Quake/Tsunami

[Lamplighter]

This is El Reno, OK just 3 minutes ago.... People are being warned to get into shelter NOW !

[Lamplighter]

Another very large (multi-vortex) tornado is occuring near Mulhall, OK (at the center of this map)

[xoxoxoBruce]

9 PM, the winds are active but not real strong.

[Lamplighter]

Washington Post
Chico Harlan 7:00 AM ET
9/3/13

Japan plans to freeze radioactive soil

The goverment’s $500 million plan aims to stop radioactive water,
a result of the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, from pouring into the sea.

The next step will be for General Electric to propose building one of their well-designed
nuclear power plants to provide long term power to the refrigeration units.

[Lamplighter]

This disaster in Japan is a disaster that just keeps disaster-ing.

This is quite a long article, but here is the gist ...

The plant was built in an old river bed.
It rains in Japan ... water runs downhill

The company that built this GE reactor did not consider "what if ..."
The earthquake broke underground drainage pipes
The "ice wall" technology is untested and would cost ~ $1 billion
The company is near bankruptcy
The government basically opposes bankruptcy due to effect on economy



Washington Post
Chico Harlan
10/21/13

For Tepco and Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, toxic water stymies cleanup

TOKYO — Two and a half years after a series of nuclear meltdowns,
Japan’s effort to clean up what remains of the Fukushima Daiichi
power plant is turning into another kind of disaster.

All of the nation’s 50 operable reactors are currently shuttered.

The site now stores 90 million gallons of radioactive water,
more than enough to fill Yankee Stadium to the brim.
An additional 400 tons of toxic water is flowing daily into the Pacific Ocean,
and almost every week, the plant operator acknowledges a new leak.
<snip>
One lawmaker, Sumio Mabuchi, who was also an adviser to then-Prime Minister Naoto Kan,
says Tepco, deep in debt, neglected to take important steps against the groundwater
two years ago because of concerns about its bottom line.
<snip>
The first months of the disaster were chaotic, an improvised battle that involved
firetrucks, helicopters, robots and workers trying to cool melted nuclear fuel.
As the emergency calmed and the groundwater problem emerged, Tepco was left with two options:
It could either block the groundwater from entering the site,
or it could pump the groundwater out and store whatever had leaked into buildings.
Tepco opted for the latter — a mistake, many outside researchers say.

The remaining options to deal with the buildup are unpopular or flawed.
The latest plan includes the ice wall, a new groundwater pumping system
and yet another system to filter radionuclides. But the ice-wall technology is unproven,
and taxpayers will foot the bill because Tepco lacks the funding to deal with major,
unplanned problems at the plant.

[tw]

TEPCO management that created the meltdowns by refusing to vent is also demonstrating same mismanagement with ground water management. If drainage pipes were damaged, then major construction two years ago should have been replacing those pipes. But TEPCO decisions (even to avert the meltdown) have favored business decisions (ie cost controls) rather than what is needed (product oriented thinking). Instead, they spent years looking for and hoping to patch leaks.

Same mismanagement applies to storage tanks. Many storage tanks are now leaking or on the verge of leaking since some tanks were even constructed with plastic bolts. Long term water storage requires welded tanks. TEPCO inaction means they must now build a new tank the size of an olympic swimming pool every day.

Apparently TEPCO believed government would let them dump that water into the ocean. Then discovered that would not be permitted when numerous international NGOs were even monitoring ocean waters. So now they have created more problems traceable to decisions using business school concepts rather than using engineering concepts.

TEPCO, what does heavy structural construction and maintenance, did not even have one ground water specialist in their 40,000 employees.

[Lamplighter]

So many euphemisms in just one little article...

NY Times
HIROKO TABUCHI
November 10, 2013

Removing Fuel Rods Poses New Risks at Crippled Nuclear Plant in Japan

In the next 10 days, the plant’s operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company
is set to start the delicate and risky task of using a crane to remove the fuel assemblies from the pool,...

Just 36 men will carry out the tense operation to move the fuel to safer storage;
they will work in groups of six in two-hour shifts throughout the day for months.
A separate team will work overnight to clear any debris inside the pool that
might cause the fuel to jam when a crane tries to lift it out, possibly causing damage.<snip>

The fuel rods must remain immersed in water to block the gamma radiation they emit
and allow workers to be in the area, and to prevent the rods from overheating.
An accident could expose the rods and — in a worst-case scenario, some experts say —
allow them to release radioactive materials beyond the plant.<snip>

“There are potentially very big risks involved,” Shunichi Tanaka,
the head of Japan’s nuclear regulator, said last week.
“Each assembly must be handled very carefully.”<snip>

“If they drop the rods, will the situation be easily contained,
or do we need to worry about a more dangerous chain of events?” Mr. Kawai said.
“There are just too many variables involved to say for sure.”<snip>

Lake H. Barrett, a former United States Department of Energy official
who was in charge of removing fuel from a stricken reactor after an accident
at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979, <snip> said he believed that
the risks in removing the fuel from the Reactor No. 4 pool at Fukushima were small
and that a significant release of radioactive material was highly unlikely.

.