, and still clung to BTUs, I chose to sink alongside my stubbornly archaic countrymen.

Now to our subject: By combusting equivalent mass-units of all these fuels in equivalent ways, and measuring their proffered heat under similarly controlled conditions,* one might usefully compare the work they can do.

The heating value of a fuel, or calorific efficiency, is the energy it emits when combusted. The higher the heating value of a motor fuel, the greater its fuel economy. More efficient coals and oils cost us less fuel to ship and dispersed smaller volumes of pollutants en route.

Which burns more impressively, a pound of pinewood or a pound of gasoline? The table of Calorific Efficiencies beginning here expresses this range of innate energies—a matter of urgent importance to our hungriest category of self-expression, demand. Accordingly, when considering the boastings and accusations of various ideologues, I will find steady occasion to cite this table.

If the “average” per-pound calorific efficiency of coal was a 1, then, as the table will show, California crude oil’s would have been 1.5, and natural gas’s about 1.9—in which case reactor-fissioned uranium-235 was 2.9 million.

To you in the future, if you remain foolish enough to keep burning hydrocarbons for your own short-term gain, I propose the following procedure: Pick the fuel with the highest heating value and the lowest global warming potential. But our procedure was: Select for price, convenience and abundance.

Following this method, we continually improved our atmosphere. In 1980, the inhabitants of Planet Earth produced 187.3 Q-BTUs’ worth of energy—enough to electroprocess 457 million tons of titanium at standard 30% power plant efficiencies. By 2011 we had nearly literally tripled our efforts, to 518.3 quads—from which, with our customary titanic wastage, we generated 21,080.9 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity—two-thirds of which came from fossil fuels.

Fossil fuels possess almost ideal properties for humans.

Rolf Peter Sieferle, 1982

As Time magazine rhapsodized, not quite two years before Trump became President: Energy-sector employment is one of the few bright spots for the middle class. Energy jobs pay more than double the average annual wage across all industries in America. And carbon dioxide levels kept going up.

(In India it was happening still more quickly. But, after all, they needed to develop, didn’t they?)

MAGIC CONVERSIONS

Speaking of equivalence, you already know how protean were our carbon-based fuels as chemical feedstocks. Do you remember our proud claim about adipic acid? Out of phenol or butadiene, cyclohexane or cyclohexene we could create it, as dictated by shifts in hydrocarbon markets. Meanwhile, from natural gas or oil we could build a solid pair of spectacles! Carbon Ideologies too frequently denies its due to productive genius. I hereby interrupt this jeremiad to say thank you for the magic.

Industrial processes transformed one fuel into the other according to the following ratios:

A

<882 lbs>

<0.44 U.S. tons>

0.4 metric tons of coal

or

4 to 5 metric tons of tar sand

<4.96 U.S. tons average>

↓

<296 lbs>

1 barrel of oil

[42 gallons]

↓

<119 lbs>

<1 half-barrel [46.2%] of gasoline

[19 gallons]

~ [is equivalent to] 170 cubic meters of natural gas*

<6,000 cu. ft>

<250 lbs>

In other words (dividing all these quantities by 296, the poundweight of oil in A):

B

1 lb of oil ~ 0.4 lb of gasoline ~ 3 lbs of coal ~ 33.5 lb of tar sands ~ 0.85 lb of natural gas

Note: Given the widely varying compositions of all fossil fuels, these approximations are +/− 10–15%. For instance, in place of Carbon Ideologies’ 1 barrel of oil ~ 170 cubic meters of natural gas, another sources gives ~ 150 cubic meters.

From the standpoint of innate energies [as lifted from my table of Calorific Efficiencies beginning here], these fuels were considerably more akin:

C

1 lb of oil ~ 0.9 lb of gasoline ~ 1.5 lbs of coal ~ 1.06 lbs of tar sands [“bitumen alone”] ~ 0.77 lb of natural gas

This might have been informative. But usually (because we were all lazy) our carbon ideologues built their bright equivalences by comparing barrels to tons to cubic feet, or innate energies to conversion products. For instance, they advised us that

D

1 short ton of coal ~ 3.8 barrels of crude oil ~ 189 gallons of gasoline ~ 1 cord of seasoned firewood ~ 21,000 cubic feet of natural gas ~ 6,500 kilowatts

Had we divided A by 0.44, in order to match the scale of D, we would have obtained very different ratios:

E [= A / 0.44]

1 short ton of coal ~ 2.3 barrels of crude oil ~ 43 gallons of gasoline ~ 13,600 cubic feet of natural gas

Caveat emptor.

And for precisely this reason, Carbon Ideologies will thrust upon you ever so many tables. If you wish to evaluate our fuels in relation to each other, please use your own mind. Have I made errors? No doubt—as have other carbon ideologues . . .—not all of them, but on the other hand perhaps not invariably by accident. And if you’d rather throw up your hands and leave evaluation to others, why, then, that was just what my neighbors and I liked to do! We enjoyed the world we possessed, and deserved the world we left you.

How close could the various equivalences be? Well, our bean-counters tended to agree that

F

1 BTU ~ 1 match tip ~ 1/1,000 cubic feet of natural gas ~ 1/112,500 gallons of gasoline ~ 1/12,500 lb of coal

or

1 metric ton of coal equivalent = 0.7 metric ton of oil equivalent = 27,776,000 BTUs, in which case 1 BTU = 1/12,599 lb of coal

or

according to another source (the National Coal Association): 1 ton of U.S. coal = 22 million BTUs, in which case 1 BTU = 1/11,000 lb of coal

or

according to another source: 1 million BTUs = 90 lbs of coal, in which case 1 BTU = 1/11,111 lb of coal

or

1 quadrillion BTUs = 1 Q-BTU [or quad] = 45 million short tons of coal,* in which case 1 BTU [thank goodness, still] = 1/11,111 lb of coal

These coal-values for 1 BTU differ by no more than 12%.

What should a BTU mean to you? What miser counts his match tips? We lived more grandly than that. As Ayn Rand expressed the matter with her usual compassionate empathy: Who is enslaved by physical needs: the Hindu who labors from sunrise to sunset at the shafts of a hand-plow for a bowl of rice, or the American who is driving a tractor? Decade by decade, we Americans enlarged demand—I mean, we sped faster and farther away from slavery. Hence the following datum:

G

100 Q-BTUs = American economy’s total energy consumption in 2007

. . . of which 85% came from fossil fuels.

GLOWING LIKE A BERRY

They all did their collective mite to warm our homes, cook our food and (nuclear again excepted) increase atmospheric carbon levels. Ever since we learned to manage fire, combustion has been associated with some of the sweetest aspects of being human.

In a white-washed kitchen in the glen the peat-fire glows like a berry, and the cricket—“the cock of the ashes”—sings. And the tangle of Gaelic voices singles out as the Story-teller spreads his fingers for attention . . . For an hour or two the listening farmers and fishermen will forget their bleak existence; the intoxicating talk turns them into kings . . .

A certain dried cut block of that Irish peat would have offered its hearth-audience something like 8,600 BTUs per pound. Most kinds burn with a red smoky flame, developing a very strong odour, which, however, has its admirers in the same way that wood smoke has. By the way, it had already released clouds of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide during its drying. When employed for agriculture, peatlands might emit more than 100 times the CO2 of other soils. Then the burned peat went right on giving.* Well, it was the Story-teller’s only fuel, so why blame her? She lived on a windswept island.—One sample of brown peat from Madison, Wisconsin, burned less efficiently than the Irish kind at 7,628 BTUs; the average rating was worse yet: 7,040 BTUs—slightly more energy-poor than lignite. Given its high emissions and low inherent energy, peat should have been reserved for inhabitants of wind-swept places (and in fact, peat is a significant source of energy for Russia, Finland, and Ireland)—but how could it be left to them, when we saw possibilities to increase demand? (Come to think of it, I loved to drink heavily peated Scotch whisky.) Proceedings of a resource extraction conference, 1981: Often neglected in earlier years, solid fuels of low calorific value have more recently seen an upsurge in development. In descending order of heating value, these include sub-bituminous coal, brown coal, lignite, and peat.

HOW SHALL I TELL IT?

Lignite was the most inefficient kind of coal; some was calorifically inferior to peat. Bangladeshis imported it because they couldn’t afford the good stuff.* Poles burned it because that was what they had.—Of all the major carbon-based fuels, it took first place (just above firewood) for carbon dioxide emissions, being 112 times worse than natural gas:

CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS OF COMMON FUELS,*

in multiples of natural gas’s (2007)

All levels expressed in [pounds of CO2 released for each 10,000 BTUs released by the combusted fuel].

All multiples rounded to the nearest whole digit.

1

Natural gas [0.0232 lb per 10,000 BTUs].

72

Petrol [gasoline] [1.671].

73

Aircraft fuel [sometimes called “kerosene”] [1.701].

74

Diesel [1.717].

74

Petroleum [1.717].

82

Heavy heating oil [1.890].

94

Hard coal [2.181].

?

Peat [?]. “Higher than the I[mplied] E[mission] F[actor] of hard coal.” Possibly worse than lignite.

112

Firewood [2.599].

112

Lignite coal [2.605].

Source: Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, with calculations by WTV.

So a carbon ideologue might tell you that natural gas was good and lignite was bad. But another ideologue could have spun the facts the way I did, in BTUs per pound:

CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS OF COMMON FUELS,

in multiples of lignite’s

All levels expressed in [pounds of CO2 released per pound of the combusted fuel].

[All catch as catch can. In one case, Indian lignite put out 4.8 times less heat per pound than West Virginian anthracite.]

1

Lignite coal [1.396 lbs per lb*].

1.33

Subbituminous coal [1.858].

1.77

Bituminous coal [2.466].

2.02

Natural gas [2.813]. More usually expressed as 117.10 lbs CO2/1,000 cu ft.

2.04

Anthracite coal [2.843].

2.19

Leaded [10LL] aviation gasoline for piston engines [3.06]. More usually expressed as 18.4 lbs CO2/gal.

2.25

Unleaded aviation kerosene [JET A-1] for turbine engines [3.14]. More usually expressed as 21.1 lbs CO2/gal.

2.27

Kerosene [3.162]. More usually expressed as 21.50 lbs CO2/gal. But the Germans proposed “a pertinent emission factor of 3,150 g/kg,” which comes to [3.0].

2.28

Diesel [3.184]. More usually expressed as 22.40 lbs CO2/gal.

2.28

Gasoline [3.186]. More usually expressed as 19.60 lbs CO2/gal.

Sources: U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2016; Plane & Pilot, 2017; with calculations by WTV.

Had every drop of the American aviation gas and kerosene-based jet fuel produced in 2016 been burned (and I imagine that it ultimately was), combined emissions would have been more than half a billion pounds of carbon dioxide. What did this “mean”? And for that matter how was a “concerned citizen” such as myself supposed to rank the dangers of fossil fuels—in carbon dioxide per generated BTU or in carbon dioxide per combusted pound?

While I was alive, such ambiguities (not to mention sudden revisions of both measurement and knowledge) deliciously enlarged the possibilities of argument—all in good faith, of course—so that we could not only sustain, but accelerate the rise of atmospheric carbon levels, all the while expressing confusion, powerlessness and resentment. Thus the true subject of Carbon Ideologies.

No wonder that most “consumers” preferred to leave such matters to the “experts”—and carbon ideologues on both sides obligingly compared apples and oranges.—In 2016, two members of the Safe Climate Campaign warned: From well to wheels, burning a gallon of gasoline spews 25 pounds of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.—Approximately true or not (I could not verify it*), it was but one of several data we would have needed to make any thorough cost-benefit analysis of gasoline. From well to wheels implied that the measurement began with the engine-powered extraction of crude oil—some fraction of which probably contained natural gas—continued with its distillation into gasoline at the refinery, and the trucking of that fuel to the service station, and concluded with combustion in an engine of unstated efficiency on some average kind of road. But when was it crude, and when did it become gasoline? Which greenhouse gases escaped along the way; what were their global warming potentials? Finally, what was gasoline’s efficiency in relation to other motor fuels?

Subtle, tedious and subject to revisions without end, these calculations repulsed us. Who wouldn’t rather just sell the fuel with the greatest temporary financial return?* Why not settle for a carboniferous career?—As for the people in my circles, our lives remained easy. We had new choices every year—and on those sadly numerous occasions when we could not gratify demand, it was because we ran out of life, or money; not because we lacked fuel; never because some “future’s” imperious protector prohibited us from “consuming” it. (Do you remember the Oak Ridge altruists from 1982? It is fairly clear that no serious climactic changes will result from fossil fuel use in this century.) Here were those other fuels:

VAPOR FROM A MAIDEN’S BREAST

Wood, which pound for pound contained little more than half of peat’s warmth (here you will find a range of sample wood-energies from 4,082 to 5,340 BTUs)—and, as you see, was almost as CO2-extravagant as lignite—facilitated its own campfire-tales, and often centered a story, as in Jack London’s famous “To Build a Fire.” You from the future who must worry about heat-stroke and dehydration, please don’t forget that on occasion we needed to burn tree-carbon to save ourselves from freezing to death. Meanwhile, here is the happier work accomplished by burning stove-wood in a lyrical Bangladeshi tale: The kettle’s cover teeters and rings as if it wants to shed its husk and fly, as if it is a silver anklet on a maiden who has stepped spellbound onto a field to dance. As if the vapor from that maiden’s breast is steaming forth from the kettle’s open mouth. And only then is the water ready for making tea.*—How much would those enchantments have warmed our atmosphere? Well, every 519 pounds of combusted wood won us a pound of methane. To release a pound of nitrous oxide we had to burn 76,153 pounds of wood. But as for this book’s eponymous gas, each wood-pound we threw in the fire gave off 1.2 pounds of carbon dioxide.

“OUR MOST ABUNDANT ENERGY RESOURCE”

Coal, which might contain twice as much energy for its weight as peat, or three-quarters less, is both cause and setting for the sad horror in D. H. Lawrence’s short stories “Odour of Chrysanthemums” and “A Sick Collier.” Lawrence was himself a coal miner’s son; his coal-haunted tale “Daughters of the Vicar” explores, among other subjects, carbon-based class antagonism:

But when the pits were sunk, blank rows of dwellings started up beside the high roads, and a new population, skimmed from the floating scum of workmen, was filled in, the cottages and country people almost obliterated.

Coal warms, stains and impels many scenes of this story, as when the heroine saw the scarlet glow of the kitchen, red firelight falling on the brick floor and on the bright chintz cushions. It was alive and bright as a peep-show. Later on, in a scene of erotic tension, “How close it is in this room. You have such intense fires. I will take off my coat,” she said. The rest comes off a page later.—In the face of such magical carbon power, which “made his heart . . . hot and stifled in his breast” and “her lungs full of fire,” you may be surprised to learn that a short ton of coal contains no more energy than a cord of firewood! No matter. As the National Coal Association reassured us: Coal is our most abundant energy resource.

BETTER YET

Humanity progressed, and thanks to fracking, natural gas soon became even more abundant than coal! We also had ever more oil on hand; in 2015 the stock market declined because that stuff was getting too cheap.

Awaiting fuel combustion in Kazakhstan

When I was alive, fossil fuels made up about 83% of our “overall global energy supply.” You can say we loved them. Meanwhile the detractors said:

CRITICISMS OF COMMON FUELS,

1980–2012

Coal

“Compared to oil and gas, coal produces the highest amount of CO2 per unit of energy generated.”

George A. Olah, Alain Goeppert and G. K. Surya Prakash, methanol enthusiasts, 2009

“Coal is the single greatest threat to civilization and all life on our planet.”

James Hansen, atmospheric scientist, quoted 2012

Natural gas

“Conventional natural gas has the lowest greenhouse gas emissions per unit of energy of all the fossil fuels, but since it is used in such high quantities it accounts for over 20 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions.”

Foundation for Deep Ecology, 2012

“Natural gas systems were the largest anthropogenic source category of CH4 emissions in the United States in 2014 . . .”

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2016

Oil

“An evil Power which roams the earth, crippling the bodies of men and women, and luring the nations to destruction by visions of unearned wealth, and the opportunity to enslave and exploit labor.”

Upton Sinclair, 1926

“The tyranny of environmental pollution, public health risks, and climate destruction is created at every stage of oil use, from exploration to production, from transport to refining, from consumption to disposal.”

Antonia Juhasz, 2008

Nuclear

“. . . We are committed to stopping nuclear power before it stops us.”

Coalition for Direct Action at Seabrook, 1980

Shrugging off these trivialities, we increased our worldwide carbon dioxide emissions by 106% between 1971 and 2009.* Our inventories of nuclear waste grew meanwhile.—I remember asking Mr. Archie Dunham, the retired CEO of Conoco, whether our planet had a carrying capacity and, if so, whether we were at it. He replied: “How could you even measure it? It would be interesting to know what someone could calculate as the carrying capacity of the planet. Maybe God takes care of that, with plagues and so forth.”*

Fortunately, the carbon ideologues addressed all such matters. They said that global warming was or was not occurring. Scientific teams footnoted high-, medium- and low-numbered scenarios for our oncoming tragedy; corporations and non-governmental organizations kindly encouraged low-energy-using nations to “develop.” A few earnest “consumers” began to worry that we were burning too much carbon; maybe we should drive less, or set our thermostats closer to external temperatures.—But as we have seen, the combustion of carboniferous fuels was but one cause of our atmosphere’s destabilization. Who proposed to abandon agriculture? Was I supposed to stop cleaning my toilet with that inexpensive nylon-bristle brush, or forgo aluminum foil? Chlorofluorocarbons and their cousins leaked happily from our refrigerators, wafting round the planet in unseen aerosols, with busily reactive millennia ahead of them. Most characteristic of all loomed our continued forgetfulness of the question: What was the work for?

WHICH FUEL WAS BEST?

This concludes the “primer” section of Carbon Ideologies. As you read the “ideology” chapters, you will find more similarities than differences.

Having laid out our basic biological and thermodynamical difficulties, I turned away from the specific methods of resource extraction, and the latest hopes with which we deluded ourselves; those would only go out of date. But the angry vigor with which people defended their own carbon ideologies, not to mention the selfish, blinkered, careerist, arrogant, miserly and callously greedy thinking that caused horrendous accidents, followed by coverups and repetitions of the evil, these are fundamental to humanity. They deserve study. The negligence that led to the deaths of coal miners at Upper Big Branch, West Virginia,* was a microcosm of the complacency with which we continued to pollute our future with coal-smoke.

I sometimes felt out of my depth during the preparation of these early chapters. With some relief I now refer you to people’s voices and experiences.

Now for that last introductory ranking of fuels. (We will refer back to it every now and then—from Bangladesh, for instance; or from Pawhuska, Oklahoma, and even from Greeley, Colorado.) If energy is the ability to do work, and fuel is something with the ability to release energy, then why not match the fuel with the work? We loved fuels because we always longed for someone or something else to do our work for us. And what if we found a magic fuel that could do everything, and at no cost? Hydrogen-powered fuel cells, photovoltaic electricity, nuclear fusion rendered somehow “safe,” any or all of these might at the eleventh hour validate our smugness. Regarding the four carbon ideologies of this book, every booster pimped his favorite fuel, touting such allurements as perceived safety, local abundance, profit and price. Sometimes expediency defined adequacy. (From India, 1986: In areas which are heavily forested the direct burning of wood in small power stations has . . . been resorted to.) It rarely bore much relation to the good of you in the future.

As you browse through the following spectrum of fuels, try to do better than we did. To me there is beauty in their rising inherent energies. Perhaps the pattern will show you something that could have saved us. If not, may their variability entertain. What was the stuff called natural gas? We knew that it consisted mostly of methane, which contained 23,861 BTUs per pound (or, as another source had it, 18,056)—so what was “Pittsburgh natural gas,” which could offer up a mere 1,129? Let this be another lesson: When an ideologue defines any fuel’s efficiency with a single number, not with a range of numbers, beware, and ferret out his vested interest.

This table was arrayed in multiples of the calorific energy of blast furnace gas, one of the weakest coal-based fuels. When coal is burned in the near-absence of air, and its tars and volatiles driven off, what remains is coke—an important ingredient for the production of modern steel, not to mention acetylene. (When I was alive, some of us had to burn two-thirds of a ton of coal to make one ton of steel.)* As coke in its turn combusts, under certain circumstances it gives off blast furnace gas. Let this disdained but not entirely useless substance mark the beginning of the scale. In the midrange you will find gasoline, whose combustion, pound for pound, produces more total energy than dynamite. For the endpoint consider a comparable amount of uranium. The last item can accomplish nearly 4 sextillion times more thermodynamic work than the first*—and theoretically could do better still.

COMPARATIVE CALORIFIC* EFFICIENCIES,

in multiples of the thermal energy of blast furnace gas

All levels expressed in [BTUs per pound]. This can be problematic; see here and header 663 (pure hydrogen), this table.

For consistency I have used the high heating value when it is available.* For three lower and probably more realistic “working values,” see 107 (generic “coal”), 226 (“petroleum”) and 264 (“natural gas”).

For peat, heating values refer to a water-free, not an air-dried, state. For coal, “(M)” means “mine sample.” Otherwise it is a delivery sample. Carbon content is from ultimate analysis unless only the proximate analysis [fixed carbon only] is available, in which case the figure is followed by “(P).” Please note that fixed carbon measures underreport the carbon content.

<D> = Default conversion value throughout Carbon Ideologies.

All comparative efficiencies greater than 10 have been rounded to the nearest whole number. After uranium-235, all figures rounded to 2 significant digits.

1

Blast furnace gas, at 60° F and 30 inches mercuric pressure, technology ca. 1932 [92 BTUs per lb. A 1960 source gives the spuriously similar value of 105 BTUs per cubic foot.]. “Blast furnace gas has a very low calorific value and gives a non-luminous flame . . . not hot enough to enable steel ingots. It is, however, very satisfactory for heating ingots, blooms and slabs for rolling.”

12

Pittsburgh natural gas, A.D. 1932, at 60° F and 30 inches mercuric pressure [1,129].

16

Refinery oil gas, at 60° F and 30 inches mercuric pressure [1,468].

22

TNT (dynamite) [1,983]. A surprisingly low HHV. This figure must be a conversion of both the kinetic and the heat energy of this explosive into one joint heat energy equivalent, for another source gives the nearly identical 1,924 as the total energy of detonation, of which 6,252 is the heat of combustion. From an assertion in a physics textbook I calculate the comparable 1,942.93 BTUs. Meanwhile, 1 ton of oil equivalent = 10 tons of TNT [30,965,667 BTUs]. “TNT is carbon-rich, and releases a relatively large amount of energy during combustion as compared to detonation.”

28

Tanbark, which is “the fibrous portion of ground oak or hemlock bark used in tanning leather” [2,600].

33

PBXN-109 aluminized explosive [3,057].

39

<D> Stated typical international value for lignite coal, A.D. 1974 [3,600]. At 0.2 mtoe,* this is far lower than the efficiencies of the American lignites in this table. But the Indian, South African and Indonesian lignites burned by the Bangladeshi brickmaker R.C. [see II:280] all fall below this standard.

44

Cottonwood, burned while still green* [4,082].

47

Carbon monoxide [4,344. Not HHV per se, but heat of combustion, which is thermodynamically equivalent].

52

Black walnut, while still green [4,751].

58

White pine, while still green [5,340]. A certain energetic fracker asserts that wood gives off “the highest amount of carbon emissions per unit of energy produced—more so than even coal or oil, according to recent research.” This may well be true, despite the relatively paltry HHVs of woods shown here; perhaps he was calculating from volume rather than from weight.

54–71

Threshed straw [5,000–6,500].

67

“Harvested wood,” Japan, ca. 2013 [6,177].

72

“Typical” HHV of air-dried peat [7,040]. Peat “seldom contains more than 60 percent carbon.” This substance is rotted organic matter which is slowly being transformed into coal.

75

North Dakota lignite coal. Williston, unnamed bed. 24.1% carbon [6,580].

83

Fibrous brown water-free peat, Madison, Wisconsin [7,628].

84

Hickory, 12% moisture [7,691].

85–92

Dry shelled corn [7,800–8,500].

87

White pine, dried to 12% moisture content [8,044].

90

Average HHV of dry, resin-free American wood, ca. 1958 [8,300].

92

Salt marsh water-free peat, Kittery, Maine [8,462].

96

Dried American city garbage, A.D. 1930 (typically 13% fixed carbon) [8,800].

97

Iowa high-volatile bituminous B coal. Des Moines, No. 3 bed, nut and slack size [1 inch and larger]. 31.3% carbon (P) [8,960].

106

Methanol [9,766]. An older source gives the HHV of methyl [wood] alcohol at 9,600.

107

“Coal,” per U.S. Energy Information Administration [9,845]. Calculated from the claim that generating 1 kWh requires of 1.04 lbs coal. The resulting calorific efficiency was multiplied × 3 to compensate for the typical ⅔ energy loss in a power plant. As a working “actual” figure, the final 9,845 naturally lies below any best-case HHV.

109

Fibrous brown water-free peat, Hamburg, Michigan [10,026].

110

Colorado subbituminous coal (M). Superior, Gorham bed. 58.8% carbon [10,130].

111–140

“Alcohol,” 1911 [10,200–12,900]. See 139.

113

Illinois high-volatile bituminous B coal. Peru, No. 2 bed. 1¼-inch slack. 36.8% carbon (P) [10,380].

120

Lignite coal, general approximation ca. 1978 [11,000].

120

Barapukuria lignite coal (“high volatile”), Parbatipur Upazila, Dinajpur District, Bangladesh, mined beginning 1998. Discussed on II:264–72, II:282–86. 48.4% carbon [11,040].

129

Virginia anthracite coal (M). Pulaski, Langhorn bed. 70.5% carbon [11,850].

129

Wyoming subbituminous coal, general approximation ca. 1985 [11,888].

130

Pennsylvania anthracite coal, barley size. 76.1% carbon (P) [11,980].

130

Stated typical international value for “hard” (bituminous and anthracite) coal, A.D. 1974 [12,000]. 0.7 mtoe.

134

Coke, data from 1962 [12,300].

136

<D> Calculation based on this claim of the West Virginia Coal Association: “On average, coal contains 25 million BTUs per ton” [12,500]. Carbon Ideologies’ default value for coal. See 147 and 3,961,956,521.

137

Subbituminous coal, general approximation ca. 1978 [12,600].

139

Gasified anthracite, no. 2 buckwheat (rice) size [12,796].

139

Ethyl [grain] alcohol [12,810]. See 111–140.

143

Japanese charcoal, ca. 2013 [13,112]. Charcoal is mostly graphite crystals. See 147 and 152.

144

Gasified coke, screened 98% through 1 inch, 2% through ½ inch [13,250].

147

One nuclear engineer’s general approximate value for the energy in a pound of coal [13,500]. But a certain steelmaker rates it at [12,500]. See 136 and 3,961,956,521. “Each pound of coal supplies enough electricity to light 10 [old-style incandescent] light bulbs (100 watt) for about an hour.” However, that works out to only 3,413 BTUs; consistency with the nuclear engineer’s estimate would require that pound of coal to light 40 100-watt bulbs for an hour. Perhaps efficiency losses are considered here.

147

American willow charcoal, ca 1958. [13,530].

150

Maryland low-volatile bituminous coal (M). Frostburg, Tyson (Sewickley) bed. 79.0% carbon [13,870].

152

<D> Combustion of a pound of pure carbon [14,000].

152

Alabama high-volatile bituminous A coal. Boothton, Gholson & Clark beds. 57.1% carbon (P) [14,000].

153

Colorado anthracite coal (M). Crested Butte, No. 1 bed. 84.5% carbon [14,030].

155

Eastern Kentucky high-volatile bituminous B coal (M). Jenkins, Elkhorn bed. 79.2% carbon [14,290].

158

West Virginia low-volatile bituminous coal (M). Elkhorn, Pocahontas No. 3 bed. 84.0% carbon [14,550].

160

West Virginia low-volatile bituminous coal (M). Big Stick, Beckley bed. 84.7% carbon [14,730].

161

West Virginia low-volatile bituminous coal (M). Skelton, Sewell bed. 84.8% carbon. 14,780 BTUs per lb.

166

Gasified West Virginia bituminous coal, Ethelogan Chiton seam, screened egg size (2–4-inch lump) [15,296].

173

Pitch [16,000].

174–188

Coal tar, fractionally distilled from 932 to 2,012° F [84 to 91% carbon] [16,000–17,300]. Of course as the temperature increases and the distillation products become less volatile, the BTU yield will go not up but down from 17,300 to 16,000.

176

Chemical energy of fats. “They are a more concentrated source of energy than proteins and carbohydrates.* Fats provide about 9 kcal/g, compared to about 4 kcal/g for proteins and carbohydrates.” [16,189. Note: This number is not an HHV but thermodynamically equivalent to one.]

184

Average HHV of wood resin [16,900].

188

Japanese “indigenous natural gas,” 2013 [17,283]. This is probably the LHV. The HHV might be 20,000 or higher.

193

Oil sands (bitumen alone), ca. 1985 [17,768].

201

<D> Commercial fuel oil, heavy grade, ca. 1975 [18,450].

201–217

<D> Diesel fuel, grade unstated (85–88% carbon) [18,500–20,000]. [In this book I often take the average of these figures (19,250) as shorthand for the efficiency of “oil.”] “Diesel fuel contains [12%] more heat energy per gallon than gasoline”—but only when measured that way, not (as here) per pound. According to the U.S. EPA, “diesel-powered vehicles typically get 30–35% more miles per gallon than comparable vehicles powered by gasoline. Diesel engines are inherently more energy-efficient, and diesel fuel contains 10% more energy per gallon . . .”

202

Petroleum oil (60%) at specific gravity 10 API [18,540]. This value is more commonly expressed as 154,600 BTUs per gallon.*

202

<D> Commercial fuel oil, medium grade, ca. 1975 [18,570].

203

Commercial fuel oil, light grade, ca. 1975 [18,670].

204

Mexican crude petroleum (83.70% carbon) [18,755].

206

California crude petroleum (84% carbon) [18,910].

215

<D> Kerosene (85 to 88% carbon) [19,810]. Another expert proposes [19,400 to 20,200].

223

Light naphtha [20,500].

224

Petroleum oil (60%) at specific gravity 80 API [20,630]. Again, more commonly expressed as 115,100 BTUs per gallon.*

226

<D> Automotive gasoline (84.7% carbon), mid-20th-century formulation [20,750]. Other figures: 20,000 to 20,750 and 21,050 BTUs/lb.

226

“Petroleum,” per U.S. Energy Information Administration [20,789]. See note to “Coal” at 107.

230

Butane [21,180]. Another source gives [21,200]. More commonly expressed as 3,261 BTUs/cu ft, or 102,600 BTUs/gal.

233

<D> Aviation gasoline, mid-20th-century formulation [21,400]. “Its total global warming impact is significantly higher [than its volume of use would suggest,] due to vapor trails and the other effects of burning fuel at altitude.”

233

Natural gas from Groningen, Holland (81.3% methane), ca. 1975 [21,450]. Calculated from 893 BTUs/cu ft, using the density of methane.

234

Propane [21,560]. Another source gives [21,500]. More commonly expressed as 2,522 BTUs/cu ft, or 91,500 BTUs/gal.

234

Liquefied petroleum gas, A.D. 2011 [21,561 more often seen as 91,410 BTUs per gal].

243

Dry Soviet natural gas, A.D. 1980 [22,388, more often seen as 932 BTUs per cu ft].

258

Liquefied natural gas, A.D. 2011 [23,734, more often seen as 84,820 BTUs per gal].

259

<D> Methane [23,861*]. Another source gives [18,056.75]. Carbon Ideologies’ default HHV for natural gas. As you can see from its position here, it is a respectable energy source that “reacts readily with oxygen to release heat.” (One encomium: “Methane, the almost ideal fuel.”) “The single largest source of methane is the flatulence of ruminant farm animals—almost entirely cows and sheep.” But leaks from fracking might now have relegated ruminant farts to second place. A dangerously underestimated greenhouse gas.

264

“Natural gas,” per U.S. Energy Information Administration [24,328]. See note to “Coal” at 107.

265

“North American” natural gas, A.D. 1974 [24,381, more often seen as 1,015 BTUs per cu ft]. Since this substance is mostly methane (immediately above, whose HHV is 2.3% less), the value here may simply reflect differences in measurement.

268

Dry American natural gas, A.D. 1980 [24,646, more often seen as 1,026 BTUs per cu ft].

560

Rocket fuel: liquid oxygen mixed with liquid hydrogen [51,500]. For this substance, the HHV was not available, only the “heating value.” Hence its comparative efficiency may be significantly higher than listed here.

663

Pure hydrogen [60,958]. Another source gives [44,711.95]. A caveat from NASA: “While liquid hydrogen is highly energetic, it has far less energy density than hydrocarbon fuels. Thus, to get an equivalent amount of energy from hydrogen requires a much greater volume.”

820,912

Uranium-235, “thermal energy actually generated” in a reactor [75,523,861].

11.2 million

Upper boundary of following (2012): “Development work is reaching for . . . an increase from about 40 megawatt-hours to over 300 megawatt-hours per pound of [nuclear] fuel . . . This has made it possible to produce power for 18–24 months between extended shutdowns for refueling.” [1.024 billion].

93.68 million

Uranium-235, “in theory” [8.62 billion]. Calculation based on this: “Can release around 20 trillion joules . . .”

209.24 million

Plutonium-239, “used in a conventional nuclear reactor” [19.25 billion]. Calculation based on this: “One gram of plutonium used in a conventional nuclear reactor has the potential to release as much energy as a [metric] tonne of oil.”

3.96 billion

“If it were possible to convert 1 lb of matter completely to energy, the heat released would be about 3,000,000,000 times the heat of combustion of one lb of coal”—which latter number this nuclear engineer had estimated at 13,500 BTUs rather than the 12,500 of the West Virginia Coal Association [see multipliers 136 and 147]. I calculate his “if it were possible” product at 40,500,000,000,000 BTUs. However, “in a reactor about 0.09% of the mass of the nuclear fuel is converted.” Therefore the HHV-equivalent would be merely 27 million times that of coal, or [364,500,000,000 = 3.64 × 1011 BTUs per pound]. The accuracy of my calculation may be a little spurious, for when this same author worked the numbers himself, describing uranium-235 being fissioned in a reactor with 1958 technology, and employing that figure of 3 million times the energy of the same quantity of coal, he arrived at 3.5 rather than 3.64 × 1010 BTUs per pound. Still another fellow, a physicist, estimated the fissioning of the U-235 in the atom bomb which the Americans dropped on Hiroshima at about 3.45 × 1011 BTUs per pound.

3.79 sextillion [or 3.79 × 1021]

Uranium-235, completely fissioned (theoretical figure). Calculated from the statement that a single atomic fission of this isotope yields 200 million electron volts. [3.49 × 1023].

Given the immense energy available within nuclear fuel, one can see the attraction of nuclear power—especially since no greenhouse gases are generated. The events at Fukushima demonstrate how wonderfully that mode of power generation has worked out.

NUCLEAR

Fukushima, Japan (2011–14)

Hanford, Washington (2015)

Tepco’s infamous Plant No. 1, photographed from about 2 kilometers

Nuclear Ideology

Assertions

UNIQUE OR INTRINSIC BENEFIT

“Wool, a very complex molecule, is improved by small amounts of radiation.”

U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, 1965

“A critical source for clean, reliable, affordable energy . . .”

“Nuclear Matters” newspaper advertisement, 2014

“Does not emit CO2, so it should contribute to the prevention of global warming.”

Tepco public relations official, interviewed in Tokyo, 2014

“The relatively low share of greenhouse gas emissions from energy industries in France can be partly explained by the use of nuclear energy for power generation.”

European Union greenhouse report, 2014

“The only energy source that runs 24/7, 365 days a year.”

“Nuclear Matters”

“Will free us from the fear that our energy resources will run out within quite a short period of history.”

Hans Thirring, 1958

“NUCLEAR POWER . . . could have a long-run stabilizing effect on energy prices as a whole.”

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Paris, 1974

“Ultimately, if the technical problems of solving nuclear fusion are solved, man will have an essentially unlimited source of energy.”

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1976

“May help to save the coal-mines from depletion.”*

Hans Thirring

“Redesign of the internal combustion engine, removal of sulfur from fuel, and a switch to atomic energy for electric power generation will all hopefully relieve these very serious perturbations of the nitrogen and sulfur cycles.”

Eugene Odum, ecologist, 1971

“Almost exhausted oil boy”—captioning a cartoon of a sad-faced oil barrel with legs, sweating as it tries to run. “Today, October 26, is Nuclear Power Day.”

Ad placed by Niigata Prefecture, 1985

“At school and at the university we’d been taught that . . . [a nuclear reactor] was a magical factory that made ‘energy out of nothing . . .’”

Zoya Bruk, environmental inspector and Chernobyl survivor, after 1986

“A pound of enriched uranium, which is smaller than the size of a baseball, has the energy potential equivalent to approximately a million gallons of gasoline.”

Alan M. Herbst and George W. Hopley, 2007

“A thimbleful of nuclear reactor fuel can release as much energy as can be obtained by burning a million times as much coal.”

John Tabak, Ph.D., 2009

“The cost of electricity is comparatively low, and the fuel is long lasting, so you can generate energy at a stable price.”

Tepco public relations official

“On average, an installed nuclear kilowatt produces nearly twice the annual electricity of a renewable kilowatt.”

World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2015 [an anti-nuclear source]

“The densest (in watts per square meter) and safest (in deaths per joule) form of energy known to man.”

Eric McFarland, director of the Dow Centre for Sustainable Engineering Innovation, Queensland, Australia, 2015

“Besides making nuclear power available, the nuclear reactor provides a copious supply of neutrons which may be used to produce further radioactive elements.”

Farrington Daniels and Robert A. Alberty, 1966

“Potential applications . . . include medical and industrial isotope co-production, large-scale radiation-induced chemical synthesis, water treatment, food preservation and other applications that creative thinkers will certainly invent . . . A nuclear reactor might well be the center of an advanced-materials production facility with the electrical power the least valuable of its many products.”

Eric McFarland. These remarks bear comparison with the “coal tree” in the coal ideology section.*

“Studies have shown that radioisotopes such as plutonium-210, curium, thallium or ruthenium could be used in an automotive system. They can be safely contained, can turn out the needed power density, and have a radioactive lifetime of from a few years to as much as 80 years.”*

Irwin Stambler, 1972

“[A] socialist transition worthy of the name is not possible without nuclear power, assuming that its delivery comes in the most advanced technological forms and under the democratic control of the working class . . .”

Democratic Socialist position paper, 2010

“We therefore conclude that the limit to population set by energy is extremely large, provided that the breeder reactor is developed or that controlled fusion becomes feasible.”

Alvin M. Weinberg and R. Philip Hammond, 1971

“I would be afraid to say this in Japan because they’d call me a rightist, but I’m worried about China.* If we need to, we can turn nuclear fuel into nuclear weapons to defend our country.”

First-generation Japanese-American woman, 2014

AVAILABILITY AND EXPEDIENCY

“Unlike oil, nuclear fuel is available over much of the world, as in Australia and Canada, where the political situation is stable.”

Tepco public relations official, 2014

Embellishments

ECONOMIC APPEAL

“For each 1,000 megawatts of installed capacity, nuclear creates approximately 5,000 jobs during construction, compared with only 1,000 jobs each for natural gas and wind. During operation, a nuclear plant creates approximately 500 jobs, compared with only 60 and 90 jobs for natural gas and wind, respectively.”

Tyson Smith, “a lawyer with clients in the nuclear energy industry,” 2017. For a claim about coal and jobs, see II:15.

LOCAL APPEAL

“Nuclear power started at Fukushima. The town was reborn. The symbol of prefecture growth . . .”

Fukushima Minyu newspaper, 1971

“When we were young, when the Tepco plant was built here, we were very thankful to finally be able to work locally. In this area, when you say, I got a good job, that means, I’m a Tepco employee or a civil servant.”

Nuclear evacuee, Iwaki, Japan, 2014

NATIONALISTIC APPEAL

“It is a pity, the current situation of depending on foreign countries” for energy. And: “Foreign dependence on electricity: There is already a limit on what corporations can do.”

Tohoku Electricity ads, 1976

“Plutonium thermal is needed for the country that lacks natural resources.”

Hokkaido Electric ad, 2008

“If we want to keep America working, then we need to keep these plants working.”

“Nuclear Matters”

GLOBAL APPEAL

“To Save the Planet, Go Nuclear.”

Lamar Alexander and Sheldon Whitehouse, 2016

TAUTOLOGICAL TWADDLE

“With nature power, nuclear power and human power, for the earth’s environment.”

Kushu Electric ad, 2009

“I don’t want to forget the warmth, gentleness and importance of electricity. October 26: Nuclear Power Day. Thank you. Japan’s 45 [reactors]. Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant’s fourth reactor was completed”—accompanied by a smiling portrait of the actress Hoshiho Kazuko, 1993.

Chubu Electric, 1993

“From now on, I will turn my face toward nuclear power.”*

Kushu Electric, 1997

“Our goal is the nuclear power plant that walks with neighbors.”*

Chubu Electric, 2010

“Yotaro is wetting radiation,” with a picture of a baby peeing. “We want to talk close to you. Nuclear Power Electric.”

Kushu Electric, 1993

“We tried to think about life, about energy with ladies,” with a picture of the celebrity Kozu Kanna.

Chubu Electric, 2009

“Nuclear power is the energy source of life. The town where there is energy is the town where there is [a] smile.”

Tohoku Electric, 1996

“Nuclear power makes money.”

“Mr. Takagi,” mayor of Tsuruga, 1983

“America’s nuclear energy plants empower us. Let’s keep them running strong.”

“Nuclear Matters”

Defenses Against Criticisms

“The radiation exposures in the highly publicized incidents [such as the Three Mile Island nuclear accident] are about equal to the extra radiation you get from spending five days in Colorado.”

Bernard L. Cohen, 1983

“The Rasmussen estimate for the frequency of a loss of coolant accident (LOCA) is one every 2000 years of reactor operation.”

Bernard L. Cohen. [A LOCA is exactly what occurred at Fukushima, after quite a bit less than 2,000 years.]

“Nuclear power is safer than oil.”

Editorial in Fukushima Minyu newspaper, 1971

“Watching the safety of [the] nuclear power plant with my big eyes”—captioning a picture of a small boy making pretend-binoculars with his hands.

Fukushima Prefectural Nuclear Power Public Relations Association, 1986, in response to the Chernobyl accident

“Anti-nuclear campaigners have been racking up the figures for deaths and diseases caused by the Chernobyl disaster, and parading deformed babies like a mediaeval circus. They now claim that 985,000 people have been killed . . . Of the workers who tried to contain the emergency . . . , 134 suffered acute radiation syndrome; 29 died soon afterwards. Nineteen others died later, but generally not from diseases associated with radiation. The remaining 87 have suffered other complications, including four cases of solid cancer and two of leukaemia. In the rest of the population, there have been 6,848 cases of thyroid cancer among young children, arising ‘almost entirely’ from the Soviet Union’s failure to prevent people from drinking milk contaminated with iodine[-]131.”

George Monbiot, after 1986

“Safety is our greeting word. October 26 is Nuclear Power Day.”

Shikoku Electric, 2009

“Over the years, the safety record in Western-built reactors has been remarkable, and advanced reactor designs promise to be even safer.”

George A. Olah, Alain Goeppert and G. K. Surya Prakash, 2009

“Danger [will] never be a reality, never damage local people.”

Japan Nuclear Power Culture Promotion Foundation, 1976

“Reactors are designed to be inherently safe . . . Nuclear power benefits from . . . the concept of defense in depth . . .”

Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology, 1994

“If there is [an] unexpected accident, the layers [of containment will] protect.”

Ministry of International Trade, Industry Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, 1996

“While the trauma caused by this accident [at Fukushima] was great, manifested largely in the evacuations, no one has died from radiation exposure and no one is likely to die.”

Democratic Socialist position paper

“Japan’s 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster occurred because of the use of outdated technology as much as it was the preceding earthquake and tsunami. Molten-salt and molten metal reactors, for example, . . . could vastly reduce cost and increase safety.”

Eric McFarland

“Nuclear power plants actually have caused fewer fatalities per unit of energy than other major sources of power.”

Xinhua News Agency, China, 2016

About Uranium

Have you ever heard of the element uranium? It’s sometimes talked about in the news. It’s an important fuel in some power plants that make electricity.

Tyrone Mineo, Uranium [a book for children], 2014

The first specimen ever to be accurately identified was carbonaceously black; but only because we got to it too late. The silvery luster of freshly cleaned uranium metal is rapidly converted first to a golden yellow, and then to black oxide-nitride film within three or four days. And perhaps the purity left something to be desired. In due time we learned that this element manifested a peacock’s worth of pretty colors in its compounds: Uranium trifluoride was dark purple, the tetrafluoride green, the pentafluoride either greyish-white or yellowish-white, depending. Uranium carbide, which did our thermodynamic work in sodium- or lead-cooled reactors, was a dark grey solid with a metallic luster. Uranium trioxide, another nuclear fuel, could be anywhere from brick-red to yellow.

You may recall that carbon made up 200 parts per million in our planet’s crust. Uranium was less conspicuous, at two parts per million. Even so, its busy irradiations contributed to the warmth of the place we once called Hell. And whatever it did down there it might as well do up here for us, steaming water in order to rotate turbines, so that we could keep the lights on.

To be sure, it presented certain difficulties. The Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology called it a general cellular poison which can potentially affect any organ or tissue. It specialized in harming the liver and kidneys.

Since it only came in at number 48 of all the elements for abundance, it rarely did us mischief. (As that children’s book explained: Everyone is exposed to a small amount of radiation every day. This isn’t harmful.) Volume for volume, “natural uranium” was 1/1,000 as “hot” as radium-226—which, by the way, was literally hot, emitting 180 BTUs per hour for every pound. (As for plutonium, that feels hot, like a live rabbit.)—Uranium rock did not even feel warm.*—We ate a microgram or two of uranium every day in our food crops. If it got into our blood, it ended up in our skeletons. Otherwise we mostly pissed it out.—Inhaled uranium dust, of course, was not so good.

Following human nature, we set out to concentrate the nasty stuff.* We had already been unknowingly doing so, thanks to agriculture. Uranium’s natural occurrence in soil was 0.7 to 11 parts per million. The phosphate fertilizers we spread not only helped warm the atmosphere,* they also boosted cropland’s uranium levels to 15 parts per million. And indeed, one way to get uranium was to soak those phosphates in a hydrocarbon solvent: organic esters dissolved in that traditional oil well product, kerosene. Thus even this very first manufacturing stage begins to reveal the ironic fact that nuclear fuel, touted as the anti-carbon ideology, required carbon-based feedstocks—and considerable carbon-combustion-derived electric power.

(Come to think of it, our fossil fuels frequently contained relatively high levels of uranium as impurities. Thus we added value to the fields, roads, back yards and streams near power plants.)

But mostly we left those phosphates to agrochemists, mining the conglomerate rocks and sandstone in which 90% of uranium could be found,* as a mix of two isotopes* of significance: U-235 and U-238. U-235 is capable of continuous energy release through fission; U-238 is not, at least not without help. In fact, U-238 inhibits the fission of U-235. In 1997, U-235 comprised only 0.72% of all uranium; and since it decayed more rapidly than U-238, in your time it will be slightly harder to come by.

Our task became to “enrich” uranium rock until it held an increased proportion of U-235.—Time to burn more fossil fuels!

First we had to dig up the pitchblende, uranite and other ores which contained decent concentrations of what we were after. I hate to pooh-pooh the good old days when any solvent American could buy a pocket-sized Geiger counter from Sears and Roebuck, with earphone head set, radio-active material for testing and AEC booklet “Prospecting for Uranium”—but in fact what we were about to undertake required heavy machinery with internal combustion engines: Now came pulverization, which we preferred not to accomplish with hammers and human slaves. Some ores are highly refractory and require intensive processing, while others break down between the mine and the mill. We fed the refractory rock into jaw crushers, at an undisclosed cost in BTUs per hour, some of which we paid up front in coal or oil, while the rest we left to you zero-interest beings of the future. Meanwhile the miners paid in their own way, for these operations emitted the gas radon-222 (half-life: four days), which is highly unstable and highly dangerous because of its intense radioactivity. For that we established a brilliant work-around: Tailings got placed in large piles and covered to prevent a local health problem.

We ground up our coarse heap in rod mills, hammer mills, whatever it took. Next came the oxidizing roast, which required heat inputs (again provided by coal or oil, of course). Having solubilized the powder, we leached it in an oxide-laced bath of acid or alkali. Most mills use acid leaching, which completely extracts uranium. Because of its low cost, sulfuric acid is preferred . . . (To make sulfuric acid, which might have been our favorite chemical,* we often roasted sulfur, with fossil fuels for heat inputs.)

Our treasure remained no good to us until we could precipitate it out of solution. One method was solvent extraction. It takes energy and usually petrochemicals to make a solvent, which then adds to global warming by emitting volatile organic compounds.*

The other way involved ion exchange, with the help of ammonia. (You may remember that in 2012, carbon dioxide from ammonia production caused 0.4% of all greenhouse emissions from the EU-15 countries.) Or, instead of ammonia, we could aim for a higher uranium concentration by adding the powdered white oxide called magnesia, whose manufacture generally required high heat, and therefore, considerable energy, very likely from fossil fuels.

But enough on distracting subjects; at last we had our yellowcake—which was not necessarily yellow—and at the bottom of a corrugated round tunnel we now glimpse, courtesy of a photo in that same children’s book (which unlike any other source absolutely guarantees the following: METAL MANIA! All the uranium on earth is the result of a large star exploding more than 5 billion years ago), yes, that powdered yellowcake, while a bespectacled technician rests his chin on his hand, peering in at us through what one trusts is a heavy glass window.—It was refining time.

So we dissolved the yellowcake in nitric acid (whose manufacture had already cost our climate in nitrous oxide emissions*), then extracted it back again with tributyl phosphate—in a kerosene or hexane diluent, which must have originated either in a coal mine or an oil well—and after re-dissolution, evaporation, pyrolysis and reduction, all of which I shall spare you, we had uranium dioxide (brown to copper-coloured), one of the most common reactor fuels.

Oh, but it was far from ready yet! It had not yet been “enriched.” As that children’s book reminds us: It takes a lot of energy to create enriched uranium. The uranium isotope needed for nuclear energy makes up less than 1 percent of all uranium!

So through two or three more stages we converted it into uranium hexafluoride. Unlike the prettier incarnations of uranium, whose hues might appeal to many a child, “hex” was an extremely corrosive, colorless, crystalline solid, which sublimes with ease at room temperature.

Permitting it to sublime, we diffused it through a membrane of silvered zinc. The U-235 and U-238 within the invisible gas had very slightly different molecular weights. After the “hex” had gasified, we sent half of it through the membrane, passed half of that through another membrane, etcetera, each time pumping the undiffused half back to go through again; and of course at each sifting a smidgeon more of the lighter isotope came through. In case you are wondering how many repetitions were required, well, it depended on the enrichment. The first time, at Oak Ridge, when the purpose was to spread destruction and terror to Japan, thereby not only wrapping up the war but also cowing our Russian allies, the slide rule crew worked out that raising the proportion of U-235 atoms from 0.72 to 99% would take 4,000 diffusion cells. We later settled on a 96–97% enrichment for weapons-grade fuel, and 2 to 5% for reactor fuel.* Even the latter (whose “cascade” was modest at more than a thousand separation stages) cost considerable thermodynamic work. Gaseous diffusion units are enormous in size, often covering hundreds of acres, and requiring huge amounts of electric power to operate. At Oak Ridge’s enrichment facility, K-25, the coal-fired power plant designed to generate electricity to run the barrier diffusers for an atomic bomb was rated at 238,000 kilowatts—more than 800 million BTUs an hour. If it ran at capacity, during that hour it would have burned 97 tons of coal!

Eventually we learned that centrifugal separation could be more efficient, although the results were highly corrosive. Moreover, efficient or not, those gas centrifuges must have drawn considerable power in their own right, with their high velocity . . . attained under temperature and pressure conditions that favor evaporation.*

At any rate, that was how we enriched uranium. Then we reconverted the enriched hexafluoride back into dioxide, or one of the other nuclear fuels: pure uranium metal, or sulfates, silicides, nitrates, carbides, and molten salts. What quantity of climate-altering emissions we made along the way I cannot begin to reckon. Here is one cryptically suggestive passage from a European Union greenhouse report, pertaining to France—the only mention of uranium in the whole document:

Uranium tetrafluoride: N2O emissions data is taken directly from annual statements of pollutant emissions since 1990 and emissions are derived from continuous measurements since the 2012 submission.

By 1943 we had even discovered how to irradiate that most common and supposedly unfissionable isotope, U-238, feeding slow neutrons to its greedy nuclei. The resulting “capture reaction” transformed it into U-239, which speedily decayed into neptunium-239—which expeditiously became plutonium-239. This isotope possessed a magnificent shelf life. After 24,360 years, half of its atoms would still be Pu-239. While that might not have been a desirable feature in fuel waste, it was awfully convenient from a military point of view. Furthermore, Pu-239 readily fissions, as was so empirically proved at Nagasaki.

The milder plutonium-238 powered certain machines on the Apollo 14 spacecraft; while Pu-239 presently entered use in the “mixed-oxide” (MOX) reactors containing plutonium and uranium in a ratio of about 1:17. Wasn’t thermal efficiency the ideal in our steam turbines? As the World Nuclear Association promised us: A single recycle of plutonium in the form of MOX fuel increases the energy derived from the original uranium by some 12%, and if the uranium is also recycled this becomes about 22%. Well, viva MOX reactors!—One of those exploded at Fukushima, but plutonium contamination remained almost indetectable throughout the red zones, so I would call the World Nuclear Association right on the money, wouldn’t you?*

Back when we were alive, we liked to sell our inventories of everything as rapidly as possible, so that we could sell some more. MOX possessed a very agreeable quality in this regard: The more quickly somebody put it to work, the better!

Plutonium from reprocessed fuel is usually fabricated into MOX as soon as possible to avoid problems with the decay of short-lived plutonium isotopes. In particular, Pu-241 (half-life 14 years) decays to Am-241 which is a strong gamma emitter, giving rise to a potential occupational health hazard if separated plutonium over five years old is used in a normal MOX plant (where radiation levels are very low). The Am-241 level in stored plutonium increases about 0.5% per year . . .

As for the “hex,” someday we might even address the problem of the disposition of 500,000 [metric] tons of depleted UF6 stored at Paducah, Portsmouth, and Oak Ridge. We could always blend in plutonium oxide, and whip up a fresh batch of MOX. Or we could do something else, sometime, in some ecosystem somewhere. But why not put all that off, just as we did with such other trivialities as global warming? Let the future worry, we said to ourselves. Why not live in the present? For Carbon Ideologies now delights to inform you that unlike its three main rival fuels, nuclear could be fun! The daughter of a uranium processing worker once assured me: “During the early nuclear testing times in Nevada the Sands Hotel used to pack lunches for guests to enjoy with their families while out watching the atomic testing in the desert outside of town. “The Chamber of Commerce in Las Vegas would print when and where the tests were going to be, along with the best viewing site on their yearly calendars.”

Back to “atoms for peace”: How efficient was plutonium? Well, from a thermodynamic point of view it fully justified the extravagant energies poured into its production. One pound of it would have carried out every last BTU of the hourly work for which that coal plant at Oak Ridge was rated—non-stop for almost three years.

CALORIFIC EFFICIENCIES OF COAL, OIL, NATURAL GAS, URANIUM-235 AND PLUTONIUM-239,

in multiples of the thermal energy of coal

as simplified from the table of Calorific Efficiencies (here)

All levels expressed in [BTUs per pound].

All comparative efficiencies greater than 10 have been rounded to the nearest whole number. All figures after U-235 rounded to 2 significant digits.

1

Coal, based on West Virginia Coal Association average [12,500 BTUs/lb].

1.54

“Oil,” calculated from average for diesel fuel [19,250].

1.95

Natural gas, dry American, A.D. 1980 [24,381].

689,503

Uranium-235, “in theory” [8,618,790,909].

1.48 million

Estimate of uranium burned in a 1-million-kWh Japanese reactor [18.60 billion].

1.54 million

Plutonium-239, “used in a conventional nuclear reactor” [19.25 billion].

To complete the preparation of nuclear fuel we shaped our uranium dioxide, MOX, or whatever else pleased our fancy, into spheres and pellets, furnace-fired them, then dropped them into long* zirconium-jacketed rods.—For marine reactors we actually alloyed the uranium with zirconium. This latter element resembled uranium in its ductile silveriness, but resisted corrosion and disdained to absorb neutrons, which create radioactive byproducts.—Those built up all the same.

One might imagine that once a reactor began to run, the cost of the energy it generated would fall to near nothing. What did anyone need to do then but let those long-lived fuels go right on fissioning?—Strange to say, nuclear power cost about the same as coal.

The lifetime of a fuel rod was two to five years. After that, the rod grew so contaminated with those byproducts (or, if you’d rather, “daughter nuclides”) as to impede neutron travel: No neutrons, no fission.

I liked the way they put it: The used or spent fuel contains a large inventory of fission products. They sounded like salespeople laying out their wares. But they were more generous than that. Wherever possible, they would give their fission products away—to you.

We had dreamed up three methods of waste disposal, depending on the danger: dilute and disperse, wait out short-term decay and concentrate and contain.

Here was a typical to-do list:

Submerge spent fuel in a water pool for a decade.

Transfer it to a dry storage facility.

Sweetly bundle it in titanium or stainless steel.

Lovingly jacket it in concrete or steel.

The fundamental safety criterion for the permanent repository is that the engineered package retain complete integrity for at least 1000 yr. (In Japan, where everything was better and brighter, a shorter interval sufficed, at least for “low level nuclear waste,” which must be kept apart from residential settlement for up to 400 years.)

The daughter nuclides cesium-137 and strontium-90 provide most of the radioactivity, radiation and heat during the early years of a disposal facility. Another fission product was iodine-131—more short-lived than the other two, but particularly dangerous to children. We will meet all three of them at Fukushima.

Depleted uranium (0.2% U-235) offered twice the density of steel. It was 19 times denser than water, 11 times denser than lead! So it made for efficient ballast in ships. And the military loved it, because DPU shells could self-sharpen during armor penetration by failure along adiabatic shear bands.*

About Nuclear Reactors

The true romance which the world exists to realize, will be the transformation of genius into practical power.

Emerson, before 1844

Now, why did we even need fission reactors? Why couldn’t the reliable irradiation-heat of nuclear fuels suffice?

You have seen* that a pound of pure carbon, completely combusted, will give off something like 14,000 BTUs. In the more modern and practical metric system preferred by physicists (and I will respect it in the three following Japan chapters, because when I was alive that country reported its experiences in kilometers and kilograms), the high heating value of carbon would be 30.87 BTUs per gram.* Of course it can supply that heat only once.

A gram of plutonium-239 gives off 1.824 plus or minus 0.18 BTUs every second. Thus in only 17 seconds that isotope would have released as much energy as the same volume of carbon. After one half-life, 24,100 years, it will still be emitting almost a BTU per second.

A gram of plutonium-238 offers a robust 432 BTUs per second. However, the half-life of that stuff is merely 87.7 years.

These qualities failed to satisfy us. Let me quote a sad epitaph from 1991: Pu-238-based radioisotope thermal generator systems delivered 7 W[atts]/kg* and cost $120,000/W.

These devices reached their niche market. In the far-travelling Voyager space probes they produced electricity for more than half a century. Thus they satisfied demand. But we deserved to get more than that out of plutonium!

Fortunately for us and our power to do evil, more energy can be released through nuclear fission, which entails the splitting of an atomic nucleus into two pieces by collision with another particle, most practically a neutron. “Enriched” uranium falls susceptible to chain reactions whereby the broken nuclei of an atom throw out their own neutrons, which strike and fission other nuclei. A single fissioned atom of U-235 liberates a respectable 3.04 x 10−14 BTUs. In the process, it becomes first neptunium, then plutonium, which also fissions nicely.

U-238, the isotope we started with, still made up most of our fuel, since “enrichment” of even 5% remained perfectly adequate for our peace-loving purposes. And in case you are fretting about wasted fuel mass, please allow the World Nuclear Association to emit some reassurance: Even U-238 can become plutonium-239 and by successive neutron capture Pu-240, Pu-241 and Pu-242 as well as other transuranic isotopes . . . Pu-239 and Pu-241 are fissile, like U-235.

When each fission gives rise to several others, the result is a nuclear bomb. In a nuclear reactor, the number of fissions remains constant.

To achieve that steady state, we mixed the fissile substances in our fuels with “moderators” such as graphite or water, which slowed down neutrons. In addition, we transpierced each reactor core with so-called “control rods,” whose material (often boron, in the form of boric acid) absorbed neutrons. As our mechanisms withdrew the control rods from the core, the number of fissions increased. When we fully re-inserted them, the reactor shut down.

And so the control rods retracted, at which neutrons and flying “fragment nuclei” obeyed us, slamming into others and halting dead, at which point their kinetic energy began doing thermodynamic work—far, far more of it than could burning coal or oil! And, yes, irradiation still gave off its own heat—about 5% of what the fission accomplished.

In 2011, the year of the Fukushima accident, nuclear power generated 2,517.7 billion kilowatt-hours (8,592,910,100,000,000 BTUs, or 8.6 quads)—nearly 12% of all electricity on Earth.

We had various nuclear batteries by then, and when shielding is not a critical problem, as in unmanned satellites, they are extremely convenient, being reliable and light. Some unshielded batteries could produce a continuous 320 watt-hours per pound—six times better than chemical ones. But since demand kept rising, they were hardly going to solve our so-called “energy crisis.”

So we built several types of reactors, for several purposes. Carbon Ideologies concerns itself only with reactors intended to produce municipal electric power. Concerning the boutique reactors that made medical radioisotopes, and the outer space reactors which cooled their cores with liquid hydrogen or liquid sodium, I have nothing to tell you. And of the electricity-generating sort, let us ignore heavy water reactors, graphite reactors and fast breeder reactors. Two commercial light water designs will be relevant (to my country as well as to Japan): pressurized water reactors and boiling water reactors. Both made steam, which then directly or indirectly did mechanical work upon turbines, turning them to create electricity. Both often although not exclusively took uranium dioxide as their fuel.

PWRs were of the indirect kind; they used heat exchangers. For whatever reason, they were prevalent in western Japan. Or, to put the matter more exactly, they employed a closed circuit of high pressure, high-temperature water to transfer . . . heat from the reactor core to . . . U-tube steam generators. (The nuclear icebreaker Lenin, and one American merchant ship, the N.S. Savannah (“not competitive economically” with her oil-powered sisters) were both powered by PWRs.)

BWRs brought water straight into the core, then irradiated it into steam, which spun the turbines without any intermediaries. These electricity-makers were common in eastern Japan. Unlike PWRs, they got by without boron.

As to how efficient they were, well, what can I tell you? The Rankine Cycle* stole perhaps two-thirds of their steam-heating BTUs, just as with fossil fuel plants. (Two practice problems in a physics textbook from 1971 estimated the conversion success of the energy in fission fragments to electrical energy at a flat 25%.)—All the same, if only poor old Josephine Cochran could have lived to see the magic! Her steam-powered automatic dishwasher, which could wash and dry 200 dishes in two minutes, was the sensation of the 1893 Columbian Exposition. But it didn’t catch on—too expensive. A nuclear-powered dishwasher could have autoclaved those dishes into outright purity, and for cheap—didn’t they promise us that nuclear power was cheap?

In contrast to power plants using fossil fuel, nuclear reactor plants emit no compounds of carbon, nitrogen or sulfur, and thus do not contribute to . . . global warming, glowed the Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology.* Then it mentioned certain aspects of “normal operations”:

These emissions do include radionuclides of the noble gases xenon and krypton,* which readily diffuse throughout the atmosphere. Small quantities of soluble radionuclides are released into lakes or streams that provide very large dilution factors.

In short, we pulled our usual trick and threw those “away.”

To shield the operators, we had to build in four-foot thicknesses of high-density concrete—which of course required that “big five” material, cement, at an unmentioned production cost in carbon dioxide—reinforced with bars of another “big five” substance, steel.

Like our fuel rods, the reactors themselves grew contaminated with fission products. Radiation could turn rubber inelastic, reduce the notch-impact strength of carbon steel (although for other metals, most show appreciable increase in yield strength), and in high doses affect aluminum alloys: ductility reduced but not greatly impaired. One anti-nuclear source asserts that the lifespan of each part is around 30 years at maximum. I lack knowledge on the subject. But parts of the reactors did become waste, which had to be stored somewhere for a very long time. It was typical that we invented various temporary solutions, leaving the consequences, like our carbon dioxide, as our personal gift to you of the future.

Our cost-benefit analysis of nuclear power and its competing carbon ideologies went as follows: Get subsidies wherever possible, calculate the ratio of immediate income versus immediate costs, such as employee compensation, and expel from the equation such future costs as global warming, air pollution and nuclear waste disposal. Again, we figured that you could pay for all that.

Bit by bit, each reactor’s coolant water grew “hot” with nickel-63, niobium-94 and nickel-59, whose respective half-lives ranged from 100 to 760,000 years. Outside the core, cobalt nuclides released the most radiation. Their predominant member was cobalt-60, which could be inhibited with zinc, although an occasional result of that cure was more radioactivity, from zinc-65 “hot spots.”

It might take four to six years before a PWR got significantly contaminated with cobalt-58 and cobalt-60. Then what? I don’t exactly know. The procedure must have depended on how “hot” they were, for how long. A reactor could operate for decades.

One radiocontaminant especially pertaining to BWRs was nitrogen-16, whose half-life was only 7.1 seconds, but since it kept being created, and often existed as radioactive nitric acid, it ate away at whatever encased it. Mixed with hydrogen, it formed corrosive radioactive ammonia.

The six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant (four of which went critical as a result of what became officially called the Great Tohoku Disaster), and at least two of the four at the larger-capacity Tokai Daini* 12 kilometers to the south, were all BWRs. Daiichi’s Reactor No. 1 had been delivering electricity for two weeks short of 40 years. Daini’s eponymous Reactor No. 1 was only 29 years old. Their fuel consisted of uranium oxide, with one exception: Daiichi’s 34-year-old Reactor No. 3 had been converted to “pluthermal” in 2010. In other words, its steam now came from MOX. Every global-warming-fearing type should have been thrilled about that, because one gram of plutonium used in a nuclear reactor has the potential to release as much energy as a tonne of oil.

And in case of emergencies, both plants expected to save themselves with fossil fuels. As my country’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission reminded us (a year after the accident): Nuclear power plants need electrical power 24 hours per day, even when the nuclear reactors are shut down, to run equipment that cools the reactor core and spent nuclear fuel. At Plant No. 2, only one out of three emergency diesel generators would fail. At No. 1, matters fell out differently.

Their continuous inflow of water kept the core from overheating, and operators deployed various other coolants. (Have I mentioned that as contaminated fuel got “hotter,” it gave out all the more literal heat?) A loss of coolant is conceivable, admitted the 1976 Britannica, which otherwise expressed a moderately pro-nuclear attitude. The loss would immediately stop the chain reaction, but the heat residue could melt the fuel, releasing a large volume of radioactivity. Coolant systems are designed to make the probability of such an accident extremely remote, and [even more so with] . . . an emergency coolant in the form of automatically sprayed borated water. In the very remote possibility of both coolant and emergency-coolant systems failing, further engineering safeguards must be provided.

As so often in human endeavor, those safeguards were inadequate.

1

Lower Than for Real Estate Agents

For the Fukushima disaster of 2011, the consensual estimate is a 1% increase in cancer for employees who worked at the site and an undetectable increase for the plant’s neighbors . . . even after the catastrophe in Japan, the likelihood of work-related death and injury for nuclear plant workers is lower than for real estate agents . . .

Craig Nelson, “A Radiation Reality Check: From bananas to bricks, radioactivity is everywhere—but it’s nothing to be afraid of” (2014)

The following table is meant to orient the reader to comparative radiation levels. It is expressed in multiples of the lowest level in my studio, which happened to be my darkroom coating counter.

Nearly adjacent spots can read wildly differently. For example, in this table a certain drainpipe appears twice. When I frisked it at 1 foot above ground level, it was 200 times more radioactive than my coating counter. As I bent down and continued measuring, the level quickly rose. At ground level it had more than doubled, to 533 times the benchmark value. The moral: If you enter a hot zone, please do not stay very long unless you know which side of the street to stand on.*

Please note that nearly all the Japanese readings in this table were made in 2014. In 2011 many of them would have been much higher. For instance, on March 16, 2011, one spot in the town of Iitate reportedly read more than 95 microsieverts an hour. When I measured this same place on October 23, 2014, the level was less than 5 micros.

Do not conclude from this that the nightmare of Fukushima was approaching its end. Cesium-137, a major pollutant, has a half-life of 30.2 years. As you will see, 10 half-lives, or 302 years, must pass to reduce the concentration of this isotope to 1/1,000 of its peak level.—Why then did the measured radiation decline so rapidly?—Because the cesium had been washed a few centimeters underground, or into rivers, or took up residence in mushrooms and trees.

In the abandoned town of Tomioka I got the chance to measure the drainpipe of a certain house which had been under decontamination eight months before. On that first occasion it had measured 22.1 micros per hour (evidently the crew had not yet gotten to it). On my return, with the yellow tape around it removed and the crew long gone, it measured 32 micros. How would you like to live in that house?

COMPARATIVE MEASURED RADIATION LEVELS, 2014–15* (with Hiroshima readings from 2017),

in multiples of lowest Sacramento interior reading

(from pancake frisker* data)

All levels expressed in [microsieverts per hour]. Benchmarks interpolated in boldface.

“<R>” means “reported”; in other words, this value was not measured by me.

“Average frisk” is the arithmetical average of several instantaneous readings in NORMAL mode. “Short frisk” is a steady NORMAL reading measured over 1 to 10 seconds. Dental X-rays have been read in MAX mode. All others measured in 1-minute timed counts.

The full data from which these readings were selected appears in the end matter.

1 sievert (Sv) = 1,000 millisieverts or “millis” (mSv) = 1,000,000 microsieverts or “micros” (microSv). 1 rem = 10 mSv. For definitions, see here. All figures over 1 million rounded to 2 significant digits.

<1–7.61

<R> 0.04 to 4 mSv per year. Worldwide variations in natural background dose. [0.00457 to 0.457 microSv/hr].*

1

My studio darkroom coating counter, Sacramento. The lowest measurement of which the frisker was capable [0.001 micros per second].* A full year later, having frisked many other places, I had duplicated this lovely reading in only a few places, so I shall list them all here: Dunsmuir, California (in a forest overlooking the Sacramento River), some surprisingly urban sites in Portland, Oregon; Subway L3 in Barcelona (well underground); a breeze in the middle of the Neva River in Saint Petersburg [Russia], and the marble floor of the cafeteria in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow [0.06 microSv/hr]. This equals 0.5256 millis/yr. On a per-minute basis, the cumulative per capita fallout dose in the Northern Hemisphere from 1945 through 1999 was 1/27 of this amount.

1.9

<R> 1 mSv per year. Maximum dose advised for ordinary citizens, per the International Commission on Radiological Protection.* Obviously this conservative standard generally goes unmet. See entry for multiple 4.6. It approximates the total body irradiation one receives from natural sources at sea level “in most parts of the world.” For every increase in altitude of 1,500 meters, an additional 0.28 millis a year [0.03 micros a minute] may accrue. For professional workers, the ICRP maximum was 20 mSv. [0.11416].

2

The Darjeeling tea palace, Ginza, Tokyo. Coal House (built almost entirely of coal), Williamson, West Virginia, U.S.A. My studio’s kitchen counter in Sacramento. Kievsky metro station, Moscow (deep underground). Shore of Lake Geneva, at Cully, Switzerland (near Lausanne). Air dose in La Rambla, Barcelona. Also typical of downtown Poza Rica, Veracruz, Mexico. [0.12].

3

Air dose in National Orchid Garden, Singapore. Concrete office interior, sex workers’ organization, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Ironwork railing of Gogol’s grave, Moscow. Sewer grating in Passeig de Sant Joan, Barcelona. Lump of coal on ground, mountaintop removal mine, Cook Mountain, West Virginia. Air dose near Barapukuria Coal Mine Company conveyor, Bangladesh. Stone step of El Tajín archaeological site (Totonac pyramids), near Poza Rica. Front of railroad station, Fukushima City, Japan (same reading for 3 consecutive days). Air dose [at waist level] on bridge between Atomic Dome [= Ground Zero, 1945] and Peace Park, Hiroshima. [0.18].

3.67

<R> Decontamination target for households in Iwaki, Japan* [0.22].

3.8

<R> 2 mSv per year. Japanese national target air dose (“1 additional milli”). Based on the same assumptions as in the footnote to 3.67. [0.22832].

4

Mary Cook’s headstone, Cook Mountain, West Virginia. Carrea Sant Anna, Barcelona, after a rain. Air dose by Atomic Dome, Hiroshima. Fallen leaf on gravel walkway, Tsurugajo Castle, Aizu-Wakamatsu, Japan. Interior of taxi van, Hirono, Japan. Interior wall of Enrique’s Restaurant, Poza Rica. The last 3 readings were the highest in their respective locales. [0.24].

4.6

<R> 2.4 mSv per year. Average worldwide annual dose, according to Mr. Kida Shoichi, Nuclear Hazard Countermeasure Division, Iwaki. [0.27397].

5

Deserted playground, Naraha, Japan [0.296]. Granite wall of Jardin de Veant, Lausanne. Bricks in Bangladeshi brickyard, 60 km north of Dhaka. Interior of Taylor’s Books, Charleston, West Virginia [0.3]. On a different day, Taylor’s Books measured only 0.18.*

5

Granite countertops in hotel suites in Charleston, West Virginia, and in Portland, Oregon [0.3].

5.7

<R> “An average radiation background dose for a human being,” according to James A. Mahaffey, Ph.D. (3 mSv per year). An identical value: “The average resident of the United States is routinely exposed to about 300 millirem . . . every year from the soil beneath their [sic] feet and the sun shining overhead.” [0.34248].

6

Air dose on stone curb by Atomic Dome, Hiroshima. Ocean vantage point, Naraha [0.36]. The highest reading found in both locales.

6.83

<R> Average American yearly dose, mid-1990s [0.41].

6.85

<R> 3.6 milliSv per year. Alleged average worldwide dose. [0.41095].

7

Koriyama Station [Japan], outdoor plaza [0.42].

7.61

<R> 4 milliSv per year. Old recommendation of International Committee on Radiological Protection, re: ceiling dose. [0.4566].

8

Ten Commandments courthouse tablet, Pineville, West Virginia [0.48].

9

Granite curb of Molotov’s grave, Moscow. Sidewalk by air dose marker, Fukushima City. Ocean beach in Okuma red zone, 3.5 km from Reactor No. 1. This last was the lowest reading found in that red zone. [0.54].

9.51

<R> 5 milliSv per year. “For an individual steadily receiving 500 millirads [= 5 milliSv] per year, the chance of dying from cancer or leukemia is increased by 30 percent.” That claim (from 1971) is much disputed; see header 190. “A read of 5 millisieverts is one of the thresholds for whether [Japanese] nuclear plant workers suffering from leukemia can be eligible for compensation . . .” [0.570776].

10

Granite pedestrian zone of Anichkov Bridge, Saint Petersburg, Russia [0.60].

13

Air dose upon entering greater Iitate, Japan [0.78].

16.67

<R> 0.1 millirem/hour. Per First Responder’s Guide to Radiation Incidents (2006), the ceiling for safe background dose. [1.0].

19

Decontaminated driveway, Iitate red zone [1.14].

23

Cherry trees not exposed to ocean wind, Iitate red zone [1.38].

29

<R> More than 15 milliSv per year. “Living on the atoll and consuming local food,” Bikini, 1997—a half-century after U.S. nuclear bomb tests. [1.712].

29

Roadside 10 m from bags of contamination waste, Iitate red zone [1.74].

34

A moment at cruising altitude (elevation unstated), Tokyo to Singapore [2.04].*

38

<R> 20 milliSv per year. Upper limit of Japanese green zone (this color meant “decontaminate with priority,” and here the government hoped soon to lift any ban). Lower limit of Japanese yellow [“residence restriction,” or daytime use only] zone designation. [In 2014, central downtown Tomioka was one such zone.] Legal ceiling for a nuclear worker in non-emergency conditions. The ICRP maximum for professional workers, including radiologists, dental technicians, etc. [2.283].

39

Edge of red zone, downtown Tomioka, Japan [2.34].

41

A sampled moment at airplane cruising altitude (36,000 ft), Washington, D.C., to San Francisco [2.46].

42

A sampled moment at cruising altitude (37,013 ft), San Francisco to Los Angeles [2.52].

49

First torus of White Bird Shrine, Iitate red zone [2.94].

54

Average frisk, roadside hydrangea flowers, Iitate red zone [3.25].

55

Airplane reading, maximum in five-minute interval, 35,988 feet over North Pole [3.32].

61

Two steps past no-go zone warning sign [i.e., for red zone] on Hometown Appreciation Road, Tomioka [3.66].

68

Ten steps farther into red zone in same place as previous. Identical reading standing in center of cherry tree boulevard, Yonomori, Tomioka yellow zone. [4.08].

71

Average frisk, deserted crossroads beside radiation dose digital sign, Iitate red zone [4.25].

83

Short frisk, vegetation in abandoned downtown, Okuma red zone [5].

83

<R> “A passenger in a plane flying at 12,000 meters [39,360 feet] receives 5 microSv/hr from cosmic rays . . .” [5]. This figure seems high to me; see 41 and 55.

87

“WELCOME TO OKHUMA,”* downtown by JR station, Okuma red zone [5.19].

95

<R> 50 milliSv per year. Upper limit of yellow zone designation; lower limit of red [no-go] zone. [5.708].

99

Goldenrod by wrecked houses, Okuma red zone [5.94].

100

Cherry trees exposed to ocean wind, Iitate red zone, average frisk [6]. Interior of closed vehicle at this spot measured 3.5.

115

Downtown street between former town hall and the tsunami-damaged Ono train station, Okuma red zone [6.9].

123

Fence of abandoned old age home in Okuma red zone, with clear line of sight to Reactor No. 1 (at about 2.5 km away) [7.38].

133

Average frisk, interior of Ono station, Okuma red zone [8].

142

Destroyed shrine, Okuma red zone [8.52]. The road two steps past this spot measured 20 and higher (which encouraged me to make a short frisk).

181

Air dose in front of fish hatchery, Okuma red zone [10.86].

183

Air on side street in Tomioka green zone, just off Highway 6 (which was probably contaminated by the trucks of decontamination workers), frisked at waist level [11].

190

<R> 100 milliSv per year. 0.5 percent increase in probability of fatal cancer, if this dose is received for the entire year.* [11.416]. This was the average dose received by the “liquidators” who entombed the reactor at Chernobyl.

200

Drainpipe in Tomioka green zone, frisked at 1 ft from ground level [12].

>217

<R> Hot spots in Aiikuen Orphanage, Fukushima City, March 2013 [>13].

228

<R> 120 millis per year. Alleged annual dose in an unnamed Brazilian village. [This would be awfuly high.* The Brazilian town of Guarapari* is said to receive 10 millis per year]. [13.699].

333

Drainage grating by fish hatchery in Okuma red zone, short-frisked at waist level [20]. At 3 inches, this same grating measured 30. I chose to reach no closer.

350

The same side street in Tomioka green zone that measured 11 micros at waist level, now frisked 3 inches from pavement [21].

365

Another drainage grating in Okuma red zone [21.9].

492

Pavement in Okuma red zone [29.5].

533

Same Tomioka green zone drainpipe that measured 12 micros when frisked at 1 ft [see multiple 200], now frisked at ground level [32].

692

Grass near hatchery in Okuma red zone [41.5].

This last is the highest reading I personally measured in the field. Of course it is disturbing. The municipal officials accompanying me were unimpressed. They said that in 2011 this area read 100 micros and more. Exactly how dangerous was that grassy spot when I frisked it? If sustained over a year, its radiation level would produce a dose of 363.54 millis. Needless to say, nobody was planning to camp there for a year. And so I must reiterate that so long as the level is, in and of itself, subacute, the peril at that level depends on the duration of the exposure. Even in Okuma I probably increased my lethal cancer risk only negligibly, assuming that I managed not to inhale too many alpha or beta particles. I remained in Okuma for all of four hours, and much of that in a closed vehicle. Had I idled away 40 hours by that grassy place of the 41.5 micros, I would still have been considered safe enough by 1958 standards [see 1,250].

761–1,712

<R> Exposure in outer space (400 to 900 mSv per year) [45.662–102.7397].

880

<R> Mission to Mars (1.14 Sv over 30 months) [52.778].

1,000 if single dose, or 3.6 million sustained over 1 hr

<R> [0.6 millis] Japanese chest X-ray, ca. 2007 [60 micros, received in about 1 sec. Hence this same dose sustained over an hour would be about 216,000 micros or 216 mSv.].

1,250

<R> [0.3 rem per week or 7.5 mrem per hour for a 40-hr workweek.] Maximum permissible external dose for an American nuclear worker in 1958. [75].

> 1,667

<R> Stated level in Okuma immediately after the nuclear accident [> 100].

Reader, how brave do you feel when you go to get your teeth checked? Back home in Sacramento my kindly dentist agreed to receive the pancake frisker as a special patient. I laid it down in the chair, and the beautiful Amanda trained her X-ray camera on its head. The results were thought-provoking:

2,520 if single dose

Dental X-ray camera, fired through protective lead apron, intensity at 0.20, which was the setting Amanda used for most teeth [151.2]. My first thought was that pregnant women had better ask for two lead aprons. But Dr. Richard Crownover reassured me: “The shielding for dental X-rays is not placed in the direct beam. It is designed to be adequate shielding for peripheral leakage and scatter outside of the imaging field. If your numbers refer to an apron in the direct beam then you will be criticized for alarmist advice to pregnant women.”

4,117 if single dose

Dental X-ray camera, without lead apron, intensity at 0.20 [247].

4,183 if single dose

Dental X-ray camera, without lead apron, intensity at 0.23, which is used for molars [251].

Because I laid a dosimeter next to the frisker for each of those three readings, the results were even more enlightening. The lead apron blocked out 1 of the 2 micros. Without the apron, a full 2 micros fell upon my instruments. Increasing the setting from 0.20 to 0.23 did not much raise the radiation level, but it must have increased either the duration or the width of the beam, because instead of another 2 micros, the dosimeter registered 37. 9—about the same as if one had stood at that grassy place in Okuma for a whole hour.*

9,921

<R> 100 milliSv per week. Emergency exposure limit for nuclear workers in Japan, 2014 (susceptible to upward revision, which the government was considering). [595.238].

16,250 if single dose

Security X-ray for carry-on baggage, Yaeger Airport, Charleston, West Virginia. (Frisker sent through screening machine.) [975 over about 1 min]

16,667 if single dose

<R> Full-body CT [computerized tomography] scan: 10 millis. [Assuming the duration of the scan is an hour, this would be 1,000 micros an hour.]

17,100

Security X-ray, Los Angeles International Airport [1,026]. One hopes for the workers’ sake that this device is shielded.*

833,333

<R> 50 milliSv per hour.* [5 rems]. Maximum dose for an American “first responder” not saving lives or valuable property. Estimated level in collapsed plutonium storage tunnel during 2017 nuclear accident in Hanford, Washington.* [50,000 micros/hr].

2.5 million

<R> 25 mSv received in 10 minutes by the crewmen who sought to release steam from Reactor No. 1 before it exploded. Over an hour this would have added up to 150 millis. [150,000].

8.33 million

<R> 500 milliSv, over any time period [50 rems]. [500,000 micros/interval]. “A total dose of 50 rem of gamma radiation, largely independent of the rate of administration, causes approximately the same number of mutations as occur spontaneously over a lifetime.”* This author (writing in 1958) believed that such a dose received in a few hours and over the entire body would probably cause radiation sickness. This may be too pessimistic.

11.67 million

<R> 0.7 Sv per hour* [70 rems]. Possible onset of radiation sickness. [700,000]. 16,868 times higher than my highest measurement in Okuma.

11.67 million

<R> 1 Sv per hour* [100 rems]. Definite onset of radiation sickness. [1 million].

21.67 million

<R> 1.3 Sv per hour, most of which was received almost at once by a female victim of the Hiroshima A-bomb. She was bedridden with “acute radiation syndrome” for 3 months. [1.3 million].

33.33–50 million

<R> 2–3 Sv per hour.* “Permanent female sterility is possible.” [2–3 million].

50–66.67 million

<R> 3–4 Sv per hour.* “Uncontrollable bleeding in the mouth, under the skin and in the kidneys after the latent period”; 50% will die within 30 days. [3–4 million].

75 million

<R> 4.5 Sv, instantly. “At Hiroshima a dose equal to or greater than 450 rads (4.5 grays) extended to almost 1 mi. . . .” [4.5 million, instantly].

100 million

<R> 6 Sv per hour. Probably lethal within 1–3 weeks. [6 million].

279.89 million

<R> 16.793 Sv per hour.* Dose taken by the helicopter pilot Colonel Vodolazhsky [and probably sustained for only a few minutes] in one of his flights over the Chernobyl reactor, 1986. [He died, but not right away, and possibly not just from this.] [16,793,394.598]

166.67–833.33 million

<R> 10–50 Sv per hour.* “100 percent fatal after seven days”—but see slightly different claim for 50 Sv/hr, below. “Conditions for this exposure have depended on touching proximity to a supercritical sphere of naked plutonium.” [10–50 million].

171.67 million

<R> 10.3 Sv per hour. Measured value in Reactor No. 1’s suppression chamber, June 2012 (“likely to be fatal if a person stays there for an hour”). [10,300,000].

833.33 million

<R> 50 Sv per hour* [5,000 rems]. All exposed persons die within 48 hours. [50 million].

March 2011

WHEN THE WIND BLOWS FROM THE SOUTH

0: Picaresque Wanderings of a Dosimeter

The golden rule of journalism—keep one’s dental appointments—I had now neglected for a couple of years, but in obedience to the current practicalities of Japan I made haste to cultivate my hygienist, who pressed the X-ray camera’s snout against patients’ cheekbones and therefore wore a dosimeter badge clipped to her pinkish smock. Thanks to her, I grew acquainted with the phone number of Carol (on subsequent diallings I got Ginger), who connected me with a salesman named Ray*, who allowed that he did still have one Geiger counter in stock—or, more precisely, a post-Geiger-Müller sort of gadget which, said Ray (who had not actually inspected it but seemed to be interpolating from some data screen), resembled an electronic calculator. Current and cumulative exposure, X-ray and gamma, a programmable exposure alarm—oh, delicious! Never mind its inability to detect alpha or beta particles;* wouldn’t those be approximately innocuous so long as I refrained from ingesting them? (Within the body, remarked my radiation incident guide, alpha and beta emitters are the most hazardous since they can transfer ionizing radiation to surrounding tissue, damaging DNA or other cellular material.) Five hundred dollars plus shipping, credit card only; thus spake Ray, who must have known he was sitting pretty, for the other companies I had contacted accepted only back orders, two weeks having already lapsed since the reactor accident. At this stage in my nuclear career I could not even tell apart a Geiger counter, which was what I thought I had purchased, from a dosimeter, which was what Ray so helpfully sold me. Well, in a hot zone dosimeters are more crucial anyhow. Moreover, I had heard (possibly from Ray) that in Japan just now one couldn’t buy any dosimeters at all. As we neared the end of our negotiations, I wondered aloud whether Ray’s product came with a probe to stick into my sashimi, because that, I proposed, might be fun. Eliding the issue of fun, Ray (who informed me that he had had a long hard week) assured me that I could hold the machine six inches away from, say, a glass of drinking water, after which I would really know something. With potable water unavailable in much of the disaster area, and Tokyo’s water supply spiced up, so rumor had it, with variable radioactivity, I considered myself canny to have pounced upon this capacity for pinpoint monitoring.

At this point in our transaction, any self-respecting used car buyer would have kicked a tire while nodding wisely; I accomplished the equivalent by inquiring as to which units of measurement his product employed. Millisieverts or millirems, replied Ray. I confess that this answer left me feeling long in the tooth, for in my day it had all been roentgens. When I phoned my friend the retired radiologist, he came down solidly in my camp, announcing: “I’m too old to care about millisieverts.” Vaguely remembering from my university education that 400 roentgens was a lethal dose, I dusted off my copy of Physical Chemistry (1966), wherein I learned that the development of the nuclear reactor, which promises to be a very important power source, has led to many challenging chemical problems. That’s nice. Actually, a lethal whole-body single dose of radiation for man is about 500 roentgens; now it was all coming back, except that I’d better learn how to convert to sieverts.* Perhaps it wasn’t hard and fast, for my college physics textbook (1974) advised that 600 roentgens would finish me off, while the merest hundred might cause radiation sickness. Even 25 to 50 roentgens could bring about “blood-cell destruction.” Dear reader, how do you vote? And should I have asked Ray’s opinion?

My lean old Swedish neighbor offered me the loan of his Geiger counter, a souvenir of business dealings in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast of the Soviet Union, but I could not guarantee my ability to return it. At my request, he took a reading right there in my parking lot, a good 10 days after the Japanese radioactive plume had officially reached our city. The dial slept at zero. Well, hadn’t the newspaper promised us that the levels were practically indetectable? (As a hardboiled American dosimetrist remarked to me: “We would pull the amount of air you would breathe in a month over a paper filter until we could see lines on a spectrograph, because that’s what we do.”) Sighing, my neighbor wondered whether his toy was still calibrated. He slipped it back into the worn leather case, and because I could see that he loved it very much, I knew I had done right to leave it in his keeping.

My new dosimeter (whose brand and model number I decline to insert here unless Ray pays me) resembled a calculator far less than a pager. It was a fat, blue, boring little plastic thing with a pocket clip. After an hour or so I figured out how to turn it on. And what do you know? The number in the narrow window was zero. The device’s compactness pleased me, and its ugliness reassured me, but how could I ascertain whether it even functioned? To be sure, a hand-signed certificate of calibration came enclosed; and Sacramento’s background radiation ought to be negligible even now, so the fact that the window displayed zero and only zero was no cause for suspicion; all the same, I preferred not to trust my life to a calibration certificate. Hence another kindhearted neighbor, who had connections in the local fire department, carried into my living room a padded envelope hand-labeled DANGER—RADIATION. My 12-year-old grimaced in horror; she preferred to stay in the kitchen. Out came a plastic box containing a radioactive point source of unknown magnitude, which my neighbor’s bare hand now conveyed from her side of the sofa to mine. A trifle uneasily, I do admit, I inquired about the safety of these proceedings. My neighbor assured me that the source was weak, which could also be said of her surprise bonus: one of her Great-Aunt Lou’s orange-glazed dinner plates, which had become a rarity as soon as our government sequestered that orange glaze for the Manhattan Project. Well, I clinked my dosimeter against each of these items for a good five seconds, and the display continued steady at zero! My Swedish neighbor’s Geiger counter would have been more appropriate, assuming that it still functioned—but I continued ignorant of the difference between a scintillation counter like his and a dosimeter like mine. In due course I would realize that Ray had misrepresented the machine’s capabilities; all it could read, except in extreme cases, was accrued incident radiation. I was going to have to take Tokyo’s drinking water on faith. Not yet comprehending this reality, I sat glumly beside my neighbor, still wondering whether the toy had arrived broken, and halfway imagining that my leg was receiving a radiation sunburn. Why wouldn’t she at least move that plate away? I asked her how positively she knew that the point source’s box was not in fact empty. She brought the ghastly thing up to her eyes, thereby nearly interpreting a pencilled notation in what could have been microcuries. I thanked and embraced her; she meant well. Then I went to bed.

Well, I left my dosimeter at my bedside in the measurement mode all night, and in the morning it was still at zero. But then the Radiation Gods saw fit to bestow upon me a sign. Since my best friend’s brain tumor had begun to grow again (or perhaps it wasn’t growing at all, depending on which doctors said what), it came time for his gamma knife surgery. His wife and I accompanied him to the chamber while he got strapped down. Then we returned to the waiting room to worry about him. During that 10-minute interval, the dosimeter registered 0.1 millirem. Did that mean that the gamma knife had just then slightly irradiated us through the wall, or simply that the dosimeter's lowest increment was 0.1 millirem? Either way, life was looking up. I decided to forget millisieverts and dwell in millirems.

My radiation incident guide (a gift from the neighbor with the orange plate) informed me that 0.05 millirems or less per hour falls within the bounds of normal background exposure, while even 0.1 millirem can be considered unexceptional.—Well, what should be exceptional? Could we but safely trust to one true figure, my investigations at Fukushima would have been less troubling. I felt outright alarm about carbon dioxide levels because a benchmark gave me grounds for comparison: 315.98 parts per million in 1959. Thus the 407.42 parts per million of 2016 did not exist all by itself; it meant something by reference.

What value, then, should I fix for a “natural” (tentative equivalent: “acceptable”) radiation level? Once I knew that, I could tell you how dangerous were the silent towns and waving goldenrods of Fukushima.

According to that radiation incident guide, our global average dose was 360 millirems per year. I went goggle-eyed, for 365 of my Sacramento or San Francisco days at 0.1 millirem apiece would do me a trifling 36.5 millirems’ worth of damage. How could these two figures vary by a factor of 10? Was my dosimeter inaccurate?—In later years, while gathering my bouquet of statistics, I discovered another purported average of 300 millirems, and a third (courtesy of a Japanese official) of 240 millirems. Meanwhile, a standard scientific reference pegged our exposure at anywhere from 4 to 400 millirems! (In your time, reader, the average might be 500 millirems or considerably more, depending on the requirements of progress and demand.) All right; that helped me.—The incident guide’s author did or did not belong to the pro-nuclear camp—and for all I can tell, she added in a few chest X-rays, airplane rides and slumber parties in stone castles full of radon gas—but her approximations remained within the fold.

Next question: How much radiation was “safe”?

The International Commission on Radiological Protection, which had formerly expressed satisfaction with 400 millirems, now advised ordinary citizens, perhaps unrealistically, not to exceed 100 millirems.* That would be 0.011 millirem per hour. Ten times more devil-may-care, the incident guide remained at peace in any field up to 0.1 millirem per hour. That suited me.

My readings in San Francisco and Sacramento remained at 0.1 millirem per day—a plausible, even typical dose for the U.S. Pacific Coast; thanks to its high altitude and inland location, Denver received triple this amount. Thus the dosimeter eased my mind.

As I read over this chapter six years later it seems quaint to me that we Californians worried about Japanese fallout, whose presence in our state approached negligibility—but in those days how could we know what might happen? (It took our minds off climate change.) I visited a health food store to buy iodine tablets for my journey, only to find that my fellow citizens had cleared out the shelf! Meanwhile, the dosimeter went on accruing a soothing 0.1 millirem per day.—This made me happy, for my daughter’s sake.

The radiation incident guide advised that if I were a “responder” of the best official type I should limit my dose at any one occasion to 5 rems; hence that would be my ceiling for Japan. Five rems divided by 10 days would be 500 millirems a day, or 5,000 times what I was getting in San Francisco. In case you are interested, I will tell you that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s maximum dose for protecting valuable property is 10 rems, and for the saving of human lives a toasty 25 rems. Certain mild symptoms may appear at 30 rems. Radiation sickness manifests itself at 70 to 100 rems. Above 350 rems, any recovery is likely to be followed by a relapse. Two hundred and fifty to 500 rems constitutes the lethal dose for 50% of humans within 60 days.—Do rems sound a trifle like roentgens? Well, “rem” is an abbreviation for “roentgen equivalent man.”—At 5,000 rems (or, if you like, 50 sieverts), all patients will die within 48 hours.

In Japan the authorities danced fluently between millisieverts per hour for air and becquerels for drinking water. The former is a unit of biological damage; the latter has to do with atomic disintegrations per second. Nobody I met over there could keep them straight.*

My friend Dave Golden, who had a finger in every pie, somehow managed to make me an appointment with Dr. Jean Pouliot, Vice-Chair of the radiation oncology department at Mount Zion Hospital in San Francisco. Dr. Pouliot was a pleasant man of middle age. With him came a quietly competent, pretty young physicist named Josephine Chen. Dr. Pouliot unlocked the door of a windowless room, picked up a meter the size of a small laptop and approached a certain metal cabinet whose front bore a radiation warning. The meter did not respond. Nor did my dosimeter. Sighing, he unlocked the cabinet, pulled aside a nest of lead bricks and withdrew a cylindrical object. Still his meter showed nothing; evidently the battery had died. Josephine brought my dosimeter close to the object, and the alarm sounded. I felt pleased. In the quarter-hour we spent in that room, God regaled us with 0.6 heavenly millirems!*

“Well, it’s a little high,” said Dr. Pouliot. “Maybe we should put it away.”

His meter being dead, I could not calibrate my dosimeter against it. And given my experience with the neighbor’s orange plate, I wondered whether my dosimeter was insensitive to, or inaccurate in, low ranges.* But at least it was doing something. My homework might not be well done, but I hoped to earn an “A” for diligent intentions.

Dr. Pouliot considered my 5-rem ceiling dose a trifle dangerous. When I showed him the very page in my incident guide where the EPA recommended it, that tolerant man said that after all, they ought to know what they were doing. The veteran dosimetrist whom I have mentioned before (he was, indeed, a reactor emeritus) later flattered me thus: “Well, for a member of the general public you’ve got guts. I don’t say you’re crazy. If I were taking food and water to those people at the reactor I could go for five rems . . .”

The next day I flew off to Japan, accruing 1.2 millirems (about an eighth of a chest X-ray*) in 11 and a half hours.

1: Not Known as of Sunday Afternoon

On March 11, 2011, a nine-magnitude temblor struck the eastern coast of Japan’s main island. A tsunami followed. The day before I departed Tokyo for the disaster zone, the casualties had been totted up as follows: Killed, 12,175; missing, 15,489; injured, 2,858.* In the affected area there happened to be a pair of nuclear power plants owned by the Tokyo Electric Power Company, or, in English-language parlance, Tepco. The six-reactor Fukushima Nuclear Plant No. 1 endured the catastrophe with more cracks and leaks than its counterpart 12 kilometers to the south.* Once the power failed, the fuel rods began to overheat. Although Plant No. 1’s brave workers, struggling almost sleeplessly under terrifying conditions, did mitigate the result,* three reactors melted down. Reactor 1 exploded on the twelfth, Reactor 3 on the fourteenth and Reactor 4 on the fifteenth. The fallout’s main plume apparently originated in Reactor 1, although useless efforts to depressurize the containment vessels by venting contaminated steam made their own contribution. On the fourteenth, the American naval base more than 300 kilometers to the south was already registering 1.5 millirems an hour. What must be happening in the Japanese towns around the plant remained mostly unreported. To prevent the sizzling cores from vomiting up more radionuclides, the only cure was water, tons of it, applied desperately from fire engines, helicopters, and, eventually, crane trucks. By the twenty-sixth of the month, water in Reactor 2 was emitting at least a sievert per hour of radiation. At this rate, a person would receive that 5-rem dose in about three minutes.

The situation seemed unpromising, all the more so since I was not the only ignoramus in Japan:

March 27:

Q: Where did this radioactive water come from?

A: Plant officials and government regulators say they don’t know.

April 3:

How much water has leaked and for how long was not known as of Saturday afternoon.

Peter Bradford, formerly a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and now serving on the Board of Trustees of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said to me: “I’m getting increasingly concerned about the failure of the Japanese public to get accurate information. In the first week I thought the Japanese government was being cautious for good reason. In the third week, there are more and more symptoms that details are being held back. Just now there’s first of all that one extremely high radiation reading, which was declared to be a mistake, and secondly the discovery of iodine-131,* which has a very short half-life and would only be present if there’s some recriticality, and they said that’s also a mistake. That’s two mistakes.”

“What would the worst case be?”

“If one of the cores was able to go critical to produce even a small scale nuclear explosion.”

“How much of Japan would become uninhabitable?”

“It’s hard to say. It depends a lot on the wind. So far the Japanese have been lucky with the winds blowing west to east, out to sea.”

WHY THIS CHAPTER IS SHORT ON STATISTICS

Although my letter of press accreditation informed those very few Japanese who were interested that my duties involved interviewing individuals and officials on behalf of our publication, I did not see it as my duty to obtain figures on casualties, radiation levels, etcetera, which might well be lies and would certainly be superseded. (The stunning capacity of the Japanese official to say absolutely nothing is matched only by the absurd degree of trust which his public places in him; while the cynical suspicion of the American electorate finds its perfect mate in American officials’ complacent and sometimes even blustering dishonesty.) Nor could I imagine that “experts” had any more to say about the profoundest questions raised by this continuing tragedy than those who suffered by it, comprehendingly or not. Finally, I could see no benefit in seeking out the people in greatest emotional pain. As you read this account, you will see that my interviewees were, for materially devastated individuals, relatively “lucky.” Only the family in Ishinomaki had lost one of its members—so far. This selection was less the fruit of my deliberate policy than the consequence of the fact that those not grieving the death of a relative felt more inclined to open their hearts to a stranger. God knows, their circumstances were sad enough.

However conservatively considerate I imagined this approach to be, it scarcely put me in the clear. My interpreter, to whom I had been close for many years, was sluggish and irritable as I had never seen her; she admitted to being depressed, not to mention enraged at Tepco and her government. Her cousin, who had not met me, expected that I would do harm, and therefore admonished me (a) to interview no one without that Japanese standby, a go-between; (b) to begin by inviting my interviewees to refrain from answering any question they didn’t like; and (c) above all, to pay and pay and pay. I always felt that I was doing just that whenever I visited Japan, being well accustomed to slipping crisp 10,000-yen notes into “gratitude envelopes.” Once upon a time, a single such bill would have been a trifle over 80 American dollars; now it was $125. I was willing to keep on disbursing this amount, especially to those in need; my interpreter and her cousin, however, informed me that such a small sum would be “unthinkable.” They expected me to pay at least 40,000 or 50,000 a go. I dug in my heels, inviting the interpreter to open her heart and add whatever she wished to my envelope, as indeed she did, not without quiet resentment; I’m sure she paid out at least as much as I remitted to her. At length we agreed to disagree. With this ugly episode our work began, the yellow-liveried employee waving compulsorily yet fervently goodbye to the bus as it departed the depot.

That day and every other I watched the dosimeter, perhaps more frequently than I needed to, but I hardly knew how salubrious each hour might be. The display, it seemed, did turn over in 0.1 millirem increments. There was no in between. And Tokyo was essentially no more radioactive than San Francisco.

At six in the morning, the cumulative reading was 1.5. The bus left Tokyo at eight. I was, let’s say, 230 kilometers from Reactor Plant No. 1.* The plum trees were already in flower; the cherry blossoms must already have opened in the south. Shortly before noon we stopped for lunch in Koriyama, 58 kilometers from the danger spot, the mountain-ringed country opening out, with its ricefields still straw-colored (a month to go yet before planting) and snow shining on the western peaks; just then the display turned over to 1.6. We had come into the Tohoku region, which the interpreter referred to as Japan’s bread basket, “so I’m very worried about the future,” she said. Many items in the convenience store restaurant were sold out. Here the Japanese Self-Defense Forces began to be evident, some in flat caps and the others sporting hard hats. Continuing northward, we drew level with Plant No. 1 and passed it, reaching Sendai (about 100 kilometers from the bad place) in midafternoon. From the dosimeter I judged that Koriyama must be at least twice as radioactive as Tokyo, which hypothesis I would test on my return there, once the safer portion of my work had concluded.

In Tokyo the stresses of the disaster had approached the inconspicuous: a blackout here and there, shortages of diapers and sanitary wipes, which people were sending to their relatives in the stricken zone. As for Sendai, that city could be described as “recovering”; for although the airport had not reopened, heating-gas remained unavailable, and milk, yogurt, eggs and cigarettes were still in short supply, at least the two-hour waits in petrol stations had come to an end and the electricity was back on. The downtown appeared untouched, aside from warning signs posted on this or that building.

I hired a taxi to take me down into the Wakabayashi district, which had been harder hit.

“I was on duty in the car,” said the driver, whose name was Mr. Sato Masayoshi.* “There were no passengers. I heard the earthquake alert on the radio. I looked for a wide open place to park, since the buildings were shaking. You couldn’t stand! I was sitting on the median strip. It lasted a good two minutes, moving between east and south, laterally.* When the tremors stopped, I got out of the cab, tried my cell phone, which did not connect, and used a public phone to call my family. It rang and rang but nobody answered. So I drove to the office, received permission to stop working and hurried home. The traffic jam was terrible, but everybody was okay. We had no electricity for three days. My grandchildren enjoyed it.”

He pointed. “Over there, there’s the restaurant that shook so much. And you see this gas station! The ceiling dropped . . .”

“Did the tsunami come here?”

“No, this is all earthquake.”

“What was your opinion when you first heard about the reactor accident?”

“Sendai is 80 or 90 kilos from the power plant,* so I’m not really worried about it. The wind in this season blows from the land to the sea. If it blows from the south, that will be a problem. The highly contaminated water needs to be released, they say . . .”

That was the word I so often heard: contaminated. It sounded less frightening than radioactive.

“How contaminated is the sea around Sendai?”

“I don’t think they’ve measured it yet.”

Gazing down at the dosimeter in my shirt pocket, I was pleased to see it still at 1.6. We came to a shed which had been uprooted and left in a tilt on the shoulder of the road. I photographed it, and then the driver remarked, a trifle indignantly, I thought: “Today a fishing boat in Choshi Port,* even without inspection their catch was refused!”

I wondered aloud if fish, eels and other such foods might be getting dangerous. Not caring to pursue those implications, or perhaps simply wishing to return to business, the driver announced like a tour guide: “And now we’re making a right turn to the place where the houses are gone. Here to the left there’s a highway. In some places the highway blocked the water. Some of the people who ran up on top of it survived.”

“Are you worried about the next earthquake?”

“Since the Miyagi Coast Earthquake in 1978 it’s been a long time. This latest one was not the one which the experts were discussing. People are talking about the next one; yes, there may be another . . . Here the water came,” he continued, gesturing at some mud-fields decorated with fallen trees and stumps. “On account of the salt water, you won’t be able to grow anything here for five or six years. They were growing soybeans.”

A crossroads in Sendai

A fallen pine, cables, heaps of mud, bent pipes, metal grilles, fallen poles as thick around as my shoulder, with their fat plastic veins exposed, these sad and ugly objects varied themselves monotonously all the way to the mud horizon. On one side of the road the former fields were flooded with seawater. On the other, on the edge of streaming tidal flats which used to be ricefields, a two-storey concrete house, windowless but seemingly intact, supported a second home which had smashed up against it, embracing it drunkenly, the roof twisted like sections of ruined armor, both structures choked with wooden rubbish, a tree hugged up against them, while on the ground lay a woman’s empty purse; and a detachment of goggled, web-belted, booted, camouflage-uniformed Self-Defense Forces from Hokkaido were dissecting the two houses in search of bodies. The slogan one often saw on their helmets was: “Let’s cheer up, Sendai!” Their crane’s claw closed upon a wad of white documents—for a human being, a massive armful, as was proved when a soldier took these treasures and began to pull them apart, seeking identification papers, I suppose. A cool breeze blew from the sea; I wondered if it were poisonous with beta particles. In any event, my dosimeter remained comfortingly at 1.6. On and on in the house-lots, sad heaps of trash which used to be houses hid their secrets. In this prefecture alone, the current figure was more than 7,800 deaths. Here came a civilian cyclist, stern and skinny, riding up the dirt road and passing us, continuing down among the house-stumps; perhaps he was looking in upon his home. Slowly, slowly, while the soldiers stood around, the crane-claw opened and closed, pulling up a heap of crackling tree stumps. A young soldier informed me that his bunch had found no corpses yet. When I photographed him, he pulled himself up tall and straight. He said that he was not worried about radiation; the likelihood of its coming here was low. I shook his hand, which was hot and sweaty from its sojourn in the dark glove.

Self-Defense Forces soldier on corpse detail

It is hard to describe to you the littered flatness, everything pulverized into irrelevance, some foundations still visible, a few pines far away stripped of their lower branches (but this last, the driver said, had been a pre-quake phenomenon). One of the driver’s colleagues had lived here. Now he was staying at his son’s. Every now and then a lone figure in a hard hat and coveralls stood at the side of the road, accomplishing I know not what. Here came three houses screened by pines, which must have shielded them, for they appeared nearly intact, although one of them lurched. The neighborhoods of Okada, Gamo, Shiratori and Arahama were gone now. The former geriatric home was full of rubble and trees. By now the trees had already started to decompose, so that when they formed up the sides of houses, they infiltrated them like subtly woven rattan, perfectly fitted by the weaver-upholster called death. Very occasionally the empty doors and windows of better-off buildings were protected by blue tarps taped into place. We drove slowly south through the smell of tidal flats, toward the Natori River, passing blue and grey stretches of rippling water, and a sign: Seaside Park Adventure Field.

“What are you feeling?” I asked the driver.

“I have no words. We often drive this road.”

Buddha in destroyed house

Here came mud and muck and shining water, a car in water up to the snout, a policeman in a hard hat, more fallen trees, a red sports car turned onto its side, the light now pretty on the ricefields. In one place, the road had been licked away underneath, the asphalt looking silly as it stretched through the air.

“Were most people drowned or crushed?”

“I think they drowned. Some of the cars were in a traffic jam. I know of one person who climbed up a pine tree to survive. His decision to give up the car was good.”

The cool air was dust-prickly in my throat. The driver and the interpreter were both wearing masks. I wondered some more about beta particles but decided to rely on the inverse-square law. The Natori bridge had been closed off with a checkerboarded barrel. A man with a lightstick-baton and hard hat stood demoralized beside a flashing police car. Behind him, a boat had been pounded sideways into the muck.

“Mr. Sato, do you think that nuclear power is wise or unwise?”

“There are three nuclear plants in this prefecture. They are on higher ground than Tepco’s, so I think that is good.”

“So you approve of nuclear power?”

“Well. Due to the greenhouse effect, oil and coal are not clean, so as long as they secure the safety, I think that nuclear power is good.”

An old woman in baggy clothes and a flapping shawl staggered down the road. Here came a small cemetery, the steles all upright but the mud churned up between them disgustingly. In the port, the trade show palace appeared in good health from the outside. A glittering stack of Toyotas awaiting export had been crushed. It was strange to see new paint jobs on pancaked cars.

“So what will happen in the other season when the wind blows in from the south?”

“Well, we don’t have it like that so often.”

“It might only take one time,” I said.

“I agree!” he said with a meaningless laugh.

GOURMANDIZING

Due to the lack of natural gas and the hordes of soldiers and volunteers in Sendai (the Metropolitan Hotel had been entirely turned over to relief workers), my accommodation consisted of a hot springs more than an hour’s bus ride out of town. Here various hard-pressed employees of the Osaka Gas Company were staying, and in the morning one sometimes saw a truckload of Self-Defense Forces outside. It was a half-empty, second-rate place where the sashimi came wrapped in plastic, although one could only admire the fervency of their many rules (we firmly refuse your request to enter the baths when you are drunk or if you have tattoos on your body).* The waitress proudly assured me that the food was local insofar as possible, so while I was eating it I grew angry again at Ray the salesman, who had promised that the dosimeter could make pinpoint measurements of local radioactivities, and of course at Tepco; for how could I have any idea how carcinogenic the fish might be, not to mention these slightly less than fresh greens accompanying them, or the crab claw in my soup? I was not unmindful of the fact that I could eat while so many others went hungry; nor was I so concerned on my own account, for a man in his 50s has already won a victory of sorts; but what about the pregnant women, the young children, the people who should have had decades to look forward to? In the words of yesterday’s paper: Govt. holding radiation data back: IAEA gets information, but public doesn’t. In the body of the article, an unnamed Meteorological Agency official explained that the Japanese government made its own forecasts—never mind that they had been released only once, because, explained an official named Shioya Seiji, “we can’t do it since accuracy is low.” The unnamed official then remarked: “If the government releases two different sets of data, it might cause disorder in the society.” Was that why the official statistics offered varying units of measurement, so that in Koriyama the drinking water at the bus station was proclaimed safe on account of its radioactivity being less than 100 becquerels, I think per liter; while the newspaper reported the radioactivity of this or that city in millisieverts per hour? Nobody I met knew what these numbers meant. How convenient!—As I look back on this moment, having learned more about the difficulties of converting from becquerels to such units of biological dose as millirems and millisieverts, it occurs to me that my suspicions were arguably unfair to the Japanese government. But surely some approximate conversion could have been made; more could have been explained. Not knowing how much I might be harming myself, I chopsticked another previously frozen tidbit of horse mackerel into my mouth.

PRESENT INTEREST

Since this is Carbon Ideologies, I considered this matter of the reactor to be the real story. Sad as the rest of it was, the damage had been done, the people killed and property ruined; and now recovery could continue until the next quake. But this other horror wrapped up in becquerels, sieverts and millirems was just beginning, and nobody knew how bad it might be.

(I had asked Peter Bradford: “Could it happen here in the States? I understand we have some reactors of the Japanese type.”

“I don’t think the likelihood is driven so much by reactors of that kind as by the fact that we’re just about as vulnerable as the Japanese to complacency about what used to be called a Class Nine accident. I don’t think we’re any less vulnerable than the Japanese.”)

About the earthquake-tsunami and the concomitant reactor disaster it may be apposite to cite the words of Buddha: Nothing in the world is permanent or lasting; everything is changing and momentary and unpredictable. But people are ignorant and selfish, and concerned only with the desires and sufferings of the present moment. They do not listen to the good teachings; nor do they try to understand them; and simply give themselves up to the present interest, to wealth and lust,—to, for instance, the tax credits awarded those who dwell near a nuclear reactor, not to mention what the reactor enables and impels. In Tokyo the subway car darkens for a stop or two, thanks no doubt to power shortages. The information screen by the lefthand door informs us that one line happens to be down due to “blackout,” while two bullet trains have been cancelled due to “earthquake.”* Classifying the power inputs and outputs of Japan’s electric grid (capacity: 290 gigawatts, of which Fukushima Daiichi once contributed 1.6%) would be vexing, and from the standpoint of this essay needless. Is, for instance, a bullet train nourished on atomic power? According to a Japan Railways telephone operator, it is not, although “for security purposes” she declined to specify which kind of energy it does employ to flit so luxuriously past the blossoming cherry trees. The latest earthquake, a small one, has delayed our departure from Shinagawa Station by the merest quarter-hour. The pallid young salaryman across the aisle peers down over his white dust mask at his shining laptop; the stylized yellow man and woman glow side by side in their black square in order to inform us that both lavatories are occupied; and we fly onward over houses and gardens. From Buddha’s point of view, it scarcely matters whether all this ease derives from uranium pellets, solar cells or perpetual motion; in any case, our complacency alone protects the lovely roofs and trees of this present instant from becoming the rubble into which the very next moment might in fact cast them. But how many of us (excepting monks) can live and hope—in other words, chase our present interests—without disregarding our inevitable ends? I say we are “better off” pretending that the bullet train won’t derail, that nuclear power is safe and global warming is a hoax. The peril is remote; probably we will die from something else.—When the peril comes nearer, present interest advises against disregard. (That is why you in my future do believe in climate change.) The more present the interest, the less present or apparently present the danger, the more irresistible the disregard. Hence the following parable, courtesy of the paterfamilias of the family who hosted me on Oshima Island. Refilling my sake glass as we sat in the dark and chilly mud-stained dining room, he remarked that following an infamous tsunami back in the Meiji Era,* numerous oceanfront plots here and elsewhere were banned from resettlement, but “somehow,” he jocularly continued, people forgot or set the edict aside. Of course, even had they complied, this latest terror would have carried off ever so many, since it rolled in higher than any wave seen by the people of Meiji. Who can blame Oshima’s inhabitants for not predicting that?

However, the corporate engineers and presidents, the prefectural governors, the authorities whose task it should have been to maximize public safety, these super-actors on the civic stage, who made policies affecting and even determining the fates of others, must be held accountable should they abandon themselves to their own present interests. The reason that I unalterably opposed nuclear power was so obvious (to me) that all my life I remained astounded that everybody on Earth was not likewise against it: Dangerously radioactive nuclear wastes had to be stored and guarded for periods insanely in excess of any civilization’s frame of reference. Were it possible to render the fuel rods harmless in, say, five years, even then I’d worry about carelessness and greed, but at least I would be willing to consider the use-value of nuclear power. Having reached that point, I would, of course, remain among the smug ignoramuses against whom Buddha’s warning was directed. Tepco’s complaint-apology—how could we have been expected to foresee so high a tsunami?—approached legitimacy, but fell short. “The cooling facilities survived the earthquake, at least partially,” remarked my interpreter. “The disaster occurred because the cooling facility was totally destroyed by the tsunami. The cooling facility was located lower than the reactor itself. Their assumption was a 5.7-meter tsunami, when the wave was actually 14.”—Well, should Tepco have been expected to prepare for a 14-meter tsunami?

Whatever your answer may be, please consider Buddha’s admonition an instant longer. They do not listen to the good teachings; nor do they try to understand them; and simply give themselves up to the present interest, to wealth and lust. If the present interest required us to consume more and ever more energy, then dangerous forms of energy generation might become accepted as necessary. So it proved, in the time when I was alive. In 2010, the year before the great disaster, nuclear power did work all over the world, to the tune of 2,600 terawatt-hours, or 8.873 quadrillion BTUs—the equivalent of burning a billion metric tons of coal, and without any carbon emissions! You may recall that two-thirds of the energy given off by a reactor’s fuel rods (as by coal, oil and natural gas) was waste heat*—but never mind the 17.7 lost quads; hadn’t those 8,872,448,000,000,000 BTUs that the nuclear turbines actually bestowed upon us sufficed to at least begin fulfilling our present interest? And, as some nuclear ideologues might say, weren’t a few meltdowns preferable to the continuing upcreep of CO2 in the atmosphere?

CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS FROM FOSSIL FUELS: JAPAN, U.S. AND WORLD,

1980 and 2011,

in multiples of the 1980 Japanese value

All levels expressed in [million metric tons].

All percentages rounded to nearest whole digit.

1

Japan, 1980

[947.0]

1.25

Japan, 2011

[1,180.6]

Japanese increase: 25%

5.04

U.S., 1980

[4,775.8]

5.80

U.S., 2011

[5,490.6]

American increase: 15%

19.47

World, 1980

[18,433.2]

34.40

World, 2011

[32,578.6]

Total increase: 77%

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2014, with calculations by WTV.

NONE OF US ARE PARTICULARLY CONCERNED

Three blocks away from the pedestrian mall where on this sunny breezy afternoon members of the group called Antiatom proffered petitions against nuclear weapons and reactors, in an almost undamaged quarter one of whose steep-roofed houses had been blue-tarped along the ridgeline, stood the Sendai City War Reconstruction Memorial Hall, which presently served as a temporary evacuation center for 31 voluntary evacuees from Fukushima; 120 people had so far been cared for. One entered through the back door, the earthquake having now rendered the lobby’s ceiling ducts liable to collapse. In Japan, as we shall often see, neighborhood attachments ran deep enough that communities tended to relocate as coherent entities. Hence the Memorial Hall housed people from a specific place: the northern sector of the radiation-poisoned zone.

Rather than seek out some bureaucrat who might have denied me entry privileges (I had already been refused permission to sleep in several evacuation shelters), I waylaid the first non-uniformed individual who seemed in no hurry—in this case, a bespectacled woman about 25 years old who had fled the Haramachi-ku ward of Minami Soma City.* Officialdom had drawn two rings around Plant No. 1. The inner one, 20 kilometers in radius, constituted an area of involuntary evacuation. Residents of the outer ring were merely advised to leave, at their own expense; if they wished, they could remain at home, keeping indoors as much as practicable. The woman, whose name was Hotsuki Minako, had lived in the outer ring.

She said: “On Friday there was an earthquake. On Sunday or Monday, on the news they said to stay inside. We tried to wait and see, but since we have kids, just my two kids and I came to Sendai with my husband. In a couple of days, my husband’s parents also came here.”

“So now your home is empty?”

“Yes.”

“Could you please tell me more about how you left Minami Soma?”

“After we saw the video of the reactor explosion, we immediately moved. Even after the explosion we thought we could come back . . .”

“Did you feel or hear it?”

“No. We only saw the television image. There were three explosions, I think”—holding her fist to her mouth in thought. “And because we had kids, we were concerned. Otherwise we would have simply stayed inside.”

“If your children could be safe there, would you ever go back?”

“Life here is just fine, so we are not too concerned to go back.”

She had a very oval, girlish face; her bangs spilled over her thick eyebrows. Her hooded blue sweatshirt seemed too large for her.

Soon, she believed, her family and neighbors would be moved again, to a hotel, “so that the community itself will continue.” They had already stayed first at a relative’s, then at an elementary school. She supposed that after the hotel they would be moved still again.

“Do you think you’ll be returning home anytime soon?”

“I have a feeling it will take a year or more.”

“Are you worried about leaving your house uncared for?”

“Damage from the earthquake was not that significant. Only some roof tiles fell off. I’m a little anxious about rain coming in . . .”

She had described the earthquake matter-of-factly, but when I inquired into the emotions of that time, she said: “The first tremor was big, and that night came very big aftershocks. So I was unable to sleep from fear.”

“When you think about radiation, what comes into your mind?”

“I worked as a clerk for a Tepco subsidiary. So I’ve heard about the danger of radiation and about controlling it, but I hear it’s not that scary. But now, when I hear on television that it can affect your blood and so forth, well, I didn’t know that.”

“Was Tepco a good employer?”

“Those who worked at the nuclear site seemed to enjoy their job, but I only saw them once a month. I was in a clerical department . . .”

“How are you managing for expenses nowadays?”

“We are using our savings. I heard the city would pay some 50,000* per household, but I was unable to attend the registration for that. The city office is not really functioning. I’ve lost my job, but I don’t know whether I can register for unemployment in this prefecture.”

“Should we try to find out for you at the prefectural office?”

“My company has not finished the clerical procedures related to our termination, so I cannot ask. The prefecture can’t tell me . . .”

She had two children, ages seven and five. Just now they were at the park with her husband. I asked how they were managing, and she replied: “They’ve regressed to a younger state. At home they can do everything themselves. Here, I don’t know whether it’s from staying so long and living like this, they say: I can’t do this . . .”

I requested to see how her family lived. She hesitated. “My husband’s mother is a bit depressed, so . . .”—At length I prevailed on her to at least ask the older woman, who kindly allowed the interpreter and me upstairs and inside the long, almost empty room, over whose floor stretched many long, narrow tatami mats, very bright and clean, a few bags of belongings in a neat row against the wall. Sheets and blankets had been folded into neat squares and stacked. One child was here after all, a boy, next to whom his mother quietly went, sitting on her heels, with her fingers spread on her knees; he smiled shyly but cautiously behind her. They had nice light, and a window view of a wall with other windows; surely it was better here than in Ishinomaki, where, I was told,* one tatami sufficed for three people. The family with whom they shared the room had lived beyond the outer evacuation ring, but they chose to leave after the supermarkets and stores in their district closed. Now they had returned home, with what consequences to their health I certainly cannot say. Twenty other people from Minami Soma remained downstairs.

Ms. Hotsuki Keiko, the mother-in-law, was lying down. She sat up when we came in, smiling politely, lowering her eyes, discreetly half-stretching; perhaps she had been sleeping. She appeared to be not much older than her daughter-in-law. Bowing as respectfully as I could, I inquired how the quake had expressed itself to her.

“At that time I was at home. I rushed out of the house, where there was a big plum tree. I held it for a long time. During this time, furniture fell, and plates fell out of the closet.”

Since Minami Soma lies some distance from the ocean, the tsunami caused her no personal fear. But her aunt and uncle had drowned in their car. Fortunately, she said, the family could recover their bodies. Unfortunately, the cemetery had washed away.

Members of the Hotsuki family in temporary housing

“We were allowed within 30 kilometers. The recommendation was to stay inside. The city mayor told us to evacuate ‘on your responsibility,’ so some are still living there.”

“What is your opinion of the reactor accident?”

“Everyone has always said that nuclear power is safe . . .”

“Mrs. Hotsuki, here is a question that baffles me. As a citizen of the country that dropped atomic bombs on Japan, I wonder how this could have happened in your country twice. First you were our victims, and then, it seems, you did it again to yourselves.”

“We don’t know much about the nuclear bomb,” explained the older woman. “They’re pretty far from here, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and we just heard from our parents that some plane came over and so forth. They didn’t talk about it.”

“Why didn’t they?”

“Unless you go to that area and see that atomic site, then maybe you have no interest in it.” Trying to give me what I appeared to expect, Mrs. Hotsuki gleaned through her memories, then presently grew animated, gesturing and almost grimacing as if she were close to tears, nodding her head as she said: “Once I saw a display in Chiba Prefecture, all about the kamikazes. I was so moved I couldn’t stop crying.”

Less moved by the kamikazes than perhaps I should have been, I resurrected the matter of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It turned out that both of the Hotsuki women believed the atomic bomb to have been worse than the reactor accident, because “at least we evacuated.” Minako, the young daughter-in-law, explained that “if you just brush it off, said the prefectural office, it should be okay, and you don’t even have to take the radiation screening. So we felt better.”—As Orwell would say, ignorance is strength.—Or was the prefectural office correct? Alpha particles were nearly safe outside one’s body; beta particles once washed or brushed away could do no further harm. While I essayed to formulate why that procedure might be inadequate, a pretty girl wearing a red armband bowed herself in, announcing that the child-minders were here again, today with candy; she also wished to inquire whether anyone might be sick. So perhaps it was all perfect; no matter how politely I pleaded, neither of my two interviewees would accept a 10,000-yen note, not even for the children’s sake; wouldn’t you rather believe that they lacked for nothing?

Having scored my interview, I dared to risk an encounter with officialdom, and so met a certain bespectacled, pimpled and narrow-faced young man named Mr. Maeda, who identified himself as “just an employee of this facility. If you put this in your article, you must contact the city office. That’s what we have been told.” (I most inexcusably neglected to follow his instructions, but, reader, if you wish to do so, the telephone number is 022-214-1148.) He photocopied my letter of press accreditation most alertly; fortunately, my interpreter had always reminded me to keep it neatly folded, in homage to its pretense of importance.—“In your opinion,” I inquired, “how dangerous is the radiation?”—Mr. Maeda replied: “None of us are particularly concerned.”

AN OLD MAN PLANTING SEEDS

Ishinomaki, they said, looked now the way that Sendai had two weeks ago. In Sendai some people stayed for two days on their roofs until the water subsided. In Ishinomaki there were those who were trapped on their roofs for a week.

On the other hand, Ishinomaki was better off than Rikuzentakada. Isn’t there always a worse place?

The 50-kilometer drive in the veterinary science professor’s car would ordinarily have taken an hour. Ever since the quake, there were traffic jams. It took nearly two hours to reach Ishinomaki; and, indeed, in the course of researching this chapter I had almost daily recourse to the $400 or $600 creeping taxi ride or the much cheaper half-day stalled bus ride (the region’s railways being broken), on this highway or that expressway, frozen in traffic or not, so many kilometers toward or away from Reactor No. 1, the long windshield wipers sometimes dancing in rain of unknown salubriousness, the radio news on low, the cab creeping and stopping between other cars in a like situation, the driver occasionally misplacing his Japanese patience.

In Ishinomaki the first storey of the supermarket was open and newly gleaming. Most goods were present in pre-quake abundance. Only one yogurt was allowed per customer, several shelves were bare, and others held milk brands from Kyushu and Hokkaido, which were not normally sold here. The brand new washing machines were all sold out, the tsunami having ruined ever so many; and automobile dealerships were booming for much the same reason.

The professor’s name was Morimoto Motoko. She lived in Sendai. During the tsunami, her two teenaged children had overnighted (foodless) in care of their teachers; now they were staying in Osaka with relatives. She was making this drive to bring supplies to one of her students, a young man named Utsumi Takehiro, who now bowed to us; so did his mother Yoshie. They got into their car, and we followed them home, Ishinomaki being less easy to navigate than before. “If you go beyond the number 45 road,” said Takehiro drily, “the scenery changes.”

Passing the vegetable market which was now a temporary morgue, we rounded a corner, and I saw many grooves cut deep in the smooth tan earth, with a line of cars and people perpendicular to them on the far side, and white coffins down in the farthest of those open trenches. Takehiro’s grandmother was buried here. The tsunami had caught her. From the way that he spoke about her, I came to believe that he had loved her very much.

“I didn’t see the body, actually,” he said. “My parents saw 100 bodies every day. They finally found her. Now it takes a year or two before they’re cremated. First, we temporarily bury them. Then they’re disinterred. There are only a few crematoria,* so we have to take turns.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Our dog was also killed, because he was chained. We took his body to Niigata, where my father was working, and cremated him. But you need a special vehicle to transport a human body, and those are in shortage.”

Mr. Utsumi Takehiro

Now came heaps of mud, canted trailers, gouged walls, crumpled cars, the crazy skeleton of a shed barely supporting its intact roof, many relief workers and blue-clawed cranes, sunken muddy acres which reminded me of a slum I’d once visited in Thailand, half-smashed houses on a muddy ugly plain with wet trenches tunneled through it, man-high mounds of debris on the roadside; and so we came into the Tsukiyama district (the clouds like sheets of white slate, the sun in the pinetops and the dust in my throat). The oil slicks were particularly nasty. Several large oil tanks had exploded, setting off numerous fires. We rolled past the wreckage of the paper mill, whose round bales of product lay dripping everywhere, sometimes oozing down like Spanish moss. Paper was now in short supply, remarked Mrs. Utsumi.

“My uncle was rescued by helicopter, and he appeared on TV,” said Takehiro proudly.

An American battleship lay on the horizon of the pale blue sea. Here came a long mild wave, its crest so clean. One of its predecessors, the tsunami, had dragged a giant fuel tank onto what remained of the dike. More heaps of mud framed our scenic drive, accompanied by fuel tanks thrust against and through roofs, cars leaning against trees, and every so often the ground storeys gnawed out of buildings, especially sheet metal ones—in short, block after block of ugliness (unlike war-damaged cities, Ishinomaki offered few scorchmarks or round projectile-holes), plastic streamers hanging in trees; and presently we turned down a street of new-made junk-lots and Takehiro said: “This is my house.”

His next door neighbor, Mr. Kawanami Shugoro, made us black coffee on a butane-powered hot plate on the dust-choked rickety table inside his blighted house, which appeared intact on the outside. He wore his cap, presumably for warmth. Fat hunks of ceiling dangled down from the rafters, the drywall torn like cardboard. Everything in the living room cabinet was in place, but the cabinet itself tilted at about 30 degrees.

Mr. Kawanami Shugoro

Mr. Kawanami said: “When the earthquake came I was at home. My office had some meeting, so I was trying to change into a suit. At that time there was not much damage, so I changed back into my work clothes and drove the clerical worker to her home near the supermarket. Then I headed toward the office. Then there was a traffic jam, and they said that the tsunami was coming, so I made a U-turn, meaning to come home again. I saw water coming out of the canal by the senior high school and vehicles were floating; so, since that direction was no good, I made another U-turn and took a higher direction. At the river’s edge, the fire department personnel told me not to go that way, but it didn’t look bad. All the same, the water level seemed a bit higher, and then I saw it come over the dike. So I fled. I had to sleep on the ground for four days. I went to Yamato to confirm that my grandchildren were all right. Then there was a gas shortage, and it was so cold. I found a garbage bag to keep me warm—so cold, so cold! It was snowing. I tried to find someplace warm; I took more and more garbage bags for a shirt . . .”

“What color was the tsunami?”

He laughed. “I don’t remember. It was black, they said, with oil.”

He was a cheery, rugged, white-bearded old man in a cap—66 years old, with the face of a workingman. At the shipyard he was in charge of safety and hygiene. The neighbors stood around us. Cans of juice were on the filthy table. His wife had led some panicked Chinese girls up onto the second storey of a parking lot, and they all survived. “Everyone went to the roofs,” he said. The second or third tsunami-wave had been in his opinion the bad one, people floating in their cars and calling out for help until they sank. Mr. Kawanami said: “These images were in my brain yesterday, and I got depressed and confused . . .”

A couple of his acquaintances had fled; once they reached high ground the wife returned home for their valuables, because she was a strong swimmer. Fortunately, they recovered her corpse, which still gripped one of the two bags of precious things.

“When you think of all you’ve suffered,” I asked him, “do you think the reactor accident might be better or worse than that?”

“What shall I say? I can’t even imagine. This area is where elderly people are residing. It requires money to rebuild a house, and many people are scared. My wife says that if everybody leaves, then only we will stay. We think that since we are old, we can stay until we die, since this”—he must have meant the tsunami—“happens only on a thousand-year scale. I planned to retire this year and live a nice relaxed life. But the money for my future will have to be spent on repairs. Moreover, the people at the nuclear plant, they are talking about some nuclear explosion. Our governor is so proud of our nuclear plant, compared with Fukushima.

“I’m directed to have my hair cut,” he laughed. “Is the barber back yet in the center of town?”

“Yes,” said a neighbor.

In the filth, muddy dishes were neatly stacked. Fresh water was still too rare for washing just yet.

At my request, Mr. Kawanami took me upstairs to admire the sand and silt. He said: “When the wave came, each tatami mat struggled like this!” and his arms writhed.

Thanking him and departing with my best bow, I was next introduced to Mrs. Ito Yukiko, age 66, who received me narrow-eyed, with shoulders drawn in and fists on her lap as she sat on the edge of her chipped, cracked concrete porch, wearing orange windpants, a dingy sweater, a white-striped wool cap pulled down over her eyebrows. The toes of her slippers touched the mucky, rubbly ground, which happened to be decorated with broken dishes. Here as everywhere else in that neighborhood the smell of diesel was nauseating. Her two young granddaughters, wearing galoshes, played at sweeping the doorway, then settled down to read what might have been comic books. They were very shy; I left them alone. I also did not ask, since no one mentioned them, where their parents might be.

Mrs. Ito Yukiko

A neighbor of Mrs. Ito’s

“I was born in the beach area,” she said. “I have experienced the Chilean tsunami, and also another one in this prefecture. So I knew well that when an earthquake comes, you have to take care in case of a tsunami. But this one,” she said grimacing (and stopped to pick up a spoon which one of the little girls had dropped), “this one was different.”

Well aware that quake-deformed doors might trap people behind them, she carefully opened the house-door in advance, then rode out the temblor just within, for fear of getting brained by her roof tiles. Unlocking the safe, she removed “the memory of the ancestors,” evidently their Buddhist memorial tablets, and then, believing she still had time, searched for a cotton furoshiki cloth in which to wrap them. One of the granddaughters then suggested that she might wish to take the cell phone. And so they fled in the car. Reaching a safe place and sending the two girls ahead, she then drove back in hopes of retrieving their dog and her wallet. Here her hands began twisting tighter and tighter together in her lap, and when she said, “I took a narrow way, and then I saw the tsunami in the middle of the road,” I found the horror in her round reddish face nearly unendurable.

Ishinomaki tsunamiscape

“The first wave took all the belongings away from me, so then I ran to where the wave was lower. I know that a human cannot escape the tsunami once she is caught in it, so I removed my shoes and climbed a wall, and first it was unstable, but I found a stable place, clinging with my toes. The water was up to my waist, and then it was up to my chest; I was holding onto the roof so that I couldn’t be carried away; I was screaming help, help, help! to the spirit of my late husband . . . Then it came.”

On the porch the grandchildren went on reading comic books in that fishy, diesely wind (and since it might for all I knew be blowing from the reactor, I inspected my dosimeter, which at six in the morning had been reading 1.9 accrued millirems and just now after three hours in Ishinomaki turned over to 2.0, which signified that the radioactivity here was once again at least twice that of Tokyo’s—not bad; never mind those hypothetical beta particles riding on the wind); and a crow cawed; there was a heap of tires; in a glassless window, sodden futons hung out to dry.

“I was on the rooftop, so I was rescued at the end, before it got dark. I didn’t see my granddaughters for two days, but their teacher told me they were all right . . .”

Behind a leaning grate, her old neighbor was picking up clinking things from the mud of his former yard.

“How relevant is the nuclear accident to you?”

“The power plant may be necessary, but they ought to publish the facts. It seems to be stopped all right, but is it really? They’ve said that in some fishery products the concentration is low, but accumulation will be bad . . .”

Gazing down at the sand by her feet, I saw a small fish-mummy, convulsed.

Dead fish by Mrs. Ito’s house

In a narrow zone of sand between two ruined houses, an old man was planting seeds. Streams of plastic twitched in the tsunami-pollarded trees. A twisted cypress, still green, rested against the patio wall of a house which had been smashed open on its eave-end. I bowed goodbye to Mrs. Ito, who slowly crept into her house.

CONCERNING A KOTO NOW UNDER REPAIR

How many such stories would you care to hear? I collected a number; they are much the same in that one quality which causes journalists to seek them out, just as are the grimacing, often swollen, frequently forehead-bruised corpses whose images faced us on the fluttering blue tarp-wall of that temporary morgue at Ishinomaki; their expression much depends on the angle of the head. The survivors who view them keep calm, in the best Japanese manner, gesturing each other forward with a polite “hai, domo!,” offering one another the best views of those horrid faces, whose eyes are usually closed.

One woman was explaining to another: “I came here to look for my mother-in-law, but since the faces are swollen it’s difficult, and the number I specified was wrong; that’s why I couldn’t identify her right away . . .”

On the other side of the long rectangle of sunlight, a priest was ringing a bell, and a photograph gazed down upon a bed of donated flowers.* Relatives bowed over the ritual bowl; candles flickered. The priest bowed. My throat ached with dust.

A temporary grave in Ishinomaki

Thinking to learn more, I asked a policeman for information, so he referred me to his chief, who could do nothing without the big boss, who when I asked how many people had died in Ishinomaki rewarded me with a perfect answer: “Our policy is not to answer regarding the individual numbers.” Bowing and thanking him, I said that in that case I had no further questions; reddening, he bowed deeply and apologized for keeping me waiting.

So let us at least momentarily leave the narratives of loss at rest with their eyes closed (the bulldozers clearing more long narrow corpse-trenches in the dirt, 20 bodies per line, three temporary cemeteries in Ishinomaki, and a long green line of Self-Defense Forces dividing into two detachments to break open buildings in search of bodies), while we consider what meaning, if any, we can find in them. In this context let me now re-introduce you to Takehiro’s mother, Mrs. Utsumi Yoshie.

Searching for bodies in Ishinomaki

“What lesson if any do you see in this event?” I asked her.

“Since March eleventh, something is finished. I feel that something different has begun. We have never had the experience of losing everything to this extreme. The good lesson,” she laughed, “is to keep valuable things on the second floor!”

“Will your lives be worse?”

“Of course I believe they’re going to be better,” she replied, sitting with me in the dirty wreckage inside her house, with smashed things everywhere.

Ishinomaki street

“Why?”

“Well, I don’t know why. The passage* of daily life will create another sense of value. Unless you think that way, you cannot advance.”

I told her how brave I considered her and all of them to be, at which she remarked that for some time she had been taking lessons in playing the koto, a traditional stringed instrument whose notes I have sometimes been graced to hear in Kyoto’s and Kanazawa’s secluded teahouses: slow, quiet and (to me) melancholy notes reassembling some blurred ghost-face out of the melodies of olden times. I hope never to forget how it was for me in that small chamber in Gion when the lovely old geisha Kofumi-san danced the “Black Hair Song,” to which Kawabata and Tanizaki allude in their greatest novels.* It pleased me that Mrs. Utsumi also knew and indeed had mastered this tune, whose simple mention made her faintly smile. She wished me to meet her koto teacher, who might help me understand more about Japanese attitudes; unfortunately, that person could not be reached on the phone. But for a fluttering instant the two of us had lived again in the Japan of March tenth, 2011—the day before Ishinomaki became newsworthy.

I wondered whether she had time to play for me on her koto, but the instrument had been submerged in the filthy wave. Right now it was under repair. Very softly she said: “A koto is like a living thing to me, so I was very sad. We lost our dog, but when I saw the koto so dirty with mud I felt so sad . . .”

I asked her sons which possessions they themselves had been the most distressed to lose.—“All!” they laughed cheerfully. Since not enough chairs remained, they stood around us inside that dark and chilly ruin with its bitter stench of dust.

And what did they all think about the reactor accident?

“I think the fact that it occurred cannot be helped,” the mother said. “I want Tepco to work hard and the vegetables to be grown again. I would like to buy the vegetables from Fukushima, but . . .”

“Do you think it will become contaminated here?”

“Yes,” she said steadily.

“What will you do?”

“We have nowhere else to go.”

“Have you suffered any nightmares?” I asked her then.

“In my case, I didn’t see the tsunami with my own eyes. I wasn’t able to return home for two days, so I didn’t experience that, but the fire, well, we could see it so vividly from our hill* that I was almost afraid it might come to us; at three in the morning there was an announcement that the flame might come to us, so we evacuated.”

“But no nightmares?”

“No. The fire burned two days . . .”

“I cannot live in our home,” Mrs. Utsumi said later. “It’s too scary. I cannot live there again, even if we have to build a new house . . .”

Not knowing what else to say, I repeated that she was brave, and she said: “I think that if we live decently, that will give my mother-in-law peace of mind. She would not have wanted an expensive coffin for her temporary burial; she would have preferred to have the money go to her grandchildren.”

I nodded. The dust ached in my chest.

“To console my dead mother-in-law, I would like my two sons to work hard to rebuild this city.”

One saw small germinations of this stoically and at times quixotically resurgent impulse here and there in Ishinomaki; I remember a gang of workmen with white rags around their foreheads, dragging soaked tatamis out of a warehouse, needing a wheelbarrow and a man on each end, such was the water-weight; and then the car rolled down past a wide hill of garbage, many men in rubber boots standing in a puddled courtyard, waiting for I know not what; but less than a month had passed since the tidal wave, so that more conspicuous than these were the antediluvian survivals: for example, the age- or diesel-blackened torus of a small shrine standing alone and out of true over sandy mud struck me with déjà vu, and later I remembered an image made by the great photographer Yamahata Yosuke in Nagasaki, 1945: not dissimilar to Ishinomaki, 2011, except that in the former case the wreckage around the torus appeared to be almost exclusively wooden; moreover, one wheeled fragment, evidently deriving from a cart, seemed more slender than any modern counterpart, and the backdrop was all white-veined grey smoke.

Before we returned to Sendai’s stopped ferris wheel and rectangular dirt-fields speckled with pale trash, the elder of the two boys, whose name was Yuya, said to me: “I would like to eat food from this area to help the farmers.”

“You mean, you wish to eat produce grown near the nuclear plant?”

He nodded with a calm smile.

Professor Morimoto having already gone home, they drove us to the bus station. I told them that there was no reason for them to wait for us to board our bus, but Mrs. Utsumi assured me that they had nothing better to do.

WHEN THE WIND COMES FROM THE SOUTH

In the night there was a tremor at the hot spring, then a moderate quake, and there came a swaying and a shaking as I lay on my tatami, knowing that I could do nothing but relax, being on the fifth floor. Fortunately, the room contained little furniture (people had told me how televisions and books could literally fly off the wall to do execution). As the blue-white dawn glanced through the rush blinds, the dosimeter still pleasantly at 2.0, the new taxi driver called to report that the road had been “broken,” so an early start would be best. The power was out again in Sendai, it seemed, and when we stopped to pick up Professor Morimoto, now on another mercy-errand to a student of hers on Oshima Island, we found her shaken and discouraged. The elevator was dead, of course, so the driver and I carried her suitcases of batteries and other provisions down six flights of stairs; then we sped along the crisp road, the stiff tan grasses soon shrugging off the frost as we descended. By now the dosimeter read 2.1. Laughing, the driver, a strong man in late middle age, remarked that he and his wife had just finished clearing up earthquake damage from their home, and now their crockery lay smashed on the floor again! The railroad station at Sendai was now leaking through the roof, he remarked, so it might have become unusable. Meanwhile the interpreter looked up from the newspaper to report that restrictions on the fisheries in Miyagi Prefecture might be put into place for two months, which I imagined could possibly turn into 20 or 50 years. Early plum blossoms and very occasional palm trees kept us company as we passed the straw-colored ricefields; a seagull overflew us. The radio announced that 916,000 households had been “powered down” by last night’s event. Here came another hour-long traffic jam because the trains were stopped, and after awhile we entered the diesel-flavored ugliness of Furukawa, which the creeping of all vehicles allowed us to inspect to our hearts’ content: small banks, billboards, automobile carriers, undistinguished houses behind hedges, pachinko parlors surrounded by empty parking lots, carwashes, a tombstone shop laid out on blacktop overlooking a dirty concrete-lined canal. We stopped in a dark convenience store so that the two women could relieve themselves; the washroom was out of order. Half an hour later, their experience repeated itself in an establishment whose dim shelves were partially bare, a single clerk receiving a long line of customers who appeared to be buying mostly bottled liquids. His cash register was asleep, of course. Everybody acted very patient. Soon afterward we began to see the long, long crack in the asphalt, running parallel to the white line; sometimes there were fragments of pavement sticking up like bedraggled roosters’ combs. At one place, two yellow-uniformed road workers shared a long gauging-pole between them, inserting it into a fissure in the highway as if they were fascinated.

I asked the interpreter how often she had experienced a damaging quake.

“They come all the time in Tokyo, but there’s usually no damage. A moderate one, every two or three years, I guess . . .”

The cracks gradually grew more impressive. They were at their worst at the edges of bridges. The driver sighed and shook his head; the two women were silent. Then the highway improved again.

In Kurihara the power likewise appeared to be gone, as in Ichinoseki with its dark McDonald’s and its empty parking lot around uninviting New Kouraku Power Entertainment Space. After a longish time we came down into Kesennuma, 172 kilometers from Nuclear Plant No. 1, meeting ever larger heaps of broken lumber, then ruined buildings, mounds of metal and masonry, upturned cars, but everything already wrapped neatly out of the streets. The driver groaned, “Awh! Ehh!”

I never knew how Kesennuma used to look; all I know of the place is street after street of rainy trash, wrecked cars, burned cars, trash in puddles, trash-hills with sludgy pools between them, a bad-tasting rain (and for all I know, the most dangerous thing I did on that entire trip was to hold the interpreter’s dripping umbrella for her while she went to the washroom). Sometimes filth-darkened fibers, cables and splinters hung down in doorways like teeth in a monster’s maw. The dirt roads had on occasion come to resemble dikes between rectangular ruin-fields* heaped with garbage and filled to the brim with stinking water. Many houses resembled auto wrecking yards. Here came a green army truck with a red cross on it, rolling slowly. On higher ground, where it was less watery, the former neighborhoods were simply mucky like bombed, looted and vandalized construction sites. And in one puddly, muddly stretch, another vermilion shrine-torus stood alone above junk and filth, just as at Ishinomaki.

That muck, that particle-laden slime had to be gotten rid of, and the Japanese were on the case. It would take years. Between 2011 and 2013 alone, they disposed of 40 metric kilotons of the stuff, whose official name was “tsunami sediment.” To be precise, they dried it out and interred it in landfills. There was so much of it that its methane-emitting organic matter* remained a tiny but still measurable and reportable fraction of Japan’s greenhouse gas inventory for 2013, by which year the cleanup was not over. It must have taken much effort to shovel and sweep and scrape all that nastiness out of Kesennuma.

“Kesennuma,” they say, means or derives from an Ainu word meaning “bay.” Across the street from the harbor whose street sign was buckled and torn and whose power wires were having a bad hair day, the flooded parking garage smelled like the sea and rain spanked down onto the sidewalk. A gaunt cyclist in grubby grey pedaled past, his dust mask down around his neck. The milky-green-grey sea did not seem foul. The rain made the air less dusty, although possibly more radioactive; I never forgot that the dosimeter couldn’t tell the difference. After hauling Professor Morimoto’s boxes of batteries over to the ferry landing, I stood gazing uphill across the concrete chunks and through the rebar, over the crushed-matchbox houses, chairs, futons; here was a house whose upper storey looked virginal but whose first floor had entirely disappeared except for one wall, so that the ruin resembled a sick letter P. The rubble led my gaze up to two red roofs and somebody’s pine, which had been manicured into cloudlike lobes of green in traditional Japanese style.

View of Kesennuma

The unevenly humming ferry bore crates of apple juice and other supplies. A longhaired adolescent boy whose shirt said HAVE A NICE YEAR 2009 was one of the many who wore dust masks, probably for hay fever; the dosimeter was steady at 2.1. Three pre-teen girls with teddybear chains on their backpacks stood at the bow. A tiny girl in a pink windbreaker sat in her mother’s lap, playing with a toy pistol, laughing gleefully, reaching out uncomprehendingly at a horizon of broken ships. Lumber floated here and there, and another boat lay sunk as if by enemy aircraft. Fingers and claws of wreckage protruded from the chilly sea. After half an hour of filthy slicks, scraps of foam rubber and styrofoam, a row of multicolored garbage-flecks, a seagull flying very low, a lost bamboo pole, the orange prow of a ship sticking out of the water upside down like the bill of a dead porpoise, we landed at Oshima Island (165 kilometers from Plant No. 1; population about 3,000), where Professor Morimoto’s student, Mr. Murakami Takuto, awaited us.

Mr. Murakami Takuto

The Murakami family’s is the last tsunami story that I will tell. They were of old stock, their ancestors being “marine soldiers” who fought on the side of the Heike in that 12th-century civil war about which so much great literature has been written. The Tale of the Heike opens in a way not devoid of reference to the events of this essay: The bell of the Gion Temple tolls into every man’s house to warn him that all is vanity and evanescence. The faded flowers of the sala trees by the Buddha’s deathbed bear witness to the truth that all who flourish are destined to decay.

The first storey of their house had been half submerged. The second floor was fine. Almost all of their electrical appliances must now be replaced, from the rice cooker to the new television to the heating system, which unfortunately and uncharacteristically had not employed natural gas.

In the dining room, which now needed work, Grandmother Fumiko (born in 1933) said, speaking very slowly, tilting her wide, handsome face: “On that day I was in the garden when the earthquake broke out. When it stopped, I came in; there wasn’t much damage, just some glasses and candlesticks. Then I heard the tsunami alert: someone from the fire department calling on the loudspeaker. I cannot run like others. Then I saw the wave: lots of bubbles, so it was white. It was low. And I saw another big wave coming behind it, and so I tried to run. I ran to a higher place. Had I taken the big road I would have been drowned. I took the narrower, higher road. I looked back; the neighbor’s house was floating. After that, I picked up a bamboo stick and used it as a cane. In this city an elementary school is used as an evacuation center. I still live there. I just came here to welcome you.

“In the beginning we couldn’t communicate with anyone. After five days the parents came and I learned that the three grandchildren had survived. It was so scary that I trembled and couldn’t stop. I couldn’t sleep. Friends offered me clothes, riceballs* and a futon, so I’m doing fine.”

“Does the government provide funding?”

“Not yet.”

She then said: “For 350 years our family have been living here, and our ancestors’ saying is that in the Meiji Era the big tsunami could not come up to here; therefore this house is safe. If I believed the saying of the ancestors, I wouldn’t be alive.”

“Are you concerned about the accident in Fukushima?”

“The radiation, when it rains, they tell us not to get wet . . .”

