Fuji and the earthquake

removed account4 · Mar 23, 2011

its the cosmic rays every time ...

sandholm · Mar 23, 2011

hrst said:
Three Miles; The concept of "luck" is difficult. Of course you can say it's luck that it didn't go worse, but you forget to mention that, at the same time, it already was bad luck it got that worse. Luck has two sides. So, "it was very bad luck it got that bad" is just as valid as an argument. This is why I wouldn't use luck as an argument at all, but keep to the facts. The effect of "luck" has to be minimized in design, but IMO, it has no place in speculation in aftermath, because you can claim anything with it. Optimists will say that it was just "bad luck" it happened and pessimists will say it was "good luck" it didn't go worse.

I just dropped the discussion because I just realized there were no point, it went away from facts to values/believes.

I will just use one part of the three mile iland incident, and why I said "luck". The power plant had ONLY two phone lines in, and when the accident become public these were all blockets. The people who had built the plant did do some number crunching and realized that it was to low amount of water in the reactor tank. At this stage (and what started the incident) were that the operators believed it was to much and pumped water out. The problem were that the engineers could not get through to the operators, because both phone lines were blocked. When they did it was after several hours and they told the operators to dump 400 gallons into the reactor. At this stage the reactor were around 4500 degrees, if the reactor would have reached 5000 degrees its over, you have a process that can not be shut down, the core will melt through the tank, through the floor, and down down down several hundra meters, during this process it will vaporize all water and huge geyser would have spread really nasty material over a huge area.

This is luck, that the operators got the information and that it was still time.

Also when the reactor was investigated, i think it was in 98, 50% of the core had melted, this is not a small incident, and it was pure luck that nothing went really bad.

For people who want an overview, both of the incident and the pure ignorance and attitude the power plant company had, check out the National Geographic program Minutes to Meltdown Three Mile Island, its astonishing and chocking.

cheers

hrst · Mar 23, 2011

sandholm, I agree with what you say, but I think you missed my point.

I could say that it was just bad luck that the reactor was around 4500 deg.F, it could have been only at 3500 deg.F. Or, it was just bad luck the phone lines were blocked that badly.

You see, this mysterious "luck" can be used to change things in both directions, and you can claim anything by "bare luck". But, in reality, it was not luck, but the facts and actions that led to a certain situation. Had the real actions changed, the situation would have changed, too.

Of course it is still very valuable to evaluate or simulate an even-worse situation to reduce the risks in the future; we can learn from our mistakes, but we don't need to actually do every mistake before learning. But the very purpose of this simulation is to dump the concept of "luck".

brucemuir · Mar 23, 2011

how would one drop of mercury paralyze the kodak plant?

Not doubting, just ignorant in these matters and truly interested.

I assume they have no mercury thermometers inside Kodak Park?

Photo Engineer · Mar 23, 2011

brucemuir said:
how would one drop of mercury paralyze the kodak plant?

Not doubting, just ignorant in these matters and truly interested.

I assume they have no mercury thermometers inside Kodak Park?

Bruce;

Mercury is a powerful fogging agent that has a reasonable propensity to form vapor. It spreads via air as the vapor and fogs film. So, our mandate is to contain any mercury spill.

PE

brucemuir · Mar 23, 2011

Thanks for the explanation

2F/2F · Mar 23, 2011

sandholm said:
Also when the reactor was investigated, i think it was in 98, 50% of the core had melted, this is not a small incident, and it was pure luck that nothing went really bad.

Sandholm,

You are the one who said it was a minor incident! That is part of what I was arguing against. Now you argue that it was not, as if that is what you have been arguing all along. What you said is:

sandholm said:
...or the Three mile incident that could have gone really really bad but more or less pure luck made it to a miner incident.

