My Mom designed safety systems for early reactors

[G_j]

she and my dad worked for GE at the Hanford reactor. My mother had some patents on safety systems.
One of her proposals was a back up, if all else failed Boron would be in place above the reactor that would pour down onto the melting rods. Well, this would have been "too expensive".

She retired very young to raise a family and did not pay attention to the evolution of reactors.
She told me before she passed, that she was disappointed to learn that reactors did not have more safety mechanisms built in.

I thought of this because they were talking about Boron on CNN last night.
They should have listened mom....

:-(

[jillan]

1. I love your mom!

[eleny]

12. +1!

K&R

[Statistical]

2. Actually your moms design was incorporated into later reactors.

Boron is placed in high pressure tanks attached to the reactor with a temperature dependent seal. If the reactor gets too hot (outside normal operating temp) it melts the seal and the boron which is under higher pressure than the reactor floods into the reactor.

The good news is control rods and boron as a backup can stop fission by blocking neutrons. Not enough neutrons = no criticality = no fission.

The bad news is even without fission the heat produced by nuclear decay inside the reactor is intense and boron can't help that problem.

[G_j]

5. that is just what she had proposed

thanks for the information.
I gather the 40 year old GE reactors in Japan, do not have this.

[Statistical]

10. I don't know. It didn't exist when they were built. They may have been retrofitted.

A secondary mechanism of halting fission is required for all US reactors (control rods + injectable neutron poison). I would assume Japan has similar requirements.

Sadly that particular safety system while important (you MUST stop fission or core will melt in minutes not days) wouldn't have helped here. Fission halted but without power to the pumps the decay heat caused core to overheat.

Safe shutdown of a reactor requires two things:
1) Stop fission - neutron poison is the backup here.
2) Handle the decay heat until the reactor is cold and stable (100 deg Celcius @ 1 atmosphere of pressure).

1 worked, 2 didn't.

In case you are wondering today reactors normally don't use boron. Same system I described but Gadolinium nitrate is used instead because per unit it is more effective at blocking nuetrons. Essentially "super boron".

http://www.hss.doe.gov/nuclearsafety/ns/techstds/standard/hdbk1019/h1019v2.pdf
Page 31 describes soluble boron and other poisons.

[girl gone mad]

37. As long as you've got active U-235, you've still got fission.

Uranium constantly spontaneously fissions. The control rods absorb most of the neutrons and prevent the reactor from getting back to a critical state. The uranium is kept in a controlled configuration, but once the reactor starts to melt down, the configuration is altered, thus the need to add boric acid to absorb excess neutrons at Fukushima, or drop boron in G_j's mother's design.

[madmax]

3. It's always about the bottom line

You're right - they should have listened to Mom.

[no_hypocrisy]

4. Free markets.

The CEO's and the Board will cut corners to save money, safety be damned.

That's why the development of torts (personal injury, wrongful death, and strict products liability) has been so important as sometimes the ONLY means to hold corporations responsible for not appropriate accountability for safety.

[kath]

9. Yep. And the corps fight ferociously for tort "reform" - they don't like being held accountable in

any way.

[slackmaster]

6. Interesting story. My dad designed launch control systems for early manned space flights.

Back in the days when our country had the best engineers.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. Well if these things were not done by the free market

...

[hlthe2b]

8. Four days ago, we were bombarded with those promoting how safe...

Nuclear energy was compared to all other forms. While I am convinced some of these individuals may have been "paid intruders," they have certainly disappeared or shut up now.

Yup, very safe... until it isn't. :eyes: Further, virtually no other form of energy production carries such long term horrendous potential consequences. Heaven help us if we NEVER learn from the lessons presented.

[RKP5637]

11. Sadly the brightest and best ideas often do not get implemented, the bottom line

is the driver. Look at some of the junk we have today. And other things are built shoddy to fail and be replaced yet again.

[hedgehog]

13. When the first nuclear pile was built at Soldier Field in Chicago,

http://www.atomicarchive.com/Photos/CP1/image1.shtml

the safety system was a student with an ax:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scram


They were pretty sure they had things under control, just as a few years later, they were pretty sure the first atomic bomb wouldn't ignite the Earth's atmosphere.

I think there has been a strong thread of hubris and cavalier disregard for safety in nuclear science since the beginning. We're lucky there are enough engineers and scientists digging in their heels that the systems are as safe as they are.

[MadMaddie]

14. Your mom was far ahead of her time!

Because ideas like hers were ignored...Moms always seem to be right when we look back.

May she RIP!

[leveymg]

15. Does anyone else find it a fundamental design flaw that external power is needed to cool these

things? It's not like that's an inherently necessary risk. After all, nuclear submarines don't have to be plugged in to a wall socket, do they?

