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Transformer Explosion Closes Nuclear Plant Unit North of NYC
Reuters reports that a transformer failure and related fire have forced the closure of a generating unit of the Indian Point nuclear plant, about 40 miles north of New York City; another generator at the same facility was unaffected. Witnesses reported seeing an explosion, as well as (according to NBC News) a "huge ball of black smoke" when the transformer exploded, which led to the shut-down of the site's Unit 3. The Reuters article says the plant "has long been controversial because of its proximity to the United States' largest city.
Indian Point is one of 99 nuclear power plants licensed to operate in the United States and which generate about 20 percent of U.S. electricity use, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission website.
Normal safety measures effective, loss of transformer handled in professional manner
Instead we get vague hand waving and reference to controversies generated by people wanting to shut down all nuclear power plants
Thank you /. for supporting the luddite agenda
Wherever You Go, There You Are
Nothing to see here. Generating stations, nuclear or otherwise, trip off line when major changes in load occur.
Oh, but right.., it's NOOCOOLAR POWAH! It must mean a near-miss meltdown and a cover up! I'll get my potassium iodide pills and my tinfoil hat and make some popcorn.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
if it leaks, it leads.
This kind of thing has happened before It's a huge technical achievement that it doesn't happen often enough to really remember the last time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Frankly, who cares?
Achille Talon
Hop!
I guess you don't know what is a transformer.
Achille Talon
Hop!
no, indian point is in rockland county NY in southern NY. but its not a ticking time bomb, AC has no idea what hes talking about. this is a normal function of the electrical system. it worked as intended, there is no scare here.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Transformers pop all the time. I can't see that this had anything to do with the power generation method. Will that matter to the solar fanboys? Not a bit, apparently. Fission is the safest cleanest and most effective option we have. We should close all the current nuke plants and replace them with 5 times as many modern reactors.
Hopefully not Optimus Prime. The world needs him.
How long is the time on that bomb?
Because we have to create a new generation of solar manufacturing plants to build the panels, multiple giga-factories for batteries and a whole now power transmission system to move that much energy around the continent.
Unless of course you have some alternate plan of how the tens of millions of people who are currently dependent on nuclear energy are going to function in the mean time
These things take time to plan and execute, knee-jerk reactions and shutting off major building blocks of getting away from fossil fuels to some clean energy future does not help at all. We would be a more environmentally clean society NOW if environmentalists had not spent the last forty years fighting an emotional battle against nuclear power and had focused on the emissions of the fossil fuel industry
Instead we get constant lawsuits to prevent the building of a long term nuclear waste storage facilities and new nuclear plants while the coal plants dump CO2 that is heating the planet as well as mercury and uranium that is more damaging than any imagined nuclear accident
Wherever You Go, There You Are
Bruce Jenner?
I happened to hear a small one (about the size of a backyard grill) near my house pop, and when I looked over in that direction, the bigger one across the street (about the size of a VW Beetle) blew up in a serious way.
It sent up a huge fire and smoke ball and set the grass on fire for about 12 feet in every direction. If I had been in a car driving by it when it blew, I sure would have wrecked the car thinkin I had been hit by a mortar shell already.
I'd imagine in the grand scheme of things, these two transformers were little tiny ones, but they were sure cool to watch at the time.
Glad they blew up and failed safe instead of something WORSE happening.
Are you willing to donate your property to the 10s/100s/1000s of square miles it would take to compensate the grid for the loss of the nuclear plant?
This wasn't a failure of the reactor, but a failure of a transformer. Your solar panels will still feed those.
stop spreading FUD AC, I also live right here, and there are no radiation alerts in the area.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
They need to wreck the whole mess and replace it with solar.
Yeah, because NY doesn't need power at night.
Sure. Just take the worlds largest solar farm: Topaz Solar and multiply it by 16. Then some more and build battery backup for even more to supply during the night and bad weather
Ideology will power nothing.
Hydro have an astronomical death toll compared to nuclear.
You can count the bombings of hiroshima and nagasaki as deaths due to nuclear power and hydro still have a lead.
You need to build a better grid.
Then again If you want to replace nukes with renewables, you need to build a better grid.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
seems its right on the border , you are right its in westchester not rockland. Either way my point was it is southern, not near buffalo
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Buffalo is a six hour drive from this nuke plant.
So your suggestion is what, that we just stop using electricity? You don't like nuclear, you don't like solar, you probably hate wind and hydro too.
You do know that hydroelectric power plants also have large, oil-cooled transformers, of similar design, which have exactly the same chance of exploding as this unit, right? Of course, it doesn't actually matter, since this transformer explosion had the same chance of causing a nuclear accident as an explosion at Niagara Falls does of flooding upstate New York.
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
Didn't Superman have to break the laws of physics and fly back in time to stop hydro?
Those are some impressive detectors, especially since electrical transformers are a standard part of all power distribution networks and have absolutely nothing to do with radiation.
When the electrical substation providing external power to your nuclear power reactor fails, you shut down the reactor because your principal source of constant backup power has failed. Your secondary source, generators, are not intended to allow the plant to continue to operate, but to shut down cleanly.
When a tranformer blows, your risks are fire and, if it's an old transformer, PCB contamination from the old-generation transformer oils. Certainly not radiation.
I also live right here, and there are no radiation alerts in the area.
Do you have radiation detectors, or do you rely on government issued alerts? Because the AC specifically stated:
And his radiation detectors are going crazy. Government hasn't issued any statement so far.
I am not a republican.
So what is the answer then?
As opposed to the natural radon which was in the water of my now capped well.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
As a man made of straw, I resent the gross stereotyping. We are not simply props for you to project your opponents weakness onto to then subsequently knock down. We are sentient, dancing, singing people of hay with a noble and intricate ethnic history. We have dreams-- to scare away grain-eating scavengers, to escort little girls to wizards, to somehow fuse a meat-based thought-organ to our straw-based bodies... We must be respected.
Please in future use some other analogy to personify your "fall guy". Perhaps an axe-swinging man of tin or some gutless panther could better suit your purposes.
Namelessly yours,
the straw man
Kill off 99% of the human race, or let them die of starvation while they scrabble through the transition to an agrarian lifestyle, with all of the resulting mayhem as they fight over remaining stores and sit around in piles of their dung dreaming of bygone days of magic and lore when humans tried to challenge the gods and walk on the sky
Wherever You Go, There You Are
living close to the plant, you would be dumb not to have detectors. I should have clarified as much but i assumed by the comment I was responding to thats what I meant.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
One unfortunate problem with nuke plants is that IIRC you have to have a continuous connection to the grid. If that connection fails, the plant has to scram to avoid damage to the generators (overspeed). So when that transformer goes, it means a multi-day restart of the reactor. This is the sort of situation where a hot-swap spare transformer would be a really good idea (TM)....
