anyway, 8% is a lot. You wouldn't sniff at an 8% payrise right now, and you'd be hella pissed if taxes increased 8%, no?

Some come from Britain or England, too.

har.

Couldn't remember what city you were from so I picked an arbitrary landmark. No offense intended. If you want to remind me, I can recheck with more accuracy.

Well I wouldn't want to walk the difference, but it's just a couple of states.

I tease you. UK is so small, you can't be 700 miles from London, so all is well. I'm from near Manc -I bet that makes less than 50 miles difference :)

The earthquake was an event made irrelevant by what man properly constructed.

The tsunami was an event that man could not have stopped.

Multiple nuclear meltdown was an event created by men not doing their job to avert what was unnecessary.

Multiple nuclear meltdown was an event that didn't and won't happen.

There are already two fuel rod meltdowns. Maybe three.

Meanwhile, ABC News succinctly identifies the problem in Japan Nuclear Crisis: Workers Fail to Stabilize Plant; U.S. Water Pumps Might Be the Answer
Want to see people in denial? One tank of spent nuclear fuel in reactor 4 needs 200 tons of water. So helicopters spread 7 tons everywhere but in the pool. What fool is ignoring those numbers?

Little got under a roof where fuel rods have already melted. Japanese fire trucks also could do virtually nothing. That effort was a joke before it started. A pool that all but TEPCO management says is dry. Only management (what makes nuclear power so dangerous) is denying that the pool is virtually dry.

In Three Mile Island, Jimmy Carter took control. An NRC director walked into Three Mile Island. In minutes he realized the only problem. He said, "I own this plant." He literally took it away from Met Ed - managers who were doing exactly what is taught in business schools. He took that plant without realizing that Carter had already authorized it because all of America was at that much risk by people with least competence. In minutes, he realized the only reason for Three Mile Island was management - that was also in denial as well as uneducated.

One has to be in complete denial to think multiple meltdowns have not occurred. But more important are the fearless fifty - the engineers in those plants that are getting no support from obviously incompetent TEPCO management. Was there ever a better example of the word "obviously"? They get no support also from a government that has not fired those TEPCO management for overt incompetence. Fired them with contempt because they have been in complete and "obvious" denial for a whole week. Just like an American president who also denied Katrina for almost a week. At what point does "obvious" become obvious?

Yesterday, they finally decided to run new power lines. How long did that take? Six days to make a decision. One day to run the wires. Could the definition of "incompetence" be any more obvious?

Meanwhile, they were also ignoring spent fuel rods in another pool in reactor 3. Even the best fire trucks from Tokyo could not possibly push enough water. So why is that TEPCO only response for Thursday?

You saw helicopters dropping a facet drip all over everything but the dry pool. And then TEPCO management announce it was successful. I could not believe it - watching on NHK live. That asshole had to be lying to his penis - the only thing that should have believed what he said. Because nobody could possibly believe what he said - except other managers who are just as incompetent. Clearly - or is the word "obvious" too hard to understand - those choppers did nothing. And that was TEPCO only solution for the day. Management is easily as incompetent as the Met ED management that first created and then ignored a disaster at Three Mile Island. Another perfect example of fools who never learn the lessons from history. Deja vue 3 Mile Island.

What makes nuclear power so dangerous. 85% of all problems are directly traceable to top management. I often wonder why anyone would not know that.

Multiple meltdowns already exist. Only those most in denial - ie TEPCO management - would deny it.

BTW, a so much largest meltdown and fire in multiple reactors would not threaten anyone in the US or Europe. But this is a lesson for everyone in the world. This is a failure "obviously" traceable to incompetence management. We should be taking names for the same reason we blame Anthony Alexander for intentionally creating the 2003 NE blackout and another almost Three Mile Island at Davis Besse in NW Ohio.

This event long ago exceeded anything at Three Mile Island. Because TEPCO management has been in denial, they have classified the event at level 4 - below a Three Mile Island event.

In 3 Mile Island, fuel remained inside the containment vessel. In Fukushima, radioactive material is outside containment vessels (some are breeched) now at deadly levels. And probably outside the plant.

