Japanese N-Plant Explosion

[Trippy]

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?

You keep setting them up.

What you're suggesting, as an alternative to a facts based, repeatable, verifiable analysis, isn't science.

On the face of it, the station appears to have been appropriately designed to accomodate any foreseeable events. The only question left is whether the conjunctive rupture of six fault segments in three phases over 5 minutes should have been considered a plausable scenario (and therefore foreseeable).

You say yes, it should have been assumed as possible.
I say there's no evidence to suggest that it's plausable.

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.

Aknowledging that a suggestion is plausable is not the same thing as agreeing with it.

And I disagree - yet again, you're trying to box things, things must be this or that, you either agree with me, or you agree with them. Life aint always that simple.

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.

You precisely lumped me in with the apologists and deniers.

See? You say it explicitly right here:
"And I paraphrased the comment to include it among the many here engaged in minimizing and dissembling the event."

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.

I have, on several occasions. I've even gone as far as preparing posts in Notepad so that I can have the post I'm responding to open in a seperate window and a third window open to go back through the conversation as I reply.

At this stage, given the information that's available, the question that most urgently needs to be answered is why was this event different from previous events at this faultline?

 

[Captain Kremmen]

You say yes, it should have been assumed as possible.
I say there's no evidence to suggest that it's plausable.

And I say that they would have found the geophysical evidence had they looked hard enough. But it wasn't in their financial interest to do so.

In the UK we now have a crime called corporate manslaughter, that makes directors of companies personally responsible for death caused by neglect or worse. Other countries, please copy.

If people at the top set targets that are impossible to reach without corner cutting, and they do not check whether standards are being met, then they should be responsible for the outcome.

 

[cosmictraveler]

The news has said that Japan has had 3 more earthquakes from 6.6, 6.4 then another 6.6. I wonder how they are affecting things there now.

 

[adoucette]

And I say that they would have found the geophysical evidence had they looked hard enough. But it wasn't in their financial interest to do so.

But it WAS most obviously in their financial interest to do so.

Arthur

 

[adoucette]

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.

Again, I'm not talking about the people whose primary job is to deal with managing the shutting down of the reactors as they are fully involved in that activity and so 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 are offsite and work for TEPCO and the Government and the Military and other Construction companies that could help these people out, primarily by getting them better intel of what is going on in the buildings, providing power to the site and being creative in how to get water directly to the SFPs.

Consider that "efforts to refill fuel ponds at units 3 and 4 were upgraded significantly by the arrival of a concrete pumping truck of the kind usually used in construction. It will supply water at up to 160 tonnes per hour through a 58 metre flexible boom via remote control".

That pumping truck wasn't even asked for until the 19th and finally just arrived on the site YESTERDAY.

http://pdf.directindustry.com/pdf/s...-truck-mounted-concrete-pump/52887-37638.html

Now you might think that this would be a new concept but it's not.
Indeed these are very much like the trucks they used at Chernobyl (notice the lead lined cab)

http://www.putzmeister.com.tr/ptr/img/content/Geschichte-Tschernobyl.jpg

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!

Precisely, but those exact same robots, dropped into the top floor of these buildings using a crane, could provide very valuable video from inside those buildings by now, you know, like water levels in the SFPs, but from all the info I can find they only have one robot on site and that wasn't made available until the 17th.


http://robotland.blogspot.com/2011/03/disaster-robot-monitors-at-fukushima.html

Of course you know the various military, bomb disposal and police forces have remote control robots that could have helped out and you would think that it wouldn't take a week to get these on-site.

http://www.aerialproducts.com/surveillance-systems/aerial-surveillance.html

http://www.defence-update.net/wordpress/20100823_birdeye-650le.html

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20022009-1.html

http://www.odmrobots.com/Security-ROBOTS.php

Arthur

 

[adoucette]

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 trying to minimize the efforts of the men there, but I think some might be thinking that the amount of radiation the workers are receiving is quite a bit higher than it actually is. (as of yesterday)

•One Tepco worker working within the reactor building of Fukushima Daiichi unit 3 during "vent work" was taken to hospital after receiving radiation exposure exceeding 100 mSv, a level deemed acceptable in emergency situations by some national nuclear safety regulators.

•Another six Tepco workers have since received radiation doses in excess of the usual 100 mSv emergency allowance. One has received more than 150 mSv.

Arthur

 

[iceaura]

What you're suggesting, as an alternative to a facts based, repeatable, verifiable analysis, isn't science.

What I am setting up is a fact based, prudent, reasonable approach to siting and designing nuclear power plants.

The problem is that some of the facts and reasonings and analyses involved are about the science available - there is no reliable science of evaluating science, so we are stuck with reason and logic and prudence and even - perish the thought - wisdom.

