[ RadSafe ] True of False

[Dan McCarn]

As a geologist, I am not the most literate, but here are my impressions of
a few accidents:

And yes, I visited the A-1 and worked just north of the Chernobyl Power
plant.

Brown's Ferry - Fire burning control wiring bundle to reactor. NRC
implemented safety systems to prevent this type of potential failure. March
22, 1975

TMI - Caused by accidental operator error.  Since then, significant
improvements have been made to design of reactor controls as well as
training to  make the controls and systems easier to understand and
operate.  March 28, 1979 rated INES-5

A-1 reactor (Slovakia) - partial meltdown of a new fuel bundle caused by
failure to remove silica gel packing in CO2 gas cooling tube.  February 22,
1977 rated INES<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Nuclear_Event_Scale>
-4

Chernobyl - Intentional operator error in order to run a low-power test.
Totally avoidable. The engineer did not have a good understanding of the
reactor characteristics (excess reactivity & poisoning) following shutdown
after a high-power run. April 26, 1986 rated INES-7

Fukushima - The reactors completely survived the earthquake and were
immediately shut-down. After the diesels failed, battery backup cut-in and
was able to cool the cores until they were exhausted. Flooding and failure
of back-up diesel power systems could have been avoided by
placing separate power systems in different locations so that they would
not fail due to a common-cause event. March 11, 2011 rated INES-7

My opinion only...

Dan ii


On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 1:42 PM, William Lipton <doctorbill34 at gmail.com>wrote:

> The new reactors are inherently safe against analyzed risks.  My concern is
> those risks that may have been overlooked or dismissed out of hand.  The
> current plants have a history of poor performance against unanticipated
> events, e.g. small break LOCA (TMI), boric acid corrosion (Davis Bessie),
> and simultaneous earthquake and tsunami (Fukushima).  I'm not convinced
> that the new reactor designs have anticipated all credible scenarios.
> Bill Lipton
> It's not about dose, it's about trust.
>  On Feb 17, 2012 1:36 PM, "Ahmad Al-Ani" <ahmadalanimail at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > This an interesting topic, and I encourage all to share their thoughts.
> >
> > Safe is not an absolute parameter, it can only be understood by comparing
> > to something else. Are cars inherently safe? absolutely not, yet millions
> > drive or ride them daily without any concern.
> >
> > Accordingly, being safe inherently or not is irrelevant to the public,
> and
> > the media. This is another attempt, a failed one in my opinion, to
> impress
> > the media and the public by using highly vague technical terms.
> >
> > Ahmad
> >
> >
> > >________________________________
> > > From: Otto G. Raabe <ograabe at ucdavis.edu>
> > >To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing
> List <
> > radsafe at agni.phys.iit.edu>
> > >Sent: Friday, February 17, 2012 8:16 PM
> > >Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] True of False
> > >
> > >At 09:00 AM 2/17/2012,  John wrote:
> > >> Are "New" ones safer than old ones?
> > >********************
> > >The public's view is that Nuclear Reactor are inherently all dangerously
> > unsafe.
> > >
> > >They have Chernobyl, Three-Mile Island, and Fukushima to prove it.
> > >
> > >
> > >**********************************************
> > >Prof. Otto G. Raabe, Ph.D., CHP
> > >Center for Health & the Environment
> > >University of California
> > >One Shields Avenue
> > >Davis, CA 95616
> > >E-Mail: ograabe at ucdavis.edu
> > >Phone: (530) 752-7754   FAX: (530) 758-6140
> > >***********************************************
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