Talk:Fukushima nuclear accident/Archive 9

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Rename to disaster

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/12/japan-nuclear-crisis-chernobyl-severity-level1 --Athinker (talk) 06:52, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

With the increase to INES level 7 (on par with the Chernobyl disaster and Kyshtym disaster), on the BBC World and CNN International they now consistently are speaking of Fukushima disaster. http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/04/12/japan.nuclear.reactors/index.html?hpt=T1 Mr. D. E. Mophon (talk) 07:49, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Here we go again... — Preceding unsigned comment added by RaptorHunter (talk • contribs) 07:52, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

They're calling it a 7 now, but at the same time hedging the call. "Nishiyama said the designation was made "provisionally," and that a final level won't be set until the disaster is over and a more detailed investigation has been conducted." The problem with the scale is that it's too narrow and an incident with many people killed or very few would could rate the same.MartinezMD (talk) 08:00, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

No one has yet died directly of radiation poisoning. It's to early to judge the extent of it. Let's make the decision when the accidents are over and an investigation about the radiation extent has been done. --Kslotte (talk) 09:33, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Wait 'till disaster is the common name. =) Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie Say Shalom! 09:36, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Note the reactors didn't explode as they did in Chernobyl. According to http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/13/world/asia/13japan.html?_r=1 one source "suggests the total amount of radioactive materials released so far is equal to about 10 percent of that released at Chernobyl". Its unclear if this high figure was actually released mostly in the form radioactive liquid runoff, or is still in containment. The amount of released radioactive material on land must be a tiny fraction of Chernobyl. Oddly there is nothing in the news how radioactive waste water is being treated. The radioactive waste water should be treated to protect ground water and reduce ocean contamination. 172.163.36.90 (talk) 13:00, 12 April 2011 (UTC) BG

Debating wether it is a disaster or not is one thing, (of course it is a disaster, how dare anybody suggest that it might not be or that the awful horrific outcome of the Chernobyl nuclear containment failure be acheived before considering an unintentional nuclear explosion to be a disaster) but, an accident is where something has been dropped or spilled or unintentionally guided in the wrong direction. I don't care what the dictionary says on this one, an *accident* involves a mistake or an error and besides the inadequate height of the sea wall, or the building of a (dangerous) nuclear reactor at all, I find it unfair to say that the major factor in this, disaster, is plain error. I would like to mull over it and suggest an alternative to both the words disaster and accident but I find it a ridiculous insult to even suggest the incident might not be some sort of disaster. Somewhere in the world a place has been destroyed and rendered worse than uninhabitable for as long as any person can truly perceive. Beside that, I googled for "nuclear disaster" and the first two hits were Wikipedias Chernobyl Disaster and Nuclear and radiation accidents followed by a page full of hits concerning Japan, not one of which mentions an accident. National Geographic is asking How is Japans nuclear disaster different? and we have New York Times, the British Telegraph, Fox News, Greenpeace, Time, Business Weekly, Discovery's pre-Fukushima run down of the worlds 5 worst nuclear disasters says that the worst rating of nuclear incident (7, which presently represents Fukushima) is an accident but includes the Tokaimura disaster "Japan's most disastrous nuclear accident took place over a decade ago just outside Tokyo.", I would like to note an answer for answers.com "What is a nuclear disaster?" answer: "The most obvious would be a melt down at a nuclear plant.", Forbes suggests that Japan has an "..other nuclear disaster." We have New York Daily News, Bloomberg, Nature magazine, CNN, EuroNews's deplorable "Japan far from a huge nuclear disaster." followed by a more recent release supporting the disaster idea, the Irish Independant, Speigel, Infowars is asking us "When does a nuclear disaster end?", United Press International, Financial Times, the Christian Post, The Wall Street Journal, Popular Mechanics, Economist magazine, CNS, France 24, San Francisco Chronicle, the BBC posts a QnA about Fukushima which doesn't ask if it is a disaster or not but rather puts big letters on a picture saying Fukushima: Dealing with disaster, the Daily Mail, Asia Times, ABC, Minnesota Post, Channel 4, Washington Independant, Ecomomic Times, etc, etc, ad infinitum. I usually like to argue that just because the press is using a word doesn't mean they are right but I find the word accident in this case to be misleading and would like it's fixing to be matter-of-course. Yes this nightmare occurence is a disaster, maybe not directly for you or for me, but nonetheless a true disaster. I do not know who or what lives near Fukushima but I shouldn't like to see them fobbed off by anybody. I am going to spend a little while listening to Japans Formula 1 theme tune until I can get a little concentration back [1]. I think I will buy a copy after this. There may be reasons to move this article or leave it where it is (I would like it to move) but as to the debate on wether it *is* a disaster or not, a waste of hard drive. Yes it is a disaster and your comparison to epic proportions is both rude and invalid. ~ R.T.G 13:56, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Fukushima Nuclear Disaster has 220 news stories on google right now.

Fukushima Nuclear Accident has 114 new stories.

Support We have reached the tipping point, now that japan has upgraded this to level 7. I think it's safe to called it a disaster.--RaptorHunter (talk) 19:03, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Strongly Support changing the name of the article to Fukushima disaster. It is very arbitrary in my opinion to use the term disaster for one INES 7 event, while using nuclear accidents for another. Counteraction (talk) 21:19, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

A label such as accident or disaster is less important than how the the situation is handled now. The nuclear human mortality is small so far. It is yet to be determined how much land will have to be off-limits and for how long. But I'm concerned some radioactivity has been spread around that might not be acknowledged. The radioactive contamination on land and how it needs to be dealt with should become apparent in the near future (perhaps a month). Disaster is just an English word defined in the dictionary. This might help: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/12/us-nuclear-japan-idUSTRE73B7UC20110412 link172.165.160.66 (talk) 21:30, 12 April 2011 (UTC) BG172.162.2.115 (talk) 01:06, 13 April 2011 (UTC)BG

It also seems a bit like fear-mongering to be honest. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie Say Shalom! 22:24, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose -- We are still in the midst of the "accident sequence". --Tenmei (talk) 23:12, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

The IAEA refers to Chernobyl as an accident. [2] We have to go with the majority of published sources and they refer to Fukushima as a disaster.--RaptorHunter (talk) 16:23, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

• Support. I'd say we crossed the tipping point where this is just another nuclear accident quite a while ago. Dragons flight (talk) 00:55, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
• Support. Clearly a disaster comparable with Chernobyl, which the experts say will take years or decades to clean up. Johnfos (talk) 02:17, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose at this time "Though both the 1986 Chernobyl disaster and the Fukushima nuclear accident are now both rated at the highest level of the 7-step INES scale, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the Japanese accident is far less severe than the Soviet nuclear disaster." from: http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/asiapacific/news/article_1632562.php/Japan-starts-removing-highly-radioactive-water-at-stricken-plant I in no way want to minimize the severity of the situation, but am concerned that some want to politicize the article with labels. Charlie Sheen's last performance was universally labeled a disaster by the media. Eventually the truth will come out about where and how much radioactive material was released. As of now its not clear. There is a lot of cause for concern about this obviously very bad situation. 172.162.232.208 (talk) 03:39, 13 April 2011 (UTC) BG

It doesn't matter if (insert disaster here) was worse than Fukushima. Deciding what's a disaster and what's not smacks of WP:Original Research. We have to go with the majority of published sources and they refer to Fukushima as a disaster.--RaptorHunter (talk) 16:23, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

• Support. Wikipedia's definition on "disaster" is as follows: "A disaster is a natural or man-made hazard that has come to fruition[citation needed], resulting in an event of substantial extent causing significant physical damage or destruction, loss of life, or drastic change to the environment. A disaster can be ostensively defined as any tragic event with great loss stemming from events such as earthquakes, floods, catastrophic accidents, fires, or explosions.

In contemporary academia, disasters are seen as the consequence of inappropriately managed risk. These risks are the product of hazards and vulnerability. Hazards that strike in areas with low vulnerability are not considered a disaster, as is the case in uninhabited regions.[1]"

Here at Fukushima Daiichi we have the full menu in the definition: earthquakes, floods, catastrophic accidents, fires, explosions plus massive radioactive material release and no clear and easy way to recover from the event. By definition it is absolutely a disaster. We must be guided not by opinion, nor feeling, but by definitions of terms previously defined by experts of our language. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thatmonk (talk • contribs) 03:50, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Oppose I think that either "accident" or "disaster" have denotations which accurately describe this situation. The question is which word has a connotation more appropriate to the scale of what is happening. From what I can see, the consequences so far have been:

• several deaths at the plant during earthquake/tsunami (radiation not involved)
• a few injuries to workers from acute radiation exposure (nonlethal)
• moderate, prolonged radiation exposure to the rest of the 400 or so workers (levels uncertain, but below legal daily limits)
• very low daily exposure to people outside the mandatory evacuation zone
• ground contamination in and outside the evacuation zone that will require eventual cleanup or permanent evacuation (costs/size of area unknown)
• seawater contamination (long term effects unknown, short term effects small)
• psychological trauma and diversion of resources from Tsunami relief efforts
• definite closing of four reactor units, possible closing of remaining two units at site

It seems like a high end estimate of the long term consequences would be around 100 worker deaths, several hundred civilian cancer cases with around 1/10 as many deaths, permanent evacuation of two or three towns (around 100,000 people), tens of billions of dollars in cleanup costs, plus economic disruption of farming/fishing of surrounding area to the tune of one or two billion dollars.

A low end estimate might be for one or two additional worker deaths, ten or twenty survivable cancer cases among the workers, minimal health impact outside evacuation area, cleanup costs paid for entirely by TEPCO, evacuation area phased out within a few months, farming/fishing ban partially lifted within a few months with small economic disruption.

Obviously, there is a lot of uncertainty, even with where to set the best/worst case examples. I think this decision should be postponed until more is known about the long term health effects and economic effects. The known effects of this event have been minor so far, and I don't think this should be labeled a disaster based only on conjecture. One large question is how to quantify the psychological impact of this event on the people of Japan, and how relevant that should be to this discussion. Fear without cause can be harmful, but the War of the Worlds broadcast was hardly a disaster in the same way as an earthquake. Though it's not yet clear whether the Japanese people's fear *is* without cause...

I personally think that much of the media coverage has been alarmist, and woefully ignorant as to the relative levels of natural vs. Fukushima-released radiation. Setting low regulatory limits for radiation levels in food/water is a good idea, but appears to be causing panic when the levels are exceeded, even if the amount is not dangerous unless ingested for years. Probably they need separate regulatory limits for short-term vs. long-term doses. -IDK112 — Preceding unsigned comment added by IDK112 (talk • contribs) 06:26, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

You haven't provided any sources for your "rubric" grading what's a disaster and what's not. It seems like you want to base the title off of your own opinion and WP:Synthesis. We have to go with the majority of published sources and they refer to Fukushima as a disaster.--RaptorHunter (talk) 16:23, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Strongly Oppose. Really, as this event is still unfolding, we don't know how much radiation has been release to the enviroment, nor what the dose the workers at the plant have recieved (or what effect this will have on their lifespan). Wait a few weeks and then see what the evidence (verse sensationalist stories from the media) has to say on this topic.MWadwell (talk) 07:38, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

I've taken the liberty of striking out the vote here, because MWadwell subsequently posted a "support" comment below. Dragons flight (talk) 02:08, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

The japanese government acepts this is now a level 7 'Major release of radio­active ­material with widespread health and environmental effects requiring implementation of planned and extended ­countermeasures'. In other words they accept there are widespread health and environmental effects. So who is left to dispute this?

Comment heading towards Support. I have never liked 'accident', because I do not consider this was an accident. It was not a human mistake which caused this, but a deliberate acceptance of this risk. Incident is neutral and simply means something which happened. Disaster generally means something pretty big affecting many people. Many people have been affected. Statistically, some will die.Sandpiper (talk) 10:29, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

My opposition was based on the fact that we didn't know how much radioactive material had been released - however I've since found a document from NISA - INES (the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale) Rating on the Events in Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Station by the Tohoku District - off the Pacific Ocean Earthquake which lists the amount of Caesium/Iodine already released to the environment. As it is getting to the ball park of requiring "extended counter-measures" (from the INES level 7 definition) I'd now support changing the name. MWadwell (talk) 11:00, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

• Support "The Japan Atomic Energy Agency raises the severity of the Fukushima I nuclear "accidents" to level 7, the highest on the International Nuclear Event Scale" (from Wikipedia, in the news section). Therefore the article's name does not reflect the true severity of this event. Also the evacuation zone has been expanded. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2011/apr/11/japan-expands-nuclear-evacuation-zone-video) Barbarbaron (talk) 18:53, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. It's still an accident. Cla68 (talk) 01:39, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

• Support In view of International Nuclear Event Scale. Quote from the article - "Compared to earthquakes... ...the level of severity of a man-made disaster, such as a nuclear accident, is more subject to interpretation." It seems relevant to note. As previously defined by this standing Wikipedia article, by which a previous standard may be loosely defined, there is instruction that it has not applied values to non "man-made" circumstances and cites this category in particular, earthquake, as an example of what it is not a scale of. I think it could be important to acknowledge that. I think I appreciate a *wait and see* attitude, but this was not exactly a man-made accident in the first place and the media, who are most likely going to be the collective name givers to this incident, seem to suggest Disaster. So petty to debate it right now, but it is currently inaccurate. ~ R.T.G 02:28, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

And note that on the scale above, Chernobyl is an accident, mans fault, which it is fair to say. If the place I live were to fall during an earthquake I would find it rather odd to tell people that I had an accident. An accidental earthquake may make for a bit of a joke to some people... ~ R.T.G 02:36, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose Too soon. The INES level 7 is provisional. User:IDK112 makes a very good appraisal of the worst case/best case scenarios, and it will probably take months before we know for certain which is it. ^walk victor falk ^talk 15:38, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
• Support Actually when I did a Google News search for the name I found that disaster is the most common term for it over accident. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie Say Shalom! 19:31, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
• Strongly Oppose. User:IDK112 states very good reasons.1exec1 (talk) 15:00, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose The earthquake and tsunami were disasters, causing enormous death and devastation. The Fukushima accidents have not, so far (see: IDK112's well-reasoned post). As well, the IAEA still refers to it as the Fukushima nuclear accident. -- Kolbasz (talk) 13:19, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

The IAEA refers to Chernobyl as an accident. [3] We have to go with the majority of published sources and they refer to Fukushima as a disaster.--RaptorHunter (talk) 16:23, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Google News search for "fukushima accident": 663 results. "fukushima disaster": 638 results. -- Kolbasz (talk) 13:32, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Is it worth pointing out that your own analysis are irrelevant? The incident has been analysed by others, which is the only relevant detail here, and reckoned to be known as Disaster. If sufficient sources cannot be provided to dispute that, to claim that reference to a disaster would be a mistake, there should be nothing to debate. There are an ocean of sources already. Only valid vote would be, what do the sources support? Answer:- Disaster. ~ R.T.G 18:42, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose this article does not cover the earthquake and tsunami outside of what happened at the powerplant, so it is NOT about the Fukushima disaster, only a portion of the disaster. 65.94.45.160 (talk) 02:59, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

That's why we would call it the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster--RaptorHunter (talk) 23:50, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

• New Numbers: (Google News search - Past week only)

Fukushima Nuclear Disaster 17241 stories

Fukushima Nuclear Accident 5932 stories

--RaptorHunter (talk) 18:21, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

What do the sources support? (Disaster or Accident)

• Disaster Overwhelmingly so. Unpublished findings which dispute published ones are unnacceptable according to Wikipedia policy. If you want to follow a line of information not supported by verifiable sources, please take it up with the Village Pump? ~ R.T.G 18:42, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
• Time to close All of the above oppose arguments are based on opinion and WP:Synthesis of what constitutes a disaster and what does not. We have to go with the majority of published sources and they refer to Fukushima as a disaster. I think it's time to close this debate and move the article.--RaptorHunter (talk) 22:00, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

We had a similar debate like this for the Libyan Civil War thing, most sources called it conflict, and the majority of the opposing opinions were based on synth and opinion. They were counted like votes though. So I support doing things based on WP:COMMONNAME Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie Say Shalom! 16:51, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

That's a good point about the google searches and 'disaster' being more common. Still seems premature to me though. I also have to wonder whether a more specific search of news stories would get the same result as a general google search. Or a poll of random people. I'm not sure that the internet is a representative sample of human behavior, is what I'm saying here. I don't consider google hit numbers equivalent to a "published source". Can someone check the incoming searches that direct to this page? What does the average person type in when they want Fukushima news?

'Fukushima crisis' gets even more google hits btw. Maybe that would be a better transitional name until the dust has settled. IDK112 (talk) 00:12, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

A crisis is a terrible event, but a disaster is a even with terrible long term consequences. This is a disaster, not a crisis.--RaptorHunter (talk) 01:17, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

• Note to the closing admin...the majority of editors in this discussion oppose changing the name at this time. Cla68 (talk) 01:49, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

This is not a WP:poll. --RaptorHunter (talk) 04:12, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree that this is not a poll RaptorHunter. If there is no clear consensus the change should either remain as it is for more discussion or a more formal poll taken. I also agree with your earlier statement that the 'rubric' I put forward for defining an event as 'disaster' or 'accident' is unsourced; Its just my personal opinion. Likewise your post at 1:17 that "A crisis is a terrible event, but a disaster is an event with terrible long term consequences." is your unsourced interpretation of the connotations of those two words. I'm not sure what an official source would mean in this context, since connotations are always highly subjective. I brought up "crisis" earlier precisely because we don't know much yet about long term consequences. People reading a page about a 'crisis' would hopefully understand that the situation is still fluid, and the results not determined. Which I think is where we stand. IDK112 (talk) 04:36, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Consensus is irrelevant when dealing with something unsupported by sources. And it's somewhat ridiculous now, especially that some would continue to post lengthy debate without making it their business to go over the sources. ~ R.T.G 09:39, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

The article should be renamed a disaster after hundreds of people die or a significant part of Japan is abandoned. Every day some vehicle accidents have more people die. Not to mention coal mine deaths. Suppose you have a body part amputated. There is a big difference between losing a foot or losing a toe. Japan lost a toe. Temporarily. Its still nasty. 172.162.131.34 (talk) 19:18, 18 April 2011 (UTC) BG .... Count your blessings. Most radioactivity fortunately was contained in the buildings or went into the ocean. Massive contamination was not spread all over the land like the other 2 big Russian releases, but smaller contamination was spread by the senseless hydrogen explosions. This doesn't mean the Fukushima nuclear economic losses or radioactive releases are acceptable. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_effects_from_Fukushima_I_nuclear_accidents 172.129.186.32 (talk) 13:17, 19 April 2011 (UTC) BG172.129.176.88 (talk) 02:52, 22 April 2011 (UTC) BG

Support. Nice job with the numeric data thanks. Geofferybard (talk) 00:01, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

The picture added near line 292 of transmission tower at Minamisoma

This photo of a tower might be better placed in an article about the Tsunami. In this article here, there are problems:

1. This photo is from Minamisoma, north of Fukushima by 20 miles.
2. This photo shows debris around the base of the tower; it does not seem to show more.
3. This photo is not, and could not be, related to the Fukushima 1 nuclear accident.
4. It reinforces the idea that the grid was involved in the disaster. This claim needs evidence, even if introduced as a photo.

Here is Minamisoma, by the coast 37°36′46.23″N 141°00′55.50″E. Yes, it is badly damaged by the tsunami. Does it represent Fukushima? No. Please remove the photo. ( Martin | talk • contribs 20:01, 28 April 2011 (UTC))

I decided to delete the photo. It was added by user at 66.220.113.98, who does not have a talk page. ( Martin | talk • contribs 02:37, 29 April 2011 (UTC))

Unit usage and linking

First off, let's get this clear once and for all: there is never, ever a space between a unit and its prefix.
Second, there is a huge amount of overlinking going on - there is very little need to wikilink every single instance of e.g. "milli" and "sievert"; once or twice per section should be more than enough (WP:MoS: "In general, link only the first occurrence of an item. There are exceptions to this guideline, including [...] where the later occurrence is a long way from the first"). -- Kolbasz (talk) 23:36, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

And while I'm at it, the SI accepted symbol for hour is just plain h, not hr. I.e. it's mSv/h, not mSv/hr. -- Kolbasz (talk) 23:42, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

A goal

Right now, this article is an amazing collection of detailed information. That's very valuable, but it's hard to read and make sense of. It would be great if eventually there were a high-level discussion of what were the main failures, the main releases of radiation, the main causes, etc. Unfortunately, it might be too early for that to be possible on WP--to do so would be OR. But it might not be too early to think about how to structure the article to include that, and to keep an eye out for sources towards that.

