Here's an excellent, balenced article on nuclear power and Y2k. It's interesting that much of the article is based on discussions with PG&E personnel who are running the Y2k program at Diablo Canyon, particularly in light of the information contained in the previous thread on PG&E.

Click here for the link.

http://www.fresnobee.com/voicescol1/story/0,1652,74056,00.html

-- Anonymous, April 06, 1999

Answers

This is really scary, two reasons -

1. 42" containment walls, most plants do not have that great a thickness. I know of 12" and 18".

2. Couple the problems at 3 mile island and peach bottom with the previous post:

C&D Battery Monitors - embedded systems that fail (1999-04-05)

Rick, do you know where we can get the potassium iodide pills that the NRC recommends?

-- Anonymous, April 06, 1999

I wouldn't worry about the potassium iodide tablets. Eat a diet rich in iodine -- iodized salt, for example; seaweed, if you lean that way. The Chernobyl area saw an increase in thyroid cancer -- but the local diet is typically quite poor in iodine. By contrast, Hiroshima and Nagasaki saw next to nothing in the way of thyroid cancer, because the Japanese thyroid is already iodine-loaded.

KI is expensive, compared to normal dietary items; also, it's not to be taken on a daily basis for any length of time -- 3-10 days. You want to start taking them right at the start of exposure; within 1-3 hours of it for at least a 50% blocking or more. So you'd have to know within hours that a nuclear accident had occurred, nearby, before you started popping tablets. If you didn't get the news for a day or two, you'd be too late for serious iodine blocking. But if you routinely ate an iodine-rich diet, you'd be good to go whatever happened (at least as far as thyroid cancer is concerned; KI has no impact on any other form of cancer or radiation sickness).

Roleigh Martin's site has two articles pro & con potassium iodide; I think they are from last spring or early summer.

-- Anonymous, April 07, 1999

Rick,

Indeed an excellent, balanced article on nuclear power and Y2k, but not scary.

Is it worth to take a little more risk and test the plant online for July 1 ?

-- Anonymous, April 08, 1999

And here's the crux of the Diablo Canyon's y2k problems, quoted from the article:

"In fact, Groff and others say, record-keeping accounts for the largest share of the plant's Y2K issues."

As in all the plants I have info from thus far, the date stamping (minor date errors) is primarily what is being found and fixed, to ensure proper dates are obtained for record keeping and data archival.

No suprises here, just more substantiation that the risk to the electric industry from y2k in embedded systems was never very significant.

Regards,

-- Anonymous, April 12, 1999