Problems at the Davis-Besse nuclear reactor near Toledo are worse than expected

Source: Cleveland Plain Dealer

As many as 16 critical parts in the Davis-Besse reactor lid are cracked or flawed, and the problem could get worse.

Snip

The reactor has been shut down since Feb. 28 for what owner FirstEnergy Corp. initially thought would be a fairly routine refueling and safety inspection. There is no re-start date at this point because of the time-consuming repairs that have barely begun and the planned additional inspections.

Snip

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission dispatched a special inspection team to Davis-Besse weeks ago to keep an eye on the company inspections as well as its repairs. The team is also looking into how the company has operated the plant since federal authorities allowed it to restart in 2004.

The Union of Concerned Scientists, a watchdog group that does not oppose nuclear energy, has petitioned the NRC to force FirstEnergy to keep Davis-Besse shut down until it can prove the reactor can be safely operated.

Read more: http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2010/04/davis-besse.html

I did.

The cracks could lead to control rods dropping from their nozzles. If one, or even if *every single one* failed, at the same time, the "catastrophic effect" would be that the reactor is more controlled, and less efficient.

Basically, the safety feature is "failing" in such a way that it's potentially making the reactor more safe.

I'm going to believe some guy who posts on a website over those whose business it is to survey and determine what and who is at fault with the reactor.

LOL

Or, you're not going to be so naive as to "believe", and you'll dig into the facts, and read multiple sources of data...

Or, you'll believe in a premise, regardless of facts.

*shrug*

:crazy: makes no sense

I'm always amazed at the lack of science education in society.

Someone quickly alert all airline mechanics, hydro dam operations crews, New York/Washington/Boston subway systems, Space Shuttle engineers, aircraft carrier admiralty, Minnesota bridge designers, coal mine operators, and God knows what other shoddy, negligently-designed, moronically overseen machinery we sheep trust our lives to every day.

And one more thing...get the CPSC to send an urgent priority mailing to every car owner in the US alerting them to the DANGER lurking beneath the HOOD of their own CAR.

Meanwhile, while Davis-Besse is being fixed, going to have to fire up a couple of coal or gas plants to keep the grid topped off.

http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nuclear_power/acfnx8tzc.pdf







Scapegoating of Davis Besse by NRC
http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/federal-agency-scapegoating-0141.html

Retrospective
http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/nuclear_power_risk/safety/davis-besse-retrospective.html

I made a sarcastic observation in line with my opinion that issues at Davis-Besse, and US nuclear power in general, must be evaluated from an engineering, rather than emotional/political, perspective.

Nuclear power plants attract massive media attention for many of the same reasons airline safety issues attract it. In both cases, statistics clearly show that alternates are considerably more deadly. That tells a neutral observer that the attention is primarily driven by emotion.

All machinery fails at some point. Good engineering discipline assigns MTBF probabilities to each failure point in a complex design, and calls for inspection and R&R well before failure is predicted. Good engineering discipline also calls for regular, intensive inspection in critical component assemblies, regardless of calculations, in recognition that "known unknowns" are a fact of complex, high-load systems. In short, it's well understood that events outside the normal prediction envelope are to be expected, and can even be assigned a general probability.

The inspection regime is SOP for complex mechanical systems, including all of those I mentioned in my post.

The detection and repair of the erosion of the metal vessel at Davis-Besse is a good example of how engineering systems management deals with "known unknowns" in the real world. Those with a political, nontechnical approach by definition will not grasp that.

First lets deal with proof of that endorsement by going to your claim that nuclear power is safer than the alternatives. That is false.

Renewable energy is far safer than nuclear power. If you are going to claim that renewable energy isn't an alternative, then you need to support that with a detailed analysis of power systems involving demand, capabilities of known technologies and the resource base for each technology. There are no analysis that say renewables cannot provide for our society's energy needs. In fact the future direction we are building towards is clearly the realm of renewable energy; nuclear is the one on the outside because it is a dirty polluting technology by its nature.

The hole in the reactor head at Davis Besse was by chance, it wasn't a result of an inspection aimed at looking at the problem area. They did an inspection where everything was fine, made a minor adjustment of the nozzle and were disassembling the equipment when the force use to disassemble the equipment caused the thing to literally fall apart in their hands.

It was sheer luck, nothing more, that they found the problem before the final 3/8" inner liner gave way.

Not so good at offering facts.

An opinion vociferously stated is still that: an opinion.

So is one that you are completely convinced of in your heart, to the point where it feels righteous just to say it, and causes you to think that others who may have a different opinion are stupid, obstructionist, or evil.

I've never found it profitable or even possible to hold a discussion with a person holding such opinions.

What happened at Davis Besse is well documented, it isn't opinion. Your assertion that catching the football sized hole in the reactor head was part of routine mx is simply untrue.

Turning to a personal attack when the facts are against you is poor sportsmanship.

I wrote:

137,000 megawatts with technology that exists right now. Shit, I'll give you a 20% spot on the best out there in renewable. You can not do it as a base load.

Now please collect your thoughts and explain how you to meet demand for NYC. Or should we count on a plague to kill off 80% of the consumers.

Please also feel free to post the name of one person killed at TMI or in ANY civilian criticality event at a power plant in the US. (IE not getting run over by a fork truck, or scalded by steam, or part of the manhattan project)

Here's a hint, you cant. You have coal, nukes, or jesus. You have yet to post any clear alternative to that that contains a plan (even a guess) at what would be required to run NYC with renewable only.

And if you happen to have slept through science class the sun is a giant nuclear reactor. So all renewable is a derivative of a nuclear reaction.

The fact is that renewable resources are abundant in the tristate area, they are faster to deploy than nuclear, they are less expensive than nuclear.

You claimed that MIT's 2003/2009 paper supported your assertions, but since you can't post the relevant portion we know that is hogwash.

