TEPCO partially restores power to cooling systems at Fukushima plant

TEPCO said the reactors were unaffected

Now where have I heard that before?

No other abnormalities - SNAFU, Situation Normal ...

Wasn't one of the biggest problems at the time of the tsunami a loss of backup power? It seems there is still no backup power supply.

Knox Harrington, I agree with you, TEPCO is a greater danger to Japan than neighbouring countries are.

This is just reminding us how delicate the situation in Fukushima Daiichi is. Pools are more dangerous then reactors cause they are open to enviroment, and Daiichi has over 1000 fuel rods there which can make evacuate all Tohoku with Tokyo. Yeah Abe just restart the rest of it.

How is this still happening? You'd think that being so much in the public eye that they'd have a string of contingency plans in place to prevent things like this from happening, again. And again. And again...

Why aren't these Tepco people in the stocks yet?, I'm sure the locals would like to pelt them with their unsellable produce.

Cabadaje - I saved myself an afternoon of reading and skipped down to your conclusion "people who worry about nuclear meltdowns in their backyards are uneducated fools"

Thanks. But now what do we do when the govt has admitted they thought about evacuating TOKYO after 3/11, and the press has proven itself to be nothing more than a government mouthpiece?

Instead of patronizing people for asking questions, why don't you ask Tepco et al why they are still scrambling 2 years later?

So, why don'T they have a backup generator or 10 ready? You'd think they be a little bit more prepared after last time. then again we are talking about TEPCO.

Excellent, Mr. Smithers.

I hope they form a TEPCO committee to investigate on the double!

Japans biggest electricity supplier and it can't provide itself with an fail safe electricity supply.What can I say !!!

Hurry up and shut TEPCO down, for good, and for the good of the nation and humanity as a whole.

Most of their distribution boxes were damaged or destroyed by water ingress, so they are running a makeshift electrical distro' up there. They probably have not documented their connections and MacGyveresque improvisations, hence the delay in finding the cause of the power outage. Working with 600kVA switch gear and cables is not quite the same as running around the house with a multimeter, and the situation is compounded with a few radioactive hotspots and water on the ground.

Yes, another TEPCO screw-up, but at last this time they are being 'honest' about it, well....relatively honest.

Great.

Tepco said all is goo, though. Phheewww...

All this is happening while Abe is playing tough guy in Tokyo, trying to lure his underlings to hate its neighbors with scary China this, mean Korea that. And the Japanese people? They don't give a F. They want to go to Disneyland, watch variety shows on TV, shoppp.

And the Tepco clowns let bad shite happen, over and over again...

I have lost hope in this country. It's like nobody ever takes anything seriously. Time to move on.

TEPCO said the reactors were unaffected. They also stated that the reactors are in cold shutdown. When is a reactor not a reactor? When it has melted down? This foolishness has to stop. A multi-national response is long over due. We share a common border, the Pacific Ocean. You have a big problem, we will too. Let us both fix this, demand it!

The utility said the nuclear fuel stored in the pools will remain safe for at least four days without fresh cooling water.

Util they blow up like last time which only took 2.5 days

"the utility plans to restore power to the pool cooling systems as soon as it can determine the cause of the failure."

Thank god there is a great(NOT) electrical company involved to solve that!!! Anyone should feel safer knowing that TEPCO is on top of it? You are an electrical company how come you can not prevent a power failure on such important place??? It's not like you never been down this road before....

TEPCO said the reactors were unaffected Now where have I heard that before?

Don't know. Where did you hear that before?

In the news.

How is this still happening? You'd think that being so much in the public eye that they'd have a string of contingency plans in place to prevent things like this from happening, again. And again. And again...

They did and do. And are you saying that this has happened, what, three times?

Things like this have happened many times before. It's also in the news when the information is released.

On a final note, it's obvious the fuel rods need to be removed to a safer location than a crippled nuclear power plant.

waltery-san "At least the public is informed, perhaps next time with a preventative would be better PR."

Just like every other time with TEPCO we thought we were informed....

If an electric company can not even supply themselves with power how are they equipped to manage a nuclear power plant?

