For 18 months, operators at the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant near San Luis Obispo didn’t realize that a system to pump water into one of their reactors during an emergency wasn’t working. It had been accidentally disabled by the plant’s own engineers, according to a report issued Thursday on the safety of nuclear reactors in the United States.
The report, from the Union of Concerned Scientists watchdog group, lists 14 recent “near misses” – instances in which serious problems at a plant required federal regulators to respond. The report criticizes both plant operators and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for allowing some known safety issues to fester. “The severe accidents at Three Mile Island in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986 occurred when a handful of known problems – aggravated by a few worker miscues – transformed fairly routine events into catastrophes,” the report notes. The problem at Diablo Canyon, which is owned by Pacific Gas and Electric Co., involved a series of valves that allow water to pour into one of the plant’s two reactors during emergencies, keeping the reactor from overheating.
The loss of water in a reactor can lead to at least a partial meltdown – a process believed to be under way at Japan’s stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant after last week’s earthquake and tsunami. Engineers at Diablo Canyon inadvertently created the problem while trying to solve another issue, according to the report. A pair of remotely operated valves in the emergency cooling system was taking too long to move from completely closed to completely open. So engineers shortened the distance between those two positions, according to the report.
Unfortunately, two other pairs of valves were interlocked with the first. They couldn’t open at all until the first pair opened all the way. No one noticed until the valves refused to open during a test in October 2009, 18 months after the engineers made the changes. “It was disabled, and they didn’t know it,” said Jane Swanson, spokeswoman for the Mothers for Peace anti-nuclear group, which frequently spars with federal regulators over Diablo Canyon. “That’s unforgivable, and it’s not that unusual.”
Well if no one will hire a an assistant for Homer Simpson, these things will continue to happen.
What we KNOW is that “to err is HUMAN” so ANY evaluation of Nuke Power has to include the consequences of meltdowns and leakage. so far, no matter how many “accidents” occur, our experts and leaders tell us it is safe. so, how many 50 mile diameter rings of uninhabitable earth are justified in our desire for cheap energy?
These melt downs don’t actually concern me that much–100’s of circles are manageable. Its the china syndrome that gets me wherein and entire water table system covering 1000’s of miles will be taken out poisoning fractions of continents.
Any who here says it won’t happen?
Just reported that Obama’s budget includes 54 Billion for Nuke. Don’t know what that means but how “affordable” would green energy be with that kind of welfare?
Big oil, Big Nuke, Big Coal==see any similarity? Yes, they are all BIG. BIG,BIG,BIG==Meaning large centralized capital that is not economically competitive without corporate welfare.
Green: decentralized==not so prime for corporate greed and political corruption. Thats the ONLY reason we aren’t energy self sufficient right now.
And the beat goes on.
#2. Happening already.
Tokyo water sample shows radioactive iodine: government
http://reuters.com/article/2011/03/19/us-japan-water-idUSTRE72I29J20110319
Good find McCullough: we don’t need a Radioactive Cloud overhead when it seeps below our feet.
Love the talking heads on tv and Obamagod/actual experts who talk with absolute surety about the safety of Nuke. How much credibility do these fools have?
None in my book. I can discuss/consider tradeoffs/risk with someone who is honest. Very few honest people when it comes to money.
completely related: watched the documentary on Harlan Country Coal Strikes of the 1970’s where the rich/government/police/church were united against the working man.
Nothing changes.
Near miss? So there indeed was a “hit”?
Tokyo must use surface water. Aquifer water moves fairly slowly. Years to travel a mile.
Seems very early for contamination to be showing up at the tap. Unless there is a lot of it.
Ah Yea–nice spin. Now–what would the effect be of a China Syndrom into a water aquifer?
Ha, ha. Yes, Nuke is entirely “safe.” but come to think of it, weren’t those pilots who tombstoned chernobyl dead within a few weeks/months yet “Nuke has never killed anyone?” course that doesn’t count the 100’s killed in the mining operations or the 1000’s in the concentrated tail drainage.
Just how hostile to common sense are you Ay Hea? Tell us the skull and cross bones are just friendly mascots?
Stupid hoomans. another tidbit on Harlan County: “There is no connection between breathing coal dust and getting Black Lung Disease.” Swear to god, it was Oh Yeps grandfather!!!!
Ha, ha. Worse than a tool.
#6–Bubba Hope Yea==I guess WHO is just a progressive shill for Obama?
http://who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs303/en/index.html
Lots of death and sickness.
Skull and Crossbones==totally safe.
A lot of very, very old nuclear power plants are still being operated without suitable government scrutiny of safety and maintenance. The very worst that could happen now would be to put the military in charge of operating them. Then they become invisible.
#6. No matter how hard you try, you’re never gonna get a date with Annie the Tranny.
No one noticed until the valves refused to open during a test…
Why we run tests.
