Wednesday, May 25, 2011

#Fukushima I Nuke Plant: Reactor 1 RPV, Reactor 3 Cooling Pipe Broke In the Earthquake, TEPCO Now Says

After two months TEPCO is dribbling the information out which only proves the critics and fringe scholars and the "sensational" media abroad were right from the beginning. First was the news of core meltdowns in all three reactors, and after two months no one cared. Next, the news yesterday that the Containment Vessels, not just the RPV, have holes, and no one cared.

Today, TEPCO admits the Reactor 1's Reactor Pressure Vessel (RPV) may have broken right after the earthquake and the pipe connected to the High Pressure Coolant Injection system (HPCI) for the Reactor 3 probably also broke during the earthquake. (The article linked below doesn't say the piping is for the HPCI, but the earlier Mainichi Japanese article on May 25 says so.)

So much for the "tsunami did it" narrative that's been adopted by the government, TEPCO, and the nuke industry.

And so much for the "reactor will not break" myth cultivated by the nuke industry worldwide.

Still no one cares.

From Mainichi Shinbun English, quoting Kyodo News (5/26/2011):

TOKYO (Kyodo) --The pressure vessel housing nuclear fuel at the No. 1 reactor of the Fukushima No. 1 power plant or its accessory piping is likely to have been partially damaged immediately after the March 11 earthquake, possibly allowing steam to leak out to the containment vessel encasing it, according to data made public by its operator.

At the reactor, the magnitude 9.0 quake registered an intensity smaller than envisaged under its quake-resistance design. But if the temblor actually caused damage to the critical reactor component, power suppliers across the country might be forced to reconsider the quake resistance designs for their reactors.

A diagram showing temperature changes at the reactor's containment vessel indicates that temperatures and pressure momentarily shot up immediately after the quake.

Mitsuhiko Tanaka, a former nuclear reactor design engineer, says high-temperature steam apparently leaked out to the containment vessel after either the reactor's pressure vessel or its accessory piping was partially damaged.

The operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., admitted Wednesday that critical cooling piping at the same plant's No. 3 reactor may also have been damaged in the quake.

The utility, known as TEPCO, had earlier suggested that no major damage was done to the reactor, such as ruptures in the facility's main steam piping, until the arrival of massive tsunami after the quake.

"If we do our analysis on the premise that there was a leak in the piping, it matches (data) in reality," a TEPCO official said at a news conference, referring to possible damage at the No. 3 reactor. "We can't deny the possibility."

According to TEPCO, as soon as the reactor's emergency core cooling system was activated shortly after noon on March 12, pressure inside both the reactor's pressure vessel and containment vessel, which encases the pressure vessel, dropped, suggesting that steam was leaking from the cooling pipe.

While measuring devices may have malfunctioned, pressure readings corresponded to an analysis based on the hypothesis that steam did indeed leak from the piping, TEPCO said.

At the No. 3 reactor, the earthquake had an intensity greater than envisioned under resistance guidelines. The cooling piping is housed in a building designed to resist direct damage from tsunami.

"We must fully accept the fact that (the earthquake) has been cited as a possible" cause for the damage to piping, said Goshi Hosono, a special adviser to Prime Minister Naoto Kan, at a news conference.

"A thorough investigation should be carried out on the cause of the incident" after the government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency analyzes related data, he added.

Agency spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama stressed at the same news conference that steam leaks from the piping have not actually been confirmed.

Another analysis by TEPCO has shown that breaches may have occurred to containment vessels encasing the Nos. 1 and 2 reactors at the power plant in Fukushima Prefecture, possibly causing leaks of highly radioactive water.

The possible ruptures to the containment vessels at the Nos. 1 and 2 reactors are certain to complicate efforts to deal with accumulating contaminated water there, raising questions about the soundness of a TEPCO plan to rebuild a stable cooling system by around mid-July.

In a report submitted to the agency, TEPCO said that if a breach around 3 centimeters in diameter occurred at the No. 1 reactor's containment vessel 18 hours after the quake and it widened to about 7 cm 50 hours after the quake, it would account for changes in pressure readings inside the containment vessel.

