Japan Earthquake

Japan Earthquake | Page 2550

MARCH 19 UPDATE 11:55: Fuel rods in reactors 4, 5, and 6 are now exposed and four reactor units have core damage, according to the IAEA
by dean 10/24/2011 2:19:02 PM

@lilly.. it would be good to build some sort of chronology of 5 & 6
by dean 10/24/2011 2:19:33 PM

@dean hmm. I didn't know 5-6 had core damage. There are some ongoing data docs from TEPCO. Will see if I can find the older ones for 5-6
by lillymunster 10/24/2011 2:22:45 PM

Tuesday, 15 March 2011 (Day 5)
A fire is reported at unit 4. Damage to the top levels of the unit 4 reactor building is confirmed. Venting of the unit 2 primary containment begins. A hydrogen explosion occurs within the unit 2 reactor building. The suppression chamber (wetwell) of the primary containment is suspected to have been damaged. The unit 2 reactor building appears to remain intact. A fourth explosion occurs at the site: unit 4 sustains additional damage to the upper portion of the reactor building. The risk of water boiling in the unit 4 spent fuel pool is reported. The water level in the unit 5 reactor decreases to about 200 cm above the top of active fuel. The operational unit 6 EDG begins supplying power to the cooling systems at both units 5 and 6.
by dean 10/24/2011 2:23:01 PM

by Ian 10/24/2011 2:23:25 PM

@ lilly .. our search will reveal if fuel is damaged I think
by dean 10/24/2011 2:23:31 PM

@dean So, in your opinion, the procedure was a bit irregular?
by Pedro Jesus 10/24/2011 2:24:17 PM

@ Pedro.. I believe it is..just from the wording of the statement
by dean 10/24/2011 2:29:16 PM

time for me to go for a bit... will return..
by dean 10/24/2011 2:31:32 PM

@dean See you later Dean. Well, according to other sources, the decision to switch the power plant off the grid and shut the troubled reactor came from the Spanish Nuclear Safety council, so I don't think there was any security breach or irregular procedures involved.
by Pedro Jesus 10/24/2011 2:38:55 PM

Although this new event raises the question once again: should the Almaraz NPP still be generating energy almost 1 and a half years after it was supposed to have been shut down and decommissioned?
by Pedro Jesus 10/24/2011 2:43:09 PM

@Pedro Jesus why are they still running it?
by lillymunster 10/24/2011 2:45:37 PM

@lillymunster The nuclear industry pressured the Spanish Government to extend the licence for another 10 years because they say the power plant is safe.
by Pedro Jesus 10/24/2011 2:47:11 PM

Ah. That seems to be an international form of madness. :-)
by lillymunster 10/24/2011 2:51:19 PM

@lillymunster Yes, indeed.
by Pedro Jesus 10/24/2011 2:56:31 PM

@Pedro Jesus i think it's okay when they got shutdown permission, but a nuke company should not decide a shutdown without admittance. the entire power grid could collapse. :)
by Edano 10/24/2011 4:40:35 PM

Parts of TEPCO's accident manuals made public

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has made public a large portion of Tokyo Electric Power Company's procedural manuals for nuclear accidents.

These are the manuals that the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant earlier submitted to the Lower House with most of the contents blacked out. The company had insisted the information had to be kept secret in order to protect its intellectual property rights, and because disclosure could open its facilities to terrorist attack.

Based on the law, the nuclear safety agency ordered TEPCO to resubmit the manuals without redaction.

The 200 pages of documents released on Monday are from the accident procedural manuals used for Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. All their contents were made public, except for individuals' names.

The documents show that TEPCO had not made sufficient preparations to cope with critical nuclear accidents.

In the March 11th tsunami, almost all electricity sources for the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi were lost after the batteries and power supply boards were inundated.

The documents reveal that TEPCO did not envision such a power failure or any kind of prolonged power loss. It assumed that in a serious incident, emergency power sources would be available to vent pressure in the reactor containment vessels or to carry out other safety procedures.

The agency says it decided to make the manual public because transparency is necessary to find the cause of the Fukushima nuclear accident and to establish better safety measures for the future.

