The Shaking

Chapter Twenty

Dungeness Power station Administration Block. 11.50

Alan Carter; deputy energy minister Graham Madden; and Michael Williams, chairman of Potentia Energy were in Alan's office. The latter two were impatient having been kept waiting as Alan conducted a hurried conference with his technical staff.

Carter began to brief the pair, watching their expressions change from concern to displeasure as he continued. Finally the deputy minister could no longer contain himself.

"You're saying the government has just wasted a billion or more pounds in a partnership with Potentia Energy to renew a power station which can't be used when the nation's need is at its most acute?" he said disbelievingly.

"Let's go back over what I've just been telling you." sighed Alan, trying to conceal his irritation with the pair. "As I've been explaining a precautionary Site Incident has been declared and the Contingency Control Centre activated. The earthquake has caused some undetermined damage to the plant which will need to be investigated. Fortunately the worst of the follow-on tsunami's effects were mitigated by the raised coastal protection and the flood hardening measures applied to the buildings on site. There was some minor overtopping of, and damage to the sea defences, but considering what might have been we got away lightly.

As far as the repercussions of the earthquake are concerned, Reactor One scrammed successfully as far as can be determined: Nuclear activity within that vessel remains suppressed, and as of this moment there are no indications of any damage to it. However, before a restart can be contemplated the unit will need to be depressurised and there will have to be a meticulous inspection of every component. Given the severity of the seismic stresses experienced today nothing can be left to chance. I estimate the process once begun would take anything between one to six months to complete-"

"That's ridiculous!" Madden exploded. "If it's undamaged then you can bring on line just as soon as the high tension pylons have been repaired!"

"No, I can't." replied Carter emphatically. "The body of legislation regarding the operation of nuclear installations along with the Health and Safety acts says otherwise. I would be breaking the criminal law if I were to act so recklessly."

"I can arrange for an exception to be made under the State of Emergency; we must have the power those reactors can provide as quickly as possible. And if you're squeamish about doing what needs to be done in the national interest I'm sure someone can be found to replace you."

"You're welcome to try." retorted Alan. "But I doubt if you'll find any takers. Paul Glover agrees with my assessment, and besides Reactor One isn't the problem at the moment; it's Reactor Two which is my greatest concern."

"Go on." Michael Williams interjected.

"It appears to have sustained some unquantifiable damage at the moment, and I fear it may be serious. At least 40% of the control rods which should have automatically dropped into the fuel matrix appear not to have, which means there is still activity ongoing in the core. I'm concerned about why those other rods didn't fail safe."

"What do think might have been the reason?" asked Williams.

"In the worse case the interlocking graphite blocks which the pile is constructed from have been shaken out of alignment enough to prevent the control rods from entering all the way into the channels. That means there are sections of the fuel load no longer under our influence. Now if we are fortunate those elements will remain as they are; active, but not enough to cause further problems-"

So why all the drama, and what's there to worry about?" Madden made no attempt to hide the tone of contempt in his voice.

"That's what I was getting to. We should be all right providing nothing else goes wrong, but there are other issues we need to contend with. With the boilers and steam circuits unable to run due to the hairline cracks we've discovered in some of the welds, the reactor is in what we call a Closed Loop Cooling Mode, which means the carbon dioxide coolant gas isn't itself being cooled by exchanging heat with the power generating system as it was designed to be in normal operation. As far as we know the situation is stable for the time being, but who knows how long that will last."