# Very Depressing Article... EMP & Nuclear Power Plants



## texican (Oct 4, 2003)

I don't know how many folks have seen the series on the History Channel... about Life after People. One episode dealt with nuclear power plants. Without humans around to maintain the power plants, they'd eventually melt down, after the electric grid elsewhere failed. I knew that nuclear plants needed an outside grid to run the plants... when I first learned this, I thought it must be un-true... heck, the nuclear plant should just feed power back to itself. But no. Okay, if all people disappear, all the plants would eventually melt down and create uninhabitable zones for a long time.

There's a current article on survivalblog.com by a nuclear engineer. He states, in detail, what would happen to a nuclear power plant, if we suffered from a widespread EMP attack, or a large solar flare event. When the outside grid goes down, backup diesel generators take over, to keep the heating rods cooled down. Eventually, without resupply, the tanks would overheat, and the cores would melt... however, the containment facilities, if not compromised, would contain all the contamination. 

Kicker is, all the spent fuel rods, from the get-go, are stored on site, in deep pools. These pools are in regular metal roofed storage type structures, in deep water... and the water is circulated the same as the in use fuel rods, to keep them cool. When the cooling to these rods ceases, the water will boil off, the rods will eventually explode, sending out a radioactive cloud of debris.

The engineer recommends anyone living within 50 miles of a nuclear plant, either be prepared for such an eventuality (if an EMP/Solar Flare event occurs), or bug out asap... within a day if it appears things are out of control... if diesel rigs can keep diesel deliveries going, it'd be okay... but that is questionable.

Thankfully, I'm not close to a nuke plant. It would be nice if we could get ALL of the spent rods buried deep in the ground somewhere.


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## Ruby (May 10, 2002)

There is one south of us but I believe it's more than 50 miles away.


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## wyld thang (Nov 16, 2005)

i just read an article about using thorium instead of plutonium(from uranium)--it's plentiful, cheap, not so "toxic", and little mini size reactors can be built because there isdnt the need for massive/elaborate containment. It seems the tech has been there all along for thorium, but the gov needed--guess what--plutonium for weapons, so that is the direction nuke energy went.

http://energyfromthorium.com/

http://www.contrarianprofits.com/articles/thorium-the-ultimate-alternative-energy/12493

this is the article i read
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...vernight-with-a-nuclear-dash-for-thorium.html

pretty cool, huh?! but your right, that is depressing about the meltdown


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## dezingg (Feb 25, 2010)

Sigh. I'm sure that Pacific Gas & Electric will never let Diablo Canyon melt down, so I'm perfectly safe. Right?

(I'd better start digging ... )


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## Texasdirtdigger (Jan 17, 2010)

WIHH. What you said. Does 51 vs 50 miles make a difference?


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## beaglebiz (Aug 5, 2008)

Im within 50 miles of the Susquehanna Nuclear power Plant. 
http://www.pplweb.com/ppl+generation/ppl+susquehanna.htm
If something goes south, we would probably be better off dead.
They are planning to put in a third tower


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## deaconjim (Oct 31, 2005)

The engineer is apparently not familiar with the type of nuclear power plants in use in the U.S. Some types might be in danger of meltdowns, but our plants are designed to use water as a reflector as well as a coolant. 

When the plants are in the condition known as "critical", they are in a stable mode producing heat which is then used to produce steam for the turbine generators. Unless the control rods are withdrawn further, power will remain stable. If something should occur, automatic systems will cause the control rods to be inserted, displacing the water from the fuel, stopping the nuclear reaction. Once the reaction is stopped, heat is no longer being produced. 

In the event the coolant is lost, that same water is no longer serving as a reflector. Without the reflector, the plant cannot reach a critical state, and no heat can be produced. Without heat generation, there will be no meltdown.

These plants are designed to be inherantly stable, although there are other types (such as those used in Chernobyl) that are not. I would have no fear of living near a reactor plant.


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## Space Cowboy (Apr 26, 2008)

Absolutely right DJ!
One of the reasons Nuclear is so expensive is that it is incredibly over engineered. The core of any American plant will NOT melt (no matter what you have seen from movies). I have been inside a few and they are very safe.

SC



deaconjim said:


> The engineer is apparently not familiar with the type of nuclear power plants in use in the U.S. Some types might be in danger of meltdowns, but our plants are designed to use water as a reflector as well as a coolant.
> 
> When the plants are in the condition known as "critical", they are in a stable mode producing heat which is then used to produce steam for the turbine generators. Unless the control rods are withdrawn further, power will remain stable. If something should occur, automatic systems will cause the control rods to be inserted, displacing the water from the fuel, stopping the nuclear reaction. Once the reaction is stopped, heat is no longer being produced.
> 
> ...


