Linda Keene and the Chalk River Reactor.

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Chris Bradley
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Linda Keene and the Chalk River Reactor.

Post by Chris Bradley »

It was my understanding of this news story some years back that Linda Keene, once head of the Nuclear Safety Commission, Canada, was sacked for ordering the shut down of the Chalk River reactor.

This was because provisions for additional water cooling circuits, that were promised to be fitted to the plant within a given timescale of its construction due to safety concerns, did not happen. After due notice and that these cooling circuits were still not fitted, she ordered its shut down.

She was then sacked for 'endangering cancer patients', as the plant could not then produce medical isotopes.

If anyone can confirm this story, and any updates, I would be interested to hear.

I was just wondering if those folks who sacked her are still sitting quite so comfortably over that decision [that back-up cooling circuits are not so important as keeping the thing running] whilst watching the catastrophic news from Japan?
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Re: Linda Keene and the Chalk River Reactor.

Post by DaveC »

Chris -

Can't help you with your question about Linda Keene.

But a quibble, kind sir. But doesn't it behoove us, on this net at least, to drop the descriptor "catastrophic" from our references the Fukushima situation?

There is no doubt whatsoever, that this will be a very expensive repair job. And with the advantage of hindsight, we may more or less correctly conclude, the major problems experienced were largely avoidable - not the earthquake or the Tsunami, but the tsunami water damage to mundane electrically powered vital cooling systems.

The key points lost on ALL the news reporting services, is that the reactors all shut down automatically, AND..... that the operators' actions did not compromise this process. That the plant design did not include submersible, robust, electrical supplies and pumps seems strange at coastal plants in major earthquake country.

This is a cleanup mess, now.... not a catastrophe .... at least to me. The Tsunami.... that's the catastrophe.

What do others think?

Dave Cooper
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Chris Bradley
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Re: Linda Keene and the Chalk River Reactor.

Post by Chris Bradley »

Dave Cooper wrote:
> And with the advantage of hindsight, we may more or less correctly conclude, the major problems experienced were largely avoidable

The system was designed to tolerate a 10 m tsunami. That was the spec given to the builders of the thing AFAIK. When a 12 m tsunami hit, then unsurprisingly - it failed.

Hindsight was *not at all* necessary, because tsunamis in the previous 100 years regularly exceeded 10 m along that coast line. The one in 1890's was 38 m.

It should have been built to withstand much higher than 12 m, and maybe the electrics would've worked had it been so. This isn't hindsight, this is being a spectator to a catastrophic design specification error.

'Catastrophic' has a specific meaning in reliability engineering - it is where a near instantaneous mechanical failure occurs leading to the failure of every principal required function.
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Re: Linda Keene and the Chalk River Reactor.

Post by DaveC »

Chris-

Certainly no argument about the lack of vision, here. Also didn't intend to hijack your thread's direction.

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Chris Bradley
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Re: Linda Keene and the Chalk River Reactor.

Post by Chris Bradley »

No worries Dave. If my post had an air of annoyance about it, it is because almost every time major disasters strike these days, it seems, we find out the root cause is actually someone signing off an inadequate specification.

It seems that technologies that engineers use to get a job done no longer fail for lack of understanding, they fail due to some purchasing or political decision, beyond the engineers' influence. But people still seem keen to point fingers at engineers and technology as the issues rather than themselves and the politicians they vote for and the companies their 'lowest price' dollars encourage to cut corners. This is exactly the scenario with Linda Keene - an engineering decision overruled by politics. Same thing, same 'root cause'.

As a reliability engineer, how else am I to react other than with frustration?
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Re: Linda Keene and the Chalk River Reactor.

Post by Frank Sanns »

There is no way to have a fool proof nuclear reactor not matter how many contingency plans are in place. It is a dangerous technology that unfortunately, because of our energy gluttonous society, is necessary. Of 442 reactor sites 3 of them have had serious accidents. Not a very good track record.

You can't just turn these things off. They need to be treated like they are operating for months, even after a SCRAM. Not exactly a comforting thought considering the proximity of these reactors to cities that are only a couple hundred miles a way and many far less. Just minutes of loss of cooling water for any reason, intended or not can trigger events that are unrecoverable from.

We do not need to worry though because the head of the nuclear power industry in the US has given his assurance that in the event of an accident, large groups of evacuees from up to a 50 mile radius can be handled. I guess I can now sleep better knowing that if something gets out of control at any of these reactors near me, that when I have to permanently evacuate my house and lose everything I own since insurance does not cover nuclear accidents, that there will be a cot reserved for me in some gymnasium shelter.

Frank Sanns
Achiever's madness; when enough is still not enough. ---FS
We have to stop looking at the world through our physical eyes. The universe is NOT what we see. It is the quantum world that is real. The rest is just an electron illusion. ---FS
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Re: Linda Keene and the Chalk River Reactor.

Post by DaveC »

More than 20 years ago, in a sunny viewpoint in So. Cal, an industry captain, told the superconducting generator crowd that the economics from a non-military perspective were not favorable with regard to super large (>1.5GW) single shaft turbo-alternators. Hence the interest in a shorter, and lighter Super Conducting Alternator were not strong drivers for Utility investment in the R&D effort.

