Fukushima Management and Government Performance

NUCENG

That technique is called deflection. You have been listening to Dmytry too much. If you can't address the argument call the adversary dishonest. In all this discussion we have been telling you that integrity and focus on safety is important. What did you think we would say about someone who violated that trust?

Danuta

Look, do you have to mention Dmytry to me in every post because it is getting annoying. What the hell? You two get a room or something.

What did I think you were going to say about the link I posted? I just asked for some comments, is all.

NUCENG

Let's see, non-responsive, "cheap seats", "Hmmm", "It would be more honest," "Annoying."

Try adding something to the discussion other than rhetoric so I can tell you and Dmytry apart. Ooops, which one are you again?

Danuta

Oh for God's sake. I can't continue with this foolishness. Now you've got a problem with how I write? You're bloody obsessed by Dmytry and see him everywhere now. Get some rest.

Dmytry

General population are the ones who would pay for the seawall for the city. When informed, they can opt to build a seawall, or not to build a seawall, opt to have protection up to specific height, it is their choice how much they want to spend on their own safety. You don't have to impose seawall on the city because the city does not release so much radioactivity (that would affect other cities) when it is flooded.
It is democracy we are speaking about, or what?
You are switching the topic onto protection of already existing plant, which makes no sense. You are posting grossly incorrect or misunderstood numbers (ten frigging times incorrect). Forgive me if it makes me think that you're wrong and I am right.

The seawall is built when the plant is being constructed. The best time for geological etc considerations is before the plant is constructed. Or should be - you tell me how it is done, you know so much better about the nuclear industry, perhaps there's something I don't know, perhaps it is standard practice to build the plant first, and think about possible natural disasters later.

Then you also switch the topic from capitalist economy - where one entity is responsible for the plant, and another entity is responsible for the protection of the city - to the communism, where single entity would be responsible for both.

Yes, in communism, if you build the city and the plant with no consideration for tsunami - that would be a big mistake, afterwards, the cost-benefit on the countermeasures - on the mitigation of the mistake - may be better for the city seawall, or for the plant. That is really a complicated question however, and depends greatly to many factors that are simply not known, and most importantly it has nothing whatsoever to do with Fukushima. You're not asking me to be an engineer. You are asking me to be a communist central planning authority, which decides both on reactor and city seawalls.

In the democratic capitalism, there are the people in the city, whom ultimately pay for seawall or other counter measures for the city, and there is the power company, which can choose the location of the plant and has to build the plant to meet the standards in first place. The plant builders have no right whatsoever to refer to the risky decisions made by third parties as justification for the added risk for everyone that they are responsible for.
Furthermore, in the society with laws, plant builder can be harshly prosecuted for making a mistake of constructing the plant first and thinking of the natural disasters later.

Ahh, and for judging the entire industry... well I judge industry not only by TEPCO, but also by you, and others from nuclear industry, and the way you guys seem think about safety. Clearly, your mind flips to the third parties and their risky behaviours, and to lumping all parties into a whole as if it was communism and central planning authority was responsible for reactors, cities, etc. That's a slippery slope. Just because the city residents did not opt to construct a seawall around their city (perhaps due to not being informed), does not in the slightest excuse the nuclear power plant builder for not considering the tsunamis before they construct the plant, and adding some extra risk for everyone around.

clancy688

I think that already happened. Otherwise we wouldn't have one smoldering NPP, but four. Tokai survived the wave, but there's a possibility that the waves weren't as high down there.
Daini survived as well, with waves nearly as high as in Daiichi - thanks to its elevated and hardened reactor buildings.
And Onagawa probably got hit by an even higher wave and there still were no technical problems. So I'd think that they indeed did learn. Daiichi was the oldest of those four NPPs. They build the new ones higher, probably in case of Tsunamis. To be sure. But they didn't upgrade Daiichi - I don't know why. The only explanation for the elevated buildings at Daini and Onagawa is an understanding of a tsunami's danger. So they knew what could happen. And yet they didn't do anything. That's criminal.

Dmytry

yep, at least hardened backups and electrical equipment.

Quoting from the 1933 quake:
"Although the earthquake did little damage, the associated tsunami, which was recorded to reach the height of 28.7 metres (94 ft) at Ōfunato, Iwate, "
It seems prudent to me to build it at least for 50m tall unless there is some very serious and very well reviewed fluid dynamics study showing that the site would have much smaller run-up for any possible quake location. This stuff is complicated... the waves reflect and refract and focus, and it is easy to miss something that would make height very big.

