To the media accusing against the De-nucleation!

You idiots! The key point is safety.

Written by Prof. Lee Won-Young of the Suwon Univ.,
member of Public Reporting Center for Danger of Nuclear Power Plants (under establishing)
2020.01.07

original article>> http://www.mediatoday.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=204539

Finally, it is 2020. I am walking in Greece, where per capita solar power generation is the fifth in the world. In a country without nuclear power plant, like any other country in Europe, solar electric power supplies 7.4 percent of its electric power (2017); it is the result of a policy of saving the economy by utilizing sunlight for the past decade.,Sunlight is free. The cost of installation of solar panels is getting cheaper. The expandingrate of solar energy industry is exponential. Every neighborhood utilizing solar energy makes money. The people who do not utilize the free solar energy are fool.

Two years from now, Germany will shut down all its nuclear power plants. What have we done in the last eight years?
Some media are busy in accusing the De-Nucleation everyday.

Last fall, I took a lecture from experts at nuclear power plants, who were not only talking about the experience of the field, but also worrying about the risk of nuclear power plants.

In this lecture, these were pointed out that the danger of Wolsong nuclear power plant by Ha Jeong-gu, a member of the KINS and the Korea Nuclear Safety Foundation (Canadian Nuclear Power Plant Engineer), and the risk of air gap in Hanbit 3 and 4 of the Younggwang nuclear power plant by Lee Jeong-yoon (Nuclear Safety and Future). This is known to the media recently. The issue of the air gap is also a concern in Japan. Japan’s nuclear power plant engineer Goto Masashi (Japan Citizens’ Commission of Nuclear Energy) who participated in the lecture pointed out that it was an accident that Japan could not have. It is serious to know this.

▲ Welding fatigue destruction of the American cargo ship Liberty, built in 1939–1945: about 200 ships were damaged due to material brittleness and welding residual stress, mainly happened in cold winter.

What is more shocking is the essential danger inherent in a machine that is not well known as the following. In a lecture by Professor Cho Seok-soo of Gangwon National University, a mechanical design engineering professor, he said, “When the equipment is aged, mechanical cracks and damage can occur suddenly at any time.”,In introducing the case in World War II, Professor Cho said, “The Liberty ships that were built at tat time were in a massive accident, and these ships were suddenly sunk in two parts during the voyage due to the design miss and welding problems that caused stress during the production process.” There are about 200 ships that have been seriously damaged.,The risk of deformation due to secondary stress (welding, heat, and vibration) and fatigue damage that are not considered in the design stage corresponds to any place with metal equipment. One of the examples is the case of the collapse of the Seongsu Bridge in Seoul in 1994. It is almost 30 years old, but it is still vivid.

▲ The Seongsu Bridge, which collapsed in 1994 due to fatigue damage to the upper truss welding part between the piers; it was built in 1979.

Nuclear power plants are no exception. Dr. Yoon Tae-ho (formerly a researcher at Samsung SDS) explained this through computer simulation.

Moon In-deuk, a technologist (former Doo-san Heavy Industries & Construction Engineer), testifies that this has happened at the site of Uljin Nuclear Power Plant. The steam generators of nuclear power plants are often forced to expand and contract with heat, which causes a lot of deformation of substructures supporting them. As a result, 8,000 thin heat pipes in the steam generator are being worn out by vibration, which can cause serious danger of causing dozens of ruptures.

The original nuclear power plant is a machine that produces electricity by boiling water with uranium to generate steam and then turning turbines outside the containment vessel. The bottom left shows the inside of the containment vessel, with a uranium-burning reactor in the middle and a steam generator on both sides. The wear and damage of the heat pipe (tubule) producing steam from this steam generator is so severe that it is often replaced.

He said, “The steam generator is a core facility, and it is only in the pressurized light-water reactor type nuclear power plant. Especially, the Korean APR1400 model has a shorter life than other pressurized light-water reactor models (Westinghouse models) and is being replaced early because it has less than half of the design life. If more than five heat pipes are ruptured, there is no countermeasure. When it ruptures, 150 tons of cooling water spill accidents occur in 30 minutes, and safety regulators know that there is no countermeasure in operation manuals. ”
He is a veteran engineer who has lived in the field for decades. He is not taking care of his well-being, but is telling the truth.
If this is true, then it is very very serious.
Why is the Nuclear Safety Commissioni silent? If he is wrong, why don’t you say he is wrong? I don’t understand.

▲ The APR1400 nuclear power plant is a next-generation nuclear power plant developed by improving the OPR1000, the main nuclear power plant model of Korea. Although the design certification of the US NRC has been obtained, safety is suspected as seen in the case of Uljin 3 and 4.

The curriculum of nuclear-related departments does not deal with these mechanical and metallic risks. There is no professor who teaches and studies this. However, there are media reports that these dangerous nuclear power plants are excellent products every day with those who advertise ‘safety’ What do they believe in and insist on?

More problematic was the point of field experts, that no one in the government was interested in and cared about it. There are two nuclear power plants suspected of showing similar conditions to Hanul 4, now Hanul 3 and 4 in Uljin. In addition, Moon In-deuk, a technician, points out that there are 8 more such as Hanbit 3, 4, 5, 6 in Younggwang and Shinwol Sung 1 in Gyeongju, and Shin Kori 1, 2, and 3 in Ulsan.

If so, 10 of these nuclear power plants should be shut down and investigated. Even if 10 or so stops, there is no problem in the supply of electricity because large factories and large-scale facilities can be self-generated at any time. Since Fukushima, 52 nuclear power plants in Japan have been shut down for three years, and there is no problem with electricity supply and demand, even now that only the minimum nuclear power plants are in operation. In an emergency situation called nuclear risk, we can also shut down 10 nuclear power plants and check them carefully. We have been doing this kind of crisis management and innovation.

You can leave the mafia’s clamors pretending to be media. The problem is safety, and we need to focus more on safety.
To be neglecting nuclear risk indifferently is a duty-delaying matter for the people and humanity.

Translated by Park Bae-sik

Categories: Media Reports