Japanese N-Plant Explosion

Which is swell, until you get the thousand-year flood event (that we seem to get every ten years now) the F-4 or 5 tornado, the pop-up hurricane (I've been through one of those, full-on, a near miss from another pop-up)...

I don't think they're being redundant enough. I want more redundancy, and I'm willing to be redundant about it!

(Hmm...maybe we should send a congressperson to every nuclear powerplant-that would add some onsite redundancy...;))
You reckon hook 'em up to a thermal generator, or something akin to a wind turbine, and provoke them into making policy statements?
:lol:
 
From NEI:

NEI said:
TEPCO believes the tsunami that inundated the Fukushima Daiichi site was 14 meters high, the network said. The design basis tsunami for the site was 5.7 meters, and the reactors and backup power sources were located 10 to 13 meters above sea level. The company reported that the maximum earthquake for which the Fukushima Daiichi plants were designed was magnitude 8. The quake that struck March 11 was magnitude 9.

So... The backup generators were 10-13m above MSL and still swamped by a 14m Tsunami...

I seem to recall mentioning the prospect of marginal design failure somewhere along the way :shrug:
 
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110322e1.pdf

A lot of radiation is turning up in the sea off Fukushima now. It is mainly caesium and 2 varieties of iodine, and it looks like some cobalt too. It turns out that the nuclear fuel used at this plant is unusually rich in plutonium, which would be very bad if there is any further meltdown now we know containment has been breached.

The problem is, nobody knew an earthquake of this magnitude was even possible - let alone the tsunami that it created in its wake. It's hard to plan for stuff you, by definition can't know. Redundancy is good, but even that has limits. There gets a point when the redundant systems become hazards as the maintainance gets ignored.
This plant, it has been revealed has the worst safety record of any plant in Japan. Coincidence? well, actually no. I don't think so. Just a multiplier in an already disasterous situation.
 
An official of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in Washington that Units 1, 2 and 3 have all seen damage to their reactor cores, but that containment is intact. The assessment dispels some concerns about Unit 2, where an explosion damaged a pressure-reducing chamber around the bottom of the reactor core.

"I would say optimistically that things appear to be on the verge of stabilizing," said Bill Borchardt, the commission's executive director for operations.

Traces of radiation are tainting vegetables and some water supplies, although in amounts the government and health experts say do not pose a risk to human health in the short term. That has caused the government to ban sale of raw milk, spinach and canola from prefectures over a swath from the plant toward Tokyo. The government has just started to test fish and shellfish.

Tokyo Electric said radioactive iodine about 127 times normal levels and radioactive cesium about 25 times above the norm were detected in seawater 100 yards (meters) off the Fukushima nuclear plant.

Despite that concentration, a senior official at the International Atomic Energy Agency said the ocean was capable of absorbing vast amounts of radiation with no effect and that — comparatively — the radioactivity released so far by the plant was minor.

"The quantities are tiny compared to the reservoir of natural radioactivity in the oceans," said Graham Andrew, senior adviser to IAEA chief Yukiya Amano.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_japan_earthquake
 
The seismogenic fault plane 500 km long along the trench and 200 km wide toward under Northeast Japan ruptured by three sub-events in 5 minutes (according to JMA) generating the largest known earthquake in and around Japan.
The earthquakes expected in the source area had much smaller magnitude of M 7.4 to M 8.2 from 6 smaller fault segments based on historic seismicity. The March 11 earthquake ruptured all 6 segments in a single earthquake.

Three seperate earthquakes occuring in a period of 5 minutes, rupturing 6 segments that historically rupture seperately (producing M7.4-8.2 shakes).

Now, I know I suggested that it might have been a seperate faultline altogether, but I did (correctly) call it being multiple events.
 
You reckon hook 'em up to a thermal generator, or something akin to a wind turbine, and provoke them into making policy statements?
:lol:

Probably the only way to get the truth out of them anyway
 
Regarding redundancy here in the U.S.:
(And sorry for such a long quote, but hopefully UCS won't mind)

REPORTER:I wanted to ask you specifically about the Indian Point plant here in New York. People have been saying that there are enough backup generator systems that there would never be a problem with the power being off on the coolant system, and I just wanted your response on that, please.

MR. LOCHBAUM: Have you ever seen the movie Pinnochio? Because that's a bald-faced lie.