Support your claim with a detailed analysis or please re-evaluate your beliefs. If you can't support it because the science doesn't support it, then why do you choose to believe it? The fact is there is NO SOURCE that supports your false claims and all you have left is to appeal to what seems to you to be a large number.

Progress energy is a for profit company traded on nyse.

Can you even tell me ball park what renewable are available in my area to produce 2000mw/hr?

You said MIT's 2003/2009 paper supported your claim that renewables can't do it.
Please post the relevant section and text so that we know you were being truthful.

as to what it would take to generate that?

a nice day!

:sarcasm:

it's far and away the most hazardous.

oh wait.

http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=208

Lester R. Brown, one of the world's most widely published authors and referred to by the Washington Post as "one of the world's most influential thinkers", has recently published his views via the Earth Policy Institute on the nuclear vs. wind and solar power debate; stating that nuclear power is uneconomical compared to renewable energy.

Quoting from a recent analysis entitled "The Nuclear Illusion", Brown points out the cost of electricity from a new nuclear power plant costs around (USD) 14¢ per kilowatt hour compared to a wind farm's very economical 7¢ per kilowatt hour. The costings take into account capital, general operations and maintenance, transmission and distribution in relation to both options.

However, the nuclear cost doesn't incorporate major expenses including waste disposal, massive insurance premiums and decommissioning of nuclear plants when they reach the end of their serviceable life. With these extra issues, nuclear power generated electricity simply becomes unaffordable according to Brown. On the issue of nuclear waste storage, Brown uses the example of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in the USA where he estimates the cost for the actual storage, not including transport, is just under USD $1 billion per reactor.

Just a couple of years ago, the cost to construct a 1,500-megawatt nuclear plant was between $2 - 4 billion. As of this year, the figure has skyrocketed to over $7 billion. Uranium costs have increased six-fold since the beginning of this decade.
<more at site>

nuclear or coal.

http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/

The cost of building a nuke plant has skyrocketed. In fact, in one recent study the estimates for building it were predicted to double by the time one was approved. We need to focus on wind and other alternative energies if we're going to survive.

pick.

nope. They make up part of a blended renewable power source. Nuclear does the heavy lifting. Unless you expect consumption to go back to 1930's levels.

That really says it all.

please feel free to post the BOM (bill of materials) for what you need to run NYC on solar and wind.

how are you generating that? The MIT paper supports a blended grid, which makes sense.

Now prove it.

given each technologies rate of efficiency? I asked the question.

The fact is that renewable resources are abundant in the tristate area, they are faster to deploy than nuclear, they are less expensive than nuclear.

You claimed that MIT's 2003/2009 paper supported your assertions, but since you can't post the relevant portion we know that is hogwash.

Support your claim with a detailed analysis or please re-evaluate your beliefs. If you can't support it because the science doesn't support it, then why do you choose to believe it? The fact is there is NO SOURCE that supports your false claims and all you have left is to appeal to what seems to you to be a large number.

Please post the relevant section and text so that we know you were being truthful.

not how much does renewable cost, just what would be used to generate that supply.

You said MIT's 2003/2009 paper supported your claim that renewables can't do it.

Please post the relevant section and text so that we know you were being truthful.

What if . . .

the alleged hijackers had run one of the alleged planes into the nuclear power plant

in NY . . . ? They passed close by it --

same thing if they crashed into any chemical facility in NJ. A big mess.

So far the actual average operational life of wind turbines is damned near spot on 15 years. This brings the REAL cost of windpower very close to that of nuclear.


Yucca Mountain has been a political boondoggle and football since its inception. Project redefinitions, cost overruns, legal challenges, and more make Yucca Mountain completely useless as a comparative yardstick for anything but how to do something very very badly.

A more realistic figure would be 10-20% of the amount arrived at by using Yucca as a costing model. And by switching to a thorium fuel cycle, waste volumes can be reduced to 10% of that of uranium, and the required storage times reduced to just a few hundred years. Even allowing for the more stringent needs of handling "hotter" materials, sequestration costs should be about $1 million (and definitely no more than $10 million) over the life of a 1 GW reactor. One thousandth (or at worst 1 hundredth) of the amount you claim.

Another nice thing about switching to the thorium cycle, is that it can be used to "burn/incinerate" waste and fuel from the uranium cycle, accomplishing a significant reduction in the volume of that waste stream/stockpile, and also offer some improvemnet to storage times.


"Just a couple of years ago, the cost to construct a 1,500-megawatt nuclear plant was between $2 - 4 billion. As of this year, the figure has skyrocketed to over $7 billion."

Question: WHY is exactly the same reactor still for sale in the rest of the world at $2 bn?
Answer: The same bloody reason exactly the same drugs are 2-10 times as expensive in America as in the rest of the world. A free trade system which puts shafting the customer first, and actual product delivery considerably further down the list of priorities.


That would be three for three. Bad ecconomic arguments are just as mendacious (or revealing of ignorance) as bad science.

Abandoning nuclear technology means dealing with the millions of tons of existing waste in some final way. It also means dealing with the millions more tons of waste generated in decommissioning existing reactors. Simply doing what we already know is demonstrably feasible (and have known for 40 years) lets us both clean up our old mess, and prevent new ones from happening.

The assumed operational life of a wind turbine is 20 years. When those wear out more will be built. Even if nothing changes, they too will be producing power at the same price. Given that economies of scale in the manufacturing and installation sector will emergy, and given the fact that needed infrastructure like transmission will by paid for by the the cost will certainly be less in time adjusted dollars.

If we use nuclear as the primary means of dealing with climate change it will fill a Yucca Mountain complex size repository every two years.

Thorium is not a solution to nuclear waste nor uranium fuel limitations. It is uneconomic, ineffective at substantially reducing waste, and a huge threat to nuclear nonproliferation efforts.

