European Tribune - Comments - My local nuclear power station

My local nuclear power station | 59 comments (59 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Graphite-Gas reactor are cold war monsters... (4.00 / 3)

whilst not wishing to let the monsters who ran Windscale off the hook, I believe that there was significant "controlled" venting from Harrisburg after their explosion that contaminated a significant area.

I'm sure I read somewhere that in the wake of chernobyl a lot of measurements of radiation were taken in the downwind area of Harrisburg alleging to be average for the USA so's they could blame the elevated readings on the Ruskies.

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Tue Jul 10th, 2007 at 10:35:19 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Graphite-Gas reactor are cold war monsters... (4.00 / 3)

Harrisburg is the TMI site. There was indeed "controlled" venting by the plant managers, for which they were later blamed as it could have been avoided if they had taken advice from higher authorities. But the amount of radiation released at TMI was orders of magniture below windscale, and mostly tritium I believe (which is very short lived).

I don't follow the point of their dumping extra stuff at the time of chernobyl: considering the kind of degradation at TMI, they had no particular pressure accumulation of radioactive gas to cope with so many years after the accident. May be some activists claimed the bad TMI guys were at it again, but this sounds like paranoia to me.

Pierre

by Pierre on Tue Jul 10th, 2007 at 10:54:30 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Graphite-Gas reactor are cold war monsters... (4.00 / 3)

Yeah, the TMI realease was so small it didn't matter. If you lived in Harrisburg and fled to Colorado that would have increased your dosage, as the Colorado plateau is at a higher elevation and hence has less atmosphere above it to shield it from cosmic radiation.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid (arvid.hallen at gmail.com) on Tue Jul 10th, 2007 at 12:58:14 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Graphite-Gas reactor are cold war monsters... (4.00 / 2)

No, no new release. The way I read Helen's claim, it is that at the time of Chernobyl, background radiation was measured at sites contaminated by TMI a decade earlier and presented as normal.

(I didn't know that claim, I shall check whether it holds water.)

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Tue Jul 10th, 2007 at 04:45:14 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Graphite-Gas reactor are cold war monsters... (4.00 / 2)

OK, I understand. But if it really was tritium as I recall, had they released thousands of curies, it would effectively be down under ambiant noise after a few months.

Pierre

by Pierre on Tue Jul 10th, 2007 at 06:43:47 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Graphite-Gas reactor are cold war monsters... (none / 1)

Do you mean because of the short half-life (which isn't that short), or dilution?

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Wed Jul 11th, 2007 at 05:31:06 AM EST
[ Parent ]

My local nuclear power station | 59 comments (59 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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