As for the facts regarding the details of the incident, they have not been presented incorrectly by either of us, so you should not say that the discussion "went away from facts to values/believes," as if I was stating a bunch of crap personal opinions. It is the reason that the event was not catastrophic that we disagree on. The facts in this area are that despite the operators sitting around with their thumbs up their butts for over half a day when they should have realized what was going on, the accident was eventually kept from going out of hand both by them, and by the engineering of that plant. It was a situation that could have been catastrophic if not for these things. And it would have been in a design like Chernobyl, and many other poorly designed plants. Prudent engineering and timely human intervention in a crisis simply and decidedly do not qualify as "pure luck."

CGW · Mar 24, 2011

A totally legit organization for donations:

Dead Link Removed

Marco B · Apr 17, 2011

No comment

For anyone seeking information:

- MEXT (Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) radioactivity readings

- CNIC
(Citizens Nuclear Information Centre)

- Plume models (where is the stuff going?) by ZAMG (Austrian weather institute)

- MEXT and TEPCO readings of radioactivity and reactor status (pressure etc.), as time lined graphs (only in Japanese, but live Google Translate on the page does a surprising good job)

- Wikipedia about Fukushima plant

- Dead Link Removed

Even after 3 months in the spent fuel pool, 1 ton of spent fuel of a light water reactor fuel still may give something like 50kW. That is 5 MW of cooling needed for 100 ton of spent fuel...

- Summary of "criticality accidents" report by Los Alamos National Labarotory

Two sites with breaking news links:
- http://www.breakingnews.com/filter/fukushima-prefecture-jp
- http://newsblogged.com/fukushima-nuclear-power-plant-reactor-latest-news-real-time-updates

Site with potentially useful links:
http://www.nucleartourist.com/events/fukushima.htm

Photo's and videos below are from Japan News website:
- TEPCO Releases Video of Fukushima Nuclear Plant Units 1,3,4 Taken by T-Hawk Drone
- Video Released Analyzing Spent Fuel Rod Pool of Unit 4 at Fukushima Nuclear Plant
- TEPCO Releases New Photos of Fukushima Nuclear Plant Unit 4 Pictures
- TEPCO Releases New Photos of Fukushima Nuclear Plant Units 1 and 3 Pictures
- Fukushima Spent Fuel Rod Pool Unit 3 Pictures Taken from Concrete Pumping Vehicle

Videos:

[video=youtube;_UyNBoKvhQ4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UyNBoKvhQ4[/video]

[video=youtube;fRTlJYeU_wo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRTlJYeU_wo[/video]

[video=youtube;XVwSaDfVHgM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVwSaDfVHgM[/video]

A few of the pictures:

Unit 4:

Unit 1:

Unit 3:

Unit 3 spent fuel pool (whatever is left of it):

Marco B · Apr 17, 2011

And interesting video of 21 march conference at the Stanford University:

The Nuclear Crisis in Japan:
http://fsi.stanford.edu/events/the_nuclear_crisis_in_japan/

Direct link to video of conference:
http://fsi.stanford.edu/events/recording/6615/1/555/

Video starts out with a 15 minute "economic" analysis, before heading into the more interesting technical stuff about the reactors and what happened.

PDF of one of the conference contributors presentation:
Dead Link Removed

jun · Apr 17, 2011

If you are interested about radiation info for the local water in Japan, you should look into Japanese local city office / prefecture office web site.
Also you need to understand Japanese.

I suppose Fuji is making Film in Kanagawa plant (i.e. Minami-Ashigara City)
Here are the water radiation test results at water plant in Minami-Ashigara.

Dead Link Removed

Abstract Translation:
Minami-Ashigara City has requested Yokosuka City water office to test for radiation contamination of water.
Place: Yagurazawa water purification plant (in Minami-Asigara)
Test Date/Time: Mar. 24 AM 7:30 Cs 134, Cs 137, I 131 All Not Detected
Apr. 6 AM 7:50 Cs 134, Cs 137, I 131 All Not Detected

May be this will help you to understand the facts.

Early Riser · Apr 17, 2011

How they could put a nuclear plant in an area near such an active fault and in a tsunami zone amazes me. Just terrible.

I bought a supply of Acros the day after the tsunami, just in case.......

