Thursday, December 31, 2009

Once again, nuclear seismic monitors don't work. Part 1

Article

However, workers at the Palo Verde nuclear plant in Arizona, about 50 miles (80 km) west of Phoenix, felt the 5.8-magnitude quake on Wednesday, the plant's owner told the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The earthquake did not register on the plant's seismic monitoring equipment.

One of my most heart-breaking episodes at the old company was to do with in-plant seismic monitoring. All the US plants have them, but they never work! There have been many earthquakes where they should have worked, but they didn't. I have some faith now that Diablo Canyon works.

We never had to install them in Canada, but non-working systems were the 'fashionable' thing for the rest of the world. Suddenly the cnsc (then aecb) felt naked when schmoozing with other regulators. "Quel horreur, yew don't have ze seismic monitors? We laugh at your small penis!"

So, they issued an order that all Candu plants must have in-plant seismic monitoring. Bruce nuclear promptly ignored them, so they hit at sappy OPG even harder! They knew who was more gutless than them!

When I heard of this, I thought 'OMG, these things never work, and we don't have any place for the wiring. We have to think of something new!" That's when my drift into depression started.

-to be continued if anybody's interested.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This series on seismic monitoring makes interesting, depressing reading.

Cargo cultists running things into the ground is something I fear is being repeated in many Canadian industries (even ones without government protection).

Reminds me of the soviet collapse. I think Jaques Parizeau will live to see the day.

Harold Asmis said...

What stops me from getting depressed all the time is that I think of these things as cycles, just like warming! You can't do this forever! At some point, there is a recovery cycle.