Why did GE design its reactors without internal generators? How much extra would that have cost - or, maybe it's just corporate bottom-line accounting logic. Lowest bid, factor in the risks of financial loss due to loss of human life, and you still come out with a higher profit margin by going with the lower cost design.

Not any more - I hope GE and Toshiba get taken away from their stockholders and the responsible executives are made to work inside the failed reactors reinstalling broken pipes and pumps. It's their fault this happened.

[Statistical]

17. A nuclear submarine does need external power if its reactor goes offline.

It will melt without backup power which is why they have batteries and emergency generators to run the cooling pumps. As an extra level of safety when in port the submarines connect to shore power so if the reactor goes offline they have two sources of power.

Decay heat is unavoidable. Period. You can stop or start fission at will but decay heat WILL happen. You can't reduce it, or slow it, or prevent it, or speed it up. It happens according to the laws of nuclear physics.

So all nuclear reactors (every single one ever built on ships, on subs, used to make weapons, used for medical research, power plants, etc) all require cooling.

"Why did GE design its reactors without internal generators? "
No reactor has internal generators. None. That would be even more dangerous. The space inside containment is not accesible when the reactor is running. What would you do if the generator doesn't start. You can't go in and fix it.

There were generators on site. They were destroyed by the tsunami. The generators should be better hardened but putting them inside the reactor would be foolish.

"ow much extra would that have cost - or, maybe it's just corporate bottom-line accounting logic. "
It had nothing to do with cost. Putting generators inside the reactor would have been less safe.

[leveymg]

19. One would not need (or want) to place a generator inside the containment vessel. But, one would

and could wrap the steel containment vessel with coolant piping attached to a turbine and backup generator next to the vessel, so that if the vessel overheats, water boils, driving the turbine and emergency generator powering the main water pumps. What would be so difficult about that?

I think there was the assumption that they had already spent enough money on redundant safety features, so let's get this baby to market at the lowest possible cost to the manufacturer and license holder, GE and Toshiba.

[Statistical]

21. The problem is that by the time the heat on outside of containment got hot enough to ..

super heat steam to drive a turbine the inside of the core would have been long since melted.

Still there are newer reactors that require no power for cooling. That isn't to say they don't need cooling all reactors do they just don't need pumps. All GenIII+ reactors use passive safety.

The AP1000 for example can be massively cooled for 7 days without any power or pumps operational. Before the 7 days are up you simple need to refill the emergency coolant reserve.

[leveymg]

22. I thought you would bring up the GenIII+ reactors

No. I don't think we're going to be making that sort or investment just to save the nuclear power industry. After all, wasn't this event "statistically impossible"?

[Statistical]

23. The pair of reactor under contruction in GA are AP1000s.

China is currently building 4. Japan is building 2. All new reactors under construction or planning are GenIII+.
The GenIII+ are safer, larger, more reliable, and more efficient. Why would anyone build an older design?



Personally I wish this map was all AP1000. Well any single design would be fine but AP1000 has the most interest.
A single design has many advantages. Standardization, economies of scale, pooled knowledge, availability of parts, etc.
Of course I would also nationalize all the reactors too.

"After all, wasn't this event "statistically impossible"?"
Statistically improbable. Statistics can never show absolutes or certainty. Only likelihood.

[leveymg]

24. You say that with the air of certainty. "Statistics can never show absolutes of certainty."

Do you have no doubts about the wisdom of continuing to throw hundreds of billions of dollars into a technology that continues to have catastrophic failures and still has not solved its waste disposal safety and security problem?

I think you'll find that the U.S. taxpayer will be far more resistant to underwriting and subsidizing the costs of the nuclear industry, including coverage for catastrophic losses. Same thing with the private insurance and reinsurance companies. Why should they assume this sort of risk?

No. I'm sorry. We're not going to pay for it. And, we're going to start shouting that much more loudly, as you will hear.

[Statistical]

25. Everything has a risk.

Coal kills 400,000 people a year. That is 20 million since nuclear power started.
Personally owned autos kill another 1.1 million a year thats what 55-60 million unnecessary deaths.

Statistics can guarantee you will die in a car accident but it can show the likelihood of you dying from coal, autos, obseity, heart disease, firearms, or hundreds of other factors is much more likely than by nuclear power plants.

Many people are afraid of flying and when a plane crashes it is big news still your chance of dying in a car is so much higher than of dying in a plane.

[leveymg]

27. We assume the higher risks associated with motor vehicles because of the benefits

of freedom of movement and because there are really no practical alternatives. That is not the case with further investments in nuclear power, even "safer" forms of nuclear plants. The alternatives -- solar, wind generation, greater efficiencies -- are more than cost competitive, and don't threaten catastrophic events that can imperil and disrupt the life of an entire nation.

