me three
me three
Everybody take a breath and cool off.
3 mile Island in the US had a melt down and nothing happened to the public.
There will not be a ball of nuke energy melt into China.
As in 3 mile Island, it will be contained within the containment dome.
Thats what they build them for.
The US has flown F4 Phantoms at top speed into test containment domes, and not had a problem with damaging them.
Interestingly enough, the Japenese in WWII used the fake fallout diagram to launch balloons loaded with bombs that drifted into the US with intention to cause panic....etc etc. If I remember right, only one exploded around oregon? I'm too lazy to google it.
3 mile Island in the US had a melt down and nothing happened to the public.
There will not be a ball of nuke energy melt into China.
As in 3 mile Island, it will be contained within the containment dome.
Thats what they build them for.
The US has flown F4 Phantoms at top speed into test containment domes, and not had a problem with damaging them.
Interestingly enough, the Japenese in WWII used the fake fallout diagram to launch balloons loaded with bombs that drifted into the US with intention to cause panic....etc etc. If I remember right, only one exploded around oregon? I'm too lazy to google it.
Yep. And it resulted in six civilian deaths.
Oh yeah, this sure cost the taxpayers... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--_RGM4Abv8
don't compare this to 3 mile island.. try chernybol.. something modern...
The issue with Chernobyl was design.
The three mile island issue was with the inability of management of the site to trust the indications that were coming into the control room. the operators didn't believe what they were seeing, and adjusted operations accordingly.
Sorry about their luck,but the I&C folks at the site had their instruments calibrated correctly, and the SHTF.
From another site;
"The reason the Chernobyl leak was so terrible had to do with the specific type of reactor, that being an RBMK, and its lack of shielding. The currently endangered reactors are LWRs, Light Water Reactors, like the one at Three Mile Island...a leak of Chernobyl proportions is not even remotely possible with an LWR. There is much more shielding in place which will prevent catastrophic leaks.
"The reason the Chernobyl leak was so terrible had to do with the specific type of reactor, that being an RBMK, and its lack of shielding. The currently endangered reactors are LWRs, Light Water Reactors, like the one at Three Mile Island...a leak of Chernobyl proportions is not even remotely possible with an LWR. There is much more shielding in place which will prevent catastrophic leaks.
As I said.
3 mile island was nothing more than a managment issue, as I've stated, and the after-action report has proved.
I know this is terrible of me, but the very first things that came into my head were "Seriously???? That is the honest to God name of the place? It had to happen in Fukushima" followed quickly by "GODZILLA IS GOING TO BE ALIVE!"
Then I did get to the point of feeling bad and saying a few prayers.
Then I did get to the point of feeling bad and saying a few prayers.
Terrific. All we have to do is fix people.
But that's not what the investigation concluded.
These are the conclusions from the investigation into TMI:
A. CAUSES OF THE ACCIDENT
1. Malfunctions in plant equipment - initiated
the accident at Three Mile Island, but they alone
did not cause the uncovering of the core or the
severity and duration of the accident. Feedwater
transients such as the one that initiated the March
28 accident occur routinely at nuclear power
plants. They result from a variety of minor equip-
ment malfunctions or from human error such as
experienced at TMI. 3
Routine transient.-; can evolve into serious acci-
dents if complicated bv human factor deficiencies
and other deficiencies in training, in control room
design, in instrumentation and equipment, in
emergency procedures and in plant design. The
psychological stress experienced by plant person-
nel during a crisis is a further complicating factor.
All of these factors can serve to confuse plant
personnel and to render them unable to respond
to a minor accident effectively. At TMI, these fac-
tors caused a minor event to evolve into a serious
accident.
2. Plant operators and managers inappropri-
ately overrode the automatic safety equipment
actions that were the immediate cause of the un-
covering of. and severe damage to, the reactor
core. 4 However, it is inappropriate and unfair sim-
ply to blame these personnel for the Three Mile
Island accident. It should be emphasized that the
utility, the reactor-vendor, the architect-engineer
and the XRC were responsible for deficiencies in
training. 5 in control room design. 6 in instrumen-
tation and equipment, 7 in plant design, 8 and in
emergency procedures. 9 These deficiencies were the
underlying cause of the accident.
Many of these deficiencies resulted from insuffi-
cient attention by the utility, the reactor-vendor,
the architect-engineer and the XRC to human fac-
tors in nuclear plant design and operation. 10 These
human factor problems were l^eyond the control
of the operators on duty during the accident and
were so serious that they had consequences equiv-
alent to those that could be caused solely by major
mechanical failures and design defects.
3. Several major weaknesses in the design of
TMI-2 contributed to the difficulties faced by
plant operators and managers in understanding
plant behavior, in stabilizing the plant, and par-
ticularly hi preventing radiological releases to the
environment. 11 In some cases they involved equip-
ment designed for use in an accident that failed
to fulfill its intended purpose on March 28. 12 In
other cases, design had focused on normal operat-
ing conditions; instrumentation and equipment
needed or useful under the emergency conditions
at TMI had not been provided or were inadequate
to the task. 13 These design weaknesses are of con-
cern because of their possible generic safety
implications.
