8.9 Magnitude Earthquake Hits Japan + Tsunami and Alerts

Whatever their regulations are, or their past history of scandal, the case being that the plant

1. Was not meant to withstand a 9.0 earthquake
   
2. Acted as it was supposed to in the case of an earthquake (shut down completely)
   
3. Activated back up generators in the case of the earthquake damaging power modules
   
4. Activated emergency battery power in the case that the back up generators were knocked out (which they were, by the tsunami)
   

The only issue of incompetence in this whole scenario was that they couldn't receive new compatible backup diesel generators before the battery's energy had run out, which ,in itself, was never supposed to have to be used in the first place.
What we have at the Fukushima plants is the worst case scenario under normal circumstances. Now there's just a new set of worst case scenarios to reflect the fact that everything else has failed.

To say that the plant was unsafe due to the Japanese government not taking it down is absurd. And you also have to realize that nuclear power is a huge source of energy to Japan in general. I'm sure decommissioning the Fukushima reactors would have lead to a serious lack of energy. After all, Tokyo had to go through rolling blackouts in order to re-allocate energy and accommodate the towns that were closer to the disaster area.

But out of the accusation of being an oldtart, thank God.

I think you dont get it. Since Japan falsified documents and has a history of cover up with their plants, we would have no way of knowing whether this plant was properly maintained or not, and if it wasnt properly maintained then it should have been shut down years ago.

@above: thats why you build new ones away from fault lines or use other sources of electricity.
And I believe I've adiquately showed that Japan has a history of incompetence with their reactors, and as I explained experts warned the government that their regulations and safety where too lax and outdated, and that a disaster from an earthquake would happen.

Japan falsified documents.

Factually wrong according to your own sources.

I think you dont get it. Since Japan falsified documents and has a history of cover up with their plants, we would have no way of knowing whether this plant was properly maintained or not, and if it wasnt properly maintained then it should have been shut down years ago.

I think YOU don't get it. We have shifted from a) the absolute "factual" accusation of the plants being dragged out of its functional capacity due to the Japanese government's negligence to b) The possible yet unproven sub-standard states of the plant that may or may not have been responsible for the disaster we are observing.

Even if it were/is up to standards, it still is NOT designed to withstand a magnitude 8.9 quake, so the failure we are seeing is not necessarily the fault of the old infrastructure. It may very well have been, but not necessarily the dummy for you to attack on.

If the person in your "warning" example had been trying to be helpful, he could at the very least have proposed a design (or to even less a degree, an expectation) for the plants. How good should they be? Should they be redone to withstand an 8.5? A 9? A 10? Not good enough is not good enough. Nothing is ever good enough.

Of course he conveniently omitted that because his words will definitely ring true. Why? Japan is BOUND to see a quake stronger than its plants are designed for, in due time. If he had proposed a 9.1 standards, and the quake turned out to be 9.2, he would've made an idiot of himself.

Factually wrong according to your own sources.

How so? All you have been doing is making statements without proof or attempting to explain it.

@above: and 3 years ago the Japanese government was warned. They decided to ignore those warnings and this is the result.
And stop making strawmen. I never said that the old age contributed to this disaster. I only mentioned that the old age was a major issue with Japan's incompetence when it comes to nuclear power.

To be honest, I don't think many nuclear power plants would withstand a magnitude 8.9 earthquake with no failure no matter how well maintained unless it's specifically designed with earthquakes of that magnitude in mind.

To be honest, I don't think many nuclear power plants would withstand a magnitude 8.9 earthquake with no failure no matter how well maintained unless it's specifically designed with earthquakes of that magnitude in mind.

Then just to ask, then why was Japan stupid enough to put a nuclear power plant on a fault line where it would be at risk? And why would japan ignore warnings that a major earthquake could easily destroy the plant?

I honestly have no problem with nuclear power... I just have a problem with the idiots that seem to think you can put these plants in hazzardus areas and not expect a disaster.

A perfect example of the plant being designed with earthquakes in mind, was an earthquake in exact same region 4 years ago. Of course, there was no news of any threat of a Fukushima going down back then because it was properly maintained and had all the necessary safeguards. Japan is a disaster country. Every single piece of infrastructure has hurricane, typhoon, earthquake, and tsunami measures in mind. The fact that so much damage was done to an entire coastal area spreading hundreds of kilometers just proves how exceptional this case is.
The plant itself was safe enough to not be of any danger to neighboring towns under normal circumstances. And there's not much point in stating the what ifs. Fact is that fukushima 1 is never going to be able to be used again.
I don't even know if it can even be applied as a precedant for anti nuclear lobby groups due to the extraordinary events surrounding the whole failure.

@above: and 3 years ago the Japanese government was warned. They decided to ignore those warnings and this is the result.
And stop making strawmen. I never said that the old age contributed to this disaster. I only mentioned that the old age was a major issue with Japan's incompetence when it comes to nuclear power.

And since when have I been accusing you of claiming such? We simply moved from "OMG IT IS CLEARLY OUTDATED HE SAID 40 YEARS" to "Okay so it may or may not have run its course", which I had to painfully clearly point out for you earlier.

