They turned the water off in my dorm
Grrrrrr. And I don't even know why. I REALLY have to use the bathroom. I wonder if it's o.k.? It might have to be o.k. in a few minutes. :-\
FOX SHOULD DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY DIDN'T EVEN SHOW ANYTHING ON JOE MILLIONAIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That episode was completely pointless. Completely. Where is the Fox headquarters located? Cause someone's gonna end up going postal on them. You just don't get in the way of women and their Joe Millionaire. Stupid people. I'm boycotting Fox. Except of course for next Monday when the two-hour last episode comes on. :-) Grrrrrrrrrrr.
My mommy came up last night and helped me move all the rest of my stuff. YAY!!! Thank you Mommy!!! So, now I'm completely moved and I can turn my key back in so that Housing will take me off their Ten Most Wanted list. My mommy is the best ever! She also brought me Captain D's. :-D
O.k., a couple of weeks ago, where all my work almost killed me, I had to turn in two scholarship applications, and for one of the I had to write a really hard essay. And I'm going to post it here. You all need to write me comments and tell me how smart I sound. (Grandma, there is a little link in the bottom, right-hand corner of this box that says "post comment". You can click on that and write me a comment. Click on "Anonymous", then type something in the Subject box, and then type your message. You can even add a little icon.) O.k., here's my essay:
Effective Usage of Probabilistic Risk Assessments
In the past decade, the nuclear industry has been greatly impacted by the use of Probabilistic Risk Assessments (PRA). These PRAs, generated by anticipating causes for accidents, have transformed how nuclear plant operators and owners view risk. PRAs analyze possible accident progressions. They start with initiating events, such as a reactor trip, and all consequential actions. The majority of PRAs consider internal initiating events including flooding and loss of power and excluding events such as fire or earthquake. After the initiating events, the PRA process goes on to evaluate possible core damage frequencies (CDF). The last step in a PRA is to determine the probable amount of radioactive material released into the environment and how that would affect the surrounding land and population.
The first PRA-type study was in 1975 and was the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Reactor Safety Study (WASH-1400). After that, the NRC performed a detailed study of five nuclear plants in the early 1980s and released the findings as NUREG-1150. The most important date, I think, in nuclear PRA history was 1988 when the NRC mandated completion of Individual Plant Examinations (IPEs) resulting in 74 PRAs submitted by 106 nuclear plants. This was the beginning of modern PRA usage and methods. Up until around 1992, and even today, PRAs focused mainly on CDF values and large early release frequencies (LERF). However, from 1993 through 1995, PRAs focused on the risks associated with floods and earthquakes. Recent PRAs focus more on scram rates, loss-of-coolant-accidents (LOCA) and whether or not the facility is operating at full power, or capacity.
Due to the effective usage of PRAs by plant operators and owners, the average core damage frequency has decreased by over 60% in the past ten years. Also, the average industry capacity factor has increased from 73% to 89% along with a decreasing average scram rate of about 70% between 1992 and 2000. One plant learned that adding a small, onsite, diesel generator as an emergency back-up for the plant's electrical control systems reduced core damage frequency by 66%. There are many, many more examples of what individual plants have done by assessing risk using PRAs and engineering adequate solutions to greatly decrease risk.
An article on PRAs in the January 2003 issue of Nuclear News states the results of PRAs being as follows: "1.) a new understanding of safety contributors and priorities; 2.) a demonstrated ability to improve safety while improving availability, reliability, and cost-effectiveness; and 3.) an opportunity to simplify plant regulation from deterministic to risk-informed and from prescriptive to performance-based." I believe an effective use of these results, especially the first two, is to use PRAs and statistics harvested from PRA studies in public relation programs. In my very short career as a nuclear engineering student, I have encountered many people skeptical of the safety and benefits of using nuclear technologies for power generation. If the nuclear power industry is to thrive in the U.S., it must have the support of the general population. Without the backing of the people, it is difficult, if not impossible, to pass legislation increasing government funding and research to continue the positive trend in nuclear reactor safety and efficiency. I believe PRAs and their resulting studies and statistics are a great tool to educate the voting public of the safety and benefits of nuclear energy.