Yes, the power supply is on and it is circulating the coolant. Yes, it was on a little after 5 hours after the blackout.

Power is still out to the spent fuel pools of 1,3,4 & the common spent fuel pool, holding around 6000 rods.

@cabadaje

"The public demands to be informed, and when they are informed, all they do is start whining"

Well, that's the problem. The public DOESN'T get informed. Many of the disclosures that have come out recently -- some by foreign sources -- contradict the "Information" Tepco announced to the public at the height of the disaster.

The utility said the nuclear fuel stored in the pools will remain safe for at least four days without fresh cooling water.

Does this mean we have four days to evacuate?

So the first article was bogus! The hours TEPCO reported to have been dark was a lie. There is still no power. Should we be scared that we are dealing with a compulsive liar? The very own company that provides an essential service to a good chunk of the country...

Japanese news sites as of March 19, 16:35: The cooling system fo reactor 1 started back up this afternoon, and the remaining will start up by the morning of 3/20. TEPCO says the problem came from the power distribution panel.

...I don't know, but a power plant that experiences power outages surely is in the wrong business.

hoserfella: Love your post! I`m also an uneducated female, that lived in Europe during Czernobyl and belived everything they told me. I always trust strong men!! (Ha!) By the way, my daugther, she lived in Japan for one year and loved it, died May 2011 from Angiosarcoma. According to some of her doctors the trigger could also have been Czernobyl. She never smoked, never drunk too much, eat proberly etc. But what do I know, just uneducated...

TEPCO spokesman Takeo Iwamoto said the utility plans to restore power to the pool cooling systems as soon as it can determine the cause of the failure.

Isn't that reassuring - seems like we have nothing to worry about then. Come on Mr Iwamoto - you can do it !!

Here we go again.. why is there not back up power.. why are they not using solar power.. what are the people in the cities thinking is going on.. the long term damage to the land, the sea to the children yet born.. its time to get out of Dodge..

Unit 2, if not all of the three that popped when their fuel was loaded, are melt THROUGHS, not partial, or downs but through. When will the media tell the truth? Corium masses are at on their concrete mats being ad-hoc cooled by an ad-hoc system. Lets just really hope the electricity doesn't fail on THAT 'system'. Where the BACK UP?? JHC. An international team really needs to take over.

Tanabe said at its present rate and if power is not restored, the used fuel pool at reactor 4 could reach 65 degrees in four days. “We are trying to restore power by then,” he said, adding the deadline would be about 14 days and 26 days for the other two.

Is it just me or does this statement seem rather complacent and lack any sort of urgency? The 65' degree safety limit is also a farce. As soon as the water gets hot enough to produce any kind of steam it start spewing radiation again, which could be as low as 40' depending on the ambient temperature around the pool. Once again, as we have seen from the outset, they are downplaying the severity of events. What if they cannot find the cause of the power cut? Yeah, the can manually add more cold water, but that creates more radioactive waste water to add to the tons they already have stored there. These wankers are a bloody joke!

This TEPCO clowns are a freaking JOKE!

@Cab: Verify information from an organisation that has repeatedly lied, has a proven track record of dishonesty, obfuscation and damn right deception? Go ahead, put your 'trust' in that organisation but WE shall not believe a word they say. You are being blind, blind to the evidence of TEPCO's total lack of forthright honesty. They don't know what it means.

I can't understand this, this is the EXACTLY the same problem they had in 2011, clearly they have not learnt anything.

Incompetence Lack of information Lack of transparency Grrrrrrr

A company notorious for half-truths telling us about a power failure at a seriously damaged nuclear power station. I can't understand why these uneducated fools are concerned. This is an issue of trust.

At least the public is informed, perhaps next time with a preventative would be better PR.

JT could rephrase the story to reduce confusion. From. including one that treats water contaminated with radioactivity. To. including one that treats radioactivly contaminated water.

I am sure 14 hours is enough to get spare batteries...

Oh. And just a for a moment there TEPCO had us all thinking everything was just peachy up in Fukupshima.

Hermi ; sorry to hear about your Daughter. Isn't it amazing to see certain posters here scold (remember, they don't patronize) posters for worrying about their their and their families safety. Just remember to ask the correct questions (those that certain posters approve of)

What is an educated fool?

