Note: The picture above is NOT the Indian Point transformer fire.
It is another of the thousands of such fires that happen each year.
I have a point of comparison to apply, to judge the significance of any incident at Indian Point, even ones that have not happened yet. You see, I had 20 years' experience working in a conventional fossil power plant, planning the repair work it needed on a daily basis. When I went to work there, I thought mechanical things were all like automobiles. An automobile is designed to work perfectly, without any care at all, for 3 years or 35,000 miles, and then basically get thrown into the crushing machine, to come out as next year's model.
in this 3-year perfection honeymoon, the automobile is unique, totally unlike every large mechanical thing on the planet. It has been streamlined into a commodity. You just sign on the line, and never change the oil, and 3 years later you lease another one. This is not typical. Most stuff needs a lot more attention than a car requires.
In large installations, like factories, or fossil power plants, about 150-250 items are broken, failed, worn out or needing attention every day. A townhouse complex I lived in years ago was much the same. The maintenance crew there was about 15 men, augmented by contract gardeners. The complex would not have hired 15 people on a full time basis, if there was nothing for them to do. That simple enclave of a dozen brick buildings had maybe 50 to 100 unfixed problems being worked on at any time.
Now just imagine yourself being in the real estate market for a townhouse, and being handed a sheaf of papers as you approach the place, listing stuck toilets, failed radiators, uncollected garbage, windows that failed to open, cable TV hookups that didn't work, seamy stories of the personal problems of some of the maintenance mechanics, contagious sicknesses in certain children living there, and a hysterical pre-cooked agenda, telling you to never rent there, because of the great danger, and urging you to call your congressman, to have the place torn down.
Would you become afraid of the Townhouses? Would you join up, get agitated, and march around the place holding placards? (admittedly,.... some poor souls would...... its just that most people would not). In point of fact, I thought the maintenance there was lousy, and I moved out. However, the place is still there, and the townhouses are selling for about $450,000 dollars, so the broken toilets didn't seem to affect the realities of the marketplace.
In that fossil power plant where I planned and staged the repair work for 50 mechanics and 30 technicians, we had about 1500 outstanding unfixed problems at any time, and incidents happened constantly. Once a mugger, pursued by the police, ran in the front gate, climbed a transformer tower, and got fried to a crisp by the 345KV electricity. That kept us down for about 8 hours. Once a 48 inch high pressure steam line ruptured, and two workers and a fire lieutenant were scalded to death before it was brought under control. That caused a 2 month outage. Once a supervisor led his men to the wrong compartment, and set them to work dismantling the wrong 13KV breaker. They were both incinerated, the lucky man dying in 2 days, the unlucky one taking 3 weeks to die. The entire plant staff of 400 people was bussed to both the funerals. It sucked. Once a worker was careless and cut the wrong cable with a power saw. He lost his sight. He was 45 years old , and lives today as a blind man. A worker made a slip up while pouring powdered caustic into a vat, and got covered with harsh caustic solution, removing the skin from 80% of his body. He lives on disability now, and looks quite a bit less attractive than he did before the incident. Once the entire office complex burned completely overnight, causing 2 million dollars' damage, and resulting in the place being run from rented construction trailers for a year.
There was never a week's period, where something did not break, or fail, or explode, or hurt someone. The rythm of steady disaster was constant. It was a high risk, high energy business, and nobody was dismayed by it. Those working on oil rigs will tell you the same. That's how it is, for those of us who work reality jobs. There's nothing wrong because of it. Its regrettable, should be avoided if possible, but its also perfectly normal, expected, even, in its own way.This kind of real-world enterprise cannot be run without it.
But kindly note, dear reader, that none of you ever heard anything about it. Not a single word. You see, people are generally oblivious to the agonies of those who serve them. Who cares if the chef scalds his finger? Just serve my steak, and be quick about it. I only heard about it, because I had to write the work orders to fix the stuff. My predecessor had quit, because he couldn't keep up the pace. I was young, wanted to show the world, so I dug in for all it was worth, and fixed disaster, after disaster, after disaster, after disaster, for 20 years. Therefore, when I see all the alarmist ranting about Indian Point, I have a point of comparison.
The number of incidents at Indian Point is orders of magnitude less than at the fossil power plant where I worked. The number of failures, is likewise way, way lower than at a typical factory or plant of any kind. The safety regimes preventing the life threatening stuff (for the workers) are so much better at Indian Point, that nothing like that happens there, most of the time. The inherent overdesign built into the plant is so robust, that no danger ever exists for people outside the fence ...AND... a specific watchdog agency is built in to the woodwork in the nuclear industry (NRC) , to make sure this is true, on a 24 hour, seven day, 52 week basis, forever, by law.
So, if a transformer burns , its not a point of worry to me, because Entergy is so good, none of our toasters or TV sets even stopped working because of it.(In case you hadn't noticed). Entergy didn't even need the fire department. Looking at pictures of Entergy's fire brigade, I thought it WAS the fire department. But it wasn't. It was just Entergy's capable, professional well trained, well equipped employees, as good as any fire department, stopping a nasty fire in minutes.
Oh, and yes, as the newspapers have relished in saying "There was no release of radiation" . They love saying that, overtly acting as if trying to calm you, while at the same time covertly trying to worry you. Journalistic duplicity, I'd call it. Reporters love the wild, the garish, the worrisome, and want to jiggle your emotions if they can. They get promotions when they succeed at this. For those not wishing to be manipulated in this way, its best to shrug it off. It's THEIR thing, not ours.
So then why am I hearing all these things about Indian Point? Simple. Indian Point is famous. They would like you to believe its notorious, but its not. AND something next is gonna break there soon, we can count on it. But we shouldn't worry about it.
That's life.
