A Nuclear Disaster; Asteroids, Dinosaurs, Bombs, Power Plants.
Emmett Michael JORDAN
(C) 1992 by The General Electric Company.
A long time ago, there was a planet named Demeter, beyond the orbit of Mars.
It was a cold, forbidding planet on its surface, so the life forms of Demeter
developed great underground cities, fueled by nuclear power. As this
civilization developed, strange unexplained quakes started to shake the
planet and slowly destroy the magnificent cities of Demeter.
The wise men of Demeter started to gather together to determine the cause of
the mysterious quakes. Their observatories determined that they were on
a planet a great distance from the Sun, so distant that they received only
a little of its life giving energy. Their chemists had created that life
giving energy from strange substances that they concentrated from the crust
of their planet. They estimated from the radioactive decay and energy flows
that they observed that there was once a solar nebula that was dispersed by
turbulence and magnetohydrodynamic effects thru a solar gale and centered at
the gravitational mass of the Sun. Some of the nuclear masses spinning around
this solar nebula started to contract to become tiny stars of energy. Each
tiny star exhausted much of its nuclear fuel and slowly cooled down. Each
tiny star then gravitationally differentiated into a siderophilic core and a
lithophilic mantle to become the planets of the solar system.
The wise men of Demeter determined that there was a planet closer to the Sun
that would be much warmer than their own. They named that planet the Earth.
They developed a nuclear propulsion system and built a spaceship and
determined to travel to the Earth to escape from the terrible cold and
earthquakes of their own planet. They sent a crew commanded by a man named
Adam to the Earth. Adam piloted his ship to the Earth and landed on the fringe
of a vast swampland. As soon as they disembarked from their spaceship a large
creature lumbered up from the swampland gnashing its teeth. Adam named the
creature Demetrodan and cursed its existence. Adam tossed a grenade at
Demetrodan and the explosion ripped apart its huge sail-like fin and tore into
its bloodied flesh. Demetrodan collapsed and died. The explosion alerted a
host of its comrades to the bait that had landed on the Earth. Soon Adam's
crew and spaceship were overwhelmed and smashed to pieces by the aroused
beasts of the swamp. Adam alone ran inland onto a hill. Famished he started
to eat of the ferns of the land but collapsed from their effect. As he slept
he dreamed that he was in never-never land. When he awoke he saw his doom
as the aroused beasts of the swamp slowly crawled up the hill. He named his
hill Japan and made an inscription on a rock "beware of the rodan" just before
he died.
The wise men of Demeter sent one more spaceship to the Earth and decided
to abandon their enterprize when they found the beasts scavenging what was
left of their first mission. Thus was the story of the rodan born; the story
of the beasts that till this day sleep near the island of Japan.
Eons elapsed and the people of Demeter began to grow desperate for an escape
from their own planet. The people prayed to the goddess of Demeter for
guidance. The goddess bid that the people store sacks of corn, barley, sprouts,
and yeast and prepare to sail to the Earth once again.
Noah heeded the guidance of the goddess and sailed to the much warmer
planet Earth, with many of the mammals of his own planet. He founded a small
colony on Earth and started to contest the vast domain of the reptiles of
Earth. This time the great teeth and claws of the reptiles were no match for
the nuclear projectiles of Noah. Great fires started to burn down the forests
of the Earth. Soon a layer of radioactive dust settled onto the structure of
the Earth. Most of the reptiles died, except those that were protected
by layers of water or burrows or caves. Even many of Noah's own mammals died,
unless they spent much of their time sheltered in caves. Thus was the story
of the cavemen born; the story of the cavemen who started to rule the Earth.
Thus was the story of the goddess Demeter born; the story of the corn and beer
that nourished the cavemen who started to rule the earth. And the goddess
decreed that her followers report to her each apparition that is seen thus:
"I know thee and I know thy name. Mistress of Destruction. I see the
whirlwind and the storm. I see the earthquake. I see the volcano. I see the
flames and the fire....Let my soul thus live for millions of years."
Meanwhile, the interaction of the nuclear power plants of Demeter, with the
nuclear processes of the interior of the Sun and the interior of Demeter,
caused the magma of Demeter to slowly rise in temperature and tectonic
activity. The magma actually reacted to the contraction of matter as the
planet hurtled thru the ether of space with its nuclear energy forms blazing.
The more power plants the people built, the more the energy levels increased.
