14,000,000 Potassium Iodide Pills Purchased by DHHS

[mitchntx]

Recent design PWRs AND BWRs are both safe because they are housed inside containment structures. Feet thick reinforced concrete structure.

The BWRs in question in Japan were housed in simple metal buildings.

The simple answer at Fukishima is if the plant manager had vented the hydrogen from inside the metal structure, the event would have been manageable. The sister plants nearby (20kilometers) DID vent the hydrogen and they are intact today.
By the time he realized venting was necessary, crews couldn't reach the manually operated valves.

When the hydrogen explosion occurred (what was witnessed on TV), it took out most of the infrastructure needed to prevent over-heating the core.


Chernobyl, by design, had the plant running at power moderating the power levels with graphite.
Think of the gas pedal on your car and if you let off the spring tension, it accelerates.
Only design of it's kind that I know of. It was developed to make weapons grade plutonium IIRC.

Couple that with some unauthorized testing and bam ...


Realize, the background radiation at 20 kilometers of Fukishima is about the same as the granite mountains in Connecticut. Dose is dose and it takes A LOT of acute exposure (multiple REM) to cause problems in adults.


I'm very passionate about this subject and apologize if I come across harsh.

 

[azkcr]

What about within 5miles?
(Sorry. I realize this could be a researchable question.
I just don't know where to look/trust a Google source. Lol)

 

[breakingcontact]

Are electric companies even pursuing any new plants in the US? I know they have added reactors in existing plants but no new plants in 30+ years have been built.

Im surprised it wasnt an industry standard from the beginning to have multiple layers of containment.

You mentioned the failure to vent hydrogen gas early enough. It seems that in each incident its a critical human error after critical physical incidents occur that lead to radiation release.

Also what do you know about krypton gas being vented periodically at plants?

Apologies to the OP for thread drift but it is related. Here ill stay on topic. Potassium iodide!

 

[Shotgun Jeremy]

Lawn mowers also work with the "pedal up equals go" method. Depress the pedal to stop, allow spring pressure to bring it up and it takes off.

Just thought that was important info.

 

[breakingcontact]

Lawn mowers also work with the "pedal up equals go" method. Depress the pedal to stop, allow spring pressure to bring it up and it takes off.

Just thought that was important info.

I need to read up on that. I thought at Chernobyl they tried to drop the graphite rods but they melted going in.

 

[mitchntx]

Are electric companies even pursuing any new plants in the US? I know they have added reactors in existing plants but no new plants in 30+ years have been built.

Im surprised it wasnt an industry standard from the beginning to have multiple layers of containment.

You mentioned the failure to vent hydrogen gas early enough. It seems that in each incident its a critical human error after critical physical incidents occur that lead to radiation release.

Also what do you know about krypton gas being vented periodically at plants?

Apologies to the OP for thread drift but it is related. Here ill stay on topic. Potassium iodide!

In a regulated environment, companies can secure 30 billion dollar financing because in a regulated environment utilities are guaranteed a profit by the rate payers.

Texas is unregulated and only peaking units have come on-line in the last couple years. No base-load units are under construction as far as I know.

There were four nukes slated for the two Texas based nukes, both backed by Japanese manufacturers. Not now for obvious reasons and the projects are moth-balled.

30% of Texas power is through renewable energy, mostly wind. But when the wind doesn't blow, nuke/coal/gas/peaking has to be available. The rolling reserve has been slowly eroding on the Texas grid for the last 15 years. It's becoming serious with nothing on the horizon.

Remember the rolling brown outs that plagued north Texas a few years ago? A crane took a dump while taking off from atop a 345KV power line, shorted across and took out switch yards like fuses blowing all the way up the line. That's how serious it is ... a bird taking a shit can brown out north Texas.


Most nukes built beginning in the 60s have containment structures.


In the US human thinking is still promoted, but highly evolved procedures and automation has mitigated the "human effect". Shit still happens, but not to catastrophic levels. A person has to be WAY outside the box to screw up.

The Japanese event was cultural ... bosses make decisions and minions don't question decisions. The sister plant that weathered the event, the plant manager disregarded orders and vented the hydrogen.


Any release is within EPA limits. I don't know if anything is released. I do know the venting system has multiple sampling and alarms.

 

[mitchntx]

Nevermind ... beyond my knowledge.

 

[Shotgun Jeremy]

I need to read up on that. I thought at Chernobyl they tried to drop the graphite rods but they melted going in.

