Analysis by IRSN of the Fukushima Daiichi accident of March 2011

On March 11, 2011, the earthquake that occurred off the eastern coast of the Island of Honshu in Japan and the ensuing tsunami devastated the Japanese territory in the Tohoku region, causing widespread destruction of local infrastructures and untold suffering for the local population.
The natural catastrophe also caused major damage to the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant, which led to a core meltdown in three nuclear reactors and loss of cooling for several fuel storage pools. Large amounts of radioactive materials were released into the environment. The accident was rated Level 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale.
Beginning on March 11th, IRSN took action to analyze the ongoing crisis and the probable radiological consequences of the nuclear accident, in order to provide the President of France, the French authorities and competent agencies, the Nuclear Safety Authority, elected officials and the French Ambassador to Japan with up-to-date information during the critical phases of the accident.
IRSN has also performed an extensive analysis of the supplementary safety reviews recently conducted on French nuclear facilities in order to draw the initial conclusions concerning the accident.
A more in-depth analysis of the events that took place is still necessary however, to obtain more precise operational feedback about the events. This film has been made to help viewers better understand the events that took place at Fukushima. In its current version, the film focuses entirely on the events that resulted in a core meltdown in three of the reactors at Fukushima.
The management of the cooling systems for the fuel storage pools, the impact of the accident on plant employees, on the local population and on the environment, are not covered in the film.

[@keithpedersen3653]

Fukushima is an excellent case study in poor system design. 1. It should be possible to manually operate ALL valves, albeit very slowly when they're large. 2. Crtitical sensors (such as core water level) should always have a fully manual backup. 3. In a tsunami zone, put nothing important (i.e. both backup power supplies) in the basement. 4. Verify that all systems (such as IC pumps) have the correct fail-safe condition for their application. 5. In an emergency, report all important information using an "emergency lexicon" carefully chosen to prevent ambiguity and emphasize only the critical information. 7. Know how to manually verify all instrumentation. 8. Give full authority to the on-site decision maker, so that higher ups with incomplete information and alterior motives cannot interfere. 9. The "dictator" must delegate to maintain a high-level picture 10. Train for worst-case scenarios so that actions become reflexive.

[@KennyR1489]

Why has this docu so less views? Its one of the best explained out there, nice job and very detailed.

[@kainhall]

BECAUSE THEIR IS SO DRAMA!!!! its just dry facts..... and most people have too little attention span (and they say i have ADHD) they need to have the control room people get into fist fights for people to stay watching...... yes, i have a.....different.... view of people TV today is so full of drama.......look at the history channel in 1998 VS today...... todays history channel is shit.....dumbed down and almost propaganda like

[@gbear1005]

amazing that basic engineering principles and techniques were either not used, ignored, or terribly inadequate. Apparently no one EVER thought of doing a Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) to determine an action plan for every forseeable failure (these studies are expensive, time consuming, and obviously valuable. But putting emergency power in the basement level? thats just f**ing stupid. This whole thing makes my head hurt.

[@clancy688]

Finally a documentation which highlights everything. Well done!

[@kwhite749]

This video is well constructed and informative, it's obvious the disaster was fated to happen. In hindsight, not enough foresight was given regarding the possibility of meltdown in a region KNOWN for natural events such as the tsunami and quake.

[@PaulSpaceFDot]

Outstanding timeline overview of the events with any "rah rah" pro nuclear, or "the sky is falling, the sky is falling!" anti-nuclear rhetoric.

[@rechtewahrer]

Very well made documentation. Thank you.

[@mitchellgiebler3396]

Circus music in the back ground would be appropriate.....How in the hell did they think building a nuke plant on the coast and on top of a subduction zone that is the receiving end of the largest and one of the fastest moving tectonic plates on Earth was going to play out well?

[@doriehess5835]

Aren't most built on faultlines? Hanford, Washington, comes to mind

[@rwaitt14153]

It wasn't the quake though. It was the tsunami. If the generators and switching gear were better placed those reactors would have ridden it out just like all the other ones in Japan did. Nobody talks about Fukushima 5 and 6. Also, the Columbia Generating Station at Hanford is hundreds of miles inland and on the other side of a very large mountain range. If a tsunami reaches it, we and virtually all life on the planet are going extinct regardless of what it does.

[@happygo1866]

Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong. Unbelievable.

[@jeffbrower68]

Could the Fukishima waste water be separated and the water through DEKA distillation, powered by another reactor, instead of dumping 300 metric tons of it per day into the ocean? You'd then have storable waste and water turning into steam , instead of flooding the ocean with radioactive wastewater What if control rod material finely ground was fed into the core, even drilled with geological boring and fed a mile down? Also what about boronic water to cool, and pre-stage ion exchange with titanium oxide and salt before distillation to separate the waste before dumping the waste into the ocean? Maybe CA should be piping Atlantic water for desalination or distillation and keep the Pacific off tap for now.

