03-18-2011, 01:20 AM
deckeda wrote:
I just read that the seawall was 20ft, and considered high enough. But 3 ft. too short.
What I'm not yet clear on, is that while the earthquake triggered and automatic shutdown of the reactor, it seemed to go too far, and killed power to the primary cooling. Or maybe that was instead damaged.
Quake didn't knock out the generators. They ran for about an hour before the tsunami wiped them out. the battery backups only provide 8 hrs of backup power.
The US nuke plants in coastal areas have these generators in sealed bunkers to protect the from this type of event. The same design was offered to the Japanese, but apparently they felt it wasn't warranted.