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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!
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
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.
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.
Saying that the flood is at 1007ft of 1014ft capacity of the walls makes it sound a lot more scary that saying its at 7ft of the 14ft walls. It's nothing but anti-nuclear fud. The whole story is designed to make it hard to visualize to make it scarier.
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"
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.
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