The people of Demeter had interrupted the cooling down process of their
planet by nuclear reactors that returned a portion of their planet back to
its nebular stellar state. Each tiny star that they created interacted with
the dying remains of what was once the tiny star of Demeter. Each tiny star
interacted in a relative manner with the larger star of the Sun.
Now each tiny star also started to interact in a relative manner with the
nuclear holocaust that Noah was causing on the Earth. Suddenly, the planet
Demeter exploded!
All that was left of the planet Demeter, was an asteroid belt of debris between
the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Noah and his colony on Earth were appalled
by the disappearance of their homeland. Eventually, the descendents of
Noah, came out of their caves to rule the Earth. When their nuclear
weapons were exhausted, they had to fend for themselves with primitive tools
and weapons, like sticks and stones, because they themselves had not been
trained in manufacturing or metallurgy when they left Demeter. The vast
knowledge of the exploded planet had been destroyed! But a few of its people
had survived on the Earth.
Now mankind has started to follow in the footprints of the people of Demeter.
Now it is the Earth that blossoms with nuclear power plants and nuclear
explosions that interact with the interior of the Sun and the interior of
the Earth. Now it is the Earth that starts to warm-up and starts to quake more
and more. Now it is that energy and those quakes that awaken the rodan from
their sleep. Now is the time to ask, how long do you have, planet Earth? Now is
the time to say "I know thee and I know thy name. Mistress of Destruction. I
see the whirlwind and the storm. I see the earthquake. I see the volcano. I see
the flames and the fire..."How many years does my soul have left? Is there no
escape from this planet Earth if my visions of hell ring true?
And it came to pass that a ghostly apparition appeared over some shallow
waters as a great explosion rocked the earth. A large sail appeared over the
shallow waters in the gaze of some of the descendants of Adam and Noah. Some
thought that a gigantic shark was approaching. The humans ran before a great
beast rose out of the shallow waters and cursed all humankind. It was the
ghost of Demetrodan, once proud king of the lizards. Demetrodan cursed all
humankind again and said "I know thee and I know thy name. Mistress of
Destruction. I see the whirlwind and the storm. I see the earthquake. I see the
volcano. I see the flames and the fire...I see the end of my soul because of
these accursed humans. There is no escape from this planet Earth because the
planet Venus is too hot for me!" Thus was the planet Earth cleft asunder from
the trench of Japan to the loch of Ness. And if there ever was a beastie named
Nessie, its soul too did end. Thus did all life end on the planets of the Sun.
References from essentially public domain parts of: F Fitzgerald, H Lorentz,
A Einstein, H Minkowski, H Wehl, J Maxwell, J Jeans, F Whipple, Y Ignatova,
P Laplace, G Brimhall, E Budge, R Patrick, Columba, Byblos, Godzilla, J Verne.
Emmett Michael JORDAN
Ref: GEnie File #3129 in WRITERS Library
Kevin McColley makes the following rash, short-sighted,
and irrational comments:
1) The earth does not use any kind of nuclear heat generation.
2) The earth does not warm up due to the earth's core heating up.
3) The maximum temperature near a reactor is 13O degrees.
4) Reactors do no blaze.
5) Humans have never shared the earth with vicious reptiles (dinosaurs).
6) There is no interaction between a reactor and the sun and the earth.
7) Nuclear power plants cannot explode.
8) Temperatures and gravity of earth are inadequate to sustain nuclear process.
9) Jules Verne represented the current science of his time. Jordan does not.
1O)The story shows the profound ignorance of the author.
Emmett Michael Jordan makes the following replies:
1)2)8) Fred Whipple estimates the earth's central temperature at 6OOO degrees
which cools toward its surface except for crustal heating due to
radioactive elements in its crust. Whipple estimates that pressures
near the center of the earth are 3.7 million atmospheres. This is
nuclear heat generation. If the earth's core heats up the earth warms
up. Also see 6).
3) Julia Voznesenskaya indicates that Chernobyl was 2OOO degrees near the
reactor.
4) Mikhail Gorbachev stated that the Chernobyl accident involved a sequence
"of steam, hydrogen, and fire in the reactor." Other reports of this blaze
include those of Aleksandr Petrovsky and Ivan Bugrimenko.
5) Kenneth Bailey shows that we still share the earth with snakes, tautera,
crocodiles, alligators, chameleon, komodo dragons, etc.
