Well, this is a contractor problem and not necessarily a design problem.

It is a well known fact that, unfortunately, there are some contractors who will do just about anything to save a buck. Sometimes this means inferior materials; inferior practices; and sometimes this leads to problems, and sometimes disasters. I'm not making excuses here just because I favor nuclear power--I favor safe nuclear power and I feel that when it comes to nuclear installations, the NRC should be the all powerful god of a contractor's universe!

An example of a well known engineering disaster is the walk way that collapsed at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri on July 17, 1981 that killed 114 people. A nice write up is available at:
http://www.glendale-h.schools.nsw.edu.au/faculty_pages/ind_arts_web/bridgeweb/Hyatt_page.htm

Anyways, the cause of the disaster was an unauthorized contractor-modificiation of the basic design which originally called for single segment long steel rods to be used to suspend the three level bridge structure. But because the single segment rods were expensive, the contractor decided to use less expensive three sectioned rods. The brackets holding the rods together were not designed to support the loads inflicted upon them--and three years after the structure was built--it collapsed. This is an example of a contractor modifying a validated design--without the primary structural engineer's approval--with horrifying consequences. The nuclear industry, I am confident, probably has similar examples. What is needed is an NRC and a DOE that aggressively inspects and validates a design before and during construction, and provides very severe penalties to contractors that attempt to stray from accepted engineering practices. Because, as you are already aware, the stakes are higher and the consequences for an engineering mistake are greater. So I would agree that substitution of non-approved parts, assemblies, and maintenance practices are a violation that should be investigated and if necessary require punative measures. However, this is not necessarily a fault of the original designer or basic theory of operation.



-- Edited by GoogleNaut at 09:36, 2005-10-01

I have never worked in or for the US DOE, but I have six years of US Naval Nuclear experience and 23 years of commercial nuclear power experience. Based on that experience, I can assure the reader that what an anonymous author wrote below is basically correct (he did write some embellishments and take some literary license, but basically, he is indeed correct):

-----

Now for the reality environmentalists have missed. In the code of Federal Regulations, part 10CFR50, a strict quality control regime is mandated from years before day 1 for all nuclear fueled power plants. Before ground can be broken, a "Safety Analysis Report" must be written, actively describing, in technical detail, just how each & every nut, bolt, faucet & light bulb within the plant will contribute to the safety of the general public. This report is not a "capsule" report, it is huge, and it contains the actual blueprints, the actual mathematical calculations that are, in fact, used to build the plant. This report is harshly scrutinized several times over, and changes suggested by NRC, until the "FSAR" (Final Safety Analysis Report) is written, and a preliminary license given. At this point, and this point only, ground is broken, and construction may begin.

So the basic design, in minute detail, of the plant has already satisfied the NRC in every way long before any plant can exist. In no other industry does this process occur. In the building trades, codes and inspectors are often an afterthought, dealt with evasively, or by payoffs. Nowhere is a detailed several thousand page description of the intended work scrutinized by knowledgeable Government engineers, and changed, and changed again and again, until perfected, all beforehand! Environmentalists omit this fact from their myth--that the "Goodness" is guaranteed. It is built in.

But reality goes much further. 10CFR50 mandates an active quality program, containing demonstrated controls against any tampering, experimentation, or inexpert repairs. So the internal business practices of nuclear plants are unlike any others, anywhere. Nobody can do ANY WORK AT ALL until that work is subjected to minutely detailed planning by experts. This makes it expensive. No other industry would bother with it, and would just "Wing It". Environmentalists omit this, and act as if the NRC should hide in the hallways, just waiting for Homer Simpson to break a faucet, or use the wrong screw. In fact a large Quality Assurance and Quality Control crew read every single work plan, and stops each job over & over again at mandatory "hold" points, inspecting each weld, each connection, AS THE CRAFTSMEN DO THE WORK , never allowing the usual room for sloppy work, and ordering it re-done if it falls short. This level of "In-Your-Face" surveillance is something no member of the public could ever get away with, with some craftsman they had hired, and THIS is where the harsh scrutiny desired by environmentalists occurs. The last thing environmentalists miss, and the most important, is the culture. There is an intense culture of self improvement actively in play and basic to the employee life at every nuclear plant.

NRC has mandated internal communication of suggestions by way of a "Corrective Action" system, open to all, free of any retaliation, open to NRC itself, and the active promotion , by management, of 100% participation in this at all times.