But as for safety, no, it is no more dangerous than any other scram, which while way less than ideal, is something that the plants are designed to handle.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
this is a normal function of the electrical system. it worked as intended, there is no scare here.
I think we need to work on the normal function of transformers -- too many just blow up in normal operation. Why don't we just use bombs instead?
The guy in 7G F* up again if only I can remember his name.
Are you willing to donate your property to the 10s/100s/1000s of square miles it would take to compensate the grid for the loss of the nuclear plant?
I once tried to calculate the total solar panel area needed to supply the entire US, and decided that it would fix comfortably in a square 20 miles on a side. Hence, 400 square miles. For the entire country.
Was my calculation off? I'm pretty sure that 1000s of square miles is an exaggeration.
(This was a "back of the envelope" calculation, so didn't take into consideration transmission lines. And as to "where to put it", I'll note that there's lots of area in Nevada East of Reno and the west side of Utah (valleys in the "Great Basin" section of the US, and uninhabitable salt flats) whose ecosystem would benefit from shade. Also, there's plenty of area in the medians of our national highway system (only counting areas protected by guard-rails, of course). And those medians run straight to the areas where power is most needed.)
I wonder if all of these fuckwit comments are the same guy spreading FUD. Large transformers do blow up once in a while, and it has absolutely nothing to do with your power source. FYI, nukes spin turbines that generate electricity in the same way as numerous other power plants, they just get the heat to spin them from a different source.
All of our nuclear reactors are getting old because no one is allowed to build new ones, thanks to asshats like you. Hope you have something up your sleeve to take 20% of the US power load when you shut down the nukes.
Sorry for my tone, but I feel certain that you are AC and posting this kind of trash as part of an intentionally ignorant ideological-based campaign against the best power source mankind has. Either that or you are retarded and can't understand the topic at hand... in which case, I apologize.
This guy did some math that came up with a square area 44 miles on a side to fulfill peak load
http://modernsurvivalblog.com/...
Of course this did not include cover night and low-light times like cloudy days or when the sun is not 90 degrees to the panel
So, you would probably need three times that amount with batteries to store and forward power as needed
and there is that pesky 'aging power transmission system' that needs to be replaced
Don't get me wrong, solar would be an excellent distributed power generation capability and Musk's idea of supplying localized batteries to handle night time use sounds like a smart idea, but we will need large power generation facilities for the next few decades and I would argue that Nuclear is the leas environmentally damaging of the lot
Wherever You Go, There You Are
God bless our brave transformers.
We could always use California and Nevada. Clear everyone out except the people needed to maintain the solar installations.
Oh wait...that leaves us with an even bigger problem...what to do with the population of California! No other state is gonna want those fruits and nuts!! No other country would take them either...HMMM...Well, I guess we have to scrap that idea...
Musk's idea is much simpler - he just wants to offload his excessive battery cell inventory from the low Tesla sales to the stupid fans, not save the world.
That's actually fairly easily solved, at least in the grand scheme of things. Just build giant solar farms right at the north and south poles. At any given time, one pole or the other will always be lit. (If that ever ceases to be the case, then the sun is no longer burning, and we're all in trouble.) Then use huge superconducting transmission lines to bring the power to the U.S.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
This is just crazy. Yet more anti-nuclear spin on a non-event. The unit is turned off because of loss or risk of loss of off site power. Pure and simply, nothing to see here, move along, kind of stuff. You see coal fired plants shutdown when they create too much heat, or the steam powered turbines spin too fast (which by the way can happen to just about every power plant type out there since almost all designs use them, nuclear, gas, coal, oil, high temp thermo, molten salt solar, etc). These things happen all the time. Yet, somehow everyone goes crazy when it happens at a nuclear plant.
/. itself). This isn't a safety problem. It is safety protocol. This is like screaming that metal detectors don't help at security checkpoints because you now see an increase in people with weapons compared to when you didn't have metal detectors, so obviously the addition of metal detectors caused that increase in people with weapons at that location...
What gets me even more is that the slant that is put on these stories (sometimes even by
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Be careful, he might figure out a way to make rocket fuel out of your attitude.
Interesting what "American Inginuity" means these days...
AC has no idea what hes talking about. this is a normal function of the electrical system. it worked as intended, there is no scare here.
A transformer blew, they do do that.
There were at least two other power supplies to feed the system, one being commercial, and in reality a non event. Being a nuke plant any thing out of the ordinary must be reported and scrutinized; as quoted "These events happen occasionally. They are not unheard of and the plant responded as designed," in this case the auto sprinkler system took care of it.
Wanna bet what the people working at the plant did? My guess is whenever they could went to look at it, no cares at all just curiosity.
If it's power was being utilized at the time, it was switched so fast the computers never knew; well maybe a stretch (but they are on UPS systems).
As a general rule for Nuclear plants there are three systems for each function, one goes down another takes it's place, another goes down which is providing the same function it's time for concern (dependent only upon it's function). Fukushima used the fourth option (firetrucks).
That's absolute genius! 6000 mile long superconducting transmission lines from the North pole. Of course, it only needs to be about a 24 gauge wire, since there is no resistance.
Still, I think my "unicorn treadmill" idea is more practical.
This guy did some math that came up with a square area 44 miles on a side to fulfill peak load
http://modernsurvivalblog.com/...
Thanks - that led to some interesting links.
So it's actually 1600 square miles of solar panels, at an estimated cost of about $1T.
The reason I did the calculation was a result of wondering: suppose we had an automated robotic factory that made and installed solar panels. At what point is the system self-sustaining?
In other words, could we have a self-assembling system that kept building ever more solar panels, and after a time allocate a portion of the output to the rest of the country?
If you could do that, you could have a huge self-sustaining automated factory and allocate a monthly allowance of the production to every person in the country. Each month everyone gets to order $1000 worth of the factory goods.
Over time, the system ramps up production to cover all the consumption in the country, and do recycling as well.
It's an interesting concept.
He said "not a republican."
I live near Indian point and do not have a problem with nuclear power in the hands of competent people but they have proven to be irresponsible in managing this plant. They were leaking strontium for many years into the Hudson River before finally discovering it and remediating the issue after it was too late. In addition to only a few years back releasing 600,000 gallons of tritium steam across the the lower Hudson Valley and failing to report it until days later. I am only touching the surface of inexcusable incompetence. If it is just a transformer is one thing but these lying pieces of shit cannot be trusted. They consistently lie and are caught in their lies after the news cycle is finished when no one give a damn, You clueless scumbags defending them without knowing their horrendous track and lies disgust me. You should be ashamed of yourselves.
quit acting like it's a nuclear bomb. Transfomers blow all the time, creating temporary blackouts until they can be repaired.
