Published: March 9th, 2013 at 12:22 pm ET
|
Title: Fukushima plant ‘set to collapse’ from another quake or tsunami
Source: The Australian
Authors: Rick Wallace and Tomohiko Suzuki
Date: March 9, 2013
[...] Several of the workers also said the plant’s No 1 reactor was critically damaged by the quake even before the tsunami hit – a revelation that, if proven, would torpedo Japan’s attempts to swiftly restart its 50 stalled nuclear reactors. [...]
Mr Watanabe said although TEPCO was denying it, he had to admit the plant was damaged by the quake.
“If you ask me officially, it was the tsunami. But as an engineer and someone with a conscience, I can say there’s no doubt the reactors were damaged by the quake,” he said.
Another worker, who was on site when the quake struck, Kazuki Sasaki, said he could see white smoke pouring out of reactor No 1 well before the tsunami arrived. [...]
Japan’s nuclear industry is desperate to avoid admitting the quake crippled the reactor as it would necessitate tough new measures to strengthen the remaining plants. [...]
Watch: Fukushima Daiichi smoking before tsunami hit? (AUDIO & VIDEO)
Published: March 9th, 2013 at 12:22 pm ET
|
sending...
Via Nuckelchen..March 14 2012
2011/3/11 tsunami-impact-video tepco fukushima daiichi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jlONo6kj10
Nichts hat uneledigt verlassen..mein Freund.
Report Comment
You can not design a reactor to withstand earthquakes of magnitude 7 or higher, by your own design but you continue to operate them in areas were such events are probable and you play a game of probability much like Russian roulette, not right.
How do you get away with storing spent fuel in SFP right next to a nuclear reactor, to me that is completely ludicrous, you do not store explosives next to production, as general bradley sais NUTS and into the bargin it is in a uncontained building, we're is the logic, we're did it go, is it stored in the torus?
CRAP.
Report Comment
“’One worker, a maintenance engineer in his late twenties who was at the Fukushima complex on March 11, recalls hissing and leaking pipes. “I personally saw pipes that came apart and I assume that there were many more that had been broken throughout the plant. There’s no doubt that the earthquake did a lot of damage inside the plant,” he said. There were definitely leaking pipes, but we don’t know which pipes ¬ that has to be investigated. I also saw that part of the wall of the turbine building for Unit 1 had come away. That crack might have affected the reactor ” ‘ (15).
“In addition to the accumulation of evidence that the earthquake itself was a primary cause of the meltdowns (16; 17)–something the industry does not want to admit–there are other inherent flaws in the way nuclear power plants are built and operate. Gundersen points out that the service pumps failed because they were flooded by the tidal wave on 311. These pumps send water from the ocean to cool the back up diesel generators (18). Gundersen (at 19:00 mark in audio): ‘There could have been 14 meltdowns and not three. If you look at the data, there were six units at Fukushima Daiichi [power station no. 1], there are four at Fukushima Daini [station no. 2], three at Onagawa and one at Tokai. The net affect is that there were 37 diesel generators between those plants. 24 of those diesels were knocked out by the tsunami. You need the diesels to cool the plant.’
Report Comment
[cont.]
This occurred because at FNPP no. 1 the tsunami flooded the actual diesel generators, but at the other plants the “tsunami knocked out the cooling water to the diesels, something called service water. So, Japan narrowly missed 14 meltdowns and not three because the cooling water to 24 of the 37 diesels was destroyed.’
“This bears repetition: JAPAN NARROWLY MISSED 14 NUCLEAR MELTDOWNS
“Furthermore, it was sheer luck that there were not eight meltdowns, for another totally different, random, reason: ‘The plant manager at Fukushima Daini, which is six miles away from Daiichi, is quoted as saying that if the tidal wave happened on a Saturday his four units would have melted down too. He had a thousand people on site because it was a Friday, but if it happened on a weekend there would have been a skeleton crew there. The roads had been destroyed so nobody could have gotten in to help, and we would have had Fukushima Daiichi and Daini in meltdown conditions. What happened was almost unimaginably unimaginable.’
