have a nice tritiated aquifer NJ nuclear guinea pig day...
http://www.ccnr.org/browns_ferry.html#caHow a Candle Caused a Nuclear Emergency
At noon on March 22, 1975, both Units 1 and 2 at the Brown's Ferry plant in Alabama were operating at full power, delivering 2200 megawatts of electricity to the Tennessee Valley Authority.
Just below the plant's control room, two electricians were trying to seal air leaks in the cable spreading room, where the electrical cables that control the two reactors are separated and routed through different tunnels to the reactor buildings. They were using strips of spongy foam rubber to seal the leaks. They were also using candles to determine whether or not the leaks had been successfully plugged -- by observing how the flame was affected by escaping air.
The electrical engineer put the candle too close to the foam rubber, and it burst into flame.
The resulting fire, which disabled a large number of engineered safety systems at the plant, including the entire emergency core cooling system (ECCS) on Unit 1, and almost resulted in a boiloff/meltdown accident, demonstrates the vulnerability of nuclear plants to "single failure" events and human fallibility.
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