Published: May 16th, 2012 at 10:36 am ET
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Previously Classified Documents Unveil Potential Fire Dangers At San Onofre
CBS Los Angeles
Randy Paige
May 14, 2012 11:20 PM
[...] One of those safety complaints was filed by an electrical engineer who spent the last 11 of his 30 years in the nuclear industry at San Onofre. We have agreed not to reveal his identity.
When asked if the plant is dangerous, he responded, “at this point it is a dangerous plant.” [...]
San Onofre: Bad Vibrations
Fairewinds Energy Education
May 15, 2012
Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer of Fairewinds, demonstrates what has happened inside the replacement steam generators at the site of the San Onofre nuclear generating station in San Diego, California. Arnie shows that steam generator tube vibrations have caused extensive damage due to design changes between the original and replacement generator tubes.
Published: May 16th, 2012 at 10:36 am ET
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sending...
HERO!! WHISTLEBLOWERS UNITE!!
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Hi Whoopie
We need whistle blowers, and some how we need to protect them.
Nuclear Power is just Crazy, to dangerous!
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Ok, filling in for Arnie as he did not cover Boric acid in his video.
"The operator can control the steady state operating temperature by addition of boric acid and/or movement of control rods.
Reactivity adjustment to maintain 100% power as the fuel is burned up in most commercial PWRs is normally achieved by varying the concentration of boric acid dissolved in the primary reactor coolant. Boron readily absorbs neutrons and increasing or decreasing its concentration in the reactor coolant will therefore affect the neutron activity correspondingly. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressurized_water_reactor
But when he gets time, this is the actual damning report.
Special mention of San Onofre.
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/gen-comm/gen-letters/1988/gl88005.html
Small excerp.
"(3) At San Onofre Unit 2, boric acid solution corroded nearly through the
bolts holding the valve packing follow plate in the shutdown cooling
system isolation valve. During an attempt to operate the valve, the
bolts failed and the valve packing follow plate became dislodged
causing leakage of approximately 18,000 gallons of reactor coolant into
the containment. (IE Information Notice No. 86-108, Supplement 2) "
I hope Arnie gets time to talk about Boric acid corrosion in PWR's.
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Personally, i think he needs to cover the Boric acid corrosion aspect of the incredibly crappy design of PWR's at least in part.
He has somewhat covered the mechanical design aspect of physical vibration wearing away components from the outside-in, but has not had time (Or in an effort to cover one aspect only.) to talk about corrosion of all PWR's (Pressurised water reactors.) from the inside-out as is abundantly obvious in the NRC doc link above.
I am mystified as to why the clamping to hold the tubes stationary is not tightened in such a way as to make friction between tubes impossible.
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So i guess i am twiddling my thumbs waiting for Arnie to cover Boric acid corrosion.
If anyone has some links concerning anything he has had to say about this, ever, please let me/us know.
Why the omission Arnie??
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"… There was also a possibility that the equipment was defective and that this is a harbinger of more problems."
- Edwin Lyman, Union Of Concerned Scientists (ABC news clip)
They even say the word MELTDOWN at Fukushima.
ABCnews: Feb 1, 2012
Reporter: Diane Sawyer on San Onofre Leak
(This is the original news clip that Jay Leno used for his parody.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz660Ceaaqo&feature=fvwrel
The Leno Parody:
http://enenews.com/jay-leno-mocks-nuclear-leak-san-onofre-video
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“It’s a form of Russian roulette. It’s a form of tossing dice.”
- Dan Hirsch’s assessment
He means it's a risk. A very risky risk!
from written article above:
"Experts on both sides agree – a nuclear power plant can never be 100 percent safe and from the NRC’s vantage point, it is safe enough."
What is "safe enough"?
Safe enough… for those living near a Nuclear Facility.
Safe enough… for the children and people of Chernobyl/Japan/World.
Safe enough… for our oceans.
Safe enough… for sacred grounds that can no longer be touched.
Safe enough… for millions to evacuate in an emergency.
How about NEVER building these 'potential' planet destroying, DNA manipulating Death Machines to begin with.
That's perfectly 'safe'!
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Falsified fire inspections … for years. This is what we're dealing with in the nuclear power industry.
Safe, clean, green, NOT!
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"anonymous nuclear plant worker"
Totally not CIA, trust us, we're the experts, you're not!
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I can’t tell much from this cartoon they’re using for a drawing but it appears this is a U-tube heat exchanger. The U looking elements are the tubes. The five horizontal elements are the baffles. The baffles are so designed to direct the shell side gas over, under, around, and through the tubes to get more heat transfer. If you have access to a copy of TEMA (Tubular Exchanger Manufacturers Association), you will get better idea of the U-tube construction. This type of exchanger has one tube sheet. The tubes are rolled and sometimes welded on the outside to form a seal between the tube sheet. The tube sheet is bolted to the shell by the front head.
