Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy - BBC News

[Forbidden Wafer]

On 2/9/2022 at 12:35 PM, J-from-Nucleon said:

So, exactly how close are we to break-even?

Not that far off, but even then, other problems still remain: 1) keep them running continuously, 2) too little net energy per reactor

Wendelstein 7-X is under upgrade, and they expect to keep it going for 30-minute bursts. https://www.euro-fusion.org/news/detail/a-cooled-exhaust-for-wendelstein-7-x/

[wanderingfool2]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

I know I was literally doing it for arguments sake. Also tsunami's have and are caused by underwater rock falls by earthquake or volcanic activity (pacific island tsunami recently).

Oh, sorry...I meant that to be @Imbadatnames's folly...not yours (since he's the one considering it separate distinct events).  From what you have written, I totally agree with everything you have said.

[leadeater]

8 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Oh, sorry...I meant that to be @Imbadatnames's folly...not yours (since he's the one considering it separate distinct events).  From what you have written, I totally agree with everything you have said.

Oh oops, well.... just ignore me then hahah I stupid

[Imbadatnames]

16 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Oh, sorry...I meant that to be @Imbadatnames's folly...not yours (since he's the one considering it separate distinct events).  From what you have written, I totally agree with everything you have said.

You know not every offshore earthquake generates a significant tsunami right? The argument is that the two events occurred very quickly after each other and the earthquake was so fractionally over what would cause a shut down it caused the issues. Overall people aren’t understanding how nuclear power works, how the plants operate, their Gail’s ages and what actually happened at both Fukushima and Chernobyl and why it happened. Funnily enough no one has mentioned 3MI, probably because it doesn’t fit their narrative 

[leadeater]

12 minutes ago, Imbadatnames said:

and the earthquake was so fractionally over what would cause a shut down it caused the issues

Fractionally over? It was a 9.0, that's on the list of strongest recorded earthquakes ever..

 

Quote

The 9.0-magnitude quake was so forceful it shifted the Earth off its axis

 

But again, if the earthquake was way further off shore, didn't cause SCRAM the ensuing tsunami what would have come would have triggered a manual SCRAM, causing the same flood damage causing more than likely the same disaster because all the critical failure modes were due to water as the incident report so stipulates.

 

Edit:

[Imbadatnames]

2 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Fractionally over? It was a 9.0, that's on the list of strongest earthquakes ever..

That’s at the source point not the reactor at the reactor the force exceeded the tolerance by about 0.1g which isn’t that much. 

2 minutes ago, leadeater said:

 

 

But again, if the earthquake was way further off shore, didn't cause SCRAM the ensuing tsunami what would have come would have triggered a manual SCRAM, causing the same flood damage causing more than likely the same disaster because all the critical failure modes were due to water as the incident report so stipulates.

This is here the not understanding the plants comes in. If the reactors hadn’t shut down due to the earthquake then the disaster wouldn’t have happened. The reactor would have provided power to its own cooling system rather than relying on the diesel generators which were now flooded. Essentially all the flooding did was remove emergency power from the reactor, if the plant wasn’t shut down it wouldn’t need it. If there was more time between the events the reactors would have been back online too. 
 

Also we’re splitting hairs here, Fukushima was the worst case scenario where the safety mechanisms actually failed which only occurred due to extreme circumstances and ultimately 0 people died directly from it officially and after site cleanup people will be able to return there and even grow food from the soil around the reactor. That is so safe it is bordering on insane.  What other industry could have you safety systems fail and  no one die? 

 

[leadeater]

57 minutes ago, Imbadatnames said:

That’s at the source point not the reactor at the reactor the force exceeded the tolerance by about 0.1g which isn’t that much. 

I have provided the intensity map as an edit, please do share what the threshold was?

 

57 minutes ago, Imbadatnames said:

If the reactors hadn’t shut down due to the earthquake then the disaster wouldn’t have happened.

Well I completely disagree for the reason I have, I believe extremely strongly that they would have been shutdown from the tsunami alone due to safety concerns. So firstly present a good argument as to why that would not have happened.

