disclaimer: i know i'm not the target of this question (1) i'm as anti-CCP as it gets, 2) i am on record as saying i will happily DRINK a glass of the undiluted Fukushima wastewater & i stand by that), but let's take a look at the Framatome/Areva report.
https://twitter.com/emotion_att/status/1404340727300063233
i haven't been able to find the actual report they gave the US DoE, so right now i'm going by france24.com/fr/info-en-con… & edition.cnn.com/2021/06/14/pol… under the assumption that news agencies didn't fuck up interpreting the science.
(if anyone can find a copy of the official statement from Framatome i'd really like to read it. English or French is fine).
okay, so Taishan is a third-gen PWR (Pressurized Water Reactor) of the EPR design. the fuel can be low-enriched & LIGHT water under pressure serves to both cool the reactor & slow the reaction; this pressurized loop transfers heat to another water loop that drives turbines.
anyhow, if the CNN article is to be believed, what occurred is "fission gas release". "fission gas" is basically gaseous radioactive products you get in the nuclear chain reaction. mostly various isotopes of Xenon: hal-cea.archives-ouvertes.fr/cea-02063614/d…
now, the important questions: first off, is this immediately dangerous? IMO, not at all. our limits are extremely stringent to the point where i'd call them insanely so. a doubling of them is still not going to put anyone at risk of, well, anything.
it's been a decade since the Fukushima Daiichi disaster (holy fuck how has it been so long what even *is* time?). since then, from what is rated as one of only *TWO* INES 7 incidents (the other being Chernobyl), we still can't conclusively prove even a single person died of it.
nuclear power is incredibly safe, even when it goes, well, catastrophically awry. and there's no risk of modern BWR *or* PWR designs to turn into another Chernobyl.
that being said, the second question? is this *POTENTIALLY BAD*? YES.
that being said, the second question? is this *POTENTIALLY BAD*? YES.
a co-designer of a nuclear plant reaching out to a third-party uninvolved nuclear power while the plant operator plays This Is Fine Dog? YEAH THAT'S NOT SOMETHING THAT HAPPENS EVERY DAY.
so what's the risk? the fission gas release itsself is harmless. doubing of levels of Xe nuclides, which dissipate rapidly & all have short half-lives is literally nothing, but the issue is *that it's happening*. this implies cracks in the containment vessel, which implies...
...shonky engineering. as we have seen from the Onagawa plant, nuclear energy can be extremely safe even in the face of MAJOR disasters DIRECTLY hitting the facility if safety protocols are STRICTLY adhered to.
as we have seen from the Fukushima plant, the opposite happens when you ignore them or try to work/bribe your way around them.
so we can't have another disaster on the scale of Chernobyl (i stand by this), but what's the worst that could happen?
so we can't have another disaster on the scale of Chernobyl (i stand by this), but what's the worst that could happen?
(disclaimer: i live <100km from this facility. in the case of an INES 7 incident, i & many of the people i care about would be directly affected).
is an INES 7 likely *now*? no. something of this scale doesn't imply imminent failure or catastrophic fuckup.
is an INES 7 likely *now*? no. something of this scale doesn't imply imminent failure or catastrophic fuckup.
if that were the case, i 100% guarantee you Framatome would be sounding a *MUCH* bigger alarm. the French have been in the nuclear business for longer than most anywhere else, & generate ~75% of their power that way. they know their shit here.
is something less bad, like an INES 4 (local effects at the plant, but no wide-scale radiation release, cf. Saint-Laurent 1969) incident possible imminently? maybe. is an INES 6/7 possible if something like 超強颱風山竹 plows into it tomorrow at full force? possibly.
that's the thing with reactor design flaws. if someone tells you your shit is dodgy w/a nuclear reactor, ***ESPECIALLY IF THEY'RE THE MCFUCKING DESIGNERS***, YOU LISTEN & THEN MAKE SURE IT IS EITHER FIXED OR INDEED *NOT* A PROBLEM.
*THAT'S* what concerns me here. what is happening now is literally nothing, but it & the response is indicative of the wrong kind of safety culture there, which *could* be potentially catastrophic years down the line.
i really hope they listen & fix their shit, we need nuclear power now more than ever.
update: read the statement from Framatome & i'm worried even less now:
https://twitter.com/wanderer_jasnah/status/1404409155910316033
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