Posted on 04/30/2013 8:03:29 AM PDT by RummyChick
SAN DIEGO - An inside source gave Team 10 a picture snapped inside the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) showing plastic bags, masking tape and broom sticks used to stem a massive leaky pipe.
San Onofre owner Southern California Edison (SCE), confirms the picture was taken inside Unit Three, but did not say when. The anonymous source said the picture was taken in December 2012.
(Excerpt) Read more at 10news.com ...
6 tanks at Hanford nuclear site in Wash. leaking
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57570857/6-tanks-at-hanford-nuclear-site-in-wash-leaking/
“Cleanup is expected to last decades and cost billions of dollars.
The federal government already spends $2 billion each year on Hanford cleanup — one-third of its entire budget for nuclear cleanup nationally.”
Yeah, my tax dollars will be used to clean up the mess from YOUR disaster in San Diego.
“...It’s all total bullshit!!!!....”
I totally agree. NRC would not let it a restart take place IF there were any serious safety issues, especially in this political hotbed. However, if the fine, upstanding citizens of southern CA don’t want it to start, great! Don’t start it! But they don’t need to be begging the rest of the country to help support their power needs, especially when the rolling blackouts come back...and oh, without base-loaded nukes, the price of power will only be higher still which just fall in line with Obama’s plans. Enjoy!!
there is no disaster at San Onofre and there is nothing to clean up!
Go spout your shit along with the solar and wind power assholes!
They are the ones I have the read about every day that are behind all the fuss at san Onofre!
Obviously the people making some of the comments have never spent time with Navy Nuke MMs. Some of my guys could build a leak rig that would make Roman aqueducts look like a K-12 science project.
You will not find one single post from me EVER advocating solar and wind power over more traditional methods.
What is wrong with you.
You are so out of your mind about this plant that you can’t admit that INSIDERS might be right.
Again, HAVE YOU RECENTLY BEEN INSIDE THE PLANT TO INSPECT IT?
Why is it that you don’t think there should be an investigation over the safety???
The Pinto used the top of its gasoline tank as the floor in the hatch area. Also, in a rear end collision, the tank would hit the rear end at the third member ( the car instead of accordianing, actually bent like a banana) and either caused the tank to leak there (at least it's outside the car) or, it caused the tank to burst due to overpressure and it happened inside the car. Spraying the occupants of a car with fuel is probably bad in an accident without any ignition source. If there was a fire, I'm afraid the people would die before a fire truck could get there unless they could get out quickly and I've worked on many Pintos, not the strongest car on the planet and if rear ended, I could see the passengers doors crushed so they couldn't open.
Ford knew this and did actuarial calculations and figured it would be cheaper to pay off the victims than fix the problem.
Also, the doors were so close to the rear wheels, if you had to push one and your weren't aware of where the wheel was, you would end up with it running over your foot and not the way where your foot is flat and the tire rolls over it, I've had that happen a couple of times and you can barely feel it but in the Pinto, your foot was at an angle so it was possible to ride up your heel and force you down and doing a number on your tibia and fibula.
I think the fix was a piece of plastic between the tank and the third member. I don't know if they added a real floor to the hatch area.
I do believe the media WAY way overstated the problem. If they were to be believed, people were dying in droves in Pintos. I think the Pinto came out in '69 or '70 when auto rules were changing, like having a strong beam in the doors in case you got t-boned so it's possible, Ford and all the other manufacturers were getting new regs all the time which makes it hard to freeze a design.
Get enough leaking tubes on the reactor side of the heat exchanger and voila, you get radioactive water in the clean circuit.
I love nuclear power and I blame this on A) Mitsubishi and B) whoever accepted the design if it was modified.
We need to get Mitsubishi to fix the issue, pay for the downtime and let them get on with making clean electricity.
Oh yeah, if the design was modified, who signed off on the initial design as well as the final product? If Doctors are willing to sacrifice their license to hand out pain killers by the handful, I can see an inspector being more interested in the green stuff in the paperwork, than the results of the actual tests or design.
Needs (more) duct tape.
“We need to get Mitsubishi to fix the issue, pay for the downtime and let them get on with making clean electricity.”
But first people have to address the issue..instead of broadly asserting there are no safety problems in any nuclear plant.
And unfortunately, what you see on this thread is prevalent in the US.
Just blind assertions of safety without even knowing if it is safe.
I really wish someone would pursue this with Mitsubishi
While it sounds bad to have radioactivity in the secondary circuit, it's still a sealed circuit. I don't know what it does to all the pipes or the turbine, I guess it depends on the level of radioactivity and how long before they detect it but keep in mind, Fukishima's reactors used only a primary circuit and lasted a long time. I don't like the solution of sealing off the leaking tubes, there's a boatload of these tubes in a heat exchanger and while all of them may be affected by radiation not all are subjected to resonance causing leaks (the resonant frequency is no doubt influenced by several things such as where the tubes are located, where the inlet and outlet are and how they're supported) but still, it's a band aid. How long did the original heat exchangers last?
One thing is, the people saying it's safe also work there. If I knew there was a time bomb waiting, you couldn't get me near the place.
#65
Hi,
I have no dog in this fight but I thought I would try to help you a little.
