the show seems to take no stance positive or negative regarding nuclear power IMO. and i assume they did this intentionally. i think we can safely move on from the goofy politics derail.
The first chapter or two I felt like I was trapped in a nuclear engineering class - everything was flying way over my head. But then I was able to settle in and follow very well.Teddy Perkins said:
The book is referenced a lot in the Podcast. Sounds like a good place to dig deeper into some first hand accounts.
I believe ***ushima was a US design.cbr said:
I believe us reactors are all 'fail safe' designs - if you do nothing it shuts down instead of melting down or blowing up.
Yes, General Electric. ***ushima is just another example of ignoring safety warnings. The ***ushima reactors went into automatic shutdown due to the earthquake as designed. The problem was the emergency power generators running the pumps to cool the decay heat were destroyed by the tsunami. TEPCO was warned about this vulnerability 20 years prior to the accident and ignored it.Joseph Parrish said:I believe ***ushima was a US design.cbr said:
I believe us reactors are all 'fail safe' designs - if you do nothing it shuts down instead of melting down or blowing up.
cbr said:
I believe us reactors are all 'fail safe' designs - if you do nothing it shuts down instead of melting down or blowing up.
Joseph Parrish said:I believe ***ushima was a US design.cbr said:
I believe us reactors are all 'fail safe' designs - if you do nothing it shuts down instead of melting down or blowing up.
Good point.BBRex said:
You could say the same about trench warfare in World War I, D-Day, or the Marine landings in the Pacific Campaign. And the loss of life was much greater at any of those than Chernobyl. War may be a bad comparison, but in a true nuclear emergency, I think the military would be the likely responders.
DG-Ag said:
The way the powers-that-be view their people as nothing more than raw materials is what's truly chilling.
dlance said:Yes, General Electric. ***ushima is just another example of ignoring safety warnings. The ***ushima reactors went into automatic shutdown due to the earthquake as designed. The problem was the emergency power generators running the pumps to cool the decay heat were destroyed by the tsunami. TEPCO was warned about this vulnerability 20 years prior to the accident and ignored it.Joseph Parrish said:I believe ***ushima was a US design.cbr said:
I believe us reactors are all 'fail safe' designs - if you do nothing it shuts down instead of melting down or blowing up.
schmendeler said:
What would power the turbine pumps?
schmendeler said:
What would power the turbine pumps?
Shelton98 said:schmendeler said:
What would power the turbine pumps?
The steam the reactor was still generating. You wouldn't be able to shut it all the way down, but might keep it manageable.
dlance said:Shelton98 said:schmendeler said:
What would power the turbine pumps?
The steam the reactor was still generating. You wouldn't be able to shut it all the way down, but might keep it manageable.
The fail safe is for the reactor to shut down. There is no electricity being produced which is what runs the pump. If the steam could run it alone you'd have the holy grail of energy production.
Quote:
Emily Watson first appears as Soviet nuclear physicist Ulana Khomyuk in Chernobyl's second episode, "Please Remain Calm", but Khomyuk is one of the few main characters in the miniseries to not be based on a real person. Instead, Khomyuk is an amalgamation of all the nuclear physicists and scientists who worked to mitigate the Chernobyl disaster. And Khomyuk's purpose in HBO's Chernobyl is to make sure the truth comes to light.
BBRex said:
As I understand it, when you turn the thing off, there's enough residual heat for the core to break itself without cooling, but there's not enough heat to power a turbine.
Shelton98 said:dlance said:Yes, General Electric. ***ushima is just another example of ignoring safety warnings. The ***ushima reactors went into automatic shutdown due to the earthquake as designed. The problem was the emergency power generators running the pumps to cool the decay heat were destroyed by the tsunami. TEPCO was warned about this vulnerability 20 years prior to the accident and ignored it.Joseph Parrish said:I believe ***ushima was a US design.cbr said:
I believe us reactors are all 'fail safe' designs - if you do nothing it shuts down instead of melting down or blowing up.
Seems like turbine driven back up pumps might have worked better in that particular situation.
dlance said:Shelton98 said:schmendeler said:
What would power the turbine pumps?
The steam the reactor was still generating. You wouldn't be able to shut it all the way down, but might keep it manageable.
The fail safe is for the reactor to shut down. There is no electricity being produced which is what runs the pump. If the steam could run it alone you'd have the holy grail of energy production.
The water circulation pumps are all electric. When the reactor is SCRAM'd (which they were due to the earthquake) the turbines get isolated and the steam vents off into the suppression pool. This is a safety feature. Then the emergency systems kick in which are run by the generators which, along with a lot of the battery backups and the electrical switching equipment, were destroyed by the 43' tsunami.Shelton98 said:BBRex said:
As I understand it, when you turn the thing off, there's enough residual heat for the core to break itself without cooling, but there's not enough heat to power a turbine.
There's probably not enough heat to run the big turbine on the generator, but their should be plenty of heat to run a few BFW pumps.
basically don't build a nuke plant in an earthquake zone if you can't afford all the safety features.dlance said:The water circulation pumps are all electric. When the reactor is SCRAM'd (which they were due to the earthquake) the turbines get isolated and the steam vents off into the suppression pool. This is a safety feature. Then the emergency systems kick in which are run by the generators which, along with a lot of the battery backups and the electrical switching equipment, were destroyed by the 43' tsunami.Shelton98 said:BBRex said:
As I understand it, when you turn the thing off, there's enough residual heat for the core to break itself without cooling, but there's not enough heat to power a turbine.
There's probably not enough heat to run the big turbine on the generator, but their should be plenty of heat to run a few BFW pumps.
Here is a good paper describing the entirety of how a BWR works.
https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/documents/nuclear_power/bwr-intro.pdf
The earthquake didn't destroy the reactor safety systems. By your logic, don't build a nuke plant anywhere because there is always something that can cause it to fail.ham98 said:basically don't build a nuke plant in an earthquake zone if you can't afford all the safety features.dlance said:The water circulation pumps are all electric. When the reactor is SCRAM'd (which they were due to the earthquake) the turbines get isolated and the steam vents off into the suppression pool. This is a safety feature. Then the emergency systems kick in which are run by the generators which, along with a lot of the battery backups and the electrical switching equipment, were destroyed by the 43' tsunami.Shelton98 said:BBRex said:
As I understand it, when you turn the thing off, there's enough residual heat for the core to break itself without cooling, but there's not enough heat to power a turbine.
There's probably not enough heat to run the big turbine on the generator, but their should be plenty of heat to run a few BFW pumps.
Here is a good paper describing the entirety of how a BWR works.
https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/documents/nuclear_power/bwr-intro.pdf
Indeed they could have. My point earlier to anti-Sheldon is that, as built, those reactors were ****ed when the tsunami popped up.ham98 said:
there were safety improvements recommended that they ignored. It was preventable even in that situation. I am a big fan of nuke power as the future method of reducing air pollution. It's the only viable green energy solution we have.