King_Gex

Me and Homer have a lot in common, but no I am not Homer Simpson.

Wow quite a question. Yes, I am on the east coast.

Fukushima was some pretty substantial circumstances. It was the combination of the earthquake and the tsunami. The earthquake took out their offsite power which plants in the US and the Japanese plants are designed to handle. The Fukishima plants all shutdown properly once they lost power and were using their diesel generators to cool the reactors. Then, the tsunami hit which happened to be larger than their tsunami wall. Due to poor plant design, the Fukushima plants had their diesel fuel tanks outside on the ground which the water swept away leaving them with no power source to run the cooling pumps.

Here in the US, our plants are analyzed for earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, and any other naturally occurring event. Being on the east coast a tsunami isn't much of concern, but even if it was our diesel tanks and emergency equipment is required to be at a certain height above sea level in a water tight room.

We have also implemented measures after fukushima to prevent something like that happening in the US. It is implemented in 3 phases. Phase 1 is being able to rely on currently installed equipment to maintain key safety functions with an extended loss of AC power. Phase 2 involves being able to use portable equipment that can maintain key safety functions i.e. portable generators, portable pumps, portable fans, communication equipment, etc. Phase 3 involves the ability to ship equipment to any plant in the us by truck or air in 24 hours. There are two offsite facilities in the US ready to ship this equipment if a similar event occurs.

I work at a boiling water reactor. In the US there are boiling water reactors as well as pressurized water reactors.

I do not think that nuclear energy is a viable source for cars or planes. Space probes are technically nuclear powered but not in the way you are thinking. Space probes use a cool technique using plutonium and thermo-couples. Submarines use nuclear power to generate steam which uses a turbine and generator to create electricity, then they use an electric motor to power a sub. So imo that would be too complex of a system to power a car or plane.

And finally, no the military does not monitor us. We are monitored but the US nuclear regulatory system.

Sorry for such a long answer :D

If everyone disappeared at once, everything would continually running fine until it wasn't. Not to get into too much detail, but depending on where you were at in the cycle, power in the reactor would gradually go up or down. As that happened, or there was another significant equipment issue, you would eventually run into a set point that will automatically shut the plant down but that is only half the battle. The other half would be keeping the core cool with 0 power due to decay heat. I believe (not 100% certain) that the shutdown cooling system will automatically start after the reactor automatically shut down. So assuming I am correct, the person would not be in trouble until the cooling system failed. If I am wrong about the cooling system automatically starting he would be in danger much more quickly, on the order of hours or days. However long it would take the water to boil out of the core and cause a meltdown.

So, in your situation the person who survived would not have power after a certain amount of time because the plant would have hit a set point causing the plant to insert all of the control rods and causing it to stop producing power. If the plant had offsite power it would continue to run until it hit one of those set points, if it did not have offsite power it would insert the control rods and stop producing power.

I do think nuclear power is safe and sustainable. Staying economical is the difficult part today with all of the regulations. Without carbon-free subsidies it is difficult for nuclear power to compete with other energy sources. Wind and solar get huge subsidies, and fracking has made gas very cheap as well. This is why you see smaller nuclear plants shutting down.

I am sure some are :D its difficult to judge with all of the gear they have on.