Will they , should they, shut down the Nukes? Updated Opinions?

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Electric Utilities and Y2K : One Thread

Put on your guessing hats. I want to know what you think of the rumour that ALL of the Nukes will shut down for Y2K. I've heard it more than once now and I'm starting to think that it makes good sense. It was around this forum a while back (Rick, I have taken your advice. I ran the search and read a blizzard of postings on this, so I have read the background info) but the rumor seems to be making a comeback. I'm interested to get peoples' opinions as to where we stand right now on this issue. As to my personal opinion, I'd like to see them all shut down until they can be certified "Y2K Compliant". And yes, I realize the implications to that statement.

Item 1 is the rumor itself http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-post-new.tcl?topic=Electric%20Utilities%20and%20Y2K

Item 2 Is the story of how Chernobyl occurred during a test to see if the core could be cooled using backup generators during an electrical grid failure: Here's an excerpt from a Chernobyl website: Events leading to the accident (IA86, IA86a) The Unit 4 reactor was to be shutdown for routine maintenance on 25 April 1986. It was decided to take advantage of this shutdown to determine whether, in the event of a loss of station power, the slowing turbine could provide enough electrical power to operate the emergency equipment and the core cooling water circulating pumps, until the diesel emergency power supply became operative. The aim of this test was to determine whether cooling of the core could continue to be ensured in the event of a loss of power.

This type of test had been run during a previous shut-down period, but the results had been inconclusive, so it was decided to repeat it. Unfortunately, this test, which was considered essentially to concern the non-nuclear part of the power plant, was carried out without a proper exchange of information and co-ordination between the team in charge of the test and the personnel in charge of the operation and safety of the nuclear reactor. Therefore, inadequate safety precautions were included in the test programme and the operating personnel were not alerted to the nuclear safety implications of the electrical test and its potential danger.

Item 3 A disturbing interview for a webzine with a Nuclear Y2K "consultant". (PS-I can't verify anything related to this nimrod, but if it's true, then it's pretty scary)

Name: Matthew Bochneak, 21 Gig: Y2K computer consultant for nuclear power plants. Education: I didn't go to college and, well, my high school education is a little sketchy. During high school I had a little run-in with the law because of some shady computer stuff I was involved with, and things turned a kinda ugly -- I got kicked out of my house and out of school. The Feds came to my house one morning, and so my mother knocked on my door, woke me up, "This is Agent whatever from the Secret Service." That's when I got thrown out of my house. I wasn't on the run or anything but they had my girlfriend's phone line tapped and my friend's lines tapped.

Previous Jobs: I would literally work 20 hours a day setting up Internet Service Providers. I would sleep there, get up and work more -- and I made $300 a week. That was awesome, it was incredible money for me. I was working full time, every waking moment.

In terms of non computer jobs, I did 12 hour shifts of data entry a while back. It destroyed me, I lasted three weeks. I typed library cards for 12 hours a day. All the people there were pretty much Iron Maiden-listening trailer moms.

Labor: I ran the Y2K project and I do other consulting work for the monitoring facilities at the nuclear sites in Chicago and northern Illinois. I don't have a lot of time for fun. Basically I wake up and go to work. I get home and work more. And then I go and sing Karaoke on Wednesdays -- that's my life.

In general, though, Y2K work is pretty straightforward, it's all logical stuff. Most of these companies are just building a lot of hype when it's not really necessary.

No one seemed to mind that a I was pretty much running the whole thing, or at least they didn't seem to have any kind of choice. But if most Americans heard about the fact that some 20-year-old kid was fixing their nuclear power plants they probably wouldn't be too happy about it. Then again, most of them can't open up Microsoft Word.

Method: There's nuclear facilities all over the state. So we would drive from plant to plant on this little nuclear road trip. And all the power plants are in the middle of corn fields, in the middle of nowhere. If you get lost, you just drive toward the giant cloud of steam.

It's a lot of fun. We found that there were almost a thousand applications that this company was running that hadn't been tested or no one was aware existed because they had been installed a decade ago. And so they were an essential part of how the computer functioned but no one knew how to work them exactly. Some of these computers were the main computers monitoring the power plants.

The work was definitely intense. We would have to take the site down. The risk was very real, because -- I can't remember the exact figures, but something like -- if one of their monitoring facilities goes down for more than 12 hours then they have to take all their reactors down, which costs a lot of money. And then they can't just start it up again, it takes months to get it running again. So if we had screwed up, bad things would have happened.

