Whats the problem? Were they planning on building them near the san andreas fault line?
Red Alert now issued for Japan
- Thread starter LEAPup
- Start date
Whats the problem? Were they planning on building them near the san andreas fault line?
Direct from TEPCO:
All 6 units of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station have been shut down.
Unit 1(Shut down)
- Reactor has been shut down. However, the unit is under inspection due to
the explosive sound and white smoke that was confirmed after the big
quake occurred at 3:36PM.
- We have been injecting sea water and boric acid which absorbs neutron
into the reactor core.
Unit 2(Shut down)
- Reactor and Reactor Core Isolation Cooling System have been shut down.
Current reactor water level is lower than normal level, but the water
level is steady. After fully securing safety, we are preparing to
implement a measure to reduce the pressure of the reactor containment
vessels under the instruction of the national government.
Unit 3(Shut down)
- Reactor has been shut down and we continue injecting water by High
Pressure Core Injection System. After fully securing safety, we are
preparing to implement a measure to reduce the pressure of the reactor
containment vessels under the instruction of the national government.
- Currently, we do not believe there is any reactor coolant leakage
inside the reactor containment vessel.
Unit 4 (shut down due to regular inspection)
- Reactor has been shut down and sufficient level of reactor coolant to
ensure safety is maintained.
- Currently, we do not believe there is any reactor coolant leakage inside
the reactor containment vessel.
Unit 5 (outage due to regular inspection)
- Reactor has been shut down and sufficient level of reactor coolant to
ensure safety is maintained.
- Currently, we do not believe there is any reactor coolant leakage inside
the reactor containment vessel.
Unit 6 (outage due to regular inspection)
- Reactor has been shut down and sufficient level of reactor coolant to
ensure safety is maintained.
- Currently, we do not believe there is any reactor coolant leakage
inside the reactor containment vessel.
Casualty
- 2 workers of cooperative firm were injured at the occurrence of the
earthquake, and were transported to the hospital.
- 1 TEPCO employee who was not able to stand by his own with his hand
holding left chest was transported to the hospital by an ambulance.
- 1 subcontract worker at important earthquake-proof building was
unconscious and transported to the hospital by an ambulance.
- The radiation exposure of 1 TEPCO employee, who was working inside the
reactor building, exceeded 100mSv and was transported to the hospital.
- 4 workers were injured and transported to the hospital after explosive
sound and white smoke were confirmed around the Unit 1.
- Presence of 2 TEPCO employees at the site are not confirmed
Others
- We measured radioactive materials inside of the nuclear power station
area (outdoor) by monitoring car and confirmed that radioactive
materials level is higher than ordinary level. Also, the level at
monitoring post is higher than ordinary level. We will continue to
monitor in detail the possibility of radioactive material being
discharged from exhaust stack or discharge canal. The national
government has instructed evacuation for those local residents within
20km radius of the periphery because it's possible that radioactive
materials are discharged.
- We will continue to take all measures to restore the security of
the site and to monitor the environment of the site periphery.
All 6 units of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station have been shut down.
Unit 1(Shut down)
- Reactor has been shut down. However, the unit is under inspection due to
the explosive sound and white smoke that was confirmed after the big
quake occurred at 3:36PM.
- We have been injecting sea water and boric acid which absorbs neutron
into the reactor core.
Unit 2(Shut down)
- Reactor and Reactor Core Isolation Cooling System have been shut down.
Current reactor water level is lower than normal level, but the water
level is steady. After fully securing safety, we are preparing to
implement a measure to reduce the pressure of the reactor containment
vessels under the instruction of the national government.
Unit 3(Shut down)
- Reactor has been shut down and we continue injecting water by High
Pressure Core Injection System. After fully securing safety, we are
preparing to implement a measure to reduce the pressure of the reactor
containment vessels under the instruction of the national government.
- Currently, we do not believe there is any reactor coolant leakage
inside the reactor containment vessel.
Unit 4 (shut down due to regular inspection)
- Reactor has been shut down and sufficient level of reactor coolant to
ensure safety is maintained.
- Currently, we do not believe there is any reactor coolant leakage inside
the reactor containment vessel.
Unit 5 (outage due to regular inspection)
- Reactor has been shut down and sufficient level of reactor coolant to
ensure safety is maintained.