Design weaknesses in the emergency-related
equipment included :
A system of some 1.200 alarms, of which
several hundred went off in the first minutes.
Operators said they had concluded prior to the
accident that the alarms would provide little, if
any. immediate assistance in diagnosing a major
transient or in assigning priorities to accident con-
ditions. 14 After the accident, operators said the
alarms were "not very helpful" 15 and "got in the
wav."
A computer printer that was, as anticipated
by the operators, of little help because it failed to
keep pace with the sequence of alarms 17 and be-
came severely backlogged. 18
A radiation monitor that was intended to be
a key indicator of a loss-of-coolant accident
(LOCA) but apparently did not sound on March
28. Prior to the accident it may have been mis-
calibrated, and on the first day it may have become
disabled by the steam and water resulting from
the LOCA."
The failure of the containment building to
seal automatically on initiation of high pressure
injection, resulting in the automatic pumping of
radioactive water from the containment into the
unsealed auxiliary building. 20
Design weaknesses related to equipment that was
needed in the emergency, but was unavailable or
inadequate to the task, included :
The lack of a direct indicator to show whether
the pilot-operated relief valve (PORV) was open
or closed. 21
Indicators of conditions in the reactor coolant
drain tank (pointing to a LOCA) that were not
directly visible to plant operators from the main
console in the control room. 22
The lack of strip chart recorders for reactor
coolant drain tank conditions, without which it
was difficult for operators to reconstruct trends in
the tank's temperature, pressure and water level. 23
The lack of instrumentation to measure water
level in the reactor vessel directly. Instead, opera-
tors had to rely on water level in the pressurizer
as an indirect indicator that proved unreliable
during the accident. 24
The inability to maintain isolation of the con-
tainment building when use of the let-down system
was required to cope with the accident. 28
The inability to seal off the pathways between
the auxiliary building and the environment to pre-
vent releases of radioactivity to the environment
after operators overrode containment isolation in
order to use the let-down system.
Instrumention that was designed only for nor-
mal operating conditions and could not provide
readings for the extreme conditions produced by
the accident. 28 Thus control room personnel could
not monitor those extreme conditions directly. 27
Since these misleading readings influenced actions
taken to control the accident, the limited range of
the instruments was a particularly significant
weakness in plant design.
In addition, as had happened before during
early testing of the plant, the "candy-cane" curve
in the hotlegs trapped steam formed from boiling
of the coolant. This blockage inhibited natural
circulation and contributed to difficulties in under-
standing plant behavior and in stabilizing the
plant.
Had these weaknesses not been present in the
design of the plant, the operators and managers
would have been in a better position to understand
and to respond to the accident.
4. The emergency procedures for Unit 2 were
vague, confusing, incomplete and not fully under-
stood by plant personnel. 28 They did not provide
useful guidance to operators and managers in
identifying and responding to the critical elements
of the accident in the early hours. 29
Better emergency procedures and better under-
standing of them by plant operators and managers
would have facilitated diagnosis and understand-
ing of the plant's behavior. It should be noted,
however, that it is impossible to write emergency
procedures to fit every possible accident sequence.
5. There were several weaknesses in the TMI
operator training program that contributed to the
difficulty control room personnel had in under-
standing and responding to the sequence of events
of the March 28 accident. 30
These weaknesses included :
Limited training in multiple-failure acci-
dents, particularly such prolonged ones as experi-
enced on March 28 at TMI ; 31
Limited training in the basics of nuclear
power plant physics and behavior; 32
Failure to instruct operators on conditions in
which water level in the pressurizer would not be
a reliable indicator of water level in the reactor
vessel. Operators had been directed never to let the
pressurizer fill completely ("go solid") with water
during plant operation. 33 This direction had been
based on the concern that a pressurizer "solid"
with water could limit their ability to control
pressure in the primary system and could result in
damage to the plant. 34
Operators and managers would have been better
prepared to respond to the accident if their train-
injr had been more extensive in these areas.
6. Despite the inadequate training, confusing in-
formation and problems with instrumentation, one
operator did diagnose the stuck-open PORV soon
after he arrived at about 6 a.m. 35 He then di-
rected that the block valve for the PORV be closed,
thereby stopping the leakage. 36 In addition, within
hours after the core was uncovered, at least three
utility personnel correctly diagnosed that condi-
tion. 37 One of them was a member of the utility's
emergency command team. 35 He stated that it had
been generally recognized that the core may have
been uncovered for an extended period after 7
a.m. 39 Yet statements by other senior managers on
the utility's emergency command team suggest that
they never recognized that the core was uncovered
on the first day of the accident 40
