Shouldn't we disable Nuclear Reactors in California?

[daveb]

But as far as I know, no new reactor is being built right now.

One of the main reasons for this is it takes a long time to obtain all the necessary permits and licenses required for just constructing a new plant. There are plants "in the works", that are doing environmental impact studies, etc. http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors.html" describes the different licenses and permits.

Another reason it's taken so long is because there was not a lot of public or even political backing for new plants because of the memory of TMI and then Chernobyl. That started to change a while back, but now with Fukishima, I imagine that will again reverse.

From Wikipedia:

Health and safety concerns, the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island, and the 1986 Chernobyl disaster played a part in stopping new plant construction in many countries although the public policy organization Brookings Institution suggests that new nuclear units have not been ordered in the U.S. because of soft demand for electricity, and cost overruns on nuclear plants due to regulatory issues and construction delays.[

 

[Luca Bevil]

No, apparently you don't know what would happen. The matter has been studied in depth by others.


http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/RL34331.pdf

Thanks for the interesting link.

The answers I was looking for is there for me and anyone to read and draw one's own conclusions.

"Nuclear power plants were designed to withstand hurricanes, earthquakes, and other extreme events. But deliberate attacks by large airliners loaded with fuel, such as those that crashed into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, were not analyzed when design requirements for today’s reactors were determined. Concern about aircraft crashes was intensified by a taped interview shown September 10, 2002, on the Arab TV station al-Jazeera, which contained a statement that Al Qaeda initially planned to include a nuclear plant in its list of 2001 attack sites.
In light of the possibility that an air attack might penetrate the containment structure of a nuclear plant or a spent fuel storage facility, some interest groups have suggested that such an event could be followed by a meltdown or spent fuel fire and widespread radiation exposure. Nuclear industry spokespersons have countered by pointing out that relatively small, low-lying nuclear power plants are difficult targets for attack, and have argued that penetration of the containment is unlikely, and that even if such penetration occurred it probably would not reach the reactor vessel.
They suggest that a sustained fire, such as that which melted the steel support structures in the World Trade Center buildings, would be impossible unless an attacking plane penetrated the containment completely, including its fuel-bearing wings."

Having a bit of structural engineering competence myself I formed my own opinion on the matter of resilience of typical concrete NPP structures, especially outside the containment vessel.

On the "force-onforce” security exercises referred to in the first pages I have no experience to comment not being (and not being interested to become) a military expert.

 

[daveb]

On the "force-onforce” security exercises referred to in the first pages I have no experience to comment not being (and not being interested to become) a military expert.

I was taking a tour of San Onofre (a friend's wife was the Senior Reactor Safety Officer), and she relayed an amusing story about how she was working the graveyard shift one night. Apparently, the security forces there (and probably at every NPP) conduct mock exercises for training purposes. This particular night, she saw one of the forces (dressed as a ninja) enter the outside of the control room and put a hunk of playdough on the glass. He waved at her, smiled, and left. She promptly picked up the phone to someone and told them she has just been killed in a massive explosion which took out the control room.

Moral of the story, these guys train a lot I would guess.

 

[NUCENG]

Well, I just wanted an explanation for over 30 years without building a new NPP. I can't believe that TMI alone was responsible for that... maybe for the first 10 years, but what's with the period after that?

Maybe they are not expensive anymore, so there are over two dozen new plants being planned. Maybe it's something else. I just want to know the reason. Don't worry, I won't give you any anti-nuclear opinions etc. I just want to know the reason for that gap.

And I was seriously trying to answer that. It was political reality that the public didn't want new nuclear construction. Some states banned new nuclear plants. The major architect engineer firms that would have built new construction saw that legal fees and wrangling would cost more than the plant itself, and there was plenty of work at existing plants. Political climate, lack of economic justification and increased non-hardware costs put the US nuclear industry into hiatus. The doors started to crack open as the plants proved their worth and reliable safe nuclear power became at least an argument for new construction. Oil shortages and expenses of imported oil helped. Concern over the environment and global warming helped. We have even seena founder of one of the biggest "green" organizations change from anti to pro nuclear. Plants were uprated and licenses were extended for existing plants. Major blackouts revealed the need for stable reliable baseload generation.

Are nuclear plants expensive to build? Yes they are. But once built fuel costs for nuclear are a lot lower than buying and transporting 100 car coal trains to a fossil plant every day. Costs of Oil and natural gas are going up faster than nuclear fuel costs and may soon be having declkining production. If carbon taxes become reality, nuclear economics will get another boost. Yhe per KW cost of construction, fueling, operation and maintenance of nuclear plants is already competitive with fossil generation. It is far cheaper than dsolar and wind power, but those industries are still developing. Times change, public opinion changes, Honest Really, that's what happened.

I won't worry about anti-nuclear propaganda and I do respect anti-nuclear activists that deal with us honestly and on something like a reasonable, technical basis. We do not claim that nuclear power is risk-free. We want to focus the debate on whether the benefits justify the risks of nuclear power. That is where the facts lead. But I recognize emotions are something else and the impacts at TMI, Chernobyl, and Fukushima are an emotional issue.

When a three-pack a day smoker sitting on a barstool tells me that we have to shut dowm the nuclear industry because even an additional microsievert will make him die of cancer as he drives home drunk, I am less than apt to listen. (I don't drink but have friends who do and I'm willing to be a designated driver.)

That is one benefit of this forum. Most people here (even the covert anti-nuclear types) tend to try reason at first. At some point others will drop their act of reasonableness because there are people here with the knowledge and experience co call them on unfounded claims and propoganda. The real value comes when I find someone who can support his basis of beliefs and it comes down to two opposing viewpoints honestly exchanged with respect. That is where I have to reevaluate and justify my own beliefs.

 

[NUCENG]

Thanks for the interesting link.

Having a bit of structural engineering competence myself I formed my own opinion on the matter of resilience of typical concrete NPP structures, especially outside the containment vessel.

On the "force-onforce” security exercises referred to in the first pages I have no experience to comment not being (and not being interested to become) a military expert.

And your "bit of structural engineering competence" is better than those with detailed knowledge, intelligence about the terrorist threat, and a whole lot of structural engineering experience. That sophistry is guilding the lilly. Using it to qualify what is, after all, only your opinion is meaningless. What facts or references are you basing your technical opinion on?

I am happy you admit you are not a military expert. So we need not worry about your expertise on anti-aircraft missile batteries.

 

[Morbius]

Where did the plutonium for the first nuclear bombs come from? Nuclear reactors, of course. Hanford, Windscale... those were nuclear reactors. No civil reactors. But still nuclear ones.

Clancy,

Again - SO WHAT!

Some of the first uses of airplane technology was for fighter / bombers. The very first jet powered aircraft the Me-262 was a military aircraft.

The very first use of Cray supercomputers were for simulating nuclear weapons.

Now we have such computers calculating protein-folding for medical research. Do we say - "Oh that is a BAD technology. Naughty, naughty. That first use of those computers were for bad nuclear weapons. We can't have that - we need to be pure as the driven snow. Therefore, we can't use these BAD computers to calculate our protein folding...

GEESH - give me a break.

The technology is amoral. It's only fuzzy-thinking anti-nukes that want to label nuclear power technology with the broad brush of being associated with nuclear weapons because they can't make their arguments any other way.

Dr. Gregory Greenman

 

[Morbius]

Let's take the Columbia disaster for example. The thermal shield got a hole punched in through a part of foam hitting it at high speed.Either way, I've said it often enough. German scientists researched commercial plane crashes on NPPs and came to the conclusion that the impact would penetrate the walls.

Clancy,

That's because those thermal tiles are one of the few things on the planet that are even more fragile than foam. Those tiles are extremely brittle and there's not much "substance" to them. That's why they have such a low heat conductivity - there's not much there.

The German are DECADES behind the USA in the science and technology of nuclear power and the analysis of plane crashes. The Germans don't have anything like the USA's national laboratories and the monumental advances those labs have made in the past two decades in the science of numerical simulations on massively parallel suipercomputers.

The F-4 Phantom test was not a "be all and end all" test. It was part of a much larger program of study. The F-4 test helped validate that computational models in the computer programs. These structural analysis codes have been researched and refined for a couple decades now due to the demands of the USA's nuclear weapons programs, the USA's nuclear power programs, the USA's NASA programs...

The real lesson from the F-4 test was that the computer models do a very good job at simulating the particulars of that test. The full-sized airliner hitting a full-sized containment is a problem run on the F-4 validated simulation software - and that's the analysis that shows that reactor contains DO stand-up to even the largest airliners.

One thing also learned from the F-4 test was that the fuselage of even the largest airliners are no match for the containment building. The most threatening part of an airliner is, not surprisingly, NOT the fuselage. After all, its a light-weight aluminum SHELL.

Dynamic structural mechanics tells us that you don't need just "mass", that density is far, far more important that just mass for penetration. ( That's why the military uses rounds made of depleted uranium - for it's density.) On an airliner, the densest components are the engines.

That's why Sandia has done full-scale testing of launching full-sized jet engines into containment walls. In those tests, there's no penetration of the engine through the wall.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/20/national/20NUKE.html

The NY Times does bring up that tired old yarn about the wall moving that the anti-nukes always bring up about the F-4 test. A simple calculation that any high-school physics student should be able to do by employing conservation of momentum can EASILY show that the energy that went into moving the wall is less than 4% of the energy available in the collision. Over 96% is available to do damage to the wall.

http://www.public-action.com/911/jmcm/USYDENR/

"Only the containment building at a nuclear powerplant" is designed to withstand such an impact and explosion, says Robert S. Vecchio, principal of metallurgical engineer Lucius Pitkin Inc., referring to the hijacked Boeing 767 airplanes, heavy with fuel, that slammed into each WTC tower.


