Alert Today, Alive Tomorrow!

[thevaultoftheatomicspaceage]

[noisemx]

The National Committee of Thirteen Against Superstition, Prejudice, and Fear.

Sounded so much like a made up thing, but no, of course it was real.

It started in the early 1930's in Chicago to combat superstitious notions.

Here featured on the Cold War era propaganda poster. It's main focus at this time was to reinforce rational thinking, especially in the face of paranoia & the threat of nuclear war.

[mrs-chief]

hey I have a substack

its about nuclear shit

check it out if you want: www.nuclearleveler.substack.com

[blockwarden]

Tumblr drives me crazy anymore, check out my substack (theres no guarantee I'll ever actually touch it because of who I am as a person)

[theweirdwideweb]

[dyskomike-deactivated20250901]

A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before,    but there is nothing to compare it to now.

[mrs-chief]

Sodium-cooled Fast Reactors or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Nuclear Energy

November 20th, 2019

There’s no easy way to say this, but nuclear energy is the safest source of energy available.

I know we all binge-watched HBO’s Chernobyl this summer and this seems like some sort of Soviet propaganda statement, but it’s true, and nuclear energy is only getting safer.

First off, let’s look at the numbers. According to Forbes.com’s James Conca—an environmental scientist of 33 years—coal kills, on a global average, 100,000 people per trillion-kilowatt hours. Nuclear energy, including the deaths at Fukushima Daiichi and Chernobyl, kills 90.1 At a global annual consumption of 113,009 terrawatt hours, that is 11.3 million people dying from coal, and 10,171 from nuclear per year on average.

Nuclear has historically and consistently held the lowest deathprint of all major energy sources, including hydro, wind, and solar.2 And while the current numbers are great, we may soon be able to completely erase its deathprint with Generation IV sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs).

SFRs are one of the six reactor designs chosen by the Generation IV International Forum (GIF) for further research and development, and the most promising of the lot. GIF, launched in 2000 by the United States and consisting of 13 member countries including France, China, Russia, Japan, and Great Britain, chose SFRs out of nearly 100 reactor designs—and for good reason, as it is one of several designs that can actually use nuclear waste as fuel.3 It would take several hours to go through all the different types of reactors being commercially used, so let’s just say this: the majority use uranium as fuel, and this fuel is single-use. Most reactor designs use this fuel inefficiently, leaving us with literal tons of nuclear waste. Thanks to the halting of deep geological repositories such as WIPP and Yucca Mountain, this waste is stored on-site at your friendly neighborhood nuclear power plant, and we are running out of space rapidly. This is where the SFR comes into play, as it can use this waste in the form of a uranium-plutonium alloy known as MOX (mixed oxide) fuel. The use of MOX fuel reduces our stockpiles of waste, reduces the amount of weapons-grade plutonium, and reduces the energy usage and health costs linked to uranium mining.4

Sodium-cooled fast reactors would, in a perfect world, be able to replace all previous generations of reactors, including boiling water reactors, pressurized water reactors, and graphite-moderated reactors, which were responsible for the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, the Three Mile Island accident, and the Chernobyl disaster respectively. Since SFRs use a closed circuit of non-corrosive, unpressurized coolant with a high heat capacity, many of the safety issues faced by these traditional reactors—and by extension, many of these disasters—are literally impossible.5 Some of these liquid metal-cooled reactors are what is known as breeder reactors, which actually produce fuel, essentially becoming self-sufficient and ending the need for most mining operations.

So, what’s the catch?

The singular flaw of an SFR is the fact that sodium is highly reactive with both air and water. A leak in the coolant system would create sodium oxide and hydrogen, and hydrogen burns when in contact with air, triggering a series of explosions and sodium fires. Fermi 1, an experimental sodium-cooled fast breeder reactor built near Detroit, experienced a partial meltdown and subsequent explosion in 1966, though it should be noted there were no injuries or radionucleotides released, and that this reactor was built decades before the launch of the GIF.6 SFRs are also quite expensive, with the largest one, France’s Superphénix, costing about $10 billion USD.7 Superphénix was a pre-GIF prototype however, so like Fermi 1, it doesn’t really represent Generation IV SFRs.

