What? What?

I just had a very bad idea.  Cut to the chase if you are busy.

Somehow I missed this.   http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-22/tepco-fails-to-get-assurance-on-restarting-second-fukushima-nuclear-plant.html

Read down to the sentence which says: " Tepco plans to construct a wall to a height of 15 meters (50 feet) above sea level off the coast of its Kashiwazaki Kariwa plant northwest of Tokyo, spokeswoman Ai Tanaka said by phone. Three of seven reactors remain shut at the station after an earthquake in 2007 caused radiation leaks."

Wait a bit. Did I read that right? - they had radiation leaks at Kashiwazaki in 2007 from earthquake damage...and three of the reactors are still off as a result?  Ummm..and they want to spin them back up because of a shortage of electricity? 

Further UP the coast, two fires were reported at the Onagawa plant after the earthquake and a radiation emergency was declared on March 13.  The radiation is now assumed to have come from F-D-I but Onagawa was shut down safely.  Truth, or dare?

The camera footage from Sendai might show a fission excursion - or it might not.  It shows something.  You can listen to it - the announcer says that TEPCO confirms that no damage was done to the reactors. 

Was this Fukushima Dai-Ichi...or was it Onagawa?  Or worse.  Was it the high voltage transformer that fed power to Onagawa?  If it was, Onagawa could not have SCRAMMED and cooled down safely. Especially since it was on fire.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onagawa_Nuclear_Power_Plant  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onagawa,_Miyagi

Fukushima Dai-NI, 11 km south of F-D-I was SCRAMMED and shut down safely.  Truth, or dare?  It is within the F-D-I evacuation zone.

It should have taken 4 seconds to SCRAM the F-D-N reactors which would then still have to cool off about 7% of their residual energy under external or generator power.  

34 hours to cool the residual heat decay is a good number but I wonder whether ALL the F-D-N reactors went into cold shutdown.  Suppose one didn't.

Let's do our forensic mind-meld on this and see what happens:

Japanese government says a 20km evacuation zone around FDI will both remain in effect and be decreased to 8-10 km.  That's confusing unless you draw 10 km circles around both F-N-I and F-D-N.  Then it makes sense.  EACH PLANT has an evacuation zone around it.

For weeks I have wondered why measurements and temperatures have been off, day after day, by orders of magnitude.  How come no one knows what they are talking about?  Almost EVERY press release is wrong.  First it's safe. Then it's a million times over the safe limit.  Then it's only ten times over the limit.  Then it changes again.  And I wonder why none of the aerial and satellite photos I see even the ones which purport to show the scope of the tsunami damage don't either the F-D-N or Onagawa plants.

And I continue to wonder why the press releases continue to refer to 'cold shutdown'.  Once a nuclear pile gets loose and the core starts melting, there is no such thing as a 'cold shutdown' anymore.  EVER.  That possibility is over - yet they keep talking about a 'cold shutdown'.  Sure.  If they are talking about another reactor at another plant.  They have made that verbal face-plant so often that it is beginning to look a lot like a Fruedian slip by someone who is reading about separate incidents. That explains a lot of things as well.

I am beginning to believe that maybe Dai-ichi and even Onagawa are damaged too.  One of them might be involved in a fission excursion as well.  If you wanted to report only on one plant, that could become a nightmare in a heartbeat.

Onagawa belongs to TOHOKU ELECTRIC POWER COMPANY (TEPCO), ~NOT~  TOKYO ELECTRIC POWER COMPANY (TEPCO).  It would be VERY easy to mess that up in translation.

Bad information is released, corrected, released, corrected.  It is still going on a month later and makes no sense. I think they have more problems than they have plants to blame them on.  And I think that's why the government took over the PR job from TEPCO - but still can't get it right.  I may be mistaken.  I hope I am.  I'd appreciate being corrected with post-EQ photos of those plants showing the tsunami damage around them.   

In EVERY disaster, the news is always the same:  "No problem. No reactors were damaged.  We are completely solvent.  Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. Have some milk and vegetables.  What?  Yes. The ocean has turned to sparkling wine.  Isn't it pretty?"

I hope I am wrong.  Maybe the government and private sectors in Japan are as incompetent as those in the U.S. and simply don't know what they are talking about - in that case, they have no business playing with those sorts of toys. 

Maybe I am not wrong.  We shall see.

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