Dr. Gregory Greenman

 

[clancy688]

@NUCENG

Thanks for your reply!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Clancy,
Again - SO WHAT!

You do realize that you're running in circles?

"Nuke power is not connected to the military."
"Yes it is."
"SO WHAT?"
"Nothing what, I only corrected you..."
"You did NOTHING, you're WRONG!"
"No I'm not, look at the facts..."
"SO WHAT?" ...

I never said something bad about nuclear technology being a children of the nuclear weapons programs. That's the way of nearly all technology. And I'm not one naive pacifist. Still you're rumbling about something like "bad technology". I don't like nuclear technology because of the possible disaster consequences, not because of its history...
All I did was pointing out the history of the nuclear programs and you immeadiatly got it in the wrong throat. So would you please stop that meaningless rumbling for the sake of the whole discussion?
Still it seems like you can't discuss on a reasonable level with me as long as you think I'm die hard anti-nuclear...

The German are DECADES behind the USA in the science and technology of nuclear power and the analysis of plane crashes. The Germans don't have anything like the USA's national laboratories and the monumental advances those labs have made in the past two decades in the science of numerical simulations on massively parallel suipercomputers.

That somehow sounds like an insult to my nation... ;)
Well, I guess you're right with having way more supercomputers. Still, that's a little arrogant. We too have some pretty nice racks. Not as many as you of course. But denying us any technical expertise is a little bit hard for a high-tech country which's also seen as such from our nations, like america.

That's because those thermal tiles are one of the few things on the planet that are even more fragile than foam. Those tiles are extremely brittle and there's not much "substance" to them. That's why they have such a low heat conductivity - there's not much there.

You're right. That was a bad example to use.

Dynamic structural mechanics tells us that you don't need just "mass", that density is far, far more important that just mass for penetration. ( That's why the military uses rounds made of depleted uranium - for it's density.) On an airliner, the densest components are the engines.

That's why Sandia has done full-scale testing of launching full-sized jet engines into containment walls. In those tests, there's no penetration of the engine through the wall.

Interesting. What containment walls did they use? A couple of posts above I posted a german assessment of major plane crashes (747) at NPPs. It disregards the penetration of the walls of newer NPPs (~1980) but it isn't so sure anymore for older NPPs (~1970).

And last but not least, I quote myself:

As for your scientific accuracy, do you mind replying on the other topics of our previous discussion?
Such as evacuations out of mountain villages because of tsunami damages and Fukushima prefecture C137 contaminations (magnitude: 10^7) which are not as high as the ones in Nagasaki (magnitude: 10^4)...?

But it would probably be better to outsource that in the right thread: https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=501637

Any comments? As long as you keep ignoring those former errors of yours, I can't take you serious.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Luca Bevil]

And your "bit of structural engineering competence" is better than those with detailed knowledge, intelligence about the terrorist threat, and a whole lot of structural engineering experience. That sophistry is guilding the lilly. Using it to qualify what is, after all, only your opinion is meaningless. What facts or references are you basing your technical opinion on?

I am happy you admit you are not a military expert. So we need not worry about your expertise on anti-aircraft missile batteries.

It was ironical.
I am a chartered engineer and in Italy for my degree that means that I am entited to perform legally binding structural evaluations, which in fact I have performed in my career.

Apart from that (which is after all peronal and irrelevant to the point being discussed and that I am consisentently making and that you are only trying to rebutt on personal basys which have nothing of technical in nature) my point is (I'll repeat it once again in the hope of discussing in technical terms and not personal attacks):
GE Mark I reactors, at least the ones we can look at in Japan, have lines that go outside the containment vessel, into the turbine building. Being the turbine building a normal civil building in structural terms it would be completely destroyed in a deliberate large airliner crash, which in turn would make what I am sure your competent expertise would call a "beyond the design basys accident".
Consequences at least in Japan plants, would be most likely worse than Fukushima, since no emergency water feed&bleed strategy would be achievable with all feed and fire lines destroyed, in any case no less than Fukushima in my opinion in the luckiest of the impact scenarios.

You have countered this claim telling me that I would become "food for fish" (which apart from the less than sensible consideration of my person likened to a terrorist) makes really no sense since the attack would be suicidal in any case.

I was willing to consider that also structural internal strenghtening could have been carried out in the US (needless to say I was talking about the world, I am not particularly obsessed with US security), but the document just linked here makes quite adamant that this is not the case, or at least has not been required by the NRC.

I'll try to quote the relevant part

In response to comments, the NRC staff proposed in October 2008 that the aircraft impact
assessments be conducted by all new reactors, including those using previously certified
designs.19 The NRC Commissioners, in a 3-1 vote, approved the change February 17, 2009, and it was published in the Federal Register June 12, 2009. The new rule added specific design requirements that all new reactors would have to meet:
Each applicant subject to this section shall perform a design-specific assessment of the
effects on the facility of the impact of a large, commercial aircraft. Using realistic analyses,
the applicant shall identify and incorporate into the design those design features and
functional capabilities to show that, with reduced use of operator actions:
(A) the reactor core remains cooled, or the containment remains intact; and
(B) spent fuel cooling or spent fuel pool integrity is maintained.
As noted above, NRC rejected proposals that existing reactors—in addition to new reactors—be required to protect against aircraft crashes, such as by adding “beamhenge” barriers.

NRC determined that damage from aircraft crashes at existing reactors would be sufficiently mitigated

Once again: showing an F4 hitting a large chunck is completely irrelevant to the structural integrity of buildings tha do not have such structural dimensions.

I hope I made my point in a clear enough manner this time.

 

[NUCENG]

It was ironical.
I am a chartered engineer and in Italy for my degree that means that I am entited to perform legally binding structural evaluations, which in fact I have performed in my career.

Apart from that (which is after all peronal and irrelevant to the point being discussed and that I am consisentently making and that you are only trying to rebutt on personal basys which have nothing of technical in nature) my point is (I'll repeat it once again in the hope of discussing in technical terms and not personal attacks):
GE Mark I reactors, at least the ones we can look at in Japan, have lines that go outside the containment vessel, into the turbine building. Being the turbine building a normal civil building in structural terms it would be completely destroyed in a deliberate large airliner crash, which in turn would make what I am sure your competent expertise would call a "beyond the design basys accident".
Consequences at least in Japan plants, would be most likely worse than Fukushima, since no emergency water feed&bleed strategy would be achievable with all feed and fire lines destroyed, in any case no less than Fukushima in my opinion in the luckiest of the impact scenarios.

You have countered this claim telling me that I would become "food for fish" (which apart from the less than sensible consideration of my person likened to a terrorist) makes really no sense since the attack would be suicidal in any case.

I was willing to consider that also structural internal strenghtening could have been carried out in the US (needless to say I was talking about the world, I am not particularly obsessed with US security), but the document just linked here makes quite adamant that this is not the case, or at least has not been required by the NRC.

I'll try to quote the relevant part

In response to comments, the NRC staff proposed in October 2008 that the aircraft impact
assessments be conducted by all new reactors, including those using previously certified
designs.19 The NRC Commissioners, in a 3-1 vote, approved the change February 17, 2009, and it was published in the Federal Register June 12, 2009. The new rule added specific design requirements that all new reactors would have to meet:
Each applicant subject to this section shall perform a design-specific assessment of the
effects on the facility of the impact of a large, commercial aircraft. Using realistic analyses,
the applicant shall identify and incorporate into the design those design features and
functional capabilities to show that, with reduced use of operator actions:
(A) the reactor core remains cooled, or the containment remains intact; and
(B) spent fuel cooling or spent fuel pool integrity is maintained.
As noted above, NRC rejected proposals that existing reactors—in addition to new reactors—be required to protect against aircraft crashes, such as by adding “beamhenge” barriers.

NRC determined that damage from aircraft crashes at existing reactors would be sufficiently mitigated

Once again: showing an F4 hitting a large chunck is completely irrelevant to the structural integrity of buildings tha do not have such structural dimensions.

I hope I made my point in a clear enough manner this time.

An electronic engineer who doubles as a civil/structural engineer. Congratulations.

All right you raise technical arguments this time so let's look at them.

I note that the target for your aircraft has moved from the reactor building annd containment to the turbine building. The turbine building is a lower height structure than the reactor building itself. This makes it harder to hit, not impossible, just more difficult.

There are lines that leave containment and go to the trubine building. Do you mean the Main Steam Lines? There are two isolation valves (MSIVs) in each of those lines which isolate the reactor from the turbine building in an accident. Or there are ther feedwater lines which also have isolation valves to prevent backflow that might drain the reactor. This portion of the plant is called the steam tunnel and is seismic category 1 and well below the surrounding buildings. That would make it an extremely difficult target to hit with an airliner.

Since the emergency diesel generators in Japan were in the turbine buildings they are not just normal civil buildings. They will also be seismic class I or seismic II/I meaning that the failure of the building must protect the vital areas inside the building including the EDG rooms.

Apart from the diesels and any vital electrical distribution equipment the loss of the turbine building would not be a beyond design basis accident, it wouldn't even be a DBA.

