From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: sci.energy
Subject: Re: Nuclear Power and Climate Change
Date: 5 Jan 93 19:01:54 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <b2wry+#@dixie.com> jgd@dixie.com (John De Armond) writes:
>yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>
>>This is typical of your level of either honesty or understanding, I'm not
>>sure which. You project costs to be trivial, but there is zero
>>'on the ground' evidence to backup this assertion. Nobody has ever tried
>>annealing in any commercial plants, and the only evidence you 
>>provide for your claim is your own personal credibility --  a rather
>>valueless item.
>
>True, no pot has ever been annealed in-situ.  Nor has a pot been replaced, 
>nor any containment vessel been replaced, nor any site moved.
>Why?  Simple.  Because none of these have ever been necessary.  On the 
>other hand, things previously declared "impossible" by the armchair
>critics have been done with little ado other than fighting the ever-present
>anti-nook-kooks.  Things like complete steam generator changeouts (several), 
>complete recirc piping changeouts (Plant Hatch) and "impossible to fix" steam 
>generator tube damange (TMI-1).  Like the old saying goes, we nukes do hard 
>things trivially; the impossible takes a bit longer.

So you concede the point.

>
>>>As to effectiveness, if you've ever annealed a piece of hardened
>>>steel, you know how effective heat is in eliminating stress.  Really
>>>does not matter how the stress got there.  
>
>>Look up "extrapolation" in a dictionary.
>
>Hmm, trying to figure out how "extrapolation" would be used here.  Perhaps

 and then he figures it out --

>popped out.  Relative to the thread, the pots are typically inductively 
>annealed during production.  No extrapolation involved.  The same procedures
>will be used, adapted as needed for in-situ work in a rad zone.

Extrapolate: to project .. known data or experience into an area not known
or experienced so as to arrive at a usually conjectural knowledge of the
unknown area. 

e.g. to take data from small pieces of metal or newly manufactured reactor
vessels and to conjecture about the properties of 30 year old, in situ
reactor vessels. 


>I'm trying to attribute some other motive than malicious ignorance to 
>your continued claim that something the size of a reactor pot 
>can't be economically annealed in place.  A pot is certainly not the 

You should attribute it to your misreading of my post. I don't know whether
or not it will be economic or effective. Neither the physics of neutron
embrittlement nor the engineering experience appear suficient to justify a
flat assertion.  My argument is that you are making flat assertions based
on conjecture.  Understand? 

>largest vessel in use.  The metallurgy is nothing special, surely
>less complex than that seen in oil refineries.  The only complicating
>factor is the radiation environment but that will be dealt with 
>in exactly the same way we dealt with it at TMI during the SG refurbs -
>chemical flushes, shielding, remote manipulators, robots if necessary,
>and short stay times.

"It can't be hard, because I can't think of any reason it should be."

>>Yankee Rowe was shut down by the NRC, not the utility. And it was
>>shut down because of embrittlement. 
>
>Believe what you want, Yack.  I called my friend and colleague yesterday
>(Monday) at to chat about Rowe just to make sure my information is up
>to date.  He faxed me some of the press releases from the period.

Golly, faxed press releases! That *is* real evidence. Probably written
by a certified public relations spokesperson too! I must have imagined the
NRC public hearings at Rowe.

>If you'd like to continue this thread, I'm willing but your guessing
>and imagining just isn't going to work.

As they used to put it in the old country: if only your ears could hear what
your mouth has said.

>>The utility decided not to pour
>>an unknown but large sum of money into a speculative process. 
>
>Well half right.  Knowing what should be intuitave to anyone capable
>of giving it any thought, the support costs for doing an annealing will
>be approximately the same regardless of the unit size.  The utility
>correctly decided that the expense was not worth the results.  No 
>surprise.  I had hoped that they'd do a demonstration project - perhaps
>with DOE assistance but they didn't.

In other words, you admit that I was correct, but want to toss in some
gratuitous insults.

>
>>When it
>>comes time, other utilities will make the same judgment with bigger
>>reactors -- unless the public gets stuck with the bill.
>
>You mean like customers get "stuck" with the bill for fuel? Or like car
>customers get "stuck" for the mfr's research and development costs?
>

No.

>Now, now, Yack.  Dan Rather can get away with that kind of propaganda on
>TV; here in this interactive media and with your skillset, you don't
>have a chance.

Your concern is touching.



-- 


yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu

Newsgroups: sci.energy,talk.environment