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RE: Dateline NBC TMI story - A different evaluation
Franz and Ted,
I am aware the "China Syndrome" was a popular, non-technical term for the
failure of the containment vessel during a partial or complete core
meltdown. I am just curious as to if the scenario was actually consider and
evaluated. As Sandy Perle has mentioned, drills are often conducted that
involve events that are unrealistic. I think these are done to ensure that
you exercise all of your resources, and can demonstrate response to less
sever accidents.
I do not know a lot of nuclear engineers, so again I ask if the idea of a
core meltdown that lead to a failure of the containment vessel and
containment building was considered follow a loss of coolant, AND failure of
the emergency core cooling system. (Gee, that sounds like what happened at
TMI when the control room turned off the emergency fuel pumps.)
As a final thought, does anyone remember the news that during the Chernobyl
accident, emergency teams tunneled under the reactor to pump in CO2 to cool
off the core and prevent its penetration into the aqua filter under the
plant? And, yes, I know that the Chernobyl was a different design without
the pressure vessel and containment building that are common for Western and
light water reactors. If this is true, then the possibility of an excursion
into the ground water is a realistic scenario, if unlikely in the current
designs.
-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
3050 Traymore Lane
Bowie, MD 20715-2024
E-mail: jenday1@email.msn.com (H)
-----Original Message-----
From: Franz Schoenhofer [mailto:franz.schoenhofer@chello.at]
Sent: Friday, August 17, 2001 3:36 AM
To: Ted Rockwell; Jacobus, John (OD/ORS); Michael Stabin;
radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu
Subject: Re: Dateline NBC TMI story - A different evaluation
. . .
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Ted Rockwell <tedrock@CPCUG.ORG>
An: Jacobus, John (OD/ORS) <jacobusj@ors.od.nih.gov>; Michael Stabin
<michael.g.stabin@vanderbilt.edu>; radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu
<radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu>
Datum: Freitag, 17. August 2001 04:38
Betreff: RE: Dateline NBC TMI story - A different evaluation
. . .
>
>I don't know any serious engineer who believed it. In fact, it was never
>really defined in technical terms. It just meant that the molten core
might
>penetrate the vessel and find itself facing several feet of concrete. One
>could postulate (guess) that this might lead to a crack in the containment
>and some minor amount of fps could get into the ground (which is a pretty
>good filter--see Oklo).
>
>I don't think anyone was seriously concerned over the impact on Beijing.
You describe, what really could happen, but the words "China Syndrome" were
intended to describe, that the molten core would sustain criticallity and
make its way all the way through earth and appear finally at the surface at
the other side of the globe (China). This "China Syndrome" might have been
invented by a cynical engineer, who joked, but I remember from the time of
TMI that there were quite a few people who took it serious. BTW, I haven't
heard it since at least 20 years. BTW(2): The film was recently broadcast on
Austrian TV, which obviously was connected to the ridiculous attitude
towards the Czech power plant at Temelin.
Franz