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Nebraska Nuclear Plant Flood Defenses Tested
mdsolar tips an article at the NY Times which begins:
"Pictures of the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant north of Omaha, Neb., show it encircled by the swollen waters of the Missouri River, which reached a height of nearly 1,007 feet above sea level at the plant yesterday. The plant's defenses include new steel gates and other hard barriers protecting an auxiliary building with vital reactor controls, and a water-filled berm 8 feet tall that encircles other parts of the plant. Both systems are designed to hold back floodwaters reaching 1,014 feet above sea level. Additional concrete barriers and permanent berms, more sandbags and another power line into the plant have been added. The plant was shut down in April for refueling and will remain so until the flood threat is passed. 'Today the plant is well positioned to ride out the current extreme Missouri River flooding while keeping the public safe,' Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Victor Dricks said on an agency blog this week. But a year ago, those new defenses were not in place, and the plant's hard barriers could have failed against a 1,010-foot flood, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission contends in a yearlong inspection and enforcement action against the plant's operator, the Omaha Public Power District."
Woot mdsolar is posting another article about nuclear power to spread more FUD!!!
OK nutcase - go find an article that paints nuclear power in a warm, rose colored blush. That's what Firehose is for. Unfortunately, nuclear power is not getting very good press and for very good reasons. The engineering isn't all that it is cracked up to be and isn't at all what it needs to be. Even with the 'new' flood guidelines, the plant in TFA is only seven feet from breaching the walls. With a billion dollar plant hanging in the balance, I'd like just a bit more breathing room.
Again, it's not the long term waste problem that's going to kill commercial nuclear power (although that is a big issue that we're not handling well). It's going to be bad engineering decisions pushed on staff because of economic considerations. Short term gain, long term pain.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Yeah I wondered that myself. If I was really worried about 1010ft flood I think it better to build a boat and try and get 2 of every animal on board. And Anna Torv. That should be a good enough safeguard
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Two weeks ago people on the Internets here (in other forums) were talking about how the plant had basically already melted down and that Obama had ordered a news blackout of the plant to conceal mass evacuations that apparently had already begun! All of this to protect his "green jobs" initiative.
Well, guess what? I live in Omaha. There's no meltdown. No evacuation. No flooding at the site.
OPPD's official rumor control page:
http://www.oppd.com/AboutUs/22_007105
OPPD flood blog:
http://www.oppdstorminfo.blogspot.com/
OPPD's Twitter page:
http://twitter.com/#!/oppdcares
That's a bit of a bizarre measurement for river waters, no? Makes it sound at first glance that it's under 1,007 feet of water. Why not the height above the normal crest? It would make it a bit easier to visualize that's for sure.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
This from nrc.gov: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/news/2011/11-025.iv.pdf
I would just like to point out that 7 feet of flooding is A LOT as the water has more and more places to go horizontally before it has to go up. Not that that a big deal, just saying it's probably a lot more margin than it sounds like, though that still may not be enough.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
When I want reliable news, I go to nation.com.pk
But, but, how can you trust the official page of the power companies? Don't you know that they all conspire to hide the truth about how evil electricity actually is while simultaneously using the profits they reap from us poor, victimized sheeple to purchase gallons of children's tears to wash their baby seal skinned boots in?
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" The engineering isn't all that it is cracked up to be "
what the hell do you base that on? Fukashima with stood 10 times bigger earthquakes, and tsunami, and the island dropping 1 meter.
Again new designs of nuclear plants do not have a long term waste problem. Also, they can burn older waste we currently have.
I don't even think you know how little nuclear waste we have, how it's stored, or even the classifications of nuclear waste and what they mean.
You are an ignorant person whose ignorance spread FUD.
", the plant in TFA is only seven feet from breaching the walls."
so? how much more VOLUME would they need to get that extra 7 feet? THAT"S the correct question. It could be 6 inches from the top, but id it would take 1000 trillion gallons to get there, it doesn't matter.
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It's going to be bad engineering decisions pushed on staff because of economic considerations.
Well, unfortunately all of the good engineering decisions, like shutting down plants before their designed lifetime suggests and replacing them with new ones, have been blocked by public hysteria along the lines of, "No new nuclear anything ever!!!!!"
So, yeah, great thing that "wisdom of the masses."
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I don't see how saying the "above sea level" water height is useful at all. Maybe to make the article sound scarier? When I sell my house I should market it as "able to withstand floods of up to 5000 ft above sea level!".
Those are the only kind of boots that fit the reptilians, what do you want them to do?
