worst case scenarios

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the gao is recommending worst case scenarios become public knowledge. how many power companies have released these statements?

this from the tmi alert

http://www.tmia.com/Y2K.htm

this is why i say that the gamble is not worth the consequences. this is just one nuclear facility. take this scenario and times it by the current count... 103 nuclear plants across our country. we have 103 chances that something major will go wrong. all we need is one fiasco.

the preponderance of these plants are in the northeast quadrant...the area with one of the largest population densities in the united states.

electrical grid failure causes reactor scram emergency diesel generators at the nuclear plant fail

electrical grid or diesels are not restored rapidly

batteries which power the control room are depleted

operators lose control of the reactor(s)

spent fuel pools begin to boil dry

radiological releases or meltdowns occur no sirens to warn the citizens poor or weakened communications

poor or severe weather conditions make evacuating difficult (snow or ice storm)

one-hundred-thousand dead and dying

trillions of dollars lost land unviable for decades

now ask yourself, what are the chances? and remember these are uncharted waters... we have never had a y2k. we don't know what will happen... no one does.

the nukes should be taken down for the rollover and brought back 3 or 4 at a time. the government should subsidize the nukes for their down time. the risks are far too great. we are risking everything that we have that nothing will go wrong.

_never in human history have so many humans blindly trusted that so many other humans won't screw up._

-- Anonymous, June 22, 1999

Answers

Did the two Chernobyl style reactors that were being built in Cuba ever go in line? What is their status?

-- Anonymous, June 22, 1999

Marianne, I have a very simple request:

Please stop discussing Three Mile Island. It has very little to do with Y2k.

Thank you.

-- Anonymous, June 23, 1999


a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link.

-- Anonymous, June 23, 1999

Dave, the International Nuclear Safety Center lists the status of Juragua1 and Juragua2 in Cuba as "suspended". They are also not mentioned on another list of nuclear facilities now under construction. My conclusion would be that the two units were never completed and nothing is being done with them now.

The nuclear unit in Puerto Rico was decomissioned many years ago, in the 60's.

If you're interested, there's a great world map of all nuclear facilities at:

http://www.insc.anl.gov/pwrmaps/map/world_map.html

-- Anonymous, June 23, 1999


Dan the Power Man must be a creature from some other planet. TMI has EVERYTHING to do with Y2K because its a brilliant example of the kind of cascading failures that can - and unfortunately - are quite LIKELY to occur given the nature of Y2K failures. Y2K is a unique event - but only as a CAUSE - not a consequence. We have plenty of examples of the consequences of failure, TMI, Chernoble, etc. Heck it was just a year or so ago that a couple of workers died at the Davis-Besse plant in Ohio. I still don't know why - the media didn't tell us much because Davis-Besse didn't say much either. Maybe it was just a fork lift accident, don't know - BUT THAT's JUST THE PROBLEM. We in the general public that care enough to ask questions - don't trust you power guys. We're not getting enough information, and so it's easy to assume the worst. Marianne's point is that it is indisputable that Y2K CAN cause failure of automated systems. Not saying WILL - saying CAN. Given that, we MUST examine the possible severity of the consequences of these failures in order to decide whether the risk of meltdown - caused not by Y2K per se, but human screw up in response to a Y2K complication - outweighs the benefits derived from keeping the nukes online. She says they don't, and so do I. Don't be a coward Dan, PROVE to us that Y2K cannot trigger another TMI - or worse - disaster, rather than beligerantly and irresponsibly trying to shut down a thread of discussion that is vitally important. And if you can't prove it, then sit on the sidelines and keep quiet.

-- Anonymous, June 23, 1999


Correction - I meant to say the risk of meltdown DOES outweigh the benefits of staying online. (Caught my own error before some other "agenda ridden" soul did).

-- Anonymous, June 23, 1999

Brian: We've never "met" online, so first off, hello there.

I think you missed my point. I politely made a request because there seemed to be a whole bunch of posts hashing and re-hashing TMI, none of which appeared to be directly related to Y2k. This was not an attempt to stifle discussion. I agree with you that there is plenty to discuss about nuclear power and Y2k, but I think TMI and Chernobyl don't have much to do with it. Both incidents happened long before the Y2k issue came to the forefront, and they are often used *not* to encourage discussion, but serve as a lightning rod for an emotional reaction. They can even cause people to accuse others of being a coward! [grin :-)]

I give a peace offering to you in this form: To me, what TMI teaches us about Y2k is that "latent failures" can be out there, and Y2k could expose those. Now, as I understand it (I have only worked tangentially with nuclear plants), the safety systems are all or almost all independent of dates. Anyone know any more about this last issue I mentioned?

-- Anonymous, June 23, 1999


those that don't know their history... are doomed to repeat it.

-- Anonymous, June 23, 1999

I feel very strongly that nuclear plants should be off line for roll over and then brought up one or few at a time. The risk is too great, be it people or computer problems. My questions are: Do we have an email address for the NRC? A snail mail address? And whatever happened to those survey/questions that we all downloaded, answered and mailed back to the NRC re our feelings about nuclear safety? I feel we need to bombard the NRC re shutting down over roll over. Better cold....than DEAD cold!!

Taz

-- Anonymous, June 24, 1999


Connecting the dots, (cont.)

Critical elements in the failures at TMI and Chernobyl were errors made by operating personnel under the stress of an emergency situation. If Y2K generates no emergencies, stress- related human errors present little risk.

On the other hand...

-- Anonymous, June 24, 1999



Reference Cuban nuclear plants. I have family in Florida and researched this problem several months ago. Though I have no references at this time, I found two confirmations, both from different sources, though I don't currently remember which, but I do remember not your source, that construction was stopped. They may have used your source. I don't know, but it put my mind at ease about them. The reason I remember which was cited was not y2k, but money from Russia, if I remember correctly..

-- Anonymous, June 25, 1999

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