25th Anniversary Of Three Mile Island

fbform writes "March 28, 2004 is the 25th anniversary of the Loss Of Coolant Accident (LOCA) at the nuclear power plant on Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania. It's a good time to reflect on the impact it has had on our nuclear safety policy and interface design in general."

Comments

Wikipedia articles on TMI

[Anonymous Coward]

Oblinks to related wikipedia articles:

Three Mile Island

List of nuclear accidents

Shame

[colinramsay]

It's a shame that incidents such as this have contributed to the overall bad image of nuclear power. There is still a lot of potential which will probably never be revealed because the public at large are scared of what could happen if something went wrong.

The truth is that modern techniques could probably make nuclear power an extremely safe alternative.

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[macarie]

Please read this: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/03/25/144123 2 for a story where Nuclear energy did horrible damage. The something goes wrong the public on a 300Km radius will suffer from it.

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[Anonymous Coward]

And with the high morale of companies these days, I feel quite secure. Also knowing that no goverment entity could ever be influenced by any companys private interests also helps.
Yep, and we all believe that it is completly impossible for anyone to attack any plant and cause any damage.

In any form, nuclear forces are way too powerful to trust to any human IMHO.

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[Anonymous Coward]

The truth is that modern techniques could probably make nuclear power an extremely safe alternative.

Especially pebble bed reactors.

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[AlecC]

On the point of making nuclear power stations safe, I agree with you. There are some designs around not for which the worst credible accident is really not that bad at all.

But there is still the waste disposal problem. Until we have a solution for the disposal of the higher-level waste that is in place and shown to be working, I for one will not be supporting nuclear powery.

I parsonally am not happy with long term repositories such as Yucca Mountain - too many unknowns. My favoured version was the subduction zone disposal - return it to the earth's core, which is used to it. Does anybody know why this disappeared off the map?

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[Anonymous Coward]

Ever heard of Murphy? Chernobyl? Apart from that, I'm sure you'll gladly offer to have them store the waste in your back yard.

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[Anonymous Coward]

The thing which I can not fathom about the American nuclear power policy is that they are encouraged to make HUGE reactors. (Had to look this up for nuclear physics class at one point) The US Navy has an almost perfect record with identical, small reactors. I conject that the safety part of the equation has been figured out. I persistantly wonder why it's a bad thing not to just use the design from a submarine and just put 12 of them in a row, all of the same design, and man them with ex-Navy personnel.

At this point, I'd put a dog on a treadmill generator to not have coal power though...or an ignorance-rutting politician. ;P

--degs at 68k dot org

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[coastwalker]

There has to be a continious re-evaluation of all potential sources of power whilst our fossil fuel reserves are being depleted. It is perhaps better that we discover the potentials and the pitfalls of nuclear power before the situation arises where there is no choice but to use nuclear power. We do now at least have the knowledge to advise the growing Chinese economy on the safest way to utilise it for example should they find the need for power outstrips the availability of fossil fuel.

Energy policy has a big impact on the environment if global warming is directly linked to the burning of fossil fuel. Nuclear power may ironicaly have a lower impact on the environment in the long term if we solve the problem of waste recycling. Radioactive materials are dug out of the ground so it does not seem impossible to put them safely back into the ground. Exhaustion of fossil fuel will automatically drive greater use of water wind and wave power but only policy will drive the use of technologically sophisticated power sources like fusion and nuclear power.

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[dfenstrate]

I'm guessing because it would take a very, very long time to dissappear, maybe longer than it would take to turn into safe material all by itself.

You'd have to ditch the radwaste casks in the ocean, where they might be prone to leaking in a harsh, high pressure ocean environment. I suppose if the radwaste is significantly heavier than the water so it won't float, and it can be dropped into a trench so any leaking has no chance of washing up, it would be a viable idea.

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[Zeinfeld]

It's a shame that incidents such as this have contributed to the overall bad image of nuclear power.

It is a shame that sloppy and incompetent management by the nuclear power industry has created an entirely justified bad image.

The big lie told about three mile island was that the design is 'failsafe'. As a matter of definition it is not, no light water reactor design is. Failsafe means that if something breaks it breaks in a safe way. Three mile island had redundant safety systems, that is not the same thing.

The truth is that modern techniques could probably make nuclear power an extremely safe alternative.

The truth is that the better designs of forty years ago could have made safe nuclear power. The CANDU heavy water system is genuinely fail-safe. The coolant doubles as the moderator. That means if you loose one you loose the other and the reaction is halted.

Today there are vastly better designs, like the pebble bed reactor that MIT and others have been looking at.

The real problem is not technical, it is political. The concerns about nuclear power are completely justified. The nuclear industry has lied and deceived in the past. In the UK there was a long history of accidents, coverups and blatant deception. The true economics of nuclear power only became apparent after the Thatcher government tried to privatise nuclear power. When the books were opened it turned out that nuclear power had been vastly more expensive than claimed - and there are still the costs of decommissioning the plants.

Research into new types of nuclear reactor are required for many reasons. Even the idiots who ignore global warming see that energy reserves are running low. If we do not start looking at better nuclear options now we may end up being forced into repeating the light water mistake.

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[john.r.strohm]

The truth is that modern techniques could probably make nuclear power an extremely safe alternative.

What do you mean "could"?

In terms of lives lost, damage done, or just about any other measure you care to name, provided you restrict yourself to a competent design, nuclear fission is ALREADY the safest power generation technology known to man. Read "The Health Hazards of NOT Going Nuclear" by Dr. Petr Beckmann.

The key phrase in that sentence is "competent design." One of the key parameters in any nuclear reactor design is the void coefficient, and, most particularly, the sign of the void coefficient.

From http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/basic-ref/glossary/v oid-coefficient-of-reactivity.html "Void coefficient of reactivity: A rate of change in the reactivity of a water reactor system resulting from a formation of steam bubbles as the power level and temperature increase."

From http://www.disenchanted.com/dis/lookup.html?node=1 748 "The 'voids' refer to pockets of steam forming in the reactor core, and a reactor is said to have a positive void coefficient if an increase in voids leads to an increase in reactor power. A reactor with a negative void coefficient is one which will see a decrease in reactor power as pockets of steam increase."

Briefly, if a reactor is designed with a positive void coefficient, it will inherently have a risk of a Chernobyl-style thermal runaway. If a reactor is designed with a negative void coefficient, it will not have that particular hazard. This fact was known to the Soviet reactor designers, who designed the RBMK reactor at Chernobyl (among other places), and was also known the US designers who wrote the US standards for reactor design. Positive void coefficient designs are flat-out illegal in the United States.

To do the safety analysis, you have to take, for example, black lung deaths of coal miners into account, and supertanker oil spill environmental damage. You also have to take into account the number of people who will, while attempting to install solar water heating panels on their roofs, will slip, fall, and break their necks.

If you want to prattle about radiation hazards, bear in mind that every lump of coal you burn, every drop of oil, every cubic foot of natural gas, contains some amount of radioactive carbon-14, and the ash (and emitted CO2) is thus radioactive waste. Ditto for wood. (Wood smoke contains other nasty things.)

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[Xaymot]

"There is still a lot of potential which will probably never be revealed because the public at large are scared of what could happen if something went wrong." Yeah, god forbid we weigh a resource by its past results. While we're at it lets re-inflate the Hindenburg. ... weeee i call shotgun....

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[john.r.strohm]

The truth is that the better designs of forty years ago could have made safe nuclear power. The CANDU heavy water system is genuinely fail-safe. The coolant doubles as the moderator. That means if you loose one you loose the other and the reaction is halted.

The statement "(t)he coolant doubles as the moderator" is also true of American light-water designs.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Because safety does not always trump economics.

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[Anonymous Coward]

But that would work only if they are actually 12 times as safe as large reactors.

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[Wiktor Kochanowski]

Just wait till the oil ends, or at least gets sufficiently scarce that Western middle class gets a choice: nuclear plants in the backyard, or having your 3000 sq ft home unheated in winter. Alternative energy sources will make you feel good, but as far as meeting demand, they are piddlyshit. Industrial civilization simply can't run on wind & solar alone.

Think it's decades away? Think twice. Oil production has been flat for the last five years or so, while consumption - driven by economic growth in India and China - keeps growing at 5-8% a year. Discoveries of new oil fields are at all-time low. How long do you think this trend can last?

Sure, oil companies and Saudi princes say there's no problem, we have plenty more. Meanwhile:
* U.S. invaded Iraq (WMD my ass)
* Shell downgrades reserves
* prices keep rising

Looks like nuclear plant engineer is going to be a job for the future!

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[Smidge204]

It's economics, really.

If nuclear reactors were mass produced, then making a "farm" of smaller units would make sense. But they are not. The navy uses small reactors because they have to fit into the boat and still have enough room for everything else.

So when building individual units - bigger = more power for your money. Economics. Plus, nearly all of the engineering work for building a regular plant has been completely worked out, which means you have a set of plans that you know works. Why fix what isn't broken?

Now, if you could come up with a way to build a modular nuclear station with cost-per-megawatt lower than a traditional plant, you might get someone to listen. Then you have to convince people that it's just as effective, which means getting someone to pay for the first plant wil be a challange. Once you've got your foot in the door it might be a little easier, though.
=Smidge=

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[Trurl's Machine]

I persistantly wonder why it's a bad thing not to just use the design from a submarine and just put 12 of them in a row, all of the same design, and man them with ex-Navy personnel.

Good idea, but it's already done. Many US power plants actually use reactors designed for submarines.

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[iwein]

I parsonally am not happy with long term repositories such as Yucca Mountain - too many unknowns. My favoured version was the subduction zone disposal - return it to the earth's core, which is used to it. Does anybody know why this disappeared off the map?

As i remember it the only valid reason not to put all nuclear waste in the Marianas trench is that environmental activists (yes the same that are against burning fossile fuels or taking down forests to put up windmills and solar panels) thought it was a fatally bad idea to put some hypothetical undiscovered creatures at risk down there.

Well i for one am scared to death of a mutated deepsea slug taking over the world but not as scared as i am to get my feet wet due to global warming (me livin' in the Netherlands and all).

To be absolutely clear i am not for building poorly controlled nuclear bombs (like Tsjernobil and TMI) but hey, that's sixties tech.... something better is probably available. Why not give it a go?

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[Dun Malg]

You'd have to ditch the radwaste casks in the ocean, where they might be prone to leaking in a harsh, high pressure ocean environment. I suppose if the radwaste is significantly heavier than the water so it won't float, and it can be dropped into a trench so any leaking has no chance of washing up, it would be a viable idea.

Isn't radiation in the ocean just the sort of foolish plan that results in disatrous consequences? I seem to recall seeing a documentary with Raymond Burr about nuclear tests in the pacific fifty years ago waking up a giant radiation-breathing bipedal lizard-thing that went on to stomp Japan. They eventually got the lizard to be their friend, but the damage was pretty bad. I don't think we can risk waking any more monsters.

Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.

Your sig is so very funny because it's TRUE! "I'm running down to the ATF for some beer and a rifle-- you need smokes or anything?" heh

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[Anonymous Coward]

No they aren't. As a Navy Nuke I can tell you that this is complete BS (btw, your article says was the prototype for future reactors, not actual naval nuclear reactors). There are many reasons why commercial power plants wouldn't use naval nuclear reactors, but the most obvious one is cost: a naval nuclear reactor, among many things, needs to be able to survive combat. A civilian nuclear reactor at the worst needs to be able to survive an earthquake.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Just wait till the oil ends, or at least gets sufficiently scarce that Western middle class gets a choice: nuclear plants in the backyard, or having your 3000 sq ft home unheated in winter. Alternative energy sources will make you feel good, but as far as meeting demand, they are piddlyshit. Industrial civilization simply can't run on wind & solar alone.

In the US, there is a huge amount of coal. Coal will become scarce long, long after natural gas and oil have gone by the wayside. It's too bad that coal (like biomass) is a very dirty fuel.

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[ohsoot]

The truth is that the better designs of forty years ago could have made safe nuclear power.

Our (US) current lightwater reactor design isn't too shabby either. If there had been no operators in the control room the day TMI happened, the plant would have protected itself. That's not to say the accident was due to 'operator error' though. The operators were recieving erroneous indication about the status of one of the valves. The issues brought up by the TMI accident have been addressed in all US plants.

I think another poster has already pointed out that your statement The coolant doubles as the moderator is also true of the US design. What bothers me more is your next sentence That means if you loose one you loose the other and the reaction is halted. Halting the reaction is not how you prevent a nuclear accident. It is only the first step. At TMI the reaction was halted immediately. To prevent an accident you must get water to the core to remove decay heat or the core will melt!

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[wulfhound]

Wind and solar, certainly not... extracting any kind of energy literally out of thin air is not going to provide any kind of long term solution, as the energy densities involved are rather low.

Now, tidal, wave, hydroelectric and hydrothermal power stations are a completely different matter. Yes, they are not without environmental consequences of their own, but the amount of power they can generate is much more substantial.

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[Anonymous Coward]

...bear in mind that every lump of coal you burn, every drop of oil, every cubic foot of natural gas, contains some amount of radioactive carbon-14, and the ash (and emitted CO2) is thus radioactive waste. Ditto for wood. (Wood smoke contains other nasty things.)

Well, yeah... but then again, wood in the fireplace is very romantic, and if I *might* lose a day of life when I'm 80 because I had an hour of sex in front of a nice warm fireplace today... heh, I'll take my chances :-)

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[Aglassis]

You said: "The truth is that the better designs of forty years ago could have made safe nuclear power. The CANDU heavy water system is genuinely fail-safe. The coolant doubles as the moderator. That means if you loose one you loose the other and the reaction is halted."

This shows the naivety of some people who are not nuclear scientists or reactor operators regrarding nuclear power. Let me give you a quick lesson.

A reactor can be in several operational states: shutdown, starting up, at power, or shutting down. During startup the reactor will in a state known as supercritical. This means that for every neutron that causes fission in a uranium atom, more than 1 will cause fission in others. This allows reactor power to increase. Once desired power is attained the reactor will again be made critical (where there is a 1 to 1 ratio). When you want to shut down the reactor you make it subcritical. All of this can be controlled by control rods (among other things).

Chernobyl blew up because they had an accident that made the reactor very very supercritical. Power increased until the core exploded, shutting it down.

Now here's the shocker: TMI-2 was shut down when it partially melted down. Control rods were fully inserted. This means that the fission reactons for the most part had stopped (though they would still be occuring at trillionths the rate that they occured while critical). So fission was not generating any heat.

So what partially melted and reorganized the core? Decay heat. When fission occurs fission fragments are the result. These fragments fall away from the line of stability, hence rapidly beta- decay. Obviously this is governed by thier half-lives and the resulting fission products from any fission are pretty much random (though there are statistical proportions). This means some products will have short half-lives, others long, etc. And most products will probably go through many beta and perhaps alpha decays before reaching a stable point. This means that decay heat will be greatest right after shutdown, but will decrease over time.

This is why TMI-2 partially melted down. The reactor was critical, it was shut down, but the decay heat wasn't removed, so the reactor melted. It could happen to CANDU just as easily if they lost the ability to remove decay heat (which is why loss of coolant or loss of pressure control casualities in nuclear plants are big casualities).

You said: "Today there are vastly better designs, like the pebble bed reactor that MIT and others have been looking at."

There is no design that magics away decay heat. Sorry.

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[The Analog Kid]

It depends which kind of coal you are using, if your using the cheap bituminous or lignite coal, than yes that coal is very dirty. However, if you "coke" the bituminous coal to remove the bitumen, it's pretty much just as clean burning as anthracite coal.

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[nyseal]

As an ex-nuclear machinist's mate aboard a US Navy sub I can tell you for a fact that the record is perfect. The 2 subs lost (Thresher & Scorpian) were not due to nuclear accidents. The original design and construction of the USS Enterprise included 9 reactors (9? whew!) in which 7 were subsequently removed. Each could power a city of about 250,000 people effectively. And by the way, most nuclear power plants ARE run by ex-Navy personnel. Most of them hire no one but ex-Navy.

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[Shurhaian]

From what I recall from discussions in high school and first-level-university physics(myriad sources that I couldn't possibly provide a bibliography for now), as well as casual discussions afterward(Grain Of Salt time), that alone wasn't Chernobyl's problem; they had removed the control rods from their housings, and when they tried to put them back in, they had warped and wouldn't fit. Whoops.

I make absolutely no attempt to deny that the void coefficient helped send the reaction through the roof, the heat from which warped the (removed) rods. Multiple errors(or instances of stupidity) went into that one.

Oh, and I'm amazed whenever I see a commercial for "clean American coal".

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[Anonymous Coward]

CANDU is also a breeder reactor that creates material that can be used in bombs, and was used as such by India and North Korea.

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[nyseal]

Returning it back the ground sounds nice, however the mined uranium needs to go through an 'enrichment' process to make it useable; same as weapons grade material. Uranium in itself is a fairly benign substance until humans get their hands on it, which complicates the equation. You can't just simply put the material back in the earth without repercussions. That's the problem. If feasible, that's why I like the whole fusion thing better...little to no waste. Ahh...pipe dreams.

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[deglr6328]

CANDU reactors are far from a panacea. Everything is a tradeoff here and CANDU reactors produce massive amounts of radioactive tritium waste in the heavy water coolant which is usually just dumped into the environment, unlike light water reactors. We'll always have these tradeoffs and compromises to deal with until we're able to do away with fission entirely and do some kind of sustained 'clean' fusion reaction like deuterium helium 3 which produces little neutron radiation. Don't hold your breath waiting for that though.

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[Melantha_Bacchae]

If all you saw was a "lizard" and Raymond Burr, then all you saw was a bad hatchet job. The real thing will be in a few theaters this spring and summer in the US. (Otherwise, I agree with you, Dun Malg.)

On March 1st, 1954, the US exploded H-bomb Bravo on Bikini. Radioactive ash fell on the Japanese fishing boat "The Lucky Dragon No. 5", and Bravo's nuclear hurricane engulfed Rongelap. Children played in the "snow", and then began screaming as it burned and poisoned them. The Japanese newspapers ran with the headline "The Second Atomic Bombing of Mankind".

On September 23, 1954, "The Lucky Dragon No. 5" radioman Aikichi Kuboyama died, the first victim of the H-bomb.

On October 15, 1954, Hurricane Hazel rampaged up the US east coast, up into the nation's capital. In its wake it left 95 deaths and over a quarter of a billion dollars in damages.

On November 3, 1954, with the sinking of fishing boats and the fury of a typhoon heralding his epiphany, the dinosaur god Gojira (Godzilla), Son of Bravo, God of the Atom, and King of Monsters appeared. Only the compassion of Emiko and the heroic sacrifice of Serizawa in his dedication to peace, could halt the rampage of the angry god.

Within a month of the 25th anniversary of Bravo, in the Silver Jubilee year of Godzilla, the Three Mile Island accident happened. As always, human stupidity was at least partly to blame.

It is now within a month of the 50th anniversary of Bravo, in the Golden Jubilee year of Godzilla. How many times does he have to tell you all?

Safe!?! Was Chernobyl safe? Maybe, until they turned off all the safety mechanisms to see what would happen!

Tokai? Well, if anybody qualified for the Phoenix awards, it is the idiots who invited the Godzilla crew over to film an attack on their plant, and then tossed out the safety measures while mixing a nice bowl of uranium and nitric acid. Gee, they couldn't wait for "Godzilla 2000 Millennium" to come out before having Japan's worst nuclear accident. (Toho took out the plant destruction footage and ran it in the next movie, set in 1966 when the thing was first built.)

Then there is David Besse, Ohio's very own Hole-in-the-Head reactor, holder of the distinction of America's 2nd and 3rd worst nuclear accidents. They are trying to restart it again. Last I heard, there were valve malfunctions. First Energy who runs the thing brought us the big blackout a while ago. Be sure to thank them for that.

Face it, nuclear plants aren't safe. Nuclear weapons can't be safely tested or used (Bush wants to do both). The world's only God of the Atom is only going to be your friend when you return the fire you stole from him. Until then, you have a gigantic, divine, and extremely territorial carnivorous dinosaur who is seriously mad at you.

What do you think all those Native American prophetic warning labels on sacred mountains located over uranium deposits were about? They told you so!

Shinoda: "Is Godzilla showing his hatred toward man-made energy?"
Godzilla: "Human! Impertinent! I rule the Atom!"
"Godzilla 2000 Millennium" (Japanese version)

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[Qacker]

"There is no design that magics away decay heat. Sorry."
Your wrong.

The pebble bed reactor shuts its self down if coolent is removed. The balls expand and move the fuel away from each other. The reactor cools and the balls contract and heat up again but if there is no coolent then they expand and reach an equilibrum. No coolent is needed as long as you don't want to use the power. If you need to run the turbines then of course coolent like He or N is needed.

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[Anonymous Coward]

No waste my ass! What do you think the neutron flux from the fusion reactor is going to do?

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[Anonymous Coward]

Waste disposal is the big Bad for nukes. The subduction notion , I think, went by the wayside because it was unpredictable-imagine the volcano spewing cobalt, plutonium and the like.

Proliferation is the other problem.

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[Aglassis]

You said: " The balls expand and move the fuel away from each other. The reactor cools and the balls contract and heat up again but if there is no coolent then they expand and reach an equilibrum. No coolent is needed as long as you don't want to use the power"

You are aware of the processes of creep and swelling right? A pebble bed reactor is not designed for the pebbles to swell. It is designed for them to be strong enough to prevent and fission product gas release under any planned accident condition. This makes PBR's very safe. But if there is a loss of coolant casuality, the reactor fuel is useless afterwards due to creep and swell.

You assert that the balls will expand and contract. This isn't their purpose and if they did they would breach the pressure boundary.

Many articles on the internet assert that the pebble bed reactor will be able to cool itself down prior to melting of fuel. How is this done? The MH-GTR, for example, uses natural circulation air cooling. Other reactors suggest ideas vaguely similar to ECCS (where has something similar failed before--oh yeah TMI). They also assert that since the PBR's have a larger surface to volume ratio, they will be able to cool down easier. Of course what they don't mention is that a PBR is going to use a gaseous coolant like CO2 or He, and for that coolant to be useful it must be at a higher temperature than conventional PWR's are run at. What's the big deal about this? Well if the pressure vessel ruptures and exposes the PBR to the environment (many PBR's are not planning containment structures because they believe they are so safe) and temperature rises high enough, both hydrogen gas will develop due to airborne H20 and the graphite will burn if a pebble has defects. Lets not forget Windscale and Chernobyl on the effects of what a graphite fire in a reactor can do. If this occured it would be catastrophic. And before you say defects are unlikely, a rupture of a pressure vessel causing a loss of coolant casuality would be a violent event, as well as a hydrogen fire.

One thing I do think about PBR's is this: they are extremely safe reactors if they have both natural circ. air cooling and a containment structure pressurized with N2 gas.

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[Ironsides]

Actually, most people running nuclear reactors ARE ex-Navy personel. After they serve there years in the Navy, they are EXTREMELY employable at the power plants due to their level of training and experience. And these guys probably get at least $100k per year at a reactor plant, more that double what they get in the Navy when they retire.

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[coastwalker]

Fusion reactors produce radioactive waste. Waste could be locked into more stable materials at high dilution levels making transportation more paletable, these materials could then be placed into the lithosphere in stable parts of tectonic plates or more controversially into seabed subduction zones.

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[Alioth]

There is still the disposal problem for coal, too (mercury contamination in the ocean's fish, acid rain, smog) which is long term. At least with nuclear power, it's possible to lock down the waste into a small, known area. Burning dead dinosaurs spreads the contamination with the wind.

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[gemtech]

I put three-mile island in the same catagory as the Hindenburg: whenever the news media writes about hydrogen power (in any form), they always have to mention the Hindenburg. Same thing with nuclear power and three-mile island. That drives me crazy. The first viewing of the reactor at three-mile island was provided by radiation-hardened cameras provided by the company that I was working for at the time: Diamond Electronics (Ohio). Until the general population is educated (not likely) about how far we've come with fail-safe controls, we're doomed to not use nuclear generators for electric generation. If course, I would NEVER use a PC operating system for controls, not even Linux. The controls should be a whole bunch of independant control systems (less than 4K of code each), all tied together in a triple redundant scheme. But then I'm an old embedded software guy.

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[magarity]

subduction zone disposal - return it to the earth's core, which is used to it. Does anybody know why this disappeared off the map?

Because the best subduction zone on the planet is the Marianas Trench off the east coast of Japan. And we all know why dumping radioactive material off the coast of Japan is bad.

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[avoisin]

Yucca Mountain has too many unknowns? How about this - we have already set off over 500 nuclear test explosions in that mountain range, yet that somehow seems to not be an issue. Nuclear detonations are far worse than your everyday waste, and the range has clearly shown it can handle that.

Oh, that and 20 years of scientific studies to back up those claims with detailed analyses of thousands of rock/soil samples ...

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[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>But there is still the waste disposal problem.

It's very poisonous but there's not that much of it. As long as the dangers are less than the dangers of other technologies and less than the dangers of not having electricity then fission is the prudent choice.

Incidentally, mercury is toxic forever and coal plants are disposing of it in people's lungs.

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[eofpi]

Pebble-bed reactors are supposed to be significantly cheaper, because they require a much less extensive containment structure, and are reportedly more efficient than traditional nuclear reactors.

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[Chalex]

Parent should not be (+5, Interesting) but (+5, Informative). It is a fact that nuclear power is very safe. The people that think it's dangerous are the same people who think flying in an airplane is dangerous, but are perfectly willing to drive places.

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[Phronesis]

I am a little skeptical of your estimate of the generating capacity. Peak power demand for a modest city is about 2 kW per person, so a power plant would have to generate 500 megawatts to supply a city of 250,000. Each unit at Three Mile Island had a capacity of about 800 megawatts. Are you saying that each power plant on the Enterprise is more than half the size of Three Mile Island?

Also, with all your confidence in Navy machinists' mates, I wonder how all those well-trained ex-Navy personnel allowed so much corrosion to attack the reactor vessel head at the Davis-Besse plant. According to the NRC, it was because they were not adequately trained, supervised, or audited.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Not to pick but as a former MM on the Enterprise she was originally designed, and currently contains 8 reactors. All Nimitz class carriers contain 2 reactors.

You are correct that each reactor could power a small city. The prototype I attended in Idaho at the INEL (now INEEL) actually supplied power from the A1W and S1W reactors to a small local city. The power companies did not like this and had congress stop this in the 60s.

Additionally, as of this posting, no one has mentioned that the Navy's reactors contain highly enriched reactors. It would be cost prohibitive for civilian reactors to enrich their fuel to the levels of the USN.

BTW I am posting anonymously due to mod points that I have all ready doled out on this thread. I post as Yazheirx

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[Anonymous Coward]

Naval reactors use weapons grade plutonium. It's VERY expensive, and is used primarily to keep the mass of the fuel down.

There ain't a single power plant that uses plutonium.

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[Anonymous Coward]

And by the way, most nuclear power plants ARE run by ex-Navy personnel.

Including TMI at the time of the accident. Seriously.

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[Zeinfeld]

This shows the naivety of some people who are not nuclear scientists or reactor operators regrarding nuclear power. Let me give you a quick lesson.

Yeah, yeah, I have a doctorate from Oxford Univ. Nuclear Physics Lab. Where is yours from? I have also worked as a control engineer.

