- #246
mheslep
Gold Member
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Certainly. An entirely political block, which can be unblocked. Query: if some kind of energy system was being blocked (or continued) by political pressure from fossile fuel interests, e.g. the oil industry, is sorry-its-blocked an acceptable argument?zoobyshoe said:...Sorry to wave my hand at it, but there is some sort of blockage here in the US that has prevented it from getting done here...
Yes accidents happen. So? A brand new gas power plant exploded up in Connecticut a couple years ago, killing some people. Tragic. The F. quake and tsunami killed over ten thousand. Very tragic. The F. radiation killed nobody, and never will to a point that's measurable. The possibility of such an accident should be low, but it need not need be down to the odds of the sun exploding.zoobyshoe said:You and others excuse Fukushima as a freak, but freaks happen,
Dry cask storage sites and underground storage are not part of live 3GW reactors that might have high pressure steam or hydrogen explosions, spreading material. Imagine the worst for stored idle waste, and the worst outcome is some kind of local cleanup that's been done many times with chemical spills and radioactive materials.zoobyshoe said:and the longer the time you have to go depending on the absence of a freak, the less you can say the freak accident won't happen to some storage site somewhere.
Unfortunately for SONGS most of the pipes were defective, meaning the plant would slowly lose its ability to produce power if it kept operating without action. However, the steam generator is ...a steam generator contraining breifly radioactive water; it is not the reactor core containing fissile material and fission products. NRC:zoobyshoe said:I brought up San Onofre. Despite you and Russ especially often claiming that the nuclear industry has learned its lessons and safety is now unparalleled, they, never-the-less installed some defective steam pipes. There was no accident, thank God, but they had to shut the plant down
Before the NRC allows a PWR to operate, the plant owner must show the plant can keep the public safe even if a very unlikely tube rupture happens. The plant must show radiation doses beyond the plant's fence would stay below the NRC's conservative limits (described in Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 100). Plant operators must also have emergency procedures for safely dealing with steam generator tube ruptures and leaks
.zoobyshoe said:A one-of-a-kind site in that the public opposition didn't end up killing it, or maybe the fact it was essentially a military disposal site (waste from nuclear weapons rather than nuclear power plants) made it unstoppable
How many does one need? A football field or two can store the waste stream from the nuclear fleet for hundreds of years. It's the same US government in charge of either military waste or commercial power waste. New Mexico volunteered.
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