REPORTER: Okay. Apparently there are three backup systems. There's a gas-powered generator --

MR. LOCHBAUM: The reason I say that that's false and whoever's saying it should know better is that happened at the Indian Point plant in August of 1999. They had a problem that caused them to be disconnected from the electrical grid. One of the diesel generators started, one of the diesel generators did not start, and the batteries lasted for seven hours, and then they were depleted.

Since lightning has already struck at Indian Point, it seems a little bit foolhardy for people to claim it will never happen again since it's already happened at that plant in August of 1999.

http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power...isis-japan-telepress-transcript-03-21-11.html
 
Arhtur, clearly containment has been breached. This is the only way cesium, Iodine and cobalt can get out of the reactor building. The torus you refer to cannot be inspected at present to see just how bad the damage is. And I never said primary containment, though that is not known to be secure.
As an apologist for the worst reactor plant in Japan, I really admire your dedication, and I'm glad you're using some proper sources at last. I'm glad you've found them useful. I always prefer to err on the side of caution as you know, and make no apology for it. Indeed, I have more time for you than EF, because at least you have a rudamentary if not a working knowledge of the systems we're talking about whereas EF just insists everything's fine! To have faith in something is good, but blind faith is like religeon, and there's no place in science for it.
I'm glad the worst of the contamination is going out to sea. Better that than the land where it can get whipped into the air as dust. So long as you can keep it out of your body, it's just a matter of scrubbing down. We've been dumping waste at sea for decades now, with only windscale being a problem.

Things are definately looking more promising. The end-game is almost within thier grasp now. I think they've done brilliantly under the circumstances.
 
Arhtur, clearly containment has been breached. This is the only way cesium, Iodine and cobalt can get out of the reactor building.

NO, they have been venting the reactor to control pressure and they let the SFP's boil nearly dry.

The torus you refer to cannot be inspected at present to see just how bad the damage is. And I never said primary containment, though that is not known to be secure.

And it's not known to be damaged either, and the fact that the radiation levels haven't been going up is the best indication that it isn't damaged.

As an apologist for the worst reactor plant in Japan, I really admire your dedication, and I'm glad you're using some proper sources at last. I'm glad you've found them useful.

I've never apologized for the siting or the handling of the disaster.

NOT ONCE.

I've been reasonably pleased with how well the GE reactor has held up considering what appears to be inept handling by the Japanese of this disaster.

All I've ever used is proper sources.
Indeed I was the one who told you the reactor you lived next too had been shut down and defueled while you were worried what to do if there was a problem.

Things are definately looking more promising. The end-game is almost within thier grasp now. I think they've done brilliantly under the circumstances.

Brilliantly?

No way.

They blew it right from the beginning and three blown up buildings attest to that. When they finally got to the point they couldn't do much more damage they then downshifted into ultralow gear to start moving at what appears to be a SNAILS pace to restore power and get cooling water to the SFPs.

They have shown what appears to be ZERO leadership or initiative or ability to think outside the box. I mean really, the BEST they could come up with in over a week's time to deliver water to those Spent Fuel pools is by spraying water from friggin water guns?

When this is over I think it's going to be clear that besides the actual Tsunami, the ineffectual leadership was most likely their 2nd biggest problem.

Arthur
 
I think the March 17th (or maybe it was the March 18th)talk the UCS experts gave talked about the possible design flaw Daiichii had -a test done on that specific reactor design that found it leaked above 70 PSI.

Brilliantly?

No way.

They blew it right from the beginning

Jeez, that's awfully harsh...I think we can all agree this was highly unexpected.

I mean really, the BEST they could come up with in over a week's time to deliver water to those Spent Fuel pools is by spraying water from friggin water guns?

Yeah, I guess? since the alternative would have been to have people receive lethal (or at least an injurious level of) rads to do it?
 
Regarding redundancy here in the U.S.:
(And sorry for such a long quote, but hopefully UCS won't mind)

http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power...isis-japan-telepress-transcript-03-21-11.html

Not quite as bad as described:

At 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Indian Point 2 experienced a trip, or an automatic shutdown, after the receipt of a spurious signal in a reactor protection system. A few minutes after the trip, the plant's three emergency diesel generators, which provide power in the event of the loss of off-site power, automatically activated after they received a signal indicating that insufficient voltage was available to some plant safety systems.

