5 ms·

> They didn't try to cover it up, it didn't blow up or anything. Most nuclear incidents do not involve stuff blowing up, but rather stuff leaking. As for cover

> They didn't try to cover it up, it didn't blow up or anything. Most nuclear incidents do not involve stuff blowing up, but rather stuff leaking. As for covering things up, that's a specialty of this field, as any former nuclear insider will tell you.

mimsee 5y ago
coolant leaking, heat rising, boom?
- southerntofu 5y ago
  Sure that's happened sometimes, but that's the worst case scenario. Most leaks don't go that spectacular and are either detected by irradiated workers or by civil society taking radioactivity measurements in the vicinity of nuclear facilities where no particular radioactivity should be measurable.
- cesarb 5y ago
  Most leaks are not catastrophic leaks, and will be detected (nuclear power plants are heavily instrumented) and lead to a safe shutdown.
Orphis 5y ago
> or anything There are no reports for leaks I could find, so while you can point at other bad actors in the field, why don't you celebrate the little wins of some company being transparent enough for once?
redis_mlc 5y ago
> Most nuclear incidents do not involve stuff blowing up Actually, massive hydrogen explosions are common when nuclear reactor control systems fail, as seen in Fukushima.
adev_ 5y ago
> As for covering things up, that's a specialty of this field, as any former nuclear insider will tell you. We do not know the same "insiders in the field" then. As a former electrical engineer, many of my friends works for EDF in Nuclear. And none of them ever talk about covering things up. It is quite the opposite, any minor incident generally trigger a ton of process and often a partial shutdown "just in case". Every possible interaction with the installation is documented, planned and part of a process with X layers of human verification before any intervention. I do not know how the nuclear industry run in other countries but that is not the culture for EDF to cover things up. For politicians with their own agenda, it's an other story....
- southerntofu 5y ago
  So first it's not just EDF. It's also AREVA and ANDRA. All three of those entities had major scandals in the past decades and seem to have taken exactly zero lesson from them. I'm really not the person most knowledgeable/aware on this topic, this is just from 5 minutes of searching the web. 2008: Greens/EFA report says official "energy independance" stat of 50% of a lie; when calculated on final energy not primal energy, it falls down to 24%, and down to just 8.5% when you take into account that uranium is in fact imported; it also touches on engineering issues, staffing problems... 2011: As part of a Greenpeace report about EPR, two insiders reveal serious defects https://www.sortirdunucleaire.org/IMG/pdf/greenpeace-2011-05-01-briefing-epr_nucle_aire_su_r_a_la_franc_aise_-_chantier_de_flamanville_les_langues_se_de_lient.pdf https://www.sortirdunucleaire.org/IMG/pdf/greenpeace-2011-05... 2013: The post-Fukushima audit revealed no french setup takes such scenarios (no water/electricity) into account. https://www.sortirdunucleaire.org/IMG/pdf/globalchance-laponcheb-2013-les_accidents_et_la_su_rete_des_centrales_nucle_aires-citations_et_questionnements.pdf https://www.sortirdunucleaire.org/IMG/pdf/globalchance-lapon... 2017: EDF/Areva knew since 2005 that they relied on an unreliable factory for building sensitive equipment https://www.franceculture.fr/economie/scandale-de-la-forge-du-creusot-areva-et-edf-alertees-des-2005 https://www.franceculture.fr/economie/scandale-de-la-forge-d... 2021: A whistleblower denounces defects he's been silenced about, says he's a nuclear lover but torn apart by this worrisome situation and sues EDF for endangering people's lives https://www.francetvinfo.fr/societe/nucleaire/centrale-nucleaire-du-tricastin-un-cadre-denonce-une-politique-de-dissimulation-des-incidents-et-porte-plainte-contre-edf_4842217.html https://www.francetvinfo.fr/societe/nucleaire/centrale-nucle... And there's of course the many many many incidents we barely hear about, when at all: https://www.sortirdunucleaire.org/Nucleaire-des-accidents-partout?id_mot=116 https://www.sortirdunucleaire.org/Nucleaire-des-accidents-pa...
  - LunaSea 5y ago
    I don't think that the greens, Greenpeace and a lobbying website are particularly good sources.
    - southerntofu 5y ago

mimsee 5y ago

coolant leaking, heat rising, boom?

