Philippines Nuclear Plant Opening

[AlwaysRt]

1 hour ago, Jack Peterson said:

 I don't think Generating is the problem here, it is the Distribution and that won't change for decades, and until they can do away with overhead spaghetti in towns etc; the problem will always be there. Almost every time there is a "Brownout" it is either a Pole gone or cable breaks and such like, "Cart before the Horse" springs to mind  It is what it is 

I wasn't originally bringing it up as a 'this will fix the Philippines power problems', more of a 'if they are going to start nuclear, this is the version they should use' viewpoint.

I would agree there is a more pressing need for distribution and service line upgrades but all three need to be addressed to maintain a working grid. The ability to locate reliable, stable power plant where they are needed would assist in developing a solid, redundant distribution network. Add properly sized transformers not over taxed by too many service runs and the whole system is improved. Of course to do that would take many times the available funding which is what gets the horse moving to start with.

I also tend to think about other countries where so many people currently do without any power at all, thus the ability to change the world comment.

[Jack Peterson]

1 hour ago, AlwaysRt said:

I would agree there is a more pressing need for distribution and service line upgrades

That my friend IS the problem here, But ........ we know where we are and as I write this I have just been told that this thing of resurrecting the nuclear Power station in Bataan is a no brainer for the Visayas Region so back to the drawing board methinks 

[earthdome]

9 hours ago, Jack Peterson said:

Well I have to apologize to our "David" here first, Canada came up first because it is an Alphabetical but I link the Nuclear accident list for all to see. I believe this is since Chernobyl in 1986, I may be wrong but anyway it is all I can offer at this time;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_accidents_by_country

Industrial and manufacturing plants will have accidents. People are killed every day where they work. If you look at that list in 50 years of nuclear energy the number of people killed in that industry world wide is relatively small, according to that list < 100. Most from Chernobyl. Some deaths are just industrial accidents not due to the nuclear nature of the plant.

In one accident at a chemical plant in Bhopal India resulted in almost 4,000 immediate deaths and half a million injured. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster

Yes the US Three Mile Island was a very bad accident but no one was hurt. In fact the containment design was found to work much better than the design requirements. If when the first alarm sounded all the workers had just gone home and left the safety system do its job they could have recovered the plant and been back in production in less than a month. The actions the operators took made the accident worse and resulted in almost a 50% core meltdown. A great deal was learned from that accident which resulted in improvements to design and a policy in the industry of not changing anything unless you know for sure what effect it will have on the plant. i.e. Let the safety systems work as designed.

FYI, I worked for many years on Navy nuclear plants in operations and commercial electrical generation nuclear plants specializing in health physics and radiation protection.

3rd and 4th generation nuclear energy plants have much simpler and safer designs.

[Jake]

9 hours ago, earthdome said:

FYI, I worked for many years on Navy nuclear plants in operations and commercial electrical generation nuclear plants specializing in health physics and radiation protection.

3rd and 4th generation nuclear energy plants have much simpler and safer designs.

Earthdome was a nuclear engineer/reactor operator on board a nuke submarine that carried trident missiles (a boomer class).  So I value his opinions about anything and everything dealing with nuclear power.  The US Navy has the safest record to date operating these power plants.

The nuclear power plant in Bataan started construction around the late 70's with Westinghouse winning the "contract" signed by Marcos.  Of course Marcos signed the contract with a multi million dollar bride from Westinghouse.  Little did they know (or ignored) that area was near a major earthquake fault and also near Mt Pinatubo, which erupted in 1991. The construction was completed anyway but not fueled with the fuel rods.  I don't know if the power distribution grids were set up but it lays dormant until some other corrupt official(s) is bride again.  

Personally, I prefer renewable energy with the combination of wind and solar power.  The technology of storage batteries are getting better, smaller and more economical.  Whereas, the expended fuel rods from nuclear reactors can pose a danger for many, many years.  

 

[jpbago]

Ontario is the main supplier of nuclear electricity in Canada and supplies 1/3 of the world for nuclear medicine.

Nuclear power in Canada is provided by 19 commercial reactors with a net capacity of 13.5 Gigawatts (GWe), producing a total of 95.6 Terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity, which accounted for 16.6% of the nation's total electric energy generation in 2015. All but one of these reactors are located in Ontario where they produced 60% of the province's electricity in 2015 (92.3 TWh).[1] Seven smaller reactors are used for research and to produce radioactive isotopes for nuclear medicine.

Canadian nuclear reactors are a type of pressurized heavy-water reactor of indigenous design, the CANDU. CANDU reactors have been exported to India, Pakistan, Argentina, South Korea, Romania and China.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Canada

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_medicine

 

[Jack Peterson]

 OK, OK, so let's now ask a question who, of the Experts on Board this Topic really think our Noble people here could manage a nuclear power station at this time with all the Safety issues to be addressed? Me, I would be very sceptical due mainly to the somewhat Total lack of Safety forethought, As much as I love these people and would love to see them proudly Progress.  

 Morning All

Edited July 25, 2017 by Jack Peterson
Just because I felt the need ha ha

[earthdome]

1 hour ago, Jack Peterson said:

 OK, OK, so let's now ask a question who, of the Experts on Board this Topic really think our Noble people here could manage a nuclear power station at this time with all the Safety issues to be addressed? Me, I would be very sceptical due mainly to the somewhat Total lack of Safety forethought, As much as I love these people and would love to see them proudly Progress.  

 Morning All

No. First they would need to gain a great deal of experience in a number of different scientific, engineering and technical skills. Regardless, with the amount of capital required it will never happen. IMHO

[AlwaysRt]

1 hour ago, Jack Peterson said:

 OK, OK, so let's now ask a question who, of the Experts on Board this Topic really think our Noble people here could manage a nuclear power station at this time with all the Safety issues to be addressed? Me, I would be very sceptical due mainly to the somewhat Total lack of Safety forethought, As much as I love these people and would love to see them proudly Progress.  

 Morning All

I would think since they do not have current experience to draw from that they would also contract with Westinghouse to stay and run it, not just install and leave.

Switching to a molten salt reactor has different challenges but eliminates the possibility of a catastrophic mistake (can not explode, can not meltdown).

[Jack Peterson]

2 minutes ago, AlwaysRt said:

I would think since they do not have current experience to draw from that they would also contract with Westinghouse to stay and run it, not just install and leave.

I take that as a NO? then Steve, he stated that he did not want contractors but to do it Inhouse. Remember it is built and Dormant, Under His Bid process he is so Fond of, coupled with his Transparency issue he would likely go Cheap and then more problems.

[AlwaysRt]

1 minute ago, Jack Peterson said:

I take that as a NO? then Steve, he stated that he did not want contractors but to do it Inhouse. Remember it is built and Dormant, Under His Bid process he is so Fond of, coupled with his Transparency issue he would likely go Cheap and then more problems.

So that could lead into since the only local 'experts' would be the inexperienced workers there. They would also be tasked with supervising themselves. Sounds like it could end up in a blind leading the blind situation which would be inherently unsafe.