More photos of Bali
Click on the image above to see the photo album
We have 111 guests and no members online
In October 2018 we travelled to Ireland. Later we would go on to England (the south coast and London) before travelling overland (and underwater) by rail to Belgium and then on to Berlin to visit our grandchildren there.
The island of Ireland is not very big, about a quarter as large again as Tasmania, with a population not much bigger than Sydney (4.75 million in the Republic of Ireland with another 1.85 million in Northern Ireland). So it's mainly rural and not very densely populated.
It was unusually warm for October in Europe, including Germany, and Ireland is a very pleasant part of the world, not unlike Tasmania, and in many ways familiar, due to a shared language and culture.
It's now past two years since SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) spread beyond China and became a pandemic.
From the outset, I've covered aspects of the pandemic on this website, beginning with Love in the time of Coronavirus back in March 2020, so the passing of the pandemic's second birthday seemed an appropriate time to review what we've learnt.
The positive news is that: Covid-19 has been far less deadly than the 1918-20 "Spanish Influenza' pandemic.
This relative success in limiting the number of deaths this time round is entirely due to modern science.
Japan has 55 nuclear reactors at 19 sites. Two more are under construction and another twelve are in the advanced planning stage. Net Generating capacity is around 50 GW providing around 30% of the country's electricity (more here).
As a result of Japan’s largest earthquake in history on March 11 and subsequent tsunami all reactors shut down automatically as they were designed to do but cooling systems associated with two sites had been damaged.
Three reactor sites are adjacent to the earthquake epicentre and two were in the direct path of the tsunami. The Fukushima-Daiichi plant belonging to Tokyo Electric Power Company was particularly hard hit. It lost all grid connections, providing electricity, and its backup power plant was seriously damaged.