Japan: Real cause of nuclear crisis(not tsunami but quake)

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco), the operator of the stricken Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Station, has been insisting that the culprit that caused the nuclear crisis was the huge tsunami that hit the plant after the March 11 earthquake. But evidence is mounting that the meltdown at the nuclear power plant was actually caused by the earthquake itself.

According to a science journalist well versed in the matter, Tepco is afraid that if the earthquake were to be determined as the direct cause of the accident, the government would have to review its quake-resistance standards completely, which in turn would delay by years the resumption of the operation of existing nuclear power stations that are suspended currently due to regular inspections.

The journalist is Mitsuhiko Tanaka, formerly with Babcock-Hitachi K.K. as an engineer responsible for designing the pressure vessel for the No. 4 reactor at the ill-fated Fukushima nuclear plant.

Japan is an archipelago of islands and nuke plants are ususally built near water - river, lake, ocean - due to the need for cooling water and producing steam.

Understood. I took geography and know about nuke plants. I remember three-mil island here in the USA.

I guess you didn't get my point: JAPAN IS RIDDLED WITH EARTHQUAKES. Earthquakes around oceans = tsunamis, especially since "tsunami" is a Japanese word. Duh.
Tsunamis around nuke plants = disaster. Those humans even with brains the sizes of peas can figure that out.

My point was that the Japanese built this nuke plant near their ocean. There were OTHER places to build nuclear plants. Japan has much water. So, why the STUPID place to build their plant?

California started to do that with a nuke plant near the ocean. The PUC was determined. Diablo Canyon (Nuclear) Power Plant, located on the water's edge in San Luis Obispo County California, was originally designed to withstand a 6.75 magnitude earthquake from four faults, including the nearby San Andreas and Hosgri faults, but was later upgraded to withstand a 7.5 magnitude quake. It has redundant seismic monitoring and a safety system designed to shut it down promptly in the event of significant ground motion.
Supposedly there are a TON of safeguards but who knows. At least California doesn't get tsunamis very often. Hasn't happened in my life.
WHY build it there? California has several nuke plants--some in the desert. Water can be bussed in. Tsunamis can't be walled out.

Do you understand my point now? Japan, an earthquake horror, was DUMB, knowing what they know.

Everywhere on earth there exist earthquake faults. So what.

My dad was part of the initial start-up group for SCE’s San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station 1 - SONGS1. I’ve lived near nuclear power plants all my life. I worked in Nuclear Plant Engineering at the Trojan Nuclear Plant, Goble, Oregon, for eight years.

Trojan was built in a region that experiences subduction earthquakes like those in Japan. Whether it is dams or natural gas, there is risk associated with living in an earthquake area. Probably the safest place to be during an earthquake would have been the solid rock Trojan was built upon, 45’ above sea level and seventy miles inland from the Pacific Ocean.

It was shutdown and is now decommissioned. This was done by an unethical CEO who was an antinuke and one greedy SOB. He shutdown Trojan, laid off 1300 people in order that Enron would purchase Portland General Corp. and he could join Enron’s Board of Directors. As an accountant he had to have known and recognized the shenanigans ongoing at Enron, because he retired from the BOD, waited a few months and sold all his Enron stock for $70Million+ just before the whole scheme tanked.

And the employees at Trojan and Portland General? Many lost everything they had worked years to acquire, and the folks still employed at Portland General lost their pensions - all of it - with the demise of Enron!

This has nothing directly to do with your argument exept this: without the power generated by Trojan the utility bills of everyone in the Pacific Northwest have skyrocketed.

If you don’t approve of dams, natural gas or nuclear you can always retreat to a forest somewhere and burn deadfall wood. But be forewarned: burning wood produces polonium in wood ash and it is radioactive. Never let your children clean out a fireplace and when you do, always wear a face mask and gloves. Polonium is an apha particle emitter, like plutonium. Stay safe.

I understand your point and think you make good onew, but you reek like an intervenor. You say you “remember three-mil island”; I read the accident report shortly after the incident and have yet to see it accurately reported in the public media. Everywhere on earth there exist earthquake faults. So what. My dad was part of the initial start-up group for SCE’s San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station 1 - SONGS1. I’ve lived near nuclear power plants all my life. I worked in Nuclear Plant Engineering at the Trojan Nuclear Plant, Goble, Oregon, for eight years. Trojan was built in a region that experiences subduction earthquakes like those in Japan. Whether it is dams or natural gas, there is risk associated with living in an earthquake area. Probably the safest place to be during an earthquake would have been the solid rock Trojan was built upon, 45’ above sea level and seventy miles inland from the Pacific Ocean. It was shutdown and is now decommissioned. This was done by an unethical CEO who was an antinuke and one greedy SOB. He shutdown Trojan, laid off 1300 people in order that Enron would purchase Portland General Corp. and he could join Enron’s Board of Directors. As an accountant he had to have known and recognized the shenanigans ongoing at Enron, because he retired from the BOD, waited a few months and sold all his Enron stock for $70Million+ just before the whole scheme tanked. And the employees at Trojan and Portland General? Many lost everything they had worked years to acquire, and the folks still employed at Portland General lost their pensions - all of it - with the demise of Enron! This has nothing directly to do with your argument exept this: without the power generated by Trojan the utility bills of everyone in the Pacific Northwest have skyrocketed. If you don’t approve of dams, natural gas or nuclear you can always retreat to a forest somewhere and burn deadfall wood. But be forewarned: burning wood produces polonium in wood ash and it is radioactive. Never let your children clean out a fireplace and when you do, always wear a face mask and gloves. Polonium is an apha particle emitter, like plutonium. Stay safe.

1. What's an "intervenor"?
2. Go to GOOGLE. The Three Mile Island debacle is now in Wikepedia. It's history and whether you agree with the media's accurate reporting is another story, but it's ancient history now, readable in history books...reported on to within an inch of its life.
3. Earthquake faults...and you say "so what"? WHY build a nuclear power plant where there are earthquakes AND tsunamis as regular occurences then MOAN and groan when the unspeakable happens? STUPID to build it where all the engineers SAY that it is STUPID to build it...that's "so what."
You didn't grow up where there was the DOUBLE DANGEROUS whammy of earthquakes AND tsunamis. Though California has had only ONE tsunami in all my years and regular earthquakes you were SEVENTY MILES INLAND...safe from the TSUNAMI that caused the Japanese plant to fail.
That was my point, for the THIRD time.

PG&E and other utility companies are between a rock and a hard place. They are "allowed" to make some profit but are continually pulled between the correctly outraged public whose bills skyrocket, the do-gooders who DO want us to be cold and burn our old socks for fuel, the politicians who say they care but only care about staying elected...and the engineers who TRY and keep things working. My husband was a gas engineer for PG&E...I know ALL about it.

4. I don't know what I could have possibly written to make you think that I would want to retreat to the forest, misliking dams, etc. :o):o) I wonder if you DELIBERATELY missunderstand or just misread. Maybe you are just ticked off at your high utility bills.
5. I have a natural gas fireplace, beautifully designed and needs no cleaning. My husband was the creator of that wonderful idea. It's wonderful. Our cleaning lady doesn't have to do a thing with it.

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