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Alabama Nuclear Reactor Gets 'F' Grade
GatorSnake writes "The US federal government issued a rare red finding against an Alabama nuclear power plant after an emergency cooling system failure. 'In an emergency, the failure of the valve could have meant that one of the plant's emergency cooling systems would not have worked as designed (PDF).' Does this further erode the argument that Fukushima was just an isolated incident in the 'modern' nuclear power age?"
that adds another zero to the zero deaths from nuclear this year. thats zero up from last year. gonna need some big design changes to catch up with fossil fuels.
Modern nuclear age? What?
The Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant began construction in 1966 (Fukushima Dai-ichi dates from 1971). Furthermore, both use General Electric boiling water reactors. The major difference seems to be that Browns Ferry is/was expected to continue to operate until 2033.
Similarly designed technology dating from a similar time has similar flaws. In most areas engineers learn from their mistakes and upgrade regularly for precisely this reason. Then we actually would be in the 'modern nuclear age', and discovering a new flaw would be disturbing news as opposed to being a wholly predictable consequence of expecting to keep dodgy, ancient crap running for well over half a century.
All nuclear plants are not created equal. The far far bigger problem is continuing to use early reactor designs past their end of life! It's like a 30 year old car that has not spent those years in a garage. It needs considerable work to stay usable, often to the point of requiring it to be rebuilt. Well the same thing holds true to nuclear plants, but we just don't spend that sort of money renovating the old ones. So they start to fail. How much effort is actually required to have severe problems is rather interesting, but I for on do not expect them to simply keep working.
We should have continued building and updating designs over the last 30 or 40 years, but anti-nuclear nuts have left us all pretty damn screwed.
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
There are no modern nuclear reactors running commercially in the United States.
And that's the problem - the United States is not part of any "modern nuclear age.". We're stuck in the 1950s and 1960s, design-wise - retrofits really don't substitute.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
Much like for a teacher who only gives out A's being a phoney, having a review hand out a failing grade give me more confidence in the system. It shows that the USG is not glossing over problems.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
We should have continued building and updating designs over the last 30 or 40 years, but anti-nuclear nuts have left us all pretty damn screwed.
Blaming anti-nuclear people for the lack of upgrades/maintenance of existing nuclear plants is wrong.
The real problem is that energy companies don't allocate enough money to that matter. As long as it works and produces energy, they keep maintenance to a minimum level to maximize profits.
Aye, I am all for it. Especially remove the arbitrary regulations regarding liability and let the power companies fully insure their reactors themselves. Wait, what? No insurance company would be willing to do that? Score one for the free market!
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.