GENERATION Is nuclear power history? The awesome power of water... by Chris Meyer, technical journalist

This is the 13th in a series of articles being published in Energize tracing the history of nuclear power throughout the world, and some key renewable alternatives.

“It was the worst maritime disaster in U.S. repaired. Instead of “removing and replacing as part of the Los Angeles Aqueduct. Three history, more costly than even the April 14, the bulge in the boiler”, the ship’s captain minutes before midnight on March 12, 1928, 1912 sinking of the Titanic, when 1 517 people merely ordered “a patch of metal put over the dam catastrophically failed, and the were lost… It is scarcely remembered today.” the bulge”. This repair could be done “in one resulting flood killed more than 600 people.” National Geographic News (Ref. 3;1) day”, while proper repairs, which would have (Ref. 4; 1) taken “three to four days”, would have meant “It” was the sinking of the steamboat Sultana Until 1995, the failure of the St. Francis dam that other steamboats would have taken the almost 121 years to the day before the was thought to have been “the worst civil POWs home: and made a huge amount of Chernobyl disaster. Like Chernobyl, a massive engineering failure of the 20th century”. money (Ref. 3;2). steam explosion was the culprit. But, unlike However, we now know otherwise. The largest Chernobyl, the steam explosion that killed The result of all this was that, at 02h00 on the civil engineering disaster was unimaginably more than 1700 people shortly after 02h00 on morning of 27 April, more than 1700 ( some greater, and occurred not in the USA, or 27 April 1865 has long been forgotten. sources say, at least 1700) passengers died: the USSR, but in China, in 1975 (see next either from being burned to death in the huge section). Even today, twenty-one years after Chernobyl, fire after the explosion, or drowning in the icy accounts of the Sultana disaster are worth The dam, sited 64 km northeast of the waters of the Mississipi River (Ref. 1 and 2). reading, as they provide a graphic reminder American city of Los Angeles, California, of the awesome power of water: here, water The official cause of the disaster was later was built between 1924 and 1926 under in the form of steam. found not only to be failure to repair the boiler, the supervision of William Mulholland, chief but also “mismanagement of water levels in engineer and general manager of the Los The dismal and horrific tales of how “some the boiler, excerbated by careening”. This is Angeles Department of Water and Power 1700 people”, most of them former prisoners interesting from a technical point of view, and (LADWP). of war returning home after the end of the therefore merits an explanation. American civil war, died are not appropriate In the case of the St. Francis Dam, the cause here. Neither really is the cause of the steam Severely overloaded and top-heavy, the of the disaster was human error, largely from explosion, when “three of the steamship’s four Sultana “listed severely to one side and then a failure to understand that the type of rock boilers exploded”, although it is interesting the other” as the ship followed the “twists and around and beneath the dam was actually unsuitable for supporting it: even though it technically and is mentioned below. turns of the river”. As the ships’ four boilers were interconnected and connected side- appeared solid enough. Another finding was But the main cause of the disaster - corruption to-side, “water would tend to run out of the that only one man, Mulholland, had been and incompetence – is relevant. In other highest boiler” when the ship tipped sideways, responsible for designing and constructing words, the human factor. And, as we shall the dam. creating hot spots on the empty boiler. see in the following, most of the disasters and As the jury recommended, “the construction near-disasters relating to water and dams When the ship tipped the other way, “water and operation of a great dam should never can be traced to the human factor, not the rushing back into the empty boiler would hit be left to the sole judgment of one man, no technology itself. The worst dam disasters in the hot spots and flash instantly to steam, matter how eminent”. One error Mulholland the 20th century, both in the USA and China, creating a sudden surge in pressure” (Ref. made was “failure to compensate for the can both be traced to the human factor. 2;2). additional height added to the dam’s And, as we shall also see, the human factor Therefore, had the captain added water to design”, when he twice added 3 m to and hydropower also played a strange the boilers, the water levels in the Sultana the dam’s original height, to increase the role in influencing the events leading up to might have been high enough to eliminate Chernobyl. water capacity. Perhaps more serious was hot spots forming: and the steamer just might, his interpretation of water leaking from the In the case of the Sultana disaster, the against all odds, have made it. dam, even on the day before the disaster, human factor was greed, and government as normal for a dam of that size. But, as we now know, at 02h00 on the morning incompetence. Some 2300 Union prisoners of 27 April 1865, like at Chernobyl more than of war were allowed onto the steamer, leaving But Mulholland was not alone in misjudging a century later, a sudden and massive surge it dangerously overcrowded, so that the what he saw. Two of the world’s leading in steam pressure made history. operators could make a huge profit (at $5 geologists of the time also “ found no fault with the San Francisquito rock” on which the a head in government payouts), in ferrying The failure of the St Francis dam, and the dam was built: even though we know the dam the men home. Taum Sauk reservoir collapse was built “squarely over the San Francisquito Greed further came into the picture when “The St Francis Dam was a concrete gravity- earthquake fault”: a very dangerous practice a leak in one of the boilers was not properly arch dam, designed to create a reservoir in an earthquake-prone area.

