Nuclear Accidents
There are ‘new’ types of nuclear reactors being built.
These ‘new’ ones are modifications of the ‘old’ ones. Nuclear reactors have only been operating since the early 1940’s. Essentially – they are all new.
There are new regulations for the new reactors. It became apparent that the entire design and structure of a nuclear reactor is inherently unsafe. From a power generating standpoint burning radioactive rocks to create steam to make electricity is a great idea – from an engineering and safety standpoint, however, there is no reasonable way to carry out the process.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission then decided to “…move away from prescriptive regulations based on conservative engineering judgments toward regulations focused on issues that significantly contribute to safety.”
Here they state their insanity, if possible, more clearly, “For assessing public safety and developing regulations for nuclear reactors and materials, the NRC traditionally used a deterministic approach that asked "What can go wrong?" and "What are the consequences?" Now, new information for assessing risks also allows NRC to ask "How likely is it that something will go wrong?"”
They hit upon a calculation involving a ‘reactor-year’. A reactor-year is a year that one reactor operates. If a reactor is in operation for 10 years, that’s 10 reactor-years.
Originally nuclear reactors were determined to be able to operate safely for 40 years. ‘New’ regulations allow present reactors to be operated for 80 years without retrofitting or retirement.
The ‘new’ reactors, Generation 3, are said to be able to last for 60 years of operation and will be extended to 120 plus years of operation.
Here we come to the core of the twisted logic.
Generation 2 reactors had a failure rate of 10,000 core damage accidents per 1000 million reactor-years of operation. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission claims that generation 3 reactors will only have 60 core damage accidents per 1000 million reactor-years of operation.
1000 million years is 1 billion years.
Feel safe?
Okay – consider a 100-year storm. Weather Newscasters often talk about 100 year storms. Maybe you have had one in your area. Maybe you’ve had several in your lifetime. How could that be?
It is because it is a math calculation based on the past rain history – they then calculate what the chance is – for the next rain storm – of being a really big rain storm. There is always a 1 in 100 chance that the rainstorm coming up will be a really tremendous storm. There is a possibility, you see of a 100 year rain storm every time it rains. It is a 1 in 100 chance it will be a ‘100 year storm’.
So – when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission tells us that based on past experience that Generation 3 nuclear reactors have a failure rate of only 60 accidents over 1 billion years of operation they are saying that every single day and every single minute of that day there is a chance that somewhere in the world there will be a severe nuclear accident. They don’t know where, they don’t know how and they don’t know why.
The reality is made more stark, of course, by the fact that Generation 3 reactors haven’t really been built yet. There are only a couple in operation so it is unknown if they really will be ‘safer’. In the meantime, every day, every single minute the previous failure rate of 10,000 core damage accidents per 1000 million reactor-years of operation remains in effect.
1,000,000,000 (1 billion) divided by 10,000 (ten-thousand) is 100,000 (one hundred-thousand).
There are 432 known reactors in the world. 100,000 divided by 432 results in 231. There is a 1 in 231 chance that a nuclear accident will occur today at any given moment.
I don’t know where they get their figures from but in the past few weeks there have been accidents involving flooding, earthquakes, power failures and processing. They occurred in Japan, Virginia, Arizona and France. These are the reported accidents.
These ‘new’ ones are modifications of the ‘old’ ones. Nuclear reactors have only been operating since the early 1940’s. Essentially – they are all new.
There are new regulations for the new reactors. It became apparent that the entire design and structure of a nuclear reactor is inherently unsafe. From a power generating standpoint burning radioactive rocks to create steam to make electricity is a great idea – from an engineering and safety standpoint, however, there is no reasonable way to carry out the process.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission then decided to “…move away from prescriptive regulations based on conservative engineering judgments toward regulations focused on issues that significantly contribute to safety.”
Here they state their insanity, if possible, more clearly, “For assessing public safety and developing regulations for nuclear reactors and materials, the NRC traditionally used a deterministic approach that asked "What can go wrong?" and "What are the consequences?" Now, new information for assessing risks also allows NRC to ask "How likely is it that something will go wrong?"”
They hit upon a calculation involving a ‘reactor-year’. A reactor-year is a year that one reactor operates. If a reactor is in operation for 10 years, that’s 10 reactor-years.
Originally nuclear reactors were determined to be able to operate safely for 40 years. ‘New’ regulations allow present reactors to be operated for 80 years without retrofitting or retirement.
The ‘new’ reactors, Generation 3, are said to be able to last for 60 years of operation and will be extended to 120 plus years of operation.
Here we come to the core of the twisted logic.
Generation 2 reactors had a failure rate of 10,000 core damage accidents per 1000 million reactor-years of operation. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission claims that generation 3 reactors will only have 60 core damage accidents per 1000 million reactor-years of operation.
1000 million years is 1 billion years.
Feel safe?
Okay – consider a 100-year storm. Weather Newscasters often talk about 100 year storms. Maybe you have had one in your area. Maybe you’ve had several in your lifetime. How could that be?
It is because it is a math calculation based on the past rain history – they then calculate what the chance is – for the next rain storm – of being a really big rain storm. There is always a 1 in 100 chance that the rainstorm coming up will be a really tremendous storm. There is a possibility, you see of a 100 year rain storm every time it rains. It is a 1 in 100 chance it will be a ‘100 year storm’.
So – when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission tells us that based on past experience that Generation 3 nuclear reactors have a failure rate of only 60 accidents over 1 billion years of operation they are saying that every single day and every single minute of that day there is a chance that somewhere in the world there will be a severe nuclear accident. They don’t know where, they don’t know how and they don’t know why.
The reality is made more stark, of course, by the fact that Generation 3 reactors haven’t really been built yet. There are only a couple in operation so it is unknown if they really will be ‘safer’. In the meantime, every day, every single minute the previous failure rate of 10,000 core damage accidents per 1000 million reactor-years of operation remains in effect.
1,000,000,000 (1 billion) divided by 10,000 (ten-thousand) is 100,000 (one hundred-thousand).
There are 432 known reactors in the world. 100,000 divided by 432 results in 231. There is a 1 in 231 chance that a nuclear accident will occur today at any given moment.
I don’t know where they get their figures from but in the past few weeks there have been accidents involving flooding, earthquakes, power failures and processing. They occurred in Japan, Virginia, Arizona and France. These are the reported accidents.
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