Who owns the asteroids in our solar system? It may seem strange, but Congress hopes to answer over the next few months with a new bill that is currently being reviewed by the Senate.
The SPACE Act bill, if passed, will allow private companies to mine asteroids and sell whatever they dig up.
“Any asteroid resources obtained in outer space are the property of the entity that obtained such resources, which shall be entitled to all property rights thereto, consistent with applicable provisions of Federal law and existing international obligations.” -H.R. 1508
This is great news for companies like Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries (DSI) who have already invested millions of dollars into this exact concept. Companies are particularly focused on asteroids that consist of metals that are rare to us on Earth or asteroids that contain large amounts of water which, with the right technology, can be converted to rocket fuel and oxygen.
There are some unbelievably valuable rocks flying around in our solar system. The website Asterank uses information about asteroid sizes and composition, along with current market prices to calculate the most valuable known asteroids. Some are estimated to be worth more 100 trillion dollars. It’s a number large enough to turn any potential investor’s head.
There is one caveat — these are estimates based on the limited data we currently have on asteroids. Beyond the limited data, many of these asteroids are far away and in undesirable orbits that would make them particularly difficult and costly to mine.
"We’re the first to admit this is a long term endeavor.— Chris Lewicki, President, Planetary Resources
Still, there are asteroids that may be well worth the effort. But they’re value is complicated by significant unknowns. Asteroids are relatively small and dark bodies in our solar system that are hard to analyze from the ground. We’ve only directly identified less than a million of the largest asteroids, but scientists estimate that our solar system contains over a 100 million smaller asteroids, giving companies plenty of potential real estate to choose from.
Both asteroid mining companies, Planetary Resources and DSI are currently focused on this exact aspect of the mission: prospecting asteroids to identify the most valuable interplanetary real estate.
Determining an asteroid’s value is an important first step because one of the challenges associated with rare metal focused asteroid mining is the fact that bringing back objects from space is an incredible technical and financial challenge.
This is why most space missions today are designed to collect all of the necessary scientific data at a given planetary body rather than bring coveted samples back to Earth. Scientists would generally prefer to have a sample in hand to analyze, but that’s not usually feasible. It’s just not worth the money it would take to do it. Obviously with rare metal focused asteroid mining bringing the material back to Earth is a necessary aspect of the mission. This means that identifying an asteroid with a sufficient amount of valuable metal is crucial.
With water focused asteroid mining, the return trip isn’t an issue because you want to keep the water in space. The idea with this strategy is to convert that water into rocket fuel and oxygen. By doing this one could develop interplanetary stops where traveling spacecraft fuel up and go farther into the solar system. Like rare metal focused mining, identifying the right asteroid with a sufficient amount of this valuable resource is critical.
Planetary Resources, led by President and Chief Engineer Chris Lewicki, was the first major asteroid mining company to release their ambitious plans. Behind that ambition was key expertise and deep pockets. Lewicki played a crucial role in successfully placing two NASA Rovers and a Lander on the surface of Mars and the company’s list of investors include Google CEO Larry Page, filmmaker James Cameron, and Sir Richard Branson.
Planetary Resources is working to perfect their Arkyd spacecraft that will eventually be launched as a fleet into the solar system to image and characterize promising asteroids. This will lead to a unique strategy in the space business. Rather than building a single highly customized spacecraft for only one mission, Planetary Resources hopes to eventually mass produce a swarm of these machines, reducing the per-spacecraft cost and time for development.
They first Arkyd spacecraft launched to the International Space Station earlier this year and it will be deployed into space to test its prospecting subsystems later this month. The spacecraft design will continue to be perfected over a series of launches in the next few years before Planetary Resources moves on to prospecting work.
Planetary Resources' Arkyd Spacecraft (Click Image To Enlarge)
Getting to the point of actually mining an asteroid is going to take over a decade. Lewicki has said,
“We’re the first to admit this is a long term endeavor.”
In the meantime, before the company has a chance to tap into the multi-trillion dollar asteroid mining market, it plans to make money from the Arkyd spacecraft itself. The prospecting spacecraft can be pointed back at the Earth which will enable Planetary Resources to sell scientific information to universities, business, and government. They’ve even said that the spacecraft itself will be on the market for private scientific work.
Planetary Resources’ competitor, DSI, plans to follow a similar business model. They have their own prospecting spacecraft called FireFly that they plan to launch later this year. Like Planetary Resources, DSI will launch FireFly as a fleet to identify valuable asteroids. Unlike Planetary Resources, DSI intends to send their first generation spacecraft directly on close fly-bys of promising asteroids, rather than keeping them in Earth’s orbit. Additionally, DSI intends to leverage the capabilities of FireFly to make money as they work their way toward the ultimate goal of mining asteroids.
The optimal way to mine an asteroid has been studied and debated for decades. In general, the technology required to mine an asteroid depends on the type of asteroid you’re working with. This is where the Arkyd and FireFly spacecraft play a pivotal role. The asteroid’s composition, mass, density, rate of rotation, and precise orbital trajectory will all be factors.
Deep Space Industries Firefly spacecraft will identify asteroids rich in valuable minerals and precious metals (Click Image To Enlarge)
Humans have successfully rendezvous robotic probes onto the surface of asteroids or comets only three times before (Japan’s Hayabusa mission, NASA’s NEAR-Shoemaker mission, Europe’s Rosetta Mission), and never to mine them. An asteroid rendezvous is technologically tricky for a number of reasons. Asteroids spin and they orbit the sun at thousands of miles per hour. They’re also relatively small in mass and won’t provide enough gravitational force to hold a spacecraft securely to its surface. Successfully rendezvousing and securing the spacecraft will be challenging enough without the additional requirement of mining, and processing materials in space.
For both Planetary Resources and DSI, bringing in sufficient revenue to develop these necessary asteroid mining technologies, and survive as a company long enough to test them out, will be key to their success.
Once the technology is ready, Congress will have more questions to answer. What happens when multiple companies want to mine the same asteroid? How should an influx of rare Earth metals affect their market price? How can we ensure the technology used to rendezvous and capture an asteroid won’t be used to divert that asteroid toward a location on the Earth?
For now, giving the “go ahead” to companies hoping to make money off of asteroids is the first step to furthering the technology necessary to tap into this new, potentially multi-trillion dollar industry.