When an aircraft attempts to take out the turbine building are you assuming the destruction is sufficient to take out all distribution lines to the switchyards and the diesels to cause a station blackout? That could become a beyond design basis accident if like Fukushima the station blackout duration exceeded the battery capacity time. This requires even more skill and accuracy and physical separation may make this impossible.

Ok so assume that the pilot is lucky and accomplishes the perfect impact to cause a station blackout. You quoted the discussion of requirements for new plants to be hardened against aircraft impacts as a design basis event. That means no core damage.

For existing plants you also quoted the results of NRC assessments that concluded that the added security features after 9/11 would sufficiently mitigate the effects of an aircraft impact. That means radiation releases and core damage would not expose the population to radiation in excess of the existing legal limits.

I will let you argue about the F4 impact test with Morbius who knows more about that test than I. I have not discussed that test in my posts. But I have read his defense of that test and it sounds reasonable and is consistent with the regulatory decisions made on this threat.

Finally, the line "Luca Brazzi sleeps with the fishes." was a well-known line from the movie "Godfather." The point I was making at the time was that any terrorist attack on a nuclear power plant was not only a suicide mission but most probably an unsuccessful suicide mission.

 

[Luca Bevil]

Well if you go back to my posts I'have always mentioning the impact not specifically against the containment vessel.
I might not have been clear enough so I'll refrain from quoting my original statement again, but that really is not important.

Let's go to technical discussion.
"Normal" residual heat removal toward "cold shutdown" needs (I'll recap only for the casual reader, I am well aware of your expertise and experience on the topic) not only the regular closed loop functioning of the deputed water lines, but also the outgoing water to be refrigerated in an exchange heat, in the condenser, with secondary loop refrigerant water before being fed-back to the reactor.
The fact that MSIVs and othr valves could in fact shut down will prevent immediate drainage but it will not ensure the operability of normal cooling.

If the condenser is located, as it is in Fukushima turbine buildings, it will not survive a "perfect" impact.
Turbine buildings we have seen in Fukushima are of course sismic but they have not walls of 1m + concrete. Nothing even remotely comparable with the Twin Towers or Pentagon structure that were nonetheless tragically penetrated on September the 11th.
They are in fact normal, albeit sismic civil buildings.

With condenser destroyed, widespread damage from jet fuel ignition and explosion, most likely electric switchboard/equipment damaged, residul portion of pipes (if any) that need to be intercepted to allow any "sea water-like" kind of extreme mitigation measure,
I do not think the Fukushima design would have withstood such an impact (on probabilities of such a tragic event I would like not to comment) any better than it did withstood the flooding.

Having read the excellent technical level of your posts on the long Fuku thread I find hard to believe you would think that specific plant would survive such an accident.

Is it possible that US plants have hardened contermeasures for such ipotetic accident ?
I have no internal knowledge to rule this out but this possibility was not suggested by your posts (that rather focused on the efficiency of security active response), nor it seems to be acknowledged in the linked official document.
It seems unlikely that an effective structural reinforcement of this proportion can in fact be carried out on an existing structure, without disrupting for months normal plant production.

That does no mean I rule out different more limited measures, having been carried out, such as relocating some electrical switchboard or component, it just does not seem such measures would be effectve against a direct hit, but I'll be glad to hear your comments on this.
If in fact that is the case I can only be happy for the US people, but US nuclear security does not solve the problem the world over, our friend Clancy here has just written that the oldest plants in Germany will not resist such an attack.
What is more France and UK opposition to include such scenarios in european nuclear stress test look quite suspicious to me (why oppose such a request, officially made be the EU commissioner on energy, if everything had been considered ?).

Since we are discussing in technical terms, the spent fuel pond situation in US mark I reactors is in your opinion safe ?
It seems to me rather risky in case of an impact of a plane on that floor with just a few degrees of descent angle...

Then again I am basing my risk perception on the Fuskushima structures that in case of reactor 1 just show a light steel framework, and in case of reactors 3 and 4 just show ordinary concrete pillars.

 

[Argentum Vulpes]

Ok for every engineer on this thread that wants nuclear power shut down, please tell me how you are realistically going to replace 111,777 MWe (134,470 MWe w/ Russian power) that has a capacity factor of 70% or greater. Those numbers are for Europe. In the USA 8,007 MWe with a capacity Factor of 91% will need to be replaced.

If anyone can give me a source for electrical power, that has been proven on the same scale, that will put out those numbers I'd be glad to hear it.

 

[Luca Bevil]

Well this is rather political. So I'll keep very short.

As far as Italy is concerned we had already banned nuclear power in 1987.
No much to substitute here.
We just banned a proposed reintroduction with 3G+ AREVA EPR proposed by the Berlusconi government.

I hope the country will progressively increase renewables generation, in a smart grid integration concept.

As far as the world is concerned it is rather clear that this current safety level cannot be sustained. I hope in scientific advances preferably from intrinsically secure renewables power and may be from some selected IVG nuclear technology that seems a bit more concerned with passive safety.

 

[clancy688]

Ok for every engineer on this thread that wants nuclear power shut down, please tell me how you are realistically going to replace 111,777 MWe (134,470 MWe w/ Russian power) that has a capacity factor of 70% or greater.

Let's think about it... probably by not shutting every NPP down right now. As for Germany, we have 17 reactors left. Nearly all of them are shut down because of the moratorium or routine maintenance. Before we were exporting electrical energy. No the exports/imports of electrical energy are basically +- zero.
So even at the moment we can cope with having nearly everything shut down instantly. And that won't happen. The oldest plants will stay offline. As for the rest, they'll stay in service until 2021.
So we still have ten years for building new gas plants, new offshore wind parks, etc. And in the worst case we can restart old coal plants (no, I certainly don't want to discuss CO2 emissions, thank you).

The energy producers were panicking about widespread blackouts if we shut down even some of the NPPs. Now nearly all of them are offline. And exactly nothing happened. And as said above, we're not importing electricity at the moment to make up for the lost capacity.

Of course that won't work for countries like France which make up 80% of their energy with NPPs. But at least for us germans, it works. And you have to ask yourself how all these other nations without nuclear power can handle their energy need if there's no alternative to nuclear. To make matters short:

That there's no alternative to NPPs and that shutting down NPPs will result in lost capacity we can't replace is an irrational fear.

So pro- and contra-nuclear people are on equal terms.

Pro-nuclear: "Your fear of a beyond design basis accident is irrational!"
Anti-nuclear: "Your fear of widespread blackouts if we shut NPPs down is irrational!"

 

[mheslep]

In the USA 8,007 MWe with a capacity Factor of 91% will need to be replaced...

101,212 MWe in the US for 2011, and rising.
http://www.eia.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/nuc_generation/usreact11.xls

 

[NUCENG]

...

L: "Normal" residual heat removal toward "cold shutdown" needs (I'll recap only for the casual reader, I am well aware of your expertise and experience on the topic) not only the regular closed loop functioning of the deputed water lines, but also the outgoing water to be refrigerated in an exchange heat, in the condenser, with secondary loop refrigerant water before being fed-back to the reactor.

The fact that MSIVs and other valves could in fact shut down will prevent immediate drainage but it will not ensure the operability of normal cooling.

If the condenser is located, as it is in Fukushima turbine buildings, it will not survive a "perfect" impact.

Turbine buildings we have seen in Fukushima are of course seismic but they have not walls of 1m + concrete. Nothing even remotely comparable with the Twin Towers or Pentagon structure that were nonetheless tragically penetrated on September the 11th.

They are in fact normal, albeit seismic civil buildings.

With condenser destroyed, widespread damage from jet fuel ignition and explosion, most likely electric switchboard/equipment damaged, residul portion of pipes (if any) that need to be intercepted to allow any "sea water-like" kind of extreme mitigation measure,

I do not think the Fukushima design would have withstood such an impact (on probabilities of such a tragic event I would like not to comment) any better than it did withstood the flooding.

N: Your English is better than my Italian but I think I understand your point as follows:

“Damage to the condenser and closure of the MSIVs and Feedwater isolation valves removes normal cooling. The Turbine Buildings at Fukushima will not withstand the aircraft impact sso the diesels will be destroyed and cooling will be lost.”

If that is not what you meant, please correct me.

First, my disclaimers

I spent more time on this than any previous post on the thread. This qualitative discussion is as far as I can go on this issue. It is based on a couple of open sources and discussions that are public and some amateur speculation about an aircraft approach to Fukushima and what I see on the plant layout drawings posted here. I have not used plant security information for any of the pants that I have worked. I have not seen the DOE national labs analysis or calculations on this topic, notr have I( discussed this scenario with anyone who has.

Next. The Scenario:

First look at the maps that have been posted and the photographs of the Fukushima Site. An aircraft would have to approach from the sea due to higher terrain to the west. The turbine buildings are the first target as the aircraft approaches from that side. Assume the aircraft makes the perfect strike (Low Probability) and manages to destroy the condenser and the diesels as well. The turbine building acts as a first barrier protecting the reactor building and the electrical distribution switchyards beyond that. So the single attack will not take out Offsite Power (low probability) causing an extended station blackout that is not recoverable in a short time (lower probability).

