ScribbleLive

@Ralph Unger - You mean closed off the marina entrance between the sea walls? Yeah, that'll work...

Yep Rob, one of the greatest concerns about Chernobyl was groundwater contamination, and it has already happened here. That may last (and spread) for generations.

@Ralph Unger I think due to the topography the groundwater contamination will all just dump into the ocean. Keep watching the ocean testing...

Ocean might be OK, but what about the inland water? Where is all the stuff going? I am reading a lot of radiation inland and it cannot be from dust. www.mext.go.jp

@bo - that is a fascinating and perceptive paper. @mod - please could that be pinned?

Or maybe the translation of that would be 'to try to stop ongoing criticality'

JapanSubculture.com has been blogging some decent investigative journalism all along...


As reported on April 4th here, Japanese law-enforcement continues their investigation into TEPCO, the managing entity of the Fukushima Nuclear Reactor for charges of professional negligence resulting in death or injury, but now the Tokyo Prosecutor Special Investigation Unit has begun their own independent investigation.

The investigation is focussing on what TEPCO did after the Tsunami as well as before (in terms of criminal negligence). The two individuals most likely to be charged with criminal incompetence resulting in death and/or injury are the CEO at the time and the current chairman. During the first 24 hours after the accident, the chairman and the president were both unaccounted for and/or unreachable considerably delaying countermeasures which could have prevented death, injury and the meltdown. There are also reports that putting sea water into the reactor were delayed as TEPCO executives used political connections to buy time to try and save the reactors, rather than focussing on saving lives and the environment around the reactor.

One thing that is now increasingly coming into question is TEPCO’s assertion that “this accident was beyond the scope of our imagination” (想定外）. This only holds true if the cause of the reactor meltdown was due to the flooding of the emergency generators by the tsunami (tidal wave) which were supposed to power down the reactor. There is a great possibility that the earthquake itself immediately did so much damage to the containment vessel and parts of reactor 1, that the tidal wave influence was negligible. There are reports that for several years TEPCO was warned by the original manufacturers to replace the core of the reactor and failed to do so.

www.japansubculture.com

Well I'm sure @dean would agree that one of the key factors was that the reactor operators were expected to refer up, and in an emergency that is unrealistic and was impossible anyway

As far as I can tell, the disaster was caused by unrealistic prognosis of possible disaster scenarios..

@Ralph - exactly, it should have been planned for, especially after the Boxing Day one. A paradox is that the Japanese building codes meant that most buildings actually withstood the quake very well

I must go and do some work - have a good day all, may drop by later.

New data shows it was at .6 km, which had a lot to do with the damage. www.earthtimes.org

A cooling agent as best I can tell.

"Hydrazine is used within both nuclear and conventional electrical power plant steam cycles to control concentrations of dissolved oxygen in an effort to reduce corrosion."

But it is flammable!

I'm gonna ask Gunderson about the hydrazine.