BBC: The engineer who helped design the containment vessel for reactor core says...

[bananas]

From GD:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x640864

The engineer who helped design the containment vessel for reactor core says...

Japanese engineer Masashi Goto, who helped design the containment vessel for Fukushima's reactor core, says the design was not enough to withstand earthquakes or tsunamis and the plant's builders, Toshiba, knew this. More on Mr Goto's remarks to follow.

Mr Goto says his greatest fear is that blasts at number 3 and number 1 reactors may have damaged the steel casing of the containment vessel designed to stop radioactive material escaping into the atmosphere. More to follow.

More from Japanese nuclear engineer Masashi Goto: He say that as the reactor uses mox (mixed oxide) fuel, the melting point is lower than that of conventional fuel. Should a meltdown and an explosion occur, he says, plutonium could be spread over an area up to twice as far as estimated for a conventional nuclear fuel explosion. The next 24 hours are critical, he says.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12307698

This is from the guy who helped design the containment vessel for Fukushima's reactor core. If there was anyone you would want to listen to he is the one.

Here they are on the BBC live updates page in reverse time order:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12307698

<snip>

1431: More from Japanese nuclear engineer Masashi Goto: He say that as the reactor uses mox (mixed oxide) fuel, the melting point is lower than that of conventional fuel. Should a meltdown and an explosion occur, he says, plutonium could be spread over an area up to twice as far as estimated for a conventional nuclear fuel explosion. The next 24 hours are critical, he says.

1426: Mr Goto says his greatest fear is that blasts at number 3 and number 1 reactors may have damaged the steel casing of the containment vessel designed to stop radioactive material escaping into the atmosphere. More to follow.

1422: Japanese engineer Masashi Goto, who helped design the containment vessel for Fukushima's reactor core, says the design was not enough to withstand earthquakes or tsunamis and the plant's builders, Toshiba, knew this. More on Mr Goto's remarks to follow.

<snip>

[Lefta Dissenter]

1. that bbc link

is great.

Thanks for posting.

k&r

[FBaggins]

2. One was a GE reactor and the other was a Toshiba reactor.

Did he design both of them?

In fact... what precisely does "helped design" mean?

[snagglepuss]

3. BBC

Japanese engineer Masashi Goto, who helped design the containment vessel for Fukushima's reactor core, says the design was not enough to withstand earthquakes or tsunamis and the plant's builders, Toshiba, knew this. More on Mr Goto's remarks to follow.

Mr Goto says his greatest fear is that blasts at number 3 and number 1 reactors may have damaged the steel casing of the containment vessel designed to stop radioactive material escaping into the atmosphere. More to follow.

More from Japanese nuclear engineer Masashi Goto: He say that as the reactor uses mox (mixed oxide) fuel, the melting point is lower than that of conventional fuel. Should a meltdown and an explosion occur, he says, plutonium could be spread over an area up to twice as far as estimated for a conventional nuclear fuel explosion. The next 24 hours are critical, he says.

[FBaggins]

4. Doesn't really answer the question.

So the people putting him on stage present him as an expert. I got that. Maybe he is.

I'm trying to judge whether or not this is accurate. "Helped design" could mean anything from "the lead designer of the model" (in which case, isn't he partly to blame for the fact that it wasn't designed for local conditions?) to "he's the guy who designed the bend in the pipe that's a little different at this facility"

He could also just be someone falsely putting himself forward as an expert.

I hate to sound like an anti-nuke, but I've seen too many occasions where someone is put forward as an expert on a nuclear-related topic and turns out to be lying.

Doug Rokke comes to mind... who claimed he was a Health Physicist with a PhD in Physics and that he was the Director of the Army's Depleted Uranium Project. You might be inclined to listed to someone with those credentials when talking about DU...

...except that he was lying. And some anti-nuke groups kept putting him up on stage with the same BS claims even after they knew that he was lying.

I just thought it was interesting that he was touted a designer for "the" containment at Fukushima... when #1 and #3 are not the same design.

[Mojorabbit]

5. I found this

‘The problem was with the cooling system,’ said Goto, a former Toshiba employee specializing in containment vessel design.
http://the-diplomat.com/tokyo-notes/2011/03/14/radiation-threat-for-tokyo/

[SpoonFed]

6. Since we're on the subject...

I wouldn't put it past the nuke lobby to have people on various Internet forums just for the purposes of discrediting any nuclear industry participant that has anything reluctant or bad to say about said industry, to the point of personally attacking their credibility directly.

Such a person could even suggest that nuke industry has directly lied on a number of occassions and point to that as an example that suggests the anti-nuke people must also use similar tactics.

So, did you have an credible evidence that Mr. Goto is some sort of shill,
or is this just speculation on your part? Or does it just seem familiar?

[FBaggins]

7. "to the point of personally attacking their credibility directly."

Umm... isn't that what you're doing?

an example that suggests the anti-nuke people must also use similar tactics.

Or you could just point to examples where they DID lie. As I did.