6) Yelena Ignatova compares Chernobyl to a tiny star. I would compare it to
the formation of a planet in the nebular theory of Pierre Laplace and
Immanuel Kant, also a tiny star. Fred Whipple describes a solar nebula
dispersed by turbulence and magnetohydrodynamic effects thru a solar gale
forming a mass of nuclear material and ultimately a planet, thru a cooling
down process. The cooling down is interrupted by a reactor returning a
portion of the planet to its nebular stellar state. Any tiny star interacts
with its neighbors in a relative manner described by F. Fitzgerald,
H. Lorentz, A. Einstein, H. Minkowski, and H. Wehl.
7) Andrey Illesh illustrates the explosions of Chernobyl with detailed
photographs.
9) My story represents a portion of current scientific theory.
1O)On the contrary my story shows my understanding of a portion of current
scientific theory.
Regardless of any of the above facts, my story of A NUCLEAR DISASTER is
clearly indicated to be "fiction" on it's title page because I have not had
the opportunity to confirm many of my theories with expensive lab and field
tests. My "non-fiction" nuclear comments are in file #3336 & 3335. I would
suspect that you would likewise not have confirmed the limits of nuclear
possibility.
Bill Wilson
What the HELL was that crap??!!
--
Bill Wilson ..... wj...@me.msstate.edu
Mississippi State Nuclear Engineering
Tim
: What the HELL was that crap??!!
and what the HELL is it doing on sci.energy?
JM Alvis
Emmett Michael Jordan makes the following replies:
>3) Julia Voznesenskaya indicates that Chernobyl was 2OOO degrees near the
> reactor.
>4) Mikhail Gorbachev stated that the Chernobyl accident involved a sequence
> "of steam, hydrogen, and fire in the reactor." Other reports of this blaze
> include those of Aleksandr Petrovsky and Ivan Bugrimenko.
I am sorry, but if you were using state of the art science, you would be
better served if you spent the time trying to understand the science you
are writing about. For example, lets discuss Chernobyl. The accident at
Chernobyl was precipitated by two major events, one the operators put the
plant in an unsafe condition and two, the reactor design (RBMK, first generation)
has some severe design faults (no containment, positive temperature coefficient,
slow, very slow, (SLOW!) control drives mechanisms. Another thing to remember
is that these reactors used water as a coolant and graphite as the moderator
(unlike our LWRs which use water for both). Once the plant was in an unstable
condition, the operators tried to scram the reactor, the control rods began to
enter the core, pushing a slug of water in with them (the control rods when
withdrawn leave a space were water is collected.) This caused a reactivity
insertion (remember water is also a good moderator) resulting in a sharp increase
in power and temperature. These leads to the water boiling and turning to steam,
which combined with high temperatures in the presence of graphite which leads
to large steam-graphite explosion, not a nuclear explosion. This explosion is
large enough to blow the reactor building apart, but because of the gaphite
moderator the nuclear reaction could still proceed for some time. But it was
a steam-graphite explosion not a nuclear explosion. This accident could only
happen in the first generation RBMK plants, it could never happen in a non-soviet
designed plant.
Currently, the RBMK have been upgraded to try and fix a majority of their design
faults. The second generation and later RBMKs are still IMHO the last choice
for a reactor design.
Your story may show your current understanding of scientific theory, so if
I were you, I would spend more time understanding and less time writing
drivel.
John M. Alvis
Research Engineer
Nuclear Systems and Materials
Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories
voice: (509) 376-2099
fax: (509) 376-5824
email: d3e...@alvis.pnl.gov
Sherwood Botsford
: What the HELL was that crap??!!
: --
I think it was an accidental cross post from alt.phantasies.incoherent
--
=> Sherwood Botsford sher...@space.ualberta.ca <=
=> University of Alberta Lab Manager, Space Physics Group <=
=> tel:403 492-3713 fax: 403 492-4256 <=
John M. Alvis
I should add that what blazed was the graphite. Chernobyl was a
chemical explosion that occured in a nuclear reactor because of
the materials selected in the reactor design.
Paul Dietz
There is this peculiar idea that steam + graphite ==> explosion.
Fellows, the steam-graphite reaction is *endothermic*. It is also not
very fast -- solid graphite holds up quite well even exposed to
superheated steam in rocket exhausts, for example. I suggest the
explosion was simply the consequence of water vapor being rapidly
heated by hot core material disintegrated by the reactivity excusion.
Paul F. Dietz
di...@cs.rochester.edu
Jigs
> Paul F. Dietz
> di...@cs.rochester.edu
yes, but from what I understand, the graphite started to BURN, just like
anything else. Granted, it would take a tremendous amount of heat to get
graphite started, but that heat was present in this scenario.