COMMENTARY: On March 15, 2015, NASA and Planetary Resources have announced a new desktop app that incorporates algorithms from a contest that challenged researchers to detect asteroids with greater accuracy.
Planetary Resources, the asteroid mining company based in Redmond, Wash., says the contest resulted in an overall improvement of 15 percent in the positive identification of algorithms in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter.
The results were released by NASA at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, over the weekend. The contest, part of NASA’s Asteroid Grand Challenge, awarded a total of $55,000 in prizes to those who developed the algorithms.
“The winning solutions of each piece of the contest combined to create an application using the best algorithm that increased the detection sensitivity, minimized the number of false positives, ignored imperfections in the data, and ran effectively on all computer systems.”
Planetary Resources was founded in November 2010. Key individual investors include Google co-founder and CEO Larry Page, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, Founder and CEO of Virgin Group Sir Richard Branson, Perot Systems CEO Ross Perot, Jr., Charles Simonyi, PhD, real estate developer Rena Shulsky David and film producer and director James Cameron. Key venture investment firms include I2BF, OS Fund and Sherpalo Ventures.
Deep Space Industries, or DSI, is a privately-held American company in the asteroid mining sector with plans to offer general utility commercial space services beginning in approximately 2016. The company was formally announced on January 22, 2013, nine months after the announcement of the first asteroid-mining firm, Planetary Resources. DSI's notional service offerings in the late-2010s and early 2020s include space-based refueling, power, asteroid processing, and manufacturing.
The first spacecraft proposed by Deep Space Industries, the 25 kg (55 lb) FireFly, is designed to search for suitable asteroids for mining. Constructed using inexpensive CubeSat components, FireFly is projected to fly in 2015, sharing rockets with much larger communications satellites in order to reduce costs. DSI's second planned satellite, known as the DragonFly, is predicted by the company to launch starting in 2016 to bring up to 150 kilograms (330 lb) of asteroid material to the surface of Earth. A third design was proposed in 2014: a DSI "mothership" that could carry up to a dozen nanosats to beyond Earth orbits. This larger craft would be approximately 0.91 m × 0.46 m (3 ft × 1.5 ft) and mass about 150 kilograms (330 lb). The smaller probe sats that could be carried would be approximately 15 cm (6 in) cubes. The mothership would provide deep space communication capability with Earth for the entire swarm of smallsats.
By 2023, DSI hopes to begin actively mining asteroids for their metals and water.
Courtesy of an article dated July 8, 2015 appearing in TechCrunch and an article dated March 16, 2015 appearing in GeekWire
Satellite image of the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant spews highly radioactive contaminated smoke from fires after the great earthquake and tidal wave that hit the plant (Click Image To Enlarge)
You may have entertained the idea of an improbable civilization ending events such as a ‘global killer’ asteroid, earth crust displacement or massive solar storms, but what if there existed a situation right now that was so serious that it literally threatened our very existence?
According to a host of scientists, nuclear experts and researchers, were are facing exactly such a scenario – and current efforts may not be able to stop it.
When the Fukushima nuclear plants sustained structural damage and a catastrophic failure of their spent fuel cooling systems in the aftermath of the Japanese earthquake and Tsunami in 2011, it left the government of Japan, Tokyo Power and nuclear regulatory agencies around the world powerless to contain the release of deadly radiation. A year on, the battle for control of Fukushima continues to no avail.
Fukushima nuclear reactors on March 17, 2011 (Click Image To Enlarge)
Reactor #4 is the most dangerous of all six nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Nuclear Power complex because it is the most heavily damaged. It contains the most nuclear fuel, enough in fact, that should those nuclear fuel rods catch fire due to lack of cooling water, those fires could not be put out, and the fires would continue to burn until all the fuel has been consumed.
Aerial view of Fukushima Daichi Nuclear Power Plant. Note that the roofs of two of the reactors have been completely blown off (Click Image To Enlarge)
In the meantime, the burning fuel rods would release more Cesium 137 nuclear fallout than was released in all above ground nuclear tests since World War II. This would be a catastrophe for Japan. It would mean the evacuation of all cities and towns near to the Fukushima nuclear power plants, including the city of Tokyo and its over 40 million people. Easterly tradewinds would also carry all that Cesium 137 across the Pacific Ocean to the west coast of North America. Just watch the following video:
Here's a video broadcast in Japan in April 2012 that was translated into English, but for some reason did not get widespread news circulation in the U.S. If you listen to the narrator closely, it paints a truly horrific picture of just what could happen if 11,000 nuclear fuel rods in and around nuclear reactor #4 at Fukushima were to catch on fire. It would make Chernobyl look small by comparison. According to a highly secret study by the Russian government. Nearly 1 million Russians have either died from the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe. Be prepared to be scared out of your wits.
It’s estimated that tens of thousands of people in Japan and the whole of North America have been affected, with reports indicating that children in Japan and the U.S. are already being born with birth defects, as well as thousands who have already succumbed to radiation related illness.
Most Contaminated food areas of North America (based on fallout wind spread patterns charted by European scientific research agencies) in order of likely intensity of contamination, starting with the most contaminated:
Entire Pacific Coast (note that much of the produce in North America comes from this region, especially California)
Northern U.S. States close to Canada, and Canadian areas close to the U.S. (including Toronto etc.)
Eastern States
Central States of the U.S., and Far Northern areas of Canada
As we initially followed the breaking news during the first thirty days of the accident, we suggested the Fukushima disaster would be worse than Chernobyl. Not even we could have imagined how much worse it would be.
If current estimates are correct, Fukushima has already released as much radiation into the atmosphere and Pacific Ocean as Chernobyl, and the potential for a disaster at least ten times worse is highly probable in the event of another earthquake or accident that leads to a collapse of the cooling structures which are above ground and have already suffered significant damage.
According to U.S. Army General Albert N. Stubblebine (ret.) of the Natural Solutions Foundation, the situation is extremely serious and poses a significant danger to our entire civilization. Since TEPCO and the Japanese government have refused the entombment option (as the Russians did with Chernobyl) the world is at the mercy of nature. A mistake here would cause the deaths of tens of millions of people across the globe.