Worse is how long TEPCO management has remained in denial. From today's NY Times is an example how inaction made things worse: So what did they expect to accomplish with those fire engines and dribbles from helicopters? Oh. Don't worry. Be happy.

Well, an American admiral for the Pacific Region implies that management finally got it. Apparently, blunt words privately from Americans (and probably from others) were finally heard by these business school trophies. The American admiral implied for the first time that things may be getting better. Why? TEPCO management finally understood they have a problem. So finally one thing got accomplished. TEPCO raised the event to level 5 - only equal to Three Mile Island. When they finally get it completely, Fukushima will be raised to a level 6 event.

Fukushima was level six before reactors 2 and 4 were in trouble. Denial at highest levels is the only reason for an explosion in reactor 4. Explains a full week of doing nothing.

At what point does the word "obvious" have significance?

Well Japanese officials have just admitted that some reactors or equipment may have to be buried in sand or concrete like Chernobyl. Chernobyl - a level 7 event.

How many were ignoring what first become obvious on Saturday - six days ago? Or need we define the word "obvious"?

Even more than you thought.

You know, I'm pretty sure it's all Bush's fault.

:D

Believe it or not, other people can be just as dumb. Some of them in the Cellar even voted for George Jr. And still do not apologize for being "so hating the American soldier" dumb.

From the NY Times of 19 Mar 2011 is a perfect example of why 85% of all problems are directly traceable to top management. Especially when management has no idea how the work gets done. Or in this case, how a nuclear reactor works. And what point does MBA thinking become obvious? Required actions were obvious had decisions come from where the work gets done. Logically it was a simple decision. Again why top people must come from where the work gets done - not from the finance department, educated in economics, from business schools, or the public affairs office. and still some insist no melting happened. First melting was all but obvious on Saturday.

All four plants lose power on Friday. All except battery power that was available for less than one day. No problem. New wires can be connected in one-half day. But bean counters in top TEPCO management needed six days to make a decision. Sounds just like the George Jr administration.

Nuclear failures directly traceable to humans who did not do their job. Knowledge learned even from Three Mile Island. Had those TMI damaged pumps failed anytime that first year, then nothing was available to avert a Fukushima event. A lesson about how close Pennsylvania came to a serious nuclear event. And how much worse Three Mile Island 2 could have been had Carter and an NRC director not taken that plant away from incompetent management at Metropolitan Edison. An example of how responsible top management does its job.

85% of the time. TEPCO management is another example of stupidity that was also directly traceable to top management after Katrina. (So dumb as to go to a campaign fund raiser in Southern CA and then to John McCain's birthday party as people were dying in New Orleans.) What happens when top management comes from business schools (as George Jr was educated). Or remains in denail like a Catholic Church Cardinal. In all cases, top people should be making public aplogizes for not doing their jobs. And resigning.

Fukushima is another trophy repeatedly proven in history. 85% of all problems are directly traceable to people educated in lying about their incompetance.

TEPCO management will blame any and everything but themselves. The GE operation procedures were clear. But it might increase costs. So they did what any bean counter type would do. Hesitate. Even take six days to decide to connect new wires.

No meltDOWN happened, which is what I insisted upon after you claimed there were multiple of them.

The mystery of where the "five deaths" idea came from remains. This blogger saw it being reported in the Telegraph and asked the same thing I did: why aren't these deaths reported in the official reports?

[aside] tw is his own parody, really. not really cricket. [/aside]

I was listening to a podcast of Public Radio International from Canada where a specialist was explaining why newer plants have passive systems where electomagnets keep control rods from dropping into the reactor and why even newer plants have electromagnets keeping valves closed that could flood areas with coolant. All of these systems are activated by the absence of electricity.

It seems like such a simple idea, I wonder why noone thought of it 20-30 years ago when some of these older plants were built.

Oh, I vastly prefer the American soldier to you, tw.

And the more I can do to make tw -- owing to his anti-values -- ever the more rabid, the better I am doing for the Republic.

