I still find it utterly baffling that someone thought, in a location well known to be liable to tsunamis, it would be a really good idea to place the crucial back up generators in a basement. Absolute madness. But there again, as someone who has worked for decades in the back up diesel generator industry, it doesn't really surprise me.
Onagawa(Owned by Tohoku Electrical Power Co.) was closer to the epicentre but didn't melt down, TEPCO(Tokyo Electric Power Co.) is a corrupt organisation
To play devils advocate, it’s Japan, the entire county is susceptible to tsunamis, and they have have much space to begin with, hence why nuclear power is important over there cuz it makes a lot of electricity with little space (comparatively)
The point I was making was about the placement of the generators. They didn't have to put them in the basement, they did it because it was cheaper. There's no technical reason why they couldn't have put them on higher ground much further away from the risk that eventually came to bite them, only economic reasons. Its just insane they were allowed to make the mistake, to someone who works in that area, its just so obvious.
Gamma rays travel in straight lines, and other forms of ionizing radiation have trouble penetrating the ground. A place that is buried will keep you safe from the radio-hazards of a powerplant emergency by being both shielded and out of the shine path. Under most circumstances, the basement is the safest place for workers and back-up equipment. That setup is used in most powerplants.
@@The.dudeinator He's talking about the generators. The plant was completely unaffected by the earthquake and tsunami, it was the diesel generators that got wiped out. I think the first mistake was having an auto-shut down during an Earthquake. Had it remained on it could have gotten the water it needed and we never would have been talking about this. Reactors closer to the epicentre of the Earthquake were just fine.
One thing you didn't mention is that much of the subsequent clean-up was done by elderly volunteers, knowing they would be exposed to substantial doses of radiation and knowing that meant much less to them with their limited lifespans than it would mean to younger people with many decades yet ahead of them to develop cancers from their exposure.
Imagine if old people in the US would sacrifice their lives for anyone. Instead they want to keep running things til their last breath and screw up the world for longer after they go.
@@eatdawontonsoup sounds like Russia where only the oligarchs lives matter, the kid down the street, not so much, so start entrenching the irradiated wasteland around Chernobyl.
My oldest son was in Japan when that happened. That earthquake literally shook him out of a job. He was back home within a couple of weeks and he embarked on a new path in life. He was one of the fortunate ones who survived.
@@Ronin.Samurai So then please show us someone who has died from Fukushima radiation, your highness. This is where the trolls disappear or start an obfuscation campaign.
I still can't imagine being in a situation where the ground is shaking for 6 whole minutes! I was always under the impression most earthquakes last just seconds, mayyyyybe a minute or two in the worst cases. But 6? That's terrifying.
You are correct they are typically short and apparently California suffers seismic activity throughout the year that they can’t even feel. I am the furthest thing from an expert though so I’m going to do a little research to double check that I’m not full of it.
I live near a major fault line, but we hardly ever feel anything. That is, until 2 years ago. I lived quite a ways from the epicenter, so while it did wake me up, I just went right back to sleep. It did only last a few seconds, but my office building is still undergoing repairs (just a couple of miles from the epicenter). That was just a baby quake though, a 5.7, and everyone was already working from home, so only a few people needed to take the day off
Been through 4 3+ earthquakes, and most of them were a minute or thereabouts. 6 minutes is very long. Can't speak for most, but you have enough time during most quakes to realize "something's weird", "this seems bad" and "it's an earthquake, let's check on others / find safety".
@@jacquelynsmith2351 I have a pretty good idea of the area you're talking about, and if that idea is correct, the variance of intensity felt was all over the place. Downtown, while avoiding serious damage, was not a fun place to be during that one & the following aftershocks
I worked 18 hours a day at my company to supply hoses to transfer water to cool these reactors. So surreal to have a a small role in preventing a more serious catastrophe.
The catastrophe in Fukushima was not the worst thing for Japan. The worst was the tsunami because of which 14,000 people were killed. The last time when so strong earthquake and tsunami took place in Japan was 1000 years earlier. This country was not anywhere ready. Coastal walls protecting from the increase in water level were too low everywhere. Nobody at their construction was expecting such growth of water level. There is only one town (Fudai) where the walls were high enough and protected the inhabitants. The mayor of the town was very criticized for such high and costly wall when it was built. This tsunami came after his death and when wall saved the inhabitants, the mayor became a hero.
The worst was having atomic weapons tested on dense civilian populations resulting the deaths of 100,000 - 200,000+ lives. With roughly 95% of those being civilians lives.
Yeah...pretty sure that fallout from explosion will continue to kill for many years and across the globe unaccountable deaths from radiation. Not to mention the 2 we dropped on them
@@kryptocake yes but that was an attack in the middle of a war, there is a difference between catastrophes and weapons. It was not okay to use fat man or little boy and the USA should still feel ashamed to have used them at all. But those deaths were caused by the USA's indiscriminate bombardment and use of mass destructive weapons and not natural disasters that could've been prevented by installing defensive structures such as walls to stop the waves.
@@Arceus086 20/20 hindsight there. It is easy to stand on a pedestal and self righteously pontificate andxwag your finger in phony indignation.Yes, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were horrible. But Operation Downfall (the invasion of Japan) would have been far costlier in terms of human life. Pre invadion Allied casualties alone were estimated to run 250,000 - 500,000 dead and around 1,000,000 wounded. Japanese casualties would have run up into the millions, since civilians were ordered by the emperor to attack Allied soldiers with anything they had - axes, picks, shovels, hammers, homemade spears, molotov cocktails, etc. The proposed defense of the Japanese home islands by Japanese was labeled "The Glorious Death of 100 million". After many attacks of that sort, Allied soldiers would have gotten to the point they would have shot any Japanese who approached them. It would have been a blood bath on both sides.
Missed a few points that made it worse. The seawalls were actually decent however the size of the quake and its type meant that the coast sank in places many feet which immediately made the seawalls fail. The second was tepco, they KNEW the plant had risks but of course when you are the only power company in the country you can get away with a LOT. Third was the failure to give accurate info to the government including the fact Tepco could have flooded the reactors with seawater but refused because it would have killed them, which then then had to later anyways.
I pray that this message gets to the people it needs to. I don't want money to share this idea with the world (I have plenty more). This needs to be shared in an effort to prevent a repeat of what happened and get the idea into the right hands and minds. The design of the seawall could (& in my humble opinion should) be the shape of a WAVE turned towards the ocean so that the momentum of the tsunami turns in on itself. The iconic Japanese origami and inflatable origami can be implemented in this design to adjust to both different wave heights and any subsidence as a result of the precipitating earthquake. This design would also be able to be hidden beneath the sands so as to not obstruct the fisherman's access to the sea as it also has many seafront properties.
@lucyinthesky444the power of the wave think thousands of ton of water crashing into something that folds you need a design that can deal with this and materials it would also be billions of dollars
great thumbnail for this. the exaggerated "hydrogen release" from daiichi number three, looks chunky, the particulate material rising above the facilty contains material from the fuel that has reached criticality. the incredible height, can be calculated by comparing the rising plume, with the buildings and/or visible stacks. something approaching two thousand feet above the Pacific.
1:11 my heart is broken for this poor girl! No telling what she went through and I hope she’s okay now 😔 It’s hard to fathom the suffering that goes on in this world sometimes.
who false in this ? is not unavoided disaster is man made error .... and now Japan will increased the cancer rate of the whole whole by dumping the contaminated water to ocean
so weird that after 60 years of nuclear powerplants people still don't know that the only thing you really need to do with them is to keep you shit up to standards and to not cut corners... and above all, don't try to save face and cover it up...
But the thing is covering things up is how governments work, as long as nuclear power plants are either regulated or ran by the state there will be disasters just like any other state controled business. Like Milton Friedman used to say "If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there’d be a shortage of sand."
@@prizrak-br3332 See you say this but it was actually a company who ran the nuclear reactors, constructed the building to have the pump generators at the bottom floor, ignore the safety requirements and had been established for so long that no other company could open up because they didn't have any part of the market that wasn't already covered by this company and if they found some way to get into the market they would've been bought up by this company at once and so as the only company if the government tried to enforce tougher regulations the company could simply threaten them by cutting of some of the power that they sent to people's homes.
@@prizrak-br3332 actually no, monopolies are most commonly formed when there is no regulation to keep companies from absorbing one another, just look at Amazon. Amazon has over the last couple of years absorbed almost every single startup that has formed, they do this by first trying to purchase the business from the owners, this step usually fails and so they move on to the second step where Amazon instead makes a similar product in appearance but it tends to be inferior since they're not allowed to copy it since copyright laws. Since Amazon has such an enormous reach the smaller company can't sell their product to anyone as most people now has Amazon's version and either feels like it's enough and don't want to spend more money on the original one or they think it wasn't good enough to spend money on in the first place, a fact that the original product could probably solve since it is much better made. In the end the smaller company goes bankrupt and Amazon buys it for a fraction of the original price and with it they get the copyrights so they can make the exact same product and sell it on the giant platform instead on a small website. Such is the way of giant corporations, if you want even more facts you can just look at internet providers. If you have any qualms about what I've stated you can share those but I won't take them seriously without any sort of real world fact or studies, any sort of theoretically benefit can't be used in this sort of argument as it doesn't work when put in practice.
In my senior year of high school I took AP Environmental Science and our textbook was written in 2008 iirc. In the section on nuclear power it mentioned Japan’s nuclear industry and said something along the lines of “it’s a wonder Japan hasn’t had any serious nuclear accidents seeing as they’re so prone to earthquakes and tsunamis.” Reading that a decade or so after Fukushima, with existing knowledge of the disaster and its continuing effects, was very surreal.
The problem is two fold; the plant itself and the people running it. Fukushima ultimately failed because its builders decided to cut some corners, had they followed the plans like they were supposed to, the melt down may very well not have happened. Had the generators been built at least two stories above ground, on the opposite side of the main structure, and its exhaust pipes built up along the cooling tower, then backup power wouldn't have failed; these were all in the original building plans but modified in order to reduce costs and bring the plant online sooner. There is a lot that can be learned from this; but sadly, people would rather place the blame on nuclear power instead of on the people who actually allowed it to happen.
