

Fukushima: Mark 1 Nuclear Reactor Design Caused GE Scientist To Quit In Protest - suprgeek
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/fukushima-mark-nuclear-reactor-design-caused-ge-scientist/story?id=13141287

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tres
The title is technically correct; however, it seems like link bait once you
get to page two of the article and see:

"Bridenbaugh told ABC News that he believes the design flaws that prompted his
resignation from GE were eventually addressed at the Fukushima Daiichi plant."

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rbanffy
> he believes the design flaws that prompted his resignation from GE were
> eventually addressed

Anyway, a design that blows up when power is cut because it cannot cool itself
down to safe levels is... weird.

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rbanffy
Dear downvoter, would you buy a car that falls apart (or blows up killing the
passengers) when it runs out of gas?

If something can go wrong, it will, given time, go wrong. Even if there is one
chance in a million for the whole chain of countermeasures to fail in tandem,
give it a million chances to happen and you end up with a good chance of it
happening.

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ceejayoz
There are part/system failures in cars that result in death, just as with
nuclear reactors.

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rbanffy
Indeed there are, but one could suppose nuclear reactors would only fail
catastrophically when something catastrophic happened, not when being shut
down.

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sorbus
I would call an earthquake (which was larger than it was designed to
withstand) followed by a tsunami (which knocked out the emergency generators)
pretty catastrophic.

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rbanffy
It was designed to shut down during a quake, something it did. What bothers me
is that something that generates so much heat as to require active cooling
(something that already indicates less than ideal operating conditions)
requires an _external_ system to cool it. The first option should always be to
use the reactor to generate power to operate the pumps that cool it. A small
turbine mechanically connected to the pumps would be a better option.
Operating the cooling system doesn't require more than a tiny fraction of the
post-shutdown thermal output.

I am fine with having the independent generators to operate cooling pumps in
an emergency shutdown, but I am not very enthusiastic as they being the first
line of defense.

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georgieporgie
The embedded video was American scare-journalism at its finest. _Workers at a
compromised nuclear site wearing full suits and masks? Why, that's just like
CHERNOBYL!_