If there ever existed a threat that could cause the end of the world as we know it, it’s the ongoing and unresolved nuclear saga in Japan:
When the highly radioactive Spent Fuel Rods are exposed to air, there will be massive explosions releasing many times the amount or radiation released thus far. Bizarrely, they are stored three stories above ground in open concrete storage pools. Whether through evaporation of the water in the pools, or due to the inevitable further collapse of the structure, there is a severe risk. United States public health authorities agree that tens of thousands of North Americans have already died from the Fukushima calamity. When the final cataclysm occurs, sooner rather than later, the whole Northern Hemisphere is at risk of becoming largely uninhabitable.
Fact. On March 11, 2011, Fukushima Daichi nuclear power station with six nuclear reactors suffered cataclysmic damage that some believe was a man made event,and the resulting Tsunami. Hydrogen explosions…at least one nuclear explosion… and then subsequent deterioration of the visible plants at five of those reactors have created a threat situation unparalleled in human history.
Fact. Despite denial and cover-up, the reality has emerged, that enormous amounts of radioactive material has been spewing into the atmosphere, polluting the groundwater, and the food of Japan, and entering by the tens of millions of gallons the waters of the Pacific.
There’s no way to sugarcoat these facts. Denying them, blocking them out, pretending that they are not real is of no help to you and your family, and it leaves you totally unprepared for a danger that the Natural Solutions Foundation has been warning about since the first day. As of three weeks ago the levels of radiation inside of the spent fuel pools of unit no. 2 are too high to measure. Get that… too high to measure. And, the water there is evaporating, meaning that heat and radiation could easily build to very high levels.
Very simply put, if this much Cesium 137 is released, it will destroy the world environment and our civilization. This is not rocket science, nor does it connect to the pugulistic debate over nuclear power plants.
This is an issue of human survival.
We can play the denial game all day long and pretend that, because the mainstream media is not reporting on it, there is no threat, but the facts are quite clear.
This is, without a doubt, the most immediate threat faced by the world. It’s so serious, in fact, that the Japanese government has considered and put into place evacuation plans for the whole of Tokyo – some 40 million people. Reports are also emerging that suggest a collapse of the spent fuel pools would be so serious that the entire country of Japan may have to be evacuated. The entire country – that’s 125 million refugees that will cause an unprecedented humanitarian disaster.
Before you argue that these are the ravings of just alternative media conspiracy theorists and fearmongers, consider the assessment put forth by Robert Alvarez , a senior policy adviser to the Secretary for National Security and the Environment for the US Department of Energy:
The No. 4 pool is about 100 feet above ground, is structurally damaged and is exposed to the open elements. If an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire involving nearly 10 times the amount of Cs-137 released by the Chernobyl accident.
The infrastructure to safely remove this material was destroyed as it was at the other three reactors. Spent reactor fuel cannot be simply lifted into the air by a crane as if it were routine cargo. In order to prevent severe radiation exposures, fires and possible explosions, it must be transferred at all times in water and heavily shielded structures into dry casks.. As this has never been done before, the removal of the spent fuel from the pools at the damaged Fukushima-Dai-Ichi reactors will require a major and time-consuming re-construction effort and will be charting in unknown waters.
The total spent reactor fuel inventory at the Fukushima-Daichi site contains nearly half of the total amount of Cs-137 estimated by the NCRP to have been released by all atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, Chernobyl, and world-wide reprocessing plants (~270 million curies or ~9.9 E+18 Becquerel).
It is important for the public to understand that reactors that have been operating for decades, such as those at the Fukushima-Dai-Ichi site, have generated some of the largest concentrations of radioactivity on the planet.
Regulatory agencies all over the world are warning of the potentiality of a further degradation of the Fukushima nuclear reactors and spent fuel pools, and the subsequent nuclear fallout that would follow.
If these reactors go – and they could at any moment for any number of reasons – we’re looking at a situation for which you simply cannot stock enough food, or water, or supplies. Radiation would spread across the entire northern hemisphere and would be impossible to contain.
While we’ve argued in the past that there is no place we’d rather be than in the United States of America in the event of a socio-economic collapse or global conflict, if these spent fuel pools collapse, then an international exit strategy may be the only option.
Because details are sparse and research limited, it is difficult to predict what nuclear fall out from Japan may look like. The following map may be of some help, as it details the estimated fallout pattern resulting from a nuclear war between Russia and the United States. You’ll note that, while most of the world would be irradiated, the southern hemisphere would be your best bet to avoid the brunt of it:
Beachfront property in Antarctica sounds quite appealing right about now.
COMMENTARY:
A NUCLEAR WAR WITHOUT A WAR
The Fukushima disaster in Japan has brought to the forefront the dangers of Worldwide nuclear radiation.
The crisis in Japan has been described as "a nuclear war without a war". In the words of renowned novelist Haruki Murakami:
"This time no one dropped a bomb on us ... We set the stage, we committed the crime with our own hands, we are destroying our own lands, and we are destroying our own lives."
While the long-term repercussions of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster are yet to be fully assessed, they are far more serious than those pertaining to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine, which resulted in almost one million deaths (New Book Concludes - Chernobyl death toll: 985,000, mostly from cancer Global Research, September 10, 2010.
All eyes are now riveted on the Fukushima Daiichi plant, with news coverage both in Japan and internationally failing to fully acknowledge the impacts of a second catastrophe at TEPCO's (Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc) Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant.
The shaky political consensus both in Japan, the U.S. and Western Europe is that the crisis at Fukushima has been contained.
The realties, however, are otherwise. Fukushima 3 was leaking unconfirmed amounts of plutonium. According to Dr. Helen Caldicott,
"One millionth of a gram of plutonium, if inhaled can cause cancer".