(Her grandson later told me: “About radiation people on this island don’t know anything.”)

I made my usual remark that after Hiroshima and Nagasaki it seemed particularly sad to me that the Japanese were once again suffering from radiation, to which the old lady replied, clasping her hands: “I just want them to be careful.”

“Do you believe that the contamination will come here, or will the situation improve in a year or two?”

“We get vegetables from different places, so we will be affected.”

“The pines are all fallen and gone,” said the grandmother, stretching out her left hand toward where they used to be, out across the clouds and then the broken trees and sand, and over the sea toward the former location of the great rock which the two grandsons used to call their “target” when they swam together. “From here we used to be able to see the sun rising through the pines. We were so proud of that. Now the ocean seems closer. That’s a little scary.”

In the garden she had grown corn, rapeseed, spinach, pumpkins and white radishes.* She said: “I feel so lonely now that I have nothing left to work on.”

Takuto, the interpreter and I went for a walk. Down on the futile breakwater of the wrecked beach we found a dripping Chinese book for boys and girls—the property of his late grandfather. “But we never read it anyway,” he laughed, leaving it for others. I found a field now prettily sown with scallop shells, a bamboo grove hung with garbage.

The topmost plate in the stack on the lowest shelf shows what level is. This china cabinet leaned alone in a field; the house was gone.

We met a fisherman in an orange jacket; he said that a third of the island’s inhabitants had died on March eleventh. He said: “First they ran, then they returned to fetch something important; they didn’t survive.”

“Radiation?” he cried. “No, that’s Fukushima. We have nothing to do with that.”

Walking past him to the end of the concrete jetty was nearly pleasant, the gulls calling from their low islet (lower than before, it seemed; much of Oshima had subsided one or even two meters, which was why as we approached toward the ferry terminal on the following day we found the tide coming in over the main street), the sea-wind smelling so delicious that I could not make myself wear a mask, my dosimeter still at 2.1. The setting sun cast a white trail on the water, and a helicopter, probably from the Self-Defense Forces, hummed out behind a cloud. As the day failed, the sad tokens of the tsunami withdrew into the shadow, until Oshima appeared nearly whole. Clouds and dust touched the low piney coast.

Searching for bodies in Oshima

Takuto said to me: “I would like to do everything I can for this island. I would like to grow up and be a human being and help.”

Although our clothes were now getting quite dirty (since we expected to discard them after entering the hot zone), that kind and hospitable family refused to let us use our sleeping bags. Father and son laid out futons for the two women, and a bed for me in the adjacent chamber. That meant that the rest of them slept downstairs in those chilly rooms which stank of muck. Our host’s flashlight wavered slow and white around his belly, Professor Morimoto’s cell phone glowing as she and her student giggled over some stupid display, the interpreter switching on her headlamp, which illuminated her face, and I writing these notes with the aid of my American flashlight which was more yellow than anyone else’s. Now it was nearly dark, my two lady companions fading into the wall across the room. Although the Murakamis accepted half a dozen cans of American food (the interpreter’s share of our provisions; on the next day I divided with her what remained), they insisted on cooking us dinner. Ashamed and grateful, we came downstairs to the table, where Mr. Murakami’s stubbled, moustached face gleamed in the light of the Coleman lantern. He was one of the head teachers of an elementary school. After the earthquake, he had permitted some students to depart in the care of their parents. I could tell that he felt guilty about what could have transpired; as it happened, however, they survived the tidal wave. He pressed on me a satellite-photograph disaster map of Oshima, based on that infamous great wave from the Meiji Era. With his spectacles high on his forehead, he showed me the family home on the map. He said: “Far too optimistic.”

His mother, Mrs. Murakami Kaoru, in her checked apron, stayed nearly always on her feet, her pale arms and cheekbones shining, the other grandmother slowly nodding her heavy head at the two of her three grandsons who were present, while bananas and aluminum foil shone softly in the dark. Mrs. Murakami invariably bowed to the grandmother when offering her food, with a polite “hai, dozo.” On the following morning she could not be dissuaded from driving us to the ferry in the family’s car; it would only have been a 15-minute walk; I don’t know where they found the petrol; the last I saw of her, she was in the doorway of a dark and ruined waterfront cafe, smiling and waving to us with both hands as the boat pulled away. Given the absence of refrigeration I cannot imagine how she managed so well to make that ad hoc stew, many of whose ingredients were perishable. Light rested on the shoulders of the riceballs and the bright white pickled shallots. Mr. Murakami said: “For the first five days, we got only one riceball per day, so I became thinner.”

An hour before dinner he had already been promising me treasure: a bottle of sake rescued from the first floor after the ocean departed. The sodden label was nearly invisible in the darkness. Again and again he filled my water glass to the brim, meanwhile offering it around to the other guests. Embarrassed to take so much from him, I finally pleaded tipsiness, at which he happily continued to fill his own glass, not least, he remarked, because it was Saturday night. He kept saying to his wife in English: “I love you.” She smiled with pleasure. I am happy to report that on the following drizzly sober morning he said it again.

In the midst of dinner the electricity came back on, and they happily shouted: “Surprise!,” the grandsons grinningly illuminated; I assured our hostesses that they were even more beautiful by electric light, and the grandmother clapped her hand over her laughing mouth.

Whenever I mentioned Hiroshima the whole family grew sad and silent, so I hated to bring up the matter; but it seemed my duty to raise it once more with the patriarch, which I did while we were still eating in the dark. The whites of his eyes seemed to flare. “Because Fukushima is prosperous on account of their fishery,” he said, “I fear their decline.” To me this seemed so Japanese, to worry about others first! He went on: “Atomic power is very dangerous. To me, it’s so dangerous. To me, it’s like war.”

That afternoon I had asked Takuto how he imagined the worst might be, and he replied, not quite a week before the Japanese government admitted that the reactor accident was a Level Seven like Chernobyl’s:* “Like Chernobyl. Oshima could be contaminated. In the summer the wind comes from the south.”

2: They Did It for the Nation

I won’t deny my selfish relief at leaving the stinking ugliness of Kesennuma and Oshima, not to mention my anticipation of getting safely home where such things never happened (Sacramento, my home city, was second only to New Orleans for flood risk in America). As well as I could determine from my dosimeter, the radiation in Kesennuma and Oshima seemed to be the double of Tokyo’s: 0.1 millirem every 12 hours. Now it had come time to return to Koriyama, and from there to make a foray or two into the evacuation zone.

The power seemed to have been restored in all the cities along the way.

At five-thirty in the morning in Oshima, the meter read 2.2 millirems, having turned over once since dusk. At nine-thirty on the Tohoku Expressway, after two hours of moderate rain and just north of the Ohira exit, it reached 2.3. Shortly before one in the afternoon, just as we came into Koriyama, it showed 2.4. By eight that night, thanks no doubt to a certain pleasure-drive which I will shortly recount, it was at 2.5, and before six the following morning it had achieved a glorious 2.6 millirems: four times the Tokyo baseline, in short. According to the newspaper,* the actual level was closer to 44 times Tokyo’s; but, optimist that I am, I’ll keep faith with the toy Ray sold me, for Ray would never lie.

Here is an appropriate place to say that my dosimeter’s accruals for Koriyama, the highest of any 24-hour interval excepting the days of my two international flights, were not alarming: 146 millirems per year—barely 40% of the emergency guide’s supposed world average. And that American dosimetrist (who inhabited the nuclear industry, and preferred to be called “Source ML”) opined that as much as half of Koriyama’s new energy field might consist of pre-disaster “natural” background radiation. To reach my danger threshold of 5 rems per single “incident,” I would have had to hang around Koriyama for more than 34 years. All the same, one might not wish to marry and raise children in Koriyama.*

THE WIND THAT COMES FROM THE SEA

Regarding that day’s pleasure-drive, I will tell you that shortly after five in the evening, once the nasty and potentially hazardous rain had ceased, the interpreter and I hired a taxi to convey us to Komatsu Shrine, of which none of us, including the driver, had ever heard; the interpreter and I had chosen it after a glance at her map. The driver was a bald old man who insisted on his financial rights, grimacing and arguing, so that for awhile it appeared that we could not negotiate. His stubbornness had nothing to do with the danger; the question was whether to pay by the hour, the meter or the job. Finally we compromised on all three. The driver then said that this journey might not even be allowed, because it seemed as if Komatsu Shrine might even lie (here I expressed innocent surprise) within the forced evacuation ring. He radioed his boss, who gave us his blessing, and off we went. Needless to say, I watched the dosimeter, expecting radiation to rise in proportion to the inverse-square law; but anyhow I have already spoiled the suspense of that business.

The driver had picked up only two fares that day, both of them insurance company operatives who were verifying earthquake damage. Now to Sendai the highway was open, he continued, so that made it smooth. He was a good talker, and I had already begun to like him. He had driven a Korean reporter toward Sendai but a landslide blocked the way. I asked which shrine in Koriyama was the most beautiful, and he mentioned one which was somehow related to the famous temple at Ise; the dosimeter remained at 2.4 and the evening was clear, the bare trees on the verge of appearing springlike. Here came more lovely silver-white plum blossoms in the dusk. The driver said that he used to party in Kesennuma; he was an angler; the fish were so good there. I did not have the heart to tell him what the fisherman in the orange windbreaker had told me in Oshima—that all the fishing was ruined there for years to come;* the driver must know that anyway.

He said that Koriyama was very quiet at night now.

Rolling up the ever emptier road into the grassier hills, we saw here and there a long straight line of cabbages in the grass, and jade-colored onions growing high. We were all wearing masks on this occasion, the driver for the dust, and the interpreter and I for the—dust. The taxi was hot; my mask made me a trifle nauseous; but I thought it best not to roll down the window. The driver said that after 40 years in service he now drove only part time; he grew vegetables himself, depending on the season; that was his enjoyment.—Did he worry about the contamination? (“Contamination” was the word they all used; oh, it sounded so much better than “radiation”!)—Not at all, he chuckled. “My wife,” he laughed, “she told me since it was raining not to go out, but I don’t care at all! The government always says: no immediate effect on your health! Ha, ha, ha! Every day they announce the level of radiation within the prefecture. Compared with an X-ray check, which is 600 sieverts, that doesn’t sound scary at all!”

“Was that sieverts or millisieverts?” I inquired.

“I thought it was 600,” he said vaguely, “but however strong the contamination is, it’s not comparable. We have never thought about these things.”*

The yellow-orange sun suddenly winked on our left, sending down silvergold rays upon the dry ricefields. The driver’s bald head was as pale yellow as the bamboo leaves in sunset, and he seemed rather happy, the local road winding us under bluish-purple clouds, ostensibly toward Funehiki, and then as the driver mentioned a fine cherry-blossom-viewing spot (the season was still too early), we turned onto National Highway 288.

Because he had been born in 1941, I asked him how he compared the dropping of the two atom bombs with the reactor accident, and he said: “There was a movie I saw as a child, a black-and-white movie, so vividly showing the ruins of Hiroshima and Bikini Island. Now, Koriyama is farther than the 30-kilometer ring; in fact, it’s 60; but if there’s a hydrogen explosion, I’m afraid that Koriyama may be in the forced evacuation zone. Having reached the age of 70, if we’re told to evacuate, I said to my wife, where should we go, Sado or where? When I see the situation of evacuees, they don’t seem to be in a good condition! In Koriyama there are three evacuation centers, mainly from the forced evacuation ring around the reactor. Most people are in a hall called Big Palette* which can accommodate 3,000 people. There’s also a baseball stadium which holds three or four hundred, and . . .”

Night-globes glowed in a roadside restaurant, and then at a gas station. We rolled across the Inasokamatsi River, then down through a cut which was tasseled with golden grass, a grey-green volcanic-shaped mountain projecting itself ahead upon the pale cloudy sky. An old man in a russet robe toiled slowly uphill toward his house, swaying from side to side. Presently we entered the municipality of Funehiki, which began narrow and opened wide with high mossy walls. A convenience store glowed with electric power, as did a traffic light’s red eye; and the driver said: “You know Chernobyl? I watched on the news; there was a 90-year-old woman who grows her own vegetables, lives alone and gets sick occasionally but is basically fine.”—How inspiring, I thought.—Passing a grocery store and a geisha’s glowing likeness, the driver now said: “All these conflicting reports, they make me so anxious I can hardly eat; and when the earthquake came, the ground made the sound grrrr, and my wife is really scared now. When the first big shock came, I told my wife to go outside; I was holding a big TV which was not repaired; we lost only that teacup and four tiles in the bathroom.”

Turning away from the route which led to the famous limestone caves, he said: “Where we are now is about 40 kilometers from the plant. If you stay on this road, you will go straight there,” at which the back of my neck prickled slightly. “If you pass that point up there, you approach the mountain and then you go down again . . .”

“Have you ever been there?”

“Once. It was a tour. At that time we never thought this could happen.”

That afternoon while we were waiting for the rain to stop, the interpreter and I had swallowed our Cold War era potassium iodide tablets, courtesy of my friend Dave Golden, who once purchased a bottle at some gun show. The bright yellow-green, crumbling pills were to be taken only in the event of fallout, said the label. (My tongue tingled for days and I got a rash; the interpreter remained unaffected.) In retrospect I am ashamed that we did not think to bring one more tablet along for our driver. Fortunately, the meter remained at 2.4. A young woman stood bareheaded at the side of the road, her long hair wide at her shoulders as she checked her watch, perhaps waiting for someone to meet her. Would it matter to her health if she did or did not wash the dust out of her hair tonight? Leaving her behind, we entered the town of Tokiwa and stopped at the shrine. The mask had fogged up my glasses so badly that I pulled it off, gratefully inhaling the chilly air. The interpreter and I ascended the stone stairs. Above the wooden-slatted offering box, the immense corn-hued tassel, the size and proportions of a girl-child’s skirt, barely swayed in the breeze; it was ferruled (if that is the word) by a tall hexagon engraved with the name of the person who had dedicated it. Climbing the last wooden steps in stockinged feet as tradition required, I peered into the windows of the place and, as usual, saw mostly darkness, interrupted by the reflection of that tassel behind me and by indistinct golden gleamings deep within. My heart revolted at slipping the mask back on, but I did, descending toward the pines and clouds and down to the steep edge of this high place, down the decrepit stone steps, which might have been damaged by the earthquake. I could smell the pines.

Informing the driver that the dosimeter still indicated a safe amount of radiation, I asked whether he would be willing to take us farther.

“Sure,” he laughed. “I’ll take you to the point where you can’t go anymore.

“The radio announces it every day,” he remarked. “For the past few days, this area has had a very low level.”

So we drove up the road toward Futaba,* the pallid roofs of houses fading into the low oaks. “This area is close to the plant, but they say it is not just distance but also geography,” he explained. Suddenly we reached a yellow signboard, no more impressive than any sidewalk restaurant’s, whose red letters warned: DANGER: ENTRY IS RESTRICTED 10 KILOMETERS FROM HERE. We had entered the voluntary evacuation zone. From this point on, the road was quite empty. The next village was virtually lightless, the main exception being the yellow windows of three sidewalk vending machines from which no one had yet pulled the plugs. Another sign for Futaba and an indication that we were still on Highway 288 separated us from the following village. Now it had become nearly pitch dark, although I could infrequently make out the silhouettes of forest ridges.

I told the driver that this excursion was very interesting. He chuckled: “I am ready to cooperate as much as possible, because anyway I don’t have much longer to live.”

There came another winding stretch. Soon we would arrive at Miyako Oji (20 kilometers from the reactor), beyond which rose a mountain, which would, I hoped, protect us from beta particles and gamma rays. I inquired whether there might be any legend relative to Miyako Oji; the driver replied that there was not. “What’s popular in this vicinity is beetles for the kids. They produce them here.” As a matter of fact, the interpreter had once purchased a pet beetle for her sons (although whether or not it came from Miyako Oji she did not know); it failed to thrive, I am sorry to say. When we turned right at the junction for Inaki, it was quite dark.—“Most of them are gone, I guess,” said the driver.

Warning signs at the edge of the outer ring

And so we came to the inner ring, where the tall signs with their black and red letters interrupted the road, the prefecture proclaiming that further travel was forbidden while the police merely announced that it was restricted. In the darkness beyond lurked a police riot bus, empty or not. With nothing to see and the hazards (including perhaps arrest) unknown, I could not in good conscience ask the driver and the interpreter to go any farther that night, brave though they were. We did take a spin through Miyako Oji, whose houses seemed intact but very, very dark. A lonely white dog trotted up to the taxi, looking up at us hopefully; as we continued on our way it darted crazily back and forth. The driver remarked that the evacuation centers such as Big Palette did not allow any pets, which therefore had to be left behind. Should I have tried to take it to some animal shelter in Koriyama, if there were such a place? Who knew how contaminated the creature was?

“It’s the first time that I’ve seen this here,” said the driver. “It’s like a ghost town. About 20 years ago in Koriyama, on Christmas Eve a cable fell, and there was a blackout, so black! And this is the first time since then.”

As we began to drive away from the reactor I pulled my mask off, and instantly tasted dust in my throat, which made me anxious, because what if the dosimeter might be lying? It was all I had to go on, really.

The old driver said: “What’s the most scary around here is the wind that comes from the sea. That’s when the radiation comes. In summer, that’s when it comes.”

A quarter-hour later, at eight o’clock, the dosimeter clocked 2.5 millirems.

THEY DID IT FOR THE NATION

On the following morning, a Sunday, which began chilly and breezy while the dosimeter displayed its predicted 2.6 millirems and the hotel television explained that the overflow trench for the contaminated No. 1 reactor would soon itself overflow, we set out for the danger zone once more. As before, I was wearing my ball cap (a convenient resting place for airborne beta particles), my housepaint-spotted old raincoat (quite inappropriate for appearance-conscious Japan) whose virtues were its hood and its expendability; this magnificent accessory was intended to accompany a disposable poncho whose sleeveless armholes I would seal with masking tape around the raincoat’s sleeves; beneath this was an optional sweater of polyester fleece, for the tsunami zone had been chilly; then came my 15-year-old long-sleeved shirt (just broken in; a shame to lose it, but anyhow I had already employed it in chemical experiments), and in the breast pocket of this lived my dosimeter; beneath this shirt I wore another lighter one; and the idea was to pull on my yellow kitchen gloves at the last moment, taping them around the cuffs with masking tape; then came my old bluejeans and underpants, my grubby socks still soggy with tsunami scum, my late father’s old shoes, disposable shoe covers at the ready—and, of course, my respirator, guaranteed to filter out 99.97% of all particulate matter, although, since I had bought it at an American hardware store, the label advised me that misuse might cause injury or death. I had brought a second set of all the exotic items for the interpreter (who in due course would inherit the dosimeter). Needless to say, the poncho, gloves, masking tape and shoe covers had not graced my person so far on this adventure; all the other clothes I had been wearing unstintingly, day after day, since I had to suppose that everything I did not store in Tokyo might become contaminated, so why throw away more than I had to? Although I succeeded in showering every day except in Oshima, I doubt that I made for professional success; and the notebook I carried, a scarlet-spined yellow affair emblazoned with a pink-tutu’d ballerina who curtseyed from beneath a cloud of multicolored butterflies, might have been what tipped the scales, causing policemen to snicker softly the instant that my back was turned. Never mind; even in former years, when I was younger and slimmer and needed to dress up for interviews in my one and only business suit, my best achievement had been a look of mild surprise on the interpreter’s face, accompanied by this encomium: “You look almost handsome!”

On the previous night’s drive to Miyako Oji we had brought our yellow kitchen gloves, respirators, etcetera, but the dosimeter persuaded us not to use them. Moreover, we both would have felt ashamed to protect ourselves so ostentatiously without doing likewise for the driver. In my American imaginings of this final visit to the hot zone I had envisioned a walk of some sort, probably on my own; any taxi driver would have stayed inside the vehicle, with the windows cranked up against beta particles. Just in case someone accompanied me, I had brought double everything. By the time I had packed canned food and waterbags for two, not to mention that pair of disposable backpacks donated to the cause by my friend Jay, my suitcase and duffel bag were full; the two respirators, purchased at the last minute in order to augment and at the crucial moment supplant all the others, rendered the final luggage-zip nearly preposterous. Now of course this does not excuse me from having forgotten the safety of any hypothetical third party; never mind the fact that a sane person might well decline to drive anywhere that such accoutrements were advisable; in short, last-minute logic (and decency) prohibited the interpreter and me from setting forth in any such dress, although we did bring them with us just in case.

And so we were each wearing a medium-quality surgical mask, purchased at a nursing supply store in San Francisco; we offered our new driver, whom I will introduce in a moment, a fresh mask of his own, but he was satisfied with the one he had. Then, as I said, I wore my hat, raincoat (unzipped so long as we were in the car), heavy shirt, light shirt, underwear, jeans, socks and shoes. Upon our return to Koriyama the yellow gloves would go on, the shoes wiped down with a damp cloth before permanent removal to plastic bag (the interpreter insisted on keeping her footwear), and then pretty much everything else listed in the previous sentence—as well as the gloves—also got disposed of in a suitable place—contaminated presents for a contaminated town. The fancy respirators, the backpacks and all the other usable items we gave away to an evacuee at Big Palette that night, before proceeding to the gymnasium for our radiation screening.

As it proved, this day’s accrued dose would be no higher than the previous two Koriyama days: 0.4 millirems in 24 hours.* I flatter myself that prudence played a part in this result; I paid attention to wind direction as well as distance, and consulted the dosimeter every few minutes; still, we seem to have had two very lucky days (a statement I intend to retract should I come down with some cesium-characteristic cancer within the next few years). The interpreter later informed me that in the newspapers she had read that the maximum recorded radioactivity suffered by any inhabited place fell 40-odd kilometers north of the reactor: 16,020 microsieverts over 21 days, which worked out to 7 millirems a day; at that rate it would have taken only 66 days to achieve my ceiling of 5 rems.*

First we went to Big Palette. I hoped to find an evacuee who knew how to enter the inner ring without police interference. En route, the driver explained that Koriyama was “the Oriental Vienna,” an appellation I never would have imagined. My tongue was still tingling and stinging from the potassium iodide. The driver said: “Well, we have no direct impact from the reactor, but I don’t like the rumors.”

As soon as we stepped out of the taxi we spied people passing in and out of Big Palette. I stopped a youngish-looking woman who was carrying her granddaughter against her chest. The child and her mother were from Okuma, five kilometers from the reactor; the grandmother hailed from Kawauchi Village, right on the edge of the 20-kilometer inner ring. It was to Kawauchi that we would go today.

The grandmother said: “We had been helping the victims since the twelfth,” the day after the earthquake-tsunami. “On the sixteenth, we ourselves were made to evacuate. It’s like I’m seeing a dream. The life is hard. My daughters are all living very close to the reactor, so they lost everything.”

She did not want to visit Kawauchi just then, and a man who was going there today preferred to organize his things first, so we hired the driver at the head of the long line of taxis which waited there; he asked other drivers for directions, and they looked at us, and then the driver said we must visit his company’s office before setting out. I spoke against this, expecting as usual to be quashed by some higher-up, but there was nothing for it; his boss came out and inspected us, after which he and the driver worked out a price. I required a receipt; the driver prepared it, and it got stamped right there. I said that the journey might possibly take longer than arranged for in our agreement, in which case I could pay more. The driver, unassuming to the point of shyness, appeared disinterested in these details.

Typical living quarters at Big Palette

I asked about Big Palette. “I hear there are about 2,000 people,” he replied. “On the floor they live. It’s terrible, their situation,” he said as we crossed a bridge, headed toward Iwaki. “Yesterday the television showed the situation. Norovirus* has spread among the evacuees in Big Palette . . .”

That night I saw the place, with its long sprawl of cardboard partitions, and apathetic families lying on the floor; it reminded me of a certain homeless camp I once visited, where people lived under a freeway. Big Palette held the inhabitants of eight towns and villages. One man said: “There’s nothing to do there. We just have three meals which we’re supplied . . .” There was no order here at all, I was told; people grabbed whatever space they could. The young woman who showed me where she slept (in a relatively warm and private place, courtesy of a friend who had gotten there first and bequeathed the spot to her) had worked for Tepco in a clerical capacity. She said that her employers had explained that if a contaminated truck happened to roll by in its progress from Plant No. 1 to Plant No. 2, all she needed to do was slip plastic bags over her shoes.

Nuclear evacuees at Big Palette. These people arrived earlier, so they had more living space than was the rule (see previous photo).

Evacuees just outside Big Palette

We were still in central Koriyama when the meter went to 2.7. “Ehh!” cried the interpreter anxiously. Feeling a trifle nervous myself, I put on my second best mask, the surgical one which I had worn last night; so that in that department I now approximately resembled my two companions as we took Highway 288 toward Okuma.

When I inquired whether he imagined that Tepco could control the situation, the driver smiled and laughed. “I don’t know,” he replied. “Well, they seem to be working hard.”

We twisted up through the yellow-green hills toward Ono, the bamboos shining in the sun, a man working the soil; that wasn’t yet prohibited here, as it already was in Iitate Village, which lay 40 kilometers to the northwest of the plant and hence outside both evacuation zones; it was said that the inhabitants of Iitate would soon be required to evacuate. A young man in long sleeves walked his poodle at the side of the road. I found myself checking the dosimeter more often than usual. The driver was silent. My upper lip sweated within the mask. Coming down into Ono we saw some broken stone along the road-edge which might have had nothing to do with the earthquake, and a few specks of snow on the mountainside. It seemed like such a beautiful place to go hill-wandering. The driver pointed out some nara trees: good for growing mushrooms, he said; and a few days later, the news screen on the bullet train from Hiroshima to Tokyo announced that mushrooms in a certain zone near the reactor could no longer be harvested, having exceeded the legal radiation limit.* Nearly everywhere I looked in Ono there were small square garden plots whose vegetables were coming in, in neat rows, young and green; were they poisonous? The sun was strangely warm on my wrists, or perhaps they were tingling from the potassium iodide. “They are farmers,” the driver remarked with satisfaction; and I knew that he too must have had rural origins.

We swung onto Highway 349, then left onto 36, toward Tomioka, which had been subject to forced evacuation. That place-name meant nothing to me in 2011; now it has become my personal reification of the Fukushima nightmare; closing my eyes, I can see its weedy half-wrecked central business district and I can hear the creaking and clattering of its shutters in the wind; but of course on this drive to Kawauchi just after the accident the appearance of Tomioka, which lay in the no-go zone, could not yet have deteriorated into something more sinister than the tsunami-earthquake relics which I have already described.

In the center of Tamura City (a valley paved with tiled houses) were many lovingly manicured pines, and behind people’s hedges sometimes rose the irregularly phallic boulders so beloved of Japanese gardeners. Above an ancient stele stood a willow not yet in leaf. The convenience stores had not closed. We left Tamura, which was, the driver informed us, a new conglomeration of small villages regathered for certain administrative benefits; I wondered whether the place would remain inhabited. In fact the residents would soon be expelled; none of them would sleep in their homes until 2014. A police car slowly rolled up the hill ahead of us on the quake-cracked road, the cruiser’s lights flashing. Then it turned around.—“Maybe he’s too close to the radiation!” laughed the driver, and who can say he was not correct? For this is a story about things in which we can scarcely believe, let alone understand.

We stopped to chat with an old man in boots and waders and a fishing cap; across his shoulders he bore one of those long poles from which harvested rice is hung to dry.—“Sorry,” said the interpreter; “I cannot understand his dialect.” She made out that the ricefields across the road were his; he owned a largish acreage of four tang, or, if you like, 1,200 tsubo. He said that the farmers could not sell their products now.

“Is it safe here?” I inquired.

“They don’t tell us that it’s safe.”*

Bowing and thanking him, we returned to the taxi.

Old man near Tamura City

Here came a vehicle on the otherwise empty road; our driver asked the old lady at the wheel if we could get to Kawauchi. Politely covering her mouth all the while, she said: “You can go.” The meter remained at 2.7 millirems.

Now we paralleled the river, beyond whose far edge grew many slender-trunked nara trees; apparently they were Japanese oaks. I asked the driver to stop. Greenness was welling up in what had been until not long ago a winter forest. I had a strange, not quite eerie feeling. So beautiful, the green lichens on the boulders! In the cool shade of the cedar trees the ground was so thick with needle-leaves that my steps grew soundless. Sunlight came in low and green on the sides of the trees. An unknown bird whistled its two-toned call over and over. I would have liked to picnic sitting on one of these low fat boulders. Delighting in the cool wind at my back, whose degree of particulate contamination was of course unknown, I strolled across a little bridge toward the pinkish-grey nara trees, beyond which rose another wall of cedars. A stand of young green bamboos was growing beside me. Looking down into the jade stream with its white fans and ribbons of foam emerging from each mossy boulder-islet, I forgot where I was, and for a moment removed my mask, which might have been useless anyhow.

We rolled along, and at the side of the road, not long after we had seen some wooden boxes which the driver said were employed for the collection of wild bees, a sandwichboard-type sign unimpressively announced: ENTRY RESTRICTED BY POLICE. And so we came into Kawauchi Village, 10 kilometers from the inner ring. The houses were silent. The driver said: “They may have evacuated. This is no good.”

On the hillside just off the road rose a pleasant wooden house. Seeing an old man in wading boots performing some chore, I asked the driver to stop again, and the interpreter and I went out to introduce ourselves to Mr. Sato Yoshimi, who said: “I went to Koriyama to evacuate, but just returned today.”

“Why did you return?”

“I’ve been there at Big Palette for about a month, and I just had to look at my house. I’ll go back to Big Palette today.”

“What made you choose to move there?”

“People here were told: If you’re within 20 kilometers, you have to evacuate. If you’re within 30 kilometers, you might want to. So, to be on the safe side, this village was specified for evacuation.”

I did not completely understand this; but who precisely had specified the evacuation, and how voluntary it was, might not be something which the broken-toothed old man cared to spell out. His white mask hung down between chin and neck.

“How did you experience the earthquake?”

“I was at the site,” he answered. “I was working at the Number Four Turbine. I’ve been working at the reactor for more than 30 years.”

“Was it a good job?”

“Well, before the accident I enjoyed it. You never imagined . . .”

“And then what happened?”

“It was about 2:30. Within the building the tremor was terrible, and the lights started to fall. Lots of sand and dust—you couldn’t see where you were going. I was within the controlled area, where you have to wear protective gear specified by Tepco, and you have your own dosimeter.”

“Do you still have it?”

“I left it in the reactor building.”

“Did you see the tsunami?”

“I immediately evacuated before it came. From the Number Four building I went on foot with my colleagues. There was lots of water leaking from pipes since the ground had sunk. You work in a team—six people. All of us evacuated together. There is an office four kilometers from there. We checked in there. When everyone had arrived, we were told to go wherever on our own responsibility.”

His employer was a certain subcontractor of Tepco, called Nito Resin. They were still paying him, he said; he had received last month’s salary.

“How long do you suppose you’ll be living at Big Palette?”

“I don’t know. It depends on the radiation here. Unless the restriction is lifted, I don’t think I can come back. Here it’s pretty low, 0.5 or 0.6 millisieverts.* My daughter is within the 20-kilometer limit. So she and her mother went to see her home. I think they can enter for a short time.”

A brown creek flowed beneath the cypresses at the edge of his steep lot. Across the road lay his garden: daikon, green onion, cabbage, long beans. I wish I could tell you whether anyone ought to have eaten what he was growing.

Bowing our goodbyes to him, we continued on down the road, while he, bending painfully there in the driveway, slowly returned to watering a plant with his turquoise plastic pitcher, while a young child wailed and whined inside his house, my dosimeter still pleasantly at 2.7. When we reached the fork we took the righthand turning as he had advised, while the driver said: “Normally, reactor workers die at an early age, so I’m surprised, frankly, that he’s still alive. One of my friends was working there, and he wanted to retire. He opened a noodle shop and died very soon.”

“How old was he?”

“Forty something.”

“Was it cancer?”

“I don’t know the details.”

This anecdote said more about the driver than it did about the reactor, or nuclear power. Anyhow, one person is a small sample. Passing more dry ricefields, my forehead burning and itching, perhaps from an insect bite, we passed two dogs running loose outside the Kawauchi municipal office and reached the inner ring where a line of police stood in their blue vests with the reflective yellow stripes on them, their white masks covering them from their chins to the bridges of their noses, and their white hats firm and straight over their eyes, their white-gloved hands open at their sides and their boots shining. They prohibited us from going farther, so I had the taxi driver turn right and park a block away, on a street where locals drove in and out of an unmanned checkpoint as they pleased, lifting the flimsy barrier aside. These people were always in a hurry—a great hurry, in fact. Whenever the interpreter and I waved them down, even the outbound ones would always say, in violation of their famous Tohoku politeness: “No time!” Invariably, they were headed for Big Palette. I strolled into the forbidden zone, just so that I could say I had done it. The interpreter took a cautious step or two behind me, then stopped. The driver sat with the windows rolled up. Every time I looked at him, he anxiously started his engine. Should I have insisted that he also enter? My dosimeter had not registered any recent increase; regarding gamma rays the situation seemed safe enough, and perhaps this story would have been more dramatic had I been more pushy, but then again perhaps not, for what would we have seen but more empty houses, and then quake and tsunami damage, and finally the reactor plant, which from drone photographs in the newspaper resembled any number of muddy construction sites? I think that the driver would have done it if I had asked; as for my loyal, courageous interpreter, she said simply: “I will follow you.” Perhaps she and I should have suited up with respirators, yellow kitchen gloves and all the rest of it, and then walked toward Plant No. 1. Honestly, I lacked the ruthlessness to ask it of her. Or I could have set out by myself, leaving the two of them to wait for me there. Why didn’t I do that? Perhaps I was afraid and didn’t admit it to myself; but I believe that I simply couldn’t see the point.

Inner ring checkpoint in Kawauchi

The birds were singing, the plants were growing and the trees were coming into flower. It was very warm now. Moss grew on a wall, and in the deserted houses the curtains were all drawn. If you can, try to see those curtained houses and the shadows on their silver-ringed roof tiles, the blue flowers in someone’s back yard, which like the other lawns there still appeared decently trimmed, probably due to the coolness of that season.—In due course I will tell you how Kawauchi looked three years after this.—At the side of another house, a few potted houseplants had begun to wither, but the others still looked perfect. Perhaps more people returned home from Big Palette than was generally imagined.

Behind an outer door, an inner sliding partition was wide open. We called and called, but no one answered. I informed the checkpoint police, since last night’s taxi driver had remarked that burglars had begun to take advantage of the evacuation.

In the shade of an old wooden house, several bicycles leaned neatly beside clean shovels. A line of sandbags, perhaps tsunami protection, followed the house around the corner.

What is there to say about this place, morning-shadowed and bird-songed, the meter at 2.7 millirems, the shadows of power wires gently dancing across the ribbed concrete facade of a workshop, a small black beetle crawling on a sandbag?

Here is another house for you: a wheelbarrow neatly tilted on its scoop-edge, handles high against the wall, wheels outward, then some empty gardening pots, a shovel leaning in parallel with the wheelbarrow, and clean sticks in parallel with them, then a small broom already fallen into the moss.

From the main checkpoint a bus emerged, then a truck, then three cars, the police waving them all through with their white-gloved hands before they reclosed the barrier, and these vehicles all headed back in the direction of Koriyama. Then a man on a motorcycle approached them from our side.

“Unless your purpose is very strong I cannot allow you,” the policeman said.

“But I have a brother inside. Can I go another way?”

“You may be able to advance and go a little farther,” said the policeman.

So the motorcyclist proceeded to the unmanned checkpoint which the interpreter and I had breached. Later the taxi driver, who had spoken with him, remarked that this fellow had complained of a burning, tingling sensation, which of course is one of the first symptoms of massive radiation exposure. Most likely it was psychosomatic, or he had some sort of allergic reaction; nobody we asked in Koriyama, even at Big Palette, had heard of anybody getting radiation sickness.

Then the driver summoned us; he had discovered an actual inhabitant: bearded and greying, with a very red workingman’s face, in a blue slicker and cap; he must have been about 50. He wore green gloves and a mask and green boots. The metal grating of the Showa Shell service station was only half raised. He stooped just outside, hosing down a patch of pavement. He worked unceasingly while he spoke with us; nor would he allow us into his house next door, in whose second-storey window the drapes parted for an instant and a lovely feminine hand flickered, folding a towel over the curtainrod; his wife or daughter must be doing laundry indoors. The drapes closed again. The workingman said: “This is the stay-at-home area. This is my area. We’ll leave soon. There’s a cat we left to stay inside, and we felt so sad not to let it out. I’m the head of the fire department here, so I come back every day, and every day I check the radiation level at the village office. Today is 0.38 millisieverts.* On the seventeenth, everyone evacuated . . .” He worked on, never stopping until I made him a present of my best respirator, at which point he did pause to bow deeply, then hurried back to work.

We saw one or two more carloads of people, and they always roared off toward Big Palette, answering all questions with the remark that they were too busy. The driver said: “They believe it’s too dangerous here, I think.”

With the cool wind still at my back and the sound of the brook louder than almost anything else, I inspected a very young bird on the grass, rust on a guardrail, manicured pines, then gazed over blank empty pavement. I went up one more driveway and rang the bell. The chimes echoed on and on; the door was locked.

For some reason, what I remember most is the bicycles leaning neatly up against the empty houses which shaded them.

Every time I looked at him, the driver eagerly started the engine. He reminded me of the forlorn boy who must stand on the snowy sidewalk just outside the hot springs near Sendai, ready to bow if any guest comes in. Finally I asked how he was.—“I’m not really concerned,” he said, “but somehow I feel uneasy.”

“What makes you the most uneasy?”

“I see the cars but no people.”

Taking pity on him, I told him to commence our return, driving very slowly down the smooth pavement to the fork of highways 399 and 36, and then as the road began to rise back up into the hills, but long before we reached Mr. Sato’s home, I made the driver stop again, for I now perceived one more chance to accomplish my journalistic vulture-swoop, for here again was human life—namely, a middle-aged couple wearing those nearly useless paper masks over their mouths, and striding out of their house and down the gravel driveway to their separate cars. I rushed to halt them, and the interpreter bowed with her best politeness, requesting the favor of five minutes, just five minutes, but the wife said: “We don’t have time. This is the first occasion that we have checked our home since we evacuated to Tochigi.”—“How long ago was that?”—Shedding all remnants of that celebrated Tohoku patience and politeness, she cried: “We don’t have time; we don’t have time!”—at which they ran to their cars without bowing goodbye, the man sweating around his mask, and off they drove at nearly reckless speed, up Highway 399 toward Koriyama and then Tochigi.

The driver remarked that they seemed afraid.

Reascending Highway 399 past terraces and plum blossoms, my wrists stinging strangely, no doubt simply from sunburn or that potassium iodide, we proceeded toward Koriyama; now we were descending the mountainside, a brown stream glinting white in the sun, at which time the dosimeter reading increased to 2.8 millirems. I said nothing. Looking into the car mirror, I saw the sad bewildered fear in the driver’s eyes.

“My eyes have been pretty watery for the last two or three days,” he said. “Is it related to the radiation?”

This gentle, stolid rule-follower, who had been born in a traditional thatched-roof house and who was proud of his 86-year-old mother’s health, who had prepared that receipt for me in advance and therefore firmly refused payment for the extra two hours which my loitering had required—never mind the hazardous duty bonus I tried to give him (he did take a fraction of it), struck me as one of those innocents so useful to authority everywhere. I asked him whether he knew what radiation was, and he said: “I don’t know. Does it evaporate? Is it a liquid?”

“Should Tepco be punished?” I inquired.

“It was the government’s policy,” he said loyally. “They did it for the nation.”

3: Cherry Blossoms

On the day that I arrived in Hiroshima, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency classified the reactor accident as a Level Seven—comparable to Chernobyl. One agency said 370,000 terabecquerels had been released so far. Another said 630,000 terabecquerels. I figured that nobody knew and everybody lied.

I asked the wide-faced taxi driver which he considered worse, the reactor accident or the detonation over his city of the atom bomb, and he replied: “Of course the nuclear bomb! It instantly killed more than 200,000 people!”*

I mentioned that the Tohoku people appeared to know or care little about what happened at Hiroshima, to which he replied in his reedy voice: “Of course. More foreigners visit the museum than Japanese. At that time, I was three years old. One day before, we were ordered to evacuate because Hiroshima was a military capital and in danger.” He laughed, quite cynically and bitterly I thought. His mother took him to the countryside, but on the day after Little Boy was dropped she returned to Hiroshima to look after relatives, which was why she—lucky woman!—became eligible for atomic victim status. “She showed no symptoms, but when I was 14 she got recognition. Myself, if you have that hibakusha health book, if you’re a victim, that means that no one wants to marry you, so I didn’t want to get one.”

He went on: “Those who used to live close to the dome”—which is to say, the hypocenter* of the explosion—“they hide it, since they are discriminated against.”

“How many years did it take for the radioactivity to go away?”

“For that I’m not sure, but in 1945 they said that for 50 years no plants would grow, and soon weeds came.”

“Do you think that the reactor accident at Fukushima could affect people here?”

“I think it’s rather irrelevant to me. I won’t be affected.

“You’re going to the museum, and you’ll see that the atomic bomb gives you burns and hair loss,” he explained wisely, and so we pulled up there, on the edge of the Hongawa River, among the pinkish-white clouds of cherry blossoms.

I visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, and my heart grew as brown-grey as a salinized ricefield. The torn, stained rags of the summer uniform and chemise which the 13-year-old schoolgirl, Oshita Nobuko, had sewn herself, oh, yes, these flattened, faded bloody tokens, weren’t those enough to see? Just as one can find on display at that museum a lightbulb painted black except for a neat ring of transparency at the base, in order to decrease, however slightly, the probability that the Allied bombers could locate nighttime targets, so I could see of various radioactive issues, matters and agendas what little there was to see; and I have told you what I saw. What did I see? What did I know?

At Hiroshima my dosimeter registered 0.2 millirem per 24 hours—twice Tokyo’s background.* At first I thought that I had found some artifact of the bomb, but that American dosimetrist later remarked that this reading was probably within the pre-atomic norm for that area. Six years later, returning with a spot-measuring device,* I found the levels at Ground Zero to be lower than the supposed American average.*

Across the river from the Fuel Hall

On the bench across from the ruined Fuel Hall* with its Atomic Dome within, a pigtailed child sat upon her young mother’s lap, giggling and rubbing noses with her, the blue sky glaring through the blank window-holes in the brick.

Then the petals began to rain down, losing themselves upon the whiteness of the granite flagstones, floating down onto the long dark hair of two young women who sat drinking coffee together, turning their faces toward each other.

February 2014

HARMFUL RUMORS

1: Safe Behind a Wall of Ice

For the past three years my dosimeter had sat silently on a narrow shelf just inside the door of a house in Tokyo, upticking its final digit every 24 hours by one or two, its increase never failing—for radiation is an attribute of time. Wherever we are, radiation finds and damages us, imperceptibly at best, ever varying within the bounds of natural fluctuation, measuring error and other such expressions of inconsequentiality. Sometimes people age suddenly, oh, yes; and every now and then come nuclear disasters. You might not call those imperceptible, but before the end of 2011, my American neighbors, who tended toward surprise at the notion that this or that forgotten crisis might not have been solved, lost sight of the accident in Fukushima. A tsunami had killed hundreds or thousands; yes, they remembered that; several also recollected the accompanying earthquake, but as for the containment breach* at Nuclear Plant No. 1, that must have been fixed, they were pretty sure—because its effluents no longer shone forth from our national news. In 2013, two out of the nine evacuated towns had formally reopened (when I saw them in 2014, they still looked abandoned). Meanwhile my dosimeter accrued its figure, one or two digits per day, more or less as it would have done in San Francisco—actually, a trifle more. And in Tokyo as in San Francisco, people went about their business, except on Friday nights, when the stretch between Kasumigaseki and Kokkai-Gijido-mae subway stations—half a dozen blocks of sidewalk, commencing at the anti-nuclear tent which had already remained on this spot for more than 900 days, and ending at the Prime Minister’s lair—became a dim and feeble carnival of pamphleteers, Fukushima refugees peddling handicrafts, etcetera, their half of sidewalk demarcated by police barrier railings, and in the street a line of officers wearing reflective white belts and double white reflective stripes resembling suspenders on the backs of their dark uniforms as they slouched at ease, some with yellow battery-powered bullhorns hanging from their necks; and at the very end, where the National Diet glowed white and strange behind other buildings, a policeman began setting up a microphone on a monopod, then deploying a small video camera in the direction of the muscular young people in their Drums Against Fascists jackets who now at six-thirty sharp began drumming and chanting: “We don’t need nuclear energy! Stop nuclear power plants! Stop them, stop them, stop them! No restart! No restart!,” at which the police assumed a stiffer stance, with their hands on their hips or at their sides, the drumming and chanting almost uncomfortably loud, commuters hurrying past us along that open half of sidewalk between police and protesters while a plainclothesman with a white armband departed the videographer’s presence, then strolled moodily behind the other officers in order to convey some private matter to the police captain; and another file of people, evidently all disgorged from a single train or subway car, walked past, staring straight ahead, one man covering his ears. Finally a fellow in a shabby sweater appeared, and murmured along with the chants as he too passed round the corner. He was the only one who appeared to sympathize; hardly any others reacted at all. The drummers were banging away as if for their very lives, swaying like dancers, staring forward like competitive athletes on the home stretch, raising clenched fists, looking blissed out and endlessly determined. Their musical, exuberant defiance slightly uplifted me. After awhile, I retraced my steps, walking the open stretch of sidewalk toward my subway station, and was astounded to see how that listless scattering of the half-seen had become a close-packed disciplined crowd. There must have been 300 and more. They chanted and raised their hand-lettered placards. It was the last night of February 2014. Perhaps in another three years’ worth of Fridays they would still be congregating here to express their dissent,* which after what had happened at Plant No. 1 must be considered pure sanity itself; all the same, they were hurried past, overlooked, and left to chant in darkness while the dosimeter accrued another digit. Another uptick, another grey hair—so what? With radiation as with time, moment by moment there may indeed be nothing to worry about.

I was happy to see that dosimeter again. By the time I returned to Japan, the interpreter had recalibrated it from millirems to millisieverts,* the latter being her country’s more customary unit of poisonousness, so that the number of interest was now preceded (so long as the radiation remained subacute) by a decimal point and zeroes. Why not? The thing was hers now; I had given it to her, because she had to live here and I didn’t. It was the best I could do for her. I still deplored its inability to detect beta waves, given that by July 2013, and very likely sooner, Tepco had found high levels of strontium and other radioactive substances that are emitting beta rays in groundwater from a well at the port of Plant No. 1.* (The concentration of these poisons was a hundred times greater than the legal maximum. And by the way, the well was only six meters away from the ocean, but why be a pessimist? The ocean can swallow anything.) Fortunately, the dosimeter could stay occupied in measuring such gamma ray emitters as cesium-134 and cesium-137, the accident’s commonest soil pollutants, which in that same happy month were both about 90 times the levels found Friday.

For the rest of that year the news kept getting better and better. JDC Corp. discharged 340 tons of radioactive water into the Iizaki River . . . during government sponsored decontamination work. Well, we all make mistakes. You see, the company had not been aware that water from the river would be used for agricultural purposes, the sources added. Ten days later, Tepco now admits radioactive water entering the sea at Fukushima No. 1 . . . fueling fears that marine life is being poisoned. Come to think of it, the dangerous hydrogen isotope called tritium* had already been detected in the ocean back in June, at twice the permitted levels and climbing. Tepco would fix that, too, no doubt.

In August, the Nuclear Regulation Authority, which thus far had treated the leaking as a Level One, in other words an “anomaly,” now prepared to recategorize it as a Level Three, “a serious accident.” Soon The Japan Times was calling the situation “alarming” and speaking of trillions of becquerels of radioactive matter, which is to say about 100 times more than what Tepco has been allowing to enter the sea each year before the crisis. Tepco now estimated that 20 to 40 trillion becquerels of tritium may have flowed into the Pacific Ocean since May 2011. Fortunately, the size of the release is roughly in line with the allowed range of 22 trillion becquerels a year, so why worry?

To prevent No. 1 from exploding again, and maybe melting down, Tepco thought only to cool it with water and more water, which then went into holding tanks, which, like all human aspirations, eventually leaked. As one anti-nuclear killjoy remarked, Of course, a reactor running out of control will not be put back in order just by dumping sea water over it . . . What [this] achieved was to destroy all the reactors, and to flush . . . the radioactive substances which were inside the reactors out . . . This is the worst case.—No doubt Tepco meant well, and I for one believe that the worst case could have been even worse.

By September, South Korea had banned the importation of fish from eight Japanese prefectures. And in February 2014, when I set out for Japan, the cesium concentration in one sampling well was more than twice as high as it had been the previous July. A day after this report was issued, the cesium figure had to be more than doubled yet again. As for strontium levels, Tepco confessed that it had somehow underreported those; they were five and a half times worse than previously stated.

Three hundred tons of radioactive water now entered the ocean every day. Cesium concentrations on the surface appeared to be greatest (41.5 becquerels per kilogram) from latitudes 36 to 39 inclusive, where the Kuroshio and the Oyashio currents kissed, while the most cesium-tainted planktons were found at latitude 25. There was a scientific explanation, which the newspaper headlined as follows: Cesium levels in water, plankton baffle scientists.

In short, the marine environment was being poisoned to an unknown and almost certainly underreported extent. As for the land, it may suffice to tally the number of nuclear refugees: 150,000.

(Did you ever wonder why they couldn’t just shut down their problem? I quote a Ph.D.: The products of the fission reaction continue to generate thermal energy as a result of radioactive decay. There is no way to stop this process.—By the way, he assured us: The safety of [pressurized water reactors] is comparable to that of [boiling water reactors]. Both have excellent safety records. As for a loss-of-coolant accident, which is what had happened at Plant No. 1, the prospect that several independent systems would simultaneously fail is highly unlikely.)

Another hilarious little anecdote: Nearly 2,000 of the poor souls who toiled for Tepco in the hideous environs of No. 1 had somehow taken a dose of more than 100 millisieverts. (Bear in mind that a maximum of one millisievert per year for ordinary citizens is the general standard determined by the International Commission on Radiological Protection. A hundred millis per year increases one’s fatal cancer risk by 0.5%. A hundred millis in a week was the emergency exposure limit for nuclear workers in Japan.)* But the tale had a happy ending: The workers will be allowed to undergo annual ultrasonic thyroid examinations free of charge.

The total cost of the disaster now approached 100 billion yen.

As the Japanese government used to often advise us, there was “no immediate danger.”* And important plans were being drawn up to save the world. Tepco plans to isolate the area by injecting liquid glass into the soil and building waterproof walls . . . by early October. I never heard more about that. The next step would be to build an electric-powered wall of ice around Plant No. 1, so that no more groundwater could flow in and get contaminated; this magic defense would only cost 30 or 40 billion yen, and hopefully no other earthquake or tsunami would strike that place until the radioactivity had subsided.

How long might that be?

As you are probably aware, the half-life of a radioactive element is the time required for half of its atoms to decay into something else. An area polluted by radiation will thus remain dangerous for not one but several half-lives, until the poison has mellowed into something approximating the unpoisoned state. One Japanese official* proposed to me that when radioactivity has fallen to a thousandth of its initial strength, it may be considered a safe equivalent to normal background radiation.

Dr. Edwin Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists sounded less than thrilled with any such standard, saying: “Is this adequate for purpose of rehabitation? One of the issues is, if you’re talking about returning land to unrestricted use, do you clean it all the way to background level or not? If not, you’re increasing people’s risk. So it’s a value judgment. I would say offhand that it’s not reasonable to have a different standard.” In short, reduction to one one-thousandth remained unacceptable to him. But since I liked the Japanese official, who gave me many multicolored printouts, let’s call a thousandth good enough.

Very well then. Take 1,000 and divide it in half. Now you are at 500. Divide this in half again, and repeat the procedure until you arrive near 1. You will find that 10 such halvings are required to reach a quotient of about 1.17. So 10 half-lives must pass to reduce a thousand radioactive atoms to one.

The half-life of tritium is 12 and a half years. Therefore, 10 half-lives will take 125 years. If the reactor sites somehow stopped polluting the ocean on the day I wrote this, it would be well over a century before any tritium absorbed in, say, a clamshell had become harmless.

Tritium is, unfortunately, one of the shorter-lived poisons in question.*

In point of fact the radiation at Plant No. 1 had only to decay to a level at which robots and protective-suited humans could handle the fuel rods, which would be conveyed to some storage dump. One former Tepco worker* opined that the ice wall might need to operate for merely 10 or 20 years. Mr. Yamasaki Hisataka, a roundfaced, delicate, slightly corpulent man with bangs, was one of the original members of an NGO called No Nukes Plaza, which dated from 1987, the year after Chernobyl. On my arrival in Tokyo I asked him: “At this point is the Fukushima situation the same, better or worse?”

“The same. I wouldn’t say it’s worse.”

I said nothing. Looking at me, he then said, “The radiation travelled through the Pacific. As a result, it has reached the American west coast. There’s no direct danger yet, but in the future who knows what might happen?”

“What do you think should be done?”

“Not to allow them to discharge anymore. Unless we stop it now, it’s going to get worse and worse.”

“Do you think this ice wall is practical?”

He laughed. “No. Concrete or some other permanent barrier would be better.”

Did I mention that Japan’s reactor-studded islands were entering one of their cyclical periods of earthquake-proneness? One doomsayer wrote: There is simply no doubt that the Great Tokai Earthquake will come in the near future, and the nuclear disaster which that might cause at the Hamaoka Nuclear Plant could ensure that the very center of Japanese society would be annihilated.

This is why Tepco’s wall of ice resembled the fairytale of Sleeping Beauty, in which it was possible to wall off time with something permeable only to the brave.

THE CONVENIENCES OF IWAKI

A Tokyo coffee shop girl told me that she had worried about fallout just after Plant No. 1 exploded, but she did not worry anymore. She must have been safe, because she thought she was.—Would she think likewise if she lived 40 kilometers from Plant No. 1?

The latter distance haunted my mind because in 2011, when the authorities had drawn that pair of rings centered at No. 1, the 40-kilometer circle demarcated the voluntary evacuation zone. The 20-kilometer circle marked the restricted or “forbidden” zone. Only one-third of the original area remained restricted; could it be that my pronouncements about 10 half-lives were too pessimistic? As the work of decontamination progressed, and wind patterns grew better known, the two circles were abolished, and replaced by specific areas of irregular shape.—Once I decided to base my explorations near the 40-kilometer mark, the most convenient place appeared to Iwaki.

According to the encyclopaedia, this was a city in southeastern Fukushima Prefecture . . . created in 1966 with the merger of . . . five cities, including the original Iwaki. The complex of cities prospered with the opening of the Joban Coalfield in 1883. Mining ceased in 1976 . . . The Onahama Port district is Iwaki’s industrial center . . . Pop: 355,812. Well, that encyclopaedia was 20 years old. Ten years ago, so I was told, Iwaki had been by area the largest urban entity in Japan. Now it was still the third largest, so there ought to be plenty of hotels.

On the map of Tohoku, Iwaki looked to be isolated (an injustice to its sprawl), and almost but not quite on the coast, hence perhaps moderately safer from tsunamis than the localities I had seen in 2011—although the tidal wave had killed more than 300 Iwakians. The cartographers rendered it in larger type than the row of villages to the north: Tomioka, where I would soon experience several radioactive idylls; Okuma, where that fall I would actually look upon Nuclear Plant No. 1; not to mention Miyaoji and Namie.

Being closer to the 50- than to the 40-kilometer circle centered at No. 1, Iwaki never got annexed into the exclusion zone, although the mayor had issued a voluntary evacuation notice for the districts of Shidamyo and Ogi in Shimo Okeuri, Kawamae. Now all that could be repressed behind a wall of ice.

Embarking on the Super Limited Hitachi Express, which was also known as the Super Hitachi 23 Limited Express, I traveled northward from the icy snow-patches on the walkways of whitish-skyed Tokyo, where many householders had their flowerpots out, and the blooms seemed none the worse. Brown ponds reflected the ricefields. There came a few patches of snow in shady alleys, then Ishioka’s recapitulation of the Japanese architectural monoculture—no sign yet of anything strange or broken as had been the case last time, but of course even in those days I had not noticed anything sinister until Koriyama. We stopped in Mita, with the dosimeter steady at 0.271 accrued millisieverts. I saw a wall of bamboo just before Katsuta, a farmer leaning on his staff just before Tokai, a man bent over a long irrigation pipe in a brown ricefield, and then the complex agro-industrial metal skeletons of Hitachi. After our next stop I got my first glimpse of the sea, which was ultramarine across a straw-colored rectangle of grass; the pines stood outspreading; no tsunami had uprooted them, and the radioactivity must be negligible. White cranes were wading in a grey-green river over which our express rushed, and a raptor wheeled low over the water, almost hovering.

Here came Nakoso, still 70 kilometers south of No. 1. Well before Izumi we drew away again from the sea. We paused at Yumoto with its eponymous spa, set within low wooded hills. And presently I arrived at Iwaki Station, three years after what is now called the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011, and six months after the newspaper proclaimed: Openings of Iwaki beaches offer semblance of normalcy.

2: Harmful Rumors Defined and Combatted

At 3:36 in the afternoon of March 12, 2011, when its exposed fuel rods reacted with the air’s hydrogen, Reactor No. 1 had exploded. In Iwaki the radiation achieved its maximum at 4:00 in the morning of the fifteenth: 23.72 microsieverts per hour, or about 380 times Tokyo’s average background exposure. The municipal authorities of Iwaki distributed iodine tablets to residents under 40 years old or pregnant. For the others, after all, there was “no immediate danger.” Radiation levels rapidly dropped to a mild 0.2 microsieverts per hour. During my stay in Iwaki, the dosimeter almost invariably accrued its single daily microsievert, which is to say a mean 0.042 micros each hour.

Disembarking from the Super Hitachi Limited Express on that chilly afternoon, I asked the girl at the tourist information office which local restaurants she would recommend, and she replied that Iwakians had always been proud of their seafood, but due to the nuclear accident, unfortunately, fish now had to be imported.

From one of the maps she gave me, I saw that the international port was a few kilometers south along the winding Route 6. Several beaches lay east, and then Route 6 followed the shoreline north toward the reactors. I could not tell where the current exclusion zone began.

As it turned out, the hotels were nearly always full; one of them smelled of cigarette smoke and was only for decontamination workers; I asked the receptionist at another why she was so busy and she laughed, “Tepco!”

In spite of those reminders of No. 1’s nearness, Iwaki strove to present itself as safe, and maybe it was. Contrary claims were considered to be “harmful rumors.” Even after one week from the earthquake, harmful rumours on the nuclear problem kept blocking the distribution of goods to Iwaki . . . In other words, for that week certain fuel and grocery trucks refrained from making deliveries here, for fear of contamination. Moreover, harmful rumours due to the accidents at nuclear power stations degraded the status of Iwaki local products tremendously. To regain its reputation, Iwaki City has participated in more than 50 events held in Tokyo metropolitan area . . .

Thanks to such efforts, Iwaki had nearly defeated those harmful rumors. Most people’s fears, if they had not yet shed them, seemed to have been buried behind a wall of ice.

THE BLACK BAGS

Consider my first taxi driver, who was roundfaced, ingenuous and patient, smiling often, wrinkling up his cheeks. Although his hair was still black, he had entered middle age.

“How has life been here since the accident?”

“No change!” he laughed. “I’m not a person who’s very sensitive. I’m kind of dull. I just think this area is safe. Please forgive me for that.”

“What was your experience when the tsunami struck Iwaki?”

“There was no tsunami exactly here. Of course it was terrible on the seashore, but I had to be at a different place for my work, so I really couldn’t imagine.”

“And what did you think when you heard the radiation warning?”

“Even in Iwaki most people tried to flee, but I didn’t mind.* And I have an elderly person at home, so I couldn’t leave anyhow!” he laughed.

I thought he would be a perfect conductor to the exclusion zone.

“How far north can one go nowadays?”

“A little more than an hour. Then you’ll see police officers stationed in the road.”

“In your opinion, is anyone to blame for what happened, or was it just bad luck?”

“Just bad luck.”

“How do you feel about nuclear power now?”

“Ah! That’s difficult! Since we use electricity . . .”

First I asked him to drive south, to the international port of Onahama, so we rolled through the sprawl infested by France Bed, Slumberland, Lawson, Daiyu 8, Big Boy, Rabbit and ABC Mart. On the way he indicated some barrackslike temporary housing for nuclear evacuees. In general, he explained, he felt cheerful and hopeful, “because the taxi business is now thriving due to the nuclear power situation. Those who work for Tepco use taxis. If I were a fisherman I would be suffering a lot, but that’s not the case for me.”

“How do you define radiation?”

Smiling, he replied: “My image is that it causes thyroid cancer,” and he helpfully indicated his neck.

“What’s your favorite thing about Iwaki?”

“Commodity prices are low, since pay is low.

“Here the tsunami was terrible,” he now remarked. “Some ships came onto the land.” But when we arrived at Onahama, he said, “Maybe just two big ships were on the land. The vessels are all repaired. There was some souvenir shop that has not yet been repaired. And this is under construction now,” he said, pointing leftward at a fence. “It used to be . . . I can’t remember.”

“Do people here still eat local fish?”

He chopped the air with his hand. “No, because they’re not catching them anymore.”

In the international port, which I had half expected to find deserted, hordes of immaculate metal-towered ships still rode in the harbor, with a line of seabirds like buoys before them. It felt pleasant to stroll among many gulls on the great dock, with the white-laddered ships humming, diesel-perfumed. I checked the dosimeter, and a gull picked at a dead fish; all was right with the world. Far and high above us on one great ship, a dozen sailors in blue coveralls and white hard hats were unwinding a fishing net from a great spool. They were bound two hours southward, where the fishing was still considered safe. But all the smaller boats rocked empty on the water.

A patrol boat captain told me that fishing for personal consumption was not restricted, and that once a week there was “test fishing.”

“Is it the same as before? No mutant fish?”

“The same. At the market they test the fish, and if it’s all right they sell it, at a low price.”

“How are they surviving?”

“Guaranteed money from Tepco.”

He declined to let me take his photograph, and during my time in Iwaki, more people than not did the same. This fact contrasted weirdly with the vulnerable openness of all those Tohoku people back in 2011, with muck and brokenness undeniable in the tsunami zone, and the radiation danger still so new that harmful rumors were just getting hatched.

I asked him whether any unemployed fishermen might be amenable to an ocean cruise in the direction of No. 1, but this was not Mexico, where wildcatters will do any unauthorized deed for money, so he directed me up the concrete stairs to the darkened offices of the Fishermen’s Union, where a man in the hallway said: “You cannot. The Coast Guard is very strict here. It’s prohibited.”

Returning to the taxi, I asked my driver: “What do you imagine that the exclusion zone looks like?”

He thought a long time. “Just no people. You can’t enter without permission, so . . .”

“Do you suppose there are any animals there?”

“The rumor goes that pigs and wild boars have interbred.”

“How far can we drive?”

“Until Tomioka.”

“Let’s go.”

So we motored up the coast, taking Highway 15. On this lovely morning the pastel sea was very still. Now we were crossing the flats whose tsunami-destroyed homes had been deconstructed into foundations, concrete squares upgrown with grass. What I remembered from 2011 was the raw black stinking filthiness of everything that the tidal wave had reached, and surely Iwaki’s affected coastline must have been similarly death-slimed, but these pits looked merely mellow and “historic,” like archaeological sites, at least until we came to a boarded-up black house which had been wrecked by the tsunami. The driver said that the city would build a dike on the landward side of it and prohibit construction on this side.

“Do you believe in global warming?” I inquired.

“I think it’s true. Coal, electricity and all this are being used; people’s activities are continuing 24 hours a day.”

Leaving the lighthouse behind us, we reached a gleaming skeleton of half-built apartments for people who had lost their houses, and the driver now remarked: “Beside the incinerator they put some irradiated ash. There’s no other place to put it.”

“Where did the ash come from?”

“When they did decontamination in Iwaki, there were lots of radioactive debris.”

As we began to wind up into the forest, then reentered Highway 15, he asked whether I would like to see this waste, and I assented. Ahead we could see snow on Mizu Ishi Mountain, which resembled a peak less than a blue-grey ridge.

So we arrived at the Northern Iwaki Rubbish Disposal Center, whose monument is its own big smokestack. And that is how I first saw the disgusting bags of Fukushima.

“This is debris they burned in Iwaki, not fallout.” He laughed. “They don’t know where to put it.”

I got out of the taxi. Down a 45-degree slope, behind an aluminum or stainless steel wall, stood a neat close-packed crowd of dark-wrapped bags containing what he kept saying was ash from the decontamination of Iwaki. In this he was mistaken; the city did not burn radioactive matter. But in saying that they did not know where to put it he uttered a truth, or, if you like, a harmful rumor. On the metal wall was a radiation symbol. Not knowing how dangerous these bags might be, I strode slowly toward the edge of the grass where the slope began. This was close enough, I thought. The dosimeter remained at 0.272 accrued millisieverts, where it had been all day. I liked that.

Black bags at the Northern Iwaki Rubbish Disposal Center

Within a day or two, I hardly noticed those evil bags unless they happened to be many together. The closer to No. 1 one drew, the more one saw. By early 2016 there would be nine million of them.

Black bags near Naraha

MY FIRST TOMIOKA IDYLL

Flashing through Mizushina Village, which demarcated itself first by a line of snow at the border of forest and fields, and then by small fields of cabbages, we passed a white crane in a concrete-lined stream, patches of snow in the road, a lovely brown-green pond in the forest below.

We were now, I was informed, around 30 minutes south of Tomioka.

“Is Tomioka in the voluntary or mandatory evacuation zone?”

“We are not directly involved with that, so it is not my business.”

Leaving greater Iwaki at last, coming into Hirono, which had only recently been declared safe, we passed a square reservoir for the ricefields, and the snow thickened a trifle. Who would have known there was poison in this land with its many bright green pines, its wall of bright bamboo, and now its ricefields rectangularly outlined in snow?

Some workers in blue uniforms and masks were digging up someone’s yard.—“Decontamination,” explained the driver.

Other laborers were decontaminating a ditch.

Turning left onto the Sendai road, glimpsing the ocean not far away, we presently entered Naraha, just south of the Sports Park where more great neat blocks of waste from decontamination lay wrapped in greenish-black tarps down in two sunken fields.

The driver said: “Continue down this mountain and you will see Plant No. 2.”*

“Is it dangerous?”

“There is no problem from that. It’s No. 1 that exploded. I think they are trying to decide if they should abandon No. 2.”

“What do you think they should do?”

“I don’t need it!” he laughed. “Even though we do use electricity, we are not the ones who need this nuclear plant. The big cities use it.”

Down we went, and he said: “You can see No. 2 to your right,” and at first I couldn’t, on account of a certain snowy grassy hill, but then I saw the stack alone, cradled with scaffolding. That meant we were 12 kilometers south of No. 1.

“Before three-one-one,* I entered it,” he said, almost bemused. “I was surprised how strict the security was. They were concerned about terrorism.”

Pretty soon after that we came into Tomioka.

On that first occasion the place did not look so bad; I noticed only a smashed house.—For me Tomioka, whose pre-accident population must have been between ten and sixteen thousand (nobody lived there anymore),* resembled the contested Iraqi city of Kirkuk in that each time I returned I felt less safe, because I came to know more and see more. Even this time, I am proud to say, I understood enough not to follow the sign that directed me to the Tomioka Town Office.

I wrote in my notebook, a partially abandoned feeling.

It seemed quiet enough, to be sure, but an American could easily set this aside because in many of our small towns the pedestrian had become a rare sight. And there was plentiful vehicle traffic just ahead—Tepco workers, I supposed, queuing up at the police checkpoint where the exclusion zone began. Not wishing to be noticed and possibly asked to leave, I had the taxi pull over on the first side street. Leaving the driver for awhile, the interpreter and I got out. Snow lay against the Night Pub Sepia.

Just off this road lay a building whose reliefed facade spelled TSUBA, and between the T and the S the epidermal layer had been torn open. This place had once been a pachinko parlor. It would be my landmark on other visits.

Ruined pachinko parlor, Tomioka

There was a dead weed, tall and half-frozen, outspreading its lace-tipped finger-stalks, projecting its complex and lovely shadow upon the white wall of a silent house whose windows were all curtained. I remembered how Kawauchi had been three years earlier, with the residents freshly fled from their homes. Tomioka was not like that. Tall grasses rose up before the side of another home, the tallest one reaching halfway up the window, whose outer pane was so canted that only two corners now kept it in place. There were reflections and shadows of other weeds in the glass, behind which the blinds were drawn. In a third house, a dead weed elegantly leaned before a sliding glass door that had been papered over. In a fourth, golden weeds reached and bent before crumpled blinds.

I gazed up a power pole, and found its wires wrapped with creepers.

Grass was growing up toward the snow-patched roof tiles of another silent home whose curtains had been neatly drawn sometime between a day ago and three years ago—most likely not the former, since the front door was utterly overgrown.

For the first time I now suddenly heard that amplified recorded voice, evidently a young woman’s, but distorted and metallic, so that the interpreter and I came to refer to her as the robot girl. This time she was reminding the workers not to spread radioactivity; they should dispose of their protective gear at the screening place on their way home. It must have been lunchtime, or the end of a shift. But where were they? We walked past closed garages, a shuttered sliding door, curtained windows, then down the street to a house where an all-male crew in blue uniforms and light paper masks were decontaminating: digging with shovels, pausing, then dragging picks and rakes across gravel. I asked one of them if the radiation concerned him and he replied that he felt no worry. He refused to let me photograph him.

Now I caught first sight of the forbidden zone’s present boundary. Partly occluding a side street was a tall narrow signboard, which said, as rendered in my interpreter’s beautiful English:

TRANSPORTATION IS NOW BEING

RESTRICTED.

AHEAD OF HERE IS

A “DIFFICULT TO RETURN ZONE.”

SO ROAD CLOSED.

—NUCLEAR DISASTER FIELD MEASURE HQ.*

Tomioka was warmish and still, the patches of grubby snow beginning to sweat, and a crow cawed far away; then for a moment the only sound was the scraping of those decontamination workers’ shovels.

It was strange to look south up the rise of highway we had descended in the taxi; somehow it seemed that up there it was safe, and here the wrongness began, when really it must have been just as dangerous all the way up the hill. The weeds were motionless, and now the robot girl fell silent. As the interpreter and I walked among those forsaken houses we saw more windows covered with paper, and sometimes uncurtained windows through which we could look into furnished rooms. Every now and then, but not too often in this district, a window was broken. Behind a fence, metal was banging on metal. Perhaps it was torn siding. Was a breeze blowing over there? The banging went on and on like a telegraph.

There was an asphalt path, perhaps for cyclists, and after it crossed a deserted road, weeds began to grow out of it. I came into this vegetation, and it began to touch me.

Still I thought that Tomioka appeared only a little shabby, not really, as the interpreter opined, abandoned—weeds could have done much more in three years. A flutter of wings, and geese rose screaming from the tall grass. Startled, I watched them go, then checked the dosimeter, which had already registered another digit, so that my chest tightened. As another high stalk wrapped around my ankle on that overgrown sidewalk, I wondered what particles might adhere to it.

A silent house of broken roof tiles hunched beside another whose window was shattered. Red shards lay bright on the empty street.

To the left and the right were those vertical rectangular free-standing signs, flanked by traffic cones, with knee-high metal railings as if for bridges deployed behind them, so that scofflaws such as I must step over them to come into the forbidden zone. That is what I did, I confess, but only for a moment or two. Of course the dosimeter refrained from another immediate increase, and then we turned north, passing the taxi and walking along the highway toward the checkpoint, which might have been the most dangerous action of that day since many construction and decontamination vehicles were passing in and out, emitting dust. We had brought no masks, because three years ago I had found that drivers tended not to wear them and the interpreter experienced difficulty in speaking with a mask on; as for me, I declined to use protection when the people in my employ wouldn’t or couldn’t. So I read the dosimeter, and choked in more truck-dust, facing away from the road whenever I could. That was my way of standing up to harmful rumors. Then we arrived at the central government’s checkpoint.

Nuclear checkpoint on Highway 6

I asked the nearest police officer why some houses looked worse than others, and he said he didn’t know, because he was from Tochigi Prefecture. No doubt it was better for him not to be from there. When I began to inquire about the radiation levels here he said: “Sorry; I’m busy with my duties.”

Across the road stood two other officers, badge numbers TI 562 and 558. I asked if anyone still lived here in Tomioka and they said that almost all the people were gone. As to why some houses looked better kept than others, one policeman replied: “I have heard that some workers,” evidently meaning decontamination laborers, “are weeding.”—They each had white dosimeters in their breast pockets. I asked how much radiation they expected to accrue, and they replied that it was their first day here. Whether the government rotated them briefly in and out to keep them safe or to keep them ignorant was a question I might have spent all my money to solve, so I left it, and again that loudspeaker voice, feminine yet brassy, echoed through the hills.

As we entered the taxi and began to drive away, I pulled the dosimeter from my shirt pocket and felt a kind of pleasure, which presently became uneasiness, to see that it had already upticked by another digit. Within that single hour it had registered three times as much radiation as it had in the 24 hours from Tokyo to Iwaki. In other words, the dosage in Tomioka was potentially 72 times greater than in Tokyo.*

On the way I kept the dosimeter near my ankles, where the weeds had touched, and since it stayed at 0.275 millisieverts for the rest of the day, I (being rather ignorant in my way) decided that my bluejeans and shoes must not be overly contaminated, at least not with gamma emitters, and I had not yet been capable of measuring alpha or beta anyway. The driver drove cheerfully back toward Iwaki, past the sand-striped beaches where as he explained one could not swim due to those leaks of radioactive water. The pastel ocean-line looked lovely, and Iwaki was innocuous. It felt relaxing to be once again on the safe side of that imaginary wall of ice.

“I EAT WHAT IS IN FRONT OF ME”

If you walked east of the train station for 15 minutes and then ascended a steep little hill, you would reach the campus of Higashi Nippon International University, where I met the fresh-minted graduate Mr. Takamitsu Endo, who was smiling, lightly moustached and pale. He had majored in information technology. The interpreter characterized him as “gentle and timid.” He wished to become a social worker here in his home prefecture, “to be with my parents.”

He had been an exchange student in Ohio when the earthquake struck.

“How were you feeling when you heard about the disaster?”

“I was anxious about my parents.”

“And how are you feeling about it now?”

He hesitated, hissed between his teeth, covered his mouth with his hand and finally said: “It’s hard to tell. I think about my parents, my friends.”

“How long do you expect this area to be poisoned?”

“For a solution, well, I believe it takes time,” he replied, smiling and opening his hands. “The government is more focused on the Tokyo Olympics than on this.”

“How dangerous is it here in Iwaki?”

“I don’t know. In the beginning, people were talking about it. Nowadays there’s nothing said. It seems that no one is worried.”

“In the long run, will the situation here be better, worse or the same?”

“If another earthquake comes, it will be dangerous. But currently the prospect of another Kanto Earthquake is greater.”

“Do you worry about eating local food?”

“I don’t think twice about it.”

“And local seafood?”

“I feel a little resistance to eating seafood.”

“When you go to a sushi restaurant, do you wonder where the fish came from?”

“I eat what is in front of me.”

“Would you go swimming here?”

“Well, I haven’t swum in 10 years.”

So he had it all figured out.

In the vocational office next door, an embarrassed young clerk who because this interview had not been previously cleared with his superiors preferred to be called “a company employee” assured me in contradistinction to the first taxi driver that no one in Iwaki had run away when No. 1 exploded; he himself did not feel especially concerned, although perhaps he might now begin to consider food safety now that he had a six-month-old child—but with the child still unready for solid food, this issue could be postponed. No one was really concerned about radiation, he repeated, for after all there had been no effect. I mentioned the suffering of farmers and fishermen, and he remarked that none of them were his friends; anyhow, the restaurants of Iwaki no longer carried local produce or seafood, so everything was safe.

Come to think of it, Iwaki was safe—or at least almost as safe as Tokyo. No doctor or hospital employee in the city would agree to meet me, even though I had promised to ask only one question: Have you seen any health effects of radiation in Iwaki?—Perhaps I gave up too easily, or was losing my touch. Maybe the whole city’s bill of health was glowingly perfect, although it did disconcert me to read in the newspaper that the Fukushima Prefecture Dental Association would now with family consent examine extracted teeth of children aged five to 15, first checking for cesium or other isotopes and then, if those were present, for strontium, which, by the way, had long since set a proud culinary benchmark: When two of the Manhattan Project’s leading scientists considered poisoning the German food supply with a radioisotope, strontium appeared to offer the highest promise. Perhaps they were hoping to cause bone cancers:

RELATIVE STRONTIUM-90 CONCENTRATIONS IN PERCH LAKE* (CANADA), 1963

(absolute values not given; lake water = 1)

Perch flesh

5

Bottom sediment

200

Clam tissue

750

Mink bone

1,000

Perch bone

3,000

Muskrat bone

3,900

For Sr-90 concentrations at the Hanford Nuclear Reserve, see table here

Source: Odum, 1971, from Ophel, 1963.

Well, but a test is not a result. Maybe there was no cesium in any child’s teeth. As early as 2012, the Ministry of Health had announced that most sorts of vegetables that had been prone to absorb perilous levels of cesium in 2011 now registered non-detect for that element. In 2013 the news got even better: Doses of up to 15 millisieverts of cesium-134 and -137 were found in adult residents, much lower than the 100-millisievert threshold considered to increase the risk of solid tumors.—And who could blame the doctors who refused me? They were busy, I was a nobody, and so long as they declined my companionship I could hardly use their names in the process of spreading harmful rumors.

Thanks to a taxi driver who worked out with him at the local gym, I now met the farmer Mr. Hamamatsu Koichi, not to mention his industrious wife who kept carefully trimming and cleaning green onions during the interview, smiling and sometimes even sweetly laughing at my corny radiation jokes; he spoke for both of them and did not give her name. They might have been around 60. Mr. Hamamatsu wore an apron over a light down vest, and elastic wrist gaiters over the sleeves of his striped shirt. He had a round face and cropped grey hair. His eyebrows rose and curved like caterpillars. His wife wore trousers and a plaid overshirt whose feminine touch, which perhaps she had fashioned herself, was a scooped collar of the same fabric. Her lush bun of hair remained mostly black. On their urban farm, whose area was 600 tsubo,* they raised cucumbers, eggplants, broccoli, cabbages, lettuce, hakusai* for kimchi, and of course those green onions, whose fresh smell and enticing jade color excelled any counterpart I had seen in an American supermarket. I could not help but perceive their establishment as good and healthy. Perhaps it truly was, and after all there was “no immediate danger.”

“When the accident occurred,” said Mr. Hamamatsu, “the earthquake damaged the roof of this greenhouse, and we placed the plastic sheet here. On account of that damage, we could not evacuate.”

“What were you feeling when you learned about the radiation?”

“The explosion was shown on the television. I heard that the American embassy reported radiation danger all the way to 60 and 80 kilometers from Plant No. 1. Iwaki is less than 40 kilometers from there, but we didn’t have fuel for our vehicle, so the idea of escaping didn’t enter our heads.”

“And how do you feel about radiation now?”

“Because it’s invisible . . . ,” he said hesitantly, “and something happened in Russia;* there I heard people evacuated, but people here, well, it must be okay. The TV news said it went even to Shizuoka* and damaged their tea, so for sure this place must be contaminated, but we have no place to go.

Mr. Hamamatsu Koichi

“In the beginning we were not allowed to sell. We had to take our produce to the Agricultural Union and measure the radiation per kilo. Because it was too radioactive, we could not sell it, and in the second year, even when the radiation was low, we had to sell at a very low price because customers were afraid. Now the radioactivity is low enough that all the vegetables are fine. When we introduce it to the market, we must attach the certificate . . .”

In other words, that “company employee” at Higashi Nippon International University must have been misinformed: Local produce was still allowed, provided that it tested well at the Agricultural Union. And if the tests were accurate, why not? At the train station I bought a kilogram of Iwaki tomatoes and sent them off to No Nukes Plaza in Tokyo for analysis. They tested absolutely non-detect for cesium.

“Which crop shows the greatest radioactivity?” I asked Mr. Hamamatsu.

“Rape flower, they say.”

“And what do you think about the fish?”

He smiled. “Ah, I don’t think we can eat it, because the leak is going to the sea, and surely some information is being hidden. It’s not at all fine yet.”

“In 10 years will you be able to go right up to Plant No. 1 if you wish?”

Folding his hands across his apron, he smiled at this new joke, and his wife also laughed, returning to her onions. “There may be some spot where you can never return.”

A MOTIVATIONAL PASSAGE

That last was a blunt statement. Ordinarily I had trouble in getting Iwaki people to converse with me about Tomioka and other such places.

I kept asking them how safe they felt; mostly their replies came out calm and bland.

The Japanese-born Korean mother and daughter who ran a restaurant three or four blocks west of the railroad station were more openly worried, but had no idea what anyone ought to do. (I felt the same way.) The tsunami had destroyed their previous establishment, but with that customary Tohoku stoicism they assured me that it had been an old building anyhow. In their opinion, the people within the 30-kilometer zone had been compensated more than enough for the nuclear accident, while Iwaki here in the 40-kilometer zone received nothing. When I met them again in 2017, their position on the evacuees had fossilized. That pair worked hard; one night the mother was feverish, but she kept right on cooking, serving, taking orders, while the daughter rushed around trying to help her. Because only their toil preserved them, they could not but disapprove of able-bodied people who lived at public expense. Perhaps they believed that sturdy perseverance could negate the loss of home, community and possessions. And for all I know, reader, whenever you stash a few roots and tubers in your larder, you will feel comparable resentment for the less fortunate denizens of your hot dark future. We would all prefer to subscribe to Mr. Hamamatsu’s assertion: “People here, well, it must be okay.” And if we are managing, then those who cannot manage must be deficient. There are no inescapable horrors—only harmful rumors.

3: “Something Will Come In”

The next day’s driver was a very active bald old man who wore a paper mask over his mouth, as do so many Japanese when they have colds or wish to protect themselves from germs. I requested his description of the disaster and he very practically replied: “In the beginning we were busy. Now that the bus services have recovered, it’s quieter for taxis.”

“How do you feel about radiation?”

“Since it’s not close to here, it has no reality. If someone around here got cancer, I might feel something, but it’s invisible, so I don’t feel anything.”

I felt proud of him. He too had stood up against harmful rumors.

On occasion he had entered the prohibited area with the Red Cross. There had been three or four checkpoints. “Now we regularly take nurses from the Toyoko Inn,” a chain hotel, “to the No. 2 power plant. We leave at seven in the morning. They serve those who temporarily return to their houses.”

Temporary housing near Hisanohama

He drove me half an hour north of central Iwaki, back to Hisanohama* by the other ruined Fishermen’s Union, then turned westward off the highway, not very far. Asphalt and gravel channels ran straight and far between the long barrackslike units where some of Fukushima’s 150,000 nuclear refugees were housed, with patches of snow enduring between many of those silent buildings, which were besieged by clouds and wind and adorned by rectangular shadows. A tiny black cat watched from between a windowpane and a white curtain. Everything was still and raw—a different kind of still from Tomioka. Walking up and down the place, I listened in vain for the sound of a radio or television. At last I finally met one person, a former Hirono resident whom I will here call “Michiko,” because a few hours after happily flirting with me she telephoned the interpreter in a panic to ask that her name be changed; her relatives had admonished her to have nothing to do with this project. She spoke some English, and whenever she had trouble the interpreter helped her. Here then is a combination of their words: “We left after midnight of the tsunami day, March eleventh. I put the dog in the car and went to higher places. It must have been 2:30 in the morning. There were 40 or 50 of us. We arrived at about 3:00 a.m. We couldn’t sleep. The dog had to stay in the car. Everyone watched the TV. It showed a horrible picture. And soon it was morning. I took a walk with the dog and there was another explosion, and we were told to evacuate and we were so surprised: What explosion? We took Highway 36 to Iwaki. Normally this takes 30 minutes, but there were so many cars because Highway 6 was closed. We were told not to open the window, because if you open, something will come in. We were thirsty and didn’t know what was going on. I arrived at Iwaki at 10:30 in the evening, left the car and took another car to Niigata. We arrived at 4:30 in the morning without any sleep. All the roads were humped and cracked. We stayed in Niigata for awhile, then went to Tokyo, left our dog at a kennel because he wasn’t allowed at the soccer stadium where we were sleeping, and the dog was crying, so miserable! I told him, we’ll come get you soon. We stayed at the stadium for some time. Then we applied for this housing and we got it. My house is still all right, but if there’s another explosion it might not be safe. So I’m afraid to go back there.”

Such was the tale, or harmful rumor as some might say (“since it’s not close to here, it has no reality”), of this displaced woman in the plaid red vest, which is to say this high-cheekboned older woman of the pretty white teeth and wavy shoulder-length black hair and the rising laughlines at the corners of her eyes, with her hands folded across her grey skirt as she looked up at me, cocking her head as she sat on the narrow porch of her temporary home, which for a fact was better than any of the cardboard-partitioned spaces and mattress on the floor which I had seen three years ago in the hallway of Big Palette in Koriyama, where a skinny man was lying on his side, and on the next mattress a scared woman with a white mask over her mouth sat on her heels, cradling a little boy whose dark eyes stared up at the ceiling; just as the tsunami-slimed rubble of 2011 had given way to grassy hollows in the ground, so her exile had faded into something routine; there was no immediate danger. Leaving her alone behind her wall of ice, we drove back to Iwaki.

“BECAUSE IT WAS MY HOME TOWN!”

Southeast of the city center lay a smaller older hillier section of tightpacked little houses, after which the taxi ascended to the edge of the forest, then onto a plateau of fields walled on both sides by low forest ridges. In 20 minutes we had reached the district called Takaku, where another 90 households of Tomioka people lived in a barrackslike complex like Michiko’s.* They paid for electricity and utilities, not for rent. Some of them worked for Tepco.

They were shy and hasty and busy, but finally one girl, just to be rid of us, urged us to talk to a certain Mrs. Yoshida, “who knows everything” and whom we caught, poor soul, in front of her flower boxes. She was an old lady with red hair, wearing tabi socks, and as we talked with her she kept folding bluejeans in the chilly wind, having evidently taken in the rest of her laundry.

Her former home lay in the restricted area of Tomioka.* She said: “There is no decontamination and the grass is growing. The whole radiation level is high. Some civil engineers will remove large debris. It looks terrible. Even this area here is better,” gesturing around her.

Born in Kawauchi, she had lived in Tomioka for 53 years. Her son died in the earthquake. Her grandchildren moved far away.

“How was your house?”

“It was nice. Only two years before, we remodeled it. The scenery was pretty.”

“And the neighbors?”

“They’re all here.”

“Will you be able to move back someday?”

“No. We must demolish the house. The government will pay, since it’s more than half collapsed.”

Although she had been gazing sorrowfully downward, when I asked her what she had most loved about Tomioka, she began to smile, and said: “Because it was my home town!”

This made me very sad.

“IF IT IS NATURAL, IT MUST BE ALL RIGHT”

Ms. Kuwahara Akiyo, a slightly weary-looking woman with blue eyeshadow and tiny sparkly earrings, was a part time contract employee of the Tomioka Life Recovery Support Center and Iwaki Taira Interchange Salon. When I asked her to describe her home, she said: “There is a fire station. Behind the fire station there is a checkpoint. A little past the checkpoint is my house. I can return only once a month. I used to work for a day nursing service in Tomioka. I’ve been living there for 12 or 13 years.

Ms. Kuwahara Akiyo

“In Tomioka there’s not much improvement. In fact it’s even worse! There are animals: mice and rats; also those pigs interbred with wild boar. The authorities are trying to kill them, because they damage the houses, and poop inside, and bite the pillars. They don’t know humans, so they are fearless. Sometimes you can see them on the street. And there are so many rats! Whenever we go to Tomioka, we first apply to the national call center, and then there is a station where your radiation is measured. Wherever we go there, they give us some chemicals to kill the rats. Other than the rats, there is no damage to my house.

“I know somebody whose lock was broken. Then they took the car key and stole the car.

“Yesterday I went there. I did cleaning, aired out the house and picked up some stuff.”

“Do you ever feel anxiety about radiation?”

“A little bit anxious, but we have a dosimeter, and we check it. I don’t stay there so long. Yesterday I got one microsievert in two or three hours. In Okuma and Futaba they get five or six, or even 20 or 30 microsieverts in one or two hours.* A friend of mine in Futaba said the atmosphere there was like that.”

“So when you think about radiation, what do you think?”

“Invisible,” she said smiling, “and that is the cause of the anxiety. You don’t feel any pain or itching; it just comes into your body. But it is not as strong as a medical X-ray. If you want to stay, it’s of course impossible. But for an hour or two, it’s okay. In Okuma and Futaba, you’d better not stay all night, but some people, the nuclear power workers who are trying to close the plant, they do stay, and to them we feel so grateful.”

“Is it completely safe here in Iwaki?”

“Even natural radiation exists, and if it is natural, it must be all right. I think it’s safe to live in Iwaki. There are nuclear plants all over the world. You can’t flee anywhere.”

“What is your feeling about nuclear power?”

“My husband’s work is related to nuclear plants. Until the accident we were told that it was totally safe. Nuclear plants we cannot live without.” Then she said: “This was a manmade thing, but we made something so evil, so fearful, so dangerous.”

“When will Tomioka be safe again?”

“It could be a hundred years. And whether the hospitals or shopping will ever come back, I don’t know.”

What an optimist she was! She imagined that her town would be re-inhabited in only a hundred years!—And what a pessimist I was! Three years later, I revisited Tomioka and found economic demand newly allured by opportunity, in the form of a solitary convenience store.* Moreover, certain decontaminated districts would soon be cleared for resettlement. Meanwhile, back in 2014, I did my best to resist harmful rumors. In short, I inquired at City Hall.

GOALS AND MEASUREMENTS

Mr. Kida Shoichi was a decontamination specialist in the Nuclear Hazard Countermeasure Division.* He was a patient man, not young, with kind eyes. I remember him with gratitude, for although I had interrupted his day without notice, he took a half-hour to answer all my questions, showing knowledge and honesty in the process. He considered his city to be not at all badly off, because as he explained, “from Daiichi, the northwest direction* is high in radiation, so Iwaki is low.”

Activating the laptop on his desk, he showed me the 475 monitoring posts in Iwaki. Then he zoomed in.—“Here is the city office where we are right now. And here is the monitoring post. It’s 11:05 a.m., and we’re receiving 0.121 microsieverts per hour.”* Had the winds stayed consistent for 24 hours, the dosimeter should have accrued 2.9 microsieverts—three times as much as it did in Tokyo—but on that day as on almost all the others I spent in that city, only a single microsievert damaged my body. Of course I passed much of that time indoors—although, come to think of it, the dosimeter mostly lay within the interpreter’s house, in a basket just past her front door. Wishing to cross-check that device, I told Mr. Kida that by my measurement Tomioka had registered as 72 times more radioactive than Iwaki. Clicking on Tomioka, he corrected me: “No, the highest is about three microsieverts per hour, so that’s only 26.8 times more than here.—No, here’s a place that measures four. And here’s a five, so that’s 45 times higher . . .”*

Since he now looked a little sad, I refrained from asking him to continue scrolling through the remaining Tomioka readings. Besides, my would-be comparison was once again apples and oranges, since the dosimeter could not measure local radiation moment by moment.

Mr. Kida next zoomed in on a monitoring site at Futaba Town: 13.61 microsieverts per hour at present.*—The year previous to the accident, Futaba’s air dose had averaged 0.043 micros an hour. An anti-nuclear ideologue might accordingly denounce that place as 317 times more radioactive than before. But one station at one moment, compared to a townwide average, should not have caused any stir. Besides, had I opened my mouth about the matter, some harmful rumor might have come out! So why not simply reflect that if those 13.61 micros kept up until tomorrow, all over Futaba, then Futaba might be maybe 327 or possibly only 113 times more dangerous than Iwaki?* Better yet, why not assume that in due course everything would get wonderful? Thus Tepco planned for tsunamis and American politicians prepared for climate change. We humans were much the same.

“Okuma and Futaba are still prohibited,” Mr. Kida remarked, which seemed sensible enough.

“When will Plant No. 1 be safe?”

“You have to wait until natural reduction occurs.”

“Five hundred years?”

“I believe so.”

The next day he telephoned me with a correction: In only 300 years, barring further accidents, the radiation would have decayed to one-thousandth of its original strength. If I peeked out of my grave in three centuries, I might well find him a perfect prophet, given my 10 half-lives calculation in Table 1* for the two most slowly decaying isotopes, strontium-90 and cesium-137.

But I received a more pessimistic answer when I asked Ed Lyman, the Union of Concerned Scientists physicist: “If there’s no further emission from the plant, is 300 years long enough?”

“Well, there’s radioactive decay plus transfer to soil; it will go deeper and deeper and get into the water and so forth. Then there’s a weathering coefficient.

“To reduce by a factor of a thousand, it would take hundreds of years. I’d hesitate to give a blanket answer.”*

One study of cesium from decades before the Fukushima catastrophe determined that losses from soil to river sediments were 50 percent greater in the year after fallout than in subsequent years—a heartening finding, perhaps, to those whose land does not abut downstream bends of that river . . . but absent accurately local quantifications of the losses one could scarcely guess how much cesium might leach away over any given time, and therefore when the area might be safe. In the Columbia River Basin of the United States,* only 0.263% of the plutonium contamination from the Hanford reactors had eroded in 20 years.

Well, anyway I had my blanket answer from Mr. Kida: 300 years.

The basic strategy for decontamination, he had explained, was to make an area give off less than one millisievert per year. Thirty percent of the cesium reduction around Iwaki had already happened naturally, and he gave me some multicolored information sheets to prove it. In November 2011, almost every part of the area had been shaded yellow, meaning “decontamination required.” By December 2012, the yellow had melted into a crescent along north and east, with a few strange patches to the south.

When I passed on this good news to Ed Lyman, he remarked: “My impression is that the cesium-134 is decaying away but the cesium-137 levels are not being reduced that much.” (The latter isotope, as you will see here, will take nearly a century longer than the former to reach one one-thousandth strength.)

Weren’t these fine tidings just the same? Iwaki was becoming safe much more rapidly than a simple half-life model would have predicted. But my thoughts rose like those weeds at Tomioka which kept growing up through parking lots, filling in for eyelashes in the dark broken window-sockets of damaged buildings. Ed Lyman had contaminated my equanimity. I could not stop wondering what was happening to the cesium. Did it sink deeper and deeper into the earth—or stop at clay—or leach into storm drains and rivers . . . ? I had read that it sometimes got concentrated in roots. No doubt the radioactivity of the ground must vary just as the ground itself did. Presumably every square meter of Iwaki required measurement. The city’s report (the one that blasted harmful rumors) explained that topsoil in schoolyards was being removed if it measured more than 0.3 microsieverts per hour—which multiplies out to 2.63 millisieverts a year, more than twice the ICRP standard; but on the other hand, one Bangladeshi brickyard, and the window-ledge of a certain bookstore in West Virginia, showed comparable values*—and if Iwaki’s children were affected only when they played outside at recess—which might or might not be a reasonable assumption to make about a gamma emitter present in low concentrations—then they would accrue a mere 60 microsieverts per year.* Oh, those radiation arithmetic games! The removal of topsoil was completed in 101 out of 131 facilities by the end of December [2012], which resulted in the maximum of 80% of reduction in radiation levels, and 50–70% in most facilities.

A 50 to 70% improvement could not be adequate—although what if it simply had to be? On this subject, Ed Lyman told me that 50%, not 70%, was the general outcome so far as he knew, in which case the time to bring down the radiation to one one-thousandth of original strength would be shortened by only one out of 10 half-lives—for cesium-137, to 270 from 300 years. But again, why spread harmful rumors?

By Mr. Kida’s estimation, the average annual natural radioactivity in the world was already 2.4 millisieverts,* and so I suppose that a pro-nuclear ideologue could label that schoolyard topsoil unremarkable. But Japanese areas unaffected by the accident received about 1.4 millis a year. The goal for Iwaki was to wait out a few half-lives and decontaminate where necessary until the radiation reached 0.23 micros per hour, or slightly above 2 millisieverts per year.—Mr. Kida now remarked that he would be satisfied with a target of even 0.5 micros an hour. I was surprised; that would be 4.4 millis a year, which exceeded the old ICRP standard.*

“Are any decontamination measures possible for water?”

“It’s difficult. We do measure. No part of Iwaki shows a high level of radioactivity. Ten kinds of fish are prohibited; those on the sea bottom* are most radioactive. If you eat a little, it doesn’t matter. If you eat one kilo every day, it’s dangerous.”

The maximum safe value for fish was 100 becquerels per kilo; some catches measured 200 or 300. But he assured me that there had been many “no detects” in 2012 and after.

Indeed, as I write this, I have before me the very long printout he gave me that appears to list many or all of the fish testing results from March 2011 until February 2014. Iodine-131, whose half-life is short, had mostly dropped to “no detect” by June 2011. In November that contaminant reappeared, at very low levels, then vanished again by March 2012, after which its placeholder stayed reassuringly blank. (For that matter, by 2013 the iodine in Fukushima’s land environment was below the critical 50-millisievert level . . . However, . . . [the U.N. Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation] also noted cases of children who had been exposed to as much as 66 millisieverts.)*

As for the two cesium radioisotopes of concern, these had intermittently announced themselves in marine tests from the time of the accident until now, but although their initial concentrations occasionally (as in samples number 11 and 13) reached such measurements as 12,500 or 14,400 becquerels per kilo, even in that bad time right after the three reactors exploded they mostly ranged from the low hundreds to around 2,000. With the exception of sample number 43 (9,900 becquerels per kilo), they quickly stopped exceeding the low hundreds at all, and early in 2012 they reached the middle double digits—where they now remained.

I said: “We have heard of many new releases of radioactive water, so would you expect that these numbers will now increase?”

“In Iwaki, what they are catching right now is at some distance from the plant, so . . . I don’t know.”

Who could blame him for not knowing? His department was Iwaki, not Futaba or Okuma. And, after all, what might be the true purpose of this testing? Perhaps it had never been intended to inform the public how dangerous it might be to consume the fish that swam just offshore from Tomioka—only to fight harmful rumors about the seafood now for legal sale in Fukushima. But this is merely my cynical conjecture. I could have optimistically hypothesized that the tritium from Nuclear Plant No. 1 would dilute to an indetectable level as soon as it entered the ocean.

Continuing on this subject, how could anyone even decide how much radiation was safe in food? According to that Tokyo anti-nuclear activist Mr. Yamasaki, cesium fallout due to nuclear testing had once (I did not ask when or for how long)* gifted Japanese rice to the tune of 10 becquerels per kilo. In Fukushima Prefecture the current reading was twice as high. “If you measure the soil,” he said, “you can tell. If you measure the rice contamination, you can see the soil contamination.”

“What is the risk from food to the average Japanese who is uninformed and does not live in this area of contamination?”

“That is a very difficult question. The rice currently in circulation is 10 or 20 becquerels per kilo maximum. If you eat this every day and the cesium accumulates internally, 4,000 becquerels will be in the whole body after one year.”

“And in your opinion, what is the maximum safe limit in the body?”

Mr. Yamasaki laughed. “There is no safe limit. When we lived in Toyoma Prefecture as children, thanks to nuclear tests we constantly had about 400 becquerels in our bodies.”

Meanwhile, when I asked Mr. Kida whether one could live out one’s entire life in safety as a citizen of Iwaki, he nodded. “Up to Naraha the radiation level is low,” he said.*

As for Tomioka, if those two nuclear evacuees, “Michiko” and Ms. Kuwahara, were here before me right now, what “blanket answer” would I present to them? The time to one-thousandth of the 2011 contamination value, which you have just heard Ed Lyman calling inadequate, would still be three centuries. Assuming that my projected annual level for Tomioka of 26.28 millisieverts was a useful approximation,* and that decontamination was ineffective, then between four and five* half-lives (151 to 181.2 years for cesium-137) must achieve the tolerable target of one milli. If decontamination succeeded, then subtract 30 years. That was my first approximation of an answer.

“BECAUSE IT’S ENDLESS”

Remembering a mention of gamma cameras being used in Kawauchi, I asked Mr. Kida whether I could see or use one. He had nothing quite like that available in the office, but promised me an excursion with a scintillation meter; so on the following day his deputy came to collect me. He was a pleasant roundish young man named Mr. Kanari Takahiro.

“In Iwaki,” he said, “we have never felt the imminent desperate situation. In fact my parents returned home in only two weeks. I myself couldn’t flee since I am a civil servant.”

“Around here, do people tell any jokes about radiation?”

“The radiation level is not high enough to create any joke.”

All the same, he too might have been a little cynical, for he referred to nuclear countermeasures as “casual countermeasures.”

“Are you sad not to eat the local fish?”

“I don’t care. Whatever fish, anywhere it comes from . . .”

The decontamination procedure he described was this: Measure, then scrape up surface soil and cut tree branches as needed; place in a bag.

The scintillation counter (which is to say an Aloka TCS 172B gamma survey meter) cost about 100,000 yen.* He called the operation of it “not difficult.” As the technical name implied, it measured only gamma waves, like my dosimeter.

We met a “superior” and a construction boss. One was tall and the other short. They wore hard hats, work jackets with white belts and suspenders, and baggy pants tucked into calf-length rubber boots. The short one wore a mask over his mouth and the tall one didn’t. I told them they were heroes. Reducing radioactivity by a factor of two was better than nothing, assuming that they didn’t smear around the contamination too much. Anyhow they were endangering themselves.

The work was all paid for by the central government. I inquired into whether it was unionized.—No, they curtly said.

They said that by and large the decontamination workers received about 4.5 micros a day, which works out to 1.63 millis a year. (Frankly, I suspect that those numbers were underestimations.) They also said that the poor souls who were trying to ice away No. 1 were getting 40 millis a year.

Hereabouts, they told me, they took in less than 0.23 micros an hour—which is to say, 5.52 micros a day—2.02 millis a year if they never took time off. Again, I am skeptical. Their supposed quarter-of-an-hour micro was only twice the 0.121 micros that Mr. Kida had said was Iwaki’s air dose. How could they be digging, bagging and breathing radiocontaminants all day without much higher exposures? Both of the cesium isotopes were beta emitters; as for the strontium-90, scientists called that one of the best long-lived high-energy beta emitters known.* On occasion these men must surely inhale beta particles—and from a dosimetric point of view, beta was invisible.—To answer my question they first considered, then estimated their doses; they never checked their dosimeters. “The radiation level is so low here that we are not worried.”

But as a rule, I pursued, what maximum did they set themselves? It was very hard to say, they replied; perhaps there was no rule. They hardly seemed to know or care. “Maybe two years ago or even last year you might have trouble, but now in normal work you never have to worry.”

Decontamination “superior” and construction boss at a radioactive waste site near Iwaki

So maybe the Iwaki people were perfectly right to eat whatever was set before them. I myself have always loved happy news.

Rolling up Highway 245, then turning east, we arrived back in Hisanohama* near where the wrecked old Fishermen’s Union used to be. A traditional Japanese-style house was being decontaminated. It looked as if a gardening crew were on the premises, except that all the gardeners were masked. Other than that, they eschewed special defenses. They wore heavy work clothes, gloves and hats; that was all.

I had Mr. Kanari begin to test things.

In the yard, the bag of waste that the nearest worker was filling emitted 0.3 microsieverts per hour. Another bag was 0.26. The target for decontamination was 0.22.

The “superior” said: “Dead leaves are an especial concern; the plants are up to the homeowner.”

“What happens to these bags?”

“We remove them and put them in temporary storage for three years.”

Temporary storage turned out to mean, for instance, those fields in Tomioka where so many black bags sat.

“Then what?”

He smiled, laughed, shrugged.

But Mr. Kanari told me: “First we remove the soil, then put it in a bag, then it has to stay on the homeowner’s property until a formal decontamination begins.”

The “superior” explained: “Unlike the United States where there are rules, here we make up the rules.”*

I had Mr. Kanari test a potted houseplant: 0.14 micros; the construction boss’s boot, 0.11; a dirt berm behind the house, 0.33; a rain channel in the sloping concrete driveway, a surprisingly low 0.16; then the drainpipe: 0.49. That last reading was not so good. It worked out to 4.29 millis per year.

Pointing to the pipe, I asked him: “How can you decontaminate it?”

“Structurally speaking, unless you break it, it’s rather difficult. We must see what the property owner says.”

Here were two black bags side by side, at 0.35 and 0.38 micros; and there was the next door neighbor’s drainpipe at 0.17.

The two decontamination men agreed that radiation generally went about five centimeters into the ground.*

Across the highway lay a field of vegetables. I asked Mr. Kanari to read the crops for me, but he said: “The scintillation meter measures only the air, not the thing.” All the same, he did as I asked: 0.13 away from the dirt, 0.18 close to the dirt, where a napa cabbage was.

We drove to another place on a hill; it was called Ohisa. There were some heavy blackish-green tarps, and then a blue tarp “as an afterthought,” they said. There was a DO NOT ENTER sign. The air read 0.17 about 2 meters from the sign. Mr. Kanari entered the site and placed his meter almost on a bag, which read 0.19.

“What do you think of these readings?” I later asked Ed Lyman.

“Not very impressive. One to five times background. In my apartment” in Washington, D.C., “I register 0.2 microsieverts per hour.”—I did the math: 4.8 microsieverts a day, or 1.74 millis a year. My studio’s kitchen gave off just over a milli in the same period. How glad I was to live on the west coast!

Mr. Kanari was very reluctant to measure the forest, since the municipality’s only concern was to decontaminate where people actually lived, but I finally coaxed him into entering a snowy bamboo grove at the mountain’s edge behind the field of Chinese cabbage: 0.43 micros per hour, or nearly four times Mr. Kida’s stated goal of a single annual milli. Mr. Kida, of course, had said that 0.5 microsieverts per hour was acceptable, so he might have felt quite contented here. Maybe even Ed Lyman would have been at peace.

Once upon a time in Kyoto I used to sit in a temple garden called the Shoren-In, whose bamboo grove at the end of the winding path afforded a quiet view of a carp pond the rock border of which achieved asymmetrical grace. Camphor trees shaded my dreams at the Shoren-In, but what I most loved was the bamboo grove itself, whose jade towers decorated the sky. Now I remembered that place while Mr. Kanari stood beside me, holding his scintillation meter as we all listened to the sounds of those lovely bamboos, which resembled birdsongs or windy hollow gurglings, and I almost felt happy.

“How dangerous is it?” I asked the decontamination workers.

They replied that no one should stay here more than half a month.

“What should the authorities do about this?”

“Because it’s endless.” Mr. Kanari sadly smiled. “And this is not the place where people often go.”*

He was probably right, and anyhow I’m not the sort of cad who would want to spread harmful rumors. The silver lining in that radioactive cloud was that if everything continued perfectly from here on out, a mere two half-lives (60 years for cesium-137) would bring the levels below a milli. With respect to Japan, arithmetic had become one of my favorite distractions.

For instance: Radiation sickness—this statistic I have already expressed in the dosimeter’s previous unit, millirems—may begin to appear after a dose of 0.7 sieverts, which you would get from a thousand chest X-rays, more or less, but the situation comprehended by this warning is a rapidly delivered dose, such as a nearby H-bomb detonation or a brief foray to the core of Reactor No. 1. Meanwhile, 35 millisieverts a year delivered over 20 years, which works out to the same total dose, may cause no perceptible harm.* Employing a comparable example, the International Commission on Radiological Protection concludes: The resulting whole-body activity at the end of the period is significantly different between a quick dose and a slow one. As I researched this matter I grew surprised at how little is surely known about the perils of extended subacute radiation exposure. The so-called “linear hypothesis” would have it that the multiple of any given dose is the multiple of the danger. All responsible bodies involved in considering radiation hazards have agreed to use the linear theory . . . , warns an anti-nuclear tract from 1971, but a blandly, moderately pro-nuclear book from 2009 qualifies the “linear hypothesis” as follows: A dose of 2x mSv [= millisieverts] of radiation, where x is greater than 100, produces double the response, and by “response” he means nothing pleasant, of a dose of x mSv of radiation. The effects of very low doses . . . are less well understood . . .

MY SECOND TOMIOKA IDYLL

Thanking the decontamination men for their helpfulness, I said goodbye and bowed. No doubt they were happy to be rid of me. As for poor Mr. Kanari, I now so far imposed on him as to wangle another pleasure-drive to Tomioka. I will never know whether he liked being out of the office or whether he was one of those unfortunates who cannot say no. He might have been curious. After all, he had not visited there since before the accident.

So we rolled north, soon arriving in Hirono, where the nuclear refugee I have called Michiko once lived. Mr. Kanari thought the radiation levels here to be comparable to Iwaki’s. I would have asked him to stop and take readings, but sooner or later the welcome would wear thin, and before that happened I wished to be sure of my Tomioka idyll. Before we knew it, we were in Naraha, former population 7,500; here was J Village on the right, where many Tepco workers were based; whenever we set out for Tomioka, the interpreter, who eschewed going behind radioactive bushes, liked to stop here to have a good pee. It was a very corporate sort of place. Bright-eyed desk sentries ensured that I could neither wander around nor interview any decontamination laborers. In the vicinity of J Village we began to see those black bags in the middle of fields.—“Temporary storage,” remarked Mr. Kanari. “Once the intermediate disposal site is ready, they’ll move it there.”

“What will it be?”

“Well, we hope there will be such a place, but none of us wants it near us.”

Cruising up Highway 6, we now came into Tomioka Township. I had to give him directions. From his expression, he might have been having second thoughts.

So we came home again, where the dead grass rose tall on the far side of signs for the exclusion zone. Much of the snow had melted. Ahead was the checkpoint; there stood the police, monitoring that double lane of traffic cones. When I asked Mr. Kanari to pull over by the pachinko parlor called TSUBA, he kept the engine running. Assuming that he had done so on purpose, I said nothing, but the interpreter mentioned it, so he went back to the car and shut it off. Did the radiation make him anxious or did he simply wish to get back to work?

So far our day had consisted of levels well below the radiation incident guide’s warning mark of 0.1 millirems, or 1 micro, per hour, so that Mr. Kanari could perfectly well engage in his “casual countermeasures.” But now, right by TSUBA his scintillation meter read 4.2 microsieverts per hour*—comparable to an airplane measurement I took above the North Pole*—or, if you would rather, approximately 10 times the value of that mildly dangerous drainpipe in Hisanohama. The three of us strolled down the now familiar side street, past the Night Pub Sepia (3.5 micros), where decontamination workers were still scraping away at the same house, and the echoing, crackling voice of the robot girl continued to roar from the loudspeaker. Not another human was in sight.

At a nearby house with yellow danger tape around it, the base of a drainpipe read 22.1 microsieverts.* That was a little perilous, I would say.

The grassy field on which the interpreter and I had walked was a cool 7.5 micros, while the main highway on which the decontamination trucks kept raising and leaving dust was only 3.72.

“Those are pretty elevated readings,” said Lyman.

After 15 minutes, my dosimeter had accrued a new digit, and Mr. Kanari definitely wanted to get out of there. I asked him to drive us through the checkpoint, but he was halfhearted about trying, and the police turned us back.

“Based on your measurements,” I inquired, “would it be okay to stay overnight in Tomioka?”

Hissing thoughtfully, he finally said: “Inside the house shouldn’t be such a problem.”

We sped back through the wall of ice, to the place where we ate whatever was put in front of us. The trees were coming back into first bud, the grass still brown.

4: “This Is a Kind of Opportunity”

West of Tomioka and formerly at the edge of the forbidden zone lay Kawauchi Village. You may remember* that here was where three years ago a police checkpoint had marked the inner ring, and I’d wandered among those homes abandoned just days before, their curtains drawn and their houseplants just beginning to die. Last summer’s newspaper had reported that some 480 of the 1,061 houses in the emergency evacuation advisory zone still had atmospheric radiation doses over 1 millisievert [per year] following decontamination. In other words, decontamination had failed to achieve its target maximum. This was discovered only when suspicious villagers had performed their own gamma surveys. Since the [environment] ministry hasn’t explicitly promised to do such work again, municipalities are increasingly concerned about the future of the decontamination process.

All the same, the village was already partially reinhabited. The Prime Minister had called it a front-runner in rebuilding, and the headmaster of the elementary school predicted that he would soon have more than 20 pupils, although the student body appeared unlikely [to] return to three digits. That was in March 2013. A year later, the place now pondered permitting its residents to sleep there overnight—another heartwarming indication that there was “no immediate danger.”

On a recent printout, courtesy of the Japan Broadcasting Corporation, Kawauchi’s radiation level was listed as a mild 0.059 micros per hour—half of Iwaki’s reading, and for that matter less than I received at my kitchen counter in Sacramento.* Were this situation to endure, a steady resident would take in only half a milli per year. Unfortunately, if that Tokyo anti-nuclear activist Mr. Yamasaki spoke rightly, Kawauchi actually presented the second highest radiation level of any inhabited place in Japan, the worst being the infamously poisoned settlement of Iitate, which during my visit in 2011 had always been an ugly spot on morning television’s news-maps. For all I could tell, Mr. Yamasaki and the JBC might both have been correct. “Kawauchi varies according to the place,” said the former. “If it’s far from the plant, the residents have already returned.”

On a crisp cloudy Saturday morning, we rolled cheerfully in a new taxi out of Iwaki toward Tomioka, since the direct route to Kawauchi remained snowed in. The sea was a paler blue than before, and my third driver, older, greyhaired and elegant, wore a white pinstripe shirt, a grey vest and a grey shirt.—He had believed the same as the others; he never fled. About the radiation he said: “There’s nothing to do but trust them.” But unlike the first driver, he blamed Tepco as much as bad luck.

Just as we passed those black-clad bundles of radioactive waste, the dosimeter coincidentally registered another digit.

Here came the familiar sign for Tomioka Town, which must have merely indicated the border of Tomioka Township, although just now as we began to descend through the forest, the only structure yet visible was the stack of Plant No. 2 looming over the trees to our right. Then came the broken Grand Hotel.

The driver remarked that only recently had this sector been opened. He believed that the radiation was lower than before. Well, why shouldn’t life be getting better?

So we came into Tomioka, past that same decontamination crew still working on the same house as two days before, then curved around west on Highway 36, the Joban-do, heading toward Kawauchi. No one else was on the road. Here and there in the center of the straw-colored fields stood those neat black bags of contaminated matter. The driver remarked that these places had not yet been “scraped” as he put it.—“The bags will be taken to that incineration place,” he said.*

The Joban-do had just today reopened “due to lowered radiation levels,” he said. A sign announced 20 kilometers to Kawauchi. So many bags in field after field! There was snow on the side of the highway. We passed these silent yet not entirely unkempt houses on Tomioka’s outskirts, ascended toward the snow-crusted mountains and crossed a bridge into a mountain tunnel whose flashing sign proclaimed 6° Celsius. It looked very lovely and natural now, that snowy forest, those leafless trees and evergreens. There came another long tunnel, with still no other vehicle in sight; we passed a dam, took tunnel after tunnel and presently began to go down along the side of a steep snowy river gorge, with the river frozen and snowed over far below. Telling the driver to stop for a moment, I stepped out, breathing a lovely fresh-smelling wind, which happily was not blowing from the poisonous direction. Orange and golden leaves twitched on a sapling down at the edge of the steep snowhill, where a narrow channel of brown river was open. I gazed at the lovely snowiness of the Takikawa* Mountains, finding nothing about which to spread my harmful rumors, except for snow and clouds.

A sign informed us that we were now entering Kawauchi Village, which, by the way, lay 25 kilometers from Nuclear Plant No. 1. I did not yet recognize any part of the place, for we were coming from the opposite direction I had taken three years ago, when this side had been prohibited due to radioactivity.

I saw silent houses piled with snow. The driver said: “Younger people won’t return yet. Only recently some factories started up again.”

Here hunched a house covered with snow, then trees covered with snow, a gate soft with snow—almost romantic. The snow appeared clean, and house-icicles shone crystal-bright. Now on the snow-lined highway we finally came into car traffic, not much—all from construction workers, said the driver; they were preparing to widen the road.

A snowed-over tatami store, a side road of virgin snow a foot high, snow smooth and high across the little bridge over the Kawauchi River, snow heaped around and on top of a cemetery’s dark steles, such was the village on that day. Presently I recognized the park where I had seen a policeman walk toward the toilet three years earlier; it was snowed over. Stopping the taxi, I turned around to face the former checkpoint, which had left no memorial.

Excepting some workers in the streets, even downtown looked deserted; but outside the Kawauchi Village Residence to Promote Young People’s Settlement I saw a path shoveled through the snow, almost clean, with only a few icy stretches, and the foyer was unlocked. There came a dripping of snow from the roofs. The interpreter and I rang doorbells. Failing to interview first a teenaged girl whose mother had a cold, then a man who had no time, we set out in search of better prey, the spoor being wet newspapers in a mailbox, a few fresh paths carved out.

Snow-heaped entrance of abandoned home, Kawauchi

Here was the barbershop by which I had stood watching the line of policemen at the checkpoint. On that spring day in 2011 it had been closed, and likewise every other shop on the street, whose clean emptiness had been far more disturbing to me than its present snowy quietude, for I tend to think of winter as the season when businesses shut down. Gazing at the barbershop, I tried to determine how changed it appeared today. For one thing, there was now a ridge of icy slushy snow between the street and the front door, whose curtained window was mostly occluded by two posters, one of which bore no characters; the other was an advertisement for the Perm hair pack, above which the tiny stripe of exposed window was very dark. Above that was another dark window, which appeared to be frosted halfway up the inside. Between the snow and the door, the threshold had been swept or shoveled clear, not today but recently, and a few footprints darkened the thin white dusting that had accrued there like an extra microsievert on the dosimeter—which I pulled out of my shirt pocket, pleased to see that its reading remained unchanged since Iwaki. The barber pole was clean. I could not perceive anything at all sinister. As an Iwakian might say: “It’s invisible, so I don’t feel anything.”

Kawauchi barbershop, 2011 and 2014

Indeed, the dosimeter held steady for the entire hour and a half I spent in Kawauchi, which surprised me after the newspaper’s claims about the failure of decontamination, but Mr. Kanari had told me that whenever Iwaki city workers took scintillation counts over snow, that reading likewise would be lower. And perhaps Mr. Yamasaki had exaggerated; maybe the Japan Broadcasting Company was spot on.

Walking farther eastward on that street which used to be the dividing line between restricted and voluntary evacuation zones, the interpreter and I reached a house which I remembered as empty. Inside, a very little old woman, bent over, peered at us through a window. When I rang the bell, she came to the door and pretended to be deaf, but while the interpreter was sweet-talking her, there came a moderately elderly man (he was 55, a year older than I) in a dark down jacket, with kind eyes and creases in his tight thin face. He answered my questions there on the snowy porch.

“That’s my mother,” he said. “My parents live here. They came back in November 2012.”

(It is worth reminding ourselves here that at this time officially nobody was supposed to be staying here overnight. Thus the leniency of Japanese enforcement, which we shall have occasion to see several more times in these pages.)

“How much of Kawauchi is inhabited now?” I asked.

“About half, but that actually means four days a week; then they return to their temporary housing in Koriyama and elsewhere. Only about 20% are settled for good.”

That explained why the place was so quiet. On the weekend most people would stay away.

“So your mother feels safe?”

“Because she is elderly, it’s no use worrying about radiation. Of course she feels lonely; that’s why I am visiting her. The children will never come anymore. When there was a funeral” (I think he meant his father’s), “ordinarily we would have held it here, but we had to arrange it for a different place. The grandchildren wouldn’t come; that is the result of some fear information.”

“And how do you feel here?”

“Me? To carry out ordinary activities it’s fine here. In Koriyama the radiation is higher than here! That’s on account of the wind. So there are those who return here, but those who have settled in Koriyama and other places, they get used to the life and the conveniences there; now it’s already been three years . . .”

“Would you yourself ever come back?”

“No,” he said. “Actually, I would like to take my mother to where my wife is. When the road is widened, we will have to take down this house anyway.”

“What are your conclusions about the nuclear accident?”

Until now we had been standing outside, but at this he invited us in, and the old mother began to make green tea. “Because my mother doesn’t have many friends and the grandchildren never come, she’s happy to serve tea.”

“I used to work for Tepco,” he began. “But I was not directly involved in the nuclear power plant. My work had to do with buying and leasing of land for construction. Basically, my personal opinion is that given that original 1960 design, it was risky to choose that location at all. The major problem with the emergency power generator was that it was installed at sea level, not in the correct place. All the contract workers were saying so, including me.”

“When the accident occurred, were you surprised, or did you think this was to be expected?”

“The upper level management and I all entered the company at the same time, so we consider ourselves classmates. All of us can talk honestly in spite of rank differences. None of us could expect this bad situation.”

“Do you consider nuclear power safe?”

“A nuclear power plant, yes, you can make it safe. I share Prime Minister Abe’s opinion: It’s good to gradually reduce the use of nuclear energy, but now it’s like our blood, our life. All the nuclear plants are currently stopped. You cannot maintain this situation forever,” he said as our emerald green tea was served by the grandmother in her green kerchief and baggy quilted clothes.

“What will Kawauchi look like in the future? Will it come back?”

He laughed. “Probably it will eventually die out. The families with young children won’t live here.”

“What should people in America and other outside places learn from what has happened here?”

“The major problem, well, for Tepco it was only a matter of cost that prevented them from building a dike or siting the emergency power generator in a higher place.”

“When will it be safe to walk up to the reactor and touch it?”

“In my opinion, from Highway 6, which they opened just today, all the way to the reactor site, probably that entire area will be closed, and maybe in a hundred years there will be a sign stating THIS IS WHERE THE DISASTER OCCURRED A CENTURY AGO. That area will be used for nuclear waste. That’s just my idea.”*

“Do you feel any grief or regret about Kawauchi Village? What do you miss most?”

The interpreter said: “He doesn’t answer directly. But he says: I have land in the Difficult To Return Zone. Due to the road construction, we knew that we must demolish this house, and we had hoped to relocate onto this other land. When my mother heard—you see, she’s 88 years old . . . and when I become as old as she, in 30 years, well, I just feel . . . Well, you can’t help it. There is nothing I can do, nothing in my power. Therefore, one can only change one’s attitude. I have to be positive, considering that this is a kind of opportunity.* What is lucky is that since the road must come through here, we have to move. The other houses will stay, but no children will ever come.”

Presently he added: “The Kawauchi village head wishes to increase the population, of course, so he proposes to settle decontamination workers here . . .”

“How long have your family lived in Kawauchi?”

“Maybe a hundred years.”

The old lady, who no longer pretended to be deaf, had become ever more animated as the subject turned to the family and its history. Her son said: “Even from the time of her grandparents we have been here. We once moved to Tokyo, but we moved back.”

The old woman interjected: “My husband was born four kilometers from here. He died last May.”

“What have you liked most about this place?”

She smiled. Her teeth were lovely white. She said: “The air is clean!” (I checked my dosimeter.) “It’s a good place. I went to Koriyama after the disaster, but I came back here.”

“Is it safe to grow vegetation in the soil now?”

Her son replied: “I think so. I’m not sure. The health bulletin warned us not to eat mushrooms or honey. We were all so shocked! People no longer go deep into the woods to gather mushrooms. After the disaster, the number of wild boars increased. But if you kill one, you will find that the meat is shockingly radioactive.”

In that small tatami room, with the old lady half tucked in under the blanket, I watched the clouds and dripping snow through the window and thought what a pleasant home it was. I told them so; the mother seemed happy.

Like so many others, they did not wish to be photographed. He wished his name to appear here as Mr. M. Y. An engineer for 15 years, he had worked for Tepco for 33—until 2011, I presume. I asked him how he was getting along financially, and he said that he was managing.

MY THIRD TOMIOKA IDYLL

Now the sun had come out; it was warming a little; and there were wavering shadows of a railing upon the sunny snow from which it barely emerged, drops of water sparkling on a young pine before a snowed-in deserted house, blinding heaps of snow.

As I said, the dosimeter remained unchanged during that entire hour and a half in Kawauchi. A red-cheeked municipal worker was standing by the snowplow, directing traffic with his signal flag right there where the checkpoint used to be.

I asked the taxi driver what he made of it all. “This is the first time I’ve been here since the disaster, so I don’t really know. Certainly some companies start to come in gradually and along with that some people will come back, but young people haven’t come back.”

Presently we were returning down the snowy hill into Tomioka Township, with neatly numbered bags of radioactive waste at one snowy roadside point between tunnels; then I got a glimpse of the blue and doubtless radioactive sea to the left.

As we reentered the town itself there were so many bags of waste. In the driver’s opinion we were maybe 15 kilometers from No. 1. The dosimeter was still at 0.278.

The first few houses looked better than the others, perhaps since the ground beneath them had been firmer, the driver said.

Here came more of those rectangularly organized bunches of waste on the fields beneath the clouds, then a broken greenhouse.—Pointing at a rectangle of bare dirt, the driver explained: “This was all vegetable field. Where you see grass, they haven’t decontaminated yet.”

We had now reached what must have been the city center, where streetlights were glowing even then in the middle of the day, probably to deter theft, which the driver said was frequent. Later that year I attempted a night visit, and found the whole district barricaded off; that was how I learned for certain that this was the yellow zone. A frozen convulsion of blinds hung in a shattered window whose shards lay dustless in the street, so that the damage must have been recent and therefore caused by robbers or wild boar.

Central business district, Tomioka

I requested him to stop. Wandering here and there along that long still highway with its dead shops and homes on either side, and all of these shuttered and darkened, some of them smashed, with weeds standing dead before them on the snowy sidewalks, I tried to learn something that I could tell you here, but my thoughts and speculations resembled the broken glass breaking again beneath my heels.

I asked the driver what he thought of Tomioka. He said: “When I see this, I have no words.”

Interior of garment shop

We entered a garment store, where some of the forms lay cast down, the rest still standing like sadly eerie silhouettes of headless legless armless women; and a vacuum cleaner had fallen over on its side. A portion of the rack nearest to the road was stripped, as if the robbers had begun there, then gotten scared and rushed away. In the back office with its old telephone, most of the books and ledgers were still in place, but papers lay all over the floor. Had someone been hunting for money, or was it the earthquake that had done this? Returning to the dark cold show floor, gazing out at the snowy street, I stood for awhile, trying to understand. I cannot certainly say why it was that of all the places in Tomioka I visited, this felt the eeriest. A tinsel wreath lay at my feet, and on the pillaged rack was a sign for a 50% off sale. I almost found myself listening for something or someone, but that was nearly as futile as expecting there to be life within the dark forms of these dressmaker’s dummies. It was too dark to read the dosimeter, so I stepped out into the snow, wind and broken glass of the main street, where weeds marched in twin rows, one on each edge of the sidewalk. Across the road, more of those disarticulated blinds were twisting down with all their metal fingers gaping open and apart like frozen broomstraws or great pine needles. A broken shutter was trembling, creaking and clattering ever more loudly, and some other metal thing was hissing and whispering almost like leaves.

In those cold dark doorways and burgled storefronts, as in the deceitful snowy softness of Kawauchi, I should have been able to find something that would help me know how bad it really was. As I paced here and there, longing to understand this, my feet crushed more of those great and small shards of glass on the sidewalk which lay reflecting clouds. Who could tell me what I wished to learn?—Not the driver, perhaps not Mr. Kanari and Mr. Kida, maybe not Mr. Yamasaki and certainly not one of those dressmaker’s forms cast down in broken glass.

The dosimeter remained at its Kawauchi reading. I had the driver continue on to TSUBA and wait.* As I got out of the taxi, on the loudspeaker there suddenly came the voice of the robot girl, less distorted and echoey than before, probably just because I was used to it. She was saying: “If you incinerate something or use incense, be careful not to start a fire.”

Across the street from the garment shop

As always, I thought to go inside TSUBA and explore, but there were many weeds and shrubs between the place’s gashed facade and me; I wondered how much fallout they held.

Down an empty road the interpreter and I began walking east, toward the ocean. There came a scuttering of darkness in a deserted greenhouse. It was just the reflection of my moving knees and lower legs, but my heart jumped.

The robot girl was now reminding Tomioka’s former inhabitants: “For temporary housing people, make sure to kill the breaker before you leave, and lock the door to prevent thieves.” This was what Mrs. Kuwahara, Mrs. Yoshida and all the others would hear on those rare occasions when they came to check on their desolate homes.

Pointing, the interpreter said: “This must have been a very nice house. The owner must have been very proud.”

There were dark clouds over the working class houses with their yellow danger tape. Perhaps it would rain. I tasted metal in my mouth; I don’t know why.

Wandering over one of the barriers, I reentered the forbidden zone, but the weeds were high and it seemed foolish to touch them. Half a kilometer away, a traditional Japanese house stood on the horizon. The roof was damaged. For some reason the place drew me, but I could think of no good reason for going there. The landscape looked more or less the same; all I would have done would be to subject myself, and, if she came, the brave and faithful interpreter, to a greater risk of cancer. Never once had she ever said: “I won’t do this; it’s too dangerous.” Who was I, to abuse her loyalty like some Tepco manager? So I stepped back across the barrier where she stood patiently waiting. Then we resumed our eastward promenade, passing a lone sewer camera worker. It began to seem more like a country walk; there was even a single bird. The forest was more unkempt than wild. Presently we reached two more bags of radioactive waste. One was black and one was grey. They made me worry, but the dosimeter did not increase—oh, yes, exactly now it went up another point (coincidence again).

Returning to TSUBA where the driver waited, we began to roll home to Iwaki, back through the wall of mental ice. To please us the driver made a brief side trip to the second checkpoint of Nuclear Plant No. 2, where we had to turn around before the gate. Then we continued south. Not far over the crest of the hill was a large half-wrecked Japanese-style house, almost a mansion, and on the grounds toiled a squad of decontamination workers. There were patrols and platoons of others all about, slowly scraping dirt and leaning on their shovels beside the black and grey bags there in Naraha.

On a lovely bluff, we stood looking down at the Kido River, whose scenery was now decorated with black bags. The tsunami had come here, but I could see no sign of it. The driver said: “This river is very famous for salmon. Now they still come upstream but we’re not allowed to catch them.”

On the bluff behind us there were so many black bags and workers swarming around them—evidently a joint venture of Maeda, Konsike and Dai-Nippon Civil Engineering. It was disgusting how the black bags went on and on.

5: The Harvest Festival

“No, I’m not worried about any thieves,” answered Mr. Endo Kazuhiro,* “since my home is not gorgeous. I wish the thieves would clean it up! I was born there. I’m the fourth generation—more than a hundred years, almost 200. The house is not gorgeous, just old. The roof is traditional farmer’s thatch.”

“In what district is it?”

“To the west, along the Kawauchi road. It looks all right from the outside,” he laughed. “I was there last year in summer. I only went to visit my ancestors’ tombs.”

“When was that?”

“On the first of August. I think it was about four microsieverts”—per hour, it must have been, although if he had mostly stayed in a vehicle that could also have been his total accrued dose. In company with everyone else, he was unsure of the measurement units. Thus one of the reasons that Iwaki people threw up their hands and shut out harmful rumors. I might have done the same.

“What did you most enjoy about your childhood in Tomioka?”

“I lived close to the mountain, and in my childhood I seldom came to the sea. The landscape was prettier then than now. In the past there were almost no roads like this”—as we sped by a row of black bags on an Iwaki beach. “The kids played hide and seek and kick the can. We waded in the river. There were wild boars and foxes—also raccoons, although we didn’t see them so often. Now most of the humans are gone, so the animals might be more rampant.”

“You don’t think they die from radiation?”

“I don’t think so.”

“So they’re stronger in that way than humans?”

He laughed. “I don’t know. There are some abandoned pets . . .”

He always liked to drive alongside the ocean as far north as he could. He did not recommend the swimming nowadays. In between black bags the shorescape appeared lovely and even harmless. I asked him to tell me more about his life. He said: “In my 20s I went to Tokyo for 10 years. I learned a lot of bad things, like drinking!” He laughed again. “In Tokyo I was a truck driver. After I came back here, I was employed by a waste disposal company from my 30s, collecting garbage, sewage and so on. The nuclear power plant had been built even before I was 20.”

“Based on your experience in the field, is decontamination effective?”

“Not at all! It’s the most wasteful, useless activity.”

“Who’s making the money?”

“General contractors from Tokyo City and this prefecture. If we all work together and voice our opposition strongly, we might be effective, but as it is we’re too weak.”

On this first springlike day when suddenly the birds were singing, I would have rolled down the window to breathe fresh air, but Mr. Endo liked the heat on, and anyhow the breeze seemed to be blowing directly south from No. 1. Halfway to Tomioka the dosimeter had already accrued an extra microsievert. This made me pull it out of my shirt pocket more frequently, but after that it remained at 0.287 accrued millis.

I inquired regarding relations with the Iwaki people, and he said: “The area around our temporary housing has good households, and the local elders take good care of us. In that area they’re nice to us.”

Then I asked, just to see what he would say, whether he considered Iwaki people selfish,* and he readily changed his tone. “It’s just rumor, but I heard that one former Tomioka resident purchased land in Iwaki and built a house. Then he went to greet the neighbors as is our custom, but they said: No, we cannot be friends with you because you are from Tomioka.—I hear that the city of Iwaki has accepted from the central government forty or fifty thousand yen per refugee. So it’s not right that Iwaki people be so mean.”

According to his information, the temporary housing was supposed to close “in about five years, although this may be postponed.”

“After five more years of radioactive decay, will Tomioka be safe?”*

“Regardless of natural decay, I believe that it will take 20 years.” For an instant he fell silent, as if he might be contemplating those 20 years. (As you and I now know, 20 years would fall short of even one cesium half-life. But decontamination and rainfall might work wonders.) Then he said: “Elderly people will die naturally before radiation cancer affects them, so they wouldn’t mind returning. I myself won’t return. I don’t know if my children will come back.”

His eldest child was already 33. “Regrettably, none of them are married yet, so I have no grandchild,” he laughed.

“How is your wife managing nowadays?”

“So-so. At least she’s not sick.”

“Do you know anyone who has come down with radiation sickness?”

“I believe that some of the workers at the No. 1 site are sick, but this information won’t be leaked; the families will be paid off to keep it secret.”

“What do you miss the most about Tomioka?”

“There was a shrine at the mountain, and we always held a torch festival there. This event I cannot experience again,” he said in his gravelly voice, steering one-handed now to gesture at the air. “And I used to fish in the river. We played in the mountains in our generation . . .”

“How did Tomioka get its name?”

“Ah, I don’t know, but the character containing oka means ‘hill.’ Tomioka may mean ‘rich hill,’ but since the township is based on the consolidation of several small villages I cannot say exactly.”

Then he remarked: “When we were told to evacuate, everyone thought we could come back in a few days, so we didn’t take so many things.”

“When your friends and neighbors return to Tomioka, how long do they feel safe staying here?”

“Six hours, and only during the daytime. You’re not allowed to stay at night. There’s electricity, but no water, so you can’t stay. If you pay for electricity, it will come. But no water, not yet.”

“What’s the longest anyone has stayed?”

“Six to eight hours.”

“How do you feel about Tepco?”

“When we were young, when the Tepco plant was built here, we were very thankful to finally be able to work locally. In this area, when you say, I got a good job, that means, I’m a Tepco employee or a civil servant.”

MY FOURTH TOMIOKA IDYLL

As we reached the border of Tomioka Township, that familiar tingling metallic taste came into my mouth—surely psychosomatic. The snow had almost all melted as we came down the hill, slowed by a crush of construction vehicles. Now we had already passed No. 2.

“What do you think about nuclear power nowadays?”

“At this stage, I’m against it, because the response to the accident has been so poor. If the government cares to restart any of these nuclear plants, they’d better do a much better job.”

When we rolled into Tomioka the dosimeter was still at 0.287 millisieverts, and I expected it to accrue digits rapidly, but in fact it registered only one additional microsievert during our two hours there, the most non-radioactive visit I ever had to that place, at least so far as gamma rays were concerned. If I claimed otherwise I would be spreading harmful rumors. The fact that the breeze now blew from the northwest must have borne on our pleasant situation, and it might have advantaged us that we soon turned off Highway 6, which Mr. Kanari had measured for me just the other day with his scintillation meter: 3.72 microsieverts per hour, as you may recall—doubtless the result of all those decontamination trucks grinding in and out of that main checkpoint. While we were still south of the pachinko parlor TSUBA, Mr. Endo swung east, and much more quickly than I had expected we came in sight of the sea, which, to be sure, still lay some distance away, across the tsunami-leveled plain of grassy foundations. We parked at Tomioka Station, and I asked to stroll about for a moment. A television crew happened to be there; its members wore paper facemasks which might at least have kept the alpha and beta particles out. As for us, we amused ourselves with the old joke that there was “no immediate danger.”

So we looked across the ruined railroad tracks at the forgotten foundations and high grass; we gazed at the green-blue sea.

Remains of Japan Rail station. For a view of this place in 2017, see II:623.

“I’ll bet there are deformed fish over there,” he said with a grim laugh.

Now he wished to go. Begging his indulgence for another moment, I walked up the earthquake-damaged stairs, following the helpful arrows in the direction of the former Iwaki line. Fortunately the stairs did not give way, so I crossed the high enclosed bridge over the tracks, stepping on broken glass and whole panes, all of which lay fairly dustless. I stood looking at the sea. It would have been pleasant to wander through that tall grass and come to the shore, but Mr. Kanari’s vegetation measurements the other day had made me more cautious, perhaps because the freshening breeze now changed direction and blew dust in my face, so instead I returned across the bridge to the near side of the station, where cables dangled down like fingers over the platform, and I breathed in that cool sea breeze, no matter how poisonous it might have been. Which plutonium isotope had escaped from No. 3 in 2011? Was its half-life 253 minutes, 88 years or 24 millennia? The latter, warned a Japanese muckraker—for No. 3 was a pluthermal reactor designed to produce plutonium-239. When I returned home, Ed Lyman consoled me: “According to measurement, the plutonium seems to be a relatively small fraction of the radiological hazard—one ten-thousandth or less.”* But he added that all measurements of this disaster’s nuclear contaminants remained incomplete. Well, well; in any case we must admit that this famous “pluthermal” reactor proved itself to be a true credit to the industry.

Now more than at any other time during this return to Fukushima I was reminded of how the coast of Tohoku had looked three years ago, just after the earthquake and tsunami, for here by the seashore remained wreckage and the broken-open ugliness of things, cars slammed into crazy positions . . .—but even in this place I felt a slight sense of mellowness, since the tidal wave’s mucky filth was gone, and grass had begun to soften the dead streetscapes into something forlorn and shabby rather than outright raw. In some of this weed-grown decrepitude there had even begun to shine, at least in my eyes, those classical Japanese “rusty beauties” called wabi and sabi,* but of course they must have been poisoned.

On the west side of the street stood a Chinese restaurant with a square hole in it.—“I think there was a second floor,” said Mr. Endo.

“How was the food there?”

“I don’t like Chinese cuisine anyway. I was not impressed, but then I was not even impressed by Yokohama’s Chinatown.”

I expressed my pleasure at the excellent radiation reading, and Mr. Endo remarked: “They say it’s pretty low over there.”

“See that one?” he said, smiling as if it were a joke. “That building had just been built!”

We stood on that still street with the brown weeds growing up between wrecked cars, and daylight shining through a hole in the back of an apartment building. Then we reentered his car and began rolling up west again, with the high grass thickening as we went. I glimpsed yellow tape over an especially ruined house, a patch of snow beneath a shaded house, down through this sad weediness and up again, the visible damage rapidly lessening now that we were out of the tsunami’s reach. When I remarked on this, Mr. Endo said: “They may look good on the outside, but once the roof tiles are gone, the rain comes in.”

A single policeman stood by a checkpoint at a narrow street. The light had already begun lowering, and as we ascended westward there were more patches of snow in the brown grass.

“Here in the beginning along the river there were a lot of loose cattle,” Mr. Endo said. “They had to be killed because they entered houses.”

Rolling past what appeared to be a vast vacant lot in front of some decrepit and vaguely official edifice, he said: “There’s the elementary school from which I graduated. At that time the building was still wooden.”

There was never any self-pity in anything he said. He was such a strong and cheerful man, so Japanese in his bright brave patience.

Here came a ruined neighborhood, two black bags by the roadside, and then we turned down a boulevard of leafless cherry trees whose tops reached toward each other across the road and nearly met above our heads. Mr. Endo said: “When they’re in bloom, it’s so beautiful, like a cherry blossom tunnel! But now they’re not maintained.”

This district was called Yonomori (which perhaps means “night forest”).

He pointed out the branch railroad station. I could hardly see it through the weeds. Then came more black bags, snow and brown grass. Two workers were loading black bags into a truck; we passed a lovely bamboo forest, and then a man in white coveralls was feeling the ground with some sort of wand, perhaps a scintillation counter. Now we had driven into Chuka District—which was an old name, he said, not a formal one.

“There’s my house,” he said, pointing through the snow. “But it’s overgrown now, not really presentable.”

I said that I would very much like to see it, so he turned in past a lovely dirty mound of snow, carefully driving over slushy ice on a narrow uncleared road, the car swaying and laboring; I wondered whether we would get stuck. Then over the snow-covered road a bird flew up as the brassy female voice roared about protective gear.

“That’s our garden,” he said. “But the bamboo grew! It’s a forest!* Three years ago there wasn’t any.”

Walking through soft snow, pushing our way through waist-high weeds, I wondered how contaminated these surfaces might be. One block away the red zone began; later I would stroll up to that barricade, but without a scintillation counter, what could I perceive there but harmful rumors? There loomed a dead freeway underpass, out of which an unpleasant breeze blew into my face. I preferred the windless thicket around Mr. Endo’s house. Meanwhile the dosimeter remained at 0.287, but that meant nothing; even at 72 times Iwaki’s radiation level it might not turn over another microsievert for a quarter-hour.

Mr. Endo Kazuhiro in front of his former home

So we entered the bamboo grove, which had grown up around three parked vehicles, and was pretty enough in its way; and presently we reached the house.

Mr. Endo led the way around two fallen lockers. Once upon a time they had secured his tools. Removing a spacer from the track of the glass door, he slid it open; there’d been no reason to lock it.

Rat droppings speckled shoes, boots, a fan, a vacuum cleaner, shelves and chairs, which were all tipped and tilted by the earthquake into a waist-high jumble within the dankness of his former home. He did not invite me in and anyhow I saw no point in further trawling through that melancholy disorder, so I took a photograph or two; then he closed the door.

Brown wisteria had grown up over the house. The robot girl was roaring and echoing.

“What did you take when you evacuated?”

“I got my bank book and family seal, and my parents’ portrait.”

“When was your wife’s last visit here?”

“She came just once to visit the tombs of our ancestors. Otherwise she prefers not to see this.”*

There he stood, with his cap tilted upward on his forehead, staring at the wisteria whose creepers aimed at him, bullwhips frozen in mid-crackle, reflecting themselves in the front window, hanging off the roof. I wondered whether he felt any impulse to fight them.

He showed us the family persimmon tree, remarking: “It was here when I was born.” The fruit was of the bitter type, most suitable for drying.* Beside it grew their loquat, whose fruit, he confessed, was also not so delicious.

There in the fallen leaves beneath the bamboo lay his daughter’s abandoned car along with two other old vehicles which he had used for storage back in the day. The doors were unlocked, of course. Mr. Endo thought for a moment, then took out the young woman’s fishing rod from the back seat, remarking, as if this feature had once pleased him: “This rod extends for 10 meters.”

We wandered around his archaeological site. I could tell that he wished to be gone, and I felt guilty to have dragged him here, but I also thought that coming here with him was the right thing, for my sake and yours.

He was now 62. When he was 60 the accident had occurred. He said: “I wanted to be a subsistence rice farmer in my retirement. Right here by the road, this was my field, 300 tsuba.* The other one was my neighbor’s. Elsewhere I had two other ricefields; one of them was near a pond. Well, that was my dream.”

“Will you ever live here again?”

“The house is contaminated with radioactivity. Once the waste site for the location has been established, we will demolish the house. Owners are compensated in proportion to tsunami and earthquake damage. My house is less than half collapsed, so I must take care of the demolition myself. It would have been better if it had collapsed.”*

I wish you could have been with me in that tall, brown grass, with those head-high weeds all around and his house half vanished under the bamboo. (Call it another manifestation of sabi.) There we stood in the cool wind and the snow, and that home of his so shabby and forgotten with the wisteria crawling up the roof and the bamboo already three times as high as the house.

“Soon the wisteria will crush it,” he said, almost smiling. “It’s more dangerous than the bamboo.”

Across the snow-drifted street from his house was a modern brick building where the neighbors once dwelled: a husband and wife with three children. “They live in Iwaki. Sometimes we see each other and drink together.”—I remarked that their house looked pretty good. He said, “Inside, it’s as messy as mine.”

Then we began to drive away, with the car sliding and almost sticking in the snow. I felt a quiet horror . . . but hordes of crows were cawing over the fields. With their rapid metabolisms, shouldn’t they have quickly died? Well, perhaps they did, and new ones flew in. I remembered how Mrs. Kuwahara at the Tomioka Life Recovery Support Center had insisted that she never saw dead animals except those that had starved to death. The rats in Mr. Endo’s house certainly survived long enough to breed. And, as Mr. Kanari had said, “Inside the house shouldn’t be such a problem” with radioactivity.

So what if my 10 half-lives calculation were faulty? Weren’t Kawauchi and Hirono partially open to return, with Naraha regaining some daytime use? According to that intrepid nuclear experimenter, the U.S. Army, after the first 48 hours the extent of radioactivity will be reduced a hundredfold, enabling you to leave the shelter . . . At the end of two weeks, the radiation level will decrease a thousand times. If this were true (as I wished it to be), then the Iwaki people would be correct in their quotidian calmness.

“The issue,” remarked Ed Lyman, “is how uniform are the hot spots?”

He believed that the levels were dropping more rapidly in urban areas, whose non-absorbent surfaces caused the cesium to wash away (into the water table, perhaps); while forests and open meadows retained their higher counts. It seemed only right to him, and I agree, that every returning resident be given a good dosimeter, and that anyone who did not wish to accept a one-thousandth concentration of poisons over prior background levels be compensated and permitted to leave.

Mr. Endo meanwhile asserted: “The government says they are trying to force the people to return.”

If I were him, I would stay away.

We drove along. Certain deserted homes sometimes looked less unkempt, so I inquired: “Are the decontamination people actually pulling up weeds?”

“It simply appears that way because the weeds die in winter and then new ones grow up.”

Mr. Endo now pulled in at one of those Tepco establishments in which the robot girl kept advising decontaminators to shed their protective gear before leaving the exclusion zone. This station, the only one in its area, was near the former Futaba Rose Garden. The Tepco men here called themselves the “voluntary checking forces.” Mr. Endo wished to have his daughter’s fishing rod tested. As I stepped up onto the sidewalk to photograph this action, which involved a device similar to the scintillation counter I had seen, a Tepco man immediately cautioned me to move; they had not yet decontaminated that spot, and while the street was a mild 0.95, the “background” read 500. When I asked what the units were, he replied that they were cpms, counts per minute. I wished to know how cpms related to microsieverts per minute or per hour, but the man didn’t answer, perhaps because he didn’t know. Five hundred micros per minute would not have been too healthful, so I certainly hoped that cpms were a different animal. When I asked the Tepco man what kind of radiation his counter measured, he answered: “Beta waves.” This of course was what mine could not measure. The limit was 13,000 cpms, they said; “above that we clean.”

Frisking the fishing rod

I asked one of them to test my shoes after all these times in Tomioka. He did. I asked him what the count was, and he wouldn’t say; he merely told me that I had no problem. He scolded me for not having worn shoe covers and a mask. Anyhow, he and his colleagues were all wearing naked tennis shoes.

Wondering how to interpret the Tepco units, I asked Ed Lyman, who said: “Assuming that it’s beta decay from cesium-137, which is most likely, and that it’s not contributing to a whole body dose, which is just an assumption, you could convert cpms to millirems by dividing by 1,000.”

In other words,

SIDEWALK:

500 cpms = 0.5 millirems = 5 microsieverts / hour = 43.8 millisieverts / year*

and

MINIMUM LEVEL REQUIRED FOR “CLEANING”:

13,000 cpms = 13 millirems = 130 microsieverts / hour =

1,138.8 millisieverts (or 1.14 sieverts) / year

I could certainly see why Tepco might find it advisable to “clean” pollution of more than a sievert a year! Perhaps the interpreter had misheard, or the man had misspoken, and the correct figure was 13 micros an hour, how would I know?* Forty-four annual millisieverts was not so good, either. Upon me, of course, the sidewalk had bestowed perhaps [5 micros per hour × 1 hour / 3,600 seconds × at most 15 seconds, or] 0.0208 micros. Even an hour’s worth of radiation, 5 microsieverts, would have constituted “no immediate danger.”

But as for the sidewalk’s level of 5 micros per hour, to me personally that was unpleasantly informative. Tomioka might be more unhealthy than I had supposed.—Despite that possibility, I let myself remain an honorary Iwakian, “because it’s invisible.” Since the alpha and beta in the windborne dust failed to register in whatever enumeration of my cumulative cellular damage appeared upon the narrow grey screen at the dosimeter’s end, I managed to live the good life, only occasionally wondering what might be on my shoes. Mr. Kanari had said that he never worried much about radiation; when he got home he shampooed his hair and called it a day. Of course, Tomioka had been different even for him. Never mind! “I eat what is in front of me.” “I don’t think twice about it.” “I’m kind of dull. I just think this area is safe,” and I remembered a photo of the horrid hourglass of a beta burn on the neck one month after exposure—but hopefully that derived from an acute dose from a nuclear weapon, not from chronic exposure after a reactor accident.

By this time, poor Mr. Endo would have really liked to get away, but I asked if we could please stop by the shrine he had mentioned, so he kindly drove there; it was not far, the road was empty, of course, and the dosimeter remained steady. The characters on the gate read “Hayama Shrine.”*

Leaving the car, we walked toward a wide hill of trees. Given what Ed Lyman said about radiation declines in porous versus nonporous surfaces, not to mention Mr. Kanari’s measurement of that bamboo grove, I would imagine that the lovely shady place could have dosed us nicely with beta rays. And how much of a dose had we accrued in our earlier weed-meanderings? Fortunately, I prefer to think of radiation as a sort of vitamin. That way I won’t spread harmful rumors.

“Whom is this shrine to?”

“I don’t know. We just go there on the festival to pray for the good harvest. Young men climb to the top of the mountain; and then if you see the flame at the top of the mountain from your house, the harvest will be good.”

The festival took place every August fifteenth.

“We used to circle this shrine building and then use the path to circle the mountain. At the beginning we’d run,” he laughed, “but then we’d get tired. It takes 45 minutes or an hour. When we get close to the top we start running again.”

Only men carried the torch. Mr. Endo had done it every year from age 16 to 40.

One of the two stone guardian dogs had fallen; and not far from his cracked corpse rose the wide stone steps, across which a heavy branch had lately fallen. A great block of joined stones had also toppled, partially smashing the concrete wall upon which it lay, half sunken in the earth behind.

At the top of the stairs I saw weeds on the edge of the shrine porch, darkness under the eaves.

“What happened to the priest?”

“There is none. On festival days we borrow a priest,” he chuckled.

