Friday, July 18, 2008

A Piece of Proof?

Now, I'm really not that confident about my writing in English, let alone Japanese, but in an effort to show that I'm actually doing something over here, I thought there might be some interest in my end-of-quarter presentation.
I don't think any of you will be able to make much sense of it, but I can assure you that it sounds roughly like my 7-year-old little sister trying to explain nuclear waste using a four-year-old's grammar and the generic politeness level. I feel sorry for our teachers that have to listen to 100 of these.
Anyway, I haven't proofread this, and I probably won't since it's nearly 3AM (I am tired). and I need to present this tomorrow around 9AM. Also, it's hard to proofread your own writing. Also, I am very tired. Also... well, I'm pretty tired.

[Edit: I should have put this up earlier, but here's a vocab list that will probably help a lot if you try and read the Japanese. It's got some pretty brutal 漢字 in it.

[

なんでしょうかな~ (What is it?)
核廃棄物といったら色々な産業が作った有害な放射能のゴミや副生物です。核廃棄物は水道や大気中に出なかったらそれほど危ないものではありません。 それらは体に入るまでに大部分は事実で少ししか危なくないですから。体に入ったら、なかなか速く損害し始めます。
広い範疇の二つあり:高レベルと低レベル放射性廃棄物です。減力発電の色々なもの、または種類が多くのものは低レベル放射性廃棄物です。アメリカのこれほどのことに関する規制では、普通のコーヒーなどは低レベル放射性廃棄物でも、みんなの安全のためにそれほどにきびしい規制は必要だと思われています。もっと普通の例は防護マスクやフィルターや二冷却税の管など名者です。これらのようなものの放射性能は割合に危なくなくても、あるえりますから、十・五十年間に待っての方がいいと思われています。この期間の後に普通のゴミになって、土に埋められることになります。
高レベル放射性廃棄物は本当に危ないものです。放射能が高くて、百・千・億年間も残ります。例として、放射性同位元素の一つは沃素の百二十九中性子の半減期は億五十万年間ものです。他の例はウラン・プルトゥニアムの使用済み核燃料またはもう使ってしまった核燃料です。

いつから始まりましたか (Since when was it a problem?)
核廃棄物は千九百の後半までに問題ではありませんでした。その時までに、人口な核廃棄物はなかなか珍しかったのですから。その上、一番目 使用できる原発は千九百五十四年でした。

何の結果ですか (What causes it?)
普通 核廃棄物源の中から病院と原子力発電と原子爆弾の軍縮です。癌を殺すためし、体の液処理を確認するために、病院では色々な放射性 液体を使います。

どこ問題ですか (Where is it a problem?)
オーストラリア以外工業先進国の全部原子発電を使いますから、核廃棄物を作ります。オーストラリアも病院がある結果、少なくても核廃棄物は世界の環境問題だと思います。
特に核廃棄物の捨て場がある国では大問題です。誰でもは家と近くにそんなものが日しくなくても必要ですか、質問は「どこがいいですか」というふうです。
テロルをしたい人ご多すぎるから、この国は核捨て場に関してとても心配です。

どうしましょうか (What’s being done?)
今の人気がある核廃棄物の処理の選択肢は大部分に二つです。
一番目はどこかに埋めることです。ある人は深く土に埋めて方がいいと思っています。ただし、他の人は潜り込みところに埋めて方がいいと思っているのです。潜り込み所に埋めたら、核廃棄物を地球の中に戻すので、問題なくなると言われます。
その他の選択肢は高レベル核廃棄物を変えることです。ブリーダーと言う原子力発電をしたら、機能的に核燃料を使えて悪い放射性物をそれほどの悪くない放射性物に変えます。でもブリーダー種類はプロトゥニアムを作るので、便利すぎで取り消しました。
]

And that's all there is of that. As much as I would've liked to write it in Japanese to begin with, I couldn't get anything straightened out and it was all very confusing to write. By writing it in English, I was able to mostly keep up with what i was thinking, which allows for a much more natural writing style.
And that's all there is of that. As much as I would've liked to write it in Japanese to begin with, I couldn't get anything straightened out and it was all very confusing to write. By writing it in English, I was able to mostly keep up with what i was thinking, which allows for a much more natural writing style.
I have a sneaking suspicion that translation by way of hitting something with a dictionary helps to rid the writing of any naturalness it has... S'what I did. You may also notice that I reordered the paragraphs. The flow is a little awkward in this English one, I felt.
Here's the English draft I translated it from:


[What is nuclear waste?
Nuclear waste is the trash and byproducts of the nuclear power generation industry and the disarming of nuclear weapons. It’s not very dangerous until it gets into the water supply or the atmosphere, where it can be ingested or inhaled. Once on the inside, it starts doing damage fairly quickly.

