Nuclear safety left hanging as crane dangled fuel rods (gulp!)

[Bozita]

http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060318/NEWS06/603180315/1001/NEWS

Nuclear safety left hanging as crane dangled fuel rods

Michigan incident got warning but no fine

BY HUGH McDIARMID JR.
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

March 18, 2006



A 110-ton load of nuclear waste dangled for 55 hours above a cooling pool last October as two workers at a southwest Michigan nuclear power plant improperly manipulated a crane that had frozen, federal regulators concluded in a recent review of the incident.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission cited the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant for a minor safety violation but did not impose a fine -- a response considered weak by at least one former federal nuclear reactor inspector and several activists who have examined the case.

Under the NRC's worst-case scenario, if the suspended load had accidentally dropped, a fire could have ignited, leading to formation of a radioactive cloud. The cloud could have put thousands of people downwind of the plant -- all the way to Kalamazoo -- at risk of fatal radiation poisoning.

Ross Landsman, an inspector with the NRC for 25 years till his retirement last year, said that even though the odds of such a sequence were infinitesimally remote -- the scenario would have to be triggered by an unusual incident such as an earthquake -- the NRC was too lenient. "They have words now to make it seem all right. It's not. This is the worst possible place" to have an unsealed cask of nuclear fuel "suspended. To me, it's a big deal," he said.

more...

[salin]

1. Heaven forbid regulatory agencies actually work

to promote the safety of the public, rather than work as paid positive PR spin machines in light of potential industry catastrophes.

The scenario described is frightening on many levels:

Suggests that those working around the plant had a very limited knowledge (any) of safety and/or of the serious potential danger of the materials that they are working with.

Indicates that the NRC has become so pro industry and so sensitive to the corporate needs/desires over their task to protect the public, that one has to wonder if they would ever notice the public were their a catastrophe that could be avoided IF the solution to make the public safe would require a penny of investment from the corporations/plants.

Demonstrates a severe indifference to the possibility of a nuclear disaster. Which given this admins desire to increase reliance on Nuclear energy (and thus increase the number of plants) is a serious problem - to the point of a possible national tragedy in the making.

*shudder*

[donsu]

2. kick

nt

[soothsayer]

3. Was it Homer Simpson? D'oh!

[salin]

4. kick

[wordpix2]

7. apparently, he's been promoted to the NRC

[Occulus]

5. That would have directly affected me...

I, and tens of thousands of others right nearby, are downwind of this.

Holy CHRIST, if that would have happened.....

I would have had to abandon everything.

There aren't words, there really aren't.

[salin]

6. Please tell us about the local coverage

in the media - does it seem that folks are likely to be aware? Why is that important? Because until folks are aware and start demanding changes - no change will happen.

[wordpix2]

8. "minor safety violation"---a potential nuke explosion is MINOR?

These asses at NRC are clearly in the pockets of the nuke industry, which the Bush junta keeps touting as "safe."

[NickB79]

10. Spent fuel rods cannot sustain a nuclear detonation

Geez, even Chernobyl didn't set off a nuclear explosion, just a conventional over-pressure one.

[951-Riverside]

9. Are they dead yet?

[NickB79]

11. If they were over a cooling pond, how could a fire have started?

I mean, the fuel rods drop and they fall into the cooling pond, right?

On edit, they say dropping the rods could have cracked the pool itself and allowed it to drain, thus creating a fire.

[uppityperson]

12. Here's how, more from the article, including "fail-safe system"

The load was safely lowered 55 hours after an improperly calibrated fail-safe system stopped the load as it was being raised. The citation from the NRC was of "minor safety significance" -- a type that U.S. nuclear plants typically receive several times each year.

But in its report, the NRC said the workers' actions were neither authorized by their supervisors, nor allowed under safety rules, and "represented an increase in the risk of a load drop" that could have cracked the cooling pool below. A cracked pool could have drained the water that cools tens of thousands of spent nuclear fuel rods -- creating the possibility of a fire

[mom cat]

13. K&R.

[sweetheart]

14. the nuclear thing is pretty much math

10,000 years is a long time, far longer than any government will exist
to perpetuate a nuclear security regimen, so just consider the waste
as cubic yards of toxic waste... and for every toxic yard, there is a
probability that it will break containment, and every single toxic yard
must be secured 10,000 years given human error.... its simply a
probability function the proliferation of the toxic waste. In worst cases
of political breakdown, entire nuclear plants will be left to become
dangerous 10000 year no-go hot zones.

[Cronus Protagonist]

15. I smell a medal in the works

Some Bush appointee somewhere earned a medal for letting this happen and doing nothing about it afterwards. Count on it.

"And to the Iranian people, I say tonight: As you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you." - G. W. Bush

[Up2Late]

16. Good thing they didn't tell us about this in October...

...it might have interrupted the Baseball play-offs. :banghead: :eyes:

[KAT119]

17. K&R!