Cash: We're just doing a million different things now. Soon there's going to be an incredible amount of money coming in and we're going to have to figure out what to do with it.

Inspiration: Inspiration: The work can get kind of repetitive. But the Mountain Dew and nicotine get me through. And then outside of work... I just bought a car, just bought a condo -- that's a lot of the inspiration right now.

Computer games are good too. Me and my friends, we'll have nerd out. People will bring 10 computers over to my place and we'll play Starcraft for 24 hours straight. And then there's the "X-Files" and "Simpsons" night. After watching TV we usually geek out and play Magic.

Personally, I was homeless for six months. So I guess making money has spoiled me a little. But I went through some spoiled rich kid's hard times. I don't know if you've talked to a lot of hackers, but most of them think they're the shit, because they're making more than their dads. It's pretty unfortunate.

Highlights: The scariest part was when we would go into the nuclear site we would have to put on hard hats and wear a dosimeter and we would go into the main room, and there was this box with a big red button that would turn the reactor off, and anybody could have touched it.

There was also this animal preserve right around a power plant, it was overrun with geese. So the preserve hired a hunting club and a bunch of people from the area to shoot the geese, including some people that worked in the plant. And I got to see some guy who worked at the plant, in his cubicle, with a rifle. No one seemed to mind that the guy had brought a gun to work.

The people I work with, they're all 40, and they talk about beer and snowmobiles, and I'm just like, "cool, whatever." It's a little weird to be working with people twice my age. But some of them are really cool and eccentric. I get to work with a lot of crazy people, they're super old and have beards and double Ph.D.'s.

The Down Side: When we were on site, we had to have escorts at all times. They would have to come into the bathroom with us. And if you wanted to be taken on full time you had to have a three day psych evaluation. I didn't take it though. I was like, "I don't have time, and you can watch me go to the bathroom if you want to."

Parting Shot: Y2K is really not that big of an issue. The date stamp might be wrong, but it's really not a huge deal. The main problem is the humans that are going and buying too much granola. And yes, I want to be far away on New Year's 2000, somewhere away from people, but it's mostly because I'm just worried about people going crazy.

Name: Matthew Bochneak, 21 Gig: Y2K computer consultant for nuclear power plants. Education: I didn't go to college and, well, my high school education is a little sketchy. During high school I had a little run-in with the law because of some shady computer stuff I was involved with, and things turned a kinda ugly -- I got kicked out of my house and out of school. The Feds came to my house one morning, and so my mother knocked on my door, woke me up, "This is Agent whatever from the Secret Service." That's when I got thrown out of my house. I wasn't on the run or anything but they had my girlfriend's phone line tapped and my friend's lines tapped.

Previous Jobs: I would literally work 20 hours a day setting up Internet Service Providers. I would sleep there, get up and work more -- and I made $300 a week. That was awesome, it was incredible money for me. I was working full time, every waking moment.

In terms of non computer jobs, I did 12 hour shifts of data entry a while back. It destroyed me, I lasted three weeks. I typed library cards for 12 hours a day. All the people there were pretty much Iron Maiden-listening trailer moms.

Labor: I ran the Y2K project and I do other consulting work for the monitoring facilities at the nuclear sites in Chicago and northern Illinois. I don't have a lot of time for fun. Basically I wake up and go to work. I get home and work more. And then I go and sing Karaoke on Wednesdays -- that's my life.

In general, though, Y2K work is pretty straightforward, it's all logical stuff. Most of these companies are just building a lot of hype when it's not really necessary.

No one seemed to mind that a I was pretty much running the whole thing, or at least they didn't seem to have any kind of choice. But if most Americans heard about the fact that some 20-year-old kid was fixing their nuclear power plants they probably wouldn't be too happy about it. Then again, most of them can't open up Microsoft Word.

Method: There's nuclear facilities all over the state. So we would drive from plant to plant on this little nuclear road trip. And all the power plants are in the middle of corn fields, in the middle of nowhere. If you get lost, you just drive toward the giant cloud of steam.

It's a lot of fun. We found that there were almost a thousand applications that this company was running that hadn't been tested or no one was aware existed because they had been installed a decade ago. And so they were an essential part of how the computer functioned but no one knew how to work them exactly. Some of these computers were the main computers monitoring the power plants.