We stood looking down from the torus at a plain of black bags. Then we looked at the forested hill above the shrine, the place of dead leaves and lovely tall pines.

“It’s hard to get up there!” he laughed.

In his harsh nasal voice he told me a little about bygone festivals, and like the old grandmother in Kawauchi he appeared to grow very happy, smiling as if with real pleasure.

“When I was a child there was some closed place up there, and I was mischievous, so I opened it, and lots of bees came out and stung me!”

I smiled back at him.

“In the summer there’s lots of rehearsing,” he said. “I can hear the drumming from my house, the drumming and the flute. Then I feel that I’m coming into festival season.”

I asked whether anyone celebrated here nowadays.

“Last year I tried to get the young guys to practice with the drum and flute, but it didn’t happen in time, so we played a CD.”

“Up here?”

“At the temporary housing. Served some drinks . . .”

Again we were looking down from the chilly shadowed shrine. There was much snow, and a single bird. He said there were thrushes, sparrows, doves and pheasants hereabouts. He used to hunt pheasants with a certain friend, but the heart for that went out of him after his friend died.

Hayama Shrine

We descended to the car and began to drive away, across that plain of black bags and brown grass, with crows flying up everywhere. “Both my parents were from here,” he presently said.

We turned onto the empty toll highway: 15 kilometers to Hirono. As a victim of the accident, he could drive it for free—lucky fellow! The sky was already performing its spurious brightening into evening light. Soon we would be on the safe side of that still unbuilt wall of ice, where people lived their lives as best they could, while past and future tragedies resembled those tsunami-murdered homes whose foundations were only now slightly more distinct than the boundaries of ricefields. Mr. Endo drove silently. When I thanked him for his trouble, he assured me that it was all right, since no one else had been willing to go, and, besides, he didn’t really feel anything. I sat in the back seat, so I could not directly see his face; his reflection looked really sad in the rearview mirror.

6: “It’s Not That They’re Not Worried”

One Sunday afternoon the orator, a psychiatrist in dark clothes, stood frowning, raising his voice, fanning and chopping the air, leaning on the podium, waving, circling, nodding. About 300 people listened there in the auditorium of the sixth floor of the department store tower (which also contained the Iwaki city library). There were far more men than women. Few wore suits, for this event had been organized by the National Railway Mito Motive Power Union, some of whose members might or might not have been Communists. There came loud applause, a few listeners now raising cameras over their heads to videotape other speeches, and one man clambering up a small painter’s ladder which he would later carry to the parade and set up at this or that intersection so that he could photograph from the perfect angle.

A Mr. Saito Eiichi from near Koriyama was saying: “There is no place for Fukushima people to throw their anger against. We feel the administration has abandoned us. In my dairy farm I cannot feed my cows with my own grass. It is forbidden. The grass, the hay and the compost are contaminated with cesium. They are just sitting there. Finally the city of Iwaki claimed to clean them, but just moved them from one place to another. The cows are having more difficult births.”

A lady in black named Ms. Shiina Chieko said: “This is our fight for survival against all the contradictions,” possibly referring to “capitalist contradictions.” “In the temporary housing where I used to live in Namie, in two years, out of 20 residents, three* died.”

Watching the anti-nuclear march

Anti-nuclear woman

Then came a lady who said: “Those who make the decisions are not affected by radiation because they live in Tokyo.” She mentioned radiation-deformed azalea leaves. I requested her name for Carbon Ideologies, but she wished to be anonymous.

Presently they went out to the street. There were whistles, drums, chanting, banners pink and yellow and blue and crimson. Some appeared almost ecstatic as they banged their drums or raised their clenched fists, others shyly or listlessly touching their hands together.

A banner said: STOP ALL NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS. There was a red labor union banner: WE WILL NOT ALLOW ANYONE TO BE FIRED. A banner said: 3-11 ANTI-NUCLEAR FUKUSHIMA ACTION.

I saw hardly any spectators. In a travel agency, a young couple who were being waited on turned and frowned over their shoulders through the glass, while the clerk looked at us as if out of politeness because the couple were looking. A restaurant proprietor stood unsmiling in his doorway. Three pretty women peered out of a second-storey window, waving down at the parade. Two little girls were walking somewhere, and the younger wished to join but the elder was against it; the marchers tried to coax them with dancing and smiling, calling out: “Come with us, just to the station, only there!” but the children would not.

Marchers with police escort

Tepco men watching the protesters present their demands

A man was shouting: “You guys did it, you large corporations and Tepco! Why should we have to suffer? Solidarity, everyone! Work together!”—a sentiment underscored by furious drumming.

There was a musical chant about poison rain and our children being guinea pigs: “Stand up, Fukushima!”

They went to the unmarked Tepco building and delivered their demands to a man who stood waiting on the sidewalk. He bowed slightly when he received their document. I felt a little sorry for him. Behind the glass doors, two other men in suits stood watching. I took their photograph, since someone on their side had probably taken mine.

Then what? The procession made a circle, and so we returned to that long six-lane boulevard* running south and skyscraper-shaded from the train station where on those February mornings I sat in the chain-brand coffee shop writing up my notes, watching the buses come and go, delighted by the gaggles of giggling schoolgirls in their short plaid skirts who were ascending the escalator to take their morning train; accompanied by the young men with parkas and backpacks, the salarymen with their briefcases and dark suits, the longhaired woman in a dark coat and white paper mask over her mouth—just people living their lives. If I have ever sounded harsh about the complacency of Iwakians, I apologize, for I never meant to be. In my home town I had a friend who skipped all news of global warming, “because what can I do?” In West Virginia many good people assured me that climate change was merely a harmful rumor. I preferred not to dwell on my own death. There was no immediate danger. I sat safe and happy in my city library and read old books by reactor men: Criticality accidents are extremely unlikely in all Western nuclear designs, promised one. The likelihood of an accident leading to a breach of the containment is extremely remote, assured another.

There was a gathering afterward in a smoky restaurant; perhaps 50 of the marchers attended. One was a longhaired redfaced decontamination worker; in the U.S. I would have thought him a sunburned Native American. He said that in Okuma he had measured 30 microsieverts in six hours.* He said: “I used to work at No. 1, and in six months I got 6.62 millisieverts, working 20 days a month.* I was working there for 14 months, up until July last year. My job was to measure the vehicles’ radiation. In one day, there were approximately 13,000 ppp”—but he could not explain what that was. Since this number exactly equaled the “13,000 cpms” above which the Tepco people at Tomioka also had to “clean,” I will guess that ppps means cpms.—“If it shows that value,” he continued, “it has to be cleaned, but even after high-pressure cleaning it only comes down by half.* In the mountainside we dug a groundwater contamination measuring well, and when we could not get the radiation value down on some cars we would just leave them there on the mountain. Finally Tepco changed the policy and stopped letting so many cars in. Because of them, the radioactivity of the road itself will not go down. So now J Village uses a bus, which will not go inside the restricted area.”

“What does it look like at No. 1?”

“If the seashore is the edge of this table, then it’s all tank, tank, tank like this, right at the edge” (or, if you prefer harmful rumors, “leaking tank, tank, tank”), “then it slopes upward into a pine forest. The trunks of the pines are more reddish than natural pines.* A lot of wild boar. They do like it near the decontamination areas, eating bamboo shoots! And there are eagles. But you know the phrase eagle eyes? Well, they don’t have such good eagle eyes. I don’t care to tell you further; you’d have to see for yourself.

“In my experience they are so sloppy at Tepco. The pipes should be color coded so you know which end should be tightened, but often both ends are the same color, so you can’t tell right from left. That’s a child’s mistake.”

He said that decontamination workers were allowed 800 microsieverts per day. I thought that impossible: 100 micros an hour in an eight-hour day! But in a few more pages* I will introduce you to a former worker at Plant No. 2 who assured me: “When I used to work at the site before the accident, it was not unusual at all to get 100 micros within a nuclear facility building.” You will also meet a refugee from Iitate who shouted about getting dosed, together with his family, at 95.1 microsieverts an hour.*—Back to my informant in Iwaki. If those decontaminators drudged away for a realistic period of twelve 20-day months, that would be 192 millisieverts—one milli more than the annual level of that Tomioka drainpipe which Mr. Kanari had measured for me. (Could these figures be off? The legal limit was 20 millis a year.)*

“You’re very brave,” I said.

“Someone has to do it,” he replied.

He claimed to have measured 1.6 to 3.8 microsieverts in any one of those black bags—“6 microsieverts if you stand beside it.” These numbers likewise sounded high, but then I remembered that Mr. Kanari’s readings for the black bags in Iwaki—0.35 to 0.38 microsieverts—were at least 30 kilometers farther from No. 1 than the place where the redfaced man worked. I cannot verify anything he said. Besides, who am I to know what harm the black bags caused? Did they or would they leach into the ground?

About the waste bags in Tomioka Mr. Kida had remarked: “Our test results prove that if you are five meters away there will be no effect.”

“What if you stand against a bag?”

He smiled. “How can I say? Even if it were only two microsieverts an hour, maybe one month would hurt you.”

The decontamination worker remarked, as if to himself: “There are hot spots, of course, from one block to another . . .”

He said: “Thirty to 40 die at the nuclear plant every year. This is secret.* They do not die at the site, but upon coming home. So many in Iwaki, too. High blood pressure or heart attack is the diagnosis they get. High blood pressure is a clear indicator of working there. In Minamata the disease is clearly shown by deformed hands, but here the sign is stroke. In the 14 months I was working there, two people died.”

Who knows if that is truth or just another harmful rumor?—Not I.

“What should I call you?” I asked him.

“Anonymous, please.”

When I asked him to smuggle me into the forbidden zone, he insisted that we would be arrested.

“Why do you think the Iwaki people are not worried?”

“It’s not that they’re not worried. It has to do with their income. Those who get some benefit commensurate with radiation damage are more interested. The ones not compensated are not interested. But deep in their hearts they are worried. The Fishermen’s Union is not controlling anyone’s actions anymore, so they are free to fish. But they don’t. So it’s not that they don’t worry.”

They worried, or not.* The harmful rumors thinned as they spread, beginning to fade away. Two months later, for the first time since the disaster, Iwaki seafood was being offered for sale at the Tsukiji market in Tokyo. As an “intermediate wholesaler” explained: “Since they have been thoroughly checked . . . it’s not good to remain swayed by bad rumors.”

That was reported on May 18. In the very same issue of the paper, I learned that between the water intakes for Reactors No. 2 and 3, tritium levels had increased to 1,900 becquerels per liter. Between the intakes for Reactors No. 1 and 2, strontium-90 levels were up to 840 becquerels. Both of these set new records; hence the headline: Fukushima radiation at all-time high.

Would it be reasonable to wonder whether those radiocontaminants might also leak into the ocean? It might be more reasonable to ask what could possibly stop them from leaking.—Why, the ice wall, of course! That would save the fishes and seal away our radioactive future.* Perhaps that explained the demeanor of people in Iwaki, where by six a.m. the sky and high-rised streets had all appeared below my hotel window in shades of pearl, and seagulls called unseen. Rows of light-globes still shone on either side of each thoroughfare, and the dosimeter had registered a single digit of increase—the same as it would have done in Tokyo.

Shinjuku, 2014

October 2014,

with a Hanford excursion in August 2015

THE RED ZONES

1: Over Ten Times the Level Measured the Previous Week

First those faraway Americans had forgotten about the accident*—after all, its fallout barely showed up in Oregon milk—and presently most residents of Tokyo (excepting steadfast Friday night protesters and a few tired self-educated Cassandras such as Mr. Yamasaki, whose NGO had tested my Iwaki tomatoes) took heart again, because Reactor Plant No. 1 had matured from a national calamity into the merest affliction of distant country cousins—three cheers for the wall of ice!—while in Iwaki people diligently defended themselves against harmful rumors by eating whatever was set before them, even as the decontaminators improved everything into neat islands of black bags—and by the time of my third visit to the disaster zone, when I managed at last, thanks to months of effort on the interpreter’s part, to penetrate legally or quasi-legally well into the exclusion zones—yes, I even got to see and photograph Plant No. 1 from a convenient radioactive overlook!—it turned out that the people who guided me, which is to say those with knowledge and local experience—a district head, municipal employees, a former reactor worker who had been on duty at Plant No. 2 on and after March 11, 2011; and I should also mention the various taxi drivers and rental car personnel daily or almost daily associated with travel through the red zones—had become as blasé as the rest of us. At the Iwaki gas station where an old man and a young boy were cleaning our hired vehicle, which had just returned from Tomioka, Okuma and Namie, I asked the former reactor worker to warn them that they were scrubbing away fallout, which must be particularly spicy around the wheel wells—to which the old man courteously replied: “Never mind.”—He and the boy went on scrubbing.—All hail! At last (and so it must be for you who live in my future) radiation contamination had been normalized.*

It was invisible, you see. There was no immediate danger. They’d done it for the nation. One had to fight harmful rumors.

As for me, I felt the opposite, because at last I possessed an adequate toolkit, and measuring the real-time scintillations of the objects around me in those red zones proved unnerving.

THE PANCAKE FRISKER

Because the dosimeter (as I have so often complained) could only show accrued gamma radiation, not alpha or beta, and because it could not reveal hot spots with sufficient timeliness to prevent them from quite possibly hurting me, I decided to call Clyde up in Richland, Washington. He told me that what I required was a pancake frisker. It looked like a little yellow golf club, he said. He took his everywhere; it seemed to be a pretty swell machine. Scrap metal dealers appreciated it because it enabled them to weed out the odd radioactive nightmare in a pile of junk—an increasingly frequent situation, Clyde confided, at which point he and I shared a millisecond of telephone silence, to mark the eternal wickedness of this world. Extolling the device’s sensitivity, Clyde now entertained me with the truckload of anecdotal hay that had alarmed some ingenuous soul who imagined himself into an emergency; one needed to remember, Clyde said, that alfalfa fertilizer, like bananas, contained a naturally occurring radioisotope of potassium.—By now I liked him considerably. He was as cheerful as a cricket. He even offered to loan me his very own frisker, but only if the results stayed off the record, since he had been too busy to recalibrate it. I replied that I might as well just buy one. The price was $750. Clyde gave me the direct number of the main office in Sweetwater, Texas. I fretted aloud that some other salesman would deprive him of his commission, which he had certainly earned with his amusing stories, but he said, “Don’t worry; they take real good care of me.”

First things first: The Sweetwater people warned that their product was subject to export license regulations, so I wrote a note to whomever it might concern that if I happened to carry my new toy outside the United States, I would exert every muscle to bring it home. That was good enough, they said, and which two units did I wish the display to read in? Out of loyalty to the dosimeter, I chose microsieverts; the other unit might as well be cpms, which the Tepco friskers had employed at Tomioka. So I placed my order, hoping that the pancake frisker could fulfill at least some of Clyde’s claims. The company was busy; orders got backlogged (another omen that radioactivity would scintillate ever more brightly in our collective future); but a week sooner than they had promised, I received my Model 26-1, which was truly yellow, and did look sort of like a golf club. Eli in the technical support department advised me to slowly sweep it back and forth when I was in the field. I asked how well it could measure food.—“It should be very helpful, I would think,” he said. He was an au courant and tolerant fellow, whom I ended up calling several times. He said that gamma rays should definitely register in any meal; as for beta, at least one of Fukushima’s two common cesium isotopes would announce itself in a friskable sort of way. The iodine-131 might or might not be revealed; I consoled myself that hardly any of that should remain in the red zones, for it had been an immediate product of the accident, and its 10 half-lives occupied only 80 days. As for Nuclear Plant No. 1’s continuous flow of ocean-bound tritium, those emitted beta particles were minuscule and might not be friskable. To measure their concentrations I would need, among other apparatus, a cart to carry my own private tank of radioactive potassium-10 gas. Beset by a peculiar feeling that my nation’s guardians of airport safety might not look favorably upon such luggage, whether I checked it in the hold of the plane or brought it on board to stow in the overhead bin, I gave up on monitoring tritium. Who could say whether I would even reach the ocean? (As a matter of fact I did, in Okuma. According to the pancake frisker, the air dose there was astonishingly low. But I abstained from chasing waves.) What then about a river or a glass of water? Remembering what that lying salesman named Ray had promised me when I bought the dosimeter, I now inquired, with more curiosity than hope, whether I could simply sweep the frisker over either of those. Sadly, Eli explained that the hydrogen atoms with which water is afflicted tend to mask neutrons. But I hereby testify most heartily that the thing did everything that Eli and Clyde said it would. In Japan its readings correlated extremely well with those of municipal and prefectural officials; moreover, it was, as I’d hoped the dosimeter would be, fun. I immediately fascinated myself by measuring the radioactivity of my daughter’s cat (0.12 microsieverts per hour, which was twice as high as my darkroom coating table and exactly the same as my kitchen counter). My neighbors in Sacramento took pleasure in the frisker at first, although the low and stable levels around there rapidly bored them; you in the future doubtless enjoy more interesting readings.

The pancake frisker was about 13 inches long from the top of its rubberized handle (which concealed two AA batteries) up to the forward point of its hexagonal head. Three buttons decorated it. When I pressed the leftmost one, the machine uttered a three-tone chirp not unlike the sound one of my sweetest girlfriends used to make when she climaxed. Then its screen lit up, and in NORMAL mode the frisker began to express the moment-by-moment scintillations of, say, the dining room table of an apartment in San Francisco: 46, 30, 35, 40, 26, 19, 27, 34, 22 counts per minute—and with each new figure the thing stridulated adorably. Anytime I wished, I could push the middle button, to toggle the units into microsieverts per hour, and from that dining room table I now present several of those: 0.022, 0.118, 0.50, 0.32, 0.20, 0.102, 0.122 and 0.118. These altered with such rapidity that in the red zones, where I was always in a hurry, I sometimes scribbled down only the first digit or two of each item in this ever altering series.

My friend Jay loved the pancake frisker, and said: “It’s like having another sense!” This comment was on the money, for I can and will tell you what such places as Tomioka, Okuma or Iitate looked like to me, and observations of abandoned decrepitude do convey something useful, but what about an innocent-looking thicket or meadow? Please recall Ed Lyman’s aphorism: “The issue is how uniform are the hot spots?” Without a scintillation counter I could not have addressed that issue.*

In sum, the best way for me to complete my word-pictures of the red zones is to overlay my descriptions with numbers: Here is how that meadow appeared . . . and in that meadow a plume of pampas grass was emitting so many nasty microsieverts.

I ask your pardon if I now devote a further couple of paragraphs to the frisker’s modes of measurement, and to how I interpreted them. Since these numbers are of extreme importance in my accounts of the red zones, I owe it to you to say where they came from. For any reader who is repulsed by arithmetic (and also for me, because the results bemused me), there is that basic comparative chart back here, so that rather than wearying yourself with converting from counts per second to microsieverts per year, you can simply look up an interesting shrine torus or sidewalk-stretch and see how many tens or hundreds of times more radioactive it was than my kitchen counter in Sacramento.

So. NORMAL produced a string of numbers. Well, in practical terms, how “hot” was that dining room table in San Francisco? Whenever I cared, I could push the frisker’s righthand button. On my first click, the device would go into MAX mode. The display then showed only the highest reading. If the emitter were stable, the local maximum generally ceased to alter within 30 seconds. Here in this dining room the radiation usually got up to around 0.2 micros per hour, or, if you prefer to toggle into other units, 65 cpms. This proved convenient and useful in its way: Whenever officials of the Transportation Security Administration, a well-meaning but arrogant institution that sometimes bullied American air travellers back in the days when I was alive (their agents specialized in slicing the linings of my various suitcases), refused to tell me how powerful their X-ray was, all I had to do was forget to shut off my pancake frisker, which accidentally happened to be in MAX mode as it rode down their conveyor belt.* That told me just what I wished to know, and if you are curious you can look it up in that same comparative chart.

A second push of the rightmost button, and then a touch of the lefthand button, and the frisker entered what came to be my favorite mode, SCALER, which averaged all scintillations over the course of a minute: The dining table was 30 counts per minute, or 0.002 micros per minute. That worked out to 0.12 micros an hour—the same as my daughter’s cat, and indeed my average reading for San Francisco. In actual fact, this was two and a half times higher than Tokyo’s Shinjuku district had been on the day before the nuclear accident. In 2014, San Francisco and Tokyo were (by the frisker’s measurement) nearly equally radioactive, which is to say well below normal background for many parts of the world.

Multiplying this innocuous number by 24 gives 2.88 micros per day. You may recall that in San Francisco and Tokyo the dosimeter usually turned over a single microsievert* in 24 hours. To have one device reading nearly three times more radiation than the other concerned me, and I spent some time considering it, because once I reentered the hot zone, my health would depend on the accuracy of my measurements. Calling the ever patient Eli, I told him about the granite countertop in the bathroom of my hotel suite in Charleston, West Virginia. I had measured it 10 times for one minute each in the SCALER mode. Usually the display read 0.005 or 0.006 micros per minute, but once it showed 0.004 and once it came back 0.007—a considerable variation, I thought.

“Well,” said Eli, “there’s bounce and sway on the needle, especially in the low values. Make sure you let that thing run on NORMAL in that energy field and let it settle.”

I had done this in Charleston. So I asked: “Is it less accurate in a low-radiation environment?”

“The hotter the field is, the easier it is for that thing to do its job.”

He looked up the calibration test for my serial number. That particular frisker had measured 3,000 counts in a 10-microsievert field. The correct figure was 3,200 counts. “So it’s just a little under, but within the typical range,” he said.

I inquired what their typical background radiation might be out there in Sweetwater. He said that at the factory they took in about 10 microrems per hour, which would be 0.1 microsieverts—more or less what I received in San Francisco or Tokyo, and half of what Ed Lyman got in his apartment in Washington, D.C. That sounded reassuringly plausible.

Perhaps the frisker read higher than the dosimeter for low values because it was picking up alpha and beta while the dosimeter could not. More likely, one or both suffered from a higher margin of error as the field approached zero. At any rate, the dosimeter’s measurements had corresponded, more or less, with officially reported values in Tokyo, Koriyama, Tomioka and Iwaki. The pancake frisker readings I took in the United States were comparable to the numbers that Ed Lyman and Eli had given me. Hoping for parity once I had entered a hotter field, I decided to be warned by whichever value of the two instruments was higher.

I further decided to use the SCALER mode in preference to the other two. There were many occasions in the red zones when I had to fall back to NORMAL, because it was discourteous to keep others waiting for a full minute time after time, all of us meanwhile absorbing radiation; and when I ascended the unpleasant stairs of the White Bird Shrine in Iitate I frisked my surroundings continuously, and thereby both got to record and to avoid the unhealthiest spots. But as often as I could do so considerately, I would make a one-minute timed walk in SCALER mode, or take a scaled measurement of such interesting objects as the drainpipe in Tomioka that Mr. Kanari had measured earlier that year with his municipal scintillation counter.

So I whiled away the months, hugely entertained by my pancake frisker. When I reached Japan, the first readings were no eerier than at home.

Tokyo. Japanese risotto restaurant, Kabukicho red light district. 33 cpms / 0.12 micros [once again, the same as my daughter’s cat].

As you might imagine, the red zones were hotter.

I used to get impressed by the difference between 0.06 and 0.18 micros an hour. At 0.36 micros, that granite countertop in Charleston certainly beguiled me. In Moscow, Molotov’s grave was three times hotter than Gogol’s—which in turn proved equivalent to the National Orchid Garden in Singapore. After going to the red zones I forgot to care about such piddling variations.

GRANITE AND PLUTONIUM

In terms of average radiation levels, Portland, Oregon, was certainly the healthiest city I visited (come to think of it, the little California town of Dunsmuir was just as good). As for the unhealthiest, well, the red zones more than overshadowed every other place I went in those days—including Hanford, Washington, where in September 1944 our government most secretly commenced to make plutonium. At first there had been three 800-foot-long separation facilities. Columbia River water kept the irradiated slugs cool at a depth of 16 and a half feet, flowing through the aluminum cylinders of the largest plant Du Pont had ever constructed. Downstream from there, eddies, bends, sediments and creatures grew “hot,” but war aims exempted our G-men and their pet scientists from responsibility from all such secondary issues. Had Japan been on a war footing 67 years later, Tepco might have been equally carefree about the contaminated outflows from Plant No. 1; I guess some entities are luckier than others.

(Here I wish to reiterate that no one with a heart can read unmoved the stories of those Tepco people who tried to deal with the catastrophe—for instance, Mr. Yoshida Masao, the chief of Plant No. 1, waiting for the containment vessel of Reactor No. 2 to possibly rupture, meditating on the floor, going through the names of his best-known colleagues: “There were about 10 or so. I thought those guys might be willing to die with me.”)

The atomic weapon that struck Nagasaki was named “Fat Man.” It contained 9 kilograms of plutonium. It is a thing of beauty to behold, this “gadget,” wrote the journalist who flew in the plane that dropped the bomb. We removed our glasses after the first flash, but the light still lingered on, a bluish-green light that illuminated the entire sky all around. So satisfied with that result was our government that production of the lovely silver metal continued until 1987; eventually there were nine reactors at Hanford.

An Atomic Energy Commission pamphlet from 1969 boasted that the Hanford reactors, then still creating or for all I know even satisfying demand, enjoyed environmental conditions more favorable than most power-plant . . . sites, being relatively remote from towns and . . . adjacent to the Columbia River, with its high volume of flow. The activated impurities got held for a good 1 to 3 hours, which reduces the activity by 50 to 70%. Then they got diluted by the streamflow. In the case of unusual radioactivity because of leaks of fission products, the water was discharged into trenches and seep[ed] into the ground. This percolation is very effective since the soil retains the radionuclides. And a diagram of the “underground crib,” decorated by “monitoring wells,” showed the plutonium on top of the rare earths, then the strontium, followed by the cesium, ruthenium and NO3.

Decades and trenchloads of “hot” river water flowed by under the slogan “the peaceful atom”; who am I to argue against such a delightful sentiment? For one thing, plutonium is less poisonous than arsenic, and perhaps even less hazardous than cesium-137 or strontium-90—although that judgment is more relative than it sounds, due to plutonium’s scarcity and chemical immobility.*

In practical terms, Hanford became the primary source for plutonium, thanks especially to the zealous industry of the N Reactor (built 1964), whose design approximated Chernobyl’s,* and except for small experimental quantities, it produced all the American-made plutonium that eventually reached the Northern Rio Grande system in New Mexico—through contamination, of course.—Let me now anticipate this book’s section on fracking, in which a consultant for resource extraction companies explains in Greeley, Colorado: “When you’re doing oil field, it’s not the fracking, it’s the piping. Things leak, things go wrong, when they have thousands of feet of piping in the surface. That’s human nature. I can’t go through a day without making a mistake; neither can they.”* Thus Hanford; thus Fukushima.—A guide for river paddlers called the site the most serious long-term threat to the Columbia River and the livable communities along its shores. Meanwhile The Japan Times praised Hanford thus: It’s among the most toxic nuclear waste sites . . . Apparently some 212 million liters of radioactive poisons had been cached in aging underground tanks . . . Gravel fields cover the tanks themselves, six of which had already been found to be leaking 1000 gallons . . . a year of highly radioactive stew, possibly reaching the groundwater—but for all I knew, they might have been more secure than King Tut’s tomb, thanks to the “big five”* miracle called “concrete cocooning.” The Japan Times article was even headlined: Hanford offers Tepco lesson in cleaning up Fukushima.

Suitably inspired, I decided to take a little frisk. Clyde in Richland had insisted that I would detect nothing of dramatic interest, but back when I was alive I used to be a curious sort.

According to a certain William L. Graf, whose Plutonium and the Rio Grande charmed me in the library stacks, sediments always contain the largest quantities of heavy metals, so that soils and sediments are the major repository for plutonium. Continuing his train of thought, Graf remarked that inhalation of plutonium-spiced sediments seemed probably the most important from the standpoint of human contamination. Well, then I would put on gloves and a painter’s dust mask, after which I could measure a couple of streambeds or gullies, with the frisker’s pancake head close to the ground. A Japanese nuclear engineer* advised me to measure both with and without the plastic cover, which was thick enough to prevent alpha and beta particles from reaching the device’s scintillating crystals. The difference between the two readings would reflect alpha and beta levels. Trusting myself not to detect that extremely scarce beta emitter Pu-241, which has no relevance to Carbon Ideologies, I settled for hunting the alpha in Pu-239, which had been employed in the MOX reactor at Fukushima, and should be Hanford’s dominant isotope—and in Pu-238, which in 2012 was detected in the Japanese red zones.

My detector was rated, said its spec sheet, at an efficiency of 11% for plutonium-239, so I figured I would need to divide whichever alpha number I got by 0.11 to obtain a rough plutonium level in counts per minute.* Later on, some nuclear Samaritan might provide me with the proper factor to convert this number to microsieverts.—Ed Lyman informed me that it would be more complicated than that. “You need to know the isotopics,” as he put it. I should send a soil sample to a lab for spectroscopy. That was the only way to learn the proportions of different plutonium isotopes, which would determine subsequent calculations.

I telephoned a dozen soil testing companies, and none of them would or could sample plutonium. I wish I had written down the stern and horrified things they said; it might be entertaining to learn how many of them then launched good-citizen e-mails to the Department of Homeland Security. Well, so why not just go to Hanford and see what I could see?

The drive from Portland took five hours. Arriving at a gate with a darkened booth, and a sign which ran: WHEN FLASHING TUNE TO 530 FOR HANFORD EMERGENCY INFORMATION, we turned south on Highway 240 toward smoke-hazed, dust-hazed Richland, where for all I knew Clyde was right then on his hands and knees in the back yard, happily frisking the grass; the temperature was 95° Fahrenheit. Rolling across the sagebrush flats, with the Hanford Reserve on our left for many a mile (there were only some 1,500 sq. km. of scrubland to search in—1,518 square kilometers, to be precise), we glimpsed well in from the fence a red-and-white radio tower—frequency 530, I assume—then two other slender white towers and a distant row of boxy white buildings—almost certainly not the reactors, which necessarily followed the south bank of the Columbia as it curved northeast before twisting sharply southeast along the White Bluffs. We ourselves were now angling more southeast than south on Highway 240, passing the brilliant whitish-yellow grass that was silver-pocked with sagebrush, and that long white fence so cheerfully decorated with yellow warning signs.

Below the reserve, not far past the southern extremity of Richland, we crossed the Columbia, came into Pasco and swung back northwest and north, paralleling the reserve’s eastern edge. Within another half-hour we had arrived at the put-out by the Ringold fish hatchery—one of the few places where our government would allow us to camp. This spot had received the highest fallout dose from Hanford—although most of it had been the extremely short-half-lifed iodine-131. My companion proposed stopping here, which was fine by me.—The Mormon crickets must have died off; for he said that two weeks earlier the river had been thick with them. The chirring of cicadas vibrated almost continuously through the buggy underbrush, and there was a fishy smell of muck, while there in the smooth lavender-grey river the sun lay reflected as a long orange bulbous-tipped wand not unlike the pancake frisker itself; and I felt (as I certainly never did in the red zones) so joyous and free in this novel part of my native land; no doubt in your time the heat must be worse at Hanford, and perhaps civil order has so far failed to let all 212 million plutonium-contaminated liters of progress seep out; I hope that those who cannot read remember from their grandparents not to go there. In my time it was a sweet enough place; since it was open to the public, I credulously believed myself safe, and my credulity got rewarded.

Directly across the river lay the widest sector of the reserve. I saw nobody on it, which failed to amaze me, because according to a pamphlet from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the Department of Energy’s side of the river, south and west shores, are closed above the high water line.

There on the shore the humidity had already begun turning cool, but when I strolled the few steps back up to our grassy campsite where Tom was looking over the motor of his beloved Water Witch it still felt almost sweltering.

Now it was nearly dark. Walking toward the trees, I commenced another measurement and then strolled back to the aforesaid Mr. Tom Colligan, who was a classicist and could explain exactly how difficult it might sometimes be to parse a sentence of Thucydides in Greek. While the frisker shone like a glowworm in the sweet-smelling grass, counting down to zero, I requested his opinions on Catullus, the coyotes meanwhile howling like young girls at a carnival, with a ring around that bright moon which tonight was so distinctly bat-winged with continents. I went to collect the frisker, which read 0.24 micros an hour, 72 counts per minute—identical to the library interior at Estes Park, Colorado.—And by the way, the presence or absence of the plastic cover never made a difference at Hanford.

Where trucks and boats were parked, and Tom had parked tonight, the level held steady at around 0.30 micros and 88 or 90 counts per minute (the same as a brickyard in Bangladesh).* Down toward the trees the dose fell off by 20%. It could have been that decades of contaminated Columbia River water dripping off of boats had increased the radioactivity, but that was the merest night hypothesis, and in the morning it proved incorrect.

I thanked Tom again for bringing me, and he passed me a beer and said: “Always happy to be out here where there’s nobody else.”

Mosquitoes kept biting my wrists, so I pulled my gloves on. Now it was chilling down pleasurably. We talked about Homer and ate meat with our nut-buttered bread until Tom felt ready to snooze in his truck. I fluffed out my sleeping bag in the mildly radioactive grass; Clyde might have reminded me that a truckload of bananas was worse. Tom had brought an inflatable mattress for me, but the grass was so soft that I used it only for a groundcover. The coyotes fell mostly silent. The moon was a fruit hanging from the black tree-spider just beyond that outspread its black arms in limp curves.

Mosquitoes annoyed us for most of the night, but before dawn the air chilled down farther, and before I knew it, morning woke me. Tom made us coffee and I brought jerky, berries and more bread with nut butter to the occasion. Then my friend strolled back down to the put-out. He said the river had strengthened enough that his motor might not be able to take us upstream; evidently Priest Rapids Dam had let out some water.

So we drove farther north and west, toward the White Bluffs put-out where (so Tom had heard from an old lady) there used to be a bridge, and before that an Indian crossing; once upon a time there had even been a town (the old lady claimed to have lived there), but the Manhattan Project expelled the inhabitants and razed the buildings, most likely for reasons of perpetual political security, although radiation levels might have had something to do with the action. The day was warming quickly. Could we have gone straight our route would have been 10 miles northeast, but it took us more than 15, and I was just as happy—for we were in a lovely land, following R-24 almost west through the yellowish-greenish sagebrush, crossing a concrete irrigation ditch, heading toward the lavender haze (some of which must have been from forest fires); and to the north lay a low glowing ridge the color of grass.

Entering Grant County, we soon neared the entrance of the reserve, where a helpful sign advised us: FIRE DANGER EXTREME. A dirt road brought us suddenly to good pavement—installed, I should guess, for the benefit of the U.S. military—and then we reached our turnoff above the White Bluffs boat ramp, with the Columbia a wide grey line to the west. According to the map, we were four miles as the crow flies from D Reactor, which lay across the 90-degree bend above which the Columbia flowed northeast.

So we backed down to the ramp. The Water Witch easily entered the water; Tom knew his business. When I waded into the lovely cool water and took hold of the painter, a dead salmon goggled at me. Tom drove the truck back up the road to park and lock it, and I gazed at a squat pale building across the river, wondering if it might be the lowermost reactor, while a white heron or egret bowed its neck far away. Up where Tom had gone, a doe slowly crossed the road, stopped, looked back over her shoulder, then carefully pranced into the underbrush.

I felt happy, not only because it would be fun to learn the frisker’s sensitivity to plutonium isotopes, but also because according to Tom’s river guidebook, the leg from Priest Rapids Dam to Ringold Springs, if done from the Vernita Bridge, runs along the longest wild and free-flowing, non-tidal section of the Columbia River in the United States . . . Keep in mind the U.S. Department of Energy prohibits public access to many areas of the Hanford Reach National Monument . . .

Tom returned, and seated himself in the stern. I waded out a little, pushed us off and crawled into the bow. He started the motor, and we were off.

I had a dosimeter, too, of course; I kept track of every stray emanation I could.* In our 20 hours at Hanford, we accrued 1.6 micros of gamma radiation, or one micro per 12.5 hours; for that I could have stayed in bed! In my 39 and a half measured hours in Portland I took in 2.3 micros—a micro every 17.2 hours. So at Hanford I soaked up gamma rays one and a half times faster than in Portland—a minuscule difference, especially since at Hanford I was almost always outside, in Portland mostly inside, which certainly reduced my dose. So how did one factor that in? The proper thing to say was that from the standpoint of gamma rays, at least, Hanford was insignificantly “hot.”

Looking down through the dark water at the many-fingered hands of weeds, I listened to the motor, which was just loud enough (and we were far enough apart) for Tom and me to need to shout at each other if we wished to be heard; so mostly we let each other be. He looked pleased to be back out on the smooth glassy river, whose calm-appearing substance flowed so powerfully around the Water Witch that in places she could barely move upstream at all. A great silent fish splashed downstream near the restricted bank; and almost level with us sat a grey car, possibly containing a security guard. If I could, I would keep you here with me in this glorious if merely semi-wild place, instead of luring you into the red zones. But in my day I had to earn my keep, which meant informing my fellow planet-spoilers why it was hopeless; so at 8:57 a.m., with the building that Tom thought might be the lowermost reactor now enlarging off the bow, I set the frisker on MAX and held it out into the wind until 9:13. The highest reading was 1.184 microsieverts an hour, a laughably safe level which would not have been out of place as a one-minute timed SCALER average in a jetliner still ascending to cruising altitude. Multiplying this figure by 24 yields 28.416, which estimates the amount of radiobiological damage one would have accrued at this exposure over a full day. Receiving a month’s dose in a day might be considered vaguely unfortunate—but it was not a month’s dose, merely the extreme upper bracket of what the frisker sampled. I remembered from earlier that summer a certain walk of approximately 10 minutes’ duration in Saint Petersburg, whose levels were slightly higher than Moscow’s but still within the healthful or at least “normal” range; and going west along the Nevskii Prospekt on that breezy June afternoon, with the frisker set on MAX, my readings never exceeded 150 counts per minute, or about four times the average air dose of Sacramento—until as I crossed the Anichkov Most the count suddenly jigged straight to 480 counts per minute, or 1.579 micros per hour. Perhaps a cesium particle from Chernobyl had flown up against the frisker’s recessed circle-grid, whose crystals waited to scintillate—but the previous evening, when I had held the frisker straight into a wind on a Neva cruise boat as we neared the Peter and Paul Fortress, a full one-minute timed average measured only 26 counts per minute, 0.001 micros in that period (the lowest possible reading), which is to say 0.06 micros per hour, so I pronounced that Russian breeze salubrious. The likely cause of that scintillation was the Anichkov Most itself. It was a fine granite bridge, and some of the highest radiation levels I found in “safe” cities all around the world derived from granite:*

LOWEST AND HIGHEST MEASURED ONE-MINUTE AVERAGE RADIOACTIVITIES IN SELECTED SAFE CITIES, 2014–15

[in microSv/hr]

All readings were one-minute timed SCALER counts. By their nature, MAX doses read higher. [The highest MAX in Saint Petersburg was 1.579.] These and NORMAL readings are omitted since they were more ephemerally accurate.

Where several values were tied for highest or lowest, I picked whichever might interest you.

The range above each city name (for instance, “4” for Barcelona) is simply the highest reading divided by the lowest.

Range: 1.3

Singapore

Marble-tiled bathroom of suite, Grand Park City Hall Hotel: 0.18

Same suite near window: 0.24

Reason for high reading: Unknown.

2

Dunsmuir, California

Sacramento River, from bridge: 0.06

Nearly all locations: 0.12

Reason for high reading: It was delightfully low, actually.

2

Poza Rica, Mexico

Entrance to PEMEX refinery during small oil burnoff: 0.12

Table at Enrique’s Restaurant, near tile wall: 0.24

Reason for high reading: The ceramic tile, I suspect.

2.5

Dhaka, Bangladesh

Interior of room, Pan Pacific hotel: 0.12

Bricks in brickyard: 0.30

Reason for high reading: Bricks always measured high. See San Francisco.

2.5

Lausanne

Vineyard above Lake Geneva: 0.12

Granite wall, Jardin de Veant: 0.30

Reason for high reading: Three guesses. First one begins with “g.”

4

Barcelona

Subway L3 in motion toward Plaçade Catalyuna: 0.06

Air dose inside massive stone entrance tunnel, Montjuïc citadel: 0.24

Reason for high reading: Almost surely the stone. More usually, enclosed and especially subterranean spaces (such as the subway L3 noted above) measured very low. This is the rationale for a fallout shelter.

4

San Francisco

Intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets: 0.06

Brick tiles in backyard garden: 0.24

Other objects at this garden were up to 4 times “cooler.”

4

Pineville, West Virginia

Cow Shed restaurant, plastic bench: 0.12

Granite “Ten Commandments” tablet at courthouse: 0.48

Reason for high reading: Probably not any one commandment.

4.5

Denver, Colorado

Interior of Irish Snug pub on East Colfax: 0.12

Granite boulder in Denver Botanical Garden: 0.54

Reason for high reading: Not much of a puzzler.

4.7

Estes Park, Colorado [7,522 ft]

Trunk of blue spruce tree, bank of Fall River: 0.18

Lichened granite boulder off Highway 34: 0.84

Do you see a pattern yet?

7

Greeley, Colorado

Interior of Mad Cow restaurant: 0.06

Concrete loading dock near railroad tracks, old downtown: 0.42

Reason for high reading: Some mineral in the concrete aggregate, I would guess. The air dose in the same place was nearly 40% less.

9

Moscow

Marble floor of cafeteria in Tretyakov Gallery: 0.06

Granite curb of Molotov’s grave: 0.54

Reason for high reading: Well, he was a glowing old Bolshevik.

16

Saint Petersburg

Air dose in wind on cruise boat, Neva River near Peter and Paul Fortress: 0.06

Granite windowsill outside fancy cafe Kutsov Eliseevi on the Nevskii Prospekt: 0.96

I rest my case.

Typical air dose off the Hanford Reserve, downstream of the B Reactor

Slapping mosquitoes on my face, I toggled the frisker to a one-minute timed SCALER count, with a building that Tom thought might be D Reactor now off the bow at the 10:00 position, and got an air dose of 26 counts per minute, 0.06 micros an hour—the latter being once again the lowest reading possible.* My other frisks of river wind at Hanford yielded comparable results.

Looking upstream toward the chalky ridge on the northeastern bank—one of the White Bluffs, in fact—and the low olive grasses on the other shore where the reserve was (I saw a pelican on the forbidden side, and then mincing longnecked egrets, none of them diving yet, just watching the dark water), as Tom’s boat hummed over the water-weeds, which sometimes resembled corals or rock concretions, I now began to be pelted by caddis flies, which clung in hordes to my arms and shoulders, crawling inside my spectacles, hiding in my hair, sunbathing on the pancake frisker and thronging in the oarlocks. Tom was brushing them off, too, grinning a little; and slowly the Water Witch overcame the current of that creamy river. My friend had remarked on how deserted it always was out here; he’d called it a silent river, although come afternoon the fishermen might be out. Everything was hazy, muted and gentle, the river crabbed and crowded with ripples, caddis flies crawling on us, the pallid reactor (if that was what it was) growing and growing off the bow almost like a farmhouse. Dark vehicles crawled along what appeared to be the baseline of that structure (there must have been a road flat against the horizon). I could faintly taste wildfire-smoke on my tongue. Drawing level with the building, I took a MAX reading, then another timed count, followed by a series of NORMAL readings: 0.103, 0.051, 0.124, 0.079, 0.099 micros per hour; another near-identical timed count, and then we neared two yellow signs side by side, one in English and one in Spanish. Through the binoculars I made out the English-language one:

WARNING

HAZARDOUS AREA

DO NOT ENTER

Past the two signs was a dull-looking pale shed behind some power poles, with a white truck parked in front, and that long low graveled bluff before it, gently descending upstream; to tell the truth, the scenery was much prettier off to starboard with those cliffs of soft greyish-pinkish white, underlined by a long island of olive-green which resembled parts of the off-limits side. I saw a huge white bird, probably a heron. (As I revise this paragraph on an electrically-lit January night, with my words hoarded in a battery-powered device whose consumption of energy I have quantified here, I remember how as we motored upstream that island seemed to be sliding by itself, leaving the sand-cliff behind it untouched, because the latter was so much farther away.) Two MAX counts both read 81 cpms and 0.266 micros—nothing to write a book about. Squishing cold caddis flies on my forehead, with the boat droning upstream toward the bend where the White Bluffs and the reserve’s olive-green seemed to meet, I immediately took another one-minute timed SCALER sampling, with the usual results, my feet pleasurably cool in their dripping shoes; while on the Hanford side eight deer grazed close together just above the shore, watching us without fear, right by a tall sign labeled 14; then we passed more deer almost silhouetted on the bluff’s flat top; there looked to be a road up there. In a black tree sat a silhouetted osprey. There came a yellow sign too small to read, after which the bluff top had been fenced off for a good hundred yards; maybe waste tanks had been buried there, so that might have been a good place to frisk, but the bluff’s gravel remained smooth and even, with no sign of any creek or gulley to sample from. Here the bluff began to rise, its gravel still evenly sloped and now overlined with a long dark stripe that must definitely have been a road. A sign announced that we were entering Area 13. The bluff momentarily dwindled into a marsh, rising again up at the bend; then far back on the plain were more of those odd whitish buildings; and Tom now thought that these might be the reactors.

There was a pumping station, with a curving road behind it, on which two white vehicles were parked side by side, until one followed the other down the bank, and they both vanished behind the station. A vast flock of tiny black birds—cliff swallows, I should guess* (all silhouetted, too tiny for my binoculars to make out)—rushed over the reserve. It was 10:59, and the frisker read 0.06 micros an hour, 26 counts per minute. Just past the pumphouse, by another English-Spanish pair of yellow warning signs, with my three-minute MAX reading almost the same as before, Tom announced that we had better turn back; the current was getting too strong. It became evident that we had never even reached D Reactor, having come about four curving miles, with another three to go. But since the entire Columbia was supposed to be contaminated, anyplace downstream of the reactors should do.

Two hundred yards below the pumphouse we might have made a hypothetical landing, but that would have been illegal, so let us call the rest of this paragraph a work of fiction as Tom paddled us close, and I stepped out, frisking pebbles on the beach while the Water Witch slowly began to descend the stream. The one-minute timed count was about as I had expected: 45 cpms and 0.12 micros. After all, the pebbles were river-licked and not particularly porous. In the dirt up on the bluff, where I never went because that would have been even more illegal, was deer scat and yellow grass, with a reading of 65 counts per minute and 0.24 micros—pretty close to the edge of the trees at our campsite. Chasing after Tom’s driftboat, I reentered nonfiction.

At 11:50 we could have made another hypothetical landing, although of course I love authority and must respect all laws. Up on the flat plain where mulleins grew in towering isolation and that mysterious boxlike structure looked out at me, with a tall skinny entity behind (Tom had thought it an emergency siren) and the predictable sign proclaimed Area 13, I could fictionally have measured sandy soil at 52 cpms and 0.24 micros, after which, covering my face, I might or might not have troweled a two-inch-deep hole and frisked again, in which case the frisker would have read 66 cpms and another 0.24 micros.* There were many more hypothetical caddis flies here on land, and I was glad to get back onto the Water Witch and push us off. Then for awhile Tom happily fished on the river with a red lure that dove and jittered, as he told me about the big steelhead that got away.

Tom on the river

About three miles downstream lay a good muddy place I would have liked to sample, since it lay on the shore of the reserve, where radiocontaminants might tend to wash down from the bluff and maybe even stop and sink—because plutonium dioxide, you see, is heavy, its density being 11.46 grams per cubic centimeter, while common quartz is only 2.5; unfortunately, just then a busload of approved individuals appeared, so it seemed best to keep this landing even more hypothetical than the others.

At 1:00 p.m. exactly (the dosimeter at 578.6, up from 578.3, when we had embarked at 8:41 a.m.) we emerged from the river at the White Bluffs boat ramp. I had not heard of any law against “fishing around,” so I did just that. Remembering the following rule to live by, courtesy of William L. Graf: Heavy metal concentrations are usually highest in the finest stream sediments, I took my trowel and commenced to scoop up black mud and water at the river’s edge, just below the surface.—Why the water? Because, at least at Los Alamos, plutonium content of suspended sediment is greater than that of bedload sediment.

Two days later, when that watery mud and muddy water had dried somewhat, in the kitchenette of my Portland hotel room I opened the bag and frisked it: 35 counts per minute, 0.024 micros an hour. Clyde was right. I might as well have frisked my own back yard!

Frisking a bag of mostly dried Hanford mud

I consoled myself with this finding of William L. Graf’s: The grand mean concentration for plutonium-238 in river water from the six major regional sites (on Rio Grande) is nearly zero . . . and the mean concentration for plutonium-239 and -240 is 0.0041 pCi/l, a value close to the minimum level of detection.* In which case, why not fight global warming with plutonium fuels?

CONCERNING BIOLOGICAL CONCENTRATIONS

The Japanese anti-nuclear engineer Hirose had noted (and in his book he spoke specifically of Hanford) that even after the radioactivity of waterborne particles decreases, the danger (or, as energy technologists might call it, the benefit) will continue to concentrate in plankton, and accumulate still more in the plankton-eating fish.

Hanford’s plutonium, then, might well have built up in the tissues of various organisms. I did not know how to measure those.

The following illustrates this phenomenon in the case of other Hanford pollutants:

CONCENTRATIONS OF RADIOACTIVE PHOSPHORUS AT HANFORD NUCLEAR SITE,

1954–58

[in milligrams per gram]

In Columbia River: 0.00003*

In egg yolks of ducks and geese: 6

CONCENTRATION FACTOR = 200,000*

OTHER CONCENTRATION FACTORS AT HANFORD,

1954–58

[also in milligrams per gram; original water concentrations not given]

Cesium-137

From waste pond water to muscle tissue of waterbirds: 250

Iodine-131*

From “desert vegetation” to thyroids of jackrabbits: 500

Strontium-90

From waste pond water to bones of waterbirds: 500

Sources: Eugene P. Odum, 1971, citing Foster and Rostenbach, 1954; Hanson and Kornberg, 1956; Davis and Foster, 1958; with calculations by WTV.

The pancake frisker failed to detect any of these radiocontaminants at Hanford—doubtless because they had been dissolved or suspended in such dilute concentrations.—The case of potassium was sobering.—The concentration factors for iodine, cesium and strontium bore grim relevance to Fukushima, where all three of those had been detected after the accident.

As Eli had told me, “The hotter the field is, the easier it is for that thing to do its job.” “That thing” certainly found its job easier in the red zones. When you consider the radiation levels I discovered there, please consider concentration factors. Imagine being encouraged to return to your home in Tomioka. Remember that the pancake frisker was optimized for cesium-137. Consider that much or most of the radiation I measured derived from this isotope. Multiply my readings by a factor of 250, and imagine bearing that amount of radiation in your muscle tissues.

And my failure at Hanford raised another unpleasant question, which will be germane to all subsequent chapters of Carbon Ideologies: What other dangerous substances right in front of me was I unable to detect?

All I could do was my best. On that subject, I had already learned from Mr. Kanari* that in the red zones, bricks and granite dwindled in importance; drainpipes were a better object of the frisker’s attentions:

Frisking a grating in Tomioka

MEASURED RADIOACTIVITIES OF SELECTED DRAINPIPES AND SEWER GRATINGS,

2014–15

[in microSv/hr]

In “normal background” areas

Sacramento

• Sheet metal pipe down the side of my studio: 0.12

Sidewalk 5 ft from same: 0.18

Charleston, West Virginia

• Grating in asphalt parking lot, Budget Host Hotel: 0.12

Asphalt curb 2 ft from same: 0.18

Williamson, West Virginia

• Drainpipe on side of Ryan & Ryan, attorneys, at ground: 0.18

Grass 1 ft from same: 0.24

Estes Park, Colorado

• Metal drainpipe, measured at sidewalk: 0.15

Concrete sidewalk 1 ft from same: 0.36

Barcelona

• Grating at Passeig de Sant Joan (frisker turned on its side): 0.18

Maximum air dose (sampled over 5 minutes) in vicinity of same: 0.08

Saint Petersburg, Russia

• Thick, painted, cast iron (?) pipe down courtyard wall of Hotel Nevsky Forum: 0.18

Sidewalk directly below same: 0.18

• Painted drainpipe down side of cafe Kutsov Eliseevi on the Nevskii Prospekt, frisked where it crossed exterior granite window-ledge: 0.54

Window-ledge adjoining same: 0.96

In Japanese green zone

Hisanohama [16 km north of central Iwaki]

• Drainpipe of traditional Japanese house being decontaminated: 0.49*

Rain channel in concrete driveway of same residence: 0.16*

• Next door neighbor’s drainpipe: 0.17*

In Japanese red and yellow radiation zones

Iitate

• Decontaminated drainpipe: 4.00

Roadside vegetation near same: 1.048

Tomioka

• Grating on border of green and yellow zones, frisked at 1 ft: 3.01

• Drainpipe near TSUBA, frisked at base, February 2014: 22.1*

• The same, frisked 1 ft from ground, October 2014: 12

• The same, at ground level, October 2014: 32

Air dose 2 ft from same, October 2014: 5

Okuma

• Grating near Ono Station, frisked from 3 inches above: 4.20

Air dose nearby, continuously sampled: 6–10

• Another grating in vicinity, frisked at 1.5 ft: 11.52

• The same, frisked at 10 inches: 21.9

• The same at 8 inches: 23.3

• Rusty grating at fish hatchery (deep drainage well beneath), frisked at waist level: 20.0

• The same at 3 inches: 30.0

Air dose in vicinity: 9.46

And now, reader, you are as numerically prepared as was I to visit the red zones.

THE RULES

Regarding these interesting places I should express my admiration as an American citizen—for when I lived we believed in “states’ rights”: In certain zones two women could marry each other,* or a cancer patient could legally drink marijuana tinctures for his pain, or a gun owner could stroll down Main Street loaded at the ready, while in other parts of the same nation any or all of those things were forbidden—that their rules of entry so colorfully varied. The red areas of Tomioka could be permissibly entered only through a national call center whose policy seemed less than favorable to non-residents. As for Okuma, that seaside paradise now rendered even more salubrious by the presence of Nuclear Plant No. 1, one could apply directly to the municipality, a written process that took months and required an exact route to be pre-approved, a vehicle (in this case another $600 taxi), a guarantee that each member of the party would possess protective gear and a dosimeter, and of course the construction of the most satisfactory answers to certain questions. In my case, for instance, it seemed better for me to be an author than a journalist, and best of all for me to be a photographer, as indeed I was. An official car would escort me, to ensure that I kept all my promises. So I anticipated a blinkered, commanded experience. But when push came to shove, nobody cared if my driver or interpreter had dosimeters; the driver even declined my offer of shoe covers, a mask and a paper painter’s suit. He was supposed to remain in the taxi at all times, so he got out whenever he felt like it, taking happy breaths of sea air and tramping through the radioactive weeds. Smiling, he said: “Just write that I stayed in the car.” (Now I have.) Once we had exited the red zone through the final security gate, the interpreter and I were sent for decontamination, while the driver and the two municipal officials (who had led rather than followed, and obligingly allowed me to wander around wherever I liked) stood passing the time, unmasked in that presumably particulated breeze. My painter’s suit, I sadly report, immediately tore across the crotch, while my shoe covers, which had soon become pincushions of significantly radioactive stickleburrs, stayed on until we were in view of No. 1, at which point the left one finally tore off. So there I was, ponderous and ludicrous, frisking the world with one hand while I photographed and scrawled notes with the other. I suspect that those two officials, so elegantly unencumbered, quickly lost whatever respect they might have felt for me, not that I much cared. Soon enough I had unzipped my paper suit halfway down the chest; except when we were admiring No. 1, from which an ill wind blew; I left my mask dangling around my throat (the prudent interpreter wore hers, although when we dropped by Tomioka later that day she put it on backwards, presumably inhaling whatever Okuma fallout had accrued to it, at which we both had a good laugh); so I was an unkempt shambles of a foreigner, but at least I could not later accuse myself of protecting my health more than did the people who were helping me. That was Okuma. In my university Russian language class our instructor, a Russian émigré, once joked that Russians were Italians trying to be Germans; and comparably peculiar were Okuma’s rules: strict in advance, mild in practice.

Iitate and Namie occupied still another category, for each of these places opened itself to me by means of a private tour. My guide for Iitate headed the Nagadoro subdistrict, which owned the unfortunate distinction of being the only part of the village actually in the red zone. When we approached the security gate, I asked whether he had obtained permission from the central government to bring me in.—“You’re not really allowed,” he explained, “but I will take responsibility.” How I loved that answer!—As for Namie, there too a kind of tour materialized—this one with a former Tepco worker who believed in nuclear power.

BUSINESS AS USUAL

In the summer of 2014 I entertained myself at home, cooking soup on my fossil-fueled stove, flying to the West Virginian coal country and generally doing my mite to burn more carbon while I awaited the approval of my Okuma application. Wishing to someday become a canny journalist, I even read the newspapers. That was how I kept up with Japan.

In April, Tepco’s attempt to freeze radioactive water in a tunnel between Reactor No. 1’s turbine building and a contaminated trench achieved disappointing results. I wasn’t awfully surprised.

A June headline ran: Tepco’s ice wall runs into glitch.

No matter how hard they tried, they could not seem to lower the temperature far enough. Since July they had injected, they said, more than 400 tons of ice and dry ice.

In August, an equal 400 tons of groundwater were still flowing into the reactor’s basement every day. There it got spiced up with cesium. That month Tepco petitioned to construct a facility to dump radiation-tainted groundwater . . . into the sea—but don’t worry, it would be after filtration, of course.

Then came another headline: Ice wall at No. 1 plant fails.*

Two weeks before my return, Typhoon Phanfone added its mite (168 millimeters of rain) to the groundwater around the four reactors of Plant No. 1, so that a monitoring well between Reactor No. 2 and the ocean now presented 150,000 becquerels per liter of tritium, a record for the well and over 10 times the level measured the previous week. That was very special.

The day before I arrived, what seems to have been the same well set a new record: 251,000 becquerels per liter of cesium—a concentration 3.7 times greater than four days earlier. It was the highest recorded in water samples from any of the wells. And, oh yes, strontium-90 and other such beta emitters had also increased their presence, to 7.8 million becquerels per liter.

I interviewed some Tepco P.R. men that month, and one of them, a Mr. Hitosugi Yoshimi, set my mind at rest on this issue: “We do sampling of the ocean water, and all of the results are publicized on our website. From immediately after the accident, if you compare to now, it’s much lower. It’s almost unmeasurable; that’s the fact.”—When he was saying these things I felt as sorry for him as I had for my hometown utility spokesman who could not bring himself to mention global warming.*

And poor Tepco kept working away. What else could they do? They could hardly sit pretty, as the U.S. Department of Energy had at Hanford. The plan was to clear away explosion debris from Reactor No. 1 in the winter of 2015. In 2013, they had attempted this at Reactor No. 3, incidentally contaminating various rice paddies with fallout. Maybe it would go better this time. If it did, then sometime in late fiscal 2017, they could attempt to withdraw No. 1’s fuel rods.

The tsunami that wiped out the backup cooling defenses of the four reactors at Plant No. 1 had been 15.1 meters high. Certain number-crunchers now projected that a 26.3-meter tsunami might strike the site—perhaps tomorrow, maybe 10 or 100,000 years from now. If that happened, said Tepco, 100 trillion becquerels of cesium could reach the ocean. It would certainly be nice to decommission the reactors before that took place.

They hoped to clear away Reactor No. 4’s fuel rods by November. And on another wonderful note, No. 1 fuel rod removal to finish ahead of time, Tepco chief says.

In fact the news grew so good that the Nuclear Regulation Authority approved the restart of a two-reactor plant in Kagoshima Prefecture.

As for me, I bought spare batteries for the pancake frisker, and stocked up on those cheap painter’s suits I have mentioned; frisker tests would establish that they could indeed keep the alpha and beta particles off my clothes. Perusing The Japan Times, I learned enough to hunt for swallows with white spots and peculiarly sized butterflies. (I saw the second but not the first.)

It was October, and the cities and ricefields grew ever foggier as the bullet train shot northward. In Koriyama the white fog resembled smog, and the buildings looked as ugly as ever. The air dose from the train platform was no worse than Tokyo’s, although a few days later my walk around the block measured 0.30, .36, .42 and .54 micros an hour with the frisker out before me at waist level. Even the granite flagstones of the station plaza were less radioactive than some boulders I later frisked in the Colorado Rockies.—Proceeding to Fukushima City, where the average value of my 40 frisks would be 0.24 micros (about two-and-one-third times higher than my home town), I lay in my hotel bed, listening to the rising and falling of a negligibly radioactive wind.

The following table is expressed in multiples of the average radiation level in my home town, Sacramento. It may be interesting for you to compare this table with the one here.

The figures here seem less alarming than the ones in the other table. They are also less accurate. By making claims about the average radioactivity of a given municipality, as opposed to merely reporting what is emitted from this or that specific object, this table pretends to do what only an army of friskers could achieve in fact. To record a few measurements here and there, many of them from within a moving vehicle, is merely to suggest. So be it.

Red zone border marker in Tomioka (2.34 micros per hour)

COMPARATIVE AVERAGE RADIATION LEVELS, 2014

in multiples of the Sacramento average

(from pancake frisker data)

All levels expressed in [microSv/hour]. Headers over 10 rounded to nearest whole digit.

1

Sacramento [0.08 microSv/hr]. This equals 0.7008 millis/yr.

1.43

1 milliSv per year. Maximum dose for ordinary citizens, per the International Commission on Radiological Protection. [0.11416].

1.63

Tokyo and San Francisco [0.13*].

1.75

Poza Rica, Mexico [0.14].

2.13

Namie, Japan [0.17]. Based on only 3 measurements along decontaminated highway. Had I been given more time, I probably would have found significantly higher levels.

2.25

Aizu-Wakamatsu, Japan [0.18].

2.38

Hirono and Singapore [0.19]. Many of the 11 Hirono readings were taken in vehicles en route to Tomioka. Since Hirono lies north of Iwaki, I suspect that a more thorough and accurate sampling would have found higher radioactivity than in Iwaki.

2.50

Iwaki, and various places in West Virginia, U.S.A. [0.20].

2.85

2 milliSv per year. Japanese national target air dose (“1 additional milli”). [0.22832].

3.50

Fukushima City [0.28].

4.00

Koriyama and Naraha [0.32].

5.14

3.6 milliSv per year. Alleged average worldwide dose. [0.41095].

7.14

5 milliSv per year. “For an individual steadily receiving 500 millirads per year, the chance of dying from cancer or leukemia is increased by 30 percent.” Disputed. [0.570776].

16

Iitate outside red zone [1.24].

18

Commercial airline flights [1.43]. These readings include takeoffs and landings but exclude any runway measurements. At cruising altitude, where airplanes spend most of their time, but where I frisked less often, my measurements generally fell between 2 and 3 micros an hour, so a truer (less eclectic) sampling might have averaged more like 30 times the Sacramento figure.

29

20 milliSv per year. Lower limit of yellow [“residence restriction”] zone designation. [2.283].

29

Okuma outside red zone [2.35].

35

Tomioka [2.77].

39

Iitate red zone [3.12].

71

50 milliSv per year. Upper limit of yellow zone designation; lower limit of red [no-go] zone. [5.708].

89

Okuma red zone [7.14].

143

100 milliSv per year. 0.5 percent increase in probability of fatal cancer, if this dose is received for a year. [11.416].

7,441

100 milliSv per week. Emergency exposure limit for nuclear workers in Japan, 2014 (susceptible to upward revision, which the government was considering). [595.238 micros/hr].

12,673

U.S. Transportation Security Administration X-rays [1,013.82].

2: No Crime in Nagadoro

Although Iitate Village lay a good 40 kilometers from Plant No. 1, and might have been expected to be as safe as anywhere on the outer ring, the place proved unfortunate in its winds. Perhaps this was the case which persuaded the Japanese government to replace that convenient system of the two rings with a more realistic fallout map.

It was another “combined village,” like Tomioka. “We took one sound from each included area to make this name. First four villages became two, Odate and Iiso; so we took Ii and tate,” explained a man from Iiso; the two towns had joined “30 years ago, or maybe 50.”

You may recall that the pre-accident population of Tomioka had been 16,000 at most. As for Iitate, in 2016 someone mordantly remarked: There every day 7500 workers are “decontaminating” the village where 6500 lived.

Iitate apparently received its first cesium, iodine and tellurium* in a snowfall after the explosion of Reactor No. 3. It was the most distant of the 10 localities to be blessed from plutonium from the accident (Okuma, Minamisoma and Namie also got improved in this way). I remember in 2011 watching the weather reports on Japanese television; this village always figured in them. Some of its subdistricts grew more contaminated than others, Nagadoro being the most dangerous—which is why it owned the lonely distinction of being a red zone.

Mr. Shigihara Yoshitomo (the man from Iiso) was the head of Nagadoro. He had once been a welder. His household had contained six persons, including two grandchildren. On his dairy farm there had been four breeding cows and three calves—all sold on June 22, 2011.

He wrote that on March 15, 2011, when they were making riceballs, the radiation level was 44.7 micros an hour—slightly higher than my own worst reading ever in Fukushima. A day later it was 49, and the day after that it had reached 95.1. On April 6, a Mr. Takamura found 28,000 becquerels from soil in Nagadoro. Come the end of that month, the government announced that radiation accumulation in Nagadoro now exceeded 20 millisieverts.*

At that time, people were still allowed to stay in their homes, but not to eat what they had planted. As for the cattle, eventually they slaughtered nearly 3,000 head. All the same, everyone in Iitate had remained in Mr. Shigihara’s words free to come and go for 14 months after the accident. At the end of May 2012, compulsory evacuation measures fell upon them. Each of the Nagadoro people was to receive 6 million yen* a year for five years. When Mr. Shigihara told me this, I remarked on the difference between his compensation and Mr. Endo’s—for as you may remember, the latter got nothing, his house being insufficiently damaged by the tsunami. Mr. Shigihara replied: “The government policy is to isolate all the evacuees. If they are too powerful, they are against the government. At the beginning we were all united against Tepco, but not now.”

His family left home on June 22. On July 17, Nagadoro became a no-go zone. Mr. Shigihara believed that the subdivision of contaminated areas into red, yellow and green further separated the people from each other.

On July 4, a whole body counter found his exposure of cesium-134 to be 1,200 becquerels; he also bore 1,400 becquerels of cesium-137.—How badly was he poisoned? At Chernobyl a certain Colonel Vodolazhsky, who died from his injuries, is said to have received 600 becquerels, evidently on a single overflight of the reactor; and from context this appears to have been a very high level of irradiation. But I should note that the colonel made many other flights; hence this dose might not have been lethally carcinogenic in and of itself.—At any rate, Mr. Shigihara’s 1,400 becquerels could scarcely have been good news.

By 2013 he had begun to wonder whether decontamination were even possible. In a typescript which he prepared at that time, he noted the immense amount of time it required to decontaminate a place. In addition, he wrote, the resulting radiation level decrease is only to half.

Here are some other thoughts from that sad document:

What hurt me most is that I left my grandchildren exposed to radiation . . . I often say that the truth will be revealed when my grandchildren have babies. This is unbearable . . .

I feel we are now being tamed. There is no dream or hope. Nagadoro residents and Fukushima people are all supposed to be angry. I don’t really like “social movement[s],” but after experiencing this, I now think that we need to voice against what we think is wrong . . .

My house was built when I was a child, carrying logs from the mountains, and [construction] took 2 years. After all these years, you can’t easily leave the village, which was constructed through our ancestors’ efforts generation after generation.

His “young son” announced that he would never return to Nagadoro. The same went for his grandchildren. Saying that she could not imagine life without them, his wife informed him that in that case she would not go back, either. Mr. Shigihara: So I thought, there is no point for me to return there alone.

Think about it. Why [do] people gather and hold festivals at the shrine? Why do they dance? What is your home? I can’t explain well myself, but perhaps gratitude to the ancestors . . . I realized for the first time after I left my home. It is like you realize how you appreciate your parents only after they die.

That September he measured the levels again, reading 5 to 7 micros at the “Nagadoro intersection,” 4 to 6 micros both in front of and inside his house, and 8 to 15 micros in his ricefield and his vegetable garden; the latter two, he noted, had certainly fallen off.

I was to meet him on October 23, 2014. On the twenty-second, at 4:30 in the afternoon real time, according to the Nuclear Regulation Authority website, which a lovely Japanese angel accessed for me, it had transpired that of Iitate’s 40 monitoring posts the highest official value was the senior high school at 2.338 micros per hour; the junior high school was the merest 1.441; there even appeared to be a few zero points in the yellow zone. Then the angel’s cursor froze up; certain station values did not appear; should I have labeled that human error or was it the machine kind? I calculated that 2.338 micros an hour meant 20.48 millis a year, but I would hardly be in Iitate for a year, so who cared?—As it happened, 2.338 micros was an understatement. (Shall I say that the NRA lied, or simply that certain unmentionable things happen?)—On that cool afternoon of light grey rainy sky and dark grey concrete buildings it came time to consider the practicalities of one’s painter’s suit and half-face dust mask which was recommended for use against harmless dusts only; one also carried the shoe covers and blue gloves at the ready.

The twenty-third was a grey morning. I wondered if it were drizzling; then a cyclist rode by with an uncovered head, overflown by two crows. The next thing I wondered was whether sunscreen would adhere alpha and beta particles to my skin or in fact keep them from blowing down inside my clothes. Unable to guess, I skipped the sunscreen.

The dosimeter read 0.571 millisieverts accrued over more than a year in Tokyo—the usual a micro a day, or very rarely two. Before tonight, several more digits might turn over.

In the lobby of my business hotel, men bowed over their breakfasts at small round tables, one fellow, perhaps a student, for he wore cheap black clothes, rapidly chopsticking sticky rice from his plate into his upturned bowl. The other men were all dressed at least in stiff white shirts and black business slacks; some were in full suits, one of those latter, a balding chubby specimen, having just finished eating, wore a four-faceted paper mask over his nose and mouth as he sat with folded arms, rapidly tapping his feet; while behind him at the reception desk the plump young lady in the yellow pseudo-military uniform complete with black and gold epaulettes as required by that corporate chain stood waiting to give or take a key; and two meager-faced elder women in white blouses, green aprons and green kerchiefs carried dirty dishes to their den on the other side of the room, where they now began washing them. Faced down by a scene so stoutly quotidian, the red zones faded into the merest harmful rumors.

The railroad clock displayed 11.9° Celsius at 8:00 a.m. The bulky, jolly, headshaved taxi driver sped us over the half-dry river. He said: “I don’t mind about the radiation. It’s the younger ones who have to worry.” And so we arrived at the apartment block.

Mr. Shigihara was a roundheaded grandfather with very short spikes of grey hair. He said: “It hurts me when they say that radiation causes mutation. It hurts me that the government evacuated Okuma and Futaba but not Iitate. They first said that even 10 microsieverts per hour was no problem at all. At our community center it was 15 or 17 . . .”

To his young-looking wife I offered to frisk anything in their abandoned place that she might wish to have with her, but she calmly replied that the neighbors would be too frightened if it came out that she had brought anything back from there. She served tea. They seemed to be a loving couple. Their story had a typical village beginning: Her family’s home had been only 1.5 kilometers away from his. I thought it kindest not to inquire what had happened to her parents.

Mr. Shigihara remarked that the Nagadoro people hardly kept in touch anymore. “People from Okuma and Futaba, 70% of them are in the same place. From Iitate they are spread all around, because the other places were evacuated right away, and by the time we were told to leave, no good facilities were left.”

We got in his car, and I turned on the pancake frisker: the merest 55 counts per minute, 0.18 micros. That was higher than Tokyo and San Francisco but just barely lower than Singapore.

I asked what he used to do when he was a boy.

“We went after birds. There were no toys, you know. No swings! We made swings using big ropes. We played marbles. We just went into the mountains to make charcoal. At that time we didn’t grow much rice,” evidently for lack of flatlands, “so mountain jobs were more important. Forestry keeps you busy for the whole year . . .”—and we were winding up into the mountains, paralleling the sparkling grey-green river.

“We would sell the charcoal for cash,” he said. “You put the charcoal on the back of a horse and you walked 30 kilometers. That was what we did until the Tokyo Olympics in 1964. Then we started to go to other cities to work. In Iitate we earned 400 yen per day, and in Tokyo we could get 2,500 yen per day. From January to March there was nothing to do here; that was when people went away.”

We passed steep rock outcroppings, higher than in West Virginia. There were lush banana trees, rainy sky, high round hills of yellow-green forest. I wondered how contaminated they were.

“After the Olympic Games there was a company set up in Iitate to make electrical parts,” he was saying. “Women worked there and also in a garment factory . . .”

“When did you first hear that nuclear power was coming near you?”

“Forty years ago. I was about 20. That was when I heard about it. At that time Iitate Village was against it, but we had no say since the plant was more than 30 kilometers away. Futaba and Okuma* received many subsidies, but we got nothing.”

He might or might not have been a jealous soul, but he paid most definite attention to what he and his were given in relation to others.

He said: “In my opinion, the people who benefitted would like to go back by any means, but I think they should compromise a little bit; my grandchildren can’t go back.”

I saw bamboo and something like honeysuckle and a few trees turning yellow.

“The government says they are going to make a facility for temporary storage. I think that temporary and final storage should be the same,” he said.

“Whom do you blame?”

“The government, and nationalists, including me. I personally don’t feel responsible, but everyone blames Tepco and the government alone, and that’s wrong. Our parents, the earlier generation, they accepted it. Everybody including me is responsible. The government shows the least intention to be responsible. It doesn’t even want to decide threshold radiation levels for whenever we should go back to Iitate. They say that we should decide it, because they’re just trying not to take responsibility.”

“When do you think your home will be safe?”

“The head of the NRA*, Mr. Tanaka, he came to my house to carry out an experimental decontamination. At that time, he said that it would take at least 20 years. It was as if he were talking to himself. It won’t be good in 20 years . . .”

He added: “Around then the front of my house read 8 micros an hour. Mr. Tanaka said they would make it one-tenth, but they only reduced it by 50 percent. That made him so disappointed . . .”—and we were passing through the high town of Kawabata, whose cemetery steles glittered on the hills; just here (in the car, at least) the radiation was as low as in my kitchen back home.

“Up to here we used to sell charcoal,” he said. The dosimeter remained at 0.571.

Every little flat space had long since become a ricefield. We turned onto our mountain shortcut, lurching up into the red and yellow leaves.

“So Japan is going to deteriorate,” he said. “If you don’t take care of these fields and forests at the prefectural level, the water and air will not be remediated.”

We passed a field of scarlet maples, rolling uphill past the terraces.

He said: “I believe that if the nature is beautiful, then even if the living level is economically lower, it’s still a better life.

“There is no name for the road,” he said. “We are almost at the border of Iitate.”

Suddenly we were in a forest of cryptomeria and pine which to me appeared quite wild, although Mr. Shigihara said that it had been planted only some 30 years ago. He said: “I don’t wear a mask, nothing. The government, I don’t see many of them wearing masks . . .”

At 9:49 we passed the sign that said IITATE VILLAGE. “This is the best week of the year for color,” he said. “You’re lucky,” and doubtless I was, although the pancake frisker was distracting me from my good luck, for almost immediately as we descended into the town limits the one-minute timed reading I obtained there in the back seat grew significant, displaying 226 counts per minute and 0.78 micros an hour. Were I to set up housekeeping around here, this level would present me with nearly seven times the international (not Japanese) recommended annual civilian dose, but since our tour was intended to last no longer than three or four hours, I felt no unease just yet; my venerable “incident guide” for nuclear first responders had set the worry threshold at 0.1 millirems, or a full 1 micro; you may remember that that lichened boulder in Estes Park, Colorado, was “hotter” than this—but I did feel it incumbent on me to pay attention, insofar as our situation was not invisible to me—what truly did I have but the frisker, the dosimeter (which had not yet turned over a single digit that day), and Mr. Shigihara’s confident experience?—“These fields are damaged by wild boar,” he was saying, and just then I was too occupied in writing down radiation measurements to look, but presently he pointed again (he was a lonely old man whose thick Iitate dialect, which sometimes baffled the interpreter and others, further isolated him, which might have been why he often repeated himself), and I saw how parts of the green abandoned fields had been pawed down to black dirt. “They eat worms inside the soil and also roots. That’s why they dig. You see them early in the morning . . .” In NORMAL mode the frisker was chittering between 1.0 and 1.1 micros an hour—the average 2015 air dose for Iitate (8 or 16 times higher than my home town’s)—after which it plunged to 0.5, immediately ascending to 0.6, where it stayed for a moment, then chirped to 0.7 and 0.8. In other fields, decontamination workers were servicing those horrid black bags. Some wore half-masks and others let them hang around their throats. Asking Mr. Shigihara to stop the car, I walked up to the security rope around a neat army of bags and thrust out the frisker in NORMAL: 1 to 2 micros only.

A quarter of an hour later we had reached the gate in the empty road where stood the sentry, who must be getting his innards tanned in recompense for controlling access to the red zone. He made a fine impression on me, that white-helmeted guard before the red zone of Iitate, with the paper half-mask tucked under his eyes and his gloved hands crossed and characters marching down his white suspenders.

Guard at entrance to Iitate red zone

“See, this guy has been here for three years,” Mr. Shigihara said. “I wonder why the government doesn’t care about him.”

The inevitable day when we Americans experienced our own true nuclear disaster would bring out our own national comicalities. The perimeters of our forbidden zones would be patrolled by self-important federal police officers or their bully hirelings. Some national agency would have all the authority; the locals would have none. In Japan, of course, it did not work like that. Mr. Shigihara was, as you know, the head of Nagadoro Subdistrict, a position which must have been less powerful than that of the village mayor; while the man at the gate, so I would have thought, had the whole central government at his back. Mr. Shigihara remarked that as a matter of fact he was only permitted to bring in journalists on the first and third Sundays, and this was a Thursday, but the guard asked no questions, checked no papers; withdrawing the central bolt from that two-section metal gate, he swung the pieces apart, and in we drove. I liked that.

It had come time to use the NORMAL mode more frequently, in order to save myself and potentially my companions from long minutes of being frozen in place while getting irradiated, so that is what I did. The frisker chirred quite busily, displaying 4 or 5 micros an hour, and once in awhile even 6. Six microsieverts—now, that was a hundred times higher than what I got on the Amtrak train in California. Still, it wasn’t all that bad, compared to the 95.1 that Mr. Shigihara had experienced on March 17, 2011.—Just now the frisker read 5.71 micros. That would be 50 millis if it went on for a year.

Mr. Shigihara saw me checking my dosimeter. In disgust he said: “If you have 10 of them, the results are all different.”

We arrived at White Bird Shrine, and I asked to get out and measure. Where we parked, a one-minute timed count measured 2.94 microsieverts per hour.

He bitterly disdained to wear a mask, and I saw him watching me, so I did not put mine on, either, and that was how I fell into bad habits in the red zones. Since he was willing to expose himself for my sake, I would rather take chances with my health than offend him. (The interpreter wore her mask in Okuma and sometimes in Tomioka—not today.) So nobody put on anything, not even shoe covers. It was a dryish day, with particles blowing in the faint breeze. Trying to play it cool, I asked what the shrine was dedicated to.

“This is to be grateful for the harvest,” he replied. “I would like to say thank you.”

He pointed out two votive figures. The one on the right had been erected because no villagers got killed by the Americans during World War II.

I checked the dosimeter again.—“People see these values and they get pale,” he said. “But we come here every three days.”

The two shrine figures (3.08 micros)

I read 3 micros beneath the torus. We ascended the front steps, and the level climbed to 4. I wished I had had the pancake frisker when I was standing at the ruined shrine in Tomioka with Mr. Endo.

“In the past we used to sing together and dance together,” said Mr. Shigihara. “This stone lantern came down. We fixed everything last year.”

There had been moderate damage from the big quake. He showed me the new plaque with his name and others’ on it to commemorate the repair; they had paid for the stone, then laid it in themselves, hired laborers being expensive and afraid.

I decided to explore the place’s radioactivities. Mr. Shigihara stood by the interpreter while I began to climb; and what I later most remembered from Iitate, after the bright red berries and lovely geraniums and all the other bright flowers of so many colors, each of them radioactive in its own way, was ascending that steep and narrow flight of shrine steps up through the darkness of the pine and cryptomeria trees,* my shoes sinking into the softness of reddish-brown cryptomeria needles on those long unswept steps, so that I wondered how contaminated they would be; holding the frisker before me like a torch (toggled to NORMAL so that its numerical flickerings would keep me updated to poisonous realities), I watched the readings go steeply up, from 3 microsieverts per hour to 4 to 5 as my head drew closer to those hideous branches—hideous, of course, only because the frisker made them so—and because I, an occasional sufferer from tree allergens in my home town, have sometimes found myself sneezing or even choking when I pass directly under a pollen-raining branch, I could not help but wonder whether in this enclosed space alpha and beta particles might be likewise sifting down to tickle my lungs with carcinogenic scintillations; but near the top of the steps, the ceiling of that tunnel of branches finally drew off from me a trifle, and the frisker began to chirp more slowly. The decrepit shrine stood right ahead of me now, so I climbed up to it: 3 micros, then 2, then 3 again. In spite of my creeping anxiety about the radiation, I paused on the topmost step to take a one-minute timed count: 721 counts per minute and 2.4 micros per hour. Well, so what? On one of my transcontinental business flights out of Washington, D.C. (cruising altitude, 36,000 feet), the frisker had read 733 cpms and 2.46 micros, so aside from the issue of inhalable particles, standing here was no more unsalubrious than airplane travel, which hardly anyone worried about.

Presently Mr. Shigihara and the interpreter came up after me. He bowed and thanked the god “for the land, the ancestors and everything.” I do not remember whether he clapped. He left no coins. On the way down he asked me if I were a Christian, and I said that I liked to express gratitude for my life. He approved of that; he said that he did much the same.

At 10:25 the dosimeter turned over a digit: another microsievert in my body. Down at the first torus the air dose had reached 5 micros an hour. Inside the car it was only 1.196 micros.

As we departed, Mr. Shigihara said: “Sometimes foreigners ask me why we don’t riot. It’s very difficult to make an action. I wouldn’t do anything myself. I know that’s not a good thing, but that’s reality. I just can’t.”

We stopped at the carp pond, where he came every three days. There were no fish in sight. When I checked my exposure, he said: “Your dosimeter is just for your peace of mind. No one will tell me what is safe, so it’s good for nothing.”

All the same, he kept pulling out his own scintillation counter.

Driving past another field torn up by wild boar, he said: “The monkeys eat chestnuts and persimmons. Over there is my land.”

At an abandoned intersection, probably the one mentioned in his writings, a red cross had been painted on the road to mark the point of highest radioactivity at some prior period. “They used to come every day to measure, and now they come every week,” he said bitterly. The pancake frisker was reading 4.81 and 4.91 micros an hour.—“Look at this!” he shouted, and from the logbox pulled out the radiation records. “March 17—95.1 microsieverts an hour! We were making onigiri* here—”

I suppose that if I had lived through such terrifying levels, I might have repeated myself, too—wondering all the while how long I would walk this earth before the radiation caught me out.

Calming down, he said: “You’re not supposed to be walking here anyway. Prohibited to ordinary people! But it’s nothing.”

Here on concrete supports stood a grand air dose monitor behind a heavy security grating, its top an angled slab of solar panels. He said: “I still think the government underreports the radiation. The sensor should be on the ground.”

I remember a certain dusty-windowed building of unknown purpose right there in the heart of Iitate’s red zone; the light industrial district of my Californian home town held many such former auto body shops and defunct printing establishments on which the weeds kept closing in; in Japan, of course, such sights were more out of place. I could see the reflections of trees and clouds in those dark windows whose grimy sashes quite stimulated the chirpings of my pancake frisker; and grasses licked up against them as the bright green leaves (now just beginning to go yellow or rusty with autumn) of what impelled itself to become forest groped toward the sun; their stalks were becoming trunks and one window was already smothered.

Going up the narrow road to the decontaminated community center I measured 0.8 to 1 micros. He said: “There used to be black bags here.”

The rusty leaves on the tree behind the community center, the do-not-enter sign on the empty blacktop at the intersection, the cloudy sky and the moss on graven stones made for a fine post-human picture. I walked around and measured 0.48 micros an hour—the same as that Ten Commandments granite tablet in front of the courthouse in Pineville, West Virginia. That had been the highest reading I got in the eastern United States. (Doubtless I could have fished around for radon in Connecticut basements, but why bother when Iitate put them to shame?) A few steps farther, the levels dropped to 0.42, which replicated my reading in a small commercial plane at 17,000 feet over West Virginia, and the air dose at Koriyama Station’s street plaza, two feet from the granite flagstones.—Although it was not so bad, I found myself trying not to breathe too deeply of the fresh chilly air. It was quite still. There were blue shadows on the rolling green hills. Yellow leaves twitched.

On the hood of the car hunched a very strange butterfly, greyish-orange and asymmetrical. I asked if he had ever seen one like it. “No,” he said angrily, “but don’t write that it’s a mutant because of the radiation!”

This was one of his bêtes noires. At his temporary home back in Fukushima City I had asked him, meaning no harm, to point out any plant or animal abnormalities for me to photograph, since the only other two ways for me to represent the radiation visually were to record abandoned decrepitude, or photograph the numerical display of the pancake frisker. He grew almost enraged. It seemed that he had conceived the idea that documenting mutations was the trivializing or even sadistic entertainment of journalists. Not wishing to provoke him, I dropped the subject. And I made a point of not photographing the deformed butterfly.*

Driving away from the community center, we encountered mild weather: about one microsievert per hour. When we reached his land, the frisker was reporting 1.8 micros, because exactly here the forces of good had established their usual multitudes of black bags; and on that green field now cut into berms and terraces, white-clad figures strode mysteriously yet purposefully, with a bulldozer and a crane behind them and clouds in the lovely sky. A big man in knee-high boots was standing at the lip of the well they had made, with his feet spread wide and his gloved hands hanging loose. A slender young woman whose white suit was too big for her stood facing him, bowing her half-masked face as if waiting to receive some order; from beneath the white hard hat her rich black hair fell loose across her shoulders; I wondered how radioactive it was. And Mr. Shigihara stood in the middle of the empty road, calling out to them.

I went up to measure a black bag, and the reading went down to half a micro! Mr. Shigihara laughed at me. He explained that the outer rows consisted of sandbags. I could have crawled onto the real black bags, but somehow I didn’t want to; come to think of it, back when I was alive it always put me out whenever I had to irradiate my testicles.

Ten meters back from the bags, the dose was 1.74.

Mr. Shigihara stood chatting with the smiling and laughing decontamination workers, none of whom were now wearing masks. After all, they said, alpha and beta could not get out of the bags! Aside from Mr. Shigihara himself, and the decontamination traffic cop who stood there on the road, directing nonexistent traffic, they were the only human beings I saw in Nagadoro. I strolled across the deserted highway, frisking weeds, flowers and pampas grass. They read one, two and three micros. The fallen leaves made a sweetly pre-radioactive sight: as they decomposed they would emit ammonia, which is known to draw cesium from the soil and make it more absorbable by plants. And now Mr. Shigihara had completed his pleasantries with the decontaminators. I could not judge how sad it made him to see this former field of his whose only present crop was black bags. They had compensated him 190,000 yen per 10 ar.*

A 21st-century crop on Mr. Shigihara’s land

We drove up the side-road to his house, which he predicted would read 1.2 micros inside. They had decontaminated his rain gutters to about 4, he said. They had taken five centimeters of topsoil from around the house, and pruned one of his favorite trees nearly to death; he still felt cross about that.

It must have been a pleasant home once. Even now it appeared far more liveable than Mr. Endo’s place. There was a pond, a dairy barn, a rich-looking pasture and many trees. Mr. Shigihara had been prosperous. The house itself remained in excellent repair.—Pulling out his own counter, he stood in the driveway, then said: “It’s the lowest reading yet.” I made my own measurement: 1.14 micros.* If the radiation remained at that level, staying here might be no worse than working as an airline stewardess.*—Where was all the cesium going?—I am guessing that a great deal of those 95.1 micros which had afflicted this place on March 16, 2011, derived from iodine-131, whose 10 half-lives of dwindling to 1/1000 strength would already have elapsed by early June of that year; by now the stuff’s concentration must be nearly indetectable. As for the cesium, whose ability to spread itself at significant distances from the locus of any atomic explosion was infamous (being the decay product of certain radioactive gases, it could travel high and quickly on any nuclear wind), it probably made up the bulk of Iitate’s present radiation burden. The two and a half years since the reactor failures comprised a mere 12% of cesium-134’s first half-life, and 8% of cesium-137’s. It must still be causing wickedness somewhere.

Inside the house it was chilly and there was a faint mildew smell. We sat down at the table. “We used to dry mushrooms here,” he said. The frisker settled down at 0.8. Why, that was hardly more than 7 millis a year!*—If he wore a mask, and never went out, perhaps he could have dwelled there awhile before the cesium built up in his muscles. “They used to say 1,000 becquerels is fine, but now they say less than 100 becquerels . . . ,” he wearily murmured.

CESIUM CONCENTRATIONS IN IITATE MUSHROOMS, 2014

(in becquerels per kilogram)

Japanese government’s safe limit “for regular food items”: 100

Found in matsutake mushrooms: “up to” 3,032

Found in shiitake mushrooms: “up to” 8,839

Source: The Japan Times, January 2014.

His grandchildren’s portrait hung on the wall. I frisked the air in front of it; it was only 1.084 micros. Sitting there on the floor in his house, he seemed, like Mr. Endo at that shrine in Tomioka, to have become younger; this was his place; for a few moments his lost world reorganized itself around him; when we went out he puttered across one of his fields almost happily.*

He had a camera set up to record night visitors. He showed me photos of the monkeys and wild boar that had visited. When I asked how often he found sick or dead animals, he answered, as people from the red zones always did, that no creatures showed any signs of harm.*

Mr. Shigihara’s grandchildren (1.084 micros)

His back window measured almost 4 micros—higher than the highest timed reading I ever got in an airplane.* But the rest of the house never registered much over a single micro—call it 20% of what he had measured the year before. I wish I had thought to frisk the floor. As always in those red zones, all parties preferred to get out sooner rather than later, and the sense of pressure I felt to hurry, less for myself than for him and the interpreter, who were deriving very little benefit from their radiation exposure, rendered thoroughness impossible. Had the floor been “hot,” the mystery of the disappearing cesium would have been solved.

Pursuing this question, I asked Mr. Shigihara whether he would let me dig a hole in his field, maybe over there beneath the big tree. He was hospitable; he even lent me a shovel. The air dose was nowhere near the 8 to 12 micros he had measured 13 months ago; in his pasture and over his pond I could only find 3 or 4 micros. He and the interpreter stood back as I began to dig, perhaps because they entertained considerations of radioactive dust, or maybe just to give me room; well, they continued to refrain from masking their faces, so I would follow suit. As I dug, I frisked. The topsoil was about 3 micros. From 6 inches to a foot deep, the levels went up from 3 to 4, then 4.5 and 5, after which they began to fall off again. At two feet deep, they read 3 micros. That was as far as I went.—As good old William L. Graf once put it: In the Savannah River area . . . 84 percent of the soil plutonium is within 5 cm of the surface, and 90 percent is within 15 cm . . . In Japanese soils, more than 80 percent of plutonium-239 and plutonium-240 is within 10 cm of the surface. Perhaps he was onto something applicable to all the heavy radionuclides. Happy to re-inter what my old chemistry textbook used to call an extremely active member of the Sodium Family, I shoveled the dirt back in and thanked Mr. Shigihara.

Mr. Shigihara in the parlor of his former home. His dosimeter hangs from around his neck.

He said: “Many people came to Iitate to evacuate. I thought it was safe. About a thousand of the Self-Defense Forces were here, and suddenly they had to go! The American government policy was 80 kilometers from Daiichi. I’ve heard the American soldiers are suing . . .”

I wandered into the reddish-brown dimness of his dairy barn, where a small bright window of tree-light bestowed on it some of the tones of an Andrew Wyeth painting; the walls were a little mossy and maybe moldy; nothing looked amiss; the cows could have come home at any minute, and the levels varied between 3 and 4.3. Then I elongated my arm (I don’t know why), and the frisker chittered up to 8.70 micros—the highest reading I got in Iitate. After that, the place felt less inviting, and I hastened out of there. Mr. Shigihara and the interpreter were ready to be gone. I played the frisker over the edge of the pond, and then across the leaves and red berries that were there, finding anywhere from 2.88 to 4.29 micros.

By now the dosimeter had turned over two digits, so we had absorbed 2 micros.

I had asked to visit the village’s most beautiful place, which of course meant the cherry trees of Iitate, which were green-mossed on their dark trunks and branches, almost but not entirely leafless—seven months out of blossom—growing out of the wet grass and ferns on a hill where, as Mr. Shigihara pointed out, we could see all the way to the ocean—which meant that cesium-laden ocean breezes had a straight path to that hill, and indeed it was somewhat radioactive—3 and 4 micros by the cherry trees, the car up winding around past hydrangeas (3.94). At our first stop the air dose was only 1.3, but as I stood looking down through the cherry trees, a fresh breeze arose from the ocean, and the frisker instantly chittered up to 5 micros. Higher up I took another measurement, on the face of the hill which must receive that particle-laden wind; certain glossy leaves read 6.79 micros; the air dose by a road sign with a curvy arrow on it measured 3.81, and then I drew back the frisker a little, and it read 5.80. There must have been gamma rays about (a fine indication of cesium), because the level inside Mr. Shigihara’s car had tripled, to 3 and 4 micros an hour, although it occurred to me that we might have let in too much fallout as a result of all the times we had opened the door; but in the end my cesium hypothesis seemed the more plausible, for as soon as we departed the red zone, the radiation inside the car dropped by itself, all the way back to 1.3, so there must not have been many conspicuously irradiating particles riding with us.

Mr. Shigihara and some others maintained these cherry trees. On July 6, 7 and 8, some 40 people had come here, representing about 70% of the households; they also spruced up the cemetery with a “weeding machine.”

I asked how radioactive it had been, and he grandly replied: “We didn’t measure it. We don’t care about the level.”

I did. It was 6.37 and 6.80 and 5.80—not too bad, compared to the next two red zones . . .

Amidst the dark, green-splotched curvature of Iitate’s cherry branches he stood looking out at the slit of ocean (which must have been almost in sight of Plant No. 1) and said: “For Fukushima City people it was lucky. We were sacrificed, but other people were saved. So we ask for more help. Futaba and Namie suffered a lot, but they evacuated before the explosion, while we kept getting told, no problem, no problem . . .”

Frisking the hill with the ocean view (6.79 micros)

Black branches curved gently against the sky, while below them the moist grass and the many flowers were as vibrant as if they had never been poisoned. Their slight decrepitude epitomized the Japanese aesthetic of sabi.*

Now it was time to go. We drove out through another gate; the radiation field dwindled, and then we were back in greater Iitate, which was merely a yellow zone, with islands and continents of black bags going on and on; none of the ones I could reach with my frisker read more than a micro and a half.—Where would those bags finally go?—Two months ago, after what I was told had been strenuous negotiations, the prefectural governor of Fukushima finally granted consent for the central government to store contaminated “debris” for 30 years in exchange for 301 billion yen. The politicians of Tokyo decreed that each radiopoisoned prefecture must find somewhere to store black bags within its own borders. And so a local headline ran: Tochigi town protests nomination as atomic dump site. Fortunately, Shioya was also “a candidate”—how lucky for Shioya!

At the mostly deserted town hall, on a walkway of hand-laid stones, just before a pair of cutesy stone figures, there stood on a metal pedestal the two stout metal legs and the two glowing red lights and the square metal face of the current air dose display, with its two readouts of red numbers composed of glowing squares; one said 0 and one said 44; no one could tell me what they meant; perhaps the 44 was the daily accrual in microsieverts, although according to my pancake frisker, a day’s worth of radiation at this spot would only be about 13 micros; it might have referred to the red zone, for it worked out to about 4 micros an hour, which correlated somewhat with my readings. Mr. Shigihara liked the two stone figures. They must have reminded him of the good old days.

At last we came out onto Highway 399, leaving Iitate, the dreary armies of black bags bivouacked in mud, with green fields all around them, and the dosimeter accrued another digit.*

Mr. Shigihara said: “How I like to pass the time is have a draft beer and talk about Iitate . . .”—so that is more or less what we did. Remembering him now, I hope that by then he felt friendly toward me, since I had refrained from asking about mutants, never embarrassed him with pity, and breathed in the sweet radioactive breezes as masklessly as he. I must admit that at White Bird Shrine, going up that long dark flight of steep steps beneath the cryptomeria trees with fallen needles very radioactive and soft underfoot, I had wished for shoe covers. But Mr. Shigihara was testing me, and I meant to pass the test. Besides, he was still alive. The field would have had to be something like 117,000 times stronger to bring on radiation sickness, and if I got lung cancer in five or 10 years I could blame three cigarettes that I had half-smoked in my life.

He said: “Evacuees, they are suffering, but at the same time they are the objects of envy from those who do not get any subsidy. That hurts us.”

He said that 30 out of Nagadoro’s 70 households had already purchased real estate in Fukushima City. I think that made him feel pretty hopeless.

Lean, active Mr. Shigihara, who despite his grey-fringed baldness had the bright eyes and mobile mouth of a younger person, liked to keep busy. He must have been a conscientious farmer, back when he had a farm.—He patrolled the red zone every three days. I asked him if he encountered any crime, and he assured me that there was no crime in Nagadoro.

3: “Your Risk Is Close to Zero”

“No problem at all,” said Mr. Kojima. “Even Okuma. None at all.” He was referring to the rental car, which would carry us 180 kilometers round trip. The highway had been decontaminated to pretty low levels, but in Okuma Town one ought to wear a mask and protective gear—although since he and Aki didn’t, I didn’t, either.

“For a short time you don’t need a mask,” said Aki. “This is how small the actual effect is. However, if you are active outside, then you need a mask.”

I nodded cheerfully, and he elaborated: “If in a box is radiation, then you don’t need a mask. But if there is no box, then it is possible that radiation comes into your mouth. Then you need a mask. But even without a mask, your risk is close to zero.”

He estimated that in Okuma, one square centimeter might register up to 40,000 becquerels. I being ignorant, that failed to scare me.

“If there is dust, you need to wear a mask. Think about dust. The dust itself is radioactive. So the risk is higher then.”

It was 9:10 in the morning, and my brand new dosimeter stood at 1.5 micros, which made me feel almost young again.

Aki and Mr. Kojima living the dream in Tomioka (0.5 micros)

“If the meter catches a scintillation, that’s one count per second—if it catches it,” he said. As you can see, he knew his physics. He was the guide; he was a former Tepco engineer. Mr. Kojima was the go-between.

Aki’s family name was Yoshikawa, but since I told him to call me Bill, he invited me to call him Aki. The next night we got tipsy together, and I felt that I had done a good thing for international relations to watch him stagger off to his monorail. Mr. Kojima had already gone home; hopefully I had pleased him with the contents of the gratitude envelope.

As the interpreter explained the setup in a letter to me:

Mr. Kojima organized these tours as a member of a private organization, Isshin-Juku, that fosters human resources that may promote democracy . . . The graduates . . . include politicians, venture capitalists, . . . etc. Mr. Kojima works at Fujitsu for a living, but spends his private time . . . promoting a project of his own within the framework of Isshin-Juku—organizing tours to Fukushima.

Mr. Yoshikawa was graduated from a senior high school managed by Tepco . . . He worked at Tepco from 1999 to 2012. He quit the job as he wanted to work from outside to do something about the poor working conditions of the Fukushima Nuclear Plant workers . . . [and their] excessive bashing from others. He tried alone until November 2013, but to no avail. So he set up an organization named “Appreciate FUKUSHIMA Workers” hoping to make a larger impact . . . Since 2014 he has been working toward the following:

To create an environment where people who had to rely on [the] nuclear power plant can live maintaining their local characteristics and . . . “traditional” industry . . .

To create an environment where people who are involved in decommissioning work that will continue over 40 years can work safely.

This document reveals the unique situation of Japanese nuclear energy in this period. Of the other three carbon ideologies—coal, oil and natural gas—only coal found itself significantly embattled; and in the two places where I studied it, Appalachia and Bangladesh, coal miners, if not always the coal industry, were members in good standing of their own communities. As for oil and natural gas, proponents of those energy categories might feel somewhat prickly about environmentalists and criers of climate change, but they feared no existential threat.

The Friends of Coal and their counterpart organizations did vigorously defend their fuel against what they claimed to be disingenuous, politicized attacks. The enemies they described were “outsiders,” leftists, secular humanists, President Obama, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The few homegrown anti-coal activists were, as you shall see, a hated, intimidated minority.

But in Japan, nuclear power was on the skids, and Tepco workers the cowed minority. To be sure, some Japanese were beginning to turn against the evacuees, and everyone longed for the Fukushima catastrophe to be “solved.” Business as usual! If only that would come back!

I asked Aki: “What is your opinion about nuclear power? Is it desirable?”

“Currently in Japan under this situation, personally I think it is necessary. Whether it is good or bad is another story.”

He remarked that this area was deficient in flat land for rice. “Because the land is very narrow here. It’s hard to live. For the people of the locality, the most important thing is to survive. They need some industry, like nuclear power.”

Here we were again in Yotsukura, with the ocean coming back into sight as we rolled north on Highway 6. Aki said that the tritium here was so sparse as not to be measurable. Just then we saw a raccoon dog. At 9:34 the dosimeter remained at 1.5 accrued micros, as well it should have, and I asked whether the melted fuel at Plant No. 1 could be reused; Aki replied that the uranium had fused with the metal cell that once contained it, making it good for nothing now. We ascended the green forested hill to the tunnel, approaching Hirono, the northernmost habitable town.

“What’s the best way to decontaminate food?”

“No way.”

At 9:39 we arrived at Hirono, with the dosimeter remaining loyally at 1.5. Aki said that only some 30% of the original population had returned. There had been 1,700 people here. “During the day about 3,000 Daiichi workers pass here,” he said.

How could I not wish those decontaminators well? By 2016, according to Tepco, a recorded 32,760 toilers at Plant No. 1 had accrued more than 5 millisieverts a year. (A read of 5 millisieverts is one of the thresholds for whether nuclear plant workers suffering from leukemia can be eligible for compensation . . .) Of this lucky multitude, 176 individuals showed cumulative doses of more than 100 millis, a level considered to raise the risk of dying after developing cancer by 0.5 percent. The highest reading on any of their dosimeters was 678.8 millis.*

Their counterparts, the ones employed by entities other than Tepco, were often spared the tiresome duty of wearing dosimeters. In 2016 The Japan Times would report:

They typically work on three- to six-month contracts with little or no benefits, living in makeshift company barracks. And the government is not even making sure that their radiation levels are individually tested . . . Nearly 70 [of “more than 300 companies doing Fukushima decontamination work”] committed violations in the first half of last year, including . . . failure to do compulsory radiation checks . . . The ashes of half a dozen unidentified decontamination workers ended up at a Buddhist temple in this town [Minamisoma] . . . They were simply labeled “decontamination troops” . . .

Fortunately, I was still living in 2014, when these bad things were unthinkable. So I activated the pancake frisker quite cheerfully. As might have been expected, here the air dose within the car remained at most 43 counts per minute, 0.12 micros per hour. By that token we could have been in Barcelona or Veracruz.

I asked Aki: “What does the cesium actually look like?”

“Even a large particle of cesium you need an electron microscope to see.”*

Today was Sunday, a lovely warm day; and we were now passing the Hirono town office, with the pastel blue of the sea off to the right. “The middle of November is the best time for colored leaves,” he said.

We stopped at a farmer friend’s home. With that admirably typical Japanese communitarian spirit, Aki had begun helping him and others to grow olive seedlings, since the produce of those trees absorbs hardly any radiation. On that subject, the air dose (NORMAL reading) was already up to 0.30 micros, while inside the car it had dropped to 0.10—both of these being trivial, even safe.

We drove on. On the parking lot beneath the thermal plant a few children were riding their bicycles round and round. Aki remarked that it was now unusual to see them. (The local weather was only 0.14 micros.) “On such a sunny day before 3-11 you would have seen several hundred kids here,” he said.

We stood taking the air at the edge of the municipal park, part of which had been employed to house decontamination workers. No children played here; their mothers had instructed them to avoid the place, because (as he said with scorn) they foolishly believed the workers to be radioactive.

At 10:40 we reached J Village, which demarcated the beginning of Naraha Town. The air measured 62 cpms and 0.18 micros. Here we spied the first weed-outliers—mostly goldenrod and pampas grass as usual, growing unhindered from crevices between the asphalt and the concrete divider, with their shadows pleasingly distinct upon the empty highway. In an inhabited Japanese town they would never have been tolerated; and one of the most consistently striking signs of the red and yellow zones was this vegetative overcoming of stone-hard rigid constructions. I rather liked them even though they made me sad.

Aki was saying that he considered Tepco’s ice wall a good idea. It would be needed for only 10 or 20 years, until the fuel rods could be removed. In an enthusiastic military metaphor, he described it as “a thousand-ton tank.” Who was I to say that it couldn’t win the final victory? (By the way, every year it would require 45.5 million kilowatt-hours*—as much as 13,000 Japanese households used.)—I asked why Tepco could not separate the tritium from the water by means of simple distillation. Smiling, he reminded me to look at the atomic diameters; H30 was much more compact than, say, cesium-137; those radioactive hydrogen atoms would be too small to catch. Of course the Americans knew the secret, he continued; they had learned it when preparing their gifts for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since the technique continued to bear military applications, they had so far refused to release it.—And just then the dosimeter accrued that day’s first tenth of a micro, turning over to 1.6. While he joked around with Mr. Kojima, I took a one-minute timed walk with the pancake frisker, which read the air dose at 82 counts per minute, 0.30 micros per hour: I could have been measuring a brick sidewalk in West Virginia.—J Village continued silent, and a breeze rolled in at 0.35 micros.

Now we were passing the sign for Naraha, the frisker showing 0.2 inside the car, and we got a lovely view of the ocean, made still more splendid by tall waves of black bags, one of which appeared to already be leaking. The roadside was characterized by pigeons and goldenrod. Here and even in most places I saw in the red zones the highway continued to be in perfect repair, so that travellers could experience loneliness and get irradiated without any but financial inconvenience.—Aki said: “This used to be ricefield. Now, grassy marsh.”

The berms of the former ricefields were a slightly darker green than the rectangular pits within them. Since rice is an annual, the three years since the accident would certainly have sufficed to erase most of their vestiges.* Had I been more intrepid I would have clambered down to inspect those grasses, but the thought of radioactive stickleburrs deterred me, so that I postponed my weed-hunting for the next day in Okuma, when I was not only resolved but also would be required to wear protective clothes. Driving away from the ocean and into the tall pampas grass with its white plumes—the goldenrod again everywhere—we discussed those strange red pine trees that the decontamination worker had mentioned to me last March in Iwaki; Aki said that all around the nuclear power plant in Niigata he had seen many of them even before the Fukushima accident—which, by the way, had apparently deposited some fallout over there. He had not visited Niigata lately.—We now reentered the main highway, with central Naraha appearing more quiet than decrepit; and at 10:50 we stopped at the only functioning convenience store, in the parking lot of which the levels read slightly lower than before. I was surprised to see customers; Aki called them “those who used to live here”; they had come home for a few hours, since it was Sunday. Children aged 16 and under were not legally permitted to be in town, not even in this convenience store—and as a reminder why, just northward lay an organized myriad of black bags roofed with a green tarp.

We drove up to a vantage point and parked there, looking down on Highway 6 and the thermal plant. Here the air count was 116 cpms and 0.36 micros. Aki repeated: “Once we get into Okuma, none of us are allowed to get out of the car.”—Hoping that I could jolly him into letting me pass the frisker out the window when we passed the infamous Plant No. 1, I kept quiet and agreeable. So we turned our eyes northward past the empty playground to the sea-cliff at Naraha’s edge, enjoying the fresh breeze as slow blue-green waves crawled toward us from beneath two distant clouds, and then we gazed down on the empty playground. Had it not been a Sunday the sight would have affected me less; for then I could have supposed that the older children were in school, and the younger ones perhaps being carried here and there on town-errands by their busy mothers. It was a pleasant-looking field, well groomed, with the sea foaming white and clean against the rocks below. The swings hung still. A conical web of climbing-net rose around a central pole, with no child crawling up it. My companions were silent. Bending down to frisk a gutter from three inches, I read about 200 counts per minute—0.67 micros per hour. That would be about six times the average air dose of San Francisco, but after all it was a gutter, not the air. Aki said that immediately after the explosions this place had reached 6,000 cpms and more, which would have been a good 20 micros an hour—175 millis if that had kept up for a year, but it had not. Next spring the ban on living in Naraha would be lifted, “but maybe there will be some red places here for another 20 years.” I asked about Namie and Okuma. He thought that in 20 years their values might be as safe as Iwaki’s. Considering what Ed Lyman had told me about fallout disposition, I agreed on the “might be”; it might be unhealthy for a child to dig a hole in the back yard, or for a farmer to turn over the soil. As I would see on my final night visit to Tomioka, it “might be” worse than that.

Even past the cereal factory, the frisker (on NORMAL) flickered mostly between 0.1 to 0.276 inside the car, only very occasionally touching 0.3; but as soon as we entered greater Tomioka, our radiation level rose to between 0.270 and 0.30. At 11:38 the dosimeter read 1.7 accrued micros. Now as we approached Plant No. 2, where Aki used to be employed (he nostalgically informed us the jellyfish used to be the enemy, because they clogged up the cooling intakes), the frisker scintillated up to 0.38, then 0.4; once we had passed that place our average readings fell back to 0.20. Everything looked very summery; it was an unseasonably warm October; the interpreter once remarked that nowadays summer came a month earlier and stayed a month longer than when she had been a girl.

Deserted playground in Naraha

Immediately north of No. 2, we turned in toward the seashore, where the government had begun building great incinerators which would reduce the volume of waste in the black bags to one-fiftieth. I had never been here. From the scaffolding, the structures looked to be seven-storey buildings, and the cranes dwarfed even them, rising ugly and crazy like broken weeds, while black bags marched shapelessly across the tall grass, and waves smashed against broken concrete. Looking back along the shoreline, I got a last glimpse of those two misty thermal stacks in Hirono, where those children had been riding their bicycles. This was a different world, but my one-minute timed walk still measured but 116 cpms and 0.36 micros, with the frisker extended from my chest. Investigating several bags, I read around half a micro each. (It was now 11:54, and the dosimeter went up to 1.8.) Aki mentioned that his job at Plant No. 2 had been to burn waste, especially paper suits. Perhaps this was why the new incinerators were of special interest to him. I wished the burners luck, but could not help but wonder how many fallout particles might spread out with the smoke.*

The tsunami had torn away the ground floor from what used to be a ryokan, a traditional-style Japanese inn. It was passing ugly now. Not going out of my way to frisk it, I wandered along the seashore, among gravel and concrete where the beach used to be, with black bags endless off the west side of this narrow road which, said Aki, “used to be a sightseeing place.” Goldenrod grew tall behind the bags. Lacking the expansive brilliance of the acres upon acres of that I would find in Okuma, it staked its claims in individual stalks, but whether those were fated to sooner or later destruction from the machines of humankind I could not tell. The beaches as far south as Hisanohama remained as bleak with their tsunami-broken concrete hunks as if D-Day had just happened there.—“My exposure was one of the smallest,” said Aki, as if to himself, and just then, but only for a moment (I had it on NORMAL), the frisker scintillated up to an unpleasant 10 micros an hour, the highest I had ever seen it go so far. But the dosimeter accrued no new digit, and as I strode forward to photograph a blasted tree which towered behind black bags, the glowing numbers in the rectangular window fell back to 0.452 and 0.3 micros.

Half-built incinerators, Tomioka

Continuing up the highway, we soon arrived at the Japan Rail station where Mr. Endo had taken me that spring. A pigeon waddled very slowly up the road (no worry about traffic) and many more goldenrod grew up colorfully lovely against the faded red and green houses. A troop of black bags now stood on the seaward side of the station—more than I remembered. The station premises read only 94 counts per minute and 0.30 micros. I walked half a block down the street, where it was 111 and 0.36, and then found a well of standing water which perhaps had once been a storm sewer. Squatting down on the asphalt, I extended the bright yellow protuberance of the frisker over that white-lipped rectangular hole, whose cover must have been removed either because the earthquake-tsunami had cracked it or because some official had thought it wisest to let radioactive liquids drain freely. Down in the blackness was a bright reflection, whose boatlike shape and dark lines (perhaps the representations of power wires) reminded me of some many-paned arch-shaped stained glass window. But although it did in fact reflect the sky, the most churchlike association it engendered in me was with a crypt. Sticks and leaves floated unmoving on its stagnant brightness and its stagnant darkness. One foot over the hole, my frisker chittered back and forth between 7 and 8 micros, which was about as high as anything I had measured in Iitate. I refrained from measuring any deeper. The air dose in that spot was 7.52 micros.

At 11:38, when we first entered Tomioka, the dosimeter had turned over from 1.6 to 1.7; at 11:54 it read 1.8; at 12:20, 1.9; and at 12:28, 2.0 micros, so we were now accruing something like half a micro an hour—still less than we would at cruising altitude on a typical long-distance flight. On the other hand, much of our time had been spent inside a vehicle, so the situation for any unprotected person would have been worse. Once again I congratulated myself on not living in Tomioka.

We drove inland for five minutes, over the river into a yellow zone, the radiation rising to .7, .8, .9 in the car, and then I asked to measure the invading goldenrod, which was almost harmless: 148 cpms, 0.48 micros. I frisked vine-overgrown crevices in the asphalt; they were three times worse.

As we stood looking down over the tall white plumes of pampas grass, into a ditch of gently running water, I frisked the silent street; then, since Aki liked that gadget of mine, I passed it to him to play with, while the robot girl’s voice echoed and echoed, conveying new instructions. It was as if the fields had come closer to the houses; they retained their rectilinear shapes, but were not ricefields anymore.

Aki said that in the first year the air dose in this place had more than 2,000 cpms, which calculated to be about 6.6 micros an hour. Right after the accident, he said, the air dose at Plant No. 2 had been 8,000 cpms—26.667 micros—and his car read 300,000—in other words, a cool thousand micros an hour. (You may recall that the experimenters at the Brookhaven National Laboratory first began to detect adverse effects on plant growth and animal diversity at a thousand micros.)*—Aki was grinning and laughing as he told me about his radioactive car.

Tramping through mildly radioactive weeds, I got down on one knee to measure the ground dose, because he had assured me: “You don’t have to worry at all.” Once I finished frisking, I inquired: “You mean that there’s no internal exposure from breathing here? And it doesn’t stay in the lungs?”—“Probably yes,” he replied, “but take me as an example. I have an internal exposure beyond comparison with yours, just by working at the nuclear plant, and I have checked myself thoroughly. I was below the detectable level.”—I thought my thoughts about genetic damage, but my role was to learn from him, not to hurt or challenge him. His devil-may-care position might for all I knew be justified.

We returned to the car, speeding down the empty roads. Our interior dose, the frisker restlessly chittering in NORMAL mode, was 0.7, 0.8, 0.4 and 1.04. I had wanted to return to Yonomori, the cherry tree avenue of which Mr. Endo had been so proud, so we paused there among the silent houses. While our earlier halts had appeared strangely summery thanks to the tall and handsome weeds, Yonomori looked like autumn. Fallen leaves lay here and there on the clean blacktop, with many more of them along the curbs. The shadows of branches crossed the highway like wrought ironwork. To the north and south the highway dwindled beneath bare trees, with nobody coming or going, and the branches appeared to touch each other across the road, hiding the abandoned homes behind them. Whatever leaves still remained on the branches were silhouetted against the clouds. I should not have liked to walk alone down that long avenue at night. Strolling down the center line toward the ever receding vortex of that tunnel of trees, with the frisker extended at waist level, I read an average air dose of 1,226 counts per minute, or 4.08 micros an hour—nearly a micro more than I’d measured in a jetliner over the North Pole. (Or would you rather know that before the accident Yonomori’s air dose had been 0.042 micros—97 times less?) By now I was getting used to such numbers. The robot girl was saying: “The garbage has not been appropriately segregated.”

Aki said: “The center of this town was pretty busy. Even though my place was 20 kilometers away, I often used to come here. There was a large scale supermarket, and I liked the electrical shop . . .”

It had taken him three years to complete the cleanup at his home; in those days it was not so simple even to throw away the broken dishes. For three years no one would accept such garbage. (Hearing this, I imagined that I felt a burning in my nose.)

Driving off that cherry tree boulevard and past an army of goldenrod, we soon reached one of the meandering local borders between red and yellow zones, where accordion-grated barriers closed off ever so many side streets; the company that manufactured those must now be rich. In the red zones the weeds were often taller than elsewhere, and more ivy grew on the trees. I remember the way that in Tomioka the glossy-leaved tree branches and the pale green ivy could cradle a pole so lovingly that no explorer who lacked a pair of pruning shears could tell whether this had been a streetlamp or the support of power lines; it leaned, and the pavement around it was cracked and broken, evidently from the tsunami; it seemed well on the way to metamorphosing into a tree-trunk in a peculiarly indeterminate forest whose floor was grooved concrete—although even in the yellow zone’s commercial districts I often found pampas grass bursting out of planters.—About that latter plant an American guide to invasive weeds said: Growth is astoundingly fast—8 feet in one season is not uncommon—and it easily shoves aside other vegetation . . . Eradication is daunting. A gardener’s encyclopaedia described its genus as hardy to frost hardy . . . perennials forming clumps of narrow leaves . . . over which soar plume-like flower panicles in white, silver, gold or rose-pink in late summer or autumn. Cortaderia should be positioned in full sun and cut to ground level each spring to maintain healthy, vigorous plants. In the red zones it was getting plenty of sun, all right. Whether or not anyone was cutting it down (last February Mr. Endo had said that the weeds of Tomioka simply died back in winter and then came up again), it was healthy; it was vigorous—the pride of any radioactive garden. And so Tomioka’s yards had turned into vacant lots, never mind the shuttered houses within them.

Often the red zone announced itself simply through one of those vertical signs held against a guardrail by a red-and-white horizontal signal bar each of whose looped ends was affixed to a road cone. No fence or other physical barrier prevented anyone from stepping over the guardrail into the pampas grass and the darkness between ivy-grown trees; in fact it would have been more difficult to step through the pampas grass that occluded the patio of a certain decrepit house from whose eaves scraps of torn cloth inexplicably dangled; perhaps the householder had tried to curtain off a window with what he had, after which he fled and then the wind tore it off and hung it from the rain gutter. Some houses and driveways were in perfect repair, while their yards were hills of pampas grass and of saplings grown roof-high. I frisked the edges of a few of those yards, which then became for me as distinctly inimical as the borders of any red zone.

A house in Tomioka

Commencement of red zone. As the frisker shows, the air dose here in the yellow zone was 3.75 micros. To the immediate right of the warning sign, it was not significantly higher. In several other Tomioka locations the air dose rose within two or three steps after crossing into a red zone.

There was a pedestrian overpass flowing with vines as we drove through the yellow zone, toward the Futaba police station;* it was 101 cpms and 0.36 micros within the car when we came to the Tomioka Bridge; here came another overpass vine-grown and silent. The barricade on Highway 6 that had vexed me last February came down in September; so we rolled unhindered into the red zone, with the understanding that we not only could not stop until Minamisoma but also must keep our speed at 60 kilometers an hour. I didn’t mind; tomorrow I had clearance to walk around in Okuma. So we rushed past the thick grasses and goldenrod, finding no one else on the road, and the frisker’s numbers danced around 2 micros an hour: 2.0, 2.71, 2.67, 2.07, 1.8 (what must the level be outside?), and again and again, despite my horror and sorrow, I could not but find myself beguiled by the freshness, not to mention the vegetative silence that had overcome that corporate monoculture of convenience stores and shining vending machines, beautiful though it could sometimes be, as evinced by nighttime Iwaki, which offered the red and white glow of a long horizontal restaurant sign whose blood-color echoed behind the shutters and reflected brilliantly off the back window of a dark car; in my way I loved Iwaki, and of course I hated the red zones; I worried about cesium in my muscles, strontium in my bones and gamma rays stabbing through me; more than that I grieved for the people who had lost so much, and I worried about the worse atomic accidents that might at any time happen . . .—but these red zones were new places, not entirely ugly; when those oceans of goldenrod rose up in their own gentle tsunamis to drown the abandoned homes of nuclear refugees, I experienced something refreshingly nonhuman, reminding me that however much we might alter our planet, the planet itself would survive awhile, bearing its own loveliness, just as Jupiter or Venus must be lovely, even if lethal to us. Here came another ricefield now transformed into goldenrod, and the frisker chirped 2.18 and 1.95. Five kilometers into the red zone, we saw some red maple leaves and yellow goldenrod; the fall colors made Aki and Mr. Kojima happy. Now at last we were approaching the infamous Plant No. 1, whose power wires ran to our right, and as we got closer the frisker chirped faster, until I muted it; our interior air dose was 2.46, 2.65 (here came the hollow scaffolds of No. 1’s power towers, not unlike ideograms), 3.48, 4.14, 4.69, 5.46 micros; then we got a view of a stack at No. 1; Aki said that we were “two kilometers from the boundary of the premises,” and more than five from the No. 1 reactor building, rolling along at our legal 60 kilometers an hour. What wondrous readings could I have gotten now? Tomorrow I meant to find out. As soon as we passed that well-goldenrodded place, our dose fell to 5 micros—no harm done: from 1:02 to 1:19 we’d gained only another third of a micro.

By the time we reached Futaba our interior level had fallen to 0.8 micros an hour. Sometimes it even dipped to 0.6 (181 counts per minute).—At Plant No. 1, by the way, Reactors 1 through 4 lay in Okuma; Reactors 5 and 6 in Futaba.

Aki remarked: “My wife’s parents used to live around here, but now they can’t come. I don’t have a permit myself.”

A few cars now enlivened the highway; a policeman was running across the road, wearing a light mask; our air dose within the car went up to 1.3, then down to 0.45; and presently a simple blue marker informed us that we had reentered the yellow zone. We could slow if we cared to, or even roll down our windows.

“Here,” Aki said. “I used to live here. This is Namie Town. The apartment I used to live in, there. You need an identity card to visit.”

The external air was 112 counts per minute, 0.36 micros per hour; and the dosimeter read 2.9 micros at 1:31 p.m. Thus Namie, which according to that Nuclear Regulation Authority website offered 94 monitoring stations (I remembered from a day or two ago the senior high school, showing off its 5.969 hourly microsieverts).

I saw a few houses half crumpled into a soft russet meadow—tsunami relics—and then the radiation declined to 0.2 and 0.1 as we came into Minamisoma, which had once been a center of silkworm weaving, then became a textile wholesaler; now it was a moribund junky sprawl.—Aki pointed out the Odagakawa Bridge.

“And in this area, you can survive by raising rice,” he said proudly. “This is the same distance from Daiichi as Hirono, but the situation is so much better! Enough flat land.”

He said that in the “central area,” the population used to be 50,000; 43,000 people declined to evacuate. The area appeared quiet and grungy but by no means abandoned. A woman was carefully cleaning the windows of her half-shuttered retail establishment; most neighboring stores were utterly closed but we did see a few people walking, and here came a girl on a bicycle . . . These signs of life made me happy after Tomioka and Okuma, but Aki was sad; he remembered how much more vibrant it used to be. We stopped for lunch at a kind of automat where souvenirs were sold. Then we began our return.

In the car our dose was 0.060, 0.041 and 0.114 micros per hour. It was 2:46, and we had accrued only 3.00 micros since morning.

At 3:05 the dosimeter accrued another 0.1 micro, and the former ricefields were brilliant with goldenrod. (Praising its racemes or spikes of golden-yellow flowers, the previously cited gardener’s manual calls it a genus of vigorous perennials, and I do consider vigorous the best possible adjective). Some ricefields were indicated by dark grass and white pampas separated along an invisible line of peculiar straightness. In central Tomioka one could easily perceive the berms as raised frames around the bygone crop. Here the reversion had gone farther.—At 3:35 we reentered the red zone. This time a uniformed man stood at the checkpoint, although he did not require us to halt. Aki said that some of guards were former nuclear workers, especially maintenance men. I toggled the pancake frisker into NORMAL, and it showed 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, then almost immediately 1.3, 1.4, 1.8, 2.10 micros an hour; now the goldenrods were thick along the roadside. We were on the outskirts of Okuma, with another 0.1 micro in our bones and tissues to show for it.—As we once again approached the accident’s nasty locus, my pancake frisker indicated 4.8, 1.3, 1.8, 1.9, 2.10, 3.10, 3.52, 4.71, 4.99, 4.88, 5.05 and 4.94 micros per hour, with our windows cranked up tight, and goldenrod carpeting more ricefields, and the white plumes of pampas grass almost translucent in the late afternoon sun. I would not care to imply in any way that this time Aki proved willing to bend the law for me, and allowed me out of the car once or twice to indulge in a frisk, but if he had, and I did, both of which are preposterously hypothetical, I would have registered NORMAL roadside measurements of a stiff 10 to 12 micros: 100 times higher than my kitchen counter in Sacramento. Very soon we had returned to Tomioka’s yellow zone, alone on the clean and empty highway behind whose guardrails rose tall pale plains of pampas grass, some of whose heads glowed with great distinctness against the shaded wall of forest.

At 3:44 we were back in Yonomori District of Tomioka Town. We were all pleased: I myself especially enjoyed being able to stroll around in eerie freedom on the highway pavement, metering the warning signs and gratings of the red zone’s much-indented, many-gated frontiers to my heart’s content, with no one to hinder or befriend me but my own shadow. Sometimes the roadside was as richly disorderly, thanks to ivies and grasses, as some overgrown pumpkin patch, the pampas head-high and more. In the town itself, cracked, taped houses, up whose walls some ivy-tendrils had already nosed right up to the eaves, lay dark-windowed behind overgrown trees; from their unkempt yards, spears of pampas grass bristled outward at the highway. But I never saw more than a day’s worth of fallen leaves upon the asphalt. Sometimes the house windows were fogged up inside, and the notices taped within them looked waterstained or even moldy. Through the dark panes whichever objects I could see—they were usually jumbled, either by the earthquake or by panic—resembled underwater detritus perceived at the extreme end of a flashlight’s range. Weeds busily widened and elongated the cracks in driveways. Where the road had been wounded by the earthquake, flimsy articulated barricades whose tops and bottoms were defined by two long parallel pipes had been wrapped across the pavement in angular approximations of semicircles. From any distance, Tomioka’s houses, hidden behind their weeds, withdrew into the darkening forest that would quickly conquer them if humans kept away. Goldenrod resembled water-streaks on certain houses’ shadowed sides. Roofs sometimes missed tiles, and ivy kept growing up toward power wires.

Strolling down the expressway on a luxurious one-minute timed walk, I measured 261 cpms and 0.9 micros per hour—a mere 15 times higher than the radioactivity in Sacramento. My NORMAL readings fluttered around a micro.

In a neighborhood where I had never been, I wandered around with the frisker, foliage reddening for no one’s pleasure beside the weedy parking lot of a shuttered office in Tomioka, persimmons shining in the evening light, hanging in clusters over the wall of their jungle which was once someone’s garden in Tomioka; my companions stood around the car, waiting for me to finish.

Aki now proposed to take us to the substation whose failure, he said, had made the explosions at Plant No. 1 inevitable. Just then the frisker showed 429 cpms and 1.446 micros.

Persimmons shone against their almost silhouetted trees. The sky was gentle with stratus clouds. On the lawns some leaves had gone orange, and their reflections were vaguely pale in the dark windows of those houses around which the vegetation ever more tightly pressed. We came to a white sign almost overgrown with ivy; I frisked it, but the dose was merely 1.054 micros.

Tomioka street sign (1.054 micros)

There on the forest ridge a humanoid, insectoid figure with three pairs of downturned latticework arms stood letting out wires forward and backward from its six wrists. It was one of those high voltage electrical transmission towers that so many of us used to take for granted, back in the days when we were alive. Beside it stood a truncated cone of girders, with three round platforms and two Mickey Mouse ears on top; that must have been a microwave tower. Then there was a double-bridge conduit, built of the same latticework.

Just before dusk we began walking down the power plant road, whose air dose was 0.83. Then I spotted three of those wild boar I had heard so much about—young ones, dark brown, trotting toward me without fear, then veering into the weeds. I called my companions; they rushed to take pictures with their cell phones, then said we had better get out of there in case Mother Hog lurked in the bushes.

At 8:23 we reentered greater Iwaki with the dosimeter at exactly 4.0; so in hours it had turned over merely 2.7 micros—about 0.2 micros an hour—about three times more than in Sacramento. We returned the car, the greyhaired gas station attendant with his longhaired boy assistant bowing low, then diligently wiping radioactive dust from our windshield. I had told him that it must be contaminated, but he smilingly told me not to worry.

4: As Innocuous as Plant No. 1

The taxi driver said: “Nuclear power plants, I wish they would all be abandoned, because there was a safety miss. They promised nothing dangerous would happen, but then this accident clearly showed there was a miss . . .”

The new dosimeter read 4.7 microsieverts as we rolled out of central Iwaki, and the van’s interior radioactivity was a homelike 0.12 micros an hour—appropriate for Tokyo or San Francisco.

“The fact is, the government is trying to restart other nuclear power plants,” he said. “That move is unbelievable. With all these reactors turned off here, still electricity is not short at all. Renewable is better.”

It was a cloudy morning, promising rain to the west. The ricefields were stubbled green and brown, most of the crop having been harvested in mid-October. Occasionally a very few yellow-green shaggy fields awaited the gathering. Water was sparkling on young trees, and in several yards ripe persimmons glowed on the trees.

The driver’s notion was Okuma would be safe to live in after 60 or 70 years.*

At 8:07 we entered the expressway, with the frisker reading nearly unchanged. With the driver now silent, I gazed down on ricefields and an occasional scarlet maple in the light and dark green of forest. At 8:16 we could see the twin thermal stacks of Hirono, the frisker showing 0.24 micros an hour. Naraha read comparably at first; the sun shone there on a small hillside cemetery in a clearing, so that the stones looked almost cheerful. The mountain forest remained mostly uncut except for the so-called “laydown areas” where green tarps overlined the black bags.

In the four minutes that it required for us to pass through Naraha, the frisker readings (on NORMAL) climbed from 0.23 to 0.6 micros per hour—with ups and downs, to be sure. Then we entered Tomioka. Just here a digital sign advised us that the radiation was 2.34 micros outside. Departing the expressway so that the interpreter could use the washroom, the driver parked a few steps from the toll taker, who wore white protective gear in his booth; and I took a one-minute timed walk to frisk birdsong and pine-smell: only 374 cpms, 1.26 micros an hour. Why the radiation level was so much lower here than it had been at the digital sign was one of life’s mysteries; one could blame the frisker, the digital sign or local variation.

We now took a certain forest road whose air dose by brown pools and tall sedges was 1.644. High over a reservoir I read a happier 0.356. It was 8:40 when we entered the city limits of greater Okuma, whose name means “Big Bear”; the dosimeter read 4.9. Continuing onward, we came to the sign which warned: NO GO ZONE AHEAD, and presently arrived at the Okuma Town office, whose anteroom a NORMAL frisk found to be a remarkably salubrious 0.22 micros—not out of place for Moscow if on the high side for Poza Rica, Mexico. We took off our shoes and went upstairs. Especially for me the two officials had prepared their daily weather report:

Situation map at the Okuma Town office

They said that in one spot in central Okuma where the radiation used to be 100 micros it was now only 40. When I asked about Tomioka, they replied that the downtown there was typically 0.3 micros, which was far lower than the pancake frisker indicated. Perhaps they meant the air dose. Anyhow, they were full of good news.

According to the regulations, they were to follow our taxi and ensure that we did not deviate from the route plan, which I had been required to propose and clear several months earlier, at which time there had been an additional implication that I might not be permitted to get out of the car. In fact these two men were wonderful guides and hosts. They drove ahead, leading the taxi through the central downtown and to a temple, then to the ocean, a river, a shrine, a highly radioactive place and finally to a vantage point from which Plant No. 1 would be visible. Whenever I wished, I told the taxi driver to stop, then walked about and frisked to my heart’s content. We were all supposed to have dosimeters, including the taxi driver, so I had an extra one for him, but nobody cared about that. By the way, he was forbidden to get out of the car. Following the rules, I now supplied myself, the interpreter and the driver (who declined) with shoe covers, painter’s union suits and masks. Those items were all manufactured with pride in the United States of America, and they began to tear almost immediately. Duct taping my imperfections at crotch and thigh, shuffling about ludicrously in the flimsy, wrinkled shoe covers, I watched myself fall in the estimation of those dignified officials. Fortunately, years of disappointing and even disgusting the Japanese with my American gaucheries had made me an expert in looking ridiculous with extreme tranquility, so on that understanding we went downstairs and set out down the road. It was 9:09, and the dosimeter had accrued 5.0 micros exactly. I felt quite happy.

Approaching the red zone almost at once, we reached a narrow vertical warning sign of red characters on white; ahead stood a sign whose red and blue characters were facing in three directions. There were three sentries. Each one clutched a bright orange baton in his white-gloved hand. Unlike Iitate’s, the obstacle course of barriers they oversaw was of a merely suggestive character; anybody could have stepped over or driven through. Behind a tall tripod from which a dark lamp-bulb depended, a pale accordion gate, evidently for night hours, stood collapsed into irrelevance on the righthand side of the road. Stepping out of the taxi, I frisked the air, and was pleased to find the very moderate level of 1.54 micros an hour. One of the officers checked our permits, and my passport. Then they bowed us through. We entered the red zone at 9:21.

We were now in Ogawa Ward, where a one-minute frisk down the street captured 750 counts per minute, or 2.58 micros an hour—a bit “hot,” to be sure, but hardly exceptional for a red zone; even in the yellow parts of Tomioka it would have been in place. I remember another gate, and a lovely lane overgrown with the usual pampas grass and tall goldenrod, houses pleasantly secluded behind the trees. I saw two men in protective gear at an abandoned Esso station. Inside the taxi van the radiation was already more than 2 micros. We drove on, and then I asked to stop again. The air dose by some pampas grass was 3.27. The officials waited patiently in their car.

There were places where weeds were just beginning to break through the asphalt of what had evidently once been magnificently maintained streets, while at the roadside a clamor of ivy, goldenrod and other weeds almost obscured the houses behind them, with only a few roofs still showing, like the forecastles of sinking ships. A meter above one bit of weedy pavement I measured a cool 5.0 micros.

The officials wanted to show me their town hall. They proudly considered it to be “a model decontamination,” and I do admit without reservations that it read only 0.826 and 0.816 micros—800 times “hotter” than Portland, Oregon. They said that cesium was now found “normally,” as they put it, at three to five centimeters down, but no further, “because the nature of it has a particular affinity for clay.” My little excavation on Mr. Shigihara’s land in Iitate had detected what must have been cesium at a greater depth than that—but then the radioactivity had obediently fallen off. Perhaps the clay ran shallower in Okuma.—The officials remarked that removing five centimeters of farmland was easy, but expensive here, due to the asphalt, but (I detected understated pride) they had persevered in this spot all the same, to a depth of two to three centimeters. To decontaminate a garden, which they had also accomplished, one must excavate it all by hand. They were still “just learning,” they modestly said. I cannot now remember whether I complimented them on their hard work; I hope that I did.

They showed me the former health center. This edifice I did assure them now looked very nice.

The more talkative of the two was named Mr. Suzuki Hisatomo; the interpreter remarked that he was “very cultured.” I asked him which accident had been worse, Fukushima or Chernobyl. He said that in terms of the amount of radiation released it was Chernobyl, by far. Neither one of them showed any worry about today’s excursion. They wore dark galoshes, perhaps to keep from tracking home radiocontaminants, and they put gloves on and off at will, but declined to trouble with masks; as the morning warmed up they rolled down their hazard suits to the waist, revealing the crisp municipal tunics beneath.

CESIUM-137 RELEASED IN THE WORLD’S TWO WORST NUCLEAR DISASTERS

(in terabecquerels)

1

Fukushima (2011):

• Estimate by Tepco: 13,600

1.29–1.51

• Estimate by the Fukushima University Institute of Environmental Radioactivity: 17,500–20,500

6.25

Chernobyl (1986): 85,000

Source: The Japan Times, May 2014, with calculations by WTV.

The Okuma air dose monitor was not grated off as Iitate’s had been, but likewise crowned with a slanting plane of solar panels. It appeared to be turned off, for its display showed four zeroes in microsieverts per hour; behind it, dead leaves huddled against the curb, weeds grew up out of the sidewalk, and the hedge hung shaggily over them. And why not? All 11,000 residents remained evacuated.

We drove on. In a certain long commercial street, which strange to say had one parked car every block or so (perhaps the owners had fled by other means), the rectilinear geometries of sunlight and shadow emphasized its forsakenness more than did the relatively few weeds and vines; the place was being cared for after a fashion; and the shards and flotsam of the earthquake had been raked to one side. The radiation was 2,060 counts per minute, which is to say 6.9 micros an hour, so that was getting up there; a year of it would make for 60.44 millis—well above the maximum for nuclear reactor workers. Like an eager puppy I frisked about the central district’s shuttered shops. The almost immaculate pavement was cut by multiple jagged shadow-diagonals, and sometimes pierced by tall weeds. Broken pots lay on certain sidewalks. Fewer windows were broken than in Tomioka, perhaps because the higher radiation discouraged thieves. I sometimes saw tattered scraps of cloth hanging from abandoned facades, broken boards and bricks heaped on sidewalks here and there—but the streets were clean save for those weeds. (In one street, it is true, I discovered a sort of beach of broken tiles, all swept up against the curb but on the asphalt nonetheless.) From behind an air conditioner or space heater on blocks on the sidewalk grew one of those ivy-vines I was always seeing in Tomioka; it crept up the side of a shop, gripped a drainpipe to whose radioactive effluent it must have been partial, then insinuated itself through a door’s crack and behind some establishment’s dark window. What it did in there I cannot tell you. Ivy flourished over and through a barbershop’s barred gates. Other weeds bowed, spreading their many fingers over the asphalt. The air dose there was usually around 4 micros—35 millis a year. We drove to another part of the same district, and here several windowpanes had gone; behind wrinkled curtains lay books, crates, rectangles of corrugated siding. In one place that reminded me of the retail block across from the garment shop in Tomioka, the lower part of the blinds had been twisted down at a 90-degree angle and then mostly torn away, so that in the dark cell just behind it I could see a table on which sat a teacup beside several closed laptop computers. What had happened there? Had the proprietor drunk a last cup of tea before he evacuated, and had he feared that his computers might be contaminated? How had the window gotten broken? Most lives are unfinished stories (suicide perhaps comprising our best chance to “complete” a life), so the red zone’s plethora of such scenes of interruption as this was in a way extremely ordinary . . . but to have all these lives so interrupted at once . . . !—A crate lay beneath shuttered lattice windows. A great weed in full summer flourish rounded off that block, and then more closed doors and weeds decorated the next. It looked slightly tidier here than the neatest street of Tomioka.

Now proceeding to a more suburban-looking neighborhood, we came upon more hidden and thus more apparently similar interruptions, for here no windows had been shattered to reveal whatever wreckage, panic or quiet sadness lay within. As I paced the empty street, with a fresh-trimmed lawn giving way to pampas grass on the side of it, and a castle-like apartment tower rising behind everything, the air dose measured 2,060 counts per minute and 6.9 micros—almost as much as the interior of Mr. Shigihara’s dairy barn in Iitate. A power pole leaned over a parking lot. Over a weedy drainage grating by some decrepit apartments the level was 8.79.

Just before ten we were at Ono Station, the only Japan Rail stop for Okuma; for some reason there had not been an Okuma Station and might not be for awhile now. Mr. Suzuki said the target reoccupation date for Okuma’s less contaminated areas was three years; here it would take 10.

In the year previous to the reactor failures, Ono’s air dose had varied between 0.041 and 0.042 micros an hour. Above a grating in the street before the station I now measured 4.20 micros. Two steps away, another grating, frisked from about eight inches, read 23.2 micros, which in one hour would have given me what it took nearly a month to absorb back home. I was a little shocked; a year’s worth of that would be 203.3 millis.*—But when I raised the frisker slightly, to 10 inches, the count dropped to 21.9. At a foot and a half it fell to 11.52, which I considered spicy enough. Meanwhile the stairs within the earthquake-damaged station were only 1.604. I think that if I had to dwell in a red zone I would find a thick-walled place and keep within it as much as possible. In this connection I might note that during those three hours in the Okuma red zone my dosimeter accrued 9.1 micros of gamma radiation.* Call it 3 micros an hour. I should say we were in those two vehicles for at least half the time, so of course the “real” average dose one could expect to accrue in Okuma would have been significantly higher. But if one mostly lurked inside and managed on a budget of 3 hourly micros, which might not have been much worse than the working hours of an international airline stewardess, then 26.28 annual micros would be one’s portion.

The weeds around the overgrown tracks were 9 and 7 micros. Here they had truly been left to themselves, which encouraged my appreciation of the work which was being carried out against nature in the radioactive city; for in the long narrow zone of fenced-off tracks the pampas grass rose high above masses of whiskery weeds. As soon as I approached the fence to frisk it (about 10 micros), contaminated stickleburrs festooned the legs of my paper suit.

Mr. Suzuki remarked that he saw wild boar around here every day; yesterday they had trapped three; I presume they killed them.*

At one corner where weeds were growing mightily from broken pots and from right out of the asphalt, a white hard hat lay in the street. I pointed it out to Mr. Suzuki. With a smile, he said that the crows had carried it there.

The officials had explained that “former resident families” could return 15 times a year for up to four hours each, but I never expected to see them. Not far past the station, however, the officials stopped their car to introduce us to an evacuee named Mr. Tazawa Norio, who had once been a colleague of theirs. (Later I learned that his wife was inside the house cleaning, but I never saw her.) He was all dressed up in a mask, gloves and a white hazard suit so that he could trim the weeds in front of his home. Something like a shower cap crowned his head with a mushroom slit. From a narrow stripe of exposed but shaded face his eyes squinted sadly at me, although when he attacked the weeds with his clippers (they were taller than he), his eyes widened as he gazed upward. His dosimeter, Japanese-made, hung from a lanyard around his neck. It was an odd sight to see him beside Mr. Suzuki, who was barefaced but for sunglasses and whose coveralls had been rolled neatly down to his hips. Since that latter person entered the red zone nearly every day, one would think that he would be less raffish about his exposure. But perhaps radiation damage is merely another harmful rumor.

Mr. Tazawa Norio (left) and Mr. Suzuki Hisatomo (right)

“Three years ago my house was almost new,” said Mr. Tazawa. “What I now have left is nothing but a mortgage.” He was trying to pay it off as quickly as he could, to avoid burdening his descendants. “Birds come here, and their feces contain seeds.”

While I talked with him, those obliging officials began pruning and weeding for him with their ungloved hands. That seemed very sweetly Japanese. I could not imagine some American ex-colleague of mine ever troubling to do the same for me.

He said: “I was a worker in public relations promotion of nuclear power.”

“And now?”

He looked up at the sky. “If you have this kind of accident, then . . . I wish there were any kind of renewable substitute for nuclear.”

In his baggy white suit, with his paper mask covering him from around his chin almost to his eyes and his headgear resembling a shower cap, Mr. Tazawa stood on the street by the white line, determinedly working his pruning shears while the weeds rubbed against his legs. When he took a step forward, he was in those weeds all the way to his armpits. The stone gateposts of his home were nearly sunken in vegetation.

Glancing down at my own so-called “protective gear,” I saw that my torn paper pants, like the interpreter’s, now bristled with radioactive stickleburrs (1 to 3 micros). I was glad to keep them away from my inner clothes.

Weeds and their perfect shadows were conquering the asphalt, guarding what must have been the entrance to an apartment building (no weeds yet grew upon its stairs). We got back into the taxi van, where the frisker read 1.7 and 1.9 micros per hour, then turned onto a narrow weed-lined road, the empty fields looking the same as before. At 10:16 our interior count began to increase: 3.8, 3.95, 4.16, 4.37, 4.76, 4.41, 5.60 NORMAL micros per hour—“since we are approaching Daiichi,” said the taxi driver when I told him. He smiled; he too was enjoying the adventure.

Our next stop was a temple called Hen Jo, meaning unknown. The flight of entrance steps ascended a sort of inlet in the vegetation-crowned stone wall, some of whose bricks were disarrayed. Shrubs had begun to take over the steps, although someone had trimmed them partially back. At their summit were two character-engraven pillars, and then, set back within its flat yard, the red-roofed temple itself, whose white facade stood unevenly decomposed down to the inner wood. The place felt peculiar: abandoned and yet not exactly neglected; consider for instance the temple grounds, stripped down to sand, or perhaps stripped down and then sanded, by well-meaning decontaminators, with armies of goldenrod standing at attention in tall close-packed array just behind the wall. No weeds grew here, at least not for the moment. The decontaminators had aimed to make the tombs sufficiently safe for former residents to come and briefly pay their respects to the ancestors. Mr. Suzuki informed me that the air dose here had been 19 micros but after decontamination it became “officially 5.05 as of September.” A sign from September recorded a reading of 5.06, and today the frisker found even less to chirrup about: 3.9 micros an hour. Behind two metal-lipped incense wells, a stone statuette stood clasping together its palms and dreaming, with a tall tomb-slab at its back. Everything was as still as the folds of its stone robe. Close-eyed, serene and baby-bald, inhumanly patient, it waited for nothing that I could ever imagine. Bending down and extending the frisker toward that figure, I encountered the unpleasant value of 7.0 micros. Had I been condemned to stay here until I reached the nuclear worker’s five-year maximum of 50 millis, I would have served my sentence in less than 10 months.

Hen Jo Temple (7.00 micros)

Now we drove past house-islands in the great rich sea of goldenrod. Some of the homes had been swept away to their foundations by the tsunami. Disobeying a do-not-enter sign, we descended a narrow asphalt road as goldenrods towered on either side, more and more of them. So we arrived at the ocean, about three and a half kilometers from Daiichi. It was 10:45. The air dose had become an almost benignly mild 1.374.

How radioactive was the water? In May an unnamed site “outside the port” and three kilometers away (there was a fifty-fifty chance that it was right here) had measured 4.3 becquerels of tritium.* Remembering the difficulties that Eli had laid out before me when I asked to sample that very same contaminant, not least of them the fact that water is a neutron shield, I forebore to frisk the waves. Perhaps I could have scooped up some mud, waited for the water to evaporate, then measured what was left—but if H2O evaporated, why wouldn’t H3O? Wishing not to harm myself and others through ignorance, I abandoned that project.

The seashore at Okuma. Note the sheared-off crown of the pine tree.

The breakwater was wrecked, of course. A pine leaned toward the bright blue sea, its top pollarded by the tsunami. Birds flew up in flocks from the river’s mouth. Seeing a small dark beetle on the sleeve of my paper suit, I asked my usual question about whether the radiation was killing any creatures.

“I don’t know what your impression was,” said Mr. Suzuki, annoyed, “but no animals died.”*

The driver, wearing no protection at all, was happily wandering the seashore, which he had not seen since before the accident.*

I still remember the smooth grey rocks and pebbles of that beach, with here and there a paler stone, and a line of wet sticks and even a little kelp, and then the foam where those low slow waves of greenish-grey came in. Sometimes a jade wave was a little higher than its cousins, and spray leaped up from its shining white shoulder just before it struck. Even then the impression I got was one of gentleness. This looked to be a place to wade with small children. Perhaps it used to be. It was clean. The pancake frisker showed 4.16 micros an hour as I stood facing the ocean breeze, then rapidly went down to half a micro. To the landward, russet marsh grass struck an appropriately autumnal note on this magnificently clear day with the forest ridges very blue and distinct to the west. A raptor glided slowly above a broken tree. On a little rise a few steps from the shore, several other trees (pines, I believe, although I did not have time to go see them) seemed to flourish, never mind that their crowns had all been evenly sheared off; Mr. Suzuki explained that the tsunami had reached just so high, and as I gazed up at them, trying to imagine being right here and watching the approach of a wave of that height, some of the horror of March eleventh came back to me. The tidal wave had killed 11 people in Okuma; the 12th had not yet been found, and so there was an ugly mound of broken board, sheet metal, rags and other detritus on the beach where the bulldozers had gone corpse-hunting. Another of Fukushima’s incomplete stories was told by two dark sodden sneakers, and a single white shoe. What had happened to the other one, and was its owner alive or dead? Dark birds went swarming in a low flock over the blue lagoon. Among those mismatched shoes lay a woman’s purse, miserably sodden, and a framed photograph glittering with moisture; I had neither the heart nor the right to invade any of these in search of information. Clambering up what remained of the wrecked breakwater, I measured 5 micros and more in a puddle of rainwater or seawater on the steps. Angling the frisker up into the sea air as I neared the top, I encountered the dislikeable value of 10.14, and turned away. Mostly the levels there at the shore were less than a micro. I had asked to see a river, and so we all strolled to the mouth of the Kuma-kam. As we neared its wide bend in the marsh grass, myriad white birds arose, almost silently. Caught between my obligations to the frisker and to my companions, whose every remark must be tediously interpreted to and fro, I had not the time to make out what species they were. They ascended to no great height, then quickly settled back; evidently our presence did not much disturb them. Mr. Suzuki said that this place was famous for salmon, and indeed in that shallow, grassy, gently curving river, which in my country we would have called a creek, oblong palenesses wriggled in the crinkling water: spawning time.

I was astonished to learn that people could sell some fish from here—but of course the bottom feeders remained off limits.

I strolled up beside the taxi driver, who was taking deep breaths of the sea air, looking out across the white sand at the lovely lagoon and the low blue mountains beyond it.

Returning to our vehicles, we proceeded inland, more or less following the river. Within the taxi van the frisker within three seconds went from 1 to 1.8 to 2 micros. On a bridge I asked to stop. We could see spawning salmon wearily swimming upstream, and often simply weaving in place against the current, like long dark windblown leaves attached to some invisible stalk; a few were dead and drifted down; one kept turning over and showing its bright belly. In one minute the frisker scintillated 1,286 times: 4.26 micros per hour.

Now for a brief distance we retraced the route we had taken to the ocean. Along that immaculate empty road, on which a puddle vaguely reflected the clouds, and weeds were just beginning to rise up along the concrete blocks where cars had once parked, a glorious plain of goldenrod underlined the mountains, and in that yellow lake stood a few lonely white islets: abandoned houses.—How does one know that no one is at home?—When there is no way to it.—Silver-white plumes of pampas grass reached higher than their roofs. One three-storey white house with a fine balcony rose more distinctly from the goldenrod, in part because it was especially close to the road, and also because the tsunami must have hissed through here, for between the house’s wide-splayed legs was a dark cave where most of the ground floor had been carried away. When I walked up toward it, I began to see sky and pampas grass within the jaggedly peeling lips of that vacancy. Upstairs, one window-half was curtained, and the other dark; perhaps that darkness was the inside of the house. The frisker read between 5 and 6 micros. Less than one of my three allotted hours in this red zone remained. I had stopped too often. Approaching the roadside, I aimed the frisker at some goldenrod, and read 6.73 micros—only 112 times higher than my studio back home.