The fact that the plant is shutdown is irrelevant. The real danger is the spent fool pools which require active cooling - which relies on the constant availability of electricity. The river is at 1007 feet above sea level - expected to rise another 5-7 feet this summer. The NRC approached the plant a year ago and told them their flood contingency measures were not up to snuff. They argued for quite awhile, but finally relented and installed some, IMHO, barely adequate measures that may or may not save the plant from disaster as the water is, literally, lapping at the door of the plant.
How is this article FUD? Did you even read it? Nothing in the article is speculative or untrue. Please, get you head out of your ass.
"The world is a construct of forceful imagination. Those who don't know walk around in the reailties of those who do"
But that is the forecast - 5-7 feet rise this summer.
Besides, TFA says that the original state of the plant was only good for 1008 above sea level - it is now at 1007 and rising - that is the thrust of the article. They were not prepared and may still not be.
"The world is a construct of forceful imagination. Those who don't know walk around in the reailties of those who do"
"people on the Internets" have said a lot of things. Who cares? I didn't read that the plant had meted down and I have been following this closely.
I am as assured by OPPD's public face as I am by TEPCO.
"The world is a construct of forceful imagination. Those who don't know walk around in the reailties of those who do"
hmmm. I didn't see any pictures on that NY Times page.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Granted, I understand that most people here would view a newspaper in Pakistan as not the most credible source for news, but I believe this newspaper to be a credible one, and they do not appear to be in the business of conspiracy theories.
âoeIf youâ(TM)re still living under the delusion that the TSA is just restricted to airports then think again. A joint VIPR âoesecurity exerciseâ involving military personnel has Transportation Security Administration workers covering 5,000 miles and three states, illustrating once again how the TSA is turning into a literal occupying army for domestic repression in America."
"But, with an already documented 35% increase in the infant mortality rate for American mothers living in the western coastal regions of the US caused by radiation blowing onto them from Japan being ignored by these people there doesnâ(TM)t seem to be much hope for them."
No they aren't paranoid, they just think the TSA is an occupying military force *cough splutter laugh* and that infant mortality is secretly up 35% in the US.
Not paranoid at all.
I desperately hope I was missing your sarcasm.
By "with stood", do you mean it is still visible? Because I don't think that having melt throughs at three reactors, loss of cooling of the spent fool ponds, and huge amounts of radiation leaking into the ocean due to leaks from the external water desperately being applied to be "with stood".
"The world is a construct of forceful imagination. Those who don't know walk around in the reailties of those who do"
The real danger is the spent fool pools which require active cooling - which relies on the constant availability of electricity.
No no no.. FAIL!
Spent fuel ponds only require that they have water in them. You can do that with a freaking dingy and a portable pump if you want to.
The real danger is if you have a flash flood and the plant is running or has been recently running (eg. within a few days). So, what is the chance of a 1020ft. flash flood in the location when water levels are less than 1000ft.?? Exactly.
The river is at 1007 feet above sea level - expected to rise another 5-7 feet this summer.
So if it rises to 1020 level then what??
This is FUD because it attempts to compare Fukushima and a 50 ft. tsunami vs. a flood that "expected to rise another 5-7 feet this summer".
Seriously, you can build an earthen dike 100 ft. high in this time frame.
It's how engineers speak, in absolute, Globally discrete values, not localized relative ones. Well, except the ocassional NASA engineer, and we know how it turns out for them.
Sea level is used so everyone is on the exact same page.
Three feet over flood stage at location A maybe 9 feet above flood at Location B, just a few miles down stream. 1010 feet above sea level however will be 1010 feet above sea level anywhere on the globe.
Our local rivers and lake operate at 216 feet above sea level normally, and at 247 feet you hit flood stage and it starts going over the spill way bypass.
No, I didn't have to go look that up, I already knew it as I boat on that resevoir rather often so I know it's numbers so I know what to expect when go out there during spring flooding or late summer dry spells, and which boat ramps will still work... Which are also marked by high and low altitude relative to MSL.
You can't measure it relative to anything else and have a meaning that's useful.
Pretty much all measurements of bodies of water are measured relative to MSL, Mean Sea Level.
As long as you know YOUR altitude above MSL, you know where you stand. Rather than 6 feet above normal at Joes Ferry Bridge, which is only useful if you know where the bridge is, how it's elevation relates to yours, and what they are considering 'normal'
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
No, actually they didn't ... Until the goverment started fining the ever living shit out of them about a year ago ... Had this happened last summer, the plants barriers would already be underwater and it's still rising.
