From: wcarroll@encore.com (William Carroll)
Subject: Re: Nuclear Power and Climate Change
Organization: Encore Computer Corporation
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 19:22:27 GMT

hardie@herald.usask.ca (Peter Hardie) writes:
>=hardie@herald.usask.ca (Peter Hardie,4805) writes:
>==From wcarroll@encore.com (William Carroll):
>== You mean, like knocking the Turkey Point nuclear plant offline for several
>== weeks? That's one hell of a bath!
>=
>==If you had read the news correctly you would know that the hurricane did not
>==damage the nuclear power plant at all. It was taken off line as a precaution
>==during the storm. The damage was done to a nearby coal-fired plant (one of the
>==stacks was damaged?).
>==etc.
>=
>=I did read the news correctly, thank you. The plant was offline while emergency
>=systems damaged in the storm were repaired. To me, that means the storm
>=knocked the plant offline. In even plainer language, the only reason the
>=plant was not operational was because of damage incurred in the storm.
>=
>=If you had read the news correctly, you would know that:
>=
>=The plant was brought to a state of "hot shutdown" prior to the storm's
>=arrival. This is evidently SOP for the situation. The plan was to bring it
>=back up as soon as the storm passed.

>You're contradicting yourself. You say the plant was shutdown as part of SOP
>BEFORE the storm arrived. Therefore the storm could not possibly have
>knocked it offline - it was already down.

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. The implication was
that the reactor was now turned off and there was NO atom splitting going
on. Then the reaction had to be initiated again. 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 coal-fired plant was not nearby, it was on-site. The coal and nuclear
>=facilities share the same patch of earth.

>Huh? It's on-site and therefore it is not nearby? I must be missing a
>crucial semantic difference here.

My reading of the original (deleted) text was that the writer was trying
to imply that that nuke plant did not share the same site (and thus did
not experience the same risk) as the coal plant. That is not true. If you
saw any pictures of the damaged stack at the coal plant, you could
probably recognize the shape of the two nuke containment buildings just
behind the coal plants.

>=The evacuation concerns centered on the inoperative alarm sirens, which had
>=died early in the night. It wasn't a matter of evacuating people through
>=the debris, it was a matter of letting them know they needed to evacuate.
>=

>So the "emergency systems" that were damaged were the sirens. The nuclear
>plant itself was undamaged. 

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.

>=And even though it survived the storm relatively intact, I still think was
>=and is incredibly stupid to put a facility like that on the oceanfront in
>=a high-risk hurricane area.

>If the only damage was to the sirens and you represent this by saying that
>the plant survived "relatively intact", it's no wonder you have problems
>with "nearby" and "on-site".

The damage that required the plant to shutdown was the emergency systems.
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.

>=If you saw the damage the storm did to the
>="hurricane-proof" buildings at Homestead AFB, you would realize that FPL
>=was VERY lucky.

>Or well designed.

So why should I believe Turkey Point is that much better designed than
Homestead AFB?


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
Newsgroups: sci.energy