On Mar 22, 2011, at 7:21 AM, Edmund Storms wrote:
Let me clarify something, Horace. This discussion with me got
started when Jed posted an exchange he and I had on Vortex. You
responded by saying what I had said was wrong. I responded to you
by explaining why what I said was not wrong. You did not say in
your reply that the suggestion you had made previously might also
be useful and that my suggestion might have merit also. Your
response was only that I was wrong for the various reasons you
could imagine, implying only your solution had merit. I then
discover that you do not recognize information from people who
actually have experience in such matters to have any importance
because you can imagine how they might be wrong, yet your solution
appears not to suffer from this problem in your mind. Such an
approach does not invite a dialogue and I will not bother in the
future.
Ed
Ed, I did not say unconditionally you were wrong. I only said you
*could* be wrong. I also only said, "Here is an alternate
solution ...", not, "Here is the only solution ..."
I said, "This could be an incredibly bad suggestion. It depends on
whether neutron absorber slabs were actually placed between *all*
fuel assembly storage positions. It is my recollection that storage
pools did not have neutron absorber slabs when originally constructed
decades ago because there was no intent to store for long periods.
Separation geometry alone was used to prevent criticality." There
were various other conditional issues subsequently discussed as well.
For the full post and thread see:
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg43814.html
Note the use of "... could ... It depends ..."
The use of the word "incredibly bad" I can see was offensive and
inflammatory and for that I apologize. I should have looked for
better words to describe the potential consequences of a chain reaction.
I would also like to say that the time and energy to discus this
topic have been taken at a very bad time for me, at some significant
personal cost. Nevertheless, I felt a deep and serious obligation to
raise the issues discussed. I still feel strongly the issues we
discussed necessarily needed airing. I felt I had no choice since my
feeling was and is there is a risk of a chain reaction, however
probable, which could have unspeakable consequences. I feel strongly
the assumptions made during the design of this kind of BWR plant, and
potential subsequent modifications, have been invalidated in the
extreme at Fukushima. The design was even in question by staff
members prior to the first model being built. Despite this, it is
now in hindsight easy to see the over confidence and even hubris of
some US scientists in their subsequent papers regarding the design
assumptions used.
I am very sorry I offended you. I have very much enjoyed and learned
much from our prior discussions and hope such continue at some point
in the future.
Best regards,
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
