FTFY:p:

*snortle*

Dear Tepco,

Please get your shit together.

Love,

Earth

When working in high radiation environments, a dosimeter for every human is essential. TEPCO said the earthquake destroyed many dosimeters. Left were maybe only 380 dosimeters. Another 200 workers were without any such safety devices. Two weeks later, and TEPCO still could not find dosimeters anywhere in the world? Nonsense. TEPCO management has been that dumb. Classic of what one should expect from people trained in business schools. Not trained in how the work gets done.

How long does it take to make a phone call, order some dosimeters, and fly them in via Fed Ex? Weeks if a decision is made by incompetent management. Hours when the Japanese press finally exposed another example of why these nuclear plants exploded.

Everyone knows those plants must be disassembled to get access to fuel rods. Everyone knows work will require use of land (kilometers) around those plants. Competent management was preparing land around those plants over a week ago when radiation was safe. Same work should be ongoing every hour now. Because anyone with minimal knowledge knows radiation levels around each plant will only increase. Do it now while it is easy. Pave access roads. Fields for depositing destroyed building materials. Trenches and protection buildings for thousands of workers. Water collection facilities for rain water washing those radiative materials. Do it now while radiation levels are lower. While it is easy. So that space and access during the hard part is available and ready.

But that means TEPCO management is planning. Doing what is necessary to stay ahead of the problem. They are not. TEPCO management is doing what any business school trained manager would do to even murder seven Challenger astronauts. For miles around those plants should be facilities necessary to disassemble or even bury those reactors inside a sarcophagus. And facilities even for thousands of workers to shower off radioactive materials. More important, large pipes to provide a most important material - water without salt.

View what is happening. Nothing. It took two weeks to decide to route electric wires to the plants - a half day job if radiation did not complicate construction. Will it take months to decide to disassemble debris to get to and remove fuel rods? Obviously. TEPCO management could not even order a few hundred dosimeters. TEPCO is probably worried about the costs - as any good buiness school graduate is taught to always solve. Costs are always more important than how the work gets done. So four nuclear reactors exploded.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Not another one.

Kids who learn by fixing things would have known this in junior high school. To fix something, one must first define the problem. Four weeks after the problem existed, Japanese are finally admitting hard facts of their nuclear power plant problems. Days ago, the Japanese government said their nuclear plant meltdowns and explosions were a category seven event. Highest on the scale. Chernobyl also was a category seven event.

Japanese government only raised their rating from four to seven after having been provided accurate data. Fukushima may have only been 10% of the radiation emitted by Chernobyl. But Chernobyl was a complete plant meltdown and fire.

What is not reported is why the Japanese government only recently obtained these numbers. Tokyo Electric (TEPCO) was doing what any business school graduate would do. Lie. Pretend everything is under control.

GPU (Metropolitan Edison) did the exact same lying during Three Mile Island. Like Fukushima, a 3 Mile Island event was created first by a cost control mentality followed by denials at the highest levels of management. Three Mile Island was only a category 5 event because Jimmy Carter and the NRC commissioner immediately took 3 Mile Island away from the only reason for that failure - GPU management. Carter, et al did what any manager with basic intelligence and technical experience would do because GPU management also were business school graduates. With virtually no idea how electricity or nuclear power works.

It took the Japanese government four weeks to acknowledge what was even posted here weeks ago. TEPCO management must be lying even to itself. Or are doing exactly what is taught in business schools. Either way, one (of three) Japanese disaster that was completely created by humans is directly traceable to top management. And to a lesser extent, to a Japanese government who did not recognize how incompetent and dishonest TEPCO management has been.

No solution was possible because TEPCO management not only denied the problems. But apparently subverted facts to do what any business school graduate would do to even lie about Mission Accomplished. First step to any solution means a problem must first be defined.

BP just did the same thing in the gulf.

Tw's vicious prejudices: check; noted. It is not merely that he is plagued with economic illiteracy even unto voting Democratic habitually, nor that he is incapable of politics: this man does not play well with humans. The prisons are full of men of that description.

Now to something a tad more constructive: that event scale goes to 7 and stops. Nuclear activists of some kind interviewed on NPR recently said that while Fukushima is rated a 7, Chernobyl's release of radionuclides would rate about a 10 or 11 -- not exactly parity.

A poster on another board I frequent put it this way:
Sourcing on this is not yet very tight -- what knoweth the 'Net? Is this spokesman wrong or right?

