Published: August 25th, 2011 at 12:45 pm ET
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Event Notification Report for August 25, 2011, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, August 25, 2011:
Power Reactor Event Number: 47196
Facility: NORTH ANNA
Region: 2 State: VA
Unit: [1] [2] [ ]
Event Date: 08/25/2011
Event Time: 01:18 [EDT]
Emergency Class: UNUSUAL EVENT
10 CFR Section: 50.72(a) (1) (i) – EMERGENCY DECLAREDEvent Text
UNUSUAL EVENT DECLARED DUE TO AN AFTERSHOCK EARTHQUAKE
On August 25th at 0118 EDT, North Anna Power Station declare an Unusual Event due to seismic activity onsite (EAL HU 1.1). Both units are currently shutdown and electrical power is being supplied from offsite. There were no personnel injuries. There was no radiological release. Site structure and system inspections are in progress. No damage has been identified.
The NRC Resident Inspector and state and local authorities have been notified.
h/t Anonymous tips
Published: August 25th, 2011 at 12:45 pm ET
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sending...
Sadly, they haven’t announced any “emergency”. Undergoing a potentially plant damaging earthquake, and losing main power to the site and being one diesel generator away from coolant failure is only regarded as a minor “unusual event”.
Before anyone jumps on it, yes, there were 4 backups, only one failed, but my understanding (correct me if I’m wrong) is it was actually two generators per reactor, which means if one was down, then that reactor only had one more. Maybe they could’ve moved one from the other reactor quickly, but still…pretty thin thread that sword is hanging by.
Another downplayed situation yet again.
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Btw, yes, it says emergency in the NRC text, but really MSM coverage almost included people pantomiming yawns…..
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When you are talking big pumps and big electrical supplies, rarely would the provisions be in place to simply be able to implement a “jumper”. Nor will they be trucking in the wire and hardware to be prepared for such a maneuver. It might not even be immediately available in the area.
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Yet to see this on RSOE EDIS..
But LOOK at this..
I rest my case.
http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/site/?pageid=event_desc&edis_id=ED-20110825-32088-USA
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Here is a photo of the spill area.
http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/site/?pageid=event_photo&edis_id=ED-20110825-32088-USA
Sorry…. off topic …geeze….
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If I thought it was the end of the world, the last place I would be is here.
And I don’t necessarily hate nukes – in fact for the entire period of my life until March I liked them.
Then I figured out the truth.
I studied the design and looked at the track record and determined for myself that life on earth is unsustainable with the track record of nuclear disasters we have had in the past 35 years.
And no design upgrade or engineering upgrade will fix the problem.
The problem is twofold.
1. The basic design of a nuclear reactor demands that it cannot shut down without help – help in the way of a continuous supply of cooling. And when the reactor does not get the cooling it needs, it melts down immediately with disastrous and widespread and long-term consequences.
2. The stakes are so high that the truth cannot be told. This has been proven time and again. Three Mile island – the public was not told the truth. Chernobyl – the public was not told the truth – initially, however over time the truth came out. Fukushima – again, we’ve gotten a series of lies and coverups. There is no indication this will change.
In my mind, #2 is more insurmountable than #1. If the truth cannot be told, then it is too dangerous – that simple. By covering up what’s happening at Fukushima – the nuke industry has killed itself – mark those words if you want. What’s the old saying? fool me once, fool me twice. The public got fooled after Chernobyl , they will not be fooled after they find out the truth about Fukushima.
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Don’t forget Simi Valley!
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@ Boodiba
By Simi Valley are you referring to the Santa Susana Field Lab? Because if you are I have to agree it is still a very dangerous & toxic place that many people either don’t know about or don’t talk about. I was disheartened when the subject was posted on this forum & there were not that many comments,as it is still, after 52 years, a very timely & important part of the nuclear history & the attempted toxic clean up of our country. Thanks
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Had to research Santa Susanna Field Lab (SSFL), as I admit I hadn’t heard of it, even though I have been trying to learn all things nuclear for 20 years now. Here’s what wikipedia has to say:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Susana_Field_Laboratory#Accidents_and_site_contamination
“Throughout the years, approximately ten low-power nuclear reactors operated at SSFL, in addition to several “critical facilities”: a sodium burn pit in which sodium-coated objects were burned in an open pit; a plutonium fuel fabrication facility; a uranium carbide fuel fabrication facility; and the purportedly largest “Hot Lab” facility in the United States at the time.[citation needed] (A Hot Lab is a facility used for remotely cutting up irradiated nuclear fuel.) Irradiated nuclear fuel from other Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and Department of Energy (DOE) facilities from around the country were shipped to SSFL to be decladded and examined.
“The Hot Lab suffered a number of fires involving radioactive materials. For example, in 1957, a fire in the Hot Cell “got out of control and … massive contamination” resulted. (see: NAA-SR-1941, Sodium Graphite Reactor, Quarterly Progress Report, January–March 1957). In July, 1959, the site suffered a partial nuclear meltdown that has been named “the worst in U.S. history”, releasing an undisclosed amount of radiation, but thought to be much more than the Three Mile Island disaster in 1979.[21] Another radioactive fire occurred in 1971, involving combustible primary reactor coolant (NaK) contaminated with mixed fission products.[22][23]
“At least four of the ten nuclear reactors suffered accidents. The AE6 reactor experienced a release of fission gases in March 1959, the SRE experienced a power excursion and partial meltdown in July 1959; the SNAP8ER in 1964 experienced damage to 80% of its fuel; and the SNAP8DR in 1969 experienced similar damage to one-third of its fuel.[24]
“The reactors located on the grounds of SSFL were considered experimental, and therefore had no containment structures. Reactors and highly radioactive components were housed without the large concrete domes that surround modern power reactors.”
…
“In October 2006, the Santa Susana Field Laboratory Advisory Panel, made up of independent scientists and researchers from around the United States, concluded that contamination at the facility resulted in between 0 and 1,800 cancer deaths (the average estimate was 300 deaths). The report also concluded that the SRE meltdown caused the release of more than 458 times the amount of radiation released by the Three Mile Island accident.[2]”
Okay, so we know the “independent” scientists also worked backwards from the ICRP model to estimate number of cancer deaths….ie, based on whatever radiation release figures they were given, they used the ICRP method (also known as the how much energy does a water bag the size of human need to absorb to get elevated temp method)…to estimate mathematically how many cancers may result from x sieverts. It’s a 1950s model, now replaced by empirical studies of actual dose-response relationships at actual nuclear disasters. The ECRR method uses the scientific method, working from observable data forwards to an empirical, predictive, tested dose-response risk model. The ICRP works backwards from mathematical/physics theory to estimate how many cancers might result: a more magical method perhaps – but not a scientific one.
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WTG James2, it takes a healthy outlook to change itself. No shame in being misinformed earlier, especially with all the media hype etc.
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The North Anna folks pushed these papers to the local NRC inspectors (who probably used to work there:
“NOTIFICATION OF AN UNUSUAL EVENT DUE TO A SEISMIC EVENT
“At 1354, the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Plant (CCNPP) felt seismic activity in the control room.”
SP:
Oh yeah… they got rid of their really good (and expensive) seismic equipment years ago so they have three minimum wage employees with really big ears and they keep their best ear pressed to the floor for eight hour shifts. *;-0) (I kinda liked the Homer smiley s last night)
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Yes Boodiba, and particularly for those searching more
info about “Simi Valley”, it is Santa Susana you want look for.
Rocketdyne and Boeing.
For those who weren’t around there, back in the sixties,
the Dallas Cowboys did summer camp at Cal Lutheran College
nearby…wonder if anybody wants to do an epidemiology study
of those guys exposed back then? Staubach, Too Tall Jones…
Too bad- my Grandma worked at the “Defense” plants
in the SF Valley and died of cancers…
Hey Meow131…
as VA resident, do you ever think you should watch the
“spooks” in the neighborhood to see if they are quietly
Bugging Out? Like in the armageddon movie, where the guy
is transporting a pallet-load of Ensure supplement cans?
I hope you will understand, they will lie.
they will preserve their own, within their code-of-silence
brotherhoods of hoods, and lie as they leave you to
National Guard teenager Satanists controlling your town.
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I wish there was a lot more independent funding for the kinds of epidemiological studies you suggest. They are sorely needed, and very expensive.
Alice Stewart’s brilliant epidemiological work at Oxford in the 1950s, sorting through vast numbers of records, finally determined that the main variable related to childhood cancers was whether or not the pregnant mother had been x-rayed while the child was in the womb. All were shocked and surprised that such a “low level” of radiation could cause such a statistically significant and proven effect. It caused so much controversy that her research was initially denounced as unsound, but ultimately led to the curtailment of x-raying pregnant women. See article on Alice Stewart, one of the great low-level radiation researchers of the 20th c: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Stewart
She should be far more honored than she is. Thank you Alice Stewart, for conducting honest, independent, scientific/empirical research. Alice Stewart, 1906-2002.
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They are sugar coating everything saying everything we would wanna hear, but probably not telling the truth. What a nightmare these plants are all over the place! Shut them all down!
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“We stand by what we said last week, neither BP nor the Coast Guard has seen any scientific evidence that oil is leaking from the Macondo well, which was permanently sealed almost a year ago.”