The 50m tall runup protecting seawall (the seawall would be far into the sea and wouldn't need to be 50 meters tall though) may be entirely impossible, but it is possible to protect from 50m tall tsunami by building the plant at higher elevation. Perhaps at the river or a lake. Instead, the plant has hills behind it, which have increased the run-up.

Really, one didn't need recent quakes to know of the danger. I don't know where the 'highest in the recorded history' came from. The recent tsunami had only 24 meters maximum height AFAIK, the 1933 was 28, you don't even need to look back very far.

edit: ahh, there
For the 2011 tsunami:
The highest tsunami which was recorded at Ryōri Bay, Ōfunato, reached a total height of 97 feet (30 m).[34]
Same location as for 1933's 28.7 meters
I wonder how high the 1933 tsunami was at Daiichi site. The quake location is fairly close (edit: hmm but not very close. could've been a lot less due to angle at which wave strikes the coast line).
Where the hell 5.5m historical maximum came from and what the hell does it mean? Perhaps it was open-sea tsunami height? That was mis-interpreted as runup height?

Astronuc

That wiki article needs correcting. The highest recorded tsunami run-up was 37.9 m (124 ft) north of the Onagawa plant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%...ke_and_tsunami
http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/04/82888.html

The Daini units have Mk II containment like FK-I Unit 6. I believe Units 5 and 6 are several meters higher than Units 1-4.

I am puzzled by the differences between the plants, and why TEPCO didn't review or re-assess the risk for FK-I.

Onagawa was somewhat protected from the tsunami wave because the bay on which it is located is facing south from the location of the large earthquake.

I believe we know much more about seismic activity now than 40 years ago, and in the Information Age, databases are more readily available. I do have to wonder what they were thinking 40+ years ago, and wonder why periodic re-assessments of risk were apparently not performed.

Dmytry

Well, indeed. Nonetheless, just in the last few hundred years, there been multiple tsunamis so far stronger than 5.5m, that it makes me wonder where exactly did the 5.5m figure come from.
Indeed... but looking at other tsunamis, the bay could of amplified a tsunami that came from other direction. It was a close call at Onagawa as it is.
Yep. The risk was so high that i'm surprised they did not add protection simply to protect their own property, even if they'd neglect potential damage to other people. But the economics of safety is complicated. The existing insurance (and whatever deals they may have had with government) might be covering it to some extent.
Also, yes they knew less about seismic activity 40 years ago - but the uncertainties should have resulted in more protection. It's not like they didn't know tsunami existed, or could not know tsunamis can have very tall run-up, back then. And the 1933 tsunami was only what, 34 years ago when the first plant was completed? (1967)

edit: ahh and for the 37.9 meters...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1896_Me...iku_earthquake
38.2 meters.
However you turn it... there will always be inaccuracy, and the way to deal with inaccuracy is to assume the worst. This kind of failure results from thinking that you know it better than you actually know it, rather than from not knowing per se. You don't need accurate prediction, you merely need to know how inaccurate your prediction is, and choose the top of range. Yes, that inaccuracy would cost a lot of extra money. It's like bridges before advanced numerical simulation. You'd just build the bridge to hold 3x the load back then.

edit: hmm, VERY interesting. I see that in Chernobyl, a lot of figures were given with ±something or as ranges, whereas in Fukushima, that is extremely uncommon and instead you see more digits of precision in the numbers than possible. That also goes for a lot of US figures. Some cultural issue? Was it so back when they built the plants?

AntonL

Regarding the design ground level or elevation of the plant, I still maintain that no consideration for a Tsumami was ever included in the design. The 5.7 metres that Tepco no proudly quote as design basis was an afterthought and result of a 2007 study

The 5.7 metre is necessary to weather waves driven by winds on top of a hurrican storm surge on top of high tide. The level is given as OP+5.7 (OP being uncovered lowest low tide), From these tide tables we can see already a high tide of 1.48 metres on May 19, so we have 4.2 metres safety left for waves and a hurricane surge.

The foundations of the reactor building are about 5 metres below seal level and have an intricate drainage system to pump the sub soil dry under normal operation, now this sub-soil is contaminated.