@Hermi Literate people who believe everything they hear.

waltery, from my understanding water is just water and once the contaminants are removed, it is not in and of itself radioactive any more. For this reason the translator seems to have taken extra care to preserve the sense of the original.

From another recent source...

The cooling systems in reactors one, three and four are not currently operational. The Tokyo Electric Power Company says it is unsure about the cause of the power failure but it has vowed to come up with a solution in a few days.

"in a few days"? As usual, Tepco are not trying hard enough.

@Alex, nice irony there. knowing full well that 14 hours was enough time to get batteries last time. They din't even have the money to buy them!

So do they have power or not?

I'm not patronizing people for asking questions. I'm scolding them for not asking questions, and instead jumping straight to conclusions.

Ahh, I get it! You're not patronizing. You're scolding!

Well, I've learned my lesson. Once again, the foremost nuclear experts reside right here on JT, are intimately familiar with the day to day operations at Dai-ichi and know better than me.

marcelito: Enjoy the beach! just don't forget to catch and eat the fish with 7000 times the cesium rate considered safe for humans -- someone might have to form a group to think about investigating if it's worth thinking about forming a panel to suggest looking into making a committee to vote on the possibility of investigating as to why.

gogogo: "I can't understand this, this is the EXACTLY the same problem they had in 2011, clearly they have not learnt anything"

What are you talking about? Clearly they've learned they can do whatever they want and get away with it.

what do we do when the govt has admitted they thought about evacuating TOKYO after 3/11

The thought police!

Hermi Kaliwoda,

What is an educated fool?

Someone who has an opposing point of view, but whose spelling and grammar seem OK.

@cabadaje

tl;dr

So, basically this article is saying that after 2 full years the idiots at TEPCO still don't have things under control.

@Disillusioned,

A meltdown did not occur? Say what? Do you work for TEPCO? Of course a meltdown occurred! They have been saying that for two years. It was only TEPCO's management that were denying for the first few weeks till they got a camera inside the building to see the fuel rods had melted through the housing. AKA: Meltdown! Gees! Some people just shouldn't!

You DO realize he was talking about the rods in the spent fuel pools, not the ones in the containment vessels, right? Some people just SHOULD read for comprehension.

This is the latest report. We'll update the story when new information comes in.

"people who worry about nuclear meltdowns in their backyards are uneducated fools"

You just called everyone in Fukushima an uneducated fool. And, FYI, a nuclear meltdown did occur. Even TEPCO admits to that.

A brief look at decay heat tables would have told the hyperventilating journalist who wrote this article that after over a year, this is not an emergency situation any more, even if the cooling is interrupted for longer periods. In fact, the elements in no. 4 are reaching the state where dry storage becomes feasible.

But the press keeps producing these sensationalist articles. I guess writing hysterical scare stories is just too tempting to spoil with some fact-checking.

@WilliB

The problem is how to go about "fact checking." Taking your advice to go on a fact checking mission to reactors 1 and 3 (we'll skip 4 since you say it's safe, even if you didn't provide any verifiable sources for your "facts") sounds like a good way to get arrested or exposed to unsafe levels of radiation.

Holy cow...really...

TEPCO, you are guilty of incompetence and reckless endangerment. You were, however, pretty spot on about the nature of people. Too bad you decided on willful ignorance instead of education.

I'm guessing the problem was closer to the pumps than where the backup generators tie-in to the circuits. But what I'm really concerned about is why an ELECTRIC COMPANY can't say why power was interrupted. Out of all the people in the country, you would think a power company would know why power stopped flowing. Sounds like there was a short in the circuits for pool 3. Once they isolated it from the rest of the pools, they were able to restore power to the other pools. But this begs the question: "If that's what they did, then how can they say they don't know what caused the outage?"

cabadaje: "I'm not patronizing people for asking questions. I'm scolding them for not asking questions"

And when they ask the right questions you scold them. Seems you have a talent for defending the wrong and suggesting it's wrong to ask why.

Thanks Mod.