Pull your electrical for heating (use a MSRE) from the grid. Have a mechanical (gravity operated) backup to kill the heaters if you lose the grid connection, just in case. No more heat, no more power generation. You can come up with something else for dumping the excess load in the short term (pump water, spin a flywheel, doesn't matter).
I didn't say it was cheaply solved. And it will be a lot bigger than 24 gauge, because you have to wrap the superconductor in a tube to carry the liquid nitrogen that keeps it cold... but it is likely possible, today, using current technology.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
s/load/energy/
Derp. It's late.
What you're describing is true of any power plant, disconnect the load and you have to stop feeding the turbine and dump the steam or you'll destroy the generator and turbine. This is a standard capability built into any plant, coal, gas, or nuclear. The gotcha is in shutting down the reactor, which can take longer to bring up than a coal plant -- which takes 1/2 day instead of several days.
This was a transformer that failed. ALL power plants that make AC power use those. Nuclear, coal, hydro, wind, doesn't matter, they all use transformers. So even if nuclear went away, transformers would be all over the place. They are how we change AC voltages from one to another.
Musk's idea is much simpler - he just wants to offload his excessive battery cell inventory from the low Tesla sales to the stupid fans, not save the world.
Stupid fans? I thought those were a Dyson invention, not Tesla?
Sometimes I think that is what greenpeace envisions
Wherever You Go, There You Are
MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE!
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Two or more coils of wire around a core, which is usually made of something like powered iron.
"Explosions" in these devices are usually caused by high voltage arcs between the coils. The arcs may be the result of a number of causes, a voltage difference great enough to pass through the wire insulation, electrical or environmental degradation of the insulation, someone accidentally crossed the wires, filter caps failed (these can wear out over time and in some cases just die randomly though it is rare), or a rare case such as someone transmitting accidentally or on purpose a resonant frequency that caused the transformer to pickup additional voltage which overcharged the filter caps.
From the sounds of it, one of these occurred, most of these cases are expected to occur once in a while though not commonly and usually not with an explosion. (It's about as common as an explosion in the power supply of your current computer.) As you may guess, it's rather infrequent. Because of the large amounts of energy these devices work with the explosions are much larger. The only cause for concern here is if you are in close proximity to the device when it goes off. There is no nuclear material in a transformer, just a lot of metal. Not much more dangerous than a firecracker going off, though a lot more expensive to fix. Probably looking at 10 to 30 grand to replace the transformer.
One unfortunate problem with nuke plants is that IIRC you have to have a continuous connection to the grid. If that connection fails, the plant has to scram to avoid damage to the generators (overspeed). So when that transformer goes, it means a multi-day restart of the reactor. This is the sort of situation where a hot-swap spare transformer would be a really good idea (TM)....
But as for safety, no, it is no more dangerous than any other scram, which while way less than ideal, is something that the plants are designed to handle.
Or you could, you know, just vent the steam instead of using it to spin the turbines.
It's actually one or more coils. You can have just a "primary" and then tap that somewhere along that coil to get a lower voltage.
(or connect it the other way to get a higher voltage.)
That's absolute genius! 6000 mile long superconducting transmission lines from the North pole. Of course, it only needs to be about a 24 gauge wire, since there is no resistance.
Superconductors have a critical current density, above which they cease to superconduct. While I don't know the actual numbers for common superconductors, I suspect that supporting the world's current draw through a 24 ga wire would exceed the current density limit :)
That smell of burnt transformer.
Was this a transformers with toxic levels of PCBs?
All you nuke apologist can STFU and go suck on your momma teat.
Sun or no sun that's beside the point
The point is, can't they make a transformer that won't go *** !!KABOOM!! *** ?
So, it's 3 blocks away with traffic...
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
So, how many square miles does this reactor take, including restricted surrounding area ?
The average rooftop area (including factories, etc.) per US citizen is about 80 m^2, almost 10,000 square miles in total.
Indian Point is a disater waiting to hapen. They need to wreck the whole mess and replace it with solar.
But solar power is a ticking time bomb and disaster waiting to happen, as this story proves beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Your solar station just caused the same explosion in the same way for the same reason.
Why are you trying to kill off the human race?
A transformer blowing up at a plant is actually a pretty big issue. An "off" PWR or BWR still needs power for quite a while for cooling. See Fukushima for the consequences of losing both mains power and backup generators at the same time. Clearly the backup generators worked - yeay! But what if they hadn't?
Indian Point, even in the event of a major accident, is not too much of a health threat to the people of New York City. Nuclear disasters are disasters in slow motion; you can run away from them, you don't have to sit around on contaminated streets drinking contaminated water. But what you can't do is ignore them. The financial costs if Indian Point underwent a Fukushima-scale disaster and large chunks of NYC had to be evacuated for long periods of time are almost unthinkable. That's the real problem with its positioning.
Sigur RÃs: I didn't know that Heaven had a rock band.
Actually, it is more dangerous than any other scram, as it means that you don't have a grid connection to power your cooling pumps. You have to rely on your backup generators. If they fail, you're in serious trouble.
As to the GP, nuclear's biggest problem is a "negative learning curve". We make a generation of nuclear reactors, but over time instead of getting cheaper to make and operate - as in most technologies - it gets more expensive as we discover all sorts of new things wrong and try to patch them. Some can be fixed, some are fundamental design problems. We try to work around this with a new generation of reactors - but that then starts the learning curve over from scratch, and often with an even more complex system.
It's been a real problem.
Sigur RÃs: I didn't know that Heaven had a rock band.
If the backup generators hadn't worked then there would have been multiple days for a truck carrying a replacement generator to drive from anywhere in the country to plug it in.
People seem to forget the fucking massive wall of water that smashed its way across the Fukushima plant and everything around it. Wikipedia has a good article on the safety systems of a BWR reactor. I suggest you have a read.
The Chinese have already done that and they'll happily delay their rollout to fill much smaller orders from the USA - at a premium of course.
Someone is not thinking about networks.
Oh - someone thinks there isn't already networks in place or is thinking in terms of water with upstream and downstream pipes.
Typically early 1970s cells are used for the calculation - you cheated and used something available now! Shame on you :)
The national peak is not equal to all the local peaks added together due to the peaks occurring at different times with respect to UTC. So the answer is probably significantly smaller since the California and East coast peaks won't overlap, and there's a lot less consumption in between.
