Fukushima still melting down, still a nuclear disaster

[Gedd]

@FXMastermind

At the time I was quite unaware of the seriousness and dangers that were actually looming. The press, despite the lies about there being fearmongering, actually never spelled out the worst case scenarios, and that is a good thing. The worst case actually is something people don’t want to think about.

In one nightmare simulation presented by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2009, it would take less than a day for radiation to escape from a reactor at a Pennsylvania nuclear power plant after an earthquake, flood or fire knocked out all electrical power and there was no way to keep the reactors cool after backup battery power ran out.

I just talked to a friend who worked as a technician at a nuclear power plant. Their backup batteries, which she tested every year, could only run the emergency systems for about a day!

However, the purpose of the batteries was to run everything for the seven seconds it took the eight diesel generators to start up. They have enough fuel on site to run for four weeks. When they do have floods,they have walls.

My friend describes the NRC as a bunch of rabid pitbulls, and points to their safety regulations as the reason nuclear power is so expensive and hard to build in the US.

[FXMastermind]

@Gedd

When they do have floods,they have walls.

That’s funny that you used the flooded Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant as an example.

When the emergency barrier keeping the floodwaters out of the plant was breached (by human error) in 2011, and the plant was flooded, and had a fire, and they had to flood the containment building, to keep the spent fuel rods from overheating, because they lost cooling, due to the water, and the fire, in the middle of the flood, and the plant has been shut down since then, it’s hilarious.

Why? Because the reactor was shut down at the time, the crisis there was the spent fuel, not the reactor. the “accident” was caused by flooding, it involved “unforeseen” conditions, the emergency barrier failed, the plant was flooded, it did lose generator power, it did have a fire in the electrical switching room, and at that special moment in the middle of flooding, they filled the containment dome with water to prevent the spent fuel pond from overheating.

The image you used, if you actually look at it, shows flooded buildings and areas where the emergency berm failed. The only thing keeping the water out in that photo is the dark water filled emergency berms, a last ditch effort to prevent the plant from being entirely flooded.

Like I have said, this mindset that just can’t see a problem, is dangerous. Especially when the people running nuclear plants have this blind side to real dangers.

Like the people who actually think the Fukushima plant had tsunami wall. (it didn’t, it still doesn’t)

They actually can’t grasp reality, because it would mean they might have to change their mind about something they believe in.

[FXMastermind]

For anyone who actually cares about facts, and reality, you can see the problem at Fukushima with the tsunami, including a diagram showing the ocean, and the plant, and why there wasn’t even a small tsunami wall in place.

handouts_131007_03-j.pdf

The text is about the timing of the tsunami, not the seawall or breakwaters, which you can see in the photos. Larger ones here.

handouts_131007_04-j.pdf

[XT]

So, this picture here of waves crashing over the sea wall are actually showing…what? Or, wait…is this another instance of no anti-nuclear groups, but instead ‘forces against all things nuclear’??

[FXMastermind]

Here is a view of the breakwaters and seawall.

here is a closer view

It’s obvious there was no tsunami wall,much less gates to be closed, or any protection for the cooling water intakes and outflows.

[FXMastermind]

@XT

So, this picture here of waves crashing over the sea wall

Look at the overhead views, or the diagrams from the Tepco documents. The breakwaters and seawall, the structures that were there, or are there (for the most part), are not designed to stop a tsunami. There is no barrier at all. The plant’s elevation was the only “defense” against a tsunami. There was, and still is, no tsunami wall.

[FXMastermind]

For the casual reader (and my God, why? Why are you reading this?) A tsunami wall includes gates, for traffic to go through them. Or for boats to unload on the docks there. Some sort of barrier that is complete, not a breakwater to dampen waves, or a seawall that only protect the dock area (and was no where near high enough to stop a tsunami, even if it had been all the way along the water)

Here is another Japanese nuclear plant that had no tsunami wall. They are building one now.
http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/000/498/cache/japan-nuclear-power-plants-shutting-down-tsunami-wall-hamaoka_49861_600x450.jpg

[FXMastermind]

For the intelligent reader, who has viewed the Tepco diagrams, looked at the images (taken of actual real things), and is realizing “Huh, yeah, there is no tsunami wall at all there”, don’t feel bad. It’s just one more lie that has been spread about the Fukushima plant.