TEPCO said it believes that parts used to ensure air tightness in the containment vessel may have broken from overheating, judging from temperatures measured when the leaking possibly occurred.

The company also hypothesized that a rupture roughly 10 cm in diameter occurred to the No. 2 reactor's containment vessel 21 hours after the quake due to elevated temperatures, among other factors, finding that it also corresponds with data obtained.

The same TEPCO report has also shown that massive amounts of hydrogen likely formed at the Nos. 1 to 3 reactors shortly after water levels dropped in their reactor cores and exposed nuclear fuel inside, possibly causing explosions at the buildings housing the reactors.

According to TEPCO's analysis, about 750 kilograms of hydrogen gas was produced at the No. 1 reactor, between 350 and 800 kg at the No. 2 reactor and between 600 and 700 kg at the No. 3 reactor.

Hydrogen is formed when zirconium cladding on fuel rods gets heated and reacts chemically with water.

Between 300 and 400 kg of the gas quickly formed within an hour of exposure at each reactor, the analysis shows, though No. 2 was spared the kind of explosion that blew off the roofs of the buildings for the other two reactors in the days following the massive quake and tsunami.

There is a possibility that the No. 2 reactor escaped an explosion because a ventilating hatch on the upper part of its building was opened in time, unlike at the Nos. 1 and 3 reactors.

TEPCO is struggling to bring the three reactors and a spent fuel storage pool at the No. 4 reactor under control, with the plant's two other reactors having already been brought into a stable condition called "cold shutdown."


(PS: Struggling almost all day with the ISP tech support for internet connection at our new place. Still only manage to get onto the net one computer at a time, and this ISP claims they don't know anything about networks with a third-party router (a major one like Linksys). Aghhh.)

8 comments:

Oops said...

I thought you were awfully quiet today ;-)

I find it amazing, still, NONE of the major news networks are picking this up and running with it. Just shocked, still.

Anonymous said...

Robbie001 sez:

I was starting to wonder, I had issues with some of my comment disappearing and then slowly reappearing. Separately, I've also started running up against Captcha queries during certain Google searches involving nuclear issues right when you went quiet. The blip had me thinking maybe TEPCO had finally found the "Internet Off Switch".

Ain't that peculiar
A peculiar-arity
Ain't that peculiar baby
Peculiar as can be.

I'm not shocked by the silence from the MSM that is what happens when 6 companies own 99% of the major news outlets in the US. You'll notice news programs like 60 minutes aren't breaking stories like the Ford Pinto tragedies or offering meaningful "point/counterpoint" style debate anymore. Today's investigative programs shy away from corporate malfeasance in favor of human interest and politics or civil crime. Major corporations learned from stuff like exploding Pintos, TMI and Bophal that they needed to own the news so they could shape reality. Through the Fortune 500's political manipulations they were able to get the laws on media ownership changed so they could buy up and homogenize news outlets. Today's news is mostly ads for products or corporate public relations superficially packaged as news. The MSM eventually apologized for dropping the ball on WMD's for what that's worth you can bet they won't do the same for Fukushima.

Anonymous said...

Why do you have to rely on your ISP to configure your router?

Anyway, as a stop-gap you could buy an extra network card or wi-fi usb dongle and do connection sharing from the one computer you have connected already (Windows is quite helpful with this).

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

@robbie, google seems to put a lot of messages in SPAM, even if they are not spam. I have to go there and manually remove what google said spam.

There is a rumor and the Japanese government is (or was, about a week ago) thinking about suing GE and the Obama admin for product liability (Mark-1 reactors at Fukushima).

@anon, I don't need the ISP for router config. The problem is that the setup as per instruction of ATT tech rep seems to have totally screwed up the LAN connection. With the previous ISP, I didn't even need to config anything on the router. Their rep "Do you have more than one computer connected? Is your router our router? No? Sorry we don't know anything."

