From: hardie@herald.usask.ca (Peter Hardie,4805)
Newsgroups: sci.energy
Subject: Re: Nuclear Power and Climate Change
Date: 7 Jan 1993 01:12:48 GMT
Organization: University of Saskatchewan
Reply-To: hardie@herald.usask.ca
NNTP-Posting-Host: herald.usask.ca
Originator: hardie@herald.usask.ca

From article <C0G5tF.IBB@encore.com=, by wcarroll@encore.com (William Carroll):
==hardie@herald.usask.ca (Peter Hardie,4805) writes:
=From wcarroll@encore.com (William Carroll):
==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. 
So it was still voluntarily shutdown. It was NOT knocked out by the storm.
=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. Your claim was that the plant was damaged. It was not. It was
voluntarily shutdown (hot or cold - who cares) and it was perfectly capable
of getting back to full power. 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.

=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. 
I used the term "nearby" precisely because both plants experienced the same
risk.

==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.
You do love to contradict yourself, don't you?
"a newsworthy level" indeed!!! Describe the precise DAMAGE to the containment
buildings.
= 
= 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.
= 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.
= 
=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?
The plant was undamaged. Despite your implications, the containment could
not possibly have been damaged because the plant is back in operation.
Your beliefs are immune to facts. I'm not going to bother trying to alter
them.


Pete hardie@herald.usask.ca

Newsgroups: sci.energy