Meanwhile, as you surmise, normal cooling is lost. Battery operated HPCI and RCIC systems provide high pressure makeup and cooling using either the Condensate Storage Tanks or the Torus. Heat is rejected to the torus through the SRVs and high pressure pump steam exhaust. These systems operate independent of AC power providing time if fires or other damage to the switchyard need action. (low failure probability) The plant will be at a condition called Hot Standby and can be stable for several hours. Eventually the plant will be depressurized (Low failure probability) as the torus heats up and loses the ability to condense steamor batteries are exhausted. Then low pressure ECCs system (RHR and Core Spray) need to operate using AC systems powered from the switchyard. (Some possibility of failure if fires continue).

Over at the Spent Fuel Pool if Offsite AC power is available Fuel Pool Cooling continues. (low failure probability) If not fuel pool heatup begins but time is available before boiling begins.
At this point we leave Fukushima. After 9/11 attacks the US NRC ordered significant added capabilities to extend core cooling and makeup and alternative methods of injecting cooling water to the core and spent fuel pools. You would expect that the equipment to perform these functions is self-powered and prepositioned for use. Those capabilities may be delayed until fires are out, but time to extinguish or suppress fires is available according to the analysis and evaluations performed by national labs and NRC. For existing plants core damage may occur (low probability of failure), but the containment function and other safety systems will prevent radiation releases to the public in excess of the legal limits (Very Low probability of failure). For new construction plants, there will be no core damage because this event is now part of design basis (Very low failure probability).

We left Fukushima because as I have posted previously Japan told the Convention on Reactor Safety that they have a stable society and therefor no need to address terrorism despite the lessons of 9/11 and the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway. I have no idea if a Japanese industry that covered up shroud cracks, used buckets to dump enriched uranium into a criticality accident, ignored tsunami risk and dismissed possibilities of terrorism after being attacked could be safe in any event.

The points above where probability comes into play are my guess of the approach that the National Labs and NRC used in their analysis. The section of the report you quoted tells me that the attacked plant (existing) may be a write-off, but the risk to the public is low.

The confusion about an attack on containment is obvious. In the scenario where the attack is on the turbine building there is a low probability of containment failure, even if core damage occurs. If the initial attack is on containment and a breach is made, then core damage would lead to radiation release to the public. The problem for the terrorist is that a single aircraft cannot easily cause the loss of all the things that need to be taken out to cause both core damage and containment failure.

L: Having read the excellent technical level of your posts on the long Fuku thread I find hard to believe you would think that specific plant would survive such an accident.

N: I don’t. But as I saw it you were using Fukushima to say that an entire industry was ignoring the terrorist threat because we hadn’t installed missile batteries or built AREVA’s walls. That is so wrong I can’t let it pass unchallenged. There is more than one way to solve a problem. In my honest, professional, and informed opinion, it is really not justified to shut existing US plants down in view of an aircraft attack, but we can agree to disagree on that.

L: Is it possible that US plants have hardened contermeasures for such ipotetic accident ?
I have no internal knowledge to rule this out but this possibility was not suggested by your posts (that rather focused on the efficiency of security active response), nor it seems to be acknowledged in the linked official document.

It seems unlikely that an effective structural reinforcement of this proportion can in fact be carried out on an existing structure, without disrupting for months normal plant production.
That does no mean I rule out different more limited measures, having been carried out, such as relocating some electrical switchboard or component, it just does not seem such measures would be effective against a direct hit, but I'll be glad to hear your comments on this.

N: Did you mean “hypothetical”? Sorry, those questions about structure reinforcement or relocation of safety equipment are too specific about security issues. They would be possible responses to make a plant more resistant to damage. However, I won’t comment about specific actions.

L: If in fact that is the case I can only be happy for the US people, but US nuclear security does not solve the problem the world over, our friend Clancy here has just written that the oldest plants in Germany will not resist such an attack.

What is more France and UK opposition to include such scenarios in european nuclear stress test look quite suspicious to me (why oppose such a request, officially made be the EU commissioner on energy, if everything had been considered ?).

N: I’ve probably already been blacklisted by Japan, and shot at by Lithuania, and have fought a skirmish with Italy. Please don’t ask me to take on Germany, France and the UK, too. (Eh, Borek, how is that for diplomacy?) I think those countries have to answer that question, because they haven’t told me..

L: Since we are discussing in technical terms, the spent fuel pond situation in US mark I reactors is in your opinion safe?

It seems to me rather risky in case of an impact of a plane on that floor with just a few degrees of descent angle...

Then again I am basing my risk perception on the Fuskushima structures that in case of reactor 1 just show a light steel framework, and in case of reactors 3 and 4 just show ordinary concrete pillars.

N: The entire issue of spent fuel is a cesspool that deserves its own thread. Politics, lies, delays, lack of leadership, incompetence, and criminal stupidity are words that come to mind. But I will say this:

The word safe is meaningless. There are risks with spent fuel. The location of the spent fuels pool in a BWR is vulnerable to some damage scenarios. New plant designs relocate the fuel storage to a more protected location. The amount of fuel in spent fuel pools is also a vulnerability. That is where my issues really explode. Is it easy to exploit those vulnerabilities , no, but still easier than I would like. What to do about it is:

1. Make a decision whether to reprocess fuel or not.
2. Cut through the political BS and designate a geological repository site, even if it is temporary.
3. Get as much fuel out of the pools as decay allows.
4. Do this before we license another nuclear plant.

My final comment : No decision is a decision to increase risk.

 

[zapperzero]

Technology is amoral. ( Not immoral - amoral. )
Dr. Gregory Greenman

 

[NUCENG]

Let's think about it... probably by not shutting every NPP down right now. As for Germany, we have 17 reactors left. Nearly all of them are shut down because of the moratorium or routine maintenance. Before we were exporting electrical energy. No the exports/imports of electrical energy are basically +- zero.
So even at the moment we can cope with having nearly everything shut down instantly. And that won't happen. The oldest plants will stay offline. As for the rest, they'll stay in service until 2021.
So we still have ten years for building new gas plants, new offshore wind parks, etc. And in the worst case we can restart old coal plants (no, I certainly don't want to discuss CO2 emissions, thank you).

The energy producers were panicking about widespread blackouts if we shut down even some of the NPPs. Now nearly all of them are offline. And exactly nothing happened. And as said above, we're not importing electricity at the moment to make up for the lost capacity.

Of course that won't work for countries like France which make up 80% of their energy with NPPs. But at least for us germans, it works. And you have to ask yourself how all these other nations without nuclear power can handle their energy need if there's no alternative to nuclear.


To make matters short:

That there's no alternative to NPPs and that shutting down NPPs will result in lost capacity we can't replace is an irrational fear.

So pro- and contra-nuclear people are on equal terms.

Pro-nuclear: "Your fear of a beyond design basis accident is irrational!"
Anti-nuclear: "Your fear of widespread blackouts if we shut NPPs down is irrational!"

Sorry Clancy, but
"(no, I certainly don't want to discuss CO2 emissions, thank you)." is an intellectual cop out.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,767900,00.html

Any increase in dependence on fossile fuels or biomass cuts into the German commitments to the Kyoto Protocol. So we may see the irony of the United States that didn't ratify KYoto building nuclear plants while the Germans and Italians abandon Nuclear and increase carbon emissions. C'mon, isn't that just a litle bit funny? {GRIN}

 

[NUCENG]

Funny, but totally irrelevant. The quote was that technology (or science) is amoral not that the technician (or scientist) is amoral. If you were aiming at humor you missed. Implying that Morbius is a nazi sympathizer would be contemptible and must not have been your intent. So please expand on your abbreviated post and explain what you were trying to say so badly.

 

[Bodge]

Let's all hope no black swans float down the Missouri River into the Fort Calhoun NPP.

 

[clancy688]

Sorry Clancy, but
"(no, I certainly don't want to discuss CO2 emissions, thank you)." is an intellectual cop out.

Of course. But the initial question was if it's possible to shut down NPPs, and it certainly is. I wanted to answer this initial question without having to discuss any non-related topics. Saying that we won't met the Kyoto protocol then is totally correct, but nothing than a distortion to the initial question.

There'll be a price to be paid. That's a given. Overall, the article tells us that we may not met our target of -40% compared to 1990, but -30-33% is still not to be scoffed at. I'm not familiar with the US numbers, but what's the US 1990 to 2020 target, and what's the real number you probably will reach? I'm pretty sure that even with over two dozen new NPPs you won't even reach somewhere near 40%, while we come to 30% with shutting down NPPs... ;)

Shutting down all NPPs was always planned in for our 2020 emission goals. Remember, the phase out of nuclear power was already decided in 2000. At least until some politician dip-garbages decided to phase-out the phase out in 2010, with phasing out the phase out of the phase out hastily after a certain event in 2011.

 

[NeoDevin]

Slightly off topic, but puts things in perspective:

More people (35 according to wiki) have died from the recent http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/10/e-coli-bean-sprouts-blamed" than have died from the Fukushima "disaster". I'm wondering when all the people currently calling for bans on nuclear power will be calling for similar bans on organic farming?

 

[clancy688]

Slightly off topic, but puts things in perspective:

More people (35 according to wiki) have died from the recent http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/10/e-coli-bean-sprouts-blamed" than have died from the Fukushima "disaster". I'm wondering when all the people currently calling for bans on nuclear power will be calling for similar bans on organic farming?

Kthxbye~

(I'm really getting annoyed by all those smarty-pants crawling out of their holes and telling us Fukushima isn't as bad as "event x with y deaths". Go to the https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=3355924&postcount=56", at least E.Coli didn't make 150.000 people lose their homes forever)

 

[Luca Bevil]

@ NUCENG yep, your last post is now excellent and on par with your usual contribution, and is almost exactly what I think would more or less happen:
- in case of Fukushima basically a complete disaster, likely worse than the current one,
- in the US mitigated by several specific measures and with different probabilities of damages or releases in an accident of a very severe nature, as for the details in your post.
- And with a decision to be made ASAP as far as the spent fuel management is concerned especially in the oldest MarKI containments.

