Posted on 06/14/2011 11:08:29 PM PDT by Attention Surplus Disorder
Simple. It illustrates the fact that they did not put in permanent protection from worse case flooding. That is a major design flaw for a nuclear plant. Any one of those old dams could have busted open any day in the past. And there would have been no time for sand bagging in such a case.
And we are now holding up the French as role models ? Interesting. You probably used to use the Japanese, I gather ?
Listen to yourself. To get your catastrophe, you’ve got to massively fail a bunch of dams. When in the history of the Republic have we seen a series of dams collapse in such a manner? But yet you seem to think that such a disaster is imminent.
I went to the Updated Safety Analysis Report for Ft Calhoun. The 0.1% probability flood level is estimated to be 1004.2 ft above mean sea level. The plant has passive protection against floods to 1007 ft above MSL. Removable flood protection barriers can be installed to protect to 1014 ft above MSL. The Updated Safety Analysis Report specifically addresses the failure of Oahe or Ft Randall Dams coincident with a flood to 1009.3 ft above MSL (by which I mean the site is flooded to 1009.3 ft and then the dam fails).
The flood level on June 9 was 1004 ft which was the projected maxiumum level predicted on June 6 (the prediction was made on June 6). Checking the US Weather Service website, the flooding at Blair, NE, which is several miles north of the plant, and at Omaha, NE, which is about 20 miles downstream of the plant, is described as moderate.
Sorry to rain on your parade.
You might also want to read this article to read the facts the MSM, Government and Nuclear Industry are not telling you.
I don’t see much substantive in the cited document. Let’s look at it in some detail.
It discusses a “Yellow Finding” by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued last October which dealt with mitigating flooding at the Ft Calhoun site and then concedes that the Omaha Public Power District has taken the necessary corrective actions. Sounds like a moot point to me.
It then mentions a fire in an electrical switchgear room which was quickly extinguished. And the significance is...? Fires happen - that’s why the plant has fire suppression and fire fighting capabilities.
It then breathlessly talks about the water releases from dams upstream of the plant. And the point is ....? Earlier in the cited document, the author concedes that the danger is an “instantaneous distingeration” of an upstream dam coincident with an historically-high flood (the 0.1% flood I mentioned in an earlier post). So, looking at the situation at hand, we have moderate flooding in the area, according to the US Weather Service, along with controlled releases from upstream dams. What is the relevance?
The author then addresses burned fuel remaining in the reactor vessel and draws a parallel to Fukushima Diachi. The issue is that radioactive decay continues to produce heat, which must be removed, even after the reactor is shutdown. However, we have several differences between Ft Calhoun and Fukushima Diachi. First, the core lost cooling at Fukushima within a few hours of reactor shutdown, while Ft Calhoun has been shutdown for about two months. The amount of heat being produced decreases substantially with time. One has the luxury of having a great deal more time to restore cooling, if it is lost, at Ft Calhoun due to the amount of time which has passed since the reactor was shutdown for refueling. More technically, the reactor at Ft Calhoun is shutdown and de-pressurized with the appropriate systems in operation. At Fukushima the reactors were still pressurized and had not switched over to the analogous cooling modes [as appropriate for a boiling water reactor (Fukushima) vs a pressurizer water reactor (Ft Calhoun)]. Yes, it’s a geeky point, but it is important.
The author cites a broken link for a paper by Robert Alvarez of the Institute for Policy Studies, a very left-wing outfit. Are we next going to approvingly quote Paul Krugman regarding the necessity of additional stimulus spending? I never thought I’d see the day that the Institute for Policy Studies would be a source for a discussion in the Free Republic.
The author then takes the press to task for failing to provide context for the water levels at Ft Calhoun. Well, I did so yesterday, and, indeed, the author does so as well while conceding that the water level is well below the design level of 1014 ft above mean sea level. The failure of the media to adequately report technical issues is long-standing and in no way indicts the safety of Ft Calhoun. One again wonders what the relevance is.
The remainder of the article is equally tenditious. The entire tone is to breathlessly posit issues while conceding that they have all been taken into account. If you read the article carefully, you will find that it demonstrates that the situation is in hand.
And what about terrorism? What is the concern? An attack to fail a dam upstream of Ft Calhoun, or a attack on Ft Calhoun? The plant is protected by an armed guard force, which routinely carries M-16s. The plant is constructed of hardened concrete structures.
Others have argued that attempting to focus the attention of putative terrorists on nuclear power plants is a good thing, because other, much more vulnerable targets can easily be found. According to this view, the difficulties of successfully attacking a nuclear power plant are high with a low chance of success, while attacks on other facilities could be successful with a high consequences. Perhaps the events of September 11, 2001, give credence to this argument.
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.