time for Perry to come out

Perry_3

Jim:

You are lucky in that I have more access to this information than normal.

When there are significant problems in a nuclear plant - that standard procedure is to bring in outside people to help with the investigation.

In this case my plant provided several people to the investigation team (and people I know). At least one other plant also provided people to the investigation team such that a majority of the investigation team was not from Monticello. The nuclear industry has learned that this is the best way to investigate major events; and we all cooperate with the investigators.

Yes, Monticello was totally caught by surprise on this one; and the root cause was determined to be improper engineering design of the support structure. There was a fair amount of investigation into other somewhat similar structures at Monticello as part of the "extent of condition" investigation. No other underdesigned structures were found.

In addition, all similar plants in the US (who have a similar BWR turbine control system) were immediatly notified of the structural failure so that they could investigate their turbing control valve actuator support structure. This is another standard practice of the nuclear industry (a big lesson from 3 Mile Island as the same base equipment failure that occured with the 3 Mile Island RCS Loop valves had occured at another similar plant just a couple months earlier - that other plant quickly diagnosed the problem and it never affected operation: 3 Mile Island did not diagnose the problem until many hours later and after they had melted the core).

Something to keep in mind. Dispite the fact that this caused the plant to be down a couple of weeks... This was actually a failure of what is considered a "non-safety related" portion of the plant. The reactor was safely shut down without nuclear incident without any difficulties.

I will attempt to describe what actually happened. You have a steam turbine that is connected to an electrical generator. Montecello is a boiling water reactor - so the reactor is a large boiler - and supplies steam directly to the turbine. To control the load on the turbine and generator there are throttle control valves that are automatically throttled with hydralic pistons and a mechanical linkage. 4 such valves - with 4 hydralic pistons. While I have not seen Montecello's exact layout it is likely that these 4 piston cylinders are machined into one or two castings.

Now because power plant equipment is absolutly HUGE compared to anything most people ever deal with... These hydralic pistons weigh about 35,000 Lb fully assembled.

As such they have their own support structure. Given that the weld joints for those support structures were underdesigned there was not sufficient weld to last forever... (the effective structural design criteria). There was enough weldment that they adequately supported the 35,000 Lb in a vibrating environment for 30 years or so. However, they did start to fatique crack - and of course did fail.

We are all luck that the structure only could fall in the range of 6" to 8" before it was stopped. If it had fallen several feet it likely would have done a lot more damage as its velocity increased.

With the falling of the hydralic piston assembly the mechanical linkage repositioned the steam throttle valves - which caused a steam flow upset and the safety systems automatically shut the reactor down...

Hope that helps clarify things.

Should such a failure occur to a safty related piece of equipment .... there are numerous backups and alternate shutdown stratagies. Ultimately, the containment building protects the public from the worst possible disaster - the core meltdown. 3 Mile Island was proof of that. Chernobly was proof of what can happen without a containment building. All US and Canadian power reactors have containment buildings. Most of them in the rest of the world has containment buildings. Only older style Russian Power reactors, and I think a few of the early ones in China do not.

Perry

Unknown

time for Perry to come

Time for Perry to come forward and tell the truth about the low usage gas meter...
Been reading the chicago trib papers regarding the nuclear plants waste, enriched uranium going to other countries...
Got me thinking that has Perry been taking some home and installed it into his new boiler, creating huge amount of heat that the gas meter running backward?... Gonna go easy on the manhattans now....

Mark Hunt

If he told you


he'd have to kill you.

Perry has a "Mr.Fusion" kit in his basement.

Mark H

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

scott w.

I can't wait until I to can get one of those kits from the big box stores......Oops, I meant plumbing supply house.

Perry_3

You know so little about real security precautions...

You, and many others, mistate the security procedure for certain secrets.

It's actually that I can only tell you some things after I shoot you - and confirm that you are deceased.

Where things are that secret that death is required; we kill first where there is a desire to learn; unless you have a real "need to know". It prevents "inadverdent" leaks...

Perry

Perry_3

The Chicago Tribune Article

is poorly researched at best - and deliberatley misleading and false at the worst.

The US, Russia, and other countris have been working for decades to return this fuel from research reactors. Something like 80% of it has already been returned.

Also, we know where it is - and the overwhelming vast majority of it cannot now be used to make bombs.

I posted an extensive follow-up on another forum several days ago. When I get time in the next few days I'll recover that info and post it here.

Perry

JimH

very interested

I'd really like to read what you have to say on the subject. Especially where the guy they busted got his
quarter pound (100g?) of enriched uranium.

I'd also like your thoughts on whether the guys at
Monticello really truly didn't know that welds were
about to fail and allow the 17 ton valve box to come
crashing down on the steam lines, causing the current
shutdown.

Oh, yeah, and are you using your Vitodens to drive old
cast iron radiators, and if so do you think the low-loss
header is essential?

regards,
-JimH

Perry_3

What was wrong with the Chicago Tribune Article

Jim:

That article about the research reactor fuel was at best poorly researched and at worst outright misleading as I stated above.

This is not a new issue and efforts have been underway since the mid 1970's to return this fuel to the US and other countries who supplied research reactors to the world (Russia supplied the second highest number of them).

To date something like 80% of the bomb grade fuel has been recovered - and the reactors converted to operate on much lower grade enriched fuel. Over the next decade almost all of the rest will be converted. There are only a few of these reactors that can only run on bomb grade material and discussions have taken place about just replaceing these reactors (but no actions have been taken to do that).

