ALERT! Radioactive Core Leak At La Salle, IL Nuclear During Restart

If you live down wind from the La Salle nuclear plant in Illinois you should be concerned.

Multiple systems failures have occurred over the last few days. On Friday we alerted that vigilance was required; on Saturday during restart, there was a radioactive core leak into primary containment.

The system that serves as a backup for Saturday's failure failed just a few days before. That is a chain of failures which should cause concern. The fact that they happened under the watch full eye of a Special Inspection announced on Friday by the NRC is even more troubling.

But it gets worse, the leaking part which failed on Saturday apparently had the same failure in 2011. That time they blamed a manufacturing defect in some welds; the fix was to patch it with another weld. Seems like that patch might not have held up well.

Given the totality of what has happened at La Salle in the last few days, it remains clear to us the Chicago was at risk of becoming a glow in the dark city. A Maximum Alert condition maybe warranted, as there is not telling what else will fail as they once again try to restart this rattle trap of a nuclear pile. Unfortunately, the most dangerous period for a reactor is when humans are mucking around with it. Here's hoping the third restart will be a charm.

La Salle Nuclear ALERT! Systems Failures Continue, VIGILANCE REQUIRED.

UPDATE:  "NRC Begins Special Inspection at La Salle Nuclear Plant" 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It would be wise for people down wind of La Salle nuclear plant in Illinois to remain vigilant.
More information has come forth from the NRC event report pages concerning the initial emergency at La Salle and the subsequent restart attempts.

NRC  Event Number: 48966 indicates that a primary reactor water level control for Unit 1 became inoperable after the initial emergency shutdown on 4/17/13. Apparently La Salle was unsure whether or not they needed to report this to the NRC. It is just another indicator how close La Salle nuclear came to taking out Chicago.

NRC  Event Number: 48969 indicates that during a restart attempt on 4/25/13, La Salle Unit 2 experienced another leak requiring the reactor to be SCRAMed again. Statistically the most dangerous time for a reactor is when humans are mucking with it. Given the failures which we believe nearly took out Chicago, and the reported failure on the restart of Unit 2; we would not want to be anywhere down wind of La Salle during their next attempt at restart.

It may be that the NRC shares our concern regarding La Salle, as we can find no information that the NRC has  de-staffed its Incident Response Center.

ALERT! Radioactive Rain @ 40 Times Greater Than Background Radiation

Update:4/29/13:  Good news, we were not able to detect any indications of long half life radiation on this sample.
------------------------------------------------


We noticed a step function increase in our LIVE Outdoor Radiation Monitor and decided to take a surface swipe off of our SUV. That swipe returned approximately 40x greater than background radiation.

The reading is unusually high.  Given the surface winds and the overhead low we have some concern that there may be contamination from the La Salle nuclear plant. However, given the position of the jet stream we primarily suspect Fukushima.

We are doing long term testing of this sample in our lead cave to see if the decay curves show any long half life radiation.

ALERT! La Salle Nuclear Plant Nearly Took Out Chicago !

UPDATE: 4/26/13 Failures continue at La Salle, NRC opens special investigation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE: We have been made aware of at least one UNCONFIRMED report of a radiation alarm occurring down wind of this incident. See this link
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Chicago almost became a glowing radioactive sister city to Fukushima.



Yesterday we broke the story  of  the La Salle Nuclear plant having to perform a Fukushima style direct-to-atmosphere venting of the primary nuclear containment  due to a lightening strike. As we indicated at the time, the amount of radioactivity released is unknown because the radiation monitors were not on a backup power supply.

Today in a follow on NRC event report, we find out that failures in the emergency cooling system resulted in the last ditch cooling attempt of directly venting the radioactive drywell to the atmosphere. The severity of those failures are underreported in the NRC event report, because it reads no different than if it the failures had been discovered during testing instead of being found out in the midst of a real life emergency resulting in the last ditch cooling effort of venting.

We explain the situation in more detail in the video, but gist of the analysis is as follows.

1. Lightning took out power to both reactors.
2. Backup generators kicked on, but powering everything would overload them
3. The systems which measure how much radiation is being vented from the plant did not have power.
4. The reactors lost cooling capability.
5. Automatic emergency cooling kicked in.
6. The automated emergency cooling on Unit 2 was failing.
7. As a last ditch effort, Unit 2 primary containment was vented to the atmosphere.
8. The venting cooled and dropped the pressure in Unit 2 enough to compensate for the failing cooling.
9. The camel was down to its last failing straw and only fractured its back; had it broken, Chicago would be aglow.
10. Radioactive contamination did occur.

Radioactive Rain Inside Our Basement- ARRRGH!

Our live indoor radiation monitor was indicating unusually elevated and climbing radiation levels inside of our house, a search for the source turned up radioactive rain water leaking into our basement. ARRRGH!

We had this crack fixed a few years back and it had not leaked, supposedly it has a lifetime warranty against leaks, we'll see. In the meantime, this is why you don't want radioactive rain water leaking into your house.

The indoor Geiger counter is located in the middle of the house, on the first floor, above an HVAC air intake. The HVAC system has been off all day. We have kept our windows closed because of the radioactive rainfall, but it does no good when the radioactive rain flows into your basement.

Possible Emergency Radioactive Release @ La Salle, IL Nuclear Plant

According to NRC  Event Number: 48939, An emergency was declared at the La Salle Nuclear plant in Marseilles, IL. A lightning strike during a thunderstorm took out all station power, resulting into both nuclear generators going into emergency shutdown and  "primary containment vent and purge valves were opened to vent the Unit 2 containment".  Five hours later Unit 1 was also vented but   that venting "was being performed through the Standby Gas Treatment system which is a filtered system

We can not estimate how much radioactivity was released because  "Due to the loss of offsite power, the Station Vent Stack Wide Range Gas Monitor (WRGM) and the Standby Gas Treatment Wide Range Gas Monitor (VGWRGM) also lost power"

Apparently the radioactive release monitors don't get emergency backup power;  which is convenient from the nuclear plant's perspective of not being able to measure and then having to report radioactive releases that happen under such conditions. But, it is disconcerting for anyone downwind.

Our check of weather conditions indicated the winds were blowing East at 20-30 mph. The on going thunderstorm also muddles the situation as the Terrestrial Gamma Rays produced by thunderstorms can result in the fissioning of any radioactive materials released during such a emergency venting event.