[ExI] Two Japanese reactors on red alert

[Alfio Puglisi]

On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 2:21 AM, Jeff Davis <jrd1415 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 9:32 PM, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Not knowing what they actually had perhaps I am being harsh on this,  but
> an crew of Americans would have taken the plugs off and spliced the wires.
>  There are significant cultural differences between the two societies.
>
> Yes, that was my immediate thought as well, 'Splice 'em!".  But c'mon!
>  Just on that account, the story makes no sense.  You've got a
> billion dollar nuke plant you risk losing to a melt down, plus the
> potential human safety catastrophe of a full reactor vessel breech!
> The guys working the emergency response would have been the best of
> the best.  They would have known to splice, and done it with their
> teeth if necessary.  There just HAS to be something else to this
> story, some other problem we haven't heard about yet.


The NYT has a piece on the subject with a comment that makes a lot more
sense:

"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"

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/14/world/asia/japan-fukushima-nuclear-reactor.html?_r=2&pagewanted=2

Basically, the plant was not designed for external power supplies, since it
had plenty of auxiliary generators on site. Thus the hooking up of emergency
generators is not a simple matter of plugging in a connector. And the
switching room is in the basement...

Alfio
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