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© Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Niigata governor says it is too soon to restart nuclear plants
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nath
Ummm...understood. Emergency back-up power should not be placed in a basement.
ebisen
Gal - while the backup power was a major problem at Fukushima already, the design allowed the reactors cooling to function with natural convection only, without power. The people controlling it did not know how to enable this (manual opening of a number of massive valves allowing water flow in the right direction), due to an obvious lack of training and emergency procedures.
crustpunker
Japan does a lot of things pretty well but in my opinion, one thing that they do ver, VERY poorly is risk management.
It almost doesn't exsist at all.
42 degrees out in the summer? Well, kids still have to practice baseball because it is scheduled.
restarting the reactors across the nation even though there ARE no well thought out emergency plans?
Well, we are on a schedule....it just must be done.
There is little to NO THOUGHT at all given to risks.
Star-viking
Well, the NRA has reported that The Fukushima Daiichi accident was caused by the tsunami, Niigat Governor take note.
As for evacuation plans - I suggest the governor step up to the plate.
Disillusioned
The 12th of never would still be too soon!
The Fukushima meltdowns were not caused by the earthquake or tsunami. They were a direct result of mismanagement, laxed safety standards and a failure of both TEPCO and the Japanese government to ensure upgrades were carried out. It's absoluteky deplorable that the nobody from TEPCO or the J-Gov has faced any sort of criminal prosecution. Now, they are doing exactly the same thing. Just the other day there was an article explaining how people who disagreed with restarting the reactors were locked out of the negotiations. They are pushing and pushing to hurriedly get these reactors online and they are fudging or ignoring the new safety standards which they put in place. It's a bloody disgrace! But, the real disgrace is, they are getting away with it. This governor has made a stand against them, but he will either be cohersed into supporting the restart or be replaced with someone a little more mailable.
jerseyboy
Seems 100% reasonable and prudent to me. Which is of course exactly why Abe and J-Inc. will ignore it and proceed doing what they have already decided is "best" for Japan.
Star-viking
Zichi,
The claim of TEPCO ignoring a 2006 Tsunami prediction is just an Asahi-level exercise in journalism. What did happen was a theoretical study of what the biggest tsunami wave could be. The actual tsunami not only surprised TEPCO, but the sesimological community, as the area off the Pacific coast of Tohoku was not thought capable of triggering a M8+ earthquake. The quake, when it happened, was unprecedented: near simultaneous movements in all 5 segments of the fault, with massive displacements in 2 of them.
As for the NRA saying that the reactors will never be 100% safe - so what? Nothing is 100% safe. The goal should not be 100%, it should be safety improvement.
grjkzz
In my opinion, the only thing the Japanese do well is act nice in front of others. As zichi says, most Japanese people are bad at doing any type of management. In my opinion, they seem to always assume that everything will work out on its own because society expects everyone to do the "right thing." They've been trained since birth. If everyone does the right thing, nothing can go wrong, right? Right? Basically, they half-ass things.
With Japan being in such a hot zone on the Earth, having nuclear power plants is already pretty risky. I can't believe they actually thought that they had sufficient protection against all the natural disasters that hit Japan.
I don't want to pay much for utilities, but destroying their own country with a nuclear disaster is just dumb. I would rather pay more for electricity. What ever happened to the environment-loving folk in the country?
Star-viking
zichi
A bit of a bait-and-switch there Zichi: we were talking about the 2006 claim.
As for the current issue of a 'mega-Tsunami', there are conflicting reports. Some say 'it would take a 26 metre tsunami to cause worrying damage to the plant. Other reports say the tsunami could potentially hit 10,000 to 1 million years from now. I guess we'll have to wait for a good translation of the original Japanese report
I see problems with relying on science-illiterate journalism.
I see problems with politically-slanted journalism, where what matters is where you want the story to go, not what the facts say.
I see problems with things nuclear being blown out of proportion, and other things being downplayed. For example, nuclear being seen as more dangerous than fossil fuels.
turbotsat
Leaving aside worrying about the fuzziness of estimated survivability vs waves of "13 to 15 meters", the wave(s) that killed the Fukushima plant was higher than the low end of that range.
