Germany plans to shut down all nuclear plants by 2022

Germany's coalition government decided early Monday to shut down all of the country's nuclear power plants by 2022, a policy change prompted by Japan's nuclear disaster, the environment minister said.

Meanwhile, the country's seven oldest reactors, which were taken off the grid pending safety inspections following the catastrophe at Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant in March, will remain offline permanently, Norbert Roettgen said. The country has 17 reactors total. Roettgen praised the coalition agreement after negotiations through the night between the governing parties.

"This is coherent," he said in Berlin. "It is clear. That's why it is a good result."

Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2010 had pushed through measures to extend the lifespan of the country's 17 reactors with the last one scheduled to go offline in 2036, but she reversed her policy in the wake of the disaster.

Germany, Europe's biggest economy, stands alone among the world's major industrialized nations in its determination to gradually replace nuclear power with renewable energy sources.

Through March — before the seven reactors were taken offline — just under a quarter of Germany's electricity was produced by nuclear power, about the same share as in the U.S. Energy from wind, solar and hydroelectric power currently produces about 17 per cent of the country's electricity, but the government aims to boost its share to around 50 per cent in the coming decades.

Many Germans have been vehemently opposed to nuclear power since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster sent radioactive fallout over the country. Tens of thousands repeatedly took to the street in the wake of Fukushima to urge the government to shut all reactors.

Japanese crisis prompted reversal

A centre-left government a decade ago first penned a plan to abandon the technology for good because of its inherent risks by 2021. But Merkel's government last year amended it to extend the plants' lifetime by an average of 12 years.

But the conservative chancellor reversed her pro-nuclear stance after the earthquake and tsunami that crippled the Fukushima Daiichi plant on March 11, triggering nuclear meltdowns.
Merkel's government ordered the country's seven oldest reactors, built before 1980, shut down four days after the Fukushima incident. The plants, which will now remain offline, accounted for about 40 per cent of the country's nuclear power capacity.

Germany used to be a net energy exporter, and the agency overseeing its electricity grid said Friday that the country remains self-sufficient even without the seven reactors and another plant that has already been offline for more than a year for maintenance work.

The coalition government's decision broadly follows the conclusions of a government-mandated commission on the ethics of nuclear power, which delivered its recommendation to abolish the technology by 2022 on Saturday. Details of the final report are to be presented later Monday.

Shutting down even more reactors, however, will require billions of investment in renewable energies, more natural gas power plants and an overhaul of the country's electricity grid.

The government of neighbouring Switzerland, where nuclear power produces 40 per cent of the country's electricity, also announced last week that it plans to shut down its reactors gradually once they reach their average lifespan of 50 years — which would mean taking the last plant off the grid in 2034.

Source: CBCnews

Heavy rains trigger tsunami-zone landslide alert

Heavy rain caused by the remains of Typhoon Songda posed multiple landslide threats Monday in areas hit by the March 11 disasters, prompting local authorities to go on alert.

Several areas had already been flooded by the morning and dozens of cars were trapped on overflowing roads in Sendai's Wakabayashi Ward and in the nearby city of Iwanuma, both in Miyagi Prefecture.

The ground in some areas sank several centimeters during the massive quake, which shifted the island's position in the Pacific Ocean. This made many areas vulnerable for the first time to high tides and heavy rain.

Shortly after 9 a.m., a blackout struck the disaster-hit town of Minamisanriku, Iwate Prefecture, where many people are still living in emergency shelters at schools.

"After the lights went out, I was horrified by my memory of the March disaster," said Yasuko Saijo, 77, who is living in one of the shelters in town.

She said her home in the coastal area has been persistently flooded by seawater since the magnitude 9 earthquake. "Heavy rain this time may further damage my home," she said.

East Japan Railway Co. suspended train services on the Tohoku Line between Fukushima and Ichinoseki stations in Iwate Prefecture, while the Joban Line between Watari and Iwanuma, both in Miyagi, was suspended for safety reasons.

In addition, at least one bullet train run was canceled as of Monday morning on the Akita Shinkansen Line, JR East said.

The typhoon had weakened into a tropical storm off Shikoku on Sunday afternoon, but the Meteorological Agency warned that it could still cause downpours and strong winds across the country through Monday.

Winds as strong as 118 kph were observed in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, the agency said.

