US Nuclear Industry Plans "Rescue Wagon" To Avert Meltdowns

Hugh Pickens writes writes "AP reports that if disaster strikes a US nuclear power plant, the utility industry wants the ability to fly in heavy-duty equipment from regional hubs to stricken reactors to avert a meltdown providing another layer of defense in case a Fukushima-style disaster destroys a nuclear plant's multiple backup systems. 'It became very clear in Japan that utilities became quickly overwhelmed,' says Joe Pollock, vice president for nuclear operations at the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry lobbying group that is spearheading the effort. US nuclear plants already have backup safety systems and are supposed to withstand the worst possible disasters in their regions, including hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and earthquakes. But planners can be wrong. The industry plan, called FLEX, is the nuclear industry's method for meeting new US Nuclear Regulatory Commission rules that will force 65 plants in the US to get extra emergency equipment on site and store it protectively. The FLEX program is supposed to help nuclear plants handle the biggest disasters. Under the plan, plant operators can summon help from the regional centers in Memphis and Phoenix. In addition to having several duplicate sets of plant emergency gear, industry officials say the centers will likely have heavier equipment that could include an emergency generator large enough to power a plant's emergency cooling systems, equipment to treat cooling water and extra radiation protection gear for workers. Federal regulators must still decide whether to approve the plans submitted by individual plants. 'They need to show us not just that they have the pump, but that they've done all the appropriate designing and engineering so that they have a hookup for that pump,' says NRC spokesman Scott Burnell said. 'They're not going to be trying to figure out, "Where are we going to plug this thing in?"'"

Comments

Here's a better idea.

[Black Parrot]

Don't build them in areas subject to storms, earthquakes, etc., and don't cut corners on the design, construction, maintenance, and inspections in order to save costs.

I happen to think that nuclear power is a good idea, but if our species isn't mature enough to do the above, we've got no business using it.

Re:Here's a better idea.

[BenSchuarmer]

does such a place exist?

Re:Here's a better idea.

[captaindomon]

And where would you consider to be a "safe" area in the US that has no storms, no earthquakes, etc? And is also somewhat accessible and relatively close to a large population center?

Re:Here's a better idea.

[captaindomon]

And to what extent do you avoid cutting costs? Avoid 99% of failure scenarios? 99.9%? 99.9999%? How would you justify where you cut the line? It's not a simple answer.

Re:Here's a better idea.

[ColdWetDog]

And where would you consider to be a "safe" area in the US that has no storms, no earthquakes, etc? And is also somewhat accessible and relatively close to a large population center?

Why, your back yard. Of course.

Re:Here's a better idea.

[SJHillman]

To be fair, maybe we shouldn't be putting large population centers in those areas that are dangerous to nuke plants. I'll let you know if I find a safe place for them.

Re:Here's a better idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

That sounds great if you don't pay attention to anything regarding nuclear power construction.

At least in Western models (I don't know much about Soviet designs), very rarely are corners cut. All fo the reactors that have had problems were Generation 1, even Fukushima. We are currently building Generation III+ designs and working on Gen 4 designs, which all have significantly enhanced safety features. What they should be doing is retiring the Gen I reactors and replacing them with modern designs; a Westinghouse AP1000, of which 4 are being built in China so it is in a production ready state, would have withstood the tsunami that wiped out Fukushima.

There is no place on earth not subject to adverse natural conditions, not to mention that . The best you can do is play the odds and build them so they get damaged only in a highly unlikley event. To support Fukushima (after bashing it), they suffered a greater than 9.0 earthquake and then a massive tsunami; there are few facilities in the world that can do that.

Also, unfortunately you can't just plop down a nuclear reactor anywhere. They have to be placed in areas that are near large bodies of water to assist with cooling; said bodies of water are often near fault lines or coastlines which are always subject to storms, earthquakes, etc.

Also, what do you do in a country like Japan? Japan has no natural resources; they import all of their energy. They are shifting away from nuclear now thanks to Fukishima, but now instead they are reliant upon oil and natural gas from the Middle East and coal from the US and China. Prior to Fukushima they were actually moving towards MORE nuclear energy, because their power needs are high and growing and they imported thier uranium from Australia, a much easier to deal with trading partner. I suspect that they will go back to nuclear once they see what a disaster economically and environmentally using coal and oil is going to be. However, Japan is subject to constant and numerous earthquakes and tsunamis. So what do they do? What options do they have?

Seriously, do some research before even forming an opinion. One would think the Slashdot crowd would be better than that.

Re:Here's a better idea.

[Beardo the Bearded]

That's probably the best place, your backyard.

Everyone's backyard.

Put a small reactor in each neighbourhood. Scale down the energy required, scale down everything, reduce the transmission costs to nearly nothing, and use smaller pebblebed style systems.

Re:Here's a better idea.

[h4rr4r]

How about not fill the air with pollution?

Coal needs to go away. Burn natural gas all you like, but coal should not be allowed to dump garbage into the air or store it in ponds that break and ruin peoples lives.

