Some days after the quake and resultant tsunami, I recall reading news articles about the Fukushima nuke plant's valves failing. The reason that it was of interest was that I worked for a couple engineering firms that provided a lot of consulting services to industrial clients. Some of my co-workers did Programmable Logic Control systems for various process equipment projects, including valves. These valves were such that they would automatically fail opened or closed (FO/FC) in the event of a power outage or similar emergency within a system. So why did these valves get hinky after the quake?

Subsequent to that, there were news articles pertaining to cyber attacks on Iran going rogue, and possibly playing a role in what transpired at Fukushima. In a fresh NYT article, the POTUS now admits to the existence of a cyber warfare targeting Iran's low-grade enrichment centrifuges for their power plant, and the 2010 *escape* of that bug to the internet, where it likely found familiar lodgings in other nuke plants, like Fukushima....


NYT Link

But the good luck did not last. In the summer of 2010, shortly after a new variant of the worm had been sent into Natanz, it became clear that the worm, which was never supposed to leave the Natanz machines, had broken free, like a zoo animal that found the keys to the cage. It fell to Mr. Panetta and two other crucial players in Olympic Games — General Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Michael J. Morell, the deputy director of the C.I.A. — to break the news to Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden.

An error in the code, they said, had led it to spread to an engineer’s computer when it was hooked up to the centrifuges. When the engineer left Natanz and connected the computer to the Internet, the American- and Israeli-made bug failed to recognize that its environment had changed. It began replicating itself all around the world. Suddenly, the code was exposed, though its intent would not be clear, at least to ordinary computer users.

“We think there was a modification done by the Israelis,” one of the briefers told the president, “and we don’t know if we were part of that activity.”

Oops!

Fukushima Valve Failures

Documents the company released on Sunday reveal that in reactor unit 1, the core had probably melted down within just 16 hours of the quake, which occurred at 2.46 pm on 11 March. Three hours later, the water level in the reactor, vital for cooling the fuel, had plummeted, and the fuel rods began to melt in the evening at 7.30 pm, with most melted by 6.50 am the following morning. Japanese government officials warned that the same thing had probably happened in reactor units 2 and 3.

Information released by TEPCO on Monday also suggests that the cooling systems for unit 1 had already failed before the tsunami struck. One possibility is that workers manually shut them down because they feared the reactor would become too cold.

As mysteries deepen about what really did happen in the early hours of the crisis, TEPCO this week drastically revised its schedule for bringing reactor units 1, 2 and 3 under full control within five to eight months. After discovering 3000 tonnes of contaminated water in the basement of reactor unit 1, the company has decided the best option is to install pumps enabling the radioactive water to be repeatedly recycled to cool the reactor, instead of cooling it with fresh water.

Things that make ya go, hmmmmm.....