Dateline's treatment of TMI 2

[tstead]

Did anyone see Dateline's rendition of the events around TMI? Their whole premise is that we were close to a "China syndrome." I about blew pepsi out of my nose as I started laughing uncontrollably when they said, "Meltdown, what scientists call a China syndrone,..."

They further said that once the molten fuel reached 5000 F, it would start an "unstoppable chain reaction" that would lead to a China syndrome.

I thought I was watching a newscast from the 1940's - I mean, how could any logical person in this day and age even think that a "China syndrome" is a scientifically-plausible scenario? There is just no way that fuel can melt through the PV and still have enough energy to melt through the containment floor.

What's more, I'd like to know what "scientists" they talked with that think that a "China syndrome" is possible - let alone use that ridiculous phrase in lie of "core damage."

They also said that "all the water in the ocean would not be enough to stop the melting fuel." I'd like to know what bright individual they spoke with to get that remark. Seems to me, if the water in the RCS is sufficient to transfer the energy from the fuel when it's not melted and melting fuel contains no more energy than solid fuel (assuming the chain reaction has stopped, which is a valid assumption) the temperature is irrelevant. I guess Q=m*CpdT is not valid inside the containment dome - I dunno...

Did anyone else see this charade and irresponsible show masquerading as a factual report of the accident?

 

[Dan76]

(un?)Fortunately I missed it, sadly since most journalists have little to no scientific or technical training this kind of crap will continue to pop up from time to time, (after all, it sells soap.) The really scary part is most people buy this fertilizer, hook, line, and sinker, then they complain when they have no power! I'll also bet that Dateline never mentioned TMI-1 has one of the best safety records of any plant in the country. I won't bet against them mentioning it is still operating, with a shot of the 'ominous' cooling tower in the background. TMI-2 had a meltdown, sure, they destroyed their core, and spent big $ on cleanup. Big deal, no one off-site recieved significant exposure (Unless you place any stock in that nonsense about the &quot;narrow plume&quot; or whatever getting between the monitoring stations. <Yeah, Right and Elvis started the whole thing from his Flying Saucer with Bat Boy too>)

Well I'm done sounding off, (I wonder why my family leaves the room when something <Crap> about Nuclear Power comes on the TV?)Remember 'Waste is better buried than breathed'.
(and Recycled is even better! Go W.)

-Dan76

 

[LinkNuc]

Gearing up for an outage so not much time to reply. However what I did see of Dateline made me ill. Seriuosly, ill to my stomach. What a production, sheesh.

 

[tstead]

Check out my webpage - I have a very scathing review of their show.

Go to

http://www.ntirs.org

You will see on my homepage a brief synopsis of their show with a link to read my not-so-nice-to-NBC-or-Mike-Gray review.

Has anyone heard to the Rasplav Report or the CONTAIN code? I understand that several cases were run using CONTAIN on plants and found that at 100% power and EOC, the fuel could not melt its way through the 10' containment slab and enter the ground below - even with complete loss of ECCS. Of course, with DCH and no containment cooling (such as either an operable CS or RHR system) it would take about 2 hours before containment pressure would exceed design limitations.

Even still, the corium would be plated out on the equipment in containment and would not be transported to the atmosphere like what happened at Chernobyl - which contaminated 20 sqaure miles. I don't know about anyone else, but 20 square miles is far from the entire East coast (like Dateline suggested) and relatively simple decon actions would render the area perfectly safe in a matter of just a few of years - hardly the &quot;far into the distant future&quot; that Dateline suggested.

Why is it that when people talk about nuclear power, they speak to only what is the worse case thing that could possibly happen? That would be like me protesting airplanes becuase two fully-loaded jumbo jets could collide over dodger stadium durng the bottom of the 9th inning of a tie 7th game of the world series just before a bases-loaded, 2 out, 2-3 pitch. How many people would die in that accident?

Its like a reporter's camera closing in on a swimming pool with eerie music in the background with a gloomy voice saying, &quot;There is enough water in just this single backyard swimming pool alone to kill 6 billion people...when will the madness of building these deathtraps end? Tonight on Dateline...&quot;

Why is it that groups protest LLW from being transported or buried when, by their definition, the human body constitutes HLW? Does this mean that we should now bury humans in specially-sited grave sites that have undergone extensive 20-year environmental studies and over $6 billion to prove that our decaying corpses will not leach out of the caskets and contaminate the entire country's groundwater? Should we now guarantee a leak-free casket for 10,000 years because our corpses are HLW?

