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NRC Engineers Urge Shutdown of Nuclear Plants If Design Flaw Not Fixed (utilitydive.com)
mdsolar writes: A group of engineers in the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission say they have identified a design flaw in nearly all nuclear reactors in the country that should result in their mandatory shutdown unless operators fix the problem, Reuters reports. In late February, the engineers petitioned the NRC to order immediate enforcement actions to correct the design flaw, which they say could result in damage to cooling systems and ultimately lead to an emergency situation. The filing asks the agency to respond by March 21 and is a part of a standard NRC process, according to the news outlet. The filing stems from an incident in January 2012, when Exelon's Byron 2 unit in Illinois experienced an automatic reactor trip from full power after an undervoltage condition was detected. The unit was shut down for a week, in what is known as an open phase condition created by an unbalanced voltage. The NRC engineers say such an event could cause an electrical short, reducing the abilituy of cooling systems to operate.
Why are all these non-stories submitted by mdsolar being approved? They identified a possible flaw and recommended a fix. Nothing to see here, move on.
In short, the catastrophic problems at both Chernobyl and at Fukushima Daiichi, despite different reactor designs, were coolant/steam problems. In Chernobyl's case steam voids within the graphite-moderated core caused the pressure to grow to the point it blew-off the upper biological shield, exposing the reactor core and blowing chunks of it out into the environment. In Fukishima Daiichi's case, as temperatures grew steam formed and also hydrogen and oxygen were separated-out from water, so steam and hydrogen explosions resulted.
Keeping that reactor cooled and preventing the buildup of steam inside of the system should be top priority.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Unsurprisingly, mdsolar is posting this as soon as possible, because he has a hard on for hating on solar power. They've had a whole 96 hours to think about this. The world is going to end! OMG! They're not doing anything.
I'll just ignore this for a while because, frankly, this is way too early to give a crap.
FWIW, the 2012 incident didn't do anything anyone but a solar panel hugging, nuke hating asshole would care about, either. It will be corrected, but as far as emergencies go, this one isn't one because it has happened 13 times in the past 14 years and... nothing of consequence happened. It will happen one more time before it's fixed and... nothing of consequence will happen. It went unnoticed for several weeks and... nothing of consequence happened.
But, because nuclear safety is taken seriously (unlike employee safety when installing solar panels) this will be corrected quickly and without incident.
Doesn't sound like it's a major design flaw; they just have to detect an open phase condition more quickly, or provide an alternative power source to the emergency cooling pumps.
One of the few happy lessons from Fukushima is that defense-in-depth works -- at least to prevent mishaps from developing into the worst possible scenario. So we shouldn't be cavalier about the potential loss of one of our layers of protection.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The risk isn't meltdown - it's emergency shutdown. Did you read TFS?
Actually, according to TFA, the risk is reduced ability of the emergency cooling systems to operate. This is basically what happened in Fukushima, and it led to something much worse than emergency shutdown.
Um, nothing happened to the cooling system in Fukushima, the backup generators and power feed lines were washed away, leaving no way at all to power the cooling systems. This is hardly the same thing.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Safe to ignore if you don't like the messenger eh?
Some risks aren't work taking. I'm not a nuclear engineer, and can't speak directly to the issue here. However, if a nuclear engineer intimate with the details speaks up in such a manner, and especially if a group of them do, you'd damn well better pay attention. Engineers don't use hyperbole. If they say this is a problem that merits shutting down reactors it does.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once