TEPCO data release shows numerous systems failures from Earthquake, risk of identical failures in US reactors now high. TEPCO sticks to plan for cleanup despite admitting need to face triple meltdown. Japanese Regulators, Utilities ignored concealed dangers of reactors. Thousands taken to Hospital for "Sanitary" illness. Tokuhiro 20 lessons learned from Fukushima.Japanese Economy shrinks 5%.
How have I come to this
How did I slip and fall
How did I throw half a lifetime away
Without any thought at all
This should've been my time
It's over, it never began
Facing a world, for once not on my side
I simply turned and ran
I try to blame it on fortune
Some kind of twist in my fate
But I know the truth and it haunts me
I learned it a little too late
I know the truth and it mocks me
I know the truth and it shocks me
I learned it a little too late
People have faith in me
I think I once did too
I promise whoever has a hold on our lives
I'll see the bad times through
This should have been my time
It's over, it never began
Facing a world, for once not on my side
I simply turned and ran
I try to blame it on fortune
Some kind of shift in the stars
But I know the truth and it haunts me
It's flown just a little too far
I know the truth and it mocks me
I know the truth and it shocks me
It's flown just a little too far
I try to blame it on fortune
Some kind of twist in my fate
But I know the truth and it haunts me
I learned it a little too late
Sensitive people should not read this diary, as always, Truth comes first here,
so, the nervous and sensitive types should stop right here.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
Emergency vents that American officials have said would prevent devastating hydrogen explosions at nuclear plants in the United States were put to the test in Japan — and failed to work,
The failure of the vents calls into question the safety of similar nuclear power plants in the United States and Japan. After the venting failed at the Fukushima plant, the hydrogen gas fueled explosions that spewed radioactive materials into the atmosphere, reaching levels about 10 percent of estimated emissions at Chernobyl, according to Japan’s nuclear regulatory agency.,,,
,,,,
The government became rattled enough that it ordered Tokyo Electric to begin venting. But even then, Tokyo Electric’s executives continued to deliberate, according to a person close to government efforts to bring the reactors under control. The exchanges became so heated, the person said, that the company’s nuclear chief, Vice President Sakae Muto, and the stricken plant’s director, Masao Yoshida, engaged in a “shouting match” — a rarity in reserved Japan.
The executives did not give the order to begin venting until Saturday — more than 17 hours after the tsunami struck and 6 hours after the government order to vent.
,,,,
At Reactor No. 2, workers tried to manually open the safety valves, but pressure did not fall inside the reactor, making it unclear whether venting was successful, the records show. At Reactor No. 3, workers tried seven times to manually open the valve, but it kept closing, the records say.
The results of the failed venting were disastrous.
So lets get it right, the engineering mods are state of art, and don't work in a blackout. Manual attempts to open the vents were non-starters,
the Plant managers were screaming at each other, so were the government people,
In a previous diary i said Japanese Society was Disintegrating. Yep....
http://www.nytimes.com/...
Japan vowed Tuesday to stick to its goal of stabilizing a stricken nuclear power plant in as soon as six months, despite recently acknowledging that damage to the plant’s reactors might be worse than initially estimated
Tokyo Electric will also drape a large polystyrene cover around the severely damaged outer structure of Reactor 1 in an attempt to reduce radiation emissions, and to shield the building from summer typhoons.
Stabilizing the reactors would allow workers to start dismantling and decontaminating the site, a process which experts have said will take at least a decade. About 80,000 people who lived around the plant, 140 miles north of Tokyo, have fled their homes, while thousands of farmers and fishermen risk losing their livelihoods as contamination spreads from the plant.,,,,
A fourth reactor that was not operating at the time of the accident has also been wrecked. Tokyo Electric has suggested that hydrogen may have traveled there from an adjacent reactor through pipes and vents.
It took almost a year to get TMI stable and that was a much smaller event.
Here it's a factor of 7X worse, and they think they will get this stable in a year?
NFW.
and that Hydrogen got from Plant 3 to 4 via vents, is utter bilge.
If we had that we would see explosions in the secondary buildings.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
The lawsuits reveal a disturbing pattern in which operators underestimated or hid seismic dangers to avoid costly upgrades and keep operating. And the fact that virtually all these suits were unsuccessful reinforces the widespread belief in Japan that a culture of collusion supporting nuclear power, including the government, nuclear regulators and plant operators, extends to the courts as well.
