Nuclear power safe?

[meic]

Almost certainly the same sort of incredulity will be expressed after the next failure for some issue that will be obvious then but isnt considered a credible threat now.
For now, just as prior to Fukushima, nothing can possibly go wrong. When it does we will correct that fault and resume the normal position that nothing can possibly go wrong.

[reohn2]

I'd recommend 'FUKUSHIMA The Death Knell for Nuclear Energy' by Sean McDonagh. I'm a component reliability engineer and a lot of what he discusses resonates with me, I've serious doubts about building anything that runs that hot and fast that can be reliable and safe for decades.

I'm firmly in favour of going all out for renewables - especially as this would require us to cut national energy consumption to 10% of what we use now, bye bye cars, hello local communities and bicycles!

I'm up for it

The fascinating thing about Fukushima is how an advanced industrial nation like Japan could make such basic mistakes. In the land that gave us the word Tsunami they put the nuclear facility by the sea with inadequate protection. They built it on a fault line. And they went for a design that runs out of control if the electricity supply fails.

What makes you think the UK is any wiser?
Look at the banking crash,look at the way we keep on building more and more roads when its obvious we're all choking on the fumes as it is,look at the state of the public transport system,look at the tax breaks for the rich,look at the state of our political system.
How can we trust ourselves with nuclear power?

[pwa]

Almost certainly the same sort of incredulity will be expressed after the next failure for some issue that will be obvious then but isnt considered a credible threat now.
For now, just as prior to Fukushima, nothing can possibly go wrong. When it does we will correct that fault and resume the normal position that nothing can possibly go wrong.

But Fukushima had basic design faults that are not present in existing UK or French facilities. Notably the matter of what happens if the power to the controls fails. I'd hope anyone with a GCSE of any sort would say the reactor has to close down automatically and that power is required to keep it going, not to stop it. What kind of engineer could get that wrong?

The one good thing I got from the Fukushima disaster was the fact that European reactors have been designed to avoid that mode of failure. It had actually been considered and designed out. If the power fails and the staff walk away the things shut down by default.

[pwa]

I'd recommend 'FUKUSHIMA The Death Knell for Nuclear Energy' by Sean McDonagh. I'm a component reliability engineer and a lot of what he discusses resonates with me, I've serious doubts about building anything that runs that hot and fast that can be reliable and safe for decades.

I'm firmly in favour of going all out for renewables - especially as this would require us to cut national energy consumption to 10% of what we use now, bye bye cars, hello local communities and bicycles!

I'm up for it

The fascinating thing about Fukushima is how an advanced industrial nation like Japan could make such basic mistakes. In the land that gave us the word Tsunami they put the nuclear facility by the sea with inadequate protection. They built it on a fault line. And they went for a design that runs out of control if the electricity supply fails.

What makes you think the UK is any wiser?
Look at the banking crash,look at the way we keep on building more and more roads when its obvious we're all choking on the fumes as it is,look at the state of the public transport system,look at the tax breaks for the rich,look at the state of our political system.
How can we trust ourselves with nuclear power?

Existing UK reactors, like Sizewell B, cannot fail in the way Fukushima did. If the power to the controls fails, gravity shuts down the reaction. It takes power to keep the reaction going, not to stop it.

[meic]

What kind of engineer could get that wrong?

A highly qualified and prestigious nuclear engineer. Prior to Fukushima the Japanese were considered to be part of the competent (political) West that could not be tarred with the same brush as the incompetent (political) East responsible for Chernobyl.

[pwa]

What kind of engineer could get that wrong?

A highly qualified and prestigious nuclear engineer. Prior to Fukushima the Japanese were considered to be part of the competent (political) West that could not be tarred with the same brush as the incompetent (political) East responsible for Chernobyl.

But why did Japanese engineers get their design so fundamentally wrong at the same time as European engineers were getting it right? I'm talking specifically about what the control rods do if the power to the controls fails. If Sizewell B had been inundated by a Tsunami and the controls had failed, gravity would have shut down the reaction. Fukushima needed power to do that! That suggests to me that we already have a culture of "What If.." operating here.

[Psamathe]

....
The fascinating thing about Fukushima is how an advanced industrial nation like Japan could make such basic mistakes. In the land that gave us the word Tsunami they put the nuclear facility by the sea with inadequate protection. They built it on a fault line. And they went for a design that runs out of control if the electricity supply fails.

Makes you wonder what will stop us (or rather the Chinese) making other stupid mistakes we can be wise about "after the event". And the cynic in me suspects that when it's all being driven for maximum profit that such "oversights" might be glossed over.

Ian

[Psamathe]

I'd recommend 'FUKUSHIMA The Death Knell for Nuclear Energy' by Sean McDonagh. I'm a component reliability engineer and a lot of what he discusses resonates with me, I've serious doubts about building anything that runs that hot and fast that can be reliable and safe for decades.

I'm firmly in favour of going all out for renewables - especially as this would require us to cut national energy consumption to 10% of what we use now, bye bye cars, hello local communities and bicycles!

I'm up for it :D

The fascinating thing about Fukushima is how an advanced industrial nation like Japan could make such basic mistakes. In the land that gave us the word Tsunami they put the nuclear facility by the sea with inadequate protection. They built it on a fault line. And they went for a design that runs out of control if the electricity supply fails.

What makes you think the UK is any wiser?
Look at the banking crash.....

