[HeartlandOfAmerica]

Hey, if you're an engineer, answer a question for me if you can?

Is it really so hard to fly in some few generators and pumps at the start of this to keep those coolant systems intact and operating?

It doesn't seem like it should be that hard to me but I'm a computer guy as I've pointed out in other places, not an engineer or anything even close to that.

The quake/tsunami hit on Friday, they had steam on sat morning and the first explosion was Monday evening. They couldn't have gotten power and pumps in that area in that 3 day weekend for some reason that I can't see?

[chimera]

Is it really so hard to fly in some few generators and pumps at the start of this to keep those coolant systems intact and operating?

Those aren't terribly portable. We aren't talking about backyard generators here. The emergency diesels have to put out power in the 5 MW range. Typically, those are an 18-month custom order, then about a year onsite installing and qualifying them.

Then, you don't just plug in the plant like you do a PC to a UPS. Generator output must be synched to the plant safety buses. When offsite power comes back on, you need to synchronize the generators (phase) to the offsite feed before switching over. If you're off a little on the synchro, you end up blowing the safety buses, which puts you in a worse place than you were before power went out.

[PA Engineer]

Is it really so hard to fly in some few generators and pumps at the start of this to keep those coolant systems intact and operating?

I don't know all of the facts on the ground there. My understanding is the word "fly" was about right. The road system was disrupted after the tsunami. If you fly the generators in, you are going to have to fly in the fuel. I don't know how that would have been possible with onsite storage gone.

I still do not know all of the facts in the decision process, however I believe they did their own form of triage. I think they made the right decision to build new power lines to the site. I think during the first eight hours they made the assessment and that was to sacrifice the reactors. This was just more economic damage from the tsunami.

[Eldon Tyrell]

I thi nk you need to think of it like this -

Class one disaster - the guys are going to get the right things done.

Shoot - we overnight parts for basic things -

I believe - in this case - the problem is that the water supply was messed up by the Tsunami. Not that they could not re-establish pumping -= but that - there was nothing to pump.

Put it this way - if your solution were feasible - it woul dhave been done in 6 hours or less.

[NVDave]

The size of the generators used for this sort of job is huge. 1 MW generator for this job would weigh about 100 tons or more.

There’s only a few planes in the world that can fly that type of weight around the world.

Now, there’s one more wrinkle that might have made a difference: I think TEPCO’s system runs on 50Hz, not 60Hz. To my knowledge (and I could very well be wrong, since I’m recalling this from a conversation with a Japanese engineer when I visited Japan in the 90’s, and he mentioned this as an aside, not a detailed conversation), Japan is the only modern country that has two power frequencies in their grid.

This could limit the availability of generators out there in industry that are “ready to go” and be dropped into their application.

This, BTW, is part of what is likely leading to their rolling blackouts to conserve power. The western region of the country cannot wheel power into the eastern shore grid around Tokyo without frequency conversion.