FOX SHOULD DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY DIDN'T EVEN SHOW ANYTHING ON JOE MILLIONAIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That episode was completely pointless. Completely. Where is the Fox headquarters located? Cause someone's gonna end up going postal on them. You just don't get in the way of women and their Joe Millionaire. Stupid people. I'm boycotting Fox. Except of course for next Monday when the two-hour last episode comes on. :-) Grrrrrrrrrrr.
My mommy came up last night and helped me move all the rest of my stuff. YAY!!! Thank you Mommy!!! So, now I'm completely moved and I can turn my key back in so that Housing will take me off their Ten Most Wanted list. My mommy is the best ever! She also brought me Captain D's. :-D
O.k., a couple of weeks ago, where all my work almost killed me, I had to turn in two scholarship applications, and for one of the I had to write a really hard essay. And I'm going to post it here. You all need to write me comments and tell me how smart I sound. (Grandma, there is a little link in the bottom, right-hand corner of this box that says "post comment". You can click on that and write me a comment. Click on "Anonymous", then type something in the Subject box, and then type your message. You can even add a little icon.) O.k., here's my essay:
Effective Usage of Probabilistic Risk Assessments
In the past decade, the nuclear industry has been greatly impacted by the use of Probabilistic Risk Assessments (PRA). These PRAs, generated by anticipating causes for accidents, have transformed how nuclear plant operators and owners view risk. PRAs analyze possible accident progressions. They start with initiating events, such as a reactor trip, and all consequential actions. The majority of PRAs consider internal initiating events including flooding and loss of power and excluding events such as fire or earthquake. After the initiating events, the PRA process goes on to evaluate possible core damage frequencies (CDF). The last step in a PRA is to determine the probable amount of radioactive material released into the environment and how that would affect the surrounding land and population.
The first PRA-type study was in 1975 and was the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Reactor Safety Study (WASH-1400). After that, the NRC performed a detailed study of five nuclear plants in the early 1980s and released the findings as NUREG-1150. The most important date, I think, in nuclear PRA history was 1988 when the NRC mandated completion of Individual Plant Examinations (IPEs) resulting in 74 PRAs submitted by 106 nuclear plants. This was the beginning of modern PRA usage and methods. Up until around 1992, and even today, PRAs focused mainly on CDF values and large early release frequencies (LERF). However, from 1993 through 1995, PRAs focused on the risks associated with floods and earthquakes. Recent PRAs focus more on scram rates, loss-of-coolant-accidents (LOCA) and whether or not the facility is operating at full power, or capacity.
Due to the effective usage of PRAs by plant operators and owners, the average core damage frequency has decreased by over 60% in the past ten years. Also, the average industry capacity factor has increased from 73% to 89% along with a decreasing average scram rate of about 70% between 1992 and 2000. One plant learned that adding a small, onsite, diesel generator as an emergency back-up for the plant's electrical control systems reduced core damage frequency by 66%. There are many, many more examples of what individual plants have done by assessing risk using PRAs and engineering adequate solutions to greatly decrease risk.
An article on PRAs in the January 2003 issue of Nuclear News states the results of PRAs being as follows: "1.) a new understanding of safety contributors and priorities; 2.) a demonstrated ability to improve safety while improving availability, reliability, and cost-effectiveness; and 3.) an opportunity to simplify plant regulation from deterministic to risk-informed and from prescriptive to performance-based." I believe an effective use of these results, especially the first two, is to use PRAs and statistics harvested from PRA studies in public relation programs. In my very short career as a nuclear engineering student, I have encountered many people skeptical of the safety and benefits of using nuclear technologies for power generation. If the nuclear power industry is to thrive in the U.S., it must have the support of the general population. Without the backing of the people, it is difficult, if not impossible, to pass legislation increasing government funding and research to continue the positive trend in nuclear reactor safety and efficiency. I believe PRAs and their resulting studies and statistics are a great tool to educate the voting public of the safety and benefits of nuclear energy.