Published: July 3rd, 2012 at 7:49 am ET
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Subscription Only: Report on Nuclear Disaster Holds Key to Japan Reactors’ Fate
Wall Street Journal
By MITSURU OBE
July 2, 2012
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Fumiya Tanabe, a former senior researcher at the government’s Japan Atomic Energy Agency [...] conducting his own analysis of data released by the government and Tepco, concluded that reactor No. 2′s cooling facility, called a suppression chamber, was likely seriously damaged by the earthquake, possibly releasing radioactive substances. If that were the case, all other reactors of similar design—11 of which are still in use in Japan— “would come under close scrutiny,” Mr. Tanabe said.
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“The containment is divided into the drywell containing the reactor vessel and the wetwell (torus) containing the suppression pool” -NRC
Published: July 3rd, 2012 at 7:49 am ET
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sending...
No way! *gasp* Serious damage to the containment? I can't imagine how that happened! We already know the fuel is somewhere deep underground, but why would anyone think the containment was damaged?! /end sarcasm
I seriously doubt there will be any "scrutiny" of other reactors of the same design by anyone other than the good people of enenews. We all know that the idiots who supposedly inspect them will not bother to report any vulnerabilities. I feel like I have a front row seat watching the destruction of this planet. I always knew, deep down, that we would eventually destroy ourselves with our arrogance and greed.
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Quite right Ariana!
It is fascinating how we seem to need nuclear experts who I assume are rather highly payed in order to tell us something we knew a long time ago.
Truth will out, truth comes out no matter what and no expert is expert enough these days to wind back the growing awareness. I have the words still in my mind where it got pointed out that having control rods mounted on the bottom of a reactor is a design fault in itself as it will give a melted core almost no resistance in escaping through the gaps. A containment breach equals a containment damage – non?
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The important point here is that the containment was damaged by the earthquake itself, before the meltdown due to lack of cooling. They have been trying to blame everything on the tsunami because it was "such an unpredictable event". If the quake itself damaged the containment before the tsunami hit then that is even more damaging to the reputation of nuclear power, and implies that every other NPP containment on the planet is vulnerable to earthquakes.
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The most central part of a nuke plant. If that itself was broken by the earthquake, that indicates the mal-calculations are bigger than already supposed.
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What do they mean by close scrutiny? The type of reactor has got an inadequate suppression system with a vent that fails when there is an emergency. The type of reactor has blowing up several times… time to decommission that type of reactor, then every other one as well… time to admit that its not viable to run atomic power stations.
I remember saying in 1984 that it would be only a matter of time until we see the first reactor blow up. Sadly, I only had to wait for 2 years and now? Stop the lunacy now!
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@snowwy, we will see more elderly reactors being used as if they were in their prime time…
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Who cares about containment once the corium has left the building?
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Either they are lunatics, or they think we are.
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the safety myth is a great tool to keep the nuke industry alive! and keep us all believing it does no harm!!
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They are lunatics who consider us stupid.
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Exactly BandB, exactly…..
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Interesting film : http://acedmagazine.com/into-eternity-a-nuclear-cemetery/
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Politicians who aided and abetted the nuclear industry will not escape the guilty verdict of history.
Arrogant humans who think they can contain the power of mother nature are sorely mistaken. Mother nature can crack twenty foot concrete walls like butter and split seams in steel vessels far more efficiently than a terrorist action. True they can blow up an Iranian plant with more devastating local results or even destroy all human life on earth in a nuclear war.
But earth will remain barely scratched for other life forms. We are like ants on this globe and our survival is so fragile that opening Pandora's nuclear box could be our fatal mistake.
I hope this natural accident will be the Terminator for the entire industry over the next two decades. It only has to spur development and transition to safe forms of energy to prove nuclear energy is too expensive to meter. Bankers and dictators will kill the industry, not 100 million deaths to radiation.
Eventually the Japanese will be hailed as martyrs for the Fallout Age, but for now their cancers and deaths will be disregarded as a blip in statistics and panicked "stressful"'humans.
I guess they think birds and insects are also hypochondriacs. Think happy thoughts little birdies! Big Brother is worried about your mental health!
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Mikhail Gorbachev wants the UN to set up an environmental court.
Personally, I am mild enough about justice that I oppose the death penalty, but I do see the greed-motivated gamble of other people's lives as one crime against humanity, and the greed-motivated gamble of the quality of the environment as another.
Perhaps the heads of the utilities should be given a choice: close them down or life growing hay in a penal farm.
By the way, I just posted an article outlining my expectations on the future of power generation at my blog:
http://geoharvey.wordpress.com/as-i-see-it-the-future-of-electricity-generation/
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Sickputer "Nuclear energy too expensive to meter"
Not a joking matter but thanks for making me laugh!
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Their was radiation detected at front gate before tsunami, it does not take a nuclear scientist to figure out that their was already massive problems at plant
, these type of reactors are of poor design and have many weak points and Japan is prone to large earthquakes, any educated person would come to the conclusion that they should be shut down as they are unsafe and not suited to Areas of high magnitude earthquakes like Japan or anywhere else.
these machines will be the deaths of us all.
What happens if we have a massive solar flair like in the 1700,s, every transformer in world will blow up no power to our homes and every nuclear plant on the plant in melt down, as they will loose power and will not be able to cool reactors or SFP, that will be the end of life on this plant not just human
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Here is the issue that really pisses me off: This debate between whether the damage happened before or after the tsunami is just a ploy to keep us busy arguing about that while we should be unleashing all kinds of hell because people are being slowly poisoned. That is what the media/government does. They say "Hey, look over here! (while we're busy f-ing everything up)"
Yes, I believe it is really important to get the word out that these reactors are NOT safe during an earthquake, I also believe that we are being mentally "herded" into thinking about this instead of the REAL issue! We all KNOW already that the reactors can't withstand quake damage. We've known for a while now. Soon, they will need to find another debate to keep us all busy while they destroy the Earth.
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With fuel spreading underground, there's nothing they can do, right?
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They can lie and tell everyone it is in cold shutdown…..
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