 

 

And you want to know the difference between having been flooded and not...

Quote

The Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant was the closest nuclear power plant to the epicenter of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake,^[14] less than half the distance of the stricken Fukushima I power plant.^[15] The town of Onagawa to the northeast of the plant was largely destroyed by the tsunami^[16] which followed the earthquake, but the plant's 14 meters (46 ft) high seawall was tall and robust enough to prevent the power plant from experiencing severe flooding.

 

Quote

Following an IAEA inspection in 2012, the agency stated that "The structural elements of the NPS (nuclear power station) were remarkably undamaged given the magnitude of ground motion experienced and the duration and size of this great earthquake"

If the much closer nuclear power facility sustained next to no significant damage then the Fukushima one would have by logical extension sustained less so the only thing that actually matters here is if the tsunami would have resulted in a decision to shut them down, which wouldn't be a slow one either.

 

Root cause analysis is not splitting hairs, if there is something that can be directly blamed as the cause then blame it. That's how root cause analysis works.

[Imbadatnames]

30 minutes ago, leadeater said:

I have provided the intensity map as an edit, please do share what the threshold was?

Different depending on the reactor but 0.42-0.46g I believe and the measured value was 0.52-0.56~ Both values are less than you’d feel by slamming on the brakes of a car at a normal speed of around 30-40mph

30 minutes ago, leadeater said:

 

Well I completely disagree for the reason I have, I believe extremely strongly that they would have been shutdown from the tsunami alone due to safety concerns. So firstly present and good argument as to why that would not have happened.

There would be no need to the tsunami didn’t pose a threat to normal operations. As shown by reactor 6

30 minutes ago, leadeater said:

 

 

And you want to know the difference between having been flooded and not...

 

If the much closer nuclear power facility sustained next to no significant damage then the Fukushima one would have by logical extension sustained less so the only thing that actually matters here is if the tsunami would have resulted in a decision to shut them down, which wouldn't be a slow one either.

Youre assuming. A tsunami doesn’t pose a threat to the plants normal operation. Ontop of that it would have survived both if the plant had been upgraded to the latest safety standards. 

30 minutes ago, leadeater said:

 

Root cause analysis is not splitting hairs, if there is something that can be directly blamed as the cause then blame it. That's how root cause analysis works.

You’re being incredibly selective of what counts and just ignored about 5 of my points outright because it’s convenient for you. 

[leadeater]

17 minutes ago, Imbadatnames said:

Different depending on the reactor but 0.42-0.46g I believe and the measured value was 0.52-0.56~ Both values are less than you’d feel by slamming on the brakes of a car at a normal speed of around 30-40mph

Well from what I've read the ground movement exceeded maximum allowed by 20% so I wouldn't call that minor. 11 reactors throughout Japan automatically shutdown, all having slightly different thresholds. These had also been significantly raised as well in 2008.

 

17 minutes ago, Imbadatnames said:

There would be no need to the tsunami didn’t pose a threat to normal operations. 

 

17 minutes ago, Imbadatnames said:

Youre assuming. A tsunami doesn’t pose a threat to the plants normal operation. 

I'm sorry but you are literally arguing against yourself here. Clearly I beleive they would be a significant threat because I believe the reactors would be shutdown due to one breaching flood containment and causing unknown and future unknown damage so until a safety assessment is completed the more likely course of action is a shutdown until an all clear, not leaving them running in the hopes that everything is fine and will stay fine in the foreseeable short term.

 

17 minutes ago, Imbadatnames said:

You’re being incredibly selective of what counts and just ignored about 5 of my points outright because it’s convenient for you. 

I am simply defending my original opinion and point and assessment on what actually caused the incident, simple as that. I'm selecting what matters. We can argue all day about the earthquake and it's effects, information I know and am intentionally leaving out because it's not relevant to what I think caused the accident.

