Three Mile Island (pics!)

[Particle Man]

Originally Posted by marko138

Interesting. I didnt' know that. Would unit 2 be like super hot at this point? Liker several thousand degrees or what?

I think he means "hot" as in radioactive...

ETA: damn, he beat me to it.

I went to college by the Nine Mile reactors in Oswego, NY. We used to jog by ever morning. The ice at the base of the cooling tower in the winter was pretty neat.

[marko138]

Ok...got ya.

[marko138]

Originally Posted by Trip

Oh shit they are replacing the steam generators. That's gonna suck, we just did that a few years ago. This is one of the fuckin biggest cranes I have ever seen and will ever see in person.

Yeah...their license is about up. That guy toward the end is a wacko...he opposes everything about TMI. He's nuts.

[Trip]

The wiki on the TMI accident is actually really detailed if you want to know more about it.

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

[marko138]

Nuclear power plants are cool.

[Trip]

Looks like the reactor vessel is still in Unit 2, but they took the fuel out. The reactor building is too radioactive for people to walk in because of the coolant that spilled everywhere and seeped into the concrete. The cost was too high to decommish it and they left a lot to be cleaned up when they retire Unit 1 and clean the site up.

[marko138]

Originally Posted by Trip

Looks like the reactor vessel is still in Unit 2, but they took the fuel out. The reactor building is too radioactive for people to walk in because of the coolant that spilled everywhere and seeped into the concrete. The cost was too high to decommish it and they left a lot to be cleaned up when they retire Unit 1 and clean the site up.

I see. Your description explains alot to me. I do know the fuel from Unit 2 is now in Idaho.


Question...how do they transport the fuel? Seems like that would be a risky endevour.

Another thing....so the water thats rushing at the bottom of the cooling towers...that is to replentish the water lost in the cooling process...as in the stuff coming out of the top of the tower?

[Trip]

Originally Posted by marko138

I see. Your description explains alot to me. I do know the fuel from Unit 2 is now in Idaho.


Question...how do they transport the fuel? Seems like that would be a risky endevour.

Another thing....so the water thats rushing at the bottom of the cooling towers...that is to replentish the water lost in the cooling process...as in the stuff coming out of the top of the tower?

Transporting fuel is very secretive. I think they do it by trucks, I have never seen and if I have I never knew what they had in them.

The cooling tower is to cool the water before they put it back in the river or back to the plant. The plant operates better with colder water so they cool some to put back in the plant, but a lot of it goes back into the river at least here anyway. It depends on the license of the plant and what temp they can discharge water back into the river. A lot of ecological laws that I know nothing about. The water in it is clean, it never got radioactive cause of the seperation through the steam generators in a Pressurized Water Reactor. Boiling Water Reactors have radioactive water throughout the plant and I would never want to work in one. They have a different cooling setup.

Here's a good pic for you to see the basic systems of the plant.

(wtf is a transformator??? I think they mean transformer.)

[marko138]

I saw that drawing on Wiki.


According to that article...the severity of the problem wasn't known until the next shift came it. I would have loved to know what their reaction was when they came to work and discovered this. I bet they lost their minds.

[Porkchop]

Originally Posted by marko138

Nuclear power plants are cool.

They are creepy as fuck. Very ominous. I have always been fascinated with the Chernobyl accident. Yet again, very creepy.

We have a power plant near our lake house in Port Clinton, Ohio. The Davis Besse Electrical Nuclear Power Plant? I sit on the beach and watch it at night. The red lights on top make the smoke red at night. I always wonder about it when i'm out running the boat or the Yami waverunners.




[2003]"Davis-Besse nuclear power plant shut down after workers discovered that boric acid had eaten away at 70 pounds of steel, leaving a 6-by-5-inch hole in its reactor head. Only a thin, 3/8-inch strip of stainless steel lining protected the reactor from rupturing and causing what could have been the most devastating nuclear accident since Three Mile Island.

"We could have had the worst nuclear catastrophe this nation had ever experienced."