Another question regarding the nuclear power problems in Japan
Don Quixote on Mar 16 2011 at 10:11 am | Filed under: Uncategorized
Please, somebody explain this to me. I’ve heard it reported that the original problems with the reactors were caused by the power going off when the earthquake hit. Of all places, wouldn’t one expect a nuclear power plant to have a failsafe emergency backup power generator? Was there no such backup power or did it fail, too? Or did the report I heard miss the mark completely?
Related posts:
- The nuclear plant problem in Japan — and the problem with ideologues in science *UPDATED*
- Iran trying to use Canada as a conduit for nuclear materials
- Question of the day
Email This Post To A Friend
28 Responses to “Another question regarding the nuclear power problems in Japan”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
The backup generators were reportedly swamped by the tsunami.
From what I’ve read and heard (understand) there were 3 back-ups. They all require some form of electricity including the generators and batteries to operate them.
There’s also about 8 hours of battery backup which will buy you time to figure something out if the generators don’t work, etc. The big problem is these old 70s designs need to be actively cooled – we really need to replace them with designs that fail into more of a safe mode. I really wish if they were going to be throwing around massive amounts of stimulus money anyway that they’d replaced some of the older reactors with current technology and put some more into R&D to get the next generation designs really nailed down.
I think the reactors could have survived the earthquake, but the followon tsunami compounded the problem.
I heard there are two backup systems: the diesel generators, and the 8-hur battery backup. My guess is that some systems got seriously damaged in the tsunami. The electrical distribution system may have been damaged preventing power from getting to the pumps; the coolant plumbing system may have been damaged, preventing the pumps from being able to either provide or circulate the coolant; or the heat exchanger may have been damaged preventing the ability to remove heat from the circulating coolant.
Various combinations of details to and or all of these damaged systems coupled with the fact that the engineers can’t just go out and take a look to see what is happening.
If the instrumentation system also got damaged, the control room operators can not tell what is happening and may be “flying blind”.
It is an ugly mess.
I understand the backup diesel generators were damaged, and the battery capacity was of course limited.
I’ve seen it suggested that backup should be provided using steam turbines, given that there is obviously plenty of heat around to generate the steam, but turbines spin at high RPM and I would think they’d be unlikely to survive an earthquake shock.
Once the back-ups were submerged, that was that.
The reactors did an autoshut down as programmed due to the earthquake. They still need powered cooling which is suppose to be provided by backup generators and beyond that batteries. The generators are the real solution. They however were designed for a 6.3 m tsunami but got hit by a 7 m tsunami. (numbers are from recent report but news reports are so compromised now, who knows) But the generators were knocked out by the tsunami. Whether that was knocked off their foundations, inundated with salt water or just flooded in the exhaust I haven’t heard. I assume inundation which is a bigger problem of compromising the generator and the electrical distribution system making quick repair impossible.
So the real failure here is the backup generator design. Near the ocean, the generators should be in inundation proof enclosures with wave diversion structures seaward. Along with watersealed exhaust check valves.
Or back up secondary emergency generators should be on the roof of the containment buildings instead of some ground site on the complex. Basically, design it like a ship, emergency generator is above the highest watertight deck so that it the ship is lost anyway when it floods.
I have heard that the cooling water which is very pure to avoid picking up radioactivity was contaminated by the flooding not only with saltwater but with debris and mud. However, that only impacts normal salvation and not the last ditch flooding with seawater (which will be radioactive due to mineral content as well as corrosive to the reactor.
I, too, read or heard somewhere that the backup system(s) was ruined by the tsunami.
ABC News also reported that one hospital in the area had evacuated patients from the bottom three floors, thinking that the fourth floor and above should be safe; unfortunately, the fourth floor patients died in the tsunami. I’m sure the hospital staff were cautious about moving patients who shouldn’t be moved. Also, unlike hurricane Katrina, an earthquake and tsunami are only predicted when they actually happen; One doesn’t have hours to prepare, but, rather has mere minutes. It probably took everyone in the hospital working triple-speed to evacuate those bottom three floors in the couple of minutes that they had. But, this just goes to show how BIG that tsunami actually was – it flooded the fourth floor!
