Robin van Spaandonk wrote:
>I believe even engineers are skittish about putting drinking water in
>close proximity to reactor cores. It seems like a dumb idea to me.
[snip]
I take you are referring to possible contamination. However that would only
happen if there was a leak, and even "normal" nuclear plants can
contaminate the
environment when there is a leak, so it doesn't seem inherently any more
dangerous to me, than a normal plant.
I think it is inherently more dangerous. Consider an actual case of a
leak, the notorious 1996 Connecticut Yankee "nuclear management
nightmare" (state Attorney General
http://www.ct.gov/ag/cwp/view.asp?A=1772&Q=282568). Rainwater carried
radioactive material out of the plant and into the surrounding area.
It ended up contaminating the surroundings, converting the
neighborhood into a de facto nuclear waste dump. Fill dirt and
cinderblocks stolen from the plant by an employee were used to build
a kindergarten parking lot, which was also dangerously contaminated.
The cleanup will cost hundreds of millions of dollars. However, the
damage and danger are limited to a small geographic area and only a
small number of people have been exposed to the radiation. If this
plant has been used to desalinate water, radioactive garbage might
have been pumped into millions of houses and buildings, affecting a
much larger population, albeit at low levels.
I believe the employee who stole the radioactive cinderblocks is a
Mr. H. Simpson, and I expect he was promoted as punishment.
Events like this make me nervous about nuclear energy. It is at best
"a system designed by geniuses to be run by idiots" as Herman Wouk
described the U.S. Navy. Except that at the Three Mile Island
disaster the plant employees did everything by the book and were not
to blame for the outcome, although the government tried to pin the
blame on them.
- Jed
