3 ms·
>Cracks in the core of a Scottish nuclear reactor could signal that most of Britain’s ageing plants will not be able to supply the country with much needed powe
by inflatableDodo 7y ago
>Cracks in the core of a Scottish nuclear reactor could signal that most of Britain’s ageing plants will not be able to supply the country with much needed power for as long as predicted.
>Nuclear reactors generate just over 20 percent of Britain’s electricity and even before EDF Energy said last week it would need to shut down one of two reactors at the Hunterston B plant, almost half of that capacity was scheduled to go offline by 2025.
>“These reactors are over 40 years old. This is a generic defect which cannot be fixed so it would not surprise me if the older plants would all need to close within the next few years,” said John Large, an independent nuclear engineering consultant.
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-nuclear-edf-analysis/cracks-in-british-nuclear-reactor-ring-power-alarm-bells-idUKKBN1IA2P0 https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-nuclear-edf-analys...
He was the consulting engineer on the raising of the Kursk submarine - https://www.theengineer.co.uk/british-led-team-gains-access-to-secrets-of-sunken-kursk/ https://www.theengineer.co.uk/british-led-team-gains-access-...
Here's his obituary, he died recently.
John Large, nuclear scientist who oversaw the raising of the Russian ‘Kursk’ submarine from the seabed – obituary - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2018/12/06/john-large-nuclear-scientist-oversaw-raising-russian-kursk-submarine/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2018/12/06/john-large...
- javagram 7y agoThanks for sharing. Looks like that article was from about a year ago, before the analysis of the cracks was performed. Perhaps there’s simply a dearth of expertise in this field outside of the industry itself, which I guess would make it difficult for news articles to find folks who could review EDF’s work. Or reviewing and critiquing the kind of simulation described in the article might not be possible, it isn’t clear if they’re sharing the details of the analysis.
- inflatableDodo 7y agoThe largest problem is a dearth of expertise within the industry. Not saying the expertise isn't there but it is often mushroomed by management to save money. I have worked on the periphery and it is a lot less professional than you would like. It has a lot of petty little fictions that added together create a very dangerous engineering culture.