I think that what I'm hoping for is a little like a good lead, but is probably longer than a lead should be. Maybe the first section after the lead should be "overview"? Or may be this whole article become that overview and then there are separate article on each reactor with the level or detail here now plus more as it emerges? I'm wondering what people think as far as the overall endpoint we are working towards here. Ccrrccrr (talk) 16:39, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

I am a proponent of splitting this article into:

• This article which is a long lead

* and has the main sequence of events (earthquake, tsunami, each of the explosions and fires in sequence); why a reactor needs cooling; a section on the lack of electrical power (grid/EDGs/batteries); short individual sections on each reactor; tunnels and trenches; the common fuel storage location; the provisional accident rating; a summary of radiation releases; the status table; and overall clean up efforts

• A unit 1 article

* that describes unit 1 events in chronological order with individual details about what TEPCO did (and didn't do) to try to prevent meltdown (e.g. per my memory, unit 3 was vented more than unit 1), some historical detail that may now be resolved (concerns about re-criticality, etc); the individual accident ratings; the status of the individual fuel pools; and the cleanup status of that reactor (e.g. if the robots went in unit 1 but not 4)

• A unit 2 article (similar to unit 1 article)
• A unit 3 article (similar to unit 1 article)
• A unit 4 and spent fuel pond article
• A unit 5/6 shared article that summaries that event

I've worked a lot on this article, and am not displeased by it, but

* At its current length of 95k, it's at the limit of readability

* The lead gives you a quick sketch, but to learn more, you have to read the whole thing. It's hard to prevent this without adding more repetition between the summary sections and the individual sections (e.g. the loss of power is described in the lead, the Earthquake and Tsunami section, and each of the 4 unit sections). If this repetition goes into break-out articles, it keeps this page more readable for the vast majority of page viewers.

* I think it prevents non-regulars from editing because there are so many parts and sections to try and keep consistent

* Each of these accidents is very large and technical and could receive a more complete treatment (right now everything seems somewhat similar between the units, but each accident had its own mechanisms, and we aren't tracking those distinctions well because of the size issue)

* The accident is ongoing, and every day there are small amounts of more information to be added, pushing the size limit, and leading to the removal of otherwise valuable info for "newer" info (see the debate about the time line)

* This also address the OP's comment about readability, by moving some of the more "historical" information to the individual unit sections, it makes this article more of a summary, and therefore more readable.

For comparison, Wikipedia's List of Chernobyl related articles lists around 37 related articles. That's fewer than we have, and that was pre-Internet era; for one reactor; and for a closed state -- so I can't imagine us ending up with fewer for an open society, 6 reactor accident in 2011.

So, I'd suggest splitting long term definitely, but even now, splitting. 66.65.191.165 (talk) 23:36, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Well for starters I would guess half this article is references. References are not supposed to be counted in length calculations.But cut half the references and it would reduce the length by 1/4. There are plenty of redundant references. References are hopelessly out of control. Stripping references and tables (as you are supposed to in this sort of calculation) I got a length of around 95,000 characters for the whole article and 35,000 characters for all the sections on units 1-6. They only constitute about 1/3 of the article, so even if you cut them entirely it would not solve your length problem. Since they are the very centre of the description of the accident, which is what this article is about, that wouldnt make much sense. If you cut the separate sections on units 1-6 by 50% and reduced them to the major events, the article size would still not be significantly affected.

We have a fairly large section on radiation in other countries. A decision has already been made to create a separate article 'radiation effects from fukushima...', so this section should not exist here, maybe one paragraph in the other existing section about radiation which links the radiation article.

Then there is the whole section on cleanup, which is mostly speculation because there hasnt been any yet. This table of solutions attempted, the section of ideas what to do. Should this be a separate article? What is the purpose of the reactor status table? Part of it repeats technical information and part is supposed to be a current snapshot. It does not list any INES ratings for the 5&6 incidents.

We seem to have a disproportionate amount of space devoted to flooding of the basement and ineffectual attempts to do anything about it. For recent weeks the activities could be summarised, 'more air releases of radiation. more sea releases of radiation. lots of head scratching wondering what to do with water in the basement. I would dare to say the situation now is broadly stable, albeit with ongoing radiation leaks, so to this extent the current news about what is happening is a lot less important than what happened in the first week or two. There may now be a considerable delay before anything meaningful happens. The next step of regaining control of the reactor machinery seems to be stymied by the flooding.

As a technical note, information in the lead is supposed to be repeated in the article because it is a summary of the rest.

I foresee quite a bit of text criticising what TEPCO did, but this is going to depend on others producing reports about what happened and should have happened. Sandpiper (talk) 09:14, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

See plans: http://bajansunonline.com/category/news/internationalnews/asia-pacific/ and http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/18/world/asia/18japan.html?_r=1 and http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/11041707-e.html 172.129.107.221 (talk) 18:28, 25 April 2011 (UTC)BG *** Just hosing down and cleaning up debris in the area will help. They're setting up a water filtration plant, writing off most reactor equipment, and apparently running unpressurized. Right way to go. Keeping track of currents, they can pipe filtered water into the ocean with a clean conscience. 172.162.116.195 (talk) 19:26, 25 April 2011 (UTC) BG

I feel that the three editors that have commented on a goal all offer good suggestions. Between the three of you, are there any areas of disagreement? (It seems that anon172 has entered an edit without first reading what the other editors have to say. It is distracting and I wish s/he would move it to a proper section discussing goals for clean-up.) Gandydancer (talk) 11:56, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

The current size

NewPP limit report
Preprocessor node count: 228440/1000000
Post-expand include size: 1570805/2048000 bytes
Template argument size: 629032/2048000 bytes
Expensive parser function count: 7/500

is too large for comfortable editing - this causes the blue wikimedia screen message when trying to save the article. I'll try to lighten formatting, and reduce the number of transcluded templates (they contribute a lot to the article instability), but a split is needed ASAP. Materialscientist (talk) 08:37, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Caption for photo for reactor 5&6

Caption says "Transformers behind units 5 and 6 from which power was restored to these units on 21 March" Strictly speaking partly true, but misleading. This adheres to the story that the grid failed, and was restored on the 21st. True that electricity flowed through the equipment in the photo on the 21st; but evidence is needed that it was not the submerged electrical distribution system in the plant that was the last item repaired. Here is a 'tweet' that the electricity was "on" in (the city of) Fuykushima on the 12th. [4] Irrelevant you say? Possibly, but no less irrelevant than the caption or the photo. How about the fact that Fuskushima 2 was taking power from the grid at midnight? How does that square with the assertion that the grid failed? ( Martin | talk • contribs 03:41, 30 April 2011 (UTC))

Here is a photo of workers connecting units 1&2 to the Ookuma line taken on the 18th. [5] Notice that this work is being done on the plant site. You can see the embankment in Google Earth. The album view gives the upload dates and captions [6] ( Martin | talk • contribs 04:52, 30 April 2011 (UTC))

Regarding [citation needed] in the role of the transmission lines in the chain of causes of damage to the plant

The transmission line connection environment near the Fukushima Daiichi Plant.

Regarding my notation of in the text:

Fukushima 2 (Daini) was taking power from the substation for cooling pumps by midnight of the 11th.
Fukushima 1 (Daiichi) is served by the same substation, by three tower chains, each with two circuits. However Daiichi was not taking power from the substation for well over a week.

Although it has often been repeated that the grid was down at Daiichi, there has been no evidence released to support that assertion, and the implication that this was one of the factors in the nuclear accident. A few towers were washed away, farther north, by the tsunami. But the towers serving Daiichi are back from the coast and up a cliff. There were no reports of towers being re-constructed near Daiichi, whereas there were reports and pictures of line work being done on the plant property itself. Line work on the plant site does not constitute a grid failure or what is normally called station blackout. That is, this type of failure, that requires on-site line work, would be a failure of the plant, not of the grid. ( Martin | talk • contribs 00:42, 10 April 2011 (UTC))

Do you mean 'earthquake caused major damage to the power grid'? No. There were reports of power suppply disruption caused by the disaster, you found a ref saying daini had grid power by midnight? its there If so, then it did not have grid power before midnight? No info It is not necessary to physically destroy the towers for power to fail, because something has to generate that power and something uses it. If the load becomes too great then circuits will disconnect automatically. I cannot say what happened her, but buildings being washed away sound like potentially shorted supplies increasing load and a lot of power stations shut down reducing supply. Power therefore failed, but I have no information on exactly what and whether critical routes or grids would be protected. Logically an area normally supplied by both daini and daiichi, both of which shut down, would be badly hit as regards maintaining any supply. My guess is that everything switched off automatically and then engineers had to come back and switch it back on where it was undamaged. This might be easier said than done in the middle of a disaster. these wires go only to the plants

I agree that power is spoken of very loosely in reports without explaining exactly what happened. It seems probable that the company did manage to get emergency generators to the plant fast - and could have obtained more with greater capacity - but that these could not be used once they were on site. Virtually nothing of the original equipment in 1-4 seems to be operating even now. It should be noted that 5 and 6 were already shut down before the accident and had been for some time, so most of the residual heating had stopped, but they still nearly got out of control when power failed. 5 and 6 seem to be built on higher ground and so fared better and some equipment is now operating, but this is just judging from the aerial photos. They started operating again on their own generators, not on external grid power, which must still have been faulty for some reason. You may be correct that the grid supply to 1-4 was undamaged and power lines still ran into the buildings, but that the switch rooms they arrived in were under water. The transformers seem to be on high ground again, so might not have been flooded. I am uncertain about this though because the water seems to have been pretty high and arriving on shore with full force would possibly tend to run up embankments and be forced higher running between them.

As to the period between earthquake and tsunami specifically, the emergency generators started up and this would have been in response to a power failure, but I dont know how much of a power failure would be needed to do this. They might start up on partial loss of one supply, and simply shutting down on site generation might have been enough. Your map shows there is a single point where grid supplies come together and where it is presumably possible to switch supplies. Apart from overload, was this damaged? I think the red lines are higher voltage than the orange, so not immediately inter-operable without transformer connections. Sandpiper (talk) 08:56, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I think the question of obtaining a power supply was probably mostly irrelevant after the tsunami because there was nothing functional to power. Operators had no idea even what was happening to the reactors, which turned out to be not quite so bad as it might. Some things not needing electricity did work. What we need is some eye witness reports from those who were on duty. I expect they have been told to say nothing? Clearly Japanese officials by now know exactly what happened. It is possible that had the magnitude of the future problem been known immediately, then some action might have been taken even just after the tsunami which would have made matters better now, but we cant know that without a clear knowledge of what did happen. It seems possible there were no plans of just what to do in a situation this bad, because a situation this bad could not happen. Sandpiper (talk) 09:06, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Your discussion might be more appropriate a few paragraphs up, rather than here. This paragraph only explains the [citation needed] addition to the article where the claim was made that the transmission lines to Daiichi played a role in the causal chain of damage to the plant. I change the title to make that clearer. I apologize for the confusion. Any references to facts would be appreciated. ( Martin | talk • contribs 07:01, 11 April 2011 (UTC))

I have dragged this section back from archive because it is unfinished business. The refd tepco press release says units 1-4 had two off-site power sources. It says one of these was lost in the earthquake. It says all power was lost after the tsunami. I am not clear from this whether ther were two totally independant power supplies for 1-3 or what they mean is one line of pylons carrying two sets of cables? Sandpiper (talk) 08:51, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Here is an article that asserts that the problem with the grid (search "station") was at the substation, and seems to know how far away the substation is. If it is true that the problem was at the substation, this means to me not that there was damage at the substation, or more deceptively to a transformer at the substation, but that protective relaying at the substation shut off the lines to the plant after the quake. Days later, after the 7.0 quake, the grid was reported to be shut off for 50 minutes. This strikes me as the same thing happening again.

On the question of two power supplies, I have seen that report, but discount it. You can look at the Daiichi Plant on Google Maps and see the three tower strings coming into the plant. By chance, each is near a stack. If one power source of "two" was down, that means that the other was up. Interesting but it does not seem to agree with or advance any theory of what happened.

I have to say that I am starting to get hostile about this portion of the story. Why is this location called a transformer station in the news story? The natural term, the common term, is a transmission substation. Is it called a "transformer station", and "knocked out a transformer station", to plant the false idea that the problem was with a transformer, or at least to preempt the question "what exactly was the problem at the substation?".( Martin | talk • contribs 07:42, 26 April 2011 (UTC)) I emailed the authors of the Bloomberg story for clarification, on the question of when and how the grid was returned to service at Daiichi. ( Martin | talk • contribs 13:58, 26 April 2011 (UTC))

Here is more, the last word that one needs, if it is true, from the same Bloomberg article:

Seawater flooded the basements of turbine buildings and other sites, disabling 12 of the 13 back-up generators and destroying electrical switching units. Salt water shorted electric circuitry, depriving the reactors of power for cooling and triggering a nuclear disaster

"destroying electrical switching units". After the tsunami, grid power was beside the point. There was no way to get that power around the plant. So mention, in the article, of a grid failure as part of the causation of the disaster at the least directs the readers attention away from this key damage: that the internal electrical network at the plant was in ruins. ( Martin | talk • contribs 13:49, 26 April 2011 (UTC))

Wow. The TEPCO press release on March 11 talks about one of two. I had seen a downstream article, and didn't realize TEPCO said it as well. Unfortunately that doesn't make things clearer; in fact it makes no sense. farther on the the press release it says (apparently describing the loss of the electrical system in the plant when the tsunami flooded the basement):

Subsequently, at 3:41PM, emergency diesel generators shutdown due to malfunction resulting in the complete loss of alternating current for all three units. (italics added)

Could it be any more vague, in not identifying the "malfunction", the device that malfunctioned, or the cause of the malfunction. Could they do any more to deniably suggest that it was the diesel generators that unfortunately were the problem. I am going to edit the article to hedge the "one of two" quote to say, "according to TEPCO", as a temporary measure. This should be cleared up shortly if the Bloomberg authors reply. ( Martin | talk • contribs 14:11, 26 April 2011 (UTC))

A picture from page 12 of the NISA analysis released April 4th depicts two things:

1. that transmission wires were involved. This is what I term the "old story", and not confirmed by the Bloomberg report. The diagram is obviously inexact, and one may say that it only indicates that off-site power was lost.
2. the electrical network in the plant was compromised by the flooding. ( Martin | talk • contribs 07:03, 28 April 2011 (UTC))

I think that this quote is amazing from the above mentioned march 11th TEPCO press release:

"For the above 3 units, off-site power was lost due to malfunction of one out of two off-site power systems, leading to automatic startup of emergency diesel generators."

There are two transmission tower strings connected to units 1-4. TEPCO could be saying that one string failed. If so, they are NOT CLAIMING STATION BLACKOUT. Very unexpected, if this is the proper interpretation. ( Martin | talk • contribs 21:11, 1 May 2011 (UTC))

Paragraph "earthquake and tsunami"; flooding the generators changed to disabling the generators

Regarding the sentence: "The earthquake was followed by a 15 m (49 ft) tsunami arriving 41 minutes later which topped the plant's 5.7 m (19 ft) seawall,[53][54][55] flooding the emergency diesel generators[56][57] (located in the basement of the Turbine Buildings)[52] and disabled all generators at approximately 15:41.[50]" "Flooding the diesel generators" is not exactly claimed by the cited references:

1. Footnote [56], from March 13th, says (on page 2):Fukushima was designed by General Electric, as Oyster Creek was around the same time, and the two plants are similar. The problem, he said, was that the hookup is done through electric switching equipment that is in a basement room flooded by the tsunami, he said. “Even though you have generators on site, you have to get the water out of the basement,” he said.
2. Footnote [57], link 1 March 11th, mentions stoppage: A more serious situation emerged at Tepco's nearby Fukushima Daiichi power plant, after the sudden stoppage of emergency diesel generators. These had started as expected upon automatic reactor shutdown, but stopped after one hour leaving units 1, 2 and 3 with no power for important cooling functions.
3. Footnote [57], link 2 March 11th, says disabled by flooding, not flooded: In addition, diesel generators intended to provide back-up electricity to the plant’s cooling system were disabled by tsunami flooding, and efforts to restore the diesel generators are continuing.

Changed to "disabling" from "flooding" ( Martin | talk • contribs 22:39, 1 May 2011 (UTC))

Yonomori Line

The TEPCO album view referenced just above gives a photo captioned the Yonomori Line. The Yonomori line is a lower voltage line (based on the height of the towers) and does not come from Daiichi. It runs south, through the town of Yonomori to a (small) distribution substation. There is one photo of workers on a tower, with the Yonomori line as the caption. Appears to be on site. ? Conjecture at this point: workers are energizing the line from other off-site sources (the grid). Note the insulator sizes... ( Martin | talk • contribs 05:01, 30 April 2011 (UTC))

sandpiper - I see you uploaded the picture of the grid connection for units 5&6. I posted a note on that discussion page. The line to 5&6 is Futaba, not Yonomori. Am checking this (Futaba) however. ( Martin | talk • contribs 04:47, 3 May 2011 (UTC))Oh yea! reference:Tepco Annual Report 2003 Page 24 (Japanese) smirk.( Martin | talk • contribs 05:02, 3 May 2011 (UTC))

CRIIRAD vs LNT

CRIIRAD, a French NGO, warned on 7 April that children and pregnant women in Europe should limit consumption of these, in addition to avoiding rainwater as a primary drinking source, as a precautionary measure, although it put the risk as "quite low". CRIIRAD concluded that the risk radioactive particles that remain outside the body or so called "direct fallout" was trivial. Other experts and institutions, like the National Academies' National Research Council have indicated that the risk of low level radiation increases linearly (no threshold) with the total absorbed level of radiation.

I know this is basically an artefact of previous extensive editing, but as it stands now, this section presents a false controversy - I have seen nothing to indicate that CRIIRAD disputes the LNT model. I'm removing the latter sentence. -- Kolbasz (talk) 11:11, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

TEPCO Press Release Pictures

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/news/110311/ has the complete collection of every photo and video they have released to the press, editors please have a look and figure out how these can be included or used as references. They have also created a flicker user http://www.flickr.com/photos/tepco311/ with many of these pictures.

Here is a flickr set of a 1999 tour of the site, including a look at the spent fuel pool and inside the secondary containment floor. Evidently rights are set so they can be used with attribution: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hige2/sets/72157626327994523/ Redhanker (talk) 18:19, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Nice find! With the CC Attribution 2.0 license the 1999 tour photos have, they should be directly uploadable to the Wikimedia Commons from Flickr. -- Kolbasz (talk) 21:03, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

There is also a collection of high resolution areal photos at cryptome.org: Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant Hi-Res Photos. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 12:30, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Agreed! Quite nice! ( Martin | talk • contribs 20:03, 28 April 2011 (UTC))

One of the 1999 pictures of the fuel pool is now at [File:Fukushima 1 view into reactor fuel pool.jpg]. If anyone knowledgeable is reading this, perhaps they could confirm that the blue spots just visible in part of the griding will be the cherenkov radiation glow from fuel rods. Sandpiper (talk) 13:37, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

It looks like it. It's hard to tell, though - especially with the shifted white balance in the edited photo. -- Kolbasz (talk) 13:51, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Re: cited article - Where was this photo taken?

An AP news report, from march 17th, in the "grid failure" meme has a photo of a power line that is not associated with Fukushima. Any ides where this photo is from? One clue is the obvious Tsunami damage, so this line is close to the shore, and probably runs along it, as well as along a road, a wide one? Taken from the second or third floor? Building? Is that a rail crossing? Plenty of power lines. I guess north, at least Minamisoma, or farther. ?? This story is cited in the article. ( Martin | talk • contribs 16:38, 5 May 2011 (UTC))

Unconfirmed deaths at reactor 3

The Telegraph says that six soldiers from the Japanese Central Nuclear Biological Chemical Weapon Defense Unit are reported to have been killed in the explosion of reactor 3 building, without sources. There's no such announcement by any government institution, including the Ministry of Defense, or any media in Japan. I don't know where the Telegraph got this information, but I request other sources to verify it. --Shinkansen Fan (talk) 07:42, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

#Did_six_people_really_die_in_the_hydrogen_explosion_in_reactor_unit_3.3F --Cybercobra (talk) 01:51, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Here is a story. The details vary. ( Martin | talk • contribs 07:12, 2 May 2011 (UTC))

Or the BBC ( Martin | talk • contribs 07:17, 2 May 2011 (UTC))

reference in NISA press release ( Martin | talk • contribs 14:22, 3 May 2011 (UTC))

I found a TV news coverage of the explosion and the injury:NNN News 24 reporting that 11 people have been injured. 4 of them are SDF soldiers, according to MoD. It's the same as NISA's press release. I couldn't find reports of deaths.--Shinkansen Fan (talk) 06:52, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Radiation Levels in Japan

There needs to be a section on radiation levels inside of Japan outside of the immediate area of the plant, perhaps measurements from Tokyo. There is a section on other countries but not on Japan itself. This seems to me the most important piece of information in the entire story and its not here. Or at least if it is it is buried and I could not find it. 68.188.25.170 (talk) 11:09, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Data is available via the Japan Radiation Open Data project. Feel free to graph it and add it. Kolbasz (talk) 18:34, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Road conditions hardly matter

Even after the equipment made it to the plant, it was not installed, the story goes on to say, so "road conditions" hardly matter.

"(Additional) batteries and mobile generators were dispatched to the site, delayed by poor road conditions with the first not arriving until 21:00 JST 11 March,[55][64] almost six hours after the earthquake. Work to connect portable generating equipment to power water pumps was still continuing as of 15:04 JST on 12 March,[65] because the normal connection point in a basement was flooded and because of difficulties finding suitable cables."