That was a dreadful month for natural disasters in the Pacific. New Zealand also had an earthquake and in Australia we had Cyclone Yasi, which started and was named in Fiji. By the time it got to us it was HUGE and didn't start to break down until it had travelled about 800km inland. An unheard of distance. Once they hit land, cyclones normally break up.
The banana farmers of the (unaffected) Coffs Harbour region all bought new cars and paid off their mortgages when they suddenly found themselves as the sole suppliers of bananas for the entire country when Yasi wiped out all the Queensland farms and prices quadrupled because the amounts they could supply were well below demand. Fortunately for our wallets bananas grow pretty fast and the Queensland farms recovered relatively quickly. It taught the various agriculture departments some valuable lessons about putting all your eggs in one basket, so to speak. These days banana farming is on the increase again in the Coffs Harbour area, after it had been all but abandoned in favour of blueberries. Driving through the area it's kinda nice to see some banana plantations returning. The iconic Big Banana was in danger of becoming a relic of the past but now it's relevant again. If given the choice I actually prefer Coffs bananas - they're smaller, but so much more flavourful. Those big pale Queensland bananas are just bland.
That distance sounded insane until I crunched the distance in freedom units. Hurricane Laura had roughly that longevity and ferocity, she was the first recorded hurricane to hit Arkansas as a cat 1 in 2020 which is roughly 800km inland. Not to say that isn't a monster cyclone, it absolutely is, just putting it into perspective from my experiences.
Every time I read or here about this event I have the same thought. How could the engineers have been so short sighted? They put the emergency water pump engines in the 'basement'? To me this is a crime of idiocy if nothing more. Built on the shore of a country that is very familiar with earth quakes and tsunamis, why weren't the generators put in locations separate from and in protected raised structures? I wrote this without reading any other comments. After doing so, it would seem that even those of us who have no idea how engineering and building a power plant is achieved, even we know not to put them in a basement.
The diesel backup power generators in the basements. Pumps all over the place. Actually the basement is a good place for them. The real stupid design features were other things. 1. the FUEL TANKS for the generators were right on the foreshore at the dock. They washed away. There was one backup generator up on a hill and it survived, but had no fuel due to the washed-away tanks. 2. The buildings with the generators in the basements, had a serious flaw. They had large roller doors, facing the sea.The tsunami pushed these in, hence the basement flooding.
I recommend looking up the video “Who destroyed 3 mile island” by Nickolas Means - it’s a really interesting take on this exact thread and actually uses another nuclear meltdown as a topic
judging from the images of massive boats on top of houses crushing them, i doubt a raised structure would have fared any better than a reinforced basement.
I was about 12 years old when this happened me and my mom were stationed in Misawa Japan and we were near where the tsunami was hit. We were about four hours away but we got the earthquake and it was so bad. I was so scared that the tsunami was going to hit us. Fortunately, it did not end, the only thing that really happened is we had no power after the earthquake, but we had no idea that this was going on as well, and will be our of hearts are broken still to this day. I love Japan with all my heart and I can’t believe that this happened I even been to the place that got hit the hardest Sendai and it was so sad to see what happened to the town.
I was in 8th grade around 15 years old, in America, when it happened the day before my older brother's birthday on March 12th, 2011. I remember seeing news and even video of this horrible incident, not realizing it was a humongous disaster that ended up being a 9-11 but in march to Japan. Now, Both America and Japan had their 9-11 moments in the history of the world. All done nearly ten years apart. Never Forget both 9-11-01 and 3-11-11.
@@danadurnfordkevinblanchdebunk Yeah, there's a couple of differences between these events. But what I'm saying is that it's kind of a shock to the country in some sort of fashion, whether a natural disaster or not. hence why I mention "9-11" is to reference people whom survived the disaster having trauma and such for the next few years.
@@danadurnfordkevinblanchdebunk The day was a MUCH bigger issue for more than just the nuclear plant. 14,000 people dies because of the tsunami, it's a day that is even more traumatic than 9/11 for a lot of people in Japan. The people actually affected in 9/11 were the people physically in the towers, areas nearby, and first responders (and family, ect). The earthquake and tsunami affected EVERYONE. No where was safe as the word literally crumbled around them and then was washed away.
@@MariaThePotterNut But the power plant accident was way overblown by the media, just like any time they can demonize nuclear energy. No one died from radiation, yet you only hear about the NPP not the earthquake and tsunami which killed many thousands.
I remember almost none of my early childhood. That said, despite being in kindergarten I can still remember the glow of the tv as it showed footage of the devastation. I can remember asking my mother what a tsunami was, and her face as she described it to me. I can even remember the pink jacket I wore, and the cold rain outside.
I remember Naoto-san, who chose to stay in Fukushima exposing himself to great levels of radiation so he could take care of the animals. What human being. I hope he's still ok today.
I've never seen a documentary, on this disaster. This is highly detailed, and informative. @9:28 it shows 9 kilometers, when the narrator says, 12 miles. Then it would be more like, 19 kilometers.
Japan: "we don't want to make the public panic and make us get rid of our nuclear plants." Also Japan: "I see no reason to enforce safety protocols at nuclear plants."
Nuclear plants, even with the environmental impacts of Cherynobl and Fukushima disasters don't even come close to putting a finger on the environmental impact of burning fossil fuels.... Coal, Natural Gas, Gasoline, Diesel etc... If you are worried about safety protocols at nuclear plants, you should really pay attention to what is going on in the US... Where anti-nuclear hysteria lingering from the 60s/70s and cold war pushes for reduced funding in nuclear energy resulting in old, dilapidated nuclear facilities generating nuclear energy in sub-optimal ways that have greater risks and produce more radioactive waste. Better yet, consider the entire impact of producing solar panels... from the raw materials all the way up to a finished solar panel to the end of its limited lifespan... Their carbon footprint and the pollutants released into the environment in the production of solar panels, makes solar energy DIRTIER than nuclear energy. Most people don't believe this or are simply ignorant. But it's true.
Maybe, a little perspective / honesty, eh? Firstly, OP, there WERE safety protocols. They just happened to be inadequate that day. Do you know of a place anywhere in the world that could handle every possible natural disaster imaginable? Of course, you don't and you'd be a liar if you said you did. Ultimately, the problem is there being too many people using too many resources. I've chosen never to have children. Anyone else???
One of the things I find terrifying in floods is that after a few inches of water, when you can't see the ground anymore, it might as well be as deep as the ocean from hell because new holes will open up and you can't see them, besides it also only takes a few inches of rapidly running water to sweep you from your feet... dragging you under above mentioned unforeseen hazards!!!
They had to deal with a earthquake, tsunami, AND a nuclear power plant explosion……those poor people. Oh and then the damn water gets contaminated AND there’s literal neglect. Damn near everything that could have went wrong literally went wrong.
@@truesoulghost2777 Um…..yeah no an a nuclear power plant exploding, a earthquake, a tsunami, contaminated water, and negligence sounds pretty damned bad to me.
Nuclear power plants don't explode, bloody hell. They are not like nuclear bombs. This is why people are so freaking scared of nuclear power, because of misguided stuff such as this.
You glossed over the biggest factor leading to this disaster. The electrical infrastructure was destroyed so the nuclear reactor lost offsite power. The reactor had to rely on backup power which went down because the generators were flooded due to being located in lower levels.
That's why we love Dark History. They purposefully shorten everything but "facts" like this are understood by the average viewer when narrator states a tsunami devastated the area and destroyed all cooling power.
Living in Washington state we don't get a lot of earthquakes, however around 2000 or 2001 don't remember, I was working as a Valet for St. Joe's hospital and WHOA! We had one, for about 10 seconds. I can't IMAGINE being in one for 6 minutes!! Especially with THAT magnitude! Crazy!!
In Cali, they’re fun. We pretend to surf them while the ground rocks back and forth. Scariest earthquake I experienced was a split second and felt more like a bomb’s shockwave.
As someone who's visited the Fukishima prefecture post 2011, it feels unfair to call this a nuclear disaster, its more a chain reaction to a natural disaster. As an island nation, fukushima daichi itself is located close enough to power Tokyo, but far away enough to not immediately be a threat for this very situation, its also able to be cooled by sea water which is both ideal, and in this case a danger in the case of tsunamis. It was handled with absolute bravery, efficiency and some of the very best men and women spend their lives keeping the threat minimal. I hope some day the residents can return to their lost homes
What nobody realizes is the decades of nuclear fuel rods that were stored in all the tops of the buildings in cooling pools Which all got blown up in the explosion and shot everywhere.
Learned about this all week when it happened in 8th grade. Just remembered how bizarre it was because we were in the earthquake part of our science curriculum
The thing I can't understand is why the military and/or emergency services did not get transportable generators to the site within the (about 4 to 6 hours, I think) period between the tsunami hitting and core starting to melt down. The first 3 sources of power were all down: power the plant was generating, on-site diesel generators, and the national power grid. I've heard the army was asked to dispatch generators but they sent them by road?! They needed to be told to do *whatever it takes* to get them on site and working within some specified period of hours.
@@gwauk205 That was my point. The army or civil defense forces were contacted and dispatched generators by road. They didn't make it in time. Surely they could have airlifted generators with helicopters, or on landing craft. The tragedy is that the critical imperative to get something on-site and working with a maximum timeframe never got through to those with the skills and equipment to get whatever is needed done.
Since Fukushima in France they created a special electrician intervention team. They have military gear, heavy lift helicopters, tracked vehicles, landing boats, and are capable to access anywhere after a disaster and bring the necessary material. They spend all their time training in every nuclear plant to know their electrical system and how to restore power (either by reconnecting to grid or installing generators).
TBH, they didn't even need an army diverted to transporting generators plus fuel. All that's required is to get a power cable to the site, and supply electricity from other networks.
@@FurnitureFan There were no other networks working. If the on-site generators could not be up and running within a short period the only way to avoid a meltdown was for the army to bring some in - and that had to be achieved within a short period.
