Hi,

I haven't posted much on here before. Don't have enough info to ask intelligent questions, BUT I am going to risk this one anyway.

After reading all the postings lately about the nuclear power plants here and on Rick Cowle's site, plus articles in the paper, it seems to me that there is a definite question about the safety of running a nuclear plant passed the rollover date. The Peach Bottom incident appears to be human error or at least bad judgement. So given these obvious "unknowns" in dealing with these plants, shouldn't they be making plans to shut them down and getting the people prepared to deal with the lack of power?

If I'm faced with the question: Would you rather have a blackout or would you rather risk death by atomic explosion? Isn't that a "duh" question????

Can someone please explain to me why any sane "government" or "regulatory" agency would take this kind of risk and keep those plants on line?

Thanks and I apologise if I have missed something important here.

-- linda (haven'taclue@shotmail.com), March 10, 1999

Answers

"Can someone please explain to me why any sane "government" or "regulatory" agency would take this kind of risk and keep those plants on line?"

It's called political viability, Linda. The government official that makes the decision to shut the nukes down has none left. With the "stay in power at all costs" mentality of most politicians, such a decision is unthinkable. Don't expect politicians to do the right thing if it means loss of (personal) power.

-- Nabi Davidson (nabi7@yahoo.com), March 10, 1999.

Nabi,

Thanks, that makes sense in the "political" thinking, I'm sure.

In my area there has been more of a outcry about saving the "yellow cheeked warbler" and the "salamander" than whether we should risk nuclear annihilation of a large portion of Texas.

Perhaps if someone pointed out that the "yellow cheeked warbler" could not habitate in a "post-nuclear fallout" area we could wake up some people in this country.

I'm serious. This seems like insanity. Even to be writing about this.

Thanks for your response.

-- linda (haven'taclue@shotmail.com), March 10, 1999.

"shouldn't they be making plans to shut them down and getting the people prepared to deal with the lack of power?"

Two parts there, if the plants are in risk of damage would they be shut down? Sure, I'm certian they will if there was a probability of that, simply because insurance will not cover Y2K. However, nuke power plants and hydrocarbon power plants will be overmonitored on 12-31-99 to prevent damage. Nuke plants will be safer than hc plants because the operators have more back up systems, much more training for emergencies than hc plants. Please note that there have been two major blow ups at hc plants in the last month or so.

Now preparing people for lack of power is politically incorrect and I doubt that this administration is capable of that level of honesty.

"Would you rather have a blackout or would you rather risk death by atomic explosion? Isn't that a "duh" question????" That's a duh. Power plant U is enriched to 7% whereas bomb U is enriched to 70%, the only blow ups at a non-USSR nuke power plant is from steam. Chernobyl type releases are impossible in the US because there are no power nukes that use carbon as a neutron moderator and Chernobyl was a weapons grade plutonium plant that had no containment building or even a containment vessel.

-- Ken Seger (kenseger@earthlink.net), March 10, 1999.

"Practical politics consists in ignoring facts." Henry B. Adams (1838-1918), American Historian

"He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career." George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), from "Major Barbara"



-- Donna Barthuley (moment@pacbell.net), March 10, 1999.

One thing has been really bothering me about the Peach Bottom incident. They say that it was human error that caused the problem with the screens going blank for 7 hours. I question how could that be? Follow me here for a moment if you will. They took the backup machine to TEST the procedures when the date was set forward. After setting the date forward, the system FAILED and reverted back to the primary machine. Not thinking that the command had taken, they re-entered the command to set the date forward. The primary system then locked up. Does anyone not question the system locking up with the date set forward? I don't question the human error part, but I sure as heck question the fact that the system locked up with a date past 2000, whether that system is primary or backup. Something just doesn't feel right to me here. Something in the back of my mind says that when the clock does roll forward to the great 000, these systems will lock up if not fixed. Now I am wondering what other systems Peach Bottom has will freeze. Comments?????

-- (cannot-say@this.time), March 10, 1999.

What makes you think politicians and bureacrats are sane. The fact that they are in government indicates insanity, despite occasional appearances of sanity.

-- A (A@AisA.com), March 10, 1999.

Ken, Thanks for that info. I didn't know that about the differences in plants.

What, then would be the outcome of a nuclear power plant meltdown in this country, given that information regarding the amount of U?

-- linda (haven'taclue@shotmail.com), March 10, 1999.

"Would you rather have a blackout or would you rather risk death by atomic explosion? Isn't that a "duh" question???? "

Precisely how does a nuclear power plant equate to an atomic explosion?

-- Vinnie (Don't@mailbombme.com), March 10, 1999.

cannotsay--

VERY GOOD POINT. I HOPE SOMEone will address that question. My husband is saying he was wondering the same thing.

-- linda (haven'taclue@shotmail.com), March 10, 1999.

Vinnie,

That is precisely why I chose this email. I don't know. Whatever happens during a meltdown when radioactivity is released and people die.

I would choose the black out. Sorry about the wrong phrase, i.e. "atomic explosion". The thrust of the question remains the same.

-- linda (havent'aclue@shotmail.com), March 10, 1999.

cannot-say@this.time- To call what happend at Peach Bottom a pure "human" error is ridiculous. HMI, or Human Machine Interface, errors could be either, but the reality is that the human had no indication that the secondary (test) system had failed and that the primary system engaged, and I would think that anyone in their right mind would consider that a computer problem. Now, one could argue that that is a computer problem in its own right, completely independent of Y2K (i.e., not getting an indication is the way the thing works, regardless of what causes the failure, Y2K or no), but the reality is this: The Y2K problem is going to "push" everything -- both computers and people -- and no matter what ends up failing for what technical reason, the end result is that Y2K will be the catalyst.

