Deja Vu All Over Again at Fukushima Daiichi?

Amid the fallout from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant crisis, it now appears operator Tokyo Electric Power Co., or Tepco, and Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, or NISA, may have missed troubling signals. These include signs the 40-year old plant was vulnerable in terms of precautionary procedures and outmoded equipment in a way that’s disconcertingly reminiscent of incidents at Three Mile Island.

Nine months before the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that precipitated the nuclear disaster, a loss of power triggered a two-meter drop in water levels inside the plant’s No. 2 reactor. Unlike the March meltdown, the little-reported June 17, 2010 glitch didn’t release radiation. And it wasn’t caused by a giant wave, but rather a misplaced elbow.

In a final report issued about the incident on July 6, 2010, Tepco noted the cramped work space in the plant’s control room as a contributing factor. For some nuclear power plant experts, that invokes a power sense of déjà vu.


...snip...

According to the report: “On November 3, 1978, a mechanic caused a complete shutdown of the plant, including exercising of emergency systems, when he tripped a switch on the polisher electrical panel, thinking he was turning on a light. The only corrective action was to put a guard on the switch.”

http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2011/06/15/deja-vu-all-over-again-at-fukushima-daiichi/

The more that comes out about this crisis, the more it sounds like it was all entirely preventable. The warning signs were all over the place, just no one seemed to want to listen.

"Ah gee shucks, we'll get around to it tomorrow."

:spank:

Yikes.

I don't know much about forums so this is new to me. I just Googled this "reactors on the Missouri River", there is a reactor in Nebraska that has had a stage four alert, the cooling pumps to the fuel pool were shut off and the fuel was heating up due to a fire also there is a danger that this reactor and others may flood. WHY ISN'T THIS ON THE NEWS?

Power was out for 90 minutes to the cooling pumps before it was restored. Pool temp went up 2 degrees.

Fine now.

Yes, there is flooding risk. vOv Not sure what you are looking for. There's quite a lot of potential industrial disaster type risk on those rivers right now, beyond just the reactors.

Some things don't like getting wet, and it doesn't take a reactor to kill a couple thousand people.
Not to alarm you or anything.

and I hadn't seen anything about it on DU or Current or on my TV stations. Where did you see it?

For example, have you heard of what happened at Davis Besse in 2002?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=292630&mesg_id=292679

So much better than spamming the thread... don't you think?

WOW. I've PT inspected Pressurizer Nozzles for cracks, but I've never seen anything like that.

They put the workers between a rock and a hard place,
then put the screws to them if they get out of line.

Jan 2006: 3 accused of lying about reactor(indicted)-Ohio, First Energy, Davis-Besse
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x39228

Aug 2008: Jury: Worker covered up damage at Ohio nuke plant (worst corrosion ever found at a U.S. reactor)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3455514

Feb 2009: Engineer receives probation for role in Davis-Besse cover-up
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x186390

March 2010: Cracks found in critical reactor parts at Davis-Besse power plant
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4307373#4307459

Aug 2003: Slammer worm crashed Ohio nuke plant network (FirstEnergy, Davis-Besse)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x203715

It's a new site that sprung up after Fukushima,
here's a story on the Nebraska plant:

They have had their heads up their asses for longer than that.

Just thinking they could control the vast power of nuke plants shows they have always been insane.

Now it is: Your dirty air are belong to us.
Quit laughing, that is not funny.

You can't eliminate failure...

What are the consequences of building a city with with a population of millions on a major fault line? A volcano?

Is that your next failed nihilistic argument?

I have trouble keeping track.

Do you think there's anyone who can't guess WHY you do so?

Your nihilism with respect to the actuality of reactor failures is somehow a question that requires an answer? It sure seems to me when you're pushed down the road to admitting that in reality reactors have failures and we can expect Chornobyl/Fukushimas down the road no-matter-what, you wind up in a philosophical rhetorical dead end and expect some response? WTF?

You mean like not grasping the difference between nihilism and sarcasm?

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