Ishinomaki and other coastal areas along the Pacific will see full tides between Tuesday and June 7, the agency said, warning of floods on a mass scale coupling with heavy rain.

The storm was moving toward waters off eastern Japan, activating the front hovering over the Tohoku region, especially on the tsunami-ravaged Pacific side, the agency said.

Future war: Cyber terror? North Korea continues their cyber attacks against South Korea

North Korean hackers have apparently sent spam e-mail messages to South Korean military officers, carrying viruses and malicious computer code, military officials here said Monday.

According to an official, senders who claim to be graduates of the Korea Military Academy in Seoul have written to about 60 current South Koran officers who graduated from the academy. Messages mostly included a benign greeting and attachment files, the official said.

"Our Cyber Command warned officers of these e-mails last Friday," the official said. "After tracing these messages, we believe North Koreans have tried to hack into (military information)."

The official said senders' addresses have used a South Korean domain, 'hanmail.net,' operated by a portal site Daum, including '1co3p@hanmail.net' and 'hoyon1241@hanmail.net.' He said hackers might not have been able to access any key military data since officers are restricted from accessing their Hanmail accounts on the base.

Opening the message or downloading an attachment file will activate malicious code, the official added.

"North Korean hacking attempts using the Hanmail domain appear to be spreading," the official said, adding that officers shouldn't open suspicious e-mails and should report to their respective cyber units immediately.

The Anti Tax Payer's Bill Of Rights Lawsuit

"TABOR requires lawmakers to ask voters to raise taxes. It also limits the amount of tax revenue the state can keep and spend."

"The group of more than 30 current and former public officials" lead by Rep. Andy Kerr and former Sen. Norma Anderson are filing a lawsuit that is against the Taxpayers Bill of Rights calling these laws "unconstitutional."

See the CBS Local article for more.

TABOR provides an important check on the government's power.

Do you support TABOR? Sign the Twitition (Twitter petition) at twitition.com/874ug.

HAARP [CH02] Radar flares

I found this clip on youtube.com showing a possible HAARP radar flare in the state of Washington. In this video by Dutchsinse, he varifies these flares on intellicast.com, weather.gov, and accuweather.com.

Video of Super Typhoon Songda on weather radar

HAARP [CH01] What is it?

HF Array

According to haarp.alaska.edu,

"HAARP is a scientific endeavor aimed at studying the properties and behavior of the ionosphere, with particular emphasis on being able to understand and use it to enhance communications and surveillance systems for both civilian and defense purposes."

Optical Shelter with Dome

The HAARP facility located near Gakona, Alaska is one of many "ionosphere research" facilities located all around the world. In addition to HAARP, the US has two more facilities--one located in Puerto Rico, near the Arecibo Observatory and the other near Fairbanks, Alaska (http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/haarp/factSheet.html).

Modular UHF Ionospheric Radar

HAARP is more equipped than other research facilities. Its unique features include "electronic beam steering", "wide frequency coverage", and an advanced collection of scientific instruments. The data that these "sophisticated" instruments collect is recorded and archived into their database. Anyone can view the data that HAARP collects for their Magnetometer, VHF Classic Riometer, HAARP HF Ionosonde, Induction Magnetometer, Total Electron Content, "Latitude Scans of TEC and Scintillation", Spectrum Monitor Waterfall Charts, HAARP Observatory Weather Station, and more on their website (http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/haarp/factSheet.html,http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/haarp/data.html).

Induction Magnetometer

Atmospheric studies have been very important to the military and communication industries since the ionosphere can "distort, reflect and absorb radio signals." Imagine a company executive whose satellite download gets delayed due to an unexpected fluctuation in the atmosphere. These sudden changes can be cause by solar flares or lightning which heat or ionize air-streams. A classic example of this phenomenon occurred in 1933, know as the Luxembourg Effect, when a radio receiver, tuned to Radio-Paris, located in Southern England picked up a faint signal from the much more powerful Luxembourg station. This event would not be unusual except that the two radio stations frequencies were separated by a "large band" which prevented any "cross modulation"--that is, the presence of strong signals on adjacent channels.

Typhoon Songda Hits Southern Japan. Heavy rain and wind in Fukushima

The first major storm of the season is now making its way across southern Japan.
It has weakened somewhat, but Tropical Storm Songda is yet another natural disaster to hit the stricken country in recent times.