 

TL;DR Move the earthquake ~100km further offshore, seismic SCRAM wouldn't have happened, tsunami would have hit the coastline, breached Fukushima containment, flooded the facility, emergency shutdown of reactors started, generators failed, cooling systems failure.

 

Edit:

This is of course my opinion which I've tired to make clear, your 'I think not' is just an opinion too. I'm simply asking for some reasoned evidence as to why I am not correct and the reactors would have stayed operational tsunami alone.

[Imbadatnames]

2 hours ago, leadeater said:

Well from what I've read the ground movement exceeded maximum allowed by 20% so I wouldn't call that minor. 11 reactors throughout Japan automatically shutdown, all having slightly different thresholds. These had also been significantly raised as well in 2008.

 

 

I'm sorry but you are literally arguing against yourself here. Clearly I beleive they would be a significant threat because I believe the reactors would be shutdown due to one breaching flood containment and causing unknown and future unknown damage so until a safety assessment is completed the more likely course of action is a shutdown until an all clear, not leaving them running in the hopes that everything is fine and will stay fine in the foreseeable short term.

 

I am simply defending my original opinion and point and assessment on what actually caused the incident, simple as that. I'm selecting what matters. We can argue all day about the earthquake and it's effects, information I know and am intentionally leaving out because it's not relevant to what I think caused the accident.

 

TL;DR Move the earthquake ~100km further offshore, seismic SCRAM wouldn't have happened, tsunami would have hit the coastline, breached Fukushima containment, flooded the facility, emergency shutdown of reactors started, generators failed, cooling systems failure.

 

Edit:

This is of course my opinion which I've tired to make clear, your 'I think not' is just an opinion too. I'm simply asking for some reasoned evidence as to why I am not correct and the reactors would have stayed operational tsunami alone.

I mean just ignore all of my points and answer what you want 

[leadeater]

30 minutes ago, Imbadatnames said:

I mean just ignore all of my points and answer what you want 

How exactly did I ignore all your points? Pretty sure I addressed all of them yet I've not heard a single argument as to why reactors wouldn't be shutdown when a tsunami breaches containment walls?

 

I just don't accept your points as valid but I didn't really want to beat them to death when it's irrelevant to the original point. 

 

I could throw all the IAEA and WNA reports at you with all the seismic data, the S1 and S2 thresholds for each facility and what they were historically, and how they were significantly above the automated SCRAM values for ground movement etc etc but that has nothing to do with what I was saying and what I think was the only cause of the disaster because I think the tsunami alone was enough. All I blame the earthquake for is causing the tsunami, that's pretty much it.

 

So please do explain why the operators would not have started reactor shutdowns for a tsunami breach?

 

Edit:

The entire discussion hinges on this very question, it's the factor that matters. To be clear I read all your points and pointing out the water caused all the safeties to fail does not change the question I am asking and what I deem to be sole and only cause of the disaster itself. If you feel I have ignored your points it's because I cannot do so until you answer this.

[wanderingfool2]

5 hours ago, Imbadatnames said:

Also we’re splitting hairs here, Fukushima was the worst case scenario where the safety mechanisms actually failed which only occurred due to extreme circumstances and ultimately 0 people died directly from it officially and after site cleanup people will be able to return there and even grow food from the soil around the reactor. That is so safe it is bordering on insane.  What other industry could have you safety systems fail and  no one die? 

Again, comparing people directly dying and touting it as a major thing is just sticking you head in the sand and ignoring everything that occurs during a Nuclear accident.  It's like having a mine explosion, trapping miners and claiming that the safety systems failed but no one directly died from it (because you know, the miners died of starvation not the explosion).

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-45423575

So you are ignoring, someone who has been recognized as likely dying from cancer caused by Fukushima, you are ignoring the 40 hospital patients whom had to be moved and died (not all might have been caused by the move, but patients with critical conditions or conditions that require specific equipment could very well have been the ones who died while being moved.  Yes, some might have died anyways but there will be some that would have survived if not for Fukushima)

 

Plus you have things like the ground water that is still polluted, the general rise in radioactivity of the water.  Fish that still have high levels of radiation, etc.