So the critiques that environmentalists want to make inexpertly, from far away, with no actual knowledge, are actually made internally, by all the workers and engineers, from close up, every day, with full knowledge, and with capable teams on hand to implement the suggestions. Industry-trained experts process these suggestions, and act as NRC's "hidden hands" in making all work kosher, and each solution is then graded, as to quality & usability, and so as to never backslide, the improvements are then written into the FSAR, to remain forever a new and higher standard for keeping the license.

Nobody has ever seen anything like this. It is like a high-tech Tony Robbins or Weight Watchers improvement course. Only it is not temporary. It is permanent. And the weight lost is never gained back. So NRC has succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of any other agency. Under NRC guidance, the industry has internalized the best available practices. Under NRC each plant has improved itself over time, until today, these plants put out twice the electricity they did 20 years ago, at no further cost, with no pollution, no foreign entanglements, no noise, no smoke, no ash piles, no coal trains, no oil refineries, no disruptive oil or gas pipelines to hurt wildlife, and the best is yet to come.

If this is being "industry friendly", then so be it. Corrupt it is not. The very process itself is instead penicillin for corruption. It is the environmentalists’ skewed fantasy of evildoers and inquisitors that is corrupt. Maybe that's what environmentalism is like; inside, I don't know.

-----

Safety is job #1 at the nuclearv power plant where I work. That is due in large measure to the US NRC. It is also due in part to the principle that without placing safety first, there can be no profit. 4000 dead early one morning in Bhopal, India (http://www.american.edu/TED/bhopal.htm) some two decades ago and 400,000 injured for life testifies that the chemical industry should emulate the example of the commercial nuclear power industry (US and Canadian and French).

But people disseminating Pu-238 phobias are interested only in whatever noteriety their 'whistleblowing' may give their names.

How many people did the DB RPV hole kill or injure?

ZERO!

How many people did TMI kill or injure?

ZERO!

How many people does biomass burning in 3rd world countries kill?

TWO MILLION PER YEAR EVERY YEAR!

No wind - no wind power.

No sunlight - no solar power.

Renewable energy for baseload supply is a joke. We either have to burn fossil fuel (and kill members of our own species as a result) or use nuclear power. No option, no choice.

Except for the Greenies who work for the suicide of their own race.

Howdy,

    Yes, Jaro, your point on the heat exchanger is technically true, but my main point was about the seismic brackets on the primary cooling system. The DOE is stating this is the only perfect reactor at DOE, so we must cluster pu-238 production around it. While about 10% of the release of Chernobyl (or 7 % according to you), the loss of the uninspectable primary piping, that may already have exterioir cracks, will not be pretty, nor small, nor inconsequential to pregnant women and children.

    Here is what the 2000 DOE EIS states about ATR loss of primary coolant system, which could happen in an earthquake, or terrorist attack... It's a fact, as you requested, "No BS from SG." 

 

    Section I.1.1.1.2 Severe Reactor Accident, Table I-4 ATR Large-Break Loss-of-Coolant Accident Source Term (page I-7) “Core Inventory (curies)” radioactive iodine-131 released would be  6 x 10 6   ( 6 million curies). The total for all iodine species is 58.1 million curies

     OPPPS.... and that does NOT include the pu-238 released, nor Cs, nor... 

Yada yada yada, Jaro, but the DOE admits a core release from ATR would release 6 million curies of I-131, and millions more curies of other radionuclides. That is about 10% of the I-131 released from Chernobyl, and not recommended for pregnant women nor children. That is short impact compared to the pu-238 that would be released for your rush to put a man on mars.

   That 6 million curie I-131 release does not show up on the DOE shiny brochures, nor your responses...

   Oh yah, as for terrorist target of bigger bang benefits, DOE plans to build at least 3 full size commercial nuclear power plants in Idaho, (for starters). They plan to move all nuclear material here to their Complex 21 nuclear supersite. We will have more than that 6 million curies of I-131 to release on the USA.

    The main point is that the DOE swore at all hearings in July, that ATR was safe and perfect. The DOE celebrated ATR's grand 40th birthday, bragging on it's beauty. All, just one month after finding seismic security bolts in this sturdy rock had FALLEN TO THE FLOOR. 

     No BS, just shedding light on "truth, justice, and the American Way"...

  I got my Yada Yada Yada degree at the University of Jerry Seinfeld, (YYY PhD, what's with that?). Piled High and Deep with a major in Humor Helps...

   I have heard that even a carpenter can whisper words of wisdom, still true thousands of years later, but feel free to dismiss logic with ridicule. But, for da record, as a podiatrist, I am a DPM, or Doctor of Podiatric Medicine. With that I can do bone and joint surgery on the foot, and dispense narcotics etc. that also means I use radioactive materials, like x-rays, and bone scans. So I do sorta know my isotopes from my ... well, after 17 years of investigation of DOE documents, I can make their scientists and speech teams cry from the humiliation and documentation I bring to the public forums. I have had crowds of their own scientists laughing at their speakers lame responses. So what's your point now?