One could ask endless pointed factual questions. But since the basement was flooded, none of this activity made any difference, which no one stressed at the time, unless I am mistaken. ( Martin | talk • contribs 06:17, 3 May 2011 (UTC))

I think about the only thing said at the time was that there was a radiation release warning and emergency situation of some sort, calling for precautionary evacuation. Public arguing the toss about generators and batteries was all after the event when it became clear that those at the plant had stopped working. Then there was the question of why arriving generators hadnt helped, arguing about why the US had not been asked to fly some in, and so on. i agree, quite likely they were pointless because little could be done with them on site. I do not know whether a clever electrician could have done some fancy rewiring with a portable generator and kept some systems working, or whether a clever elctrician did in fact do this, or whether a clever electrician was prevented from doing this because of regulations, or because there was no clever elctrician, or because so much was flooded that nothing could be done. Given that a good part of the plant is underground and flooding was quite high above ground, that is a lot of stuff under water. We await some sort of official report. Given TEPCOs record, if they have any say we shall wait quite a while. Sorry, was there a flood? I would say we cannot say whether road conditions had a significant effect, but we certainly can say they delayed generator arrival, if they did. I would judge this is relevant whatever later transpired because it also touches on the fact that this was all hapenning in the middle of a bigger crisis. This definitely has made dealing with the plant problems more difficult. No fresh water, flooded out fire engines?Sandpiper (talk) 22:18, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

It just seems to me that people are willing to point the finger at anything except the truth. So what if the equipment started to arrive 5 hours after the tsunami, instead of, what, 2 hours after the tsunami? Any chance equipment could have started to arrive in 2 hours, in the best of circumstances, everyone on the ball? If the units had been powered back up an hour later, six hours after the tsunami, one might say, with some justification, too bad about that rotten 3 hour delay, all because of that once in a millennium earthquake, and how it messed up the culverts. But that was not the case.( Martin | talk • contribs 00:50, 6 May 2011 (UTC))

---

You say "quite likely they were pointless because little could be done with them on site." Quite likely? You don't have to guess. They had supplemental generation, on site, and what good did it do? And maybe the third diesel at unit 6. And maybe one of two grid connections into units 1-4. And who knows about the Futaba Line connections, when they came back, or how. Mum's the word. ( Martin | talk • contribs 00:57, 6 May 2011 (UTC))

Relatively small things like powering battery chargers to maintain the emergency supplies or lights might have been very useful and might have been done with portable power early on. Builders portable lighting strung through the plant. I suspect there was also major failure of the battery backup due to flooding, but of course this has not been explained in reports. The plants blew up, which has enormously complicated matters and I still do not understand how this happened. There seems to have been power failure for valves. We dont know whether there was some intervention which could have been done early on had people not been distracted by other problems. It is also relevant that TEPCO had several other reactors on the brink of failure so their emergency assistance plans must have been overwhelmed by not knowing which plant to worry about first. Sandpiper (talk) 08:23, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

What does this mean

this was the last sentence on earthquake and Tsunami

Although external power was also restored to units 1–4 after rebuilding the distribution system from the grid transformers, power has still not been restored to plant equipment there.

I deleted it because I did not understand what it meant. Was, or was not, power restored? Also, is it "still" true? ( Martin | talk • contribs 06:27, 3 May 2011 (UTC))

then perhaps you should put it back. Failing to understand something is not a ground for deleting it (wiki joke). External power was restored to units 1-4 after rebuilding the distribution system from the grid transformers. The transformers behind unit two were connected to power - I would guess from the pylon line coming into the plant but dont know. All we got were mysterious reports about laying new cables. There are, however, photographs of men working on pylons at the plant in order to restore power. A new distribution system was constructed to get power from the transformer to the units, presumably now at a lower voltage than on the grid. The original distribution system was inoperable. I have seen no explanation except that it was flooded. The next announcement was that lighting was restored. Not all units were connected at the same time. I have not seen any reports of anything except lighting being restored. Thus, no power has been restored to plant equipment. Plainly the plant equipment (ie cooling saystems) is not working. I am guessing the problem is that the cabling is in the basements, and the basements are still full of radioactive water. Are there any reports that power has been restored to equipment? Sandpiper (talk) 21:57, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Do you think that the sentence meant that power has been brought from the edge of the plant to the edge of each unit? It would be nice if the press releases were at least that clear, that precise. In any case, the more maintainable approach would be to report when each unit is running, not to say that they are 'still' not running. ( Martin | talk • contribs 16:13, 5 May 2011 (UTC))

Progress on restoring power from the grid was reported in bulletins as they went along. These generally seemed a bit optimistic. They reported building a new distribution centre in an office. They reported laying cables, still unclear where. They reported connecting the grid to existing transformers. They reported connecting the transformers to the new distribution centre. They reported connecting power from the distribution centre to each reactor when this happened. They reported restoring the lighting. But there it stuck. They were unable to restore power to the big equipment in 1-4. I believe, due to the basement areas being highly radioactive, but also looking at the pictures the upper parts of the buildings are a horrible mess. Some of the pictures seem to show the domed top of the reactors, but it is hard to tell exactly what part is visible. Sandpiper (talk) 08:14, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

---

Let me add, if I might: 1)I favor the term "yard transformer" or "plant transformer" to "grid transformer", reflecting responsibility. 2) One of the photographs of men working at the plant, are working on a structure made of round legs not of "angle iron" legs. I believe that these men are on a pressure relief stack. 3) "in order to restore power" - yes but the phrase "restoring power" so naturally leads to the thought that the "power was out". 3) I see that NISA reported in, Seismic#40, that Unit 5 went to external power on 11:36 March 21st( Martin | talk • contribs 16:13, 5 May 2011 (UTC))

?Power WAS out. I havn't been checking, but I presume it still has not been restored to the essential equipment at 1-4. At 5,6 as best I can see power also was wholly lost but then was first restored by fixing a generator. Sandpiper (talk) 08:04, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Nuclear Insurance?

The insurance aspect needs some explanation. If, as stated, Munich Re didn't insure against earthquake, fire and tidal wave then just exactly what was insured in the plant? Obviously it was grossly underinsured. I've read articles that said if nuclear plants were properly insured then they would be way too expensive to build. I know in the US there's the Price-Anderson Act which limits nuclear liability. Is this a little known dirty secret of the nuclear industry--that nuke plants are woefully underinsured? Any experts in nuclear insurance out there? Thanks. 71.138.27.143 (talk) 02:26, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

It isnt clear that they as a company insured the plant for anything. There might be some other insurance company which does insure the plant for all the normal things or they might be obliged to carry their own insurance. In the US private insurance companies do provide insurance to nuclear power plant operators, but only up to the Price-anderson defined limits (which were created in consultation with the insurance industry with regard to how much risk they were willing to insure, and with the nuclear industry with regard to how much liability it was willing to accept). As I understand it, Tepco will bear no responsibility for damage caused by radiation leaks from the plant, so as far as this goes has no need for insurance. I would think there might be some comback from the nuclear regulators who will fine them a modest amount if it is found they have done something wrong during this emergency, but if it is all put down to the tsunami, then not their problem. Nuclear power is the choice of the Japanese government, and they have assumed liability. Sandpiper (talk) 20:08, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

I found the following from the WSJ from March: "According to the country's 1961 Act on Compensation for Nuclear Damage, the operator of a nuclear facility will not be responsible for any damage caused by their reactor if it was due to "a grave natural disaster of an exceptional character." That means insurers of the nuclear plant are likely to be exempted from the payment, according to the law. [...] For any nuclear power company to operate in Japan, it must be registered with the General Insurance Association of Japan. The company also has to join an insurance plan run by Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. [...] The insurance cover is for up to 120 billion yen per site: with two complexes in operation, the cover at the troubled Fukushima reactors would be for 240 billion. Under legal provisions that have never been tested in practice, if third-party claims were to exceed this amount, the company can seek assistance from the government, with a vote in parliament on how much of the remaining claims would be shouldered." [7]---Now wiki (talk) 03:05, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

More Creative Commons Picture of post-explosion Site

This was posted may 10 on flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/xtcbz/sets/72157626687253144/with/5705301513/. Translates as "original April 2011 fukushima pictures" Shows boat, diesel fuel tank that was washed up next to office building, excellent shot of Unit 1 damage, crane and refuling platform in unit 4, extensive damage to side of unit 3, truck entrance with truck, windows blasted from office buildings etc. Rights are given as creative commons, but not enough information to determine who posted (or leaked?) these pictures. Shame on TEPCO if they have been holding these pictures back. Somebody needs to save these in case they get taken down. Redhanker (talk) 23:22, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

deleted significant fact because not supported by reference: Yonoromi(sic) line

This was in the section on the 5&6 reactors. Apparently it has been in there quite some tinme. I couldn't seem to track down, through comparing histories, when and who made the change, so I gave up on that. Here it is:

External power was partially restored to unit 5 via transformers at unit 6 connected to the Yonoromi power transmission line on 21 March.(ref name=NISA40/)

The citation does not mention Yonomori. The Yonomori Line is not one of the major transmission lines, but this would be an important piece of the puzzle about backup power supply if it can be substantiated. Backup power is of course a key to this disaster. There is a tiny distribution line that leaves the plant from up the cliff and exits the plant along the first base foul line of the baseball field. This line goes to Yonomori, and so I assume that is the Yonomori line. It terminates in a tiny distribution substation, that has another line that heads east and cross-county. ( Martin | talk • contribs 15:45, 2 May 2011 (UTC))

It was mentioned by name somewhere, i put it in. I have hunted a bit for it but havnt found it and dont have sufficient time now to hunt further. It was in a release at the time the power was restored but I couldnt find it looking through the obvious ones at the right sort of time. Sandpiper (talk) 22:30, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Sure. References help. Even they can contain unverified information. Theanphibian found transmission line names in the 2003 TEPCO Annual Report, in Japanese and posted them here. (!) The Yonomori line's involvement is an open issue. It is a Tohoku line I am convinced.( Martin | talk • contribs 16:27, 6 May 2011 (UTC))

What do you want to know about the Yonamori line? See page 3. #27 pylon of the 66000v #2 Yonamori line collapsed by the earthquake. [8] [9] [10] Hope this information is helpful. Oda Mari (talk) 17:59, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! There is some discussion on the first of these documents, 23032202, page 3, at Commons.wikimedia. But if pylon #27 on the Yonomori line fell down, isn't that a bad thing? Checking, but here is a questioning. Ah! 66kV. That's new. ( Martin | talk • contribs 16:31, 7 May 2011 (UTC))

---

Thank you for the references. They do not dispel the questions, unfortunately. The question about the Yonomori line (the night forest line, in translation) is, apparently, how it relates to Units 5&6. Units 5&6 are a somewhat of a side issue. (1) The story would be clearer if the 500 kV Futaba line had pylon #27 down, and tiny 66kV Yonomori came to the rescue; but that is not the story. There is no report of a problem with the Futaba Line. (2) If Yonomori comes from Shin-Fukushima, why send power on a small line with a tower down rather than a big line with no problems? (3) I count the 30th pylon on the Yonomori line by the baseball field, so 27 would be somewhat to the south of the plant. One of the pictures in one of the article you referenced had red and yellow circles around the second last pylon, near Unit 5&6. Maybe the pylon numbering is not intuitive. (4) I forgot that there were small towers by Units 5&6. I cannot follow that tower string more than a few towers. (5) This confusion is bothersome. (6) One article you referenced says that the towers were out of range of the tsunami. I agree. Many, maybe half, the towers on on hills, and most of the rest are inland. Very few (three?) are "at risk", and towers are mostly empty space, and have foundations. Three would need to be knocked out for three transmission lines to be disabled. (7) One article did have a picture of men in the field and a story about a downed tower. Thank you. Will follow this. If you find more, please do post. ( Martin | talk • contribs 05:11, 8 May 2011 (UTC))

It does sound like the Yonomori Line was involved in 5&6 somehow. I will put the reference back in tomorrow, if someone else doesn't.( Martin | talk • contribs 05:29, 8 May 2011 (UTC))

The commons file above is incorrect. But first of all, please note that the source is a personal site. The reason you couldn't find the Yonamori line is that the line shares pylons with the Okuma 3 and 4 line from Shin-Fukoshima substation since March 1974. The Okuma 3 and 4 line has 25 pylons. Here are the images. But I couldn't find where the Yonamori line branches off from the Okuma 3 and 4 line. It is impossible to find the detailed grid on the web because of the security reason. The Okuma 1 and 2 line is here. The operation started in September 1973 with 27 pylons. And this is the Futaba line. Operated since September 1977 with 33 pylons. The line to Daini is "Tomioka", not "Fukuoka". Here's a machine translated page of another pylon mania's blog. The original ja page is here Do you know this? The machine translated article is here. If you use machine translator use the Yahoo jp page. It's better than Google translate. I just saw your latest post. I'll try to find something more. As for the pylon 27, it was confirmed at the House of Representatives of Japan on April 27. You can watch it at here. Click 27 from the 4月 calender on the left, choose 経済産業委員会, the fifth entry, and click "吉井英勝（日本共産党）16時40分 21分". The Yonamori is the line goes to 5&6. As far as I checked, the Futaba seems to be a power-out-put line to Shin-F/Tokyo from 5&6 and the Yonamori a power-in-put line from Shin-F. Oda Mari (talk) 09:20, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I corrected the Commons file in line with your comments about a) name of Tomioka Line (verified against TEPCO 2003 Annnual Report p24) and b) shared pylons on Okuma line (I can see them in the difference in shape of the 2 strings of Okuma line towers. The #2 towers shadows are taller, and the wires start well above the skirt.) The photos of the pylons were helpful.

It's funny that they call the line the Yonomori line, since it does not go near Yonomori. 1974 was just after Unit 6 construction started, which continued till 79. Do you know the history of this line??

The Yonomori line splits from Okuma 3-4 as it enters the plant site.

I see that the "do you know this" reference is an important explanation, but I cannot translate the Japanese. ??

Pylon 27 - I see. But what about the Tohoku line that comes in by the baseball field?

Regarding power-out vs power-in. Power lines do not have that kind of direction. For example, the Daini plant has been running the pumps using power taken from the Tomioka Line since the first TEPCO Plant status report at midnight March 11th.( Martin | talk • contribs 15:37, 9 May 2011 (UTC))

I'd like to know the exact names of 11, 12, and 13 in the image. Could you provide them? Hopefully in ja like 双葉線. How did you find them? I could not find the Tohoku line near the baseball field. In which direction can I find it? Six o'clock or eight o'clock from the baseball field? And how near/far from the field? A half mile? A quarter mile? Please let me know. Thank you. Oda Mari (talk) 05:48, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I found the lines by looking on Google Earth. One tower is behind home plate. Tohoku's distribution substation #11 is here: 37°21′20.52″N 140°59′24.89″E. I have looked at Tohoku Power Company website for information about their power distribution infrastructure, but I have not seen any. I have posted more about the diagram on its pages on commons. This article you posted is the most informative. Do you have a link to the Japanese version? ( Martin | talk • contribs 16:16, 10 May 2011 (UTC)). Often, a corridor is cut through the trees for the transmission lines. This can be easier to spot than the towers and from higher up. ( Martin | talk • contribs 16:27, 10 May 2011 (UTC))

This is the ja link. Here are the grid the Tohoku Electric Power offers on the web but the names related to Daiich and Daini are not included. [11] [12] #12 might be the 東電原子力線. According to this blog, it's an old line used when the plant was built and the name of #11 is the Tomioka substation. But I couldn't find any reliable maps nor reliable pages explaining on the line/substation. Even though they are mentioned here and there, unless you find RS, including the Yonomori line information, the Common's map is OR as tracking down the lines on the Google map by yourself is OR, I appreciate your effort though. So sorry, but as I wrote above, I think it is impossible to find the detailed grid map/information that can be used as RS on the web. Oda Mari (talk) 05:50, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Wow, nice finds. I agree: possible copyright problem. I posted it to talk page. If it was used during construction, then I think its reasonable to guess that the 66kV line to 5&6 could also be a construction line, since it was turned on six months into the six year construction phase of 5&6. Not completely satisfactory as an answer however, since Unit 1 was operational, and Unit 2 soon would be. Might explain the name Yonomori, since it would have served the same purpose for 5&6 as Tohoku's "Yonomori" Line did for 1&2 - construction. Conjecture. ( Martin | talk • contribs 23:00, 11 May 2011 (UTC)) The purpose of the substation is to provide electricity to the neighborhood. You can see the street poles, the distribution system running right by. You have to presume that this is the station that serves Tomioka don't you?( Martin | talk • contribs 23:22, 11 May 2011 (UTC))

I'm not quite sure what you are arguing. It is not OR to collate information. If one source (eg google map) shows clearly visible power lines it is not OR to create a new map with the visible lines marked. If tepco says there are four lines coming onto the plant and names each one going to each unit, and it is possible to see in the other source which line is going to which unit, then it is not OR to add the names to the map int the appropriate places. Every time we write an article we add information from different sources into one document - there are 400 sources listed for this article...Sandpiper (talk) 22:32, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree Sandpiper. The problem is not OR. For a map to be OR, I would need to fly to Japan and look for the towers, or something like that. The problem, I think, is that the map is too accurate, and it may have a copyright issue for that reason. IMHO. If you can describe the situation in words; I don't see how it could be wrong to draw a picture. ( Martin | talk • contribs 02:37, 12 May 2011 (UTC))

So what is the conclusion reached? The japanese document posted above seems to translate under google to show a line feeding power to 5&6 called the 'night forest' line. Is this a translation of 'yonomori' or is it confirmed that this is a different name for the same line, such that the tepco document does identify the feed to 5&6 as the Yonomori? Martin, transformers do run in both directions, but it is possible the low voltages from the transformers on the futaba line might still be incompatible. I dont know what voltages the main generators produce natively which is then connected to these outgoing transformers, but it might be different to the voltages which are needed to run the plant. It might have been more efficent to provide separate much smaller transformers to power the plant at a different voltage. If the 'night forest' line is lower voltage than the futaba, this too would be a cost reduction and perhaps explain the choice to run from a different line. I do not understand the diagram about power failure. It seems to imply that grid power was still available at unit 2 throughout the emergency, because no faults are shown. This seems unlikely, so are there other faults not indicated, for example power failure at the shin hukushima substaion so that there was no power to send anywhere?

The faults diagram says something like 'started only D/G 6b'. Now, I did understand all generators started initially, but I do not recall reading a definite statement that this is true. I have read several postings here and there that plant backup generators are unreliable in emergencies! The article still carries the mysterious tepco comment that the second unit of emergency generator A of unit 6 provided power a few days into the emergency. Is this the same generator as is referred to in the diagram as generator B, or does the comment on the diagram actually mean that after the earthquake, only generator B at unit 6 started up. This then failed in the tsunami but later unit A was resurrected. This might just make sense if A, having failed to start, was saved from flooding damage because it was not running. Sandpiper (talk) 21:42, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

The Shin-Fukushima substation was powering the Fukushima Daini Plant that evening; one can't say the substation was "out".

I dont think we can honestly draw much conclusion from that.

If you post in the middle of a comment, could you make it brief, with the elaboration later?( Martin | talk • contribs 17:24, 14 May 2011 (UTC))

First, what time of night and did power go off before coming back, but second as a distribution point it might be that some lines were operable while others were not, or repairs happened one by one. The diagram in the posted ref shows a number of faults which occured with the power supply but we dont know whether this is an exhaustive list or whether although it shows the distribution station it only shows faults inside the power plant itself. Power must be distributed to consumers in the area somehow, and it must be the case that major flooding occured at the consumer end of the power lines. This must have caused knock-on distribution problems.Sandpiper (talk) 14:16, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Are you saying then that the station was "out"? No you're not. So why the comment? The most you can say is that the station was partly out. Then you need to explain, or at least claim, that the parts that were out were all the parts that went to Daiichi and all the parts that worked were the parts that went to Daini. Be my guest. What in the diagram do you see about distribution, about consumers? ( Martin | talk • contribs 17:34, 14 May 2011 (UTC))

Are you trying to make sense of the Yonomori Line? Trying to figure out why TEPCO built it?

