Re:western power outage

[mcbaker@students.wisc.edu (Michael Baker)]

>
>I have two questions.
>
>1. Is this correct?
>
>2. Are there comparable problems with oil or coal fired power plants?
>


I attended a lecture by a Commonweatlh Edison executive (former
engineer) who stated that the coal plants they used exhibited 
ramp times (time to come up to needed power levels) very similar
to the nuclear plants.  He said that they started increasing 
power in their plants about two hours before the expected need.

Nuclear plants are only xenon limited following shutdown at 
certain times in life.  I am mostly familiar with non-commercial
design, but in the plants I have worked on they were only xenon 
limited for restart near end of life.

The rate we could increase power was limited be thermal stress
considerations and not nuclear ones.  I assume coal and oil 
plants exhibit similar, but perhaps not as strict, limits on 
their rates of power increase.

Mike Baker 

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Michael C. Baker                        mcbaker@students.wisc.edu
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