More Canadian Nuclear Fun

Article

Well, the Japan issue is settling down, and the nuclear slag has cooled to the point where it can't get through the heavy steel.  My moment of fame is coming to an end, as my blog hits taper down.

Still, there is fun in Canada!


According to David Mosey, a nuclear safety analysts who has worked in the industry for 30 years, a risk assessment would take into consideration the most severe earthquake that could occur within a 100-year period at a nuclear site.
He couldn't name specific lessons that would be learned from Japan's.
"When we know more precisely what happened at Fukushima, then we could say this would prompt us to re-examine something. Information right now is sparse and the people who have answers are rather busy at the moment," he said.
The CNSC did not provide comment on its review.

This thing about 'risk assessments' reminds me of a story.  Did you know that in Candu risk philosophy they never considered LOCA (loss of cooling accident) with seismic?  That's because they made up this ridiculous 'guillotine break' of a large pipe, which happens spontaneously out of the air, and didn't want to deal with seismic.  The fact that the most imaginative engineer (me!) could never visualize this (alien attack?), never slowed them down.  I always thought the most likely cause of a smaller loca would be seismic.

That's why I could never talk to the nuclear safety boys -- seismic was nothing to them.  In fact, the last big 'risk assessment' totally excluded seismic.  I made some good comments about that!  In fact, nobody with Candu has ever gone through a realistic earthquake scenario, and I'm sure the Japanese never did it either.  I'm sure it's the same in the US.  Once again, like Japan, I suspect they are afraid.

I'd go through the scenario with you, but I don't want to go against the big boys, and so I shall once again diminish. !!!!!:::::::::::...........