From your tone you sound like an ex-nuclear power employee who just has to spend their time writing self-justifications on the Internet. Sorry, you have no more credibility with me than the rentacops who used to do airport security here in Boston before 9/11. You guys screwed up real bad, you lost the public trust, that is because you deserved to.

You might be correct in claiming that it would be possible to design a safe PWR. I don't care, if anything that looks like a PWR is built it will be run and staffed by the same discredited establishment that gave us Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.

I think the public has it wrong, nuclear power deserves a second chance. But no, the nuclear power industry does not.

Re:Shame

[Brandybuck]

Another economic factor you didn't mention was the fixed political cost of constructing a reactor. If it takes ten years (as an example) to get the necessary paperwork processed to build a single reactor, you tend to favor large reactors over multiple small reactors.

Re:Shame

[Sevn]

As someone that grew up in Pennsylvania during the TMI incident about 10 miles away from TMI, I can sum the whole experience up like this:

Local TV: downplay, downplay, downplay
Local Radio: downplay, downplay, downplay
TMI PR People: downplay, downplay, downplay
Local Govt: downplay, downplay, downplay

Walter Cronkite gets on TV and says:
"The citizens of central Pennsylvania are in grave danger"

All fucking hell breaks loose.
The truth comes out.

That pretty much sums up what I remember.

Re:Shame

[Dravik]

All of our plants were built over 20 years ago. They have improved the process since then to really reduce the half life. If I rember right, the newest tech has the time between use an no loger dangerous below 150 years.

Re:Shame

[aeryn_sunn]

Why not take the waste and send it hurling toward the sun? I understand that there are probably issues with a possible shuttle or whatever type of space vehicle we have crashing before getting out of the earth's atmoshpere...but, if sending waste into space was safe, would other issues would there be? Let's get the waste off of Earth...if it is feasible

Re:Shame

[Artifakt]

Carbon 14 is something that needs to be taken more seriously than it generally is. C 14 decays to nitrogen, so its stable decay endpoint is chemically different. How much chance is there of a single C 14 atom's cauasing a mutation if it decays inside a living creature? The answer is frequently treated as not a lot, compared to the stuff we've been calling really dangerous, like Plutonium, right?
Wrong. Since the DNA molecule has a carbon based backbone, the chance of a C 14 decay causing a mutation is 100%, IF that particular C 14 is in a DNA molecule (and in trillions of your and my cells, it is). Unless you can raise an organism on food containing only isotopically purified Carbon 12 sources from conception, there's not much can be done about this.

Re:Shame

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, that is entirely possible, considering the Reactors on the ship I was stationed on were both 300MW.

Re:Shame

[citdude]

Better yet, put a dozen of these small reactors on a boat so that they can move to whereever the power demand is highest (say, California) and then no one would have the not-in-my-backyard arguement because they wouldn't be permanantly in one place. Just a thought.

Re:Shame

[Jru Hym]

I searched vitrification in Google and got this site. It's informative (if not biased) and contains info on waste management.

Re:Shame

[RollingThunder]

Why wouldn't you just call it "one plant", and have ten smaller reactors on the site, all covered by the one application?

Re:Shame

[Anonymous Coward]

You sound vaguely familiar to these people. Recommend you read this so you can understand your phobias.

Re:Shame

[Aglassis]

You said: "Yeah, yeah, I have a doctorate from Oxford Univ. Nuclear Physics Lab. Where is yours from? I have also worked as a control engineer.

From your tone you sound like an ex-nuclear power employee who just has to spend their time writing self-justifications on the Internet. Sorry, you have no more credibility with me than the rentacops who used to do airport security here in Boston before 9/11. You guys screwed up real bad, you lost the public trust, that is because you deserved to."

Wow. Being that you have a doctorate from Oxford I would have assumed that you would realize that personal attacks during arguments don't win the arguments. They only distract people from the points. Only the truth will win an argument, and if it comes from a trashman or Neils Bohr himself, it doesn't matter.

As a person who has a doctorate in nuclear physics how could you miss that the CANDU reactor, just like every other nuclear reactor is going to produce decay heat? TMI's core damage all occured after the reactor was scrammed, so how would getting rid of the moderator have helped?

Are you trying to say that the CANDU reactor can't have a temperature induced runaway reaction? Big deal, it's not the first reactor with a negative temperature coefficient of reactivity. And any water moderated reactor will have a negative void coefficient, so I don't see how CANDU is that special. CANDU is a neat reactor, don't get me wrong, but its hardly failsafe. It has a pressure vessel: brittle fracture and the game is over. If it ejects a control rod and goes prompt critical, the fact that it can dump its moderator isn't going to save it. It'll still blow up because heat transfer to make gas bubbles in the moderator will take too long.

Ok, since noone has told you, here's whats special about heavy water: its nucleus doesn't have excited states so it doesn't resonantly absorb neutrons. Since H-1 will, deuterium will be a better moderator. This is pretty much required in low enriched plants like CANDU. Any plant with significant enrichment will use light water or graphite as a moderator because it is far cheaper. Just putting it in your plant doesn't work as a magic potion to prevent meltdowns.

You also said: "You might be correct in claiming that it would be possible to design a safe PWR. I don't care, if anything that looks like a PWR is built it will be run and staffed by the same discredited establishment that gave us Three Mile Island and Chernobyl."

TMI? That was 25 years ago, all those people have retired. Chernobyl? You understand that the lobbying group for nuclear power was not the same in Soviet Russia as it was in Capatalist USA, right?

Re:Shame

[Zeinfeld]

Anonymous Coward writes: You sound vaguely familiar to these people. Recommend you read this so you can understand your phobias.

The links in question connect to people who live near to TMI and were affected. I think that calling people who have been lied to and betrayed as they have 'paranoid' or 'phobic' is disgusting.

As I keep saying, look at the people, look at the tactics. It is possible that they are merely trolls or agent provocateurs from greanpeace, but I doubt it. It was exactly this type of attitude, that the only reason someone would doubt nuclear power would be if they were an imbecile that causes me to not trust them.

None of the profs I at any of the labs I have worked with would endorse your position. Even Teller, who I never met but was frequently compared to (for proposed applications, not insight into physics) would not endorse your position. You are asking for blind faith.

I am a scientist, blind faith is something I try to eliminate.

One final point. The worst effect the nuclear mafia had on energy policy was their ruthless campaigns to kill studies of 'alternative energy'. When I visisted Rutherford Appleton Labs the folk there were very upset about the way Salter's duck, a promising wave power technology was sunk by outright deception by the fanatically pro-nuclear 'review board'. They could not even bear to see the idea of alternative energy sources being examined. When the true costs of nuclear power came out during the privatisation fiasco it turned out that Salter's duck would have produced energy at half the real cost of nuclear - even with the ridiculously inflated costings used.

Re:Shame

[Vellmont]

I wouldn't say exactly perfect, unless you don't have a problem with dumping out radioactive waste.
There's 7 incidents we know about. Given the secrecy of the military who knows if there's more that we don't.

from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_disaster

1954 - The submarine USS Seawolf (SSN-575) scuttles an experimental sodium-cooled reactor in 9,000 ft (2,700 m) of water off the Delaware/Maryland coast. At 33 kCi it's likely the most radioactive single object ever deliberately sunk, and has not been retrieved as of 2003. The reactor had problems with corrosion from the coolant, and was replaced by a conventional light-water reactor.

October 1959 - One killed and 3 seriously burned in explosion and fire of prototype reactor for the USS Triton (SSRN/SSN-586) at the United States Navy's training center in West Milton, New York. The Navy stated "The explosion was completely unrelated to the reactor or any of its principal auxiliary systems," but sources familiar with the operation claim that the high-pressure air flask that exploded was to feed a crucial reactor-problem backup system.

1961 - The USS Theodore Roosevelt (SSBN-600) attempts to dump the depleted resin from its demineralization system (used to remove dissolved radioactive minerals and particles from the primary coolant loops of submarines). The ship is contaminated when wind blows resin back onto the ship.

December 12, 1971 - In the Thames River near New London, Connecticut, radioactive coolant water is being transferred from the submarine USS Dace (SSN-607) to the submarine tender USS Fulton when five hundred gallons are spilled into the river.

1975 - The USS Guardfish attempts to dump the depleted resin from its demineralization system (used to remove dissolved radioactive minerals and particles from the primary coolant loops of submarines). The ship is contaminated when the wind blows resin back onto the ship. This type of accident is fairly common (see 1961).

October-November 1975 - While disabled, the submarine tender USS Proteus discharges radioactive coolant water into Apra Harbor, Guam. A Geiger counter at two of the harbor's public beaches showed 100 millirems/hour, fifty times the allowable dose.

May 22, 1978 - Aboard the USS Puffer near Puget Sound, Washington, a valve was mistakenly opened, releasing up to 500 gallons of radioactive water.

Re:Shame

[Zak3056]

Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.

That is downright hysterical. Your "Fans" list now has a new entry.

Re:Shame

[enronman]

Commerical power plants use a uranium that is of a lower enrichment level than that of what you would find on a military grade plant. Enrichment costs a LOT of money to do. The military buys performance, not low cost. Highly enriched military grade materials come a lot closer to bomb grade material than I think a goverment wants to put into private hands.

Re:Shame

[Lars T.]

What about this?

Re:Shame

[slashdot_commentator]

Nuclear power is very safe if you live in a perfect world. Risk analysts hired by the nuclear industry and the federal gov't have determined that nuclear power is very safe when compared to the other rates of fatalities. That doesn't make it "safe". It just may mean that the western world hasn't built enough nuclear reactors to statistically determine that those analysts are correct in their conclusions. Also part of their determination of what is "safe" includes factoring in the probability a nuclear meltdown near a major city, and determining that the fatalities generated would "still" be less than the fatalities generated by other forms of power generation over the same unit of power/time. I'm sorry, my perception of catastophe has not changed if a nuke plant irradiates New York City and it still ends up being less people dead than coal miners in West Virginia per unit of power.

More important, there are numerous reported incidents of the nuclear industry and federal government overtly lying to the public in order to make them more manageable or minimize their exposure to liability. Tragically, its my unshaken faith in the incompetence and venality of human beings that make me conclude nuclear power is unsafe, not the engineering facts.

Nuclear power plants are unsafe, not because of limitations in engineering safety, but because they are implemented and run by human beings.

Re:Shame

[mpe]

The thing which I can not fathom about the American nuclear power policy is that they are encouraged to make HUGE reactors. (Had to look this up for nuclear physics class at one point) The US Navy has an almost perfect record with identical, small reactors.

Maybe it's cheaper to make one large reactor than a set of small ones...

Re:Shame

[mpe]

So when building individual units - bigger = more power for your money. Economics.

Which presumably offsets the costs involved with fueling the reactor. In order to replace the fuel in a reactor you need to shut it off and have it cool down (both in terms of heat and radio-isotopes).

Re:Shame

[mpe]

CANDU reactors are far from a panacea. Everything is a tradeoff here and CANDU reactors produce massive amounts of radioactive tritium waste in the heavy water coolant which is usually just dumped into the environment, unlike light water reactors.

If the plant can separate the tritium from the duterium why throw it away? Considering that it might come in useful for building hydrogen bombs.

Re:Shame

[Anonymous Coward]

the problem isn't the toxicity of the waste, its that nobody can go near it for billions of years.

How do you make a building that will be safe for billions of years. I mean, look at human history... we have a hard time figuring out what exactly happened 1000 - 2000 years ago. Forget a billion or two!

Re:Shame

[Smidge204]

Same thing with the pebble-bed reactor idea: prove to me, the guy (or municipality) paying for it, that it works.

Since one has never been built, it's unproven technology. Not many people are willing to piss away hundreds of millions (or even billions) of dollars on unproven technology, especially one that, if *anything* goes wrong, becomes a public relations nightmare... like, say, a nuclear reactor. There's so many unknowns, too: Actual building cost, maintenance cost, actual lifecycle, ect. You can do all the math you want but the proof is in the metal. That just makes it more of a gamble.

Why do you think Toshiba wants to give it away? If you don't have to pay for it it becomes a more appealing offer. If it pans out, Toshiba "gets its foot in the door" in the small reactor market and others will be more willing to invest. Good luck to them, I say.
=Smidge=

Re:Shame

[tigersha]

Because you have to park that load of radioactive waste on top of a tank of high explosives and ignite it in a semi controlled manner to get oti into space in the first place, maybe?

Remember Challenger, Ariane and a boatload of other rockets that went kaboom!

there's a lot of nuclear ooopsie stories of late.

[msim]

It's always educational to read about these things. Like i linked from the slashdot story about the bike chick and read about deep sea fishes, the stimeline of the events, and also got some very insightful comments too.

Let's see what arises here.

I'm feeling fortunately the only thing nuclear anywhere near me is a research facility that's used to make medicine.

Stop and pause

[blankmange]

With the posting of the Chernobyl story yesterday, this should make some of us pause and think about what could have been...

Re:Stop and pause

[jeffy124]

Chernobyl was a completely different animal to TMI. Operators at the plant brought that disaster entirely upon themselves. They were doing an "experiment" to see what the minimal resources were to keep the plant operating, overriding automatic shutoffs and other alarms in the process. Eventually, they overrode one alarm too many.

TMI was much more of a true accident. A valve malfunctioned to start the whole thing, something that didnt require a direct human action to occur.

Re:Stop and pause

[BigDumbSpaceApe]

Makes me kinda optimistic towards the possibilities (of reducing the dependence on fossil fuels)... I mean 25 years, thats a third a lifetime without any major accidents (that i know of )...

I have probably spent most of my life within 20 miles of the FERMI II plant in Monroe, MI without even giving it a thought.

Re:Stop and pause

[Anonymous Coward]

With the posting of the Chernobyl story yesterday, this should make some of us pause and think about what could have been...

Exactly: I'm wondering what might have been if the Soviet Union had the standards as good as the US for safety, especially regarding basic reactor design.

If the Chernobyl plant had been designed as well as TMI's was, then even with the appalling mismanagement of the plant, the accident would not have had a significant affect on anyone outside the facility itself. Thousands of lives would not have been lost.

And in fact, much tha same can be said for other Soviet industrial practices. Safety of the workers, the nearby population, and the environment were routinely ignored in the Soviet Union. The track record of capitalism-with-some-regulation is far, far superior to that of any communist system that has been tried.

Re:Stop and pause

[Anonymous Coward]

25 years, thats a third a lifetime without any major accidents (that i know of )..

...in America.

Re:Stop and pause

[djh101010]

With the posting of the Chernobyl story yesterday, this should make some of us pause and think about what could have been...

Very true. It allows us to realize how fortunate it is that our engineers rejected the open-pile design which caused Chernobyl to be so dangerous. It also makes me thankful that, due to the skillful design, the TMI incident is a disaster only in the terms of public-relations among those who don't understand, or want to understand the science.

I don't think that anyone who isn't rabidly anti-nuclear power would consider these to events to be anywhere near equivalent. It says a lot for the systems that, despite the chain of human and mechanical failures, the incident at TMI was limited to such a small environmental impact. That wasn't by luck, it was by design decisions, choosing a much safer way to use nuclear energy to create power.

Bringing Chernobyl into the context of TMI shows that the person doing so either doesn't understand the science, or is trying to use fear of Chernobyl to convince others who don't understand the differences.

Re:Stop and pause

[Almost-Retired]

Yes, but without that direct human action in the form of interference with the automatic systems, TMI would still have been nothing more than a valve repair for the maintainance people. The automatics were working just fine till some shithead turned it off.

Cheers, Gene

Re:Stop and pause

[Anonymous Coward]

...and Europe's quasi-socialism is even better. :p

Re:Stop and pause

[mfarver]

The parent is correct.. if worded badly.

TMI was a case of automatic safety systems being overrided by undertrained human operators. As the story paragraph mentioned, TMI was a stark lesson in control systems design.

In the control room the operators had no feedback about how much water was in the reactor core, just one gauge showing the level of water in the pressurizer tank near the top of the system. When a valve near the top of the pressurizer stuck open (referred to as the PORV or pressure operated relief value) the steam that normally kept the water near the bottom of the pressuizer tank started leaking out. More water flashes to steam.... and TMI is now losing water. The operators saw the opposite, the water level was rising on the level gauge for the pressurizer and they started reducing and eventually draining water out of the system thinking some malfunction was causing water to be introduced. None of the operators was able to step back from the initial theory that water levels were rising, despite large amounts of contradicting information. (Hours into the incident an off-duty operator arrived and with a fresh set of eyes figured out what was happening)

There are a lot more things that went wrong that night... (the initial shutdown was caused by water accidentially getting into the compressed air supply for the pneumatic control systems in the steam room, a valve closed at the wrong time and burst one of the steam lines to the power turbines)

TMI is a fascinating example of how multiple redundant systems still can fail, given a long string of "coincidences" One can argue that failures of this type are like winning the lotto, their is little chance of it happening on on particular day, but given enough days it is certain to happen to someone. Hence the need for "fail safe" designs.

Re:Stop and pause

[phillymjs]

...this should make some of us pause and think about what could have been...

Indeed. I was only 5 when TMI happened, and while I don't remember hearing about it from my parents back then, I do remember hearing about it in 1986, when news reports of Chernobyl got them talking about the TMI incident and how worried they were in '79. Thanks to the west-to-east weather patterns, a meltdown at TMI would very probably have affected Philadelphia, 90 miles away. It would definitely have obliterated the state government, as Harrisburg is only 10 miles from the plant. I've had to go to Harrisburg a few times on business, and you can see the TMI cooling towers from the Turnpike. Even 20+ years later, the sight of them made me shudder a little.

If you want to see one author's take on what might have been, there's an old sci-fi novel called "In the Drift," set in an alternate Philadelphia of ~2079-- 100 years after the meltdown at Three Mile Island.

If you'd rather stay with this reality, PBS put out an interesting documentary on TMI.

~Philly

Re:Stop and pause

[Anonymous Coward]

Bringing Chernobyl into the context of TMI shows that the person doing so either doesn't understand the science, or is trying to use fear of Chernobyl to convince others who don't understand the differences.

Oh, we understand the science, but you all don't understand the dangers of big technology. I suspect that the majority of you who are whining about safe American nuclear power are under the age of 30. The anti-nuclear movement stopped the spread of nuclear power for many solid scientific and political reasons.

As should be evident, even the best designed technology will experience failures. The space shuttle is one of the most sophisticated machines ever developed. It has gone through extensive testing and we've seen many successful missions. Yet, we've lost two shuttles and human crews to "accidents," including the first one that could have been prevented. As Chernobyl showed, when big tech has accidents, it has dramatic impacts on humans and the biosphere.

Some of you make the laughable assumption that nuke power is safe because the designs are safe and Americans won't "experiment." This is a classic example of simplistic thinking about nucler power. How do you know that these perfect designs are based on well-constructed reactors? In fact, during the 60s, 70s, and 80s there were lots of credible accounts about contractors cutting corners and just bad construction. Nuclear power plants take a long time to construct because of all the safety factors. There is plenty of room for problems to creep into the system. Bad and corrupt contractors. Bad materials. Structural flaws that go unnoticed. When things go bad with big tech they go bad in a big way.

The health effects of nuclear power do exist. Americans like to downplay these dangers, because after all they've had been poisoning the population with radiocative fallout from nuke tests for over a decade. We know that the people who mined the uranium for all this nuke stuff developed serious health problems.

They stopped building nuclear power plants for solid reasons. Crack a book on the subject if you want to learn more.

Re:Stop and pause

[Simon Brooke]

It allows us to realize how fortunate it is that our engineers rejected the open-pile design which caused Chernobyl to be so dangerous. It also makes me thankful that, due to the skillful design, the TMI incident is a disaster only in the terms of public-relations among those who don't understand, or want to understand the science.

I don't think that anyone who isn't rabidly anti-nuclear power would consider these to events to be anywhere near equivalent.

I don't think anyone who isn't charmingly niaive would consider these events to be so very different. Ultimately it's all engineering failure, whether it's failure of a procedure or failure of a valve.

Very high concentrations of energy - any kind of energy - are extremely dangerous. The larger they are, the more dangerous. Nuclear power stations are very large concentrations of highly concentrated energy. Unless engineering is 100% perfect, sooner or later they'll blow, one way or another. Engineering is never 100% perfect.

Of course, this doesn't only apply to nuclear power stations. But the consequences of nuclear power station failure are more severe than any other category of civilian accident.

Re:Stop and pause

[HalfFlat]

But the consequences of nuclear power station failure are more severe than any other category of civilian accident.

No, that's simply not true.

Union Carbide in Bhopal: 3000 to 8000 dead; over 100000 injured.

Chisso Corporation at Minimata: mercury poisoning kills hundreds, with at least 3000 people afflicted.

The Grandcamp in Texas: Fertilizer explosion kills nearly 600; over 3500 injured.

Chernobyl: fewer than 100 deaths to date; fewer than 1500 known attributable radiation-related illnesses. Potential premature deaths due to excess radiation exposure estimated to be 3000, but we'll have to wait and see.

Nuclear power is dangerous, but there's a lot worse out there. Look up deaths attributable to coal-fired power plants sometime.

Re:Stop and pause

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Parent is both informative and insightful!

>undertrained human operators

The TMI investigation commission heard testimony from the man who ran the operator training program. He bragged about one of his initiatives. What was he proud of? Banning contractor engineers from teaching training classes. The operators did not have a deep understanding of how the plant worked.

>the operators had no feedback about how much water was in the reactor core
This is hard to believe but is exactly true. Apparently it's really difficult to design and implement a level indicator in the core. The operators had to guess by reasoning from other indicators, during an event which scrambled the usual interrelationships.

>None of the operators was able to step back from the initial theory that water levels were rising, despite large amounts of contradicting information.

Classic, classic, classic. This pattern shows up in just about every accident in a complex system. Humans are brilliant at extracting patterns from contradictory information, but at the price of continuing to believe that pattern when the weight of evidence goes against it.

>There are a lot more things that went wrong that night.

Notice how these things always happen at night? Second-string humans at the bottom of their biological cycles ran TMI, Chernobyl, and many other accident sites.

>TMI is a fascinating example of how multiple redundant systems still can fail, given a long string of "coincidences"

Or given rushed line workers and misdirected management. If a pile of oily rags catches fire and the extinguisher doesn't work, that's not two failures, that's one management failure. Poor management is hard to quantify, but you can measure some proxies for it. My dad is a retired chemical engineer, and one piece of wisdom from his field is that you monitor the number of minor accidents (spilled buckets, slips and falls, etc.). If that number starts going up, there's a disaster coming.

Yes, what you're thinking is right. This does all apply to computer security.

Re:Stop and pause

[Anonymous Coward]

Americans like to downplay these dangers, because after all they've had been poisoning the population with radiocative fallout from nuke tests for over a decade.

America has not had a nuclear test for over a decade. And has not had an above-ground nuclear test since 1962.

Re:Stop and pause

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>a disaster only in the terms of public-relations

I know what you mean, you're correct, but taking a wider perspective it was an economic disaster for the plant owners.

Re:Stop and pause

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>But the consequences of nuclear power station failure are more severe than any other category of civilian accident.

Dam failure in China, 80,000 dead.

You don't even want to think about worst-case failures of LNG tankers.

Re:Stop and pause

[djh101010]

Oh, we understand the science, but you all don't understand the dangers of big technology.

Oh wise and glorious anonymous coward, kindly educate us since you know so much.

I suspect that the majority of you who are whining about safe American nuclear power are under the age of 30. The anti-nuclear movement stopped the spread of nuclear power for many solid scientific and political reasons.

Fear, uncertainty, and doubt being the prevalant reasons, of course. Make people who don't understand the technology fear it by drawing false comparisons to dissimilar technology and it's failure, er, _for instance_.

Chernobyl showed, when big tech has accidents, it has dramatic impacts on humans and the biosphere.

Chernobyl showed that when a design is implemented that is fundamentally flawed, _and_ you add human mis-management and error, that problems can happen. My point was and is, that we don't generate power with that sort of reactor, and comparing it to TMI is deceitful at best.

Some of you make the laughable assumption that nuke power is safe because the designs are safe and Americans won't "experiment." This is a classic example of simplistic thinking about nucler power.

Actually, that's a classic example of a straw-man argument. None of us have brought up the point that you conveniently have a rebuttal for.

The health effects of nuclear power do exist.

They sure do. Something like 40% of all medical devices (and, well, everything else running on electricity) is powered by nuclear power, so the health effects are quite significant.

They stopped building nuclear power plants for solid reasons. Crack a book on the subject if you want to learn more.

Yes, the solid reasons were people who like the benefits of nuclear power, but were scared by people like you into believing that what happened in a different part of the world, in a different technology, and which _could not_ happen in an American nuclear reactor, somehow were relevant. It's a solid reason, but it's not a valid reason.

By the way, when your argument relies on the ignorance of your audience in order for it to succeed, suggesting that they "read a book to learn more" is counterproductive.

Re:Stop and pause

[BandwidthHog]

Chernobyl: fewer than 100 deaths to date; fewer than 1500 known attributable radiation-related illnesses. Potential premature deaths due to excess radiation exposure estimated to be 3000, but we'll have to wait and see.

Over 2,000 workers were brought to Chernobyl to bury the reactor core in concrete. Over 95% of them were dead within a week.

Before hitting submit I did a quick Google search to confirm this info that I recalled from a documentary I saw last year, and this source claims "5,000 relief workers died from injuries putting out fires and sealing the reactor"

Re:Stop and pause

[Artifakt]

1. Scale good "safe" windmill generation up to windfarms producing 100 Mw.
2. Model a 'loss of blade' accident, with the nearest large building being 10 full miles away from the wind farm.

Believe it or not, a piece of metal, the mass of a 747, tumbling end over end at 30 RPM and moveing at 600+ mph, is not something you want to have pass through your elemetary school (and as shrapnel after the initial contact, six blocks of brick buildings behind it).
That's not a worst case scenario. Worse is such a design within about the same range of a major city's high rise heart. Worse still is multiple timed/aimed blade failures, perhaps as a result of terrorism.

Re:Stop and pause

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>It allows us to realize how fortunate it is that our engineers rejected the open-pile design which caused Chernobyl to be so dangerous. It also makes me thankful that, due to the skillful design

The fact that a passive pile of reinforced concrete saved the day carries a lesson. Sometimes design paranoia and crude, low-tech measures can save the day when a disaster has busted through all your cleverness.

Re:Stop and pause

[HalfFlat]

That's in direct contradiction to documented evidence. Do note that some wildly inflated figures have been circulating, for which there is absolutely no support. Note that it is very much in the interest of Ukraine to promote very high numbers of casualties in order to obtain increased compensation from Russia.

Some links include a summary of other published work, the report from the UN IAEA, and a summary from a nuclear power specialist.

Regarding this specific point: from the 'executive summary' report on a recent conference organised by the IAEA on Chernobyl,

16. The mortality of the clean-up workers and the inhabitants of the contaminated areas does not exceed average mortality in the three countries.

Re:Stop and pause

[enronman]

Lng tankers are pretty darn safe. I spent a week with the guys at Llyods register who certify ship design safety learning about the ship design. I would gladly take me, my wife, and children aboad any tanker afloat today without worry.

Re:there's a lot of nuclear ooopsie stories of lat

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm feeling fortunately the only thing nuclear anywhere near me is a research facility that's used to make medicine.

Same here. Ah, Lucas Heights. What a frickin' danger zone.

