Nebraska Nuclear Plant, Flood Berm Collapsed ..

reply to post by Freedom_is_Slavery


The main problem would be if they ran out of emergency power to run the cooling system for the spent fuel pool.

As the reactor has been offline for maintenance, it is possible that there is an entire full core waiting to go in, which also would require cooling.

Even though the fuel is 'spent' that does not mean that it will not produce heat/radiation. It has to be stored and cooled properly to avoid a bad outcome.

ETA: And this would be the bad outcome I am referring to:

Originally posted by TheRedneck
OK, here's what I found out.... zirconium in fuel rod cladding is actually an alloy, zircaloy. Zircaloy is highly resistant to most chemical corrosions; it is, however, susceptible to hydrogen absorption from superheated steam, forming zirconium hydride.

This is from the Wikipedia page for zirconium hydride:

Powdered zirconium hydrides are flammable and can ignite and explode if exposed to heat, fire, or sparks. When heated to above 300 °C, they decompose releasing hydrogen gas, which is also flammable.

In other words, the cladding is not flammable, unless exposed to steam over time, after which it can become explosive. These rods were exposed to a great deal of steam, and the cladding may now be flammable/explosive.

TheRedneck

reply to post by SFA437

» The maintenance shutdown. Because the reactor went offline in April for routine maintenance, nuclear fission hadn't taken place for weeks when it became apparent that flooding would prevent restarting the plant. As a result, the reactor had cooled to about 80 degrees, whereas normally it would have been about 560 degrees, Bannister said. Should something catastrophic happen, OPPD would have more time to act because it would take longer for water in the reactor to heat to a dangerous level.

omaha

I don't think this is anywhere as bad as Fukushima

More on the berm:

The 500-megawatt Fort Calhoun Nuclear Generating Station, 19 miles from Omaha, "is still protected," Mike Jones, spokesman for plant owner-operator Omaha Public Power District, told CNN.

"This was an additional, a secondary, level of protection that we had put up," Jones said. "The plant remains protected to the level it would have been if the aqua berm had not been added."

More than 2 feet of water rushed in around buildings and electrical transformers as the swollen Missouri River overflowed its banks and rushed over an 8-foot-high, 2,000-foot-long berm that collapsed after being punctured by a piece of heavy equipment, Jones said.

So we have primary protection implied by the fact that he says the berm is secondary protection.

What is that primary protection?

The chances of floodwaters getting into the building where the nuclear reactor core is kept are almost zero, he said.

"Almost zero"

Ok, I'll take that to mean that there is still a remote possibility that that flood waters could get into the reactor building.

The plant was running from an offsite power supply early Monday, the Omaha power district said. Its power supply was cut off and emergency generators temporarily powered the plant when the floodwaters surrounded the main electrical transformers, the district said.

source

Still no mention of outside power being restored. I hope that have BIG fuel tanks for that diesel.

Originally posted by Freedom_is_Slavery
reply to post by SFA437

 

I don't think this is anywhere as bad as Fukushima

Yeah, yep just like Fukushima wasn't supposed to be anything as bad as 3 mile island, let alone Chernobyl....But it was, oh yes, it was the worst nuclear disaster we have seen ever, it was worse than Chernobyl, and still is!

On a serious note, I'm just tryin to make a point about the possibility of this situation getting way out of hand and dangerous, I am not saying it is like Fukushima I'm just trying to point out that we should have learned by now that we can't always trust what our government tells us is going on until there is no hiding it, What we learned from Fukushima is that if there is a humungo radiation emergency and leakage and utter disaster, we wont learn anything until about ooh 5-7 days after the fact, yeah after it's too late to do anything.

Peace,
Marriah

Here we go, flooding in all places.

Seems like I'm going to need some heavy sandbags for this one, even though I live in a desert.

Originally posted by Freedom_is_Slavery
reply to post by SFA437

 

» The maintenance shutdown. Because the reactor went offline in April for routine maintenance, nuclear fission hadn't taken place for weeks when it became apparent that flooding would prevent restarting the plant. As a result, the reactor had cooled to about 80 degrees, whereas normally it would have been about 560 degrees, Bannister said. Should something catastrophic happen, OPPD would have more time to act because it would take longer for water in the reactor to heat to a dangerous level.

omaha

I don't think this is anywhere as bad as Fukushima

A reactor shutting down has nothing to do with a spent fuel rod pool other than if the pool has fresh fuel in it because it was removed for maintenance it vastly increases the chance of the SFR pool having a major accident.