I have the much smaller aim of trying to get the right name!Sandpiper (talk) 14:16, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

It looks as though that line is called the Yonomori Line by TEPCO, but note that it does not serve the town of Yonomori, outside of Tomioka, which has a night forest. ( Martin | talk • contribs 22:55, 11 May 2011 (UTC))

we are going to be posting in haikus next. What IS a night forest? The night forest attacked the power plant ala Dr who? Is this the name of a place which the power line went through or a chain of shops in Japan which sponsored it? Google translates the line name in the ref as 'night forest'. Presumably TEPCO supplied the information about what it was called, though somewhere there is the original release I read where it was stated power to 5&6 was restored from the yonomori line, which would seem to be both correct and precisely how power was supposed to be provided, so entirely reasonable, assuming somehow yonomri=night forest.

few words; spring air; ponder.

like the cherry blossom festival in Washington. Note the phrase "these are especially beautiful at night when lit up" ( Martin | talk • contribs 17:42, 12 May 2011 (UTC))

The asahi article includes an incomprehensible diagram in Japanese about how the plant has been rewired. Can anyone make sense of it?Sandpiper (talk) 22:38, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

fuel pool heating

The asahi link posted above [13] gives figures in what seem to be kilocalories/hr for the heat being generated in the fuel pools. I translate that as 1 Kc/h=1W, so it gives unit 1 60Kw, Unit 2 400Kw, unit 3 200 Kw, Unit 4 2Mw, Unit 5 700Kw, Unit 6 600 Kw. It also gives dimensions of the fuel pools as approximately 10m x 12m x 12m deep. Sandpiper (talk) 23:36, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Maybe spent fuel pools should not be located in reactor buildings, or any place where access is not possible in an emergency. 172.162.230.91 (talk) 11:32, 13 May 2011 (UTC) BG ..... The fuel pool cooling requirements are low enough that backup fuel pool cooling could have been simply accomplished by convection air-cooled aluminum heat sinks partially submerged in the pools. The situation might not be a disaster but it is a total fiasco, with the tsunami flooding, the cores melting, hydrogen explosions, fuel pool damage, and radiation releases. Too bad it happened at a site with multiple reactors; the harsh lessons would have been learned if this happened to only one reactor. In fairness all Japan was blind to tsunamis, but even so the reactors cascade of self-destruction is unacceptable and even shameful. An expensive long term mess. Its no wonder the Japanese government lost confidence in nuclear power. 172.129.106.51 (talk) 13:21, 14 May 2011 (UTC) BG

Meltdown confirmed

There was a quote from the bloomberg article:

The government and Tepco are described as "consistently appeared to be underestimating the severity of the situation.”

The way it is now it is just bad English. The problem is I'm not really sure how to integrate it. The quote is from Paul Padley, a particle physicist at Rice University in Houston. But just attributing it to him sounds just strange (who is Paul Padley and why are we quoting him). Perhaps change the previous sentence to acknowledge bloomberg explicitly and then attribute it to the article? ("the article also quotes a particle physicist who says...") as bloomberg's a known source? Perhaps someone better than me can turn this paragraph into one coherent whole. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.174.94.82 (talk) 21:43, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Death inside the plant

from: http://www.chinapost.com.tw/asia/japan/2011/05/15/302380/Worker-at.htm The operator of Japan's tsunami-wrecked nuclear power plant said a contract worker in his 60s died Saturday after collapsing at the facility's waste disposal building, adding that his body showed no signs of dangerous levels of radioactivity. -- while not directly relevant to the radioactive event it is still directly tied to the radioactive event. Perhaps the "Reported death(s)" total should be changed from 0 to 1. I'd do it but I am by no means brushed up on style guide nor have the time. 08:12, 15 May 2011 (UTC) by unregistered noob —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.66.68.56 (talk)

I disagree. It was a heart attack. -- Kolbasz (talk) 01:02, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

How on earth can that death be attributed to the nuclear disaster, even the link says explicitly that it is unrelated!

New report from TEPCO

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110515e10.pdf

Confirmation than reactor 1 melted down. 2 and 3 may have also. Provides some detailed information.

It should definitely be incorporated, but the use of the word "meltdown" (and variants) should be avoided to the greatest extent possible, as it's not actually a defined term - we've had confirmation of fuel melting for ages (the previous estimate put the fuel damage at 55%). What's new here is the severity of the damage (core completely destroyed, and possible damage to the RPV) and the rapidity of the event (fuel melting started just 5 hours after the quake, and was complete after only 11 more hours). Kolbasz (talk) 16:06, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Also, the UK Chief Nuclear Inspector has published an interim 'lessons learnt' report, with an analysis of the Fukushima accidents. Not hugely in-depth, but using very reliable sources of info. Probably a good source.[14] Rwendland (talk) 20:46, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Vegaswikian (talk) 06:02, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

---

Fukushima I nuclear accidents → Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accidents — Many news sources have used this name ("Fukushima Daiichi" gets 5x as many hits on Google News as "Fukushima I" (both with quotes)), and the Wikipedia article on the reactor itself is titled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. 75.40.204.106 (talk) 02:06, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Support common name for the plant in English is "Fukushima Daiichi" 184.144.163.181 (talk) 04:01, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

• Support with some reservations It should definitely be renamed from "Fukushima I". However, should it be "Daiichi" or "Dai-ichi"? TEPCO's English press releases use "Daiichi", while NISA's and NSC's use the hyphenated spelling. -- Kolbasz (talk) 21:50, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

• Support. Voting for Daiichi per TEPCO site. Teyandee (talk) 16:57, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

• Support.1exec1 (talk) 23:45, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Discussion

I notice that the previous discussion about changing the name to "Fukushima I nuclear disaster" was archived before it was closed. I believe that the event is clearly being called a disaster by the media now that there is clear evidence of partial or complete meltdowns at several of the reactors. As an administrator, I'm willing to make the call and say that the article should be either "Fukushima I nuclear disaster", "Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster" or "Fukushima nuclear disaster" (which seems to be the name that the media is settling on). I'm willing to reopen the discussion on "disaster" if there some good arguments are made and support for keeping "accident". If you read some of the articles that show up in google when you search on "Fukushima nuclear accident" it seems clear that the initial "accident" caused by the tsunami resulted in the "disaster". This seems to me to be the way to talk about what happened. The initial incident was the accident which caused the disaster: destruction of the plant; melt-downs; power shortages; environmental contamination; huge radioactive cleanup problems; etc. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 02:58, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

"Fukushima Daiichi" is better, since it removes the impact of Daini's evacuation perimeter, which some people would call part of any "Fukushima nuclear disaster". 65.95.13.213 (talk) 04:23, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

File:Fukushima explosion.jpg

File:Fukushima explosion.jpg has been nominated for deletion. 65.95.13.213 (talk) 04:52, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Why?173.206.139.42 (talk) 16:15, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

You woudl find out if you went to the discussion indicated on the file page, and read the discussion. 65.95.13.213 (talk) 06:29, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Prompt criticality

American nuclear engineer Arnold Gundersen, noting the much greater power and vertical debris ejection compared to the unit 1 hydrogen blast, has theorized that the unit 3 explosion involved a prompt criticality in the spent fuel pool material, triggered by the mechanical disruption of an initial, smaller hydrogen gas explosion in the building.

Do we really need this bit of pseudoscientific speculation in the article? Especially since if you take the time to watch the video, you'll find out that the argument he uses to support his fringe hypothesis is that a hydrogen-oxygen mix cannot detonate - it can only deflagrate. Say what? -- Kolbasz (talk) 23:41, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

To be fair to Gundersen he only says it is a plausible hypothesis that needs to be tested by comparing Xenon isotope ratios in the cloud emitted - which he says has not been disclosed although almost certainly measured. But I would agree with you that this is not WP:RS enough for inclusion. Rwendland (talk) 13:44, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Meltdown in number 2 and 3 reactors

According to this http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/05/24/3225645.htm "The latest announcement means all three reactors with active fuel inside the Fukushima plant, north-east of Tokyo, are believed to have suffered meltdowns after the March disaster."

Should this be reflected in the article? --Zaphood (talk) 21:08, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Meltdowns

TEPCO has now confirmed meltdowns in 1, 2 and 3. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 08:50, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

And something really scary: http://enenews.com/radiation-at-reactor-no-1-skyrockets-now-over-200-sieverts-per-hour -- ☑ SamuelWantman 21:50, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Looking like the latter is a false alarm; it appears that there was a transcription error that saw them post the drywell temperature reading (201 degrees C) as the drywell radiation reading instead. rdfox 76 (talk) 23:27, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

"Continuing radiation"

The "Continuing radiation" subheading under "Reactor unit 2" is misnamed, as it's not in fact about emissions of radiation from the unit. It begins by describing the reconnection of power to the unit, and then the rest of it mostly deals with releases of radioactive water. Aside from the entirely irrelevant (for the section) portion about the power, it should probably be merged with the "Pressure vessel damage" section (under the latter's heading). -- Kolbasz (talk) 00:06, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

I did a quick cleanup of the entire "Reactor unit 2" section. Power reconnection was moved up to the section lead, the "Nuclear core damaged" subsection was split into "Pressure vessel damage" and "Reactor core damage", a "Spent fuel pool" heading was added (to match the other reactor units' sections), relevant parts from the "Continuing radiation" subsection were moved to their proper places, and the remaining "Continuing radiation" section was renamed "Containment damage". -- Kolbasz (talk) 13:08, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Bogus information in table

The table of statistics for each reactor unit is claiming that the reactor vessel pressure is -0.03 MPa (absolute), which is an impossibility. You cannot have negative absolute pressure. If you want to claim that this refers to a pressure which is less than atmospheric pressure, then it is not an "absolute" pressure measurement.Eregli bob (talk) 15:34, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

It's called instrumentation error. Basically every instrument has an accuracy of X +/- Y - where Y is dependant on how large X is. A BWR runs at ~70 bar (or 7 MPa - see http://www.ati.ac.at/fileadmin/files/research_areas/ssnm/nmkt/06_BWR.pdf), and so even a 1% instrument error is going to result in a accuracy of +/- 70 kPa. MWadwell (talk) 01:43, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Relevance?

"Plutonium contamination has been detected in the soil at two sites in the plant." How is this relevant? Does it show anything about the danger levels involved to workers at the plant that cannot be found elsewhere in the opening summary? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.11.1.60 (talk) 09:46, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Addition information can be added, but since Pu can have a half-life of thousands or millions of years (depending on the isotope), its relevance is at the very least long-term contamination beyond that of the other isotopes released (cesium, iodine) and that it wasn't one-location event.MartinezMD (talk) 18:09, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Read the source. This is not a notable or even slightly dangerous level of Plutonium (it contributes less to radioactivity than the normal soil does and the "contaminated" soil is as radioactive per kilogram as the carbon that makes up your body right now!), but the impression this phrase (due to it's inclusion in the summary) will give the reader is exactly that! 82.11.1.60 (talk) 14:17, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I wish people would use names. But I agree with 82.11. Million year half-lifes are not as bad 1 year half-lifes. The only good thing about a two day half life, is after a month, there is no point in thinking about doing anything. ( Martin | talk • contribs 15:58, 7 May 2011 (UTC))

I would say the point is that if there is plutonium detectable anywhere which is more than the natural (or unnatural) background then it is a further measure of fuel rod damage and escape of fuel, because it can only have come from inside the fuel rods. It indicates an escalation of the problems. Sandpiper (talk) 07:54, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Could a disclaimer that this is only an indicator of possible reactor leakage and not even slightly dangerous in itself be included to prevent people getting the wrong impression (because they almost certainly will for similar reasons to why the Material Conditional is philosophically problematic)? 82.11.1.60 (talk) 16:08, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Pu-239 is dangerous not only because it is radioactive (it is an alpha emitter), it is toxic... HSDB info for Pu — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kalin.KOZHUHAROV (talk • contribs) 17:10, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

About chest x ray

Here http://www.fda.gov/Radiation-EmittingProducts/RadiationEmittingProductsandProcedures/MedicalImaging/MedicalX-Rays/ucm115329.htm

mSv from a chest x-ray are 0,02.

But from here http://nrc.gov/images/about-nrc/radiation/factoid2-lrg.gif mSv are 0,1 (10 mRem).

Claiudio (talk) 20:41, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

And there are estimates all in between - but 0.02 and 0.1 mSv are pretty much the lower and upper bounds, respectively. The estimates differ depending on the assumptions used: average dose per image, single image (e.g. just a posterior-anterior) VS whole procedure (e.g. posterior-anterior + lateral), etc.

(It should be noted that in real life, the actual received dose will also vary, depending on equipment (modern direct digital imaging usually gives lower doses than film, for example), procedures, etc.) Kolbasz (talk) 23:04, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Any discussions that compare nuclear contamination to chest x-rays need a caveat that explains that radioactive particles consumed in food or inhaled are far more dangerous than a similar dose in an x-ray. The comparison to x-rays is done to make the contamination seem innocuous, and less of a concern, which is misleading. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 23:44, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

"Any discussions that compare nuclear contamination to chest x-rays need a caveat that explains that radioactive particles consumed in food or inhaled are far more dangerous than a similar dose in an x-ray."

No. That is flat-out wrong. While it's true that internal contamination is in general something to be more worried about than external radiation (due to the former's potential to deliver a high dose, from longer exposure and better α/β penetration), it's still just the dose that matters. 1 mSv in some tissue from an internal source is just the same as 1 mSv from an external source. A good radiation protection data sheet will state exposure values for ingestion and inhalation - taking into account deposition areas in the body, biological half-life, radioactive half-life, etc. - as a dose/activity value (e.g. ingestion of ¹³¹
I
: 2.2E-08 Sv·Bq^-1). Kolbasz (talk) 15:02, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

It was my understanding (and I might be wrong about this) that a 1mSv dose from a single radioactive particle within the body was far more dangerous than a 1mSv dose from an evenly distributed external source like an X-ray because the cells around the particle are bearing the brunt of the radiation and thus are more likely to be damaged. The Wikipedia article on Alpha particles says:

When alpha particle emitting isotopes are ingested, they are far more dangerous than their half-life or decay rate would suggest, due to the high relative biological effectiveness of alpha radiation to cause biological damage, after alpha-emitting radioisotopes enter living cells. Ingested alpha emitter radioisotopes (such as transuranics or actinides) are an average of about 20 times more dangerous, and in some experiments up to 1000 times more dangerous, than an equivalent activity of beta emitting or gamma emitting radioisotopes.

Is this not so? If not, why do you concur that "internal contamination is in general something to be more worried about than external radiation (due to the former's potential to deliver a high dose, from longer exposure and better α/β penetration)". Is there a way to say that contamination is more dangerous than background radiation because it has the potential to be ingested and bioaccumulated, leading to a more concentrated dose, that you would find agreeable? What bothers me is that it seems misleading to compare nuclear contamination to background radiation or chest x-rays, when it is, as you say, "something to be more worried about". What do you think is a fair and balanced way to say that in the article? There also doesn't appear to be a consensus in the scientific community about how much more dangerous these particles are inside the body. That being the case, we should state that there is a lack of consensus about the extent of the additional harm and give a sense of the range of opinions. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 08:33, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

The sievert is a unit of equivalent dose: unlike the gray (Gy, or J/kg) which just measures the absorbed energy, it's weighted for the biological effects of different types of radiation. The "20 times more dangerous" part in the quote above refers to the quality factor, or radiation weighting factor, which is set at 20 for alpha radiation. In other words, while 1 mGy of gamma radiation is equivalent to 1 mSv, 1 mGy of alpha radiation is equivalent to a whopping 20 mSv. So while alpha radiation is much more harmful per unit of absorbed energy, it's still just the equivalent dose that matters. It's specifically what the sievert is for, to get a dose measurement in terms of how harmful it actually is. As for the "1000 times more dangerous" part, I don't know what they're going on about - but the followup, "than an equivalent activity of ...", leads me to believe that they're not quite sure themselves, as you can't really compare different radionuclides that way. Even if you look at just gamma radiation, you'll get that kind of difference between different nuclides. For example, the specific gamma ray constants of ²³⁸
U
and ⁶⁰
Co
at 30 cm (using the same reference as the ¹³¹
I
dose above) is 1.25E-5 and 1.26E-2 mSv·h^-1·MBq^-1, respectively - or almost exactly a factor 1000 higher dose rate for the same activity.
The thing about the single particle being more harmful sounds like the "hot particle hypothesis", which has not been borne out by experiments (or studies of human accidental exposures), and is today considered fringe science in the field of radiation protection. (Sadly, fringe science has a tendency to crop up in Wikipedia articles, and it's hard to tell fringe from accepted science on the internet)
Internal contamination is something you worry more about on than external radiation, as even a fairly small ingested/inhaled activity can lead to a relatively high dose (and for alpha radiation, it is the only way to receive a dose (disregarding the corneas) - externally, it is harmless, since the high energy, low penetration alpha particles will not penetrate the outmost layer of dead skin cells). And most of the radiation dose to the public from a release of radioactivity like this one is indeed more likely to be from ingested/inhaled radioactivity rather than ambient radiation. But equivalent doses are still comparable! For instance, internal radiation is used in medical imaging: PET scans, scintigraphy and radioactive iodine uptake tests all rely on the deliberate ingestion or injection of a radioactive substance, but the dose can be calculated to not pose an undue risk to the patient (the dose from a PET scan (internal radiation) and a CT scan (external radiation) are roughly equivalent).
It should also be noted that a fair amount of your yearly background dose comes from internal radiation - ⁴⁰
K
, and to a lesser extent, ¹⁴
C
, in the body, and other ingested/inhaled emitters from naturally occurring radioisotopes in the environment (for example, radon). So to say that you can't compare background radiation and radioactive contamination is also off, since the latter is in fact a large and inescapable part of the former.
Phew. This became a long post, but I hope it was educational. Kolbasz (talk) 12:22, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and on the text you've added to the lead:

Radiation from environmental contamination can become concentrated is some locations due to wind and rain. Radioactive particles are a hazard when they are consumed or inhaled.

I see what you're trying to say, and it's basically correct, but there are few issues. One is a radiation/radioactivy mixup. Another is that the reference only backs up the second sentence. The last is that I'm not entirely convinced it belongs where it's at right now. Anyway, it should probably read something like this:

Radioactive particles [from fallout/in the environment] can be concentrated in some locations due to wind and rain, and pose an additional health hazard when ingested or inhaled.

This should be a good enough free reference for rainfall concentration (search for "wet deposition"): http://www.icsu-scope.org/downloadpubs/scope50/chapter06.html Kolbasz (talk) 15:31, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your excellent explanation. Let me ask you this about the radiation reports from Japan: How do they decide how much is being ingested or inhaled? Since the dangers of alpha emitters are so dramatically different, it would seem a conservative estimation of how much will be ingested or inhaled would result in a much lower equivalent dose than a generous estimate. Is there reliable scientific data for determining the levels of ingestion for this type of accident?

I am fine with your changes to my edits, and I too am not sure where the best location would be. Perhaps a new paragraph or section is needed that discusses the variation and lack of certainty around the reports of contamination. [15] -- ☑ SamuelWantman 19:39, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Large-scale testing of a population is expensive and time-consuming, so dose estimates for the general population are mostly educated guesswork, based on deposition maps and monitoring of radioactivity levels in food. Kolbasz (talk) 01:24, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Kolbasz: thank you very much for your extremely clear and comprehensive explanation of all of this. Shouldn't that be added to the Wikipedia article on radiation effects in general: Ionizing_radiation ? Sam: and thank you for having raised the issue, thus allowing Kolbasz to explain it.--Gautier lebon (talk) 08:13, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

New measurments of Ibakiri and Chiba

http://www.japanprobe.com/2011/06/15/tsukuba-university-tracks-radiation-hotspots-in-ibaraki-chiba/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.224.92.3 (talk) 18:10, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

The recent move to Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster

It seems that the recent move to Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster has been done without established consensus. The discussion was about move to Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accidents. The author of the move cited an archived discussion as the main reason. I'd like to point out that neither past discussion had established the consensus, nor it can be used as a reason for move since it's several weeks old. Please move the page back to Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accidents and reopen the poll. 1exec1 (talk) 15:27, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I concur with this. Kolbasz (talk) 21:56, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes the discussion was several weeks old, but the points raised in the discussion were more valid now than they were then. Archiving and neglect are not reasons to ignore a previous discussion. Rather than restart the discussion, I read the arguments and came to a conclusion based on the arguments made pro and con. Most of the arguments for keeping it as "accident" seemed much less valid now. The press is calling the entirety of the story a disaster, and the specific problems at the plant multiple accidents. That seems reasonable. It is one of only two 7s ever, and the other is also called a "disaster". I posted my intent to close the previous archived discussion by moving the article to "disaster" and nobody commented. In consensus decision making silence equals agreement. I'll move the article back if there are good reasons to, but I haven't seen them yet. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 01:23, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Your comment there was just that, a comment. You didn't say anything about what the results of not responding might be. I don't know what your intentions were, but I smell deception there. You could just as well restart the poll and move the page again if the editors decide that the move is needed. Everything would be clear and everyone would be happy. Yet this simple solution doesn't look good to you for some reason.

Regarding the points raised in the discussion, I must emphasize that it is not you who decides whether these points are more valid or not. It is the wikipedia editors. So please revert the move since it's a violation of the basic rules of WP:CONSENSUS and you as an administrator must know that.1exec1 (talk) 14:25, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

I've been an admin for years, and helped write WP:CONSENSUS (though I admit that I haven't read it recently). Yes, admins DO decide whether points are valid or not, and I discounted many of the arguments that said "it is too soon", because they often stated that it was too soon to judge what had really happened. But now it is confirmed that 3 reactors melted down. I will continue to act as an admin as long as I can make bold decisions after interpreting the arguments made in a discussion. I never count "votes", I just weigh well stated arguments. I've done this for some very contentious issues and think I have a good reputation. As I've stated, I'm willing to revert my decision if someone, after reading the previous discussion can make a good case for "accident" over "disaster". I find the argument that the virtual destruction of multiple reactors, billions in damages, a massive cleanup, and an entire region rendered uninhabitable overwhelmingly convincing as being labeled a "disaster" instead of an "accident". Make a convincing case for the opposite, and I'll consider reverting my decision. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 06:16, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I agree and withdraw my previous statements. Here are my arguments:

1) No deaths, minimal health effects
Plain and simple. No radiation-related deaths has occurred and only 21 worker received radiation mare than 100mSv (See here. This reference is old, but since the radiation levels have only been falling since the time the it was written, I assume nothing has changed. If you anyone has more up to date reference please share). This is the lowest radiation dose where health effects have been measured. In this case, 1% increased risk of cancer, i.e. the probability that you develop cancer in your lifetime 44%, now it'd be 45%. No workers received more than 250mSv. The public received minimal radiation doses, because of precautionary evacuations.

