Posted on 03/29/2011 9:12:35 AM PDT by SteveH
TOKYO – In planning their defense against a killer tsunami, the people running Japan's now-hobbled nuclear power plant dismissed important scientific evidence and all but disregarded 3,000 years of geological history, an Associated Press investigation shows.
The misplaced confidence displayed by Tokyo Electric Power Co. was prompted by a series of overly optimistic assumptions that concluded the Earth couldn't possibly release the level of fury it did two weeks ago, pushing the six-reactor Fukushima Dai-ichi complex to the brink of multiple meltdowns.
Instead of the reactors staying dry, as contemplated under the power company's worst-case scenario, the plant was overrun by a torrent of water much higher and stronger than the utility argued could occur, according to an AP analysis of records, documents and statements from researchers, the utility and the Japan's national nuclear safety agency.
And while TEPCO and government officials have said no one could have anticipated such a massive tsunami, there is ample evidence that such waves have struck the northeast coast of Japan before — and that it could happen again along the culprit fault line, which runs roughly north to south, offshore, about 220 miles (350 kilometers) east of the plant.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
IMHO this kind of stuff does not happen by itself. Someone high up in the TEPCO management chain decided they would roll the dice and take a risk. There were probably a lot of people who had the choice of either keeping quiet or losing their job over this. In Japan, being fired is very rare and a lot of stigma is attached to the fired employee. Corporate management can take advantage of that...
How many years does one go back? But then I guess the liberals writing this are never wrong and we should never doubt their enormous wisdom. /s
Not necessarily. You have to appreciate the mind-set. What was the background of the men who made the decisions? Engineers depend on the data. I am reminded of a discussion between my Dad, an oil operator, and an engineer about how high a platform should be safe from flood waters in the Sabine River bottom. My Dad’s lease was on a flood plain in the bend of the river. The engineer’s question was, well was the all time high water mark on the property. He was puzzeled when my Dad laughed, and said, Who knows? The official mark was so-and so, but who knew what the real high was. My Dad said that a geologists had told him the flood plain had been created by a long ago flood of unknown size. Bottom line, the platform was built higher than the engineer’s original margin of error. My Dad always took the long view, thinking like a geologist rather than an engineer.
Moving those back-up generators out of the basement and to higher ground as a precautionary measure, would have been the easiest thing in the world, relatively speaking.
I know the Hollywood image of a cigar smoking fat cat taking a risk with public safety to save a buck is part of the American mindset, but it rarely has anything to do with reality.
The Japanese plants were designed to Japanese government regulations (not to the whims of TEPCO), which at the time, were heavily modelled after US regulations. Plants are designed for extreme events, but not for every event.
To put things in perspective, the Okura dam in Sendai collapsed from the earthquake and 1800 homes were destroyed, and an uncounted number of people died. A bullet train with 400 people on it was washed out to sea from the tsunami. Do you think some executive "rolled the dice" on these places?
They had seismographs over 1000 years ago? Who knew...
Small potatoes - they're just dead people. A missing train sells paper for a day - a nuclear incident sells yellow journalism for a lifetime. And that's what the AP is all about - selling "news".
This was something like the fifth largest earthquake on record. Do you really plan for such a thing if records make it seem like this type of an event happens once in a thousand years, and even then those quakes may or may not have caused this much devistation? Who saw a 9.0 coming for this site?
Honestly, some of this after the fact judgment is a bit over the top.
I’m not thrilled with the power plant operators. I’m not convinced this aspect of the plant management was so obviously wrong before the event.
For me it’s like a clairvoyant making two hundred predictions. One comes true and all of a sudden everyone should have listened to her.
That does sound like a good idea. It’s one I think would make sense if retrofits were decided to be appropriate for other plants.
Yeah, it’s really easy to hurl accusations when something fails. S happens folks. You can’t remove all risk from life.
