4 ms·
Yes, I know the full scenario was a bit more involved. My main beef with their failure handling is actually this: you need to be able to face a situation where
by febeling 14y ago
Yes, I know the full scenario was a bit more involved.
My main beef with their failure handling is actually this: you need to be able to face a situation where _all_ you smart emergency systems fail. In the case of an NPP this can mean an almost global environmental crisis, and need relocate millions of people, making hundreds of square kilometers uninhabitable, etc. In that case you don't really want to rely on five generators on some roof. Which may or may not work on that day.
And this is not something I make up here now. I remember discussing nuclear safety in high school, and the bottom line was: NPPs are ok, since they become uncritical when _everything_ fails, because the moderator rods slide down into the reactor vessel.
But after Fukushima I read, that actually the situation there, with that specific model, is different, unfortunately. Tough luck. Because that model still needs some cooling because the fully moderated reactor still produces 1% it's total energy, an that is enough to bring the reactor into an 'undefined' state, iirc. And it is easy to imagine what that means for a station that has just been struck by an earthquake anyway.
My whole point is: your comment makes it appear as if the security layers actually were plenty, and I would (respectfully, of course) disagree with that. I think it was poor.
That point is important: if NPPs aren't build safely, what is then built safely? My guess is: nothing.
So what to do? Design for failure. (Politically, technically, economically, can be applied everywhere.)
End Of Rant :)
- cstross 14y agoSo what to do? Design for failure. (Politically, technically, economically, can be applied everywhere.) Yup. On a similar note, the French response to Fukushima Daichi is rather interesting (France relies on nuclear generation for over 80% of its electricity): http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v481/n7380/full/481113a.html http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v481/n7380/full/481113a... "The ASN has also come up with an elegant technical solution to get around the (universal) dilemma of how to protect a plant from external threats, such as natural disasters. The report recommends that all reactors, irrespective of their perceived vulnerability, should add a 'hard core' layer of safety systems, with control rooms, generators and pumps housed in bunkers able to withstand physical threats far beyond those that the plants themselves are designed to resist." (And a mobile emergency force who can move in and stabilize a reactor after an unforseen catastrophic disaster that kills everyone on-site and destroys most of the safety systems.) In other words, they now expect unpredictable Bad Things to happen and are trying to build a flexible framework for dealing with it, rather than simply relying on procedures for addressing the known problems.
- ghshephard 14y ago": you need to be able to face a situation where _all_ you smart emergency systems fail. " Totally agree with you here - Until recently, no nuclear power plan was designed such that it could survive failure of all their emergency systems. Hopefully, with the negative repercussions of Fukushima on the industry, engineers are rethinking their approach to Nuclear Power. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_nuclear_safety http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_nuclear_safety