Damaged Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant shut for at least a year - "damage unprecedented"

http://mnweekly.ru/world/20070720/55262866.html

<snip>

The Nikkei business newspaper, citing unnamed sources, said the government would keep the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant shut for at least a year as the operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), conducts a safety study.

Officials in Tokyo declined to comment, but a local representative in the plant's hometown of Kashiwazaki said it would not be used at least through the summer, the peak months for electricity demand.

The damage to the plant is "unprecedented and it's hard to predict when operations can resume," said fire department official Osamu Oshima.

"I don't know when we can finish inspections, but it's not going to be soon. Maybe it'll take several months or more," he said.

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edit: corrected edit

first 1.5 liters of radioactive liquid was released

then it was 1100 liters released

now it's 2200 liters released

The most troubling revelation was the "Loss in water-tight seal at reactor core cooling system."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=104271&mesg_id=104271

The NEI nuclear hobbyist crowd, however, doesn't appreciate the seriousness of that tidbit.

and they have just begun the damage assessments...

I guess you have never heard of units of radioactivity, have you?

This, I'm sure, comes as a huge suprise to you, but the unit of radioactivity is not the liter.

It is another piece of evidence about the strength of your knowledge on this subject.

There are several units associated with radioactivity, including the Becquerel, the Curie, and several units that are associated with absorption of energy.

Every day these reactors are shut - as much as you want this accident to be as bad as possible - will result in the loss of life from dangerous fossil fuels.

Indeed, one member of the antinuclear cult is reporting that the use of dangerous fossil fuels will replace the reactor in the short term in this very thread.

He's giddy I think.

One thing the reactor will not be replaced with is solar cells and windmills. Why? Because the closed reactor produced more energy than the entire world's solar electricity output.

Just two or three hours ago - in your continuous effort to jump to conclusions based on "unnamed sources" - you were reporting that this earthquake was the end of nuclear power in Japan.

I'll bet too, although I did not have the pleasure of seeing you squirm in 1998 - you reported the direct hit of Hurricane Andrew on the Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant as the end of nuclear power in the United States.

I have seen so many reports from you about the end of nuclear power, it's hard to count them.

The reactor will restart and when it does, it will save lives. When it does so, you will sulk, spin and bitch, but you will never offer a credible plan to stop the release of dangerous fossil fuel waste.

radioactive liquid (water) was released, and they can't seem to define just how much.

This is no joke. I lived 7 miles from a large nuclear plant in California (which has since shut down for safety issues)

We were told to stop eating the fish in the creeks and the neighbors who used the sand in their yard from their creek bed downstream of the plant had the Plant Operators come and dig it up five feet down. The plant operators swore there was no radioactivity in the water right up until the time they sent out alerts all over the county and dug up stream beds for miles downstream.

The incidence of cancer in children was way past the normal rates, as were the adult cancers.

I am not against nuclear power in the abstract, but there are real life safety concerns and this earthquake is one of them.

I really don't know what to say to this one.

The scientific unit for radioacitivity in all states of matter, solid, liquid, gas, plasma, is not the liter, OK?

Since you don't understand this very basic fact, you probably also don't understand etiology.

As it happens, the entire ocean is radioactive, and not from nuclear power, but from, well the creation of the earth. The water in a nuclear reactor is more radioactive than the ocean however, but not necessarily toxic.

Frankly your post is one of the types of posts that show how a lack of understanding plus a little innuendo and hysteria can cause great damage.

The Racho Seco reactor was replaced by dangerous fossil fuels that produce million ton quantities of dangerous fossil fuel waste that are released with no notification.

Dangerous fossil fuel waste almost certainly kills tens of thousands of Californians each year.

phrase and not letting go of it.

are you claiming the water released was no more dangerous than sea water?? while neither of us have the facts on the exact radioactivity level in the liters of released water, I am sure they are higher the the background radiation levels in seawater.

and Rancho Seco was owned by SMUD who generate most of their power with water or gas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacramento_Municipal_Utility_District

No one is claiming that fossil fuel generation is the way to go. But until we come up with some reasonable ways to store the waste, we better hope there are guys in white coats still at a drawing board working on alternatives.

If we did as good a job as France has with their nuclear power program, I doubt you'd hear as much concern as you do.

But until you've watched a child dear to you fight thyroid cancer, I think this is mostly an intellectual exercise for you. How close do you live to a power plant? or a nuclear waste site? How old are your children?

Bullshit my ass.

I do know roughly what the concentration of radioactivity released at TEPCO is. If you want to assert who does and does not know what they are talking about, speak for yourself.

SMUD has no plan to contain its release of dangerous fossil fuel waste from it's dangerous natural gas plants. It dumps million ton quantities of such dangerous fossil fuel waste, chiefly in the form of dangerous carbon dioxide, without restrictions of any kind.

So I assume that your position is that only nuclear energy need contain its waste - something by the way that only the nuclear industry does - with ease in fact.

You can send SMUD extra money and they'll give you a certificate to help you pretend that you're not getting 47% of your electricity from the dangerous fossil fuel natural gas. It doesn't come with an electron sorter.

http://www.smud.org/green/greenergy/powercontent.html

SMUD would rather die than let you know how much carbon dioxide it dumps into the air. It wants you to think that all of its power is clean, so it will tell you all about the <1% of electricity it gets from solar, but no where will it report how much dangerous fossil fuel waste it releases.

and thankfully the releases were very small.

as for SMUD, I haven't lived there in years, but way to spin the argument. by your own link SMUD gets 53% of it's energy from renewables and hydro. the other 47% certainly is from Gas fired plants who are much cleaner than coal.