As for why they chose to keep things the way they had been, I assume it to be a cost-effective reason. They had enough reason to believe that a catastrophe, however dire, will not cause any damage to surrounding areas, and thus the plant was not worthy of completely being wiped out. Of course, this is my own guess and it's just as good as yours. Furthermore, it's about the government, what can I say.

I don't think there are many areas in Japan that don't lie on or near a fault line.

A perfect example of the plant being designed with earthquakes in mind, was an earthquake in exact same region 4 years ago. Of course, there was no news of any threat of a Fukushima going down back then because it was properly maintained and had all the necessary safeguards. Japan is a disaster country. Every single piece of infrastructure has hurricane, typhoon, earthquake, and tsunami measures in mind. The fact that so much damage was done to an entire coastal area spreading hundreds of kilometers just proves how exceptional this case is.
The plant itself was safe enough to not be of any danger to neighboring towns under normal circumstances. And there's not much point in stating the what ifs. Fact is that fukushima 1 is never going to be able to be used again.
I don't even know if it can even be applied as a precedant for anti nuclear lobby groups due to the extraordinary events surrounding the whole failure.

"He pointed out that big quakes had taken place in "close proximity" to three nuclear power plants in Japan from 2005 to 2007. In each case, the ground motion caused by the quake was stronger than that for which the plants had been designed."
"A tremor at the Kashiwazaki Kariwa plant, about 300km across the main island from Fukushima, had experienced a tremor with ground motion of 993 gal (a measure of ground movement), far beyond its design value of 450 gal."
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/japans-n...6020553408
These plants already where suffering from quakes stronger than they where designed for. It was only a matter of time before a massive failure, and nothing has been resolved since those years.

@Holypie: Then it would be wise for them to look at other options, or at least place the plants in areas that wouldnt be prone to the tidal waves, or pick areas of lower risk or perhaps use a differnt power source. As stated, experts warned japan that they where playing a risky game, and it didnt end well.
If nothing else, they should have listened to the warnings and enhanced their safety features.

I thought this was an interesting read.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthr...id=3396817

Sure there may have been a massive failure. The case is, the 9.0 earthquake did not cause the plant to fail. It was a chain of events that due to sheer misfortune that lead to the plants to fail. I already outlined that the plant did everything it was supposed to do under such circumstances. Something that ALL nuclear power plants are designed to do, regardless of whether the plant is situated near or on a fault line. The fact is Japan in its entirety survived the earthquake, but fell under the tsunami that came right after. No one ever expected a tsunami of that size to ever occur, or else no one would have ever settled there, let alone build a nuclear plant.

Regarding the issue of putting the plant somewhere besides a coastal area. That's an impossibility, it needs to siphon water from the ocean as a precaution for any unforseen event, such as this one, as well as for normal energy production after the water had been treated. Telling Japan to go use different sources of energy is the same as telling the world to stop using carbon as an energy source. It's not going to happen unless there's no other choice. And even then it's probably not going to happen.

Sure there may have been a massive failure. The case is, the 9.0 earthquake did not cause the plant to fail. It was a chain of events that due to sheer misfortune that lead to the plants to fail. I already outlined that the plant did everything it was supposed to do under such circumstances. Something that ALL nuclear power plants are designed to do, regardless of whether the plant is situated near or on a fault line. The fact is Japan in its entirety survived the earthquake, but fell under the tsunami that came right after. No one ever expected a tsunami of that size to ever occur, or else no one would have ever settled there, let alone build a nuclear plant.

Regarding the issue of putting the plant somewhere besides a coastal area. That's an impossibility, it needs to siphon water from the ocean as a precaution for any unforseen event, such as this one, as well as for normal energy production after the water had been treated. Telling Japan to go use different sources of energy is the same as telling the world to stop using carbon as an energy source. It's not going to happen unless there's no other choice. And even then it's probably not going to happen.

If you read, you would see that the scientists point is that the safety features and regulations where not enough. The point is that they should have at least enhanced their safety features and regulations. but instead warnings where ignored, and although the safety features did what they where suppose to do the government did not do what it was suppose to and make the safety features sufficient enough for the potential disasters they where warned about.
Just because the safety features are working, it doesnt mean that everything worked out just fine and that there are no problems.

Not all coastal areas are off limits. What needs to happen is that they should pick areas of low risk. The problem was that these plants where built in areas of high risk with too high of siesmic activity.
And no one will deny that converting from one power source to another is difficult, but if all the power plants are at too high of a risk, they should begin slowly weening japan off of nuclear power.
And If you looked at recent events, Obama and the EPA are doing a pretty good job of weening us off of coal. They just completely forgot to build other types of power plants to replace them, and this winter we saw the effects of that with Texas and other states suffering from rolling blackouts (except the superbowl, that place got power while hospitals suffered).


edit:
[video=youtube;u_l1Kx9ulkc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_l1Kx9ulkc&feature=player_embedded#at=77[/video]

Not all coastal areas are off limits. What needs to happen is that they should pick areas of low risk. The problem was that these plants where built in areas of high risk with too high of siesmic activity.