I urge each one of you to fight this anti-nuclear madness tooth and nail. Write letters to your paper and get involved.

Tim

P.S. Did you know that there was a huge stink in Fernald not too long ago becuase they discharged a couple tons of uranium over 20-30 years? Yet, nobody complains about the approx. 600 pounds of uranium discharged each day from coal power plants. Sure, when it comes from the nuclear industry, we call it &quot;nuclear waste&quot; but when it comes from a coal plant, we call it &quot;coal ash&quot;. Amazing how things work, huh?

 

[LinkNuc]

All good points Tim, I finally read the Dateline transcript to get the full story, who in the heck is this guy and has he even taken a nuclear course in his life? Best point you make is what scientist or engineer actually uses the term &quot;China Syndrome&quot;? Seriuosly not enough water in the ocean to stop the chain reaction? If all the fuel were to melt I guess it would stay in a critical geometry, (So as to over power the temp effect) you know because its natural for liquid metal to do that, come on! I know I have seen liquid metal in a sphere before...

 

[tstead]

As best I can tell, Mike Gray received an Associate's degree in Engineering Technology from Perdue back in the 60's.

He became a freelance journalist, writing for papers like Rolling Stone. Today, he is still a freelance journalist for the National Enquirer. He is also president of the &quot;Common Sense for Drug Policy&quot; group and has written many books on why illegal drugs should be legalized and how the &quot;drug war&quot; is killing our children.

Last on his list of credentials is that he is the screenwriter for the movie, &quot;The China Syndrome.&quot; For those of you that don't know, the China Syndrome came out of the CA anti-nuclear movement and was a direct spawn of the ECCS controversy in the 60's as a result of the AEC's mishandling of the entire shebackle.

Come to think about it, I seem to remember an issue of Rolling Stone where they compared various neutron transport and thermal hydraulic codes and the necessary modifications to melting fuel....(can you feel the sarcasm).

As far as melting fuel forming a sphere, I guess it &quot;could&quot; happen (in some twisted logic kind of way) but at about the same probability as melting fudge has to form a sphere when dropped from a spatula onto a cutting board.

 

[LinkNuc]

Thanks for the info, Tim. I guess you can sense my sarcasm about the critical geometry, just another thing to add to a long line of things such as Doppler Effect that would keep the fuel from doing what Mike Gray thinks.

 

[tstead]

I could feel your sarcasm from here I'm sure mine was just burning a hole in the screen

Plus, think about it, even if the fuel were to remain critical (somehow - you do have melted control rods mixed in with it - what sort of SDM do you have there??), it would still not produce any more energy than it did at full power - and there is certainly less water in various lakes, etc. that cool off plants at full power than in the entire ocean...I wonder where all this energy is coming from that Mike Gray thinks is unstoppable...

And, this is the kicker, only ONE (count it, ONE) operable CSS is requried to dissipate more heat than a steamline rupture blowdown, decay heat, AND hydrogen burn combined can possibly add to the containment atmosphere. In other words, all it takes is 1 CSS system working in the event that the fuel melts through the RPV to maintain containment integrity. All other forms of cooling are not needed to keep a meltdown within the containment.

 

[LinkNuc]

Tim, you make outstanding points, I see that you are a Mechanical Engineer, I take it you do quite a bit of Nuclear Work. I am a Reactor Engineer at Beaver Valley with my degree in NucE from Penn State. This stuff makes me absolutely cringe and its hard to keep calm when debating with someone, however this is the only way to do it...with facts and in a calm respectful manner. However just like you I would like to See Mike Gray and shake him by the shoulders and say listen......! I do my best to spread the facts about Nuclear Power and address the waste issues. I encourage all to do the same. Keep up the great work Tim!

Trav

 

[tstead]

No, I'm a nuclear engineer (BSNE from Univ of Missouri - Rolla). Nowadays, I spend my time designing pumps for a pump manufacturer (which is, I guess, Mechanical since we don't make neutron pumps *snicker*). We manufacture boilerfeed pumps as well as safeguards pumps for the nuke industry (such as charging, EFW, AFW, etc.) Business right now for pumps is 0% nuclear and 100% fossil power plants.