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At the beginning of August 1975, a very unusual set of weather conditions in China gave rise to exceptionally severe flooding, statistically described as a “1 in 2000 year flood”. Historically, China has been plagued since time immemorial by severe floods of its rivers that have taken hundreds of thousands of lives, but the circumstances of early August 1975 were exceptionally bad.

Firstly, the warm, moist air of Nina (that is, Pacific Hurricane Nina) moved in from the South China coast, passed through province on the coast, and then continued north to province. often enter China, causing devastation and flooding when they move inland, but then Typhoon Nina collided with a cold front, something weather forecasts has failed to predict. Aerial oblique view of the St Francis . The landslide that caused the dam to fail is clearly visible on the right. Photo: Spence Aerial Photo Collection, UCLA. By kind courtesy of The result was “a set of storms that dropped Prof. David Rogers, University of Missuori-Rolla, USA. a metre of water in three days”. That, on its own would have been a tragedy, and And, what neither the geologists nor million gallons racing down the 530 m high the cause of yet more floods, devastation Mulholland could know was that rock the mountain. and heavy loss of life from China’s rivers, but dam had been built on was actually a Despite all the advances in design since for one fact. The massive floods fell on two huge, ancient landslide, technically a 1928, technical issues and the human factor large dams, the Banqiao and Shimantan “paleomegalandslide”. In fact, so little was were still the cause of the failure in 2005. Dams, built in the early fifties and later that known about this type of rock that dynamite same decade “reinforced and expanded was being used to blast a new road on the Because of “improperly maintained and using Soviet expertise”, and thought to be eastern side of the dam, “much of it right next installed water monitors” (Ref. 6;1), the indestructable (Ref.12;29). Before Typhoon to the unstable abutment” (Ref. 5; 3). The last automatic pumps that filled the reservoir at Nina arrived, officials ignorant of the technical inspection carried out the same day the dam night failed to turn off, “causing water to flow consequences had recently added a “1,9 m collapsed revealed that “the roadbed had over the concrete walls… erode the earthen high earthen embankment” to the Shimantan sagged five feet” (Ref. 4; 3). dam on the other side, eventually causing the wall to fail and the entire reservoir to collapse dam, and also increased the Banqiao dam’s To sum up, the disaster was human error, under cascading pressure” (Ref. 8;1). capacity by 32-million m3 more than its caused by a lack of understanding of the designed safe capacity (Ref.12;32,37). technical issues involved. As Prof. JD Rogers Normally, ever since it was completed in has pointed out in his far more detailed and 1963, water pumped up during the night And not only did the floods fall on these two technical analysis of the disaster (see Ref would be released during the day down a 2 large dams, but on sixty other smaller dams, 5a), the “ancient bedrock landslide which 300 m shaft and tunnel, to spin turbines and many that had been constructed against composed the dam’s entire left abutment” generate electricity (Ref. 7;2). the express wishes of Chen Xing, China’s was partially reactivated, tearing off "a leading hydrologist when all those dams were While the consequences of not understanding portion of the dam on 700 000 yd3 of schist" built. In fact, so strongly did Xing criticize the technical issues relating to dams like the St. and causing the dam wall to collapse government - and Vice Premier Tan Zhelin Francis and Taum Sauk are severe, the (Ref. 5a;16). (who in 1958 “decreed that dam building consequences of politicians interfering with should be extended into the plains of China”), As Mulholland himself put it, “Don’t blame engineering experts are even worse: as anyone else, you just fasten it on me. If there authorities in China discovered at huge cost by forcefully pointing out that dams built in was an error in human judgement, I was the in 1975. the plains would lead to “water logging and human”. Cleared