!/2 hour to submit to me nuclear power plant questions

[mikebw]

How long until you sleep it off and share with us some of the answers?!

[space-time]

he's probbaly still drinking

[Jimmypoo]

He's awake. I think he subscribes to the Russian method of hangover prevention. Something about licking
a dog clean...

[bazookaman]

What is the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow?

[deckeda]

bazookaman wrote:
What is the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow?

What do you mean? An African or European swallow?

[Buzz]

the ones going back to San Juan Capistrano...?

[Racer X]

Well, the EE from the power plants wasn't there, but the ME who does thermal analysis was.

Simplest answers on the plants is Yes, we do use the same 4 decade old reactor designs, but our back-up systems never have to content with 9.0 earthquakes and tsunami waves. New Orleans was fine, until the leeves colapsed. That flooded the underground electric pumps, they failed, and the area was screwed.

As for Japan, unless their back-up stuff was on massive towers, or some truly impressive underground and sealed bunkers, there was nothing they could have done about the tsunami.

I don't think there is a reactor complex on the planet set up to fully survive a 9.0 earthquake undamaged. Those in the US are built to about a 7.5 standard, and we put them in geologically stable areas if at all possible. Japan doesn't really have a choice.

[N-OS X-tasy!]

Racer X wrote:
As for Japan, unless their back-up stuff was on massive towers, or some truly impressive underground and sealed bunkers, there was nothing they could have done about the tsunami.

I don't think there is a reactor complex on the planet set up to fully survive a 9.0 earthquake undamaged. Those in the US are built to about a 7.5 standard, and we put them in geologically stable areas if at all possible. Japan doesn't really have a choice.

As has been stated, the power plants survived the quake admirably well. Trouble started when the tsunami killed the backup generators powering the reactor cooling systems. Had those generators been adequately protected from the tsunami - and all accounts I've read indicate this is where the Japanese plant designs fell short - it's quite likely we would not be discussing nuclear disaster today.