Did Florida Go to the Radioactive Brink? (yesterday)

[ensho]

http://counterpunch.com/wasserman02272008.html


Did Florida Go to the Radioactive Brink?
Incident at Turkey Point


A s many as two million Floridians were blacked out yesterday by a series of grid malfunctions that forced shut two atomic reactors south of Miami and renewed nightmares of a radioactive catastrophe. The chain of events should serve as yet another serious warning to those who would build still more atomic reactors in Florida and elsewhere.

-snip-

This blackout's reach was limited by steps taken since a 2003 reactor-related grid failure in Ohio led to a massive blackout that left 50 million people without power.

But the two large reactors at Turkey Point did trip from the loss of off-site power. (For safety reasons, vital cooling systems and other critical components rely on electricity coming from sources other than the reactors.)

A far more tense shut-down came when off-site power was lost during 1992's Hurricane Andrew, whose eye passed directly over Turkey Point. At the height of the storm, communication from the control room was also dangerously lost. Tools and equipment valued at around $100 million were destroyed or simply blown away.

Andrew's epic devastation made it clear that south Florida could never be evacuated in the wake of a melt-down amidst a hurricane. After the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island, the NRC adopted specifications for evacuation procedures that were simply shredded by Andrew.

-snip-

Nonetheless, Florida Power & Light now wants to build two more reactors at Turkey Point, at a cost of some $20 billion. The generators could not come on line until sometime between 2020 and 2025.

-snip-

None of this could have happened had Florida's power come from decentralized solar panels installed on buildings. Those billions slated for more nukes would be far better spent doing just that.
-----------------------


NO MORE NUKE PLANTS

is there a nuke plant in your back yard? can you get away from it in a storm?




hemp

[dbackjon]

1. BULL SHIT Scare article

By head-in-sand anti-nukes.

Nuclear is far greener than any other viable source of power, and SAFE!!

[ensho]

2. and the waste?

and storm caused radiation leaks?

meltdown?

evacuation?

[Clovis Sangrail]

3. shhhhhh... you're not supposed to talk about that stuff.. /nt

[idovoodoo]

7. good grief

no storm has or could cause radiation leaks.
:eyes:

[MadHound]

25. Umm, yes, a storm very well could

I don't know about elsewhere, but out here in tornado land, there are very specific directions for siting a nuclear plant to minimize the danger from a tornado. Sure, the nukes are made out of reinforced concrete and what have you, but even that shit crumples in the face of an F3, 4 or 5 tornado.

[Ecumenist]

9. Amen, Ensho...I have relatives by marriage who have been horribly

affected by both Chernobyl and contamination from nuclear bomb tests around the Caspian as well as an accident in the 50's involving another Chernobyl-like accident. Welcome to DU, BTW! Right glad to meetcha!!:hi:

[BadgerLaw2010]

10. How on Earth is a storm going to damage a containment building?

The article is conflating damage to the plant complex with potential loss of containment, which are two entirely different things.

It's basically BS.

[dbackjon]

18. stored safely on site, as has been done for decades

Storms won't cause leaks.

Meltdowns are impossible with the designs used by US nuclear plants

Worry about Hurricane evacuation plans - thousands of times more likely to be needed.

[MadHound]

26. LOL!. Do you realize how many of those on site storage facilities are leaking right now

A good rule of thumb is that about a quarter of the given sites are leaking tritium at any one time. A storm that overfills or over tops a storage pool is going to be a nightmare.

Oh, and it isn't the designs that you have to worry about, it is human error, which is the most common cause of reactor problems.

[idovoodoo]

4. Exactly. And also virtually the only alternative as oil supplies dwindle.

...

[MadHound]

27. You're totally discounting things like wind, solar, geothermal, biomass etc.

Yes, adapting such technologies would require a reworking of our energy system, but it could very well be done. Hell, wind by itself can supply the US with all the electric power we need for a long, long time.

[FogerRox]

36. Which explains why the massive increase in world wide nuclear capacity

while those solar panels and wind turbines sit on the shelf unsold.

[raincity_calling]

17. Clearly you don't

understand the concept of "green."

Take a look at how much CO2 is created to mine uranium. Green also means non-toxic. It is not just about CO2 emissions.

[dbackjon]

19. I understand it better than you, apparently

How much CO2 is created by other energy sources? Solar - tons. Wind - tons. You still have to MAKE the panels/turbines...

