NUKE POWER? This renews those of little faith....

[keyman512us]

While Surfing I found this article:
http://wbztv.com/vermontwire/VT--VermontYankee/resources_news_html

Since when do they make Nuke Plants with wooden 4x4's???

 

[webbie]

This is really sheer madness and it shows the complete lack of accountability of the government and this "regulated" industry. We are supposed to trust these people? That plant had a "design life" which ended LONG ago. But any electric they get out of it now if pure profit, so the incentive is strong to run it until the end....whatever that is.....

I hope they used pressure treated 4x4's, and picked through the pile well.

That is really a disgrace - the head of engineering responds with "well, this shows we need to enhance the inspection procedure".

Anyone who thinks this industry has it's check and balances better read that article carefully.

 

[Hogwildz]

They are already making plans for a 3rd tower at the one down the street from me. Yeahhhhh ;(
And the folks here love it, brings work were there is none. I feel otherwise.

 

[keyman512us]

This is really sheer madness and it shows the complete lack of accountability of the government and this "regulated" industry. We are supposed to trust these people? That plant had a "design life" which ended LONG ago. But any electric they get out of it now if pure profit, so the incentive is strong to run it until the end....whatever that is.....

I hope they used pressure treated 4x4's, and picked through the pile well.

That is really a disgrace - the head of engineering responds with "well, this shows we need to enhance the inspection procedure".

Anyone who thinks this industry has it's check and balances better read that article carefully.

"How to build a backyard nuclear reactor...Get your materials at the Home Depot"....lol

 

[webbie]

Actually, we used 4x4's quite often to lower Tarm boilers into the basement. So I can assure you that a tripod made from 3 of them will hold one ton. You can take the 3 foot thick cooling towers and make your calculations from there!

I would love to have an independent third party let into that facility to take pictures....

 

[KeithO]

The cooling towers are the "external interface" to dump heat from the reactors and to recycle the cooling water. As such, this failure is no more significant than a structural failure of a cooling tower at a coal fired power station. There is a primary heat exchanger system that is a closed loop to the reactor, where the radioactive water from the reactor pool gives off its heat to the regular water that flows to the cooling towers. This primary heat exchange system should be designed with sufficient capacity to allow shut down, even if all of the external cooling towers were lost.

However, this is one of those "only in america" situations. I can't think of another place in the world where such a big structure would be made of wood. Maybe they use bamboo in India ? It does them for all of their scaffolding, even on skyscrapers.... In South Africa the cooling towers were reinforced concrete, which was less expensive and lower maintenance than steel.

It is embarrasing. Management at the facility should be fired, since people could have been killed. There is a significant amount of legal liability involved if anyone actually had been killed or maimed. They can be smug, since if neither occurred, there is more than likely nobody who will persue it.

 

[TMonter]

It's likely they were multi-cell forced draft units, not the giant natural draft units you normally see.

A good 50% of cooling towers are manufactured using treated lumber as it holds up to the wet environment quite well.

Forced or induced draft towers usually only sit about 20 feet of the ground at the top and include sometimes two dozen or more "cells".

Anyone who thinks this industry has it’s check and balances better read that article carefully.

Wood frame cooling towers are notoriously hard to inspect Craig, especially since there is no good way to look for stress cracks in lumber. I'm no fan of Nuclear power, but isn't the government in charge of inspections on Nuke plants instead of independent insurance auditors (like coal plants)? (That would be yes)

 

[senorFrog]

Since when do they make Nuke Plants with wooden 4x4's???

It's so sad, that all I can do is laugh. So here goes...

"Home Depot, you can do it, we can help"

 

[cbrodsky]

Actually, we used 4x4's quite often to lower Tarm boilers into the basement. So I can assure you that a tripod made from 3 of them will hold one ton. You can take the 3 foot thick cooling towers and make your calculations from there!

I would love to have an independent third party let into that facility to take pictures....

Off-topic, but that was the main thing that scared me w/TARM - my builder would have had a shi*fit over getting a crane to lower it in. And that's before the house was built.

Didn't help my decision process that oil was $1.09 at the time either... at $2.80/gallon, it would have been a no-brainer.

 

[webbie]

I'm no fan of Nuclear power, but isn't the government in charge of inspections on Nuke plants instead of independent insurance auditors (like coal plants)? (That would be yes)

Actually, the engineers and plant managers of the "free market" build and check the thing on an everyday basis.

The NRC does license the plants.

This is failure of BOTH the private sector and the government - but it is very typical in that the private sector pays the government (in effect, that is what lobbying is) to look the other way (or to trust them to police themselves).

This shows the folly of that system. I'll bet that the operators designers and engineers are a lot smarter than the NRC guys.....but still they did not do their job.....probably because of pressure to contain costs. After all, profits are the single motive of a corporation like this.

What is the solution - heck if I know - but it definitely entails MORE oversight, not less. When a plant is at double it's design life, things should be checked more carefully.

 

[jjbaer]

I'm no fan of Nuclear power, but isn't the government in charge of inspections on Nuke plants instead of independent insurance auditors (like coal plants)? (That would be yes)

You should be because the alternative is "are you a big fan of coal fired power plants"? Point is that like it or not, the reality is that we need more power each day and right now there are a few choices: coal or nuke and the Chinese are building a new coal plant every few weeks.......... Given global warming, even the eco-weenies are "warming-up" to nuke plants.........