What would happen to Nuclear Power Stations if…
Discussion
99.9% of the population ceased to exist overnight?
Yes, I know. It’s a completely unlikely scenario, but crap like this does drift though my tiny little mind every so often.
From my very rudimentary understanding of nuclear fusion, the fuel rods are bathed in water? Water that would eventually evaporate, causing a situation that ‘wasn’t great, but isn’t horrifying’.
Could your average Joe with almost zero knowledge of the operation of a nuclear power station gain entry to the control room and save the day? Or would their meddling cause things to go ‘boom’?
As an aside, is there any more catastrophic dilemmas that would await what would be left of mankind? Would Porton Down be a ticking time bomb? What would happen if all the animals were released from zoos?
Please feel free to include your own nightmarish scenarios.
Yes, I know. It’s a completely unlikely scenario, but crap like this does drift though my tiny little mind every so often.
From my very rudimentary understanding of nuclear fusion, the fuel rods are bathed in water? Water that would eventually evaporate, causing a situation that ‘wasn’t great, but isn’t horrifying’.
Could your average Joe with almost zero knowledge of the operation of a nuclear power station gain entry to the control room and save the day? Or would their meddling cause things to go ‘boom’?
As an aside, is there any more catastrophic dilemmas that would await what would be left of mankind? Would Porton Down be a ticking time bomb? What would happen if all the animals were released from zoos?
Please feel free to include your own nightmarish scenarios.
WarrenB said:
Impossible, but, what would happen if the internet was just 'turned off'? No emails, no google, just back to phone calls, letters and books.
Well, I think it would be impossible for me to do my job. I’d have no means of downloading the data required to find out my workload for the day. No means of certifying what work had been done, or sending EoD results through. I’m sure there’s procedures in place to get around such problems, but they’d be above my pay grade.Besides that, (and the lack of freely available porn), I think I’d quite like it for a couple of weeks.
We may even get to find this out for real this Spring anyway.
valiant said:
Besides only 0.01% of the population is left which means we’re all dead so f
k ‘em.
Would certain satellites fall from the sky?k ‘em.What would happen with medical procedures and medicines? Food production? Ships at sea carrying oil or chemicals?
8 million people left of the planet still sounds like a lot though?
edited to add;
I’m wrong. It isn’t a lot. It’s only 10% of the UK population spread across the entire globe !
Gary C said:
So at some point the reactors would trip. Lots of reasons for that to happen from faults to blocking coolers.
Rods would go in and the automated cooling systems would cool the reactor down.
What happens next depends.
Lets say its the grid that takes it off (as stations trip, the grid would collapse with the same result) and then the stations would be on backup generation. Each station has a lot of fuel to run the backups, but their design mission time is about 24 hours and even thought they can last much longer, they also assume that some equipment is shutdown as the requirements for cooling reduce. With no people, all systems would continue to run using more fuel than anticipated.
Haven't worked it out (its written down somewhere), but eventually the backup generators would stop and the cooling systems would shutdown.
Now, a reactor thats been shutdown for, lets say 7 days, is still producing about 5-10MW of heat and will begin to warm up. Eventually in theory some reactors can go critical again if they warm up enough and that would mean a meltdown.
Big cores such as AGR's heat quite slowly but have a positive moderator coefficient whereas most water reactors have a much smaller core and thus heat up quicker but have a self regulating negative moderator coefficient.
If everything works ok, its likely that even when the generator fuel runs out, the remaining decay heat won't be enough to melt the reactor down but I wouldnt like to try it.
I know that beyond design basis studies have looked at the effects, but its not something that Operators generally look at in simulator exercised.
Gary, thank you very much for that Rods would go in and the automated cooling systems would cool the reactor down.
What happens next depends.
Lets say its the grid that takes it off (as stations trip, the grid would collapse with the same result) and then the stations would be on backup generation. Each station has a lot of fuel to run the backups, but their design mission time is about 24 hours and even thought they can last much longer, they also assume that some equipment is shutdown as the requirements for cooling reduce. With no people, all systems would continue to run using more fuel than anticipated.
Haven't worked it out (its written down somewhere), but eventually the backup generators would stop and the cooling systems would shutdown.
Now, a reactor thats been shutdown for, lets say 7 days, is still producing about 5-10MW of heat and will begin to warm up. Eventually in theory some reactors can go critical again if they warm up enough and that would mean a meltdown.
Big cores such as AGR's heat quite slowly but have a positive moderator coefficient whereas most water reactors have a much smaller core and thus heat up quicker but have a self regulating negative moderator coefficient.
If everything works ok, its likely that even when the generator fuel runs out, the remaining decay heat won't be enough to melt the reactor down but I wouldnt like to try it.
I know that beyond design basis studies have looked at the effects, but its not something that Operators generally look at in simulator exercised.
Edited by Gary C on Saturday 29th January 06:24
Just one more question if I may….
What is / are positive & negative moderator coefficients?
Gary C said:
It must be said this conversation has taken a bizarre turn
Well, here’s another one for you……If, in the middle of doing your job you just suddenly ceased to exist, what would happen? Would it make any difference whatsoever?
Ok, so maybe it would for you, (although I’m guessing there’s at least one other person on-site who could jump into your shoes immediately), and perhaps it would matter for many others if El Stovey suddenly vanished into thin air mid flight, but the rest of us???
All that would happen with me is a load of parcels wouldn’t get delivered that day
PS; Thanks for your simplified yet detailed reply to my question earlier on.
