Colonel Handgrenade
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Posted - 2011.03.17 22:44:00 -
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Edited by: Colonel Handgrenade on 17/03/2011 22:52:30
Edited by: Colonel Handgrenade on 17/03/2011 22:46:43
Media hype and knee-jerk reactions in the face of political survival. Yep... that's a great formula so it's not surprising to see Germany shutting down plants in reaction (LOL!!!) to the Japanese incident. I expect other countries will follow suit if they are following that same formula.
However, let's put things into perspective: there are TWO nuclear power plants that went through the same earthquake event. Only Plant #1 is having serious problems right now... but why? Not because the buildings were damaged by the earthquake! It almost seems that Fukushima 1 would have been better off not shutting down the reactor because then they would still have power for the water circulation, right?
But lo and behold, a very sensible precaution is to shut it down when an earthquake occurs. Ok, so that functioned as it was designed (see Fukushima #2). Then the diesel powered generaters kick in and take over the task of circulating the water to keep the fuel rods cool... again, that functioned normally.
But wait! there's a bigass wave coming at us! Nuclear power plant itself seems to have weathered that event quite well, right? Look at the building: it's right ON the frickin' beach and there appears to be no major structural damage to the principal buildings.
So it would seem that the only failure of design here was not adequately protecting the backup generators from flooding by a tsunami. Because let's face it, if they had have been, we might have never heard of Fukushima (in the west). Need proof? What's happening with Fukushima #2? How many of you actually have heard that there is in fact another plant called Fukushima 2 (with four reactors I think)? It doesn't get ANY news coverage right now... why do you suppose that is? As far as I know, that complex's backup generaters weren't knocked out by the tsunami, so everything there is working as it should. No opportunity for media sensationalization there...
All this boils down to is better placement and protection of the backup generator facility (which, by the way, is a very CONVENTIONAL design of fossil fuel consuming system... and THAT'S what failed here!!!) And guess what? That's something that every nuclear power plant in the world can retrofit into their current design WITHOUT shutting down.
tl;dr - The failure at Fukushima was not the nuclear power plant, it was the backup generaters that got wiped out by the tsunami that CAUSED things to fall apart in the nuclear power plant.
So... Germany, if you think your nuclear power plants' backup generaters are in danger of getting wiped out by a tsunami, then by all means revisit their placement. (ok, maybe regional flooding, which does happen in Europe from time to time) Shutting down the plants isn't required. Seriously though, I don't think that the Baltic or North Seas are prone to tsunamis. 
I have faith in the people working at this plant. They're not all Homer Simpsons you know... they all had to go to college to get educated in nuclear physics!
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