SHTF and nuclear power plants

[vegasguy]

how long can they create power? how much fuel do they keep on hand? will they keep working out a full crew?

[Blacksmith]

Your questions are pretty wide open. It would vary greatly based upon the type of plant and the fuel in it.

[Kommander]

Your questions are pretty wide open. It would vary greatly based upon the type of plant and the fuel in it.

And the type of disaster.

[cv66er]

Although ...

will they keep working out a full crew?

...I think is probably, no. Not very long.

[Blacksmith]

It depends on the type of disaster. They still have crews working the plant in Japan.

[RickOShea]

how long can they create power? how much fuel do they keep on hand? will they keep working out a full crew?

You asking about how long your power will be on if the SHTF?.....Cause there's a whole lot more "stuff" in between the dudes that make the dynamos spin, and the 120/240v in your meter box.

[vegasguy]

how long can they create power? how much fuel do they keep on hand? will they keep working out a full crew?
zombies (28 days late)or a socio economic collapse

[vegasguy]

how long can they create power? how much fuel do they keep on hand? will they keep working out a full crew?

You asking about how long your power will be on if the SHTF?.....Cause there's a whole lot more "stuff" in between the dudes that make the dynamos spin, and the 120/240v in your meter box.

i mean if you live AT the power plant.

[Blacksmith]

how long can they create power? how much fuel do they keep on hand? will they keep working out a full crew?

You asking about how long your power will be on if the SHTF?.....Cause there's a whole lot more "stuff" in between the dudes that make the dynamos spin, and the 120/240v in your meter box.

i mean if you live AT the power plant.

But you do not and you can not so what difference does it make?

[Jim_in_Calgary]

how long can they create power? how much fuel do they keep on hand? will they keep working out a full crew?

You asking about how long your power will be on if the SHTF?.....Cause there's a whole lot more "stuff" in between the dudes that make the dynamos spin, and the 120/240v in your meter box.

i mean if you live AT the power plant.

I'm guessing that unless you have a full crew of people with manufacturer's training, support, repair crews and parts.....but mostly specialized training, a nuclear power plant might end up being either a really dark or spectacularly dangerous place to be if the SHTF.

It would be cool though if you bunkered in with a community of plant engineers, crew and technical personel. Of course, these plants are likely on a short list of the military's places that would be the first to be secured (our military), or destroyed (by their military). Again a very dangerous place to be unless you are bullet/bomb proof.

[Jim_in_Calgary]

how long can they create power? how much fuel do they keep on hand? will they keep working out a full crew?

You asking about how long your power will be on if the SHTF?.....Cause there's a whole lot more "stuff" in between the dudes that make the dynamos spin, and the 120/240v in your meter box.

i mean if you live AT the power plant.

Also, this doesn't help much even if you could secure and hold the facility because the generators do not make a useful voltage to you. It comes out at the plant at something on the order of 20,000v to transport for long distance in transmission lines, then within a city it is stepped down (transformed) to something on the order of 5,000v for distributions to various points within the city (transformer stations), where it is further distributed and/or converted in your neighborhood into 2 120v legs to combine into 240v or 120v in your breaker box based upon the needs of the appliance/circuit.

As pointed out before me, theres a lot of dudes along the way involved in making all that happen, and the first 20kv ---> 5kv transformer might be 30 to 500 miles from the plant gates.

[TacAir]

POST - PAW what happen to the plant? How many years - or decades - before the fuel is cool (temp) enough to just bury it?

I have seen figures of a decade + for spent fuel rods to cool enough for cask storage.

Which could be the genesis for a story - The "Brotherhood of Prometheus" a dedicated group of men who have sworn a secret oath to watch over the nuke plants until they are cold enough to busy. The final act of the brotherhood would be to erect a Stonehenge like set of markers to warn future generation that to dig in the area means painful, lingering death.... for them and their offspring.

Kind of like Bolo meets Planet of the Apes.

From 1981
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1 ... 47,5942617


Or this


etched into one of these

[williaty]

Can be as short as minutes, actually. Nuke plant control systems are like train locomotives. At random intervals, they pop up little doo-dads you have to acknowledge that you saw, just to see if you're there and awake. Go over a set amount of time without clicking "OK", and the train comes to a stop/plant idles itself.

[RickOShea]

Also, this doesn't help much even if you could secure and hold the facility because the generators do not make a useful voltage to you. It comes out at the plant at something on the order of 20,000v to transport for long distance in transmission lines, then within a city it is stepped down (transformed) to something on the order of 5,000v for distributions to various points within the city (transformer stations), where it is further distributed and/or converted in your neighborhood into 2 120v legs to combine into 240v or 120v in your breaker box based upon the needs of the appliance/circuit.

As pointed out before me, theres a lot of dudes along the way involved in making all that happen, and the first 20kv ---> 5kv transformer might be 30 to 500 miles from the plant gates.

There are many different voltage combinations in North America, but nowadays, most transmission lines run between 115kv - 500kv, and distribution runs between 7.2kv - 34.5kv.

[Ryder358]

I work at a nuclear plant, a BWR from the late 60's. One thing people usually don't know is that most plants don't run on any of the power they create. Hypothetically, a nuclear plants lights, controls, computers and such are powered by a handful of coal plants in different directions for redundency. If the rest of the grid goes down, the plant has to switch to the back up diesel generators. After that IF, there's any more back up plans it usually involves killing the reactor permanently to avoid meltdown. This is a one time use method, not automatic. I'm still trying to learn what would happen if worst case scenario happened with an EMP, so far on not thrilled to say the least. Hope we can supply diesel fuel to hundreds if plants across the country for a long time without power. They do have very impressive security teams with some nice equipment, I don't think anyone of them could be forcefully breached

[Malthus]

The plants themselves wouldn't be my primary concern, since the reactors are in containment buildings, and one would hope that the operating personnel (or the military) would have time to shutdown the reactors in the event of a catastrophe. However, the storage areas for the spent fuel rods are nowhere near as secure. These storage pools contain the highest concentration of radioactive materials on the planet, and are often in simple industrial structures with few (or no) backup systems. These storage areas were allowed to operate under such lax conditions since they were assumed to be temporary until a permanent solution was created. (Yuka Mountain was cancelled, so...) People don't seem to realize that in a EOTWAWKT situation, you will really need to plan as if there had been a massive nuclear attack.

Once the power grid goes down, and the backup generators run out of fuel (some storage areas have NO backup generators!); the pumps that circulate cooling water in the storage pools stop, and the water cooks off. The rods then heat up, catch fire, and spew radioactive smoke for hundreds of miles downwind. There are 51 of these sites in the U.S. alone, probably one upwind from almost everyone here. Not a pretty thought.

[Blacksmith]

Not a pretty thought.

Bad ju-ju all around. There is no way to get away either.

I still do not understand why the US does not reprocess like other countries. I know it is horribly expensive but it is an incredible folly not to.

[Ryder358]

1977 President Jimmy Carter signed an executive order that banned the reprocessing of nuclear fuel in the United States. The rationale was that the Plutonium could possibly be stolen, and terrorists might be able to use it to make atomic bombs

Map of Nuclear Plants:

[Blacksmith]

1977 President Jimmy Carter signed an executive order that banned the reprocessing of nuclear fuel in the United States. The rationale was that the Plutonium could possibly be stolen, and terrorists might be able to use it to make atomic bombs

Map of Nuclear Plants:

YHG2BFKM. We are still doing something that Carter thought was a good idea 35 years ago? Wow, we deserve what is going to happen.