   You ignore the DOE admission of a potential 6 million curie release from ATR of I-131, while you cofidently attempt to divert the discussion to this lame claim...

10kBq Jaro - "Being water-moderated, the ATR has a negative thermal reactivity coefficient. As such, it is incapable of a Chernobyl-type explosion."

    Hence, yada, yada, yada, 6 million curies of I-131 dude!

Gosh Imprimap,

    I agree with your condemnation of the medical professions. One of my favorite speech lines is "The nuclear salesmen/politicians use the word 'safe', like no doctors are allowed to use it. Human error is unavoidable, despite even the best of intentions. Doctors make mistakes ALL the time, but we can only kill one person at a time. The nuclear businesses can cause thousands of cancers, hundreds of miles away."

   But then you get this laughable idea that as a doctor, my use of x-rays and bone scans has nothing nuclear about it. HMMM...

    You state, "Neither x-rays nor bone scans are radioactive materials. Additionally, x-rays used for medical purposes are not generated by radioactive materials. See the following web page:

http://science.howstuffworks.com/question18.htm  "

    Gosh and Golly, that is both ignorant and arrogant. Double indemnity, Imprimap! I will turn the other cheek...but let me loosen my belt first to get my cheeks ready to flash

      I post the NRC webpage below to help you get a grip that I do not BS. You have refered to a grade school "howstuffworks" website.

    Please understand, unless an x-ray is needed to save the life of a pregnant women, NO X-rays nor radioactive bone scans would ever be administered.

 

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/med-use-radioisotopes-bg.html    Medical use of radioactive materials falls broadly into two categories: diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. Diagnostic procedures using radioactive materials, such as those used in nuclear medicine, involve the use of relatively small amounts of radioactive materials to facilitate imaging of certain organs. Two examples of nuclear medicine procedures are the use of technetium-99m in the diagnosis of bone, heart or other organs and radioactive iodine in the imaging of the thyroid gland. The radioactive materials typically are injected into the patient and allow physicians to locate and identify tumors, size anomalies, or other physiological or functional organ problems.   The radioactive materials used in medical applications are either byproduct material (nuclear material produced in a reactor), accelerator produced nuclear material, or radiation-producing machines such as x-ray machines.

 

Impishmind's source simplistically draws an analogy to camera's and misleadingly states...

An X-ray machine is essentially a camera. Instead of visible light, however, it uses X-rays to expose the film.

X-rays are like light in that they are electromagnetic waves, but they are more energetic so they can penetrate many materials to varying degrees. When the X-rays hit the film, they expose it just as light would. Since bone, fat, muscle, tumors and other masses all absorb X-rays at different levels, the image on the film lets you see different (distinct) structures inside the body because of the different levels of exposure on the film.

    

-- Edited by stungun at 21:42, 2005-10-02

(1) The doctor stated: "that also means I use radioactive materials, like x-rays, and bone scans" X-rays are electromagnetic waves given off by x-ray machines, not radioactive sources, nor radioactive material. Bone scans are medical procedures performed to diagnose bone condition, not radioactive sources (though those may be used for such scans), nor radioactive materials (which is what a source is).

Radioactive materials are those which emit energy in the form of waves or particles. These include alpha, beta, gamma and neutron. Alpha, beta and neutron are particles, gamma are higher frequency EM waves. X-rays occupy the EM spectrum at a lower frequency that gammas. X-rays are given off when electrons change orbit around an atom's nucleus in an x-ray machine; in radioactive decay the nucleus gives off a gamma, such as a radioactive source which is radioactive material.

(2) It is likely that since it takes only 6 ounces of water or so to drown a human, that a swimming pool contains enough water to kill every man, woman and child on the face of the Earth. How many people has the ATR killed? NONE! How many people have swimming pools killed? 1000s!

Please stop your stupid dispute and look at the very clear definitions in Wikipedia:

Definition of X-Ray
definition of bone scan

Thus, you were both right and both wrong.

I am very disappointed to the lack of response to my last comment. It seemed to me that we were trying to discuss serious things.