The same reactor is not available everywhere else for $2B. You can buy older, less safe reactors for less than the going rate, however.

Abandoning nuclear technology means we stop making more waste that we don't have a solution for.

Real costs of wind power are still significantly higher than the glossy brochures would have us belive.

And even if $2bn is a bit low for a new nuke plant, the rest of the world price is still far less than in the United States for exactly the same installation.

Thorium was proven viable in the 60s. The single biggest reason it didn't see further development is that the slow breed rate makes it less than ideal for weapons production. It requires the total excess output of 10 reactors a year to produce enough material to make 1 bomb.

Multiple methods of waste "burning" have been demonstrated successfully in the lab, and there is every reason to belive all of them are fully scalable to industrial levels. Your two Yucca Mountains presuposes replacing existing infrastructure with nothing but existing thirty year old reactor designs and the current (least efficient) once through fuel cycle.

Abandoning nuclear technology means we never create a real solution to existing wastes. We'll just shove it in a hole in the ground and hope it never comes back to bite us on the arse.

You are already completely discredited, so trying to rephrase the same bullshit doesn't work.

The costs are a matter of record.

The US is not significantly higher than the rest of the world for the same installation.

Thorium has NEVER been proven viable.

"Waste burning" is not a solution to our nuclear waste problems.

The once through fuel cycle is the only way nuclear power can even come close to being in the range of being affordable, so the ONE new Yucca Mountain sized repository every TWO years is the reality of what would be required.

Abandoning nuclear power means we do not create more waste. When you are in a hole and want to get out - stop fucking digging.

...I am factually incorrect. I might be proven overly optomistic in the fullness of time, but I happen to know that my knowledge of the underyling physics is in fact correct. You on the other hand have repeatedly demonstrated not just willful ignorance, but a whacking great helping of dishonesty as well.

The costs you are referring to may well be a matter of record and I'll bet all are pretty much predicated on no new technology whatsoever, except perhaps even more safeguards stacked on top of safeguards which themselves have never actually been tripped.


The rector costs I saw was in an earlier discussion relating to the $14 bn in loan guarantees. There it was clearly stated that the same reactor was being constructed elsewhere at a price of $2 bn per unit. Perhaps that price is a little low, and is only applicable to "bulk purchases", but even so, $7bn is an obscene amount far in excess of any realistic quote.

The only way to explain such a ludicrously high price is to presume that all major parties involved will be compensated (at taxpayer expense) in full even if the reactors are never built.


Thorium has never proven viable in a commercial environment for the very simple reason that it has never been deployed in a commercial environment. Every single required element of a working full scale thorium fueled reactor however, has been successfully demonstrated in the laboratory.


Would you care to tell me exactly why waste burning is not a waste management solution? Its technical feasibility has been repeatedly demonstrated using multiple methods. The only reason it is not carried out right now is the logistical nightmare of repeatedly introducing ton lots of waste into the sealed environs of a presurised reactor core. A liquid salt thorium reactor operates at standard atmoshperic pressure and introducing material (in any quantity) for irradiation is a simple matter of running a cart (or lowering a barrel) into position.


Strange, every argument I've ever seen against fuel recycling focuses not on the costs, but the proliferation risks. Yes they are real, but processing methods have been devised that don't ever involve the weapon suitable portion being present in a useable form and which can not be separated out without access to a large industrial base.

And again your 1/2 Yucca/year presuposes uranium only as a fuel source. Switching to thorium cuts the waste volume by 90% and its radiotoxic lifetime to just a few hundred years. 15 Yucca's worth of considerably less hardened storage would suffices to meet the world's needs in perpetuity.


Abandoning nuclear power means you and I get the job of dealing with the existing waste and all those suddenly nonfunctional reactors. It can be pretty much taken as a given that the operators will simply walk away without a single backward glance if told to shut up shop.


It may well be possible that nuclear power is not viable. However, when your entire argument is based on data that is forty years out of date while steadfastly ignoring anything more recent that doesn't fit your preconceptions is not going to win arguments.

Yes my argument presupposes certain technological advances panning out. However, every single one of them is demonstrably doable and one thing I do know, is that if something is doable and there is sufficient incentive to do it, then it will be done.

Your argument on the other hand requires that not only will there never be any future advances in nuclear technology, but that a bloody good proportion of what we already know never ever gets put into practice. You're right up there with: iron ships will never float; and heavier than air flight is impossible.

They have not succeeded because it can't be done economically.

Over and over and over again breeder programs have been looked at as a source of fuel. They don't work because they are too expensive both in money and energy.

We need an answer to our energy problems right now and we have it - renewable energy is abundant, fast to deploy, flexible, clean, affordable and economically beneficial. There is no question of that and the technologies to tap into it are here and now. They are not pie in the sky dreams of solutions to 50 years old unsolved problems - they work right now and they can provide everything we need for a modern culture.


Since you have certified yourself as an authoritative source of information, let me ask you to answer some questions:

1) why has a nuclear plant NEVER been built as a product of a request for competitive proposals that is open to all sources of generation. That is the typical way to build a generating plant, you know. The utility says "we need X amount of power by Z date" and then they open it up for bids. Nuclear has NEVER been built by this process.
Why?

2) Why has nuclear NEVER been built with private initiative? ALL nuclear plants on the planet are a result of government intervention. All of them. Why?

3) Do you accept industry data as gospel from any other industry in the same way that you do the nuclear industry?
If so, which ones; if not, what is it about the nuclear industry that makes you trust they are not shaving data out of the profit motive and self interest?

4) How many sources have you consulted that are NOT based on nuclear industry data but use instead data compiled by independent researchers? Please name those researchers.

or did the government chip in.