 

6 hours ago, Imbadatnames said:

You know not every offshore earthquake generates a significant tsunami right? The argument is that the two events occurred very quickly after each other and the earthquake was so fractionally over what would cause a shut down it caused the issues. Overall people aren’t understanding how nuclear power works, how the plants operate, their Gail’s ages and what actually happened at both Fukushima and Chernobyl and why it happened. Funnily enough no one has mentioned 3MI, probably because it doesn’t fit their narrative 

I'm more than aware of that, do you even realize that a Tsunami of that size realistically had to have been triggered by a nearby earthquake?  I bet if you ask most people on the street, they would lump a Tsunami trigger by an earthquake into the same natural disaster.  The fact is the risk reports (which they never bothered to mitigate) talked about having a Tsunami of a lesser size of that hitting causing an issue.  As @leadeater has pointed out so many times as well, even if for some reason an earthquake didn't occur and you just had the Tsunami wave hitting that much; the reactor very likely would have fallen into the same state that it had before.

[dizmo]

On 2/9/2022 at 5:11 PM, Tech Enthusiast said:

So, an article that basically says: "there have been setbacks in research of a new technology", is your basis on being "right" on it never releasing ever? Because that is exactly what "always 30 years away" suggests. It will never get there.

 

That is a pretty low bar as far as "proof" goes, man.

The article states that since the early 60's it's been stated that the tech is "just 30 years away." My statement was that they constantly say it's 30 years away, thus, my statement is correct, as that is in fact what has been said over and over and over again. I didn't say it's never coming out, did I.

[tikker]

10 hours ago, Imbadatnames said:

Youre assuming. A tsunami doesn’t pose a threat to the plants normal operation. Ontop of that it would have survived both if the plant had been upgraded to the latest safety standards. 

This is speaking in hypotheticals. It indeed seems that had they been more conservative in their protections against tsunamis that then it would not have had such an impact. They didn't have adequate protection, however. Even if it were the case that it would remain unharmed, that is something you should want to confirm with a something like a nuclear reactor. To Fukushima the tsunami was a real threat:

Quote

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/29/fukushima-daiichi-operator-tsunami-warning
Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) officials rejected "unrealistic" estimates made in a 2008 internal report that the plant could be threatened by a tsunami of up to 10.2 metres, Kyodo news agency said.

Quote

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/01/30/national/japan-scrapped-proposed-fukushima-tsunami-simulation-nine-years-disaster/
Nine years before the 2011 meltdown crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co. turned down a request from the government’s nuclear watchdog for it to conduct a simulation of powerful tsunami that could hit the plant, a court document showed on Tuesday.
...
Kawahara’s testimony showed that Tepco may have missed an opportunity to examine the possibility of a tsunami disaster almost a decade before such a crisis came to pass in 2011, when massive waves knocked out critical cooling systems at the Fukushima No. 1 plant.

Quote

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2014.0379
The Fukushima accident was preventable, if international best practices and standards had been followed, if there had been international reviews, and had common sense prevailed in the interpretation of pre-existing geological and hydrodynamic findings.

And from the accident report:

Quote

The site was protected from the first wave, which had a 4–5 m runup height, by the
tsunami barrier seawalls that were designed to protect against a maximum tsunami height of
5.5 m [16]. However, about 10 minutes after the first wave, the second and largest wave, with a runup
height of 14–15 m, overwhelmed the seawalls and inundated the site. It engulfed all structures and
equipment located at the seafront, as well as the main buildings (including the reactor, turbine and
service buildings) at higher elevations

 

10 hours ago, Imbadatnames said:

There would be no need to the tsunami didn’t pose a threat to normal operations. As shown by reactor 6

Fukushima's reactor 6 was also affected, but it's emergency generator survived which allowed cooling to continue:

Quote

Units 5 and 6 were also affected by the tsunami, but their reactors were generating less residual heat,
because they had been shut down fo r a considerable period prior to the accident. In addition, one of
the emergency diesel generators at Unit 6 had survived the flooding and was operable. The operators
therefore had more time to respond, and the cooling systems for both units were powered by the one
remaining emergency diesel generator. This power s upply maintained the cooling of the reactor cores
and was eventually used to provide cooling to the spent fuel pools in Units 5 and 6, both of which
were successfully cooled down to a safe condition [8].

