
"Nothing like this will be built again" - ajdecon
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/rants/nothing-like-this-will-be-buil.html?
======
arethuza
Worth noting that the visitor centre for Torness recently re-opened, it looks
like you need to make an appointment in advance (for security checks) but,
having had a detailed tour of another AGR plant years ago, I suspect it may be
worth visiting:

[http://www.edfenergy.com/about-us/energy-
generation/nuclear-...](http://www.edfenergy.com/about-us/energy-
generation/nuclear-generation/nuclear-visitor-centres.shtml)

Also, if you do visit Torness and you have an interest in science (which seems
likely) then you might want to visit the nearby Hutton's Unconformity at
Siccar Point - this is one of the places where 18th century geologist James
Hutton first found evidence of the tremendous age of the Earth, as his
travelling companion John Playfair put it:

"The mind seemed to grow giddy by looking so far back into the abyss of time"

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutton%27s_Unconformity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutton%27s_Unconformity)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siccar_Point](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siccar_Point)

~~~
cstross
This wasn't a visitor centre tour.

This was a "psst, wanna come visit where I work?" tour from one of the guys
who built and ran the plant.

Either pre-9/11 or very shortly post-9/11 -- with the rise of the post-9/11
security state there's no way such a tour would happen today. Indeed, the
friend in question said some time later that _he_ didn't have that kind of
access-all-areas pass any more.

------
jmduke
Mirror:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:S384WfJ...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:S384WfJfgYgJ:www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-
static/rants/nothing-like-this-will-be-buil.html&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1)

Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2140900](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2140900)

~~~
cdr
This is many, many years old - maybe even 10 years old? Maybe someone can find
the original date and put it in the title.

~~~
EdwardCoffin
Archive.org's earliest snapshot of it [edit: at this URL - see below] is from
January 6, 2010, but have a snapshot of the same content at a different URL
from December 26, 2002. Their snapshots of the site itself go back to July 6,
2005, so I'm inclined to believe the article dates only back to 2010 or late
2009 at the earliest.

Edit: and archive.org has an even earlier snapshot from December 26, 2002,
under a different URL.

~~~
_delirium
Here's a Metafilter discussion of it from January 2003, fwiw:
[http://www.metafilter.com/23068/Nothing-like-this-will-be-
bu...](http://www.metafilter.com/23068/Nothing-like-this-will-be-built-again)

------
_delirium
One often gets the "nothing like this will be built again" feeling around
these kinds of engineering projects from the 20th century, since modern
constructions tend to have a very different feel, more sleek and less massive.
Also true with things like transit infrastructure: even though a modern subway
or elevated train line, like the Copenhagen metro (which has both), is better
in just about every way from the old style of construction, it subjectively
doesn't have the same impressive feel of something like the NYC subway or
Chicago El, with their massive steel columns and hundreds of thousands of
rivets.

~~~
arethuza
"with their massive steel columns and hundreds of thousands of rivets"

We have a fantastic example of that near Edinburgh:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forth_Bridge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forth_Bridge)

~~~
tesseract
Wasn't that bridge intentionally designed to not only _be_ robust, but to
_look_ as imposing and robust as possible, in order to reassure the public
since the previous bridge in the location had collapsed?

~~~
arethuza
Yes they certainly succeeded in making it look robust! You are correct in
saying that this desire was based on a previous accident where a bridge
collapsed - although it a bridge in a different location (over the Firth of
Tay at Dundee rather than the Firth of Forth near Edinburgh).

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_Bridge_disaster](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_Bridge_disaster)

One interesting thing if you like Science Fiction is that Iain (M) Banks grew
up in North Queensferry, which is right under the north end of the Forth
Bridge - which completely dominates the wee town. I remember hearing in an
interview that Iain claimed that his fascination with megastructures (e.g.
Culture GSVs and Orbitals) probably came from growing up in an environment
dominated by a Victorian megastructure.

He even set one of his novels on a fictionalized mega-sized version of the
Forth Bridge:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bridge_%28novel%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bridge_%28novel%29)

------
gaius
Nothing like it will be built again because a) successive British governments
over the last 30 years have buried their heads in the sand over energy
policy[1] and b) we as a country don't do actual engineering anymore. Both a
and b mean that our energy future likes wholly in the hands of France!

[1] Say what you like about Thatcher, at least she had a halfway coherent
energy story.

~~~
objclxt
> _we as a country don 't do actual engineering anymore_

...is that really true? The UK is currently home to Europe's largest civil
engineering project (Crossrail), my hometown produces Trent jet engines and
designs wings for all Airbus aircraft. And there's the cars that are both
manufactured (BMW, Honda, Toyota, Nissan, etc) and designed (Jaguar, Aston
Martin, Land Rover, McLaren...) here.

