8/25/99 -- 9:07 AM

Nuclear reactor shuts down at Japan plant

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TOKYO (AP) - A nuclear reactor in southwestern Japan automatically shut down Wednesday after monitors detected an irregularity, the plant's operator said.

There was no danger of radioactivity leaking out, said Hirokazu Terashima, a spokesman for Kyushu Electric Power Co. No one in the plant was hurt in the emergency shutdown, he said.

The reactor in the city of Sendai on Japan's main southern island of Kyushu shut down Wednesday morning after monitors detected something unusual about a valve connected to a pipe sending steam to a turbine, Terashima said.

He said plant officials were investigating the cause of the trouble. Sendai is 610 miles southwest of Tokyo.

Resource poor Japan depends on nuclear power for about one-third of its electricity needs.

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Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), August 25, 1999

Answers

Typical of the kind of problem a single control failure can have......in a nuclear or fossil plant. Without knowing the valve number, (which the press would never bother releasing!) I can't trace the system and tell what happened.

If I did know the valve number, I could help, but without info, you can only guess. And guesses aren't very useful in assing hte impact.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), August 25, 1999.

Sounds like more GPS fallout. It's only going to get worse.

-- (arnie@waco.tx), August 25, 1999.

Let's look at these two posts shall we?

"Typical of the kind of problem a single control failure can have......in a nuclear or fossil plant. Without knowing the valve number, (which the press would never bother releasing!) I can't trace the system and tell what happened.

If I did know the valve number, I could help, but without info, you can only guess. And guesses aren't very useful in assing hte impact. -- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), August 25, 1999. "

Someone who could know what happened saying he needs more info before he could draw a conclusion. Fair enough.

"Sounds like more GPS fallout. It's only going to get worse. -- (arnie@waco.tx), August 25, 1999. "

HUH?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? How, from what little info that was listed, did you get that?

-- b (b@b.b), August 25, 1999.

STEAM is corrosive! Happens all the time.

http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/DAILY/psr.htm

-- Big deal?? (fullpower@nuke.com), August 25, 1999.