From: wcarroll@encore.com (William Carroll)
Subject: Re: Nuclear Power and Climate Change
Organization: Encore Computer Corporation
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 17:17:08 GMT

hardie@herald.usask.ca (Peter Hardie,4805) writes:
>From wcarroll@encore.com (William Carroll):
>= No, it was in a "hot shutdown". According to FPL, the reaction was being
>= maintained, but no energy was being supplied to the grid. It was my
>= impression that this is what the NRC requires in that type of situation.
>= After the storm, they were required to take it to a "cold-shutdown" until
>= the emergency systems had been repaired and inspected. 

>So it was still voluntarily shutdown. It was NOT knocked out by the storm.

No, FPL was required to remove the plant from the grid and bring it to the
lowest level of sustained reaction. The storm forced them to stop the
reaction completely. There is a difference.

>=I am certainly no nuke
>= eng, but reading reports led me to believe that there is a _significant_
>= difference in the startup times between the "hot shutdown" case and the
>= "cold shutdown" case. Perhaps Mr. De Armond, or some other netter with
>= industry experience, could clarify the difference for us.
>
>The difference between getting to full power from hot or cold shutdowns is
>irrelevant.

I doubt most electric utilities would agree with you there. FPL certainly
didn't act like it was irrelevant.

>Your claim was that the plant was damaged.

No, my claim was that the storm did more than just give the plant "a nice
bath".

>It was not.

You have a rather selective definition of "damaged".

>It was voluntarily shutdown

Wrong.

>(hot or cold - who cares)

FPL certainly did.

>and it was perfectly capable of getting back to full power.

Eventually.

>The absence of the sirens would not prevent
>the plant starting up again except that the emergency plans had to be adhered
>to as well. The plant was in the same situation as a car whose horn is 
>inoperative. In the absence of other damage, the car can still be used for
>transport, but safety considerations require that the horn be working before
>the car be allowed to move under its own power again.

So if the storm caused the horn to stop working, would you still say the
storm caused no damage to your car?

>= Well, since the emergency systems are part of the nuke plant, and required
>= for its operation, I would say that, yes, the nuclear plant was damaged. No,
>= the containment buildings were not damaged. Or at least not to a newsworthy
>= level.

>You do love to contradict yourself, don't you?

How is the above contradictiory? There is a lot more to a nuclear plant than
the containment building.

>"a newsworthy level" indeed!!! Describe the precise DAMAGE to the containment
>buildings.

Having never been onsite at the Turkey Point plant, I could neither describe
firsthand the condition of the plant before or after the storm. Can you?
Remember, be precise!

If it wasn't newsworthy, then it wasn't reported and I have no access to the
information.

>= The damage that required the plant to shutdown was the emergency systems.
>
>Yes. The sirens which you keep referring to as emergency systems to imply 
>that they are part of the plants operational emergency systems i.e. emergency
>cooling etc.

How so? I neither said that nor implied that. To me "emergency systems" means
systems used in an emergency. Pretty simple.

I would expect the emergency cooling systems (or at least the dangerous
cooling systems) to be within the containment building. By saying that
the containment buildings were not damaged to a newsworthy level, I thought
you would be able to extrapolate from there that all contained systems
were undamaged.

I made the assumption that you were rational and intelligent enough to
recognize that if the emergency cooling systems had been damaged, that
would have been BIG news. Obviously a bad assumption.

>= That was certainly not the only damage to the site. My impression was that
>= FPL's facilities at Turkey point did not sustain significantly more damage
>= than any of a number of other properties in the South Dade area. The plant
>= did survive relatively intact.
>
>I think you'd better describe to us your theory of relativity. By your own
>admission only the sirens were damaged.

By news reports, only the sirens were mentioned as a reason why the plant was
not allowed to return to operation. Since FPL had crews working on site 24
hours a day for over a week repairing damage, I would say it is safe to
assume that there was in fact other damage on the site. But I don't recall
any of it being newsworthy (there's that word again) enough to rate its
specific mention on the air.

My theory of relativity is simple. Go look at pictures of the Burger King
headquarters or Homestead AFB to get a judge for "relative to".

>= So why should I believe Turkey Point is that much better designed than
>= Homestead AFB?
>
>The plant was undamaged.

So? There were MANY cases throughout south Dade where two houses next to
each other, built by the same home builder at the same time, sustained
significantly different amounts of damage. If they were built on the same
design, how could one be better designed than the other?

The conventional plant at Turkey Point had two stacks - one was damaged to the
point of having to be torn down and the other sustained no significant damage.
Despite being the same design, you want me to believe that one was better
designed that the other simply because one was damaged and the other wasn't?

"The plant was undamaged" is hardly a solid scientific data point to back
up your assertion. Can you provide any engineering evidence that the
buildings at Turkey Point are better designed than the structures at
Homestead AFB? Structural engineering reports? Architectural references?
Anything at all besides your obviously unfounded beliefs?

>Despite your implications, the containment could
>not possibly have been damaged because the plant is back in operation.

What implications? I thought I overtly stated a number of times that the
containment buildings were not structurally damaged. Do you actually read
what you are responding to or do you just fly off the handle whenever
you are sufficiently unarmed with facts?

>Your beliefs are immune to facts. I'm not going to bother trying to alter
>them.

Funny, that's pretty close to my impression of you.



William R. Carroll (Encore Computer, Ft. Lauderdale FL) wcarroll@encore.com

"We trained hard,  but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form
up into teams, we would be reorganized.  I was to learn later in life that
we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing;  and a wonderful method
it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion,
inefficiency, and demoralization."	-Petronius Arbiter, 210 BC