Ken- And then there was Three Mile Island .... (It Can Happen Here.)

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), March 10, 1999.

Jack, I understand your logic of thinking, but from my experience in computers with clusters, you may not always know when a failure has occured and the processing shifted to another computer unless you have certain security turned on so that you get the message. Under my normal duties, I do not wish these to be turned on, because then I would be notified anytime one of 600 printers runs out of paper. I keep watch of my systems and know when I have a failure, but that is because I look for the failures, not because I am waiting for the systems to tell me one has occured.

IMHO, the only way that they could have tested this process without having the outcome that occured would to have physically unplugged the backup/test machine from the production systems. When tests are performed over a network or clustered systems, problems can (and do) arise in strange ways. Peach Bottom proved it yet one more time.

-- (cannot-say@this.time), March 10, 1999.

Donna - I LOVE those quotes, they are right on.

Linda - Meltdowns can happen in most US style reactor but not in the CANDU and similar types. Atomic explosions are impossible due to the lack of density, the fissionable U in nature is only about 0.9% of U, hense the need for enrichment. I will be flying via commercial flights over the next few weeks, I will recieve more ionizing radiation from those flights than I would if I had camped out at the property line down wind of Three Mile Island during and after it's meltdown. I don't consider the flying radiation exposure risky at all. The reason for the high incidence of skin cancer in pilots is that older windshields in planes were made of a type of plastic that did NOT cut out the harmfull ultraviolet rays. If you want some hard facts on radiation effects see 1HRRADS.TXT at my website. You might want to read the SIUNITS.TXT also.

-- Ken Seger (kenseger@earthlink.net), March 10, 1999.

Why will the nukes be allowed to stay on line? I believe it is primarily a national security concern. I think Washington sees the more serious problem (than possible nuke malfunction) is announcing to the world that we will definitely be without power 1/1/00. That leaves us begging to be attacked. So, lots and lots of finger crossing as we pass the rollover will all nukes operational...

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), March 10, 1999.

Linda - we're talking about nuclear power plants becasue people (like yourself) are frightened of them.

The social ramifications of a prolonged blackout of several weeks in mid-winter is potential death of hundreds, thousands, milliions of people - you choose, you make a guess. The nuclear industry is a lightening rod by unknowing and fearful reporters and other supposed "uninterested observers" (such as the NIRS and GreenPeace) who have a political agenda of shutting the plants down. Others, like the Union of Concerned Scientists also have agendas, but are slightly more reliable on this, the commercial power issue.

There have been six recent threads on nuclear power the past three days. After you have read each of them - then ask your question again. You must read each thread in its entirety,or you will remain unknowing and fearful, scared of shadows and false threats. In those threads you can determine backgrounds, qualifications, and reasoning - and see other people's fears, and how people answered their questions.

There are real threats out there next year. Nuclear power plants are not one of them. Ignorance and fear are.

We have colletively established that hydro and nuclear power plants are two most reliable sources of power next year. Collectively, they provide about 30% of the power available in North America - it is the remaining 70% that is far more likely to fail.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), March 10, 1999.

A question for you, Sir Robert. (And mucho thanks for all you have brought to this subject - my concern for some time now has been capacity, not safety.) Do you think there is any basis for the following generalization: The more complicated a system is, the more likely it would be to fail, and therefore the more likely that a nuke would (safely) shut down (compared to other types of utility plants) because of the plethora of safety controls. My prediction is that most or all of the nukes will be allowed to try to cross the rollover. However, if they are more likely to then shut down because of Y2K problems, we would be starting the new year with the illusion of lots of available capacity.

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), March 10, 1999.

Robert,

I'm not disagreeing with you, but I do need for you to answer a question for me. What bothers most of us about Y2K, and I'm sure you as well, is the uncertainty about Y2K. The banks MAY work, or interconnectedness with foreign banks MAY do U.S. banks in.

We may or may not have drinkable water in our communities in January 2000. It's impossible to PROVE that Y2K will just be a "bump-in-the- road" and it's impossible to PROVE that Y2K will result in TEOTWAWKI.

How can you be 100% certain that nuclear power plants will be compliant, especially when it appears that many of these plants have not even begun remediation and are still in the assessment phase?

Please, in one place--here or by starting a thread of your own--tell us why you are confident about the nuclear power industry. Maybe there isn't anything to worry about. I hope that's true.

Is there a thread on this forum that you recommend going to? OK, I do understand that it doesn't take six months to safely shut down a nuclear plant. But, is there any reason I should believe that remediation will be complete throughout the nuclear power industry by October?

I want to understand. Set me straight on this issue once and for all.

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), March 10, 1999.

ThE NRC is isn't using "assessment" the way you and I have gotten used to in terms of the Y2K process.

Most began 2 to 2-1/2 years ago, and completing systems-integrated testing now, they are far past initial assessment. (The Peach Bottom test, for example, was an integrated systems test - top down.) Only a handfull of fossil plants have gotten as far in terms of remediation, and I only know of a couple dozen that apparently are even able to test their repaired systems and control processes.

If any plants are not completely through and actually competed their third-party audits by July, the NRC wants a specific, chip-by-chip relacement schedule from the power plant, listing what has been done, what is needed, and what the plan is to finish. Again, no other agency - at any level - is demanding such a thing: elsewhere, if the deadline isn't met, the news is met with a shrug and a "so what".

