TEPCO Unveils Plan To Deal With Fukushima Crisis 238
RedEaredSlider writes "Tokyo Electric Power Co. unveiled its plan for dealing with the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. TEPCO said the radiation levels should drop over the next three months. It will take about six months for the reactors to achieve 'cold shutdown' in which the temperature of the water inside the reactor is less than 100 degrees Celsius (212 F). The current plan for cooling the reactors will mean injecting nitrogen into the reactor pressure vessel. All four damaged reactors experienced hydrogen explosions when water, heated by nuclear fuel, turned to steam and reacted with the zirconium alloy cladding of the fuel rods. Hydrogen, when exposed to oxygen, combusts. Nitrogen is an inert gas, so TEPCO hopes that it will prevent further explosions."
Re:Half-life (Score:5, Interesting)
You would hope. But given that they don't seem to have been prepared for foreseen circumstances*, I'm not betting on their team until I see management make some trades.
* - the 10-meter tsunami was the unforeseen circumstance. Everything after it was foreseeable, and there were design choices that guaranteed a destructive cascade once the power went out. Allowing the buildings to explode and damage the systems used to keep the buildings from exploding more is a pretty major fuckup in the realm of reliability engineering. The use of zinc cladding, the lack of effective venting for the hydrogen, the proximity of the explosion to components that could be damaged in a hydrogen explosion, blockage of access by debris from the explosion... Someone 40 years ago said that having backup generators would prevent these things from happening, and didn't consider what if the generators simply broke and couldn't be replaced. Even though they may have known what could be done.
Oh, and there's the part about how they did get generators rushed to the site, but the electrical connections didn't match up so they couldn't use them. I'm still not sure that's been reported right, because what the fuck?
Cold shutdown is supposed to take a few days (Score:5, Interesting)
Normally, cold shutdown takes a few days. At Three Mile Island, it took two weeks. Six months is worrisome. Too many more things can go wrong during that period.
They still have so little information about what's going on inside the reactors. Check the latest JAIF status report. [jaif.or.jp] Pressure is unknown. Temperature is unknown. Water level is unknown. "Fuel rods exposed partially or fully". Reactors 1 and 3 are buried under piles of rubble. And they have to fix the plumbing under that debris.
I'll say it... (Score:4, Interesting)
Question is, would a public-run utility design and build nuclear infrastructure to within the letter of the law or would they 'overbuild' for safety? Is this entire situation the cause of capitalism running into its core fault - its lack of concern for the expensive 'doing the right thing' vs the cheaper 'doing things right.'? I don't really know, but it smacks of the reality of letting a company totally focused on making and saving money vs making decisions to protect the people of Japan.
Re:Half-life (Score:2, Interesting)
You would hope. But given that they don't seem to have been prepared for foreseen circumstances*, I'm not betting on their team until I see management make some trades.
* - the 10-meter tsunami was the unforeseen circumstance. Everything after it was foreseeable, and there were design choices that guaranteed a destructive cascade once the power went out. Allowing the buildings to explode and damage the systems used to keep the buildings from exploding more is a pretty major fuckup in the realm of reliability engineering. The use of zinc cladding, the lack of effective venting for the hydrogen, the proximity of the explosion to components that could be damaged in a hydrogen explosion, blockage of access by debris from the explosion... Someone 40 years ago said that having backup generators would prevent these things from happening, and didn't consider what if the generators simply broke and couldn't be replaced. Even though they may have known what could be done.
Oh, and there's the part about how they did get generators rushed to the site, but the electrical connections didn't match up so they couldn't use them. I'm still not sure that's been reported right, because what the fuck?
You would hope. But given that they don't seem to have been prepared for foreseen circumstances*, I'm not betting on their team until I see management make some trades.
* - the 10-meter tsunami was the unforeseen circumstance. Everything after it was foreseeable, and there were design choices that guaranteed a destructive cascade once the power went out. Allowing the buildings to explode and damage the systems used to keep the buildings from exploding more is a pretty major fuckup in the realm of reliability engineering. The use of zinc cladding, the lack of effective venting for the hydrogen, the proximity of the explosion to components that could be damaged in a hydrogen explosion, blockage of access by debris from the explosion... Someone 40 years ago said that having backup generators would prevent these things from happening, and didn't consider what if the generators simply broke and couldn't be replaced. Even though they may have known what could be done.
Oh, and there's the part about how they did get generators rushed to the site, but the electrical connections didn't match up so they couldn't use them. I'm still not sure that's been reported right, because what the fuck?
