patrick.net

Sad.

American in Japan says

Sad.

Agreed.

Nomograph says

The accident was caused by an enormous earthquake and innumerable large aftershocks, not by safety reports or cut corners.

C'mon now nomo, you've GOT to be joking. Even you're not THAT escapist... are you? From dailymail:

The moment nuclear plant chief WEPT as Japanese finally admit that radiation leak is serious enough to kill people
March 19, 2011
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1367684/Japan-earthquake-tsunami-Fukushima-nulear-plant-radiation-leak-kill-people.html#ixzz1KNUevG85

# Officials admit they may have to bury reactors under concrete - as happened at Chernobyl
# Government says it was overwhelmed by the scale of twin disasters
# Japanese upgrade accident from level four to five - the same as Three Mile Island
# We will rebuild from scratch says Japanese prime minister
# Particles spewed from wrecked Fukushima power station arrive in California
# Military trucks tackle reactors with tons of water for second day

Sometimes it helps to READ what other pens dwell on.

Nomograph says

All the safety reports in the world wouldn’t have prevented this. This is simply a risk they took, and continue to take, for cheap non-fossil electricity.

And there is plenty of simple, common-sense safety measures that could have been IN PLACE that would have SUBSTANTIALLY attenuated the severity of the crisis. Fucking try google on this one, rose-colored glasses filter OFF.

Nomograph says

The accident was caused by an enormous earthquake and innumerable large aftershocks, not by safety reports or cut corners.

I was going to respond with a similar thing last night but on further thinking I think this is not true.

The accident was caused by TEPCO building a powerplant vulnerable to 100-year tsunamis in the 1970s and not doing enough to make it fail-safe, especially after the 2004 Indonesian tsunami.

The most recent TEPCO tsunami study was overly focused on the 1960 Chile tsunami and not on what the fault lying offshore was actually capable of.

TEPCO estimated a 10% chance of tsunami damage in the next 50 (IIRC) years but failed to act quickly enough WRT the power back up.

IME it's always the SECOND failure that gets you. Like when you're backing up data and you think your backups are good so you erase something, and then you find your only backup got corrupted.

Same thing here. The diesel generators were a BACKUP to grid power, which wouldn't get knocked out with a tsunami from Chile.

The government saw the problem but found itself satisfied with the industry response that "we don't see a problem".

They didn't WANT to see the problem so they didn't. Nuclear Power is ipso facto safe and thus there can be no problems. This is similar thinking to Feynman's comments on the Challenger loss.

Troy says

The accident was caused by TEPCO building a powerplant vulnerable to 100-year tsunamis in the 1970s and not doing enough to make it fail-safe, especially after the 2004 Indonesian tsunami.[Emphasis added]

Bingo. And even if fail-safe planning was impossible, they could have had better emergency treatment/'containment' plans in place. Say for instance, they could have built a freshwater reservoir or water tower to provide a gravity-fed, non-saline water source for hosing down the reactors in the event of catastrophic and sustained power loss.

Troy says

Same thing here. The diesel generators were a BACKUP to grid power, which wouldn’t get knocked out with a tsunami from Chile.

Bingo bingo. And if TEPCO had any sense, these backup generators would have been located away from the ocean, in a hardened position that would have been minimally impacted by the tsunami, instead of being built RIGHT ON the shoreline.

terriDeaner says

And if TEPCO had any sense, these backup generators would have been located away from the ocean, in a hardened position that would have been minimally impacted by the tsunami, instead of being built RIGHT ON the shoreline.

It's more complicated than that. The generators are in the first floor or basement of the turbine rooms, and got flooded along with the electrical switching room, so they couldn't even bring in new generators to get things back on line.

The diesel tanks for the generators were located next to the ocean, to facilitate refueling. They had extra seawalls for protection, but it wasn't enough.

Moving the tanks would of course be a massively bureaucratic endeavor and if something went wrong with that TEPCO would be blamed for moving the tanks.

The central mistake was just building the standard GE design from the 1960s at a very vulnerable location. Japan was in "learning mode" in the 1960s and 70s and the 100-year tsunami danger was simply not on their minds apparently.

Tsunamis were supposed to be waves that slap around in harbors, not tidal surges that wash away miles of land -- their very name means "harbor wave" in Japanese.

Troy says

The diesel tanks for the generators were located next to the ocean, to facilitate refueling. They had extra seawalls for protection, but it wasn’t enough.