southerntofu 5y ago
Sure that's happened sometimes, but that's the worst case scenario. Most leaks don't go that spectacular and are either detected by irradiated workers or by civil society taking radioactivity measurements in the vicinity of nuclear facilities where no particular radioactivity should be measurable.
cesarb 5y ago
Most leaks are not catastrophic leaks, and will be detected (nuclear power plants are heavily instrumented) and lead to a safe shutdown.

Orphis 5y ago

> or anything There are no reports for leaks I could find, so while you can point at other bad actors in the field, why don't you celebrate the little wins of some company being transparent enough for once?

redis_mlc 5y ago

> Most nuclear incidents do not involve stuff blowing up Actually, massive hydrogen explosions are common when nuclear reactor control systems fail, as seen in Fukushima.

adev_ 5y ago

> As for covering things up, that's a specialty of this field, as any former nuclear insider will tell you. We do not know the same "insiders in the field" then. As a former electrical engineer, many of my friends works for EDF in Nuclear. And none of them ever talk about covering things up. It is quite the opposite, any minor incident generally trigger a ton of process and often a partial shutdown "just in case". Every possible interaction with the installation is documented, planned and part of a process with X layers of human verification before any intervention. I do not know how the nuclear industry run in other countries but that is not the culture for EDF to cover things up. For politicians with their own agenda, it's an other story....

southerntofu 5y ago
So first it's not just EDF. It's also AREVA and ANDRA. All three of those entities had major scandals in the past decades and seem to have taken exactly zero lesson from them. I'm really not the person most knowledgeable/aware on this topic, this is just from 5 minutes of searching the web. 2008: Greens/EFA report says official "energy independance" stat of 50% of a lie; when calculated on final energy not primal energy, it falls down to 24%, and down to just 8.5% when you take into account that uranium is in fact imported; it also touches on engineering issues, staffing problems... 2011: As part of a Greenpeace report about EPR, two insiders reveal serious defects https://www.sortirdunucleaire.org/IMG/pdf/greenpeace-2011-05-01-briefing-epr_nucle_aire_su_r_a_la_franc_aise_-_chantier_de_flamanville_les_langues_se_de_lient.pdf https://www.sortirdunucleaire.org/IMG/pdf/greenpeace-2011-05... 2013: The post-Fukushima audit revealed no french setup takes such scenarios (no water/electricity) into account. https://www.sortirdunucleaire.org/IMG/pdf/globalchance-laponcheb-2013-les_accidents_et_la_su_rete_des_centrales_nucle_aires-citations_et_questionnements.pdf https://www.sortirdunucleaire.org/IMG/pdf/globalchance-lapon... 2017: EDF/Areva knew since 2005 that they relied on an unreliable factory for building sensitive equipment https://www.franceculture.fr/economie/scandale-de-la-forge-du-creusot-areva-et-edf-alertees-des-2005 https://www.franceculture.fr/economie/scandale-de-la-forge-d... 2021: A whistleblower denounces defects he's been silenced about, says he's a nuclear lover but torn apart by this worrisome situation and sues EDF for endangering people's lives https://www.francetvinfo.fr/societe/nucleaire/centrale-nucleaire-du-tricastin-un-cadre-denonce-une-politique-de-dissimulation-des-incidents-et-porte-plainte-contre-edf_4842217.html https://www.francetvinfo.fr/societe/nucleaire/centrale-nucle... And there's of course the many many many incidents we barely hear about, when at all: https://www.sortirdunucleaire.org/Nucleaire-des-accidents-partout?id_mot=116 https://www.sortirdunucleaire.org/Nucleaire-des-accidents-pa...
- LunaSea 5y ago
  I don't think that the greens, Greenpeace and a lobbying website are particularly good sources.
  - southerntofu 5y ago