Comment Re:Blind support kills (Score 1) 213
That's not a normal way to measure tritium. It is typically measured in Curies, or a concentration (Cu/kg).
That's not a normal way to measure tritium. It is typically measured in Curies, or a concentration (Cu/kg).
The issue that the OP is referring to is that most stations only use the internal events model which has an initiating event that starts with a NPP system failure (e.g., coolant line failure), instead of the external events models. They are called external, but includes fire, flood, seismic and high wind events.
It isn't simple welding. If you're pre-fabbing stuff that gets installed into a nuclear power plant, it's got some very specific requirements which includes radiography.
I wouldn't be surprised to hear that a lot of the nuclear industry is hurting for welders, or that their maintenance outage timelines are challenged because they can't find enough welders, or other specific tradepersons.
http://www.pioneergroup.us/fabrication-assembly/nuclear-fabrication.html
Any time you can take the human out of the equation, you are making it safer.
The reason you don't get invited to meetings is that you demonstrated arrogance (or misplaced humour) when asked a legitimate question.
Not that being in meetings is particularly pleasant, but there is sometimes value in being present.
I assume it is somewhat similar in the US but don't know the details.
Nuclear plants aren't usually asked to reduce power, as they provide baseload generation. It is simpler to ask a fossil plant to shutdown.
Also, if Apple really didn't want to pay the appropriate licensing fee, then they could have just used technology that did not violate any of the patents. After all, they do place a very high priority on IP.
You strike me as one of those city hipsters that doesn't actually know what goes into making their life possible.
At 8:35, the commercials started. I timed it. There was a full 10 minutes of commercials.
Then there were previews. 10 minutes of previews. I don't mind the previews usually, but after sitting through 10 minutes of commercials, I just wanted to see the movie.
For an 86 minute movie, there was 20 minutes of stuff before the movie started, and the movie ended up starting at 8:55 instead of 8:35.
I won't be going to the theatre again any time soon.
I always fight with Word at work to make sure everything is formatted properly.
However, checking your texts and responding??? Texts are never important. If they were that important, it wouldn't have been a text (no guaranteed delivery time, and no feedback that it was received). It would have been a phone call, and taken care of by the above scenario.
The fact that you see people checking their phones and texting (here and there...) during the movie does not mean that you live in a more polite region, it just means that your definition of polite has shifted dramatically during the years.
I am always glad to hear about the 'normal' folk who provide immense value to these organizations.
In the case of any thermal station (nuclear, coal, etc.), this is not good, because they are suddenly producing vast amounts of waste heat that must be quenched. The sudden changes in temperature cause the heat exchangers can go into thermal shock. Also, once cooled, any brick refractory material must be checked. This process takes days, especially in the case of nuclear generating stations where numerous rigorous safety checks must be completed. Thus, once the grid has been destabilized, it cannot restart quickly.
The heat exchangers (e.g., boilers / steam generators) at a nuclear plant don't go into a 'thermal shock' when a plant is forced to shutdown unexpectedly. The plants are designed to reduce power rapidly (~2% per second, in some cases) to vent steam to maintain the temperature / pressure in the steam generators and primary heat transport system. This is called 'zero power hot' by many utilities. You're producing basically zero power, but the systems are still hot.
The reason it takes longer for a nuclear plant to restart after reducing power rapidly is the xenon transient. At full power, there is a baseload of neutron absorbing xenon-135, which is daughter product of iodine-135. When power is reduced, xenon-135 is no longer being 'burned,' only produced by the decay of iodine. The result is that there is a large amount of negative reactivity that the control systems cannot counteract. Depending on the exact fuel makeup, it can take about 30-36 hours for the xenon to decay down far enough such that you achieve criticality again.
"Given the choice between accomplishing something and just lying around, I'd rather lie around. No contest." -- Eric Clapton