Fire at Florida Nuclear Power Plant Causes Minor Leak; No Damage to Reacto

[seriousstan]

MIAMI (AP) - Fire caused a small leak of coolant at a nuclear plant early Monday but left its two reactors undamaged.
The sprinkler system at the Turkey Point power plant extinguished the flames, which broke out several hours before dawn in an area that was not near any nuclear equipment.

The blaze caused a leak that spilled 30 to 40 gallons of mineral oil being used as a coolant in a transformer.

The plant's nuclear machinery, shielded by domes and concrete barriers, was never endangered, but officials took one of the reactors offline while the fire was investigated, said Bill Swank, a spokesman for Florida Power and Light.

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBE3DB3HAE.html

[jsamuel]

1. move along, nothing to see here

"We need more nuclear power plants" - bush

[JuniperLea]

3. that would be

nu-kya-lur

[ZR2]

6. A coolant leak on a transformer could happen at any power plant

It has nothing to do with the nuclear cooling system. The transformers are used to step up the voltage to an extremely high level before being sent over the grid.

[phantom power]

7. Yes, but it makes a juicy headline. Totally misleading, but juicy.

[jsamuel]

11. very true, but what happens when a coal plant overheats? a nuclear plant?

one causes a fire, the other a nuclear meltdown...

big difference

[Endangered Specie]

15. Actually, a coal plant that burned to the ground would release

a ton of pollutants (incidentally, that is what coalfire plants are designed to do normally... BURN!)
Of course, a nuclear meltdown is worse, which is why nuclear plants have far more safety features (like huge shielding).

[Massacure]

29. the leak was in the transformer, it wasn't the reactor cooling loop.

If they had another transformer, the electricity could have been moved to it. If not, the reactor would have had to been shut down because there would be no place to send the electricity to.

[Endangered Specie]

14. As I understand it, its 10s of thousands of volts...

if people seriously except those things not to occasionally catch fire well...

Misleading headline indeed, provides nuclear fuel to the conspiracy theorists machinery, so to speak.

[jsamuel]

16. No conspiracy, just don't like living next to a nuclear power plant

[Endangered Specie]

17. would you prefer to live next to a coal fire plant?

where you will breathe all kinds of toxic pollutants? whereas a nuclear plant releases steam?

[jsamuel]

19. goodness people, I don't like any of them... hello?

hydroelectric, electromagnetic, solar, wind, wave plants are the ones I would want to live next to, but I don't run the country, do I?

[Endangered Specie]

21. what is electromagnetic power?

never heard of that... but yes hydro wind solar and wave (geothermal) are all good ideas to supplement out power demands, unfortunately, unless our forecasted power consuptiom rates drop and/or the price/effeciency of these go up, they couldnt provide 100% of the nations power.

[jsamuel]

23. its a new idea dealing with getting energy from places on the earth surfac

e that have very large electromagnetic levels. It is just like geothermal but with electrons instead of heat.

Amsterdam is well on it's way to using only these types (not electromagnetic) of power sources for the whole country. What they do is individuals will buy one generator and place in on their property, they use it and 95% of the energy goes to the power company who pays them for the energy generated.

[Endangered Specie]

24. how far is "well on its way"?

The Dutch have been using windmills for a long time anyways... it helps to have lots of wind... something not all of the US consistently has.

And while were talking about european countries, lets not forget the French, who were making tons of money selling their nuclera generated power to Germany, whose power systems (based with heavy reliance on 'renewables') failed in the infamous heat wave.

[jsamuel]

26. "well on its way" means it is trying

unlike the US. And yes, it does have a lot of wind, but the us has lots of wind in some places, lots of water in others, lots of geothermal spots in others. I am not saying that the US could switch over today to soley these types of power, but that practically NO effort is being made. Amsterdam is making a large effort.

If my memory serves me correctly, isn't France trying to move away from nuclear power?

Edit: No my memory was wrong, they are using more nuclear power than any other country by % of total power.

[davepc]

31. And France is also the largest net exporter of energy in all of Europe

And their skies aren't filled with toxic chemicals and Mercury poisoning from a dependence on fossil fuels. Also, their foreign policy isn't tied to geopolitical necessity's of securing fossil fuels and waging wars of aggression to secure said resources. They don't have to destroy large swaths of countryside/ecosystems to set up wind farms or solar panels (which rely on toxic chemical process to manufacture)

And France with more nuclear reactors then any other nation in Europe has never had a failure or catastrophe that has killed ANYONE.

They have no need for a Yucca Mountain because they recycle their Nuclear fuels. (Nuclear recycling was halted in the USA by order of Jimmy Carter).

Yup, stupid France and their nuclear power.

[jpak]

32. France imports all its uranium, primarily its former colonies in Africa

and those mines are real environmental disasters...

on edit:

France does NOT use its reprocessed uranium. It contains 232-U (which renders it highly radioactive and nearly impossible to handle) and 236-U (a neutron absorber that poisons the fission chain reaction).

No nation that reprocesses spent fuel uses the recycled uranium.

