Iggy - Any info on the cause of the hydroelectric powerplant explosion in Siberia?

Joe, I will look, I was very busy with stuff, but I am interested myself.

Igor

Joe, it looks like they were repairing some of the water channels inside the dam, which broke a wall and flooded the control room.

Thanks Iggy - we will have to wait for the "official" report to know the true cause, but one phrase in the Wikipedia entry caught my eye, vis

"and the energy system of the region is near collapse, as the main goal of its owners is to take out as much profit as possible cutting down on maintenance, investment, safety, and educational costs."

Now, perhaps if they had been running under their old political system, this might have been avoided. Or proper government oversight might have helped by enforcing standards.

Sorta like the GFC, dont ya think.....

Andrew VK3BFA.

The old political system did not have the best track record either. Chernobyl.

CarlBoyd

On Sat, 29 Aug 2009 23:45:53 -0500, the infamous Ignoramus17616 scrawled the following:

Ouch! Proof that preventive maintenance is worth its price?

That doesn't explain all the physical damage to what had been a very strongly built building. Was the water channel broken when the turbine went, or the other way around?

Joe Gwinn

A Wiki? Man, that was fast. In the Discussion tab, they said that the Russian-Language version of this Wiki entry has far more information. A button to enter the Russian Portal is provided.

Very informative, but I suspect that the release of the official report in September 2009 (if it indeed is released then) will settle anything. There will be a major blame-deflection war, which will take years to run its course.

I bet that the turbines never got any periodic inspection for cracks (which requires complete disassembly of the turbine), at least not recently, allowing cracks to grow unobserved, and the rotor of Turbine No 2 finally burst. The other turbines probably also have cracks, but #2 was the worst. I imagine that all turbines at all hydroelectric plants will now be inspected.

Joe Gwinn

That would be a strong possibility. I wonder how the facility was supported, funding wise. Was it government supported, or from the customers. Neither one would be too dependable.

If they took one turbine off-line, how much would it cost, power-wise, until it came back up? Evil thought... If the turbines were operating at a lower level to baby them, and one was taken off-line, could the others stand the performance level necessary to keep the overall power levels up? Aluminum plants need lots of juice...

"Crisis Maintenance" is an oxymoron, and is usually practiced by morons who are wastes of oxygen.

A water hammer on #2 resulted in the destruction of the rotor which fractured the housing and threw a 900 ton piece of equipment completely off it's mount. Water continued to flood the hall through the fractured turbine housing and since all power was lost, the safety systems couldn't open the safety gates. All of the afected transformers apparently blew as well and their oil flowed from the building when emergency power came on and the emergency discharge gates were opened manually.

That's what I got anyway.

JC

I wonder what was the composition of the transformer oil? Gerry :-)} London, Canada

some more photos (i hadn't seen these yet).

wow.

damn shame. terrible tragedy.

the wiki article said the one turbine blowing up caused a electric shutdown which resulted in the other turbines that were on line to overspeed and blow up too. amazing.

b.w.

My reaction exactly.

Just look at the hole to the left side of the fourth picture. What blew out of it weighed 900 tons and there isn't hide nor hare of it in site.

Dioxin, of course.

400 tons of fish reportedly died upstream of the dam. They got lucky.

Ouch! - well fielded Carl. AAndrew VK3NFA.

On Sun, 30 Aug 2009 19:16:06 -0400, the infamous Gerald Miller scrawled the following:

PCBs and a wee bit of oil, ah reckon. (Um, don't drink the downstream water for a few months, OK, folks?)

-- Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters. --Daniel Webster

Any word when the decontamination volunteers will arrive? Was there much radioactive debris ejected? How high? Are India, the Mideast and Africa prepared for the fallout? Will the Russians be able to contain the down-river waste or are we looking at the loss of 5000 square miles for the next

40 thousand years? What about the site itself? Will they be able to shield the hot core? How much lead and concrete will be needed?

Um, excuse me a second.

(A dam? Like with water? Are you sure?)

Never mind.

--Winston

clever design.