Atomic Plant vs Nuclear Plant

[StoopTroup]

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[SoCaliSooner]

http://images.onset.freedom.com/ocregister/gallery/li0cyq-li0cvfnuke.mda03.jpg


Nothing beats surfing in front of the nuclear tits in San Onofre...well...except for all the great whites...

[StoopTroup]

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[SouthCarolinaSooner]

Pressurized water reactor for the closed tops and boiling water reactor for the open tops is the difference I think.

[sappstuf]

It's not going to be easy.. Everything I see reminds me of her.

http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/17343737.jpg

[MR2-Sooner86]

It's nothing more than a cooling tower that even coal fire plants have.

The reason those cooling towers are so big is because nuclear reactors use ALLOT more water compared to a coal-fire or gas-fire plant.

http://www.corbisimages.com/images/572/CBB5D160-3012-471D-96B4-C2C96EADDA43/42-21053275.jpg

The above image is a coal-fire plant using the same design of cooling towers. As you can see they're not as large as ones on a nuclear plant.

http://www.treehugger.com/nelson-dewey-coal-fired-power-plant.jpg

Another coal-fire plant yet you can see the cooling towers in a straight line going out from the plant. Since this plant isn't as large it doesn't need the bigger cooling towers.

They both do the same job it's just the design and the size of the plant. Like I said, nuclear reactors are able to heat allot of water at once so you need very large cooling towers to cool it back down. Your average coal and gas-fire plant can't heat that much water at once so the cooling towers are smaller.

Now as for the Japanese reactor, I think it became online around 1970. I really don't know why it doesn't use the large cooling towers. It probably is a different design than the ones we see here in America. Since it's close to the ocean they might have a different way to cool the water and not need the towers. Again, I really have no idea.

[StoopTroup]

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[soonercruiser]

"Atomic Plant"!
Isn't than a nuclear plant gone rogue? :eek:

http://members.cox.net/franklipsinic/Other/Nuc.jpg

[sooner_born_1960]

In the US, the Atomic Energy Commission became the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. So, I'd say they are the same thing. I have no idea why they felt the need to change the name.

[StoopTroup]

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[KantoSooner]

The Fukushima reactors are boiling water reactors, came on line in 1970 and are the same design as some in this country (I believe the original design was by GE). "Nuclear" and "Atomic" are used interchangeably. I have no idea why the Japanese plants don't have cooling towers. They do have tall stacks next door.
These plants (and the ones like them here) have a common drawback: they require active/powered cooling. IE: they need pumps to keep the cooling water flowing. No pumps=overheating.
In this case, the electrical grid goes down due to the earthquake. Then the emergency diesels go down due to the tsunami. Then the batteries slowly ran out. Then they overheated. Overheating caused hydrogen build up and explosions, then fires.
Current generation designs (also by GE) use passive cooling loops requiring no power to circulate the cooling water. Much more elegant design not only from the point of view of safety but also cheaper to build and maintain.

TEPCO, the operator in Japan, is a bull**** company, I've worked with them. This reactor site should have been shutdown several years ago. Still, when you design something, it's hard to justify designing for an event whose liklihood is somewhere in between once in 500 to once in 1000 years....in the whole country. Moderately bad planning meets massively bad luck.

[Aldebaran]

It's not going to be easy.. Everything I see reminds me of her.

http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/17343737.jpg

Damn... I thought I was going to have the first call making a Naked Gun reference.


Doesn't anyone understand how a man can hurt inside?

[StoopTroup]

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[jkjsooner]

If it's the one you can see from I-40, I've seen that Arkansas plant.

One time I took a prop plane from DC to NYC. I was surprised how many of those towers I saw. They all looked like the iconic nuclear power plant although I'm not sure if all of them were in fact nuclear. I think I've seen traditional power plants that had cooling towers that looked similar to the nuke ones.

Here's my question for the physicists out there. First, let me give my layman idea about how these things work and tell me if it is right.

When a nuclear power plant is active, the fuel assembly is in a critical state allowing a steady state chain reaction. When the reactor is shut down (with control rods), it goes subcritical. My interpretation is that, in addition to the natural spontaneous decay in radioactive materials, there are still neutrons left over from the critical reaction flying around the fuel assembly splitting other atoms and creating more neutrons. We're no longer critical so the rate of neutron creation (from splitting atoms) is lower than the rate of neutron loss so we undergo a exponential decay in neutron creation. At some point we reach the rate of neutron creation / radioactivity that the new assembly would have had had it never been in a critical state. However, it takes a long time to settle on this rate?

Is that pretty accurate?

Is there a way to create a neutron gun? Is it possible to create a nuclear reactor with fissible material that is well below the critical state but is supplied by an external neutron gun that increases the level of reaction in this material? If so, you could mitigate the shutdown problem as once you remove the neutron gun the subcritical mass of fissible material would settle down much quicker and it's natural state would be incredibly lower.