of final responsibility, since alkalinisation of farm land”- that he was sent The River Dragon has come “neither he nor anyone at the time could have away (Ref. 9;3-6 and Ref.10;1-4). known of the instability of the rock formations “The Banqiao Reservoir Dam and Shimantan What followed was worse than a tragedy, Reservoir Dam are among 62 dams in on which the dam was built”, Mulholland it was a national disaster on a scale that is Zhumadian Prefecture of China’s Henan nevertheless retired from the LADWP and difficult to comprehend, even now. At 12h30 Province that failed catastrophically or “retreated into a life of self-imposed isolation”, on the morning of 8 August, the Shimantan were intentionally destroyed in[August] dying in 1935 at the age of 79. dam collapsed, releasing 120-million tons 1975 during Typhoon Nina. According of water in 5,5 hours into the Hong River. Some seventy years after Mulholland’s to the Hydrology Department of Henan death, another American dam collapsed Province, approximately 26 000 people died Half an hour later, the Banqiao dam failed, in a most spectacular fashion, fortunately from flooding and another 145 000 died releasing 600- million tons of water in six hours without any loss of life. Shortly before dawn during subsequent epidemics and famine. down the Ru River (Ref.12;26). All this water on 14 December 2005, the Taum Sauk upper In addition, about 5 960 000 buildings rushed down both rivers onto the plains below, reservoir on top of Proffit Mountain in Missouri collapsed, and 11-million residents were creating a monstrous wave 10 km, 3 - 7 m collapsed, sending more than a thousand affected.” (Ref. 10;1) high, moving at “nearly 50 km per hour”,

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destroying anything in its path (Ref.10;2). Like catastrophe will, like the River Dragon, remain and steppe regions”, and that most dams a string of dominoes collapsing, the flood a thing of the past. built there would result in “very large artificial destroyed any dam it covered, soon creating reservoirs of shallow water”. Hydropower: muddying the waters “a huge lake thousands of square kilometres Anyone left in positions of authority in the in size, which submerged or partially covered “The most recent disaster took place in Soviet Union in 1939 knew that arguing countless villages and towns” (Ref.12; 34). Georgia in February 1987, when the dam on technical points with Stalin was, quite literally, the Rioni river collapsed under the increased All told, 62 dams were either failed or were a death sentence. While the war of 1939 pressure of water caused by melting snow. bombed, in desperate attempts to drain - 1945 postponed the Volga cascade of More then 100 villages were washed away them and prevent further collapses. The dams, construction started in 1948 (when and several hundred people lost their lives. sheer scale of the disaster overwhelmed relief Stalin was still alive), and was completed in The prosperous agriculture of the valley was efforts by even the Chinese army (People’s 1960. And, as Zhores Medvedev notes, this lost as the soil was washed into the Black Sea. Liberation Army). Despite tens of thousands was only the beginning. As he says, “between The immediate human cost of this accident of troops being deployed on relief operations, 1960 and 1980 not only the Volga, but other was far higher than the Chernobyl disaster.” nine days after the disaster “there were still parts of the Dnieper, the Don, the Kuban, the over a million people trapped by the waters, Zhores Medvedev, commenting on the Kama, the Volkhov, the Irtysh, the Angara and relying on airdrops of food and unreachable problems of hydroelectric power in Russia many other rivers were dammed to produce to disaster relief” (Ref.10; 4). In these sort and the former Soviet Union. (Medvedev, electricity”. of circumstances, drinking water became 1990:299). contaminated by waterborne diseases like In other words, many dams were built in While, fortunately, most of problems stemming dysentery, soon resulting in deaths from areas unsuitable for them, without regard from hydropower in Russia do not involve epidemics. Famine also started to take its for the environmental consequences, actual dam walls collapsing, they still toll. Far more people (145 