On 22/06/2001 at 11:21 fire alarm signal was annunciated on unit 2, from the three reactor building cable rooms A110/2, A018/2 and A019/2. Immediate actions were taken to inspect the rooms. Meanwhile failure signals were received from some affected busses and at 11:34 RCP 6 tripped. At 11:35 fire fighting was commenced with the installed fire water system. At 11:40 unit power reduction was started, at 11:50 the turbines were tripped. Due to failure on temperature measuring circuits of the bearing of RCPs 2 and 4, these pumps were stopped. Since the values of RCP 1 and 4 seal flow parameters became non-real this emergency command signal was blocked. At 11:48 the fire alarm ceased therefore the fire extinguishing system was shut down and the site inspection was commenced. At 12:25 the reactor was at minimum controlled power level, after that boron injection into the primary circuit was started. The site inspection revealed that fire occurred in the vertical cable shaft A110/2, at elevation of 14 m. After having extinguished the fire completely personnel proceeded to take up the list of and inspect the deenergized equipment. The fire led to loss of power of the valves on make-up water header TK52 and on leg TE01 of the reactor water purification system as well as to loss of position indication of some of the Y safety system isolation valves. Several process parameter measuring circuits failed or non-real values were indicated.
Everywhere you look, the nuclear industry’s hype machine is in overdrive. Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, and the UK government all tout small modular reactors as the silver bullet for climate change and energy security. Tech billionaires are hiring nuclear veterans. Wall Street is whispering about “round-the-clock power” for artificial intelligence data centers. For those old enough […]
Kernenergie en veiligheid: A wargame sought to test if a major radiological release that would prompt the evacuation of millions of civilians in South Korea could distract key US allies from assisting and rebuffing an all-out military invasion of Taiwan. The short answer was yes. The game originally presumed that China, wanting to keep the […]
Big batteries and EVs to the rescue again as faults with new nuclear plant cause chaos on Nordic grids The Finnish nuclear power plant Olkiluoto was finally connected to the grid last year, at an estimated cost of €11 billion compared to the original budget of €3 billion. That cost blowout forced its developer, the […]
A vast subsea nuclear graveyard planned to hold Britain’s burgeoning piles of radioactive waste is set to become the biggest, longest-lasting and most expensive infrastructure project ever undertaken in the UK. The project [UK's nuclear waste dump] is now predicted to take more than 150yrs to complete with lifetime costs of £66bn in today’s money...The […]
Last year, the Dutch Province of Limburg started an alliance in which, besides the local government, research institutes, small nuclear reactor (SMR) developers, utilities, industrial customers and funders cooperated. With this "Limburg SMR alliance" Limburg tried to lead the way towards an SMR in Limburg. The preferred site for a first SMR would be Chemelot, […]