That word was in fact "hypotetical", sorry for the error.

I do not remember writing that the US should shut immediately down all nuclear reactors or not even all Mark I BWRs for that matter, what I wrote was:

" It means nothing (the F4 hitting concrete video): at least for Mark I BWR reactors it is sufficient for a plane to strike the turbine building to destroy the pipes making up the feedwater and fire injection lines to set-up a "Worse than Fukushima" scenario, with not even sea water emergency injection trough fire extinguisher lines possible .

OR it could be enough to disable both grid connections and EDGs, with or without attacking planes

OR it could be even simpler to attack the completely undefended (at least in many japanesse NPP) secondary pumps...

it should be more than enough for concerned governments to act immediately on strenghtening security and/or shutting down undefensible installations..

Would we see this soon enough or do we need a new apocalypse or almost apocalypse type of accident ?"

As you can see I made no exclusive or not even specific mention to the US, and my statement was related to the relevance of the F4 vs "wall of concrete" test.

I do however wish that "nuclear stress test in europe" will be carried out with outmost severity and transparency, including the threats posed by terrorists (albeit I can agree that some specific is better kept undisclosed, but only if disclosing it would reduce the measure effectiveness).

We can probably also agree to disagree on the likelyhood (probabilites) of some of the events in the chain you so precisely describe, or in more political terms about what actually "low probability" should mean when radioactive releases are at risk.


regards

 

[Argentum Vulpes]

@ mheslep:

Yes you are right by the EIA number I've low balled the nuclear numbers in the USA. However my numbers came from the NRC and Bloomberg (tabulated the numbers nicely) on current production. http://nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/reactor-status/ps.html"

@ Luca Bevil:

How pragmatic of the Italian people to have voted down nuclear power, yet the largest supplier of your country's power imports (13% of electrical power on the grid) is France. Let's hope that France doesn't decide to switch over to LNG, because your country's second largest supplier of LNG will have another market to sell to. Granted Russia would love that, I would hate to be relying on Russia for LNG given some of there recent antics with shutting off the tap.

You can hope your way into darkness and spoiled food waiting for large base load renewables to come on-line.

http://www.geni.org/globalenergy/library/national_energy_grid/italy/ItalyCountryAnalysisBrief.shtml" for Italian power information.

@ clancy688

Yes you could build LNG plants to replace NPP, however that replacement would pump 93 million tonns of CO₂ into the atmosphere. 141 billion kWh put out from the remaining 17 NPP in Germany, with a LNG plant putting out 1.321 lbs/kWh of CO₂. Again off shore wind and PVs and other renewables will only give a small amount of peaking power, the majority of base load will have to come from coal, oil, biomass, or LNG. All of those sources produce CO₂, so how about we replace all water from firefighters with petrochemicals, and air dropped fire suppressant with coal dust? Also how much would you like the Russians providing the fuel source that keeps your house warm and you lights on after the shenanigans that have been pulled in the past? Then again when Gerhard Schroeder lost his position of chancellor he promptly went to work for Gazprom.

Links for http://www.eia.gov/cneaf/electricity/page/co2_report/co2report.html" NPP numbers

 

[clancy688]

So you're basically saying that shutting down NPPs will have two results:

1) Becoming dependent on Russia
2) Producing more CO2

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, for the first one, that may be right. But we're already dependent on Russia. More or less won't do much.

As for the second one, are you an US citizen? NUCENG provided a link which stated that Germany will reduce its CO2 emission by 30-33% compared to 1990 until 2020. Shutting down NPPs included. We won't met our target of -40%, but 30% is still not bad. In the same time, the US will probably be building over a dozen new plants. And what will be their reduced emissions? The plan is 4%. If they are as efficient as Germany, they come down to 3%.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/a...o-greenhouse-gas-cuts-under-copenhagen-accord

Summary

Germany shuts down 17 NPPs until 2021 and will reach a 33% emissions cut until 2020
US will build over two dozen new NPPs but plans to reach only a 4% emissions cut until 2020

Conclusion:
[sarcasm]Yes, NPPs are really connected to actual CO2 emissions[/sarcasm]

 

[Argentum Vulpes]

So you're basically saying that shutting down NPPs will have two results:

1) Becoming dependent on Russia
2) Producing more CO2

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, for the first one, that may be right. But we're already dependent on Russia. More or less won't do much.

As for the second one, are you an US citizen? NUCENG provided a link which stated that Germany will reduce its CO2 emission by 30-33% compared to 1990 until 2020. Shutting down NPPs included. We won't met our target of -40%, but 30% is still not bad. In the same time, the US will probably be building over a dozen new plants. And what will be their reduced emissions? The plan is 4%. If they are as efficient as Germany, they come down to 3%.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/a...o-greenhouse-gas-cuts-under-copenhagen-accord

Summary

Germany shuts down 17 NPPs until 2021 and will reach a 33% emissions cut until 2020
US will build over two dozen new NPPs but plans to reach only a 4% emissions cut until 2020

Conclusion:
[sarcasm]Yes, NPPs are really connected to actual CO2 emissions[/sarcasm]

Yes I am a US citizen and live in Montana (fourth largest state), which is 23825 km² larger then you country. That is why the USA won't be breaking any CO₂ emission reductions put forth by any EU country. Our power sector could put up huge reductions in CO₂ emissions but the transportation sector would still be pumping out about 35% of our total emissions. Just keep this in mind in America 300 years is a long time, in Europe 300 miles is a long distance.

Yes NPPs are really connected to CO₂ reductions, it puts out no CO₂ during operation, where as even the cleanest LNG plant will put out 1.321 lbs/kWh of CO₂ during operation.

 

[Luca Bevil]

@ mheslep:

@ Luca Bevil:

How pragmatic of the Italian people to have voted down nuclear power, yet the largest supplier of your country's power imports (13% of electrical power on the grid) is France. Let's hope that France doesn't decide to switch over to LNG, because your country's second largest supplier of LNG will have another market to sell to. Granted Russia would love that, I would hate to be relying on Russia for LNG given some of there recent antics with shutting off the tap.

You can hope your way into darkness and spoiled food waiting for large base load renewables to come on-line.

http://www.geni.org/globalenergy/library/national_energy_grid/italy/ItalyCountryAnalysisBrief.shtml" for Italian power information.

Your statements are highly political in nature, and I tought we are in a physics forum.
I'll try to answer while maintaining a technical attitude, as far as it i spossible, given the nature of the choice.

First of all 95% against is what I would call overwhelming majority.
And Italy still is a democracy, even if our premier seems to forget that quite too often.
So nuclear power no thank you, at least for a few years (at least five in strict legal terms, probably more in political ones).

I've voted against nuclear power sunday, as I did 25 yrs ago: in fact as an informed engineer I'd rather rely on Russian gas, especially since it would have taken 10 yrs for the AREVA EPR to come on line, plus 60 yrs of expected plant operation, and in the middle of such a time frame (let'say 25 yrs, shall we ?) I am more than opimistic we will have better energy options.

We do not need large base load renewables, but extensive change in people culture to maximise energy efficiency, cut excessive useless consumption and promote distributed renewable generation (whose yield/cost ratio is consistently improving) to curb CO2 emission as much as possible, without running the added complication/risk of running NPPs in a country that ruled that out 25 years ago, when renewables were in fact a much far cry from becoming reality, that is highly sismic, extremely densily populated, that hosts one of the larger, if not the largest density of cultural heritage in the world, AND is unfortunately run by an abysmal government that began his call for nuclear power by setting up a regulatory agency that was in fact acting as a nuclearist lobby.

Since you mentioned France and the 13% (which is actually less in real terms, is bought and paid for according to market rules AND meets France necessity to put to use some excess capacity in off peak moments of the day, helping france to cost justify their fleet) nuclear import refrain, I'd like to point out that Italy's CO2 emission are less than the ones put in atmosphere by France, in absolute terms, and not that much higher in procapita terms.

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/each-countrys-share-of-co2.html

This even tough there are 58 reactors operating in France and 0 in Italy.

Italy CO2 emission procapita is also less than the average procapita put in the atmosphere by our friends in the UK, albeit Uk does have 11 or so reactors in operation.
It is also much less than CO2 emission put in the atmosphere by our friends in the US, even tough I am ready to admit that the US has, among other aspects, much larger phisical spaces to cover transportation.

So we won't go to darker ages, we won't pollute the world with CO2 (for that an accorate call should be made to China instead) because of this choice, quite the contrary I hope my country will be able (as I am sure Germany will do) to build a better, and cleaner and less risky future, by not installing Light Water nuclear reactors.

Personally I will keep an open mind toward IV gen nuclear technologies, when they become available, and IF they can actally prove passively safe with respect to SBO, as some design promise to be.

In the meantime the Italian people answered. The question was nuclear ?
The answer was: No, thank you.



regards

 

[zapperzero]

Funny, but totally irrelevant. The quote was that technology (or science) is amoral not that the technician (or scientist) is amoral. If you were aiming at humor you missed. Implying that Morbius is a nazi sympathizer would be contemptible and must not have been your intent. So please expand on your abbreviated post and explain what you were trying to say so badly.

