NYT: Regulators Find Design Flaws in New Reactors

[kristopher]

Regulators Find Design Flaws in New Reactors
By MATTHEW L. WALD
Published: May 20, 2011

WASHINGTON — In a setback for the only model of nuclear reactor for which ground has been broken in the United States, government regulators have found additional problems with the design of its shield building, a crucial component, the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said on Friday.

The chairman, Gregory B. Jaczko, said that computations submitted by Westinghouse, the manufacturer of the new AP1000 reactor, about the building’s design appeared to be wrong and “had led to more questions.” He said the company had not used a range of possible temperatures for calculating potential seismic stresses on the shield building in the event of an earthquake, for example.

Mr. Jaczko said the commission was asking Westinghouse not only to fix its calculations but also to explain why it submitted flawed information in the first place. Earlier this year the commission staff said it needed additional calculations from Westinghouse to confirm the strength of the AP1000’s shield building. The building has not been built; the analysis of its strength and safety is all computer based.

The announcement comes as the commission and the American nuclear industry are facing increased scrutiny as a result of the calamity that began after an earthquake and tsunami damaged the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan in March, leading to releases of radioactive material. Various critics have asked the commission to suspend licensing of new plants, the relicensing of old ones and various other activities until the implications of the Fukushima accident are clearer.

While the commission has said it will evaluate the ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/21/business/energy-environment/21nuke.html

[robinlynne]

1. hey Westinghouse built the fukushima reactor too. if it gets by the first time...

[AtheistCrusader]

6. Citation Required.

[kristopher]

8. Why?

[FBaggins]

10. Because it isn't true?

Not that that's ever stopped you. :)

[AtheistCrusader]

13. Westinghouse didn't build Fukushima.

They MIGHT have been involved, or MIGHT have supplied equipment that was used, but I can find no reference to it.

[kristopher]

15. Who owns westinghouse?

[AtheistCrusader]

16. That's like blaming Boeing for building the MD-80.

You aren't being serious, are you?

[kristopher]

17. Poor little feller's having his own personal meltdown...

[AtheistCrusader]

18. I'm not going to stoop to personal attacks so this thread can be convieniently deleted.

Westinghouse didn't build Fukushima Dai-Ichi.

Westinghouse was LATER PURCHASED by Toshiba. Period. End of story. Thank you for playing.

[kristopher]

19. GE built Fukushima, GE owns Westinghouse and the AP1000

You're the one that runs to get threads deleted...

[AtheistCrusader]

20. Literally everything you just posted is wrong.

I do not 'get threads deleted'.
GE does not own Westinghouse.
GE does not own the AP1000 reactor design.

Edit: Whoops, you did get one thing right. GE was a principle contractor on Fukushima Dai-ichi. Everything else is wrong though.

[kristopher]

21. DO you have a citation for that?

Because GE only sold an interest to Toshiba.

[AtheistCrusader]

22. lol

http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/ir/en/news/20061017_2.htm

Too easy.

[kristopher]

23. "Too easy?" Then why did you need to make the rude reply to robinlynne...

...instead of just providing a simple correction?

[AtheistCrusader]

24. It's not rude.

Nor is it the same claim. I just proved GE does not own Westinghouse. I did not prove Westinghouse did not build Fukushima Dai-Ichi.

FBaggins provided that information, which I did not have at the time.
You see, when you make a positive claim, it's always good to be able to back it up.


Still awaiting you proving that:

GE owns Westinghouse.
GE owns the AP1000 reactor design.

[FBaggins]

9. They didn't

All six reactors were built by Kajima.

Toshiba did, however, provide the architecture and supply the reactor itself on units 3&5. Toshiba now owns Westinghouse (though the purchase was over 25 years after Fukushima was built... and long afer the AP1000 was designed).

[kristopher]

11. I helped build Fukushima

I helped build Fukushima.

I wasn’t a nuclear or civil engineer. I was just a bean-counter at the time. I was recruited on campus in the early ‘70s to enter the Financial Management Program at General Electric Corporation. I gladly accepted. My first permanent assignment after graduation was with GE’s Nuclear Energy Division in San Jose, California serving as the project accountant for their Far East projects, which included the Fukushima and Tokai multi-unit plants being built in Japan.

I have to admit, I was quite proud at the time to be a part of the “Atoms for Peace” program that GE, Westinghouse and others were developing. Unlike coal and oil fueled power plants, the new nuclear power plants were touted as being “clean, safe, and efficient.”

I spent two years preparing financial reports, generating budgets and forecasts, and auditing subcontractors for the Fukushima project. “Fukushima” became a regular term in my vocabulary.

It’s been almost forty years, and I never expected to hear the word “Fukushima” again.

But I did. Last month when news first broke about a “potential problem” at one of Japan’s nuclear facilities after the 9.0 earthquake, I said to myself, “Please don’t say the word ‘Fukushima’.” They did. I’ve been doing an extensive amount of soul-searching ever since....

Read entire article at:
http://open.salon.com/blog/steven_rockford/2011/04/14/i_helped_build_fukushima

I'd imagine that the lines get blurred a bit with the cross-pollinating incest between the multinationals involved in the global nuclear fission scam, but you didn't need to ask for a link if you disagreed, you could have posted one yourself proving the assertion wrong.

But since it really isn't so much wrong as woefully inadequate to address the complexity of who is culpable for this crime, I can see why you just said "link".

[AtheistCrusader]

12. Did you even read what you just posted?

I mean, seriously

[Name removed]

14. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[AtheistCrusader]

34. Well, post your questions again, and I'll answer them again.

I'm a little past annoyed that so many of my posts keep getting deleted in this way. I put quite a bit of thought into that response, and didn't save a local copy.