Paul Dietz
>> > I should add that what blazed was the graphite. Chernobyl was a
>> > chemical explosion that occured in a nuclear reactor because of
>> > the materials selected in the reactor design.
> yes, but from what I understand, the graphite started to BURN, just like
> anything else. Granted, it would take a tremendous amount of heat to get
> graphite started, but that heat was present in this scenario.
Yes (although there was also a great deal of decay heat input),
but this had nothing to do with the explosion itself.
Paul
Emmett Michael JORDAN
explosion that could not happen at an American plant. I go by Mikhail
Gorbachev who claims that Chernobyl was a hydrogen explosion. By April 1
1979 a huge hydrogen bubble had likewise formed at the Three Mile Island
plant in critical danger of exploding and breaching the containment.
Sheer luck prevented a similar explosion and release of radiation.
Joseph A. Green
> [deleted stuff] By
>April 1, 1979 a huge hydrogen bubble had likewise formed at the
>Three Mile Island plant in critical danger of exploding and breaching
>the containment. Sheer luck prevented a similar explosion and release
>of radiation.
Where did you get this information? From what I have seen of the
RECORDED containment pressures and what seems to be a zillion
related analyses (most all of which employ conservative assumptions
such as 100% Zr-H2O reaction) that the resulting pressure from a H2
explosion would not have resulted in a breach in TMI containment integrity.
From memory I don't even think they approached design pressure let
alone the 2-3X higher that the containment is likely to withstand.
Regards,
Joe Green
UMD - Nuclear Engineeering
Andy Holland
>explosion that could not happen at an American pant. I go by Mikhail
>Gorbachev who claims that Chernobyl was a hydrogen explosion. By
>April 1, 1979 a huge hydrogen bubble had likewise formed at the
>Three Mile Island plant in critical danger of exploding and breaching
>the containment. Sheer luck prevented a similar explosion and release
>of radiation.
There is a danger in hydrogen, but your contention is way over-blown
(pardon the pun), and your comparison is inaccurate.
To have the Hydrogen explosion at TMI would require Oxygen, and
the Oxygen was not present in the vicinity of the bubble. The
bubble was contained in the reactor pressure vessel, which is
a substantial structure compared to the halls of a confinement
building. Also, there is a heck of a difference between a
*confinement* building and a *containment* building. The reason
why hydrogen was not as big a threat in TMI, was proved by
TMI's *engineering* (as opposed to luck). With TMI, there is
the fuel boundary, the RCS pressure boundary, and the *containment*
building. With Chernobyl, there is only a bunch of flimsy pressure
tubes, and a *confinement* building.
The best picture that I have heard about Chernobyl is something like
this:
The operators, violating 5 of the 6 fundenmental rules of
operation for that plant, ran their coolant pumps at
100+%, collapsing all steam voids, pulling control rods
nearly full out to maintain a dangerous 20% or so power level.
[They turned off almost every safety feeature, valved out
their emergency core cooling system to boot, and bypassed
many trip set points. Any *one* of these actions would lead
to immediate calls to the NRC in the US (or the Washington
Post), as well as stiff criminal penalties- jail time]
For a positive coolant coefficient plant, this is extremely
dangerous, and way outside of allowable operating limits.
Their own Skala (sp?) computer told them they had tremendous
potential reactivity. [Here is where we differ significantly
from Western PWR reactors. Inherently, it is very difficult
to operate the reactor in such a way as to produce a
significant positive reactivity potential given any
transient. Even with the ejection of rods, or steam-
line breaks, the reacivity defects and coefficients are
very forgiving. Loss of Coolant Accidents lead to reactor
shutdown by formation of collant voids]
The Chernobly operators then *intentionally* tripped the coolant pumps
along with the rods (for an experiment approved by their
regulatory commission), however the trip for the rods was a
slow insertion, not the insertion from magnetic decoupling
of the rods (their fast scram). The rods were graphite
tipped (moderator), and this added an additional half dollar
of positive reactivity (horribly stupid design).
When the reactor pumps were tripped, the subcooled fluid
immediately formed voids, and the reactor went prompt
super-critical. This power excursion voided remaining water
in the pressure tubes, ruptured the tubes because of the
excess pressure. The reaction shutdown because
of the inherent doppler fuel coefficient of reactivity.
However, with this initial explosion of steam, pressure tubes
were ruptured. The reactor was without water. A steam-zirconium
reaction liberated hydrogen (exothermic). The hydrogen entered
the confinement building in a number of places. Twenty seconds
after the prompt excursion, the hydrogen then ignited for the big
explosion which destroyed the *confinement* building.