Based on this report, the NRC will "assess" the completion plan, and will then decide whether or not to shutdown any specific power plant if they don't like the proposed schedule, or think the schedule has technical risks involved.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), March 10, 1999.

Brooks:

Invert your concern: because the nuclear plants are at the "top" of the food chain, they don't rely on any other service or function to "get power to the fence" - to the grid itself. Fuel, cooling water, emergency power, backup tools and parts, trained people, etc. are all on-site and don't depend on outside agencies who might screw up.

Also, because they are so blasted expensive, and so politically sensitive, there is the immediate top-level corporate attention on every matter affecting ooerational safety - particularly anything that has to be certified to the NRC - it comes over the company president's "signature". Now, add in the in-house design team, in-house operating team and staff trainers, regular simulator drills as casualty training, and excellent documentation - you get a level of inspection and reliability unmatched elsewhere.

The specific Y2K problems are finite - will this "thing" run after the program and process trips over next year - or any other time. The power plant itself is not very complex - hot water, cold water, and pumps are the only moving parts - and allparts are regularly inspected through construction and during operation for configuration management and maintenance compliance. So the engineers know what is installed where, have complete vender documentation and traceability back to the assembly technician who made in '65. So recovery is simplified too. There aren't many nuclear-grade venders,and they face criminal charges if records are falsified - unlike government administrators, so the sourece records are in better shape, and from only a limited group of companies anyway.

The specific power plant designs are different - this is unfortunate, but the general layout and installation process of all of them are the same between the two main styles in the US. (Canada's and French plants are even more standardized - their job is actually easier.) So as word goes from one company to another through industrial organizations like GE, Westinghouse, lNEI and INPO, and through the NRC itself, similar things get fixed in similiar ways. Auditors too - knowing what happens before, check for repeats in other plants.

So, if you accept the premises that

1) the problem can be fixed if the right amounts of attention, time, and money are spent early enough to identify all items;

2) unforseen events may occur, and the only way to find these is very rigorously test every installtion - at the piece level, the program level, the system level, then at the whole plant level

3) the better the documentation, training, and qualificationof the operator and design engineer, the more likely it is he or she can manage any other events happening

4) the less dependent a process is on outside services - that may depend on other outside services operating perfectly - the more likely a power plant - or anything else - is to run successfully

-----so, look again at your question - what's more likely to have problems? A system ignored and lied about by the non-existant regulators or one being remediated and tested and subject to third-party audits?

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), March 10, 1999.

Robert, Please tell me exactly who it is that audits TVA?

-- (cannot-say@this.time), March 10, 1999.

Kevin - Your question was to Robert, but here's my $0.02 worth. I do not know if nuke plants will be able to produce power on 1-1-00 or if they can that the grid will be able to distribute it. I have no concerns about radiation what so ever from American or Canadian nuke plants.

The nearest nuke that I'ld worry about is the one down in Cuba that was started construction on but never finished. It is of Russian design, its construction is flawed, the building to house it has never been finished so parts have been exposed to the elements for years. I'm not making this up. Fidel has been trying to get the money together to get it up and running, YIPES! Hopefully Y2K will prevent this.

As for the Russian nukes going Chernobyl, if they do, too bad for the immediate populace, but they do not constitute a radiation threat to the US or Scandinavia. The closer nations should probably stock up on Chernobyl Kool-aid (potassium iodine).

-- Ken Seger (kenseger@earthlink.net), March 10, 1999.

What part?

Environmental (usual gang of ...), dams (Corps of Engineers - water side, power side - no one in particular), waterways and locks (Corp of Engineers, states), grid (no one), nuclear (NRC), conventional (no one, other than EPA for emissions), logging and restoration (Forest Service, EPA, other environmental groups), hiring, etc, .....

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), March 10, 1999.

That's on average there for TVA regulators - I'd prefer an actual "TVA regulatee" confirm or expand those rather broad brush strokes above.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), March 10, 1999.

Robert,

I was talking about the TVA nuclear plants. I guess that I was wrong in my thinking that they are only answering to the DOE. But... for the life of me, I cannot figure out how/why a nuclear plant would have to report to the forrest service. I know other aspects of TVA might have to report to them, but the nuke plants? I guess my brother in law that works for them in a nuke plant if full of crap then... right?

-- (cannot-say@this.time), March 10, 1999.

There are 3 good threads that have started over at Rick Cowles' Electric Utilities & Y2K web site (www.euy2k.com) that are relevant to everything that we have been discussing. Check them out:



Nuclear Meltdown

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), March 10, 1999.

Ken,

I'm not saying you're right or you're wrong, but you did not address my question, even though you seemed to. You said:

"I have no concerns about radiation what so ever from American or Canadian nuke plants."

Please give me some reasons for optimism about this. This could very well be a true statement, but you didn't back it up.

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), March 10, 1999.

Jack,

That link didn't work. I'm going to see if I can make a hot link for it...

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000ajD

The name of the thread is "Operator Error". Is this the one you wanted us to see?

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), March 10, 1999.

Sorry! Lets try that again:


another nuclear Y2K "gotcha"

Operator Error

Nuclear Meltdown



-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), March 10, 1999.

TVA operates (controls) hundreds of miles of power lines, transformer stations and facilities all across private, federal, state, and national forest/wilderness/recreation areas and reserves across parts and pieces of four or five states. I don't think they burn wood - but their coal plants ...

