When the Fukushima incident was happening, one of the stories we were told was that the venting systems in US boiling water reactors are better. Not so:
American officials had said early on that reactors in the United States would be safe from such disasters because they were equipped with new, stronger venting systems. But Tokyo Electric Power Company, which runs the plant, now says that Fukushima Daiichi had installed the same vents years ago.
That whole article is worth reading because it also shows that TEPCO was in a state of utter disarray after the quake and tsunami.
Another story that was told is that the plants’ cooling systems survived the earthquake and were operating until loss of power and depletion of batteries caused them to fail. Also not true at Unit 1:
The emergency cooling system was automatically activated but stopped about 10 minutes later and remained off for about 3 hours until after the tsunami arrived.
TEPCO says plant workers may have manually shut down the cooling system because pressure inside the reactor had dropped sharply from 70 to 45 atmospheres.
I’m no nuclear engineer, but if an earthquake happens and a pressure vessel can’t hold pressure, I have to assume it was damaged. Not that it really matters, because the antiquated cooling system in Unit 1, which was of an older design than the other units, would have failed anyway.
But, kids, don’t worry — the NRC just decreed that US plants are all safe, and there’s just no way that they can suffer the same fate as those sloppy, careless Japanese.
cathyx
It’s not like knowing the truth will change anything.
DBrown
But knowing the truth can do great harm … for the bottom line if people pressure the operators to upgrade the plants safety. While, in the end, the rate payers pay for all, the multi-million dollar bonuses for the ceo’s will be trimmed – can’t have that.
PeakVT
Moody’s provides comic relief, downgrades TEPCO because of “increased clarity that the Japanese government intends to hold TEPCO responsible for compensating various parties harmed by the accident.”
beltane
American nuclear plants won’t suffer the same fate. It’s not like a collision between the Pacific and Eurasian plates will affect them very much. No, our future nuclear disaster will be triggered by something other than that particular earthquake/tsunami on that particular fault. That’s why when we suffer our own disaster we will be able to hold our heads up and ask “Who could have known?”.
spartacus
Ah yes, nuclear exceptionalism.
Don’t miss Arnie Gunderson’s videos about the situation at Fukushima. Really interesting analysis:
http://vimeo.com/23680177
c u n d gulag
This is one of the reasons I protested against nuclear energy for years – and still would if there were any that were organized.
I live near Indian Point, a nuke plant on the Hudson. It was designed to last about 30 years’s, and is over 50 years old now, and it sits right on top of the largest fault in the Northeast. And it’s actually asked to produce more power than when it was designed.
Problem?
Oh, “Hell NO!” they say.
It’s deemed safe.
And there are commercials on every radio station in the area that will tell you that.
I’d call BULLSHIT! But, you’d already assume that.
El Cid
Look, you libruls can’t have it both ways.
You can’t have Al Gore running around yelling about how our using gasoline and all the coal we got will kill us and take polar bears from our kids on the one hand.
And then get all offended because non-CO2 making nuclear power plants might blow up too.
Which is it? Whine about how stuff’s getting hotter and how maybe the Gulf stream current might stop?
Or bleat about how OMG our nuke plants are built like sh*t and no one’s going to do nothing about it and how am I gonna protect little Timmy from all this meltdown gas?
Maybe it’s just time you all grin and bear it. Grow up. Not everyone can get everything they want in life.
SW
Seems the main lesson, as if we have to keep learning it over and over again, is that the authorities will lie their asses off when something like this happens, and that there will be a chorus of supporters who spring up throwing stones at anyone who questions their obvious bullshit. A lot of voices in the chorus will sound very authoritative and have serious credentials. And they will be whores.
DBrown
@El Cid: Your arguments makes sense except for your very stupid remark about Gore and your total bullshit about current safety levels beng fixed and we just have to live with them as is – safe nuclear fission plants exist and are called Candu’s.
Those need to be built or at least the pebble design. Also, and far more to the point – with moderate upgrades that will not break the bank, many (but not the reactors based on the same design used by the Japanese) can be upgraded to handle a major core over-heat, even partial melt down but that will cost some money – can’t do that because …? Oh, investors will not make as much profit and the ceo’ will not get the vast bonus they need to be total assholes, only the many million dollar bonus that just makes them ass’s.
MikeJ
Pity we don’t have regulators any more.
http://www.npr.org/2011/03/18/134658874/Update-On-Japans-Nuclear-Reactors
magurakurin
@El Cid:
I can’t even tell if this is snark or not. My bad I guess.
The situation is utterly fucked in Fukushima…and apparently has been since about…March 11. In fact, Reactor 1, we are now being told, started melting down five hours after it’s cooling systems were knocked out by a Station Black Out from the earthquake, not the tsunami.
Yes, all the bullshit the industry trolls were peddling for the last two months was just that. They were going on about how it all worked, the reactor vessels held, the containment vessels held, they survived the earthquake. But only…they didn’t. TEPCO is now admitting what international experts have been saying for two months. 1,2, and 3 have melted down. 1 they now say has completed melted down and ALL of the fuel is either at the bottom of the pressure vessel or on the concrete floor of the containment vessel. There is every reason to believe that 2 and 3 are in the same state.
This is an utter failure. We now know that a worker actually shut off parts of the mechanical cooling system early on. He thought it wasn’t needed. TEPCO thought they had eight hours of battery power on the cooling systems so the were slow with back up. They didn’t. Not only did the engineering fail, so did the people making decisions on site.
Those industry trolls who were spewing their crap a month a go can all go fuck themselves…hard..with rusty razors.
fuck nuclear power.
http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201105170428.html
http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201105170429.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/18/world/asia/18tepco.html
Edmund in Tokyo
To quote the prophet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKITpVovTAE
It can’t happen here.
It can’t happen here.
I’m telling you my dear.
That it can’t.
Happen.
Here.
MobiusKlein
The Rapture already happened – they calculated wrong, and the date was really March 11. Additionally, GOD found nobody worth taking, so nobody actually got raptured.
Over and Out
Luthe
::facepalm:: There are three nuke plants in Jersey. Jersey has the highest population density of any state in the country.
…we’re so fucked.
lonesomerobot
Speaking of the NRC, their current regulations and safety procedures for US nuclear power plants assume that there is a 0% probability that the nuclear containment can be breached.
So according to the NRC, the containment that was breached in reactor 1 at Fukushima wasn’t possible.
That’s a novel version of risk planning — just declare that your worst case scenario isn’t plausible. See? We’re all safe now.
PeakVT
@lonesomerobot: I didn’t realize that the NRC had made that assumption until Gunderson mentioned it a few weeks ago. It seems crazy to me.
matryoshka
@lonesomerobot:
It worked for the financial sector.
The Duc d'Fuck
Turns out the confidence fairy was responsible for cooling the core, too!
El Cid
It was snark. You’d think the bit where the writer basically accepts the prospects of deadly effects either way and just tells libruls to shut up & quit whining would be a giveaway. Usually the right would admit no significant danger from either cause.