Dr Jekyll said:
Yesterday my Teams connection dropped out mid afternoon without me noticing, and the boss was on the phone within half an hour to check I was OK. Flattering in a way, daunting in another. Of course it was lack of replies that prompted curiosity, not lack of achievements.
otolith said:
DaviBrons said:
Would Porton Down be a ticking time bomb? Yes, I think it's quite possible. Considering the specifics of their developments. However, I exclude the scenario, as from one of the films about the zombie apocalypse. Because there would have to be too many coincidences to make it work, and the people who work in these places are not stupid at all.
I doubt that there is anything nasty stored in Porton Down which would bother anyone who didn't break in and go looking for it. In general, failure of the systems needed to maintain biological material will not result in them "escaping", it will result in them degrading. If the freezers containing virus samples fail, for instance, over time they will just become useless. I suppose they might at any particular time have experiments running which generate aerosols which the positive pressure system in a BSL4 lab helps to keep in the building, but the window of risk for that would be small. They manufacture and store small amounts of dangerous chemicals, which might eventually escape given long enough for the buildings to decay and collapse, but that wouldn't do much more than make a local hazard. Regarding animals from Zoos, the only one I could see having a decent change would be Zebras. Nothing else springs to mind that would be able to survive and thrive, (happy to be corrected though).
Thanks both for your replies about Porton Down. Feel free to add your own nightmarish scenarios in the event of a collapse of civilisation.
dundarach said:
It'd be bliss....
I'd spend the first few weeks and months hiding and scavenging. I figure the rats know how to survive.
Then slowly I'd creep out of my burrow to see which powerfully built director types had taken over and whether I could befriend any of them.
I'd then over time in a 'Master Blaster' kind of way make them entirely dependent upon me, with a mixture of sycophantic praise and gaslighting.
Before ultimately stabbing them in both eyes in a drug fueled orgy of violence.
Then, covered in the leaders blood, I'd announce their rein of medium abuse and terror were over, to be quickly replaced by periods of intense savagery and generosity in random orders so as to confuse everyone.
By this stage the salt mines I advocated under the previous ruler would be well underway and I'd move very quickly into enslaving as many people in the mines as possible.
All men who were ever so slightly well built or directorial would immediately be incarcerated as would anyone who mentioned either the old ways, or the old leader.
Once the mines were well stocked I would go about my reeducation process, whose ultimate aim would be to return the nuclear power stations into operation.
I would hope to achieve this in the thirty or so years I have left.
However I haven't given things very much thought...
I'd spend the first few weeks and months hiding and scavenging. I figure the rats know how to survive.
Then slowly I'd creep out of my burrow to see which powerfully built director types had taken over and whether I could befriend any of them.
I'd then over time in a 'Master Blaster' kind of way make them entirely dependent upon me, with a mixture of sycophantic praise and gaslighting.
Before ultimately stabbing them in both eyes in a drug fueled orgy of violence.
Then, covered in the leaders blood, I'd announce their rein of medium abuse and terror were over, to be quickly replaced by periods of intense savagery and generosity in random orders so as to confuse everyone.
By this stage the salt mines I advocated under the previous ruler would be well underway and I'd move very quickly into enslaving as many people in the mines as possible.
All men who were ever so slightly well built or directorial would immediately be incarcerated as would anyone who mentioned either the old ways, or the old leader.
Once the mines were well stocked I would go about my reeducation process, whose ultimate aim would be to return the nuclear power stations into operation.
I would hope to achieve this in the thirty or so years I have left.
However I haven't given things very much thought...
Dr Jekyll said:
glazbagun said:
Roofless Toothless said:
Possibly there is a critical mass of genius without which humanity as a species would not thrive. A tiny population would mean a very bleak future.
Gary C said:
Yes, Chernobyl was a fizzle in nuclear weapons terms, but a commercial reactor counldn';t be anything else.
A Reactor has far more potentially fissile fuel than any nuclear bomb, but the real trick in a bomb is the flooding all the fissile fuel with enough fast neutrons that most of it fissions before the core is 'de-configured'.
In a reactor thats not possible as the reactor is not built to contain the fuel long enough to prompt fission more than a tiny amount.
In Chernobyl the reactor power rose from the max 3000MWth to approx 300,000MWth, however in a nuclear bomb, the generated heat is more in the region of 33.8 Yottawatt or 3.3e+19MW, or 1.6736e+17 Joules in a blink of an atoms eye.
which is quite a lot
It was calculated that the Tsar bomba put out enough energy to run the world for about an hour
but not sure how accurate that is
]
Gary, thank you for your contributions to this thread, and the HBO Chernobyl one a year or two back. I find it all fascinating.A Reactor has far more potentially fissile fuel than any nuclear bomb, but the real trick in a bomb is the flooding all the fissile fuel with enough fast neutrons that most of it fissions before the core is 'de-configured'.
In a reactor thats not possible as the reactor is not built to contain the fuel long enough to prompt fission more than a tiny amount.
In Chernobyl the reactor power rose from the max 3000MWth to approx 300,000MWth, however in a nuclear bomb, the generated heat is more in the region of 33.8 Yottawatt or 3.3e+19MW, or 1.6736e+17 Joules in a blink of an atoms eye.
which is quite a lot
It was calculated that the Tsar bomba put out enough energy to run the world for about an hour
but not sure how accurate that is
]
How on earth does one become a nuclear power station controller / operator?
What’s your background? How did you get into the job? What exactly do you do for 8 hours each day at work? What’s the training like?
Feel free to PM me if you’d prefer….. Or just ignore my stupid questions
Thanks all who have contributed their knowledge to this thread. As my Grandfather always used to tell me, “every day is a school day”.
To those of you in the power generation industry, may I ask, what are your thoughts on the proposed fusion reactor to be based at West Burton, Nottinghamshire, (within sight of my house)?
To those of you in the power generation industry, may I ask, what are your thoughts on the proposed fusion reactor to be based at West Burton, Nottinghamshire, (within sight of my house)?
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