Reason for and a critical question about 2012's 6.9% decline in nuclear production

[kristopher]

37. Right.That football sized hole in Davis Besse's reactor head is something the Japanese did.

Davis-Besse: The Reactor with a Hole in its Head
The reactor core at the Davis-Besse nuclear plant sits within a metal pot designed to withstand pressures up to 2,500 pounds per square inch. The pot -- called the reactor vessel -- has carbon steel walls nearly six inches thick to provide the necessary strength. Because the water cooling the reactor contains boric acid that is highly corrosive to carbon steel, the entire inner surface of the reactor vessel is covered with 3/16-inch thick stainless steel. But water routinely leaked onto the reactor vessel's outer surface. Because the outer surface lacked a protective stainless steel coating, boric acid ate its way through the carbon steel wall until it reached the backside of the inner liner. High pressure inside the reactor vessel pushed the stainless steel outward into the cavity formed by the boric acid. The stainless steel bent but did not break. Cooling water remained inside the reactor vessel not because of thick carbon steel but due to a thin layer of stainless steel. The plant's owner ignored numerous warning signs spanning many years to create the reactor with a hole in its head...

http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nuclear_power/acfnx8tzc.pdf

Crack in last layer of stainless cladding







Like I said, we aren't better than the Japanese, we've only been more lucky.