So, did you have an credible evidence that Mr. Goto is some sort of shill

Not a bit... which is why I didn't suggest that he was. I merely asked whether we had more information and expressed confusion re: what had already been claimed. It's unlikely that he designed both a GE reactor's containment and a Toshiba reactor's. While the article just implies that he designed "the containment at Fukushima" (when there are three designs on site).

[SpoonFed]

8. 4th reactor

I watched a live feed of the press conference with Mr. Goto very early this morning. He seemed very credible to me and very self-effacing with regards to his participation and reponsibility with regards to the nuclear industry and safety.

What is further worrying is that he briefly mentioned that No 2 and No 4 are following the same event time line as No 1 and No 3. I find it interesting that nobody else has been talking about No 4, just yet.

But that seems par for the course in terms of limited reports of minimal concern until something bad seems to happen.

He said he left the industry after he had ethical problems with the fact that he could no longer believe that the containment systems he was building would be adequate to ensure public safety, or at least that is my interpretation. He said that he felt an obligation to step forward to provide information and understanding of the situation since he was a specialist.

There were some very interesting comments on his part regarding the response and openness (or lack there) of the government and power company officials. You can probably still find the stream on ustream.tv.

[FBaggins]

9. They're very clearly all on the same course.

The lack of an explosion at the other two is likely just as much a factor of random chance as anything else.

It's not the "same timeline" or they all would have gone off together, but the design failure is the same... so the results are at least comparable.

But that seems par for the course in terms of limited reports of minimal concern until something bad seems to happen.

I disagree. They were clear that another explosion was possible and they've been announcing venting in advance. We know there's a danger associated with that. They've also announced imminent and ongoing meltdown events proptly. The "reports of minimal concern" have been related to the potential public exposure to dangerous amounts of radiation... and, so far, those reports have been accurate.

[SpoonFed]

10. Are you post facto spin doctoring?

> They were clear that another explosion was possible and they've been announcing venting in advance.

"An explosion was heard from the No. 1 plant at about 3:36 p.m. and white smoke was witnessed about 10 minutes later, Tokyo Electric Power Co officials said, adding that four workers were injured. However, the cause of the blast remained unknown, according to The Daily Yomiuri." (http://english.pravda.ru/news/world/12-03-2011/117171-japan-0/)

The explosions also seemed to be violently different from one another as seen from the satellite imagery.

I don't really know how one predicts that explosions are possible if one does not know the cause of the explosion that has already happened. Sufficed to say that any 3rd grader could hazard a guess that if one of those things exploded it might be possible with some indeterminate probability that another might as well. Such a guess does not sound like solid engineering, scientific theory or industrial safety to me.

> We know there's a danger associated with that. They've also announced imminent and ongoing
meltdown events proptly.

I presume that you've been erring on the side of unbridled optimism, while not citing these prompt and imminent reports of melting and meltdown, because?

PS. I cannot fathom the intellectual fortitude or lack there of that is required to enter the semantic debate over whether or not "same timeline" and "same course" mean different things.

[FBaggins]

11. Not at all.

I don't really know how one predicts that explosions are possible if one does not know the cause of the explosion

They didn't say it instantaneously after the first explosion (when they were not certain of the cause since the people involved had just been in... wait for it... and explosion. But they warned of it LONG before the second one occurred. They said that they were going to need to continue venting and that the possibility of an explosion was real.

I presume that you've been erring on the side of unbridled optimism, while not citing these prompt and imminent reports of melting and meltdown, because?

What on earth are you talking about? We've discussed the ongoing dangers of meltdown since the first release contained elements that indicated at least some core damage. We also discussed it when fuel rods were first reported to be exposed. I must have posted on the subject at least a dozen times.

You've got to ask yourself... if you can only debate by making the other person's position up for them... why do you need DU?

PS. I cannot fathom the intellectual fortitude or lack there of that is required to enter the semantic debate over whether or not "same timeline" and "same course" mean different things.

It was a passing comment. I agreed with the principle (in fact, I said essentially the same thing to jpak before this guy even made a statement). What's your point? How am I debating that they "mean different things" when I specifically said they are "at least comparable"? Please take my last question above... wash, rinse, and repeat. :)

[kristopher]

12. It is a planned strategy that Baggy specializes in.

The goal is to goad the nuclear opponent into engaging on a long series of false, progressively inane and pointless claims with the result that good content becomes difficult to locate.

It is much like the Dead Parrot skit from Monty Python; in fact I suspect that is the inspiration.

[diane in sf]

13. thank you

[SpoonFed]

14. Fire at Daiichi No 4., Explosion at No.2

So unbelievably, hours later, Mr. Goto seemed correct in his commentary about
the looming catastrophic problems at No 2. and No. 4.

The PM was just on live television (I watched it) about an hour ago and
suddenly dropped the news that No 4 has a yet unexplained fire. Supposedly
it wasn't fueled and operating.

I'll guess that it's the stored used fuel we've been discussing on another
thread, I mean what else is going to burn up. This is just getting horribly
worse by the hour and day.