I took two steps into the goldenrod: 7.40 micros.

Tsunami-wrecked house (7.40 micros)

Hastening back to the taxi van, I asked that we drive a little more quickly, in order to see the reactors if we could, and we soon reached another checkpoint, with men in white protective gear bowing us through on either side of the road.

Everywhere the lovely weeds were more beautiful than anything humans could do.

Inside the taxi van as we rode up a low hill our radiation level climbed: 3, 4, 5 and all the way to 9.23 micros as we crested that hill. Now we were rolling through the lovely goldenrod wilderness of a former industrial park. To the right lay decrepit and sometimes broken building-cubes, and that pale blue ocean.

At 11:18 they showed me a tsunami-destroyed shrine: 2,551 counts per minute, 8.52 micros. Here was another of those places where the grass and flowering weeds massing along the edges had begun to creep onto the pavement itself. When I frisked the road, extending that pancake head at chest level, I found a patch that measured more than 20 micros, and I felt as I had when I first saw that gnawed-away house with the blue mountains showing through its missing first storey. Mr. Suzuki, unimpressed, reminded me that the level used to exceed 100 micros at the time of the accident.

He pointed, and I got my first glimpse of those infamous blue and white tanks: Daiichi. There were grey tanks also. Grey meant bolted while blue meant welded, which leaked less; Tepco was trying to replace grey with blue.

At 11:25 we reached the former fish hatchery, or, to give it its due, the Fukushima Prefecture Aquaculture Association, where the air was 3,260 counts per minute and 10.86 micros. Once upon a time the two officials had been quite proud of this establishment. Mr. Suzuki explained that the water used to be warmed for the hatchlings with waste heat from Plant No. 1. I agreed that that had been clever. Ruined houses grinned at me from the weeds.

The fish hatchery

Trolling the emptiness of the cracked pavement by the weedy buildings there where the land slanted down toward the seashore, I performed my usual involutions. The wounded half-cylinder of the hatchery gaped open high above the pampas grass. Sometimes the air dose was 6 micros and sometimes it was nearly 10. The pampas grass at the roadside read only 2 or 3 micros. I knelt down and frisked the air above the pavement: 29.5 micros. The white heads of pampas grass were shining beyond the bridge’s guardrail, which had been half pulled away like the top of a tin can. Wild thickets of pampas grass towered as high as the new trees, suffocating lost walls and foundations.

A grating by the hatchery (18.03 micros)

Over a well within a rusty grating I lowered the frisker from waist level to about three inches, and its count rose from 20 to 30 micros.

Not far from here I took my highest measurement in Japan: 41.5 micros. This very nearly reached the lower boundary of the radiation in outer space.*

On the bright side, by 1973 Okuma had achieved the highest per capita income in Fukushima Prefecture, all thanks to nuclear power! Wasn’t that worth a few gamma rays?

My highest measurement in Japan (41.5 micros)

Inside the taxi van at 11:36, heading straight toward Plant No. 1, I found our air dose to be fluctuating between 10 and 12 micros. The two officials had planned this tour superbly, for in four minutes we had arrived at my final requested point of interest: an overlook on Plant No. 1. This proved to be the grounds of an old age home, and here I finally lost one of my torn and wrinkled shoe covers. Consoling myself that I could hardly make a less dignified impression on my hosts than before, I resolved to keep that foot out of any vegetation for the duration.

In the three-quarters of an hour from the river bridge to the old age home, the dosimeter had accrued 4.6 micros. That calculated out to an unpleasant irradiation rate of 5.75 micros an hour. But thanks to dosimeter, frisker and this moving vehicle, I felt more or less in control of our exposure. Although the plant was merely 2.2 kilometers away, the air dose here rarely exceeded 2 or 3 micros an hour.

In the courtyard, goldenrod grew higher than the windows, sometimes bending and leaning against the walls.* The grass was not wildly overgrown, so the place seemed almost cheerful. One window was open, and the white curtain pulled back to show off its darkness. Given 10 more minutes’ time I would have gone inside, but it was already the stated departure time. In the other windows, trees, weeds and sky reflected themselves. Some of the grass was golden. A tennis shoe lay in it, sideways. The seedheads and flowers of those tall weeds blocked the doorway, invading the parking lot and reaching up toward the dark window beneath a roof overhang that was vertically streaked with blackish grime and fallout.

Proceeding to the road on the northern edge of the hill where the two officials waited, I read 2,200 counts per minute, or 7.38 hourly micros. Down below through the waving pampas grass I could see a horizon of ocean, cranes, tanks and low, wide buildings. They were guarded by a belt of dark green trees, which perhaps were those famous pines of the reddish trunks.* Between the trees and our hill lay a few houses and some fields whose verdant yellow-green I suspected must be goldenrod.—Mr. Suzuki now very precisely gave me the lie of the land: “On the right is an exhaust tower; next is Reactor No. 4, and left of that, two pillars in, then below that is Reactor No. 3. The white building to the left with the blue pattern is No. 2, and to the left of that is No. 1.”

Like so many culprits, they bore an unimpressive, even innocuous appearance. If I could only have gotten closer I would have seen the pipes, opened walls, rubble and crumpled latticework; and then, still unseen but conjectured, the liquefied and resolidified reactor cores, lumped and twisted around the reactors’ skeletons. And what a thrill it would have been to frisk Tepco’s underground trenches! Three days ago the poisoned cloaca beneath Reactor No. 1 measured at 161,000 becquerels of cesium, which once again made the highest reading ever. Tepco blamed the recent hurricane.

Since I had detained the two officials for an unscheduled half an hour, we now sped out of the red zone, passing a place where the taxi driver had seen wild boar four or five days ago, then a row of beautiful trees in red and yellow leaf, a plain of goldenrod with grey berms in the former ricefields, and to the right a cemetery surrounded by goldenrod; then we departed the last gate.

Plant No. 1, Reactors No. 1, 2 and 3

Reactors No. 3 and 4: Pacific Ocean on right*

Mr. Suzuki and his colleague drove straight back to the office, but the interpreter and I must now undergo decontamination screening at a roadside checkpoint. With great pleasure I tore off my coverall, mask and remaining shoe cover. Then they frisked me with their magic wands. They remarked that today’s surface contamination was 240 counts per minute, or 0.43 microsieverts per hour.* They measured me at a mere 230 cpms, which exempted me from abandoning any of my possessions or taking an immediate shower. The central government standard was 13,000 cpms for any object’s surface, not for the human body, which rated a flat 20 millis per year. (To me this sounded like apples-and-oranges obfuscation.) If a car was above 13,000 cpms, it must be washed or abandoned. Of course they did not inspect the taxi at all, nor even the driver.

“Yes, I never got out of the car,” the driver laughed.

Decontaminating the interpreter

MY FIFTH TOMIOKA IDYLL

Since the taxi driver was willing to earn more money (he cost me something like $700) and Tomioka, my metonym for Fukushima, lay so conveniently near, I proposed to take more measurements and photographs there—only in the yellow zone, of course; we lacked permission for the other. The ever agreeable interpreter acquiesced, and as soon we stopped she slipped her mask back on. That was when we got our laugh, to see that this time she’d worn it inside out! Some of those radioactive particles from Okuma which the mask had previously filtered out must now be in her lungs. Such are the amusements one finds in nuclear zones. As for me, wishing to emulate Aki, Mr. Kojima, Mr. Suzuki and Mr. Shigihara, I went maskless here as in Okuma; so it was an even bet whether she or I would get cancer first. Well, despite those harmful rumors there was no immediate danger.

Afternoon rush at the Night Pub Sepia

There on that side road I had come to know so well was the pachinko parlor TSUBA (today its facade and the weeds around it ran about 4.8 micros) and the Night Pub Sepia, which put out a mere 4. (By the way, these black-and-white reproductions will not reveal that the place actually had a peach-colored paint job.) Unimpressed by the scenic pulchritude of Tomioka, the driver remained in the taxi van, considerately driving after us as we strolled here and there. Within a few paces I came to a gap in a hedge of what might have been laurels, and then some fingers of a cryptomeria below and in front of me, the richly gloomy silhouettes of the same trees above and behind. The middle of that ovoid gap allured me with a glowing meadow of tall grass pale green and russet, silvered with pampas grass and illuminated with goldenrod, with hints of sky in those cryptomeria trees like tiny stained glass windows, and I longed to saunter there, all the more since there had been no time to make such excursions in Okuma; but as I introduced the pancake frisker through the hole and ducked my head as I prepared to follow behind it, the displayed numbers chittered upward, from 5.52 to 7 micros per hour, and the frisker not even half a meter in yet; then I felt a loathsome spiderweb on my forehead and the dusty leaves seemed on the verge of brushing against my face, so that in revulsion I drew back, cleaning off my head with my relatively uncontaminated sleeve, and that was when it struck me anew how dangerous last spring’s Tomioka idylls must have been. That morning the two Okuma officials had asserted that the level in downtown Tomioka was “typically” 0.3 micros. So this was not typical—although the average of my 151 frisks of Tomioka worked out to 2.77 micros. Such discrepancies do make a fellow wonder. All the same, as I think back on this meadow hole experience, it seems to say more about my state of mind than about the place, for what should a micro and a half’s difference truly have been to me? Given my ignorance and inexperience, those excursions into the red zone were a strain—and rightly so; it was the people who had been compelled into familiarity (precursors of you in my future) whose perceptions were distorted into dullness. (We were all fools.) Those spiderwebs and leaves, with their tactile content, affected me much as had my lonely walk up those dark shrine steps in Iitate, with my shoes sinking into leaves, and vegetative particles tickling my nostrils; probably they were no worse for me than the gamma rays shooting from the ground by the fish hatchery at Okuma, but as so many taxi drivers had explained, the invisible and unfeelable could be set aside.

HOW RADIOACTIVE WAS IT?

or, Extracts from an Official Website

Tsunami zone

Here the first reading listed is the first available.

ISHINOMAKI

Point No. 70, distance from Daiichi not stated

Aug. 1, 2012, at noon: 0.06 microSV/hr.

Oct. 28, 2014, at 8:00 am: 0.05

July 20, 2017, at noon: 0.05

KESENNUMA

Point No. 79, distance from Daiichi not stated

Aug. 1, 2012, at noon: 0.04

Oct. 28, 2014, at 8:00 am: 0.04

July 20, 2017, at noon: 0.04

SENDAI

Point No. 74, distance from Daiichi not stated

Aug. 1, 2012, at noon: 0.04

Oct. 28, 2014, at 8:00 am: 0.03

July 20, 2017, at noon: 0.03

—

Red and yellow zones

IITATE

Point No. 109, 38 km NW of Daiichi

April 1, 2011, at noon: 7.54

Aug. 1, 2012, at 8:00 am: 0.28

Oct. 28, 2014, at 8:00 am: 0.28

July 20, 2017, at noon: 0.28

Point No. 736, 37 km NW of Daiichi

April 1, 2011, at noon: 2.85

Aug. 1, 2012, at 8:00 am: 3.06

Oct. 28, 2014, at 8:00 am: 0.73

July 20, 2017, at noon: 0.35

KAWAUCHI

Point No. 650, 19 km WSW of Daiichi

April 1, 2012, at 8:00 am: 0.18

Oct. 27, 2014, at 8:00 am: 0.09

July 20, 2017, at noon: 0.07

TOMIOKA

Point No. 3955, 10 km SSW of Daiichi

Dec. 27, 2013, at 6:00 pm: 1.15

Oct. 28, 2014, at 8:00 am: 0.44

July 20, 2017, at noon: 0.23

Point No. 3966, 9 km SSW of Daiichi

Dec. 27, 2013, at 6:00 pm: 1.63

Oct. 28, 2014, at 8:00 am: 0.61

July 20, 2017, at noon: 0.35

Point No. 645, N of police box and W of post office, 6 km SSW of Daiichi

Sept. 8, 2011, at noon: 4.96

Aug. 1, 2014, at 8:00 am: 4.05

July 20, 2017, at 12:10 pm: 1.08

The two monitoring posts nearest to Yonomori were Point 645, 6 km SSW of Daiichi, whose reading on Oct. 28, 2014, at 8:00 a.m. was 1.92 micros; and (for “real time dose measurement”) Point 3954, 7 km SW of Daiichi, which at the same time read 3.82 micros. No readings for this or any other place in this table were posted for Oct. 27, the date of the visit just described. But on Oct. 28 I did make another visit to Tomioka, as detailed below.

Nuclear accident zone

VICINITY OF NUCLEAR PLANT NO. 1

Point No. 1373, 2 km west of Daiichi

April 1, 2012, at 8:00 am: 26.04

Oct. 27, 2014, at 8:00 am: 10.80

July 20, 2017, at 11:00 am: 6.20

Source: http://fukushima-radioactivity.jp/pc.

Engaging in my hobby of measuring drainpipes and culverts, I recorded 5, 3.5, 12, 32 and 5 micros. Over in the red zone, a lovely russet-golden sea of grass and young goldenrod and tall pampas grass was already halfway to drowning the closed-up little houses.

Departing from the hedge and from the repellent graspings of the ivy upon the Night Pub Sepia, I directed the driver to that uncanny garment shop in the business district, where the robot girl was echoingly advising us: “When you enter the town, please be very careful about wasps. Contact the Environmental Section for information.” We were already inside the garment shop when we heard this. Since February, heaps of rodent feces had been swept up into piles here and there; the rest appeared unchanged.

The radiation in there was 0.36 micros. Perhaps the “typical” dose for this area had been computed from interior samplings such as this. The sidewalk immediately outside varied from 0.7 to 1.3 micros measured at waist level. I walked a few steps down the street in both directions: 1.0, 2.58, 1.86 and 2.0. A fallen goldenrod on the sidewalk was 2.51.

On October 22, the Nuclear Regulation Authority website listed Tomioka’s 67 monitoring spots. The highest radiation reported was at the “multipurpose meeting place, east side”: 2.218 micros.—According to my frisker, the base of a pole for an asphalt parking lot’s barrier chain read 12 micros and more; the asphalt was 11.

In the garment shop I stood looking out through the darkness into the yellowish-white light of the glass doors, with the mannequin’s elegant silhouette gazing down through the open doorway at the two bright lines of grass that sprouted up from the sidewalk and the rubble before her and the ivy-grown ruined shops across the street.

The hole in the foliage (from 2 to 7 micros)

5: And You Can’t Live

Not far south of Iwaki stands Ganjo Temple, the site of Fukushima’s only National Treasure. I am told that it dates all the way back to the Heian period, although the Japanese have fooled me that way before; once in Nara I saw the oldest wooden building in the world, and felt quite impressed until I learned that they replaced the wood as often as it wore out—sometimes every 30 years. Well, who was I to say how others ought to count time and genuineness? I could not even tell whether Tomioka would be safe to dwell in by 2017 as the central government predicted;* that was only one-fifth of a cesium half-life; 10 half-lives would have left the town depopulated until 2311. So let me be magnanimous to Ganjo-ji, however ancient it actually might have been; I liked the 12 lightning Buddhas of Amida-do Hall. There was also a standing statue of Kannon Bosatsu, the all-gendered deity of mercy.

Central business district, Tomioka

As I learned from my pancake frisker, the temple grounds were a trifle more radioactive than downtown, although not unhealthily so: a quarter of a micro an hour, two millis a year.* I remembered Ed Lyman’s assertion that the fallout would remain longer in evidence in absorbent places. On the pond’s bank, dead lotuses stood crowded together like the chambers of crazy multicylindered rusty revolvers. This mud was no more radioactive than anything else in sight. Some of the Japanese maple leaves had already turned crimson and purple. Just now the foliage must be lovely in Iitate. Shadows lay long on the grass, and just below the bridge great carp kept opening their mouths, as greedily expectant as the grumbling and chuckling ducks. The bright sun was in my eyes, and birds were singing. It was nearly four o’clock.

We commenced driving north for the last time, with undulating tree-ridges sharply illuminated in the low sun so that one could see each pallid trunk and each irregular oblong vertical of shadow between the trees, sunshine gleaming and dazzling on certain angles of white house-wall or shoulder of silver car; and back in Iwaki many ribbons of power wire dangled down. I glimpsed yellow foliage against the dark glass of some office building. The gas station and strip mall signs and the traffic lights and the glowing cans on the shelves within the vending machines were all pleasantly lurid. Harvested ricefields all caught the light, their texture like that of flattened corncobs. Within the taxi it continued to remain less radioactive than at the temple; from that standpoint I could have been on the street in front of the hotel.

Now we were already in Yotsukura, the pavement on which we traveled slipping into shadow; the roofs of the cars ahead of us had lost their sunlight, although the forest ridges to the north were still as brightly picked out as ever. The sky had grown pale yellow over the ocean, and up on the horizon, seeming closer than they were, those twin white thermal stacks of Hirono arose as if out of the water. According to the frisker, our interior levels were still between 0.132 and 0.308 micros. Pampas grass began to flourish along the roadside, but all the little cemeteries were still neat and clean. Then we passed through the four hill-tunnels, none of which had collapsed during the great earthquake of 2011, and at 4:31 we entered Hirono, having not yet accrued even one-tenth of a microsievert since leaving Ganjo-ji, the levels within the cab more or less the same, the two thermal stacks even yet small ahead.

Flashing quickly through that town, the highway now passing darkly through a deep cut, after which the white plumes of the pampas grass began to go grey, we made fine progress, since hardly anyone was going north from here on. A few last ricefields remained under cultivation (I would have wished to frisk that rice), and we reached the sign for J Village, the ocean now out of sight for awhile, cars with their taillights shining red as we came into Naraha right at 4:40, where the levels remained the same both outside and also in the dreary convenience store, whose only customers at that hour were decontamination workers with longtailed hachimaki tied around their foreheads, samurai style (I have been told that sometimes even high school students about to take some difficult exam will fasten these on, in order to nerve themselves up for some especially demanding work).

Then we were rolling down, down, everything vaguer except for one glimpse of flat calm sea, a crimson maple tree going dirty-brown against the pale sky. Even now we had received only a tenth of a microsievert since the drive began; after all, it was just 4:54 now as we entered Tomioka. To our right, the bridge across the ravine and up to Plant No. 2 glowed with the headlights of stalled traffic, including a busload of decontaminators. Our interior levels remained trivial. We continued down that hill, passing a long line of headlights going south: decontaminators off shift, most likely; as before, no one at all was going our way. Almost immediately the pancake frisker began chirring more busily, and the illuminated head, which made a pretty good flashlight to take notes by, displayed 0.664, 0.904, 1.748 and 0.896. A one-minute timed count measured about three-quarters of a micro per hour. Well, that still wasn’t much.

Tomioka was awfully dark. Right away I found myself more disoriented than ever before. I had been under the impression that the municipality kept streetlights on in order to deter theft, but this did not seem to be the case. The driver, who had not been here since before the accident, could not be prevailed on to slow down (perhaps he was nervous), and so before I knew it we had sped past the left turn to that main street where the garment shop was, and came all the way to the former checkpoint, which now of course allowed through traffic to Namie but was still manned by police who stood guarding the barricaded side streets. Then at last the driver made a U-turn, and it became clear that the street I had wished for had been likewise closed off; this must be the nightly practice. So we asked a policeman how to get on the Kawauchi road, and he directed us a good kilometer back to the south. He was masked, helmeted, in greatcoat and boots; his orange light-stick flashed coldly. I wondered whether he would die from cancer. Thanking him, we went as we had come on Highway 6, the driver going too fast as usual, not that it mattered, for there was only one possible westward turn through the dark empty town, a mound of black radioactive bags darker than the dusk in a strip mall’s parking lot.

This road skirted the urban core, and after two or three dark blocks of abandoned offices there was not much to see but weeds in the headlights. For the moment, our interior levels rose no further. That meant that we might as well have been anywhere or nowhere—for all I really had to see by in this dark empty place was what the frisker saw. The driver kept speeding in terror.

In the blackness in the direction of the town office, our headlights pricked very dark thick masses of weeds on either side, and then a ridge of silhouetted blue against a pale yellow sky—the very last light. This place seemed very rural and lovely. We must be near Yonomori, and Mr. Endo’s house, and that shrine with the broken stone lion. If we continued any farther on this road, we would leave Tomioka, and be rushing uselessly down the Joban-do toward Kawauchi. It took half a dozen requests before I could get the driver to slow down. The next problem was to halt him entirely. His anxiety was catching, of course, which made me cross, but at last he did stop, and if there was no more light left in the sky, at least there was some kind of purplish pallor.

Stepping out of the vehicle with the interpreter, with the frisker on NORMAL, I encountered pleasant night weather conditions of 2.6 micros per hour—less than 23 millis a year! . . . the Emporium Kindergarten in Koriyama had been significantly more radioactive than that in March 2011. Scribbling into my notebook words I could not see, I noted a crescent moon, cool air, no crickets; perhaps it was already too cold for them. Unable to perceive very much, and unwilling to dwell on nasty realities, my mind soothed me with a plausible projection of a happier place, so that this spot began to seem to me almost like high ranch country in its loneliness, with just a single distant blue light here and there in the darkness, as if I were back in the California desert where I had once been safe and young. Now the stars began to come out.

Walking forward on what must have once been a two-rut dirt road along the north side of the ricefield, I found the radiation levels rising almost at once, to 3.9 and 4.7. There were more digits than this, of course, but they kept changing, and I had to write blindly, and the trend was plain enough: 4.07, 5.34, 4.63, 4.80, 4.90, 5.74, 5.75, 6.96. Now that my eyes had begun to accustom themselves to the night, I could see black bags on my left. That sight did not please me. I was walking down a lane of pallid grass. Between the lanes I could feel the grass rubbing against the sides of my paper shoe covers, which I trusted not to tear, although just the other day in Okuma one of them had come off. Sooner or later some taller weed would brush against my trousers and deposit radioactive stickleburrs. Well, in Iwaki I would put all my clothes in a plastic bag and then take a shower. My shoes I could always frisk. There were tall dark trees on the right, and on the left, that crowd of black bags. Stepping to the edge of the road, I extended the frisker down toward them, as far as my arm could reach, and although it must have still been a good three or four meters away, it instantly read 12 and 13 micros. If the statisticians were correct, it might take a good year at that exposure to raise my risk of fatal cancer by half a percent; all the same, those measurements increased my uneasiness, being a couple of hundred times higher than back home. I can still remember the horrid crowd of black bags down there as I went along that road that was shaded by tree-darkness, an equally horrid sighing of wind, and then columns of pallid light between the otherwise solid-dark trees, hands of plants, weed-hands with many long thin twitching pallid fingers, hands of pale grass splayed out, slits of pallor in the dark tree-wall—but here the average timed value was only 3.12 micros.

“Forward or back?”—The brave interpreter replied: “I will follow you.” I decided that we might as well go back, and seek out another place. So we returned to the taxi, neither rushing nor dillydallying by the black bags, and there sat the poor driver with his lights and engine on.

The next site was not far away: a dark intersection, the road empty but for an orange-and-silver-striped cone with a flashing red light on it—the centerpiece of a knee-high barrier of cones and cross-poles, marking the border of the no-go zone, into which I slowly, cautiously, illegally stepped, with the frisker ahead of me (a small marker proclaimed this to be Hometown Appreciation Road), and on my left hunched another fat black bag. Standing in the center of the pavement for a good long timed minute, with the frisker in my left hand and the rest of my body as far away from that bag as possible, I presently learned that the level was 1,098 scintillations, 0.061 microsieverts—a mere 3.66 micros per hour. I almost laughed. There were ever more stars in the sky ahead, and on either side were trees, and cold autumn wind licked my sleeves.

What in fact I could have learned, and what I am telling you here, consists of little more than blindness, uneasiness, helplessness and ignorance. The frisker and the dosimeter were all I had to go by, and what they told me was disputable. For the general public, it is recommended that the total radiation dosage (exclusive of medical dosages) for an individual by age 30 not exceed a specified dosage which is about 50 times the annual natural background dosage. For radiation workers . . . the guideline is . . . about 100 times natural background dosage per year. So my old college physics book had it, back in 1974. But a hundred times natural background had not worried Aki, not one bit. As for me, I began to feel uneasy in the windy darkness, watching the frisker’s numbers go up. That crescent moon and those stars lost their charm. Advancing a trifle more down that silent dark street, I received notice from the frisker that I was now taking in 4.08 micros. Then, from the trees on my right I heard a deep loud grunting—surely another of those radioactive wild boar, who were said to be aggressive (I felt more afraid of them than of the radiation), so I returned to the taxi, within which the level was only about a micro per hour.

When I asked the driver whether he could find the ruined Japan Railways station to which Mr. Endo and then Aki and Mr. Kojima had guided me, he, enthusiastic to finally be set a more straightforward goal, quickly keyed this destination into the electronic guidance system, so that once again we began speeding, much too fast as usual, through these dark and empty streets which were all the darker for being walled in with radioactive vegetation; to tell the truth, he was more confident or at least hoped more wishfully than I, who began to suspect that his software might not have been updated since the accident; indeed, we soon reached another roadblock. Stepping out to sample the darkness, I found an ugly pit ahead, followed by scaffolding; for once the difficulty was not radiation but simply earthquake damage; in any event we could go no farther. Taking a timed measurement, I found the radiation quite low—only 0.78 micros.

Almost desperately the driver sped down this or that other dead road, so that it occurred to me to ask him if he could find the way back to Highway 6 if his software did not pan out; as for me, sitting in the back seat, scribbling notes and staring at the pancake frisker, I would have been well lost had he asked me how to go, which he did not. It began to strike me what a nightmare it would be to get trapped in Tomioka all night in this taxi, rushing purposelessly from street to street, with nothing to show for it but maybe a month’s worth of genetic damage. As it happened, the numbers around here continued to be nearly pleasant—mostly around a half-micro as we whipped through the dark forest; then came a hateful line of black bags on our left; even in the taxi the frisker’s numbers went up. But that was a mere anomaly, like the accident itself, so we continued stubbornly down that empty road, a single yellow traffic light blinking far ahead, our levels now 0.8 and 0.7, after which we reached the next National Treasure, which is to say a dark field of black bags, the driver stubbornly faithful to his navigation system, still speeding no matter what I said, often coming up against another roadblock; once he admitted that we had been on this particular dark road before; but finally we were back on Highway 6.

My next intention was to have him stop on the shoulder near the barricaded side-road that led to the garment shop; I was pretty sure that I recognized it now even in the dark, but as usual he overshot it. (He was the worst taxi driver I ever had in Japan; in the end I paid him $600.) So I gave that up, contenting myself with a final excursion to that ruined pachinko parlor called TSUBA.

On the east side of the highway as we rolled back down into town, I glimpsed a small house in which greenish-yellow light glowed behind two curtains. Who could possibly be staying here? Remembering the tale of the stubborn farmer who cared for abandoned pets and cattle (but didn’t he live in a red zone?), and the woman who looked after her paralyzed relative, I wondered if this light marked some kindred story of small defiance; I never found out. Here came that nasty carnival of whirling lights upon a police pole at the former checkpoint, the headlights of a police car muted, somehow not carrying very far in that darkness; and we neared the double line of glowing poles, policemen standing lonely in the dark. Just before that was our familiar sharp right, which the driver miraculously failed to miss. Promising not to leave him alone in the car too long, I stepped out, and the interpreter with me. Now for another one-minute timed stroll in view of TSUBA: 3.9 micros an hour beneath the pale dangling plume-fingers of the pampas grass, that crescent moon momentarily bisected by a power wire; we passed a streetlamp, then approached the pallor of the shuttered nightclub on the right—sickly greenish weeds across the front of that white, white building, yes, the Night Pub Sepia, and on NORMAL the frisker read a mere 3.7 or 3.8, the pampas grass pale and reaching, while on the left loomed a broken sign nearly devoured by bushes, then the tall vertical NO ENTRY sign on account of radiation; the interpreter had translated it before. Past the Night Pub Sepia rose a dead building with black windows and shadows black upon it; the space between it and the Night Pub Sepia was black, black, solid black, and the frisker chittered up to 4.59 and then higher.

As the U.S. Atomic Energy promised us back in 1966: Atomic energy is revolutionizing life today . . . The men and women who enter the world of the atom invariably find that they are exploring a world more exciting than . . . the dreams of Marco Polo . . .

There were places where a building seemed to hang above the darkness rather than rise out of it, because as I later (but not then) remembered from daytime excursions there, swells of radioactive vegetation rose up around the bottom of it, almost obscuring the main window, and vines grew thickly across the entrance steps and up the front door, while pampas grass stood pallidly behind.

Here came that vegetation which had scared me the other day; well, well, it was just a wall of grass and spidery weeds, and pine trees up ahead. This time I refrained from poking the frisker into that poisonous stuff. Ahead stood a familiar house with broken dark windows and a porch; that was where the decontamination workers had been so busy last February. How much good had they accomplished? Toggling the pancake frisker to SCALER, I walked forward for a timed minute, measuring an unexceptional 4.02 micros—twice the national target air dose. That pallid dry cold grass on my left was something to keep away from. Farther ahead, at the edge of the road rose the next looming pale wall of house and then a dark tree above and behind it, there where the dead street curved leftward into darkness—a place of death, one might have supposed, and yet there came the piping of a single frog. Staring into the darkness behind the pampas grass, I saw nothing, of course, then turned back to the decontaminated house. As I swung the frisker on NORMAL at my hip, it began by showing only 3.75, 3.4, 3.44 micros, but then I thought to lower it toward the pavement itself, and right away it shot up to 11, 12, 13.5, 15, 18, 21, and at 21 it stayed. When I reported this number to the driver, he cried out. For all I knew the decontaminators had done their job, but trailed fallout from their truck, or very possibly some dry breeze this very day had sifted cesium-137 from the vicinity of Reactor No. 1 right to this spot. Once more I marveled at the unpredictability of fallout distribution; here for instance was water running under a dark culvert, 4 micros at waist level and still only 4.8 at culvert level, perhaps since it flowed so rapidly.

The interpreter and I stood watching that roadside pampas grass which was so much higher than our heads; there we stood and there it stood, pale and still in the dark. What was there to understand? Thus Tomioka: dead grass with stickleburrs, and the curving road, that tall pale pampas grass on the left and the grim nightclub on the right with its darkness, this night of dead houses overgrown with weeds—a creepy, vile experience.

The instant we reentered the taxi, the driver began to roll homeward without further instructions.—“What do you think of Tomioka?” I asked him.

He replied: “I feel that three years have passed and you can’t live.”

“Do you ever worry about going into a place like this?”

“I don’t worry too much, because I’m over 60 . . .”—but he sped and sped until we were up the hill and past No. 2 and coming into Naraha.

NORMALIZATION ON THE ROCKS

Some people were scared, but mostly they resembled the bartender in Fukushima City who performed his mixings quietly and magically as if the show would never end, the edge of the bar itself illuminated so that the glasses glowed alone and mysteriously in that one segment where he stood quietly constructing them; the gin glowed bluish and the ice cubes were like great diamonds, while the bottle of gin shone red.

He was from Fukushima and owned the bar, rented the space. He looked very young to be the owner. Bowing over his mixologies, wearing large spectacles in which the drinks were reflected blue, he took great care.

He bought a Geiger counter in 2012 but grew bored with it after a year. In his opinion, nuclear power was here to stay, and about the accident he didn’t really care, although he realized that those from Okuma or Tomioka might feel differently.

He said that this area was considered a bit “hot,” the levels varying (just as my frisker indicated) between about 0.12 and 0.5 micros an hour—and you from the future for whom I write may well be jaded at such trivial values—even when I lived, half a micro was not unheard of; those stone Ten Commandments tablets in the courthouse lawn of Pineville, West Virginia, measured in at 0.48, and I have told you how in the Rocky Mountains I frisked a boulder at 0.84—furthermore, you may not believe that for me it was novel, unnerving and downright disturbing to need to guide myself with a scintillation counter; for you, I suppose, there will be hot spots here and there, and perhaps even your coolest spots will read, like Iitate’s average air dose, a full micro per hour (8.76 millis a year)—eight times what I got at my kitchen counter at home—so that you will mask yourself as needed, rinsing off alpha and beta particles at your destination, perhaps with recycled grey water,* and slicing off your tumors every few years until they get you; back in the years when I was alive, such a world was not looked for.* Yet even this bartender in Fukushima City now said, laughing a little, that in consideration of the high levels the authorities had considered making this area a no-go zone, but refrained on account of the expensive bullet train that passed through here—although perhaps that was merely another harmful rumor. He laughed, and I smiled back, for it is always better not to let little things such as nuclear disasters crack the containment vessels of our happiness—because, as the Celtic sprites used to sing in Fairyland, things that have grown sad are wicked.

In Fukushima City I once came across a sign that commemorated an aerial count of 0.30 hourly micros as of a certain day of the previous month; but when I measured the spot, my pancake frisker registered 160 counts per minute, or 0.54 micros an hour. That would have earned me 4.73 millis, but only if the dose had kept at exactly that level and I’d camped on that corner for a year. Which exposure assumptions did one care to make? In Ernest Hemingway’s final home in Ketchum, Idaho, there was a nice fireplace in the master bedroom, and the hearth-tiles, which seemed to be made of clay brick, read the same 0.54 micros.* But I had measured those tiles with the frisker lying directly on them; the air dose in the house was only 0.18. My belief was that an air dose signified more to human health than did the levels of some object on the ground—in which case that corner in Fukushima City was more dangerous than the Hemingways’ bedroom. And that bedroom was more radioactive than mine—but Sacramento lies not far above sea level, whereas Ketchum is more than a mile high. In short, my calculus went:

Provided they are both comparable, the air dose deserves more attention than the level of any local emitter.

The higher the altitude (and the more granitic rock), the higher the normal background radiation.

Hence I had two reasons to believe that the 0.54 micros in the air on the street corner in Fukushima City was more dangerous than the 0.54 micros coming up from the Hemingways’ hearth.

So that was how I looked at things, and it might have been plausible but it was also complicated. Other assumptions led to other complications. For instance, the way the Ministry of the Environment calculated their persuasions and reassurances, the “additional” annual milli that Japanese should accept with equanimity in these “remediation zones” was predicated on being outdoors for 8 hours and indoors for 16. (They estimated the indoor dose at 60% of the outdoor one.) Their one milli was actually 1.2 millis. A forester or construction worker, not to mention a decontaminator, would find himself drinking down extra helpings of that hearty soup of becquerels, curies, rems and microsieverts that is our life; someone who was outside all the time would absorb 2.02 millis. But how many Japanese now lived like that? Perhaps the Ministry of the Environment was more right than wrong—or maybe not. Everyone conspired with me to make me think the red zones less inimical than they actually were; the poison of their desolation could be perceived only through numbers on dosimeters and scintillation counters; the sad people who guided me there longed to return home, and therefore might have been disposed to accept them even in their present terrible condition, but for the grandchildren. And it is tiring to be anxious all the time. Moreover, who was I to increase anyone’s bitterness, never mind the divide between nuclear refugees and me, by harping on the perils of their landscape?

The Ministry of the Environment went on to state: Individual additional exposure is approximately 1 mSv/yr for the residents living in the area where the air dose rate is about 0.3–0.6 microSv/hr . . .

A continuous exposure to 0.3 micros an hour would win a lucky citizen 2.628 annual millis. And 0.6 micros an hour added up to 5.256 millis.—But never mind! For the Ministry of the Environment also said: Japanese institutions are encouraged to increase efforts to communicate that . . . in remediation situations, any level of individual radiation dose in the range of 1 to 20 mSv per year is acceptable and in line with the international standards.

Any level, from 1 to 20 millis! Well, now, I couldn’t quite agree with that.

In January 2017, with Tomioka’s radiocontamination significantly remediated,* I telephoned Ed Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists to ask him: “Would you move back there? Suppose you had a young wife and young children . . . ?”

“Well, that would just be me,” he said.

“But you know more about that than I do; I’m guessing you have an opinion.”

“Well, children are the most sensitive biological receptors. I wouldn’t want more than a doubling of my children’s previous background exposure. The international recommendation is one millisievert per year from all sources. The problem is, after a nuclear accident the authorities in their wisdom will have a weaker standard. Up to 20 millisieverts a year? For children that’s unacceptable.”

LOWEST AND HIGHEST RADIATION MEASUREMENTS IN SELECTED RED ZONE CITIES, 2014

[in microSv/hr / milliSv/yr]

The two readings not asterisked were one-minute timed SCALER counts. Asterisked readings were made in NORMAL mode to reduce radiation exposure for myself and my companions.

Readings within a vehicle, or within a city’s official limit but outside the red zone, were excluded. So were MAX measurements.

Millisieverts per year were calculated by multiplying [microsieverts per hour] × [24 × 365 / 1,000 = 8.76].

The range above each city name (for instance, “20.7” for Iitate) is simply the highest reading divided by the lowest.

20.7

Iitate

Air dose a few steps from decontaminated community center

0.42 / 3.68

Interior of Mr. Shigihara Yoshitomo’s cowshed

8.70* / 76.21

88.9

Tomioka

Timed walk by seaside incinerator for contaminated debris

0.36 / 3.15

About 100 yards south of abandoned Night Pub Sepia, drainpipe

The next highest measurement was a few feet away: an air dose frisked at 3 inches above pavement.

32* / 280.32

99.8

Okuma

Air dose on beach by ocean (upwind of Reactor No. 1)

0.416* / 3.64

Grass at pavement’s edge by abandoned fish hatchery

41.5* / 363.54

Back to 2014, and the Ministry of the Environment’s convenient suppositions. It might, I confessed, be true that 1 milli a year is not a limit of exposure or a boundary between safety and danger. How should I (or the Ministry) know? Meanwhile, whether it was or wasn’t, an additional individual dose of 1 mSv per year is a long-term goal . . . that . . . cannot be achieved . . . solely by decontamination work.

To sum it up, that additional 1 milli was more than a milli, was not relevant and might not be achievable. Anyhow, whatever cannot be avoided must be lived with, unless it kills us. In the meantime, never surrender to harmful rumors! I remember the grey-green sea rolling cleanly over the white-green pebbles of Okuma, and the taxi van driver joyfully inhaling the breeze—why not? The air dose had been only 0.416 micros.

Proceeding another block toward the Fukushima City train station, I frisked the air and found its level lower by more than half: only 73 cpms, 0.24 micros—about the same as the tall grass at Hanford). At the next block, passing the Bar Plein Rève, it had risen again, to 143 cpms—not quite half a micro an hour. One more block of slightly wet street and yellowish lightbulbs in convenience stores, a lovely longhaired woman on her bicycle at a corner, waiting for a walk signal while a sake bar shone a rainbow on her face and the air dose was back to 77 cpms, 0.24 micros. Around two sides of the hotel building it was 100 cpms and 0.36 micros. Perhaps more relevant than any of these findings was that in those entire four hours in Fukushima City the dosimeter had not turned over another digit. (Never mind the uncounted alpha and beta.) So I went to bed in that delightfully mild environment of a room, radioactively speaking: 21 counts and 0.001 micros per minute. I wasn’t worried; just like the locals, I’d long resumed eating seafood—for instance, fried Tohoku oysters at 0.12 micros and 37 cpms.

“THE STANDARD IS DIFFICULT”

Still hopeful that someone in authority could tell me what was safe, I waylaid a junior public relations official in the Fukushima Environmental Recovery Office, requesting his personal experience. Even back in the days when I was alive I quickly forgot whether he was the one in the white shirt or the other one in the suit and the pinstripe shirt. But I do remember a stuffy, windowless conference room where he bestowed his quarter-hour on me, in one of those office towers in Fukushima City.

“I do live in Fukushima now,” he said. “I only moved half a year ago. I am in public relations, so we respond to journalist inquiries just like this. We have a decontamination information plaza and we advise what to display there. Regarding radiation, there are some explanation materials . . .”

“Are you married?” I asked, wishing to find out whether he worried about the health of his hypothetical children, but he replied: “I am separated from my family.”

“Where did you live before?”

“I was in Shizuoka Prefecture.”

Remembering what the farmer Mr. Hamamatsu had told me in Iwaki,* I said to him: “I heard their tea was affected by the accident.”

“Mount Fuji is the east side of the prefecture, and the tea is grown on the west side, so I don’t think I have heard that the radiated particles came to that area.”

“Do you yourself ever have any worries about radiation exposure?”

“Not at all. Because next door is the co-op store, and they sell Fukushima produce, and I purchase from them. Rice is inspected a hundred percent before shipment!”

“Do you have a dosimeter?”

“Normally I don’t carry one, although when I go to the dangerous zone it is mandated.”

“When you put on your dosimeter and go to the red zone, what do you do there?”

“When you enter the nuclear power plant premises, you put on some protective gear, and there is no problem. I have been there once. There was some cabinet reshuffle on the third of September, and some ministers came, and because our job is public relations we have to take care of them.”

“What was your impression when you went there?”

“The area close to the reactor, the situation is quite unchanged since the accident, so it’s vivid. Although that closed area is vivid, the efforts toward the abandonment are being done, and people are working hard . . .”

“What did it look like?”

He put his hands on his hips to think, then said: “How should I answer? Because we cannot see inside. It’s covered with a blue sheet for the works, and the workers, they are removing a screw with nuts, just steadily working toward the abandonment.”

“Did the ministers seem at all afraid?”

“Not at all.”

“Do you remember what your dose was?”

“Ah, no.”

“Was it more or less than a millisievert?”

“Of course it was more than a millisievert.”

(This seemed very unlikely to me. Receiving a milli within a few hours would surely be cause for anxiety. More likely the young man simply did not know his units.)

“What dose would make you comfortable? Suppose it were 20 millisieverts . . .”

Again he put his hands on his hips to think. “In my case, personally, when I entered the plant, I remembered seeing air dose 16.”

“Millis?” I asked, just to see if he knew the difference.

He had to think; he wasn’t sure. “I suppose it must have been microsieverts.” How sad that he couldn’t sort it out! One unit was 1,000 times greater than another, and he was an official! He finally said: “When we travel in the bus, we are told, the value is so and so; and I remember 16 . . . Basically in the air, there are no radiation particles.”

“If you walk around in this city, will you find the same radiation in each block?”

“No, different”—which of course had been validated by the pancake frisker.

“What’s the highest and what’s the lowest?”

“Ah, I don’t have that information. There are monitoring posts. There are rules for decontamination. Annually, 50 milli, or 100 milli for five years. If you cannot clear even one of those, then you cannot continue.”

“What is the annual maximum dose for a resident of this city?”

“This is a law about decontamination, so the regular residents are also under the same number.”

“So if you lived in the city and you received 49 milli, then in your opinion that’s no problem.”

“Well, in a way, but an ordinary resident, in order to show that, he or she needs to wear the dosimeter all the time.”

I thought this answer evasive.

“Actually the standard is difficult,” he said. “The municipalities have different policies. We are in the position of the national government, so in the long run, our target is to make the air dose of 1 millisievert.”

“And that’s one additional milli?”

“Absolute one,” which, as you know, was not at all what the Ministry of the Environment had said.

“And for now, if someone told you, I got 49 millisieverts, that’s okay?”

“You keep saying 49, but it’s so unrealistic that we cannot discuss about that. If you are going to write something in your book, then . . .”

At last he allowed that there was no formal standard. He was very young looking; I had irritated him; his name was Mr. Abe Masahiko.

THEIR STANDARD IS AS ARBITRARY AS OURS:

Some allowable cesium concentrations in food, Ukraine and Japan

(from published government sources)

The Ukrainian standards contain many more subcategories and other specific oddities than their Japanese counterparts. Of the former I include only a sampling.

All levels expressed in [becquerels per kilogram].

Ukraine*

Japan*

Water

—

10

“Drinking water from underground sources”

2

—

“Mineral water from underground sources”

10

—

Bread

20

100

Root & leaf vegetables

40

100

Milk

—

50

“Raw milk for industrial commodity”

100

—

Milk and “concentrated cream”

300

—

Infant milk formula and babyfood

40

50

“Dry dairy products,” including infant formula

500

?

Potatoes

—

100

Fresh and processed potatoes

60

—

Dried potatoes, dried mushrooms, etc.

240

—

Meat

—

100

“Fresh slaughtered meat” & poultry

200

—

Dried poultry

400

—

Wild game

400

—

Bacon, etc.

100

—

Rice and most other items

—

100*

Honey & bee products

200

—

Wild mushrooms and berries

500

—

The same, dried

2,500

—

Up through 2011, the Japanese government simply “set the annual maximum permissible dose from radioactive cesium in food as 5 mSv and assigned[ed 1 mSv] to each food category”: water, milk and dairy, vegetables, grains, meat, eggs and fish. “Food safety is basically assured. However, to achieve further food safety and consumer confidence, Japan is planning to reduce [the] maximum permissible dose from 5 mSv/year to 1 mSv/year.”

PART OF QUOTIDIAN LIFE

And who would not rather be as unworried as a cabinet minister at a poisonous nuclear reactor? The savoir faire of this Mr. Abe was enviable. Others wished to emulate it. I remember stopping off in Koriyama one morning of that year, and it was fine weather of mostly 0.3 microsieverts per hour by the train station (two and a half times what it would have been at home), but all the same trivial; indeed, I was quoted a similar figure by the clerk at the camera emporium, where up on the second floor, among other interesting household appliances, friskers and dosimeters offered themselves for sale, helped along by an advertisement explaining that once upon a time dosimeters had been unusual but now they were a part of quotidian life . . .—and so I bought a new one, which happily read to tenths of a microsievert. That was how I learned that in my first full hour in Koriyama, spent mostly indoors, I had taken in a tenth of a micro, just as I might have at home; while in the next hour, during some of which I strolled outside in the unseasonably hot sun, I took in another 0.2 micros—less than the pancake frisker kept showing, but after all the new dosimeter, like the old, could read only gamma, not alpha and beta. At Koriyama Station the granite flagstones read 0.42 at two feet away, and 0.54 at two inches. Well, that was granite for you—nothing to fear. The air dose on a one-minute timed walk around the block measured in at 0.36—a little “hot,” but surely within normal range. (In 2016 a woman in Koriyama wrote: I very much hate my psychological state, endless anxiety for 5 years. But now so many people just live normally. They say loudly: “It [this] is rumor damage! We need reconstruction!” . . . [T]hey look at us coldly. They look [at] those anxious people with prejudiced eyes.)—In my two hours in Koriyama my body absorbed a very mild 0.17 micros an hour. That wasn’t much worse than my home town. Perhaps without the pancake frisker, my walk around the block might have lasted longer, and I might have taken in a few more gamma rays. But that level was still insignificant. For the sake of this book I carried my dosimeter in my pocket, and I frisked here and there; it mostly felt like keeping up with the stock market.

When I first arrived in Japan with the pancake frisker, I remained half-uneducated as to which levels should even be expected; and I remember that at 7:30 on my first morning in Fukushima City the lovely flocks of chubby schoolgirls in their navy blue or plaid miniskirted uniforms were in the fullness of their swarm from the caverns of the railway station, confiding, giggling or bowing their heads alone beneath their tight-packed umbrellas as I, not yet knowing how radioactive this drizzle might be, felt polluted by it and so hooded myself, remembering that rain in Kesennuma three years ago when the interpreter had grown so uneasy that we had to duck into some cable-tentacled ruins while she found her umbrella; the radio had been warning about fallout even as it went on promising that there was no immediate danger. Now the count must surely be lower; and for a fact it was now quite easy for me to check for myself, although I must confess to hesitating out of what must have been shame at the prospect of deploying that bright yellow pancake frisker in front of everyone, for it might recall certain realities sometimes called harmful rumors. Eventually I nerved myself up to do it, and it almost seemed plausible that no one in that crowd was looking at me. It was a long one-minute timed count. Rain fell on the frisker. Finally I turned it over, and was relieved see a mild 54 counts per minute, 0.18 micros per hour—slightly less than Ed Lyman got in his Washington, D.C., apartment. Several days’ experiments proved that (unlike in Barcelona) rain did not increase the dose. So I got used to 0.18 micros, and even 0.54 micros—after all, in Saint Petersburg the curb of Dostoyevsky’s grave was 0.48 . . .—but the red zones still felt different for me—although if I were to patrol my former home every three days, the way that Mr. Shigihara did, I’d surely get used to that, also! Do you remember what he said on that cherry tree hill in Iitate? “We didn’t measure it. We don’t care about the level.”—As Aki had said on that drive to Namie, everyone had grown so cavalier about it!

(From that same Ministry of the Environment pamphlet, section 7-4, “Future [A]ctions for the Areas Where it is Expected that Residents will Face the Difficulties in Returning for a Long Time . . .”: Improve the measures to start a new life . . . In other words, forget about going home.)

Most of us neither measured it nor cared about the level, because experts did that for us so that we could dream the urban dream of Shinjuku, where the air dose was commonly 0.12 hourly micros (on the Marunouchi subway line, deep underground, it went as low as I could measure: 0.06). Sometimes I dreamed my wishes straight to that bright grass shimmering like true gold through the dark-framed hole in the laurels and cryptomerias of Tomioka, although I also had unpleasant memories of that dressmaker’s shop . . .—but in Shinjuku there were female pop singers crooning amplified from skyscrapers, and ever so many young women attached to extreme high heels, because thanks to electricity they would not need to walk very far:—See! a pair of green-and-silver trains was crossing overhead, and above them a young giantess on a sign pointed with a forefinger that must have been at least half man-sized; then towers both grey and white, rectilinear and curved, rose above her. A grubby man in an unbuttoned shirt was whispering slack-mouthed into his cell phone; a girl in a miniskirt and a pale yellow sweater was smoothing her long red hair as she came up the sidewalk past middle-aged ladies chattering and pointing forefingers ahead; they were all looking into shopwindows that promised electric-produced goods. A thirtyish couple did the same, happily holding hands, while traffic noises and competing amplified songs döpplered past, and up high, a silver train crossed an orange one at wondrous speed. Behind two girls in white face masks, and before an old cyclist who was pedaling wobbly with the cigarette crooked in his mouth, came two rorikon* girls, one of them in white, white shorts and big black leggy boots, the other in pink, both of them infantile and cute; thanks to electricity they could sell souvenir cards and stickers with their likeness. I wandered into a department store where Chopin played through echoing crowd-noise, his piano-notes re-performed and simultaneously amplified by electricity.

Rorikon girls

We normalize our lives in order to diminish our pain. Most human beings endure what they cannot help, and try to adapt to it. Some happen to be policy-makers, dutybound to protect, support and advance the interests of the rest. The people whose mercantile capital builds a nuclear power plant might well intend (I’m all for good faith!) to protect us from heat, cold, darkness and other sometimes undesirable circumstances, powering our magical appliances at a reasonable cost, sweetening our existences with tax incentives and jobs, and all the while staving off global warming. To be sure, we might also wish of them to guard against radioactive accidents. But they too wish to diminish their pain, which so often seems to be financial. Raising their seawall in case the next tsunami should be higher than the last would cost real money, and possibly scare us into wishing them and their projects away. Relocating their backup generators onto higher ground would be expensive, and unappreciated by us (especially if that raised our utility rates). They normalize their business-lives by increasing their benefits and decreasing their costs. They decrease their costs by spending no more on risk management than they deem necessary. Normalizing the unexpected, denying the unthinkable, benefits short-term profits.

From the comprehensive accident management plan for Fukushima Daiichi: The possibility of a severe accident occurring is so small that from an engineering standpoint, it is practically unthinkable.

Ms. Allison Macfarlane, geologist and professor of environmental policy: “What I would say in terms of lessons learned from Fukushima . . . is that setting reactor design . . . just above recorded human experience is turning out to be really shortsighted.”

And whenever experience did surprise us, why not look on the sunny side? Consider this: Before the reactors exploded, the average air dose throughout Fukushima was 0.035 to 0.046 micros an hour—well below the minimum my pancake frisker could measure. Six years later, when I finished Carbon Ideologies, the whole prefecture remained 10 times “hotter.”—But that was merely an average, upwardly distorted by those inconvenient little hot spots at Okuma, Tomioka, Iitate . . . And even though the Union of Concerned Scientists would have called these levels unacceptable, to any positive-thinking nuclear ideologue they were trifling! A level of 0.35 micros corresponds to one Ph.D.’s definition of an average radiation background dose for a human being. As for 0.46 micros, that was exceeded by the stone Ten Commandments tablet I frisked by the courthouse in Pineville, West Virginia.*

Thus the theme of this book. As we contaminated our homes, warmed our atmosphere and acidified our seas, whatever would happen next stayed comfortably unthinkable, or at least potentially acceptable, back in the days when I was alive.

Is this really not enough? He knew that it wasn’t enough. He knew that billions and billions didn’t know a thing and didn’t want to know and, even if they did find out, would act horrified for ten minutes and immediately forget all about it.

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, 1972

Postscript: Japan Sees the Light

On April 11, 2014, the Japanese cabinet announced that nuclear power and coal would now be equally significant constituents of the nation’s energy policy. How grand, to see one of my homeland’s carbon ideologies finally receiving its due! Japan’s 10 power companies consumed 5.66 million metric tons of coal in January, a record for the month and 12 percent more than a year ago. (Most of it came from Australia; 1 or 2% was American coal.) And the smoke went up!*

Fools and children might have inquired: What about renewables? Well, once upon a time, in a burst of environmental sportsmanship, Chibu Electric installed 11 wind turbines alongside the three-reactor Hamaoka atomic station, whose chief counterattacked as follows: “They ran at 26 percent capacity” in 2012. “We’d need 6,000 of them here to replace Hamaoka.” And coal came into its own. As Japan’s greenhouse gas report told the story, looking back from 2014: Carbon dioxide emissions from fuel combustion in the energy industries increased by 60.6% since FY1990 . . . The main driving factor . . . is the increased solid fuel consumption for electricity power generation. After 2011, how could that trend not continue?*

GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION OF NUCLEAR REACTORS IN 2014,

with added statistics

Number of “operable”* reactors operating in Japan: 0 out of 43. Until the meltdowns at Fukushima, reactors had produced 30% of Japan’s power.

Number of countries with operating reactors: 31.

Number of reactors worldwide: 391, totaling 337 GW net capacity [= 19.2 billion BTUs per minute,] or 10.8% of all power generation.

Percent of nuclear electricity produced by “big five” countries: 69%. These were, in decreasing order of nuclear power production, the U.S., France (which two generated half of all nuclear electricity), then Russia, South Korea and China.

Sources: Heinrich Böll Stiftung, 2015; The Japan Times, 2015.

Although one “conservation group” responded in a tactfully worded statement of disappointment that the energy plan failed to present the spirit of innovation, not everyone was such a stick-in-the-mud. For instance, Yasui Akira, “an official in charge of coal policy at the Ministry of the Economy,” said more or less what a West Virginia Republican might: Our basic stance is to use coal while caring for the environment as much as possible.

This ends the text of Volume I.

Volume II will examine the three major fossil fuel ideologies.

DEFINITIONS, UNITS AND CONVERSIONS

Readers should feel free to skip this section. In the main text the difference between various types of coal may be sensed from context, or ignored at pleasure. Conversions from counts per minute to millisieverts need not occupy inmates of any low-radiation paradise. However, while researching Carbon Ideologies it became my duty to teach myself about these things, and what I found useful might be the same to you.

Furthermore, in this book I make various assertions about the inherent energy efficiencies, power consumptions, etcetera, of this and that. Some of my claims could seem provocative or peculiar. Some may (I hope not) be wrong. The following pages will allow anyone with arithmetic and common sense to verify a carbon ideologue's calculations. If one source expressed a figure in horsepower and another expressed a second figure in kilowatt-hours, I probably converted both numbers to British Thermal Units (BTUs) in order to compare them both to a third figure in my grandfather’s Mechanical Engineers’ Handbook from 1958. If you lack a better way to pass the time, this section will help you do the same.

I for one hope always to approach units and conversions with humility. It would be all too easy to compare apples and oranges—or, worse yet, to imagine that I knew something.

For instance, in 1991, the world consumed 1.04819 × 1013 net kilowatt-hours of energy. This equals 3.578 × 1016 BTUs (or 35.78 quadrillion BTUs)—of which North America’s share of was scarcely more than 5%.

However, to produce those kilowatt-hours the world consumed 3.469 × 1017 BTUs of energy, of which North America’s portion was nearly 28%.

Reflection suggests why this might be so. As we have repeatedly seen in Carbon Ideologies, to generate one unit of energy output takes more than one unit of energy input. How much more in this case? Well, what about the world’s nuclear energy? How were its 2.124 × 1016 BTUs calculated? Was waste heat taken account of? And so I decided to abandon this tantalizing calculation.

As for you, why should you care?—All too often when I was alive, generalists who could look at overarching meanings and patterns (and therefore most thoughtfully consider where we were going and why) lacked proficiency in math and science. Meanwhile, some of the scientists and mathematicians I met were naive, or worse yet, indifferent, concerning our where and why. Carbon Ideologies strives, however unsuccessfully, to bridge the gap.*

A few items especially relevant to the text, such as ton of oil equivalents, kilowatts versus kilowatt-hours, coal slurry and global warming potentials, have been greyed off and boxed for easier finding.

Sections arranged as follows:

1. Energy, Electricity, Efficiency, Power, Work, Manufacturing and Engines

2. Heat and Refrigeration

3. Nuclear Energy

A. Radiation types; half-life, fallout

B. Radiation meters used for this book

C. Nuclear materials

D. Places, organizations and acronyms relevant to the Fukushima disaster

E. Units and conversions

F. Dental X-ray levels, Sacramento, around 9 a.m., February 10, 2015

4. Coal

A. Coal types, and a few coal products

B. Coal mining and combustion terms

C. Some common coal pollutants [with related water terms, including pH] and coal diseases

D. Companies, acronyms and localisms relevant to coal in Appalachia, Bangladesh and the world

E. Units and conversions

5. Natural Gas and Fracking

A. What it is

B. Gas extraction and refining terms, including those for fracking

C. Some fracking pollutants

D. Places, entities and acronyms relevant to fracking in Colorado

E. Units and conversions

6. Oil

A. Some oils, derivatives and relevant terms

B. Oil extraction and refining terms

C. Some common oil pollutants and oil diseases

D. Oil companies, acronyms and localisms: Abu Dhabi Emirate

E. Units and conversions

7. Solar Energy and Light

8. Environmental Terms Relevant to Resource Extraction

9. Physical Data

A. Weights and densities of fuels

B. Weights and densities of other substances

10. Chemical Abbreviations

11. Lakhs, Crores and Other Enumeration Terms, with Standard Conversions

12. Climate Change

To save the reader trouble I have duplicated a very few items. For example, the definition of watts appears in both sections 1 and 3E.

Cross-referenced terms are boldfaced. In some cases I have added page numbers for the reader’s convenience.

1. Energy, Electricity, Efficiency, Power, Work, Manufacturing and Engines

Ampere (amp or A)—“The number of electrons passing a given point in the circuit per unit time is called the current. Current is measured in amperes . . . One amp corresponds to the flow of 6.24 × 1018 electrons per second.”

Amperes = volts / ohms

For ohms, see resistance.

1 ampere = 1 coulomb/sec

A device’s rating in amperes may be multiplied by the available voltage (as I write, residential U.S. voltage is often 115 V) to determine its power consumption in watts. See the equation under power.

Battery—See fuel cell.

“Big five” materials—Cement, paper, steel, plastics and aluminum, whose joint manufacture (ca. 2015) emitted 56% of the world’s industrial carbon dioxide. see here.

British Thermal Unit—see here.

Coulomb—A unit of electrostatic charge. “Comprises approximately 6 million million million electrons.”

Current—“A movement or flow of electricity.” “The movement of charges past a particular reference point.”

Efficiency—“The ratio of output to input.” “The efficiency of an ideal machine is 1.0 (100%). However, all real machines have efficiencies of less than 1.0.” “When the rate of work is constant, either work or power can be used to calculate the efficiency. Otherwise, power should be used.” For the generation of electric power with traditional steam turbines, be it from nuclear or fossil fuel, about ⅔ of the heat input accomplishes no direct work. Hence one could say that steam turbines are only about ⅓ efficient. Efficiency in manufacturing has to do with how much thermodynamic work must necessarily be accomplished to create a specific material, and how much more work than that minimum is actually being (“wastefully”) done; further, efficiency reflects how much of the input material and the manufactured material are wasted during processing, as in the “trim scraps” cut off of paper in a printing plant. High heating values of fuels can be considered the light of efficiencies. From the table of Calorific Efficiencies beginning here we see that a pound of gasoline will give up 5.1 times more combustion energy than a pound of green cottonwood. To reduce climate change one should obviously strive for maximum efficiency and minimum greenhouse emissions.

Electricity—“A form of energy that consists of mutually attracted protons and electrons . . .” “Any manifestation of energy conversion of charge that results in forces in the direction of motion those charges carry.” “The electron theory states that all matter is made of electricity.” “Electricity cannot be generated . . . It can, however, be forced to move.” Of course we talked about electricity generation all the time. By this we meant the generation of power.

Energy—Since in and of itself it cannot be measured, energy is a relative term. A high-temperature system has more energy than a low-temperature system. One common definition is the ability to do work. “Energy is a measurement of power over a period of time. It shows how much power is used, or generated, by a device, typically over the period of an hour . . . It is measured in watt-hours (Wh) and kilowatt-hours (kWh).” As it happens, energy is also measured in calories, joules, British Thermal Units, curies, etcetera.

Energy flow—An attempt to total up all various energy expenditures in the manufacture, packaging, shipping, preparation, consumption and disposal of a certain item. Thus the energy flow for a food item would include the energy units (such as BTUs) in its planting, fertilization, harvesting, cooking, waste collection, etcetera. “An important concept underlying the measurement of energy flows throughout an economy is the ‘conservation of embodied energy’ . . . , which states that energy burned or dissipated by a process is passed on, embodied in the products of that process.”

Embodied energy—(i) “The energy required to produce a material from its raw form, per unit mass of material produced. The energy is usually measured as the low heating value (see here) of the primary fuels used plus any other primary energy contributions. These energy requirements are dominated by two main steps: (i) harvesting and (ii) refining.” (ii) Another definition is: Manufacturing energy + use energy.

Manufacturing energy—The energy needed to manufacture a product. More or less equivalent to embodied energy, (i). For instance, the power used to fabricate a refrigerator’s parts and then assemble them.

Use energy—The energy expended by using the product. For instance, the power consumed by running a refrigerator over its working lifetime, or “use phase.”

Erg—A unit of work, comparable to joules, but dimensionally more confusing, and now thankfully not much met with. Often used in older literature to express radioactivity, solar energy, etc. 1 erg = 1 gram per square centimeter per second per second. Or, to be more definitionally regressive:

1 erg = 1 dyne-cm = 1 g-cm2/sec2

1 dyne = 1 g-cm/sec2

Here are some values visually estimated from their placement on a bar graph “Range of Energies”: “Earth’s annual energy from Sun,” more than 1032 ergs; H-bomb, more than 1024 ergs; first atomic bomb, more than 1020 ergs; fission of a uranium nucleus, about 10−4 ergs.

1 erg = 9.4805 × 10−11 BTUs = 7.3756 × 10−8 foot-pounds = 1 × 10−7 joules = about 0.012 roentgens [See section 3, here.]

1 erg-sec [nowadays more correctly written erg/sec or “erg per second”] = 1.3410 × 10−10 horsepower = 1 × 10−7 watts

1 erg per square centimeter per second [erg/cm2-sec]= 1 × 10−3 watts per square meter

Exajoule—See joule.

Exergy—A word often employed by Prof. Timothy Gutowski of MIT in his writings on manufacturing and use efficiencies. I avoided it in Carbon Ideologies. In this section it may be worth introducing: “Exergy of a material flow represents the maximum amount of work that could be extracted from the [energy] flow considered as a separate system as it is reversibly brought to equilibrium with a well-defined environmental reference state . . . [I]n exergy analysis, work and heat are not equivalent, as they are in First Law analysis.” A detailed understanding of specific exergies would obviously assist the fight against climate change.

Foot-pound [ft-lb]—The amount of energy required to lift a 1-pound object 1 foot. The non-metric (and nearly obsolete) counterpart of a joule. If a weight of 7 lbs is lifted 2 ft, then the work done is 14 ft-lbs.

1 ft-lb = 1.356 J = 0.001285 BTU

Ft-lbs ought to be distinguished from lbm [pounds-mass] and lbf [pounds-force]. “The units of pounds-mass and pounds-force are as different as the units of gallons and feet, and they cannot be canceled” in standard dimensional analysis.

Fuel cell—“An electrochemical device in which the chemical energy of a conventional fuel is converted directly and usefully into low-voltage direct-current electrical energy . . . In a battery, the chemical energy is in the cell. Fuel cells keep converting [by combustion] with the addition of oxygen and fuel,” which is usually a carbon-dioxide-emitting hydrocarbon (see here), but can be clean hydrogen. “For short periods, conventional batteries are generally superior to fuel cells, which come into their own when electrical energy is required over long periods.”

Gigawatt [GW]—A billion watts.

1 GW = 109 watts = 106 [= 1 million] kilowatts = 56,884,000 BTUs per minute

Horsepower [hp]—Originally based on the amount of work an “average” horse could do, this archaic unit continued in my day to be applied to motors. (“The real thermal efficiency of an average horse, even at heavy, continuous work, is probably not more than 6 to 10 per cent,” based on BTUs in of horse feed and BTUs out of work, and counting BTUs out of digestion and other metabolic processes as waste. “Under laboratory conditions” it might be 20 percent.) “You may assume that 1 HP equals 3 ft lbs of torque at 1750 rpm (a common motor speed).”

1 hp = 33,000 ft-lb in 1 minute (or per minute, or / min) = 550 ft-lb/sec = 0.7068 BTU/sec = 42.408 BTUs/min = 745.70 watts [absolute]* = 0.7457 kilowatts = 76.0404 kg-m per sec

1 horsepower [U.S.] = 1.0139 metric horsepower

Internal combustion engine—[Sometimes abbreviated ICE.] “A machine for converting chemical energy to mechanical energy by burning a fuel with air in a confined space and expanding the products of combustion, extracting energy as work.” There are two kinds. Gasoline engines are of the spark ignition type, oil engines of the compression ignition type.

Joule [J]—One of several units of work. “The practical unit of electrical energy.” Also, as it happens, “a unit of mechanical energy,” since it can be defined as 1 newton [1 kilogram being accelerated at 1 second per second] for a distance of one meter. As Prof. Gutowski wrote me: “Pick an orange up off the table and raise it over your head. The work you do is about one joule.”

1 J = 1 watt-second = [1/3.6 million or 2.778 × 10−7] kilowatt-hours = 0.0002388 [= 2.388 × 10−4] kilocalories = 0.7376 ft-lbs = 3.725 × 10−7 hp-hrs = 0.000948067 [= 9.48 × 10−4] BTUs = 6.242 × 1018 electron-volts.

One milli[joule]= 0.001 joule/kg. Obsolete.

One megajoule [MJ] = 1 million J = 948.067 BTUs

Energy content of a fuel [see high heating value, here]: 1 MJ/liter [a common metric way of expressing it] = 2.78 × 108 BTUs/gal

1 kJ/kg = 0.4299226 BTUs/lb

1 GJ/kg = 429,922.6 BTUs/lb

One gigajoule [GJ] = 109 [= 1 billion] J = 1 million kJ = 948,067 BTUs

1 ton of TNT = 4.184 GJ = 3,966,712 BTUs

One kilajoule [kJ or KJ] = 1,000 [103] joules = 0.9481 BTUs

One terajoule [TJ] [= 1 trillion] = 1012 joules = 948.1 MBTU [million BTUs]

Therefore, 1 metric ton of greenhouse emissions per TJ of combusted fuel [a typical formulation in non-American greenhouse gas inventories] converts to 1 pound of emissions per 430,955 BTUs.

One petajoule [PJ] = 1015 [= 1 quadrillion] joules = 9.481 × 1011 BTUs

“One petajoule is enough to run the Montréal subway system for a year” (ca. 2009).

Total Canadian energy consumption, 2009: 7,650 PJ.

One exajoule [EJ] = 1018 [= 1 quintillion] joules = 9.481 × 1014 [or 0.9481 quadrillion = 948,000,000,000,000] BTUs = 0.948 quads.

365.93 EJ was the amount of energy used by the entire planet in 1991.

1 EJ consumed in a year is equivalent to 1.902 billion BTUs/min (or 33.45 billion watts), used without letup for that year.

One very rough conversion from EJ per year to million barrels of oil per day: Divide by 2.23.

Kilowatt [kW]—A thousand watts. “The term kilowatt . . . indicates the measure of power which is all available for work.”—American Electricians’ Handbook, 2002.

1 kW = 1,000 watts = 56.884 BTUs/minute = 3,413.04 BTUs/hour = 44,254 foot-pounds/minute = 1.341 hp = 3,600 million J/hr (or 1,000 J/sec)

Since ⅔ of the energy combusted in a traditional fossil fuel power plant is lost, 1 kW takes 170.652 carbon BTUs to generate. See next page.

Kilowatt versus kilowatt-hour—The first is a measure of power, which means rate of energy consumption, or energy used per unit of time (an hour). The second, in spite of its name, lacks a time dimension, because it expresses the absolute amount of energy that has been, will be or would be used in that unit of time. A physics textbook from 1971 explains it more mathematically: “The amount of energy used during a certain operation or process is frequently expressed as the product (power) × (time). For example, the amount of energy generated by a 1-kW power plant operating for 1 hr is 1 kW-hr.” In other words, 1 kWh, for instance, = 1 kW × 1 hour = [56.884 BTUs/minute] × 60 minutes = 3,413.04 BTUs. The time units cancel out. This anti-intuitive distinction figures in conversion calculations relating to the tables in Carbon Ideologies.

Kilowatt-hour [Kwh or KWH or kWh]—Power consumption, not measured in kilowatts per hour. Prof. Anna Mummert notes: “Comparable to BTU (not BTU/time), ft-lb (not ft-lb/hr).” “The common engineering unit of electrical energy.” “If you play a radio (80 watts) an average of 1 hour a day, then during a month’s time (30 days) it would consume 30 times 80 watt-hours or about 2.4 KWH.” “To store 1 kwhr of energy in a reservoir at 1 m (3.28 ft) requires 367,000 kg of water or 96,900 gal . . .” 2,650 sacks of sand, each weighing 100 lb, falling for 10 ft, will produce 1 kWh.

1 kWh [no time unit given or needed] = 3,413.0 BTUs [or, according to one conversion which I did not follow, 3,412.14 BTUs] = 3,600,000 [or 3.600 × 106] joules [abs] = 3.6 MJ = 2.6552 × 106 foot-pounds = 1.341 hp = 3.6 megajoules [no time unit given or needed].

1 kWh/day = 2.37 BTUs/min.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, to generate 1 kWh [the standard power plant wastage of ⅔ is implied (see text here)], require the following [figures in italics are my conversions*]:

1.04 lbs coal, or

0.01011 Mcf [= thousand cubic feet] natural gas [= 0.421 lbs], or

0.07 gal. petroleum [= 0.492 lbs]

Kilowatt-day [Kwd or KWD]—Power consumption, measured in kilowatts used per day.

1 gram U-235 yields 8 kilowatt-days of energy.

1 langley = 3.69 BTUs/ft2. [See section 7, here]

Megawatt—1 million watts. “The power consumed by roughly a thousand households. It’s the equivalent of 10,000 100-watt lightbulbs.” “An average human body exudes about the same heat as” a 100-watt bulb, “. . . so a megawatt . . . can be compared . . . to the rate of bodily heat emitted by 10,000 people . . .”

1 megawatt-hour [MWh] = 1,000 kWh = 3,413,000 BTUs

Ohm—“The resistance through which the fall of potential is 1 volt when the current [electromotive force; see volt] is 1 amp.”

Power—“Power measures the rate of energy conversion. It is measured in watts . . . It equals volts times current.” [Watt-hours, kilowatt-hours, etc., measure the total amount of energy that was used in a given time.] Power is “the amount of work done [per] unit time. It is a scalar quantity.” “Output power per unit volume is directly proportional to speed. Low-speed motors are unattractive for most applications because they are large and therefore expensive. It is usually better to use a high-speed motor with mechanical speed reduction . . . The efficiency of a motor improves with speed.”

For a given device:

Watts of power = volts × current (amps)

“If you have a mobile phone charger that uses 1.2 amps at 5 volts, you can multiply . . . to work out the number of watts,” in this case 6.

Primary power—Power used to supply primary energy, which is “the energy required to produce a material from its raw form, per unit mass of material produced. The energy is usually measured as the low heating value (see here) of the primary fuels used plus any other primary energy contributions. These energy requirements are dominated by two main steps: (i) harvesting and (ii) refining.”

Quad—A quadrillion BTUs.

Resistance—“The opposition to current flow.” Measured in ohms.

Ohms = volts / amperes

Terawatt—1 trillion watts, or 56,884,000,000 BTUs per minute.

Terawatt-hour [Twh, TWh or TWH]—Power consumption, measured in terawatts [trillions of watts] consumed in an hour.

1 TWh = 1 billion kWh = 3,413,000,000,000 [3.413 trillion] BTUs.

1 TWh = 0.086 mtoe [million tons of oil equivalent]

“However, the primary energy equivalent of nuclear electricity is calculated from the gross generation by assuming a 33% efficiency, i.e. 1 TWh = (0.086 ÷ 0.33) mtoe.” [I suspect this last is an error for 0.086 times 0.33.]

Use phase—See embodied energy: use energy.

Volt—“Voltage is a measure of the ‘pressure’ that is trying to force electrons down the wire. Increasing the voltage across a given load will increase the current through the load.” Or, if you like, “voltage . . . is the electromotive force (EMF) which causes electrons to flow.” More technically, voltage expresses the potential difference [in joules per coulomb] between the sourcepoint and the endpoint of electrical flow. “An electric potential or voltage is the work done on a unit charge to bring it from some specified reference point to another point.” “1 V shall be taken as that emf [electromagnetic force] which will establish a current of 1 A through a resistance of 1 [ohm].”

Volts = power / current

For example, a 48-watt motor operating in a 4-amp current must be running at 12 volts.

Volts = amperes × ohms

Watt [w]—A joule per second. “One watt is produced when one ampere flows at an emf [electromagnetic force] of one volt.” “A watt is not a unit of energy per se; . . . it’s a unit describing how rapidly energy is used.” “Power measures the rate of energy conversion. It is measured in watts . . . It equals volts times current.”

A 100-watt lightbulb consumes 100 watts per second (360,000 joules per hour).

1 watt [absolute] = 0.998 watts [IT] = 1 J [abs] per sec and = 0.000948 BTUs per second = 0.056884 BTUs per minute = 3.413 BTUs per hour = 0.00134 horsepower = 1 × 107 ergs per second

Prof. Anna Mummert inserts here: “The unit watts per second is comparable to joules per second per second, or joules per second per hour.”

Since ⅔ of the energy combusted in a traditional fossil fuel power plant does no useful work, 1 w takes 0.170652 carbon BTUs to generate.

1 kilowatt [kW] = 1,000 watts = 0.2388 kilocalories per second = 1.341 horsepower = 0.9478 BTUs per second = 56.884 BTUs per minute. See also terawatt-hour.

1 terawatt [TW] = 1 trillion watts = 56,884,000,000 BTUs per minute. See also terawatt-hour.

1 watt per square meter = 0.317 BTUs per hour per square foot = 0.005288 BTUs/min/ft2 = 2,777.63 BTUs/yr/ft2

Watts = amperes × volts

[See also kilowatt and megawatt. See section 3E, p. 551, for watts expressed in units relevant to nuclear power.]

Electric goods shop in Dubai

Watt-hour [Wh]—Electricity consumption, measured in watts used in each hour. “A 100-watt bulb burning for 5 hours uses 500 watt-hours or 0.5 KWH of energy.” For discussion, see kilowatt-hour.

1 watt-hour [Wh] = 3,600 J = 3.413 BTU = 0.001341 hp-hr

1 Wh/kg = 1.548 BTUs/lb

Work—“Work is the overcoming of mechanical resistance through a certain distance.” “If a system undergoes a displacement under the action of a force, work is said to be done, the amount of work being equal to the product of the force and the component of the displacement parallel to the force.” More simply put, work is force × distance. But since matter and energy are always conserved, and all energies are mutually convertible, heating a liquid (for instance) is also doing work. “Work is a signed, scalar quantity. Typical units are inch-pounds, foot-pounds, and joules,” not to mention ergs and calories. “Mechanical work is seldom expressed in British thermal units or kilocalories,” but in this book, which focuses on fuel combustion, I have done just that.

For a given explosive, one may calculate the work (“the mechanical equivalent of heat”) it can accomplish, in kilogram-meters (a precursor of joules), by multiplying the heat of explosion, in calories, by 425. According to this procedure, the work of detonating nitroglycerin is 671,500 kg-m, or 3.85 times the work of detonating mercury fulminate (174,250 kg-m).

2. Heat and Refrigeration

Blackbody [or “black body”]—“For theoretical purposes it is useful to conceive of an ideal substance capable of absorbing all the thermal radiation falling on it. Such a substance is called a blackbody.” This concept is useful in solar engineering. “The amount of electromagnetic radiation emitted by a black body depends on its surface temperature. Its intensity distribution is dictated by the laws of quantum mechanics and is a manifestation of a state that, in physics, we call thermodynamic equilibrium[: a] state of a physical system where all the energy inputs equal the outputs.”

1 British Thermal Unit [BTU]—The amount of energy needed to warm a pound of water by 1° Fahrenheit. This is contained in one match tip. “On average, coal contains 25 million BTUs per ton.” Prof. Gutowski wrote me: “The world uses joules and watts for energy and power. The US (alone, as far as I know) uses BTUs and horse power. Even the British don’t use BTUs any more. We tried to make this transition in the 1980s but Reagan killed it. I suppose the machine tool companies complained loudly . . . European readers will find it quaint if you use BTUs . . . In my work I have completely abandoned the BTU but many industries still use it and the Department of Energy does too.” In 2016, so did the U.S. Geological Survey; see high heating value of a fuel. (From a build-your-own-solar-powered-home manual, 1975: “The selection of the BTU as a standard energy unit was made reluctantly . . . The rest of the world has adapted to . . . metric . . . and the United States will undoubtedly follow suit in the next decade.” Plus ça change . . .) I decided to use BTUs because even in 2017 they were comprehended better than metric units by my fellow Americans, who like me were energy wastrels who avoided the themes of Carbon Ideologies.

Note:

1 International Table BTU = 1.055 × 103 joules [J]

1 mean BTU = 1.056 × 103 joules [J]

1 thermochemical BTU = 1.054 × 103 joules [J]

Gutowski notes here: “I use 1 BTU [approx. equals] 1 kJ.”

1 BTU = 778.98 foot-pounds = 0.252 kilocalories = 1,054.8 joules [abs] = 1.0548 kilojoules = 107.56 kg-force meters = 251.98 [mean gram] calories [abs] = 251.996 IT calories. Another conversion, not used here, accepts 1 BTU at 252.16 cal.

1 IT calorie = 1/860 IT watt-hours = 4.187 abs J = 4.187 × 107 ergs

IT = “international”; used before January 1, 1948.* New system is abs = “absolute.”

1 kilocalorie [kcal or food Calorie] = 4,187 [sometimes calculated 4,186] J

1 BTU per minute = 17.579 watts

1 BTU per minute per ft2 = 189.226 watts/m2

Energy content of a fuel: 1 BTU per gallon = 3.597 × 10−8 megajoule [MJ]/liter [the common metric way of expressing it].

1 BTU [IT] per lb = 2.326 × 103 J/kg

1 BTU [thermal] per lb = 2.324 × 103 J/kg

1 MBTU = 1 million BTUs = 1.0551 × 10−3 terajoules (TJ) = 2.931 × 10−4 gigawatt-hours (GWh)

1 Q-BTU = 1 quadrillion BTUs = 1 quad

1 BTU/sec = 1.415 hp

1 BTU/hr = 0.01731 watt/cm2 = 2.930 × 10−4 [or 0.000293] kilowatts = 3.9292 × 10−4 horsepower

1 BTU/hr-ft2 = 3.155 watts/m2

1 BTU per pound (BTU/lb) of a given substance = 2.33 kilojoules per kilogram (kJ/kg).

Caloric or calorific—Refers to the inherent energy of a fuel, ready to be released through combustion. Calorific efficiency can also be expressed as high or low heating value.

Calorie:

1 [thermochemical gram-mean] calorie [cal or gcal]—The amount of heat needed to increase the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1° Celsius. Written with a small “c.”

1 calorie = 4.184 joules = 3.9685 × 10−3 BTU

1 Calorie [food calorie]—The same as a kilocalorie [kcal].

1 Calorie = 1 kcal = 1,000 cal = 1 “food calorie”

And why not use food calorie units to indicate the high heating value of coal or oil? “The availability of ammonia and straight-chain paraffins may permit future production of food from fossil fuels.”

1 kcal = 3.968 BTUs

1 kcal/g = 1,798.7961584 BTUs/lb

1 kcal/kg = 1.7987961584 BTUs/lb

Efficiency of a heat engine [e.g., a steam turbine power plant or an internal combustion motor]—Work output divided by heat input, both of them being expressed in the same units of energy [e.g., BTUs or joules]. Or, more explicitly:

Thermal efficiency = 1 − [heat rejected / heat absorbed].

As Carbon Ideologies often points out, about ⅔ of the energy in a nuclear or fossil fuel steam turbine plant accomplishes no useful work.

Fuel—“Fuels, whether for the furnace, automobile, or rocket, are energy-rich substances and the products of their combustion are energy-poor substances.”

Heat—The temperature-related energy which can be transferred between two objects or systems of different temperatures.

Heat of combustion—A more techno-chemical approach to HHV. Although I avoided using this term in Carbon Ideologies, it may be helpful to introduce it, in case you should come across it while comparing fuel energies. When I was alive, it usually signified kilocalories released or taken in per substance oxidized to water and/or carbon dioxide at constant pressure and 25° Celsius. A negative value implied that heat was given off, as would always be the case for a combusted fuel. [A positive value, not relevant to our purposes, showed that the reaction was endothermic; the substance actually cooled as it oxidized.] Heat of combustion was expressed not in pounds or standard volumes, but in moles. Simply and inadequately put, one mole (now sometimes written “mol”) of a substance (6.023 × 1023 atoms per molecule, or the basic unit of a chemical reaction; a mole of carbon weighs 12 grams while a mole of hydrogen weighs only 1, but those two moles are considered as equivalents) is calculated as the sum of the atomic numbers of its component atoms:

Molar weight of H2, or hydrogen:

(hydrogen’s atomic number = 1.0) × 2 (since as the formula shows a hydrogen molecule exists as 2 atoms) = 2 grams per mole

Of CH4, or methane:

(carbon’s atomic number = 12.0) × 1 (since there is only 1 carbon atom in the formula), + (hydrogen’s atomic number = 1.0) × 4 (since the formula shows that 4 of them are present) = 16 g/mole

C4H10, or butane:

(12.0 × 4) + (1.0 × 10) = 48 + 10 = 58 g/mole

C8H18, or octane:

1,307.53 (12.0 × 8) + (1.0 × 18) = 96 + 18 = 114 g/mole

The heats of combustion of these substances are:

Hydrogen: −68.32 kilocal per mole [= kcal/2 grams]

Methane: −212.80

Butane: −687.98

Octane: −1,307.53

Thus, to convert methane’s combustion heat back to a more familiar form (see next entry), one would multiply [212.80 kcal/mole] × [1 mole/16 grams] × [453.5 grams/lb] × [0.04163 lbs/cu ft] × [3.968 BTUs/kcal] = 996.34 BTUs per cubic foot.

For a discussion of molar ratios in climate change computations, see mole in section 12.

High heat[ing] value of a fuel = HHV (in BTUs/lb) = 14,544C + 62,028(H − O/8) + 4,050S

C = carbon content [in %]

H = hydrogen content

O = oxygen content

S = sulfur content

(“I never use the term hhv in my studies. My colleagues and I at the USGS used Btu as the measure of the heat content of coal. From a quick check on the Internet the terms seem to be comparable.”—Robert Finkelman, United States Geological Survey, 2016.)

The high heating value is also called the gross calorific value. This is the energy emitted in combustion. [See heat of combustion.] In many countries, among them Bangladesh, the GCV is expressed in kJ/kg.

1 BTU/lb = 2.326 kJ/kg

1 J/kg = 0.0004299226 BTU/lb

1 kJ/kg = 0.4299226 BTU/lb

1 MJ/kg = 429.9226 BTUs/lb

1 GJ = 429.9226 million BTUs/lb

1 kcal/kg = 1.7987961584 BTUs/lb

For HHVs of many fuels, see the table of Calorific Efficiencies beginning here.

Low heating value [LHV], or net calorific value (sometimes known as recovery heat), is the fraction of emitted energy which actually warms the target material. There are several reasons why HHV and LHV are not the same; one is that a frequent product of combustion is water, which then absorbs some heat. [LHV is measured “in the absence of water condensation.”] According to the International Energy Agency, “for coal and oil, net calorific value is usually around 5% less than gross and for most forms of natural and manufactured gas the difference is 9–10%.” In the Argonne National Laboratory’s 2010 list of LHVs and HHVs of various fuels I note a spread closer to 10%. Since combustion energies are sometimes expressed only in HHVs, I have used only those in this book even though the LHVs are more realistic.

Quad—A quadrillion BTUs = 1015 BTUs = 1.055 × 1018 joules. [See section 1 beginning here.] “Roughly the energy contained in 200 million barrels of oil.”

1 quad = 1.054 exajoules*

Rankine Cycle—A mathematically idealized description of the compression, heating, vaporization, superheating, expansion, condensation and then recompression of water in the “closed loop” of a steam turbine power plant. Heat losses in the condenser stage explain much of this system’s typical inefficiency (30–40%). [A counterpart model for an internal combustion engine is called the Otto Cycle.]

1 Refrigeration ton [U.S.]—“Represents the amount of heat that must be removed from a short ton (909 kg) of water to form ice in 24 h[ours].”

= 3.51 kilowatts = 12,000 BTUs per hour = 12.7 megajoules per hour

A British refrigeration ton (mentioned here only for completeness) = 14,256 BTUs/hr.

Specific heat—Generally speaking, the thermal energy needed to alter the temperature of a given mass of a substance by a given amount. In the units BTU/lbm-°F, the specific heat of water conveniently equals 1.0. Often abbreviated “c,” and expressed in BTU/lbm-°F or J/kg-°C. [For a definition of lbm, see foot-pound in section 1, p. here.]

Some specific heats:

water: 1.0 BTU/lbm-°F

gasoline: 0.53

light oil: 0.50

benzene: 0.41

pure aluminum: 0.23

pure gold: 0.031

Therm—My [natural] gas bill is expressed in this unit. One therm = 105 (100,000) BTUs or 1.055 × 105 joules (= 25,200 kcal).

Thermal efficiency—The LHV divided by the HHV.

The thermal efficiency of natural gas is 84%, of propane 85%.

Thermie—1,000 kilocalories.

3. Nuclear Energy

For some 2014 Japanese air dose figures, see p. 548.

A. Radiation types; half-life, fallout

Alpha particle—“The nucleus of a helium atom consisting of two protons and two neutrons. It is ejected at high speed from the atomic nucleus.” Can be halted by a sheet of paper, “but on being stopped” it “produce[s] a very large amount of ionization locally.” In other words, “the alpha particle is particularly damaging, because it is doubly charged, with two positively charged protons in its structure,” which is why one source estimates that “alpha radiation is 20 times worse than X-rays or gamma rays.” Like beta, alpha particles can be permanently harmful if ingested. Plutonium-239’s alpha particles will radiate for thousands of years (see Table 2, here).

Beta particle—“An electron ejected at high speed from the nucleus of an atom during certain transmutation events.” Or, if you like, “the conversion of a neutron into a proton and an electron”—which, yes, gets emitted at high speed. Beta is considered both a particle and a wave. Unlike gamma, it can be stopped by flesh and clothes (“may travel . . . up to a couple of centimeters in tissue”). If ingested, however, it can remain dangerous, whereas gamma simply passes through the body, does its damage and continues on its way.

“When an element transmutes itself through radioactive decay it shifts its position on the periodic table two places to the left if it emits an alpha particle . . . one place to the right if it emits a beta ray . . .”

Fallout—“The radioactive dust that falls to earth after atomic explosions.”

Gamma ray—Similar to an X-ray. Only a thick lead shield will stop this wave. Many accrued dosimeters, such as the one I used for this essay, measure only gamma. [A slightly different animal, the neutron ray, relates more to atomic bombs and will not be considered in this book.]

Half-life—The time required for half the atoms of a radioisotope to decay. Note that it takes 10 half-lives for an initial radioactivity to reduce to 1/1000. Note further that the daughter element (what the original element decays into) may be itself radioactive, requiring another 10 of its own half-lives to decay into something else.

Table 1

COMMONLY MENTIONED RADIOCONTAMINANTS IN FUKUSHIMA

Isotope

Half-life

Years to 1/1000 strength

Comment

Cesium-134

20.65 years*

206.5 years

Gamma ray emitter, with some beta. When I visited Iwaki 3 years after 2011, it seemed to have decayed much more quickly than the Cs-137. The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare lists the half-life at 2.1 years.*

Cesium-137

30.2 years*

302 years

Gamma ray emitter with “higher penetration power” than medical X-rays.* Also emits beta. The human body interacts with it much as if it were potassium. Often absorbed through plant foods. “Preferential deposition in muscle . . . Much less of a biological hazard than . . . strontium-90.”* But in fact cesium may be correlated with stomach and heart disease.* “Has gaseous precursors and is unfortunately a significant component of the more soluble ‘long distance’ fallout.”* Of all the isotopes released at Fukushima, this is, says one scientist, “the most dangerous because of gamma plus quantity.”*

Quantities of Cs-137 (and -134?) soon took up residence in sub-surface clay deposits.

Iodine-131

8.05 days*

81 days

Implicated in thyroid cancer. Also used as a medical tracer for thyroid problems.* Beta emitter, with some gamma. Especially problematic for children. An early contaminant at Fukushima.

Strontium-90

28.8 years*

290 years

“One of the best long-lived high-energy beta emitters known.” Frequently absorbed through plant foods. Because Sr-90 is created from the decay of one radioactive gas (Kr-90) into a second gas (Rb-90) before becoming strontium, it can be carried far away from the initial explosion site.* Its “properties similar to calcium”* make it excel at causing bone cancer. “The major portion . . . is excreted with a biological half-life of 40 days during the first year . . . less than 10 percent . . . is tightly bound to bone and is excreted very slowly with a long biological half-life of about 50 years.”* At Fukushima, less immediately dangerous (and apparently less prevalent) than Cs-137 since its emissions were contained within the marine environment.* But don’t eat the seafood.

Tritium

12.5 years*

125 years

A form of hydrogen. Can enter the body in several ways, concentrating in no particular organ. “Because of the low energy of the beta particles it emits and its relatively short half-life, tritium is much less of a long-range radiation hazard than the radio-isotopes already considered.”* But some disagree.

Table 2

OTHER ISOTOPES OF INTEREST

Isotope

Half-life

Years to 1/1000 strength

Comment

Cesium-135

2.3 million years*

23 million years

Presented here as a reminder that undifferentiated references to “radioactive cesium” could be dangerously misleading. (As it happens, most other cesium isotopes have half-lives of days, minutes or seconds.)

Iodine-129

17 million years

170 million years

Another such reminder. “Radioactive iodine” may not always be I-131! (Again, other iodine isotopes have half-lives of days, hours, minutes, seconds or milliseconds.)

Plutonium-235

25.3 minutes*

253 minutes

Most Pu isotopes are alpha emitters (Pu-241 emits beta*). They are “produced in extensive quantities in nuclear reactors from natural uranium.”* In 1994, “the total amount of fallout over the entire earth surface” was around 24,000 curies [24 kCi] “of plutonium 238 (16 kCi which is from SNAP-9 [‘a navigational satellite lost in 1964’]), 154 kCi of plutonium 239, and 209 kCi of plutonium 240.”* “After the explosion at #3 reactor . . . TEPCO . . . announced that, on 21 and 22 March [2011], in soil collected on the plant site, they detected plutonium.”* I wish it had been Pu-235. In 2012 the highest concentration of this metal appeared to be Pu-238.* Unfortunately, the primary isotope in MOX* reactor fuel is Pu-239.* Note that although Pu-238 decays much more rapidly than Pu-239, “its radioactive energy is about 270 times greater. The relative danger . . . of a radioactive substance cannot be determined by its half-life.”* As for Pu-239, it has “a long biological half-life in the skeleton (about 100 years) and the liver (about 40 years).* Let us just say that any isotope of that metal is dangerous—if less poisonous than arsenic.* The U.S. Department of Energy standard for plutonium is any amount above “background levels.”* (By the way, it is “a toxic silver-colored element.”)* Pu-239 and -240 “are the most common isotopes found in the natural environment, being 21 times more often found in sediment than is plutonium-238.”* The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare lists the half-life of “plutonium” at “14 years and more.”*

Plutonium-238

87.7 years*

877 years

Plutonium-239

24,100 years*

241,000 years

Plutonium-240

? years

? years

Plutonium-241

? years

? years

Polonium-210

138.39 days*

1,384 days

“Most readily available” isotope of this alpha-emitting element. Polonium is 250 billion times more deadly than cyanide.* One of its unspecified isotopes appears in anti-static brushes used to clean photographic negatives. The label advises “DO NOT TOUCH STRIP UNDER GRID.”

Polonium-209

102 years

1,020 years

Polonium-208

2.9 years

29 years

Tellurium-130 and -28

2 × 1021 and 7.7 × 1024years*

2 × 1022 and 7.7 × 1025 years

Mentioned only once in the Fukushima literature I have read. The “tellurium” [no isotopes stated; here I supply the most abundant] contaminated Iitate Village.*

Thorium-232

140 billion years*

1,400 billion years

Alpha emitter.

Thorium-234

4.5 billion years*

45 billion years

Uranium-238

4.4 million years*

44 million years

Alpha emitter, reducing first to thorium-234.* “Decays very slowly, which is another way of saying that the amount of radiation it emits per unit time is very small. As a result, it has a very low level of toxicity . . .”* “Enriched” uranium contains this fissionable stuff, which given the relatively short half-life is rare in nature.

Uranium-235 (a)

70.4 million years*

704 million years

These two isotopes of U-235 are much more common in nature than U-238.

Uranium-235 (b)

10 quintillion years*

100 quintillion years

B. Radiation meters used for this book

A dosimeter is necessary for anybody wishing to avoid exposure above a certain amount. A scintillation counter is essential for exploring and perceiving the varying levels of a place. I should have had both all along.

Dosimeter—An instrument to measure accrued gamma radiation. When this personal protection device is transferred between individuals, or otherwise left away from the designated user, it cannot report someone’s dose correctly. When the foregoing happens by some superior’s order [see II:589], exploitation should be suspected.

In 2011 my dosimeter arrived calibrated in millirems. In 2014, for reasons explained in the text, it was recalibrated in millisieverts.

1 millirem [mrem] = 10 microsieverts [microSv]

Rather than go back and alter the units into a spurious consistency, I have left them as they are, except in comparative tables, where all original units are noted. As you will see in part E of this section beginning here, the conversions are simple. Moreover, I have drawn equivalents where needed in the text. Hopefully you will agree that this is better than rewriting history.

Scintillation counter (or scintillation meter)—A machine to measure scintillations (cpms; see “Units and Conversions,” p. 596). Similar in function but not in makeup to the familiar Geiger counter, which it has mostly superseded. Radiation excites flashes in its crystal or liquid chamber. The best of these toys (among which I count my beloved pancake frisker) will measure alpha, beta and gamma. The display reveals how “hot” an area is, in scintillations or equivalent converted units per interval of time. A scintillation counter will show in real time what specific spot or thing is “hot,” whereas a dosimeter can only show the dose already received.

From the pancake frisker, let me offer up the following measurements, presented as a special service to my fellow bookworms:

RADIOACTIVITY OF SELECTED LIBRARY INTERIORS, 2014–15

[in microSv/hr]

In “normal background” areas

San Francisco, 3rd floor: 0.12

Charleston, West Virginia, windowsill: 0.12

Madison, West Virginia: 0.12

Welch, West Virginia: 0.12

Iwaki, Japan: 0.12

Denver, Colorado, 3rd floor [elev. 5,280 ft]: 0.12

Salt Lake City, public main: 0.12

Salt Lake City, University of Utah: 0.18

Sun Valley, Idaho [elev. 5,840]: 0.18

Estes Park, Colorado [elev. 7,522]: 0.24

In Japanese yellow zone

Greater Iitate, community center: 0.54

In Japanese red zone

Iitate, decontaminated community center: 0.90*

C. Nuclear materials

Control rods—Neutron absorbers, such as boron steel. These may be fully or partially inserted or withdrawn. The former will (hopefully) halt the fission in a reactor. The farther they are pulled out, the more neutrons will be available for fission.

Fuel rods—Long narrow tubes of uranium, uranium oxides, plutonium and other materials whose nuclear fission powers a reactor. Usually their skin is zirconium or aluminum. In some cases they may be withdrawn from the nuclear pile to various degrees in order to slow or shut down the fission. However, their radioactive decay cannot be stopped, and because this generates great heat (augmented by the decay of the “daughter nuclides” contaminating them), they must be kept cool in order to prevent such catastrophes as occurred at Fukushima. Their working life is 2–5 years.

Core—The working part of a reactor. A lattice of fuel rods, control rods and a “moderator” such as graphite to slow down the neutrons sufficiently for them to fission more nuclei.

MOX—“Mixed fuel oxide, a mixture of uranium and plutonium that can be used in nuclear reactors.” “MOX fuel is manufactured from plutonium recovered from used reactor fuel, mixed with depleted uranium. MOX fuel also provides a means of burning weapons-grade plutonium (from military sources) to produce electricity.” This provides a way of “closing the fuel cycle. The current means of doing this is by separating the plutonium and recycling that, mixed with depleted uranium, as mixed oxide (MOX) fuel. Very little recovered uranium is recycled at present” (2016). In 2011, MOX escaped in minute quantities from Daiichi’s Reactor No. 3.

Nuclide—See radioisotope.

Radioisotope—All forms of a given element contain the same number of protons. Some forms vary in their number of neutrons—which is to say in their mass. An isotope is an atom of a specific mass. If it is radioactive, it is a radioisotope; if not, not. For instance, protium, deuterium and tritium are three isotopes of hydrogen. All of these contain a single proton in the nucleus (and a single electron orbiting around the nucleus). Protium, the most common form, possesses no neutrons. Deuterium’s nucleus has one neutron; tritium’s has two. Tritium, being radioactive, is a radioisotope. So are the various forms of radioactive cesium, iodine, strontium and plutonium which contaminated Fukushima in 2011. Every element can be converted into a radioisotope. [The different isotopes of a given element are called nuclides.]

D. Places, organizations and acronyms relevant to the Fukushima disaster

3-11—Shorthand for the tsunami-earthquake-nuclear-disaster on March 11, 2011.

AEC—[U.S.] Atomic Energy Commission.

IAEA—The International Atomic Energy Agency. Mentioned at the end of the Emirati oil chapter, II:557n.

ICRP—The Committee on Radiological Protection, whose 1 millisievert per year recommended civilian maximum [revised from the ICRP’s previous suggestion of 4 mSv/yr] was cited by the Union of Concerned Scientists. [The current recommendation for professional workers was 20 mSv/yr, revised from 50 mSv/yr].

National Railway Mito Motive Power Union—A leftist organization which was prominent in Japanese anti-nuclear protests. An amalgam of three unions: Nazen Iwaki, Iwaki Godo Union and the J[apan] R[ailways] Railway Union, which was an old labor union.

NISA—The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, which functioned up until the Fukushima incident. It was subordinate to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry “whose goal had been to promote and expand the use of atomic energy . . . NISA’s safety standards were based on the now incredulous [sic] assumption that severe incidents, including core meltdowns, would never occur at any of the nation’s atomic power stations.”

NRA—The Nuclear Regulation Authority, a Japanese government body formed after 3-11 to replace NISA. “We will never allow the myth about the safety of nuclear power to be resurrected.”—Toyoshi Fuketa, one of five NRA commissioners, on February 17, 2013.

NRC—Nuclear Regulatory Commission, an American body comparable to NISA.

Plant No. 1—Daiichi Nuclear Plant, 12 km north of Plant No. 2. [“Daiichi” means “first” or “number 1,” so the English-language name is Fukushima No. 1.] Plant No. 1 consisted of six reactors, each named by its respective number. Reactor No. 1 (232 km from central Tokyo) was the most infamous, but No. 3’s hydrogen explosion, which took place the day after No. 1’s, emitted each hour a dose equal to 400 times the ICRP’s recommended annual exposure for citizens. Explosions of varying magnitudes occurred in Reactors 1 through 4, which were at Okuma. The other two were at Futaba. Reactor 1 was a General Electric, Mark I, whose construction commenced in 1971. Reactors 2, 3, 4 and 5 were “more advanced B[oiling] W[ater] R[eactor] models but also had Mark I containments.”

Plant No. 2—Daini Nuclear Plant, just right of Highway 6 as one comes north into Tomioka Township. [“Daini” means “second” or “number 2,” so in English it was often called Fukushima No. 2.] Daini contained four reactors. Two were in Naraha and two in Tomioka.

These ten reactors in Fukushima Prefecture produced one-fifth of the nation’s nuclear power.

Reactor—In this book we are almost exclusively concerned with light water reactors (LWRs), so named “because the reactor core is covered with water to allow the nuclear reaction to take place and to keep the core cool.” Both pressurized water reactors (PWRs) and boiling water reactors (BWRs) are LWRs. These are described in brief here.

Tepco—Tokyo Electric Power Company, the utility responsible for the disaster. On July 31, 2015, after two reversals, the Japanese government finally indicted three former Tepco executives: Mr. Katsumata Tsunehisa, Mr. Muto Sakae and Mr. Takekuro Ichiro.

E. Units and conversions

Becquerel (Bq)—One Bq is the decay of 1 atom of a radioisotope per second, or, if you like, 1 cps = 1 count per second. A cpm, or count per minute, is therefore 60 cps’s. (In the wise words of the man who took me to Namie, “If the meter catches a scintillation, that’s one count per second—if it catches it.”) “It is estimated that the detonation of a nuclear weapon in Hiroshima . . . produced a radioactivity of 8 × 1024 becquerels.” In the Japanese press, the mention of Bqs without accompanying units usually meant Bqs per liter.

For any of you who may be in love with those old units called curies,

1 curie [Ci] = 3.7 × 1010 Bq = 37 GigaBq = 3.7 × 1010 disintegrations in 1 second of 1 gram of radium-226 [which contains 3.7 × 1021 atoms]. “The curie is conveniently extended to mean 3.7 × 1010 disintegrations per second of any radioactive substance.” However, “neither the curie nor the becquerel identified the isotope creating the decay emissions, a problem that can be resolved only by analyzing the number of kinds of radiation produced during the decay.”

Tritium disintegrates at 9,800 curies per gram, strontium-90 at 140 Ci/g and cesium-137 [the main long-lasting pollutant at Fukushima], at 88 Ci/g.

0.000006 [6 × 10−6] g iodine-131 = 1 Ci = 5.6 kg iodine-129

1 picocurie = 1 × 10−12 [1 trillionth] Ci = 2.2. disintegrations per second.

1 picocurie per gram = 0.0370 [or by an older conversion 0.0367] Bq per gram. “One picocurie per gram of plutonium in sediment represents much less than one part per billion . . . in natural materials and could not be detected by ordinary physical or chemical methods.”

Permissible tritium levels in water:

Colorado: 500 picocuries per liter.

California: 400 picocuries per liter.

1 watt of nuclear power = 5 curies

Curies are rarely used nowadays. However, the Union of Concerned Scientists informs us that the Three Mile Island accident let loose 10 million curies, mostly of xenon-133 and krypton-85, while Fukushima’s little difficulty released 13.5 million curies of noble gases and same amount of iodine-131, along with half a million curies of cesium. “More than 140 million curies of radioactivity were released to the atmosphere and Columbia River when Hanford reactors and reprocessing plants operated,” and nuclear weapons testing fallout from 1945–1980 produced the “largest release of artificial radiation ever experienced by the world—nearly 70 billion curies,” most of this fortunately consisting of nuclides with short half-lives.

Like a roentgen or a curie and unlike a rem or a sievert, a Bq (or a cpm) is not in and of itself a unit of biological damage.

In 2011 and after, the Japanese government employed both Bq and Sv in their official pronouncements. Radioisotope concentrations in groundwater and seawater were usually expressed in Bq (hence these figures from June 20, 2013: strontium-90 at 1,000 becquerels per liter, 33 more times than the legal limit; tritium at 500,000 Bq/l, or 8.3 × the limit).

Since the emitted particles of different elements have different energies, one can make no generic conversion from becquerels to sieverts. A cps of cesium-137 will not cause the same potential cellular damage as a cps of iodine-131.

According to Dr. Ed Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists, for cesium-137 (beta decay only) and making certain other assumptions:

1 cpm = 0.001 mrem per hour = 0.01 microSv/hr

The Tepco employees who were frisking Mr. Endo’s daughter’s fishing rod on our way out of Tomioka in February 2014 [see p. 384] were using a beta-counting scintillation meter. Hence the above ought to be the right conversion for what they were measuring.

However, on one-minute timed counts with the pancake frisker, which is calibrated for Cs-137 (alpha, beta and gamma decay together), I find that cpms divided by 18,000 yield the approximate value in microsieverts per minute.* So to get micros per hour, divide cpms by 300. Thus:

1 cpm = 0.0033 microSv/hr

I cannot understand why this result should be so much less than the 0.01 micros per hour above. Had it been more (since the frisker is measuring all three radiation types, not just beta), I might have accepted it. It is possible that something was lost in translation when I questioned the Tepco people.

According to still another source, 1 Bq inhaled Cs-137 = 4.6 × 10−9 Sv = .0046 microSv [presumably per hour but no units given], while 1 Bq ingested Cs-137 = 0.013 microSv[/hr?].

At any rate, since the frisker’s readings so often corresponded to other people’s measurements, and there is no way for me to cross-check that beta-only measurement, I have trusted in the former.

According to Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, 10 Bq/kg of cesium in drinking water seemed to equate with 0.1 mSv/year.

10 Bq/liter of tritium = 270 pCi/liter.

And according to the Ministry of Education:

Isotope

Sv per Bq [inhaled]*

Sv per Bq [ingested]*

I-131

2.2 × 10−8

7.4 × 10−9

Cs-137

3 × 10−8

3.9 × 10−8

Sr-90

2.8 × 10−8

1.6 × 10−7

Pu-239

2.5 × 10−7

1.2 × 10−4

. . . all presumably per second.

Cpm—A unit used by the pancake frisker. For discussion, see becquerel, here.

Electron[-]volt (ev)—One ev expresses the work accomplished in moving 1 electron against a potential difference of 1 volt. [This is an old-style unit.]

1 ev = 1.60 × 10−12 ergs = 1.60 × 10−19 joules = 1.60 x 10−19 watt-seconds = 1.60 × 10−19 coulomb-volts = 1.52 × 10−22 BTUs = 3.82 × 10−20 calories

1 kilo-electronvolt [kev] = 1,000 ev = 1.60 x 10−16 J

= 1.60 × 10−9 ergs [see here]

1 mega-electronvolt [mev] = 1,000,000 ev = 1.60 × 10−13 J

= 1.38 × 109 cm/sec [for a particle the mass of a proton, neutron or electron]

This unit used to be commonly employed in specs for nuclear reactors.

According to the AEC, “The complete conversion of one hydrogen atom to energy, according to Einstein’s E = mc2 yields 942 Mev.”

Therefore, 942 Mev × [1,000,000 ev / 1 Mev] × ([3.82 × 10−20 calorie] / 1 ev) × [1 BTU / 252 cal] = 1.43 × 10−13 BTUs

1 giga-electronvolt [gev] = 1,000,000,000 ev = 1.60 × 10−10 J

1 beta particle emitted by the Fukushima contaminant cesium-137 gives off 0.5 mev = 7.6 × 10−17 BTUs

1 gamma ray emitted by the same substance gives off 0.66 mev = 1.00 × 10−16 BTUs

1 fission [of uranium-235] = 200 mev = 3.04 × 10−14 BTUs

Gray [Gy]—“This measures absorption of radiation energy by a unit of mass.” “The energy transfer of one gray is equivalent to the ionization of about 115 roentgens.”

1 Gy = 1 joule absorbed by 1 kilogram.

The average radiation dose from a pelvic CT scan = 25 mGy.

1 Gy = 1 sievert [Sv] for gamma rays but 20 Sv for alpha particles. In other words, absent other information one cannot simply convert from Gy to Sv.

Here are some Japanese government air dose figures, in nGy/hr [nanograys per hour], for relevant locations on November 2, 2014, at 15:40. They may at least serve for comparison. For each place I selected the maximum reading:

Iwaki: 61

Fukushima City: 175

Hirono: 338

Namie: 456

Naraha: 726

Futaba: 1,070

Tomioka: 1,902

Okuma: 15,680

On this same date (10 minutes later), the prefecture with the lowest dose was Hokkaido at 41 nGy/hr. Of course the highest was Fukushima at 15,690 nGy/hr.

Rad—[Redefined in 1970.] “The dose [of radiation] causing 0.01 joules of energy to be absorbed per kilogram of matter.”

Rem—An acronym for “roentgen equivalent [in] man.” So a rem is conceptually comparable to (though numerically different from) a sievert, the roentgen being a direct measure of radiation and the rem reflecting that “weighting factor.” An American “incident responder” is advised to limit his or her single, short term dose to 5 rems per non-emergency radiation episode, to 10 rems for “protecting valuable property,” and to 25 rems for saving human life. Nausea and the like may show up at 30 rems, radiation sickness at 70 to 100 rems; 5,000 rems will kill all exposed humans within 48 hours.

1 rem = 1 rad [old definition] = 0.01 sievert [Sv] = 10 millisieverts [mSv] = 10,000 microsieverts [microSv]

New definition, using different weighting factors: 1 rem = 1.07185 roentgens.

1 rem = 1,000 millirems [mrem] = 1,000,000 microrems

1 millirem, or mrem [the unit used in the first nuclear chapter] = 1/100,000 absorbed joules of radiation energy per kilogram of body weight = 0.01 mSv = 10 microSv [the units used in subsequent nuclear chapters] = 1,000 microrem.

“One millirem . . . corresponds to being struck by approximately seven billion particles of radiation.” According to a very pro-nuclear source, 1 mrem increases our risk of fatal cancer by 1 chance in 8 million. “This risk corresponds to a reduction in our life expectancy by 1.2 minutes.” Average exposures in the Three Mile Island accident were 1.2 mrem. Normal background exposure is 0.05–0.1 mrem/hr.

1 microrem = 0.001 mrem = 0.01 microSv

Roentgen [R]—“The ionizing effect of radiation on a standard mass of air.” “One roentgen . . . strips off one outer electron from each of . . . the molecules in one cubic centimeter of dry air at standard temperature and pressure.” One roentgen makes “1 electrostatic unit of charge per cubic centimeter of air at standard conditions. It . . . generates 83.3 ergs [see here] per gram of air.”

1 erg = 10−7 joules = 2.389 × 10−8 calories = 6.242 × 1011 electron volts = 2.778 × 10−14 kilowatt-hours [kWh]

Sievert [Sv]—A “unit of equivalent dose . . . defined as the absorbed dose multiplied by a weighting factor that expresses the long-term biological risk . . .” Translating the above benchmarks for “incident responders” from rems to Sv, we obtain: single, short term dose: 0.05 Sv, “protecting valuable property,” 0.1 Sv; saving human life, 0.25 Sv; possible appearance of nausea, 0.3 Sv; onset of radiation sickness, 0.7–1.0 Sv; and the like may show up at 30 rems, radiation sickness at 70 to 100 rems; lethal dose within 48 hours, 50 Sv [= 50 million microSv].

1 Sv = 1,000 millisieverts [mSv] = 1,000,000 microsieverts [microSv]

1 Sv = 100 rem = 1 joule [J]/kg

Since 1 gram of “biological tissue” exposed to 1 mg of uranium will receive 0.006 Sv per year, 1 Sv corresponds to the biological damage induced by the year-long application of 166.667 mg [about 0.36 lb] U to a gram of living flesh.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standard for uranium in drinking water: no more than 40 microSv per year.

Prof. Anna Mummert: “There is not a direct conversion from Sieverts to BTU, since Sieverts include consideration of weight, while BTU does not. However, you can say:

0.000947817 BTU = 1 Joule, so 1 Sievert = 1 Joule / kg = 0.000947817 BTU / kg.”

According to the Atomic Energy Commission (1967), 1,000 rads [“leads to the death of nearly any mammal”] = 0.0024 [small] calories. From our other definitions: Since 1 Sv = 100 rem and 1 rem ~ 1 rad, then 1 Sv ~ 100 rads, so 1,000 rads ~ 10 Sv. Therefore, 1 Sv = 0.00024 calories × [1 BTU / 252 calories] = 9.52 × 10−7 BTUs, or 1/1,050,000 [about 1 one-millionth of a BTU]. The AEC points out that the biological damage comes not from the energy itself but from “direct ionization or indirect chemical reaction.”

Richard Crownover, M.D., Ph.D.: “Regarding the conversion from Sv to BTU[,] I think it is meaningless. The biological damage from radiation is not thermal. [It] arises from localized damage to specific molecules within cells that trigger apoptosis (programmed cell death) or breakdown in cellular replication . . . Radiation Oncology patients don’t feel warmth at the treatment site when receiving partial body doses that would be lethal if delivered to the entire body.”

1 mSv = 10−3 Sv = 1,000 microSv = 100 mrem = 100 mrads. One source reports that a chest X-ray is 0.1 mSv [0.0001 Sv]; another, that it is 0.7 mSv.

An American oncologist supplied the following X-ray dosage figures:

Dental: 0.005 milli [ = 5 microSv; but see section 3F on the next page]

Chest: 0.1 milli

Spine: 1.5 millis

Lung: 7 millis

Abdomen and pelvis: 10 millis

1 microSv = 10−6 Sv = 100 microrem = 10−4 rem = 0.1 mrem

1 millisievert per year = 0.00011415525114 mSv/hr = 0.114 microSv/hr

Watt [w]—“One watt is produced when one ampere flows at an emf of one volt.”

One watt = 1 joule per second = 107 ergs per second = 3 × 1010 disintegrations (or nuclear fissions) per second = 5 curies [see becquerel].

And since 1 Ci = 3.7 × 1010 disintegrations (or nuclear fissions) per second, 1 watt = 1.85 × 1011 disintegrations per second.

1 gram U-235 can be fissioned to produce 8.2 × 1010 watt-seconds = 950 kilowatt-days, but some is lost to non-fission capture; hence the practical amount of energy yielded is 800 kilowatt-days.

[See section 1, beginning here, for more information on watts, kilowatts, etc.]

F. Dental X-ray levels, Sacramento, around 9 a.m., February 10, 2015

(For a very different datum, see above, section 3E, here, definition of sievert, oncologist’s supplied X-ray dosage figure. See also here.)

DOSIMETER AND FRISKER READINGS AT VARIOUS DENTAL X-RAY SETTINGS, 2015

Dosimeter

Frisker (MAX setting)

Before X-ray

124.0

n.a.

1 dose at .20 setting, aimed at the 2 devices

126.0

247 micros/hr

Scatter from equivalent dose (devices in corner of room, X-ray still aimed at chair)

128.0

247

Equivalent dose, aimed, through protective lead apron

129.0

151.2

1 dose at .23 setting (used for molars), aimed

166.9

251

Total time: less than 5 minutes

5 min in dentist’s office

166.9

.317

5 min outside office

166.9

.228

Accrued background, 2 hours later

167.0

n.a.

MULTIPLES OF OUTDOOR BACKGROUND LEVEL AT DENTIST’S OFFICE, 2015

(0.228 microSv/hr = 1)

1

Outside dentist’s office

1.39

Inside dentist’s office. Note: This difference may be meaningless. For all I know, some other patient was getting X-rayed during the five minutes when I roamed the corridor, incidentally passing the X-ray room.

663.16

Intensity of aimed dose at 0.20 setting, through lead apron. Actual dose received: 1 micro.

1.08 thousand

Intensity of aimed dose at 0.20, unprotected by lead apron. Actual dose received: 2 micros.

1.08 thousand

Intensity of scatter from dose at 0.20. Actual dose received: 2 micros.

1.10 thousand

Intensity of aimed dose at 0.23. Actual dose received: 37.9 micros.

4. Coal

A. Coal types, and a few coal products

Blast furnace gas—“A low-grade producer gas, made by the partial combustion of the coke used in the furnace and modified by the partial reduction of iron ore.” A Japanese greenhouse gas inventory reports: “Since the composition of BFG is unstable, the emission factors for BFG were established with annually calculated values.” (see here.)

Coal—“A solid, brittle, more or less distinctly stratified, combustible carbonaceous rock, formed by partial to complete decomposition of vegetation . . .” [Another definition seems to say the opposite: “A combustible layered rock, produced by the accumulation and preservation of vegetable matter in a decay-resistant environment.”] “In its most general sense the term ‘coal’ includes all varieties of carbonaceous minerals used as fuel, but it is now usual in England to restrict it to the particular varieties of such minerals occurring in the older Carboniferous formations.” “Coal is the result of the transformation of woody fibre and other vegetable matter by the elimination of oxygen and hydrogen in proportionally larger quantity than carbon . . .” When combusted, this is the most greenhouse-gas-emitting of the fossil fuels—peat possibly excepted. Peat, coal and graphite are closely related. As you will now see, coal’s categorizations are very inconsistent.

Anthracite (sometimes called hard, black or stone coal)—[Sometimes subdivided, in increasing order of hardness, into semianthracite, anthracite and meta-anthracite.] “The highest rank of economically useable coal . . . has a heating value of 15,000 Btu . . . virtually all mined in Pennsylvania . . . Used primarily for space heating and generating electricity.” “Used mainly for heating homes.” “The rarest and most desirable form of coal, representing less than 1% of known coal reserves.” “A smokeless coal of high fuel efficiency, though lower than semianthracite and semibituminous.” In any case, anthracite as a general category is the hardest sort of coal, with a moisture content of 2–4%. “As a rule, density increases with the amount of carbon.” However, even low-volatile bituminous coal sometimes contains more carbon than anthracite (see here, “table of Calorific Efficiencies). See also “About Coal,” II:18. Anthracite is said to be 90% carbon, but I have seen one proximate analysis of Virginia coal as low as 66.7%.* West Virginian “met” (metallurgical) coal was said to be anthracite, but according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, “all the anthracite mines in the U.S. are located in northeast Pennsylvania.” I am told that anthracite sells for the highest price, but this may not be so simple. One advantage to anthracite is that it is less liable to spontaneous combustion when stored. Among the stuff’s detractors was Aldo Leopold who because he loved the smell of mesquite-roasted meat wrote bitterly: “Most poets must have subsisted on anthracite.”

Metallurgical coal—“The types of coal carbonized to make coke for steel manufacture, typically high in BTU value and low in ash content.” “Bituminous coals used to make coke are classified as ‘metallurgical’ . . . Not all types of bituminous coal are adaptable . . .”

Bituminous coal—“Sometimes called ‘soft coal’ . . . most commonly used for electric power generation. It has a heating value of 10,500–15,000 BTU . . . Mined chiefly in Appalachia and the Midwest.” Composed of 80–90% carbon. Another source says 45–86% carbon. Or, as a third source has it: “Fixed carbon and volatile matter are about equal.” My mid-20th-century Mechanical Engineers’ Handbook subdivides this category, in descending order of heat output, into bituminous (2–17% moisture) of various volatilities, and into subbituminous A, B and C (10–30%). “West Virginia leads production,” says a U.S. government source. Bangladesh also mines it. Most coal mentioned in Carbon Ideologies is bituminous.

Subbituminous coal—“A dull black coal with heating value ranging from 8,300–11,500 BTU . . . Used primarily for generating electricity and for space heating.” “A poor name for coal of higher rank than bituminous, although the name seems to imply the opposite meaning . . . Its heat efficiency is the highest of the coals.” One source proposes: 35–45% carbon. Much in Wyoming. Moderate liability to spontaneous combustion.

When heated in oxygen-restricted furnaces, bituminous coal often “cakes” (fuses or plasticizes), a property needed for making coke, from which steel is manufactured. In early-20th-century England, bituminous coal was known as “steam coal,” which does not precisely correspond with the West Virginia definition, for the latter apparently includes anthracite. “A medium soft classification . . . the most common and useful type mined in the U.S. . . . Used primarily for electric generation and for coke making for the steel industry.” The retired Kentucky miner and mining inspector Stanley Sturgill remarked: “I’m not that familiar with anthracite; most of it’s in Pennsylvania. Ours is called bituminous. It’s black.”—(“The semi-anthracite coals of South Wales are or were known as ‘dry’ or ‘steam’ coal.”)

Steam coal [West Virginia]—“Used primarily for electricity generation; generally lower quality than metallurgical coal.”

Lignite (brown coal)—“Nearly as soft as rotten wood.” “Either markedly woody or claylike in appearance.” “A brownish-black coal with generally high moisture content and low heating value (4,000–8,300 Btu per pound).” Usually 70% carbon or less (the previous sources say 25–35%). The moisture content is 30–45% (another source says 30–70%). “Mined primarily in the western U.S. and used for some electric generation and for conversion to synthetic gas.” More likely than its subbituminous cousin to spontaneously combust.

Coal sizes—“Lump, egg, stove, nut, pea, stoker, slack, etc. . . . Slack coal is all the coal passing through the screen of a given mesh.” Nut and slack size = 1 inch and larger.

Coal tar—“Coal yields about 6 per cent of its weight of tar.” [See coke for procedure.] As indicated by the famous “coal tree” of the West Virginia Coal Association (see II:10), coal tar derivatives are extremely useful in the production of an astonishing array of goods. One is dynamite, whose starting point is the light coal tar oil called toluene. Xylene used to be employed in explosive shells. “Naphthalene is the most abundant pure hydrocarbon obtained from coal tar,” advises an old explosives manual. The substance in question makes no bang in and of itself, but “nitrated naphthalenes . . . have been used in smokeless powder . . . and in high explosives for shells and for blasting.”

Coke—The grey solid remaining after the volatiles and coal tar are heated out of bituminous coal in an oxygen-poor vessel. “Harder and denser than charcoal* . . . has a high heat content, and is a valuable fuel.” “Coke is an excellent reducing agent . . . widely used in the smelting of metals,” especially iron and steel. Coke also can produce calcium carbide, a precursor of acetylene. “Coke from any coker is nearly all carbon, but . . . a small percentage of very heavy, very complex hydrocarbons may wrap themselves around” it. High-grade coke comes from removing those impurities in a calciner. “Western coals are weakly coking as compared with those of the Appalachian region.”

B. Coal mining and combustion terms

Bench—A layer of coal. Also called a seam.

Beneficiation—“The process whereby the extracted material is reduced to particles that can be separated into mineral and waste.” The procedures involved are “primarily mechanical, such as grinding, washing, magnetic separation, and centrifugal separation.”

Blast furnace—“A shaft furnace in which solid fuel is burned with an air blast to smelt ore for continuous operation.”

Dragline—“A huge piece of equipment with a large bucket suspended from the end of a boom that can extend more than 275 feet. The dragline can remove up to 200 tons of overburden in a single drag of its bucket across the work area . . .”

Highwall—“Unexcavated face of exposed overburden and coal in a surface mine. Highwalls must be recontoured following the extraction of coal.”

Gasification—See synthetic natural gas here.

IGCC—Integrated gasification combined cycle. As the name implies, this technology can gasify coal before burning it, thereby removing impurities and reducing the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. In 2007, Tepco and the Tohoku Electric Power Co. jointly built an experimental IGCC generator at Nakoso, 60-odd km south of the infamous Nuclear Plant No. 1. In 2015 Mr. Sakakibara Kohji, a Tepco group leader, said to me: “IGCC, that is the most advanced technology in the world. We are now doing some test demonstrations for the future. We are going to make a large demonstration furnace. However, because it is the most advanced technology, it is the most expensive.”

Longwall—A coal face in a deep or underground mine, under which heading see longwall mine.

Mantrip—[Also: “Man trip,” “man car,” “mancar.”] The conveyance to bring miners into a deep mine. In Upton Sinclair’s King Coal (1917) it was simply called a “trip.”

Open pit mine—See surface mine.

Overburden—The waste earth, rock and vegetation removed from a mine. This stuff sometimes contains heavy metals. Several West Virginians told me sad stories of overburdens being dumped into the “hollers” where they used to live.

Pillar—As it sounds. Pillars of coal are left unexcavated in a deep mine to prevent the ceiling from collapsing. The side of a pillar is called a rib; so is an entrance wall. [See underground mine: room-and-pillar mine.]

Producer gas—Emitted when coal (or coke) is incompletely combusted. “Composed of carbon monoxide, hydrogen, air and steam [not to mention our friend carbon dioxide] . . . Poison. Dangerous fire hazard when exposed to flame.”

Resources—The amount of coal which may be present in a deposit.

Reserve—The amount of a resource which is “recoverable using current technology.”

Proven reserves—“Can be recovered economically under current market conditions.”

Probable reserves—“Indicate a lower degree of confidence than proven reserves.”

Seam—See bench.

Stowing—Packing excavated areas with overburden in order to reduce the risk of cave-ins, spontaneous combustion, etcetera.

Subsidence—“A necessary evil in . . . underground operation. This can however be minimized with the adoption of stowing methods.”

Surface mine—“Permits a wide flexibility in production, which includes the ability to mine selectively and the potential for 100 per cent extraction [another part of the same document says “more than 90%”] of coal within the pit limits . . . Problems . . . include underground water managements [sic] . . . and undesirable environmental problems such as . . . dust . . . as well as waste disposal . . . [B]est suited to coal deposits of substantial horizontal dimensions.” Placer mines are surface mines more germane to gold than to coal, but here is one coal-relevant variety:

Auger mine—“The drill is placed at right angles to the coal seam and the cutting head is advanced into it, a full auger-flight length.” This is “a special type of borehole mining.” Yield rate: About 33%. “Sometimes employed to recover any additional coal left in deep overburden areas that cannot be reached economically by further contour or area mining.”

One common type of surface mine is the open pit mine, whose environmental and aesthetic costs are high. It is, of course, cheaper in dollars.

Mountaintop removal mine—“Coal buried at or near the summit of a large hill or mountain is sometimes best reached by entirely removing the elevated area. After reclamation is completed, the once mountainous terrain . . . is often left flat, making it suitable for farming, recreation or other purposes.”—“Rugged mountaintops and steep hollows are transformed into level or gently rolling land capable of agricultural, recreational, home, commercial and industrial development . . . Overburden can easily be segregated, including burial of toxic materials and recovery of suitable subsoils and topsoils to facilitate proper revegetation.” Sometimes euphemized to “mountain-top mining. “As of 2005, 2700 ridges had been impacted by mountaintop mining in the Central Appalachian area.”

Single bench mine—“A bench forms a single layer of operation above which coal and waste materials are excavated from the bench face . . . Bench heights normally range from 6 m to 10 m . . . but may approach 60 m in very special cases.”

Multiple bench mine—“Can be employed in massive, thick bedded coal deposit” farther underground than with a single bench mine. “If the pit is over 10 or 20 m deep, more than one bench probably will be needed . . . Benches are normally used for roadways either forming a spiral to the bottom of the pit or with ramps between the horizontal benches. Bench widths are also designed to provide protection for men and equipment from small slope failures.”

Strip mine—[Also: “Contour mine.”] More appropriate for thinner seams (0.6–10 m). “Usually accomplished by removing the overburden and coal from a strip across one dimension of the deposit. A parallel strip [is] then excavated in the opposite direction and the overburden . . . placed into the strip previously mined.” “Mining then continues laterally, circling the hillside and proceeding uphill.”

Valley fill mine—[Also: “Head-of-hollow fill mine.”] “A method where spoil is placed in narrow, V-shaped, steep-sided hollows free of mine openings or natural springs and located adjacent to the mining operation, is the technique most often employed in conjunction with mountaintop removal.”

Tipple—The spot outside a mine where the coal was tipped out of the cars. “Now refers to the surface structures of a mine, including the preparation plant and loading tracks.”

Underground mine—“If the depth of a coal deposit is such that the removal of the overburden makes surface mining unprofitable, [the] underground method should be considered . . . Factors . . . in choosing between a vertical or inclined shaft include the type of coal deposit and its depth.” Underground mines are of either the pillar or wall type, as follows:

Pillar type:

Block mine—“A series of entries, panel entries, rooms and cross cuts is driven to divide the coal into a series of blocks of approximately equal sizes which are then extracted on retreat.”

Room-and-pillar mine—“Cross-entries and panel entries are driven to ‘block out’ large panels of coal and rooms are turned off, usually at right angles from the entries.” Rooms and pillars are first “fully developed in a section,” going from near to far, and then pillars are mined out from far to near, the miners having previously installed anti-caving posts. About 50% of the coal thus mined is left behind. This method is somewhat prone to eventual subsidence.

Wall type:

Longwall mine—“Longwall mining employs a steel plow or rotating drum, which is pulled mechanically back and forth across a face of coal that is usually several hundred feet long. The loosened coal falls onto a conveyor . . .” “Two parallel headings are made 100–200 m [328–656 feet] apart and at right angles to the main heading. The longwall between the two headings is then mined away from the main heading . . . A moveable roof support system . . . advances as the coal is mined and allows the roof to collapse in a controlled manner behind it.” “The retreating method is almost exclusively used in the United States, whereas the reverse is true in most foreign countries.” Longwalling (“the most capital intensive but also the most capital efficient method of getting coal out of the ground”) leaves less coal behind (about 30%) than could a room-and-pillar mine. Hence it is far more prone to subsidence. The ill-starred Upper Big Branch mine (II:58) was a longwall operation.

Longwall mine with caving—The procedure described above. “Longwall” tends to mean “longwall with caving.”

Longwall mine with stowing—The mined areas are filled in with waste to prevent ground subsidence.

Shortwall mine—The primary difference between the two methods is the length of the working face. “In [the] short-wall system the maximum working face length is normally 45 to 55 m” [= 147.6–180.4 ft].

C. Some common coal pollutants [with related water terms, including pH] and coal diseases

Acid mine drainage—[Also: “AMD.”] See below, this section, yellowboy. See II:152.

Aluminum—A dangerous aquatic pollutant from coal. One mid-20th-century chemical analysis of “five coal ashes covering a wide range of fusibility” found aluminum oxide contents from 19.6 to 30.6%. See II:152.

Black lung—Pneumoconiosis or coal-worker’s pneumoconiosis (CWP), a debilitating and often fatal lung condition caused by breathing coal dust. It killed 100,000 American coal miners in the 20th century. From a mining methods handbook, 1978: “In the United States, the number of permanent disabilities and deaths of coal miners due to CWP is 3.5 times the number of disabilities and deaths due to all other mine incidents.” Senator Jay Rockefeller, 2013: “We thought, at one time, we had Black Lung on its heels. We were wrong.” See II:213.

Coal ash—“The inorganic residue that remains after burning the coal in a muffle furnace the final temperature of which is between 700 and 750 C.” “The ash contains heavy metals at levels toxic to marine life and to all who consume river-dwelling creatures.” [Sometimes coal ash is kept in slurry ponds, but the phrase “coal slurry” most often seems to refer to coal sludge.] “America’s coal plants produce 140 million tons of ash each year.” See II:184 for mention of spill in Dan River.

Coal dust—Nowadays defined as anthracite particles. A cause of black lung. At certain concentrations the stuff becomes highly inflammable. My grandfather’s Mechanical Engineers’ Handbook (1958), which did not restrict its definition to anthracite, reported, in the following order, ignition temperatures declining from 635 to 455° Celsius, and maximum explosive pressures increasing from 45 to 95 pounds per square inch: low, medium and high volatile coal, then, most dangerously, subbituminous coal.

Coal sludge—Also called coal slurry. “The liquid waste created when coal is washed and processed” so that it will pollute less when it is burned. The washing “happens after the coal is mined and before it is shipped to power plants.” It “contains toxic chemicals used to wash coal and heavy metals,” including “mercury, lead, arsenic, selenium, chromium, cadmium, and boron.” Kept in artificial lakes behind impoundment dams or else injected underground, it “can poison drinking wells.” See II:54–58 for testimony on the Buffalo Creek flood.

Conductivity—One measure of the metal content of a stream. The higher the conductivity, the more polluted it is. “It goes up as the water gets saltier. Fresh water in undisturbed Appalachian streams has a conductivity of under 100 and sea water has a conductivity of about 50,000.” By 2015, “several Alpha subsidiaries” and “Consol’s Fola Coal” were all found legally liable for conductivity pollution. According to Chad Cordell of the Kanawha Forest Coalition, “anything above 500 is bad.” In the Kanawha Forest he had found conductivities ranging from 20 to 3,500. (See II:114.)

MCHM—4-methylcyclohexane methanol, used to clean coal. The toxicity of this chemical was unknown when it leaked into the Elk River in January 2014, contaminating the water supply of 300,000 West Virginians. It smells like licorice. See II:170 for discussion of the Elk River spill.

Methane—See section 5A, here.

pH—A logarithmic scale from 1 (most acidic) to 14 (most alkaline). A pH of 7 is neutral. Six is 10 times more acidic than 7; 8 is 10 times more alkaline than 7. Thus a polluted West Virginia creek with a pH of 3 is 10,000 times more acidic than distilled water. The pH of 1 gram of sodium hydroxide solution in 1 liter of water is 14.0; and of the same solution, 10 times more dilute, 13.0; seawater is around 8.5; human blood is 7.35 to 7.45; reasonably decent drinking water weighs in at 6.5 to 8.0; oysters, at 6.1 to 6.6; human urine, 4.8 to 8; sour pickles, 3.0 to 3.4; apples, a surprising 2.9 to 3.3; lemons, 2.2 to 2.4; limes, 1.8 to 2.0; human gastric contents, 1.0 to 3.0.—According to the anti-mining activist Chad Cordell, the West Virginian legal standard for water was 6.0 to 9.0. “We typically see anywhere from 3.1 to about 7,” he told me.

Yellowboy—“Iron and aluminum compounds that stain streambeds” as a result of coal mining. Yellowboy can acidify a watercourse to a pH of 3 or even 2.

Pyrite + oxygen + water → “yellowboy” + sulfuric acid.

D. Companies, acronyms and localisms relevant to coal in Appalachia, Bangladesh and the world

Acronyms appear first if my informants commonly used them in quoted interviews. Otherwise I have used the full name.

Asia Energy—[AEC.] The foreign-owned company that sought to dig an open pit mine in Phulbari. The successor to BHP. “They are Australian, but their headquarters is in England and their business license is in Honduras. The gentleman who came was Garry Enlight.” See also BHP and Global Coal Management.

Barapukuria Workers’ Union—A labor organization, said to be “apolitical,” whose members all had some direct or indirect connection with the coal mine there. The union president asserted that the coal in Phulbari “will have to come out” (see II:245).

BDP—Bangladesh Development Power, a government utility. Most mined coal at Barapukuria was sold to BDP for electricity generation.

BGR—Bangladeshi Guards Rifles, or Border Guard Regiment, depending on whom I asked. I was told that they shot down the three shaheeds of Phulbari on August 28, 2006, and wounded up to 200 other people who were demonstrating against Asia Energy’s open pit mine.

BHP—Broken Hill[s] Properties [or Proprietary]. “They were based in the U.K. From 1998 BHP were doing surveys” around Phulbari, “and then they handed over the contract to Asia Energy.” According to Nazrul Islam, former consultant of BHP, “BHP did not want to create another environmental disaster like Ok-Tedi Copper Mine in Papua New Guinea where it had to quickly abandon the mine and paid hefty compensation to the surrounding inhabitants.”

DEP—Department of Environmental Protection, a West Virginia agency famous for its solicitude to the so-called regulated community.

Dinajpur—The district in which Phulbari and Barakupuria lay. “Dinajpur has always been known for its political uprisings. The people of Dinajpur had played a major role in Tebhaga Peasants movement in the 1940s . . .” “Dinajpur contains 30% reserve of . . . ground water of entire North Bengal.”

Freedom Industries—The company responsible for the MCHM spill that endangered 300,000 households in West Virginia. It went bankrupt but arranged to pay itself (see II:176, 176n–77n).

Global Coal Management—“Asia Energy changed its name to Global Coal Management (GCM) after August 2006 bloodshed and uprising.”

Holler—Since West Virginia is so mountainous, it abounds in secluded, originally lushly forested hollows, whose little homes and settlements have contributed a distinctive character to Appalachian identity. The hollers are sometimes used as dumping-grounds for the “spoil” (rubble) left over after mountaintop removal.

Massey Energy—This huge multinational coal company to many people’s minds morally if mostly not legally was responsible for the Upper Big Branch mining disaster in West Virginia, after which it became Alpha Natural Resources and presently went bankrupt on the Patriot Coal model.

MSHA—Mine Safety and Health Administration, another feeble regulatory body whose existence gave offense to the poor old regulated community. [Sometimes the “A” meant “Academy.”]

MT—Million tons.

MTR—Mountaintop removal.

National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Ports—[Usually called just the National Committee.] A left-leaning organization that sought to halt Asia Energy’s open pit mine in Phulbari. “The National Committee was formed in 1998 when a group of leftists and other like minded individuals got together. It was started with the immediate objective of opposing the UNOCAL (A US-[b]ased company) stand that Bangladesh should export gas to India.” That year it “organized a long march from Dhaka to Chittagong port” and allegedly stopped a 199-year lease to a Barbados company that pretended to be American.

OECD—Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. As of 2012, its 34 members were: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States. Carbon Ideologies sometimes uses OECD statistics, especially those on coal. The International Energy Agency divided the world into OECD and non-OECD blocs. For instance, in 2012 it decreed: “The region previously called Latin America will now be known as non-OECD Americas.”

OSM—U.S. Office of Surface Mining, whose ominous discoveries regarding coal slurry dams are mentioned on II:162.

Patriot Coal—This spin-off of Peabody Coal conducted MTR in West Virginia and elsewhere, then presently declared bankruptcy, paying massive bonuses to the higher-ups and renouncing significent pension obligations to its retirees.

Phulbari—A subdistrict of Dinajpur. Here Asia Energy attempted to dig an open pit coal mine. When I finished Carbon Ideologies the corporation was still trying. “The coal-field will extend over 135 square kilometers,” and 50,000 to 200,000 people would be displaced.

Regulated community—A phrase employed by pro-coal entities to refer to industries (such as Big Coal) which are (supposedly unfairly) burdened with environmental and safety regulations. I have expanded it to refer to the businesses of all carbon ideologies. From the vantage point of an imagined 25th century, Hermann Hesse wrote: “It took long enough in all conscience for realization to come that the externals of all civilization—technology, industry, commerce and so on—also require a common basis of intellectual honesty and morality.” That common basis was the antithesis of our regulated community.

Thana—[Bangladesh.] A police subdistrict. One such was Phulbari, where the three shaheeds were shot down in 2006.

UBB—Upper Big Branch, a deep mine near Montcoal, West Virginia. Site of the coal mine explosion that killed 29 men in 2010. The result of greed.

UP—Union of Peasants, or Peasant Organization, a left-leaning Bangladeshi entity that was present in Phulbari when Asia Energy tried to dig an open pit mine there.

WV-A—West Virginia American Water.

E. Units and conversions

Ton—A short or American ton is 2,000 pounds. A long or British ton is 2,240 pounds. A metric ton is 1,000 kg or 2,204.6 lbs. See also refrigeration ton in section 2, here.

The U.S. Department of Energy claimed in 1993 that each [short] ton of coal consumed at a power plant generates about 2,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity.

Ton of coal equivalent or tce—“One [metric] tonne of coal equivalent is 7 million kilocalories.”—International Energy Agency. Since 1 kcal = 3.968 BTUs, then 1 tce = 27,776,000 BTUs. At .907×, a U.S. ton of coal equivalent would be 25,192,832 BTUs.

1 tce = 29.3 GJ [gigajoules] = 0.7 toe [ton of oil equivalent]

Ton of oil equivalent or toe—Again, this is a metric ton. One toe is 39,680,000 BTUs. At 0.907×, a U.S. ton of coal equivalent would be 35,989,760 BTUs. For more discussion of this unit, see section 6E, here.

Some fuel conversions:

Crude oil: 1.034 toe

Gasoline: 1.128 toe

Jet fuel: 1.133 toe

Liquid petroleum gas: 1.195 toe

1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas roughly = 25 mtoe [million tons of oil equivalent].

1 toe = 11.6 MWh

To convert from BTUs of electricity to pounds of oil, coal or natural gas needed, assuming a power plant efficiency of 30%:

For oil, divide BTUs by 17,995. [In other words, multiply × (1 toe [1 U.S. ton of oil / 35,989,760 BTUs] ) × [2,000 lbs / ton]. To express power plant inefficiency, multiply × 3, for a final figure of [BTUs needed / 5,998] = lbs of oil required.

For coal, divide BTUs by 12,596. [In other words, multiply × (1 tce [1 U.S. ton of coal / 25,192,832 BTUs] ) × [2,000 lbs / ton]. To express power plant inefficiency, multiply × 3, for a final figure of [BTUs needed / 4,198] = lbs of coal required.

For natural gas, divide BTUs by 24,021. [In other words, multiply × 1 cu ft / 1,000 BTUs] × [0.04163 lbs/cu ft = density of methane]. To express power plant inefficiency, multiply × 3, for a final figure of [BTUs needed / 8,007] = lbs of natural gas required.

5. Natural Gas and Fracking

A. What it is

Liquefied petroleum gases—[LPG.] The butanes, propane and C3H8, all of which “can be liquefied at reasonable pressures.”

Methane—CH4. [Marsh gas.] “A gas similar in nature to natural gas . . . present in most coal seams . . . formed by the decomposition of the organic matter in coal”—or, if you like, “the end product of the anaerobic . . . decay of plants.” “A major coal mining nuisance and safety hazard because of its highly explosive nature . . . [Can be] use[d] as an energy resource.” Indeed, it has a high heating value (see here) between that of propane and of rocket fuel (see here, header 259). Also employed to make methanol and ammonia. In the U.S., a mine should be shut down if the methane concentration reaches 1.25% “for a sustained time,” with “sustained” remaining conveniently undefined. Methane is a constituent of solid coal—and also, of course, a dangerous greenhouse gas. “As much as . . . 400 trillion . . . cubic feet of methane might be recoverable from U.S. coal beds.” It often leaks from natural gas pipelines, abandoned mines, and even processed coal. “If the methane is accompanied by ethane and butane, it comes from oil and gas fields. If not, then it probably comes from somewhere else.” “Methane is colorless and, when liquefied, is less dense than water.” Molecular weight: 15.9 grams; heat of combustion (see here): 213 kilocalories per mole. Global warming potential: About 86× carbon dioxide’s over the first 20 years; about 26× over the first 100. See also II:307–16.

Natural gas—“The ideal fossil fuel—clean, efficient, economical, and available in generous supply in North America . . . Produces mostly carbon dioxide and water, with only trace amounts of pollutant gases . . . Believed among many to have been formed a billion years ago by thermal decomposition of buried organic matter (e.g., dead plants and marine organisms) covered with rock and mud.”—“The main component of all natural gas is methane,” but there may also be ethane, 2-butane, n-butane, two kinds of pentanes, hexane, heptane, octane, decane, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, water and air.

Quad—A quadrillion BTUs.

Synthetic natural gas—[Often referred to by abbreviation, SNG.] Almost entirely methane; most often derived from gasified coal.

B. Gas extraction and refining terms, including those for fracking

Fracking—This gas and oil extraction process begins after initial drilling. Although fracking is associated with horizontal drilling (sometimes for astonishing distances), it has also been employed in vertical wells. “Fracturing the formation is in reality splitting the rock by using fluids and high pressure to create a near-vertical fracture that may extend several hundred feet in two directions at 180° from each other, away from the [oil or gas] well . . . Fluid flows from the boundaries of the reservoir toward the wellbore.” Another definition says that the procedure employs “water, sand and trace chemicals” to split the rock. “In effect, fracking creates additional permeability in a producing formation, enabling the oil or gas to move more easily toward the wellbore.”

Frack[ing] fluid—“90 percent water, 9.5 percent sand and often less than 0.5 percent of a chemical mixture, many of the agents similar to what is used in household cleaning and cosmetic products.” So says a fracker. An anti-fracker writes that “fracking fluids contained 750 chemicals, including benzene and lead. Fracking fluids even contained diesel fuel . . .”

Injection wells—“Disposal wells for contaminated drilling wastewater or brine injected in deep rock formations.”

Produced water—“Water from the rock formation” plus fracking fluid, all of which is “discharged back up the well . . . [to become] a waste product that may include toxic chemicals and pollutants leached from the rock.”

Separator—“A piece of equipment such as gas production unit used to separate one substance from another when they are intimately mixed, such as . . . oil from water, or oil from gas.”

Separator tanks—Tanks located at the well site used to separate oil, gas and water before sending each off to be processed at different locations.

Stripper well—“An unconventional gas well incapable of producing more than 90,000 cubic feet of gas per day during any calendar month . . .”

Unconventional formation—“A geological shale formation . . . where natural gas generally cannot be produced at economic flow rates or . . . volumes except by . . . hydraulic fracture treatments or . . . multilateral well bores or other techniques to expose more of the formation . . .”

Unconventional gas well—“A bore hole drilled . . . for the production of natural gas from an unconventional formation.”

Vertical gas well—“An unconventional gas well which utilizes hydraulic fracture treatment through a single vertical well bore and produces natural gas in quantities greater than that of a stripper well.”

C. Some fracking pollutants

BTEX—Benzene, ethylbenzenes and the xylenes [all considered as VOCs].

VOCs—Volatile organic compounds. This grab bag category of ubiquitous pollutants was linked to global warming and also to health problems. See II:352.

For other substances, you had better ask Halliburton. [Some fracks employed hydrochloric acid, polyacrylamide and isopropanol.]

D. Places, entities and acronyms relevant to fracking in Colorado

COGCC—The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

Noble Energy—A U.S. subsidiary of the “Hong-Kong-based,” “Singapore-listed” Noble Group. In 2015 this entity was a prominent if not preeminent fracker in Weld County.

NORM—Normally occurring radioactive materials. This innocent-sounding acronym refers to naturally radioactive underground substances—which through fracking sometimes come up to the surface, rendering the surface unnaturally radioactive.

E. Units and conversions

Cubic foot—A standard measurement for natural gas:

1 cf = 1,000 BTUs

1 billion cubic feet (Bcf) = 1 trillion BTUs.

Therm—100,000 BTUs.

Quad—A quadrillion BTUs. “For natural gas, roughly equivalent to one trillion . . . cubic feet.”

6. Oil

A. Some oils, derivatives and relevant terms

Carbon content—The carbon content of petroleum, gasoline, kerosene, crude oil, and other liquid fuels is generally 84–88%.

Cracking—Using refinery techniques to break down long-chain oil molecules into specific useful carbon-based products of lower molecular weights.

Crude oil—“Raw petroleum as it comes from the earth . . . A bitumen of liquid consistency, comparatively volatile . . .” Crude petroleum has been classified as a “liquid mineral.” “The higher the crude, the higher the API gravity.”

API gravity = Degrees API = (141.5/specific gravity at 60° F) − 131.5. “The logic of this arcane formula has been lost in antiquity.” The API is the American Petroleum Institute. See also specific gravity, here.

The API of water = 10°. This corresponds to a density of 8.328 lbs/gal and a specific gravity of 1.00.

Heavy crude—“Defined here as oil of 20° gravity API or heavier.”

“Crude oil is largely made up of flammable hydrocarbons.”

Hydrocarbons—“Chemical mixtures of around 12 percent HYDROGEN (light gas vapor) and 82 percent CARBON (heavy black solid.) Hydrocarbons include thousands of different compounds.” My high school chemistry book made it even easier: “Chemicals composed of only the two elements—hydrogen and carbon—are called hydrocarbons.” When I was alive, hydrocarbons were frequently used to make herbicides and pesticides, as surfactants, protective coatings, synthetic fibers such as nylon, flavor enhancers, plastics and suchlike petrochemical conveniences.

“Hydrocarbons in gasoline have from 4 to 14 carbon atoms per molecule, and lubricating oils have up to 30 or more carbon atoms per molecule.”

See section 6C, beginning here, for mention of hydrocarbons as pollutants.

Okie gas—This ultralight oil condensate (API of 50°) had its fame in the 1930s. It could be burned in a car like gasoline.

Light crude—More than 30° API. Often colorless. “The light crudes tend to have more gasoline, naphtha and kerosene.” “Probably has few percent natural gas liquids.”

Medium crude—20 to 30° API. Color may vary between greenish-yellow to reddish.

Heavy crude—10 to 20° API. This grade is usually black. “The heavy crudes tend to have more gas oil and residue.” “Has little or no natural gas liquids and a high percentage of the heavy hydrocarbons.”

Sweet crudes contain less than 0.05% sulfur, while sour crudes have 1.5% or more. Sweet crudes smell like gas, sour crudes smell like rotten eggs and aromatic crudes “have a sickly fruity smell.” In 2014, the Bakken formation in North Dakota happened to be one strong producer of light sweet crude, while Venezuela was afflicted with “heavier crudes that fetch less than international benchmarks.”

Diesel fuel—“Varies greatly in its characteristics, ranging from light distillates which are practically heavy kerosenes, to . . . crude oils.” “Diesel fuel contains [12 percent] more heat energy per gallon than gasoline,” but only if measured per cubic foot. In the table of Calorific Efficiencies here, header 201–217, I measure per pound, to be consistent with coal measurements.

Diesel grade 1-D—For high-speed engines, wide speed variations and low fuel temperatures.

Grade 2-D—Less volatile and higher in “heat energy” per gallon than 1-D. Used for high loads and uniform speeds.

Grade 4-D—“More viscous distillates and blends of these distillates with residual fuel oil.” Used in low- and medium-speed engines; best for sustained loads at constant speeds.

Gasoline—“A complex mixture of hydrocarbons which distill within the range of 100 to 400 [degrees] F[ahrenheit].” A member of the pentane group, which are all liquids (“commonly called distillates”). “Mildly toxic by inhalation . . . Questionable carcinogen . . . Some addiction has been reported from inhalation of fumes. Even brief inhalation of high concentrations can cause a fatal pulmonary edema.” “The combustion of gasoline, pound for pound, produces more total energy than dynamite.” A significant source of climate change.

Kerosene—“Less volatile than gasoline . . . obtained by continuing the distillation of crude petroleum after gasoline has been removed.” “Except for severe arctic areas where Jet B fuel is used, essentially all civil aviation uses kerosene fuel.”

Naphtha—“Refers to the light end fractions distilled from crude petroleum . . . a complex mixture of hydrocarbons with an end boiling point of about 165° C . . .”

Nylon—The name of this famous polymer (invented in 1938) derives from “New York” and “London,” the homes of the two relevant laboratories. Derived from adipic acid [see here].

Octane rating [of gasoline]—“Indicates its ability to resist knocking or pinging.”

Oil—It comes, perhaps, from plankton in ancient inland seas. [But see Sam Hewes’s caveat on II:486.] Since the water was poorly oxygenated, the dead plankton could not decompose. The pressure of sediments accumulating over it then produced heat, “initiating chemical reactions that convert the dead organic matter into oil. Bacteria appear to play a much greater role . . . than was previously thought. The ideal temperatures . . . are between 50° and 180° C, which are usually found at depths of between 2 and 4 kilometres.” “Of the light oils the most important is known as petrol. It is not a definite chemical compound. It is a mixture of various hydrocarbons of the paraffin and olefine series, produced from the distillation of petroleum and paraffin oils.”

