Minor Explosion In Transformer At Nuclear Reactor In Arkansas; No Effect On Reactors Besides Automat
70 replies, posted
Sensationalist headlines strikes again
Sensationalist much? I missed the transformer bit on the first readthrough, but noticed it couldn't have been reactor related when it said the one unit was still at 95% operation.
Transformers blow up all the time, why did this even make the news? Because it's at a nuclear plant? Normally something like this isn't even reported on...
[QUOTE=Reshy;43137268]I was talking about a secondary transformer encase the primary one fails. But this was an auxiliary transformer but still caused the power to drop enough to engage the safety systems. I wonder what caused the explosion.[/QUOTE]
Transformers go sometimes. It could've just been normal wear and tear. Just when they do go, especially those like the ones used for the loads at major power plants, it's a pretty spectacular explosion.
[QUOTE=Killerelf12;43137271]Sensationalist much? I missed the transformer bit on the first readthrough, but noticed it couldn't have been reactor related when it said the one unit was still at 95% operation.
Transformers blow up all the time, why did this even make the news? Because it's at a nuclear plant? Normally something like this isn't even reported on...[/QUOTE]
Because in the post Chernobyl-era, most people are stupidly paranoid about nuclear power.
[QUOTE=Reshy;43137268]I was talking about a secondary transformer encase the primary one fails. But this was an auxiliary transformer but still caused the power to drop enough to engage the safety systems. I wonder what caused the explosion.[/QUOTE]
probably oil level dropped too low, though they are insulated some of the cooling oil does evaporate, and you have to top it off every now and then, without maintinance, the transformer overheats and blows up
[QUOTE=meppers;43137167]guys my car tire just burst we need to switch to horses they're safer[/QUOTE]
Your car tire affects at max, 20 people (in the case of some kind of horrific car crash where your tire blows out and caues a pile up).
A major nuclear disaster affects everyone on earth.
Uh, the headline is correct, tho, it was an "explosion at". It would have been worth bolding the "it was just a transformer" in the article, but eh. You people are just jumping on conclusions.
[QUOTE=SCopE5000;43137318]Your car tire affects at max, 20 people (in the case of some kind of horrific car crash where your tire blows out and caues a pile up).
A major nuclear disaster affects everyone on earth.[/QUOTE]
What if the car is carrying a nuclear reactor? Those aren't safe you know.
[QUOTE=SCopE5000;43137318]Your car tire affects at max, 20 people (in the case of some kind of horrific car crash where your tire blows out and caues a pile up).
A major nuclear disaster affects everyone on earth.[/QUOTE]
Not noticeably, nah.
Stop panicking, people. This is everything working as designed.
They could probably keep it running at this point, but it would be risky (reduced margin for error - if the reactor's internal power were interrupted the control systems would stop functioning), so the system automatically shut down.
No material release. No malfunction in the reactor itself. Shutdown seems to have gone smoothly.
This isn't categorized as an accident - it's an "unusual event" in NRC parlance. To quote:
"Unusual Event - This is the lowest of the four emergency classifications. This classification indicates that a small problem has occurred. No release of radioactive material is expected and federal, state and county officials are notified."
In INES terminology, a Level 1 event (Anomaly) or perhaps even a Level 0 event, a Deviation. Compare to Three Mile Island, which was a Level 5 Accident with Wider Consequences, or Fukushima, which was a Level 7 Major Accident. Hell, the recent theft of a radiation source in Mexico would have been a Level 2 Incident or Level 3 Serious Incident.
The US nuclear industry is regulated and paranoid. If anything goes slightly wrong, everything springs into action to minimize any potential dangers. That's what happened here - something went slightly wrong, and rather than continue operating without a backup plan, they stopped. This kind of thing happens all the time - basically any earthquake will trigger stuff like this, for example.
[QUOTE=gman003-main;43137336]Stop panicking, people. This is everything working as designed.
They could probably keep it running at this point, but it would be risky (reduced margin for error - if the reactor's internal power were interrupted the control systems would stop functioning), so the system automatically shut down.
No material release. No malfunction in the reactor itself. Shutdown seems to have gone smoothly.
