Quake/Tsunami

[ZenGum]

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

"Immediately after the disaster triggered by the earthquake and tsunami of March 11 in the north-east of the archipelago, the cheapest Geiger counters cost 60,000 yen ($780) and were hard to find," said Takuma Mori on the origins of the device made by Sanwa Corp.

The first models for iPhones will go on sale in the next few days priced at 9,800 yen ($127).

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?

[Lamplighter]

The Guardian
Dec 7, 2011

Tsunami that struck Japan in March resulted from merging waves

(CNN) -- The devastating wall of water that struck Japan in March was the result
of at least two waves that combined to create a more powerful tsunami, U.S. scientists said Monday.

Ocean ridges and mountain ranges below the surface of the water channeled
the waves created by the 9.0 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Japan,
bringing them together far out at sea to form a "merging tsunami,"
according to researchers from NASA and Ohio State University.

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.

[Lamplighter]

NY Times
MARTIN FACKLER
12/14/11

Japan May Declare Control of Reactors, Over Serious Doubts

On Friday, a disaster-response task force headed by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda
will vote on whether to announce that the plant’s three damaged reactors
have been put into the equivalent of a “cold shutdown,” a technical term normally used
to describe intact reactors with fuel cores that are in a safe and stable condition.

Experts say that if it does announce a shutdown, as many expect,
it will simply reflect the government’s effort to fulfill a pledge
to restore the plant’s cooling system by year’s end and,
according to some experts, not the true situation.<snip>

And indeed, experts credit the operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, or Tepco,
with making progress in regaining control of the damaged reactors.
They say the plant’s makeshift new cooling system, built with the
help of American, French and Japanese companies, has managed to cool the reactors’ cores,
including the molten fuel attached to the outer containment vessels.<snip>

“Claiming a cold shutdown does not have much meaning for damaged reactors
like those at Fukushima Daiichi,” said Noboru Nakao, a nuclear engineering consultant
at International Access Corporation.<snip>

“At this point, I would be more worried about the contamination
than what’s happening inside the reactors,” said Murray E. Jennex,
an expert on nuclear containment at San Diego State University<snip>

“All it would take is one more earthquake or tsunami to
set Fukushima Daiichi back to square one,” Mr. Kudo said.
“Can we really call this precarious situation a cold shutdown?”

.

[BigV]

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

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

PORT ANGELES — The first piece of debris that could be identified as washing up on the West Coast from the March 11 tsunami in Japan — a large black float — was found on a Neah Bay beach two weeks ago, Seattle oceanographers Curtis Ebbesmeyer and Jim Ingraham said Tuesday night.

Since then, the two researchers, known as DriftBusters Inc. — who have used flotsam to track wind and water currents in the Pacific since 1970 — have learned that the black, 55-gallon drum-sized floats also have been found on Vancouver Island.

Ebbesmeyer and Ingraham spoke to more than 100 people at Peninsula College and brought the float with them, along with examples of other items that may be showing up on beaches in the next year.

Tons of debris washed out to sea when a tsunami struck northern Japan after a massive magnitude-9.0 earthquake March 11.

About a quarter of the 100 million tons of debris from Japan is expected to make landfall on beaches from southern Alaska to California, possibly in volumes large enough to clog ports, Ebbesmeyer said.

[tw]

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.

[BigV]

Do not change anything until important facts are obtained. Fixing without identifying the problem can exponentially complicate the problem.

For the want of permission, but a few words, four reactors were lost. Because a boss had no idea.

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?

[tw]

Originally Posted by BigV

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?

[Cyber Wolf]

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?

[BigV]

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.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Cyber Wolf

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?

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.

[classicman]

The NHK report is scathing

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

[infinite monkey]

Gotcha posting.

[Pico and ME]

I know, right? lol

[monster]

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

[infinite monkey]

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