Fusion

[PacoTaco]

Fusion power is the way to go. It's potentially much safer and can generate a ton of electricity without air pollution.

Re:Fusion

[AvantLegion]

It's also a great blend of jazz and rock.

Don't know about you, but the Mahavishnu Orchestra surges more energy in me than any power source could!

Re:Fusion

[AlecC]

Sure - when it happens. And yes, Iter is the next step on the way, and will show the technical possibility of fusion with net energy output. But it is a long, long way from showing the commercial feasability. It is going to be a long time before we have fusion power - and it is always possible that we will discover some barrier which means it will never be commercially feasible.

Re:Fusion

[jabberjaw]

However there is the itty bitty problem that it is not economical right now. IMHO pebble based reactors are the way to go until fusion becomes a viable option.

Re:Fusion

[Two99Point80]

The way to go where?

These folks would suggest first determining how much energy is really needed and in what form, then figuring out which source best meets that need. With this methodology, it is cheaper to reduce demand first, until efficiency improvements become more expensive than the life cycle costs of more power plants, then seeing which kind of power plant might be needed.

It's now out of print, but Amory Lovins' book "Least Cost Energy: Solving the CO2 Problem" discussed this at length and in detail. It was published maybe twenty years ago. Its principles are still sound... for those who care to listen, anyway.

Re:Fusion

[Anonymous Coward]

s/not economical /not possible /

Re:Fusion

[prandal]

Before we get all excited about fusion, we need to consider a few things.

The first fusion plants are likely to be deuterium-tritium reactors, not pure hydrogen-hydrogen fusion. Note the neutron flying off in the bottom left of that diagram. You'll end up with highly irradiated reactors. The University of Wisconsin did some engineering studies of these issues in relation to the UWMAK tokamak design, and came up with some quite sobering conclusions, published in Science in 1975 or 1976. Hydrogen might be abundant, but the materials which need replacing in the reactor on a regular basis might be in much shorter supply.

Re:Fusion

[prandal]

You stinking commie! Our society's all about greed and profligacy, not need!

(Tongue firmly in cheek)

Re:Fusion

[Anonymous Coward]

I much prefer perpetual motion machines myself.

Re:Fusion

[Cerv]

Gotta love that fusion. It shouldn't be much more than about fourty-five years until we start to see those babies in action. Three or four in every city and you can kiss blackouts goodbye. Well, unless the scary monster uses its laser=eye to turn them into wind turbines. That sucks.

Re:Fusion

[BandwidthHog]

Hmm, no comments yet about running down to the corner store to pick up a Mr. Fusion.

Wait, there's one, nevermind.

Question

[tomstdenis]

Now I'm not a nuklear engineer or anything but why don't they just build reactors underground? I'd imagine a 100m of soil on top would help [though probably not stop] a radiation leak of sorts?

Or is there something fundamentally barring this idea?

Tom

Re:Question

[AlecC]

Well, Chernobyl blew its 12 foot thick reinforced concrete lid far enough into the air to flip over. And all that heat has to go somewhere - you'd probably end up with a local volcano.

Then, when it all cools down, groundwater will get into it and spread radiation throughout the watershed. If it didn't boil of as radioactive steam first. Think of the problems if a reactor in the upper reaches of the Missouri explodes, and radioactive water contaminates the whole Mississippi-Missouri water system. Not fun.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Chernobyl blew its 12 foot thick reinforced concrete lid far enough into the air to flip over

Actually it ended up blowing it into space if I remember correctly, one of the few non launched pieces of space junk up there.

Re:Question

[dfenstrate]

You don't remember correctly. It's precariously perched on top of whatever is left of the reactor core. If it fell down, and they don't patch the holes in the sarcophagus around the plant, it could kick up enough dust to make the area glow a little more.

Which is why there's a 300km verboten zone around it.

Re:Question

[HeghmoH]

They more or less do build them under "ground", where the "ground" in this case is a great thickness of steel-reinforced concrete, which is exactly what did stop the radiation leak at TMI.

Re:Question

[Ironsides]

Cooling would be a problem. Those very large smokestacks you see producing a white cloud (steam, i believe), have to be somewhere. And at some point you have to have something above the ground, but you do have a point for burrying the reactor itself. Maybe put it in a smaller version of Cheyenne Mountain

Actually, on a side note, if a terrorist tried to crash a fully loaded 747 (the big ones) into a Nuclear Power plant, what would he hit? He could hit one of the smokestacks, but that wouldn't do much as they others should be able to take up the cooling load.

Or,better yet, does anybod that is not a nuclear engineer even know where the reactor actually is in a Nuclear Power plant?

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

does anybod that is not a nuclear engineer even know where the reactor actually is in a Nuclear Power plant?

No, and this is intentional.

Oh, dear God, no.

[James A. M. Joyce]

That would make things much worse in the event of a meltdown. The radioactivity has to go somewhere, and instead of being pelted into the air or lingering in and around the reactor it would wind up getting leached into the soil and causing massive contamination of any watercourses within a few kilometres, which would probably be even worse and slow down long-term dispersal of radioactive particles.

Re:Oh, dear God, no.

[dfenstrate]

It's radioactive particles that cause contamination of groundwater, not radiation. You could irradiate water all you wanted, and it wouldn't make a lick of difference to the people who drank it.

So the question then becomes to make the reactor vessel, associated piping, and the building strong enough to contain radioactive particles under worst case accident scenarios.

This we can do at groundlevel. (groundlevel, meaning near the surface. The top of the uranium fuel at my power plant is 40 ft below ground level, but still above the water table. And there's a whole lot of steel and reinforced concrete between the fuel and the groundwater table)

So why not put it below ground?
1. Cost.
2. No point, as there are other ways to contain the issue.

Oh little isle, of 3 Mile...

[AtariAmarok]

"Oh little isle, of 3 Mile. How still you make us die.
Above the town of Middletown, the glowing clouds scud by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth, the everlasting glow.
We'll all mutate, and radiate. And then we'll die, you know"

Re:Oh little isle, of 3 Mile...

[dfenstrate]

This was probably written by some pansy-ass literature major with too much time on her hands, no technical knowledge, and an activist bent. The kind of idiot who dresses up in pink and does interpretive dance to try to influence matters she hasn't taken the time to really understand.

How such horrible, idiotic poetry could be modded up is beyond me.

Incidentally, TMI's miniscule radiation release was projected to cause less than 1 extra death for the hundreds of thousands of people potentially exposed. INCLUDING THE PEOPLE WHO WORKED THERe, who would get the worst exposure.

Re:Oh little isle, of 3 Mile...

[dr bacardi]

Damn... try decaf.

It was modded as funny, not insightful (or inciteful, as you seem to have read it).

I mean, hell, I like nuke plants, and do have technical knowledge, don't own any pink clothes (and we won't even get the the dancing bit), and I *still* think it's funny.

Re:Oh little isle, of 3 Mile...

[AtariAmarok]

You forgot to accuse me of marching at the Seattle WTO protests carrying a 15' tall marionette puppet of a mongoose.

Re:Oh little isle, of 3 Mile...

[Anonymous Coward]

when i replied, it was modded insightful. Hence the style of my reply:)
-dfenstrate

Re:Oh little isle, of 3 Mile...

[Anonymous Coward]

ah, so goes the joy of moderation :) there should be an "inciteful +1" for good flame-bait anyway.

dr b

Re:Oh little isle, of 3 Mile...

[Artifakt]

"You forgot to accuse me of marching at the Seattle WTO protests carrying a 15' tall marionette puppet of a mongoose."

If you actually did that, post a link to the pictures. If you were writing poetry about TMI and doing interpritive dance at the same time, please try out for American Idol next iteration. You Rock.

Re:Oh little isle, of 3 Mile...

[Senjutsu]

Or it could have been intended to be what is, in some circles, known as a Joke.

Groundwater

[Amiga Lover]

Groundwater. Contaminated groundwater, and LOTS of it.

Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[wombatmobile]

I noticed recently that in Arizona so few people have clotheslines. It is 100 degrees and sunny for most of the year there, but most people still seem to dry their clothes in the electric clothes dryer.

That approach is not as common in Australia, where we take advantage of 100 degrees of sunshine to get our clothes nice and dry.

Are we weird, or what?

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[joelsanda]

Interesting - Austrailia must not have HOAs (Home Owners Associations) similar to those in the U.S.? My HOA policy is fairly forgiving on that piece: I can use a clothesline but it has to be a 'temporary' one that is taken down after it's use. Maybe I'll run a long extension cord from our laundry on the second floor of our house and put my dryer in the yard. Nothing in the HOA rules state running appliances can't be used in the yard! That way I can dry my clothes outside in the sunshine and still thumb my nose at the Kyoto Protocol. American Green ;-)

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are we weird, or what?

A little, yes, but that's just us :)

That approach is not as common in Australia, where we take advantage of 100 degrees of sunshine to get our clothes nice and dry.

I'd rather peg clothes out in sunshine and have a complete load ALL dry in fifteen minutes rather than wait for a clothesdryer, personally.

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's telling that this comment got modded as funny. We've been conditioned by Maytag and Kenmore and other appliance manufacturers that washers and dryers are better for clothers. There's also a very real discrimination against those who use clothes lines. "Whassamatter? You can't *afford* a dryer?"

By many US standards I am considered to have a very comfortable life financially. In my home country my family was considered very wealthy. But even though hanging clothes was considered a normal part of life before (i.e., even the "rich" did it, or rather, had the domestic help do it), over in the US people are so concerned with how "ghetto" this appears that homeowners associations actually ban clothes lines.

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[Anonymous Coward]

Arizona actually uses very little of the power generated by the Palo Verde nuclear power plant. We sell it to California to power their espresso machines. :)

As for drying your clothes outside, it fades your clothes very fast. It is hot and dry enough in AZ that all you need to do is put your clothes on a rack inside your house, and they'll dry while you are at work.

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[Anonymous Coward]

As for drying your clothes outside, it fades your clothes very fast.

Surely this is no worse than walking aroud outside. Not to say walking around a lot is a good idea during the summer, in Arizona...

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[ocie]

I notice that I get a lot more lint on my clothes when I dry them outdoors. Maybe I need a better lint filter on the washer.

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[Anonymous Coward]

The big difference is what happens next. After drying your clothes, you want to be able to put them on and walk around. After walking around in your clothes, you want to take them off and wash them. See?

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[henrik]

How come that in _free_ USA you are not allowed to do what you want on your own property? Sounds a lot like USSR to me...

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[Creepy Crawler]

Fine. Start strip-mining your property. Find out how much your neighbors love it...

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Fine. Start strip-mining your property. Find out how much your neighbors love it..."

Why not? As long as you don't pile stuff on their lawn and keep the noise down, it is not their business.

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[henrik]

Private Property. Trespassing On Your Own Risk.

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[mindstrm]

Those generally apply only to condo complexes? Strata developments? If you own your own house and property, you can generally have a clothesline outside, unless local by-laws forbid it.

A lot of people still live in homes where they don't need permission to paint their house from the neighbors.

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[Otter]

How come that in _free_ USA you are not allowed to do what you want on your own property? Sounds a lot like USSR to me...,

There are issues of law, like you can't kill off endangered species or open a business in an area zoned for residential use only.

Things like clothesline bans only come up in suburban "planned communities" where there's a block of 300 identical homes built at once. Often the sales contract binds you to abide by a homeowner's association rulebook, that can range from not unreasonable to idiotic. (There's an X-Files episode that deals with this issue, where Mulder and Scully have to fight the underground garbage monster. Sorry if that was a spoiler, by the way, but it _is_ a 10 year old show.)

But, I agree with you. I should buy a house where they'll tell me I can't plant strawberries? Never!

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[Marvin_OScribbley]

We visited Rockcliffe Mansiona couple of years ago. During the tour the group went through the basement, and the tour guides made the remark that, because the owners were rich, it was not proper for them to hang their clothes outside where everyone could see, so instead they had them hung in the basement.

So I'm thinking - the basement! It's already damp enough in a basement, and then to add all this additional moisture. I wondered how long it took the clothes to dry in such a cool moist environment. Later when we moved to a new house with a walk in attic I realized it would make the perfect place to dry clothes. The attic is easily the warmest place during the summer, having no roof insulation and full exposure to the sun. And being indoors the air quality is good, no worries about dust or smoke getting in the clothes.

For those of you concerned about the earth who have any indoor area that is large enough to hang clothes and which gets hot in the non-winter months, simply hang your clothes there when its hot, and when its cold vent the exhaust from your dryer through ladies' hose (aka panty hose) back into the house. Why waste heat during the winter or generate it unnecessarily during the summer?

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[big tex]

As for venting the dryer air back into the house -

we did that in college, had a fancy water-bucket filtration system (read: 5-gallon bucket and crapload of ducttape) that my chemical engineer roomie rigged up. Worked great, except for the smell.
When you do whites, the dryer exhaust puts a bleach odor back into the house.

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[nyseal]

It IS ghetto like....I don't want to see your underwear

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[autocracy]

Depends on where you live at... many communities (mostly more "exclusive" ones) create home-owner's associations where membership is established by changing the wording of your property deed to state that you will abide by its rules. From that point, restrictions can pop up in all sorts of weird manners.

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[TrippyZ]

Isn't that to stop the wind blown uranium particles from collecting on the garments?

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[wombatmobile]

Austrailia must not have HOAs (Home Owners Associations) similar to those in the U.S.?

It took ages for my friend from Arizona to explain HOAs to me. At first I thought he was talking about a kind of a vigilante action group. Here we just have a local council of elected officials that make up housing regulations.

They generally let people access the sun using ropes for the purpose of drying their washing.

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[henrik]

Okay.

But talk about spoiling the land by building so many identical houses. A house should be a piece of art, unique from all others. Otherwise residential areas look really bad.

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[Ironsides]

They aren't ellected, it is a voluntire group in the neighborehood that is establised when the neighborehood is created. Plus, after 20 years, the enitre neighboorehood votes to see if we still want to keep the Home Owners Association. At leat that is how it is in Northern Virginia.

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried drying my clothes outside in the sun several times and stopped when I realized the outdoor air makes it smell bad.

Mind, I didn't live in smoggy LA or New York either. It's all the other junk in the wind that does it. Pollen and other allergens.

Rather disgusting to wake up in the morning and put on a fresh shirt that smells like I've worn it outside already.

Similarly you might argue it's a waste of electricity to use a dishwasher especially if you don't set it on economy mode, but it's a much safer way to wash dishes because the heat gets strong enough to kill bacteria.

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[Anonymous Coward]

I noticed recently that in Arizona so few people have clotheslines. It is 100 degrees and sunny for most of the year there, but most people still seem to dry their clothes in the electric clothes dryer.

That approach is not as common in Australia, where we take advantage of 100 degrees of sunshine to get our clothes nice and dry.

Are we weird, or what?

Not weird at all. It is actually Americans that are the weird ones. They just don't give a shit about conserving power at all, but just do whatever they please to make their lives easier and do what they can to allow them to sit on their asses all day.

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[Dravik]

This is why I will never join a homeowners association. My land is mine. I didn't buy it as an investment, I bought it to live in. It's my home. If I have to join to buy the home, then I won't buy that home.

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[Dravik]

Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the beauty of HOA, it's a community action thing. If you don't like it, live somewhere else. Plenty of places without HOA.

No need for any sort of government elected officials to get involved. Let the people decide what they want in their neighborhood (the most local of communities).

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[rtaylor]

Maybe I'll run a long extension cord from our laundry on the second floor of our house and put my dryer in the yard.

You should see if you can suspend it in the air with ropes while it's running -- temporarily of course.

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[moxruby]

Similarly you might argue it's a waste of electricity to use a dishwasher especially if you don't set it on economy mode, but it's a much safer way to wash dishes because the heat gets strong enough to kill bacteria.

What is the hysteria over a few bacteria? I rinse my plates in cold water without soap until they look clean. They ARE clean!
If there's lots of grease, I use hot water and detergent if that doesn't work.
And you know what? I never get sick, and I use fuck all energy, way less water AND I don't pump the rivers full of detergents.
Don't try and justify your wasteful, lazy habits with some half-cocked health fear.

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[Anonymous Coward]

A HOA sounds good on paper. That is untill you get someone with a beef to settle. Then it gets UGLY.

You get cool interactions like
'so and so didnt do X, I do X all the time they should too'
They get themselves on the group. Which isnt hard becaus most people realize very quickly that their neighbors are petty and unorganized. So the worst of the lot usually ends up running the thing.
Well once they are on the group they can and DO bully the others into doing what they want. All it takes is one crazed looney soccer mom. Since her life is miserable she seems to make sure EVERYONES is.

Then for all the trouble all these people cause. Guess what?! You get to PAY for them to tell you off. Skiiiiiiip. It felt good telling my neighbor where to shove it when he didnt like how I was doing my lawn. If I had been in a HOA he could have made my life a living hell. Instead whats mine is mine whats his is his. And his 802.11b network is WIIIIIIDE open :)

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[Anonymous Coward]

I imagine such associations would be ridiculed. Trying to tell people what they can and can't do with their own houses - yeah right.

"Mate, you can't paint yer house that shade of blue. And that lawn needs a mow. And that roof has to go."

"Mate?"

"Yair?"

"Fuck off."

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[joelsanda]

ROTFLMAO. Wow, that's good. I could hook up a nice pulley from the second floor, and anchor it to the side-yard. Wheel the dryer out (on squeaky rollers attached the the ropes), dry the clothes, then wheel it back in at the end of the day.

I'm sure what will get them really angry, though, is for me to leave the ropes hanging from the window instead of pulling them in, with the dryer.

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[Anonymous Coward]

As opposed to the Europeans, who pretend that they don't give a shit what the Americans do, but 5 years later they'll change their lifestyles to play catch-up and act like they wanted to do it all along.

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[rsadelle]

Obviously this won't apply to everyone, but there is the problem of allergies. When I moved back in with my parents, it was during the big energy crisis and we were absolutely not using the dryer. When I wore my clothes that had been dried on the line, I developed red, itchy bumps. It took me a few days to figure out that it was an allergic reaction to the pollen that had collected on my clothes. (I'd never had this happen before, and I am on allergy meds.) My parents still use the clothesline, but I'm back to the dryer. (Or, occasionally, drying racks in the house, but I find that that takes a very long time and the clothes come out extremely stiff.)

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[jackbird]

Your agreement to abide by the assinine rules is irrevocably written into your deed to the property. The HOA is empowered to fine you whatever they want. Don't want to pay? They can take your house.

Now bend over.

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[jackbird]

Have your friends stopped coming over for dinner? That's 'cause they get the runny shits when they eat at your place on your 'clean' dishes.

Your immune system's used to the bacteria, but most people's arent. For god's sake, break out the dish soap for friends.

Re:Consequences of cheap nuclear power?

[moxruby]

Funny you should ask that. They don't get sick because by and large the dishes ARE clean.

If no when you wash, they certainly are when you next cook at around 100 degrees C ;)

Plates harbour next to no germs, if your worried about that I suggest you move into a bubble.
Then again, your probably not worried because you used a dirty computer mouse to post your comment...

too bad they stopped building them...

[DangerSteel]

I remember reading about nuclear power plants that were in the middle of construction when TMI happened. And then the projects went dead. Uneducated people were scared to let the plants be continued, ( in my best Hank Hill voice ) and those damn hippies needed to get jobs, and that's partly why we are way behind in providing power today. Witness events like the brownouts in California and the big power outage last year in the northeast U.S.

Re:too bad they stopped building them...

[necrogram]

One fact I picked up over the years is since TMI, no one's ever applied for a new permit from the NRC

Re:too bad they stopped building them...

[tilmanb]

> Witness events like the brownouts in California and the big power outage last year in the northeast U.S.

The power outage was imho completely unrelated to a lack of energy in the wires. Correct me if im wrong.

Honestly - did anyone read the Club of Rome publications on sustainable deveolpment -- or, ANYTHING on sd?

TMTOWTDI in dealing with a 'lack' of energy:
- try to cut down on energy use
- provide more energy
- ...

The very thing about sustainable development is that we are not to go 'back to the cave', but we are to use and develop our technology in a way that will enable future generations to live.

Re:too bad they stopped building them...

[XavierItzmann]

People do not realize that:

1) 80% of electricity in France is nuclear (Paris vacation, anyone?)
2) There is more radiation in the U.S. Congress due to its granite construction than is permitted outside a nuclear plant
3) If you take 4 cross-country airplane trips, you get more radiation than allowed at nuclear plants
4) If you live in mountains (Colorado) you also get more radiation, due to the altitude
5) Best estimates are for 325 long term general population deaths arising out of the Chernobyl radiation escape. Guess how many cancers due to oil/coal burning plants elsewhere?
6) Current nuke plant designs have a bias for automatically stopping the reaction at the slightest or even gravest out of spec situation. Imagine your car's engine designed to stop every time you rev up/speed/your dome light burns out.

Fact is, greenies have scared the public, we are currently poisoning our air with oil/coal power plants, creating thousands of new cancers every year. Thanks, tree-huggers.

Re:too bad they stopped building them...

[Jonas the Bold]

5) Best estimates are for 325 long term general population deaths arising out of the Chernobyl radiation escape. Guess how many cancers due to oil/coal burning plants elsewhere? Ummmm... Try 75,000. A whole city evacuated. Chernobyl cost the Soviet Union a ton in lives and health. It also cost it an entire city.

Re:too bad they stopped building them...

[Anonymous Coward]

Good point, because being evacuated from your home due to a reactor accident, and dying of cancer from inhaled particulates is the same thing, right?

Most Chernobyl evacuees can expect as long and happy a life as other people from similar regions in Russia and the neighbour states. Their exposure is relatively minor (less in most cases than my exposure during routine radiotherapy) and measures in place to reduce further contamination will keep it that way.

Very few people have died as a direct result of nuclear accidents [lots die in nuclear bombers that crash, or nuclear submarines that sink though], and at Chernobyl the worst is past, assuming that the million or so hectares currently ear-marked for long term exclusion remains that way for a long while.

And don't try to pretend that this exclusion zone is unique either. Huge swathes of uninteresting land all over the world is out-of-bounds because it has been mined, is full of non-radioactive toxic waste or has something else terrible wrong with it. This is a big planet, it will almost always be cheaper to rope off a few thousand hectares than to put people's lives at risks cleaning up.

Re:too bad they stopped building them...

[XavierItzmann]

The United Nation's World Health Organization says total 75 dead people as consequence of Chernobyl, as quoted in:

http://www.nirs.org/mononline/CONSEQU.HTM

Note NIRS is an institution with an incentive to exaggerate the situation (because then they get more donations), and even they admit this count! (Of course they also quote the Ukranian government, which stretches the numbers in order to get EU subsidies/gifts/loans).

And Chernobyl was a very old, very unsafe design way behind what is used in the U.S.

Would you stop flying because some Antonov or Ilushyn somewhere crashed?

Re:too bad they stopped building them...

[Anonymous Coward]

Fact is, greenies have scared the public, we are currently poisoning our air with oil/coal power plants, creating thousands of new cancers every year. Thanks, tree-huggers.

Yeah, that's it, anyone who's against nuclear power must be a tree-hugger. How about this, as an ordinary citizen, I have no confidence in either my government or corporate overlords from running a nuclear station safely.

Sure, it is possible and practical to run them safely. But when push comes to shove, corners get cut, shortcuts taken, nuclear wastes dumped. If there's a buck to be made, it'll be done.

Opposition to new technology isn't due to only to the misinformed. It is due to the public being lied to again and again and becoming increasing skeptical of any claims self-proclaimed authorities make.

Look at the Mad cow disease and the UK minister feeding his daughter beef as a publicity stunt. Look at journalists, scientists and doctors being brought or intimidated (they're human after all).

If you want nuclear power, stop blaming the tree-huggers and convince the public of fail-safe designs and appropriate public safety bodies independent from those running the plant who have the authority and resources to regularly audit the nuclear industry. Don't give me this self-regulation crap either.

What surprises me...

[James A. M. Joyce]

...is seeing how the fuck these accidents actually happen. Both Chernobyl and TMI seem to be based on a ridiculous chain of events fuelled by unfortunate coincidence, fallible mensuration equipment and human idiocy.

For instance, at TMI, there was a massive chain of events going like this (I'm taking this from the Wikipedia article). If any of these steps were omitted an accident never would've happened:

1. "The plant's main feedwater pumps in the secondary non-nuclear cooling system failed at about 4:00 a.m. on March 28, 1979"
2. "This failure was due to either a mechanical or electrical failure and prevented the steam generators from removing heat."
3. "First the turbine, then the nuclear reactor automatically shut down. Immediately, the pressure in the primary system (the nuclear portion of the plant) began to increase."
4. "to prevent that pressure from becoming excessive, the pressurizer relief valve (a valve located at the top of the pressurizer) opened."
5. "The valve should have closed when the pressure decreased by a certain amount, but it did not. Signals available to the operator failed to show that the valve was still open. As a result, the stuck-open valve caused the pressure to continue to decrease in the system."
6. "Meanwhile, another problem appeared elsewhere in the plant. The emergency feedwater system (backup to main feedwater) was tested 42 hours prior to the accident. As part of the test, a valve is closed and then reopened at the end of the test. But this time, through either an administrative or human error, the valve was not reopened -- preventing the emergency feedwater system from functioning."
7. "As the system pressure in the primary system continued to decrease, voids (areas where no water is present) began to form in portions of the system other than the pressurizer."
8. "Because of these voids, the water in the system was redistributed and the pressurizer became full of water."
9. "The level indicator, which tells the operator the amount of coolant capable of heat removal, incorrectly indicated the system was full of water."
10. "Thus, the operator stopped adding water. He was unaware that, because of the stuck valve, the indicator could, and in this instance did, provide false readings."

And so on and so forth. This is terrific shit. Seeing how many stages the thing went through just makes me glad this happened somewhere other than the decomposing USSR. With better engineering of measurement tools the whole thing would never have happened.

Re:What surprises me...

[Anonymous Coward]

With better engineering of measurement tools the whole thing would never have happened.
You have no idea buddy... take a look at the Presidential Report. Your above-included description lacks many other key elements that contributed to the factor. The failure that you list in (1) was most probably caused by cleaning the scrubber - the device that removes assorted crap from the incoming water into the secondary system. Unfortunately the scrubber regularly deposited large amounts of thick resin in the feedwater line. This resin is highly resiliant to chemical attack and needs to be cleaned away using a high pressure water hose. The control valve for the feedwater system works on pressurised air, and the cleaning process forced water and resin into the control system, resulting in a half open "8" (one of the valves, there's a complementary valve called a "12"). So the failure here was operational - Metropolitan Edison chose a poor method of cleaning.

There existed a secondary feedwater system, but unfortunately the operators had left the "8" of the secondary system closed (as mentioned in step 6). They didn't see the light telling them it was closed, as it was covered by a maintenance tag. If no stupid cardboard-tag based maintenancy strategy was used then they would have seen. The failure here was operator error/poor operational specification.

The operators didn't know that the PORV (pilot operated relief valve) was stuck open, and made assumptions about its behaviour. There was an emergency PORV-valve, known as a block valve. The operators didn't close this, despite the fact the drain temperature for the containment tank was over 2800 degrees farenheit, while normal operating temperature was in the range of 200. During a conference call with the senior Met. Ed. engineers they asked if this valve was closed. One of the operators said "yes", then covered the phone mouthpiece with his hands and shouted to the other engineer to close it. The failure here? Operator error and a terrible corporate culture that resulted in operators lying to senior engineers.

there's a shitload more problems with TMI, but to blindly say that this could have been solved by better engineering practice? No, you sir, are talking shit. A large number of the failings were operaional/human/organisational and outside the scope of any engineers ability to deal with.