From an operational point of view, the NPP should be as low as possible to minimise the energy lost in lifting cooling water, with hindsight, yes the NPP should have been build 50 metres high and a small hydro-electric power station could have been included to recover the potential energy of the cooling waster.

Who designed Fukushima NPP, Ebasco a subsidary of GE so lets not blame the Japanese too much on this issue

The same tsunami dangers also apply to the USA NPP at San Onofre. Historical accounts of The Santa Barbara, California, Earthquakes and Tsunami(s) of December 1812 report of 30 to 35 ft tsunami.

Astronuc

Regarding culture - or rather attitude of industry and toward industry - I can't help but think of Minimata.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minamat...tizing_effects

Now that's one persons opinion, which may be valid and maybe shared. But in the 1940's - 1960's, I don't believe the questioning of industry was as strong as it was after the 1960's and the evolution of the environmental and civil rights movements.

rowmag

I seem to recall reading in the news a couple of weeks ago that the maximum run-up height of the 2011.3.11 tsunami exceeded even that of the Jogan tsunami of the year 869 (which was the previous historical record-holder), just barely. Will have to try to find a reference.

Danuta

Yes exactly, quite obvious the reinforcements done around and on grounds of the plant are against taifun waves and not earthquake generated tsunami. 5.5--9.0 metre(Tokage) wave typical of worse taifun generated waves.

NUCENG

D: General population are the ones who would pay for the seawall for the city. When informed, they can opt to build a seawall, or not to build a seawall, opt to have protection up to specific height, it is their choice how much they want to spend on their own safety. You don't have to impose seawall on the city because the city does not release so much radioactivity (that would affect other cities) when it is flooded.
It is democracy we are speaking about, or what?

N: The Japanese government is talking about raising taxes to pay for reconstruction and efforts to mitigate future tsunamis. That may be central planning but it happens in representative democracies, without resorting to communism. It is way beyond the point where Ichiro and Seiji can grab their shovels and head down to the beach to prevent the next tsunami.

D: You are switching the topic onto protection of already existing plant, which makes no sense. You are me think that you're wrong and I am right.

N: First, you are right that I didn’t have the right number for a maximum historical tsunami. And you jumped on that as an excuse not to answer my question which was about engineering and management decision-making for an existing plant, and by extension government oversight of nuclear plants and responsibility for public safety. Read the problem again. The scientist threatens to go to regulators and the press. The topic of the thread was TEPCO and Government performance. You have stated your position that you don’t trust anyone, so I asked you to show how you could do it better.

D: The seawall is built when the plant is being constructed. The best time for geological etc considerations is before the plant is constructed. Or should be - you tell me how it is done, you know so much better about the nuclear industry, perhaps there's something I don't know, perhaps it is standard practice to build the plant first, and think about possible natural disasters later.

N: That’s true , and then this tsunami hits Fukushima and I ask you what should be done at Onagawa NPP as corrective action. Onagawa has not been damaged by this tsunami, but should they be learning from this event and taking action. Obviously the wall at Fukushima was inadequate and its too late to fix that. You accused me of trying to justify doing nothing . Now I’m asking you should Onagawa do nothing?

D: Then you also switch the topic from capitalist economy - where one entity is responsible for the plant, and another entity is responsible for the protection of the city - to the communism, where single entity would be responsible for both.

N: More name calling. You won’t answer the question so now I’m a commie. Thank you Senator McCarthy.

D: Yes, in communism, if you build the city and the plant with no consideration for tsunami - that would be a big mistake, afterwards, the cost-benefit on the countermeasures - on the mitigation of the mistake - may be better for the city seawall, or for the plant. That is really a complicated question however, and depends greatly to many factors that are simply not known, and most importantly it has nothing whatsoever to do with Fukushima. You're not asking me to be an engineer. You are asking me to be a communist central planning authority, which decides both on reactor and city seawalls.

N: Wow! “, the cost-benefit on the countermeasures - on the mitigation of the mistake - may be better for the city seawall, or for the plant. That is really a complicated question however, and depends greatly to many factors that are simply not known,” I am impressed that is an example of gobbledegook worthy of the biggest windbag politician that has ever been elected. In short, “It is complicated and I don’t know.” Thank you, that happens to engineers, managers, and regulators, too.