“About two to two-and-one-half barrels of oil can be produced from a [short] ton of coal.”

For other conversions from barrels to tons, see barrel in section 6E, here.

“Between four and five [metric] tons of tar sand must be processed to make one barrel of oil.”

Tar sands—“Also known as oil sands . . . A combination of clay, sand, water, and bitumen (a heavy viscous oil) that is either mined or recovered by injecting steam or another heat source underground.” “Heavy hydrocarbons mixed with sand and dirt . . . One [processing method] is to submerge the tar sand in hot water and steam. This forms a . . . slurry that melts and liquefies the tar,” which rises to the surface.

“In 2009, 16.9 billion barrels, or about 99% of Alberta’s total proven oil reserves, were attributed to the oil sands—around 13% of total global oil reserves . . . Alberta ranks second after Saudi Arabia in proven oil reserves . . .”—Canada Yearbook 2011.

“With today’s refining methods, almost 50 percent of each crude oil barrel can be made into automotive gasoline.”

A table (ca. 1987) of “average yield from a barrel of crude oil” shows 15.7% going into “other products and losses.”

Oil shale—“A convenient expression used to cover a range of materials containing organic matter which can be converted to crude shale oil and gas by heating.” Or, if you prefer, “a sedimentary mineral that contains kerogen, a mixture of complex, high molecular weight organic polymers.” Can yield various motor fuels and other crude oil derivatives.

Petroleum—“A thick flammable dark-yellow to brown or green-black liquid . . . Insol[uble] in water; sol[uble] in benzene, chloroform, ether . . . Questionable carcinogen with experimental carcinogenic, neoplastigenic, and tumorigenic data by skin contact.” Unquestionable global warming agent.

Petroleum distillate—“Mildly toxic by inhalation and ingestion.”

Petroleum spirits—“A poison by intravenous route. Mildly toxic by inhalation.”

Plastic—A category of artificial carbon-based polymer. “Often designed to mimic the properties of natural materials . . . Produced by the conversion of natural products or . . . synthesis from primary chemicals generally coming from oil, natural gas, or coal. Most plastics are based on the carbon atom. Silicones, which are based on the silicon atom, are an exception.” Plastics are one of the “big five” products that use the lion’s share of industrial energy [see below].

Polymer—A compound made up of large molecules which in turn are composed of numerous small molecules. Carbon is famous for its ability to polymerize. Natural carbon polymers include proteins.

The “big five”—Aluminum, steel, cement, paper and plastics (ca. 2010). see here.

Residual fuel oil—“The source fuel for combustion in electric generating plants. Residual oil is what remains after lighter hydrocarbons, such as gasoline, have been extracted from crude oil.”

Synthesis gas—“A mixture of carbon monoxide . . . and hydrogen . . . that is the beginning of a wide range of chemicals.” Often derived from oil.

Tar sands—See oil.

B. Oil extraction and refining terms

For definitions relevant to fracking (which can produce both oil and natural gas), see section 5B, here.

Alkylation—“Changes small hydrocarbon compounds into larger ones.” “Changes LIGHT GASES (bottled types) into gasoline.” “One of the few refining processes that can produce . . . high octane . . . gasoline in large quantities.”

Catalytic cracking—“Moderate heat” and a catalyst (“usually a special clay powder”) are employed to transform “heavy fractions of crude oil into lighter ones (gasoline).”

Condensate—“A vaporous mixture of gas and water that is far less toxic and less flammable [than natural gas].” “The liquid resulting when a hydrocarbon is subjected to cooling and/or pressure reduction. Also, liquid hydrocarbons condensed from gas and oil wells.”

Distillation—See fractionating. Distillation alone can turn 20% of a given quantity of oil into gasoline. “With today’s refining methods, almost 50 percent of each crude oil barrel can be made into automotive gasoline.” (Both of these are 1987 figures.) See alkylation, catalytic cracking, hydrocracking, polymerization.

Fractionating—The procedure of distilling crude oil into its derivatives by making use of the different boiling points of the latter. For example, propane boils at −44° F, while butane boils at +31° F. Butanes and lighter products are fractionated, off at under 90° F, gasoline at 90–220°, then naphtha, kerosene, gas oil at their own unique intermediate temperatures, and finally the residues at 800° and higher.

Hydrocracking—“Separation” of oil molecules “occurs in the presence of hydrogen gas and a catalyst.” This method is commonly employed to produce unleaded premium gasoline.

Polymerization—“Produces gasoline out of very light gases,” but the result is feeble in antiknock properties.

Roughneck—“A specific term for a job on the rig crew, one up from roustabout, but also a generic term used for anyone who survives the job and graduates . . .”

Thermal cracking—An outmoded process which “used extreme heat—above 100° F . . .—and extreme pressures of around 1000 psi . . . to break large hydrocarbon compounds into smaller gasoline type hydrocarbons.”

Wellhead—“A device that controls pressure in the well and flow of gas or oil from the well.”

C. Some common oil pollutants and oil diseases

Car-generated pollution—In 1972 “the main source of pollution” from cars was “from incomplete burning of the gasoline.” Until the 1970s the “three most dangerous pollutants” were given as hydrocarbons, carbon monoxides and nitrogen oxides. In “the early 70s” lead additives joined the list. Carbon dioxide passed unmentioned.

Hydrocarbons—[For more on hydrocarbons, see sec. 6A, here.] Hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides (both of which occur in internal combustion vehicle exhaust) combine in the presence of the ultraviolet radiation we receive from the sun. One chemical product is ozone (which protects us from global warming and radiation when it is in the upper atmosphere); another is peroxyacetyl nitrate. These two substances harm mucous membranes such as lung tissue; they can also kill plants.

Lead—“Around a teaspoon of lead is added to a gallon of leaded gasoline. This can increase octane and antiknock value of fuel as much as 7 or 8 octane numbers.” Lead “slows down the burning time of the fuel and eliminates the destructive ‘knock.’” Furthermore, it “allows the use of more efficient fuels and so cut[s] the cost of operating the vehicle.” But it causes harm to brains and nervous systems, hence the widespread banning of this additive.

Volatile organic compounds [VOCs]—Various polluting gases given off from oil and gas wells; many are said to harm human health; they also play a role in global warming; section 12 (here) and II:352.

D. Oil companies, acronyms and localisms: Abu Dhabi Emirate

ADCO—Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Petroleum Operations Ltd.

ADNOC—Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.

EAD—Environment Agency Abu Dhabi, whose air quality reports are referenced in the Emirati chapter (see II:540n).

Halliburton—Listed in Abu Dhabi yellow pages under “Oilfield Equipment Suppliers” and “Oilfield Contractors & Services.”

Takreer—“In U.A.E. that name is very biggest company,” said my interpreter Ravindra. The acronym meant “Abu Dhabi Oil Refinery Company.”

Taqa—Abu Dhabi National Energy Co. PJSC.

E. Units and conversions

Barrel—“Conversion factors vary depending on oil source.”

1 barrel of petroleum = 42 gallons = 159 liters

“To convert t/d to bbl/d, multiply by 7.”

Barrels per metric ton of refined product:

Asphalt: 6.06

Residual fuel oil: 6.77

Kerosene: 7.75

Jet fuel: 8.00

“Motor gasoline”: 8.50

“Natural gasoline”: 10.00

Specific gravity—For many technical computations, the weight of a given amount of the compound, divided by the weight of the same amount of water. For a gas, the specific gravity is usually a volumetric comparison with air.

The API gravity [see here] of an oil (expressed in degrees) = (141.5/specific gravity at 60°F) − 131.5.

Here are some APIs: of asphalt, 11; of heavy crude, 18; of light crude; 36; of gasoline, 60.

Ton of oil equivalent (toe)—“A tonne of oil equivalent is defined as 107 kcal (41.868 GJ), a convenient measure because it is approximately the net heat content of one ton of average crude oil. This unit is used by the IEA/OECD in its energy balances.” (Note that “tonne” = “metric ton”; see here.) For more discussion of this unit, see section 4E, here.

Since 1 kcal = 3.968 BTUs, 1 toe = 39,680,000 BTUs.

1 toe = 1.429 tce [ton of coal equivalent] = 10 tons TNT equivalent = 11.6 MWh [megawatt-hours], or about 40 million BTUs.

“One metric ton of crude oil varies from about 1.5 per cent to 8 per cent above the value of 107 kilocalories, which is frequently referred to as one ton of oil equivalent.” 1 mto[e] generates 4.4 terawatt-hours “in a modern power station.”

7. Solar Energy and Light

Most of this section’s longer entries were written by Dr. Canek Fuentes-Hernandez, my paid reader of the solar chapter (see p. 161). When I was finishing Carbon Ideologies, solar power seemed our best hope. Hence the length and detail in these entries.

1 [gram-mean] calorie per square centimeter = 1 langley = 3.685 BTUsft2

Adoption constraints—“The problem[s] with the adoption of solar energy and other renewables (i.e. wind), are first and foremost related to economic and energy policy (e.g. how do we define the cost-of-power, economic subsidies, incentives to move from a centralized to a distributed model of energy production, decommissioning existing resources, etc., not to mention politics). From a technological perspective, the grand challenge facing renewables relates not to the abundance of these resources or the conversion efficiency of the associated technologies, but to electricity storage and capacity; since the grid demands are out-of-phase with the daily cycle of solar insolation, weather conditions and seasonal variations[;] and customers expect a reliable electricity output on demand.”

Blackbody—see here.

Candle and candela—“The candela (cd) is defined as the luminous intensity . . . in the horizontal direction of a standard lamp which is made and used in accordance with U.S. Bureau of Standards specifications . . . The luminous intensity of an ordinary sperm candle . . . in the horizontal direction is about 1 candle (cd).” “Every 1-cd point source of light emits 12.57 lm” = lumens.

1 international candle = 1/60 × [brightness of a blackbody [see here] at the temperature of the freezing point of platinum = 1,769° Celsius]

Foot-candle—A lumen per square foot. A measure of visible light (used for engineering); hence not directly translatable into units of solar insolation. [The same obviously goes for lumens and luxes.]

However, 1 langley per minute = [approx.] 6,700 foot-candles

The relative brightnesses of moonlight and sunlight might respectively be 1/100 and 10,000 foot-candles.

1 langley = “1 calorie of radiation energy per square centimeter” = 1 cal-cm2 = 3.69 BTUs/ft2 = 4.184 × 104 J/m2

“Radiation of 1 langley [per minute] is a reasonable average value to take for a tilted surface under a cloudless sky.”

Over the course of an hour, 1 square foot receiving 1 langley per minute will take in 221 BTUs.

1 langley per minute = 221 BTUs per square foot per hour = 3.683 BTUs/ft2-min

Lumen—1 lumen [lm] is “that quantity of incident luminous flux” to produce 1 foot-candle on each point of a 1-square-foot surface. The efficiency of an electric light source is currently defined lumens per watt (of source divided by output).

Efficiency of Edison’s lamp, 1879: 1.5 lm/watt

Efficiency of a standard warm white 100-watt fluorescent Mazda lamp, ca. 1958: 52.0 lm/watt

Lux—A lumen per square meter.

1 lux = 0.1 foot-candles

Solar absorption—“Electromagnetic radiation interacts with matter by being either absorbed, reflected or transmitted. Generally speaking, for the purpose of energy generation, we need electromagnetic radiation to be absorbed[, and it can be only] . . . if the energy carried by the electromagnetic field is equal to the energy associated with the transition from a ground state to an excited state of the material. The discrete nature of the absorption of electromagnetic radiation, is thus akin to the process of buying a product [i]n a store. We need to have the exact amount of money (electromagnetic energy) to purchase a specific product (excited state) for the store (the body that is absorbing the energy) to take it and make the monetary transaction. Each store has a wide variety of products of different prices . . . representing the band gap of the material. If we do not have enough money to buy this product, we can only go through the store without buying anything and the store becomes ‘transparent’ to us.

“Upon absorption, the energy contained by the electromagnetic radiation field generates excess energy in the material which needs to be dissipated; nature likes thermodynamic equilibrium . . . Two distinct phenomena can be identified which are always present when electromagnetic radiation is absorbed by a material.

“[1] Electromagnetic radiation generates heat. Energy absorbed by a body is dissipated through molecular or atomic vibrations leading to the generation of heat (radiant heat); causing an increased temperature, which in turn, increases the intensity of electromagnetic power radiated until thermodynamic equilibrium is achieved. Because molecules have vibrational excited states with energies in the infrared and microwaves . . . the process of “absorbing heat” from a source of electromagnetic energy (i.e. the sun) is most efficient at these, longer, wavelengths; which is why we use microwaves to heat our food instead of visible light.

“[2] Electromagnetic radiation generates . . . more electromagnetic radiation: Photoluminescence.

“Absorbed energy is dissipated through the reemission of electromagnetic energy. This process is never lossless and the reemitted electromagnetic radiation carries less energy than the incoming one. Energy loss is converted into heat and results in an increased temperature. Since molecules have electronic excited states with energies in the visible and UV range, the process of photoluminescence is most efficient at these wavelength ranges.

“We can generally say that the first phenomenon can be optimized to provide an avenue for the conversion of solar energy to thermal energy. Despite sounding counterintuitive, the second process can be optimized to convert solar energy directly into electricity. However, optimizing these two types of energy conversions require[s] materials with very different properties.”

Solar constant—The rate at which solar energy strikes the top of our atmosphere:

2 langleys per minute = 2 cal/cm2-min = 7.37 BTUs/ft2-min

Solar efficiency—“Modern concentrated solar systems . . . have maximum theoretical efficiency values (limited by Carnot’s principle, which states that the maximum efficiency of a thermal engine operating between a low temperature reservoir and a high temperature reservoir is given by one minus the ratio of these two temperatures) of around 70% times the efficiency of the solar collection by the receiver, which can be typically high.”

Solar energy—“Solar energy impinges [on] the earth in the form of electromagnetic radiation; not heat. Electromagnetic radiation is a physical phenomenon that we identify as ‘light’ in the narrow spectral window that our eyes perceive. ‘Light’ nevertheless represents only a very small portion of the total electromagnetic spectrum emitted by the sun, or any black body radiator for that matter. Cosmic rays, X-rays, ultraviolet light, infrared light, microwaves, radio, etc. are all manifestations of electromagnetic radiation, only differentiated by the amount of energy they carry (higher energy goes with higher frequencies or shorter wavelengths).”

8. Environmental Terms Relevant to Resource Extraction

Aquifer—“A rock with both enough porosity and permeability to conduct significant volumes of water to a well or spring.”

FLIR camera—Forward looking infrared camera. Used (especially by environmentalists) to photograph otherwise invisible chemical plumes from fracking wells.

9. Physical Data

For a few specific heats, see section 2, here.

1 lb per U.S. gallon = 119.8264 kg per cubic meter = 0.1198264 kg per liter

Hence 1 kg per liter = 8.345 lb per gal

A. Weights and densities of fuels

This information will allow you to compare, for instance, the energy and greenhouse gas emissions of a cubic foot of methane and a gallon of gasoline.

Density of aviation fuel: 48.3817–52.4395 lbs/cu ft = 775–840kg per liter

Carbon Ideologies uses the arithmetical average: 807.5 g/L = 6.73 lb/gal.

Light distillate 850 kg/cc [= 7.09 lb/gal]

Medium distillate 876 kg/cc [= 7.31 lb/gal]

Density of butane: 0.1548 lbs/cu ft = 0.0206 lbs/gal = 2.48 kg/m3

Density of carbon: 165 lbs/cu ft = 2.25 g/cc

Density of coal:

anthracite: 1.4 to 1.8 g/cm3 [another source gives 97 lbs/cu ft]

bituminous: 1.2 to 1.5 g/cm3 [another source gives 84 lbs/cu ft]

lignite: [1.0 g/cm3]; 78 lbs/cu ft

Density of diesel fuel: 7.036 lbs/gal. Carbon Ideologies plugs in this figure for computations involving commercial fuel oil, unspecified “crude oil,” etc.

Density of gasoline: 45 lbs/cu ft = 6.152 lbs/gal [In the mid-20th century this value was for a heavier grade; for the lighter stuff, density was 5.935 lbs/gal.]

Density of hydrogen at standard temperature and pressure (STP): 0.005614 lbs/cu ft = 0.0899 (or, if you like, 9.0 × 10−2) grams per liter or g/cm3

Density of “common engine kerosene” (1911): 6.7 lbs/gal. A 1958 figure was 6.8 lbs/gal.

Density of manufactured gas: Approximated by methane’s. A Carbon Ideologies plug-in.

Density of methane at STP: 0.04163 lbs/cu ft = 0.716 g/liter

Density of natural gas: Approximated by methane’s. Another Carbon Ideologies plug-in.

Specific gravity of Pittsburgh natural gas (@ air = 1.0): 0.61

Specific gravity of “coal gas”: 0.42

Density of light Mexican crude oil [per PEMEX] = 52.127–55.748 lbs/cu ft = 835–893 kg/m3

Density of peat blocks: 0.84 g/cm3

Density of plutonium: 1235.971 lbs/cu ft = 19.84 g/cm3

Density of propane: 0.12548 lbs/cu ft = 0.01639 lbs/gal = 2.01 kg/m3

Density of uranium hexafluoride: 317.0915 lbs/cu ft = 5.09 g/cm3 [another source gives 13.00 kg/m3]

Density of uranium-235: 1183.642 lbs/cu ft = 19 g/cm3

B. Weights and densities of other substances

Density of air: 0.0807 lb/cu ft at 32° F

Density of steam at 212° F: 0.588 kg/m3

Density of carbon dioxide at STP: 1.977 g/cm3

Density of PBXN-109 aluminized explosive: 1.662 g/cm3

Density of TNT: 1.654 g/cm3

Density of water: 62.4245 lbs/cu ft = 8.34 lbs/gal at 39.1° F

10. Chemical Abbreviations

C—Carbon.

C-14—A radioisotope used for “carbon dating” of ancient dead materials.

C6H12O6—Glucose, the chemical building block of cellulose.

C6H10O5—Cellulose.

CH4—Methane, a dangerous greenhouse gas (commonly produced by anaerobic decomposition), commonly associated with garbage, sewage, rice farming and coal mining—where it can cause lethal explosions. Also, perhaps the cleanest-combusting fossil fuel—but a far worse global warming agent than CO2 when it enters the atmosphere uncombusted. See II:307.

CO—Carbon monoxide. A common emission from incomplete fossil fuel combustion; in other words, a typical vehicle-caused pollutant. Both a greenhouse gas with moderate warming power and a precursor (see here) whose indirect effect is to increase levels of other GHGs.

CO2—Carbon dioxide. The star of the show.

CO3=—Carbonate. [The minus signs indicate that this is a negatively charged ion.] From the simplified perspective of Carbon Ideologies, the carbon-oxygen portion of certain carbon compounds. Dr. Pieter Tans to WTV, explaining why a runaway greenhouse effect to Venusian conditions hopefully will not occur: “The Venus atmosphere is almost entirely composed of CO2 [no subscript in original] . . . On Earth almost all of that carbon is in rocks, in the form of solid Ca/Mg carbonates.”

Ca—Calcium.

CaCO3—Calcium carbonate. The main ingredient in limestone, oyster shell, marble, coral, chalk, etc. Employed in West Virginia to deacidify mine runoff in streams and drinking water. A buffer against runaway climate change. F. W. Taylor, 2001: “Most of the carbon dioxide that was originally outgassed . . . no longer resides in the atmosphere; it has been lost by processes that have led to the formation of carbonate deposits (mostly limestone), coal and petroleum.” See CO3− above.

Mg—Magnesium.

MgCO3—Magnesium carbonate. Oxidation will create this coating on exposed Mg.

CaCO3,• MgCO3 —Dolomite, a commonly occurring building stone.

Cs—Cesium. A relevant headline from Fukushima: Cesium levels in water, plankton baffle scientists. See Table 1, here.

Cs-134—A common fission product, prevalent in nuclear waste. Less prevalent at Fukushima, shorter-lived [half-life = 20.65 years] than Cs-137, and probably less hazardous.

Cs-137—Another common fission product, also present in nuclear waste, and also released at Fukushima, where it was especially dangerous. Its longer half-life [30.2 years] meant that it contaminated that area much longer than Cs-134.

GHG—Greenhouse gas[es]. For a cursory list, see the table of Comparative One-Century Global Warming Potentials here.

H—Hydrogen, the most common element in the universe.

H2—The configuration of a hydrogen molecule: 2 hydrogen atoms together.

H2O—Water. As atmospheric vapor, a significant global warming agent.

3H or T—Tritium. A dangerous but relatively shortlived radioisotope, used to make certain fission bombs. Released in vast and continuing quantities at Fukushima. See Table 1, here.

H2S—Hydrogen sulfide. A decay product of certain proteins; a combustion product of some coals.

H2SO4—Sulfuric acid. A ubiquitous industrial chemical.

I-131—Iodine-131, a shortlived fission product of nuclear reactors. Released at Fukushima, with possible implications in increased thyroid risk, especially for children. See Table 1, here.

K—Potassium, the manufacture of whose fertilizer compounds [potashes] emitted relatively small amounts of greenhouse gases but required considerable [in our day fossil-fuel-powered] thermodynamic work.

Kr-85—A shortlived radioactive krypton isotope commonly emitted by nuclear power plants. Released in the Fukushima accident.

Mol—Mole[s]. For definition, see heat of combustion, here, and also see section 12 beginning here.

N—Nitrogen, the most common atmospheric element. Essential in fertilizer compounds, because there can be no proteins without it.

N2—The configuration of a nitrogen molecule: 2 nitrogen atoms together. In the atmosphere N2 is innocuous.

N2O—Nitrous oxide, a dangerous greenhouse gas. Like CH4, a greenhouse gas linked to sewage, compost, etcetera; also a vehicle pollutant and a dental anesthetic.

NF3—Nitrogen trifluoride, a dangerous greenhouse gas.

NH3—Ammonia, a common greenhouse gas with very low warming power. Associated with nitric acid manufacture, decomposition of living things, oxygenless heating of bituminous coal. A refrigerant. Ammonium compounds supplied nitrogen to soils in such fertilizer forms as:

NH4NO3—Ammonium nitrate

(NH4)2SO4—Ammonium sulfate

NOx or NOx—Nitrogen oxides; their plurality is represented by the “x.” Like CO, they are both greenhouse gases and precursors (see here). Confusingly enough, at times they also exert cooling effects.

O—Oxygen.

O2—The configuration of an oxygen molecule: 2 oxygen atoms together.

MOX—Mixed oxide nuclear reactor fuel (plutonium + uranium oxides).

P—Phosphorus, another agricultural necessity. The manufacture of phosphate fertilizers released significant CO2.

Pu—Plutonium, an artificially produced “transuranium element” (small natural quantities have also existed). A decay product of U-239. [For various Pu isotopes, see Table 2, here.]

Ra—Radium. This radioactive element occurs in ores of U, but in such small concentrations that its isolation there is impractical.

Rn—Radon. A naturally occurring radioactive gas in soils, basements—and, of course, uranium tailings. A decay product of, most significantly, U-238.

S—Sulfur.

SF6—Sulfur hexafluoride, a scarce but very dangerous greenhouse gas used in various manufacturing processes.

SO2—Sulfur dioxide. The best-known combustion product of sulfur. Released by volcanoes, fuel combustion and many industrial processes. Used to make H2SO4. In small doses, a cooling agent; in larger ones, a warming agent. See II:26.

Si—Silicon.

Sr-90—A very dangerous radioisotope that concentrates in bones. Released in the Fukushima accident. See Table 1, here.

TiO2—Titanium dioxide, a white pigment applied in toothpastes, paints and papers. The manufacture of TiO2 releases significant amounts of CO2.

U—Uranium. This element and all its isotopes are radioactive.

U-235—A rare isotope, artificially produced to make atom bombs and enriched reactor fuel.

U-238—Uranium’s most common isotope. Can be used to make Pu.

U-239—An unstable uranium isotope.

UF6—A common nuclear reactor fuel.

Xe-133—A shortlived radioactive xenon isotope commonly emitted by nuclear power plants. Released in the Fukushima accident.

11. Lakhs, Crores and Other Enumeration Terms, with Standard Conversions

Ar—[Japan.] An archaic unit of measurement; none of my interpreters could define it.

Celsius to Fahrenheit—(9∕5° C + 32)

Crore—[Southeast Asia.] 107 [= 10 million].

Division nomenclature:

X per Y [for example, miles per gallon, or milligrams emitted per liter combusted] = X/Y = X Y−1 [as in: “It has been reported that 20 to 100 Tg y−1 of CH4 is emitted from paddy fields”].

Exa—1018 [= 1 quintillion]. One exajoule [EJ] = 1018 joules = 0.9481 quadrillion BTUs = 0.948 quads (see here).

Fahrenheit to Celsius—5∕9 (F°−32)

Foot = 0.3048 meters

1 square foot = 0.092903 square meters

1 BTU per minute per square foot = 189.226 watts/m2

1 cubic foot = 0.0283166 cubic meters

Gallon to liter:

1 U.S. gallon = 0.83 Imperial gallons = 3.78 liters. All of these measures were commonly used for fuel. But only U.S. gallons were employed in this book.

Giga—109 [= 1 billion].

1 gigagram (Gg) = 1 metric kiloton (kt or KT) = 1,000 metric tons = 2,204,600 lbs

Gram:

1 g = 0.000001 metric ton = 1/453.59 lb

Hectare—10,000 square meters = 2.47 acres

Kilo—103 [= 1,000].

Kilogram—103 grams, or 2.2046 pounds.

This holds for gases as well as for liquids. Methane’s density of 0.716 grams per liter, or 0.000716 kilograms per liter, thus works out to 0.00597502 pounds per gallon.

Lakh—[Southeast Asia.] 105 [= 100,000].

Liter to gallon:

1 liter = 0.265 U.S. gallon = 0.220 Imperial gallons

Maund—82.6 pounds [in the former British Indian Empire. In other parts of Southeast Asia—not relevant to this volume—it can be less].

Mega—106 [= 1 million].

1 megagram (Mg) = 1 metric ton [q.v.]

1 metric megaton [MT] = 2,204,620,000 lbs

Meter = 3.28 feet.

1 square meter = 10.758 square feet

1 watt/m2 = 0.00528469 BTUs/min/ft2

1 cubic meter = 35.315 cubic feet = 6.289 barrels [of oil and other such fuels].

1 barrel = 42 U.S. gallons = 159 liters

Micro—10−6 [= 1 millionth], as in “microsievert,” a millionth of a Sv.

Milli—10−3 [= 1 thousandth], as in “millisievert,” a thousandth of a Sv.

Peta—1015 [= 1 quadrillion]. 1015 BTUs is a quad, or 1 Q-BTU.

1 petagram = 1 Pg = 1 quadrillion grams = 2.2 × 1012 pounds. [Pg are common units in national and global greenhouse inventories.]

One petajoule [PJ] = 1015 [= 1 quadrillion] joules = 9.481 × 1011 BTUs = 0.000948 quads (see here).

Pound = 453.59 grams.

1 lb/cu ft = 0.0160 g/cm2

[Pressure conversion: 1 psi = 0.00689457 mPa]

1 lb/gal = 119.8264 kg/m3 = 0.1198264 kg/liter, “since there are 1,000 liters in 1 m3.”

Tera—1012 [= 1 trillion]. 1,000,000,000,000.

1 teragram = 1 Tg = 1.0 × 1012 grams = 1 million metric tons. [Tg and million metric tons are often used to detail greenhouse gas emissions.]

1 Tg = 1,102,311 short tons = 2.2 × 109 pounds.

1 terawatt [TW] = 56,884,000,000 [56.9 billion] BTUs/min.

Ton—There are three kinds. [The word “tonne” usually refers to a metric ton but may sometimes mean “long ton.”]

Short ton—2,000 lbs = 0.907 metric tonnes.

Metric ton—1,000 kg or 2,204.6 lbs = 0.985 long ton = 1.1023 short ton.

1 kg/metric ton [often seen in expressions of emission factors] = 1 pound per thousand pounds, a ratio of 0.001

1 metric ton per terajoule [another typical expression of emission factor] = 1 pound per 430,955 BTUs

1 g = 0.000001 metric ton

Long ton—2,240 lbs = 1.0158 metric tons = 1.12 short tons.

Tsubo—[Japan.] First referring to a little enclosed garden, this word came to mean the area occupied by two ordinary tatami mats side by side: 3.306 square meters.

Years to minutes—To estimate the power required per minute to make possible a year’s energy consumption, divide the latter by 525,600. For example, consumption of 1 exajoule per year requires [948,000,000,000,000 / 525,600] = 1,803,652,968 BTUs per minute.

Years to seconds—Divide by 31,536,000 [see previous entry].

12. Climate Change

Aerosols—Tiny droplets or particles capable of affecting global warming. When I was writing this book, much remained to be understood about them. [For one case, see “About Sulfur,” II:26.]

Carbon dioxide—“Release . . . from stationary and mobile combustion processes is far and away the principal” GHG, “. . . accounting for 87.9% of greenhouse gas emissions.” “The most important GHG by far is CO2, accounting for 82% of total EU-28 emissions in 2012 excluding LULUCF.”

Carbon equivalents—Some sources “may present CO2 emissions in tonnes of carbon instead of tonnes of CO2. To convert from tonnes of carbon, multiply by 44/12, which is the molecular weight ratio of CO2 to C.” In other words, the O2 gets deducted. For molecular weight [or formula weight], see mole, p. 596.

Carbonic acid—H2CO3. “The acid assumed to be formed when carbon dioxide is dissolved in water; its salts are termed carbonates. The name is also given to the neutral carbon dioxide from its power of forming salts with oxides . . .” And this, of course, is the agent of ocean acidification. [See CO3−, here.]

CFCs—Chlorofluorocarbons, used as refrigerants, low-viscosity cleaning agents for semiconductors, and “blowing agents” in the production of styrofoam-like substances. In the upper stratosphere, CFCs get broken down by ultraviolet radiation into chlorine atoms, each of which can attack 10,000 ozone molecules. (CFCs also absorb infrared rays and therefore cause temperature increases. But global warming was not then widely acknowledged by governments.) Alarm over the ozone hole above Antarctica led to an attempt to limit CFC levels. This effort was the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. This had 24 signatories when it came into force on January 1, 1989; by July 1992, there were 81 signers. The strategy was to replace CFCs by HFCs and HCFCs. For CFCs, see here.

Climate—“The relevant quantities are most often surface variables such as temperature, precipitation and wind. Classically the period for averaging these variables is 30 years, as defined by the World Meteorological Organization. Climate in a wider sense also includes not just the mean conditions, but also the associated statistics (frequency, magnitude, persistence, trends, etc.) . . .”

Climate change—“Includes global warming as well as other long-term climatic effects.”

Climate change evidence—From the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: “Global mean surface air temperatures over land and oceans have increased over the last 100 years [emphasis in original]. Temperature measurements . . . show a continuing increase in the heat content of the oceans. Analyses based on measurements of the Earth’s radiative budget suggest a small positive energy imbalance . . . Observations from satellites and in situ measurements show . . . significant reductions in . . . most land ice masses and in Arctic sea ice. The oceans’ uptake of CO2 is having a significant effect on the chemistry of sea water . . . [However:] Climate varies naturally . . . and quantifying precisely the nature of this variability is . . . characterized by considerable uncertainty.”

DOC—Degradable organic carbon. Calculated in greenhouse inventories.

Forcings (or “radiative forcings” = RF)—“Influences on global temperature,” both natural and manmade. Sometimes called “global warming forcings,” sometimes “climactic” or “radiative forcings.” As late as 2002, a weather and climate encyclopaedia could say: “It seems likely that natural changes in solar output may be the most important cause of climatic forcing, rather than the forecast changes in CO2 concentration.” A minus value indicates that something cools rather than warms. Often measured in watts per square meter, forcings will here be expressed in Carbon Ideologies’s default units, the BTUs per square foot.

1 watt per square meter = 0.00528 [= 5.288 × 10−3] BTU per minute per square foot

COOLING:

Aerosols: −0.00634 [BTUs/min/ft2]

Reflection of radiation into space: −0.0011

WARMING:

Waste heat from power plants, cars, air conditioners, electronic appliances, etc.: + 0.000148

Ozone: + 0.00159

(In the stratosphere, ozone can actually have a cooling effect.)

Radiative forcing from greenhouse gases × climate sensitivity (°C per W/m2)* = expected warming.

Carbon dioxide: + 0.00898

These are oldish numbers. As greenhouse gas concentrations increased, so did the forcing. Let me quote the 2013 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: “The total anthropogenic ERF [effective radiative forcing, whose calculations “allow all physical variables to respond to perturbations except for those concerning the ocean and sea ice”] over the Industrial Era is 2.3 (1.1 to 3.3) W m−2. It is certain that the total anthropogenic ERF is positive. Total anthropogenic ERF has increased more rapidly since 1970 than during prior decades . . . Due to increased concentrations, R[adiative] F[orcing] from W[ell-]M[ixed] G[reen]H[ouse] G[ases]s [q.v.] has increased [from] . . . 0.18 to 0.22 W m−2 (8%) since . . . 2005. The RF of WMGHG is 2.83 . . . W m−2 [= 0.0149 in our units]. The majority of this change . . . is due to increases in the carbon dioxide . . . RF of nearly 10%. The Industrial Era RF for CO2 alone is 1.82 . . . , and CO2 is the component with the largest global mean RF. Over the last decade RF of CO2 has an average growth rate of 0.27 . . . per decade. Emissions of CO2 have made the largest contribution to the increased anthropogenic forcing in every decade since the 1960s.”

In a letter to me, Dr. Pieter Tans of NOAA estimated that supposing “reckless” burning of fossil fuels, by the end of the 21st century “globally averaged climate forcing from CO2 alone would then be 3.7 W/m2, or ~1.5% of all radiation absorbed from the sun.” [No sub- or superscript in original.] In our units: RF = 0.0195.

Total greenhouse gases: + 0.0143 − 0.0153

Forcing from greenhouse gases × climate sensitivity (oC per W/m2) = expected warming.

Climate sensitivity = 0.5 to 1.2° C per W/m2

At the low value of 0.5, radiative forcing = 2.9 × 0.5 = a 1.4° C temperature increase. The average increase since the Industrial Revolution began in 1790 is 0.8°C; the other 0.6°C is delayed while lurking in our oceans.

The average increase since the Industrial Revolution began in 1790 is 0.8° C; the other 0.6° C is delayed while lurking in our oceans.

Freon—“A trade name for members of a group of aliphatic organic compounds containing the elements carbon and fluorine, and, in many cases, other halogens (especially chlorine) and hydrogen.” After the basic patent ended, they were called CFCs. But not all CFCs were Freons.

GHGs—Greenhouse gases (a standard abbreviation in inventories and reports).

Global warming—“Refers to surface-temperature increases.” In 2016 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency informed us: “The Earth’s average land and ocean surface temperature has increased by about 1.2 to 1.9 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880. The last three decades have each been the warmest decade successively at the Earth’s surface since 1850.”

Global warming potential—“A quantified measure of the globally averaged relative radiative forcing impacts of a particular greenhouse gas.” More concretely, a “measure of how much [solar] energy . . . 1 ton of a gas will absorb over a given period of time, relative to the . . . 1 ton of carbon dioxide.” The reference period customarily equaled 100 years. Given the widely varying atmospheric lifetimes of various warming agents, this interval, like any other, made for distorting compromises. For instance, CO2 continues its forcing work for at least 2 millennia. Methane lasts a mere 12 years, after which much of it becomes CO2. Hence, while the 20-year GWP of methane measures something like 86, its 100-year GWP is only 21 or 26, in which case its 1,000-year GWP must be less than 1.

Greenhouse effect—“The greenhouse effect is a natural phenomenon necessary for life on earth—without it, the planet’s average temperature would be 0 degrees, instead of 60 degrees, Fahrenheit . . . To date, there is no agreement in the scientific community that global warming due to an accelerated greenhouse effect is either underway or likely in the near future.”—National Coal Association, 1993. A quarter-century later, the scientific community had reached agreement, but carbon ideologues did not care. For the Venusian case, see here and II:643n.

Greenhouse gases—These trap longwave radiation, thereby heating up the planet. The most baneful ones include but are not limited to: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur hexafluoride, and various halocarbons, CFCs, and hydrochlorofluorocarbons. One powerful and often overlooked greenhouse gas is water vapor.

Halocarbons—“A collective term for the group of partially halogenated organic species, which includes the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), hydro-chlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), halons, methyl chloride and methyl bromide. Many of the halocarbons have large Global Warming Potentials. The chlorine and bromine-containing halocarbons are also involved in the depletion of the ozone layer.”

HCFCs—“The ideal CFC substitute must not harm the ozone layer, and must have a short atmospheric lifetime to ensure a low greenhouse warming potential (GWP).” So our chemists added a hydrogen atom, so that it could be “rapidly degraded to acids and CO2, which are both removed from the atmosphere by natural processes.” The notion of extra carbon dioxide and acid in our air is not especially pleasant, but from the standpoint of ozone conservation, HCFCs are an improvement. For instance, “the continued refrigeration use of HCFC-22 is based on its very low ozone depletion potential.” Moreover, this chemical’s GWP is “only” 5% of CFC-11’s—which, if I calculate correctly, makes it 200 times more dangerous than CO2. See here, here.

HFCs—“Halocarbons that contain only carbon, fluorine and hydrogen.” HCFCs contain the same plus chlorine. “Atmospheric HFC abundances are low and their contribution to RF is small relative to that of the CFCs and HCFCs . . . (less than 1% of the total by well-mixed GHGs . . .). As they replace CFCs and HCFCs phased out by the Montreal Protocol, however, their contribution to future climate forcing is projected to grow considerably in the absence of controls on global production.”

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—“Created by the W[orld] M[eterological] O[rganization] and the United Nations Environment Programme . . . back in 1988 . . . The leading international organization assessing climate change, its consequences, and our options concerning what to do about it.” Much of Carbon Ideologies relies on IPCC data.

International Energy Agency (IEA)—“Established in November 1974. Its primary mandate . . . is . . . two-fold: to promote energy security amongst its member countries through collective response to physical disruptions in oil supply, and provide authoritative research . . . on ways to ensure reliable, affordable and clean energy.” Carbon Ideologies sometimes makes use of IEA statistics.

Kyoto Protocol (or Accords)—A treaty requiring its signatories to inventory (in a consistent and “transparent” fashion) and begin to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and precursors. [My country’s President, who called himself “the decider,” pulled us out of the agreement.] It came into force in 2005 for more responsible nations, with the capability of adding to its scope by amendment. One such addition was nitrogen trifluoride.

Kyoto Gases [or “F Gases”]—All GHGs other than the main three (carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide). These together produced 1.8% of Germany’s emissions in 2006.

LULUCF—“Land use, land use change and forestry.” This line item on early-21st-century greenhouse gas inventories referred to carbon sequestrations (or releases) as a result of clearing forest land, planting trees, etcetera. LULUCF could either release or sequester carbon.

Methane—Releases of this dangerous GHG (4.4% of Germany’s emissions in 2006) are “caused primarily by animal husbandry, fuel distribution and landfill emissions,” not to mention rice farming. For more on this substance, see II:307.

Mole—A fundamental unit of chemistry. [Abbr.: “mol.”] 1 mole of any substance = 6.023 × 1023 atoms [or, as the case may be, molecules], which corresponds to its atomic mass [or for a compound its formula weight] in grams. Chemical reactions take place according to molar ratios. Since the gram-atomic weight of carbon is 12 and that of oxygen is 16, 12 g of C contains the same number of atoms as 16 g of O, or 32 g of O2: in all three cases, 1 mole. One mole of carbon dioxide results from the combination of 1 mole of C atoms and 1 mole of O2 molecules [= 2 moles of O atoms]. Molar proportions find utility in climatology, as for instance in this letter to WTV from Dr. Pieter Tans of NOAA (May 2017), on carbon dioxide versus methane: “Now the CH4 CO2 [no subscripts in original] comparison. Using averages for U.S. power plants, 1 kWh of electricity takes the burning [of] 25 mol of carbon in coal to CO2, while it takes only 10.3 mol of CH4 to burn to 10.3 mol of CO2. Therefore 14.7 mol of CO2 are kept out of the atmosphere per kWh of electric power.” See also heat of combustion in section 2, here.

Precursors—Substances such as carbon monoxide, ozone or volatile organic compounds, whose indirect effects on warming are greater than their direct effects, mostly because they bring about the formation of tropospheric ozone.

Nitrous oxide—Another actively perilous GHG, whose releases (5.8% of Germany’s emissions in 2006) are “caused primarily by agriculture,” especially from fertilizers and manure-heaps, and by “industrial processes and transport,” such as automobile exhaust. “Since [2005] N2O has overtaken CFC-12 as the third largest contributor to R[adiative] F[orcing].” For CFCs see 174ff.

Social cost of carbon [SCC]—Monetized estimate of the damage done from asthma, coal mine cave-ins, ocean acidification, etcetera. “Typical range”: $50–$260 per ton of carbon dioxide. “We are all paying this SCC, whether we know it or not.” The genius of most energy companies was to get the future to pay it.

Temperature extremes (1998 figures):

World’s lowest temperature: Vostok, Antarctica, July 21, 1983:

−89° C = −129° F

World’s highest temperature: Aziza, Libya, September 13, 1922:

+58° C = 136° F

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs, or N[on] M[ethane] VOCs)—Certain hydrocarbon “pollutants that are volatile at ambient air conditions . . . Major contributors (together with NOx and CO) to the formation of photochemical oxidants such as ozone.” See Precursors above.

Well-mixed greenhouse gases—Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and the halocarbons. At the time I wrote Carbon Ideologies, this group was accomplishing 99% of all global warming. “There are also several other substances that influence the global radiation budget but are short-lived and therefore not well-mixed. These substances include carbon monoxide . . . nitrogen dioxide . . . , sulfur dioxide . . . and tropospheric (ground level)” ozone. “Increasing atmospheric burdens of well-mixed GHS resulted in a 9% increase in their R[adiative] F[orcings] from 1998 to 2005.”

The risk-benefit analyses which hopefully justify this book’s existence depend on numbers. In “About Methane” (II:307) I placed a table called “Carbon Gas Emissions of Common Fuels.” Here is another table, with different sources; its values are (reassuringly) not too far off from those in that one.—In “Power and Climate” (here) I mentioned the 9 trillion BTUs required to furnish the American power grid with the electricity it needed at winter peak load capacity in 2013. Any number of fuels could have done that job; here are three, with nuclear glowing demurely at the end, just in case my reportage of Fukushima prejudiced you against that wonderful, wonderful option.

CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS OF VARIOUS FUELS WHEN PRODUCING 2013 AMERICAN WINTER PEAK ELECTRICAL LOAD CAPACITY

[= 9 trillion BTUs, of which 6 trillion are wasted in the power plant]*

in multiples of natural gas’s

All levels expressed in [total pounds of CO2 discharged to yield 9 trillion BTUs].

1

Natural gas, MOSTLY METHANE [1.061 billion lbs total CO2]. 377.18 million lbs needed, at 23,861 BTUs/lb. 2.813 lbs CO2 per lb burned.*

1.40

Diesel [1.489 billion]. 467.53 million lbs needed, at 19,250 BTUs/lb. 3.184 lbs CO2 per lb burned.

1.67

Bituminous coal (West Virginia) [1.776 billion]. 720 million lbs needed, at 12,500 BTUs/lb. 2.466 lbs CO2 per lb burned.

0

Nuclear fuel [0]. 24.69 lbs needed, at 364.5 billion BTUs/lb. 0 lbs CO2 per lb burned.

Source: Calculations by WTV, from tables here and here.

Finally, I must be permitted to say that the writing of this book has been the hatefullest and most painful duty I have ever performed. I have put to myself, a score of times, Lord Melbourne’s question, “Can’t you let it alone?”, and always I have had to answer, “No, I can’t.” And it’s as well I can’t. For, if I could I should be a contemptible creature.

William Digby, 1901

SOURCES, NOTES AND CALCULATIONS

Volume I: No Immediate Danger

To save space I have omitted attributions of newspaper articles not by named reporters. Thus, a certain feature datelined “Cadarache France REUTERS” is sourced simply: “The Japan Times, Wednesday, October 15, 2014, p. 1 (unattrib., ‘Sodium: the future of nuclear power or an element of doubt?’).” But if I cite the same article two or three times in widely separated areas, I repeat the full source information, for what I hope is the reader’s convenience.

Epigraph: “A crime is something someone else commits.”—John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent (New York: Penguin, 1996; orig. pub. 1961), p. 258.

0. When We Kept the Lights On

Epigraph: “We all have in us the ghosts of long-vanished things . . .”—Gene Wolfe, Sword & Citadel: The Second Half of The Book of the New Sun (New York: A Tom Doherty Associates Book, An Orb Edition, n.d.; The Citadel of the Autarch, orig. pub. 1982), p. 343.

My contractor friend: “We sure need a good Sierra snowpack this year . . .”—R.M., November 2014.

The drought in Washington State—The New York Times, Saturday, May 16, 2015, p. A9 (Kirk Johnson, “Emergency in Northwest Is Declared in Drought”).

“The peak of production in the United States should come about 1965 . . .” —Theodore Baumeister and Lionel S. Marks, ed., Mechanical Engineers’ Handbook, Revised by a Staff of Specialists (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1958), p. 9-5 (Eugene Ayres, “Sources of Energy”). In 1964 a solar proponent noted that “our present fossil fuels . . . are irreplaceable and they are being consumed at an increasingly rapid rate. Eventually they will become more expensive . . . ” (Farrington Daniels, Direct Use of the Sun’s Energy [New York: Ballantine, 1964], p. 253). Between 1980 and 1990, the price of crude oil, natural gas and bituminous coal actually fell by about half (in constant 1987 cents per million BTU). National Coal Association: Facts About Coal, 1993 (Washington, D.C.: National Coal Association, 1993), p. 68. [Henceforth cited: “National Coal Association.”]

“A Federal Power Commission staff study . . .”—Jim Leckie, Gil Masters, Harry Whitehouse and Lily Young, Other Homes and Garbage: Designs for Self-Sufficient Living (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1975), p. 75.

National Coal Association assessment of coal reserves—National Coal Association, p. 8.

“In 1999 my atlas advised me that oil might last another 40 years if we were lucky.”—The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World, 10th ed. (London: Times Book Group Ltd., 1999), p. 46 (“The World Today: Energy”): “If rates of energy consumption remained constant then it has been estimated that proven oil reserves would last forty years, natural gas sixty years and coal three hundred years. However, because energy rates are increasing these estimates may need revision.”

“Iran announced intentions to increase her gas output by 40% . . . ”—The Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, April 28, 2015, p. C4 (Benoît Faucon, “Iran Hopes for Gas Boom”).

Mr. Jonathan Lee was “as excited as a rookie . . .” + China and India were seizing “a bargain opportunity . . .”—The New York Times, Thursday, April 2, 2015 (national ed.), pp. B1, B4 (Stanley Reed, “Oil Glut Benefits Those Who Ferry It”). There were now 600 supertankers that could carry two million barrels of oil apiece.

Philip’s views on global warming: As stated in 2014. What I heard in North Carolina, after another year of heat records, was that there did seem to be global warming, but it was not necessarily manmade, and since natural processes tend to be cyclical, it just might correct itself.

Footnote: “It’s not that I don’t care about global warming . . .”—Linda Tirado, Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America (New York: Putnam, 2014), pp. 153–54.

“For more than 40 years, Homer City has spewed sulfur dioxide . . .”—The Charleston [West Virginia] Gazette, May 28, 2014, pp. 1A, 9A (Dina Cappiello and Kevin Begos, “‘War on Coal’: Dirty power plant to clean up its act”).

“Pounded Again, Coastal Town May Consider a Retreat”—The New York Times, Thursday, January 29, 2015, p. A13 (article by Jess Bidgood). The town is Scituate, Massachusetts, and the speaker Patricia A. Vinchesi, “the town administrator.”

That “colorless gas with a faintly pungent odor . . .”—Jacqueline I. Kroschwitz, exec. ed., and Mary Howe-Grant, ed., Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology, 4th ed. (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1994), vol. 5 (“Carbon and Graphite Fibers” to “Chlorocarbons and Chlorohydro-carbons-C1”), p. 35 (“carbon dioxide”).

The West Virginian pastor: “Here you do see the smokestacks . . .”—Pastor Bob Blevins, whose stories will be fully cited in the coal chapter “America’s Best Friend.”

Bangladeshi interviewees: “no alternative” to coal extraction—Interviews in Barapukuria, May 2015. See the coal chapter “Today or Tomorrow It Will Have to Come Out.”

The old West Virginian: “I’m sure it’s got something to do with the situation on TV . . .”—Mr. Arvel Wyatt, interviewed in his Flat Iron Drugstore in Welch, April 2014.

“My son works in the coalfields of southern West Virginia . . .”—Bluefield [West Virginia] Daily Telegraph, Tuesday, April 8, 2014, p. A4 (“Opinion” section), Bobby May, Harley, VA (“Support friends of coal, not Obama”). [The comma where a semicolon should be is printed here as in the original.] The following encomium (a variation on the formula) is especially touching: The Welch News [McDowell County, West Virginia], Volume 90, Number 033, Friday Evening, March 28, 2014, Special Coal Edition, Section C, p. 4B (“In Tribute to our Coal Miners”), to John Presley, from his wife and three daughters: “Thank you for the many years you worked in the coal mines risking your life so we could have a better life.”

“In 1971 China derived 40 percent of its energy . . .”—The Wall Street Journal, Saturday/Sunday, April 12–13, 2014, p. A13 (“Notable & Quotable: From environmental writer Bjorn Lomborg’s ‘How Green Policies Hurt the Poor’ for the Spectator (U.K.), April 5”).

The Russian woman on Saint Petersburg winters—“Masha” (tour guide), interviewed in her city in June 2015.

“As concerns the popular impression . . .”—The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed. (New York: Encyclopaedia Britannica Co., 1910), vol. VI (CHÂTELET to CONSTANTINE), p. 424 (“climate”). [This version henceforth cited: “Britannica, 11th ed.”]

My experience in Mexicali, and the taxi driver’s rejoinder—Last week of May 2016.

The cab driver from Algiers—Interviewed in his taxi, February 2016.

The Sierra hiker—This was my friend Ben Pax, interviewed July 2016.

The Bangladeshi businessman—Interviewed in Dhaka, June 2015.

The woman on the Amtrak platform—Interviewed in November 2014.

“When a decision affects . . . a million people . . .”—“FC”: The Unabomber Manifesto: Industrial Society and Its Future (Berkeley, California: Jolly Roger Press, 1995), p. 37 (para. 117).

Decrease in price of crude oil (from $107 a barrel in June 2014 to under $50 a barrel in January 2015), Time’s announcement about big cars, decline in hybrid sales and solar stocks—Time, vol. 185, no. 3, February 2, 2015, pp. 34, 38–39 (various reporters, “Economy: The Cost of Cheap Gas”).

“The Office’s end goal . . .”—The Welch News [McDowell County, West Virginia], Volume 90, Number 033, Friday Evening, March 28, 2014, Special Coal Edition, p. 8B (Patrick Morrissey, Attorney General of West Virginia, “Coal Must Be a Part of the Nation’s Future”).

The feeble occupant of the White House—In his second term, that President finally acted strong: Shocking environmentalists, he opened up Alaskan coastal waters to oil drilling.

“There’s this notion that there’s something I might have done . . .”—The New York Times, September 8, 2016, p. A18 (cont’d from p. A1: Julie Hirschfield Davis, Mark Landler and Coral Davenport, “Obama on Climate Change: ‘The Trends Are Terrifying’”).

Obama “speaks as though the Earth’s climate ends and begins at the shores of the United States . . .”—Randy Smith, a delegate from the 53rd district who was also a coal miner, writing in to the [Charleston, West Virginia] Sunday Gazette-Mail, June 15, 2014, pp. 1E, 4E (Randy Smith, “casualties of war”).

Footnote: Here is another assertion of convenient powerlessness. A West Virginian politician who will occasionally make pronouncements in Carbon Ideologies explained [Coal Valley News, Wednesday, June 11, 2014, p. A4 (Nick Rahall, U.S. Congressman, “EPA wrong on economics, wrong on science”)]: “The NSPS [New Source Performance Standards] rule hinges on EPA’s claim that Carbon Capture and Sequestration is an available technological option, ready to be used to solve our emissions challenges. This is just hokum, and . . . undermines the public’s trust in an agency that justifies its actions as being driven by science.” Of course, Rahall himself proposed nothing whatsoever “to solve our emissions challenges.”

Tale of the Wisconsin “agency that manages thousands of acres of state land” (the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands)—The New York Times, Friday, April 10, 2015, p. A12 (Julie Bosman, “Agency Bans Activism on Climate”). A bemusing bookend to the foregoing: The Spokesman-Review [Spokane, Washington], Saturday, April 12, 2014, p. B4 (Charles Krauthammer, “Stop spread of totalitarian impulse”): “Two months ago, a petition bearing more than 110,000 signatures was delivered to the Washington Post demanding a ban on any article questioning global warming . . . the left is entering a new phase of ideological agitation—no longer trying to win the debate but stopping debate altogether . . . The proper word for that attitude is totalitarian . . . Sometimes the word comes from on high, as when the president of the United States declares the science of global warming to be ‘settled.’ Anyone who disagrees is then branded ‘anti-science.’ And better still, a ‘denier’—a brilliantly chosen calumny meant to impute to the climate skeptic the opprobrium normally reserved for the hatemongers and crackpots who deny the Holocaust.”

The Pope’s “key policy document which is expected to blame mankind for climate change”—The Times [U.K.], Middle East and Asia ed., Wednesday, April 29, 2015, p. 10 (Tom Kington, Vatican, “Row over papal vow on climate change”).

Divestment from coal—International New York Times, Saturday–Sunday, June 6–7, 2015, p. 9 (John Schwartz, “Climate fears prompt giant Norway fund to drop coal”). “Norway’s $890 billion government pension fund” was “the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world.”

Footnote: The Missouri Farm Bureau President’s complaints—The Wall Street Journal, Saturday/Sunday, December 5–6, 2015, p. A11 (“Opinion” section, “Cross Country” by Blake Hurst: “How Wind Farms Blow Away Rights on Real Farms”).

“low level radiation is probably less ‘dangerous’ than the emissions from burning coal.”—David E. Lilienthal, Atomic Energy, A New Start (New York: Harper & Row, 1980), p. 65.

“Yes, I do want to have children . . .”—Ansel Elkins to WTV, letter of October 21, 2014.

Re: performing risk-benefit analyses—One way to quantify risk is with the micromort, “the unit representing a one-in-a-million chance of dying.” “An average person on an average day faces a risk of roughly one micromort from non-natural causes.” Scuba diving would cost five micromorts per dive. “Breathing in Beijing” on the most polluted day would be 15 micromorts. Then there are “microlives,” which express “a person’s cumulative risks over a lifetime.” One microlife corresponds to “30 minutes of an average young adult’s lifespan.” Twenty minutes’ exercise each day bestows two extra microlives of lifespan. Smoking four cigarettes a day costs two microlives. Alas, when I approached David Spiegelhalter, who was the man to go to for this stuff, he informed me that it had not been worked out for radiation, carbon emissions, etcetera. Maybe it will. See New Straits Times [Kuala Lumpur], Wednesday, March 3, 2014 (David Roberts and Nick Riesland, “Every breath you take”).

“It’s cultural devastation to lose families . . .”—Daniel Phillips, interviewed on April 9, 2014. The majority of his interview begins on II:209.

“the Arctic permafrost had only begun to sizzle out methane”—Thomas F. Stocker et al. (Working Group I Technical Support Unit), Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis: Working Group I Contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (New York: Cambridge University Press / Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2013). [Henceforth cited: “IPCC, 2013.”] Page 531: “Methane hydrates are another form of frozen carbon, occurring in deep permafrost soils, ocean shelves,” etc. “They consist of methane and water molecule clusters, which are only stable in a specific window of low temperatures and high pressures . . . Any warming of permafrost soils, ocean waters and sediments and/or changes in pressure could destabilise those hydrates, releasing their CH4 to the ocean.” And page 1116: “The conjunction of a long carbon accumulation time scale on one hand and potentially rapid permafrost thawing and carbon decomposition under warmer climatic conditions . . . on the other hand suggests potential irreversibility of permafrost carbon decomposition (leading to an increase of atmospheric CO2 and/or CH4 concentrations) on time scales of hundreds to thousands of years in a warming climate . . . [T]his process, induced by widespread permafrost warming and thawing, . . . might be already occurring.”

Future status of the Marshall Islands—The Japan Times, Sunday, June 10, 2012, p. 10 (cont’d from p. 9, Christopher Johnson, “The Marshall Islands: Tropical idylls scarred like Tohoku”): “The tide-line has been creeping up . . . some researchers have estimated the Marshalls could become uninhabitable in 50 to 100 years.” Cf. Seth B. Darling and Douglas L. Sisterson, How to Change Minds About Our Changing Climate (New York: The Experiment, 2014), p. 95: If our planet’s average temperature increased by five degrees, “ice would likely disappear completely from both poles, sending sea level about 20 meters . . . higher . . . The tropics and sub-tropics would be essentially uninhabitable.” Both authors were employed at the Argonne National Laboratory; Sisterson was a “senior manager . . . for the US Department of Energy’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Climate Research Facility.”

“Here I pause for one moment . . .”—David Perkins, ed., English Romantic Writers (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1967), p. 731 (“On the Knocking at the Gates in Macbeth”).

About the “Primer” Section

Epigraph: “Actually, this book was not of the slightest value . . .”—George R. Stewart, Earth Abides (Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett Publications / A Fawcett Crest Book, n.d. [1980?], repr. of 1949 ed.), p. 268.

books “such as an idle man cannot read . . .”—Henry David Thoreau, A Week . . . , Walden . . . , The Maine Woods, Cape Cod (New York: Library of America, 1985), p. 967 (A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, rev. ed. of 1868), p. 78.

About Tables

Epigraph: “Human eyes can perceive things . . .”—The Complete Essays of Montaigne, trans. Donald M. Frame (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1965 repr. of 1957 ed.; orig. essays wr. 1572–88), p. 399 (“Apology for Raymond Sebond,” 1575–80).

About Photographs

Epigraph: “Survey . . . the most remarkable events . . .”—Beaumont Newhall, ed., Photography: Essays & Images (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1980, p. 14 (Tiphaigne de la Roche, “Photography Predicted,” 1760).

PRIMER

What Was the Work For?

Epigraph: “We are the soul . . .”—Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged (New York: New American Library / Signet, 32rd repr. [ca. 1975]; orig. ed. 1957), p. 579.

Internal combustion engine: “a machine for converting chemical energy . . .”—United States Naval Reserve Midshipmen’s School U.S.S. “Prairie State,” Internal Combustion Engines (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1942, rev. June 1942), p. 51. [Henceforth cited: “USNRMS ‘Prairie State.’”]

“Using electricity to generate . . . heat is extremely inefficient”—Michael Boxwell, Solar Energy Handbook, 2012 Edition (Ryton on Dunsmore, Warwickshire, U.K.: Greenstream Publishing, 2012; orig. ed. 2001), p. 10.

Footnote: the contractor’s views on global warming—As stated in 2014.

“About 4% of the energy consumed in American homes went for clothes drying”—Information from Mara Prentiss, Energy Revolution: The Physics and the Promise of Efficient Technology (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press, 2015), p. 53 (pie chart: U.S. Residential Electricity Use 2011,” from U.S. Energy Administration).

Footnote: “servants might rise as early as 2:00 a.m. . . .”—Sally Mitchell, ed., Victorian Britain, An Encyclopedia (New York: Garland, 1988), p. 378 (“housework and domestic technology”).

“Lessening man’s toil . . .”—L. Jackson Newell, The Electric Edge of “Academe”: The Saga of Lucien L. Nunn and Deep Springs College (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2015), p. 51 (letter to Lionel G. Nightingale; date lost).

“It has been calculated that about 60 per cent. . . .”—Quoted in William Digby C.I.E., “Prosperous” British India: A Revelation from Official Records (New Delhi: Sagar Publications, 1969, repr. from 1901 ed.), p. 420.

“Energy is a vital component of development . . .”—Asha Han, The Power Sector in India (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers Private Ltd., 1986), p. 10.—By this time the necessity of providing electric power was unquestioned. Consider, e.g., Government of Haryana [an Indian state not far from Delhi], Planning Department, Fourth Five-Year Plan 1969–74 (Chd.: Government Press, 1971), p. 160 (“Power Projects”): “Out of 6,669 villages, only 1,251 villages (19 per cent) had been electrified up to the end of 1957–63. Similarly per capita consumption of electricity [which I think means percentage of people who have access to electricity] is only 37 per cent as against 44 per cent in Punjab.” The foregoing explained the government’s reason for building a 55-megawatt thermal plant at Faridabad.

African energy production, 1980–2011: ProQuest Statistical Abstract of the United States 2015, 3rd ed., issued December 2014 (Bethesda, Maryland: Bernan / Rowman & Littlefield, 2014). [This vol. henceforth cited: “U.S. Statistical Abstract, 2015.”]. Page 896 (Table 1392: “World Primary Energy Production by Region and Type, 1980 to 2011”). The 1980 African figure was 17.4 Q-BTUs (quadrillion BTUs); the 2011 equivalent was 172.3—an increase by a factor of 9.9.

Cooking and cleaning times, 1965 and 1995—Patrick Canning, Ainsley Charles, Sonya Huang, Karen R. Polenske and Arnold Waters, Energy Use in the U.S. Food System (Washington, D.C.: United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, Economic Research Report 94, 2010), p. 16, which references “a time-use study of adults between ages 18 and 64.” [Henceforth cited: “USDA Report 24.”]

Laborers: “capitalists replaced them with fossil fuels”—Information from Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 55 (2011) [journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/resconrec], pp. 362–81 (Julian M. Allwood, Michael F. Ashby, Timothy G. Gutowski and Ernst Worrell, “Material efficiency: A white paper”). [Henceforth cited: “Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 2011.”] Page 372: “Ayres and van den Bergh (2005) discuss three mechanisms of economic growth: substitution of fossil fuels for labour to reduce costs; scale economies and learning by doing to reduce costs; substitution of information/knowledge leading to increased value to customers . . .”

“Smoke and Steel”—The phrases to which I refer are on pp. 185 and 186 of George and Willene Hendrick, ed., Carl Sandburg: Selected Poems (New York: Harcourt, Inc. / “A Harvest Original,” 1996).

“The modern American suburbanite . . .”—Jan Jennings, Roadside America: The Automobile in Design and Culture (Ames: Iowa State University Press, for the Society for Commercial Archeology, n.d.).

“Stay connected and entertained . . .”—Etisalat Yellow Pages, Abu Dhabi 2016: Al Ain & Western Region, p. 25. [Henceforth cited: “Abu Dhabi yellow pages, 2016.”] From the same source, p. 30: “Etisalat mobile internet plans gives you the facility to get in contact with the world through your handheld Mobile [sic] devices; whether you like mobile browsing, downloading images, connecting with your friends, checking your email, you can do it all with our new data plans.” So now you know what that thermodynamic work was for.

Paragraph on oil tankers, trips to the sun, etc.—Information from Bill D. Berger and Kenneth E. Anderson, Modern Petroleum: A Basic Primer of the Industry (Tulsa, Oklahoma: PennWell Books, 1978), pp. 182–84, 203.

Footnote: Power spent by a human going upstairs—Baumeister, p. 9-28 (staff contribution, “Power Miscellany”), work done by a man raising his own weight up a stair or ladder: 81.5 ft-lb/sec, converted by WTV at 81.5 ft-lb/sec × 60 sec × 1 BTU / 778.98 ft-lbs = 6.277 BTUs. For the laptop computer’s power needs, see here (“Comparative Power Requirements . . .”).

Same footnote: 1 BTU is contained in one match tip—National Coal Association, p. 90. According to Berger and Anderson (p. 244), a BTU needs an entire wooden match.

Power Wastage by Group-Driven Machine Tools, ca. 1945

All figures (except for wastage calculations, made by WTV) from Erik Oberg and F. D. Jones, Machinery’s Handbook for Machine Shop and Drafting-Room, 13th ed., 3rd. pr. (New York: The Industrial Press, 1946), p. 1842 (“In the group drive, the motor drives a length of lineshafting . . .”) and p. 1843 (unnumb. table, “Power Requirements of Group-driven Machine Tools”). In most comparative tables later on, conversions are made to British thermal units (BTUs) for consistency. That seemed undesirable here, since the numbers originally given in watts were friendlier. But for those who wish to see them in BTUs [1 watt = 0.056884 BTU per minute], here they are, respectively: Cincinnati drill presses, 20.48 and 3.98. Rockford boring mills, 92.15 and 17.07. Gridley Automatics, 86.46 and 15.34.

American energy wastage, 2012: 61%—Prentiss, p. 19 (pie chart “Fraction of Primary Source Energy Used and Wasted [U.S. 2012]).”

About Waste

Epigraph: “. . . To condemn a thing thus, dogmatically . . .”—Montaigne, p. 132 (“It is folly to measure the true and false by our own capacity,” 1572–74).

Carbon monoxide emissions “occur especially in idle, low speed, and cold start conditions.”—U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA 430-R-16-002: Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990–2014 (Washington, D.C.: EPA, April 15, 2016). [Henceforth cited: “EPA, 2016.” All pages cited per PDF version, not per the fiddly system of the original.] Page 119.

“The girls, with patched cotton stockings . . .”—Alexander Werth, Russia at War 1941–45 (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1964), pp. 347, 346.

Footnote: “In a workshop that’s had a direct hit . . .”—Ibid., p. 346.

“According to experts, 70% of the input SF6 quantities escape.”—Michael Strogies and Patrick Gniffke, eds., Climate Change Submission under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 2009, National Inventory Report for the German Greenhouse Gas Inventory 1990–2007 (ISSN 1862-4359) (Dessau-Roßlau, Germany: Umweltbundesamt [Federal Environment Agency], 2009). [Henceforth cited: “Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007.”] Page 306.

Mao’s backyard furnaces—Dr. Li Zhisui, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, trans. Tai Hung-Chao (New York: Random House, 1994), pp. 273, 277, 283, 291, 304.

Yield losses in sheet metal manufacture—Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 2013 371, 20120496, published January 28, 2013 (Julian M. Allwood, Michael F. Ashby, Timothy G. Gutowski and Ernst Worrell, “Material efficiency: providing material services with less material production”); downloaded [by T. Gutowski] from rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org on November 4, 2014. [Henceforth cited: “Allwood et al., 2013.”] Pages 5–6. There are many such wasteful manufacturing situations. For example, recycling that “occurs close to home while the materials are still in some stage of manufacture,” Timothy G. Gutowski et al., in “A Global Assessment of Manufacturing: Economic Development, Energy Use, Carbon Emissions, and the Potential for Energy Efficiency and Materials Recycling, Annual Review of Environment and Resources, vol. 38: 81–106, 2013 [Henceforth cited: “Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour., 2013,” p. 94, remark: “Internal recycling actually is a form of inefficiency. That is, significant energy has been invested and carbon emitted to produce new material only to return a part of it to be reprocessed again before it can be turned into a useful product.”

Absorptions of clear glass and cobalt-blue globes—Terrell Croft and Wilford I. Summers, American Electricians’ Handbook, 14th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002; orig. ed. 1961). [Henceforth cited: “American Electricians’ Handbook, 2002.”] Page 10.3 (Table 4: “Coefficients (Percent) of Absorption of Lighting Materials”).

Food waste in Hawaii—TGI: The Garden Island [Kauai, Hawaii], Sunday, August 7, 2016, pp. A1, A11 (Jessica Else, “Feeding the landfill: study shows 237,000 tons of food thrown away every year”). [“During fiscal year 2015, Kauai residents and guests produced 81,500 pounds of total waste.” Food was one of the top three contributors.] I calculated the resultant methane as follows: 237,000 tons is 474 million pounds. For lack of better information, I assumed that Hawaiian food waste was similar in composition to the Japanese kind. I then turned to: Ministry of the Environment, Japan, Greenhouse Gas Inventory Office of Japan (GIO), Center for Global Environmental Research (CGER) and National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), primary authors, National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report of JAPAN, April 2015 (Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan, National Institute for Environmental Studies, 2015). [Henceforth cited: “Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015.”] In an anaerobic landfill, food waste would generate about 145 kilograms methane per ton. [Since Japan uses the metric system I assumed that these were metric tons even though they were not spelled “tonnes.”] In a “semi-anaerobic” landfill, the figure was 72 kg (see here). Each kg of methane per ton of food waste would equal: 1 kg methane / ton food waste × 2.2 lbs methane / lb methane = 2.2 lbs methane / 2,204 lbs food waste = 0.001 lbs methane per lb food waste. Plugging in 145 and 72 kg into this gave me 0.145 and 0.072. For 474 million pounds the first methane value would be 68,730,000 pounds, or (× 86; see “About Methane,” II:302) 5,910,780,000 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent; the semi-anaerobic value would be 2,935,008,000 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent.

Footnote: Percentages of carbon in Japanese food waste and human waste—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. 7-7.

“Forty years ago kerosene was refined . . .”—L. W. Ellis and Edward A. Rumely, Power and the Plow (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1911), p. 122.

Oil spills in Drumright—D. Karl Newsom, Drumright!: The Glory Days of a Boom Town (Perkins, Oklahoma: Evans Publications, Inc., 1985), p. 204.

“Of the energy generated in an engine cylinder . . .”—Ellis and Rumely, p. 17.

The tale of the Power Authority of Puerto Rico—The New York Times, Tuesday, February 16, 2016, pp. B1, B6 (Mary Williams Walsh, “Witness Cites Recipe for Toxic Air, and Debt, at Puerto Rico’s Power Company”).

Footnote: “Natural gas, the major raw material . . .”—Roy L. Donahue, Raymond W. Miller and John C. Shickluna, Soils: An Introduction to Soils and Plant Growth, 4th ed. (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1977, rev. repr. of 1958 ed.), pp. 541–42.

Sulfur dioxide: “a colorless gas . . .”—H. Clark Metcalfe, John E. Williams and Joseph F. Castka, Modern Chemistry (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1970), p. 589.

Transformation of SO2 into sulfuric acid in lung tissue; and its impairment of photosynthesis—Eugene P. Odum, Fundamentals of Ecology, 3rd ed. (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Co., 1971), pp. 445, 92.

“Global warming during the 20th century was primarily initiated . . .”—Thin Solid Films, February 11, 2009, www.elsevier.com/locate/tsf, downloaded for WTV by Jordan Rothacker, April 2016, pp. 3188–3203 (special feature: Peter L. Ward, Teton Tectonics, “Sulfur dioxide initiates global climate change in four ways”), p. 3198. [Henceforth cited: “Ward.”]

Power Wastage During Machining Operations at an Unspecified Toyota Factory, ca. 2000

Information from the Journal of Cleaner Production [www. elsevier.com/locate/jclepro, accessed by Jordan Rothacker, December 2015], vol. 13 (2005), p. 4 (Timothy Gutowski, Cynthia Murphy, David Allen, Diana Bauer, Bert Bras, Thomas Piwonka, Paul Sheng, John Sutherland, Deborah Thurston and Egon Wolff, “Environmentally benign manufacturing: Observations from Japan, Europe and the United States”). [Henceforth cited: “Journal of Cleaner Production.” The article with its endnotes spanned pp. 1–17.] From this same place I would like to quote an admirable slogan about factory floor sweepings: “When combined it is waste; when sorted it is a resource.”

Likewise, in a certain unnamed automotive machining line, “the maximum energy resources requirement for the actual machining in terms of electricity is only 14.8% of the total . . . At lower production rates the machining contribution is even smaller.”—Bhavik Bakshi, Timothy Gutowski and Dusan Sekulic, Thermodynamics and the Destruction of Resources (Oxford: Cambridge University Press, 2011), from PDF of chap. 6 (Timothy G. Gutowski and Dusan P. Sekulic, “Thermodynamic Analysis of Resources Used in Manufacturing Processes 1”) as downloaded for WTV by Jordan Rothacker, February 2016), p. 20. Henceforth cited: “Gutowski and Sekulic.”]

About Waste (continued)

“I would not characterize these energy usages as waste . . .”—E-mail to my research assistant Jordan Rothacker from Timothy G. Gutowski, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at M.I.T., Friday, February 5, 2016.

Footnote: “A number of manufacturing processes . . .”—Gutowski and Sekulic, p. 14.

“an annual reduction of 4.2% in energy input . . .” + list of ways to improve efficiency: insulation, precision testing for compressors, etc.—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 12 (“Fuel Resources” to “Heat Stabilizers”), pp. 441, 457–61 (“energy management”).

“If I am making zero kilograms of ice . . .”—Wired magazine, 2.28.14, Rhett Allain, “How Much Does It Cost to Make Ice?,” p. 3 of 5; downloaded for WTV by Jordan Rothacker, November 2016, from https://www.wired.com/2014/08/how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-ice/. [Henceforth cited: “Allain article, 2014.”]

Yearly fuel requirements of icemaker—Since 88 watts × [0.000948067 BTU per second / 1 watt] = 0.083 BTU per second, then × 3,600 = 300.34 BTUs per hour. Multiplying this by 3 to account for 2⁄3 losses during power generation (see here), we get 901 BTUs. Multiplying × 24 × 365 yields 7,893,135.6 BTUs per year. In the table of Calorific Efficiencies (p. 215, header. 202), we find an HHV of 18,570 BTUs per lb of commercial fuel oil, medium grade, ca. 1975. Dividing 789,313.56 by 18,570, we arrive at a yearly requirement of 425.05 pounds of commercial fuel oil.

Barrel of oil equivalent—Density of diesel fuel (my standard approximation for the density of oil; see here) = 7.036 lbs/gallon. Hence 425.05 lbs commercial fuel oil × 1 gal / 7.036 lbs = 60.4 gal. A barrel of petroleum = 42 gallons. Dividing 60.4 by 42 yields 1.43, which means that 1.43 barrels of oil will be required to power one icemaker for a year.

Power Wastage by Devices in Standby Mode, 2000–2010

“Unplugging a device constantly consuming standby power . . .”—Wikipedia article on “standby power,” accessed February 15, 2015.

Japan—Energy Conservation Center, Japan (ECCJ), 2008 report, accessed and translated by Ms. Kawai Takako.

France—http:/standby.lbl.gov/ACEE/StandbyPaper.PDF.

Britain—Energy Review 2006, Department of Trade and Industry, U.K. http://www.bis.gov.uk/files/file31890.pdf.

California—PIER Final Project Report: “Developing and Testing Low Power Mode Measurement Methods,” prepared for California Energy Commission Public Interest Energy Research Program, by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Executive summary [evidently from 2002]. Accessed by Ms. Kawai Takako. No web address provided.

About Demand

Epigraph: “Between 2000 and 2005, UK consumers on average . . .”—Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 2011, p. 368: Citation discouragingly continues: “Between 1985 and 2000 the lifespan of computers purchased in US universities dropped from 10.7 to 5.5 years . . . On average 98.4% of all licensed car seats in the UK are not in use at any time . . . Even if used furniture is given away for free in the UK, the economic case for re-selling it is at best marginal . . . These examples suggest that consumers in developed countries are continuing to expand their material consumption well beyond their basic needs . . .”

“WHEN IN VEGAS . . .”—Where Las Vegas (“the complete guide to go”), September 2016, first [unnumbered] page after inside cover, ad for Simon Malls.

The tale of Egypt’s offshore natural gas—The New York Times, Friday, September 2, 1016, pp. B1, B6 (Stanley Reed, “Israel Opens Up Offshore Gas Fields, and Eagerly Awaits Foreign Investment”).

“Very possibly, more than half a year’s entire global production . . .”—The field discovered might contain 75 trillion cubic feet (same story, p. B1). World production as of 2014 had been about 121 trillion cubic feet, according to: U.S. Energy Information Administration, “Natural Gas—Energy Explained, Your Guide to Understanding Energy” (“last updated: June 23, 2015”). “Natural gas statistics: Preliminary data for 2014, except where noted.” [Henceforth cited: “USEIA, “Natural Gas, 2014.”] Downloaded for WTV by Jordan Rothacker, June 2016, from http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=natural_gas_home#tab2.

About demand—Mason Inman, The Oracle of Oil: A Maverick Geologist’s Quest for a Sustainable Future (New York: Norton, 2016), p. 312, quoting Marion King Hubbert, 1988: “One of the most ubiquitous expressions in the language right now is growth—how to maintain our growth. If we could maintain it, it would destroy us.”

What Was the Work For? (continued)

Epigraph: “A Battery of eleven Guns . . .”—Benjamin Franklin, Writings (New York: Library of America, 1987), p. 336 (“Course of Experiments,” in The Pennsylvania Gazette, April 1, 1751).

Epigraph: Ad for So Truly Real® baby doll—National Enquirer, October 10, 2016, p. 53.

“Magic is a practical science . . .”—Jack Vance, Tales of the Dying Earth (New York: Orb / Tom Dougherty Associates, undated repr. of 1998 ed.), p. 582 (“Rhialto the Marvellous,” 1984).

“the seemingly extravagant use of materials and energy resources by many newer manufacturing processes . . .”—Gutowski and Sekulic, pp. 37–38.

Footnote: J. G. Ballard, 1996: “Without motives our investigation would be so much easier” + “Guilt is so flexible . . .”—J. G. Ballard, Cocaine Nights (Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, 1998; orig. pub. 1996), pp. 98, 113.

Re: carbon nanotubes—Gutowski and Sekulic, p. 37. The passage deserves a fuller citation here, not only for its interesting details, which inform my table on p. 59, but also for its overall point: “Carbon nanotubes are one of the most energy intensive materials humankind has produced. Yet, the cost of this energy turns out to be only a very small fraction of the price. For example, say the energy cost for making carbon nanotubes is on the order of 36GJ of electricity per kilogram or 36MJ/g [or about 15.47 billion BTUs/lb.—WTV]. This is equal to 10 kWh/g. Now at 7 cents a kilowatt hour this yields a cost of 70 cents per gram. But carbon nanotubes can sell for around $300/g. In other words, the electricity cost in this case is on the order of 0.2% of the price, and according to a recent cost study, energy costs for all manufacturing processes for nanotubes result in about 1% of the cost . . . At the same time however, since our current electricity supply comes primarily from fossil fuels, most of the environmental impacts associated with these materials (e.g. global warming, acidification, mercury emissions) are related to this use of electricity . . . Another comment, of course, is that, from an environmental perspective, electricity from fossil fuels is significantly underpriced.”

The matter of single-setting steam boilers—The New York Times, Friday, November 20, 2015, p. A23 (Lisa W. Foderaro, “Closing a Window to Open the Door to Efficiency: Study Charges Buildings to Retrofit Radiators to Cut Emissions from Overheated Homes”).

“This happened . . . in western Siberia”—In Novy Urengoy, ca. 2015, “the difference between the inside and the outside temperature often amounts to an unbelievable 70 degrees [Celsius]. The centrally controlled gas heating keeps the flat at a comfortable 25 degrees—and that at a fixed price. When it gets too warm, they open a window. An economic use of resources of energy is not a top priority in the gas capital”—Sophie Panzer and Christina Simmel, eds., Gazprom City [in German, Russian and English] (Wien: Schlebrügge Editor, 2015), p. 51.

“something more is needed to relieve the long intervals of inactivity . . .”—Samuel Johnson, Selected Essays, ed. David Womersley (New York: Penguin, 2003; essays orig. pub. 1739–61), p. 126 (The Rambler, No. 49, Tuesday, September 4, 1750).

National Coal Association: “Energy is vital . . .” + “In general, each percentage increase . . .”—National Coal Association, pp. 4, 6.

Oil expenditure of the Cape Cod lighthouse—Thoreau, A Week . . . , p. 967 (Cape Cod, this chapter of which was written ca. 1865).

Henry Adams “could see that the new American . . .”—Henry Adams, Novels, Mont Saint Michel, The Education (New York: Library of America, 1983), p. 1174 (The Education of Henry Adams [1907]).

“Between 1870 and 1990, per capita energy use in America more than tripled”—Information from Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 12 (“Fuel Resources” to “Heat Stabilizers”), p. 2 (“fuel resources,” Table 1: “U.S. Energy Consumption by Source from 1870–1990, EJ”). For the original figures and my conversions from them, see here, headers 81 and 270.

“our absolute energy consumption rose almost 21 times”—Information from the same place. In 1990, Americans used 85.76 exajoules; in 1870 they had used 4.1.

“Electricity is essential to economic and human development . . .”—Australian Government, Department of Industry and Science, Office of the Chief Economist, “Coal in India 2015” (n.p.: Commonwealth of Australia, June 2015, downloaded for WTV by Jordan Rothacker, February 2016), p. 31. [Henceforth cited: “Australian Government: India, 2015.”]

“We saw a light in the gloomy dark . . .”—Andrey Platonov, Soul and Other Stories, trans. Robert and Elizabeth Chandler et al. (New York: New York Review Books, 2008), p. 263 (“The Motherland of Electricity,” 1939).

“in each two days of 2009, the world burned the entire oil output of 1990”—Information from George A. Olah, Alain Goeppert and G. K. Surya Prakash, Beyond Oil and Gas: The Methanol Economy, 2nd rev. ed. (Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH, 2009), p. 35.

“we Earthlings could have electroprocessed nearly 9.7 million pounds of titanium every minute . . .”—Based on 365.93 exajoules (which was actually the world energy consumption figure for 1991, not 1990), converted as follows: 365.93 EJ × [0.948 quads = 0.948 × 1018 BTUs] / 1 EJ = 346.90 × 1018 BTUs = 346.9 quadrillion BTUs. If energy consumption were constant over that year, then each minute we would have used [346,900,000,000,000,000,000] / [60 × 24 × 365] = 660,007,610,688,000 BTUs, which divided by 68,260 BTUs (amount of energy needed to electroprocess 1 lb of titanium in 1958) = 9,669,024,465.359 [call it 9.7 million] lbs, ignoring power plant losses.

Current used per minute by 132.5 trillion icemakers—Calculated from 0.083 BTUs per second (converted from 88 W, above, p. 40) × 60 secs/min = 5.006 BTUs, which goes 131,843,310,165,000 times into 660,007,610,688,000 BTUs.

“one out of four people in India lacked access to electricity”—Information from Australian Government: India, 2015, p. 57. The same statistic appears in Investor’s Business Daily, IBD Weekly 33, no. 26, week of July 11, 2016, p. A6 (Allison Gatlin, “First Solar, China’s Jinko, Trina, JA to Battle in Rising Indian Market,” cont’d [as “Solar”] from p. A5).

“This is clearly a major barrier to economic and social progress . . .”—Australian Government: India, 2015, loc. cit.

Quadrupling of Indian power consumption—Ibid., p. 29.

India became the world’s third largest energy user—Ibid., p. 27.

India: blackouts still lasted for hours or days—Information from U.S. Energy Information Administration, “India: International Energy Data and Analysis,” last updated June 26, 2014, p. 18, downloaded by Jordan Rothacker, February 2016. [This source henceforth cited: “USEIA: India, 2014.”] Loc. cit.: “India suffered an unprecedented electricity blackout for two days in July 2012 that affected an estimated 680 million people across the country’s northern states. This outage highlights the increasing pressure on India’s power system to secure more fuel supplies and infrastructure investment in each stage of power transmission.”

Energy use of various American lifestyles, 1997—IEEE International Symposium on Electronics and the Environment, May 19–20, 2008, San Francisco, U.S.A. Timothy Gutowski, Amanda Taplett, Anna Allen, Amy Banzaert, Rob Cirinciore, Christopher Cleaver, Stacy Figueredo, Susan Fredholm, Betar Gallant, Alissa Jones, Jonathan Krones, Barry Kudrowitz, Cynthia Lin, Alfredo Morales, David Quinn, Megan Roberts, Robert Scaringe, Tim Studley, Sittha Sukkasi, Mika Tomczak, Jessica Vechakul and Malima Wolf, “Environmental Life Style Analysis (ELSA),” pp. 2–3. I have converted all figures from the original gigajoules, @ 1 GJ = 948,067 BTUs. The stats I selected were: Buddhist monk, 120 GJ = 113,768,040 = 113.8 million BTUs; homeless, 125 GJ = 118,508,375 = 118.5 million BTUs; five-year-old, 130 GJ = 123,248,710 = 123.3 million BTUs; coma patient, 2,500 GJ = 2,370,167,500 = 2.37 billion BTUs; senator, 3,700 GJ = 3,507,847,900 = 3.51 billion BTUs. The U.S. and world averages for 1997 were respectively given as 350 GJ = 331,823,450 [or 331.8 million] BTUs, and 64 GJ = 60,676,288 [or 60.7 million] BTUs. Re: the lifestyle of the Buddhist monk: “While 120GJ is about one third the American average in 1997 (350GJ), it is almost double the global average energy use in that year (64 GJ).”

President’s Science Advisory Committee findings, 1967—Odum, p. 47. The findings were expressed in essentially the following form: American food per hectare: 3x; Asian and African food per hectare: x; American mechanical energy input per hectare: 1 hp; Asian and African input per hectare: 0.1 hectare. 1 hectare = 10,000 square meters = 107,584 square feet, while 1 horsepower = 42.408 BTUs per minute. Hence in the default units of Carbon Ideologies 1 hp/ha = 0.003941500892 BTUs per minute per square foot.

Information on U.S. food-related energy consumption, 1993–2007—USDA Report 24, pp. i, iv, 13, 17 [job losses between 1996 and 2000], p. 18 (Table 5: “Freight industry characteristics”). [“Freight services are among the most energy-intensive industries serving the U.S. food supply chain.”] Also: p. 17 (Table 3: “Energy technology change impacts on per capita energy flows for food and related items, 1997 to 2002”), p. 18 (Table 6: “Home appliance use by U.S. households”). The citation “increasingly outsourced manual food preparation . . .” comes from here.

“The rate at which the population is supplied with refrigerators . . .”—Robert V. Daniels, comp., ed., and trans., A Documentary History of Communism in Russia: From Lenin to Gorbachev (Hanover, New Hampshire: University of Vermont / University Press of New England, 1993), p. 303 (“Soviet Consumerism,” from Alexei N. Kogygin, “Report on the Directives of the 24th CPSU Congress . . . ,” April 6, 1971.

Lenin on electrification—V. I. Lenin, Selected Works in Three Volumes, vol. 3 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977 repr. of 1975 rev.; orig. ed. 1964), pp. 270–71 (interview with Lincoln Eyre, correspondent of the American newspaper The World, 1920).

“the equivalent of an extra 69 pounds of coal apiece”—Calculated thus: 287,604 BTUs × [1/12,500 lbs of coal per BTU] × 3 [lbs burned in a power plant to get 1 lb’s worth of energy] = 69.02496.

Footnote on reversal of ratios of GDP to electricity consumption—This addresses a point kindly made by Dr. Jacqueline Agesa, Professor of Financial and Insurance Economics at Marshall University, in her e-mail of Thursday, January 12, 2017, to Laura Michele Diener, who printed it out on my behalf: “This is important because the reader has to flip their interpretation of whether a high overall ratio indicates a country with excessive use of electric power or not.”

Ratios of Per Capita Power Consumption to Per Capita Gross Domestic Product

Most information from Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook, 2013 (CIA’s 2012 Edition) (Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2013), pp. 2–4, 6, 8, 64, 66, 374–76, 480, 482, 632, 634, 769, 771. The original total power consumption figures were: Afghanistan, 231.1 million kWh; Bangladesh, 3.94 billion kWh; world, 9.09 trillion kWh; Mexico, 181.5 billion kWh; Saudi Arabia, 194.4 billion kWh; Japan, 859.7 billion kWh; U.S., 3.741 trillion kWh. [After the library disposed of this edition, I added in United Arab Emirates figures using the online version of the Factbook, downloaded for WTV in February 2017 by Jordan Rothacker. The UAE’s total power consumption was 70.58 billion kWh (2008 est.).] All of these were converted to BTUs @ 3,413×.

[Unrounded conversion figures, not shown in table but used in subsequent calculations: Afghanistan, 788,744,300,000 BTUs; Bangladesh, 13,447,220,000,000; world, 3.102417 × 1016 = 31,024,170,000,000,000; Mexico, 619,459,500,000,000; Saudi Arabia, 663,487,200,000,000; Japan, 2,934,156,100,000,000; U.S., 12,768,033,000,000,000; UAE, 240,889,540,000,000.]

Insets from United Nations Development Programme [UNDP], Human Development Report 1997 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 196–97 (Table 23: “Energy use.” [Henceforth cited: “UNDP report, 1997.”] As of 1994, “high human development” equaled 2,310 kWh per capita, “medium” (excluding China) was 1,035, and “low” (excluding India) was 147. These would have been 7,884,030 (h), 3,532,455 (m) and 501,711 (low) BTUs. To estimate amounts of coal and oil needed to produce this amount of current in a power plant I used tons of oil equivalent and tons of coal equivalent, multiplying by .907 to convert from metric to U.S. tons. Thus, for the high value:

7,884,030 BTUs required × (1 toe [1 U.S. ton of oil / 35,989,760 BTUs] ) × [2,000 lbs / ton) = 438 lbs of oil required.

For medium, 196 lbs. For low, 28 lbs.

For coal I used 25,192,832 BTUs / U.S. ton. High: 626 lbs. Medium: 280 lbs. Low: 40 lbs.

For natural gas, I used [1 cu ft / 1,000 BTUs] × [0.04163 lbs / cu ft = density of methane] = 0.00004163 (or 1/24,021) lbs per BTU. High: 328 lbs. Medium: 147 lbs. Low: 21 lbs.

All these numbers were then multiplied × 3 to account for power plant inefficiency.

What Was the Work For? (continued)

Assertions on GDP of the CEO of Breitling Energy Corporation—Chris Faulkner, The Fracking Truth: America’s Energy Revolution: The Inside, Untold Story (Bucks County, Pennsylvania: Platform Press [“the nonfiction imprint of Winans Kuenstler, LLC,” 2014), p. 16. [This source cited “Chris Faulker,” in order to distinguish him from R. P. Faulkner.]

Footnote: “Due to a general shift from a manufacturing-based economy . . .” —EPA, 2016, p. 137.

“The good news is that carbon emissions were essentially flat . . .”—BP Statistical Review, 2017, June 2017 (66th edition), downloaded for WTV by Jordan Rothacker, September 2017, p. 2.

“We all have at least one dream car . . .”—Motor Trend, July 2016, p. 38 (“Head to Head: 2016 Chevrolet Camaro Rs vs. 2016 Ford Mustang EcoBoost”).

“CO2 emissions have been clearly linked to economic growth”—International Energy Agency, Coal Information 2012, with 2011 data [henceforth cited: “Coal Information 2012.”], page II.16.

“China, where strongly increasing electricity production is the main driver . . .” —Ibid., p. II.15. Consider also the fact that between 1990 and 2000, “the annual growth in emissions from fossil fuels averaged 2.1% between 1971 and 1990, while it averaged 1.1% between 1990 and 2000. This lower pace of growth after 1990 is . . . related to the collapse of the . . . centrally-planned economies of Central and Eastern Europe, which led to a rapid decline in output from inefficient industrial sectors and the re-structuring of these economies.”

Footnote: “one car for every eight Earthlings”—Information from Annual Review of Environment and Resources (“online at http://environ.annualreviews.org”: “This article’s doi: 10.1146/annurev-environ-041112-110510”), 2013. 38: 81–106 (Timothy G. Gutowski, Julian M. Allwood, Christoph Herrmann and Sahil Sahni, “A Global Assessment of Manufacturing: Economic Development, Energy Use, Carbon Emissions, and the Potential for Energy Efficiency and Materials Recycling”), p. 98. [This document henceforth cited: “Gutowski et al., Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour., 2013.”] I will reproduce more of this important passage: “The past 50 years have led to a more-than-average doubling of economic prosperity, with an increase in life expectancy from 55 to 70 years, whereas per capita power requirements and consequent emissions, having been steady for 40 years, have begun to rise in the past 10. This increase in prosperity has led to increased mobility, with per capita flights quadrupling and per capita transport emissions rising by a quarter. Personal consumption of steel, cement, and paper—three of the key materials that drive most industrial emissions—has risen absolutely steadily for paper and with a recent surge for steel and cement, largely driven by a rapid expansion of construction in China. [For details of these and other members of the “big five,” see “About Manufacturing,” p. 132.] In turn, this growth in material consumption has led to increased material service provision, with one car operating for every eight people on the planet, and an astounding increase of built space leading to provision of ~30 m2 per person.”

Same footnote: car ownership in Lebanon—Robert Eves et al., comp., The Economist Pocket World in Figures (London: The Economist Newspaper Ltd., 1998), p. 62 (“World rankings: Highest car ownership”).

“As shown in Figures II.24 to II.26 . . .”—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Mexico, 1990–2002, in UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), p. 66.

Footnote: “in one 24-year period, American industrial output rose 64% . . .”—Information from EPA, 2016, p. 124, where the two causes are described as “(1) more rapid growth in output from less energy-intensive industries relative to traditional manufacturing industries, and (2) energy-intensive industries such as steel are employing new methods, such as electric arc furnaces, that are less carbon intensive than the older methods.”

Same footnote on total American emissions, 1990–2014—Ibid., p. 27.

Footnote: “The average per capita emissions . . .”—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Mexico, 1990–2002, p. 51.

Same footnote: “Four of the top ten manufacturing carbon emitters . . .”—Gutowski et al., Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour., 2013, pp. 86–87. I cannot forbear quoting p. 98: “The growth in per capita demand for energy, materials, products, and services . . . is averaged over the global population and as such disguises a key question: Does this growth reflect improving prospects for the poor or an increasing gap between rich and poor? The answer to this question is that both are happening, and it is those who are actively engaged in manufacturing . . . who have the best chance to catch up. Furthermore, if this trend continues, the world will experience yet another remarkable transition, a crossover in consumption from the rich world to the poor. That is, just as [there was] . . . a crossover around 1994 between the East and the West in CO2 emissions from manufacturing, and [there might have been] . . . a crossover in manufacturing output possibly occurring in the next decade, there is a chance that a similar crossover for consumption is not too far off . . . By 2025 developing economies could account for nearly 70% of global demand for manufacturing products . . . [I]t will be a historic event should it occur.”

Comparative Energy Requirements, in multiples of 1 British Thermal Unit

“to electroprocess 1 lb of chlorine with 1952 technology would have required [3 × 5,120] BTUs of fuel, or, for instance, 0.8 lbs of medium grade fuel oil.” see here in the table of Calorific Efficiencies, header 202: Commercial fuel oil, medium grade, ca. 1975: 18,570 BTUs/lb. As it happens, [3 × 5,120] equals 18,570 about 0.8 ×.

I had first calculated as follows: Energy to keep warm 1 lb of water for a minute in a 40-gallon electric heater—Assuming that 1 gal H2O = 8.34 lbs (never mind that this is at 39.1° F; it’s close enough at all moderate temperatures for this reporter), 40 gal will weigh 333.6 lbs. Thus 1 lb = (1/333.6 × 40) = 0.119 gal = 0.2997% (0.002997) of the total weight. In the other table of Comparative Power Requirements (p. 69), we see that this appliance consumes 255.978 BTU/min. Therefore it would take 0.767 BTU per min to keep warm 0.2997% by weight of its water. Such was my computation (replicated and confirmed by my hired number-cruncher Mr. Matsumoto Jun). But here Gutowski politely notes (letter to WTV of August 23, 2016): “In fact, this is the only item [in this table] where we may differ. Concerning electric water heaters, I did the calculation in several different ways and they all came out a little smaller than the value you got. I did do one using the Department of Energy website with the URL listed here: http://energy.gov/eere/femp/energy-cost-calculator-electric-and-gas-water-heaters-0#output. The result is shown below, but this is a little different from your calculation; it is for using 40 gallons of hot water a day, not necessarily for a 40 gallon hot water tank . . . [PDF chart omitted.] I use the base model with an efficiency of 0.86 and an annual electric energy use of 3176 kWh. This gives, 21.7 BTU per minute, while you got 256 BTU/min. See my notes page 1. This would be 21.7/333=0.065 BTU/minute/lb.” (For his part, Mr. Matsumoto obtained 29.980 BTUs/min from this calculation.) My error must have been neglecting the energy savings brought about by insulation. So I humbly defer to Gutowski (and real life), and have altered my figure accordingly.

Figures for an unspecified “semi” moving truck in 2016—Interview with Ryan, a San Francisco mover, in April 2016. This man said that his semi truck when loaded to full commercial capacity weighed 70,000 out of a potential 80,000 pounds. It then got a “lifetime” mileage of 5 to 7 miles per gallon. [Averaging this latter to 6 mpg, I calculate 1 mi per [1⁄6 (or 0.1667) gal for 70,000 lbs] / 70,000 = 1 mi per 0.00000238 gal (1/42,000 gal)—an almost unbelievably low figure, but never mind.] Anyhow, at 20,750 BTUs per pound of gasoline and 6.152 pounds per gallon, the calculation is: 0.1667 gal/mi × 6.152 lb/gal × 20,750 BTUs/lb = 21,279.92 BTUs to move the entire vehicle a mile, divided by 70,000 to get 0.3040 BTU per pound.

Figures for typical mid-1970s automobile and heavy rail train—John R. Meyer and José A. Gómez-Ibáñes, Auto Transit and Cities (A Twentieth Century Fund Report) (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1981), p. 131 (Table 8.2, “Estimates of energy required per vehicle-mile for various urban transportation modes”). Nothing about the car is stated, so I have called it “typical” and chosen an “average” weight. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, “Vehicle Weight and Automotive Fatalities” (www.nber.org/digest/nov11/w17170.html, accessed June 22, 2016), the 1975 average weight of an American car was 4,060 pounds.—I could not find a comparable average weight for the heavy rail train, but according to a Wikipedia entry on Amfleet (accessed June 22, 2016), the Amfleet I trains were introduced into Amtrak service in 1975. An Amfleet coach car weighed 106,000 pounds.

Figure for 1952 stock car—Baumeister and Marks, p. 11-7 (Neil MacCoull, “Automobiles,” Fig. 8, graph of weight versus fuel consumption, Los Angeles to Sun Valley). The 21 mpg was calculated by me from a visual “guesstimate” of a graph point of approximately 0.0475 gal per mi. At 20,750 BTUs per pound of gasoline and 6.152 pounds per gallon, the calculation is: 0.0475 gal/mi × 6.152 lb/gal × 20,750 BTUs/lb = 6,063.565 BTUs to move the entire car a mile, divided by 4,000 to get 1.1516 BTUs per pound. [Gutowski checked this using slightly different conversions and got the comparable figure of 1.35 BTUs/lb.]

Figure for “Platinum” Cadillac—Motor Trend, August 2016, p. 61 (Angus MacKenzie, “The Practical Sports Car: It Worked for Porsche. And It Will Work for Jaguar, Too”). The Jaguar’s curb weight was “3,950 to 4,100” lbs, so I took the average at 4,025. Its EPA fuel economy was 18 mpg in the city, 23 on the highway and 20 “combined.” I used the last figure. Hence [1/20 gal per mi] × [6.152 lb/gal] × [20,750 BTUs/lb], all divided by 4,025 = 1.586.

Figure for “F-Pace” Jaguar—Motor Trend, August 2016, p. 90 (Angus MacKenzie, “The Practical Sports Car: It Worked for Porsche. And It Will Work for Jaguar, Too”). The Jaguar’s curb weight was “3,950 to 4,100” lbs, so I took the average at 4,025. Its EPA fuel economy was 18 mpg in the city, 23 on the highway and 20 “combined.” I used the last figure. Hence [1/20 gal per mi] × [6.152 lb/gal] × [20,750 BTUs/lb], all divided by 4,025 = 1.586.

Energy to perform 1 “delivered horsepower per hour” for 1911 tractor—Gasoline data supplied by Ellis and Rumely, 109. Period’s gasoline HHV from same source. Tractor weight estimated by my ex-Minnesota-farmboy friend Paul Foster (phone interview, June 2016). 20,000 BTUs per lb of gasoline × 1.273 lbs gasoline = 25,460 BTUs for the entire tractor, divided by 2,000 lbs = 12.73 BTUs per lb, which I rounded to 13 to avoid spurious precision.

Specific cutting energy for machining 1 lb of various aluminum alloys—After Gutowski and Sekulic, p. 17, converted from 140–360 kJ/kg at 1 kJ/kg = 0.4299226 BTU/lb. Unrounded figures were 60.189 and 154.772 BTUs/lb. [Double-checking my calculations, Gutowski came up with 60.3 and 155.1 BTUs.]

Ditto, for various nickel alloys—Loc. cit., converted from 570–800 kJ/kg to 245.056–343.938 BTUs/lb.

Footnote: “The actual machining process . . .”—Loc. cit.

1975 energies to make sulfuric acid, common brick, liquid chlorine, aluminum—Han, p. 139 (Appendix I: “Energy Requirements for High Priority Primary Products”). [Source: Battelle Columbus Laboratories, 1975. Report No. PB-245759.] These data were originally given in “energy required per net ton (short ton of product in millions of BTU).” Therefore I divided each figure by 2,000 to get 1 pound.

“The values within these lines [430 to 13,000 BTUs per pound] reflect typical manufacturing energies for plastics, metals and composites, ca. 2010.”—N. Duque Ciceri, T. G. Gutowski and M. Garetti, “A Tool to Estimate Materials and Manufacturing Energy for a Product” (unpub.?, n.d.; after 2009; PDF version sent to WTV by Gutowski in 2016), unnumbered page: “Most of the manufacturing energy figures on conventional manufacturing processes for metals, plastics and processing of many composites roughly fall within the range of 1 to 30 MJ/kg,” which corresponds to 429.9226 to 12,897.678 BTUs/lb. [This document henceforth cited: “Ciceri, Gutowski and Garetti.”]

Energy to make Portland cement, 1990 and 1950—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 5 (“Carbon and Graphite Fibers” to “Chlorocarbons and Chlorohydro-carbons-C1”), p. 591 (“cement”): “Over a 40-year span the cement industry has reduced unit energy usage by 40%, from 9.6 MJ/kg (4131 Btu/lb) in 1950 to 5.7 MJ/kg (2464 Btu/lb) in 1990.” [Note: Using Mr. Matsumoto Jun’s default conversion factors (slightly different from Carbon Ideologies’s) of 1 MJ/kg = 429.945 BTUs/lb, we obtain the close but not identical respective values of 4,127.47 and 2,450.68 BTUs/lb. They vary from the encyclopaedia’s by about half of a percent.]

“Average energy required ca. 1958 to heat from 2,000–2,400° F 1 lb of steel in an ingot heating furnace.”—Here Gutowski comments: “69 BTU/lb minimum. Assume a furnace that is 75% efficient, then [delta, or change in] E = 92 BTU/lb. Assume the furnace is electric and the electric grid is 33% efficient, then [delta] E = 276 BTU/lb.

Energy needs for ingot and batch furnaces—Baumeister and Mark, p. 7-79 (Table, “Average Net Efficiencies and Fuel Requirements of Various Furnace Types in Good Operation”).

Energy needed to heat 1 lb of iron to 5,000° F—Ibid., p. 9-189 (Etherington article on atomic power).

Average energy needed to manufacture $1 worth of American products—Baumeister and Marks, p. 17-40 (Franklin J. Leerburger, “Cost of Electric Power”). In 1947, each dollar value of product cost 0.793 kWh [per a study by the Edison Electric Institute, “reported” in November 1950, “and based on the 1947 Census of Manufactures.” Hence 0.793 × [1 kWh = 3,413.0 BTUs] =2,706.509. (Each kWh was an astoundingly cheap 0.94 cents. “The percent cost of purchased power to value of product was 0.74.” More exactly, $1 of product value cost 0.7452 cents; so the ratio was 134.15.)

BTUs per lb of chlorine, rayon, aluminum, titanium—Baumeister and Marks, p. 17-41 (Franklin J. Leerburger, “Cost of Electric Power,” Table 1, “Power Requirements for Selected Electroprocess Materials”). 1952 figures. Originally expressed in “approximate kilowatt-hours required per ton of product.” Converted as per the following example: Titanium metal at [40,000 kWh/ton × 1 ton/2,000 lbs = 20 kWh per lb] × 3,413.0 BTUs/1 kWh = 68,260 BTUs/lb. (Power plant inefficiencies were not considered here; see headnotes to table.)—Here Gutowski writes: “Compare this to Fig. 4 in our Royal Society of London 2013 paper and this looks very reasonable.”

Energy per lb of “ordinary” steel from pig iron in 2010—Avid Boustani, Sahil Sahni, Timothy Gutowski and Steven Graves, “Tire Remanufacturing and Energy Savings” [MITEI-1-h-2010] (Boston: Environmentally Benign Manufacturing Laboratory, Sloan School of Management, MIT, January 28, 2010). [Henceforth cited: “Boustani et al., January 28, 2010.”] Page 17: “Typical energy cost of making 1 Kg of ordinary steel from pig iron is about 20–25 MJ.”

Titanium electroprocessing energy: 20 kWh: “Each American ‘consumer’ used about this much energy per day in 1975”—Information from Leckie et al., p. 37.

Energy to complete chemical vapor deposition process—After Gutowski and Sekulic, p. 23, converted from 1 GJ/kg to get 429,922.6 BTUs/lb.

Energy to make 1 lb of carbon nanotubes—Originally was 36 GJ/kg. [see here, citation re: carbon nanotubes for chapter “What Was the Work For? (continued).”] Hence final figure is 15,477,213.6 BTUs, which divided by 20,750 [the HHV/lb of gasoline] = 745.89. The density of gasoline is 6.152 lbs/gal, so our required volume = 121.24 gal.

Cross-check: Equivalence of 15,477,213.6 BTUs to the high heating value of 123.817 gallons of gasoline—Since 1 gal of gasoline = 125,000 BTUs [HHV]. Source: www.extension.iastate.edu.agdm [downloaded by Jordan Rothacker, February 2016): Don Hofstrand, Extension Value-Added Agriculture Specialist, “Ag Decision Maker: Liquid Fuel Measurements and Conversions: File C6-87, October 2008.”

Data on all “big five” (•) materials not cited above for this table from “Energy and Coal Requirements to Manufacture One Pound Each of the ‘Big Five’ Materials,” p. 134.

About Power

Epigraph: “We stand naked and exposed . . .”—The Holy See. Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ of the Holy Father Francis on Care for Our Common Home. Given in Rome at Saint Peter’s on 24 May, the Solemnity of Pentecost, in the year 2015, the third of my Pontificate. 82-page typescript, printed or downloaded for WTV by Father Brian Clary, May or June 2015. [Henceforth cited: “Encyclical of Pope Francis, 2015.”] Page 31 (para. 105).

Epigraph: “[c]ountries of the former USSR have been encouraged . . .”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 17 (“Nickel and Nickel Alloys” to “Paint”), p. 373 (“nuclear reactors (introduction)”).

“Luxury is right . . .”—John O’Hara, Stories, ed. Charles McGrath (New York: Library of America, 2016), p. 721 (“The Farmer,” 1968).

“a pound of ‘average’ Appalachian coal could give off 1 watt continuously for nearly 153 days”—This assumes that 1 lb coal = 12,500 BTUs, which divided by [1 w = 0.056884 BTUs per minute] = 219,745.4468 BTUs/min. Divided by [60 × 24], this becomes 152.6 days.

“An American radio from the 1950s might be rated at 60 watts”—According to H. A. Willman, The 4-H Handbook: A Timesaver for Agricultural Leaders, County Extension Agents, Vocational Teachers, and Older Youth (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press / Comstock Associates, 1952), p. 106, 1 kWh would power a radio for 15 hours. 1,000 divided by 15 = 66.666 watts.

3,413 pounds of water = 409.23 gallons—To be precise, 1 gal H2O = 8.34 lbs at 39.1° F.

“Should you happen to have 2,650 hundred-pound sandbags on hand . . .” —Information from Daniels, pp. 239–40.

“Today, electricity is such a familiar and convenient form . . .”—Steve Parker, Eyewitness Electricity (New York: Dorling Kindersley Ltd., 2013 [rev.?] repr. of 1992 ed.), p. 44.

And how much thermodynamic work would it take to cool a pound of water one degree? Las Vegas would be the place to ask. One day in 2016 both the Mandalay Bay and the Monte Carlo were advertising a “Minus 5 Ice Bar”: It’s winter year-round in this lounge made of ice. Outside the high was 88 degrees, a mere +3o departure from normal.

The Minus 5 Ice Bar—Vegas 2Go (“the in-the-know guide for visitors on the go”), September 18–October 1, 2016, p. 91.

That day’s weather and deviation from normal—Las Vegas Review-Journal, Thursday, September 29, 2016, p. 11A (weather section).

What 1 kWh could do in 1952—Willman, loc. cit.

“A pound of kerosene contained within it enough energy to generate 5.8 kilowatt-hours”—Since (according to Coal Information 2012, p. 1.14) 1 terawatt (1 trillion watts) = 0.086 mtoe [million tons of oil equivalent], then 1 TWh = 1 billion kWh = 86,000 tons of oil equivalent. Dividing kWh and toe by 1 billion and multiplying by 2,000 pounds per ton, we obtain: 1 kWh = 0.172 pounds of oil. Taking the reciprocal, we find that 1 lb of oil can generate about 5.814 kWh, which equals 19,843 BTUs. [Cross-check: 1 lb of oil at an HHV of 20,789 BTUs [see header 226 in table of Calorific Efficiencies] / 3,413.0 BTUs per kWh = 6.09 kWh.]

Per Capita Power Consumption, ca. 1925 and ca. 2014

Average consumption in kilowatt-hours per individual, ca. 1925—United States Department of Commerce, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Commerce Reports Nos. 27–39, vol. 3 (Twenty-Ninth Year), July, August, September 1926 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1926), p. 84 (D. S. Wegg, “Electrical Equipment”).

The same, ca. 2014—Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook, 2014–15 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2014). In relation to the previous order of countries:

Japan (pp. 384, 382)—Electricity consumption, 859.7 billion kWh (2012). Population, 127,103,388 (July 2014). Hence per capita power consumption was 6,763.785 kWh/person.

Germany (pp. 288, 286)—Electricity consumption, 582.5 billion kWh (2012). Population, 80,996,685 (July 2014). Hence per capita power consumption was 7,191.652 kWh.

United States (pp. 793, 790)—Electricity consumption, 3.886 trillion kWh (2010). Population, 318,892,103 (July 2014). Hence per capita power consumption was 12,185.939 kWh.

Norway (pp. 561, 559)—Electricity consumption, 120.9 billion kWh (2010). Population, 5,147,792 (July 2014). Hence per capita power consumption was 23,486 kWh.

Canada (pp. 144, 142)—Electricity consumption, 499.9 billion kWh (2010). Population, 34,834,841 (July 2014). Hence per capita power consumption was 14,350.575 kWh.

Switzerland (pp. 720, 717)—Electricity consumption, 58.97 billion kWh (2012). Population, 8,061,516 (July 2014). Hence per capita power consumption was 7,315.001 kWh/person.

“Satisfying each Canadian’s electric appetite”—Brown peat: 48,979,963 divided by the HHV of 10,026 yielded 4,885 lbs. Pocahontas coal: 48,979,963 / 14,550 = 3,666.3. Diesel fuel: I took the average of the two HHVs. Dividing 48,979,963 by 19,250, then dividing again by 7.036 lbs/gal [all densities taken from pp. 576–77] gave 361.5 gal. Gasoline: [48,979,963 / 20,750] / 6.152 lbs per gal] = 383.7 gal. Methane: [48,979,963 / 23,861] / 0.04163 lbs per cu ft] = 49,308 cu ft.

About Power (continued)

Footnote: “residential energy consumption,” etc.—Boustani et al., p. 6.

“Between 1947 and 2008, American refrigerators grew in size by 159%”—Information from the same source, p. 17 (Table 4: “Change in refrigerator size 1947–2008”).

“In general, old small refrigerators . . .”—Leckie et al., p. 38.

Manufacturing energy + use energy = embodied energy—I am indebted to Gutowski for all these concepts.

Tradeoff between 1974 and 1983 refrigerator models + “the right thing to do in 1956 and the wrong thing in 1992”—Boustani et al., loc. cit., below table. As always, unfortunately, the right choice on this topic was not something we could dope out by ourselves. Ibid., p. 21: “In years 1956, 1965, and 1974, remanufacturing an older generation refrigerator would lead to 34%, 39%, 15% savings in life cycle energy consumption, respectively. On the other hand, [the] same decision in 1983, 1992, and 2001 would cause 65%, 28%, 44% increase[s] in life cycle energy consumption, despite energy savings in [the] manufacturing phase.”

The 213 million wasted BTUs, with concomitant fuel oil requirements and carbon dioxide releases—The same source (p. 52) calculated the wastage at 225,000 MJ, which we multiply × 9,48.067 BTUs per MJ to obtain 213,315,075. From the table of Calorific Efficiencies on p. 214 we see that the HHV of commercial fuel oil, heavy grade, ca. 1975, is 18,450 BTUs/lb. Dividing by this, then multiplying by 3 to account for the waste inherent in electric power generation, we get 34,685.378 lbs of oil. Plugging in as an approximation the density of diesel fuel at 7.036 lbs/gallon (p. 582), we get 4,929.701 gal of fuel oil. From the table “Carbon Dioxide Emissions of Common Fuels” (p. 200), we see that heavy heating oil emits 1.890 lb carbon dioxide for each 10,000 BTUs. Dividing 213,315,075 BTUs by 10,000 gives us 21,331.5075, which we multiply by 1.890 to get 40,316.549.

“Wearing our clothes, right into rags was, always best”—Sahil Sahni, Avid Boustani, Timothy Gutowski and Steven Graves, “Textile Remanufacturing and Energy Savings” (Environmentally Benign Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity, Sloan School of Management, MITEI-1-g-2010, January 28, 2010), p. 7: “For approximately 12 wash/iron cycles in the life time of clothes, the savings are 57% for the t-shirt and 91% for the blouse. Even if the use is extended over six fold to 75 cycles, the savings are 19% and 68% respectively. Hence, the analysis strongly concludes that reusing textiles and clothing is the energy savings strategy.”

“replacing an electric motor usually saved more energy than repairing it”—Information from Sahil Sahni, Avid Boustani, Timothy Gutowski and Steven Graves, “Electric Motor Remanufacturing and Energy Savings” (Environmentally Benign Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity, Sloan School of Management, MITEI-1-c-2010, January 28th, 2010): “Each year approximately 2.5 times more motors are repaired compared to the new ones bought . . . A motor can be repaired, on an average, 4–6 times in its life before being permanently discarded” (p. 11). “Overall it was shown that the common notion that remanufacturing leads to energy savings was challenged an[d] it was shown that replacing with new in the case of electric motors is the energy saving strategy” (p. 29).

Retreading automobile tires: “strongly depends on the boundary conditions of the analysis”—Boustani et al., January 28, 2010, p. 72. This result is astonishing, since “more than 80% of embedded energy is retained in the casing of the tire, which is saved after the tires reach end of life. In other words, a tire is scrapped due to tread wear; the tread only takes 10 to 20% of the entire material and energy retained in a tire” (p. 8).

“Possibly the most stupendous discovery . . .”—Ellis and Rumely, p. 13.

Comparative Power Requirements and Energy Usages

“Typically, the input power for a microwave oven is 50% higher than its rated power.”—Boxwell, p. 104.

Electric toothbrush, 2015—Rated at 0.9 watts, × [0.056884 BTU per minute per watt].

Freezing a pound of water [based on refrigeration ton]—Converting 1 short ton to 2,000 lb and BTUs per hour to BTUs per minute, from Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 21 (“Recycling, Oil” to “Silicon”), p. 129 (“refrigeration”).

Motion detector light, 2015—A Home Zone Security twin head LED device, model AEC-326KA2-AC14Q ES00384G, rated at 120VAC/60Hz, 30.6 watts [the latter × 0.056884 BTU/min = 1.7406504 BTUs per min].

Vibrator [40 w], sewing machine [75], radio [80], refrigerator [235; w/frostless freezer 475], hair dryer, color TV and “food freezer” [300], vacuum cleaner [540], dishwasher [1,190], window air conditioner [1,300], broiler [1,375], home electric range [11,720], all from ca. 1975—Leckie et al., p. 37 (Table 3.2, “Approximate Monthly KWH Consumption of Household Appliances Under Normal Usage”). That the vibrator was a plug-in is deduced from the context of the list itself, whose devices are in rated watts, and from a mid-1970s guide to lesbian sex that I just happen to possess, which refers to the necessity of power cords for these devices. All figures originally expressed in the rated watts parenthetically following them, then in estimated monthly kilowatts. “If you play a radio (80 watts) an average of 1 hour a day, then during a month’s time (30 days) it would consume 30 times 80 watt-hours or about 2.4 KWH.” Again, I converted using 1 watt = .056884 BTU per minute.

Metabolic requirements for sleeping and sweeping floor—Leckie et al., p. 80 (expressed as 220 and 550 BTUs/hour, respectively). On p. 37 he says: “The power equivalent of consuming 3000 food calories a day is about 150 watts—so you might say the human body is roughly equivalent to a 150-watt machine.” This works out to 8.53 BTUs/min.

Operating a popular brand of laptop computer, 2014 (I will not be a corporate pimp and name the thing)—Since rating on device is 16.5 volts at 3.65 amps max, I have multiplied these to get the wattage, then multiplied by .056884 BTU per minute per watt to obtain 3.43 BTUs.

“A typical adult male at sustained labor is estimated to produce 75 to 100 watts of power”—Tom Butler and George Wurthner, eds., Energy: Overdevelopment and the Delusion of Endless Growth (Sausalito, California: Foundation for Deep Ecology, in conjunction with Post Carbon Institute / Watershed Media, 2012), p. 19.

Operating refrigerator, 1961—Leckie et al., p. 38, give 70 kWh/month. I calculate that 70 kWh/mo × 3,413 BTUs/kWh × (1 mo / 30 d × 1 d / 24 hr × 1 hr / 60 min) = 5.53 BTUs/min.

Ditto, 1969—Loc. cit.: 110 kWh/month. From the previous calculation, I infer that the correct figure = 5.53 BTUs/min × 110/70 = 8.69 BTUs/min.

All entries from Oberg and Jones are given in horsepower, which I have multiplied by 42.418 to obtain BTUs/min.

“Powering a 100-watt lightbulb, by definition”—A 100 watt lightbulb obviously uses 100 watts. Since 1 watt = 0.056884 BTU per minute, 100 watts = 5.6884 BTUs per minute. If this lightbulb could somehow have been powered by the solar energy received per minute per square foot just above our atmosphere and normal to the sun’s rays, there would have been 1.68 BTUs to spare—enough to simultaneously operate the vibrator for a frustrating 44 seconds per minute.

Follow-up to preceding: “A burner operating at 20 MMBTU [million BTU]/hr. has a power output equivalent to approximately 60,000 light bulbs at 100 W each.”—Charles E. Baukal, Jr., ed., Industrial Burners Handbook (New York: CRC Press, 2004), p. 114 (sec. 13.41: “Definition of Heat Released”). This works out to 5.55 BTUs (or 2.4 times the vibrator’s power consumption) for 1 minute of a single 100-watt bulb.

“A moderately active human adult requires about 3 million cal[ories] every 24 hr.”—Weisz, p. 487. Therefore, [(3,000 kcal per 24 hrs) / (24 × 60) = 2.0833 kcal/min] × 3.968 BTUs/kcal = 8.266 BTUs/min.

Power needed to remove metals by round-nosed lathe tool—Oberg and Jones, p. 1842.

Operating a certain electric corn popper, 1956 [the Kenmore 2½-qt model]—Sears, Roebuck and Co., fall and winter catalogue, 1956, p. 1079. [Henceforth cited: “Sears catalogue, 1956.”]

Average power consumption by WTV, December 2013 and 2014—From my electric bill (given respectively as 15.3 and 12.2 kilowatt-hours per day, converted at 1 kWh = 3,413.0 BTUs and 1 day =1,440 minutes).

“American average” power consumption, 1975—Leckie et al., p. 37, calculated by WTV from their 20 kWh/day × 3,413 BTUs/kWh / (24 hr/day × 60 min/hr).

Heavy-duty blender—Rated at 750 watts, so × 0.056884 BTU/min = 42.663.

Average residential power consumption in Sacramento, California, 2016—Gmail—RE: Media Relations Questions, to Jordan Rothacker (who sent it on to WTV), from Christopher Capra, Sr., Public Information Specialist, News Media Services, at or for SMUD, Tuesday, December 6, 2016, at 6:51 p.m. [Henceforth cited: “SMUD e-mail, 2016.”] Text reads: “SMUD considers 750 kWh/month as the average residential usage, for a single family residence. We do not provide an average for commercial customers as use and size of buildings vary greatly.” 750 kWh / month × [1 month / 30 days] × [3,413 BTUs / (1,440 minutes = 1 day)] = 59.254 BTUs / min.

Air compressor—Rated at 10.6 amps at 110 volts (I have multiplied the amps thus instead of × 115], × 0.056884 BTU/min = 66.327.

Power (originally stated in watts per hour, and converted by WTV to BTUs/min) needed by cell phone charger, radio, laptop, LCD TV, desktop PC, 12-cubic-ft fridge, hedge trimmer, vacuum cleaner, small microwave, hair dryer, dishwasher, espresso machine and large microwave, all ca. 2012—Boxwell, pp. 183–84 (Appendix C, “Typical Power Requirements”).

Operating 11" × 14" photographic dry mount press—This was a “Technal” model, made in Englewood, NJ, and rated at 115 volts, 1,250 watts, which latter number = 71.105 BTUs/min. I bought it used and roughly estimated its decade of manufacture based on its appearance and wear. I might be off by 20 years.

Average American household power consumption, 2010—According to Wikipedia [“standby power,” accessed by a friend on February 15, 2015], “average home” consumption was 11,040 kWh/yr. At [1 kWh = 3,413.0 BTUs], this equals 37,679,520 BTUs/yr = 71.689 BTUs/min.

Operating a “Fan-forced Non-Automatic Electric Heater,” 1956—Sears catalogue, 1956, p. 1078 (a Kenmore, 110–120 V, 50–60 cycle AC, 1,320 watts. “Smartly styled Harmony House Sunshine yellow enameled steel case”).

Operating hypoallergenic vacuum cleaner, ca. 2010—This high-powered so-called “pet vacuum,” meant to suck up dander, hair and other such chaff, was purchased in about 2010. Rated 12 amps. Operated at 115-volt current. Calculations analogous to those for laptop.

Per capita American food-related and overall “energy flows”—USDA Report 24, p. 11, as calculated by WTV from the following data: Our 2002 annual national energy flow was 97.9 Q-BTUs, or 340 million BTUs per capita. (The 2002 U.S. population was around 287, 941 million.) The food-related energy flow made up 12.2% of that.

American energy use per capita, 1870, 1900, 1950, 1990—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 12 (“Fuel Resources” to “Heat Stabilizers”), p. 2 (“fuel resources,” Table 1: “U.S. Energy Consumption by Source from 1870–1990, EJ”). Here were figures I selected: 1870: 4.1 EJ [3.1 from wood and biomass, 1.1 from coal]; 1900: 10.1 EJ [2.1 for wood and biomass, 7.2 for coal, 0.2 for petroleum, 0.3 for natural gas, 0.3 from hydroelectric]; 1950: 37.1 EJ; and 1990, 85.76 EJ. To convert EJ to BTUs, multiply by 9.48 × 10 to the 14th power, or 948,000,000,000,000. Since this was a yearly figure, I divided it by ([365 × 24 × 60] = 525,600) to obtain BTUs per minute. This quotient is 1,803,652,968.03653. Thus to convert EJ to BTUs, I multiplied by 1,803,652,968:

1870: 7,394,977,169

1900: 18,216,894,977

1950: 66,915,525,114

1990: 154,681,278,539 [used as is for header 67,842,666,026]

To compute per capita energy use I needed population figures. Ari Hoogenboom, ed., and Gary B. Nash, gen. ed., Encyclopedia of American History, vol. VI (“The Development of the Industrial United States: 1870 to 1899”) (New York: Facts on File, 2003), p. 226 (“population trends”), states that in 1870 the U.S. contained 40 million people, and in 1900, 76 million. In vol. IX (“Postwar United States: 1946 to 1968”), Allan M. Winkler, ed., and Gary B. Nash, gen. ed. (same pub. date), pp. 244–45 (“population trends”) informs us that from 1940 to 1970, “aggregate population” rose from 132 to 203 million, and that from 1940 to 1950, it increased by 19 million, which implies that in 1950 it was [132 + 19] = 151 million. In 1990, the official U.S. census estimate was 251,394,000, which I have rounded to 251 million to keep it at the same level of approximation as the other population figures.

Dividing the number of BTUs per minute by the number of people in each of the given years, I arrived at the four numbers in the table.

Energy use by bulldozers, power hammers and horizontal machines for drilling, etc.—Oberg and Jones, pp. 1835–36 [unnumb. table, “Motor Power for Machine Tools and Forging Machinery”]. I am simplifying to “common bulldozers” bulldozers with any of the following motors: constant speed, compound-wound, direct current, or wound secondary or squirrel cage induction. The power hammers in this comparison have any of these same types of motors. Likewise the horizontal boring, drilling and milling machines, except that some might instead have adjustable speed DC motors.

Parsons steam turbine dynamo—Steve Parker, p. 42.

Electric water heater—Rated at 4,500 watts, × 0.056884 BTU/min = 255.978. But altered, per Prof. Gutowski, to 21.7 BTUs per minute. see here, source-note to table of Comparative Energy Requirements, “Energy to keep warm 1 lb of water for a minute in a 40-gallon electric heater.”

Front-loading dryers—The electric model was rated at 5,300 watts, the gas model at 22,000 BTUs per hour.

“Tumble driers are hugely energy inefficient . . .”—Boxwell, p. 105.

Light commercial sewing machine—A Singer sewing brand, purchased ca. 2010. Volts 120. Amps 210. [60 Hz.] 120 × 210 = 25,200 watts, × 0.056884= 1,433.4768 BTUs per minute.

Information on Piper Cub two-seat airplane—Plane & Pilot [Braintree, Massachusetts], August 2017, p. 44 (Robert Goyer, “10 Thoughts on 80 Years of the [Piper] Cub”). The first Piper Cub, 1938, “featured a whopping 37 horsepower.” From the “Definitions, Units and Conversions” section on p. 524, 1 hp = 42.408 BTUs/min.

Powering the 5 screens of a multiplex movie theater—From the website in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index, accessed July 2016 [data ca. 2009]: 5-screen multiplex at 36,000 watts. Per-minute use at = [36,000 watts × 0.056884 BTUs/min = 2,047.824 BTUs/min. [Actual use, per the website: 12 hrs × 5 days × 52 wks.]

Capacities of locomotives—Baumeister, p. 11-23 (J. F. Partridge, “Railway Engineering,” Table 1, “Electric Locomotives”). Original figures were: Illinois Central, 400 hp; Virginian; 6,800 hp [both expressed as continuous]. Converted at: 1 hp = 42.418 BTUs/min.

Average U.S. electric production, week of June 17, 2015—Coal Valley News [West Virginia], Wednesday, June 17, 2015, p. 4B (T. L. Headley, “U.S. coal production slightly up”). The figure was 74.76 MW of electricity this week (versus 79.56 for the same week of the previous year). Calculation: 74.76 MWh = 74.76 × 1,000 × 3413.0 BTUs/hr = 255,155,880 BTUs / [1 week = 60 min / hr × 24 hr / day × 7 days / wk = 10,080] = 25,313.083 BTUs per minute.

U.S. energy consumed in paper manufacture and petroleum manufacture, 1988—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 12 (“Fuel Resources” to “Heat Stabilizers”), p. 439 (“energy management,” Table 1: “Energy Usage by United States Industry in 1988”). Petroleum refining was 6.87 EJ, and paper manufacturing at 2.90 EJ, converted as usual to BTUs/min.

World energy consumption, 1950, 1990, 2050 projection—Darling and Sisterson, p. xix, expressed in terawatts [= trillions of watts], respectively 3, 12, 30 of them, which I have converted at 1 TW = 56,884,000,000 [56.9 billion] BTUs/min.

World energy consumption rate, 1991—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 12 (“Fuel Resources” to “Heat Stabilizers”), p. 12 (Table 13: “World Energy Consumption, 1991, EJ”). The figure given was 365.93 EJ, which I converted to 660,010,730,594 BTUs per min, as I did for the comparable numbers relevant to 1870, 1900, 1950 and 1990.

World energy consumption rate, 2015—Prentiss, p. 15: “The total energy use for the world is about 500 exajoules, which is equivalent to an average consumption rate of approximately 2 × 1013 watts.” [Exa- = 10 to the 18th power.] Since 1 watt = 0.056884 BTU per minute, 2 × 1013 watts = 1,137,680,000,000 BTUs, and this divided by 2.28 = 498,982,456,140. [It is comforting to see the nearness of the BTU figure to Darling and Sisterson’s [loc. cit.] for ca. 2014: 18 trillion watts = 1.0239 trillion BTUs per minute.

About Power (continued)

Per capita manufacturing power consumption increase as of 2010—Gutowski et al., Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour., 2013, p. 100 (“Table 5: Global per capita consumption of energy, materials, products, and services in 2010 . . .”). The 2010 consumption figure was 2,449 watts per capita. All this was “total primary power.” For a definition, see here in the end matter.

“People everywhere need more and more electricity . . .”—Barbara Alpert [consulting ed.: Gail Saunders-Smith, Ph.D.], Electricity All Around (North Mankato, Minnesota: Capstone Press / Pebble Plus Science Builders series., 2012), p. 20.

What Was the Work For? (continued)

Epigraph: Ad for “A Beloved Symbol of Christmas”—National Enquirer, October 10, 2016, p. 41.

Energy Required to Move an American Car One Mile, 1949 and 2010

Prentiss (p. 16) asserts that the 1949 average fuel efficiency was 13 miles per gallon and the comparable 2010 figure was 17.5 mpg. Since 1 BTU = 1/112,500 gallon of gasoline (see here), then 112,500 BTUs / 1 gal gasoline × 1 gal gasoline / 13 mi = 8,653.85 BTUs per mile for 1949; the equivalent 2010 computation yielded 6,428.57 BTUs per mile. To avoid spurious precision I rounded these to the nearest whole number.—Prentiss adds (pp. 15–16 [possibly referring to 2005 rather than 2010]) that “the annual number of miles driven per vehicle has increased by more than a third since 1949; however, increases in fuel efficiency have been so large that the present U.S. fuel consumption is almost 10 percent lower than it was in 1949.”

Footnote: My share of carbon dioxide emissions on the Barcelona trip—In 2015 I flew from San Francisco to Zürich on an Airbus A340-300 (Swiss International), then from Zürich to Barcelona on an Airbus A321, and finally from Barcelona to San Francisco on an Airbus A340-600 (Lufthansa for the latter two legs). These details come from my electronic ticket, as does the following: “EL CALCULO MEDIO DE EMISIONES DE CO2 DURANTE EL VUELO ES 1570.09 KG/PERSONA.”

Thoreau: “We will sit on a mound and muse . . .”—Henry David Thoreau, Collected Essays and Poems (New York: Library of America, 2001), p. 90 (“Dark Ages,” 1843).

“A curious aspect of the automobile . . .”—Walter J. Boyne, Power Behind the Wheel: Creativity and the Evolution of the Automobile (New York: Stewart, Tabori and Chang, 1988), p. 8.

“the way the 5.2 liter, twin-turbo V-12 storms . . .”—Motor Trend, July 2016, p. 21 (Angus MacKenzie, “8.16 Trend: 2017 Aston Martin DB11”).

Carbon Ideologies Approached

Epigraph: “Life as we know it is not limitless . . .”—Loren Eiseley, Collected Essays on Evolution, Nature, and the Cosmos, Volume One (New York: Library of America, 2017), p. 349 (The Unexpected Universe, 1969).

“What a country it must have been . . .”—Sherwood Anderson, Collected Stories (New York: Library of America, 2012), pp. 683–84 (“These Mountaineers,” 1930).

“Strip off the woods . . .” + “The slow-going, unthrifty farmers . . .”—John Muir, Nature Writings (New York: Library of America, 1997); p. 629 (“God’s First Temples: How Shall We Preserve Our Forests?,” 1876, and “The American Forests,” 1897).

“Increasingly, there is but one way into the future . . .”—Eiseley, vol. 1, p. 267 (The Unexpected Universe).

“highways, gas stations and parking lots now cover more of the surface area . . .”—Wilson et al., p. 1000.

“Transportation is heavily dependent on the use of oil derivatives . . .”—Meyer and Gómez-Ibáñes, p. 124.

Footnote: Transportation as a percentage of U.S. energy consumption—Ibid., p. 124.

Carbon monoxide and nitrous oxide pollution, + sulfur and particulates—DOT, June 1979, p. II-15 (Table 2-12: “Magnitude of pollutants in rail rapid transit powered by electrical energy”). Data for carbon monoxide: coal, 0.4536 grams per car-mile; residual oil, 0.0068; natural gas, negligible. For “oxides of nitrogen”: coal, 18.5976; residual oil, 17.6904; natural gas, 9.5256.

Citations from Philip Wylie—The End of the Dream (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, Beyond Armageddon series, 2013; orig. pub. 1972), pp. 91, 118, 164, 173, 186, 225, 246, 229, 235–36, 244–45, 256–57.

Footnote: “The swarming millions who now populate the planet . . .”—Eiseley, vol. 2 (The Invisible Pyramid, The Night Country, essays from The Star Thrower), pp. 366–67 (The Star Thrower, “The Winter of Man,” 1972).

“Dense clouds of yellow dust from China were forecast to begin reaching China on Friday.”—The Japan Times, Saturday, March 9, 2013, p. 2 (unattrib., “Fukuoka gears up for China’s smog cloud”). This was “PM2.5, or hazardous particulate matter measuring below 2.5 microns,” a “toxic air pollutant.” There was an “average daily amount of PM2.5 forecast to reach 42 micrograms per cubic meter in city of Fukuoka, topping the national environmental standard of 35.” There would be an alert “if the density looks to top the central government-set allowable level of 70 micrograms per cubic meter.”

“Yellow dust linked . . .”—The Japan Times, Thursday, March 13, 2014, p. 2 (unattrib., “Yellow dust linked to more emergency room trips”). In Nagasaki, 12% more patients were brought to emergency rooms during high-level yellow dust days than on other days; the percentage was higher still when the yellow dust arrived “after passing over industrial districts in China’s coastal areas at an altitude of less than 2 km.”

“A Stanford University biologist . . .”—Donahue, Miller and Shickluna, p. 528.

The ads in Inc.—Inc.: The Magazine for Growing Companies (July 1985), pp. 16–17 (Toyota) and 23 (Compaq). Meanwhile, in the August issue (p. 25), an airline’s founder (p. 28; interview with Donald Burr) explained to us all about “the competitive business strategy of People Express, which is to provide an environment for all of us to do better on the same team.”

Two old names for carbon dioxide—Britannica, 11th ed., vol. V (CALHOUN to CHATELAINE), p. 306 (“carbon”).

“The cool-moist trend of the 1960s . . .”—The New Encyclopaedia Britannica in 30 Volumes (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica / The University of Chicago, 1976), vol. 4 (CEYLON to CONGREVE), p. 741 (“climatic change”). [This version henceforth cited: “Britannica, 15th ed.”]

“It seems that the 10 percent increase . . .”—Ibid., p. 715 (“climate”).

“Being an Earthlike-planet . . .” + (used in my fn) temperature of more than 750° F (converted from “more than 400° C” [to 752]), sulfur dioxide in Venusian atmosphere, + mention of greenhouse effect—F. W. Taylor, The Cambridge Photographic Guide to the Planets (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 50–51, 60, 66.

“Perhaps the most promising explanation . . .” + “Preliminary calculations suggest . . .” + (used in my fn) “Searing temperature” and “crushing pressure”—Britannica, 15th ed., vol. 19 (UTILITARIANISM to ZWINGLI), pp. 80–81 (“Venus”).

Footnote: Temperature of 840° F (converted from “more than 450° C” [to 752])—Ronald Greeley and Raymond Batson, The Compact NASA Atlas of the Solar System, Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2001; orig. non-compact ed., 1997), p. 53.

Carbon dioxide in Venusian atmosphere—Britannica, loc. cit.; not specifically mentioned in Taylor, but Greeley and Batson (p. 61) refer to “Venus’s dense, carbon dioxide atmosphere.”

Carbon dioxide “to the tune of 96.4%”—Information from David R. Lide, Ph.D., ed. in chief, CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 87th ed. (New York: Taylor & Francis / CRC Press, 2006), p. 14-3 (“Properties of the Solar System”). [This document henceforth cited: “CRC Handbook, 2006.”]

“The United States accounts for roughly one half of the world’s total consumption of energy and produces substantially less than it consumes.”—John R. Meyer and José A. Gómez-Ibáñes, Auto Transit and Cities (A Twentieth Century Fund Report) (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1981), p. 123.

“Very often the point is made . . .” + “Modern industry cannot operate without electricity . . .”—R. F. Meyer, ed., and J. C. Olson, assoc. ed., Long-Term Energy Resources, vol. I (“a international conference sponsored by The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) and Petro-Canada, in cooperation with United Nations Development Program, Canadian International Development Agency, Petroleos de Venezuela, Hydro-Québec, Compagnie Francaise des Petroles, November 26–December 7, [1980?], Montréal . . .” (Boston: Pitman, 1981), pp. 7–8, 7 (Meyer’s remarks). [This publication henceforth cited: “Long-Term Energy Resources.”]

“If the cause of these glacial conditions . . .”—Eiseley, vol. 1, p. 312 (The Unexpected Universe).

Footnote: More words by Meyer—Ibid., p. lxviii (introduction).

“Energy planners must never forget . . .”—Long-Term Energy Resources, p. 15 (Sir Hermann Bondi, Chief Scientist, U.K. Department of Energy, “The Need for a Diversity of Energy Sources”).

“Not to use oil and gas . . .”—Robert S. Livingston et al., “of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee,” A Desirable Energy Future: A National Perspective (Philadelphia: Franklin Institute Press, 1982), p. 8.

World primary energy output, 1981: 285 quadrillion BTUs of primary energy—U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Administration, 1981 International Energy Annual (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Energy, September 1982), p. 1, “world production of primary energy”: 1973, 247 quads; and 1981, 285 quads—a 5.38% increase, which the DOE found remarkable, given the three recent politically-induced declines in production. [This document henceforth cited: “U.S. DOE, 1982.”]

Conversion from quads to barrels of oil—A quad contains “roughly the energy contained in 200 million barrels of oil.” (See p. 535.) So 285 Q-BTUs = 57 billion bbl oil.

HHV of a barrel of oil—42 gal × [p. 215, multiplier header 202: 154,600 BTUs per gallon] = 6,493,200 BTUs/barrel.

Footnote: “The U.S. Department of Energy estimated a barrel of American crude at 5.8 million”—Information from U.S. DOE, 1982, p. 104 (Appendix D: “Gross Thermal Conversions by Energy Source”), using all 1980 figures.

“just enough to have manufactured 95 pounds of titanium in 1952”—[6,493,200 BTUs/barrel] / [68,260 BTUs / lb Ti; see here [“Comparative Energy Requirements,” multiplier header 68,260] = 95.1245. The immense energy requirements of titanium manufacture are indicated by the fact that if we had employed all 285 quads at this task, net production would have been “only” [57 billion / 68,260 =] 835,042.4846 pounds.

“Burning fossil fuels will increase the level of CO2 . . .”—Livingston et al., 13.

“At present, the most serious man-made impact . . .”—The National Research Council, Protection Against Depletion of Stratospheric Ozone by Chlorofluorocarbons (Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences, 1979), pp. 102, 111. [This source henceforth cited: “National Research Council.”]

“The rapid, very voluminous release of CO2 . . .”—Paul B. Weisz, professor of biology, Brown University, The Science of Biology, 3rd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967 rev. of 1959 ed.), p. 212.

The two curves, and appended remarks—Livingston et al., pp. 40–41.

Footnote on the “medium scenario” of 700 ppm—IPCC, 2013, p. 1187. The “high scenario” imagined a grisly 700–1200 ppm.

About Data

Epigraph: “The literature review supports the oft-heard assumption . . .”—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, p. 519.

Epigraph: “I was the first one back in 2002 . . .”—The Washington Post, “Morning Mix” (Jacob Bogage, July 27), downloaded for WTV by Jordan Rothacker (who this time did not provide the Internet address), October 2016.

“Modeling only the gas-phase dynamics . . .”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 3 (“Antibiotics” to “Batteries”), p. 743 (“atmospheric modeling”).

“the 95% confidence interval . . . since 1951 is +/- 0.12° C.”—CRC Handbook, 2006, p. 14-31 (“Global Temperature Trend, 1856–2004”).

About Data Suppression

Epigraph: “We can be silent witnesses to terrible injustices . . .”—Encyclical of Pope Francis, 2015, p. 11 (para 36).

The allegations of Mr. Honma Ryu (whose book Genpats Koukoku to Chihoushi [“nuclear advertisements in local newspapers”] are cited repeatedly in the Nuclear Ideology section, pp. 221–27)—Global Research, June 5, 2016 (www.globalresearch.ca/fukiushima-and-nuclear-power . . . , downloaded for WTV by David M. Golden, October 2016): INA Global and Asia-Pacific Journal, June 1, 2016 (Mathieu Gaulène, “Fukushima and Nuclear Power: Does the Advertising Giant Dentsu Pull the Strings of Japan’s Media?”): 4-pp. printout; all pp. used.

About Disbelief

Epigraph: Nevil Shute, On the Beach (New York: Bantam Books, 1970 repr. of 1957 ed.), p. 101.

“No theory can ever be proved to be correct . . .” + “A theory is of little value . . .” —Marion, pp. 12, 13.

“It is a strange art that can thus be practised . . .”—Robert Louis Stevenson, The Master of Ballantrae: A Winter’s Tale (New York: Modern Library, 2002; orig. ed. 1889), p. 99.

Copernicus’s iconoclasm: “has been called a last effort to ‘save the appearances’”—For such assessments, see my Uncentering the Earth: Copernicus and the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (New York: Norton / Atlas Books, 2006), pp. 203–4.

“And so the sun . . .”—Robert Maynard Hutchins, ed.-in-chief, Great Books of the Western World, no. 16: Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., William Benton, Publisher, 1952, p. 528 (Nicolaus Copernicus, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres [1543], trans. Charles Glenn Wallis, 1939).

“The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese . . .”—Donald Trump, quoted in the Khaleej Times, vol. XXXVIII, no. 183, Saturday, October 15, 2006, p. 12 (“Expressions”: “Zip that lip, Mr. Trump!”).

“Consider It Good Fortune”

Epigraph: “We may be moving now towards a warmer phase . . .” + “If so, there will be less room for us . . .”—H. G. Wells, The Outline of History: Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind, rev. Raymond Postgate and G. P. Wells (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Co., 1971 rev.; orig. ed. 1920), vol. 1, pp. 48 (epigraph) and 34 (fn).

Epigraph: “. . . and he felt reassured by the thought of New York . . .”—Rand, pp. 259–60.

Carbon dioxide values, and the line on that graph—Information from CRC Handbook, 2006. Each of the two figures is taken from the relevant year’s “annual” column in the observatory records.

Further re: 1750 carbon dioxide values: IPCC, p. 166: “The 1750 globally averaged abundance of atmospheric CO2 based on measurements of air extracted from ice cores and from firn is 278 ± 2 ppm . . .”

When my research assistant queried NOAA regarding slight differences between their numbers and CRC’s, and whether I could publish it, the following reply came from Dr. Pieter Tans at NOAA Federal (Thursday, August 18, 2016, at 4:12 p.m.): “You are very welcome to use the data. They are in the public domain. We only ask to be referenced as the source. Our values are better than in the CRC handbook. Many years ago I got a value of 0.03% from that, when MLO was showing values like 350.38 ppm, to give you an example. Maybe the handbook is more specific these days, but they get their information from us. There are a few missing months in the record—in those cases the column “interpolated” does show a value. A multiyear average seasonal cycle has been removed from the “trend” column so that it shows the steady rise. For annual averages we have a different file, also on the web, co2_annmean_mlo.txt. Our average for 1959 is the same as yours, but we round it to 315.97. Our uncertainty for the annual averages is listed as 0.12 ppm (one standard deviation, or ~65% confidence).” I print this communication for the sake of completeness. Since the CRC numbers were still very close to NOAA’s, I decided to leave them, so that the relation of my experience in finding the numbers in the CRC Handbook would be accurate.

The United Nations “Millennium Ecosystem Assessment” (2005)—Quoted in Ward, p. 3199.

“nearly 147% higher than the planetary average over the last 800,000 years”—According to Darling and Sisterson (p. xvii), the average carbon dioxide level over this period was 230 ppm. This source claims that carbon dioxide “peaks at 250–300 ppm about every 100,000 years.”

Footnote on ice cores—Information from Scientific American, February 1998, pp. 80–85 (Richard B. Alley and Michael L. Bender, “Greenland Ice Cores: Frozen in Time: Ice, frozen in place for tens of thousands of years, provides scientists with clues to past—and future—climate”).

“preindustrial chemical equilibrium values of 280 ppm.”—Dr. Pieter Tans, chief, Carbon Cycle Greenhouse Gases Group, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, letter to WTV, via Jordan Rothacker, May 8, 2017. [Henceforth cited: “Tans to WTV, May 2017.”]

230 parts per million—See Darling and Sisterson in source-note to future status of Marshall Islands, sources p. 6 (text p. 13). Levels in 2014—Loc. cit. As a member of the Climate Reality Project and Citizens Climate Lobby of Downington, Pennsylvania, put the case: “We pump 90 million tons of CO2 [no subscript] into the atmosphere every 24 hours, and it remains there for over a hundred years. It has increased CO2 levels from an 800,000 year average of 280 parts per million to today’s 400 parts per million . . . From around 1850 until now we’ve burned 500 billion tons of carbon and raised the global average temperature .8 degrees Celsius, almost halfway to the 2-degree limit . . . so we can only burn another 565 billion tons . . . The critical issue is, globally we have 2,795 billion tons of carbon in inventory (82 percent coal, 49 percent gas, and 33 percent oil) ready to burn . . .”—The Charleston [West Virginia] Gazette, Monday, February 16, 2015, p. 4A (“Opinion” section, Peter Whiteford, “Climate change: Planning to fail”).

Roger Revelle’s predictions—Odum, p. 33.

“the oceans were 82 feet higher” (in the Pliocene)—Darling and Sisterson., p. xviii.

“In earlier years, other factors were stronger . . .”—Darling and Sisterson, p. 109.

“It could have been as early as 1951 . . . that the Earth began to absorb more heat than it sent back into space”—The Japan Times, Friday, January 6, 2017, p. 5 (unattrib., “Global warming didn’t pause, study shows”): A 2013 IPCC report “said the average global warming between 1951 and 2012 had been 0.12 degrees Celsius (0.22 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade.”

“it is ‘virtually certain’ . . . that the Earth has gained substantial energy from 1971 . . .”—IPCC, 2013, p. 39.

Conversion of joules to BTUs—1 BTU = 1,054.8 joules, so 274 × 1021 J × 1 BTU / 1,054.8 J = 2.599 × 1020 BTUs. Dividing this by 1015 [= 1 quadrillion], we obtain 260,000 quads.

“totaled merely 919 times more than the entire global energy production of 1981!”—As was stated on p. 87, this was 285 quads.

“It was as if we had burned 10 and a half billion tons of West Virginia coal in the course of those 39 years—8.52 tons each second.”—262,000 Q-BTUs / 12,500 per lb Appalachian coal / 2,000 lbs per ton = 10,480,000,000,000 tons, which divided by [39 years × 1,536,000 years to seconds] yields 173,611 tons per second.

Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Fuel Combustion, World and Selected Countries

Data sets from CO2 Emissions from Fuel Combustion: Highlights (Paris: International Energy Agency, OECD/IEA, 2016); downloaded from www.iea.org for WTV by Jordan Rothacker, October 2017, p. 76 (Summary Time Series: CO2 emissions from fuel combustion [expressed in million (metric) tonnes carbon dioxide]. [This document henceforth cited: “OECD/IEA, 2016.”]

Carbon dioxide levels in 2016—ftp://aftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/products/trends/co2/co2_mm_mlo.txt, downloaded for WTV by Jordan Rothacker on May 25, 2016. The page is headlined “NOAA ESRL DATA.” [“These data are made freely available to the public and the scientific community in the belief that their wide dissemination will lead to greater understanding and new scientific insights. The availability of these data does not constitute publication of the data. NOAA relies on the ethics and integrity of the user to insure that ESRL receives fair credit for their work.”] This value comes from the “average” column. There were also “interpolated” and “trend (season corr[ected?]” columns, which were respectively 407.42 (the same as the “average”) and 404.60. N.b.: The final (month 12 out of 12) 1959 values from this source vary slightly from the ones published in the CRC Handbook. The three respective columns (“average” first) were 315.58, 315.58 and 316.52. My calculation of the arithmetical average of the 12 “averages” for that year is 315.974.

Carbon dioxide levels: “43% over 1750”—Information from EPA, 2016, p. 25.

The corresponding “graph of annual global mean temperature from 1856 to 2004”—Ibid., p. 14-31 (“Global Temperature Trend, 1856–2004”).

Information on increasing Tokyo temperatures, 1876–2011—Journal of Geography (Chigaku Zasshu), 122, no. 6, (2013): pp. 1010–1019 (Masumi Zaiki and Takehiko Mikami, “Climate Variations in Tokyo since the Edo Period,” p. 1011 (Fig. 1: “Annual mean temperatures in JMA Tokyo for 1876–2011”), visually estimated from graph by WTV.

Predictions of the Meteorological Observatory—“Forecast of Future Temperatures in Tokyo,” 2015; printed out for WTV and translated for him by Ms. Kawai Takako, January 2017. The web address is in Japanese. I have placed Kawai-san’s marked-up printout among my papers at the Ohio State University.

MIT: “a world manufacturing CO2 plot . . .”—Gutowski et al., Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour., 2013, p. 87.

“We are inclined sometimes to wring our hands . . .”—Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie, restored ed., ed. John C. Berkey et al. (New York: Penguin Classics, 1994 repr. of 1981 corr. ed.; orig. ed. 1900), p. 74.

Bush and Kyoto + The Times’s reaction—Jean Edward Smith, Bush (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2016), pp. 191–92. Christine Todd Whitman, the blindsided EPA head: “The administration’s insistence on playing strictly to the base in explaining the president’s opposition to ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, coupled with his reversal on the regulation of carbon dioxide, was an early expression of the go-it-alone attitude that so offended our allies in the lead-up to the Iraq war” (loc. cit.).

The world’s highest thermometer reading (1922)—Wendy M. Middleton, ed.-in-chief, Reference Data for Engineers: Radio, Electronics, Computer, and Communications, 9th ed. (Boston: Newnes, 1998, 2002), p. 49-4.