[FogerRox]

32. Please provides cites

[FogerRox]

35. That explains why so many nuclear plants are being built, while solar panels remain unsold

LOL.

In 2004 Spain and Germany added 2 billion watts of wind capacity. The World nuclear industry added 2 billion watts of capacity in ten years.

http://www.rmi.org/images/PDFs/Energy/E05-08_NukePwrEcon.pdf

http://www.rmi.org/images/PDFs/Energy/E05-09_NukePwrMitig.pdf

I think Dear Sir, you need to explain the exponential difference there, since the data indicates you have cognitive dissonance.

In addition the US Congress seems to leave out nukes in its recent legislation to reduce C02, may you should have tesitified to Congress about your special knowledge.

The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (H.R. 6)that did not include nuclear in its plans.

[FogerRox]

29. Right

http://www.peakoil.org.au/nuclear.co2.htm

In 1995 The Nuclear Energy Institute said

[Selatius]

5. Not a good idea to build more reactors in hurricane alley without effective backup plans.

If Andrew shreds your previous backup plan, you've got serious problems that need to be addressed first.

[Freddie Stubbs]

13. The center of Andrew passed only a few miles from Turkey Point

It fared the storm pretty well. They build those things to withstand Hurricanes.

[Selatius]

14. It's the auxillary systems that support the main containment building that seem to worry.

The cooling system went down during Andrew. The containment building itself likely can withstand everything up to but not including a direct military attack or a suicide charge by a hijacked Boeing jet.

[Ghost in the Machine]

23. I went through Hurricane Andrew, and also worked at Turkey Point before

The containment building was never in any danger during the storm. I've been inside "the can", as it's called, with the hatch closed. I've been in the bowels of the reactor at Turkey Point. My father worked there from the time they broke ground on it. Right now I live 10 miles from a Nuclear Plant here in Tennessee... there's nothing to fear.


"The containment building itself likely can withstand everything up to but not including a direct military attack or a suicide charge by a hijacked Boeing jet."

It probably wouldn't survive a bunker buster, but a hijacked Boeing is a different story. If memory serves me correctly, the containment wall are 8 foot thick reinforced concrete... this video below shows what happens to an F4 Phantom during a 500 MPH impact with a reinforced concrete barrier:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=5r2rbhRY_ic

Of course, the Boeing in 3 times as large, and 3 times as heavy as an F4 Phantom, but the researchers expect the same results...

Ghost

[RexDart]

41. Yikes...

I don"t think I've ever seem a plane turn to dust before. Wish they had a shot of the "after" wall though, it must have left a mark.

[RaleighNCDUer]

6. I've been wondering what might happen around here this coming

summer - with the drought reducing lake levels, and the Shearon-Harris plant depending on Harris Lake for cooling. They could pump water over from Jordan Lake, but it is the primary water source for the region, and if things don't change it will be dry for all practical purposes by the end of July. If they can't keep up with the cooling water, they'll have to shut down, take it off the grid. We'll be buying power from Tennessee, if this keeps up.

[ensho]

12. the nuke plants on Fl.'s west coast already have the problem of too hot water

coming from the Gulf of Mex. the water almost got too hot to use last summer. they have to shut down if the water is too hot.

[ClassWarrior]

8. Can decentralized solar panels provide power equal to those antiquated nuclear time bombs?

If so, hell yeah we should be doing just that!

NGU.

[Selatius]

11. Jimmy Carter had a proposal in the 1970s to put solar panels on the houses of America.

There's no telling how many cubic feet of roofing all the houses in America could be utilized for personal solar power. To demonstrate, he had panels placed on top of the White House. One of the first things Reagan did was junk those panels when he entered office. He preferred oil instead.

[ClassWarrior]

16. I knew the Carter/White House/Ray-Gun part of the story, but...

...I didn't know about the plan for the houses of America. That could work. Anywhere you could suggest where I could read more about it?

NGU.

[Pavulon]

24. Negative..Cant smelt shit

with solar. You will not get a consistent 300 - 900 MW output from solar. It is a great technology, but there will be a requirement for cheap industrial power.

you can burn coal and dump megatons of carbon or split atoms and bury the waste in a hole in Nevada.

[MadHound]

38. Or use geothermal like Iceland is doing

In fact aluminum smelted using geothermal energy will soon becoming to your neighborhood, from Iceland. We have geothermal capability in the Rockies and Pacific NW. Furthermore, by setting up solar or wind farms in strategic areas, you can indeed get enough consistent energy for industrial needs.

