posted on March 26, 2002 11:00:50 PM new
Even though the necessity for obtaining energy sufficient to supply the ever growing need by nuclear reactive means is inevitable, I think, is it wise to rush into the use of it without fully exploring and preparing for every possible failing? It seems not in light of these discoveries reported yesterday. Though the subject is one of the older reactors in the country the dangers of presumptions of safety seem clear. Though the article doesn't say so, I believe that a substantial leak of the cooling fluids is the cause of the catastophic failure called a meltdown. As I understand it a meltdown is a fire which cannot be put out and which emits radioactive material into all layers of the surrounding atmosphere to be spread far and wide by the winds. A meltdown anywhere in the country has the potential to endanger the entire country, even large portions of the whole world, and it seems that we are but a thin sheet of steel from such an occurance in Ohio right now.
They are discussing repairs, hoping not to have to shut down.
excerpted:
Nuclear
reactor operators have been ordered to
check their reactor vessels after the discovery that
acid in cooling water had eaten a hole nearly all the
way through the six-inch-thick lid of a reactor at a
plant in Ohio. The corrosion left only a
stainless-steel liner less than a half-inch thick to
hold in cooling water under more than 2,200
pounds of pressure per square inch.
Such extensive corrosion "was never considered a credible type of concern,"
said Brian W. Sheron, associate director for project licensing and technology
assessment at the regulatory commission.
Small leaks of cooling water are common, Mr. Sheron said, but engineers
always thought that if cooling water leaked from the piping above the vessel
and accumulated on the vessel lid, the water would boil away in the heat of
over 500 degrees, leaving the boric acid it contains in harmless boron
powder form. At Davis-Besse, however, it appears that the water was held
close to the metal vessel lid, or head, perhaps by insulation on top of the
vessel.
Boric acid is used in cooling water to absorb surplus neutrons, the subatomic
particles that are released when an atom is split and go on to split other
atoms, sustaining the chain reaction.
Engineers are not yet certain why the corrosion occurred.
A nuclear engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit
watchdog group that is often critical of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
said the discovery was troubling.
"This is really something that shouldn't happen," said the engineer, David
Lochbaum. "You shouldn't get such a huge hole in a pressure-retaining vessel."
The plants are getting older and we're starting to see these kinds of problems,"
