Japan disaster: Nuclear plant workers 'resigned to death'

[FourScore]

Japan disaster: Nuclear plant workers 'resigned to death'
Updated 2:33 PM Monday Mar 21, 2011

Workers at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant said they were "resigned to death" when the 9-magnitude quake struck on March 11.

One worker told NHK World he was working at unit 4 when he heard a "roar" and the lights cut out.

He said the water in the spent fuel storage pool drenched everyone. "I thought I was going to die," he said through a translator.

On leaving the building, he saw white smoke coming out of the unit one reactor, which suffered a hydrogen explosion the next day...

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10713988

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Some of us pointed this out

realize that this was obvious...

Sadly so will the firefighters.

And we all will owe them a great debt of gratitude.

[angstlessk]

5. The Debt oF Gratitude should have been paid BEFORE the tragedity...

but of course the PAY GRATITUDE WENT TO THE CEO..WHO FLED TOKYO....AT THE FIRST CHANCE....WHY ARE THEY PAID THE HIGHEST SALARIES AGAIN?

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. Actually no they did not

it is a sense of honor that is strange.

Nobody has said, give me my life back.

In fact they are very much IN TOKYO, with the government.

After that, yes, it be nice if TEPCO did not have shall we say a history... or that regulators and corporations are in bed even tighter than ours...

but at this point, no they did not flee.

[tavalon]

15. Actually, I'm fairly sure the CEO is still there

It would bring great shame upon him if he left. They have a different value system from our CEOs.

[aquart]

19. Ours have no shame.

[tavalon]

21. Too true.

[nadinbrzezinski]

24. VERY DIFFERENT value system

and face is extremely hard to explain.

Let's just say that they did not just dishonor TEPCO... but since this is now a global disaster (see radiation), they also have embarrassed the COUNTRY.

That is the closest I can come to explaining this...

And at the risk of really upsetting some people, when this is well over watch how many of the people in top management tier and government tier die from not so natural causes.

I am sorry to upset people but this is part of the culture.

[aquart]

16. Yes. What are the chances it will ever be paid?

Thinking of how America made the 9/11 first responders beg for health care for years. And how we cut veterans benefits the week we invaded Iraq.

I hope Japan has more honor.

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. For starters they have one of the top

rated public run health care systems in the world.

[howaboutme]

2. Now if only Wall St would have had the same ideals

These people are probably not highly paid like those mongers on Wall Street, but they have morals unlike those on Wall St. Wall St will be remembered for what they are, and so will these individuals. May the lords bless them.

[grahamhgreen]

3. "the water in the spent fuel storage pool drenched everyone", whoever approved this

design should be in jail, and the company sued for every last dime (GE).

[Wilms]

7. That's new info. And wow!

Will GE/et. al. claim the water wouldn't have sloshed out in a 7.0 quake?

[grahamhgreen]

13. No doubt. But that should

be easy to find out, since there are similar plants, and numerous quakes.

[tavalon]

17. A 9.0 quake is orders of magnitude larger than a 7.0

It's kind of like comparing a dik dik to a giraffe and saying that they're basically the same kind of thing.

[Wilms]

29. Many orders. Well aware. n/t

[tavalon]

31. Not everyone is

My humble apologies.

[Wilms]

32. No apology required. It's an important point.

And maybe it wouldn't have mattered had the cooling system been intact as was able to top off the pool.

The NRC says they've prepared for this in the US requiring plants to have fire hoses available. But what if that "cooling system" is rendered ineffective due to the nature of the failure.

I'm talking about a plane. I had to ask myself why the WTC was targeted for 9/11 when there were plenty of nuclear plants close to the airports from where the planes departed. Any terrorist worth their salt would have salivated at the crippling blow THAT would have rendered.

By comparison, the WTC destruction was a symbolic one. And we KNOW symbols are useful.

:tinfoilhat:

[tavalon]

34. I see your tin foil hat and raise you one

Anyone with eyes can see. But I'd like this to stay in general discussion, so that's all I'll say.