The engineering we do has changed, and maybe there is less of it than there
was forty years ago, but it's a bit hyperbolic to say we simply "don't do"
actual engineering.

~~~
moomin
I seem to recall that, measured by value in real terms, the UK does more
engineering than ever. Just because it's a smaller part of the economy and
doesn't support as many unskilled people doesn't mean it's not happening.

On an unrelated note, some of the social issues we complain about these days
seem to be a direct consequence of the off-shoring of manual labour.

~~~
arethuza
The UK does (at least before the recent recession) more _manufacturing_ that
ever - it's just that the whole process has become super efficient that it
doesn't employ very many people:

"A 2009 report from PricewaterhouseCoopers, citing data from the UK Office for
National Statistics, stated that manufacturing output (gross value added at
2007 prices) has increased in 35 of the 50 years between 1958 and 2007, and
output in 2007 was at record levels, approximately double that in 1958."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_in_the_United_Kin...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_in_the_United_Kingdom)

Our problem is that we got too good at manufacturing!

------
scrumper
My father and I went on an equally in-depth guided tour of Hinkley Point
station back in the mid '80s when I was a boy. We too got to walk on the
reactor lid, view the cooling ponds, and meander underneath miles of thrumming
piping. It was utterly fascinating and one of the very best memories I have of
my childhood. Hinkley Point is a PWR rather than an AGR, but what the author
writes about that collision of space age technology and Victorian plumbing
definitely rings true.

Other highlights for me not mentioned in this article: a great video showing a
high speed diesel train (not just the locomotive) crashing into a waste
transport container; climbing around a whole fleet of tiny decontamination
trucks with radiological protection gear for the drivers and manipulator arms
for picking up material; and getting hands-on with the security system (not
part of the tour; my dad made a friend) and broadcasting over the plant
tannoy. No chance of any of that stuff happening for my kids, sadly.

I was happy to read this even if it is a repeat. A great write up that took me
back.

~~~
vadman
Off-topic, but it's the first time I see somebody use "tannoy" in place of
"PA" \- really identifies you as a Brit :)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tannoy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tannoy)

~~~
scrumper
Guilty. I've lived in the US for a few years and my usage and spelling is
hopelessly mixed up, but that kind of cultural thing is so deeply ingrained
you could use it to catch spies.

------
joezydeco
_" For starters, some embedded controllers in racks in the auxilliary deisel
generator control rooms have EPROMs which have been known to be erased by
camera flashes in the past, triggering a generator trip"_

Wow, I don't know where to begin with this one. Either the engineers have
completely lost all knowledge about how their controllers operate, or nobody
has the right mind to think about putting opaque labels on the EPROM chips or
over the controller board itself?

This kind of stuff borders on urban legend / cargo cult engineering territory.

~~~
shardling
Err, or maybe it's just a sensible precaution, because relying on a single
defense against failure is a bad idea?

~~~
joezydeco
In 1997, someone taking a picture of an embedded controller board at the
Haddam Neck nuclear plant set off the fire protection systems in the control
room, causing everyone to evacuate the control room for an hour.

[http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/gen-
comm/info-...](http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/gen-comm/info-
notices/1997/in97082.html)

And the conclusion?

 _" They also confirmed that the light from the Canon flash and the Polaroid
flashbulb could be effectively blocked by "black bagging" the flash, or by
blocking the EPROM window with "tin foil" held in place by clear cellulose
tape, or by blocking the EPROM window with "standard electrical tape."_

~~~
shardling
No shit, now read my post again with the knowledge that _I already knew that_!
:)

~~~
joezydeco
You're absolutely right. My apologies.

------
gwern
An interesting counterpoint, in being submitted on the same day as
[http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/07/03/1300018110](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/07/03/1300018110)
"Evidence on the impact of sustained exposure to air pollution on life
expectancy from China’s Huai River policy" starts getting publicity:

> This paper's findings suggest that an arbitrary Chinese policy that greatly
> increases total suspended particulates (TSPs) air pollution is causing the
> 500 million residents of Northern China to lose more than 2.5 billion life
> years of life expectancy. The quasi-experimental empirical approach is based
> on China’s Huai River policy, which provided free winter heating via the
> provision of coal for boilers in cities north of the Huai River but denied
> heat to the south. Using a regression discontinuity design based on distance
> from the Huai River, we find that ambient concentrations of TSPs are about
> 184 μg/m3 [95% confidence interval (CI): 61, 307] or 55% higher in the
> north. Further, the results indicate that life expectancies are about 5.5 y
> (95% CI: 0.8, 10.2) lower in the north...

~~~
jamesaguilar
Love your writing, but how is this a counterpoint? The article claims no more
AGR reactors will be built. It's bullish on nuclear reactors in general.