An opinion poll in May 2011 confirmed that more than 80 per cent of the Japanese population do not believe the government's information regarding the nuclear crisis. (quoted in Sherwood Ross, Fukushima: Japan's Second Nuclear Disaster, Global Research, November 10, 2011)
THE IMPACTS IN JAPAN
The Japanese government has been obliged to acknowledge that "the severity rating of its nuclear crisis ... matches that of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster". In a bitter irony, however, this tacit admission by the Japanese authorities has proven to been part of the cover-up of a significantly larger catastrophe, resulting in a process of global nuclear radiation and contamination:
"While Chernobyl was an enormous unprecedented disaster, it only occurred at one reactor and rapidly melted down. Once cooled, it was able to be covered with a concrete sarcophagus that was constructed with 100,000 workers. There are a staggering 4400 tons of nuclear fuel rods at Fukushima, which greatly dwarfs the total size of radiation sources at Chernobyl." ( Extremely High Radiation Levels in Japan: University Researchers Challenge Official Data, Global Research, April 11, 2011)
WORLDWIDE CONTAMINATION
The dumping of highly radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean constitutes a potential trigger to a process of global radioactive contamination. Radioactive elements have not only been detected in the food chain in Japan, radioactive rain water has been recorded in California:
"Hazardous radioactive elements being released in the sea and air around Fukushima accumulate at each step of various food chains (for example, into algae, crustaceans, small fish, bigger fish, then humans; or soil, grass, cow's meat and milk, then humans). Entering the body, these elements - called internal emitters - migrate to specific organs such as the thyroid, liver, bone, and brain, continuously irradiating small volumes of cells with high doses of alpha, beta and/or gamma radiation, and over many years often induce cancer". (Helen Caldicott, Fukushima: Nuclear Apologists Play Shoot the Messenger on Radiation, The Age, April 26, 2011)
While the spread of radiation to the West Coast of North America was casually acknowledged, the early press reports (AP and Reuters) "quoting diplomatic sources" stated that only "tiny amounts of radioactive particles have arrived in California but do not pose a threat to human health."
"According to the news agencies, the unnamed sources have access to data from a network of measuring stations run by the United Nations’ Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization. Greg Jaczko, chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, told White House reporters on Thursday (March 17) that his experts “don’t see any concern from radiation levels that could be harmful here in the United States or any of the U.S. territories”.
JAPAN IS NOW A PUBLIC HEALTH DISASTER
Japan as a nation state has been destroyed. Its landmass and territorial waters are contaminated. Part of the country is uninhabitable. High levels of radiation have been recorded in the Tokyo metropolitan area, which has a population of 39 million (2010) (more than the population of Canada, circa 34 million (2010)) There are indications that the food chain is contaminated throughout Japan:
"Radioactive cesium exceeding the legal limit was detected in tea made in a factory in Shizuoka City, more than 300 kilometers away from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Shizuoka Prefecture is one of the most famous tea producing areas in Japan.
A tea distributor in Tokyo reported to the prefecture that it detected high levels of radioactivity in the tea shipped from the city. The prefecture ordered the factory to refrain from shipping out the product. After the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, radioactive contamination of tea leaves and processed tea has been found over a wide area around Tokyo." (See 5 More Companies Detect Radiation In Their Tea Above Legal Limits Over 300 KM From Fukushima, June 15, 2011)
Japan's industrial and manufacturing base is prostrate. Japan is no longer a leading industrial power. The country's exports have plummeted. The Tokyo government has announced its first trade deficit since 1980.
While the business media has narrowly centered on the impacts of power outages and energy shortages on the pace of productive activity, the broader issue pertaining to the outright radioactive contamination of the country's infrastructure and industrial base is a "scientific taboo" (i.e the radiation of industrial plants, machinery and equipment, buildings, roads, etc). A report released in January 2012 points to the nuclear contamination of building materials used in the construction industry, in cluding roads and residential buildings throughout Japan.(See FUKUSHIMA: Radioactive Houses and Roads in Japan. Radioactive Building Materials Sold to over 200 Construction Companies, January 2012)
A "coverup report" by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (May 2011), entitled "Economic Impact of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Current Status of Recovery"presents "Economic Recovery" as a fait accompli. It also brushes aside the issue of radiation. The impacts of nuclear radiation on the work force and the country's industrial base are not mentioned. The report states that the distance between Tokyo -Fukushima Dai-ichi is of the order of 230 km (about 144 miles) and that the levels of radiation in Tokyo are lower than in Hong Kong and New York City.(Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Impact of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Current Status of Recovery, p.15). This statement is made without corroborating evidence and in overt contradiction with independent radiation readings in Tokyo (se map below). In recent developments, Sohgo Security Services Co. is launching a lucrative "radiation measurement service targeting households in Tokyo and four surrounding prefectures".
"A map of citizens' measured radiation levels shows radioactivity is distributed in a complex pattern reflecting the mountainous terrain and the shifting winds across a broad area of Japan north of Tokyo which is in the center of the of bottom of the map."
Radiation contamination readings map by Japanese "citizens" of localities within 144 miles of Fukushima (Levels of radiation contamination: red = very high, yellow = high, light blue = moderate, dark blue = above normal) Click Image To Enlarge
AREAS WHOSE FOOD PRODUCTS MAY NOW CARRY RADIOACTIVE FALLOUT
According to Dr. Robert J. Gilbert, a former U.S. Marine Corps Instructor in Nuclear-Biological-Chemical Warfare Survival, since leaving the service in 1985 he has conducted independent research into the Geometric basis of modern science and new technologies.
Clearly, in light of his background, Robert Gilbert is someone worth listening to on the subject of radiation dangers from the recent nuclear disaster in Japan. Here’s an excerpt from a page on his Vesica.org website, dealing with the subject:
The Entirety of the Northern Hemisphere around the world is affected by fallout, as well as the Pacific Ocean.
Most Serious: Japan, Pacific Ocean, and Pacific Rim States
Expected spread of nuclear fallout from Fukushima nuclear catastrophe (Click Image To Enlarge)
Most Contaminated food areas of North America (based on fallout wind spread patterns charted by European scientific research agencies) in order of likely intensity of contamination, starting with the most contaminated:
Entire Pacific Coast (note that much of the produce in North America comes from this region, especially California)
Northern U.S. States close to Canada, and Canadian areas close to the U.S. (including Toronto etc.)
Eastern States
Central States of the U.S., and Far Northern areas of Canada
SAFEST AREAS OF ORIGIN FOR FOOD PRODUCTS
The majority of contamination is in the northern hemisphere and the Pacific Ocean region. Most of the Southern Hemisphere has little to no fallout (the exception is the Southern Hemisphere in the Pacific; Australia for example is finding radioactive fish in the ocean, so although they may not get much atmospheric fallout they are affected by the massive contamination of the Pacific Ocean.)
Also note that radioactive contamination is being found on non-food products being imported from Japan.