A good reason to not try to run Nuke plants on the cheap. BTW, the USN has a very long and {reasonably} good track record for running nuke power plants, since I’m Ex-USAF, I’m no lover of the Navy, nevertheless, give the devil his due.
Does this all mean that Humans should not design, build and operate Nuclear power plants because Humans are inherantly unreliable?
That goes for everything. You pay’s your money and you take your chances. I suppose we could just go back to the stone age, but I wouldn’t trust my neighbor with a stone axe. Personnaly I would rather have a Navy run nuke power plant than a PG&E plant.
in #8 WmDE said: Aquifer water moves fairly slowly. Years to travel a mile.
That’s true in lots of places, except Japan where hot springs (onsen) are everywhere.
Its like with Old Faithful in Wyoming.
Japan does not really have large aquifers like those under the ground in the US and Canada.
They should build nuke plants a half a mile or so under the cities where they are required.
That takes care of them:
• attracting unwanted attention, (nuclear terrorism,)
• incident response (you just have to take the elevator)
• running out of coolant (build holding tanks above the reactor
• radiation dispersal (none of that happened with the underground tests,)
• expropriation (there is none, no MIMBY here, no neighbors either)
• no size issues (you need a fuckin’ big hole, you dig a fuckin’ big hole. You need lots of fuckin’ big holes, you dig lots of fuckin; big holes, one per reactor. None of this 6 reactors in one spot crap, lots of neutron absorbing dirt between each of them.)
While discussing alternatives, take a look at
the true cost of Britain’s clean, green wind power experiment from dailymail.co.uk
http://bit.ly/hQs9H8
Bobbo, McCullough, and WmDE concerning aquifer vs surface water. From the Tokyo Waterworks website .pdf
I would say the source of “1.5 becquerals per kg of iodine 131, well below the tolerable limit for food and drink of 300 becquerals per kg” was almost certainly from airborne contamination, rather than the China Syndrome Bobbo referred to.
Here is some more of the article from SFGate, home of the San Francisco Chronicle:
In an emergency, Diablo Canyon operators still could have opened the valves manually.
They could also have used a separate system of pumps to inject water into the reactor, PG&E spokesman Kory Raftery said.
Okay so once they knew they had a problem how long did it take to fix? Three days and there was a safety issue. 5 minutes and you need to stick a sock in it rather than wasting time trying to scare people.
Oh noes! -we’re all gonna die!
-NOTHING has changed.
You will find dozens if not hundreds of “shocking” reports like this for every friggin industry on the planet..
BIG DEAL.
If you have no clue on the basic function, as well as the pros and cons of nuke power in this day and age, -STOP.
-Do not ever read news blurbs like these, because they are custom tailored to get ignorant knee-jerks like you all riled and lined up behind the same manipulative bastards *that you have allowed* to turn you
to into an ignorant puke in the first place.
Nuke power, while rather useful at this point and having an overall good record of safety when designed and maintained properly, is probably the dumbest energy source we’ve cooked up, -ever.
Alone, -the waste product it produces is ludicrous, especially when compared to all other common energy sources we use today.
-never mind all the other happy horse-shit arguments made about it.
The issue with the spent fuel rods in japan makes this quite obvious in the extreme.
Personally, i think it’s friggen absurd that we go through all the trouble to split atoms at just the right rate -and waste this “wonder of high technology” just so we can [strong]boil f’n water[/strong] to run rather archaic technology that was invented in the late 1600’s or so. (the steam turbine)
This is the best we can come up with in 2011?
We re-discovered resonant energy in the late 1800 to early 1900’s and promptly buried it under the guise of national security and/or academic quakery if only because it would mean the end of centralized control of energy (making us all truly energy independent and “off the grid” in the process) -and of course the main reason, it would be too cheap to meter, if not meter-less outright. -a big no no on a for-profit only planet with an energy mafia to boot.
Being energy independent in our “modern” era will continue to be against the law on this planet until the entire populous demands otherwise.
-get use to it or do something about it.
That said, arguing over what energy source is better is a moot point and a distraction until you come to terms with above and then, gather up a billion or so of your best lemmings and have them demand that all the suppressed energy technologies be released to the public to finally put an end this energy charade we have all been suckered into believing for a century or three.
Again, all other arguments are pointless and moot until this one issue is addressed (for real) and resolved.
If you cannot be arsed to do the research yourself, so YOU yourself can determine what is real and what is not, -on any issue, let alone energy, then do us all a favour:
-sit down, stfu and neuter yourself.
-s
Now,
-for those who like to stay informed and play along at home, a national (USA) “Radiation Network” has been put online so you can contribute (and/or) follow our high-tech radiation cloud across the USA.
come, join in on the fun here: http://radiationnetwork.com/
-s
lastly:
I have saved a copy of the above
radiation map as it appeared
on March 18th, 2011, just before the cloud made landfall, to provide a baseline to compare
current levels with.
as you can see, levels have already risen a tad, -clear across to chicago..
http://soundwash.net/cpm/20110318_GGFTPMap.jpg
Got Milk?