2) Capital losses are not so big
The main reason of the big losses is not the accidents at the reactors, but the earthquake and the resulting tsunami. Even if there had been no accidents, the losses would have counted in billions, since so much equipment was destroyed by the tsunami. Also, there are big losses because of the downtime of the reactors (not only at Daichii, but at Dainii also), since the maintenance of the reactors is very expensive regardless the reactor is producing power or not. Another important fact is that the reactors probably wouldn't have been salvaged in any case, since the plan was to decommission them several years anyway. The only thing that inflates the costs and is direct result of the accidents is compensations to the residents of the affected region.

3) Evacuation is precautionary and not permanent

The radiation in most of the affected region is not that high (See here). As you can see, in most of the region radiation levels are lower than 2uSv/h. If this radiation was constant, than the annual radiation dose would be 17uSv or about three times an American person would get in a year (See Sievert#Yearly_dose_examples). However, the radiation levels are not constant but decreasing in exponential manner and in a year the radiation levels would be acceptable. Very important thing is that rain washes away the radioactive materials since both caesium and iodine are soluble in water. After the rainy season there would be hardly any radiation left. And the rainy season is in June in Japan. So expect the evacuation to be lifted in several months. The reasons why the Japanese officials say that it would be permanent are probably political. The reason why the evacuation area is guarded so strongly is not because the radiation is high, but because of robbers, since there are still a lot of people belongings left and it's easier to battle thieves by magnifying their radiation fears than by guarding each house.

I hope these arguments are convincing. I you have any doubts about validity of any of these statements, point me out and I'll provide references. If I didn't explain something clearly, ask and I'll explain unclear parts in detail.1exec1 (talk) 11:53, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Judging this as disaster was correct due to the meltdowns. --Kslotte (talk) 08:33, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Can you point me out, what exact effects, apart from a lot of unsubstantiated fear, the meltdowns have or will put inside the mix? The damaged fuel was already reported and that's meltdown.1exec1 (talk) 12:18, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

1exec1, Perhaps you are looking at this with the expectation that we decide whether this is a disaster or and accident by making a determination on the extent of the damages. That would be original research. What we have to do is look at what has published, and decide what the best, most encyclopedic name is based on the naming guidelines. That was how I came to the decision to move the article. The bulk of the reliable sources that I looked at called the entirety of the situation at the plant a "disaster", and the individual events that caused the disaster were called "accidents". If we are considering "accidents" and "disasters" at nuclear plants, and accepting that both terms are reasonable, we have to decide the line between an accident and a disaster. Looking at the citations, it seems reasonable to me to say that a disaster implies that things were destroyed, and an accident is a problem that is probably fixable. In this case there were three meltdowns that basically destroyed the three reactors. That, with the contamination, large financial looses, a huge cleanup and displaced population have clearly been called a disaster in reliable cites for quite some time. The "minimal health effects" that you mention seems premature. The cost of evacuating tens of thousands of people and decontaminating the plant and surrounding area are huge. The evacuation is because radioactivity readings were high. It is unclear how long it will last, but the damage to the displaced population is already huge. Herds of animals had to be abandoned. Farmers lost their entire crop, etc... I find it hard to think of labeling all of this as an "accident", and I don't see evidence that it has been labeled that way in the press. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 23:04, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I think we won't come to an agreement so I'll propose a move in a formal way.1exec1 (talk) 17:24, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Personally, I strongly prefer "disaster" over "accidents" (a prolonged dislocation of a hundred thousand people is a disaster), but if people want to have another conversation, then feel free. Dragons flight (talk) 01:38, 24 May 2011 (UT

I agree that there are reasons for calling these events disasters. However there are reasons for not doing so too. Let's firstly have a discussion and see what comes out of it.1exec1 (talk) 14:28, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Why not go for broke and call it Apocalypse? Since we're naming for effect and all. Seriously, the long-term damage outside the plant proper is yet to be determined, and if we discover that 2 years hence everyone is home and only the reactor is demolished, then "disaster" will seem exaggerated. "disaster" just rings like titillating media or a political ploy by the anti-nuke crowd. 209.131.62.113 (talk) 06:07, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Move back to Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accidents

The move to Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accidents was done without consensus. Here are the arguments opposing the move:

1) No deaths, minimal health effects
Plain and simple. No radiation-related deaths has occurred and only 21 worker received radiation mare than 100mSv (See here. This reference is old, but since the radiation levels have only been falling since the time the it was written, I assume nothing has changed. If you anyone has more up to date reference please share). This is the lowest radiation dose where health effects have been measured. In this case, 1% increased risk of cancer, i.e. the probability that you develop cancer in your lifetime 44%, now it'd be 45%. No workers received more than 250mSv. The public received minimal radiation doses, because of precautionary evacuations.

2) Capital losses are not so big
The main reason of the big losses is not the accidents at the reactors, but the earthquake and the resulting tsunami. Even if there had been no accidents, the losses would have counted in billions, since so much equipment was destroyed by the tsunami. Also, there are big losses because of the downtime of the reactors (not only at Daichii, but at Dainii also), since the maintenance of the reactors is very expensive regardless the reactor is producing power or not. Another important fact is that the reactors probably wouldn't have been salvaged in any case, since the plan was to decommission them several years anyway. The only thing that inflates the costs and is direct result of the accidents is compensations to the residents of the affected region.

3) Evacuation is precautionary and not permanent

The radiation in most of the affected region is not that high (See here). As you can see, in most of the region radiation levels are lower than 2uSv/h. If this radiation was constant, than the annual radiation dose would be 17uSv or about three times an American person would get in a year (See Sievert#Yearly_dose_examples). However, the radiation levels are not constant but decreasing in exponential manner and in a year the radiation levels would be acceptable. Very important thing is that rain washes away the radioactive materials since both caesium and iodine are soluble in water. After the rainy season there would be hardly any radiation left. And the rainy season is in June in Japan. So expect the evacuation to be lifted in several months.

The name used by most sources also backs up this. Google news search returns these numbers for news posted in the past month:
[Fukushima nuclear disaster] - 6162 hits
[Fukushima nuclear accident] - 6199 hits
[Fukushima nuclear crisis] - 7103 hits

Google search:
[Fukushima nuclear disaster] - ~13.9 million hits
[Fukushima nuclear accident] - ~20.8 million hits
[Fukushima nuclear crisis] - ~8.5 million hits
1exec1 (talk) 17:35, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Argument for "disaster":

• Three reactors in partial meltdown (1,2,3).
• International Nuclear Event Scale level 7 event, same as Chernobyl disaster. Higher than Kyshtym disaster.
• More than 100,000 have been forced from their homes for 2 months and counting. Though they may eventually return, it is already a huge disruption on people's lives.
• TEPCO booked a $15 billion net loss for the fiscal year ending March 31. $12.5 billion of that was a set aside to clean up Fukushima Daiichi and write off the value of destroyed assets. This is the largest reported loss of any non-financial company in Japan's history. And, it doesn't include an additional $25-130 billion in compensation to affected households, which is expected to be paid primarily by the Japanese government. [16][17]
• Google:
  1. "Fukushima nuclear crisis": 6,340,000 hits
  2. "Fukushima nuclear disaster": 3,830,000 hits
  3. "Fukushima accident" OR "Fukushima accidents": 2,630,000 hits
  4. "Fukushima disaster": 930,000 hits
  5. "Fukushima crisis": 612,000 hits
  6. "Fukushima accident" OR "Fukushima accidents": 337,000 hits
• Google News (past month):
  1. "Fukushima disaster": 428 hits
  2. "Fukushima accident" OR "Fukushima accidents": 392 hits
  3. "Fukushima crisis": 159 hits
  4. "Fukushima nuclear crisis": 121 hits
  5. "Fukushima nuclear disaster": 115 hits
  6. "Fukushima nuclear accident" OR "Fukushima nuclear accidents": 86 hits

Even if no one dies or gets sick (and not counting the workers at the site who died or were injured for reasons unrelated to radiation), it is still one of the worst nuclear events in history, a massive disruption on people's lives, and has led to massive economic losses for TEPCO specifically and Japan in general. Dragons flight (talk) 19:08, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Keep at Disaster, per my explanation above. Dragons flight (talk) 19:13, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
• Keep, per consistency with other high-INES events mostly. Recent Google News hits between "accident" and "disaster" are about the same, so that gauge is not very useful in this case. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 05:08, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
• Keep I was the admin who made the move, and I've explained my reasons higher on the page. I'll just add that I spent quite some time reading many of the articles that used the term "nuclear accident" using the Google news search. Many, perhaps most, used both the term "accident" and "disaster". Since the numbers were comparable for accident and disaster, I concluded that the searches were finding the same articles and that press was calling the accident a disaster. So should we. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 01:44, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
• Move to Crisis The argument I'm hearing is that making an independent judgment about the severity of the... event would constitute original research, forcing us to rely on google hit numbers. 'Crisis' seems to be leading the pack out of those options, so why are we talking about disaster vs. accident? Since there are such strong feelings about nuclear power, it is more important than ever to maintain a neutral point of view. The term 'crisis' avoids the loaded terminology we have been seeing so far (iaea trying to minimize public reaction, greenpeace trying to maximize it), and also implies that the history of the event has not yet been officially written. Which is the case I think. This would also help to distinguish between the tsunami and the ongoing events. IDK112 (talk) 08:24, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
• Keep, per consistency with other high-INES events, and because large exclusion zones were enacted. Also, had this happened in the U.S., almost certainly the Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act would have been invoked justifying the use of "disaster". Rwendland (talk) 11:24, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
• Keep, per WP:Reliable sources. --RaptorHunter (talk) 22:05, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

"Fukushima Nuclear Disaster" has 146 recent articles. Fukushima nuclear accident has 72 recent articles.

• Move to crisis The term crisis is more applicable to something which is still ongoing. The dominance of this term in google results reflects this. When it's all done I expect disaster will be more appropriate than accident, especially given INES scale. So I'd express a preference for "disaster" over "accident", but I think "crisis" is better still. Leopd (talk) 04:30, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
• Move to crisis. The sources appear to use the term "crisis" more than "disaster". Cla68 (talk) 00:16, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
• Support Move to accident or crisis. The arguments for "disaster" appear to rest on the shock value of nuclear meltdown regardless of whether or not that has caused substantial harm, and the financial loss to TEPCO (mostly asset write-off, so far). The evacuation on its own is of course massively disruptive but would not ordinarily rise to the description of disaster. The mass media article count is not reliable as an arbiter given their intrinsic bias towards more dramatic descriptions. I do NOT consider an analysis of the facts on the ground in deciding this matter as constituting "original research" - this is a name selection, not content addition. Joffan (talk) 12:37, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
• Move to crisis. What Joffan said, plus: Google News: "Fukushima nuclear crisis": 195 hits. "Fukushima nuclear disaster": 165 hits. "Fukushima nuclear accident": 68 hits. Kolbasz (talk) 17:00, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
• Nearly anything would be better than the current title. "Disaster" is a loaded, inherently POV term that has no business appearing anywhere in a neutral encyclopedia except as part of a direct quotation. 74.74.150.139 (talk) 20:24, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

"Disaster" is what it is officially described as by the IAEA and Japanese authorities per the INES scale, so your argument carries no weight.--Pontificalibus (talk) 09:17, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Please back up this assertion with citations. Every reference I can find directly from the IAEA—as opposed to those filtered through news organizations trying to sell advertising—describes INES 7 as "major accident" (e.g. [18], [19]); the #1 and #5 stories on iaea.org are currently "Fukushima Nuclear Accident", not "Fukushima Nuclear Disaster". 74.74.150.139 (talk) 11:08, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, my mistake - I was thinking of something else entirely. --Pontificalibus (talk) 19:22, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

• Keep at Disaster. These reactors had at least another 10 years of life left in them (as Unit 1 just had a 10 year license extension approved), and the replacement cost alone would be in the order of 10 billion (not to count the decomissioning costs). I really dislike the phrase 'crisis' - as the only difference between a disaster and crisis, is that a crisis is a disaster that has a time limit (and so in 6 to 12 months time, when things are more stable, what is happening at Fukushima will no longer be a 'crisis'). 74.74.150.139 made a valid point, that "Disaster" is a loaded, inherently POV term - but the same is true for 'crisis' as well.... MWadwell (talk) 22:51, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
  • Comments about impact constitute original research. A crisis does indeed have a time limit, after which the article would be changed again, using information that will be available later. A crisis does not simply end, a crisis gets recategorized and cataloged by history after more information is available. I think we can all agree that the long term impact of the event is still unknown. 'Crisis' IS a neutral pov word, since it is supported by the only mutually agreed upon official source in this discussion: google hit numbers. IDK112 (talk) 16:47, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

The initial incident was an "accident", which led to the meltdown of 3 reactors, release of radioactive material, and an evacuation which is a "disaster". The "crisis" is still continuing. All three of these terms are accurate. The effects of Chernobyl are still continuing, yet that is not called a "crisis", but rather a "disaster". If it wasn't clear that it was already a disaster, I'd be all in favor of a rename to "crisis", but I don't think there is any chance that what we learn in the future will make this any less of a disaster. The trend has been quite the opposite -- initial reports understated the damage and contamination. The article needs an overhaul to start explaining what happened in retrospect using all the information we now know to be reliable, rather than recounting the day-by-day unfolding of misinformation. Three reactors had meltdowns and core damage in the first few days. That information was only known recently, but now that we know it, we should start with a summary of what we know know has happened, and then latter in the article recount how the information unfolded. I would not mind is all the details of how events unfolded was moved to a separate article, with just a brief summary here. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 07:22, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

To quote the earlier move discussion, which ended in your unilateral decision as administrator to move the article: "...Perhaps you are looking at this with the expectation that we decide whether this is a disaster or and accident by making a determination on the extent of the damages. That would be original research. What we have to do is look at what has published, and decide what the best, most encyclopedic name is based on the naming guidelines. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 23:04, 25 May 2011 (UTC)" Being an administrator does not give you the right to engage in original research. Please show evidence to support your assertions about media use of the relevant words. Perhaps a different administrator should be called in to adjudicate, given the strong feelings on both sides. For reasons described in previous polls, I do not agree with you that new information will only reveal things to be more of a disaster.IDK112 (talk) 20:41, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Really? That seems to be the trend. Every day there seems to be updates to the extent of the core damage, leaks, the levels of radiation in the plant (note that USA today calls it a disaster), the amount of contamination, and admissions that things were worse than originally reported. These links were just the first few I found... -- ☑ SamuelWantman 08:16, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

I disagree. It is absurd to say that things can only get worse. Some of those articles you linked actually describe containment efforts which are making things better. This argument constitutes original research, however, and is not relevant to the naming discussion. IDK112 (talk) 22:14, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't think you understood what I wrote. I didn't say that things can only get worse, I said that the trend of what we are finding out about what already happened is showing the events to be worse than originally reported. We are not finding that the accident was less severe than first thought, so I think it is very unlikely that a future report will come out and say that the three reactors did not melt down, and there were no leaks. Because we now know that three reactors melted down, and there are some serious leaks, and that information is reliable, and that the seriousness of the reports is very unlikely to have been over reported, it is already a disaster. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 06:56, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

I think it is entirely possible that future reports will contradict information now being reported, possibly by saying that things were not as bad as they thought. Furthermore, the seriousness of the problem there is not determined by the internal state of the reactors, but by the external conditions, the length of the evacuation, the contamination etc... The Three Mile Island reactor was a mess inside, but that was hardly a disaster. It is entirely possible that Japan could announce tomorrow that the evacuation radius was larger then necessary and start letting people back in. You say that the media reports are unlikely to be exaggerated. I disagree. Alarmist reporting has terrified people in freaking California, which is clearly unfounded.

And again, this is all original research. The only agreed upon official source for this discussion is the google name hits, which indicate crisis is the most common name. Your personal opinion as to whether this is a disaster is irrelevant. So is mine.IDK112 (talk) 17:18, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

The prohibition on original research does not mean, and was never intended to mean, that we should be mindless automatons parroting the news agencies. We are expected to use our own judgment and consensus to determine what is important and reliable, etc. That's part of the reason we have discussions like this. The idea that the only thing we should consider are google hits is frankly ridiculous. If you don't believe the facts on the ground and the current reporting justify calling it a "disaster", then that is fine. But the idea that we should all ignore the facts on the ground is silly. Dragons flight (talk) 19:25, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

That's not really what I was saying, an earlier move discussion was preempted by Sam|uelWantman on the grounds that debate about impact was meaningless and only media common name use mattered. I was arguing to that. IDK112 (talk) 23:41, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

(outdenting) While I don't believe we should just go by the Google numbers -- (I'd rather interpret how these terms are being used by reliable sources) -- here's the latest Google results (past month):

• "Fukushima nuclear disaster" 220 hits
• "Fukushima nuclear crisis" 156 hits
• "Fukushima nuclear accident" 56 hits

-- ☑ SamuelWantman 19:15, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

• Huh, those numbers changed since the poll was opened. I guess I'll shut up then. Right or wrong the media has decided to call it a disaster. :/ IDK112 (talk) 23:41, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

• Do not move to crisis The term "crisis" describes an unresolved ongoing event and therefore isn't appropriate for the title of a persistent Wikipedia article. --Pontificalibus (talk) 09:13, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
  • What about Wikipedia articles about unresolved ongoing events, like this one? IDK112 (talk) 20:41, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
  • Like the unresolved, ongoing Cuban Missile Crisis? Sorry, there is nothing in the word "crisis" that indicates present tense. Kolbasz (talk) 22:33, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
• Move to Accidents. The statistics on news articles prove my point: they're 50/50 split on accident vs. disaster. Media outlets sensationalize. WE DO NOT. 209.131.62.113 (talk) 06:11, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Units of Radiation

I had previously rewritten the article to exclusively report radiation dose in milli-Sieverts (mSv) for consistency and ease of understanding by non-experts. For the majority of radiation doses in the article, this generates numbers from 0.001 to 1000 which seems a reasonable range. But there are a couple places where doses are reported in the nano-Sievert range, which for consistency requires writing numbers as 69 nSv as 0.000069 mSv. The former notation (69 nSv) is clearly preferable for anybody who understands the metric system and scientific notation. But because this is an article about news / current events, and not a scientific article, I felt that 0.000069 mSv would be more instructive for this article's audience. The article is currently written mostly in mSv, but with nSv in a couple places where lots of zeros would be needed to express the number in terms of mSv. But IMHO those zeros are very useful for this non-scientific article to explain the huge variation in scale between the numbers contained herein. I believe all this is consistent with WP:MOSNUM#Numbers and WP:UNIT given that this is a non-scientific article. Basically, I'm saying that because this article is intended for non-experts, we should stick to a single unit of radiation dose, even when it's numerically inconvenient. What do other people think? Leopd (talk) 05:59, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

I say no. Units should use the same prefix as their references, unless clearly inconvenient (e.g. your 0.000069 mSv should never be written that way, even if that's what the reference states). Conversions make it harder to check references, and add to the possibility of introducing errors not just in value but also stated accuracy.

To the completely uninitiated reader, whatever value you state is Just A Number, so to them it does not matter. To anyone who looks up Sievert, there's a helpful Sievert#SI multiples and conversions section, as well as a few wikilinked prefixes in the article. To anyone who uses the metric system - which will be a major portion of the article's readership - prefixes are likewise no problem. To the more informed reader and editor, there are also matters of customary notation: ambient dose rates, for example, are almost always stated in µSv/h unless you go past 1 mSv/h, while doses are usually expressed in mSv unless you go (well) past the 1 Sv mark. This, BTW, means that even if the entire article uses mSv/h, the hypothetical prefix-confused reader trying to look up e.g. the background radiation where he or she lives will still get confused...

And going by WP:MOSNUM:

SI units are written according to the SI standard unless otherwise specified in this Manual of Style (dates and numbers).