However, one of the emergency diesel generators failed to load properly and that led to the eventual draindown of a battery that serves as a backup power source. In turn, the plant lost a number of its control room annunciators, or alarm panels. In response, plant operators declared an Unusual Event -- the lowest of four levels of emergency classification -- at about 9:55 p.m. The annunciators were restored at about 1:30 a.m. on Wednesday.

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/news/1999/99-073i.html

LOWEST of 4 levels Chimpkin

Arthur
 
I think its a bit much to balme the technicians given what they were left to work with. No power to any systems, no power to any monitoring equipment, a wrecked reactor hall, multiple threats, debris, fires, leaky fuel ponds, I mean what the hell did they have? ah yes, they had some flashlights.
The IAEA called them "heroes", and they were willing to put thier lives on the line.
I also think the primary containment held up well under the circumstances, and the ponds obvously took damage, but not so much they stayed empty.

As a system, it turned out to "survive" a dual event it simply wasn't designed to with only a partial meltdown due to residual decay heat, a few unavoidable hydrogen blasts and a couple of fires.

Ok, so they might have to entomb a few of them, but at least they SCRAMMED properly and are technically in a cold shutdown.

Now they nearly have the internal cooling going. They're just waiting for spare parts and new motors. The board were slow to react, but they always are in these cases. Nothing unusual there.
 
Yeah, I guess? since the alternative would have been to have people receive lethal (or at least an injurious level of) rads to do it?

No, they've been able to drive the pumper trucks pretty much up to the building. Construction cranes wouldn't have to get any closer to put in actual piping, but the amount of equipment at the site has been pathetic.

And workers are in the plants doing the electrical work, which of course the spraying is making VERY problematic.

Arthur
 
trippy said:
No. This is precisely what you are arguing should be done. The simple fact of the matter is that the Science said that "An earthquake of that magnitude is not expected of that fault" and you insist that (to paraphrase) "An 8 year old with a pins and a map" could have figured it out, you are precisely dismissing the science.
OK, you haven't been following the argument - I figured that. You see false dichotomies by reflex. But if I tell you that no, using science properly to inform decisions is not the same as dismissing it, that too much reliance on obviously inadequate science is a blunder, doesn't that make sense?
trippy said:
I aknowledged the possibility that he might be right without agreeing with him, or disagreeing with him. However, because you can't get your head past the "He's not agreeing with me therefore he's pro-nuclear" mentality. What you're setting up is a false dichotomy, there is a third option, sitting on the fence, which is (more or less) where I am at the moment. I'm not agreeing with him, but I can see that his argument may have merit.
You acknowledged that his claim of impossibility for a meltdown might have merit. That is the agreement referenced.

It did not - the assertion is absurd, and without merit. Meltdown was a distinct possibility at the time - especially if it were only being prevented by the seawater flooding, which was possible - and remains a remote possiblility even now, if something goes very wrong yet (a very severe second quake, say). That is not a fence one can sit on - it's the boundary between reason and what is increasingly resembling a kind of desperation.

At least, that is giving you the benefit of the doubt, as I did, and particularly not lumping you in with the apologists and deniers who offer us such assertions ("argument"), which I did not do - and still don't, figuring that you are not in good control of the implications of your language there.
trippy said:
It's why I don't believe that Iceaura actually knows what he's talking about, and why I have so much trouble (on this matter at least) taking him seriously.
You could at least, by rereading, acquire a reasonable notion of what it is that I'm saying, so you at least would know what I'm talking about. If I don't, that would then make one of us, which would be enough for sensible responses.
 
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I think its a bit much to balme the technicians given what they were left to work with. No power to any systems, no power to any monitoring equipment, a wrecked reactor hall, multiple threats, debris, fires, leaky fuel ponds, I mean what the hell did they have? ah yes, they had some flashlights.
The IAEA called them "heroes", and they were willing to put thier lives on the line.

BS, they just recently upped the amount of radiation the workers could get to over 100 millirems, so so far no one has put their life on the line.

Yeah, I guess there are no power generators in all of Southern Japan that could be shipped up there.