Reality is sort of going that way - HVDC has resulted in incredibly long runs with very low losses so there's been a fair bit rolled out over the last couple of decades.
Right, because generators the size needed to operate nuclear power plants are the sort of thing that you just pick up at any corner hardware store and "drive up and plug in"?
here's what one of those generators looks like. A nuclear power power plant may have a dozen or more in their generator building. Even replacing just one is not some sort of couple day task. These things take prep work and a lot of labour to acquire, move, install and set up. Weeks to months. That's all assuming that the generator building itself is still usable; a failure in such a large generator, or the sort of external event that can take out such a large generator, is not exactly some sort of low energy event.
Back before Fukushima people like you were all over Slashdot harping about how major nuclear disasters couldn't happen again, that it's only possible with old Soviet designs like Chernobyl that are horribly misused. Quit being so damned short sighted. Unforseen events and cascading failures do happen. You can't just act like "the list of causes of major that have already happened is the entire comprehensive list of what could cause major failures".
If you scram, lose your grid connection and lose your generators, you will likely get a Fukushima-like event. Two of the three happened here. Let's not pretend that the concept of something taking out the generator room, or otherwise preventing its power from working the pumps - generators which are only rarely tested - is such a preposterous concept. And let's not be silly and act like massive pieces of industrial equipment can just be plopped down and hooked up like a little Honda generator.
Sigur RÃs: I didn't know that Heaven had a rock band.
> Transformers pop all the time
Oh, really? Then you should perhaps fix your transformers?
Hopefully, the containers of your nuclear stations are made to a better standard. Just sayin'
The headline is: noooklear boogity boogity boogity.
It should be: large steam units have forced outages, and the grid is designed to handle them.
My point is this: we hear all the time "what good is solar power at night? Wind turbines when it's not windy?" I ask you: what good is a nuclear power station when the transformer blows up and it safely disengages from the grid for hours, days, or weeks? Think of this incident next time folks talk about how some renewable generator is unreliable. No generating unit is 100% reliable, and because big ones break, the grid must have substantial capacity available as backup. Far more than is necessary when it's unexpectedly cloudy or not windy.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
A nuclear power power plant may have a dozen or more [back-up generators] in their generator building. Even replacing just one is not some sort of couple day task.
Quite right. But the reason there are so many is to provide redundancy - they are not all needed at once - and by having a "dozen or more" they are not all going to fail at the same time because of a transformer explosion. The power stations I am familiar with (I am a nuclear engineer in the UK) do not put them all in the same generator building either. Nor are they sited in locations prone to tsunamis and it does not look like Indian Point is either.
generators which are only rarely tested
On the power stations I deal with they are tested frequently. It is hard to judge the size of the generators in your linked picture because it is obviously taken with a very wide-angle lens. The ones I deal with are the same type as used in railway locomotives, and there are mobile trailers available with such generators.
A transformer blew, they do do that.
It is not uncommon for a large transformer to blow. I am a power station engineer and know of two events over 10 years at UK nuclear power stations. It is not a big safety deal apart from the possiblility of injuring people within say 50 yards, and I have been within sight of one (yet someone was worried about NYC 40 miles away!). These transformers tend to be in bays shielded from each other by thick masonery walls.
"Actually, it is more dangerous than any other scram, as it means that you don't have a grid connection to power your cooling pumps. You have to rely on your backup generators. If they fail, you're in serious trouble."
Just because the transformer to the outside world is down, doesn't stop you generating local power from the decay heat. At shutdown you can still have 7% of the output just from decay heat, which is enough to power the facility. Many modern designs use this as plan A during a shutdown.
About 12 hours, not multiple days was how long it would took for the batteries to run out at Fukushima, and start a meltdown.
The massive wall of water wasn't the problem. It was the TEPCO lies about the damage. If Japan had said "we need a 120kVA generator plugged in and working in in 8 hours" there would have been one there. I used 120kVA as a rough guess. I couldn't find the exact size of the ones that were at Fukushima. If they needed 250kVA instead, then get two.
But the point is TEPCO lied about the damage, and didn't ask for help. There are hundreds of generators in range. China or South Korea could have flown one in in a few hours, and helicopter them out and set them up well before the batteries ran out.
The fixes were easy and available. Yes, even after a tsunami. But no help is possible if nobody asks for it, and nobody offers because we are being lied to about the damage. That's all on TEPCO.
Learn to love Alaska
One unfortunate problem with nuke plants is that IIRC you have to have a continuous connection to the grid. If that connection fails, the plant has to scram to avoid damage to the generators (overspeed).
BS
Power stations (even non-nuclear) always have back-up generators that kick in on loss of grid to allow control of the plant to be maintained and for cooling pumps to take the heat out of the system in a controlled way. Generators will not overspeed if cut off the grid - their speeds are controlled by sophisticated control systems, and if they even fail then an old-fashioned back-up mechanical governor will cause the main steam supply valve to slam shut.
The plant would not be "scrammed" on loss of grid. Scramming means hitting a big red panic button. The plant would be kept spinning at first, obviously with the reactor power reduced to near zero, with residual heat being dumped through purposed heat exchangers and possibly releasing steam to atmosphere (unless it is a BWR - Indian Point is not), while the cause of the loss-of-grid was investigated - like getting the grid company on the phone. Many losses-of-grid are quite brief, but if it looked like it was going to be a while then the plant would be shut down in a controlled way, not by a scram button.
When the incident happened, I had an 80kVA generator I could have had in Tokyo in about 6 hours (so long as the military would have flown it out for me, which I suspect they would have with an official international distress aid request). I imagine that there would have been hundreds that could have been on site in a few hours. The pic looks like a big generator. Something locomotive sized. That'd put it in the 250-500 kVA range, maybe up to 10 MW (the biggest locomotives on the planet). The smaller size would be easy to get there. Larger would be more rare and more difficult to transport, but still possible, even with the flood. So why didn't anyone ask for help? TEPCO was too busy lying about the problem.
Learn to love Alaska
I used to work as a power engineer. A transformer fire has nothing to do with the nuclear reactions per se. When a transformer catches on fire, relays detect a fault (either overcurrent, differential, sudden pressure, overtemperature, etc), and circuit breakers isolate the transformer from the system. I don't know this particular plant's design, but generally there are multiple transformers running in parallel and the loss of a transformer wouldn't necessarily require any nuclear unit to shut down. However, if a unit depended on that transformer to output power, then the turbine and nuclear unit must be shut down immediately. This is a fairly routine operation. The reason the unit must be shut down really has more to do with the turbine. Turbines are rated for a particular frequency and if you have a tremendous amount of mechanical energy being dumped into the turbine but no electrical loading since the transformer is toast, you will in a very short period of time experience a turbine frequency excursion which can rip it apart. The quickest way to reject mechanical input power is to dump steam from the nuclear unit to the atmosphere. It is not, I repeat, not, radioactive. The radioactive heat transfer fluid (steam, liquid sodium, whatever) is always isolated from the turbine steam via heat exchangers. It sounds like a bomb going off, but it's simply extremely high pressure steam being vented to atmosphere.
