Michigan wants to reopen Palisades nuclear ill-informed environmentalists object

T. A. Gardner

T. A. Gardner

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Michigan is trying to reopen the Palisades nuclear plant that shutdown in 2022. The plant provided 5% of all power the state of Michigan needed. Industry and commercial interests applauded the move as they need the power and renewables weren't cutting it.

Company is attempting to restart a shuttered US nuclear plant for the first time
Nuclear power plants have been shut down in recent years over activist concerns about safety, but one shuttered US nuclear power plant is trying to get a new start.https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/first-ever-us-nuclear-plant-restart


When is the Palisades nuclear plant going to reopen? Holtec officials release new details
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/palisades-nuclear-plant-going-reopen-080620476.html

News articles included commentary from the Leftist environmentalist group Beyond Nuclear and one of their four top staff, Kevin Kamps.

Critics of the proposal argue point out that there have been serious issues with this plant, including a degraded seal on a device that helped control the atomic reaction that forced the previous owner to close the plant down weeks earlier than originally anticipated.

“This is uncharted risk territory,” said Kevin Kamps, a radioactive waste specialist with Beyond Nuclear, a group opposing the restart of the Palisades nuclear facility. The group has pledged to fight the reopening.
(ibid Interesting Engineering)

Well, since nobody on the staff of Beyond Nuclear has any actual expertise in anything nuclear, Mr. Kamps least of all, his commentary is essentially baseless hysteria. Mr. Kamps being a "radioactive waste specialist" is a self-proclaimed title with no experience or training that goes with it.

See here for Mr. Kamps, et al., biographical sketches:
https://beyondnuclear.org/about/

Beyond Nuclear, is a Leftist to radical Leftist, anti-nuclear, environmentalist group. Like many such groups, the membership is unqualified, highly biased, and politically motivated. They replace sound reasoning with a combination of vague generalities, baseless claims, and hysterical hyperbole.
 
The fucking plants have lots of problems, sometimes very serious ones. Biden is deep into the environmental cleanup and thinks nuclear power will help.
 
Nordberg said:
Ok. You are super pro-nuclear. That is not new. Another Michigan nuke plant https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsfermi-2-closed-following-coolant-leak-11105845
Click to expand...

Okay... And? Complex machinery often has routine maintenance issues. The article you linked shows one of these.

DTE workers discovered the leak was coming from a three-quarter-inch pipe, which is being repaired,

A leak in a 3/4" pipe. The problem was recognized, the plant reduced power, the problem was repaired. What's the big deal?
 
Nordberg said:
Ok. You are super pro-nuclear. That is not new. Another Michigan nuke plant https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsfermi-2-closed-following-coolant-leak-11105845
Click to expand...

I don't know about the specific nuke plant in your article, but I've heard time and again from sources I think are reliable that nuclear fission is not the way to go. Here's an article I found quickly in an internet search:

Why Nuclear Power Is Bad for Your Wallet and the Climate | Bloomberg Law

As to what -is- the best solution to climate issues and our wallets, I strongly suspect it's renewable energies, particularly unconventional ones:

Free Energy Devices and Their Potential: Revolutionizing Energy | greenlifezen.com
 
T. A. Gardner said:
Okay... And? Complex machinery often has routine maintenance issues. The article you linked shows one of these.

DTE workers discovered the leak was coming from a three-quarter-inch pipe, which is being repaired,

A leak in a 3/4" pipe. The problem was recognized, the plant reduced power, the problem was repaired. What's the big deal?
Click to expand...

Routine issues in nuke plants spread radiation . They are all on important water ways. https://www.sdstandardnow.com/home/...cilities-across-usa-still-pose-a-major-threat
 
I was super pro-nuke when they started out. The accidents, coverups, 3 Mi Island, Fermi, Fukushima, and Cerrnobyl made me rethink it. They are for-profit companies and you know they end up cutting back steadily to increase profits. Safety, manpower, and training suffer. Accidents will happen, but cutting back on safety for profits in nuke plans portends disasters.
 
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Nordberg said:
I was super pro-nuke when they started out. The accidents, coverups, 3 Mi Island, Fermi, Fukushima, and Chornobyl made me rethink it. They are for-profit companies and you know they end up cutting back steadily to increase profits. Safety, manpower, and training suffer. Accidents will happen, but cutting back on safety for profits in nuke plans portends disasters.
Click to expand...

Want to go through the accidents and the aftermath? I will if you will.
 
Nordberg said:
The fucking plants have lots of problems, sometimes very serious ones. Biden is deep into the environmental cleanup and thinks nuclear power will help.
Click to expand...

You think nuclear plants fuck you? They aren't a person, Sock.

Then again, maybe some of that radiation therapy might help with your butthurt.
 
Phoenyx said:
I don't know about the specific nuke plant in your article, but I've heard time and again from sources I think are reliable that nuclear fission is not the way to go. Here's an article I found quickly in an internet search:

Why Nuclear Power Is Bad for Your Wallet and the Climate | Bloomberg Law

As to what -is- the best solution to climate issues and our wallets, I strongly suspect it's renewable energies, particularly unconventional ones:

Free Energy Devices and Their Potential: Revolutionizing Energy | greenlifezen.com
Click to expand...

