Japan - 9.0 Earthquake-Tsunami -Reactor Status, 2011 #6

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Footwarrior said:
A large earthquake followed by a tsunami is certainly a possibility. The death toll could be high if the quake was near a low lying area with a large population.

Our nuclear plants seem to have better emergency plans than the ones that failed in Japan. For example, the plants on the California coast have standby generators kept inland on trucks that can replace a failed generator long before battery power expires. The Japanese plants had no plans for handling a generator failure.
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That truck thing is nice and all, but last year there was a little piece on the news about how the san onofre plant was built to withstand a 7.0. The devastating quake in Japan was a 9.0. The san onofre plant is right on the beach. There is no wall to block a wave from a tsunami, and in Japan the waves were 30+ meters high, and washed inland for miles.

The generators aren't the only thing to worry about. The quake in Japan damaged the buildings as well. The vessels that holds the reactor cores were cracked which having a generator wouldn't have helped at all.

However, I did read somewhere that a really big quake is unlikely to hit the southern coast of the USA for one reason or another. The more likely place for a really big one is norcal up to the BC coast.

I just google image searched and the other plant in CA looks like there's a cliff in front, so there's a little protection there.
 
buffetoflies said:
That truck thing is nice and all, but last year there was a little piece on the news about how the san onofre plant was built to withstand a 7.0. The devastating quake in Japan was a 9.0. The san onofre plant is right on the beach. There is no wall to block a wave from a tsunami, and in Japan the waves were 30+ meters high, and washed inland for miles.

The generators aren't the only thing to worry about. The quake in Japan damaged the buildings as well. The vessels that holds the reactor cores were cracked which having a generator wouldn't have helped at all.

However, I did read somewhere that a really big quake is unlikely to hit the southern coast of the USA for one reason or another. The more likely place for a really big one is norcal up to the BC coast.

I just google image searched and the other plant in CA looks like there's a cliff in front, so there's a little protection there.
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And how will the TRUCKS get those generators to a plant where roads have been destroyed due to earthquakes and/or flooded and covered with LITERALLY mountains of debris from tsunamis?

Do we learn NOTHING from history?

Or do the "planners" realize this flaw and just count on the public being too stupid to think???
 
Too many things can go wrong with a nuke plant-- I will add that the ongoing situation at Fukushima Daiichi is due to the storage of spent fuel ABOVE the reactor core in cooling ponds. Shoot, that's like leaving a kettle on to boil, imo. The US has many plants with the same very flawed design.

Also, besides being lined up to build another one in an American economy that probably doesn't produce a single rivet without importing it, we have existing plants that are aging out of their lifespans and in need of critical repairs.

This one, for instance:

UPDATED: Feds Probe San Onofre After Radiation Leaks

Some parts of the heat exchangers at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station's Unit 3 failed a pressure test, officials said Wednesday.

--and this chunk of info which details the failure--

Quote: Three of the 129 new heat-exchanger tubes were found to have had unexpected wear after a radioactive steam leak in January. This week, they failed a pressure test and will have to be taken out of service, Southern California Edison said in a news release.

Testing the remaining tubes will take an additional eight days, Uselding said.

During normal functioning, superheated, radioactive water runs through the tubes in question—there are tens of thousands of tubes at the plant—and transfers the heat to pure water, creating steam to turn massive turbines that generate the electricity.

One of the tubes in Unit 3 sprung a leak in late January, squirting out radioactive steam before it was isolated. If any radiation escaped into the atmosphere, it was at undetectable levels, said plant officials and some outside experts.

Though the damaged tubes are only a year or so old and were replaced as part of $674-million upgrades to the plant, Uselding said it’s not unusual for the tubes to see some wear after even their first cycle.

What is unusual is the amount of wear and the number of tubes involved at San Onofre, she said. The team of experts will be studying the design, installation, shipping and operation of the new heat exchangers to determine the exact cause of the extensive wearing and will present those findings at a future public meeting, Uselding said.

http://camppendleton.patch.com/articles/three-tubes-fail-in-nuclear-plant-test


For those who are unfamiliar with the location of this plant it has a good wiki page.