There is, without at doubt, a lot of second guessing going on with all those who planned these reactors (if they are still alive, 30 years was a long time ago) as well as with others around the world who are in charge of such.
Book, I agree with your several earlier posts in that Japan was prepared as well as, no, make that better than, anyone else; But, even the Japanese authorities didn’t seem to expect a 9.0 (If I have read correctly there have only been a handfull of earthquakes since 1900 that have reached that mark?) followed by a tsunami this massive.
I also read somewhere that since the Kobe quake (1995?) Japan took a serious look at what went wrong and made improvements as best they could. That earthquake was somewhere around a 6 or 7; not even close to the 9.0 that hit recently; nor did it have the massive tsunami. Many of the aftershocks from this recent quake are of the same strength of that Kobe quake. Wow! is all that I can say on that.
Personally, the strongest quake that I have been in registered somewhere between 6 and 7 (If I recall, they were 6.5 and a 6.8) and those were bad enough, I cannot even begin to imagine anything around a 9.0. Also most of the quakes that I have experienced lasted only for seconds, at the most a minute or two. I read somewhere, but can’t find it now, that this Sendai earthquake lasted for as long as 5 minutes. If true, I don’t know what impact, if any, that would have had on the backup systems; but five minutes is a long time for most equipment to be “thrown around” and still be in working order. Any engineers, or even folks more knowledgable than me, out there?
Part of the issue re: planning is that they were expecting a large event in the south of Japan. There hadn’t been a large quake in the north in many years (hundreds or more). I’m sure they thought they were being very conservative with their engineering as it was.
This is a peripheral note, but it’s an interesting look into the scientific mind as it pieces together plausible accounts of natural events.
For years geologists had known that a 9.0+ earthquake shook the Puget Sound area sometime in the early 18th century. The closest they could come to an actual date was somewhere between 1700 and 1730. Although local Indian tribes recalled the event in their lore, their reckoning of the date it happened wasn’t conclusive.
However, the geologists reasoned that a quake of that magnitude must have created a massive tsunami—in this case, one that worked its way 5,000 miles west to Japan. So, they tracked down local Japanese accounts of tsunamis between 1700 and 1730. They found that there had been a great tsunami in 1700 at such-and-such day and time. Working backwards from Japan, taking into account the speed of a tsunami surge and the International Dateline, they arrived at an almost exact date and time for the Puget Sound event.
Pretty nifty, eh? I just love good detective minds at work.
That was the last time the Cascadia Fault moved. There was – and is – geological evidence on the ground in Washington and Oregon of that event – and several before it. As noted, the Japanese had the records, and so we know the earthquake and tsunami occurred in January, 1700.
Regrettably, the Cascadia produces what are cheerfully known as “megathrust” earthquakes. For our purposes that means big – and of long duration. When the Cascadia has a rupture at any point in its length (northern California north to just beyond the north-south midpoint of Vancouver Island) the rupture will travel outward in both directions along the entire length of the fault. It produces a specific type of sine wave in the earth, so it’s one of the ones that doesn’t jolt and go away. What happens is the ground, and streets, etc., etc. will rise and fall just like ocean waves – and nobody’s ever been bold enough to make a prediction of how long this will go on, but five minutes is the low end.
The evidence on the ground in Oregon and Washington show that the Cascadia Fault lets go about every three hundred years. It is now 311 years so – naturally – it is considered to be overdue. (Does anyone know of a fault anywhere on the planet that’s not overdue?)
All the damn volcanoes around here are, inevitably, all overdue, too. Shasta’s overdue, Hood’s overdue, Adams is overdue, Rainier’s overdue, Baker’s overdue – this isn’t a planet: this is a time bomb!
I haven’t seen a timeline but I suspect given the proximity of the epicenter that waves could have been coming ashore at the closest land by the time the shaking stopped. Long before the Tsunami guys at the Japan Meteorological Agency could hit the sirens. Much less the people react.