- Currently, we do not believe there is any reactor coolant leakage inside
the reactor containment vessel.
Unit 6 (outage due to regular inspection)
- Reactor has been shut down and sufficient level of reactor coolant to
ensure safety is maintained.
- Currently, we do not believe there is any reactor coolant leakage
inside the reactor containment vessel.
Casualty
- 2 workers of cooperative firm were injured at the occurrence of the
earthquake, and were transported to the hospital.
- 1 TEPCO employee who was not able to stand by his own with his hand
holding left chest was transported to the hospital by an ambulance.
- 1 subcontract worker at important earthquake-proof building was
unconscious and transported to the hospital by an ambulance.
- The radiation exposure of 1 TEPCO employee, who was working inside the
reactor building, exceeded 100mSv and was transported to the hospital.
- 4 workers were injured and transported to the hospital after explosive
sound and white smoke were confirmed around the Unit 1.
- Presence of 2 TEPCO employees at the site are not confirmed
Others
- We measured radioactive materials inside of the nuclear power station
area (outdoor) by monitoring car and confirmed that radioactive
materials level is higher than ordinary level. Also, the level at
monitoring post is higher than ordinary level. We will continue to
monitor in detail the possibility of radioactive material being
discharged from exhaust stack or discharge canal. The national
government has instructed evacuation for those local residents within
20km radius of the periphery because it's possible that radioactive
materials are discharged.
- We will continue to take all measures to restore the security of
the site and to monitor the environment of the site periphery.
Terrible irony that the Japanese were subject to a nuclear holocaust in 1945, might happen again to them. Talk about an oppressed group of people, that's probably the worst thing that can happen to any society yet Japan did recover after WWII, I think they'll come together and rebuild once again, just unreal what those folks have gone through.
Interestingly, the poor are the fat ones, but let's not get too offtopic...
Ps.: If you got offended by the "fat Americans" don't blame the messenger, blame the facts:
http://www.forbes.com/2007/02/07/worlds-fattest-countries-forbeslife-cx_ls_0208worldfat_2.html
US is #2 if we count only real countries with at least 1 million people.
Whoa... life comes full circle.
I came to Chicago fresh out of graduate school as a Nuclear Engineer for Commonwealth Edison in the late 80's. As a single guy living in Lincoln Park in the early 90's, and out of shear boredom, I opened an account at TransMarket Group, leased one of Ray's evening Full Memberships, and started trading during the evening Pit sessions. During the daytime I would manage these really big technical projects, and at about 6:00 pm every evening I would walk over the the Board and start trading. My badge was "NUK".
Well, the Chairman of ComEd was elected to the CBOT Board of Directors (the Irish Mafia - they are all Irish, Italian, or Jewish in the Exchange Hierarchy), and of course everybody on the sitting Board knew about me - I was a novelty at that point. Well, a few weeks into the Board gig the ComEd CEO called me up and told me that I was no longer a Nuclear Engineer, and that I was now assigned to help start up a new energy trading desk and from then on I was a full-time trader.
I have eight international patents in Radiation Shielding and the use of robotics and remote handling.
A few comments born of sincere knowledge on the topic:
1. We were always amazed that the Japanese built those sites on that level of seismic activity. Everything in the U.S. is seismically qualified in terms of site location and construction specs. If we wanted to institute a mod on a safety-related system, we would build it, load it on a skid, and then truck the damn thing down to Huntsville Alabama and G-Load test it on the Martin-Marietta Space Station G-Load Shake Table. In other words, everything we did on a Safety-Related System had to be seismically qualified at a factor of "X to the Y" beyond a known 'worse case scenario'.
2. I don't understand the whole off-set power diesel generator problem. I thought the Japs were smarter than we are. Every Emergency-Planning Scenario we practiced (several times per year) involved the loss of off-site power to a tornado or such. Part of our mandatory checklist for operations was to routinely start up and run the diesel generators. I mean these things are like 5 or 6 locomotive engines - literally. And we always had huge storage tanks of diesel fuel that were checked every week for purity and stratification. By law, if we couldn't start up our diesel generators within like 5 minutes of initiation during a mandatory monthly test overseen by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, we had to shut down the plant competely in 12 hours.
3. There are like 12 different defense-in-depth systems to cool down a reactor core in the US. Worse case scenario is we have a gravity-fed tank of boron solution that completely immobilizes the reactor core - and that's just a manual gate-valve.