Your ignorance on the Fukushima event is on clear display here. For starters, electrical distribution systems were inoperable due to the flooding, there was nothing usable to hook a generator up to immediately after the event.
This transformer explosion, why would this be more of an issue at a nuclear plant then at any other place?
We have transformers explode along power lines too. They also create fire, damage property...
Let's not confuse the regular damage of power generation with the nuclear is bad narrative.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
thank you very much
I also worked at a power plant in New York until a few weeks ago. We had a 290 MVA transformer die - it didn't explode through sheer luck. In our case, there were no blast walls, so it could have been a big problem, since all four main unit transformers were on the same deck... we could easily have lost the plant completely. Not every plant was designed with those walls, and half of the plants that NYPA operated didn't have them. This was the unit of IP that was operated by NYPA until around 2003. OTOH, the other unit isn't that close, and most likely they had to build containment since then.
But those who are complaining about backup generators - we've got 500kW generators on trucks, ready to go, since we nearly lost a dam by losing backup generation during hurricane Irene. At a nuke plant they've got many levels of redundancy. We also had a spare unit transformer (and now have two) so I'm sure they've got at least one on site (it's possible their GSU's are different because the two IP units were built at different times and generally were operated by two different companies until recently.)
OTOH, losing a unit transformer is not a common event and can be a big deal. IP is lucky - since it's on the Hudson they can float one there. We need to shut down an interstate because a transformer can barely fit under the overpass and they can't have 6 inches of deflection.
For what it's worth, I seem to remember that one of the problems they had with "replacement" generators was... the wrong fucking plug. As for TEPCO, that's a typical Japanese reaction to having fucked up badly: ignore/deny the problem as much as possible.
I know it's more than meets the eye.
IIRC (and we have a former Homer Simpson at work that translates all of this crap for me), the problem wasn't a lack of generators - it was that all of the electrical equipment was destroyed by the salt water. They recognized that the original emergency generators were vulnerable to flooding and moved them to higher ground, but they left the original electrical in place. It was all fried, and so there was nothing to plug into.
In the US, plants are required to have some kind of mobile generator. I don't know if their electrical systems are supposed to be redundant or somehow different than the Japanese plants - but I doubt it. A tsunami could probably put a US plant in a similar situation, but in order to get to Indian Point, it would have to kill a million or so people on the way, so the meltdown wouldn't be that big of a deal in the larger disaster.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
There's no guarantee that ECCS are independent and can operate in the vent of station blackout. The HPCI used in Fukishima, for example, is a steam turbine-driven pump but not a generator, and it has electrical components that require operation. Which is why it didn't prevent meltdown.
The primary turbines are not designed to operate on the amount of power generated from decay heat alone.
Sigur RÃs: I didn't know that Heaven had a rock band.
the ones at power stations are bigger, so it's a bigger explosion more fire, but other than that, it's not much different.
just more liberal media bullshit.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
What do you do now that the nuclear power station is down, huh?
No, don't come back with "There are others, the network is fine" because that's the same for renewables too. When the wind stops? There are others, the network is fine.
And the network is only fine because nuclear has backup generation. Just like you say about renewables. And for renewables, that requirement for redundancy or backup generation is why that isn't going to work, so it's proof nuclear isn't working.
it would have to kill a million or so people on the way, so the meltdown wouldn't be that big of a deal in the larger disaster.
You could say that about Fukushima. Nearly 20,000 killed in the 2011 Tsunami, none by radiation.
Indeed, I do say that about Fukushima. In isolation, it looks like a disaster. In perspective, it was a very small element of a much larger disaster. The part that makes it "special" is that the people are displaced by an invisible hazard and they have to deal with a government that seems to alternate between lies and incompetence. Or maybe just delusion.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Oh, looks like nuclear doesn't cut it either, since it can't produce high power (why that? A huge wind farm produces massive amounts of power) at a steady rate either, since they break down.
And unlike the fairly predictable wind or sun power, such a failure can't be predicted ahead of time to get more sources up and running.
The problem in Japan was they couldn't think of a way to recharge the batteries powering the backup cooling system, like using long jumper cables from cars.
Sort-of. He is building a giant battery factory in order to get battery prices down. He needs to sell that capacity. Tesla has other constraints on the number of cars that they produce, but I think mainly there is a recognition that battery is where his competitive advantage lies. There are dozens of companies capable of building high-quality automobiles, but only a handful of companies who can make automotive-sized batteries. Tesla has no chance in hell at selling cars if they are the smallest player in a huge industry, but if they have class-leading battery technology, that changes the game.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
In a nuclear disaster, proximity means within a couple hundred miles or so. The only difference having the plant in the middle of town makes is you get more safety features.
Only because of the design. If you spread the fuel out enough it stops fissioning and then you only have residual heat to deal with.
Tepco lied and pretended there was no real problem. For ages. Therefore one reason why they had no fix was because they were telling everyone else on the planet it was OK.
They lied.
Why?
Same reason the operators here would lie: avoid blame, avoid scares, avoid expense, leave time to abandon ship before the shit hits the fan.
Until you've seen a pole pig aka power transformer explode on a pole. All I saw was this huge flash of light and then could see the transformer itself launched through the sky.
That was immediately followed by watching the connections arc until the circuit breakers kicked in.
They didn't need the backup generators in this case. They just lost one transformer. Nuclear power plants are required to have multiple, independent, sources of offsite power. They need to lose them all before any backup is needed. This was an extremely minor event.
You are completely wrong. All U.S. Nuclear power plants will scram if they are greater than about 30% power and there is no where to put the power - ie loss of connection to the grid. This is because the main condenser is only designed to handle 30% of the heat load. It would be ridiculous to build a nuclear power plant that could dump 100% power to the condenser. Remember these plants are huge and 100% power is typically more than 1,000 MWe.
It's not just the time factor, though as I hinted in my post, that is a big problem. There's also the problem that most of the older nuke plant designs (translation: most of the U.S. nuke plans) require external power for cooling. Lose that, and you have to use emergency generators and/or batteries. Lose that for long enough, or experience a multiple generator failure (Fukushima), and you're in trouble.
