On Mon, 14 Mar 2011 16:47:16 -0500, Ignoramus1540
wrote:

On 2011-03-14, lid wrote:
That would indicate a reactor vessel breach and a resultant steam
explosion as the seawater they have pumped into the containment vessel
around the reactor superheated. I do not believe the Japanese
government's story of a hydrogen explosion. They would have been able
to vent much of the hydrogen before such a massive explosion
occurred.....assuming they have at least some fundamental control over
any systems whatsoever at the facility.
Dave

Even if the vessel did not breach -- they may not even know -- the
piping surely did.

i

I would certainly concur. That explosion was MASSIVE.

What is killing me about this whole thing is this: Who designed this
facility to have the emergency diesel back-up generators staged at an
elevation level where operating them would suck in water, and cause
them to immediately fail, in a KNOWN tsunami environment?

These generators should have been located on a man made earthen/cement
works 80 feet or so above ground level.

The quake occurred, caused the control rods to drop, emergency power
kicked on via the diesels, giant tidal wave showed up, diesel
generators immediately sucked water, and core cooling pumps switched
to battery power. Batteries die after 8 or so hours of operation.
Diesels still full of water.

I am also unsure as to why the grid didn't seem to switch power to
Fukushima to run their pumps. The only possibility I can come up with
is that transmission lines were torn down by the tsunami. This
possibility was a double reason to locate the diesels at a higher
elevation then ground level.

A cascade of errors as is usual in these types of situations.
Dave