Safest Areas of Origin for food products:
Central America (avoid items from the Pacific Coast area of Mexico)
South America
Africa
Europe is also far less contaminated that North America, although it is also experiencing significant fallout; so it is a better source for products than North America, however not as good as Southern Hemisphere sources. (However some South American produce may contain high levels of pesticides not allowed to be used in the U.S. or Canada.)
ITEMS OF SPECIAL CONCERN FROM AFFECTED AREAS
Most affected:
All Ocean-Derived Products from the Pacific Ocean: the Fukushima accident dumped millions of times the normal background levels of radiation into the Pacific, where it is affecting the entire ocean (most toxic near Japan and bordering areas, but now reaching to the US West Coast: debris from the Tsunami in Japan is also expected to start washing up on the West Coast in the near future.) There are already reports of Pacific Fish showing radioactive contamination. This indicates a need to be cautious regarding:
All Pacific Ocean Fish
Sea Salt or Ocean Minerals derived from the Pacific
All Pacific Seaweed and Sea Vegetables (order Atlantic Ocean seaweed at www.theseaweedman.com )
Milk and all Dairy Products (butter, cheese etc.) from all animals: Cows, Goats, and Sheep (Dairy products have the most intense immediate absorption of radiation from fallout). Radioactive contamination of milk has been found throughout the United States, especially on the West Coast.
Any plant with a large surface area exposed to the air while growing: The most intense radiation absorption in plants is through rain falling directly on the leaves of the plant, where it is directly absorbed. Rainwater absorbed through the earth into the plant is already of much lower radiation intensity due to the filtering affect of the soil. All broad leaf plants and plants with large surface areas grown in the open air (rather than in greenhouses) are the most contaminated, for instance Salad Greens, Spinach, Cabbage etc. Contaminated crops in California (carrying radioactive iodine and cesium) have already been confirmed by UC Berkeley. [Carrots and other root vegetables are less contaminated due to growing underground.]
Water from Rainwater or Open Lake type catchments: instead drink bottled water, or water from underground wells or other underground sources (radiation is greatly reduced when the particles have to travel through the ground.)
If the extent of radioactive fallout in the Northern Hemisphere worsens due to exposing the fuel rods in some of the Fukushima reactors to air, then even more Cesium 137 will be released into the environment. Cesium 137 is really bad because once it gets into the soil or water supply, the radioactivity can be passed onto the entire food chain as plants absorb the radioactivity from water and meat producing animals become radioactive as well. As humans we will absorb radioactivity from the air we breath and that's pretty bad just by itself, but allowing additional radioactivity to get into our bodies through the food chain means a catastrophe. Let's hope that the Japanese finally dome the affected damaged reactors ala Chernobyl, and take proper measures to insure that the remaining nuclear reactors are protected against lost of cooling water.
Radiation readings taken earlier this year show that so far the nuclear fallout from Fukushima is "minimal" or "within safe limits," and that water, dairy and agricultural crops, although containing higher levels of radiation contamination, are not sufficiently high enough to cause a health hazard to humans. However, what these readings do not disclose is the ticking timebomb from reactor #4 that exists at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
On May 28, 2012, it was reported that Blue Fin tuna, which annually migrate over 6,000 miles from the coastal waters off of Japan to the west coast of the U.S., had radiation levels 10 times normal for Cesium 134 and 137. This is still considered safe for food consumption, but the evidence is clear: the Fukushima nuclear fallout has contaminated the oceans and all sea life could be in peril of radiation contamination.
Courtesy of an article dated May 25, 2012 appearing in SHTFPlan.com and an article dated April 20, 2012 appearing in InfoWars.comand an article dated January 25, 2012 appearing in GlobalResearch.ca
This blooming plant was regenerated by Russian scientists from 32,000 year-old seeds from the Ice Age that were discovered in a frozen squirrel burrow next in Siberia
Fruits in my fruit bowl tend to rot into a mulchy mess after a couple of weeks. Fruits that are chilled in permanent Siberian ice fare rather better. After more than 30,000 years, and some care from Russian scientists, some ancient fruits have produced this delicate white flower.
These regenerated plants, rising like wintry Phoenixes from the Russian ice, are still viable. They produce their own seeds and, after a 30,000-year hiatus, can continue their family line.
David A. Gilchinsky, Head of Soil Cryology Laboratory, Institute for Physiochemical and Biological Problems in Soil Science, Russian Academy of Sciences (Click Image To Enlarge)
The plant owes its miraculous resurrection to a team of scientists led by David Gilichinsky, and an enterprising ground squirrel. Back in the Upper Pleistocene, the squirrel buried the plant’s fruit in the banks of the Kolyma River. They froze.
The 30,000 year-old Silene stenophylla seeds that were regenerated into plants by Russian scientists were discovered in a fossilized squirrel burrow in permafrost along the banks of the Kolmya River in Russian Siberia
Over millennia, the squirrel’s burrow fossilised and was buried under increasing layers of ice. The plants within were kept at a nippy -7 degrees Celsius, surrounded by permanently frozen soil and the petrifying bones of mammoths and woolly rhinos. They never thawed. They weren’t disturbed. By the time they were found and defrosted by scientists, they had been buried to a depth of 38 metres, and frozen for around 31,800 years.
Regenerated Silene stenophylla plants were potted from seeds over 30,000 years old by Russian scientist Svetlana Yashina and two years later bloomed flowers (Click Image To Enlarge)
People have grown plants from ancient seeds before. In 2008, Israeli scientists resurrected an aptly named Phoenix palm from seeds that had been buried in the 1st century. But those seeds were a mere 2,000 years old. Those of the new Russian flower – Silene stenophylla – are older by an order of magnitude. They trump all past record-holders.
Russian researcher Svetlana Yashina extracted the placentas from the recovered fruit, she was able to coas the tissue into producing roots and shoots (Click Image To Enlarge)
Svetlana Yashina from the Russian Academy of Sciences grew the plants from immature fruits recovered from the burrow. She extracted their placentas – the structure that the seeds attach to – and bathed them in a brew of sugars, vitamins and growth factors. From these tissues, roots and shoots emerged.
Yashina potted the plants and two years later, they developed flowers. She fertilised the ancient flowers with each other’s pollen, and in a few months, they had produced their own seeds and fruits, all viable. The frozen plants, blooming again after millennia in the freezer, seeded a new generation.