You now get to laugh at the nuclear lovers who will insist from here to eternity that there WAS a wall, just not high enough. You can now laugh at them, just like I do.

Internets, serious business.

[GIGObuster]

@FXMastermind

For the casual reader (and my God, why? Why are you reading this?) A tsunami wall includes gates, for traffic to go through them. Or for boats to unload on the docks there. Some sort of barrier that is complete, not a breakwater to dampen waves, or a seawall that only protect the dock area (and was no where near high enough to stop a tsunami, even if it had been all the way along the water)

What traffic was supposed to go between a nuclear plant and the ocean? The point here is that the distinction you are trying to make is idiotic. There was a tsunami wall, inadequate for the incident, but it was there as even critics of the ones handling the incident report.

The casual reader should notice that the first cite I used to report that there was tsunami wall came from critics of the ones handling the incident, so I guess FX does not mind trowing any allies under the bus to keep going.

In the meantime other more reliable sources still report that there was a tsunami wall.

http://www.kpbs.org/audioclips/13772/

VANCHO: Well, I think the first thing, it’s important for your listeners to understand that Fukushima, and that disaster resulted from a beyond design based accident. And what I mean by that is that the plant was very well-positioned to with stand a 9.0 magnitude earthquake that shook the station and the surrounding country. So the plant’s backup systems went into place, and the backup systems are necessary to keep the reactor core cool when the plant has to go offline. And so their systems, and there was a series of redundant backup systems, batteries, all the electronics in place to do that the. But the beyond design base part occurred when a 50-foot tsunami hit the plant, and they only built a 20-foot tsunami wall.

[GIGObuster]

@FXMastermind

For the intelligent reader, who has viewed the Tepco diagrams, looked at the images (taken of actual real things), and is realizing “Huh, yeah, there is no tsunami wall at all there”, don’t feel bad. It’s just one more lie that has been spread about the Fukushima plant.

You now get to laugh at the nuclear lovers who will insist from here to eternity that there WAS a wall, just not high enough. You can now laugh at them, just like I do.

Internets, serious business.

As even the scientists from the league of concerned scientists reported, there was. Perhaps it is just semantics that are causing him to be stuck on denying the wall, but when a sea wall is mentioned in the context to deal with an expected level of a tsunami concentrating on whereas it has gates or not is just dumb.

So yeah, the internet is serious business, expect for the hacks that even defend their ignorance and do not even mind throwing even allies under the bus. The sad thing is that acknowledging this point does not detract much from the overall conclusions.

[Gedd]

@FXMastermind

That’s funny that you used the flooded Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant as an example.

When the emergency barrier keeping the floodwaters out of the plant was breached (by human error) in 2011, and the plant was flooded, and had a fire, and they had to flood the containment building, to keep the spent fuel rods from overheating, because they lost cooling, due to the water, and the fire, in the middle of the flood, and the plant has been shut down since then, it’s hilarious.

Why? Because the reactor was shut down at the time, the crisis there was the spent fuel, not the reactor. the “accident” was caused by flooding, it involved “unforeseen” conditions, the emergency barrier failed, the plant was flooded, it did lose generator power, it did have a fire in the electrical switching room, and at that special moment in the middle of flooding, they filled the containment dome with water to prevent the spent fuel pond from overheating.

That sounds quite different from this:

On June 7, 2011, an electrical component in a switch gear room caused a small fire with Halon extinguisher activation which forced a partial evacuation.[26] The fire was no longer burning when the on site fire brigade arrived and according to officials, the public was never in any danger. The fire impacted pumping of coolant water through the spent fuel pool. Cooling was interrupted for 90 minutes while the estimated time for the pool to reach boiling temperature was over 88 hours.

The plant was already shut down at the time for refuling. The flooding that did occur was when the barrier was punctured by human error (someone hit it with a Bobcat). It wasn’t due to design flaw, poor planning, or even (the classic boogeyman) radiation and power was not lost.

[XT]

@FXMastermind

Here is a view of the breakwaters and seawall.

here is a closer view

It’s obvious there was no tsunami wall,much less gates to be closed, or any protection for the cooling water intakes and outflows.