No matter who's right or wrong, it's a disaster.

From the Washington Post of 13 May 2011 is confirmation of what was obvious only one week after the Japanese Earthquake: Once uranium burns through a zirconium lining, then hydrogen is released and massive radiation is released.

TEPCO, et al knew far more radiation was leaking than they would report. So much that only a reactor vessel breach could explain it. An example of a business school graduate more worried about being politically correct rather than honest.

What happened in Fukishima is also what would have happened in Three Mile Island had Carter and NRC director Harold Denton not taken that plant away from GPU Nuclear (Met Ed). GPU was doing the same denials and business school spin that TEPCO would do 32 years later. As usual, management was the only reason why both nuclear plants suffered vastly different consequences.

From the NY Times on 17 May 2011 is what happens when executives do not make decisions:
Had they vented then, batteries still would have provided electricity. By stalling, the vents no longer had electric power to operate. Well duhhhh. Obvious by the end of the first week. Pressure was twice what the reactor vessel was supposed to withstand. And still top management could not permit what plant managers knew had to be done ASAP. How many employees did the Vice President plan on killing? Or could he not even make that decision?

No TEPCO employees have died from radiation. Two have had coronary events whilst working at the damaged plant.

Yeah, but they will eventually. Mark my words, it may be 15 or 30 years down the road but sooner or later they will die. TEPCO management planned it that way.

It's like the Dim Mak.

one unnamed person's account...

85% of all problems directly traceable to ENGINEERS!

Also from that link:
interesting read.

They were probably traitors to the cause and also had MBA's.

From Bloomberg News on 24 May 2011 is what Ken Nakajima of Kyoto University defined. "Now, they have confirmed what everyone expected."
TEPCO claims to end this crisis in six to nine months. Amazing that anyone would believe anything from TEPCO VP Muta. Three Mile Island with a working cooling system and only a partial meltdown took a year to cool. And another nine years to clean out. Three TEPCO reactors without working cooling systems will be cooled and then cleaned out in nine months? At what point does the obvious finally become obvious? They are still lying even to themselves.

Uh, who is?

Fukushima Reactor No. 1 more radioactive than ever
 

Link

didn't see any of this on tv this am.
Dana, Zen ... I'm interested if it was on BBC or .... ( related other thread )

They're sending robots in because it's too dangerous for people?

PETR isn't going to like that.

In Reactor 1, the containment building was too dangerous for people within the first day. But TEPCO was denying for weeks that a meltdown had occurred.

For some strange reason, operators turned off the emergency cooling system. Then could not turn it back on. People had to go into that building to open valves on the second floor and in the basement. Second floor valves opened immediately. Many people kept going into the basement because those valves would not open manually. And each person who tried was exceeding his radiation levels.

Only hours after the last person left, Reactor 1 exploded. And still TEPCO denied there was any meltdown.

Japan is world leaders in robots. But had to go to America to find one that could withstand the radiation ... that did not exist because a meltdown and containment breech never happened.

Just wondering if Richard Nixon fathered any kids in Japan.

We know without doubt that all three nuclear reactors suffered meltdowns. TEPCO refused to acknowledge that for six months. The first meltdown was probably Fukushima Diachi One - sometime before 11 PM or less than 8 hours after an 11 March Tsunami.

Curious is to remember how you thought you saw things back then. Then read how many remains in denial during this discussion. Appreciate why some knew what, when, while so much spin from subjective sources were outright lies. On 12 March, And yet a week later, denials continued.

On 12 March was Just like Three Mile Island, the technical people were crying for help. And getting almost none. Top management was remaining in denial. We now know the tech people in Fukushima resorted to removing and using batteries from their cars only hours after the Tsunami in a desperate attempt to save the reactors. Knew something far worse had happened early on. Technicians in radiation suits that night tried to enter the containment building of Fukushima One. When they opened the door, a large and aggressive white cloud spewed out. They slammed that door immediately. Were not able to take any radiation measurements. Did not dare enter that building. Did not yet know for certain that the entire core was completely exposed and melted. It was not just a partial or near meltdown as they feared. It was a complete meltdown. So TEPCO management denied everything.

TEPCO management said the reactor was still completely covered in water. That white cloud suggested something different.

