Nuclear Near-miss

[DonAndersen]

rickr,

 

You and I both know that nucs are about the simplest process system there is. Add heat, boil water, make steam, run through turbine/gen-set and make electricity. Now isn't that simple. Where it gets hairy is the fuel. That's where all the safe guards kick in - multiple cooling pumps c/w backup power, fail-safe monitoring, containment buildings and on and on in case all the safeguards screw up @ the same time.

I'd suspect that the only reason to keep it shutdown was backup power to the coolant pumps was missing. It would hardly be the pumps for the sewage system.

And Harps is bang on - fired for doing her job. What BS!!

 

Harper's decision kinda reminds me of Ralphies grasp on public health issues - shoot/shovel & shut-up.

 

catch ya'

 

 

Don

[dryfly]

IMHO opinion ... probably the closure decision was 95 politics, bureaucratic power struggling and pissing contest and only 5 percent actually based on a technical risk assessment ... (Don ... just saw your note after writing this post ....."fired for doing her job" ... Do we know that? What standard did she invoke? Do we know? There are ten thousand reasons to have a plant shut down. Fired for invoking some nit picky standard and now she's hiding behind the non-measurable "1000X." Sounds scary as hell and it is clear that's the effect she wanted. I don't know. None of us do.)

 

[ For all we know, her Liberal cronies got her to shut the place down using some technical nit picking just because they are scared of an election and needed anything to overshadow Stéphane Dion. Like someone said, his Hanglaish is so bad he could not qualify for many senior bureaucrat jobs...like Ms. Keens! Calm. Calm. That was a joke. Sort of. ]

 

But none of us will ever know for sure as we do not have any technical facts. "1000X" is not a technical fact, but an opinion. Those sorts of probabilities are not measurable. Someone said that she probably had nuclear experts backing her up. Maybe. Maybe not. Experience dictates that expert opinion (and common sense) is often overridden by bureaucracy. (We see it in F&W on much less critical matters.) Nothing but a third-party public inquiry will shed light on this PROVIDED qualified insiders can speak freely. And you never know, maybe the place is a wreck. But let's not just hear from a few workers who have axes to grind because their last year's vacation was canceled.

 

And now I am crawling back under my rock pile for a couple of weeks.

 

Y'all stay warm and don't split any atoms.

 

Adiós,

 

Clive

[Weedy1]

Here's AECL's take on it.

 

Article from: http://www.aecl.ca/NewsRoom/News/Press-2008/080129.htm

 

-----------------------------------------------------

 

AECL Clarifies Inaccurate Statements by Former CNSC CEO Linda Keen

 

Chalk River, 2008 January 29 — Comments by former CNSC President & CEO Linda Keen today at the House of Commons Standing Committee on Natural Resources were erroneous and misleading. Ms. Keen said that the chance of fuel failure in the NRU research reactor, without starter motors for two coolant pumps hooked up to a seismically-qualified, third back-up power system, is one-in-one-thousand. She further stated that the international standard is one-in-one-million.

 

Ms Keen was wrong on several counts.

 

1. There are no international standards related to one-in-one million for fuel failures.

 

2. All reactors experience fuel failures from time to time and there are no safety consequences to the public, employees or the reactor.

 

3. No nuclear designer in the world incorporates a one-in-one million year earthquake scenario.

 

The frequency for a severe earthquake at NRU is assumed to be 1 in 1000 years. For this to lead to fuel failure, the following would all have to happen in sequence:

 

* A severe earthquake occurs with its epicentre directly under the NRU reactor at Chalk River (there is no record of such an earthquake in the Upper Ottawa Valley);

* The provincial power grid fails;

* Back-up diesel power, and back-up battery power supplies are knocked out;

* No NRU operating staff takes any action;

* After about 0.5 hour the reactor coolant begins to boil;

* After about 1.0 hour the reactor coolant has boiled away;

* The onset of fuel failures begins.

 

NRU is a small research reactor operating at low temperature and low pressure. Therefore, even in this worst-case scenario, the radiation exposure to workers is less than half the radiation exposure received from a CT Scan, and the radiation exposure to the public is less than half the radiation exposure received from a cardiovascular diagnostic treatment.

 

The safety of the reactor has been endorsed by the CNSC, which has licensed the reactor to operate this way for the past 50 years.

 

Background:

 

The NRU reactor is a 135 MW thermal research reactor that entered service in 1957. The fuel in the reactor is cooled by eight pumps that are powered from the electrical grid. In addition, four of the pumps have an independent backup power supply from diesel generators on site. These pumps also have (DC) motor backups powered by battery. Any one of these four pumps provides sufficient cooling flow when the reactor is shut down during an outage.

