Ooops, a deep 5 after a 7.3 last week. Mother nature at it again. Sec Moniz was recently over visiting Fukushima before the big removal process begins to take fuel rods out of spent fuel pool 4 with the hope to get them into a safer location on the ground in a container that hasnt been weakened by fire and explosions to the point of once being visibly leaning. This is one of those areas the worlds scientists want in on and to allow other countries a veto on this procedure since one goof and the whole things could be t-ts up as the saying goes. Apparently they have not been invited, and Sec Moniz, a frack and nuke guy himself, was there representing and making sure he okayed something he actually thought had a chance of working. He blamed the initial accident on a tsunami rather than humans placing a nuclear plant next to a shoreline known for its earthquakes, if not right on top of the fault-line directly beneath the facility, and deliberately lowering the natural protective sea wall by thirty feet to make unloading cargo ships cheaper. In that vein, a tremor during a rod removal will also be blamed for the earth not holding still during such a difficult operation. His argument? - everything will be fine as long as mother nature does her part. The room for error between how close or how far apart these rods can be from each other before instantly starting a nuclear chain reaction right then and there is micro inths of a percent of an inch. This procedure is usually performed by a mechanical robot and computer since it has to be done just right, but, absent robots and computers that can work in high radiation fields and all the debris in the pool on top of damaged fuel rods, it all has to be done by hand for years. As Libby HaLevy of NuclearHotSeat describes it, and i paraphrase - some guy operating a crane hundreds of meters away looking through a pair of binoculars. Yikes! A little earthquake wobble during what could otherwise be a good extraction, and well, you have a bad extraction. If that doesnt result in the ultimate worst case, then they can move everyone out, decontaminate the area again, then try again later. Worst case? Think good thoughts, think still earth in Fukushima, a prefecture in an island nation that averages 1000 earthquakes a year. Think - stop! there must be a better way. Bring in the big thinkers please. Think those thoughts with me. If this matter werent so serious, id be taking bets that Sec Moniz will put the blame on an earthquake should something go wrong rather than holding the fellows accountable for building a nuke plant in the land of earthquakes? Oh, did that bring up a really important connection as to why no one is invited? Why, yes, i think it did! Those fellows are still around and so is their company - GE and Westinghouse to name two. Both US and Japanese owned stock. Hmmm...such a coincidence. They started getting a little nervous when some independent nuclear scientists said that it was these guys what built the damn thing. So, better to leave the most talented minds in the world out of making a solution and just keep everything in the family ;-)
Posted on: Mon, 04 Nov 2013 09:18:57 +0000
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