We've been thinking a lot about Diablo Canyon lately, the California nuclear power plant built near more than one fault line that also operated without one of its emergency back-up pumps for more than a year.
The folks that run Diablo Canyon, Pacific Gas & Electric, are currently applying for a license renewal. But here's what's buried in most of the stories about the renewal process. Diablo Canyon is already licensed until 2024. That's another 13 years. Yet PG&E is pushing for a 20-year extension now.
Anyone besides local state senator Sam Blakeslee want to raise a red flag on that?
On the show last night: The amazing saga of human error at Diablo Canyon.
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I can't download trms podcast since monday. can someone fix it? :)
Podcast has been downloading fine for me.
RED FLAG!!!!!! RED FLAG!!!!! When children start forming three eyes and six toes because we are still playing with nuclear materials we can't seem to manage, I hope my time has already pass......
Of course! This is the United Corporate Regions of North America. There are people who get paid big bucks to plan and implement strategies like this. While the Corporate Press is focused on Charlie Sheen, Baby Bumps, Libya and Japan, we are going to see great losses of governance. I am 64 years old and there is absolutely no method I could employ to turn things around for me, my family, my community so that we return to Government Of, By and For the PEOPLE. So I have to focus on the day to day food, heat, shelter in a nearly completed Corporatist-Fascist regime.
How anyone can be surprised at the flood of insanity and hatred and exhaustion is a puzzle to me. The turning point, beyond which there remains no solution other than collapse, was The now obviously corrupt Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United. The amazing thing is that those Pundits and those who make a few tens of millions think they are among the bosses set free by that ruling. They don't realize they are NOT. They will swiftly become the new Middle Class. They will be invited to remain on TV and at positions of punditry but they will find they will slide down and become the next group who gets fleeced. For example, I can easily envision that after Social Security has been completely given to Wall St., the next strike will be to try to get more into the Wall St. Coffers. Thus the idea of raising the Cap will "gain Momentum" and it will be raised to $5,000,000! It will have to be because the lack of employed people paying in will mean less investments in Wall St. To make up for 18 million people who are broke, earn nothing or next to nothing, most of the presently "rich" millionires will have to make up the difference. They will find out then that they have no voice or clout when they go up against Billionaires. Hope I live just long enough to see Glenn Beck complain about the Koch Brothers "undue influence and godless agenda."
When are we, as citizens of this country, going to stop being so complacent, and stop allowing things like this from happening in our own backyard? We are allowing the same idea's and fundamentals, that, once upon a time made this beautiful country great, to grow into ugly, unchecked, untamed monsters; capitalism is going to kill us all. Hooray to the few with the dollars who are actually running the show, and to the politicians, who turn a blind eye to safety and public interest, who's pockets the line. Enough is enough. Small, peaceful revolutions are changing the world around us everyday. It's time the American public found it's voice, and used it.
In 1954 Lewis Strauss said nuclear power would be "too cheap to meter." Conservatives like to appeal to the pocket book and Americans fall for it over and over again. But their "solutions' always end up being much more expensive.
Diablo Canyon- the name says it all!
Another aspect that has not been reported is the risk to the food supply. In Japan we now have 4 prefectures I think under quarantine for ag products.
Diablo is upwind to some of the most bountiful ag land in the USA. CA is the number 1 ag state. Take broccoli for example, CA produces over 90% of all fresh broccoli consumed in the US. Much of that production happens within about 100 miles of Diablo. Greenfield in the Salinas Valley calls itself the Broccoli Capital of the World.
An accident at Diablo would cost Central CA billions in lost crops and would seriously impact the supply of fresh fruit, vegetables and nuts grown in the US.
The other huge impact to CA is in the water supply. CA gets a lot of its water from the snow pack in the Sierra. If that gets contaminated since it is downwind to Diablo the whole state losses its water supply.
The question is "can we afford to take this risk?" The dirty little secret is that no private insurance will touch nuclear and thanks to the Price Anderson Acts it is We the People who are "insuring" this risk. Shouldn't we have a say in how much risk we want to assume?
More stats. CA's top 4 Ag counties are Fresno, Tulare, Monterey and Kern and are within 100 miles of Diablo.
