10 ms·

I can’t think of a single instance of a technology where we thought that failure wasn’t an option, were supposed to put everything behind it to succeed and had

by hrktb 6y ago

I can’t think of a single instance of a technology where we thought that failure wasn’t an option, were supposed to put everything behind it to succeed and had a 100% clear success. Dams fail. Rockets fail. Medical devices fail. Do you see any that doesn’t fail, whatever the cause is ? It’s natural to assume power plant at some point will fail. If we’re fine losing a gigantic living area for half a century each time a plant fails, perhaps you are right. But looking at Fukushima that doesn’t seem like a tradeoff people are fine with.

jojobas 6y ago
Planning for failure is a core activity in nuclear plant design. Modern plants could sustain pretty much any failure and no living area would be lost.
- DoctorOetker 6y ago
  including an airliner flying into surface storage next to the plant?
  - jojobas 6y ago
    I would not be surprised. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY446h4pZdc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY446h4pZdc
    - DoctorOetker 6y ago
      do you have a title so I can check it through DDG? I refuse to click the consent pop-ip on YT... EDIT: watched. An aeroplane is not a train.
      - DoctorOetker 6y ago
        And a dry storage cask is not a transportation cask
      - jojobas 6y ago
        1) A train is a nastier impactor than a plane, which is mostly air, soft-ish metal and plastic. 2) What's your point? You can kill way more people by flying an airplane into a building than any nuclear facility.
        DoctorOetker 6y ago
        1) kinetic energy and momentum ... and jet fuel 2) don't ask me what the point is, as long as some people can envision a point to it, it's irresponsible to not avoid such a situation. don't ask me what the point is, ask the hijackers of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Airways_Flight_49 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Airways_Flight_49
        jojobas 6y ago
        Dry storage casks are embedded in some seriously thick concrete for radiation shielding. I wouldn't be surprised if a direct hit of an A-380 engine at Mach 1 didn't actually destroy it. Again, if you have a highjacked plane on hand you can cause way more damage by crashing it into a skyscraper than some nuclear waste storage - it's a somewhat different risk but not a greater one.
        DoctorOetker 6y ago
        How thick? Check out these, with humans for comparison: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nuclear_dry_storage.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nuclear_dry_storage.jpg
        jojobas 6y ago
        Some 70 cm. That's right, about half of diameter of these cylinders are concrete walls. For comparison, Schwerer Gustav shells weighed about the same as A380 engine, were mostly hardened solid steel, arrived on target at about Mach 2 and could penetrate some 7 meters of concrete (including the explosive charge). You can help yourself to a F-4 vs concrete test that doesn't really make a dent in about 1m of concrete.
  - vbezhenar 6y ago
    According to one article newly built nuclear reactor in Belarus can withstand crash of an aircraft up to 5700 kg with speed up to 100 m/s. That's modern design, older designs probably are worse. Air liner is two orders heavier. Honestly withstanding airliner crash sounds like an impossible task. And crashing airliner into something is perfectly achievable by a terrorist or crazy pilot. So I think that's a real danger.
  - manfredo 6y ago
    They tested for that: https://interestingengineering.com/crashed-jet-nuclear-reactor-test https://interestingengineering.com/crashed-jet-nuclear-react...
    - DoctorOetker 6y ago
      please read carefully: surface storage, i.e. the dry storage casks outside of the reactor. A reactor contains less nuclear material than the dry storage casks which contain decennia worth of nuclear waste.
      - Manfredo_1 6y ago
        The surface storage isn't at temperature, though. Waste is cooled off in a pool of water until it's cooled, before it's placed in dry storage. Sure, rupturing that would release toxic materials out into the surrounding area. But how is that different from flying a plane into a chemical plant? If terrorists hijacked a plane, it'd probably kill an order of magnitude more people by flying it into a skyscraper than into dry waste caskets.
        DoctorOetker 6y ago
        who cares about the surface storage temperature? a dirty bomb can deny access to surrounding areas for prolonged times. theres so many potential failure points, here is another: if they fly through the electric pylons and into the cooling tower, there is no place to dump the energy as the reactor can't be shut down immediately, and cooling will fail soon, ...
        Manfredo_1 6y ago
        > who cares about the surface storage temperature? a dirty bomb can deny access to surrounding areas for prolonged times. A dirty bomb is a device specifically designed to disperse radioactive material. Spent nuclear fuels is actually much less harmful than the isotopes that could be used in a dirty bomb, and it's potential for dispersal is much less in a ground collision than in an atmospheric detonation. Nuclear waste would get dispersed over a few hundred meters, and the top couple feet of dirt in these areas would be cleared away and replaced. > theres so many potential failure points, here is another: if they fly through the electric pylons and into the cooling tower, there is no place to dump the energy as the reactor can't be shut down immediately, and cooling will fail soon, ... Which is why most plants have more than one cooling tower (well, some don't have any cooling towers if they're cooled by ocean water). And even in the event that all cooling facilities are destroyed, plant operators would insert the cooling rods to shut down the reactors. There are backup diesel generators to power the control systems in the event that the plant's main electric generator fails. These kinds of scenarios are borderline absurd. By, the way, what happens if someone flies a plane into a chemical plant manufacturing solar panels? Harmful chemicals could be released into the surrounding areas. Should we shut down solar plant manufacturing until this failure point is addressed? Of course not, such a complaint is as nonsensical about the ones you're trying to make towards nuclear.

by hrktb 6y ago

jojobas 6y ago

Planning for failure is a core activity in nuclear plant design. Modern plants could sustain pretty much any failure and no living area would be lost.