By 16 March, Fukushima 4 exploded. Top management so removed from reality (as happened at 3 Mile Island) tried to blame that explosion on a hydrogen leakage from Fukushima 3. Meanwhile, 3 workers had already died at these plants. Denials continued even in The Cellar. "The tw speculation is off the charts here; reaction containment has been breeched, and plumes of misinformation, nonsense and confusion can be seen for miles." And "Nope, the NY Times story is wrong. There have been no deaths at the plant." Everyone should learn why so many stayed so far in denial.

By the next morning (12 March), Fukushima engineers vented radioactive gasses from Fukushima 1 in a desperate attempt to avert a containment explosion. We know that these gasses created dangerous radiation levels far beyond the 10 kilometer evacuation area. We know these evacuations were ordered because Fukushima was venting radioactive gases created by a meltdown. Spewing radiation especially far into towns to the NW. We know TEPCO management knew this. And said nothing.

In less than 24 hours, many teams were addressing so many issues as to sound similar to chaos during the Battle of the Bulge. Without any support from TEPCO in Tokyo, employees were performing actions at great personal risk to avert a much larger disaster. That many employees had long since consumed excessive radiation from a meltdown that did not happen.

Radiation levels in Fukushima 1 were so high only 15 hours after the Tsunami that multiple teams could not reach valves to vent radioactive gas into the countryside. Even a week later, many here were still denying all this had happened.

By the end of the first week, we knew (contrary to TEPCO top management claims) that all technical people had already destroyed three nuclear reactors in a desperate effort to avoid an even larger nuclear accident. Salt water was being used only 23 hours after the Tsunami. Because the people who think like engineers knew how bad things were that quickly. Obvious less than a week later only to the fewer who learned how to quickly identify reality. We now know the Prime Minister did not just scold TEPCO. TEPCO was going to evacuate all plants. TEPCO management was so incompetent as to literally sacrifice the Fukushima Diachi countryside to major meltdowns and breeches. The Japanese Prime Minister literally stormed into TEPCO HQs and personally yelled point blank into the faces of TEPCO top management. Only then did TEPCO decide to continue trying to save the plants. Then another nuclear plant exploded. BTW, at what point does a well proven fact become obvious? 85% of all problems are directly traceable to top management. Especially those who use the subjective reasoning techniques taught in business schools.

Last week in September contained two significant events. The United States, in a continuing move to subvert science, shut down its last major research tool into quantum physics. An example of how a technically naive top management avidly wants to destroy future jobs. And TEPCO announced that all three melted plants have finally cooled to less than 100 degrees C. As if the temperature of steam is significant. They ignore that this cooling process must continue for another ten years.

Those numbers do not mean these reactors are safe. In fact, the next week, radioactive Xenon was detected. Xenon suggests that nuclear fission is still ongoing inside one reactor. But TEPCO needed the 'safe' announcement to meet their declaration six months ago of solving the problem by September. As if a TEPCO number (212 degrees F) and spin means a deadline was met.

Up top, were hard facts from 3 Mile Island. The event could have restarted even a year later had a cooling pump failed. None of the 3 Fukushima reactors are safe. An emergency cooling process must continue for another ten years. TEPCO just forgot to mention that part. But then honesty never exists in an organization where profits (or the political agenda) are more important than the product or the nation. This was obvious only seven days after the tsunami and while so many were still denying reality. Appreciate that many can read the same facts and not see the reality. [continues in a next post]

[continues from the previous post]

An interesting lesson on how reality is obvious only with the right attitude and fundamental training. The situation in Fukushima was so bad so quickly that technicians removed batteries from their cars hours after the Tsunami in a desperate attempt to save the plants. Weeks later, and due to intentional misinformation, many even in the Cellar were still denying that reality. Things were so desperate, even two weeks after the Tsunami, that employees were still taking life threatening risks to save Japan from the plants. The situation was that desperate even weeks later. They were not dumb. Despite so many comments here, Fukushima workers were trying to avert something far worse than what I had posted. Due to intentional misinformation (in the tradition of Saddam's WMDs, and BP's Macondo well), so many were still denying reality weeks after facts were presented bluntly (and without doubt) in the Cellar. Even Urbane Guerrilla was taking cheap shots a month later.

Curious are so many who remained in outright denial of a nuclear meltdown when facts with numbers made reality so obvious. Demonstrates that propaganda works so well. This thread makes interesting reading now that we know a minority (who demands hard facts with numbers) saw reality so quickly. A meltdown was obvious within days of the tsunami. But only to the few who have learned how to remove reality from so much propaganda. Who learned why subjective facts are so akin to lying. And so many actually believed those intentional lies. Even denied that TEPCO considered surrendering and evacuating Fukushima.