“Scientific evidence”. I wonder what that means to them. It’s left up to the people who are being contaminated to “prove” to BP that they’re being polluted again. It doesn’t matter what’s really going on because now it’s been defined out of existance.
Just like radiation.
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@ James2, good evening. Regarding your post: “Three Mile Island- the public was not told the truth, Chernobyl- the public was not told the truth- initially”. What do we know now that we did not know then? I would like to know & as one of the other posters said, “We all try to connect the dots, logically or intuitively.” This is what I have been trying to do.
Thank -you
\
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IK (are you the former IC?) types:
Regarding your [James2] post: “Three Mile Island- the public was not told the truth, Chernobyl- the public was not told the truth- initially”. What do we know now that we did not know then?
SP:
I’ll take a stab at it…I don’t know if James is as old as me, but I was well out of college for TMI and ten years out of college for Chernobyl. So I have knowledge other than reading about it and I did live in one of the largest cities in the nation (Houston). Cable TV was not laid to my apartment in 1979, but I had cable in 1986. I had a subscription to the daily Houston Chronicle newspaper, an excellent publication then and now.
I was working for myself in my own business on Wednesday March 28, 1979 when I heard the news on the radio and later the evening news (regular antenna TV). I always had a radio at work and didn’t learn much about the accident the first day, but we knew it was a big problem when the radio reports the next several days talked about a hydrogen bubble building up and possibly blowing the top off the building. I remember talking with my workers about that fact…it really stuck with us and also we kind of made black humor jokes when we heard they were venting radioactive steam to relieve the hydrogen buildup. They did that a number of times as I recall.
I didn’t know much about reactor vessels at that time, but was aware of the problems of radiation, fallout, and the massive amounts of contaminated waste water.
I also know I saw the China Syndrome movie which was released 12 days before the plant crisis started, but don’t recall if I saw it later or before the crisis…sorry. I did like the movie very much and recently bought a DVD version to show my wife. I will take some small Fair Use-sized clips out of it for YouTube when I get a chance. Great movie with Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon, and Michael Douglas.
When the Pennsylvania governor Bill Scranton decided to evacuate pregnant women and children it was a big deal…everyone kind of freaked…we didn’t know how bad it might get. He was under heavy pressure from the feds to not do that, but he was a hero in my opinion and many people felt the same as I did.
But finally they got it under control in a few days. I don’t remember ever hearing much about the melt-down on the fuel at that time. But it was a long time ago…over 3 decades and memories fade.
Chernobyl was even less of a memorable event because the news reports were severely restricted and manipulated from Russia by both parties and we were still in Cold War mode with Reagan and Gorbachev not exactly buddies.
Also the Challenger had exploded 88 days earlier and that was much more memorable for me…a real epihany in time. I don’t have that memory for Chernobyl and it was half a world away in pre-Internet days.
I was aware of it, but I was recently married, had a one-year old daughter and was applying for teaching jobs so even though I had cable TV I had little time to watch the news. I knew about it and that it wasn’t in a strong containment building, but as for the severity of it I don’t remember much about how the news media played it out. I remember better the Chinese fallout scares in the 1960s at Christmas time and those alerts was well-publicized on TV. Of course we never got our own bomb blast alerts…that government tipoff was reserved only for the Kodak film company (see older posts of mine here on that mind-boggling story) and fatcats.
It was years before I learned how bad Chernobyl really was and I learned that it either directly or indirectly led to the downfall of the Soviet Union. The Cold War was killed by a nuclear explosion after all those years of confrontation with real nuclear weapons.
In summation to your question I think from my personal experience there was a great deal of withholding of key information at the time of the accidents just like in Japan. The nuclear industry also tried to massage everything so nicely in their favor and I could tell when things didn’t sound right.
They (governments and nuclear companies and Wall Street spokespersons) were quite proficient at the skills of deceiving the public and I feel that has not changed. Most people do not catch the subtle lies and even worse they fail for the bigger lies.
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@SickP.In answer to your question, no I am not the former IC. I am me just a regular person trying to make sense of events past & present.
Thank- you for the information you provided & for responding to my post. Good Night from Southern Ka.
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On Three Mile Island, I would also recommend reading this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25757
There is also good material on the accident, discrepancies between the “official” NRC line about how much radiation was released, and people’s actual experiences on the ground. Some of this is covered in detail at http://tmia.com, one of the oldest anti-nuke campaign groups in US…Three Mile Island Alert…who started campaigning against TMI BEFORE the accident…
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yeah, that’s the general feel around here. everything is the end to some folks here.
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Yes, we learned that you can’t trust the NRC or any government. The info we DO get is almost certainly wrong, or very late.