There are two broad categories: high-level and low-level.

Low-level nuclear waste is anything that was used in the process and may be contaminated. Some people joke that the United States’ laws on this are so strict that a normal cup of coffee would qualify due to the amount of radiation given off. More serious examples would be the protective suits workers wear and the pipes that carry coolant. Low-level waste typically becomes no more dangerous than normal trash after 10-50 years.

High-level waste is the really dangerous stuff that lasts hundred, thousands, or even millions of years. Iodine-129, for example, has a half-life of 15 million years. Example include spent uranium/plutonium fuel and the (usually Boron) control rods.


Where is it a problem?
With the exception of Australia, all the industrialized countries of the world produce both high- and low-level nuclear waste because they use nuclear power generation. Until very recently the world’s nuclear waste was all stored above-ground, but they make very attractive targets during war and for terrorism, in addition to natural disasters. In addition, countries fear that nuclear waste may be stolen and reprocessed to make nuclear weapons or dirty bombs.

When did it start?
Nuclear waste didn’t really become a problem until the second half of the 19th century. Prior to this, the only sources of nuclear waste were largely experimental, as working nuclear power plants were not developed until the late fifties. The burning of fossil fuels releases significant amounts of concentrated radioactive material into the atmosphere, and still does today. Someone who smokes cigarettes also receives a considerable dose of radiation due to the concentration of radioactive materials in tobacco plants.

What causes it?
The most common sources for nuclear waste are nuclear power generation facilities, disarmament of nuclear weapons, the medical industry. Various radioactive materials are used in the treatment of cancer and to track fluid flow throughout the body.

What is being done?
The most popular options right now are various forms of burying it. Some suggest burying nuclear waste about 1000m underground in stable geologic areas and simply ignoring it for a few thousand years, while other s say it would be best to bury nuclear waste near subduction zones of the Earth’s crust and let the waste be carried into the mantle, where such things are not a problem.

Another solution is to transform the long-lived high-level nuclear waste into short-lived waste by transformation, such as in fast breeder reactor or through chemical means.]

Now all I need to do is read that a few hundred times so I don't forget how to read the kanji once I'm under pressure...

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10 Comments:

Blogger thots about stuff said...

Oh, thank you for sharing! How interesting! What fun to see what you are doing like this! I am going to look at everything else first then come back to this and see if I can read much/any of it. You have a lot more kanji than I do so I'll probably need to reference a lot of them, but waaaay cool! :)

7:56 AM GMT+9  
Blogger William said...

I wouldn't bother. Most of the kanji in there are words you will never, ever need to know.
If you want the information, the English is much more precise.

3:11 PM GMT+9  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

As it turns out, I messed up and one of the compounds near the beginning means "extra genitals" instead of "byproducts". I presented it with the right word, though.

6:06 PM GMT+9  
Blogger thots about stuff said...

That is a hilarious error! Heheh. Glad you presented the correct one...but I imagine the teachers have collections of funny foreigner language errors like that. :)

Yeah, I was looking it over and kind of thinking that about the kanji. I might look up some of them that border on the familiar, though.

4:54 AM GMT+9  
Blogger Komitadjie said...

Well, high levels of radiation ARE mutagenic.

10:27 PM GMT+9  
Blogger Unknown said...

How'd your presentation turn out? And how did you get the topic of nuclear waste? Did you choose it yourself or was it assigned? I wish to know more about nuclear waste!

7:36 AM GMT+9  
Blogger William said...

I chose the topic, but we were limited to environmental problems. I didn't want to disappoint everybody and pick something sane like "the garbage problem", so I went with nuclear waste.
If you want to know more, the Wikipedia article is pretty thorough. You might also be interested in reading about the WIPP and about fusion power and other alternative sources of energy.

4:34 PM GMT+9  
Blogger thots about stuff said...

That's a pretty impressive topic to choose yourself when expecting to communicate in a foreign language, especially such as Japanese where you not only have to look up a large amount of vocabulary that is unlikely to be common use for you so far, but also the whole kanji issue along with it. :)

8:01 PM GMT+9  
Blogger William said...

It was fun.

10:36 PM GMT+9  
Blogger thots about stuff said...

It looked like you put a lot of good work and effort into it. Having it be fun makes it all the better! :) I really am impressed.

8:15 AM GMT+9  

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