-2
I think its a testament to the brainwashing that the media and the pro-nuclear pundits push on us when they manage to “Move the Goalposts” on Nuclear Safety.
There’s a radioactive steam release in Japan, its not a problem.
There’s a multiple building explosion in Japan that exposes the reactors and stored fuel pools to the sky…again its very minor
There’s fires in reactors, the cores are exposed, radiation levels are so intense that helicopters flying overhead are dosed. What are you KIDDING? Thats nothing, old news.
Reactors 1 and 4 both have major cracks in containment, Japanese authorities are flooding reactors day & night with seawater, the radioactive overspill flowing everywhere. You’re just a wuss, a little radioactivity won’t hurt you.
Cesium-131 detected in drinking water 100 miles away, food contaminated, an aircraft carrier offshore covered in fallout. You’re just an anti-nuclear treehugger, that stuff will dissipate!
Obviously the corporate press and the worshippers of nuclear power don’t want us to really consider the seriousness of this crisis, because they’re dismissing every new failure and telling us its cool. Even Obama is granting new multi-billion dollar loans for nuclear power.
I can guarantee you if 2 coal plants exploded, they would be shutting down dozens of them for “safety reviews”. The coal industry just doesn’t have the army of religious worshippers that Nuclear does.
Ah yes, now we will start hearing from all the “concerned scientists” who want the U.S. to stop using nuclear power, citing all these supposed problems, near misses, and near catastrophes that have been going on for years and have been “hidden from the public”. Oooooooooo. When in reality all this shows is that the regulatory process does work, albeit sometimes slowly because of too few inspectors, etc. But then again the Republicans want to cut the number of inspectors or get rid of the inspection process itself as part of the effort to balance the budget. Let the market take care of it, if there is a meltdown and millions are killed, so be it, then the “market” will decide if regulation is a good idea.
The market already has decided Nukes are a no-go. Only corruption, with spin as you vomit out, keeps it going.
What probably happened was that they retired or laid off the original engineers who knew how the water values interconnected. And not being as concerned about thorough training, as saving a buck. They hired new power plant engineers, who hadn’t a clue about the designs. Either that, or it was some undocument design change, made by the plant’s construction contractor. And they just never bothered to tell anyone about it. I seem to remember another “glitch” they uncovered back in 1981, at this very same plant. The some of the seismic support blueprints were reversed between the two reactors. And additional support had to be gerry-rigged in. Delaying plant operation for another three years, and costing PG&E $3 billion. Ronald Reagan ordered the EPA to give the company $2.5 billion in federal loans. The plant site is locationed 2½ miles offshore from the Hosgri fault.
So…. why would we ever think anything else could possible go wrong there? Oops, it did. Those pesky emergency water values. Now the plant IS perfectly safe, right? At least until the next screw-up is uncovered.
The German government shut down several of its oldest nuclear reactors, to give them a thorough going over. But in the US, plenty of aging reactor plants, continue to operate without any such inspections planned, ever! And I understand many such sites have simply had their operational life extended a decade or more. More as the result of politics, than from engineering expertise. IOWs “rubber stamped” several more profitable years of service from them. Without significantly overhauling them.
Even the latest wishy-washy US President, seem reluctant to interfere in Nuclear Plant finance and politics. He won’t delay the construction of four more plants. The way he only temporarily delayed new Oil Wells in the Gulf of Mexico. And probably shelved requiring any new safety regulations of their construction and operation.
So I suspect the US will learn nothing from the Japanese plant disaster. Because dollars speak louder than common sense. And all the government officials have private jets standing by to carry them and their families to safety, somewhere, like maybe Antarctica. Why do you think they maintain facilities down there?
#6, Ah Yeah,
I was with you and agree with your assessment. The only problem is you didn’t have to lie.
Chernobyl had 30 workers die right off the bat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_disaster
Another source says 57 people died immediately.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Assessing_the_disaster.27s_effects_on_human_health
Most people though received low to very low (if any) doses of radiation. It is estimated that 4,000 contracted thyroid cancer (very easily treatable with 95%+ survival) in the immediate 600,000 nearby civilians and about another 5,000 cases in the 5,000,000 greater area. (IAEA, too many links and the spam filter kicks in)
Yes, properly run nuclear CAN be safe. BUT the difference is, large, absolute numbers grab our attention much more than small, spread out numbers. (for example, one person shooting 20 people gets a lot more attention than 4800 people being shot accidentally by their or a parent’s gun) People are worried about the Japanese reactors because the 100 that might be killed in a total meltdown is more dramatic than the 10,000 that drowned in the tsunami.
The real issue is that semi-conscious apes (us) are in charge of the single deadliest substance ever refined.
What could possibly go wrong, will.
Quick! Blame it on those nasty cigarette smokers!