The highest California reading—U.S. Statistical Abstract, 2015, p. 261 (Table 408: “Highest and Lowest Temperatures by State Through 2013”). The highest California temperature was measured at Greenland Ranch station, 1913. The lowest (−45 °) was read at Boca in 1937.

World population in 1922 and 2002—According to the Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook, 2013 (CIA’s 2012 Edition) (Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2013), p. 1, our population had increased as follows:

1820: 1 billion

1930: 2 billion

1960: 3 billion

1974: 4 billion

1987: 5 billion

1999: 6 billion

2012: 7 billion

The latest estimate, for July 2012, was 7,021,836,029 souls (ibid., p. 2).

Footnote: Revocation of the Libyan temperature reading due to “potentially problematical instrumentation”—The New York Times, Sunday, June 18, 2017, p. 9 (Salman Masood and Mike Ives, “As the Scorchers Multiply in Asia, Mercury Records Fall and Climate Concerns Rise”).

“associated with a transfer of heat from the upper to the deeper ocean”—IPCC, 2013, p. 68: “Observations and models indicate that, because of the comparatively small heat capacity of the atmosphere, a decade of steady or even decreasing surface temperature can occur in a warming world. Climate model simulations suggest that these periods are associated with a transfer of heat from the upper to the deeper ocean . . .”

“Consider it good fortune that we are living in a world . . .”—Patrick J. Michaels and Robert C. Balling, Jr., The Satanic Gases: Clearing the Air about Global Warming (Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 2000), p. 188. But to keep up “plant productivity,” we might need to supply more nitrogen fertilizers, whose outgassings caused global warming. For some of the ramifications, see IPCC, 2013, pp. 478, 501.

Footnote: “We can note the rise of a false or superficial ecology . . .”—Encyclical of Pope Francis, 2015, p. 17 (para. 59).

The new maple season in Maine—The New York Times, Monday, February 22, 2016, p. A16 (Paul Post, “Mild Winter with Sweetest of Aftertastes”). For three out of the past five years, production had been “in unprecedented quantities.” As I was revising Carbon Ideologies, in March 2017, it looked to be another early year for mapling.

Paragraph on early effects of climate change on crops—Encyclopedia of Agriculture and Food Systems, vol. 2, p. 259 (J. A. Hatfield and C. L. Walthall, “Climate Change: Cropping System Changes and Adaptations”); pp. 238–40 (J. F. Hernandez Nopsa, S. Thomas-Sharma and K. A. Garrett, “Climate Change and Plant Disease”).

The conclusion of Richard Tol—Chris Faulkner, p. 141. Loc. cit.: “Other scientists have concluded that the greatest benefit from climate change comes from the CO2 itself and its beneficial effect on plants. One scientist, using three decades’ worth of satellite images, had concluded that 31% of the world’s vegetated areas have become greener while just 3% have become less green.”

“November 1999 will go down in the record books . . .”—Michael Hunst, State Statistician, and George Howse, Deputy State Statistician, Minnesota Agricultural Statistics 2000 (Saint Paul: Minnesota Agricultural Statistics Service, 2000), p. 16 (“1999 Climate Summary”).

Canada: “six main glaciers ‘have been shrinking . . .’”—Statistics Canada, Canada Yearbook 2011 (Ottawa: Minister of Industry, 2011), p. 170. [Cited: “Canada Yearbook 2011.”]

Footnote on world and Canadian emissions, 1979–2007—Ibid., p. 171.

Definition of desertification—Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook, 2013 (CIA’s 2012 Edition), online version downloaded for WTV in February 2017 by Jordan Rothacker. Search field: “environment: current issues.”

Datum from Turbat, + “Sixteen of the 17 hottest years . . .”—The New York Times, Sunday, June 18, 2017, p. 9 (Salman Masood and Mike Ives, “As the Scorchers Multiply in Asia, Mercury Records Fall and Climate Concerns Rise”). According to the same source, in 2015 there were more than 2,400 victims of fatal “heat-related illnesses.”

“The contiguous U.S. experienced its warmest winter . . .”—Time, vol. 187, no. 10, March 21, 2016, p. 16 (“Trending” column: unattrib., “Environment”). Cf. Jos G. J. Olivier (PBL), Greet Janssens-Maenhout (EC-JRC), Marilena Muntean (EC-JRC), Jeroen A. H. W. Peters (PBL), “Trends in Global CO2 emissions: 2016 “ [JRC Science for Policy Report: 103428] (The Hague: PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, 2016 [PBL publication number: 2315]; European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Directorate Energy, Transport & Climate), downloaded for WTV by Jordan Rothacker from http://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu or http://www.pbl.nl/en/trends-in-global-co2-emissions, September 2017, p. 13: “As for the weather, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recorded 2015 as the hottest year since records began in 1880. In addition, the 16 warmest years ever recorded are in the 1998–2015 period.” [This document henceforth cited: “Olivier et al., 2016.”]

The bakery girl—Interviewed in Sacramento, January 2016.

The British chemist: “Human contributions . . . are still a minor component . . .” + previous snippets on fossil fuel burning and methane—John Emsley, Nature’s Building Blocks: An A–Z Guide to the Elements (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 97 (“carbon”).

“Global climate change, prior to the 20th century . . .” Ward, p. 3188 (abstract).

IPCC (Fourth Assessment Report, 2007): “observations and measurements unambiguously indicate . . .”—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, p. 52.

Table 5: “Global per capita consumption of energy . . .”—Gutowski et al., Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour., 2013, p. 100.

Carbon Ideologies Defined

Epigraph: “When would this thing seem real? . . .”—C. M. Kornbluth, Not This August (New York: Bantam Books, 1956; orig. pub. 1955), p. 25.

Mr. Sam Hewes: “I think that we’re all ideologues . . .”—Interview of July 9, 2016; see the Oklahoma oil section.

Footnote: “Lenin used to say . . .”—Aldous Huxley, Island (London: Vintage Classics, 2005; orig. pub. 1962), pp. 144–45. Lenin’s slogan is more usually quoted: “COMMUNISM IS SOVIET POWER PLUS THE ELECTRIFICATION OF THE WHOLE COUNTRY.”

About Carbon

Epigraph: “When they have discovered truth in nature . . .”—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, The Waste Books, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (New York: New York Review Books Classics, 2000 repr. of 1990 ed.; orig. wr. 1765–99), p. 73 (Notebook E, 1775–76).

Abundance of carbon and cesium in the human body, by mass—CRC Handbook, 2006, p. 7-18 (“Chemical Composition of the Human Body”). Oxygen is 61% and carbon is 23%. Emsley (p. 93) provides very different figures (p. 93), but no overall percentage.

“No element is more essential to life than carbon . . .”—Emsley, p. 93.

Footnote: “The number of compounds that contain carbon is many times greater . . .”—Robert Thornton Morrison and Robert Neilson Boyd, Organic Chemistry, 2nd ed. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1970 repr. of 1966 ed.; orig. ed. 1959), p. 4.

“combustion to carbon dioxide and water . . .”—Ibid., p. 37.

“Molecules with five to twenty carbon atoms . . .”—Kenneth S. Deffeyes, Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert’s Peak (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux / Hill and Wang, 2005), p. 15.

“One . . . acrylic plastic showed off 15 carbon atoms per molecule.”—The stuff was polymethyl methacrylate. Kyung-Sun Lim, ed., How Products Are Made: An Illustrated Guide to Product Manufacturing, vol. 2 (New York: Gale Research Inc., 1996), p. 2 (“acrylic plastic”).

“the solubility of carbon dioxide lessens in warmer water”—Information from Ward, p. 3189.

Abundance of carbon in Earth’s crust and in the ocean: 200 ppm and 28 mg/L—CRC Handbook, p. 14-17 (“Abundance of Elements in the Earth’s Crust and in the Sea”).

Contrasting figure for C in crust of 480 ppm—Emsley, p. 96. For seawater, Emsley proposes 28 ppm, which of course is equivalent to 28 mg/L.

“Ocean temperature is . . . the primary natural control . . .”—Ibid.

“Humans burning fossil fuels and manufacturing cement . . .”—Ibid., p. 3196 (“7.8 Gt” in original).

“When pure chalk or limestone is ‘burned’ . . .”—Britannica, 11th ed., vol. V, p. 653 (“cement”).

The difference between concrete and cement—according to Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 5 (“Carbon and Graphite Fibers” to “Chlorocarbons and Chlorohydro-carbons-C,” p. 584 (“cement”), “the term cement is used to designate many different kinds of substances that are used as binders or adhesives.” Concrete then results when the cement is mixed with the appropriate amount of water.

Carbon dioxide from lime: “0.785 pounds or more for every pound . . . produced”—Information from Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, p. 226 (Table 46: “Production and CO2 emissions in the German lime industry”). The original figures were: 5.253 million [metric] tons of CO2 to make 6,691,134 tons of lime. [Dolomite lime was calculated separately.]

Energy to make 1 lb of lime for [Portland] cement: 3,800 BTUs—Han, p. 139 (Appendix I: “Energy Requirements for High Priority Primary Products”). [Source: Battelle Columbus Laboratories, 1975. Report No. PB-245759.] These data were originally given in “energy required per net ton (short ton of product in millions of BTU).” Therefore I divided each figure by 2,000 to get 1 pound.

Equivalences for 3,800 BTUs in white pine, fuel oil and West Virginia coal—Using my table of Calorific Efficiencies on pp. 208ff., I divided 3,800 BTUs by the HHV of each of these fuels. For example, commercial fuel oil, heavy grade, ca. 1975, contained 18,450 BTUs. So the quantity of oil needed was (3,800 BTUs per lb / 18,450 BTUs per lb) × 16 oz. per lb = 3.295 ounces.

Cement-smoke carbon, 1750–2011: “about 17.6 trillion pounds.”—IPCC, 2013, p. 474: “Total cumulative emissions between 1750 and 2011 amount to 375 ± 30 Pg C . . . , including a contribution of 8 Pg C from the production of cement.” 8 Pg = 17.6 (+/–1.3) trillion pounds = about 1/47 of 375 Pg.

Canada’s total 2008 GHG emissions, and those from cement production—Canada Yearbook 2011, pp. 172–73 (Table 12.1, “Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, by source, 1990 and 2008”).

Footnote: “Counting only carbon dioxide”—Canada’s nitrous oxide emissions were 52,000 kilotons of carbon-equivalent (realistically rated at 310 times CO2’s global warming potential), and her methane emissions were 99,000 kilotons, rated optimistically at 21 times CO2.

Information on Oklahoma’s Portland cement, 2008 (including the substance of the accompanying fn)—Oklahoma Department of Libraries, Oklahoma Almanac 2013–2014, 54th ed., ed. Connie G. Armstrong (Oklahoma City: Oklahoma Department of Libraries, 2013), p. 937 (“Mining/Petroleum Overview: Non-fuel Mineral Production, 2008”).

Information on American cement-making (ca. 2014)—EPA, 2016, pp. 208–9, 67 [or in original document, pp. 4-7, 4-8, 1-18]. By “the steelmaking trades” I mean iron, steel and coke production. [Cf. p. 4-7: “Carbon dioxide emitted from the chemical process of cement production is the second largest source of industrial CO2 emissions in the United States.”]

Cement figures for Japan, 2013—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. 2-12 ND-13.

“Without consumers and decomposers to release the fixed carbon . . .”—Henry D. Foth, Fundamentals of Soil Science, 6th ed. (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1978 rev. repr. of 1943 ed.), p. 126.

Cellulose as most prevalent organic compound—Neal K. Van Alfen, ed.-in-chief, Encyclopedia of Agriculture and Food Systems, vol. 2 (Amsterdam: Elsevier / Academic Press, 2014), p. 248 (S. E. Place, “Climate Change: Animal Systems”).

Chemical formula of cellulose—Morrison and Boyd, p. 1033, where it is actually written (C6H10O5)n, where n can be 1,500 or more. “It is likely that there are at least 1500 glucose units per molecule” (loc. cit.). Note, however, that the formula of glucose (p. 985) is C6H12O6.

Weight of carbon in, and carbon dioxide from, 100 lbs of straw—Foth, p. 168. The CO2 figure was actually expressed as 65% of 40 lbs.

Footnote: “Overall, throughout the time series and across all uses . . .”—EPA, 2016, p. 147.

Percentage “degradable organic carbon” of sewage sludge and diapers—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, p. 388. This was the IPCC default for the former [in a dry state], and the “national value.”

Carbon in Japanese diapers and plastic bottles—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. 7-29, “estimated based on the averaged value of actual measured data for the period FY1990–FY2008 provided by four municipalities (Akita city, Kawasaki city, Kobe city and Osaka pref.) and applying it for the entire time-series.”

The Rutgers study: “Every two days or so, provided that they were feeding continually, certain bacteria could generate their own dry weight of carbon dioxide.”—In the original, the scientists noted that a mere 100 grams dry weight of certain bacteria could make 2 to 2.5 grams per hour of carbon dioxide.—Soil Science, vol. I (January–June, 1916) [Rutgers College, New Brunswick, New Jersey), p. 78 (R. S. Potter and R. S. Snyder, “Carbon and Nitrogen Changes in the Soil Variously Treated: Soil Treated with Lime, Ammonium Sulfate and Sodium Nitrate”).

Both citations on American forests’ carbon sequestration—www.nature.com/scientificreports, received May 10, 2015, accepted October 12, 2015, published November 12, 2015 (5, 16158 / doi: 10.1038/srep16518 [2015], downloaded for WTV by Jordan Rothacker, April 2016), David N. Wear and John W. Coulston, U.S. Department of Agriculture,“From sink to source: Regional variation in U.S. forest carbon futures,” p. 1. [This source henceforth cited: “Wear and Coulston.”] The units were originally expressed as Tg yr−1 .

Footnote: Conversion of Tg to lbs: [1,000,000,000,000] × 173 / 453.59 = 381,401,706,386.83 lbs.

“a true nonmetal in every sense.”—Britannica, 15th ed., Macropaedia, vol. 3 (BOLIVIA to CERVANTES), p. 840 (“Carbon Group Elements and Their Compounds”).

Melting points of carbon, platinum and tungsten—Baumeister and Marks, p. 4-5 (G. A. Hawkins, “Thermal Properties of Bodies and Thermodynamics”).

“Essentially any organic material . . .”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 4 (“Bearing Materials” to “Carbon” [1992]), p. 953 (“carbon”).

Reaction of sucrose with sulfuric acid—After color photos and description in Brian Knapp, Bsc., Ph.D., Carbon (Danbury, Connecticut: Grolier Educational, 1997 repr. of 1996 ed.), pp. 18–19.

Chemical formula for table sugar (sucrose)—Morrison and Boyd, p. 1025. Loc. cit.: “Of all organic chemicals, it is the one produced in the largest amount in pure form.”

“Carbon is widely distributed as coal . . .”—Britannica, 15th ed., loc. cit., p. 845.

“found native as the diamond . . .”—Britannica, 11th ed., vol. 5 (CALHOUN to CHATELAINE), (“carbon”), pp. 305–6.

“found . . . in the atmosphere.”—Ibid.

About Agriculture

Epigraph: “. . . the energy for potatoes . . .”—Odum, p. 46 (quoting H. T. Odum).

Epigraph: “My crop of corn—Emrys Jones, ed., The New Oxford Book of Sixteenth Century Verse (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 393 (Chidiock Tichborne, “Tichborne’s Elegy, written with his own hand in the Tower before his execution,” 1586).

“Man is now unwittingly beginning to speed up decomposition . . .”—Odum, p. 33. On p. 24 he calls these “human agroindustrial activities.”

Breakdown of carbon dioxide emissions in 1970—Ibid., p. 97.

Footnote: “The Work of the Plow . . .”—Ellis and Rumely, frontispiece.

“the more finely divided the soil . . .”—Ibid., p. 135.

“Pulverization changes the hard soil . . .”—Ibid., pp. 195–96. Cf. G. E. Fussell, The Farmer’s Tools: A.D. 1500–1900: A History of British Farm Tools, Implements and Machinery (London: Andrew Melrose, 1952), p. 37: “All seed bed preparation is a matter of soil comminution.” Oh, and we’d better not neglect Roy Bainer, R. A. Kepner and E. K. Barger, Principles of Farm Machinery (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Ferguson Foundation Agricultural Engineering ser., 1955), pp. 139–40: Tillage serves to keep weeds down, to pulverize the soil for seed and rootbeds and to insert “surface residues.”

“soil is the interface between the living and the dead . . .”—Foth, p. 15.

“plants need to ‘breathe in’ oxygen through their roots”—Information from R. P. Faulkner, Garden Manures and Fertilizers, Embodying Special Recommendations for Fruit, Vegetables and Flowers (London: W. H. & L. Collingridge Ltd., 1949), p. 25 (hence tillage). [Cited: “R. P. Faulker,” to distinguish him from the frack lord Chris Faulkner.] “Roots . . . play a not inconsiderable part in decomposing soil particles” (loc. cit.). Claude Culpin, Farm Machinery, 5th ed. (London: Crosby Lockwood & Son, Ltd., 1957 rev. of 1938 ed.), p. 102: “Oxygen is certainly required in the soil for the germination of seeds, the respiration of plant root systems and the activity of certain beneficial root bacteria.”

Carbon in the soil: 0.08 to 38.0%—The American Society of Agronomy and the Soil Science Society of America, SSSA Special Publication Number 11, Chemical Mobility and Reactivity in Soil Systems (Madison, Wisconsin: SSSA and ASA, 1983; original symposium in Atlanta, Georgia, 1981), p. 154 (ch. 11: Dennis R. Keeney, “Principles of Microbial Processes of Chemical Degradation, Assimilation, and Accumulation”). [This article henceforth cited: “Keeney, 1981.”]—Cf. p. 155: “We can assume that ca. 2.5% of the soil C is biomass. At steady-state (no fresh C residues), the microbial biomass of a mineral soil with 2% C, 2% as biomass, 25% of the biomass as bacteria, and 10% C fresh weight of the bacteria, a standing crop bacterial biomass of about 1400 [kilograms per hectare], and fungal biomass of about 4200 [kilograms per hectrte] can be calculated.”

“The least stable, hence most energy-rich, carbon combinations . . .”—Weisz, p. 462.

“The first stage in the formation of plant tissue . . .”—R. P. Faulkner, p. 13.

“Mature plant residues . . .”—Foth, p. 168. The C/N ratio in them usually = 50 (loc. cit.).

Footnote: “The same goes for dead animals.”—Information from the same, p. 142: “Organic matter is about 58% carbon by weight.”

Decomposition process of composting—Foth, p. 170.

Characteristics of carbon-retaining soils—Arvin R. Mosier, J. Keith Sayers and John R. Freney, ed., Agriculture and the Nitrogen Cycle: Assessing the Impacts of Fertilizer Use on Food Production and the Environment (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, SCOPE ser., no. 65, 2004), p. 98: “Microbial community composition and metabolic status determine the balance between C released through respiration and C assimilation into biomass during decomposition . . .” + “fungal-dominated decomposer communities” sequester more carbon, + “decomposers in soils with greater diversity of plant species . . . or larger abundance of C relative to N . . . have reduced energy requirements for maintenance and therefore convert a greater proportion of metabolized C to biomass.”

“Soil organic carbon has been called ‘the largest terrestrial C sink’”—EPA, 2016, p. 384.

“Or roots might drink it in”—Arthur Wallace and Richard E. Terry, Handbook of Soil Conditioners: Substances That Enhance the Physical Properties of Soil (New York: Marcel Dekker, Inc., 1998), p. 274: “Besides proper root action stimulated by improved aeration and consequent availability of oxygen in soil air, metabolism of soil bacteria and fungi also starts. Both these processes augment the CO2 supply in the root zone of soil.”

“Most consider that microbial life in soils . . .”—Keeney, 1981, p. 153.

“cultivation ‘reduces the mean residence time’ of carbon”—Neal K [no period] Van Alfen, ed.-in-chief, Encyclopedia of Agriculture and Food Systems, vol. 2 (Amsterdam: Elsevier / Academic Press, 2014), p. 224 (M [no period] van Noordwijk, Jalan Cifor, Bogor, Indonesia, “Climate Change: Agricultural Mitigation”).

“Sometimes our doings sent half the mineralized carbon straight up into the sky!”—Information from EPA, 2016, p. 395.

“Our crops . . . were beneficiaries of the energy . . .”—Butler and Wurthner, p. 44.

“All the chemical and biological processes are going on so much faster . . .”—R. P. Faulkner, pp. 40–41. The nutrients required: Salts of nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorus, potassium, iron, magnesium and boron (pp. 16, 20, 31).

“Conservative estimates indicate that about 30% . . .”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 10 (“Explosives and Propellants” to “Flame Retardants for Textiles”), p. 503 (“fertilizers”).

Footnote on C and N in Bangladeshi soils—Japanese Society of Soil Science and Plant Nutrition [Tokyo], Soil Science and Plant Nutrition, vol. 43 (March 1997–December 1997), pp. 863, 871, 873 (Md. Mohsin Ali et al., “Soil Degradation during the Period 1967–1995 in Bangladesh: I. Carbon and Nitrogen”). Carbon declined by 16.2 tons per hectare and nitrogen by 1.38 tons per hectare. The author notes (p. 876) that both elements are “associated with organic matter decomposition.”

Ammonium sulfate “supplies nitrogen” as ammonia for conversion to nitrate—R. P. Faulkner, pp. 31, 50.

“most likely to be deficient in the soil”—Willman, p. 33.

Footnote: Sources of P and K fertilizers—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 10 (“Explosives and Propellants” to “Flame Retardants for Textiles”), pp. 454, 475–78 (“fertilizers”).

Same footnote: “Volumewise, it is the production of N, P, and K fertilizers . . .”—Same entry, p. 436 (“fertilizers”).

Same footnote: Carbon emissions of phosphates [based on the usual “production from natural phosphate rock”]—Information from EPA, 2016, p. 254.

Same footnote: Finnish emissions, 2012—EU greenhouse report, 2014, p. 426 (Table 4.32 2B5: Other: “EU-15 CO2 emissions—emission trends between 1990 and 2012 and MS contribution”). Page 432: “The total amount of CO2 released from phosphoric acid plant has been calculated multiplying the use of apatite and calcite with CO2 content of defined yearly average of daily samples.” My calculation from Gg to lbs.

Same footnote—Production of potassium chloride (“the world’s most commonly used potash”): Potash-bearing ores (there were four of them, including sylvinite) were mined not unlike coal, using either longwall or room-and-pillar methods [q.v., p. 560], then crushed, then slurried into a brine from which the clay must be separated out, after which the chloride was drawn out with high-grade beef tallow, then de-brined, centrifuged and dried. (In a very few places it was possible to evaporate potash from brine pools.) Information from Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 19 (“Pigments” to “Powders, Handling”), pp. 1058–69 (“potassium compounds”).

“Of all plant nutrients, an application of nitrogen . . .”—A. Philip Draycott and Donald R. Christenson, Nutrients for Sugar Beet Production: Soil-Plant Relationships (Wallingford, Oxon, U.K.: CABI Publishing, 2003), p. 11.

Uses of ammonium sulfate in Thailand—Report prepared for the Government of Thailand by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, acting as executing agency for the United Nations Development Programme, Soil Fertility Research: Thailand: Use of Fertilizers on Eight Upland Crops (Rome: UNDP, 1973), pp. 229 (for maize, ammonium phosphate as a basal dressing, ammonium sulfate as a top dressing, and a nitrogen top dressing when it rains) and 230 (for peanut, double superphosphate and potassium chloride, and ammonium sulfate as needed to facilitate nodulation and early growth).

Effects of ammonium sulfate on carbon dioxide production (including fn on “previous drying”)—Soil Science, vol. I (January–June 1916) [Rutgers College, New Brunswick, New Jersey), pp. 79, 88, 89 (Table IV: “Composition of Carbon Dioxide Evolved from Organic Decompositions”): R. S. Potter and R. S. Snyder, “Carbon and Nitrogen Changes in the Soil Variously Treated: Soil Treated with Lime, Ammonium Sulfate and Sodium Nitrate.”

Ammonium sulfate: “Began with the coal we had already roasted in coking ovens”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 10, p. 327 (“feedstocks (coal chemicals)”), which puts the matter thus: 0.3% of coal put into coking ovens ends up as ammonia, “usually converted to ammonium sulfate and sold as a fertilizer.”

Sodium nitrate: “assimilated by plants at once”—R. P. Faulkner, p. 50.

Ammonium nitrate: “highly regarded because of the rapid agronomic response”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, same vol., p. 447 (“fertilizers”).

The “pipelines of chilled anhydrous ammonia,” their N content and their routes—Same entry, pp. 442–43.

1991: 85 million metric tons per year—Same entry, p. 439: “In the year ending June 30, 1991, 77.0 million metric tons of fertilizer N was used worldwide,” which × 1.1023 = 84.7881 million U.S. tons.

“Shall we estimate their carbon dioxide pollution at, say, 119 million tons?”—Since the two nitrate-based fertilizers whose carbon dioxide outputs we are given above seem to give off about 1.4 times the fertilizer’s weight in greenhouse gas, I multiplied 77.0 million × 1.4 to get 107.8 million metric tons, which × 1.1023 = 119.0484 million U.S. tons.

“at least half the fertilizers we deployed got wasted”—Ibid., p. 440: “On the average, no more than one-half of the applied fertilizer is used by crops.”

Relative emissions of tea, “other crops” and paddy rice—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. 5-32 (Table 5-40: “N2O emission factor for synthetic fertilizer to agricultural soil”): Paddy rice gave off 0.31% [kg-N2O-N/kg-N]; tea, 2.9%; and “other crops,” 0.62%. “Emission factor of Japan is lower than . . . default value in the 2006 IPCC Guidelines . . . [because] the volcanic ash soil that is widely distributed in Japan releases little N2O emissions.”

“Nutrient demand is on the rise worldwide . . .”—Richard T. Meister, ed.-at-large, et al., MeisterPro Crop Protection Handbook (Willoughby, Ohio), 2008, vol. 94, p. C1 (“Fertilizer Outlook”).

“Rice has always been the most important grain crop . . .”—Jan G. de Geus, Fertilizer Guide for the Tropics and Subtropics, 2nd ed. (Zürich: Centre d’Etude de l’Azote, 1973 rev. of 1967 ed.), p. 36.

Khmer Rouge: “When there is rice, there is everything”—See my Rising Up and Rising Down (chapter: “The Skulls on the Shelves.”).

My Japanese interpreter: “We can survive, of course . . .”—Ms. Kawai Takako, phone interview of August 25, 2016.

Ricefield images of Saigyo and Yosa Buson—Hiroaki Sato and Burton Watson, From the Country of Eight Islands: An Anthology of Japanese Poetry (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), pp. 175, 341.

“Nourishing themselves on pure hydrogen . . . they break down organic matter . . . eventually emit much of its carbon as methane”—Cf. Keeney, 1981, p. 160: “It is now well accepted that much of the CH4 is produced from the reduction of CO2 by H2 . . . The CH4-forming bacteria use H2 for energy.”

Amount of methane given off each year by ricefields: “Maybe 40 billion pounds’ worth, or, as it might be, 200 billion . . .”—Japanese Society of Soil Science and Plant Nutrition [Tokyo], Soil Science and Plant Nutrition, vol. 43 (March 1997–December 1997), pp. 387ff. (Netera Subadiyasa, Nyoman Arya and Makoto Kimua, “Methane Emissions from Paddy Fields in Bali Island, Indonesia”), p. 387: “It has been reported that 20 to 100 Tg y−1 of CH4 is emitted from paddy fields.” One Tg [teragram] = 1 trillion grams = 1 billion kilograms. [Cf. Encyclopedia of Agriculture and Food Systems, vol. 2, p. 224 (van Noordwijk): “Net methane emissions” in a ricefield are something on the order of 10 milligrams per meter per hour.

Japanese 2013 methane emissions from rice (50%)—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. 2-6 (sec. 2.3.1). Cf. p. 5-24: “CH4 emissions from Rice Cultivation in FY2013 are 18,077 [metric] kt-CO2 eq., comprising 1.3% of total emissions (excluding LULUCF). The value represents an increase by 4.5% from FY1990.” Total methane emissions were 723.1 kilotons. (There are many local variables in ricefield methane versus nitrous emissions. For instance, consider this note from pp. 5-45 and -46: “For paddy cultivation in organic soils, it is known that N2O emission in paddy field is lower than the one in upland field. In Japan, Nagata (2006) . . . observed N2O emissions for paddy of organic soil in Hokkaido, but the observations included emissions from applied nitrogen. Therefore, country-specific emission factor is determined to be 0.30 [kg-N2O-N/ha/year] by deducting country-specific emission factor of fertilizers indicated in Akiyama (2006).”)

Fresh straw: “effect on rice yield has been greater than that of compost”—International Rice Research Institute, Nitrogen and Rice [a symposium], (Los Baños, Laguna, Philippines, 1979), p. 442 (Wang Keun Oh, “effect of incorporation of organic materials on paddy soils”). P. 446: “The beneficent effect of rice straw . . . is largely attributed to the storage of plant nutrients in soil during the early stage of plant growth probably through increased microbial activity and the release of the nutrients in the later stage of growth.” That microbial activity presumably makes the methane.

Percentage increases in methane emissions for the two kinds of Indonesian soil—Information derived from the same article, pp. 387ff. This study considered two types of volcanic soil: Alfisol and Inceptisol. For the Alfisol plots, mean methane emission rates on fields without rice straw were 1.37 to 2.13 mg CH4-C m−2 h−1 [in other words, 0.0137 to 0.0213 milligrams of methane and other carbon emission, the latter being presumably carbon dioxide, per square meter of paddy field per hour], and on fields with rice straw, 2.14 to 3.362 mg CH4-C m−2 h−1. For the Incepitsol plots, the comparable figures were 2.32 to 3.32 and 4.18 to 6.35 mg CH4-C m−2 h−1. Averaging each pair of figures, I got 1.75 and 2.751 for the Alfisols and 2.82 and 5.265 for the Inceptisols. Thus for the Alfisols the average emission increase with rice straw was 47.3%; for the Inceptisols, 86.7%. Over the growing season, up to 8.8 grams of methane might issue from each square meter of paddy. [Conversion to 1/554th of a pound per square foot—8.8 g / 453.59 = 0.0194007 lbs; 1 sq meter = 10.758 sq ft, so I divided 0.0194007 by 10.758. In the antiquated units of Carbon Ideologies, that did not sound like very much: 1/554th of a pound per square foot. But there were many square feet.] [Total amounts emitted during the growth period were, with and without rice straw respectively [the authors now put the numbers in that order], 3.9 to 6.8 and 2.6 to 3.3 g CH4-C-h−1 for Alfisol and 6.9 to 10.7 and 4.2 to 5.8 for Inceptisol. I calculated averages for the Alfisol of 5.35 with and 2.95 without, a ratio of 1.813, and for the Inceptisol 8.8 with and 5 without, a ratio of 1.76. It was the Inceptisol 8.8 grams to which the text refers.]

Emissions in Sumatran study—Loc. cit. The soil was Ultisol, and the figures for paddies treated with rice straw were 67.8 to 105.3 grams per square meter.

“The amount of emissions may have been markedly underestimated”—Ibid., p. 392.

Footnote: “Enteric fermentation is the second largest anthropogenic source . . .”—EPA, 2016, p. 37.

“Each cow belched up . . . two liters of methane per minute”—Information from Edward O. Wilson, Thomas Eisner, Winslow R. Briggs, Richard Dickerson, Robert L. Metzenberg, Richard D. O’Brien, Millard Susman and William E. Boggs, Life on Earth (Stamford, Connecticut: Sinauer Associates, 1974; 2nd pr. of 1973 ed.), p. 403. In case you were wondering, the authors go out of their way to assure us that the cow emitted this gas mostly through belching, not flatulence.

“25% of all carbon-equivalent emissions from milk were enteric methane”—Information from Encyclopedia of Agriculture and Food Systems, vol. 2, p. 248 (S. E. Place, “Climate Change: Animal Systems”).

“volatilizing nitrogen fertilizers”—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, p. 6-82: “Indirect nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from managed soils: . . . The indirect N2O emissions include, N2O emissions from volatilization of N as NH3 and NOx and deposition of these gases and their products NH4+ and NO3- onto soils and the surface of lakes and other waters, and N2O emissions from leaching and runoff in regions where leaching and runoff occurs.” In 2013 this category generated 35.9 kt-CO2 eq.

Footnote: “Nitrous oxide emissions from household wastewater . . .”—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, p. 396.

“Food production caused 80% of all NO2 pollution”—IPCC, 2013, p. 510.

Nitrogen fertilizers: “winter wheat, cauliflower and above all Brussels sprouts”—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, p. 354 (Table 106: “Recommended quantities of fertiliser”).

“1% of the nitrogen . . . became nitrous oxide”—Ibid., p. 353, where the emission factor for NO2 is given as (0.01 kg kg−1 N), or 0.01 kg emitted per kg of N present in the soil.

Japanese NO2 emissions—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, p. 2-7. All Japanese figures date from 2013. Total nitrous releases were [22.7 million [metric] tons × [1.1023 for standard U.S. tons] = 25.02221] million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent—1.6% of the total. Much to her credit, Japan had decreased her emissions of this gas by 29.7% since 1990. (In earnest inventories, statisticians now estimated the per capita excretion volume of farm animals, and the excretions’ nitrogen content. A Japanese hen deposited 0.136 kilograms a day, with a urine nitrogen content of 1.54 grams [ibid., p. 5-515 (Table 5-19: “Amount of feces and urine excreted (Ex) and nitrogen content amount by type of livestock(Nex)”]).)

American “agricultural soil management”: 78.9% of N20 for 2014—EPA, 2016, p. ES-20: “Agricultural soil management activities such as fertilizer application and other cropping practices were the largest source . . .”

Manure: “it is essential for it to be half rotted before it is dug in”—R. P. Faulkner, p. 43. According to the same source (loc. cit.), “average farmyard manure” is comprised of the following: moisture, 72.6%; organic matter, 27.4%; nitrogen, 0.77%; phosphoric acid, 0.39%; potash, 0.6%.

“leaving it to half-rot above ground generates more nitrous oxide.”—Information from Encyclopedia of Agriculture and Food Systems, vol. 2, p. 246 (“S. E. Place” entry).

Canadian “manure management,” 2008—Canada Yearbook 2011, pp. 172–73 (Table 12.1, “Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, by source, 1990 and 2008”). In 2008, Canadian agriculture logged 37,000 carbon-dioxide-equivalent kilotons of nitrous oxide from “agriculture,” of which 4,700 kilotons [= 10,340,000 lbs] derived from “manure management.” Total 2008 agriculture CEQ emissions were a grossly understated 25,000 KT of methane [closer to 102 KT at methane’s 20-year GWP calculation] and 37,000 KT of nitrous oxide.

“methane emissions from manure management increased by 64.7 percent . . .”—EPA, 2016, p. 37. Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. 5-10: “CH4 and N2O emissions from manure management in FY2013 are 2,411 kt-CO2 eq. and 4,543 kt-CO2 eq., comprising 0.2% and 0.3% of total emissions (excluding LULUCF), respectively. The value represents a reduction by 28.1% for CH4 and an increase by 6.9% for N2O from FY1990.”

“United Nations News Centre—Rearing cattle produces more greenhouse gases than driving cars, UN report warns,” downoaded for WTV by Jordan Rothacker on 6/23/2017 from http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=20772#.WU1zuhPyvR0.

Deforestation as “one of the largest anthropogenic sources of emissions to the atmosphere globally”—EPA, 2016, p. 409. Cf. IPCC, 2013, p. 167: “The main contributors to increasing atmospheric CO2 abundance are fossil fuel combustion and land use change.” Calculating LULUCF involves many complex local factors. Consider this summary, from Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. 6-9: “All forests in Japan are managed forests, and they consist of intensively managed forests, semi-natural forests, bamboo, and forests with less standing trees. Japan’s forest land area in FY2013 was about 25.2 million ha—about 66.6% of the total national land area. The net removal by this category in FY2013 was 68,162 kt-CO2 (excluding 4.32 kt-CO2 eq. of CH4 and N2O emissions resulting from biomass burning, 0.83 kt-CO2 eq. of N2O emission resulting from N fertilization in forest land, and 161 kt-CO2 eq. of N2O emission from nitrogen mineralization resulting from change of land use or management of mineral soils). This represents a decrease of 13.8% below the FY1990 value [which was −79,073], and a decrease of 11.9% below the FY2012 value. This declining trend in removals in recent years is considered due to the maturity of Japanese forests.”

“We grazed and grubbed 38% of the ice-free land acreage of our planet”—Information from IPCC, 2013, p. 475: “Since 1750, anthropogenic land use changes have resulted into about 50 million km2 being used for cropland and pasture, corresponding to about 38% of the total ice-free land area . . . , in contrast to an estimated cropland and pasture area of 7.5 to 9 million km2 about 1750.” So 5.55 to 6.66 × was how much we had multiplied our holdings.

“As a result of land-use changes . . .”—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, p. 378. The original figure was 11,881.4 Gg [= 13,096,867.22 U.S. tons].

3.1 million tons “were released from wetlands . . .”—Ibid., p. 376 (original figure: 2,823.1 Gg).

15.5 million tons from grasslands—Ibid., p. 375 (14,102.58 Gg).

“LAND USE, LAND USE CHANGES AND FORESTRY”: 13.24%—Ibid., p. 361 (my summation of items 5.A through E).

Footnote on German nitrous oxide releases—Ibid., p. 353: “N2O releases as a result of conversion of grassland, settlement land, wetlands, other lands and forest land to cropland are calculated to amount to 2.14 Gg N2O, or 445.37 Gg CO2 equivalents.”

“In 2014, half the territory of the European Union happened to be farmed”—Information from the same source, p. 528.

“This sugarcane field in Rhodesia is being burned . . .”—Roy L. Donahue, Raymond W. Miller and John C. Shickluna, Soils: An Introduction to Soils and Plant Growth, 4th ed. (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1977 rev. repr. of 1958 ed.), p. 150.

Footnote on Nigerian pollutants—Federal Ministry of Environment, Nigeria, FUEL QUALITY PROGRESS IN NIGERIA FOR NIGERIA NATIONAL AIR QUALITY MANAGEMENT PROGRAM, 18/5/2015 (2015_Ecowas_FuelQualityProgress_Emmanuel(1).pdf, downloaded for WTV by Jordan Rothacker, October 2016), p. 6.

“the smoke contained carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane”—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. 5-50: “CH4 and N2O emissions from Field Burning of Agricultural Residues in FY2013 are 69 [metric] kt-CO2 eq. and 21 kt-CO2 eq., comprising 0.005% and 0.002% of total emissions (excluding LULUCF), respectively.”

The Three Most Dangerous Greenhouse Gases as of 2011

Percentage source data—IPCC, 2013, p. 169.

“The massive increase in the number of ruminants . . .”—Ibid., p. 52.

2011 GWP for methane—Ibid., p. 731 (Appendix 8.A: “Lifetimes, Radiative Efficiencies and Metric Values”; Table 8.A.1: “Radiative efficiencies (REs), lifetimes/adjustment times, AGWP and GWP values for 20 and 100 years, and AGTP and GTP values for 20, 50 and 100 years”).

Footnote: The three main Japanese methane sources + fugitive emissions from fuel (2013)—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. 2-6.

Footnote: The four main U.S. methane sources (2014)—EPA, 2016., pp. ES-13, -14 and -17.

“N2O has overtaken CFC-12 . . .”—IPCC, 2013, p. 54.

“natural sources . . . might have equaled or outweighed the anthropogenic ones”—Ibid., p. 468: “Anthropogenic N2O emissions increased steadily over the last two decades and were 6.9 (2.7 to 11.1) TgN (N2O) [per year] in 2006 . . . Natural . . . emissions derived from soils, oceans and a small atmospheric source are together 5.4 to 19.6 TgN . . .”

GWP for nitrous oxide—Ibid., p. 731.

“M” percentage data—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Mexico, 1990–2002, p. 36.

“EU” percentage data—EU greenhouse report, 2014, p. x, including Tables ES.4 (“Overview of EU-28 GHG emissions and removals from 1990 to 2012 in CO2 equivalents (million tonnes)” and E.S.5, which does the same for the EU-15. I have calculated as follows (parenthetical percentages are my responsibility), and then combined the two sets of figures in my table. EU-28: CO2, 82%; methane, 403 MT (8.8%); nitrous oxide, 341 (7.5%). EU-15: CO2, 83%; methane, 296 MT (8%); nitrous oxide, 264 (7.3%).

“J” percentage data—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. E.S.3 (Table 1, “Trends in GHGs emission and removals in Japan”). Calculated from: CO2, 81,245.8 MT carbon-dioxide-equivalents; methane, 36.0; nitrous oxide, 22.5; HFCs, 31.9.

“U” percentage data—EPA, 2016, p. ES-8 (Figure ES-4: “2014 U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions by Gas (Percentages based on MMT CO2 Eq.”)

About Agriculture (continued)

Global net carbon dioxide releases from land use change, 2002–11—IPCC, 2013, p. 12: “Annual net CO2 emissions from anthropogenic land use change were 0.9 [0.1 to 1.7] GtC [per year] on average during 2002 to 2011 (medium confidence).”

“about 0.9 metric gigatons, or ‘only’ ¾ of the entire 2011 carbon dioxide . . . emissions of Japan”—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. E.S. 3 (Table 1, “Trends in GHGs emission and removals in Japan”): Japan’s 2011 total carbon dioxide figure, including LULUCF, was 1,191.3 million metric tons. Hence the calculation went: 1,000,000,000 [× 0.9] / 1,000,000 × [1,191.3] = 900,000,000 / 1,191,300,000 = 0.75547.

“Tons of coal and carloads of water . . .”—Ellis and Rumely, p. 5.

“influential men from the largest oil corporation . . .”—Ibid., p. 8.

“the whole agricultural industry now depends so much upon electrical energy . . .”—Willman, p. 104.

“No progress is possible without an increase in agricultural production . . .”—Asha Han, The Power Sector in India (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers Private Ltd., 1986), p. 17.

Footnote: 1975 energies to make ammonia and phosphorus—Ibid., p. 139 (Appendix I: “Energy Requirements for High Priority Primary Products”). [Source: Battelle Columbus Laboratories, 1975. Report No. PB-245759.] These data were originally given in “energy required per net ton (short ton of product in millions of BTU).” Therefore I divided each figure by 2,000 to get 1 pound. Adding the two energy requirements and dividing by the West Virginian Coal Association’s average HHV of 12,500 yields 1.992.

“typical computed load” for dairy barn—American Electricians’ Handbook, 2002, p. 9.332 (Table 493: “Typical Computed Loads and Probable Maximum Demands”). Computed by dividing [15 kW = [3,413.04 × 15] = 51,195.6 BTUs/hr] by the HHVs of coal (West Virginia average), diesel (average of 18,500 and 20,000) and “North American” natural gas, as given in the table of Calorific Efficiencies. This came out to 4.1 pounds of West Virginia coal, or 2.7 pounds of diesel fuel, or 2.1 pounds of natural gas. Each figure was then multiplied by three, to account for thermodynamic losses of power plants. [Note: Mr. Ben Coleman, the chemistry graduate student who fact checked parts of this book, came up with a dairy barn load of 51,182 BTUs per hour, using 1 kWh = 3,412.14 BTUs.]

Ditto, for “farm residence”—Loc. cit.

“lighting in the poultry house . . .”—Ibid., p. 9.335-6. In the just-cited Table 493 these authors propose that an 8,000-square-foot “poultry laying house” might have a maximum demand of 15.2 kW and a typical load of 11.7.

“irrigation, fertilizer application and pest control were ever more often accomplished mechanically.”—Information condensed from Odum, p. 45.

“Crops highly selected for industrialized agriculture . . .”—Odum, p. 47.

“80 percent of an Iowa corn farmer’s costs . . .”—Kenneth S. Deffeyes, Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert’s Peak (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux / Hill and Wang, 2005), p. 6.

Estimate for 2008: “19–29% of global anthropogenic . . . emissions . . .” —Encyclopedia of Agriculture and Food Systems, vol. 2, p. 223 (van Noordwijk).

About Industrial Chemicals

Epigraph: “Let us suppose that last night . . .”—Berger and Anderson, pp. 235–36.

“two statistics from 2014” on proportion of unburned fossil fuels: France—EU greenhouse report, 2014, p. 354: “According to the survey approximately 14% of the consumption of petroleum products is used for non-energy use, mainly as primary material.”

Netherlands—Ibid., p. 359. Original reads: 49% “of the gross national consumption of petroleum products.”

“A single $15 barrel of crude . . .”—Berger and Anderson, p. 229.

“we could refine propylene . . . out of crude oil”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 10 (“Explosives and Propellants” to “Flame Retardants for Textiles”), pp. x, 351 (“feedstocks (petrochemicals)”).

Origins of detergents, antifreeze and rubbing alcohol—Berger and Anderson, p. 237.

Manufacture of polyethylene and Teflon—Information from Knapp, pp. 32–33.

“familiar to most of us . . .” + the formula for polyvinyl chloride—Morrison and Boyd, p. 260.

Carbon dioxide from synthetic ammonia production, hydrogen production, substitute natural gas production [fermentation and limestone calcination]—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, p. 35. And here are some ammonia production figures from Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. 3-12 (Table 3-7, “Allocated CO2 emissions from fuel used for non-energy purpose such as feedstock”): Indigenous natural gas, 14.0 tons of carbon dioxide per terajoule; and imported steam coal, 24.4 [t-C/TJ].

“When . . . we synthesized ammonia for our fertilizers . . .”—Same source, vol. 10, p. 442 (“fertilizers”): “Over 95% of all commercial nitrogen fertilizer in the 1990s is derived from synthetic ammonia”—which, by the way, is made by squeezing hot nitrogen and hydrogen together in the presence of an iron catalyst.

Carbon dioxide: “3,630 pounds of it for every ton of nitrogen”—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, p. 243: “Due to a lack of plant-specific data, an emission factor of 1,500 kg CO2 /t NH3—the figure proposed as the IPCC default factor—is still being used. Conversion with the aforementioned stoichiometric factor produces an emission factor of 1,815 kg CO2 / t N; this is the factor used in calculations,” which I converted to 3,993 pounds per metric ton, then multiplied by 0.909 to get 3,630 pounds per U.S. ton.

Ammonia: “half a percent of Germany’s greenhouse emissions for 2007”—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, p. 242.

Germany used heavy fuel oil as a feedstock—EU greenhouse report, 2014, p. 404. German, Austrian, U.K. production methods, loc. cit.

In India (circa 1979), the petroleum route had been cheapest—Chemtech IV: Fourth Volume of Manual of Chemical Technology: Synthetic Organic Products (Madras: Chemical Engineering Education Development Centre, Indian Institute of Technology, 1979), ch. 2 (S. L. Venkiteswaran, Amar Dye Chem. Ltd., Bombay, “Petrochemicals”). [This source henceforth cited: “Chemtech IV” + chapter.] Original reads (p. 2.13): “Hydrogen for ammonia synthesis can perhaps be derived from coal or electrolysis at a much higher cost” than from petroleum.

American use of petroleum coke—EPA, 2016, p. 4-21. Details: “There are five principal process steps in synthetic ammonia production from natural gas feedstock. The primary reforming step converts methane . . . to CO2, carbon monoxide . . . and H2 in the presence of a catalyst.” And then (same page): “To produce synthetic ammonia from petroleum coke, the petroleum coke is gasified and converted to CO2 and H2. These gases are separated, and the H2 is used as a feedstock to the ammonia production process, where it is reacted with N2 to form ammonia.”

Footnote: “the easiest route” [for manufacture of ammonia from nitrogen]—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 10 (“Explosives and Propellants” to “Flame Retardants for Textiles”), p. 335 (“feedstocks (coal chemicals)”).

Nitric acid: “0.94% of Germany’s nitrous oxide”—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany; 1990–2007, p. 244.

Greek versus British emission factors for making same—EU greenhouse report, 2014, p. 410: “The implied emission factors per tonne of nitric acid produced vary for 2012 between 0.0002 t N2O/t of nitric acid produced for the UK and 0.0070 t N2O/t of nitric acid produced for Greece.” This is 0.0002 versus 0.0070 U.S. tons per U.S. ton, or 0.4 versus 14 pounds per ton.

Nitric acid: U.S. “27 times worse”—EPA, 2016, p. 4-29: “For 2009 [the latest year available]: Weighted N2O emission factor—5.45 kg N2O/metric ton HNO3.” Converting to [U.S.] tons N2O per tons nitric acid, I got 0.00545—27.25 times higher than the U.K. factor.

Facts on carbon dioxide in soft drinks (in text and accompanying fn)—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 5, p. 25 (“carbonated beverages”); and vol. 19 (“Pigments to Powders, Handling”), p. 619.

Same footnote: The petrochemistry of soft drink bottles—Ibid., vol. 19, loc. cit. (PET was supposedly good to keep carbonated beverages in) and p. 612 (“polyesters, thermoplastic”): PET (= polyethylene terephthalate, p. 625) originated in petroleum refining: “fractional crystallization from the C-8 aromatic fraction (including ethylbenzene).” The highest melting of the three isomeric dimethylbenzenes, which is p-Xylene, was air oxidized “in acetic acid under moderate pressure” to get terephthalic acid, or TA; this was the feedstock for PET and PBT. “PET polymer is safe and poses no threat to animals or humans” (same entry, p. 626).

“The economics of scale provided the great advantage . . .”—Chemtech IV, p. 2.6 (ch. 2: “Petrochemicals”).

The Parable of Adipic Acid

Epigraph: “But I can’t believe that any group . . .”—C. M. Kornbluth, The Syndic (New York: Berkeley Medallion, 1965; orig. pub. 1953), p. 31.

Nylon as “protein-like”—John R. Lewis, First-Year College Chemistry, 8th ed. (New York: Barnes and Noble, College Outline ser., 1965 rev. of 1932 ed.), p. 196: “Polyamide resinoids (protein-like amids”).

The nylon 6,6 in pantyhose—Neil Schlager, ed., How Products Are Made: An Illustrated Guide to Product Manufacturing, vol. 1 (New York: Gale Research Inc., 1994), p. 317 (“pantyhose”).

Footnote: “Long linear molecules . . .”—Morrison and Boyd, p. 911.

Its other name, number of atoms of C, O and H per molecule (counted out by looking at the chemical formula) and physical properties—Ibid., pp. 906–7. Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, however (vol. 1, “A” to “Alkaloids,”) p. 466, (“adipic acid”), calls it “colorless”—which may mean white. And this is also the citation for the acid’s sour taste. [Melting point of 303.8° F. Converted by WTV from original of 151° Celsius.]

Adipic acid’s useful products: synthetic lubricants and urethane foams, tanginess in foods, etc.—EPA, 2016, pp. 4-30–31.

“commercial importance” since the 1940s—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, p. 471.

Corrosiveness of aqueous solution—Ibid., p. 467.

Amount in American jellies etc.—Ibid., p. 486.

“one of the purest materials produced on a large scale”—Ibid., p. 483. Knapp, p. 37: “Synthetic fibers such as nylon and polyester are cheap to manufacture and so are used for most modern clothing.”

“the best route to cyclopentane”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, op. cit., pp. 912–13.

Visual description of the “pallid syrup,” etc.—after photos in Knapp, pp. 38–39.

“the nylon rope trick”—Mr. Ben Coleman of Marshall University inserts here [fact-checking comments, March 2017]: “This ‘trick’ was actually how Nylon was discovered.”

“Polyamide produced at the interface. . .”—Procedure described in detail in Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, pp. 469–70.

“Each pound of nylon cost ‘only’ 18,700 BTUs . . .”—Manufacturing energy from Boustani et al., January 28, 2010, p. 17: 43.49 MJ per kg. At 1 MJ/kg = 429.9226 BTUs/lb, nylon’s figure becomes 18,697.33 BTUs/lb.

“10 and a half pounds of carbon dioxide”—The table “Carbon Dioxide Emissions of Common Fuels” (p. 199) shows that heavy heating oil emits 1.890 lbs of carbon dioxide for each 10,000 BTUs. Dividing 18,697.33 by 10,000 and then multiplying by 3 to account for power plant wastage ratios, and finally multiplying by 1.890, we get 10.6 lbs carbon dioxide emitted.

The Cordtex brassiere and the rayon velvet outfit—Sears catalogue, 1956, pp. 302, 4.

“All current economic systems are predicated on growth . . .”—Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 2011, p. 375.

The 200,000-pound hopper cars + “The continued buildup of capacity . . .”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, p. 482.

The 130,000-ton plant—Loc. cit. Originally expressed as 120,000 metric tons, which would be 132,276 U.S. tons.

The South Korean facility—Ibid., p. 483.

Adipic acid’s manufacture from cyclohexane, cyclohexene, etc.—Ibid., p. 471.

Adipic acid in automobile exhaust—Ibid., p. 485.

Details of adipic acid production—Ibid., pp. 472–81. The process was not especially clean. After steamstripping of KA there were “non-volatile by-products.” “Both the metals and acid content may be high enough to dictate that this stream be classified as a hazardous waste. It is usually burned and the energy used to generate steam.”

“‘considerable’ nitrous oxide”—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, p. 247: “4.2.3 Chemical industry: Adipic acid production (2.B.3).” [And you will enjoy this tidbit from Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. 4-23: “Caprolactam is a monomer for nylon-6 which transforms into Nylon 6 by ring-opening polymerization. Nylon 6 is used as fibers for carpets etc, or resin material. N2O is emitted from ammonia oxidation during the manufacturing process.”]

Adipic acid’s share of German greenhouse gases, 2007 (0.55%)—Loc. cit.

1990 share of same (1.49%)—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, loc. cit.

“about 1993, German chemists had invented two new ways of decomposing almost all the nitrous into oxygen and nitrogen”—One method was catalytic, and the other purely thermal.

“In one country, . . . one kind of greenhouse pollution had been reduced”—Japan was another: “There is a sharp decline in emissions from . . . industrial processes . . . from FY1998 to 1999, as N2O abatement equipment came on stream in the adipic acid production plant in March 1999.” Indeed, our story bulged with heroes! Adipic acid’s nitrous emissions in the European Union fell 99% between 1990 and 2012, at which point they comprised a mere 0.01% of the entire EU greenhouse budget. Furthermore, “the main reason for large N2O emission cuts was reduction measures in the adipic acid production.”—Even the Americans, the world’s number one producer of adipic acid (30% of all stocks, most of which went for nylon 6,6), managed between 1990 and 2014 to increase production by 36% while reducing emissions by 64%! (One factor was pollution control measures; the other, I am sad to say, was merely plant idling in the late 2000s; my countrywomen’s armoires must have been stuffed with pantyhose). [Carbon-equivalent nitrous oxide emissions were 5.87% of the U.S. total in 2014. Adipic acid emissions were 1.34% of those, or 0.0786% of the total.]

Source to above note: Adipic acid in Japan: Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. 2-7. Loc. cit.: “Nitrous oxide emissions in FY2013 were 22.7 million tonnes (in CO2 eq., including LULUCF), accounting for 1.6% of total GHGs emissions. They decreased by 29.7% since FY1990 and by 0.1% compared to the previous year. Their decrease since FY1990 is mainly a result of a 85.6% decrease in emissions from industrial processes and product use (e.g. adipic acid production in the chemical industry).”

Same note: EU adipic acid emissions—Information from EU greenhouse report, 2014, pp. 420 (“4.2.2.3 2B3 Adipic Acid Production”), p. 117.

Same note: U.S. figures on adipic acid production and emissions, 1990–2014, with reasons why—U.S. EPA, 2016, p. 4-30.

Same note: Carbon-equivalent nitrous oxide emissions, 2014—5.4 MMT CO2 Eq., from p. 4-31, Table 4-29: “N2O Emissions from Adipic Acid Production (MMT CO2 Eq. and kt N2O),” divided into 6,870.5 (p. ES-4: “In 2014, total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions were 6,870.5 MMT or million metric tons CO2 Eq.”) to obtain 0.078956%, and into 403.5 (total nitrous oxide MMT CO2-equiv on p. ES-6) to obtain 1.3383%.

“To date, a counter-trend has been achieved . . .”—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, p. 105.

About Manufacturing

Epigraph: “Iron thoughts sail out at evening on iron ships . . .”—The Selected Poems of Malcolm Lowry, 17th pr. (San Francisco: City Lights Books, The Pocket Poets Ser., no. 17, 2016 galley of 2017 repr.; orig. pub. 1962), unnumbered typescript page (“Iron Cities,” which I have dated “bef. 1958” since Lowry died in 1957).

“The titanium dioxide in my toothpaste and the glass in my windows both cost considerable carbon dioxide to make”—Information from EPA, 2016, p. 237 (“the principal use of TiO2 is as a pigment in white paint, lacquers, and varnishes; it is also used as a pigment in the manufacture of plastics, paper, and other products . . . Emissions of CO2 from titanium dioxide production in 2014 were estimated to be 1.8 MMT CO2 Eq. . . . which represents an increase of 47 percent since 1990”) and 215 (“glass production is an energy and raw-material intensive process that results in the generation of CO2 from both the energy consumed in making glass and the glass process itself”).

“our ‘global energy inputs’ went slightly more to titanium than to glass”—From my visual estimation of the bar graph in Gutowski et al., Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical & Engineering Sciences, 2013 371, 20120003, published online January 28, 2013 (Timothy G. Gutowski, Sahil Sahni, Julian M. Allwood, Michael F. Ashby and Ernst Worrell, “The energy required to produce materials: constraints on energy-intensity improvements, parameters of demand”), downloaded from rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org on January 28, 2013 [by Gutowski]. Information is from p. 3 (Figure 1: “Annual primary energy used for the production of 29 materials worldwide, cumulative scale on the right. PE, polyethylene; PVC, polyvinyl chloride; PP, polypropylene; PS, polystyrene; PET, polyethylene terephthalate; ABS, acrylonitrile butadiene styrene; PA, polyamides”). Re: primary energy, the authors explain (loc. cit.): “The energy intensity (or embodied energy) is defined as the energy required to produce a material from its raw form, per unit mass of material produced. The energy is usually measured as the low heating value of the primary fuels used plus any other primary energy contributions. These energy requirements are dominated by two main steps: (i) harvesting and (ii) refining. For metals from minerals, this would involve the mining, crushing, washing and separation of the ore from the surrounding material (called gangue), and the chemical-reduction process that produces the refined material from its ore (called smelting in metal processing).”

“A molten ton of glass cost you somewhere between 120 and 208 pounds of carbon dioxide”—The Germans for their part manufactured both “flat glass” (possibly window glass) and “domestic glass.” I in my ignorance cannot define either of those, but to make a molten ton of the former released 208 pounds of carbon dioxide; the latter cost you only 120 pounds. See Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, p. 237 (Table 53: “CO2-emission factors for various glass types [calculated in comparison with figures from the CORINAIR manual]”), converted from the original figures of 208 and 120 kg/metric ton (the ratios are obviously the same in pounds per U.S. ton).

Information on glass firing temperatures and on the use of lime—David Whitehouse, Executive Director, comp., The Corning Museum of Glass, Glass: A Pocket Dictionary of Terms Used to Describe Glass and Glassmaking, rev. ed. (Corning, New York: 2006; orig. ed. 1993), pp. 26–27, 36, 52) (entries on “crizzling,” “firing,” “lime”).

“Our annual energy expenditure on glassmaking was the merest 30th of that used to produce steel”—From my visual estimation of the bar graph in Gutowski et al., loc. cit.

“Nothing in the previous practical advances . . .” + “To-day in the electric furnace . . .”—Wells, vol. 2, p. 801. These separated sentences come in reverse order in the original.

“the iron and steel industry . . . is the second important CO2-emissions source . . .”—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, p. 122. That sector achieved 4.53% of their global warming for 2007—like nitric and adipic acids, not much, you might say . . . although the category euphoniously called “3.1.4.6 Manufacturing industries and construction—Other” comprised a good 7.89% of the national total (ibid., p. 255; cf. p. 142. Peculiarly enough, on p. 136 what appears to be this same category now makes up only half a percent [“Manufacturing industries and construction: iron and steel”]; 2007 value: 0.57%.)

“summing up steel, aluminum and various chemical manufactures all together accounted for less than 10% of all Germany’s greenhouse gases”—Ibid., pp. 242 (ammonia, 0.51% of total emissions in 2007), 244 (nitric acid, 0.94%); 247 (adipic acid, 0.55%); 250 (“other production processes,” 1.01%); 255 (iron and steel, 4.53%); 263 (aluminum, 0.07%); 265 (SF6 in Al and Mg production, 0.23%); 273 (production of HCFC-22, 0.02%, and production of halocarbons and SF6: fugitive emissions, 1.07%). Total =8.93%.

“Manufacturing is now . . . 200 times larger . . .”—Gutowski et al., Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour., 2013, p. 84.

“You may not have all that you should not have.”—Euripides, vol. 1 [LCL 12], ed. and trans. David Kovacs (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press / Loeb Classical Library, 2001 corr. repr. of 1994 ed.), p. 161 (“Alcestis,” 438 B.C.).

Cement: “Making it released 8% of worldwide CO2 pollution in 2015.”—Information from Olivier et al., 2016, pp. 64–65: “CO2 emissions are generated by carbonate oxidation in the cement clinker production process, the main constituent of cement and the largest of non-combustion sources of CO2 from industrial manufacturing, contributing to about 4.0% of the total global emissions in 2015. Fuel combustion emissions of CO2 related to cement production are of approximately the same level . . .”

“most energy is used in industry to make a few key materials . . .”—Gutowski et al., op. cit., p. 101.

Energy and Coal Requirements to Manufacture One Pound Each of the “Big Five”Materials

Data on manufacturing energy, BAT and manufacturing energy reduction from recycling from Gutowski et al., Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour., 2013, p. 93 (Table 2: “The estimated global average direct energy intensity of materials production [in megajoules/kilogram (MJ/kg)] and the estimated reductions from best available technology (BAT) as percent of primary”), converted by WTV to BTUs/lb @ 1 MJ/kg = 429.9226 BTUs/lb. For the amount of coal required in each case I used the West Virginia Coal Association’s average HHV of 12,500 BTUs/lb (see the table of Calorific Efficiencies). Plugging in this figure, I divided each material’s manufacturing energy in BTUs/lb by 12,500, then multiplied the result by 3 to account for power generation losses.

“Most of the paper we produce is thrown away . . .”—Encyclical of Pope Francis, 2015, p. 7 (para. 22).

“‘default half-life’ for paper”—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. 6-74. On p. 7-13 the decomposition half-life of paper is given as seven years.

Re: titanium dioxide—EPA, 2016, p. 4-36: “In 2014, U.S. TiO2 production totaled 1,310,000 metric tons . . . [or] 1.8 MMT CO2 Eq. (1,755 kt CO2), which represents an increase of 47 percent since 1990 . . .”

“In terms of climate change, . . . the most important metal is iron . . .”—Gutowski et al., Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour., 2013, p. 94.

“Nitrous oxide was another greenhouse gas associated with steelmaking”—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, p. 136, 3.1.4.1: “Manufacturing industries and construction—iron and steel (1.A.2.a)”: German iron and steel manufacturing emitted 1% of that country’s nitrous oxide in 1990, 0.57% in 2007.

“The top seven CO2-producing manufacturing nations . . .”—Ibid., p. 89.

Re: American steel production—EPA, 2016, p. 4-58, notes: “Emissions of CO2 and CH4 from iron and steel production in 2014 were 53.4 MMT CO2 Eq. (53,417 kt) and 0.0094 MMT CO2 Eq. (0.4 kt), respectively . . . totaling approximately 53.4 MMT CO2 Eq. Emissions decreased in 2014 and have decreased overall since 1990 due to restructuring of the industry, technological improvements, and increased scrap steel utilization.”

Footnote on Japanese iron and steel emissions, 2013—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. 3-37 (3.2.6. “CO2 Emissions from Manufacturing Industries and Construction (1.A.2.:CO2)”).

“Plastics . . . are produced by the conversion of natural products . . .”—American Chemistry Council, “How Plastics Are Made,” downloaded for WTV by Jordan Rothacker in September 2016 from https://plastics.americanchemistry.com/How-Plastics-Are-Made/10/3/2016, p. 1 of 9. [This document henceforth cited: “American Chemistry Council, 2016.”]

Footnote: Embodied energy from aluminum “today”—Gutowski to WTV, August 23, 2016. Since 1 MJ = 948.067 BTUs, then 200 MJ/kg = [189,613.4 BTUs/2.2 lbs] = 86,188 BTUs/lb.

Association of sulfur hexafluoride with aluminum manufacture—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, p. 104.

“the largest source of PFC emissions in Germany.”—Ibid., p. 297: “Production of primary aluminium continues to be the largest source of PFC emissions in Germany, in spite of the considerable reductions that have been achieved since 1990. Thanks to extensive modernisation measures in German aluminium foundries, and to decommissioning of production capacities, absolute emissions from this sector fell by 87% between 1995 and 2006. As to the future development of PFC emissions, stagnation at a low level can be expected.”

Re: Steel and aluminum—Gutowski et al., Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A, 2013 371, 20120003, p. 5: “The pig iron data show an almost one order of magnitude reduction in the energy intensity over a time period of about 200 years. The aluminium data show an equally impressive reduction over about a century . . . While there is still room for improvement, new improvements will be constrained by thermodynamics.”

About Manufacturing (continued)

“The ‘big five’ released 56% of the world’s industrial carbon dioxide” + “20% of all energy and process related CO2 emissions”—Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 2011, p. 365.

My view in the Corniche of Sharjah—After a visit to United Arab Emirates in October 2016. Sharjah is the city (and emirate) just east of Dubai.

“We cry out for a little romance . . .”—Henry James, Essays on Literature, American Writers, English Writers (New York: Library of America, 1984), p. 862 (review of Benjamin Disraeli’s Lothair, Atlantic Monthly, August 1870).

“‘Best available technology’ could have reduced the energy needed . . .”—Gutowski et al., Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour., 2013, same table.

BAT information on cement—Loc. cit.; also, Gutowski et al., Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A, 2013 371, 20120003, p. 8: “There is no known route to efficiently recycle cement.”

Same footnote: Reducing proportion of clinker in cement—Olivier et al., 2016, loc. cit.: “CO2 emissions are generated by carbonate oxidation in the cement clinker production process, the main constituent of cement and the largest of non-combustion sources of CO2 from industrial manufacturing . . . [A]verage clinker fractions in global cement production have decreased between 60% and 80%, compared to nearly 95% for Portland cement[, which] has resulted in about 20% decrease in CO2 emissions per tonne of cement produced, compared to the 1980s.”

Annual per capita cement production and increase—Gutowski et al., Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour., 2013, p. 100 (Table 5), 2010 figures, converted by WTV from 480 kg. Another figure for per capita annual cement production was 880 pounds of cement (Allwood et al., 2013, p. 3).

“Whenever we made it, we emitted carbon dioxide . . . and four other greenhouse gases”—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, p. 263: “In Germany, aluminium is produced at four foundries, in electrolytic furnaces with pre-burnt anodes. The principal emission sources are the waste gases from the electrolytic furnaces and fugitive emissions via the hall roofs. The principal climate-relevant pollutants emitted are CO, CO2, SO2, CF4 and C2F6.”

Aluminum: 2,374 pounds per ton—Ibid., pp. 263–64: “An SO2 emission factor of 10.4 kg/t Al can be calculated. The CO2-emission factor is calculated on the basis of the specific carbon content of petrol coke, 857 kg per t . . . By multiplying the average anode consumption by the mean carbon content and carrying out stoichiometric conversion to CO2, one obtains a CO2− emission factor of 1,367 kg/t aluminium. Theoretically, [this] must be reduced by the proportion resulting from a CO component of 180 kg/t Al . . . The CO2 factor listed below does not take this into account,” but I have: 1,367 − 180 = 1,187 kg/t = 2,611.4 lb/[metric] ton = 2,374 pounds per U.S. ton.

Weight of aluminum versus steel, + corrosion resistance of Al and some typical applications—Edwin H. Gaylord, Jr., Charles N. Gaylord and James E. Stallmeyer, Structural Engineering Handbook, 4th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997), pp. 11-1–11-4.

Aluminum in bicycles—EPA, 2016, p. 271: “The production of primary aluminum—in addition to consuming large quantities of electricity—results in process-related emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and two perfluorocarbons (PFCs): perfluoromethane (CF4) and perfluoroethane (C2F6).”

The New Jumbo Carrier Cake Cover and the automatic playing card shuffler—Sears catalogue, 1956, pp. 1092, 744. Back in the 1860s, Napoleon one-upped everybody with his aluminum knives and forks (Emsley, p. 23).

Aluminum in 1956: “4 pounds of it (which must have burned 30 pounds of coal)”—From the table of Comparative Energy Requirements on p. 59 one sees that the 1950s manufacture of aluminum did not burn much more energy than in the early 21st century. My calculation: 30,717 BTUs/lb × 41 lbs × 3 [power plant inefficiency] ÷ 12,500 [default HHV of coal] = 29.488 lbs of coal.

Entry for Widest Steel Industries LLC—Abu Dhabi yellow pages, 2016, p. 239.

Calculation of energy needs of same: This company’s production was either [at the low end of energy usage] 10,000 MT of steel, 10,000 MT of aluminum [at the high end], or 10,000 MT of mixed aluminum and steel, in which case the energy usage would be in between those two extremes. 10,000 metric MT = [10,000 × 1,000,000 × 1.023 short tons per metric tonne × 2,000 lbs/ton] = 22,046,000,000,000, or 22.046 trillion, U.S. pounds. This will be the total capacity in pounds of Widest Steel Industries. Plucking from the table of “Big Five” Materials and multiplying by 3 to account for power plant inefficiencies, I get [10,7448 × 3] or 32,244 BTUs/lb for steel and [39,983 × 3] or 119,949 BTUs/lb for aluminum. Multiplying each of these by WSI’s total pound capacity, I find that 7.109 × 1017 [= 711 quadrillion] BTUs will be needed to make the steel, and 2.64 × 1018 [= 2.64 quintillion] BTUs for the aluminum. In the UAE the default energy source is oil. Let me plug in [from the table of Calorific Efficiencies, p. 215] my default value for heavy heating oil of 18,450 BTUs/lb. Dividing each of the two energy requirements by that number I obtain for the steel 38,528,521,626,016 [= 38.53 trillion] pounds of heavy heating oil, and for the aluminum 143,327,677,723,577 [= 143.33 trillion] pounds. Using a density of 7.036 lbs/gal [again see here] as an approximation, we get for the two metals respective requirements of 5.48 and 20.37 trillion gallons.

Footnote: Manufacturing energy reduction from recycling—Gutowski et al., Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour., 2013, same table. Remarks on plastic: Ibid., p. 95. Another comment in the same source (p. 93) deserves quotation: “Although it is generally true that there is more improvement potential in the developing countries compared with the industrialized countries, the situation is reversed for aluminum smelting and pulp and paper production . . . Potentially larger efficiency gains can be had by increasing recycling. The gains look very significant for steel, aluminum, and paper. The low value for plastics is a result of our not including the fuel value of the material, which is substantial. For example, if the fuel value for the plastics is estimated as 40 MJ/kg and this is charged to primary production, then the maximum potential reduction from recapturing this material could be portrayed as 80%.”

Energy savings in substituting aluminum for other metals—Information from Gutowski et al., Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 2013 371, 20120003, p. 9. “This is true for buildings where heating, cooling or lighting dominate, and for vehicles where fuel use dominates.”

Steel manufacturing and recycling, 1980–2006—Gutowski et al., Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour., 2013, p. 96.

Per capita annual steel production: 440 pounds—Allwood et al., 2013, p. 3.

Footnote: “UK steel consumption is currently around 530 kg steel per person . . .”—Ibid., p. 9.

“without which such inexpressible confusion must ensue”—Gordon S. Wood, ed., The American Revolution: Writings from the Pamphlet Debate 1764–1772 (New York: Library of America, 2015), p. 431 (John Dickinson, “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies,” 1768; Letter IV).

Per capita paper production—Gutowski et al., Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour., 2013, p. 100 (Table 5), 2010 figures, converted by WTV from 58 kg. The increase was 1.1% per year.

“Under all six scenarios . . .”—Gutowski et al., Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour., 2013, p. 100.

About Transportation

Epigraph: “Transportation is the major culprit . . .”—European Journal of Scientific Research 34, no. 4 (2009), pp. 550–60 (F. I. Abam, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Cross River University of Technology, Calabar, Nigeria, and G. O. Unachukwu, National Centre for Energy Research and Development, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria, “Vehicular Emissions and Air Quality Standards in Nigeria”), p. 551.

Epigraph: “Even the most vibrant experiences become slightly faded over time . . .”—Travel + Leisure (New York), August 2016, p. 88 (Thessaly LaForce, “Beyond: Urban Study: Artist’s Colony”).

Epigraph: “We choose to go to the moon because it is profitable!”—National Geographic, August 2017, p. 37 (Sam Howe Verhovek, “Shoot for the moon”).

Description of a Japanese express train ride—After a trip in January 2017.

The Three Most Dangerous Sectors of Human Activity

“EU” percentages—EU greenhouse report, 2014, p. xi. Percentages for EU-28 countries stated in note on Table ES.6. (Total 2012 emissions for EU-28: 4,603 metric MT excluding LULUCF. Not all data is recapitulated here, so the reader must go to the original to verify my calculations.) From Table ES.7 [EU-15 emissions]. I took the numbers and converted them into the percentages in parentheses: energy, 2,893 metric MT of carbon-dioxide-equiv. emissions (79.9%); agriculture, 373 (10.31%); industrial, 243 (6.71%). Then I converted each pair of percentages into a range for my table. For example, for energy: 79% for EU-28, 79.9% for EU-15. Range in table on p. 144, rounded to nearest digit: 79–80%.

“M” percentages—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Mexico, 1990–2002, p. 36: Since the total with LULUCF was 643, 183 Gg and LULUCF was 89,854 Gg, then total without LULUCF was 553,329 Gg. Dividing the actual figures for the emissions subcategories into this new total, I obtained: energy, 70.39%, waste, 11.85%; industrial processes, 9.41%; and agriculture, 8.33%.

“Emissions from solid waste disposal . . .”—Ibid., p. 52.

“J” percentages—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. E.S.4. Cf. p. 4-3: “The emissions of CO2, CH4, and N2O from this sector have decreased by 34.6% compared to 1990. The emissions of HFCs, PFCs, SF6, and NF3 from this sector have increased by 9.1% compared to 1990.”

“U” percentages—EPA, 2016, p. ES-17 (Table ES-4: “Recent Trends in U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks by Chapter/IPCC Sector (MMT CO2 Eq.)”). Numbers converted into the percentages in parentheses: energy, 2014: 5,746.2 MT (83.6%); industrial products and product use, 379.2 (5.5%): agriculture, 573.6 (8.5%); total emissions 6,870.5 (100%). On p. ES-23 we read (evidently some rounding was going on): “Activities related to agriculture accounted for 9 percent of U.S. emissions.”

Industry: Global per capita CO2 emissions and increases—Gutowski et al., Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour., 2013, p. 100 (Table 5), converted by WTV from 0.90 metric tons.

Footnote: Japanese cement-making—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. 2-13.

About Transportation (continued)

“the five monitored air pollutants . . .”—European Journal of Scientific Research 34, no. 4 (2009), pp. 550–60 (F. I. Abam, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Cross River University of Technology, Calabar, Nigeria, and G. O. Unachukwu, National Centre for Energy Research and Development, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria, “Vehicular Emissions and Air Quality Standards in Nigeria”), p. 550. Ibid., p. 552: “Studies conducted in Kaduna and Abuja cities show higher values of CO2 concentration in heavily congested areas: 1840 ppm for Sambo Kaduna, 1780 ppm for Stadium round-about, Kaduna, and 1530 ppm for A.Y.A., Abuja, 1160 ppm for Asokoro Abuja, Akpan and Ndoke (199). Similar work by Jimo and Ndoke (2000) at Minna, a city in Nigeria, shows the maximum value of 5,000 ppm for CO2 in congested areas, which was still lower than WHO stipulated maximum value of 20,000 ppm.” [No subscript in original.]

Mexican transportation emissions, 2002—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Mexico, 1990–2002. On p. 36, “transport” was given as 18% of national emissions. But this seems to have included LULUCF. Page 43: “In 2002, the total GHG emissions in the transport sector . . . in units of CO2 equivalent, were 114,385 Gg. The contribution by type was: automobile . . . 91%; air . . . 6%; sea . . . 2% and rail . . . 1%.” So .91 × 114,385 = 104,090.35. This divided into total emissions without LULUCF [553,329 Gg] = 18.81%.

German transportation emissions, 2007—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, p. 161.

Japan’s transportation emissions, 2013—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. 3-42. (The category also included “other transportation (1.A.3.e)”.) From 1990 to 2013, Japan’s increase was a modest 8.74%. Ibid., p. 2-4 (Table 2-2: “Trends in CO2 emissions and removals in each sector”): 1990 transportation emissions were 178,442 thousand metric tons carbon dioxide; the corresponding 2013 figure was 194,039. Calculation: x % of [178,442 = 194,039 – 178,442] = 15,597, so x% = [15,597 / 178,442] × 100 = 8.74%.

Canada’s transportation emissions, 2011—Canada Yearbook 2011, p. 156.

America’s emissions, 2014—EPA, 2016, p. ES-11-12: “The largest sources of transportation CO2 emissions in 2014 were passenger cars (42.4 percent), medium- and heavy-duty trucks (23.1 percent), light-duty trucks, which include sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks, and minivans (17.8 percent) [total thus far = 83.3%], commercial aircraft (6.6 percent), pipelines (2.7 percent), rail (2.6 percent), and ships and boats (1.6 percent).” Cf. p. ES-23: “Transportation activities, in aggregate, accounted for the second largest portion (26 percent)” of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2014.

Footnote on previous entry: “Methane and nitrous oxide emissions increase this figure by only a quarter of a percent”—Ibid., p. 3-22 (Table 3-13: “CH4 Emissions from Mobile Combustion (MMT CO2 Eq.)”), 2014 figure: 2.0. Page 323 (Table 3-14: “N2O Emissions from Mobile Combustion (MMT CO2 Eq.)”). 2014 figure: 16.3. On p. ES-4 we read that 2014, total U.S. GHG emissions were 6,870.5 MMT CO2 Eq. Dividing [2 + 16.3] into 6,870.5 gives 0.266%.

North America; 41.8% of refinery output for gasoline, compared to the rest of the world—U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Administration, 1981 International Energy Annual (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Energy, September 1982). Remainder of original sentence reads: Motor gasoline “did not exceed 19 percent of refinery yield in any other region of the world.”

“In terms of the overall trend . . .”—EPA, 2016, pp. ES-11-12. A case in point: Sahil Sahni, Avid Boustani, Timothy Gutowski and Steven Graves, “Engine Remanufacturing and Energy Savings” [MITEI-1-d-2010] (Boston: Environmentally Benign Laboratory, Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity, Sloan School of Management [MIT], January 28, 2010), p. 3: “The United States Transportation sector consumed 28.5% of the total 101.5 quadrillion BTUs of energy consumed in the US in 2007. This fraction has been consistently rising at more than 1% over the last couple of decades. It is also true that the United States on-road transportation energy use is dominated by [p]assenger [c]ars . . . The total energy used by on-road transportation (by cars, trucks, motorcycles and buses) in 2007 is 22,393 trillion BTUs.” [This document henceforth cited: “Sahni et al., January 28, 2010.”]—But Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 12 (“Fuel Resources” to “Heat Stabilizers”), p. 342 (“gasoline and other motor fuels”), tell a slightly different story. In 1992, American consumers “burned 422 × 10 9 L[iters] of gasoline,” “the average family car” got driven 15,000 km/yr, which “has not changed much since 1948.” Did the demand increase after 1992? Or did increasing demand simply mean increasing absolute, not per capita demand?

“nearly 307,000 people will travel to the destination . . .”—Simply 55+ (“Southern Nevada’s Premier Magazine for Active 55+”), September/October 2016, p. 40 (Oscar B. Goodman, “2016 Presidential Debate”).

The downward trend in German emissions, and Tanktourismus—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, pp. 162–64. German 2000–2007 emissions decline converted from 27.3 million metric tons. [Regarding the decrease, here is a lesson in context (p. 161): In 1990, “road transport” accounted for 11.91% of all emissions. In 2007, it accounted for 14.13%—simply because Germany’s total emissions were declining faster than the ones in this category.] The specific amounts are in Table 28: “Emissions from road transports.”

Carbon dioxide percentage decrease, 1990–2007—Calculated by WTV from Table 28 (150,358.33 minus 144,114.20).

Footnote: “Significant to astonishing decreases”—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007. For instance: Methane fell by 77%, sulfur dioxide by 98.8% (my computations from the absolute numbers).

“The second largest key source . . .”—EU greenhouse report, 2014, p. 220.

“The Member States Germany . . .”—Ibid., p. 221.

German 2012 emission in Gg—Ibid., p. 222 (Table 3.51: “1A3b Road Transport: Member States’ contributions to CO2 emissions”). Germany’s gasoline emissions had decreased and her diesel emissions increased (pp. 222–24).

Maximum-Range Carbon Dioxide Emissions of Selected Aircraft

Initial data from: Paul Jackson, MRAeS, ed.-in-chief, Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft [no. 94]: 2003–2004 (Surrey, U.K.: Jane’s Information Group Inc., 2003), pp. 1 (AT-63 Pampa: total fuel capacity, 2,017 liters = 533 U.S. gallons, 444 Imperial gallons); 125–27 (Dassault Rafale: 2,300 L = 608 U.S. gal); 575 (Boeing 777, 195,283 L = 51,590 gal). [Since this source is cited only here, please note that all other citations to “Jackson” refer to A. Jackson, Modern Steelmaking for Steelmakers.]

Carbon dioxide emissions of jet fuel—Per Plane & Pilot, August 2017, p. 10 (“Plane Facts”), the “most commonly used aviation gasoline for turbine engines” is kerosene-based unleaded JET A-1, whose emission coefficient is 18.4 lbs carbon dioxide per combusted gal. As my table notes, “airplane fuel’s ‘total global warming impact is significantly higher [than its volume of use would suggest,] due to vapor trails and the other effects of burning fuel at altitude.’” Therefore I wish to insert here, for whatever it may be worth, a higher emissions coefficient of 24.5 lbs/gal, which I calculated as follows: Per table beginning on p. 199 [“Carbon Dioxide Emissions of Common Fuels”], aircraft fuel emits 1.701 pounds of CO2 for each 10,000 BTUs. Per the table of Calorific Efficiencies beginning on p. 208, aviation gasoline, mid-20th-century formulation, was 21,400 BTUs / lb. Per 9A on p. 581, the density of aviation fuel is 775–840 g/liter. The arithmetical average of that pair is 807.5 g/L. Since 1 U.S. gal = 3.78 L, the appropriate density for aircraft fuel would be 6.73 lb /gal. So the HHV of 1 gal. would be 144,022 BTUs. Therefore: [1.701 lbs dioxide / 10,000 BTUs] × [144,022 BTUs / gal] = 24.498 lbs carbon dioxide emitted per gallon of aviation fuel.

“Total global warming impact . . .”—Mike Berners-Lee and Duncan Clark, The Burning Question: We Can’t Burn Half the World’s Coal and Gas. So How Do We Quit? (Berkeley, California:Greystone Books, 2013), p. 150.

About Transportation (continued)

Global per capita CO2 from transportation—Gutowski et al., Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour., 2013, p. 100 (Table 5), converted by WTV from 820 kg.

About Power Plants

Epigraph: “The larger the amount of power . . .”—Britannica, 11th ed., vol. XXII (POLL to REEVES), p. 238 (entry on “power transmission”).

Epigraph: “Steam is really just a medium of exchange . . .”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 12 (“Fuel Resources” to “Heat Stabilizers”), p. 443 (“energy management”).

Operation of fossil fuel and nuclear plants—John A. Camara, PE, Electrical Engineering Reference Manual for the Electrical and Computer PE Exam, 6th ed. (Belmont, California: Professional Publications, Inc., 2002; pub. date of orig. ed. not given), pp. 33-1, 33-3. Re: atomic power, a tome by Alan M. Herbst and George W. Hopley, Nuclear Energy Now: Why the Time Has Come for the World’s Most Misunderstood Energy Source (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2007), puts the matter prettily: “A commercial nuclear reactor, essentially a large and very complex tea kettle, boils water to produce steam through a controlled reaction of fissionable material. This steam spins turbines to create electricity” (p. 127).

2,400 to 3,500 psi: “equivalent to pressures from a mile to a mile and a half under the ocean”—According to the CRC Handbook, 2006, 1 psi = 0.00689457 mPa (p. 1-35 [“Conversion Factors for Pressure Units”]). Hence the two respective psi figures become respectively 16.547 and 24.131 mPa. On p. 14-14 (“Ocean Pressure as a Function of Depth and Latitude”), there is a chart of “excess pressure over the ambient atmospheric pressure at the surface.” At zero degrees of latitude, a depth of 1,500 meters = 24.131 mPa, and 2,500 m = 25.2895 mPa.Dividing each side of each equation by the lefthand quantity, in order to get the left side down to unity, we find that in both cases, 1 meter is about 0.0101 mPa. Since 1 m = 3.28 ft, 1 foot of depth = 0.003079 mPa. Employing this conversion factor (e.g., dividing 16.547 mPa by 0.003079 mPa per foot), it appears that 2,400 psi corresponds to 5,374 ft, and 3,500 psi to 7,837.2 ft.

“Efficiency improves when the source temperature is raised.”—Camara, p. 33-1.

Answers of the “Public Information Specialist”—SMUD e-mail, December 2016.

“No process is possible . . .”—Mark W. Zemansky, Ph.D., Heat and Thermodynamics: An Intermediate Textbook, 5th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968), p. 178. Cf. 172–73: “Since heat is always rejected during the condensation of water, QC [the heat lost during condensation] cannot be made equal to zero, and therefore the input QH [the heat absorbed by the water in the boiler] cannot be converted completely into work.”

Innate Energies versus Actual Electric Power Generated

Data for innate energies—“7/13/2016 How much coal, natural gas, or petroleum is used to generate a kilowatthour of electricity?—FAQ—U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA),” downloaded for WTV by Jordan Rothacker, July 2016, from https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=667&t=8. [Henceforth cited: “EIA, 7/13/2016”]. From this e-document: “Fuel heat contents (for fuels received by electric power industry in 2014). Coal = 19,420,000 Btu per short ton (2,000 pounds). Note: Heat contents of coal vary widely by types of coal.Natural gas = 1,029,000 Btu per 1,000 cubic feet (Mcf). Petroleum = 5,867,946 Btu per Barrel (42 gallons). Note: Heat contents vary by type of petroleum product.” Righthand values from the table of Calorific Efficiencies.

Data for actual electric power generated—EIA, 7/13/2016: To generate 1 kWh [which presumably implies the standard ⅔ power plant wastage], requires the following: 1.04 lbs coal, or 0.01011 Mcf [= thousand cubic feet] natural gas, or 0.07 gal petroleum. My calculations: This means 1 lb coal generates 0.96 kWh = [multiplying by 3,413] 3,281.730 BTUs. By comparable arithmetic: 1 lb natural gas generates 8,109.213 BTUs, and 1 lb petroleum [calculated per density of diesel] generates 6,929.668 BTUs.

About Power Plants (continued)

“To manufacture a 2010-model desktop computer we had to burn up to 660 pounds of coal in a power plant”—Ciceri, Gutowski and Garetti, unnumbered page: “In the case of a desktop (CPU tower) . . . the total electronics manufacturing results in about 2900 MJ/unit, for which 2780 MJ goes into the wafer manufacturing/chip packaging.” The two numbers correspond respectively to 2,749,394.3 and 2,635,626.26 BTUs, or 2.7 million and 2.6 million BTUs. Dividing by the West Virginia Coal Association’s HHV of 12,500, then multiplying by 3 to account for power plant wastage, we obtain 659.876 and 635.55 lbs of coal.

“Of the electric power thus generated, 95% went to make the silicon chip . . .”—Loc. cit.: “About 95% of the energy content is needed in this phase.”

“a refrigerator, required somewhere between 1,000 and 1,400 pounds . . .”—Loc. cit.: The refrigerator required somewhere between 4,517 and 6,306 MJ to fabricate. This was 4,282,419 to 5,948,511 BTUs, or, following the same logic as for the computer, 1,032 to 1,440 lbs of coal. From the table of Calorific Efficiencies on p. 214 we see that the HHV of commercial fuel oil, heavy grade, ca. 1975, is 18,450 BTUs/lb. Then, by analogous logic to the above, a power plant would need to burn 699 to 975.6 lbs of the stuff to power the manufacture of a refrigerator.

“more than 80% of that refrigerator’s substance was steel and plastic”—Avid Boustani, Sahil Sahni, Timothy Gutowski and Steven Graves, “Appliance Remanufacturing and Energy Savings” (Environmentally Benign Manufacturing Laboratory, Sloan School of Management, MITI-1-a-2010, January 28, 2010). [Henceforth cited: “Boustani et al.”]. Page 14: “Bill of materials” for “a 1997 model refrigerator” includes: steel, 47.55 kg; and plastic, 23.48 kg (and other materials).

Comparative Power Efficiencies

BTUs per kWh for steam-electric, diesel-electric and gas-turbine plants—Baumeister and Marks, pp. 17-45, -46, -47 (Franklin J. Leerburger, “Cost of Electric Power”).

Alleged inefficiency of Japanese nuclear reactor—Takashi Hirose, Fukushima Meltdown: The World’s First Earthquake-Tsunami Nuclear Disaster, trans. Izumi Kaori et al. [this ed. copyright in name of Douglas Lummis, one of the translators] (“Printed in the USA”: no publisher, 2011; orig. Japanese ed. pub. by Asahi Shinso, 2011), pp. 149–51. Cf. OECD, 1974, 159: Reactors show “a low thermodynamic efficiency (about 33 per cent) and a consequently large volume of low grade heat discharge.”

“The overall efficiency of [American] electric power plants consisting of coal-fired boilers and steam turbines has plateaued at about 39% . . .”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 6 (“Chlorocarbons and Chlorohydrocarbons—C2” to “Combustion Technology” [pub. 1993]), p. 484 (“combustion technology”). For entry at 3.09 ×, input BTUs = 3,413/0.39 = 8,751.

“‘Best’ ‘fossil fuel’ power plant,” ca. 1976—Britannica, 15th ed., vol. 18 (TAYLOR to UTAH), p. 773 (“turbine”).

Efficiencies of natural gas power plants, 2002 and 2012—Prentiss, p. 20.

Efficiency of combined-cycle thermal energy generator, and data in accompanying footnote—Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Paris, Energy Prospects to 1985: An Assessment of Long Term Energy Developments and Related Policies (A Report by the Secretary-General), vol. 1 (Paris: OECD, 1974), p. 59 (Annex 4-A: “Energy Conservation in Electricity Conversion”). [This source henceforth cited: “OECD, 1974.”]

“Ultra-supercritical and advanced ultra-supercritical plants”—In 2015 an Australian government report claimed that “Ultra-supercritical and Advanced ultra-supercritical plants operate at efficiencies between 45–50 per cent. The capital cost of these plants is high because they must use advanced materials (with high nickel content) in the boiler. They use less coal and emit less CO2 than supercritical plants.” Source: Australian Government: India, 2015, p. 41. Ibid., p. 95: “Ultra-supercritical (USC) plants operate at even higher temperatures and pressures than other plants, achieving efficiencies around 45 per cent. USC plants are built using advanced materials, require higher quality, low ash coals, and have higher capital costs (up to 40–50 per cent more than a subcritical plant) and longer build times. However, operating costs are typically lower because of reduced coal consumption. The overall power costs of USC is greater relative to other coal-fired technologies, unless coal prices are high, or a carbon price exists. However, the benefits of using USC plants are evident when comparing a USC plant operating at 48 per cent efficiency to a subcritical plant operating at 32 per cent efficiency . . . The poorest quality subcritical power plants can emit more than 1 tonne of CO2 per megawatt hour, compared with 700 kilograms for USC plants.”

Tepco Kawasaki thermal plant, 2016—In 2016 the Tokyo Electric Power Company released an “outline” of their Kawasaki thermal plant, whose efficiency was by my standards laudable. Units 1 and 2 ran at 59%. Unit 3 offered a still higher efficiency, thanks to its exhaust heat recovery system, although “currently, rated output has been reduced from 710MW to 685MW and generation efficiency from approx. 61% to approx. 59% when comparing with the original design. This is due to emergency construction work based on another company’s defective steam turbine.” Source: “Outline of Kawasaki Thermal Power Station,” downloaded in January 2017 for WTV by Jordan Rothacker from www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu16_e/images/160629e0201.pdf June 29, 2016—Attachment. “Outline of Kawasaki Thermal Power Station. 1. Outline of power station. (1) Address: Chidori-cho 5-1, Kawasaki-ku, Kawasaki-shi.” I would like to thank the antinuclear activist Mr. Yamasaki Hisataka for making me aware of this plant, thanks to his e-mail of January 14, 2017. [Relevant text reads: “Currently, Tepco’s highest efficiency power plant is the Kawasaki thermal plant at 62%. This is the efficiency of power generation only, so if they can utilize the waste heat they may be able to achieve 80% or more.”]

Footnote: “even cheerier figures, ca. 1974”—OECD, 1974, p. 79 (Table 4-1: “Sectoral percentages of total primary energy consumption on OECD 192 regional energy balances”). “Currently, about two-thirds of the energy used to provide electricity . . .”—Ibid., p. 59 (Annex 4-A: Energy Conservation in Electricity Conversion”).

About Power Plants (continued)

Efficiencies of up to 80% + “Systems typically produce electricity . . .”—Ross & Associates Environmental Consulting, Ltd., U.S.-Mexico Border Region Greenhouse Gas Inventories and Policy, review draft (3/1/09), prepared for U.S. EPA (official date March 2009), pp. 20–21. [Henceforth cited: “Ross & Associates, 2009.”]

Power and Climate

Epigraph: “There was nothing he could do to help her . . .”—Tom Godwin, The Cold Equations and Other Stories, ed. and comp. Eric Flint (Riverdale, New York: Baen Publishing Enterprises, 2003), pp. 419, 426 (“The Cold Equations”).

Canadian emissions, 2008—Canada Yearbook 2011, pp. 172–73 (Table 12.1, “Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, by source, 1990 and 2008”), converted (@ × 1.1023) from 547,000 [to 602,958.1] and 118,000 [to 130,071.4] metric kilotons. The percentage of the first into the second was calculated using these more exact figures.

Footnote: American contribution: “the single largest source of CO2 emissions in the United States . . .”—EPA, 2016, p. 122.

Contributions of manufacturing and transportation—Canada Yearbook 2011, p. 156: 31% of 2009 energy consumption was in transportation. Mining, manufacturing, forestry and construction took 29%. For details see here (Table 11.8: “Energy fuel consumption, by manufacturing industry, 2004 to 2009”).

Power Generation’s Share of Greenhouse Gas Emissions for Selected Countries

EU data—EU greenhouse report, 2014, p. 135.

U.S.A.—ES-23. Also, p. ES-2 (Table ES-2: “Recent Trends in U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks (MMT CO2 Eq.)”). Carbon dioxide from electricity generation: 2,039.3 out of 5,556.0 MMT of CO2. This = 36.7%. Then on p. 2-13 we are told: “The main driver of emissions in the Energy sector is CO2 from fossil fuel combustion. Electricity generation is the largest emitter of CO2, and electricity generators consumed 34 percent of U.S. energy from fossil fuels and emitted 39 percent of the CO2 from fossil fuel combustion in 2014.”

Germany—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, p. 122.

Japan—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. 3-13, Annex 4-13 (Table A 4-2: “Energy balance simplified table (General Energy Statistics, FY1995)”). Electricity was 194,155 TJ. Heat production was 1,063,574 TJ. I divided electricity into the sum of these two, then multiplied the resulting decimal fraction by 40.3%.Got 6.22%.

Power and Climate (continued)

U.S. winter peak load capacity, 1980–2013—U.S Statistical Abstract, 2015, p. 625 (Table 965: “Electric Power Industry—Capability, Peak Load, and Capacity Margin: 1980 to 2013”). I converted 921,966,000 kWh × 3,413 to get 3,146,669,958,000 = 3.147 trillion BTUs [= 0.003147 Q-BTU = 1/318 of a quad].

“Burning 674,286,420 pounds of pure carbon . . .”—Calculated from [3.146 trillion BTUs] × 3 × 1 lb pure carbon / 14,000 BTUs.

Emissions of pure carbon—I estimated them as comparable to those of bituminous coal [p. 201: 2.466 lbs CO2 per lb]. Multiplying this × 224,762,140 gave 554,263,437.24, which I conservatively rounded down to 550 million.

Primary Greenhouse Gas and Precursor Emissions from American Power Generation

Data from: Energy Information Administration, “Electricity—Energy Explained, Your Guide to Understanding Energy” (7/18/2016), downloaded for WTV by Jordan Rothacker, August 2016, from http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=electricity_home#tab2.

About Solar Energy

Epigraph: “Look at the bright side always . . .”—Perkins, p. 424 (Coleridge, Anima Poetae, first pub. 1895).

Remarks of Dr. Canek Fuentes-Hernandez, throughout this chapter—From his detailed letter of criticism on an earlier version of “About Solar Energy”; this letter, dated May 23, 2017, was copied to disk for WTV by Jordan Rothacker. Henceforth cited: “Dr. Canek Fuentes-Hernandez to WTV, May 2017.”

Solar Energy En Route to Earth’s Surface

“Solar Energy Lost En Route to Reaching Earth’s Surface”—Calculated by WTV from the following statements in Baumeister and Marks, p. 9-230 (“Power from Solar Energy”): “The heat received from the sun on 1 sq ft of surface normal to the sun’s rays above the atmosphere of the earth amounts to 442.4 BTU per hr.” [The same source, p. 12-114 (Hoyt C. Hottel, “Solar Energy for Heating”), gives the mean solar constant = “incidence on surface external to earth’s atmosphere, normal to solar beam and at mean solar distance” = 442 BTU/square ft/hr or 10,660 per day. This likewise works out to 7.37 BTU/sq ft/min.] Insolation on a horizontal square foot in the continental U.S. is (or then was) 1,800–2500 BTUs/ft in summer, 500–1,100 BTUs per day in winter.

Footnote on declining insolation—Encyclopedia of Agriculture and Food Systems, vol. 2, p. 257 (J. A. Hatfield and C. L. Walthall, “Climate Change: Cropping System Changes and Adaptations”).

Same footnote on increasing insolation—IPCC, 2013, p. 184: “Downward thermal radiation observations started to become available during the early 1990s at a limited number of globally distributed terrestrial sites. From these records, Wild et al. (2008) determined an overall increase of 2.6 W [per square meter] per decade over the 1990s, in line with model projections,” while other scientists calculated somewhat lower values. Since 1 watt per square meter = 1.634 BTUs per square foot, 2.6 W/ sq m = 4.2484 BTUs/sq ft.

Baumeister and Marks note (p. 9-5 [Eugene Ayres, “Sources of Energy”]) that the Earth receives about 1018 horsepower-hours per year but 30% of it (= 3 × 1017 hp-hr) gets reflected back into space.

“The total solar energy reaching the earth . . .”—Farrington Daniels, Direct Use of the Sun’s Energy (New York: Ballantine Books, 1964), p. 253.

“One estimate for this total solar energy is 9.9 quadrillion [9,897,816,000,000,000] BTUs per minute, or 174,000 terawatts”—I had previously had 5,460,864,000,000,000 BTUs per minute, or 96,000 terawatts (original in TW only, converted by WTV), based on Darling and Sisterson, pp. 174–75. But Dr. Fuentes-Hernandez wrote me: “Each hour the earth receives, at the edge of its atmosphere, around 174,000 terawatts (not sure what assumptions were made on the source quoting 96 0000 terawatts, but the value I give you is the one you will find in most of the scientific literature and government agencies such as DOE, NREL and NASA) (or an irradiance of around 1366 W/m2, prior to any atmospheric losses).” So I have followed his figure (and once again converted to BTUs).

“The sun delivers energy . . .”—Prentiss, p. 32.

Further note: re: 7.37 BTU/min-ft2—According to the Britannica, 15th ed., vol. 6 (EARTH to EVERGLADES), p. 857 (“energy sources”), “solar radiation outside the earth’s atmosphere is 1.4 kilowatts per square metre.”1.4 kW/m2 × 1 m2/[3.28 × 3.28 feet] = 1.4 kW/10.7584 ft2 = 0.13013 kW/ft2 = 0.13013 × [57.87 BTU/min] / ft2= 7.53 BTU/min-ft2, which is close but not identical to the 7.37. In his letter to me, Dr. Canek Fuentes-Hernandez speaks of “an irradiance of around 1366 W/m2, prior to any atmospheric losses,” which I convert to the very similar 7.21 BTUs/min-ft2 (a mere 2.05% less than 7.37).

“At most, 67 per cent . . .”—Odum, p. 40 (citing Gates, 1965). Cf. Marion, p. 266: “The Earth receives radiant energy from the Sun at the rate of 1.95 cal/min on an area of 1 cm2 oriented perpendicular to the direction of the Sun.”

“77% actually strikes the ground”—Dr. Canek Fuentes-Hernandez to WTV: “On its way to the earth’s surface, around 23% is absorbed by the atmosphere leading to a total energy resource of around 121 000 terawatts each hour (around 1000 W/m2 or 1 GW/km2), prior to any absorption or reflection by earth’s surface (Note that these losses are also shared by any other biological process that use the sun, i.e. all biomass). Give or take a few terawatts, this represents about the same energy the entire world consumed during year 2014 (see key world facts 2014 and round total energy consumption to around 10 000 mtoe [million tons of oil equivalent] ~ 116 300 terawatts/hour).”

June and December values for Stillwater, Oklahoma—Jim Leckie, Gil Masters, Harry Whitehouse and Lily Young, Other Homes and Garbage: Designs for Self-Sufficient Living (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1975), p. 88 (Table 4-6, “Daily Averages of Solar Energy Received on a Horizontal Surface”).

General amount of insolation striking planet’s landmass—The Britannica goes on (loc. cit.): “Expressed in terms of Q units (Q = 1018 BTU) the amount of solar radiation striking the earth’s atmosphere in one year is 5,000 Q. More than half of this reaches the surface of the earth, with 900 Q per year being absorbed over land and the remainder over water.” Since 900 / 5,000 = 0.18, I have made this figure 18%.

About Solar Energy (continued)

Blackbody: “an ideal substance capable of absorbing all the thermal radiation falling on it”—Zemansky, p. 98.—“The fraction of all the radiation (i.e., over all wavelengths) from the direction . . . that is absorbed by a surface is called the directional absorptance.”—John A. Duffie and William A. Beckman, Solar Energy Thermal Processes (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1974), p. 86.

“It must also be able to emit all the radiation it absorbs.”—Ibid., p. 62: “A blackbody is also a[n] . . . emitter of thermal radiation. In fact, the definition of a blackbody could have been made in terms of a body that emits the maximum possible radiation.”—“The directional emittance is defined as the ratio of the emitted total intensity . . . to the blackbody intensity” (ibid., p. 86).

“we’re going to have to wait a few more years . . .”—Leckie et al., p. 33.

“millions of Americans now get their electricity . . .”—The New York Times, Saturday, July 1, 2017, p. B1 (Diane Cardwell, “Battle Over Solar Trade”).

“Over 2000 years, the cumulative amount of heat retained in the Earth system . . . is about 8 times larger than if we count only the first 100 years”—Dr. Pieter Tans to WTV, May 2017.

Absorbance and emittance of carbon black and zinc oxide paints—Ibid., p. 97 (Table 5.5.1, “Radiation Properties”). “A large thickness of carbon black can absorb about 99% of all incident thermal radiation.”—Ibid., p. 62.

A remark on carbon black pigment—Of course manufacturing it (by burning carbon black oil) generates methane and carbon dioxide.

Copper’s relative thermal conductivity—Duffie and Beckman, pp. 372–73 (Miscellaneous Information), thermal conductivity in W/m deg C. The conductivities in question were: copper, 385; ice at –1° C, 2.26; rigid foam polyurethane, 0.024.

“aluminum is perhaps the best and cheapest material . . .”—Daniels, p. 61. [Aluminum, says this source, has a reflectivity of 60–70%.] According to Jim Leckie, Gil Masters, Harry Whitehouse and Lily Young, Other Homes and Garbage: Designs for Self-Sufficient Living (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1975), p. 98 (Table 4.8, “Thermal Conductivity (k) of Miscellaneous Substances at Room Temperature”), aluminum is only about 48% as conductive as silver and 69% as conductive as gold. But Daniels is also considering price and durability.

Information on the solar house in Denver—Duffie and Beckman, 278 (Table 12.3.1, “Energy Balance of Denver Solar House Winter 1959 to 1960: all values in million Btu . . .”).

Comparison to coal’s thermal efficiency: 226.86 mBTUs / 12,500 BTUs per lb = 18,148.8 lbs W.V. coal. For the 12,500-BTU inherent energy, see the table of Calorific Efficiencies.

The less than 2% efficiency was calculated thus: The average continental U.S. winter value was 7.3%. So 24.56% of this would be 1.79. Perhaps this is one reason why Daniels believed (p. 259) that “like fossil fuels its [solar energy’s] practical availability is limited to specific localities. Beyond the limit of a few hundred miles with electric transmission lines, it must be converted into chemicals that can be stored and transported.”

The solar energy conversions of various crop plants—Odum, p. 45 (Table 3-4: “Relationships Between Solar Radiation and Gross and Net Production . . .”).

“The sun stores up power enough in an acre of plants . . .”—Ellis and Rumely, p. 114.

Discussion of Perch Lake—Atmosphere-Ocean 23, no 3 (1985), pp. 238–53 (E. Robertson and P. J. Barry, “The water and energy balances of Perch Lake (1969–1980)”). DOI: 10.1080/07055900.1985.9649227. Taylor & Francis Group. Published online: November 15, 2010. © Canadian Meteorological and Océanographic Society. [Henceforth cited: “Robertson and Barry, 1985.”]

Dimensions of Perch Lake—Given (p. 238) as 0.45 sq km in area, which equals about 4,840 square feet, and 2 m deep, which is 6.56 feet. The location of the lake is given in the same place.

“Perch Lake used to receive not quite 150,000 BTUs . . . per square foot.”—“From 1 May to 31 October nearly 1700 MJ m−2 of heat enter the lake” (p. 243). My figure was computed as follows: [1,700 MJ] × [1,000 kilojoule per megajoule] × [1 BTU / 1.0548 kJ] = 1,611,679.9393 BTUs per square meter = 148,812.227 BTUs per square foot.

“80% provides latent heat of evaporation . . .”—Loc. cit.

Comparison of 148,812.227 BTUs to the HHVs of pure carbon and rocket fuel—By simple division, using the HHVs on pp. 213 and 217. [“On average, the highest net radiative energy input rate occurs in the last period of May.” Loc. cit.]

Fourier: “The radiation of the sun in which this planet is incessantly plunged . . .”—Robert Maynard Hutchins, ed.-in-chief, Great Books of the Western World, vol. 45: Lavoisier, Fourier, Faraday. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1975 repr. of 1952 ed.), p. 170 (Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier, Analytical Theory of Heat, 1822, trans. Alexander Freeman). This appears to be a republication of the first part of Fourier’s prize-winning “memoir” of 1807; hence the latter date in my text.

“Farrington Daniels . . . had hoped for 10% efficiency”—Op. cit., p. 177.

“Today’s best [solar] cells convert into electricity . . .”—Irwin Stambler, Automobile Engines of Today and Tomorrow (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1972), p. 132.

Achievement of Okamato, and aspiration of the racily acronymed TIT—MIT Technology Review 118, no. 1 (January–February 2015), p. 28 (Peter Fairley, “Can Japan Recapture Its Solar Power?”), pp. 33–34.

“the efficiency of solar power generation is increasing rapidly . . .”—E-mail reply from Mr. Yamasaki Hisataka to Ms. Kawai Takako, printed out in Japanese on January 14, 2017, and orally translated by her for WTV. Since the translation was quick and rough, she asked me to improve the English, which I have done. The original Japanese printout will be deposited in my archive at the Ohio State University. [This document henceforth cited: “Yamasaki Hisataka e-mail, January 14, 2017.”]

“Japan is an island country . . .”—Interview at Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) headquarters, 1-3 Uchisaiwai-cho 1-chome Chiyoda-ku, in the Shimbashi district of Tokyo, Monday, October 20, 2014. The interviewees were Mr. Sakakibara Kohji, group leader; Mr. Togawa Satoshi, deputy manager, International Public Relations Group, Corporate Communications Department; and Mr. Hitosugi Yoshimi, section manager, Corporate Communications Department. The speaker I am citing here was Mr. Sakakibara.

Concerning Mr. Travis Fisher—The New York Times, Sunday, July 9, 2017, p. 13 (Hiroko Tabuchi, “After Rapid Growth, Rooftop Solar Programs Dim Under Pressure from Utility Lobbyists”).

About Greenhouse Gases

Epigraph: “The greatest things in the world . . .”—Lichtenberg, p. 4 (Notebook A, 1765–70).

Comparative Carbon Dioxide Emissions of Power Plants

Information from The Charleston [West Virginia] Gazette, Tuesday, December 2, 2014, p. 9A (Karl Ritter and Margie Mason, AP, “Climate funds for coal highlight lack of UN rules”). An “old coal power plant” was stated as emitting 20% more carbon dioxide than the Cirebon one, so I totted up 865.5 (the average of 856 and 875) + 173.1 (which is 20% of 865) = 1,038.6, rounding it to 1,000.

“Combustion of natural gas emits about half the CO2 that coal generates at equivalent heat output.”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 13 (“Helium Group” to “Hypnotics”), p. 744 (“hydrocarbons”: “survey”).

About Greenhouse Gases (continued)

“because the pipeline gathering systems needed for such gas tend[ed] to be prohibitively expensive.”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 13, p. 816.

“It was natural gas’s most common component”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 13, p. 814 (“hydrocarbons”: “C1–C6”), lists methane proportions in various parts of the world from 65.8% in Klifside, Texas, to 95.0% in Salt Lake.

“The flaring of about 1 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas . . .”—Chris Faulkner, p. 145.

“Purposeful venting or flaring of natural gas . . .”—Loc. cit.

“Concentrations of CO2, CH4, and N2O . . .”—IPCC, 2013, p. 11.

Germany’s CO2 emissions in 2007—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, pp. 44–45.

Japan’s CO2 emissions in 2013—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, pp. 2-1 through 2-2: “Carbon dioxide emissions in FY2013 were 1,311 million tonnes (excluding LULUCF), accounting for 93.1% of total GHGs emissions.” LULUCF = “Land‐use, Land‐use Change, and Forestry.”

CO2 “warmed the Earth by half a BTU per square foot.”—According to IPCC 2013, p. 13, “Emissions of CO2 alone have caused an RF of 1.68 [1.33 to 2.03] W m−2.” This equals 1.68 W × [0.056884 BTUs per minute / W] per [1 sq m / 10.758 sq ft] = [1.68 × 0.056884 / 10.758] BTUs per min per sq ft = 0.008883 BTUs per min per sq ft = 1.06596 BTUs per 2 hours per sq ft.

“By 2100, [RF] might be 3 or 5 times worse than it was in 2011.”—That is, 5 or more than 8 watts per sq m. Ibid., p. 701.

“Carefully observe the impulses of nature . . .”—Thomas À Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, trans. Leo Shirley-Price (New York: Penguin Classics, 1952; orig. wr. “probably during the years immediately preceding and following his ordination” in 1413 [p. 22]), p. 168 (ch. 54).

Uncertainty ranges of GWPs—IPCC, p. 711.

All remarks of Dr. Pieter Tans in this chapter—Tans to WTV, May 2017.

The clause “(ever more rapidly)” in the preceding—Information from IPCC, 2013, p. 13: “The total anthropogenic RF for 2011 relative to 1750 is 2.29 [1.13 to 3.33] W[att] [per square meter], and it has increased more rapidly since 1970 than during prior decades. The total anthropogenic RF best estimate for 2011 is 43% higher than that reported . . . for the year 2005. This is caused by a combination of continued growth in most greenhouse gas concentrations and improved estimates of RF by aerosols indicating a weaker net cooling effect (negative RF).”

Footnote: GWPs and C-O / C-F bonds—Information from Environmental Science and Technology 40, no. 7 (2006), pp. 2242–46 (Cora J. Young, Michael D. Hurley, Timothy J. Wallington and Scott A. Mabury, “Atmospheric Lifetime and Global Warming Potential of a Perfluoropolyether”), p. 2242. [Henceforth cited: “Young et al.”]

Lovecraft’s “Cool Air”—Written in 1926; set in 1923.

Presence of CFC-12 in “the vast majority” of refrigerators in the world “by the last decade of the 20th century” (to be precise, 1990) + (in fn) the fact that those refrigerators would work for “20 years or more”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 12, p. 135 (“refrigeration”).

Footnote on the Genetrons + information on the bright green flame (revealed by “passing them through a copper gauze kept hot by the essentially colorless flame of burning methyl alcohol”)—Baumeister and Marks, p. 18-5 (Harold M. Hendrickson, “Mechanical Refrigeration”).

“The Freons are colourless, odourless . . .”—Britannica, 15th ed., Micropaedia, vol. IV, p. 314 (“Freon”).

“an almost perfect industrial chemical”—Frank N. Magill, ed., Magill’s Survey of Science, vol. 1 (Pasadena, California: Salem Press, Applied Science ser., 1993), p. 418 (“Chlorofluorocarbons”). They further, opined Magill (p. 422), did “an enormous boon to life on earth in their ability to cool, insulate, clean, and perform myriad other tasks.”

“as gases in the chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) group . . .”—Neil Schlager, ed., How Products Are Made: An Illustrated Guide to Product Manufacturing, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: Gale Research Inc., 1994), pp. 358–59 (“Refrigerator”). Re: replacements for freon, the same source continued (p. 359): “Thus far, the most promising among them is HCFC-22, which, although still a chlorofluorocarbon, contains an additional hydrogen atom that reduces the molecule’s ozone-depletion capacity by 95 percent.”

“which in turn can destroy 10,000 ozone atoms apiece”—Information from Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 6, p. 510 (“fluorine compounds, organic—(aliphatic)”): “One chlorine atom destroys 10,000 ozone molecules before getting trapped as inorganic HCl,” or hydrochloric acid.

“at the 1976 emissions rate, CFCs would make global warming 10% worse”—Information from National Research Council, Protection Against Depletion of Stratospheric Ozone by Chlorofluorocarbons (Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences, 1979), p. 111: An increase of CFM [= chlorofluoromethanes, the most ozone-depleting CFCs] can perturb the climate directly by enhancing . . . atmospheric opacity . . . and thereby contribut[ing] to the greenhouse effect . . . [and] can also perturb the climate indirectly by altering the ozone amount or distribution, which will then affect the radiation balance.” Page 118: “If the CFM emission is continued at its 1976 level, we will have about 10 percent less time to deal with the CO2 problem than we will have without the CFMs.” Page 127: “The surface warming from such CFC release is expected to be about 10 percent of the warming that is predicted to result from increased atmospheric CO2 (mainly from continued increase in the burning of fossil fuels).” I have quoted at such length to hammer home the now disputed point that in 1979, human-induced global warming was already scientifically accepted.

Hydrochlorofluorocarbons “have zero O[zone] D[epletion] P[otentials]s . . .”—Ibid., p. 511. Meanwhile [loc. cit.], perfluorocarbons have “very large GWPs.”

My attempt to reach the seven refrigerator companies—I quote the intermediary, the determined Mr. Jordan Rothacker:

Queries for Carbon Ideologies with Their Responses:

Refrigerator:

3-7-16

I e-mailed Frigidaire on its website the letter below

(re-sent 5-27-16).

" "

GE by e-mail (vm on 5-27-16)

" "

Kenmore by e-mail to Zeno Group (media firm) (vm 5-27-16)

" "

LG by e-mail (and at online form) (vm 5-27-16)

" "

Samsung by e-mail (e-mail again to two other addresses, 5-27-16)

" "

Thermador by e-mail to Finn Partners (media firm)

(got her on the phone, she said no, client wouldn’t want to

" "

Whirlpool by e-mail at Ketchum (media firm?)

(left vm and re-sent e-mail on 5-27-16)

HCFC-22: “less than five percent of the damage to the ozone layer that CFC 12 does”—Magill, p. 422. The same source says (loc. cit.) that using it in cars would require stronger batteries and a redesign of the air conditioners. “General Motors Corporation estimated that it would cost $600 million to refit its assembly lines for HCFC 22.”

Comparative One-Century Global Warming Potentials

List of original Kyoto Protocol gases—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. iii.

“Precursors”—Information from EPA, 2016, p. 1-5.

“The use of ammonia . . .”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 21 (“Recycling, Oil” to “Silicon”), p. 128 (“refrigeration”), p. 139.

“might actually exert a cooling effect . . .”—Information from IPCC, 2013, p. 56.

Carbon dioxide emissions “during the production of synthetic ammonia, primarily through the use of natural gas, petroleum coke, or naphtha as a feedstock”—EPA, 2016, p. 222.

Water vapor—Information from IPCC, 2013, pp. 666–67.

Carbon monoxide—GWP from the same source, p. 740 (Table 8.A.4). U.S. exhaust emission reductions, 1969 (or “pre-control,” which occurred in 1970) through 1980—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 12, p. 370 (“gasoline and other motor fuels,” Table 7, “Federal Light-Duty Exhaust Emission Standards”).CO figures: 1969: 56 g/km; 1980: 4.4. The reduction was 12.74. [More impressive was the reduction in “hydrocarbons,” from 9.4 to 0.25, a factor of 37.6.] German aviation kerosene [which they spell “kerosine”] data: Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, p. 159: Average emission factor for “all flight phases (LTO and cruising flight), 1992–2015”: 9.2 grams CO per combusted kg [= 1 pound CO given off for every 108.69 pounds of fuel burned].

Carbon monoxide: Cigarette emissions—information from Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. 3-58.

HCFC-123: Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 6, p. 512 (Table 9: “Physical Property Comparisons . . .”).

Nitrogen oxide GWP—IPCC, 2013, p. 739 (Table 8.A.3: “GWP and GTP for NOX from surface sources for time horizons of 20 and 100 years from the literature. All values are on a per kilogram of nitrogen basis.”) GWP was 159 +/− 79, direct and indirect aerosol effects included.

Nitrogen oxides—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 6, p. 739 (Table 8.A.3) and p. 684 (FAQ 8.2).

Footnote on nitrogen oxides: “Profound changes have occurred . . .”—Michael Strogies, Patrick Gniffke, eds., for the Federal Environment Agency, Germany (Umweltbundesamt), National Inventory Report for the German Greenhouse Gas Inventory 1990–2007: Submission under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 2009 (ISSN 1862-4359). “This publication is only available as download under http://www.umweltbundesamt.de:(Dessau-Roßlau, Germany: Umweltbundesamt, 2009). [Henceforth cited: “Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007.”] Pages 156, 158.

Same footnote: “Nitric Oxide could not only increase your ability to get an erection . . .”—Advertisement for Vesele in National Enquirer, October 10, 2016, p. 55.

GWPs for nitrous oxide, CFC-11 (the “other source” rating it at 3,400), perfluorocarbons, sulfur hexafluoride—Michael Allaby, Encyclopaedia of Weather and Climate, vol. 1 (New York: Facts on File, Inc., 2002), vol. 1, p. 250 (global warming). For nitrous oxide I reduced the lower bound from 298 times carbon dioxide’s to 296 x, since the latter figure is given in the Encyclopedia of Agriculture and Food Systems, vol. 2, p. 223 (M. van Noordwijk, Jalan Cifor, Bogor, Indonesia, “Climate Change: Agricultural Mitigation”). I later reduced it further, to 264, based on the table in IPCC, 2013, p. 731.

Nitrous oxide: “Generated by the action of microbes . . .”—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. 5-46. “Increasing mainly as a result of agricultural intensification . . .”—IPCC, p. 510. “Released during the production of nitric acid (for fertilizers) and adipic acid (for nylon).”—Information from EPA, 206, p. 228. P. 231: “Adipic acid is a white crystalline solid used in the manufacture of synthetic fibers, plastics, coatings, urethane foams, elastomers, and synthetic lubricants.”

American nitrous oxide emissions on “freeways and surface arterials,” 1979—D. B. Sanders and T. A. Reynen, with assistance from K. Bhatt and FHWA/UMTA staff, Report No. UMTA-IT-06-0049-79-1: Characteristics of Urban Transportation Systems—A Handbook for Transportation Planners (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Transportation, June 1979), p. IV-13 (Table 4-7 (B): “Composite Pollutant Emission Factors (1982 [sic]), Freeways and Surface Arterials (1)”). [This handbook henceforth cited: “DOT, June 1979.”] Strangely enough, at 15 mph, autos emitted 4.28 g/mi and trucks 7.70.

“The increase, at least since the early 1950s . . .” + average rate of rise—IPCC, 2013, p. 168.

Nitrous oxide lifetime: 131 years—Ibid., p. 1473.

Nitrous oxide: “approximately 300 times more powerful than CO2”—EPA, 2016, p. ES-14. “10% of global emissions derived from anesthetic use”—Information from Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, p. 313. (“It is the oldest narcotic in use, and it is among those with the fewest side-effects.”—Loc. cit.)

HFC-152a: Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 6, p. 514 (“fluorine compounds, organic—(aliphatic)”).

HCFC-22: A refrigerant but also a “feedstock for . . . synthetic polymers”—EPA, 2016, p. 248. “ozone depleting substance substitute emissions . . .”—Ibid., p. 31.

Footnote: “Because HCFC-22 depletes stratospheric ozone . . .”—Ibid., p. 248.

HCFC-22: “the main driver of the increase in all HCFC emissions”—Information from IPCC, 2013, p. 679.

HFC-134a: HFCs “were emitted from manufacturing . . .”—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. 472. “In Germany it was wisely replaced by isobutane.”—Information from Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, p. 279 (the switch occurred “shortly after” 1994). HFC-134a “caused the most global warming of any HFC”—Information from IPCC, 2013, p. 679. Atmospheric concentrations + “The largest emissions occur . . .”—IPCC, 2013, p. 167.

HCFC-142b: Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 6 (“Chlorocarbons and Chlorohydrocarbons—C2” to “Combustion Technology”), p. 477 (“fluorine compounds, organic—introduction”).

Footnote on HFC-134a: “Inhaled HFCs are not broken down . . .”—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, p. 294.

CFC-11: Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 6, pp. 508, 511 (“fluorine compounds, organic—(aliphatic)”); vol. 21 (“Recycling, Oil” to “Silicon”), p. 135 (“refrigeration”). “Extremely desirable for use with centrifugal compressors.”—Britannica, 15th ed., vol. 15, p. 564 (“refrigeration equipment”).

CFC-113: Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 6, pp. 508, 511 (“fluorine compounds, organic—(aliphatic)”).

PFC-14—IPCC, 2013, p. 733.

CFC-12: “facing the problem of replacing methyl chloride . . .”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 6 (“Chlorocarbons and Chlorohydrocarbons—C2” to “Combustion Technology”), p. 467 (“fluorine compounds, organic—introduction”); pp. 507, 511 (“fluorine compounds, organic—(aliphatic)”). “Traditionally used . . .”—Ibid., vol. 21, pp. 137, 140, 146 (another industrial refrigerant being HCFC-22). Sometimes called Freon—Referred as such in Magill, vol. 1, p. 421, the source for the information on 1990s automobile air conditioners; called “Freon” with a capital “f” in Metcalfe, Williams and Castka, p. 490, where CFC-12’s odorlessness is mentioned. “Replaced by HFC-134a (whose 100-year GWP was a mere 1,430)”—Information from EPA-420-F-14-040a, p. 3. The 14-year lifetime and the range for the GWP of 1,590 to 3,800 come from the IPCC report.

CFC-12: “At one time . . . the third largest contributor to global warming”—IPCC, 2013, p. 53.

Perfluorocyclobutane and HFC-23—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, p. 73 (Table 4: “Global Warming Potential (GWP) of greenhouse gases”).

Information on PFPMIE—Young et al., pp. 2242, 2244–45. The original used round numbers—for instance, 9,000 × the GWP of carbon dioxide, instead of my 8,970 for the same figure, calculated from the article’s [1.95 × the 100-year GWP of CFC-11 @ 4,600]. Since I had not rounded elsewhere in the table, I clung to my spurious precision.

HFC-23: “For process-related reasons . . .”—Ibid., p. 273. Origins of emissions, atmospheric lifetime + upper bound of GWP—IPCC, 2013, p. 168.

CFC-13: Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, loc. cit.

Nitrogen trifluoride—IPCC, 2013, p. 733. Japanese emissions, 1990–2013—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. 2-2. Emissions in 2013 were 1.4 million metric tons carbon dioxide equivalent. Ibid., p. 2-11: “Their increase since CY1990 is mainly a result of an increase in fugitives from fl[u]orocarbon production.”

GWPs of nitrogen trifluoride and carbon tetrachloride—IPCC, 2013, p. 733. I suspect that the IPCC report, being most recent, is more accurate than the figures in Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, which are decades older. But I have quoted both of them in the table’s range, to convey confusion and despair.

Nitrogen trifluoride: “A byproduct of fluorocarbon production and semiconductor manufacture”—Information from EPA, 2016, p. 31.

Sulfur hexafluoride: “Allows for more compact substations . . .”—EPA 2016, p. 304. “blown over molten magnesium metal . . .”—Ibid., p. 276. “The most potent greenhouse gas the . . . (IPCC) has evaluated.”—Ibid., p. 202. “Used as a tracer gas . . .” + “currently the only viable way to measure emissions of methane from ruminant livestock . . .”—EU greenhouse report, 2014, p. 484, which continues: “A small charge of SF6 is stored in a permeation tube, which is then introduced to the rumen of the animal. The gas emissions are vacuum sampled from eructation via a tube near the animal’s muzzle connected to an evacuated flask. The total CH4 emissions are inferred from the differential concentrations of SF6 and CH4.” Use in Japanese AWACS radar—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. 4-90. “common in switching systems [which have a minimum 40-year working life]”—Information from Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, p. 298.

Sulfur hexafluoride in Germany + accompanying fn: “since 1975, SF6 has been used to enhance . . .”—Ibid., pp. 301–3. Its use in auto tires “for reasons of image,” in sports shoes and in solar collectors is mentioned in the same source, pp. 104, 303.

American sulfur hexafluoride emissions, 2012—U.S. Statistical Abstract, 2015, p. 254 (Table 393: “Emissions of Greenhouse Gases by Type and Source: 1990 to 2012”). Source: EPA, April 2014.

A typically helpful note from (what we shall soon introduce as) the regulated community, re: SF6, emissions: “No information can be provided regarding quantities for the emissions sources ‘shoes,’ ‘AWACS’ and ‘welding,’ since the relevant data are confidential” (ibid., p. 278).

Information on all other compounds comes from I[ntergovernmental] P[anel on] C[limate] C[hange] Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007, https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch2s2-10-2.html, downloaded for WTV by Jordan Rothacker, April 2016. “Climate Change 2007: Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis,” sec. 2.10.2, “Direct Global Warming Potentials.” [Henceforth cited: “IPCC report, 2007.”]

About Greenhouse Gases (continued)

Carbon tetrachloride: “an excellent feedstock for Freon”—Information from Metcalfe, Williams and Castka, p. 362.

Footnote on gases limited by the Kyoto Protocol—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. iii.

Footnote on atmospheric lifetime—Young et al., p. 2243.

“There have . . . been two dozen times during the past 46,000 years . . .”—Ward, p. 3188.

“The structure of a molecule affects both its lifetime . . .”—Young et al., p. 2245.

“The probability of landslides . . .”—Oleg Voitsekhovych, A. Jakubik, IAEA experts, consultants. “UMREG-2014. 23-24 09 2014. Freiberg. Germany. Preliminary Hazards Analyses at the Uranium Production Legacy Sites Minkush and Mailuu Suu Kyrgyzstan. Based on IAEA experts missions [sic] carried out during 2013 in the frame of CGULS [= Coordination Group for Uranium Legacy Sites] radiological survey assistance to the MS.” (Freiberg: IAEA, 2014.) “These studies were carried out in the frame of KIG-7002 project and also supported by the CGULS project funded by EC (2012–2015) . . . Mailuu Suu (field mission 9-13 09 2013).” Page 20. [This document henceforth cited: “Voitsekhovych and Jakubik, 2014.”]

“Erosion of riverbanks . . .”—Ibid., p. 23.

“the site of TSF No 15 . . .”—Ibid., p. 27.

“Strategic Action Plan for Complex Remediation . . .” + “No national strategy . . .”—Ibid., p. 28. Full name of the Plan: “. . . and Minkush.”

“Atmospheric concentrations of HFCs . . .” to end of paragraph—All information about these various compounds from IPCC, 2013, pp. 13, 169.

Footnote: Effects of specific halocarbons on global warming—Ibid., p. 54.

Same footnote: “the Freons were actually getting more dilute . . .”—Ibid, p. 170.

“Between 1990 and 2012, HFC emissions in the EU-15 nations more than doubled.”—EU greenhouse report, 2014, p. 102 (Table 1.24: “Data basis of actual HFCs, PFCs and SF6 emissions in CO2 equivalents (Gg)”): EU-15 HFCs: 1990, 27,832; 2012, 71,540—an increase of 2.57.

Sulfur hexafluoride emissions: “at least twice the reported values”—IPCC, 2013, p. 169.

HCFCs and CFCs ca. 2013—IPCC, 2013, p. 679: “The CFCs and HCFCs contribute approximately 11% [to global warming] . . . Although emissions have been drastically reduced for CFCs, their long lifetimes mean that reductions take substantial time to affect their concentrations. The RF [radiative forcing] from CFCs has declined since 2005 (mainly due to a reduction in the concentrations of CFC-11 and CFC-12), whereas the RF from HCFCs is still rising (mainly due to HCFC-22).”

Japan’s hydrofluorocarbons emissions, 1990–2013—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. 2-8. (Here is a different story: “In 2013, emissions from this category were 33,034 kt-CO2 eq., and represented 2.3% of Japan’s total GHG emissions (excluding LULUCF). The emissions had increased by 7.26 times since 1990” (p. 4-67). Evidently the HFCs and CFCs were being considered here only as “product uses as substitutes for ODS (2.F.).” They were also used in silicon chip manufacture, etc. Page 4-70 is of mournful interest: From 2002 onward, “amount of refrigerant” and “fugitive refrigerant ratio from operation” increased because devices became larger with the increase of commercial packaged AC devices. The “fugitive refrigerant ratio” during use was 2–17% (depending on the machine). Air conditioners got their own story on p. 4-75.

“Each question branches out into more and more questions . . .”—Béla Zombory-Moldován, The Burning of the World: A Memoir of 1914, trans. Peter Zombory-Moldovan (New York: New York Review Books, 2014; orig. ms. wr. bef. 1968), p. 11.

Footnote on HFC-134a: “The time series show a significant emissions increase . . .”—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, p. 285.

Same footnote: Concentrations of that gas, 1990–2011—IPCC, 2013, p. 1402 (Table AII.1.1a: “Historical abundances of the Kyoto greenhouse gases”).

Same footnote: “Global warming is a major environmental concern . . .”—2012 ASHRAE Handbook: Heating, Ventilating, and Air-Conditioning SYSTEMS AND EQUIPMENT, inch-pound edition (Atlanta: ASHRAE, 2012), p. 43.9 (“Liquid Chilling Systems”).

Same footnote: American HFC emissions, 1990–2014—EPA, 2016, p. ES-8.

“The most important energy-related gas is CO2 . . . ”—EU greenhouse report, 2014, p. 127.

Footnote: “other relevant products . . .”—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, p. 295.

Comparative Responsibilities for Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Information from Encyclopedia of Agriculture and Food Systems, vol. 2, p. 295 (J. Chen et al., “Climate Change, Society, and Agriculture: An Economic and Policy Perspective”).

About Fuels

Epigraph: “Fuel—petrol and benzine! . . .”—Fyodor Vasilievich Gladkov, Cement, trans. A. S. Arthur and C. Ashleigh (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1994; orig. Russian ed. not listed; ca. 1920?), p. 115.

My opening remarks about a fuel being an energy-rich substance that gives off energy-poor combustion products is much indebted to Metcalfe, Williams and Castka, p. 394.

“Bonhams’ modern and contemporary African art auction . . .”—Financial Times, Europe edition, Saturday, March 28–Sunday, March 29, 2015, FT Special Report, p. 1 (Maya Jaggi, “Continent’s economic revival boosts prices: Africa’s artists are enjoying a rising market”).

Footnote: “The prices on which consumers base their decisions . . .”—OECD, 1974, p. 64.

Same footnote: “It has also been shown that the greater the peat consumption . . .”—Long-Term Energy Resources, p. 639 (André Chamberland, Institut de recherche de l’Hydro-Québec, “Peat Gasification for Diesel Generating Stations”).

Per capita global fuel combustion figures for 2010—Gutowski et al., Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour., 2013, p. 100 (Table 5), converted by WTV from 4.35 metric tons.

EU fuel combustion emissions in 2012—EU greenhouse report, 2014, p. xi (Tables ES.6 and ES.7).

Japan: “fuel combustion” caused 95.4% of her CO2 emissions in 2013—Information from Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. 2-3. On p. 3-1 we read that “in FY2013, emissions from fuel combustion were 1,258,202 kt-CO2 eq., which accounted for 89.4% of Japan’s total GHG emissions (excluding LULUCF) . . . The major contributing factors for the rise in emissions from 1990 are the increase of fossil fuel consumptions [sic] accompanied by the rise in electricity consumption and in traffic demand of passenger cars.”

“The primary greenhouse gas emitted by human activities . . .”—EPA, 2016, p. 30.—Energy Information Administration, Annual Energy Review 2000 (Washington, D.C.: Energy Information Administration, August 2001), p. xxxiii: “In the United States, fossil fuel combustion is responsible for 98 percent of all emissions from carbon dioxide . . . Total carbon dioxide emissions reached 5.6 billion metric tons . . . in 1999, 13 percent higher than the 1990 level.”

“Affordable, reliable, and plentiful energy . . .”—“POLICY TIPS: POLICY ANALYSIS FROM THE HEARTLAND INSTITUTE, August, 2016: Five Elements of a Pro-Energy, Pro-Environment, Pro-Jobs Plan” (downloaded for WTV by Jordan Rothacker, October 2016; no specific web address, but we are invited to e-mail the Heartland Institute at think@heartland.org). [Henceforth cited: “Heartland Institute FAQ, August, 2016.”]

Comparison of packaging waste and tires—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, p. 144 (Table 22: “Inputs of secondary fuels in the cement industry: emission factors and their biogenic components”).

1 kg emissions per 1 TJ of combusted fuel = 2.2046 lbs emissions per 948,067,700 combusted BTUs = 1 / 430,040,687.65 lbs/BTU. Therefore, at 56,854 kg/TJ = 56,854 / 430,040,687.65 = 1 / 7,563.948 lbs/TJ, making for 1 lb per each 7,563.948 BTUs. By the same logic, 97,319 kg/TJ = 1 lb per 4,418.867 BTUs. The ratio between those two products equals 1:1.7117.

“Nuclear power is essential . . .”—The New York Times, Sunday, January 1, 2017, “Sunday Review” section, p. SR8 (Letters: “Nuclear Power, Debated”: Michael Mallary, Sterling, Mass.).

“contains more heat energy . . .”—Andrew Norman, John “Drew” Corinchock and Robert Scharff, Diesel Technology: Fundamentals, Service, Repair (Tinley Park, Illinois: The Goodheart-Willcox Company, Inc., 1998).

Footnote: “As a fuel for internal combustion engines, diesel . . .”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 12.

Average Fuel Consumption in Moving One American Electric Light Rail Car One Mile

Data from DOT, June 1979, p. II-14 (Table 2-11: Electric Light Rail Transit Energy Consumption), “default value energy consumption per car mile.” All converted from: coal, 3.18 lbs; diesel fuel, 0.29 gal; gasoline, 0.32 gal; natural gas, 37.20 cu ft; manufactured gas, 74.40 cu ft.

For how I made the conversions, see the “Definitions, Units and Conversions” section, section 9A (“Weights and Densities of Fuels”). In this table alone, for gasoline I took the average of [5.935 and 6.152] lbs per gal given in Baumeister, thinking that this mid-20th-century source was closer in time to 1979 than any current figure. Elsewhere in the book I have relied on my period’s 6.152 lb/gal.

About Fuels (continued)

“Alcohol versus kerosene made a comparable conundrum”—According to Ellis and Rumely, p. 113, alcohol held 10,200 to 12,900 BTUs per pound, while there were 20,000 in gasoline or kerosene. But although 1.8 times as much alcohol as gasoline was needed to produce the same amount of power (evidently in a tractor engine), the thermal efficiency of alcohol was superior.

BTUs per kilowatt-hour—EIA, 7/13/2016: “Power plant heat rates (for steam electric generators in 2014) Coal = 10,080 Btu/kWh[;] Natural gas = 10,408 Btu/kWh[;] Petroleum = 10,156 Btu/kWh.”

Worldwide energy produced and electricity generated, 1980 and 2011—U.S. Statistical Abstract, 2015, p. 896 (Table 1391: “Net Electricity Generation by Energy Source and Country: 2011”); and same page (Table 1392: “World Primary Energy Production by Region and Type, 1980 to 2011”). Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration.

“enough to electroprocess 457 million tons of titanium”—Calculated from 187.3 quadrillion BTUs / 68,260 BTUs per lb of electroprocessed titanium (see here), then dividing by 3 to get 457,320,050.7.

“Fossil fuels possess almost ideal properties for humans.”—Rolf Peter Sieferle, The Subterranean Forest: Energy Systems and the Industrial Revolution, trans. Michael P. Osman (Cambridge, U.K.: White Horse Press, 2001 trans. of 1982 German ed.), p. 204.

“The higher the heating value of a motor fuel, the greater its fuel economy.”—For instance, see Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 12, p. 369 (“gasoline and other motor fuels,” Fig. 5, which shows [pp. 368–69] that “the fuel economy in modern vehicles responds linearly and with a slope of almost unity to changes in the energy content of the fuel.”

“Energy-sector employment is one of the few bright spots . . .”—Time, vol. 185, no. 3, February 2, 2015, p. 34 (various reporters, “Economy: The Cost of Cheap Gas”).

Footnote on impossibilities—Ibid., p. 1172.

Table A: 0.4 metric tons [MT] coal yields 1 barrel of oil—Information from James E. Duffy and Howard Bud Smith, Auto Fuel Systems (South Holland, Illinois: The Goodheart-Willcox Company, Inc., 1987), p. 83: 1 MT coal yields 2.5 barrels of “synthetic oil suitable for refinement in gasoline.” Hence 1.1023 tons / 2.5 barrels = 0.44902 tons per barrel.

Pound conversion of same: [0.44902 × 2,000] = 881.84.

4 to 5 MT tons of tar sand yields 1 barrel of oil—Duffy and Smith, p. 83.

Pound conversion of same—[4.5 ave. mt × 1.023 U.S. t × 2,000 lbs/t] = 9,920.7 lbs.

Pound conversion of 1 barrel of oil—42 gal × 7.036 lbs/gal [= density of fuel oil] = 295.512 lbs.

1 barrel of oil yields [less than] ½ barrel of gasoline—Duffy and Smith, p. 65: 1 barrel of oil = 46.2% gasoline, or [0.462 × 42] = 19.404 gal, which × 6.152 lbs/gal l [= density of gasoline] = 119.373 lbs.

Footnote: “In energy content, it takes about 6,000 cubic feet of natural gas . . .”—Deffeyes, p. 59. Multiplying this number by [0.0283166 cubic meters / cu ft] yields 169.8996 cu m. (Moreover, “6 mcf = 1 barrel of oil on a BTU basis” comes verbatim from Mr. Sam Hewes [interview of July 9, 2016; see the Oklahoma oil section].) Cf. Butler and Wurthner, p. 103: “Global natural gas production equals 3,139 billion cubic meters annually, which is the energetic equivalent of 21 billion barrels of oil . . . ,” which implies that 1 barrel of oil is about 149.476 or 150 cubic meters of gas.

N.B. Re the sometimes quoted “1 BTU = 1/1,000 cubic foot of natural gas”—David A. Waples, The Natural Gas Industry in Appalachia: A History from the First Discovery to the Tapping of the Marcellus Shale, 2nd ed. (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2012), p. 296, states that 1 cubic foot = “A unit of measurement for volume of gas approximately equal to one hundred BTUs.” But see here, “Definitions, Units, and Conversions.”

Pound conversion of same—[6,000 cu ft × 0.04163 lbs/cu ft (= density of methane)] = 249.78 lbs.

Various fuels “from the standpoint of innate energies” in table C: As calculated from the table of Calorific Efficiencies (pp. 212, 214, 215, 217), dividing the HHV of oil (Mexican crude = 18,755) by that of gasoline (automotive, mid-20th-cent. = 20,750, to get 0.9), by that of coal (bituminous West Virginia average = 12,500, to get 1.5), by that of oil sands (= tar sands; bitumen alone = 17,768, to get 1.055), by that of natural gas (USEA value = 24,328, to get 0.77).

Equivalents in table D: 1 short ton of coal to crude, gasoline, etc. [+ information on 1 BTU, 1 MBTU, 1 Q-BTU]—National Coal Association, p. 90, citing Energy Information Administration. The same source also gives the following slightly different equivalents (pp. 10–11): “In general, U.S. coal deposits have an average heat content of 22 million Btu per ton. This is equal to the energy obtained by burning 22,000 cubic feet of natural gas, 160 gallons of distillate fuel oil, or one cord of seasoned firewood.”

Table F: 1 BTU ~ energy of 1 match tip—National Coal Association, p. 90.

1 BTU ~ 1/112,500 gallon of gasoline—USDA Report 24, p. 20: 2.7 million BTUs is “roughly the equivalent of an additional 24 gallons of gasoline,” in which case gasoline ca. 2010 was 112,500 BTUs per gallon.

1 BTU ~ 1/12,500 pound of coal—Calculated from West Virginia Coal Association’s oft-stated average HHV of 1 lb of coal = 12,500 BTUs.

1 ton of coal equivalent = 0.7 ton of oil equivalent = 27,776,000 BTUs—Coal Information 2012, p. I.17 (BTU calculation by WTV, from 1 kcal = 3.968 BTUs).

Same table—Starting from the just cited sentence “in general, U.S. coal deposits have an average heat content of 22 million Btu per ton,” I divided by sides by 22 million and multiplied by 2,000 lbs to obtain: 1 BTU = 1/10,999.99 . . . lb of coal.

“Who is enslaved by physical needs . . .”—Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged (New York: New American Library / Signet, n.d. [ca. 1975]; orig. ed. 1957), p. 976.

Table G—U.S. energy expenditure in 2007, and percentage from fossil fuels—USDA Report 24, p. 3. Apparently one-fourth of our energy was imported, 80% of that being “crude oil and petroleum products.”

Pound-equivalents in this first chart—Calculated by WTV using the densities of natural gas [as methane], of oil [as diesel] and gasoline, on p. 582, and converting from cubic meters to cubic feet per p. 589.

Equivalents: Coal or tar sands to oil to gasoline—Information from James E. Duffy and Howard Bud Smith, Auto Fuel Systems (South Holland, Illinois: Goodheart-Willcox Company, Inc., 1987), pp. 65, 83.

Equivalents: 1 barrel of oil = 150 cubic meters of natural gas—Butler and Wurthner, p. 103: “Global natural gas production equals 3,139 billion cubic meters annually, which is the energetic equivalent of 21 billion barrels of oil . . .,” which implies that so 1 barrel of oil is about 149.47 or 150 cubic meters of gas.

Equivalents: 1 ton of coal equivalent = 0.7 ton of oil equivalent = 27,776,000 BTUs—Coal Information 2012, p. I.17 (BTU calculation by WTV, from 1 kcal = 3.968 BTUs).

Equivalents: 6 mcf = 1 barrel of “oil on a BTU basis”—Verbatim from Mr. Sam Hewes [interview of July 9, 2016; see the Oklahoma oil section].

Footnote: “in energy content, it takes about 6,000 cubic feet of natural gas . . .”—Deffeyes, p. 59.

“In a white-washed kitchen in the glen . . .”—Peig Sayers, An Old Woman’s Reflections: The Life of a Blasket Island Storyteller, trans. Séamus Ennis (New York: Oxford University Press, undated pbk. repr. of 1962 ed.), p. vii (introduction by W. R. Rodgers).

Peat HHV of 8,600 BTUs per pound—U.S. Geological Survey, Energy Program Chemical Analyses in the World Coal Quality Inventory, Version 1. Compiled by Susan J. Tewalt, Harvey E. Belkin, John R. SanFilipo, Matthew D. Merrill, Curtis A. Palmer, Peter D. Warwick, Alexander W. Karlsen, Robert B. Finkelman, and Andy J. Park. Presumed date: 2006 [but possibly 2007]. Microsoft Excel file downloaded by Jordan Rothacker, April 2016. [Henceforth cited: “WoCQI, 2006.”] Row converted by WTV from 1995 MJ/kg to 8,577 BTUs/lb, which I rounded to 8,600 to avoid spurious precision based on this one sample. For the two immediately following peat HHVs in the same paragraph, see here, headers 72 and 83.

“Most kinds burn with a red smoky flame . . .”—Britannica, 11th ed., vol. XI (FRANCISCANS to GIBSON), p. 274 (“fuel”).

Peat “had already released clouds of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide during its drying”—EPA, 2016, 428: “On-site emissions from managed peatlands occur as the land is cleared of vegetation . . . CO2 is emitted from the oxidation of the peat . . . Peatlands located on highly fertile soils contain . . . organic nitrogen in inactive form. Draining land in preparation for peat extraction allows bacteria to convert the nitrogen into nitrates which leach to the surface where they are reduced to N2O, and contributes to the activity of methanogens, which produce CH4, and methanotrophs which oxidize CH4into CO2.”

Footnote: “Globally, peatlands store more than half of total soil carbon” + their carbon emissions (100 times and more those on mineral soils) + “Peatland emissions derive from the use of fire . . .”—Encyclopedia of Agriculture and Food Systems, vol. 2, p. 224 (M. van Noordwijk’s entry).

Same footnote: “Practically all cultivated soils in the world are very much in need of nitrogen . . .”—De Geus, p. 21.

“a significant source of energy for Russia, Finland, and Ireland”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 12 (“Fuel Resources” to “Heat Stabilizers”), p. 15 (“fuel resources”).

“Often neglected in earlier years . . .”—Long-Term Energy Resources, p. xlix (introduction).

Lignite: “Some was calorifically inferior to peat.”—Britannica, loc. cit.

Carbon Dioxide Emissions of Common Fuels, in multiples of natural gas’s

Source: Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, pp. 450–55 (Table 134: “Aggregation and allocation of basic emission factors for CO2, as of 1990—energy”), values from 2007 column.

The units: [pounds of CO2 released for each 10,000 BTUs released by the combusted fuel]—These were originally expressed in the typical metric units of most of the world’s greenhouse gas inventories: metric tons of CO2 per terajoule [TJ] of energy. In American units, this ratio would be 1 pound of emissions per 430,955 BTUs. Since [in the case of hard coal] 94 lbs per 430,955 BTUs = a visually wearisome 0.00021812 lb per BTU, I multiplied everything by 10,000 to get 2.1812 lbs per 10,000 BTUs. This energy level (the 10,000 BTUs) corresponds to the central part of the table of Calorific Efficiencies on p. 208.

Footnote: “The amount of C emitted from the combustion of fossil fuels . . .”—EPA, 2016, p. 3–28.

Peat: “Higher than the I[mplied] E[mission] F[actor] of hard coal”—EU greenhouse report, 2014, p. 150.

Carbon Dioxide Emissions of Common Fuels, in multiples of lignite’s

Original data from Environment—U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Release Date: February 2, 2016, “Carbon Dioxide Emissions Coefficients” (PDF downloaded from https://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/co2_vol_mass.cfm for WTV by Jordan Rothacker, June 2016). All figures converted by WTV from original units to pounds of carbon dioxide emitted by burning a pound of the stated fuel. The densities I used for these calculations appear in the statistical end matter (pp. 581–83). For gasoline I arbitrarily used the heavier value of 6.152 lbs/gal.

The 4.8-fold difference between a lignite and an anthracite—The lignite is the stuff burned by the brickmaker R.C. in the Bangladeshi chapter (II:273). Its stated HHV is 2,450 BTUs/lb (converted by me from joules per kg). Its rival is Virginia anthracite coal at a HHV of 11,850 (p. 211, “Comparative Calorific Efficiencies . . .”).

10LL and JET A-1 figures—Plane & Pilot, August 2017, p. 10 (“Plane Facts”). “Most commonly used aviation gasoline for piston engines” is blue 100LL [which has tetraethyl lead “to allow increased engine compression without detonation”]. Density of all grades of avgas at 15° C is 6.01 lbs/U.S. gal. Given emission coefficient is 18.4 lbs carbon dioxide per combusted gal, which divides out to 3.06 lbs carbon dioxide per lb. “Most commonly used aviation gasoline for turbine engines” is straw-colored, kerosene-based unleaded JET A-1, whose density at 15° C is 6.71 lbs/U.S. gal and whose emission coefficient is 21.1 lbs carbon dioxide per combusted U.S. gal, which converts to 3.14 lbs per combusted lb.

Cross-check for gasoline entry—EPA fact sheet EPA-420-F-14-040a, May 2014, “Questions and Answers: Greenhouse Gas Emissions from a Typical Passenger Vehicle,” p. 2, explains: “Most vehicles on the road in the U.S. today are gasoline vehicles, and they average about 21.6 miles per gallon. Every gallon of gasoline creates about 8,887 grams of CO2 when burned.” This equals 19.59647 pounds of carbon dioxide, which is awfully close to the EIA figure.

Combined emissions of 2016 American aviation gas and kerosene-based jet fuel, if it were all combusted—According to Plane & Pilot, August 2017, p. 10 (“Plane Facts”), there were 4,080,000 barrels aviation gas produced in the United States in 2016. Since 1 barrel = 42 gal, that would be 171,360,000 gal, which, at the given emissions coefficient of 18.4 lbs of carbon dioxide per combusted U.S. gal, would give off 3,153,024,000 lbs of carbon dioxide. Meanwhile (loc. cit.), there were 576,317,000 barrels of kerosene-based jet fuel produced in the United States in 2016. That substance’s emissions coefficient was again 18.4 lbs of carbon dioxide per combusted gal, which works out to 510,732,125,500 lbs carbon dioxide if it all got burned. Hence total carbon dioxide emissions would be 3,153,024,000 + 510,732,125,500 = 513,885,148,500 lbs.

About Fuels (continued)

“From well to wheels, burning a gallon of gasoline . . .”—The New York Times, Thursday, March 10, 2016, p. A23 (op-ed: Daniel F. Becker and James Gerstenzang, “Stalling on Fuel Efficiency”).

Footnote on emissions of three cars—See (II:418–19, in the “About Internal Combustion Engines” section) the table “Carbon Dioxide Emissions of Three New-Model American Cars, 2016.”

Footnote: “When oil prices plummeted . . .”—The Putnam Fund for Growth and Income, semiannual report, April 30, 2015, p. 8 (Robert D. Ewing, “Interview with your fund’s portfolio manager”).