Remember when they shipped the generators to the plant?
Do you know why they didn't work?
Because they shipped in ones that operated on the wrong frequency (Japan uses both 50 and 60 hz).
Now we just heard that AFTER TEPCO got the power restored they found out that some pumps need to be replaced and so NOW they put in an emergency order for them.

NOW????

Let me ask you a question, of all the problems they had to deal with after the Tsunami was there ANY more serious than these reactors?

Of course not.

But clearly their response does not at all look like this is their biggest problem.

So you want to explain why it took over a week to get 1 mile of friggin cable run to the plant?

Were you not surprised when TEPCO announced they had 15 people working on it????

You want to explain why they haven't MADE something to get water directly to those SF Ponds?

Is it REALLY that difficult to pipe water up four stories?

Etc etc etc

Arthur
 
The firefighters could only stay an hour at a time as the radiation was too harsh to stay longer. Even the helicopters had to abort thier first missions due to potentially lethal radiation in the smoke. So they went away and stuffed a load of lead plates in them and went back.
 
The firefighters could only stay an hour at a time as the radiation was too harsh to stay longer. Even the helicopters had to abort thier first missions due to potentially lethal radiation in the smoke. So they went away and stuffed a load of lead plates in them and went back.

I'm not saying there weren't times they had to back off.

So?

Most of the time workers HAVE been able to be at the site and yet it was only a few days ago that they upped the amount of radiation workers could get before they have to leave, from 100 to 250 millirems.

Arthur
 
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I just think you're being excessively harsh on men that were doing thier damdest to save the plant. Now, if you want to criticise Tokyo Electrics' board for inaction or incompetence or previous lack of routine maintainance then you have a point, and I would agree with that. Absolutely. (a particularly rare occurence in this thread!)
 
I just think you're being excessively harsh on men that were doing thier damdest to save the plant. Now, if you want to criticise Tokyo Electrics' board for inaction or incompetence or previous lack of routine maintainance then you have a point, and I would agree with that. Absolutely. (a particularly rare occurence in this thread!)

I don't think the majority of the men at the plant can do much more than what they are doing, but there are THOUSANDS of other people that work for TEPCO and the Government and the Military and other Construction companies that could help these people out.

Again, I'll mention running the 1 mile of line to the plant. Something they knew they needed the FIRST DAY and getting the line to the plant doesn't require any knowledge of Nuclear Reators, that's primarily Construction and Electrical Lineman and there must be thousands of them in Japan that could have helped with that.

How about doing a quick design and fabrication of a pump system and hoses that could be installed with a crane to pump water from ground level directly into the SFPs?

Again, not something the workers would do, that's a welding, metal working, plumbing job but something that certainly, given the building plans for the reactors, any reasonably skilled group of outside workers could build and install.

Maybe this will put it in perspective. Toshiba sent 100 people to the site to help. They sent them TODAY.

Arthur
 
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Yeah I'm not going to lay blame on them until after some IEAE report or something, sure I think at present heroes is probably what these people are, but then again they are just doing their job.

Also whats with the lack for robots? Japan makes robots that serve martinis and dance but making a robot that could do emergency work in a nuclear power plant was not on their list? God that got to be embarrassing!

Arhtur, clearly containment has been breached. This is the only way cesium, Iodine and cobalt can get out of the reactor building.

OR it was released with all the radioactive steam that they have let off of the reactors to relieve pressure?

the systems we're talking about whereas EF just insists everything's fine!

I did no such thing! I merely insist that this is overblown, now one cares about the tens for thousands that die ever year from coal yet one nuclear incident and suddenly people are demanding that we do more for nuclear safety, that we evacuate all American service personal from japan, that we buy iodine! Hey I know why don't we put more filters on coal power plants that would actually save more lives, oh wait that right no one gives a shit about dying of lung cancer from smog, but good help us if its lung cancer from radiation! The hypocrisy and gross lack of perspective that people have boggles my mind!

Do you know how much radioactive iodine in in sea water? 127 times it is still an insignificant number. A nuclear bomb test has released more radioactive material then this nuclear incident! This nuclear incident was unlikely from day 1 to cause more death then the very thing that caused it (the earthquake and tsunami) yet it has overshadowed it because of hysteria and fear.

To have faith in something is good, but blind faith is like religion, and there's no place in science for it.

I don't have any faith in this, I merely note that it is safer then the alternative.
 
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