~~~
bdr
He's using a different meaning of the word counterpoint than the one you're
thinking of.

------
digitalengineer
Don't be so sure... In cinema's this year: Pandora's Promise:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fm8SVLOacQ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fm8SVLOacQ)

~~~
takluyver
The claim is that the particular kind of reactor (gas cooled) is unlikely to
be built again. It's (apparently) more efficient than competing designs, but
also larger and more complex, and it didn't really become popular. It
certainly looks like more nuclear power plants in general will be built.

~~~
DennisP
Silly nitpick: this exact design appears to be finished, but some of the Gen
IV designs are gas-cooled:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor)

------
micro_cam
Last year I went on a tour [1] of the 1944 "B reactor" at Hanford (the first
large scale reactor [2]) They don't allow you to crawl around on stuff but you
can see a surprising amount and they have people who worked on it giving
talks. Pretty cool and worth doing.

To me one of the coolest things was the complexity of the (pre
computerization) monitoring/control room and systems.

[1][http://manhattanprojectbreactor.hanford.gov/](http://manhattanprojectbreactor.hanford.gov/)
[2][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B_Reactor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B_Reactor)

------
gambiting
Fantastic. I live within an hour drive to the plant so I just sent them an
email asking if there are any tours scheduled in coming weeks. Would love to
visit myself.

------
RyanZAG
Looks like whoever posted this got around the repost limit by appending a '?'
to the end of the url. Someone should fix that.

~~~
jdale27
_Looks like whoever posted this got around the repost limit by appending a '?'
to the end of the url. Someone should fix that._

Yeah, because we should never, _ever_ be subjected to the same content twice.
After all, this is Hacker _News_ , not Hacker _Olds_ , amirite?

(Sorry for the snark. I have been reading Hacker News for several years, and I
don't recollect having read this article before. I enjoyed it, I upvoted it,
and I'm glad it was reposted.)

~~~
cstross
Y'know, if I'd _known_ it was an evergreen I'd have posted it myself, for the
link karma.

Humph.

~~~
mikeash
Come on, surely you already have far more internet points than any one man
needs. Share the wealth a little!

------
WalterBright
Heck, half the things in my house will never be built again. Like my Minox
camera from the 1950's. It's beautifully machined, marvelously engineered, and
utterly obsolete. And, back when I could still get film for it, the pictures
were crappy even by disposable camera standards.

------
jfb
"Anti-rabbit defenses"?

~~~
cstross
Think radiation leaks. In event of a major incident, you do _not_ want rabbits
on site burrowing around and then spreading cesium-137 and other pernicious
decay products.

~~~
arethuza
So protection from radioactive rabbits? :-)

------
afterburner
Didn't realize nuclear reactors were that _inefficient_. But I get most of my
power from hydro, so that's perhaps an unfair comparison.

~~~
pjscott
There are hard limmits on the efficiency of any heat engine; the plant
described here is actually doing pretty well. And, hey, fuel is cheap; the
energy density of uranium is pretty spectacular.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermodynamic_efficiency](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermodynamic_efficiency)

------
solox3
> smelling the thing (mostly machine oil and steam, and a hint of ozone near
> the transformers)

Possibly just metal oxides or dimethylsulphide, as ozone is odourless.

~~~
rimantas
Next time choose your sources more carefully. Not only ozone has smell, its
name means that.

~~~
VLM
He's technically correct in that the "smell of ozone" is just burned/oxidized
respiratory system. That's why all the strong oxidizers smell pretty much the
same unless they've got "something interesting" attached to them other than
boring ole O2 like ozone. On a small scale like parts per billion its a unique
stinkyness and mostly harmless, so they claim. Its more of a flash burn of the
respiratory system, not a slow cooked fat rendering, which in that case does
kinda smell like burned meat. Smell of oxidized proteins, not so much slowly
rendered fat.

------
quattrofan
Can someone explain this? "generators spin in a sealed atmosphere of hydrogen
gas", hydrogen, really?

~~~
benxron2
Hydrogen offers low drag and good thermal conductivity:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen-
cooled_turbo_generator](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen-
cooled_turbo_generator)

~~~
nakedrobot2
Why wouldn't they spin instead in a near-vacuum, instead of an environment of
hydrogen?

~~~
bronson
Because near vacuum is a terrible heat conductor.

