UPDATE:
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FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Whats going on here?
Right now the IAEA is reporting iodine levels 75 miles from Fukushima are in excess of safe levels: "Iodine-131 in milk and in freshly grown leafy vegetables, such as spinach and spring onions, is significantly above the levels set by Japan for restricting consumption of these food products."
Corporanon whistled an intake of air in response -- that's higher than they are admiting. I keep checking the real time radnet, to prevent uneccessary freaking out. (If you haven't, and you are in danger of same, please check out my Really Useful Links).
Meanwhile, Mike Rivero at What Really Happened poses this question, which I here repost to ensure the links are functional:
Stuxnet found in Japan in October - Is Fukushima an unintended consequence of Israel's hacker attack against Bushehr?
According to the security company, the virus is designed to target a German-made program often used in systems managing water, gas and oil pipelines. The program is used at public utilities around the world, including in Japan.
(Webmaster's commentary)
Here is a nightmare scenario for you.
4. As the above article documents, Stuxnet was in Japan last October, presumably still spreading and intended to wreck nuclear power plants. Here is another story about Stuxnet being in Japan and infecting computers last October.
6. The head of the IAEA only last month warned that Stuxnet posed a threat to all nuclear power stations around the world! And Fukushima uses the Seimens controllers Stuxnet was designed to interfere with!
So now the difficulty the Fukushima nuclear plant operators faced in recovering control over their runaway reactors takes on a darker significance. Remember that the first problem following the quake was that the automated shutdown systems failed to operate at some of the reactors, because pumps failed and valves would not open even while running on batteries; the very sorts of mischief Stuxnet supposedly was designed to cause at Iran's power station.
Did we all just get hacked to death by Israel?
Would anyone reading this in Japan please forward to the Fukushima managers.
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So I did a little reading. Here's from good New Scientist article on Stuxnet; please go to this link to read the original:
Why the Stuxnet worm is like nothing seen before
...It is the first piece of malware so far able to break into the types of computer that control machinery at the heart of industry, allowing an attacker to assume control... In the worst case scenarios, safety systems could be switched off at a nuclear power plant...
[snip]
...the equipment used in an industrial process is controlled by a separate, dedicated system called a programmable logic controller (PLC) which runs supervisory control and data acquisition software (SCADA).
[snip]
Stuxnet exploited four vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows to give a remote hacker the ability to inject malicious code into a market-leading PLC made by German electronics conglomerate Siemens. Read more
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Given this, the strangeness at the beginning of the Fukushima disaster seems even stranger. Perhaps I can account for Japan's telling the IAEA that reactors #1, #2, & #3 were in 'cold shutdown' just before they were again a problem with shall we say a dynamic definition of 'cold shutdown' (although I still find this highly misleading to the general public). But even if that doesn't constitute a bona fide contradiction or inconsistency, this does:
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| from U.S. delivers coolant to Japan nuclear plant: Clinton |
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Six hours later this delivery of coolant was denied. Reuters provided an update to this effect, as well as a virtually identical 'story' (gotta love the one sentence 'story').....
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| from U.S. did not deliver coolant to Japan nuclear reactor |
Never mind that water is what nuclear power plants use as coolant..... A perspicacious member of Above Top Secret hazards a rhetorical guess of "sparkling mineral water" for the 'really important coolant' fluid in question, after having brought to our attention that Clinton made this announcement two minutes after this.
Huh? This curious and enterprising forum member goes on to say that so far they have found no actual reports of power failure to the inundated generators, the official cause of the problem in Fukushima.... and neither could I... but I did find Insight to [sic] Fukushima Engineering Challenges:
Fukushima Daiichi
Similar problems occurred at the Daiichi plant. Units 1, 2 and 3 were operating at full power but shut down on the earthquake. They too were flooded by the tsunami and lost their sea water pumps - but this was exacerbated by the loss of emergency diesels as well. One factor in this could be that the Daiichi plant is at a slightly lower altitude than Daini, making the tsunami relatively more powerful.
This meant that heat was building up in the power plant in the same way as at Daini 1, 2 and 4, but that core cooling sprays could not be powered.
At Daiichi 1, 2 and 3, the steam-driven HPCIs were left as the only cooling system, which eventually heated the units' toruses to the point that they stopped working. Pressure from the reactor vessels built several times to the point that it required release. Separately, gas in the containment vessel was vented and this was enough to raise radiation levels at the site boundary to 0.5 millisieverts per hour.
Japanese officials reported that for each unit, "The behaviour of the pressure of the reactor vessel and the containment vessel, and the behaviour of the water level of the reactor were complicated. Some measurements were not possible because of failures of measuring equipment. As a result, a detailed estimate cannot be done." However, they said, the radiation signature of the releases matched a theory that a few percent of each reactor core had suffered damage.
Enough hydrogen was also produced within the reactor vessel by the interaction between water and hot fuel to cause an explosion at each unit when this was vented to the secondary containment. For units 1 and 3 this removed the top part of the reactor building. At unit 2 this may have taken place in the torus, causing damage there.
Core damage is rated at Level 5 on the INES scale, an 'accident with wider consequences'. This is applied to units 2 and 3, while unit 1's INES Level 5 rating is attributed to the abnormal rise of radiation dose at the site boundary.
After the total failure of plant cooling systems, seawater is being pumped into the reactor cores of units 1, 2 and 3 to prevent overheating and further core damage. This will likely continue for some time, although plant cooling systems may come back into operation once external power is restored. Read More
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What were they delivering, and why?
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| from the New Scientist article cited above |
Could it have been code? Code to address a virus related problem with Siemens made PLCs that, having become infected, were failing to behave normally? Code that the developers of the virus would have?
More specifically, were the components responsible for an inability to obtain useful information about water/pressure/temperature levels, cited by the World Nuclear Association, controlled by Siemens PLCs?
UPDATE:
PLEASE SEE
FUKUSHIMA: POSSIBLE CAUSES & COVER UPS
Tepco, 2010:
Aging Management and Safe Long Term Operation At Guess Where"'Link in Your Mind'
Cyberattacks and Fukushima"DHS warns of SCADA vulnerability; neglects to mention what it resembles or how closely | (the STUXNET files)
