Fukushima Reactor 3 Explosion, Reactor 2 Core Melt, Possibly Because TEPCO Couldn't Break the Rules

[FBaggins]

What rules, you ask? Good social rules like "If you want something from a store, you purchase it with money." Or "In order to transport potentially dangerous materials or equipments, you apply for a government permit and wait until the permit is issued." They are all good and proper in peacetime. TEPCO was no longer in peacetime, starting March 11, 2011. But the company and the workers clearly didn't know how to operate in an extraordinary situation they found themselves in. So they stuck to what they knew best - be a law- and rule- abiding good citizens.

...snip...

It was not that TEPCO's Headquarters in Tokyo had sat paralyzed. It had already ordered 1,000 batteries from Toshiba on March 12 and arranged for having them shipped to the plant immediately. There was a problem. A government permit was needed, apparently, to transport that many batteries on the highway, and the permit was not readily coming. The vehicle loaded with 1,000 batteries couldn't leave Tokyo unless the issue of the permit was resolved somehow.

...snip...

This single episode, I believe, epitomizes what's fundamentally wrong with the Japanese in a crisis situation: They cannot break rules. So they couldn't monitor the reactors, couldn't open the SR valve, but knew if they had batteries, even the car batteries and plenty of them, they would be able to do both. If they didn't, there would be core melt, and a large amount of radioactive materials would be released. It was not the time to observe rules and regulations imposed by the society or the government.

...snip...

When I read the Asahi's article for the first time, the truth is that it didn't occurred to me either that TEPCO could have broken all the rules in an emergency like this. I just thought, "Bureaucrats are bureaucrats no matter what..." over the permit to transport Toshiba batteries on the highway. I mentioned that to an American friend, who immediately said, "Why did they (TEPCO) have to wait for the permit in a make or break situation like this?" I'm Japanese after all. I was thinking like TEPCO.


http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2012/10/fukushima-reactor-3-explosion-reactor-2.html

I don't know that I buy that this would have averted much of the disaster... but it's a fascinating commentary. Worth the read well beyond the paragraphs I picked.

[aandegoons]

1. Gross conceptual error.

It was a hydrogen explosion. Reducing pressure in the reactor would have just made it occur sooner by exposing the fuel.

[FBaggins]

2. Sorry, that's incorrect.

Yes, it was a hydrogen explosion (though a couple of the nuts claim that it was a nuclear explosion... and more than a few gullible souls here have fallen for that nonsense)... but the hydrogen was only a problem because the fuel had already been exposed (causing the temperature to rise and the fuel cladding to produce the hydrogen). If they could keep the fuel covered that couldn't happen...

...but they couldn't keep the fuel covered because the pressure had risen too high for them to be able to inject enough water. Open the safety relief valve and lower the pressure... and now you can pump in more water.

[aandegoons]

3. Your getting your timelines wrong.

“It looks like we may be able to open the vent at the No. 3 (reactor). I think that the problem of hydrogen is very small."

You know what happened next.

[FBaggins]

4. Not at all.

The quote you posted is consistent with the OP and what I said. The truck-load of batteries was on the way and they hoped to be able to reopen the vent (which would allow them to inject more water).

It didn't get there in time.

[PamW]

7. WRONG!!

Last edited Sun Oct 7, 2012, 06:31 PM - Edit history (1)

As a physicist, I'd like to chime in with my 2 cents.

FBaggins is correct. The hydrogen comes from the fuel overheating. If you can reduce pressure, then you can get more cooling water into the core, and that mitigates the overheating, and hence reduces hydrogen production, and the threat of its explosion.

Physics is often counter-intuitive for those who have not specifically studied the field. Additionally, a reactor is a couple-physics problem with multiple feedbacks. Often the correct solution is to do something that is counter-intuitive unless you really understand the physics.

However, most certainly the operators, who are in the best position to mitigate the negative effects; are best served if their instrumentation works to tell them what is going on; and their commands to the system to mitigate negative effects are carried out.

Both of those require electricity. Electricity to run the instrumentation which tells the operators what is happening.

Additionally, when the operators want to take an action to mitigate the negative effects, they need electricity to operate the motors that open or close the valves or what ever the operators need to do.

You can't argue that depriving the operators of the information they need, or the ability to affect the plant systems, is a good thing. It was certainly bad to prevent the operators from getting the battery power they needed.

If an airliner developed trouble in mid-flight, would you ever argue that you should just pull the plug on all the flight instruments and cut the cables from the flight deck? The flight crew can potentially remedy a problem completely, or at least mitigate the effects. We don't argue that if something goes wrong, actions by the flight crew won't forestall the inevitable. Give the crew a chance to save the plane. Likewise, nuclear reactor operators should be given the same chance.

In the USA, we often have similar problems when we ignore what our scientists and engineers tell us is the proper course of action, in favor of the opinions of politicians, activists, lawyers, and bureaucrats.

PamW

[Fury1952]

5. Militia

Don't they have militia rules to take authority in situations like that? Hmm, I wonder if ours would have done any better?

[Fury1952]

6. Militia

P.S. Maybe the guy didn't have a permit giving him the authority to issue a permit! Situations like that is where Military Police would have come in handy. Sad but sometimes necessary.