Re:What surprises me...

[Anonymous Coward]

fallible mensuration equipment

what?

sounds disgusting, whatever it is.

Re:What surprises me...

[Mr. Underhill]

Number 5 to me is the real stinker. How fucking cheap do you have to be to not put a valve stem travel end switch on such a critical damn valve?

It occurs to me that if they had simply had that direct valve status indication, rather than just the command, none of this would have happened. For that matter they should have also had a flow meter on the pipe so they could directly measure how much water was leaving the reactor.. instead somebody else has to call them about standing water.

We put end switches on valves that could break a US $5K device if it breaks. If find their lack on a nuke reactor to be total unbeleivable.

Overall the amount of reactor status that they were expected to deduce from indirect measurements was just crazy. You'll never get switch board operator type people who will be able to navigate those kind of intellectual waters in a crisis. I wonder how many nuke physists could navigate those waters knowing that a mistake means their ass.

I'm just a lowly HVAC control guy. I would never trust my company to do nuke control. But, damn, even I could design a better control system than what I read about here.

Re:What surprises me...

[Mr. Underhill]

I disagree. Indirect measurement is no way to run a system. The kind of people you find willing to be an operator, wheter a nuke plant or an refrigeration plant are not going to be able to deduce the state of a system by analysising indirect variables. Engineers can, in the calm of an office, but I doubt they'ed do much better in a crisis.

That valve should have had direct status indication. That pipe should have had direct flow indication. Inferring flow from temperature is just shitty, particularlly in a nuke plant.

Re:What surprises me...

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a few differences. I would suggest that anyone wishing a good understanding of the incident read the President's Commission report on the matter. Let's be clear about one item: the reactor was only producing power through the usual means for the first eight seconds of the incident. The heat issues after that were due to secondary sources - radioactive decay of byproducts. The heat produced by this was about 6% of the reactor's normal output.

The conclusions are the part I find most important. While the accident began for technical reasons, human failures, particularly those of the operators and their training, were found to be the greater problem. For example, even lacking an indicator of the actual position of the PORV valve (they could only tell if power was being applied to its selenoid) they should have taken action due to the temperature being reported by a sensor on the pipe downstream of the PORV. Further, the statements made earlier about maintenance on the polisher (removes resin from the water) being a cause were considered possibly true. A valve in the polisher would permit water to leak into a pneumatic control line. This was a known problem that was ignored by the plant management. Finally, there is a note about a warning from Babcock and Wilcox, the plant designer, about the same problems that played into the TMI accident. This warning was given due to the investigation of a similar accident at another reactor. In that case, however, the situation was controlled quickly enough as to remain minor.

The report does indicate that there were times when parts of the core were not covered by cooling water and that it suffered damage as a result.

Re:What surprises me...

[AaronLawrence]

SUre. Still, I guess there is a lot of difficulty in designing things that work well under hard radiation....

Gotta call mom

[Triv]

My mother used to work for General Public Utilities (the company that owned TMI) and was at the plant during the accident - it's probably the cause of my glowing personality. (rimshot).

In all seriousness, if anybody has any questions they'd like me to pass on I'd be more than willing to. I'll post the answers here or in a JE or somewhere.

Triv

Re:Gotta call mom

[csirac]

I've never really studied this incident, so here are my questions probably already answered out there..

Not trying to blame the operator or anything - but what level of understanding/theory did they have?

Were they aware that it was possible for the water level indicator to give incorrect readings?

Was there any "manual" way for an operator to casually check (sanity check) proper functioning if they suspected a fault, or would that have required additional personell/procedures?

I guess being in the 1970s, there would not be anywhere near the number of sensors possible these days.. but surely these valves would have been wired up to the monitoring station?

- Paul

Re:Gotta call mom

[Anonymous Coward]

Does your pee light up the bowl when you go?

Re:Gotta call mom

[Anonymous Coward]

In line with the other questioner... Was there a water level indicator? It seems all the confusion would have been prevented with one simple instrument.

Were there cameras in the containment vessel (er, meaning the concrete reactor building, not the core itself) to alert the operators to the water blowing everywhere, or were they literally on "Instrument Flight Rules?"

Re:Gotta call mom

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>Was there a water level indicator? It seems all the confusion would have been prevented with one simple instrument.

If you mean inside the core, that wouldn't be a simple instrument. Water is moving through the core *fast*. Imagine every electric outlet in a city plugged into a heater, multiply by three because only a third of the heat energy gets converted to electricity, and imagine all that heat in a vessel maybe 22 feet wide and 24 feet high. An emergency shutdown only drops that power level by a factor of 20 or so -- right after shutdown, fission fragments are breaking down and generating heat at a significant rate.

Besides the turbulence, any sensor would have to cope with 1500 psi pressures, temperatures of over 500 Fahrenheit, and a radiation level that can damage inorganic materials.

Any nuclear engineers out there? Are there fuel-damage sensors that monitor activity levels in the primary coolant to check for elements rupturing? Is there any chemistry that happens during an overtemperature transient that you could monitor downstream? Is there an easy way to check core coolant level that I haven't thought of?

Your ignorance is a shame.

[dfenstrate]

Compare the Soviets worst accident- dozens dead in the short term, thousands dead early from long term effects- with the United States worst accident- Three Mile Island. The radioactivity release from TMI was projected to cause less than 1 premature death from the hundreds of thousands of people potentially exposed to anything, and in twenty five years since, no one has been able to prove that they were adversly affected by the accident, healthwise.

Including the people who work there.
Nuclear Power is perfectly safe when done right, and it's done right in the US. The worst that could happen in the US in an accident condition is that parts of the power plant are destroyed. And for even that to happen, so many very closely watched things would have to go wrong that it's basically not going to happen.

So shut off your lights if you don't like nuclear power, and go back to your cave.

Re:Your ignorance is a shame.

[Trurl's Machine]

Nuclear Power is perfectly safe when done right, and it's done right in the US. The worst that could happen in the US in an accident condition is that parts of the power plant are destroyed. nd for even that to happen, so many very closely watched things would have to go wrong that it's basically not going to happen.

The Twin Towers were also perfectly safe buildings that could never collapse. Not on their own, anyway. But we are living now in a totally different century. The one in which modern technology can be helpless against a small group of fanatics capable of orchestrating suicide bomb attacks. Nuclear power used to be perfectly safe when done right - but it was in the last century. Now any US or European nuclear plant is actually nothing but a huge "KICK ME!" for the Al Quaedda boys. If I was you, I'd me more careful with your "basically not goint to happen".

Re:Your ignorance is a shame.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dr. Bill Watenburg seems to think that all our nuclear power plants could survive a direct hit from an airplane.

He should theoretically know what he's talking about.

Re:Your ignorance is a shame.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, your ignorance over their deaths is a shame.

Re:Your ignorance is a shame.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't look at overall deaths in the town. Look at only people exposed to the plumes, and compare them against non-plume residents. I'd love to see that research. Until then, you're a dupe.

Re:Your ignorance is a shame.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now any US or European nuclear plant is actually nothing but a huge "KICK ME!" for the Al Quaedda boys. If I was you, I'd me more careful with your "basically not goint to happen".

I don't know about that TBH. Flight 11 on Sept.11th.2001 flew directly over Indian Point in New York and Flight 175 was a couple of minutes away. If they wanted to cause a far bigger disaster than what they actually achieved, they would have dumped the planes into one of the two working reactors there (there are three in total). This fact alone makes me wonder about the "terrorists", who they are, and why there doing it. Evidently, it is not for reasons of destruction.

Re:Your ignorance is a shame.

[Anonymous Coward]

in twenty five years since, no one has been able to prove that they were adversly affected by the accident, healthwise.

Slogan: Nuclear power, possibly safer than smoking.

Re:Your ignorance is a shame.

[operagost]

So what happens if a terrorist destroys the Hoover Dam? Will that be okay?

Re:Your ignorance is a shame.

[Avihson]

Flight 93 flew within spitting distance of the Shippensport Atomic plant. It was the first full scale atomic plant, online since 1957, and it is due west of Pittsburgh.

They wanted immediate casualties, a high body count. They wanted TV coverage of bloody people. Their supporters in the Arab Street do not understand radiological poisoning. Seeing an empty NCY would be good, but seeing distruction is better. The images of the mighty americans fleeing the center of power must have put them into fits of extasy.

If they precipitated a long term disaster, it would damage their cause.

They do not want to destroy us Infidels, but to rule us. They need our "decadence" as an example, and they need our money to fund their cause.

Re:Your ignorance is a shame.

[M1FCJ]

Depends on the airplane's size of course...

Re:Your ignorance is a shame.

[iabervon]

You may note that none of the nuclear power plants in the US or Europe is in a skyscraper. People designing nuclear power plants are well away of the quantity of fissionable material in these buildings, and design them to withstand more impact than an airliner and more heat than burning jet fuel, just because of the energy density inside.

If nuclear plants were actually effective targets for terrorists, I bet that terrorists would actually have attacked one of them, rather than a train station. I bet a terrorist attack against a nuclear power plant would be the best thing yet for the nuclear power industry, because it would validate the industry's safety claims when it survived without any problems.

(Note, also, that the Twin Towers were not actually perfectly safe buildings-- they were exempt from building and safety codes due to the particular semi-governmental status of their owner)

Re:Your ignorance is a shame.

[dasdrewid]

Well, I'm glad then that I live in Houston, where we're perfectly safe from terrorist attacks. We don't have any of that damn nuclear crap! (Well, actually we do, but only a small one...) Nah, we've got good old oil. Petroleum refineries, oil wells, oil tankers (naval and road going), oil tanks, Liquid Natural Gas tankers and terminals, etc. So yeah, we don't have to worry about terrorists wanting to take a crack at us...

Not that we need terrorists. We have enough industrial accidents spilling tons of toxic chemicals into the air as it is. It's kinda sad when it's no longer surprising to turn on the news and see a column of smoke that's probably 600 to 700 feet...across...at the base...that reaches 3 or 10 miles up. Nice, thick, black, toxic, asthma/cancer causing smoke.

Of course, if we went nuclear, we'd have to deal with the possibility that someone got past all the background checks to get into the facility, got through the security to get somewhere where they could do something, and once they got there, had the time alone to go about doing something that would breach all of the safety and redundandt safety systems we have. Or they could attack with guns or an airplane. Supposing they made it through the no-fly zone in 1 or 2 large pieces, they'd then have to make it through several layers of several foot thick reinforced concrete. Not to mention they'd have to be pretty damn accurate. And I feel sorry for anyone who tried to storm it by ground, considering there's an army base an hour or so outside of town. Yeah, where they grabbed a bunch of the guys in Iraq from. The one where they train all the special forces guys. Seriously, taking a nuclear powerplant near Houston would be like playing a 1 on 1000 game of Rogue Spear. Only shorter.

Whereas, taking out one of our dozen or so oil refineries would be about as hard as sitting down and waiting for it to happen on its own. Maybe driving by and throwing a cigarette out the window if you were in a hurry. I hope you enjoy your Ford Excursion now, cause once we've gone up in greasy, black, yet not radioactive (oh thank god...) fireball, its gonna cost a wee little bit more to drive...

Re:Your ignorance is a shame.

[ttsalo]

The window of opportunity for hijacking a jetliner and ramming it into a building closed before the fourth plane reached its target in 11.9.2001.

What sort of strike were you thinking of?

--

Re:Your ignorance is a shame.

[calidoscope]

So what happens if a terrorist destroys the Hoover Dam?

A lot easier said that done - there is a lot of concrete in the structure - besides, other than Yuma, there aren't a lot of population centers on the river.

Your point is well made, dam failures are capable of causing massive loss of life (e.g. what would happen if the Three Gorges dam was breached?). Most people don't realize how close the 1971 Sylmar earthquake came to causing thousands of fatalaties instead of less than 100 - perhaps a few more seconds of shaking and the Van Norman reservoir would have let go - as it was more than 10,000 people were evacuated while the reservoir was drained to relieve pressure on fissures in the dam.

Re:Your ignorance is a shame.

[fucksl4shd0t]

Oh shit, terrorists might blow up my house. Better not have one of those.

Oh shit, terrorists might take out one of those floating bridges. Well, I'll quit driving on them.

I'm getting so sick of people saying "We can't do xxx because terrorists will blow it up." Hey dude, if you're scared, stay home.

But this attitude:

The one in which modern technology can be helpless against a small group of fanatics capable of orchestrating suicide bomb attacks. Nuclear power used to be perfectly safe when done right - but it was in the last century. Now any US or European nuclear plant is actually nothing but a huge "KICK ME!" for the Al Quaedda boys.

Means the terrorists beat you. You lost, they won, now go drop your pants so they can enjoy the spoils of victory.

Re:Your ignorance is a shame.

[Anonymous Coward]

Houston, huh? Here's something for you - next week is the 12th anniversary of the salt dome explosion outside Brenham. Anyone who was awake on the morning of April 7, 1992 will remember it.

That was an accident. Imagine what an intentional strike could do.

Re:Your ignorance is a shame.

[the gnat]

The window of opportunity for hijacking a jetliner and ramming it into a building closed before the fourth plane reached its target in 11.9.2001.

Yeah, I actually sort of feel safer flying now; the only useful thing left that terrorists can do with airplanes (in the US at least) is blow them up, and there are many easier ways to make your point than blowing up an airplane. If anybody tried to hijack a plane now, I suspect they wouldn't last five minutes. Which probably isn't so much patriotism at work, but rather that anyone on the plane would assume they weren't going to be landing, ever. (Unless the plane came from my part of the country, in which case half the passengers would probably try to sway the hijackers by talking about the evils of global capitolism and US policy towards Israel, and the other half would be too busy with their laptops to notice what was going on.)

Re:Your ignorance is a shame.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nuclear Power is perfectly safe when done right, and it's done right in the US. The worst that could happen in the US in an accident condition is that parts of the power plant are destroyed.

Riiiiight. To quote a song Bruce Cockburn wrote after observing Chernobyl (while in Germany),

Every day in the paper
You can watch the numbers rise
No such event can overtake us here
We're much too wise
In the meantime don't eat anything that grows
And don't breathe when the cars go by

Bottom line is, if it's technology, it can go wrong. If you believe otherwise, you don't know enough about technology.

That doesn't mean it is not the right decision to go ahead and risk it given the other alternatives. But the idea that nothing can ever happen that will result in death or injury is just not correct IMHO.

Re:Your ignorance is a shame.

[blair1q]

If a terrorist has a device capable of destroying Hoover Dam, he'd be better served just nuking L.A.

Re:Your ignorance is a shame.

[blair1q]

They didn't even know which building was the White House from the air.

I doubt they'd have had a chance of hitting the right building at any nuke plant.

They'd probably aim for the cooling towers.

Just as well.

Stupid terrorists.

Re:Your ignorance is a shame.

[Carnildo]

A lot easier said that done - there is a lot of concrete in the structure - besides, other than Yuma, there aren't a lot of population centers on the river.

Hoover's an arch dam. As a result, a semi-truck filled with explosives detonated either dead-center or at one end will do significant damage. Probably not enough to bring the dam down entirely, though.

On the other hand, a gravity dam like Grand Coulee could shrug off a nuke.

Re:Your ignorance is a shame.

[Mark of THE CITY]

True, but IIRC, the dam does not depend on the arch. I've seen it listed as an "arch-gravity" dam.

Re:there's a lot of nuclear ooopsie stories of lat

[msim]

Ditto, that'd be the one! im still about 15-20km from it though, but thats close enough.

You don't know anyone by the name Willie living near there, do you? *hopes not*

*sigh*

[el_guapo]

anyone even remotely clued on nuke stuff (i was a nuke engineer in my previous life) would know that chernobyl simply *cannot* happen in a western light water reactor design. chernobyl was the result of the russkies making insane design decision after insane design decision in order to make a NON enriched core work. just enrich the core beyond a certain LOW percentage (i'm not telling!!! don't want know black helicopters landing HERE :P) and chernobyl are IMPOSSIBLE.

Obligitory Simpsons quote...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Me in a nuclear power plant...KABOOM!"

Come on, you know you wanted it. Who's you daddy...

You evil man!!!

[Unknown Poltroon]

How DARE you suggest that we pollute the pristine magma of the earths core with your unnatural nuclear waste. It would be a crime against nature to bury radioactve material under the earths crust.

People like you make me sick.

Re:You evil man!!!

[dfenstrate]

This statement is surely in jest, but for those who do think like this, remember that's where the material came from in the first place.

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, useful energy extraction in between.

Re:You evil man!!!

[plugger]

Except that the natural material is purified to increase the proportion of U235. Also, I never heard of radioactive iodine or calcium occurring naturally in the environment. There lies the danger, radioactive isotopes of compounds which are stored by the body.

Re:You evil man!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, yes, I know they are elements and not compounds. It's a Sunday, that's my excuse.

Re:You evil man!!!

[HeghmoH]

The Earth's core is all melted. You know why it's so hot? It's because of the enormous quantities of uranium within it that is undergoing radioactive decay. Yes, the Earth is a big radioisotope heater.

Re:You evil man!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that would suck for all those people living under the earth's crust.

PS: Ca-48 half-life 6e+18 y abundance 0.1874%

Re:You evil man!!!

[plugger]

How much of the heat is generated by radioactive decay, and how much by eddy currents in the rotating magnetic core?

Re:You evil man!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the 2000 UNSCEAR report, some 1800 cases of thyroid cancers have occurred in about 18 million individuals who were exposed as children during the Chernobyl accident.

From this article, there are about 12,000 cases per year in the USA. So that is 12,000 cases from a population of 300 million, or 0.004% of the total population. Children affected by Chernobyl have a rate of 0.01%, or 2.5 times the US figure. Note, those children have still not lived their whole lifetime, the figure will probably increase.

Re:You evil man!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

The core is not entirely liquid. Geophysicists have determined using seismic readings (since certain waves will not travel through liquids but will travel through solids) that the inner core is solid and the outer core is liquid. This is because as the pressure in the earth increases as depth increases, the melting point decreases.

The core is not the only place that spontaneous fission is occuring. It is occuring throughout the mantle. This is the main reason that the average temperature of the earth is 800 C. The reason the core is the hottest is because the only real heat sink that the earth has is the crust (so logically temperature will decrease from the core outward). Obviously this incredible amount of stored heat does many things, including plate tectonics, vulcanism, and in the case of the outer core with its moving currents--the earth's magnetic field which operates your compass to point to the earth's magnetic south pole (which coincidentally is near the north pole, but hasn't always been there).

Re:You evil man!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you, Captain Obvious.

Re:You evil man!!!

[mpe]

Except that the natural material is purified to increase the proportion of U235. Also, I never heard of radioactive iodine or calcium occurring naturally in the environment.

That's because their half life is short compared with the age of the Earth.

Re:You evil man!!!

[mrdogi]

You know why it's so hot? It's because of the enormous quantities of uranium within it that is undergoing radioactive decay.

I was under the impression that it was due to the immense pressures from all of the material above (crust, etc.) I suppose it could just as easily be a combination of the two? Thoughts everybody?

Re:You evil man!!!

[HeghmoH]

Wikipedia to the rescue.

Age of the Earth.

To summarize; there was a big paradox in the 19th century, because the thermodynamicists were coming up with numbers for the age of the Earth that were far too short for what the geologists and biologists were coming up with. The paradox was finally resolved with the discovery of radioactivity, which gave the Earth a heat source beyond that of its initial heat and compression. A relevant quote:

By the turn of the 20th century, Thomson had been made Lord Kelvin in appreciation of his many scientific accomplishments. He had reason to feel confident of himself, and the fact that multiple attempts to determine the age of the Earth seemed to show that it was about 100 million years old led him to feel very certain that his estimates were correct. The geologists could only suggest that Kelvin didn't have all the facts, and they still believed that the Earth was far older than 100 million years.

The breakthrough that would ultimately resolve the conflict took place in 1896, when the French chemist A. Henri Becquerel discovered radioactivity.

Counter Overflow?

[yudan]

The counter at the bottom of the page has only 4 digits, I suppose it is going to be blown up by slashdotters. Just pray that the page is not hosted in TMI, we don't want to see another TMI! Another bad design without enough margin.

Viability of LSLT nuclear energy?

[BigDumbSpaceApe]

So I'm wondering about the viability large-scale long-term use of nuclear power... Anyone know how much nuclear material there is?

I was listening to some radio program where the a guy was making some kinda analogy, like power from the sun is like our energy *income* and fossil fuels are what we have *in the bank* and were spending our savings like mad... Is that a similar or not with nuclear fuels?

I've also heard the we may be able to develop power sources from the nuclear wastes we generate in the future, to get even more energy from them.

But alas, IANANP so I have no clue. Anyone know more about this?

Re:Viability of LSLT nuclear energy?

[plugger]

BNFL (British Nuclear Fuels Ltd) reprocess spent fuel rods to recover fissile material (and waste):

www.bnfl.com

Sorry about the lack of detail, but I couldn't find anything more specific on their site.

Re:Viability of LSLT nuclear energy?

[Almost-Retired]

Your analogy regarding the incoming vs whats in the bank falls slightly short.

The incoming also creates a small amount of 'heavy water' in the oceans. The creation process I've been told is forever as long as the sun shines, and has long ago, as in billions of years, reached an equalibrium point. If a reactor could be designed to make use of this, it would only take a lead pencil sized stream of this heavy water to power every currently fossil fueled device on the planet. In simpler terms, we have enough in the bank, drawing interest, the interest being more than sufficient to power mankinds sometimes evil schemes.

Extracting that quantity from the seawater would not, even over millions of years, materially effect the concentration balance of this isotope in the seawater.

The one item I can't drag up from memory is the byproducts of its fusion. About the only thing that I recall is that its output would be steam, aka water, and some apparentlly benign gas, probably hydrogen, but I'll let the real experts testify on that point.

The real trick is that this isn't fission, its fusion. Relatively much more difficult to achieve in that most of the tokamak type devices built so have not made break even in power output. OTOH, data on such research seems to have gone underground in the last 10 years.

Maybe its time some of the people playing with this gave us a progress report?

Cheers, Gene

Re:Viability of LSLT nuclear energy?

[BigDumbSpaceApe]

The pdf on that page is pretty interesting and has alot of the information I was looking for... and 97% is really impressive! (have to take company literature with a grain of salt tho, i guess)

So, basically, the current nuclear economy goes: Uranium Ore get refined, used in plant, produces spent rods, rods (can) get recycled. I rustled up a page on Uranium Deposits, which I can try to figure out the max amount of energy we can pull out of them, and that guide.

It looks like from some of the DoE literature that all plutonium is coming from spent rods too. So that can be taken into account too.

This is the kind of things I like to know when people start telling nuclear power is the way to go. I wish I wouldn't have dozed so much in college physics :)

Re:Viability of LSLT nuclear energy?

[plugger]

I didn't even see the pdf link on that page, hence the apology for lack of detail.

Many people are campaigning to get the plant closed down though. The argument is that it is a bad idea to ship very radioactive materials around the globe. There has also been some trouble with governments not wanting to take their waste back from us as per their contractural obligations. Some links below.

Pollution crossing international borders

Might not make any money

Deliberate falsification of reprocessing records for a MOX shipment to Japan.

Re:Viability of LSLT nuclear energy?

[Aglassis]

"The incoming also creates a small amount of 'heavy water' in the oceans. The creation process I've been told is forever as long as the sun shines, and has long ago, as in billions of years, reached an equalibrium point."

Wrong. In the Big Bang about 90% of all matter formed hydrogen-1, about 10% formed helium-4, and about 0.15% formed hydrogen-2 (deuterium). This value has been confirmed in theory and observations of very old stars. In any given star, it will preferably use deuterium vice hydrogen-2 as a fuel due to the lower energy requirement. This leads to a deficient deuterium spectra when older stars are observed. Once the first stars supernova'd (known as population I stars), the remnants of the star (which only had elements up to roughly iron since that is all that fusion can produce exothermically, higher is endothermic) was ejected at incredible speeds (up to 0.3 c in some cases). This ejecta sometimes collided with interstellar gasses with such force that it transmuted the elements up to uranium rarely. Later this gas formed a population II star, and then a population III star, in our case the solar system. There is no deuterium production in the earth, and it is at the ~0.15% level naturally since large stars that supernova rarely eject burnt fuel, just their outer layers. But the deuterium in the universe is constantly decreasing. Neutron absorption reactions in nuclear reactors can occasionally produce it, but that is the only way that I know if its production.

"The one item I can't drag up from memory is the byproducts of its fusion"

D + D -> He-3 + neutron + lotsa energy (~50% chance)
D + D -> T (H-3) + proton + lotsa energy (~50% chance)
D + D -> He-4 + energy (rarely, less than 1%)

"Maybe its time some of the people playing with this gave us a progress report?"

ITER is expected to break even in a couple of years.

Re:Viability of LSLT nuclear energy?

[Bombcar]

Read my back of the envelope calculations here.

Basically, there is something like 1000-3000 cubic miles of Uranium avaiable, but much of it would probably be hard to get. Follow the links in the original post for more information.

Much of it is not economical to get now, like the uranium in seawater, but that could change with more modern procedures.

Hope this helps!

Re:Viability of LSLT nuclear energy?

[Hungus]

Fool! as everyone knows all the heavy water is actually in pools at the bottom of the ocean gaurded by giant worms! I mean really they even showed it the Military Documentary Program I saw as a kid. The only way to safely get to the heavy water is shown on the next page where I shows the valiant troops shooting the bases of the giant tubeworms so they begin to float to the lower pressure area of the ocean and released those brave heroes.

Re:Viability of LSLT nuclear energy?

[Artifakt]

Deuterium (D-D) based fusion is just approaching its break even point, IF some as yet unconfirmed results in sonogram induced fusion at ORNL (Oak RIdge National Labs), Lawrence-Livermore, and other locales check out.
The "apparently benign gas" you are referring to is radioactive helium. It's benign in that 1. We're talking about radiation levels of 1/1,000th or so of the more serious fission byproducts. 2. Helium is chemically inert, so living things can't incorporate it into their tissues and it can't be concentrated up the food chain. 3. Helium leaks don't lay around on the ground where people can walk through them, pick some up on their shoes, etc.

Re:Viability of LSLT nuclear energy?

[Almost-Retired]

There is no deuterium production in the earth, and it is at the ~0.15% level naturally since large stars that supernova rarely eject burnt fuel, just their outer layers.

I'm not an atomic type, just been lassoing electrons for the last 55 years for a living.

So why does every magazine article written by someone associated with whats now the Iter project, go to the trouble to point out that the deuterium supply is unlimited because its constantly being regenerated by the incomeing gamma radiation?

Or are they figureing that this lead pencil sized stream of deuterium seperated from the seawater is, AFA mankind is concerned, unlimited because we'll never get it all. If its percentage in sea water starts at ~0.15%, then we have, just a SWAG of course, several dozens of cubic miles of the stuff. The energy content of all that, properly recovered, probably represents 10,000 times that of the fossil fuel we've burnt to date!

ITER is expected to break even in a couple of years.