I'm voting against that useless socialist Obama again, you know. Liked doing it so much the first time, being after all so much over the sort of upper-two-digits IQ required to make voting for the Democrat the attractive choice, that I vote for politicians that I believe have wisdom. That pointedly excludes practically all the candidates the Dem Party puts up.

So where did hydrogen come from? When Zircaloy rod cladding melts, an explosive hydrogen is created. Zirconium dioxide means hydrogen can exist in explosive concentrations. Both inside the containment vessel. And in those storage ponds. Same explosion happened in Three Mile Island when those rods melted.

American officials believe one storage pond was all but dry. Therefore rods in those ponds also melted. Hydrogen released - as in what then caused explosions in three reactor buildings. Of course, the official release from TEPCO denies all this. And then in the news conference, the reporter asked, "Where did the hydrogen come from?" TEPCO management said, "We'll get back to you on that." Because TEPCO denied fuel rods melted - the official line that also could not explain the hydrogen.

Completely meltdown as in what American officials were telling the Japanese on Tuesday. And then said they will soon have to send people into the reactor to save it - and then die. On Tuesday, those statements finally got the Japanese attention. And is why some TEPCO employees were replaced by JSDF people.

TEPCO is finally admitting that damage to at least one reactor is so great that it must be scrapped. The actual number is probably three. But the official information that UT is reading were denying any plants were permenantly damaged. TEPCO also refused to release temperature and pressure numbers that show what they should have done when to avert rod melting.

Fuel rods have melted. Nobody can inspect them to confirm it. But the chemistry, temperatures, and rods not covered in water says fuel rods have melted.

Future melting has been averted. After blunt words from American (and other) experts and other actions (ie all Americans were advised to leave), TEPCO finally did what was necessary to have water flowing in all plants (except maybe reactor 3). Among the statements that finally got TEPCO's attention were recommendations to prepare to bury at least one reactor in sand and concrete. TEPCO management was shocked. TEPCO management was denying their problem that severe. Which is the official information that UT is reading.

For five days, TEPCO denied any problem was serious. That rods could have melted. So the official releases denied rod melting. And did not explain where hydrogen came from.

Nuclear incidents explained for Japanese school kids:

Tokyo's water supply hosed.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12825342

The news does not seem to be improving much from day to day.

We are just learning symptoms of how bad it was many days ago. We know dangerous amounts of radiation were being emitted long ago when TEPCO was singing, "Don't worry; Be happy". TEPCO only started to address problems about Wednesday - about five days after the earthquake. Long after rods had or were exposed and melting.

Most of that radiation that came from inside the containment vessel is Cesium and Iodine. Iodine has a half life (if I remember) of about a week. Meaning that radioactive material should be mostly gone in a month.

The problem. Radioactive materials appear to cause seriously diminished mental abilities in infants and fetuses. Those low dosages may be that hazardous to that minority.

Due to radiation leaks, work to restore power in days is taking at least a week. Too much radiation is outside the plants. Hundreds were said to have exceeded their maximum dosage levels long ago when TEPCO was denying these leaks. Eventually 1400 workers were removed leaving only the fearless fifty. In order to prevent worse radiation problems, many workers along with JSDF soldiers and others were brought back to be exposed to radiation levels that limit work to maybe two hours per day.

It is not worse than last week. But last week, they were preaching "no problem" propaganda. Obviously were lying or were in total denial. This week, they are admitting how bad things had become last week. Which means things would have been so much worse had not third parties (ie US government) not read to them a "be prepared to start sending people in to their death" predictions. It could be that much worse. Which says how much has finally been accomplished now that TEPCO management admitted the seriousness of their problem.

Radiation risk is as bad as Americans were saying and TEPCO was denying. Another US carrier (George Washington) has left Tokyo harbor to avoid being contaminated. Fukushima reactors were leaking that much radiation last week when TEPCO was claiming all rods were safe, cool, and covered in water. If true, then those hydrogen explosions never happened. Resulting radiation is only now become apparent. At only unhealthy and not deadly levels. It almost was so much worse. It is now so much better than what would have happened if TEPCO had remained in denial.

On NPR this morning - three workers have been sent to the hospital with radiation poisoning. They were working in knee deep water, hooking up the electricity. The water was radioactive.