San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



I'm just not impressed with the integrity of our labor, manufacturing, or design. Yep, I'm a cynical American. :cool:
 
Footwarrior said:
A large earthquake followed by a tsunami is certainly a possibility. The death toll could be high if the quake was near a low lying area with a large population.

Our nuclear plants seem to have better emergency plans than the ones that failed in Japan. For example, the plants on the California coast have standby generators kept inland on trucks that can replace a failed generator long before battery power expires. The Japanese plants had no plans for handling a generator failure.
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Another thing I notice was that Fukushima was an older design. The meltdown happened because of the tsunami. I don't think the earthquake would of done much damage as it did to the rest of Japan.
 
I disagree HMS - I read an article (probably long gone by now) last march about how the workers at the plant heard an explosion in the basement of one of the reactor buildings (can't remember which) right after the earthquake. It took about 30-40 minutes for the Tsunami to get there.

So, I honestly think the quake caused at least one of the meltdowns by causing at least one of the buildings and perhaps reactor vessels to crack.
 
And here's the main point: it does us no good to guess what may or may not happen in this or that scenario.

Nuclear mishap, whether human error or natural disaster, has the capacity to destroy the earth and end all life, eventually.

There is NO WAY to insure these mishaps will not happen.

It is laughable in immensely tragic proportion to present "spare generators on trucks" as a means to prevent global disaster.
 
Isn't that amazing! :eek:

I hope someone thinks to run a Geiger counter over that thing... but imo, we may escape a radioactive risk because the tsunami carried stuff away before the plant started to explode, spill, leak, and steam. Hopefully the debris was pulled far enough out to sea to escape being seriously contaminated. (of course, the wind carried contaminates for months and months, so some may have gotten dirty that way)


This article says invasive species are a real threat-- weird that they survived the transpacific journey! I wonder if they sustained life via the other sea life clinging to the pier?


Floating dock from Japan carries potential invasive species

Scientists at Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center said the cement float contains about 13 pounds of organisms per square foot, and an estimated 100 tons overall. Already they have gathered samples of 4-6 species of barnacles, starfish, urchins, anemones, amphipods, worms, mussels, limpets, snails, solitary tunicates and algae – and there are dozens of species overall.
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http://phys.org/news/2012-06-seaweed-japanese-tsunami.html
 
Thought I'd better check in with Arnie Gundersen and see what's up with the reactors at this point in time...

Not a good scenario. I feel like I need to recommit to this thread because the situation at Fukushima Daichi is still teetering between pure luck and an unprecedented nuclear conflagration. Very scary, but here's the news as of a few weeks ago (May 19, 2012). :(


Fukushima Reactor 4 poses massive global risk


More than a year after a devastating earthquake and tsunami triggered a massive nuclear disaster, experts are warning that Japan isn't out of the woods yet and the worst nuclear storm the world has ever seen could be just one earthquake away from reality.

The troubled Reactor 4 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is at the centre of this potential catastrophe.

Reactor 4 -- and to a lesser extent Reactor 3 -- still hold large quantities of cooling waters surrounding spent nuclear fuel, all bound by a fragile concrete pool located 30 metres above the ground, and exposed to the elements.

A magnitude 7 or 7.5 earthquake would likely fracture that pool, and disaster would ensue, says Arnie Gundersen, a nuclear engineer with Fairewinds Energy Education who has visited the site.

The 1,535 spent fuel rods would become exposed to the air and would likely catch fire, with the most-recently added fuel rods igniting first.

The incredible heat generated from that blaze, Gundersen said, could then ignite the older fuel in the cooling pool, causing a massive oxygen-eating radiological fire that could not be extinguished with water.

"So the fear is the newest fuel could begin to burn and then we'd have a conflagration of the whole pool because it would become hotter and hotter. The health consequences of that are beyond where science has ever gone before," Gundersen told CTVNews.ca in an interview from his home in Vermont.
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much more at link...

Read more: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/World/20120518/fukushima-dai-ichi-risk-reactor-4-120519/#ixzz1x9xTGP94
 
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/16/us-japan-nuclear-idUSBRE85F02720120616

"Japan approves 2 reactor restarts, more seen ahead"

"(Reuters) - Japan on Saturday approved the resumption of nuclear power operations at two reactors, the first to come back on line after they were all shut down following the Fukushima crisis.