If we’re really serious about global climate change, then we really need to get serious about nuclear energy. While wind, solar, and other forms of renewable energy are meritorious in their own right, they aren’t ready to save the planet from impending doom. Wind turbines often function at around 30% capacity due to the unreliable nature of wind, and solar panels utilize photovoltaic cells that are manufactured by pollution-heavy processes (these cells are also not recyclable).8 Both forms also struggle to store energy and send it across long distances. Nuclear, therefore, is our stopgap, and especially SFRs.

With all the world choking on smog or drowning in rising sea levels, it’s hard to overstate the value of both older Gen. II and III reactors and the new Gen. IV designs. China loses about 1.6 million people a year to premature deaths caused by photochemical smog, which comes directly from coal power plants, car exhausts, and factories.9, 10 These deaths aren’t just plant workers, either—they’re children, the elderly, the unlucky…the innocent bystanders. Renewing our nuclear programs internationally—even with boiling water reactors—would save millions of lives, by why settle for an older technology?

The answer to that question is cost. As we saw in Chernobyl, even nuclear power can’t escape the clutches of the almighty dollar, and cost cuts can be deadly (RBMK reactors were equipped with cheap, graphite-tipped control rods. This graphite is what caused the initial explosion at Unit 4). But what is the cost of human life? Can we justify using older reactors that carry a higher danger potential to save a few dollars? We shouldn’t. We should be pushing for newer, safer, faster reactors, like SFRs.

Culturally, we are no longer accepting of nuclear energy in any form. Highly publicized events (that are often dramatized and severely misunderstood) have all but ruined the public’s confidence in nuclear power. In fact, we fear it. We’re scared of our skin sloughing off, our eyes bleeding, our insides liquifying from some unseen particle. But we need to try. We need to look at nuclear with fresh eyes. We need to do what we can. Whether that’s saving old reactors like Perry and Davis-Besse—which power the majority of Northern Ohio and faced closure due to bankruptcy until the passing of House Bill 6 in July of 2019—or building new reactors, the truth is that we are out of time to save our planet. With SFRs, we can finally have a healthy relationship with nuclear energy, but it needs to start soon.

There’s a line from Star Trek: The Original Series that goes “risk, risk is our business!” and I cannot think of something more fitting for nuclear energy. Risk is our business. We risked sending men to the moon, we risk our lives every time we get in a car, we take risks with every decision and move we make. It’s part of who we are. Therefore, we need to take this risk and save the nuclear power industry, if only because it’s what humans do.

We will not save the world by sitting idly by.

Sources:

1. Conca, James. “How Deadly Is Your Kilowatt? We Rank the Killer Energy Sources.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 10 June 2012, https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/#5792295c709b.

2. “It Goes Completely against What Most Believe, but out of All Major Energy Sources, Nuclear Is the Safest.” Our World in Data, https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy.

3. “Can Sodium Save Nuclear Power?” Scientific American, 13 Oct. 2014, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-sodium-save-nuclear-power/.

4. “Military Warheads as a Source of Nuclear Fuel.” World Nuclear Association, World Nuclear Association, Feb. 2017, https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/uranium-resources/military-warheads-as-a-source-of-nuclear-fuel.aspx.

5. Rojas, Arturo. Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactors as a Generation IV Nuclear Reactor. Stanford University, 25 May 2018, http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2018/ph241/rojas1/.

6. Fleming, Boomer. The Nuclear Plant Outage of Fermi Unit 1. Stanford University, 7 Mar. 2018, http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2018/ph241/fleming1/.

7. Abdul-Kafi, Salahodeen. The Superphénix Fast-Breeder Reactor. Stanford University, 30 Mar. 2011, http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2011/ph241/abdul-kafi1/.

8. Rinkesh. “7 Pros and Cons of Wind Energy.” Conserve Energy Future, 3 Feb. 2017, https://www.conserve-energy-future.com/pros-and-cons-of-wind-energy.php.

