Got to see the face of the 3 million horsepower beast yesterday

[Jonathan]

So yesterday was pretty interesting. I got more or less a once in a lifetime chance to go inside one of our nuclear reactors. We have 8 of them onsite and 2 of them right now are being refurbished. They are just about ready to be put back into service, so the time was now or never if you wanted to get into "the vault."

I work in engineering primarily on the conventional side. That's more to do with the steam side, turbines, generator, service water, etc. So getting up close and personal with the reactor face isn't on my daily list of chores. A few of us got a tour and it was a heck of an experience. The video here you'll see the "how does it work" but if you watch at about 2:00, there's a guy go through the same airlock we did and then there it is. The reactor face.

The reactor face is a grid of 480 pressure vessels, all containing the fuel bundles. Imagine them lying on their side, all stuffed into a cylinder. Maybe like a big jar of pencils from your desk, but on its side. You can imagine that if the reactor had been online recently there would be way too much radiation to go in, and you never get to go in while it's at power. Fuel bundles are pushed in from either side. One of our heavy water loops flows over the fuel, carrying the heat from the fission process to the boilers to make steam. Steam then turns the turbines, and the generator makes the electricity. We power the grid and everyone in their homes gets to turn the lights on, run the dishwasher, watch TV, etc., etc.

It was pretty awesome to see how everything all plugs together and fits in a fairly jam packed place. And give our ancestors some credit as the smart guys in the 60's thought this enormous piece of machinery up without computers! It produces about 3 million horsepower of thermal energy... each! And we have 8! That makes them about the most powerful machines on the planet.

Anyway, it was pretty cool for me, thought you might find it neat too. The video gives a decent overview of what goes on behind the scenes.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKNbwcIaGng&feature=related

[dvonk]

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j147/gkid1983/napoleon-dynamite.jpg

i love watching shows like "How Do They Do It"... in fact, ive seen part of that episode before. :biggrin:

totally jealous that youve actually been in the reactor! it has been mentioned before, but its amazing what a diverse crowd DeLorean enthusiasts are.

[sean]

Cool as hell, you betcha!

Would I be walking in or near an open reactor, NOPE!

I'm sure multiple precautions were taken but still...:tongue2:

[whocruiser]

An interesting item to note on the application form should you ever donate to a sperm bank...
:umm:

[Jonathan]

Just thought I'd mention one stat regarding the radiation piece. Since the reactor hasn't been online in about two decades, there are very few remaining sources of radiation still in place and still emitting. Our main source was from the new fuel that had been loaded already but of course hadn't been irradiated yet. The CANDU fuel is no where near as enriched as the US stuff so it allows you to get close to it when it's fresh.

Most of us on the tour picked up about 2 milliRem while in there. To put that into perspective, every one hour you spend on an airplane at 35,000 feet is equivalent to one milliRem. Fly from East coast to West and you get about 5. It has to do with you being closer to the "cosmic rays" and not having the atmosphere above to shield you compared to on the ground. And of course far less than an X-ray at the dentist or some other scan.

Most people don't realize that you would pick up more radiation from handling bananas at a grocery store all day if you were the produce guy than if you work in engineering at a nuclear plant. Bananas have a portion of their make up from a radioactive isotope of Potassium, but that's not quite as impressive to mention in the news as Uranium.

[DMCMW Dave]

Just thought I'd mention one stat regarding the radiation piece. Since the reactor hasn't been online in about two decades,.

The most impressive part of that to me is that it took 20 years to do an overhaul.

[dvonk]

an excellent graphical representation of radation doses, courtesy of XKCD:

(click here for hi-res (http://imgs.xkcd.com/blag/radiation.png))
http://imgs.xkcd.com/blag/radiation.png

[Kukem]

an excellent graphical representation of radation doses, courtesy of XKCD:
Image removed for space

I work with radiation on a daily basis too. As a radiation therapist we deliver radiation to cancer patients using linear accelerators. We work in Centigray, which is another measurement of radiation, and 100cGy = 1Sv. We deliver doses to patients that total anywhere from 2000cGy for palliative patients to 7600cGy for prostate IMRT patients.

Using the chart, our prostate patients receive 76 Sv, which is well above the amount of radiation a person would get standing next to the Chernobyl reactor after explosion. The key is, we don't give the radiation all at once and we don't give it to the whole body. It is higly concentrated and focused while being given. It is amazing to see the tolerance levels your body can handle. Just thought I would share that fun fact.

[Jonathan]

Interesting. I hadn't heard of a Centigray before. I found this chart online:

http://www.aqua-calc.com/what-is/radiation-absorbed-dose/centigray

Looks like one cGy is equal to one rem. So when I got 2 mrem, that would mean 0.002 cGy. Or in terms of your patient's dose, I would have to go back into the vault 38,000 more times to accumulate what that dude got. Like you said though, it's concentrated. There is also a big difference in what type of radiation you get and how it gets into your body. With our heavy water, you can get an uptake of Tritium for example. Since you breathed it in as vapor likely, the good news is, if you go home and drink lots of water (or beer!), you'll flush it all out. Now, if you inhale Alpha particles on the other hand, those are going to be inside you forever cause they don't flush out.

Hey Dave S... it wasn't quite 20 years to overhaul the units... they voluntarily turned them off in the 90's as they were getting near their end of life and Ontario didn't think we needed the base load power. As it turns out, the wind doesn't always blow, and the sun doesn't always shine, so the green energy sources weren't keeping everyone's lights on all the time. Hence, let's restart some old reactors. It is way over budget and way behind schedule, but that's another story!

On our little radiation subject, I always found the current day Chernobyl pictures and tours fascinating. Here's a good collection I found a while back:

http://forums.filefront.com/s-t-l-k-e-r-soc-general-discussion/379832-my-trip-chernobyl-pictures-56k-ultra-death.html

Those of you that are Call of Duty Modern Warfare players will recognize some of the pictures.

[dvonk]

On our little radiation subject, I always found the current day Chernobyl pictures and tours fascinating. Here's a good collection I found a while back:

http://forums.filefront.com/s-t-l-k-e-r-soc-general-discussion/379832-my-trip-chernobyl-pictures-56k-ultra-death.html

wow. talk about post-apocalyptic. :wow:

thanks for sharing that link.

[sean]

http://forums.filefront.com/s-t-l-k-e-r-soc-general-discussion/379832-my-trip-chernobyl-pictures-56k-ultra-death.html
.
I remember seeing that link before, pretty surreal stuff.

[DMCMW Dave]

I remember seeing that link before, pretty surreal stuff.

Check this one out too.

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/