Over the past few days, anti-nuclear activists have been jumping up and down, bouncing off the walls, and raising six kinds of hell about a non-problem at Indian Point.
Power plants use devices called transformers to increase the voltage produced by their generators to the 575,000 volts required by long-distance transmission lines. These are essentially two coils, with the number of windings in the coils proportional to the voltage; for example, if you had 575 volts coming out of the generator, you would use 1,000 windings in the coil that’s connected to the grid for every winding in the coil that’s connected to the power plant. The problem is that 575,000-volt electricity will arc through the air quite well, so a better insulator must be placed between the coils or the transformer will short out. That insulator is a type of oil, and oil can catch fire if there’s an ignition source (say a stray piece of metal that gets too close to the coils) and oxygen present. A few days ago, that happened at Indian Point, which, as a power plant, has transformers. Everything requires transformers. Windmills require transformers, for crying out loud. Not only is it not dangerous, it wouldn’t even be solved by shutting down Indian Point, because you need some kind of power facility to generate power. When the media says “no radiation was released,” they are not in fact saying that no radiation was released, but are implying that radiation could have been released but luckily wasn’t (not to mention the fact that radiation isn’t a substance and can’t be “released”). And that is the height of irresponsibility.
What’s worse is the author of an article linked below even knows all of the above, yet refuses to de-link it from the word “nuclear.” Anything that has anything to do with anything nuclear gains super-powers, apparently, in the doctrine of Nuclear Exceptionalism that completely and totally ignores how things actually work. Replacing physics is a system of shooting-the-messenger associations with absolutely no basis in reality.
Everybody’s been treating this as though it were some kind of close call, and that they were planning to run for the hills. Even the NRC has used this as an excuse to downgrade the safety status of Indian Point Unit 3 (!) so as to bring closer scrutiny upon Unit 3’s reactor. It’s simply yet another example of overkill (nobody should worry about this; these types of things happen all the time and pose exactly zero safety threat) and mission creep (the NRC has simply no business worrying about Indian Point’s switchyard).
I would like to reprint a comment left on an article in The Journal News:
“In large installations, like factories, or fossil power plants, about 150-250 items are broken, failed, worn out or needing attention every day. A townhouse complex I lived in years ago was much the same. The maintenance crew there was about 15 men, augmented by contract gardeners. The complex would not have hired 15 people on a full time basis, if there was nothing for them to do. That simple enclave of a dozen brick buildings had maybe 50 to 100 unfixed problems being worked on at any time.
Now just imagine yourself being in the real estate market for a townhouse, and being handed a sheaf of papers as you approach the place, listing stuck toilets, failed radiators, uncollected garbage, windows that failed to open, cable TV hookups that didn’t work, seamy stories of the personal problems of some of the maintenance mechanics, contagious sicknesses in certain children living there, and a hysterical pre-cooked agenda, telling you to never rent there, because of the great danger, and urging you to call your congressman, to have the place torn down.
Would you become afraid of the Townhouses? Would you join up, get agitated, and march around the place holding placards? (admittedly,…. some poor souls would…… its just that most people would not). In point of fact, I thought the maintenance there was lousy, and I moved out. However, the place is still there, and the townhouses are selling for about $450,000 dollars, so the broken toilets didn’t seem to affect the realities of the marketplace.
In a non-nuclear power plant where I once worked , we had about 1500 outstanding unfixed problems at any time, and incidents happened constantly. Once a mugger, pursued by the police, ran in the front gate, climbed a transformer tower, and got fried to a crisp by the 345KV electricity. That kept us down for about 8 hours. Once a 48 inch high pressure steam line ruptured, and two workers and a fire lieutenant were scalded to death before it was brought under control. That caused a 2 month outage. Once a supervisor led his men to the wrong compartment, and set them to work dismantling the wrong 13KV breaker. They were both incinerated, the lucky man dying in 2 days, the unlucky one taking 3 weeks to die. The entire plant staff of 400 people was bussed to both the funerals. It sucked. Once a worker was careless and cut the wrong cable with a power saw. He lost his sight. He was 45 years old , and lives today as a blind man. A worker made a slip up while pouring powdered caustic into a vat, and got covered with harsh caustic solution, removing the skin from 80% of his body. He lives on disability now, and looks quite a bit less attractive than he did before the incident. Once the entire office complex burned completely overnight, causing 2 million dollars’ damage, and resulting in the place being run from rented construction trailers for a year.