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IC, just before they get you (lol), may I ask: how’s your fiancee?
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Maybe some can smell Hell Fire being on its way more than others. No reason to criticize anyone. We all try to connect the dots; logically or intuitively. But any sane person can plainly see that one only gets so many warnings before going over another cliff nobody thought about.
For myself, I smell disaster. I smell big disaster. Don’t know when though. But its coming. Mother Nature is kind enough to send out these warnings. Like Arnie Gundersen notes,
Those are words that should make all reasonable souls cringe.
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“Fukushima Will Be Radiating EVERYONE For Centuries”
http://tv.globalresearch.ca/2011/08/fukushima-will-be-radiating-everyone-centuries
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YES YES YES!
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The argument to respect both parties and keep an open mind is the brain washing arguments used by the North Koreans against Americans who were captives during the Korean War.
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I suggest you ask Fukushima folks to respect both parties.
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The anti-nuke movement is TOO LATE..
Survival of an ongoing nuclear disaster is what’s going on!
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Hand waving and flag waving is great and brings attention to the ISSUE..
Saving lives…is why we are here.
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…sorry anti-nukers ..you are are a few protests and a couple of rock concerts too late…….
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Heart, I disagree on this one. Surviving the ongoing AND preventing the next disaster is needed. We need the anti-nukers to give the morons a headache. I will not stop.
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@B and B…yes..perhaps you are correct..let the handwringing..I mean flag waving… begin…..lol
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..after 30 years of “camp fire songs”..you’d think they would be ready to join the revolution….just sayin…
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Meow131 and IC: If you don’t like the occasional outpouring of emotion I don’t understand why you can’t simply ignore the odd comment which doesn’t sit well with you. I think everyone has been fairly realistic with very little jumping up and down and screaming that they’re a fairy. However, if I’m in the mood to do exactly that then I don’t want to be criticised for it. Not all of us understand what we’re dealing with and it’s frightening especially when everyone around you refuses to acknowledge what’s happening. Please understand that this site is keeping many of us sane! It’s helped me immensely. I’ve learned a lot, I love to read all the different opinions and it’s totally great that everyone is given a voice whether they’re simply asking for help, ruminating or, yes, even slightly panic-stricken.
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Dear m3ow131
To “love reading about it” suggests, to me, more a fascination with disaster – ghoulism – than a real concern for an unprecedented calamity which has spread radioactive material over a quarter of the planet with no sign of stopping – and a BRING IT ON for something that shows a few signs of repeating the same story, somewhat closer to home for many north American contributors to this site.
and
Dear irradiated californian,
“yeah, that’s the general feel around here. everything is the end to some folks here” is to me a facile bit of hooray henryism; you have missed the point somewhat because, as our other contributors have mentioned, people here are trying to make sense of nuclear pollution on a grand scale – sometimes we manage to make a bit of progress in understanding what is happening, against a fact blackout from the authorities, and sometimes we find the argument up a blind alley – but in none of the threads on this site have we ended up in the end of the world remolino, although it is still legitimate in my view to DISCUSS the potential of an “extinction level event” as a possible outcome. So, please, have a rest and come back with a bit more input next time. We don’t lack brains but a fresh thinking box is always welcome.
And, finally, Dear jdotg,
That “YES YES YES!” although full of capital letters passion and excitement didn’t actually do much for me except remind me of a small puppy ready for a nice walk in the park. Maybe I should get a dog but, in the meantime, you have made yourself look like part of a teenage gang and your fellow posters look as if they can’t manage without the intellectual depth you have just demonstrated. Hope you can do better next time.
Cheers all
M
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We learned that in the 1950s, with all the secrecy surrounding the radiation fallout from the nuclear tests; we learned it at Three Mile island, when the authorities lied about how much radiation was released and still do not acknowledge ongoing health effects and mutations as related to the 1979 accident. They lied and delayed making critical announcements at Chernobyl. They continue to lie about radiation releases and contamination and health effects at Fukushima. At North Anna they have been forced by circumstances to officially declare the loss of power backup and declare it an emergency level event on the NRC web page reports of all unusual events…as Kaku said, it does seem like we dodged the bullet on this one, but we don’t really know yet. We still have the hurricane to wait out….
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That was a good video. Tnanks, Terranigma1. One person said that 5,000,000 people have been affected by Chernobyl. Michio Kaku said that we all have a piece of Chernobyl in us.
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TYPO,Thanks
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we are great, thank you for asking man. the fiancee has been a little on edge after a few little quakes we’ve had here in our part of cali, pretty stressful. THAT is something i am actually worried about, just hoping nothing too big happens soon.
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