This has been quite a long-lived storm, and we have been tracking its progress for more than a week now. Thankfully, it has by-and-large stayed clear of the major land masses in the Western Pacific.
It brushed the Philippines, passing to the northeast of Luzon as a typhoon before drifting east of Taiwan on its way towards Japan.

At its peak it had sustained winds of 240kmph making it a super typhoon (the equivalent of a category 5 hurricane on the Safir-Simpson Scale).

The fact that the eye of the typhoon remained over the ocean means that it has been able to maintain its warm water source, which has thus continued to feed the storm.
As a result, the outer rain bands have produced major rain events for all in its path along with very high seas. It is now weakening over the slightly cooler waters to the south of Japan and the northwest Pacific.

Feeling the effects

As the typhoon made its way towards Kyushu on Sunday morning, Japan's Meteorological Agency issued a mudslide warning for Kagoshima, where recent volcanic eruptions left the ground weak and prone to such events.
Kagoshima received 121mm of rain on Saturday. A little further south, Naze had a whopping 160mm in the same time period. Subsequently, 15,400 households suffered power cuts and 426 households lost their water supply.
Overall, the combination of strong winds and heavy rain left at least 58 people injured and 278,000 households without power.

Tokyo has also been feeling the effects of the storm, which has now been downgraded to a tropical storm. Flights were cancelled for a time.

Elsewhere, concerns remain over Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, which officials admit is not fully prepared to deal with violent storms. Fortunately the storm has now passed to the south of the site.
However, the typhoon has already brought heavy rain to the Fukushima region and there is still more to come. This has prompted worries that runoff water may wash away radioactive materials from the land into the Pacific Ocean.

The plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has been pouring synthetic resins over the complex in an attempt to stabilise the plant. More work needs to be done, not just now but also to ensure that future typhoons would not spread radioactive materials into the environment.

Source: Al Jazeera

Fukushima Plant not prepared for Typhoon Songda

Officials from the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) are apologizing in advance for the fact that the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant is not ready for the high winds and heavy rain of Typhoon Songda, a massive storm that could make landfall in Japan as early as Monday.

The BBC quotes TEPCO Officials as saying, "We have made utmost efforts, but we have not completed covering the damaged reactor buildings. We apologize for the lack of significant measures against wind and rain."
Buildings housing the plant's nuclear reactors are still standing open in the wake of crippling hydrogen explosions that followed Japan's March 11 earthquake and tsunami. The approaching storm could scatter highly radioactive materials into the air and sea. Plant operators are currently spreading "anti-scattering agents" around the buildings housing reactors one and four.

An adviser to Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan has criticized TEPCO officials, saying that the current safety measures "cannot be said to be appropriate". TEPCO and the Japanese government have faced condemnation of their handling of the crisis, which some see as inept and lacking in transparency. It is unclear whether the Fukushima plant will be in the direct path of the typhoon.

Source: The Raw Story

Nuclear Super Typhoon? Massive storm may approach Fukushima this weekend — Current gusts of 195 mph

Typhoon Songda strengthened to a supertyphoon after battering the Philippines and headed for Japan on a track that may pass over the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant by May 30, a U.S. monitoring center said.
Songda’s winds increased to 241 kilometers (150 miles) per hour from 213 kph yesterday, the U.S. Navy Joint Typhoon Warning Center said on its website. The storm’s eye was about 240 kilometers east of Aparri in the Philippines at 8 a.m. today, the center said. Songda was moving northwest at 19 kph and is forecast to turn to the northeast and cross the island of Okinawa by 9 p.m. local time tomorrow before heading for Honshu.
The center’s forecast graphic includes a possible path over Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant, which has been spewing radiation since March 11 when an earthquake and tsunami knocked out cooling systems. Three of six reactor buildings have no roof after explosions blew them off, exposing spent fuel pools and containment chambers that are leaking.

                                            SuperTycoon Heads to Japan


“We are still considering typhoon measures and can’t announce detailed plans yet,” Takeo Iwamoto, a spokesman at Tokyo Electric Power Co., said by phone when asked about the storm. The utility known as Tepco plans to complete the installation of covers for the buildings by October, he said.
Japan is regularly buffeted by typhoons and tropical storms during the northwestern Pacific cyclone season. In 2004, eight cyclones passed over or skirted the country’s Tohoku region, where the Fukushima station is located, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. The earliest was in May that year. The eyes of two storms passed within 300 kilometers of Tohoku last year, the agency’s data show.

