Ok, there are approximately 450 reactors in the world, correct?

French claim 1.4 shutdowns a year

One US college research reactor had 9 shutdowns a year

One US power plant had 7 shutdowns in 9 months. (about 9/year.)

Consider the French aren't counting "unplanned manual shutdowns" apparently.

Let's be REALLL conservative and assume 3 shutdowns/reactor/year.

It's all back of the envelope BS math from limited data, but, from reading the archives here, you folks have NO problem with that whatsoever. :-)

That's 1,350 a year. 3.69/day.

I'm not going to do all the work. Anyone care to count up all the shutdown/day reports since 1/1/2000 for me?

And keep in mind many/most of the nuke glitches posted on TB2000 aren't actually even shutdowns.

http://searchpdf.adobe.com/proxies/2/11/61/13.html

Summary: Press release February 11, 1998 EDF ANNOUNCES RESULTS OF ANNUAL REPORT ON NUCLEAR SAFETY The 1997 annual report on nuclear safety was issued today by Claude Frantzen, Electricit de France's General Inspector for Nuclear Safety (deletia)

7.8 significant incidents per unit and per year (8.1 in 1996) 1.4 automatic reactor shutdowns per unit and for 7000 hours of operation (1.5 in 1996

http://web.reed.edu/resources/reactor/documents/report.html#OPERATIONS

(note: this is for one college research reactor for one year)

There were nine unplanned reactor shutdowns (scrams) during the period, as shown in Table B. All were classified as inadvertent. The number of unplanned reactor shutdowns is consistent with the historical numbers. As usual, the most reactor scrams are associated with improper operation of the Linear Power Range Switch. All but one scram were due to operator error.

http://www.leader.net/news/nrc.htm

SALEM TWP. -- PP&L's Susquehanna Steam Electric Station has several maintenance problems that need to be addressed, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

During a review period from April 1998 to January 1999, the nuclear power plant had three automatic reactor shutdowns, four unplanned manual reactor shutdowns and several unplanned power reductions

-- (johnk@dmv.com), January 06, 2000

Answers

I don't know about all those plants, but I gotta pocket FULL of cryptonite! Just ask Liddy.

p.s. My loose stool (discovered 02:15 hrs 1 Jan - definutely Y2K related) has passed. Just as firm and full as in 1934.

-- Bob Dole (bdole@stiff.com), January 06, 2000.

Hi John, Why are you here if you don't enjoy this site?

-- (dorado@doco.com), January 06, 2000.

Can you check and see what the average is for shutdowns in the first 6 days or the first week of an average year?

Thanks,

Mike

======================================================================

-- Mike Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), January 06, 2000.

Dorado,

But I'm here PRECISELY because I enjoy the site so much!

And explain to me why you have a problem, if in several previous threads people asked what the "normal" number of nuke shutdown/glitches was, no one answered, and then I posted my educated guess based on a variety of factual info which I site?

Doesn't the collective readership of TB2000 have more information than they did before the post?

-- John H Krempasky (johnk@dmv.com), January 06, 2000.

Mike,

Unfortunately I've yet to run across the "magic bullet" document that neatly summarizes shutdown data across many plants for the US or the world, as the French have...

I'm basically just screwing around with quick Alta Vista searches. The NRC page is just SO vast and detailed..it's got to be in there somewhere but I don't know if I have the time to expend on it..giving it another try.

I have a cousin who is an NRC inspector and I'm sure he'd have a ballpark estimate for a week..but we're not in touch that often, don't have his e-mail.....

-- John H Krempasky (johnk@dmv.com), January 06, 2000.

John, thank you. =)

-- cin (cinlooo@aol.com), January 06, 2000.