9. Stanway, David. “China Cuts Smog but Health Damage Already Done: Study.” Reuters, Thomson Reuters, 18 Apr. 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-pollution-health/china-cuts-smog-but-health-damage-already-done-study-idUSKBN1HO0C4.

10. National Geographic Society. “Smog.” National Geographic Society, 9 Oct. 2012, https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/smog/.

[mrs-chief]

A “Second” Chernobyl -- What’s Happening Inside the Sarcophagus

When the melted reactor of Unit 4 was sealed off from the outside world in November 1986, the entire world cheered–the threat was finally over, the nuclear monster was contained. 

Well, that’s what we thought, at least. 

In the years following the construction of the sarcophagus, though, it became evident that the structure was not built to last. It leaked rainwater and snow through it’s hole-laden roof, and as rust began to spread, the overall structure, already warped by the intense heat of the radioactive materials inside, began to decay further. Thus, the race to build a new containment object began, ending in 2019 when the New Safe Confinement, the world’s largest moving structure, was slid into place over top the original sarcophagus. 

However, since 2016, stalkers–the scientists who risk entering areas with high levels of radiation–have recorded a 40% increase in neutron emissions from within the plant, specifically, coming from the Fuel Containing Materials (FCMs) like the infamous Elephant’s Foot. This increase in emissions means that within the dark, poisonous basements under Unit 4, a new fission reaction is taking place. 

Water acts as a moderator, slowing down neutrons and preventing fission. For years, rainwater and snowmelt leaking through the hastily-constructed sarcophagus has done so, keeping the FCMs from undergoing fission. Since the NSC is an airtight, watertight seal over the FCMs, water has been completely removed from the site, and now the neutrons are free to do as they please. 

This is not the first time this has happened. There have been spikes of neutrons in several places previously, and they have all burned themselves out. But this current spike is still cause for concern, as it could potentially become a runaway reaction, leading to a second explosion at the plant. 

There are no estimates as to what a second explosion at the plant might look like, or how much damage it would cause. Conceivably though, it could finally destroy what remains of the sarcophagus, throwing radioactive dust and debris into the air of the NSC. The NSC itself could be damaged, releasing this dust into the open air. 

Scientists say they have a few years until the situation becomes dire, and in the meantime, they are doing what they can while watching and hoping that this spike will burn itself out as well. Ukraine’s Institute for Safety Problems of Nuclear Power Plants (ISPNPP) says the risk of a catastrophic containment failure in the near future is low, but there already are plans in the works to insert boron control rods in the FCMs using robots to absorb neutrons and halt the reaction.

The clean-up effort after the Chernobyl disaster is a never-ending, ongoing process, and much of it is uncharted territory for the scientists and engineers involved. It’s a fascinating, constantly evolving scenario that has the potential to set the precedent for future clean-up efforts, such as the work being done at Fukushima Daiichi.  

[blockwarden]

[blockwarden]

Still here, still horrified.

I don’t know how much longer I can sustain any of my fervent interest in nuclear war when I am realizing just how deep-down I am terrified of it. I have no geopolitical or sociopolitical claim to expertise but to me, it’s looking more and more likely we could very easily see the use of a tactical nuclear warhead by end of year in my opinion and I am just...scared. 

I beg of all of you--preppers, historians, ammosexuals, violent fascists, etc--to read the accounts of the hibakusha and tell me if that is truly something you want to witness in your lifetime. Ask yourself if you have lost your humanity so much that you would support the use of such a deadly power again. Ask yourself if you’re okay with any nation crossing that line once more. It was a mistake to make the bomb, it was a mistake to use it twice, it was a mistake to let that technology proliferate and advance as it has. We have signed our own death certificates with the invention of the atom bomb, and later, the hydrogen bomb and ICBMs. And we have played with fire for much too long to not expect getting burnt. 

- Warden Elizabeth

[blockwarden]

Ukraine

I have so few words, so little ability to describe my thoughts on the war in Ukraine. 

I am of Russian and Ukrainian descent, and grew up in a heavily Slavic area of Cleveland. My best friends, the ones I call brother or sister or mom and dad, are similar to me--Belarussian, Russian, Ukrainian, Georgian. I was taught Russian through these friends, through their families. I was taught family recipes and histories and customs. I was taught the stories of my heritage, shown how to embrace and love somewhere most Americans considered dirty, if they knew it existed at all.