The Sievert is an SI unit, and inherent in SI is using a proper prefix. Kolbasz (talk) 13:43, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

I saw a great cartoon about that. It said "Bailout: 700 billion. Bonuses: 164 million." The cartoonist was making the point that at first glance it looks like 1/4 of the bailout went to bonuses (fact: 1/4000). His argument was that you should use consistent units. In other words you need to factor for the casual skim-reader and spare the SI for uber-science-geeky articles where it's expected. Besides, confusion is bad enough with all the different radiation units out there and their inconsistent scales. 1 rem isn't bad, 1 sievert is deadly, and OMG a megabecquerel! Those poor people! You can't fix stupid, but you can write wikipedia articles they are more likely to get. 209.131.62.113 (talk) 06:46, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Please keep it easy for the uninitiated to understand, including even those of us from a country that collectively shrugs at metric measurements. Most readers from my region wouldn't even notice that some numbers came with an m and others came with an n, or if they did, would perhaps take the difference to be a typo; yet if a number was "just a number" to them they wouldn't be reading the article. If Leopd's suggestion is unacceptable, then perhaps he may instead add parenthetical explanations of what the standard units would mean relative to the other numbers. Thank you. Reverence Still (talk) 03:10, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Kolbasz: the article should reproduce the units as found in the references. Further, I think that Wikipedia readers can be expected, by now, to know that the "k" in "km" means something, as does the "m" in "mSv".--Gautier lebon (talk) 07:02, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Reactor I Pressure Vessel Breached

BBC news reports that TEPCO has confirmed the pressure vessel at Reactor I has been breached and water is leaking from pressure vessel, likely due to melted fuel rods burning a hole though the bottom of the pressure vessel, the melted rods now form a mass of Corium.[20] The pressure vessel of Reactor I is holding only half as much water as previously thought (normally 330,000 liters), a faulty water level gauge has been replaced. It is believed Reactor I leaked 11 million liters of water though the breach. Good write up in the Wall Street Journal.[21] The article needs to be updated to reflect the current situation. --Diamonddavej (talk) 16:06, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Reuters reporting as well [22]

RandySpears (talk) 22:19, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

I am highly skeptical of the conclusions of meltdown in #1. Note carefully what the articles claim as truth and claim as conjecture. They claim they repaired a broken gage: certainly true. They claim the new gage indicates total core uncovery right now: no doubt. Does that mean the water level actually is low? We know only that two gages disagree. (echoes of an old Jane Fonda movie.) They CONJECTURE that since the reactor has been in continuous core uncovery for months apparently, therefore the core MUST HAVE melted down into corium, and hot corium SURELY WOULD HAVE burned holes in the bottom of the reactor, which MUST SURELY explain the low temperature and pressure in the reactor. But that does not jibe with several other datapoints, including the RPV being pressurized, the relative cleanliness of the water coming out (as contrasted with units 2 and 3), and the fact that they're able to send humans into 1 and not 2 and 3. It doesn't add up. Just sayin'. 209.131.62.115 (talk) 04:43, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm personally inclined to believe the IAEA's report for unit 1, (at http://www.slideshare.net/iaea/table-1-unit-1-reactor-fukushima-daiichi-nuclear-power-plant-18-may-2011) indicting that "The results of provisional analysis show that fuel pellets melted and fell to the bottom of the reactor pressure vessel." I'm thinking the IAEA is better at adding stuff up than the poster above. Just sayin'. 173.206.139.42 (talk) 16:04, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

"fell to the bottom of the reactor pressure vessel" is very different from "burned holes in the bottom of the reactor [pressure vessel]".

DouglasHeld (talk) 20:59, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Fog of war. Many statements have been wrong, including some by Tepco and IAEA. One example is the handwringing over uncovery or criticality in the #4 spent fuel pool, which later evidence proved quite untrue. Given scandals of years past, TEPCO fears under-disclosing, so errs on the side of guesswork. IAEA largely relies on TEPCO. 209.131.62.113 (talk) 05:58, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Full paragraph 3. http://iaea.org/newscenter/news/2011/fukushima310311.html Temperature and pressure are decreasing in correspondance. The correspondence indicates an intact RPV as of March 31. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.241.37.140 (talk) 02:34, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Al-Jazeera Article

Seeing that the article is marked as needing an update, I figured someone should add the info from this Al-Jazeera article: [23] . 205.197.176.130 (talk) 09:58, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Urgh. That article is propaganda disguised as news. Gundersen and Sherman are both known activists (Sherman self-described, Gundersen not so), the infant mortality report was cherry-picked, and the "hot particle" hypothesis has no support in mainstream science (see the discussion in the "About chest x ray" section a couple of sections up). Kolbasz (talk) 01:25, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Kolbasz, you yourself said that the radiation exposure numbers are "mostly educated guesswork". My impression, trying to wrap my head around all this, is that the dangers from the contamination are a big unknown. The way Sievert measurements are being made and calculated are suspect, and the science behind the measurements is also suspect, promoted mostly by nuclear power agencies around the world. As we've seen in Japan, the industry is mostly self regulated, with the government very much in bed with the industry. I suspect that most of the radiation data is being shrouded in "science". Because of this, I believe that a little extra weight has to be given to the doubters and nay-sayers. Arnie Gundersen was very accurate early on in his assessment of the extent of the accident. I see no problem in mentioning his claims and also presenting counter claims. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 06:00, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

... and here come the conspiracy theories. Hooray for Wikipedia.

you yourself said that the radiation exposure numbers are "mostly educated guesswork"

And I stand by that, as I was referring to the estimation of doses to an entire population: performing whole-body gamma counting and bioassays on an entire population is infeasible. So you make educated guesses, given what you know of the particulars of the situation, refining your predictions as you gather more data. The same you would estimate any kind of exposure with potential health effects, be it radioactive contamination, tetraethyl lead, NOx, or, heck, cell phone radiation. You can't monitor everyone. But for a specific case (i.e. person P1 has ingested A Bq of nuclide N in chemical form C), it's highly accurate.

The way Sievert measurements are being made and calculated are suspect, and the science behind the measurements is also suspect, promoted mostly by nuclear power agencies around the world.

That, good sir, is complete and utter bullshit. First off, the science behind the effects of ionizing radiation on humans is extremely solid, with decades of heavy research behind it, and is the foundation underlying radiology and radiotherapy. Second, it has very very little to do with nuclear power: most of our knowledge comes from the field of medicine (which is also the focus of most of the research), and radiation protection regulation and nuclear power regulation are not the same. There are some countries in which the same agency is in charge of both, but this is not the norm. Even countries without nuclear power usually have an agency in charge of radiation protection, and perform research in the field. Are you suggesting that Big Nuclear's world-wide conspiracy includes them as well? Case in point: one of the biggest international authorities on radiation protection is the ICRP which you'll note was founded in 1928 - a decade before nuclear fission was even discovered. But hey, I guess the nuclear power industry was prescient.

Arnie Gundersen was very accurate early on

Gundersen? Accurate? The man who claims that hydrogen can't detonate?
(In case you're wondering: it most definitely can. And hey look, non-exploded fuel rods.)
As a final note, the essay quoted by Al Jazeera was originally published in CounterPunch. Go figure. Kolbasz (talk) 22:13, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

NHK references

Be wary of using NHK World references - the URLs are recycled, so the links don't stay alive for very long. I went through all the NHK references in the article and tagged the broken ones with {{Dead link}} (and removed redundant NHK references altogether). The remaining ones should either be replaced with other references, or mirrored somewhere before they disappear. Kolbasz (talk) 14:31, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

And I just tagged half a dozen more. Please, stop using raw NHK links. Kolbasz (talk) 14:29, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Radiation leak double what was originally reported.

Breaking news: [24] — Preceding unsigned comment added by RaptorHunter (talk • contribs) 13:56, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

What's going on with the waste water filtering?

It looks like a good percentage of the cores are in the waste water. See: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/Radiation-spike-halts-work-at-Japan-nuclear-plant/articleshow/8903639.cms Tons of fuel here. "Unless we can resume the operation within a week, we will have problems in disposing of the contaminated water," a Tepco official said. Filters will have to be changed a lot more often, or the filter design is too small. Saturated filters should be stored in pools. Convection cooling is efficient and safe. There should be a long drain pipe into the ocean to release filtered water when current conditions are favorable. Also good to have for untreated water disposal if there is no alternative. 172.162.15.45 (talk) 19:18, 18 June 2011 (UTC) BG A simple pre-filter is probably all that is needed. Bucket type filters are easily changed with a small crane.

These concerns were basically addressed in the WATER TREATMENT section which was updated on July 6th, so this TALK section can be removed. The disposal or storage of the radioactive sludge produced can be added when there is better info on this. 172.129.244.14 (talk) 15:12, 7 July 2011 (UTC) BG

Not much news

Is there a count of dying, dead and the like? No news is no news, just curious! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.189.191.226 (talk) 16:59, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

There is enough news, provided you look at the right place, one place is quite handy: see: NHK-world news. This site gives each day news about this disaster, and they can read Japanese. At the TEPCO-site the news is rather difficult to find, and most times outdated. One of today: TEPCO halts water circulation due to leaks 1947enkidu (talk) 14:18, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Please do not use NHK references. Their articles are not persistent, so links die within weeks. If you want condensed daily news, check out the JAIF earthquake reports. Kolbasz (talk) 12:50, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

No information on internet is permanent, (even wikipedia is not eternal) so any link may die after some time, the only way to be sure that information needed will be available in future is to set up a database with it, as a mirror. But to do this there might be a problem with copyright. Anyway when the copyright owner does not mind to keep his information alive on the internet, why would it be a problem to make a mirror ?

Anyway, those links are still quite a good source of information, they give away a lot, that is not available on official sites, because those are quite slow in updating. And even than they are also trying to minimize concern about safety on nuclear power... At NHK we get a little information what is asked by Japanese reporters at the daily news conferences in Japan. If the data are checked as soon as the links are given, the information is there, and will be still valuable. also after the link has died.

Besides this, wikipedia could give the NHK-site some request to update their database, and making the info more permanent available, the might like that idea, they might give permission to start a mirror too. 1947enkidu (talk) 09:07, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

There's a huge difference between "you can't guarantee that the link will be there forever" and "the URL is recycled within weeks". The lifetime of an NHK link is so short that it's absolutely useless as a reference - in less than a month, your citation, and therefore your edit, is unverifiable. There are alternative news sources. Use them. Kolbasz (talk) 10:33, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

You are welcome to do so, but not everybody has so much time available, to seek trough all that endless repeating info, that only occasionally is updated. It is quite hard to find two different sources. 1947enkidu (talk) 11:00, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Hydrogen explosion- Question

Some reports say the hydrogen came form zirconiun-water reactions in the spent pools; some that it came from reactions within the reactor pressure vessels. If from inside the reactor vessels, the hydrogen would leak out of the damaged vessels, but then how did it get out of the containment shells in units 1 & 3, which are not suposed to have been damaged? Tvbanfield (talk) 15:49, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Containment pressures of Units 1 to 3

By exceeding the 427 kPag = 527 kPa design pressure of the primary containments and escaping through the overloaded top flange gaskets; see Lochbaum's theory and NISA's confirmation ("functions of the gasket on the flange section and the seal on the penetrating section have weakened"). Or have a look at the diagram to the right: Pressure rises only to some 750 kPa in Unit 1 and 2, resp. 500 kPa in Unit 3, except for short moments when very much steam at once came from pressure vessels. It didn't rise more, because the gaskets won't stand more than that. Looks like the cap screws of No. 3 were not that tight ... --87.162.161.205 (talk) 00:51, 13 June 2011 (UTC) (de:PM3)

Before someone asks for automatic safety relieve valves: The containment vessels don't have any! That's U.S. reactor design: "You have the N.R.C. containment isolation guys who want containment closed, always, under every conceivable accident scenario" [25]. Well, they overlooked the gaskets. --87.162.161.205 (talk) 01:10, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Containment isn't like that, it's not designed to contain absolutely everything no matter what. It is designed to contain solids and liquids. You SHOULD vent pressure before it exceeds the design pressure. NRC does not want it automatic, they want the plant manager to decide based on conditions. In Japan the head office and government must also approve, adding delay. There is also a vapor-containment system which would have caught the hydrogen. It works like a paint spray booth. Exhaust blowers keep the reactor buildings under slightly negative pressure (open a door, air blows in). This is ducted to a scrub-house where systems filter out heavier radioactive particles. What remains is pushed up a smokestack. This system would have prevented hydrogen from building up in big enough concentrations to explode. The blowers and filters got knocked out by the tsunami. It is probably through the ducts of this system that hydrogen got from reactor building #3 to #4. There would otherwise have been no reason for hydrogen to be in building #4, as the reactor had no fuel and spent fuel pools were later inspected and found OK. 64.241.37.140 (talk) 04:20, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm a little confused by this discussion - especially the parts where 87.162.161.205 talks about "escaping through the overloaded top flange gaskets" - as it is public knowledge that the PCV and Containment were deliberately vented. As as 64.241.37.140 mentioned, the air is put through the SGTS (Standby Gas Treatment System - where it passes through a recombiner bed (to recombine the hydrogen and oxygen to water), and then through some HEPA and charcoal filters (extracting the particulates and iodine) - leaving only the radioactive noble gases to escape up the stack. See this image for a description[26]. The problem with the system, is that both the SGTS and the extraction system needs electricity for the fans - without which the gases will instead build up in the building.... MWadwell (talk) 04:46, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

The word "containment" has proven just a lie, these containment's do not contain at all, overpressure-valves will release a lot of radiation. They do not contain either solids or fluids. Because all three of them, after the meltdown, were just leaking all the water that was poured into them. And the fuel was also burned through the reactorveseel, but also the containment was damaged. (however this is not said with much words at all, you need to read it through the lines) The hydrogen that was formed was vented too. Besides this those spent-fuel-pools, these baths are OUTSIDE any "containment", and in these baths is far more radiation gathered than in the reactor-vessels themselves. And this we should consider "safe". 1947enkidu (talk) 07:46, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

"overpressure-valves" - what overpressure valves? A BWR does not have an automatic pressure relief system - the valves have to be manually opened. Care to provide a reference about the "overpressure-valves"? Regarding the containment leaks - don't forget that these reactors were subjected to a borderline Beyond Design Basis Initiating Event (Beyond DBIE) earthquake and tsunami - and leaks are to be expected (for example, I believe that some of the reactors at Fukushima II are leaking, and yet they have not experienced fuel damage). Again, care to provide a source that fuel has melted through the RPV (from a reliable source - not speculation!). And lastly, regarding the SFP's, a lot of the radiation in a reactors core is from short half-life radioisotopes (such as the iodine series) - and so for Units 1-3, 5 and 6, the core contains more radioactive elements despite there being more FA's in the SFP's. If you have references, then the information should be incorporated into the article..... MWadwell (talk) 12:50, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Folks, please remember that Wikipedia talk pages are not forums for general discussions. The purpose of these talk pages is solely to discuss improvements to the connected articles. If there are issues in the article that are unclear, it's appropriate to raise them here for further elucidation. But we're not here to discuss the facts or events themselves -- we're just here to summarize reliable sources using the neutral point of view. .   Will Beback  talk  08:48, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

When there are reliable sources, at all... is it possible to tell, who is really reliable here ? Tepco ? with it's shabby safety-history in the past and in the present ? the Japanese government ? who is not able at all to protect its Japanese citizens form cesium-contaminated beef and vegetables, a little bit of cesium should be no deal ? The Japanese nuclear watchdog ? that was not independent at all ? and than that company, that tried to manipulate the outcome of a discussion to restart a reactor by sending fake-emails? It's just all of these things, that is raising questions in Japan, and in this way the public support for this kind of energy is fading fast. The only thing possible here on wikipedia is to record the information available. And after all the time that it already takes only a few people have the power to go on with this subject. 1947enkidu (talk) 23:01, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Outdated section: Reactor status

This information is from May 30th. I'm fairly confident that there's been updated information since then. Imasleepviking ( talk ) 22:33, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

The whole item has slipped out of interest, only Japanese media still pay attention to this disaster, everywhere else all media like newspapers and TV-stations do not anything about it. And now it takes so long, also the people working on wikipedia would like to do something else. But when Imasleepviking would like to see more, why don't you take some more action in this yourself? To keep this going need all hands on deck 1947enkidu (talk) 08:55, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

I've updated the information to the most recent I could find - however I cannot find anything recent on the SFP temperature for Unit 1. If someone knows what the most recent information is, it would be great if they could post a link for it here (or alternatively, update the article). MWadwell (talk) 04:20, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Lead is too long

As a general guideline, the lead should be no longer than four paragraphs. The lede in this article is 7 paragraphsSwmmr1928 talk 16:36, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

I completely agree, the entire article needs to be trimmed down.

The thing about general rules is that they are general and not particular. Where an article has a lot of ground to cover, obviously it will be longer. Sandpiper (talk) 09:03, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

1. Regrouping Hosono proposals' main topics of new nuclear regulatory organization in Japan; less often news reported No.3 Reactor's condition shower spray of cooling water

1. Incumbent Nuclear Power in charge Cabinet Minister, Tsuyoshi Hosono has a new proposal for Japan's restarting Nuclear Regulatory organization which separated from conventional Nuclear Safety Agency within METI and rejoining new organization with Nuclear Safety Committee and Ministry of Education and Science's existing nuclear safety organization function, but also, in addition, Environmental Ministry will add new Nuclear Crisis Management and Regulatory coordination system and management planning regrouping which is silimar to "high-tech fighting" organization. These "multi-faced new central government administrative organization system will prevent another nuclear disaster through the time series delay and illegal "meltdown" of inter-agency "legal advancing type" crisis management and decision-making consultation protocol.

2. TEPCO plans to introduce new water cooling spray method for Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant No.3 Reactor. In new method, spent fuel is finally reached by "from Reactor-core" cooling shower "Core" spray water by using emergency cooling down system of the No.3 Reactor Remote Control monitoring device. The new method will reduce the amount of water needed to spray into No.3 Reactor building and since the cooling water is spray from inside the No.3 Reactor core the water will reach spent fuel pools and also inside Reactor's piping is all visible ...

Personal Opinion: Serious doubt question should be raised about these new options, what if these new alternative options plan has failed. What are we going to do next? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Persona8 (talk • contribs) 01:32, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Outdated

Lots of new information is missing in this article, especially from this document. --PM3 (talk) 21:34, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Nice, I've been looking for that report for a while! The following chapters should be of interest as well, so one should probably link to the index page for the entire document. Kolbasz (talk) 12:57, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Lots of additional information and new findings are available in this IAEO report. --PM3 (talk) 14:45, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Why has no one mentioned the strontium in the groundwater at 270 times the legal limit ? one source is http://www.asianetindia.com/news/toxic-strontium-fukushima-groundwater_277690.html ) Why is all the new info being ignored - is it because radiation is invisible and so no one ' beleives in it' ? Why can I find NO real info or debate in the mainstream media ? And why is the reaction to this to ' monitor' fish and marine life ? Are they going to monitor us too, they are now 'monitoring' 34,000 children by geiger counter. Why are the burglars being left to report on the crime? Why is there no concerted effort to either deal with this or at least inform the public of the truth so they can decide whether to let their kids out in the rain or not? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.220.186.57 (talk) 12:41, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Still ongoing?

Why is the status of this disaster still "ongoing"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.143.103.46 (talk) 01:26, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Because it is? Sandpiper (talk) 09:03, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Each day some 1 billion bequerels of radiation is escaping into the air, each day, every day... these 4 power-plants and the spent-fuel-pools are all open in the air, and at the moment it is the rainy season. And just the last days there was quite some rain in the region of Fukushima. Rivers outside their borders, mudslides, and although TEPCO does not mention this in their daily press-messages, this rain will add a lot of water to the highly contaminated water in the basements of these plants. There's no answer to this at all, and when TEPCO will be able to make an end to this ever continuing evaporation of cooling water, might take years ? When this is over Fukushima could be a lot worse than Tsjernobyl 1947enkidu (talk) 20:43, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

I think that while 1 GBq is a large amount of radioactivity to have in once place, if the release from the plant is only 1 GBq per day then it might be above the legal limit (I have no idea what the site discharge limit is per day at Fukuashima) but when compared with the peak release during the worst days of the accident then 1 GBq is quite small. To put it in perspective if we asuume that the 1 GBq (1 billion Bq) is Cs-137 then a point source of that size at 1 meter will deliver 0.0086 rads per hour to a human body. This in modern units is 86.5 microgray per hour. If I assumed that I did a forty hour week at 1 meter from this object then I would get a 3.5 mSv dose. While this dose is far above the general public limit for occupational exposure it is not a vast dose. The real extra dose caused to workers and the public will be lower as the activity is scattered over many locations.78.69.134.97 (talk) 15:50, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

It was just an estimate, while they do not know how much the escaping air and water-vapour contains. Tepso installed some measurements, but when they will publish the results, and all the results... but see some more about the exhaust-pipe at: [27] Gunderson gives some extra info... 1947enkidu (talk) 19:55, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Gunderson and not balanced

This article is not balanced because a few people like to make a fuzz over only a very tiny part of the whole article, but if it comes to contributing to the article their part is very tiny or nothing at all.

If this little part would change, could the article than be a lot better ?

The answer is quite simple: NO !

A lot is missing, because there is too much to read about it, and finding a part of the news about it, is already a daytime-job. Adding to the wiki that means following the news, making excerpts from it, find the place where to put it, and making an edit. This takes "some" involvement and a lot of time, every day, day in day out.

I do not know why you two - Gautier lebon & Dr Mark Foreman - want this changed, but I can guess you are not unbiased at all.

PLEASE ADD TO THE WIKI, DO SOMETHING POSITIVE

1947enkidu (talk) 05:25, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Dear Enkidu, the article is not balanced at present because the Gunderson quote appears prominently in the introduction, and the Gunderson quote does not represent any sort of consensus. Please try to avoid ad-hominem attacks. We are all here to ensure that the article well balanced. If you look at the history page, you will see that both Dr Foreman and I have made various contructive edits that have not been challenged. What needs to be done now is to add well verified information, not more wild claims. Given the commments above, I think that the only correct solution at this point is to delete the Gunderson quote, so I will now proceed to do that.--Gautier lebon (talk) 08:55, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Dear Gautier, do not think it to be a personal attack, far from that.