000) reportedly many of which only became apparent “ten have serious economic consequences, died from the aftermath of the floods than to 15 years” after the construction of the consequences that were not realised at the from drowning (26 000) (Ref.10;1). dams. After the 1975 Banqiao dam disaster time they were being built. became known, some have said that the Huge as these numbers are, far more people Briefly put, the Russian experience of Dnieper cascade of dams are a similar (“over 300 000”) have died in China from hydropower first started in 1932, when disaster waiting to happen. The argument the flooding of just one river, the Yangtze a hydroelectric station was built on the there is that the “reservoirs pose a special since 1931 (Ref. 16), with 145 000 people Dnieper, one of the many huge rivers that risk by the fact that they form a cascade with reportedly killed by the 1931 flood alone (Ref. criss-cross much of Russia and the former an atypically short distance between them”, 17;4). But despite this sober perspective, the USSR. That particular hydropower project, and that, if one upper dam fails, “ massive dam failures of August 1975 appear to be then the largest in Europe with a capacity of flooding will impact other dams within hours, the greatest single man-made disaster of the 560 MW was, quite literally, a huge success. subsequently releasing lower reservoirs to the twentieth century in peacetime. It submerged the natural rapids (near Black Sea” (Ref.15; 2). If the statistics quoted in Ref. 10 of casualties Zaporozhie, which literally means “below Aside from collapse, the many problems of are correct, then the number of deaths (171 the rapids”) that had obstructed navigation building dams in Russia included, firstly, that 000) appears even larger than the combined for centuries but did not require a large reservoir, using “the natural contours of the huge amounts of the best agricultural land total for deaths for nuclear war in the 20th river” (Medvedev, 1990:297). were flooded. Medvedev notes that, while the century: ca 144 000 deaths (ca 70 000 for Netherlands has reclaimed “about 7 000 km2… Hiroshima and 73 884 for Nagasaki). Then, enter Soviet centralised economic over the last seven centuries”, between 1960 - planning, something that has been ruthlessly This number may be conservative, as other 1990, the Soviet Union had flooded “more than introduced under Stalin at a huge cost sources (Ref. 12;28 and Ref. 13;3) mention five times that area” in hydroelectric projects. (both in terms of lives and badly planned “that 85 000 [not 26 000] were killed by the What Medvedev does not note was that Stalin economics), and the source of many of immediate flood waves from the failed dams, would not have appreciated analogies with the Russia’s present woes. Remember again and a further 145 000 died in the epidemics Netherlands: throughout his life, he somehow that when the third Five-Year (economic) thought that the Netherlands and Holland were and famine” (Ref.11;3), making for a total of Plan was introduced in 1939 (which featured two different countries, and nobody dared to 230 000 deaths). The deaths caused by these hydropower on a grand scale), millions of enlighten him! dam failures are therefore some 19 times the brightest and best of Russian society - the total number of cancer deaths (9000, including the best economists and planners Besides the flooding of land and the need excluding thyroid cancer cases) predicted by - had been casualties of the 1937 purges, to relocate millions of people (which were the World Health Organization to eventually shot or being worked to death in Soviet planned for), the other problems that later result from Chernobyl. If the larger casualty concentration camps. Like much of Soviet emerged are practically insoluble. To begin figure of 230 000 deaths is accepted, then planning, the third Five Year Plan reduced to with, “storms, waves and ordinary filtration” this is just over 25 times the total number of two words: Stalin says... washed away the sides of the already huge deaths predicted from cancer (excluding (typically built to be “1000 – 2000 km2”) In short, the third Five Year Plan provided for thyroid cancer) from Chernobyl. reservoirs, making them bigger, shallower, not one but a whole cascade of