Posted on 03/18/2011 9:33:04 PM PDT by Errant
TOKYO (MNI) - Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) has succeeded Saturday in restarting an emergency diesel generator and resuming the cooling functions in Reactors 4 and 5 in its Fukushima nuclear power facility as work continued to bring power to the other reactors.
Reactors 4 and 5 at the plant are set away from the other four reactors, which sustained the most damage in the massive quake and tsunamis on March 11.
Meanwhile, workers have succeeded in attaching a power cable to the crisis-hit Fukushima nuclear power plant and are now working inside to ensure success when they switch on desperately needed cooling machinery.
"TEPCO has connected the external transmission line with the receiving point of the plant and confirmed that electricity can be supplied," the plant's operation, TEPCO said.
(Excerpt) Read more at automatedtrader.net ...
Second floor fuel rod pond is a feature of GE Mark I and Mark II regardless of where the reactor is located.
I got the impression that they were spent fuel rods. Were they then moved for additional cooling? I have no idea.
I don't know how accurate that information is nor do I have any expertise about nuclear plants.
Actually I think it is much higher than the 2nd floor as the elevator sees it — can’t remember how many stories.
The post did say that water had to be circulated around them for the entire 14 years.
I don’t know why, but I think this is going to turn out like the gulf oil spill; one day it’s the worst environmental disaster known to mankind, yet the next day we discover it was all hyped out of proportion in order to sell otherwise unsellable advertising space on “news” media.
As long as it promotes the agenda to keep our republic energy dependent on others, it will shine in the media. Should this dragon be conquered, it will disappear as quickly from the media’s eye as rapidly as the tens of thousands who have perished in the tsunami...
It is as you say Mrsixpack. This is another great disaster, like Three Mile Island, with enormous press coverage, most of it misinformed, where no one is hurt from the nuclear characteristic of the plant. No power technology comes close to the safety record - not level of hysterics - measured by the number of people injured in megawatt hours/person. When the data are available it appears that commercial nuclear power will not have killed a single person in its 60+ years from exposure to radiation.
Chernoble was not a commercial reactor, a design with no containment whatsoever, and so the the one or two direct deaths from radiation should not be included in risks for commercial reactors. But even with Chernoble, which caused more injury by being off line, since its replacement power came from coal, no electricity generation technology comes close. Most deleterious health effects from Chernoble were a result of the forced evacuation. Livestock and animals living in "contaminated" fields near the Chernoble reactor, while they have slightly increased levels of radiation in their bones, are healthier than the average in surrounding Ukrainian towns.
All active Fukushima reactors’ control rods were inserted within seconds of the earthquake. They could all have melted down and the result would have been the same. Containments were designed anticipating a worst case. The cores are, of course, through producing commercial power. The tsunami eliminated the backup diesel generators making the cool-down other than quiet; but dissipating the remaining energy was always manageable.
New reactor designs are even more robust. The conservatism of nuclear engineering after half a dozen meltdowns, a couple of them total, proves the remarkable foresight of the design engineers. The siting of diesel backup in coastal installations will surely be examined.
Most of the “experts” asked to speak by mainstream media make livings as consultants, not as engineers. The money in the U.S. is in the anti-nuclear business. There are families of environmental attorneys where a husband and wife each work for the other side, and are paid very well by taxpayers to express the fear, or the wish to return the U.S. to a subsistence society, growing vegetables in our little gardens with solar heated bathing water and windmills to grind our grain. They would never get another call if they expressed confidence in the decades of design which went into 1970 designs.
The most dangerous aspect of nuclear reactors occurs when they are off line. Every other source of energy is more dangerous, and coal, the usual source of replacement electrical energy causes about 200 additional deaths/year for each thousand megawatt plant from respiratory-related illness. Ironically, coal plants usually don't meet NRC standards for nucleotide emission. Coal, having been dug from the ground, has varying amounts of natural uranium and radium which is not scrubbed from the Co2-filled combustion product.
I honestly don’t know if it is a case of some people sensationalizing events for their own gain or just not being made of “sterner stuff” as grand-dad used to say.
Given a plain look at the state of American education today - what passes for education at least - I would say that both are correct.
You got it. The Japanese have just given the world an example of grace and gallantry under extreme circumstances which is a wondrous contrast with what the world saw in New Orleans six years ago.
From a 2004 FR post:
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“Pluthermal power”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1103926/posts
After years of problems and delays, Japan’s power industry has taken a major step toward its long-cherished dream of using plutonium as fuel for conventional nuclear reactors.
The breakthrough came when Fukui Prefecture recently approved a plan by Kansai Electric Power Co. plan to purchase plutonium-uranium mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel from overseas to burn in reactors at its nuclear power plant in Takahama, a town along the Sea of Japan coast. The power company hopes its pluthermal operations will begin in 2007.
Kansai Electric was forced to shelve the project in 1999 following revelations that British Nuclear Fuels, the supplier of MOX fuel, had falsified data. Kansai Electric says it will select its supplier of MOX fuel carefully after taking necessary steps to enhance its system for fuel quality control.
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The concern is the MOX (processed Plutionium laced fuel rods)
Isn't that 5 and 6??? 1-4 are in a row together.
that is where the worst carp is
And here's a picture of it.
Toast. Seawater took care of that.
That's the worst carp I've ever seen.
Police have had wheeled robots to work on bombs for years. Radiation robots wouldn't be hard to design or build. A lot easier than building a dancing humanoid. I guess no one figured the radiation robot would ever be needed.
This is why the Japanese made this educational video to explain the danger or lack of danger concerning the problems being addressed at the Fukushima Reactors. (I live 150 miles South of Fukushima).
http://www.youtube.com/watchv=5sakN2hSVxA&feature=player_embedded
It's a situation that has never been faced before. And there are wildly different stories all the time about what is happening.
And the fact is the worst case scenario would be very bad.
Hallelujah! Thank you Lord for these brave determined people! It has been a relief to hear the good news beginning to replace the bad that just seemed to keep coming .
Prayers for Japan.
Tatt
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nbEFhPVM_k&feature=related
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