Re: Dateline NBC TMI follow up

[Paul William Shafer <paulwilliam_s@YAHOO.COM>]

Dear Les and Shirley:



I would second what you have said here. In reality,

the average citizen does not care what happened at TMI

in 1979.  They see it as something similar to the

Space Shuttle Challenger incident and what happened

post Challenger. The people who key into this "rehash"

would be those of us who participated in the efforts

to prevent TMI from becoming a serious problem for

light water nuclear reactors in general and those who

were and are opposed to the use of nuclear energy and

radiation for any human application.  So far, the

light water nuclear power industry/regulators since

TMI like the space program have done a remarkable job.

 If one compares the total world light water

(non-RBMK)nuclear (TWhour) generation prior to TMI and

post TMI, one would find a significant difference. 

The TMI was fortunately a "lessons learned" incident. 

For the TMI (B&W designed single pass SG) design, many

improvements were made and one can look at other B&W

reactors and see an extremely safe operating history

post TMI incident. TMI was a major nuclear incident

and caused alot of lost $ and psychological stress for

people on all sides of the issue.  There were alot of

mistakes made by everyone.  However, the TMI reactor

system did what it was supposed to do during a major

fuel degradation incident by containing the

radioactive material. A number of people have done

calculations that clearly show the 10 mile EPZ (50

mile IPZ) for large light water reactors is more than

adequate.



TMI was a minor incident compared to the near total

failure of the RBMK at Chernobyl.  From an engineering

standpoint, they cannot be compared.



The book "We Almost Lost Detroit" which attempts to

describe the events at Fermi 1 as potentially

catastrophic had some impact on personal opinion when

it first came out, but its impact died with time.

This will be the case with this "TMI revisited"

report.  The people who are working so hard to keep

nuclear power safe and those who are on the sidelines

but are in favor of this method of electrical

generation should just keep hammering away at the

media with positive comments as you suggested.  The

big concern with nuclear power is not safety, nor

environmental impact but economic.  That is why we

need to start building more advanced, much higher

efficiency nuclear power plants to eventually replace

the older nuclear power plants and very old coal fired

power plants.  We need to finish the fuel cycle so

that Pu-239/U-235 can be used as intended (making

power) instead of being stockpiled in repositories.



Perhaps as natural gas, oil and LPG become

increasingly expensive, the economics for advanced

nuclear, improved solar photovoltaics and other less

long term environmentally damaging forms of electical

generation will be better (We must remember that all

forms of electrical generation will have some

environmental impact during manufacturing,

construction, operation and post operation). 







Paul Shafer

--- Les & Shirley Aldrich <laldrich@gte.net> wrote:

> Radsafers,

> 

> You can write to the network all you want and it

> won't have much impact.  On

> the other hand, if you write to the sponsors of the

> show and express your

> displeasure at them being involved in the warped

> journalism practiced on a

> particular show, they (the sponsors) will be very

> interested.  If enough

> people warn sponsors that if they keep sponsoring

> stuff we don't like, we

> will quit buying their product(s), the sponsors will

> bring pressure on the

> networks.  Sponsor pressure is much more effective

> than technical pressure -

> the real bottom line with both the networks and the

> sponsors is simply

> money.  Its a business!

> 

> Les Aldrich

> laldrich@gte.net

> 

> > -----Original Message-----

> > From: jbell [mailto:jbell@ADCOSERVICES.COM]

> > Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2001 11:16 AM

> > To: radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu

> > Subject: Dateline NBC TMI follow up

> >

> >

> > Hello Again Radsafers:

> > The only thing we can do in cases like this, as I

> know many of you have

> > already done, is to write to the network involved

> and voice our

> > discontent with this type of reporting. Being the

> optimist I try to be I

> > feel they will eventually see the light. We can

> only hope.

> >

> > Thanks for letting me air my opinions on this!

> >

> > Jim Bell

> > Adco Services, Inc.

> >

> >

>

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>

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