From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,60e2922351e0e780 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-11-20 06:43:27 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news2.google.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!border2.nntp.ash.giganews.com!border1.nntp.ash.giganews.com!firehose2!nntp4!intern1.nntp.aus1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!nntp.comcast.com!news.comcast.com.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 08:43:26 -0600 Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 09:43:24 -0500 From: "Robert I. Eachus" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: OT: Nuclear Waste (Was Re-Marketing Ada) References: <3FB22125.1040807@noplace.com> <3FB3751D.5090809@noplace.com> <_eydnYB-uYJw1yeiRVn-vg@comcast.com> <49cbf610.0311190728.6e290415@posting.google.com> <-cidnS2XwM-GUSai4p2dnA@comcast.com> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.34.214.193 X-Trace: sv3-oO4yns9M2pDi/yKId21vh1cYzseZD5klbEmJxR5AJ+rFsAspceu75wNnlk+ZVLLJZhng44at8yTo4xN!wG+U4htfonpv9XEcdzCwPDncRnr4KdwRloFbNwr2gFMFjlOY8KOwdP2JQ4wxBw== X-Complaints-To: abuse@comcast.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: dmca@comcast.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.1 Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:2736 Date: 2003-11-20T09:43:24-05:00 List-Id: > On 2003-11-19, Robert I. Eachus wrote: (No, I didn't.) Preben Randhol wrote: > While nuclear plants may be safe (depending on design) while operated > properly, what would happen if one was attacked by terrorist? What would > have happened if the morons had crashed a plane in a couple of nuclear > plants and not in the Twin Towers? 1) Everyone on the plane would get very dead. 2) If they crashed into the containment building, the plant could keep operating. If they crashed several planes into the same containment building, they might penetrate it. That doesn't mean the reactor would be damaged, but that the containment building around it could probably be breached by several fully-loaded 747s hitting the same spot. (The requirement for US nuclear plants is that they survive ONE crash of a jetliner full of fuel, not several in succession. 3) If they crashed into the turbine hall (where the electricity is generated). There would probably be a LOCA (loss of cooling accident), the reactor would shut down, and the ECCS (emergency core cooling system) would kick in. You can look at the plans for any particular nuclear plant to see if it is possible for an aircraft crash to damage both the regular and emergency cooling systems. But believe me, for every nuclear plant in the US, those studies have already been done as part of the plant's certification process. 4) If the plant was a boiling water reactor (BWR) built by General Electric, there would be some tritium (radioactive hydrogen) in the steam released. Of course, anyone exposed directly to this steam would also be killed, but not by its radioactivity. This tritium, with a half-life of ten years could possible seriously contaminate water supplies downwind of the disaster.* Studies on LOCA releases indicate that this is a low-probability scenario. Normally, even without all that burning jet fuel, the "bubble" of water vapor created gets carried into the stratosphere, where the tritium decays to normal levels faster than the water vapor is exchanged into the lower atmosphere. Think of the bubble as a lighter than air balloon. Even HTO has a molecular weight of twenty (1+3+16) compared to around 28 for air (mostly N2). *I'm not worried. To do that would require that the terrorists hit the turbine hall in a driving rainstorm--at least twice. An experienced pilot might be able to fly that low in bad weather in a commercial jectliner, but I think that a plane crashing into a turbine hall in such circumstances would be an accident--even if it had been hijacked. -- Robert I. Eachus 100% Ada, no bugs--the only way to create software.