I can't insert links but google -- California Agricultural
Resource Directory 2010 – 2011 gets the report.
Some highlights:
"Fresno continued as the leading county with an agricultural
production value of $5.37 billion, a decrease
of 4.7 percent from the 2008 value. Tulare County
was second in value of production with $4.05 billion, a 19.4 percent decrease from 2008. Monterey had an increase of 5.4 percent in production to $4.03 billion, moving the county to third in value. Kern’s decrease of 10.6 percent dropped their value of agricultural production to $3.61 billion, fourth in value." Add Santa Barbara county at $1.2 billion and San Luis Obispo at $0.6 billion per year. This adds up to over $35 billion.
Oops. The 6 counties cited above produced $18 billion in 2009 which is 51% of the total farm production for all of CA of $34.8 billion.
In the do we have an alternative department.
I remember protesting the building of this plant years ago. They knew it was on at least one fault line but went ahead with the building of it anyway. Idiots and fools.
Issac Assimov wrote a joke... or a parable...
Gabriel comes to God with the name of a planet to be added to the list of "civilized worlds," saying "Earth has discovered nuclear energy. There's only one problem." [God began to write Earth into the list} "They're testing it on the planet." [God scratches Earth off the list.]
It is incomprehensible that the Federal, state and local governments approved this nuclear plant. I would surmise that money played a role in the decision because there is no other reasonable explanation.
You think Mike? Scary thing is the other nuclear plant in California,San Onofre, isn't situated any better. In fact worse it's next to Camp Pendelton!
Really good point at the end about the name "Diablo." It's actually kind of weird that people completely overlooked it.
What's really silly about all of this is that they're not requesting the plant be shut down when they are asking for a suspensions - they're asking that the re-licensing process be put on hold (suspended) until the analysis can be completed.
While I'm sure the costs of doing so are not trivial, it seems like a PR no brainer for the power company. They're not being asked to suddenly stop using the plant but to finish the analysis before continuing with the re-licensing process. By refusing they don't seem to be accomplishing anything except making people worry more and trust them even less.
well not for me since monday. i re-installed the podcast and it only downloaded last friday's show. Will try again......
try the manual download
This is absolutely ridiculous! Sometimes I wish I had gone to business school and became a CEO instead of becoming a Physicist. They really need people in there that are honest and consider safety. I guess if I would have gone to business school, I would be as big of a stupid idiot as the ones in charge are now. It's all about the money, power and greed. It is never about honesty, ethics, morality, and foresight of problems that may occur. It's about bonuses and retirement packages and living far away from the reactors these people built. It is time to re-invest in new energy sources other than fission or oil and maybe even coal. We can develop these new technologies, some of us are trying, we just do not have the resources at our disposal.
Many of us scientists have great ideas, but our ideas are not the kind that will make the rich richer. Our ideas cannot be controlled by a few big corporations.
Study fusion, it can be done in the small scale...nano scale. In the near future, it will be easier to make nanoscale fusion power devices than it is making very large scale reactors. This is what corporations do not want. Portable fusion reactors Small enough to power your car and as safe as a lithium battery. Just add water....that's the problem. Well, we also have the problem of idiots like war mongers who would stop at nothing to use this technology for evil purposes.
So, should we hold this technology back because of these types of people?
When the prototype is complete and functional, should we be selfish and not share it since it may mean the collapse of the oil economy?
Should we sell out and just be quiet?
All types of energy can be converted to electricity. No more fossil fuels. End of the middle east, end of the oil kings. Oil will still be used for polymers and many other products, but the price will fall through the floor. There will be war for control of this new and upcoming technology.
This technology can definitely be accomplished, the physical properties found in structures at the nano scale have just started to emerge. Thermodynamic, mechanical, electrical and magnetic properties can all be controlled. These structures follow natural design. They will literally self assemble when given the right environment (nano structures have already been made like this). Controlling the creation of these structures is the key.
There are those of us who are working on it and we will not stop until we succeed. But then what do we do with it?
Actually, when it comes to nuclear energy, CEO's of Insurance and investment companies appear to be smarter than many nuclear physicists and regulatory agencies. The US government (ie. taxpayers)both insure and guarantee the loans for nuclear plants. Nuclear energy companies will not even apply for a license unless the US govt will guarantee the loans and insure the plants, which happens at taxpayer risk. What a racket.