It does not conflict with science in any way, and makes use of every bit of actual science available. It is not an "alternative" to science - it is a prudent employment of science.

On the face of it, the station appears to have been appropriately designed to accomodate any foreseeable events

That is not only false, but ridiculous.

1) The events it was unprepared for were in fact foreseen, by many well-informed people, decades ago and ever since. The flaws in its design and situation were described and warned against, often and with evidence, reason, careful analysis. Events which were in fact foreseen, by people employing science and reason and prudent estimation of the possibilities of real situations, were not "unforeseeable".
2) Another angle of attempt: We can describe this as a burden of proof issue. What is needed, for siting a nuclear power plant on a low coast overtop of a convergent plate boundary with recent nearby major activity, is not a lack of evidence of danger, but positive and secure evidence of safety. That requires a mature and comprehensive science, one in which such situations are familiar and standardized. No cutting edge or exploratory research should be involved.

Aknowledging that a suggestion is plausable is not the same thing as agreeing with it.

When the suggestion is the plausibility of an assertion, and the issue is exactly that plausibility, it is.

At this stage, given the information that's available, the question that most urgently needs to be answered is why was this event different from previous events at this faultline?

1) You mean you don't already know? Wouldn't you have to have been in a position to know something like that already, to have made a sufficiently reliable risk estimate for siting a nuke?

2) From the pov of a scientist interested in improving the accuracy and validity of their models of earthquake behavior, sure. Years of investigation, research, a few dozen more earthquakes, these are all important for the future - and the sooner launched the better.

Not for everyone else. There are several more urgent questions right now for others, including how to handle the hundreds of nuclear power plants worldwide that are dangerously vulnerable and hazardously situated.

You precisely lumped me in with the apologists and deniers.

See? You say it explicitly right here:
"And I paraphrased the comment to include it among the many here engaged in minimizing and dissembling the event."

That is lumping your comment, not you - and accurately, btw. Statements agreeing with the plausibility of adoucettes sillier assertions here are definitely lumpable with the those of deniers and apologists, no?

If that makes you uncomfortable, and you feel misrepresented by such lumping, that is to your credit - and hint.

 

[Captain Kremmen]

But it WAS most obviously in their financial interest to do so.

Arthur

It wasn't in their short term interest, end of year figures, which is what pays their bonuses, share schemes etc. That is all they are interested in.
The directors probably won't get a bonus this year, but next year their noses will be back in the trough.

 

[Trippy]

What I am setting up is a fact based, prudent, reasonable approach to siting and designing nuclear power plants.

The problem is that some of the facts and reasonings and analyses involved are about the science available - there is no reliable science of evaluating science, so we are stuck with reason and logic and prudence and even - perish the thought - wisdom.

It does not conflict with science in any way, and makes use of every bit of actual science available. It is not an "alternative" to science - it is a prudent employment of science.

No. It is speculation.

That is not only false, but ridiculous.

1) The events it was unprepared for were in fact foreseen, by many well-informed people, decades ago and ever since. The flaws in its design and situation were described and warned against, often and with evidence, reason, careful analysis. Events which were in fact foreseen, by people employing science and reason and prudent estimation of the possibilities of real situations, were not "unforeseeable".
2) Another angle of attempt: We can describe this as a burden of proof issue. What is needed, for siting a nuclear power plant on a low coast overtop of a convergent plate boundary with recent nearby major activity, is not a lack of evidence of danger, but positive and secure evidence of safety. That requires a mature and comprehensive science, one in which such situations are familiar and standardized. No cutting edge or exploratory research should be involved.

Oh bullshit.

It appears they designed with a M8.4 earthquake and 6m tsunami in mind, which would easily have survived any of the historical tsunamis or earthquakes that there is proof for that part of the coastline experiencing.

When the suggestion is the plausibility of an assertion, and the issue is exactly that plausibility, it is.

Bullshit.

1) You mean you don't already know? Wouldn't you have to have been in a position to know something like that already, to have made a sufficiently reliable risk estimate for siting a nuke?

Not if there is no evidence for it ever having happened, and reason to believe that it won't. No. Do you expect scientists to be psychic? To be able to unravel the details of an unusual event before it occurs?

2) From the pov of a scientist interested in improving the accuracy and validity of their models of earthquake behavior, sure. Years of investigation, research, a few dozen more earthquakes, these are all important for the future - and the sooner launched the better.

Did you like, get bitten by a scientist as a small child or something?

Not for everyone else. There are several more urgent questions right now for others, including how to handle the hundreds of nuclear power plants worldwide that are dangerously vulnerable and hazardously situated.

This is speculation.