Re:Here's a better idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

The safety record is appalling?

http://www-958.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/manyeyes/visualizations/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-sources

(The estimates are neither the highest nor the lowest for nuclear power to give it the least death toll. Check the comments if you want the worst, in which case it will no longer be the absolute best but it'll still be a very good option up there with all the other non-burning tech).

The problem isn't that nuclear safety is bad, the problem is it's very very easy to see the results of nuclear safety failures compared to other safety failures because nuclear plants are so compact relatively speaking that you get a "holy fuck" disaster that kills a bunch of people every few decades instead of thousands of isolated one-offs. And while it's possible nuclear deaths are under-reported, I'm not convinced that it's more likely than other energy forms -- it's relatively easy to look for things that can be attributed to a nuclear accident because again, it's so concentrated by comparison.

Re:Here's a better idea.

[jeffmeden]

Given the consequences of an accident, the safety record of nuclear power is appalling.

If you have any concept of critical thinking, this sentence is appalling. What does the safety record (which is still 0 fatalities, 0 health side effects, 0 long term ecological disruptions) have to do with the potential outcome of an accident? The same can't be said for any other form of large scale energy production in the US, let alone almost every other human pursuit. Coal kills, and that is appalling.

Re:Here's a better idea.

[dunkelfalke]

So how come you compare mining with power station accidents? Do you think uranium magically appears out of rainbow unicorn farts?

Hint: you have to mine for uranium ore (pitchblende). And since it is not a widespread as coal, you have to move through a lot of rock to collect enough.

Uranium mining is not a particularly healthy occupation, that's why, for example, the USSR used prisoner labour for that - prisoners were considered expendable.

Re:Here's a better idea.

[Sentrion]

Where did you get your information? Many SMRs are designed to lessen the danger of materials being stolen or misplaced. Nuclear reactor fuel is low-enriched uranium, or has a concentration of less than 20% 235U. This low quantity, non-weapons-grade uranium makes the fuel less desirable for weapons production. Once the fuel has been irradiated, the fission products mixed with the fissile materials are highly radioactive and require special handling to remove safely, another non-proliferation feature.
Reactors designed to run on alternative thorium fuel cycle offer increased proliferation resistance compared to conventional uranium cycle. The modular construction of SMRs is another useful feature. Because the reactor core is often constructed completely inside a central manufacturing facility, fewer people have access to the fuel before and after irradiation.

Re:Here's a better idea.

[CanHasDIY]

But then it’s subject to orbital decay. And if I learned one thing from ST:TOS, without power things in orbit deorbit fast.

A) I was just using that as an arbitrary delineation for space.

B) Good point; I mean, where the hell would an orbiting nuclear power plant get power from?

Re:Here's a better idea.

[cheesybagel]

You have to move a lot of rock... do you even know the energy density of uranium vs coal?

Re:Here's a better idea.

[dunkelfalke]

Energy density of uranium versus coal is absolutely irrelevant since uranium, as used in powerplants, does not exist in nature. In order to create uranium pellets usable for electric generation, pitchblende - a rare mineral - has to be mined, from which the yellowcake is extracted, at a ratio of two tons of ore to one kilogram of yellowcake. Uranium oxides are then extracted with the help of acid from yellowcake. There is further processing involved before fuel pellets can be made.

Good for a few years

[icebike]

This plan sounds good, and might actually be well planned. But only for a few years.

Then, plants will start using the existence of the backup capabilities as excuses not to build their own. And it will all be perfectly legal, as subtle rule changes are introduced with little public knowledge. You can already see the seeds of this in TFA:

The NRC staff said the industry initiative, called FLEX, may satisfy the proposed order to mitigate certain safety challenges.

The fox runs the nuclear hen house in the US, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been captured by industry.

Still, any plan is better than no plan. The length of time power was out and systems were down due to Hurricane Sandy should indicate just how long such emergency systems have to be prepared to operate. Multiple weeks of fuel must be kept on hand. Alternate water supplies must be identified.

Re:Good for a few years

[Giant Electronic Bra]

Exactly! ANY safety plan will always be degraded over time by cost-conscious managers who become confident that nothing bad will happen, until the level of preparedness drops below the threshold where a giant disaster happens, at which point it will all start again.

Re:Good for a few years

[leucadiadude]

My god, you have no clue what you are talking about. The information is freely available to educate yourself. Please Please PLEASE go do some reading on how a nuclear plant works, why it generates heat after shutdown, and the causes of the Fukushima disaster before posting.

not a bad idea

[Anonymous Coward]

not a bad idea overall. Probably be cheaper and more efficient than mandating each site has backups for the backups for the backups for the....
It could be a huge example of fraud and abuse though. store/buy old worn out shit repainted to appear new at new prices.

Hell the National Guard does this already just in case they need a few M16s in front of the local walmart. Be a good idea to combine these stores with air national guard sites for quick deployment.

Re:Good idea..in theory

[X0563511]

CH-47s don't need runways.

And of course power and fuel will be available...

[gestalt_n_pepper]

...to run all this wonderful equipment. You can stabilize fuel, of course, but not forever. Eventually, you'll have to change it out, and dispose of the old stuff.

