BWR Versus PWR Safety

Since when did Edison ever try to make a case for AC? (Until he caved in, maybe.)

Badly worded. I am aware of Edison's favorite.

The question has no meaning because the structural criteria for each individual nuke is based on its location, particularly, its seismic location.Those in flightpaths are designed to resist a plane crashing on them, etc. You cannot simply compare a BWR and a PWR, nor can you say how strong it is, only that it has the minimum required strength. Structural design is aimed at creating a structure capable, at minimum, of supporting a set of loads; it will be able to resist much higher loading.

My point was about the general impressions being created by the media. The plant mentioned in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_Canyon_Power_Plant was referenced in one article as being safe because it was a PWR.

Your question renews the debate between the BWR and the PWR relative safety. Each has its own merits as well as disadvantages, but what happened in Japan initially had nothing to do with the reactor design, it probably had everything to do with engineering/cost trade-offs and possibly a lack understanding/listening to the reactors' designers.

In the final analysis the cascading system failures will center on who decided to place the emergency diesel fuel tanks above ground and whether they were adequately secured for seismic and tsunami-type events. Despite their apparent weight they are lighter than water and will float on it, placing the tanks where waves can wash them away becomes problematic. That being said, if the waves submerged the diesels and/or their respective plant auxiliary switchgear then we are still left with a blacked-out plant so it will all come down to the reactors' inherent safety features.

A PWR's main attraction is that the heat transfer from the core to the steam generator is a closed loop that never leaves the containment vessel, this ensures that if there is no breach of the primary loop heat exchanger then no radioactive steam will leave the secondary loop that leaves the containment and supplies steam to the turbine that turns the generator. In a BWR there is no such barrier, the water that passes over the core becomes steam which leaves the containment on its roundtrip through the turbine and back to the reactor.

To date we still do not have a clear picture of what exactly has happened so it would be premature to speculate as to what was breached and what held.

I beg to differ on your statement that a PWR has not had an actual test since Three Mile Island was a PWR. Granted it was not a seismic event but the core did overheat with only minimal nuclear release.

Would I live near a nuclear reactor? How near is near? I am currently about 35 miles downriver from the Indian Point reactor.

I stand corrected on the TMI incident, though I can't draw any reasonable comparison to the test.

The only other point I would make is that if you are going to live within 35 miles of a nuke, a deactivated one is probably the better choice. I think that unit is about 45 miles from NYC and was closed for other than operational problems.

Design trade offs are a fact of life in all endeavors as are human and political inputs. It will remain an imperfect world. and the debate about safety will continue.

I agree that TMI was not a seismic event, my point was that there was a certain amount of survivability inherent in the design. As far as Indian Point is concerned, Unit 1 is out of service but Units 2 & 3 supply approximately 30% of NYC's electricity.

As long as you acknowledge trade-offs, consider the safety stats for the coal industry vs the nuclear industry. Since coal has been mined over 100,000 people have died getting it out of the ground in the US alone. Contrast that with number of deaths attributable to the US nuclear industry, zero. Also consider that a modern 800MW coal plant consumes about 8,500 Tons of coal per day producing approximately 635 Tons per day of ash along with 16,700 tons of CO2 per day, against zero emissions for nukes.

I agree that coal, oil, natural gas, and all the other fuels have good points and bad points. I also realize that if you want refrigerated food and lights you have to pay an environmental price. Since our health is in lock step with our environment we are going to pay a price.

I wouldn't insult your intelligence with a discussion of life without what we consider to be basic necessities.

I wasn't aware that Indian Point was still on line. I know there were some fanatical efforts to shut it down. I thought you might be interested in this article http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42103936/ns/world_news-asia-pacific/

Hopefully we are having a discussion/argument that is never settled by actual events.