Coal & Nuclear power generation

[motorhead]

Just stopping in to see if you guys solved the worlds energy problems. LOL

I just have to say that I agree with everyone that nuclear is the way to go in the long run. It's just hard for some of us to get over the fear when we lived through a real life accident. I don't think any of you including the ones the work in that field can truly understand what was going through peoples minds at that time unless you went through this type of thing. It sticks with you.
You Guys keep using Homer Simpson as a reason for some us to have problems with the safety of nuclear power. That's pretty insulting for you to think that people are that stupid to base real life on a cartoon. If you really want people to change their minds about nuclear power then you need to first sit back and try to look at our side so that you can help us to feel more safe.

My wife was in a very bad car accident a long time ago that split the car that she was driving completely in two pieces. She was critical for a long time. To this day it is still hard for her to get in that car and drive 1 mile to work without worry.

Frankly, If we didn't live near TMI went that happened I'm sure I would have any problems with nuclear. The problem is people control these things and people make mistakes and don't also do what they are supposed to. If they can build a nuclear power plant that doesn't rely on a person making the right choice or one that when they make the wrong choice it's full proof to be safe, then I would be completely on board with that.
I know that no one died at TMI nor did much radiation leak out ,but that was still a very scary thing to go through , and look a what happened in Russia. That could have caused and still could be causing world wide problems that we will never know about.

Sorry to ramble, but I'm looking for solid proof that these things won't happen again and not just for me ,but for my kids and their kids too.

[CamaroSkooter]

Trust me, it's not that we believe people are swayed by the content of a comic. The Simpson's is simply used as an example to illustrate how prevalent the misconceptions are about the safety of nuclear power.

When TMI happened, the cold war was still very much an issue in the country, and the idea of a nuclear holocaust was a real fear for the vast majority of the nation. To have a nuclear reactor partially melt down is the kind of scenario that would freak out just about anyone in that kind of social climate. But you have to realize that although the core had a partial meltdown (and that's not a good thing, by any means), look at the hard facts of the incident:

"The average radiation dose to people living within ten miles of the plant was eight millirem, and no more than 100 millirem to any single individual. Eight millirem is about equal to a chest X-ray, and 100 millirem is about a third of the average background level of radiation received by US residents in a year."

That's according to the American Nuclear Society and several well-documented case studies. There were thousands of environmental samples and measurements taken during and after the incident to confirm this.

The incident at Three Mile Island occured 12 days after the release of the movie "The China Syndrome" with Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon and Michael Douglas. Many of the misconceptions associated with the Three Mile Island incident are more closely in line with the plotline of this movie than they are with actual events at the TMI nuclear plant.

Regardless, that incident was almost a full 31 years ago. Just like the safety of motor vehicles has come a LONG way in three decades, so have the safety requirements of any new power generation facility. There are so many redundant safety precautions, that even if an army of idiots as profusely stupid as Homer Simpson tried their hardest, they wouldn't be able to have any kind of real chance at making all of those safety precautions fail badly enough for radiation exposure to be a threat. In fact, because technology has come so far in the last three decades, the human element in the operation of a nuclear facility has been reduced substantially.

Especially at a nuclear facility, there are layers upon layers of security measures in place to keep unauthorized individuals from getting anywhere near the actual reactor. Think Fort Knox rolled into Alcatraz multiplied by about 100.

Nuclear power is safe, clean, and capable of easily meeting the energy demands of our population. It's readily available, it's cheaper for the end-user, and it can be built anywhere to make it simple to tie into the existing power grid.

I don't really know what else can be said about it to convince the nay-sayers.

[motorhead]

Originally Posted by CamaroSkooter

Well, it's not like anyone will really take any of my concerns in to account when deciding on what to do anyhow. LOL

I do believe that you helped me to feel a little better about nuclear power though, and I learned more about the topic since this thread was put out there.

I do believe that coal is not answer nor do i believe that any one source is.

[CamaroSkooter]

Diversity is the key...But I think nuclear is being way under-utilized.