“To repeat: had the earthquake happened on a Saturday or Sunday there would have been eight instead of merely three meltdowns– you can’t make this stuff up, folks….”
http://rense.com/general95/fuknucl.html
Report Comment
Owe what a tangled web we weave and into the bargin the web is being corrupted by radiation, mankind out off control, he has lost his or hers grip on reality, shame we had such great potential.
Report Comment
I will play devil's advocate here and ask if anybody knows what the magnitude of the earthquake was to the reactor as I thought I read that the epicenter was off shore. It's a moot point as they had no business putting anything that potentially dangerous in that seismic environment. It's very surreal and criminal that fifty some odd reactors would be placed with that much seismic activity but any location always has something. My biggest fear would be an EMP being detonated over the U.S. and all our nuclear plants doing a "Fukushima".
Ruppert
Report Comment
Earthquake Details
• This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.
Magnitude
9.0
Date-Time
• Friday, March 11, 2011 at 05:46:24 UTC
• Friday, March 11, 2011 at 02:46:24 PM at epicenter
• Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
Location
38.297°N, 142.372°E
Depth
30 km (18.6 miles) set by location program
Region
NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
Distances
129 km (80 miles) E of Sendai, Honshu, Japan
177 km (109 miles) E of Yamagata, Honshu, Japan
177 km (109 miles) ENE of Fukushima, Honshu, Japan
373 km (231 miles) NE of TOKYO, Japan
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/usc0001xgp.php
Report Comment
excellent thoughts ruppert. I think the rational was based on localized construction of the facility, relative to serviced population and rarely (if ever) on the safety of the populace. What remained outside the scope of their slide rule economics was projected worse-case losses. What seems surreal and criminal is the emerging reality that these people made these decisions (and continue to do so) knowing little of the realities of our natural world. You could liken the mindset as being that of a high-altitude bombardier; seeing the target only (project criteria) and disregarding the real-world consequences of the payload release button…
Report Comment
Unit #3 had already reached the age to be decommissioned. Not only did they extend the license, they added MOX fuel to a reactor which had never been built for MOX fuel. And they had falsified many, many safety reports over the years.
Also it was built on porous sandstone, not bedrock. The demise of Fukushima had been predicted for years.
Report Comment
Engineers Knew Fukushima Might Be Unsafe, But Covered It Up …
And Now the Extreme Vulnerabilty of NEW U.S. Plants Is Being Covered Up
“Preface: The current nuclear reactor design was chosen – not because it was safe – but because it worked on navy submarines. And governments have been covering up nuclear meltdowns for 50 years.
“BBC reporter Greg Palast reports – based on a first-hand interview of a senior engineer for the corporation which built the Fukushima nuclear plants, and a review of engineers’ field diaries – that the engineers who built the Fukushima nuclear plants knew their design would fail in an earthquake:
“The plant was riddled with problems that, no way on earth, could stand an earth- quake. The team of engineers sent in to inspect found that most of these components could ‘completely and utterly fail’ during an earthquake….”
http://www.globalresearch.ca/engineers-knew-fukushima-might-be-unsafe-but-covered-it-up/27624
Report Comment
A detailed list of the people most responsible for the disaster that is Fukushima:
http://www.ge.com/company/leadership/past-leaders
Immelt is only the latest in a long line of GE CEO's.
Report Comment
The problem of nuclear is so much bigger than one company. GE had nothing to do with Chernobyl. The US developed the atmoic bomb in response to the research being done in Germany and Japan at the time, and the Russians in response to everyone else. The governments of all those countries were responsible. Dupont was the contractor for the Hanford site. The University of Chicago and Lawrence Livermore laboratories, and Oak Ridge and Los Alamos. The governments were responsible and they supported the scientists because during WWII the whole world was at war. The US was attacked by both Germany and Japan. And the atomic bomb was developed to defend the US against a bomb being developed both in Germany and Japan. Westinhouse built some of the early reactors and is now owned by Toshiba. Both reactors in units #3 and 4 at Fukushima was built by the Japanese. GE isn't blameless, but there is the whole MIC in many different companies who wanted nuclear energy. GE's division is now GE-Hitachi, and in Japan, Hitachi-GE. The people in the 40s and 50s are mostly, if not entirely, dead. The failed safety inspections in Japan are Japan's fault. The push to build more reactors in the world by the Chinese, Japanese, and Russians are all their fault. GE has never built a Russian reactor. The Chinese now build all their own reactors. The Japanese have a huge scientific literature by Japanese scientists on nuclear energy.