My heart is broken for Ukraine. My mind is racing all day with fears and anxiety, with what ifs and visions of a horrific future.

I’m not going to talk about the threat of nuclear war, the fact that Chernobyl is currently occupied, or the fact that the IAEA just confirmed that the perimeter around Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant has just been breached. I can’t, I just can’t keep talking about these things. I’m worn, I’m weary, I’m feeling helpless.

My friends in Ukraine have fled their homeland or taken up arms. My friends in Russia have either lost all connection with the outside world or have been jailed for expressing their anger with their president. 

And I can do nothing but sit here in shock. For all the knowledge, all the blogging, all the training in the US military and with a US law enforcement agency, the FEMA certifications, the fervent love of all the things we fear, I cannot do anything--at least anything substantial--when those fears become reality.

All I do is run a blog and work a desk job.

I guess this is my apology, my open letter to those suffering, looking for guidance, looking for people with the knowledge of how to survive the things we fear--my apology saying that I just can’t do anything more. As I read the IAEA’s latest update on Zaporizhzhia, all I can do is cry. I feel numb, I feel useless, I feel helpless. Use this blog as it stands to arm yourselves, to ensure that Ukraine will not be crippled by fascism, to remember that Ukraine has a history of defeating the atom when it seems all hope has been lost. 

I’m sorry I can’t do anymore. Слава Україна.

-- Warden Elizabeth

[headspace-hotel]

one of the Kentucky tornadoes traveled on the ground 227 miles, supposedly the longest any tornado on record has in the U.S. The death toll in the state is expected to exceed 100

I've been reading about the candle factory collapse and it's just nightmarish.

Why were there workers in the building at all? seriously I barely slept friday night because there were so many tornado warnings going off. The safety measures taken don't seem sufficient

[headspace-hotel]

The workers had barely any warning before the tornado hit. It sounds like they couldn't even hunker down in a marginally safer area before the tornado started ripping the walls off the building.

"Duck and cover?" What is that supposed to do? Running for cover with a moment's notice is not going to do shit unless you're in a solid, structurally sound, preferably underground area. there's supposed to be a designated shelter and you are supposed to be in it before the tornado is RIGHT THERE.

This company has blood on their hands

[headspace-hotel]

I feel like it's important to remember who dies during tornadoes: poor people, mostly.

This is to say, literally, that people with a multi story house can often go in a basement to escape a tornado. It is ideal during a tornado to be underground.

If you live in an apartment, you almost definitely don't have a basement, and there may not be a central area inside the building you can go to.

And if you're in a mobile home/trailer? You're fucked. The tornado will pick you up and throw you.

If you're rich, you're more likely to be able to take off work if you need to, say if there's going to be dangerous severe weather, and you probably don't work in a huge warehouse building that's dangerous to be in during a storm. You don't have to work in a factory for people that don't care if you die.

[headspace-hotel]

this is about the Amazon warehouse collapse in Illinois.

What do you mean, you don't know how many people were in the building. What do you mean, it's "unclear" if the shelters were built to withstand a tornado. "Unclear?????" This is the Midwest, it's the most tornadoed place on the planet!!

How hard would it be for Amazon to dig storm shelters in its warehouses. Y'all have more money than God.

[headspace-hotel]

Read this article and notice how important details are missing—were workers in the shelters when the tornado hit? When did they start moving toward shelter, was it when the tornado warning initially went out?

Any option looks awfully bad on Amazon—either the shelters aren't built to withstand a collapse of the roof, or the workers didn't have time to make it to shelter before the tornado hit, or the workers weren't informed in time that there was a tornado

[grison-in-space]

Note also that Amazon, which famously documents and controls every fucking minute of worker time and insistently tries to prevent so much as a second's idleness... Amazon which is in many ways a logistics company that documents everything... is claiming uncertainty the minute that the bill written in blood comes to their doorstep. Amazon is pretending human ignorance while it demands robotic precision from its human workers.

