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Hissyspit

(45,788 posts)
Tue Apr 9, 2013, 01:10 AM Apr 2013

New Leak Found at Fukushima Plant Water Storage Pool: Regulator

Source: Reuters

New leak found at Fukushima plant water storage pool: regulator

Tue Apr 9, 2013 1:01am EDT

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's nuclear regulator said on Tuesday another leak was found in Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc's (Tepco) underground water storage pool at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, where contaminated water was being transferred from an already leaking pool.

The fresh leak was found in the No. 1 pool where contaminated water from the leaking No. 2 pool was being transferred, the Nuclear Regulation Authority said on Tuesday. The regulator said Tepco had halted the transfer of the contaminated water.

Tepco, recently dogged by a series of mishaps at the nuclear plant devastated by a powerful earthquake and tsunami two years ago, had just said on Monday it had began transferring contaminated water from the No. 2 pool to the No. 1 pool.

(Reporting by Risa Maeda and Mari Saito; Editing by Shinichi Saoshiro)


Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE93802W20130409

6 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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New Leak Found at Fukushima Plant Water Storage Pool: Regulator (Original Post) Hissyspit Apr 2013 OP
Makes sense. AtheistCrusader Apr 2013 #1
Sorry... no. FBaggins Apr 2013 #4
But this one DID fail. And it failed BEFORE the Tsunami. AtheistCrusader Apr 2013 #5
Nope. FBaggins Apr 2013 #6
*These* reactors? . . . Journeyman Apr 2013 #2
Corporations are people, my friend. lexw Apr 2013 #3

AtheistCrusader

(33,982 posts)
1. Makes sense.
Tue Apr 9, 2013, 01:31 AM
Apr 2013

Local accelerations exceeded the design specifications of the plant. The tsunami was irrelevant, their shit was toast before the wave even hit.

What ISN'T broken, cracked, or leaking, would probably be a shorter list.

FBaggins

(26,697 posts)
4. Sorry... no.
Tue Apr 9, 2013, 11:08 AM
Apr 2013

Local accelerations barely exceeded the design specs in one direction. And it simply isn't true that "exceeded design specs" means that the plant is doomed. Plenty of reactors have been through earthquakes that exceeded their specs by much larger margins, and not only didn't fail disasterously... they went back into operation later. The two North Anna reactors restarted a couple months after the earthquake that exceeded their design specs.

Fukushima was not the hardest-hit of the nuclear plants in Japan on that day (by the earthquake). There was a plant closer to the epicenter that more significantly exceeded it's design specifications (Onagawa)... and not one of the reactors failed (or was even significantly damaged).



AtheistCrusader

(33,982 posts)
5. But this one DID fail. And it failed BEFORE the Tsunami.
Tue Apr 9, 2013, 11:32 AM
Apr 2013
http://truth-out.org/news/item/6993

Not just shutting down, but completely losing ultimate heat sink. Before the wave. I don't know what the cause of that is. Perhaps this particular site wasn't as well maintained. Maybe local geological factors made the quake worse. (See nearby Sendai Dam failure)

FBaggins

(26,697 posts)
6. Nope.
Tue Apr 9, 2013, 11:45 AM
Apr 2013

There is some evidence that there may have been a tiny radiation release prior to the tsunami arriving... and there are unsubstantiated claims that some anonymous worker saw a cracked pipe (that he couldn't identify).

That's a long way from saying that the plant was on it's way to melting down even if the tsunami hadn't arrived. He was in the turbine room, and the pipes that he could have seen there wouldn't have anything to do with emergency cooling. He also makes some comments that make clear that (if he exists at all) he doesn't know what he's talking about:

I also saw that part of the wall of the turbine building for reactor one had come away. That crack might have affected the reactor.


Well... no. The wall of the turbine building is entirely unrelated to the walls of the reactors themselves. It's almost as silly as the hyperventilating that went on when a crack was found within the North Anna containment! (GASP!!!)... which of course turned out to be nothing at all.

Maybe local geological factors made the quake worse. (See nearby Sendai Dam failure)

I'm not just guessing that closer must meen larger... I'm talking about the actual readings at the reactors themselves. Fukushima simply didn't exceed the design basis except in one axis by the tiniest amount.

Journeyman

(15,001 posts)
2. *These* reactors? . . .
Tue Apr 9, 2013, 01:36 AM
Apr 2013


What could possibly be wrong with this version of the 8th Wonder of the World? Why, these reactors were designed and built by some of the finest minds in the universe, schooled in the dark arts of garbage burning and ever mindful of the safety of corporate profits. What could have possibly gone wrong?
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