Sunday, December 9, 2012

Cause Still Unknown for #Fukushima II (Daini) Nuke Plant Pressure Rise in Reactor 1 Building


TEPCO doesn't have much to say about the rise in pressure in the Reactor 1 building at Fukushima II (Daini) Nuclear Power Plant after the M7.3 earthquake on December 7, 2012.

Yes they pumped the air out, thorough the exhaust duct, but no they don't know why the positive pressure happened. Just like anything else, they don't know the reason, but do immediate patchwork so that the undesirable conditions go away, for a short while at least.

Hardly anyone pays attention to Fukushima I or II Nuke Plants or the workers there any more, anyway. People are having a good time electioneering, and many net citizens are feeling righteous about cheering for the candidates and the parties who profess anti-nuclear (beyond nuclear, graduating from nuclear, whatever) sentiment.

Here's from the English press release from the incurious TEPCO on 12/8/2012 about Fukushima II (Daini):

At around 5:18 PM on December 7, a M7.3 earthquake occurred at the offshore of Sanriku. Upon plant checkup, no problem originating from the earthquake was found.

Since the pressure in Unit 1 Reactor Building had turned positive (though the pressure is kept negative to the outdoor air), the standby gas treatment system* was started upon judgment of an operator. The pressure in the Reactor Building increased to 0.05kPa right after the system was started and later the pressure turned back to negative and became stable. In order to investigate the cause of the pressure turning to positive, the standby gas treatment system was suspended and the Reactor Building ventilation air conditioning system was started on December 8. The pressure in the Reactor Building is being maintained in negative after switching the system. The cause of the incident will continue to be investigated.

* Standby gas treatment system: System that purifies the air in the Reactor Building utilizing high performance filter and discharge it to the outside through the exhaust stack. The system is comprised of systems (A) and (B).


By the way, remember the fluctuation of the water being injected into the Reactor Pressure Vessels at Fukushima I (Daiichi) Nuke Plant, back in August? The fluctuation was supposed to be due to the shaving debris from pipe installation clogging the mesh screens placed at the valves, and after cleaning the debris in the tank and flushing the pipes all were supposed to be OK. But no, the water continues to fluctuate to this day, and all TEPCO does is to adjust the water amount.

Curiosity may kill the cat, but I hope TEPCO's incuriosity will not kill us.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

"no problem originating from the earthquake was found".

This makes me wonder what problems they had before the quake? I think this facility has some unannounced issues that were overshadowed by the Daiichi disaster

Anonymous said...

How can Japanese women vote for far right parties is behond my understanding. Women should vote for peace and protect their children. Never a far right parties promoting militarism should ever be elected because 50% of the voters should not vote for it. Even in the US election, wich is far more to the left than most parties in Japan, women still prefer the left and are the main reason for the republican to fail to win.

Anonymous said...

Women preferred Obama, not the left.

Unknown said...

well..still there are many questions about this incident!

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Anonymous said...

@ Anon at 12:09: Am with you on this one. Daini also had problems after the March 2011 earthquake, and they had 3000 tons of contaminated water flooding some basement or other.
For example, see this WSJ article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304259304576373150813737000.html

The presence of that contaminated water was - to my knowledge anyway - never explained (radioactivity excluded the water originated from the tsunami, basement location excluded radioactivity originated from fallout from Daichii).
*mscharisma*

Anonymous said...

Oh, and there was also this on this blog site/the press:
http://ex-skf.blogspot.it/2012/05/shukan-asahi-fukushima-ii-daini.html
*mscharisma*

Anonymous said...

Wow, thanks for the link *mscharisma* it really shines a light on how screwed up the Dani facility could be. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the "clean" photos TEPCO offered were old pictures taken prior to the tsunami. The truth will eventually come out when the plant is either restarted or quietly decommissioned in 5 years. The Japanese public should demand the Dani facility be restarted before any other plants are brought online to force the truth.

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