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No power generation facility is passively safe for an extended period of time. Solar panels will leech harmful chemicals into the environment if they sit long e
by Etzos 11y ago
No power generation facility is passively safe for an extended period of time. Solar panels will leech harmful chemicals into the environment if they sit long enough. Coal plants will degrade and leech. Dams will degrade and fall apart. So it all depends on how long you think it is necessary to define as "passively safe". It is passively safe for 72 hours and then it will require an externally housed pool to be refilled. In the event of an incident something like that will be monitored very carefully, so it really doesn't have to be completely passive for very long.
- Retric 11y ago72 hours is something of a best case assuming the pool is intact. Also, dam's can generally be left alone for months without issue many are on annual inspection schedules. Similarly solar can be left alone for years without problems. 3 days is far less time in the middle of a major disaster than you might think.
- Etzos 11y agoIn order to cause enough damage to need this kind of backup system it would have to be huge. Something of that magnitude would also cause similar (if not more immediately catastrophic) problems for a dam or even wind turbines. Making the pool itself redundant in case of its failure is not all that difficult to do, although largely unnecessary. I'm only highlighting one of a myriad of systems that are designed to deal with worst-case of worst-case scenarios. I realize you're attempting to pick out those kinds of things and highlight that something can go wrong. But for any system something can go wrong given incredible situations. Modern nuclear reactors account for a large number of incredibly unlikely scenarios and provide mitigations for them.
- Retric 11y agoThere is a fare amount of twisting of words going on. Modern approaches have vastly increased passive safety. Then again Chernobyl would have been fine if they did do several things that looking back where really dumb. Modern designs are still dangerous, expensive, beasts they are simply vastly less temperamental. If we had no better options then sure they are workable. I would even say there great idea for power at a Mars base. But, we generally do have other options. PS: I wonder what you think could happen at a wind farm to force a large scale evacuation for years?
- Retra 11y agoAre you asking about a wind farm with the same power output as a nuclear plant? Because we could easily hypothesize about the damage done by a nuclear plant with the same power output as a wind farm, if you wish.
- Retric 11y agoReally? 1 500mw reactor or 500 3mw wind turbines @ 30% utilization in the middle of farm land. Sure, they can fall down on some corn but that's hardly a major disaster. Wind farm even has a smaller net footprint.