I was living in Misawa, Aomori, when the quakes hit. I was six at the time and my dad was in the Navy. How much more frightening it would’ve been for me if I had known the danger we weren’t far from.
To say that the reactors were stabilized and leave it at that is very misleading. Even after power was restored there was no way to recover the nuclear material that melted down nor could they stop water from running through the area carrying away dangerous radioactivity. The only way they were able to slow down the release of radioactivity was to freeze the entire site. If at any point the refrigeration method is disrupted and the ground begins to thaw there will be very high levels of radiation released as groundwater percolates through downhill and comes into contact with the highly radioactive material that is still exposed today
They didn't "freeze the entire site". They constructed a wall of frozen earth on the uphill side of the plant to prevent groundwater from flowing under it and becoming contaminated. That was necessary to minimise the water needed to be pumped out of the basement and stored.
Great video! Very informative, I was looking for something like that. We got much less information and videos about Fukushima compared to the Chernobyl’s disaster.
These were General Electric Mk 1 reactors designed in the early 1960's! They were supposed to be taken off line in the early 80's! It's like having a Model T motor in your car and wondering why something went wrong! The fault lies with whatever agency, policy or person decided to keep the obsolete antiques online! This accident simply could not have happened with a modern reactor!
RMBK reactors can’t explode. The Titanic is unsinkable. I fully support nuclear energy and I am willing to accept some risks to use it. However I believe our constant hubris of “this time it’s impossible” is what keeps getting us into this mess. Instead of believing in our own genius time and time again, we should work to ensure that even the most unlikely of circumstances can never cause another disaster. Edit: I also agree that it is ridiculous and even criminal that these reactors were as old as they were. I would love to see maintenance logs.
@@princeofcupspoc9073 Been there! Done that! LOL Now, don't you look foolish! Please read my published and peer reviewed paper on the subject. Thank you! :)
You'd think a country like Japan would be smart enough to not put a nuclear reactor so close to the shore like this, especially a country known to have strong earthquakes and huge tsunamis. I really hope the Japanese have learned something from this disaster. The last thing they want is for history to repeat itself
Unfortunately, reactors must be located near a large body of water (ocean, river, or large lake). The vast quantity of water is required to cool the rector during normal operation, and post shutdown. It’s called an “ultimate heat sink”. In reality, the flaw was in the hight of the flood wall. It was engineered a handful of meters to small (relative to the mega tsunami). Sadly it was a known fact, but management dithered. It should be noted that Fukushima Danni (another rector complex located just up the shore line), was able to ride out the event, with the wall being well suited for that geography. In reality the lesson to be learned was that management should have not prioritized cost over safety once the wall size issue was discovered.
@@Ridinglawnmower145 While it’s true that having the generators in the basement was poor, it was an identified flaw in the hight of the breakwater/wall. It has been sighted multiple times as insufficient based on present day modeling. Tepco could have moved/replaced the generators, or fixed the sea wall…in both cases they are holding the bag. In any case, you can’t run a Gen1-Gen4 reactor without a heat sink…and based on the geography and topology of Japan, the coast is it I’m afraid.
2:23 It speed up the earth rotation by 1.8 microseconds, not milliseconds. 1.8 milliseconds would be quite a lot. Well, it's still a lot that a "simple" earthquake has this much impact on a whole planet. I didn't know that it shifted the earths axis. Thanks for those informational videos!
Ok, nuclear power IS dangerous when left without control. But there's a number of things that wasn't done here. 1) Backups need their own backups. An external power connection that WORKS is a MUST for a nuclear power plant. The backup generators need their own backup. So does the backup batteries. 2) The pumps need their own backup. If the pumps fail, you need a surefire way of getting water into the reactor core, and hopefully out of it as well. Steam is one thing but they needed a number of water towers that could feed the cores through a complete shutdown and subsequently basins that can accept all that cooling water underneath the cores such that you can cool the reactors with fresh coolant for the DURATION of the shutdown procedure. Pumps fail, Chernobyl showed this. 3) When disaster strikes, all money goes down the drain. So should all reactor cores! Except they should be DUMPED into a pit far far below ground. When all else fails, DUMP the cores and leave them down about a thousand feet below ground to rot. So in essence, their backups needed backups and if all else fails they need a place to DROP the core such that any and all radioactive elements stay out of reach of the surface. Of course this pit is "when all else fails" and is an irreversible thing. Once you drop the cores, the pit is sealed forever and you simply cannot operate the plant until the pits are restored. Which of course would probably take years and a few billion dollars, but that's the price of ultimate safety. Nuclear power is also our ONLY viable future. Shutting them down is going to be deadlier than all nuclear disasters combined. Besides, when you shut down nuclear powerplants and there's no good replacement for them. Consider what is used to replace them. Yes, that's right... Coal powerplants will happily fire at full capacity and coal pollution has killed thousands of times as many people as all nuclear EVENTS (all of them) in history.
This is an unnatural form of energy we STUPID human should be even be CONSIDERING! WTF?! If you have to hesitate at all??! Abandon the fucking mission! Just goes to show, ALMOST everyone has a fucking price. EVIL at its best!💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀
@@vipvip-tf9rw Not if you've built the pit to hold any waste inside of it. If that was a concern then you wouldn't want to bury nuclear waste in bedrock either now would you?
OK, but even if all the engineering is right, it's people who are the problem, not doing what they are supposed to do, and covering up when they don't. It's corner-cutting, money-gathering, penny-pinching, double-talking and obscuring that make a lot of people - even in charge - not trustworthy with a dead cat, let alone nuclear materials.
Cool video on such a serious topic, tho it's is kinda weird that the narrator jumps between using imperial and metric units, if I wasn't looking at my phone I would have missed the little bit of text that pops up about the units converted to the other system.
Thank you for posting this information I think greed played a big role keeping very old outdated plants on line longer than the intended life span . The risk to the world is still being down played to this day sadly .
The question of why the generators were in the basement always comes up. The short answer is Safety. Gamma rays travel in straight lines, and other forms of ionizing radiation have trouble penetrating the ground. A place that is buried will keep you safe from the radio-hazards of a powerplant emergency by being both shielded and out of the shine path. Under most circumstances, the basement is the safest place for workers and back-up equipment. That setup is used in most powerplants. In Fukushima directly - there was a sea wall on one side, and the linkages to outside power was on the other, further up the hill. The plant would need a disruption from two different directions to totally cut the power, and even then, it should be possible to have emergency services either reconnect the lines or bring in new equipment. The entire country was disrupted by twin events. I do find it a bit Ironic that the safety test at Chernobyl was to see if a powerplant could power itself in this sort of situation
@@gailgrove The turbines from the power plant are above ground. Back-Up systems - such as diesel generators - are underground. Two different things. Chances are the turbines were allowed to spin down when the first ground movement was detected, and the reactors went into isolation mode for shutdown. As to the penetrating ability of radiation, and the directions it travels - that is pretty elementary physics. (in all senses of the word, forgive the pun.)
Shhhh, shhhhh, shhhhhhh. Let the stupid people make themselves feel smart when they say this stupid shit. It's fucking hilarious reading how many people with the ability to actually vote, shouldn't have the right to even breath.
@@MrChainsawAardvark The backup diesel generators are located outside the reactor building. The reactor building house the containment which in turn house the reactor vessel. Therefore, the level of radiation outside the reactor building is very low.
So what about reactor number 4???? You just mentioned three were made “safe” which means nothing when dealing with nuclear ☢️. To my knowledge number 4 reactor is still too hot even for robots to survive more then 6-10 minutes. I live in bc Canada and this disaster is still in my mind frequently as our radiation levels over here spiked several days after the tsunami and has remained high to this day
i remember hearing about this in school and everybody freaking out thinking the fallout would travel all the way to the west coast of the US and kill us all lol
It is traveling the radiation levels have been continuously rising since then of the cost but they keep raising the allowed levels of radiation to ignit its not gonna kill us but it is comming to the us
Pfft. Someone who flies several times a year is probably getting exposed to more radiation than whatever has leaked from Fukushima and made its way to other parts of the world.
Like the commenters above said, the fallout has reached us a long time ago. I find it mind boggling that most people have no idea how serious this situation is.
"in order to not panic public they ignored safety preparations" that is atrociously dangerous attitude, especially when dealing with something like fission. You'd think that Tokaimura nuclear accidents would teach someone SOMETHING about safety i mean it was 97, just under 15 years from Fukushima. but nope. (i remember Ouchi's gruesome fate rather than disaster itself tho the point should still make sense)
I appreciate the coverage and at the same time want to echo what others have said: this video downplays the devastation caused by the tsunami, which was by far deadlier than the earthquake.
For people living in the west, the events of 2011 are associated with Fukushima. We commonly think that it was a poorly designed power plant that was damaged by the quake or tsunami. We are not aware of the enormity of the devastation after the tsunami in the rest of Japan - because our media talked little about tsunami devastation, they talked mainly about the power plant disaster and the contamination threat. When I started watching 2011 tsunami videos some time ago I was shocked, I didn't know about devastation. That's why the author talks about Fukushima - because everyone in the west associate 2011 events mainly with power plant. For Japanese people: 2011 = tsunami. For the west: 2011 = Fukushima disaster. Tsunami devastation is lesser known.
But this video isn't about the earthquake or the tsunami. It is specifically about the nuclear disaster. That's why the focus is on fukushima rather than the earthquake or tsunami.
Your timeline is screwed up. You claim that the pumps stopped when the generators were flooded by the tsunami, but actually the system had backup batteries. You mention the batteries in passing later, but not in sequence. First, the quake caused the operating units to SCRAM. The loss of power from generators all over the system basically turned the whole grid off. The tsunami flooded the generators and damaged the power lines into the site, so that only left the batteries as a power source. The passive cooling system failed due to a valve which broke in the quake. There was no means to connect an external generator truck to the system, so when the batteries failed, the hydrogen explosion resulted. The whole thing could have been avoided if the generators had been 10m above ground, or there was an external power connection and a truck-mounted generator available, or the operators had actually trained in how the "bullhorn" passive cooling system worked and had fixed it, or a connection to grid power from elsewhere could have been established. There were design flaws from the very beginning, not least because they believed that a 10m tsunami wasn't possible, but in many other ways, and if they had properly planned and trained for this sort of event. Now it's going to take decades and billions of yen to decommission the plant. I'm surprised that no mention is made of the fact that essentially the entire east Japan electricity grid went out. Worse, East Japan and West Japan use different AC frequencies, so West Japan couldn't supply power to compensate.