That is lumping your comment, not you - and accurately, btw. Statements agreeing with the plausibility of adoucettes sillier assertions here are definitely lumpable with the those of deniers and apologists, no?

If that makes you uncomfortable, and you feel misrepresented by such lumping, that is to your credit - and hint.

No. It is wildly inaccurate, and makes you look like a politically motivated ass. It is precisely the kind of ridiculous bullshit that lost the New Zealand Green Party my vote. It absolutely positively reeks, and makes you every bit as bad as Buffalo Roam, actually, worse in my opinion, because at least Buffalo Roam's assertions regarding my political views have a ring of accuracy to them.

 

[Trippy]

And I say that they would have found the geophysical evidence had they looked hard enough. But it wasn't in their financial interest to do so.

In the UK we now have a crime called corporate manslaughter, that makes directors of companies personally responsible for death caused by neglect or worse. Other countries, please copy.

If people at the top set targets that are impossible to reach without corner cutting, and they do not check whether standards are being met, then they should be responsible for the outcome.

I disagree.

 

[adoucette]

It wasn't in their short term interest, end of year figures, which is what pays their bonuses, share schemes etc. That is all they are interested in.

Nope.

Nobody makes a dime that first year.

In fact it takes nearly three decades for a Nuclear Reactor to be in the Black because you have to pay all that money up front to build the thing (which takes a long time in itself) and only after it has been operating at over 80% of the time 24/7 do you finally start showing a positive ROI because the cost of fuel is low.

So NO, there is absolutely no incentive to risk any damage to the plant since you have to have it running for so friggin long to make your bonus.

 

[Captain Kremmen]

30 years before they make a dime on their investment.
That's not a business, it's a charity.
These people are public benefactors!

They donate their money for the benefit of mankind,
and hardly get a penny for thirty years!

 

[iceaura]

, because at least Buffalo Roam's assertions regarding my political views have a ring of accuracy to them.

AFAIK I haven't made a single assertion regarding your political views.

"What I am setting up is a fact based, prudent, reasonable approach to siting and designing nuclear power plants.

The problem is that some of the facts and reasonings and analyses involved are about the science available - there is no reliable science of evaluating science, so we are stuck with reason and logic and prudence and even - perish the thought - wisdom.

It does not conflict with science in any way, and makes use of every bit of actual science available. It is not an "alternative" to science - it is a prudent employment of science."

No. It is speculation.

No, it isn't. It is firmly based in a large body of solidly established fact, straightforward deductive reason as well as inductive, and prudent assessments by well informed people.

You really need to look these words up in a dictionary - vitriol, speculation, that kind of thing. They have meanings - you can't just sling them around as pejoratives, and maintain a credible thread of argument.

It appears they designed with a M8.4 earthquake and 6m tsunami in mind, which would easily have survived any of the historical tsunamis or earthquakes that there is proof for that part of the coastline experiencing.

Why do you continue to repeat that? We know what the blunder was - repetition is unnecessary.

Not if there is no evidence for it ever having happened, and reason to believe that it won't.

The question is of the reliability, the security, of that "reason". The estimations of that reliability made by those who foresaw the event have been borne out - once again. Their reasoning was superior, and had been shown to be so several times in the recent past. That is one of those facts you mention as being important.

No. Do you expect scientists to be psychic?

I expect them to be humble in the face of the unknown. Failing that, I expect those who make design and site decisions for nukes to take the reliability of the science available into consideration.

To be able to unravel the details of an unusual event before it occurs?

If they are claiming enough reliability in their risk estimations to fine tune the design and siting of a nuke in a tsunami zone on top of a convergent plate boundary, yes. Absolutely. That is the kind of comprehensive expertise and standardized body of knowledge and well-established theory necessary.

Not for everyone else. There are several more urgent questions right now for others, including how to handle the hundreds of nuclear power plants worldwide that are dangerously vulnerable and hazardously situated.
”
This is speculation.

No, it isn't. There is absolutely nothing speculative about that plain, simple, fact based and evidence supported observation.

 

[adoucette]

30 years before they make a dime on their investment.
That's not a business, it's a charity.
These people are public benefactors!

They donate their money for the benefit of mankind,
and hardly get a penny for thirty years!

Don't believe it, then do the math.

Figure out how long it takes to make a return on a several Billion dollar investment spent over at least 5 years before you can start making any money at all on the power you sell to pay off the investors who lent you the money to build the plant such that you can eventually make money (compared to other means of generating power).

Or look at Wiki:

One of the big problems with nuclear power is the enormous upfront cost. These reactors are extremely expensive to build. While the returns may be very great, they're also very slow. It can sometimes take decades to recoup initial costs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_new_nuclear_power_plants

The point is anyone involved with building a Nuke has to be trying to ensure its reliable production of power for many decades.