4. There are reactor vessel and reactor building primary containment systems in duplicate that Chernobyl never had. The "1000 times" radiation releases you are hearing about are very short-lived isotopes that are essentially high energy noble gases where the photon energy components are at background levels by the time they reach the plant boundary. In other words, radiation detectors at the off-gas stack read Z and the radiation detectors at the plant boundary fence read background. The really damaging isotopes like Cs-137 and Co-60 are scrubbed through large charcoal beds; there is no avenue for them to escape into the atmosphere without scrubbing. Here in the US we have to pressure-test our containment structures routinely in the presense of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
I came to Chicago fresh out of graduate school as a Nuclear Engineer for Commonwealth Edison in the late 80's. As a single guy living in Lincoln Park in the early 90's, and out of shear boredom, I opened an account at TransMarket Group, leased one of Ray's evening Full Memberships, and started trading during the evening Pit sessions. During the daytime I would manage these really big technical projects, and at about 6:00 pm every evening I would walk over the the Board and start trading. My badge was "NUK".
Well, the Chairman of ComEd was elected to the CBOT Board of Directors (the Irish Mafia - they are all Irish, Italian, or Jewish in the Exchange Hierarchy), and of course everybody on the sitting Board knew about me - I was a novelty at that point. Well, a few weeks into the Board gig the ComEd CEO called me up and told me that I was no longer a Nuclear Engineer, and that I was now assigned to help start up a new energy trading desk and from then on I was a full-time trader.
I have eight international patents in Radiation Shielding and the use of robotics and remote handling.
A few comments born of sincere knowledge on the topic:
1. We were always amazed that the Japanese built those sites on that level of seismic activity. Everything in the U.S. is seismically qualified in terms of site location and construction specs. If we wanted to institute a mod on a safety-related system, we would build it, load it on a skid, and then truck the damn thing down to Huntsville Alabama and G-Load test it on the Martin-Marietta Space Station G-Load Shake Table. In other words, everything we did on a Safety-Related System had to be seismically qualified at a factor of "X to the Y" beyond a known 'worse case scenario'.
2. I don't understand the whole off-set power diesel generator problem. I thought the Japs were smarter than we are. Every Emergency-Planning Scenario we practiced (several times per year) involved the loss of off-site power to a tornado or such. Part of our mandatory checklist for operations was to routinely start up and run the diesel generators. I mean these things are like 5 or 6 locomotive engines - literally. And we always had huge storage tanks of diesel fuel that were checked every week for purity and stratification. By law, if we couldn't start up our diesel generators within like 5 minutes of initiation during a mandatory monthly test overseen by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, we had to shut down the plant competely in 12 hours.
3. There are like 12 different defense-in-depth systems to cool down a reactor core in the US. Worse case scenario is we have a gravity-fed tank of boron solution that completely immobilizes the reactor core - and that's just a manual gate-valve.
4. There are reactor vessel and reactor building primary containment systems in duplicate that Chernobyl never had. The "1000 times" radiation releases you are hearing about are very short-lived isotopes that are essentially high energy noble gases where the photon energy components are at background levels by the time they reach the plant boundary. In other words, radiation detectors at the off-gas stack read Z and the radiation detectors at the plant boundary fence read background. The really damaging isotopes like Cs-137 and Co-60 are scrubbed through large charcoal beds; there is no avenue for them to escape into the atmosphere without scrubbing. Here in the US we have to pressure-test our containment structures routinely in the presense of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
That's not entirely true. Most power reactors in service and under construction worldwide are pressurized light water reactors. There are also a few gas cooled reactors still in service, RMBKs (of Chernobyl fame), and heavy water reactors such as CANDUs.
That's pretty much true. Advanced designs such as the Integral Fast Reactor which was abandoned in 1994 for political reasons are just gathering dust despite clear advantages in passive safety, proliferation resistance and much reduced waste.
I believe the Japanese economy was just starting to recover this year, the rebuilding and recovery efforts might jump start that, also they seem to have pretty tight immigration policies so the locals and native born should be able to get any jobs that open up unlike in the US after Katrina where foreigners, mostly Mexicans, were imported to rebuild to the exclusion of many locals who couldn't apply or obtain work towards clean-up & reconstruction efforts .