Published: January 30th, 2012 at 4:10 pm ET
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Title: Backup generators kick in after shutdown at Exelon’s Byron plant
Source: WGN Radio
Author: Julie Wernau
Date: 2:40 p.m. CST, January 30, 2012
“It is not a huge concern,” [Viktoria Mitlyng, spokeswoman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Region III office] said [...]Employees at the plant reported seeing smoke coming from a transformer on site after the outage. The plant’s fire brigade responded, Mitlyng, but didn’t find a fire.
To aid in cooling, steam is being released, she said, and the NRC staff are monitoring. Byron Fire Protection District Chief Galen Bennett said the steam contained “expected levels of tritium” [...]
Steam releases may continue throughout the day [...]
Read the report here
Published: January 30th, 2012 at 4:10 pm ET
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What are expected levels?
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Expected due to normal operation or expected due to the severity of the situation? Not a concern for who? How about some numbers?
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Concern number one is to get the plant back online.
Priority two is reduce all liability. Its expensive enough as it is having the plant shut down.
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Gotta repeal that Price-Anderson act if we ever wanna get rid of these things. How can anyone support an industry that can’t be stopped for safety because of the bottom line? I’m not really interested in hearing how many people are allowed to get cancer from these officials and plant workers anymore. That is all the higher incidence rates of cancers is. What will they sacrifice to get this plant back up and producing “clean, efficient nuclear energy?”
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Yes. Absolutely. We must find a way to get Price-Anderson repealed. The industry only survives because of all the special support it gets from the government. Where are all of the Republicans who are so annoyed by renewable subsidies when it comes to the government propping up nuclear?
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man, fuck nuclear power
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Direct and succinct. Agreed.
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From another article on this event:
“Diesel generators began supplying power to the plant equipment and operators began releasing steam from the non-nuclear side of the plant to help cool the reactor, officials said….
The steam contains low levels of radioactive tritium, but the levels are safe for workers and the public, federal and plant officials said.”
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20120130/NEWS11/120139975/exelon-shuts-byron-nuclear-plant-unit-after-power-loss
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Notice: There is TRITIUM in the steam coming from the NON-NUCLEAR side of the system. And yet the levels are “expected.” This does not give one a lot of confidence in them.
I’m assuming that steam is from the supposedly “clean” coolant water that gets dumped back into whatever nearby body of water it is drawn from–what are the odds that that water has tritium in it too?
And of course the levels of tritium are “safe” for everyone–afterall, we’re already inhaling/ingesting so much from Fuku, our bodies will scarcely even notice a few extra picocuries
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The release of “low level Tritium” means it was measured. Where do we find the actual measurement released. Continuous releases of the low level accumulates right?
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The tritium at issue here is being released by the Emergency Main Steam Dump Valves outside the unit-2 containment building. Unit-1 is apparently still cooking along just fine. That there is tritium in the steam loop (secondary) indicates “the usual” issue with steam generator leaks that have plagued PWRs since their inception.
The tritium issue Byron’s got with contaminated groundwater coming from the discharge (from cooling tower) condenser loop from the river used to cool the steam means there are leaks in that twice-removed system that have never been properly addressed. From either steam or condenser loops, the presence of tritium indicates that there are other, more dangerous and limiting contaminates present as well, Exelon simply isn’t reporting them. There is no kind of filter in existence that would allow ONLY tritium to escape from primary to secondary in the steam generators, or ONLY tritium to escape from secondary to the exterior water source used to condense the steam. There just is no such thing.
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JoyB, do you mean that there may be isotopes like strontium-90 and iodine-131 also being released now?
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JoyB, you seem to know a lot about nuclear power. I am curious what effect, if any, it has on your analysis to know that Unit 2 was on a planned outage/shutdown for refueling when this happened. http://blogs.e-rockford.com/alexgary/2011/09/19/economy-to-get-boost-from-byron-nuclear-refueling/
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I’m sorry, that article was not current, it was dated September, but I was told that they were working on a planned outage today.