Coal is just nasty from start to finish.

[motorhead]

Originally Posted by CamaroSkooter

Diversity is the key...But I think nuclear is being way under-utilized.

Coal is just nasty from start to finish.

How true you are on both statements.

[DGthe3]

Originally Posted by motorhead

Just stopping in to see if you guys solved the worlds energy problems. LOL

I just have to say that I agree with everyone that nuclear is the way to go in the long run. It's just hard for some of us to get over the fear when we lived through a real life accident. I don't think any of you including the ones the work in that field can truly understand what was going through peoples minds at that time unless you went through this type of thing. It sticks with you.
You Guys keep using Homer Simpson as a reason for some us to have problems with the safety of nuclear power. That's pretty insulting for you to think that people are that stupid to base real life on a cartoon. If you really want people to change their minds about nuclear power then you need to first sit back and try to look at our side so that you can help us to feel more safe.

My wife was in a very bad car accident a long time ago that split the car that she was driving completely in two pieces. She was critical for a long time. To this day it is still hard for her to get in that car and drive 1 mile to work without worry.

Frankly, If we didn't live near TMI went that happened I'm sure I would have any problems with nuclear. The problem is people control these things and people make mistakes and don't also do what they are supposed to. If they can build a nuclear power plant that doesn't rely on a person making the right choice or one that when they make the wrong choice it's full proof to be safe, then I would be completely on board with that.
I know that no one died at TMI nor did much radiation leak out ,but that was still a very scary thing to go through , and look a what happened in Russia. That could have caused and still could be causing world wide problems that we will never know about.

Sorry to ramble, but I'm looking for solid proof that these things won't happen again and not just for me ,but for my kids and their kids too.

You can remove human operators from a control room, but then you have to rely on the engineers anticipating every event and designing the system to compensate, and do it perfectly. But you can't anticipate everything, particularly with something as complex as a nuclear reactor. And when an engineer makes a design mistake, without a human in the loop the system can be a total loss, which is simply unacceptable when that 'total loss' means a nuclear meltdown. Its far safer to have an experienced, alert opperator there monitoring the equipment. The trick is, how do you keep the operators alert? Watching gauges all day long and seeing next to no changes becomes exceedingly boring and tedious. But that is a far easier problem to solve than making a perfect system.

[motorhead]

Originally Posted by DGthe3

You can remove human operators from a control room, but then you have to rely on the engineers anticipating every event and designing the system to compensate, and do it perfectly. But you can't anticipate everything, particularly with something as complex as a nuclear reactor. And when an engineer makes a design mistake, without a human in the loop the system can be a total loss, which is simply unacceptable when that 'total loss' means a nuclear meltdown. Its far safer to have an experienced, alert opperator there monitoring the equipment. The trick is, how do you keep the operators alert? Watching gauges all day long and seeing next to no changes becomes exceedingly boring and tedious. But that is a far easier problem to solve than making a perfect system.

All true. I wasn't really talking about getting rid of people and having it be self sustaining as much as making so if a mistake happens or someone doesn't do their job, it doesn't start the chain of events that's causes a large accident. I know all about engineering mistakes. I deal with them on an everyday basis. I'm one of the humans you speak that fine them before a larger problem happens.

[el ess A]

Originally Posted by Milk 1027

Nuclear waste will be around for milions of years after we are gone.

And radiation and nuclear materials have been around for a long time before us.

Years ago, I was a nuke machinist's mate on a ballistic missle subamarine. Also, although I cannot confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons on board the ship I was on, that was a whole 'nother ball game on the delivered nukes vs. the powering nukes. Most all the naval reactors were manufactured by Westinghouse or G.E., with A.O. Williams making a fair share of their steam generators. In reality, though, there were many vendors involved, so while Westinghouse may have had the main contract for a ship's reactor, there were other vendors involved. In England, I know for a fact the British nuke subs have at least one reactor designer...Rolls Royce. On the HMS Revenge, the RR emblem is emblazoned on the reactor compartment door. Kinda cool actually.

