(03-14-2011 07:18 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote: What I find most troubling is the seeming lack of urgency. I've spent enough time in Japan to know that they do things differently, and what we see and hear on the news may reflect some cultural differences getting lost in translation, but I'm not sure.
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Umm, dude, when something is getting too hot you cool it off. When the something is a nuclear reactor, you do that any way you can. The first responsibility of TEPCO is to the people around that plant, just like the first responsibility of BP and the EPA was to protect the Gulf and its coastline. But in large corporations, just like large government bureaucracies, turf battles often trump common sense precisely when the latter is most critical.
(03-14-2011 08:22 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote: [quote='Owl 69/70/75' pid='6346030' dateline='1300111433']
I'm not sure I'd go as far as superb. Apparently they turned down a US offer to fly in some heavy duty portable generators that would have given them more pumping power, and I question the wait to use sea water for fear of having to decommission the reactor. But if they limit the damage to what has happened so far, it's probably good enough.
Whether it's good enough to avoid another 20 years of nay-saying about nuclear power is a different question. Bottom line--We are going to have to take some risks somewhere to solve our energy problem. And it won't be cheap.
There is some discord in what you are saying. Nuclear plants are built close to water for this reason. If the core is close to meltdown, you need to cool it down quickly, and at this point this plant will probably be decommissioned no matter what, so whatever damage the sea water itself is really immaterial.
With regards to coolant, if they put in water without boron, I've heard that they could do more harm than good (see hydrogen gas).
With regards to apparent lack of urgency, they have or should have gone through virtually every possible scenario of what would happen during a disaster in this case. That is very much unlike the BP disaster where disaster planning seemed to vary widely from here versus Europe and the conditions under which they operated were vastly different.
In this case, I forget the phrase, but the weakness in their plan is that the source of the disaster cut off multiple backup systems at the same time (backup generators and the electric grid itself were knocked offline by the earthquake and tsunami). As I understand it, the water from the tsunami itself may also have damaged controls ... I doubt that we'll hear to what extent any time soon.
I could care less if the media or politicians act with urgency. When the media does it, you get things like this:
- Stories that talk about the explosion at Fukushima and then show images of burning oil refineries (oil fires last, hydrogen bursts don't)
- Stories explicitly about the nuclear plant that discuss radiation levels being above the lifetime exposure levels which end by indicating without qualification that the death toll is at 1600 and expected to reach at least 6000
- A moratorium on nuclear plant construction lasting for 30+ years
No-one should really care if
I or
GTS or
RobertN shows much urgency right now unless cell phone data plans, message board posts, or how much salt is put on your fries, respectively, can somehow prevent a nuclear plant from melting down.
I don't see any reason to believe that the Japanese are not acting with appropriate urgency on this issue given that they have problems that are far far more pressing at this time. How many people are displaced because of the earthquake and Tsunami? How many chemical emergencies do they have in the country at this time? Diverting resources needed to address those issues seems unwarranted and/or irresponsible.
If the people that have direct responsibility for addressing the nuclear plant are acting without urgency (has overtime not been approved? Beer cans observed onsite?), then that's another matter.
I do wonder if part of their disaster scenarios should include a sea-based power source (nuclear carrier, barge, etc). One suggestion is locating power sources physically higher so that a tsunami wouldn't affect it.