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## mekasmom (Jan 19, 2010)

Well.... hopefully that over-engineering will actually benefit us in some way should the unthinkable happen.


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## timfromohio (Jun 19, 2007)

I read the survivalblog article before Texican posted and thought it was very good.

DJ - read the article then comment again if you agree. The point of the guy's article was that the core did not present the largest risk if grid and backup power were lost.


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## Harry Chickpea (Dec 19, 2008)

DJ is right. And spent rods are (wait for it...) spent. FWIW, COAL plants have more nuclear emissions than nukes.

The ONLY concern I would have about a U.S. style nuke plant is if it had a direct hit from an ICBM. But then, it would only be adding to the death and destruction from the ICBM.


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## deaconjim (Oct 31, 2005)

timfromohio said:


> I read the survivalblog article before Texican posted and thought it was very good.
> 
> DJ - read the article then comment again if you agree. The point of the guy's article was that the core did not present the largest risk if grid and backup power were lost.


He makes a good case, except he overlooks the fact that once the the reactor is sub critical, it stops generating heat and cools down. It takes very specific conditions to bring the core to a critical state. We very often practiced drills involving loss of coolant accidents, as well as loss of all electrical power.


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## texican (Oct 4, 2003)

Wind in Her Hair said:


> and why would I feel safe outside that 50 mile meltdown zone?
> 
> Wouldn't alot depend on air current and direction, wind velocity, water transfer of radioactive particles, contamination of food stuffs inside the 50 mile parameter that might head my direction?


I'm thinking, even with a good wind, the worst particles are the heaviest, and fall out of the air faster.

................
So, is this nuclear engineer wrong? Maybe I should (usually I "do" once a week) go back to survivalblog.com and see if anyone's refuted his statements..

IF all electrical components in a nuclear plant are compromised, ya'll are saying that we shouldn't worry? That'd mean the Life After People episode was wrong too?


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## texican (Oct 4, 2003)

Harry Chickpea said:


> DJ is right. And spent rods are (wait for it...) spent. FWIW, COAL plants have more nuclear emissions than nukes.
> 
> The ONLY concern I would have about a U.S. style nuke plant is if it had a direct hit from an ICBM. But then, it would only be adding to the death and destruction from the ICBM.


The 'spent' fuel rods are spent, only in they don't have enough mojo to make it economical to use in generating heat.

The rods are still deadly radioactive, for what, 10K years? 100K years? If the rods were safe, they'd throw them away, instead of storing them onsite, waiting for a safe place to store them.

Personally, I'm all for nuclear power. I think they should be built in the middle of highly concentrated metropolitan areas, like NYC, Philly, DFW, Miami, LA, etc. AND store the waste locally, on site, right amongst the beneficiaries.


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## chickenista (Mar 24, 2007)

wyld thang said:


> i just read an article about using thorium instead of plutonium(from uranium)--it's plentiful, cheap, not so "toxic", and little mini size reactors can be built because there isdnt the need for massive/elaborate containment. It seems the tech has been there all along for thorium, but the gov needed--guess what--plutonium for weapons, so that is the direction nuke energy went.
> 
> http://energyfromthorium.com/
> 
> ...


Ditto the thorium articles. I read them last week too. Very way cool stuff!


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## deaconjim (Oct 31, 2005)

texican said:


> The 'spent' fuel rods are spent, only in they don't have enough mojo to make it economical to use in generating heat.
> 
> The rods are still deadly radioactive, for what, 10K years? 100K years? If the rods were safe, they'd throw them away, instead of storing them onsite, waiting for a safe place to store them.
> 
> Personally, I'm all for nuclear power. I think they should be built in the middle of highly concentrated metropolitan areas, like NYC, Philly, DFW, Miami, LA, etc. AND store the waste locally, on site, right amongst the beneficiaries.


Even before they are spent, they need the reflector and a moderator (both are functions are provided by the cooling water) to create the conditions necessary to achieve criticality. The fuel is only producing heat while it is critical.


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## springvalley (Jun 23, 2009)

DeaconJim is correct. There are failsafe controls that will drop the rods into the water, thereby shutting the reactor down. There are many safety features and redundant backup safety features, therefore I doubt very much that a power plant will blow up or melt down due to loss of power. I worked for Exelon in their nuke plant as a systems engineer, recirculatory system, so I do have some knowledge. 

