Posted on 06/14/2011 11:08:29 PM PDT by Attention Surplus Disorder
No Fly Zone Over Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant Due to “Hazards”
Posted on June 14, 2011 by admin
The Federal Aviation Administration issued a temporary flight restriction over the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant until further notice due to “Hazards”. This would normally be a precautionary measure after an electrical fire disabled cooling for the spent fuel rod pool as outlined below. The question is why is this still in effect?
As reported previously, this facility is surrounded by sand bags as the Missouri River rises.
David DeGerolamo Electrical Fire Knocks Out Spent Fuel Cooling at Nebraska Nuclear Plant
A fire in an electrical switch room on Tuesday briefly knocked out cooling for a pool holding spent nuclear fuel at the Fort Calhoun nuclear plant outside Omaha, Neb., plant officials said.
The safety of deep pools used to store used radioactive fuel at nuclear plants has been an issue since the accident at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant in March. If the cooling water a pool is lost, the used nuclear fuel could catch fire and release radiation.
More…
also see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHZdub3n0mI
(Excerpt) Read more at ncrenegade.com ...
There’s also been talk of the earthen dam breaking. Then what? Another day, they opened the gates and admitted they had no clue where the water was going to spread to. Uh, excuse me, but that’s their job to know and they might want to keep an eye on the low lands, duh. I know first hand when idiots man the gates. You can call them up saying they’re flooding you out and they (sitting behind their computers a couple hours away) will tell you you’re wrong because their gauges 5 miles away aren’t showing that. Then there’s the idiot emergency services who evacuate one side of the river and igore the other side as if it’s a Parting of the Red Sea II and the water knows better than to flood both sides of its banks. Don’t dismiss everything as move along, nothing to see, and the government knows best and will take care of us.
Check out RoosterLikesTiger’s update threads on the Japan Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant continuing disaster after lie after distaster after lie after disaster after lie. More idiots and cya after the fact.
I’ve been reading about FukuNuku since the second day of the tsunami - finally couldn’t stand the threads here beacuse of all the liars and deniers, went to TB2 where they have excellent news hounds, that Japanese blogger, and another forum with excellent news hounds. Then I slacked off reading for a while due to being overwhelmed.
Just got on TLR’s ping list, and catching up with a bit of the horrific ongoing news. The lies and un-freaking-believable. Guvs and nuke plants will lie til their last breath. SOP for guvs and corporate entities now.
What’s the TB2? Do tell!
I used to skim a rad tech’s blog for useful information because he showed true regard for the pointless hazards that the Japanese workers were being exposed to, and demanded early to know what the strontium levels were, saying it was unbelievable that they wouldn’t be testing for strontium etc. But - he’s a nuke guy in the end - after 3 core meltdowns were revealed, he said that was ‘good’ in that it showed how sound the design of the reactors were!!!!!!!
You know, once the Soviet citizens realized the depth of their governments’ lies and that the citizens would now be forced to live in radioactively contaminated zones the rest of their lives, eating contaminated food, drinking contaminated water, facing birth defects in newborns - ‘international scientists’ detected high levels of ‘mental illness’ among the survivors. (What a surprise! Why are they depressed?!) This is a favorite detail of nuke apologists because they use this ‘high levels of mental illness’ report to support their sickening claim that the irrational fear of radiation does more harm to (mental) health that actual radiation contamination! You really gotta be conscienceless to make a claim like that! Destroy peoples lives and blame them for making it all up in their heads!
I was thoroughly unprepared for the amount of deception surrounding Fukushima (in the US nuke apologists, gov agencies, and Japan)and I remember some of it from TMI. It’s just seems so much worse now - I guess because the tragedy is so much worse that they show more of themselves now.
Here’s the TimeBomb2000 ongoing FukuNuku thread, excellent coverage since day 1. They change the title every now and then when there’s new big news.
The Nebraska plant thread which I haven’t looked at much:
Springfield, Massachusetts - Connecticut River TORNADO -incredible!!!
That is what of those...should read...That is one of those,
A prominent feature of this thread is that the routine flooding of the refueling canal somehow indicates a problem at Ft Calhoun. Also, an extinguished fire is supposed to be significant. I don’t deny that the high water level is to be trifled with.
I guess we’ll have to let the passage of time adjudicate this matter. At the end of June, I rather strongly suspect, we’ll find that Ft Calhoun Station is rather soggy but nothing much else is the matter with it.
We all hope so. The flooding of that river is supposed to last into next month. Some of the big snow melts are just now getting going. Have no idea what the plan would be if they get flooded and lose power. Evacuating the spent fuel rods would probably be impossible. Anyone know if the new unspent fuel rods are being stored on site ?
Trust me. The staff at Ft Calhoun is NOT taking a “let’s hope for the best” approach. Various contingencies are being evaluated and planned for. I can think of many ways to handle a gradual rise in water levels and I don’t think that anyone is suggesting a flash flood.
The plant is in a refueling outage, so fresh fuel is on-site. Whether it is in the vessel, I don’t know. I’m not sure why you would be concerned with fresh fuel. Let me know if you have questions.
Let’s not forget that the Big Muddy is in flood so that its waters are spread over a large area. It will take a massive volume of water to raise the water level appreciably.
There is also apparently a second nuclear plant on the same river that is threatened. Could not find an aerial picture of that one yet.
Always thought the unspent fuel rods were more dangerous then the spent ones. Perhaps you can clarify the situation.
Fresh fuel rods have not been irradiated. Thus, they have no decay heat because no fissions have occurred in them.
The problem in the spent fuel pools at Fukushima Diachi is that the spent fuel was generating a lot of decay heat as a result of the cumulative fissions which the uranium (and plutonium) had accrued. This decay heat, if the heat is not removed, can cause the fuel to heat up and eventually melt.
The fresh fuel is more likely to sustain a chain reaction, but the addition of boric acid easily obviates this possibility. During refueling operations, the boric acid concentration is kept at a sufficiently high level as to preclude a chain reaction. Nuclear detectors are constantly monitored to ensure that a chain reaction is not occurring.
According to Wikipedia there are three Nuclear plants located along the Missouri. All have only one working reactor each. No Japanese Cascading issues here.
Callaway is probably five miles from the Missouri and is situated well above the flood plain. It will not be flooded by the Missouri.
The refueling water has very high levels of boric acid. Any control elements in fresh fuel are in the fresh fuel because of the core design (that is, they will be in the fresh fuel when the reactor operates).
May I commend the following site to your attention?
http://djysrv.blogspot.com/2011/06/spiking-conspiracy-theories-about-ft.html
Who the heck built these things ? The Clown Posse ?
It's been a hard thing for us conservatives to accept that the America we thought we knew not only no longer is, but really never was.
Many still refuse to accept it, hoping that defeating the incumbent figurehead will be enough...but it won't.
Wouldn’t bother me in the least to have fresh fuel stored in my backyard. No health hazard and it might just be a nifty income stream.
I’m not sure what you have against sandbags.
Calm down. The most recent nuclear plant to begin operation did so about twenty years ago, so I think that we can characterize all of them as “aging”. These “aging” nuclear plants are running at an average capacity factor of about 90%, which is pretty darn impressive and which is evidence that this “aging” factor that has you so upset probably really isn’t a detriment to safe, efficient, and economic operation.
France, for what it is worth, will be laughing all the way to the bank as it sells electricity throughout Europe because the Germans and the Italians took counsel of their fears.
I am sorry that you have a problem with sandbags.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.