what years, a good friend of mine was on board ~71/73 Gary Rapalee but i don't remember his rate
Posted on 11/13/2009 2:59:19 PM PST by RS_Rider
Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with Westinghouse Electric Co. next week to discuss the safety of its proposed AP1000 nuclear-reactor design.
Toshiba Corp.'s Westinghouse unit will address the commission's concern about the structural integrity of the silo-shaped shield building that would contain the reactor and trap radioactivity in an accident, NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko said. Containment buildings at existing reactors were poured at the site as a solid piece of steel-reinforced concrete, Jaczko said.
Westinghouse wants to piece the building together from sections, he said.
"When you're dealing with the kinds of accident scenarios that we look at, or hurricanes or tornadoes or seismic events, will that structure maintain its integrity?" he said.
NRC told Westinghouse last month to modify the design. Westinghouse will "work in an aggressive, cooperative manner with the NRC" to assure the AP1000 is certified by 2011 in time for the first plant to begin operating in 2016, said spokesman Vaughn Gilbert.
(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghlive.com ...
btt
GE still has a PWR design for naval vessels. However a naval PWR is a different beast compared to a civilian power plant reactor. The naval reactor runs on highly enriched fuel (almost weapons grade) for high power density. The naval reactor can also be to a large degree throttled, due to the nature of service demands. A civilian reactor just runs at or near max poeer continuously.
Does Westinghouse still produce reactors for the USN? They built a lot of S5W’s for the earlier subs. Does its current ownership by Toshiba exclude them from bidding?
GE still has a PWR design for naval vessels. However a naval PWR is a different beast compared to a civilian power plant reactor. The naval reactor runs on highly enriched fuel (almost weapons grade) for high power density. The naval reactor can also be to a large degree throttled, due to the nature of service demands. A civilian reactor just runs at or near max power continuously.
Does Westinghouse still produce reactors for the USN? They built a lot of S5W’s for the earlier subs. Does its current ownership by Toshiba exclude them from bidding?
Bettis (BAPL) was forced to split off from Westinghouse when Toshiba bought them.
Carriers have “W” plants.
Now that I think about it I think Bettis had to split from Westinghouse when British Nuclear bought Westinghouse.
Toshiba bought them later.
I was a navy nuke; I served aboard the fast attach sub Dace (SSN-607) What you said is true.
The Nimitz-class carriers have Westinghouse reactors. I don't know about the subs.
what years, a good friend of mine was on board ~71/73 Gary Rapalee but i don't remember his rate
The in service S5W cores were replaced with S3G cores, then the LA Class had S5G reactors,. according to wikipedia the Virginia Class has a S9G reactor.
I read over the summer that Northrop-Grumman was building a new facility at the shipyard in Newport News, to produce the reactor vessels for a new breed of smaller reactor plant, with an eye toward commercial power generation as well as shipboard plants. Great place to put that kind of facility...
I have suspicion that the kenyan and GE are going to "level the playing field" in the nuclear plant arena to give GE a chance to have their new plant design certified.
I suspect that GE has no interest in "leveling the playing field."
This is just another ploy to derail nuclear power so GE can sell more windmills.
Yep. BAPL (Bettis) and KAPL (Knolls) are both DOE labs but all the employees work for the prime contractor. The fedgov doesn’t want it’s labs manned by foreign contractors, so when Westinghouse or GE sells it’s nuclear divisions, the labs have to split off somehow so they’re run by US contractors, Bechtel for BAPL and Lockheed Martin for KAPL.
Anyway, I think the most promising way to go is small, modular reactors that you plug in and run til they’re done. The big plant designs are just too capital intensive, take too long to build, and are in every environmentalists sights for too long. You need to get something in place pre-fab ASAP and operating before they have time to get all worked up about it.
There’s a small startup out of the U of Oregon that has an interesting design. I think Toshiba actually has a design like that too. Bury the modules in the ground and go.
Wouldn't that be a safer design for civilian reactors?
I don’t know about the operating economics of a naval reactor, just that the power density is way higher. There are other drivers besides operating costs (including fuel costs - the price of the highly enriched fuels may be significantly higher on a kw/h basis), primarily the most power that can be safely operated in a small volume. Being able to throttle the reactor as part of normal service (as in quickly go from 5 to thirty-mumble knots and back to 5 knots) is a unique requirement for naval reactors, not found in civilian plants.
The quantities within the standard naval designs (the S5W being one of the earliest cases) establishes the argument for using a proven standard design for civilian plants - which is how the French civilian nuclear plants are done. Note however that the French have not quite enjoyed the success the United States has with naval plants, however no where near as bad as the Soviets had. Being billeted on a November class sub was just about a death sentence. A slow death sentence.
You’re saying Russians subs had radiation poisoning problems? Interesting. Actually, all of it was interesting. Thanks for sharing...
bump
For current Submarines the Seawolf class has S9G and the Virginia Class is on a SxW (don’t have the number). Also believe the new Carriers are A1B.
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