Tohoku Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Disaster!!!

[Coligny]

It seems that TEPCO and everybody else involved in this disaster really have no idea how to stop a major disaster from happening.

Because until now you considered their response as appropriate ?

[Coligny]

Fixed that for yah! (and Australia doesn't count)

]

Dude... : HOLDEN....

in the interests of international harmony let's all drive down the middle

to be honest... that fit a bit more japanese driving style...

[matsuki]

Dude... : HOLDEN....

to be honest... that fit a bit more japanese driving style...

LOL, indeed...but 2 weeks in China a few years back made me grateful the driving here isn't as bad as it could be.

Speaking of driving, this whole disaster has shown how "prepared" Japan is. Public transportation shuts down and traffic congestion means everyone basically idles, parked in the street, until their tank is empty. Makes me consider getting a bike or scooter...

[canman]

What can the gov't do if people refuse to evacuate their homes in the Fukushima area. I saw on the news one older woman who said her husband couldn't move so they were going to stay at her home. Can the force them to leave? Do they have to continue to bring them food etc. It is a very tricky area.

[matsuki]

What can the gov't do if people refuse to evacuate their homes in the Fukushima area. I saw on the news one older woman who said her husband couldn't move so they were going to stay at her home. Can the force them to leave? Do they have to continue to bring them food etc. It is a very tricky area.

Obviously can't force em to leave....but don't see how they can be required to bring them food/supplies if they refused help evacuating.

[omae mona]

In light of things at Fukushima going a bit worse than predicted worst-case, and some new specific news in the last few days, I am starting to see some independent experts changing their tune a bit. Here's an update from a blogger (a link appeared on FG previously, I think) who is an unabashed atomic energy activist with a nuclear engineering background.

Up until this point, one of his main points was that plants are so fundamentally safe that, even given what happened on March 11, there would be no health risks to the workers and certainly no damage to the environment outside of the plant.

He's now admitting he was mistaken, and his belief system has been uprooted a bit. Workers are being exposed to radiation levels that could be raising their long-term cancer risk, though nothing like Chernobyl. And worse, the area close to the plant is definitely getting contaminated, probably resulting in long-term effects.

Though I hope that the Japanese government does not take the step of permanently evacuating large, lightly contaminated areas, there is little doubt that some formerly prosperous farms and fisheries will be out of business for a very long time.

What changed? Basically he's saying that while he still believes the technology behind nuclear power plants is fundamentally incredibly safe, it needs to be backed up by a continuous process of careful engineering, training, and maintenance. That's what went wrong at Fukushima. The people screwed it up.

On the other hand, in some more optimistic news, the consensus still seems to be that there are no known health risks outside of the evacuation zone yet. For example, here's some clever guys from MIT pointing out that they've been checking radiation doses to thyroids of people right outside the 20km range, and there are no signs of elevated levels.

[legion]

Speaking of driving, this whole disaster has shown how "prepared" Japan is. Public transportation shuts down and traffic congestion means everyone basically idles, parked in the street, until their tank is empty. Makes me consider getting a bike or scooter...

0n the day of the earthquake as I watched bikes weave through the traffic I did momentarily regret giving up commuting by bike opting and for the bicycle and train.

There were a few reasons I stopped, big one is your insurance won't cover you if you are on your way to and from work, and since you are the company's responsibility on the journey they prefer you to take a safer form of transport.

The other big reason was I started to find it stressful, so many lights, always on red and so many people pointlessly racing to reach them first (me included), you just get sucked into this stupid ego competition every day. You might handle it better, but hard as I tried sooner or later I just had to burn someone off.

[Big Boy]

i dropped off the grid many years ago but never left. good to see familiar faces here.

[cstaylor]

In light of things at Fukushima going a bit worse than predicted worst-case, and some new specific news in the last few days, I am starting to see some independent experts changing their tune a bit.

Worst case is R3's MOX burning bright on a south-westerly.