Report Comment
I'm sure that they are not giving anyone any credit for their research.
Monju is a failure wholly engineered by the Japanese.
If a GE reactor melts down in the US, this will be the responsibility for everyone who did not work to decommission these plants.
The Santa Susanna meltdown is the responsibility of Rockwell International.
Report Comment
The NRC and the earlier Atomic Energy Commission will be responsible for any accidents. Since these people are appointed by the US government, those who vote for their US governments will also be responsible.
GE has nothing to do with French reactors and all their mistakes.
Report Comment
TYPO; The MIC in many different countries…
Report Comment
"The SL-1, or Stationary Low-Power Reactor Number One, was a United States Army experimental nuclear power reactor which underwent a steam explosion and meltdown on January 3, 1961, killing its three operators. The direct cause was the improper withdrawal of the central control rod, responsible for absorbing neutrons in the reactor .core…."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1
1961 Nuclear Reactor Meltdown : The SL-1 Accident – United States Army Docu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAKcWM-yBkI
Report Comment
GE had nothing to do with Three Mile Island.
Architect(s) Unit 1: Gilbert Associates
Unit 2: Burns & Roe
Constructor(s) United Engineers and Constructors
Reactor information
Reactor type(s) PWR
Reactor supplier(s) Babcock & Wilcox
Report Comment
How about the Savannah River site? Westinghouse is owned by the Toshiba. AREVA is owned by the French:
"2003: In January, Westinghouse Savannah River Company completed transferring the last of F Canyon’s radioactive material to H Tank Farm. DWPF began radioactive operations with its second melter, installed during a shutdown. The last depleted uranium metal was shipped from M Area for disposition at Envirocare of Utah….
"Work continued on design of the MOX fuel fabrication facility by a company now known as Shaw AREVA MOX Services….”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savannah_River_Site
Report Comment
thank you Anne for your dogged research … … now, I believe we are getting somewhere …
whom are we protecting with our ignorance and gullibility … and vulnerability to radiation …
who was it inside GE in the 50's … the sixties … the seventies … who just smiled and said to their detractors … "This nuclear thing … we're just gonna' push it through …. "
why does no one step up from GE to admit the obvious …
are they going to have a Gallileo moment?
peace …
Report Comment
Japan's Fukushima long ranked most hazardous plant
“It ranked as one of the most dangerous plants in the world for radiation exposure years before it was destroyed by meltdowns and explosions…. ”
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/energy/stories/japans-fukushima-long-ranked-most-hazardous-plant
Report Comment
Yep or a Carrington event could have nearly the same effect, and its "all natural"
http://nukeprofessional.blogspot.com/p/carrington-event-and-astronomy.html
Report Comment
+100
Report Comment
Every time a few dozen people are murdered by firearms there is a public out cry, but these bastards are killing millions and hardly a peep.
Report Comment
its invisible! The perfect poison
Report Comment
"One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic."
– Joseph Stalin
Report Comment
funny your having put this up, TIS. I was pondering this very quote, over the morning's news…
Report Comment
Reactors blow and melt for all sorts of reasons: human error, design flaws, quakes, etc. It can happen anytime, as proven by Three Mile island, Chernobyl, San Onofre, Fukushima, and others.
Proof that man cannot reliably control nuclear fission.
Report Comment
Fatal Fallout; Dr Gary Null Exposes Dangers Of Nuclear Power; via A Green Road
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2013/02/fatal-fallout-dr-gary-null-exposes.html
Lists of 100+ Worst Nuclear Disasters And Radioactivity Release Incidents; via A Green Road
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2012/04/lists-of-nuclear-disasters-and.html
Report Comment