However, you're still talking about a loss of power situation where the nuke plant has a backup generator and all electronics are working. I still wonder what would happen if an EMP hit where all the electronics were toast. I'd asked a number of folks if there was a MANUAL shutdown that wouldn't rely on any electronics, mechanical only. I never did get a response one way or the other. 

Catherine


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## deaconjim (Oct 31, 2005)

springvalley said:


> DeaconJim is correct. There are failsafe controls that will drop the rods into the water, thereby shutting the reactor down. There are many safety features and redundant backup safety features, therefore I doubt very much that a power plant will blow up or melt down due to loss of power. I worked for Exelon in their nuke plant as a systems engineer, recirculatory system, so I do have some knowledge.
> 
> However, you're still talking about a loss of power situation where the nuke plant has a backup generator and all electronics are working. I still wonder what would happen if an EMP hit where all the electronics were toast. I'd asked a number of folks if there was a MANUAL shutdown that wouldn't rely on any electronics, mechanical only. I never did get a response one way or the other.
> 
> Catherine


The plants I worked in required electricity to keep the rods up. A loss of power would immediately result in the rods being fully inserted.


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## springvalley (Jun 23, 2009)

Thanks for the peace of mind DeaconJim!! I had wondered about this but found it strange that nobody could answer the question for me. Seems like a simple design that would be pretty foolproof. Wonder what the delay is between loss of power and startup of the backup generator 'cause I doubt the rods would drop during that timeframe.
Catherine


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## deaconjim (Oct 31, 2005)

springvalley said:


> Thanks for the peace of mind DeaconJim!! I had wondered about this but found it strange that nobody could answer the question for me. Seems like a simple design that would be pretty foolproof. Wonder what the delay is between loss of power and startup of the backup generator 'cause I doubt the rods would drop during that timeframe.
> Catherine


The rods are spring loaded, and require electricity to hold them in place. If the power is lost, they are inserted almost instantaneously. They will be on the bottom before the backup generators ever make one revolution.


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## Texasdirtdigger (Jan 17, 2010)

Thanks DJ.. I think I feel more at ease now


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## texican (Oct 4, 2003)

Where's that dead horse smiley....

the potential trouble isn't with the reactor, it's with the stored rods...

I'm not really worried, as I'm over 150 miles away from the nearest reactor...

If we ever do suffer from an EMP/Solar flare, where all electronics are shut down, the worry over radioactive fallout is probably a lesser worry... and if it does occur (nuclear troubles) we'd not know about it till it was too late. Unless you have radioactivity detectors around the homestead.

Now I can start to worry about more important things! Like how much cement I'll mix this week...


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## halfpint (Jan 24, 2005)

I've been out of nuclear for about 18 years now, but upon loss of power the control rods will drop down and stop the nuclear reaction. The company I worked for had diesel generators at all the nuclear plants and although hopefully they will start automatically, they can be started manually - which I was told was not a fun job. The diesel generators are tested on a regular schedule (I think weekly but it's been a long time), and are usually run to generate power several times a year for good maintenance purposes and to rotate out the diesel fuel.

There are several ways to shut down a nuclear power facility and it can be done manually and usually from several locations within the plant.

For what it's worth, most instrumentation in a nuclear power facility is fairly archaic. After Three Mile Island when construction projects died, getting newer instrumentation qualified was dropped by vendors since no new construction was going on. And it's hard to get electronics to withstand the high temperature, seismic (earthquake or other shaking type event) and radiation requirements enough to get them qualified to use in a nuclear power facility. So a good bit of the instrumentation still depends upon pneumatics or thermal changes rather than newer technologies that are purely electronics, and will still operate without power.

However, with an EMP, I'm not sure whether everything electronic within a plant would be destroyed, and if power could even be transmitted from the generators to the plant. The control rods would stop the reaction, but it would be nice to have cooling water circulating for a while to keep your other systems from bursting from overheating. If your turbine stops suddenly without turning and slowly cooling, the shaft will warp enough that it would have to be replaced before generating electricity again. I would think someone who is familiar with EMP and transmission/distribution of power would be better to answer this question.

I know there are safety trips on the incoming/outgoing transmission lines that are designed to stop surges from affecting the plant, but whether these will work for an EMP is beyond me. 

Dawn


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## texican (Oct 4, 2003)

...so, could a reactor and the used rods stored on site, stay safe and secure, for say a year, without any problems... say it IS shut down, manually or otherwise... is it going to need constant flow of coolant? or can it 'mothballed' indefinitely without any human oversight?

...if we suddenly are sent back to the 1850's (no power grid, all transformers blown, and no replacements) ...think ab fab worst case scenario... getting diesel fuel from depots to reactor plants could be difficult, and without backup power....