Klainmeister · Apr 17, 2011

Early Riser said:
How they could put a nuclear plant in an area near such an active fault and in a tsunami zone amazes me. Just terrible.

I bought a supply of Acros the day after the tsunami, just in case.......

Or build it in a rural, mostly low-income area. That's the reason.

M.A.Longmore · Apr 17, 2011

Klainmeister said:
Or build it in a rural, mostly low-income area. That's the reason.

.
That's explains everything !

Ron
.

LunoLuno · Apr 18, 2011

It is said that Fuji is making their films in Fujinomiya plant in Shizuoka prefecture, which is located about 100km west from their Ashigara plant in Kanagawa prefecture, and the impact of the earthquake itself was subtle in Shizuoka. People here say we don't have to worry about film supply if we use only 135, but it is said that the company which make back papers for larger format got damaged on their plant and there might be some infuluence in the near future.

Luno@Kanagawa

cmacd123 · Apr 18, 2011

Early Riser said:
How they could put a nuclear plant in an area near such an active fault and in a tsunami zone amazes me.

Where in Japan is not near an active fault? The only place clear of Tsunami is probably on the slope of a volcano.

2F/2F · Apr 18, 2011

Water-cooled (i.e. most) nuclear power plants have to be near a large body of water, and there really isn't anywhere in Japan that is beyond the reach of a major earthquake. I am just surprised that backup generators were located low enough that they could get flooded. Apparently the plant was designed to withstand only a 20 foot tsunami, or something like that. The wave that hit was over double that in height. Who was it who decided that a 50 foot tsunami was so improbable that the trouble and cost involved in building a better tsunami wall and placing backup generators high off the ground was not worth it? Those are the people who should be sent into the radiation field to fix the thing. Was it really worth losing the plant entirely and creating all this contamination and exposure to plant workers to be cheap and gamble with mother nature?

I also cannot believe that there was not a powerless emergency cooling system that works by convection. Having to rely on electricity for emergency cooling is a bonehead design move. It seems like this plant was disastrously under-engineered.

CGW · Apr 18, 2011

What's it like to work in Japan's nuclear industry? Dangerous. Read on:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/world/asia/10workers.html?_r=1&scp=5&sq=fukushima workers&st=cse

hrst · Apr 19, 2011

2F/2F said:
I am just surprised that backup generators were located low enough that they could get flooded.

Agree. It was clearly the greatest single design mistake. However, as it seems now, even after getting power back, the cooling systems are damaged too, probably in the tsunami, so maybe it wouldn't have helped even if the generators were on the upper grounds.

I also cannot believe that there was not a powerless emergency cooling system that works by convection.

There was but it failed. It worked for some time before failing, but it is still a bit unclear to me whether it failed because the 8-hour battery power ran out or was it going to fail anyway.

As said, this is clearly the most complex nuclear accident ever.

cmacd123 · Apr 19, 2011

2F/2F;1168829 I also cannot believe that there was not a powerless emergency cooling system that works by convection. Having to rely on [I said:
electricity[/I] for emergency cooling is a bonehead design move.

Recall that it was built 40 years ago, and ideas about needed safety features are always being updated. My understanding is that newer plants do have a convection cooling system.

The location of the generators was probably influenced by the largest PREVIOUS such incident. This one was larger than they anticipated.

michaelbsc · Apr 19, 2011

cmacd123 said:
Recall that it was built 40 years ago, and ideas about needed safety features are always being updated.

Built 40 years ago means designed 50 years ago.

hrst · Apr 20, 2011

cmacd123 said:
My understanding is that newer plants do have a convection cooling system.

As said, there was such a system there, too.

AFAIK it works only as long as water in torus is still water. After a certain amount of heat generated, it stops working, so it cannot remove all of the heat. In addition, it needs some control battery power. Newer systems may have a better convection cooling that work longer, or may not, but in any case, there was a convection cooling system present.

holmburgers · Apr 20, 2011

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/21/world/asia/21stones.html?_r=1&hp

Interesting bit of Tsunami history

Fuji and the earthquake

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency