• Nuclear plant has been leaking oil into Lake Michigan for 2 months
    37 replies, posted
[QUOTE]An oil cooling system on the turbine of a southwest Michigan nuclear power plant leaked oil into Lake Michigan for about two months, according to plant officials. Officials with the Donald C. Cook Nuclear Plant near Bridgman reported the leak to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as well as state and local authorities, on Dec. 20, according to an event notification posted on the NRC's website. Plant officials believe 2,000 gallons of oil leaked into the lake, and a retroactive examination of system oil levels leads plant personnel to believe the leak may have been ongoing since about Oct. 25, said Bill Schalk, communications manager for the Cook Nuclear Plant. "One of the first things we did when we looked at the potential for a leak is examine the lake," he said. "Oil floats on top of the water and you see a sheen, but we could find no evidence of oil in our reservoirs, in the lake or on the beach. It has been dispersed." The leak involved an oil cooling system on the two-turbine plant's Unit 2 main turbine. The series of tubes runs in a heat exchanger where hot oil is cooled by water from Lake Michigan. It's believed the oil leaked into a tube or tubes and was mixed into the cooling water, Schalk said. The turbine system is separate from the plant's radioactive facilities, so the leaked oil is not contaminated with radiation, he said.[/QUOTE] [URL="http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2015/01/03/nuclear-power-oil-spill-lake-michigan/21215045/"]Source[/URL]
And this only made the news because it's a nuclear power plant. :rolleyes: The fact it took them three months to notice says there was no radioactive material involved. It's like that transformer fire at a NPP a few months back that also made the news.
[QUOTE=download;46854427]And this only made the news because it's a nuclear power plant. :rolleyes: The fact it took them three months to notice says there was no radioactive material involved. It's like that transformer fire at a NPP a few months back that also made the news.[/QUOTE] Well, getting used mineral oil spilled into a lake isn't good at all, but it's not REALLY serious I guess.
...This is slightly ironic.
[QUOTE=download;46854427] The fact it took them three months to notice says there was no radioactive material involved.[/QUOTE] No it doesn't. Tests for radioactivity say that.
Wouldn't there be an obvious drop in some sort of a pressure gauge they have at the plant in case a fluid leaks?
[QUOTE=Killuah;46855378]No it doesn't. Tests for radioactivity say that.[/QUOTE] No, it's by design. Unless you had a total failure of practically every safeguard in the facility, radioactive materials could not magically transfer their radioactivity to a turbine oil reservoir. The radioactive coolant loop is monitored so tightly that industrial engineers prpbably have nightmares about designing them. Also the only person scared about this (besides the folks rightfully angry over the oil spill in general) is some idiot that thinks that because an oil pressure sensor that operated correctly within the normal variance of oil pressure on a non-critical redundant isolated system, the entire plant is built to Chernobyl standards. The news took that guy and ran with it because "omg nuke".
This is why we really need to replace our old reactors with new ones.
All these stories of plants having issues and still being fine is honestly a great testament to how safe they are. If Fukishima were an oil refinery it would have probably blown up years ago after not passing safety inspection for over two decades. Instead it took a magnitude 8 earthquake and a tsunami flooding some poorly placed backup generators to cause any real issue.
[QUOTE=Killuah;46855378]No it doesn't. Tests for radioactivity say that.[/QUOTE] No. This stuff was at least three degrees removed from the reactor itself - they tested for radioactivity as a PR move, because the general public and the news media are absolute morons about how nuclear power works. This plant uses pressurized water reactors. In this design, the nuclear reactor heats water in its "primary cooling loop". This is water under extremely high pressure to keep it from boiling at the high temperatures it reaches. Because it ran through the reactor, it is considered radioactive waste, even though it's several thousand times less radioactive than the reactor. As such, this water does not even leave the containment vessel while the reactor is in operation. Instead, the primary cooling loop runs into a heat exchanger with the secondary cooling loop. This is unpressurized water, which quickly boils off into steam. This steam is used to spin the turbines to generate power, after which it is condensed and sent back into the loop. It was exposed only to second-hand radiation - that which was given off by the water in the primary loop. It's maybe one order of magnitude more radioactive than spring water - you could probably drink it straight with no damage, but it's still kept in a closed loop to be safe. It's condensed, in this case, by a tertiary cooling loop that draws in water from the lake, then sends it back a few degrees warmer and no more radioactive than it was to begin with (all natural water is slightly radioactive due to minute amounts of dissolved radioactive minerals, chiefly potassium and uranium). The stuff that leaked was cooling oil for the turbines - when they spin, they naturally generate some heat on the bearings, so that heat needs to be taken care of somehow. It received only third-hand radiation, and so is completely safe from a radiological perspective (mineral oil isn't exactly a nice thing to have in your water supply regardless of where it came from).
[QUOTE=draugur;46856416]All these stories of plants having issues and still being fine is honestly a great testament to how safe they are. If Fukishima were an oil refinery it would have probably blown up years ago after not passing safety inspection for over two decades. Instead it took a magnitude 8 earthquake and a tsunami flooding some poorly placed backup generators to cause any real issue.[/QUOTE] well from what i remember, the real issue was they kept screwing around while the recently-spent fuel pool was critically low and possibly boiling, fukishima wasn't necessarily a design flaw of the reactor, more a human error in response to a failure. if anything fukishima shows that we can run around like chickens with our heads cut off, and still recover. a lot of the stuff from there is time-stamped of when things failed and when we discovered when they failed, most of the problems were still because a lot of different systems were knocked out by the tsunami, but mainly the water pumping systems were the biggest issue as well as hydrogen gas buildup
And how is this news? Oil leaks happen all the time from cars. People spill transmission fluid, brake fluid, coolant, and engine oil all over the ground pretty much every day.
People (Stupidly and irrationally) fear nuclear reactors enough as it is. Any publicity for them seems to be bad publicity these days, which is absolutely disheartening to me.
[QUOTE=mecaguy03;46858228]And how is this news? Oil leaks happen all the time from cars. People spill transmission fluid, brake fluid, coolant, and engine oil all over the ground pretty much every day.[/QUOTE] Because it took 2 months for it to be noticed, at the end of the day, this thing is harnessing the power of fission - a very powerful force derived from putting very dangerous material close to eachother. it's not irrational to fear nuclear power; yes there is tonnes of safety precautions for predicted scenarios, i'm no expert, but can the current safety precautions protect against someone intentionally blowing the reactor up?
[QUOTE=Subzero MP3Z;46858757]can the current safety precautions protect against someone intentionally blowing the reactor up?[/QUOTE] Yes. Although that's a trick question since it's impossible to blow a commercial reactor up unless you have access to an air force.
[QUOTE=Fourm Shark;46859146]What stops a coal mine from catching on fire and condemning an entire town?[/QUOTE] [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania]Absolutely[/url] [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Door_to_Hell]nothing.[/url] [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brennender_Berg]Sometimes it doesn't even[/url] [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_Mountain]need to be a mine,[/url] [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoking_Hills]just a coal seam.[/url]
[QUOTE=Subzero MP3Z;46858757]Because it took 2 months for it to be noticed, at the end of the day, this thing is harnessing the power of fission - a very powerful force derived from putting very dangerous material close to eachother. it's not irrational to fear nuclear power; yes there is tonnes of safety precautions for predicted scenarios, i'm no expert, but can the current safety precautions protect against someone intentionally blowing the reactor up?[/QUOTE] Pretty much yes. Nuclear reactors are very very strong and secure. Unless you have bunker busters or other very large bombs you are not going to do anything to the reactor itself. Yea sure you might be able to blow up a turbine hall or something, but that wont release any significant amounts of radioactive material.
I think a big problem is that people associate anything nuclear with a nuclear weapon or horrible mutations. If the public was more informed of how safe nuclear reactors are compared to coal power plants or even wind turbines I don't think there would be nearly as much of an anti-nuclear stigma.
[QUOTE=Kyle902;46859369]I think a big problem is that people associate anything nuclear with a nuclear weapon or horrible mutations. If the public was more informed of how safe nuclear reactors are compared to coal power plants or even wind turbines I don't think there would be nearly as much of an anti-nuclear stigma.[/QUOTE] I'll go look for it but I once read a study that showed a direct correlation between the understanding of the technology and physics behind nuclear power, and approval of nuclear power. [editline]5th January 2015[/editline] People who scored full marks on the questionnaire, 90% were pro-nuclear if I remember correctly.
[QUOTE=download;46859520]I'll go look for it but I once read a study that showed a direct correlation between the understanding of the technology and physics behind nuclear power, and approval of nuclear power. [editline]5th January 2015[/editline] People who scored full marks on the questionnaire, 90% were pro-nuclear if I remember correctly.[/QUOTE] Yeah, it's called "Facepunch".
Let's put it this way: you'd be better off living IN a nuclear power plant than living within a mile of a coal plant.
I can see the Facepunch nuclear power damage control team is well on this.
[QUOTE=MoonlessNight;46864312]I can see the Facepunch nuclear power damage control team is well on this.[/QUOTE] Easy to control no nuclear damage...
shits gonna be like The Oblongs
Is anyone calling this anti-nuclear fearmongering suggesting that a coal mine leaking 2,000 gallons of oil into one of the Great Lakes over the course of months wouldn't be newsworthy?
[QUOTE=catbarf;46878723]Is anyone calling this anti-nuclear fearmongering suggesting that a coal mine leaking 2,000 gallons of oil into one of the Great Lakes over the course of months wouldn't be newsworthy?[/QUOTE] If it were an oil refinery, people would be going apeshit......
[QUOTE=Snowmew;46864889]Easy to control no nuclear damage...[/QUOTE] I'll save you effort of typing this out again or telling people to click your title [t]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/111996868/reactions/nuclear%20energy.JPG[/t]
This is rather surreal news, given that my dad has worked at DC Cook on that particular turbine.
Fun fact: eating bananas probably exposes you to more radiation than living near a nuclear power plant
[QUOTE=catbarf;46878723]Is anyone calling this anti-nuclear fearmongering suggesting that a coal mine leaking 2,000 gallons of oil into one of the Great Lakes over the course of months wouldn't be newsworthy?[/QUOTE] Yes. Even if anyone reported it it wouldn't make front page, or even tenth.
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