Monday, October 24, 2011 21:10 +0900 (JST)
www3.nhk.or.jp
by Edano 10/24/2011 4:48:11 PM

the european and japanese "stress tests" don't include station blackouts either. this is all a big lying game.
by Edano 10/24/2011 4:51:34 PM

i would like to know if "modern" nuke plants can achieve cold shutdown without any external power. a coal plant can do that, renewables, too.
by Edano 10/24/2011 4:54:12 PM

@Edano yup the public needs calmly educating about nukes because they just dont get it
by elainekirk 10/24/2011 4:56:11 PM

it's a mad technology. even my motocycle has an emergency switch.
by Edano 10/24/2011 5:00:03 PM

@Edano @elainekirk I should have expected no less out of TEPCO yet it still is unbelievable. Anyone know who is going to make the manual public? We should see if we can get a copy.
by lillymunster 10/24/2011 5:08:31 PM

ooooh Found them! www.meti.go.jp
by lillymunster 10/24/2011 5:10:19 PM

(insert lots of swearing) it is a photo copy so I can't translate the manuals!!!!
by lillymunster 10/24/2011 5:10:55 PM

I may try this docs.google.com
by lillymunster 10/24/2011 5:12:55 PM

Nuke energy experts discuss technological issues

Nuclear energy experts will be organizing a summary of lessons learned from the Fukushima plant accident. The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency brought together the 6 specialists for their first panel meeting on Monday.

During the meeting, the group emphasized that Japanese nuclear power plants should have multiple power sources. They said the plants would then be able to maintain electricity during an earthquake or other emergency.

Hokkaido University Graduate School Professor Tadashi Narabayashi said plant operators should also arrange emergency power supplies with other utilities.

Reactors at the Fukushima plant experienced meltdown after they lost outside power due to the March 11th earthquake and tsunami.

The experts said it was a grave situation that electrical equipment malfunctioned after the plant was hit by the tsunami. They stated that operator Tokyo Electric Power Company should examine why the equipment failed to work and take measures to prevent a recurrence.

The experts plan to conclude their discussions by next March. The agency hopes to reflect the discussions for regulations by a new nuclear safety agency to be launched in April.

Monday, October 24, 2011 17:42 +0900 (JST)
www3.nhk.or.jp
by Edano 10/24/2011 5:14:41 PM

Severe accident manual turned into text but still in JP(in the link). I have to leave for a bit but will work on translating it when I get back if it hasn't already been done. If you do so please let me know so I don't duplicate the effort. I tested a bit and you can cut-paste text to put into google translate.

docs.google.com
by lillymunster 10/24/2011 5:18:09 PM

@lillymunster i tried it, google translator turns out nonsense.
by Edano 10/24/2011 5:23:15 PM

M'bishi military, nuclear plant info may have been read by hackers

TOKYO, Oct. 24, Kyodo

Information about military aircraft and nuclear power plants linked to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. may have been read by outsiders who gained access to the major defense contractor's computer system in recent cyberattacks, government sources said Monday.

Data on the company's fighter aircraft development were transferred from one server to another due probably to computer viruses, Defense Ministry sources said. But it has not been confirmed so far whether the data were transmitted outside the company, the sources said.

The ministry believes the data do not pertain to any confidential national security matters, the Defense Ministry sources also said. english.kyodonews.jp
by Edano 10/24/2011 5:25:04 PM

just got to copy over worker tweets from hopper
by elainekirk 10/24/2011 5:25:37 PM

In Le Monde: 1.5 million euro fine against EDF required for spying Greenpeace
A fine of 1.5 million euros was needed against EDF, who appears as a legal entity before the correctional court of Nanterre for computer espionage by Greenpeace in 2006. The group is tried for "complicity and concealment of fraudulent computer intrusion" to the detriment of the former director of Greenpeace campaigns, Yannick Jadot, now MEP EELV and spokesman for the Green candidate for president, Eva Joly .

The prosecutor also requested a prison sentence of 3 years with 30 months suspended sentence and probation, together with a large fine against the two former security officials of the EDF group suspected of being the source of piracy.

In this case, two frames of EDF, which then the mission enterprise security - the former police officer Pierre-Paul Francis and former Admiral Pascal Durieux cons - continued alongside the pirate and Alain Quiros Thierry Lorho, the head of the intelligence agency Kargus Consultants, with which EDF had contracted. On the occasion of a complaint filed by the National Laboratory for Doping Detection (LNDD) that investigators, back to the computer by Alain Quiros, came across evidence of the intrusion Greenpeace's computer system.