The report also assesses that it was more vulnerable to tusnamis than earthquakes:

Quote

Both the recorded ground motions and the heights of the tsunami waves
significantly exceeded the assumptions of hazards that had been made when the plant was
originally designed.
...

The seismic hazard and tsunami waves considered in the original design were evaluated mainly on
the basis of historical seismic records and evidence of recent tsunamis in Japan. This original
evaluation did not sufficiently consider tectonic-geological criteria and no re-evaluation using such
criteria was conducted.

...

There were no indications that the main safety features of the plant were affected by the vibratory
ground motions generated by the earthquake on 11 March 2011. This was due to the conservative
approach to earthquake design and construction of NPPs in Japan, resulting in a plant that was
provided with sufficient safety margins. However, the original design considerations did not
provide comparable safety margins for extreme external flooding events, such as tsunamis.

 

Tsunamis were definitely a threat to Fukushima. It might have been reasonable based on past evenst, but given the insufficient protection against the one that occured, it's likely you would have ended up with a similar scenario even if you removed the earthquake.

[leadeater]

5 hours ago, tikker said:

It engulfed all structures and equipment located at the seafront, as well as the main buildings (including the reactor, turbine and service buildings) at higher elevations

This was one of the more important things for me, because from what I understand the steam turbines required to make electricity were damaged or would have needed to be shutdown at least for "some time" due to the flood. Hence why I've always said the tsunami would have resulted in the reactors being shut down due to all the flooding and site safety risks.

 

Not that I even remember why we are discussing this at this point 

[IPD]

51 minutes ago, leadeater said:

This was one of the more important things for me, because from what I understand the steam turbines required to make electricity were damaged or would have needed to be shutdown at least for "some time" due to the flood. Hence why I've always said the tsunami would have resulted in the reactors being shut down due to all the flooding and site safety risks.

 

Not that I even remember why we are discussing this at this point 

This is not even limited to nuclear accidents though.  Modern history is rife with failure of imagination on all the ways in which something can go wrong--failure to plan around that contingency--and the disastrous results when that eventuality comes true.  Hurricane Katrina, for example.  Hurricane itself wasn't what caused all the damage...

[RedRound2]

Assuming we clear all the fission related hurdles, we will also have an issue with hydrogen supply. We will need to have an electrolysis plant as well and the we need to get fusion to a state where it can output much more energy than the energy required to get hydrogen and the energy required to sustain it.

 

TBC, I'm all in for fusion, but it seems quite a long while away for it to become feasible and we should not use fusion development as an excuse to not invest in other renewables

[Imbadatnames]

19 hours ago, leadeater said:

How exactly did I ignore all your points? Pretty sure I addressed all of them yet I've not heard a single argument as to why reactors wouldn't be shutdown when a tsunami breaches containment walls?

By not actually reading what’s there and making the same statement over and over again that I’ve already answered. Because shutting down for the Tsunami does more harm than good? You have to make a judgement call, the facility is going to be hit by a tsunami, do you either leave the reactor on or wait for the generators that are below ground to flood and cause a meltdown? Engineers in that situation would leave the reactor on. 

19 hours ago, leadeater said:

 

I just don't accept your points as valid but I didn't really want to beat them to death when it's irrelevant to the original point. 

 

19 hours ago, leadeater said:

 

I could throw all the IAEA and WNA reports at you with all the seismic data, the S1 and S2 thresholds for each facility and what they were historically, and how they were significantly above the automated SCRAM values for ground movement etc etc but that has nothing to do with what I was saying and what I think was the only cause of the disaster because I think the tsunami alone was enough. All I blame the earthquake for is causing the tsunami, that's pretty much it.

