Power Plant Melt Down Obama's Fault?

[hambone]

And the waste lasts hundreds of thousands of years. That's a lot of responsibility for a species with a tenuous hold on existence. There is a reason we're not driving atomic cars like envisioned in the duck-n-cover daze. Until a way is designed to delete the waste then it is only a canker on Earth for future beings to deal with.

[flyawaydesigns]

Too late now anyway. The reactors have blown their lids. The depleted rods in storage have no water to cool them and they have caused fires due to the heat.....no matter whose fault it (or was) no one can save them now. Meltdown is imminent. As of tonight, the 50 workers left in to manage the mess have been told to leave the facility due to overexposure to radiation. No one will be replacing them.

Everyone......stand back a bit.....we're not sure how big this will get.

From my engineering point of view, the single problem that caused this was the fact that they had both sets of generators (the primary and secondary) on ground below the level of the plant. The plants withstood the earthquake just fine. The tidal wave washed out the generators and switch gear that were critical for cooling the reactors and the storage pool. The real blame lays with the person who did the site layout and placed the generators in a very vulnerable spot. Had they been elevated on a secure, tsunami proof structure, they would have never lost control of the water supply.

Just my 2 cents

[Bleyseng]

What about the one generator that couldn't be started due to empty fuel tanks!

[flyawaydesigns]

Didn't hear or read anything about one reactor's generator set having an empty fuel tank.......sounds like someone musta forgot to read the gauge......

And late last night, they announced that 50 workers did return to the plants after the radiation levels temporarily dropped. No mention in that article whether they were the same 50 that left though.....

[turk]

No, they are rotated. How about the fact FOUR generators are all in the same place? That seems kinda crazy to me. Look at the chaos of dealing with them all in the same location as one or the other blows off the roof of its building. Also, why were they even placed on the east coast rather than the west coast, assuming the fault lines are on the east side and the bigger sea (for tsunami) as well. I still think it's likely they will contain most of the radiation and the crisis will pass. Then the whole plant and design flwas have to be investigated.

[flyawaydesigns]

I agree that it was insane to have so many reactors at one site. In most any disaster scenario it would be difficult to manage many facilities one one site all at once. It's a "too many eggs in one basket" sorta thing and consequently the difficulty factor increases.

As for siting the plants on the east coast, my guess it was because of the prevailing wind direction being offshore (west to east).

We pay attention to that when designing toxic gas systems for the semiconductor industry here. We have data on the prevailing wind direction and make sure the gas pads are in a location where the winds blow the "gas cloud" away from the plant....

[skin daddio]

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011 ... aphic.html

push play

[Birdibus]

There's something inherently scary to me in a technology with a failure mode that is runaway catastrophe. Most things slow down or end themselves when they break, not speed up to an uncontrollable state.

since the plant itself survived an earthquake well past what it was designed for, im sure all future plants and upgrades to existing plants in tsunami prone area's will mandate a solution to this problem.

there's no reason to completely abandon the technology now, so long as we learn from our mistakes along the way.

SOLUTION to the problem??? There is NO solution to the human STUPIDITY of building nuclear reactors in the first place. There is no way to prevent eventual failure.... whether soon by natural/manmade disaster, or later by corrosion of spent-fuel storage containers.

We are completely arrogant to think we can engineer a solution to this dangerous technology which should not have been created in the first place.

How could someone possibly compare the effects of destruction of a solar electric facility to the destruction of a nuclear plant? Broken solar panels are not going to spread radiation around the globe... ridiculous comment.

No nukes, no nukes, NO NUKES.

[turk]

Nukes are the future.

[airkooledchris]

Nukes are the future.

children are our future. bright green luminescent children.
on the plus side, nobody needs a flashlight.
on the down side, life expectancy is going to be in the 30's again, though living past your 20's will be brutally painful.


back to being serious for now, humans ARE energy. get on your bicycle and start peddling if you want to watch TV tonight.
the technology exists for those who aren't lazy*

*im lazy

[turk]

We shoulda never invented 99 % of anything. Hell, we shoulda never been born. Damn. Wish we could just cease existing. LOL

[airkooledchris]

we shoulda never been born. Damn. Wish we could just cease existing. LOL

the clock is ticking for everyone, the only variable is how much time is left for you.

[turk]

Let's not make this a "tit-for-tat bickering" contest now, lest everyone starts taking off their shirts and protesting. Okay, we're all gonna die.

[airkooledchris]

Good idea, don't start doing that.

From what ive seen in Bahrain, taking off your shirt still doesn't guarantee you won't get shot.

[Birdibus]

man, has this website taken a dive.