In Japan tsunamis were recognized in historical times both to be caused by earthquakes and to cause measurably high flooding of the coastline lands. An article posted earlier on FR mentioned a record which (from memory) recorded the date and the height of the tsunami (over 50 feet) around 1000 AD. It is not a matter of liberal or conservative, just a matter of paying close attention to the historical record which is available.
I do appreciate the mindset. My father worked on Fukushima a bit (along with others in the region). I recall discussing tsunamis with him at the time. So everyone had at least a general qualitative awareness of the problem, if my memory is correct. In general, however, the high level decisions were made outside of engineering. For example, the engineers were told to build to withstand an 8.0 magnitude earthquake (iirc). And yes, I would expect some fudge factors to be employed to offset uncertainty and provide extra safety margin.
If I were the government agency or TEPCO I personally would have striven to build to that standard, yes, or be braced for the blowback if my decision were proven wrong. Nuclear reactors need special care and feeding or else they can be somewhat dangerous. This everyone recognizes. They need to take into consideration geology. This everyone recognizes. 1000 years is a small period in geological terms. This everyone recognizes.
Steve, the life of the plant probably wouldn’t have extended all that long into the future. As I mentioned, we don’t know the full severity of an earthquake from 1000 years ago. It’s a guess.
You can’t plan for 9.0 earthquakes at every facility on the off side chance the fifth worst recorded earthquake on record is going to happen near them.
Right now we have a bunch of Lefties running off at the mouth saying, “We told you so! We told you so!” Bull. Hell, they predict catastrophe at every nuclear plant.
Look, you’ve got a right to your opinion, and perhaps you’re right. I’m not quite so sure.
I appreciate the opposing opinion. Take care.
I was not addressing the earthquake considerations, but the tsunami considerations. The historic tsunami records that Japan did have in the 1960s and 1970s were IMHO sufficient to indicate that the reactor generators were at risk from a large tsunami.
Right now we have a bunch of Lefties running off at the mouth saying, “We told you so! We told you so!” Bull. Hell, they predict catastrophe at every nuclear plant.
I tune the lefties out. Often they are not technical. I tune out the non-technical righties too. I am concerned with the technical issues and policy implications.
Look, you’ve got a right to your opinion, and perhaps you’re right. I’m not quite so sure. I appreciate the opposing opinion. Take care.
No worries. You might like to review your position in light of my comments and the articles I have alluded to. Please do not take my word for anything (its worth should be considered equal to what you paid for it). However you can just go to primary sources and replicate the analysis fwiw if you like.
^_^
More accurately, I tune non-technical lefties out. But I will listen to technical lefties if their technical arguments seem to make sense.
SteveH, if you’re merely addressing the location of the reactor generators, then I think you’ve made a sound point.
I mentioned my thoughts on that in an earlier post, perhaps even to you. I didn’t check out the name of the person I responded to.
Thanks for the follow-up.
This plant was built in the 1960s and 1970s. Unit 1 construction was started in July, 1967, and the unit went commercial in 1971. Unit 6, the newest, was started in 1973 and completed in 1979. From this event, it was evident that they took some steps to improve the ability to deal with a tsunami with the last 2 units, 5 and 6. They are not suffering the fate of the original 4 units, likely because they designed them for a more significant event than the earlier reactors.
I 'think' that a backup generator on unit 6 survived the earthquake and tsunami, or was started a very short time later because those two units maintained some cooling, albeit at a lessor level than normal throughout the aftermath.
It's hard to put events together properly when you have a combination of an out-of-control media and a ton of fear-mongering going on. We have to continue to strive to separate the wheat from the chafe.
Of course the decisions will be made by people above the pay grade of the engineers—who are, after all, just worker-bees. It is that way in the oil field as well. Just look at what happened in the Gulf. The book-keepers will always try to control the situation, even when the matter is beyond their competence. My point is that even engineers fail to look at the contingencies with enough imagination. Imagine the worst case. Now imagine something even worse. You have to scare the bookkeepers enough that they are willing to listen to the most cautious engineer and then come down from that to what all agree is economical.
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