Posted on 03/15/2012 1:16:25 PM PDT by Mad Dawgg
I am working on a story and in the story people don't show up for work anywhere including the power plants (electrical generation).
So what happens? For instance will a Nuke plant shut down safely if no one shows up ever again or will the plant become unstable after a time with no human supervision and it would go into meltdown and/or releases some form of nuclear exhaust? If so what are we talking here? China Syndrome or something like the what happened in Japan after the quake?
A coal fired plant or a gas fired plant I would surmise would just cease to function once the fuel ran out. Of course I understand once you get a couple of plants offline then the grid would start reacting and I guess it would cause a blackout like we had a few years back.
But what would happen at the plants themselves with no one there to react to a demand for more power? Would such cause the plants still running to try and take up the slack? If so when they tried to keep up could it cause them to work too hard and cause explosions?
I figure Hydro plants would just keep on going till the turbines burnt up unless there are automatic relays that shuts them down if the load becomes to heavy...
How long could the grid stay active without human supervision? Are we talking hours or days or weeks?
This is research for a story so any help is greatly appreciated, first hand knowledge or links on the web or good books and movies are all appreciated!
For your problem to occur there would need to be a huge disaster on the order that nothing would really matter anyway.
No the scenario is No One shows up. No government No army no one period.
And the reason isn't important because the research I need is what happens to the prospective plants?
I've read coal fired plants take the most human intervention because usually coal is manipulated onto conveyors but dozers and loaders operated by humans.
Gas Fired plants rely on the gas pressure staying constant and from what I've read such gets shaky fast if the electric grid becomes unstable. Hydro is Fine as long as the water level of the dam stays stable. And nukes are the wildcard.
One of the things I am not sure on is lets say we get a cascade and things start shutting down can a plant automatically disconnect from the grid and still give local power generation. I think such is a possibility say if you wanted to keep power generation going to emergency services like hospitals and police and such. Anyone know if such is possible?
I don’t have any power plant experience, but I’ve worked in and around the oil patch for 30 years and based upon that experience I’d offer the following:
1) Coal fired plants wouldn’t last a week without human attention. The fuel doesn’t walk there by itself; it’s delivered by rail car and there’s a constant process of unloading, storing, positioning, etc. The feeders require daily inspection, calibration, repair and replacement. Pretty labor intensive stuff I’d imagine.
2) Natural gas plants would go on for quite a while. I would think their problem would be turbine surge issues that would eventually, i.e., within a month or so, cause them to “trip” out of service. They also have cooling issues. And if compressors are involved.....that’s just another weak link although that probably isn’t an issue.
3) I don’t understand the process entirely but I’d think that there has to be some degree of daily input into the volume of electricity being produced. From what I’ve read about “the grid” its managed at central “drain” monitoring sites where they’re monitoring usage along the grid at the consumption points and constantly having to balance input such that if one location, (city) is at peak draw, the managers have to order up additional electricity from other parts of the grid. So, it sounds like they’re making calls to various power plants around the system to produce more, or less depending upon the need to move more available power from one segment of the grid to another.
Here’s the real deal however; in our “prepper” classes, its become apparent that when the SHTF, one of the first things people will need to do is locate and go to their nearest area power plant and see if it can be brought back on-line. The “locals” just aren’t going to sit in the dark for weeks on end without attempting to a) findsome one who knows how to keep the plant on-line, or how to get the plant back online.
The Nuke plants are simply a disaster waiting to happen. Unless everyone were beamed off the orb, the Feds would dispatch the Army Corp. of Engineers to take the Nuke plants offline. Hopefully they can before the melt down.
From Nigeria:
http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-235714581/phcn-strike-military-engineers.html
I guess the proper way to phrase it is that "Glasses" are amorphous solids, that is, they don't have a regular shape.
Therefore, while they have properties in common with liquids, but are not liquids. The flow effect of glass may be observed in the lower grades of glass, but not in the higher grades of crystallized glass.
FWIW, the program did not state whether the glass fall out over time was due to any flow or simply a deterioration over time of the grout, sealants or whatever was holding the glass in place or of the glass itself. It was simply my assumption. Sorry.
That’s definitely possible depending on the size of the city/town/village your talking about. It would be near impossible for a mega-city like L.A.; for smaller towns, its doable if you know where your plant is. Its all about knowing the switching system. The smaller the town, the simpler the “routing” or “switching”. And, from what I’ve read, that’s one of the more difficult tasks; the optimum situation is to partially power up, then do the routing and “blink” areas back on slowly rather than power up everything which causes havoc.
Just correcting a pet peeve.
I’d expect sealant deterioration and simple random breakage over time. Lack of repairs accelerate adjacent deterioration.
OK but let us say the Fed isn't operating and the Army Corp. of Engineers ain't answering the phone. Can a nuke plant shut down safely automatically AND remain safe after such? Water is vital to keep those rods from overheating. Can that water be maintained indefinitely or will it dissipate over time?
I used to work for ge. If I get a chance I will reply later with more information.
I used to work for ge. If I get a chance I will reply later with more information.
Awesome!
Garrett Morris would clean up the reactor room.
To shut down a nuclear reactor you insert neutron absorbing control rods. You do not remove the fuel rods. After the control rods are inserted the fission reaction is quenched but radioactive decay continues to release heat (not at the level of full power output) which necessitates maintaining a flow of cooling water.
That is only one problem, there are "spent" fuel rods, stored on site in a water filled pool. The spent rods are still undergoing radioactive decay and are releasing heat so the pool needs to be kept at level well above the stored rods. The worst release of radioactive material at Fukushima came from the fuel storage pools when the water level dropped below the rods, which melted their casings and released decay products along with some plutonium to the air.
Regards,
GtG
FWIW:The coal plant near me would be dead as soon as the conveyer feeding the grinding house was empty and the dust hopper exhausted.
From the last bucket of coal dumped on the conveyer, to the impeller fans blowing just air into the furnace without coal dust: 20mins.
Was there last time it was shut down.
So what you are saying is that we need to have trained non-Christians available to take over operations for critical infrastructure components in the event of the rapture.
Because the Rapture is the ultimate in disaster planning.
Watch that show -Life after People-. They went over the Hoover dam in detail.
Probably yes to all of your questions. They would go as far as necessary toward the North Korean model. Work to eat. Work to see your family. Work in a reeducation camp until you die from the reeducation.
Scram!
I knew that!
;-)
Trouble is, even after an event and a successful scram, as you say the heat continues to build up. Without some kind of intervention, it will eventually start to lose the internal support structures and probably go critical again.
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