“One concern is that a boat could ram the plant and spill waste into the water. An even bigger fear is that a nasty storm could cut the plant off from the land-based power supply required to run plant operations. Should emergency generators fail, says David Lochbaum, director of the Nuclear Safety Project at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Chernobyl-like disaster could ensue. In a worst-case scenario, an overheated core could melt through the bottom of the barge and drop into the water, creating a radioactive steam explosion. Such a cloud could do far more damage than the plume of nuclear fallout kicked up by the 1986 explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the former U.S.S.R., Lochbaum notes, because the human body absorbs radioactive water droplets more easily than it does radioactive ash.”
1. Spent fuel (”waste” even though it’s only 3% waste) consists of ceramic fuel rods stored in an underwater rack. A collision with a boat could release water from the spent fuel pool if the spent fuel pool is above the waterline. If it were below the waterline, water is water and it’s not going to flow up. But the waste isn’t something that can be spilled; it’s all solid. The other practical alternative–fuel oil–can be spilled, however, and routinely is.
2. External power is not necessarily required. All reactors have emergency generators, and many can operate at low power while disconnected from the grid.
3. In meltdowns of this type of plant, the core settles to the bottom of the pressure vessel in a puddle. It does not melt through because it can’t.
4. It’s not necessarily a given that radioactive material will come off in large amounts due to a steam explosion even if it did reach the water. Even so, the water itself wouldn’t be radioactive–just the material that it carries along–and any radioactive material that is ejected would settle out.
5. It’s rather interesting to say something will be worse than Chernobyl when there is no dispersal mechanism.
Filed under Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Chernobyl, International, Physics, Safety, Three Mile Island, Waste
Posted on October 28, 2006 by Stewart Peterson |