When you say "just add water" I assume that means you are thinking of one or more of the various hydrogen fusion cycles. I would hope then you are talking about hyrogen+boron fusion and not any of the other possible hydrogen fusion possibilities. Wouldn't want cars being powered by anything other than aneutronic fusion afterall.
The hydrogen (protium) + boron fusion does have the advantage of being useful in direct electric energy production since a significant fraction of the energy is imparted to charged particles. If that's the case though the challenge is not so much the conditions to create fusion but the durability and size of the apparatus used to capture that energy. I think you may be under-representing the challenge in doing this - on any scale. To say it is something we should work towards is one thing, but your use of "near future" could be a little misleading. Within our lifetimes? Sure. Within the next 20 years? As you said we are just beginning to understand a new form of material engineering that MAY facilitate this so probably not within the next 20 years.
Nanotechnology, magnetic metamaterials, and to a lesser extent fusion power should all receive far more research attention and funding than they currently do. The first two items are much more practical though since they have applications in things like solar power, energy storage, and grid technologies.
Interesting info, your right, what a racket. Nothing to lose, everything to gain. Thanks for the info, I will keep that in mind for future reference.
I guess we need to inspect these plants properly then, since they are all taxpayer backed. Looks like we need better people in our regulatory agency. Might as well replace the lot of them. Maybe it would be better for more than one group to do the inspections. In this way we could at least check the other inspectors to make sure they are doing their jobs right. Government and independent inspectors. At least 5 groups should be used, none of them related to the other and none of them must know each other personally. It is too bad people are easily bought out to cover up safety hazards and not expose the violations until it's too late.
Thanks for exposing this Rachel!
Thank You for your input Jacob. Of course, one would not want to produce large quantities of neutrons in the reaction as they are the most difficult to shield against. But, based on the calculations derived by my 2 colleagues, the magnetic fields I am talking about will interact with neutrons. (since they do have a magnetic moment of approx. −9.66 × 10(−27) J/T, now when we take the Hamiltonian, you can calculate the result when the B field is 6 × 10(7) T) If in the end, we can at least divert the neutrons created in the reaction, we may be able to collimate them. Now, this could be construed as a weapon technology at this point. I do not wish to discuss this part further as the direction is quite obvious. I do not want to see this technology used as a weapon technology in any way, shape or form. This is also a problem in fission reactors and our sun. Neutrons pass through us all the time, but collisions may take energy away (theory). Even in quantum theory (remember, it is all theory, in which quantum theory has some inherent problems and can be disputed) scientists are not 100% sure of everything. Quantum theory is a statistical representation of the subatomic world and our equations only come close to reality. So, there are no absolutes here. We could discuss this all day. Any nuclear physicist will agree, but some pompous physicists think they are all knowing, which is a very shaky ladder to stand on.
Remember this...just because it is published in a paper, it does not mean it is correct. Many papers from well known physicists have been disputed and PROVEN (theoretically) wrong. In fact, one of my colleagues is publishing a paper that contradicts the currently used information regarding sub atomic particles traveling at relativistic velocities. So, unless someone wants to talk about macroscopic physical events anything dealing in the realm of the sub atomic is only a probability and cannot be taken as concrete. I believe that we actually know very little in the area of quantum theory and that we are missing some very fundamental pieces that are eluding even the "so called" greatest minds. But, alas, egos will be hurt when these new prototypes are developed. Although, it will open new doors to understanding the sub atomic world.
Medical doctors.."Practice Medicine"...Scientists..."Experiment" and none of us knows everything.
Not about the Diablo Canyon plant but this was the most relevant thread on the first page; from NHK World English:
Nice piece, but the map wasn't even close... the Diablo Canyon plant is near San Luis Obispo, not Santa Cruz. That would only be 'close' if you were standing on the moon and squinting.
Nice observation, but it should not surprise you considering the rest of the half-truths presented in this story. Remember, this is a human person presenting this and is therefore subject to gross errors and misrepresentations... As she just proved.
This loss of sanity about nuclear power makes me believe that it will only be properly handled by people that aren't in it for a profit. I'd like to see the Navy take it over and develope really modern and efficient plants that use fast breeders buried in the desert somewhere....