This isn't categorized as an accident - it's an "unusual event" in NRC parlance. To quote:
"Unusual Event - This is the lowest of the four emergency classifications. This classification indicates that a small problem has occurred. No release of radioactive material is expected and federal, state and county officials are notified."
In INES terminology, a Level 1 event (Anomaly) or perhaps even a Level 0 event, a Deviation. Compare to Three Mile Island, which was a Level 5 Accident with Wider Consequences, or Fukushima, which was a Level 7 Major Accident. Hell, the recent theft of a radiation source in Mexico would have been a Level 2 Incident or Level 3 Serious Incident.
The US nuclear industry is regulated and paranoid. If anything goes slightly wrong, everything springs into action to minimize any potential dangers. That's what happened here - something went slightly wrong, and rather than continue operating without a backup plan, they stopped. This kind of thing happens all the time - basically any earthquake will trigger stuff like this, for example.[/QUOTE]
If anything, it kinda shows how nicely everything is under control and how much oversight do these systems get.
[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;43137357]If anything, it kinda shows how nicely everything is under control and how much oversight do these systems get.[/QUOTE]
To be fair, Chernobyl is a case study absolutely every Engineer learns about. Nuclear technology has gotten a lot safer as of late.
there are better reasons to get rid of nuclear power than short-term safety concerns.
[QUOTE=yawmwen;43137392]there are better reasons to get rid of nuclear power than short-term safety concerns.[/QUOTE]
Such as?
[QUOTE=yawmwen;43137445]long-term ecological reasons.[/QUOTE]
Which are?
[QUOTE=yawmwen;43137445]long-term ecological reasons.[/QUOTE]
Are you capable of not being so ambiguous?
[QUOTE=LittleBabyman;43137450]Which are?[/QUOTE]
the handling and storage of nuclear waste is a huge problem. our current strategy is to just store it near the power plant until it can get buried under a mountain somewhere remote.
[QUOTE=Reshy;43137268]I was talking about a secondary transformer encase the primary one fails. But this was an auxiliary transformer but still caused the power to drop enough to engage the safety systems. I wonder what caused the explosion.[/QUOTE]
That's something dealing with power company infrastructure not really nuclear power plants. Some do put aux or cotransformers some don't.
Why not solar power/wind power
[QUOTE=sloppy_joes;43137381]To be fair, Chernobyl is a case study absolutely every Engineer learns about. Nuclear technology has gotten a lot safer as of late.[/QUOTE]
They covered Chernobyl (and Three Mile Island, plus dozens of other non-nuclear cases like Challenger) in the Engineering Ethics class I took in high school. The lessons were basically this:
1) Don't take stupid risks with dangerous stuff just to see what would happen
2) Always design multiple layers of safety ito anything remotely dangerous
3) Never hire an engineer with no training in a field to do anything (the RBMK designer had previously designed only bridges and dams IIRC)
Even by 1980's standards, the Chernobyl plant was outdated and ridiculously unsafe. At least Windscale had the excuse of "we just didn't know" - the Soviets damn well knew the kinds of things that could go wrong with nuclear reactions, and they did it anyways.
A modern reactor is only dangerous because they're not being replaced regularly. Chernobyl, 3MI and now Fukushima have made it basically impossible to build a new reactor, and so the old reactors that were designed to last only 40 years or so are often being recertified to keep running for longer (Fukushima was weeks away from being shut down due to age when the earthquake and tsunami hit).
If we started building new reactors, either of the "current" type, or of the newer and theoretically much safer designs that have been developed over the past few decades, nuclear would be one of the safest ways to generate power, period. It's already safer than coal, oil or gas (when you count the impacts of mining), and it's safer than hydroelectric. It's just that when it does fail, it tends to fail in a pretty spectacular way, while coal et al. just shit mercury into the oceans.
[QUOTE=lolo;43137523]Why not solar power/wind power[/QUOTE]
Huge issues with NIMBY. On top of that they're not very powerful or reliable.
[editline]10th December 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=gman003-main;43137530]They covered Chernobyl (and Three Mile Island, plus dozens of other non-nuclear cases like Challenger) in the Engineering Ethics class I took in high school. The lessons were basically this:
1) Don't take stupid risks with dangerous stuff just to see what would happen
2) Always design multiple layers of safety ito anything remotely dangerous
3) Never hire an engineer with no training in a field to do anything (the RBMK designer had previously designed only bridges and dams IIRC)
Even by 1980's standards, the Chernobyl plant was outdated and ridiculously unsafe. At least Windscale had the excuse of "we just didn't know" - the Soviets damn well knew the kinds of things that could go wrong with nuclear reactions, and they did it anyways.
