Posted on 01/31/2002 12:09:53 PM PST by DCBryan1
More follows
Agreed, but what I mentioned has been written about in many newspapers and magazines. It isn't confidential info.
We shouldn't stick our heads in the sand either, hoping the problem will go away if we don't talk about it.
ok. lets regulate all image producers. and make some more govt programs for our kids in the sciences. thats the background most of these foreigns students come from.
Semper Nervous
r9etb has been around since early '98 (you can look it up), and remembers it for himself. He hasn't trusted you since (nor had reason to change his opinion), apologies notwithstanding.
I'm certainly in awe of your willingness to reveal information you know to be classified. You must be extra special. Or as trustworthy as you were back then.
By rights I really should report it -- part of the requirements for having a clearance, doncha know.
So tell us straight, T/D: is it true (in which case I file the report), or are you making it up?
But I do agree, it is time to ship people home.. even if they are not part of the problem. If they are truly students they can come back in a few years... We know INS for the last 10 years has been a joke, I see nothing wrong with deporting every single non citizen that comes from states that are prone to terror immediately, and let them reapply to come back.
Semper Fi
Yup.
So how do they get aboard? In a cargo container? And once they kill the crew, how do they get clearance to take off? I can just imagine the conversation with the tower:
FED-EX 123: "Ziss Ez Fez-Ex wun too zhree. I beg your ezcellenzy for clearance to taxi to runway zhero-zhree-zhero for launching."
TOWER: "Billy-Bob Baker, whassup? Stop with that fake accent, man."
FED-EX 123: "Zorry. Weel repeat. Need your ezcellenzy to allow clearance to taxi to runway zhero-zhree-zhero for launching."
TOWER: "Ah." Long pause. "Copy that Fed-Ex 123. We have just had an inbound jet declare an emergency. Go to Taxi four-five-four, and hold. Repeat, go to Taxi four-five-four, and hold, until the inbound has landed."
Sounds of fire trucks rolling, then blocking runways. Crash wagons roll, and park themselves behind and in front of landing gear on Fed-Ex 123.
To be honest, I find this a lot less far-fetched than the idea of a bunch of Arab Ninjas secretly sneaking aboard an airplane, killing the crew, and then routinely taking off.
The waste pool is where the spent fuel rods are stored after they have been removed from the reactor. Very radiocative and toxic stuff. This is the same waste that the government wants to store in Yucca Mountain, FYI.
The problem is that unlike the reactors, which are semi-safely behind several feet of reinforced concrete, the waste pools are almost all unprotected, and therefore an attractive target.
For a little more background, you might want to check out the article I linked to in post #23.
In an LWR, the core is already underwater, so the core would not "hit" the water. The ECCS is designed to flood the core and keep it covered. There are also spray systems to remove residual heat in the event of long-term ECCS failure (e.g., "run-dry"). By then, residual heat is decayed to a level such that evaporative cooling can handle the load. Disabling the EECS and in-vessel systems is even more difficult than penetrating the containment structure, which is no mean trick (a strtegic nuke could probably do it, but external impacts from large objects, even those carrying fuel load, is part of the design basis accident envelope).
How far downwind will people be affected?
Depends on the release term. For example, with the TMI-II release, the safest thing to do, statistically speaking, was to stay put. The millirem-range exposures you might have got if you camped at the plant boundary for the duration of the accident (which no one did), presented a risk smaller than that for driving on the local highways any reasonable distance.
Who will tell us when to leave, and where to go?
Power plant operators are required to have in place an emergency plan that includes evacuation for persons with the EPZ (look that one up). Those plans are reviewed and approved by federal and local agencies. It is rehearsed and practiced on an annual basis.
Will our home insurance cover this type of disaster?
Not homeowners, but the Price-Anderson liability pool. Plant operators pay a premium every year to participate in a liability pool managed and administered by private insurers. The Price-Anderson structure was established by the federal government as the model for the structuring of the liability pool, but the operators pay their way on the premiums, and claims are settled by the private underwriters.
A partial meltdown happened in Russia, and it was difficult to contain. Can we contain a total meltdown?
You are probably thinking of the Chornobil (Ukranian spelling for it, please don't "correct" me) accident and that is irrelevant to consideration of credible accidents involving the LWR technology we use in the West. Meltdown is totally contained in all credible accident scenarios (including external impacts) because the containment integrity is maintained.
How? How long will the area be uninhabitable?
The containment structure allows the release to be contained. The surrounding area may have to be temporarily evacuated if there is some residual release of short-lived noble gases (the most likely effluent), but those disperse (they are chemically inactive) and are short-lived from a radiological viewpoint. The downwind area will likely be repopulated within a few days. For example, the somewhat overly-cautious evacuation of the Middletown, PA area did not result in any long-term abandonment of the territory.
Will a meltdown cause and EMP?
EMP is a phenomenon related to nuclear explosions, which the physics of LWR systems preclude from happening (fuel enrichment too low, insufficient in-core flux, et al.). Don't let Tom Clancy or Whitley Streiber fiction trip you up.
Will computer chips function?
If they're not running Windows ME, my guess is that they will.
Not all that attractive. The source term (look that one up) is very low for decayed fuel, which most of it is, relative to in-core inventory, which is what everyone thinks of when this scenario is raised in the press. The dispersion mechanisms for external impacts are not as efficient as for those where significant stored energy is present (e.g., Chornobil accident, or nuclear explosions). I'm not saying such an event would not be a significant on-site cleanup problem, but the hysteria I see being generated about this scenario (Millions of people die! Thosands of square miles of territory uninhabitable for billions of years! Oh, my God! You know, kind of like the BAS hysteria...) just doesn't match up with the physics.
Oh, are you Cherokee?
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