1) Please name a power source that can come online in RTP to replace the 1000 MW nuclear reactor built and owned by Progress energy for DECADES. A for profit company.

http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NYSE : PGN

2) See progress energy, see 7c a KW hour for industrial consumers. (big datacenters and industry.

3) Federal Agencies NRC.

4) MIT papers, dozens of other papers, the model used in France right now...

My answer is 37, Whats yours?

Please post the relevant section and text to confirm you were telling the truth.

137000 MW/hr how do you generate it with no nuke and no coal. Feel free to reply...

In sum, compared to 2003, the motivation to make more use of nuclear power is greater, and more rapid progress is needed in enabling the option of nuclear power expansion to play a role in meeting the global warming challenge.

The performance of the 104 U.S. nuclear plants since 2003 has been excellent. The total number of kWh produced by the reactors has steadily increased over those five years. The fleet-averaged capacity factor since 2003 has been maintained at about 90%.7

Calculated using the methodology in MIT (2003), Appendix 5 and the following inputs: $80/kgHM for natural uranium, $160/SWU, and $6/kgHM for yellow cake conversion and $250/kgHM for fabrication of uranium-oxide fuel. We derive an optimum tails assay of 0.24%, an initial uranium feed of 9.08 kgU and a requirement of 6.99 SWUs, assuming a burn-up of 50 MWd/kgHM. We assume this fuel cost escalates at 0.5% per annum, which means the average real price over the 40 years of delivery is $0.76/mmBtu.

AND THE FUCKING POINT YOU CHOOSE TO IGNORE!!!!!!!!!!
The central premise of the 2003 MIT Study on the Future of Nuclear Power was that the importance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, in order to mitigate global warming, justified reevaluating the role of nuclear power in the country’s energy future. The 2003 study identified the challenges to greater deployment and argued that the key need was to design, build, and operate a few first-of-a-kind nuclear plants with government assistance, to demonstrate to the public, political leaders, and investors the technical performance, cost, and environmental acceptability of the technology.

you are holding aces and eights friend.

You said MIT's 2003/2009 paper supported your claim that renewables can't do it.
Please post the relevant section and text so that we know you were being truthful.

The report said no such thing AND its central forecast regarding nuclear cost was so laughably wrong it is a mark of shame.

MIT Study on the Future of Nuclear Power was that the importance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, in order to mitigate global warming, justified reevaluating the role of nuclear power .

very clear.

And you know it. You've tried diverting the topic, you've tried badgering and hectoring.

It's time to man up or forever remain a eunuch.

and it is something you will never see done in a plant when the owners only care is money

old reactors should be replaced with nice new reactors. Like the ones we sell to china.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

I am all for maximizing solar, wind, wave, etc. forms of energy generation along with conservation and energy efficiency, but there will be a need for "always on" electricity generation. Nuclear is way to go for climate change - upcoming designs can be fueled with spent fuel from other reactors, turning trash into something useful.

How do "we" sell that to China? Are you from Japan?

They will provide specific parts toward the construction. :rofl:

Nice try though.

Westinghouse is a "Toshiba Group Company".



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westinghouse_Electric_Company

You're drooling again...

was not made in japan. I never met anyone from Japan while working on any naval contract with GE or Westinghouse.

Westinghouse makes reactors for export and military purposes here in the US.

If you can't acknowledge Westinghouse is a Japanese company, you have lost your grip on reality.

unless you are cleared you cant even see the procurement documents. Unless you work at KAPL / DOE / Bechtel you don't know dick.

Cite that shit statement or sit down.

for that miracle that can spin up the tri state at 140 gigawatts or so..

Reality is a motherfucker, deal with it.

http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2261182/landmark-report-explodes


From the ExSum of the study:

how much solar, how many turbines? Need a new grid? That is just the tristate. Do take into consideration operating efficiency.

That is pipe dream bullshit. At best it can be used as on demand. Unless the wind blows and the sun shines there is no power in NYC? get real.

Nukes, coal, or jesus.

of what you need to produce that base load.

Your demand basically asserts that is there isn't a plan for bidding a 137GW project, then you are correct?


Not even you are buying that.

would be needed to cover that load. Or how many NG turbines would be required.

Can you tell me how many sq feet of solar and how many turbines need to be built to generate that?

For the nuclear bid I'd demand an itemized list of all components, where you are going to get them, final bids for production on 100% of materials and labor. I also want guaranteed financing and a turn key contract complete with penalties for failure to deliver.

When you have all of that in hand come back and I'll give you the rest of the list.

operating safely and generating power. You cant even tell me how many of you jesus juice technology you will need.

The U.S. Navy has accumulated over 5,400 "reactor years" of accident-free experience, and operates more than 80 nuclear-powered ships.

http://www.navy.mil/navydata/testimony/safety/bowman031029.txt

Oh it would take 35 ap1000 reactors to cover that entire load. add two to cover down time for fuel or repairs. Or blend that number as you like with wind, NG, or solar.

35... Numbers are cool.

:nuke: he believes it's perfectly safe even though we haven't solved the waste, transportation, terrorism/security and other issues. Not to mention, no one wants another one in his backyard.

But don't worry, nukes will solve all our problems! :sarcasm:

dont work on any defense contracts these days. Civilian aerospace pays better and actually gets more done. But hey, for the right amount of money I (my employer) can happily set up a line for them to mill whatever they need.

Nice high paying union jobs. Because we sure as shit dont use 3rd word parts in reactors.

Not exactly melamine in the milk kinda failure.

dupe

Nukes are not safe!

and they offer very high paying jobs to people. an 80k your first day job is a good thing.

Your claims have no credibility, and this one is as false as all the others.

Besides the designs being owned by foreign firms, a significant portion of nuclear plant components are imported (40-60%?).