85% of all problems are traceable to top management - especially when they forget why hard facts and the numbers are so important. One should learn from this recent history. Ask yourself what you thought back then. Then go read the thread to see how accurately you really saw things.

Half a year later, and TEPCO is still slowly leaking facts about the severity of multiple meltdowns. We can only know this. What actually happened is far worse than what we know. Or what was posted in The Cellar. There were quite a few heroes. The ones who were heroes - we don't know any of their names. Nor the names of so many who were killed or are suffering radiation poisoning - from multiple meltdowns that were not happening.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.
tw is his own parody.

Oh, tw's OK. You just have to get used to his eccentric style of posting. Often he posts about important stuff. You just need to run the post through your handy tw translator app. Now on sale for 19.95. ;)

85% of them are faulty, though

So you are saying that Eastman Kodak is not going to bankruptcy? That GM has been making good, innovative cars for 30 years? That a Man to Mars and the $billions for Constellation/Orion/Ares makes sense? That an Idle Air Control Valve in a Honda Civic was OK? That George Jr was as honest as Nixon when he sent almost 5000 American soldiers to death? That Comcast did not attempt, on multiple occassions, to subvert the Internet (even skewing Skype packets to harm that service)? That wacko extremists did not all but try to get in a hot war with China? That the electric grid is failing and that CA has a serious energy shortage? That the USS Baatan did not sit for five days off of New Orleans denied permission to help rescue, support, feed, and house tens of thousands of desperate Americans? That Saddam had WMDs and was planning to attack the US?

Clearly those three Fukushima nuclear reactors did not melt down? Management clearly did not deny problems and make it worse?

Apparently it was all only fiction to co-write another Clancy novel. And Monster is only wrong about it 15% of the time. Unfortunately Monster's numbers are not very good. Since Urbane Guerrilla is wrong only 0% of the time.

see. fucking app failed again, Sam. or did it work for you there?

Warning. Malware was embedded in that last post.

Those damn apps are made in China and the quality can be variable. Mine kinda of works although I get baffled at times.

My top 4 fav tw posts:

1) the time I posted about my truck acting up and tw explained the problem almost exactly.
2) His early wmd posts. He was right about those
3) All the posts mentioning incompetent CEO's. tw hated CEO's way before it became fashionable.
4) He's right about W.

tw is like the cellar's pet nerd. ;)

The app defaults to TW --> human. He put human talk in and got double human. It just needs a special reverse human --> TW setting.

Speaking of apps, there is now a geiger counter attachment and app for your iPhone.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-1...panese/3674890

Oh, capitalism, you fickle mistress. One month you're slicing safety margins and causing cockups, the next you're responding to the needs you created. Y U so bipolar?

The Guardian
Dec 7, 2011

Tsunami that struck Japan in March resulted from merging waves
The above link has a video, but the animation was running
too quickly to appreciate what was happening.
It's hard to see the merging waves on the east side of the epicenter (blue area).

I stepped through and at 17 sec finally got the image below.
This shows two waves (red) with a sliver of yellow in between, just to the left of the blue area.
In the next images, those two red areas merge into a single red band moving towards shore.

NY Times
MARTIN FACKLER
12/14/11

Japan May Declare Control of Reactors, Over Serious Doubts
.

And now, in local news, local to the left coast that is:

First debris from Japanese quake/tsunami arrives on the Olympic Peninsula

NHK has desperately tried to get facts on Fukushima with great frustration. TEPCO finally permitted NHK to interview TEPCO employees if names and faces were omitted. Their story is one of desperation. This post defined then what was ongoing in all three plants. All three had core meltdowns.

TEPCO management would not let Fukushima's plant manager vent radioactive steam when it was possible. By the time top management relented, Fukishima had no battery power. As was known even back then. All eight Safety Release valves must be operated by 120 volts remotely. But due to reasons (TEPCO is still obstructing information) unknown, none of the eight SR valves would operate. So pressure inside the containment vessel was at well above 7 atmospheres (100 PSI) and climbing. With no way to release that pressure, operators knew a resulting explosion of the containment building would also kill them.