I will expand. Surely Morbius is not a Nazi sympathizer. Neither was von Braun and the song does not even accuse von Braun of being a Nazi. All the ditty I posted says, is that people DO, in fact, care a lot about the effects of technology on their lives. Those are not morally neutral.

Most engineering and scientific knowledge has nothing to do with morality, true. Yet, say I build a wall. It may be the wall of a new house or the wall of a crematorium in Bergen-Belsen. The engineering is the same, but if I build the second wall as a free person and knowing what I am doing, I am a war criminal like Fritz Todt.

So, on to our friend Morbius here. He tries to cloud the issue of consequences by bringing out the idea that technology is a-moral. This tells me he does not care about the human consequences of nuclear power. The pain of a hundred thousand displaced persons is nothing to him, just a blip on a chart, needless fuss over a minor industrial accident.

Oh, I have one example of technology that is not morally neutral for you: the atom bomb. No beneficial application has been found to date, despite extensive experimentation (viz. project Plowshare). It can only be used to kill people indiscriminately. That's not a-moral, is it?

 

[Borek]

To all: please get back to topic. That is - nuclear reactors in California.

If you want to discuss anything else, go to Politic & Woirld Affairs, or General Discussion.

 

[NUCENG]

Of course. But the initial question was if it's possible to shut down NPPs, and it certainly is. I wanted to answer this initial question without having to discuss any non-related topics. Saying that we won't met the Kyoto protocol then is totally correct, but nothing than a distortion to the initial question.

There'll be a price to be paid. That's a given. Overall, the article tells us that we may not met our target of -40% compared to 1990, but -30-33% is still not to be scoffed at. I'm not familiar with the US numbers, but what's the US 1990 to 2020 target, and what's the real number you probably will reach? I'm pretty sure that even with over two dozen new NPPs you won't even reach somewhere near 40%, while we come to 30% with shutting down NPPs... ;)

Shutting down all NPPs was always planned in for our 2020 emission goals. Remember, the phase out of nuclear power was already decided in 2000. At least until some politician dip-garbages decided to phase-out the phase out in 2010, with phasing out the phase out of the phase out hastily after a certain event in 2011.

I knew that and I was just tweaking you. You are right. Others may criticize Germany and Italy for their decision, but it is your/their choice and I wish you luck. You do have the advantage of a small geographic area so your distribution systems may (with a lot of work) be able to handle a larger share of wind and solar power and remain stable. In the meantime Germany will have to figure out what to do about the existing nuclear plants, spent fuel that exists and continues to be generated until all the plants are shutdown, decommissioning and restoration of the plant sites. You won't be out of the nuclear business for quite a while yet. If economics of oil and LNG continue according to current trends, and the promises of smart grids and solar efficiencies are slow to arrive, you may reconsider this someday, and that too will be your choice and your decision.

Edit: Just saw Boreks's post so let me add: Please don't be disappointed if we continuel to operate nuclear plants in California. They need their tanning beds because they lack sufficient sunshine to run them on solar power.

 

[Luca Bevil]

Since there was debate especially between me and NUCENg on risks of potential terrorist attacks on NPP, when I had a little time i went looking on the web for US commentators/scientists that shared my general (not US specific to be honest) worry about this issue.

not surprisingly i found some

http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/nuclear_power_risk/sabotage_and_attacks_on_reactors/

I do not know wheter discussing this would be OT here or in the forum, may be it belongs to the "political" 3d, but apparently at least I can feel reinsured that I am not the only person who keeps on being worried about nuclear safety ...

I'll try to find somethig in french, for several reasons I am more worried about french readiness about this risk than i am about the US

 

[Luca Bevil]

http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nuclear_power/20061201-ucs-brief-security-by-design.pdf

this short document in particular seems interesting and common sense to me, I may be wrong, however, I would be interested to read comments.

regards

 

[zapperzero]

I see little purpose in passive defenses, of any kind. Hijacking commercial aircraft for use as missiles was a one-off thing, anyway.

I can see why you'd want some short range air-to-air missiles at hand, and I hope they're already in place, at least where terrorism is a problem, like, say, in Japan.

Again, there are many, many other, simpler ways to cause chaos.

More to the point, I'm sure any of us here can think of a simpler, more effective plan to screw with a NPP than:

"oh, I'll just find a dozen co-conspirators, we'll train for a year, then go past God-knows how many layers of security in the airport so that we can all board the same plane. Once on board, we will overpower all the passengers (who will be fighting for their lives at this point, because they've all seen 9/11 on tv) using our shoelaces, then find a way to get past the locked cockpit door to the pilots, then disable them, take charge and hope the USAF does not shoot us down en route to the NPP"

Way too many things could go wrong. Compare and contrast with the attack on Superphenix.

 

[nikkkom]

Are the conditions between the tectonic plates at Japan similar enough to the ones at Chile to cause a 9.5 quake?

Also, I read that the 63 meter seawall at Kamaishi was insufficient to hold back the Tsunamai from the quake. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_wall#Japan

Wrong.

"4-metre waves surmounted the seawall —the world’s largest, erected a few years ago in the city’s harbour at a depth of 63 metres"

*depth of 63 meters*. It wasn't 63 meter high. Looks like it was not more than 4-5 meters high above water.

 

[nikkkom]

Many people are claiming that the Japanese tsunami was about a one in 1000 year event.

Wrong. It was more like "one in 100 year event". Do your homework, go to Wikipedia and read on tsunami history in Japan.

IMO, anyone who claims that Fukushima's tsunami defense was adequate is either didn't do any research on this subject, or is a dishonest troll.

Most troubling, though, is not that Fukushima's flood defenses were too low. Most troubling is the trend of the companies operating NPPs to *systematically* under-protect them. It looks like they tend to decide that organizing a "our NPPs are sooo safe" PR campaign is always cheaper than actually fixing problems.

I'm afraid it's a common trend in this industry to save money on safety, even in cases where improving it is simple and even relatively cheap. Read 1999_Blayais_Nuclear_Power_Plant_flood article on wikipedia. It's a direct "close call" for Fukushima event. Did anyone care in the industry? No! Can we trust these people to start caring about safety? I'm afraid so far I can't. I saw no post-Fukushima admissions a-la "yes. We did screw up. We will do this, this and this to not screw up in the future". I see a lot of denial. I see more PR campaigns.

 

[nikkkom]

Can they do anything about that probability? Can they turn off their section of the "Pacific Ring of Fire"?

No. But they could build 30 meter high seawall. It's not a engineering miracle, you know. It's a rather simple pile of rocks reinforced with concrete.

Why they didn't do it? What else nuclear industry should have done but didn't?

 

[clancy688]

To all: please get back to topic. That is - nuclear reactors in California.

