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Post by mikegarrison on Mar 13, 2011 15:00:16 GMT -5
please do not listen to the media try and scare people about the nuclear reactors, they are just fine. they're calling it a "release" and that is patently false and the media should be punished for the misinformation but they can't. They are merely venting residual heat from the core that is filtered through a long series of charcoal and filters, i would breathe that air before any city air in a heart beat. The control rods are firmly in place and in any case, commercial plants are built with a negative coefficient so they would "poison" themselves out of a reaction rather than going the other direction and going super-critical. Never let the media or extremist groups fool you about nuclear power generation: "Meltdowns" are virtually impossible in commercial reactors of BWR and PWR designs. *IF* they were not able to cool the core enough, the only thing that would happen is fuel breaking, which isn't good, but only isn't good for the plant's core, nothing else would be affected. I'm a big supporter of nuclear power, but I'm also an engineer. Nothing is "virtually impossible" when systems get complicated enough. This scenario is the reason why the latest designs for water-cooled reactors feature passive circulation rather than pumps which can fail. To make it worse, these plants (which are more than 40 years old) have a now-known design flaw in the containment vessel. It is believed there is a very real chance that without cooling they may melt through the floor of the containment, allowing nuclear fuel to escape into the environment.
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Post by truffleshuffle on Mar 13, 2011 18:54:22 GMT -5
by the way, what kind of weirdo hears that there's a devastating earthquake and tsunami and their first reaction is "boy i hope that volleyball player i like is okay"
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Post by mikegarrison on Mar 13, 2011 20:01:33 GMT -5
by the way, what kind of weirdo tenniscraze.
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Post by pedro el leon on Mar 14, 2011 4:31:53 GMT -5
please do not listen to the media try and scare people about the nuclear reactors, they are just fine. they're calling it a "release" and that is patently false and the media should be punished for the misinformation but they can't. They are merely venting residual heat from the core that is filtered through a long series of charcoal and filters, i would breathe that air before any city air in a heart beat. The control rods are firmly in place and in any case, commercial plants are built with a negative coefficient so they would "poison" themselves out of a reaction rather than going the other direction and going super-critical. Never let the media or extremist groups fool you about nuclear power generation: "Meltdowns" are virtually impossible in commercial reactors of BWR and PWR designs. *IF* they were not able to cool the core enough, the only thing that would happen is fuel breaking, which isn't good, but only isn't good for the plant's core, nothing else would be affected. I'm a big supporter of nuclear power, but I'm also an engineer. Nothing is "virtually impossible" when systems get complicated enough. This scenario is the reason why the latest designs for water-cooled reactors feature passive circulation rather than pumps which can fail. To make it worse, these plants (which are more than 40 years old) have a now-known design flaw in the containment vessel. It is believed there is a very real chance that without cooling they may melt through the floor of the containment, allowing nuclear fuel to escape into the environment. I realize that, and I'm just kind of frustrated because this can set our country's only reasonable near and long term carbon free electrical generation back years. The nuclear industry has been crapped on for years by people who have no clue what they are talking about. Especially the new advanced designs with the passive gravity-based coolant systems that you mention only make already backed up to the 'T' systems that much more reliable and safe.
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Post by Phaedrus on Mar 14, 2011 12:44:55 GMT -5
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Post by mikegarrison on Mar 14, 2011 19:46:26 GMT -5
Apparently Switzerland has placed a hold on new nuclear power plants until they assess the risk of a similar problem happening there. I think I can do that assessment fairly quickly: if a tsunami floods Switzerland, nuclear plant woes will be the least of anybody's concerns.
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Post by jewel on Mar 15, 2011 23:31:51 GMT -5
So are we still claiming this is no big deal?
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Post by mikegarrison on Mar 16, 2011 9:08:43 GMT -5
So are we still claiming this is no big deal? Who said "this was no big deal"? We are talking about thousands of people dead, city after city completely destroyed, hundreds of thousands of people displaced, incredible economic devastation. It's Katrina times about 100. While the nuclear plants are filling up the news here in the US, any loss of life or economic/environmental damage from them is going to be a drop in the bucket compared to the earthquake and tsunami.
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Post by jewel on Mar 16, 2011 10:36:21 GMT -5
I'm not talking about the earthquake, I'm talking about the nuclear emergency. I want to know if pedro still thinks it's all media hype.