I heard about the back up generators delivered on day two of this incident. Unfortunately I don't have time to track sources right now (I am at work and my initial Google search turned up nothing).
The fact that the generator did not match up goes back to the 1800s
http://www.npr.org/2011/03/24/134828205/a-country-divided-japans-electric-bottleneck.
"That's partly an accident of history. Eastern Japan followed the German model and has a 50-cycle electrical power grid. The western part of Japan used the American model and has a 60-cycle grid. Transferring power from one grid to another requires a very expensive facility. And there are only three connections between eastern and western Japan. That bottleneck means the power transfer is just a trickle, even during this national emergency. Creating more capacity would take years."
Re:Best laid plans (Score:5, Interesting)
To give you an idea of just how retarded political and administrative dealings with nuclear power is, consider what we've been doing in Sweden. Nuclear was bad, so we banned construction of new reactors, then we closed down one of our existing plants, replacing its energy generation by turning up the power on the other plants ( thereby reducing safety margins). Now because the renewables that were supposed to replace nuclear didn't make it (surprise surprise ), we will extend the reactor lifetimes by 50% or so.
I.e, rather than building newer and safer designs we have cranked up the power on the old ones and extended their operation permits beyond their design lifetime, and we still don't have any plausible way to replace them other than some wishful thinking about wind power. We're not building new reactors, so the obvious outcome will be further life extensions to our already ageing reactor fleet. Then when they finally do fall apart at 6+ decades of operation, it will all be because nuclear is inherently dangerous, and not at all because we stopped its development and improvement for 40 years and decided to go with a wind power pipe dream that saw the reactors pushed way beyond what they were ever designed for.
If it was down to me we would be building ESBWR or CANDU reactors for the short to medium term, with an aim of Lead or Molten Salt cooled breeders in the long term, but there's far too many people here who honestly think we will replace Petrol and Nuclear with Wind farms and Solar Photovoltaics. Yes, Solar, in Sweden ... It isn't even economical in California, but somehow we expect to do better because we're not Americans.
Re:Half-life (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm saying they don't really have to do anything else, and basically aren't, besides keeping stasis until the thing cools off.
Uh no. They can't just keep doing what they're doing and wait. It's more urgent than that. With the rupture in unit 2 (believed to be in the suppression tank), that water they have to keep pumping in keeps coming out bringing highly radioactive particles from the damaged fuels rods along. They pumped over 100 tons of it out of one tunnel only to have it fill back up within two days. They may have briefly interrupted what's getting into the ocean, but it is piling up and needs to be dealt with soon.
They're injecting nitrogen into unit 1 hoping to reduce the chance of a hydrogen explosion, but the pressure not rising indicates a leak. They've said it may be venting contaminated gases. (but don't be too surprised if it turns out they are unintentionally pushing more contaminated water out somewhere)
For some pretty good articles check out what the media over there are saying.
Here's a six part series on how Tepco and the government have complicated matters.
It has many details no covered by most U.S. media.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110416002672.htm [yomiuri.co.jp]
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110415004983.htm [yomiuri.co.jp]
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110414006040.htm [yomiuri.co.jp]
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110413004031.htm [yomiuri.co.jp]
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110412006319.htm [yomiuri.co.jp]
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110411004567.htm [yomiuri.co.jp]
Re:I'll say it... (Score:2, Interesting)
As someone who works in Government, I have to say that you're wrong. State run endeavors also do exactly what is required within the letter of the law but not an ounce more. They just take three times longer to do it and at ten times the cost. Even then, it would be of inferior quality.
Re:Best laid plans (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes it is economical, both in California and Sweden. In fact, Google is currently investing 168M into a solar plant in California. The US deploys enough solar panels every 18 months to replace the output of an entire nuclear reactor.
Germany has made it their goal to reach 35% of electricity generation by 2020 and they aren't a sunny climate (solar panels produce even when it's cloudy). They've already achieved nearly 20% of their entire electricity production from renewables. Ignoring capacity factor, Germany has deployed enough solar panels at peak production to replace the average production output from Fukushima's six reactors.
Sweden has an even more aggressive schedule -- 49% of energy by 2020. They're already at 44%. Sweden Leads the European Union [independent.co.uk]
Ultimately the resistance to renewables comes down to people not recognizing that renewables are getting every year after year while non-renewables and the fuel they consume keeps getting more expensive year by year.
Re:reactor lifetimes (Score:4, Interesting)