So scram conditions do actually represent a much higher risk for a nuke plant than for a coal plant. The risk is mitigated to the best of the designers' ability at the time, but that doesn't mean it is zero. And the continued use of older nuclear plants (thanks largely to NIMBYism) puts us at greater risk because of the lack of passive safety that you'd find in newer designs.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Its about time...
Stop reading the tabloids and get your information straight. The "600,000 gallons of tritium steam" is pure crap. The steam that was released was steam from the secondary water loop which run the steam turbines. You should learn a little about how these nuclear plants actually work if you are so worried about them. You see, there are 2 main water loops, the primary water loop which goes into the reaction chamber and is heated by the nuclear reaction, and the secondary loop which is heated by the hot water from the primary loop (think like a car radiator where there are pipes running back and forth to disperse the heat to all the metal fins and into the air, but instead of there being just one long tube in the radiator, there are 2 separate tubes, one with the highly heated water from the reaction, the other with cool water that just came from the cooling tower).
So in other words, water that doesn't touch the reactor was vented as steam. So instead of reading tabloids and other such sources that simply are trying to sell a paper or generate a click on an article, you might want to read the real information like an official report or given how bad the reporting on the incident was, a official corrections release by the government showing how bad the reporting was in certain "press" coverage of the incident:
Official NRC Letter of Corrections to Editor of New York Daily News
Again, since you live there, you should know that there is a history of New York not liking nuclear plants. In fact, New York hates them so much that the state of New York refused to sign any evacuation plans for a plant, causing the operator to not be able to turn it on. Approx 16% of every dollar Long Island Electric collects is being used to pay for that plant still to this day, along with a 5% rate increase every year for 10 years straight that happened all because of how anti-nuclear New York had become.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Then you fly in replacement parts. You think it's better to cover up than state the problems to the world? TEPCO thinks so. They deliberately chose a meltdown over stating the problems caused by a tsunami/earthquake.
You are right, I don't know the full details about the damage. I just know electrics and wiring. An "electrical distribution system" when things are that broken is ripping everything out, and replacing it with copper. It's not hard. You don't need to step up, step down, and such if you know the final output needed. So any complex systems damaged can be replaced in hours, if you had the parts, which I think would have appeared if Japan had asked for them.
Learn to love Alaska
[The problem] was that all of the electrical equipment was destroyed by the salt water.
The electrical power was being delivered by a battery room that was undamaged (until the batteries ran out). Matching the output of the battery room and wiring into the same line would be easy, with the right parts and equipment.
But nobody asked, and lots of lies were given as to the state of the reactor.
Learn to love Alaska
Fly in replacement parts?? You don't realy know what is going on.
I'll let you be the guy that closes the 4KV switchgear that still have moisture inside, don't be surprised if I stand back quite a distance.
You've clearly never seen the cabling and electrical distribution & control infrastructure of a nuclear facility, and from your response I'd guess even an industrial one.
YOu can't replace any of that in hours. You might string one cable to one pump in that time, but you have to be able to get to it among the damage and debris from the tsunami and flooding. The fact that you think there was an easy solution is quite telling.
You have no real insight into a power plant electrical design and construction, that I am 100% certain of by your responses. I can guess you'll say something else ignorant in response.
Surely this is Michael Bay's fault?
There was no damage to the electrical systems. They worked fine for 12 hours, under battery power. You are asserting damage that wasn't there. The critical damage was to the power supply, not the distribution within the plant.
You connect in the battery room. It was still secure, and without moisture. And everything from that point was operable. The cooling system was working. It just lost power after 12 hours. If 12 hours of working means there was nothing operable to work with, then we have different definitions of "operable".
You just connect in the battery room, whether before or after the batteries doesn't really matter.
Learn to love Alaska
No, only the low voltage DC system worked for a period of time, but those systems don't power the heat removal required to keep the fuel cool. For that you need the medium voltages AC systems operable, but they were significantly damaged/impaired by the tsunami.
Like I predicted, you would say another ignorant thing. Care to do it again?
>>This transformer explosion, why would this be more of an issue at a nuclear plant then at any other place?
Because a nuclear reactor needs grid power to remain safe.
How long, given unlimited resources, would it have taken to fix?
Learn to love Alaska
ALL power plants require external power for cooling once they're tripped. In big plants like that, if you don't shut the system down correctly and cool the boiler off in a controlled fashion, you're going to cause all kinds of damage. This can include catastrophic failure of the boiler. Only difference is a coal fired boiler doesn't contain nuclear fuel and radioisotopes.
Fukushima was a cluster fuck. American plants apparently have more redundancy on the emergency generators than Japan requires. In addition, there are emergency cooling systems, even in the older designs, that use (for example) the steam generated by the plant itself to turn pumps. In Japan, they'd never tested those systems; so, didn't know if they were working or not (they were not).
I would like to see the plants all upgraded to newer designs myself but that's going to take decades; and, in the current societal and political climate may not happen.
Well, you can only do some much given the circumstances. Even if everything were accessible after the tsunami and everything they needed was on hand, I would say it would take a full day to get the needed functionality, which includes checking everything before you energize and cause more damage or kill someone. You might be able to basically hot wire a pump or two in a few hours in ideal situations with the right generator (proper size and voltage) available, enough cable, and enough of the right technicians. Pulling large cable through a tortuous path is quite labor intensive. But the actual scene was much more complicated, areas of the plant were not accessible and the needed equipment to deal with this event was not on hand. I am not sure how many technicians were on site at the time, I don't recall there being any more than a typical maintenance crew level but I can't really say.
Lets say you had a generator somewhere nearby but it was the wrong voltage, then you'd have to obtain the right transformer as well. And then its not just the cable, you need some electrical circuit protection equipment in place (breakers/switchger), fuel, cable termination tools and supplies,etc. Any supply that was sitting in an out-building was pretty much wiped away by the tsunami. These guys were in a really tough situation.
But nobody asked, and lots of lies were given as to the state of the reactor.
The behavior bordered on criminal, when you assess it in hindsight. It has been revealed that the government agencies involved, including the office of the prime minister, were not keeping formal records so that they could cover their asses. This has denied all governments, who operate nuclear reactors, the ability to make systemic improvements in responding to nuclear accidents. Essentially the criminal negligence extended beyond TEPCO and the regulator, into the government itself.
One prime example of this is that the Japanese government did have a fallout predictions system that worked. When assessed later it was found to have located the key and highest areas subject to fallout. It was important because the government should have been able to tell people when to move and when to stay put while the fallout settled.
However, they weren't prepared to accept the recommendations of the very system they paid for (due to liability issues - IIRC) and evacuated many people, including an entire town through active fallout zones. We still have about 2-3 years before the direct exposure cases begin to become apparent. Even if they don't die, many lives have been destroyed and will be a burden on the healthcare system, if they are not simply ignored.
