Reactors still down after massive Florida power outage: officials

[jpak]

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hqzKZYV_FS7JoyYm90kopwwsSKBA

MIAMI (AFP) — Power officials pressedon with efforts Wednesday to bring two nuclear reactors back on line in southern Florida, one day after a massive blackout shut them off and darkened millions of homes across the state.

"The reactors still are not running," said Karen Visepo, spokeswoman for Florida Power and Light, the company responsible for providing power in southern Florida.

The disabled reactors at the Turkey Point nuclear power plant were unlikely to cause new blackouts, she said, but workers labored feverishly to get them operating again.

"Getting them up and running again is a slow process," Visepo said.

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[kestrel91316]

1. How can a power failure on the grid cause the shutdown of a nuclear POWER

plant? Don't tell me they don't have an emergency backup for their own lights and on-site equipment.......SHEESH. Hook up to YOUR OWN OUTPUT, dummies.

[Zachstar]

2. It is good safety

A blackout can mean a number of things including hostile activity. A shutdown means that the problem has to be identified and fixed so that it will not cause additional problems.

Also think about this. What if an emergency caused whatever to happen to the crew who runs these things and the grid? You want these reactors able to shut themselves down if it even smells something funny about the situation. The same thing goes for all other forms of power generation. It is simply good safety.

[kestrel91316]

5. Point well taken. But they still need to be running off what THEY

generate, IMHO.

[Massacure]

3. They shut down because they had no where to send the power.

The electricity grid is delicate. If you run to much power through pieces of equipment you pretty much fry them.

I'm also guessing that the reactors are not restarted because they have Xenon poisoning. Xenon has a habit of absorbing neutrons. When the reactor is in operation there are enough to keep the chain reaction going, but if you are trying to start up a reactor, then the xenon tends to absorb the neutrons that are trying to get the reaction going. Once some of the Xenon decays, the reactor can be started again.

[kestrel91316]

6. Sounds like you know a lot more about nuclear power than me, lol.

I'll just go back to fixing the kitties now...........

[hunter]

7. Turkey Point is a 1.86 million horsepower engine.

That sort of power can do a lot of damage if it goes to the wrong place.

[ben_meyers]

4. I guess they can't just throw a switch or light a match.

I would imagine that a nuclear plant is a bit more complicated that that.

This incident doesn't appear to be related to the reactors at all. The facility lost external power and an orderly shutdown was performed.

But that doesn't stop an "alarmist" from trying to make more of the situation:

FTA

"If we have in the future an accident where the reactors go critical, I would only pray for Miami-Dade County since there is no way to evacuate the population today compared with in 1972, when the reactors were originally permitted," the president Rhonda Roff of an environmental group called "Save It Now, Glades" told AFP.(snip)
"At least 50 percent of the risk of a reactor accident comes from not having electric power," said Nuclear Information and Resource Services regional president Mary Olson.

"Every nuclear reactor that goes down represents a high risk," she said, explaining that when power goes out, the plant has a battery-powered back-up cooling system that lasts about two hours, after which fuel and radioaction start to leak "in 45 minutes.

Which is why they go to backup power and shut down the reactors! Of course they don't run them without cooling! Olson is overstating the risk by implying that the reactor was "45 minutes" from leaking. Nothing could be further from the truth.

[Nihil]

9. People like Rhonda Roff & Mary Olson need to be repeatedly smacked around the head ...

... with the operating manuals from that reactor until their IQ climbs into
room temperature range.

> If we have in the future an accident where the reactors go critical,
> I would only pray

...

> after which fuel and radioaction start to leak "in 45 minutes"

:argh: :argh: :argh:

Actually, as they have a rabid phobia towards anything mentioning the
word "nuclear", the implement of improvement should be selected from
a) large piece of coal;
b) wind turbine blade;
c) PV array mounting hardware;
or
d) a nice piece of sustainably harvested, unpelleted, 4x2 "biomass".

[One_Life_To_Give]

8. Floor the accelerator on your car and shift to neutral

Essentially thats what happens to the reactor/turbine system when the grid goes away. When the load suddenly goes away while you are developing all that power. Getting things shut down with sending turnine blades flying or overheating heat exchangers/reactor vessels requires a significant action. Recent reactors I hear can handle this big a load step. (100% to 0% load in a couple mS) But the older ones have historically needed to SCRAM the reactor.