And for the record, every nuclear ship out there bleeds reactor coolant periodically overboard into international waters, which is deemed anything outside of the 12 mile range of the U.S. coast. As the old saying goes, "Dilution is the solution." I know, I've personally done it. Inside of 12 miles, the bleed is contained on board in big azz tanks.

I also worked at Florida Power & Light Turkey Point and Florida Power's Crystal River Unit 3 (1 & 2 are coal plants and Unit 4 was mothballed years ago as it stood as nothing more than a large lot of cleared land when they pulled the plug). I liked it, but the training was tough. You had to know an awful lot of stuff.

The TMI incident is largely responsible for the control room simulator training that each plant must go through for their reactor operators. Note too, that RO's are licensed from the NRC, and are DIRECTLY ACCOUNTABLE to the NRC. This means if there is an incident, and they're found to be at fault, they could personally be fined. Those simulators are set up virtually identical to the actual control rooms, sometimes right down to the carpet. Gives you the feel of realism when stuff goes wrong. It's kinda scary the first time you see the "wall of warning lights" illuminate.

The NRC oversees the commercial sites, and at least until a few years ago, had tight reign over them. After I left the IBEW and the nuclear industry, I've heard the NRC was putting more risk on the nuke plants. But that was back in the late 90s, so I'm not sure what it's like now.

I agree the waste is an issue. I also used to work at a glass vitrification facility in the training department to help stabilize and get rid of high-level rad waste. They melted the radioactive material with glass and poured that in tall silver canisters which were made by Coors. We naturally called them "silver bullets". I was one of the few qualified to teach the operation of the shielded canister transporter, a one of a kind unit, which transported the highly radioactive glass-filled canisters to the storage building awaiting transport to Yucca mountain. They're still there as far as I know. When I left Florida, they were working on a "dry cask" storage as their swimming pools were filling up.

http://srnl.doe.gov/emsp/day1_overv/savan-river.pdf

I now work at a pharmaceutical company and it's MUCH better than the nuke plants as far as a place to work. I'm glad I did it, but I don't miss it.

[motorhead]

Originally Posted by el ess X

And radiation and nuclear materials have been around for a long time before us.

Years ago, I was a nuke machinist's mate on a ballistic missle subamarine. Also, although I cannot confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons on board the ship I was on, that was a whole 'nother ball game on the delivered nukes vs. the powering nukes. Most all the naval reactors were manufactured by Westinghouse or G.E., with A.O. Williams making a fair share of their steam generators. In reality, though, there were many vendors involved, so while Westinghouse may have had the main contract for a ship's reactor, there were other vendors involved. In England, I know for a fact the British nuke subs have at least one reactor designer...Rolls Royce. On the HMS Revenge, the RR emblem is emblazoned on the reactor compartment door. Kinda cool actually.

And for the record, every nuclear ship out there bleeds reactor coolant periodically overboard into international waters, which is deemed anything outside of the 12 mile range of the U.S. coast. As the old saying goes, "Dilution is the solution." I know, I've personally done it. Inside of 12 miles, the bleed is contained on board in big azz tanks.

I also worked at Florida Power & Light Turkey Point and Florida Power's Crystal River Unit 3 (1 & 2 are coal plants and Unit 4 was mothballed years ago as it stood as nothing more than a large lot of cleared land when they pulled the plug). I liked it, but the training was tough. You had to know an awful lot of stuff.

The TMI incident is largely responsible for the control room simulator training that each plant must go through for their reactor operators. Note too, that RO's are licensed from the NRC, and are DIRECTLY ACCOUNTABLE to the NRC. This means if there is an incident, and they're found to be at fault, they could personally be fined. Those simulators are set up virtually identical to the actual control rooms, sometimes right down to the carpet. Gives you the feel of realism when stuff goes wrong. It's kinda scary the first time you see the "wall of warning lights" illuminate.