Fukushima needed 12 volt batteries. Ten per valve to create 120 volts. But TEPCO only sent them 2 volt batteries. Thousands sat 55 km away. But TEPCO management could not grasp why engineers needed those batteries delivered immediately. Meanwhile, TEPCO sent two volt batteries by helicopter.

Had TEPCO management understood what was needed, then Self Defense Force helicopters could have delivered them immediately. But TEPCO management had a business school mentality. They did not need to know what the engineers were saying or needed. And had no grasp of the emergency - as even US government officials openly complained.

All Safety Release valves refused to open. Meaning the containment vessel could not be vented. Therefore no water could be pumped inside and the core was exposed.

Third party experts speculate that pressure inside the containment vessel was so high that all eight valves were stuck. After all, when operators say those valves must be open now, management with near zero knowledge should have said yes. By the time management finally decided (after agreessive arguments), pressures were too high; those valves could no longer open even with 12 volt batteries taken from cars in the parking lot. Just another example of plant destruction directly traceable to top management.

Around the time of this post, the containment building for Fukushima 2 exploded. Photographed is the largest of the radiation clouds emitted from a plant that so many knew was not in meltdown. On 14 March, the control room shook during the explosion. Operators in always dark control rooms viewed containment vessel pressure gauges. Zero. At the time, they probably thought they were all about to die.

To this day, TEPCO will not admit to any breaches even though facts posted early in this thread made those breaches obvious. What is obvious: TEPCO management, doing what is taught in business schools, only frustrated the Fukushima staff with inaction, indecision ... TEPCO management could not even deliver 12 volt batteries or Dosimeters. A lack of batteries is cited specifically for the Fukushima 3 explosion.

It will take 40 years to disassemble all four plants. Three had known core meltdowns back when it was obvious and posted here. TEPCO refused to admit to any core meltdowns for weeks.

Some designs in those plants averted a Chernobyl scale disaster. In particular the containment building contained breaches of the containment vessel in two plants. Radiation levels of 29 sieverts were already known to be inside a containment building that many said did not have containment vessel breaches. A human exposed to 28 sieverts would die in minutes.

Operators expected to die if a core meltdown resulted in a building breach. For reasons still not explained, the resulting breaches did not result in deadly on-site radiation. But did release dangerous radiation into regions that nearby townspeople had evacuated into. Or is TEPCO still quashing facts?

For the want of permission, but a few words, four reactors were lost. Because a boss had no idea. He is supposed to work for his employees. To know what they are doing and why. Instead, he told the Fukushima plant manager to destroy four nuclear power plants. And still denies that is what he really did.

Which is it? How do you know that the top management wasn't simply waiting for more facts in a well-advised attempt to avoid complicating the problem exponentially?

In case A, informed top management knew time was not a factor. In case B, informed management (engineers or any layman) knows time is a critical factor. Only bean counters could not tell the difference. But I bet those bean counters knew what time to go home. After all, time cards are more important than the actual product.

When a nuclear power plant has no electricity and no cooling, then doing nothing exponentially complicates everything. Top management did the worst thing they could do. They waited for facts that they should have already known. AS top management also did at Three Mile Island. It was their job to already know this stuff. And would have if they came from where the work gets done.

Meanwhile, what happens to an anomaly in an unchanged computer? It does nothing harmful.

They could not even dispatch thousands of 12 volt battery - desperately needed, stored, readily available, and only 55 km away. Business school training makes it impossible to expedite solutions. Even a layman can appreciate doing nothing was only the worst possible solution. Patton (in WWII) well understood this concept. And created the Red Ball Express. His job - maximum support to the employees.

Engineers at the plant and even its top manager said action was necessary immediately. In communism and other corrupt institutions, the employee works for the boss. The antonym: when an employee says this must be done, a responsible boss then does everything possible to support that employee.

But the boss had no idea how things worked. Had no idea that time was an exponentially critical factor. The definition of corrupt management. It was top managements job to know how critical time was. They even spent two weeks to decide to run power lines to plants that had no electricity. How dumb is that?

In case I missed it somewhere... how come there weren't 12 volt batteries kept at the location just in case something happened? Why would they need to get batteries flown in in the first place? Contingency plan and all that?

It seems to me that recklessly DOING SOMETHING BECAUSE THIS SHIT IS URGENT in the case of risk of a nuclear meltdown is as bad or worse than waiting until the right thing to do is known, as you have preached many times. You have a habit of speaking in absolutes, superlatives, making declamatory statements with such... rigidity.