You're also not thinking about their dams and recreation areas (around the lakes), the rivers, the release rates from dams (affects fish production and survival of young, fish catches, white water rafting and canoing (big industry in the summer time below the TVA dams), electric rates and power supply, water temperature below the dams), the Fisheries Services, their own restocking programs, the state fish and wildlife agencies, game commissions, and through them all - the environment "police" running rampant.

As a percent of power produced, nuclear is only a part of what they do every day. Roosevelt started a big empire up there - that continues to this day to enlarge itself. Of course that's true for DC and TVA.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), March 10, 1999.

Linda wrote --If I'm faced with the question: Would you rather have a blackout or would you rather risk death by atomic explosion? Isn't that a "duh" question???? --

Quite frankly, I don't think it is "duh" question at all. First of all, an atomic explosion is extremely unlikely. IMIHO, if it was a choice of a one in a hundred radiation leak for example they would take their chances and leave them running. Why? Because if they took them offline, the shortage of power and general fear would likely cause a lot more death and damage than taking the chance. Not to mention that it would instantly cause the price of oil to go through the roof!

Hey, wait a minute, I work in the oil industry. Come to think of it, maybe they should shut down all the nukes! *grin*

-- Craig (craig@ccinet.ab.ca), March 10, 1999.

Kevin - If you haven't read or understood what Robert has said, there is absolutely nothing I could possibily add to help you. Even if every single nuke plant in North America went into meltdown (an imposibility for some designs) the released radiation would be less than what comes out of coal fired plants in a month. Let me clarify, if coal fired plants had to operate under the same rules as nuke plants, every single coal plant would have to be shut down for excess radiation release. Every pound of coal which = 1kw (or less) has a little itty bit of radium and about 5 other radioactive elements in it. Heat doesn't destroy radioactivity so the ash from a coal plant is a low level radiation source. Peanuts, coffee, certian beans, and most fertilizers have more radiation than is acceptable for low level radiation dumping.

Craig - I hate to keep whipping a dead horse but this one still seems to be kicking. "Quite frankly, I don't think it is "duh" question at all. First of all, an atomic explosion is extremely unlikely." Incorrect, it is not extremely unlikely it is physically impossible.

Y2K is a big enough problem for anybody, I hope people won't waste any mental or physical energy worrying about problems that can not exist.

-- Ken Seger (kenseger@earthlink.net), March 10, 1999.

Ken and everyone!

Thanks so much for all this info. I actually do realize a lot more than I did about the nuclear dangers (or lack thereof). I did not realize that a "meltdown" like the one in Russia was not possible here.

And I do feel much better. I am still very concerned about whether the nuke power plants can be truly "y2k ready", but at least I have put to rest some of my anxiety about the dangers.

Thanks for straightening me out. I admitted from the get-go that I was clueless.

I appreciate all of you who take time to help dispell the myths and fears out here, as well as give out helpful info so that we may one day get a clue.

-- linda (haven'taclue@shotmail.com), March 10, 1999.

Not clueles - you were wise enough to ask. And able to listen.

It's a rare combination.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), March 10, 1999.

Thank you Robert. You are always there for us to work us through our nuclear anxieties. This information just doesn't seem to be available anywhere else.

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), March 10, 1999.

One post mentioned concern about an unfinished nuclear powerplant in Cuba. I don't see how it could present any risk at all, since it has never gone critical. If the fuel rods are on site there might be a slight radiation hazard in their near vicinity, otherwise no sweat.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@nmindspring.com), March 11, 1999.

Tom C. - You are absolutely correct. Hopefully Fidel will be history before he can do anything stupid with that plant. I doubt (but I don't know for certian) that he has the fuel for it. The plant will have to be scraped for metal when somebody that is sane takes over down there. I was just trying to point out the difference between power technology plants and weapon technology plants in terms of radiation release potential.

-- Ken Seger (kenseger@earthlink.net), March 12, 1999.

I understand that there will be no "atomic explosion" as in a weapon, but living 50 miles from TMI I remember talk of the phrase 'China Syndrome' which I understood to mean that the reactor would melt it's way through the floor until it encountered the river water and the resulting steam explosion would cause a radiation risk to all downwind. Is my understanding correct? If so, are there any other facilities sited over water? And why would they site a plant in such a location. Thank you for this opportunity to ask questions that have been bugging me for decades.

-- kahley (kahley@ptd.net), March 13, 1999.

Your question is relevent and important - let me talk about it on the basis of several facts. Check these with Department of Nuclear Engineering at Penn. State, if you would rather not go to the TMI site itself and use their material and refernces.

The "China Syndrome" is a technical fiction started years ago by people who have a fear of nuclear so deep it can be considered a matter of "faith and religion" with them - you cannot discuss the technology or physics with those who cite this fear, because they fervently "want" to believe its falsehoods.

By the way, there is a varient of this theme that actually gave it the name: that the molten mass would resume criticality when it hit a "water table" below the power plant, then heat up again and Melt it way through to China.

Let us assume the reactor does have an accident and reach a high enough temperature to receive core damage. First stage is swelling of the pellets, stress on and then "stretching" or distortion of the fuel rods. Further, let us continue to fail to cool the core - at some point in time, the part of fuel will melt and "slump" to the bottom of the reactor vessel. In US reacotrs, this slag has been found to cool rapidly and solidify at the bottom of the vessel - it simply doesn't have enough heat energy - even under worst case conditions - to melt the reactor vessel steel.

