Posted on 09/14/2013 8:47:06 AM PDT by SteveH
(SPEIGEL ONLINE)
Japan is stumbling helplessly from one crisis to the next as it battles the ongoing disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. US nuclear inspector Dale Klein is demanding the intervention of foreign experts, but a quick solution is unlikely.
This week, the chief nuclear officers of around 100 American nuclear power plant reactors are taking a field trip. They are travelling to Japan and then taking a bus to Fukushima. There, dressed in protective suits, they will walk through the ruins left behind by the earthquake of the century, the tsunami of the century and the resulting triple nuclear reactor meltdown that occurred in March 2011.
"I can assure you when they get back from this trip, all of these chief nuclear officers will double their safety precautions," says Dale Klein, who has made the same trip and describes it as "very sobering." Klein, who was head of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission until 2009, now serves as chair of the Nuclear Reform Monitoring Committee, which advises Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the company that once ran the Fukushima power plant and is now responsible for cleaning up the site. In the eyes of industry experts and the Japanese public alike, the company has proved one thing unequivocally -- that it is in far over its head in trying to handle the aftermath of the disaster.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
And nuke power plants are needed if everyone is going to be driving electric cars.
This just keeps destroying the image of the Japanese as capable people.
One of the worst public relations disasters ever, and it keeps producing images of incompetence.
I feel their pain. Our country keeps producing embarrassing images of incompetence as well. And yet I know there are many capable people who live and work here, just as there are in Japan.
Interesting that you felt the need to attack America in your post.
Is it true they went to a local store to buy batteries and they did not have a credit card to pay for them- so they didn’t get them?
If they had more backup battery, and made getting backup generators #1 priority, this would have gone down as the single biggest success in Nuclear Power history
Fortunately, the Japanese tend to learn from their mistakes
To the Asian cultures, losing face, being humiliated, is the worst thing that can happen to a person. They would rather let a disaster exacerbate itself than to admit they’ve been wrong and get help.
I’ve got a solution, if they will just call me. I’ll only charge them enough to pay off my house, which isn’t much.
Lots more details at:
(Their website seems to be down at the moment I’m posting this.)
What’s the solution?
I remember watching this unfold, and all the engineers were saying: "It's designed with failsafe systems, it will be contained, just a few REMs released from venting maybe. These things can't fail."
Meanwhile were seeing pictures of blown-out housing buildings, video of explosions and shockwaves, reports of constant venting, and spiking radiation readings. An area about 25 miles in diameter was evacuated of all civilian population. This was a disaster.
What’s the solution?
Hee hee. I can’t tell you, but I know it would work.
Not just Asians my friend. That is a hard core character trait of every leftist statist. Just look how long it is taking them to admit they were wrong about Global Warming. They would rather send the world into an Ice Age completely unprepared, then to admit they were wrong. And now they are exposing their own citizens to excessive nuclear radiation rather then admit they were wrong about building nuclear power plants in fault zones.
Fukushima Units 1 through 4 use the Mark I Containment. What you see in the pictures you posted is the secondary containment building that surrounds a steel structure, which resembles an upside down light bulb. The reactor is inside the “light bulb”. The fact you cannot see the “light bulb shape” in the pictures you post is evidence that the accident was contained — the molten fuel stayed inside containment as intended.
Heating water to a very high temperature will cause the hydrogen and oxygen to separate. Hydrogen atoms being very small are difficult to contain. Enough hydrogen built up in secondary containment to reach an explosive mixture level. What the picture you post shows is a hydrogen gas explosion.
The 25 mile evacuation area is primarily a precaution.
Who could ever forget Ann Coulter saying a little radiation is harmless.
Or that Japanese politician that said if you smile radiation wont harm you.
Then of course the Nuclear Industry pimps who claimed the buildings were designed to blow up in this circumstance.
Then we went through weeks of denials that any meltdowns had occurred.
And who could forever forget the Cold Shutdown celebrations at the end of the first year.
All memorable quotes and circumstances to be place upon the tombstone for this civilization.
You do realize they have not located the cores yet for the reactors. That is after looking for 2 1/2 years. Elvis and his comrades have left the building. In fact that explosion you see is actually a steam explosion. It marked the point of total loss of containment. All easily calculated knowing the circumstances and the burn through rates.
They have sent robotic cameras into the reactors. No cores have been found. They have sent robotic cameras into the core catch area. No cores have been found. There is more radiation in the water at the bottom of unit #2 torus then in the water inside the unit #2 reactor. Even the NRC Emergency manuals tell you what was going to occur. And it did. Melt through of RPV within a few hours, melt through of concrete floor and CV within 1-2 days. All like clockwork. The only abnormality was the lack of an explosion in unit #2. Some suspect a lot of the molten corium went out through the downcomers in that reactors so there was not a massive steam explosion when breaking out of concrete floor into sandstone. Unit #3 core is deep into the water table now. Unit #1 core is not as deep. Unit #2 unfortunately spread out and is now making the ground surface radiate excessively.
“...tsunami of the century...”
Uhhh, I think the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, which killed 230,000 people in 14 countries, vs 18,500 in Japan’s Fukushima Prefecture, is probably still the titleholder for that one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake_and_tsunami
&
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster
No amount of money would get me near there.
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