Engineers at Fukushima were scrambling Tuesday afternoon to restore power to cooling systems after an outage

So, this morning it was just a power outage. This evening they are scrambling to fix it. What will the headline be tomorrow? Panicking? We need ex-PM Kan to blow his cool and start screaming at these mullets to get some definitive answers!

A meltdown did not occur? Say what? Do you work for TEPCO? Of course a meltdown occurred! They have been saying that for two years. It was only TEPCO's management that were denying for the first few weeks till they got a camera inside the building to see the fuel rods had melted through the housing. AKA: Meltdown! Gees! Some people just shouldn't!

The chance of a disaster occurring due to these damaged reactors and spent fuel rod storage/cooling pools losing water pumping capacity will be something that will be haunting the people of Japan and around the globe for many more decades....I live just across the big pound (Pacific ocean)and I get nervous reading about these cooling water pump problems..Also there is a chance that a another large Quake and/or Tsunami could one day strike these same NPPs once more in the near future???? I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping for the best but I do not have much faith that TEPCO has this situation any where near stable or controlled.

Time to consider building solar power in the moon and send it by microwaves. It is much safer technology.

@ cabadaje, I'm implying that I've heard about TEPCO's inability to manage and show any competence in handling their affairs up in Fukushima many, many, many times before. Much more than just three times.

By the way, an update on the situation would be nice, JT. Reading in other news reports that the situation is still escalating, with temperatures beginning to rise...

@JeffLee

Well, that's the problem. The public DOESN'T get informed. Many of the disclosures that have come out recently -- some by foreign sources -- contradict the "Information" Tepco announced to the public at the height of the disaster.

Yes, some has. Which is why TEPCO is indeed guilty of several cover-ups. Those are not what I am referring to. You don't have to be a nuclear engineer to understand that not doing planned maintenance or upgrading safety systems is a good thing. What I am talking about is when people demand information, any information, and keep growling until they get it, and then complain when it is shown to be wrong in the future. That's a little bit like demanding that a baker give you the cake right now, and then complaining because it is half-baked.

It isn't enough to demand information. You have to be rational enough to know what the limits of that information is. Look at some of the responses in this thread: I specifically say that the point is not to trust what others say blindly, and you get someone mockingly claiming I am telling them to trust me blindly. I then clarify that the proper response is to verify information, and I get another poster snidely commenting on how I only trust information from TEPCO. These are not the actions of people looking for information. These are the actions of people looking for any sort of ammunition and anyone to aim it at.

Too much information is just as bad as not enough information, but the reason is the same. People like to make assumptions either way, and rarely bother verifying them first.

@hoserfella

Cabadaje - I saved myself an afternoon of reading

I am not sure how it works in your neck of the woods, but generally speaking, claiming that it would take you an afternoon to read less than a half page actually reflects less well on yourself than on the guy who wrote it.

and skipped down to your conclusion "people who worry about nuclear meltdowns in their backyards are uneducated fools"

That's what happens when you don't bother to read what other people write. You end up jumping feet-first into the wrong conclusion.

Thanks. But now what do we do when the govt has admitted they thought about evacuating TOKYO after 3/11, and the press has proven itself to be nothing more than a government mouthpiece?

You ask yourself what the hell that has to do with this article. And I don't mean that snidely. You ask yourself if that information is actually pertinent to this particular event, and whether or not the emotional response from it is coloring your perception of the current event.

Instead of patronizing people for asking questions, why don't you ask Tepco et al why they are still scrambling 2 years later?

I'm not patronizing people for asking questions. I'm scolding them for not asking questions, and instead jumping straight to conclusions.

The author of this article misunderstands the consequences of a loss of coolant flow in a storage pool and has written a needlessly alarming article as a result.

The statement "Even used nuclear fuel becomes dangerous if its temperature is allowed to rise uncontrollably to the point where a self-sustaining critical reaction begins, causing a meltdown" is not accurate. If the used fuel continued to heat the water to the point at which it all evaporated leaving the fuel assemblies uncovered, the result, which would not occur for a number of days and could be prevented by the addition of makeup water as was done after the Tsunami, would be a possibility that some individual fuel assemblies most recently removed from the reactor core could catch fire and release radioactive particles as they burned. This is a concern that declines over time as the isotopes created inside the reactor decay. After the amount of time that even the freshest fuel in the Fukushima pools has been out of the reactors this is a remote possibility. Even in the worst case there would be no critical nuclear reaction.