Amazon is whining that they can't be expected to know all that.

Fuck em. Demand justice for the workers they murdered, because that's exactly what they did by extracting that level of control without appropriate safeguards.

[blockwarden]

Less vintage civil defense and more modern emergency management, yet I'm sharing this here because I am disgusted and heartbroken by this tragedy.

If your workplace does not have proper, demarcated shelter areas, demand it. If your workplace does not allow warning systems, like cell phones, demand it.

This is reminiscent of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, as the doors were actually locked to prevent thefts. If your workplace is not providing you with proper emergency planning, or the tools to survive, fight like hell to get it. Contact your local department of public safety, your local FEMA office, or your local National Weather Service office. Contact OSHA.

This tragedy was entirely preventable, and the blood is on Amazon's hands for failing to protect their employees.

[tiktoksthataregood-ish]

[mrs-chief]

Nuclear Power Road Trip - Week Three

Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Station - Shippingport, Pennsylvania

So, it’s a bit late by a couple of weeks, but I did have a death in the family and then went through the hiring process for my current job, as well as helping my boyfriend move, so suffice to say, I have been marginally busy. 

But today we’re going to pick up our road trip again, with the last of the three former-FENOC/current-Energy Harbor nuclear generating stations, Beaver Valley! 

Located on the Ohio River 27 miles from Pennsylvania, Beaver Valley houses two Westinghouse PWR (pressurized-water reactors) and has an annual net output of 15,312 GWh. Unit 1 was commissioned October 1st, 1976, and Unit 2 was commissioned November 17th, 1987. The plant is currently owned and operated by Energy Harbor, formerly FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC). 

Interestingly, Beaver Valley is located adjacent to the Shippingport Reactor site, which was the world’s first full-scale atomic energy plant devoted entirely to peacetime efforts. Shippingport was synced to the grid on December 18th, 1957, and her core came from a cancelled nuclear-powered aircraft carrier project. 

Shippingport was decommissioned in 1982, and her reactor vessel was shipped via waterways to the Hanford Reservation in 1988. Although Shippingport was a small plant by generating capacity (60 MWe compared to the average 1,000 MWe), the cleanup and decommissioning of the site set the standard for NRC decommissioning regulations, and let the way for the decommissioning of other sites, including Yankee Rowe, Maine Yankee, and Connecticut Yankee.

Speaking of decommissioning, Beaver Valley was slated to cease operations in 2021, but was recently saved from the chopping block by PA Gov. Tom Wolf’s decision to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. It remains to be seen how long Beaver Valley will remain online for. 

Beaver Valley sits on one of the most interesting sites I’ve ever seen. Not only is she situated next to the old Shippingport Reactor site, she’s also close to the Bruce Mansfield coal power plant, leading to a very unique mix of industrial structures in the area. 

(on the left, Bruce Mansfield. On the right, Beaver Valley) 

Beaver Valley itself is fascinating, as there’s a few structures I have yet to see in other plants, such as this little dock next to one of the cooling towers. 

I’ve never seen another cooling tower sort of elevated like this one, either, so it gives a good idea of the mechanisms that are typically below-ground for other natural draft cooling towers. Indeed, cooling towers are mechanical marvels in their own right that require a significant amount of machinery to operate. Plus, they look cool! 

Here’s a better look at both towers, for reference: 

I think the best part of Beaver Valley though is this little area between the cooling towers: 

Moving left to right, we can see the FirstEnergy signage on the front of the building, various buildings of indiscriminate use, and, on the right behind the cooling tower, the reactors themselves. 

But wait, what is that in the middle? 

Oh! A neat little guard tower! Here’s some more that I found on the satellite images.

Now, I cannot find any definitive evidence that FENOC (who was the operator when these images were taken) actually hires snipers, but I do know that many, if not all, nuclear generating stations have armed guards on site. Personally, I applied for an armed security position at Vogtle, and I have a friend who is a union electrician who once had to replace a breaker on-site at Three Mile Island who says he was escorted around the site by men with M16s. 