They did, but then I was down at the cooler talking to Jeff and was like "Damn Jeff-you know what we should try? Platinum rods." Next thing ya know, I'm the VP of operations. I saved it all, man. All because of my lawnmower. WHICH I ride to work and park in my VP of OP parking spot every day. I got the latest model. It's the John Deer Platinum.

 

[azkcr]

Spent an hour reading about Chernobyl.
Wow.... Just wow....
So many regulations were disregarded. The attempted cover up was impressive... lol

 

[breakingcontact]

Spent an hour reading about Chernobyl.
Wow.... Just wow....
So many regulations were disregarded. The attempted cover up was impressive... lol

That's why I brought up a lot of the things I did in this thread. So many folks don't understand how regular power production works, let alone nuclear and haven't heard of many of extreme events that have happened.

Read about the USSR and US sub accidents if you haven't. Very interesting as well.

USSR was an ecological disaster. Just no regard for it or most of the population.

 

[breakingcontact]

mitchntx mentioned the brown outs. I heard today that we almost had rolling blackouts due to the cold.

I'm surprised more power companies don't have more natural gas units that kick on during peak consumption.

 

[azkcr]

I watched the massive power lines be built that tied in the wind farms up here in the panhandle to North TX and Houston. It "should" help with the power issues.

Most problems are because Texas is on/supplies the smaller of the 3 power grids that cover America. They don't tie them all together because it would require all power to be shut off for ~20minutes.
Something like that.... lol

 

[breakingcontact]

I believe the big wind generators are 1-1.5 MW max. 1 nuke plant (1 reactor) is around 1 GW and i think coal plants put out a few hundred MW each.

Good friend of mine was in hydro power business so i know more about that than other types of production.

 

[Vaquero]

Big wind turbines are 3MW, the majority are 1.5MW.
Some are 1MW.

The 3 grids operate independently due to phase angles being out of sequence with each other.
A venture called Tres Amigas is planning a monstrous grid tie to bring ercot, swpp and the eastern grids together.
It will require converting ac to dc then back to ac. Lofty pursuit. Likely won't happen.

 

[breakingcontact]

Nuke plants around the world.

I read that China is building a bunch of plants. It is strange and im sure it in part has to do with public fear but some countries are moving towards nuke power and some away from it.

 

[Shotgun Jeremy]

I've always wanted to buy a house with texas limestone all the way around, and install solar panels on the roof. Maybe one or two at first, and then another couple every year or so. Are solar panels worth it? I think it would be cool if I could eventually go off the power-grid and be self sufficient. I was even thinking about having a windmill keep charge on a set of batteries to run the house at night and during storms.

Is it as easy as it sounds?

 

[azkcr]

This weekend it felt like turbines were making +100gw each. +50mph wind at 5*F made hunting miserable.
But I digress...

Being around pantex (the nuclear weapons disassembly plant), I've seen/heard how much has been recovered.
Why can't they convert them to power production?
Weapons grade vs reactor grade???

 

[Vaquero]

I've always wanted to buy a house with texas limestone all the way around, and install solar panels on the roof. Maybe one or two at first, and then another couple every year or so. Are solar panels worth it? I think it would be cool if I could eventually go off the power-grid and be self sufficient. I was even thinking about having a windmill keep charge on a set of batteries to run the house at night and during storms.

Is it as easy as it sounds?

Easy? Yes.
Cost effective? No.

If the price of electricity remains the same, you'd pay out and break even in about 30 years.
Plus you'd likely have to give up air conditioning.

I ran a lot of numbers. I like solar and wind on a small scale in remote areas. Just going off grid full time is a major commitment of lifestyle and money.

 

[azkcr]

I've always wanted to buy a house with texas limestone all the way around, and install solar panels on the roof. Maybe one or two at first, and then another couple every year or so. Are solar panels worth it? I think it would be cool if I could eventually go off the power-grid and be self sufficient. I was even thinking about having a windmill keep charge on a set of batteries to run the house at night and during storms.

Is it as easy as it sounds?

Anything is easy with enough $.
But my neighbors have a personal wind turbine and it produces enough from the wind here that they regularly sell their surplus electricity back to the energy company.
I've dealt with solar. It's decent but expensive.
Both systems require batteries.
Batteries require servicing.

I think it'd be the (o)(o) to go off the grid....

 

[breakingcontact]

This weekend it felt like turbines were making +100gw each. +50mph wind at 5*F made hunting miserable.
But I digress...

Being around pantex (the nuclear weapons disassembly plant), I've seen/heard how much has been recovered.
Why can't they convert them to power production?
Weapons grade vs reactor grade???

I believe the U238 and plutonium are by products of power generation. I think chemically what makes them good for bombs makes them bad for power production.