-- Edited by Philipum at 07:29, 2005-10-04

stungun wrote:

---

Despite my using the NRC website for reference, you flat earth style your denial, still claiming,
"Xrays are electromagnetic waves given off by x-ray machines, not radioactive sources, nor radioactive material. "

---

But,indeed, in the X-Ray article in Wikipedia, we can read:
Hard X-rays overlap the range of "long"-wavelength (lower energy) gamma rays, however the distinction between the two terms depends on the source of the radiation, not its wavelength: X-ray photons are generated by energetic electron processes, gamma rays by transitions within atomic nuclei
It seems to me to be a good definition. An thus, you were wrong when you claimed that X-rays had anything to do with radioactive decay.

Now concerning the earthquake. I have never experieced hard earthquakes, but still all I can imagine is that it might provoque a leakage of radioactive material. It is very different from dispersing radioactive material as a dust cloud carried by the wind: the material in question, as I understand it, would either be in solid or in liquid form and would stay in the ground. Eventually, it will migrate slowly through the ground some few kilometers: this is a calculation to be made dependently of the site by geochemists. Iodine is quite volatile, maybe you can enlighten me on this point: can it escape as a gas? But Cs and Pu, definitively, will not go long. Especially Pu, which is an element that gets stuck on everything.

Dear Mr Stungun,

 

I am curious as to your position on this. Is it;

 

a)      The use of Pu238 RTG’s for deep space missions presents hazards for people on Earth and we should be using (Insert chosen power source here) instead!

or

 

b)      Even if Pu238 RTG’s are the only available power source for deep space  missions we should not use them because of the potential hazards, even if this means not carrying out any deep space missions-Ever!

 

Now, if your position is (a) then I may well end up agreeing with you (subject to whatever the technology of your choice may be! I have my own ideas for alternatives-but you may not like them either!  )

 

If your position is (b) then we are unlikely to ever find any common ground!

 

Dusty

Hi Dusty,

   I just saw your post and question, after answering the others. Yes, count me down as answer A !

a)      The use of Pu238 RTG’s for deep space missions presents hazards for people on Earth and we should be using solar power, like ESA' Rosetta, and NASA's Deep Space 1, instead! Hydrogen fuel cells have my permission for use as well.

   We have engineering work to do on HEPA filters , that MAY prove to be unable to ever contain alpha emitters that can knock themselves loose from filters, and re-enter the outgoing airflow.  My documented complaints are why the NAS recommended "emission free treatments" were needed for their TRU management research needs report, that I reference in another posted subject.

  I expected better from you Jaro, but are you really defending Impy's claim that podiatrists do not use nuclear materials when using x-rays and bone scans? Surely this is beneath you as a man of science.

   My point is that I am not "anti-nuclear" , I use and APPRECIATE nuclear materials daily.

   While the pu-238 pacemakers WERE used, that is obselete now. Not mentioned in this reference is that pu-238 emits neutrons, and I prefer lithium, as does modern medicine afficianados...

 

http://www.ipej.org/0404/mallela.htm

 

Indian Pacing Electrophysiol. J.

ISSN 0972-6292

Indian Pacing Electrophysiol. J. 2004;

"Nuclear power sources became obsolete with the development of lithium batteries."

            Nuclear batteries were tried successfully for some period. Practical nuclear batteries use plutonium (238Pu). It has a half-life of 87 years so the output degrades only by 11% in 10 years1,7. However it is highly toxic and 1µg in the blood stream could be fatal. Early pacemakers used metallic plutonium where as later ones used ceramic plutonium oxide. The plutonium emits alpha particles, which impact upon the container and generate heat. Thermopiles of dissimilar p- or n-doped bismuth telluride generate the electricity for the pacemaker circuits. Though these nuclear power sources had very long life, they were large and created problems when travelling between states and countries due to the presence of their radioactive fuel. They also must be removed at the time of death and returned for proper disposal. Nuclear powered pacemakers are no longer sold7 but still a small number of implanted nuclear devices that remain in use. Nuclear power sources became obsolete with the development of lithium batteries.

 

-- Edited by stungun at 06:56, 2005-10-05

stungun wrote:

---

The use of Pu238 RTG’s for deep space missions presents hazards for people on Earth and we should be using solar power, like ESA' Rosetta, and NASA's Deep Space 1, instead! Hydrogen fuel cells have my permission for use as well.

---

Just a comment on that: we are talking about deep space missions. This means far away from the sun, and extra mass (like hydrogen ar any type of fuel) is not desirable. I do not claim that RTGs are always the best choice (Rosetta and Deep Space 1 are good examples of alternatives) but I would not like to abandon them, they can be extremely useful at the level of the Jupiter orbit and beyond, where extra power is especially important to send the information back to Earth (see Cassini for example).

-- Edited by Philipum at 08:10, 2005-10-05