It would not shock me in the least if there was more physical, human security than described above though, as nuclear power plants are potential terrorism targets, and are subjected to a lot of public scrutiny and abuse by oftentimes very loud and very uneducated groups that believe they are doing the right thing by harming these plants. As you can see by this image alone, the amount of security cameras, barbed wire fencing, and guard towers might make this plant seem more like a prison instead of a nuclear power plant, but nuclear security is a vital apparatus to maintaining the daily electric demands of grids, as well as ensuring these plants pose no risk to their surrounding populations. It makes sense then that they would resemble prisons, although one is designed to keep people in, and the other is designed to keep people out. 

Anyways, Beaver Valley has inspired me a lot these past weeks if you follow any of my artwork/game dev stuff, and I’m genuinely glad the plant is staying open longer than originally anticipated, as nuclear energy is our stop-gap between fossil fuels and renewable sources, and the closing of nuclear power plants actually does significant damage to the environment, as seen with Vermont…although Bernie will tell you otherwise. (The data doesn’t lie!)

And that’s a wrap on Beaver Valley! I don’t know where we’ll be going next week, so hit me up if there’s any particular plant you’d like to see, otherwise, I might just pick at random. :) 

[mrs-chief]

Nuclear Power Road Trip - Week Two

Perry Nuclear Generating Station - North Perry, Ohio

Today we’re going to be visiting Perry Nuclear Power Plant, the closest plant to me, and the only plant I’ve seen in real life. As a consequence, a fair portion of the pictures aren’t going to be from Google Maps, but from my own collection. 

Located on the Southeastern shores of Lake Erie, not far from the Pennsylvania border or Cleveland, Perry houses a single General Electric boiling water reactor brought online on November 18th, 1987. Plans for a second BWR were scrapped in 1994, hence the two cooling towers. Perry is named after Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, who succeeded against the British in the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812. Like Davis-Besse, Perry is now owned and operated by the FirstEnergy subsidiary, Energy Harbor, formerly known as FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC).

Perry’s generating capacity is a whopping 3,758 megawatts, making it one of the biggest BWRs in the United States, and one of the biggest sources of electricity for the Midwest. Perry was slated to close in 2021, but due to the passing of House Bill 6, she remains open, at the expense of both utility customers and justice, as House Bill 6 is currently investigation for accusations of bribery. 

1,100 acres surrounding the plant have been designated as an urban wildlife sanctuary, and the site sits on the gorgeous Lake Erie Bluffs. The plant is surrounded by Lake Metroparks land, including a 50-foot-tall observatory deck right in the heart of bald eagle habitats. 

Much of the appeal of Perry is the picturesque land it sits on, which attracts a number of people to the very small town of North Perry. The plant itself though is really quite cool, with the most signage I’ve seen to date on a nuclear power plant. The two dome-shaped structures in the picture below are the reactor(s), which are framed both to the north and south by turbine halls.

Note the “Perry Power Plant” on the brick facade–so retro chic!

The main gate of Perry is super freaking awesome, with this little gatehouse and overhead sign. 

When I visited Perry, this was as close as I was absolutely willing to get, as a truck pulled up and was just watching me when I stopped to take this picture. 

One reoccurring theme of this little road trip is going to be the absolute security of these sites. I’ve seen prisons with less security than a nuclear power plant, and for good reason, as any release of radiological material has the potential to cause disaster, be it to wildlife or mankind, either immediately or in the long run. That’s not to say all releases of radioactivity are dangerous (which I’ll go more in-depth about when we cover Three Mile Island and Fukushima Daiichi), but making sure that only authorized personnel who have been screened and carefully selected get inside these sites is still important. 

Perry, unfortunately, has been the home to an incident in which someone not authorized has gotten in. On April 7th, 2021, the FBI was called out to Perry by security guards when a 33-year-old man from Michigan drove up to the site in a pickup truck hauling a trailer claiming to have a bomb. Thankfully, there was no bomb found, and the man was arrested and taken into custody.

Directly opposite of the main gate at Perry is a line of high-voltage power lines that I really loved.

To get the best views of the cooling towers though, your best bet is Township Park, where you can enjoy both the lake and a nuclear power plant! Below: yours truly (me!) hanging out with my favorite Tall Boys. 