It may not be one consistent centralize source, but alternative, renewable electric is possible.

[spoony]

15. The fact that it shut down proves its safety designs work,

not the other way around.

Those who have opposed nuclear power these last few decades are responsible for the coal plants built instead, and those are responsible for thousands of deaths. This scare-mongering bullshit is not only bad logic and bad policy, it's blood-stained.

[lovuian]

20. Someone was hacking into the nuke facility by internet

and shutting them down

[Sancho]

21. I'm looking for another ENRON conspiracy...

it's bullshit...

[ReadTomPaine]

22. Serious nuclear accidents have been happening since the meltdown outside of Los Angeles in 1959...

they just haven't gotten a lot of press.

Most people are familiar with the disaster that occurred at Three Mile Island in the late 1970's, however that was far from the only nuclear meltdown that occurred at a civilian facility here in North America.

What is that, you say? Didn't know there were more? Well I'm afraid there have been plenty. Don't be embarrassed if you weren't aware of this, in some cases these incidents have been carefully kept from the public for decades.

For example, in California, right outside Los Angeles in the Simi Hills, a meltdown occurred in 1959 that released at least 300 times more radiation than the Three Mile Island accident and resulted in the deaths and sickness of hundreds of people. Even more serious & widespread repercussions from this incident are suspected, however sealed records and stonewalling by both government and industry officials have prevented even the most basic information from being shared about this disaster. Simple public health questions, such as which direction the radioactive cloud traveled, have never been divulged.

The Simi meltdown is just one of several that happened in the 1950's. The very first prototype reactor also suffered a meltdown - EBR I in 1951. This was followed the next year with an even more serious meltdown and radioactive release at the NRX site in Canada that required the removal and burial of the core by a clean up team that included 150 US Naval personnel including a young Jimmy Carter. Then in 1966 there was yet another partial meltdown - this time at the Fermi I reactor in Michigan. Around 10 years later we had Three Mile Island.

Keep in mind that these are just the known meltdown-style accidents at North American civilian facilities. There have been more documented in England, Scotland and of course the former Soviet Union as well as plenty of nuclear accidents that didn't involve meltdowns but were just as dangerous to the public, including all the military accidents of which are only dimly aware. Given that the Simi incident was kept secret from the public for approximately 40 years, we really have no idea how many other serious accidents have been kept from us.

I'm all for the responsible use of nuclear power, but the industry as it stands is simply not trustworthy enough to support at this point as the safety record for these materials, facilities and procedures is not a good one. The publics trust has been repeatedly violated and its health threatened, often without disclosure of any kind. Once proponents of nuclear power can outline transparent, failsafe operational and disposal procedures I'll revisit my view on this matter but until then I can only judge this industry by its own former actions, and that is not a record I can trust.

[dbackjon]

33. If these were real incidents, they could not be covered up...

And TMI PROVED that the design works - it wasn't a disaster. no one died.

More anti-nuke bullshit by people trying to push an agenda that is dangerous to the health of the planet.

[ReadTomPaine]

34. The Simi incident occurred at the Santa Susana Field Lab...

and released the third largest amount of radioactive iodine-131 gas in nuclear history. The reason you don't know about the incident is that it was classified until a class action lawsuit filed by local residents stricken with cancers and other health abnormalities forced the details into the public record a few years ago.

I'm sorry that you have problems with this, but the facts are what they are. There is not a single error in my post above, everything I've written is verifiable. Until this industry can be responsibly controlled, made to work transparently and with full public accountability I cannot support it.

Here's the relevant excerpt from Wiki for you:

The most infamous nuclear accident at SSFL occurred on July 13, 1959, when the SRE — a sodium-cooled nuclear reactor — experienced a power excursion. Power production from the reactor rapidly rose out of control. With significant effort, the reactor was shut down. Inexplicably, a few hours later it was restarted without the cause of the initial incident having been determined. The reactor continued to operate until July 26, 1959 with high radiation readings and other signs of problems. It was finally shut down at the end of the month.

After a full shut down was complete, the reactor operators discovered that a significant fraction of the nuclear fuel had suffered melting. Tetralin, a coolant used for the pump seals, had leaked into the sodium coolant of the reactor. Carbonaceous material formed, blocking the coolant channels and preventing the coolant from reaching the reactor core. This, in turn, caused the nuclear fuel rods to overheat and melt. Approximately one-third of the fuel melted.