Considering that nuclear fission is pretty cheap (watt for watt), it's definitely a way to go.
There is no such thing as a 'climate issue'.
If you want renewable energy, use oil or natural gas power plants.
 
One example doesn't prove much, I suppose,
but my only experience with a local nuclear powerplant,
on New Hampshire's very short coastline where I once owned a home,
was a very positive one.

It was a huge asset to the community due to the property taxes it paid.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
Want to go through the accidents and the aftermath? I will if you will.
Click to expand...

Well aware of them. We actually got very close to even worse disasters. Fermi and 3 Mile almost went big.
I toured a nuke plant in Ontario. They are impressive and enormously expensive ways to boil water.
 
Nordberg said:
Well aware of them. We actually got very close to even worse disasters. Fermi and 3 Mile almost went big.
I toured a nuke plant in Ontario. They are impressive and enormously expensive ways to boil water.
Click to expand...

No, you're not. You have no idea, no factual background, or clue about any of them. If you think Fermi or TMI "almost went big" you are a complete illiterate on nuclear power--complete illiterate. A tour of a nuke plant is meaningless. You had no idea what you were even looking at most likely.
 
NiftyNiblick said:
One example doesn't prove much, I suppose,
but my only experience with a local nuclear powerplant,
on New Hampshire's very short coastline where I once owned a home,
was a very positive one.

It was a huge asset to the community due to the property taxes it paid.
Click to expand...

Like any power plant, nuclear power plants can certainly have issues. It takes a lot to cause anything like a release of the nuclear material though (like a tidal wave striking the plant).
Even if it IS released, the material loses a lot of it's ability to radiate because it's no longer contained, but spread over a larger volume. It can also be cleaned up (expensive, but possible).

Note that despite the tidal wave that struck and destroyed the Fukushima plant, and released core material into the sea in a twisted mass of metal and uranium, it's not a major problem for the surrounding communities. Even fishing is normal. Cleaning up the mess is extra difficult because it's underwater (water acts as a nuclear shield!), and getting a robot in there to cut it up and dispose of it, the surrounding communities are largely unaffected. The biggest effect was reduced power generating capacity, and cleaning up their own debris from the tidal wave.

Nuclear power is generally pretty safe. Yes, it does require properly running the reactor, but there are a LOT of safeguards to shut things down or prevent someone from doing something stupid.

That didn't exist in Russia for the Chernobyl reactor. It had NO safeguards (not even a containment!), was running hotter than usual (the Russians like to run a reactor a lot closer to it's limits), and even basic procedures for safely handling a reactor were ignored. That reactor exploded, spewing chunks of core material around the an area immediately around the reactor.

Despite this, animals in the area (it was largely abandoned by humans) seem to doing well with no ill effects. A couple of people live there despite others leaving, and they have no ill effects either. Yes, the core of the reactor was destroyed, but it was spread over a much smaller area than people are led to believe, and it is no longer anything approaching a critical mass.

3 mile Island also suffered a nuclear accident, resulting in steam being vented from the containment that was slightly radioactive (core coolant line flashing into steam). This quickly dissipated and the only injuries were in the plant itself.

A lot of people live quite happily with nuclear power plants. Seems like you're one of them.
 
Nordberg said:
Well aware of them. We actually got very close to even worse disasters. Fermi and 3 Mile almost went big.
I toured a nuke plant in Ontario. They are impressive and enormously expensive ways to boil water.
Click to expand...

3 mile Island did not almost 'go big'. They had a problem with a primary coolant line and venting steam to reduce pressure, but that's all.
Fermi did not release any radioactive anything. The plant suffered some internal damage, that's all.

Nuclear power is a hell of a lot cheaper than wind or solar power (watt for watt). It is not renewable energy, since the uranium is destroyed in the process, and there is no recycling path for the material.

Both oil and natural gas power plants are compact and efficient, and they use renewable energy.

ALL of these plants boil water to make steam to drive a turbine connected to a dynamo.
 
Into the Night said:
3 mile Island did not almost 'go big'. They had a problem with a primary coolant line and venting steam to reduce pressure, but that's all.
Fermi did not release any radioactive anything. The plant suffered some internal damage, that's all.

Nuclear power is a hell of a lot cheaper than wind or solar power (watt for watt). It is not renewable energy, since the uranium is destroyed in the process, and there is no recycling path for the material.

Both oil and natural gas power plants are compact and efficient, and they use renewable energy.

ALL of these plants boil water to make steam to drive a turbine connected to a dynamo.
Click to expand...

Actually, at TMI they had a pressure relief valve that on the primary side pressurizer vessel that was stuck open due to a faulty maintenance procedure. That is the valve wasn't closed after maintenance like it was supposed to be. Interestingly, about 60 days prior, the same thing happened at Davis-Bessie in Ohio and the operators there recognized the problem and safely shut the plant down.