BUT...why did not you read all, especially the first lines in the section above it. Whatever you did in the past... it does not matter at all. please just add, do not take away. This disaster is not over yet, they are placing a big tent over nr.1, in an attempt to minimize the leackage of radioactivity. Still three to go... Number 3 and 4 containing enough junk to wipe out all human life on earth. Still there is the possibility of another hydrogen explosion, and still lots of radioactivity is leaching from those reactors. They cannot cope with this, because cleaning all this water, is not working proper too. The costs of this all will bring a burden on the Japanese tax-payer for sure. In all this ways you might not like the idea that Gunderson said it, but can you proof it is not true ? 1947enkidu (talk) 11:56, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Gundersen

This guy is [redacted], he has been removed. --Rotten (talk) 14:50, 12 August 2011 (UTC) [personal comment redacted]   Will Beback  talk  07:43, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

The problem with the Gunderson statement is the word "biggest" is not clearly defined. BTW, the Three Mile Island accident investigation/report was somewhat of a coverup. It concluded the fundamental cause of the accident was operator error (instead of equipment design errors and inadequate procedures). 172.162.155.72 (talk) 16:49, 12 August 2011 (UTC)BG

This accident is very big, and still radiation is escaping, nobody knows when this will stop. This accident has seen too some cover up, we are kept out of a lot of information. Secrecy is all there. In the beginning they downplayed it, to let it be level 4 or 5, while they already knew the core were probably melted, and the hydrogen-blasts were there. Now NISA just deletes all information on the exposure that children have gone trough ? B.T.W. Did they measure the children of the people in Namie, that were three days in the middle of that highly radioactive cloud in the first days after the meltdown of the reactors ? How far is the damage to the containments, do they function in someway ? How far is the damage to the spent-fuel-pools, especially nr. 3 and 4 ? Why cannot they measure any neutron-beams while there have been leaked a lot of plutonium, in that explosion in nr.3 ? How long will the no-go-area be inhabitable ? Will the farmers there be compensated ? How much radioactive waist was dumped into the ocean when they dumped the low-radioactive-water ? What are they going to do with the radioactive sludge that is leaching from those leaking reactors ? How much of that did they already gather ? How much money will this cost before there is some end to this ? 1947enkidu (talk) 18:04, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

1947enkidu, you are perceptive and correct with the things you say but that doesn't mean the Gunderson statement by itself is appropriate in the article. 172.162.167.107 (talk) 18:17, 12 August 2011 (UTC)BG

I added an opposing view as proposed by User:Gautier lebon above. Hopefully people can stop edit warring about this.--Pontificalibus (talk) 20:00, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

The opposing view you added comes from a Japan marketing blog which contradicts WP:RS policy, specifically please see the Self-published and questionable sources section. Thus, it has been removed. C1010 (talk) 04:29, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

I have examined the Japan marketing blog and while the blog may have been written with the sincere hope of promoting economic activity within Japan the facts which the blog cites can be checked (and are true). I have also looked at the site of Gunderson. He appears to be self publishing things which support his own point of view and interests, I can not find where he has included references to support some of his claims such as that the Fukuashima accident is the worst the world has ever seen. Overall I think that Gunderson's web site is a less trustworthy source than the marketing blog.

So if C1010 wishes to apply a rule banning the use of self published matter then I think that the rule should be applied evenly and the comments of Gunderson should be removed. 1947enkidu while he/she might rightly hold the view that this nuclear accident is horrible needs in this part of the discussion to limit him/herself to merely discussing if Gunderson's comments should be placed in the wiki without an opposing view being included.Dr Mark Foreman (talk) 05:43, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Arnold Gundersen is an expert speaking within his field of expertise. BLP applies, so derogatory remarks about him are inappropriate here. The assertion appeared in an Asia Times article, "Costs rise in 'worst industrial disaster'", Jun 25, 2011. It, in turn, quotes an article by Al Jazeera, which says that Gunderson made the remark directly to the reporter. "Fukushima: It's much worse than you think". I don't see any blogs involved in this quote from him.   Will Beback  talk  06:10, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Arnold Gundersen might be an 'expert', but when a professional makes a statement he or she needs to be able to back it up with an explanation of how they have come to that view. While I do not disagree with everything he has ever said or written (for example his view of the hot spot near the base of the stack is a perfectly reasonable view which makes good chemical sense) I would say that as an expert he is not immune to the problem of making the sound bite statement. The professional expert is best thought of as being like an expert witness in court, when an expert witness answers a question or provides a report they need to include an explanation of how they came to an answer. Also he does have a vested interest as part of a company which does offer professional services which relate to nuclear power. Looking at the web site of his company it does appear to be antinuclear rather than pronuclear. While I do not know Arnold personally and he could well be a 100 % totally fair man who happens to have provided some professional services to the antinuclear movement, but it is not totally clear if he is not biased. This possible bias adds a possibility that he has a vested interest in making statements that the accident is the worst ever.

From what the pro Gundersen edits have brought to the article is just a soundbite statement, if they are so keen to use the statement then I strongly suggest that they find Arnold's reasoning behind the statement (if he has published it).

The fact that his statement that the accident is the worst ever industrial accident can be shot down within minutes using the empirical falsification system of thought which was written about at length by Karl Popper suggests to me that it should be removed from the article. The three industrial accidents which I have mentioned in this discussion have resulted in higher losses of life (due to short term effects) so I think his statement has been shown to be false.Dr Mark Foreman (talk) 13:14, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

You mistakenly assume that the number of human fatalities is the sole criteria of accident's severity. This is obviously false. If it were true, any fatal traffic accident would have to be regarded as more severe than the Fukushima disaster, since "so far the death total from the Fukushima nuclear accident is zero", according to the Japan marketing blog you seem to support. C1010 (talk) 20:42, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Winning an argument is quite simple, when you just make the rules yourself. The disaster of Bhopal for instance had quite some loss of life, but besides this the effect was further quite local. Fukushima, there the effects reach a lot further, and these are even on a global scale, a significant area is polluted, en the ocean has taken its toll too, but who cares ? 1947enkidu (talk) 19:43, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

The main problem that I had with those edits taking the "biggest/worst industrial disaster" away, was that only a tiny few of you were still ADDING to the wiki. Besides taking away the little piece of Gunderson does not make the wiki a lot better.

Following the daily news is a lot of work, and adding quotes to the wiki in a good way takes a lot of time. As long as you all take a part in the building the wiki, there's no problem with me. You might have done al lot in the past, when the disaster started, and the newspapers were full of it, but it takes a lot of endurance to go on with it. This disaster is gonna take a few years more and is far from over yet. And presently the newspapers have lost all there interest, because it is not "new" anymore, but the threat in it stays.

Finding the right information, with all the secrecy around... it will be harder and harder. But dividing the burden is the only way to do it, please help outbuilding this wiki.

In the middle of this, I think the disgust feelings to Gunderson are all based on the fact that he did ring the clock. and on top of it provided unwanted information to the courts. Information that the industry surely would like to hide away. And when it comes to all argumentation against it, those are on tiny unimportant subject most of the times. He saw it right: the problems were huge, like the enormous pile op spent fuel rods...

B.T.W. I'm at this moment 63 year (1947) retired old he. 1947enkidu (talk) 06:35, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Good points. Regrettably, this disaster is not going to end soon. We'll still be writing about it in ten years. Editors have the difficult task of constantly rebalancing the article to give each new or ongoing matter its due weight. We're still learning new details about the first few hours. I expect more sub-articles will need to be created as well, but without having it sprawl beyond readability.

The advantage of the Gunderson quote is that it summarizes the entire situation with a superlative. It doesn't seem particularly remarkable to me. However perhaps it would be better further down in the article. My personal preference is to leave quotations out of the intro, since it should just summarize the article.   Will Beback  talk  07:26, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

If you want new news about the event, then TEPCO, JAIF and NISA are still giving out information.Dr Mark Foreman (talk) 13:14, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Gundersen's quote was published by several news organizations, one of which was used as quote's reference, so your whole argument about it being self-published isn't applicable here. C1010 (talk) 19:45, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

In the world of science a comment which you make which is published in a newspaper holds little weight, the next level up is a unrefereed technical report and at the top of the tree is a peer reviewed paper. I would be glad to see someone make a reasoned attempt at trying to decide how serious the Fukushima accident is when compared with other nuclear accidents which had off site effects such as the Windscale fire, Chernobyl and the Soviet waste silo which exploded. But if Gundersen or some other person is going to do that then they need to show the facts and reasoning which leads to their final answer. The thing about science is that when you report something you need to give the details which would be required for a second person to reproduce your work, I always tell me students to imagine that the aliens from Mars land in the car park and steal a copy of their report. Even assuming that the Aliens have no idea about that field of study they should be able to read the report and within a few hours in a university libary be able to understand the work. The problem is that a single person in science who gives an interview to a newspaper will never normally to be able to give out the details required to allow another person in the field to judge if the work was done correctly let alone repeat it.

Already some good estimates have been made of the iodine-131 and cesium-137 releases made into the air in the peer reviewed scientific literature. I think that if we are going to make a judgement of is the accident the worst ever industrial (or nuclear) accident then I think we should trust the scientific literature more than one single person. I have just looked at http://www.oecd-nea.org/rp/reports/2003/nea3508-chernobyl.pdf which puts the total Cs-137 release from Chernobyl at 8.5e16 Bq which is higher than the Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan's estimate that 1.2e16 Bq of this isotope has entered the air in Japan as a result of the accident (between 12 march and 6 april). You can read this in the Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, M. Chino et. al., 2011, volume 48, issue 7, pages 1129 to 1134. The iodine-131 data for the Fukushima accident is also lower than that for Chernobyl using the same sources. M. Chino's own work gives a value close to that of the Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan's values. Based on the iodine and cesium releases in my professional view the Japanese reactor accident is a level 7 accident but it is not as bad as Chernobyl.Dr Mark Foreman (talk) 21:23, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing your analysis. My limited understanding of this disaster is that a significant fraction of the radiation leakage has been into water rather than the atmosphere, and that the leakage continues. Many other disaster, including TMI, had a fairly short duration. Even Chernobyl's reactors were sealed within a few months. Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant sarcophagus. In any case, let's not get hung up on one quote. At most it's an opinion.   Will Beback  talk  22:26, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

I've moved the Gunderson quote down to the "Accident rating" section, where hopefully it won't be so controversial. FYI, the Japanese government recently announced that it will report on the total release of radiation since the disaster, though it didn't say when it would do so.[28]   Will Beback  talk  22:41, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

I have made contact with Fairwinds (Gunderson's company) and I have started a discussion with his wife who is the paralegal who works there. I am discussing the matter directly with them rather than getting the quote third hand, I have been given an answer but out of respect to the Gundersons (and for legal reasons) I will not release the content of the letter that Maggie sent me by e-mail until I have her consent to quote what she wrote to me. I think then that the citation may be a little complex, one used in the scientific world for such a communication is a "private communication". But I think we can cross that bridge when we reach it.Dr Mark Foreman (talk) 10:00, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't know quite why you're so taken with this issue. But for the purposes of this article, the exact opinion of one American expert is probably pretty minor. There's a ton of other information to convey. Maybe this whole issue should be shifted to the Gunderson biography talk page, as it's becoming a distraction here.

Please do not share any one's email without their explicit permission and then only if it really serves some useful purpose. We can't use correspondence as a source so it'd only be for background purposes if anything.   Will Beback  talk  10:11, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

What a good and obvious idea to put the Gunderson quote in the Accident Rating section. Thank you. Surprised nobody thought of it before. Details about what he exactly meant might be added later. It looks like a settled issue now.172.130.209.147 (talk) 12:34, 14 August 2011 (UTC)BG

Outdent. I thank all editors for their contributions regarding this issue. To answer Endiku, it was an important issue because the quote was in the article's introduction. I agree that it is fine to have it in the "accident rating" section, with the "neutrality disputed" tag. I fully agree with what Dr Foreman says above. The bottom line is that anybody can look at the list of industrial disasters and see that, no matter what criteria you use, Fukushima is not, at present, the "worst". It may later turn out to be the worst, if indeed lots of radiation continues to escape, but that is speculation about the future, not current reality.--Gautier lebon (talk) 08:52, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm tempted to discuss ways in which it could already be regarded as the worst industrial accident, but this talk page isn't a forum. Let's keep focused on improving the article. Can we mark this as resolved?   Will Beback  talk  08:58, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Gunderson

In stead of adding new items onto the wiki, following the dayly news, and see http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/ for a report each day, in stead of this a few people are considering only the value of a few lines, that have been part of the wiki for a very long time.

We cannot know what is good or bad in all of this disaster. There's still a large amount of radioactivity leaking each day, and when this will stop... nobody can tell, In the end Gunderson probably gets all the credits for his words, because the cumulation of all the dirt will add up for sure.

You might ask the Japanese Government, what they think of all the costs that will be spent before all dirt is removed. This will be the most expensive nuclear disaster ever, (or may be for this moment)

Yes, Gunderson has a certain point of view, against the use of nuclear power, and because this the pro-lobby would sure like to drink his blood. But in here, only about few years we will be able to decide what was good and wrong here.

I do not want to start a war on this, but please do something constructive and add to the wiki, in stead of taking away. 1947enkidu (talk) 12:14, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

REMOVE. IMHO, Gunderson is capable of good research (AP1000 chimney). But in my experience following this crisis, I find the guy takes a few factoids and leaps to shocking conclusions, which seem to contradict known facts at the time (which suggests to me he is not diligent at informing himself of those facts). Of course later his conclusions are found to be "not even wrong". Basically the guy is serving his own agenda, not that of the truth. Quoting him at all only hurts the article. If a statement were true, someone more reliable would repeat it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.131.62.113 (talk) 01:25, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Unsigned & anonymous ? hat does not count for my part...

See the mess in the nr 3 spent-fuel-pool at fairewinds New Analysis of Unit 3 Fuel Pool Video Reveals Top of Fuel Bundle 1947enkidu (talk) 05:34, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

I would suggest that we either remove totally the comments by Gunderson or we go for a pro and con paragraph like the one I added some time ago. While I hold the view that the Fukuashima event is horrible and quite rightly has been given a rating of seven on the international accident scale it is not the worst ever industrial accident of all time. I think that industrial accidents need to be judged on a series of different things

• 1. Number of members of the general public killed or seriously injuried
• 2. Number of plant workers killed or maimed
• 3. The cost of the damage to the plant
• 4. The environmental impact of the accident
• 5. Does the accident alter the plant in a way which makes a further (and more serious) accident likely
• 6. Does the accident lead to ill health later in life ?

Based on these six I think that the coal mine spoil heap in Wales is worse than Fukuashima as it wiped out a primary school, the Bhopal MIC leak killed more members of the general public and has caused an almighty amount of ill health, the Flixbourugh nylon factory killed about 30 workers while the nuclear accident at Fukuashima has not managed to kill nearly as many plant workers. So I think that we should not just put the one view from Gunderson.Dr Mark Foreman (talk) 12:19, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Just looking to Tsjernobyl, the enormous costs to clean up, the loss of land for farming and living, the costs of building a second sarcophagus, and the increase of thyroid-cancers by young children...

Here the costs to clean up outweigh the costs of Bhopal, the immediately costs are already enormous, the immediately economic loss too, the evacuation zone could have been a lot larger, because out site the zone the grounds are polluted too, and although there might not yet someone been killed...

• 1: you can wait for it, the kills, those thyroid-cancers will come.

And the crisis is far from over. The radiation is still escaping 1 billion beckerel a day or more, they do not know how much is escaping every day.

• 2: about the health and long live of the workers, the Fukushima-50 had no expectations of a long live anymore, and about the health of the workers there, in about a year or so, will we wait. In Tsjernobyl not that many young people left anymore, that helped to clean up the dirt, and to get the fire out ...
• 3: the costs... This mess, before it is cleaned up, will take many years, and might bring TEPCO onto its financial knees. All nuclear power-plants are that stop in Japan, will not be permitted very soon to start again, what would be the costs of that ? No production, no income, but still maintaining those plants for a long time ?
• 4: will we ever be able to eat some fish caught at the east coast of Japan ? Just ask the farmers in Fukushima how they think about the pollution
• 5: sure that spent fuel pool of number 3 and 4, both they are working hard on it, but it is not sure they will be able to clean up the mess there, when these pools become critical...
• 6: just try to ask the Ukraine people about it

About Gunderson: just look at the next link, some details, about the recently discovered hotspots. If it is true what Tepco suggests, than they have missed those spots for a long time. How could that be Lethal levels of radiation in Fukushima what are the implications 1947enkidu (talk) 16:20, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Well if we look at it from my point of view using the six measures the accident is not the worst ever.

1. Death / maiming of the general public. No member of the public has been killed by a short term health effect of the reactor accident in Japan.

2. Death / maiming of the work force. I think that a limited number of workers may have been killed not by radiation but by other things on the site. For example two workers were killed by the tidal wave. But Flixbourough killed more workers (circa 30) with the big explosion.

Based so far on the first two metrics Bhopal and the Abervan coal mine spoil heap are more serious accidents.

3. The cost of the accident, I think that it is reasonable to assume that this accident is going to be expensive. But it is important to bear in mind that human life and health is more important than the loss of money. The death of a single worker at an accident which causes 1000 $ of damage is more serious than an accident which wrecks a 1000000000 $ plant but fails to kill a single person.

4. The accident at Fukuashima is going to have a long lasting environmental effect in Japan which will extend well over 30 km from the accident site. So compared with Abervan and Bhopal it is likely to have a larger environmental effect. I would however view the environmental effect as less serious than deaths of the general public and the workers. If the worst came to the worst it would be possible to clean up the environment or relocate the people into another part of the world. No matter what is done the dead children from the Abervan event can not be brought back to life.

• 5. I would hold the view that the reactor accident has damaged the cores, but it has not set in motion a chain of events which will cause an even larger release of radioactivity. The spent fuel ponds still need attention but I think that a criticaility or other major misadventure in the ponds is unlikely.

6. I think that based on the amount of iodine-131 released that it is possible that it will induce cancer in some members of the public, it is sad but it may well occur. With the data which I have seen so far I think it is not possible to make an estimate yet of how many cancer cases will be caused by the accident. I have noticed that you count the long term deaths/cancers twice, it is important to separate the short term and long term death/injury for the accident. While Abervan did not clearly cause many deaths which were long after the accident the Bhopal event did. Based on the late deaths from Bhopal. Wikipedia has the estimate that about 100000 to 200000 people have long term health effects from Bhopal. If we make the crude assumption that 10 % of these people die as a result of the Bhopal accident then the late death toll will be at least 10000 to 20000 people. This would be larger than the WHO estimate for Chernobyl of a total of 4000 deaths.

So while I hold the view that Fukuashima is a bad accident, I think that the statement that it is the world's worst ever industrial accident is not true.Dr Mark Foreman (talk) 23:18, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Dear Dr. this is not about Gunderson anymore, but your not so very interesting quest to determine the most terrible human made disaster ever. Than we might think on the death of all the people in the Great-War 1914-1918, or the war against Hitler and his believers between 1938-1945, the killing fields in Cambodia, and so we can think of a few more. That is some subject of interest, but not here.

Here it is about Fukushima, and when it is very clear that you have missed a few facts, that there is still a lot of radioactivity released by air each day... and that this site has the potential of releasing enough radiation to wipe out whole Japan and more...

your thesis number 5. I would hold the view that the reactor accident has damaged the cores, but it has not set in motion a chain of events which will cause an even larger release of radioactivity. The spent fuel ponds still need attention but I think that a criticallity or other major misadventure in the ponds is unlikely.

This thesis is so far out site reality... even TEPCO admitted, that there is still each day 1.000.000.000 beckerel released per day, they have put some probes in site the reactors to measure the radioactivity in that humid air. The cores lay as a few big pancakes on the concrete under the containments, water is pumped onto it, and that water drips into the rest of the building, where it is collected as high-radioactive water into the two water-cleaning facilities that are built, in order to reuse that same water. The hot steam is released into the air using the ventilation-shafts now emitting 10,000 mS/h...

Don't you read the news any more, even the TEPCO-site or the JAIF-site ? Or are you only shouting something ? 1947enkidu (talk) 06:37, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

"1.000.000.000 beckerel released per day" - (yawn). BFD. The nuclear research reactor that I work in is allowed to release up to 225 TBq/year of Argon-41, up to 155 GBq of Tritium and 120 MBq of Iodine-131 before it has to do anything (see section 19.33 in reference for figures)[29]. Throwing a lot of zeros after a number doesn't make the number actually more concerning - it just frightens the uneducated.... My vote is to remove/tone it down, as the quotes attributed to the guy are sensationalist, and do NOT represent a majority of the experts. MWadwell (talk) 12:36, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I was against the Gunderson statement but now think it has at some merit. He wasn't referring to deaths. In terms of damage to equipment, Fukushima is bigger than Chernobyl, so Gunderson is right on that. But the larger land radioactivity contamination from Chernobyl caused a much greater evacuation and hence likely more direct economic loss. And as bad as Fukushima is, it is still better controlled than Chernobyl was. Instead of saying "the biggest industrial catastrophe ever" it would have been better to say "one of the biggest industrial catastrophes ever". I don't think the Gunderson statement is appropriate but its not worth fighting over at this time, and instead authors could put their energy into updating and correcting the article. It will be easier to do an economic tally in a year or two. Time will tell if the Gunderson statement is exactly correct. Maybe for the time being someone should mark it "disputed" and then authors can go on to better things. 172.162.64.82 (talk) 02:11, 8 August 2011 (UTC) BG

DON'T NOBODY READ WHAT IS ON THE BEGINNING OF THIS THREAD ?