There is one chance to fight out of this mess. Congressman Dennis Kusinich from Ohio is a leader with the balls and the experience to get this country back in the hands of the people
have much respect for Rachel's political analysis. I must however blast her and her producers for this hatchet job. The system in question that was "inoperable" is 1/2 of a redundant system used to scavenge iodine in the case of a leak. It is only initiated manually and would not be initiated until well into an event. The 4 other systems designed to keep water in the reactor, in the event of an accident, were not compromised in any way. Rachel in this piece implied that in case of an accident all safety systems would not have worked. That statement was completely inaccurate!!! I would also ask her and her crack research team to look up what "inoperable" means in nuclear power in relation to equipment availability. It has a very broad definition. I can mean anything from fully functional but not being able to take credit for it to it's in pieces for maintenance.
I think Rachel and her staff owe everyone an apology and a retraction for this piece.
Also Diablo Canyon is not any where near the San Andreas Fault. It's nearest point is at least 50 miles away in a town called Parkfield. Use a map folks. I realize those of you on the east coast don't realize how big CA is. But it basically runs from the northern border of Maryland to Atlanta. Look on a map folks.
@me-3241999, can you provide the LER number for the Diablo Canyon incident you describe? It sounds like you are describing inoperability of one train of the containment spray system, but the news report is insufficiently detailed for me to validate your opinion.
Inoperable means a system, subsystem or component (SSC) is unable to perform its design function. It is a precise term. Credit may be take in probabilistc risk assessment space for SSCs that are inoperable but available; however, that does not mean those SSCs would function as designed under design basis (or beyond design basis) conditions.
NRC.gov type in diablo canyon ler containment spray...easy
A piece of equipment may be inoperable but capable of performing its function. That is what I was trying to make. Plus one train of containment spray is adequate. The other point is that Rachel and her crack research staff said (at least how I understood what she said in the report) that all safety systems were in operable. RHR, Charging, and SI were in no way compromised. One valve with misaligned position switches will not render all the safety systems ineffective. That was a misinformed statement. It seemed to me that this was an attempt to use fear to promote a point. It is a frequent tactic Rachel uses against the Republicans over things like FISA and the Patriot Act. I agree with the previous statement. I am disappointed that she used the same tactic to stir the anti nuclear power pot.
When something is declared inoperable,yes, it can't be considered for risk assessments. Like I said above it could be inoperable but functional as was the case in this incident.
The report on the show was WRONG. Rachel implied that ALL safety systems were inoperable with this valve's position switches being misaligned. That is poor reporting. Not doing the research needed to make sure that you report the facts correctly. All safety systems have redundant trains independent of each other and are fully capable of handling a design basis accident.
Thank you. I found LER Diablo Canyon 2-2009-003-00 which appears to be the subject report. The summary of this report states:
That is actually quite a bit more concerning than simply having a single train of containment spray inoperable. The safety function would only have been available through manual operator action outside the control room. PG&E and Westinghouse performed a limited best estimate analysis of the condition and found local manual operator action would have been needed for a small break LOCA 5" and smaller. Fortunately, the operator action time required was greater than an hour and anticipated radiological conditions would not have precluded such action.
Based on the LER, I agree that Maddow's reporting was imprecise. It was based on an imprecise news report which was apparently based on a UCS communication.
However, this was a much bigger deal than you suggest. A design basis function was completely unavailable for an extended period of time, requiring local manual operator action for analyzed accident scenarios. For those scenarios, absent the operator action, all core cooling functions were indeed disabled following RWST depletion.
This was containment spray. It's purpose is to scavange Iodine using sodium hydroxide in the water in the event of a breach of the primary and a fuel assembly. That's two events. There are rings in the top of the containment that spray the water all over the inside of the containment. Again containment spray has nothing to do with injecting water into the reactor in the event of a leak. Another term there is long term cooling. In the event of an accident long term cooling won't be implemented until days after an incident. Long term cooling paths were compromised.
From the report: Unit 2 Cycle 15 specific analysis performed for a range of loss of coolant conditions found that the time to perform local manual operator actions was available. The analysis also verified that radiological
conditions at the local manual actuation locations would allow operator action.
