Millions of Jellyfish Invade Nuclear Reactors

oxide7 writes "A nuclear reactor in Japan was forced to shut down due to infiltration of enormous swarms of jellyfish near the power plant. A similar incident was also reported recently in Israel, when millions of jellyfish clogged the sea-water cooling system of a power plant."

Re:Jellyfish love global warming

[Antisyzygy]

Many Jellyfish and Fish compete in their ecological niche. Because people the world over are over-fishing the sea, it leaves room for more jellyfish to snatch the food the fish would otherwise eat. Furthermore, Jellyfish are also nearly nutrition-less so people do not try to catch them. So, we have a collection of species of animal that have less predation vs. their main competitor and more food to eat, so they tend to thrive. Its not really a good idea for us to continue to ravage the sea life without regard to their continued survival. Coal and Oil plants really don't affect the Jellyfish as much.

Not surprising

[PhrostyMcByte]

A friend of mine used to work as a deep diving welder. Things get pretty cold when you've got that much water between you and the sun, so they'd pump down warm water from the surface to let the divers stay under for as long as possible.

Some of the divers discovered they could get even warmer by sticking the hoses into the neck of their wetsuit. After a few weeks of doing so, a number of jellyfish swam near the surface. You can probably guess what happened next -- one of them got sucked into the pump and shot through the hose, straight down the back of his wetsuit and settling right between his legs.

It took a few days before he was able to walk after that, and probably a week more before he could do it comfortably. I guess he was lucky they weren't a more deadly variety, and that he had a buddy nearby to help him surface and remove his wetsuit.

US Navy vs Jellyfish

[ikedasquid]

Jellyfish clogging marine heat exchangers is a common problem at sea, but is of particular concern for US Naval vessels using nuclear propulsion. Typically the only fix is to open the exchanger and manually clean the stuff out. Some ships have a capability to flush with either low pressure steam or reverse flush with firemain water (although the firemain is now also likely to contain jellyfish). How these multi-billion dollar machines are designed without a method for removing dead jellyfish is beyond my comprehension.

Re:Jellyfish love global warming

[MassiveForces]

...absurdly high water content, some protein... hmm how about we use them to fertilize the desert?

Re:I think humans are the alien terraformers

[Runaway1956]

Historically, we didn't have a population problem. China reflects the population growth of the entire world. Until about 1850, population growth was a stable thing, growing fractionally every century or so. After about 1850, we saw this exponential growth.

The reason I picked China as the example, is that China has made a conscious effort to control population. One couple, one child. Negative population growth, which should put China comfortably within the land's capability to support their population within the next 100 years or so. (Sorry, no, I haven't researched projected population figures - I'm just guesstimating that 100 years from now, China's population will be (very roughly) about 1/4 what it is today.)

Roughly half of the rest of the world still practices unrestrained population growth - all of Islam, all of the Catholic people, and much of the third world no matter their religion, politics, or anything else.

I think it's past time that some of those people were brought up to date on the results of unrestricted procreation.

Right out of fiction

[Daetrin]

So we've got a creature with tentacles infiltrating a nuclear power plant in japan. All we need now is for them to get exposed to some of the radiation and we'll be all set for some real live bad hentai.

Re:chinas program is an utter failure

[Pharmboy]

You might be surprised to know that we don't throw away all human waste.

We buy tandom truck loads (~10 cubic yards) of recycled waste from the waste treatment plant for $125 delivered, consisting of composted wood chips, leaves and sterilized human waste sludge. Many municipalities all over the US sell it. Cost varies from $10 to $15 a yard. This is only slightly cheaper than regular compost, at $15 to $20 a yard. We stack it up and let it "cook off" for another year before using in the garden, although it isn't actually required. This is deep, rich black compost that works perfectly to condition soil for lawns or gardens, and is far superior to standard "compost" you buy due to a higher manure content.

I have also seen people buy just the sterilized effluent for spray fertilizing fields for animal feed. Very powerful stuff. Many waste treatment plants are expanding their ability to produce, as it is a profitable venture, which is reflecting in the fact that the price has gone up as demand has, at least here in North Carolina.

So we don't actually waste our poop in America, like others believe. It is rapidly becoming a PROFITABLE product that makes the community money and reduces landfill usage. We still aren't doing this with all human waste, but we are well on our way as it is rapidly gaining acceptance. If my little town of 20k people are doing it, then any city can. I would be shocked if 90% of human waste isn't done this way within 10 or so years, as it makes money, grows great plants, and costs less than landfilling the material.