What you're seeing there is misdirection of the sort TEPCO used when all 3 of Fukushima's cores did the banana impression and split. Do you remember the quote from them "No plutonium was found on the site" when in fact they had no equipment to detect it (factually correct but in reality a bald faced lie). Do you remember the NRC and IAEA saying that a core breach was impossible... not virtually but literally impossible? We now have 3 core breaches in Japan.

A large portion of the airborne radionuclides from Fukushima are not originating in the rector pressure vessels. Those cores are through the RPV, through containment and are sitting either in the sub-basement or in the case of the #1 core most likely on the bedrock but they are still underground and underwater.

The SFR pools there are offgassing directly to the atmosphere and the #4 SFR pool actually caught fire as the Zircaloy casings ignited.

When I add in things I have heard before from various government agencies whilst 3 cores and 4 SFR pools (possibly 6) were irradiating the hell out of everything to the point that people in Japan are peeing hotter than is permissible for drinking water I get nervous. Things like this from your link:

“Fort Calhoun is in a unique situation,” the NRC's Burnell said. “But let me stress again that the plant is in a safe condition and is expected to remain so.”

Fort Calhoun's chief nuclear officer, David Bannister, is equally emphatic.

“Let me be clear. The Fort Calhoun Station is safe, and it will continue to be safe throughout the duration of this event.”

That is almost exactly, word for word, what we heard in the first few days of Fukushima- even after #3 blew it's core out the top of the RPV.

There's also this tidbit buried at the bottom:

"According to the NRC review, OPPD was prepared for flooding up to a level of 1,009 feet above sea level — five feet below what the NRC required. Additionally, the federal agency said, OPPD's plans for protecting the plant to the required 1,014 feet were flawed and subject to failure."

Then we have this:

Nebraska's two nuclear plants aren't being factored into the Army Corps of Engineers schedule of dam releases, said Erik Blechinger, corps spokesman.

“Flood-risk reduction is our priority right now,” he said. “We are working closely with OPPD and NPPD, so I would never say that we wouldn't consider adjusting releases, but I can't imagine all the possible scenarios. Currently, there is just no flexibility in the system.”

This means eff the reactor if dam failure is apparent or the need to prevent flooding is present.

Originally posted by Freedom_is_Slavery
reply to post by SFA437

 

» The maintenance shutdown. Because the reactor went offline in April for routine maintenance, nuclear fission hadn't taken place for weeks when it became apparent that flooding would prevent restarting the plant. As a result, the reactor had cooled to about 80 degrees, whereas normally it would have been about 560 degrees, Bannister said. Should something catastrophic happen, OPPD would have more time to act because it would take longer for water in the reactor to heat to a dangerous level.

omaha

I don't think this is anywhere as bad as Fukushima

Originally posted by Dalke07

www.youtube.com...

Then wath disturbed me is valid, if it is well below boilingpoint (80 degrees) we should not be seeing the steam rising from the plant.
Some earial view pictures dont show steam rising so could it be that the measurements are performed on another location and not at fort calhoun?

reply to post by earthling42


I hate to say it but I am utterly uneducated about PWR design and have no idea where that volume of steam could be coming from.

My best guess is that the core is shut down but not emptied of fuel. It would still need circulating water to keep it cool and that water would be heated to the point of occasional steam release. That however would put the statement that temperatures inside the RPV had fallen to 80 degrees F into the "lie" category.

If Calhoun was a BWR I'd be all over it though

reply to post by SFA437

Think of it as an extra isolated loop, where the pressurized water from the primary loop that circulates around the core, goes into a radiator which heats water in the 2nd loop in the same fashion as BWR, only with higher pressure and a radiator instead of a reactor core. (so the water in the 2nd loop, that goes over the turbine, makes no direct contact with the reactor core and is thus more isolated in core breach.

That being said, the steam could be from the 2nd loop, or it could be flood water making contact with hot equipment, either way steam does not look like a good sign. I think this has some real potential to get much worse.

Liquid metal (sodium for example) has even more isolated loops (probably due to the fact that sodium gunks up components in a reactor and thus needs isolation for radiation which turns the sodium into that gunk which can really screw moving parts --> so typical 2 stage sodium, plus BWR style loop on the end (although again, at a higher pressure than straight BWR because isolation of the loop allows for accidents at those higher pressures to have mitigated radiation leakage).

reply to post by SFA437


I think we fail the civilian test, we did not riot and protest nationwide when Japan got hit and taken out of the game for good, do we have to be out of the game for good too before we learn?

