The other thing is the boiling in the reactor. The core has 4 metres of water above it, and according to the article 2 metres boiled away. According to things I have read those 2 metres of water disappeared not due to boiling but due to (correct) depressurizing actions made by the operators.
I mean, two out of four emergency generators are all that's needed to maintain full, 100 % cooling of the core. And throughout the event, two emergency diesels were online, right? So how could there be any boiling in the core? If I have understood things right it was under full cooling throughout the event (except in between 0 and 37 seconds into the event, when diesel C&D went online).
Strange. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
Rereading it I realise that only the headline says that "Half the cooling water boiled away" the rest of the text does not claim so (only that 2 meters were not there in the end). From what I know about swedish newspapers headlines are not written by the same people as the articles, so this could very well be an example of exaggerated headline.
For the final analysis of the risk of meltdown I guess we have to wait for the SKI report. The article claims it will be finished in a matter of days, so we should not have to wait long. A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
When it comes to the pumps, they are, just like the emergency diesels, 200 % of needed capacity. Only 4 out of 8 pumps are needed to maintain full cooling.
As a sidenote, the EPR will have 4 separate (and this time I guess they really mean it) reserve diesel and cooling systems, and only one will be needed to manitain full power and cooling. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
The reactor in question is a BWR, so there is always boiling going on in the reactor, but as 4 of 8 cooling pumps were online this should not have reduced the water level inside the reactor. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
