Sun, Apr 01, 2001 page8

• Letters:

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  Danger lurks in nuclear plants

  Strangely enough, nuclear power stations are vulnerable when exposed to a power blackout.

  Simultaneous loss of off-site and on-site power results in a failure of the reactor's safety system. The sequence of events can lead to a serious situation, -- a loss of coolant accident (LOCA).

  That is what the latest accident at the Third Nuclear Power Plant (核三) was. The accident was classified as "3A site emergency" (廠區安全事故), the second-highest accident classification in Taiwan.

  Station blackouts are not rare. So-called "in-depth protection" (多重防護) often fails at nuclear power plants. In the power outage at the Third Nuclear Power Plant, diesel generators on emergency standby were not activated. An assessment carried out in the US indicates that LOCAs can easily be caused by station blackouts.

  We should mention that station blackouts have actually occurred at several sites especially in the US -- Alvin W. Vogtle, Nine Mile Point etc. Station blackout is one of the factors producing a critical situation for a nuclear reactor.

  This time, the plant's no.1 reactor completely lost its cooling system for the reactor core which could have led to a catastrophe. Inhabitants in the southern part of the island could have been endangered.

  If the reactor had been in operation at full capacity, hot steam would have flowed out of a secondary cooling system and the coolant level in the pressurized water reactor pressure vessel would have been reduced to the extent that the reactor core could have emerged because of the shortage of cooling capacity.

  Fortunately, two reactors had been manually reduced in their output capacity 24 hours before the blackout happened because salty deposits from fog triggered an electricity transmission malfunction.

  But the no.1 reactor was still being left at 70 percent of the rated output (hot standby), not fully shut down, when it was hit by total power loss. The temperature of the coolant was kept at 291 Celsius.

  Judging from briefings by the Atomic Energy Council, coolant temperature in the reactor core appeared to have been maintained low enough.

  But all the data, including the coolant level in the reactor core must be available to the public. It is essential for us to see what condition the reactor was left in.

  Taipower officials should give a complete explanation if they want to claim the reactor was not exposed to a dangerous LOCA.

  Last year we presented our analysis of the likely effects of an accident at the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant (核四) and told the people of Taiwan that they faced catastrophe if any reactor was involved in a LOCA.

  We would like to repeat our argument that there is potential for disaster wherever nuclear power plants are in operation.

  Komura Hiroo,

  Department of Engineering, Shizuoka University, Japan.

  Koide Hiroaki,

  Research Reactor Institute, Kyoto University, Japan.

  Thanking the Taliban

  The international uproar over the Taliban's destruction of Buddhist statues is quite interesting. It is even more interesting that Buddhists have joined the fray on behalf of preserving the statues. But Buddha was not a statue. Enlightenment is not a statue. No part of Buddhism involves worshipping tonnes of stone. The desire to preserve the statues is attachment, thirst and craving. It is ordinary suffering. Perhaps the world's Buddhists should thank the Taliban for providing an opportunity to extinguish the fires of desire. David Cornberg Taipei
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