I really am not sure how you can claim this vent debacle..and it was one...had no bearing.
But whatever...
There was a known venting issue with that design. Did they do the retrofit. Wouldn’t surprise if they really didn’t do it.
http://www.tipnews.info/breaking_news/NDcwNjY=/2011/03/18/us_japan_quake_company_aig
I believe this guy
http://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=3225300&postcount=2535
It really shouldn’t have been that hard for the CEO and the Chairman to understand that the earthquake and tsunami had devastated the landscape and DUH...the generators might have a problem getting there.
But go ahead and give them a pass
I don’t. Too much scandal at the hands of Katsumata. I personally believe there is a good possibility that his resignation was a token resignation because of the huge scandal and that the CEO went missing in action so Katsumata could take control over the disaster.
"We understand that all of the BWR Mark 1 containment units at Fukushima Daiichi also addressed these issues and implemented modifications in accordance with Japanese regulatory requirements."Sounds like they did the retrofit.
That was to strengthen the containment, not the part of the building that blew apart when the hydrogen blew up.
The link also mentions the problem of the fuel pools being outside the containment vessel (inside the outer containment buildings which blew up). We haven't fixed that in U.S. plants either, and the link says:
"(...) The United States has 31 boiling-water reactors with similarly situated spent fuel pools that are far more densely packed than those at Fukushima and hence could pose far higher risks if damaged," Lyman said on Wednesday to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.It does seem to be a cause for concern that we have fuel rods separated from our atmosphere by nothing more than the water in the pools, with no way of sealing it off. If I were over-designing those plants, I would have included a moving metal door set which could close off the top of the pools in a catastrophe.
But I should note that there could be a good reason not to do that, or else they would have flown something like that in by now. Probably trapping the fuel in a pool with no water would end up making things worse. That would be something I'd expect to come up at a design review meeting.