Aucbvax.1356 fa.energy utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!OAF@MIT-MC Fri May 15 17:09:21 1981 energy digest two messages, the first a shortie - digestified ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 13 May 1981 10:58 edt From: Janofsky.Tipi at MIT-Multics (Bill Janofsky) Subject: Digest or Direct Mail? To: ENERGY at MIT-MC Due to the low volume of traffic on this mailing list, I'd like to suggest that we return to a direct mail mode of distribution. Do I hear any NAYs? Bill J. ------------------------------ Date: 14 May 1981 03:00 edt From: Schauble.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Clipping Service - Three Mile Island Accident, part 3 To: energy at MIT-AI This is the third in a many part series about the Three Mile Island Accident and the nuclear industry in general. This is taken from the March 30 issue of the Phoenix Gazette, by Andrew Zipser, Gazette reporter. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mishaps fan public fears -- Three Mile Island was the world's most dramatic and most publicized nuclear accident. But it wasn't the first; it wasn't the last; and it certainly was not the worst. Three reactor accidents in particular have fanned the public's fears. The first occurred in 1957 when a reactor at Windscale, England, released 1,000 times more radioiodine than was released at TMI. Although enough radiation passed up the food chain to produce human thyroid doses up to 13,000 millirems, surveys 20 years later showed no public health consequences. The second took place nine years later at the Fermi plant near Detroit, a demonstration breeder reactor unlike the commercial reactors being built today. A piece of metal inside the reactor vessel broke loose and partially blocked the flow of coolant, resulting in the partial melting of two fuel elements. The reactor was shut down without injuries and without a radiation release, but with considerable speculation -- including a book titled "We Almost Lost Detroit" -- on how narrowly a tragedy had been averted. Another nine years later, in 1975, the Brown's Ferry complex in Alabama was shut down by, of all things, a candle. the site's two operating plants shared a common instrument and control cable area with a third plant still under contruction; a construction worker testing for air leaks with a candle inadvertantly set the control and instrumentation cable on fire. Of 11 cooling systems, two were completely destroyed and four were seriously damaged, but the remaining five were enough to permit a shutdown. While damage was severe there were, again, no injuries. The incident at Kyshtym, however, was altogether different. Located in central Russia, at the edge of the Siberian plain, Kyshtym was the site of one of the Soviet Union's first nuclear waste dumps. In late 1957 something happened: The wastes were evidently not properly contained, migrated toward each other and set off an explosion. The destruction was awesome. Hundreds, perhaps thousands died within the first year, primarily from radiation sickness. Many thousands more became critically ill, only to die years later of cancers and other problems. Entire villages were evacuated and razed. The main north-south highway through the area was closed for nine months, and when it reopened drivers were warned to travel through a 30-mile stretch at top speed with windows closed. The Kyshtym accident was kept secret for almost two decades. In the Soviet Union, where accidents are never officially recognized, the affair became highly classified. When the Atomic Energy Commission learned of the accident, it, too, classified the information, fearing it would deter domestic development of nuclear energy. When the story finally broke in a British magazine in 1976, official reaction was fast and sharp -- and came not from Moscow but from London, which had just negotiated a contract with the Japanese to reprocess that country's nuclear wastes. The reprocessing plant was to be built, of all places, in Windscale. The magazine's version of what happened may have remained in doubt if not for a final, ironic twist. Exiled Russian scientist Lev Tumerman, a firm proponent of nuclear generating plants, became alarmed at the thought that news of Kyshtym would turn public opinion against such plants. Tumerman, then living in Israel, announced that Kyshtym had indeed been devastated -- but not by an explosion at a reactor. Confirming that the accident had occurred as described in , he described the area as it had appeared when he drove through it almost a decade later: "Only chimneys remained of towns that once were there. As far as the eye could see there were no villages, no towns, no people, no cattle herds." Other accidents have occurred periodically, although never of such proportions. The sequence of events that produced Three Mile Island had happened at least twice in the past, once in 1974 at a Swiss reactor, and once in 1977 at the Toledo Edison Co.'s Davis-Besse plant in Ohio. In both those cases, however, the operators recognized what was happening early enough to avoid the mistakes that were perpetrated at TMI. And as recently as six weeks ago, a mistake in valve settings resulted in 13 workers being showered with radioactive water. An assistant, non-licensed operator opened three valves instead of two, flooding the containment building of Sequoyah-1 in Daisy, Tenn., with 105,000 gallons of the poisonous liquid. This time, as before, there was no known effect on the public, aside from the loss of power when the reactor had to be shut down. But what is worth noting, in an industry struggling to regain its credibility, is that Sequoyah-1 is operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority -- and the TVA, the country's largest utility, also has the reputation of having the nation's best training for its plant operators. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ End of quoted text End of energy nondigest ******************** ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. 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