If you want to discuss anything else, go to Politic & Woirld Affairs, or General Discussion.

~~~

Anti Tsunami Wall Thread: https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=506517 (btw, the Kamaishi wall wasn't only awashed, it was totally destroyed and torn apart, check google earth)

 

[NUCENG]

Wrong. It was more like "one in 100 year event". Do your homework, go to Wikipedia and read on tsunami history in Japan.

IMO, anyone who claims that Fukushima's tsunami defense was adequate is either didn't do any research on this subject, or is a dishonest troll.

Most troubling, though, is not that Fukushima's flood defenses were too low. Most troubling is the trend of the companies operating NPPs to *systematically* under-protect them. It looks like they tend to decide that organizing a "our NPPs are sooo safe" PR campaign is always cheaper than actually fixing problems.

I'm afraid it's a common trend in this industry to save money on safety, even in cases where improving it is simple and even relatively cheap. Read 1999_Blayais_Nuclear_Power_Plant_flood article on wikipedia. It's a direct "close call" for Fukushima event. Did anyone care in the industry? No! Can we trust these people to start caring about safety? I'm afraid so far I can't. I saw no post-Fukushima admissions a-la "yes. We did screw up. We will do this, this and this to not screw up in the future". I see a lot of denial. I see more PR campaigns.

Actually the 2011 tsunami of 14+ m was an 800 to 1100 year event per the following:

http://coastalcare.org/2011/03/nuclear-plant-and-tsunami-risk-3000-years-of-geological-history-disregarded/

The seawall design basis event of 5.7 m turns out to be about a 100 year event.

I have not heard anyone defend the 5.7 m design basis at Fukushima as adequate.

You claim there is a "trend of the companies operating NPPs to *systematically* under-protect them." Further you claim that "I'm afraid it's a common trend in this industry to save money on safety, even in cases where improving it is simple and even relatively cheap." Finally you cite the Blayais flooding event as an example.

At Blayais the emergency diesel generators started and ran and allowed operators to mitigate the event without any core damage or radiation releases to the public. You omitted any consideration of lessons learned from this event or changes made by other nuclear power plants. Japan has shut down several additional plants to investigate seismic and flooding design. Regulatory agencoes and nuclear plant operators are also following lessons learned at Fukushima. You don't mention that either.

So my question is this. Will you please clarify where you think those "trends" are applicable? If you are implying that these trends are applicable in France, Germany, the UK, or the US, please explain or cite evidence to support you claim. Citing an example (Blayais) that was 12 years ago without discussing actions taken by the industry is only telling half the story. Of course telling the whole truth will make your claim less credible. Or was that the only way you could justify your claims?

 

[nikkkom]

Actually the 2011 tsunami of 14+ m was an 800 to 1100 year event per the following:

http://coastalcare.org/2011/03/nuclear-plant-and-tsunami-risk-3000-years-of-geological-history-disregarded/

The seawall design basis event of 5.7 m turns out to be about a 100 year event.

1933 Sanriku earthquake resulted in 28 meter tsunami.
1896 Meiji-Sanriku earthquake resulted in 38 meter tsunami.

These "1000 year events" happen so often that they look more like 100 year events to me.

You claim there is a "trend of the companies operating NPPs to *systematically* under-protect them." Further you claim that "I'm afraid it's a common trend in this industry to save money on safety, even in cases where improving it is simple and even relatively cheap." Finally you cite the Blayais flooding event as an example.

At Blayais the emergency diesel generators started and ran and allowed operators to mitigate the event without any core damage or radiation releases to the public.

After the flood the dam was built up to 8 meters. But *before* the flood, operator fought tooth and nail to not build it up by additional *half a meter*, from 5.2 to 5.7. This is not what I "claim", this is fact. My point is, operator actually needed to come this >< close to a serious accident to start taking safety seriously.

You omitted any consideration of lessons learned from this event or changes made by other nuclear power plants.

Yeah, right. After Blayais flood, NPP operators all over the world seriously beefed up their flood protection. Such as in Fukushima and Calhoun. Oh, wait... they didn't!

Japan has shut down several additional plants to investigate seismic and flooding design. Regulatory agencoes and nuclear plant operators are also following lessons learned at Fukushima.

With the same rigor as they did after Blayais flood?

So my question is this. Will you please clarify where you think those "trends" are applicable? If you are implying that these trends are applicable in France, Germany, the UK, or the US, please explain or cite evidence to support you claim. Citing an example (Blayais) that was 12 years ago without discussing actions taken by the industry is only telling half the story.

The point is, I don't see any actions taken by the industry. I see one NPP suffering from INES 7 accident, *caused by flood*. I see another NPP *sandbagged* against the flood instead of sitting behind a 8-meter concrete dam, which is far from inspiring confidence.

 

[NUCENG]

1933 Sanriku earthquake resulted in 28 meter tsunami.
1896 Meiji-Sanriku earthquake resulted in 38 meter tsunami.

These "1000 year events" happen so often that they look more like 100 year events to me.



After the flood the dam was built up to 8 meters. But *before* the flood, operator fought tooth and nail to not build it up by additional *half a meter*, from 5.2 to 5.7. This is not what I "claim", this is fact. My point is, operator actually needed to come this >< close to a serious accident to start taking safety seriously.



Yeah, right. After Blayais flood, NPP operators all over the world seriously beefed up their flood protection. Such as in Fukushima and Calhoun. Oh, wait... they didn't!



With the same rigor as they did after Blayais flood?



The point is, I don't see any actions taken by the industry. I see one NPP suffering from INES 7 accident, *caused by flood*. I see another NPP *sandbagged* against the flood instead of sitting behind a 8-meter concrete dam, which is far from inspiring confidence.

The 1933 Sanriku earthquake generated a 94 foot runup Nprth of Fukushima but was "much less than "9 m at Fukushima. The 1896 quake you referenced generated the 5.7 m design basis runup at Fukushima that was used by TEPCO. The probability of another 14 m tsunami at Fukushima is on the order of once per 800 to 1100 years as I quoted. How that "looks" to you has no effect or meaning.

If you are suggesting that the possibility of a 100 ft tsunami should be applied anywhere in Japan that a NPP isbuilt then you are going to waste money where it isn;t needed. The huge runup cases tend to be at the closed end of narrowing inlets. Site specific coastal characteristics and seabed topography can be evaluated and site specific height probabilities established. TEPCO had received information of a threat of larger tsunamis and did nothing.

Where evaluations have been done and included both historical and geological risks, the fact that no action was taken may be justified, and the lack of physical modifications you equate to ignoring the issue is a bogus accusation. Fort Calhoun and Cooper plants have preepared for this flood and as of yet are not any threat to anyone. They have made modifications including the hydraulic dams, raising access roads, building berms, and bringing in reserves of fuel oil. You sit there at your computer and pontificate that isn't good enough. Your attemot to equate their situation with Fukushima is totally bogus. Or do you want them to fail so it will support yor bias? Will you be disappointed if they don't fail?

 

[nikkkom]

The 1933 Sanriku earthquake generated a 94 foot runup Nprth of Fukushima but was "much less than "9 m at Fukushima. The 1896 quake you referenced generated the 5.7 m design basis runup at Fukushima that was used by TEPCO. The probability of another 14 m tsunami at Fukushima is on the order of once per 800 to 1100 years as I quoted. How that "looks" to you has no effect or meaning.

We witnessed a miracle, then. In 40 year timespan we saw a 1000 year event. Yeah, right.

If you are suggesting that the possibility of a 100 ft tsunami should be applied anywhere in Japan that a NPP isbuilt then you are going to waste money where it isn;t needed.

"Isn't needed"? This "unnecessary" dams would cost a few billion dollars total for all NPPs combined.

Now Japan needs $250bn to clean up the mess. How you are going to quantify the cost of future deaths from cancers I have no idea.

Fort Calhoun and Cooper plants have preepared for this flood and as of yet are not any threat to anyone. They have made modifications including the hydraulic dams, raising access roads, building berms, and bringing in reserves of fuel oil. You sit there at your computer and pontificate that isn't good enough.

It's atrocious. How dare I to have an opinion!...

Your attemot to equate their situation with Fukushima is totally bogus.

Your attempt to put words in my mouth. I did not say that their situation is anywhere near Fukushima.

Or do you want them to fail so it will support yor bias?

Repeating specially for you: I want to see NPP sufficiently protected, with *LARGE* margins, from various dangers (in this case, from floods). With margins like what Blayais implemented after the flood. But I want to see them implemented *before* the flood. I don't see this happening. This tells me that we have a systemic problem.

I don't want to see frantic sandbagging efforts at any NPP. They should be simply unnecessary.

 

[NUCENG]

We witnessed a miracle, then. In 40 year timespan we saw a 1000 year event. Yeah, right.

N: Not a miracle, Probability. This is a physics forum. Tou want miracles? That's what it would take to prove your point.



"Isn't needed"? This "unnecessary" dams would cost a few billion dollars total for all NPPs combined.

N: If it was free I wouldn't build a 100 foot wall because then some moron would say we are trying to hide what is going on behind the wall.

Now Japan needs $250bn to clean up the mess. How you are going to quantify the cost of future deaths from cancers I have no idea.

N: They had the opportunity to listen to scientists that believed a tsunami larger than 5.7 m was likely. Their Regulators had that information. The loss of innocent life from cancer is bad, as was the death of 25,000+ from the tsunami. But it may be impossible to even detect the "extra deths." You can not legitimately blame the nuclear industry in other countries for the failures in Japan. And it is totally untrue that we are plotting to save a buck no matter how many people are hurt. And I for one care not a whit whether you believe that or not.



It's atrocious. How dare I to have an opinion!...

N:Only because your opinion is uninformed and wrong. Perhaps you need to follow your own advice and do some legitimate research. Otherwise we'll have to classify you as a troll per your own standard.

Your attempt to put words in my mouth. I did not say that their situation is anywhere near Fukushima.

N: Then why did you bring up Ft Calhoun and I quote: "Read 1999_Blayais_Nuclear_Power_Plant_flood article on wikipedia. It's a direct "close call" for Fukushima event." and then: "Yeah, right. After Blayais flood, NPP operators all over the world seriously beefed up their flood protection. Such as in Fukushima and Calhoun. Oh, wait... they didn't!" What I read seems to say "A near miss of flooding at Blayais was a near miss for a Fukushima and Ft Calhoun is similar to Blais but they didn't do anything about the event at Blayais. Therefore Fort Calhoun is a near miss for a Fukushima event."

N: That may not be what you meant, but it is what you wrote. Do you even read your own posts? You should appreciate it if I'm putting words in your mouth, because it makes more sense than your denial that wasn't what you said.


Repeating specially for you: I want to see NPP sufficiently protected, with *LARGE* margins, from various dangers (in this case, from floods). With margins like what Blayais implemented after the flood. But I want to see them implemented *before* the flood. I don't see this happening. This tells me that we have a systemic problem.

