Alabama Nuclear Reactor Gets 'F' Grade 436
GatorSnake writes "The US federal government issued a rare red finding against an Alabama nuclear power plant after an emergency cooling system failure. 'In an emergency, the failure of the valve could have meant that one of the plant's emergency cooling systems would not have worked as designed (PDF).' Does this further erode the argument that Fukushima was just an isolated incident in the 'modern' nuclear power age?"
Re:You can never rule out risks completely (Score:4, Informative)
If you stop trying hard enough to make fusion work, it just stops working.
The problem is that you need to work so hard (= put so much energy into it) that fusion ends up costing energy rather than producing it.
I agree with you that efficient fusion would be far superior in fission and lack almost all of fission's problems, but it doesn't seem likely that a breakthrough will come soon. Waiting for fusion will cost too much time.
Re:You can never rule out risks completely (Score:4, Informative)
Still safer than coal. It's exactly like air travel versus car travel. Car travel is more familiar and the damages from accidents are more sparsely distributed, so it is less feared, while in fact air travel is vastly safer by any reasonable measure. Sensational media coverage and uncritical audience politics are killing us.
Re:Yes (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, the modern reactor of Japan worked very well. Until it didn't.
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Except the Fukushima was not a modern reactor. It was an old design that should have been EOL'ed. As the OP stated designs should have been updated, built and replaced older reactors over the last 30-40 years. How many things do you have that are 30 years old that still work? I have a few, but none as complex as a reactor.
That train of thought works well for China, too. "It works great until it doesn't!" Use that everywhere! My cat food needs more poison in it. I don't want working air bags. We demand even more lead in our drinking glasses! Our financial market demands no more regulation! Oh wait, that's an American invention.
It's still early, but congratulations on posting the most nonsensical thing I've read so far today.
Re:Isolated? (Score:4, Informative)
It is. In fact, cut transmission line from this very plant are the main reason that the entire Huntsville metro area got a great opportunity for a 4-6 day "Gaslight" Con. Because we had no electricity and were using nothing but gaslights. Tornadoes tore apart the grid and support infrastructure for the plant and basically all of Northern Alabama was without power for four days to a week. On the bright side, the plant itself was able to smoothly move into a hot shutdown and smoothly ramp back up when the infrastructure was restored, so they much be doing something right.
Re:Another isolated incident? (Score:5, Informative)
No, you didn't get a "nothing to see here". You actually got an answer. By design, if a water-moderated reactor loses its cooling, it also loses moderation of the neutrons. Fast neutrons don't work as well, so the reaction rate would slow. The residual heat would still have melted the fuel rods and it would be a big mess to clean up, but nobody would have died.
I know it is not the answer you want, but there you have it. It would not have been a Chernobyl-type accident. The Chernobyl reactor had a positive-void coefficient, which means that the reaction rate would go up if cooling was lost. Davis-Besse has negative-void coefficient. The reaction rate will go down if coolant is lost.