Quite frankly, old nuclear power plants that don't use passive safety systems and depend on grid electricity are an accident waiting to happen. A far better idea would be to design and build new plants

I call Band-Aid

[ElitistWhiner]

Anyone else think there's time to re-act, re-locate, re-spond with their Emergency Erector Set? Chernobyl anyone?

Re:I call Band-Aid

[sinij]

Not Chernobyl hysteria again. Different reactor design, plus in Chernobyl's case safety mechanisms and fallbacks were intentionally disabled in attempt to prevent safety shutdown. They succeeded in overriding safety shutdown and melted whole thing.

In case of Japanese disaster - yes, they had time to react.They probably had enough time to had it fly from US, had something like that was available.

Re:I call Band-Aid

[sinij]

Chernobyl wasn't a catastrophic failure, it was operating reactor well outside of the design parameters with all safety and auto-shut down procedures disabled.

What happened is that two tests - turbine vibrations and something else that had to do with cooling system were run concurrently, without considering implications. Safety system kicked in and proceeded to shut down whole thing. Junior techs that were on site decided they would chance disabling safety systems to try to keep reactor from going cold. Unfortunately whole system malfunctioned in "full open". Ironically, they did succeed at restarting reactor but now had no way to control it and watched whole thing melt over next couple hours. It wasn't sudden and wasn't catastrophic failure - in a sense that system didn't fail on its own.

Chernobyl reactor that blew up was one of 4 built with that design at that site. By modern standards it is considered unsafe, but even with that remaining 3 operated will into 2000s. I think one is still operational.

Re:Two words: passive cooling

[Tailhook]

Is it really so difficult for the USA to implement...?

Yes. Replacing the fleet means fighting interminable battles with activists armed with judges that injunct whatever they're told to. Even when we do grown-up things like create a law and a tax to fund waste disposal it gets wrecked by statists. Capital knows better than to have anything to do with US nuclear; the US electorate are hysterical children, bought a paid for with bennies and led around with FUD.

Nuclear power is out of our league now. We're just not competent to govern such things any longer. Our zombie reactor fleet will subsist until some easily foreseeable disaster creates sufficient hysteria. Our parents in Washington will then act and take them away.

how about many smaller plants?

[k6mfw]

20 years ago, Ed Teller was a speaker at an Engineers Week banquet. He suggested instead of a few large nuclear plants with all complexities of sheer size plus containment vessel and security, make many smaller plants that are more manageable. I wish this was taped, I took some notes and published in one of local engineering society newsletters (did best I could capturing Teller's actual phrases). Seems to be a reasonable idea, a friend who was in Navy sub service said there are about 30 different emergency procedures (or steps?) on dealing with reactor problems. He feels large commercial plants are so complex, certain situations which can overwhelm operators. Of course there are many issues when dealing with lots of small nuclear power plants. I'm just throwing out some things I've heard.

Regarding a "rescue wagon" which I don't think will be practical. Unlike other disaster response plans (i.e. for various natural disasters), events of large scale nuclear disasters are very few in between. Having an effective team with resources will continually on "high state of combat readiness" will be very taxing with highly trained crews waiting years for The Big One. Perhaps if going with large nuclear plants, put in extra protection i.e. backup systems. Yes, these backup systems cost additional money but far cheaper than cost of the disaster itself if it were to occur. And some of these "once in 10,000 years events" do actually happen in your lifetime.

Fukashima actually came after another disaster...

[dfenstrate]

Folks,
I'd like to introduce you to "Extreme Damage Mitigating Guidelines" (EDMG), which are procedures created in response to NRC Security Order Section B.5.b. That order was created after 9/11/2001, when crashing airliners into important structures became a known tactic.

The industry response to the B.5.b requirements is not unlike what you would expect for Fukashima contingencies (you've lost large portions of your plant to widespread fires and destruction. How can you mitigate the release of radionuclides to the public when areas x,y and z of your plant are heavily damaged?)

A certain local nuclear power plant I'm familiar with has a diesel-powered pump stored onsite but far away from the power block. It's the exact same type of pump that would have saved the plants at Fukushima, and because of 9/11, we already had the pump, hoses, flanges, and connections required to inject cooling water into the reactor or steam generators under the most adverse conditions. This equipment and the required contigencies plans were in place a few years before Fukushima.

Now the post-Fukushima problem is a natural disaster could conceivably wipe out this B5B pump, putting this contingency plan at risk.
That, presumably, is where this FLEX equipment comes in.
If you can't count on ANYTHING onsite being available, then you need to have it stored safely offsite. If you're going to do that, might as well share the equipment and costs.
One might argue about the size of the regions where this equipment is shared, but the FLEX equipment is:
a backup plan (FLEX)
to a backup plan (EDMG per B5B)
to a backup plan (Severe accident mitigating guidelines and backup pumps and backup- backup generators that pre-date 9/11)
to a backup plan (original emergency diesel generators and emergency operating procedures that have been at the plants from the start.)

Japan did not develop EDMG's after 9/11, and consequently were far behind the US nuclear industry in terms of emergency preparedness.

Now, the NRC has required a number of changes at existing and planned US nuclear facilities in response to the Fukushima meltdowns, however, that builds upon changes already made in response to the B5b regulations that came about a decade ago.