Up until this point, one of his main points was that plants are so fundamentally safe that, even given what happened on March 11, there would be no health risks to the workers and certainly no damage to the environment outside of the plant.

That might have been his belief, but it wasn't based on facts. Those BWRs require active cooling, and TEPCO's bean counters couldn't be bothered to game out a tsunami scenario.

Workers are being exposed to radiation levels that could be raising their long-term cancer risk, though nothing like Chernobyl.

Or they could be receiving multiple sieverts of radiation in a short amount of time because TEPCO couldn't be bothered to enforce safety guidelines for (expendable) subcontractors.

And worse, the area close to the plant is definitely getting contaminated, probably resulting in long-term effects.

Well, duh, if you look at the published radiation counts for Ibaraki-ken, you can infer from sqr(distance) that it must be really bad in Fukushima-ken.

What changed?

Nothing changed over here. Maybe he concluded that TEPCO is criminally incompetent?

Basically he's saying that while he still believes the technology behind nuclear power plants is fundamentally incredibly safe, it needs to be backed up by a continuous process of careful engineering, training, and maintenance.

Anything requiring human intervention should fail-safe. GE's bargain-bin reactor design fails completely.

That's what went wrong at Fukushima. The people screwed it up.

LOL. That's gotta be the engineering cop-out of the year.

Nuclear power has (at least) three problems:
- Overly complicated power plant designs
- Waste material too toxic for too long
- Too focused on solving "interesting" problems rather than optimizing the conversion of steam into kinetic energy... which is how all power-plants work.

[omae mona]

BTW in case it wasn't clear, I was just trying to paraphrase what the blogger was saying, trying to make the point that even the "don't worry, be happy" crowd has gotten a bit more pessimistic. I am way too uninformed to make any of these claims on my own.

That might have been his belief, but it wasn't based on facts. Those BWRs require active cooling, and TEPCO's bean counters couldn't be bothered to game out a tsunami scenario.


Or they could be receiving multiple sieverts of radiation in a short amount of time because TEPCO couldn't be bothered to enforce safety guidelines for (expendable) subcontractors.

Yes, I think the above is in line with what he is saying now.

Well, duh, if you look at the published radiation counts for Ibaraki-ken, you can infer from sqr(distance) that it must be really bad in Fukushima-ken.


Nothing changed over here. Maybe he concluded that TEPCO is criminally incompetent?

It sounds like he was implying that, yes.

Anything requiring human intervention should fail-safe. GE's bargain-bin reactor design fails completely.

Yes, he seems to be heavily criticizing the budget-slashing measures that TEPCO and the plant designers took.

LOL. That's gotta be the engineering cop-out of the year.
Nuclear power has (at least) three problems:
- Overly complicated power plant designs
- Waste material too toxic for too long
- Too focused on solving "interesting" problems rather than optimizing the conversion of steam into kinetic energy... which is how all power-plants work.

Well, the above points are certainly well beyond my expertise. Is that another Wikipedia special?

[cstaylor]

Well, the above points are certainly well beyond my expertise. Is that another Wikipedia special?

Wikipedia plus a few beers.

[Mike Oxlong]

Not really surprising...

[SIZE="4"]Nuclear Regulator Tied to Industry[/SIZE]

Japan's nuclear regulator has amassed power while growing closer to the industry it regulates, according to former regulators and industry critics who blame the trend for lapses that may have contributed to the Fukushima Daiichi accident.

Bucking the global standard, Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has two distinct and often competing roles: regulating the nuclear power industry, and promoting Japanese nuclear technology at home and abroad.

The setup recalls U.S. regulation of offshore drilling before last year's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, in which the same agency regulated the industry and promoted offshore oil-and- gas development. One of the Obama administration's first post-spill actions was to break up the agency.

In the U.S., the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees nuclear plants, is independent from the Department of Energy, which researches and promotes nuclear power.