You'd think they'd be wearing some kind of lead clothing or something - anything to protect them from radiation.

I don't mean to be rude, but, um...aren't they supposed to be smarter than the average bear? Sorry if that's waisis.

I heard a bit of that on the radio. I think they said those workers got exposed to 150 mSv, which on this handy radiation chart is the equivalent of 3 years maximum permitted dosage for workers at a nuke plant and is more than enough to be clearly linked to an increased cancer risk.

Yabbut, water + electricity? If the radiation don't get you the kajillion volts will?

The latest I read was that the salt water used to cool the reactor is now starting to really build up. It's like the mineral deposits in a humidifier. As the sea water boils away, the salt is left behind. The number I saw was 57,000 pounds of salt are now coating the insides of the reactor. That salt insulates the rods and makes it harder to cool them down.

Interesting.

Yeah. Their skin was burned and their bone marrow damaged, if I heard correctly.

Like Gandhi on the beach!

UMMMMM. ANYONE? BUEHLER?

Standing in water hooking up electric. ANYONE?

:confused:

Who cares about this electric, of which you speak. We have atomic problems here. Getting electricuted won't mean doodly-squat if the atoms get out!

I"m so confused. WHY would they care about a slow death from cancer when they're going to fry and split like a Ball Park Frank on the grill?

I'm missing something.

They were professionals. They had things covered.

IM - normally when you work on electrical lines, there's no electricity running in them.

heeeheee

:hedfone:
Oh D'OH. :blush:

Thanks, that's what I was missing alright. I am decidedly NOT smarter than the average bear.

That pic is great. Every time I see it I wonder if they really put juice to it or if it was staged.

That picture demonstrates what management was thinking when they murdered seven Challenger astronaunts. Their reasoning - we have backup O'rings. No problem.

Japan has three disasters. An earthquake made irrelevant by good planning. A tsunami that nobody could have averted. And a nuclear nightmare because TEPCO management did not appreciate and would not address the problems when best solved. The third demonstrates how problems are directly traceable to top management.

No problem. Power is provided by a GFCI. It will always work. No problem. Backup O'rings stopped all previous O'ring failures and explosions. No problem. All reactors still have battery power.

None were accidents.

Problems occur in threes. All three happened at once. Japan has nothing more to worry about. Making it a save place to live. And plenty of new jobs will be created.

This sounds like superstition and not a typical tw post. Can't you have a problem occur in a pair? drought/fire or earthquake/landslide

No, I think he's on to something. Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld and Obama/Pelosi/Reid are cited as examples of disasters from different groups and they are grouped in 3's. And then if you're an atheist you might see the Father/Son/Holy Spirit idea as a disaster.

Nevermind, there were 4 twilight movies so let's just scrap this theory of 3.

You know what though? Celebrities die in threes, as we've seen lately. And I don't mean celebrities like Bobert Bob McBobberson that no one outside of Bob County in Bobsylvania has ever heard of...I mean the biggies.

I expect great returns on my celebrity death predictions.

Haggis! They're going for 3 x 3 x 3...to complete the evil disaster.

But many assassins are all know by all threee of their names also.
Lee Harvey Oswald, John Wilkes Booth, James Earl Ray, Jared Lee Loughner

I knew I should have picked Louden Wainright III

Who? Is he from Bob County in Bobsylvania? ;)

but that's 4 people!

but 3 centuries!

Japanese reactors are at a very critical stage. If TEPCO does not aggressively and decisively act quickly, then a major evacuation of personal followed by a major radiation leak will occur. Two reactors probably have melted cores. That explains the large amounts of Iodine 131. One or both also have containment vessel leaks. TEPCO is moving so slowly as to not even learn (or announce) a serious pool of radioactive water outside one plant for more than 24 hours later. But they were real quick to announce a reading that was too hight. TEPCO is still playing 'public spin' with facts. TEPCO top management remains that far removed from reality. Apparently management is responding to events rather than predicting, averting, and getting ahead of events. That is a formula for an every larger disaster.

