Blackout - New lies from TEPCO

[Analysis] The sudden blackout revealed the weakness of Fukushima plant, “Reactor4 has 4 days to go”

Posted by Mochizuki on March 18th, 2013 ·

In the evening of 3/18/2013, Fukushima plant had the power blackout and the coolant system of reactor1, 3 and 4 lost power.

(cf, [Breaking] Power blackout in Fukushima plant, coolant system of the pools in reactor 1,3,4 lost power [URL 1])
Here I would like to explain what the problem is and what was newly revealed.

What exactly happened ?

At 18:57, the plant lost power. Even the seismic isolation building, where is the managing office of the entire plant lost power temporarily. The reason of the blackout is not identified yet.
Tepco is receives the power from Tohoku-epco, but they can’t send it to the spent fuel pools.

■ Systems out of power

Kurion -a cesium adsorption system
Coolant system of the spent fuel pool in reactor1, 3, 4
Coolant system of the common spent fuel pool

■ Systems not out of power

Reactor coolant system for reactor1, 2 and 3
Monitoring posts
Gas monitoring systems for reactor1, 2 and 3
Coolant system of the spent fuel pool in reactor2

(Source)

At 5AM in JST, the power is not back on yet.

What is the concern ?

“According to Tepco”, the water temperature of the pool of reactor4 was 25℃ at 16:00 of 3/18/2013. It increases at 0.1 ~ 0.3 ℃/h, so it takes 4 days to reach 65℃, which is the safety regulation.
However, the common pool also lost the power, where has 6377 fuel assemblies. From the research of Fukushima Diary, the temperature increases the second fastest to follow reactor4. [URL 2]
Tepco didn’t announce how long it takes to reach the safety regulation.

The spent fuel pools of reactor3 and 4 are still outside of the building. Japanese meteorological agency is giving the warnings of storm to Fukushima.

The revealed weakness / lies

     1. There is still no back-up power for the spent fuel pools

Tepco stated they reinforced the spent fuel pool of reactor4. Even if another earthquake of the same scale of 311 hit the plant, it can last and they prepare multiple powers to maintain the coolant system.
However, as always, it turned out to be a lie. They didn’t even need an earthquake to cause a power blackout for reactor4. The power went down for nothing and the reason is not even identified yet.
Fukushima worker Happy11311 warns if reactor4 has a fire, it would also cause explosion from reactor1 and 3 at least. If Tsunami hits again, it would chop off all the power lines etc..

(cf, Fukushima worker “Most of the workers know it takes over 40 years to decommission Fukushima plant” [URL 3])
Additionally, the Tsunami embankment is still in the temporary state in Fukushima plant. [URL 4]

     2. Tepco took 3 hours to announce they had power blackout

Fukushima plant had a power blackout at around 19:00, but they reported it at 22:11.
They state they took time to confirm the situation.
Whether it was on purpose or not, they never update on time. If reactor4 has an emergency, they would take even longer “to confirm the situation”.
Probably we shall not trust them and collect information spontaneously.

Iori Mochizuki