Fourth Storm

Songda, the name of a branch of the Red River in Vietnam, is the fourth storm to form over northwest Pacific this year. The storm lashed the Philippines as it passed the eastern seaboard, leaving one person dead, according to the country’s disaster council. Songda prompted evacuations of coastal areas and caused flooding that jammed traffic and stranded travelers.
Damage to crops was “very minimal” as most had been harvested before the storm passed, Philippine Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala told reporters today.
The U.S. Navy Joint Typhoon Warning Center classifies storms as supertyphoons when their maximum sustain winds reach at least 150 miles per hour, according to the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory.


Source: Bloomberg

Why does the world hate the US? [CH01] nocureforthat.org sums it up

Here is a clip from nocureforthat.org. I like their opinion so check it out!

May 21, 2011: The end of the world

Today, is May 28, 2011 and Harold Camping founder and general manager of Family Radio, predicted the everlasting destruction of the end of the world on Saturday May 21st at 6PM. Well... I am still here and so is everyone else.

Background:


Many are saying this is just another phony. In a yahoo forum, one user suggests that he may have a mental problem. This man truly thinks of himself as a "prophet" who has figured out the secret code of the bible. If someone believed that, I am sure they would find something to write about. On the other hand, maybe this is all just a big money making scheme.

Acronym from nocureforthat.org


In a forum David wrote:

Let ME make a prediction: Nothing will happen on May 21. But then Harold Camping will have a big problem, as will his followers. I predict that they will say that THEY averted this disaster with their prayer and righteousness, and that God has simply DELAYED it. This will enable Camping to keep on the air, and it will give him fodder to do this all over again soon. It will have to be soon because he is pushing 90 years old.

I think David said it best. Furthermore, these phony prophets need to go to jail.

Sexy girls have it easy

Source: Youtube

NASA Scientist talks about 2012

CBS reporter Lara Logan sexually assaulted by crowd in Egypt

The Lucifer Effect [CH 1] What is it?

For centuries scientists have been trying to understand what makes "good" people turn "bad." In 1971, an experiment lead by Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University and other researchers, selected 24 normal college students to be prisoners and 51 to be guards in a mock prison--commonly known as the Stanford Prison Experiment. The results were shocking. In only six days, the guards had become so abusive that the study was shutdown. The leading officers "adapted to their roles" even more than Zimbardo had dreamed--even torturing prisoners. Some of the prisoners developed "passive attitudes" and accepted the physical abuse inflicted by the guards. Even Zimbardo thought of himself as the "Prison Superintendent" and allowed the abuse to continue for longer than it should have (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment).

The Lucifer Effect happens when people choose to change their thoughts or actions based on suggestions and the journey (or the chain of actions and reactions) leaves more bad than good results. Suggestions can be direct or implied and can come from a variety of sources i. e. our environments, advertisements, movies, books, other information, other people, groups of people, and society.

One hotly debated moral issue asks is torturing worth the information? Some will say no because the act allows the desire for cruelty to grow inside a person or society. Historically, human beings have been gruesomely cruel like when the Huguenots "hacked to pieces" Catholic children, disemboweled a priest, and buried another priest alive around 1607. Still others will say yes because of terrorists who are willing to shed innocent blood. Those others will argue that the "ticking time bomb scenario" is the only justifiable case. However, we are left with some very critical questions: What will the results make us feel? What will other countries and people feel towards us? Will there be more "justifiable" scenarios to come? If so, how many and when will the cruelty come to an end? (http://www.lucifereffect.com/guide_conform.htm,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticking_time_bomb_scenario,http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel01.html)

Fukushima and Japan's Terror

As we all know, a large earthquake and tsunami that has swept through the coast of Japan on March 11th of this year has caused a extreme meltdown at a nuclear plant in Fukushima, Japan.

2 months after the disaster, the meltdown is still an ongoing stage.

Chernobyl 1986

On 26 April 1986, in Chernobyl, reactor four suffered a catastrophic power increase, leading to explosions in its core. This dispersed large quantities of radioactive fuel and core materials into the atmosphere and ignited the combustible graphite moderator. The burning graphite moderator increased the emission of radioactive particles, carried by the smoke, as the reactor had not been encased by any kind of hard containment vessel.