S.stenophylla is still around, but Yashina found that the ancient plants are subtly different to their modern counterparts, even those taken from the same region. They’re slower to grow roots, they produce more buds, and their flower petals were wider.
This is the first time that anyone has grown plants form seeds deeply buried within permanently frozen burrows. But it’s not the first time that someone has tried. In 1967, Canadian scientists claimed that they had regenerated Arctic lupin from 10,000 year old seeds that had been buried by lemmings. But in 2009, another team dated those same seeds and found that they were actually modern ones, which had contaminated the ancient sample.
Mindful of this mistake, Yashina carefully checked that her plants were indeed ancient ones. She dated the seeds directly, and her results matched age estimates from other samples from the same burrow. The burrows have been buried well below the level that animals dig into, and the structure of the surrounding ice suggests that they have never thawed. Their sediments are firmly compacted and totally filled with ice. No water infiltrates these chambers, much less plant roots or modern rodents. There are a few pores, but they are many times narrower than the width of any of Yashina’s seeds.
This closed world provided shelter, a continuous chill, and an effectively dry environment, that allowed the fruits to persist. At subzero temperatures, their chemical reactions slowed to a crawl. Extreme age was no longer a problem. A fruit’s placenta is also chemically active, and is loaded with several chemicals that might have protected these specific tissues against the cold.
But the burrows weren’t completely benign environments. The underground rocks contain naturally radioactive elements, which would have bombarded the seeds with low but accumulating doses of radiation. The ones that Yashina regenerated would have amassed 70 Grays of radiation – that’s more than any other plant has absorbed while still producing viable seeds.
S.stenophylla’s resurrection shows how many treasures lie buried within the world’s permafrost. This soil, defined as that which stays below freezing for two years or more, covers a fifth of the planet’s land. It is home to bacteria, algae, fungi, plants and more. In the fossil burrows that Yashina has studied, scientists have found up to 600,000 to 800,000 seeds in individual chambers.
In Norway’s Svalbard Global Seed Vault, scientists have frozen thousands of seeds in an underground cavern, as a back-up in case of agricultural crises. But nature has already produced similar frozen seed banks. Siberia, Alaska and the Yukon could act as one massive freezer, where ancient life has been stored, waiting to greet the world again.
COMMENTARY: This is an amazing scientific breakthrough if the regeneration of the 32,000 year-old seeds can be confirmed by other scientists.
UPDATE: Tragedy has now struck the Russian team that was involved in the discovery of the 32,000 year-old seeds and the successful regeneration of a living plant from those seeds. Dr. David Gilichinksy, its leader, was hospitalized with an asthma attack and unable to respond to questions, his daughter Yana said on Friday. On Saturday, Dr. Price reported that Dr. Gilichinsky had died of a heart attack.
According to The New York Times, this incredible scientific breakthrough in plant regeneration from seeds that were carbon dated to be 32,000 years-old, is by a team led by Svetlana Yashina and David Gilichinsky of the Russian Academy of Sciences research center at Pushchino, near Moscow, and appears in Tuesday’s issue of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
Grant Zazula of the Yukon Paleontology Program at Whitehorse in Yukon Territory, Canada said.
“This is an amazing breakthrough. I have no doubt in my mind that this is a legitimate claim.”
It was Dr. Zazula who showed that the apparently ancient lupine seeds found by the Yukon gold miner were in fact modern.
But the Russians’ extraordinary report is likely to provoke calls for more proof. Alastair Murdoch, an expert on seed viability at the University of Reading in England said.
“It’s beyond the bounds of what we’d expect.”
When poppy seeds are kept at minus 7 degrees Celsius, the temperature the Russians reported for the campions, after only 160 years just 2 percent of the seeds will be able to germinate, Dr. Murdoch noted.
Some of the storage chambers in the squirrel burrows contain more than 600,000 seeds and fruits. Many are from a species that most closely resembles a plant found today, the narrow-leafed campion (Silene stenophylla).
Working with a burrow from the site called Duvanny Yar, the Russian researchers tried to germinate the campion seeds, but failed. They then took cells from the placenta, the organ in the fruit that produces the seeds. They thawed out the cells and grew them in culture dishes into whole plants.
Many plants can be propagated from a single adult cell, and this cloning procedure worked with three of the placentas, the Russian researchers report. They grew 36 ancient plants, which appeared identical to the present day narrow-leafed campion until they flowered, when they produced narrower and more splayed-out petals. Seeds from the ancient plants germinated with 100 percent success, compared with 90 percent for seeds from living campions.
The researchers suggest that special circumstances may have contributed to the remarkable longevity of the campion plant cells. Squirrels construct their larders next to permafrost to keep seeds cool during the arctic summers, so the fruits would have been chilled from the start. The fruit’s placenta contains high levels of sucrose and phenols, which are good antifreeze agents.
The Russians measured the ground radioactivity at the site, which can damage DNA, and say the amount of gamma radiation the campion fruit accumulated over 30,000 years is not much higher than that reported for a 1,300-year-old sacred lotus seed, from which a plant was successfully germinated.
The Russian article was edited by Buford Price of the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Price, a physicist, chose two reviewers to help him. But neither he nor they are plant biologists. He said.
“I know nothing about plants.”
Ann Griswold, a spokeswoman for PNAS, as the journal is known, said the paper had been seen by an editorial board member who is a plant biologist.
Eske Willerslev, an expert on ancient DNA at the University of Copenhagen, said the finding was “plausible in principle,” given the conditions in permafrost. But the claim depends on the radiocarbon date being correct:
“It’s all resting on that — if there’s something wrong there it can all fall part.”
If the ancient campions are the ancestors of the living plants, this family relationship should be evident in their DNA. Dr. Willerslev said that the Russian researchers should analyze the DNA of their specimens and prove that this is the case. However, this is not easy to do with plants whose genetics are not well studied, Dr. Willerslev said.
If the claim is true, then scientists should be able to study evolution in real time by comparing the ancient and living campions. Possibly other ancient species can be resurrected from the permafrost, including plants that have long been extinct.