There are many other examples throughout the disaster and the Japanese government has effectively destroyed any possibility of introspection and because they were worried about their liabilities as individuals the world has lost a significant opportunity to capture knowledge that would improve response planning and lessen the impact of any potential nuclear disaster.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
You sound like my coworker when we planned a 20 kVA to 120 kVA UPS swap/upgrade. He wanted the whole building de-powered for 2 days (and guided the engineers into that design). I grabbed the EEs and went into a meeting room, and 30 minutes later we came out with a plan that had two sub-second outages, 24 hours apart, and about 24 hours of pre-work on de-powered portions.
His was more linear and easy to understand, but my solution was faster, cheaper, and worked. You do the last things first, then when you are at the middle, you flip, and then build the first things last, then, when everything's done, you flip back to the final circuit. But for a de-powered building, wiring in power isn't hard. There's a zero chance of a problem while wiring, though powering up the circuit could cause a problem.
It's not hard to match voltage. they are usually in the same multiples, even in Japan. So all you need is multiple smaller ones. The last generators I worked with were auto phase syncing, so if you hooked up two 240V to get 480V, they would sense a phase alignment issue, and adjust to be in phase with each other.
Learn to love Alaska
The mechanical switches to handle hot swapping would be fun.
These transformers do not fail often enough to justify the expense of the switch infrastructure and a standby transformer.
The emergency diesels at nuclear power plants are typically sized to be able to operate feedwater and reactor circulation pumps. A typical PWR coolant pump is in the region of 5 MW, but are typically designed to have enormous inertia (they typically have integrated flywheels which will keep the impeller spinning for several minutes following power loss), so need very conservatively rated generators. Typically, each pump have a dedicated 10 MW diesel generator as backup, although in shut down mode, you would not need all 4 pumps running to obtain adequate cooling margin.
BWRs typically have more smaller pumps - typically 8-18 pumps of around 1MW each, and as they are part of the reactor control system, they will use VFD control to permit fine tuning reactor power, so in that regard are more generator friendly. There would be additional plant in addition to the circulation pumps, there are containment cooling pumps (typically around 50-100 kW).
However, at Fukushima, the problem was more extensive. Both the diesels and the main AC power switchboards were placed in basements.When the tsunami breeched the main flood defences, both the generators and power distribution were lost. This meant that only the battery maintained critical DC bus and any associated inverters remained operational. This was able to maintain instrumentation and controls for a steam-powered feedwater system. Potentially a small portable generator could have been connected to charge the batteries, but there was no plan for this, no ready connections, and the UPS batteries only had about 4 hours of autonomy, with meltdown inevitable within 120 minutes of loss of battery power. However, even generator back up would be limited, the amount of water available for the containment cooling system and isolation condensers was limited, and the battery powered cooling systems would have exhausted their water supply within about 12-16 hours.
When the UK licensed its first PWR in 1987, one of the issues that the regulator had was that in the event of diesel generator failure, only the battery autonomy of the UPS system would prevent meltdown (something that was not an issue with the AGR plants previously built), as a result, the regulator required that in addition to the normal diesel generators (as used in the reference design plant in the US), the UK version would have additional battery charging generators, which would be located away from the normal diesel generator buildings, and have a dedicated fuel supply isolated from the main fuel tanks. They would also not be dependent on the normal AC switchboards, and instead feed the battery chargers directly.
A number of the new reactor designs are moving away from the use of diesel generators as part of the safety case. The AP1000 and ESBWR have 72 hour battery autonomy on the redundant critical UPS systems, use gravity pumping, compressed air-driven feedwater supply and sufficient cooling water to ensure that cooling can be maintained for the full 72 hour period without AC power. Beyond 72 hours, the AP1000 will require refilling of roof tanks with water. The ESBWR will lose monitoring after 72 hours, but it holds sufficient cooling water in the containment building for 7 days, after which it will require refilling by low pressure portable pumps.
The exception is the EPR - this is even more dependent on diesel generators than the Fukushima plants, as the steam-powered emergency feedwater pumps have been replaced by electric pumps. The EPR has 4N redundancy on the main diesel generators, which are in independent bunkerised buildings on different parts of the campus. However, there are additional 2N redundant "ultimate" diesel generators which are capable of charging UPS batteries and operating critical feedwater pumps. These are located in the same buildings as the main diesels, but are in separate fire, flood and explosion sealed compartments, with independent fuel supplies. Any 1 generator operational is sufficient to ensure plant safety. However, loss of all generators will result in meltdown within 90 minutes.
A lot of the logistics problems at the time I can forgive because they were distracted by the tsunami to deal with the meltdown properly. That, and they were being lied to about the extent of the problem. You can't tell 10,000 people to stay in their house for 2 days for the fallout to settle when those 10,000 people are without power and water from the tsunami. The trouble of getting water and food to those 10,000 in the middle of a major tsunami cleanup would have caused more harm (and probably more total deaths) than just moving them, regardless of the fallout at the moment.
Learn to love Alaska
How long, given unlimited resources, would it have taken to fix?
The USS Ronald Reagan was there and offered the Japanese government assistance, however the government refused. Not unlimited resources, however they had reactor experts, helicopters and access to all sorts of equipment to help them overcome many of the logistical problems associated with destroyed infrastructure, such as roads. They could have quite easily flown the required batteries to the Fukushima plant, however they weren't even utilized and Japans response was to send the wrong batteries, via land and hinder the people doing the work. Sad really considering how much fallout the crew were exposed to, to render assistance, and refused because of Japanese pride and concerns about it's territorial sovereignty.
The Ronald Reagan, could have assisted in restoring the battery power to the control systems so that the water levels *inside* the reactor could have been assessed and action taken earlier to prevent them from exploding. Understanding the state of the reactor was the key issue at the time, which required batteries, not replacing 4KV switchgear.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
The problem in Japan was they couldn't think of a way to recharge the batteries powering the backup cooling system, like using long jumper cables from cars.
There was some resistance.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Were talking 3 phase medium voltage, not single phase low voltage. Your anecdotes are not applicable in any sense. The only way to tie different medium voltage systems together is with a 3 phase transformer designed for the purpose.
I can see how you are confused, you are assuming your peripheral involvement with some low voltage electrical work gives you insight into medium voltage distribution systems, and that assumption is wrong. You probably think designing a large MV distribution system is simple. You probably don't know much about MV switchgear operation and how catastrophic faults can be. You sound like you don't understand 3 phase power in general.
You don't test medium voltage systems by 'flipping a switch' and seeing what happens. You stand a good chance of destroying equipment, and even killing someone.
