TEPCO to drain two tanks at Fukushima nuclear plant

[AsahinaKimi]

Source: Japan Today


TOKYO —

Fukushima operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said Saturday it would empty two more coolant tanks that hold radioactive water over fears of fresh leaks at the crippled nuclear plant.

Last week, TEPCO said around 300 tons of radioactive liquid was believed to have escaped from one of the hundreds of tanks used to cool the broken reactors.

TEPCO said Saturday that the affected tank was one of three to have been relocated from their original zone because of ground subsidence in the area.

TEPCO has not yet pinpointed the source of the leak in the first tank but there are fears the relocation may have been connected with the incident. TEPCO said that deteriorated seams and a possible contortion of a reassembled storage tank might have caused the water leak.

Read more: http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/tepco-to-drain-two-tanks-at-fukushima-nuclear-plant

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. I read that the tanks have no monitors on/in them for leaks,

that any leaks have to be seen by whoever is walking around the area.
Thus TEPCO has no idea how much and how often the leaking occurs.

Sheesh....

[caseymoz]

3. Yep, that's so high tech . . .

. . . so 21st century to leave that to guesswork and only discover a problem months into too late. Couldn't they have put in, like, a float monitor, such as the one automobile gas tanks have? Maybe call Toyota and order a few?

Yes, the nuke industry is really cutting edge. Very concerned about monitoring the state of its plants, a malfunction of which might make whole nations uninhabitable.

You're right. Sheesh.

[Turbineguy]

4. Consider this analogy.

You are driving your car down the highway at 60 miles per hour. Pretty mundane, you've been doing it for years. You have a tire blow out and you wreck the car. Under the circumstances you now have to clean up the wreck and repair the car, all by yourself. Everything you are doing, you are doing for the first time. And it's all outside your skill set.

Now imagine this on a scale thousands of times.

You have an organization that runs a few plants and has a few levels of redundancy in place and has run a few casualty drills. As long as everything stays within the boundaries of what was planned and rehearsed for, everything is fine. TEPCO is now well outside its skill zone. Everything is new and it's very complicated and risky.

Not making excuses, but with nuclear power an once of prevention is worth an infinite amount of cure. As humans we are playing with forces we cannot control or fully understand. Perhaps we should think of these things before we start.

[caseymoz]

5. True, but they also circumvented their safety standards.

That was one of the first TEPCO scandals to come out after this accident.

You're right, it is "outside their skill set," but it's outside of mine, too. If I, some schmuck who's not an engineer and who hasn't worked in nuclear power for thirty years could think of that, why can't TEPCO?

Now, maybe they tried something like that and it didn't work. Maybe the water's too contaminated to open up the containers. Maybe the dose would be fatal for any worker who tries to install a float sensor.

I don't know. But if they can't handle it, then the Japanese government needs to get the best scientists and engineers in the world to take over this, and put a huge budget behind it.

[Turbineguy]

6. You are correct

I don't know how much outside help they've brought in. But they need more.

[fascisthunter]

2. b-b-but nuke tech is so cool!

[Supersedeas]

7. messy business