The thumbnail had a great still of reactor 3 exploding. But yet I don't think you showed it exploding when talking about reactor 3. You showed reactor 1 exploding again. I find the difference in the two interesting, as it seems to me the H2 was inside the reactor building in reactor 1, and inside secondary or even primary containment in reactor 3. Reactor 1 blew the building outward. Flimsy walls of the reactor building. Reactor 3 was vented vertically and violently. Casting the reactor building roof and secondary up like 2-3 times the height of those vent stacks! Ya, I think R3 blew from inside secondary, and I think even from inside primary cause I've seen pictures of the cap being 1-2 ft stretched anchor bolts.
I found it strange this video didn't mention the fate of the corium cores as to what became of them, and what threat they posed as they burnt their way under the reactors to the ground water. I found this to be a good summery video. But that been said, there are a lot of unanswered questions that time will unearth.
I find it incredible that backup generators, the only source of energy if something goes south, were placed in the basement, since the place is basically on sea level with tsunami's as a very present danger. I really don't know, every other location would be better. Anyway, it resisted the quake, which imeans it was well built. I think the tsunami protection should be more considered and implemented. Finally, as they say, we should always expect the unexpected, if it makes sense..
I never understood why there wasn't a steam powered emergency pump for this exact scenario. In the event of total power failure, A passive auxillary system would activate by way of steam pressure. A pipe running from the top of the nuclear chamber would open shunting built up steam through a steam powered pump, which would shunt cool water back into the rod core. The temp would drop the pump would shut off, as the temp raised again more steam would initate more pumping. So long as their was a source of water for the steam pump to feed on the, the system would be totally self powered off of the rods ambient heat, no electricity or deisle pumps needed. Basically a free energy scenario. True it likely would eventually fail, but it would have bought a hell of alot of time to at least get outside power hooked up to restore normal containment.
As a general rule of thumb, "basically a free energy scenario" means the laws of thermodynamics will stop the plan from working. Presumably, your plan involves pumping water in from an outside source (a reservoir or a nearby body of water), allowing it to boil in the core, then venting the steam through turbines driving the pumps. The steam has to be vented because you need a pressure differential for the steam to move. This switches the system from a closed loop where the water is recirculated to an open loop where water is constantly being being drawn from one source and drained into another. In an open loop, the water entering the system must be equal in mass to the water leaving. If the output is larger than the input, then the inventory in the system will decrease over time. Applying this to the proposed idea, the mass of the water pumped in must match that of the steam flowing out, else the amount of water in the core will decrease with time. In this event, the core will eventually overheat and melt due to lack of cooling. Since the input and output must be equal, that means the energy extracted by the turbine from a given mass of water must be equal to or larger than the energy needed to pump the same mass of cold liquid water. In fact, it must be a good bit larger due to inefficiencies in the mechanical systems. Unfortunately, the necessary energy isn't there. At the conditions present in a post-SCRAM reactor, there isn't much usable energy in the steam. It is hard to explain in a youtube comment, but there is a limit on how much energy a turbine can extract from steam. In this scenario most of the energy generated by the core post-SCRAM will simply leave with the steam when it is vented, and very little will be used to drive the pumps. Moving liquid water takes a lot of energy. In the end, this system would not be able to pump in enough water to replace what is lost through venting. Every time the system cycled, the amount of coolant in the system would decrease. The pace of the cycles would then accelerate until the system was dry. Long before that, the fuel would melt and the worst-case scenario would be realized. And it probably won't buy any time because now the system is actively venting coolant by design.
It'd be kinda cool if you put dates in the titles. If I'm watching one of your videos and its set somewhat recently, I'll watch the video because of all the video footage included. If it's set in a time before video cameras were common though, I tend to just listen.
There's an amateur documentary on the earthquake with footage, some shown in this video of before, during and after the quake, as well as before, during and after the tsunami mostly in one town It's hauntingly terrifying but still worth watching, both to see the brutality of nature but also will give you faith in humanity It is in youtube
Ach!!! I like your channel but you did it again. At the beginning you said the earthquake turned parts of Japan into rubble. NO IT DIDN'T!!! I have lived in Japan for 19 years and remember this earthquake. Japanese homes are very well built now and yes, although there was some damage, most buildings, almost every building was still standing after the quake. It was the tsunami that killed people and devastated towns.
Ohh they did it again,... Ignorting tens of thousents deads from EQ and Tsunami in favor of one - altrouth big - industrial accident, what they forgot to mention,.. passive safety system of PP did thers job, massivly reducting radioisothope relases, and giving time to evakuate cizitiens before in this case inevitable relase of relativly big, but managable amount of radiation. Reactor building was actualy counted as blast-away structure for unlikely case of hydrogen buildup. so yes, one power plant writen off as total loss, but in comparisson of entire damage done that horrible day, not that big at all. but good lesson for future of nuclear industry, pushing its safety even further.
Yes very well build! So we’ll build that they do flips when the ground shakes!!! (Just a joke I know that 99% of Japanese homes look flimsy but are extremely sturdy) 🏠🏡🏠🏘
Unfortunately these events undermine confidence in nuclear power, and it increases the use of fossil fuels which causes even greater environmental damage! . . . It's better to just solve the problems with reactor designs and accept the very low risk of an accident.
Agreed. The same with space exploration. These are dangerous professions that require certain levels of acceptable risk. However if we don’t take those risks we will never advance in these fields and never eliminate the dangers.
But the plant can't run over budget adding all those security measures. The tax payers will be screaming about big government again. Lean and mean, right! 'Merica! Most countries have morons and criminals running things. Japan and US are not really that different.
I feel like relying on dumping water on hot rocks to stop them from exploding is kinda a bad idea when you inevitably run out of water. It's almost like we should have some sort of control rod sort of thing that makes the hot rocks not so hot anymore. Sure it might destroy your fancy hot rocks. but it's that or explode..
When primary and secondary power sources are destroyed by tsunamic, any well designed automatic emergency system to shut down reactors rendered useless immediately. 👩🏻🚒👨🏻🚒
This information is wrong. The plant had an automatic cooling system. It works even without electricity. They simply turned it off because of incompetence.
I still find it utterly baffling that someone thought, in a location well known to be liable to tsunamis, it would be a really good idea to place the crucial back up generators in a basement. Absolute madness. But there again, as someone who has worked for decades in the back up diesel generator industry, it doesn't really surprise me.
Onagawa(Owned by Tohoku Electrical Power Co.) was closer to the epicentre but didn't melt down, TEPCO(Tokyo Electric Power Co.) is a corrupt organisation
To play devils advocate, it’s Japan, the entire county is susceptible to tsunamis, and they have have much space to begin with, hence why nuclear power is important over there cuz it makes a lot of electricity with little space (comparatively)
The point I was making was about the placement of the generators. They didn't have to put them in the basement, they did it because it was cheaper. There's no technical reason why they couldn't have put them on higher ground much further away from the risk that eventually came to bite them, only economic reasons. Its just insane they were allowed to make the mistake, to someone who works in that area, its just so obvious.
Gamma rays travel in straight lines, and other forms of ionizing radiation have trouble penetrating the ground. A place that is buried will keep you safe from the radio-hazards of a powerplant emergency by being both shielded and out of the shine path. Under most circumstances, the basement is the safest place for workers and back-up equipment. That setup is used in most powerplants.
@@The.dudeinator He's talking about the generators. The plant was completely unaffected by the earthquake and tsunami, it was the diesel generators that got wiped out. I think the first mistake was having an auto-shut down during an Earthquake. Had it remained on it could have gotten the water it needed and we never would have been talking about this. Reactors closer to the epicentre of the Earthquake were just fine.
One thing you didn't mention is that much of the subsequent clean-up was done by elderly volunteers, knowing they would be exposed to substantial doses of radiation and knowing that meant much less to them with their limited lifespans than it would mean to younger people with many decades yet ahead of them to develop cancers from their exposure.
Kind of have to when 60% of your population is elderly.
Wow, that would make a good movie
Imagine if old people in the US would sacrifice their lives for anyone. Instead they want to keep running things til their last breath and screw up the world for longer after they go.
it's Japan, where individual lives don't get valued as much when it comes to the "general good"
@@eatdawontonsoup sounds like Russia where only the oligarchs lives matter, the kid down the street, not so much, so start entrenching the irradiated wasteland around Chernobyl.
My oldest son was in Japan when that happened. That earthquake literally shook him out of a job. He was back home within a couple of weeks and he embarked on a new path in life. He was one of the fortunate ones who survived.
Everybody survived this though so your son was just like everyone else
@@robertmccabe1919you are sadly mistaken
@@Ronin.Samurai He's not sadly mistaken, no one died from Fukushima radiation.
@@danadurnfordkevinblanchdebunk uh…. Wrong dumbass. You clearly do not know what you are talking about. Do your homework, and stfu butthurt snowflake
@@Ronin.Samurai So then please show us someone who has died from Fukushima radiation, your highness. This is where the trolls disappear or start an obfuscation campaign.
I still can't imagine being in a situation where the ground is shaking for 6 whole minutes! I was always under the impression most earthquakes last just seconds, mayyyyybe a minute or two in the worst cases. But 6? That's terrifying.
You are correct they are typically short and apparently California suffers seismic activity throughout the year that they can’t even feel.
I am the furthest thing from an expert though so I’m going to do a little research to double check that I’m not full of it.
I live near a major fault line, but we hardly ever feel anything. That is, until 2 years ago. I lived quite a ways from the epicenter, so while it did wake me up, I just went right back to sleep. It did only last a few seconds, but my office building is still undergoing repairs (just a couple of miles from the epicenter). That was just a baby quake though, a 5.7, and everyone was already working from home, so only a few people needed to take the day off
Been through 4 3+ earthquakes, and most of them were a minute or thereabouts. 6 minutes is very long. Can't speak for most, but you have enough time during most quakes to realize "something's weird", "this seems bad" and "it's an earthquake, let's check on others / find safety".