I'll be happy to explain stuff to you if you want to learn, rather than assume.
You can't tell 10,000 people to stay in their house for 2 days for the fallout to settle when those 10,000 people are without power and water from the tsunami.
Well the forces conducting the evacuations were also exposed, so you can tell them they will be exposed to radionuclide ingestion if they decide to move. Planning and reacting to logistical problems in an appropriate way requires you to use the resources you have available intelligently, therefore you can concentrate the right resources to the right place at the right time.
Many of these people are suffering radiation poisoning and I doubt many of them would have minded 2 days of inconvenience as compared to the permanent medical problems they now face.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
That's not true. A loss of grid connection triggers an immediate reactor and turbine trip (equivalent to SCRAM, which is a term that's used for Boiling Water Reactors, and Indian Point is a Pressurized Water Reactor). The control rods are inserted at their maximum speed. To do otherwise, the plant would risk turbine overspeed (this destroys the turbine blades) and other costly issues. Typically, the big red button would not be used, as the plant would trip automatically.
Failed because it was shot. Terrorist dun? a couple of months ago another transformer "failed." But this time there was a report of a bullet hole.
Terrorist Run. Maybe.
"Nuclear disasters are disasters in slow motion"
They're only disasters if people completely and utterly fuck things up.
As happened at chernobyl - and as happened in the aftermath of Fukishima when TEPCO management consistently interfered with engineering attempts to make things safe, coupled with japanese refusal to acknowledge they needed external help (There were offers from the USA to helicopter in generating equipment, from Okinawa, etc)
Even in the aftermath of Fukushima precisely zero people died (one crane operator onsite died in the earthquake) and a few people received minor radiation burns. The reactor can be left for 35-40 years and then cleaned up when the hottest cesium compounds have burned out (This cleanup is now happening at Three Mile Island)
Yes there are safer alternatives to PWR/BWR which we could and should be pursuing - but the safety record of all civil nuclear power(*) is compelling when compared to the thousands of deaths each year attributable to coal powered electricity generation.
(*) The big nuclear mess sites worldwide are all military. As was the Sellafield fire reactor (it was producing plutonium for bombs).
"We still have about 2-3 years before the direct exposure cases begin to become apparent."
The dangers of radiation exposure are vastly overstated by many groups who can profit form fearmongering.
Air crew routinely experience radiation levels higher than anything anyone around Fukushima received outside the plant buildings and they're not exactly dropping like flies or turning into radioactive mutant zombies.
The average smoker has a non-insignificant amount of Polonium-210 fizzing away in his/her lungs, yet after decades of exposure to it, less than half will develop cancers.
https://xkcd.com/radiation/
"One unfortunate problem with nuke plants is that IIRC you have to have a continuous connection to the grid."
Most modern designs have passive safety mechanisms. Positive action is not needed to lift control rods into place (they drop in) and cooling systems are gravity fed.
One of the critical design features of all recent-build plants is the ability to passively cool the reactor system for the entire meltdown risk period (residual heat dissipation) for the entire danger period _without_ electricity.
That said: Water cooled reactor vessels are intrinsically unsafe (water is a nasty corrosive solvent at high pressure + temp, steam explosions if allowed to vent to atmosphere are nasty and there are always radionuclides dissolved in the mix due to the corrosion mentioned earlier). Whoever thought it was a good idea to use liquid sodium as a coolant needs their head read. Molten lead is marginally safer but a lot harder to remove if it freezes and anything with a graphite core that can get exposed to atmosphere is problematic (sellafield and chernobyl fires)
Molten salt U233/Thorium reactors are the best bet I can think of and would be more so if the graphite matrix can be replaced with something else (this looks to have been cracked). They can't melt down, burn or leak (any leaks will freeze solid before going far) and they are able to burn 99% of what goes in, vs conventional uranium systems 2%. Nor do they need expensive and problematic uranium enrichment plants (operational cost of the USA civil enrichment program is classified information). What they're not good at is producing material for nuclear weapons, which is why the USA gave up on developing them in 1972.
If the transformer explosion had happened at a non-nuclear plant this wouldn't be headline news.
"The gotcha is in shutting down the reactor, which can take longer to bring up than a coal plant -- which takes 1/2 day instead of several days."
That depends on the reactor design.
The 7MW experiemntal MSR at Oak ridge was shut down every friday afternoon and brought up every monday morning because noone wanted to look after it over weekends.
MSRs can be throttled up/down so quickly that the need for conventional peaking plant is almost eliminated and they don't suffer from Xenon poisoning.
Once you've got a reactor that flexible, you no longer need solar/wind generators - or the backing plants needed to guarantee them (you could use a MSR as backing plant, but what's the point?)
"Oh - someone thinks there isn't already networks in place or is thinking in terms of water with upstream and downstream pipes."
Or someone doesn't realise that grid distribution systems designed to handle a few large power sources and feedouts has trouble coping with uncontrolled, unreliable input from thousands of small sources with resultant net power flows _across_ the infrastructure instead of up/down it.
Redoing the geometry of the grid system to cope with the rapid, uncontrolled, undesigned rearrangement of energy sources is pretty much on par with starting over - and it's a cost which the "renewables" generators don't have to take into account because of their heavily subsidised feedin tarriffs.
If solar and wind were worthwhile then the big generators would be using it. In some cases they are but the smaller sites are mostly subsidy suckers, not power generators.
"Of course this did not include cover night and low-light times like cloudy days or when the sun is not 90 degrees to the panel"
Or take into account the 50% loss in capacity as the panels age - with newer generation low cost panels apparently having as low as a 6 year lifespan vs the 15-20 of older ones.
As for "ecosystems which would benefit from some shade" - they've been doing without it for thousands of years thankyouverymuch. Just because you think they might benefit doesn't mean that the organisms there will see it that way.
"So it's actually 1600 square miles of solar panels, at an estimated cost of about $1T."
Which underscores that nuclear power is cheaper, especially if done right.
which part of the normal operation of a nukaplant involve a transformer explosion ? And, why should transformer explosion go unreported when they are inside a nukaplant ? I mean, any failure inpowerstation is of interest. Be it nuke, solar or fart powered. But suddenly, if it's nukular, then it's forbidden to talk aboot like muslim fobid to draw the prophet...
While I agree you are lacking the answer on how to power NYC at night and when there are clouds. Would need a huge batch of those Tesla batteries or pumped water storage power plants or thermal storage. Of course, cutting power consumption in NYC in general would be an equally big help.
Oregon and Washington would probably take some of them. Although it'd be really funny to move some of them to Montana or Idaho, just for the culture clash...
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