Thanks for the correction - I misremembered that it was the generators that got washed away.

Troy says

The generators are in the first floor or basement of the turbine rooms, and got flooded along with the electrical switching room, so they couldn’t even bring in new generators to get things back on line.

This seems still seems like a design flaw that could have been worked around with proper planning. Even if it was GE's original design... most people know better than to store things in the basement if they don't want them to get wet during a flood!

Troy says

Moving the tanks would of course be a massively bureaucratic endeavor and if something went wrong with that TEPCO would be blamed for moving the tanks.

Even if it would have been a pain-in-the-ass, it was still TEPCO's responsibility to make sure they ran a safe operation. And I bet they'd rather have dealt with something going wrong during a controlled move than during the aftermath of a wide-scale natural disaster. Particularly in hindsight.

There were safety reports critical of efforts and indicating needed upgrades, which were brushed aside. Challenger analogy is apt. Getting away with flaws leads to contempt for paranoid risk analyses.

"not raining don't need ta fix tha roof"

terriDeaner says

And even if fail-safe planning was impossible, they could have had better emergency treatment/’containment’ plans in place.

All this fail safe chat brings some memories back certainly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fail-Safe_(1964_film)

Nomograph says

Are you saying that there would have been less radiation leaking out if he had said that earlier?

Who are you trying to fool with this straw man? Yourself? Other readers? ME?

If you're so intent on having a different discussion, post a separate thread. The title could be:

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said: ‘The unprecedented scale of the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan, frankly speaking, were among many things that happened that had not been anticipated under our disaster management contingency plans.

Oh, wait... would that conflict with your false dilemma?

Nomograph says

I’m 100% certain it had *everything* to do with a massive earthquake and *nothing* to do with press conferences.

You tell me.

My two yen...I am going to have to agree with Terri and Troy here.

One of many stupid things was keep the spent fuel rods so close to the reactors.

More stupidity to come...

American in Japan says

One of many stupid things was keep the spent fuel rods so close to the reactors.

Good point. Criminally negligent, some might say...

shrekgrinch says

Also, every minute detail for approved reactor design, construction and operation has to be approved by bureaucrats. You can’t just ‘move’ generators or fuel rods to other rooms…no matter how much common sense it makes. Not if you want to keep your license.

But that's just it - both the bureaucrats AND the nuke execs who purchased them are to blame. They set the rules, and they are the ones who should have implemented common sense safeguards in their disaster management plans.

shrekgrinch says

So, a lot of this is inherited BS because innovation is not a career enhancing word in the nuclear industry nor those who regulate them.

EXACTLY. From the nytimes:

Culture of Complicity Tied to Stricken Nuclear Plant
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/world/asia/27collusion.html?src=me

In 2000, Kei Sugaoka, a Japanese-American nuclear inspector who had done work for General Electric at Daiichi, told Japan’s main nuclear regulator about a cracked steam dryer that he believed was being concealed. If exposed, the revelations could have forced the operator, Tokyo Electric Power, to do what utilities least want to do: undertake costly repairs.

Despite a new law shielding whistle-blowers, the regulator, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, divulged Mr. Sugaoka’s identity to Tokyo Electric, effectively blackballing him from the industry. Instead of immediately deploying its own investigators to Daiichi, the agency instructed the company to inspect its own reactors. Regulators allowed the company to keep operating its reactors for the next two years even though, an investigation ultimately revealed, its executives had actually hidden other, far more serious problems, including cracks in the shrouds that cover reactor cores.

And of course (from the same article):

The political establishment, one of the great beneficiaries of the nuclear power industry, has shown little interest in bolstering safety. In fact, critics say, lax oversight serves their interests. Costly renovations get in the way of building new plants, which create construction projects, jobs and generous subsidies to host communities.

Under Japan’s electoral system, in which a significant percentage of legislators is chosen indirectly, parties reward institutional backers with seats in Parliament. In 1998, the Liberal Democrats selected Tokio Kano, a former vice president at Tepco, for one of these seats.

and

Backed by Keidanren — Japan’s biggest business lobby, of which Tepco is one of the biggest members — Mr. Kano served two six-year terms in the upper house of Parliament until 2010. In a move that has raised eyebrows even in a world of cross-fertilizing interests, he has returned to Tepco as an adviser.

As they say, there's no place like home!

http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL3E8LQ4HC20121026