Critics say that if regulators in Japan had been more independent they might have imposed stricter regulations on plant safety that could have prevented the crisis or eased its severity.

The ministry ordered companies in 2006 to review the earthquake readiness of their nuclear plants, but it didn't set a deadline. Tokyo Electric Power Co., or Tepco, the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, filed its interim review in 2009. Its only mention of tsunami was to say that it was continuing to study the subject.

"The regulators are so friendly with power companies that they don't hold them responsible for so many things," said Tetsuya Iida, a former nuclear-industry engineer who heads a think tank...

From The WSJ

[matsuki]

Indeed...I just hope the J-Gov is shamed enough by this disaster to make real change. (not just fire a few figure heads and make motions as if something is being done with no real changes)

[Yokohammer]

... not just fire a few figure heads and make motions as if something is being done with no real changes

The problem is, they are really, really good at this. They've been doing it for a very long time and have it refined to an art form. I'm pretty sure that'll be the first plan of action. Only some unusually incisive media reporting or a public uprising, or both, is likely to spark any real change. International pressure might help.

You gotta understand: real change is hard! It means that people have to get off their asses and actually work. It also means that people have to forget their egos and self-interests and make sacrifices. I'm looking at our lineup of current "leaders" and not seeing much hope.

What we need is for the general populace of Japan to get seriously pissed off and show it, instead of shuffling around like a bunch of sheep.

EDIT: Here's an idea. How about if a few thousand of the newly homeless from the evacuation zone around the nuke plant went and pitched tents around the diet building and insisted on staying there until satisfactory action was taken. I know it's not likely, but that's the sort of "pissed and show it" that I'm talking about.

[Coligny]

In other news, some French intellektuals (namely Jacques Attaly) are starting to be mighty pissed of with the whole Libya+Japan clusterfuck and propose that the same ingerance rules used to bomb the frack out of Libya should be used to impose foreign help and supervisation at the damaged tepco power plants under UN control... To be honest... I'm like totally down with that guy... Them japanjin have screwed up enough for now... Time for someone with a clue to step in, bitchslap them and get this crap under control.

[cstaylor]

Looks like they're trying to pin it on Kan now...

Kan blamed for slowing response
The government's initial responses to contain the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power station after the March 11 quake were delayed by Prime Minister Naoto Kan's effort to inspect the plant by helicopter the next morning, government sources revealed Sunday

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110328a3.html

Or the retards at TEPCO could have kept ample backup generators several kilometers inland, away from any possible tsunami danger.

[omae mona]

Looks like they're trying to pin it on Kan now...

[canman]

By the way what the hell are we calling this earthquake now? I have heard about 4 different names and I would like to know what it is really called.

[FG Lurker]

Or the retards at TEPCO could have kept ample backup generators several kilometers inland, away from any possible tsunami danger.

Yeah, cause it's not like the power lines from those generators would've gotten wiped out by the tsunami.......like all the other power lines into the plants were.....

I have no doubt there is a long list of things that TEPCO has fucked up -- or in the very least things they could've done better. I also think we need to keep in mind that this was an M9.0 quake and the plants were apparently hit with a 14m high tsunami. The death toll from the quake/tsunami combo is almost certainly going to surpass 20,000 people, quite possibly get close to 30,000 people. No one expected a quake or tsunami of this size to hit this region. It's not surprising that things got fucked up.

[Jack]

Yeah, cause it's not like the power lines from those generators would've gotten wiped out by the tsunami.......like all the other power lines into the plants were.....

I have no doubt there is a long list of things that TEPCO has fucked up -- or in the very least things they could've done better. I also think we need to keep in mind that this was an M9.0 quake and the plants were apparently hit with a 14m high tsunami. The death toll from the quake/tsunami combo is almost certainly going to surpass 20,000 people, quite possibly get close to 30,000 people. No one expected a quake or tsunami of this size to hit this region. It's not surprising that things got fucked up.

