Originally posted by SassyCass
5 Nuke plants are down right now but the bigger concern seems to be this one
A unit at a fourth plant 43 miles from Philadelphia, Salem Nuclear Power Plant on Delaware Bay in southern New Jersey, was manually shut down
just after 1 a.m. Tuesday morning "when four of the station's six circulating water pumps were no longer available due to weather impacts from
Hurricane Sandy,"
I'm no expert but dont they need those pumps to keep the reactor core covered and thus prevent a melt-down????
Lets all pray we dont have a Fukushima level event on the east cost.
abcnews.go.com
(visit the link for the full news article)edit on 30-10-2012 by SassyCass because: (no reason given)
The pumps could serve a few purposes at the plant, and if it was salt water from the storm surge they could be toast if any of the circuitry got
drenched.
Nuclear plants do have back up systems to deal with loss of pumps. The issue that was the nail in the coffin for fukushima, was a combination of
technology and operator error. The control room assumed a valve was open when it was i fact closed, due to a default when the system shuts down. This
combined with loss of instrumentation, inevitably lead to the meltdown. Not saying if these things did not occur, it wouldn't have happened but there
is a small chance it could have been avoided.
I don't understand why nuclear plants on the coast aren't designed with flooding, hurricanes, tsunamis and other natural disasters in mind. Just
seems silly to put something so potentially deadly, precariously balanced on doom.
