Anti nuke questions

[Michael Dupray <MRDupray@lbl.gov>]

Ok Radsafers.....



Here's a batch of questions that were sent to me from DOE Watch (gag!).

I need a little help with some of the answers.



Anyone care to take a shot at these?? Eric Golden??



Thanks in advance



How many of the welds (if any) at San Onofre are made from INCO 182?

>From Hastalloy-X?  Is INCONEL-600 used anywhere at the plant?



Why did Davis-Besse's Reactor Pressure Vessel Head corrode?  How long

did it take?  How much time did Ohio have left before a blow-out and

possible meltdown?



How can you be sure San Onofre's reactor heads aren't also corroded,

since the scuttlebutt is that no one's removed the shrouds at San Onofre

Unit

II or Unit III since the day they started operating?



How much radiation was released by San Onofre in the past 24 hours?  In

the past year?  The past decade?  Since it opened?  For each release,

can

you specify the date and breakdown the radiation by isotopes?  Can you

specify the fundamental cause of each release?



How much spent fuel is stored in the spent fuel pools at San Onofre

(it's presumably well over 1,000 tons by now)?



Was there a celebration at the facility when they reached the 1000 ton

level of waste stored onsite at the plant?



What are the chances of an asteroid impact somewhere in the Pacific

producing a 100 foot wave at the San Onofre sea wall (which is 35 feet

high)?  What is the margin of error in the estimate?  Where did this or

an equivalent calculation appear in the builder's request for an

operating

license?  When was this information last updated based on new data from

NASA or other research efforts?



What are the chances of a thrust-type underwater earthquake somewhere

in the Pacific producing a 100 foot wave at the San Onofre sea wall?

When

was the last study done?  Who did it?  What computers were used to do

the

calculations?  PDP-11s?



When was the last local earthquake study done and who paid for it?  Did

it include a fresh engineering analysis of the plant, or only an

analysis

of the newly-discovered onshore and offshore faults in the area?



Since embrittlement is a "force multiplier" (in the vernacular of the

military) and starts immediately, and progresses thereafter, what

effect does this have on San Onofre's ability to handle design-basis

threats?



Embrittlement can be caused by heat, vibration, radiation, and

chemicals.  What else can cause embrittlement?



How many times has Unit II been SCRAMmed in its life?  How many times

has Unit III been SCRAMmed in its life?



True or false: Linearly-increasing failure rates in complex systems can

lead to exponentially-increasing failure rates for the larger system

they are a part of.



How many circuit breakers similar to the one which exploded in February

2001 are still in use at San Onofre?



What protects the control room from airplanes crashing into it?



How large (in Megawatts) is the largest wind turbine available today?



Boeing recently announced a significant improvement in solar cell

efficiency.  What was the improvement factor?



Why did the fork-lift tines on one of San Onofre's largest (and oldest)

forklifts suddenly drop about 12 feet last year?



The Mafia had a big hand in the cement industry a few decades back.

How sure are you that the containment building is built as designed?

The

spent fuel pools?



Why don't dry cask storage systems use Kevlar outer layers to protect

against, say, 50-caliber machine gun bullets, grenades, truck bombs,

etc.?



How much time would it take to evacuate everyone within 10 miles of the

plant?  Within 50 miles?



For some evacuation scenarios, people within a 10 mile radius will be

told NOT to evacuate, but rather, to stay indoors, because if they tried

to

evacuate they would be blocked by people further away who are also

trying to evacuate, and would end up just sitting in their cars.

Officials

would rather have them sit indoors.  How many pints of blood will be

needed

to treat these people in the following months?



How many of them would try to leave anyway, only to receive a fatal

radiation dose while sitting in their cars on a blocked highway?



How much would an accident which required a permanent evacuation of a

10 mile radius around the plant cost the public in lost real estate

costs

alone?  For a 50 mile radius?



In your opinion, what effect would such an accident have on Southern

California's tourism industry?



If the farmlands around San Onofre become contaminated with radioactive

particles released during a catastrophic accident at the facility, as

happened to the farmlands around Chernobyl, what would it cost in ill

will for all growers from Southern California who want to export their

produce around the world?



If the Pacific Ocean were used as the "Ultimate Heat Sink" (as the term

is used in the technical specifications for the plant) after a meltdown

(and for the next 100,000 years or so), what effect would it have on

real

estate prices in Long Beach, San Diego, and Tijuana, Mexico, let alone

in San

Clemente?



In your opinion, will tourism go up, or down, in San Clemente,

Oceanside, Carlsbad, etc. in the event of a meltdown at San Onofre?



When you say there has been a 60-year "media paradigm" can you cite

examples, from 1942 especially, to prove your point (whatever it is)?

What is a "media paradigm"?



Shortly after Three Mile Island, the National Enquirer (!) was the first

to break the news that, according to government studies, nuclear power

plants could not survive an impact from a large commercial airplane.

This

fact,although non-surprising to any engineer worth their degree, was in

fact, promptly forgotten, and it remained forgotten until a few weeks

after 9-11, when the NRC and the licensees were all finally forced to

re-admit that

the plants could NOT survive such an impact.  Two months earlier,

Charles Marschall of the NRC had assured me over the phone that, in his

opinion, a nuclear power plant COULD survive such an impact.  What study

am I

referring to?



Since, as you say, the control room is on the West side of San Onofre,

that means it's more easily attacked from offshore with, say,

Rocket-Propelled Grenades, missiles, submarine-based

hang-glider-suicide-bombers, and

17-year disgruntled San Onofre veteran workers recently fired, coming in

from the sea with a large cache of assault equipment, including RPGs and

about 300 other weapons.  Is a train landing on the control room after

an accident on the tracks, which are to the East side of San Onofre,

more likely, or less likely, than a terrorist attack from the sea?



What is the likelihood that the plant will be attacked by a determined,

well-trained, well-armed, suicidal force?  What changes were made to

thatestimate after 9-11?  After January 7th, 2002?



What amount of plutonium 239 causes cancer in humans virtually 100% of

the time, if inhaled into the lung at the age of 50?  At the age of 5?

At the age of 5 weeks?  What studies prove the values you cite?



Define "human error" and explain why it can always be overcome at a

nuclear power plant, despite the evidence to the contrary from Three

Mile Island in 1979, from Davis-Besse in 2002, and from many other

near-catastrophes within the nuclear industry in America, and from

similar near-misses around the world, and non-misses (radiation releases

and/or major nuclear accidents) such as Chernobyl, Kursk, Thresher,

Scorpion, Shippingport, Idaho Falls, Windscale, Tokaimura, H.M.S.

Tireless, Rocky Flats, Hanford's nightmare tanks, Paduka's poisonous

pits, etc. etc., and from experience gained from every other industry on

Earth.



Do you work at San Onofre?  If so, please feel free to share these

suggested questions with the 26 teachers who reportedly will be visiting

the plant tomorrow (Thursday, April 25th, 2002).  I'm sure they'll be

just as interested in the answers as I am, and they might also be

interested in hearing some of the questions which the local citizens

have been asking Southern California Edison to properly respond to for

years.



Sincerely,



Russell Hoffman

Concerned Citizen

Carlsbad, CA



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