I'm pointing out that your "investigate before taking action" "you're doing it rong" theme song doesn't always apply. How do you know how urgent the restoration of normal function to someone's computer is? And sometimes "good enough" is good enough. You seem to have considerable expertise in some areas, but it doesn't translate equally well into all the subjects on which you inveigh, be they catalytic converters, power supplies, refraction of light or nuclear power plants.

Context matters. Success is often a range, not a point. "There's more than one way to skin a cat." I wish you could be more flexible in your thinking and problem solving, but I fear you might break if you tried.

They had multiple connections to the 500,000 volt grid and 275,000 volt grid for backup power. Something like 14 onsite generators. And about eight hours of battery power. That meant TEPCO management in Tokyo had almost eight hours to learn facts and made decisions. Even after being yelled at by the Plant Manager (something very unusual in Japanese culture), TEPCO refuse to permit venting. By the time TEPCO management made a decision, there were no batteries left charged.

Well operators worked frantically trying to save Reactor 2 for three days. That's how long TEPCO still did not provide those 12 volts batteries. No batteries. And no generators.

Is that hard to fathom? Not for me. I have seen business school trained managers do things that stupid routinely. Because they have no idea what the words really mean. Because they did not come from where the work get done.

The NHK report is scathing in that it exposes more facts all but withheld by TEPCO. NHK apparently had to limit so much information only to events in Reactors 3 and 4. NHK quotes on-site employees as citing 'no batteries' as a specific reason for the explosion in Reactor 3.

And the link to that is where?
I see you quoted yourself a couple times, :eyebrow:
but nothing to the actual report.

Gotcha posting.

I know, right? lol

So wait, does that mean a woman's body should've shut those reactors down?

You can't put too much woman in a nuclear reactor.

Is that a Yo Mama joke?

That only works with breeder reactors.



I'll be here with a half-life of 12 days, try the boron.

tw? That's not nice!


(I find her guilty)

:lol:

NHK, two years later, continues exposing unreported facts about Fukishima. Latest revelations come from research performed by NHK by 'secretly' obtaining engineering documents.

First, nuclear power plants have passive cooling systems (called isolation condensers) that permit a plant to cool itself passively. No electricity required. But, for reasons that remain unknown and undiscussed, those passive cooling systems were not operational. And those systems had never been tested in 40 years.

Since the system had never been tested, then no one knew what a working cooling system looks like. Management 'assumed' a trace amount of steam meant it was working. When passive cooling works, the noise is quite loud. Steam fills the sky all around the plant. Trace amounts of steam, assumed to be a working cooling system, meant a complete failure.

In both company and an independent investigations, no mention of these passive cooling systems. And yet that alone could have averted the nuclear meltdown in Fukishima Daiche One that occurred within 24 hours. (A meltdown that the company denied for weeks even though it was obvious even to layman in days.)

To keep water in Fukishima 3, fire engines were connected to pump 400 tons of water into the reactor. Operators knew water was leaking elsewhere. And again, company investigations ignore this. So again, NHK did independent investigations. Discovered the leak and why it occurred. Explained why so much water was discovered later in condensors.

A pump, operating not as designed, had leaked 55% of the incoming water, through a tiny 1.5 inch pipe, into the condensors. NHK recorded an Italian laboratory duplicating this failure. Had only 25% of the water leaked, then Fukishima 3 could have been saved. Another fact somehow lost in TEPCO's investigations and another by the government. Another in a long list of facts that NHK discovered 'overlooked' by TEPCO and government investigations.

In the US, identical plants (ie 9 Mile Island) test their passive cooling systems every four years. Have obtained mobile pumps and installed dedicated pipes so that external cooling can be performed directly. These potential weaknesses are not unique to Fukishima. But NHK is demonstrating a serious problem with honesty at the higher levels of TEPCO management. And questionable investigations by Japanese Nuclear Regulators. 85% of all problems ...

Shocking were comments by top TEPCO people who accuse TEPCO employees of having insufficient knowledge of basic concepts. Anyone with any industrial or military experience knows that attitude and knowledge must come from top management. Can management actually blame employees for what is obvious a major management created disaster? Apparently that still is their attitude.

This NHK report is the third in a series exposing lack of clarity or intentionally convoluted reports from TEPCO (whose management created the Fukishima disaster) and from government regulators.