Rule is if you are near the ocean and an earthquake strong enough to make standing difficult happens. Run, uphill. Fast. You also have to be aware of water coming up tidal areas and river deltas.
Five of the six nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power station are boiling water type GE Mark 1. Now we have the revelation that three G.E. scientists who were working on the design of the Mark 1 Reactor quit their jobs over GE’s failure to correct the design flaws that have become so disastrously evident at the Fukushima Daiichi power station.
Apologies for the link, but … it does have a list of reactors similar to the one above in the US.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/03/16/956868/-In-1976-3-GE-Scientists-quit-in-protest-over-flaws-in-Mark-1-Reactor-design
Having lived on Bainbridge Island for a few years I learned of an upthrust on the south of the island and it is the one that Charles and JJ speak of. The height of the above ground thrust – 22 feet, a brand new cliff!
http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2011/mar/11/japanese-earthquake-could-be-replicated-here/
jj, interesting comments on Cascadia. Here is California, where we are quake-obsessed, the concern is always about whether we could experience something as big as the Japanese quake or your big one back in 1700.
The answer, it seems, is no. The nature of our faults—faults where the sides slip past each other rather than over or under—precludes quakes much beyond 8. Our biggest historical quakes have never gone past 7.9. But in your case, with the Pacific plate slipping inexorably under the North American plate, our geologists say the sky apparently is the limit. It turns out that the Pacific Northwest (and after that, the New Madrid Fault in the Mississippi River Valley) are the two locales that keep temblor types up at night wringing their hands over the most.
For God’s sake, man, I know you’re in a particularly nice piece of country, but you could wake up someday with the Olympic Mountains advancing rapidly on your backyard. Why not find a geologically peaceful place to spend your dotage in? I hear the Simpson Desert in Australia hasn’t had a quake in hundreds of thousands of years. (Or a good rainfall, for that matter.)
Can’t worry about stuff like that too much. I assume I’ll wake up dead one morning anyway, so might as well maximally enjoy what comes before – including scenery.
“I assume I’ll wake up dead one morning ….”
jj – quite a hat trick or going zombie
As an aside to the main story, there’s a secondary fallout (forgive the pun, really) and that’s the economic one – the complete halt. stoppage, slow down whatever you want to call it are the exports from Japan, the auto plants that operate in the US and the trickle down effects to dealerships. I am sure there’s a long list, but that’s the first one that came to mind. Looking into the future near or short term, there will be a cost to importing from Japan (the testing of radioactive levels in everything). On the other side of the coin, how does this on-going disaster affect exports to Japan. It’s a global economy with global repercussions, starting with the need for Japan to import more oil to compensate.
Anyone have any thoughts on the subject?
Others have cited the major problem being the inundation of sea water to the backup generators. Here in the U.S., it is my understanding that backup generators are normally buried underground to alleviate water disasters. Keep in mind, too, that not all our reactors are located near the oceans. Yes, they need a water source, but many are near lakes and rivers. So, it’s very unlikely that a tsunami would be an issue. All the U.S. reactors are built with seismic events, tornadoes, and the like built into their design. All the systems are redundant, so there’s a backup for everything. It’s my opinion that the Japanese problems occurred because more than two or three of the worst-case scenarios happened simultaneously. That’s difficult to plan for! I worked in the nuclear field for several years and my spouse has worked at plants for over 30 years. We personally believe a LOT of what is being said is hysterical hype. Even if the core or the spent fuel pool melts down, there are ways to contain it without huge loss of life. Nuclear power continues to be a viable, safe, efficient source of power.
You have to read this to believe it. Is it possible??
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=182524
As he says – investigations should commence. Immediately, if not sooner.
Suek, very unlikely this is true, especially given that Obama supports nuclear power. I suspect something was lost in the translation, like “We’ll help you dismantle” got turned into “We’ll help you if you dismantle.” Obama is not stupid; he’s feral smart. He would not do such a politically damaging thing.
“He would not do such a politically damaging thing. ”
Like Obama-care?
What you consider politically damaging, DQ, Obama often considers right and proper.