None

Furthermore, French reprocessing produces enormous quantities of high level liquid waste which must be vitrified and and disposed of in geological repositories (i.e., they do need a "Yucca Mountain").

Finally, plutonium reprocessed from spent fuel is 20 times more expensive than uranium fuel derived from ore - it makes no economic sense whatsoever...

[Kellanved]

34. actually, the French nukes failed during the heatwave.

:shrug:

[jobycom]

2. Uh oh.

They wouldn't let you know about it if it wasn't more serious than that. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl were minor accidents, too, until they could no longer cover up the damage.

[flordehinojos]

4. is there going to be a cover-up of the real dangers we might be exposed to

in FLORIDA as a result of this "MINOR LEAK"?.

[Endangered Specie]

13. oh brother...

everythings a cover up eh :shrug:

[rodeodance]

5. Jeb jeb--Jr will be on your case now!!

[One_Life_To_Give]

8. Transformer Fire?

Sounds like a simple transformer fire. Happens often enough. But in this case it must be headline news, since it happened at one of them awful Nuke plants.

[insane_cratic_gal]

9. Industrial fire recently

too! All in the same week

I guess I need to step away and put on my :tinfoilhat:

[daleo]

10. Hope they didn't use the "gold standard" test for radiation leaks.

Because the gold standard test didn't work very well with mad cow.

[Endangered Specie]

12. Sounds like the plants safety features (shielding, sprinklers)

worked well. Though I expect a full contingent of conspiracy theories :eyes: :tinfoilhat:

[gratuitous]

18. Well, you're certainly trusting of the plant's spokesmen

Which is something that a number of people aren't quite so willing to do anymore. Nothing "conspiracy theory" about it; we're just going on the industry's track record for public prevaricating.

It's entirely possible that this was a "minor" incident posing no danger at all to the public. I'd simply prefer that that was verified by an independent, outside inspection.

[Endangered Specie]

20. ok, I suspect very much that there will be an inspection after this

(doubt it will make headlines though), pretty much ALL fires are investigated, especially ones in power plants.

[gratuitous]

22. A LOT of things are investigated

That somehow escape review in Jeb! Bush's Florida. I'm prepared to wait and see, rather than give blanket absolution.

[Endangered Specie]

25. I knew that was coming...

I suppose it would help to point out that elections and power plant safety are two very different branches of government and even more different when it comes to the private sector.

Nuclear people know that their product has pretty much been damned with faint praise in this country, thus stringent safety is a must.

[gratuitous]

27. Elections are different from hurricane relief, too

But somehow even that gets politicized in Florida, with the heavily Republican counties faring better than the Democratic strongholds time after time.

Nuclear people are also keenly aware of who their political friends are, and have come to expect kid-glove treatment for their little incidents and accidents, hints and allegations. With the governor's brother making noises about how much he'd like to let a thousand nuclear plants bloom across the nation, nuclear people have to figure that it's in their interests to keep the lid on any difficulties, giving out the bare minimum of information, seeing as how that strategy has worked so well for the present administration in the furtherance of its goals.

As I said, I'm not willing to issue blanket absolution for a nuclear plant fire just because the folks who own the plant say that it weren't no thang.

[MadHound]

28. Then check back in a few months

You will be able to find the final report with either the DOE, or the NRC, or both.

Both agencies take the lead in such issues, and they do tend to be thorough. And any reports they make will be made public.

This sounds like a simple transformer fire, nothing spectacular, nothing that released any radiation. And trust me, if there had been a radioactive release, we would be knowing about it.

[gratuitous]

30. Well, I'd expect to know about a lot of things

I will indeed monitor the situation, but both the Florida state government and the current version of the federal government seem to be pretty secretive about any number of things that would have formerly seemed to be in the public interest. They have a track record, from who Dick Cheney met with in 2001 as part of his energy policy; to when the decision to go to war in Iraq was actually made; to what evidence, research and statistics support claims of global climate change; to how much invitation-only presidential town halls cost; to what were the actual results of the 2000 presidential balloting in Florida.

But I'm probably being too cynical. After all, with the potential for millions if not billions of dollars at stake in developing new nuclear plants, why would anyone in the government or the nuclear power industry want to downplay the significance of any difficulties they might be having?

[mbperrin]

33. Oh, I don't know. In Texas, we don't hear much about trouble,

unless you read the NY Times:
http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2003/TX-Reactor-Leaking18apr03.htm
Nuclear Reactor in Texas Leaking Cooling Water
MATTHEW L. WALD / NY Times 18apr03

WASHINGTON, April 18 — A nuclear reactor in Texas is leaking cooling water from the bottom of its giant reactor vessel, a development that experts view with concern because they have never seen it before, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said today.

Technicians at the South Texas Nuclear Project, about 90 miles southwest of Houston, have found residues indicating that cooling water leaked from the vessel through two penetrations where instruments are inserted into the core, according to the company that operates the plant. Operators at all 103 commercial nuclear reactors have been giving closer attention to their reactor vessels since the discovery last year of extensive leaks in the vessel head at another plant, Davis-Besse, near Toledo, Ohio. more

This simply was not covered by Texas media. Hmmmm...