 

The Emergency Power System, or EPS, is an additional power system that is qualified to withstand severe seismic activity. EPS is designed to provide additional backup power to two of the coolant pumps, pumps 104 and 105. At the time Bill C-38 was passed, EPS was in the process of being connected to pump 105.

 

The work on pump 105 was completed safely on December 14, and the reactor was restarted on December 16. Production of medical radioisotopes resumed on December 18, 2007.

 

Under the auspices of Bill C-38, AECL is now completing the connection of the EPS to the second coolant pump (pump 104).

 

For further information:

 

Dale Coffin

Director, Corporate Communications

AECL

Telephone: (905) 403-7457

[DonAndersen]

Doggonit Weedy,

 

Here you go - shedding light on conjecture and speculation. Don't you have a clue what the Internet is for. Truth - not hardly!!! We're all about rumor, opinion and general BS without a clue of what were talking about.

 

And with that, I, like Clive, am disappearing into the basement and play with my wood fishing poles till the next time we need to feed a rumor.

 

Poof,

 

 

Don

[hydropsyche]

Good find, Weedy.

 

If I was a cynical man, I'd say the current bureaucracy is just jammed packed with Liberal appointees looking for any opportunity to make the Conservatives look bad. Even if it means a few people might die as a result.

 

Its a good thing I'm not cynical.

[reevesr1]

I loved this debate, but I'm sure glad I'm not quite as cynical as some... Yet anyway....

Don,

I would love (and I'm not kidding) to sit around and talk nuclear reactor ops sometimes. I haven't had a chance to really talk about it in years.

 

I completely agree with you on the simplicity of the process. Except the "heater" in this case has terms like critical mass, critical geometry, k-effective, distributed neutron poisons, flux profiles, and lots of other really cool words. But once it's designed it is totally simple to operate. They are only fun toys when things go wrong. The ultimate "hours of boredom broken up by moments of sheer terror" job.

 

So one would think I am a Nuclear Power advocate. After all, I ran one for 8 yrs. Well, not so fast. My problems are:

If there is profit motive involved, I become very nervous. As you said, the fuel is the big issue. But maybe a bigger one is:

What do you do with the waste?

 

Anyway, I completely enjoyed this. Thanks all. Oh, and awesome post Weedy! One final point: 135 MW might be small by commercial standards, but there is a *hit box full of radiation and power there. A submarine reactor (powers a US Navy Warship) is not much bigger.

[Taco]

So are you saying that you almost but not quite glow in the dark? :P

[TerryH]

Weedy, thanks for your post -- it sure makes more sense to me than what I heard in Linda Keen's recent testimony. I wonder if we shouldn't have another poll now that everyone has had a chance to read some relevant facts from AECL. I can't believe the vote is currently 2:1 in support of shutting down the reactor. Are you guys all bureaucrats or what ? Terry

[reevesr1]

So are you saying that you almost but not quite glow in the dark? :P

No, I completely glow in the dark. Amazing that I had all my kids after the Navy. Some other long lasting symptoms are a unquenchable desire for donuts (MMMMMMMMM Donuts.....), an attraction to women with blue hair, and a strange desire to move to Springfield.

 

By the way, you changing your avatars daily now?

[Harps]

Thanks for the post Weedy,

 

I was hoping there was more info... I never looked. I was wondering why the staff at the plant didn't refuse to work under OH&S legislation (I would have refused if it was unsafe).

 

You have to wonder though... is AECL covering their own butts and avoiding cost run up? Remember that AECL makes the profit from the isotopes... they aren't an independant third party... they run the plant that Ms. Keen shut down. *And AECL just shut down their other isotope producing research faucility... they put all their eggs in the Chalk River basket.

AECL accident in 2002- http://www.energyprobe.org/energyprobe/ind...;ContentID=3993

AECL- Chalk river toxic release- http://www.energyprobe.org/energyprobe/ind...p;ContentID=271

 

 

And who advised Ms. Keen?? A bureaucrat at her level doesn't get there by mouthing off something completely unbackable (just partially).

 

There is still more to this, and ONLY and INDEPENDANT review will resolve the issue.

 

 

... I know one thing.... I will never wade in rivers downstream from some of the reactors in Canada

[hydropsyche]

I wonder if we shouldn't have another poll now that everyone has had a chance to read some relevant facts from AECL. I can't believe the vote is currently 2:1 in support of shutting down the reactor. Are you guys all bureaucrats or what ? Terry

 

And growing!

 

I think people are voting before reading the whole thread. Or they think the AECL is a mouthpiece for the Conservative government and the CBC is the source of all truth.

