Monday, March 14, 2011

Dummies Guide to Nuclear Plant Accidents

This is much of what I thought already.   Perhaps the point that they don't dwell on in this PDF is that what is trying to be controlled is a nuclear reaction- this is the normal day to day operation.  Once you get the thing going, it doesn't want to stop all on it's own, especially if you reduce the necessary cooling which it wants continously.   It is a reaction underway.   It will melt through the massive steel Reactor Vessel, in a matter of hours if out of control. 

Dummies Guide to Nuclear Accidents

There are "Control Rods" that are used to control the rate of the nuclear reaction, and in theory, if they are inserted all the way into the uranium rod bundles, they will stop the reaction completely.  However, without cooling water flowing during this shutdown process it won't shutdown.  

http://science.howstuffworks.com/nuclear-power3.htm

And here is a pretty cool video from CNN.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2011/03/14/dnt.japan.reactor.explainer.nhk?hpt=C2

You know, these plants are always right by the water, and there are tall structures everywhere.   Why not put the diesel generators that drive the cooling water pumps on the roof?    Seems like a no-brainer actually.    Hmmm...earthquake....tsunami, they go hand in hand.   What is the extra cost involved in putting the diesel generators out of harms way?

And how about a final backup plan....big pumps powered by diesel directly, capable of pumping enough water to fill the entire reactor building, even if there is a 2' hole in the building, and keep it full enough that the reaction shuts down before the diesel tank runs dry.   

For the future, think and research on Thorium, a better way than uranium.   Safer, more abundant.

3 comments:

  1. Excellent point above about why not put the back up gennie on the roof top or at least a few stories up. Duh. This is a big deal for GE, it may break them ultimately. 20 year charts shows GE in classic down channel. GE could crash down to $12 level this week by my spook math. I have engineer brothers in my family that could have figured this out, don't you think GE might be massively liable for the design prob? I think they will need to be saved by the govt partners ultimately.

    Funny thing. All six of the reactors in this region with trouble are GE designs. I am watching MSNBC news commietators (owned by GE) yesterday and you know what I hear from them - just caught out of corner of my hearing - something about Westinghouse having potential problems in the nuke game. No kidding.

    I did check some crash math and I would advise no one to try and catch a rebound this week. We could "collapse" right thru the weekeend. Today and tomorrow should be the worst of it. I'll be looking to close shorts late Friday and prep to go long Monday into March 9/10.

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  2. I guess we're gonna find out if 'Japan' is just another name for a black swan with a fat tail.....

    Hey steveo! I hope this finds you well. Drop me a line when you have a chance as I have something off-topic I'd like to chat about:

    tomofthenorth at yahoo dot com

    Cheers!

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  3. Hye Long time tomofthenorth! Good to see you back.

    ReplyDelete

Insightful and Useful Comment!