DoctorOetker 6y ago
including an airliner flying into surface storage next to the plant?
- jojobas 6y ago
  I would not be surprised. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY446h4pZdc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY446h4pZdc
  - DoctorOetker 6y ago
    do you have a title so I can check it through DDG? I refuse to click the consent pop-ip on YT... EDIT: watched. An aeroplane is not a train.
    - DoctorOetker 6y ago
      And a dry storage cask is not a transportation cask
    - jojobas 6y ago
      1) A train is a nastier impactor than a plane, which is mostly air, soft-ish metal and plastic. 2) What's your point? You can kill way more people by flying an airplane into a building than any nuclear facility.
      - DoctorOetker 6y ago
        1) kinetic energy and momentum ... and jet fuel 2) don't ask me what the point is, as long as some people can envision a point to it, it's irresponsible to not avoid such a situation. don't ask me what the point is, ask the hijackers of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Airways_Flight_49 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Airways_Flight_49
        jojobas 6y ago
        Dry storage casks are embedded in some seriously thick concrete for radiation shielding. I wouldn't be surprised if a direct hit of an A-380 engine at Mach 1 didn't actually destroy it. Again, if you have a highjacked plane on hand you can cause way more damage by crashing it into a skyscraper than some nuclear waste storage - it's a somewhat different risk but not a greater one.
        DoctorOetker 6y ago
        How thick? Check out these, with humans for comparison: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nuclear_dry_storage.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nuclear_dry_storage.jpg
        jojobas 6y ago
        Some 70 cm. That's right, about half of diameter of these cylinders are concrete walls. For comparison, Schwerer Gustav shells weighed about the same as A380 engine, were mostly hardened solid steel, arrived on target at about Mach 2 and could penetrate some 7 meters of concrete (including the explosive charge). You can help yourself to a F-4 vs concrete test that doesn't really make a dent in about 1m of concrete.
- vbezhenar 6y ago
  According to one article newly built nuclear reactor in Belarus can withstand crash of an aircraft up to 5700 kg with speed up to 100 m/s. That's modern design, older designs probably are worse. Air liner is two orders heavier. Honestly withstanding airliner crash sounds like an impossible task. And crashing airliner into something is perfectly achievable by a terrorist or crazy pilot. So I think that's a real danger.
- manfredo 6y ago
  They tested for that: https://interestingengineering.com/crashed-jet-nuclear-reactor-test https://interestingengineering.com/crashed-jet-nuclear-react...
  - DoctorOetker 6y ago
    please read carefully: surface storage, i.e. the dry storage casks outside of the reactor. A reactor contains less nuclear material than the dry storage casks which contain decennia worth of nuclear waste.
    - Manfredo_1 6y ago
      The surface storage isn't at temperature, though. Waste is cooled off in a pool of water until it's cooled, before it's placed in dry storage. Sure, rupturing that would release toxic materials out into the surrounding area. But how is that different from flying a plane into a chemical plant? If terrorists hijacked a plane, it'd probably kill an order of magnitude more people by flying it into a skyscraper than into dry waste caskets.
      - DoctorOetker 6y ago
        who cares about the surface storage temperature? a dirty bomb can deny access to surrounding areas for prolonged times. theres so many potential failure points, here is another: if they fly through the electric pylons and into the cooling tower, there is no place to dump the energy as the reactor can't be shut down immediately, and cooling will fail soon, ...
        Manfredo_1 6y ago
        > who cares about the surface storage temperature? a dirty bomb can deny access to surrounding areas for prolonged times. A dirty bomb is a device specifically designed to disperse radioactive material. Spent nuclear fuels is actually much less harmful than the isotopes that could be used in a dirty bomb, and it's potential for dispersal is much less in a ground collision than in an atmospheric detonation. Nuclear waste would get dispersed over a few hundred meters, and the top couple feet of dirt in these areas would be cleared away and replaced. > theres so many potential failure points, here is another: if they fly through the electric pylons and into the cooling tower, there is no place to dump the energy as the reactor can't be shut down immediately, and cooling will fail soon, ... Which is why most plants have more than one cooling tower (well, some don't have any cooling towers if they're cooled by ocean water). And even in the event that all cooling facilities are destroyed, plant operators would insert the cooling rods to shut down the reactors. There are backup diesel generators to power the control systems in the event that the plant's main electric generator fails. These kinds of scenarios are borderline absurd. By, the way, what happens if someone flies a plane into a chemical plant manufacturing solar panels? Harmful chemicals could be released into the surrounding areas. Should we shut down solar plant manufacturing until this failure point is addressed? Of course not, such a complaint is as nonsensical about the ones you're trying to make towards nuclear.