I'd like to get back into the nuke field (pumps are kind of cool, but my heart remains with neutrons...) as a reactor engineer, though.

I've been trying to find a way to change my label (what it says in parens next to my name) from mechanical to nuclear, but i have no idea how to do it.

Tim

 

[LinkNuc]

Ah I understand, yeah I love being an RE, but it is very time consuming, we only have two my Senior Engineer (we have two units). I have a feeling I'll be getting asked to go to the next SRO class, so I'll definitely do that but I do not want to spend my career in the Control Room, Id gladly do it for a while as long as I got cycled back out into Engineering which is the whole idea. My next degree I am pursuing though is an MBA. Ideally I'd like to move into management with the work force being so old (in work years not human..) I figure I have quite an opportunity. However things do change ie Wife Kids...Managment dosen't look so appealing then, Your slary may go up but the hourly rate goes down if ya now what I mean. C'est la vie. I love this buisness.

 

[xnuke]

tstead,
I had my forum designation changed shortly after I first signed up with Eng-Tips by e-mailing the forum administrator at management@eng-tips.com

 

[ChasBean1]

tstead, you attack this with a passion at your site! I'm pro nuke also, and I didn't happen to see the dateline show (which I'm sure was slanted anti-nuke). Not meaning to play too much of a devil's advocate, I didn't agree with many of your counter arguments re: this topic at your site. Iv'e always understood that a reactor can achieve prompt criticality under certain adverse conditions even with the 'poles in the hole.' I don't agree that if a core normally puts out 1.5 million BTUH that it could not put out more than 1.5 million during an uncontrolled situation. My understanding (rusty, from a long time ago) of TMI2 was a loss of feed led to dryout of a not very forgiving steam generator (dryout within about 1½ minutes - SG was small for application), leading to popping/sticking open of a PORV, leading to loss of coolant, leading to drawing a bubble in the core, etc. And I agree with you, based on my understanding, that this was decay heat core damage and not a prompt criticality issue. I've also seen footage of control rods lodged in the ceiling of the containment building at SL1 in Idaho resulting from CRDM maintenance and a problem with the latch mechanism. Big accidents can happen in these plants, although I agree with you they should not slant them so moronically.

Nothing personal, and I like your article but I think it needs to lighten the passion and strengthen the facts. Write it when you're pissed off, but then read it again later over a beer after you've cooled down!! Best regards & keep up your good efforts, -Chas

 

[tstead]

I don't know where I said that a reactor couldn't reach prompt criticality becuase it certainly can - rod ejection at beginning of life, for example.

The SL1 incident was a result of some poor schmuck not understanding that control rod worth varies as a function of core heigth and he yanked them when they were darn near at the center - where they have the highest worth!

As far as my discussion on energy output, you have to remember that in the absence of a positive reactivity insertion, the energy output will remain the same or drop. Of course if you want to get technical, you can point to a power reversal event - but that time frame is on the order of seconds before the power level drops below what it was before the negative reactivity insertion. But I digress.

So, the rods drop in (as they did at TMI) and the reactor goes on a stable -80 second period. The energy output is dropping - not remaining constant and certianly not increasing. When you loose coling water flow, your heat transfer coefficient drops. With a drop in h, the dT must increase because of conservation of energy. Temperature goes up (further reducing reactivity) and fuel melts (even further reducing reactivity). All this leads to a drop in the energy output of the fuel.

With a drop in energy output, the cooling load dimensishes with time. All the while, water is flashing to steam (absorbing energy) and being condensed with the containment cooling system where it goes back in the sump only to absorb more energy and keep up the cycle. There is no justifiable or defensible reason to believe that the fuel is unstoppable ONLY because it reaches a certain temperature (they claim ~500 F) - and CERTAINLY it is a complete lie to say that &quot;all the water in the ocean would not stop it.&quot;

All you are doing is transferring a certain amount of heat from the melting/melted fuel and that quantity of heat is less than the quantity of heat in a core at full power. There are transients where the power could increase, as you correctly state, but those discussions are not applicable to the TMI incident which my discussion was limited to.