The comparison of the risks of autos versus nuclear plants is not comparable to the very real, practical choice between further investments in nuclear or in alternative energy sources and conservation. You shouldn't make that argument because it is neither logically coherent nor persuasive.

Burning coal is an abomination that should be phased out as soon as possible, even though it still makes up a very large percentage of our current electric generating capacity. Substituting nuclear is not the best solution, even though I know you sincerely believe it is. It's not the one that most people in this country will choose, and I doubt that many of the recently started nuclear plant projects will ever be completed.

[Statistical]

28. Ending nuclear will result in more coal.

While renewables are growing it will be decades before they make a significant dent in coal. Even Germany rather progressive government timeline is they might achieve 25% solar by 2050.

In the interim reducing nuclear = more coal. That is the reality. There are three forms of baseload generation in this country. Hydro (which is maxed out and some want to remove some dams), nuclear, and coal.

Wind and solar are variable and non-dispatchable. They are ill suited for baseload power.

We should expand them. Hell I would be happy if doubled the rate we are deploying them but they are only part of the solution. Remove the nuclear piece and you replace it with a coal one.

Maybe in 50-100 years things will be different but that is the reality we live in.

[leveymg]

29. I didn't say close down every plant tomorrow. I said, invest the funds that

are now allocated for new "next generation" nuclear construction or plant overhaul to other generation sources and to efficiencies.

Again, you're employing a straw-man rhetorical device that isn't persuasive.

I'd like to hear you argue on the merits, head-to-head, what you believe are the comparative merits (cost/benefits) of new nuclear construction versus a comparable investment in a mix of solar, wind, and efficiencies.

[Statistical]

30. I believe in solar, wind, AND nuclear.

Solar and wind should be increased. Hell someday I hope they make 30%, 40%, maybe 60% of all of power generated but they can't be 100%. What happens when demand exceeds capacity. Brownouts? Rolling Blackouts?

50%-60% renewables
30% nuclear
10% natural gas

Sadly unless we design an energy battery on a TWh scale you need some natural gas. It can rapidly change its power output to keep current demand and current supply matched. Supply & Demand needs to be matched continually for a powergrid to function.

[leveymg]

32. You side-stepped the question, again.

I didn't ask to see your ideal mix - but it is interesting - and we can talk about that another time. What I want to hear from you is a brief summary of your argument in favor of investing in "next gen" nuclear as opposed to taking that same money and putting it into a mix of solar, wind and efficiencies.

I haven't heard your answer to that. If you're saying that we absolutely have to have nuclear to prevent future brown-outs, or accept current levels of coal burning, I simply don't accept that without some sort of substantiation.

[Statistical]

34. We should quadruple funding for solar and wind but they won't displace coal.

So cutting funding for nuclear will increase wind & solar but coal will remain. Likely coal will even need to expand to provide sufficient baseload reserves.


"I haven't heard your answer to that. If you're saying that we absolutely have to have nuclear to prevent future brown-outs, or accept current levels of coal burning, I simply don't accept that without some sort of substantiation."
What happens when the wind stops blowing. Or more realisticly the wind blows less. Say the grid demands 800MW but all the wind farms and solar plants (no nuclear or coal) produce 700MW? where does the extra 100MW come from.

Electricity is unlike other forms of energy. Our infrastructure demands that is be available instantly. In your house turn on a light. It comes on instantly. Flick it off. It goes off instantly. You changed the load on the grid and when you did the power plants had to change their output. Instantly. Without waiting. Solar and wind aren't dispatchable. Which means while they can deliver power you can't get tell the plant when you need power. It isn't power on demand.

Now someday we may have the abilty to store massive amounts of energy but we don't today. It will take decades to build up wind/solar infrastructure. Nobody is suggesting it can be done in 10 or 20 years. 30, 40, 50 years is more realistic. If you cut nuclear then while nuclear declines (as older plants are taken offline) then coal will increase to take up the slack. It won't be a 1:1 because renewables are growing but we are talking more coal. Say in 2020 you take 800GW of nuclear offline. You build 300GW of wind/solar (thats 30x the rate we are building now). Also efficiency and conservation cuts demand by another 100GW. You are still "short" 400GW and that will be replaced by fossil fuels.

No nuclear plant when shutdown has been replaced 100% by renewables.

So this idea that we will have a mix of 100% renewables anytime in the near future is naive. You can support renewables and still be realistic. Until we get to 100% renewables (if ever) less nuclear means more fossil fuels.

[leveymg]

35. Your argument assumes that the same investment in a 800MW grid

with phase-out of nuclear in favor of stepped up capacity in renewables and efficiencies can't be delivered.

You don't explain why, except to say that it would require a massive increase in production of renewables and in efficiency. That reasoning is totally circular.