Across the board, they are doing better than the other power companies in CA by comparison (also from your link)

A kid with asthma is much more likely to live a full life than one with thyroid cancer. I notice you didn't address that point at all.

It was nice talking to you! :hi:

no curies,

no becquerels,

and they have not released any estimates of radiation doses plant workers may have incurred during the (ongoing) accident.

They only gave volumes of contaminated water released.

You know nothing.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x104271#104520

My computer doesn't support Japanese fonts, unfortunately.

I note that that post was a reply to you over a day ago, yet your current post is almost word for word the same as in that thread.

Look at that, actual numbers in Bq's even!

The radioactivity released vs. natural radiation per annum is eye-opening, to say the least....

2 x 10 to the minus 7th power??

what the heck does that mean???


but hopefully it was a very small amount after all.

... than google's translation. :D Thanks!

Even if I exposed myself to all of the leaked materials. Never mind dispersion.

Imagine how many coal plants we might get for a dental x-ray. Millions....

for use during routine refueling and to take up the slack after earthquakes, fires and other boo-boos.

n/t

The main issue with using backup reactors is that you wouldn't operate them in "just in time" mode, since they ramp up slowly. Not like a NG fired plant.

So, when it wasn't being used to directly power the grid, the excess electricity (and/or direct heat energy) would be used for other tasks. Manufacturing motor fuels, smelting, desalinizing water, even scrubbing CO2. There's no shortage of useful things to do with a nuclear reactor when it's on standby for grid backup. That's one reason I habitually propose "all nuclear" energy scenarios, even though mixed options are obviously feasible. You can do it, and not waste any of the energy.

But that's too obvious. I think Jpak's in PV mode, and requires an off-peak brain to do 75% of his thinking.

too many people are against nuclear due to fear-mongering, it should be used in conjunction with renewables, not to wipe them out completely, couldnt the "backup" reactors be used for these other tasks as well? And then if their energy is needed by the grid, they stop their other tasks, and when the extra need stops, they can start scrubbing CO2 or desalinizing water, that way there wont be the 'ramp up slowly' effect as they are already working.

19 Jul 2007 03:01:58 GMT
Source: Reuters

TOKYO, July 19 (Reuters) - Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) may restart unused thermal power plants to make up for any shortages from the shutdown of its earthquake-hit nuclear facility, a spokesman said on Thursday.

The nuclear facility, the world's largest, remains closed for safety checks after a strong earthquake on Monday caused radiation leaks among other problems.

While power supplies were sufficient for now, especially since the weather was unseasonably cool, TEPCO would consider restarting mothballed thermal plants if necessary later, the spokesman said. ~snip~

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/T144735.htm

I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked! Who could have ever predicted that?

The ironic thing is that restarting those "thermal" plants, as they like to call them, will undoubtedly kill far more people through air pollution and contribution to global warming than the 25 smoke detectors worth of radioactive material this plant released.

conspicuous consumption at least as bad as the US.

what was released seems to change daily

Tell you what, answer these three questions and get back to me.

1: How many people per year die from nuclear-related accidents or poisonings?

2: How many people per year die from fossil fuel-related air pollution and global warming?

3: What energy source did you just post was being used as a replacement to these reactors?

fault, and not engineered to withstand the earthquake: Japanese citizens lost the fdirst round of that fight, despite long hard work, but you can bet its back on the table now

are they using nuclear power at all???

http://www.enecho.meti.go.jp/english/energy/geothermal/geothermal.html

y Eric Talmadge

The Associated Press

KASHIWAZAKI, Japan — Radioactive material leaked undetected for days at an earthquake-battered nuclear power plant even as the utility was assuring the public that the damage posed no danger to those outside the site, company executives admitted today.

The revelation cast more doubt on the plant's emergency measures and the response by Japan's largest power company, while the indefinite shutdown of the world's most powerful electricity generating facility raised serious fears of a summer power shortage.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. confirmed reports that radioactive material was leaking as late as Wednesday night, nearly three days after the plant suffered a near-direct hit from a quake that killed 10 people and injured more than 1,000 in Kashiwazaki on Japan's northern coast.

It was government inspectors who found radioactive iodine venting from an exhaust pipe at the plant's No. 7 nuclear reactor, said Hisanori Nei, an official with the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency. It escaped between Tuesday and Wednesday night, Nei said. ~snip~

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003796300_webquake19.html

Friday, July 20, 2007
Kyodo News

More data were released Thursday showing the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant was not built to withstand a powerful earthquake like the tough one that hit the Niigata Prefecture complex ... Operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said the seismic acceleration recorded at the plant was much greater than the levels predicted for that location ... Tepco also said data recorded by 63 seismometers installed at the reactors were lost because the machines recorded the aftershocks over the top of the data from the first earthquake ...

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070720a1.html


N-plant seismic data lost; more radiation emitted
The Yomiuri Shimbun

... The seismometers were supposed to constantly transmit data to Tokyo over phone lines, but the lines became overwhelmed immediately after the quake, and data were overwritten with a series of aftershocks before the previous transmissions were completed, it said. Up to 1-1/2 hours of data were lost from some of the devices.

Although data from 30 newer seismometers were transmitted during the initial quake, the loss of the other raw data may impact the investigation of the quake resistance security check, observers said ...

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20070720TDY01005.htm

They Scrammed automatically, and are intact: It looks like there was some damage to some of the cooling systems, and to the electrical gear - the same as would have happened to any plant under the circumstances.