A modern reactor is only dangerous because they're not being replaced regularly. Chernobyl, 3MI and now Fukushima have made it basically impossible to build a new reactor, and so the old reactors that were designed to last only 40 years or so are often being recertified to keep running for longer (Fukushima was weeks away from being shut down due to age when the earthquake and tsunami hit).
If we started building new reactors, either of the "current" type, or of the newer and theoretically much safer designs that have been developed over the past few decades, nuclear would be one of the safest ways to generate power, period. It's already safer than coal, oil or gas (when you count the impacts of mining), and it's safer than hydroelectric. It's just that when it does fail, it tends to fail in a pretty spectacular way, while coal et al. just shit mercury into the oceans.[/QUOTE]
I'm talking about university. High school is literally for children.
On top of what you said, there were a huge number of poor design choices that made the plant extremely different to operate safely.
[QUOTE=sloppy_joes;43137547]I'm talking about university. High school is literally for children.
On top of what you said, there were a huge number of poor design choices that made the plant extremely different to operate safely.[/QUOTE]
Sorry, misread your first post as "To be fair, Chernobyl [b]should be[/b] a case study absolutely every Engineer learns about", so I was trying to say that if they're teaching it to general engineering students at a high-school level, they're definitely teaching it in-depth to any nuclear engineer. My bad.
[QUOTE=yawmwen;43137466]the handling and storage of nuclear waste is a huge problem. our current strategy is to just store it near the power plant until it can get buried under a mountain somewhere remote.[/QUOTE]
Our plan was, before the president axed it, to create a facility that would recycle, recondition, and reduce our nuclear waste. It would have given us independence in terms of waste management instead of having to shell out millions to other countries. Yucca mountain was a top of the line facility, even using experimental processes such as waste slagging and glassing. Now earlier this year found to cut radioactive emission rates by ~70% ([URL="http://www.iflscience.com/chemistry/manufacturing-glass-could-reduce-nuclear-waste-90"] IFLS article[/URL]). But for some reason environmental groups flipped their shit and NPPs now have to deal with the fallout by storing it on site.
[QUOTE=SCopE5000;43137318]Your car tire affects at max, 20 people (in the case of some kind of horrific car crash where your tire blows out and caues a pile up).
A major nuclear disaster affects everyone on earth.[/QUOTE]
lol, but you're also not driving a nuclear reactor down a highway doing 90 mph, and I'd think that a nuclear reactor has a few dozen extra fail-safes and operators to make sure it doesn't fail, than your average car would have.
[QUOTE=SCopE5000;43137318]Your car tire affects at max, 20 people (in the case of some kind of horrific car crash where your tire blows out and caues a pile up).
A major nuclear disaster affects everyone on earth.[/QUOTE]
And yet, cars will damage more people than nuclear energy or nuclear weapons ever will.
What's it with really fucking stupid analogies in various debates?
[QUOTE=sloppy_joes;43137018]*Transformer explodes*
Guys, we really need to switch to something different, Nuclear just ain't safe.[/QUOTE]
You know the media is going to blow it out of proportion, most of these machines are aging and were built in the 70s.
[QUOTE=lolo;43137523]Why not solar power/wind power[/QUOTE]
The only real development that could be useful with wind is the deep sea east coast of the United States. Some say you could meet all of the USA's demands with that alone, but it's good to diversify. Solar imo is only best for personal use on the buildings its powering. I think we need to explore all three.
[QUOTE=OvB;43137779]The only real development that could be useful with wind is the deep sea east coast of the United States. Some say you could meet all of the USA's demands with that alone, but it's good to diversify. Solar imo is only best for personal use on the buildings its powering. I think we need to explore all three.[/QUOTE]
I like the thesis that "Nuclear is not the power of the future. But it is the power of the present."
So it blew a transformer, a problem which is completely unrelated to anything nuclear, and the reactor lost power and scrammed exactly as it's designed to do?
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