I also wonder if it's possible to build a large containment structure and essentially explode the fissible material spreading it out throughout the containment structure so that a higher percentage of neutrons escape and the rate of fission decays at a much higher rate.

[StoopTroup]

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[aurorasooner]

I just heard a reporter use the Term "Atomic" I would guess that the terms Atomic & Nuclear are equivalent when referring to power generating fission reactors, although I'm with you in that I haven't heard them labeled as "Atomic", at least from an educated source.
I've pretty much had it trying to get any credible up-dates on this Japan nuclear event from these shock-jock news reporters over at these CNN-type cable news networks (unless perhaps it's the BBC or the ABC/CBS/NBC early morning news shows). IMO, the Fox & CNN news anchors are just ridiculous and they're worse than the sports-network Cowherd/Rome hosts, in that they would rather create controversy or slant their reports towards the absolute worst to increase their ratings, than just report the damn news.
I tried to listen to a pro/con U.S. safe/not safe nuclear power debate from 2 seemingly credible people and they couldn't get in a complete sentence because the host was constantly interrupting them and then finally cut them off because of some BS. Then they went to some worthless mush story.
Perhaps the best place to get credible updates on this situation is from the Nuclear Energy Institute news web-page http://nei.cachefly.net/newsandevents/information-on-the-japanese-earthquake-and-reactors-in-that-region/ or perhaps something like the Nuclear Engineering sub-forum over at physicsforums.com
TEPCO, the operator in Japan, is a bull**** companyI read a couple of articles about their previous accident cover-ups, last weekend, and it didn't appear that their management team would get the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

[jkjsooner]

POST REPORTED

:D ;)



Good question. Ummmm...if we ever meet at a tailgate....don't take it personal it we don't shake hands. :D ;)


It would be totally cool to be that guy who built a reactor in his parent's garage.

Is that an urban myth?

[jkjsooner]

I've pretty much had it trying to get any credible up-dates on this Japan nuclear event from these shock-jock news reporters over at these CNN-type cable news networks .

There was a time when CNN was a pretty decent outfit. They may have arguably had a slight left slant but they still were pretty professional. Now, I can't even watch CNN anymore.

[Breadburner]

In before the Government shuts this thread down.......http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh118/sweetsilverblues/tinfoilhat2cy2.jpg

[texaspokieokie]

http://images.onset.freedom.com/ocregister/gallery/li0cyq-li0cvfnuke.mda03.jpg


Nothing beats surfing in front of the nuclear tits in San Onofre...well...except for all the great whites...

this is the only one i remember seeing. i think it was there when i first moved to ca in 1963.

[Jacie]

At least he didn't use the term "nucular" . . .

[StoopTroup]

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[MR2-Sooner86]

It would be totally cool to be that guy who built a reactor in his parent's garage.

Is that an urban myth?

No he's real.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_tOQi3FO3zUI/TDTbnZeuNSI/AAAAAAAAAVo/1Is8b5FnrI0/s1600/sheldon_cooper.jpg

[Jacie]

Perhaps you are thinking of this guy.

http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html

What happened when a teenager tried a dangerous experiment in his back yard

Tale of the Radioactive Boy Scout.

FROM HARPER'S MAGAZINE BY KEN SILVERSTEIN

Golf Manor, a subdivision in Commerce Township, Mich., some 25 miles outside of Detroit, is the kind of place where nothing unusual is supposed to happen, where the only thing lurking around the corner is an ice-cream truck. But June 26, 1995, was not a typical day.

Ask Dottie Pease. Cruising down Pinto Drive, Pease saw half a dozen men crossing her neighbor's lawn. Three, in respirators and white moon suits, were dismantling her next-door neighbor's shed with electric saws, stuffing the pieces into large steel drums emblazoned with radioactive warning signs.

Huddled with a group of neighbors, Pease was nervous. "I was pretty disturbed," she recalls. Publicly, the employees of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that day said there was nothing to fear. The truth is far more bizarre: the shed was dangerously irradiated and, according to the EPA, up to 40,000 residents of the area could be at risk.

The cleanup was provoked by the boy next door, David Hahn. He had attempted to build a nuclear reactor in his mother's shed following a Boy Scout merit-badge project.

(follow the link to find out how this kid got the attention of the EPA and put 40,000 people at risk)

[Breadburner]

This is David Hahn (now) on the right in the photo......

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l40/driscomy/weird20science.jpg

[texaspokieokie]

this is the only one i remember seeing. i think it was there when i first moved to ca in 1963.

well, it didn't go online till 1967, so i was wrong about it being there when i first moved to CA.

[StoopTroup]

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[StoopTroup]

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[soonerhubs]

http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.jpg


What a healthy hobby!

[StoopTroup]

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[soonerhubs]

http://www.thewrap.com/files/u1175/breaking_bad.jpg

Walter White is not amused with this guy. :D