Frozen water causes leakages at Fukushima nuclear power plant

Ok, this is just not acceptable. How is this company permitted to continue under its current management.

Its surely gross misconducted at least and well at worse lets not speculate.

This seems to be Tepco's and possibly other power companies records to date.

They build a nuclear power plant in a location that has historically had several very large tsunamis, but do not build the plant to cope with the most extreme of situations.

Safety check reveal required improvements, those improvements are not completed and some records are even falsified.

The earthquake and tsunami hit, and personal make mistakes such as ignoring cooling failure alarms, and the plants themselves seem to have very little information about how those workers should actually deal with the crisis.

The Government puts the responsibility in Tepco's court, both Tepco and the Government refuse outside help insisting that they have everything "undercontrol", which leads to multiple meltdowns of the fuel material and the following explosions. Either the meltdowns were inevitable and were dishonest about it, or simply have no clue whats going on.

Contaminated food, building supplies and waste are shipped around the country, despite again all the promises.

Now its winter... like it always is every year its cold, and they are having issues with freezing water, just as many have predicted publicly. They have had a year to prepare for winter.. and still these issues?

Several months later many people have risked their lives onsite and I thank them for Japan and the world..

But there is a huge leadership problem both in government and in these large companies, saying sorry and losing a few months pay means nothing.

There should have been decisive action day one. SDF enforced exclusion zone, only plant supplies in and nothing out. International task force put together, and everything made public.

Fukushima I Nuke Plant: 17 Minor Leaks In Pipes and Valves Found in 2 Days, Freezing Temperature Blamed. Looking at TEPCO's press release, the leaks are mostly at the flanges. Some of the leaks from the reverse osmosis system have been found with high beta radiation. But what is up with Strontium-90 in the air of Tokyo Japan communist political party asked Tokyo local government to disclose strontium related information, so they finally published it on 11/2. Human (50kg) breathes about 23,000L(*) of air everyday, which means Tokyo citizen took 0.23 Bq of strontium-90 on the daily basis. Now it has been about 8 months since 311. Tokyo citizen has already absorbed 55.2 Bq of Strontium-90. Unlike food, hot particles taken into the lung will never get out of your body. It does not take longer than a month to reach bone marrow. This explains why acute leukemia case is spiking up.

http://fukushima-diary.com/2011/11/strontium90-in-the-air-of-tokyo/

Well, I posted here on JT at least a month ago that freezing water in the cooling pipes is going to be a major worry and I was hoping (sure) that TEPCO would be well prepared for this...

Don't TEPCO read JT posts? :8(...........

Perhaps the seriously low temperatures, MINUS 5 !!! ... were outside the thinkable parameters, "Soutei-Gai"?

"leakages caused by frozen water"

Hmmm...

Yes, I would agree that restoring the cooling capabilities of the reactors have been the top priority, and having the materials required wouldn't be readily available, so materials that are available on short notice have been used.

Thing is, didn't any qualified TEPCO supervisor or inspector notice the use of sub-standard materials in an exposed environment? Why did the government even announce the "cold shutdown conditions", despite the (now-obvious) inability to run 24/7?

Normal pipes and parts do tend to freeze up. Why didn't TEPCO replace the cooling system with freeze-retardant components?

Another face of incompetence ... but how come even I am surprised?

@elvensilvan - qualified TEPCO supervisor or inspectors allowed a nuclear power plant to run with flat batteries in critical components, it's media server for data transmission off-line for 4 months, generators susceptible to flooding, falsified reactor pressure vessel tests, forged welding data on pipes, and a whole list of other activities.

Do you really think they'll do anything about 8 km of improvised piping in the cold?

The operators did however cover some of the pipes with insulating materials, but the flanges were left exposed...

They got a burst pipe! Anybody know a good plumber? Can never find one when you need one. I bet the call-out charge will be astrohumungus! If the plumber is anything like the ones I've had dealings with, s/he'll look at it for half an hour, have a cuppa and say "Can't be helped. Where's me dosh?"

If water is freezing in there, that is proof that it is not very hot.

Oh, but the plant is stable, isn't it? That's what they keep telling the rest of the world. Stable my donkey! Get these dithering twits out of there and send in some international professionals to shut this damn thing down properly and quickly! Gees!!!

The crazy thing about leaks is: You can't fix them until they appear, even if you KNOW they're going to appear. Some of the posters here seem to be implying that leaks should be fixed BEFORE they happen. Sorry, I left my time machine at the cleaners.

@Fadamor

The thing about the leaks in this case is not the leaks themselves, but the problem of the below-freezing temperature and the pipes and flanges, resulting in leaks.

TEPCO replaced the cooling system which were dislodged due to the earthquake, tsunami and explosions.

Are you implying that this is another souteigai situation?

So when the prime minister said "cold shutdown" he was obviously referencing the emergency cooling system, which a number of amateur scientist bloggers predicted that the cold would shut down.

Fadamor, the title says "Frozen water causes leakages..."

Are you saying that this has taken them by surprise? I lagged my pipes at home in advance, because if they freeze solid it can cause leaks or even burst pipes. (No, I do not have a time machine...) Still, I suppose home pipes are more important than someone's stupid power plant.

301,750,000 Bq leaked from reactor 4, In the evening of 2/1/2012, Tepco admitted that the amount of water leakage was up to 8.5 tones, though they announced it was only 6L. Because it contains 35,500 Bq/L, it means at least 301750000Bq of radiation has leaked. It leaked from a pipe (9mm diameter.) connected to a facility to measure the amount of water in reactor jet pomp. The pipe was completely taken off from the plug but the reason is not known yet. Tepco suspects it might be from frozen water inside of the pipes. The leaked water didn’t flow out of the buildings but went into the basement floor of reactor 4.

http://english.kyodonews.jp/

http://www.47news.jp/47topics/e/225245.php