October 1989. Residents of Tarragona Vandellos They were relaxing at home after a day of work. After 9:30 p.m., a fire nearby was reminiscent of a nightmare that happened 3 years ago. The flame came from NPP located in the city. This seemed to be a harbinger of something similar to what happened at Chernobyl in 1986. And it could be. In fact, today Nuclear accident at Vandellos This event is considered the most serious in history Western Europe.
Fortunately, despite all the severity, the situation did not become so dramatic. Thanks to collaboration firefighters and technicians It was possible to control the fire and manually activate the cooling system of the damaged reactor. This prevented a core merger that could have turned Vandellos into a ghost town like the Ukrainian one in its day. Pripyat.
The actions of the firefighters deserve special mention, as they were not prepared to deal with events such as Nuclear accident at Vandellos. Even though they came from a station located near the headquarters, no one gave them the necessary training. The company’s own employees also did not know the protocol. All this showed that things could be done much better, so new protocols were adopted both in Spain and in other parts of Europe. Today, nuclear power is much safer than it was then. But let’s look at what happened in Vandellos.
Beware of nuclear fusion
Nuclear power plants are used to produce energy through what is called nuclear fission. It consists of the fission of heavy nuclei of radioactive elements such as uranium. Once core divides, flies out and collides with another nucleus, which also leads to its splitting. Therefore, this is a chain reaction in which a lot of energy is released, also in the form heat. The warming is so great that refrigeration system this helps maintain an adequate temperature of the core in which the uranium resides. This is usually achieved by pumping cold water. This is a pump that requires electricity, so a power outage can be very disruptive.
In the case of the Vandellos nuclear accident, what happened was not a complete blackout. A crack in one of the blades of the electric generators led to a leak of oil and hydrogen. When exposed to air and hot oil, the hydrogen caused a small explosion and fire. The cables were not fireproof, so the fire spread through various parts of the reactor until it reached the pipe supplying water to the cooling system. This caused flooding and, logically, the impossibility of leakage in the cooling jackets. The core began to heat up, getting closer to reaching the melting temperature. This is the temperature at which it ceases to be solid and releases so much energy that it explodes, releasing radioactive material into the environment.
Reactor accident
Thus began the nuclear accident at Vandellos. The plant workers did not have an action protocol, so most left the facilities. When the firefighters arrived, there was practically no one to explain what to do. There were only a few technicians left who worked alongside them, performing two important tasks: putting out the fire and activating the manual cooling system.
Fortunately, with much effort and improvisation, both goals were achieved. But it was done when only 3 ºC was missing so that the melting temperature of the core was reached and radioactive material was released into the environment.
Lessons from the Vandellos Nuclear Accident
The Vandellos nuclear accident shared several factors with the Chernobyl accident. On the one hand, this happened due to chain of human failures for example, poor maintenance of electric turbines or the use of flammable cables. And, on the other hand, the lack of a good action protocol. This includes, for example, late contact with the civilian population. Exactly the same thing that happened in Pripyat after the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
Fortunately, in this case there was no need to evacuate, but after only 3 degrees the population would have needed to be as far away as possible. The incident was classified as Level 3 on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale. He outlined the shortcomings of the equipment and the need for more clearly defined protocols. In addition, the reactor was completely dismantled, leaving only the second reactor of the station in operation.
Today many of theNuclear power plants in Europe They have emergency systems developed from both the Chernobyl explosion and the Vandellos nuclear accident. It was all due to a series of terrible mistakes, but fortunately it served as an opportunity to learn without regretting the horrific consequences of the explosion.
Source: Hiper Textual