As a casual reader of this thread the main thing I have noticed is your constant use of multiple question marks (??????) and ALL CAPS. These things are making your questions seem manic and kind of unstable. I know you may not care for my advise but you are hurting your argument with this tactic. People will be more likely to take what you say seriously if you tone it down just a notch.
I will go away now.
Maybe because he’s disgruntled or he wanted a promotion but didn’t get it. Maybe hes going thr ough a divorce and not taking it well. Its amazing how the whistleblower who won’t give his name is granted more weight then the rest who will go on record.
I live 15 miles North of there. I would prefer there were no leaks, but this leak has nothing to do with Radioactive Water.
There are issues there, going back to the construction of Reactors 2 and 3. Reactor 1 was closed down years ago.
That being said, more people died in Ted Kennedy’s Oldsmobile than died at Three Mile Island.
Thanks for your concern for the people living near there, including me. Any Fertilizer Plants in your Neighborhood?
I live in Vista, around 15 miles or so from the plant.
I don’t want that thing restarted until all of the pipes that have prematurely corroded have been replaced with pipes that will function correctly with a lifespan that will actually last as long as expected.
I'm pretty sure that the Hanford site is where our government built reactors to produce fissionable material to build atomic weapons during WW2. It's a different kind of mess.
This wouldn't compare to SoCal Edison building a commercial reactor for energy production only.
The sea water is circulated constantly to cool and condense the turbine exhaust steam so it can be pumped back into the steam generators. Unless there is a tube leak, the saltwater does not come into contact with ultra-pure feedwater.
The salt water cooling system is not a closed loop system that just gets refilled as needed like the reactor coolant loop or the steam cycle. It would be highly impractical to desalinse the entire ocean. If you closed that loop and made it fresh water, then you would still need another open loop cooling system for a heat sink like the ocean (very good sink in the summer) or the air (not very good in warm climates in summer).
As for GE’s Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) vs Westinghouse’s Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR), the PWR is safer and has fewer contaminated systems, but the BWR is more efficient and has fewer components.
A comment like that indicates to me you have no idea what a steam generator is or how it works.
Simply stated, it’s a boiler, but instead of the heat source being burning coal or natural gas, it’s the reactor coolant loop.
Reactor coolant circulates inside of the tubes and transfers it’s heat to the feed water on the outside of the tubes. If there is a leak, it affects both the reactor coolant side and the steam side.
Since you want reactor coolant to remain a liquid and you want feedwater to boil at those temperatures, then the reactor coolant system will always be at a higher pressure than the steam side. Therefore, reactor coolant will always leak into the steam side if there is a tube leak.
Exactly what is wrong with what I said? I can’t see what you’re responding to, FR is acting up apparently.
This is what you had written:
“I think the steam tubes experiencing failure are on the reactor side of the plant so a leak or catastrophic failure would be bad.”
I just thought that statement displayed a lack of understanding of how a steam generator works. The tubes separate the reactor coolant side from the steam side.
It’s like saying, “I think the hole in can of Coke is on the soda side.”
I went to the news site and cringed at the comments. Then I started reading the FR comments and became even more frustrated.
Your earlier comment about “being sure” the plant has enough energy to desalinize the once-through cooling water is an example of people commenting on subjects they know nothing about. It’s very frustrating.
I mean, you openly wondered why the plant doesn’t boil their cooling water before use!
The nuke plant in the article has a minor leak on a system that has nothing to do with the reactor plant, and people are going nuts over it.
When this same system leaks at a conventional plant (which
is likely leaking at most steam plants right now) does it make the news? Do commenters wonder if we’re getting coal dust or bunker oil into our drinking water?
This shouldn’t be in the news.
I just thought that statement displayed a lack of understanding of how a steam generator works. The tubes separate the reactor coolant side from the steam side
So, it sounds like an accurate description to me. The inside of the lots of tubes flow pressurized water from the reactor do they not? Then since the water is pressurized, it has a higher boiling point which is a good thing if you want the water on the outside of the myriad of tubes to expand to drive the turbine, yes? I see what you're talking about though, it really doesn't matter which side of the tube fails, it's still a failure.
Your earlier comment about “being sure” the plant has enough energy to desalinize the once-through cooling water is an example of people commenting on subjects they know nothing about. It’s very frustrating.
I mean, you openly wondered why the plant doesn’t boil their cooling water before use!
I assume this is part of the same statement. My comment was that it seems to me that salt water is corrosive and using it causes shorter life spans in the equipment that carries it does it or does it not? I was assuming they would use reverse osmosis, not a still to desalinate.
Yes, I am aware they need access to lots of water, hell, Rancho Seco had a huge lake, well maybe not that big, it's been over twenty years since I've seen it although I've never seen the three eyed fish like in the lake in the nuk plant on the Simpsons.
While it shouldn't be in the news (maybe), most news readers are lefties and next to W, nuclear power is the worse thing on the planet, with hydro being next since it kills some fish.
I read a long article on the problems they were having maybe a year ago and from what I read, they didn't have this many problems with the old steam generators. What's the point of having two separate systems if the water commingles although it seems like it's a tiny amount. The problem is, any problem with a nuk plant, no matter how inconsequential, becomes more fodder to get rid of them.
I just saw a special on the Grand Coulee damn and of course the environmentalists were whining about all the damage it did/does (it was on PBS). Since Seattle and Portland get a lot of their power from there, I'm all for removing the damn, let them go dark like North Korea does at night.
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