That said, the industry can and should reduce any pool fire risks further by placing fuel in dry cask storage after it has cooled for a year. This would reduce fuel pool loads substantially and allow the remainder to be spread out in such a way that residual risk would be very small. Since the fuel needs to be repackaged anyway before moving to a reprocessing facility or long term storage location, this is a sensible way to reduce risk and reassure a nervous public.

Journalists who write about technical issues owe it to the public to be fully informed and avoid sensationalizing.

My apologies... just to be clear they are talking about the spent fuel pools.

@marcelito

Oh..don't worry I get it all very well. Have been getting it very clearly since 3.11 and the Tepco and J- govt. announcements of " everything is under control" and " there us no meltdown ".

So, basically, you passed judgement on the first day, and have based everything on that since.

Being uncomfortably close the radiation clouds in those days certainly certainly did that to me and the people up here in north Kanto and Tohoku. I do find it interesting how you are so quick to tell people not to believe anything that casts a negative shadow on the nuclear industry yet you expect people here to believe Tepco's assurances that everything is "under control".

The only expectations I have of people (and considering how often it is dashed, I wouldn't even call it an expectation) is that they don't take everything they read as gospel prior to checking, and instead just dump it straight into their ammunition pile. And I have NEVER, NOT ONE SINGLE TIME, have I EVER used TEPCO as a source, nor have I ever even hinted that people should believe them without caveat, and I have even referred to them as incompetent on more than one occasion. My record of posts is available for anyone to see.

And yet, the insistence here as that I am a cheerleader for TEPCO. That's what lazy thinking does to you. Makes you so eager to view life simply that you just divide the world into "them" and "us".

Well, I,m sorry but most of us who were here during those days in March have every reason to be sceptical of Tepco's assurances. As you said the point is not about trust but about verifying information and then passing judgment...I think Tepco,s record speaks for itself.

There is nothing to be sorry about. However, there is a difference between being skeptical and being cynical. Everyone should be as skeptical as they can be, and there doesn't even need to be any reason for it. Skepticism is good. Skepticism keeps us alive and moving forward. Cynicism is not skepticism. Cynicism may keep us alive, but it also ties us down. Cynicism makes a decision once, and bases everything else on that foundational assumption without external verification; It simply assumes guilt. It is cynicism that destroyed the safety culture of nuclear science to begin with. TEPCO, unfortunately, was very much aware of how people would react to information about nuclear safety, and very unwisely chose the path of ignoring the problem, rather than educating the masses. I blame them, definitely, considering that even posting in a thread is an upstream swim against the willfully ignorant, but I cannot say I don't understand why they did it. These threads are proof that, for better or for worse, people simply do not react well when they know only enough to be dangerous.

Just a thought, but don't all those other nuclear plants have spent fuel pools as well? Since they aren't on right now, is it impossible to transport the spent fuel rods currently in the pools at Daiichi plant to those other pools where they can be cooled by fully functional and undamaged facilities?

Its not like theres a real Blackout. Its not a blackout, its an electrical problem in the power plant. But still they have power. Its only 7 hours. 7 hours. not even half day

@marcelito

Well, I,m certainly glad you have so much more factual information about the situation than the rest of the uninformed public out there. I think we can all stop worrying and head back to the beach then...everything is just dandy up there. Thanks.

What part of "Don't blindly believe everything you are told." are you not getting?

The point isn't to trust me. The point isn't about trust at all. The point is that the proper order of things is to FIRST verify information, THEN pass judgement.

@cabadaje: Well said! I for one have given you a thumbs up.

Yes, TEPCO does have emergency power supplies. Yes, the power supply is on and it is circulating the coolant. Yes, it was on a little after 5 hours after the blackout.