Do you mean 3 mile island, or 9 mile point?

The speedway?

Nine mile point is in Oswego, on lake Ontario, one of GE's first generation BWR designs.

That's so surprising given the Japanese government's reputation for transparency, candidness, and lack of guile.

That may be a Japanese attitude. But that clearly was not TEPCO management's attitude. Problems were apparent and discussed here especially on and after 14 March 2011. The Japanese Prime Minster personally stormed into TEPCO headquarters to personally order them to not abandon those plants. After a meltdown was even obvious here, weeks later, TEPCO finally admitted to those meltdowns.

Read that at least one potential Three Mile Island situation had started on 12 Mar 2011 (day after the quake). By 14 Mar, a meltdown was apparent.

In hindsight, Reactor One had already exposed and melted its core when Fukishima Three and Two were following - as discussed here:
Quake/Tsunami

NHK makes government nuclear regulators also look evasive and misleading.

Nine Mile Point (only Unit One) and Fukishima Daichi were similar designs constructed about the same time. Its not the designs that are a problem. Fukishima had a management problem as posts after 11 Mar 2011 demonstrate. NHK's documentaries also demonstrate.

Mismanagement was also the reason for Three Mile Island. A disaster averted only because Pres Carter ordered Denton to discover what was happening. Denton discovered that GPU mismanagement was so gross as to personally take ownership of that plant - without authorization.

People are quick to blame the plant(s) rather than reasons why a problem turns into a major disaster.

FFF, you forgot to use these.

That's debatable, while the Boiling Water Reactor design has been operating for some time without many major incidents, I still feel the more expensive Pressurized Water Reactor is a much safer design. The PWR design provides less opportunity for the management to create problems, and makes their 85% smaller in number.

I did "air quotes" but I guess no one saw them. :(

That's a concept for all technologies. The idea is to constantly innovate. Learn from experience. Even upgrade first generation plants (PWR or BWR) so that problems require less assumptions and less management decisions.

One need only view the automobile. As it becomes more complex, knowledge, decisions, and actions performed by a driver to keep a car running have become massively less. A driver no longer adjusts spark plug timing.

Nine Mile Point plant has been modified so that external pumps can be connected directly to a reactor from outside. A modification made because they learned from Fukishima. Similar to a standpipe for every commercial building. So that portable pumps (ie fire truck) can connect water directly inside the building (or reactor) without any planning or attachments.

In the case of reactor 3, nobody knew a small pump's check valve would remain open. Reactor 3 needed at least 300 tons of water to avert a meltdown. It only got maybe 180 tons of the 400 pumped in. Due to complexity (and other factors such as no lights and high radioactivity), operators could not know of their mistake.

If top management does up front planning, then unforseen problems do not become disasters. If top management had tested passive cooling (as management does in Nine Mile Point every four years), then a Reactior 1 meltdown (on 12 Mar 2011) probably would have been averted. And management would not have erroneously assumed (and told operators) that two passive cooling systems were working.

Primary purpose of a third generation nuclear reactor is to make the system even more fool proof. To make mistakes even less likely. Mistakes will always happen. Unfortunately, top management must understand the number one reason why a most fool proof plant still creates a disaster: top management.

How does any system get fixed when management obfuscates facts? Exactly why informed (and therefore patriotic) citizens listen and learn from the news. Those on 15 Mar 2011 who still believed TEPCO myths must learn from their mistakes. Learn why they were so easily deceived by spin and lies when facts that clearly indicated meltdowns had occurred.

Read this discussion back then. Each reader should ask whether they saw the facts or were easily deceived back then.

Japan should learn, from their NHK reports, of ongoing obfuscation or coverups. Every American should also learn whether their knowledge and information came from responsible sources.

Goes right back to Saddam's WMDs. Notice how few bothered to stand up for the American soldier. How few tried to protect lives of American servicemen by identifying spin or outright lies from George Jr's administration. Almost 5000 died because so many Americans did not do their job as citizens. Unfortunately too many still did not learn from history. Did not learn what is necessary for any layman to have informed knowledge. Did not learn both who and why is the source of most disasters.

Fukishima is another event in history so that everyone can learn how reality works and how to avert future failures.

BTW, probably not obvious. This also addresses another topic about socialism vs communism vs capitalism.

Hey, no problem, spring is in the air, the flowers in bloom, and the Fukushimi daisies are growing.