Peace.

[aquart]

23. How radioactive is sloshed spent fuel water?

As a general rule?

[Wilms]

30. I don't no. But the other issue is the water leaving the pool.

Now the ability to cool the rods, and shield against the radioactivity, is compromised.

[drm604]

4. Does this mean the spent fuel pool was cracked by the earthquake?

It sounds like either the pool or pipes cracked. How else would they be drenched by the water?

[Agony]

6. sloshy, sloshy

I would guess?

[drm604]

9. It seems hard to believe that they're constructed with the top open to the air.

I would have thought that they were sealed containers.

Although, come to think of it, that can't be the case if they thought that they could refill them with fire hoses.

[Urban Prairie]

12. Nope, they used cranes to hoist and drop spent fuel rods into the pools

I would imagine the crane operators had to be located above the lip of the pools so they could see where to place them, but that is just my WAG.

[drm604]

18. I would have thought that they'd have some kind of water tight lid

that could be opened when placing and removing the spent fuel.

Obviously I'm no nuclear engineer so I guess I'm not qualified to say, but it seems like you'd want to keep them covered. :shrug:

Also, it seems like the cranes would be remote controlled to protect the operators from radiation while unshielded rods are being moved.

[Urban Prairie]

26. The spent fuel rods were under 25 feet of pool water

which apparently was enough for eliminating radioactive emission to the interior of the reactors, dunno about the crane operators, but I would guess the crane's cabs were tightly sealed and likely heavily shielded.

[jtuck004]

33. Open to the ceiling.

[Sirveri]

22. They still are, at least they were last time I was inside the Clinton, IL plant.

Stood right on top of the containment building next to the spent fuel pool. Room was a concrete bunker with a pair of steel airlock doors. Actually walked up to the edge and peered in. Lots of fun, that was a clean plant.

[Hannah Bell]

8. "when the 9-magnitude quake struck on March 11."

[Marblehead]

11. vid of some of them

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8Tds5d-ApU&feature=rtupdates&src=yt_results&tid=49631491986173952&eid=1300672901126213_177434626_3787852807&l=www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3Dv8Tds5d-ApU

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. Thanks for sharing

[Sirveri]

25. Should be noted that they're limited to 250mSv, which is 1/4 the dose for rad poisoning.

They will have daily readings of their TLD's, they will be given Iodine, and they will have to frisk in and out to insure they aren't contaminated (they might be getting scrubbed every time they cycle). They'll probably be fine unless they push their limits up to 1Sv, but so far I haven't seen that. Probably just cycle them in from another plant.

[Urban Prairie]

27. This guy's blog was linked on a thread discussing the nuke disaster @ The Oil Drum website

"The zirconium-clad fuel rods must be kept submerged in water at all times, or they do heat up, and then the zirconium cladding oxidizes (burns) very rapidly and disintegrates into a powder. This is already enough information to tell us that a lot of the “fuel rods” at Fukushima are no longer rod-shaped, because the zirconium cladding has disintegrated, and that the fuel pellets must have fallen out and accumulated at the bottoms of the reactor vessels, where they are packed close together and heating up further. How much further they heat up will determine whether they will melt through the bottoms of the reactors. If they do, they would probably melt into the ground below and form a large pancake of hot, molten slag, which will slowly crumble into radioactive dust over many years, as has happened at Chernobyl."

He pretty much gives a somewhat broad, and paranoia-less account of his thoughts on what he believes has and is occurring @ the Fukushima I nuclear facility, although as we all know, the radiation danger has not passed as yet, and an "all-clear" announcement made, which if so, may take days, weeks, if not months, or perhaps in the worst case, particularly for the Japanese, never.


http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2011/03/nuclear-meltdowns-101.html">Nuclear Meltdowns 101

[jwirr]

28. And I understand it is not just 50 people but more like 200. They have

been working in shifts.