,,,
They were largely ignored by the public. Harassment by neighbors, warnings by employers, and the reluctance of young Japanese to join antinuclear groups have diminished their numbers.
But since the disaster at Fukushima and especially the suspension of Hamaoka, the aging protesters are now heralded as truth-tellers, while members of the nuclear establishment are being demonized.
Mr. Madarame brushed away the possibility that two backup generators would fail simultaneously. He said that worrying about such possibilities would “make it impossible to ever build anything.” After the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, Mr. Madarame apologized for this earlier comment under questioning in Parliament. “As someone who promoted nuclear power, I am willing to apologize personally,” he said.
http://www.tepco.co.jp/...
the list above is the actual operating data from the plants.
Wow. The radiation charts on unit 1 are psycho.
I think the pressure shows the CV on 2 and 3 are in bad shape although 2 looks to be
holding 1 Atm.
the Temp on 3 is running away.
http://www.japantoday.com/...
Nearly 3,000 evacuees living in shelters in three of the northeastern Japan prefectures worst affected by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami have been taken to hospital by ambulance, according to a Kyodo News survey released Tuesday.
At least 2,816 evacuees suffering from stress and poor hygienic conditions were rushed to hospitals from shelters in coastal parts of the Pacific prefectures Iwate, Fukushima and Miyagi, the survey of 15 local fire departments showed.
taken by ambulance? that's a pretty hard way to move some people with
montezumas revenge. I'm going to opt that they are just getting radiation sickness
and the Japanese are covering this up. BTW, radiation sickness manifests as
intestinal distress. The lining of the colon sloughs off and you get the shits.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Only the mass media can put the kind of pressure on TEPCO and the Japanese government to bring about major change. This will cost at least 10 billion dollars if not 20-30 billion to clean up. It will take at least 10 years if not 20 and roughly 10,000 people working on the cleanup. The nuclear business is global. This needs an international effort to clean up Fukushima."
-- Nuclear Engineer Akira Tokuhiro
TEPCO speaks of 500 to 1,000 people involved with the cleanup, but Tokuhiro claims it will take ten times that amount."They need to tell people it will take at least 10, maybe 20 years, at least 10 if not 20, or even $30 billion and at least 10,000 people working on this, " he repeated, "This is the most important thing they must tell people. They must be honest with the evacuees."
[the truth of the accident was known within hours but held back and spun like mad.]
Until then, take care, stay informed and be proactive with your information gathering. If there is one thing we have learned form this, it is that it is not going to be the mainstream media which will be taking the lead on getting this information out there. We must ask ourselves, "Why?"
So tokohiru says we need 5-10,000 men working the cleanup. Funny, i've been saying for weeks they need an army of cleaners. 10,000 men is an army.
http://www.uidaho.edu/...
can anyone get a copy of Tokuhiro's presentation in Idaho? That would rock.
http://theenergycollective.com/...
1) Nuclear R&D institutions must consider alternatives to zirconium-based and zircaloy cladding so that chemical reactions that generate hydrogen is prevented. We (as an industry) need to accelerate development and deployment of non-hydrogren producing cladding materials; that is, assuming that the coolant/ moderator/ reflector remains (light) water.
2) Having multiple (reactor) units at one site, having more than two units on site needs critical review in terms of post-accident response and management. We must consider the energetic events at one unit exacerbating the situation (safe shutdown) at the other.
3) Further, there is a definite need for a backup (shielded) reactor plant control center that is offsite (remote) so that the accidents can be managed with partial to full extent of reactor plant status (P, T, flowrates, valve status, tank fluid levels, radiation levels).
4) There is a need for standby back-up power, via diesel generator and battery power, at a minimal elevation (100feet/31m) above and some distance from the plant (thus remotely located). This is needed to offset loss of off-site power for plants subject to environmental water ingress (foremost tsunami). Spare battery power should also be kept off-site and in a confirmed ‘charged’ state.
5) It is clear that the spent fuel pool (SFP) cannot be in proximity of the reactor core, reactor pressure vessel or containment itself. The SFP, in current form, is essentially an open volume subcritical assembly that is not subject to design requirements generally defining a reactor core.
Yet, unless thermohydraulic cooling is maintained, it is subject to the similar consequences as a reactor core without adequate cooling. Therefore, we need new passive designs of the SFP, away from the actual plant’s reactor core.