However, there has not ever been a problem or loss of this fuel. Research reactors are the source of medical and industrial isotopes - something that all industrilized countries depend on. The reactors are also used for training people in nuclear reactor technology - which is used for power plants. Even the countries that persued nuclear weapons never touched the research reactor fuel. We also know where it all is.

Also, allmost all of the remaining fuel cannot be easily handled or converted to bombs becasue of all of the rad waste products now in the fuel. The fuel rods must be handled well under water (20+ ft of water is commonly required) or behind significant shielding to pack them into very massively shielded shipping containers for safe handling. Building a reprocessing plant to extract the material is a very large and complicated project as well (on the order of a billion dollars for just a small plant).

The enriched uranium that was offered for sale that was reported in the press recently was from an enrichment plant and not metalic pellats. There does remain questions to this day about all of the output of the Soviet era enrichment plants - and even some questions about how many nuclear warheads were produced and if they were all properly accounted for (centering on the extreemly portable ones). Fortunately, the extreemly portable nuclear bombs have a fairly short usefull life without some very high level maintenance and overhaul that can only be done in a few places in the world. Thus, if any are actually missing they long ago degraded to non-functional status and the international community has really good control and accountabiltity of the places that could rebuild them.

The research reactors fuel is the least of our concern on the nuclear side of the issue; and I found all kinds of references and international agreements dating back to the mid 1970's to return and recover this material in less than 10 minutes of internet searching.

Here is part of an article at Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_reactor

"The U.S. Department of Energy initiated a program in 1978 to develop the means to convert research reactors from using highly enriched uranium to the use of low enriched uranium, in support of its nonproliferation policy. [1] By that time the U.S. had supplied research reactors and highly enriched uranium to 41 countries as part of its Atoms for Peace program. In 2004, the U.S. Department of Energy extended its Foreign Research Reactor Spent Nuclear Fuel Acceptance program until 2019. [2]"


It is easy to find a lot more information with the right targeted searches as well (and any reporter writing on nuclear issues should know what terms to use for targeted searches).


Here are some more links you may find interesting:

The sold uranium: in poweder form (a couple of ounces)

www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-01-25-uranium_x.htm?csp=34

Here is a link to the program to recover the Russian Fuel:

http://www.nnsa.doe.gov/na-20/rrrfr.shtml


Here is a link of the Foreign countries with US supplied research reactors: Note that for many reactors that had 93% fuel listed as the initial enrichment fuel load now have 20% (or another lessor percent) listed as their current fuel load (Where there is a dash listed that indicates that that fuel load was the same as the previous enrichment). My understanding from some other documents I read a couple of years ago on the issue was that in most cases the previous fuel loads (the waste fuel) has already been returned to the US. I also note that you need 90% or better to construct a bomb - and you cannot safely work with irradiated fuel (so a bomb could only have been easily constructed from fuel that has never been in a reactor).

http://www.rertr.anl.gov/FRRSNF/EISREACT.html


Here is a link to the start of one of the US government program (1996 draft program):

http://www.rertr.anl.gov/FRRSNF/GUIDE.html


Here is the list of US Research Reactors:

http://www.trtr.org/Res_Rx/facilities.html


Finding all of the links above and the Wikipedia article took me less than 10 minutes.

And their are a lot more links out there with other information in them.

So why didn't the reporter find all of this information.... My take is that either they did not even look - or they wanted to present a false picture.

Just because someone says its so... does not always means its so.

Have a great day,

Perry

Perry_3

My old cast iron radiators

I have cast iron baseboard radiators, which are different than the taller radiators and somewhat similar to the Slant fin Rhino Cast radiators.

www.slantfin.com/product-rhino-cast.html

I also have a 2 story house and the baseboard is supplied through a single loop monoflo T system (with 10 radiators of varying lengths).

The resulting head loss is such that I needed a higher head pump than what the Vitodens 200 model 6-24 has.

At that point the best solution is the Low Loss Header and a secondary circulating pump.

I believe that if all I had a two pipe system that I would not have needed a LLH or a secondary pump with the Vitodens (monoflo T's impart a head loss). I would also think that with fewer radiators (perhaps 6 max) that you could probably run it directly from the Vitodens 6-24.

Of course - if you have the heat load requirments for one of the larger Vitodens 200's that does not have a built in ciculating pump then you can chose the appropriate pump to where you would not need a LLH and secondary pump.

In the end, it all depends on your system, and the inherent head loss of it. You should be able to easily convert a gravity system as there is almost no head loss whatsoever.

Hope that helps.

Perry

Uni R_3

If I might quibble Perry...

I have never seen the Cv ratings for monoflo fittings that weren't capped but I really don't think that their headloss is as high as many make it out to be.

To me a venturi tee fitting is much like the wing of an airplane. It's an efficient design but if you don't have enough velocity you'll never get the plane off the ground and likewise you'll never get the flow to leave the main pipe to warm up the branches.

If the Vitodens' internal circ has a limitation with your system, to me it would be more on the flow side and less on the head side.

Many people also believe that converted gravity systems need a high flow rate as well.

This very well could be a situation where your Vitodens could have had the minimum speed capped sufficiently high enough to provide the flow you need for your system without the LLH yet not be able to provide enough flow to keep a gravity system heating evenly.