Arthur

 

[Trippy]

No, it isn't. It is firmly based in a large body of solidly established fact, straightforward deductive reason as well as inductive, and prudent assessments by well informed people.

Why do you continue to repeat that? We know what the blunder was - repetition is unnecessary.

I expect them to be humble in the face of the unknown. Failing that, I expect those who make design and site decisions for nukes to take the reliability of the science available into consideration. If they are claiming enough reliability in their risk estimations to fine tune the design and siting of a nuke in a tsunami zone on top of a convergent plate boundary, yes. Absolutely. That is the kind of comprehensive expertise and standardized body of knowledge and well-established theory necessary.

No, it isn't. There is absolutely nothing speculative about that plain, simple, fact based and evidence supported observation.

:Yawn: This is why I have such a limited tolerance for continuing this discussion with you.

It is speculation, plain and simple, especially in light of the fact that there was evidence (at the time anyway) that was interpreted as meaning that what has happened, would not happen.

It has happened.

It's a fucking tragedy, nobody is denying this.

All of your assertions regarding ineptness in planning and such completely fail on the grounds (as I have already suggested) that this may simply have been the one in a billion event that anything designed to a one in one hundred million standard is probably going to fail in the face of.

No amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth and hand wringing and 'See, I told you so' is going to change that. If you throw enough darts, you will eventually hit the bullseye.

You'll notice that I've left out large portions of your reply - it's not because I'm ceding the point, it's quite simply because I can't be fucked hashing over the same ground with you, again.

The question is of the reliability, the security, of that "reason". The estimations of that reliability made by those who foresaw the event have been borne out - once again. Their reasoning was superior, and had been shown to be so several times in the recent past. That is one of those facts you mention as being important.

As I said, if you throw enough darts, one of them will eventually hit the bullseye.

This is precisely the reasoning that psychics and other charlatans rely on.

 

[iceaura]

All of your assertions regarding ineptness in planning and such completely fail on the grounds (as I have already suggested) that this may simply have been the one in a billion event that anything designed to a one in one hundred million standard is probably going to fail in the face of.

So my assertions are probably correct, at billion to one odds? I'll take that.

You are familiar with the practice of speculation, at any rate.

What are the actual odds of that possibility of yours, there, bearing out? Do you at least agree that nuclear power plants should not be designed and sited, or currently managed and maintained, on the basis of that possibility bearing out?

No amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth and hand wringing and 'See, I told you so' is going to change that. If you throw enough darts, you will eventually hit the bullseye.

When the bullseye has been missed consistently by thrower A, and hit consistently by thrower B, the fact and evidence based presumption is that B is a better thrower.

And nuclear power plants should not be designed and sited on the basis of A hitting the bullseye every time.

 

[Trippy]

When the bullseye has been missed consistently by thrower A, and hit consistently by thrower B, the fact and evidence based presumption is that B is a better thrower.

And nuclear power plants should not be designed and sited on the basis of A hitting the bullseye every time.

Umm. No.

Because it's possible to be a poor thrower and still get 'lucky'. And because it's possible to be a poor thrower, and on average get a bullseye the majority of the time .

(I'll address the other stuff later)

 

[Trippy]

Incidentally, I came across this, and thought I'd share it:
Radiation on XKCD

 

[ULTRA]

IAEA report major improvements in cooling reactor ponds in stations 5 & 6. Using fresh water, the ponds have been cooled from 65 to 40 degrees c. They have been supplied with power from diesels, and look to be in a satisfactory condition now. I think these can now be eliminated from posing any further risk, which is excellent news.

 

[Trippy]

So my assertions are probably correct, at billion to one odds? I'll take that.

You are familiar with the practice of speculation, at any rate.

Only if you also cede, in the process that the actual level of protection at the plant is irrelevant, and this then becomes an unfortunate, inevitable tragedy - after all, you yourself suggested that you would be willing to accept a saftey margin of 1 in 100,000,000, and if you accept this as a 1 in 1,000,000,000 then even your prefered saftey margins would have been exceeded.

What are the actual odds of that possibility of yours, there, bearing out? Do you at least agree that nuclear power plants should not be designed and sited, or currently managed and maintained, on the basis of that possibility bearing out?

No, I do not agree.
I see no rational reason why they should be excluded as long as the expected exposure from the siting of that plant falls below some reasonable level - where the expected exposure accounts for the expected lifetime of the plant, the probability of various failure modes occuring, and some level of radiation (let's say based on the 99.99th percentile) released by those failure modes - exactly the same kind of risk assessment I would expect from any other industry dealing with toxic substances.

I still wouldn't let you put one in New Zealand though - why not? Any number of reasons, not the least of which is I don't believe we need them.