An explosion and fire released large quantities of radioactive contamination into the atmosphere, which spread over much of Western USSR and Europe. It is considered the worst nuclear power plant accident in history, and is one of only two classified as a level 7 event on the International Nuclear Event Scale (the other being the Fukushima I nuclear accidents).


An estimated 15,000 to 30,000 people have died in the aftermath. More than 2.5 million Ukranians suffer from health problems related to the Chernobyl blast, with 80,000 of them receiving a pension.


The town of Pripyat became abandoned after the explosion in Chernobyl.


2 months after the Fukushima nuclear accident, experts are now saying that Fukushima could leave a worse scar than the Chernobyl accident.


Fukushima, March 11, 2011

Following the 9.0 earthquake and the tsunami in the Sendai region of Japan, Japan initially announced that the nuclear plant has shut down and the core temperature has been rising due to the disabled generators.



At 7:03 pm, on the day of the disaster, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan declares a nuclear emergency status. Japan comforted the people by telling them that the warnings are just "safety precautions" and everything was "under control" and that the damages were "minimal". They also announced that the nuclear plant had no radioactive leaks.



On the following day, media sources reported that Japan was pouring seawater into the plant. No one questioned or answered why they were putting seawater into the plant. Were they out of water? Now we know that they were mixing small amount of Boron to slowdown the rising temperatures. Now we also know that the 1st reactor was already leaking the day after the disaster.



Japan was hiding the fast meltdown process and on March 12th, due to hydrogen explosions they release steam that contains radioactive materials. Soon they announce that the steam only had "some" radioactive materials and it's acceptable level of radiation.



Soon the whole world was worreid that the blowing wind would carry the radiation and spread to other regions. America, France, Germany, Canada all reported that it was an acceptable level of radioactivity. OH BULL! Researchers in the United States have performed thousands of radiation experiments in humans to determine the effects of ionizing radiation and radioactive contamination on the human body. US Government experiments with radiation.


Managing Director, Akio Komori of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the company that manages the Fukushima nuclear plant, cried after a press conference. He admitted that the ongoing radiation leaks were serious enough to cause injury or death in the highest area of danger, closest to the damaged plant.


2 months after the disaster, Fukushima nuclear plants are still out of control and the work is still being done to lower the core temperature. Although the world knows more now about the plants than we did before, we are still ignorant of things that the Japanese Government is hiding from the rest of the world. Releasing steams and releasing nuclear radiation into the ocean.... Now what's next?

Comet Special: Story 1: Heaven's gate

Comet special

Story 1: Heaven’s gate

On March 26th of 1997, in a luxurious mansion at Rancho Santa Fe near San Diego in California in the United States, police found 39 bodies. Their age varied from teens to elderly



















All 39 bodies were laid on their backs on top of a bunk bed with blankets over their heads and they were all wearing a brand new pairs of Nike shoes.

Police soon confirmed that these bodies were of 21 women and 18 men who voluntarily committed suicide in hopes of entering the kingdom of heaven. These men and women belonged to a religious cult called Heaven’s gate led by a man named Marshall Applewhite (bottom picture).



Heaven’s Gate



Heaven’s gate was an American UFO based religious cult found and led by Marshall Applewhite (1931-1997) and Bonnie Nettles (1928-1985). The group began in the early 1970s when Marshall Applewhite was recovering from a heart attack during which he claimed to have had a near-death experience. He came to believe that he and his nurse, Bonnie Nettles, were "the Two," that is, the two witnesses spoken of in the Book of Revelation 11:3 in the Bible. Marshall himself believed he was directly related to Jesus, meaning he was an "Evolutionary Kingdom Level Above Human."



Revelation 11:3
And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.”



Heaven's Gate members believed that the planet Earth was about to be recycled (wiped clean, renewed, refurbished and rejuvenated), and that the only chance to survive was to leave it immediately. They were against suicide but they defined "suicide" in their own context to mean "to turn against the Next Level when it is being offered”. They believed “to be eligible for membership in the Next Level, humans would have to shed every attachment to the planet.”



What happened in 1997?

