Japan Earthquake: nuclear plants

Cire

Those failures tests are on vessels with considerably less mass and wall thickness and a bone dry simulated RPV. It also doesn't have the myriad of protrusions that the normal RPV has. I'm not sure you can draw much from that test when looking at fukushima.

tsutsuji

http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2...lear-accident/ some more English transcript of the videoconference videos.

Astronuc

Apparently the Onagawa Plant on the northern end of Honshu sustained less damage than expected during the earthquake of March 11, 2011.

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS...A-1008124.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...d06_story.html

http://www.tohoku-epco.co.jp/electr/...npi/onag-e.htm

tsutsuji

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/genpatsu-...811/index.html An interview video of the then plant manager Yoshida made on 10 July (that is before his cerebral hemorage) for a Nagano publishing house was aired on 11 August at a symposium in Fukushima City. For example concerning the explosion at unit 3 he says that first he thought it would not be strange if he died. Then tens of workers were missing and he thought perhaps 10 people might be dead.

LabratSR

Removal of PCV Lid from the Upper Part of Unit 4 Reactor Building

http://youtu.be/J06eca4GPmg

zapperzero

The dismantlement of Unit 4 seems to be proceeding apace. I wonder what they'll do with the old shroud. It's too big for a transfer cask.

westfield

Hitachi\GE certainly seem to be in the "theres no such thing as bad publicity" camp.

westfield

Perhaps it will be cut into sections in situ as per the original plan?

Does the steam dryer\seperator pose a logistics problem also?

Rive

I wonder if those parts are any worse than the general rubble collected from the site.

For example the concrete pieces from under the broken venting pipes, or the venting pipes themselves... If those could be dumped somewhere on-site safely then maybe there is some more place there for these parts.

westfield

Good point. I wasn't thinking. The U4 shroud and steam dryer are now comparitively insignificant issues compared to the big picture on the site.

tsutsuji

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/genpatsu-...30_gakkai.html The Atomic Energy Society of Japan has launched an investigation committee composed of about 40 members who will investigate the Fukushima Daiichi accident from a specialist's point of view. They will complete their report by December 2013. The committee held its first meeting on 21 August behind closed doors, which is likely to stir controversy.

mscharisma

What kind of specialist(s) would that be? (Sorry, I don't speak Japanese and would be grateful for the additional info.) Thanks.

tsutsuji

The members' list is provided on http://www.aesj.or.jp/info/pressrelease/PR20120817.pdf pages 2/3 and 3/3. You can use Google automatic translation tool (*) to find which institutions (universities, etc.) they belong to (in the right column), and which existing AESJ committees are recommending them. The last 5 people are observers.

(*) Contains a few mistakes such as (独) mistakenly rendered by Google as "(Germany)" although it actually means "(independent body)".

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/genpatsu-...822/index.html A 57 year old contractor company employee was found unconcious at around 10:00 AM on 22 August in a rest area. He was taken to hospital in Iwaki but declared dead, presumably from myocardial infarct, at around 01:00 PM. He had been working at Fukushima Daiichi since August of last year. On 22 August he was installing tanks for water decontamination, when he felt unwell and left to the rest area. This is the 4th worker dying of presumably myocardial infarct at Fukushima Daiichi since March 2011.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/genpatsu-...823/index.html The NISA has issued instructions concerning the so-called "alarm typers", devices which record alarm signals in nuclear power plants, reflecting the fact that one of them failed 12 minutes after the earthquake on 11 March 2011 at Fukushima Daiichi unit 1, because of paper jam, as a consequence of which some records are missing, and the status of some vital equipments cannot be checked, making the analysis of the accident more difficult. Recording devices in 66 nuclear facilities over Japan must be inspected, the NISA instructed. The NISA also required Tepco to check if the failed recorder had had troubles before the accident.

mscharisma

Thanks a bunch, tsutsuji!

zapperzero

Umm... does this mean cause of death unknown? I have ugly flashbacks when I see this "presumably" because my country went through a turbulent period a while ago - various people were dying at demonstrations or in police custody and the cause was reported as "cardio-respiratory arrest" - i.e. died of being dead.

Could be just me being paranoid as usual, of course.

Shinjukusam

Well, the temperature has been hovering around the mid 30s for the last few weeks. Working in that, wearing protective gear, carrying heavy equipment, 57 years old...it's not that unlikely.

zapperzero

No it is not. But, the quote seems to imply that autopsies are not performed. I find this troubling.