This is what happens when your tribe consists of 300,000,000 people and half of them believe the world is 10,000 years old, and watch american idol...

reply to post by WhiteHat


No problem WhiteHat! I'll definently try to update in this thread, but if it grows much larger it'll be near impossible to catch everyone.

As for BadBoYeed, thanks for that video! I was just trying to give a good example of what the dam looks like, not necessarilly a recent look at the water.

Front page of the Omaha World Herald today: Nuke plant safe amid unique peril

Once again, I'm here for any questions about this, just message me or ask me in the thread!

Some new pictures, 26 Jun ..

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/d4e2851f15a8.jpg[/atsimg]
www.zerohedge.com...

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/51268b5d36c3.jpg[/atsimg]
www.rense.com...

Minot, N.D.
25 Jun

26 Jun


abcnews.go.com...
Video
www.omaha.com...-plant-safe-amid-unique-peril
online.wsj.com...
bjspring.wordpress.com...

The U.S. has reversed the direction of the flow of Lake Michigan, draining Canadian waters like Lake Huron, Georgian Bay and Lake Superior....draining south, so all of these lakes on the Canadian side have become extremely low and the U.S. is flooding.

Originally posted by Miraj
reply to post by My.mind.is.mine

 

Why would someone build a sky scraper with the goal in mind it would survive a passenger jet?

And before you say "Well.." I'm actually mocking that inane statement and not endorsing the conspiracy.

>> Well

I can’t believe how little this is covered in the Midwest. I live in the Midwest, and outside of this site, I have not heard a peep out of the media. I even wrote to my local news channel and as you can guess no response. I’m sick and tired of media reporting about Hollywood stars and dirty politicians instead of events that actually affect us. It’s so frustrating.

Originally posted by sabbathcrazy

Originally posted by tarifa37
reply to post by Dalke07

 

Should be ok according to your link.www.wowt.com...

The NRC says its inspectors were at the plant when the berm failed and have confirmed that the flooding has had no impact on the reactor shutdown cooling or the spent fuel pool cooling.

NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko will visit the plant Monday.

Yeah so was fukashima and the gulf oil spill.

exactly what im thinking...

Originally posted by Kate50
The U.S. has reversed the direction of the flow of Lake Michigan, draining Canadian waters like Lake Huron, Georgian Bay and Lake Superior....draining south, so all of these lakes on the Canadian side have become extremely low and the U.S. is flooding.

Where is this info from?

I would be interested in seeing a link.

No comment ..

Wildfire triggers evacuation for Los Alamos laboratory

"The Las Conchas Fire flared early Sunday afternoon around 12 miles southwest of Los Alamos, charring about 3,500 acres and endangering the nation's nuclear weapons laboratory and its surrounding communities, said Lawrence Lujan, a spokesman for the Santa Fe National Forest."

"We have homes and we have the labs, so it's a very, very big concern, not only locally but nationally and globally," Lujan said.
"This fire is very complex. We have a national type one team coming in because of the nature of the fire," he said.
"My administration will make every effort to provide support for local emergency response crews," said Governor Martinez.
"With evacuations in place and the fire burning quickly, it is important that residents in the surrounding communities remain attentive to the local emergency operations' alerts and orders," she added.
"Lab emergency crews have been dispatched across the lab. Their job is to protect key facilities and materials," Berger said. "Protected areas include all hazardous and radioactive facilities and our proton accelerator and supercomputing centers."

beta.news.yahoo.com...
edition.cnn.com...
www.govexec.com...

Webcam
web.live.weatherbug.com...
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/1669662b6bd6.jpg[/atsimg]
Live Camera from: Los Alamos National Laboratory

Originally posted by Vitchilo
Don't worry, all is safe. Or so they say. Trust them, they never lied in the past right? Never manipulated any information... right?

edit on 26-6-2011 by Vitchilo because: (no reason given)

Dittos on that. I'd like to know the How and Why did it collapse??? There's just too much disaster in this region of the US to be a coincidence. How about all those HAARP signatures in this region for the last two months, where are these coming from???

reply to post by Kate50


???? No they are draining too much out of Chicago but Niagra fall are still running fine.Canada is actually giving out more water because of the heavy snow pack last winter.