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Post by mikegarrison on Mar 16, 2011 10:46:28 GMT -5
I'm not talking about the earthquake, I'm talking about the nuclear emergency. I want to know if pedro still thinks it's all media hype. But how can you separate them? If the plant had just suddenly done this on its own, then fine, you would have a point. But look at the whole picture. This is quite likely the biggest natural disaster ever, in terms of economic damage. And the nuclear plants (while damaged beyond repair) have mainly worked as designed -- they shut down properly, their containment vessels have survived explosions that destroyed the building they were inside of, and the leaks of radiation have so far been very minor and not dangerous to anybody who was not actually inside the gates of the plant itself. Everything around these plants has been completely destroyed, and you are complaining because they didn't survive with no problems at all?
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Post by Phaedrus on Mar 16, 2011 12:56:22 GMT -5
Just as Three Mile Island served as a shot across the bow for the nuclear industry, this is yet another incidence that will be examined and picked over for years to come. In view of the world energy predicament, I still think that nuclear is a viable source of electric power, BUT, the lessons learned in Fukujima will definitely impact on all plant designs. Europe has already begun the reassessment of the contingencies and backup plans for their nuclear power plants.
The plant design is 40 years old and as previously asserted, a gravity versus a forced cooling water system would certainly make more sense. Looking at the contingencies that was enacted 40 years ago, I was struck by how incisive the designers were in regard to have backups upon backups. Yet, nature has proven that this was not enough.
Should the designers have foreseen that a tsunami would and could knock out the backup diesel generators that supplied the cooling water pumps? Should the spent fuel rods be stored in another part of the plant, away from the reactor? How many layers of backup power needs to be available?
While on the one hand, any casualty due to a nuclear mishap is too much, we are dealing with a budget. The power plant needs to be profitable for the utility or it won't get bult. the result is actually more of the same, and maybe even worse.
The baseloads serviced by the nukes would have to be supplied by coal plants (more air pollution and certainly also a generator of low level radiation, to say nothing of the potential fly ash generated), oil fired power plants (skyrocketing fuel costs and more importantly, unavailable fuel), or green energy alternatives (smaller capacities, having power plants in every block just to serve the most basic of electricity needs).
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Post by jewel on Mar 16, 2011 14:22:54 GMT -5
mike, please show me where I complained. I asked a question: Does pedro still feel this is no big deal?
Second guessing the construction and voicing opposition to nuclear power is nowhere to be found in my posts. I want to know if this is Chernobyl II or not. Try finding a straight answer about that.
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Post by mikegarrison on Mar 16, 2011 14:51:43 GMT -5
mike, please show me where I complained. I asked a question: Does pedro still feel this is no big deal? Second guessing the construction and voicing opposition to nuclear power is nowhere to be found in my posts. I want to know if this is Chernobyl II or not. Try finding a straight answer about that. Well it's still happening, so nobody knows for sure. But there really is zero% chance this will be "Chernobyl II." Chernobyl was running full power when the reactor core had a chemical explosion which scattered the core radioactive material all over the countryside. These reactors were shut down, and the main problem is that the reactor core may be melting in on itself inside its containment vessel. It's likely that the end result is going to be these reactors end up being sealed into their containment vessels, a bunch of concrete is poured over them, and they are never opened up again. Or something similar to that. But I don't see any mechanism for a Chernobyl-type widespread contamination problem. But I'm an airplane performance engineer, not a nuclear plant engineer, so take my estimate for what little it is worth.
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Post by jewel on Mar 16, 2011 15:05:15 GMT -5
I thought reactors 4-6 have used rods OUTSIDE the containment dome, which is why the fires there are so troubling? I also thought there was concern that one of the containment structures in 1, 2 or 3 may have been breached?
This is why I say it's so hard to tell what's what.
How many other facilities have 6 reactors at one site?
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Post by Phaedrus on Mar 16, 2011 15:34:15 GMT -5
Chernobyl didn't have a containment vessel underneath, or a torus. The meltdown went through the reactor and straight into the ground underneath. Three Mile Island never breached the containment torus underneath so as Mike said, nothing ever got out. And they did fill it up with concrete.
These reactors in Japan has containment but are smaller than the containment for TMI, the fear is that the containment at Fukushima is not big enough to contain the meltdown.
In addition, the Japanese reprocess the fuel after it is spent, so they keep all of it within the reactor building. The spent fuel rods are not kept in the reactor itself but I am not sure if it is kept within the primary containment or not. i think they keep it within the secondary containment, which could be bad news.
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