Looking west towards the cooling towers is a bit difficult due to densely wooded areas, however, there is a near little cul-du-sac with a Federal Signal SRN-2001 roughly 1500 feet away from the active tower.

Something interesting to note about Perry is that, like Davis-Besse, it also has train tracks close to the plant, except, in the case of Perry, the line seems to terminate in a random field to the southeast of the reactor building full of…well, your guess is as good as mine as to what those boxes are. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s waste storage, but it being out in the open with no climate control makes that seem very unlikely. Although it should be noted that waste is stored on-site, it’s just more likely inside fuel pools.

Also, I don’t see much along the shoreline, be it water intake pipes or break walls, although there has to be something to keep boaters and swimmers out of the area. Intake pipes are another potential area of infiltration at a nuclear power plant, so they too need to be guarded as closely as the main gate. 

Maybe there’s another one of these along the lakeshore. If I ever get a boat, y’all can bet I’m going to go check it out for myself!

And that’s all she wrote for Perry! Thankfully, unlike her sister Davis-Besse, Perry has never had any serious accidents, although she did play a role in the Northeast Blackout of 2003, which I might cover on an article about the blackout and FirstEnergy in general. 

Check in next week where we’ll cover Beaver Valley, rounding out the set of FENOC/Energy Harbor plants! 

[blockwarden]

I covered Perry this week, and next Friday, we’ll take a look at Beaver Valley to complete the set of plants previously owned by FENOC!

[mrs-chief]

Nuclear Power Road Trip - Week One

Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station - Oak Harbor, Ohio

To kick off our little road trip, I thought I’d start with a power plant in my home state–Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station! 

Although she’s not the closest NPP to me (that would be Perry, who we’re going to visit next week!) I love Davis-Besse a lot for a number of reasons, but especially how beautifully the plant is designed. 

Situated on the Southwestern shores of Lake Erie not far from Toledo, Davis-Besse houses a single pressurized-water reactor brought online July 31st, 1978. It is the 50th plant in the United States to come online, and was named for the former CEOs of Toledo Edison (TE) and Cleveland Electric Illuminating (CEI), who previously owned the plant. The plant is now owned and operated by the FirstEnergy subsidiary, Energy Harbor. 

Davis-Besse, in the past, has made news for being the source of two of the top five most dangerous nuclear incidents in the US since 1979, the worst being a March 2002 discovery of a corrosion hole in the reactor vessel head created by a leak of borated water, used as a coolant. (see below) 

More recently, Davis-Besse made news for being one of the two plants operated by FENOC (FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company, now Energy Harbor) to be bailed out by a bribery scheme. Although I don’t agree with the bribery or any of the backdoor dealings, passing House Bill 6 was an important way to prevent Northern Ohio from relying on dirty energy, like coal and natural gas. It remains to be seen what the consequences of the bribery scheme are going to be and what that means for Davis-Besse, however, Davis-Besse was just awarded funding for a hydrogen production project, so hopefully, she’ll be around for a bit longer!

Now, let’s do some driving around the site, courtesy of Google Maps! 

The first thing I want to highlight is the FENOC sign in front of the site. In my time driving around Google, looking at power plants, clear, concise signage is not very common, so this was cool to see. 

Part of the reason it’s important to not put neon signs all over advertising that there is in fact a nuclear generation station somewhere is safety. As we saw with Perry last month, there are, unfortunately, a lot of scary, stupid people out there who threaten the safety of nuclear power plants, their workers, and their communities all over the world. Therefore, it’s not sensible to advertise the plant like a carnival attraction. Additionally, to the thousands of workers that make each plant function properly and safely every day, it’s just another factory, another plant, another piece of industry that’s nothing special. 

Speaking of which, here’s a snip of the Contractor Entrance for Davis-Besse, and the signs at the entrance gate:

What’s interesting to me, and what is true about a majority of nuclear plants in the US, is the lack of obvious security. Sure, there are barbed wire fences, gates, and cameras, but there’s rarely any physical human security visible on the perimeter. This is not to say they’re unsafe at all. As we’ve seen with the conceptualization of nuclear semiotics–an area with more security draws more curiosity–it’s actually better to make things as unassuming as possible. 