Now, even when the core damage, as you found at TMI, is extensive, the molten sections of core "parts and pieces" are contained in the steel vessel - 4-6" thick. After solidification, the resulting radioactive particles could get distributed from there later (as they most certainly did at TMI) but even there were kept completely within the containment dome and the room where the failed relief valve was dumping water.

This makes sense, the water can carry particles from one area to the next, but the fact that water must be present to carry the particles, and the small size of the particles themselves (so they can be carried at all) means that the "distributed" particles, though radioactive, are cool to the touch. (Touching is not recommended though.) They cannot melt anything - not even a sheet of aluminium foil - much less the 10 -20 feet of concrete under the reactor and the plant floors.

So, after core meltdown, you are left with a melted core sitting in the bottom of pressure vessel core doing nothing but continuning to cool down. It can't can't go critical again - the melted "junk" including control rods, spacer plates, dividers, steam and waterflow guides, mounts, clips, locks, springs, etc. and small parts of the core (fuel) itself destroy the geometry required by nuclear physics interactions to resume criticality.

The preceeding statements you can check via outside channels: things are either known or can be found in the engineering references: thickness of vessel wall, size and shapes of the vessels, heat transfer coefficients of steel, concrete, mass of fuel, heat rates after core shutdown, etc. You will either have to trust me on these next statements, or take the advanced calculus, nuclear physics, nuclear engineering courses, and reactor operating courses to find it out yourself.

A core must have a very specific shape and metalurogical makeup to allow the neutrons to be captured and cause fission. You cannot vary this shape and remain critical. You cannot add material to the shape and remain critical. You cannot remove water and remain critical (thus the supposed "hit water table" criteria.) Water - once touching hot metal - tends to flash into steam and so is no longer able to support criticality.

Bottom line, even when accidents like you mention have occurred, and when they have been simulated in labs and by computers, you cannot melt through the plant to release contamination in US/Canada style reactors. You can create a tremendous mess inside the containment building - as you found out at TMI - but you cannot melt through.

The Soviets didn't care about their people, and didn't care about the environment around the plutonium production plants - thus they made no containment structures, and so they deliberately designed their plant so they could remain critical without water, and so they were surrounding a hot core with flamamble graphite (to enhance the fast neutron capture reactions in Pu, and so then they decided to operate their plant after deliberately removing the existing safeguards circuits to "test" the reactivity of the core. The result was a steam explosion that exposed the melted core to the graphite (carbon) and the open air around Chernobyl. Guess what - hot carbon burns! The fire (releasing smoke particles) was what really spread the radioactivity into the atmosphere. In the meantime, because the core was designed differently, as it melted parts did spread below the vessel and were eventually solified into the concrete below.

Thank you friendly local Communistic Party for that one.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), March 14, 1999.

Your question is relevent and important - let me talk about it on the basis of several facts. Check these with Department of Nuclear Engineering at Penn. State, if you would rather not go to the TMI site itself and use their material and refernces.

The "China Syndrome" is a technical fiction started years ago by people who have a fear of nuclear so deep it can be considered a matter of "faith and religion" with them - you cannot discuss the technology or physics with those who cite this fear, because they fervently "want" to believe its falsehoods.

By the way, there is a varient of this theme that actually gave it the name: that the molten mass would resume criticality when it hit a "water table" below the power plant, then heat up again and Melt it way through to China.

Let us assume the reactor does have an accident and reach a high enough temperature to receive core damage. First stage is swelling of the pellets, stress on and then "stretching" or distortion of the fuel rods. Further, let us continue to fail to cool the core - at some point in time, the part of fuel will melt and "slump" to the bottom of the reactor vessel. In US reacotrs, this slag has been found to cool rapidly and solidify at the bottom of the vessel - it simply doesn't have enough heat energy - even under worst case conditions - to melt the reactor vessel steel.

Now, even when the core damage, as you found at TMI, is extensive, the molten sections of core "parts and pieces" are contained in the steel vessel - 4-6" thick. After solidification, the resulting radioactive particles could get distributed from there later (as they most certainly did at TMI) but even there were kept completely within the containment dome and the room where the failed relief valve was dumping water.

This makes sense, the water can carry particles from one area to the next, but the fact that water must be present to carry the particles, and the small size of the particles themselves (so they can be carried at all) means that the "distributed" particles, though radioactive, are cool to the touch. (Touching is not recommended though.) They cannot melt anything - not even a sheet of aluminium foil - much less the 10 -20 feet of concrete under the reactor and the plant floors.

So, after core meltdown, you are left with a melted core sitting in the bottom of pressure vessel core doing nothing but continuning to cool down. It can't can't go critical again - the melted "junk" including control rods, spacer plates, dividers, steam and waterflow guides, mounts, clips, locks, springs, etc. and small parts of the core (fuel) itself destroy the geometry required by nuclear physics interactions to resume criticality.

The preceeding statements you can check via outside channels: things are either known or can be found in the engineering references: thickness of vessel wall, size and shapes of the vessels, heat transfer coefficients of steel, concrete, mass of fuel, heat rates after core shutdown, etc. You will either have to trust me on these next statements, or take the advanced calculus, nuclear physics, nuclear engineering courses, and reactor operating courses to find it out yourself.

A core must have a very specific shape and metalurogical makeup to allow the neutrons to be captured and cause fission. You cannot vary this shape and remain critical. You cannot add material to the shape and remain critical. You cannot remove water and remain critical (thus the supposed "hit water table" criteria.) Water - once touching hot metal - tends to flash into steam and so is no longer able to support criticality.