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. I want answers too. Find the CEO who benefited from this decision,

and hold him accountable.

[jpak]

3. but...but...but... the AP1000 is an *advanced* design - it cannot be flawed in any way

cuz it's an *advanced* design

see?

[bananas]

5. The Titanic was an advanced design...you really don't know what'll happen until they hit an iceberg

[bananas]

4. Good thing China hasn't started building them - oh, wait, ...

[kristopher]

7. NRC to Westinghouse: explain why you submitted flawed information in the first place

Don't tell me the NRC are actually going to start acting like regulators instead of conspirators?

[SpoonFed]

25. Every now and then you need to pretend you're impartial,

to keep the chirade going, no? Now's a perfect time as ever given the spotlight on Fukushima.
Same as FBags occasionally claims to be pro-renewable and supports closing down nuclear.

[kristopher]

28. Define impartial.

Impartial only applies in the stage where you are gathering and analyzing data. Once conclusions are arrived at, there is a requirement to be open to NEW data or previously unappreciated implications of old data. I am that.

The exchange above is not complete, I'm waiting on AC to respond to a couple of basic questions dealing with his expectations regarding the obligations of posters here to engage in an honest exchange of information.

You'll note that he is afraid to go down that path even though it is a direct outgrowth of the interminable exchange that preceded the question.

[AtheistCrusader]

29. Again with the insults.

I like that not logging in is considered 'fear'.

If you must know, I am preparing a slideshow for a funeral for a family member, so I am somewhat busy. I've come up for air for a few minutes, and see this.

You declaring me 'afraid'.

Not a chance.

[SpoonFed]

32. Oh, sorry that wasn't clear,

I wasn't opining about your subthread but about "NRC asking Westinghouse to explain".

[intaglio]

26. Fukushima plants are GE designs - not Westinghouse

but unfortunately Boiling Water Reactors appear, since Fukushima, to be inherently unsafe. This point is brought home by the probability that Fukushima Daiichi1 reactor 1 failed prior to the tsunami

[AtheistCrusader]

27. Had not read that yet.

They think the earthquake knocked out the generators and batteries?

Ground accelerations did exceed the design specification, so certainly possible.

[bananas]

30. Tepco detected sharp rise in radiation in reactor 1 immediately after temblor struck

They knew this right away, created a false narative, this was reported a week ago but a lot of people are unaware of it because of the way they've managed the news.
Here are two stories, each mentions a different radiation measurement.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-19/fukushima-may-have-leaked-radiation-before-quake.html

Japan’s Fukushima Reactor May Have Leaked Radiation Before Tsunami Struck
By Yuji Okada, Tsuyoshi Inajima and Shunichi Ozasa - Thu May 19 10:21:12 GMT 2011

A radiation alarm went off at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima nuclear power plant before the tsunami hit on March 11, suggesting that contrary to earlier assumptions the reactors were damaged by the earthquake that spawned the wall of water.

A monitoring post on the perimeter of the plant about 1.5 kilometers (1 mile) from the No. 1 reactor went off at 3:29 p.m., minutes before the station was overwhelmed by the tsunami that knocked out backup power that kept reactor cooling systems running, according to documents supplied by the company. The monitor was set to go off at high levels of radiation, an official said.

<snip>

Officials at the company, known as Tepco, had earlier said the plant stood up to the magnitude-9 quake and was crippled by the tsunami that followed, causing the world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in 1986. The early radiation alarm has implications for other reactors in Japan, one of the most earthquake prone countries in the world, because safety upgrades ordered by the government since March 11 have focused on the threat from tsunamis.

<snip>

Tepco this week released thousands of pages of documents that highlight the chaos in the early hours of the disaster as workers frantically tried to prevent meltdowns in three of six reactors at Fukushima. They included pictures of whiteboards with scribbled notes of times and events.

<snip>

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110516a3.html

Monday, May 16, 2011

Tepco detected sharp rise in radiation in reactor 1 immediately after temblor struck
Quake 'hurt reactors before tsunami'
Kyodo

High radiation readings taken in the No. 1 reactor building the night of March 11 suggest it was the quake rather than the loss of cooling that critically damaged the Fukushima No. 1 power plant, a utility source said Saturday.

<snip>

Workers entered the No. 1 reactor building during the night to assess the damage only to hear their dosimeter alarms go off a few seconds later, sources at Tokyo Electric Power Co. said. Since they thought the building was filled with highly radioactive steam, the workers decided to evacuate.

Based on the dosimeter readings, the radiation level was about 300 millisieverts per hour, the source said, suggesting that a large amount of radioactive material had already been released from the core.

<snip>

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has so far said the reactor withstood the shaking and that the unexpectedly large tsunami caused a station blackout, which led to explosions.

<snip>

[AtheistCrusader]

31. Possible.

If it was only the single remote monitoring reading, I would guess a malfunction, but with dosimeters as well, makes liklihood of an actual release much more probable.

I wonder when the workers dosimeters went off, before or after the tsunami? Wasn't there only a 50 minute window between the earthquake, and arrival of the wave?

The article seems to suggest after, which could mean a simple broken pipe or valve. Not a catastrophic failure. For the catastrophic failure and leak/meltdown, my money is still on the total loss of cooling.

I also want to know if the control rods actually inserted from below, all the way, or only partially, or not at all. That seems an inherent weakness to this particular design.

[SpoonFed]

33. TEPCO lying?

At this point I have a hard time believing that TEPCO would lie about this sort of thing. chortle chortle snicker. :rofl: