Space power station

[Swwils]

Yes Nowty I remember you being part of the "brethren" which one is you in the pic

The fuel elements on the table are the pipa element, used in four of the UK reactors IIRC and also in the Japanese magnox units, one of the longest if not the longest elements for Magnox fuel.

I remember well the main 6 different alarms we used to have to listen for and also react differently to at Sellafield, some of which really curdled your blood!, besides those there were also the "monitor health" noises to let you know activity in air and other monitors were working correctly. It was always an assault on the senses and the nerves going in to different buildings and getting used to local rules and sounds

Heres a flash from the past regards criticality, the methods and physics are the same for today but the instrumentation has, sometimes, caught up with the times.

Those guys had a MOX with sodium cooling and were surprised when the sodium came out and caused a significant fire!

[Moxi]

Smegal



Moxi

[Moxi]

It never ceased to amaze me that they told you to run on the sound of the criticality alarm, generally if you were in the immediate vicinity you were already dead so running wasn’t ever going to help you was it. If you were further away running without knowing which direction the incident was in could also be your undoing.

I always preferred the power stations where there was sufficient concrete between me and the fast neutrons to avoid immediate disaster, that just left the odd gamma ray grazing your retina and giving you a ghost contrail in your eye a bit like a shooting star you almost weren’t sure you saw it. Most gamma goes straight through you without hitting anything fortunately so these things were very few and far between.

Moxi

[Fintray]

After listening to those alarms it must come as a bit of a relief if the only alarm you heard turned out to be the fire alarm!

[nowty]

At Springfields the main two alarms were the Toxic Release Alarm and the Criticality Alarm. There was also a fire alarm but who cared about a simple fire.

In the event of a Criticality alarm you ran out of the building and kept on running until you hit the boundary fence. In the event of a Toxic release alarm you generally entered the nearest building if you were outside.

I once was travelling through the site from one place to another and in an area I had not been before and I was outside in the open. An alarm went off which I had never heard before. I was about 17 or 18 years old and thought "Feck", do I stay outside or go into the nearest building. It turned out to be a Uranium Hexafluoride release alarm which was only specific to a particular building I had not worked in and thankfully it was an alarm test.

It was also in the classic days of being sent to the main stores to collect the Long Stand or the Tartan Paint.

[smegal]

It never ceased to amaze me that they told you to run on the sound of the criticality alarm, generally if you were in the immediate vicinity you were already dead so running wasn’t ever going to help you was it. If you were further away running without knowing which direction the incident was in could also be your undoing.

I always preferred the power stations where there was sufficient concrete between me and the fast neutrons to avoid immediate disaster, that just left the odd gamma ray grazing your retina and giving you a ghost contrail in your eye a bit like a shooting star you almost weren’t sure you saw it. Most gamma goes straight through you without hitting anything fortunately so these things were very few and far between.

Moxi

That's why they have criticality escape routes marked on the floor. (not much use if you had to figure it out during an event though)

[AE-NMidlands]

OK, it's in the news again... https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... GTUK_email says

UK innovators get £4.3m to develop space-based solar power
Minister says technology to collect energy and beam it to Earth could help boost UK’s energy security. UK universities and tech companies are to receive £4.3m in government funding to develop space-based solar power.
(Caltech scientists claimed this month to have successfully transmitted solar power to Earth from space. Photograph: Science Photo Library/Alamy)
The technology, which collects energy from the sun using satellite-mounted panels and beams it to Earth, had huge potential to boost the UK’s energy security, the UK’s energy security secretary, Grant Shapps, said.
Although the idea of building commercial power stations in space may sound far-fetched, the space industry has long been at the forefront of solar power development.
etc

[Mr Gus]

Re:that youtube phone alarm recording.

The shonky barstewards have a godawful, accent heavy, distorted recording that no-one checked for quality nor clarity?
(it being important & all that)

Short cuts? in the nuclear industry, where the safety of millions may be paramount?

Mind boggled,.

[ALAN/ALAN D]

In the Telegraph today.

Quote. " Power station in Space could supply 25% of the UK's electricity. "