Watch the phone footage from the airport. It's the most insane terrifying thing I've ever seen. Just when the shaking stops the flooding starts.
@@jacquelynsmith2351 I have a pretty good idea of the area you're talking about, and if that idea is correct, the variance of intensity felt was all over the place. Downtown, while avoiding serious damage, was not a fun place to be during that one & the following aftershocks
I worked 18 hours a day at my company to supply hoses to transfer water to cool these reactors. So surreal to have a a small role in preventing a more serious catastrophe.
thats a lot of hoses
I sure hope them hoses worked hard sucking on all that nasty shyt, not all heros wear capes!
Atta Boy!
Um, I bet not.
18hours what a slave
The catastrophe in Fukushima was not the worst thing for Japan. The worst was the tsunami because of which 14,000 people were killed. The last time when so strong earthquake and tsunami took place in Japan was 1000 years earlier. This country was not anywhere ready. Coastal walls protecting from the increase in water level were too low everywhere. Nobody at their construction was expecting such growth of water level.
There is only one town (Fudai) where the walls were high enough and protected the inhabitants. The mayor of the town was very criticized for such high and costly wall when it was built. This tsunami came after his death and when wall saved the inhabitants, the mayor became a hero.
The worst was having atomic weapons tested on dense civilian populations resulting the deaths of 100,000 - 200,000+ lives.
With roughly 95% of those being civilians lives.
Yeah...pretty sure that fallout from explosion will continue to kill for many years and across the globe unaccountable deaths from radiation. Not to mention the 2 we dropped on them
@@kryptocake it wasn't worse than the firebombing bombing campaign which killed 250,000+ civilians
@@kryptocake yes but that was an attack in the middle of a war, there is a difference between catastrophes and weapons. It was not okay to use fat man or little boy and the USA should still feel ashamed to have used them at all. But those deaths were caused by the USA's indiscriminate bombardment and use of mass destructive weapons and not natural disasters that could've been prevented by installing defensive structures such as walls to stop the waves.
@@Arceus086 20/20 hindsight there. It is easy to stand on a pedestal and self righteously pontificate andxwag your finger in phony indignation.Yes, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were horrible. But Operation Downfall (the invasion of Japan) would have been far costlier in terms of human life. Pre invadion Allied casualties alone were estimated to run 250,000 - 500,000 dead and around 1,000,000 wounded. Japanese casualties would have run up into the millions, since civilians were ordered by the emperor to attack Allied soldiers with anything they had - axes, picks, shovels, hammers, homemade spears, molotov cocktails, etc. The proposed defense of the Japanese home islands by Japanese was labeled "The Glorious Death of 100 million". After many attacks of that sort, Allied soldiers would have gotten to the point they would have shot any Japanese who approached them. It would have been a blood bath on both sides.
Missed a few points that made it worse. The seawalls were actually decent however the size of the quake and its type meant that the coast sank in places many feet which immediately made the seawalls fail. The second was tepco, they KNEW the plant had risks but of course when you are the only power company in the country you can get away with a LOT. Third was the failure to give accurate info to the government including the fact Tepco could have flooded the reactors with seawater but refused because it would have killed them, which then then had to later anyways.
I pray that this message gets to the people it needs to. I don't want money to share this idea with the world (I have plenty more). This needs to be shared in an effort to prevent a repeat of what happened and get the idea into the right hands and minds.
The design of the seawall could (& in my humble opinion should) be the shape of a WAVE turned towards the ocean so that the momentum of the tsunami turns in on itself.
The iconic Japanese origami and inflatable origami can be implemented in this design to adjust to both different wave heights and any subsidence as a result of the precipitating earthquake. This design would also be able to be hidden beneath the sands so as to not obstruct the fisherman's access to the sea as it also has many seafront properties.
@@igitha..._ I have an actual design for that. There's still flaws you need to fix with the design
@lucyinthesky444the power of the wave think thousands of ton of water crashing into something that folds you need a design that can deal with this and materials it would also be billions of dollars
Sure, build a nuclear reactor in a tsunami zone! What could possibly go wrong!
😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅
great thumbnail for this. the exaggerated "hydrogen release" from daiichi number three, looks chunky, the particulate material rising above the facilty contains material from the fuel that has reached criticality. the incredible height, can be calculated by comparing the rising plume, with the buildings and/or visible stacks. something approaching two thousand feet above the Pacific.
1:11 my heart is broken for this poor girl! No telling what she went through and I hope she’s okay now 😔
It’s hard to fathom the suffering that goes on in this world sometimes.
who false in this ? is not unavoided disaster is man made error .... and now Japan will increased the cancer rate of the whole whole by dumping the contaminated water to ocean
iker!
so weird that after 60 years of nuclear powerplants people still don't know that the only thing you really need to do with them is to keep you shit up to standards and to not cut corners... and above all, don't try to save face and cover it up...
But the thing is covering things up is how governments work, as long as nuclear power plants are either regulated or ran by the state there will be disasters just like any other state controled business. Like Milton Friedman used to say "If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there’d be a shortage of sand."
@@prizrak-br3332 Ew. Go away, stinky libertarian!
@@prizrak-br3332 See you say this but it was actually a company who ran the nuclear reactors, constructed the building to have the pump generators at the bottom floor, ignore the safety requirements and had been established for so long that no other company could open up because they didn't have any part of the market that wasn't already covered by this company and if they found some way to get into the market they would've been bought up by this company at once and so as the only company if the government tried to enforce tougher regulations the company could simply threaten them by cutting of some of the power that they sent to people's homes.
@@Arceus086 You know monopolies only exist because of government regulations right?
@@prizrak-br3332 actually no, monopolies are most commonly formed when there is no regulation to keep companies from absorbing one another, just look at Amazon.
Amazon has over the last couple of years absorbed almost every single startup that has formed, they do this by first trying to purchase the business from the owners, this step usually fails and so they move on to the second step where Amazon instead makes a similar product in appearance but it tends to be inferior since they're not allowed to copy it since copyright laws.
Since Amazon has such an enormous reach the smaller company can't sell their product to anyone as most people now has Amazon's version and either feels like it's enough and don't want to spend more money on the original one or they think it wasn't good enough to spend money on in the first place, a fact that the original product could probably solve since it is much better made.
In the end the smaller company goes bankrupt and Amazon buys it for a fraction of the original price and with it they get the copyrights so they can make the exact same product and sell it on the giant platform instead on a small website. Such is the way of giant corporations, if you want even more facts you can just look at internet providers.
If you have any qualms about what I've stated you can share those but I won't take them seriously without any sort of real world fact or studies, any sort of theoretically benefit can't be used in this sort of argument as it doesn't work when put in practice.
In my senior year of high school I took AP Environmental Science and our textbook was written in 2008 iirc. In the section on nuclear power it mentioned Japan’s nuclear industry and said something along the lines of “it’s a wonder Japan hasn’t had any serious nuclear accidents seeing as they’re so prone to earthquakes and tsunamis.” Reading that a decade or so after Fukushima, with existing knowledge of the disaster and its continuing effects, was very surreal.
The problem is two fold; the plant itself and the people running it. Fukushima ultimately failed because its builders decided to cut some corners, had they followed the plans like they were supposed to, the melt down may very well not have happened. Had the generators been built at least two stories above ground, on the opposite side of the main structure, and its exhaust pipes built up along the cooling tower, then backup power wouldn't have failed; these were all in the original building plans but modified in order to reduce costs and bring the plant online sooner.
There is a lot that can be learned from this; but sadly, people would rather place the blame on nuclear power instead of on the people who actually allowed it to happen.
That was a dreadful month for natural disasters in the Pacific. New Zealand also had an earthquake and in Australia we had Cyclone Yasi, which started and was named in Fiji. By the time it got to us it was HUGE and didn't start to break down until it had travelled about 800km inland. An unheard of distance. Once they hit land, cyclones normally break up.
The banana farmers of the (unaffected) Coffs Harbour region all bought new cars and paid off their mortgages when they suddenly found themselves as the sole suppliers of bananas for the entire country when Yasi wiped out all the Queensland farms and prices quadrupled because the amounts they could supply were well below demand. Fortunately for our wallets bananas grow pretty fast and the Queensland farms recovered relatively quickly. It taught the various agriculture departments some valuable lessons about putting all your eggs in one basket, so to speak. These days banana farming is on the increase again in the Coffs Harbour area, after it had been all but abandoned in favour of blueberries. Driving through the area it's kinda nice to see some banana plantations returning. The iconic Big Banana was in danger of becoming a relic of the past but now it's relevant again. If given the choice I actually prefer Coffs bananas - they're smaller, but so much more flavourful. Those big pale Queensland bananas are just bland.
That distance sounded insane until I crunched the distance in freedom units. Hurricane Laura had roughly that longevity and ferocity, she was the first recorded hurricane to hit Arkansas as a cat 1 in 2020 which is roughly 800km inland. Not to say that isn't a monster cyclone, it absolutely is, just putting it into perspective from my experiences.
Every time I read or here about this event I have the same thought. How could the engineers have been so short sighted? They put the emergency water pump engines in the 'basement'? To me this is a crime of idiocy if nothing more. Built on the shore of a country that is very familiar with earth quakes and tsunamis, why weren't the generators put in locations separate from and in protected raised structures?
I wrote this without reading any other comments. After doing so, it would seem that even those of us who have no idea how engineering and building a power plant is achieved, even we know not to put them in a basement.
Y’all think it was stupid but to those who control this world,it was actually genius.
The diesel backup power generators in the basements. Pumps all over the place.
Actually the basement is a good place for them. The real stupid design features were other things.
1. the FUEL TANKS for the generators were right on the foreshore at the dock. They washed away. There was one backup generator up on a hill and it survived, but had no fuel due to the washed-away tanks.
