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March 16, 2011

GE - We Bring Good Things, You Buy Them ... And They Kill You

Apparently three General Electric scientists who helped develop the reactors at the failing Fukushima nuclear facility resigned in protest over what they perceived as poor reactor design. From ABC News:

Thirty-five years ago, Dale G. Bridenbaugh and two of his colleagues at General Electric resigned from their jobs after becoming increasingly convinced that the nuclear reactor design they were reviewing -- the Mark 1 -- was so flawed it could lead to a devastating accident.

The situation at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant is so fluid that it may be days or even weeks before anyone knows how the Mark 1 containment system performed in the face of an unthinkable combination of natural disasters. Questions persisted for decades about the ability of the Mark 1 to handle the immense pressures that would result if the reactor lost cooling power, and today that design is being put to the ultimate test in Japan. Five of the six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, which has been wracked since Friday's earthquake with explosions and radiation leaks, are Mark 1s.

GE insists that modifications to strengthen the containment structures have been made. Somehow I doubt that the Japanese are very comforted by that statement. North central Japan looks like a cheap motel where Godzilla threw a frat party.
Japan's population is less than 1% Christian but they truly need all the prayers of Christendom right now.

15 comments:

Nickie Goomba said...

Obama has already decided that messin' with Godzilla is something we must avoid... avoid like a greenside sand trap.

Woodsterman (Odie) said...

Thinking of them and hoping for the best.

"Shady" said...

Nickie you are spot on correct, Obama does not have the cajones to mess with the gorilla.

My personal opinion, not that is matters, is I do not like GE, not one stinkling bit...but again, I am just one.

BTW, great blog site my friend..

Anonymous said...

GE is a bunch of smucks

The Vicar said...

GE executives also serve as Obama's poolboys.

LL said...

I have been expecting Mothra, Rodan and Godzilla to emerge and fight it out over the nuclear reactor site.

It's been a 'perfect storm' of tragedy and while the reactor had problems - predicting a 9.0 followed by a tsunami that flooded out the generators wasn't something people considered.

sig94 said...

Nickie - Godzilla, Libya, our deteriorating borders, inflation, the national debt ... the list is endless.

But, God Be Praised, he's filling in the NCAA brackets, speaking out against school bullies, vacationing like an Ohio State sophomore in Ft. Lauderdale and cramming veggies into our elementary schools whether the kids will eat them or not. He's Eleanor Roosevelt on steriods.

sig94 said...

Odie - I wonder if Fukushima will be remembered in the same vein as Hiroshima?

BTW, Hiroshima is is a beautiful city and doing rather well after the casualties and devastation of 65 years ago.

sig94 said...

FuzzyD - that's engineering smucks to you!

sig94 said...

Vicar - that's pretty harsh; carrying pina coladas is some mighty heavy lifting.

sig94 said...

LL - Rodan et al is about the only thing missing from the tragedy that is Fukushima. I wonder if a plague of locusts is next.

If this ever happened to a reactor in the US it would be a plague of lawyers darkening the skies, choking the streets and depositing their lawsuits, motions, briefs and appeals like dung from a herd of Jersey cows with amoebic dysentery.

Toaster 802 said...

Quoted and linked as an update at http://greenmnts.blogspot.com/2011/03/while-dome-worries-about-shumlincare.html

Thanks for info Sig.

Kid said...

Ester Williams... lol

Anyway, the suffering is long and hard there. I think about the people, their pets and children mostly. The more defenseless the more I feel for them. What can we do though. I found at least one place I trust to donate and it goes to kids there.

In the end, this is the rock flying through space we live on. We can't make it idiot or fool proof or safe. It's simply not possible.

sig94 said...

Toaster - pleased to be of assistance.

sig94 said...

Kid - Yes, it's an imperfect world we live in/on. There are forces in play that no one understands and even if we did, we could not stop them.