Talk:SL-1

2003

Just starting out - more on SL-1 and other topics to come. Brian Rock 03:03, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Just found an entry for SL-1_Reactor_Accident, as I've learned to better navigate. I'll be merging this article into that one. Brian Rock 04:26, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The SL-1_Reactor_Accident article doesn't follow the Wikipedia naming convention, so it's better to merge that description into this one and make it redirect here. Nothing links to it, perhaps because of the name. This one gets several links, probably because it has the most obvious naming. Jamesday 12:05, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

2004

What are the names of the three victims? --Mizchalmers 22:32, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• This link http://www.radiationworks.com/sl1reactor.htm names the victims --Zdv 04:18, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Zdv, Why have you removed my open link to prompt criticality in SL-1? I understand removing a redirect to nothing, but highlighting an obviously non-trivial term is deliberate and done to prompt the writing of a new article with that name. Your actions are not good editorial practice. --Azazello 02:39, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Suicide-homicide

I think it is now proven fact that the explosion happened due to sabotage (homicide-suicide), because one operator learned that his wife is cheating with the other operator and decided to take the amoroso with him to the afterlife. The third, unconnected operator was just "collateral damage", so to speak.

Human passion is stronger than the atom. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.70.32.136 (talk • contribs) 10:36, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

One of the theories, but hardly a proven fact. Read Idaho Falls for what I think is the definative public account. The operator who pulled the center rod out too far, John Byrnes, was recently separated from his wife (crashing at friend's places for the last several nights) and had money problems. Byrnes was mostly at fault in the marital strife: he was a philanderer and drunk.

Richard Legg's wife was a local Mormon girl, several months pregnant, and by all accounts hardly likely to be engaged in any kind of relationship with Byrnes. Most likely, they never met. Both the widows Legg and Byrnes have denied there were any extramarital affairs among them.

The murder suicide rumor had swirled around the industry for years following the accident. It became a semi-official claim when a nuclear safety researcher repeated the rumor in a memo stressing the importance of making reactors operator-proof. Previous reactor safety guidelines always assumed the operators were in their right minds when at work, and instead concentrated on commies with grenade launchers.

The most plausible reasoning I've read was Byrnes resented Legg because Legg was recently given a supervisory role. They had fought some months earlier at a bachelor's party (both men were drunk, and Byrnes had just fucked a whore--Legg probably taunted him about it). Byrnes had a temper, and had been known to throw shit around inside the reactor control room when frustrated. He was recently passed on the same supervisor job Legg now held. The men were several hours behind in their night's task list. Legg (a pranskter and under scrutiny for poor performance as a supervisor) probably said something to chide Byrnes (perhaps officiously restating the rule that the control rod mustn't be raised too far, or telling him to "excersize it" to prevent sticking), and Byrnes just had a "to hell with this" moment and raised the rod too far to piss everybody else off. Kaboom.

There's no evidence anybody, least of all the poorly trained operators, knew that withdrawing the rod too far would lead to an explosion. They guessed it could possibly melt down the core, but that wouldn't constitute a murder-suicide.

Tafinucane 21:30, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Causes ideas

From the article:

The three most common theories proposed for this discrepancy are sabotage or suicide attempt by one of the operators, inadvertent withdrawal of the main control rod, which was known to be "sticky," or an intentional attempt to "exercise" the sticky rod, to make it travel more smoothly within its sheath.

Suicide is right out, since the designers didn't even know you could cause an explosion by withdrawing the control rod too far. The main control rod was the only control rod that didn't have a history of sticking. Not to say that it didn't stick that night, just that it hadn't before. AEC investigators made extensive trials to reproduce the accident by having men pull on mock-control rods and releasing the rods suddenly. They also tried goosing the men (giving the test lifters an unexpected pinch in the rear, as Legg was suspected of having done), but never were the 100-lb bars lifted more than a few inches. Similarly, the "exersizing" the operators had been doing previously only consisted of sliding the rod up and down a few inches.

The article's statement remains true, however, that those are the three most common theories. The article needs to also mention that the reactor design was also to blame. The control rods could get stuck, as mentioned. Withdrawing a single center control rod could send the core to critical (which is a reactor flaw unique to the SL-1 design). Boron "poison" meant to quell the excessive radiation when the uranium fuel was new was supposed to be alloyed into the fuel itself. This proved to great a metalurogical challenge for the time, so they just tacked on boron-alluminum allow strips to the fuel. The strips flaked off over time, so the degree of control the operators had over the nuclear reaction was narrowed and partially unknown. Tafinucane 21:05, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Problem with date

I'm not sure if the SL-1 accident took place on January 3 (1961). I have a Ryszard Szepke's book in which it is written that the event was on January 10.
Please, verify this information. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Krzy B (talk • contribs) 20:14, 12 April 2007 (UTC).