Bottom line, even when accidents like you mention have occurred, and when they have been simulated in labs and by computers, you cannot melt through the plant to release contamination in US/Canada style reactors. You can create a tremendous mess inside the containment building - as you found out at TMI - but you cannot melt through.

The Soviets didn't care about their people, and didn't care about the environment around the plutonium production plants - thus they made no containment structures, and so they deliberately designed their plant so they could remain critical without water, and so they were surrounding a hot core with flamamble graphite (to enhance the fast neutron capture reactions in Pu, and so then they decided to operate their plant after deliberately removing the existing safeguards circuits to "test" the reactivity of the core. The result was a steam explosion that exposed the melted core to the graphite (carbon) and the open air around Chernobyl. Guess what - hot carbon burns! The fire (releasing smoke particles) was what really spread the radioactivity into the atmosphere. In the meantime, because the core was designed differently, as it melted parts did spread below the vessel and were eventually solified into the concrete below.

Thank you friendly local Communistic Party for that one.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), March 14, 1999.

Your question is relevent and important - let me talk about it on the basis of several facts. Check these with Department of Nuclear Engineering at Penn. State, if you would rather not go to the TMI site itself and use their material and refernces.

The "China Syndrome" is a technical fiction started years ago by people who have a fear of nuclear so deep it can be considered a matter of "faith and religion" with them - you cannot discuss the technology or physics with those who cite this fear, because they fervently "want" to believe its falsehoods.

By the way, there is a varient of this theme that actually gave it the name: that the molten mass would resume criticality when it hit a "water table" below the power plant, then heat up again and Melt it way through to China.

Let us assume the reactor does have an accident and reach a high enough temperature to receive core damage. First stage is swelling of the pellets, stress on and then "stretching" or distortion of the fuel rods. Further, let us continue to fail to cool the core - at some point in time, the part of fuel will melt and "slump" to the bottom of the reactor vessel. In US reacotrs, this slag has been found to cool rapidly and solidify at the bottom of the vessel - it simply doesn't have enough heat energy - even under worst case conditions - to melt the reactor vessel steel.

Now, even when the core damage, as you found at TMI, is extensive, the molten sections of core "parts and pieces" are contained in the steel vessel - 4-6" thick. After solidification, the resulting radioactive particles could get distributed from there later (as they most certainly did at TMI) but even there were kept completely within the containment dome and the room where the failed relief valve was dumping water.

This makes sense, the water can carry particles from one area to the next, but the fact that water must be present to carry the particles, and the small size of the particles themselves (so they can be carried at all) means that the "distributed" particles, though radioactive, are cool to the touch. (Touching is not recommended though.) They cannot melt anything - not even a sheet of aluminium foil - much less the 10 -20 feet of concrete under the reactor and the plant floors.

So, after core meltdown, you are left with a melted core sitting in the bottom of pressure vessel core doing nothing but continuning to cool down. It can't can't go critical again - the melted "junk" including control rods, spacer plates, dividers, steam and waterflow guides, mounts, clips, locks, springs, etc. and small parts of the core (fuel) itself destroy the geometry required by nuclear physics interactions to resume criticality.

The preceeding statements you can check via outside channels: things are either known or can be found in the engineering references: thickness of vessel wall, size and shapes of the vessels, heat transfer coefficients of steel, concrete, mass of fuel, heat rates after core shutdown, etc. You will either have to trust me on these next statements, or take the advanced calculus, nuclear physics, nuclear engineering courses, and reactor operating courses to find it out yourself.

A core must have a very specific shape and metalurogical makeup to allow the neutrons to be captured and cause fission. You cannot vary this shape and remain critical. You cannot add material to the shape and remain critical. You cannot remove water and remain critical (thus the supposed "hit water table" criteria.) Water - once touching hot metal - tends to flash into steam and so is no longer able to support criticality.

Bottom line, even when accidents like you mention have occurred, and when they have been simulated in labs and by computers, you cannot melt through the plant to release contamination in US/Canada style reactors. You can create a tremendous mess inside the containment building - as you found out at TMI - but you cannot melt through.

The Soviets didn't care about their people, and didn't care about the environment around the plutonium production plants - thus they made no containment structures, and so they deliberately designed their plant so they could remain critical without water, and so they were surrounding a hot core with flamamble graphite (to enhance the fast neutron capture reactions in Pu, and so then they decided to operate their plant after deliberately removing the existing safeguards circuits to "test" the reactivity of the core. The result was a steam explosion that exposed the melted core to the graphite (carbon) and the open air around Chernobyl. Guess what - hot carbon burns! The fire (releasing smoke particles) was what really spread the radioactivity into the atmosphere. In the meantime, because the core was designed differently, as it melted parts did spread below the vessel and were eventually solified into the concrete below.

Thank you friendly local Communistic Party for that one.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), March 14, 1999.

Your question is relevent and important - let me talk about it on the basis of several facts. Check these with Department of Nuclear Engineering at Penn. State, if you would rather not go to the TMI site itself and use their material and refernces.

The "China Syndrome" is a technical fiction started years ago by people who have a fear of nuclear so deep it can be considered a matter of "faith and religion" with them - you cannot discuss the technology or physics with those who cite this fear, because they fervently "want" to believe its falsehoods.

By the way, there is a varient of this theme that actually gave it the name: that the molten mass would resume criticality when it hit a "water table" below the power plant, then heat up again and Melt it way through to China.