Can't tell ya'll how nice it is to have several folks on here with experience in nuclear physics and operations.


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## deaconjim (Oct 31, 2005)

texican said:


> ...so, could a reactor and the used rods stored on site, stay safe and secure, for say a year, without any problems... say it IS shut down, manually or otherwise... is it going to need constant flow of coolant? or can it 'mothballed' indefinitely without any human oversight?
> 
> ...if we suddenly are sent back to the 1850's (no power grid, all transformers blown, and no replacements) ...think ab fab worst case scenario... getting diesel fuel from depots to reactor plants could be difficult, and without backup power....
> 
> Can't tell ya'll how nice it is to have several folks on here with experience in nuclear physics and operations.


I don't know that it would be the best way to store the fuel if there was any hope of using it again, but there would be no danger of a meltdown. Once the plant is shut down, it will continue to cool to ambient

Another thing to know is that a "meltdown" as described by Jane Fonda is purely a fictional event. There is no "China Syndrome" going to happen. If for some reason a core did remain critical long enough to begin melting, the change in the geometry of the fuel would cause it to go sub-critical and stop producing heat. As I stated earlier, it requires a lot of very specific conditions to make the reactor critical, and if those conditions are not met it will shut down.


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## Jim-mi (May 15, 2002)

I would think that critical electronics would be "hardened" 
yea or nay ??


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## timfromohio (Jun 19, 2007)

My understanding was that storing rods on-site wasn't really a safe long-term option. Otherwise, debates over potential long-term storage sites (like Yucca mountain) would not still be on-going? Is that correct?


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## Space Cowboy (Apr 26, 2008)

"Rods" are actually made from small "pellets" (at least in the reactor I visited). The pellets are stored separately and rods assembled when needed.

SC



timfromohio said:


> My understanding was that storing rods on-site wasn't really a safe long-term option. Otherwise, debates over potential long-term storage sites (like Yucca mountain) would not still be on-going? Is that correct?


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## timfromohio (Jun 19, 2007)

Space Cowbow - yup, that's my understanding as well. The pellets are also coated as a safety measure. This I know about. It's post-reactor time rods that are dangerous.


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## soulsurvivor (Jul 4, 2004)

In March this year the Ky Senate legislature voted to lift a 26 yr ban on nuclear power plant construction in Ky. We do have a uranium fuel plant in Paducah but not a nuclear power plant. I'm certain that there will be some consideration given to changing over to nuclear now that the ban has been lifted.


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## Ohio dreamer (Apr 6, 2006)

Interesting thread. I have freaked out, got more information and chilled out, been educated, and chose a personal solution all in the space of 10 mins!! I think that is the most productive 10 min I've had all week.


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## cbcansurvive (Jan 29, 2009)

Texican is talking about "spent fuel pools"

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

From this article though, it seems that those of us in North America can take a little solace in the fact that the cladding of the rods is engineered so that in the event of a fuel pool failure (ie: the pumps go down or it drains out somehow) the cladding will not melt or burn even if the fuel heats up. Still, I'd rather not test that theory. Regardless, nuclear power plants are merely the beginning of our worries if we were instantly sent back to the 19th century via a solar flare event, EMP, etc... Think of all of the industrial facilities (chemical plants, manufacturing plants, refineries, and the list goes on) that would begin to implode after being starved of electricity and/or diesel fuel long enough. Massive fires, clouds of poisonous gases, and widespread groundwater contamination would wreak havoc on whoever was left. Only those in truly isolated areas-probably at least 100 miles away from any of these types of facilities in all directions-would stand a good chance of surviving.


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## soulsurvivor (Jul 4, 2004)

...or those with the permission to enter the underground facilities maintained by government and other various groups across the US. That is a long and involved reading of available online research that can entertain you for hours.


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## wyld thang (Nov 16, 2005)

texican! I found something to cheer you up
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9hZ_Ozk1pI[/ame]


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## jrpoland (Jan 10, 2009)

Deacon Jim,

Do you mind if I ask where you got your nuc knowledge--just out of curiosity. I served in the nuclear navy (submarines) and it seems like lots of folks in the nuclear industry start there. 

For the record, I agree with you. You are spot on.

Jim


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## deaconjim (Oct 31, 2005)

jrpoland said:


> Deacon Jim,
> 
> Do you mind if I ask where you got your nuc knowledge--just out of curiosity. I served in the nuclear navy (submarines) and it seems like lots of folks in the nuclear industry start there.
> 
> ...


You guess it. U.S. Navy, EM1(SS)


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