The core itself, however, had already been destroyed, and
the graphite was burning. They had lost the battle here
for the reactor. The explosion which destroyed the
*confinement* building allowed the huge radioactive
releases.
In the case of TMI, even if the hydrogen had been liberated
into the *containment* building, where it could explode (oxygen),
the *containment* building is designed to withstand large
pressure transients. Hydrogen re-combiners are present
in an American LWR to ignite excess hydrogen in a controlled
fashion.
To reiterate, the PWR has a reactor coolant system which serves as a pressure
boundary. This is quite a contrast to the RMBK design which relies on many little
pressure tubes for containment of fluid. While both the Cherobyl and TMI fuel
boundary was breached, and there were steam-zirconium reactions liberating hydrogen,
the TMI *design* had substantial RCS piping and pressure vessel structure
as well as a containment building to significantly reduce the consequences of
the accident (Also, the TMI core is much smaller and has much less zirconium and
hence less potential hydrogen, another very good design point for a number of
engineering reasons). TMI shows that the defense in depth principle of LWR
design in the US was pretty good engineering, not "luck".
The Russians recognize the poorness of their design. Note, they threw the
Chernobyl designers in the Gulag (sp?), the operators paid with their lives.
Bad operation led to both accidents (now operators can flame me). Its
up to *engineerng* to improve the designs further, so that operators
cannot screw up as bad in the future.
Andy Holland
zc...@ncstate.pgh.wec.com
Westinghouse Electric Corporation - Obviously *Not* a Spokesman (or speller)
B. Alan Guthrie
>You JM Alvis have claimed that Chernobyl was an unusual steam-graphite
>explosion that could not happen at an American pant. I go by Mikhail
>Gorbachev who claims that Chernobyl was a hydrogen explosion. By
>April 1, 1979 a huge hydrogen bubble had likewise formed at the
>Three Mile Island plant in critical danger of exploding and breaching
>the containment. Sheer luck prevented a similar explosion and release
>of radiation.
Not so. The hydrogen at TMI was inside the reactor vessel, having
been produced by a Zirc-Water reaction (the Zirconium in question
being the major constituent of the fuel cladding). The reaction
looks something like
Zr + H20 ---> H2 + ZrO
Off of the top of my head I can't recall whether its ZrO or
Zr2O or Zr2O3 or .... Anyway the point is that the oxygen is
chemically combined with the Zr and is not free. Thus, the
hydrogen has nothing with which to react; thus, an explosion
cannot occur. The problem with the hydrogen in the vessel was
that it was feared that it might expand as the reactor coolant
system was depressurized, thereby blocking coolant flow (of
course, as it turns out, the core was already destroyed, but
this fact was unknown at the time).
Some hydrogen did escape from the vessel into the containment
atmosphere where it apparently burned. However, its concentration
was too dilute for an explosion to occur.
I had been working at Babcock & Wilcox for about eight months
when the TMI accident occurred. On March 30, our department
head called us together and gave us a run-down on the situation,
dwelling at some length on the hydrogen bubble and worrying
about its explosive potential and the problem of its expansion.
I realized at the time that the bubble could not explode because
of a lack of oxygen, but I was fresh out of grad school, and I
figured that these grizzled veterans knew what they were talking
about, so I kept my mouth shut. If only I'd have spoken up and
punctured the myth of the hydrogen bubble explosion ....
--
B. Alan Guthrie, III | When the going gets tough,
| the tough hide under the table.
zc...@monarch.pgh.wec.com |
| E. Blackadder
Emmett Michael JORDAN
closed down after the Three Mile Island disaster. Does anyone know exactly
why the plant shut down? Among other things the nuclear industry in
general stopped getting new orders.
Emmett Michael JORDAN
in 197O. He returned to Chernobyl after the big accident to write various
reports.
John De Armond
>In article <pW+Nok+...@delphi.com> Emmett Michael JORDAN <ejo...@delphi.com> writes:
>> [deleted stuff] By
>>April 1, 1979 a huge hydrogen bubble had likewise formed at the
>>Three Mile Island plant in critical danger of exploding and breaching
>>the containment. Sheer luck prevented a similar explosion and release
>>of radiation.
Oh my gawd, the delphoids have invaded sci.energy. What do they do,
give away free lobotomies as subscription bonuses?