There was never a week’s period, where something did not break, or fail, or explode, or hurt someone. The rythm of steady disaster was constant. It was a high risk, high energy business, and nobody was dismayed by it. Those working on oil rigs will tell you the same. That’s how it is, for those of us who work reality jobs. There’s nothing wrong because of it. Its regrettable, should be avoided if possible, but its also perfectly normal, expected, even, in its own way.This kind of real-world enterprise cannot be run without it.
But kindly note, dear reader, that none of you ever heard anything about it. Not a single word. You see, people are generally oblivious to the agonies of those who serve them. Who cares if the chef scalds his finger? Just serve my steak, and be quick about it. I only heard about it, because I had to write the work orders to fix the stuff. My predecessor had quit, because he couldn’t keep up the pace. I was young, wanted to show the world, so I dug in for all it was worth, and fixed disaster, after disaster, after disaster, after disaster, for 20 years. Therefore, when I see all the alarmist ranting about Indian Point, I have a point of comparison.
The number of incidents at Indian Point is orders of magnitude less than at the fossil power plant where I worked. The number of failures, is likewise way, way lower than at a typical factory or plant of any kind. The safety regimes preventing the life threatening stuff (for the workers) are so much better at Indian Point, that nothing like that happens there, most of the time. The inherent overdesign built into the plant is so robust, that no danger ever exists for people outside the fence …AND… a specific watchdog agency is built in to the woodwork in the nuclear industry (NRC) , to make sure this is true, on a 24 hour, seven day, 52 week basis, forever, by law.
So, if a transformer burns , its not a point of worry to me, because Entergy is so good, none of our toasters or TV sets even stopped working because of it.(In case you hadn’t noticed). Entergy didn’t even need the fire department. Looking at pictures of Entergy’s fire brigade, I thought it WAS the fire department. But it wasn’t. It was just Entergy’s capable, professional well trained, well equipped employees, as good as any fire department, stopping a nasty fire in minu
tes.Oh, and yes, as the newspapers have relished in saying “There was no release of radiation” . They love saying that, overtly acting as if trying to calm you, while at the same time covertly trying to worry you. Journalistic duplicity, I’d call it. Reporters love the wild, the garish, the worrisome, and want to jiggle your emotions if they can. They get promotions when they succeed at this. For those not wishing to be manipulated in this way, its best to shrug it off. It’s THEIR thing, not ours.
And for those of us who like to relish their own feelings of fear, all I can say is, it is your preference to choose fear over calmness, exaggeration over normal confidence in our world being generally OK.
As I read the TJN story above, it is not about Indian Point at all, but it is about the reporter’s own imaginary preference to expect (almost wish) bad things to happen.
You should get some counselling for that.
Otherwise, the chlorine in that manhole down the street from you, or the gasoline in your car, or the high voltage inside your TV set, or the diseases lurking right there in your toilet might cause an undue agony for you.
We wouldn’t want that now, would we?”
Amen, to quote the article. Not only do I hope people read it, but I hope pro-nuclear people can write and communicate more like that. It’s precisely the right tone and exhibits an excellent choice of words, without sounding like right-wing propaganda. It doesn’t distort anything and it makes people think.
I think we can all agree that this incident is going to pop up in the future in the anti-nuclear literature.
Filed under Activism, Alternatives, Missing the Point, Non Sequitur, Politics and Regulation, Safety
Posted on April 14, 2007 by Stewart Peterson |