dams on more prone to silting and “less satisfactory for With the completion of the largest dam in the Volga, one of European Russia’s (that generating electricity”. In brief, much of the the world, the Three Gorges Dam, on 20 is, Russia west of the Ural mountains) huge surrounding land was turned into swamps. May 2006, flooding of the middle and lower rivers. Nobody dared to point out to Stalin regions of the Yangtze should be a thing the obvious, “that most of the rivers in the And then, “the level of ground water in areas of the past (Ref. 14;1-5). Hopefully, those European part of the (then) Soviet Union were around the reservoirs and dams has slowly responsible for the new dam have taken the unsuitable for generating power because been rising, damaging agricultural land and lessons of August 1975 to heart, and such a they flow through the great Russian plain sometimes towns and cities too”. This has

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resulted in “underground communications This was good planning, but locating the use) (Medvedev, 1990:293-297), Russia still in many cities” being “flooded and partially actual plant “below a hydroelectric dam needs nuclear power: as its plans for 18 new destroyed” (Medvedev, 1990: 297-300). across the River Don” was not. The builders VVER plants amply demonstrate. and planners, in a hurry to build the plant In fact, bad hydropower planning even It is sobering to think that, if the country with and the new town of Volgodonsk, “omitted the world’s largest reserves of renewable affected the country’s nuclear programme: to make a proper geological survey of the energy is still dependant on nuclear energy, resulting in the RBMK-1000 reactor and not the site”. The result was disastrous. Water from what chances do other, smaller countries VVER 1000 forming the basis of it. the nearby Tsimplyanskoye reservoir “of nearly 2 with less renewable energy resources have A “dam” bad choice: the RBMK design 2000 km “caused the ground water level to of being nuclear-free? becomes the basis rise, and turned the area of the plant and town into a swamp, hindering construction. References “The RBMK-1000 became the most important type of reactor in the Soviet By now it was too late to do anything, so, in [1] “Death on the dark river: the story of the Sultana nuclear power industry. At the time of the true bureaucratic style, “the problem was disaster”.(www.rootsweb.com/~genepool/ Chernobyl accident there were fourteen covered up”. But the problem was too big sultana.htm) RBMK plants across the country providing to be covered up, even in the former Soviet [2] “Sultana (steamboat)”. Wikipedia (http:// Union. Instead of eight pressure vessels being more than half the country’s nuclear en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultana_(steamboat) produced by 1980, “only one or two vessels generating capacity. Several more were [3] Ambrose, S “Remembering Sultana”. National had been completed by 1983 when sinking under construction”. Zhores Medvedev Geographic. 1 May 2001. foundations caused one of the plant’s huge (Medvedev, 1990:238) [4] ”St Francis Dam”. Wikipedia (http:// walls to collapse suddenly”. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Francis_Dam) At the time of the Chernobyl accident, the RBMK-1000 reactor formed the basis of More collapsed than just the wall of the [5] “St. Francis Dam”. Chemistry Daily (http://www. the Soviet nuclear programme. But why? Atommash plant. Practically, the use of the chemistrydaily.com/chemistry?St._Francis_ Why were Soviet nuclear power stations VVER-1000 as an alternative to the RBMK-1000 Dam) designed without the containment domes reactor also collapsed. The “construction [5a] J D Rogers, “Lessons learned from the St that are regarded as standard in the west? plans for Atommash” were scaled down, and Francis Dam failure”. GeoStrata, Vol 6 Issue The short answer to this question is literally, “the whole programme of rapidly developing 2, 14-18, March/April 2007. “dam” bad planning regarding pressure VVER-1000 plants” was called into question [6] ”Commission seeks comment on vessels. While more technical accounts (Medvedev, 1990:240-245). Independent Panel Report examining Taum are available, for brevity and clarity this Sauk Reservoir breach in Missouri”. 