Once again there was no compromise of the systems that are needed to mitigate the initial issues related to a LOCA (loss of coolant accident).
Operator action is taken into account in the design basis.
That is the problem with all current nuclear reactors. They all require operator action. If there is an event which incapacitates the crew during a prolonged power outage, every plant in the US would overheat, catch fire and blow up.
There is no failsafe mode which will bring the reactor to a cold shutdown and keep the spent fuel safe without operator action in the case of an extended power failure.
The defense of this by plant owners and the NRC is that the plants are safe because they meet all safety regs. Safely shutting down and maintaining a safe temperature and water level without operator action is "beyond the design basis. They aren't required to meet these safety issues because they were not designed to.
For example, at VT Yankee, they designed the backup cooling system to only be able to cool the fuel pool with a full hot reactor core if both legs of the cooling system are fully operational. Because the plant is not designed to cool it with one loop out of commission, they don't have to test if it could do it. It can't. In fact they even mention in the safety review that it can't, but that it is not within the design basis, and it is of small concern anyhow, because of the insignificant safety risk posed by the spent fuel pool. Surely #4 shows differently.
Just wanted to emphasize that this is true of all US reactors. Not so with all power reactor designs currently in operation and available. Well ok there's really only one design I can talk about which has actually been built - the EPR. The Union of Concerned Scientists has given it the stamp of not-dissaproval too. I wouldn't call it an outright endorsement because as "concerned" scientists they're not so much about cheer-leading as they are about pointing out how to improve things. What good is a watchdog group if it did anything less right? It is however as close to a ringing endorsement as they've ever given a fission power reactor design, in part because of the following passive (no operator presence or offsite power required) safety features:
Of course none of OUR current reactors can make those claims. Personally though I would consider replacing existing reactors with these as a significant improvement over the current situation though. I'm not suggesting this would be acceptable to those who would prefer absolutely no nuclear power, but consider where that goal has brought us. Rather than get rid of nuclear power plants to any significant degree, the principle achievement of the campaign (regardless of rightness of wrongness) to stop nuclear power in the US is that we now have - near as makes no difference - about the same number of reactors we did 20-30 years ago except they're all 20-30 years older and out of date.
It might not be a popular tack, but it might make sense to push for the construction of such designs as the EPR (along with better waste management strategy) on the condition that each new core brought online be matched by an older reactor being decommissioned. Might not be some people's ideal of a nuclear free zone in the US, but it would be a sight safer than what we have now and bridge the gap until renewable sources and grid technologies mature to become the economically and politically obvious ultimate replacement in a few decades (maybe less - fingers crossed). Oh and believe me, that is not something that most nuclear engineers doubt. All of my professors in undergraduate nuclear engineering (and graduate plasma physics - same department) said the future was almost certainly some combination of energy storage, solar power, wind power, and other renewable and maybe fusion. In the meantime though I would call that preferable to continuing to run old nuclear plants and increasing coal power generation (per TWh kills more people than any other source - even including the worst nuclear and hydroelectric disasters).
But yeah I do think these old designs have become... a bit long in the tooth to say the least.
Actually, spent fuel is at least as big an issue as containment safety. Spent fuel will be around alot longer than the reactors will.
I am not anti nuclear, I am pro safety, and pro free market. Nuclear funding is bass-ackward. Nuclear energy companies will not build any new plants unless taxpayers pick up the bill. Taxpayers insure the plants. Taxpayers subsidize the entire fuel cycle.
All the risk is on the people, and the rewards go to the industry. It is the most communist endeavor in the US. If you wanted to open just about any business you would not get approval unless you cold secure your own funding and insurance.
Without taxpayer subsidizes we would currently be almost entirely powered by coal with no nuclear, no solar, and very little wind power. The only energy source that would retain its market share in an incentive free marketplace would likely by hydroelectric. Per TWh, nuclear receives less government money than almost any other form of energy. Only coal and some very seldom used other fossile fuel sources receives less per TWh and it actually receives the same in total (if you consider both "clean coal" funding and a portion of the carbon sequestering funding.)
