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Nuclear Power
- Thread starter wuluf
- Start date
"True, the loss of these boats was not due to a reactor problem, none the less there are two reactors on the bottom of the ocean."
And we have yet to locate the reactor from the Thresher.
It took many years to even locate the debris field.
A trawler finally pulled up a section of boiler tube with a serial number that gave a search area.
Water is a VERY good moderator for particle radiation.
And we have yet to locate the reactor from the Thresher.
It took many years to even locate the debris field.
A trawler finally pulled up a section of boiler tube with a serial number that gave a search area.
Water is a VERY good moderator for particle radiation.
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Because people are no longer dying of scurvy, measles, cholera, dysentery, tuberculosis, rubella, diphtheria, poor refrigeration, poor industrial safety practices, and so on, and are now living long enough to be old enough to get cancer in the first place.People wonder why cancer rates have escilated over the past 100 years?
American Minerals, Inc there in Deming, perhaps? There's also Parkview Metal Products in Las Cruces, about 60 miles away from you which according to scorecard.org released 27,060 pounds of recognized human carcinogen (trichloroethylene) in 2002. There's also Foamex, Inc. in Santa Teresa, about 30 miles south of Las Cruces.I live in Deming N.M. and you would not believe the rate of skin cancers on dogs that are maintained out side here. Trinity? Natural? We use to mine and have recently started to again Radium!
Various industrial chemicals, like benzene (used in production of polystyrene), will far more readily cause cancer than most radioactive sources you're likely to encounter, but it's always the radioactive stuff that gets the most uproar.
It is a little known fact that Every pond of carbon released in burning coal contains a large number of radioactive isotopes.
Really. Exactly how does that happen?
Thresher and Scorpion
were not reactor accidents.
Thresher was lost because her first-of-a-kind EMBT blow systems didn't have dehydrators, so when they pulled the "chicken switch" on sea trials, the air valves froze solid. No air coming in, vents open, down she went.
Robert Ballard found the Scorpion on the same trip that he found Titanic on. The Navy paid for the Titanic expedition as part of the contract. His report is still classified, but deckplate rumor had it that she was torpedoed by the Soviets when she got too close to a Russian boomer. Or perhaps hit by her own torpedo.
As to inspections... look at the NRC report on Northeast Utilities back in 1996. At one of their plants (Connecticut Yankee, IIRC) there was a pressure relief valve in the main coolant loop that had been wired shut with bailing wire because it kept popping open... in the 1970s. It wasn't discovered until the 1990's, and only then because the stories coming out of NU employees got so bad that the NRC was forced to do a very detailed review of all of their plants. I was stationed in CT at the time... this stuff was big news. CY was closed because there was no way to correct the cumulative effects of years of neglected maintenance. Falsified records, bogus billing for parts, the whole works. As with any regulatory regime, enforcement is key. And the civilian nuke industry in this country has a long record of cutting safety and maintenance corners to make a buck. The fact that the NRC board is made up primarily of utility executives should be a big red flag. Foxes and chicken coops.
As I said, "trust us" won't cut it. While I'm loath to compliment the French, except for their food and wine, they do nuclear power quite well. Not only have they invested in new technologies, (many of which were developed here), but their power industry is government-owned. Now, there are certainly some valid philosophical arguments against that, but the risk/reward structure is quite different than it is in the models we use here.
--Shannon
were not reactor accidents.
Thresher was lost because her first-of-a-kind EMBT blow systems didn't have dehydrators, so when they pulled the "chicken switch" on sea trials, the air valves froze solid. No air coming in, vents open, down she went.
Robert Ballard found the Scorpion on the same trip that he found Titanic on. The Navy paid for the Titanic expedition as part of the contract. His report is still classified, but deckplate rumor had it that she was torpedoed by the Soviets when she got too close to a Russian boomer. Or perhaps hit by her own torpedo.
As to inspections... look at the NRC report on Northeast Utilities back in 1996. At one of their plants (Connecticut Yankee, IIRC) there was a pressure relief valve in the main coolant loop that had been wired shut with bailing wire because it kept popping open... in the 1970s. It wasn't discovered until the 1990's, and only then because the stories coming out of NU employees got so bad that the NRC was forced to do a very detailed review of all of their plants. I was stationed in CT at the time... this stuff was big news. CY was closed because there was no way to correct the cumulative effects of years of neglected maintenance. Falsified records, bogus billing for parts, the whole works. As with any regulatory regime, enforcement is key. And the civilian nuke industry in this country has a long record of cutting safety and maintenance corners to make a buck. The fact that the NRC board is made up primarily of utility executives should be a big red flag. Foxes and chicken coops.
As I said, "trust us" won't cut it. While I'm loath to compliment the French, except for their food and wine, they do nuclear power quite well. Not only have they invested in new technologies, (many of which were developed here), but their power industry is government-owned. Now, there are certainly some valid philosophical arguments against that, but the risk/reward structure is quite different than it is in the models we use here.
--Shannon
An important detail to remember about that accident is that it was caused by a basic design flaw. The SL-1 was a research reactor in the early days of nuclear power. It's fatal flaw was that the reactor would go critical if the central control rod was removed, even if the other control rods were in the full down position. The control rods in the reactor had a habit of sticking. So when they tried to unstick the central control rod and it finally let go, it was raised up far enough for the reactor to instantly go critical.There was one accident in an Army reactor, the SL-1. A control rod was pulled out, as part of the startup procedure, 50cm when 40cm would have been enough to make the reactor critical. The power output of the reactor went to 20,000 megawatts in about 0.01 seconds, melted the fuel, and converted the moderating water to steam, which then slammed a plug of water up into the top of the containment vessel hard enough to bounce the entire vessel about 10 feet into the air.
Every reactor since then has been designed so that the complete removal of a single, or even several, control rods when the reactor is shut down will not result in the reactor going critical.
Even worse is what it could do to a companies stock value. I own Xcel Energy stock and several years ago it was said that there might be serious problems with the reactors the company owned. The stock went from $20 per share to about $5 per share in a very short period of time. It took a long time for the stock to regain its value.That same incentive is there in the civilian industry. A minor violation (leave a firedoor open for a few minutes) can net a five figure monetary penalty from the NRC. Anything major and your plant gets shut down.
I don't know how much of the lapse in construction of new nuclear power plants is licensing and how much is the power companies not pushing it. I sold a zillion dollars worth of electrical fittings to Duke Power and CP&L in the 70's and 80's for power plant construction. The last was Shearon Harris and it cost about $9 billion which was many times more than projected. Would be at least twice that today. Most of that cost increase was from new regulations, being built as if it were next to the San Andreas fault. I don't know that the power companies are patting their feet to build nuclear plants.
I don't know that the power companies are patting their feet to build nuclear plants.
TVA brought Browns Ferry online last year, and is looking at finishing Watts Bar by 2013.
TVA brought Browns Ferry online last year, and is looking at finishing Watts Bar by 2013.
Neither is a new project.
I don't know how much of the lapse in construction of new nuclear power plants is licensing and how much is the power companies not pushing it.
Nobody is going to commit to billions in investment to have some weasel start a panic next week and get their licenses pulled and their money flushed down the tank. They need some guarantees that they will recoup investment. New plants should be gold mines though, the grid is really getting to have very marginal capacity.