Japan Earthquake

Japan Earthquake | Page 2912

Palisades NPP goes into emergency shutdown over a lightbulb change that took out half the control room. www.freep.com
According to Beyond Nuclear they were 9 minutes away from losing cooling ability. www.beyondnuclear.org

Entergy strikes again. They were the ones in the NRC action I posted this morning. They run Vermont Yankee and Indian Point.
by lillymunster 1/26/2012 9:09:13 PM

@Edano I thought France had all the power they would ever need from their nuclear plants? :-)
by lillymunster 1/26/2012 9:11:29 PM

@lillymunster maybe they fear some sort of german renewables virus could attack their nukes ?
by Edano 1/26/2012 9:14:54 PM

@Edano Worried about the people getting all uppity and wanting renewables. Germany sure seemed to upset lots of other countries by phasing out their nuclear plants. :-)
Well at least upsetting lots of CEOs that have money at stake.
by lillymunster 1/26/2012 9:16:19 PM

Another Entergy incident.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued a Confirmatory Order to Entergy Nuclear
Operations, owner of Palisades, and a separate Confirmatory Order to Edward Johnson, a licensed operator, for a violation in which Johnson left the control room without following appropriate requirements. The plant is located in Covert, Mich., approximately 50 miles west of Kalamazoo

Beyond Nuclear claims he got into an argument with someone and stormed out. NRC did not issue any penalty or warning to Entergy and will make the operator work 200 hours under supervision. - via NRC email
by lillymunster 1/26/2012 10:07:26 PM

NPR All Things Considered: How To Find A New Nuclear Waste Site? Woo A Town
"It's psychological," says (Gen. Brent) Scowcroft, who spent two years with the commission working on a solution. "People don't understand nuclear waste. The problem itself is solvable." www.npr.org
by Peter 1/26/2012 11:32:15 PM

President Harry S. Truman on MacArthur's firing in particular and on generals in general: "I didn't fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that's not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three-quarters of them would be in jail."
by Peter 1/26/2012 11:40:11 PM

www.themoscowtimes.com 29 Fetuses Found at Uranium Site
by lillymunster 1/26/2012 11:44:10 PM

The Truman quote is from this wiki: en.wikiquote.org
by Peter 1/26/2012 11:46:51 PM

A conference comparing Chernobyl to Fukushima coming up in Frankfurt in March: www.izo.uni-frankfurt.de
by bo 1/27/2012 12:39:37 AM

@Peter in that quote, isn't that the kettle calling the pot black? After the end of the war, Gen. Leslie Groves, the military head of the Manhattan Project described Truman making the decision to drop the bomb as being "a little boy on a toboggan."
by bo 1/27/2012 12:40:48 AM

Major earthquake zone newly found off Tohoku www.yomiuri.co.jp
by lillymunster 1/27/2012 12:49:36 AM

and now there are 3.

Shimane shuts down www3.nhk.or.jp
by lillymunster 1/27/2012 12:51:47 AM

Shimane would blow straight towards Hiroshima if there were major releases, so this makes me particularly happy.
by bo 1/27/2012 12:53:53 AM

Don't know if this was posted yet.

Fukushima’s Long Link to a Dark Nuclear Past: www.nytimes.com
by bo 1/27/2012 12:57:33 AM

Homes in Japan now qualify for eco points, double in Tohoku www.japantoday.com
by lillymunster 1/27/2012 1:04:01 AM

NRC internal email March 14 admits all 3 reactors melted down. Lots of technical details in the email. enformable.com
by lillymunster 1/27/2012 1:06:15 AM

This article on nuclear power is just a wee bit opinionated. :-) www.21stcenturysciencetech.com
by lillymunster 1/27/2012 1:23:58 AM

@lillymunster, do you recall when Tepco flooded the #4 well?
by Ian 1/27/2012 1:33:54 AM

Anti-nuclear movement unites rightists, leftists ajw.asahi.com
by lillymunster 1/27/2012 1:35:20 AM

@Ian before they started working on sfp issues. They first sent workers in to inspect the building. It was before they started pouring concrete under the fuel pool to make a brace. So maybe July?
by lillymunster 1/27/2012 1:36:19 AM

How seawater could corrode nuclear fuel www.physorg.com courtesy of Majj
by lillymunster 1/27/2012 1:38:35 AM

@lillymunster, there's a photo of the well flooded on June 29 www.youtube.com Btw, that photo of the flooded well isn't included in Tepco's press-release photos. Do you know where it could be found other than in that video?
by Ian 1/27/2012 1:39:57 AM

