Quote:
Originally Posted by glatt
I've heard tsunamis get magnified or focused in places like this.
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Remember, most of the tsunami energy was directed out into the Pacific. Japan only got a backdoor backlash.
Meanwhile, I was not kidding about the dire consequences of those multiple reactor meltdowns. Two went dry. That means the containment vessel was breeched and draining. Days later, Tokyo Electric (TEPCO) would not admit that.
Apparently the diesel generators were working. And were supposed to be monitored by a technician who, instead, went elsewhere to do other work. The generators stopped maybe due to no fuel. Then, as diesels can do when let run dry, it could not be restarted. Did a tsunami kill the generators? Apparently not. Therefore management was lying. Trying to be politically correct – which is akin to a felony.
Rather than be honest, TEPCO refused to admit the seriousness of radiation leakages. Government had to step in and call for evacuations and 'do not go outside' warnings. TEPCO was more worried about their reputation when at least two reactors already had breeched. TEPCO is sounding more like the incompetent management that created and then repeatedly lied about Three Mile Island 2.
Those posts in large letters were because I already knew from details what TEPCO would not announce for over twenty four hours later. Containment vessels had been breached. And at least two reactors were permanently destroyed.
What I did not know was that maybe 100 workers had already been contaminated to the point of radiation sickness. Some have already died. A few are still unaccounted for. AND control rooms have been without power. These reactors were being controlled by sending people to a valve and manually changing that valve. Like in Three Mile Island, the control room had almost no working controls. People had to run into radiation filled rooms, find a valve, change it, and run out.
So that they do not look bad, TEPCO management has been downplaying all this.
Reactor 4 did not even have fuel in it. That explosion was a complete surprise. Fuel was sitting in a pool outside of the containment vessel. No one bothered to notice that fuel was not being cooled. So that fuel also went dry. Melted. Resulting in maybe two explosions.
How incompetent was TEPCO? Two other reactors still could produce electricity. But only if TEPCO management understood technology, got off their asses, and requisitioned what was needed to connect those power generators to the others. They did not even keep pumps working in an adjacent building to keep that fuel cool. So even Reactor 4 that had been off since last November – it too exploded.
As soon as sea water was dumped into it, that reactor is gone. Toast. Scrap iron. Will never be functional. That is how desperate TEPCO has been to stop a complete meltdown while saying they were getting things under control. TEPCO engineers have been panicked for at least three days. Deja vue Three Mile Island.
A complete meltdown of three (or more) reactors is inevitable. Its not idle chatter that helicopters may have to bury the reactors in sand. All workers (the last 50) were removed because radiation levels are that excessive. The reactors, without power, must save themselves. TEPCO's incompetent management was more worried about saving face than saving an entire Japanese Prefecture. Those posted capital letters were a warning that extreme. Apparently I was wrong. It was even worse.
Well, it took about 5 days for America to finally learn that Metropolitan Edison was lying constantly about Three Miles Island. As any business school graduate would do so as deflect blame. It has taken about 5 days to realized how often TEPCO was lying. The difference. Each one of four Fukushima reactors are worse than what happened in Three Mile Island. None will be a Chernobyl. But the situation has been far more severe than anyone here realized. I thought it was much worse than what they were saying. We now know it was even worse than I had speculated.
America has never had a disaster (not even close) to what has just happened in Japan. Both the flood and a nuclear disaster (even though First Energy worked so hard to create one).