Radioactive gases were released from the reactor into holding tanks and then bled into the atmosphere over a period of weeks. The extent of the radioactive releases remains uncertain to this date, but estimates put the amount from 260 to 459 times the amount of radiation that was released at the Three Mile Island facility. Some monitors went off scale; but few measurements of the sodium coolant were taken. Later, the few measurements that were taken proved to be contradictory. However, the ratios of volatile radionuclides found in the coolant suggested significant releases of radioactivity into the environment may have occurred.

The 1959 SRE incident is the most well known accident to occur at the facility (In 2006, The History Channel did a piece on the SRE accident, see: "Modern Marvels, Engineering Disasters 19"). Although the plutonium fuel fabrication facility and the Hot Laboratory (which handled highly irradiated reactor fuel from much larger reactors shipped in from the AEC/DOE nuclear complex) possibly had more serious accidents, virtually nothing about their accident histories are publicly known.

Emphasis mine.

[dbackjon]

39. Note the date - 1959

Experimental technology then. Not possible today.

[ReadTomPaine]

42. There have been approximately 30 nuclear accidents at research facilities and power plants...

since 1950. Of these, approximately 15 - or half - were after 1980. Keep in mind this is just North America I'm talking about, and just accidents involving commercial or research sites.. If you include the military, transportation and testing accidents, that number balloons to over one hundred nuclear accidents in the USA since 1950. That's about two a year, on average.

The problem here isn't really the concepts behind the tech, which still isn't ready for prime-time but will be at some point in the future. The problem is with the industry, as I have repeatedly mentioned here.

As others have pointed out, human accidents occur all the time in this business. It's not an 'if' scenario. It will happen again, just as it happened before. Once that genie is out of the bottle, there are no quick cleanups. This technology is not ready for commercial use and rather than face the music the nuclear industry instead circles its wagons and hides its flaws from view. That's simply too dangerous a gamble given the nature of the materials and the track record of those involved. If you doubt this, I have some land to sell you 80 miles north of Kiev.

Pouring money into nuclear power at this time is like trusting Halliburton or Enron. This is not a trustworthy, reputable industry - it's a black hole of fiscal irresponsibility & unaccountability. It's modeled after big oil, only worse. This makes support at the current juncture unwise given the massive risks associated to the public.

I would rather see the money currently spent toward nuclear power redirected to alternatives until the industry becomes accountable, transparent and operationally failsafe. Nuclear power is still in R&D as far as I'm concerned and it should remain there until the rewards outweigh the risks and the CBA is more favorable.

This is simple stuff. Don't fall in love with the tech before it's ready - you're hurting the future of a promising nuclear industry by leaving it in the wrong hands and pushing it out the door too early. The money belongs in the lab or elsewhere, especially now. While we are making the required advances to make nuclear power practical and safe, we can support promising alternative industries that are run responsibility and benefit us today. Everyone wins this way - science, the public and even the markets.

This is a public utility, not an arena bloodsport or a cold war missile strike. There is no Playstation-style 'reset' button for nuclear accidents after they occur, no 'acceptable loss' scenario. This industry has demonstrated on multiple occasions over several decades that it cannot police or manage itself properly and I am unwilling to wait until another truly catastrophic occurrence proves this beyond a shadow of a doubt. Frankly, neither should you.

As I said above, give me a transparent and accountable nuclear industry with a failsafe set of operational and disposal procedures and I'm on board. This is not an anti-nuclear stance. Until then, my verdict stands as is.

[chknltl]

28. Here is a link chock full of reasons for concern regarding nukes

http://www.helencaldicott.com/articles.htm
The article 'Nuclear Power and Uranium Mining', (third one down from the top) is pretty eye opening.

Welcome to the Democratic Underground ensho, interesting topic you posted here. I live across the mountains and far upwind from Hanford Wa.. There are other possible nightmares we have to deal with in my region. I am glad we had the sense not to have added the nuclear one to that list. When Mt.St Hellens blew, we got a light dusting in my town. I can remember the footprint from that natural disaster as it was being shown on the weather maps. It was quite impressive! St. Hellens ash, fortunately, was not radioactive.