N:You don't know what the heck you are talking about. You don't apply the same unreasonable standards to the rest of your life or you wouldn't fly or get in a car or eat food you didn't grow yourself. You don't know what Ft Calhoun or Cooper did to prepare for the flood (or conveniently omitted that information). You probably have not looked at how much margin they have to the design basis flood level. And because you don't know, you leap to the unfounded opinion that they didn't do anything or it wasn't enough.

N: Repeated specially for you: You are wrong and your opinions do not become facts just because you closed your mind and opened your online mouth.

I don't want to see frantic sandbagging efforts at any NPP. They should be simply unnecessary.

And I don't want to see any more frantic "The sky is falling." posts, but I expect I will be disappointed too.

 

[mheslep]

1933 Sanriku earthquake resulted in 28 meter tsunami.
1896 Meiji-Sanriku earthquake resulted in 38 meter tsunami. ...

And the Krakatoa eruption generated http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merak,_Banten" :

The scientists also found two additional layers of sand and concluded that two additional “gigantic tsunamis” had hit the region during the past 3,000 years, both presumably comparable to Jogan. Carbon dating couldn’t pinpoint exactly when the other two hit, but the study’s authors put the range of those layers of sand at between 140 B.C. and A.D. 150, and between 670 B.C. and 910 B.C. ...

 

[nikkkom]

Your attempt to put words in my mouth. I did not say that their situation is anywhere near Fukushima.

N: Then why did you bring up Ft Calhoun and I quote: "Read 1999_Blayais_Nuclear_Power_Plant_flood article on wikipedia. It's a direct "close call" for Fukushima event." and then: "Yeah, right. After Blayais flood, NPP operators all over the world seriously beefed up their flood protection. Such as in Fukushima and Calhoun. Oh, wait... they didn't!"

What I read seems to say "A near miss of flooding at Blayais was a near miss for a Fukushima

Yes:

"Starting from 7:30 pm all four units lost their 225 kV power supplies, while units 2 and 4 also lost their 400 kV power supplies. The isolator circuits that should have allowed units 2 and 4 to supply themselves with electricity also failed, causing these two reactors to automatically shut down, and diesel backup generators started up, maintaining power to plants 2 and 4 until the 400 kV supply was restored at around 10:20 pm. In the pumping room for unit 1, one set of the two pairs of pumps in the Essential Service Water System failed due to flooding; had both sets failed then the safety of plant would have been endangered. In both units 1 and 2, flooding in the fuel rooms put the low-head safety injection pumps and the containment spray pumps, part of the Emergency Core Cooling System (a back-up system in case of coolant loss) out of use. Over the following days, an estimated 90,000 m3 (3,200,000 cu ft) of water would be pumped out of the flooded buildings."

How close was this to a meltdown of unit 1? One set of pumps away? Do you realize that this is simply not acceptable to the general public?

Moreover, "close call" events are an excellent predictor of safety problems, even if they themselves were resolved with no bad effects whatsoever. NASA ignored close calls with eroded O-rings in SRBs, result - Challenger accident. NASA ignored close calls with falling foam - Columbia accident.

Continue ignoring close calls at NPPs and you will continue to get Fukushimas.

and Ft Calhoun is similar to Blais but they didn't do anything about the event at Blayais.

Ft Calhoun is similar to Blayais in a sense that its flood defences are inadequate. Since it's 12 years since Blayais flood happened, I don't see any reasonable excuses why it is so.

That may not be what you meant, but it is what you wrote. Do you even read your own posts?

Yes I do read my posts.
And I still don't see where I said Ft Calhoun is anywhere close to Fukushima. Where is it?

Repeating specially for you: I want to see NPP sufficiently protected, with *LARGE* margins, from various dangers (in this case, from floods). With margins like what Blayais implemented after the flood. But I want to see them implemented *before* the flood. I don't see this happening. This tells me that we have a systemic problem.

N:You don't know what the heck you are talking about. You don't apply the same unreasonable standards to the rest of your life or you wouldn't fly or get in a car or eat food you didn't grow yourself.

Because if I eat bad food or drive a broken car, at maximum a few people can die. It can't cause thousands of square kilometers permanently evacuated. NPP accident can. Therefore, NPP should be significantly more secure than my car.

 

[NeoDevin]

We witnessed a miracle, then. In 40 year timespan we saw a 1000 year event. Yeah, right.

As of January 19, 2011, there were http://www.euronuclear.org/info/encyclopedia/n/nuclear-power-plant-world-wide.htm" . Thus the total number of operating years is around 11,000. Thus we would expect to have seen approximately 11 "thousand year events" occur at nuclear power plants.

This estimate neglects power plants that are no longer operational, or that have become operational since Jan 19, 2011. The 25 year estimate is also 2008, and has most likely increased by a year or more since then.

It also (and probably more significantly) neglects that many nuclear power plants are not in geologically active regions and/or tsunami territory. However, even those relatively "safe" locations must contend with tornadoes, wildfires, flooding, etc. The point remains that a single "thousand year event" causing damage to a nuclear power plant is not cause to assume that estimates of the frequency of such events are in error.

 

[NUCENG]

Yes:

"Starting from 7:30 pm all four units lost their 225 kV power supplies, while units 2 and 4 also lost their 400 kV power supplies. The isolator circuits that should have allowed units 2 and 4 to supply themselves with electricity also failed, causing these two reactors to automatically shut down, and diesel backup generators started up, maintaining power to plants 2 and 4 until the 400 kV supply was restored at around 10:20 pm. In the pumping room for unit 1, one set of the two pairs of pumps in the Essential Service Water System failed due to flooding; had both sets failed then the safety of plant would have been endangered. In both units 1 and 2, flooding in the fuel rooms put the low-head safety injection pumps and the containment spray pumps, part of the Emergency Core Cooling System (a back-up system in case of coolant loss) out of use. Over the following days, an estimated 90,000 m3 (3,200,000 cu ft) of water would be pumped out of the flooded buildings."

How close was this to a meltdown of unit 1? One set of pumps away? Do you realize that this is simply not acceptable to the general public?

Moreover, "close call" events are an excellent predictor of safety problems, even if they themselves were resolved with no bad effects whatsoever. NASA ignored close calls with eroded O-rings in SRBs, result - Challenger accident. NASA ignored close calls with falling foam - Columbia accident.

Continue ignoring close calls at NPPs and you will continue to get Fukushimas.



Ft Calhoun is similar to Blayais in a sense that its flood defences are inadequate. Since it's 12 years since Blayais flood happened, I don't see any reasonable excuses why it is so.



Yes I do read my posts.
And I still don't see where I said Ft Calhoun is anywhere close to Fukushima. Where is it?



Because if I eat bad food or drive a broken car, at maximum a few people can die. It can't cause thousands of square kilometers permanently evacuated. NPP accident can. Therefore, NPP should be significantly more secure than my car.

Again with the nonsense. Blayais mitigated their event and issued lessons learned. You assume nobody else did anything in response with no evidence to support your claim. You further assume that other plants have inadequate protection, because that is what you want to believe. In my last post I quoted two sentences in which you linked Ft Calhoun and Blayais and Fukushima. And now you say that the 500,000 worldwide deaths per year from traffic accidents is somehow better than an unknown number of latent cancer deaths from Fukushima because it is only a few at a time.

http://www.transport-links.org/transport_links/filearea/publications/1_771_Pa3568.pdf

That is so grossly wrong as to be unbelievable. You clearly do not understand the concept of risk and risk management. You substitute opinion for fact and expect that no one will challenge you. You are intellectually lazy and make claims you can't support.

You have come to the wrong forum. You have a right to your opinion, however uninformed, but don't expect to win any respect here.

 

[Luca Bevil]

Statistically speaking the fact that two other events of a magnitude similar to the last tsunami wave at Fukushima seem to have been observed at a close to 1.000 years interval it is in no way a sufficient proxy to estimate the probability of recurrence of such an event.
There are not even close to enough samples for such an estimate and the underlying phisical phenomenon may be undergoing changes that we cannot scientifically evaluate just yet, undermining any implicit assumption of statistically independent distribution among the medium time of arrivals.

In this scenario assuming a far higher mean frequency of recurrence would be just plain good sense.
What is more important since safety is (better should be) of paramount importance for NPPs any NPP should actually be procted for events larger that the actual historical maximum problem recorded.
Any less protection is not risk management is quite simply putting innocent lives in danger.
It is not morally acceptable on any ground.

The sight of the US plant in the middle of the flood is not reinsuring.
It might not be such a big risk, or even not a risk at all, as NUCENG is pointing out, but I'd rather not take anyone word for it.
I quite simply do not like the fact that a NPP is in that situation.

Call me overconscious, or biased, or whatever you like.. it is fairly clear that the situation they are operating in is far from normal.

And no... in case anyone doubts it I would not like to see it fail, quite the contrary. Fukushima was already enough for me.

 

[NeoDevin]

What is more important since safety is (better should be) of paramount importance for NPPs any NPP should actually be procted for events larger that the actual historical maximum problem recorded.
Any less protection is not risk management is quite simply putting innocent lives in danger.
It is not morally acceptable on any ground.

So we should design all nuclear power plants to withstand a global extinction level asteroid impact? Or how about the collision that formed the moon? Should they survive something of that scale undamaged as well?

It might not be such a big risk, or even not a risk at all, as NUCENG is pointing out, but I'd rather not take anyone word for it.

No matter what safety precautions are in place, you're taking the word of the experts.

I quite simply do not like the fact that a NPP is in that situation.

You've already made up your mind that no amount of risk is allowable. It's a ridiculous position to take, as it doesn't matter what form of power generation we use, there are risks. Wind turbines can be torn apart in storms, launching extremely heavy pieces at high velocity. People fall while installing them. Hydrocarbons cause pollution (far more radioactivity is released by coal plants than by NPPs). I could go on, but I think you get the picture. It doesn't matter what source we choose for our energy, there are risks. These risks must be balanced against the benefits (life saving medical technologies, for example). Your idea that NPPs should be engineered against everything is absurd.

If you want to argue that the precautions at Fukushima, or in California are (were) insufficient based on the evidence available, go ahead. Don't go making irrational and impossible demands of an entire industry, especially not one that has proven over its history to be far safer than it's competitors.

 

[nikkkom]

So we should design all nuclear power plants to withstand a global extinction level asteroid impact? Or how about the collision that formed the moon? Should they survive something of that scale undamaged as well?

No.

You've already made up your mind that no amount of risk is allowable.

Wrong. That's not what he said, by a long shot.

It's a ridiculous position to take

Straw man argument. You put something in a mouth of your opponent which he didn't say, and then argue with these misrepresented words.