Something really unique to Davis-Besse though is this railroad track entrance. 

If you look closely on the satellite imagery, this track runs along the cooling tower and terminates into what I can assume is the turbine/reactor hall. (highlighted below)

Now, you may be wondering why the hell a train line would terminate into a reactor building, but there’s actually a pretty good answer to that. 

If nuclear materials, waste or otherwise, needs to be moved in and out of the site, it’s best to minimize “cross traffic” and take it directly through a dedicated line. A surprising amount of nuclear waste in the United States does travel by rail, although, it should be noted that most NPPs store waste on-site due to legal restrictions placed on deep geological repositories, and with the number of plants being decommissioned, the amount of material has gone down over the years. 

For me, I see this as both a convenience and a security risk. As we saw last year in Los Angeles, trains can be used for acts of terrorism, and although a train at full speed would have difficulty executing the turns at Davis-Besse, as well as damaging the reactor vessel, it’s not inconceivable that it could damage important operational systems that could lead to a much bigger nuclear incident.

Still, I don’t think we have to worry too much about this, and in regards to Davis-Besse’s history of incidents, I’m not worried nor afraid of her. Nuclear incidents, both big and small, happen more frequently than we are aware of. I’m not saying this to make you afraid, but to assure you that there are so many security systems and failsafes in place that prevent a Chernobyl-level event happening yearly. 

And that’s that for Davis-Besse! Catch up with me next week when we’ll explore my favorite NPP of all time, Perry!!!

[blockwarden]

If y'all like nuclear power, check out my nuclear power road trip on my main blog!

[the-future-now-deactivated20170]

The great lie of the American fallout shelter has been exposed

These shelters were supposed protect inhabitants from blast pressure, radiation given off by the blast and extreme heat and fire. The reality is that they wouldn’t do a goddamn thing to protect people from a full-scale nuclear attack. The shelters were actually used for something completely different than defense.

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[blockwarden]

This article is completely, inherently wrong.

The point of civil defense and the NFSSMP (National Fallout Shelter Survey and Marking Program) was never to protect people. The point of civil defense was to mobilize people to self-preserve. This, as anyone who has actually worked in Emergency Management or studied it would know, is a continuing issue. People don’t act in an emergency. Many just wait around, hoping FEMA, local PD/FD, the Red Cross, etc, will come and fix everything/rescue them/rescue their neighbors.

This is overwhelmingly untrue. The police/fire/EMS/etc are on their way in an emergency, but you are not the only person calling them, and they themselves are also sheltering during a storm/etc. Civil defense and, by extension, fallout shelters, were an attempt to instill the concept of “do something” in American society. It obviously failed, as we still deal with this daily in emergency management. The worst thing to do in a disaster is nothing, the best is the right thing, the second best is the wrong thing. 

If we could get people to mobilize in an emergency, be it a nuclear bomb or a flood, then we could share the burden with our first responders who are a limited resource. We could extend the chance of survival for others and ourselves. 

Saying that Civil Defense and the NFSSMP “lied” to Americans is a stretch. Anyone with two eyes and a working brain could see that the fallout shelter in a church basement wouldn’t save them from a direct strike. But it was a damn sight better than just sitting on the surface waiting for help that might not ever come.

[govpubsfinds]

“There can be no real preparedness without Civil Defense…It is dangerous to be lulled by a false sense of security.”

United States. Federal Civil Defense Administration. (1951). Civil defense and national organizations. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office.

[govpubsfinds]

An example of a Federal Civil Defense Administration bulletin from early 1952. 

United States. Federal Civil Defense Administration. (1952). Training Bulletin, Training Officer Series, No. 3. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office.

[rocketwerks]

When Atomic Was Sexy (129)

You and the Atomic Bomb What to do in case of an atomic attack

New York State Civil Defense Commission Public Pamphlet #1

The first of a series, because, you know, when that ol’ A-Bomb goes off, we’re going to have a lot of time our hands for reading.

Of course that businessman at the top needn’t worry. He’s a goner.