Uh huh. Thats the same logic that says pigs fly too, and its been repeated annually for what, 30 years now? Methinks the people working on that thing have managed to figure out that if they ever make it work, they're out of a job, so its being run like one big WPA project. The operative keyword in front of progress, is slow. Or, "This ones promising, we seem to be headed in the right direction, but now we need another 10 billion dollar grant to build the next, scaled up 10x, test model that will presumably break even. IMO, that 10 billion should have been put into the Supercollider that got (Bush, Clinton?) canceled. It, once up and running, could probably have furrnished the data needed to step directly to a 300 MW production model with widely held confidence that it would work from the git-go.

I better quit, before I really lose my temper over some of the dumbassed things done in the name of economy by our supposedly elected officials over the last 10 years.

Cheers, Gene

You left this out...

[Anonymous Coward]

TMI used digital temperature readings for core temperatures. They started going up and up, but when they went above the highest temperature the instruments were designed to read, they started recording "???" instead of a number.

If they had used analog dials instead of digital readouts, the operators would have seen a bunch of dials all pegged high, instead of seeing what looked like an instrument failure.

Given that data, there's chance that when steam bubbles started forming in the primary system outside of the pressurizer (your "voids"), the operators would not have shut down the primary reactor coolant pumps (the big pumps that circulate water between the core and steam generators). The operators shut down those expensive pumps because the steam bubbles caused them to start cavitating, which would eventually destroy them. If those pumps had been kept running, the core would have received some cooling, and the operators would have known that more was wrong...

Maybe if the operators had known that core temps were going through the roof they would have acted totally differently.

PS - I have no idea how the operators could have missed a stuck-open relief valve - even a steam relief valve from the top of the pressurize. When those things lift, it sounds and feels like a train going by...

Re:You left this out...

[davidesh]

I really doubt they would have heard this sound you are talking about from the valve... considering they are sitting in a control room away from the reactor, and the reactor is encase in steel and concrete. Also.. how did they not notice the valve being open? The light indicator which said it had opened was set to turn on then off, after it had opened... not remain on the whole time it was open. They didn't know it was designed to do this.

Re:You left this out...

[dfenstrate]

PS - I have no idea how the operators could have missed a stuck-open relief valve - even a steam relief valve from the top of the pressurize. When those things lift, it sounds and feels like a train going by...

Your first response to this post is correct- the control room is far away from the reactor and it's pressurizer, in different buildings and through several feet of concrete.

Even if you were in the containment building with the reactor, when the PORVs/Relief Valves lift, they are piped to a tank in the basement of the containment building- and they are physically located within a heavily insulated enclosure.
You don't want to blow Reactor Coolant (water with some boron in it, and a number of decay products) into the atmosphere.

Another note about missing the stuck open relief valve- my plant was in the planning stages when TMI happened, and a number of modifications where made to the plans- for instance, the valve indication shows actual valve position, not demanded valve position, and we have a system that detects water level in the reactor.

The way the valve position indivation is now set up is interesting- there are two lights- red for open, green for closed. If both are lit, the valve is partially open. (And we have plenty of spare bulbs, incidentally). There are limit switchs on the valves that drive these lights (and the associated logic for automatic actions.) When the valve is fully open, the upper limit switch turns off the light that indicates it's closed. When the valve is fully closed, the lower limit switch turns off the light that indicates it's open.

Re:You left this out...

[Anonymous Coward]

PS - I have no idea how the operators could have missed a stuck-open relief valve - even a steam relief valve from the top of the pressurize. When those things lift, it sounds and feels like a train going by...

On a ship or boat (which I take it you were one.) A commercial plant, though, does not have operators in as close proximity as you were. It is far more likely that they could not have heard a thing and had to rely entirely on instrumentation.

from King Size Homer

[Anonymous Coward]

From 3F05:

Burns: Homer, your bravery and quick thinking have turned a potential Chernobyl into a mere Three Mile Island. Bravo!

Re:from King Size Homer

[Anonymous Coward]

Great quote and thanks for the great simpsons link!

Arizona

[WillRobinson]

Well you could dry them outside, if you like to have your pockets full of dust when you bring them in.

Overexaggerated...

[rffmna]

Ya, nuclear safty harzards can be devasting---nuclear radiation, random mutations, genetic diseaes, that's right. But the probability of such failures are so low compared to other power plants, such as those that use oil, fossil fuel, or natural gas. There were only 3, yes three, nuclear plant failures. One was very very minor. One was Three Miles Island, the last, notorious one, was Chernobyl.
At Three Miles Island, after the failure, they detected about .01% of radiation you would get if you get a normal X-Ray. That's way higher that if you would live near any other types of power plants. Under normal operations, nuclear power plants are far safer than conventional power plants. Conventional power plants can release a lot of CO2, and a failure can be devastating to environmental health. In addition, conventional power plants have few rules to follow. Conventional power plants put out green house gases that contribute to global warming. They can cause water/air pollution.
So what is bad about nuclear power plants? Their cost of assembling, operating and disassembling. It costs a LOT to build a powerplant. The builders have to use stronger well-consealed buildinds, emergency components. Because there is such paranoia about these plants, they have to be built away from urban areas, adding the cost of delivring that electricity to those who actually use it. and there is nuclear waste (more about it later..) and those expensive buildings last only 30 years due to nuclear fission. These buildings have to be torn down, or decommisioned, properly (not just bulldoze it) and disposed proper as they are radioactive wastes. Decommisioning alone can cost more than the construction. The wastes from opearting and decommisioning have to be stored somehwhere. Again, the paranoia forces them to put the waste in inhabitited areas. In U.S, most wastes are put in double-layer huge steal tanks ,and sank in lakes/seas or buried undergounrd. There is a program with this. Even though they are thick double-sealed walls, there is still a chance for leaking into water or undergrond water. There has to be periodic checks. There, nuclear power...it's just not econmically feasible.
Worse, back in the days of Soviet Russia, they desperately dumped the wastes into 3 seas in arctic ocean (cant remember name). Those seas are completely contaminated and lifeless.
There, the bad thing is not the danger, because there is worse danger from other power plants, than nuclear power plant. Hack, under normal operations, there is mich much more probability of you dying from other conventioanl plants, smoking, or even car accident ..than nuclear plants...

Toured TMI

[arachnia]

I used to work in the radiation safety field and went on a technical tour of TMI just before the change in owners (current owner is AmerGen).

We were able to visit some aspects of the non-functioning side - the cooling towers (I have photos I took while standing inside one, and here's another), the empty turbine room, and the control room.

Surprisingly standing around the skeletons of the non-functioning cooling towers wasn't nearly as strange as comparing the turbine rooms between the functioning and non-functioning sides of the plant.

Anyone who has seen a turbine room in any kind of large power plant knows how huge they are. The turbine room used for the functioning reactor was hot, noisy, and full of intimidatingly large equipment. The huge emptiness of the unused turbine room was just plain strange in comparison.

IMNSHO, the worst thing about the TMI accident was the lack of communication both inside and outside of the plant. We can only hope that we've learned from our mistakes.

We should never forget

[Thoughtful]

That more people died at Chappaquiddick than Three Mile Island. From this we can naturally conclude that being associated with the Presidency of the USA (even by being related, or being the mistress of a relative) is more dangerous then a Nuclear Power Station (as long as everybody is awake).

Nuclear power industry not safe.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Nuclear Power is perfectly safe when done right, and it's done right in the US"

No, it is not safe. Remember "we almost lost Detroit" and all the other near-catastrophes, including one that involved a nuclear plant that actually had a basketball covered in duct tape stuffed in a vent.

On top of this, the waste is so toxic that they have not been able to come up with anything to do with it.

I live near one of the first commercial nuclear plants. They closed it down several years ago. It has taken years for them to clean up the contamination, and they are still not done.

"So shut off your lights if you don't like nuclear power, and go back to your cave."

We had electricity before someone decided to build these dangerous super-expensive boondoggles, and we will afterwards.

Re:Nuclear power industry not safe.

[prandal]

No, it is not safe. Remember "we almost lost Detroit" and all the other near-catastrophes, including one that involved a nuclear plant that actually had a basketball covered in duct tape stuffed in a vent.

The one I "liked" Was the incident at Brown's Ferry involving a candle.

Scary!

Re:Nuclear power industry not safe.

[orthogonal]

No, it [nuclear power] is not safe

Nothing is completely safe. Thing is, the alternatives - the real, viable alternatives -- to nuclear power are even less safe.

You may recall the recent FDA advisory warning pregnant women and children to limit their intake of several types of fish because of mercury contamination in those fish.

The FDA guidelines call for children and pregnant women -- and women who "may become pregnant" to abstain completely from shark, swordfish, king mackerel, or tilefish, and to limit intake to six onces of albacore tuna a week.

What you might not have heard is that the panel that made the recommendation contained two members who were former lobbyists for the fishing industry -- or that another member, a scientist, not a lobbyist, resigned in protest because he believes that even six onces a week of albacore tuna is dangerous, and that that recommendation was only made because of industry lobbying.

What you also might not have heard is that the primary source of mercury in fish is from "mercury rain" -- and the primary source of mercury rain is from coal fired power plants .

As it happens, the EPA is retreating from plans to more closely regulate mercury pollution from power plants, and "just coincidently" some of the language justifying that retreat is word-for-word the same as language in utility company memos.

So on the one hand, the fishing industry influences the FDA to soft-pedal its warnings to children and pregnant women, and on the other hand the power industry gets the EPA to continue to allow pollution.

And this is not to mention the other dangers of coal: despoiling the environment by digging it up, despoiling the air with smog when it's burnt, giving miners black-lung, etc.

I grew up a few miles from Three Mile Island, and I was still there when the accident happened, and I'll take clean nuclear power any day. Even in the worst case, we can contain a nuclear plant accident -- but we can't contain an ocean of mercury contaminated fish.

Re:Nuclear power industry not safe.

[CrowScape]

Um, the waste can be recycled, as it is in France and Japan, which would eliminate somewhere around 90-95% of it. The US doesn't do that because of what could be described as paranoia over nuclear proliferation.

Re:Nuclear power industry not safe.

[danharan]

There are more alternatives to nuclear than just coal, and some of the other costs of coal are usually not counted for nuclear, such as mining.

Demand-side management, renewables and co-generation should be considered. While none are perfect, they are much cheaper and don't have some of the liabilities of nuclear energy.

Re:Nuclear power industry not safe.

[Artifakt]

"some of the other costs of coal are usually not counted for nuclear, such as mining."

And Vice Versa - Possible deaths from truck-car accidents involving trucks transporting nuclear fuel have routinely been included in estimates of the risks from nuclear power, while being omitted from coal.

Re:Nuclear power industry not safe.

[allyourbasebelongtou]

What gets me about the whole electric industry and the push for electric vehicles is that (and to my knowledge this has only been brought up tangentially in Car and Driver magazine once) electric vehicles are QUITE polluting when you consider the nuclear waste or mercury and other pollutants released "up-stream" in the actual electric-making process.

It seems the pollution, especially of mercury, is increasing, as it's being moved from something that is quite regulated, i.e. fuel refining and tail pipe emissions (ULEV vehicles) to one of low regulations, i.e. coal-fired electric plants!

Remember, too, that many of these plants were allowed to *skip* critical maintenance for extended periods during the California energy crisis, too, exacerbating the condition even more so. Grrrrr.

Re:Nuclear power industry not safe.

[ckaminski]

The environmental cost of adding one giant battery to your car instead of 2000 parts made by 200 different vendors using all sorts of caustic chemicals is negligible compared to the lifecycle cost of a car spitting out tons of CO2 and CO over it's 3-10 year lifespan.

Flamebait?

[Unknown Poltroon]

YEt another mod whos too fucking stupid to know a joke. Yeah, mod my ass down to the radioactve hell of the mantle, but it had to be said.

Re:What surprises me...is needing glasses

[malia8888]

From the article : Both Chernobyl and TMI seem to be based on a ridiculous chain of events fuelled by unfortunate coincidence, fallible mensuration equipment and human idiocy.

Wow, I read that as "menstruation". Talk about a case of PMS.

Hi. I'm Troy McClure

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi. I'm Troy McClure. You might remember me from such nuclear-plant disaster shows and films as "The Chynna Syndrome: WWE Goes Nuclear!", and a little show called "The Simpsons".

Re:there's a lot of nuclear ooopsie stories of lat

[necrogram]

I rebmer going to middle and school and being extreamly close to a powerplant, Limerick to be exact. We were close enough to Limerick, that on the first moday of very month at 1500, class would be interrupted for thetesting of the siren at the plant. also, you never heard anything about evac plans or anything. We knew thm in elemntry school, but we were about 20 miles from limeric. It was becasueof the school dropping the ball, it was because we were well with in the "no time to bend over and kiss your ass goodbye" radius. alot of people that close always had the same eerie calmness about it. "if it goes, we would never know, because we would go with it just as quick"

Interface design

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a good time to reflect on the impact it has had on our nuclear safety policy and interface design in general."

Yes, now we use Microsoft Windows to increase reliability and security of our Nuclear Power plants because in it we trust the safety of our population ;)

Re:Interface design

[arachnia]

Actually, I've always found it amusing that Sun has this in its binary code license for Solaris (and I've seen it in other places):

You acknowledge that Software is not designed, licensed or intended for use in the design, construction, operation or maintenance of any nuclear facility.

(Solaris Binary Code License Agreement)

Re:Interface design

[Ironsides]

Actually, I've heard that windows says the same thing, only for a Nuclear Submaring.

Green Glowing Cloud of Death

[Anonymous Coward]

"Yes, now we use Microsoft Windows to increase reliability and security of our Nuclear Power plants because in it we trust the safety of our population ;)"

see title.

The Difference Between TMI and Chernobyl

[HeghmoH]

You have a long chain of horrible coincidences which should have been stopped earlier. At TMI, it was finally stopped. What stopped it? The last-ditch measure that every sanely-designed reactor has; the giant, meters-thick steel-reinforced concrete containment dome. This is the reason why the explosion at TMI never went anywhere. The bright sparks behind the design of Chernobyl (and most other Soviet reactors) decided that their reactor didn't need such a safety measure. If Chernobyl had had a decent containment structure, it would have been a footnote in the list of nuclear accidents just like TMI is.

Re:The Difference Between TMI and Chernobyl

[dfenstrate]

I don't recall that there was an explosion at TMI, though much of the fuel and the core internals did melt.

The PORV and safeties released their discharges to a pressurizer relief tank, which, when it overfills, starts discharging to the containment building sump.

You are essientially correct in the utility of the containment building, though. Without it, steam, water, and radioctive gases carried by them, would be easily released to the atmosphere.

Re:The Difference Between TMI and Chernobyl

[HeghmoH]

There was a hydrogen explosion at one point in the reactor. It wasn't the major thing which went wrong, but it probably rose some hairs anyway. To quote from this page:

The first warning of the presence of hydrogen in the system was quite violent, but thanks to the heavily overengineered containment structure, it was almost anticlimactic save for its implications. A poorly shielded relay sparked, detonating the hydrogen in the containment. The instrument measuring containment pressure zoomed to a frightening 28 pounds per square inch before starting down again. Later analysis showed that this instrument's response was quite slow, and the real peak pressure was probably closer to 80 PSI!

While the explosion was a non-event, that was probably only true because of the containment structure.

Re:The Difference Between TMI and Chernobyl

[dfenstrate]

ah, yes, you're correct, we actually have equipment in my plant to scrub hydrogen out of the containment atmosphere under accident conditions because of TMI.

I think, however, the explosion was in the containment building, and not in the reactor- hydrogen is created in great quantities when zircaloy- the cladding for the uranium fuel- reacts with water, which only happens under very high temperatures, which they had because of the loss of coolant accident.

I think what happened was that hydrogen was carried out of the Reactor Coolant System through the PORVS and into the Pressurizer Relief Tank, which quickly spilled onto the containment floor and into the sumps. In the reactor vessel, there was mostly steam, but when the hydrogen got out into the building, it made an explosive mixture with the oxygen in the building, and a little spark set it off.

Sorry, slipped my mind before.

Incidentally, we test my plant's containment building to 60 psi ever ten to fifteen years, and get virtually no leakage. It could probably handle an 80 psi peak rather easily.

Reminds me of a quote

[Bish.dk]

Reminds me of a quote by Terry Pratchett:

I once absend-mindedly ordered Three Mile Island dressing in a restaurant and, with great presence of mind, they brought Thousand Island Dressing and a bottle of chili sauce.

It's gotta come

[RadRafe]

We have to have fusion power by 2050! Why? Because SimCity 2000 says so!

Re:there's a lot of nuclear ooopsie stories of lat

[id]

Ummmmm, a nuke plant melting down and a bomb going off have very different results. And even if it was 25 megaton nuke bomb going off 20 miles away, you still have a good chance of living...at least long enough to kiss your ass goodbye.

Re:slashdot is run by communists

[Anonymous Coward]

hey, communists are anything but luddites. They built reactors (and most of them didn't go bang), launched the first satellite, and got the first human in space....

Or did you mean the use of the word 'communist' that seems to serve as a catch-all derogative amongst some Americans? Nice to see McCarthyism is alive and well, comrade!

no more power plants

[p51d007]

Everyone complains that there isn't enough electricity.....well, the state of California has no one to blame but itself....they haven't built a new power plant in that state in YEARS. 20 years ago, there weren't any home computers....now everyone has one. People don't understand that when you plug something into a wall, it just doesn't come out magically....... I think because of the stupidity of TMI, the world missed its chance as a viable cheap means of power. In the USA, not one person has been killed in the nuclear power plants etc.......can't say that for coal...... Coal is a great resource, but the tree huggin' crowd doesn't like it because it pollutes. They don't like nuclear because of that stupid china syndrome move. Now, they don't seem to like wind power for a few reasons....the "not in my back yard" mentality of the idiots in the massachuttes area (kennedy, cronkite et al) don't want wind turbines spoiling their view, and now the bird lovers say birds are getting killed flying into the wind turbine blades....well, thinning the heard! Dumb ones die, smart ones live. One saying I still like....freeze to death in the dark you enviromentalist Ba*stards. LOL.....call me cold calouse, so.....doesn't bother me a bit. It's life, get over it....we are at the TOP of the food chain....not the other way around.

Re:no more power plants

[Jubedgy]

Not quite true...SL-1 (the army's abortive attempt at developing a mobile reactor) killed 3 or 4 people when it become prompt-critical and exploded from a rapid increase in pressure due to the formation of steam in the coolant channels inside the pressure vessel. The power excursion was something on the order of 10,000 times the rated power. I saw another post on SL-1 somewhere in here, it had much more specific information.

Re:no more power plants

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually what happened there was that the control rods were operated manually there. The operator apparantly pulled the rod out too fast, causing a steam explosion in the vessel. I believe they found his corpse, impaled in the ceiling by a conrol rod.

Anniversaries

[camperslo]

And yesterday was the one year anniversary of the introduction of Viagra.

So where are the anniversary parties???

Seabrook evacuation plans

[Rich Klein]

I vaguely remember a controversy from a decade or so ago. I think Sununu was governor of New Hampshire at the time. The Seabrook nuclear power plant in Seabrook, New Hampshire is about 40 miles from Boston, and is in a very popular summer vacation spot (adjacent to Hampton and Salisbury Beaches). Traffic in the summer is, as you might expect, very heavy with beach-goers. New Hampshire settled on an evacuation plan for the power plant that, in many people's minds, ignored the reality of traffic jams in the area. It also ignored those living on the other side of the nearby Massachusetts border. Many in Massachusetts called for a postponement in operation of the plant until a more acceptable evacuation plan was released, but, IIRC, New Hampshire said, in effect, "you're not the boss of us" and went ahead and put Seabrook into service. I don't remember the evacuation plan ever being modified after that.

If anyone can remember events better than I can, please speak up!

Re:Seabrook evacuation plans

[rickthewizkid]

Actually, the Seabrook emergency plan is available on the 'net at http://www.nhoem.state.nh.us/TechHazards/Seabrook. shtm

It's checked and uptated yearly, as well as mailed yearly to all homes and business in the 10 mile emergency planning zone.

Also, the plan is tested every other year, I worked as part of the communications plan, as an adjunct to the NH OEM radio system and the commercial telephone system. Last time, I was sitting in the fire station less than 10 feet from the console that controls the emrgency sirens in my town!

The plan seems to be pretty thorough. The equipment is kept up-to-date, although the main emergency center for Seabrook Station looks run-down from the outside...

-RickTheWizKid

Re:Seabrook evacuation plans

[Rich Klein]

Cool! Thanks for the link, Rick! I don't know that it means NH has addressed the concerns of Massachusetts residents, but at least I know where to look for the answer now.

John Sununu

[AtariAmarok]

I think Sununu was governor of New Hampshire at the time

If you knew what Sununu.....

No, it is even worse

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it is even worse. In socialism, only the needs of the ruling class are allowed to be considered.

Nuclear Power, or Mistresses?

[handy_vandal]

... more people died at Chappaquiddick than Three Mile Island. From this we can naturally conclude that being associated with the Presidency of the USA (even by being related, or being the mistress of a relative) is more dangerous then a Nuclear Power Station (as long as everybody is awake).

On the other hand, nuclear power stations won't give you a drunken blowjob -- whereas the Presidency is a pretty sure path to extramarital nookie.

-kgj

Ted Kennedy Womanslayer

[Anonymous Coward]

"On the other hand, nuclear power stations won't give you a drunken blowjob -- whereas the Presidency is a pretty sure path to extramarital nookie. "

Oddly enough, because he murdered a woman at Chappaquiddick, he would never get the Presidency.

Meltdown, there ain't no stinking meltdown

[Anonymous Coward]

On the morning of the accident, a friend of mine who was a supervisor at a local manufacturing plant called me to clue me in to what was happening. The plant he worked for usually played music over the PA system while the people worked. That morning, the PA was turned off, and the supervisors were told by upper management to keep quiet about the events onfolding at TMI. Many people working there lived close to TMI, and would have probably gone home to evacuate their families. Remember, noone knew then if things were bad and getting worse or not. My friend went out on the floor, and told all his people what was going on, and told them they could go home if they wanted. Always remember, the system of ethics under which corporations operate is: the good is that which increases the bottom line. On a day and place where the future was uncertain at best, the need to produce product was deemed more important than the right of the employees to make an informed decision concerning their safety.

Re:Meltdown, there ain't no stinking meltdown

[nyseal]

Or perhaps it was an attempt to prevent panic. People in general are reactionary and do you really believe that a panic driven evacuation would have saved anyone?

Define "failsafe"

[Anonymous Coward]

The big lie told about three mile island was that the design is 'failsafe'. As a matter of definition it is not, no light water reactor design is.

Um, no. LWRs are inherently stable (unlike Chernobyl...), and as long as the containment vessel can withstand a melting core (max heat generation rate is about 7% of the rated reactor power), the bad juju can't get out.

Failsafe means that if something breaks it breaks in a safe way.

What "unsafe" event happened at TMI? As opposed to "expensive as shit event as we melt a billion-dollar core into radioactive slag"?

Three mile island had redundant safety systems, that is not the same thing.

Nor are they mutually exclusive.

Re:Define "failsafe"

[sjames]

What "unsafe" event happened at TMI? As opposed to "expensive as shit event as we melt a billion-dollar core into radioactive slag"?

The storage tanks for radioactive gasses and coolant water filled to capacity necessitating dumping the excess into the environment unprocessed.

The core developed a large hydrogen bubble. Nobody was sure when or if it might burn/explode. Nobody was sure if the system would rupture or not.

Nor are they mutually exclusive.

Agreed, they aren't mutually exclusive, they are entirely different things. It is not valid to simply call a redundant system failsafe unless it also happens to be failsafe. The mechanisms in place for most reactors ARE redundant, but not failsafe. Spin doctors like to use the term failsafe because it sounds good. If a reactor is 'failsafe', that means that no systems failure requires any action in order to make the situation safer than it already is. That is definatly NOT the case in most reactors.

Coal is clean compared to nuclear

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's too bad that coal (like biomass) is a very dirty fuel."

It is clean compared to nuclear. It might look "dirtier", but it is far less nasty, far less toxic.

Safety

[BCW2]

If operational safety was the only concern we could nationalize the nuc power industry and let the Navy run it. Their safety record is unmatched, If they also control design, simple solution.

Unfortunately that is not the only problem. Until someone come up with a real solution to nuc waste, as opposed to burying it in the desert, I will not be comfortable with the system. That stuff is as deadly as it gets and we need a viable soution to the problem. Right now there is none.

Re:Safety

[thegrassyknowl]

Toshiba have announced a "meltdown-proof" reactor.

See the stories here and here.

The articles state that the reactor core is small enough that it will never be able to get out of control and melt down. You feed in liquid water and out comes steam to power your electricity generation turbines.

Essentially what they are doing is building a set and forget reactor core that will power a small-scale reactor for 30 years. When you're done, you put it in a hole and fill the hole with concrete. Removes the chance of meltdown and the problems of waste disposal.

Re:Safety

[Ironsides]

Actually, on the Nuclear Waste issue, as posted above (and I have heard the same from many other places, that are reliable). first "You can recycle 90 to 95 % of the nuclear wast and reuse it in a nuclear power plant." second "The remaining amount would fit under your desk."

Re:Safety

[slipstick]

Tell you want, first get all the greenies out of my way, than I'll get you to pay me and I'll take it, refine it, sell it back to you and charge you again to take that "waste". Anything that can't be reused I'll put back in this nice little container I have around called the earth.

You seem like a reasonable person, don't be concerned about disposal. It can be handled and would be if politics and so called "environmentalists" weren't getting in the way.

Think about this, cyanide has an infinite half-life so it is always toxic.

SL-1

[meshmar]

Many people are unaware that on January 3, 1961, SL-1, a small (about 3 MW) nuclear reactor was destroyed due to a "reactor explosion" at the National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho Falls, Idaho, killed one navy technician and two army technicians, and released radioactivity "largely confined" to the reactor building.

One technician was blown to the ceiling of the containment dome and impaled on a control rod. His body remained there until it was taken down six days later. The men were so heavily exposed to radiation that their hands had to be buried separately with other radioactive waste, and their bodies were interred in lead coffins.

One of the victims was interred at Arlington National Cemetery:

SUBJECT: Internment of Radioactive Remains

TO: Superintendent
Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington 11, Virginia

1. Radioactive remains of SP4 Richard L. McKinley were interred at Arlington National Cemetery on 25 January 1961.

2. It is desired that the following remark be placed on the permanent record, DA Form 2122, Record ofInternment:

"Victim of nuclear accident. Body is contaminated with long-life radio-active isotopes. Under no circumstances will the body be moved from this location without prior approval of the Atomic Energy Commission in consultation with this headquarters."

A careful examination of the remains of the core and the vessel concluded that the control rod was manually withdrawn by about 50 centimeters (40 centimeters would have been enough to make the reactor critical), largely increasing the reactivity. The resulting power surge caused the reactor power to reach 20,000MW in about .01 seconds, causing the plate-type fuel to melt. The molten fuel interacted with the water in the vessel, producing an explosive formation of steam that caused the water above the core to rise with such force that when it hit the lid of the pressure vessel, the vessel itself rose 3 meters in the air before dropping back down.

TMI wasn't the first or only nuclear reactor accident in the US.

In spite of this 'negative publicity', I still strongly support nuclear power.

Re:SL-1

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhh ... you missed the critical part ... it was a murder case. I don't recall off hand who was cheating on who's wife, but they both died. The technician who pulled the control rod was impaled in the ceiling when the reactor went critical.