The government's decision to restart two reactors operated by Kansai Electric Power Co at Ohi in western Japan was announced by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda at a meeting with key ministers.

Despite protests against the move and public safety concerns, the decision could open the door to more restarts among Japan's 50 nuclear power reactors."

(More at link)
 
dsntslp said:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/16/us-japan-nuclear-idUSBRE85F02720120616

"Japan approves 2 reactor restarts, more seen ahead"

"(Reuters) - Japan on Saturday approved the resumption of nuclear power operations at two reactors, the first to come back on line after they were all shut down following the Fukushima crisis.

The government's decision to restart two reactors operated by Kansai Electric Power Co at Ohi in western Japan was announced by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda at a meeting with key ministers.

Despite protests against the move and public safety concerns, the decision could open the door to more restarts among Japan's 50 nuclear power reactors."

(More at link)
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It's so great to see the Japanese public taking an active role in protesting obviously contrary corporate and government policy. Also from the link:

Nuclear power supplied almost 30 percent of electricity needs before the March 2011 disaster, which triggered meltdowns at Fukushima, spewing radiation and forcing mass evacuations.

The accident destroyed public belief in the "safety myth" promoted by Japanese nuclear power advocates for decades.

Activists have collected more than 7.5 million signatures on a petition urging an end to atomic power. Protesters have poured into the street almost daily over the past week.

All 50 reactors were shut down for maintenance or safety checks in the months since the accident. The government had placed a priority on gaining the approval of local communities for the Ohi restarts to avert July-August power shortages.

Critics say the government was too hasty in signing off on the restarts, especially given delays in setting up a new, more independent nuclear regulatory agency.
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Prior to the earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent nuclear disaster, the public over there had never hit the streets in protest-- they considered it impolite. I think this is a huge thing for them... I'm proud of them.
 
Dock apparently ripped away during 2011 Japanese tsunami washes ashore on Olympic Peninsula beach in Washington - @AP
 
Google adds Street View to ghost town inside Japan nuclear zone

http://science.nbcnews.com/_news/20...-to-ghost-town-inside-japan-nuclear-zone?lite

>>>snip

...(Google Street View) is taking people inside Japan's nuclear no-go zone, to the city of Namie, whose 21,000 residents have been unable to return to live since they fled the radiation spewing from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant two years ago...

...Namie Mayor Tamotsu Baba said memories came flooding back as he looked at the images shot by Google earlier this month...

..."Those of us in the older generation feel that we received this town from our forbearers, and we feel great pain that we cannot pass it down to our children," he said in a post on his blog.

"We want this Street View imagery to become a permanent record of what happened to Namie-machi in the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster..."

(article continues)

<<<snip

Wow.
I'm afraid to look.
 
Report: Third of US West Coast Children Hit With Thyroid Problems Following Fukushima

http://beforeitsnews.com/health/201..._content=beforeit39snews-buttonsunderheadline

=====================================

I thought about starting a new thread in the up to the minute section but I didn't do it, if anybody else wants to or maybe ask a mod? I will alert my own post here for their consideration.

=====================================

I found the original report: http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=28599
 
The original article says "16 percent" not 1/3.

What am I not understanding or missing here?

16 percent is NOT 1/3rd like the "Before It's News" article I first posted indicates.

Although a 16 percent increase is still horrible!
 
http://rt.com/news/fukushima-cooling-nuclear-broken-371/

2nd time in two weeks guys! They have to keep their cooling system running for 100 years at least so they can clean up the mess, and it shuts down twice in 2 weeks? It's gonna be a long century!

Please recall that #3 is the reactor will plutonium.
If the temperature of spent nuclear fuel is allowed to increase unchecked it can potentially reach the point where a nuclear reaction begins, leading to a meltdown.

Two weeks ago a massive power outage at the facility caused cooling systems to go offline. The origin of the power cut was identified as a 25cm-long &#8220;rat-like animal&#8221; that was found dead on the switchboard, a TEPCO official told Kyodo news
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Radiation Mutation I bet.
 
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