On a per/kwh basis, (jobs per unit of electrical production) wind power provides far more good paying jobs than any other energy source. The money isn't spent on fuel, it is spent on humans to maintain and operate the wind farms.

How much did the terrorist Sharif Mobley make when he worked at those 5 different plants?

Contractor’s arrest gets Oyster Creek in trouble with Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Tuesday, April 13, 2010 | 3 comments

LACEY TOWNSHIP — The Oyster Creek nuclear power plant violated Nuclear Regulatory Commission rules after a contractor’s employee failed to report that he had been arrested.

The employee for contracting company Bartlett Nuclear Inc. concealed his arrest from his employer and from Oyster Creek and its parent company, Exelon Corp., the NRC said Monday in a letter to the company.

The details of the arrest were not released. But nuclear power plants require employees and contractors who have unescorted access to report any arrest, criminal charges or convictions or other legal proceedings that could reflect poorly on their trustworthiness or reliability. The NRC’s Office of Investigations decided not to cite Exelon because the employee worked for a contractor and Exelon notified the NRC when the arrest was discovered.

The access of independent contractors to the nation’s nuclear power plants came into question in March when former Buena resident Sharif Mobley was arrested in Yemen as a suspected member of the terrorist group al-Qaida. Mobley is jailed in Yemen after he allegedly shot and killed a hospital security guard during a failed escape attempt. He received security clearances as late as 2008.

Mobley, 26, worked as a contract laborer at several nuclear power plants, including Salem and Hope Creek in Lower Alloways Creek Township.

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/press/ocean/article_b16b88e8-4758-11df-99a7-001cc4c002e0.html

Note how strict the NRC wasn't with Excelon. That is the same regulator non-oversite we've seen leading to banking, mining and Pharma failures.

ps getting scalded with steam or squished by a fork truck does not count. Find a name.

for public consumption and for the Navy. Who do you think gets paid more, some dude changing oil in a turbine or a nuclear engineer?

Seems to be acceptable to some people though.

How about this?

Nukes work and are not made by blacks.

Nukes work and are not made by jews.

Does that bother you at all?

you job is going to go to a meatpuppet who will work for $1 a day and has no benefits or safety regs. Race has nothing to do with it.

Mexico, China, Singapore, who the fuckcaresistan. Nuclear reactors are built and manned by american labor. Much of it union.

See if your fucked up mr coffee burns your house down no big deal, if your feed water pumps fail on a submarine, you have issues. Many can lead to death.

Got a problem with that well , you know what to do with that race card.

And btw FUCK YOU I worked with blacks and jews on a Naval contract.

So much for the rah, rah, "nukes are made in America" bullshit.

and know for a fact GE and Westinghouse do as well. So rah rah, you ignorant ass to the google.

Many union jobs do just that.

No more Nuke Power Plants!!!

so what if there are a few miners killed once in a while,
a few more get coal miner's lungs, we get some acid rain,
and release more carbon dioxide in the air causing a little
bit of global warming. So what if refinery's blow up once
in a while. We can live with all of that.

But nuclear power? That sucks! That Obama guy likes nuclear?
He needs to change!

and nuclear is a roadmap for disaster --

and sickness.

and there are a few thousand people living in the US, that will work. Until then, reality contraindicates that solution.

No wonder you think nuclear power is a good thing. I remember those kinds of things from "Analog", and I'm STILL determined to get that new nuclear car - just as soon as I can save up the $800,000,000 for the down payment.

and am familiar with Idaho Falls Facilities. Somehow the Navy manages to run all those reactors in a safe fashion. How is this possible?

It doesn't.

You are talking out your hat.

you can derive how many would be required to power a grid drawing power at Z level. Assuming demand is constant (which it is not)

Math is your friend.

And at least half a dozen get posted here each month.

What has NEVER been posted here is a peer reviewed analysis that supports what you are claiming to be true - that renewables cannot deliver the goods. That means the ball is in your court to produce such an analysis. If you are going to claim "MIT" in the face of the fact that it isn't in the study then you need to quote the section.

The fact is you are completely, 100% wrong and I have already given you a reference showing so with "math".

it will take decades before there is enough infrastructure and
capacity built up to support people's energy needs. In the meanwhile,
why not use nuclear as a form of clean energy as a bridge?

The president is right on nuclear energy.

oil companies -- helping them put infrastructure in place ---

Meanwhile, these oil giants have become wealthy -- ExxonMobil 36 Billion in one of the

last years? -- at our expense. Nationalize oil industry -- now.

The 1960 Dem Platform which JFK ran on called for the Nationalizing of the oil industry --


Nuclear energy is a mistake in every regard -- from health of citizens to risks of

disaster - and the WASTE alone points to the tragedy of this decision!

How "correct" would you think Obama on this if the WASTE were coming to your part

of town?

:eyes:




:nuke:

Leaving aside the huge problems of waste and proliferation, the cost of nuclear and the time to build mean that it is a poor solution to climate change and energy security concerns.

A very comprehensive analysis looked at all currently available technologies and concludes that nuclear power is a third tier solution and not desirable - it ranked approximately equal with coalCCS.

to provide 90%+ energy needs of this nation whose energy demands
will grow as the economy grows?

There is NO analysis that predicts it is faster with nuclear. In fact one of the arguments AGAINST nuclear is the opportunity costs associated with the time to deploy.

Please supply some sort of detailed analysis to support your claims.

I know the Indians are building 12 nuclear power plants to be
completed within 5 years.

Perhaps you should wait until you have all the information before arguing for a course that might be (is) wrong.

I guess not having super bureaucratic bullshit process gets things done a bit quicker. France seems to be fine with their reactors.

Guess it is a nuclear wasteland in grand ole paris..

August 2009: "...the credibility of the country's nuclear initiative received a blow last week when reports emerged that Kang Rixin, the head of China's nuclear power plant construction program, has been arrested on suspicion of accepting $256m in bribes from French engineering giant Areva."