Courtesy of an article dated February 20, 2012 appearing in Discover Magazine blog, an article dated February 21, 2012 appearing in The New York Times, an article dated February 21, 2012 appearing in The Guardianand an article dated February 21, 2012 appearing in io9.com
Think your electricity bill is high? It's not. Neither is your heating bill or the price you pay at the pump. In the grand scheme of things, in fact, you're getting a great deal.
Gas costs too much. So does heating oil. And electricity. Americans love to complain about the cost of our energy. On the campaign trail, politicians love to offer policies that will lower it. But, as we've heard time and time again, our energy prices are actually blissfully low when compared to the rest of the world. Would it be nice if gas were cheaper? Certainly. But try telling a fellow in Europe what you pay to fill up and he'd probably offer you a hearty congratulations (before laughing at you about your gas mileage).
This infographic from WellHome combines many of the stats about global energy costs into one helpful package. For instance, unless you're one of the few people who scrutinize your electric bill every month, you probably have no idea what you're paying per kilowatt hour, just a general sense of what your bill is at the end of every month. Well, the average American is getting off easy compared countries like Italy or Denmark, where residents pay two and three times more, respectively, for their units of power:
And it's not just electricity. In terms of natural gas and heating oil, we're also getting a great deal:
To add to our general confusion about energy, our sense of the inexorable increase of energy prices is also wrong. They've been basically steady (relative to inflation) for the past 50 years. With the exception of gas prices, which are currently skyrocketing for the second time since 1960, most energy prices are basically constants:
And why is that? It certainly has something to do with the massive subsidies we offer energy companies, or at least the energy companies that don't make renewable energy:
Is knowing how well-off we are compared to the rest of the world going to quiet the incessant drumbeat about high energy prices? Certainly not. That would be un-American. Check out the whole infographic below or see it here.
Click Image To Enlarge
COMMENTARY: Now that you know how much energy costs outside the U.S. maybe you will start your complaining. We still need to get off this addiction on foreign oil and dependency on oil from countries that really don't like the U.S. too much. Let's go solar, wind and natural gas. Are you with me??!!
Courtesy of an article dated October 27, 2011 appearing in Fast Company Design
Home is a 2009 documentary by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. The film is almost entirely composed of aerial shots of various places on Earth. It shows the diversity of life on Earth and how humanity is threatening the ecological balance of the planet. The movie was released simultaneously on June 5, 2009 in cinemas across the globe, on DVD, Blu-ray, television, and on YouTube, opening in 181 countries. The film was financed by PPR, a French multinational holding company specializing in retail shops and luxury brands, as part of their PR strategy.
OVERVIEW
The documentary chronicles the present day state of the Earth, its climate and how we as the dominant species have long-term repercussions on its future. A theme expressed throughout the documentary is that of linkage—how all organisms and the Earth are linked in a "delicate but crucial" natural balance with each other, and how no organism can be self-sufficient.
The first 15 minutes include footage of the beginning of the natural world, starting with single-celled algae developing at the edges of volcanic springs. By showing algae's essential role in the evolution of photosynthesis, it also explores the innumerable species of plants which all have their origins in this one-celled life form.
In the rest of the first hour of the film, the documentary takes on a more human-oriented focus, showing the agricultural revolution and its impacts, before moving on to talk about the harnessing of oil, leading to fire, industry, cities and inequality gaps like never before. It portrays the current predicament regarding cattle ranches, deforestation, food and water shortages, the use of non-renewable "fossil water", the over-quarrying crisis and the shortage of energy, namely electricity. Cities such as New York city, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Shenzhen, Mumbai, Tokyo and Dubai are used as examples of the mismanagement and wastage of energy, water and food. The recession of marshlands and glaciers are shown in vast aerial shots of Antarctica, The North Pole and Africa, while mass emigration and refugee counts are shown currently and forecast in the event that these events remains unchanged.
It is at this point that the film begins to focus on global warming and the carbon crisis. Home shows how melting glaciers, rising sea levels and changing weather patterns are ravaging the people who have least to do with climate change, but also how it soon will affect rich populous areas.
Here, about three minutes of film is given to displaying harsh facts in large white text on a black background followed by a video representation of the fact. This is followed by a positive conclusion. The documentary claims to show the "awful truths" regarding our impact on the Earth, but also what we are now doing to combat and reverse it: including renewable energy, the creation of more and more national parks, international co-operation between various nations on environmental issues and the extra education and reform being had across the globe in response to the current problems facing the earth.
PRODUCTION
Home was filmed in various stages due to the expanse of the areas portrayed. Taking over eighteen months to complete, director Yann Arthus-Bertrand and a camera man, a camera engineer and a pilot flew in a small helicopter through various regions in over fifty countries. The filming was done using high-definition "Cineflex" cameras which were suspended from a gyro-stabilized sphere from rails on the base of the helicopter. These cameras, originally manufactured for army firing equipment, reduce vibrations helping to capture smooth images, which appear as if they had been filmed from crane arms or dollies. After almost every flight, recordings were immediately checked to ensure they were usable. After filming was complete, Besson and his crew had over 488 hours of footage to edit.
DISTRIBUTION AND PROMOTION
To promote the documentary online, a YouTube channel known as "HomeProject" was created. Uploaded to this were various short clips of filming which took place in different parts of the world including the Arctic Circle, Africa and the large metropolises featured.
On March 9, 2009, a press-conference was held in Paris, France, where Yann Arthus-Bertrand and various producers talked to the media about the issues raised in the film, as well as confirming that Home would be the first film ever to be simultaneously released in theaters, on television, on DVD and on the Internet in five continents.
On May 5, 2009, a second press-conference was held again in Paris, where the same crew members announced that the film's release date would be June 5, 2009, World Environment Day. Here, they also announced that Home would be 100% free for everyone to view, as "The benefits of this film cannot be counted in dollars, but in audience figures." They also revealed that PPR, was going to sponsor the film in order to facilitate unavoidable costs.
The film, which was available for free release until June 14, has been broadcast in 14 languages.The Blu-ray edition was released by 20th Century Fox and features both the English and French versions. It is expected to sell in excess of 100,000 copies. When production costs are met, all proceeds sale takings will go to the Good Planet Company.