TEPCO could not provide wires to power the plants for two weeks. That meant no power for any instruments in any control room for two weeks. That meant technical people had no or insufficient information to avert any problems. Ten days just to decide to route wires? An example of management responding to events rather then trying to control anything. Worse, nobody knows where breeches are. Or even if cooling pumps can work.

In Three Mile Island, damaged pumps worked for a full year. Had pumps failed, then Three Mile Island would have restarted a meltdown. In Fukushima, nobody knows how to get to some pumps. Let alone know if plumbing is still intact. Management is that far removed from reality and apparently responding like waves of flowing tar. Every week, the problems will get worse do to complete failure at TEPCO top management.

Every nuclear disaster is not traceable to plant failure. Every reason for disaster and for why problems only got worse was directly traceable to management. Every nuclear failure is directly traceable to management that did nothing or simply made things worse. People - not the plants - are what makes every nuclear power failure so dangerous. Including failures in Canada, UK, Nevada, and Fermi 1 outside of Chicago.

Another quake today. Tsunami warnings, but, luckily, no tsunami.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ster-zone.html

Samples from five locations outside these plants were taken on March 21 and 22. TEPCO finally announced on 28 Mar that those samples were radioactive. And contained plutonium. Plutonium is only created inside a reactor vessel that TEPCO believed were intact. Plutonium is one of the most dangerous radiactive elements. So TEPCO said nothing for 7 days?

Why should they? On 21 Mar, TEPCO had already made a major decision. TEPCO decided to run electric wires so that control rooms had lights. Why make a second big decision in the same week? Why admit things were that bad? Two major decisions in one week is hard. What will next week's decision be? To admit they made a mistake?

Waves of tar move faster.

As workers lose the battle to contain the radiation from the Fukushima nuclear plant, Ian Sample talks us through all the main developments.

link

I heard an interesting interview on NPR yesterday. The guy said that the deaths from mining and processing coal, and from the pollution caused by burning it are worse than atomic power, even considering this catastrophe, 3 Mile Island, and Chernobyl.

Coal is also a big source of dangerous radioactive waste.

And so is natural gas, due to fracking.

The comparison ignores a fundamentally important fact. Nuclear deaths (and there have been more from other nuclear plants) are not due to the plant or energy production. In each nuclear plant failure, deaths were directly traceable to humans.

In those other cases, death was traceable to the actual process of making energy. When energy was created normally.

Some plants are less forgiving. Other plants let humans make more mistakes. 3 Mile Island is a classic example. Had human not intervened multiple times, then 3 Mile Island would not have happened. Multiple human mistakes (refusing to fix defective valves to cut costs; repeatedly turning off or disabling safety functions, etc) created that meltdown.

Enclosing reactors in a sarcophagus has been discussed long ago by others who correctly forecasted how bad things were. And how much worse it will become. However Ian Sample says something I only heard for the first time. The meltdown in Reactor 2 may have pooled at the bottom of that containment vessel. If true, events are far worse than anything I had posted.

TEPCO has yet to have even one better day. All 19 days have been worse than the day before. Management has yet to plan to avert future failures - to get ahead of events. They cannot even get a workable solution for pumping water out of basements. Obviously more water was in the basement than what condensors could hold. Anyone could have done that arithmetic. So what did TEPCO do? Waited for condensors to fill. Only then began looking for another place to put that water.

Basements contained water weeks ago. On what future week was TEPCO going to plan for disposing of radioactive water? That water means critical cooling and monitoring equipment cannot be accessed.

Well, TEPCO finally decided yesterday to apologize for their mess. Either that means top management has been two weeks in utter denial. Or TEPCO managmenent knows how much worse things are about to become. Is TEPCO trying to spin things in advance of more bad news?

All four plants cannot be repaired because TEPCO took 2 weeks to connect electricity. How long does it take your electric company to provide electricity? Maybe those reactors no longer have a good credit rating. So TEPCO's finance department would not approve an account; refused to authorize electric service. Would you sell electricity to an institution that could not pay?

If you own a nuclear power plant, always pay your electric bills. Otherwise your plant might die from a meltdown. Cheaper is to pay every electric bill on time. A sarcophagus and funeral services for a dead nuclear reactor are expensive.