THE HILL: Company warns of 'imminent radiological threat' after Chinese nuclear plant leak: report

[wemay]

Hoping @OVERKILL and other's in the "know" can chime in.

Worth keeping an eye on...

Company warns of ‘imminent radiological threat’ after Chinese nuclear plant leak: report

An operator of a Chinese nuclear plant has warned U.S. officials of an “imminent radiological threat” after a leak at the plant, multiple news outlets reported on Monday.In a letter obtained by CNN…

thehill.com

"An operator of a Chinese nuclear plant has warned U.S. officials of an “imminent radiological threat” after a leak at the plant, multiple news outlets reported on Monday.
In a letter obtained by CNN, the French operator of the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant, Framatome, told U.S. officials that Chinese authorities had raised radiation limits outside of the plants to avoid a potential shutdown.
U.S. officials told Framatome that they don't deem the current situation to yet be at a crisis level, according to CNN, but the National Security Council has already held meetings on this situation."

 

[JohnnyG]

I know I'm not too smart, but can anyone tell me WHERE this plant is located?

 

[OVERKILL]

Based on what I've read from plant operators this sounds like a fuel cladding crack/leak. The plant is still operating but what happens is that the fuel releases gasses (xeon for example) into the water, which has to be scrubbed before being released to the atmosphere. The scrubbing system only has so much capacity so you'll get a bit of gas leakage if it is being overwhelmed; if the release into the water is higher than the system is able to scrub relative to the rate of release. This is a tiny amount, relatively speaking, as limits around plants are EXTREMELY low.

This was something US plants apparently dealt with regularly (I've never heard of it happen with a CANDU, but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened) if we go back several decades, but fuel rod design improvements and improvements to cladding material have basically eliminated it now. As noted, it's usually scrubbed and plants would continue to operate, though sometimes at reduced power level to bring the levels down. Remember, these fuel bundles are typically in a reactor for up to ~24 months, so pulling the fuel to mitigate would typically be avoided if possible.

This, fuel fabrication, is proprietary and likely deemed a trade secret by the US, so they wouldn't provide the Chinese with this information. In an attempt to mitigate it's theorized that EDF is asking the US's permission prior to providing aide on this front so that they don't put themselves in hot with with the US nuclear industry.

China's secrecy and the media's typical approach of not letting ignorance get in the way of producing a sensational story/headline is a recipe for what we are seeing here. They don't consult actual experts and nuclear regulator and operator language is always very "severe" in nature, which doesn't help with layman interpretation of labels assigned to event types.

This plant in question is a French EPR, which has the most up-to-date and extremely robust safety systems. That doesn't prevent it from having to deal with the issue we are discussing though.

 

[wemay]

I know I'm not too smart, but can anyone tell me WHERE this plant is located?

 

[OVERKILL]

I know I'm not too smart, but can anyone tell me WHERE this plant is located?

Taishan is located in Guangdong, China. The plant has two French (EFD) EPR 1,750MW reactors which came online in 2018/2019. They are an extremely robust and safe design.

 

[wemay]

Thank you @OVERKILL

 

[OVERKILL]

An ongoing twitter thread by a few nuke operators can be found here:

 

[OVERKILL]

Thank you @OVERKILL

You are quite welcome.

 

[OVERKILL]

And a couple points from Brian:

Note the "when we had leakers". As I said, having leaking fuel wasn't uncommon a few decades back. The problem is that the Chinese currently lack the fuel fabrication expertise that the West has and that's likely what has led to this event.

 

[Malo83]

 

[OVERKILL]

Of course the Chinese flatly denying that anything is happening at the plant doesn't help on the trust front:

China's nuclear power giant CGN dismisses reports of leak warning at a Guangdong facility, says indicators 'normal' - Global Times

www.globaltimes.cn

Some more detailed technical information from WNN:

Chinese EPR experiences 'performance issue' : Regulation & Safety - World Nuclear News

Unit 1 of the Taishan nuclear power plant is operating at full power and there has been no release of radiation at the plant or in the surrounding area, China General Nuclear announced yesterday following media reports of a leak at the plant in China's Guangdong province. France's EDF, which...

www.world-nuclear-news.org

Which notes that Taishan 1 just entered its 2nd fuel cycle. It's quite possible that this fuel load is different from the initial fuel load, which may have been provided by EDF. Note that it also says that noble gasses appearing in the circuit are a known phenomenon and provided for in the operation procures.

It's the levels of the noble gasses that are the issue here, which likely points to, as previously discussed, a crack in the cladding. Not a huge issue, and clearly EDF has provisions for mitigating this, but they apparently can't share that data with the Chinese without permission from the US.

 

[tyman]

Jfc China

 

[PandaBear]

This is interesting, thanks @OVERKILL for the info. I guess Japan and China are going to have some huge defamation media shouting match over who dump more radiation stuff into the environment very soon.

 

[1978elcamino]

so, what does this mean for us americans?

 

[PandaBear]

so, what does this mean for us americans?

Likely have to reduce power output in those plants and reduced manufacturing output, more stuff in shortage.

The media outlets say due to China and Australia coal industry having some pricing dispute, they are running out of coal and have to reduce coal plants power output and leads to some area with rolling blackout already.

With this plant near the manufacturing hub of the world, this likely will impact some manufacturing capacity.

 

[Barkleymut]

China's secrecy and the media's typical approach of not letting ignorance get in the way of producing a sensational story/headline is a recipe for what we are seeing here. They don't consult actual experts and nuclear regulator and operator language is always very "severe" in nature, which doesn't help with layman interpretation of labels assigned to event types.

so you are saying there is a meltdown nuclear tsunami heading right for the West Coast?

 

[BISCUT]

so you are saying there is a meltdown nuclear tsunami heading right for the West Coast?

No, he didn't say what you wrote. If you haven't read the thread entirely; doing so could clarify.

 

[OVERKILL]

No, he didn't say what you wrote. If you haven't read the thread entirely; doing so could clarify.

I assumed he was being sarcastic

 

[OVERKILL]

so, what does this mean for us americans?

Most likely? Nothing. If they do have to shut it down and change out the fuel load it'll likely be off for a few weeks to a month, which is a pretty significant drop in power (one of the units being offline) but this is handled whenever there is a fuelling outage, so it's not a big deal.

They will only shutdown the unit if they can't mitigate the gas buildup. EDF reaching out to the US regulators in order to share that information with the Chinese is an attempt to mitigate is my take, rather than shut it down and refuel.

 

[PandaBear]

So if the Xeon was discharged with only 9.2 days half life (is that correct?), how far can it travel distance wise?