Published: June 6th, 2012 at 8:53 am ET
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TEPCO resumes cooling of Fukushima fuel pool
NHK
Jun. 6, 2012 – Updated 10:52 UTC (19:52 JST)
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The pump at the Number 4 reactor building pool stopped working on Monday night after becoming burnt.
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Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, used a backup pump, but on Tuesday, it also broke.
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TEPCO says the pool’s temperature at 11 AM on Wednesday was 40 degrees Celsius, up six degrees from a day before. As of 5 PM, the temperature had risen to 42 degrees.
TEPCO expects the temperature to fall by about 10 degrees over next 12 to 24 hours.
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But experts say they’re worried about the pool’s anti-earthquake resistance despite ongoing reinforcement
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From yesterday: Tepco: 'Burnt area' on Spent Fuel Pool No. 4 secondary cooling pump (PHOTOS)
Published: June 6th, 2012 at 8:53 am ET
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sending...
oh shit!
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Chewing gum and bailing wire. Are they still trying to use the Stuxnet-infected computer contols to operate this pump? Has sabotage been ruled out?
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Excellent question, Philipupnorth!
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There were reports here on ENEnews that traced the dewatering of SFP4 in March of 2011 to a leaking pump. A temporary pump was installed below SFP4 to help remove excess heat. The permanent pump for SFP4 was having trouble keeping up with the extra heating required by the addition of the hot fuel load removed from Reactor4 in November of 2010, when it was taken out of service. That was a problem on the pump side. Now they seem to be having problems on the electric motor side. Is this still the temporary pump?
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before the days of seat-belts in cars, I remember how mom used to hold her arm out-across us kids, to keep us from tumbling into the dashboard when traffic got threatening. Given the reality of high-velocity physics, hers was a loving but naive gesture. I can see her in the distance, holding us back from the inevitable horrors that await us all. I fear her arm's becoming tired. Venus transits, in a close – but rare – passage to the Sun. To all those who are with us and those who remain behind the scenes, I send my love. Be strong and honor the dream of life…
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99% of mothers… women .. children.. men.. our loved ones and friends… still need to know and be told … all visiting ENE please share the current and on going dangers of Fukushima, the jet stream and protocols with them TODAY
http://realitycheck.no-ip.info/forum/index.php/board,24.0.html
Women, children and nuclear radiation exposure
http://realitycheck.no-ip.info/forum/index.php?topic=9.msg27#msg27
Representatives local, state and fed ..and their families..NOT to be spared
http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml
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The SFP4 primary cooling pump is reported to be the one that failed, according to reports on Fukushima Diary. http://fukushima-diary.com/2012/06/reactor4-takes-3-more-days-to-fix-backup-was-stopped-too/ (However, there seem to be contradictory reports. http://enenews.com/tepco-burnt-area-spent-fuel-pool-4-cooling-pump-photos).
Anyway, when they checked the wiring of the secondary pump, they found the same insulation problem, and so they took both pumps down for repairs. Repairs should take no more then 3 days.
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good info philipupnorth…
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Are you saying unit 4 will be without a water pump for 3 days? Is Tepco using an additional backup pump right now? Tepco is saying they expect the temp to fall but are not saying how that will be accomplished.
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Just as I thought. These children have no right to build and opperate these planet killers. These pumps are fairly expensive but not so that you couldn't have a couple dozen waiting in the wings for backup. This should not be a big deal except someone there is not doing his job properly. A union electrician came on yesterday and posted that the wireing was fine and could find no fault with it. I have had machines burn to the ground because of this type of wiring problem. If it wasn't poor wireing then what made these two pumps fail? Was it sabotage. If they can't wire a couple simple pumps properly then how did they get away with runing a nuclear power plant?
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Posting this on this thread as well..
Fukushima This is likely to kill you? Reactor No. 4 – Humanity's time bomb.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTaemBSTVXA
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water pumps are complex, expensive, rare pieces of equipment that require long lead times when ordering replacements. yes, water pumps sold at walmart would work,,,but those arent certified for meltdowns.
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jerry rigged cooling systems are a catastrophic
variable.
not to have back up for the back ups is criminal
negligence.
is this radiation induced dementia.
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They did have a back up which is also broken. What a mess.
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Indeed. I would have expected them to have a redundancy level of at least 4 rock-solid pumps/water feeds for such a beyond-crucial mission (except for cases where there possibly is very considerable trouble in getting all this infrastructure fed in parallel and up and running). And yet another entirely different level of redundancy for the ultimately critical CSFP.
Nice to know that they have a total reliability achievement of 2 (TWO!!) pumps for SFP #4, two of which achieved the feat of failing within a day of each other.
Goodbye world, nice knowing you. This is all that's left to say.
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Sam – They will tell you it's good business…….
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Any electrician types want to take a stab at this please do.
The main pump fails, then the backup pump burns itself out. My question is, how hot would the water in the pool have to be to make those pumps run that hard. TIA
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