Tim said...

if you need tech help...i may be able to help you..not sure how we can email each other, unless you can see my email address...dont want to broadcast it

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

@Tim, all I want to do is this: set up so that both my computers can log onto the net using ATT's high-speed DSL service.

Modem: Speedstream 5360 (ATT does support this)
Router: Linksys Wireless G broadband router (using wired), WRT54G.

I had to do the manual sign up using PPPoE as per their instruction because my modem "was too old" for their sign-up system so that I could register. Now, every time I want to log on I have to click ATT icon as if I were on a dial up, and only one computer can get on the net at one time no matter what setting I tweak.

If you have any suggestion on what I could do, let me know. I'm near the point of canceling this (though I was promised I could get 6Mbs) and call the old provider.

Tim said...

I did some digging and that modem is a real piece of crap....
here is a very good link for information on it
http://www.dslreports.com/faq/eff/6_5360

Below i have pasted some very interesting details

I highlighted the most important...fixed speed of 10 Mbps and that you need to do a firmware update if it hasn't already had one.
You would be better off getting a different modem....this one is dumb as a rock...just a bridge
Your linksys has a known connection problem with this one as well....the modems problem not the linksys router's http://www6.nohold.net/Cisco2/ukp.aspx?vw=1&docid=aa1e3bb5866f4c0eae5c9d090e91c87c_341.xml&pid=80&respid=0&snid=2&dispid=0&cpage=search

If you want to save yourself a headache you might consider:

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=dsl+modem&hl=en&prmd=ivnsr&biw=1680&bih=882&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=10391609559898302035&sa=X&ei=vvveTaShBuvq0QHizOGgCg&ved=0CIQBEPMCMAA

Let me know if this was of any help

Tim


Why can't I get a green 'enet' light?
First, make sure the Ethernet cable is connected to the RJ45 jack on the modem. Try swapping cables if you can't verify it is a good cable.

The two most common reasons for no Ethernet link (enet) light:
•Depending on what you connect the modem to, you may need a cross-over cable. If you are connecting directly to a computer or the WAN/Modem port of a DSL router, a standard, straight-through Ethernet cable should work fine. If you connect to a network hub, you will either need to put it in an "uplink" port or use a cross-over cable.

•The port on the 5360 will only work at 10 Mbps. If you have a 100Mbps hub or switch that doesn't support 10 Mbps, it won't work. Also, if the network gear doesn't "auto-sense" the media but supports 10 Mbps and 100 Mbps, you may need to force it to 10 Mbps. The same goes for computer network cards. Your manufacturer's documentation or web site should describe how to do this.



got feedback?
by leevis edited by lev
last modified: 2009-04-05 17:49:11
Can I telnet into the 5360?
No, the 5360 does not have a telnet or web browser interface.

got feedback?
by leevis edited by Doctor Olds
last modified: 2004-05-16 02:35:50
Does the 5360 support syslog, snmp traps, etc.?
No, it does not support syslog, snmp, etc.

got feedback?
by leevis edited by Doctor Olds
last modified: 2004-05-16 02:36:21
What is the default IP address of the 5360?
The 5360 does not have an IP address. It has a MAC (layer 2) address, which is used for sending (bridging) the data traffic between the client side and the ISP side.

got feedback?
by leevis edited by Doctor Olds
last modified: 2004-05-16 02:36:58
How can I get firmware upgrades for the 5360?
Efficient Networks does not make them available through their web site. The modem and client software are typically supported through your ISP. Check their DSL support web pages.

These are only two that are known:

1] Efficient 5360 DSL Modem Firmware Upgrade
NOTE: Only for the Speedstream 5360 DSL Modem with Part number: 060-5360-003

Direct Link to file: 5360ModemUpgrade.exe

2] Speedstream 5360 (Part #060-5360-023) Slow Surf Firmware fix?
NOTE: Only for the Speedstream 5360 DSL Modem with Part number: 060-5360-023

Direct Link to file: SBC_5360_Setup.zip

Car Enthusiast said...

News stated that only Reactor no.3 broke. Was it true that not only one of four reactors were broken during the earthquake? Earthquake-prone areas.

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