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Iodine (and nobles, especially xenon) are as ubiquitous in the RCS as dissolved gases just as tritium is ubiquitous. It’s just that tritium is a relatively mild beta-emitter so that’s the one they’ll focus on while conveniently omitting mention of any other isotopes. The tritium will go out as part of the water (steam), they won’t report any gaseous releases until they have to. But iodine and xenon in some measure are emitted every time a nuke ‘burps’.
As for anything metallic (cesium, strontium and such), those isotopes do tend to stay locked up in the fuel rod cladding unless there are weld problems, so aren’t usually released to the reactor coolant system water. Thus wouldn’t be expected to appear in the secondary loop via leaks in the steam generator tubing. This was just your average emergency scram and steam dump, I wouldn’t expect anything more than a bit of tritium, iodine and the two primary nobles (xenon/krypton) to be hanging around. Is there a RadNet monitor nearby that hasn’t been turned off?
Anyway, I wouldn’t expect there to be any strontium or cesium present in this burp.
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You’re awesome JoyB. I love how you break-it-down…
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Burp – a new one to add to my vocabulary. @JoyB. Is the transfer of tritium, iodine and the two primary nobles most likely during the heat exchange? Meaning the difference in pressure between the two closed systems would be most significant there.
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Oop,s meant closed loop system being primary before the heat exchange.
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“not a huge concern”…….compared to what??
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I think the scale these days is TMI to Fukushima. Yeah, that’s not very reassuring… §;o)
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So why are they into releasing pressure/stream from the secondary circuit when the only source of energy is the core? Have they blown a hole in the heat exchangers? Ah yes; they are running the primary circulators to keep the core cool, and then pouring water into the secondary circuit and wasting steam as a way to get rid of the heat. Implies that the standby systems are not enough to run the main secondary circulator pumps and/or the river circuit pumps either.
Sounds like a very dodgy do. Hope the pox does not spread to Unit 1.
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You’ve gotta figure in the pressure of these babies. Both primary and secondary systems are pressurized, but the secondary is significantly LESS pressurized than the primary. It is the heat exchange system, so it must relieve pressure when the reactor’s still hot-hot and it’s not using the pressurized steam to turn the turbine. The more they relieve secondary pressure, the cooler it becomes, the more heat it can transfer from the primary loop.
That’s all designed-in and makes good thermodynamic sense. But there’s a drop-off scale for that primary loop, it’s not supposed to stay critical-hot after the control rods drop (scram). Needs some hours to cool enough even when scrammed for the heat removal loop to no longer need emergency pressure release. That’s why I mentioned checking the status in the morning, as the Emergency Main Steam Dump Valves should no longer be needed after… right about now, come to think of it. ~12 hours. If they’re still dumping after that, the reactor’s still critical. And the press needs to be asking some entirely different – but still sharply pointed – questions.
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Hi JoyB,
I too appreciate the way you break it down. The discussion is very technical, but you make it understandable for the lay person.
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BTW, in case anyone wonders what the Avatar picture is, it’s a photograph of a mutated orange found in Fairfield, CA in late December, 2011. The orange looks almost like it grew tentacles around its insides, in an attempt to protect itself.
If someone here knows how to post this picture (embedded link?) please advise, as I do not know how to do it. Want to post it at Radiation Effects forum.
Thanks.
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And “not a huge concern.” Does that mean it’s a major concern, just semi-huge but not really huge? Gargantuan but not humongous?
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@Hotaters, first you must register for a free account at an iImage Hosting site. I use http://photobucket.com/ After arriving at your new page First Upper Right.. Mouse over your name & choose Account settings….choose Albums & choose Newest first, choose setting to Always Display links.
Near the bottom ..See Album Privacy Settings
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When uploading from now on Note the list of folders you have to the left & click on Folder Image to ensure you are uploading to correct folder. There are options to easily move images, but the above saves that step.
Now Click on HTML code, you know if the word Copied appears briefly. Now post in the forum. By leaving at least 1 line after image link before Submitting comment you can write a description.
You can always register at other Free Image Hosting sites as well like Flicker, Picaso & others.
You can never have enough storage. 
Hope that helps.
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I used to live in illinois… I don’t understand why people don’t act like this is a big deal.
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