You’re missing the point, without the shutdown the tsunami wouldn’t have caused anything. It didn’t damage the reactor or anything else critical aside from the generators which were flooded. The plant was not at all damaged by the earthquake and could have kept running if the values weren’t so conservative. 

19 hours ago, leadeater said:

 

So please do explain why the operators would not have started reactor shutdowns for a tsunami breach?

Common sense? “Oh the reactor is on and fine, let’s shut it down and rely on the destroyed emergency system”. Do you really see that conversation happening? 

19 hours ago, leadeater said:

 

Edit:

The entire discussion hinges on this very question, it's the factor that matters. To be clear I read all your points and pointing out the water caused all the safeties to fail does not change the question I am asking and what I deem to be sole and only cause of the disaster itself. If you feel I have ignored your points it's because I cannot do so until you answer this.

Your argument assumes the unrealistic decision of the operators shutting down the plant after a tsunami breach has already destroyed the emergency back up power. 

[leadeater]

28 minutes ago, Imbadatnames said:

By not actually reading what’s there and making the same statement over and over again that I’ve already answered.

No you have not explained why, all you've said is no they would not shut them down yet provide no reasoning to that. "Trust me bro", well as you've noticed I do not so if you want me to believe that they would not you're simply going to have to explain why they would not otherwise this can only end in an opinion impasse, which to be honest is fine. It's not like we have to agree with each others opinions.

 

28 minutes ago, Imbadatnames said:

Your argument assumes the unrealistic decision of the operators shutting down the plant after a tsunami breach has already destroyed the emergency back up power.

How is it unrealistic when the electrical switching rooms and turbine rooms were flooded causing damage? How are they suppose to generate electricity to run the cooling systems when the turbines that generate the electricity are non operational? Can you not see a problem here? 

 

28 minutes ago, Imbadatnames said:

Common sense? “Oh the reactor is on and fine, let’s shut it down and rely on the destroyed emergency system”. Do you really see that conversation happening? 

Come on be realistic about the situation. You're in the control room, you are seeing the flood containment failing and massive influxes of water and you're going to do nothing at all in the hope that everything will be fine and the reactors will actually be safe. Yes I absolutely do see emergency shutdown being done, and that decision reasonably quickly, because you can start them again.

 

28 minutes ago, Imbadatnames said:

without the shutdown the tsunami wouldn’t have caused anything.

And I'm saying I disagree and the report disagree as well. Unless you don't know what turbine damage means i.e. reactors not producing power even if you allow fission to continue.

 

My argument is based of the reports, what has been noted as the cause of all the damage and why everything failed, the only assumption and opinion of mine reading those reports is that the tsunami would have either A) triggered an emergency shutdown or B) disabled all reactor power generation capability.

 

But it's fine, none of us are reactor operators or have actually seen the facility and damage or more detailed technical damage analysis so I can't see either of us being more correct or more likely than that other. Suffice to say I doubt we're going to convince each other of our points of view so I'll take my leave of this particular discussion point. As per my other post I don't even remember why we are discussing this specific point anymore and simply don't care anymore.

[Imbadatnames]

2 hours ago, leadeater said:

No you have not explained why, all you've said is no they would not shut them down yet provide no reasoning to that. "Trust me bro", well as you've noticed I do not so if you want me to believe that they would not you're simply going to have to explain why they would not otherwise this can only end in an opinion impasse, which to be honest is fine. It's not like we have to agree with each others opinions.

 

How is it unrealistic when the electrical switching rooms and turbine rooms were flooded causing damage? How are they suppose to generate electricity to run the cooling systems when the turbines that generate the electricity are non operational? Can you not see a problem here? 

 

Come on be realistic about the situation. You're in the control room, you are seeing the flood containment failing and massive influxes of water and you're going to do nothing at all in the hope that everything will be fine and the reactors will actually be safe. Yes I absolutely do see emergency shutdown being done, and that decision reasonably quickly, because you can start them again.