2. The buildings with the generators in the basements, had a serious flaw. They had large roller doors, facing the sea.The tsunami pushed these in, hence the basement flooding.
I recommend looking up the video “Who destroyed 3 mile island” by Nickolas Means - it’s a really interesting take on this exact thread and actually uses another nuclear meltdown as a topic
judging from the images of massive boats on top of houses crushing them, i doubt a raised structure would have fared any better than a reinforced basement.
it's what we call "cringe-ineering"
I was about 12 years old when this happened me and my mom were stationed in Misawa Japan and we were near where the tsunami was hit. We were about four hours away but we got the earthquake and it was so bad. I was so scared that the tsunami was going to hit us. Fortunately, it did not end, the only thing that really happened is we had no power after the earthquake, but we had no idea that this was going on as well, and will be our of hearts are broken still to this day. I love Japan with all my heart and I can’t believe that this happened I even been to the place that got hit the hardest Sendai and it was so sad to see what happened to the town.
I was in 8th grade around 15 years old, in America, when it happened the day before my older brother's birthday on March 12th, 2011. I remember seeing news and even video of this horrible incident, not realizing it was a humongous disaster that ended up being a 9-11 but in march to Japan. Now, Both America and Japan had their 9-11 moments in the history of the world. All done nearly ten years apart. Never Forget both 9-11-01 and 3-11-11.
SuperFlashDriver Not quite. About 3,000 died at 9-11, zero died from Fukushima radiation.
@@danadurnfordkevinblanchdebunk Yeah, there's a couple of differences between these events. But what I'm saying is that it's kind of a shock to the country in some sort of fashion, whether a natural disaster or not. hence why I mention "9-11" is to reference people whom survived the disaster having trauma and such for the next few years.
@@danadurnfordkevinblanchdebunk The day was a MUCH bigger issue for more than just the nuclear plant. 14,000 people dies because of the tsunami, it's a day that is even more traumatic than 9/11 for a lot of people in Japan. The people actually affected in 9/11 were the people physically in the towers, areas nearby, and first responders (and family, ect). The earthquake and tsunami affected EVERYONE. No where was safe as the word literally crumbled around them and then was washed away.
@@MariaThePotterNut But the power plant accident was way overblown by the media, just like any time they can demonize nuclear energy. No one died from radiation, yet you only hear about the NPP not the earthquake and tsunami which killed many thousands.
I remember almost none of my early childhood. That said, despite being in kindergarten I can still remember the glow of the tv as it showed footage of the devastation. I can remember asking my mother what a tsunami was, and her face as she described it to me. I can even remember the pink jacket I wore, and the cold rain outside.
I remember Naoto-san, who chose to stay in Fukushima exposing himself to great levels of radiation so he could take care of the animals. What human being. I hope he's still ok today.
He was never in any danger from radiation. The highest dose anyone on the planet got was 670mSv, that's why no one died.
I've never seen a documentary, on this disaster. This is highly detailed, and informative. @9:28 it shows 9 kilometers, when the narrator says, 12 miles. Then it would be more like, 19 kilometers.
Japan: "we don't want to make the public panic and make us get rid of our nuclear plants."
Also Japan: "I see no reason to enforce safety protocols at nuclear plants."
nobody was killed as a direct result of this disaster. goes to show how safe nuclear power is
It's so safe they had to dump nuclear waste to the sea! Truly the model 1st world country.
Nuclear plants, even with the environmental impacts of Cherynobl and Fukushima disasters don't even come close to putting a finger on the environmental impact of burning fossil fuels.... Coal, Natural Gas, Gasoline, Diesel etc...
If you are worried about safety protocols at nuclear plants, you should really pay attention to what is going on in the US... Where anti-nuclear hysteria lingering from the 60s/70s and cold war pushes for reduced funding in nuclear energy resulting in old, dilapidated nuclear facilities generating nuclear energy in sub-optimal ways that have greater risks and produce more radioactive waste.
Better yet, consider the entire impact of producing solar panels... from the raw materials all the way up to a finished solar panel to the end of its limited lifespan... Their carbon footprint and the pollutants released into the environment in the production of solar panels, makes solar energy DIRTIER than nuclear energy. Most people don't believe this or are simply ignorant. But it's true.
@@kryptocake I agree, when they hear of nuclear plants they think immediately of atomic bombs and genetic mutations.. Misinformation must be stopped
Maybe, a little perspective / honesty, eh? Firstly, OP, there WERE safety protocols. They just happened to be inadequate that day. Do you know of a place anywhere in the world that could handle every possible natural disaster imaginable? Of course, you don't and you'd be a liar if you said you did. Ultimately, the problem is there being too many people using too many resources. I've chosen never to have children. Anyone else???
One of the things I find terrifying in floods is that after a few inches of water, when you can't see the ground anymore, it might as well be as deep as the ocean from hell because new holes will open up and you can't see them, besides it also only takes a few inches of rapidly running water to sweep you from your feet... dragging you under above mentioned unforeseen hazards!!!
I hate people who don't understand how nuclear power plants are the safest among all reusable energy sources and cheapest. but ok here we are
Yes, here we are hearing about a huge nuclear disaster.
This channel is great! 10/10, I subbed
Great vid Dark History. I like your narrative style.
Great documentary! I learned a lot!
Great video very informative 👍🏻
I remember seeing this all over the news when it happened. 9 year old me didn’t really know what to think of it
Picked up a few new bits of information. Thanks.
A VERY Concise Report !!!
You covered A Lot of ground in 14 mins !!!
They had to deal with a earthquake, tsunami, AND a nuclear power plant explosion……those poor people. Oh and then the damn water gets contaminated AND there’s literal neglect. Damn near everything that could have went wrong literally went wrong.
Fr they must have been in pure despair. I can't even begin to imagine.
It could have been so much worse. Was very close to just that.
@@truesoulghost2777
Um…..yeah no an a nuclear power plant exploding, a earthquake, a tsunami, contaminated water, and negligence sounds pretty damned bad to me.
@@starrsmith3810 they're saying that the situation could have been worse if they hadn't handled it when they did
Nuclear power plants don't explode, bloody hell. They are not like nuclear bombs. This is why people are so freaking scared of nuclear power, because of misguided stuff such as this.
This incident "severities" was downplayed from the beginning and would surprise me a bit if much of it still is...
A very very simplified version of the events. Your glossing over the most important parts.
You glossed over the biggest factor leading to this disaster. The electrical infrastructure was destroyed so the nuclear reactor lost offsite power. The reactor had to rely on backup power which went down because the generators were flooded due to being located in lower levels.
Yup. Big landslide destroyed the power lines going into the plant.
Lol ok? This was assumed seeing the tsunami flooded all surrounding areas… smh he didn’t gloss over it he just didn’t state the obvious.
That's why we love Dark History. They purposefully shorten everything but "facts" like this are understood by the average viewer when narrator states a tsunami devastated the area and destroyed all cooling power.
He said it u donut
Play it at speed 0.00001 you can't miss i6
your last line before the outro is powerful. well stated.
Living in Washington state we don't get a lot of earthquakes, however around 2000 or 2001 don't remember, I was working as a Valet for St. Joe's hospital and WHOA! We had one, for about 10 seconds. I can't IMAGINE being in one for 6 minutes!! Especially with THAT magnitude! Crazy!!
In Cali, they’re fun. We pretend to surf them while the ground rocks back and forth. Scariest earthquake I experienced was a split second and felt more like a bomb’s shockwave.
As someone who's visited the Fukishima prefecture post 2011, it feels unfair to call this a nuclear disaster, its more a chain reaction to a natural disaster. As an island nation, fukushima daichi itself is located close enough to power Tokyo, but far away enough to not immediately be a threat for this very situation, its also able to be cooled by sea water which is both ideal, and in this case a danger in the case of tsunamis.
It was handled with absolute bravery, efficiency and some of the very best men and women spend their lives keeping the threat minimal. I hope some day the residents can return to their lost homes
Very good presentation, I was the EP coordinator at Byron Station and know the risk we planned for!
What nobody realizes is the decades of nuclear fuel rods that were stored in all the tops of the buildings in cooling pools Which all got blown up in the explosion and shot everywhere.
Learned about this all week when it happened in 8th grade. Just remembered how bizarre it was because we were in the earthquake part of our science curriculum
very informative thanks!
One of the best commentary on Fukushima disaster
1:11 that Tsunami sure knows how to park a boat.
The thing I can't understand is why the military and/or emergency services did not get transportable generators to the site within the (about 4 to 6 hours, I think) period between the tsunami hitting and core starting to melt down. The first 3 sources of power were all down: power the plant was generating, on-site diesel generators, and the national power grid. I've heard the army was asked to dispatch generators but they sent them by road?! They needed to be told to do *whatever it takes* to get them on site and working within some specified period of hours.
I think the fact that the tsunami had destroyed a vast area around the plant would have stopped trucks from transporting anything.
@@gwauk205 That was my point. The army or civil defense forces were contacted and dispatched generators by road. They didn't make it in time.
Surely they could have airlifted generators with helicopters, or on landing craft.
The tragedy is that the critical imperative to get something on-site and working with a maximum timeframe never got through to those with the skills and equipment to get whatever is needed done.
Since Fukushima in France they created a special electrician intervention team. They have military gear, heavy lift helicopters, tracked vehicles, landing boats, and are capable to access anywhere after a disaster and bring the necessary material.
They spend all their time training in every nuclear plant to know their electrical system and how to restore power (either by reconnecting to grid or installing generators).
TBH, they didn't even need an army diverted to transporting generators plus fuel. All that's required is to get a power cable to the site, and supply electricity from other networks.
@@FurnitureFan There were no other networks working. If the on-site generators could not be up and running within a short period the only way to avoid a meltdown was for the army to bring some in - and that had to be achieved within a short period.
New favorite channel ✌🔥
Another excellent episode of a world changing disaster Sir, thank you!!!🙏😢☢️☠️
I was living in Misawa, Aomori, when the quakes hit. I was six at the time and my dad was in the Navy. How much more frightening it would’ve been for me if I had known the danger we weren’t far from.
Then you're too young to be on youtube, kid.