Steven Casey in Set Phasers On Stun reports that the accident took place on January 3, 1961.

• Casey, Steven (1998). "Genie in the Bottle". In Set Phasers On Stun (2nd ed.), p. 117. Santa Barbara, Aegean Publishing Company.

—Iain marcuson (talk) 01:35, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Röntgen -- rubbish text?

My edit was intended to fix the link for Roentgen to point to the unit of measurement rather than the disambiguation page. Although it appears as R%C3%B6ntgen in the edit summary, the text appears properly in the rendered page in my browser and the link in my revision points where I intended. Is there a problem in other browsers or is the "rubbish text" just in the edit summary? Langhorner 13:15, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi there,I am very sorry, and you are correct, your version does appear correct in the rendered page-to me the edit appeared as rubbish characters-as you described. Next time I'll be a little more careful before I jump on perceived vandalism. your edit does appear to fix the link! i'll revert my own (incorrect) edit.--Read-write-services 22:51, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Weight of "the" control rod

My recollection from many years ago is that the operator's actions regarding over-withdrawal were established by after-accident analysis to be intentional, though his reasoning for doing so remained unknown. Reasoning: the weight of the control rod was fairly substantial (75 lbs or so?) and precluded an unintentional move of 16 inches or so, including the scenario of the sudden freeing of a stuck rod. Reconstruction via manual tests, including stuck-rod scenarios, confirmed this (again, as best I can recall). However, I'm so-far not able to find a reference for the weight of the rod. At this point, I can only leave this note for future editors' consideration. --71.42.142.238 18:57, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Parting note: I can't help but comment that the whole thing leaves one wondering as to why they weren't simply employing a mechanical or hydraulic jack of some kind to move the control rod, stuck or otherwise. It just doesn't pass the common sense test to not use one, especially if the rod was sticking...and known to be somewhat heavy...and highly reactive. Whatever...but it seems that a car jack would have done the trick. --71.42.142.238 19:22, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

"Jordan redector"

As far as I can tell, Jordan is a company that does manufacture dosimeters and the like. But a "redector" is likely a misspelling of "detector", and in any case, I don't see the point of pointing it out as a Jordan model. I'm going to revert this phrase to the verbiage as of two years ago, at here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=SL-1&oldid=11833643 John Sheu 23:53, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Additional citations needed

I've added a {MoreSources} tag to the top of this article as many more citations are needed to support what is being said. Please see WP:When to cite for guidance and some of the WP:GA articles for examples of how this is best done. Johnfos (talk) 02:24, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

There are plenty of sources referenced and cited. Do you have concerns about specific sections not being sourced? Please be as precise as possible, I don't quite get what your current objection is. Thanks. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 02:33, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

The specific problem is that as I read through the article, there is no indication about where the information being provided has come from. Sure, there are many unnumbered "References" listed at the end but there are very few links (citations) between specific references and particular parts of the text. So, in most cases, there is no way for the reader to check a particular piece of information against the specific source used. And so the content cannot be verified. This is just not satisfactory. Johnfos (talk) 11:04, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry that we're asking you to actually read the sources. The references are voluminous, and citing each paragraph as to where a description of it appears and in what sources is possible, but clumsy and pointless. There are a number of detailed accounts of the accident in the sources. All the specifics are accurate. Having to read the references does not mean it's unreferenced.

If you would like to make it easier for people to specifically find a link for particular information, take one of the overall DOE reports (the Interim Report is a good place to start) and make links to pages.

But you shouldn't tag an article as needing references when it's got them. I'm going to delete the tag. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 20:07, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Georgewilliamherbert, what I believe is being asked is that the facts as they are presented in the article be wiki-referenced. There's a particular way to place a tag next to a piece of text that allows Wikipedia to create a list of reference tags automatically. This is prefered for many reasons, the biggest of which is the ability to reuse named reference tags or correct all uses of a reference tag by simply correcting the first instance. Take a look at Citation templates page for the different ways WP has for citing references. There is no need to cite a specific paragraph/line/word in most cases, a simple citation of the book or article is usually enough. For example I changed the two initial references to wikirefs which now renumber the other wikirefs near the bottom (in the movie section).