Let us assume the reactor does have an accident and reach a high enough temperature to receive core damage. First stage is swelling of the pellets, stress on and then "stretching" or distortion of the fuel rods. Further, let us continue to fail to cool the core - at some point in time, the part of fuel will melt and "slump" to the bottom of the reactor vessel. In US reacotrs, this slag has been found to cool rapidly and solidify at the bottom of the vessel - it simply doesn't have enough heat energy - even under worst case conditions - to melt the reactor vessel steel.

Now, even when the core damage, as you found at TMI, is extensive, the molten sections of core "parts and pieces" are contained in the steel vessel - 4-6" thick. After solidification, the resulting radioactive particles could get distributed from there later (as they most certainly did at TMI) but even there were kept completely within the containment dome and the room where the failed relief valve was dumping water.

This makes sense, the water can carry particles from one area to the next, but the fact that water must be present to carry the particles, and the small size of the particles themselves (so they can be carried at all) means that the "distributed" particles, though radioactive, are cool to the touch. (Touching is not recommended though.) They cannot melt anything - not even a sheet of aluminium foil - much less the 10 -20 feet of concrete under the reactor and the plant floors.

So, after core meltdown, you are left with a melted core sitting in the bottom of pressure vessel core doing nothing but continuning to cool down. It can't can't go critical again - the melted "junk" including control rods, spacer plates, dividers, steam and waterflow guides, mounts, clips, locks, springs, etc. and small parts of the core (fuel) itself destroy the geometry required by nuclear physics interactions to resume criticality.

The preceeding statements you can check via outside channels: things are either known or can be found in the engineering references: thickness of vessel wall, size and shapes of the vessels, heat transfer coefficients of steel, concrete, mass of fuel, heat rates after core shutdown, etc. You will either have to trust me on these next statements, or take the advanced calculus, nuclear physics, nuclear engineering courses, and reactor operating courses to find it out yourself.

A core must have a very specific shape and metalurogical makeup to allow the neutrons to be captured and cause fission. You cannot vary this shape and remain critical. You cannot add material to the shape and remain critical. You cannot remove water and remain critical (thus the supposed "hit water table" criteria.) Water - once touching hot metal - tends to flash into steam and so is no longer able to support criticality.

Bottom line, even when accidents like you mention have occurred, and when they have been simulated in labs and by computers, you cannot melt through the plant to release contamination in US/Canada style reactors. You can create a tremendous mess inside the containment building - as you found out at TMI - but you cannot melt through.

The Soviets didn't care about their people, and didn't care about the environment around the plutonium production plants - thus they made no containment structures, and so they deliberately designed their plant so they could remain critical without water, and so they were surrounding a hot core with flamamble graphite (to enhance the fast neutron capture reactions in Pu, and so then they decided to operate their plant after deliberately removing the existing safeguards circuits to "test" the reactivity of the core. The result was a steam explosion that exposed the melted core to the graphite (carbon) and the open air around Chernobyl. Guess what - hot carbon burns! The fire (releasing smoke particles) was what really spread the radioactivity into the atmosphere. In the meantime, because the core was designed differently, as it melted parts did spread below the vessel and were eventually solified into the concrete below.

Thank you friendly local Communistic Party for that one.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), March 14, 1999.

Your question is relevent and important - let me talk about it on the basis of several facts. Check these with Department of Nuclear Engineering at Penn. State, if you would rather not go to the TMI site itself and use their material and refernces.

The "China Syndrome" is a technical fiction started years ago by people who have a fear of nuclear so deep it can be considered a matter of "faith and religion" with them - you cannot discuss the technology or physics with those who cite this fear, because they fervently "want" to believe its falsehoods.

By the way, there is a varient of this theme that actually gave it the name: that the molten mass would resume criticality when it hit a "water table" below the power plant, then heat up again and Melt it way through to China.

Let us assume the reactor does have an accident and reach a high enough temperature to receive core damage. First stage is swelling of the pellets, stress on and then "stretching" or distortion of the fuel rods. Further, let us continue to fail to cool the core - at some point in time, the part of fuel will melt and "slump" to the bottom of the reactor vessel. In US reacotrs, this slag has been found to cool rapidly and solidify at the bottom of the vessel - it simply doesn't have enough heat energy - even under worst case conditions - to melt the reactor vessel steel.

Now, even when the core damage, as you found at TMI, is extensive, the molten sections of core "parts and pieces" are contained in the steel vessel - 4-6" thick. After solidification, the resulting radioactive particles could get distributed from there later (as they most certainly did at TMI) but even there were kept completely within the containment dome and the room where the failed relief valve was dumping water.

This makes sense, the water can carry particles from one area to the next, but the fact that water must be present to carry the particles, and the small size of the particles themselves (so they can be carried at all) means that the "distributed" particles, though radioactive, are cool to the touch. (Touching is not recommended though.) They cannot melt anything - not even a sheet of aluminium foil - much less the 10 -20 feet of concrete under the reactor and the plant floors.

So, after core meltdown, you are left with a melted core sitting in the bottom of pressure vessel core doing nothing but continuning to cool down. It can't can't go critical again - the melted "junk" including control rods, spacer plates, dividers, steam and waterflow guides, mounts, clips, locks, springs, etc. and small parts of the core (fuel) itself destroy the geometry required by nuclear physics interactions to resume criticality.

The preceeding statements you can check via outside channels: things are either known or can be found in the engineering references: thickness of vessel wall, size and shapes of the vessels, heat transfer coefficients of steel, concrete, mass of fuel, heat rates after core shutdown, etc. You will either have to trust me on these next statements, or take the advanced calculus, nuclear physics, nuclear engineering courses, and reactor operating courses to find it out yourself.