>Where did you get this information? From what I have seen of the
>RECORDED containment pressures and what seems to be a zillion
>related analyses (most all of which employ conservative assumptions
>such as 100% Zr-H2O reaction) that the resulting pressure from a H2
>explosion would not have resulted in a breach in TMI containment integrity.
>From memory I don't even think they approached design pressure let
>alone the 2-3X higher that the containment is likely to withstand.
Don't need to do any calculations. There WAS a hydrogen explosion inside
the containment at TMI. Oh they euphemistically called it a "burn"
but both the record and the people who were there show it to be an
explosion.
The record shows that at approximately nine and three quarters hours
after the turbine tripped, there was a containment pressure spike
which drove the 30 psi stripchart recorder off-scale. This spike was
accompanied by a deep rumble that shook the entire facility including
the control room and was duly recorded on the plant's sesimic monitors.
The instrument loop which measured containment pressure used an ancient,
very slow pressure transmitter with a time constant in excess of
two seconds. When this loop was computer modeled and the recorded
data submitted to the model, it showed that the containment reached
almost 100 psi (3X design pressure) and held that for almost a second.
Yet the strain gauges attached to the containment reenforcing tendons
showed no abnormal stress. In other words, the building was not
stressed anywhere near its limits.
John
--
John De Armond, WD4OQC, Marietta, GA j...@dixie.com
Performance Engineering Magazine. Email to me published at my sole discretion
"Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should
soon want for bread." Thomas Jefferson
John De Armond
>Some hydrogen did escape from the vessel into the containment
>atmosphere where it apparently burned. However, its concentration
>was too dilute for an explosion to occur.
Essentially all the hydrogen escaped with the exception of a few
cubic feet that got trapped in the reactor head. The "burn"
was very much an explosion. I've been inside the Unit II containment
and the evidence is everywhere. The concentration did not and could not
have reached the concentration whereby a detonation could have
occured.
>I had been working at Babcock & Wilcox for about eight months
>when the TMI accident occurred. On March 30, our department
>head called us together and gave us a run-down on the situation,
>dwelling at some length on the hydrogen bubble and worrying
>about its explosive potential and the problem of its expansion.
>I realized at the time that the bubble could not explode because
>of a lack of oxygen, but I was fresh out of grad school, and I
>figured that these grizzled veterans knew what they were talking
>about, so I kept my mouth shut. If only I'd have spoken up and
>punctured the myth of the hydrogen bubble explosion ....
The gizzled veterans WERE correct. They were concerned that the
radiolysis of water by the fuel would contribute enough oxygen
to make the bubble flammable. Recall that in the beginning
they had no idea even how much hydrogen may be trapped. For their
initial matchbook calculations which may have been off an order
of magnitude or so, they had to assume the worst case, that hydrogen
had collected down to the coolant nozzles. My officemate at TMI,
a B&W engineer, was the person who devised the nifty little unit
used to measure the bubble volume. It was nothing more than a small
positive displacement pump and a pressure transducer. It operated
on the principle that one could pump water into the primary system,
observe the change in pressure and compute the compressible
volume. This test showed the bubble to be small and to be shrinking
steadily as the coolant dissolved and swept it away.
Anyway, here's how the public side developed:
Grizzled veterans: There is a remote theoretical possibility of enough
hydrogen and oxygen collecting to form an explosive mixture. Let's do
some calculations and measurements and see if theory stands up to
scrutiny.
B&W Management: There is a theoretical possibility of of a hydrogen explosion
inside the reactor vessel.
GPU management: There might be a hydrogen explosion in the reactor vessel.
Walter Cronkite et al: The reactor vessel will be destroyed by a hydrogen
explosion any time now during this nuclear nightmare.
Gov. Thornburg and company: OH MY GAWD, run for the hills! Grab the women
and children and run for your lives. TMI is going to explode and kill
everyone in the state.
Typical evolution of a public event.
Joseph A. Green
>jag...@eng.umd.edu (Joseph A. Green) writes:
>
>>Where did you get this information? From what I have seen of the
>>RECORDED containment pressures and what seems to be a zillion
>>related analyses (most all of which employ conservative assumptions
>>such as 100% Zr-H2O reaction) that the resulting pressure from a H2
>>explosion would not have resulted in a breach in TMI containment integrity.
>>From memory I don't even think they approached design pressure let
>>alone the 2-3X higher that the containment is likely to withstand.
>
>after the turbine tripped, there was a containment pressure spike
>which drove the 30 psi stripchart recorder off-scale. This spike was
>accompanied by a deep rumble that shook the entire facility including
>the control room and was duly recorded on the plant's sesimic monitors.