Having said that Johnfos, could have just done the ref edits and showed Georgewilliamherbert what he meant. I think requesting a 3O was simply lazy on your part. Padillah (talk) 21:00, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I read about this on the WP:3O page and decided that what's needed for now is a more appropriate tag, namely the {citations} tag; see if you all agree (I have placed it on the article, so read what it says). Hopefully some helpful editors will take the hint and move toward improving the citations. But don't be bashful about adding {citation needed} tags wherever you feel a reference is needed. Dicklyon (talk) 00:23, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Leave Chernobyl alone

Why does this page and Three Mile Island's page always mention how these two reactor designs were much better then RBMK? The three had accidents, for chrissake. You don't go on comparing designs when you are talking about malfunctions. The negative void coefficient didn't help to prevent the core at TMI from partially melting, and didn't prevent the explosion in SL-1. What does mentioning Chernobyl here helps to explain? It seems like someone wants to say: "Even though this one exploded, it was still much better then the commie nucular plants." -- NIC1138 (talk) 16:22, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Of course you go around comparing designs when you're talking about malfunctions. All of modern safety design is based around safety in depth; even though things are going wrong, it's all about not going too wrong. Yes, Air France Flight 358 burned to the ground after landing, as did Saudia Flight 163; so why did one have a 100% survival rate and the other a 0% survival rate? Furthermore, comparing reactor designs gives readers insight into what the features of this reactor mean, and what the other options were.

And, well, all politics aside, there's no question that Chernobyl and friends sucked, that they failed to learn lessons from SL-1 and Windscale despite 25 years in which to learn those lessons. There's a huge difference in loss of life and economic damage between Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. That's a point that should be made, that Chernobyl cannot be taken as the end-all and be-all of nuclear reactors. Frankly, I think that nuclear gets a bum deal, that we mention a bunch of nuclear accidents that caused no injuries but far from every fatal coal mine incident.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:02, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree I exaggerated about we being able to compare... But my fear is that we might be comparing different things. This talk about negative void coefficient being more "stable" sounds to me more like a subtle (and desirable) characteristic of the dynamic of the reactors in proper operation then overall safety under accidents. It seems to me some people are trying to pin-point this single characteristic of the reactors as a sufficient reason to consider the American reactors safer than the Sovietic. This makes difficult a more detailed discussion. Negative or positive coefficient, both Chernobyl and SL-1 had the rods improperly removed when problems began. The reactor at TMI, on the other hand, was being shut down. What if it were under operation? It partially melted even without the water mediating the reaction, imagine if the rods were out.

There are (were) many problems with RBMK and with SL-1. I just believe there is too much emphasis in this article on the void coefficient being positive or negative... Nuclear reactors use chain reactions, which is an inherently unstable phenomenon being controlled by several factors. So, it's always difficult to understand when a reactor would be more "stable" than other. More importantly: I believe in all accidents we had more water vapour then we wanted in the reactors. I'm not sure if the conditions were inside the scope of the this coefficient, which I believe models a linear operating point of the system, with liquid water. It's not easy to extrapolate the behaviour of the three reactors in pathological conditions just considering this coefficient...

Now, regarding details in Chernobyl's design, according to the wikipedia page on the Chernobyl disaster the control rods there were not fully graphite, but just its end tips. I'm not sure that what this article here is stating regarding Chernobyl is coherent with this other article... Plus, the RBMK design was largely modified after Chernobyl, but kept the positive void coefficient. Does that single characteristic suffice to say that it is still an "unstable" design, and that because of this it is still inherently more dangerous than TMI or SL-1?...

And regarding lessons from SL-1: did Chernobyl have a too high thermal resistance, as SL-1, or a too high sensibility to the effects of removing a single rod?

I'm sorry if I am sounding a bit harsh in these comments, I would like to have a little more time to write properly. I'm just an electrical engineer wanting to learn science, and to avoid any kind of political arguments!... -- NIC1138 (talk) 01:10, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Contractors? Construction timeline?

In other sources, I find references that contractors' representatives were visiting the site, etc. I can't seem to find the name of the primary contractors on the project. Was it the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers? Westinghouse? Who? If this were an article entirely on the accident, it might not be as relevant. But in an article on the reactor itself, it certainly seems relevant -- "built between June 2040 and January 2041 by Spacely Sprockets," certainly would be a useful fact to include. This article actually starts with a maintenance shutdown, which obviously implies that it had been operational for at least one period previously. --Thatnewguy (talk) 13:48, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't have a copy of the references handy but I'm pretty sure the maintenance was handled by the Army itself and the construction was done by military personnel. I think that the design was probably contracted out, but I don't know who made it. IIRC, the reactor was operational for a year or so--long enough to discover that the control rod channel was getting clogged by material rubbing off the walls. Protonk (talk) 20:35, 22 May 2008 (UTC)