Who destroyed Three Mile Island

"RacinBob" (racinbob) 06/27/2020 at 15:11 • Filed to: None

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I remember this event. It was spring at Iowa State and I came inside and saw a TV picture of a nuclear power plant hyperbolic cooling tower and thought “this can’t be good”.......

A good explanation and how to manage not doing it again....

Maxima Speed > RacinBob 06/27/2020 at 15:21

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SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > RacinBob 06/27/2020 at 15:23

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Go ‘Clones.

Yeah, I hadn’t seen this piece but did read a lot of the second-by-second engineering accounts of the TMI incide nt. Many of the reactor operators were ex-Navy nuclear techs and it’s ironic that their Navy training ingrained some really bad habits and instincts during the power surge— which caused them to mis-manage the event.

I was actually IN Harrisburg the other day, and flew into the airport. It’s always surprising to see TMI so close by. And the remaining reactor.

ttyymmnn > RacinBob 06/27/2020 at 15:26

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atfsgeoff > RacinBob 06/27/2020 at 16:06

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TMI powered down last year because natural gas electrical generation is cheaper than nuclear. Basically drove the plant out of business. So, economics destroyed TMI.

Exage03040 @ opposite-lock.com > RacinBob 06/27/2020 at 16:14

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Great presentation.

I’ll just add something additionally in regards to the primary and second stories with regards to the human element. 3-4am is possibly the worst time during plant operation to have problem. It’s a complete zombie hour and no amount of coffee can cure it. Normally you make a concerted effort in either wind-down before or wind-up after these timings depending on the shift. When I did 12-4 watches, I did everything I could to do my jobs in the PM when 25 people were up and alert rather than AM when only 3 people were awake.

There is no way to formulate shifts and watches to combat this either. The people in control of the plant are usually just hoping for a clean few hours until typically the morning handover.

At 3-4am when something does happen, usually you don’t want to disturb the higher ups and make the concentrated effort to solve the issue especially considering they’re usually going to come in an hour or 2 later. I’ve both seen other plant operators and have also personally make stupid mistakes in this time.

ranwhenparked > atfsgeoff 06/27/2020 at 16:36

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Yep, it was also a fairly small reactor, not able to generate enough electricity to earn its keep, unless other sources were way more expensive. 

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > Exage03040 @ opposite-lock.com 06/27/2020 at 17:23

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Oddly, the Chernobyl incident also had an unfortunate “shift change” to complicate matters...  the whole drill should have been called off... but...

Exage03040 @ opposite-lock.com > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish 06/27/2020 at 18:44

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Watch/shift handovers are really fickle because it’s completely based on the interaction of individuals. Some guys can’t present information well and some guys can’t listen worth shit (or an idiot that does both). Normally drills are completed start-finish no matter how much time by 1 shift, that was certainly a tragic anomaly as it went from drill to critical emergency.

A lot of incidents have cut back on those sort of critical drills that have the potential to actually create a huge problem . We do the inspections that we can and sort ‘ J esus take the wheel’ in the event of an insane shutdown required . It usually requires some electronics to shut down via power interuption and they Really don’t like that on restarts .

Running a plant is l ike home cooking: E veryone will do it differently and with varying results. E ven if you give them exactly same ingredients, equipment, and recipe.

ranwhenparked > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish 06/27/2020 at 20:53

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They damn well should have known better than to try and run the test with a crew that was totally unfamiliar with the procedures, considering that the day shift had gone through a pretty decent training/briefing on it to get them up to speed.

Oh, and also letting the thing sit all day at reduced power  with safety systems shut off, but that wouldn’t have been done if the test had just been scrapped in the first place.