The tragedy in Japan is horrific from a human standpoint, but as a parochial businessman in the machining realm I’m also interested in how it affects my operation.
It appears that most Japanese machine tool builders suffered minimal damage because they are located far from the epicenter of the earthquake.
Citizen, Mori and Tsugami say they did not incur significant damage. Mazak has a facility in Sendai that was damaged, but it is not a big production plant. One builder that did incur damage is Citizen-owned Miyano, which has a plant closer to the site of the quake. Though nobody was killed or hurt, delays can be expected in shipments of parts and machines according to Miyano’s Web site.
Our machine tool dealership Graff-Pinkert & Co. is making a contribution to the Red Cross for Japanese relief. We received heartfelt emails yesterday from two dealers in Japan we have done business with in the past and machine tool builder Mitsui Seiki.
The following are excerpts from the notes sent by Makoto Torazawa of San-Ei Trading in Nagoya, Y. Sato of STI Products in Nagoya, and Mitsui Seiki’s Scott Walker and Koichi “Ken” Iwakura.
From Mr. Terazawa,
Thank you for your wonderful support for the disaster which occurred in Japan last Friday.
The northern pacific coast area of Japan is in a critical situation. Also, the leak of radioactivity from a nuclear power station is another big problem. Fortunately, our place in Nagoya had very little damage and all of our family, colleagues and friends had no problem since we are quite far from the epicenter.
For the time being, Japan is facing very difficult situation. However, we believe we will see the light with the help of friends all over the world.
From Mr. Sato,
Nagoya is far away from the focus of this earthquake. My team and family are okay.
Personally this earthquake scared me very much with the devastating tsunami. According to yesterday’s newspaper, 2000 corpses were found and we may have a nuclear disaster. It is a tragedy.
But we Japanese are trying to rebuild Japan soon with help from all over the world, including you.
From Scott Walker and Koichi “Ken” Iwakura
Thank you for your heartfelt inquiries about us after the major earthquake and tsunami events in Japan. We are very fortunate. Our employees and their families are all accounted for and safe. Our factory only experienced very minor damage that has been inspected and addressed already. There are challenges, of course, particularly with the country-wide energy conservation strategies; however we are working around those temporary tactics effectively. We are continuing to support our customers, and our deliveries remain on schedule. We value our business relationship with you, and on behalf of the entire Mitsui Seiki staff, we have been touched deeply by your concern, encouraging words, and gestures of support.
Question: Is it a bad idea to build new nuclear power plants in the United States?
5 Comments
I wondered about the Japanese dealers and what their situation was in this horrible tragedy. Lloyd – thank you for taking the time and showing the compassion to find out their predicament.
If nuclear plants are a bad idea, then we should get rid of hydroelectric plants too. More people have been killed by dam failures than nuclear power plant accidents. Coal generation has to go to. Far more people have been killed mining coal than have been killed by nuclear. Plus burning coal releases more radiation on an average day than a nuclear plant releases.
Wind and solar can’t meet our needs, ever. Not opinion, just science.
There really is no other long term option.
Read this to learn a little more – http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm/2469/Understanding-E-=-mc2
I love you Liberals…No Nukes, No coal, No Oil, No Fracing. The Jimmy Carter enacted Department of Energy was tasked with getting us off foreign energy. That’s worked about as well as Obamacare will, but you liberals keep believeing big government is the answer to all our woes. As Regan said, “Government isn;t the answer, Government is the problem”. Funny how two of the “experts” widely quoted this past weekend both worked for different organizations with fance names that were BOTH funded by George Soros.
We should build MORE Nuke plants. How many were killed at Three Mile Island? 10,000? 5000? 1000? NO…ZERO! The plant in Japan survived incredibly well. My understanding is that it was designed to withstand a 25′ Tsunami and a 7.9 quake, but they had a 30′ Tsunami and a 9.0 quake and it survived the quake but the backup generators got flooded. So in the future, we design new plants with that possibility in mind. Nothing like Chernobyl could happen there…totally different design and even that disaster “only” killed 4000…About the same number killed in Chinese coal mining accidents in any given 18 months. And nothing like the China Syndrome…THAT WAS A MOVIE!
The media, with their leftist anti-nuke agenda, is just stirring the pot as usual.
No one could predict the chain of events that knocked out both back up systems. Japan has been a leader at testing and trainng for such disasters but lets face it, the earth quake moved the entire island of Japan and the power plant is still standing. My hope is that its not too late to cool down the reactor cores. God bless the brave workers who have stayed behind to press on. I have faith in the Japanese people to overcome any obstacle no matter how impossible it seems.
Japanese people have great courage & they can raise from dust & make things can work. May god give them strength and wisdom.