Thierry Lorho, the head of the company Kargus Consultants, specializing in business intelligence, said during the trial have been contacted and hired by EDF who "wanted to go into Greenpeace computers to anticipate his actions related to the EPR nuclear reactor" at Flamanville (Manche). Right in his boots, this former French intelligence services said the two former security officials continued EDF signed a contract with his company paid 50,000 euros for hacking three people targeted by the electrician. (with google translate)
by Olivier 10/24/2011 5:25:42 PM

I found an interesting document describing the improvements Chubu is intending for Hamaoka NPS to prevent a Fukushima-type accident. In a mirror image, it tells us a lot about what equipment failed at Fukushima and why. www.chuden.co.jp
by Peter 10/24/2011 5:26:23 PM

ikrockhopper Itsumi Kakefuda
The Fukushima worker's tweets: "TEPCO has been cutting a huge portion of budget for on-site work to cover the enormous compensation. (cont)

"Saving Tyvek (protective clothes) and relaxing the rule of the face mask are only a few examples. At every mtgs, we talk about (cont)
"reduction of labor cost and downsizing of construction procedures. In the near future, the plant manufacturers may not work on site (cont)
"They may just provide products, leaving all on-site work for contractors. We know there are so many tasks to do just for (cont)
"next troubles and disasters. But, work orders are made these days only for tasks minimally required. For example, (cont)
"pipes work much better for pouring water to the reactors & for the cleaning system, but due to cost, we still use hoses w/ band-aid (cont)
"every time water starts leaking somewhere. Many plans have been under review in terms of cost. (cont)
"Actually, my group hasn't gotten order from them for the next year. Contractors are also a target of cost cutting. (cont)
"I may lose work and not be here at the Fukushima plant next year. I'm not sure the containment work can be done under the current move."
by elainekirk 10/24/2011 5:27:42 PM

and on that sobering note I am taking the dogs for a run
by elainekirk 10/24/2011 5:28:10 PM

@elainekirk Wow. WTH? This just screams that the disaster needs to be run by a 3rd party, not TEPCO
by lillymunster 10/24/2011 5:30:54 PM

@Edano I will see what I can do when I get back by taking pieces of the manual. If that doesn't work I will ask Ob-Li and Rockhopper what they suggest or we can see the the Facebook Fukushima translation team wants to help.
by lillymunster 10/24/2011 5:32:11 PM

I'm out to run to town for a bit.
by lillymunster 10/24/2011 5:33:38 PM

@lillymunster which are you translating leave me link I will try find english when I get back
by elainekirk 10/24/2011 5:33:46 PM

Annex 3 and attachment 4 on this page - the TEPCO accident manuals www.meti.go.jp
by lillymunster 10/24/2011 5:34:26 PM

looking for Lilly's doc and found this site it looks pretty useful www.scoop.it
by elainekirk 10/24/2011 6:14:43 PM

still looking just found there been some iffy behaviour amongst other power co's

Regarding Investigation of Existence of Errors in Reports
on Emergency Safety Measures (Direction)
www.nisa.meti.go.jp
by elainekirk 10/24/2011 6:19:10 PM

Another interesting docc but not found Lilly's.....yet
Summary of Reports on Errors from Operators and E ects on Assessment (1 of 3)
1. Regarding Implementation of Emergency Safety Measures for Other Power Stations Considering the A ident of Fukushima Dai-ichi and Dai-ni Nuclear
Power Stations in 2011 (directed on March 30, 2011) www.nisa.meti.go.jp
by elainekirk 10/24/2011 6:49:15 PM

Just for anybody interested how we got from there to here -
United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority
RESEARCH
GROUP
NUCLEAR PHYSICS DIVISION PROGRESS REPORT
For the period Ist May I967 to 3lst October 1967
docs.google.com
by elainekirk 10/24/2011 6:56:45 PM

back for a bit. I tried to upload the base events manual (TEPCO emergency manual). I can download it but when I try to upload it to Google Docs to do the OCR/Text conversion it gets an error. If anyone else has luck getting a copy downloaded and uploaded over to Google Docs please let me know so I can grab a copy and see if we can get it translated?
Document in question www.meti.go.jp
by lillymunster 10/24/2011 7:07:11 PM