“The kettle’s cover teeters and rings . . .”—Kahedmul Islam, comp. and trans., On the Side of the Enemy: Short Stories in Translation (Dhaka, Bangladesh: Bengal Lights Books, 2014), p. 72 (Syed Shamsul Huq, “A Life Like a Story”). For another beautiful description of fire, see 170 and 172 of N. Scott Momaday, House Made of Dawn (New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2010; orig. ed. 1968).

Footnote: “And if your phone dies . . .”—The New York Times, Wednesday, June 28, 2017, p. D4 (Kim Severson, “Campsite Cooking Sheds Its Rough Edges”).

“How much would those enchantments have warmed our atmosphere?”—See Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, p. 176 (Table 33: “Sectoral emission factors for combustion systems in the residential and commercial/institutional sectors for reference year 2005”), residential use: unprocessed wood. For each terajoule this stuff provided, it emitted 100 kg methane, and 1.5 kg of nitrous oxide. Since 1 TJ = 948.1 MBTU, then we have: 100 kg methane / 948.1 MBTU = [2.2 × 100 ] lb / 948.1 MBTU = 0.00000232 lb methane per BTU = 1 lb methane per 4,309,546 BTUs. Selecting from the table of Calorific Efficiencies (p. 210) the 1958 average HHV of dry, resin-free American wood = 8,300 BTUs/lb, we get (4,309,546 / 8,300) = 519.2 lbs burned wood per pound of emitted methane. By a similar procedure, we get 76,152.6 lbs wood per lb nitrous oxide.

“each wood-pound we threw in the fire gave off 1.2 pounds of carbon dioxide”—Since the “range of sample wood-energies from 4,082 to 5,340 BTUs” averages 4,711 BTUs/lb, and the previous text table estimates 2.599 lbs carbon dioxide per 10,000 BTUs, then (because 4,711 goes into 10,000 2.12269 times) we must divide 2.599 by 2.12269 to get carbon dioxide emissions in pounds given off per combusted pound: 1.224.

Let me also mention that mid-19th-century German folktale of the count who tested a dreamy foundling’s worth by telling him to chop all the wood in his courtyard within a month. Such was the boy’s magical success that the count had him “trained as a knight.” Franz Xaver von Schönwerth, The Turnip Princess and Other Newly Discovered Fairy Tales, comp. Erika Eichenseer, trans. Maria Tatar (New York: Penguin, 2015; orig. tales collected ca. 1850s), pp. 112–15 (“Woodpecker”).

Citations from “Daughters of the Vicar”—D. H. Lawrence, The Complete Short Stories, vol. 1 (Hammondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books Ltd., 1977 repr. of 1961 Viking ed.), pp. 136, 161, 179, 180.

“Coal is our most abundant energy resource”—National Coal Association, p. 6.

“fossil fuels made up about 83% of our ‘overall global energy supply’”—Darling and Sisterson, p. xix. But on p. 171 these authors claim that nuclear made up 6%, and renewables the remaining 10%, so that by my math fossil fuels would have made up more like 84%.

Criticisms of Common Fuels

Coal: “Compared to oil and gas, coal produces the highest amount. . .”—Olah, Goeppert and Prakash, p. 34. James Hansen—Butler and Wurthner, p. 61.

Natural gas “Conventional natural gas . . .”—Ibid., p. 82.

Natural gas: “Natural gas systems . . .”—EPA, 2016.

Oil: “An evil Power . . .”—Upton Sinclair, Oil! (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996 repr. of 1926 ed.), p. 527.

Oil—Antonia Juhasz, The Tyranny of Oil: The World’s Most Powerful Industry—And What We Must Do to Stop It (New York: HarperCollins / William Morrow, 2008), p. 2.

Nuclear power—Coalition for Direct Action at Seabrook, It Won’t Be Built! Seabrook May 24, 1980 Occupation / Blockade Handbook, p. 4.

About Fuels (continued)

World carbon dioxide emissions, 1971–2009 + fn: “However, this is 455 million tons less . . .”—Coal Information 2012, p. II.15 (“million tons” was “Mt” in the original).

“In areas which are heavily forested the direct burning of wood . . .”—Han, p. 38.

“some of us had to burn two-thirds of a ton of coal to make one ton of steel”—Information from The Welch News [McDowell County, West Virginia], volume 90, number 033, Friday Evening, March 28, 2014, Special Coal Edition, p. 3D (Jason Bostic, “Coal and Steel”).

Gasoline: “pound for pound, ‘produces more total energy than dynamite.’”—Ibid., p. 83.

Comparative Calorific Efficiencies, in Multiples of the Thermal Energy of Blast Furnace Gas

The “three lower and possibly more realistic ‘working values’”: 107 (generic “coal”), 226 (“petroleum”) and 264 (“natural gas”)—“7/13/2016 How much coal, natural gas, or petroleum is used to generate a kilowatt-hour of electricity?—FAQ—U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA),” downloaded for WTV by Jordan Rothacker, July 2016, from https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=667&t=8. “Last updated: February 29, 2016.” According to this source [henceforth cited “U.S. EIA, July 2016”]: “Amount of fuel used to generate 1 kWh: Coal = 0.00052 short tons or 1.04 pounds. Natural gas = 0.01011 Mcf (an Mcf equals 1,000 cubic feet). Petroleum = 0.00173 barrels (or 0.07 gallons).” In short, to generate 1 kWh [which presumably implies the standard ⅔ power plant wastage], requires the following: 1.04 lbs coal, or 0.01011 Mcf [= thousand cubic feet] natural gas, or 0.07 gal petroleum. This means 1 lb coal generates 0.96 kWh = [multiplying by 3,413] 3,281.730 BTUs. By comparable arithmetic: 1 lb natural gas [calculated per density of methane @ 0.04163 lbs/cu ft] generates 8,109.213 BTUs, and 1 lb petroleum [calculated per density of diesel @ 7.036 lbs/gallon] generates 6,929.668 BTUs. Multiplying each of these calorific efficiencies by 3 to get something comparable to the LHV, we get: Coal, 9,845.19 BTUs/lb; petroleum, 20,789.004; natural gas, 24,327.639.

Efficiency of blast furnace gas, Pittsburgh natural gas, refinery oil gas—Baumeister and Marks, p. 7-32 (Table 24, “Characteristics of Typical Gaseous Fuels”). “Blast furnace gas has a very low calorific value . . .”—A. Jackson, Modern Steelmaking for Steelmakers, rev. ed. (London: George Newnes Ltd., 1967; orig. ed. 1960), p. 72.

Efficiency of blast furnace gas: 105 BTUs per cubic foot—Jackson, p. 71.

1974 value for efficiency of lignite—OECD, 1974, vol. 2, p. 4.

Energy in a pound of TNT—From Electropaedia website, accessed June 22, 2016: 1 ton TNT = 4.184 GJ. Therefore 1 lb TNT = 1/2,000 (3,966,712 BTUs) = 1,983.356 BTUs.

The other figure for TNT—J . L. Maienschein, “Estimating Equivalency of Explosives Through a Thermochemical Approach” (UCRL-JC-147683), U.S. Department of Energy, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, July 8, 2002.Submitted to 12th International Conference Symposium, San Diego, California, August 11–16, 2002. [Henceforth cited: “Maienschein, 2002.”] Page 6: TNT’s density is 1.654 g/cc. Its total energy of combustion is 7.403 kJ per cc. To convert each kJ/cc to BTUs/lb I used: 1 kJ/cc × 1 cc/ D g [where D = density in g/cc] × 453.5 g/lb × 1 BTU/1.0548 kilojoules = [429.9393/D] BTUs/lb. Hence TNT’s total energy of detonation is 1,924.3294 BTUs/lb. On this same page, TNT’s heat of combustion is given as 3474 cal/g. To convert each cal/g to BTUs/lb I used: 1 cal/g × 1 kcal/1,000 cal × 453.5 g/lb × 1 BTU/0.252 kcal = 1.9776 BTUs/lb. Therefore, TNT’s heat of combustion is 6,251.822 BTUs/lb.

The “assertion in a physics textbook”—Jerry B. Marion, Physics and the Physical Universe (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1971), p. 261: “The explosion of 1 ton of TNT releases approximately 4.1 × 1016 ergs.” Therefore, [1 ton /2,000 lbs] × 4.1 × 1016 ergs = 0.00205 × 1016 ergs = 2.05 × 1013 ergs × [1 IT cal / 4.187 × 107 ergs] cal × [1 BTU / 251.996 IT cal] = 1,942.93 BTUs.

“TNT is carbon-rich . . .”—Maienschein, 2002, p. 3.

PBXN-109—Ibid., p. 7. I used the same conversions as for TNT [HHV = 1,983 or 1,924], using the following original figures: density, 1.662 g/cc; total energy of detonation, 11.818 kJ per cc, heat of combustion, 4,310 cal/g. [This source gives it a TNT equivalent of 1.59. When I divide its total energy of combustion by TNT’s I obtain 1.36.]

Carbon monoxide—According to Metcalfe, Williams and Castka, this gas’s heat of combustion = 67.64 kcal per mole, which equals = 67.64 kcal per ([12.011 g = atomic weight of C] + [15.999 g = atomic weight of O] = 28.01 g). Hence the height of combustion of CO = 2.4149 kcal/g. Multiplying by 1,798.7961584, we obtain 4,343.83 BTUs per pound.

Wood efficiencies—Selected from Baumeister and Marks, p. 7-19 (Table 12, “Approximate Weights and Heat Values per Cord of Fuel Woods”). “The standard cord is 8 ft long, 4 ft high, and 4 ft wide, or 128 cu. feet as piled, but the actual solid wood content is only about . . . 90 cu. ft for wood of average size.” Barkley and Rice’s table gives BTUs per cord. Since they provide each wood’s weight in pounds per cord, I have divided each wood’s BTU figure by that wood’s cordweight to express the efficiency in BTUs per pound. For example, 1 cord of white pine greenwood at 3,240 lbs per cord yields 17.3 million BTUs per cord. Thus 1 lb of this wood produces 17,300,000/3,240 = 5,340 BTUs per lb. The figures for willow charcoal and tanbark come from Table 11 on the same page, in which HHV is already expressed in BTU/lb.

Wood gives off “the highest amount of carbon emissions per unit of energy produced . . .”—Chris Faulkner, p. 3.

Efficiencies of threshed straw, corn, city garbage—Ibid., pp. 7-20–7-21.

“Harvested wood,” Japan—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. 3-29 (“Table 3-17: Theoretical exhaust gas and air volumes, and higher heating values for different fuels”). Original value was 14,367 kJ/kg. [1 kJ/kg = 0.4299226 BTUs/lb.]

“Typical” HHV of air-dried peat—Ibid., p. 7-18 (J. F. Barkley and W. E. Rice, “Peat, Wood and Miscellaneous Solid Fuels”).

Peat “seldom contains more than 60 percent carbon”—Magill, p. 434 (“coal gasification”).

Coal efficiencies—Selected from Baumeister and Marks, pp. 7-3–7-6 (Table 1, “Analyses of Mine Samples and Average Analyses of Delivery Samples of Anthracite,” Table 2, “Analyses of Mine Samples and Analyses of Delivery Samples from Bituminous, Subbituminous, and Lignitic Coal Regions of the United States”). I have chosen the highest and lowest values, then selected others which seemed especially informative.

“Alcohol,” 1911—Ellis and Rumely, p. 113.

General approximate efficiencies for lignite and subbituminous coal—William L. Leffler, Petroleum Refining in Nontechnical Language, 4th ed. (Tulsa, Oklahoma: PennWell Corp., 2008; orig. pub. 1979), p. 214.

Efficiency of Barapukuria lignite coal—Information from laminated brochure: “Barapukuria Coal Mining Company Limited (a company of Petrobangla),” n.d. (after 1998; collected 2015).

1974 value for efficiency of “hard coal”—OECD, 1974, vol. 2, p. 4.

Efficiency of coke—Lom and Williams, p. 58 (Table 4.1, “Typical Properties of Solid Fuels.”)

Japanese charcoal—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. 3-29 (Table 3-17: “Theoretical exhaust gas and air volumes, and higher heating values for different fuels”). Original value: 30,500 kJ/kg. Charcoal’s composition: graphite crystals—Knapp, p. 22.

The “general approximate value for the energy in a pound of coal”—Figure from Baumeister and Marks, p. 9-184 (C. H. Etheridge, “Atomic Power”). The steelmaker’s figure for the same comes from Jackson, p. 71. “Each pound of coal supplies enough electricity to light 10 light bulbs (100 watt) for about an hour.”—National Coal Association, p. 58. However, that works out to only [3,413], because this would be 10 bulbs × [60 minutes per hour] × [5.6884 BTUs per minute per 100-watt bulb] = 3,413.04 BTUs per hour.

“Combustion of a pound of pure carbon”—Ibid., p. 9-189 (Etheridge).[I have added the descriptor “pure,” assuming that this must be what is meant and what distinguishes this yield from the yield of a pound of coal, which contains impurities.] This figure seems plausible, because [according to Metcalfe, Williams and Castka, p. 394), the heat of combustion of carbon = 94.05 kcal per mole. The atomic weight of that element is 12.011 grams. Hence C gives off [94.05 kcal/12.011 g] = 7.829 kcal/g. Since 1 kcal/g = 1,798.7961584 BTUs/lb, carbon gives off 14,083.65 BTUs/lb.

Efficiency of pitch—Jackson, p. 71.

Chemical energy of fats—Metcalfe, Williams and Castka, p. 376, converted from 9 kcal/g as follows: 1 kJ/kg = 0.4299226 BTU/lb, and 1 calorie = 4.184 joules, so 1 kcal = 4,184 joules = 4.184 kJ. Since 1 kcal/g × [4.184 kJ/kcal] = [4.184 kJ/g × 1,000 g /kg] = [4,184 kJ/kg] × 0.4299226 kj/kg per BTU/lb] = 1,798.7961584 BTUs/lb, then multiplying this number by 9 to get 16,189.165 yields the equivalent.

Footnote: “Without the light-driven conversion . . . of water . . .”—Wilson et al., p. 385.

Efficiency of oil sands (bitumen only)—L. Douglas Smoot and Philip J. Smith, Coal Combustion and Gasification (New York: Plenum Press, 1985), pp. 34–35 (Table 2.1). HHVs are expressed in kJ/kg, so in all cases I have divided by 2.33.The original figure for the oil sands was 41,400 kJ/kg. Note: This table gives the following relevant HHVs (type of material never stated): wood, 8,927 BTUs/lb, which is higher than any specific wood efficiencies in Baumeister and Marks; peat, 8,498, which approximates my listed 8,462 for salt marsh water-free peat, Kittery, Maine; and Wyoming subbituminous coal, 11,888, which fits in plausibly with other coal HHVs and which I have inserted into the chart.

Peat efficiencies—Selected from Baumeister and Marks, p. 7-18 (Table 10, “Analyses and High Heat Values of Air-dried Peat”).

Efficiency of methanol—Olah, Goeppert and Prakash, p. 186, where methanol’s energy content is given at 5429 kcal kg-1 [= 5,429 kcal/kg]. Multiplying by [1 kcal/kg = 1.7987961584 BTUs/lb], we obtain 9,765.664 BTUs/lb.

Efficiencies of methyl alcohol, ethyl alcohol, coal tar—Baumeister and Marks, p. 7-30.

Efficiencies of gasified anthracite, coke and West Virginia bituminous coal—Ibid., p. 7-55 (Table 1, “Typical Process Transformers”).

Average HHV of dry, resin-free wood, and of resin—Loc. cit.

Japanese “indigenous natural gas”—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. 3-12, converted from 40.2 MJ/kg @ 1 MJ/kg = 429.9226 BTUs/lb.

Efficiencies of heavy, medium and light commercial fuel oils—Lom and Williams, p. 78 (Table 4.12, “Typical Properties of Commercial Fuel Oils”).

Efficiencies of different specific gravities of petroleum oil—Baumeister and Marks, p. 7-23 (Table 16: “Heat Values of Petroleum Oils”).

Footnote on toe variations in kcal—OECD, 1974, vol. 2, p. 3, converted as follows: [1 metric ton / 1.10 short ton] × [10,000,000 kcal/metric ton] × [1 short ton / 2,000 lbs] × [1 BTU / 0.252 kcal] = 18,037.5 BTUs/lb.

Efficiencies of Mexican crude, California crude, kerosene and gasoline—Baumeister and Marks, p. 7-21 (R. M. Gooding, “Petroleum and other Liquid Fuels,” Table 14, “Analyses and High Heating Values of Crude Petroleum . . .”); also (for gasoline and kerosene), pp. 7-24, 7-26, and (for gasoline only), p. 9-124 (Table 10, “Properties of Constituents of Internal-combustion-engine Fuels”).

Per-cubic-foot efficiency in diesel in comparison to gasoline—Duffy and Smith, p. 76.

“diesel-powered vehicles typically get 30–35% more miles per gallon . . .”—www.fueleconomy.gov [downloaded June 2016 by Jordan Rothacker], U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Model Year 2014 Fuel Economy Guide,” updated March 11, 2016 (Laurel, Maryland: U.S. Government Printing Office, Laurel Publications Distribution Center c/o Fuel Economy Guide). PDF p. 33. [Henceforth cited: “2014 Fuel Economy Guide.”]

Efficiency of light naphtha—Lom and Williams, p. 67 (Table 4-7, “Typical Properties of Refinery Products (LPG to Gas Oil).”)

Efficiencies of butane and propane—Baumeister and Marks, p. 7-33 (Table 25, “Average Properties of Commercial Propane and Butane”). The second efficiency figure for each gas comes from Lom and Williams, p. 67 (Table 4-7, “Typical Properties of Refinery Products (LPG to Gas Oil).”

Efficiencies of aviation gasoline, methane and pure hydrogen—Baumeister and Marks, p. 9-124 (Table 10). Aviation fuel: “Its total global warming impact . . .”—Berners-Lee and Clark, p. 150.

Efficiency of natural gas from Groningen, Holland—W. L. Lom and A. F. Williams, Substitute Natural Gas Manufacture and Properties (New York: John Wiley & Sons / Halstead Press, 1976), p. 28 (Table 2-3, “Some Properties of Various Natural Gases”).

Efficiencies of liquefied petroleum gas and liquefied natural gas—http://greet.es.anl.gov/, accessed by Jordan Rothacker, June 2016: “GREET, The Greenhouse Gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy Use in Transportation Model, GREET 1.8d.1, developed by Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL, released August 26, 2010.” [Henceforth cited: “GREET, 2010.”]

Efficiencies of dry Soviet and dry American natural gas, 1980—U.S. DOE, 1982, p. 104 (Appendix D: “Gross Thermal Conversions by Energy Source”).

Methane: “The single largest source of methane . . .”—Berners-Lee and Clark, p. 158. “Reacts readily with oxygen to release heat” + energy release expressed in kJ and kcal/g—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 12, p. 332. The other source, which gives an HHV of 18,056.75, is Emsley, p. 187 (“hydrogen”), converted from 42 kJ/g [= 42,000 kJ/kg × 0.4299226 = 18,056.75 BTUs/lb]. “Methane, the almost ideal fuel.”—Long-Term Energy Resources, p. 5 (Joseph Barnea, “Long-Term Energy Resources and the Energy Outlook”). “The single largest source of methane . . .”—Berners-Lee and Clark, p. 158.

Footnote on “Khuff” natural gas—Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries, Proceedings of the Symposium on the Ideal Utilization of Natural Gas in the Arab World (Algiers 29/6–1/7, 1980) (Kuwait, 1980), p. 16. [This document henceforth cited: “OAPEC, 1980.”] Converted to BTUs/cu ft as per next fn.

Efficiency of “North American natural gas”—OECD, 1974, vol. 2, p. 5. Converted from 1,015 BTUs/cu ft [× 1 lb / 24.02 cu ft for methane].

Efficiency of rocket fuel: LOX + liquid hydrogen—Baumeister and Marks, p. 7-50 (Table 29, “Characteristics of Rocket Fuels”). The author notes: “Their relatively low density requires large volumes for storage.” The other source, which gives an HHV for hydrogen of 44,711.95, is Emsley, p. 187 (“hydrogen”), converted from 104 kJ/g [= 104,000 kJ/1,000 g = 104,000 kJ/kg × 0.4299226 = BTUs/lb = 44,711.95 BTUs per lb].

Caveat on hydrogen: “While liquid hydrogen is highly energetic. . .”—Dr. Richard P. Hallion, ed., NASA’s Contributions to Aeronautics, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2010), p. 813 (Caitlin Harrington, “Leaner and Greener: Fuel Efficiency Takes Flight”). [This volume henceforth cited: “NASA, 2010.”]

U-235, “thermal energy actually generated”—Information from Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 24 (“Thioglycolic Acid” to “Vinyl Polymers”), p. 660: “The thermal energy generated by fission of 1 g of U-235 is equivalent to that released by burning 2200 L of crude oil or 2.7 [metric] t of coal.” For coal: Since 2.7 t × 2,204.6 lb / t = 5,952.42 lbs coal, for which I assume the West Virginia Coal Association’s HHV of 12,500 BTUs/lb, the total thermal energy will be 74,405,250 BTUs. For oil: Density of diesel fuel: 7.036 lbs/gallon, and 1 liter = 0.264 U.S. gal. Hence 2200 L × 0.264 gal / L × 7.036 lb / gal = 4,080.65 lb. For HHV I use Mexican crude’s: 18,755 BTUS / lb. Then the total thermal energy will be 76,642,472.5 BTUs. The average of the two total thermal energies = 75,523,861 BTUs, which is what I plugged in.

U-235 “in theory”—Emsley, p. 479. His figure is 1 kg of U-235 @ 20 trillion J. Since 1 J = 0.000948067 BTUs, this gives us 18,961,340,000/kg = 8,618,790,909.09/lbs.

Pu-239—Emsley, p. 327: “One gram of plutonium used in a conventional nuclear reactor has the potential to release as much energy as a [metric] tonne of oil.” This works out to 1/453.5 lb per 2,204.6 lbs, a ratio = to 1/999,786.099. The latter number is more than 99% of a million. As a shorthand for “oil” I used (per the table of Calorific Efficiencies beginning on p. 208) the average HHV for diesel of 19,250 BTUs/lb. Therefore, plutonium’s efficiency would be 19.25 trillion (19,250,000,000) BTUs.

HHV of reactor fuel (theoretical and actual)—Ibid., p. 9-184 (Etherington entry on atomic power). His figure for U-235 of 3.5 × 1010 BTU per pound appears on p. 9-197.

Energy of Hiroshima atom bomb: 3.45 × 1010 BTUs per pound—According to Marion, pp. 260–61, the fission of 1 kg of U-235 releases 8 × 1020 ergs—“approximately the size of the original atomic bomb of 1945.” Since 1 erg = 9.4805 × 10−11 BTUs, this converts into [8 × 1020 ergs / 1 kg] × [1 kg / 2.2 lbs] × [9.4805 × 10−11 BTUs / 1 erg] = 75,844,000,000 BTUs = 20 kilotons TNT. Dividing by 2.2 to find BTUs per pound, we get 34,474,545,454.5455, or 3.45 × 1011 BTUs per pound.

Efficiency of completely fissioning of 1 lb uranium-235—Baumeister and Marks, p. 9-188 (Etherington article on atomic power; figure given in mev), state that 1 atomic fission of U-235 = 200 million electron volts. Hence [200 mev =200,000,000 ev = 2 ×108 ev] × 1.52 × 10−22 BTU per ev = 3.04 × 10−14 BTUs per atomic fission. To find the fissioning energy for 1 lb, I calculated as follows:

1 mole of U-235 atoms = 6.023 × 1023 atoms

1 mole U-235 is about 238 grams

Therefore, [3.04 × 10−14 BTUs per atom] × [6.023 × 1023 atoms per 1 mole] × [1 mole per 238 g] × [453.5 g per 1 lb ] = 3.49 × 1023 BTUs per pound.

NUCLEAR

Nuclear Ideology

“Wool, a very complex molecule . . .”—Philip Baker et al., “Radioisotopes in Industry,” “Understanding the Atom” ser. (Oak Ridge, Tenn.: United States Atomic Energy Commission, Division of Technical Information, 1965), p. 30.

“The relatively low share of greenhouse gas emissions . . .”—EU greenhouse report, 2014, p. 133.

“Will free us from the fear . . .” + “May help to save the coal-mines . . .”—Hans Thirring, Energy for Man: Windmills to Nuclear Power (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1958), pp. 367, 391.

“NUCLEAR POWER . . . could have a long-run stabilizing effect . . .”—OECD, 1974, p. 150.

“Ultimately, if the technical problems of solving nuclear fusion are solved . . .”—Britannica, 15th ed., Macropaedia, vol. 6, p. 858 (“energy”).

“Redesign of the internal combustion engine . . .”—Odum, p. 92.

“Almost exhausted oil boy”—Honma Ryu, Genpats Koukoku to Chihoushi [“nuclear advertisements in local newspapers”] (Tokyo: Aki Shobo, 2014), p. 361 (ad from October 26, 1985; translated by Mrs. Keiko Golden). [Henceforth cited: “Honma.”]

“At school and at the university . . .”—Alexievich, p. 164.

“A pound of enriched uranium, which is smaller than the size of a baseball . . .”—Herbst and Hopley, p. 129. Loc. cit.: “The fission of one U-235 nucleus will release 50 million times more energy than the combustion of a single carbon atom, approximately 200 million electron volts.”

“A thimbleful of nuclear reactor fuel . . .”—John Tabak, Ph.D., Nuclear Energy (New York: Facts on File, Inc., 2009), p. 33.

“On average, an installed nuclear kilowatt . . .”—Mycle Schneider, Antony Froggatt et al., The World Nuclear Status Report 2015 (“a Mycle Schneider consulting project”) (Paris, London: Heinrich Böll Stiftung / The Green Political Foundation, July 2015), p. 17.

“The densest (in watts per square meter) . . .” + “Potential applications . . .” + “Japan’s 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster . . .”—The Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, April 28, 2015, p. C4, p. A17 (“Opinion” section, Eric McFarland, “Rethinking the U.S. Surrender on Nuclear Power”). “Mr. McFarland is a professor and director of the Dow Centre for Sustainable Engineering Innovation at the University of Queensland, Australia.”

“Besides making nuclear power available . . .”—Farrington Daniels and Robert A. Alberty, Physical Chemistry, Third Edition (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1966), p. 698.

“Studies have shown that radioisotopes such as plutonium-210 . . .”—Stambler, p. 143.

“[A] socialist transition worthy of the name . . .” + “While the trauma caused by this accident [at Fukushima] was great . . .”—Michael Joseph Roberto, Gregory Meyerson, James Essex and Jeff Noonan, “Moment of Transition: Structural Crisis and the Case for a Democratic Socialist Party” (84-pp. typescript; Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087; copyright 2010), pp. 5, 31. [Henceforth cited: “Roberto et al.”]

“We therefore conclude that the limit to population . . .”—S. Fred Singer, ed., Is There an Optimum Level of Population? (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1971), p. 41 (Alvin M. Weinberg and R. Philip Hammond, “Limits to the Use of Energy”).

“I would be afraid to say this in Japan . . .”—Mrs. K.G., interviewed November 2014.

Footnote: “China already has the world’s fastest-growing nuclear energy program . . .”—The Japan Times, Saturday, January 16, 2016, p. 4 (unattrib. [“Washington, AP”], “China’s hard choice over nuclear waste: Continued reprocessing called risky, costly”).

“Unlike oil, nuclear fuel is available . . .” + “Does not emit CO2 . . .” + “The cost of electricity is comparatively low . . .”—Interview with Tepco PR people [Mr. Sakakibara Kohji, group leader; Mr. Togawa Satoshi, deputy manager, International Public Relations Group, Corporate Communications Department; Mr. Hitosugi Yoshimi, section manager, Corporate Communications Department; and a woman who did not identify herself], at Tepco HQ in Tokyo, Monday, October 20, 2014.

“For each 1,000 megawatts of installed capacity . . .”—The New York Times, Sunday, January 1, 2017, “Sunday Review” section, p. SR8 (Letters: “Nuclear Power, Debated”: Tyson Smith, Mill Valley, California).

“Nuclear power started at Fukushima . . .”—Honma, p. 35 (ad from January 1, 1971; translated by Mrs. Keiko Golden).

“When we were young . . .”—Mr. Endo Kazuhiro, interviewed February 2014. See the “Harmful Rumors” chapter.

“It is a pity, the current situation . . .”—Honma, p. 47 (ads from January 11 and February 8, 1976; translated by Mrs. Keiko Golden).

“Plutonium thermal is needed . . .”—Ibid., p. 137 (ad from September 8, 2008; translated by Mrs. Keiko Golden).

“To Save the Planet . . .”—The New York Times, December 22, 2016, p. A27 (op-ed).

“With nature power . . .”—Ibid., p. 361 (ad from January 31, 2009; translated by Mrs. Keiko Golden).

“I don’t want to forget the warmth . . .”—Ibid., p. 344 (ad from October 26, 1993; translated by Mrs. Keiko Golden).

“From now on, I will turn my face . . .”—Ibid., p. 356 (ad from June 14, 1997; translated by Mrs. Keiko Golden).

“Our goal is the nuclear power plant that walks with neighbors”—Ibid., p. 353 (ad from January 29, 2010; translated by Mrs. Keiko Golden).

“Yotaro is wetting radiation”—Ibid., p. 356 (ad from June 13, 1993; translated by Mrs. Keiko Golden).

“We tried to think about life . . .”—Ibid., p. 345 (ad from March 30, 2009; translated by Mrs. Keiko Golden).

Nuclear power is the energy source of life. The town where there is energy . . .”—Ibid., n.p.

“Nuclear power makes money.”—Ibid., p. 275 (Mainichi Newspaper, February 5, 1983; translated by Mrs. Keiko Golden).

“America’s nuclear energy plants empower us” + “a critical source . . .” + “the only energy source that runs 24/7. . .” + “if we want to keep America working . . .”—The New York Times, Tuesday, November 18, 2014, p. A9 (a long-running advertisement from “Nuclear Matters”).

I sadly deleted the following slogan from my hoard of tautological twaddle: “Funs jump out from energy land.” Tepco, 1994. [Ibid., p. 241 (ad from July 17, 1994; translated by Mrs. Keiko Golden)]. I had delightedly interpreted this to mean that any nuclear power zone was an “energy land” filled with “funs.” Alas, when I clarified the matter with Keiko, it turned out that “Energy Land” [so capitalized] was simply an amusement park for small children.

“The radiation exposures in the highly publicized incidents . . .” + “The Rasmussen estimate . . .”—Bernard L. Cohen, Before It’s Too Late: A Scientist’s Case for Nuclear Energy (New York: Plenum Press, 1983), pp. 65, 14–15. Cohen further asserts (p. 12): “Only one-half of one percent of human cancers are caused by the 40 trillion particles of radiation that hit us over a lifetime . . .”

“Nuclear power is safer than oil.”—Ibid., p. 36 (editorial from March 27, 1971; translated by Mrs. Keiko Golden).

“Watching the safety of [the] nuclear power plant with my big eyes”—Ibid., p. 36 (ad from October 25, 1986; translated by Mrs. Keiko Golden).

George Monbiot—Roberto et al., p. 33 (continuation of fn 68, quoting George Monbiot).

“Safety is our greeting word . . .”—Honma, p. 349 (ad from October 26, 2009; translated by Mrs. Keiko Golden).

“Over the years, the safety record . . .”—Olah, Goeppert and Prakash, p. 140.

“Danger [will] never be a reality . . .”—Honma, p. 349 (ad from April 18, 1976; translated by Mrs. Keiko Golden).

“Reactors are designed to be inherently safe . . .”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 17, p. 373 (“nuclear reactors (introduction)”).

“If there is [an] unexpected accident . . .”—Honma, p. 256 (ad from July 26–28; 1996, translated by Mrs. Keiko Golden).

“Nuclear power plants actually have caused fewer fatalities per unit of energy . . .”—The New York Times, Thursday, March 31, 2016, p. A7 (Wang Shang, Ma Qian an Deng Yushan, Xinhua advertisement: “Nuclear Power: An Effective Alternative for Global Climate Battle”).

About Uranium

Epigraph: “Have you ever heard of the element uranium?”—Tyrone Mineo, ed. Therese Shea, Uranium (New York: Gareth Stevens Publishing / Rare and Precious Metals ser., 2014), p. 4.

Blackness of first specimen—Information from Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 24 (“Thioglycolic Acid” to “Vinyl Polymers”), p. 638 (“uranium and uranium compounds”).

“The silvery luster of freshly cleaned uranium metal . . .”—Ibid., p. 653.

Colors of uranium compounds—Ibid., pp. 667, 661, 665, 664.

Uranium in the crust: 2 ppm—Emsley, p. 480.

Information on the effect of U-irradiations on core heat, on U’s general abundance and on its presence in crops and cropland soils—Op. cit., pp. 476–77, 480.

“A general cellular poison . . .”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, same entry, p. 684.

“Everyone is exposed to a small amount of radiation . . .”—Mineo, p. 16.

Comparative radioactives of “natural uranium” and radium-226—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, p. 639. Originally expressed: 2,800 kg “natural uranium” is as radioactive as 1 g radium-226.

The literal heat of radium-226—Britannica, 11th ed., vol. XXII (POLL to REEVES), p. 802 (“radiation”). Originally expressed as 100 gram calories per gram per hour of “radium” or “a radium compound,” which I hereby call equivalent to radium-226, since that is the longest-lived isotope, deriving from “the decay of the most abundant uranium isotope” (Emsley, p. 353). Since 1 BTU = 251.98 calories, then 1 gram emits 0.397 BTUs per hour; therefore 1 lb emits 179.97 BTUs per hour. Anyhow, our best minds found a way to make uranium as hot as was needed. The U-235 that killed 200,000 people at Hiroshima warmed the epicenter to 5,400° F. (Rhodes, pp. 734—“five-year deaths related to the bombing”—and 714).

Plutonium: “feels hot, like a live rabbit”—Testimony of Leona Marshall, quoted in Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atom Bomb (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 25th anniversary ed., 2012; orig. pub. 1986), p. 660.

Footnote: Extraction of one pound of radium—Information from Emsley, p. 352. Originally given as 150 to 350 milligrams Ra per metric ton of U ore, which equals 150 to 350 times [1/1,000] × [1/453.5] lb per 2,204.6 lbs = 1 lb Ra for every 6,665,240.68 to 2,856,531.72 lbs of U ore. Thus it takes between 2.85 and 6.65 million pounds of uranium ore to get 1 pound of radium. [In his cross-check, Mr. Ben Coleman, for the high figure only, comes up with 6,666,666.67 lbs.]

Footnote: Austrian use in ceramics—Emsley, p. 478.

Same footnote: Uses of sodium uranate, uranyl sulfide and uranyl nitrate—Britannica, 11th ed., vol. XXVII (TONALITE to VESUVIUS), p. 788 (“uranium”).

Same footnote: Uranium toning—William Crawford, The Keepers of Light: A History and Working Guide to Early Photographic Processes (Dobbs Ferry, New York: Morgan & Morgan, 1979), p. 172.

Same footnote: Uranium prints—By Kris Haggblom, in Malin Fabbri, ed., Alternative Photography, Art & Artists, Edition 1 (Stockholm: Malin Fabbri, AlternativePhotography.com, 2006), pp. 89–90.

“relatively high levels of uranium as impurities”—Ibid., p. 480.

Footnote: Abundance of U in seawater—Loc. cit. Original absolute figure was 5 billion metric tons [× 2,204.6 =11,023,000,000,000].

U’s two “isotopes of significance”—There are actually 19 (Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, p. 639). Of these, one more occurs naturally: U-234.

“U-238 inhibits the fission of U-235”—Or, as Rhodes puts the matter in more detail (p. 287), U-235, could fission continually but “the more abundant U-238 captured most of the neutrons.” Not caring to pause and explain neutrons right here, I simplified.

Mining, milling, oxidizing, leaching—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, same entry, pp. 641, 647, 649–50. I have simplified a great deal in this summary.

Half-lives of U-235 and U-238—see here, Table 2. Due to its rarity, I have omitted discussion of U-234.

Isotopic abundance of U-238—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, same entry, p. 642.

Advertisement for the Geiger counter from Sears, Roebuck—1956 catalogue, p. 680.

Radon-222: “highly unstable and highly dangerous . . .”—Emsley, p. 354. This was actually said about radon in general, presumably applying to all 31 isotopic cases. On p. 357 we learn that the longest-lived isotope, radon-222, is emitted by uranium.

Ra-222’s 4-day half-life + “placed in large piles . . .”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 17 (“Nickel and Nickel Alloys” to “Paint”), p. 467 (“waste management”).

2012 EU-15 greenhouse emissions from ammonia production—EU greenhouse report, 2014, p. 402.

The solvent method of getting U from phosphates—Emsley, p. 479.

The manufacture of magnesia—All information from Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 15 (“Lasers” to “Mass Spectrometry”), pp. 703–7 (“magnesium compounds”): Rare in nature, magnesia (MgO) did, however, appear in the mineral periclas (or periclase). One commercial version was calcined dolomite. A certain firm in Ohio calcined dolomitic limestone at high temperatures (in other words, considerable energy inputs) to make that stuff. Dead Seas Periclase Ltd. took concentrated magnesium chloride brine from, yes, the Dead Sea, and “sprayed” it “into a reactor at about 1700° C,” which must have required significant energy, I should say, after which more was done to the stuff. There were several types of magnesia, and several manufacturing processes associated with them: hard-burned, “readily soluble only in concentrated acids,” which was lovely for ceramics, animal feed supplements, leather tanning, wastewater treatment and fertilizer; dead-burned, which “reacts very slowly with strong acids” and was used in cement kilns for metal refining; and pure-fused, whose use I never learned but which was “produced at extremely high . . . temperatures using graphite electrodes in an electric-arc furnace.” So I think it fair to say that magnesia-making required a fair amount of energy. Only the seawater production process did not sound bad (except for the part where “spent seawater is disposed to the sea).”

The photo of yellowcake + “METAL MANIA! . . .”—Mineo, pp. 9, 6.

Refining—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 24, p. 651.

Uranium dioxide: “brown to copper-coloured”—Britannica, loc. cit.

“It takes a lot of energy . . .”—Mineo, p. 11.

UF6: “an extremely corrosive . . . solid . . .”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 24, p. 664.

The membrane of silvered zinc—Emsley, p. 478 (“silver-zinc” in original). For more information on the original diffusion at Oak Ridge, see Rhodes, p. 492.

4,000 diffusion cells to attain 99% U-235—Daniels and Alberty, pp. 700–701. Diffuse rate varies inversely with the square root of the molecular weight. The ratio between the rates of U-238 hexafluoride and U-235-hexafuxoride is a mere 1.0043 (loc. cit.).

Enrichment requirements for reactors and weapons + “Gaseous diffusion units are enormous . . .” + information on centrifugal separation—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, pp. 657–58.

Reactor-grade enrichment (here rated at %): “More than a thousand separation stages . . .”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 17, p. 404 (“isotope separation”).

Details on the coal-fired power plant at Oak Ridge—Rhodes, pp. 494, 553.

Conversion from 800 million BTUs to 96 tons of coal—Dividing 812,246,400 [= 238,000 kW × 56.88 BTUs per min per kW × 60 min per hr] by coal’s average 12,500 BTUs/lb HHV, then dividing by 2,000 lbs/[U.S.] ton, then multiplying by three to compensate for a fossil fuel power plant’s ⅔ wastage (see “About Power Plants, p. 150) yields 97.

“the other nuclear fuels”: Uranium metal, sulfates, etc.—List from Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 17, p. 429 (“reactor types”).

Note on uranium tetrafluoride—EU greenhouse report, 2014, p. 433.

Conversion of U-238 into Pu-239—Equation in Emsley, p. 325.

Footnote on electromagnetic separation—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 24, p. 659.

Same footnote: “laser radiation of precise energy . . .”—Emsley, p. 478.

Conversion of U-238 into Pu-239—Information from Marion, p. 595.

Use of Pu-238 on Apollo 14—Ibid., p. 327.

“A single recycle of plutonium . . .” + “Plutonium from reprocessed fuel . . .” + information on DPU for MOX (“The plutonium, as an oxide, is then mixed with depleted uranium left over from an enrichment plant to form fresh mixed oxide fuel (MOX, which is UO2+PuO2). MOX fuel, consisting of about 7–11% plutonium mixed with depleted uranium, is equivalent to uranium oxide fuel enriched to about 4.5% U-235, assuming that the plutonium has about two-thirds fissile isotopes. If weapons plutonium is used (>90% Pu-239), only about 5% plutonium is needed in the mix.”)—World Nuclear Association, 2016, “MOX, Mixed Oxide Fuel—World Nuclear Association,” downloaded on February 7, 2017, by Jordan Rothacker for WTV from http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/fuel-recycling/mixed-oxide-fuel-mox.aspx. [Henceforth cited: “World Nuclear Association, 2016.”]

Footnote on the MOX accident in Ibaraki—The Japan Times, Friday, June 9, 2017, pp. 1–2 (unattrib., “Plutonium exposures fox experts: Authorities probing whether safety failures behind release”). I converted the Sv/yr figures to microSv/hr as follows: (a) [1.2 Sv/ yr] × [1 yr /365 d] × [1 d / 24 hr] × [1,000,000 microSv / 1 Sv] = 136.986 micros / hr [comparable to Okuma’s “more than 100” micros after the accident]; and (b): [12 Sv/ 50 yr] × [1 yr /365 d] × [1 d / 24 hr] × [1,000,000 microSv / 1 Sv] = 27 micros / hr [comparable to some gratings and drains I measured in Okuma and Tomioka].

“The problem of the disposition of 500,000 [metric] tons”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 24, pp. 659–70.

“During the early nuclear testing times in Nevada . . .”—The anti-fracking Sharon Carlisle’s expansions and corrections of my rough transcript of her interview in Loveland, Colorado, July 5, 2015. For the bulk of the interview, see the fracking chapter.

Efficiency of Pu-239—See note on Sources, p. 113. Dividing the calculated efficiency of 19.25 trillion BTUs per lb by the capacity of the Oak Ridge coal-fired plant, one finds that 1 lb of Pu-239 could power it for 2.785 years.

Calorific Efficiencies of Coal, Oil, Natural Gas, Uranium-235 and Plutonium-239

Estimate of uranium burned in a 1-million-kWh Japanese reactor—Hirose, p. 26: “About 2 kg of uranium will be burned if a reactor with a daily capacity of 1 million KW is operated for one day.” I presume he means kWh—in which case, 2 kg = 4.4 lb for 24 million kWh, meaning that 1 lb generates 5,454,545 kWh = × 3,413 = 18,616,363,636.3636 BTUs, or, better yet for our inexact purposes, 18,600,000,000 (8.6 billion) BTUs. [In this place he also says: “One reactor alone each day burns uranium equivalent to three or four Hiroshima bombings.” One can see where his heart lies.]

About Uranium (continued)

Footnote: Length of fuel rods at Fukushima—David Lochbaum, Edwin Lyman, Susan Q. Stranahan and the Union of Concerned Scientists, Fukushima: The Story of a Nuclear Disaster (New York: New Press, 2014), p. 5.

Characteristics of zirconium—Emsley, pp. 508, 510.

“Nuclear power cost about the same as coal”—Information from Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 17, p. 374 (“nuclear reactors (introduction)”).

“The used or spent fuel contains a large inventory . . .”—Ibid., p. 467 (“waste management”).

The three methods of waste disposal—Ibid., p. 468.

The typical to-do list—Ibid., p.495, “nuclear reactors (safety).”

“low level nuclear waste” “must be kept apart from residential settlement for up to 400 years”—The Japan Times, March 23, 2014, p. 1 (unattrib., “Nuclear waste buildup relentless”). At that time, over 496,000 cubic meters of “low level radioactive waste” would require interment if all Japanese reactors were decommissioned. “Japan’s mountain of nuclear waste will only continue to grow.”

Cs-137 and Sr-90 “provide most of the radioactivity . . .”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, same entry, p. 469 (“waste management”).

Characteristics of DPU shells—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 24, p. 660. Emsley (p. 478) calls DPU “one of the densest of metals.” He mentions its use as ballast on p. 479. Metcalfe, Williams and Castka (p. 659, “Properties of Common Elements”) give the specific gravities (water standard) of U at 19.05, tungsten at 19.3, gold at 19.32 and platinum at 21.45.

“And D[P]U has the added advantage . . .”—Theodore Gray, The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe (New York: Black Dog & Levanthal Publishers, 2009), p. 211. Although Gray’s “DU” is a more intuitively understandable abbreviation than “DPU,” the latter appears in my bible, Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant.

About Nuclear Reactors

Epigraph: “The true romance which the world exists to realize . . .”—Emerson, p. 492 (“Experience”).

HHV of a gram of pure carbon: 14,000 BTU / 1 lb × 1 lb /453.59 g = 30.865 BTUs per gram.

Self-heating values of Pu-239 and -238 + failure of plutonium heating system—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 19 (“Pigments” to “Powders, Handling”), pp. 408, 417 (“plutonium and plutonium compounds”).

Footnote: Conversion from 7 W[atts]/kg—Multiplied by [1 kg / 2.2046 lbs] × [0.056884 BTU per minute / 1 watt], this becomes 0.1806 BTU per minute per pound.

Same footnote: “Twelve and a half pounds would be needed to give as much power as the plug-in vibrator on p. 68.” Calculated from 2.28 / 0.1806 BTUs per min = 12.625 BTUs per min.

“In the . . . Voyager space probes they produced electricity for more than half a century.”—The two Voyager space probes left Earth in 1977. They were still communicating with the home planet in 2017, according to National Geographic, August 2017, p. 23 (Timothy Ferris, “Fantastic Voyage: Deep in Space: Two Intrepid Travelers Turn 40”). Loc. cit.: “Their weakening radio signals . . . are expected to fall silent around 2030, when the Voyagers’ plutonium-powered electrical generators finally falter.” This would be a 53-year working life.

U-238 “can become plutonium-239 . . .”—World Nuclear Association, 2016.

Boron—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant., vol. 17, p. 391 (“water chemistry of lightwater reactors”): “Used to compensate for fuel consumption and to control reactor power.”

Paragraph beginning “And so the control rods retracted . . .”—All information from the same source, vol. 17, pp. 369, 372 (“nuclear reactors (introduction)”).

Nuclear power as a percentage of worldwide 2011 electricity generation—Calculated from U.S. Statistical Abstract, 2015, p. 896 (Table 1391: “Net Electricity Generation by Energy Source and Country: 2011”). [Data source: U.S. EIA, 2014.] The worldwide total was 21,080.9 billion kWh. Nuclear’s was 2,517.7 billion kWh. I calculated the percentage; I also converted from kWh to BTUs by multiplying × 3,413.

Description of PWRs and BWRs—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 17, p. 370 (“nuclear reactors (introduction)”), pp. 391–92 (“water chemistry of lightwater reactors”), pp. 457–58.

Japanese distribution of PWRs and BWRS—Hirose, p. 25.

“Two practice problems in a physics textbook”—Marion, p. 267; problems 7.51 and 7.53.

Josephine Cochran’s dishwasher—Ethlie Ann Vare and Greg Ptacek, Patently Female: From AZT to TV Dinners, Stories of Women Inventors and Their Breakthrough Ideas (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2000), pp. 38, 39.

“In contrast to power plants . . .” + emissions from “normal operations”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 17, p. 373 (same entry).

Footnote: Takashi Hirose on nuclear power’s contribution to global warming—Op. cit., p. 150.

Same footnote: “thermal pollution will become an increasingly serious problem . . .”—Odum, p. 466 (italics in original). Note that these two sources differ on thermal pollution rates. Hirose (who might have in mind different “average size” than Odum) asserts a rate of 100,000,000 kW = 5,688,400,000 BTUs/minute. Odum proposes that a 3,000 MW “average size” nuclear station “produces waste heat at the rate of more than 20 × 109 BTU per hour,” which works out to a very different 333,333,333,333 BTUs/min.

Footnote: Half-lives of Xe and Kr radioisotopes—Emsley, pp. 489, 214.

Reactor contamination products (in general)—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 17, pp. 467 (“waste management”), 499 (nuclear reactors (safety)”).

“the lifespan of each part is around 30 years at maximum.”—Hirose, p. 25.

Radiocontaminants specific to BWRs versus PWR—Ibid., pp. 395, 401.

The reactors at Fukushima—Lochbaum et al., pp. 5, 15; Hirose, pp. 23–29, 48–51, 124, 126–27.

“one gram of plutonium used in a nuclear reactor . . .”—Emsley, p. 327.

“Nuclear power plants need electrical power 24 hours per day . . .”—United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, “NRC: Mitigation Strategies” [2-pp. PDF] (downloaded for WTV by Jordan Rothacker in September or October 2016 from http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/ops-experience/japan-dashboard/mitigation-strategies.html]. [This document henceforth cited: “NRC: Mitigation Strategies, 2016.”]

Tale of the diesel generators at Daiichi—Hirose, p. 34.

“A loss of coolant is conceivable . . .”—Britannica, 15th ed., vol. 13 (Newman to Peisistratus), p. 321 (“nuclear reactor”).

1. Lower Than for Real Estate Agents

“For the Fukushima disaster . . .”—The Wall Street Journal, Saturday/Sunday, April 12–13, 2014, p. C3 (Craig Nelson, “A Radiation Reality Check: From bananas to bricks, radioactivity is everywhere—but it’s nothing to be afraid of”). Also from this article: “The United Nations spent 25 years investigating the Chernobyl disaster and determined that 57 people died during the accident itself (including 28 emergency workers), while 18 children living nearby died in the following years of thyroid cancer from drinking the milk of tainted cows.” Nelson then quoted the physicist Bernard Cohen, who predicted that after half a century Chernobyl would have caused 16,000 fatal cancers. “To give this number perspective, around 16,000 Americans die every year from the pollution of coal-burning power plants.”

Comparative Measured Radiation Levels in Multiples of the Lowest Sacramento Reading

Footnote: “The natural background from all sources in most parts of the world . . .”—CRC Handbook, 2006, p. 16-46 (“Protection Against Ionizing Radiation”).

Footnote: “It is an odd quantitative choice . . .”—Crownover to WTV, June 2017.

Re: my darkroom coating counter: “On a per-minute basis, the cumulative per capita fallout dose in the Northern Hemisphere from 1945 through 1999 was 1/27 of this amount.”—Roy E. Gephart, Hanford: A Conversation About Nuclear Waste and Cleanup (Columbus, Ohio: Battelle Press, 2003), p. 4.28: The “cumulative radiation dose for a person” in the Northern Hemisphere is “between . . . 1945 and 1999 was 108 millirems.” Since 10 micros = 1 mrem, I multiplied by 10 and then divided by [54 years × 365 days × 24 hours] to get the hourly dose of 0.00228 micros per hour.

1 milli per year: Recommended ceiling, per ICRP—Information from Hirose, p. 59.

1 milli per year as TBI from natural sources at sea level “in most parts of the world” + 0.28 millis per every 500 meters—Harry Foreman, ed., Nuclear Power and the Public (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1970), p. 77 (Merril Eisenbud, “Standards of Radiation Protection and Their Implications for the Public’s Health”); see also p. 79.

Footnote: “The ICRP recommended . . . limit . . . radiation . . . [1990] is 20 mSv/yr . . .”—CRC Handbook, 2006, p. 16-46 (“Protection Against Ionizing Radiation”).

Footnote on decontamination target for Iwaki households: The “long-term goal in the Fukushima cleanup . . .”—The Japan Times, Sunday, March 10, 2013, p. 7 (Winifred Bird, sidebar: “Giving the children of Fukushima a place to play is not easy”); The Japan Times, Monday, July 21, 2014, p. 3 (unattrib., “Fukushima file: New radiation measurement method spreads confusion”).

2 mSv per year, “assuming that an individual spends eight hours outdoors . . .”—The Japan Times, Monday, July 21, 2014, p. 3 (unattrib., “Fukushima file: New radiation measurement method spreads confusion”).

2.4 millis per year—Assertion of Mr. Kida Shoichi, a decontamination specialist in the Nuclear Hazard Countermeasure Division, Iwaki, as interviewed in text.

Footnote: “Discussion of Taylor’s [B]ooks . . .”—Crownover to WTV, June 2017.

“An average radiation background dose for a human being” (3 mSv per year)—James A. Mahaffey, Ph.D., Nuclear Power: Radiation [so written on title page, but on copyright page only “Radiation”] (New York: Facts on File, 2012), p. 30: “An average radiation background dose for a human being is 300 millirems per year. A dosage of 500 millirems in five hours is considered lethal . . .”

“The average resident of the United States is routinely exposed to about 300 millirem . . . every year from the soil beneath their [sic] feet and the sun shining overhead,” and the sentence complacently finishes: “—without concern.”—Gephart, p. 4.9. Cf. CRC Handbook, 2006, p. 16-46 (“Protection Against Ionizing Radiation”): “The U.S. average is about 3.6 mSv/yr but can range up to 50 mSv/yr in some areas.”

Average American yearly dose, mid-1990s—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 17, p. 497 “nuclear reactors (safety)”). Converted by WTV from U.S. average of 0.0036 Sv/yr (the “3” digit from natural sources, the rest from humans).

5 milliSv per year—Converted from 500 millirads per year.

“For an individual steadily receiving 500 millirads per year . . .”—Gofman and Tamplin, pp. 288–89.

“A read of 5 millisieverts is one of the thresholds . . .”—The Japan Times, Tuesday, March 8, 2016, p. 1 (unattrib., “32,000 at Fukushima No. 1 got high radiation dose”).

More than 15 milliSv per year: Bikini—The Japan Times, Sunday, June 10, 2012, p. 10 (cont’d from p. 9, Christopher Johnson, “The Marshall Islands: Tropical idylls scarred like Tohoku”), quoting International Atomic Energy assessment.

Footnote: “Readings in airplanes . . .”—Crownover to WTV, June 2017.

Definition of green zone: “decontaminate with priority”—Conveyed orally by Mr. Yoshikawa Aki en route to Namie, October 26, 2015.

“A passenger in a plane flying at 12,000 meters . . .”—CRC Handbook, 2006, p. 16-46 (“Protection Against Ionizing Radiation”). This altitude = 39,360 ft.

100 milliSv per year—International Committee on Radiological Protection assessment. The Japan Times, Saturday, March 8, 2014, p. 3 (Reiji Yoshida, “Radiation check clears most food items”). “This was the average dose received by the ‘liquidators’ who entombed the reactor at Chernobyl.”—Information from Herbst and Hopley, p. 144. This source continues: About 20,000 “liquidators” got 250 mSv and “a few received 500 mSv.”

> 13 micros an hour (hot spots in Aiikuen Orphanage)—The Japan Times, Sunday, March 10, 2013, p. 7 (Winifred Bird, sidebar: “Giving the children of Fukushima a place to play is not easy”).

120 millis per year (the Brazilian village)—Foreman, p. 79, quoting the figure of 12 rads. Since 1 rad [at least per old definition] = 1 rem = 10 millis, 12 rads = 120 millis. This is insanely high, and I wonder whether Foreman slipped a decimal point. Cf. bracketed note on Guarapari based on Nanao Kamada, M.D., One Day in Hiroshima: An Oral History, trans. Richard C. Parker et al. (Shift Project / International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, 2007), p. 74, where we read that this place’s dose is (so far as I can tell from a data-poor chart) a mere 10 mSv/yr. [This source henceforth cited: “Kamada.” The first-person voice in this oral history is an old lady in a nursing home, whose name is not revealed.]

Footnote: “It is possible that an unnamed Brazilian village . . .”—Crownover to WTV, June 2017.

“Radiation dosimeters were given to selected individuals . . .”—Jacob Kastner, “The Natural Radiation Environment,” “Understanding the Atom” ser. (Oak Ridge, Tenn.: United States Atomic Energy Commission Division of Technical Information, 1968), p. 21.

Exposure in outer space; mission to Mars—Mahaffey, pp. 25–26: “The background radiation on the ground is about 240 millirems (2.4mSv) per year, with about 30 millirems (0.3 mSv) due to cosmic rays. In interplanetary space, the exposure would be 40 to 90 rems (400 to 900 mSv) per year . . . A 30-month mission to Mars could result in a 114 rem (1.14 Sv) exposure.”

Japanese chest X-ray—Kamada, p. 73.

0.3 rem per week—Baumeister and Marks, p. 9-191 (C. H. Etherington, “Atomic Power”).

“The shielding for dental X-rays . . .”—Crownover to WTV, June 2017.

100 milliSv per week—The Japan Times, Friday, August 1, 2014, p. 3 (unattrib., “Nuclear watchdog may raise radiation exposure limit for emergencies”).

Full-body CT [computerized tomography] scan: 10 millis an hour—Kamada, p. 75.

Footnote: “If the dosimeter was placed . . .”—Crownover to WTV, June 2017.

“First responders” should content themselves with 50 millisieverts per incident—Information from Jill Meryl Levy, The First Responder’s Guide to Radiation Incidents (Campbell, California: Firebelle Productions, 2006), p. 153. For consistency with the units of this essay, I have converted from her figure of 5 rems: 5 rem = 50 mSv × 1 Sv/1,000 mSv = 0.05 sievert.

25 mSv in 10 minutes by the crewmen of Reactor No. 1—Lochbaum et al., p. 31.

“A total dose of 50 rem of gamma radiation . . .”—Baumeister and Marks, p. 9-191 (C. H. Etherington, “Atomic Power”).

Footnote to 50 milliSv per hour: We are told that the first responders at Chernobyl took in “up to 20,000 millisieverts . . .”—Herbst and Hopley, p. 143.

1.3 Sv per hour: The girl at Hiroshima—Kamada, p. 28: “A university professor told me that I had been exposed to an estimated 1,300 millisievert . . . , including both gamma and neutron rays.” This was “about the same amount as when you have an X-ray on your stomach for 130 times in a row . . .”

2–3 Sv per hour: “Permanent female sterility is possible”—Mahaffey, p. 39.

3–4 Sv per hour—Loc. cit.

6 Sv per hour—Bruce Clayton, Ph.D., Fallout Survival: A Guide to Radiological Defense (Boulder, Colorado: Paladin Press, 1984), p. 28. This author asserts the following (which he expresses in Roentgens [so capped], converted by WTV at 1 Sv = 100 R): 0.5 Sv, no visible effects; 0.75–1 Sv, possible nausea on day of exposure; 2 Sv, radiation sickness symptoms for up to half of all exposed persons, but only 5–10% will require medical treatment and none of them will die from this; 4.5 Sv “serious radiation sickness in most members of the group,” with a 50% death rate in 2–4 weeks; 6 Sv, serious radiation sickness, leading to the deaths of nearly all exposed persons in 1–3 weeks.

16.793 Sv per hour—Information from Svetlana Alexievich, ed., Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster, trans. Keith Gessen (New York: Picador, 2005; orig. Russian pub. 1997), p. 134, converted from statement “the activity reached 1,800 roentgens per hour” as follows: 1,800 × (1 R × [1 rem / 1.07185 R] × [1,000 mrem / 1 rem] × [10 microSv / 1 mrem] = 9,329.663 microSv) = 16.793 Sv/hr. [We are also told (loc. cit.) that the colonel received 600 Bq—which might correspond to “merely” 6 mSv.]

10–50 Sv per hour—Mahaffey, p. 40.

10.3 Sv per hour—The Japan Times, Wednesday, September 3, 2014, p. 3 (Hideki Takahashi and Hisashi Ota, “Workers tried to save reactor 1 through venting”). Converted from 10,300 millisieverts per hour.

When the Wind Blows from the South

Footnote: The paperweight of Rick Anderson—Roberto et al., pp. 29–30 (fn 64).

Radiation incident guide: “alpha and beta emitters are the most hazardous . . .”—Jill Meryl Levy, The First Responder’s Guide to Radiation Incidents (Campbell, California: Firebelle Productions, 2006), p. 120.

“the development of the nuclear reactor, which promises to be a very important power source . . .”—Daniels and Alberty, p. 695.

“a lethal whole-body single dose . . .”—Ibid., p. 719. “According to AEC regulations, no worker should be exposed to more than 5 roentgens per year” (loc. cit.).

Footnote: A sievert defined as a “unit of equivalent dose . . .”—CRC Handbook, 2006, pp. I-39–I-40 (“CONVERSION FACTORS FOR IONIZING RADIATION”); p. 16-46 (“Protection Against Ionizing Radiation”).

25 to 50 roentgens may cause “blood-cell destruction”—Donald E. Tilley and Walter Thumm, Physics for College Students with Applications to the Life Sciences (Menlo Park, California: Cummings Publishing Co., 1974), p. 34.

The hardboiled American dosimetrist: “We would pull the amount of air you would breathe in a month . . .”—Source ML, interviewed April 19, 2011. His identity and contact information were made available to fact checkers at Byliner, this chapter’s original publisher. He worked in the nuclear industry and did not wish to have his name published here.

“the incident guide remained at peace”—Information from Levy, pp. 153, 46–48, 93–96. In her text the normal background exposure is expressed in mR (milliroentgens). For our purposes, a rem (roentgen equivalent man, a measure of biological damage) equals a roentgen. See the tables and definitions at the end of this book.

“Denver received triple this amount”—Confirmed by Source ML.

At 5,000 rems “all patients will die within forty-eight hours”—Levy, loc. cit.

Dr. Jean Pouliot and Josephine Chen—They helped me in early March 2011.

“In the quarter-hour we spent in that room, God regaled us with 0.6 heavenly millirems!” + accompanying fn—Since 1 millirem = 10 micros, this corresponded to 6 micros in 15 minutes or 24 micros an hour. For Tomioka and Okuma readings, see the chapter “The Red Zones.”

“Well, for a member of the general public you’ve got guts . . .”—Source ML.

“On March 11, 2011, a nine-magnitude temblor . . .”—Information from The Japan Times, Monday, March 28, 2011, p. 1 (“Big quakes ‘don’t set off distant temblors’”).

Casualty figures from the earthquake-tsunami—The Daily Yomiuri, no. 21,742 (Tuesday, April 5, 2011, edition T), p. 1.

Footnote on final death figure from the tsunami—Richard Lloyd Parry, Ghosts of the Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan’s Disaster Zone (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux / MCD, 2017; uncorrected proof), p. xi.

Events at Plant No. 1, March 11–20, 2011—Some of the details were not known, or at least released to the public, at the time. My brief summary of what happened follows Lochbaum et al., chaps. 1–4, 6. This book presents the history of American nuclear regulation as a series of chicaneries. A typical passage (p. 206): In a 1982 press conference, Representative Edward Markey of Massachusetts announced, as the Union of Concerned Scientists phrases it, that “the NRC was suppressing the results of a study that estimated the consequences for human health and the environment of severe accidents for every nuclear plant in the United States.”

At the Tepco interview of Monday, October 20, 2014, Mr. Hitosugi told the story thus: “First of all, why it happened. You should know that in 2011 March we had a huge earthquake, and after 40 minutes, a large tsunami hit. And due to that, the energy source was lost. During the investigation, it was found that right after the big tremor, the reactor stopped safely. After that, no pressure change was detected, which means that no major pipes were ruptured. No safety functions were lost due to the earthquake. But on the other hand, after the reactor was stopped, we needed to keep cooling it. So we had to keep adding water. That kind of safety function needs an energy source, and that was drained. In the case of Fukushima there is a power line from outside, and also an emergency line within the premises, and these two are needed in any emergency. In the case of Daiichi, except that one emergency power line, all other sources went dead. And this was not sufficient to take all the reactors off line. (In Niigata we have a power plant, and based on our experience in the Fukushima accident, we made some improvements there in Niigata to the emergency power source in case of a tsunami.)

“The fuel keeps emitting heat after operation. Both No. 1 and No. 2 need to keep cooling. But after awhile, reaction heat comes down. Then you can take out the fuel and put in a dedicated cask. Less than a hundred degrees [Celsius] is a cold shutdown. This was achieved around March 20.”

Footnote: Descriptions of Reactors 1–5—Ibid., p. 15. According to an anti-nuclear source: “A typical 1,000 megawatt electric . . . Pressurized Water Reactor will release nearly 800 curies of tritium per year . . .” A comparable boiling water reactor “will release 120 curies of tritium per year.”—Beyond Nuclear, 6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 400, Takoma Park, MD 20912, “Warning: Uncontrolled Radioactive Releases: Buried below is a tangle of corroded pipes uninspected for decades now leaking radioactive water” [61-pp. typescript], March 2015, rev. from April 2010, p. 10. [Henceforth cited: “Beyond Nuclear.”]—Regarding the Westinghouse design I would like to quote David E. Lilienthal, Atomic Energy: A New Start (New York: Harper & Row, 1980), pp. 114–15: “In recent years I have asked myself often, do we Americans have the moral right to promote and sell a complicated, immature, and fundamentally unsafe nuclear system to the rest of the world . . . ? I am convinced that we do not have that right. We do have the obligation to develop a nuclear system that is far safer, much less complex, for them and for ourselves.”—Mr. Lilienthal was the first chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission.

Footnote: Hirose: “An electric power company that lost control . . .”—Op. cit., p. 29.

Measurements at the American naval base at Yokosuka (1.5 mrems)—Ibid., p. 78.

“By the twenty-sixth . . . water in Reactor 2 was emitting at least a sievert per hour . . .”—The Japan Times, Sunday, March 27, 2011, p. 2 (map: “Maximum radiation levels in eastern Japan: Data from 5 p.m. Friday to 5 p.m. Saturday”).

“At this rate, a person would receive that 5-rem dose in about three minutes”—Five rems (or 5,000 millirems) divided by 1 sievert per hour (which is 100,000 mrems per hour) = 0.05 hours.

“Plant officials and government regulators say they don’t know”—The Japan Times, Sunday, March 27, 2011, p. 2 (“Radioactive water stymies crews”).

“. . . not known as of Saturday afternoon”—The Japan Times, Sunday, April 3, 2011, p. 1 (Masami Ito and Minoru Matsutani, “Sea contamination traced to cracked storage pit connected to reactor: Tepco dumps concrete to plug radiation leak at No. 2”).

Peter Bradford: “I’m getting increasingly concerned . . .”—Phone interview by author, March 28, 2011.

Footnote: “Another element released by uranium fission is iodine-131 . . .”—Emsley, p. 480.

Unnamed Meteorological Agency official: “If the government releases two different sets of data . . .”—The Daily Yomiuri, no. 21,742 (Tuesday, April 5, 2011, edition T), p. 1.

Peter Bradford: “I don’t think we’re any less vulnerable than the Japanese.”—The Sunday News & Observer [Raleigh, N.C.], April 6, 2014, final ed., p. 12A (Matthew L. Wald, The New York Times, “Dozens of nuclear reactors can’t prove quake resistant”): “Owners of at least two dozen nuclear reactors across the United States, including the operator of Indian Point in Buchanan, N.Y., have told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that they cannot show that their reactors would withstand the most severe earthquakes that revised estimates say they might face, according to industry experts.”

“Nothing in the world is permanent or lasting . . .”—The Teachings of Buddha, 1029th rev. ed. (Tokyo: Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai [Society for the Promotion of Buddhism], 2000), p. 198 (Defilements, 6).

Footnote: Japanese power consumption, 2010 and 2011—U.S. Statistical Abstract, 2015, p. 898 (Table 1395: “Energy Consumption by Country, 2010 and 2011”). Data source: U.S. EIA, 2014.

Japanese grid: 290 gigawatts, to which Fukushima Daiichi contributed 1.6% (calculated by WTV from 4.7 gigawatts)—MIT Technology Review 118, no. 1 (January/February 2015), p. 28 (Peter Fairley, “Can Japan Recapture Its Solar Power?”), Okamato and hope of Tokyo Institute of Technology—p. 30.

“dangerous forms of energy generation might become accepted as necessary. So it proved, in the time when I was alive”—In place of the last sentence, the original published version, which was directed less to the future than to the present, read: “Practically speaking, any individual Japanese (or American) is powerless to prevent the construction of nuclear plants, regardless of his attitude about them. But while you read this story, please consider how many more times you desire the Fukushima reactor disaster to occur. Should you come down on my side, consider relocating upwind.”

“In 2010 . . . nuclear power did work all over the world, to the tune of 2,600 terawatt-hours, or 8.873 quadrillion BTUs—the equivalent of burning a billion metric tons of coal . . .”—According to Coal Information 2012, p. II.27: “In 2010, nuclear produced 2 600 TWh globally, roughly equivalent to 1 billion tonnes of coal.” Since 1 TWh = 0.086 mtoe, then 2,600 TWH = 223.6 mtoe. Multiplying this × [1 mtce / 0.7 mtoe], we get 319.42857 mtce. Since 1 tce = 27,776,000 BTUs, we multiply 319.42857 mtce × [1 million × 27,776,000 BTUs] / [1 mtce] to get 8,872,448,000,000,000 BTUs. (Or one could multiply 2,600 TW × [3,413,000,000,000 BTUs / TW] instead to get 8,873,800,000,000,000 BTUs, which agrees with the first to 99.985%.) So much for the first figure. Now, since 1 tce = 27,776,000 BTUs, then 1 billion tce = 1 billion × 27,776,000 BTUs = 27,776,000,000,000,000 (2.7776 × 10 to the 16th power). The first figure is not quite ⅓ of the second. And indeed, according to Coal Information 2012, “the primary energy equivalent of nuclear electricity is calculated from the gross generation by assuming a 33% efficiency, i.e. 1 TWh = (0.086 ÷ 0.33) Mtoe” (p. I.17).

Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Fossil Fuels: Japan, U.S. and World

Data taken from U.S. Statistical Abstract, 2015, p. 900 (Table 1399: “Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Consumption of Fossil Fuels by Country: 1980 to 2011”). Multipliers and percentages by WTV.

When the Wind Blows from the South (continued)

Description of the image by Yamahata Yosuke—After Yamahata Yosuke, gen. ed. Shinichi Otsuka (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, Nihon no Shashinka 6 [Japanese Photographers ser., vol. 6], 1998), plate 12.

Amount of “tsunami sediment” placed in landfills 2011–13 + its appearance in greenhouse inventory for 2015—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, pp. 7-10, 7-4 (re: solid waste disposal). This report (the latest one available to me when I was finishing Carbon Ideologies) reflected greenhouse emissions of 2013 and 2014. In 2013 the sediment’s methane emissions were 3,464 kt-CO2 eq., or 0.2% of total greenhouse releases (p. 7-5). But the cleanup was ongoing in 2015 and 2016. Tsunami sediment was only about 4.5% carbon—about a tenth of the percentage for food waste (ibid., p. 7-7). “Calculated by multiplying the fraction of organic matter in tsunami sediment by the fraction of carbon contents in the organic matter; assuming the fraction of organic matter in tsunami sediment finally disposed of is 10%, and 45.2% of fraction of carbon content for wood is substituted for tsunami sediment by expert judgment” (note to Table 7-4: “Carbon content of waste disposed of in managed landfill sites (dry base)”).

Footnote accompanying the preceding—Information from p. 7-13 (“the half-life for wood is used for the half-life of tsunami sediment as a substitute by expert judgment”), p. 7-9 (Table 7-6: “Emission factors by type of biodegradable waste and by treatment”).

“The bell of the Gion Temple tolls . . .”—The Tale of the Heike, trans. Hiroshi Kitagawa and Bruce T. Tsuchida (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1977 pbk repr. of 1975 ed.; author unknown, provenance 13th cent.), vol. 1, p. 5.

Footnote: The Japan Times’s assertion that “in terms of soil contamination” the accident was in fact only ⅛ as severe as Chernobyl’s—Thursday, March 15, 2012, p. 1 (Jun Hongo, “Fukushima soil fallout far short of Chernobyl”). The highest strontium-90 levels, 5700 becquerels/sq m, were detected 5 km from Fukushima, but 30 km from Chernobyl.

“According to the newspaper, the actual level” in Koriyama “was closer to 44 times Tokyo’s”—The Yomiuri Shimbun, April 9, 2011, p. 1. The Koriyama figure at 6:00 p.m. (taken the previous day, obviously), was 1.98 microsieverts per hour, which works out to 47.52 microsieverts per day, or 4.75 millirems per day—11 times higher than my reading. I cannot in good conscience match any of my recorded values against any corresponding newspaper value, because on none of my three Koriyama-related days did I spend a straight 24 hours in that city. The dosimeter’s minimum turnover of 0.1 is so high in relation to the thankfully moderate daily radiation doses I encountered that there remains a huge margin of error. My attempts to calculate some provisional constant for each place visited (except Tokyo: 1/10 mrem per day × 1/24 day per hour = 1/240 mrem per hour) were accordingly frustrated. For instance, my approximate figure for Sendai of 0.012 millirems per hour, based on time averaging from April 6 to 7, is surely depressed by time spent at the hot springs up in the mountains. The calculation of 0.1127 mrem per hour for Kesennuma and Oshima, based on 17 hours on April 8, cannot be verified on the morning of the 9th, since radiation there cannot really be differentiated from radiation between there and Ohira, and Ohira and Koriyama. Had the situation been productive of more precision, our radiation exposure would have been, let’s say, an order of magnitude higher. And, by the way, it is worth reiterating that the dosimeter measured only gamma rays. In the chapter “Harmful Rumors,” the high beta readings indicated by the Tepco employees at Tomioka are usefully ominous reminders of the kinds of radiation which I could not measure.

“‘Source ML’ . . . opined that as much as half of this [Koriyama’s measured gamma levels] might be pre-disaster ‘natural’ background radiation”—Source ML, who thought my 0.4 millirems per day “a very reasonable assumption.” He said that as much as 0.2 millirems might be normal background for that area. He did not say that he knew this to be a fact, and I would imagine, giving his nuclear reactor background, that he might tend toward optimistic characterizations in this regard.

Footnote: 5 rems in 3 years as 0.19 millirems per hour—[5 rem / 3 yr] × [1 yr / 365 d] × [1,000 mrem / 1 rem] = 4.57 mrem / d, or 0.19 mrem / hr.

Footnote: Alternate (full) names of Okuma and Futaba—Hirose, p. 23.

Footnote: “A different (one-time) statistic gave Iitate’s dose as 9.13 microsieverts per hour . . .”—See The Japan Times, Sunday, March 27, 2011, p. 2 (map: “Maximum radiation levels in eastern Japan: Data from 5 p.m. Friday to 5 p.m. Saturday”).

“Big Palette held the inhabitants of eight towns and villages”—Information from Mr. Sato Yoshimi (see in text below), who listed them.

“One man”: “There’s nothing to do there. We just have three meals which we’re supplied . . .”—This was Mr. Sato again.

Footnote: Sorrel as “the thing that absorbed the most radiation” at Chernobyl—Alexievich, p. 103 (testimony of Katya P.).

Situation of Tamura after 2011—According to The Japan Times, Wednesday, April 2, 2014, p. 2 (unattrib., “Living in no-go zone allowed for first time”), the evacuation order was lifted in April 2012 for “part of the city of Tamura,” daytime entry only. “The Miyakoji district is the first to have the advisory removed in the 11 municipalities near the Tokyo Electric Power Co. complex.” On Monday, March 24, 2014 (“Radiation-hit village may OK overnight stays,” p. 2), the same periodical reported that as of April 1, Tamura would be the first area in 20-km zone to have the evacuation order rescinded.

“The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency classified the reactor accident as a Level Seven”—In the interpreter’s original translation, which she later corrected, this entity was the Ministry of Energy.

“One agency said 370,000 terabecquerels had been released so far. Another said 630,000 terabecquerels.”—Chugoku Shimbun, April 11, 2011, front page.

Footnote: 220,000 killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki—Mahaffey, p. 42.

Hiroshima: “twice Tokyo’s background”—The footnote states that I found the same levels in Hiroshima (and Kyoto) once again in 2017. My new dosimeter measured in microsieverts instead of millirems. 1 millirem = 10 microsieverts. Instead of the 0.2 daily mrem I was getting in 2011, I accrued an equivalent 2 daily microSv.

Same footnote: Ed Lyman—Phone interview of January 25, 2017.

“American dosimetrist later remarked that this reading was probably within the pre-atomic norm for that area”—This person was Source ML.

Harmful Rumors

Preparing the much-abridged version of this chapter published in 2015, my editor at Harper’s Magazine advised me that readers tend to skip over numbers, and in her much-cut version of the “Harmful Rumors” chapter removed nearly all readings and measurements, as was certainly her right. My own view is that since we cannot sense radiation except through instruments, the numbers here are essential to an accurate comprehension of what I encountered at Fukushima. For those who prefer a merely atmospheric or empathetic comprehension, it may suffice to look over the table of Comparative Measured Radiation Levels (p. 244). After all, what bears most relevance is not the number itself, but the meaning of the number. While reading, you can easily make the comparison yourself. When you come across any measurement in microsieverts per hour, simply divide it by 0.06 to find how many times greater it is than the reference radiation level in my studio in Sacramento, California.

“two out of the nine evacuated towns had formally reopened . . .”—The Japan Times, Monday, March 11, 2013, p. 1 (Mizuho Aoki, “Slow pace of decontamination choking Fukushima: Fitful rebuilding effort keeps residents away”). The two towns were Hirono and Kawauchi.

Footnote: “There had been hydrogen explosions in the concrete building . . .”—Hirose, p. 34.

Footnote on anti-nuclear protesters—Personal communication from Ms. Kawai Takako, July 2017.

Tepco’s discovery of “high levels of strontium and other radioactive substances . . .”—The Japan Times, Monday, July 11, 2013, p. 2 (unattrib., “Toxic No. 1 water found in well by sea”).

Elaboration of preceding citation: “The concentration of these poisons was a hundred times greater than the legal maximum.” The concentration was 3,000 Bq per liter.—Loc. cit.

Footnote: A “reactor site may have anywhere from two to 20 miles of . . . pipes . . .”—Beyond Nuclear, p. 7.

Cesium-134 and cesium-137: “both about 90 times the levels found Friday.”—The Japan Times, Wednesday, July 10, 2013 (unattrib., “Radiation surge mystifies Tepco: “Cesium soars in water under No. 1 plant”). “Groundwater in an observation well” registered 9,000 Bq per liter of cesium-134 and 18,000 becquerels of cesium-137. The legal maximum was 60 Bq per liter for cesium-134 and 90 Bq for cesium-137. “The water collected Monday also contained 890,000 becquerels of substances that include strontium, which emits beta radiation, compared with 900,000 becquerels found in groundwater sampled from the well Friday.”

“the company had not been aware that water from the river would be used for agricultural purposes . . .”—The Japan Times, Saturday, July 13, 2013, p. 1 (“Local officials say agency kept them in dark: Radioactive water was dumped into farm-use river”).

“Tepco now admits radioactive water entering the sea at Fukushima No. 1 . . .”—The Japan Times, Tuesday, July 23, 2013, p. 1 (unattrib., “Tepco now admits radioactive water entering the sea at Fukushima No. 1 . . .”). “Fueling fears that marine life is being poisoned” is from the body of the article.

Footnote on tritium—Information from Britannica, 15th ed., Micropaedia, vol. X, p. 132 (“tritium”). “The necessary ingredient of a boosted fission bomb.”—Rhodes, p. 465. “manufactured at the Savannah River Plant . . .”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 17, p. 449 (“reactor types”). “Easily permeates most kinds of materials . . .”—Beyond Nuclear, pp. 9, 10. “The good news about tritium” comes from the same report, p. 13: “could contaminate the entire global hydrological cycle”—Odum, p. 466.

Tritium at twice the permitted levels and climbing—The Japan Times, Wednesday, June 26, 2013, p. 1 (Reiji Yoshida, “Tritium samples in sea near No. 1 soar”). On June 21, 2013, seawater sampled east of No. 1’s turbine building showed 1,100 becquerels per liter, double what it had been 10 days before and the highest so far. The “legally permitted level of tritium” was 60,000 becquerels per liter. At that time Tepco was “still analyzing the water for strontium-90.”

NRA’s recategorization of the leak as a Level Three, “a serious accident”—The Japan Times, Thursday, August 22, 2013, p. 1 (Reiji Yoshida, “Rating would be most serious action since 3/11: NRA looks to raise leak severity level”).

“about 100 times more than what Tepco has been allowing to enter the sea each year . . .”—The Japan Times, Friday, August 23, 2013, p. 1 (Kazuaki Nagata, “Rate of radioactive flow to Pacific alarming: Fukushima No. 1 leaks estimated at 30 trillion becquerels since May 2011”). The water escaping from under the turbine buildings contained 10 trillion becquerels of strontium [evidently strontium-90] and 20 trillion becquerels of cesium-137.

“the size of the release is roughly in line with the allowed range of 22 trillion becquerels a year”—The Japan Times, Sunday, August 4, 2014, p. 1 (unattrib., “Huge leak of tritium feared in Fukushima”).

“Of course, a reactor running out of control . . .”—Hirose, pp. 39–40.

Korea bans the importation of fish from eight Japanese prefectures—The Japan Times, Saturday, September 7, 2013, p. 1 (staff report, “Seoul bans fish imports from eight prefectures”). The prefectures were Fukushima, Aomori, Ibaraki, Gunma, Miyaga, Iwate, Tochiga and Chiba, no matter how low the radiation level of the catch might be.

February 14, 2014: More than doubling of cesium concentration in one sampling well since last July—The Japan Times, Friday, February 14, 2014, p. 1 (unattrib., “Groundwater cesium reaches record level”). Tepco has now found “a record 54,000 becquerels of radioactive cesium per liter in groundwater collected from an observation well east of the reactor number 2 turbine.” This “far exceeded the previous record of 22,000 . . . from a separate observation well in July 2013.”

The cesium concentration doubles again in a day—The Japan Times, Saturday, February 15, 2014, p. 2 (unattrib., “Highest cesium yet in groundwater”). The reading was now 130,000 becquerels per liter, as taken from an observation well east of No 1.

Strontium levels: Five and a half times worse than previously stated—The Japan Times, Saturday, February 8, 2014, p. 1 (unattrib., “No. 1 well radiation worse than thought: Tepco: Strontium spikes in groundwater”). A groundwater sample from No. 1 taken in July turned out to have “a record high 5 million becquerels per liter of radioactive strontium-90.” Tepco “initially said it had detected 900,000 becquerels per liter” in that sample on July 5, but in October it had confessed to certain “problems.”

“‘Three hundred tons’ of radioactive water now entered the ocean every day”—Information from The Japan Times, Thursday, August 8, 2013, p. 1 (unattrib., “Tepco needs public cash to dig deep wall: Radioactive flow to sea 300 tons daily; Suga says utility can’t halt it”).

The ocean’s cesium vagaries—The Japan Times, Thursday, May 23, 2013, p. 1 (Mizuho Aoki, “Cesium levels in water, plankton baffle scientists”).

Number of nuclear refugees: 150,000—The Japan Times, Sunday, September 1, 2013, p. 8 (Jeff Kingston, “Tepco’s follies, reactor restarts and awkward plutonium stockpiles”).

A Ph.D.: “The products of the fission reaction continue to generate thermal energy . . .”—Tabak, p. 36.

“The safety of [pressurized water reactors] . . .”—Ibid., p. 71.

“the prospect that several independent systems would simultaneously fail . . .”—Ibid., p. 100.

“a maximum of one millisievert per year for ordinary citizens is the general standard determined by the International Commission of Radiological Protection”—Information from Hirose, p. 59. Mr. Kida Shoichi, interviewed below, used the same figure. The decontamination contractor I interviewed also told me that his maximum annual dose was 1 milli.

“The workers will be allowed to undergo annual ultrasonic thyroid examinations free of charge”—The Japan Times, Saturday, July 20, 2013, p. 1 (unattrib., “Tepco admits exposure topped 100 millisieverts: 1973 at No. 1 face thyroid cancer risk”).

“The total cost of the disaster now approached 100 billion yen”—Information from The Japan Times, Sunday, September 1, 2013, p. 8 (Jeff Kingston, “Tepco’s follies, reactor restarts and awkward plutonium stockpiles”).

Footnote re “no immediate danger”: “The stock phrases used by both Edano and the TV. . .”—Hirose, p. 45.

“Tepco plans to isolate the area by injecting liquid glass . . .”—The Japan Times, Saturday, August 10, 2013, p. 1 (unattrib., “Tepco starts pumping groundwater: But longterm solution will take two years at least”).

The electric-powered wall of ice around No. 1 that “would only cost 30 or 40 billion yen”—Information from The Japan Times, Thursday, August 8, 2013, p. 1 (unattrib., “Tepco needs public cash to dig deep wall: Radioactive flow to sea 300 tons daily; Suga says utility can’t halt it”).

Edwin Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists—Interviewed by phone, March 13, 2013. Although he was a Ph.D., he preferred not to be called “doctor” so that the medical profession wouldn’t feel crabby.

“There is simply no doubt that the Great Tokai Earthquake will come in the near future . . .”—Hirose, p. 112. He goes on to claim (p. 159) that if another earthquake-tsunami causes another hydrogen explosion in the so-called “reprocessing center for spent fuel,” it will be “equivalent to the simultaneous explosion of some 100 nuclear reactors. It would be the end of the Japanese Archipelago, or rather, the end of the world.” Let’s hope that’s merely a harmful rumor.

Encyclopaedia entry: Iwaki is a “city in southeastern Fukushima Prefecture . . .”—Japan, An Illustrated Encyclopedia (Tokyo: Kodansha Ltd., 1993), p. 640.

“Ten years ago, so I was told, Iwaki had been by area the largest urban entity in Japan”—Information from my first Iwaki taxi driver.

“the tidal wave had killed more than 300 Iwakians”—The Japan Times, August 6, p. 3 (Chico Harlan, The Washington Post, “Openings of Iwaki beaches offer semblance of normalcy . . .”).

Iwaki “in larger type than the row of villages to the north”—Japan, An Illustrated Encyclopedia, pp. 1794–95 (map of Tohoku).

Voluntary evacuation notice for Shidamyo and Ogi—Public Relations Division & Project Team, Department of Administrative Management, Iwaki City, Iwaki Centre for Creation of the Future, One Year from the Great East Japan Earthquake: Documentary Record of Iwaki City Issued on the 11th March 2012 [49-pp. booklet] (Iwaki City: Iwaki City, 2012), p. 5. [Henceforth cited: Documentary Record of Iwaki City.]

“Openings of Iwaki beaches offer semblance of normalcy”—The Japan Times, August 6, p. 3 (Chico Harlan, The Washington Post, “Openings of Iwaki beaches offer semblance of normalcy . . .”). I never could find anyone who was willing to wade in the ocean with me. Well, of course it was February. By the way, all my taxi drivers believed that only one beach was open.

Maximum radiation levels in Iwaki: 23.72 microSv/hr—Documentary Record of Iwaki City, p. 20.

Maximum radiation levels in Iwaki: “about 380 times Tokyo’s average background exposure”—This assumes 1.5 microsieverts per 24 hours in Tokyo. In fact, my dosimeter reported 2 microsieverts per day only about two-fifths of the time, but to keep the calculation simple, and honor the undoubtedly significant standard of error, I simply split the difference between 1 and 2 microsieverts as if each one of these numbers appeared with equal frequency. Had Iwaki’s radiation level remained at this level, it would have been 208 times greater than the accepted safe dose of 1 millisievert per year (23.72 × 24 × 365 = 207.7872 millisieverts). American “first responders” are recommended to make 250 millisieverts their maximum dose for the saving of human lives (Levy, loc. cit.), although of course receiving 250 millisieverts in a single episode is far worse than getting 208 millisieverts in the course of a year.

“Radiation levels rapidly dropped to a mild 0.2 microsieverts per hour”—Information from Documentary Record of Iwaki City, pp. 5, 20.

“Even after one week from the earthquake, harmful rumours . . .”—Ibid., p. 11.

“harmful rumours due to the accidents at nuclear power stations . . .”—Ibid., p. 27.

The man in the hallway of the Fishermen’s Union, re: a nuclear cruise: “You cannot. The Coast Guard is very strict here. It’s prohibited”—After awhile, he added: “Try the Iwaki Fishermen’s Union, since they’re more distant from the Coast Guard.”—That place was not easy to find, but eventually a taxi brought me there, north through Iwaki to Yotsukura, about which The Japan Times [Saturday, August 31, 2013, p. 3 (Koji Ueda)] featured an article headlined “Fukushima fishermen can’t catch a break: One more blow comes in form of toxic water reaching sea.” We were 45 kilometers south of No. 1. The Iwaki Fishermen’s Union’s ruined shell, a casualty of the tsunami, presided over a few small fishing boats, with here and there a laborer or fisherman on the ugly beach. Had this been Mexico or even the United States, one of these men would have been willing to dicker with me. They said to ask the fellow in the yellow boots where the Fishermen’s Union was. He explained that its temporary office was near Onahama, so we drove back there, and met the extremely executive Ms. Aoki, who wished to know my exact purpose, which I revealed. She was not surprised. Television crews went near No. 1 all the time. It would cost a minimum of 100,000 yen for a five-ton boat, and possibly more, since the fuel alone would be 40,000. It didn’t matter how long or how short my cruise might be. As she smilingly explained, “Taking a photograph on land is free, but as soon as you go on the water it will cost you.” Moreover, I would need to get permission from the Coast Guard, who doubtless would require various other expenditures, abasements and authentications. So I gave that up.

“By early 2016 there would be nine million” black bags—Masae Yuasa, “Social situation of the populations affected by Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Accident” (unnumbered). Evidently posted in late February or early March 2016. www.chernobyl/congress.org/fileadmin/user_upload/T30F5/F8_yuasa_final.pdf, downloaded for WTV by Teresa McFarland on March 15, 2016. Sec. “Life with radiation.” [This source henceforth cited: “Masae Yuasa.”]

“12 kilometers south of No. 1”—Information from Hirose, p. 125.

Tomioka’s pre-accident population: 16,000—Hirose, p. 125, gives the number 16,000, while Mr. Endo Kazuhiro, the head of the Tomioka residents’ association at Takaku, told me it had been “slightly under 10,000.” Mr. Endo may have believed in too small a figure, because in the “footnote on Tomioka’s barricades and zones,” cited almost immediately below, I quote The Japan Times as mentioning a downtown population of 10,000 and a southern district population of 1,500. Perhaps Mr. Endo did not consider the latter to be part of his hometown.

Footnote on Mr. Matsumura Naoto and the paralyzed person’s caregiver—The Japan Times, Friday, April 6, 2012, p. 3. At that time his cumulative dosage was supposedly a mere 2.5 millis.

Footnote on Tomioka’s barricades and zones—The Japan Times, Tuesday, March 26, 2013, p. 2 (unattrib., “Evacuation zone revised in Fukushima’s Tomioka”). I enjoyed the tone of the article; it was almost as if something wonderful had happened: “The town of Tomioka shed its exclusion zone designation Monday, allowing it to be realigned with three evacuation sectors delineated by estimated annual radiation dosage.” Toward the end the reporter wrote: “The central government . . . expects to lift the evacuation advisory for the most heavily tainted zone in Tomioka in 2017, and for the other two zones in 2016. It believes the town will not be fully habitable until at least 2017.” Writing in 2015, I find that last projection stunningly optimistic.

Mr. Takamitsu Endo’s wish to be with his parents—They lived “south of Sukogawa,” which lies “an hour or two northwest by car.”

Fukushima Prefecture Dental Association’s search “for cesium or other isotopes” in children’s extracted teeth—The Japan Times, Monday, January 20, 2014 (unattrib., “Fukushima kids’ teeth to be checked for strontium-90”).

Strontium “appeared to offer the highest promise” to poison Germans—Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atom Bomb (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 25th anniversary ed., 2012; orig. pub. 1986), p. 511.

“RELATIVE STRONTIUM-90 CONCENTRATIONS IN PERCH LAKE (CANADA), 1963”—Data from Odum, p. 460 (selected from Fig. 17-5, “SR-90 IN PERCH LAKE FOOD WEB,” after Ophel, 1963).

Footnote: “Perch Lake is situated near the southern edge . . .”—Robertson and Barry, 1985, p. 238.

The Ministry of Health’s good news about cesium in vegetables—The Japan Times, Tuesday, September 25, 2012, p. 3 (Mizuho Aoki, “Cesium contamination in food appears to be on wane”). Still unsafe were mushrooms, “mountain vegetables,” wild game, freshwater fish and bottom fish.

“Doses of up to 15 millisieverts of cesium-134 . . .”—The Japan Times, Sunday, June 2, 2013, p. 1 (unattrib., “U.N. experts see no increased risk of cancer for residents near No. 1 plant”).

The Iwaki doctors who declined to be interviewed—I also met with a prominent local journalist in hopes that he could introduce me to a talkative physician. I remember his suit and tie, not to mention his glazed weary look. He was rather unimpressed with the interpreter and me. “Since you are strangers,” he said coolly, “of course I cannot recommend you.” He kept looking at his watch.

“back to Hisanohama by the other ruined Fishermen’s Union”—In fact this was part of the same trip to the Fishermen’s Union, whose failure I have relegated to a note above.

“Fukushima’s 150,000 nuclear refugees”—The Japan Times, Sunday, September 1, 2013, p. 8 (Jeff Kingston, “Tepco’s follies, reactor restarts and awkward plutonium stockpiles”): “Almost 2 1/2 years after the three reactor meltdowns at Fukushima, Tepco is still groping in the dark while 150,000 people remain displaced from their homes . . .”

“Michiko”: “We left after midnight of the tsunami day, March eleventh”—She actually said the thirteenth, which I have silently corrected.

“Leaving her alone behind her wall of ice, we drove back to Iwaki”—Here in fact this second driver took me to Ms. Aoki at the temporary offices of the Fishermen’s Union, an almost fruitless interview which was therefore mentioned only in passing, in an earlier note on the subject of that organization. The interviews with Ms. Kuwahara and Mr. Kida, which appear here immediately below, actually took place two days later, as did the interview with the farmer, Mr. X—all of these with the aid of the third driver, who has not yet been introduced here, and who first drove me to Kawauchi and Tomioka. I have reported these interviews out of order, for narrative reasons.

Evacuees in Takaku: “Some of them worked for Tepco”—This information is courtesy of Mr. Endo Kazuhiro, whose interview appears below.

Interview with Ms. Kuwahara Akiyo—With graceful self-deprecation she said: “Because the leader is absent I’ll give you my card if you would accept it.”

“The year previous to the accident, Futaba’s air dose had averaged 0.043 micros an hour”—Citizens’ Study Group on Internal Exposure of Radiation website, accessed and translated for WTV by Ms. Kawai Takako, January 2017, from www.radiationexposuresociety.com/archives/3757, 4th table [labeled “D” in Kawai-san’s annotated printout, and translated “Monthly air dose rate from April 2010 to March 2011 (till the previous day of the Great East Japan Earth Quake and Tsunami).” Rows 16–19 refer to Futaba. The air doses vary from 39 to 45 Gy/hr, converted by WTV to microSv by, as Kawai-san reminds us, “removing three zeroes.” [This source henceforth cited: “Citizens’ Study Group on Internal Exposure of Radiation website, January 2017.” The marked up copy, with translations, will be deposited in my archive at the Ohio State University.]

The study on “losses from soil to river sediments” from cesium fallout—Referenced in William L. Graf, Plutonium and the Rio Grande: Environmental Change and Contamination in the Nuclear Age (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 114.

Columbia River Basin plutonium eroded in 20 years (0.263%)—Ibid., p. 113.

Footnote: Decontaminating No. 1 “will take nearly a half-century”—The Japan Times, Friday, June 14, 2013, p. 3 (Yuri Kageyama, “Fukushima No. 1 faces labor crunch as better jobs attract”).

Mr. Kida’s multicolored information sheets: graphic display of radiation, November 2011–December 2012—Iwaki City Nuclear Disaster Countermeasures Section, 12-pp. typescript with color illustrations: “Decontamination work in Iwaki City, Nov. 19, 2013,” pp. 6–7. Based on the given scale, this area was about 26 km from end to end (NNW by SSE).

“The city’s report”: Removal of schoolyard topsoil if it measured more than 0.3 microsieverts per hour—Documentary Record of Iwaki City, p. 21.

Mr. Kida: “Ten kinds of fish are prohibited”—However, 40 fish were listed on a sheet he gave me dated “List of restrictions on shipment of sea produce (December 17, 2013)” [http://www.pref.fukushimajp/suisan/fish-index-htm, accessed February 2014]. The first few of these included greenling, cynoglossus, sand eel, stone flounder and surf fish. Perhaps these were prohibited for export instead of for domestic consumption.

“some catches measured 200 or 300” Bq/kilo—For vegetables the maximum permissible level was 100 Bq per kilo, and for water 10. For infants it was 50 Bq for fish and vegetables, and again 10 for water.

Mr. Kida’s “very long printout” of fish testing results from March 2011 until February 2014—“Emergency Monitoring of Sea Produce in Fukushima: Results from Mar. 30, 2011 to February 20, 2014. No. of samples: Sea products, 16,112. River/lake products, 1408. Inland-farmed produce 498.” The units are in becquerels per kilogram, and the two contaminants measured are iodine-131 and “cesium-134 & -137 total.”

Radioactive iodine dose below “the critical 50-millisievert level . . .”—The Japan Times, Sunday, June 2, 2013, p. 1 (unattrib., “U.N. experts see no increased risk of cancer for residents near No. 1 plant”). “The results differ markedly from those in a report published by the World Health Organization in February that warned of a higher cancer risk for residents and nuclear plant workers around . . . No. 1 than . . . for Japan’s entire population.”

Mr. Yamasaki’s autobiography—“Originally I was anti–nuclear weapons. I was born in Toyoma Prefecture in 1959 and there were many nuclear tests, on the Japan Sea side: U.S., USSR and China. That radiation affected us children. We were told not to go out every time the test occurred. Fear of the radiation I didn’t really feel at that time, but I came to know about Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Bikini Atoll, and I became angry. So I was anti–nuclear war in 1980s. The connection with nuclear power generation is after Chernobyl.”

Footnote: Mr. Kawama Tatsuhiko—Interviewed in Iwaki, February 2014.

“They also said that the poor souls who were trying to ice away No. 1 were getting 40 millis a year”—About 110 microsieverts a day. Of course since my informants were not currently themselves plant workers (although one of them, as you will see, had worked at No. 1 after the accident), I will label this figure “plausible and informed hearsay.”

“In the yard, the bag of waste that the nearest worker was filling emitted 0.3 microsieverts per hour. Another bag was 0.26. The target for decontamination was 0.22”—Respectively 7.20, 6.24 and 5.28 microsieverts per day. “The tolerance is plus or minus 0.01,” Mr. Kanari remarked. Re: the 0.22 microsievert hourly target, perhaps when Mr. Kida stated the goal as 0.23 microSv/hr, he meant to convey that this was the minimum radiation level that would require decontamination.

“I had Mr. Kanari test a potted houseplant: 0.14 micros; the construction boss’s boot, 0.11; a dirt berm behind the house, 0.33; a rain channel in the sloping concrete driveway, a surprisingly low 0.16; then the drainpipe: 0.49”—That is, 3.36, 2.64, 7.92, 3.84 and 11.76 microsieverts per day.

“Here were two black bags side by side, at 0.35 and 0.38 microsieverts; and there was the next door neighbor’s drainpipe at 0.17”—Respectively, 8.40, 9.12 and 4.08 microsieverts per day.

The field of vegetables: 0.13 away from the dirt, 0.18 close to the dirt—3.12 and 4.32 microsieverts per day.

Ohisa readings: 0.17 about 2 meters from DO NOT ENTER sign; 0.19 almost on bag of contaminated waste—4.08 and 4.56 microsieverts per day.

The bamboo grove measured by Mr. Kanari: “They replied that no one should stay here more than half a month”—This was based on the annual maximum dose of 1 milli. I assume that for their recommendation to be correct, the grove would have had to be emitting 1 millisievert every two weeks, which works out to 2.76 microsieverts per hour, or almost seven times the actual radiation level.

Footnote: “decontaminating a forest (by removing fallen leaves)”—Ministry of the Environment, Japan, pamphlet: “Japan’s Decontamination Efforts and its Effects” (undated, collected in Fukushima City in October 2014), p. 16.

“Radiation sickness . . . may begin to appear after a dose of 0.7 sieverts . . .”—Levy, pp. 93–96. The range for initial onset of symptoms is 0.7 to 1.0 sieverts.

“which you would get from a thousand chest X-rays”—A chest X-ray is 0.7 millisievert. Tabak, p. 93.

International Commission on Radiological Protection: “The resulting whole-body activity at the end of the period is significantly different . . .”—International Commission on Radiological Protection, Annals of the ICRP 39, no. 3 (2009), Publication 111: “Application of the Commission’s Recommendations to the Protection of People Living in Long-term Contaminated Areas after a Nuclear Accident or a Radiation Emergency,” p. 20. The example is of an episodic intake of 1,000 Bq of Cs-137 versus “a daily intake of respectively 1 and 10 Bq of Cs-137 over 1000 days.” Since the conversion to millisieverts, with which you are hopefully now familiar, from becquerels, is so complex an affair, I have substituted my own example. Glasstone and Dolan, pp. 577–78, offer an even more extreme one: A dose of more than 600 rems [= 6 sieverts] could cause death “within a few weeks” but if that same dose is spread over 20 years there might be “no observable effect.” That works out to 300 millisieverts per year, or 300 times the annual recommended maximum dose for ordinary citizens.

“All responsible bodies involved in considering radiation hazards have agreed to use the linear theory . . . ”—John W. Gofman and Arthur R. Tamplin, Poisoned Power: The Case Against Nuclear Power Plants (Emmaus, Pennsylvania: Rodale Press Inc., 1971), p. 297.

“A dose of 2x mSv [= millisieverts] of radiation . . .”—Tabak, pp. 98, 93.

“and by ‘response’ he means nothing pleasant”—Response is “usually interpreted as cancer rate” (Tabak, p. 184).

“Naraha, former population 7,500 . . .”—Hirose, p. 125.

Tomioka measurements by Mr. Kanari—3.5 microsieverts per hour = 84 micros/day; 7.5 micros/hr = 180 micros/day; 3.72 micros/hr = 89.28 micros/day.

“some 480 of the 1,061 houses . . . ”—The Japan Times, Friday, June 28, 2013, p. 3 (unattrib., “Fallout decontamination effort falling short”).

“Since the [environment] ministry hasn’t explicitly promised . . . ”—Ibid.

Prime Minister Abe on Kawauchi: “a front-runner in rebuilding” + projection by the headmaster of Kawauchi’s elementary school—The Japan Times, Monday, March 11, 2013, p. 1 (Mizuho Aoki, “Slow pace of decontamination choking Fukushima: Fitful rebuilding effort keeps residents away”). According to the same source, the original population of “nearly 3,000” is now 420; 65% was over 65 years old; before this age group had made up 34%.

“the place now pondered permitting its residents to sleep there overnight”—Information from The Japan Times, Monday, March 24, 2014, p. 2 (“Radiation-hit village may OK overnight stays”). The new policy would go into effect for a three-month trial period “starting April 26.” In due course, the same periodical reported (Monday, April 28, 2014, p. 2 [unattrib.]: “Kawauchi residents get overnight stays: Evacuation order may be lifted for second tainted Fukushima area.”) But due to “radiation fears,” only 40 residents from 18 households applied to return. (Kawauchi had 134 households which contained in total 276 residents.) Anyhow, the newspaper must have been telling only part of the story, for as late as Tuesday, August 19, 2014, p. 1 (unattrib., “Kawauchi evacuation order may be lifted on Oct. 1”), it explained that the government was “considering lifting its evacuation advisory for the eastern part of Kawauchi,” which was more heavily contaminated.

Kawauchi: “a steady resident would take in only half a milli per year”—“Official reading for Kawauchi, 10:00 a.m., 24 February 2014.” Re: half a milli, an anti-nuclear flier I picked up at an Iwaki protest (described in the next section of this essay) claims: “According to the decision by the Japanese Government the areas with radiation level [sic] of 20 mSv/y or more are designated as ‘Evacuation Zones’ . . . In Belarus and Ukraine, however, 0.5 mSv/y is the criterion for Evacuation Zone . . .” (International Labor Solidarity Committee of Doro-Chiba (National Railway Motive Power Union of Chiba), Doro-Chibe Quake Report, December 12, 2103, issue 60, p. 3).—According to The Japan Times, Sunday, April 20, 2014, p. 2 (unattrib., “Late report on radiation irks Tamura”), in one zone of Kawauchi, “an individual engaged in farming” could get 3 to 3.5 millis per year.

Kawauchi: Testimony of Mr. M. Y.—I will leave his identity in a file entitled “Confidential Sources,” to be placed among my papers (restricted access) at the Ohio State University.

Footnote: Remarks of Mr. Togawa at Tepco—Interview of Monday, October 20, 2014.

Mr. Endo’s estimate of the dose he got on his previous trip to Tomioka: four microsieverts, time unit unknown—I have not seen the dosimeter that Tomioka residents are issued, but I presume they measure not, like my pancake frisker, in real-time micros per hour, but, like mine, in accrued dose—which is what a dosimeter should do. In my 3⅔ hours in Okuma later that year (and Okuma was more radioactive than Tomioka), I accrued 9.1 micros, since much of that time was spent in a vehicle. Since Mr. Endo was in Tomioka for about five hours, and again most likely in his car or in his house, this total dose seems low but not impossible, given what my dosimeter said on my trip to his house—but likewise all too plausible for an hourly dose, which if it were steady would work out to 35.04 millisieverts a year—which looks not out of place if you inspect the Readings and Recommended Doses table.

Footnote on graffiti and broken car windows—The Japan Times, Monday, September 1, 2014, p. 3 (cont’d from p. 1, Mari Saito and Antoni Slodkowski, “Iwaki pressured by local resentment as outsiders pile in”).

“Which plutonium isotope had escaped from No. 3 in 2011? . . .”—See Hirose, pp. 49–51.

Footnote: Highest level of Pu-238—The Japan Times, Thursday, August 23, 2012, p. 1 (unattrib., “Plutonium traces detected at 10 locations in Fukushima”). According to this source, no plutonium was detected any farther than 45 km from No. 1.

Tomioka’s “visible damage rapidly lessening now that we were out of the tsunami’s reach,” having proceeded westward—At Takaku Mr. Endo had explained: “One kilometer from the ocean, that area was damaged by the tsunami. Closer to the beach, each house is gone. Other houses were damaged by the earthquake.”

Footnote: “Carbon pools in bamboo in forest land . . .”—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. 6-9.

“So what if my 10 half-lives calculation was faulty?”—Before I departed on my Tomioka idylls, the anti-nuclear activist Mr. Yamasaki projected for my benefit a very detailed, quantitative and convincingly scientific-looking graph of fallout concentrations in Tokyo over the last half-century. The maximum concentration of American, Soviet and Chinese nuclear testing fallout was detected in 1963, at about 600 becquerels per square meter. By 2014, contamination due to this source measured only 0.01 to 0.001 millibecquerel per square meter. Here we see an astoundingly rapid playing out of decrease to less than a thousandth of original levels: only 50 years to fall by a factor of 600,000! It certainly appears to discredit my theory of 10 half-lives. Perhaps the particles got washed into the sewers; who am I to say? At any rate, in 1986, Chernobyl fallout reached a level comparable to that of 1963, then quickly fell again. But after the Fukushima accident occurred, fallout in Tokyo grew between 100 and 1,000 times higher than 1963. (By the way, it should be noted that the measuring station was in Koenji, Tokyo, until 1980, then moved to Sukuba, which is outside Tokyo. Mr. Yamasaki said that this would affect the results only insignificantly.) This sounds frightening, and perhaps it should be. All I knew, with my lonely ignorance and my $500 dosimeter (whose make, at least, is reliable), is that the Tokyo radiation levels that the interpreter had measured over three years were only about one-third of those in Ed Lyman’s apartment. No doubt the hundred- or thousand-fold increase in post-Fukushima radioactivity was still in absolute terms a low value—but this does not explain the rapid reductions after 1963 and after Chernobyl. I presume that a great deal of cesium took up residence in clay soils (see here, 46here8), some entered plants and some settled in lakes and streams.

U.S. Army: After the first 48 hours “the extent of radioactivity will be reduced a hundredfold, enabling you to leave the shelter . . . ”—Headquarters, Department of the Army, FM-21-76, Department of the Army Field Manual: Survival Evasion and Escape (Washington, D.C.: n.p., 1969; repr. by Dorset Press, n.d.), p. 65 (sec. 2-23: “Radioactive Areas”).

Remarks of Ed Lyman: “how uniform are the hot spots?” + proposal of compensation to residents who refused to accept 1/1,000 level of post-accident radioactivity + “Assuming that it’s beta decay from cesium-137 . . .”—Phone interview, March 24, 2014. In a followup phone interview of January 31, 2015, he said: “Since cesium-134 has such a shorter half-life, the radiation has reduced by half. As for cesium-137, there’s natural decay, erosion and deposition of clean soil. But then there’s the issue of the kind of reservoirs on the hillsides and forests that’ll keep getting washed down. For a long time, you’re going to get very variable hot spots. They do have limited success in decontaminating structures. If people move back, they’ll have to be vigilant.” He then reiterated: “The consensus is that there’s no safe level of radiation. The accepted level is the international standard: one milli per year. We think if there’s an accident, the standard should be the same.”

Dr. Lyman’s conversion of Cs-137 cpms to millirems to microsieverts: Divide by 100—As noted in a footnote in the text, “when I returned to Fukushima with that pancake frisker, which measured in both cpms and microsieverts per hour, my data did not verify this conversion.” For instance, in the abandoned commercial district of Tomioka my device read 553 cpms and 0.031 micros per minute, which is to say 1.86 micros per hour, not 5 micros per hour. Generally speaking, on 1-minute timed counts with this “pancake frisker,” which was calibrated for Cs-137, I found that cpms divided by 18,000 yielded the approximate value in microsieverts per minute. Hence to get micros per hour I divided cpms by 300. [See “Definitions, Units and Conversions.”] In the Tomioka example, this division (553 / 300) gives an acceptable close 1.84 micros an hour.

“Tomioka might be more unhealthy than I had supposed.”—Based on the dosimeter’s gamma readings, never mind how superficial they were, I had calculated a mean annual dose of 21.90 millisieverts, or about 60 times Iwaki’s levels—not far off from the factor of 72 that I had proposed to Mr. Kida. In a year the sidewalk would give off another 438 millisieverts of beta radiation. Since I lacked any measurement of beta levels in Iwaki, no comparison between the beta levels of the two cities could be made, but given the all too evident fact that this particular form of harmfulness remained invisible to the little toy that the interpreter and I were carrying, Tomioka might be considerably more dangerous than I had supposed.

A photo of a beta burn on the neck one month after exposure—Samuel Glasstone and Philip J. Dolan, comp. and ed., The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, 3rd ed. (Washington D.C.: United States Department of Defense and the Energy Research and Development Administration, 1977), p. 595.

“Criticality accidents are extremely unlikely . . . ”—Tabak, p. 99.

“The likelihood of an accident leading to a breach . . .”—John G. Collier and Geoffrey F. Hewitt, Introduction to Nuclear Power (Washington, D.C.: Hemisphere Publishing Corp. / Harper & Row, 1987), p. 164.

“in six months I got 6.62 millisieverts, working 20 days a month”—Assuming an 8-hour workday, with significant transit time to and from J Village through contaminated areas in possibly contaminated vehicles, let us postulate 9 hours per day of significant radiation exposure. Thus: 9 × 20 × 6 = 1,080 hours of exposure every six months. 6,620 micros in 1,080 hours is a very plausible 6.13 micros an hour. In this man’s year and a half of work he would have accrued at this rate 19.86 millis. Were he to be subjected to this exposure for a solid year, he would have won the prize: 53.70 millis.

Footnote: My college physics textbook’s remarks on the radiation susceptibility of pine trees—Tilley and Thumm, p. 202. According to Alexievich (pp. 135–36), pines and evergreens near Chernobyl “turned red, then orange.”

Same footnote: Red pines at Hiroshima—The Committee for the Compilation of Materials on Damage Caused by the Atomic Bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Physical, Medical, and Social Effects of the Atomic Bombings, trans. Eisei Ishakawa and David L. Swain (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1981), p. 84. [Henceforth cited: “CCMDCABHN, 1981.”] This source says that cedars also turned reddish due to radiation damage.

Same footnote: “apparent increases in growth mutations of fir trees”—The Japan Times, Saturday, March 5, 2016, p. 2 (unattrib., “DNA damage found in Fukushima forests: Greenpeace says mutations are just beginning to be seen five years on”).

Legal limit: 20 millis a year—The Japan Times, Thursday, March 27, 2014, p. 1 (Yuri Kageyama, “Life at Fukushima No. 1 gets manga treatment”).

“He claimed to have measured 1.6 to 3.8 microsieverts in any one of those black bags—‘6 microsieverts if you stand beside it’”—Assuming these to be hourly figures, their yearly equivalents would be respectively 14.02, 33.29 and 52.56 millisieverts.

Footnote: Subcontractor buried alive at No. 1—The Japan Times, March 30, 2014, p. 2 (“Fukushima No. 1 plant worker dies after getting buried alive”).

Resumption of sale of Iwaki seafood at Tsukiji—The Japan Times, Saturday, May 18, 2014, p. 2 (unattrib., “Seafood from Iwaki makes return to Tsukiji”).

Information in water intake sample—The Japan Times, Sunday, May 18, 2014, p. 2 (unattrib., “Fukushima radiation at all-time high”). “At one sampling point in the port, between the water intakes for reactors 2 and 3, 1,900 Bq per liter of tritium was detected Monday, up from a previous high of 1,400 Bq measured on April 14.” In the case of the Sr-90 in the intakes for Reactors No. 1 and 2, the previous high value was 540 Bq/L. Officials at Tepco said the cause was “unknown.”

Footnote:—The Japan Times, Saturday, October 1, 2016 (Kazuaki Nagata, “Tepco admits ice wall efficacy still not known: Six months on, utility unable to rate its efforts in Fukushima”). The official whom I quoted was Mr. Masuda Naohiro, “who heads Tepco’s decommissioning project.”

The Red Zones

Footnote: “But restarting reactors remains crucial . . .”—The Japan Times, Sunday, September 1, 2013, p. 8 (Jeff Kingston, “Tepco’s follies, reactor restarts and awkward plutonium stockpiles”).

Footnote: “Those little bastards blame our generation . . . ”—O’Hara, p. 303 (“You Can Always Tell Newark,” first pub. 1961).

My San Francisco reading as 2.5 × Shinjuku’s one day before the accident—The Japan Times, Wednesday, March 12, 2014, p. 2 (Jacob Adelman, “Tokyo radiation less than the level in Paris”). The reading was 0.0339 microSv/hr, on March 6, 2014, “about the same as the day before” the nuclear accident.

The pancake frisker: “He looked up the calibration test for my serial number”—My frisker “measured 3,000 counts in a 10-microsievert field” when “The correct figure was 3,200 counts.” Other calibration data for my specimen:

Reference:

Measured

80 micros

77.11

20

20.14

8

7.96

2

2.04

There is not enough data here for me to guess whether my frisker significantly underreported radiation in the red zones.

“the red zones more than overshadowed every other place I went in those days”—That is, between 2014 and 2017.

Details on the 1944 nuclear pile—Rhodes, pp. 603–4, 557.

“There were about 10 or so . . .”—The Japan Times, Wednesday, September 24, 2014, p. 3 (Hideki Takahashi and Shinya Kokubun, “Lives on the Line,” Part 4 of 6: “Helplessness as reactor 2 lost cooling: On verge of meltdown, operators feared evacuation of Tokyo possible”).

Amount of plutonium in Nagasaki bomb (9 kg.), number of reactors (9) and duration of plutonium production (1944–87)—The Japan Times, Tuesday, August 20, 2013, p. 2 (Shigeru Sato and Yuji Okada, “Hanford offers Tepco lesson in cleaning up Fukushima”).

“It is a thing of beauty to behold . . .” + “We removed our glasses . . .”—Samuel Hynes et al., ed. and comp., Reporting World War II, Part Two: American Journalism 1944–1946 (New York: Library of America, 1995), pp. 763, 770 (William L. Laurence, “‘A Giant Pillar of Purple Fire’: Nagasaki, August 9, 1945: Atomic Bombing of Nagasaki Told by Flight Member”).

“environmental conditions more favorable than most power-plant . . . sites . . .”—Charles H. Fox, “Radioactive Wastes,” “Understanding the Atom” ser. (Oak Ridge, Tenn.: United States Atomic Energy Commission, Division of Technical Information, 1969 rev. of 1966 ed.), pp. 20–21.

Plutonium as less poisonous than arsenic, less hazardous than Cs-137 and Sr-90—Graf, p. 28.

Footnote: “Its most stable compound is plutonium dioxide.”—Information from Graf, p. 27.

Same footnote: plutonium dioxide as “an attractive reactor fuel”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 19 (“Pigments” to “Powders, Handling”), p. 430 (“plutonium and plutonium compounds”).

“Hanford became the primary source for plutonium . . .”—Graf, p. 21.

Details on the Hanford N Reactor and its purpose, + information on Chernobyl reactor in accompanying footnote—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 17, pp. 437–38 (“reactor types”). Graphite reactors can actually use unenriched uranium (p. 435).

“When you’re doing oil field, it’s not the fracking . . .”—See the John Mahoney interview beginning on II:377.

“the most serious long-term threat to the Columbia River . . .”—Rich Landers, Paddle Routes of the Inland Northwest (Seattle: The Mountaineers, 1998), p. 181.

“It’s among the most toxic nuclear waste sites . . .”—The Japan Times, Sato and Okada article.

“found to be leaking 1000 gallons . . .”—Landers, loc. cit.

“some 1,500 sq. km. of scrubland”—The Japan Times, Sato and Okada article.

Extent of Hanford: 1,518 square kilometers + 212 million liters of radioactive waste “cached in aging underground tanks”—The Japan Times, Monday, June 3, 2013, p. 1 (Shannon Dininny, AP, “Leaks complicate cleanup of U.S. nuclear facility”). This source said that cleanup had cost American taxpayers $36 billion so far and would cost $115 billion more. When I was alive, there were always cost overruns in such projects.

“concrete cocooning”—The Japan Times, Sato and Okada article.

“sediments always contain the largest quantities of heavy metals . . . ”—Graf, p. 9. The book goes on to say that at Oak Ridge and Los Alamos, “the soil and surface sediments contain more than 99 percent of the plutonium.”

“inhalation of plutonium-spiced sediments . . . . probably the most important from the standpoint of human contamination”—Ibid., p. 28.

“My detector was rated . . . at an efficiency of 11% for plutonium-239”—Or, to be more precise, at a 4 pi surface plane efficiency of 11% for plutonium-239.

Footnote on Pu-238 and her sisters—World Nuclear Association, 2016.

Description of Hanford Reach—After a visit in August 2015.

Ringold fish hatchery “had received the highest fallout dose from Hanford”—Information from Gephart, p. 4.19. “The 27-year cumulative dose to an adult that [sic] received the highest possible dose . . . between 1945 and 1972 ranged from 6 to 1000 millirems” (loc. cit.).

Most of Hanford’s fallout from I-131—Ibid., p. 4.18.

“the Department of Energy’s side of the river . . .”—U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, undated download from www.doi.gov (printed for WTV by Tom Colligan, April 2015): “Hanford Reach National Monument / Washington,” unnumbered p. 1.

“the leg from Priest Rapids Dam to Ringold Springs . . .”—Landers, p. 177.

Footnote: “Although 90% of the uranium available for mining . . .”—Information from Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 24 (“Thioglycolic Acid” to “Vinyl Polymers”), p. 641 (“uranium and uranium compounds”).

The high readings from granite in the table “Lowest and Highest Measured One-Minute Average Radioactivities in Selected Safe Cities”—To underscore the matter here is my partial log of readings for the four days whose frisks included the Anichkov Most; such instances I have boldfaced. As you see, in this relatively “hot” city the measurements of that granite bridge were consistently high—higher than most other levels—and Petersburg’s highest timed average was a granite windowsill:

Date

Time

Location

cpms

microSv/hr

6.15

21.05

W on granite of Anichkov Most [Bridge]

180

0.60

21.07

W on Nevskii Prospekt, going 2 blocks east of previous (air dose)

109

0.36

21.08–26

MAX, continuing walk in same direction

178

0.586

6.19

11.26

air dose, anteroom of Dostoyevsky museum (site of his last flat)

52

0.18

13.51

gravel in courtyard of Fontanka house where Akhmatova lived

148

0.48

13.53?

air dose in same

79

0.24

13.57?

W Liteny, heading south toward Nevskii

83

0.30

13.59?

continuing same

99

0.30

14.01?

continuing same

94

0.24

14.03–13?

MAX on Nevskii and across Anichkov Most (on bridge, reading went straight from 150 to 480)

480

1.579

14.16?

air dose in fancy cafe Kutsov Eliseevi on the Nevskii

41

0.12

14.23

granite windowsill outside previous

283

0.96

14.25?

painted drainpipe on same windowsill

164

0.54

14.40?

table in Czech restaurant Karlovy Pivo on Nevskii

60

0.18

15.30

W on Nevskii going east; headwind from Anichkov Most

137

0.48

15.31–34

MAX, continuing on same walk

160

0.527

15.40?

sidewalk close to Anichkov Most

113

0.36

15.43?

continuing away from previous

76

0.24

As you see, my MAX readings were indicative but not exactly the last word. And the MAX reading of 1.184 micros an hour there in the river breeze at Hanford did not even match the 1.579 micros per hour of a Russian tourist bridge. The day after my return from Hanford I laid down the frisker on a brick sidewalk on Seventh and Yamhill in Portland, and in the first few seconds of a six-minute MAX reading the display chittered up to and stayed at 300 counts per minute, 0.987 micros per hour. Caveat emptor.

Footnote on swallows: “Countless” numbers on the White Bluffs—Landers, p. 183.

Relative densities of plutonium dioxide and quartz—Graf, p. 13.

“Heavy metal concentrations are usually highest in the finest stream sediments”—Graf, p. 13.

“plutonium content of suspended sediment . . .”—Ibid., p. 231.

“The grand mean concentration for plutonium-238 in river water . . .”—Ibid., p. 131. And ibid., p. 133: “One picocurie per gram of plutonium in sediment represents much less than one part per billion of the metal in natural materials and could not be detected by ordinary physical or chemical methods.”

Footnote on the 2017 Hanford accident—The Washington Post, May 9, 2017 [e-version, so no p. no.; accessed by WTV on July 20, 2017), “Post Nation” section, Lindsey Bever and Steven Mufson (“Tunnel collapses at Hanford nuclear waste site in Washington state”). 1 rem = 10 milliseverts = 1.07185 roentgens. Since “in excess of five roentgens an hour” is not very precise, we might as well just speak roundly of an “excess of 50 millis an hour,” which would be 438,000 millis a year, or 438 sieverts [= 438 million micros].

Anyway, there must have been some plutonium left at Hanford, since in the Rio Grande system, and so presumably in the Columbia, more than 99 percent of the sediment eroded from the landscape will remain in the river system for more than 20 years and . . . more than 99 percent of the fallout also will remain in that system, although another researcher thinks that the figure is probably 98 percent (ibid., p. 113). In the Columbia, only 0.263 percent of the plutonium would have eroded in 20 years. If I had done the math correctly, then after 71 years not even one full percent would have washed away yet. Let us suppose, as seems probable, that even though the pancake frisker could not detect any plutonium at Hanford, there was some. One source (Gephart, p. 4.18) estimates that of Hanford’s fallout only 1 to 2% derived from Pu-239. The I-131, which made up most of the radiocontamination, was of course long since decayed away. The city of Spokane was 5 times more radioactive than Hanford, due to granitic rock (p. 4.23).

Concentration of radioactivity in plankton—Hirose, pp. 72–74.

“Concentrations of Radioactive Phosphorus at Hanford Nuclear Site, 1954–58”—Information from Odum, pp. 459–60.

“Other Concentration Factors at Hanford, 1954–58”—Ibid., p. 460.

First footnote to table: “That is, 0.003 parts per million.”—One unnamed but mathematically-inclined skimmer of this manuscript wrote: “In the first FN, ‘0.003 parts per million’ by my analysis/calculation would require the number in the main text to be 0.000003, that is, one more zero right of decimal. Interestingly, that number would then require a ‘CONCENTRATION FACTOR’ of 2,000,000, not ‘200,000,’ and you’ll find a ‘2,000,000’ in the second FN!” Alas, Odum’s “number in the main text” is 0.00003 [4 zeros right of decimal point], not 0.000003.

Failure of Tepco’s freezing project in April 2014; problems with debris removal at Reactor No. 3; plans for Reactor No. 1 in 2015 and 2017—The Japan Times, Wednesday, September 24, 2014, p. 1 (unattrib., “Tepco to start removing blast debris by late 2015: Utility vow not to let radioactive material escape reactor 1 building”).

“Tepco’s ice wall runs into glitch”—The Japan Times, Thursday, June 19, 2014, p. 1 (unattrib.). The coolant was piped-in aqueous solution of calcium chloride at −30° Celsius.

400 tons per day of groundwater seepage; Tepco’s request to dump filtered toxic water—The Japan Times, Tuesday, August 12, 2014, p. 1 (unattrib., “Tepco asks to build toxic-water dumping facility at Fukushima No. 1”).

“Ice wall at No. 1 plant fails”—The Japan Times, Thursday, August 21, 2014, p. 1 (unattrib., “Ice wall at No. 1 plant fails: Tepco”).

Footnote: “Tepco admits ice wall efficacy still not known”—The Japan Times, Saturday, October 1, 2016 (Kazuaki Nagata).

Results of next sampling, and measured rainfall of Typhoon Phanfone—The Japan Times, Thursday, October 16, 2014, p. 2 (unattrib., “Radioactivity spikes in No. 1 water well: Tepco”).

Tritium concentration after Typhoon Phanfone—The Japan Times, Monday, October 13, 2014, p. 1 (unattrib., “Tritium shot up tenfold in No.1 groundwater after typhoon”).

“We do sampling of the ocean water . . .”—Tepco interview of October 20, 2014. Mr. Hitosugi went on: “Inside the power plant, there are lots of efforts being made. One is, you put water to cool the fuel, and that becomes contaminated water. To remediate that, there is a system to recycle that water. At the same time, several hundred cubic meters of groundwater per day is coming in. That portion is accumulating, and so for that we use tanks. That contaminated water, we are trying to reduce it using the recycling system. Also, several hundred tons of groundwater per day get mixed with leaked water, becoming new contaminated water, and we are trying not to let this go out into the ocean. More specifically, we have made a steel wall in the oceanside, more than 10 meters deep [the interpreter expressed this as: “more than 10 + several meters deep”]. Also we improved the soil; we used soluble glass to make the soil harder. And finally, we made a wall to the land side, so that the contaminated water will accumulate in the plant and stay there. That water is pumped out and cleaned.”

“But what about the wall of ice?” I asked. “Are you progressing with that?”

“It’s right under construction. The purpose of this to prevent that water from coming in. We hope to freeze the site by 2015.”

In 2016 they had made progress, and were still hoping.

Size of past and prospective tsunamis at No. 1, and amount of cesium in danger of being released—The Japan Times, Sunday, October 4, 2014, p. 3 (unattrib., “Fukushima No. 1 could next see 26-meter tsunami, Tepco warns”).

News about No. 4’s fuel rods + headline “No. 1 fuel rod removal . . . ”—The Japan Times, Friday, August 22, 2014, p. 2 (unattrib., “No. 1 fuel rod removal to finish ahead of time, Tepco chief says”).

Approval of nuclear restart in Kagoshima Prefecture—The Japan Times, Thursday, September 11, 2014, p. 1 (Kentaro Hamada and Osamu Tsukimori, “Nuclear plant OK’d for restarts: Kyushu facility first to meet NRA’s tougher safety rules”). The utility was Kyushu Electric, not Tepco.

Swallows with white spots and peculiarly-sized butterflies (these last were actually pale blue grass butterflies)—The Japan Times, Saturday, August 16, 2014, p. 1 (unattrib., “Japan, U.S. warn of species mutations in Fukushima”). Timothy Mosseau and Anders Moller, who researched Chernobyl and Fukushima, reported “gnarly distortions of tree growth and numerous abnormalities in insects, birds and other animals”—in other words, “genetic mutations induced by exposure to the radiation.”—The Japan Times, Sunday, March 10, 2013, p. 8 (Counterpoint: Roger Pulvers, “Tohoku has been truly rent asunder for untold generations yet to be born”). All I saw was one peculiar insect in Iitate.

“Comparative Average Radiation Levels,” fn on Shinjuku and high Tokyo readings, 2014 and 2011—The Japan Times, Wednesday, March 12, 2014, p. 2 (Jacob Adelman, “Tokyo radiation less than the level in Paris”).

Information on how Iitate got its name—Interview with Mr. Shigihara Yoshitomo, October 23, 2014.

“There every day 7500 workers are ‘decontaminating’ the village where 6500 lived”—Masae Yuasa, section “Life with radiation.”

Iitate’s first cesium, iodine and tellurium; its distance from Plant No. 1—Information from Lochbaum et al., p. 118. According to Mr. Shigihara Yoshitomo, Iitate is 35 kilometers, not 40, from No. 1. The Japan Times (Thursday, January 30, 2014, p. 3 [Tetsuiji Ida, “Farmer’s Tepco grudge runs deep: Retiree found new life on the land until nuke crisis took toll”]) put it at 40, so I voted with the majority.

Plutonium at Iitate—The Japan Times, Thursday, August 23, 2012, p. 1 (unattrib., “Plutonium traces detected at 10 locations in Fukushima”).

Information about March 15–17, April 6 and 31, July 4, 2011—Shigihara Yoshitomo, typescript headed “Dec. 15, 2011. Report of the situation regarding Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power accident.” Translation for WTV by Ms. Kawai Takako.

Slaughter of cattle; date of evacuation—Information from Lochbaum et al., p. 120.

Compensation of the Nagadoro people + Mr. Shigihara’s conclusions and radiation measurements in 2013—Shigihara Yoshitomo, typescript headed “Compilation of Interview Record. October 12, 2014.” Translation for WTV by Ms. Kawai Takako.

The dose of Colonel Vodolazhsky—Alexievich, p. 135.

The taxi driver—He spoke of hama-dori, the danger zone. Right now we were still in the zone called nakedori.

Footnote: 90% of Okuma’s tax revenues from Daiichi—Lochbaum et al., p. 40.

Description of Iitate—After a visit on October 23, 2014.

1.0 and 1.1 micros an hour as “the average 2015 air dose for Iitate”—According to Masae Yuasa, sec. “Life with radiation,” the 2015 air dose was 1 micro an hour. I presume this was for the yellow zone only, not for Mr. Shigihara’s subdistrict.

“March 17—95.1 microsieverts an hour!”—At the time we stood at this spot, the interpreter translated the date as March 16. But since the typescript headed “Dec. 15, 2011” stated that this dose was measured two days after March 15, I have emended it.

Footnote: “heritable mutations in pale blue grass butterfly populations”—The Japan Times, Saturday, March 5, 2016, p. 2 (unattrib., “DNA damage found in Fukushima forests: Greenpeace says mutations are just beginning to be seen five years on”).

Effects of leaf-ammonia on cesium—The Japan Times, Sunday, June 2, 2013, pp. 7–8 (Tomoko Otake, “Fukushima farmer plows own anti-radiation furrow”).

Footnote: “The US has no formal limits . . .”—Crownover to WTV, June 2017.

Footnote: The Tepco official, and the supposed 0.8 microsieverts per hour in Gifu Prefecture—When I interviewed the Tepco officials in Tokyo, Mr. Togawa Satoshi of the International Public Relations Group said to me: “I was in Naraha yesterday, and it read 1.5 microSv per hour.” (My own 11 outdoor frisks in that area averaged only 0.32 micros. But he might have been in “hotter” places than I.) “The natural dose to the human body, world average,” he continued, “is 2.4 millisieverts per year. So considering that number, the current values are not that high, we believe. In Japan, it is known that in areas where there is a lot of granite the radiation level is high. The level is 0.8 microsieverts per hour in Gifu Prefecture naturally. There are no health problems in that prefecture.”—So I asked the interpreter to e-mail the prefectural clinic in Gifu as follows: “Is this truly the radiation level there, and are there truly no health problems from it?”—She soon answered: “The prefectural office in Gifu responded that the real time air dose was 0.08 micros an hour, not 0.8 micros,” the cause being “a lot of granite. There is even a uranium mine (no commercial base).” This is 0.7008 versus 7.008 annual millis. More to the point, .08 micros is less than Tokyo’s typical (and hardly dangerous dose) of 0.12 micros.—Who slipped the decimal point? Perhaps the interpreter did, and Mr. Togawa actually said 0.08 micros, but why then would he even mention this case? He must have meant to say 0.8 micros, in which case his data was wrong. (But then why did the official in Gifu refer to granite and uranium as causative agents, when the air dose was so remarkably low? One would think that Gifu’s inhabitants would be delighted with their radiation level.) The interpreter insisted that Mr. Togawa did say 0.8 micros.

“Cesium Concentrations in Iitate Mushrooms, 2014”—Information from The Japan Times, Thursday, January 30, 2014, p. 3 (Tetsuiji Ida, “Farmer’s Tepco grudge runs deep: Retiree found new life on the land until nuke crisis took toll”). In my opinion the best way to measure the radioactivity of mushrooms is by sitting on a tatami (in this case in Fukushima city), with a beer and several chicken yakitori skewers on the table, the waitress kneeling to write the order on her little pad, and looking through the half-open sliding door at the counter with its high-backed chairs, a man’s crossed legs just within this frame, and longnecked bottles each of a different color and transparency lined up like a file of swans against one of those long bamboo sheets which can be scrolled up around soft rice to make it into a cylinder of maki sushi, the dosimeter still at 0.570, the frisker measuring 0.12 micros per hour (36 cpms) when held sideways against the floor, smell of cigarette smoke; on NORMAL it was a mild 0.148 microsieverts per hour; then I conscientiously frisked a delicious appetizer of small brown local mushrooms which had been garnished with chilis and beansprouts (an innocuous 0.212 to .250 microsieverts at NORMAL); and just for your information, the interpreter’s air dose was 0.006 microsieverts per hour.

Footnote: The Brookhaven experiment—Odum, pp. 457–59, citing Woodwell, 1962 and 1965. Figures expressed in rads per 20 hours (the source was shielded for 4 hours a day so that the scientists could observe the area). 1 rad = 10 millis = 10,000 micros, so 1 rad per 20 hours = 500 micros an hour. I have converted accordingly. Occasionally, where no value was stated in the text, I had to approximate by “eyeballing” the original graph, so in the interest of transparency, here are my conversions:

rads/day

millis/hr

2

1 milli

5

2.5 millis

1

5 millis

20

10 millis

40

20 millis

100

50 millis

300

150 millis

400

200 millis

“In the Savannah River area . . .”—Graf, p. 10.

Cesium: “an extremely active member of the Sodium Family”—Metcalfe, Williams and Castka, p. 490.

Information on waste storage plans for Fukushima—The Japan Times, Friday, August 1, 2014, p. 1 (unattrib., “Tochigi town protests nomination as atomic dump site”; August 31, 2014, p. 3 (unattrib., “Fukushima OKs storage plan”).

“Mr. Kojima organized these tours as a member of a private organization . . .”—Extract from a letter of explanation from Ms. Kawai Takako to WTV, 2014.

Information on exposures of Tepco nuclear workers through 2016—The Japan Times, Tuesday, March 8, 2016, p. 1 (unattrib., “32,000 at Fukushima No. 1 got high radiation dose”).

“They typically work on three- to six-month contracts . . .”—The Japan Times On Sunday, March 13, 2016, p. 1 (Mari Yamaguchi, “Fukushima workers ‘exploited’”).

Footnote: “The cesium in this ampoule melts . . .”—Gray, p. 131.

Footnote: “a conventional power plant would need to burn about 3.6 million gallons of heavy fuel oil”—Converted as follows: [1 kWh = 3,413.0 BTUs/hr] × 45.5 million kWh = 155,291,500,000 BTUs per hour. Multiplying this × 3 to account for the wastage in a fossil fuel power plant, then dividing by 18,450, the HHV of heavy grade commercial fuel oil [table of Calorific Efficiencies, p. 214, multiple header 201], we obtain 25,250,650 lbs, which when divided by [7.036 lbs/gallon, the density of diesel fuel, which is my best approximation] becomes 3,588,779 gallons.

Footnote: “At least these paddies were no longer warming the atmosphere . . .”—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. 6-47: “Conversion from Cropland: For former rice fields, upland fields, and orchards, the area classified as ‘other, natural disaster damage’ is used according to the Area Statistics for Cultivated and Commercially Planted Land.” Table 6-47 (“Area of land converted to other land (single year)” gives a figure from 1990 through 210 of 0.8 to 4.5 kilohectares per year; most numbers are in the 2’s. Then comes 2011: 16.8 kha, of which 14.9 were ricefields, got “converted.”

Description of Tomioka—Okuma (from car)—Namie—Tomioka—After a visit on October 26, 2014.

Footnote: “Volume reduction of contaminated soil”—Ministry of the Environment, Japan, pamphlet: “Japan’s Decontamination Efforts and Its Effects” (2014), p. 42 (Ref. 7).

“before the accident Yonomori’s air dose had been 0.042 micros—97 times less”—Citizens’ Study Group on Internal Exposure of Radiation website, January 2017, 2nd table [labeled “B” in Kawai-san’s annotated printout, and translated “Monthly air dose rate from April 2010 to March 2011 (till the previous day of the Great East Japan Earth Quake and Tsunami).” Row 10 refers to Yonomori, whose monthly measured dose was a flat 42 Gy/hr for the 12 months before the accident.

Pampas grass: “Growth is astoundingly fast . . .”—Terri Dunn Chace, How to Eradicate Invasive Plants (Portland, OR: Timber Press, 2013), p. 176. The species referred to is Cortaderia selloana. “Hails from Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay,” although Beecher Crampton, Grasses in California (Berkeley: University of California Press, California Natural History Guides, No. 33, 1974), p. 122, claims: “Introduced from . . . Brazil, Argentina and Chile” (and “becoming naturalized especially along the [California] coast”).

Pampas grass: “hardy to frost hardy . . .”—Lance Hattatt, The Gardener’s Encyclopedia of Plants and Flowers (Philadelphia: Courage Books, “an imprint of Running Press,” 1998), p. 82. A panicle is “a central axis provided with solitary, several, or whorls of branches that bear pediceled flowers” (Crampton, p. 169).

Footnote on the Futaba Town Recovery Promotion Committee—Yomiuri Shimbun, October 28, 2014, p. 33, headline and reporter not trans. (trans. by Ms. Kawai Takako): “The Futaba Town Recovery Promotion Committee compiled a long-term plan. The final version will be submitted to the town mayor after consulting with townspeople and the parliament. The plan includes: JR Futaba station and North East area, where the air dose is relatively low (are to prepare for lift of restriction and) will be designated as a “recovery base.” In this area, decontamination and building demolition will be carried out in stages, to recover life infrastructure. Corporations related to abandonment of reactor, solar power generation and vegetable factory will be introduced (get special treatment in setting up facilities there). There are many high dose areas in the town. Also, there is a plan to build an intermediate storage facility. So the proposed plan is not clear about the time when the evacuation order will be lifted or how many residents may return.”

Goldenrod’s “racemes or spikes of golden-yellow flowers . . .”—Hattatt, p. 227. The genus is Solidago. What I saw in Fukushima resembled Solidago canadensis, tall goldenrod: 2 to 8 feet tall, flowerhead ¼ inches wide, “flowerheads golden, in arching spikes that form pyramid at top of downy stem; leaves lance-shaped, rough-textured.”—Reader’s Digest, Wildflowers (New York: Reader’s Digest Association, Inc., 1998 rev. of 1982 material).

Description of Tomioka—Okuma (including Plant No. 1)—Tomioka—After a visit on October 27, 2014.

Footnote: Official return date for Okuma residents of 2022—Lochbaum et al., p. 188.

Final description of Tomioka—After a visit on October 28, 2014.

Cesium-137 Released in the World’s Two Worst Nuclear Disasters

Information from The Japan Times, Sunday, May 11, 2014, p. 1 (unattrib., “Cesium levels from Fukushima disaster eclipse Tepco claims”). The Fukushima University study (led by Prof. Aoyama Michio) asserted that “of the amount on land,” as much as 400 tBq could have reached North America. The source of the Chernobyl data is not given.

The Red Zones (continued)

“All 11,000 residents [of Okuma] remained evacuated”—Information from The Japan Times, Wednesday, March 5, 2014, p. 3 (Aiko Kaneshi and Tonomi Miura, “Students seek out Bikini, Fukushima parallels”).

“In the year previous to the reactor failures, Ono’s air dose had varied between 0.041 and 0.042 micros an hour”—Citizens’ Study Group on Internal Exposure of Radiation website, January 2017, 4th table [labeled “D” in Kawai-san’s annotated printout, and translated “Monthly air dose rate from April 2010 to March 2011 (till the previous day of the Great East Japan Earth Quake and Tsunami).” Row 14 refers to Ohno [so spelled here] whose monthly measured dose varied between 41 and 42 Gy/hr for the 12 months before the accident.

Footnote: “those working with radiation are required to keep their dosage below 5 rems . . .”—Magill, vol. 2, p. 2186 (“radiation monitoring”).

Footnote: Disposal of “captured wild harmful animals”—Ministry of the Environment, Japan, pamphlet: “Japan’s Decontamination Efforts and Its Effects” (2014), p. 40 (Ref. 4: “Demonstration Project for Decontamination Technologies”).

Measurement of site “outside the port”: 4.3 Bq of tritium—The Japan Times, Sunday, May 18, 2014, p. 2 (unattrib., “Fukushima radiation at all-time high”). Another site “outside the port” measured 8.7 Bq. The footnoted measurements “inside the port” also derive from this source.

Footnote on Namie’s irradiated cows—The Japan Times, Saturday, September 24, 2016, p. 2 (Miki Toda, “Nuked cows’ fate takes scientific twist: Fukushima rancher keeps livestock alive for radiation research, not hamburgers”).

Same footnote: “DNA-damaged worms in highly contaminated areas”—The Japan Times, Saturday, March 5, 2016, p. 2 (unattrib., “DNA damage found in Fukushima forests: Greenpeace says mutations are just beginning to be seen five years on”).

Footnote on “Atom Fukushima No. 86”—Honma, p. 15 (booklet by Tepco, November 1990, “Atom Fukushima No. 86,” translated by Mrs. Keiko Golden).

Footnote: From Aki’s blog—Excerpted from a 1-p. undated typescript translation for WTV by Ms. Kawai Takako (received by me in 2014), now deposited in my archive at the Ohio State University.

“by 1973 Okuma had achieved the highest per capita income in Fukushima Prefecture”—Information from the same source, p. 41 (article in Fukushima Minyu, August 5, 1973, translated by Mrs. Keiko Golden).

Footnote: “As with all kinds of stress . . .”—Odum, p. 459.

“the pipes, opened walls, rubble . . .” of the crippled reactors—After The Japan Times, Monday, September 15, 2014, p. 3 (Hideki Takahashi, Shinya Kokubun and Yukiko Maeda, “Responders cowed by explosion at No. 3 reactor building”), photo of Reactor No. 3; International New York Times, Thursday, June 19, 2014, p. 1 (Matthew L. Wald, “3-D is coming to cleanup of Fukushima”).

The cesium level in the trench by Reactor No. 1—Fukushima Minpo, October 24, 2014, p. 2 (unattrib., “Trench cesium at highest value,” translated by Ms. Kawai Takako).

Description of Ganjo-ji and of my final visit to Tomioka—From notes made on site, October 29, 2014.

Footnote: Mr. Togawa on the time to reinhabiting Tomioka—Tepco interview of October 20, 2014.

The dreary convenience store in Naraha—A Seventeen Eleven (isn’t that how they spell it?). I see no reason to conspicuously advertise this chain.

The Emporium Kindergarten in Koriyama—In March 2011 its vicinity measured 3.1 to 3.7 micros an hour. The Japan Times, March 11, 2014, p. 1 (Toru Hanai and Elaine Lies, “Life indoors exacts toll on Koriyama children”).

My old physics book: “For the general public, it is recommended . . .”—Tilley and Thumm, p. 27.

“Atomic energy is revolutionizing life today . . .”—Loyce B. McIlhenny, “Careers in Atomic Energy,” “Understanding the Atom” ser. (Oak Ridge, Tenn.: United States Atomic Energy Commission Division of Technical Information, 1964 rev. of 1962 ed.), p. 22.

Normalization on the Rocks

The Fukushima City bartender—Interviewed October 22, 2014.

Footnote: “precipitation extremes are very likely to increase . . .”—IPCC, 2013, p. 1271.

Footnote: “Most high contaminated horizons . . .”—Voitsekhovych and Jakubik, 2014, p. 17.

“things that have grown sad are wicked”—W. B. Yeats, When You Are Old: Early Poems and Fairy Tales (New York: Penguin Books, Penguin Drop Caps ser., 2014), p. 54 (“The Wanderings of Oisin”).

The Ministry of the Environment’s dose calculation—Ministry of the Environment, Japan, pamphlet: “Japan’s Decontamination Efforts and Its Effects” (2014), section 6-4. The assumed hourly dose was based on radiocontamination of 0.19 microSv/hr plus a background radiation of 0.04 micros. Hence the yearly dose as they calculated it would be 365 × ([8 × .23] + [16 × .23 × .4]) = 365 × (1.84 + 1.472) = 1.209 millis. The yearly dose for someone outside all the time would be 0.23 × 24 × 365 = 2.0148 millis. To receive exactly one milli and be out all the time one would have to take in 1,000 / (24 × 365) = 0.1142 micros an hour.

“Individual additional exposure is approximately 1 mSv/yr . . .”—Ibid., section 7.1. This section went on to state that “annual additional exposure of 1 mSv is converted to air dose rate of 0.23 microSv/hr.”

“Japanese institutions are encouraged to increase efforts to communicate that . . . in remediation situations . . .”—Ibid., section 6-1.

Remarks of Dr. Ed Lyman—Interviewed by phone, January 25, 2017.

“1 mSv/yr ‘is not a limit of exposure . . .’”—Ministry of the Environment pamphlet, section 7-1.

“an additional individual dose of 1 mSv per year is a long-term goal . . .”—Ibid., section 6-1.

Interview with Mr. Abe Masahiko—In Fukushima City, October 22, 2014. He worked for the Public Relations Office, Administrative Section, Ministry of the Environment, Fukushima Environmental Recovery Office.

Their Standard Is as Arbitrary as Ours

Food data—Originally based on: The Japan Times, Sunday, June 2, 2013, pp. 7–8 (Tomoko Otake, “Fukushima farmer plows own anti-radiation furrow”). However, the 40-Bq limit for milk and infant foods did not seem to be correct, since the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare website (www.mhlw.go.jp/english/topics/2011eq/dl/new_standard.pdf, accessed by Jordan Rothacker on December 10, 2015) stated it as 50, so I corrected it thus. Bread, potatoes, root and leaf vegetables, meat, rice and most other items appeared to have been folded into “general foods” at 100 Bq/kg. The note on changes from 2011 to 2012 (5 mSv to 1 mSv) comes from this same website. The article’s summary of Ukraine’s standards was much abbreviated; these contain more subcategories than Japan’s, as I saw from (correcting my table accordingly): Ministry of Health of Ukraine, 03.05.2006 N 256, document z0845, version of 15.07.2008, “Registered with the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, July 17, 2006,” “On Approval of the State Hygienic Standards: Permissible Levels of Radionuclides Cs-137 and Sr-90 in Food and Drinking Water,” as amended by Decree of the Ministry of Health N 240 (z590-08) of 08.05.2008 (13-pp. typescript). [Henceforth cited: “Ministry of Health of Ukraine.”] Pages. 9/13–13/13 (section 3, “Acceptable levels of radionuclides Cs-137 and Sr-90 in food and drinking water”).

Footnote on Cs-137 reduction in rice—Hitoshi Aoki, Technical Advisor, Decontamination Information Plaza, Fukushima Office for Environmental Restoration, Ministry of Environment, Fukushima Daiichi NPS Accident, Its Health Effects & Progress of Counter Measures (28-pp. leaflet, n.d. but collected 2014, and in the passage cited it mentions “all of the rice crops of year 2013”), p. 17. I corrected the spelling of the first “Becquerel,” which had left out the “u.” The illustrations in this publication, by the way, are very “cute” and cartoonish. All radionuclide atoms are represented as yellow heads with humanoid (if at least unsmiling) faces. Cs-137 are like sea urchins; I-131 has an I-shaped face, Pu-239 is squarefaced with four girlish pink ribbons in her nonexistent hair, and Sr-90 has round red ears and a sort of stocking cap on his square yellow head. I am of two minds about this. On the one hand, if families got hold of this pamphlet, their children might have been saved from additional anxiety. On the other, what if the result were complacency, and children therefore met harm?

Description of the camera emporium in Koriyama—After a visit there on October 25, 2014.

My Koriyama dose on that day—0.4 micros in [2 hours 18 min = 2.3 hrs] is 0.17 micros an hour.

“I very much hate my psychological state . . .”—Masae Yuasa, section “Who disturbed their voices?”

“Improve the measures to start a new life . . .”—Previously cited Ministry of the Environment pamphlet, sec. 7-4.

Comprehensive accident management plan for Daiichi: “The possibility of a severe accident . . .”—Lochbaum et al., p. 16.

Allison Macfarlane: “What I would say in terms of lessons learned . . .”—Ibid., p. 176. Continuing on this topic, let me now cite USA Today, Thursday, May 29, 2016, p. 4A (News, State-by-State): “ILLINOIS. Springfield: A House committee unanimously approved a plan urging environmental agencies to adopt nuclear-power-friendly rules. The non-binding resolution comes as government agencies are scheduled to require new standards for nuclear power plants this year.”

Average air dose throughout Fukushima before the accident and in 2017—Information from Citizens’ Study Group on Internal Exposure of Radiation website, January 2017, Kawai-san’s translation of paragraph A.

“Is this really not enough?”—Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, A Roadside Picnic, trans. Olena Bormashenko (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2012; orig. Russian serial pub., 1972), p. 155.

Postscript: Japan Sees the Light

Most information and citations in this section come from The Japan Times, Tuesday, April 15, 2014, p. 7 (Chisaki Watanabe and Masumi Suga, “Analysis: Renewables get raked over coals under Abe”).

Proportion of Japanese coal from Australia and America—Tepco interview of Monday, October 20, 2014. Mr. Sakakibara: “I hear we [Tepco] import from Australia. 80 percent comes from Australia, 1 percent from United States.” However, according to the Coal Valley News, Wednesday, March 6, 2013, p. A1 (Fred Pace, “West Virginia exports reach record high”), the state’s top markets were (1) Japan, whose purchases increased from $29 million in 2011 to $395 million in 2012, and (2) China, which bought $93 million worth of coal in 2011 and $567 million in 2012. (“Coal continues to be our traditional strength,” proclaimed Governor Tomblin.) Of course both Mr. Sakakibara and Fred Pace might have been right.

Footnote on small coal plants—The Japan Times, Saturday, May 30, 2015, p. 3 (Chisaki Watanabe, “Coal revival ‘ducks scrutiny’ with small plants”).