COPYRIGHT AND REDISTRIBUTION
Yann Arthus-Bertrand said in a TED talk that the movie has no copyright: "This film have no copyright. On the fifth of June, the environmental day, everyone can download the movie on Internet. The film is given for free to the distributor for TV and theater to show it the five of June. There is no business on this movie. It is available for schools, cities, NGOs and you." Nevertheless, a copyright notice appears in the final credits.
Several high resolution editions of the movie are available for download, but none have been found marked with any kind of redistribution right such as a Creative Commons license. ClearBits, an online digital media community, provides a torrent of the 93-minute version in high-definition MP4 format, and Archive.org and Vimeo also offer high resolution editions.
PUBLIC RESPONSE
The film received a large response upon release, receiving over 400,000 combined views within the first 24 hours on YouTube.As of April 2010, the French, English, German, Spanish, Russian and Arabic versions on Youtube logged a total of more than 14 million views. It was shown to high ratings on channels around the world including the international network National Geographic. France2 débuted the film to over 8.3 million viewers in France alone. In India, Home was shown exclusively via the STAR World cable network.
CRITICAL REVIEWS
Generally, the movie was praised for its visuals but received criticism regarding the attitude of the narration and the contradiction between its message and the sponsors' legacy.
Jeannette Catsoulis of the New York Times criticizes the film's narration and Glen Close, narrator in the English version, both regarding content and style: "We’ve heard it all before, if not in the schoolmarmish tones of Glenn Close, whose patronizing narration [...] makes the film feel almost as long as the life of its subject." Furthermore, she denounces the film's accusations towards the modern "lifestyle that 'destroys the essential to produce the superfluous' — an accusation that the film’s bankrollers, led by the corporation behind luxury brands like Balenciaga and Gucci, are probably familiar with..."[12]
Jean-Michel Frodon, a French movie critic, expressed the opinion that "‘Home’ had many viewers but didn’t have much echo" because Arthus-Bertrand’s personality, activities and his innovative no-cost concept have captured more attention than the movie itself.[13]
EPITAPH
We are living in exceptional times. Scientists tell us that we have 10 years to change the way we live, avert the depletion of natural resources and the catastrophic evolution of the Earth's climate.
The stakes are high for us and our children. Everyone should take part in the effort, and HOME has been conceived to take a message of mobilization out to every human being.
For this purpose, HOME needs to be free. A patron, the PPR Group, made this possible. EuropaCorp, the distributor, also pledged not to make any profit because Home is a non-profit film.
HOME has been made for you : share it! And act for the planet.
Yann Arthus-Bertrand
COMMENTARY: Today is June 1, 2011, and something real odd is happening, America and the rest of the World is the midst of an environmental nightmare. Here at home we are experienced drought, torrential rains, floods, tornadoes and extreme changes in temperatures that have not been experienced in recent memory.
Here where I live it rained and the temperatures during the day are in the 60's and fall into the 40's at night, and I live in California. It's supposed to be in the 80's to 90's this time of year. This is not supposed to happen. Already over 500 people have been killed by the tornadoes stretching from the southwest to the east coast. Millions of acres have been lost along the banks of the Mississippi River, the result of torrential rains that the areas has not experienced in nearly 100 years.
What is going on? Many noted meteorologists are now saying that the World has reached a critical tipping point, and that we are now entering the beginnings of the new era of Global Warming and potential for a greenhouse effect, where the air will be filled with moist carbon-dioxide laden, cold and warm air, extreme winds and tornadoes, floods, snow storms and drought. Eventually the environment will become like a sauna, temperatures will climb into the 100's of degrees even at night. Plant life will die, and finally manking will ends. This is happening everywhere now, not just in the U.S.
I am posting HOME, because when I first saw the film back in 2009 it truly awakened me to the fact that mankind is the problem, and yet we talk about global warming and the greenhouse effect, but not much is being done about it. Sure, we have cut back on oil consumption, but the price of gasoline, now over $4.00 per gallon in the U.S. is more the cause. We are investing billions in alternative forms of energy: wind, solar, all-electric and hybrid automobiles. But, this only accounts for about 6% of America's energy needs. America nad the world needs to do more.
Watch HOME, and if you are not deeply affected by the message of global warming and the future of Planet Earth, then let us know what you think. Parents, show HOME with your kids. Make it a family event.
Courtesy of PPR presents HOME, a film by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, the Home Project Channel on YouTube, and Wikipedia
After last week's horrifying news of tornadoes that swept across the South, killing over 350 people, you had to wonder: Is anywhere in America safe? On the Mid-Atlantic coast, there's hurricanes, which every year seem to be getting more and more fierce; all across the south, tornadoes; and the West Coast lives under constant threat of a catastrophic earthquake. And enormous tracts of our country face severe droughts.
This astonishing infographic from The New York Times lays all those risks out -- and, most remarkably, compares them all against each other. What you get is a map that shows what cities are safest from and which are most threatened by natural disaster.
The larger the circle, the more people live there. The redder it is, the more risk of natural disaster. As you can see, Texas and Louisiana are pretty terrible places to set up huge cities, given all the immediate threats.
The data was crunched by Sperling's Best Places, and it takes into account the infrequency -- but greater threat -- posed by earthquakes, compared to severe weather.
They also produced this nifty set of heat maps, showing the threats posed by hurricane, earthquake, and tornado:
If anything though, this analysis isn't quite complete because while earthquakes and tornadoes are scary, maybe the most significant long-term threat to a city's well-being is drought. You can easily imagine San Francisco rebuilding after an earthquake (because it has). But if, say, Atlanta, saw a 20-year period of low rains, you can bet that the city's growth would slow and that the city would face an enormous drag on its economy, as a greater and greater share of dollars went to procuring just enough water to get by.
COMMENTARY: If you are afraid of earthquakes, the west coast of the U.S. is not for you. The New Madrid earthquake fault line has been very quite for narly 150 years so the Big One is overdue. The last time it woke up it moved the course of the Mississippi River. States near the New Madrid fault line include Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi. If you don't like tornado's then you don't want to live in the southwest and central U.S.. If you hate hurricane's then the Gulf states and the states stretching from the Carolina's south to Florida is definitely not for you. If you don't want to experience heavy snow storms and blizzards, anything east of the Rocky mountains is definitely not for you. Having said this, natural disasters are totally unpredictable and can occur almost anywhere when you least expect them. From the looks of things, Nevada, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska and the Dakotas are pretty safe from serious natural disasters.
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