6) Thus needs to be a re-definition of the spent fuel pool. A new standard and design requirement is needed for the spent fuel pool. It should be ‘reclassified’ as a subcritical assembly with a potential to go critical with no active or passive control (rod or soluble ‘poison’) mechanism. Further it needs to be some distance from the reactor plant.
7) We need to identify key valves for emergency core cooling and require them to be non-electrically activated. Otherwise these valves need a secondary means of open and closed status that is remotely located.
8) If an ‘in-containment’ SFP is maintained, then the fuel transfer crane system must be designed so that it is available to remove the fuel during a post-accident phase. OR a second means such as a robotic arm needs to be available.
9) There needs to be a volumetric guidance analysis for ultimate (decay heat) cooling contingency plans so that not only limitations on volume are understood but also transfer of liquids from one volume to another.
Spare tanks and water-filled tanks need to be kept on site as uptake tanks for ‘runoff’ in case of addition of cooling during accident management phases. Spare means to produce boric acid needs to be available off-site. Earthquake-proof diesel generator housing also need to be water-proof. Remote diesel generators are also needed with access to equally remote diesel fuel tanks (also see 4).
10) For nuclear power plants located in or near earthquake zones, we cannot expect structural volumes and ‘channels’ to maintain structural integrity. We should also expect the immediate ground underneath these structures to be porous (earth). Thus design of these volumes and channels should be such that they minimize connections to other (adjacent) volumes from which contaminated (liquid) effluents can flow.
11) Color-code major components so that in case of an accident such as the Fukushima NPP accident, we will be able to quickly identify the major components from digital images.
12) An international alliance of nuclear reactor accident first responders and thereafter, a crisis management team is needed. This does not seem to be available at any significant level at this time. We (the global nuclear industry) cannot wait 3 weeks for international participation.
13) We should consider and work toward international agreement on standards for regulated levels of radiation (activity) and radiation exposure to the general public and separately, those under emergency and extended ‘recovery’ phases.
We should also be consistent in definition and practice of evacuation zoning. We should also strongly encourage acceptance and use of SI unit for activity and exposure and not use culturally-based numbering customs (in Japan, one counts in orders of (‘man’)104, (‘oku’)108, 1012 etc.)
14) Under emergency and crisis management, wider access roads are needed to and from NPPs. The access roads need to be clear of debris and of such width to accommodate large-scale trucks needed as first response and thereafter. A means to access the plant via water, such as ocean, calls for infrastructure (boats, water-containing barge, jet-skis etc) is needed as part of a contingency plan for those plants located near bodies of water.
I found this, but it's only 14 lessons.
http://www.zerohedge.com/...
yet another stunner to most, as nobody, nobody, could have possible predicted that the Japanese economy would literally fall off a cliff in Q1, plunging at a 3.7% rate (down from -3% previously), which is double the consensus print of -1.9%. DOUBLE. And in nominal terms the collapse was simply epic: -5.2%! And yes, this is officially a recession.
This is a big one folks. http://en.wikipedia.org/...
at the end of 2010 Japans Debt to GDP ratio was 225%. if GDP shrinks 5% nominally.
that ratio rises to 236% of GDP plus the Japanese are going to have to spend by
external opinions $100B cleaning up Fukushima, by my measure it could easily cost them a trillion. Now japan holds most of this debt internally, it's only 51% of GDP as foreign held, but, again that number rises by the decrease in GDP.
Japan has been fighting a generational Recession/Deflation which has just
put them in a miserable box, and their demographics have been killing them
as women marry later, have fewer kids. It's 1.2 kids per woman now which is way
below replacement rate, add in a wave of miscarriages and genetic mutation
and "Burukumin" or "Hibakusha" where the hibakusha of this generation are having to marry each other, thus concentrating the problems, we could see some real problems for japan for the next generation.
Stuck with the debts of their parents, stuck with a stagnant economy, stuck with
fewer marriage prospects, it could become just ugly. Japans GDP is 5 Trillion.
if cleaning up Fukushima costs them $100 Billion, it's another 2% burden.
If it costs them a trillion that's 20% and that will put them in the stratosphere
of Debt/GDP. The Japanese Baby boomers are starting to retire. Their first boomers are 65 now, every year those boomers will want pensions and to cash in their
national savings accounts. That's a big burden...
Unless they ask the elderly to take on the Fukushima clean up task.
charge in with brooms and buckets and have them clean up the site.
Sacrifice a million elderly for the good of the nation.
[Edited:Reduced quote from NYT article, I suggest you read the whole
article. reduced quote Huff Post]