[@rdallas81]

Mike Anyone I agree. At least pump lead power, graphite and other naterial used to limit reactions..... obviously water is not doing too good ..not to mention the little fact that ITS WATER! It easily mixes with other WATER...like the ocean..and is not easily filtered. I also think the ground could be frozen all around the plant. This can be done, and should be. This stops running into the sea.

[@zomboss6002]

Fires

[@maksimmuruev423]

Poor design decisions, made an emergency cooling system operated without power, but all controls still required it. WTF? If it required then AC generator should be attached to the turbine.

[@turkeydoctor5546]

they could have one of those but with no electric to power it there isn't much point in having one

[@madcavemantd2]

How could you spray water on the nuclear fuel that is already in a molten state at aprox. 2800 C and not have an increase in pressure? That water will instantly flash to steam and then separate the molecules. I am also surprised that there wasn't a steam explosion. I must be missing something.

[@kategislason681]

Great Timeline

[@earache294]

Building of Nuclear power stations within 100 miles of an ACTIVE seismic zone should be prohibited period. no amount of human engineering can prevent nature from destroying it. furthermore, dismantling of any within 100 miles of an ACTIVE seismic zone should begin IMMEDIATELY!!

[@HowlingWo1f]

Amazing video

[@robertwilliams204]

1:57 This is how scary hydrogen can be. The steel reinforced concrete, which is probably equivalent or better than military spec, was blown apart and the steel bars are bent over like wet noodles.

[@marcosmota1094]

Hydrogen powers the sun, we know its power.

[@staatsfiend]

clean, green and too cheap to meter!

[@Leon3stars]

Taiwanese peoples appreciate this profound documentation for teaching the Ma administration and Taipower to immediately stop the Nuclear Power IV project which has been under constructed for more than two decades and yet awaiting for commercial operations cause over 90% of Taiwanese peoples are AGAINST it.

[@pairadice3186]

Best description of the massive turd of an operation called TEPCO....

[@DetachedOnlooker]

Shitty design but pockets get lined. Who gives a shit right?

[@dodgeden344]

2019 and fukushima no body is talking about everything is now so bad thank you TEPCO for fucking up the world

[@walterdewald267]

Absolutely miserable design (some engineers at GE quit their job, because they considered these reactors totally unsafe). The cooling stopped immediately at the earthquake, as the water pipelines into the plants broke due to the quake lifting/lowering the ground by around 6 feet (1.8m) Normal cooling required 1 million liters per minute per reactor - nuclear power plants have an efficiency of 30% - i.e. 70% go through the cooling towers - the big masses of steam you can see at those plants. That steam contains actually radioactivity (Tritium) and a German study shows 6 times more breast cancer 10 miles (15km) around those plants. All the attempts pumping water in could have never worked as even in shutdown mode too much water would have been needed to keep it cool enough The safest nuclear power plant is the one that was never built. Everything else is highly unsafe, is polluting the environment, destroys the environment through uranium mining and we all know about the waste problem. In addition, the Co2 footprint of nuclear is far worse than the one of photo-voltaic/wind energy, so the "we need nuclear for combating the climate warming" argument is totally invalid. Building the plants, mining and processing the uranium, waste disposal etc. create a huge amount of Co2 (which is actually not the cause of the warming/change). The situation is still out of control after almost 7 years - and people are still too much sheep and do not organize themselves in order to force the governments peacefully to finally declare Fukushima the world's problem number 1 with absolute priority over everything else.

[@seanmckinnon4612]

Walter Dewald wrong. The cooling was not disabled by the earthquake. Please cite your source

[@stevefriedl3983]

It appears that the GE engineers who resigned were protesting nuclear power generation in general, not specific opposition to these particular designs; you appear to share their sentiments.

[@yehat17]

I completely agree, well said!

[@TheDarkzebra09]

Yes, Very well said indeed. At last, some one else who’s sanity has not been 100% compromised. Lol

[@armadatint]

We’re fucked ! Tepco and GE are to blame!

[@mitchellgiebler3396]

Also everywhere there is or has been any type of nuclear facility world wide-There is permanent radioactive pollution. Is it necessary for humans to have unlimited access to electricity? I think not. We as a species do not need such things. An hour a day of electricity world wide should be enough.

[@OffTheBeatenPath_]

Mitchell Giebler yes comrade

[@Gainerone]

Mitchell Giebler an hour? We're you born in a barn?

[@oroville12345]

But what about my Facebook smart phone and call of duty match.... Just an hour....

[@maksimmuruev423]

Hah.. even your comment required electricity.

[@TheDarkzebra09]

All that you should probably consider obsolete behaviour , that we could only afford in a time before we screwed up the planet so much, that it has almost become an environment that is uninhabitable to most of the animals etc that have spent millions of years evolving in order to have a chance of surviving on it. Including humans. It basically comes down to do you want the unnecessary things or do you you want to survive