What about the stones in the hills above the coastline around Fukushima area, old markers indicating how high villagers should (flee to?) (not build lower than?)? Any similar near the Sendai plant?
wikipedia Fukushima Daiichi:
wikipedia Sendai Nuclear Plant:
ebisen
Yeah, as opposed to labelling it as "human error". But not knowing how to enable natural flow cooling was fatal, and the obvious lack of training and emergency procedures in place are human errors, and labelling it as a "natural disaster" will move the focus away from the real problems. But it will not disturb the "wa", so it's daijoubu, desune.
Pandabelle
zichi
Every single one. They all cause pollution that affects the entire world, affect climate change, and are directly linked to thousands and thousands of deaths a year. Every single one is an industrial accident that causes real damage.
Pandabelle
zichi
Zichi, every day of operation of the fossil fuel power plants is slow burning industrial accident. No different than the radiation releases from Fukushima Daiichi except the emissions from fossil fuel powered plants have a demonstrated link to illness and death of thousands annually, and there are currently no linked deaths to Fukushima's radiation.
What is that if not an industrial accident? Any industrial installation that kills people necessarily as a result of functioning "normally" is flawed and should be considered an industrial accident. You can't just ignore that sort of ongoing disaster because there's not a spectacular explosion and subsequent clucking of tongues.
Star-viking
turbotsat,
I think those stones are on the Sanriku Coast, Northern Miyagi and Iwate. The coastline in that area has many narrow, high-sided valleys which channel tsunamis to great heights, so in 2011 Fukushima Daiichi got about 13 metres, but hit almost 39 metres in Miyako, Iwate.
Zichi,
Not 'as much caused by the lack of safety culture' - no Tsunami, no accident. Better safety culture would have helped, but then so would not having a PM screaming at people who invoked his ire rather than asking if and how he could help.
Safety is now addressed by NRA regs and new countermeasures: Tsunami walls, Isolated emergency power, hydrogen recombiners, and other equipment.
Do you have a reference for this?
Pandabelle
zichi
Common sense would call this an accident, I don't really concern myself with the legal definition of an accident
Really? Just this year Mitsubishi had a chemical plant explosion that killed many. I'd say that's pretty darn serious.
Sure, and power plants are a huge component of this. Go look at the number of deaths each year directly attributed to coal alone every year. It's far higher annually than the total people killed in all nuclear accidents in history.
An engineering problem, and not an intractable one. You speak it is not possible to solve this issue. Why?
Source? I would strongly disagree.
Source? I would strongly disagree.
Yes, of course. But nuclear should be a part of the mix.
Come on now, zichi. I've been reading your posts for years and admire your viewpoints even when I disagree. You're much better than that sort of nonsense blanket statement.
Star-viking
Zichi,
I think I've posted enough information about the unexpected nature of the earthquake and tsunami. TEPCO made several increases to the height of the seawall in response to scientific reports on the likelihood of tsunamis greater than the original design considerations occurring.
As for a chain of command, was that not from Plant Manager on down?
As for the plant workers not knowing how to operate the ICs, that's not what this NISA Report suggests:
Ref: http://www.nsr.go.jp/archive/nisa/english/files/en20110528-4.pdf
So, they had operating procedures for the IC, it seems.
As for training drills, there were drills on Oct.21-22, 2008, and Feb.6,2007 according to the "Convention on Nuclear Safety, National Report of Japan for the Fifth Review Meeting"
Ref, p177: http://www.nsr.go.jp/archive/nsc/NSCenglish/documents/conventions/2011.pdf
I was talking about Hydrogen Recombiners. On the topic of hydrogen venting, TEPCO says venting is being added to the Niigata reactors.
Ref: http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/kk-np/safety/mitigation-e.html
The Japanese fleet of reactors are getting hydrogen recombiners:
Ref: http://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsareva-to-supply-hydrogen-recombiners-to-japanese-reactors
I post on JT to provide a bit of analysis and commentary on articles with poor science. As with you, I rely on the TEPCO Site, many pro-nuclear energy sites, some Japanese sites, and scientific papers. My views are informed with decades of scientific and engineering experience, and knowing how data and information can get mangled in the public domain.
Star-viking
zichi,
Can you give a reference for this?
Ah, I see! I came across a reference to this in a story about delayed venting. That definitely needs to be sorted out. There also would need to be a move to shut down idiots who demand that the 'responsibility person' step down at any whiff of scandal. That certainly would be a bonus for society.
Ref: http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703922504576273234110896182
But they do seem to have operated it.
Could you provide a reference?
Thanks.