Since when did Obama support nuclear power? Was that when he supported the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
>>especially given that Obama supports nuclear power>>
Maybe. I’m not so sure. _How_ does he support it? He may say the words, but if he also backs EPA regulators who continually are throwing roadblocks in the way of new power plants, then I say actions speak louder than words.
I guess I think it’s not beyond him. And I don’t trust him.
I’m open to the possibility, in other words.
Sadie, good point, but I think that was a miscalculation. He thought Obama-care would end up being a political positive, and despite the initial negative reaction that was reflected in the last election, I’m still not convinced that, in the long term, he might not be right about that. Any idiot, including Obama, can see that requiring an ally to dismantle a reactor as a condition of our help could only play out as a negative. That one would be impossible to miscalculate.
Suek, you shouldn’t trust him, but don’t underestimate him, either. My Dad is constantly sending me stuff that is flying around the Internet that can’t possibly be true and isn’t, but that lots of people believe just because they so distrust Obama, Pelosi, etc. These people didn’t get where they are by shooting themselves in the political head ever time they turned around.
Just for perspective, reports from Japan are now acknowledging that the obsessively bureaucratic and “obedient” Japanese routinely lied about safety inspections and design flaws on their nuclear plants.
This goes to the point that laws, rules and regulations can look fine on paper from an armchair perspective or from within the confines of one’s Temple of Orthodoxy, but real life intrudes. This squares with my experience with Europe, where fantasy utopian worlds are created through obsessive rules and regulations that, in real life, are routinely ignored…because they just are not practical given human nature. I have a lot more faith in the redundancies and fail-safe protections that are designed into U.S. nuclear plants because my experience is that Americans are far less abstract and far more practical in their thought processes and implementations.
The hysteria regarding the safety of nuclear power seems to be quickly reaching critical. No energy source has every been risk free. In colonial New England, it was estimated that it took 80 cords of wood to heat a typical house through winter. One can only imagine how many New Englanders died or suffered serious injuries from lumbering, house fires and smoke inhalation in those days. Today, home energy related deaths are minuscule aberrations.
In more modern times, this data indicates that about 2,500 on-the-job electrocutions occurred between 1992 and 1999. Add to that the number of electrocutions that occurred off-the-job. Should we thus do without electricity?
My prediction: zero Americans will die or suffer health consequences from the current problems at Japan’s nuclear reactors. People really need to get a grip.
Interesting article from AT. I’ll summarize it in 5 words: We’ll know, when we know. Apologies if it sounds like I am paraphrasing Nancy Pelosi.
-snip-
Not a new story. People still alive can recall how up until the end of WWII the Japanese Navy refused to admit to the Japanese Army that it lost half its aircraft carriers in 1942 and the other half in 1944. Which is why that during the final days on Iwo Jima the army general staff still expected a huge fleet to sail to its relief.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/03/fukushima_and_the_truth.html
I see there are still people who believe Obama’s actions are a result of misguided intentions or miscalculations, so called mistakes that were made that fell off the road plan.
It doesn’t matter so much to Obama whether something has positive or negative political effects, as whether it adheres to LibProg ideology. Thus supporting Black Panther voter intimidation is and will be done, regardless of what people in America think, good or bad. Thus supporting his black professor buddy against the “acting stupidly” white officer is right and proper, regardless of what people believe. This isn’t so much a miscalculation as it is laziness and adherence to Progressively Regressive ideology. If people think Obama sits around actually thinking about these things, they couldn’t be any more wrong. The whole point of LibProg ideology, the CHurch of Leftist Utopia, is to get rid of the need to think, work, or strive for the edge of challenge. Obama has never had a job where he wasn’t bored. Because he refused to do anything useful, that’s how.
People like Pelosi and Obama got to where they are the same way Madoff got rich. It’s perfectly fine to estimate that a cheat, regardless of how clever, is No Good. What does No Good mean? It means that whatever “talents” they have, they are infinitely underdeveloped compared to the best the human race has to offer. Infinitely underdeveloped, however, still has an edge over the dumb and ignorant proletariat that are always looking for a Strong Man to lead them to a new age of glory and undeserved wealth.