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Mishaps At The Nuclear Power Plant Near You
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Nuclear plant incidents may be ubiquitous, but if we’re lucky, they won’t do any unreasonable damage. The month of April opens at the Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant in Monticello, Minnesota, where “the reactor automatically scrammed due to the depressurization of the SCRAM air header caused by an invalid signal that occurred during system testing.” All was well, however, and there were no repercussions or injuries to the plant or its staff. Then on March 1, the plant suffered a “inadvertent siren activation,” which occurred when a vendor was testing the system and sent out an alarm rather than a cancel signal.
At the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant, located on the western shore of Chesapeake Bay near Lusby, Maryland, the emergency diesel generators started up on their own because of an “undervoltage condition a couple of electrical buses. Again, there were no bad repercussion from this incident.
The Cooper Nuclear Station near Brownville, Nebraska, experienced a three-drop-per-minute oil leak from the radial bearing housing cover on one of the four residual heat removal service water booster pumps. Analysis found that the leak was a result of a problem with “seal drain path.” They then performed a safety-hazard evaluation and decided this was an error introduced at a manufacturing drawing used by the vendor to make the four new replacement pumps and could cause a “substantial safety hazard.” The pump housings will all be replaced.
The Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant near Welch, Minnesota, suffered an automatic trip during a “turbine trip caused by a loss of suction 22 main feedwater pump.” This happened on Unit 1, which shut down. Unit 2 is still operating normally.
The Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station near Oswego, New York, suffered an automatic reactor scram when a main turbine trip occurred that was caused by low condenser vacuum. Everything operated as it should during the scram. The cause was identified as a momentary loss of sealing steam.
At the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant in Tennessee, a automatic reactor trip, otherwise known as a scram, occurred when a main feedwater isolation signal resulted in a low-level in the steam generator. There were no ill effects from this event.
The Reed College reactor in Portland, Oregon, a non-power reactor, suffered a “technical specification violation” when a trainee initiated a planned manual scam under direction of an operator. Following a planned scenario, the operator did not turn the console off or remove the key from the console. For some reason unknown, the reactor did not meet the definition of “reactor secured,” so a senior reactor operator had to turn off the console and remove the key. Notice that all these reactor scrams occurred during the first two weeks of March, and there is more month to come.
The Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, suffered an (gasp!) unanalyzed condition when operators determined that a circuit for the fuel pool cooling system was uncoordinated because of inadequate fuse sizing. We aren’t sure what this means, and apparently, neither do they.
In the meanwhile, the North Anna Nuclear Plant in Virginia had to remove a non-licensed subcontractor for failing a drug test, and the South Texas Nuclear Power Plant sprung a bad leak of a discharge vent line that leaked through the wall and caused two trains of chilled water to fail in their operation.
The Hatch Nuclear Power Plant near Baxley, Georgia, had its Unit 1 operating at 35% power when the reactor underwent a manual trip due to low pressure in a feed pump. There were no repercussions and they are trying to discover what caused the low pressure in the feed pump.
The Waterford Nuclear Generating Station near Killona, Louisiana, had a manual trip of its reactor due to the main feed isolation valve and the main steam isolation valve being closed unexpectedly. However, everything appears to be back to normal, and the causes of the isolation are being investigated. The latest event at Waterford is a fire in the protected area, the main transformer yard, that required calling in an outside fire company to extinguish. They initiated an “automatic reactor trip” because they lost offsite power. This whole event was labeled “an Unusual Event.”
Another manual reactor trip occurred at the Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant near Glen Rose, Texas. It seems the Unit 2 reactor was manually tripped when it experienced lo-lo steam generator water levels. This whole thing was caused by a loss of power to the servo control valve, which is now under investigation.
The Cook Nuclear Plant, located on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, had a reactor trip due to a main turbine automatic trip. Everything reacted as it should, with all control rods inserted and the auxiliary feedwater pump starting immediately.
The Fermi Nuclear Generating Station on the shores of Lake Erie underwent a reactor scram when high reactor pressure vessel pressure resulted from an unexpected closing of the turbine bypass valves. The reactor was due to be shut down anyway for refueling when the shutdown occurred.
In western Arizona, the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station suffered an actuation of its emergency diesel generator when a loss of power affected Unit 2. This started the Unit 2 auxiliary feedwater pump. “All systems operated as designed,” we are happy to report. They are investigating the loss of power on Unit 2.
(http://www.nrc.gov/, March 1, March 4, March 6, March 8, March 11, March 12, March 13, March 18, March 23, March 29, 2024.)
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They Finally Managed To See Some Of The Damage
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For 13 years we have been waiting to find out the real dope about just how much damage was sustained in those three Fukushima reactors that melted down in March of 2011, and now it looks like we have finally gotten a first look.
TEPCO, the operator of the plant, has managed to send in drones, which relayed back photographs of some of the damage from inside the “main structural support called the pedestal in the hardest-hit reactor’s primary containment vessel, an area directly under the reactor’s core.”
The drone footage is from the area beneath Reactor 1, and experts say it gives a good view of the magnitude of the decommissioning process that faces them. All the damaged reactors still contain 880 tons of “highly radioactive melted nuclear fuel,” which has now melted down and mixed with concrete and other components of the nuclear plant, and must be removed before the plant can be decommissioned.
The small, flat drone revealed a lot of damage, including dangling items that the reactor’s rod mechanism was dislodged. This is the mechanism that drops boron rods into the core to slow or stop the chain reaction.
The drone was unable to reach the bottom of the core because of the poor visibility and in spite of being aided by a snakelike drone that shone light ahead of the camera drone. Thus, experts are unable to tell whether what they were looking at was unmelted fuel rods or other equipment that had been damaged.
This slow process, say critics, means that TEPCO and the Japanese government are overly optimistic when they talk about a 30 to 40 year projected timeline for decommissioning the plant is “overly optimistic.”
In fact, we are pretty sure we will not be around to see the successful decommissioning of the Fukushima Plant.
(https://www.nuclear-news.net/, Wednesday, March 20, 2024.)
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Kim Jong Un Is Still Blasting Off Lots Of Missiles
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North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Un has been “successfully testing” a lot of missiles lately, tests that have upped tensions with neighboring South Korea and the rest of the world at large.
On Tuesday, March 19, the country “successfully tested a solid-fuel engine for a new intermediate-ran
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