>
>The instrument loop which measured containment pressure used an ancient,
>very slow pressure transmitter with a time constant in excess of
>two seconds. When this loop was computer modeled and the recorded
>data submitted to the model, it showed that the containment reached
>almost 100 psi (3X design pressure) and held that for almost a second.
>Yet the strain gauges attached to the containment reenforcing tendons
>showed no abnormal stress. In other words, the building was not
>stressed anywhere near its limits.
>
>Performance Engineering Magazine. Email to me published at my sole discretion
WOW!
I stand corrected. I had obviously seen response plots that clearly
did not catch the "real" pressure during the spike. Thanks for the info.
Best regards,
Joe Green
UMD - Nuclear Engineering
Emmett Michael JORDAN
my published theory of Chernobyl a little bit. Actually if this is not
what happened as a lot of scoffers among my readers would like to believe,
then it seems strange that there are numerous proposals to re-process
nuclear bomb fuel after I warned a lot of people about this. Who else
did so? when?
Emmett Michael JORDAN
RADIO RECEIVERS (C) 199O, 92 by Emmett Michael Jordan (Milwaukee)
(C) 1992 by The General Electric Company
How often has your reception of shortwave radio signals been marred by a
repetitive annoying buzz? A buzz that sounds like it was from the sound track
of the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre!" Just such a buzz occured on my Sony ICF65OOW
receiver recently. Subsequent events prompted me to review the investigative
techniques of super-sleuth Sherlock Holmes and his dear friend Doctor Watson.
In the world of thundercloud-to-line faults, thundercloud-to-ground faults,
thundercloud-to-thundercloud faults, line-to-line faults, and line-to-ground
faults, the possibility of generating detectable radio frequency interference
(RFI) is a reality. Many shortwave radio listeners (SWL's) recognize such RFI
by a characteristic static noise coming from the speaker of their receiver.
The most common manifestation of RFI occurs during thunderstorms. If the
lightning bolts are observed by eyesight or by RFI their distance from the
observer or SWL can be estimated by timing the interval between visual flash
or RFI static and the audible thunderclap, because the velocity of light and
radio waves in air are faster than the velocity of sound in air.
When I started to hear a buzz from my Sony receiver in my apartment room, I
started to do an RFI survey that you can easily do if the same thing happens
in your neighborhood. Just use a portable battery-operated shortwave radio
receiver and walk aroud your apartment building or neighborhood. If the RFI
is especially loud a cheaper AM/FM receiver, like the GE 7-266OC, would be
appropriate when set to the AM band. Identify the location where the buzz
intensity is the loudest, by ear or by signal-strength (S-meter). Sometimes
you will find that the buzz originates from faulty building wiring which could
get hot and start a fire. An electromagnetic device near the short-circuit will
be especially noisy. Have an electrician correct the problem as soon as
possible. In my specific circumstance, a motor vehicle had bumped an electric
and telephone utility pole in back of 932 North 28th Street in Milwaukee,
causing damage to the wood pole that had not been noticed by anyone. The
vehicle bump was a relatively common hit-and-run incident. When the pole was
bumped it appears that it swayed and partially split in a vertical direction.
The swaying motion damaged some electrical equipment at the top of the pole,
resulting in a repetitive arcing line-to-ground fault. Over a long period of
time, the excessive fault current could overload and damage other items in the
circuit. In this case the overload was not large enough to activate any of the
fuses that protect the pole-mounted distribution transformer. The arcing into
the ground system generated a type of RFI that would buzz shortwave receivers
quite a bit, and would buzz AM receivers to a lesser extent. The electrical
system ground wire and the telephone system ground wire helped to bring the
RFI from the utility pole into nearby buildings. AM and shortwave receivers
placed near building electrical and telephone wiring would amplify the buzz
when energized by the defective ac voltage, or when energized by batteries.
At times consumer electronic equipment in nearby buildings could be damaged
by the defective ac voltage. It might not be age or poor workmanship that
causes your television receiver to act up. It could be defective ac voltage
that you don't even know exists, that does permanent damage to your delicate
electronic circuits.
This type of phenomena is one of several ways that extraneous voltages can
give rise to RFI. In general extraneous voltages occur from conduction due to
metallic connection of phases, conduction due to ground potential rise,
magnetic induction by current, and electric induction by voltage. In my
circumstance there were ground connections common to both the electrical
system and the telephone system. The ground had a voltage rise impressed on it.
