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Originally Posted by Bakkels
So IMO it's not really a design flaw, more a case of poor judgement in the placing of the powerplant. Placing a power plant literally a stones throw away from the coast in a country that's earthquake ridden is the mistake here I think.
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Agreed.
We have reactors in my hometown of Bay City, and as far back as I can remember there was very little drama associated with them.
I have no way of knowing what is actually happening inside these plants. Reading varied and feverish news reports does not necessarily tell me anything. There are other reports that
downplay the apocalyptic tone. We will have to wait to see what happened here.
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No one could have predicted every misfortune that hit this plant. First a quake bigger than any quake in Japan's history took out the power grid. Then a tsunami arrived with unprecedented speed and took out the backup diesel generators. An explosion at one reactor knocked out four of five pumps at another. A valve malfunction blocked water from being pumped into one of the reactors. Gauges failed. Instrument panels failed. A fire erupted in a spent-fuel storage pool in a reactor that had been offline for months.
But just as surprisingly, the disaster hasn't become an apocalypse. Cooling water has been depleted, then replenished. The damaged containers have remained largely intact. Cores are believed to have melted, but only partially, and by some estimates only marginally. Reactor buildings have exploded, but peripherally. External radiation levels have risen, then fallen. Fires have died, then restarted, then died again. Most plant workers have been evacuated, but others have stayed behind to cool the reactors and put out the fires.
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