No doubt there could be no defense against the natural disasters that hit. But fuck, why are they not mixing the cement already? Burry those things already. The plant is a write-off anyway. It will never be used again.

Fukushima is giving Japan a very bad name. We are going to sympathy from the natural disasters to laughing stock for not being able to control a man-made disaster.

[FG Lurker]

No doubt there could be no defense against the natural disasters that hit. But fuck, why are they not mixing the cement already? Burry those things already. The plant is a write-off anyway. It will never be used again.

Chernobyl wasn't encased in concrete until ~8 months after the disaster.

Encasing Fukushima in concrete before knowing that everything is stable doesn't seem like a particularly good idea to me.

[Kanchou]

Not to mention you lose a billion-dollar nuclear reactor. Forever.

[Coligny]

Looks like they're trying to pin it on Kan now...

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110328a3.html

Or the retards at TEPCO could have kept ample backup generators several kilometers inland, away from any possible tsunami danger.

Actually... That would have been more than easy, semi trailer fitted with power generators are nothing new or exceptionnal. The plant had 8 hours of battery backup that seems to have been operationnal and depleted as expected. That left quite some time to think aboot a solution.

And for the -ravaged by tsunami- part... Offroad semis are available... even second hand quite cheap. Thanks to mother Russia...



Or if you prefer new, Volat-MZKT is now a Belarussian company: http://www.mzkt.by/rus/

[Cyka UchuuJin]

By the way what the hell are we calling this earthquake now? I have heard about 4 different names and I would like to know what it is really called.

I thought it was officially named the Tohoku Pacific Earthquake.

[Coligny]

After playing the school bully, Tepco seems to realise that they have no fracking clue aboot what to do against the 6 headed beast coming from the east (*) that once was a powerplant...

So they just called EDF, Areva and the CEA (respectively, Power company, Nukular fuel provider and treatment, and the French Governement All Nukular fundamental research departement -who deal with anything radioactive from X-Ray to powerplant, submarine, Aircraftcarriers and bombs) to come to the rescue. That will certainly mean another round trip for the Antonov 225 with more than instant noodles and bottled water this time...

Source in french again re-solly:
http://www.franceculture.com/dossier-apocalypse-au-japon.html


(*) yeah I know, in the bible and that Kirk Douglas movie the beast was 7 headed, but, after the financial crisis some cost and head cutting measures were needed... (Holocaust 2k http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077332/)

[Coligny]

The more it goes, the more I feel a bit like:

"This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we'll be lucky to live through it."

[Ikemen-of-d00m]

Interesting read:

We should stop running away from radiation

[omae mona]

Interesting read:

We should stop running away from radiation

If I may quote Spinal Tap at this point:

Nigel Tufnel: Well it really puts a perspective on things, now, doesn't it?
David St. Hubbins: Not too much. Not too much fucking perspective.

No, seriously, thanks for the link, Ikemen. This kind of information and viewpoint has been available in abundance since the start of the incident. But once adrenalin kicks in and the fear of radiation has taken hold of somebody, these scientific explanations have no effect.

[Coligny]

No, seriously, thanks for the link, Ikemen. This kind of information and viewpoint has been available in abundance since the start of the incident. But once adrenalin kicks in and the fear of radiation has taken hold of somebody, these scientific explanations have no effect.

Problem is not from radiation... problem is an accident managed by arrogant, incompetent chronical liars...

Same as glue-grade rice being sold as food for a quick buck, I can't wait to see food labelled as clean while glowing in the dark with government whatchdogs doing nothing is order to avoid disrupting companies profit and reputations.

[Yokohammer]

Has anyone mentioned the plutonium yet?
There's so much more bad news coming out every day that I can't keep up.

Anyway, now they've found plutonium in/on the ground at the plant. They're saying that because plutonium is heavy and doesn't gasify like iodine it won't travel far, but the fact remains that there is now plutonium outside the reactors.

Who you gonna call? ...