And it's not so much that they won't build new plants without taxpayers "footing the bill." They require loans. While this is taxpayer largess, utilities tend to be rather reliable investments. And yes that is all predicated on advancing the waste managment technologies. I should be more consistently clear about that - but yeah that should be a high priority. I forget to re-affirm that sometimes because I think its true regardless of whatever else we do. You could decommission every plant tomorrow and I'd still say "ok but let's still research a better technology for dealing with the waste than supreme patience and deep holes."
And yeah I've been harping on the spent fuel thing on here quite a bit. We have to deal with it regardless of any other choices we make.
@me-3241999, did you read the LER? It was the swap-over to long term recirculation cooling that was unavailable, not the containment spray system.
Please read the f*%king reference document before you comment on it. Swapover can be initiated within a day of initiation or less depending on the size of the break. Local manual operator action is not assumed in the design basis for mitigation of this event. It may be considered part of the licensing basis for non-design basis accidents, but not for LOCA mitigation.
^I do like knowing I'm not the only person out here who has read through this stuff. Granted, I did it a while back because I had to study it so I'm far rougher on some of the particulars.
Yeah you don't get "credit" for operator action for DBA analysis as far I as remember- as in you don't get to presume an operator did anything correct, though some DBA scenarios involve considering operator mistake. So the nominal operator action to be considered in scenarios besides those where specific mistakes are focuses of the DBA is that they don't do anything. If you're presuming operator action at all, then its because you're considering them making things worse or otherwise screwing up.
Beyond DBA scenarios are different - particular something like station blackout scenarios where the incensing requirements demand the tertiary backup be connect-able but not connected by default - to isolate it from potential common modes of failure that could simultaneously jeopardize multiple connected AC sources.
@Jacob, you can get "credit" for operator action to mitigate an accident (DBA) in the control room after a specific time has passed. But not local manual action. The NRC has a hard time with that even when there has not been an accident, i.e. fire scenarios under Appendix R.
@mightbeliberal I did read the ler. From my previous post: From the report: Unit 2 Cycle 15 specific analysis performed for a range of loss of coolant conditions found that the time to perform local manual operator actions was available. The analysis also verified that radiological
conditions at the local manual actuation locations would allow operator action. You need to read past the first page. Also look at the drawing included in the LER.
Long term recirc would have been available to RHR and not Charging and SI. However by that point the reactor would have depressurized to the point where pumps with a discharge head of 2500 psi and 1250 psi really aren't needed. Valves 8982 a/b would have opened. The open permissives s for 8804 a/b and 9003 a/b were not available. 9003 a/b are for spray. Also refer the the bold above.
Now was this a problem...yes. Was it as big a deal as the Union of Concerned Scientists think....no. It just fits their agenda. As with most things the more you really know about what happened you understand how much the media will blow things way out of proportion to get ratings or sell papers. Have you been intimately familiar with a news story? Think about what you know about the event and how it was reported. I have and I've seen some seriously bad fiction written in the paper. Once again my main point is that Rachel implied in her report that all safety systems were inoperable as a result of this valve. Wrong, wrong, wrong. If there had been an accident the whole place would have melted down before anyone could figure it out. Bull#$%t. Hysteria for the sake or ratings. Rachel's reporting up the that point had been pretty good about what was happening in Japan. Rational and informative. Very little sensationalism. Then this. I was very disappointed.
@Jacob Wisner: If the operators at TMI had just let the automatic safety systems do what they was designed to do there would have been no accident at TMI. The operators didn't believe/understand what they were seeing. The automatic systems were taking care of the problem. The operators kept turning off the pumps that were keeping the core covered.
Some accidents are analyzed for operator action. There are some things that there is no other way. Don't know any specifics off the top of my head. When I was a reactor operator in the navy there were 8 or so things that operator action was the first response. We had far fewer automatic controls than a commercial nuclear reactor.
@me-3241999, I read the entire LER. Several times. And compared the included drawing to our own drawings so I could verify the system configuration.
For a certain range of LOCA break sizes, depressurization to the point where RHR alone can be used for recirculation cannot be assumed.
Naval reactor accident analysis may assume local manual operator action for design basis accidents, but civilian nuclear power accident analysis does not enjoy the same leeway for design basis accidents.
Arkansas also requires a photo id for voting and has for at least four or five year now.