A core must have a very specific shape and metalurogical makeup to allow the neutrons to be captured and cause fission. You cannot vary this shape and remain critical. You cannot add material to the shape and remain critical. You cannot remove water and remain critical (thus the supposed "hit water table" criteria.) Water - once touching hot metal - tends to flash into steam and so is no longer able to support criticality.

Bottom line, even when accidents like you mention have occurred, and when they have been simulated in labs and by computers, you cannot melt through the plant to release contamination in US/Canada style reactors. You can create a tremendous mess inside the containment building - as you found out at TMI - but you cannot melt through.

The Soviets didn't care about their people, and didn't care about the environment around the plutonium production plants - thus they made no containment structures, and so they deliberately designed their plant so they could remain critical without water, and so they were surrounding a hot core with flamamble graphite (to enhance the fast neutron capture reactions in Pu, and so then they decided to operate their plant after deliberately removing the existing safeguards circuits to "test" the reactivity of the core. The result was a steam explosion that exposed the melted core to the graphite (carbon) and the open air around Chernobyl. Guess what - hot carbon burns! The fire (releasing smoke particles) was what really spread the radioactivity into the atmosphere. In the meantime, because the core was designed differently, as it melted parts did spread below the vessel and were eventually solified into the concrete below.

Thank you friendly local Communistic Party for that one.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), March 14, 1999.

Your question is relevent and important - let me talk about it on the basis of several facts. Check these with Department of Nuclear Engineering at Penn. State, if you would rather not go to the TMI site itself and use their material and refernces.

The "China Syndrome" is a technical fiction started years ago by people who have a fear of nuclear so deep it can be considered a matter of "faith and religion" with them - you cannot discuss the technology or physics with those who cite this fear, because they fervently "want" to believe its falsehoods.

By the way, there is a varient of this theme that actually gave it the name: that the molten mass would resume criticality when it hit a "water table" below the power plant, then heat up again and Melt it way through to China.

Let us assume the reactor does have an accident and reach a high enough temperature to receive core damage. First stage is swelling of the pellets, stress on and then "stretching" or distortion of the fuel rods. Further, let us continue to fail to cool the core - at some point in time, the part of fuel will melt and "slump" to the bottom of the reactor vessel. In US reacotrs, this slag has been found to cool rapidly and solidify at the bottom of the vessel - it simply doesn't have enough heat energy - even under worst case conditions - to melt the reactor vessel steel.

Now, even when the core damage, as you found at TMI, is extensive, the molten sections of core "parts and pieces" are contained in the steel vessel - 4-6" thick. After solidification, the resulting radioactive particles could get distributed from there later (as they most certainly did at TMI) but even there were kept completely within the containment dome and the room where the failed relief valve was dumping water.

This makes sense, the water can carry particles from one area to the next, but the fact that water must be present to carry the particles, and the small size of the particles themselves (so they can be carried at all) means that the "distributed" particles, though radioactive, are cool to the touch. (Touching is not recommended though.) They cannot melt anything - not even a sheet of aluminium foil - much less the 10 -20 feet of concrete under the reactor and the plant floors.

So, after core meltdown, you are left with a melted core sitting in the bottom of pressure vessel core doing nothing but continuning to cool down. It can't can't go critical again - the melted "junk" including control rods, spacer plates, dividers, steam and waterflow guides, mounts, clips, locks, springs, etc. and small parts of the core (fuel) itself destroy the geometry required by nuclear physics interactions to resume criticality.

The preceeding statements you can check via outside channels: things are either known or can be found in the engineering references: thickness of vessel wall, size and shapes of the vessels, heat transfer coefficients of steel, concrete, mass of fuel, heat rates after core shutdown, etc. You will either have to trust me on these next statements, or take the advanced calculus, nuclear physics, nuclear engineering courses, and reactor operating courses to find it out yourself.

A core must have a very specific shape and metalurogical makeup to allow the neutrons to be captured and cause fission. You cannot vary this shape and remain critical. You cannot add material to the shape and remain critical. You cannot remove water and remain critical (thus the supposed "hit water table" criteria.) Water - once touching hot metal - tends to flash into steam and so is no longer able to support criticality.

Bottom line, even when accidents like you mention have occurred, and when they have been simulated in labs and by computers, you cannot melt through the plant to release contamination in US/Canada style reactors. You can create a tremendous mess inside the containment building - as you found out at TMI - but you cannot melt through.

The Soviets didn't care about their people, and didn't care about the environment around the plutonium production plants - thus they made no containment structures, and so they deliberately designed their plant so they could remain critical without water, and so they were surrounding a hot core with flamamble graphite (to enhance the fast neutron capture reactions in Pu, and so then they decided to operate their plant after deliberately removing the existing safeguards circuits to "test" the reactivity of the core. The result was a steam explosion that exposed the melted core to the graphite (carbon) and the open air around Chernobyl. Guess what - hot carbon burns! The fire (releasing smoke particles) was what really spread the radioactivity into the atmosphere. In the meantime, because the core was designed differently, as it melted parts did spread below the vessel and were eventually solified into the concrete below.

Thank you friendly local Communistic Party for that one.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), March 14, 1999.

Thank you Robert. I trust you and your knowledge, and you made very good sense to me. As bad as we might think our gov. is, we know it's not as bad as the Russians. No Chernobyle here, and I'm not going to worry about that any longer :-)

-- Chris (catsy@pond.com), March 14, 1999.