Re:SL-1

[WWWWolf]

Murder case?

Suppose the thing might have been known to happen if the control rod had been moved too much. "If you move this single rod a bit, the thing goes ka-plaw." Printed at the end of the chapter 1 of every employee's "Welcome to the SR-1 site - Idiot's guide to nuclear reactor maintenance" booklet.

Now, I'm making a good assumption that the reactors weren't manned by crazy scientists who, knowing this little fault of the thing, would go "good, nice ot know if I want to assassinate my ambitious, backstabbing coworkers who probably lust after my wife too". At very least, I'm assuming there was someone working there with a relatively sane mind.

Assuming there was a completely sane engineer around and s/he knew that the reactor could go critical if one rod would be moved too much, hey, what would they have done? Maybe tell their superiors? Over the coffee: "Oh, by the way, I don't think this thing is exactly safe because a single slip might make the whole thing explode? Shouldn't we tell our superiors?"

Quite honestly, I don't think anyone specifically knew the reactor could have been made to explode that easily!

Re:SL-1

[Ironsides]

A) This was still a test reactor. Not one that was made to go mainstream.

B) A careful examination of the remains of the core and the vessel concluded that the control rod was manually withdrawn...

This tells me that someone had to physcally be an idiot, not that something had to break or malfunction.

In spite of this 'negative publicity', I still strongly support nuclear power. You aint the only one. Support Nuclear Power, and Nuclear Space

Re:SL-1

[meshmar]

Actually, it was known that the control rods were "sticky", and procedure called for them to be cycled manually. Being "sticky", it is entirely possible that the operator doing the lifing may have put to much effort into it when it stuck and when it came loose it, rapidly lifted the control rod too far.

The speed of movement of the control rod also has an effect on criticality, btw. SL-1 went prompt critical and the water moderator flashed to steam. The 'pocket' of steam caused a water hammer which lifted the reactor vessel (about 5 metric tons in weight) over 3 meters. It also blew out other control rods and part of the core causing massive contamination of the reactor containment area. It was estimated that a neutron flux in excess of 1000 n/cm^3 was produced during the incident.

25 years already?

[X-Nc]

Man, times does fly. I remember the reports of TMI when it happened. We were living in Germany at the time but most of my relitives live in Pittsburgh so it was of interest. I was a Junior in High School and remember thinking how it seemed everyone was all hyper and frantic when very little damage was actually done. I should go on a rant someday on the who world energy situation and how the current fossil fules are doing far more damage to the planet than a hundred TMI's. But I'm feeling quite lazy today...

They aren't

[Anonymous Coward]

"I should go on a rant someday on the who world energy situation and how the current fossil fules are doing far more damage to the planet than a hundred TMI's. But I'm feeling quite lazy today"

I should say that you are indeed "lazy". Coal and oil are doing no damage to the planet. Manmade global warming is a myth (we are still coming out the cold part of a long-term ice-age cycle) and the dust is nothing compared to what is put out in a single big volcano eruption.

Thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

The nuclear reactors used in commercial power plants possess several important safety features. They are designed so that it is impossible for them to explode like an atomic bomb.

Gee, that's sort of like saying "A computer is designed not to explode when a stack overflow occurs". The chief problem with nuclear power is that there are so many idiots out there who don't understand it.

History Channel

[feidaykin]

There was a great show about the accident on the history channel... I saw it a few months ago.

Apparently, you know something is wrong with your reactor when liquid that is supposed to be the color of water is green and glows in the dark... :\

Also, there was some sort of problem in actually identifying the problem, and the people that actually knew what was wrong were unable to contact the people at the reactor via phone for some reason until it was almost too late.

I also gathered from the show that things could have been worse... a lot worse. However, just because it's dangerous doesn't mean people should be paranoid. It's just like the space program: NASA is reluctant to use probes with RTGs and the like since people flip out when they hear about it. We're sending nukes into space, oh no! Heh.

Anyway, maybe the history channel will run that show again in honor of the anniversary. It was certainly more interesting that their millions of WW2 documentaries. In fact, I often think the little H in the corner must mean "The Hitler Channel" but maybe that's an exaggeration...

More thoughts.

[Anonymous Coward]

The water that runs through the reactor coolant system is radioactive, of course, since it has been exposed to the radioactive materials in the core.

Mmmmm. And just how radioactive would that be? The Chernobyl reactor appears to have only used one water loop. The article shows that TMI used 3 in series. Coal-powered plants release more radioctivity into the air than nuclear power plants do.

Re:More thoughts.

[MercTech]

While operatiing or after shutdown?

You get three things in primary coolant, fission fragments, activation products and corrosion products (read as radioactive rust).

Activation products... when exposed to a lot of neutrons, hydrogen (H1) gains neutrons and becomes tritium (H3). Oxygen becomes Nitrogen-16. N-16 heas a very short half-live (17 seconds) but emits a high energy gamma when it decays back to Oxygen. This is why the radiation levels are so high during operation. Tritium has a 12 year half life but only emits a very wimpy beta particle. It is only a hazard if you drink copius quanities of tritiated water. The solution used is to save the water from the reactor, filter out the other stuff, and re-use it. This is somewhat of a hazard to persons caught in a steam cloud from primary water if there is an accident. The solution if exposed is diuretics. In some, nuclear fuel plants, if a worker is exopsed to tritium, they are issued a 12-pack of beer to consume when they get home then are tested for internal tritium the next day. (I think it is a bit humorous, but it works well.)

Corrosion products..... from rusting of plant materials. The predominant part of this is Cobalt-60. In fact, this is the predominant source of radiation in a shut down power reactor (other than the fuel in the core). It has a 5.7 year half life and will decay away in a reasonable amount of time. The thing to do for it is to filter the water (done continuously) to remove the Co-60. The removed radioactive material is then sent for controlled burial. This also applies to Fe-59 (activated Iron)

Fission Fragments.....
Bits of radioactive material left over from the actual fission. Small amounts end up in the coolant. The primary nuclides produced are Cesium, Rubidium, Strontium, and Iodine (Cs-137, Rb-88, Sr-90, and I-131).

The Iodine can be carried in air and will seek the thyroid gland if in the human body. Charcoal filtering of the air in the containment building and continous monitoring of the air systems and of the air exhausted to the environment is the method of control. THIS IS THE ONLY NUCLIDE THAT TAKING POTASSIUM IODID PILLS WILL HELP WITH IF YOU GET SOME INTERNALLY. Don't let people fool you about KI tablets.

Cs-137, a metal ion, removed by filtering. See Co-60 above. A bit less energetic gamma emitter than Co-60.

Sr-90 is one of the nuclides that is monitored for the closest. It reacts chemically the same as calcium and can replace calcium in biological organisms. It is removed by filtering and ion exchange.

Fuel nuclides such as Uranium and Plutonium are also present. Uranium doesn't interact with an organism too very well and is removed by filtration. Plutonium is a hazard as it is an alpha emitter and lodges in the bones when ingested. It is removed from primary coolant by filtration and ion exchange.

Now, what becomes airborne in a steam leak out of a containment (such as Three Mile Island) is Tritium, Iodine, and Nitrogen-16. Real world numbers... the N-16 is no hazard after an hour. The Iodine takes 6 weeks to completely go away. The tritium component is actually a very small part of the steam and dilutes away to where it cannot be found among the naturally occurring radiation.

Back to the original question of how hot is the primary coolant, after the filtering, the water in the holdup tanks would be bathed in with no ill effects but you wouldn't want to drink it for decades. You don't want it on you though because of the other chemicals used in the water. (boric acid)

Back when I did reactor chemistry, I remember getting results a week after shutting off the reactor of 5E-10 microcuries per milliliter. The specification for drinking water was 1E-9 microcuries per milliliter. This was gross beta/gamma emitters with no detectable alpha emitters.

Now, after answering a question for the time with a trestise on building a clock, I leave you.

MercTech
(Mercenary Health Physics Technician)

The future of The History Channel

[Anonymous Coward]

Someday, 20 or so years in the future, the scandal-ridden Hillary Clinton presidential administration will cast a shadow over history and events just like Nixon's Whitewater scandals did. At this point, the H in History channel will change from Hitler to Hillary.

also Everything2 articles on TMI

[Anonymous Coward]

You can find the E2 writeups here.

(not the same anonymous user)

NRC Reg 79-01B

[Foozy]

I worked at Bechtel the following year as a 'nuclear technologist' (basically a clerical job) on 79-01B responses for three plants, QuadCities, Dresden, and... I forget the other. Basically, the reg said that every piece of equipment located in areas that might be subjected to hazardous environments (read high-pressure steam bath, possibly radioactive) had to be qualified to work under those conditions. "Qualified" meant that the piece (actuator, pump, switch, whatever) had to be tested or analyzed to determine whether or not it would work.

Thousands of pieces of gear were individually checked, tested, or analyzed via engineering computations. The NRC required a report to be delivered for each plant with all these qualifications individually listed. IIRC, the reports we generated were over 5 inches thick.

Never heard what happened after that...

Containment for graphite-moderated reactors to big

[Anonymous Coward]

TMI was a pressurized-water reactor. These are also water-moderated. I.e., fast neutrons from fission are slowed to thermal speeds so they can cause more fission reactions by the water in the core.

Chernobyl was a graphite-moderated reactor, which means that the fast neutrons were slowed by bouncing off the carbon atoms.

An interesting thing about water is that it has two effects in fission reactors:

1. It acts as a moderator (bouncing neutrons off the hydrogen atoms of water molecules is one of the best ways to slow a neutron down).

2. Water also acts as a poison to the chain reaction. The hydrogen atoms do have an affinity to sucking up neutrons and turning themselves into deuterium and tritium. This effect causes the fission chain reaction to peter out.

Which effect predominates depends on the physical geometry of the core and the layout of fuel, water, control rods, graphite, whatever else is in the core.

At TMI the moderation effect of water predominated, at Chernobyl the poison effect.

This means that at Chernobyl the primary coolant acted as a poison to the chain reaction - so remove the coolant and the nuclear reactions run amok - not an explosion, but all kinds of bad stuff. And that "bad stuff" includes, IIRC, a phase transformation of the graphite at a really high temperature that releases a lot of energy.

Conversely, at TMI when the core lost its coolant fission stopped and only decay heat from the radioactive decay of fission products remained - more than an order of magnitude less than rated reactor peak power depending on power history of the reactor (i.e., if the reactor has been running at 100% power for a few weeks, decay heat production is maxed at about 7% of full power, and decays rapidly)

But the loss of coolant at Chernobyl and resultant runaway nuclear reactions caused a steam explosion of the remaining coolant in the core that severed all emergency coolant connections into the core (and kill everyone in the reactor building itself, IIRC). This steam explosion probably would not have breached any containment vessel, but the later energy release from the graphite and the fires almost certainly would have anyway.

And Chernobyl was all caused by dumbasses shutting down the reactor protective systems designed to prevent them from running the reactor in such a condition. Chernobyl had safety features to prevent operation in the range where the disaster that happened would be possible (which was actually highly dependent on power history since the radioactive fission products also have a huge effect on fission in the core [ iodine-136, IIRC]), but since the engineers had a test they just had to perform even though the reactor hadn't been shutdown for a few days like it was supposed to be, they simply shut down the system that was designed to prevent the reactor from going kaboom.

Terrorism

[timeOday]

The truth is that modern techniques could probably make nuclear power an extremely safe alternative.

I think it has to be said - 911 was a big setback for nuclear power. In the 80s my dad told me that the reactors' containment mechanisms were designed to withstand an airplane impact and I thought, "man, are they paranoid." Now I think, "I wonder if they could really take it."

Terrorism is to transportation and energy production as spam is to email. Instead of thinking about whether something will be functional and work well, we have to worry about whether it could possibly be subverted by a determined adversary.

Nuclear power works great, but if we rely on it, are we willing to let Pakistan do the same? How about Iran?

Re:Terrorism

[Ironsides]

If they think a Nuclear Reactor could take a plane hit, I am confident they designed it to take much more than that (safety margins are usually designed so things this big can take twice the stress they claim Example:Elevator rated for 1000lb should be able to take at leat 2000lb, sensors just prevent you from using it at over 1000lb).

Besides, I don't think anyone (in the US) will let a terrorist take over a plane anymore unless everyone on the plane is dead, crippled, dying or a child.

Re:Terrorism

[Tarantulas]

In the 80s my dad told me that the reactors' containment mechanisms were designed to withstand an airplane impact and I thought, "man, are they paranoid." Now I think, "I wonder if they could really take it."

In December, 2002, the Electric Power Research Institute released an analysis entitled Aircraft Crash Impact Analyses Demonstrate Nuclear Power Plant's Structural Strength in which they ran computer models of a Boeing 767-400 crashing into a nuclear plant containment building, spent fuel pool, dry spent fuel storage container, and spent fuel transportation container. In all cases, there was no release of radionuclides to the environment.

Although it is an advocacy group, the Nuclear Energy Institute is a good source of technical information about nuclear power. It can be found at www.nei.org.

I work at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station in Arizona. It is a Combustion Engineering "System 80" plant. The "System 80 Plus" design is one of three that has been certified by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as a standardized design. This will save a ton of money and time if any company ever gets up the courage to build another nuclear power plant. Right now everyone is crazy about throwing together natural gas fired power plants, regardless of the fact that all the natural gas will be gone in a few years (I've heard that there's only 30 years of natural gas left in the world).

The reason we don't dry our clothing outside in Arizona is because the sunshine would fade the colors too much.

Blah.

[bj8rn]

The Titanic was also supposed to have been perfectly safe, even practically indestructible. And yet all it took was a single iceberg. The moral being that nothing is "perfectly safe".

Now, as for nuclear plants: do you really think noone has ever considered the possibility of an attempt to blow up a nuclear plant? Well, maybe noone has and they really have been completely unguarded until recently, but I don't buy it. I'm quite sure they were possible targets for Soviet saboteurs; surely the US and European governments thought of this. And yet they still built those plants. Why would the current situation be any different?

Re:Blah.

[Wudbaer]

surely the US and European governments thought of this. And yet they still built those plants. Why would the current situation be any different?

The situation is indeed different. E.g. it was said for the last 30 years or so that Germany's nuclear plants would be completely safe against aircrashs, terrorist attackes, malfunction, even most kinds of military activities. However, recent studies undertaken on behalf of the German government had the result that none of Germany's nuclear power stations would be able to withstand the direct impact of a large airliner without considerable damage, some of them would even be catastrophically destroyed.

How could this happen ? On one hand, when those plants were built between the 60s and 80s, terrorist activity was understood mostly as single bombs or sabotage as was commonly acted out by the left-wing terrorist of the time. Attacks of 9/11 or Madrid scale or suicide attacks of the kind we see in the middle east were unthinkable back then. It was also thought that the Red Army would not see to actively destroy nuclear power stations as they wanted to make use of land they conquered. Regarding aircrashs, the problem is similar to the planning parameters of the Twin Towers. On one hand everyone assumed an air crash to happen by accident, so mostly fast but small military aircraft were taken into account. On the other hand, the largest commercial aircraft when a lot of these plants were planned were Boing 707 and the like, which apparently could cause much less damage than modern aircraft.

The problem with long-lived technologies like nuclear energy is that in a couple of decades a lot of key parameters regarding the security of them can drastically change.

Re:Blah.

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. I've seen test footage of a remote controlled F-4 Phantoms flown into the sarcophagus and coolant stack of a reactor at mach 2. Didn't even scratch it, but the plane was basically a billion flaming pieces. An airliner would fare no better.

Trust me, this was thought of LONG ago.

Two words...

[eenglish_ca]

"Nuclear Safety" ...

Dead men tell no tales

[Anonymous Coward]

"twenty five years since, no one has been able to prove that they were adversly affected by the accident, healthwise."

Dead men tell no tales. It is pretty hard to prove anything if you are long since dead and in a lead-lined coffin with "danger radiation" labels on the outside.

Re:Dead men tell no tales

[slipstick]

Your stupid git. It is almost impossible to prove a SINGLE death due to radiation in the long term but it's easy to show whether or not the people around TMI died significantly prematurely compared to the rest of the population. If not death, the same statistical techniques can be used to determine if residents around TMI show significant increase in any given disease.

It is that information after 25 years I'd like to see rather than some nebulous affect on safety regulations.

The fact is dead men do tell tales!

Live near by it.

[BoxOfCuriosity]

My wife and I live a few miles from the reactor. I lived here during the accident. I still feel a little stange when I drive by it. Unfounded but its in the back of my mind. and no the streets do not glow. I used to know one person who able to look directly out the window at it. (accross the street riverside. They did move out for a bit durring the accident. Can't say I blame them. I figure in some ways it is probably the most watched reactor in the us now. They can't screw up... Heh.

Terrorism and nuclear facilities

[nsayer]

For years now, the folks guarding nuclear plants have been armed to the teeth.

They have no-fly zones around nuclear plants now. Not really because flying inside the line gets you shot down, but so they can aim a SAM at an incoming threat without worrying about hitting the wrong plane (not that they're worried about hitting the wrong plane - it's really that they're worried about missing the right one).

So let's pretend we're mad as hell and not going to take it any more. What's the plan?

9/11 style air attack won't work. You'll either get SAMed or the containment building will likely survive the impact.

Armed assault will be met with armed resistance. The minute the attack starts, someone presses the panic button and the cavalry arrives.

No, the only credible terrorist threat in my mind is an inside job - someone gets a job as a plant worker and sabotages the plant. If the plant were a fail-safe design, however (as a previous posted pointed out, current plants are designed with redundant systems, but are not fail-safe), the worst the criminal could do is shut the plant down and perhaps try and disperse the fuel with explosives (note that due to a failsafe system, he won't get any help dispersing the fuel from the plant itself). His ability to smuggle explosives into the plant without being detected will limit the effectiveness of that plan. Never mind that he'd have to be able to breach the containment building (yes, even a fail-safe reactor will likely have one).

Sabotage is certainly a threat at current nuclear facilities, just as it is a threat at, for example, petrolium refineries (I'd actually put Richmond, CA ahead of, say, San Onofre on a threat list). Better design mitigates that risk, just as it mitigates so many other risks.

Re:Terrorism and nuclear facilities

[Trurl's Machine]

No, the only credible terrorist threat in my mind is an inside job - someone gets a job as a plant worker and sabotages the plant. If the plant were a fail-safe design, however (as a previous posted pointed out, current plants are designed with redundant systems, but are not fail-safe), the worst the criminal could do is shut the plant down and perhaps try and disperse the fuel with explosives (note that due to a failsafe system, he won't get any help dispersing the fuel from the plant itself). His ability to smuggle explosives into the plant without being detected will limit the effectiveness of that plan. Never mind that he'd have to be able to breach the containment building (yes, even a fail-safe reactor will likely have one).

Please note, that the terrorist's goal does not necessarily has to be the core meltdown. They win by just contaminating a large area. Would you bet a franklin note that the whole sysem of production, transportation and storage of the nuclear fuel and waste is as safe as the plants themselves? To create a major disaster, the terrorists don't even need to attack the plant itself - they'd just seek the weakest link in the whole system. After all, bank vaults are also designed to be safe - yet sometimes someone robs a whole van (or even train!) of money.

Re:Terrorism and nuclear facilities

[Wudbaer]

Well, the no-flying thing might work in large or not very densely populated countries like the US or even France. If you take instead a very densely populated country like Germany were a lot of commercial air traffic routinely passes by close to or even directly over nuclear power plants you got a problem. Regarding the containment withstanding aircraft impact see my other post in this thread.

Re:Terrorism and nuclear facilities

[TrippyZ]

>You'll either get SAMed or the containment building will likely survive the impact.

So do these SAM batteries actually have firing orders available against commercial airliners?

Re:Terrorism and nuclear facilities

[bonius_rex]

They have no-fly zones around nuclear plants now. Not really because flying inside the line gets you shot down, but so they can aim a SAM at an incoming threat without worrying about hitting the wrong plane (not that they're worried about hitting the wrong plane - it's really that they're worried about missing the right one).

Uh... I live in Harrisburg. If you fly out of MDT, and look out the window, you can almost touch the cooling towers of TMI.

There certainly isn't much of a no-fly zone there. There are 2 airports on either side of the susquehanna river, with TMI on an island in between them.

Re:Terrorism and nuclear facilities

[nsayer]

My understanding is that the size of the no-fly zones is sufficient to make a reasonably sized free-fire zone.

As another poster reported, this may not be possible if a plant is near an airport, but that's not the case at any of the plants in CA.

In any event, good fail-safe designs would still likely be safer and cleaner after an attack of that sort than anything in the inventory today.

Re:Terrorism and nuclear facilities

[Dravik]

I would. The History Channel did a real nice piece on the history of Yucca Mountain. In that piece they went over the transportation and storage methods. Storage is done inside the plant. If you wanted to steal it you would pretty much have to take over the plant. The shipping Containers Were tested in just about every way you can come up with. They actually ramed it with a train going at a pretty good clip.

Re:Terrorism and nuclear facilities

[sketerpot]

I would as well. The production stage doesn't really have much danger in it; about the worst you could do is get your hands on some uranium and strap it to explosives and detonate it in a city, creating what many people will think of as a dirty bomb, which won't kill many people (if any) but which will cause lots of property damage. The later stages are pretty well covered.

Re:Terrorism and nuclear facilities

[citdude]

For those of you who don't know: San Onofre (Nuclear Generating Station) is located on property that has been leased from Camp Pendleton (a military base). Since 9/11 security has increased to actually arming the guards at the gates and doubling the number of then, revoking the rights of workers to enter the protected area (where any radioactive material actually is). There are barriers up to prevent cars from crashing into the protected area and exploding to cause any damage. The containment itself will protect the reactor from any possible air attack (not to mention Apache Helicopters and SAM sites). They did a test where they put an F4 on a rocket and launched it at a wall similar to the containment (a little less strong) and there was no loss of integrity to the wall. In other words, as long as they keep their mind on security, the plant will be fine (they run checks of everyone who has been in the plant in the last 3 years with lists of suspected terrorists). Other power plants that have cooling towers may be at a financial risk if the terrorists think that hitting the cooling towers with a plane could cause radiation leak. It won't. It will just cost the owners a lot of money to rebuild them and maybe get a new reactor too if it gets too hot. I certainly agree with the statement that refineries are probably more of a risk.

Re:Terrorism and nuclear facilities

[firewrought]

9/11 style air attack won't work. You'll either get SAMed or the containment building will likely survive the impact.

Hmmm... I dont' buy it. Are their SAM systems actively protecting every nuclear site? Are they operated by staff with proper training? Do they get tested regularly? Can they fire w/o offsite authorization? Are there any relevant NRC regs you can cite?

I am told that the containment buildings for the nuclear plants I support can withstand a direct hint from a volkswagen going 100 MPH. Containment would probably provide some protection against larger objects too, but Boeings are much larger and faster than Volkswagens. :-)

the worst the criminal could do is shut the plant down and perhaps try and disperse the fuel with explosives

I'll one-up you: the worst the criminal could do is hijack a Boeing and crash it into the holding pool, which is not protected by containment like the reactor is. Release of radiation? Yes, probably. Heck... a contractor with access to the right materials might be able to drop an explosive device into the pool and cause some major damage to the plant w/perhaps some radioactive release. And definite public panic.

Armed assault will be met with armed resistance. The minute the attack starts, someone presses the panic button and the cavalry arrives.

Agreed, but the calvary is not going to be all that large. A modest paramilitary force would have a pretty good chance of accomplishing some serious evil. A large, trained paramilitary force would be unstoppable [if they could make it to the gate undetected... the logistics might give them a way weeks ahead of time].

Note that this post is just my speculation, gathered from the snippets I hear about plant security and happenings in the industry. Nuclear power is basically a good thing, but be wary of having too much trust in the system. (How many Pentagon workers killed 2001-09-11 would have bet that the military could have scrammed some jets fast enough to prevent an attack on the pentagon given an hour's notice?)

Re:Terrorism and nuclear facilities

[jimmyswimmy]

There is definitely no "no-fly" zone around US nuke plants. As the parent points out, this is a good thing - it would be tough as hell to fly out of several airports.

As a private pilot I am aware of the latest rules and, for once, I am prepared to back up these assertions. According to the JCS NOTAM (NOtice To AirMen) office at https://www.notams.jcs.mil/

A0008/03 (FDC 3/1655) - ...SPECIAL NOTICE... FLIGHT RESTRICTIONS. PURSUANT TO 14 CFR SECTION 99.7, SPECIAL SECURITY INSTRUCTIONS, PILOTS CONDUCTING FLIGHT OPERATIONS WITHIN THE TERRITORIAL AIRSPACE OF THE U.S. ARE ADVISED TO AVOID THE AIRSPACE ABOVE OR IN PROXIMITY TO ALL NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS. PILOTS SHOULD NOT CIRCLE OR LOITER IN THE VICINITY OF SUCH FACILITIES. PILOTS WHO DO SO CAN EXPECT TO BE INTERVIEWED BY LAW ENFORCEMENT PERSONNEL AT THEIR DESTINATION AIRPORT AND THE PILOT'S NAME MAY BE ADDED TO THE TRANSPORTATION SECURITY ADMINISTRATION (TSA INCIDENT REPORTING SYSTEM. WIE UNTIL UFN

In other words, if you screw around (maybe using the cooling stacks as your reference for "turns about a point," for example) over a nuclear power plant, you can expect that your life will be made to totally suck. I mean, who cares about having to talk to the cops afterwards (probably at gunpoint) -- the TSA "Incident Reporting System" is not a database that I want my name attached to. I have to fly commercially way too much for THAT flag to be raised on me.

Re:Terrorism and nuclear facilities

[Martin Blank]

Add me to the list of people that would. The trucks/trains are tracked actively by GPS, and even if someone did get away with one of the containment structures, I think they could be found before they could get into the core of the containment structure, which was *chipped* by an anti-tank missile.

Clotheslines and birds

[Nick Driver]

I prefer not to have my freshly laundered clothes covered with freshly shat bird droppings. You *do* have birds in Oz, don't you mate? Contrary to popular myth, we (still) have an abundance of them here in the US.

Re:Clotheslines and birds

[moxruby]

I always hang my clothes out to dry. I have a colony of bats living in the trees above me. Can't remember the last time I had to re-wash (horror!) a shirt...

Re:Consequences of Home Owners Associations?

[Bombcar]

Since you have a low UUID, I bow before you.

The reason for the "voluntary" homeowners associations is basically because you go i debt for your house.

So the only way to be safe with you $500,000 house is to make sure it doesn't go down in value, because then if you had to sell you'd lose money. Couple that with the fact that the average American moves every 7 years or so, and you see what the issue is. Fear. Fear of someone moving next door and using a clothesline, which drops your property value $50,000.

This is actually ridiculous, because the HOA will actually cost $100 a month or so, for "improvements" to the neighborhood.

I've avoided that; I'll never buy a house with a "covenant" as they're called, because they are insane. You can google for "racial covenants," which were declared illegal, which basically said you couldn't let the "evil black people" into the neighborhood.

If a HOA gets too uppity, however, the state usually forces them to become a town, which reduces the number of things they can make you do.