Shortly after China revised the law that governs what power is selected for the grid first. Grid operators are now required to use ALL renewable generation BEFORE turning to central thermal (including nuclear). It will take a bit of time, but this regulatory change is precisely the way to build a renewable, distributed grid where centralized thermal generation is simply not an efficient nor particularly desirable part of the generation mix.

that means they did not bribe all the right people, else they would not have been caught.

30,000 turbines. That is a lot of stuff to be made in china.

Except for the soviet mishap at Chernobyl, how many people have
been killed or injured in nuclear power plant accidents? If
countries like India can operate a dozen nuclear power plants
without a single casualty, and if France is operating on majority
nuclear, I am not going to worry more about nuclear over fossil fuels.

What's the figure in your mind that we're willing to permit?

Chernobyl didn't only kill people instantly, it killed people gradually --

and totally contaminated the area -- and is probably still killing people who

were exposed! Not a risk any nation should be taking --

and humans aren't equipped to deal with disaster on this scale.

Btw, 3 Mile Island came close enough!

PLUS with Global Warming, we have no idea what weather or other shifts might

also increase the dangers --

AND, we're insuring these things cause no insurance company can or will!!


Additionally, we don't know what the actual effects on the environment may be --

we know something of damage to water and animal-life -- and we know there are more

cancers today than ever before --

We also know that man has somehow caused severe damage to our ozone layer -- probably

more than 50% of it!

And for what purpose? So we can conduct capitalism's bus-i-ness which further exploits

and destroys the environment/planet/humanity?

Or maybe to create new propaganda that we can support the life we already have on the planet?

Overpopulation is what should be addressed and not with nuclear reactors!

we dont run soviet reactors here. Not a single person died at of from TMI. Coal plants kill people, shit I bet more people have died in dildo related accidents since trinity than in nuclear accidents here in the USA...

Well unless ebola makes a run overpopulation is here. Like I said earlier unless you get a scenario like "The Stand" with a 95% loss of population, you are going to choose between nuclear and coal.

And just in case you are wondering nuclear weapons are the most cost effective means to kill large numbers of people if you have an overpopulation initiative you would like to take on.

and add a blend of renewables or you can hope we have a big plague like in the Stand. Pretty much your choices, oh you can pray for space alien technology. Most people prefer not to freeze to death, cutting off their power tends to cause death in some climates.

we have the brains, we have the technology, the research.... all we need is the will to do it. Let those who have invested in nuclear, oil, and any other renewable shit their pants.

please give me a basic number of things. For example, 37 AP 1000 (2000mw/hr units) reactors running at 90% efficiency will cover this demand.

and then will put it back into service since they cant get a license to build a new one to replace it.

New reactors are safe reactors.

all nukes are good nukes, all problems have been solved, there are no waste issues, there are no terrorism/loose nuke issues, everything's fine, move along now. :sarcasm: :crazy:

no numbers, no study from berkley saying MIT is full of shit, just a stupid emoticon. Nice.

Introduction
The following is a compilation of some known events involving nuclear devices and facilities under U.S. jurisdiction, many involving fatalities. Note that this work is NOT an anti-nuclear diatribe, but rather an encyclopedic listing of facts pertaining to a particular topic; I am well aware of the dangers and negative ecological consequences of alternate energy forms (especially coal and petroleum-based fuels), but a discussion of those is beyond the subject matter of this page.

Research Facilities
29 November 1955
Experimental breeder reactor EBR-1 experienced a core meltdown due to operator error.

26 July 1959
A clogged coolant channel resulted in a 30% reactor core meltdown at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (now known as the Boeing-Rocketdyne Nuclear Facility) in the Simi Hills area of Ventura County, California. Later discovery of the incident prompted a class-action suit by local residents, who successfully sued for $30 million over cancer and thyroid abnormalities contracted due to their proximity to the facility.

2 September 1944
Peter Bragg and Douglas Paul Meigs, two Manhattan Project chemists, were killed when their attempt to unclog a tube in a uranium enrichment device led to an explosion of radioactive uranium hexafluoride gas exploded at the Naval Research Laboratory in Philadelphia, PA. The explosion ruptured nearby steam pipes, leading to a gas and steam combination that bathed the men in a scalding, radioactive, acidic cloud of gas which killed them a short while later.

21 August 1945
Harry K. Daghlian Jr. was killed during the final stages of the Manhattan Project (undertaken at Los Alamos, New Mexico to develop the first atomic bomb) from a radiation burst released when a critical assembly of fissile material was accidentally brought together by hand. This incident pre-dated remote-control assembly of such components, but the hazards of manual assembly were known at the time (the accident occurred during a procedure known as "tickling the dragon's tail"). A similar incident, involving another fatality, occurred the following year (see next entry), after which hand-maniuplations of critical assemblies was abandoned.

21 May 1946
A nuclear criticality accident occured at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in New Mexico. Eight people were exposed to radiation, and one, Louis Slotin, died nine days later later of acute radiation sickness.

2 July 1956
Nine persons were injured when two explosions destroyed a portion of Sylvania Electric Products' Metallurgy Atomic Research Center in Bayside, Queens, New York.

1957
A radiation release at the the Keleket company resulted in a five-month decontamination at a cost of $250,000. A capsule of radium salt (used for calibrating the radiation-measuring devices produced there) burst, contaminating the building for a full five months.

30 December 1958
A chemical operator was exposed to a lethal dose of radiation following an incident involving the mixing of plutonium solutions, dying 35 hours later of severe radiation exposure.

1959
A partial sodium reactor meltdown occurred at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Simi Valley Hills, California.