It's not only that it happened but that we are rapidly and knowingly returning to the same situation that caused the crash - in full knowledge and fully warned. for an allegedly "intelligent species" humans are amazingly stupid.

Ian

[reohn2]

pwa and others
I'm not an engineer or know a much about nuclear energy
However what I do know is we live on a small group of islands that insist on getting it wrong where power consumption and generation is concerned,we now are reducing our help and subsides for renewable power whilst increasing our spending,at enorous cost,on nuclear power,who's track record isn't good.
You and others seem to think that this time it'll be better,which isn't good enough IMO unless it's perfect,nothing I've seen where capitalism and profit is the driving force is perfect.YVMV

[Audax67]

20 years ago, a French minister of health observed that for every franc the finance minister earned from the tax on tobacco, the health service would spend three because of tobacco-related diseases. "Yes," replied the finance minister. "But I get the one franc immediately".

Now apply that to power generation.

[reohn2]

Two words just occurred to me,Grenfell Tower....

[roubaixtuesday]

Existing UK reactors, like Sizewell B, cannot fail in the way Fukushima did. If the power to the controls fails, gravity shuts down the reaction. It takes power to keep the reaction going, not to stop it

This is not accurate.

The Fukushima reactors *did* shut down, actually immediately on the earthquake, many minutes *before* the tsunami hit.

Pretty much all nuclear reactors, including UK ones, require ongoing cooling after shutdown; whilst fission itself stops, heat from radioactive decay of short lived nucleotides is sufficient to melt the core. Most UK reactors are though of AGR design, inherently less prone to meltdown.

The proximate cause of the Fukushima disaster was failure of secondary power to maintain the necessary cooling.

The root cause was that the inadequate height of the tsunami sea wall, and the location of the power supply at ground level, were understood and deliberately ignored, in the belief that rectifying them would dent public confidence in the safety of nuclear power. There were other major design flaws such as the venting systems for explosive hydrogen which added to the mess. These were also understood and deliberately not rectified. Wiki puts it:

Three investigations into the Fukushima disaster showed the man-made nature of the catastrophe and its roots in regulatory capture associated with a "network of corruption, collusion, and nepotism.

US reactors of similar design underwent a programme of safety upgrades to eliminate similar flaws.

References:

Wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima ... r_disaster
(also includes links to timelines for the individual reactors shown that shutdowns - occurred before

A piece on AGR reactor emergency shutdown (most UK reactors are AGRs; they *do* need power post shutdown, but less critically than the Fukushima design)
https://www-diva.eng.cam.ac.uk/mphil-in ... 022012.pdf

[Psamathe]

......
The root cause was that the inadequate height of the tsunami sea wall, and the location of the power supply at ground level, were understood and deliberately ignored, in the belief that rectifying them would dent public confidence in the safety of nuclear power. There were other major design flaws such as the venting systems for explosive hydrogen which added to the mess. These were also understood and deliberately not rectified. Wiki puts it:

Three investigations into the Fukushima disaster showed the man-made nature of the catastrophe and its roots in regulatory capture associated with a "network of corruption, collusion, and nepotism.

.....

My worry is that UK politicians will don hard hats & hi-vis and take camera crews to show off how high Hinckley's Tsunami protection wall is whilst ensuring nothing is done (nothing rectified) to "dent public confidence". Political support for UK nuclear has been so strong and against reasonable public opposition so they have to make sure nothing "dents public confidence". Anything that might cause public concern will reflect on the politicians so protection of their own reputations becomes a significant factor.

How many nuclear reactors have recently been closed down in France due to suspected sub-standard parts. Were the French not aware on the dangers of using (alleged) sub-standard parts and (alleged) falsification of/"irregularities in" documentation? What involvement have the French with Hinckley? Still, being more positive at least the explosion in the reactor hall at Flamanville 3 did not cause a nuclear incident (though it did shut down the reactor for a couple of months).

But I'm a cynic who loves to be proved wrong.

Ian

[roubaixtuesday]

My worry is that UK politicians will don hard hats & hi-vis and take camera crews to show off how high Hinckley's Tsunami protection wall is whilst ensuring nothing is done (nothing rectified) to "dent public confidence". Political support for UK nuclear has been so strong and against reasonable public opposition so they have to make sure nothing "dents public confidence". Anything that might cause public concern will reflect on the politicians so protection of their own reputations becomes a significant factor

Yes. The learning from Fukushima that the hard bit is getting a regulatory framework which works. It may even be impossible.

The alternatives to nuclear, however, all involve significant costs, deaths, environmental damage or all of these.

The Hartlepool nuclear power station was visible from the end of the road where I was brought up; safety of nuclear power in the UK doesn't worry me at all. Fukushima was a major disaster, arguably close to an absolute worst case for currently operating nuclear power, yet almost nobody died.

The biggest environmental and safety issue with nuclear power is likely uranium mining and ore processing, not the operation of reactors or storage and treatment of spent fuel.

[francovendee]

A failure of Gas or coal fired power station can have bad consequences for the surrounding area but one from a failure of an nuclear one is likely to be much wider spread and certainly longer lasting.

Nuclear is inevitable ,at the moment, but I'd still would not choose to live near one.

France generates most of their power with nuclear and when you see the sites of some station on the rivers you can't help but wonder at the decision to put them there. I'm sure they would have been sited elsewhere if constructed today but I'm also sure everyone was assured that all the safeguards would prevent a disaster. So far it has but some station have been closed because data on the critical materials supplied has been found not to be correct after years of operation