 

And I'm saying I disagree and the report disagree as well. Unless you don't know what turbine damage means i.e. reactors not producing power even if you allow fission to continue.

 

My argument is based of the reports, what has been noted as the cause of all the damage and why everything failed, the only assumption and opinion of mine reading those reports is that the tsunami would have either A) triggered an emergency shutdown or B) disabled all reactor power generation capability.

 

But it's fine, none of us are reactor operators or have actually seen the facility and damage or more detailed technical damage analysis so I can't see either of us being more correct or more likely than that other. Suffice to say I doubt we're going to convince each other of our points of view so I'll take my leave of this particular discussion point. As per my other post I don't even remember why we are discussing this specific point anymore and simply don't care anymore.

Two words. Fukushima Daini. Plant based around 10Km away from Fukushima, the plant stayed online due to the earthquake not triggering a shutdown, was hit by the same Tsunami which flooded the emergency power systems but the plant didn’t go into meltdown as they put the cores onto a self powered cool-down which bought enough time to restore normal functionality and initiate SCRAM in a safe environment a few days later 

[tikker]

6 hours ago, leadeater said:

This was one of the more important things for me, because from what I understand the steam turbines required to make electricity were damaged or would have needed to be shutdown at least for "some time" due to the flood. Hence why I've always said the tsunami would have resulted in the reactors being shut down due to all the flooding and site safety risks.

I think so as well. I would hope and think a tsunami flooding a nuclear reactor of all things would result in an emergency shutdown and not an "we'll be fine", although there is some irony in saying that for this particular case.

37 minutes ago, Imbadatnames said:

By not actually reading what’s there and making the same statement over and over again that I’ve already answered. Because shutting down for the Tsunami does more harm than good? You have to make a judgement call, the facility is going to be hit by a tsunami, do you either leave the reactor on or wait for the generators that are below ground to flood and cause a meltdown? Engineers in that situation would leave the reactor on. 

If you are confident the plant was built with sufficient protections against tsunamis then that might be a justifiable decision, but you better be sure it will survive. Now Tepco was "confident" in a way, but not justifiably so as they dismissed the warnings they were not adequately equipped to deal with all tsunamis and the proof was in the pudding that they weren't.

 

The Onagawa plant, for example, survived, but partly due to luck:

Quote

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590123020300931

It can be emphasized that a main factor in survival of Onagawa NPS was the fact that its elevation and seawall protection exceeded the height of tsunami. However, after the Onagawa’s subsidence by 1 m, it can be observed in Table 4 that Onagawa surpassed the height of tsunami with less than 1 m and was very near the border of high risk from flooding.

It can be highlighted that lack of seismic damages at Onagawa NPS can be attributed to continuous seismic improvements throughout the life cycle stages of design, construction and operation. The safety culture during operation can be credited to both a continuous upkeep and upgrade of systems.

 

1 hour ago, Imbadatnames said:

Common sense? “Oh the reactor is on and fine, let’s shut it down and rely on the destroyed emergency system”. Do you really see that conversation happening? 
Your argument assumes the unrealistic decision of the operators shutting down the plant after a tsunami breach has already destroyed the emergency back up power. 

It wasn't just the emergency generators that were destroyed, they were included exacerbating the problem:

Quote

Water entered and flooded buildings, including all the reactor and turbine buildings, the common
spent fuel storage building and diesel generator building. It damaged the buildings and the
electrical and mechanical equipment inside at ground level and on the lower floors. The damaged
equipment included the emergency diesel generators or their associated power connections, which
resulted in the loss of emergency AC power.

Everything else was down as well:

Quote

As a result of these events, Units 1–5 lost all AC power, a situation referred to as a station blackout. Because of the station blackout in Units 1–5, the emergency operating procedures for ‘loss of all AC power’ [18] were initiated.