The work was definitely intense. We would have to take the site down. The risk was very real, because -- I can't remember the exact figures, but something like -- if one of their monitoring facilities goes down for more than 12 hours then they have to take all their reactors down, which costs a lot of money. And then they can't just start it up again, it takes months to get it running again. So if we had screwed up, bad things would have happened.

Cash: We're just doing a million different things now. Soon there's going to be an incredible amount of money coming in and we're going to have to figure out what to do with it.

Inspiration: Inspiration: The work can get kind of repetitive. But the Mountain Dew and nicotine get me through. And then outside of work... I just bought a car, just bought a condo -- that's a lot of the inspiration right now.

Computer games are good too. Me and my friends, we'll have nerd out. People will bring 10 computers over to my place and we'll play Starcraft for 24 hours straight. And then there's the "X-Files" and "Simpsons" night. After watching TV we usually geek out and play Magic.

Personally, I was homeless for six months. So I guess making money has spoiled me a little. But I went through some spoiled rich kid's hard times. I don't know if you've talked to a lot of hackers, but most of them think they're the shit, because they're making more than their dads. It's pretty unfortunate.

Highlights: The scariest part was when we would go into the nuclear site we would have to put on hard hats and wear a dosimeter and we would go into the main room, and there was this box with a big red button that would turn the reactor off, and anybody could have touched it.

There was also this animal preserve right around a power plant, it was overrun with geese. So the preserve hired a hunting club and a bunch of people from the area to shoot the geese, including some people that worked in the plant. And I got to see some guy who worked at the plant, in his cubicle, with a rifle. No one seemed to mind that the guy had brought a gun to work.

The people I work with, they're all 40, and they talk about beer and snowmobiles, and I'm just like, "cool, whatever." It's a little weird to be working with people twice my age. But some of them are really cool and eccentric. I get to work with a lot of crazy people, they're super old and have beards and double Ph.D.'s.

The Down Side: When we were on site, we had to have escorts at all times. They would have to come into the bathroom with us. And if you wanted to be taken on full time you had to have a three day psych evaluation. I didn't take it though. I was like, "I don't have time, and you can watch me go to the bathroom if you want to."

Parting Shot: Y2K is really not that big of an issue. The date stamp might be wrong, but it's really not a huge deal. The main problem is the humans that are going and buying too much granola. And yes, I want to be far away on New Year's 2000, somewhere away from people, but it's mostly because I'm just worried about people going crazy.

-- Anonymous, May 28, 1999

Answers

Sorry that I double posted the interview, that was a mistake. Also, I've had a couple of emails asking where I got my information.

The interview with the consultant came from the Yahoo 2000 link to a webzine called Feed. http://www.feedmag.com/bottomfeeders/bf218.html

The Chernobyl info came from the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency http://www.nea.fr/html/rp/chernobyl/c01.html

-- Anonymous, May 29, 1999


Will the NRC shut down all the U.S. nuclear generating plants? No. Will they shut down any of them? Very doubtful, but could happen with one or two.

Having all possible generating capacity online is part of NERC's "Defense in Depth" strategy. No problems found to date in nuclear "safety" systems which would prevent them from shutting down in the event of other problems = keep 'em online for the rollover.

That's my opinion, Jim, for whatever it's worth.

-- Anonymous, May 29, 1999


Bonnie,

While I agree that NERC wants to have all available generating resources online, it's not their decision to make.

From my reading of the past threads on the subject, what it comes down to is that if the grid were to go down, the nukes will require diesel fuel for some undetermined amount of time to keep the cooling pools from boiling off. How much diesel they need, and how long they need to keep the water flowing seems to be a mystery.

Jon

-- Anonymous, May 29, 1999


You seem to be quite sound in your teachings in technology, industry, education, and quite versed in the ways of skilled society. I don't however think that you tell the truth because of what you seen or do. Instead I think you tell the truth because of your seeming innocence to what the date makes for some others. You call it "Y2k" or thus, and say

-- Anonymous, June 07, 1999

You seem to be quite sound in your teachings in technology, industry, education, and quite versed in the ways of skilled society. I don't however think that you tell the truth because of what you seen or do. Instead I think you tell the truth because of your seeming innocence to what the date makes for some others. You call it "Y2k" or thus, and say its' really not a big problem, but it is. I would like to know more on your findings, this could benefit me a lot in my FIELD.

-- Anonymous, June 07, 1999


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