On January 17, 1997 at 100% power, there was a scram on turbine trip for spurious actuation of a relay Buchholz of main transformer. All safety systems called upon performed as expected, operators checked that control rods were fully inserted into the core. Hhowever, by reviewing post trip computer records, plus performing control rod drop times, it was noticed that: a) all control rods entered the dashpot (34 steps above core bottom, compared to total length of 228 steps) within the time established by Technical Specifications (TS), however: b) 3 out of 48 control rods suffered delays from step 6 or 12 to bottom. Justification: Table II: Severity classification criteria for degradation of defence-in-depth with an initiator, initiator: scram on turbine trip. Frequency: high/expected. Safety function:reactor Protection System. Availability: within operational limits and conditions. Rating: INES level 1.
Everywhere you look, the nuclear industry’s hype machine is in overdrive. Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, and the UK government all tout small modular reactors as the silver bullet for climate change and energy security. Tech billionaires are hiring nuclear veterans. Wall Street is whispering about “round-the-clock power” for artificial intelligence data centers. For those old enough […]
Kernenergie en veiligheid: A wargame sought to test if a major radiological release that would prompt the evacuation of millions of civilians in South Korea could distract key US allies from assisting and rebuffing an all-out military invasion of Taiwan. The short answer was yes. The game originally presumed that China, wanting to keep the […]
Big batteries and EVs to the rescue again as faults with new nuclear plant cause chaos on Nordic grids The Finnish nuclear power plant Olkiluoto was finally connected to the grid last year, at an estimated cost of €11 billion compared to the original budget of €3 billion. That cost blowout forced its developer, the […]
A vast subsea nuclear graveyard planned to hold Britain’s burgeoning piles of radioactive waste is set to become the biggest, longest-lasting and most expensive infrastructure project ever undertaken in the UK. The project [UK's nuclear waste dump] is now predicted to take more than 150yrs to complete with lifetime costs of £66bn in today’s money...The […]
Last year, the Dutch Province of Limburg started an alliance in which, besides the local government, research institutes, small nuclear reactor (SMR) developers, utilities, industrial customers and funders cooperated. With this "Limburg SMR alliance" Limburg tried to lead the way towards an SMR in Limburg. The preferred site for a first SMR would be Chemelot, […]
