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7.1 Earthquake in Japan

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Re: 7.1 Earthquake in Japan

#151

Post by toast0 »

rawgabbit wrote: post #147
toast0 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I live in the US (near Seattle), there's no piped natural gas, most detatched houses have a 250-500 gallon propane tank. Seattle has piped gas, but my county never had the density to justify the expense to install distribution piping and now its disfavored. My house has a second tank for a backup generator. We use the main tank for our stove/range, water heater, clothes dryer, and a decorative fireplace that's…

Wow that's interesting. If you have to do it all over again, would you still get the heatpump?

Yes, our climate rarely drops below freezing, so the heatpump is a good fit. My house has little shade, so a/c in the summer is very nice.

I would have a separate unit for the basement and the first floor though; we do have zoning dampers, but it's not very effective and the basement gets too cold.

Propane deliveries are expensive, if starting from scratch, I might have wired for electric clothes drying and water heating. And I would have probably gone with owned tanks instead of the current system where the delivery company owns the tanks. Electricity prices doubled in the last 5 years, but propane may have gone up more.

Re: 7.1 Earthquake in Japan

#152

Post by FabHK »

xp84 wrote: post #142
FabHK wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Induction is the trick. It's nearly as fast as gas.

Sure, but it imposes its own limitations as the previous poster pointed out. There is no 1:1 swap-out for cooking that doesn't require either changing out your cookware or settling for a frustrating and slow cooking experience. Also (this is a US perspective - perhaps Japan's labor costs are different?), running new heavy duty (240v, high-amperage) power cabling from the main breaker box to your kitchen is another hu…

We agree. New buildings can be designed and built with induction stoves without destroying precious Japanese cooking culture, just as gas (and wood for that matter) has been replaced elsewhere. And medium term Japan does not lack the resources to convert legacy buildings, either.

Re: 7.1 Earthquake in Japan

#153

Post by vel0city »

doublerabbit wrote: post #119
bombcar wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A hundred years from now people are going to be absolutely flabbergasted how we just piped gas everywhere all the time. Electricity allows for so many more automatic safeguards.

Ehh, without gas we wouldn't have electricity. Gas was the most efficient way to produce electricity for its time. I agree money should of been piped in to infrastructure upgrades when the ability came yet still.

About 40% of the electricity coming to my house from the grid is from renewable sources, and I live in a state where if it was ranked against countries around the world would be the 3rd biggest natural gas producer.

Re: 7.1 Earthquake in Japan

#154

Post by w7 »

reducesuffering wrote: post #145

Why does this earthquake, of similar magnitude, get so much more attention compared to the recent Venezuelan earthquake last month that was 100x more devastating? There was no commentary on HN about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Venezuela_earthquakes

Venezuela's own choices.

https://rsf.org/en/venezuela-censorship-exacerbates-earthqua...

Re: 7.1 Earthquake in Japan

#155

Post by ktallett »

m4rtink wrote: post #87
ktallett wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a collapsed roof of a shopping centre as well in Kumamoto. The Aeon Mall.

For the record, Aeon Mall is basically a brand - there are many Aeon malls in Japan in various cities.

Yes but there is just one in Kumamoto.

Re: 7.1 Earthquake in Japan

#156

Post by kalleboo »

xp84 wrote: post #142
FabHK wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Induction is the trick. It's nearly as fast as gas.

Sure, but it imposes its own limitations as the previous poster pointed out. There is no 1:1 swap-out for cooking that doesn't require either changing out your cookware or settling for a frustrating and slow cooking experience. Also (this is a US perspective - perhaps Japan's labor costs are different?), running new heavy duty (240v, high-amperage) power cabling from the main breaker box to your kitchen is another hu…

Japan has a very different real estate market. Homes are typically built to order, you buy it on a 35 year loan and then live it until you die, then the next person buys the land, tears the house down and builds their own dream home to order. So houses depreciate like cars. Land only gains value in specific downtown areas since the country is depopulating.

It's common to do a "full renovation" where the house is torn down to the frame and the rooms rebuilt. Instead of people DIY maintaining their house (they're too busy with work or whatever), they'll just do one of these after 10-20 years to modernize it. When you do this it's easy to have it converted to all-electric at the same time.

For the 180 m2 (1900 sq ft) house we bought used, the full renovation cost us $120k. This included literally ripping everything out down to the base concrete walls, re-arranging rooms, and re-building everything - walls, floors, ceilings, kitchen, all exterior/roofing, all plumbing/fixtures including installing a heat pump water heater, electrical including lights and an induction stove, cat 6a, tearing out the old rock garden, etc etc etc.

Re: 7.1 Earthquake in Japan

#157

Post by lstodd »

perching_aix wrote: post #121
lstodd wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electrical is inadequate power delivery-wise and requires completely different cookware to the point that it's a different cuisine. For example to replicate a gas burner you have to have above 15KW continious power. Good luck wiring that into your apartment, or feeding this with local solar. Or even finding an induction stovetop that won't melt its insides in a year or two at a measly 5KW.

> For example to replicate a gas burner you have to have above 15KW continious power. Where are you getting this from? 15K BTU sure, but 15K watts? Do you mean the entire stove?

If I turn my old gorenje all out on four burners it'll output the likes of maybe 30kW give or take. The largest burner is I think about 15KW on full throttle and that does only acceptable wok or very smoky steak on cast iron ribbed pan.

For a couple of years I had nothing but a 3.7kW inductions while I lived elsewhere. Two of them melted and warped from the heat to the point of breaking the top glass and forget about wok or steaks.

If all you cook is ramen or oatmeal, induction is fine, yes.

Re: 7.1 Earthquake in Japan

#158

Post by reducesuffering »

w7 wrote: post #154
reducesuffering wrote: post #145

Why does this earthquake, of similar magnitude, get so much more attention compared to the recent Venezuelan earthquake last month that was 100x more devastating? There was no commentary on HN about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Venezuela_earthquakes

Venezuela's own choices. https://rsf.org/en/venezuela-censorship-exacerbates-earthqua...

If anything that should warrant more attention...

Re: 7.1 Earthquake in Japan

#159

Post by w7 »

reducesuffering wrote: post #158
w7 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Venezuela's own choices. https://rsf.org/en/venezuela-censorship-exacerbates-earthqua...

If anything that should warrant more attention...

The few socialist papers that I've read make the claim that there is nothing to pay attention to, and that the event is "American Propaganda" to try and make Venezuela look weak. The government attempts to control and suppress videos of the event.

Following the event involves trying to see past the state's narrative and take in anything that trickles through. Combine this with the fact that it's likely far easier for most HN readers to send aid to, or know someone in, a friendly nation like Japan. You get the recipe for coverage of Venezuela being muted by comparison.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2026/06/venezuela-hum...

Re: 7.1 Earthquake in Japan

#160

Post by zuzululu »

numpad0 wrote: post #48

- at least 50 hospitalized due to various injuries[1] - 9 missing, 12 house collapses, 4 trappings, 7 fires so far[1] - multiple highway road bridges snapped, roads damaged[2] - AEON brand shopping mall exploded following evacuation, cause unknown[3] - chimney collapsed at Nippon Seishi paper factory[4] - TSMC, Sony, Fujifilm chips, imagers, materials plants evacuated[4] - epicenter reported as 32.6N 130.7E[5], rough…

> TSMC, Sony, Fujifilm chips, imagers, materials plants evacuated

This makes me think, is it wise to build these places in regions with known earthquake trends.

Almost no earthquakes in Korea and Samsung fabs are also located in the most safe area within Korea.

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