25 May, After this, the RBMK-1000 plants were one is based on the summary given by in 2006. (http://www.ferc.gov/press-room/press- considered the best option. And their sheer Zhores Medvedev in his book “The legacy of releases/2006/2006-2/05-25-06.asp) size and power made ruled out fitting Chernobyl”. Limited space here precludes a containment dome. It was only after [7] Leonard, C “Taum Sauk Reservoir fails”. telling the full story full story, including the Southeast Missourian.com News (http://www. Chernobyl that the Soviet government was selection of the RBMK for Chernobyl against semissourian.com/story/1131377.html) surprisingly strong opposition. forced to stop new construction plans for RBMK reactors and install added safety [8] “Documents: Dam sinking for decades”. 7 Unlike the RBMK reactor, which has no pressure features to the 14 of these plants in use. The January, 2006. Columbia Daily Tribune. dome and, tragically, was considered safe modifications did “reduce the amount of [9] Watkins, T “The catastrophic dam failures in enough not to need one, Soviet scientists time required for an emergency shutdown.”. China in August 1975”. (http://www.sjsu.edu. realised that a pressurised water reactor But – and this is the core of the problem – the faculty/watkins/aug1975.htm) (abbreviated as VVER in the Russian equivalent), changes reduced “the power of each reactor [10] “Banqiao Dam”. Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia. would need a steel containment dome. by 20%” (Medvedev, 1990:303-307). org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam)[11] “Excerpted from Producing a steel pressure vessel to Chapter 4 of “Silenced Rivers: the ecology Moreover, the Chernobyl accident occurred and politics of large dams”, by Patrick contain a nuclear reactor suitable for a at the worst possible time. Oil prices were McCully”, p 3 (http://www.irn.org/basics/ard/ nuclear-powered submarine (as first used dropping, and “Soviet attempts to increase pdf/srdamsafety.pdf) in the Soviet navy) is difficult enough, but energy exports coincided with the long- producing a huge steel containment dome [12] Qing, D(1998). The river dragon has come. predicted decline in production of oil from the large enough for a nuclear power plant New York: M E Sharpe. Siberian oilfields”. At the same time, the new requires a major industrial base. And in [13] Human Rights watch, February 1995, Vol 7 openness resulted in problems in the coal and 1970, the industrial base to produce the No 2, pp1-6. (http://www.org/summaries/s. hydroelectric programmes being exposed. huge pressure vessels of “500 - 800 metric china952.html) tons each”, needed for the large VVER–100 In short, neither coal nor hydropower could [14] Mufson, S “The Yangtze Dam; feat or folly?”. reactor, intended to be the key to “the fill the energy gap (nor could oil or gas, as Washington Post, 9 November 1997, p A01 accelerated development of nuclear these were being exported), and several [15] “Threat of the Dneiper reservoirs”. Wikipedia energy”, did not exist. years of severe electricity shortages began. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threat_of_the Medvedev notes that, “after nearly four While smaller pressure vessels for smaller VVER Dnieper reservoirs) years of severe electricity shortages”, the reactors (the first two VVER-440 reactors) could [16] Pickrell, J “Demolition marks start of Three government realised that the only way out be produced at facilities in Leningrad (now Gorges dam flood role”. New Scientist 6 June was to increase the price of energy. renamed St Petersburg), it was decided in 2006. 1970 to build a completely new industrial Even today, despite having the world’ largest [17] “Yangtze River”. Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia. “base for VVER systems Atommash (an coal reserves (enough for 8000 years), natural org/wiki/Yangtze_River) abbreviation of ‘atom machinery’)” and gas for “60 - 70 years”, and huge hydropower [18] Medvedev, Z A (1990). The legacy transport the huge pressure vessels by barge, capabilities (216-billion kWh: all figures except about Chernobyl. London: WW Norton & using one of the country’s massive rivers. hydropower (1985 - 1986) at 1990 rates of Company v

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