We all knew what the DOD interest was - both aerial and aquatic

The utlilty viewpoint was influenced by the realization that reactors with more than about 0.5 GW electrical output (use about 3-4X that figure for the thermal output), were capable of thermal runaway, under LOCA (Loss of Coolant Accidents).

A target size was floating about then, of about 450MW electrical, which was thought to be more or less unconditionally runaway-proof... In other words, it could be shut down from full power, even with loss of coolant and not overheat to the point of core damage.

This pointed, then to the HTGR (High Temperature Gas Cooled) reactor designs that were near and dear to some folks' hearts.

This is just to underscore the points Chris and Frank are making.

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Re: Linda Keene and the Chalk River Reactor.

Post by richnormand »

This link may provide you with some insigths. Many more on Google about this particular incident.
http://newsinreview.cbclearning.ca/wp-c ... kriver.pdf

It pops up at the last page of the pdf for me for some reason. Go back to page 1 (of 13) if needed.
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Re: Linda Keene and the Chalk River Reactor.

Post by Richard Hull »

Thanks for the URL Nice piece.
Politics, name calling and finger pointing will always be part of the nuclear mix. When things go well, all are part of the success story mix. When something goes awry, fragmentation and isolation of factions occur, followed by the "blame game". The heads that roll are at the top of a heap near the bottom of the food chain heap pile.

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Chris Bradley
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Re: Linda Keene and the Chalk River Reactor.

Post by Chris Bradley »

Frank S. wrote:
> It is a dangerous technology that unfortunately, because of our energy gluttonous society, is necessary. Of 442 reactor sites 3 of them have had serious accidents.
Frank, Sorry, but I am extremely uncomfortable with such a conclusion.

You comment vilifies the technology itself, which is exactly the case I was trying to defend. In a way, you are correct, but only in that it is a tautology. ALL technology is 'dangerous', the question is how people manage it.

The 'technology' in the 3 serious accidents you mention were NOT AT ALL a function of the technology. As far as I understand the literature on these things;

1) Three mile island - a loss of coolant lead to an emergency system to cut in, but the operator switched off the emergency cooling, thinking *that* was the problem rather than the solution. Conclusion; the primary cooling system failed [as was anticipated it might] and the back-up system then did exacly what the operators demanded it did - it powered off!

{things fail, so the system was designed to provide backup cooling if necessary, but that was switched off by the operator, so the 'technology' did exactly was it was designed to do in such a scenario - overheat!!}

2) Chernobyl - the reactor was designed to be manually adjustable right up to criticality. The operators took the reactor right up to criticality, and it went critical. Conclusion; the reactor did exacly what the operators demanded it did.

3) Fukushima - the plant was designed to withstand a 10 m tsunami. An entirely foreseeable 12 m tsunami hit and the plant duly failed. Conclusion; the designers and builders of the plant did exactly what they were told to do, and the plant worked to spec - withstand a 10 m tsunami!

NONE of these are related to the 'technology', per se. They were related to 'Homer Simpson' levels of competence.

The UK National Statistics show that around 60 people a year die in 'sock-related injuries'. (They do a head-dive onto the neared table corner, whilst balanced on one leg, presumably!!) Is this a 'dangerous technology' that cannot be made fool proof? Either way, if there is any argument to stop building nuclear power stations, then the argument to stop selling footwear seems far more convincing!!!

ALL tech is dangerous! We have to be clever enough to make it do safe stuff else we might as well take all our clothes off and climb back up the nearest banana tree! So, feeding in comments like 'it is a dangerous technology' is doing exactly what Dave was concerned about, providing ammunition to the 'general-public' to bash technology and bash engineers, when in actual fact I see it that *they* are the ones to blame for their choice of politicians and the commercial companies they choose to deal with.
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Re: Linda Keene and the Chalk River Reactor.

Post by Frank Sanns »

I will revise my comment to say "It is a POTENTIALLY dangerous technology". The chain is only as strong as its weakest link. If it be operator, engineer, or God, it makes no difference to me. Having a nuclear reactor 10 miles from me and having a Nike shoe factory 10 miles from me is worlds apart in risk to my daily life. There is also the the issue with taking something that is not very radioactive like uranium ore and turning it into high level waste. Essentially every bit of fuel that has ever been used in a commercial reactor is still on the planet as high level waste and building up day by day. We are breeding high level radioactive pollutants and there is no way on the planet to get rid of it.

In past posts I have said that it is a necessary evil for electrical power as without would create world crises and world wars. For the record, I am not protesting against nuclear reactors but I think we are lulled into thinking that it is a more fool proof technology and stewardship than it is.

Frank Sanns
Achiever's madness; when enough is still not enough. ---FS
We have to stop looking at the world through our physical eyes. The universe is NOT what we see. It is the quantum world that is real. The rest is just an electron illusion. ---FS
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Chris Bradley
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Re: Linda Keene and the Chalk River Reactor.

Post by Chris Bradley »

Frank S. wrote:
> I think we are lulled into thinking that it is a more fool proof technology and stewardship than it is.
Yes, I think that is the attempt, and you are right to raise it. It is not the tech that is dangerous, but there are potential dangers associated with its use that those responsible try to dumb-down and dismiss in public, which has roll-over impact on the actual implementation (perhaps they start believing their own claims that safety failures can never happen?)

[I think we agree! ]
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