This may be obvious to you, but then you are an idiot so that doesn’t say much. What your little blurb here says to me is that we are back to anti-nuclear group verse ‘forces against all things nuclear’, since you acknowledge that there was a sea wall here…but that it wasn’t a ‘tsunami wall’, whatever that means to you. I mean, I couldn’t give myself better straight lines if I were writing your posts to dig out the comedy gold. And the best part is you think you are making good points in these discussions, while in fact you are making yourself look like a fool to everyone but perhaps the OP and a few others who seem to have abandoned you to your fate at this point, since it looks like they have fled the thread.

[levdrakon]

The argument is whether a sea wall is the same as a tidal wave wall. What **FX **is trying to point out I think, is that in terms of design and function what Fukushima had was a casual sea wall designed to deflect normal waves and storm surges, but not designed specifically to stop a large tidal wave, as the Fudai sea wall was.

What we can see here, is that the sea wall protecting Fudai was definitely more substantial than the more routine sea wall in Fukushima.

Geographically, Fudai is a valley coastal town settled between two mountains which made the design and scope of the sea wall there a little easier than the same thing around Japan’s other coastal nuke plants.

But let’s not forget Yanosuke Hirai, the hero responsible for bucking the system and insisting on a sea wall big enough to withstand tsunamis well recorded in Japanese history.

According to a retired civil engineer I interviewed in March, there’s one man to thank for averting a catastrophe worse than Fukushima, which spewed radiation across an area where 100,000 people still can’t return home.

He is Yanosuke Hirai, who died 26 years ago, too soon to witness the disaster and too early to become a national hero. But the story of this tenacious man is inspiring, especially because he bucked convention in a society known for pounding the nail that sticks up. Hirai’s example transcends the nuclear arena, where Japanese regulators coddled powerful companies, to offer lessons on corporate excesses and safety problems everywhere…

Hirai said the plant should be built almost 50 feet above sea level. He called for a unique cooling system that would provide water even if a receding tsunami temporarily left the plant high and dry. And Hirai said the plant should be protected by a seawall 49 feet high, not 10 feet as originally designed…

“Matsunaga-san hated bureaucrats,” Oshima said. "He said they are like human trash. In your country, too, there are probably bureaucrats or officials who never take final responsibility.

“So Matsunaga’s attitude was that you’ve got to go beyond the regulations,” Oshima said. “If you just follow the regulations, you end up with what happened at Fukushima Dai-ichi. That’s what Matsunaga told Hirai, and Hirai taught me.”

[FXMastermind]

And here comes the clown parade.

@GIGObuster

What traffic was supposed to go between a nuclear plant and the ocean?

Oh internets, so full of uninformed people, who want to be thought of us as experts, smart people, and then, they ask a question like that. Hilarious.

Here’s some footage of the breakwater being built, including a completed shot. It’s the breakwater that some idiots are calling a tsunami barrier. (hint, it’s not)

Fukushima Nuclear Power (English Sub) P1

@GIGObuster

The point here is that the distinction you are trying to make is idiotic.

No, the point you are making, is how stupid you truly are. Never stop being you man, never stop.

@GIGObuster

There was a tsunami wall, inadequate for the incident, but it was there as even critics of the ones handling the incident report.

No, there was no tsunami wall, nor is there one yet. Here is some scientific shit about the “wave” heights measured along the coast there.

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201202090049

It’s funny because it seems obvious why people are so confused about the “wall” that was breached at Fukushima. Like this image from a blog. Tsunami wall http://wagengineering.blogspot.com/2011/03/nukes-black-swan-events-and-wind.html

They are confusing the breakwater and sea wall protecting the intakes and dock area, with a tsunami wall. Note how easy it is to see this on the Google earth images I linked to. It’s not even a complete “wall”, as you can see with ease. Just as the breakwater is not a complete wall, the opening is for ships to enter the port.

Note the elevation of the plant itself, from the Tepco documents.

And the complete lack of a tsunami barrier as well. I know, it’s hard to believe, but there really was no tsunami barrier at all there. Look at the Google images, you can see that even if the sea wall was 60 feet high, it wouldn’t have mattered at all.

It only protects the dock area, it does not extend all the way from the cliffs on the south, to the heights on the north. I would draw you a picture, but you know in your heart, it won’t matter.

