Holy Crap!

[rab3rd]

Reexamining GE's reactor design
American company General Electric (GE) has also come under fire for its design of the damaged nuclear reactors at Fukushima I.

As early as 1972, American regulators considered discontinuing GE's Mark 1 system, according to The New York Times. "Among the concerns cited was the smaller containment design, which was more susceptible to explosion and rupture from a buildup in hydrogen – a situation that may have unfolded at the Fukushima Daiichi plant," according to the article.

The ban idea was nixed because of the industry's preference for the design. Today in the US, 23 reactors at 16 locations still use the Mark 1 design, according to the antinuclear power Nuclear Information and Resource Service (pdf). The nonprofit has released documents dating back to 1972 on its website.

"The concern has been there all along that this containment building was not strong enough and the pressure containment system was not robust enough to prevent an explosion," Director Michael Mariotte said in a statement.

While the world's biggest nuclear-equipment supplier has maintained that its containment vessels are reliable, three GE employees quit in 1975 in protest over safety concerns around GE's so-called Mark 1 reactor containment vessel. Resigned employee Dale Bridenbaugh told ABC News that the rapid loss of cooling water in a reactor, as has happened now in Japan, "could tear the containment apart and create an uncontrolled release."

[SCone]

Bet the ground shifting 8 feet to the right has more to do with a breach than the basic design.

Added... Amazing the design handled the quakes in '04, '05, '07, & '09.

[rab3rd]

I wasnt implying that the design was the cause, the holy crap is that there is a known flaw that almost got the design scraped but yet they continued to build them without changing it...

Kind of like Chevy saying, yeah there is a design flaw in the breaks and under certain conditions they wont stop the car but dont worry those conditions almost never happen.

Im not looking to get into a debate of plant design, I was just a little taken aback but that peice of info.

[Angelo]

I wonder what can be done to other plants to correct that flaw in design, if anything...

[SCone]

According to this ABC article, measures were taken to deal with this "flaw" and it seems that Bridenbaugh approved. Guess it's like AlGore running around telling us all about the "worst hurricane season yet" every year. He's bound to be right someday.

Fukushima: Mark 1 Nuclear Reactor Design Caused GE Scientist To Quit In Protest - ABC News

[Jeff_Green]

8.9 earthquake and tsunami can do some major damage no matter what the designs are. Only way to prevent something like this is to spend an ungodly amount of money on it, then spend more, then hope a 9.0 doesn't hit. Sometimes, nothing can be done when mother nature comes for a visit.

[Nikonfan]

I agree with Jeff. You can have the best design in the world, but nothing can stop mother nature. In hind sight, putting the backup generators near the shore in a country prone to tsunami's might not have been the best idea. But even if they had built the plants in another location an asteroid could have come from space and smashed right into it. Something will always come up. Look at airplane travel. It was very dangerous in the beginning. Even today with all the safety measures in modern aircraft, planes still crash. Yet, it's these very crashes that have made planes the safest form of travel today. This accident in Japan will make the rest of the nuclear reactors in the world safer. The answer isn't stopping nuclear power, but learning from our mistakes.

[venchka]

Originally Posted by Angelo

I wonder what can be done to other plants to correct that flaw in design, if anything...

Build natural gas fired plants. Now. Lots of them.