PLEASE ADD TO THE WIKI, DON'T TAKE AWAY

It is already difficult enough to find information, Tepco and the Japanese government they are not that open about it. Still there is enough on the Tepco-site and the Japanese forums. The information in newspapers is harder to find the longer the disaster goes on, it is not "new" anymore.

A dispute over Gunderson, who can say now where this ends ? In due time we will know. It is sure he has a lot of in site information and specialized knowledge, in this most of us are pure amateurs.

Lets give Pro- and Contra-nuclear-power all their place for now. 1947enkidu (talk) 05:17, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

OK, but it should not have a separate paragraph. 172.129.72.171 (talk) 12:09, 8 August 2011 (UTC) BG

I saw the invitation above "let's give the pro- and contra- all their place for now" and added a very reasonable criticism of Gunderson's obviously biased statement. It lasted a few hours, then it was removed. I don't like to get into editing wars. Can we please agree here either to remove Gunderson's statement, or to allow a contrary statement to remain?--Gautier lebon (talk) 15:13, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Blazed or not, the obvious secrecy of TEPCO and the Japanese government that the situation might be a lot worse than they will admit. It took them more than a month to admit that the three reactors ware all melted down, and that the containments were breached. Although this should have been obvious after some 8 hours when they could not cool, and at least a day later, when they knew all was out of their hands.

So what ever might be wrong, we will hear it, when they think we are ready for it. Whenever you might have found something wrong in G's statements, that does not mean that he is all wrong. In a lot of cases his knowledge outweighs all of us.

Let's stop this nonsense subject, leave Gunderson and add to the wiki, this threat has already a lot of text. Far more than the subject is worth. I know the pro-nuclear-power-lobby would like to eat his heart out. But in many cases he is just right to the point. 1947enkidu (talk) 16:11, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Gunderson's statement to the effect that this was the greatest industrial accident of all time is obviously not correct on the basis of what is known today. (Fujushima may or may not turn out to be the worst accident ever, but that is a speculative question, not something that is known today.) And Gunderson's statement has been contested. So we should either delete that statement or add the opposing view. I added the opposing view and it was quickly deleted. So, again, I propose that we reach consensus on this talk page either to delete Gunderson's statement or to balance it by adding the other view.--Gautier lebon (talk) 08:24, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Please would you try to do something new on the wiki. Today I found an article in a Dutch newspaper, here after all the time past 12-15 march, many people after their evacuation of the town Namie were for days in the midle of the radioactive cloud that blew towards Tsuhima. The Japanse government knew, but kept it secret. Children were playing outside, people were using the water from the river to cook rice. No protection, some officials suggest that this was because the costs of yet another evacuation were to high... Seiki Soramoto, a member of parliament of Japan and former adviser of premier Naoto Kan at the start of the crises, has blamed the government not to enclose the information from the special warning system Speedi. reference: De Volkskrant, 10 august 2011 page 13. Other sources: AP-news and the New York Times

Those people in Namie can wait for their children to develop thyroid cancer and more, will they trust their government ever again ?

WE DO NOT KNOW ALL, LOTS IS JUST KEPT SECRET, PLEASE PUT YOUR EFFORTS ELSEWHERE, THAN IN A FIGHT AGAINST "GUNDERSON".

Please, please, could you reveal those AP and NYT sources ? 1947enkidu (talk) 08:53, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I would like this article to be balanced and unbiased, like the rest of Wikipedia. At present it is not, because the quotation by Gunderson is not balanced. I think that we need to fix that before doing anything else.--Gautier lebon (talk) 10:59, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

I also hold the view that the article needs to be balanced and unbiased, however it is not currently. While Gunderson is free to hold and express what ever views he likes. It is not reasonable to use his comments as the only discussion of how bad the event is. I think that if space is given to Gunderson's comments then alternative views should be included.Dr Mark Foreman (talk) 20:12, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree this paragraph stating Gunderson thinks this "is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind" should not be included without a balancing view. Let's come up with a suitable opposing view here, and then perhaps we can add both into the article? --Pontificalibus (talk) 16:31, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Three threads about Gunderson

As I may remark, here above there are three !!! threads about Gunderson, about the question: "should it be removed or not?"

But looking at it all, just the enormous amount of words spent there... It is just a pure waste of effort.

Why don't you all spent half of that time and effort on research about Fukushima ?

Why don't you all add something new and substantial as result of that research to the article ?

In stead of spending all that effort into a quest against Gunderson ?

What has Gunderson done to earn all this attention, is he that important ? Or is he the devil in person ? 1947enkidu (talk) 11:29, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Gunderson has done nothing to deserve all of this attention. All of the work was done by Gundersen, who spells his name differently. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.191.244.207 (talk) 22:14, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I work in the field, and I've found the expert opinions attributed to him to be sensationalist and inaccurate. And so we have two options: 1) add counter arguements to provide a balanced POV; or 2) remove the sensationalist/confirmed to be inaccurate comments. As Option 1 will result in an already large article exploding in size (making it un-readable), my preference is for Option 2.

And as to your cry of Why don't you all spent half of that time and effort on research about Fukushima ? - if you are going to ask that question, then I'll ask why you've spent so much time defending Gundersen on the Talk page, rather then addressing the multitude of out of date information on the article. MWadwell (talk) 12:48, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

You might get yourself on a mission to the mayor of Namie, and explain him why he was three of four days (12-13-14-15 march!) in the middle of that radioactive cloud, while he had evacuated a few thousands of his citizens to a place north, where they were supposed to be safe, but in the mean time the computer predicted that the cloud would come right over them, and the bureaucracy prevented any warning, because the data were not "complete" and therefore could not be published before 23 march.

And what exactly does this have to do with Gundersen? You started this discussion, and when I express an opinion, you go off on all of these tangents! MWadwell (talk) 22:27, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

You're an expert... ? you might explain to the parents of those young Japanese children, why there were no KJ-tablets available for them, why those tablets were not there in precaution of any event.

I didn't say I am an expert - I merely stated that I work in the field. And from working in (and living next to) a nuclear reactor, I know that (for whatever reason) only a relatively small amount of iodine tablets are stockpiled, and given to those who need it, rather then everyone (whether they need it or not). As for why only a relatively small amount is stockpiled, you'd need to speak to the relevant authorities.... MWadwell (talk) 22:27, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I might tell you:

Because otherwise the people there might be aware that nuclear power can be very dangerous.

I'm a cynic - and in my opinion, ALL industrial plants are dangerous. Bhopal, Texas Refinery, fertiliser factories, etc. Our society is surrounded by possible dangers, and it biased to only focus on one of them. MWadwell (talk) 22:27, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

But this thought might be too cynical to express for experts.

You might be able to explain that so many "experts" all the way were convinced that such a disaster in Japan was "impossible" and "unthinkable", and that those reactors were just very safe.... But nevertheless that unthinkable mishap happened... And still this plant is radiating 1 billion Becquerel each hour into the atmosphere.

This accident in not "impossible" - as the reactor I work in is only 5 years old - but it's design incorporates safety features not included in the Fukushima Units - and I know that the newer designs (such as the ABWR) also include better safety features. These additional features were added for a reason - namely that people thought that they were required - and so I believe that these accidents were considered as possible (however unlikely). MWadwell (talk) 22:27, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

You might explain to us all, why those three containments, could be damaged, big holes in it, the fuel now right under it, like a blob or a pancake, and the steam and lots of salt on it (to be sure that all will corrode)... containments that do not contain, are no containments at all.

I did not defend Gundersen, NO WAY, he can defend himself better. I'm not content with all his views either.

The only thing I asked: ADD SOMETHING TO THE WIKI, DON'T TAKE AWAY.

Only very few people are following the news about Fukushima, and even less people are willing to add their finds to the wiki. 1947enkidu (talk) 18:11, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Let's stay calm, despite the seriousness of the issue. The Gunderson quote has been moved to a less prominent location. WP:NPOV, a core policy, says that we must include all significant points of view with weight proportional to their coverage in sources. A line or two from Gunderson is not disproportional weight. So long as we make sure that the material is labeled as an opinion we're working correctly. I encourage folks not to get hung up on this very small part of the large and complicated article.   Will Beback  talk  21:34, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Outdent. I agree with Mwadell above: the Genderson quote is propaganda and should be removed altogether. It is disproportional to cite something so biased. As Mwadell says, we are surrounded by dangers, accept them, and develop mesaures to reduce the risks. Apart from industrial accidents, this of airplane crashes, for example the Rio-Paris flight that crashed for no good reason, see Air France Flight 447. So we should stay calm and dispassionnately evaluate material for inclusion in Wikipedia.--Gautier lebon (talk) 09:04, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but no. ;) Sure, there are airliner crashes that have killed more people than all nuclear accidents combined. The Bhopal disaster dwarfs most industrial accidents, in terms of shear numbers. Even larger are the numbers killed by dam failures. Banqiao Dam. But as far as this accident is concerned, if some noteworthy hot head "expert" says it's the worst industrial disaster ever we should report that just as we report that some bureaucrat says there's nothing to be worried about. Both points of view need to be included. But we don't need to give either much weight. In an article like this the bulk should be devoted to objective data.   Will Beback  talk  09:15, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Danger is everywhere, on the streets in the traffic probably more people die than on their workplace, in houses, everywhere os danger. I've worked as a safety-officer and fire-man at refineries and chemical plants for years. Waiting out site for the people to come out of the containers and other places. walky-talky, a CO2-fire-extingusher added to it, for all eventualities. Controlling the outfit of the people working before they started. And I can tell you, the times I took the permit, because their clothes were worn and not according to the rules, you should have been there.

Here is Fukushima, the trouble on top of it, is all the secrecy, nobody out side maybe TEPCO and the Japanese government know. Other people are informed as little as possible. Now extra problems arise because the scandals and the public concern is rising.

All those extra back-ups do nothing to an intrinsic wrong basic-design: the water-cooled reactor, it can not stay alive without back-up. All reactors of this basic design can produce hydrogen-explosions, can melt down or through, like these three reactors have done.

I live within a 20 miles zone around 5 nuclear reactors, both of them have piled up a pile of spent-fuel-bars in amounts like those present at Fukushima. Both have had some scandals in the past, one of them lost the license to handle radioactive waste for a time. some are within a ten years of their first expected live-span. But they might get a license to go on twenty years or more... A lot cheaper than building a new plant of course... but safe ?

For you and all of us this is only an intellectual exercise, for the people in Namie and in Japan it is becoming a lot more and part of their daily live. This is the thing I'm bloody aware of. Those people in Bhopal that died was horrible, some of them died quick, the people in Namie can live in uncertainty for quite a long time. how much will get sick after some time, but will they be recognized in this way and properly compensated ? Just ask the farmers of Fukushima what they got for the cattle they could not sell because the cesium that was found in the meat ?

This all does not change the fact, that the wiki has trouble to stay updated all the time, please, please... add to the wiki 1947enkidu (talk) 09:59, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Your insistence that people should only add but not take away is not helpful. Readers want readable articles that concisely convey all the necessary facts to aid in a detailed understanding of the subject. They don't want to read everything that anyone has ever said on the subject complete with everything that anyone has said in opposition to that. We need to be concise and readable - convey the important information, but omit or even delete from our article that which might confuse or fail to aid in an understanding of the subject.--Pontificalibus (talk) 10:20, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

1947enkidu, I have a feeling that you are slightly biased, due to living (as you put it) within a 20 miles zone around 5 nuclear reactors - and that this is skewing your perception on Nuclear. The fact is that almost all nuclear reactors are based on a coolant of some type, and removing the ability to dump heat (as happened at Fukushima) will doom any reactor. An example is that the reactor that I work at (which is only a 20 MW thermal reactor - ~ 1/100th the size of Units 2 to 4) can only survive for 10 days without normal/standby power.

Now, you stated that For you and all of us this is only an intellectual exercise - to be honest that is a little insulting. Firstly my family live only ~4.5 km/~3 miles from the reactor - if I have a "bad day" at work, then I will be affecting them as well as myself. Next, it was only 3 weeks ago that I was working in a heavily tritiated enviroment, wearing PPE similar to the guys in Fukushima wear when they enter the Reactor Buildings. So trust me, discussing Fukushima is more than an intellectual exercise - it is heavily discussed at work, and has a huge impact on all of us who work at OPAL.....

All that I'm asking is that you discuss the issues logically, rather then emotionally (as to do otherwise will only cause problems). MWadwell (talk) 13:52, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Dear mr MWadwell, Once and for all, it was never in my mind to insult anybody, be sure about that.

Adding... not taking away...

Not so long ago this wiki was outdated, because after so many months the interest was lost, like the interest in our newspapers, if something is lasting long enough, than it is not news...

That is the reason why I did something on Gundersen. Of course... if all the effort on Gundersen had been put on research to improve the wiki...

This is not a weblog on nuclear power, only about fukushima, although the problems in Fukushima could happen anywhere... because all existing nuclear power plants are essential based on water-cooled-high-pressure-cookers, and this kind of reactor is intrinsic unsafe, because when the cooling is lost the reactor is highly unstable. When the temperature reach 2000 degrees, water will be split in its components... making it very explosive indeed. There have been other designs proposed, gas cooled reactors with a bed of graphite grains, and those could be stable, I'm no expert in this, whether this would be true or not, I do not know. But proposing those other designs some 30-40 years ago was not acceptable at all, and the researchers that warned for the problems, we saw in Fukushima, those were put aside, and ignored.

Yet, reactors are placed in an containment, (which Fukushima proofs, that they in fact do not contain at all, when the very need is there.) But next to most of these reactors there is a spent fuel pool, containing most of the time a lot more fuel bars than in the reactor itself, but... around these pools... there's no containment at all. Why is this question never asked ? On top of this, there's no permanent solution for the nuclear waste...

1947enkidu (talk) 16:05, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

G'Day 1947enkidu. I'm aware that you probably didn't intent to insult anyone, which is why I was (for me) quite mild in my response. Onto some of the other points you have raised:

* "Adding..." - only if what you are adding is relevant and adds understanding to the reader. Considering the physical size and complexity of the event, it would be quite easy to blow this article into something the size of a novel - but that is not going to help people understand what has happened/happening. I've had a look at the entire article, and to be honest it is in need of a re-write. There is changing tense (past -> present -> past), a lack of updates (i.e. reactor summary is dated 18 July), and (in parts) poor grammar - making the article difficult to read. This is as a result of people "adding" to the article in a disjointed manner, which needs to be addressed.

* Gundersen - he is mentioned 3 times in the article, once his neutrality is questioned, and the other two he is plainly incorrect (on the topics of criticality in Units 4 SFP, and that Fukushima has "20 times the potential as Chernobyl"). So trying to defend him is a lost cause. Of course, if (as you pointed out) all of the effort (by everyone) had been spent on the article instead of Gundersen, then the article would be in better shape....

* On Nuclear power - a couple of corrections. Not all nuclear power generators are water based. The UK Magnox gas cooled reactors handle a LOHS event better then PWR/BWR reactors. And while water disassociation occurs at high temperatures, at Fukushima the hydrogen production is as a result of oxidisation of the zircally - which occurs at ~500 deg C in the presence of steam.

* On your point about concerns having been raised and then ignored - hindsight is 20/20, and I've yet to see an accident where the problem was not identified prior to the accident. However, common sense indicates that nothing is ever 100% fool proof, and accidents will happen.

* Onto "Containment" - just be aware that Containment is NOT meant to be airtight (as that is a physical impossibility). Instead, there is a certain allowable amount of leakage that is acceptable. And so that is why the building of the Units are considered as containment barriers - as with extraction ventilation (taking out a majority of the contamination) working, the secondary containment boundary is normally effective. (Of course, it relies on the extraction ventilation system operating to ensure negative pressure within the building.) On the Primary Containment, bear in mind that it is not known how they have failed - is it a result of the earthquake damaging pipework? The overtemperature/overpressurisation that occured after the LOHS event damaging seals/pipes? The hydrogen explosions? The damaged fuel sitting on the bottom of the RPV? Until we know more about how the primary containment has been damaged, it is too early to criticise them for being inadequate. So bear these issues in mind when criticising the Containment barriers. MWadwell (talk) 13:02, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

I think that might expect the containment to be a perfectly sealed coffin for the stricken reactor. While in the ideal world it would remain closed it is important to provide some means of cooling. One means of cooling is to vent off steam while adding water.

While venting might release some radioactivity it is likely to be better to vent some steam rather than causing the containment to burst in a steam explosion.

I think that commenting on the accident is something which should be done with care. It is very easy for a person in an armchair to speculate as to the current state of the inside of the plant or about the processes which happened. I think it is better to restrict ourselves as much as possible to content which has a good basis in the data which has come out of the event or is based on very trustworthy models such as the work of Dr F Tanabe.Dr Mark Foreman (talk) 19:30, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

I think that you've missed my point. There is a perception that Primary "Containment" is a perfect seal - where in fact a leakage rate of 1% on a functioning Primary Containment (i.e. one with no problems) is perfectly acceptable.

I don't know what license conditions the Japanese have, but in the US the NRC/GE have a series of documents containing a "list" of the rules (the Specs [30]) and descriptions of the rational behind the rules (the Bases [31]). If you have a look at section 3.6.1.1 (specifically the APPLICABLE SAFETY ANALYSIS on page 380 of the pdf file), you'll see that the allowable leakage rate is 1.2%. Note that this is just for the Primary Containment - valves penetrating through the Primary Containment have a seperate acceptable leakage rate (see section 3.6.1.3). (Just to let you know why I am familiar with these documents, they are the basis of the Operational Limits and Conditions (OLC's) that the reactor I work in has as part of it's license - in fact parts of it are identical.....)

Just to point out though, the leakage of any radioactive materials is covered under a difference license condition, that limits the amount able to be released (regardless of whether it is deliberately vented, or accidentally leaked). Of course, as we are seeing at the moment, when the s**t hits the fan, there is only so much that can be done..... MWadwell (talk) 12:28, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

This above has nothing to do with the start of this lead. As far as I recall, the probability this kind of accidents was something like once in a million years. It is quite difficult do do calculations on this kind of small possibilities, while recorded history is there around 8000 years, and the start of human mankind is also around a million years... yet with in the past 40 years quite a row of serious accidents, this probability is very questionable.

Yet in the inquires of the Japanese Government, TEPCO officials admitted, that they never thought a hydrogen-explosion to be possible at their plant, -- we have seen a few. -- And that shortly after the waves were there, that all control was lost, within some 5 hours, and that the people of TEPCO on the plant, just had no idea what to do, because a lot of indicators did not work at all. 1947enkidu (talk) 11:42, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

"once in a million years"? The Probability Statistical Analysis Report (PSAR) writen for the reactor that I work in has split events into two groups - Design Basis Initiating Events (DBIE) and non-Design Basis Initiating Events. To simplify the difference between the two groups, is that one takes into account events that have an occurance rate of 1 in 100 years (i.e. bushfires), and the other has an occurance rate greater than 100 years (i.e. asteroids). And, as you can guess from the names, one group of accidents is considered when designing the reactor (and associated safety systems), and the other is not.

Having said that, the Fukushima Reactors were recently modified (in around 2000), as the NRC changed the DBIS rules concerning Station Blackouts (SBO's) - with the DBIE limit being extended from 1 in 50 years to 1 in 125 years (and as a result including a lot more initiating events then it previously did). As a result Tepco build additional diesel generators on the uphill side of the Reactors (and these generators were undamaged during the earthquake and subsequent tsunami). The problem is, that it appears that no-one considered the location of the distribution boards that these additional DG's connect through - and when the DB's were flooded in the bottom of the Turbine Halls the DG's were not able to be used. Had the DB's been in the Reactor Buildings (which were not flooded to the same degree as the Turbine Halls), then in all likelyhood the Reactors at Fukushima Daiichi would have handled the earthquake/tsunami the same as the Reactors at Fukushima Daini.

Onto hydrogen explosions - that is because the reactors should never have gotten hot enough for the zircaloy to have oxidised producing the hydrogen. If the reactors had stayed within their specifications (normal operating temperature of 300 deg C), then they would never had reached the temperature where zircalloy starts reacting with steam (at ~ 500 deg C) - and hence no hydrogen, and no hydrogen explosions.

One thing to bear in mind, is that this is such and extreme event (the earthquake and subsequent tsunami). Nuclear reactors have been theough many earthquakes before (even the Fukushima Daiichi Reactors) - without problems. So IMHO, the root cause isn't entirely Nuclear power (although I do have issues with what happened at Fukushima - such as the locations of the distribution boards), the root cause is more to do with the increadibly powerful earthquake and tsunami. MWadwell (talk) 12:51, 21 August 2011 (UTC)