The NRC oversees the commercial sites, and at least until a few years ago, had tight reign over them. After I left the IBEW and the nuclear industry, I've heard the NRC was putting more risk on the nuke plants. But that was back in the late 90s, so I'm not sure what it's like now.

I agree the waste is an issue. I also used to work at a glass vitrification facility in the training department to help stabilize and get rid of high-level rad waste. They melted the radioactive material with glass and poured that in tall silver canisters which were made by Coors. We naturally called them "silver bullets". I was one of the few qualified to teach the operation of the shielded canister transporter, a one of a kind unit, which transported the highly radioactive glass-filled canisters to the storage building awaiting transport to Yucca mountain. They're still there as far as I know. When I left Florida, they were working on a "dry cask" storage as their swimming pools were filling up.

http://srnl.doe.gov/emsp/day1_overv/savan-river.pdf

I now work at a pharmaceutical company and it's MUCH better than the nuke plants as far as a place to work. I'm glad I did it, but I don't miss it.

Wow! That's some career.

[el ess A]

Originally Posted by mickss

Also meant to include this link for a test demonstration plant at Savannah River National Laboratory in Aiken, South Carolina.

My wife works there.

[el ess A]

Just to lay aside some fears on nuke power...nothing is ever perfectly safe...less people have died in nuclear incidents than in auto wrecks or plane crashes.

Everyone that has commented seems to compare the Navy's excellent safety record with commercial units. While this is fine, know too that in my experience, it seems about 80% (or more) of commercial nuke plant operators started out in the Navy's nuke program. It's efficiency is virtually unmatched. That's why it's economically feasible to justify spending the money on nuke plants and refueling them.

The commercial nuke industry takes training VERY seriously. It's half your working life at a nuke plant it seems. Integrity and attention to detail is very important. If you don't take it seriously, they'll weed you out eventually. It's some serious business. Pre-TMI, I don't think plants were serious about training and preventing accidents. Now they are. They go through great pains to do so. So I must defend the commercial nuke industry. They're as safe or perhaps even safer than your typical non-nuke power generation plant. One of the major root causes of the TMI incident was lack of/insufficient training. Operators didn't believe or correctly interpreted their instrumentation. They've since fixed that issue IMO.

That blue light you see in reactor material pools like shown in that video on an earlier post? That's beta radiation. It polarizes the water (electrically lining up the water molecules) as the beta particle passes through, then after it passes, they pop back into randomness. A blue photon is emitted...thus you see the blue glow. But only if the beta particle is travelling faster than the speed of light. If slower, you see no glow. Weird science...

And, interestingly enough, if there were a Navy nuclear incident, the internal flag words to code messages to those that need it are "Navy Blue Faded Giant". As far as I know, there's never been an official message sent out with those words on it.

What I find very ironic was that the TMI incident was less than 2 weeks after "The China Syndrome" movie was released. Spooky....

[DGthe3]

Originally Posted by motorhead

All true. I wasn't really talking about getting rid of people and having it be self sustaining as much as making so if a mistake happens or someone doesn't do their job, it doesn't start the chain of events that's causes a large accident. I know all about engineering mistakes. I deal with them on an everyday basis. I'm one of the humans you speak that fine them before a larger problem happens.

I don't see how you can have it both ways. Either the system manages itself, or its managed by the technicians at their stations. Like any technological disaster, there is never a single event that can be blamed on causing disaster. Its a long chain of things that all have to happen. And every single thing in that chain can be perfectly routine. But the combination is the killer. But since there is no way to foresee every possible combination that leads to disaster. Because of all that, it is impossible for the system to selectively prevent all the actions that might result in disaster, which means that the system might not know that it should allow the operator in sector 7-G to activate a bypass. It knows that if the operator is allowed to do what he wanted it could release some radioactive gasses. But that technician, lets call him Mr S, knows that while it could result in a small radiation leak (it probably won't though), not activating it will cause a total meltdown of the core.