In June 1995 the American magazine Sky & Telescope published an article which discussed the likelihood of seeing unusual astronomical events such as meteor showers, supernovae and bright comets.1 A spectacular comet, it said, comes along typically every ten years or so. Astronomers had long been aware that, as we approached the end of the century (and indeed, the end of the millennium) we were long overdue for a really bright naked eye comet. only a month after the Sky & Telescope article had gone into print, two amateur astronomers in America, Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp, were independently observing the globular cluster M70 through their telescopes when they spotted a fuzzy object in the same field of view. The discovery having been confirmed as a new comet, it was subsequently designated C/1995 O1. What was most notable about it was that, for its computed distance - 663 million miles (1067 million km) - it was remarkably bright. Most comets at this distance (well beyond the orbit of Jupiter) would be very faint. Hale-Bopp was a thousand times brighter than Comet Halley would be at the same distance.

Comet Hale-Bopp in June 9th, 1996

Heaven’s gate members believed that Comet Hale-Bopp was a giant spaceship that is hovering around the earth to take them to paradise. The controversy revolves around the likes of Dr. Courtney Brown’s appearance on Art Bell’s radio show in 1996, on which the possibility of a UFO or other huge object following comet Hale Bopp was discussed.

Courtney claims that his "remote viewing" students saw a huge craft following the comet. (Remote Viewing is a controversial psychic / meditation technique for vaguely seeing and sensing any time or place in the Universe) The Hale-Bopp controversy started with the anomalous photo, shown above, taken by amateur astronomer Chuck Shramek. The Saturn-like object to the right of the comet is still unexplained, but whether it is an alien UFO or not remains to be seen.



The mass suicide

On March 19-20, 1997, Marshall Applewhite taped himself speaking of mass suicide and asserted "it was the only way to evacuate this Earth". Applewhite believed that after their deaths, a UFO would take their souls to another "level of existence above human", which Applewhite described as being both physical and spiritual. This and other UFO-related beliefs held by the group have led some observers to characterize the group as a type of UFO religion. In October 1996, the group purchased alien abduction insurance to cover up to 50 members at a cost of $10,000.



The cult rented a 9,200-sq.-ft. mansion, located at 18241 Colina Norte (later changed to Paseo Victoria), in a gated community of upscale homes in the San Diego area. The suicide was accomplished by ingestion of phenobarbital mixed with applesauce or pudding, washed down with vodka. Additionally, plastic bags were secured around their heads after ingesting the mix to induce asphyxiation. Authorities found the dead lying neatly in their own bunk beds, faces and torsos covered by a square, purple cloth.



Each member carried a five dollar bill and three quarters in their pockets. All 39 were dressed in identical black shirts and sweat pants, brand new black-and-white Nike Windrunner athletic shoes, and armband patches reading "Heaven's Gate Away Team" (one of many instances of the group's use of the Star Trek fictional universe's nomenclature).





The thirty-eight Heaven's Gate members, plus group leader Applewhite, were found dead in the home on March 26, 1997. In the heat of the California spring, many of the bodies had begun to decompose by the time they were discovered. The bodies were later cremated.

As for now, Heaven's Gate is inactive and the pass of Comet Hale-Bopp, mass suicide and continuing history of mankind have brought the closure of Heaven's Gate.

REFERENCE:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven

http://www.heavensgate.com/

http://www.time.com/time/reports/cult/heavensgate/heavensgate1.html

http://www.culteducation.com/hgate.html

Watch Out For Rouge Waves! [CH 1]

Legend tells of waves the size of a "10-story building" that can appear "without warning" in the middle of the ocean. They can resist "prevailing current and wave direction" or appear on a perfectly clear day. The trough of the wave--that is, the dip before and after--is a "hole in the sea." Rogue waves can exert up to "980 kPa (142 psi)" as the water breaks on the deck and hull. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_wave).

Is the ocean safe? A rogue wave capsizes the ship in the movie Poseidon (2006), forcing passengers to climb through the hull of ship and escape. Although movies are exaggerated, many ships have been capsized and broken by the extreme, crushing pressure of the sinister wave. The European Space Agency (ESA) used their satellites to spot 10 humongous wave and each was over "25m (81ft)" tall. They estimate that in the last twenty years over "200 cargo ships" have sank. Wolfgang Rosenthal, of the GKSS Research Centre in Geesthacht, Germany estimates that at least "two" large vessels "every week on average" have been lost, but, because the reason is not investigated as thoroughly as airplane crashes, most losses are attributed to "bad weather" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3917539.stm).