Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The Fukishima disaster was not caused by design failure or anything having to do with the design of the reactors. The reactor safety systems reacted exactly as they should have, and the problem was not caused by either the earth quake or flooding.
The failure occurred due to poor training of the Japanese reactor workers and rigid command structure of Tokyo Electric. Workers lacked any authority to make decisions and were required to check with Tokyo before taking action that might have prevented the explosions.
IMO, the nuclear plant training at Duke Energy is the best in the world. There won't be a similar problem like that which caused the Fukishima disaster.
Partly right. The reactors themselves were not damaged by the tsunami. The problem was lack of cooling water. The pumps that supply the cooling water are electrically powered and power WAS knocked out by the wave. And the backup generators that were in place for precisely that contingency-were located in the "floodplain" and also taken out. They could have flow in additional generators but (and this I'm not positive about) supposedly the available ones weren't compatible with what was needed. IIRC it was an issue of 60Hz generators being available and 50Hz being needed or something along those lines. One of my customers was there for the disaster response and we had a discussion about it-but it was several years ago.
Chernobyl was induced, they were doing a test to find out if there would be enough power generated by the turbines to allow the plant to shut down on it's own without the need for generators. This would be valuable information to have but the test required them to deactivate many safety features. In other words it was insane to find out this information in the way they tried.
the other big problem with chernobyl is that the containment building was quite inadequate for the job, where as the three mile island building was far superior and actually did its job properly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Freak80
The fear of nuclear power is far out of proportion to the actual danger.
And this fear of nuclear power means we must continue to rely on coal and natural gas for electricity,
I spent 10 years in the nuclear powered US Navy, and since then have numerous friends ad ex-colleagues working in he US nuclear power generation industry, and the US safety record with nuclear power is beyond remarkable. Actually, it's mind bogglingly extraordinary.
We are not Japan. We are not Russia. We EXCEL at safely generating power with nuclear reactors. Period, the end.
We are the best at it, agreed. With that being said, all it takes is one unexpected event that was never planned for during engineering phase to cause a catastrophe. You are fooling yourself if you think the odds are zero of a catastrophic event some day. Every single man made technology no matter how strong or reliable can be trumped by the powers of nature.
The difference with fission nuclear power plants is that IF such an event were to transpire, it can result in the permanent loss of use of a huge tract of land. It's one thing to take a risk if you can recover. Quite another if the damage is forever.
Fusion power is the ultimate answer. We get closer every day. It's amazing that so little attention has been paid to it by recent Administrations. Getting to fusion power first would be a far greater coup than getting the fission bomb first. It would give us an enormous strategic advantage.
Last edited by GearHeadDave; 09-12-2018 at 12:23 PM..
To add to this, since a good portion of the total number of nuclear reactors in the US are built into warships, the NRC/AEC, designers and engineers are all pretty well versed in how to design/build/operate/maintain reactors under adverse conditions. Submarine reactors are built with things like depth bombing factored in. Carrier reactors are built with things like sea state 7 (think perfect storm 1991) factored in.
The entire nuclear power industry, civilian and military, of the United States has exactly no equal anywhere in the world where design, engineering and especially operational safety is concerned. It's hard to accurately put into words just how absurdly overprotective, redundant, failsafe, etc our nuclear power generation is and always has been.
And again, having done a few hundred reactor coolant loop isolation valve checklists in the wee hours of the morning, and living/hanging out with nuclear engineers for a decade or so, I do have a smidgen of experience with that particular industry.
You and I have been around the nuclear industry for a long time. Thanks for mentioning our nuclear fleet.
All the civilian power generating reactors now in use across the US came from those military reactors' designs. The big reactors were simply scaled up and more redundancy was built in.
The simple fact is: We have never lost a nuclear naval vessel to reactor failure. We have never lost an electrical generation reactor to failure. Both types have survived many hurricanes. Both types will continue to survive this hurricane.
We are facing a hurricane, not a tsunami. The two are completely different.
The generating plants won't fail us, but the hurricane will take down some transmission lines for a while.
By next week, this topic will all be forgotten.
There will be a lot to discuss, as there are lots of people who are in danger right now, and something bad will happen to some of them. But no one will be harmed by a nuclear reactor.
Alex Jones will swill another quart of cheap vodka and find some other scary fantasy to hoarsely scream about, a Jones fan will faithfully report the next big scare here, we'll argue about it, and the nation will move on, just as we always do.
What I was referring to was the time beforehand between when the earthquake occurred and the tsunami. They had very little time to prepare beforehand,even if a US reactor was susceptible to this they know its coming and have days to prepare for it.
Every nuclear reactor has to be prepared to be scrammed at any point. Japan is an active earthquake zone. They should have been prepared and as such, the reactors were automatically scrammed when the earthquake was detected.
But TEPCO was accused of poor procedures and management which is why they were unable to deal with it after it happened.
I honestly would not be surprised if they would of been prepared for this before Fukushima. I'm no engineer but it shouldn't take a genius to realize that your backup power source should be hardened against water infiltration if it's adjacent to the ocean prone to tsunamis no less. Even if they were not the US military is uniquely prepared to address these problems and could have even addressed the issues that occurred at Fukushima...
Actually those generators were considered the 2nd backup power source. The procedure was to switch to the Japanese electrical grid, which they did when the reactors were shutdown. This is standard procedure anytime reactor power can't be used for cooling.. Unfortunately the tsunami was far worse than expected and it eventually went down too. The backup generators were the 3rd source of power for cooling.
Actually those generators were considered the 2nd backup power source. The procedure was to switch to the Japanese electrical grid, which they did when the reactors were shutdown. This is standard procedure anytime reactor power can't be used for cooling.. Unfortunately the tsunami was far worse than expected and it eventually went down too. The backup generators were the 3rd source of power for cooling.
Let me rephrase that then, it shouldn't take a genius to realize that you fail safe power source that may be required to avert a catastrophe should be hardened against water infiltration if it's adjacent to the ocean prone to tsunamis no less.
The Alex Jones article is fearmongering but this not unexpected. The US nuclear sector has great track record but one thing to always keep in mind is one major accident makes decades of safety irrelevant. This is something they need to get right each and every time, there is no ooops...
Maybe CNN will be along soon with a story about it....
I would not be surprised at all if this was covered by the MSM, the difference is how it's reported. The Alex Jones article is fear mongering, trying to suggest the specific circumstances that affected Fukishima could occur here is ridiculous. Do you recall the someone comparing Fukushima to a steel shed?
This is test on simulated containment structure of US facility. These plants are simply no joke where construction is concerned. There is so much steel in that concrete it's not even funny and when you combine steel and concrete the strength is like 100 fold if they were by themselves. To put this another way if you had the greatest storm of all time these buildings would be some of the few left standing.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