At TMI the operators failed to recognize the problem, then made a series of bad decisions over about 8 hours that resulted in a partial meltdown of the reactor involved. The result of that was the well known accident. In the aftermath, nobody died. Nobody got cancer or some other nasty outcome as a direct result of the accident. There was no release of radioactive material.

The TMI clean up took almost 20 years to fully complete and the total cost was far less than the cost of clean up after the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig accident, or the Exxon Valdez oil spill...

The problem at Fukushima was the Japanese didn't have a plant designed like the US ones are with a secondary containment--the big concrete dome over the reactor. Instead theirs were in what amounted to a big tin shed. That one single design flaw was the cause of 90% of the problems that occurred at Fukushima. Even then, nobody died as a direct result of the plant melting down, and it's very likely no one is going to get some nasty outcome like cancer as a result of it either.

At Chernobyl, the problem was the unaccountable Soviet government allowed a flawed and inherently unsafe reactor design to be used--that is, the reactor was a graphite moderated fast fission design. This design was not being used anywhere else in the world for commercial power production because it has inherent safety issues and produces weapons grade plutonium as a byproduct. The Soviet government liked it because the design and build was cheap and you got the two-fer of getting bomb material as a byproduct.

The build of Chernobyl was full of contractors shortsheeting their work, corrupt inspectors overlooking flaws, and all the usual stuff like that that comes with corrupt, unaccountable, government.

The accident occurred because the government wanted an unnecessary test on the reactor conducted, and the chief engineer in charge of the test wanted to do it a new way he'd devised that wasn't approved by anyone. But in a dictatorship his word on scene was god and nobody dared question him.

The result was a horrific nuclear accident that the government--unaccountable--quickly moved to cover up, and the in the aftermath, the government made everything massively worse with no accountability they used up thousands of people callously letting them get massive radiation exposure and die. Everything about Chernobyl is why you don't want radical Leftists running shit. They end up doing crap like this then walk away as if it weren't their fault.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
Actually, at TMI they had a pressure relief valve that on the primary side pressurizer vessel that was stuck open due to a faulty maintenance procedure. That is the valve wasn't closed after maintenance like it was supposed to be. Interestingly, about 60 days prior, the same thing happened at Davis-Bessie in Ohio and the operators there recognized the problem and safely shut the plant down.
Click to expand...
Correct. This valve is what caused the primary coolant to flash to steam. That's what was vented. That coolant is mildly radioactive. Basically a meh.
The reactor was indeed damaged.
T. A. Gardner said:
At TMI the operators failed to recognize the problem, then made a series of bad decisions over about 8 hours that resulted in a partial meltdown of the reactor involved. The result of that was the well known accident. In the aftermath, nobody died. Nobody got cancer or some other nasty outcome as a direct result of the accident. There was no release of radioactive material.
Click to expand...
There was no release of core material. There WAS a venting of primary coolant steam, but it's level of radioactivity is very low.
T. A. Gardner said:
The TMI clean up took almost 20 years to fully complete and the total cost was far less than the cost of clean up after the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig accident, or the Exxon Valdez oil spill...
Click to expand...
Funny how that works, isn't it? :D
T. A. Gardner said:
The problem at Fukushima was the Japanese didn't have a plant designed like the US ones are with a secondary containment--the big concrete dome over the reactor. Instead theirs were in what amounted to a big tin shed. That one single design flaw was the cause of 90% of the problems that occurred at Fukushima. Even then, nobody died as a direct result of the plant melting down, and it's very likely no one is going to get some nasty outcome like cancer as a result of it either.
Click to expand...
Also quite right. Oddly enough, as much as Japan is into robots, they had no robot capable of working in that environment. They had to come to the US for that!
T. A. Gardner said:
At Chernobyl, the problem was the unaccountable Soviet government allowed a flawed and inherently unsafe reactor design to be used--that is, the reactor was a graphite moderated fast fission design. This design was not being used anywhere else in the world for commercial power production because it has inherent safety issues and produces weapons grade plutonium as a byproduct. The Soviet government liked it because the design and build was cheap and you got the two-fer of getting bomb material as a byproduct.

The build of Chernobyl was full of contractors shortsheeting their work, corrupt inspectors overlooking flaws, and all the usual stuff like that that comes with corrupt, unaccountable, government.

The accident occurred because the government wanted an unnecessary test on the reactor conducted, and the chief engineer in charge of the test wanted to do it a new way he'd devised that wasn't approved by anyone. But in a dictatorship his word on scene was god and nobody dared question him.

The result was a horrific nuclear accident that the government--unaccountable--quickly moved to cover up, and the in the aftermath, the government made everything massively worse with no accountability they used up thousands of people callously letting them get massive radiation exposure and die. Everything about Chernobyl is why you don't want radical Leftists running shit. They end up doing crap like this then walk away as if it weren't their fault.
Click to expand...
You described every hole that lined up to cause the Chernobyl accident. :thumbsup: You also quite accurately point out that this reactor accident was caused by leftists building crappy shit and running it unsafely.
 
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