I can’t really blame anyone on this, because it’s a difficult subject. The breakwaters and docks were built first. (see construction video I linked to above)

This is because the construction materials, the concrete, cranes, reactors, turbines, pretty much all the heavy loads are delivered by ships. Like the one you see fleeing to the open sea before the tsunami. (it’s in the pictures Tepco has in the documents I linked to)

The water intakes have to be open to the ocean, which is why the sea wall, confused for a tsunami barrier, isn’t closed. But, lets face it, the level of understanding it takes to follow this is probably way beyond the gigogallopers of the world.

[FXMastermind]

@levdrakon

The argument is whether a sea wall is the same as a tidal wave wall. What **FX **is trying to point out I think, is that in terms of design and function what Fukushima had was a casual sea wall designed to deflect normal waves and storm surges, but not designed specifically to stop a large tidal wave, as the Fudai sea wall was.

Bingo! You got it, and your grasp of things gives hope for a real discussion. Thank you.

I mean it.

[GIGObuster]

@FXMastermind

And here comes the clown parade.

Oh internets, so full of uninformed people, who want to be thought of us as experts, smart people, and then, they ask a question like that. Hilarious.

Here’s some footage of the breakwater being built, including a completed shot. It’s the breakwater that some idiots are calling a tsunami barrier. (hint, it’s not)

Sure, calling the league of concerned scientists and even the opponents of nuclear power that still call it a tsunami wall idiots will work wonders to get more support.

[XT]

[QUOTE=levdrakon]
The argument is whether a sea wall is the same as a tidal wave wall. What FX is trying to point out I think, is that in terms of design and function what Fukushima had was a casual sea wall designed to deflect normal waves and storm surges, but not designed specifically to stop a large tidal wave, as the Fudai sea wall was.
[/QUOTE]

That does not seem to be what FX is saying, no. He is claiming there was no sea wall, when clearly there was. It wasn’t a ‘casual sea wall’ either, it was designed to meet the regulations of the time (as your own cite clearly shows). From memory, it was designed in anticipation of waves around 20 feet in height, instead they got a 50 foot tsunami. In hindsight, yes, the sea wall SHOULD have been higher and more robust than it was (and the backup power should have been better situated regardless), but FX is insisting that there was no sea wall.

What we can see here, is that the sea wall protecting Fudai was definitely more substantial than the more routine sea wall in Fukushima.

Sure, and to get that done the guy who did it had to buck the system and was pretty much criticized for wasting the public’s funds to do it. There is actually a blurb about this as well in the Wiki article on Fukushima IIRC, since I’ve seen it before and remember the story. The point here though is that Fukushima was designed and built to an older standard that has proven inadequate given later events, but that it DID have safety equipment and plans for emergencies, including a sea wall to protect against the threats that the planners THOUGHT were probable for it to encounter during it’s life time.

[XT]

[QUOTE=FXMastermind]
And here comes the clown parade.
[/QUOTE]

Ah, that’s a good idea…thanks for warning us when you were going to post by letting us know the clown parade had started. Though really, just seeing your name pop up already brings the images of clowns, so the warning is really not necessary. But it was a good thought, such as you are capable of thinking anyway.

[XT]

@FXMastermind

Bingo! You got it, and your grasp of things gives hope for a real discussion. Thank you.

I mean it.

The irony of this post is pretty much off the scale, as you didn’t seem to grasp that Lev is actually giving you the benefit of the doubt by trying to spin your words so that he’s not on the side of a complete idiot. And here you go and make his efforts look bad.

[FXMastermind]

@Gedd

The plant was already shut down at the time for refuling.

That’s what i said.

@Gedd

The flooding that did occur was when the barrier was punctured by human error (someone hit it with a Bobcat).

that’s what i said. But it was a last ditch emergency barrier, parts of the facility were already flooded by then. The barrier being ruptured allowed flooding they certainly did not want. The point is, there were no “walls” to protect the plant from the flood.

@Gedd

It wasn’t due to design flaw, poor planning,

Yes it was. The plant was not built to withstand thhe flood level it experienced. It certainly isn’t designed to stand up to the flooding that would occur if any of the three dams upriver ever fail.

@Gedd

and power was not lost.

of course it was. They were already on emergency generator power when the fire happened, leading to a loss of cooling for the spent fuel ponds. It’s in the NRC report of the incident. It’s why they flooded the containment building.