[Harps]

The CBC isn't the source of all truth... it just provides the truth from other sources.

 

I don't think the AECL is a conservative mouthpiece, but they are using the issue to bandaid their public image.

They are a company plan and simple, trying to make a profit.

 

If an oilsand company goes to the news after being shut down for something possibly environmentally hazardous... then politicians start up the operation... who believes the oilsand company was in the right???

 

This is why self-regulation doesn't work, and gov't agencies need to be seperate from politicians.

[reevesr1]

I was hoping there was more info... I never looked. I was wondering why the staff at the plant didn't refuse to work under OH&S legislation (I would have refused if it was unsafe).

 

Paul,

The fact that the staff did work tells you lots about the safety of the plant. Unless things are different in Canada, which I am sure they are not, that will be a very highly trained group of people who will have a very deep knowledge about how all systems interact. If they didn't think it was safe, my bet is they would have refused to run it.

[Harps]

That's what I figured... at the same time though, people have families to feed and can't afford to fight with a company that has the ruling gov't party backing it. I know a couple of nuclear folks in Ontario that think there is no enviro effect from operating the plants (excluding waste management). Certainly heating water and putting back into the rivers wouldn't change anything... Smart people can be very stupid and narrow minded. If somebody they've been working for, for 5, 10, 20 years, tells them it's safe... they think it is, no questions asked. And if everybody else is doing it (going back to work), why shouldn't I??

 

 

Plus AECL, hates the liberals... they cut their funding:

AECL's Whiteshell Laboratories (WL) has provided scientists with more than 35 years of valuable nuclear research and information, including the development of dry storage containment facilities for used nuclear fuel, a technology now used around the world. The site has also been home to research in food irradiation, hydrogen safety and performance, materials science for satellites and high performance aircraft, nuclear reactor design, reactor safety and waste management.

 

In 1995, the Canadian Government's Program Review process, a deficit-cutting measure, reduced AECL's annual R&D government funding to a point at which AECL could no longer afford to operate WL. AECL is now planning the decommissioning of Whiteshell Laboratories.

 

WL still supports a viable Waste Technology Unit that manages the Underground Research Laboratory (URL). The URL is used to research the concept of permanent disposal of used nuclear fuel in a deep geological vault and performs this research for both Canadian and international clients. The URL has used electric heaters to simulate the heat that could be generated by used nuclear fuel. The URL does not work with used nuclear fuel to produce heat. The reactor safety research conducted at Whiteshell Laboratories is in the process of being consolidated to Chalk River Laboratories. The site's accelerator-based materials science research has already been successfully privatized and is managed by Acsion Industries Inc.

From the AECL website.

 

 

Mind you, I don't know all the information... that's why I posted. I'm hoping to learn more, and end up with some sort of a middle of the road balance view for myself.

[Inconnu]

I think what I see here through reading all of the posts is that nobody really trusts the word of anyone anymore. I believe that there were good reasons not to restart the plant and I also believe that the politicizing of the issue was done with a lot of crossed fingers in rear pockets.

If they hire someone to watch out for public safety they should listen when she/he speaks. My understanding is that they were short some cooling pumps and last time I read anything about a nuclear power plant it seemed that cooling was a pretty essential function.

I for one (who tends to be a user of facilities rather than a tech) like to see qualified people making decidions in their venue rather than leaving it in the hands of a baby kissing MP who only thinks ahead to the next election.

[reevesr1]

Sigh.

 

Did anyone read Weedy's post? 3rd form of power (primary, backup, emergency backup) not installed on 2 of 8 pumps, required as an earthquake precaution, in the Ottawa Valley. On a reactor that has been operating for what, 50 yrs? How many earthquakes in that 50 yrs? Balance that against needed medical isotopes. Doesn't really seem like all that hard of a decision. But it's nuclear. Oh my god, the horror.

 

 

Sigh.

 

Hey Don and Clive,

Got room under that rock. This is boring now.

[hydropsyche]

Where is that emoticon of someone beating their head against a wall?

 

[Weedy1]

$10 says you see at least a billion thrown at the AECL to get their 2 reactors that failed the commissioning process in 2000 up and running within 3 years, conservatives or not. They are, after all, a Crown corporation that is in need of bailing out.

[Taco]

No, I completely glow in the dark. Amazing that I had all my kids after the Navy. Some other long lasting symptoms are a unquenchable desire for donuts (MMMMMMMMM Donuts.....), an attraction to women with blue hair, and a strange desire to move to Springfield.

 

By the way, you changing your avatars daily now?

Only when I'm bored and it was too effin cold out for my delicate physique. I like this one, it's gonna stay for awhile , fish I caught last summer.

[dryfly]