Induction also occured. A fault causing ground currents in an electric circuit
also impresses upon a parallel telephone circuit, a component of voltage in
phase with the ground current of the electric circuit. These conductive or
ground potential effects are closely related to inductive effects and are
difficult to distinguish.
In 1973 I noticed a related problem that can cause RFI. I was then living
next to Lake Michigan and an early morning fog was quite common in my
neighborhood. That fog would cause moisture to condense on cars, buildings,
and utility equipment. One dreary morning, I went out to observe the electrical
system because my old Crosley shortwave receiver detected RFI. I found that
a distribution class lightning (surge) arrestor was glowing with leakage
current in the dark, wet, foggy air. On some occasions a wood utility pole
will actually catch on fire near the lightning arrestor mountings from
overheating due to such leakage current. Another possibility is an external
flashover, like a lightning bolt, over the insulation of the lightning
arrestor. Yet another possibility is an explosion of the lightning arrestor.
It does not take a violent lightning storm to start a fire, just a little
leakage current, in a dreary morning fog. Utilities along seacoasts or in
areas where salting of streets is done can have more of this problem than
freshwater areas, due to the higher conductivity of the salt water.
These problems that I directly observed over the years near my apartments
were rather minor distribution problems compared to similar things that can
happen on large high voltage transmission systems, near, and from, large
power generating equipment. An extreme example of this is when a section of
the Point Beach Nuclear Power Plant switchyard exploded, a few years ago.
I do not know if RFI occured around Point Beach just prior to the expolsion.
In some circumstances it would be likely. A radiated SWL could detect the
RFI and perhaps trip the main circuit breaker in time to prevent an explosion!
A ground fault on a high voltage transmission circuit can impose a high
induced voltage on a neighboring lower voltage distribution circuit and cause
arcing and cascading equipment failure. That type of failure would definitly
be preceeded by detectable RFI.
A recent August 199O outage in Chicago's west side was particularly
devestating and prolonged. At one point, a WMAQ radio announcer mentioned a
ground fault in an underground cable near a building owned by Cook county.
An attentive SWL might have detected the ground fault and stopped
cascading overloads. A much more infamous outage of the Ontario-New York-
New England power grid in November 1965, starting near Niagra Falls, would
want a RFI diagnostic too.
The next time that you hear a buzz on your shortwave radio receiver, try to
determine the cause. You might be detecting the start of a major electrical
outage.
Another aspect of SWL that relates to electric utility problems is to try to
figure out what happened after hearing shortwave news reports on major
disasters, like the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant accident. On May 14 1986 Radio
Moscow quoted Central Committee General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev's
statement about the Chernobyl accident, as being a sequence "of steam,
hydrogen, and fire in the reactor." My reading of nuclear expert John
Hogerton's revelation in "Nuclear Reactors" that a fuel rod containing
excess reactivity can cause a steam explosion, lead me to a hypothesis that
near-bomb-concentration purity nuclear fuel, or fuel with excess reactivity,
experimentally bred or placed in the reactor, could have triggered the blast.
My hypothesis differed from published theories at the time. For example,
the June 1986 Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineer's SPECTRUM
claimed possible "steam leak" or "overheated core" theories. SPECTRUM
published my comments in December 1986. I notified Radio Moscow of my theory
shortly after monitoring the May 1986 broadcast and received quite a bit of
information in return.
This article was originally written for a contest at MONITORING TIMES, a
magazine for shortwave radio listeners, in August 199O.
B. Alan Guthrie
Babcock&Wilcox's nuclear components (pressure vessels and once-
through steam generators) were manufactured at Mount Vernon, IN,
which is on the Ohio River (making shipment easier). Naval reactor
vessels, being smaller, are (were) manufactured at Barberton, OH,
near Akron. I don't recall what facilities B&W had near Milwaukee,
but I don't think they were nuclear related. It should be recalled
that in the early '80s, McDermott, Inc, which owns B&W, was having
severe difficulties. The stock price dropped by 50%, and many
of B&W's subsidiaries, mostly fossil or automobile manufacturing-
related, were sold off. Of course, at the time, B&W was, as I
recall, the biggest boiler manufacturer in the world.
Emmett Michael JORDAN
years ago and was located quite close to a manufacturer of betatron
x-ray inspection equipment and teams. There was a lot of laid-off
nuclear talent in the region when Allis-Chalmers Mfg Co decided not
to make nuclear power plants after an enormous financial outlay to
develop and swipe designs and cut through federal red tape.