Thanks for the Summary Site.
For those who are interested, here is what they report so far :
The lesson so far: Japan suffered an earthquake and tsunami of unprecedented proportion that has caused unbelievable damage to every part of their infrastructure, and death of very large numbers of people. The media have chosen to report the damage to a nuclear plant which was, and still is, unlikely to harm anyone. We won’t know for sure, of course, until the last measure to assure cooling is put in place, but that’s the likely outcome. You’d never know it from the parade of interested anti-nuclear activists identified as “nuclear experts” on TV.
From the early morning Saturday nuclear activists were on TV labelling this ‘the third worst nuclear accident ever’. This was no accident, this was damage caused by truly one of the worst of earthquakes and tsunamis ever. (The reported sweeping away of four entire trains, including a bullet train which apparently disappeared without a trace, was not labelled “the third worst train accident ever.”) An example of the reporting: A fellow from one of the universities, and I didn’t note which one, obviously an engineer and a knowlegable one, was asked a question and began to explain quite sensibly what was likely. He was cut off after about a minute, maybe less, and an anti-nuke, very glib, and very poorly informed, was brought on. With ponderous solemnity, he then made one outrageous and incorrect statement after another. He was so good at it they held him over for another segment
The second lesson is to the engineers: We all know that the water reactor has one principal characteristic when it shuts down that has to be looked after. It must have water to flow around the fuel rods and be able to inject it into the reactor if some is lost by a sticking relief valve or from any other cause – for this, it must have backup power to power the pumps and injection systems.
The designers apparently could not imagine a tsunami of these proportions and the backup power — remember, the plants themselves produce power, power is brought in by multiple outside power lines, there are banks of diesels to produce backup power, and finally, banks of batteries to back that up, all were disabled. There’s still a lot the operators can do, did and are doing. But reactors were damaged and may not have needed to be even by this unthinkable earthquake if they had designed the backup power systems to be impregnable, not an impossible thing for an engineer to do. So we have damage that probably could have been avoided, and reporting of almost stunning inaccuracy and ignorance.Still, the odds are that no one will be hurt from radioactivity — a few workers from falling or in the hydrogen explosions, but tiny on the scale of the damage and killing around it.
It seems pathetic that Russia should be the only reported adult in this — they’re quoted as saying “Of course our nuclear program is not going to be affected by an earthquake in Japan.” Japan has earthquakes. But perhaps it will be, if the noise is loud enough.
Ya know, I've been wondering something since the first days of this disaster.
Why couldn't they fly in backup generators from the git go???
I mean, they can fly heavy trucks by helocopter, why not generator units?? Restore the power and the problem fixes itself.
I just don't get it I guess. But then I'm not in the center seat over there.
The designers apparently could not imagine a tsunami of these proportions and the backup power — remember, the plants themselves produce power, power is brought in by multiple outside power lines, there are banks of diesels to produce backup power, and finally, banks of batteries to back that up, all were disabled.
It is a classic case of a common-mode failure and this will be the repercussion in the industry, try to enhance the availability of emergency power in cases where this kind of event can happen.
Here, we had two things happen from the same initiating event. Station blackout and loss of emergency diesel electricity. Station blackout from loss of offsite power is one of the most troublesome events nuclear plant operators have to deal with. Then you are totally reliant on emergency power. That means diesel generators and, for a short period, batteries. All indications at this point are that all the safety systems were working up to the point of the loss of diesel power. The plant shutdown safely when the seismic event was detected. Cooling systems were operable on backup power when offsite power was lost. When the diesels quit when the tsunami came ashore, things went south.
If you lose AC power on the plant safety buses, there really isn't much you can do other than work your darndest to get power back on. This is what they did. But the accident had evolved at that point to include other complications, as we've seen. So my guess is we'll see added emphasis on assuring that emergency power is available in this kind of common-mode failure scenario.
Third lesson: LOTS of video cameras so people can actually SEE what’s happening!
I heard that the plant was designed to withstand a 20 foot tsunami, they got a 21 footer.
The latest report I saw today is that atmospheric radiation levels over Japan are actually DROPPING now. That will not be a headline in the U.S., of course.