Phoenix by Alex Lukeman

Author:Alex Lukeman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Female Protagonist, action thriller, thriller series, artificial intelligence, conspiracy thriller
Publisher: Alex Lukeman
Published: 2018-01-03T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 33

The Palo Verde nuclear plant was located in the desert forty-five miles from Phoenix, far from any source of natural water. Water to cool the reactors came from treated sewage provided by Phoenix and towns and municipalities in the area. Twenty billion gallons of wastewater a year coursed through four pumps that pushed 111,000 gallons of water a minute through two giant steam generators. The steam drove the turbines that produced electricity. The Palo Verde facility was the largest power generator in the country.

The plant was a key switching point in the Western electrical grid. If it went off line, large parts of Arizona and Southern California would go dark. Phoenix, LA, and San Diego would all be without power. A sudden loss of all power from the plant would likely cause a cascade effect, taking out the entire West Coast grid. It wouldn't end there. The effects would be felt across the rest of the nation. The electricity grid in the United States was tightly interconnected and subject to potential shutdown. The lone exception was Texas, which had its own, isolated grid system.

As a strategic target in time of war, Palo Verde was on the top of everybody's hit list.

Each of the reactors was housed within a concrete dome designed to contain radiation in the event of an accident. As the world had learned from Chernobyl and Fukushima, radioactivity would poison everything in the area if containment was breached.

If a problem was detected in one of the reactors that required shutting it down, normal procedure used control rods inserted into the reaction chamber to soak up heat and prevent meltdown. The computer programs that controlled the process had been corrupted by the same virus that had shut down the pumps. The technicians were unable to lower the rods. Radioactivity was rising as the reactors began to heat up.

At 2:11 in the afternoon, nonessential personnel were ordered to evacuate all three reactor buildings. At 2:47, the core of reactor number two reached the critical meltdown point. All the water on top of the uranium fuel rods had evaporated and they began to melt from the intense heat. A pool of radioactive material started to form at the bottom of the steel containment vessel. At 2:56, the core of reactor number three reached melting point. Technicians managed to restart the pumps, but it was too late.

As at Fukushima, the fuel rods at Palo Verde contained zirconium. A reaction began between the superheated zirconium and the remaining water in the reactor cores. Hydrogen gas began filling the containment domes.

Each of the containment chambers contained remote controlled video cameras. In the control room, one of the technicians wanted to see a slightly different view of the damaged reactor. He commanded one of the cameras to move to the right. As it began to move, the motor created a tiny spark.

The hydrogen gas in reactor number two ignited.

The explosion blew through the containment dome and saturated the control room with lethal radioactivity. A radioactive cloud spewed out into the clean, desert air.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.