Some examples of covenant required things:

1. No colors of flowers different from neighbors.

2. No painting your house a different color.

3. No vehicles older than 10 years or non running anywhere on the property.

4. No parties involving more than 15 people.

Etc, etc. Who needs slavery in the USA when most people will give up their freedoms for "security"?

gutless crybabies

[PsibrII]

After rocky flats, the detroit reactor neer explosion, hanfords non stop spew of radiation and of course after the nation had been glowing with nuke test fallout for 30 years, THEN they decide to wimp out because a reactors failsafes actually began working to the point where there was little radiation leakage ? WTF ?

The russians on the other hand, their main food production area is not EPA weenie HOT, its will I die of this THIS year hot. And they keep all the reactors of the same type going because if they shut them down they'll FREEZE to death.

In the US most of our energy problems are self inflicted, political scams to run up energy sales prices, the oil companies sticking it to the consumer every time the EPA sticks it to them, calfornia sucking up all the cheap natural gas so they can have "clean" power and then the people in the northern states who relied on that for home heating now have their bills tripple or more. While those using heating oil and some cases even just electricity are now paying less while carbon fouling the air like crazy. And don't think that coal is "non-nuclear" the ash from burning that doesn't go up in the air is contains enough uranium and thorium to be a potential source of reactor fuel. http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/ colmain.html

At least in a nuclear plant they keep the waste and fuel contained, not blasted out of a smoke stack or floating around on some barge until they can find a country to unload it in.

The energy has to come from some place. And it HAS to come from YOUR BACK YARD because the grid wasn't made to have power generated in a designated dirty state like kentucy, or tennessee and transmitted all the way to the east coast. The question is, do you want CO2 and thorium ash spewing plant in every city, or a reactor powering 12 cities and giving some neurotic mommies a panic attack 6 times a day.

As for alternate energy, solar cells take a lot of power to make, windmills take energy to machine and transport to the location, micro-turbines/water wheels require a certain type of landscape and water supply. All these are great if you live in the middle of nowhere. Solar heating/cooling is great if you can afford to have it worked into your house.

But the bulk of your power needs still come from coal and nuclear power. And nuclear power can't continue if you have to bury every ton of concrete ever touched by 12 extra neutrons in some dump. And coal burning can't go on for another hundred years or we'll run out of air. This means we have to come up with some sort of reasonable nuclear regulation, acceptable loses, etc.

ONLY FOR AN ELECTRIC DRIER

[Intraloper]

Sorry 'bout that all-caps, but this is important. The exhaust of a gas drier is not only carying the evaporated water from the drying clothes, it is also carrrying the combustion exhaust from the gas heater. You DO NOT want to be running those combustion gasses to the interior of your home, where people would like to remain alive.

Re:ONLY FOR AN ELECTRIC DRIER

[Marvin_OScribbley]

Good point! I didn't even realize they still made those when I made my post... :-)

As for the smell, I've always noticed the bleach smell from whites during the wash cycle, not the dry cycle. Other then that I don't really notice much smell at all, just a lot of humidity. Speaking of humidity, venting the dryer indoor during the winter this will also reduce static electricity and such since these are caused by low humidity.

Communist != Luddite

[handy_vandal]

hey, communists are anything but luddites. They built reactors (and most of them didn't go bang), launched the first satellite, and got the first human in space....

What's more, some communist achievements, while not firsts in their fields, were spectacular because of their size, e.g. Magnitogorsk.

Let's be clear that we're speaking here of the former Soviet Union, in particular -- other communist states accomplished no such things.

-kgj

Human (un)reliability...

[phkamp]

It has long since been recorded as a fact that any system relying on human reliability is unreliable.

Both Chernobyl and TMI happened because the humans didn't fulfill their role in the reliability chain.

In both cases, humans misreading or misinterpreting information worked against the automatic protection systems correct safing actions.

To technocrats like us, the obvious solution is fully automatic, unmanned atomic powerplants.

Considering that we cannot even drive a car 20km by computer, I don't think we are anywhere close to ready for that sort of challenge yet.

So while nuclear energy may be ready, we're not.

(And there's also that pesky detail about the spent fuel.)

The best part about Three Mile Island

[flimflam]

was when Jimmy Carter went there to say that nothing was wrong and then came out ten feet tall and glowing. That was classic.

Nuclear far more dangerous/dirty

[Anonymous Coward]

Pittsburgh and London used to burn coal like crazy. Both are pretty well cleaned up now. If they had used nuclear power instead, the resulting contamination would have made sure that both sites would be "Do not trepass until 8500 AD" zones.

Jimmy Carter and the rabbit

[AtariAmarok]

was when Jimmy Carter went there to say that nothing was wrong and then came out ten feet tall and glowing. That was classic

I think you have Carter himself confused with the giant man-eating mutant rabbit that attacked him once.

What impact?

[r_newman]

Look -for example - at the Sellafield plant in West Britain. It has a ludicrously, disgracefully bad safety record. As a reprocessing plant also, Sellafield is slowly poisoning the Irish sea. Nuclear waste is buried beneath the waves in containers which are - allegedly - likely to rupture within 50 years of storage. It'll be a HELL of a lot longer before the waste stops polluting the sea and killing the fish and plants in the vicinity. Nuclear power could be a very viable source of power if there was any viable long term solution for storage of waste products. When one takes in security there are currently NO viable methods for disposing of nuclear waste.

And by the way, to all the rednecks who pronounce it "nucular", learn to enunciate!!!

Re:What impact?

[Ironsides]

there are currently NO viable methods for disposing of nuclear waste.

Recycle it, wind up with 90 to 95% less material and more fuel. The remaining 5 to 10% (i have heard) is about as radioactive as your car and would fit under your desk. Disposal problem solved.

And if you say that "If thats true, why don't we already do that?" take a look at the Anti-Nuclear-Anything loby that would lobby against anything with the word Nuclear in it even if it solved all our energy problems, every known disease including cancer and produced no pollution in any way, as long as it had anything to do with anything Nuclear.

Re:What impact?

[jbmugwump]

The Anti-Nuclear-Anything lobby is right.

I once heard one of their spokes-people on a radio show who said that if he fried a fish on his electric stove and the electricity was nuclear powered you couldn't convince him that his fish wouldn't end up being radioactive.

Talk about not knowing the science!

I live..

[raindown]

Approx. four miles (line of sight) from the nuclear power plant in Limerick, PA and not a day goes by where I worry something is going to happen, and it's not a very serious worry.. more like "hm, what if something happened right now?".. then I ponder for 30 seconds and go about my business. On the first Monday of every month at 2pm they test the alarms and it's one of the most disturbing, interesting sounds I've heard. It's a normal siren, but since there are quite a few of them going off at once you can hear the phase differences and it's pretty eerie, especially when you forget that they do this test. Oh well, it's quite a beautiful sight to see a lot of the time and at least I have my potassium iodide tablet waiting on my desk if anything does happen.

Re:I live..

[BoxOfCuriosity]

When the sirens actually work that is... Or how about when they go off by accident. That can make your day. (It has happened. (I am just next to middletown...) I never did pick up the potassium iodine pills. Meant too.

Re:I live..

[raindown]

I think I remember this happening last spring/summer. But it was before I knew that it happened at 2pm on the first Monday of each month. I definitely freaked out a bit. I guess they post the alarm test times in some local paper? (I'm right next to Limerick) but I never bother to look.

Re:I live..

[rogerz]

This is a very understandable emotional reaction, given our societal FUD regarding nuclear energy. However, a little bit of self education would lead you to the conclusion that - if there are any energy sources you should fear - nuclear is not one of them. Indeed, the mostly invisible effluents from oil and (especially) coal fired power plants should concern you much more than few extra millirem you are getting each year from the one remaining operational reactor at TMI. It would be sad if your "out of sight, out of mind" attitude regarding relative risk were pervasive in our society - So, I guess I should be sad, because it is.

Re:I live..

[raindown]

Oh, it's not that I'm not worried about the other things you mentioned.. I grew up a few miles from a coal power plant.. I know that nuclear power is not something that I should be terribly concerned with. I've only lived near this plant (it's not the TMI plant, it's the plant in Limerick, PA) for about a year and a half now so it's kind of a new thing for me, because in Iowa I was never this close to a nuclear plant.

Nucular

[AtariAmarok]

"And by the way, to all the rednecks who pronounce it "nucular", learn to enunciate!!!"

You mean rednecks like Jimmy Carter (of killer rabbit incident fame). He pronounces it "nucular".

In case you did not know, he was an actual "nucular" engineer, and has forgotten more about nuclear issues than either of us will ever learn. This is not to say that it is the correct pronunciation. Just that it isn't just Bubba who says it like this.

So how long unit...

[fmaxwell]

How long will it be before we get a photo album of the area around Three Mile Island put together by some gum-chewing Jersey girl riding around on a moped? Somehow it just won't be the same...

Re:So how long unit...

[raindown]

I don't think Jersey people travel that far.

Re:Consequences of Home Owners Associations?

[henrik]

Ok.

Well, contracts that are voluntary are one thing. But there are laws (at least in Europe) that makes it impossible to sign away certain rights and freedoms in contracts.

These HOAs sounds a lot of ghetto building, but the other way around. Ghettos for the rich and white people. Sick.

Apollo 13

[Ironsides]

This is related, so please read all first before deciding otherwise.

The Apollo 13 malfunction was caused by an explosion and rupture of oxygen tank no. 2 in the service module. The explosion ruptured a line or damaged a valve in the no. 1 oxygen tank, causing it to lose oxygen rapidly. The service module bay no.4 cover was blown off. All oxygen stores were lost within about 3 hours, along with loss of water, electrical power, and use of the propulsion system.Apollo 13 accident

I am pretty sure That I don't have all the failures listed here, there were 3 as I recall

The astronaughts afterwards said something along the lines of "If they had given this scenario to us in training, we would have walked off the program right then and there." This was mainly because NASA had been giving them all sorts of implausible scenarios where something goes wrong, and they thought that none of them could ever happen. Most of them were also 2 component failures and not 3.

It's not going to be something old that kills us, it's going to be something new that we never thought of.

The nuCLEAR Truth

[argoff]

Well,

The trush is that nuclear power is already the safest and cleanest power source in the USA - even when you include taking care of radioactive waste.

The truth is, as has been pointed out here several times, that coal powered plants in the USA (trace radiation) are more radioactive then nuclear plants.

The truth is, that 3 mile island was the ultimate example of why nuclear power in the US is so safe. Even in worse case scenarios, and with 20 simeltanious managment and design failures - nothing harmfull happened to anybody.

The truth is, the movement against nuclear power has far more to do with OPEC financing than concern for safety, liabilities, or the environment.

The truth is that 3 mile island wasn't a nuclear disaster by any measure, it was a political disaster.

The truth is that dealing with nuclear waste isn't a problem either, it's also a political problem.

The sad truth is that we could all have had clean, cheap, safe, and environmentally friendly power a long time ago. But big huge nuclear powerplants are just simply too tempting of a target ..... for politicians and regulation that is.

Unfortunately, the popular mob is all to often like a herd buffalos, the stampeed that saves one from a lion kills thousands as they head toward the cliff.

Review of the Swanwick book

[Anonymous Coward]

here

The clear truth about nuclear energy.

[Anonymous Coward]

"The trush is that nuclear power is already the safest and cleanest power source in the USA"

The safety is quite debatable, with all the near disasters from incompetance that did not happen only due to luck. The "cleanest" is undebatable: it is far and away the dirtiest. If you don't believe me, why not store some nuclear waste under your bed. Myself, I'd store coal dust. A lot less nasty.

"The truth is, the movement against nuclear power has far more to do with OPEC financing than concern for safety, liabilities"

It has everything to do with safety, and a lot to do with cost (the things are so expensive). The movement for it has huge corporate interests (energy companies) that you forget about.

They tried to build one in my state several years ago. A lot of it was public (taxpayer) funded. After the cost overruns were 3 times what the power company said it would cost, the government finally pulled the plug. It was really just a form of corporate welfare.

"The sad truth is that we could all have had clean, cheap, safe, and environmentally friendly power a long time ago"

We would not have had it with nuclear, since it is the dirtiest, it is super expensive, and it is dangerous. Environmentally friendly? That is a joke.

Re:The clear truth about nuclear energy.

[argoff]

.... why not store some nuclear waste under your bed ...

Actually, I'd love to - and actually our armed forces have it by their side every night (it's called depleted uranium). Almost all the other stuff could be processed if it wern't for the regulations. And you can burry that stuff in my backyard any day of the week - especially for the price they're doing it in Nevada. Shit I'd be so rich, I could only wish.

.... They tried to build one in my state several years ago. A lot of it was public (taxpayer) funded. After the cost overruns were 3 times what the power company said it would cost, the government finally pulled the plug. It was really just a form of corporate welfare.

Well, that (and regulatory costs) are good arguments for the government stay the F*** out of the nuclear business. But, it's a rather poor argument against nuclear energy.

So how manny people in the states did you say have died from nuclear power related deaths?

Re:The clear truth about nuclear energy.

[slipstick]

Excuse me, please tell us how many people died or had premature death or even debilating illness due to "all" those accidents that were all only stopped by pure luck.

Second please explain how your going to collect ALL the pollutants from your coal plant. You can stick the nuclear waste(after recycling of course because we have to be good recyclers) under my bed any day, try sticking all the coal pollutants under your bed, I suggest you look for a different place to live though.

Stories of government handouts and boondoggles don't impress me. They do that kind of shit with pig farms too. The only thing that does is prove government should stay out of business.

Re:The clear truth about nuclear energy.

[plugger]

Why would a nuclear power 'stay the f*ck' out of the plutonium creation business?

Re:Consequences of Home Owners Associations?

[bluGill]

Yeah, they suck. I wouldn't live under one either. However there are also laws in the US. Many of these things forbid satellite dishes for example, but federal law preempts that, so you can have them anyway.

I agree, they are ghettos. 100 houses, all exactly the same, down to the color of paint, the length of the grass, and the flowers in the garden. Ugly, but people buy them. I'd prefer to live in something Gaudi designed, but he wouldn't be allowed to build anything in a typical town... (Note that he wasn't allowed to build a lot of things that he did, but he did anyway in the process creating memorable buildings)

Square root law

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

A long time ago, the rule of thumb was that total construction cost scaled with the square root of generating capacity for a fission plant.

Utilities would have preferred adding capacity in smaller increments.

Do we actually know how good the Navy's record has been? I admire Rickover, the personnel are well trained, but it's hard to measure the safety record of people who can stamp "Secret" on their mistakes.

We were lucky

[forgetful]

The critical issue about Three Mile Island is not what didn't happen, but what almost happened because NOBODY HAD PLANNED for what almost happened. If the TMI reactor had not just been re-fueled, it likely would have blown the containment vessel and produced a Chernobyl-class disaster. Remember the "hydrogen bubble?" Know where that hydrogen came from? It came out of the interstices in the various metal components when the protons from the reaction had joined up with electrons to produce hydrogen. Normally, the hydrogen stays trapped and doesn't cause a problem, but if the materials melt, that hydrogen is freed and it boils out. Because the fuel rods were new, the pressure within the containment vessel "only" went to about 1000 psi. If the rods had been older, so they contained vastly more trapped hydrogen, the hydrogen could have blown the vessel before anybody knew what happened. After several days the operators got a special dispensation to vent the radioactively contaminated hydrogen and steam into the atmosphere. Better we take the little dose than risk the big one! The crucial point is that a response had to be worked out after the fact, because there was no plan in place that anticipated the escape of the hydrogen from the core meltdown. Similarly, had the core melted totally, rather than just almost totally (there was some water left in the bottom which prevented total meltdown), all those plugs in the bottom of the containment structures where cables come through could have melted out. Then you could have had TONS of molten uranium and debris under enormous pressure squirting into the environment. We were lucky at Three Mile Island. That is not to criticize the people that handled the failure. This is just a statement that no technology can anticipate every eventuality, and arrogance leads to disaster, as witness: both Shuttle losses, the collapse of Teton Dam, many terror attacks, etc., etc. I am not rabidly anti-nuke, but nuke electricity will never be "too cheap to meter" as was promised at the outset. I know too well the political, economic, technological, and social realities. Sixty years into the nuclear era, the U.S. still does not have a permanent repository for nuclear waste. I still think the best use for the 1000 tons of plutonium on Earth would be to shoot it into space, in the engines of spacecraft bound for Mars, the asteroids, Jupiter, Saturn...

Re:We were lucky

[Anonymous Coward]

Err. RTFA. They covered the hydrogen bit.

Hydrogen will not burn without an oxidiser (oxygen).

Hydrogen did get produced during the partial meltdown. Oxygen was also produced from the radiation breaking apart the water in coolant system.

BUT, the hydrogen that was created ended up re-combining with the O2, and returned to being water. An explosive or even flammable solution never materialized.

Re:We were lucky

[forgetful]

Not so. Note the report was issued long before ANY material had been removed from the reactor for scientific analysis--indeed before any attempt was made toward cleanup. Also, the report specifically mentions a hydrogen explosion occurred early on during the incident. Where do you think THAT hydrogen came from? It most likely was not generated, but immediately came out of solution from within the metal upon meltdown. The crucial issue is that had the fuel been in use for a longer period of time, the metal would have been saturated with vastly more hydrogen. Compressed metal stores great amounts of hydrogen. In fact, it is one storage system proposed for hydrogen-powered automobiles. Further into the fuel cycle, there could have been TONS of hydrogen released. The point is, before the TMI meltdown, there was not a plan in place to deal with the hydrogen. Indeed, it is uncertain if the scientists and engineers involved in design and construction had even considered the problem. My impressions come from reports and discussions that happened long AFTER the cited report was issued--after the jumbled core materials had been removed and analyzed.

Re:We were lucky

[Mark of THE CITY]

Know where that hydrogen came from? It came out of the interstices in the various metal components when the protons from the reaction had joined up with electrons to produce hydrogen.

Huh? Fission produces daughter nuclei and neutrons, not protons.

BTW my favorite lab class in an undergrad chemistry program was "Nuclear Chemistry," because it was so easy to get correct results from the neutron activation experiment.

Re:We were lucky

[forgetful]

Yes, and neutrons have a half life of about 17 minutes, before they decay into protons and electrons.

Re:We were lucky

[Mark of THE CITY]

Fifty percent of neutrons go to continuing the chain reaction (assume steady state). Some (most, maybe?) of the rest irradiate the shell, supports, and the coolant. Even if hydrogen accumulates, it needs some oxidizer to ignite it.

America's Radioactive Involuntary Parks

[Doc Ruby]

From Bruce Sterling's <A HREF="http://viridiandesign.org">Viridian Note</A> 00405

Source: Science magazine 12 March 2004
Vol 303 No 5664
page 1615

"POLICY FORUM

"ENVIRONMENT

"Avoiding Destructive Remediation at DOE Sites"

by F. W. Whicker, T. G. Hinto, M. M. MacDonell, J. E. Pinder III,
L. J. Habegger

Links:
F. Ward Whicker, Ph.D, actual no-kidding scientist
<A HREF="http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/RHS/faculty/w hicker.html">http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/RHS/fa culty/whicker.html</A>

The "Risks-Based End States" policy suggestion.
<A HREF="http://www.ead.anl.gov/new/dsp_news.cfm?id=6 8">http://www.ead.anl.gov/new/dsp_news.cfm?id=68</ A>

"The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and its predecessor agencies pioneered atomic weapons, nuclear energy, and peaceful uses of radioisotopes, but operating practices that began half a century ago eft a legacy of environmental contamination (1) at more than 100 sitesin 30 states covering two million acres."

"FOOTNOTE (1). This contamination includes chemical and radioactive materials that escaped containment and that resides in >1 x 10(7) m(3) soil and >2 x 10(12) liters of groundwater. Chemical contaminants include fuel, other organic compounds, explosives, and metals. Radioactive contaminants include longer-lived fission products such as 137Cs, 90Sr, and 129I (((cesium, strontium and iodine))) and actinides. e.g. 239OPu (((plutonium))) and uranium isotopes. Radioactive contamination concentrated to more than 100 times the
background levels is usually confined to relatively small areas at or near industrial sites (each probably less than <10(3) M(3). Lower levels of contamination can be spread over much larger areas, some of which include natural aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems."

(((Two million acres, over 100,000,000 cubic meters of dirt, and over 20,000,000,000,000 liters of underground water. Kind of a lot, huh?)))

"In 2002, a critical review of DOE's Environmental Management Program concluded that the cleanup program for the nuclear weapons program could cost more than $300 billion, and that more than $60 billion had already been spent without a corresponding reduction in actual risk. (2)

"FOOTNOTE 2. US DOE, 'A review of the Environmental Management Program' (US DOE Washington DC 2002) available at:
<A HREF="http://web.em.doe.gov/ttbr.pdf">http://web.e m.doe.gov/ttbr.pdf</A>

(((Where'd the ol' $60 billion go, eh? Federal contractors, you gotta love 'em!)))

"The environmental cleanup program generally involves excavation, transport and disposal of soil, pumping and treating of groundwater, and other engineering and technological measures.

(...)

"Although DOE has the ultimate responsibility for environmental remediation, site-specific cleanup goals have been strongly influenced by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), with input from private groups and local citizens. Cleanup decisions have often been
based on the highly conservative assumption that people will live on the land for a lifetime and derive their food and water from the site. Cleanup goals are usually set to achieve an incremental cancer risk of
<10(4) or lower for the maximally exposed hypothetical resident. These and other conservative assumptions translate to cleanup of extremely low levels of radionuclides."

((("The maximally exposed hypothetical resident." Well, suppose this angry voter who's a local citizen doesn't even exist? No people, no NIMBY!)))

"The radionuclides of most concern, such as cesium and plutonium, are found primarily in soil or sediment. Unreasonably low cleanup criteria for radionuclide concentrations in these media ((("these media" = dirt))) thus can lead to unnecessary excavation,
transport, and disposal elsewhere, all of which magnify costs and cause loss

*energy production* not safe.

[MacAndrew]

... but the writer's unstated point is apt -- we should consider what WILL happen, not what should. it is unlikely that eliminating nuclear will be in tandem with making coal safe; coal use will increase (or some other dirty fossil fuel method) and a new more subtle hazard will spring up. it is easy to protest the "sexy" threat of nuclear (e.g., the China Syndrome) while not adequately bringing the hazards of mercury into the public's mind (try writing a movie on tainted fish!). the industry is driven by profit, the public by subjective fear ... and a dislike of taxes and energy prices. alternative energy still has a fringe image to it, and frankly in the short term it offers less profit or higher prices. (rarely are the alternatives zero impact, either.)

i'm not arguing for nuclear or against coal per se, rather that the ENTIRE energy production picture MUST be considered at once, otherwise we merely displace risk and may even cause more aggregate harm.

Re:*energy production* not safe.

[danharan]

I didn't simply talk about alternative energy. I also mentionned demand-side management and co-generation.

When I mentionned alternative energy, I mainly had wind in mind. I'll get to the other two a bit further down.

Perhaps it has a fringe image in your mind, but in Germany and Denmark wind is anything but. Germany produces 4% of its electricity from wind, Denmark 20%. That's not fringe, especially when you consider this is a relatively new mode of generation.

While wind is still more expensive than coal, it is arguably cheaper than nuclear if you count the levelized life-cycle costs. More than a frightened public, it is the economics of nuclear that have sunk it- building a new plant costs a lot of money, is often over budget and takes a very long time.

Fuel costs for wind won't go up, and they will never be a big terrorist target. They also don't release mercury and radio-active waste like coal plants. Many also believe that if we counted the real costs of fossil fuels ("externalities"), coal and natural gas would not be as cost-effective as wind. If fossil fuels and nuclear are such good deals, why do they have to be subsidized to the tune of hundreds of billions a year?

--
Co-generation refers to using natural gas to get both heat and electricity, with a much higher efficiency than if you were producing only electricity.

Being so efficient, they are very cost effective.
Being small, they are ideal for decentralized production- great if you want to avoid blackouts or expensive increases in grid capacity.

--
Demand-side management programs are in place by many utilities, including in the US. Helping customers use less energy, or use it during off-peak periods cost less than increasing generating capacity.

--
Taken together, demand-side management, wind and co-generation can provide cheap, reliable, safe energy. They are not zero-impact, nothing is. (Although they might reduce your foreign energy dependency, help clean your air and create jobs.)

So, I submit that what I offered was indeed considering the entire energy production picture. Simply adding nuclear plants will cost too much money and take too long. If you disagree, I would urge you to provide a better alternative.

Re:*energy production* not safe.

[MacAndrew]

ah, i agree with you on energy production but made a politically pragmatic point. your arguments go to what should happen. what i fear *will* happen is a haphazard series of changes designed to be popular rather than comprehensive, and all under the jaundiced eye of industry. actually, that is what *has* been happening for years ever since President Reagan persuaded a receptive public that President Carter was nuts to turn down the thermostat in the white house, perhaps even unamerican.

americans are familiar with cheap energy and relatively minimal government. auto gas in denmark or germany costs what, double? triple? (i pick cars b/c i know at least a little about it.) arguments for behavior-inducing gas taxes, or more efficient cars (e.g., CAFE has been frozen since Reagan), have been shot down even though, yes, they probably would have reaped larger dividends in "externalities." americans angrily notice a 10 cent difference in gas prices (even if adjusted for inflation our gas has gotten cheaper) and not externalities, in fact few will listen to (my) arguments about thinking in inflation-adjusted dollars or counting the price of middle eastern entanglement, and would be quick to complain about the "tin can" cars people favor in countries with expensive gas. The Hummer -- only in america?

i don't mean to knock americans too harshly -- heck, i *am* one -- but to say old ways reinforced by pandering politicians die hard. this is plain old cynical politics, not an intellectual exercise. just because an argument makes perfect sense doesn't mean it will carry the day.

i would urge the public to insist on a comprehensive plan, and to be wary of emotional appeals to do this or that. industry is likely to rig the game if overall performance is not a well-defined quantifiable goal as it is in something like air quality. gee, wouldn't this be a good topic for a candidate for president? this is fight that can be won, but only if we pick it.

btw, i have been watching wind with interest and am especially curious where "cape wind" will come out. again politics are key -- which side will win and why?

CANDU system info

[Faeton]

As someone pointed out, light water reactors use light water to moderate. CANDU uses heavy water (deuterium) to moderate. CANDU is only "safer" because it uses natural uranium, rather than enriched (though there has been a push for some slightly enriched CANDU reactors). Natural uranium contains less energy per gram than enriched (due to lower concentrations of U235, which is more fissile than U238).

So, because there's less energy per gram, CANDU system have online fueling, which means that the reactor is fueled/refueled while it's still producing power. This actually happens (ideally) everyday. A LWR runs for ~18 months, then shuts down as it gets defueled/refueled.

Contrary to popular belief, CANDU isn't any more "safer" due to this design. If you're purely talking from a physics point of view, CANDU does look safer because of the lower amount of fission that goes on (thus less heat), and the design is pretty good. BUT.. you run into problems when you're constantly opening up channels on on-power, due to wear and tear on machinery (high-doses of radiation isn't great for most metals, eletronics, etc) and the possibility that you might get fuel in air (even though it's spent) exists.

So, nothing is failproof (duh!), even with the newer designs. But what you can do is limit the likelihood of something bad happening, and be prepared for it if and when it does (defense in depth), and limit the damage.

That being said, I think the nuclear industry does have problems, but there have been some MASSIVE improvements over the last 15 years. No civilian has yet to die due to a nuclear accident in north america which is pretty amazing looking at any other industry out there (dams kill a surprising # of people every year). But you have be vigilant... it only takes seconds to mess things up all over agin.