I'm not anti nuke, I'm pro actually, but had they not have been spanked hard over the last year, they'd be in trouble.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
It gets you closer to the Guy in the sky?
*Still* negative function...
One article.
Another.
The story from the plant operator
The root cause of Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt - especially in this case is the lack of information. The reactor is apparently on level 4 alert (accident with local consequences - this alone should have made the news at least in Nebraska), has had a fire, has had a no-fly zone extended over it since June 6 - the reason given is "the flooding". The first I heard of this was on June 17th - stumbled across it by chance while looking up information on nuclear plants and was suspicious of it (Russian source so WTF would they know was my first thought). Found lots of youtube stuff, people screaming "why haven't we been told". It has only recently hit slashdot and mainstream news - this has been going on since June 6 (the fire was June 7).
Knowledge stops FUD and builds confidence, the authorities should have at least informed people instead of people calling in ("by the hundreds" as on shock jock put it) and complaining that something is wrong.
Instead of being "condescending", it would help the nuclear cause if facts were given to counter the shock jocks - before they get a foot hold.
It wasn't until June 17 that the plant operator actually deemed to give any information (the answers look a little shaky imo - the water level does not constitute an accident with local consequences). I hope they are truthful because this should have been a story of conservative precautions - see, FUD is working - I doubt them.
BM3
No, OPPD is owned by the state of Nebraska. From their web page (http://www.oppd.com/AboutUs/Company/22_000593):
On Dec. 2, 1946, the state legislature created the Omaha Public Power District, a political subdivision of the State of Nebraska, which acquired the properties operated by the Nebraska Power Company.
They sell bonds to borrow money as do many other government agencies.
Well yeah, that's what happens when you consolidate production. Comparing accident rate per plant (implicitly equating one nuclear plant to one coal plant), is basically the same as saying hundreds of people die when a plane crashes while only a few people die when a car crashes, therefore cars are safer. You're ignoring the fact that planes move a lot more people in fewer trips / there are a lot fewer homes around the perimeter of nuclear plants than other types of power plants for an equivalent amount of power generated. If you correctly account for the amount of power generated:
The U.S. has just 65 nuclear plants (104 reactors) with 101 GW nominal capacity. That's an average of 1550 MW per nuclear plant. Nuclear capacity factor is about 90%, for an average 1400 MW production per plant.
The U.S. has 1493 coal plants with a nominal capacity of 335.8 GW. That's an average of 225 MW per coal plant. Coal has a capacity factor of 60%-70%, for an average 135-158 MW production per plant. A single nuclear plant is equivalent to 9-10 coal plants.
If you assume 1 MW wind turbines @ 20% capacity factor, that's an average 0.2 MW production per turbine. A single nuclear plant is equivalent to 7000 1 MW wind turbines.
If you assume 15% efficient PV panels (nominal 125 W/m^2) with 18% capacity factor (typical for desert southwest), you get 22.5 W/m^2 average production, or an average 22.5 MW production per square km. A single nuclear plant is equivalent to 62 square km of solar panels.
So if you want to compare cost, risk, and environmental impact equally, you need to compare a single nuclear plant, to 9-10 coal plants, to 7000 1 MW wind turbines, to 62 sq. km of solar panels.
"Last few"? Apart from Fukushima, which was caused by the combination of Japanese "safe-the-face" morality and one of the biggest earthquakes to ever hit the human race, just what are you referring to? A disastre which has killed, this far, one Chinese man for overdosing on Iodine tablets in a panic, and two from the tsunami, and none whatsoever from actual radiation - that is, the nuclear plant itself.
You fearmongers want us to get all our power from the Sun and the wind, but that's not possible, so we end up getting it from coal instead. You are the reason why we're having a problem with global warming. You are the reason why hundreds of thousands of people die each year due to both coal production and emissions. Shame on you. A shame on you, you damn Greenpeace murderer.
God damn you and all like you to Hell... So that the rest of us might still surive, by switching to clean and plentiful nuclear power, while we still can.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Can your children tell the size of squares?:
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/03/the-triumph-of-coal-marketing.html
Which one is bigger? Now which one does the media talk the most about? Does that make any sense?
FWIW, even rooftop solar kills more people per terawatt-hour than nuclear. We know mdsolar has seen those stats, as he's been pointed to them many times. Yet he only posts stories about nuclear, while ignoring the coal and oil elephants. Why? Because he can profit more from overhyped fear than actual statistics. IOW, FUD in place of science. Regular readers have grown tired of this.