Chernobyl created a similar footprint. I remember the residents of lower BC and northern Washington being told to throw out their milk because of the potential that it got tainted from that particular Chernobyl footprint. We could never know how and to what extent that we got hit here from Chernobyl. I suspect that the nuke industry then as now, has little desire to alert the public to the hazards, instead preferring to tell us what a 'great deal' nuke power will be for us.

We will never know how much cancers and leukemias have risen here and even if there is any connection to the Chernobyl incident. I can all but guarantee you that the bush family evil empire won't do such a study and would you blame us for mistrusting it even if they did? Hell, they deny global warming and pollution so the profiteers can continue to do what they do best: Profiteer. It sounds to me like Florida Power and Light is a member of that club.

I hope the good people of Florida can resist such madness.

[dysfunctional press]

30. instead of new nuke plants, why not look into tidal turbines?

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/12/gulf_streams_wave_energy.php



As solar, wind and other renewable energy technologies increasingly become seen as viable alternatives to coal- and fossil fuel-based ones, some scientists are already looking beyond recent breakthroughs in these areas to the vast, largely untapped potential offered by the world's oceans. This follows a recent announcement by Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne clearing the way for further research and investment into wind, wave and tidal technologies on the U.S.'s Outer Continental Shelf.

Rick Driscoll, director of Florida Atlantic University's Center of Excellence in Ocean Energy Technology (CEOET), and his colleagues are hard at work developing a device that could allow his state to procure up to a third of its energy needs by tapping into the Gulf Stream's energy-dense waters. A field of underwater turbines moored 1,000 ft below the surface in the center of the Gulf Stream could - by drawing from its 8 billion gallons per minute flow rate - provide as much energy as several nuclear plants.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080214/ap_on_sc/gulf_stream_energy

DANIA BEACH, Fla. - Just 15 miles off Florida's coast, the world's most powerful sustained ocean current — the mighty Gulf Stream — rushes by at nearly 8.5 billion gallons per second. And it never stops. To scientists, it represents a tantalizing possibility: a new, plentiful and uninterrupted source of clean energy. Florida Atlantic University researchers say the current could someday be used to drive thousands of underwater turbines, produce as much energy as perhaps 10 nuclear plants and supply one-third of Florida's electricity. A small test turbine is expected to be installed within months.

"We can produce power 24/7," said Frederick Driscoll, director of the university's Center of Excellence in Ocean Energy Technology. Using a $5 million research grant from the state, the university is working to develop the technology in hopes that big energy and engineering companies will eventually build huge underwater arrays of turbines...

...The Gulf Stream is about 30 miles wide and shifts only slightly in its course, passing closer to Florida than to any other major land mass. "It's the best location in the world to harness ocean current power," Driscoll said. Researchers on the West Coast, where the currents are not as powerful, are looking instead to waves to generate power. Canada-based Finavera Renewables has received a FERC license to test a wave energy project in Washington state. It will eventually include four buoys in a bay and generate enough power for up to 700 homes. The 35-ton buoys rise above the water about 6 feet and extend some 60 feet down. Inside each buoy, a piston rises and falls with the waves.

The company hopes later to be the first in the U.S. to operate a commercial-scale "wave farm," situated off Northern California. The project with Pacific Gas and Electric calls for Finavera to produce enough electricity to power up to 600 homes by 2012. Finavera eventually wants to supply 30,000 households...

[LeftyMom]

31. How well do solar panels survive hurricanes?

Yeah, I know they're not going to blow up and kill everybody, but considering that they're generally roof mounted and 100 mph tree limbs and shit aren't so great for roofs (My kid's g'parents had a 1" tree limb driven cleanly through their roof like a nail by that one of the skillion storms that blew through the same year as Katrina, I forget which one though. And they're kinda inland, in Arcadia.) I have to wonder how well they'd hold up. Kinda sounds like it'd be a matter of throwing good money after bad to use current solar technology, at least until the pricing comes down to where it doesn't cost much more than conventional roofing material, or until somebody demonstrates that it reliably stays in place and functional through a hurricane.

I hear you on the nuke plants, but I don't think you're really thinking through the practicalities of having solar on a wide scale in a hurricane prone area.

[nashville_brook]

43. that's what you have insurance for. same as your roof. if a tree limb damages it, you replace it.

sheesh.

[BadgerLaw2010]

37. This is called a "fail safe." When there is a problem, it fails to a safe - off - state.

I don't see what the problem is. This is good.

[Redstone]

40. So, let's burn more coal instead. That'll solve all our problems, won't it?

Redstone