No, it was not an emergency, because they have a 4 day window in which they could turn on the emergency backup power without any actual danger. No, they couldn't just replaced the breaker and flip the energy back on because something caused the breaker to break and it would be supremely stupid to hope whatever did that just decided to disappear on its own. Smart engineers actually investigate a possible danger instead of just assuming everything is good.

Out of the three pools that were off, pool number 2 had already been turned off for maintenance, which is precisely why the engineers were not in any big hurry or panic; again, they have a full four days, so taking a few hours to make sure there wasn't anything that would cause even more damage if you just turned everything back on was a very good idea. Similarly, there are 4 other perfectly good working coolant systems for the pools, any of which can be rerouted to perform double-duty, and even if there wasn't, and even if the back-up systems that do exist despite everyone's indignation that they don't, even then it still wouldn't be an emergency because the system is designed so that an external source, usually the local fire truck, can be easily put in place and circulate the coolant in the pool.

It is one thing to run around like Chicken Little over damage that has actually occurred; it is another to go out of your way to panic every time someone as much as stubs their toe. While JapanToday is certainly not helping with these half-assed articles talking about "makeshift systems" for cooling, not mentioning that the pools were without power for a mere 5 hours while talking about the 4 day buffer as if it were some imminent deadline of doom and not a x20 safety margin, and ignoring that the actual blackout only lasted about 3 minutes, still, this sort of ridiculous panic is what makes the more knowledgeable people disregard the general public opinion.

How many times are you going to ask why your opinions are not being taken into consideration when this is the sort of reaction you have over such utterly minor situations? The public demands to be informed, and when they are informed, all they do is start whining and making assumptions that they have absolutely no background to make. It is as if the public assumes that being informed somehow makes them actually knowledgeable about what they are being informed on. If you are going to panic and work yourself up into a lather every time something happens, regardless of the actual danger level, you are better off not being informed.

Claiming you heard it before in the news does not actually mean that you heard it before in the news. Believing that something like this has happened before does not actually mean something like this has happened before. The unfortunate consequence of passionate belief is that you forget that the assumptions you made once upon a time where assumptions and not facts. Additionally, you begin to fancy yourself as more knowledgeable than people who are actually experts in a given field, and arrogantly state that the "obvious" solution is to move highly dangerous material out of a stable containment area, even though the actual process of moving it would pose a much, much, higher threat than not moving it.

It is really getting ridiculous. I certainly cannot agree that TEPCO acted competently in the administration of the nuclear plants, and they are certainly directly at fault both for the failure of the safety systems and for the lack of safety culture within the plants and the field. TEPCO has done a great many thing as wrong as they could, and are responsible for setting back the exploration of nuclear fuels decades, while using the excuse that they didn't want to alarm the general public. Unfortunately, the reaction from the general public does actually support what should have been a very flimsy excuse. As can be seen on this forum, the general public just doesn't care about determining the facts behind a story; as soon as they hear their fears confirmed, they almost gleefully jump into assumption and condemnation.

Way to go, people. You are actually supporting TEPCO's (and the nuclear community in general) reluctance to share information.

@BarryMcCokkiner

TEPCO said the reactors were unaffected Now where have I heard that before?

Don't know. Where did you hear that before?

@Magnet

How is this still happening? You'd think that being so much in the public eye that they'd have a string of contingency plans in place to prevent things like this from happening, again. And again. And again...

They did and do. And are you saying that this has happened, what, three times?

@Magnet

Just a thought, but don't all those other nuclear plants have spent fuel pools as well? Since they aren't on right now, is it impossible to transport the spent fuel rods currently in the pools at Daiichi plant to those other pools where they can be cooled by fully functional and undamaged facilities?

That's where it gets a little dangerous, actually. Transporting those rods is a risky proposal for a few reasons. Leaving aside the physical security aspect, terrorists, protesters, flat tires, and the other conceivable but highly unlikely Murphisms that could occur, there are the practical aspects, such as providing proper cooling on the way, ensuring that the transport time is short and within safety limits, proper containment not merely in case of an accident, but also simply just to move it, and how to do all of this however many times it requires to move all 8500 rods. When one takes in the scale and effort that moving these rods would require, it is safest to leave them where they are.