The tube sheet and baffles are drilled to a certain pattern. TEMA shows all of the patterns. The tubes are very tightly packed. Hundreds and hundreds, and hundreds of tubes are in an exchanger. On a reactor like this perhaps thousands and thousands. The purpose of the baffles is to direct the shell side gas and to support the tubes. The baffles are drilled slightly larger than the OD of the tubes to allow the insertion of the tubes. Each tube is bend to a different radius so that that they will all fit snuggly together at the back.
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Each U-tube is shoved into the baffles and then rolled into the tube sheet. This makes a unit called a bundle.
That thing they are calling a tube support plate is the shell of the exchanger. The bundle appears to go in from the bottom-of course in a shop this heat exchanger would be on its side. The bundle has a very tight fit between the shell and the baffles. Sometime it takes a little WD 40 to get it to go in-kidding. It looks like on this model the tube sheet at the bottom is welded to the other no name shell. No head bolting.
The advantage of this design is that the top-U-tubes-float. When the exchange gets hot the top expands upward.
The reactor water is in the tubes and the steam is on the outside.
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It appears someone in the front office said “Hey we can save some money if we make the exchanger smaller.” Sound familiar. How can they do that? Increase the velocity of the water and steam. When you do that, it might cause vortex shedding on the steam side causing vibration. If this happens, the tube will wear against the baffle and eventually rupture. You probably have seen street signs quiver and shake in a high wind. That’s what probably is happening to the tubes. If they increased the water side velocity then erosion can occur.
As I said the baffles are bored slightly larger than the tube so that the tube can be inserted. The distance between the tubes in a completed bundle is very tight. It would be impossible to spot weld each tube to the baffles because of the number of tubes and clearance.
TEMA is the industry standard for exchangers but not nuclear-I’m not sure. The manual has great pictures and even someone that is not an expert would glean some information.
May be there's a good heat exchange guy here. I'm PV's. Correct errors please.
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That radiation plant must be decommissioned.
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First you put more tubes into the same area, therefore increased pressure and change of hydrodynamics.
They must have done computer models before hand, why were they wrong.
Next the steam generators were not licensed by NRC, so you can call any plumber.
Insanity runs in the family
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Steam generators not licensed by the NRC call any plumber
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They must have recordings of melt downs, so we can reverse engineer, like black box or JFK
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They spent HUGE money making and installing these tubes, but tried to bypass the NRC by claiming they were like for like replacement.
Basically the LIED. Is anyone going to get punished? NOT… They all fall on their swords protecting each other.
Now the choice is.. fire it up again, in plain view with lots and lots of DEFECTS, plus extreme danger of catastrophic failure in short order…
OR, spend HUGE amounts of money to replace the TUBES AGAIN, and then again, every 10 months, that is if Mitsubishi is even doing business with this plant… I wonder if they have a warranty.
My guess; The warranty ran out the day before the tubes failed.
Sorry bout that…
Then we have the OTHER problems.. which happens at all of these plants…
75% US Nuclear Plants Leaking Toxic Tritium Radiation Into Drinking Water Supply; via A Green Road Blog
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2012/04/75-us-nuclear-plants-leaking-toxic.html
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Guess who has to pay for all of this with higher electricity rates?
Taxpayers; 99%
Guess who takes all of the risks?
Taxpayers; 99%
Guess who gets exposed to radiation in case of failure, even if 'accidental'?
Taxpayers; 99%
Guess who pays nuclear companies corporate welfare to keep them going?
Taxpayers; 99%
Guess who pays nuclear companies corporate welfare to help them start up?
Taxpayers; 99%
Who gets the profits and runs away when things go wrong?
The 1%..
Hmmm… maybe taxpayers no likee all of this anymore… ????
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[REMOVED: SPAM]
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If the bio-algae comes from the ocean it will be contaminated with radiation.
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You left almost identical messages on a half dozen different stories. WTH
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It's SPAM. He's an affiliate for the company, earning 15% for sales resulting from his referrals. Mouse over the products on the site he posts and you will see his affiliate ID number.
http://www.bioage.com/affiliate-application.html
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Good catch WT. After finding 4 identical posts I thought SPAM too, but rebutted because a lot of people come here for remediation help and they need to know that algae is now suspect if it comes from the ocean and definitely if it comes from Japan rivers.
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Looking at the photo on pahldixon's website it appears the algae is grown hydroponically in greenhouses. So it might be OK, depending on what's going into the system. May be something do-able small scale and locally.
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I left it on two comments that recommend algae as radiation remediation. We are recommending that people not eat the fish or kelp from the ocean because of increased radiation readings so why would algae from the ocean be exempt?
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They tried to up the output to an OLD reactor with an already known design flaw
What the hell did they think was going to happen?? Magic?
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