2 April 1962
An "unplanned nuclear excursion" occurred in a plutonium processing facility in Richland, Washington. Several employees were hospitalized for observation following exposure to the resultant radiation, and radiation was detected in the surrounding atmosphere for sevearl days following the incident.

26 March 1963
A mechanical failure led to a nuclear leak and subsequent fire at an experimental facility in Livermore, California, resulting in serious damage to the shielded vault where the experiment was conducted.

5 October 1966
A sodium cooling system malfunction caused a partial core meltdown at Detroit Edison's Enrico Fermi I demonstration breeder reactor near Detroit, Michigan. Radioactive gases leaked into the containment structures, but radiation was reportedly contained.

1974
Whistleblowers at the Isomedix company in New Jersey reported that radioactive water was flushed down toilets and had contaminated pipes leading to sewers. The same year a worker received a dose of radiation considered lethal, but was saved by prompt hospital treatment.

1982
International Nutronics in Dover, New Jersey, which used radiation baths to purify gems, chemicals, food, and medical supplies, experienced an accident that completely contaminated the plant, forcing its closure. A pump malfunctioned, siphoning water from the baths onto the floor; the water eventually was drained into the sewer system of the heavily populated town of Dover. The NRC wasn't informed of the accident until ten months later -- and then by a whistleblower, not the company. In 1986, the company and one of its top executives were convicted by a federal jury of conspiracy and fraud. Radiation has been detected in the vicinity of the plant, but the NRC claims the levels "aren't hazardous."

1986
The NRC revoked the license of a Radiation Technology, Inc. (RTI) plant in New Jersey for repeated worker safety violations. RTI was cited 32 times for various violations, including throwing radioactive garbage out with the regular trash. The most serious violation was bypassing a safety device to prevent people from entering the irradiation chamber during operation, resulting in a worker receiving a near-lethal dose of radiation.

ca. December 1991
One of four cold fusion cells in a Menlo Park, CA, laboratory exploded while being moved; electrochemist Andrew Riley was killed and three others were injured. The other three cells were buried on site, leading to rumors that a nuclear reaction had taken place. A report concluded that it was a chemical explosion; a mixture of oxygen and deuterium produced by electrolysis ignited when a catalyst was exposed. The Electric Power Research Institute, which spent $2 million on the SRI cold fusion research, suspended support for the work pending the outcome of an investigation.

Power Plants
3 January 1961
The world's first nuclear-related fatalities occurred following a reactor explosion at the National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Three technicians, were killed, with radioactivity "largely confined" (words of John A. McCone, Director of the Atomic Energy Commission) to the reactor building. The men were killed as they moved fuel rods in a "routine" preparation for the reactor start-up. One technician was blown to the ceiling of the containment dome and impaled on a control rod. His body remained there until it was taken down six days later. The men were so heavily exposed to radiation that their hands had to be buried separately with other radioactive waste, and their bodies were interred in lead coffins. Another incident three weeks later (on 25 January) resulted in a release of radiation into the atmosphere.

24 July 1964
Robert Peabody, 37, died at the United Nuclear Corp. fuel facility in Charlestown, Rhode Island, when liquid uranium he was pouring went critical, starting a reaction that exposed him to a lethal dose of radiation.

19 November 1971
The water storage space at the Northern States Power Company's reactor in Monticello, Minnesota filled to capacity and spilled over, dumping about 50,000 gallons of radioactive waste water into the Mississippi River. Some was taken into the St. Paul water system.

March 1972
Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska submitted to the Congressional Record facts surrounding a routine check in a nuclear power plant which indicated abnormal radioactivity in the building's water system. Radioactivity was confirmed in the plant drinking fountain. Apparently there was an inappropriate cross-connection between a 3,000 gallon radioactive tank and the water system.

27 July 1972
Two workers at the Surry Unit 2 facility in Virginia were fatally scalded after a routine valve adjustment led to a steam release in a gap in a vent line.

28 May 1974
The Atomic Energy Commission reported that 861 "abnormal events" had occurred in 1973 in the nation's 42 operative nuclear power plants. Twelve involved the release of radioactivity "above permissible levels."

22 March 1975
A technician checking for air leaks with a lighted candle caused $100 million in damage when insulation caught fire at the Browns Ferry reactor in Decatur, Alabama. The fire burned out electrical controls, lowering the cooling water to dangerous levels, before the plant could be shut down.

28 March 1979
A major accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant near Middletown, Pennsylvania. At 4:00 a.m. a series of human and mechanical failures nearly triggered a nuclear disaster. By 8:00 a.m., after cooling water was lost and temperatures soared above 5,000 degrees, the top portion of the reactor's 150-ton core melted. Contaminated coolant water escaped into a nearby building, releasing radioactive gasses, leading as many as 200,000 people to flee the region. Despite claims by the nuclear industry that "no one died at Three Mile Island," a study by Dr. Ernest J. Sternglass, professor of radiation physics at the University of Pittsburgh, showed that the accident led to a minimum of 430 infant deaths.

1981
The Critical Mass Energy Project of Public Citizen, Inc. reported that there were 4,060 mishaps and 140 serious events at nuclear power plants in 1981, up from 3,804 mishaps and 104 serious events the previous year.

11 February 1981
An Auxiliary Unit Operator, working his first day on the new job without proper training, inadvertently opened a valve which led to the contamination of eight men by 110,000 gallons of radioactive coolant sprayed into the containment building of the Tennessee Valley Authority's Sequoyah I plant in Tennessee.

July 1981
A flood of low-level radioactive wastewater in the sub-basement at Nine Mile Point's Unit 1 (in New York state) caused approximately 150 55-gallon drums of high-level waste to overturn, some of which released their highly radioactive contents. Some 50,000 gallons of low-level radioactive water were subsequently dumped into Lake Ontario to make room for the cleanup. The discharge was reported to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but the sub-basement contamination was not. A report leaked to the press 8 years later resulted in a study which found that high levels of radiation persisted in the still flooded facility.