Re:CANDU system info

[mpe]

So, because there's less energy per gram, CANDU system have online fueling, which means that the reactor is fueled/refueled while it's still producing power. This actually happens (ideally) everyday.

A side effect of this is that there are less fission products in the reactor.

TMI Killed my Dad

[25thCenturyQuaker]

My Pops was a newscamerman for KYW (Philadelphia) and KDKA (Pittsburgh) working out of the state capitol in Harrisburg.

He and his reporter, Sandy Starobin, were the first crew on the scene when the story about TMI's incident first broke, and he was there for a full week.

He later contracted a form of leukemia that is most often associated with an extended exposure to the type of radiation generated from a power plant.

Our family was involved in a class-action suit against G.P.U. and MetEd, but it was thrown out of court twice for lack of provable evidence that TMI was the cause.

Ignorance about Nuclear Power is Killing Us

[RussP]

Ignorance about Nuclear Power is Killing Us

Garbage in, garbage out

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>Both Chernobyl and TMI happened because the humans didn't fulfill their role in the reliability chain.

Their role was to look at input, process it, and produce output in the form of control actions.

They got incomplete, distracting, contradictory and even incorrect input.

Naturally the output was wrong.

Re: naval reactors

[SEAL]

The thing which I can not fathom about the American nuclear power policy is that they are encouraged to make HUGE reactors. (Had to look this up for nuclear physics class at one point) The US Navy has an almost perfect record with identical, small reactors.

They don't have to worry about shielding and containment as much as civilian powerplants. In a submarine, in particular, the bottom portion of the reactor is barely shielded by more than the hull. The ocean does the job just fine.

Most of the time in port, you're connected to shore power so the reactor isn't running. And out to sea, if something truly catastrophic happened, worst case, you could scuttle the entire boat. A land based reactor is a much different story.

Just don't tell the Greenpeace activists who might be worried about dolphins brushing up along the hull and getting a dose.

So if coal and is bad too...

[TageSabo]

you make a fine case for going with renewable energy sources like wind turbines, solar power, wave energy and the like. I can only suppport that.

However, you got one thing wrong with fossil fuels. They don't contain radioactive carbon-14 (C-14). C-14 is steadily produced in the the upper parts of the athmosphere by cosmic radiation bombarding nitrogen atoms. C-14 has a half life of ~5730 years, and any C-14 in the original organic material that formed oil and coal millions of years ago is long gone. That's how you make C-14 dating. The less C-14 in a sample, the older it is.

Re:So if coal and is bad too...

[john.r.strohm]

The problem with "renewable" sources is that they are all inherently unsuitable for baseline supply.

Bluntly, you get days when the wind don't blow and the sun don't shine.

Even on days when the wind does blow, you are inherently looking at very low conversion efficiencies. (Fundamental thermodynamics, worked out by a fellow named Carnot, quite a few years ago.)

On days when the sun DOES shine, you are STILL limited to about 1.3 kW/sq meter absolute maximum. Photovoltaic conversion runs, last I heard, about 16% efficient, so you are looking at less than 300 W/sq meter of array. Start adding up what you need to replace a nuke plant, and start thinking about the Environmental Impact Statement you are going to have to file to cover that land in solar arrays. Don't forget your battery plant, to cover the nighttime demand, and don't forget the arrays that charge the batteries during the day while the other arrays are supplying the immediate demand.

As for wave power: A quick look at a map of the United States will show you, for example, that you aren't going to build very many wave power generators in, say, Arizona or New Mexico.

When you do the full-up analysis, you are led rapidly to the conclusion that there just aren't any silver bullets. If you are serious about generating electricity - and I really want to see how you explain to the voters that you can't run the hospital ICU 24x7 because you only have power when the sun shines and the wind blows - and you are serious about safety, then the inescapable conclusion is that negative void coefficient pressurized water reactors are the only way to fly.

Re:So if coal and is bad too...

[AaronLawrence]

It always seems pretty feasible to me. Say a 3000MW station. That's 3,000,000,000 / 300 = 10 million square metres, or around 10 square kilometres. Sure, it's a gigantic construction, but not a particular significant piece of land; compared to say, a gigantic lake. Of course this is a naive calculation, but I'm saying the order of magnitude doesn't seem prohibitive.

RE: Nuclear waste from power plants.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right, nothing is without it's externalities. But nuclear waste is overly highly feared. The French, for example, recycle 90% of their nuclear waste.

There is still quite a bit of unspent uranium in rods or pellets that are retired, it can be retreived. Many of the non-gamma emitting isotopes obtained from the spent fuel could be used in portable power supplies, and the gamma emitting products could be used in research.

Note the reason the US dosen't recycle: fear that nuclear stuff could get into the wrong hands.

But, let's look at coal power, hydro-power, wind power and the like. The externalities of these power supplies are quite evident. Coal plants belch out more radiation daily than TMI ever has, with the addition of causing smog, acid rain, etc. Hydro-power. It causes about as much water to be lost due to evaporation as it uses, and sediment builds up, threatening to clog the dam eventually. Ecologically a catastrophe, and don't forget that each power generating dam requires TWO damned lakes to buffer it, so it dosen't run out in high demand seasons, and it dosen't flood the towns down the way when demand increases.

Wind? Fucking noisy and it kills raptors. Very expensive per mega-watt, and they require very frequent maintainance. Blows oil for miles if it's transmission fails. Lovely.

Solar? Even more expensive, and it dosen't work when there's clouds. Requires massive amounts of maintanece, (cleaning mirrors, and making sure they all work), plus it's going to work best in the desert south west, and by the time you get the power transmitted, it's all going to be spent by reisitance.

Natural gas? Shit, as many people have died from gas explosions and line breaks as nuclear has ever killed. Controlled by the oil industry.

Nuclear is a clean, viable, cheap, and safe power supply, except all you MOFOs are paranoid of it, without very good reason.

Technology fit for our society

[Anders Andersson]

It's a shame that incidents such as this have contributed to the overall bad image of nuclear power. There is still a lot of potential which will probably never be revealed because the public at large are scared of what could happen if something went wrong.

I agree that the technology is a lot safer than the public at large is willing to believe, but I can't really blame them for not trusting the supposed experts, given how many times they have been let down in the past.

When the computer software and entertainment industries spend millions of dollars annually just trying to keep their customers from learning how household electronics work, why should the public at large even consider the possibility that the nuclear industry isn't secretly building new power plants disguised as military establishments? Is there a law saying that it's okay for any business except the nuclear industry to lie to the public?

Even if a small minority of experts are convinced that the technology is safe, it doesn't help a lot until the public is convinced those experts are right. With the level of technological understanding we see among the general public today, nuclear power is a bit like locking up all the firearms at school in a safe, giving the key to the headmaster, and hoping the kids won't ever think of taking it from him (now that headmaster has a very good reason to stay popular with the kids). Would you say those firearms are in good hands?

The truth is that modern techniques could probably make nuclear power an extremely safe alternative.

Good. Now take that truth and package it in a way that can be understood by the public at large, because they are the ones pulling the real strings here.

The real shame doesn't fall on Three Mile Island or Chernobyl, but on a society that as a whole is incapable of making informed decisions with respect to technology. Either you let the public know what you are doing, listen to their opinion, and do what they tell you. Or, you keep silent about what you know, ignore the public opinion, and hope you will retire before anything bad happens. Guess which society I'd prefer living in?

If giving up nuclear energy is the price I have to pay for unhindered public disclosure of most anything related to technology, I'd say it's a bargain.

Re:Shame - agreed.

[Zeio]

It's a horrible tragedy that the outcry about the radiation leak that never was has lead to the creation of the oil mafia and a gross dependence on fossil fuels (coal is still burned in the US for power).

Nuclear space craft are on the political black list - probably our only shot at ever even dreaming of getting something to Alpha Centauri (that and the solar sail). Nuclear power plants are chastised by a mobocratic public. Has anyone ever considered the amount of weaponized fissionables that the USA has lying around all over the place in our strategic nuclear forces? How many nuclear sub seaman have died of radiation in modern submarines? (Ohio, Seawolf, Los Angeles)?

Nuclear power is designed properly from the get go. It is a no- release system. Combustion, the only other largely used alternative, is pumping crap into the atmosphere all the time. A nuclear meltdown is considered an unacceptable (and as 3 Mile Island proved, even when everything that can be done to cause these things to melt down is done, it still didn't release). Combustion as a rule pumps crap into the atmosphere. A nuclear atmospheric release is basically this: a concentrated form of all the by produce of combustible crap all super concentrat3ed an annoying. It forces one to face the reality: pumping crap into the atmosphere is bad, mmkay.

Cars are demonized by the Volvo bike pathers as well. But its industrial power needs that consume energy voraciously. How much energy does it take to turn Aluminum ore into Aircraft duralumin? I'd be willing to guess some number of joules equal to the output of that commercial jet for over a year of operation. How about the Trek bike's alloy? Or the Volvo uni-body? Humans have to take ROCK and melt it into metal. This is a need nuclear power could have filled for the past 30 years and done so without release anything but steam and some localized heat into water. Now we have soot covering the skies of industrial countries. Thank you, assholes who irrationally hated nuclear power. Enjoy the asthma. Blame it on SUVs, and don't ever think about where alloys and other energy intensive things come from.

Building sized reactors now exist. It is possible to have melt-down-proof reactor (meaning that the design of the reactor is such that when the system degrades, the ability to sustain fission is drastically decreased, meaning a catastrophe in the system will cause total shutdown, not meltdown) It would be possible to have a small reactor in the bottom of a office building provide cheap near unlimited power for years on a single cell. Too bad some dolt secretary whose husband at the trailer park chews a stalk of buckwheat and chews chaw says, my wife aint going to no hocus pocus place where nuclear poppycock and goings on goes on. As he goes off to working painting things while sniffing the leeching and out gassings of industrial paints and solvents.

Dams. No good. Destroys ecosystems. Aswan, the new Chinese dam of death, and Hoover amongst others show that damming is a colossal no no.

Geothermal. You'd think this would have gotten off the ground, but it wont. It requires the building of expensive things one top of vents tat could explode of go dormant, all difficult to predict. No good.

God ideas for our power need:

He3 on the moon. Moon dust has quite a bit of oxygen built into it. Making a moon base's air a bit easier to supply. In addition to that, there is tons of this He3 on the moon, and very little on earth. Apparently, He3 will be trivial to fuse and generate massive amounts of energy.

Giant space mirror. You would think that if we could make a space plane or some other reasonable routing way to get into LEO and HEO, we could use a giant mirror a-la James Bond movies and beam that down to a collector station.

Late-model Windmills. Excellent source of power and probably an all round good idea, but think of all the moving parts in a distributed system such as this. One has to consider the maintenance of these over a large area. A nuclea

Chernobyl = Deadly

[AtariAmarok]

Of the millions of people in the vicinity of Chernobyl, many thousands have died already. It is also predicted that, by the year 2087, almost all of these people will have died.

Re:Chernobyl = Deadly

[BandwidthHog]

Not to mention that half of all direct descendants of Chernobyl survivors will score below average on standardized intelligence tests.

Re:Chernobyl = Deadly

[kcbrown]

It is also predicted that, by the year 2087, almost all of these people will have died.

I hope you're being sarcastic (and suspect you are). Hard to tell just by looking. But if you're not trying to be sarcastic, then you're either an idiot or a politician. And the only reason I'm not simply assuming that you're being sarcastic is that people have actually made similar claims in an attempt to make the consequences of the Chernobyl accident seem worse than they actually are.

2087 is about 100 years after the Chernobyl accident, so of course almost all of the people in the Chernobyl area at the time of the accident will be dead by then. Of course, the same is also true of everyone else on the planet who was around at the time of the accident.

People who make some claim that "many or most of the people who were in the vicinity of Chernobyl at the time of the accident will be dead N years after the time of the accident", where N is 50 or so years, are attempting to deceive the reader into believing that there's a strong link between the accident and the deaths 50 or so years after the accident, when most of the deaths in question will occur anyway due to other factors.

Reactor Shapes

[stateofmind]

Can anyone explain why nuclear reactors are shaped the way they are?

It looks like they were designed to be "futuristic" looking since nuclear power was considered the end all be all for the power of the future.

Obviously though, I'm sure there is a reason for the design.

Right by San Clemente, CA they have a nuclear power station; SONGS (San Onfre Nuclear Generating Station), that has two reactors, but only one of them is active. They're half spheres, with blinking red lights on the top, and when your driving north from San Diego, they look like two big ta-tas. :) My brother jokes with me, and says it's the worlds biggest strip club.

Here is a pic

Josh

Re:Reactor Shapes

[Mark of THE CITY]

There are 2 reactors in operation, #2 and #3. #1 (aka Mt Fuji, because the top of the containment building is cone-shaped and sports some bird shit around the top that vaguely resembles snow) was defuelled and the reactor core encased in concrete and steel. There was a plan to move it by barge to a repository, but there is some hold-up in the process.

Re:Reactor Shapes

[MercTech]

The dome shape is the containment building. It is designed for maximum structural integrity. The ultimate design for biggest inside for the amount of wall you have to build to impact specifications would be a sphere, but it is very hard to build equipment to mount on other than a flat floor, not to mention getting people around for maintenance, hence the dome shape.

Often a containment building is kept at a vacuum during operation as well.

Anyway, the dome shape comes out as a good compromise in shape for maximum strength as well as ability to mount equipment.

Some of the design specifications of a reactor containment building include being able to fly a 747 into the side of it and not breach integrity. It is not just a concrete structure but contains stressed steel cable tenons strengthening the structure.

Hey, I always said that in case of hurricane or tornadoe, I want to be in a reactor building.

MercTech
Mercenary Health Physics Technician
(Radiation Protection)

Size doesn't matter

[Phronesis]

OK, that's nice to know. I was not able to find the generating capacity of ships' reactors. But this does speak against the idea someone else raised above that the size of the reactor is an important factor in its safety:

The thing which I can not fathom about the American nuclear power policy is that they are encouraged to make HUGE reactors. (Had to look this up for nuclear physics class at one point) The US Navy has an almost perfect record with identical, small reactors.

It would seem that safety is more a factor of the cultural or organizational differences of the Navy versus the private sector. Possibly the balance of safety versus bottom line is weighed differently in the two organizations. If so, this would argue for nationalizing nuclear power plants and running them as the Navy does.

Nucular power.

[rice_burners_suck]

Nucular power is a very bad idea. I mean, the friggen power plant could have an accident and take out the whole city. I'd feel much safer if they'd just make power from, like, sunlight or something. Yeah. This method works best at night, by the way, because the sun ain't there, and I think more power is needed at night than during the day. But I have a solution. All we'd have to do is put solar power stations all over the world, and from each time zone, run lots and lots of power lines to a timezone that's 12 hours off, or something like that. In other words, if it's daytime in, like, China or something, they'd make power and it would go over these power lines to, like, Brazil or something.

This would make all the nations of the world cooperate with each other, kind of like the story about the people sitting across from each other at a 2 meter wide table, with 2 meter long silverware, where they had to cooperate to feed the person across from them, because otherwise they couldn't eat with that kind of long silverware. Yes. This would definitely work. I can totally see Cuba supplying power to Egypt, and Iran supplying power to Mexico, etc.

Needless to say, it would also cut down on all kinds of pollution, especially since it takes more energy to produce a solar cell than that cell will ever produce in its useful life. And because producing all that wire will take even more energy, not to mention tons of money. And because there is energy loss as it travels over long lengths of power lines. Yes. This is a great idea, and we don't need no stinkin' nucular power.

Re:Nucular power.

[MercTech]

Popular press misconceptions galore.

Check the numbers. Nuclear comes out as the second cheapest source of power and, in the end, the least environmentally impacting.

If you had to design from ground zero, domestic loads (homes) could easily be powered by wind and/or solar power.
You would still need industrial sources of high volume power. Nuclear would be the least environmentally impacting source.

MercTech

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

its nice to see some /.ers knowing what they are talking about

Re:Consequences of Home Owners Associations?

[Bombcar]

Yeah, those laws are why every once in a while the state declares the association a town. Towns have to follow all the rules (elections, etc), and if the covenants get out of hand, they do get reigned in.

And things like forbidding "undesirables" like blacks and Mexicans are not allowed.

But, you find out that who they really want to exclude are not racial groups, but the poor. And that is very easy to do, just raise the cost of the house. And it works, too. Remember that the epithet for white people began as "poor white trash."

But, yes, they are prisons for the rich. Even called "gated communities."

Sick, I tell you. My personal opinion is that these "house spores" are directly contributing to the death of America. Mile after mile of houses where no one knows their neighbor, all identical, nothing interesting at all. Kinda like an insane asylum.

In fact, one could argue that it's a pretty good fortaste of hell.

But it's true

[AtariAmarok]

But it is true. Not only do those in the area show mortality, someone else pointed out that "half of all direct descendants of Chernobyl survivors will score below average on standardized intelligence tests".

Clearly, this nuclear disaster has had an effect on intelligence as well.

After a little more research, I have found that not only every single person in the vicinity of Chernobyl will have died by the end of this century, everyone in the Ukraine, Russia, and the rest of the world will have died too. The lethal effects are global.

Oh, the humanity!

Just because you were his mate

[RodeoBoy]

doesn't mean you know anything about it.
Why is everyone looking at me? Did I says something stupid....


again?

Re:Consequences of Home Owners Associations?

[msim]

Actually i've heard a number of stupid things about these "gated communities", there was a feature on a local sensationalism show "today tonight" about kids banned from playing in the street! I can safely say i'd never want to live in a place like that, i'd rather go move out in the country where the air is just a little less toxic

And r.e. same colour everything for houses flowers, lawns, etc.. It's starting to sound like the trueman show, or god forbid Smallville (which i actually think is a good movie b.t.w.)

Subduction Zone Disposal

[thegrassyknowl]

I don't know why subduction zone disposal has disappeared off the map and in my searching all I found were documents showing the technique in theory (such as):

http://www.etsu.edu/writing/3120f99/zctb3/nuclea r2 .htm

It mentions subsuduction zone disposal. If anything, it's an interesting read to see how it works and the length of time that the waste is burried in sediment at the bottom of the ocean before it's taken further down.

There is tonnes of information on radioactive waste disposal at http://www.radwaste.org.

For the electrincal engineers here, the IEEE had a series of articles on nuclear power in one of their Spectrum publications last year (can't remember the issue and I don't have them at hand). They covered a lot of ground including types of nuclear plants, power generation and waste disposal. It was a very informative, well written series of articles.

I, for one, am very interested in long-term safe disposal of nuclear waste. Living in SA, we have heard talks by the Howard govt about building an international waste dump in South Australia. I'd like to see a better solution to the problem than dumping it all in our backyard.

You are the one who needs lessons

[Zeinfeld]

Wow. Being that you have a doctorate from Oxford I would have assumed that you would realize that personal attacks during arguments don't win the arguments.

You started it. "This shows the naivety of some people who are not nuclear scientists or reactor operators regrarding nuclear power. Let me give you a quick lesson. ".

One of the advantages of having a doctorate in nuclear physics from Oxford is not having to stand for cheap abuse like your opening line. I can tell you realize it looked arrogant and stupid because you avoided repeating it.

The point I was making is that it is people rather than technologies that are unsafe. Your inane repetition of 'decay heat', an irrelevant snippet of data that you appear to have read in a magazine article would seem to reinforce my point.

According to the appologists for the nuclear industry absolutely nothing went wrong at TMI, not a single thing, there was never the slightest danger at any time whatsoever and to merely suspect that there might have been makes you a complete fool.

Well one of the things you can do with a doctorate in nuclear physics from Oxford is to tell the rest of the world when they don't have to feel intimidated by this type of bullshit. People have every right to hold the nuclear industry to any standard of proof they choose. They are not being stupid, ignorant or paranoid. In fact just the opposite, they are merely exercising common sense in the light of the fact that they have been consistently lied to in the past.

TMI? That was 25 years ago, all those people have retired. Chernobyl? You understand that the lobbying group for nuclear power was not the same in Soviet Russia as it was in Capatalist USA, right?

Good heavens, I didn't know that the retirement age was now 45. I guess I should have put more into my 401K.

It is unfortunate that in the US freedom of thought is merely an option rather than an obligation. The attitudes you and other appologists for the industy show here and in other forums look remarkably similar to those that led to Chernobyl, complete inability to question received knowledge and considering all alternative points of view with contempt.

Re:You are the one who needs lessons

[Aglassis]

You said: "The point I was making is that it is people rather than technologies that are unsafe. Your inane repetition of 'decay heat', an irrelevant snippet of data that you appear to have read in a magazine article would seem to reinforce my point."

Decay heat is not an irrelavant snippet. Decay heat is a key concept in reactor safeguards. I know you probably won't trust my words for it (and there's nothing wrong with that), so I'll give a reference. If you want to see more, go to the NRC's reading room, or google for "decay heat and reactor safeguards". It was only decay heat that physically caused the TMI-2 nuclear accident. Everything else just contributed to not being able to remove it.

Ok, let me now address your point. People are safe if well trained. It is possible to construct a nuclear plant in a way that no people operate it. The reason that most future designs have operators is that people, if well trained, are flexible enough to handle unforseen events. While many people feel that the nuclear industry is the same as it was 25 years ago, that is completely wrong. The NRC used to be a good 'ol boys organization. It covered up the Brown's Ferry nuclear accident in 1975 for example. Much like the rest of the US changed after 9/11, the nuclear industry drastically changed after March 28, 1979. How can I prove this in words? I can't. You have to go talk to the regulators and the operators to understand. We haven't abandoned the airline industry even though some incredibly horrific accidents have occured over the past couple of years. I say we shouldn't abandon the nuclear industry because there is not another industry in the world that cares more about safety.

Am I an apologist? Hardly. I've just always wondered from a young age on how the US could abandon such an amazing technology for others that are so inferior. How could we abandon a technology that could dramatically increase the quality of life of the entire world? How could we chose technologies that cause global warming and spread vast amounts of pollution rather than nuclear power? To me its as silly as saying that we want to abandon the microprocessor! There are pros and cons with every technology. If the pros outweigh the cons, then the technology is worthwhile, and I think the pros do by a dramatic margin (even though the cons are significant).

By the way, many of your comments are aimed at attacking my credibility (like saying that I read about decay heat in a magazine). I have intentionally withheld credentials because it only confuses the issues (i.e. persons are more likely to agree with an authority figure or a person with significant credentials than someone who doesn't) and doesn't strengthen the facts. The facts are all that matter. But since this argument is over I will tell you that I am a reactor operator, have operated multiple nuclear reactors shutdown and critical, and my prime job is to ensure reactor safeguards. Reactor safeguards are 90% of my job. When it comes to reactor safety, I know what I am talking about (and I train others on it).

Re:You are the one who needs lessons

[Zeinfeld]

Decay heat is not an irrelavant snippet. Decay heat is a key concept in reactor safeguards. I know you probably won't trust my words for it (and there's nothing wrong with that), so I'll give a reference. If you want to see more, go to the NRC's reading room, or google for "decay heat and reactor safeguards". It was only decay heat that physically caused the TMI-2 nuclear accident. Everything else just contributed to not being able to remove it.

Your point is utterly irrelevant because what you are calling 'decay heat' is a fundamental process that is going on in the reactor all the time during operation.

Saying 'if it was not for that decay heat, well there would be no problem' is like saying 'if there had been no terrorists there would have been no 9/11'. It is an utterly irrelevant tautalogical statement, the fact you can cite it shows nothing. The fact that there would have been no 9/11 without the terrorists is irrelevant if you are looking into whether better security at Logan airport might have prevented the attack. The terrorists and the decay heat are simply factors that have to be taken into account in any analysis.

The argument you seem to keep trying to make is that somehow the fact that 'decay heat' caused part of the TMI core to overheat rather than proper uranium fission means that the partial meltdown somehow 'does not count'. It would be like if on 9/11 when the passenger lists of the hijacked planes were found and the FBI said 'its al qaeda', well according to your point of view Clake, Cheney, Bush etc would all have stopped work and gone home at that point. Oh we have a name for the problem, problem solved.

You seem to think that simply repeating further irrelevant details about decay heat somehow make up an argument. Let us imagine it had taken a bit longer to shut down the primary reaction, say another valve stuck or whatever and as a result the core had been even hotter when it shut down so that the decay heat caused the reactor bed to go into total meltdown and a chernobyl type situation, if this had happened and large numbers of people had been killed would it not really count because it was only the 'decay heat' what did it?

In control theory we would simply call what you are refering to as decay heat a time lag. There are time lags in pretty much every process control loop and being able to both control them and understand their effect is critical. Decay heat might be an immutable physical process but the implications are certainly not.

Re:You are the one who needs lessons

[Aglassis]

Lets see, you said: " The CANDU heavy water system is genuinely fail-safe. The coolant doubles as the moderator. That means if you loose one you loose the other and the reaction is halted.

And later you said: "In control theory we would simply call what you are refering to as decay heat a time lag. There are time lags in pretty much every process control loop and being able to both control them and understand their effect is critical. Decay heat might be an immutable physical process but the implications are certainly not."

Were you trying to imply that the CANDU is a fail-safe reactor except that it requires a means of decay heat removal just like any nuclear reactor? Not exactly the way that I'd define fail-safe. I fail to see what how the heavy water prevents core damage (as required in the definition of fail-safe) in this regard.

Note, decay heat removal is only one aspect that I was pointing out that makes the CANDU reactor *not* fail-safe. There are many others, but just one contradiction is required to disprove any argument. I thought it was clear that this was the way my argument was progressing. I hope this clears up any confusion.

Let me summarize my arguments:
1. The CANDU reactor is not fail-safe because there exists a contradiction to the definition of being fail-safe: lack of decay heat removal will cause core damage.
2. It is my *opinion* that the nuclear power industry has learned its lesson and changed its culture to minimize the probability of a future accident, and therefore deserves a second chance.
3. I argued that personal insults were irrelevant in an argument. Of course, I failed to mention that my first statement was fairly arrogant and while not in my opinion a personal insult, was fairly belittling. Oops, well worse has happened on Slashdot in the past and worse will happen in the future, but nonetheless, I apologize.

Sound's like like Patrick Moore (nt)

[beakburke]

(nt)

There is no such thing as safe fission

[Lexor]

There is simply no such thing as "safe" fission reaction.

The development of nuclear fission power production is inexorably linked to "weapons of mass destruction". We just wouldn't have(or need) these poison plants if it were not for The Bomb.

Here's a new one to ponder: in our ignorance, we've built permanently poisoned structures in places where our vaunted science has proven will be smashed to bits by the next ice age. No sarcophagus can hold back Mother Nature.

What a wonderful thing to leave to our children, and their children. Nuclear power supporters should be ashamed of themselves.

Re:So how long until...

[macserv]

She'd probably be on a Segway.

The real lesson?

[slashdot_commentator]

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity!

Re: naval reactors

[mpe]

They don't have to worry about shielding and containment as much as civilian powerplants. In a submarine, in particular, the bottom portion of the reactor is barely shielded by more than the hull. The ocean does the job just fine.
Most of the time in port, you're connected to shore power so the reactor isn't running.

Even without the reactor "running" there is still heat and radiation from radioactive decay.

In Finland..

[Anonymous Coward]

We're getting another nuclear reactor in a few years. Thank god reason won here, not paranoia.

Finland's actually the only "western" country to build new nuclear power for like decades now.