You haven't established that nuclear is essential (that there are no feasible alternatives, except coal) to maintaining peak load capacity during cloudy, windless days. I have not posited that a power grid based in 100% renewables - that's another straw man you threw in.

You really like your straw men. When you pull them out, your arguments don't hold up.

[Statistical]

36. I have not posited that a power grid based in 100% renewables"

Then what else will you use? Fossil fuels? If so you are advocating coal over nuclear. Pure and simple. It may be a round about way, it may be picking the lesser of two evils (in your opinion) but regardless it is coal over nuclear.

Either:
a) you believe we can go to 100% renewable in a very short period of time say 10 years
OR
b) you accept we will not be at 100% renewable in the immediate future and some other form of generation will be needed as renewables grow to 100%.

With me so far? You seem to indicate B which would mean something other than renewable will make up at least SOME % of our power in the next 20-30 years. Would you agree?

So if it isn't renewable (not 100% renewable) and it isn't nuclear that only leaves fossil fuels. Coal is the cheapest fossil fuel. Coal will be burned and a lot of it.

[TahitiNut]

33. We alos need to address transmission loss ... which is a HUGE energy sinkhole.

The grid needs MAJOR upgrades. :shrug:

[hobbit709]

16. There's usually a bean-counter decision behind a disaster.

[Greybnk48]

18. Wow! What an interesting and amazing mom!

How proud you must be, and rightly so. Given the time frame I'm imagining, she was a real pioneer in regard to being a woman in her field.

[Octafish]

20. Thank you for sharing this important story, G_j.

Your mom understood the importance of Fail-Safe. Should the unimaginable happen -- loss of control, loss of power, loss of coolant, etc -- there should be a system in place that can handle any emergency. Before and After images from Fukushima show how the tsunami wiped out support structures for the station. Having gravity supply the energy for dropping the emergency coolant is genius.

[G_j]

26. I remember her dismay when I was demonstrating at the Shoreham power plant

on Long Island. Though once she realized the lack of redundant "fail-safes" she began to question
the industry's integrity.



some interesting history regarding Shoreham:
http://www.longislandpress.com/2009/06/11/nuclear-waste-20-years-after-the-closure-of-the-shoreham-power-facility/


<snip>
“A lot of people likened it to the end of the Vietnam War,” Mann said. “It had been dragging and dragging and dragging, so people were not necessarily happy with the outcome, but they were happy with the closure because it was just going to go on forever.”

In the end, the protestors say that they had little to do with their cause’s success.
“I think LILCO lost more than we won,” says Peter Maniscalco, who was protesting by camping out in his car one block from the plant for 55 days in 1989 when he heard the news. “Our job was to keep the issue alive long enough for them to do themselves in,” he says.

By that time, LILCO had long since lost the public relations war. “Three Mile Island was the first dagger,” says Kessel of the 1979 partial-core meltdown in Pennsylvania, the biggest nuclear power plant accident in U.S. history. “Chernobyl was the second dagger and the final dagger, in my view, was Hurricane Gloria and LILCO’s inability to respond to it quickly and the decision of its chairman to stay in Italy rather than come back” to deal with the resulting power outages, he adds, referring to then-LILCO CEO William Catacosinos, who was vacationing with his wife at the time.

Parts of eastern LI were without power for up to two weeks following that 1985 storm, and four years later public resentment toward LILCO culminated in Shoreham’s demise.

“Despite all the great efforts made by many people, Shoreham was licensed for commercial purposes, and had the state not entered into a deal with LILCO to close Shoreham, that plant would have operated commercially,” Kessel says. Ultimately, it was LILCO’s proposed evacuation plan—which attempted to address the logistics behind a mass-departure from the East End—that was the final nail in the coffin after Cuomo refused to sign off on it.
<snip>

[Atman]

31. Don't you mean "boran?"

Oh, wait...that's something different...

[defendandprotect]

38. Anyone who was concerned with safety was obviously weeded out ...

safety loses when costs are involved --

Capitalism is a criminal enterprise!!






The Rightwing Koch Bros. Funded the DLC --

http://www.democrats.com/node/7789

http://upload.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x498414

If you knew this, why didn't you tell us?

If you didn't know, pass it along -- !!

:)

[Yo_Mama]

39. Cool Mom

Yes, some of the later designs do have that feature. I got such a rush reading about your mother after having seen a design with that feature.

It wouldn't prevent a lot of what they are dealing with over there, however. They've got a heat problem. Boron absorbs neutrons and stops a runaway chain reaction, but you still have to control the heat and pressure inside (and kept spent fuel rods cool and isolated from outside atmosphere).

They did pump boric acid in with the seawater on at least two reactors. I can't keep track of it all any more.