Posted on 10/06/2012 9:56:04 PM PDT by ransomnote
Full Title: Fukushima Reactor 3 Explosion, Reactor 2 Core Melt, Possibly Because TEPCO Couldn't Break the Rules to Bring Batteries to the Plant
What rules, you ask? Good social rules like "If you want something from a store, you purchase it with money." Or "In order to transport potentially dangerous materials or equipments, you apply for a government permit and wait until the permit is issued." They are all good and proper in peacetime.
TEPCO was no longer in peacetime, starting March 11, 2011. But the company and the workers clearly didn't know how to operate in an extraordinary situation they found themselves in. So they stuck to what they knew best - be a law- and rule- abiding good citizens.
From the teleconference video that TEPCO newly released, at 7:17AM of March 13, 2011 at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant (Video 05-06 at TEPCO's Photos and Video page for October 5, 2012): This is Materials Group, sorry to interrupt. We are going out to buy batteries and other things. But, uh.., we're short on cash. For those of you who have cash with you here, we would really appreciate if you could lend it to us. We're sorry [and embarrassed] but if you have cash, could you let us borrow it? Thank you in advance.
After this announcement, a senior executive (I believe it's Mr. Komori in TEPCO's Headquarters in Tokyo) is heard muttering, "No money? That is miserable. We have to do something..."
(Excerpt) Read more at ex-skf.blogspot.com ...
From the article:
“They could write a note saying how many batteries and how much, and TEPCO would pay for them later, after the reactors were restored.
What would the store managers do? Refuse to give the batteries to TEPCO unless they they were paid on the spot? I don’t think so.”
Overall this failure I think helps illustrate that MANKIND is incapable of effectively controlling the Nuclear BEAST in all circumstances. We are not perfect. We have no business fooling with a technology like this that requires perfection.
This comment illustrates the complete and utter brainwashing of the world’s populace when it comes to nuclear power and radiation in general.
Radiation is no different than any other force of nature a small amount is harmless, huge amounts will kill you. A handful of rice thrown at you at a wedding is a minor irritation. A ton of rice falling on you will likely crush you to death.
As industrial risk goes radiation is relatively easy to deal with. It is easily detected and quantified. Compared to chemical hazards it is easily cleaned up in most circumstances. Yes this is a huge mess and will take a long time and a lot of money to clean up. But this is an extreme case.
However when compared to a chemical catastrophe such as Bo Pal India and the Union Carbide catastrophe this is a minor thing. How many died in this nuclear disaster? Two or three workers and no townies.
The official death count of Bhopal is 2359 other estimates say greater than 8000. Injuries are estimated at 558,000.
To say that man kind is incapable of controlling Nuclear Power is simply unrealistic or to say that mankind is incapable of controlling industrial processes.
All uses of power carry risk. People must first understand the risk and then take measures to deal with those risk and plan for the eventualities of upsets.
More humans are alive today because of the industrial revolution made use of controlled power to perform more work more cheaply than man or beast could do them. Wealth was created in unprecedented quantities because man controlled the production and use of power. Nuclear power is the logical extension of that production of power to new levels of efficiency and quantity. Those that eschew its use will eventually be left behind by those that pursue its use and successfully control its might.
It also demonstrates that we need reactor designs that will fall back to a fail safe mode of operation, you know like a liquid reactant that will drain into a baffled drain tank when the salt plug is melted and gravity draws the liquid reactant down into said tanks...
The US Nuclear Regulatory commission, was the ones that told the original creator of the conventional reactor deigns to go pound sand when he came out with his liquid reactor at Oak Ridge because they were operating by bureaucratic rules....
Thanks a LOT us government, force us to use a 60 year old reactor design that requires high water pressure and razor thin safety margins when we could be using something far more inherently safer.
It’s worth mentioning that pebble-bed reactors (PBR) fall back to a fail-safe mode without any moving parts being involved.
GE and Westinghouse have worked on Inherently Safe designs for reactors in the last twenty years.
The current designs have been simplified and made safer with natural circulation cooling and fewer safety related pumps. They are designed to shut themselves down completely without operator intervention and cool themselves with out pump operation for days.
http://www.ap1000.westinghousenuclear.com/
Great, so because of a government permit this will meltdown, and possibly contaminate miles upon miles of Pacific Ocean. Great, thanks asshats.
Let us not forget that there are a number of US power reactors that have the exact same design, where the spent fuel is being stored on top of the reactor. Moreover, because Senator Harry Reid has blocked the completion of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste facility, our nuclear utilities are forced to store spent fuel on site.
We have our own disaster awaiting the right circumstances and it probably will have a political cause and not a technical one.
Ok, so no one thought to put the allowable amount of batteries on a dozen or so trucks so that government red tape was avoided? But then TEPCO never thought to have the appropriate amount of emergency back up batteries in storage. Government red tape in America is getting to this point but we still have enough free will to buck the system if it’s needed.
Your knowledge of science (half-life and other properties of isotopes, medical research pertaining to the effects of ionizing radiation on human health) is far too stunted (and propagandized) for me to take the time to address your irrational comment in detail.
You knowledge of the history of nuclear energy and its legacy is completely absent and false - there’s just too much here for me to take the time to refute.
Your ignorance on this subject HAS to be willful because there’s just far too much information out there for you to accidentally make these erroneous assertions. So I’m thinking you are probably employed in the nuclear power industry because these deficits are the hallmark of those who condescend to the public and try to portray themselves as knowledgeable on the subject.
“GE and Westinghouse have worked on Inherently Safe designs for reactors in the last twenty years. “
And they still can’t get it right. One of ‘your kind’ posted about the wondrous new safety designs and I actually believed the guy (he named a specific plant being built with next gen design) for a few minutes until I looked it up on the internet. The US’s newest, safest power plant project under construction was halted and sent back to the drawing board after years of elaborate, coordinated safety design to correct a flaw in the design. In the meantime we are stuck with all the old, flawed designs (oh yes, the nuke power industry knew about the flaws in the BWR reactors including Fukushima and intentionally covered it up- there was a snippet of a company memo distributed where they acknowledged it) all over the country and the complete unwillingness of the nuke power industry to simply pretend their tawdry history of failure and cover up doesn’t exist. ZERO accountability - they just want us to shut up and give them more money to build newer plants. ZERO accountability.
There’s so much wrong with your response, I was going to address more but I’ll put a little snippet here from an ABC news article for your enjoyment:
” Among the litany of violations at U.S. nuclear power plants are missing or mishandled nuclear material, inadequate emergency plans, faulty backup power generators, corroded cooling pipes and even marijuana use inside a nuclear plant, according to an ABC News review of four years of Nuclear Regulatory Commission safety records.
And perhaps most troubling of all, critics say, the commission has failed to correct the violations in a timely fashion. “
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-nuclear-power-plants-safe/story?id=13246490#.UHF8FKM0jg0
“complete unwillingness of the nuke power industry to simply pretend “
An early morning error in composition - should read “complete unwillingness to accept responsibility for their actions while they simply pretend...”
No one has ever died as a result of a nuclear accident in the US commercial nuclear power industry.
Name me another industry with that kind of safety record.
I will end my side of this argument with this quote from Mark Twain which I use as a guiding principle of my life. It has served me well.
Never Argue With A Fool – They Will Drag You Down To Their Level, Then Beat You With Experience!
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