1982
The Critical Mass Energy Project of Public Citizen, Inc. reported that 84,322 power plant workers were exposed to radiation in 1982, up from 82,183 the previous year.

25 January 1982
A steam generator pipe broke at the Rochester Gas & Electric Company's Ginna plant near Rochester, New York. Fifteen thousand gallons of radioactive coolant spilled onto the plant floor, and small amounts of radioactive steam escaped into the air.

15-16 January 1983
Nearly 208,000 gallons of water with low-level radioactive contamination was accidentally dumped into the Tennesee River at the Browns Ferry power plant.

25 February 1983
A catastrophe at the Salem 1 reactor in New Jersey was averted by just 90 seconds when the plant was shut down manually, following the failure of automatic shutdown systems to act properly. The same automatic systems had failed to respond in an incident three days before, and other problems plagued this plant as well, such as a 3,000 gallon leak of radioactive water in June 1981 at the Salem 2 reactor, a 23,000 gallon leak of "mildly" radioactive water (which splashed onto 16 workers) in February 1982, and radioactive gas leaks in March 1981 and September 1982 from Salem 1.

9 December 1986
A feedwater pipe ruptured at the Surry Unit 2 facility in Virginia, causing 8 workers to be scalded by a release of hot water and steam. Four of the workers later died from their injuries. In addition, water from the sprinkler systems caused a malfunction of the security system, preventing personnel from entering the facility. This was the second time that an incident at the Surry 2 unit resulted in fatal injuries due to scalding .

1988
It was reported that there were 2,810 accidents in U.S. commercial nuclear power plants in 1987, down slightly from the 2,836 accidents reported in 1986, according to a report issued by the Critical Mass Energy Project of Public Citizen, Inc.

28 May 1993
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission released a warning to the operators of 34 nuclear reactors around the country that the instruments used to measure levels of water in the reactor could give false readings during routine shutdowns and fail to detect important leaks. The problem was first bought to light by an engineer at Northeast Utilities in Connecticut who had been harassed for raising safety questions. The flawed instruments at boiling-water reactors designed by General Electric utilize pipes which were prone to being blocked by gas bubbles; a failure to detect falling water levels could have resulted, potentially leading to a meltdown.

15 February 2000
New York's Indian Point II power plant vented a small amount of radioactive steam when a an aging steam generator ruptured. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission initially reported that no radioactive material was released, but later changed their report to say that there was a leak, but not of a sufficient amount to threaten public safety.

6 March 2002
Workers discovered a foot-long cavity eaten into the reactor vessel head at the Davis-Besse nuclear plant in Ohio. Borated water had corroded the metal to a 3/16 inch stainless steel liner which held back over 80,000 gallons of highly pressurized radioactive water. In April 2005 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission proposed fining plant owner First Energy 5.4 million dollars for their failure to uncover the problem sooner (similar problems plaguing other plants were already known within the industry), and also proposed banning System Engineer Andrew Siemaszko from working in the industry for five years due to his falsifying reactor vessel logs. As of this writing the fine and suspension were under appeal.

Nov 2005
High tritium levels, the result of leaking pipes, were discovered to have contaminated groundwater immediately adjacent to the Braidwood Generating Station in Braceville, Illinois.

Bombs and Bombers
13 February 1950
11 April 1950
10 November 1950
10 March 1956
27 July 1956
22 May 1957
28 July 1957
11 October 1957
31 January 1958
5 February 1958
11 March 1958
4 November 1958
26 November 1958
15 October 1959
7 June 1960
21 January 1961
24 January 1961
14 March 1961
13 January 1964
8 December 1964
5 December 1965
17 January 1966
22 January 1968
2 November 1981

Submarines and Ships
Some of the following incidents involve the discharge of radioactive coolant water by ships and submarines. While water from the primary coolant system stays radioactive for only a few seconds, it picks up bits of cobalt, chromium and other elements (from rusting pipes and the reactor) which remain radioactive for years. In realization of this fact, the U.S. Navy has curtailed its previously frequent practice of dumping coolant at sea.

18 April 1959
October 1959
1961
10 April 1963
5 December 1965
1968
22 May 1968
14 January 1969
16 May 1969
12 December 1971
October-November 1975
22 May 1978
November 1992

Processing, Storage, Shipping and Disposal
From 1946 to 1970 approximately 90,000 cannisters of radioactive waste were jettisoned in 50 ocean dumps up and down the East and West coasts of the U.S., including prime fishing areas, as part of the early nuclear waste disposal program from the military's atomic weapons program. The waste also included contaminated tools, chemicals, and laboratory glassware from weapons laboratories, and commercial/medical facilities

December 1962 A summary report was presented at an Atomic Energy Commission symposium in Germantown, Maryland, listing 47 accidents involving shipment of nuclear materials to that date, 17 of which were considered "serious."

11 May 1969
1971
1972
December 1972
1979
16 July 1979
August 1979
January 1980
19 September 1980
21 September 1980
1983
December 1984
1986
6 January 1986
1986
1988
6 June 1988
October 1988
24 November 1992
31 March 1994
May 1997
8 August 1999
June 2000
July 2000

http://www.lutins.org/nukes.html#subs

, no one from civilian reactor criticality event. Military facilities do not run under the same regs. so did the US Navy just all fucking turn green? This guy posted 60 years worth of accidents back to the dawn of nuclear power, the VAST majority of events are at military facilities. He CAN'T give one name from TMI because there were no deaths.

Guys at Indian Point dont tend to be experimenting with uranium spheres trying to figure out how to make a better implosion bomb.

Hey, go get some knee pads and pray. Pray for a miracle technology to run NYC. Right now you have nukes and coal, and space alien technology at area 51..