A local ABC News program bamboozled by Mangano & Sherman: www.youtube.com
by Ian 1/27/2012 1:41:33 AM

@lillymunster, Jim pointed out the best floor plan for the units I've seen here www.scribblelive.com Might be worth including on simplyinfo.org . It's slightly mis-skewed. It has info added specific to Unit 4.
by Ian 1/27/2012 1:43:46 AM

@Ian oh cool. I don't think I had the PDF with the floor plan in it. That is good!
by lillymunster 1/27/2012 1:48:26 AM

@Ian TEPCO didn't release that image of the reactor well. I cut it out of the PDF and used that.
by lillymunster 1/27/2012 1:49:48 AM

@lillymunster, do you recall a link to the pdf with that flooded-well photo?
Did Tepco state on a particular date that they're now flooding the well?
by Ian 1/27/2012 1:51:57 AM

I think we see #4 well steaming here www.youtube.com if you line up things, the 'window' (ie, the hole left by a blown-out wall panel) on the far left opens directly onto the north half of the #4 well, and exactly there we see a dense cloud of steam billowing straight up, much too far to the north to be attributable to the pool.
by Ian 1/27/2012 2:04:51 AM

@Ian yes we saw steam out of the reactor well on a few occasions early on.

by lillymunster 1/27/2012 2:09:24 AM

@lillymunster, so it seem the well was flooded at least by April 15 when that footage was taken, if not also by March. This seems to imply that by the theory that the well has a hot-thermal signature due to irradiated material therein, that the irradiated material is thermally as hot or hotter than spent fuel. That is surely not possible, and thus that theory isn't working.
by Ian 1/27/2012 2:20:40 AM

The U.S. DOE's map of the #4 pool shows plenty of empty space that might be where fuel that hadn't been unloaded was slated to go, but then the tsunami struck. A full pool would probably invalidate the theory that fuel remains in the well.
by Ian 1/27/2012 2:25:14 AM

I don't think they flooded the reactor well until right before the workers went up for the first time.
by lillymunster 1/27/2012 2:26:14 AM

@Ian finding the shroud replacement documents that have a work calendar and the date of unit 4's outage could answer that question. If they had been in the outage long enough to have moved on past removing fuel then the fuel would all be in the pool. Unit 4 also IIRC had the most fuel in their pool.
by lillymunster 1/27/2012 2:28:04 AM

Here is an interesting tidbit: "From 9:32 am on June 23, we injected fresh water to reactor well and dry separator pit of Unit 4 for the purpose of environmental improvement (decreasing dose) at 5th floor of reactor building of Unit 4." www.tepco.co.jp
by Peter 1/27/2012 2:38:32 AM

@Peter I think that is it.!
by lillymunster 1/27/2012 2:41:05 AM

Found some explanation of what might have happened: "A possible source of the leak in the Unit 4 pool may be the seals around the doors (or “gates”) on one side of the spent fuel pool. " allthingsnuclear.org
by Peter 1/27/2012 2:42:24 AM

@Peter, do they normally fill an empty well to reduce radiation from it?
by Ian 1/27/2012 2:43:53 AM

by 'fill' I mean 'flood'.
by Ian 1/27/2012 2:44:46 AM

@Ian , that is what I thought. I assumed that the reactor pressure vessel would have been drained only for certain steps of the shroud replacement. Look at this: www.toshiba.co.jp
by Peter 1/27/2012 2:50:46 AM

...so if tepco had not reached those steps yet, the vessel would have been flooded.
by Peter 1/27/2012 2:51:42 AM

@Peter, good finds! But why does it seem that the well was steaming on April 15? www.youtube.com My comments below orient one in looking at that?
by Ian 1/27/2012 3:00:29 AM

Read this post with the title "TEPCO prepares alternative cooling installation at unit 4 spent fuel pool" from www.neimagazine.com dated July 12: "To lower dose rate near the spent fuel pool while equipment is installed, TEPCO started water injection into the reactor well and pool; but it stopped it less than an hour later when a leak was found."
by Peter 1/27/2012 3:01:11 AM

@Peter, interesting, a leak found back in July.
by Ian 1/27/2012 3:04:04 AM

I meant flooded at the time of the earthquake/tsunami. Perhaps the vessel sprang a leak and there was not sufficient water in it to keep it cool.
by Peter 1/27/2012 3:04:40 AM