WUSS!! WHO ARE YOU, "HANOI JANE" FONDA?

75 gallons per minute and declining? Based on the volume of the system, that's like a dripping faucet! So they turn it off and put in a new washer. Problem resolved. DON'T WET YOUR PANTS!!

Reactor coolant is usually just water, so this is presumably a leak of hot (temperature wise) water, possible with some radioactivity.

From the description though it sounds like it is still in the housing, not out into the wild.

Now if Bush would grows some balls for an energy policy, start up Alaskan drilling coupled with building NEW reactors (and actually using Yucca mountain).
Problem is the press will spin this into "Look how evil nukes are" rather than "Wow, our power plants are old (60-70's) and we need new ones"

You know what 75 gallons of radioactive coolant a minute will do? It'll suck the paint off your house and give your family a permanent orange afro.

Hey, I just report what I read. My primitive intellect doesn't understand things with alloys, and compositions, and things with. . . molecular structures. . .

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

Dave,

The coolant is NOT radioactive. The danger in such a problem is the core overheating and leading to a meltdown. This is why they have containment domes. There is nothing to fear here just as there was nothing to fear at 3 mile island. But wait and see, the envirowhackos will be all over this.

Best of luck Michiganers. You guys can rest assured knowing that if it were a "terrorist" threat about a dirty bomb or something, you'd at least have Julies attention, even if it was only to scoff at your concern.

Shit, maybe she hasn't chimed in b/c she lives there.... Hmmm.

:P

Where's Allah with my hot lunch?

Midaz--

I know the coolant isn't radioactive. I was just making a little "funny." That wasn't, I guess.

As for whether this is anything to worry about, I'm the first person in line (okay, second, after John Stoessel) to defend scientific enterprises like nuclear power from loonie skepticism and bad mythology.

That all said, even while I am armed with the knowledge that similar events happen all the time at nuclear plants, I'm still of the ilk that anything other than standard operating procedure involving the word "nuclear" is certainly NOT a desirable occurence.

Sheesh. . . whodoyathink I am? Bill Nye?

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

It isn't a big deal. What is often not reported about Three Mile Island is that the automatic safety systems worked perfectly The problems began when personnel interfered because they thought they knew better but were actually completely wrong about what the data was indicating.

Speaking as a former Navy nuc, I can state with some authority that reactor coolant is in fact slightly radioactive. It would mainly depend on how much "crud" - basically radioactive rust - that's suspended in the leaking coolant. Coolant is also very "hot" fresh from the core, due to Nitrogen-16 decay gammas from the neutron activation of Oxygen-16 atoms in the water, but that goes away after about 30 seconds, and you might have an Argon-41 issue, but that takes care of itself in about an hour.

A 75 gpm leak is a cause for real concern, but certainly not something on the order of The China Syndrome. Reading about the facility, they seem to have a pretty good safety record, with an "Incident" rate well below the average. (Lots of things get called an "incident" that don't involve actual situations - if something happened that could possibly affect safe operation of the plant, it's considered an Incident even if nothing actually goes wrong.) The issue aside from what to do with the leaking water is whether or not the charging pumps could keep up with the leak to maintain Pressurizer level.

J.

Well it looks like it was a false alarm. According to the NRC the leak was from the Reactor Building Closed Cooling Water system. From the description it sounds like the water used to condense the steam after it goes through the turbines, which means it's two steps away from the reactor. You can go back to combing your hair, Ace.

Thanks for the good news MMdeuce.

And J. Wilde, thanks for the helpful insight.

I knew there was a reason I passed on taking the Nuclear Power Test component of my ASVAB way back when.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge