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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."
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.
Free iPods - now in the UK!
With the posting of the Chernobyl story yesterday, this should make some of us pause and think about what could have been...
...we are from the government - we are here to help...
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?
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.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
One fact I picked up over the years is since TMI, no one's ever applied for a new permit from the NRC
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.
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.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
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, 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.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
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.
common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
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.
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.)
Poul-Henning Kamp -- FreeBSD since before it was called that...
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.
Everything seemed to be going so nice
'till the end of all beings punched right through the ice
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.
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.
Well,
..... for politicians and regulation that is.
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
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.
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.
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
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.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
So what happens if a terrorist destroys the Hoover Dam? Will that be okay?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
... 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.
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?
The next pasture is always greener
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.
What sort of strike were you thinking of?
--
If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, where does the road paved with evil intentions lead to?
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.
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.