Three Mile Island and Chernobyl get all the attention because TMI was a
meltdown and Chernobyl exploded and melted, there's a solidified blob of
insanely radioactive stuff in the basement. It used to visibly glow but has
cooled down in temperature over they years.
But the other deadly nuclear incident, also caused by poor design compounded by
human error, is rarely mentioned. The SL1 research reactor in Idaho blew up on
Jan. 3, 1961 due to a steam explosion caused by runaway fission when the main
control rod was pulled completely out of the core. The three men inside the
building were killed. Two apparently instantly, the third barely alive when
emergency help arrived. One of the men was pinned to the ceiling by one of the
control rods ejected from the reactor's pressure vessel.
The cause was determined to be due to the reactor having one large control rod
and several small ones, with the large one able to initiate fission by itself
when partially withdrawn from the core. With all the rods fully inserted, they
weren't enough to stop the reaction so boron "poison strips" were attached to
the sides of the rods. In the hot water the boron would swell and flake,
causing the rods to get stuck between the square tubes containing the uranium.
The crew was servicing the control rod motors.
What appears to have happened was the main rod had slipped down and had to be
pulled up to reconnect it to its drive motor. One of the men stood on top of
the pressure vessel to get a good grip, gave the rod a hard yank and it popped
free. Probably didn't have time to even start to think "Oh shit!" before he was
blasted up and pinned to the ceiling, dead.
An old magazine article I read from the late 60's said a check of reactors
around the world was made to see if any others were of similar design where one
rod pulled all the way out could make it runaway. Only one was found, in (IIRC)
Norway and a safety stop was installed.
In the history of nuclear fission reactors, only four incidents across 50 years
involving a reactor core, with only two causing deaths, is a very good safety
record. How many have died with refinery and other power plant explosions as
the direct cause? How about people who have died when damns have failed? Just
one, the Johnstown flood, killed over 2,200 in 1889.
On Sunday, March 10, 2019, 8:59:36 PM MDT, Przemek Klosowski
<[email protected]> wrote:
On Sat, Mar 9, 2019 at 10:26 PM Gene Heskett <[email protected]> wrote:
> Leave it to humans with no concept of common sense, but lots of don't
> rock the boat
> rules and you get TMI, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. And probably 100 more
> lessor 'accidents' we haven't been told about.
>
Gene, this is just not the case. There's no way that 'lesser nuclear
accidents' are covered up, unless you include people falling off ladders
and such. Accidents with release of radioactivity are super easy to detect,
and so rather hard to cover up.
Plus, one serious coal mine disaster (e.g. our 2010 Upper Big Branch Mine,
29 deaths) has about similar number of fatalities as all these nuclear
disasters (the official counts are TMI = 0, Chernobyl = 31, Fukushima = 0).
There are good reasons why coal mining has a reputation of one of the most
dangerous jobs there are. Read
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_accident and
weep.
Of course on top of direct accident deaths due to nuclear industry
accidents there's mortality due to long-term radiation effects, but if you
count those, it's only fair to count black lung deaths among miners as
well, and all the deaths due to smog pollution.
You have a point that lots of rules limit progress in nuclear industry, but
these rules do have an impressive track record for safety. We don't put new
cheaper parts on airplanes, either, and for a good reason. This reminds me
that I once met some guys that watch FAA advisories and figure out what
spare parts they cover, then buy all available supply of these parts. The
sheer evil genius of their business plan left me speechless---leave it to
the free market forces to find a way to profit; but if the alternative is
to do away with FAA regulations, I am OK with the speculators.
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