D: In the democratic capitalism, there are the people in the city, whom ultimately pay for seawall or other counter measures for the city, and there is the power company, which can choose the location of the plant and has to build the plant to meet the standards in first place. The plant builders have no right whatsoever to refer to the risky decisions made by third parties as justification for the added risk for everyone that they are responsible for.

N: The question again was what YOU would do as a result. I did not tell you justify anything. How would you proceed as an engineer or manager at Onagawa or as a member of the government if the immoral managers at Onagawa do nothing?

D:Furthermore, in the society with laws, plant builder can be harshly prosecuted for making a mistake of constructing the plant first and thinking of the natural disasters later.

N: And TEPCO will be investigated. If there has been negligence they will be prosecuted. They are already being required to compensate evacuees. I am certain the prosecutors will be coming to you for your evidence that they didn’t think of natural disasters and deliberately put the public at risk. You have proof don’t you? Or is your opinion alone sufficient? Should we bypass the trial and hang them now?

D: Ahh, and for judging the entire industry... well I judge industry not only by TEPCO, but also by you, and others from nuclear industry, and the way you guys seem think about safety. Clearly, your mind flips to the third parties and their risky behaviours, and to lumping all parties into a whole as if it was communism and central planning authority was responsible for reactors, cities, etc. That's a slippery slope. Just because the city residents did not opt to construct a seawall around their city (perhaps due to not being informed), does not in the slightest excuse the nuclear power plant builder for not considering the tsunamis before they construct the plant, and adding some extra risk for everyone around.

N: Yes, yes, we have heard you repeatedly that thousands of people you have never met, working in an industry you don’t understand, are deliberately putting themselves, their families, their friends, and their communities at risk for profits. Why would they do that?

Get help. Paranoia is a thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs concerning a perceived threat towards oneself. Historically, this characterization was used to describe any delusional state.

Dmytry

"N: First, you are right that I didn’t have the right number for a maximum historical tsunami. "
not only didn't you have right number, you didn't even have right order of magnitude.

"And you jumped on that as an excuse not to answer my question which was about engineering and management decision-making for an existing plant, and by extension government oversight of nuclear plants and responsibility for public safety. Read the problem again. The scientist threatens to go to regulators and the press. The topic of the thread was TEPCO and Government performance. You have stated your position that you don’t trust anyone, so I asked you to show how you could do it better. "

Perhaps the reason I do not trust them is because I can't really know for sure that I would do better in their shoes - haven't been in this situation - not because I am claiming I would do better? Have you ever thought about it this way? What is your point exactly - you are trying to make me self boast how i would do better, so you can then say - hey but you haven't been in their shoes?

I did not criticize their decision to do nothing about existing plant, btw. I criticized how the plant was constructed. Sorry if it is offtopic because the plant was constructed by US company. For the existing plant - well, firstly I would not construct plan like this - secondarily - well, I like to think that I would go to press and tell how regrettably this study affects my plant bla bla bla bla and the plant has to be shut down until the wall is constructed etc. I'd lose a lot of money (maybe, or maybe i can pass the cost onto someone else), but I'd still have more than enough. I like to think I am good enough, but I can't claim it because I did not have to do this.

Rest of the points, I don't think I even have to answer. Various historical cases (such as above-mentioned methylmercury poisoning) provide enough answer for the paranoia accusation.

NUCENG

The have struck again. Dmytry and the other guy who thinks that I am anoying, but shall remain nameless lest I annoy him further, have disrupted another thread until the mentors locked the thread. Astronuc and Borek and other Mentors are doing their best to maintain order and I won't fault them.

So far discussions on uprating US nuclear plants and health effects of radiation have been locked "pending moderation" Can someone tell me what that means? Does it mean until hell freezes over or is there some process to remind people about respectful disagreements and honest debate?

When one or two posters rant away, calling others names, calling them liars, asserting how much smarter they are than the rest of us, using rhetoric in place of substance, should they be allowed to dictate what can be discussed on this forum. Are we always going to have to stifle our natural disgust for deliberate ignorance and incitement?

Dmytry

That is just so bad :/ The worst bit is the instantiation of knowingly ineffective "water treatment" with continued emissions from 1959 to 1968 , and ostracising of the victims. How the water treatment fraud did go unrecognised for 9 years, until 4 months after the plant stopped using mercury catalyst and the commercial incentive for downplaying it had disappeared.
The first reactor at Fukushima was constructed around 1967 or so BTW.
There's been so many cases like this through the history.