Lochbaum et al. note (p. 228) that with all her reactors off line, Japan fell “shy of roughly 50 gigawatts of operating capacity . . . With no nuclear power in the mix, Japan would require an additional three hundred thousand barrels of oil every day, along with an additional 23 billion cubic meters of liquefied natural gas” (an International Energy Agency estimate).

Tale of Chibu Electric’s 11 wind turbines—The Japan Times, Wednesday, March 12, 2014, p. 2 (cont’d from p. 1; unattrib., “Reactors still feared despite new rules”).

Japan’s greenhouse gas report: Carbon dioxide “emissions from fuel . . .”—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. 2-3. Ibid., p. 3-1: “GHG emissions from fuel combustion in FY2013 had increased by 1.1% compared to FY2012. The primary reason for the emission increase in FY2013 as compared to FY2012 was the increase of CO2 emissions from electric power generation in the energy industries due to the increase of coal consumption at the thermal power plants.”

Footnote: “Substantial [CO2] emission increases . . .”—EU greenhouse report, 2014, p. 113.

Global Distribution of Nuclear Reactors in 2014

Proportion of Japanese power generation from nuclear until the accident (30%), and number of reactors available (43)—The Japan Times, Tuesday, August 11, 2015, p. A5 (Alexander Martin, “Japan Restarts First Plant Since Accident”).

All other data from Schneider, Froggatt et al., p. 13.

Net capacity in GW, converted to BTUs per minute: = 337 GW × [1 billion watts / GW] × [0.056884 BTUs per minute / watt] = 19,169,908,000.

Postscript: Japan Sees the Light (continued)

And, by the way (Australian Government: India, 2015, p. 51): “In 2005, India was around 90 per cent self-sufficient in coal supply. By 2013, India’s coal self-sufficiency had declined to around 75 per cent, with thermal coal accounting for around 80 per cent of total imports. The rapid rise in thermal coal imports resulted in India overtaking Japan as the second largest importer of thermal coal in 2013 despite higher imports into Japan to help its electricity industry cope with the idling of its nuclear reactors after the Fukushima incident in 2011.”

Definitions, Units and Conversions

This section is intended as a convenience for the reader; much of its matter has already been introduced here and there in the text. To increase that convenience, I have re-cited here the few explicit citations already appearing elsewhere (e.g., “normal background (mrem).”

North American and world 1991 kilowatt-hours—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 12, p. 13 (“fuel resources,” Table 14, “World Net Energy Consumption, 1982–91, kW-h × 109”)

North American and world 1991 BTUs—Loc. cit. (Table 13, “World Energy Consumption, 1991, EJ”), converted by WTV from EJs to BTUs: I multiplied by 9.48 × 1014.

Energy, Electricity, Efficiency, Power, Work, Manufacturing and Engines

Ampere—Leckie et al., p. 34. “Amperes = volts / ohms” is derived from Robert S. Carrow, Electrician’s Technical Reference: Variable-Frequency Drives (Albany, New York: Delmar / Thomson Learning, 2001), p. 18: E = IR, which means: Volts = amperes × ohms.

Coulomb: “approximately 6 million million million electrons”—American Electricians’ Handbook, p. 1.24.

Current: “A movement or flow of electricity . . . ”—American Electricians’ Handbook, p. 1.23. “The movement of charges . . .”—Camara, p. 16-13.

Efficiency: “The ratio of output to input”—American Electricians’ Handbook, p. 1.31. “The efficiency of an ideal machine . . .” + “When the rate of work is constant . . .”—Camara, p. 2-7.

Electricity: “A form of energy . . .”—Carrow, p. 15. “Any manifestation of energy . . .”—Camara, p. 16-2. “The electron theory states . . .” + “Electricity cannot be generated . . .”—American Electricians’ Handbook, pp. 1.22, 1.23.

Energy: “Since in and of itself . . .” These three sentences are derived from information in Marion, p. 222.—“Energy is a measurement of power . . .”—Michael Boxwell, Solar Energy Handbook, 2012 Edition (Ryton on Dunsmore, Warwickshire, U.K.: Greenstream Publishing, 2012; orig. ed. 2001), pp. 16–17.

Energy flow—USDA Report 24, p. 5.

Embodied energy—Gutowski et al., Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 2013 371, 20120003, p. 3.

Ergs, kilowatts and watts to other units—Richard Stevens Burington, Handbook of Mathematical Tables and Formulas, 5th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1973), pp. 451–54; Marion, p. 215 (and here I also took the definition of a dyne).

“Earth’s annual energy from Sun,” etc.—Marion, p. 224 (Table 7.1: “Range of Energies”).

Exergy—Gutowski and Sekulic, pp. 4, 6–7.

“The units of pounds-mass and pounds-force . . .”—Camara, p. 1-10.

Fuel cell: “An electrochemical device . . .”—G. J. Young, President, Surface Processes Research and Development Corporation, Dallas, Pennsylvania, ed., Fuel Cells (New York: Reinhold Publishing Corp., 1963), vol. I, pp. 1–3 (H. A. Liebhafsky and D. L. Douglas, “Introduction”).

Horsepower: Thermal efficiency of a horse—Ellis and Rumely, p. 31. “You may assume that 1 HP equals 3 ft lbs . . .” + equivalence in ft-lbs—Carrow, pp. 13–14.

Footnote: “746 watts are theoretically equivalent to 1 h.p. . . .”—Culpin, p. 510.

Internal combustion engine: “A machine for converting chemical energy . . .”—USNRMS “Prairie State,” p. 51. The two kinds of engines—Information from the same, p. 69.

Definitions and conversions of joule, international watt, watt-second—Baumeister and Marks, pp. 15-4, 15-5 (Chester L. Dawes, “Electrical Engineering”).

Joule: “a unit of mechanical energy”—Camara, p. 2-1. Gutowski’s comments—Letter to WTV, e-mailed on March 17, 2016, to Jordan Rothacker, who printed it out for this book.

Joule to calories, etc.—Daniels and Alberty, p. 752; Baumeister and Marks, pp. 1-80, 1-81; Burington, p. 452. Joules to kWh, kcal and hp-hrs given [to replace my originals, which were off by several decimal points] by Prof. Anna Mummert.

MJ/kg to BTUs/gal—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 12 (“Fuel Resources” to “Heat Stabilizers”), p. 342 (“gasoline and other motor fuels”), p. 369.

One terajoule = 948.1 MBTU—Coal Information 2012, p. 1.34.

“One petajoule is enough to run the Montréal subway system for a year”—Canada Yearbook 2011, p. 156.

Total Canadian energy consumption for 2009—Ibid.

“1 EJ consumed in a year is equivalent to 1,803,652,968.037 BTUs/min”—Calculated as follows: 1 EJ/yr = [0.948 quadrillion / 365 × 24 × 60] BTUs/min.

Rough conversion from EJ to bb/d—Robert S. Livingston et al., p. 50.

Kilowatt: “indicates the measure of power . . .”—American Electricians’ Handbook, 2002, p. 1.58.

Kilowatt versus kilowatt-hour—Quotation from Marion, p. 217.

Kilowatt-hour: “The common engineering unit of electrical energy”—Baumeister and Marks, p. 15-13 (Dawes). “If you play a radio (80 watts) . . .”—Leckie, p. 37. “To store 1 kwhr of energy in a reservoir . . .” + the business of 2,650 sand-sacks—Daniels, pp. 239–40.

Kilowatt-hour and watt absolute—Baumeister and Marks, pp. 1-73, 1-180–1-181 (Franklin and Judson, “Mathematical Tables and Weights and Measures”).

1 kWh/day = 2.37 BTUs/min—Calculated by WTV.

“1 gram U-235 yields 8 kilowatt-days”—Information from Baumeister and Marks, p. 9-197 (Etherington, article on atomic power).

Megawatt (both citations)—Phillip F. Schewe, The Grid: A Journey Through the Heart of Our Electrified World (Washington, D.C.: Joseph Henry Press, 2007), p. 25.

Ohm—Baumeister and Marks, p. 15-4.

Power: “Power measures the rate of energy conversion . . .”—Boxwell, pp. 16–17. “. . . the amount of work done [per] unit time . . .”—Camara, p. 2-6. “Output power per unit volume . . .”—Austin Hughes and Bill Drury, Electric Motors and Drives: Fundamentals, Types and Applications, 4th ed. (Boston: Elsevier, 2013; orig. pub. 1990), p. 37.

“Watts of power = volts × current (amps)” + “If you have a mobile phone charger that uses 1.2 amps . . .”—Boxwell, p. 36.

Primary power [which this source refers to as “total primary power”]—Gutowski et al., Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 2013 371, 20120003, p. 3.

Resistance—Carrow, p. 16.

Terawatt-hour: 1 TWh = 0.086 mtoe—Coal Information 2012, p. 1.14.

Volt: “a measure of the ‘pressure’ . . .”—Leckie et al., p. 34. “the electromotive force (EMF) which causes electrons to flow . . .”—Carrow, p. 16. “An electric potential or voltage . . .”—Camara, p. 16-21. “1 V shall be taken as that emf . . .”—American Electricians’ Handbook, p. 1.27.

“Volts = power / current”—Equation (and example of 48-watt motor) from Boxwell, p. 18.

Watt: “not a unit of energy per se . . .”—Darling and Sisterson, p. xix.

Watt: “Power measures the rate of energy conversion . . .”—Boxwell, pp. 16–17.

1 watt per square meter = 0.317 BTUs per hour per square foot—1 W = 3.413 BTUs per hour. 1 sq m = 10.758 sq ft. Therefore, [3.413 / 10.758] gives the result.

Watt-hour—Leckie et al., p. 37.

Work: “the overcoming of mechanical resistance . . .”—American Electricians’ Handbook, p. 1.28. “If a system undergoes a displacement . . .”—Zemansky, p. 51. “. . . a signed, scalar quantity . . .”—Camara, p. 2-2.

Work of explosives—Kurt Saxon, comp., The Poor Man’s James Bond, vol. 2 (El Dorado, Arkansas: Desert Publications, 1991), p. 397: reduced facsimile of Tenney L. Davis, Ph.D., The Chemistry of Powder and Explosives, complete in 1 vol. (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1941–43) (facsimile p. 210).

Heat and Refrigeration

Blackbody—Zemansky, p. 98. “The amount of electromagnetic radiation emitted . . .”—Dr. Canek Fuentes-Hernandez to WTV, May 2017.

BTU—Tilley and Thumm, endpaper; Burington, p. 451 (Table 31, “A Table of Conversion Factors: Weights and Measures”). BTU rating of a ton of coal from Coal Facts 2013, p. 72. 1 BTU is in 1 match tip—National Coal Association, p. 90. Gutowski’s comments—Letter to WTV, e-mailed on March 17, 2016, to Jordan Rothacker, who printed it out for this book.

BTU: “The selection of the BTU as a standard energy unit . . .”—Leckie et al., p. 76.

BTUs/gal to [MJ]/liter—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 12 (“Fuel Resources” to “Heat Stabilizers”), p. 342 (“gasoline and other motor fuels”), p. 369 (MJ/kg to BTUs/gal). I took the reciprocal of this figure, which was 2.78 × 108.

1 million BTUs = 1.0551 × 10−3 terajoules = 2.931 × 10−4 gigawatts—Australian Government: India, 2015, p. 28 (Table 1, “Conversion equivalents between units of energy”).

Thermochemical calorie—Daniels and Alberty, p. 751; Burington, p. 451 (for gram-mean).

“The availability of ammonia . . .”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 6, p. 485 (“coal”).

Efficiency of a heat engine—Information from Zemansky, p. 167.

Fuel: “. . . whether for the furnace . . .”—Metcalfe, Williams and Castka, p. 394.

Heat—Somewhat after the same source, p. 15.

Heat of combustion—All molar weights and heats of combustion are from Metcalfe, Williams and Castka, p. 658 (Table 14, “Heat of Combustion”).

“High heat[ing] value of a fuel”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 6, p. 1049 (“combustion science and technology”). “I never use the term hhv . . .”—Finkelman e-mail, February 2016.

Low heating value: “for coal and oil, net calorific value is usually around 5% less than gross . . .”—Coal Information 2012, p. 1.16. The Argonne National Laboratory’s 2010 list is from GREET, 2010.

Quad: Conversion from EJ—Based on Robert S. Livingston et al., p. 4: The 1979 total energy consumption in the U.S. was 83.3 EJ = 79.0 quads.

Refrigeration ton—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 21 (“Recycling, Oil” to “Silicon”), p. 129 (“refrigeration”).

Specific heat—Camara, p. 2-1.

Specific heats of various substances—Selected from Camara, p. 2-4 (Table 2.1, “Approximate Specific Heats of Selected Liquids and Solids”).

Therm—Camara, p. 2-1.

Thermal efficiencies of natural gas and propane—Leffler, p. 214.

Thermie—OECD, 1974, p. ii (Definitions).

Nuclear Energy

Alpha particle: “The nucleus of a helium atom . . .”—Tabak, p. 184. “But on being stopped they produce a very large amount of ionization . . .”—Odum, p. 451. “. . . particularly damaging, because it is doubly charged . . .” + “alpha radiation is 20 times worse . . .”—Mahaffey, pp. 37, 33.

Beta particle: “An electron ejected . . .”—Tabak, p. 184. “the conversion of a neutron into a proton . . .”—Marion, p. 568. “may travel . . . up to a couple of centimeters . . .”—Odum, loc. cit.

“When an element transmutes itself through radioactive decay . . .”—Rhodes, p. 86 (original not italicized).

Fallout—Odom, p. 461.

MOX: “Mixed fuel oxide . . .”—Tabak, p. 57. “MOX fuel is manufactured from plutonium . . .”—World Nuclear Association, 2016.

Radioisotope—Information on the three hydrogen isotopes from Metcalfe, Williams and Castka, pp. 50–51.

NISA and NRA: “whose goal had been to promote and expand . . .” + ‘“We will never allow the myth . . .”—The Japan Times, Sunday, March 9, 2013, p. 1 (Kazuaki Nagata, “NRA gets strict, must prove credibility”).

Plant No. 1: No. 3’s radiation emission compared to recommended annual exposure—Hirose, p. 59.

“These ten reactors in Fukushima Prefecture produced one-fifth of the nation’s nuclear power”—Information from Documentary Record of Iwaki City, p. 2.

Reactor: LWRs: So named “because the reactor core is covered with water to allow the nuclear reaction to take place and to keep the core cool”—Federal Emergency Management Agency, Emergency Management Institute, Home Study Course . . . Radiological Emergency Management (Emmitsburg, Maryland, HS-3, May 1998 p. 3-1 (“Nuclear Power Accidents”).

Becquerel: “It is estimated that the detonation of a nuclear weapon in Hiroshima . . .”—Mahaffey, p. 29.

Equivalency of becquerel and cps—I have also found the following conversion, on the Internet site [which, violating my most cherished principles, I actually looked up myself, in the library] called http://hps.org/publicinformation/ate/faqs/gammaandexposure.html: George Cabot, CHP, Ph.D, “Relationship between radionuclide gamma emission and exposure rate,” accessed March 14, 2014:

1 Bq Cs-137 produces 0.0087 microSv for inhalation and 0.014 microSv for ingestion. RAPPORT Annexe Deux CNS 2003. Since this must be per second, I have multiplied by 60 to get microSv/hr. Hence:

1 Bq Cs-137 produces 0.522 microSv/hr for inhalation and 0.84 microSv/hr for ingestion.

Since this does not correspond with the results of either of the other two conversions, I have simply parked it right here.

From WendyMcElroy.com, 2011 (see “electron volt” for full citation): 1 Bq inhaled Cs-137 = 4.6 × 10−9 Sv = .0046 microSv [presumably per hour but no units given], while 1 Bq ingested Cs-137 = 0.013 microSv[/hr?].

Curie—Information from Tilley and Thumm, p. 18; Baumeister and Marks, p. 9-187 [Etherington, “Atomic Power”]. “neither the curie nor the becquerel identified the isotope . . .”—Graf, p. 30.

Curie: Disintegration rates of Cs-137, Sr-90 and tritium—Beyond Nuclear, p. 10.

0.000006 g iodine-131 = 1 Ci = 5.6 kg iodine-129—Thomas Dersee and Sebastian Pflugbeil, Foodwatch report: “Calculated Fatalities from Radiation / Officially Permissible Limits for Radioactively Contaminated Food in the European Union and Japan” (Berlin: German Society for Radiation Protection, in cooperation with the German Section of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War [IPPNW]), 2011, p. 35 (“Terms and Units of Measure”).

Picocurie, 1 picocurie per gram + “One picocurie per gram of plutonium in sediment . . .”—Loc. cit.

Permissible tritium levels in water—Beyond Nuclear, p. 11.

Curies released at Three Mile Island and Fukushima—Lochbaum et al., p. 146.

“More than 140 million curies of radioactivity were released” from Hanford + weapons testing produced “largest release of artificial radiation . . .”—Gephart, pp. 4.17, 4.25.

Figures for Sr-90 and tritium—The Japan Times, Thursday, June 20, 2013 (Reiji Yoshida, “Strontium in groundwater at No. 1 soars: Tepco trying to keep flow from reaching sea, will build bank”).

1 cpm = 0.001 mrem per hour for Cs-137 (beta only)—Phone interviews with Edwin Lyman, March 13, 2014, March 24, 2014.

Apparent equivalence of 10 Bq/kg of cesium in drinking water with 0.1 mSv/year—www.mhlw.go.jp/english/topics/2011eq/dl/new_standard.pdf, accessed by Jordan Rothacker on December 10, 2015: p. 7 (“The concept of standard limit for “General Foods”).

10 Bq/liter of tritium = 270 pCi/liter—Beyond Nuclear, p. 11 (which states that 540 picocuries per liter = 20 Bq per liter).

Table of Bq to Sv for various isotopes—Extracted from a Japanese-language hard copy (with interpolated handwritten translations by Ms. Kawai Takako), downloaded for WTV by her, on October 12, 2014, from http://menorva.jp/school/life/radiation_bq/sv.php, beside which Ms. Kawai has written: “Min. of Education, Science . . .” Above the table has been printed “http:/www.remnet.jp/lecture/b05 01/4 1.html.”

Electron volt—Definition nearly verbatim from Baumeister and Marks, p. 9-183 (C. H. Etherington, “Atomic Power”). Indented conversions are also from here. But the two figures in mevs for Cs-137 [which I have converted to BTUs based on the indented figure of 1 fission [of uranium-235] = 200 mev = 3.04 × 10−14 BTUs] originally came from WendyMcElroy.com, “News Item: Becquerel, Gray, and Sievert, “posted by Brad,” Wednesday, 13 April 2011; downloaded for WTV by David M. Golden in 2015 from www.wendy.mcelroy.com/print.php?news.3895. Dave notes: “Not authoritative source but seems reasonable summary description.” On another part of this document (conversion from Bq to Sv ingested Cs-137) he writes: “Matches Quora.” [This source henceforth cited: “WendyMcElroy.com, 2011.”] Prof. Mummert substituted a different figure for the conversion from 0.66 mev, and I have trusted her. I have also taken information from Marion, pp. 240–41.

Mevs for E = mc2—Norman A. Frigerio, Your Body and Radiation, “Understanding the Atom” ser. (Oak Ridge, Tenn.: United States Atomic Energy Commission, Division of Technical Information, 1967 rev. of 1966 ed.), p. 6. [This source defines 1 ev as “the energy an electron gains in moving from the negative to the positive pole of a 1-volt battery.”]

Gray: Average radiation dose from a pelvic CT scan—Mahaffey, p. 34. Gy to Sv for gamma and alpha—WendyMcElroy.com, 2011.

Gray: Maximum doses for Iwaki, etc., “updated,” November 2, 2014, 15:40—Hard copy of Japanese-language web page, with translations interleaved by Ms. Kawai Takako, downloaded for WTV by her on that same date from http:/www.[h or b]ousai.[p?]e.i.[p]?]./y or v]is/iichitai/fukushima/index/[p?][B or h][p?]. [Some i’s might be j’s.] [Bottom is cut off.]

Gray: Highest and lowest prefectural doses, November 2, 2014, 15:50—Disaster Prevention and Nuclear Safety Network for Nuclear Environment, Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), “Environmental radioactivity and radiation information: Realtime radiation data collected via the System for Prediction of Environment Emergency Dose Information (SPEEDI): Radiation Maximum Data List,” downloaded for WTV by Ms. Kawai Takako on November 2, 2014, from http:/www.bousai.ne.jp/eng/.

Rad—Mahaffey, p. 31.

Rem: Acronym for “roentgen equivalent [in] man”—Glasstone and Dolan, p. 576.

1 rem = 1.07185 roentgens—Mahaffey, p. 30.

1 rem = 0.01 sievert—Loc. cit.

1 mrem defined in joules per kg—Bernard L. Cohen, p. 42. Number of radiation particles, risk of fatal cancer, reduction of life expectancy, Three Mile Island exposures, all from the same source, pp. 13–14.

Normal background exposure (mrem); maximum rem exposure for incident responder, etc., etc., up to 5,000-rem lethal dose—Levy, pp. 153, 46–48, 93–96.

Roentgen: “The ionizing effect of radiation on a standard mass of air”—Tilley and Thumm, p. 30. “One roetngen . . . strips off one outer electron . . .”—Mahaffey, p. 29. The following quotation is from Daniels and Alberty, p. 719.

Conversion from ergs to joules and other units—Daniels and Alberty, p. 752.

Sievert: A “unit of equivalent dose . . .”—CRC Handbook, pp. I-39–I-40 (“CONVERSION FACTORS FOR IONIZING RADIATION”); p. 16-46 (“Protection Against Ionizing Radiation”).

1 sievert = 1 joule [J]/kg—CRC Handbook, loc. cit.

1 mg U per g biological tissue = 0.006 Sv—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 24, p. 686. Prof. Mummert could not check this.

EPA standard for U in drinking water (40 microSv/yr)—Ibid., vol. 17, p. 388 (“nuclear fuel reserves”).

Anna Mummert: “There is not a direct conversion from Sieverts to BTU . . .”—“Report on Carbon Ideologies” (letter to WTV), March 2017.

1,000 rads = 0.0024 cal. + damage by “direct ionization . . .”—Norman A. Frigerio, Your Body and Radiation “Understanding the Atom” ser. (Oak Ridge, Tenn.: United States Atomic Energy Commission, Division of Technical Information, 1967 rev. of 1966 ed.), pp. 16–17.

“Regarding the conversion from Sv to BTU . . .”—Crownover to WTV, June 2017.

1 millisievert (mSv) = . . . 100 mrad, or in our units ~100 mrem—CRC Handbook, loc. cit.

Two claims for the strength of a chest X-ray in microSv—Tabak, p. 93, ADD.

“An American oncologist supplied the following X-ray dosage figures . . .”—She was Dr. Janice Ryu (personal communication, May 2017).

Millisievert/year to microSv/hr—My calculation.

1 microSv = . . . 10−4 rem—CRC Handbook, loc. cit.

Curie to gigabecquerels—Glasstone and Dolan, loc. cit. The “G” is capitalized in the original.

1 watt = 5 curies—Baumeister and Marks, p. 9-197 (Etherington article).

Coal

Blast furnace gas: “A low-grade producer gas . . .”—Paul W. Thrush and the Staff of the Bureau of Mines, comp. and ed., A Dictionary of Mining, Mineral, and Related Terms (Washington, D.C.: U. S. Department of the Interior, 1968), p. 111. [Hereafter cited: “Thrush et al.”] “Since the composition of BFG is unstable . . .”—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Japan, 2015, p. 3-19.

Coal: “A solid, brittle . . .”—Thrush et al., p. 222. “A combustible layered rock . . .”—Bangladesh MPEMR report, unnumbered early p., “Coal Exploration and Development” [this is probably p. 4]. “In its most general sense . . .” + “Coal is the result . . .”—Britannica, 11th ed., pp. 575, 577 (“coal”).

Anthracite, bituminous coal and lignite—Britannica, loc. cit., pp. 575–76. All not otherwise cited information on various moisture contents comes from Baumeister and Marks, p. 7-2 (J. F. Barkley, article on coal). “The highest rank of economically useable coal . . .”—National Coal Association, p. 11. One detail on anthracite (“Used mainly for heating homes”) derives from Coal Facts 2013, p. 72. “The rarest and most desirable form . . .”—Olah, Goeppert and Prakash, pp. 32–33. “A smokeless coal of high fuel efficiency . . .”—Thrush et al., loc. cit. The proximate analysis of Virginia coal is from Baumeister and Marks, p. 7-3 (Barkley article, Table 1). “All the anthracite mines in the U.S. are located in northeast Pennsylvania”—U.S. EIA, “Today in energy,” p. 1/2. [So cited henceforth. This source comes from http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=2670; downloaded by Jordan Rothacker, June 2016.] Less liable to spontaneous combustion—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 6, p. 468 (“coal”). “Most poets must have subsisted on anthracite”—Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac and Other Writings on Ecology and Conservation, ed. Curt Meine (New York: Library of America, 2013; orig. posthumous pub. of SCA 1949), p. 127 (“Chihuahua and Sonora,” in SCA).

Metallurgical coal—Coal Facts 2013, p. 73.

Bituminous: “Sometimes called ‘soft coal’ . . .” + 45–86% carbon—National Coal Association, p. 11. [In accord with the NCA for carbon composition: U.S. EIA, “Today in energy,” p. 1/2. This source also for: “West Virginia leads production.”] “Fixed carbon and volatile matter are about equal”—Thrush et al., p. 222. “A medium soft classification . . .”—Coal Facts 2013, loc. cit. Likewise “Bituminous coals used to make coke are classified as ‘metallurgical’” (p. 65, Jason Bostick, V.P., “Coal and Steel”). The caking of bituminous coal is explained in Baumeister and Marks, pp. 7-9–7-10 (Barkley article). Stanley Sturgill’s remark is taken from the interview of July 24, 2015.

Subbituminous: “A dull black coal . . .”—National Coal Association, p. 11. “A poor name for coal of higher rank . . .”—Thrush et al., loc. cit. 35–45% carbon—U.S. EIA, “Today in energy,” p. 1/2.

Steam coal—Thrush et al., p. 74.

Lignite: “Mined primarily in the western U.S. . . .” also comes from this source, p. 73. “Either markedly woody . . .”—Thrush et al., p. 222. “A brownish-black coal . . .” + carbon content of 25–35%—National Coal Association, p. 11. 30–70% moisture content—Encyclopaedia Britannica, Macropaedia, vol. 4 (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1976), p. 773 (“coal mining”).

Coal sizes—Baumeister and Marks, p. 7-15 (Barkley article). A table on p. 7-16 gives slightly different names.

Coal tar: Information on explosive properties—Kurt Saxon, comp., The Poor Man’s James Bond, vol. 2 (El Dorado, Arkansas: Desert Publications, 1991), p. 372: reduced facsimile of Tenney L. Davis, Ph.D., The Chemistry of Powder and Explosives, complete in 1 vol. (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1941–43) (facsimile p. 130).

Coke: “an excellent reducing agent—Metcalfe, Williams and Castka, p. 326. Coke as a precursor to acetylene—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 6, pp. 476–77 (“coal”). “Coke from any coker is nearly all carbon . . .”—Leffler, p. 118. “Western coals are weakly coking . . .”—Baumeister and Marks, p. 7-17 (J. F. Barkley, article on coke).

Bench, resources, reserve (including proven + probable)—Bangladesh MPEMR report, unnumbered early page “Coal Exploration and Development” [this is probably p. 4].

Beneficiation—Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget, North American Industry Classification System, United States, 2012 (Lanham, Maryland: Bernan Press / Rowman and Littlefield, 2012), p. 161. [Henceforth cited: North American Industry Classification System.]

Blast furnace: “A shaft furnace . . .”—Thrush et al., p. 111.

Dragline—National Coal Association, p. 21.

Highwall—Coal Facts 2013, p. 73.

IGCC: Remarks of Sakakibara Kohji—Tepco interview of October 20, 2014.

Mantrip: Use of “trip” by Upton Sinclair—Op. cit., p. 29.

Producer gas—“Composed of carbon monoxide . . .”—Richard J. Lewis, Sr., Hazardous Chemicals Desk Reference, 4th ed. (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1997), p. 986.

Subsidence—Bangladesh MPEMR report, p. 43.

Surface mine (including auger, single bench, multiple bench and strip mines)—Bangladesh MPEMR report, pp. 7–8, 46. Open pit mine as cheaper in dollars—W. A. Hustrulid, ed., Underground Mining Methods Handbook (New York: Society of Mining Engineers and The American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers, Inc., 1982), p. 71 (Dan Nilsson, “Open-Pit or Underground Mining”).

Auger mine: “Sometimes employed . . .”—National Coal Association, p. 20. Yield rate of 33%—Mountaintop Mining, p. 11 (Jason Bostic, “West Virginia Coal Mining Methods”).

Mountaintop removal mine—National Coal Association, p. 20. “Rugged mountaintops and steep hollows are transformed . . .”—Nicholas P. Chironis, Coal Age Operating Handbook of Coal Surface Mining and Reclamation (New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., Coal Age Mining Information Services, vol. 2, 1978), p. 10. “As of 2005, 2700 ridges . . .”—Melissa M. Ahern, Michael Hendryx, Jamison Conley, Evan Fedorko, Alan Ducatman and Keith J. Zullig, “The association between mountaintop mining and birth defects among live births in central Appalachia, 1996–2003,” in Environmental Research, 111 (2011), part 1: Introduction, citing Skytruth, 2009a; at www.elsevier.com/locate/envres; “available 22 June 2011”; accessed by Laura Michele Diener in early August 2014 and sent to WTV via memory stick. [Henceforth cited: “Ahern et al.”]

Strip mine: “Mining then continues laterally . . .”—National Coal Association, p. 20.

Valley fill mine—Chironis, p. 9.

Tipple—Coal Facts 2013, p. 74; Hustrulid, p. 1724.

Underground mine—Bangladesh MPEMR report, pp. 9–10.

Block mine; room-and-pillar mine—Bangladesh MPEMR report, pp. 10, 43. “fully developed in a section”—Syd S. Peng, Coal Mine Ground Control, 2nd ed. (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1986), p. 7. Room-and-pillar mine—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 6, pp. 465–66 (“coal”).]

Longwall mine: “Longwall mining employs a steel plow . . .”—National Coal Association, p. 12, “Two parallel headings are made . . .”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 6, pp. 465–66 (“coal”). “The retreating method is almost exclusively used . . .”—Peng, p. 15. “the most capital intensive but also the most capital efficient method . . .”—Coal Valley News, Wednesday, January 7, 2015, p. 5A (Anya Litvak, “Pennsylvania coal comes of age”). Amount of coal left behind—Bangladesh MPEMR report, p. 43.

Shortwall mine, longwall with shoring—Bangladesh MPEMR report, p. 10.

Aluminum—Al2O3 percentages in coal ash are from Baumeister and Marks, p. 7-9 (Table 3).

Black lung: From the mining methods handbook, 1978—Hustrulid, pp. 1687–88 (ch. 8, Welby G. Courtney, “Dust Control”). Quotation from Senator Jay Rockefeller—Coal Valley News, Wednesday, September 11, 2013, p. B7 (Fred Pace, “Push continues for ‘Black Lung’ protections”).

Coal ash: “The inorganic residue”—Baumeister and Marks, p. 7-7 (Barkley article on coal). “The ash contains heavy metals . . .”—Eden’s Own / Country Star, April 2014, p. 18. “America’s coal plants produce 140 million tons . . .”—The Ecologist, Friday, October 23, 2015, Ben Whitford (Coal Puddle via Shutterstock), “Coal Ash: The United States’ Multibillion-Ton Toxic Legacy” (4-pp. typescript as downloaded and printed for WTV by Teresa A. McFarland, October 27, 2015).

Coal dust—Baumeister and Marks, p. 7-45 (Table 28, “Explosion Characteristics of Various Dusts”).

Coal sludge: “The liquid waste created . . .”—Brochure ca. 2013 from the Sludge Safety Project (“a project of Coal River Mountain Watch, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and West Virginia communities”), Huntington, West Virginia.

Conductivity: “It goes up as the water gets saltier . . .”—Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, “Winds of Change,” Fall 2015, p. 25 (“What Is This Conductivity, Anyway?” (cont’d from p. 5). [This issue henceforth cited: “OVEC 2015.”] Legal liabilities of named companies—Ibid., p. 11 (Dianne Bady, “Another Conductivity Court Victory”).

pH: Measurement ranges of various substances—CRC Handbook, 2006, p. 7-17 (“Typical pH Values of Biological Materials and Foods”), except for: 1.0 normal sodium hydroxide, 0.1 normal sodium hydroxide, and seawater, which I have taken from Metcalfe, Williams and Castka, p. 281 (Table 14.4, “Approximate pH of Some Common Substances”). A 1.0 normal solution contains 1 gram-equivalent of solute per liter of solvent (in this case, water).

Yellowboy + its generation equation—Richard M. Stapleton, ed.-in-chief, Pollution A to Z (New York: Macmillan Reference USA [Thomson / Gale], 2004), vol. 2, p. 48 (“yellowboy”). [Henceforth cited: “Stapleton.”]

Asia Energy, BHP—From interview with Mr. Mohammed Aminul Islam Bablu June 2015.

BHP: “BHP did not want to create another environmental disaster . . .”—Anu Muhammad, “Phulbari Day: Celebrating people’s power: August 26, 2014” (4-pp. typescript provided by Nakeeb). This article goes on to say: “In 1997, Asia Energy (AEC) was formed mysteriously, and in 1998 BHP transferred its license to this newly formed company.”

Dinajpur—Manoranjam Pegu, FK Fellow, SUPRO “The Phulbari Movement: Resisting Neo-liberalism in Bangladesh” (15?-pp. undated typescript, downloaded by Nakeeb), pp. 14, 4.

National Committee: “Formed in 1998. . .”—Pegu, p. 12. “Organized a long march from Dhaka . . .”—Redtimesbd.com, Dhaka, Friday, September 11, 2009, downloaded by Nakeeb. “Phulbari Resistance: Communities Resisting GCM Resources Plc (GCM) Open Pit Coal Mining Project in Phulbari, Bangladesh. ‘Mineral Resources is the Blood Flown [sic] in Our Veins: Interview with Anu Mohammad.’” Exclusive interview by Audity Falguni, p. 2. [Henceforth cited: “Redtimes interview.”]

OECD: “The region previously called Latin America . . .”—Coal Information 2012, p. I.10.

Phulbari: “The coal-field will extend over 135 square kilometers” + number of people potentially displaced—Pegu, p. 4.

Regulated community: “It took long enough in all conscience . . .”—Hermann Hesse, Magister Ludi (The Glass Bead Game), trans. Richard and Clara Winston (New York: Bantam, 1972 repr. of 1969 ed.; orig. German ed. 1943), p. 26.

Units and conversions: The U.S. Department of Energy 1993 claim: 1 ton coal = 2,000 kWh—National Coal Association, p. 58.

Ton of coal equivalent—Coal Information 2012, p. 1.14.

Natural Gas and Fracking

Liquefied petroleum gases—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 13, p. 744 (“hydrocarbons”: “survey”).

Methane: “A gas similar in nature . . .” + “A major coal mining nuisance . . .”—National Coal Association, p. 12. “the end product of the anaerobic . . . decay of plants”—Morrison and Boyd, p. 36. Dangerous concentration of 1.25% “for a sustained time”—Charleston Gazette, March 26, 2013, p. 1A (Ken Ward Jr., “Mine safety board delays key methane rule decision”). “As much as . . . 400 trillion . . . cubic feet . . .”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 13, p. 812 (“hydrocarbons”: “C1–C6”). “If the methane is accompanied by ethane and butane . . .”—High Country News, September 8, 2015 news analysis, n.p. (Internet download, printed for WTV by a friend in September 2015) (Sarah Tory, “Scientists Track Energy’s ‘Fugitive Emissions’ from Above”). That methane is in coal is also stated in Stapleton, vol. 1, p. 101. “Methane is colorless and, when liquefied . . .”—Morrison and Boyd, p. 36. Molecular weight and combustion heat of methane—Ibid., pp. 67, 38.

Natural gas: “The ideal fossil fuel . . .”—Waples, pp. 7–8. “The main component of all natural gas is methane . . .”—Lom and Williams, p. 27. Other components, from ethane to air—Information (and order) from Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 12 (“Fuel Resources” to “Heat Stabilizers”), p. 325 (Table 5: “Physical Constants of Natural Gas Constituents”).

Fracking: “Fracturing the formation . . .”—Raymond and Leffler, p. 216. “water, sand and trace chemicals”—Chris Faulkner, p. x. “In effect, fracking creates additional permeability . . .”—Ibid., p. 64.

Frack[ing] fluid—Waples, p. 245; Food and Water Watch brochure, p. 3 (citing House Energy and Commerce Committee, January 2011, April 2011).

Injection wells—Waples, p. 301.

Produced water: “Water from the rock formation”—Food and Water Watch brochure, p. 4.

Separator: “A piece of equipment . . .”—Waples, p. 305.

Separator tanks—Loc. cit.

Stripper well, unconventional formation, unconventional gas well, vertical gas well—OIL AND GAS (58 PA.C.S.)—OMNIBUS AMENDMENTS Act of Feb. 14, 2012, P.L. 87, No. 13. Session of 2012 No. 2012–13. AN ACT [Cl. 58] Amending Title 58 (Oil and Gas) of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes. Downloaded for WTV by Jordan Rothacker, May 2017.

Cubic foot, billion cubic feet, quad—Waples, pp. 296, 294, 304.

Oil

Carbon content of petroleum and other liquid fuels—From Baumeister and Marks, p. 7-21, Table 14. The carbon content in this table ranges only from 84–86%, but on p. 7-26 kerosene is stated as having 85–88% carbon.

Crude oil: “Raw petroleum as it comes from the earth . . .”—Thrush et al., p. 283. A “liquid mineral”—North American Industry Classification System, p. 161. “The higher the crude, the higher the API . . .”—T. E. W. Nind, Principles of Oil Well Production (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1964), p. 27.

API: Computation of API specific gravity—Nind, p. 27. Same computation, and list of examples of API—Leffler, pp. 19–20, p. 20 (Table 3-3, “Typical gravities”). “The logic of this arcane formula . . .”—Martin S. Raymond and William L. Leffler, Oil and Gas Production in Nontechnical Language (Tulsa, Oklahoma: PennWell Corporation, 2001), p. 64.

Heavy crude: “Defined here as oil of 20° gravity . . .”—Long-Term Energy Resources, p. 55 (Richard Meyer, “Speculations on Oil and Gas Resources . . .”).

Crude oil (cont’d): “. . . largely made up of flammable hydrocarbons”—Duffy and Smith, p. 62.

Hydrocarbons—Duffy and Smith, loc. cit. “Chemicals composed of only the two elements . . .”—Mecalfe, Williams and Castka, p. 342. “Hydrocarbons in gasoline . . .”—USNRMS “Prairie State,” p. 81.

Okie gas—Raymond and Leffler, p. 65.

Light crude: More than 30° API—Information from Nind, p. 27. Colorless—Raymond and Leffler, p. 65. “The light crudes tend to have more gasoline . . .”—Leffler, pp. 18, 20. “Probably has few percent natural gas liquids”—Raymond and Leffler, p. 63.

Medium crude: 20 to 30° API—Information from Nind, p. 27. Varying colors—Raymond and Leffler, p. 65.

Heavy crude: 10 to 20° API—Information from Nind, p. 27. Black colored—Raymond and Leffler, p. 65. “The heavy crudes tend to have more gas oil . . .”—Leffler, pp. 18, 20. “Has little or no natural gas liquids . . .”—Raymond and Leffler, p. 63.

Information on sweet and sour crudes—Leffler, pp. 18, 20. Information on crudes of Bakken and Venezuela—Time, vol. 185, no. 3, February 2, 2015, p. 37 (various reporters, “Economy: The Cost of Cheap Gas”). Odors of sweet, sour and aromatic crudes—Raymond and Leffler, p. 65.

Diesel fuel—Baumeister and Marks, p. 7-27. Efficiency in comparison to gasoline—Duffy and Smith, p. 76.

Diesel grades 1-D, 2-D and 4-D—Duffy and Smith, p. 75.

Gasoline: “A complex mixture of hydrocarbons . . .”—Baumeister and Marks, p. 7-24. “commonly called distillates”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 13, p. 744 (“hydrocarbons”: “survey”). “Mildly toxic by inhalation . . .”—Richard J. Lewis, Sr., p. 550. “The combustion of gasoline, pound for pound . . .”—Duffy and Smith, p. 83.

Kerosene—Baumeister and Marks, p. 7-26. “Except for severe arctic areas . . .”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 3 (“Antibiotics [Beta-Lactams]” to “Batteries”), p. 792 (“aviation and other gas turbine fuels”).

Naphtha: “Refers to the light end fractions . . .”—Chemtech IV, p. 2.21 (ch. 2: “Petrochemicals”).

Octane rating—Duffy and Smith, p. 68.

Oil: Description of the transformation of plankton into oil, including direct quote from “initiating chemical reactions” to “between 2 and 4 kilometres”—Salomon Kroonenberg, Why Hell Stinks of Sulfur: Mythology and Geology of the Underworld, trans. Andy Brown (London: Reaktion Books, 2013; orig. Dutch ed. 2011), p. 210. “Of the light oils . . .”—Britannica, 11th ed., vol. XX (Ode to Payment of members), p. 35 (“oil”).

Production ratios of oil from coal, oil from tar sands, gasoline from oil; cited table of average yield—Duffy and Smith, pp. 83, 65.

Tar sands: “Also known as oil sands . . .”—Chris Faulkner, p. 46. “Heavy hydrocarbons mixed with sand . . .”—Duffy and Smith, p. 83.

“In 2009, 16.9 billion barrels . . .”—Canada Yearbook 2011, p. 158.

Oil shale: “A convenient expression . . .”—Waples, p. 303. “a sedimentary mineral . . .”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 17 (“Nickel and Nickel Alloys” to “Paint”), p. 674 (“oil shale”).

Petroleum, petroleum distillate, petroleum spirits—Richard J. Lewis, Sr., pp. 907–8.

Plastic: “Often designed to mimic the properties of natural materials . . .”—American Chemistry Council, 2016, p. 1.

Residual fuel oil: “The source fuel for combustion . . .”—Camara, p. 33-2.

Synthesis gas—McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology, 11th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2012), vol. 13 (“Par” to “Plan”), p. 261 (“petroleum processing and refining”).

Alkylation, catalytic cracking, hydrocracking, polymerization, thermal cracking—Duffy and Smith, p. 65.

Condensate: “A vaporous mixture of gas and water . . .”—March 24, 1984, Greeley Tribune article. “The liquid resulting . . .”—Waples, p. 296.

Distillation: Gasoline produced—Duffy and Smith, p. 64.

Fractionating: Information on various boiling points—Leffler, p. 16 (Table 3-1, “Boiling temperatures for selected hydrocarbons”).

Roughneck—Jeanne Marie Laskas, Hidden America: From Coal Miners to Cowboys, an Extraordinary Exploration of the Unseen People Who Make This Country Work (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2012), p. 221.

Wellhead—March 24, 1984, Greeley Tribune article.

Car-generated pollution—Stambler, pp. 12–13.

Hydrocarbons (as pollutants)—Information from Odum, p. 444.

Lead—Duffy and Smith, p. 67; Stambler, p. 19.

ADCO, ADNOC, Halliburton—Abu Dhabi yellow pages, 2016, pp. 200, 202.

Barrel: “Conversion factors vary depending on oil source”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 13, p. 744 (“hydrocarbons”: “survey”). “To convert t/d to bbl/d, multiply by 7” (ibid., p. 746). 1 barrel of petroleum = 42 gallons = 159 liters—Olah, Goeppert and Prakash, p. xvi; the same conversion is given in U.S. DOE, 1982, p. 101 (Appendix C, “Volume and Weight Conversions”).

Barrels per metric ton of refined product—Data from U.S. DOE, 1982, loc. cit.

Ton of oil equivalent—Coal Information 2012, p. 1.16. But that 1 toe = 10 tons TNT equivalent comes from the Electropaedia website, accessed June 22, 2016.

“One metric ton of crude oil varies from about 1.5 per cent . . .”—OECD, 1974, vol. 2, p. 3.

TWH produced by 1 mtoe “in a modern power station”—BP Statistical Review, 2017, p. 47.

Solar Energy and Light

Adoption constraints—Fuentes-Hernandez to WTV, May 2017.

Candle and candela—American Electricians’ Handbook, 2002, p. 10.10-12.

International candle—Baumeister and Marks, p. 12-132 (Howard E. Murphy, “Illumination”).

Foot-candle—Odum, p. 43.

Relative brightnesses of moonlight and sunlight—Baumeister and Marks, loc. cit.

Langley—Daniels, p. 14.

“Radiation of 1 langley [per minute] is a reasonable average value . . .”—Ibid., p. 15.

Lumen—American Electricians’ Handbook, 2002, p. 10.12, 10.15.

Efficiency of Edison’s lamp and of a Mazda fluorescent—Baumeister and Marks, p. 12-136 (Howard E. Murphy, “Illumination,” Table 1, “Relative Luminous Efficiencies of Electric Illuminants”). Date of Edison’s lamp (1879)—Britannica, 15th ed., Micropaedia, vol. II (Colemani to Exclusi), p. 791 (“Edison, Thomas Alva”).

Solar absorption, solar efficiency, solar energy—Fuentes-Hernandez to WTV, May 2017.

Environmental Terms Relevant to Resource Extraction

Aquifer—Waples, p. 294.

Physical Data

Density conversions of lb/gal to and from kg/liter or cubic meter—CRC Handbook, 2006, p. 1-31.

Density of aviation fuel: Light and medium distillate—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 3 (“Antibiotics [Beta-Lactams]” to “Batteries”), p. 793 (Table 4: “Specifications for Ground Gas Turbine Fuels”). Parenthetical densities in lb/gal calculated by WTV.

Densities of butane and propane in lbs/gal—Leffler, p. 16 (Table 3-1, “Boiling temperatures for selected hydrocarbons”). I originally wrote down 4.9 lbs/gal, which must have been my mistake or Leffler’s; I have substituted Prof. Mummert’s value. For propane I had 4.2 lbs/gal, which I also switched out for Prof. Mummert’s figure.

Density of carbon—Prof. Mummert.

Densities of anthracite, bituminous coal, lignite and gasoline, per cubic foot—Baumeister, p. 6-7 (“Approximate Specific Gravities and Densities”).

Densities of anthracite and bituminous coal, in g/cc—CRC Handbook, 2006, p. 15-39 (“Density of Various Solids”).

Density of diesel fuel: “Diesel fuel varies greatly in its characteristics, ranging from light distillates, which are practically heavy kerosenes, to residual fuels or crude oils, which are used in a few instances”—Baumeister, p. 7-27. Accordingly, I averaged the densities of kerosene (6.819 lbs/gal) and 31.0 API Oklahoma crude (7.253) [p. 7-21], to obtain 7.036 lbs/gal.

Density of gasoline, per gallon—Baumeister p. 6-7.

Densities of hydrogen, carbon dioxide—Metcalf, Williams and Castka, p. 652 (Table 9, “Density and Specific Gravity of Gases”).

Density of “common engine kerosene”—Ellis and Rumely, p. 119. See also note for density of diesel fuel, almost immediately above.

Density of methane—Baumeister p. 6-7, and Metcalf, Williams and Castka, p. 652 (Table 9, “Density and Specific Gravity of Gases”).

Specific gravities of Pittsburgh natural gas and coal gas—Baumeister, p. 7-32.

Density of peat blocks—CRC Handbook, 2006, loc. cit.

Density of plutonium—Prof. Mummert.

Densities of uranium hexafluoride [at 135° F: 13.00 kg/m3] and of steam—McGraw-Hill Encyclopaedia of Science and Technology, vol. 5 (Cot to Eat), p. 371, “density” (Table 1: “Selected gas densities”). Density in lbs/cu ft (like that of U-235) is from Prof. Mummert.

Densities of air and water—Burington, p. 449 (Table 29, “Important Constants”).

Densities of PBXN-109 and TNT—Maienschein, 2002, pp. 6–7.

Chemical Abbreviations

CaCO3—F. W. Taylor, 2001: “Most of the carbon dioxide that was originally outgassed . . .”—Op. cit., pp. 98–99.

Lakhs, Crores and Other Enumeration Terms, with Standard Conversions

Pound per cubic foot = 0.0160 g/cm2—Prof. Mummert.

Teragram, metric ton—Prof. Mummert.

Metric ton—U.S. DOE, 1982, p. 101 (Appendix C, “Volume and Weight Conversions”). Prof. Mummert kindly presented me with two more digits.

Climate Change

Carbon dioxide, Kyoto Protocol Gases, methane and nitrous oxide—Greenhouse Gas Inventory Germany, 1990–2007, p. 101. “This spectrum of distribution of greenhouse-gas emissions is typical for a highly developed and industrialised country.”

Carbonic acid: “The acid assumed to be formed . . .”—Britannica, 11th ed., vol. V, p. 653 (“cement”).

Carbon dioxide: “The most important GHG by far is CO2 . . .”—EU greenhouse report, 2014, p. x.

Carbon equivalents—OECD/IEA, 2016, p. 165.

CFCs: Use as low-viscosity cleaning agents—Magill, p. 421 (“Chlorofluorocarbons”).

Climate—IPCC, p. 126.

Climate change, global warming—Darling and Sisterson, p. xvi.

Climate change evidence—IPCC, p. 121.

Forcings—Ibid., pp. 108, 117, 155. “It seems likely that natural changes . . .”—Allaby, vol. 1, p. 112 (“Climatic Forcing”); Darling and Sisterson, p. 141; IPCC, pp. 666, 676—“Globally averaged climate forcing . . .” E-mail to WTV via Jordan Rothacker from Pieter Tans, NOAA Federal, Thursday, July 6, 2017, at 2:27 pm.

Freon—Britannica, 15th ed., Micropaedia, vol. IV, p. 314 (“Freon”).

Global warming—“The Earth’s average land and ocean surface temperature . . .”—Darling and Sisterson, p. 53.

Global warming potential—EPA, 2016, p. 58; A “measure of how much [solar] energy . . .”—Understanding Global Warming Potentials | Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions | US EPA [last updated on February 14, 2017], downloaded for WTV by Jordan Rothacker, July 2017, p. 1/3.

Greenhouse effect—National Coal Association, p. 95.

Halocarbons—IPCC, 2013, p. 1455.

HCFCs: “The ideal CFC substitute . . .”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 6, pp. 510–11 (“fluorine compounds, organic—[aliphatic]”). “the continued refrigeration use of HCFC-22 . . .”—Ibid., p. 477. GWP of HCFC-22—Ibid., vol. 21, p. 134 (Table 2, “Refrigerant Toxicity and Environmental Data”).

HFCs: “Halocarbons that contain only carbon . . .”—Kroschwitz and Howe-Grant, vol. 21 (“Recycling, Oil” to “Silicon”), p. 128 (“refrigeration”). “Atmospheric HFC abundances are low . . .”—IPCC, 2013, p. 168.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—Darling and Sisterson, p. 6. [The WMO is defined on p. 5.]

International Energy Agency—OECD/IEA, 2016, p. 2.

CO2 Emissions from Fuel Combustion: Highlights (Paris: International Energy Agency, OECD/IEA, 2016); downloaded from www.iea.org for WTV by Jordan Rothacker, October 2017.

Nitrous oxide—IPCC, p. 676.

Social cost of carbon—Ibid., p. 155.

Temperature extremes—Wendy M. Middleton, ed.-in-chief, Reference Data for Engineers: Radio, Electronics, Computer, and Communications, 9th ed (Boston: Newnes, 1998, 2002), p. 49-4.

VOCs—IPCC, 2013, p. 1464.

Well-mixed greenhouse gases—IPCC, 2013, p. 13. “There are also several other substances . . .”—EPA, 2016, p. 1-5.

“Increasing atmospheric burdens of well-mixed GHGs resulted in a 9% increase in their RF from 1998 to 2005.”—IPCC, p. 165, which continues: “Based on updated in situ observations, this assessment concludes that these trends resulted in a 7.5% increase in RF from GHGs from 2005 to 2011, with carbon dioxide (CO2) contributing 80%.”

Carbon Dioxide Emissions of Various Fuels When Producing 2013 American Winter Peak Electrical Load Capacity

All emissions per pound of fuel from pp. 212, 214, 216, Carbon Dioxide Emissions of Common Fuels, in multiples of lignite’s. All HHVs from pp. 208–218, table of Calorific Efficiencies. Then I divided 9 trillion by each fuel’s HHV to determine the required number of pounds, which I multiplied by its emissions per pound to get the total emissions.

Footnote: Combustion products of 1 lb methane—Baumeister and Marks, p. 4-72 (G. A. Hawkins, “Thermal Properties of Bodies and Thermodynamics”).

“Finally, I must be permitted to say that the writing of this book . . .”—Digby, p. xxv.

Acknowledgments

Since the help I received on this project crossed many chapter-boundaries, all acknowledgments will promiscuously appear at the end of the second volume—with the exception of one. Let me reproduce the letter I wrote my publisher on acceptance of this book:

I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for accepting Carbon Ideologies in its long form.

You asked for a short book. I fully planned to give it to you. But as I worked on it, I came to the extremely reluctant conclusion that a mere reporting of people’s views and experiences, necessary though that was, could not adequately address the impending emergency of climate change. In addition to “he said, she said,” I had to express what unfortunately appears to be the truth.

To do this required research into agriculture, chemical engineering, industrial efficiency, etcetera. It also required much arithmetic. I am sorry.

. . . Over and over I have imposed on you, and I know it. Aside from . . . some good reviews from time to time, what has Viking gotten out of it all? Not much, I fear, and again, I am sorry. You do not owe me a living, and I sincerely hope that someday all this will be worth it to you.

You have consistently treated me better than I humanly deserve (although I do hope that the books deserve it). I never expected to have such a loyal, supportive publisher. Working with Viking has been one of the great joys of my professional life. So again, thank you.

Your friend,

WTV

About the Author

WILLIAM T. VOLLMANN is the author of ten novels, including Europe Central, which won the National Book Award. He has also written four collections of stories, including The Atlas, which won the PEN Center USA West Award for Fiction; a memoir; and six works of nonfiction, including Rising Up and Rising Down and Imperial, both of which were finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He lives in California.

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* Certain politicians do get singled out, to satisfy their need for attention.

* The “About” sections were inspired by their namesakes in my old Joy of Cooking. After all, we should have known the various recipes through which our goose was being cooked.

* If, like me, you wish to pretend otherwise, see what we should have done, on II:627. (Henceforth, cross-references will be as follows: A page preceded by a roman numeral II, e.g., II:123, directs you to Volume II of Carbon Ideologies. A page number by itself cites the volume that you hold.)

* I had hoped to interview someone in this organization. My intermediary inserted here: “I think you should mention that the Kentucky Coal Association NEVER got back to me even though they promised.”

* Linda Tirado, 2014: “It’s not that I don’t care about global warming or the environment; it’s that there’s only so far out of my way I’m willing to go . . . Overconsumption is a concern for people who’ve made it to regular consumption . . . I do not care about the whales . . . Once we’ve hit the part where my own species is mostly taken care of, I’ll start to worry about African rhinos. Until then, I’ll just keep restraining myself from punching people when they look me in the face and argue that an ecosystem somewhere is more important than homelessness.”

* See “About Sulfur,” II:26.

* And how wonderful not to try! The West Virginian politician added: “The life of coal miners might not be an important factor to Obama’s most ardent supporters, but it is our way of life and one of which we are proud.”

* Wisconsin’s Attorney General, who of course voted for the ban, refused to discuss the matter with The New York Times. His descendants died choking like the rest of us.

* Little or no impact was also the argument made by those who resisted other carbon reduction measures. Consider the President of the Missouri Farm Bureau, who disliked wind farms. His terms of complaint resembled those of the few fracking dissidents I interviewed in Weld County, Colorado: Pads and pipes rose up in their back yards against their will! I could not blame one farmer’s resentment when he learned that a 140-foot wind energy transmission tower “was to be located not in one of his open fields, but in the corner of his yard, about 250 feet from his front door.” But the Farm Bureau’s President did not stop with that case. He informed us that “Missouri landowners” placed no stock in the notion of “permanently changing the countryside to theoretically shave a fraction of a degree off global temperatures sometime in the next century.” In other words, they folded their hands along with me.

* Carbon Ideologies attempts to do some of this work.

* See II:650.

* My scales create their own problems. Measurements of, for instance, very low radiation levels may be less accurate than those of higher ones. Thus the value I call “1” may be off, and everything else with it. I address this point here.

* see here.

* A kind of scintillation meter. see here.

* See II:54.

* see here.

* Like my realtor friend, he described global warming with the word “evolutionary.” He said that the poles of the Earth had rotated several times, and this might now be occurring. He said that even Al Gore had stopped referring to global warming and now spoke of climate change. That the climate was changing he was inclined to acknowledge, but he suspected that humans were only a small part of the cause. How this would ameliorate our situation if it were true I could not tell at first, but then he went on to mention epidemics, and the great meteor which might have exterminated the dinosaurs, and remarked that some such disaster might befall us at any time, so that I began to comprehend his reaction as a kind of fatalism near to mine. I had begun to suspect that global warming was inevitable, so what should I be but fatalistic?

* I will not soon forget the first time (it must have been in the 1990s) that I went to the only store in a certain impoverished Canadian Inuit town and saw for sale not only frozen hunks of local marine mammals, not only canned and powdered convenience foods from Down South—but fresh kiwi fruits from Australia. And I wondered how it possibly made sense to fly them there. But at home I rarely thought twice about buying some exotic food that caught my fancy.

* From a work on Victorian-era Britain: On washday (every two weeks), “servants might rise as early as 2:00 a.m. to begin heating large cauldrons of water . . . Major physical effort was required to wring out sheets and other heavy items; and drying not only depended on the weather but also, in urban areas, might leave the newly washed clothes grey with soot from the outside air.”

* See II:16.

* As will be especially apparent in the West Virginia chapter.

* 3.43 versus 6.28 British Thermal Units per minute. See the table beginning here. I will use BTUs in this book for historical, sentimental and locally expedient reasons. One BTU (contained in one match tip) is the amount of energy needed to warm a pound of water by 1° Fahrenheit.

* The worst sector was transportation, at an efficiency barely above 20%, with significant emissions of greenhouse gases (see here).

* See the table of Comparative One-Century Global Warming Potentials here.

* To fill out this picture of manufacturing bottlenecks I now quote Comrade Puzyrev, factory director: “In a workshop that’s had a direct hit, production slumps heavily . . . especially if many people have been killed or injured. It’s a horrible sight, all the blood, and makes even our hardened workers quite ill for a day or two . . .”

* see here, “Comparative Energy Requirements,” header 2,706.

* see here.

* They were probably pig iron.

* see here.

* The carbon emissions of anything are proportional to the amount of carbon in it. In 2014, Japanese food waste was 43.4% carbon—slightly higher than the percentage for human waste. I assume that Hawaiian waste was comparable.

* Much had improved by 1977: “Natural gas, the major raw material for nitrogen fertilizers, is being burned off in large quantities in the oil wells of the Middle East because there are only a few fertilizer conversion plants located near the oil fields; yet the world has a shortage of nitrogen fertilizers.”

* This was the pollutant of Homer City Generating Station in Pennsylvania (here). See also “About Sulfur,” II:26.

* That is, concentrated on the surface of the dust particles.

* For instance, as he explained in another paper: “A number of manufacturing processes shape the work piece [sic] material primarily by plastic deformation. These would include machining and grinding processes as well as forming processes such as sheet metal stamping [and] . . . forging . . . In all [such] cases . . . the plastic work is converted in large part to thermal energy and not recovered. Hence these processes are irreversible.” Thus one can hardly call them wasteful—always provided that they are worth doing at all.

* From what I could tell, Toyota seriously tried to reduce energy expenditure, for which I must praise the company. For the process mentioned in the preceding table, “a minimization of coolants could . . . save twice.” In general, the factory’s “equipment was redesigned to reduce energy, particularly when there was no production.” Whether this equipment included the machining devices, and how much energy was actually saved, remained unstated.

* See II:519.

* J. G. Ballard, 1996: “Without motives our investigation would be so much easier.” Indeed, wouldn’t you rather just damn my generation to hell?—Now, what about the generations before and after mine? Again Ballard had the answer: “Guilt is so flexible, it’s a currency that changes hands . . . each time losing a little value.”

* Nanotubes “are among the stiffest and strongest fibers known, and have remarkable electronic properties . . .” We created them by inserting hexagonal rings of carbon atoms into sliced-open molecules of buckminsterfullerene (see “About Carbon,” p. 106).

* See here, here, headers 2 and 22.

* see here, headers 105 and 270.

* From what I could tell, its purpose was to bless Australian coal sales to India.

* And (fat chance!) generated that power at 100% rather than 30% efficiency.

* That is, 113.8 versus 60.7 million BTUs.

* Of all food categories, only “fresh produce, oilseeds and other horticulture” traveled less, their average harvest-to-sale trajectories decreasing from 438 to 374 miles.

* You will note that here and in the table above I have reversed the two terms of the NCA’s ratio. Since this was supposedly close to unity, the reversal should not matter; and I thought it more appropriate to Carbon Ideologies to privilege total power demand in the numerator.

* According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: “Due to a general shift from a manufacturing-based economy to a service-based economy, as well as overall increases in efficiency, energy consumption and energy-related CO2 emissions per dollar of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) have both declined since 1990.” Meanwhile the BP Statistical Review concluded: “The good news is that carbon emissions were essentially flat in 2016[,] . . . the third consecutive year . . . [,] in sharp contrast to the 10 years before . . . [,] when emissions grew by almost 2.5% per year. Some of this slowdown reflects weaker GDP growth, but the majority reflects faster declines in the carbon intensity of GDP . . . driven by accelerating improvements in both energy efficiency and the fuel mix . . . China’s carbon emissions are estimated to have actually fallen over the past two years, after growing by more than 75% in the previous 10 years.” This was one of the very few encouraging data I discovered while researching Carbon Ideologies.

* The ratio circa 2013 was one car for every eight Earthlings. Rate of car ownership did not closely correlate to GDP. In 1996, for instance, Lebanon ranked first at 732 cars per 1,000 people.

* I am happy to say that in one 24-year period, American industrial output rose 64% while industrial carbon emissions fell 3.5% The apparent causes were changes in technologies and manufacturing processes. The “clear link” between CO2 emissions and economic growth allowed for some exceptions. But rather than shout out hopeful news I timidly reiterate that during those 24 years total American emissions rose 7.4%.

* And Mexico practiced what she preached: “The average per capita emissions for the country are 5.4 [metric] tonnes of CO2 equivalent per inhabitant, with an average annual growth of 0.4% between 1990 and 2002.” It may be worth pointing out in response that (as of 2013) “four of the top ten manufacturing carbon emitters are not in the top ten manufacturers based on monetary output. And six of the top ten carbon emitters are not in the high-income group.”

* See “Comparative Power Requirements” (here) for more information on this same appliance.

* Gutowski again [with Dusan Sekulic]: “The actual machining process involves significant friction at the tool–work piece interface such that the actual work requirement is considerably more than the calculated plastic work [of deformation such as stamping]. This work is provided by the spindle motor of the machine tool and is tabulated for various work piece materials as the so called specific cutting energy . . .”

* Within limits. There was some level of energy loss inherent in that system. A temperature gradient between the electroplating apparatus and the surrounding air would have allowed heat to escape at a certain rate. Energy needed to enter the system at a rate greater than the rate of energy loss.

* A unit equally expressive of electrical energy and mechanical force. As Professor Gutowski wrote me, “Pick up an orange off the table and raise it over your head. The work you do is about one joule.” For a scientific definition, see here.

* Since 68,260 divided by 5.6884 = 11,999.859.

* So counterintuitively named because it means “watts multiplied by hours,” or (substituting the definition of a watt) [joules divided by seconds] × [60 seconds]. Hence the two seconds units cancel each other out, and 1 watt-hour = 60 joules pure and simple—no time qualification.

* All American figures.

* see here, header 215. This excludes efficiency losses.

* All population estimates were from July 2014. Energy consumption figures, however, ranged from 2010 through 2012. I divided the latter by the former with my customary nonchalance.

* These calculations were made using the table of Calorific Efficiencies (here) headers 109, 158, 201–217, 226, and 3.96 billion. For power plant efficiency losses, multiply × 3.

* In my country at the turn of the millennium, “residential energy consumption” drank up a third of all the energy we used, and “major home appliances” consumed almost a third of that.

* see here.

* Over time the freezer would obviously use the most power of the three, since it could not be switched off without spoiling its contents. Respective contemporary monthly power estimates for these appliances were: 76, 0.5 and 37.5 kilowatts.

* Note: Calculating as usual by simply converting this device’s rating [4,500 watts] to BTUs would yield 255.978 BTUs/ min. But here I defer to Professor Gutowski, who has supplied figures on actual use.

* Power consumption figure calculated from multiplying rated voltage × amperage. However, converting advertised horsepower (0.75) directly to BTUs halves the result to a mere 31.81 BTUs per minute. I suspect the first calculation is more accurate.

* An “energy flow” is an attempt to total up all various energy expenditures in the manufacture, packaging, shipping, preparation, consumption and disposal of a certain item. Thus the energy flow for a food item would include the energy units (such as BTUs) in its planting, fertilization, harvesting, cooking, waste collection, etcetera. see here.

* The sizes of those other three refrigerators were unspecified.

* I say “apparent work,” because most cars were made lighter in 2010 than in 1949, so that there was less thermodynamic work to perform. Absolute efficiency increases also played a part.

* On a recent business trip from San Francisco via Zürich to Barcelona and then back to San Francisco, my personal share of emitted CO2 was nearly 1 and ¾ tons. For this I excuse myself, because I saw my mother and also slightly advanced my career.

* In my day, the lords of commercial real estate frequently built flimsy; a Vegas casino magnate once told me that “remodeling” his establishment every 10 years generated higher profits than constructing for the ages—because places went in and out of fashion when we were alive. Big machines rolled in, wrecking and then pouring, pounding and piling. We got jaded, you see; we wanted something new; that was what the work was for.

* At this time, transportation consumed only a quarter of our national energy budget.

* In exactly the same year that this prophecy was published, a paleontologist reiterated his longstanding anxiety about returning glaciers: “The swarming millions who now populate the planet may mostly perish in misery and darkness, inexorably pushed from their own lands to be rejected in desperation by their neighbors.” He was almost on the money.

* See II:46, 51.

* In about 1976 I attended a lecture by the famous scientific popularizer Isaac Asimov. He assured us that the equilibrium between carbon dioxide and particulate pollution—whose cooling effects had been observed after volcanic eruptions and hypothesized in the case of a “nuclear winter”—would protect us from climate change. It made me happy to believe him.

* But let’s not be greenhouse alarmists! “Searing temperature” was assisted in its murder of the probe by “crushing pressure.” Besides, two more recent estimates chilled down Venus to “more than” 750° and to 840° F.

* See “About Sulfur,” II:26.

* See II:643n.

* See II:222.

* I should add that in introducing the symposium he had graciously remarked that “there is no consensus on this view . . . much work remains to be done on climate change.” And then, to address the astronomically unlikely event that the greenhouse effect should turn out to be real, he offered a solution in the best tradition of Adam Smith: “It may also be possible to take advantage of the increasing commercial value of CO2 by capturing it from the combustion gases of power plants.”

* Here.

* My computation using the energy value of 10 API petroleum oil. But the U.S. Department of Energy estimated a barrel of American crude at 5.8 million BTUs. Each fossil fuel has a wide range of innate energies, based on source type, refined purity, etcetera.

* In 2013, with a level exceeding 400 ppm, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change modeled a “medium scenario” (what optimists!) of 700 ppm, and concluded that it would uplift our oceans by nearly 23 feet.

* “In 2015 he brought a snowball onto the Senate floor to claim [sic] global warming was a hoax.”

* See “What Did Coal, Nuclear and Oil Have in Common?” (II:171). For natural gas, see II:319 and II:337.

* This was the nation’s largest agency, about whose dealings Mr. Honma remarked: “I know very well how this happens . . . I did the same thing when I was at Hakuhodo.”

* “If so, there will be less room for us, . . . If our present-day ice caps were to melt, . . . London, New York, and all ports and lowland cities . . . would be drowned.”

* Thanks to core samples drilled out of polar ice. The heavy compression of millennia trapped bubbles of ancient air, whose concentrations of greenhouse gases were measurable. Moreover, the relative abundance of certain oxygen isotopes in those bubbles corresponded to specific atmospheric temperatures.

* Another prediction: “Revelle estimates that the sea level would rise 400 feet if all the antarctic [sic] ice should melt, and this could occur within as short a time as 400 years.” But how could such a pessimist be right twice? To avoid causing apprehensions, I hereby bury his gloomsaying in this footnote.

* Above, here.

* As of 2013.

* In fact, not long before Carbon Ideologies went to press this number actually went down—for due to “potentially problematical instrumentation,” the World Meteorological Organization revoked this first prize, giving it instead to that reading of 134° at Furnace Creek, Death Valley, 1913.

* As Pope Francis remarked in his encyclical: “We can note the rise of a false or superficial ecology which bolsters complacency and a cheerful recklessness. As often appears in periods of deep crisis which require bold decision, we are tempted to think that what is happening is not entirely clear . . . This is the way human beings contrive to feed their self-destructive vices: trying not to see them, trying not to acknowledge them, delaying the important decisions and pretending that nothing will happen.”

* Perhaps he moonlighted as a prominent climatologist.

* Coincidentally, from 1979 to 2007 the world’s carbon dioxide emissions from fuel combustion alone rose by 105%. And out of neighborliness Canada had done her mite: 339 million metric tons in 1979, 573 million in 2007.

* The rest of his interview begins on II:486.

* Even utopia had to have it. Aldous Huxley, 1962: “Lenin used to say that electricity plus socialism equals communism. Our equations are rather different. Electricity minus heavy industry plus birth control equals democracy and plenty. Electricity plus heavy industry minus birth control equals misery, totalitarianism and war.” And so the utopians burned carbon.

* From a textbook: “The number of compounds that contain carbon is many times greater than the number of compounds that do not contain carbon.”

* See “About Methane,” II:307.

* This term was once used synonymously both for carbon dioxide and for the compound it made when dissolved in water.

* German figure from 2007.

* For the heating values of these and other substances, see the table beginning here.

* Eight quadrillion grams.

* Counting only carbon dioxide.

* Number one was crushed stone at $534 million. I wish I could have told you more about Oklahoma cement, but this category had been annotated: “Data withheld to avoid disclosing company proprietary data.” In this book we shall often run up against the secrecy of carbon ideologues.

* 2013 statistics.

* A strange parallel, courtesy of an EPA report on American greenhouse gases: “Overall, throughout the time series and across all uses, about 60 percent of the total C consumed for non-energy purposes was stored in [manufactured] products, and not released to the atmosphere; the remaining 40 percent was emitted.”

* A teragram is a trillion (1012) grams. Hence the amount of carbon mentioned was 381.4 billion pounds.

* A third native form was later discovered: buckminsterfullerene.

* I remember a sweet old illustration captioned “The Work of the Plow—The Greatest Labor of Mankind.”

* see here.

* These compounds are called anhydrides.

* The same goes for dead animals.

* What if we didn’t pay? A longterm study of Bangladeshi soils concluded: Generally total carbon status was higher in 1967 than in 1995. The same went for nitrogen. Excessive utilization of plant materials as a source of fuel, animal feed, and other uses does not allow for adequate addition of organic matter into these soils. This meant lower crop yields. Meanwhile, much of the “lost” carbon and nitrogen ascended into some ecosystem somewhere.

* The other two were phosphorus, which we derived mostly from apatite, and potassium, which came from various rocks and brines. “Volumewise, it is the production of N, P, and K fertilizers [in other words, the three just mentioned] that defines the industry.” The manufacture of phosphate fertilizers released considerable carbon dioxide; in 2012, Finland emitted 42.4 gigagrams (almost 93.5 million pounds) of CO2 while making phosphoric acid. Regarding potassium, the first patent in U.S. history, for a process to make the carbonate, burned up to 500 tons of wood to get less than a pound of the stuff. Modern potash-makers did not emit CO2 directly during the refining process, but they usually employed fossil-fuel-intensive mining machines, centrifuges, etcetera. (For more details, see here in the sources for this volume.)

* “Previous drying” of soil releases still more carbon dioxide, so the droughts which global warming now began to bestow on our planet could be relied on to worsen matters.

* For a definition of coke, see here.

* Respectively, 175 and 190 million U.S. tons.

* See “About Methane,” II:307.

* see here.

* U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: Enteric fermentation is the second largest anthropogenic source of CH4 emissions in the United States . . . This increase in emissions from 1990 to 2014 generally follows the increasing trends in cattle populations.

* Half a gallon.

* The Germans aphorized: “Nitrous oxide emissions from household wastewater can be roughly determined via the average per-capita protein intake.”

* Which the Japanese labeled “fuel combustion [stationary sources].” There went 21% of their nitrous oxide emissions.

* For transportation’s share of the blame, see table here.

* German methane releases are too complex to be considered here. Nitrous releases reached 4,717,844 pounds, or over 490,931 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.

* In the following century, the Nigerian government reported its two main pollutants and sources as Saharan dust and “particles from . . . biomass burning that produce huge amount of black and organic carbon. These account for over 70% of air pollution in the country.” On the happy side, vegetationless land was paler, so it absorbed less heat.

* As was already noted, rice cultivation emitted 50% of Japan’s methane. Enteric fermentation came second, and “solid waste disposal” third at a mere 10%. Unlike the Americans [see next note], the Japanese declined to coyly refer to “petroleum systems.” Methane’s total “fugitive emissions from fuels” was a decent 2.26%.

* In the U.S., the four largest sources of anthropogenic methane were, in decreasing order, “natural gas systems,” enteric fermentation from cattle, landfills and “petroleum systems.”

* For definitions of these two terms see here, here.

* Every now and then we did the right thing and planted trees, or abandoned fields to nature. These sequestrations got credited against our carbon debits. The net, of course, lay invariably on the bad side.

* We paid varying amounts in carbon fuel combustion to make our fertilizers. In 1975 it cost 5,400 BTUs in electric power per pound of elemental phosphorus and 19,500 BTUs for the same quantity of ammonia. Had the currency been West Virginian coal, we would have burned less than two pounds at the generating station in order to make a pound of both together—thereby emitting five pounds of carbon dioxide.

* Watts = volts × amperes. For more detail, see definitions of “ampere,” “volt” and “power” here, here, here.

* About 211.3 to 37.2 trillion pounds.

* For a description of coal’s “products tree,” see II:10; for natural gas’s, II:298; for oil’s, II:403.

* Being extremely allergic to poison oak, when I was invited by an activist to spy out a West Virginian mountaintop removal mine (see II:117), I bought the cheapest daypack I could, to spare from contamination the one I generally used. The new pack’s substance consisted of Chinese polyethylene. Its zipper was some other kind of plastic. Surprisingly enough, after three years of heavy use (and my daughter’s teenaged contempt), this object retained its structural integrity, with the exception of the zipper, which had begun to fail. If I took the pack to a repair establishment I would pay far more than the $20 it had cost. If I threw it away, that would “waste carbon.” If I kept using it, sooner or later my laptop would fall out and hit concrete, maybe fatally. Reader, what would you have done?

* Another method, “the easiest route” (now for some reason superseded), was to turn coal into calcium carbide, which we made to react with nitrogen and finally hydrolyzed with water, leaving calcium carbonate and ammonia.

* Another was boldness, which meant pursuing our interests without respecting others. As Carbon Ideologies will show, this trait came naturally to fuel extraction industries.

* It “also acts as a preservative against yeast, mold, and bacteria.”

* “The criterion for shelf-life is the time to 15% loss of carbonation.” In other words, even unopened it kept outgassing carbon dioxide. And by the way, each plastic bottle’s feedstock derived from fractional crystallization in some petroleum refinery’s tower. More hydrocarbons burned in that process.

* “Long linear molecules that, stretched, can be made to lie roughly side by side.”

* It could well have been the “food acid” listed as an ingredient in the cheap potato crisps on which I sometimes snacked (Proongles or Prankles, they might have been called).

* Or more correctly, its chloride.

* From here.

* Moreover, it took energy, of course. Some unreacted stuff had to get distilled before sending it through the conversion cycle again, and how could that happen without burning carbon? Meanwhile, “the spent oxidation gas stream must be scrubbed to remove residual cyclohexane, but afterwards will still contain CO, CO2 and volatile hydrocarbons (especially propane, butane, and pentane).” It could be “catalytically abated,” but wiser heads burned it, so that its energy got “recovered,” while more carbon dioxide rose to heaven. Other hydrocarbon-laced “waste streams” could be sold to paper manufacturers.

* See II:201.

* See II:130.

* In “About Carbon,” here.

* Well, the poor bugger never lived long enough to admire adipic acid!

* Due to the ⅔ wastages in power plants (see here), this figure reflects 3 × the average innate energy in coal.

* In 2013, iron and steel combined were Japan’s largest single source (48%) of carbon emissions for manufacturing and construction.

* And remember, this is just the manufacturing energy. Gutowski writes me that the embodied energy from aluminum “today” (2016) “for all steps: mining to smelting” is 200 MJ/kg, which by my calculation would be 86,188 BTUs/lb.

* See below, here.

* They wore abayas.

* A middle-aged father and a beautiful young mother waved at their little boy and girl as each child whirred by in a miniature electric car, whose tinted passenger windows were only the breadth of my hand. How much current it took to charge the battery I don’t know. How much plastic, glass and metal were in each car I cannot tell you.

* According to Gutowski. But the Encyclopedia of Science and Technology had already thrown down a paragraph on “‘green’ or sustainable concrete”: “To reduce the need for virgin aggregate” in the cement-and-water paste that set into concrete, “recycled concrete is the most promising approach.” Aggregate comprised something like 75% of the volume of concrete. Let us ignore the fact that the aggregate, virgin or not, was still added to cement. The good news: Reducing carbonate oxidation in the cement-making process had already lowered carbon dioxide emissions 20% per unit volume relative to the 1980s.

* Circa 2007.

* Metric megatons, I presume. More than 22 trillion pounds.

* The first figure would be for 10,000 MT of steel; the second, for the same quantity of aluminum.

* The manufacturing energy reduction from recycling was 64% for steel, 48% for paper and 25% for plastics.

* “UK steel consumption is currently around 530 kg [1,166 lbs] steel per person per year and should be reduced to 160 kg per person per year to meet the requirements of the UK Climate Change Act.”

* Plastics “are victims of their own success: That they can be altered by a wide array of fillers and additives means that there is a great deal of uncertainty concerning their physical properties when they are collected. A second point is that plastics, although used in large volumes, usually are not incorporated as large masses in any given product. This presents a challenge to their collection and recycling.”

* No subscripts in original.

* Methane and nitrous oxide emissions increased this figure by only a quarter of a percent.

* All recorded substances of concern—methane, nitrous oxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds and sulfur dioxide—showed significant to astonishing decreases.

* See here.

* For further discussion, see “About Internal Combustion Engines,” II:422.

* Some turbines functioned over more extreme conditions—for instance, 1,100° F and 5,000 psi.

* One reason that my generation wasted so little worry on yours (never mind the main cause, natural selfishness) was that we had witnessed the emergence of so many new machines, networks, solutions and defenses that “necessary limits” reminded us of prudes, fascists, grandfathers who wanted us to do without! So why wouldn’t efficiency improve as needed?

* Internal combustion engines are much the same in this respect. See “Comparative Heat Efficiencies of Engines,” II:423.

* The Sacramento Municipal Utility District.

* For definition, see here.

* Expressed in BTUs per net kilowatt-hour.

* Assumption in original. Ordinarily Carbon Ideologies postulates a coal efficiency of 12,500 BTUs/lb.

* It appeared “possible that further development could raise these to 50–60 per cent.”

* The culprit of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.

* The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Paris, came out with even cheerier figures, ca. 1974: “Conversion losses, or waste heat, associated with energy generation” (in other words, “electricity conversion losses as percentages of total primary energy”) were a mere 12.5% for Japan, 13.8% for North America, 14.2% for “OECD Europe” and 19.0% for Australia and New Zealand. But in one of the annexes the OECD admitted: “Currently, about two-thirds of the energy used to provide electricity are rejected as waste heat . . .”

* Carbon Ideologies prefers to express HHVs not in kWh but in BTUs per pound of combusted fuel.

* Meanwhile, electricity generation produced by one measure 37% of my homeland’s carbon dioxide in 2014, making that activity “the single largest source of CO2 emissions in the United States.”

* Which contains 14,000 BTUs per pound.

* Since the carbon content of our atmosphere continued to rise significantly after these years, more heat was trapped and eventually distributed to the planet’s landforms by the time I prepared this table in 2015—a red letter year, when average global temperatures reached 1° Celsius above preindustrial levels. However, the warmer air’s rising water vapor levels made it cloudier, so that from the 1960s through the time of writing, solar insolation upon Earth actually went down by 3% per decade. Thank God for small mercies—which might have been spurious, for a different scientific team worked out that “downward thermal radiation” had been increasing by as much as 4.25 BTUs per square foot each decade.

* No subscript in original.

* See part 7 of the “Definitions, Units and Conversions” section (here) for some technical particulars.

* The practical result was that 28.2% of the “house heat load” got supplied by solar, and the rest by natural gas. Well, that was better for the climate than the workings of my house.

* Dr. Fuentes-Hernandez notes here: “As you point [out], the process of converting solar energy into biological matter is not very efficient. The efficiency of photosynthetic processes converting sun light into chemical energy stored in molecules is indeed around 7%. Furthermore, refining processes are needed to convert biomass into useful biofuels; with some efficiency losses associated with this conversion. Note that fossil fuels, including coal, are indeed sub derivative products of these photosynthetic processes and thus, we may say that from the Olympian point of view you refer to, are considerably less efficient in converting solar energy into electricity (maximum around 4.2%) than for instance the photovoltaic conversion of even the cheapest commercial solar (photovoltaic) cells (> 7%).”

* Or worse. This place figures in the nuclear section (here).

* “[D]efined as the number of electrons generated per photon absorbed in a photovoltaic cell, [this] is known as internal quantum efficiency . . .”

* No superscript in original. Remember that a TW is a terawatt, or 56,884,000,000 BTUs (the inherent energy of 4.55 million pounds of West Virginia coal) per minute.

* Tepco, which will play a large role in this volume.

* See II:1, 309, 312.

* The figures in this paragraph were exclusive of changes in carbon sequestering through land use (a category which we used to abbreviate “LULUCF”; see here).

* In the original units, 1.68 watts per square meter. For conversions, and for more detailed information on GWP and RF, see here.

* From here.

* No subscripts.

* And indeed a specialist (an organic chemist) might have been able to predict some of their peculiarities. For instance, carbon-oxygen and carbon-fluorine atomic bonds within a given gas molecule indicate some potential for global warming.

* Whose manufacture produced carbon dioxide. See above, here.

* Since they would work for “20 years or more,” many of them must have been getting scrapped at the time I was writing Carbon Ideologies. The consequence: an uptick in the release of CFC-12 into our atmosphere.

* My grandfather’s Mechanical Engineers’ Handbook also refers to them as the Genetrons.

* Obviously a substance which lingers longer than 100 years in the atmosphere (e.g., carbon dioxide or CFC-13) will exert a GWP worse than the value listed here. But unless we know its rate of decay we cannot exactly quantify the additional harm it does. For instance, CFC-13, which lingers for 400 to 640 years, might show a GWP of nearly [11,700 ×, say, 4] = 46,800 times worse than carbon dioxide’s, or it might fade away much faster. In fact its 500-year GWP is 16,400.

* This book’s convention for “significant digits” will be “digits to the right of the decimal point.”

* HCFCs and HFCs were singled out as a group by the Kyoto Accords. The ones in this table are representative but by no means all-inclusive.

* No subscript in original.

* Re: propane, isobutane and n-butane: “G[lobal] W[arming] P[otential] of the hydrocarbons results almost entirely of the GWP of the CO2 owing to decomposition.”

* Re: propane, isobutane and n-butane: “G[lobal] W[arming] P[otential] of the hydrocarbons results almost entirely of the GWP of the CO2 owing to decomposition.”

* Re: propane, isobutane and n-butane: “G[lobal] W[arming] P[otential] of the hydrocarbons results almost entirely of the GWP of the CO2 owing to decomposition.”

* A polymer is a large molecule made up of many small molecules. Leather was one such, and cellulose another. When I was alive, the most common polymers we made were plastics.

* In 2009, the German government sadly reported: “Profound changes have occurred in connection with emissions of NITROGEN OXIDES, since efforts to make aircraft engines more fuel-efficient have led to increases in average emission factors . . . Consequently, a mean EF (NOX),” or emission factor for nitrogen oxides, “of about 14.0 g [of nitrogen oxides] /kg [of aviation kerosene] can currently be assumed.”—On the bright side, as was proven in the National Enquirer, “Nitric Oxide [sic] could not only increase your ability to get an erection, it would also work in your brainwaves to stimulate your desire for sex . . . As a doctor, . . . I’m impressed by the way it increases cerebral and penile blood flow.”

* See “The Parable of Adipic Acid,” above, here.

* “Because HCFC-22 depletes stratospheric ozone, its production for non-feedstock uses is scheduled to be phased out by 2020 under the U.S. Clean Air Act. Feedstock production, however, is permitted to continue indefinitely.” That was nice.

* “Inhaled HFCs are not broken down in bronchial passages; they are released into the atmosphere, without undergoing any changes, upon exhalation.” Well, at least this HFC was better than HCFC-142b.

* Still another source gives the GWP as 3,400.

* The old name lingered in popular use. In 2017, when I was visiting Las Vegas, my friend Dan told me that he had paid an acquaintance to fix his truck’s air conditioner on the cheap—for Dan was hardly rich. This time he got what he paid for. As we rolled through the sizzling city with the windows up, and hardly any coolness inside, Dan decided on Plan B: Buy a cylinder of coolant (which he called “freon”) and make use of it until it had all leaked into the atmosphere, then repeat. I demurred, but Dan explained the matter: He could not afford a new air conditioner, and “freon” was cheap. How could I blame him?

* “According to expert-level information . . . one-third of the SF6 used in the process of pumping SF6 into spaces between windowpanes escapes.” One percent of the remainder escaped each year. The rest came out once the window was removed and disposed of.

* However, the Kyoto Protocol of 2002 was a practical and decisive first approximation, setting reduction targets for six kinds of greenhouse gases: HFCs, PFCs and then the specific compounds carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and sulfur hexafluoride. (Other direct and indirect greenhouse gases were added to the list in time.) Of course we Americans refused to sign, being the heroes who kept the lights on.

* Atmospheric lifetime was another complex computation. A gas molecule may degrade faster at high altitude, because at the top of the atmosphere the photon flux will be most vigorous. Almost all air is at low altitudes; hence so is the bulk of whatever has contaminated that air. As one technical article points out, “air must cycle through the mesosphere many thousands of times before the entire atmospheric burden would be depleted.”

* See II:26.

* This place also receives discussion here and in II:557.

* No superscript in original.

* These last partially halogenated organic compounds, among which belong CFCs, HFCs and HCFCs. In this group the Freons were actually getting more dilute—a surprisingly pleasant outcome. (See the interview with the retired CEO of Conoco, Mr. Archie Dunham, on II:451.) But they were an exception to this story. Maybe that delayed the misery ahead. Meanwhile four other members (CFC-11, CFC-12, CFC-113 and HCFC-22) caused 85% of all halocarbon-induced warming. “The former three compounds have declining R[adiative] F[orcing] over the last 5 years but are more than compensated for by the increased RF from HCFC-22.”

* From a German report on HFC-134a: “The time series show a significant emissions increase since 1995. This increase, which has occurred in spite of decreases in fill amounts, is a direct result of increased use of mobile air-conditioning systems in vehicles.” Its atmospheric concentration was 0 in 1990, 14 parts per trillion in 2000 and 63 ppt in 2011.—Well, why not forget about that? “Global warming is a major environmental concern . . . ,” announced a manual for American air conditioning technicians in 2012. Now for the good news: “No global-warming-based phaseouts are currently in effect for air-conditioning refrigerants in stationary applications.” Between 1990 and 2014, HFC emissions in the U.S. increased by 257.9%.

* Regarding essential work, I hereby report that “other relevant products include novelty aerosols (artificial snow, party-streamer sprays, etc.), which emit some 100 t[ons] of HFCs per year.”

* Indeed, if you asked me, What was the work for? I would answer: Profit. One strangely hot September morning in Sacramento (it was going to be 104° Fahrenheit, and the next day would be 106°), I walked my roof with the air conditioning man, and I said: “In your line of work you must know a lot about high temperatures. What do you think about global warming?”—“It’s a lot of hooey,” he explained. “They talk about a scientific consensus. Well, consensus is a political term, not a scientific one. What does that tell you? Who’s saying it? Follow the money.”—In this book I have tried to do so. Consider for instance this aphorism from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (1974): The prices on which consumers base their decisions whether or not to conserve energy are, for most energy products, higher than the prices which govern production. How convenient for the producers!—Another fine rule of thumb: It has also been shown that the greater the peat consumption, the lower the cost of the power generated by the burning peat. Of course this proposition was uttered by the utility that sold peat-generated power.

* For “EU-28” countries.

* For the remaining “EU-15.”

* See II:413 and II:486.

* In our units, one pound of carbon dioxide for each 7,580 BTUs generated by the first fuel, or for 4,420 BTUs of the second.

* This recalls the hypothetical constraints upon the owner of those inefficient group-driven machine tools. See above, here.

* Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology, 1994: “As a fuel for internal combustion engines, diesel fuel ranks second only to gasoline.”

* This is why, however peculiar it may seem, in the table of Calorific Efficiencies I have expressed all high heating values, even those of liquids and gases, in terms of combustion energy per pound.

* Subject to the usual limits of human endeavor. Obviously the energies obtained by burning a hunk of peat, blowing up a stick of dynamite, metabolizing a succulent fat or letting loose the radioactive decay of a nuclear fuel rod can be compared only through various conversions.

* According to one oil geologist, “In energy content, it takes about 6,000 cubic feet of natural gas to equal a barrel of oil.” Note that unlike the other conversions presented here, this one does not inform us of how much oil it takes to make a specified amount of natural gas, or vice versa. It merely reflects innate energy equivalences. Therefore this figure is only very broadly comparable to the others.

* As usual, the reader should be cautioned against spurious precision. Application of this particular conversion yields 4 quads, while another conversion yields 4.5 quads. As you will find in the table of Calorific Efficiencies, the inherent energies of coals vary.

* Encyclopedia of Agriculture and Food Systems, 2014: “Globally, peatlands store more than half of total soil carbon.”—Fertilizer Guide for the Tropics and Subtropics, 1973: “Practically all cultivated soils in the world are very much in need of nitrogen. The only exception are peat and muck soils where plenty of nitrogen is supplied by decomposition of the organic matter.”—Same source: “The use of fire in land clearing, and the increased decomposition due to drainage and fertilization . . . make the organic residues that took thousands of years to accumulate disappear in one or a few decades.” In other words, burned peat emitted masses of climate-altering smoke.

* See II:280n.

* As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency quite sensibly explained: “The amount of C[arbon] emitted from the combustion of fossil fuels is dependent upon the C content of the fuel and the fraction of that C that is oxidized. Fossil fuels vary in their average C content, ranging from about 53 M[illion] M[ega]T[ons] CO2 Eq./QBtu for natural gas to upwards of 95 MMT CO2 Eq./QBtu for coal and petroleum coke. In general, the C content per unit of energy of fossil fuels is the highest for coal products, followed by petroleum, and then natural gas.”

* In case you were wondering, a fuel can release a greater weight of carbon dioxide than its own weight, because its contribution to the CO2 molecule is only a carbon atom, which combines with two oxygen atoms during combustion. The volume of CO2 created [and hence the weight] is directly proportional to the number of carbon atoms in the fuel.

* It is suggestive that when I was finishing Carbon Ideologies three of the newest fancy American cars generated an average of 0.88 pounds of CO2 per mile. At, say, 21 miles per gallon, their emissions per gallon of gasoline would have been around 18.5 pounds.

* From a mutual fund report: When oil prices plummeted in the second half of 2014, we saw a robust response from businesses, and energy companies worked quickly to halt production activity. Had they done the same based on global warming potentials, perhaps you from the future could still live in Bangkok or Miami.

* In case too much wood remained unburned, we dreamed up new ways to help the atmosphere. A newsflash from 2017: “And if your phone dies while you are enjoying the wilderness, a tiny stove fed with twigs can convert that heat to electricity and charge it.”

* “However,” the International Energy Agency consolingly added, “this is 455 million tons less than the record level in 2008.”

* See his interview on II:451.

* Discussed in detail beginning on II:58.

* But the Japanese were more efficient than the Americans. See II:49.

* see here, last entry in table.

* Sometimes called “caloric.”

* The high heating value of a fuel in [BTUs per pound] = 14,544 × % carbon + 62,028 (% hydrogen − [% oxygen/8]) + 4,050 × % sulfur. see here.

* Million tons of oil equivalent.

* The original figures for wood were expressed in terms of 128-cubic-foot cords rather than by 1-lb weight as my scheme requires. In ascending order of energy output they were listed: first white pine (green), then cottonwood (green), white pine at 12% moisture content, black walnut (green), hickory 12% moist. As you see, the order here is quite different.

* These organic compounds (consisting of carbon atoms joined to water molecules; hence their name) include cellulose, sugars and starches. According to my college biology textbook: Without the light-driven conversion by photosynthesis of water and CO2 to carbohydrate, the Earth would rapidly become as sterile as the moon.

* A metric ton of crude may vary from 1.5–8% “above the value of 107 kilocalories, which is frequently referred to as one ton of oil equivalent.” But at the standard conversion of 1 toe = 39,680,000 BTUs and then converting from metric tons to lbs, we obtain: 1 lb [generic] oil = 17, 999 BTUs.

* Note that if these two specific gravities of oil had been ranked by BTUs/gal instead of BTUs/lb, their order would have been reversed.

* Or, as a contemporary engineer would have expressed it, 50 kilojoules or 12 kilocalories per gram. (Another typical—and comparable—measurement: Natural gas of the “Khuff” type, found in Bahrain ca. 1980, was 80.15% methane, with a gross calorific value of 855 BTUs per cubic foot. This = 20,554 BTUs/lb.)

* This pleased the writer because while coal is not irreplaceable as a source of electric power, many coal tar derivatives in commercial and industrial use lack convenient substitutes.

* See II:10.

* However, personal nuclear vehicles would be expensive and “very heavy, with the necessary shielding weighing roughly 2,400 lbs. per car.”

* From The Japan Times, 2016: “China already has the world’s fastest-growing nuclear energy program . . . China is an important market for the world’s nuclear industry giants. The U.S. last year eased restrictions on its civilian nuclear cooperation with China to allow the reprocessing of fuel from U.S.-designed reactors . . .”

* Here the translator sees an implication that not turning one’s face toward nuclear power would set one at odds with the community.

* The context is something like: “Try to understand the goal,” which of course is nuclear power. “We will not walk away from you. Please walk with us toward the goal.”

* In case you are wondering why in that case uranium instead of radium became the subject of this chapter, here is one answer: To extract one pound of radium required between 2.85 and 6.65 million pounds of uranium ore.

* Before radioactivity was discovered, the Austrians were already coloring ceramics with it—or rather with its salt, sodium uranate, which made a fine yellow-green glaze. Uranyl sulfide could be oxidized into a pigment called uranium red, which I hope was never an ingredient in lipstick. Uranyl nitrate, which my 1911 Britannica considered “the most important uranium salt,” existed as yellow prisms. In those days photographers still fooled with it, although commercial uranium printing papers got discontinued ca. 1898. One fellow was still at it in the early 21st century. I have seen reproductions of his prints: murky, grainy, reddish-yellow—and radioactive, I suppose. When I was alive, platinum printers might employ it to tone their images blue, olive or red. “The tones obtained with uranium are not stable and in time may change.”

* See “About Agriculture,” here.

* In your time, with the oceans surely dead from acidification, you might have no objection to straining the seas for uranium, in the unlikely event that you still enjoy large-scale electric power. At three parts per billion (that is, before the Antarctic ice cap melted), marine uranium added up to more than 11 trillion pounds.

* For nuclear terminology, see here.

* See “About Sulfur,” II:26.

* These get their eponymous section on II:352.

* See “About Industrial Chemicals,” here.

* At any time weapon fuel could be de-enriched into reactor fuel.

* We could also choose electromagnetic separation, “an incredibly labor-intensive process.” And there was another kind of magic (whose energy costs, were unknown to me), which was accomplished with “laser radiation of precise energy to sever the uranium-fluorine bonds of the lighter isotope but not of the heavier one.”

* On June 6, 2017, five unfortunates at the Plutonium Fuel Research Facility in Ibaraki Prefecture happened to be “taking stock of a radioactive substance in an old container.” The container was stainless steel, inside of which lay 300 double-bagged grams of powdered uranium and plutonium oxides “used in past experiments.” In other words, the substance must have been MOX, or something like it. The worker on the spot had prepared himself as well as any Boy Scout: suited, gloved and masked. No immediate danger, colleagues! But as soon as he withdrew the six sealing bolts, out rushed black powder—the result, perhaps, of a buildup of helium from the plutonium’s radiodecay. “Although masks were covering the workers’ noses and mouths, radioactive material was detected inside the noses of three” of the men; “internal . . . exposure was detected in four” and “suspected” in the fifth. The employee who had opened the cylinder got “up to 22,000 becquerels . . . in his lungs,” or something like “360,000 becquerels overall . . . Under current labor standards,” which they may or may not have been obeying, “that translates into 1.2 sieverts a year, and perhaps 12 sieverts over 50 years . . .” The two figures in sieverts respectively translate into 136.986 microsieverts per hour (comparable to Okuma Town’s “more than 100” micros after the nuclear accident) and 27 microsieverts per hour—equivalent to certain gratings and drains I measured in Okuma and Tomioka. To make better sense of those numbers, see table of Comparative Measured Radiation Levels here. As for those five workers at the Plutonium Fuel Research Facility, well, why worry about a touch of prospective bone cancer?

* At Fukushima Daiichi these ran 13 feet.

* Another source: “And D[P]U has the added advantage of catching fire on impact.”

* Above, here.

* The nuclear energy units of the Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology. In the full metric employed by Japanese and most everyone else, 32,564 kilojoules per kilogram.

* Or 0.1806 BTU per minute per pound. Twelve and a half pounds would be needed to give as much power as the plug-in vibrator here.

* See “About Power Plants,” p. 150.

* Takashi Hirose, 2011: “Before saying that ‘nuclear power supplies one-third of the demand for electricity,’ it needs to be said that ‘twice as much energy as the energy they [the reactors] produce is used to heat up the sea.’ I want to ask, what kind of global warming debate is it that never discusses this fact?” He claimed that Japan’s nuclear plants were cooling themselves by emitting 100 million kW [= 5,688,400,000 BTUs per minute] “in the form of heat” into the ocean. Back in 1971, one ecologist was already worrying that “thermal pollution will become an increasingly serious problem” from nuclear power. “The shift from fossil fuel to atomic power reduces air pollution but increases water pollution . . . There is no agreement as to its ultimate effect on the global heat balance.”—Given the immensity of that heat sink, I myself am skeptical that our nuclear thermal pollution perceptibly warmed the ocean. But I always hoped for the best, back when I was alive.

* The half-life of is Xe-133 is five days; of Kr-85, 11 years.

* Daiichi essentially meant “No. 1”; Daini, “No. 2,” and so we will call them. No. 1 would appropriately be the star of the show.

* For a different picture of the same raw data, see here, where I have averaged my measurements by locality. That table provides an approximate (and very superficial) answer to such questions as: “Which is more radioactive, San Francisco or Tokyo?”

* Dental X-rays measured in January 2015. Dunsmuir, California, and Portland, Oregon, readings also taken in 2015. The Hiroshima readings were made in January 2017. All other frisker readings taken in 2014. Some benchmarks from other sources were published earlier, and here so stated.

* This device is introduced here.

* CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 87th edition (2006): “The natural background from all sources in most parts of the world leads to an equivalent dose . . . of about 0.04 to 4 mSv per year for the average person.” [To convert from millisieverts per year to microsieverts per hour, multiply by 0.114.]

* Here Richard Crownover, M.D., Ph.D., remarks: “It is an odd quantitative choice to scale everything to the tiniest measured value. It’s the least precise measurement and any slight change in that number would throw the scale about wildly.”—My response: (1) Since 0.001 microSv/sec. is not only the tiniest measurement but also the tiniest measurable value for this device, it is a logical endpoint to my scale, and maintains consistency with most other tables in Carbon Ideologies. (2) I made this particular measurement many times, and always got the same reading. It is, of course, possible that my darkroom reading, or any of these other lowest measurements, was wrong, but I presume that most or all of them were comparable; getting the lowest possible reading deep in the Barcelona subway, for instance, is highly plausible. (3) The frisker was calibrated (see here), and in Japan it read in close conformance with other scintillation meters. At 2.0 micros (the manufacturer’s lowest testing benchmark), it read 2.04 micros. At the manufacturer’s tested 80 micros (my own highest field reading was 41.5 micros), it read 77.0 micros.

* But the ICRP’s earlier standard was four times less conservative: “The ICRP recommended exposure limit to man-made sources of ionizing radiation . . . [1990] is 20 mSv/yr averaged over 5 years, with the dose in any year not to exceed 50 mSv.”

* The “long-term goal in the Fukushima cleanup”: An air dose of below 0.23, calculated from 1 milliSv per year, “assuming that an individual spends eight hours outdoors and 16 hours indoors.”

* Dr. Crownover remarks: “Discussion of Taylor’s [B]ooks. Release of [r]adon gas from the ground can vary significantly by weather conditions, particularly temperature [whether it is] raining or not. It can also be different if windows are open or closed. I first encountered this in an undergraduate Modern Physics lab where on a warm day with the windows open [Oregon] background radiation measurements were increased by a factor of 8. Radon levels can also increase in a closed space with brick/stone walls. Background measurements are not stable.”

* Dr. Crownover inserts: “Readings in airplanes with the pancake detector would be sensitive to position (e.g., aisle or window seat, but more importantly the detector would not respond to the full spectrum of radiation in the air which is very different than on the ground . . . Also, radiation exposure on aircraft is sensitive to the 11 year solar cycle and also to solar particle events or ‘space weather’ . . . In Europe there is, or was, a phone number that sensitive travelers can call to determine whether they should delay flying for a few hours (particularly pregnant women).”

* A rare transliteration. Hence I have preferred “Okuma.”

* International Committee on Radiological Protection assessment. Whether each additional year of exposure increases the risk by another 0.5% was not clear to me.

* Dr. Crownover writes: “It is possible that an unnamed Brazilian village is this high due to unfortunate geology. For instance, there is a spot in Africa that is a naturally occurring ‘reactor.’ Another possibility is that industry has blessed the village with enriched waste of some sort. I sat next to a person on a plane many years ago who described himself as a ‘historical geologist.’ His career was devoted to predicting where the toxic wastes from past mining/smelting operations had ended up; for instance where a slow river bend a hundred miles downstream in the watershed might have collected high concentrations.”—One might hope that there is indeed such a village. Then any nuclear ideologue with sufficient pep could pooh-pooh my 41.1-micro reading in Okuma as being merely three times “normal background.”

* In this place, according to the Atomic Energy Commission (1968), “Radiation dosimeters were given to selected individuals . . . To induce these people to wear these packets continuously, they were disguised as religious medallions . . .”

* Dr. Crownover again: “If the dosimeter was placed near the pancake detector head and moved even slightly it could be subject to highly variable scatter from the detector itself.” Fortunately it was not moved.

* The comparable X-ray in the Mexico City airport did not seem to be. I was forbidden to use the frisker, but I did have a dosimeter in my pocket, and after passing through security, in the course of a five-minute dash to the departure gate that device accrued 11 micros. The security workers were mostly young women. I worry that their ovaries were getting cooked.

* Or per “incident,” per short-term dose. The exact amount of time is unspecified. The same applies to the entries for 1 and 50 Sv/hr. We are told that the first responders at Chernobyl took in “up to 20,000 millisieverts,” or up to 20 Sv, over what must have been several days—a very dangerous and perhaps lethal amount of radiation.

* see here.

* Or per “incident,” per short-term dose. The exact amount of time is unspecified. The same applies to the entries for 1 and 50 Sv/hr. We are told that the first responders at Chernobyl took in “up to 20,000 millisieverts,” or up to 20 Sv, over what must have been several days—a very dangerous and perhaps lethal amount of radiation.

* Or per “incident,” per short-term dose. The exact amount of time is unspecified. The same applies to the entries for 1 and 50 Sv/hr. We are told that the first responders at Chernobyl took in “up to 20,000 millisieverts,” or up to 20 Sv, over what must have been several days—a very dangerous and perhaps lethal amount of radiation.

* Or per “incident,” per short-term dose. The exact amount of time is unspecified. The same applies to the entries for 1 and 50 Sv/hr. We are told that the first responders at Chernobyl took in “up to 20,000 millisieverts,” or up to 20 Sv, over what must have been several days—a very dangerous and perhaps lethal amount of radiation.

* Or per “incident,” per short-term dose. The exact amount of time is unspecified. The same applies to the entries for 1 and 50 Sv/hr. We are told that the first responders at Chernobyl took in “up to 20,000 millisieverts,” or up to 20 Sv, over what must have been several days—a very dangerous and perhaps lethal amount of radiation.

* Or per “incident,” per short-term dose. The exact amount of time is unspecified. The same applies to the entries for 1 and 50 Sv/hr. We are told that the first responders at Chernobyl took in “up to 20,000 millisieverts,” or up to 20 Sv, over what must have been several days—a very dangerous and perhaps lethal amount of radiation.

* Or per “incident,” per short-term dose. The exact amount of time is unspecified. The same applies to the entries for 1 and 50 Sv/hr. We are told that the first responders at Chernobyl took in “up to 20,000 millisieverts,” or up to 20 Sv, over what must have been several days—a very dangerous and perhaps lethal amount of radiation.

* Or per “incident,” per short-term dose. The exact amount of time is unspecified. The same applies to the entries for 1 and 50 Sv/hr. We are told that the first responders at Chernobyl took in “up to 20,000 millisieverts,” or up to 20 Sv, over what must have been several days—a very dangerous and perhaps lethal amount of radiation.

* Or per “incident,” per short-term dose. The exact amount of time is unspecified. The same applies to the entries for 1 and 50 Sv/hr. We are told that the first responders at Chernobyl took in “up to 20,000 millisieverts,” or up to 20 Sv, over what must have been several days—a very dangerous and perhaps lethal amount of radiation.

* His alias, as required by my publisher’s lawyer.

* An alpha particle is a helium nucleus ejected from an excited atom. It can be stopped by paper. A beta particle (which may also be considered a wave) is an electron thrown out of an excited atom. It can be stopped by flesh and clothes. Both of these particles may prove permanently harmful if taken into the body. Consider plutonium-239’s alpha particles, which will keep radiating for thousands of years. A certain Rick Anderson, we are told, kept a plutonium paperweight on his desk. It’s slightly warm to the touch and harmless as its alpha radiation cannot penetrate the skin. I hope he had fun. Gamma waves possess for more penetrative power than alpha or beta. A thick lead shield is a prudent defense. Most accrued dosimeters, such as the one Ray sold me, measured only gamma. [Neutron rays, somewhat similar to gamma, will not be considered here.] For recapitulation and elaboration on all such matters, including units and conversions, see here.

* One millisievert is 100 millirems. A sievert is a “unit of equivalent dose . . . defined as the absorbed dose multiplied by a weighting factor that expresses the long-term biological risk . . .”

* All these numbers, including those for background values, appear here, headers (<1–7.61: [0.04 to 4 mSv = 4 millirems to 400 millirems per year]), 1.9, 3.8, 4.6, 5.7, 6.85 [3.6 millisieverts = 360 millirems].

* For units and conversions, see here.

* This corresponded to one of the higher (but not highest) levels I would find in 2014, in the radioactive town of Tomioka; it was about half of my maximum reading in the Okuma red zone.

* Now I understand that the orange plate must have simply been a mild irradiator.

* A chest X-ray is 0.0001 sievert—although other sources peg it at 6 and 7 times that. [See header for 1,000 here.] One sievert is 100 rems, or 100,000 millirems. Hence a chest X-ray is 100 microsieverts. In Carbon Ideologies I sometimes use another stated value for this procedure: 1.0 microsieverts, or 6 millirems.

* The final death figure was ~18,500.

* Of these six, the infamous Reactor 1 was a General Electric, Mark I, whose construction commenced in 1971. Reactors 2, 3, 4 and 5 were “more advanced B[oiling] W[ater] R[eactor] models but also had Mark I containments.”

* Unappeased by heroics, Takashi Hirose said: “An electric power company that lost control of its nuclear power plants because of an electric failure—it’s a pathetic story.”

* From a chemical primer: “Another element released by uranium fission is iodine-131, which is . . . worrying. This was widely scattered over the North of England in 1957 by an accident at the Windscale . . . nuclear power plant, and over Europe by . . . Chernobyl . . . in 1986.”

* All distances given here are to the poisonous Plant No. 1. Tokyo distance is measured somewhat randomly from the large and central Setagawa Ward. The (spuriously) exact distances are 232 km to Plant No. 1 and 222 to Plant No. 2.

* Following the Japanese convention, in this book I give family names first.

* In other words, the ground moved not up and down but from side to side—perfect conditions for a tsunami.

* As indicated, it was actually slightly farther away.

* In Chiba Prefecture, near Tokyo.

* “Additionally, in open air bath, we set a rule saying that is mixed bathing and strictly refuse you from wrapping bath towel around yourself.”

* In 2010, Japan consumed 21.9 Q-BTUs (171.3 million BTUs per capita). In 2011 the respective figures were 21.0 Q-BTUs and 164.4 million BTUs. This approximately 5% decline surely resulted from the accident.

* A.D. 1868–1912.

* Hence the International Energy Agency’s axiom that “the primary energy equivalent of nuclear electricity is calculated from the gross generation by assuming a 33% efficiency.” And see “About Power Plants,” p. 150.

* Also transliterated Minamisoma. For a brief description of this place in 2014, see here.

* At the time of the interview, this would have amounted to about U.S. $625.

* By Mr. Kawanami Shugoro. See below.

* His mother said that facilities permitted only 20 bodies per day to be burned in the entire city.

* All the flowers here were donated, I was told.

* The interpreter said “accumulation,” but this must be the meaning.

* See the “Jewels in the Darkness” chapter of my Kissing the Mask (New York: Ecco, 2010).

* Another translation comment: In Japanese the pronouns may sometimes be left implied. The literal translation here was the sentence fragment “the fire so vividly seen from my hill.” Here and throughout I have emended the raw translations in such ways as this. My interpreter has seen and approved.

* A more exact term would be “ruined house foundations which now resembled broken-walled fields.”

* It was 4.5% carbon—slightly more than a tenth of the comparable percentage for human waste. Its “decomposition half-life,” or the time required for half of it to decay in a landfill, was estimated at 36 years—the same as wood’s. The greenhouse gas emission factor of that nasty substance was 15 kilograms of methane per ton, or in our units 15 pounds per half-ton.

* Onigiri.

* Daikon.

* A year later, The Japan Times asserted that “in terms of soil contamination” the accident was in fact only one-eighth as severe as Chernobyl’s. For a slightly lower 2014 estimate, see table here.

* The Yomiuri Shimbun. See source note. This is the source referred to in the next footnote.

* If the Yomiuri Shimbun’s figure is correct and consistent, then three years would suffice to reach that same nasty 5-rem dose—which of course would be almost safe amortized over such a long period: 0.19 millirems per hour, or not quite twice the incident guide’s ceiling of innocuous normality.

* The most common fish was (or had been) flatfish.

* In fact, 600 sieverts would be about a hundred times more than the lethal dose. One figure for a chest X-ray was 60 microsieverts (= 6 millirems). So the driver was off by a figure of exactly 10 million. Is it a misrepresentation to say that this misunderstanding victimized him? He supposed himself safer than he was.

* My interpreter assured me that this name had no meaning and was therefore representative of the Japanese craze for English words.

* Also called Futabacho. Plant No. 1 was situated between the towns of Futaba and Okuma (or Okhumamachi). I never visited Futaba, but my observations of Okuma in 2014 begin here.

* In the short run, at least, Koriyama’s readings held consistent. Half of the following day was spent in reaching Tokyo; hence, as arithmetic might predict, that day gave me a mere doubling of the Tokyo baseline, or 0.2 millirems.

* This was Iitate Village, which I would visit three years later. A different (one-time) statistic gave Iitate’s dose as 9.13 microsieverts [0.913 millirems] per hour—9 times over the safe dose, 21.9 millirems per day, so that the 5 rems would be reached in 228 days. When I went there I finally had a scintillation counter; the highest level it measured was 8.7 micros.

* A kind of stomach ailment.

* Around Chernobyl the comparable forbidden country food, which one survivor’s grandmother especially missed, was sorrel, “the thing that absorbed the most radiation.”

* This reminds me of the words of a water company president in West Virginia after a chemical spill (II:173): “We don’t know that the water’s not safe. But I can’t say that it is safe.”

* Per hour. I suspect that he meant microsieverts, or 0.05–0.06 millirems. (This would be about 1.4 millirems per day, or about 4 times what my dosimeter was reporting for Koriyama. At this rate, a resident of Kawauchi would have accrued 5 rems in about 9 years and 9 months.) Had he actually been accruing 0.5 millisieverts an hour, every two hours he would have received the International Committee on Radiological Protection’s maximum recommended yearly dose.

* Per hour, presumably. And once again he must have meant microsieverts. This would be 0.038 millirems per hour—such a low figure that this man should have been moving his family back home instead of fleeing to Big Palette.

* A wall display at the museum stated that 140,000 had died by the end of 1945. A book published in my country, lumping Hiroshima and Nagasaki together, placed the total at 220,000 souls.

* Little Boy detonated in midair. This spot was the epicenter. The hypocenter was the place on the ground immediately beneath.

* New dosimeter readings in 2017 were the same. I also measured the levels in Kyoto, which again were twice Tokyo’s. According to Dr. Ed Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists, variations of 2 or 3× are common; the cause can be change in altitude, bedrock type or local choice of construction materials.

* The “pancake frisker” scintillation meter described here.

* I refer to a mid-1990s figure for the average American yearly dose, which works out to 0.41 microsieverts an hour. My readings around the Atomic Dome varied from 0.18 to 0.36 micros. See the table here (header 3) and here (6).

* So labeled in the English-language sign. Accordingly, I resist the interpreter’s emendation of “Industrial Promotion Hall.”

* In the words of Mr. Takashi Hirose, the author of Fukushima Meltdown: “There had been hydrogen explosions in the concrete building where #1 and #3 reactors were housed, another explosion inside #2 reactor’s containment vessel, an explosion in the spent pool of #4 reactor, and the situation in general was in shambles—all things the reader well knows.”

* They were. On, for instance, March 9, 2017, between six and seven hundred turned out.

* A millisievert (“milli”) is a thousandth of a sievert. A microsievert is a thousandth of a milli, or a millionth of a sievert. My customary daily dose in Tokyo or Sacramento was about one micro. One millirem equals 10 microsieverts.

* In 2010 an anti-nuclear organization asserted that a “reactor site may have anywhere from two to 20 miles of buried and underground pipes intertwined beneath the power plant property.” The pipes at Daiichi were probably compromised by the earthquake; in addition, groundwater appeared to be flowing into the lower levels of the reactor buildings, and then back out again into the water table and thus to the sea.

* “The necessary ingredient of a boosted fission bomb.” Hence this substance was manufactured at the Savannah River Plant in South Carolina for 35 years. Written T or 3H. A hydrogen isotope whose atomic weight is about 3 instead of 1, hence the name. “Easily permeates most kinds of materials including concrete and many grades of steel . . . Clinically shown to be more effective at damaging and destroying living cells even than gamma rays.” This last was disputed by pro-nuclear sources. For instance, a certain American nuclear scientist said: “The good news about tritium is that even if you inhale or ingest an awful lot, it is going to flush out of your body . . . Just have a few beers and you’re done.” Meanwhile, my old ecology textbook, copyright 1971, advised that given sufficient reliance on nuclear power, tritium “could contaminate the entire global hydrological cycle.” The half-life of 3H is 12.5 years.

* The authorities in their infinite compassion were now considering raising this ceiling.

* This comment was frequently uttered in press conferences shortly after the accident. In 2013 the interpreter and I used to laugh about it. Takashi Hirose wondered aloud: “The stock phrases used by both Edano [the Chief Cabinet Secretary] and the TV ‘experts’—‘no immediate effects to health’—mean what? That radiation effects start one year or 10 years later?”

* Mr. Kida Shoichi, in Iwaki. His interview is discussed below.

* See Table 1, here.

* Whose interview begins here.

* Such was his cheerfully understated Tohoku stoicism. As a matter of fact, his house had been damaged.

* That is, the four reactors of Fukushima Daini.

* Just as Americans used “nine-eleven” as shorthand for the September eleventh terrorist attacks, Japanese sometimes said “three-one-one” or “three-eleven” to refer to the tsunami of March 11, 2011. Occasionally one heard “eleven-eleven.”

* In addition to the radiation problem, there was no water. But I later did hear of a Mr. Matsumura Naoto, said to be “the sole remaining resident of the radiation-tainted town of Tomioka.” “After signing some papers for the police, he comes and goes as he pleases, and the officers look the other way. Unauthorized entry to the zone is punishable by a fine of up to 100,000 yen or detention.” Although he “spends six to seven hours a day” outdoors “feeding pets and livestock,” his reported cumulative dosage was insanely low. Maybe he left his dosimeter inside. In Tomioka there might also have been a woman who stayed to care for a paralyzed relative.

* After the accident, Tomioka had of course been evacuated. In 2013 the town was partitioned into zones of various radioactivities. Southern Tomioka, where the annual levels were a pleasant 20 millisieverts and below, became a green sector, and hence relatively easy to visit. Fifteen hundred people used to live there. They were hardly in evidence now. The central district, formerly inhabited by 10,000, was now a yellow or “residence restriction zone, with annual doses estimated between 20 . . . and 50 millisieverts. Residents can visit this zone in the daytime, but cannot stay overnight.” Then, of course, there were the red zones; what would Fukushima be without them? Their levels exceeded 50 millis. To enforce all these delineations, the government had erected 128 barricades in Tomioka. I did not understand any of this at the time.

* Projecting from an hour to a year is a pretty speculative game. However, on two out of my other three visits the readings were comparable. So, for what it is worth, I note that 72 × 365 = 26,280 micros per year, or 26.28 millis. Recall that the international standard for a maximum recommended yearly dose is 1 milli.

* This was the same Perch Lake whose receipts of solar radiation were discussed here. In case you wonder just how it happened that the place became so convenient for testing strontium, I quote the following scene-setter from a scientific paper: “Perch Lake is situated near the southern edge of the Canadian Shield in the Ottawa River valley on the property of the Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories.”

* A tsubo was originally a little enclosed garden. I often heard Japanese farmers use this term as a unit of measurement. 1 tsubo = the area occupied by two ordinary tatami mats side by side = 3.306 square meters.

* The meaning is napa cabbage.

* Chernobyl.

* A prefecture whose center is roughly 150 kilometers southwest of the center of Tokyo, or about 375 kilometers southwest of No. 1. If the television news was accurate, then the radiation probably also affected Tokyo. In October 2014, when I was touring the Okuma red zone, an official originally from Shizuoka insisted that he had never heard of any fallout in the latter place (see here).

* Hama means “beach.”

* Mr. Endo Kazuhiro, the protagonist of this chapter’s final Tomioka idyll, explained to me: “In that temporary housing there are 90 households, and of these 80 sometimes participate in the residents’ association. Some live elsewhere. It is easy for those people to meet their rent because they get forty to sixty thousand yen per month from Tepco.”

* She must have meant the yellow sector, whose annual radioactivity was between 20 and 50 millis.

* When I visited Okuma in October, my scintillation meter measured contamination as high as 41.5 micros per hour. (Had this level been sustained, it would work out to 363.54 millis per year.) Fortunately, my dosimeter readings in this red zone averaged only 3.033 micros an hour, which would be 26.57 millis a year. Most of the time I was shielded in a vehicle, which surely reduced my dose.

* See II:620 for some remarks on that triumph.

* The title on his business card could be gloriously translated: “Administrative Management Department, Risk Control Division, Nuclear Hazard Countermeasure Division, Decontamination Specialist.”

* That is, toward Iitate, whose red zone is described beginning here.

* About 1⁄10 of my nuclear “first responder” guide’s safe ceiling of 0.1 millirem.

* As you will see, in the red zones I found dramatically “hotter” spots than that.

* That would be 1,192.24 millisieverts per year, or nearly 1,200 times the ICRP maximum recommended annual dose. Later that year, returning to Tomioka with that “pancake frisker” scintillation counter, I measured similar and higher radiation fields.

* The first figure would be [13.61/0.041, my rough dosimeter average for Iwaki], the second [13.61/0.121, the reading at the Iwaki monitoring post].

* See here.

* The Japan Times was more optimistic, and even prepared to be pinned down. In its best-case estimate, decontaminating No. 1 “will take nearly a half-century.” Successful decontamination remained undefined.

* A place which will be described below, here.

* See “Comparative Measured Radiation Levels,” header 5, here.

* Assuming a 1-hour per day exposure in the schoolyard for 5 days a week, with 3 months off, so (52 minus 12 weeks), I calculate an exposure of 200 × 0.3, or only 60 microsieverts per year: an extra two months of Iwaki radiation.

* A middle-of-the-road figure. See the table of Comparative Measured Radiation Levels, headers 4–6, here.

* see here fn.

* I.e., bottom-feeders.

* “Quick evacuation . . . reduced radiation doses by a factor of 10.”

* This would likely have been in the 1960s.

* But a certain labor activist, Mr. Kawama Tatsuhiko of the National Railway Mito Motive Power Union, claimed that radiation might actually be twice as high in Iwaki as the sensors reported, “because they replace them in specially decontaminated areas. It’s way too low,” he insisted. My own dosimeter and pancake frisker measurements did not confirm this.

* In fact the yearly dose based on an average of my own scintillation measurements for that town in October 2014 was 38.56 millis. While my few readings cannot be any better than indicative, still they do indicate something. It is an ugly picture.

* Since 26.28 halved five times is 0.82125.

* About U.S. $1,250.

* See Table 1, here.

* About 16 kilometers north of the city center.

* In October a more rule-bound and very ancient decontaminator named Joko (who declined to be photographed) asserted that there were three successive forms of storage: a “laydown area” at the decontamination site, then a “laydown yard” followed by intermediate storage facilities “until final waste treatment is decided.”

* I heard the same thing that autumn in Iitate, and my single excavation with my own scintillation counter accorded with it.

* One Ministry of the Environment typescript proffered a nice color photo of masked workers “decontaminating a forest (by removing fallen leaves).”

* It could, of course, cause cancer, but since nearly half of all Japanese die from cancer anyway, the radiation will be a mere suspect, not a definite culprit. If, say, iodine-131 contamination precedes a significant increase in the number of childhood thyroid cancers, radiation may be plausibly blamed—but the cause of any one thyroid cancer, however likely, is not certain; whereas the symptoms of radiation sickness do afford casual certainty, for all the good that does the patient.

* Or 36.79 millis a year.

* Here, header 55.

* The daily dose would be 530.4 micros—in other words (based on my dosimeter readings), this drainpipe was about 530 times more radioactive than the various spots I encountered in a day in Sacramento. According to my own scintillation counter measurements made later that year, it had become 368 times more radioactive. Had I been chained to the drainpipe for a year in punishment for my sins, I would have accrued 193.6 millis.

* From here.

* On October 22 of that year the Nuclear Regulation Authority website reported 34 monitoring stations for Kawauchi. The side of the prefectural highway read 0.357 micros, while a certain bus stop was 0.584.

* Perhaps the one whose photograph appears here.

* “Waterfall River.”

* As might be expected, the public relations men whom I interviewed later that year at Tepco’s headquarters in Tokyo were more optimistic about Plant No. 1. Mr. Togawa Satoshi of the Corporate Communications Department told me: “Regarding Reactor No. 4, it will be over within this year. For 1 to 3 it’s more difficult. Inside the reactor, the melted fuel has to be removed. This is difficult work under very high radiation. Unlike in regular work, we need to develop new technology. For 30 to 40 years we’ll have to keep doing this work, and then finally we will demolish the building.”

* How often in Japan have I heard such nobly cheerful aphorisms! Let me remind you of Mrs. Utsumi Yoshie, the lady in Ishinomaki who had lost so much in the tsunami and who told me (here): “The passage of daily life will create another sense of value. Unless you think that way, you cannot advance.”

* For posterity I would like to report that near us was a sign for the History and “Forkways” Museum.

* There are countries, not to mention organizations such as the U.S. Army, where it is best to ask questions at the bottom of the hierarchy. In Japan it tends to be the opposite. At Takaku I finally listened to people’s advice and went to the head of the residents’ association, who was Mr. Endo.

* Last month some kind soul had visited several temporary housing sites in order to break car windows, and in December a certain city office had been grafitti’d as follows: EVACUEES GO HOME. I’m sure they wanted to.

* See II:625–26.

* The highest level of this element in 2012 was 11 becquerels of plutonium-238 per square meter, measured at Namie—only 1.4 times greater than what fluttered down in average everyday fallout, courtesy of the nuclear testing club of nations. How fortunate that it wasn’t Pu-239! But the time for the latter isotope’s radiation to reduce to 1/1000 was a mere 877 years.

* Wabi is the beauty of loneliness and infinity, as in stars in the night sky or some wild island promontory. I saw this in the distant radioactive ocean. Sabi is pleasant decrepitude, exemplified by an old peasant hut. For more discussion see my Kissing the Mask.

* Such thickets did not even offer the saving grace of sequestering CO2 in proportion to their thriving. From the 2015 Japanese greenhouse inventory: “Carbon pools in bamboo in forest land remaining forest land are all reported as ‘NA’ because annual growth and death of bamboo trunk in established bamboo are equivalent.”

* For all I know, it may have proved easier for her than for him to start over. She was not a Tomioka native; he met her in Tokyo. “She was working in a grocery store. My friend was the go-between. She had trouble at first in Tomioka. The old people asked her so many questions.”

* Japanese persimmons are of two kinds, sweet and bitter. Only the sweet tastes pleasant straight from the tree.

* About 991.8 square meters.

* It is peculiar to me that meanwhile the central Japanese government had allowed my first Iwaki taxi driver, the one who called himself dull, to collect some reimbursement from fire insurance for his damaged house even though a tsunami has little to do with flames. Perhaps Mr. Endo had no fire insurance.

* A few months later, when I returned to Fukushima with that pancake frisker, which measured in both cpms and microsieverts per hour, my data did not verify this conversion. Instead of dividing by 1,000, I needed to divide by 300. But I was measuring alpha, beta and gamma all at once. For details, see the source-notes. This being said, I should add that plenty of sidewalks I frisked in 2014 read 5 micros an hour or higher.

* Based on what I was told in Okuma later that year (here), cpms = microSv × 558, and the same cutoff of 13,000 cpms was given—which would have been a far more plausible 23.29 micros per hour.

* Yama [or yoma] means “mountain.”

* I might have misheard this translated number.

* Japanese streets rarely have names. Intersections are named instead.

* Or 5 micros an hour. I find this figure quite believable, having measured far hotter spots than this. (Thanks to being a vehicle-protected journalist, not an active decontaminator, my own dose in the Okuma red zone measured merely 3.033 micros per hour.)

* This would be 6.13 micros an hour (see source-notes). Had he been exposed to this level without relief for a year, he would have received 53.70 millis. But given his actual working hours, he would have accrued only 13.24 micros—within the ICRP maximum for professional workers.

* Confirming what Ed Lyman said about decontamination here.

* My college physics book, published 37 years before the accident, notes that “pine trees are particularly sensitive to radiation damage” and showed “deleterious effects” at 1–2 roentgens per day; 20–30 roentgens per day allegedly killed them. Since a rem is about a roentgen, and 1 rem = 10 millisieverts, then 10 to 20 millis per day (3.65 to 7.30 sieverts per year) would do the job. This would be a horribly dangerous amount of radiation, and whether Plant No. 1 was still generating such a field I cannot say.—As it happens, I have heard of red pines at Chernobyl, and also at Hiroshima. One of the two decontamination workers I interviewed in Iwaki had worked at Plant No. 1. He failed to notice any red pines since his visor restricted his vision and he had more important things to see. When I went to Okuma I got a pretty view of No. 1 from about 2.5 kilometers away. In conspicuous evidence was tank, tank, tank, but from that distance I could perceive no irregularities among the pine trees.—A Greenpeace study released in 2016 did not mention pines, but found “apparent increases in growth mutations of fir trees.”

* Here

* Here.

* See below, here: By 2016, 176 Tepco workers had accumulated more than 100 millis.

* According to The Japan Times, “the first official fatality of the plant’s decommissioning process” was a subcontractor who was buried alive on March 28, 2014.

* A letter from the interpreter, March 2014: “After I spoke with you over the phone the other day about our possible internal exposure, I felt that my throat was somehow soar [sic]. I’m sure it was something psychological. I think I understand now a little better the anxiety of those people who are in the contaminated area.”

* Two years later The Japan Times ran the following item: “Tepco admits ice wall efficacy still not known.” “Not being able to provide an assessment” of that project, its head official said: “It’s really unfortunate and I am very sorry.” But why not hope? We were experts at that, back when we were alive. “If the wall succeeds,” the daily radioactive outflow into the ocean “should reduce to about 70 tons . . . , from hundreds of tons.”

* A qualification, courtesy of The Japan Times: “But restarting reactors remains crucial because Washington, as reported in The Wall Street Journal in May, is pressuring Tokyo to do so.”

* John O’Hara, 1961: “Those little bastards blame our generation for the state of the world. I think they’re taught that in school and college. So they hate us. Really hate us, Ned. I don’t think there’s a God damn one of them that ever stops to think that we weren’t responsible for 1929.”

* Do you remember those hateful black bags behind the silvery wall in Iwaki? In March my only way of measuring them was to approach them at a distance, watching the dosimeter to see whether its displayed accrual would immediately increase. Since its righthand digit represented microsieverts, my local real-time perception of radiation was awfully blunt. Had my total dose display upticked by one within, say, 15 seconds, that would have implied a field of 4 micros a minute . . . 240 micros an hour . . . more than half a sievert per day—far more biological damage than I wished to absorb. And had the numbers in that narrow grey window remained the same—as happened—the radioactivity of the black bags would remain out of my ken.

* Legal notice: This sentence was a work of fiction. And, by the way, West Virginian TSA officials were invariably friendly and permissive to me.

* Or 0.1 millirem in its original units.

* Its most stable compound is plutonium dioxide, which has been called “an attractive reactor fuel.”

* That Soviet reactor was a graphite-moderated 950-MWe RBMK, fueled with uranium oxide enriched to a rather low 2%.

* See II:389.

* see here.

* Aki, whom you will meet here.

* According to the World Nuclear Association, “Pu-238 (half-life 88 years)” is “a strong alpha emitter and a source of spontaneous neutrons”—in other words, not the right toy for children. It “is increased in high-burnup fuel. Pu-239, Pu-240 and Pu-242 are long-lived and hence little changed with prolonged storage.”

* see here.

* The old one continued to accrue between 1 and 2 micros a day at the interpreter’s house in Tokyo.

* Although 90% of the uranium available for mining lies in certain sedimentary rocks, igneous rocks abundant in silicates—which category includes granite—tend to contain more uranium in general than most other kinds of stone. This fact might help explain the frisker readings.

* Because 0.06 micros an hour is 0.001 micros per minute. The lowest number of counts per minute I have ever measured was a leaking natural gas rig in the Kanawha State Forest by Charleston, West Virginia (see II:1). Expecting titillation, I’d held the frisker directly in the gas stream—and read 15 cpms.

* Said to live in “countless” numbers on the White Bluffs.

* Perhaps the difference between 52 and 66, divided by the frisker’s 11% plutonium alpha efficiency, would have revealed a meaningful number; that quotient was still a modest 127 counts per minute.

* In other words, no immediate danger!—Two years later, “hundreds of workers . . .” had to “take cover” at Hanford “after the collapse of a 20-foot-long portion of a tunnel used to store contaminated radioactive materials.” Back in 1997, a Department of Energy report had advised that the tunnels could not be inspected “because of radiation in excess of five roentgens an hour,” which was “the annual limit [both of these are my italics] for a U.S. nuclear facility.” (In the language of Carbon Ideologies, this equated with an “excess of 50 millis an hour.”) Did those cowardly inspectors expect to live forever?—“Officials requested that the Federal Aviation Administration put a temporary flight restriction in place” over this happy graveyard.

* That is, 0.003 parts per million.

* The original source has 2 million, which must be a decimal point error.

* The isotope of the “radioactive iodine” is not stated, so I am assuming, as is most likely, I-131.

* See here.

* Frisked by Mr. Kanari Takahiro of the Iwaki Department of Radiation Countermeasures, using an Aloka TCS 172B gamma survey meter. All other measurements made by WTV with a Ludlum Model 26-alpha-beta-gamma “pancake” frisker.

* Halfway through the writing of this book this became a national right. Bitter letters to the editor persisted in coal-loving West Virginian newspapers.

* More than two years later, with the east side finally 100% frozen, and the west side 95% frozen, the headline ran: Tepco admits ice wall efficacy still not known.

* See above, here.

* The average in Shinjuku, central Tokyo, on March 6, 2014, was 0.0339 microSv/hr, “about the same as the day before” the nuclear accident. The high reading in Tokyo on the morning of March 18, 2011, was 0.049 microSv/hr. It is possible that the pancake frisker’s measurements read a trifle high in the low fields of Tokyo.

* see here.

* I presume this meant 20 millis in the month and a half since the accident. Had the 95.1 micros per hour kept up for a year, the accrued dose would have been more than 833 millis. [Converting from becquerels to millisieverts is difficult; see here.]

* Around U.S. $55,000.

* By 1978, nearly 90% of Okuma’s tax revenues derived from Nuclear Plant No. 1.

* The Nuclear Regulation Authority, a Japanese government body formed after 3-11 to replace the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, which functioned up until the Fukushima incident. NISA was subordinate to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry “whose goal had been to promote and expand the use of atomic energy.”

* See the photo here.

* Flavored riceballs. This must be the incident mentioned in his statement here.

* Two years later a Greenpeace study of the disaster area found “heritable mutations in pale blue grass butterfly populations.”

* A unit of area measurement (conversion unknown to me).

* Our counters agreed.

* Dr. Crownover interjects: “The US has no formal limits on radiation exposure for flight crews. My recollection is that the European Union has limits for them that [are] higher than what they (and we) allow for nuclear plant workers.”

* A Tepco official once told me: “The level is 0.8 microsieverts per hour in Gifu Prefecture naturally. There are no health problems in that prefecture.” I contacted the prefecture. It turned out that the actual level was 0.08 micros.

* Nearly half a century before the accident, scientists at the Brookhaven National Laboratory irradiated a forest of oaks and pines with cesium-137. They must have had a blank check; they blasted that place for two years. Do you remember Mr. Shigihara’s 95.1 microsieverts an hour? The experimenters would have been unimpressed. A tenfold increase over that dose—which is to say a full millisievert per hour—was where they first began to notice environmental degradation. Where the measured exposure remained near zero, there was, as might be expected, no perceptible biological effect on insects and vegetation; then the curve of radiation versus damage began to rise, shallowly at first. One to 2.5 millis stunted plant growth and diminished animal diversity. Pines suffered before oaks, which “persisted at rather high dose levels” (10 to 20 millis per hour). In the ring where the oaks had absorbed 2.5 millis, aphids infested them in populations more than 200 times greater than where oaks were left to themselves. Closer to the cesium source, at a dose of more than 50 millis, only fungivorous, xylophagous and saprophagous insects persisted in significant numbers; above 150 or 200 millis an hour, the insects were described as “occasional transients.” At 50 millis the oaks had already given way to huckleberries and blueberries; at 100 millis only sedges hung on; but not until somewhere beyond a horrific 250 millisieverts an hour did the diagram read: HIGHER PLANTS DEAD.

* My highest MAX reading in 2014–15 was at an unknown cruising altitude (from the look of the landscape below me, I should estimate we were no more than 35,000 feet) over the Great Salt Lake in Utah: 4.17 micros. My two highest one-minute SCALER measurements, taken over that same general area on two separate flights (one at unknown altitude, the other at 37,000 feet), tied at 3.3 micros. The next highest SCALER reading was 3.17, measured at 37,000 feet over Minsk, Belarus.

* See above, here.

* In five and a quarter hours it accrued 4 digits, which I calculated out at 1.285 micros per hour, most of that time having been spent in the relative protection of Mr. Shigihara’s house or car or else the decontaminated community center. Between 11:27 and 12:37, when we might have been outdoors for nearly half that time, the dosimeter turned over 2 micros; hence my approximation of the real air dose in Nagadoro would be 4 micros an hour.

* Had the winning worker been irradiated here over the entire five years since the accident, his yearly dose would have been 135.76 millis—15.48 micros an hour. That was one of the more elevated levels my frisker would record in Okuma, but by no means the highest. Had he accrued his 678.8 millis in a single year, however, his hourly dose would have averaged 77.38 micros—not atypical for outer space.

* A jolly element collector supplies a more vivid description: “The cesium in this ampoule melts if you hold it in your hand for a minute, yielding the prettiest gold liquid.”

* To generate this much electricity, a conventional power plant would need to burn about 3.6 million gallons of heavy fuel oil.

* At least these paddies were no longer warming the atmosphere with methane (here)—for which we should praise nuclear power. About eight times the normal yearly figure for cropland leaving circulation was recorded for 2011. Of this cropland, almost 89% consisted of ricefields.

* There would be another cost, of course—combusted carbon, the focus of this book. According to the Ministry of the Environment, one of three methods for “volume reduction of contaminated soil” was “heating processing,” by “using rotating heater and reaction accelerator together to separate cesium from soil[.] [A]lmost all cesium is collected by a bag filter. Decontamination rate is 99.8–99.9%,” which sounded splendid, although maybe less so from the standpoint of “volume reduction” since “the volume of purified soil is doubled because reaction accelerator is needed to add the same amount of the soil.” Now for the price: “It costs about 200,000 yen/t[on] (400 t/day, for 10 years running)” [my italics]. That would be an impressive amount of CO2—to say nothing of the energy required to run the reaction accelerator for that decade.

* See above, here.

* In case you are wondering, the Futaba Town Recovery Promotion Committee “compiled a long-term plan,” but the plan failed to state when people could come home.

* The Union of Concerned Scientists asserted an official return date of 2022, although, as will be seen, different zones would actually be decontaminated at different times.

* But there were sunnier ways to calculate those 23.2 micros. Magill’s Survey of Science, published in 1993, advised me that “those working with radiation are required to keep their dosage below 5 rems [= 50 millis] per year, which is . . . 25 microsieverts . . . per hour for a 40-hour work week. No ill effects have been observed at several times this dosage.”

* Between 9:21, when we passed through the gate, and 12:25, when we departed the red zone, the display altered from 5.0 to 14.1 micros.

* Under the category “treatment of contaminated wastes,” the Ministry of the Environment included “captured wild harmful animals,” for which the “executing agency,” Kyowa Kako Co., Ltd., stood ready to supply a “demonstration of the safe composting system for treatment of dead bodies of captured animals.”

* “Inside the port,” of course, the levels read at monitoring stations were breaking records again: 1,900 and 1,400 Bq (their prior respective prize-winners had been 1,400 and 1,200).

* In 2016, in Namie, whose radiation was supposedly “15 times the safe standard,” the internal organs of irradiated cows “so far have shown no significant abnormality particularly linked to radiation exposure, . . . but it’s too early to draw conclusions about thyroid cancer and leukemia.” Meanwhile, a Greenpeace study mentioned “DNA-damaged worms in highly contaminated areas.”

* If you would like to envision the expression on his face, I refer you to the booklet “Atom Fukushima No. 86” (November 1990), in which a wide-eyed cartoon couple admires the ocean view at one of Tepco’s Fukushima plants, perhaps even Daiichi, the pigtailed girl clasping her hands to say: “Wow, beautiful!,” to which the boy brilliantly replies: “What a wonderful environment it is to have to nuclear plant here, isn’t it?,” after which a helpful old man remarks: “That’s right. All nuclear plants in Japan are located at the coast.”

* You may remember from here that the maximum recorded radioactivity at any inhabited place in mid-April 2011 was 16,020 microsieverts accrued over 21 days, or an average of 31.79 micros an hour.—But here I must quote from the [August 22 of this or last year’s] blog of Mr. Yoshikawa—that is, my friend Aki from yesterday’s tour—so that you will see how the other half lives: Tepco had brought “Appreciate FUKUSHIMA Workers” out to Plant No. 1. At Reactors 4 and 5, “we did not need a mask or gloves. Several hundred workers were taking a rest . . . as if they were at an ordinary construction site. This is outdoors . . . In front of No. 4 reactor, the radiation level was about 50 micros [per hour] in the bus [my italics]. Ordinary people may find it tremendously high, but . . . I regard it [as] surprisingly low for a reactor that exploded. For your information, when I used to work at the site before the accident, it was not unusual at all to get 100 micros within a nuclear facility building.”

* I sometimes wondered whether a longer established radioactive community such as Chernobyl would show greater variety in its plants and animals. “As with all kinds of stress,” says my college ecology textbook, “reduction in species diversity is associated with radiation stress.” All the same, provided that the dose rate was less than obscene, it seemed plausible that plants, animals and some insects would adapt. Surely the trees would come back; if it were too “hot” for pines it might not be for oaks.—Or do you from the future for whom I write dwell mostly upon rolling plains of goldenrod? Were I a biologist I could tell you more; and you would surely rather read scientific observations which might somehow ease your predicament than my merely descriptive emotings. But when I was alive, those were what they paid me for.

* See above, here.

* Left of Reactor No. 1 lay Reactors No. 5 and 6, which were screened from us by pines and pampas grass.

* You may recall that in Fukushima I found a fairly close correlation between counts per minute and 300 times microsieverts per hour. These officials’ factor was 558, not 300. In other words, my conversion of their 240 cpms would have been 0.8 micros instead of 0.43. On this subject let me note that the arithmetical average of the 92 readings I made in the Okuma red zone was 7.14 micros—16.6 times higher than their 0.43 micros. Of course the frisker was measuring gamma waves in addition to alpha and beta particles; all these people presumably cared about was the particles, which could continue to do harm after being removed from the zone. Here I want to say that whenever I had a chance to compare my frisker’s reading with that of a Japanese government scintillation meter (as at Hen Jo, and in the 41.5-microsievert patch by the fish hatchery), the measurements closely agreed.

* On this very question Mr. Togawa Satoshi of Tepco said to me: “Even after six years, it is feared that the annual radiation won’t go below 20 millisieverts annually. That’s in this red zone”—indicating a map of Tomioka. “In the yellow zone, the annual dose is between 20 to 50 millisieverts. In the green, they are preparing to lift the evacuation order for this area. In this green part the infrastructure for carrying out normal life has almost recovered, and also the good decontamination work has been begun for where kids are. When all these conditions are cleared, people can return.”

I asked: “If people were in the green area, could fallout from the reactor come back to them?”

His colleague Mr. Hitosugi Yoshimi replied: “We have evaluated the level in our premises, and basically, there’s no new source of radiation. We are working so the people can come back as soon as possible. For that, Fukushima has to be in a stable condition. So we have to go forward with the demolition of the reactor.”—I took his meaning to be: Under certain conditions the green zones could get recontaminated.

* The Japanese national target air dose.

* On the other hand, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had predicted that “precipitation extremes are very likely to increase over the eastern Asian continent in all seasons and over Japan in summer.” So who can say that you future Japanese will not live happy lives, trusting in extreme typhoons to wash your cesium away?

* Do you remember that unstable and poisonous “uranium legacy site” in Kyrgyzstan? [see here and II:557.] Here was another place in that country:

Most high contaminated horizons characterized by gamma dose rates in range 50–200 [microsieverts]/h[r].

The total amount[s] of the tailing materials having different level[s] of radioactive contamination are still uncertain.

“Uncertain” was the word, all right!

I imagine a future (your present) in which megastorms tear open inadequate “containments” for nuclear waste, which then washes into rivers. I imagine a time before you and after me when people terrified of climate change rush to build reactors in order to cool their sweltering cities and pump away rising waters, and in their haste they build poorly, so that new disasters occur. No doubt in your time hurricane winds have carried away the warning signs and eroded the walls of plutonium tombs. Radioactive contamination . . . still uncertain.

* Or 165 cpms.

* For my measurements and observations from that time, see II:619–26.

* See above, here.

* For Cs-137 only. Ukraine’s permissible levels for Sr-90 were in a separate category and were usually much lower.

* For Cs-137 and Cs-134 combined.

* Ministry of Environment, 2014: “All the rice crops of the year 2013 were monitored with Becquerel Monitors and test results read 99.93% . . . contain less than 25 Becquerels of Radioactive Cesium per Kilogram in the shape of Brown Rice. By polishing brown rice into polished rice, . . . cesium content will be lowered . . . to 40% . . . By cooking polished rice with water, . . . Cesium density [by weight] will further be lowered [to] . . . less than 2.5 Becquerels per Kilogram.”

* “Lolita,” rori, plus kon for “complex.” These were the ladies, many of high school age, who “sold spring.” Some of them vended only walks around the block with their older male admirers. At this time the Electric City district was famous for them.

* Both comparison readings from the table of Comparative Measured Radiation Levels here. headers 5.7 and 8.

* In 2015, it came out that about a third of 45 new power-generation units fueled by coal won’t face the government’s environmental assessment because their small size puts them under the review level.

* The European Union’s greenhouse report made the impetus clearer: “Substantial [CO2] emission increases between 2011 and 2012”—in other words, immediately after the faux pas at Fukushima—“were reported for the source categories listed below . . .” Europeans looked over at Japan, and shuddered. “In Germany, power production from coal increased mainly due to lower nuclear power production . . .”

* This phrase was presumably inserted to exclude Fukushima Nuclear plants No. 1 and 2.

* Most of the material in this section was verified by Prof. Anna Mummert of Marshall University.

* “746 watts are theoretically equivalent to 1 h.p., but because of losses in the conversion of the electrical energy into useful work about 800 watts are normally required for 1 h.p. with electric motors . . .”

* Calculated using the densities beginning here.

* As in my grandfather’s Machinery’s Handbook.

* Conversion calculation from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 1982. Prof. Mummert writes here: “For readers who are less comfortable with numbers, it would make more sense if the numerical values for joules and exajoules were identical.” And of course 1.055 and 1.054 are really the same number, computed differently.

* CRC Handbook, p. 11-118 (“Table of the Isotopes”).

* “New Standard Limits for Radionuclides in Food,” Department of Food Safety, Pharmaceutical & Food Safety Bureau, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (Japan), www.mhlw.go.jp/english/topics/2011eq/dl/new_standard.pdf, accessed by Jordan Rothacker on December 10, 2015.

* Loc. cit.

* Hirose, p. 58.

* Glasstone and Dolan, pp. 604–5, 606.

* Interview with Mr. Hisataka Yamasaki of No Nukes Plaza, Tokyo, Feb. 18, 2014.

* Odum, p. 463.

* Edwin Lyman, Union of Concerned Scientists, phone interview by WTV, 2014.

* CRC Handbook, p. 4-18 (entry on iodine); pp. 11-112-14 (“Table of the Isotopes”); Tilley and Thumm, p. 23.

* Tilley and Thumm, p. 25.

* CRC Handbook, p. 4-34 (entry on strontium).

* Odum, p. 463.

* Hirose, p. 72.

* Glasstone and Dolan, pp. 605, 606.

* Lyman interview.

* Not listed in CRC Handbook.

* Glasstone and Dolan, loc. cit.

* CRC Handbook. These longer half-lives are given in scientific notation, which I have recast in more familiar forms for the benefit of non-mathematical readers.

* CRC Handbook, p. 11-191 (“Table of the Isotopes”).

* Graf, p. 27.

* Loc. cit.

* Graf, p. 110. “A navigational satellite lost in 1964” appears on the same page. How expansive of us! According to this source [loc. cit.], the maximum fallout is between 40 and 50 degrees N: 0.079 mCi/sq. km for Pu-238 and 2.2 mCi/sq. km for Pu-239 and -240.

* Hirose, p. 51.

* The Japan Times, Thursday, August 23, 2012, p. 1 (unattrib., “Plutonium traces detected at 10 locations in Fukushima”).

* Mixed-oxide fuel, a mixture of uranium and plutonium that can be used in nuclear reactors” (Tabak, p. 57).

* Edwin Lyman to WTV, phone interview, March 13, 2014.

* Hirose, p. 59.

* Glasstone and Dolan, p. 601.

* Graf, p. 28.

* Graf, p. 31.

* Tabak, p. 41.

* Graf, p. 27.

* “New Standard Limits for Radionuclides in Food,” Department of Food Safety, Pharmaceutical & Food Safety Bureau, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, (Japan), www.mhlw.go.jp/english/topics/2011eq/dl/new_standard.pdf, accessed by Jordan Rothacker on December 10, 2015.

* Hirose, p. 57.

* CRC Handbook, p. 4-27 (entry on plutonium).

* CRC Handbook, p. 4-27 (entry on polonium). Tabak, however, says 5 days (p. 108).

* CRC Handbook, p. 4-27: “Weight for weight it is about 2.5 × 1011 times as toxic as hydrocyanic acid.”

* CRC Handbook, p. 4-37 (entry on thorium).

* Tabak, p. 108.

* CRC Handbook, p. 4-39 (entry on uranium). But Tabak says that “uranium-238’s half-life is roughly equal to the age of Earth” (p. 32).

* Tilley and Thumm, p. 13.

* Tabak, p. 108.

* CRC Handbook, p. 11-189 (“Table of the Isotopes”).

* Ibid.

* Ensley pp. 428–29.

* Lochbaum et al., p. 118.

* Average value of NORMAL readings. All other measurements in 1-minute SCALER mode.

* Since the frisker can be toggled back and forth between cpms and mSv/hr, it is very easy to verify this empirical conversion; study the table of frisker readings, here, in these appendices, to see it for yourself.

* My best contextual guess of the text beside “Sv/Bq,” which Kawai-san, the interpreter, not knowing that this part of the table would interest me, left untranslated. This would be the usual distinction.

* My best contextual guess of the text beside “Sv/Bq,” which Kawai-san, the interpreter, not knowing that this part of the table would interest me, left untranslated. This would be the usual distinction.

* As you saw from the formula for high heating value (here), a coal’s sulfur content, and to a very minor extent its oxygen content, also bear on the energy it can give out.

* But the table of Calorific Efficiencies beginning here reveals that coke and charcoal can have comparable HHVs. see here, header 134, and here, header 147.

* In our units, this would be an ungainly (9∕5° C + 32)° F per 0.00528 BTUs/min/ft2.

* See “Power and Climate,” p. 158.

* Or, according to the much older Mechanical Engineers’ Handbook, a pound of combusted methane gives off 2.75 pounds of CO2, 2.247 pounds of water and 13.22 pounds of nitrogen.