You're seriously saying you know better than people in the job that requires the most careful planning in the whole wide world? I'm not expert in one field, let alone the combination of the others, but I think it's fair to leave this kind of stuff to the people who know what they're doing and not wreck a mess about it. They managed to cold shutdown the reactors with NO contamination spread. I would say they did well.

Of course they should have scrapped the reactors and made new ones (which may or may not have survived this incident) three years ago just because someone wanted them to, and the blame is on them for not taking that presumably negative cost-effective course of action jussssst because it was ratified that the reactors could go for another decade after inspection. They still did well enough to preserve the safety of the large in the problem at hand, at present.
Blame could be distributed later where due.

Reactor 3 just blew. Looks like the full effort now is to make sure nothing melts. Apparently it's not as strong as previous blasts though. Radiation levels did jump up though.

You're seriously saying you know better than people in the job that requires the most careful planning in the whole wide world? I'm not expert in one field, let alone the combination of the others, but I think it's fair to leave this kind of stuff to the people who know what they're doing and not wreck a mess about it. They managed to cold shutdown the reactors with NO contamination spread. I would say they did well.

Of course they should have scrapped the reactors and made new ones (which may or may not have survived this incident) three years ago just because someone wanted them to, and the blame is on them for not taking that presumably negative cost-effective course of action jussssst because it was ratified that the reactors could go for another decade after inspection. They still did well enough to preserve the safety of the large in the problem at hand, at present.
Blame could be distributed later where due.

If they knew what they where doing then why did they ignore warnings and allow these power plants to remain in use as they where having to suffer from earthquakes at least twice as strong as they where designed to handle? Sounds to me like you are giving so called "experts" too much credit.

Your second paragraph created yet another strawman from your inability to read. Ishibashi Katsuhiko said, "Unless radical steps are taken now to reduce the vulnerability of nuclear power plants to earthquakes, Japan could experience a true nuclear catastrophe in the near future."
He never said that we should take down the plants.

Also, I dont see why cost-effectiveness should be used as an excuse to avoid impementing necessary features that could potentially save lives.

@above: apparently so: http://blogs.forbes.com/jeremybogaisky/2...ear-plant/
Although, I thought number 3 was cold shut down according to someone's earlier source. I'll probably look into it tomorrow. I need to get some rest now.

Edit: http://abcnews.go.com/International/japa...d=13131123

"In addition, the fuel rods in the reactor were melting, the official said, though the situation was not described as a meltdown. "

This might explain why I thoughtI heard 3 was shut down...
"The explosion, which occurred at 6:10 a.m., came shortly after the International Atomic Energy Agency announced that the reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant were shut down. "

Seriously... there is a lot of conflicting info out there.

Also, I dont see why cost-effectiveness should be used as an excuse to avoid impementing necessary features that could potentially save lives.

You are one to talk about inability to read.

>> not taking that presumably negative cost-effective course of action jussssst because it was ratified that the reactors could go for another decade after inspection.

It was believed to be safe, and guess what, up until now, it has been safe. This is not Italy, we don't change power plants because they are unfashionable.

What was that about the vulnerabilities by the way?
Why was it, again, stated that it was "seriously flawed" and not detailed how? I surely didn't read any of his statements because, frankly, I can make those as well within the time I take to blink my eyes twice. If one is going to claim that the designs for 55 reactors in the most sensitive industry are flawed and will surely cause disasters, he should be sensible enough to at least include an example.

You are one to talk about inability to read.

>> not taking that presumably negative cost-effective course of action jussssst because it was ratified that the reactors could go for another decade after inspection.

It was believed to be safe, and guess what, up until now, it has been safe. This is not Italy, we don't change power plants because they are unfashionable.

What was that about the vulnerabilities by the way?
Why was it, again, stated that it was "seriously flawed" and not detailed how? I surely didn't read any of his statements because, frankly, I can make those as well within the time I take to blink my eyes twice. If one is going to claim that the design for 55 reactors in the most sensitive industry are flawed and will surely cause disasters, he should be sensible enough to at least include an example.

The plants have suffered through earthquakes twice as powerful as they where designed to handle. Only a moron would not even consider the fact that they are sitting on a ticking time bomb.
Only a moron would believe this is safe.

He pointed out that big quakes had taken place in "close proximity" to three nuclear power plants in Japan from 2005 to 2007. In each case, the ground motion caused by the quake was stronger than that for which the plants had been designed.

A tremor at the Kashiwazaki Kariwa plant, about 300km across the main island from Fukushima, had experienced a tremor with ground motion of 993 gal (a measure of ground movement), far beyond its design value of 450 gal.

"Not only are the new design guidelines defective but the system to enforce them is in a shambles," wrote Professor Katsuhiko after his resignation. He said it was just a matter of luck that the epicentre of each earthquake had not been nearer.

Even if you say, they believed it was safe, the facts show that it was not safe at all.

Seriously... there is a lot of conflicting info out there.

Blame your own ignorance. The third explosion took place in Fukushima Daiichi, the shutdown Devil's Sunrise mentioned were in two reactors at Fukushima Daini.