@@youwot2430 he was 6 12 years ago gotta be at least 17-18 now you’re an idiot 😂
Let's not forget how fast that roof flew into orbit 1:29. You can barely even see it.
That's a vapor shockwave but the point still stands
To say that the reactors were stabilized and leave it at that is very misleading. Even after power was restored there was no way to recover the nuclear material that melted down nor could they stop water from running through the area carrying away dangerous radioactivity. The only way they were able to slow down the release of radioactivity was to freeze the entire site.
If at any point the refrigeration method is disrupted and the ground begins to thaw there will be very high levels of radiation released as groundwater percolates through downhill and comes into contact with the highly radioactive material that is still exposed today
They didn't "freeze the entire site". They constructed a wall of frozen earth on the uphill side of the plant to prevent groundwater from flowing under it and becoming contaminated. That was necessary to minimise the water needed to be pumped out of the basement and stored.
@@theharper1 potayto potatto
Great video! Very informative, I was looking for something like that. We got much less information and videos about Fukushima compared to the Chernobyl’s disaster.
These were General Electric Mk 1 reactors designed in the early 1960's! They were supposed to be taken off line in the early 80's! It's like having a Model T motor in your car and wondering why something went wrong! The fault lies with whatever agency, policy or person decided to keep the obsolete antiques online! This accident simply could not have happened with a modern reactor!
RMBK reactors can’t explode.
The Titanic is unsinkable.
I fully support nuclear energy and I am willing to accept some risks to use it.
However I believe our constant hubris of “this time it’s impossible” is what keeps getting us into this mess.
Instead of believing in our own genius time and time again, we should work to ensure that even the most unlikely of circumstances can never cause another disaster.
Edit: I also agree that it is ridiculous and even criminal that these reactors were as old as they were. I would love to see maintenance logs.
First study engineering, then read all the technical docs, then get back to us. Until then, your "opinion" means squat.
@@princeofcupspoc9073 Been there! Done that! LOL Now, don't you look foolish! Please read my published and peer reviewed paper on the subject. Thank you! :)
Now think about how many old reactors are still online in the rest of the world.
You'd think a country like Japan would be smart enough to not put a nuclear reactor so close to the shore like this, especially a country known to have strong earthquakes and huge tsunamis. I really hope the Japanese have learned something from this disaster. The last thing they want is for history to repeat itself
Unfortunately, reactors must be located near a large body of water (ocean, river, or large lake). The vast quantity of water is required to cool the rector during normal operation, and post shutdown. It’s called an “ultimate heat sink”.
In reality, the flaw was in the hight of the flood wall. It was engineered a handful of meters to small (relative to the mega tsunami). Sadly it was a known fact, but management dithered.
It should be noted that Fukushima Danni (another rector complex located just up the shore line), was able to ride out the event, with the wall being well suited for that geography.
In reality the lesson to be learned was that management should have not prioritized cost over safety once the wall size issue was discovered.
Tsunami so high was the last time seen there 1000 years earlier. Japan wasn't prepared because it's one-in-a-1000-year occurrence.
@@CATAZTR0PHE There have been taller tsunamis listed in the historical record of earth - time to prepare is now...
@@jordancrombie2676 the flaw was more the back up generators in the basement while being a very flood prone country
@@Ridinglawnmower145 While it’s true that having the generators in the basement was poor, it was an identified flaw in the hight of the breakwater/wall. It has been sighted multiple times as insufficient based on present day modeling. Tepco could have moved/replaced the generators, or fixed the sea wall…in both cases they are holding the bag.
In any case, you can’t run a Gen1-Gen4 reactor without a heat sink…and based on the geography and topology of Japan, the coast is it I’m afraid.
Cool video!
Thank you!
Good video! Comment for the algorithm
2:23 It speed up the earth rotation by 1.8 microseconds, not milliseconds. 1.8 milliseconds would be quite a lot. Well, it's still a lot that a "simple" earthquake has this much impact on a whole planet. I didn't know that it shifted the earths axis. Thanks for those informational videos!
Absolutely crazy.
That's is so sad and scary for the world 😢
Could you do a video on the MV Doña Paz? It sunk in 1987 and the estimated death toll is about 4,386 people.
Ok, nuclear power IS dangerous when left without control.
But there's a number of things that wasn't done here.
1) Backups need their own backups. An external power connection that WORKS is a MUST for a nuclear power plant. The backup generators need their own backup. So does the backup batteries.
2) The pumps need their own backup. If the pumps fail, you need a surefire way of getting water into the reactor core, and hopefully out of it as well. Steam is one thing but they needed a number of water towers that could feed the cores through a complete shutdown and subsequently basins that can accept all that cooling water underneath the cores such that you can cool the reactors with fresh coolant for the DURATION of the shutdown procedure. Pumps fail, Chernobyl showed this.
3) When disaster strikes, all money goes down the drain. So should all reactor cores! Except they should be DUMPED into a pit far far below ground. When all else fails, DUMP the cores and leave them down about a thousand feet below ground to rot.
So in essence, their backups needed backups and if all else fails they need a place to DROP the core such that any and all radioactive elements stay out of reach of the surface.
Of course this pit is "when all else fails" and is an irreversible thing. Once you drop the cores, the pit is sealed forever and you simply cannot operate the plant until the pits are restored. Which of course would probably take years and a few billion dollars, but that's the price of ultimate safety.
Nuclear power is also our ONLY viable future. Shutting them down is going to be deadlier than all nuclear disasters combined.
Besides, when you shut down nuclear powerplants and there's no good replacement for them. Consider what is used to replace them.
Yes, that's right... Coal powerplants will happily fire at full capacity and coal pollution has killed thousands of times as many people as all nuclear EVENTS (all of them) in history.
Wouldn't that contaminate underground water?
This is an unnatural form of energy we STUPID human should be even be CONSIDERING! WTF?! If you have to hesitate at all??! Abandon the fucking mission! Just goes to show, ALMOST everyone has a fucking price. EVIL at its best!💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀
@@vipvip-tf9rw Not if you've built the pit to hold any waste inside of it.
If that was a concern then you wouldn't want to bury nuclear waste in bedrock either now would you?
@@marissalopez501 what do you suggest that isn't nuclear then. and being online is pretty unnatural imo
OK, but even if all the engineering is right, it's people who are the problem, not doing what they are supposed to do, and covering up when they don't. It's corner-cutting, money-gathering, penny-pinching, double-talking and obscuring that make a lot of people - even in charge - not trustworthy with a dead cat, let alone nuclear materials.
3 huge scale disasters, one after another... What a nightmare 😖😓😓
I remember watching this on the news when I was 11. Crazy
Just wanted to let you know that at 9:26 a 12 mile radius corresponds to 19km and not 9km
That little guy in your channel icon is pretty cool looking. Really good video as well.
Great channel…
Cool video on such a serious topic, tho it's is kinda weird that the narrator jumps between using imperial and metric units, if I wasn't looking at my phone I would have missed the little bit of text that pops up about the units converted to the other system.
Thank you for posting this information I think greed played a big role keeping very old outdated plants on line longer than the intended life span . The risk to the world is still being down played to this day sadly .
The question of why the generators were in the basement always comes up. The short answer is Safety. Gamma rays travel in straight lines, and other forms of ionizing radiation have trouble penetrating the ground. A place that is buried will keep you safe from the radio-hazards of a powerplant emergency by being both shielded and out of the shine path. Under most circumstances, the basement is the safest place for workers and back-up equipment. That setup is used in most powerplants.
In Fukushima directly - there was a sea wall on one side, and the linkages to outside power was on the other, further up the hill. The plant would need a disruption from two different directions to totally cut the power, and even then, it should be possible to have emergency services either reconnect the lines or bring in new equipment. The entire country was disrupted by twin events.
I do find it a bit Ironic that the safety test at Chernobyl was to see if a powerplant could power itself in this sort of situation
They are talking about the diesel backup generators, not the reactors. Most of that other info is off as well...
@@gailgrove The turbines from the power plant are above ground. Back-Up systems - such as diesel generators - are underground. Two different things. Chances are the turbines were allowed to spin down when the first ground movement was detected, and the reactors went into isolation mode for shutdown.
As to the penetrating ability of radiation, and the directions it travels - that is pretty elementary physics. (in all senses of the word, forgive the pun.)
Shhhh, shhhhh, shhhhhhh. Let the stupid people make themselves feel smart when they say this stupid shit. It's fucking hilarious reading how many people with the ability to actually vote, shouldn't have the right to even breath.
Thank you for the info👍💜
@@MrChainsawAardvark The backup diesel generators are located outside the reactor building. The reactor building house the containment which in turn house the reactor vessel. Therefore, the level of radiation outside the reactor building is very low.
Hey Bob where should we put these gennies at? Oh the basement, great idea!
Was just there last month it is very unsettling all the clock in town are the same time 2:41 the schools all empty
So what about reactor number 4???? You just mentioned three were made “safe” which means nothing when dealing with nuclear ☢️.
To my knowledge number 4 reactor is still too hot even for robots to survive more then 6-10 minutes. I live in bc Canada and this disaster is still in my mind frequently as our radiation levels over here spiked several days after the tsunami and has remained high to this day
There were six reactors and three melted down, and no one died, get over it.
i remember hearing about this in school and everybody freaking out thinking the fallout would travel all the way to the west coast of the US and kill us all lol
It is traveling the radiation levels have been continuously rising since then of the cost but they keep raising the allowed levels of radiation to ignit its not gonna kill us but it is comming to the us
It likely is affecting us. To what extent is unknown.
Pfft. Someone who flies several times a year is probably getting exposed to more radiation than whatever has leaked from Fukushima and made its way to other parts of the world.
Like the commenters above said, the fallout has reached us a long time ago. I find it mind boggling that most people have no idea how serious this situation is.
@@bandit_j3rry783Isn't there still more radiation being leaked into the ocean and atmosphere to this day?
1:11 the photographer was like “the perfect shot”
"in order to not panic public they ignored safety preparations"
that is atrociously dangerous attitude, especially when dealing with something like fission.
