Major accident at Russian hydroelectric plant

[matthock]

BBC NEWS | Europe | Deadly Russia power plant blast
BBC NEWS | Europe | Many feared dead in Russia blast

Prayers for the families of the workers. I've gotta say, wow, that's a lot of damage. Exploded high power transformer, at least two multi ton generators destroyed, and the building is partially flooded due to the damage the generators caused to the structure. 6.4GW power plant out of commission for months or even years.

Seen a couple of theories on what caused it. One is that some type of "water hammer" type effect caused structural damage to the part of the dam that controlled water flow into the turbines, causing them to spin too fast, burning out the transformer. Then, with no load, they were able to spin faster and faster until they came apart from the stress. Other is that there was maintenance being done on the transformer that caused it to short out, also shorting the generators. A shorted generator causes it to try to stop, but that much spinning mass doesn't just stop, and the force of the crash deceleration ripped the generators apart.

 

[rambone]

Thats insane.

 

[mettle]

What is with Russia and power plants? Chernobyl?

 

[dkc485]

dangit Mettle you beat me to it! In all seriousness though, this is a tragedy and I feel for their families.

 

[matthock]

Just saw a new video of this - security video of the inside of the building when it happened.

YouTube - ?????? ????? ?????????? ??? ?????? ?? ???

 

[JustGone]

What is with Russia and power plants? Chernobyl?

Building standards are not up to par.

 

[AFA1CY]

What is with Russia and power plants? Chernobyl?

We had a training class at work and discussed Chernobyl. Found several areas that contributed to the disaster. Among them was lack of change control and performing a test with proper controls and review. Probably same type of problems here.

 

[Dryden]

That video was a little chilling. I couldn't imagine the fear in those people's minds as they ran.

 

[matthock]

Chernobyl was inherently designed badly to begin with. It was known to be an unsafe design even by Russian standards before it was built, but it got built anyway for political reasons - the designer had clout and forced his design through.

 

[Don]

I'd rather see water spewing out then radiation for miles....

 

[Dryden]

If that water has been used to cool the fuel rods, it IS radioactive. It will kill you just as dead.

 

[AFA1CY]

If that water has been used to cool the fuel rods, it IS radioactive. It will kill you just as dead.

This was a hydroelectric plant.

 

[Dryden]

This was a hydroelectric plant.

As the old Saturday Night Live character Emily Littel said "Ohhhh, never mind."

 

[slackerisme]

My father worked in a nuclear facility in Illinois for years. After he retired we were watching a tape of the Chernobyl disaster. The tape had no audio, so when my Dad gasped it was obvious. I asked him why and he rewound the tape and showed me why. The camera had rolled over a panel in one of the control rooms and he could see several of the standard safety mechanisms had been shut off. Apparently they are standard for all reactors because he speaks no Russian. But later he told me that the word in the biz so to speak, was that the operators had wanted to push the design further than they ever had. They disabled several automatic overrides to see what would happen, and the accident is what happened.

One of the really crappy things that followed tht accident was the use of soldiers to push radioactive debris over the edge of the roof into the crater. They lied to the soldiers and gave them a time limit of 20 seconds, or so, of exposure so they wouldn't die from radiation poisoning. They should have just jumped into the crater when they finished, they all died slow painful deaths.

 

[Errkola]

those guys helping the cars out of the parking lot sure were brave/foolish. Time to run, son!