[lbo-talk] catastrophy II

[Fernando Cassia]

On Tue, Jan 3, 2006 at 12:41 PM, Chuck Grimes <c123grimes at att.net> wrote:
> The whole conceptual frame of a nuclear reactor is built against this
> deadman safety switch principle. Ironically, all the auxillary safety
> designs depend on some form of the deadman principle, like control rods
> dropping in between fuel rods and shuting down the reaction.. But the
> problem is there is no big deadman safety switch. In other words, the plant
> depends on an outside external source of electricity. If that source is cut
> off and not restored, the plant will go into some form of meltdown.

I agree with your views. But the Nuclear Church will reply with one
magic keyword: "PASSIVE SECURITY". This supposedly allows the reactor
to shut down even without external power, that is, using manual means
or automatic passive systems.

However, the whackypedia entry about passive security doesn´t leave
much more confident, either, considering several reactors which those
kind of systems were the ones that failed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_nuclear_safety#Examples_of_reactors_using_passive_safety_features

What I found amazing about GE´s Mark I design is that its design
defies all logic... storage pools of used nuclear fuel is located
ABOVE the reactor... so if anything blows up or catches fire, it´ll be
directed affected by the flames or explosion going up, and the water
pump systems are BELOW it... great, so if the plant is flooded those
systems are inutilized.

Shouldn´t each of these systems be ON THE SIDE, at the same level as
the reactor? What kind of ground real state were they trying to save
by piling up systems in the same vertical space? It´s like building a
complex, failure prone machine as a several-stories building.

Also, pasive cooling with large water tanks that use GRAVITY to reach
the reactor and a manual valve?. Surely the genius physics PHDs have
heard of Gravity?.

D´oh!
FC