You'd think that Tokaimura nuclear accidents would teach someone SOMETHING about safety i mean it was 97, just under 15 years from Fukushima. but nope. (i remember Ouchi's gruesome fate rather than disaster itself tho the point should still make sense)
I appreciate the coverage and at the same time want to echo what others have said: this video downplays the devastation caused by the tsunami, which was by far deadlier than the earthquake.
An even less from the nuclear disaster. No one died from Fukushima radiation.
For people living in the west, the events of 2011 are associated with Fukushima. We commonly think that it was a poorly designed power plant that was damaged by the quake or tsunami. We are not aware of the enormity of the devastation after the tsunami in the rest of Japan - because our media talked little about tsunami devastation, they talked mainly about the power plant disaster and the contamination threat.
When I started watching 2011 tsunami videos some time ago I was shocked, I didn't know about devastation.
That's why the author talks about Fukushima - because everyone in the west associate 2011 events mainly with power plant.
For Japanese people: 2011 = tsunami.
For the west: 2011 = Fukushima disaster.
Tsunami devastation is lesser known.
But this video isn't about the earthquake or the tsunami. It is specifically about the nuclear disaster. That's why the focus is on fukushima rather than the earthquake or tsunami.
@@lexwithbub But no one was injured by the nuclear power plant "disaster".
@@danadurnfordkevinblanchdebunk OK, but that's what the video is about. 🤷
Your timeline is screwed up. You claim that the pumps stopped when the generators were flooded by the tsunami, but actually the system had backup batteries. You mention the batteries in passing later, but not in sequence. First, the quake caused the operating units to SCRAM. The loss of power from generators all over the system basically turned the whole grid off. The tsunami flooded the generators and damaged the power lines into the site, so that only left the batteries as a power source. The passive cooling system failed due to a valve which broke in the quake. There was no means to connect an external generator truck to the system, so when the batteries failed, the hydrogen explosion resulted. The whole thing could have been avoided if the generators had been 10m above ground, or there was an external power connection and a truck-mounted generator available, or the operators had actually trained in how the "bullhorn" passive cooling system worked and had fixed it, or a connection to grid power from elsewhere could have been established. There were design flaws from the very beginning, not least because they believed that a 10m tsunami wasn't possible, but in many other ways, and if they had properly planned and trained for this sort of event. Now it's going to take decades and billions of yen to decommission the plant. I'm surprised that no mention is made of the fact that essentially the entire east Japan electricity grid went out. Worse, East Japan and West Japan use different AC frequencies, so West Japan couldn't supply power to compensate.
we were celebrating my dad's birthday at a steakhouse when this was happening. we came home to some really horrible news.
That house boat was insane
The thumbnail had a great still of reactor 3 exploding. But yet I don't think you showed it exploding when talking about reactor 3. You showed reactor 1 exploding again.
I find the difference in the two interesting, as it seems to me the H2 was inside the reactor building in reactor 1, and inside secondary or even primary containment in reactor 3.
Reactor 1 blew the building outward. Flimsy walls of the reactor building.
Reactor 3 was vented vertically and violently. Casting the reactor building roof and secondary up like 2-3 times the height of those vent stacks!
Ya, I think R3 blew from inside secondary, and I think even from inside primary cause I've seen pictures of the cap being 1-2 ft stretched anchor bolts.
I found it strange this video didn't mention the fate of the corium cores as to what became of them, and what threat they posed as they burnt their way under the reactors to the ground water. I found this to be a good summery video. But that been said, there are a lot of unanswered questions that time will unearth.
You watch too many movies.
No unanswered questions.
It's called a containment vessel.
I was in Philly when this happened. My aunt and I were smoking crack and wishing we had more.
I find it incredible that backup generators, the only source of energy if something goes south, were placed in the basement, since the place is basically on sea level with tsunami's as a very present danger. I really don't know, every other location would be better. Anyway, it resisted the quake, which imeans it was well built. I think the tsunami protection should be more considered and implemented. Finally, as they say, we should always expect the unexpected, if it makes sense..
I never understood why there wasn't a steam powered emergency pump for this exact scenario. In the event of total power failure, A passive auxillary system would activate by way of steam pressure. A pipe running from the top of the nuclear chamber would open shunting built up steam through a steam powered pump, which would shunt cool water back into the rod core. The temp would drop the pump would shut off, as the temp raised again more steam would initate more pumping. So long as their was a source of water for the steam pump to feed on the, the system would be totally self powered off of the rods ambient heat, no electricity or deisle pumps needed. Basically a free energy scenario. True it likely would eventually fail, but it would have bought a hell of alot of time to at least get outside power hooked up to restore normal containment.
As a general rule of thumb, "basically a free energy scenario" means the laws of thermodynamics will stop the plan from working.
Presumably, your plan involves pumping water in from an outside source (a reservoir or a nearby body of water), allowing it to boil in the core, then venting the steam through turbines driving the pumps. The steam has to be vented because you need a pressure differential for the steam to move. This switches the system from a closed loop where the water is recirculated to an open loop where water is constantly being being drawn from one source and drained into another.
In an open loop, the water entering the system must be equal in mass to the water leaving. If the output is larger than the input, then the inventory in the system will decrease over time. Applying this to the proposed idea, the mass of the water pumped in must match that of the steam flowing out, else the amount of water in the core will decrease with time. In this event, the core will eventually overheat and melt due to lack of cooling.
Since the input and output must be equal, that means the energy extracted by the turbine from a given mass of water must be equal to or larger than the energy needed to pump the same mass of cold liquid water. In fact, it must be a good bit larger due to inefficiencies in the mechanical systems.
Unfortunately, the necessary energy isn't there. At the conditions present in a post-SCRAM reactor, there isn't much usable energy in the steam. It is hard to explain in a youtube comment, but there is a limit on how much energy a turbine can extract from steam. In this scenario most of the energy generated by the core post-SCRAM will simply leave with the steam when it is vented, and very little will be used to drive the pumps.
Moving liquid water takes a lot of energy. In the end, this system would not be able to pump in enough water to replace what is lost through venting. Every time the system cycled, the amount of coolant in the system would decrease. The pace of the cycles would then accelerate until the system was dry. Long before that, the fuel would melt and the worst-case scenario would be realized.
And it probably won't buy any time because now the system is actively venting coolant by design.
Too many unknowns. You don't want a system requiring itself to power the system that is shutting itself down.
The horrifying strength of nuclear power is the one thing we *can* take for granted...
Would you do a video on the balfour declaration?
Thanks
They were WARNED this would happen......and did nothing because of $$$$
It'd be kinda cool if you put dates in the titles. If I'm watching one of your videos and its set somewhat recently, I'll watch the video because of all the video footage included. If it's set in a time before video cameras were common though, I tend to just listen.
There's an amateur documentary on the earthquake with footage, some shown in this video of before, during and after the quake, as well as before, during and after the tsunami mostly in one town
It's hauntingly terrifying but still worth watching, both to see the brutality of nature but also will give you faith in humanity
It is in youtube
Oh okay I’ll check out this amateur video. Thanks for saying I should check it out. Will be easy to find.
12 miles = 19.3 km, not 9km, on 09:27 is confusing. Thank you for the video, well done.
Ach!!! I like your channel but you did it again. At the beginning you said the earthquake turned parts of Japan into rubble. NO IT DIDN'T!!! I have lived in Japan for 19 years and remember this earthquake. Japanese homes are very well built now and yes, although there was some damage, most buildings, almost every building was still standing after the quake. It was the tsunami that killed people and devastated towns.
Ohh they did it again,... Ignorting tens of thousents deads from EQ and Tsunami in favor of one - altrouth big - industrial accident, what they forgot to mention,.. passive safety system of PP did thers job, massivly reducting radioisothope relases, and giving time to evakuate cizitiens before in this case inevitable relase of relativly big, but managable amount of radiation.
Reactor building was actualy counted as blast-away structure for unlikely case of hydrogen buildup. so yes, one power plant writen off as total loss, but in comparisson of entire damage done that horrible day, not that big at all. but good lesson for future of nuclear industry, pushing its safety even further.
Yes very well build! So we’ll build that they do flips when the ground shakes!!! (Just a joke I know that 99% of Japanese homes look flimsy but are extremely sturdy) 🏠🏡🏠🏘
Japan, america's 51st state.
.....all covered up
Show what they covered up.
Very good and interesting! But 9:26 12 miles are more than 9 km.
I was 10 days old and this was happening wow
How old are you then?
Oh 11 years old
fukushima the did everything they could to prevent mass deaths chernoyl it was kept quiet & it was 48 hous before evacuation was requested
Unfortunately these events undermine confidence in nuclear power, and it increases the use of fossil fuels which causes even greater environmental damage! . . .
It's better to just solve the problems with reactor designs and accept the very low risk of an accident.
Agreed.
The same with space exploration.
These are dangerous professions that require certain levels of acceptable risk.
However if we don’t take those risks we will never advance in these fields and never eliminate the dangers.
But the plant can't run over budget adding all those security measures. The tax payers will be screaming about big government again. Lean and mean, right! 'Merica! Most countries have morons and criminals running things. Japan and US are not really that different.
No, it is better to find clean energy solutions which eliminate the need for human monitoring and responsibility of which they have proved not worthy.
I feel like relying on dumping water on hot rocks to stop them from exploding is kinda a bad idea when you inevitably run out of water. It's almost like we should have some sort of control rod sort of thing that makes the hot rocks not so hot anymore. Sure it might destroy your fancy hot rocks. but it's that or explode..
Those exist. They’re called “control rods”
When primary and secondary power sources are destroyed by tsunamic, any well designed automatic emergency system to shut down reactors rendered useless immediately. 👩🏻🚒👨🏻🚒
This information is wrong. The plant had an automatic cooling system. It works even without electricity. They simply turned it off because of incompetence.
Out of all the countries in the world, I can appreciate why Japan is a bit nervous around nuclear incidents 🥴.
1:14 Bro how’d that boat land perfectly on that building during the tsunami like HOW
Of all the safety redundancies in place, they left the emergency generators within reach of flooding due to tsunamis. Like why?