Quote

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC96228
Failure of the on-site power generators concurrent with the loss of offsite power results in loss of all alternate current power sources. This event is known as station blackout. Electrical power from batteriesis assumed to be available within the plant specific cooping period. Failure to restore alternate power withinthe station blackout cooping period results in loss of all instrumentation and control and consequential coredamage.

and the Fukushima batteries were apparently good for only up to 8 hours:

Quote

The Fukushima Daiichi NPP units, similar to other plants of the same age, were designed to withstand
a station blackout for eight hours, based on the capacity of the DC batteries in the reactor units36 .

 

Basically everything is flooded, all your power generation mechanisms are broken and you have 8 hours of battery power left. Yes, I concur with leadeater that an emergency shutdown would probably be triggered so that at least only cooling decay heat is a worry and not an active reactor.

[leadeater]

25 minutes ago, Imbadatnames said:

Two words. Fukushima Daini. Plant based around 10Km away from Fukushima, the plant stayed online due to the earthquake not triggering a shutdown

Could we please make sure the facts are correct

 

Quote

The operating units which shut down were Tepco's Fukushima Daiichi 1, 2, 3, Fukushima Daini 1, 2, 3, 4, Tohoku's Onagawa 1, 2, 3, and Japco's Tokai.

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/nuclear-power-plants-and-earthquakes.aspx

 

I did say I didn't want to throw these at you but for this and what you just said is actually important.

 

Edit:

My mistake you had two important points that were not correct in your post.

 

25 minutes ago, Imbadatnames said:

was hit by the same Tsunami which flooded the emergency power systems but the plant didn’t go into meltdown as they put the cores onto a self powered cool-down which bought enough time to restore normal functionality and initiate SCRAM in a safe environment a few days later 

 

Quote

All four units were automatically shut down immediately after the earthquake,[2] and the diesel engines were started to power the reactor cooling.[13] A worker died of injuries from the earthquake when he was trapped in the crane operating console of the exhaust stack.[14][15][16][17][18]

 

Quote

Other sources give the tsunami height at Fukushima Daini plant at 9-meter-high, while the Fukushima Daiichi plant was hit by a 13-meter-high tsunami. The tsunami caused the plant's seawater pumps, used to cool reactors, to fail. Of the plant's four reactors, three were in danger of meltdown.[19] One external high-voltage power line still functioned, allowing plant staff in the central control room to monitor data on internal reactor temperatures and water levels. 2,000 employees of the plant worked to stabilize the reactors. Some employees connected over 9 kilometers of cabling using 200-meter sections of cable, each weighing more than a ton from their Rad Waste Building to other locations onsite.

 

Daini was very lucky to not have the same fate, it was in fact very close and luck more than most that it did not.

[spartaman64]

On 2/11/2022 at 8:30 AM, LAwLz said:

It's a real shame people are so against nuclear. I know several people who watched the HBO Chernobyl series and afterward said "wow, nuclear power is scary stuff" and completely missed the massive part that soviet played in causing the disaster, and also missed that the show even brought up what steps we have taken for it to not happen again, such as improved reactors.

also wasnt there a scene where they say the reactor could blow up and make a blast of several hiroshimas or something. like what? 

[Imbadatnames]

21 hours ago, leadeater said:

Could we please make sure the facts are correct

 

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/nuclear-power-plants-and-earthquakes.aspx

 

I did say I didn't want to throw these at you but for this and what you just said is actually important.

 

Edit:

My mistake you had two important points that were not correct in your post.

 

 

 

 

Daini was very lucky to not have the same fate, it was in fact very close and luck more than most that it did not.

It would be great if either plant actually met the international regs but both were 30+ years old at the time. 
 

You’re literally using Wikipedia dude 

[IPD]

2 hours ago, Imbadatnames said:

It would be great if either plant actually met the international regs but both were 30+ years old at the time. 
 

You’re literally using Wikipedia dude 

Wikipedia is a great, simplistic coalescence of information that comes from other sources.  This makes it easier to give one easy-to-understand reference to those who can't be bothered to research things in depth on their own.  Are you going to cite term papers from it?  No.  Is it useful for pointing out basic facts about Windscale when some people clearly are devoid of even a modicum of factual background information?  You bet.