Case Study: Sayano Shushenskaya Hydroelectric Power Station
Introduction:
Located on the Yenisei River, nearest to Sayanogorsk in Khakassia, Russia, the Soviet-era Sayano-Shushenskaya Hydroelectric Power Station was opened in 1978. By 2009, the plant was ranked sixth in the world and first in Russia for gross hydroelectric power generation. A total of ten turbines were utilized to provide 6,400 MW of electricity to the Russian infrastructure.1
As workers arrived to the plant around 08:00 h on 17 August 2009, there was no cause for immediate alarm. Of the ten turbines, nine of them were running with a tenth down for routine maintenance. Turbine two, however, was causing significant vibrations as its load varied with electricity demand. At 08:13 h, vibration of the turbine bearing reached a maximum and caused a catastrophic failure. The turbine cover shot up as the 1,000 t rotor shot off of its seat. The newly created hole in the structure allowed water to surge at a rate of 67,600 gal s-1 into the machinery hall and flood the levels below.2 The massive jet of water ripped apart the metal joists which held up the roof over turbines one, two and three. As the roof came down, water continued to flood the plant. Long after the automatic safety system should have been triggered, turbines seven and nine still operated at full speed, causing what were witnessed as large explosions in their vicinity as flooding reached their control panels.
Luckily, by 09:20 h the 170 t steel water intake gates to each turbine were manually closed using relief valves on each gate's hydraulic support jack. At 11:32 h a diesel generator was brought in to restore power to the area. Later, at 11:50 h, 11 spillway gates were opened to relieve excess ...
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...ing is also taught here, as workers at the plant had never completed any emergency drills and no backup generator was installed to provide power to the plant itself in the case of an emergency.
Much of the reason for turbine two's failure, however, rests in the hands of man. The maintenance and inspection personnel clearly knew that the intense vibrations were not normal, but still the turbine was used. This could also have fallen back to management, as they should have ensured that maintenance directives were being followed. In relation to this it should be noted that directly following the explosions as many people were fleeing, several supervisors in charge of safety and emergencies also fled.
Ultimately, this was an entirely preventable disaster brought on by human negligence, exacerbated by mechanical fatigue and ended with lessons learned at a steep price.
The article “Hydropower as a Renewable Energy Source” (n.d.) shows that man-made dams make up seventy-five percent of the United States’ total renewable energy.
...afety should have inspected the building prior to issuing permits for further renovation, especially knowing this structure was going to be housing 124 residents. It seems that lack of knowledge from prior owners and lack of responsibility of city officials are responsible for this collapse and sadly, the loss of 9 brave men in the line of duty. The Boston Fire Department could have worked closer with the owner/ construction crew at the Hotel Vendome, and the deficiencies would have been found, and they would have known the instability they were walking into on June 17. At that point, firefighting operations would have more than likely been defensive. The firefighters did not conduct pre-incident planning which would have let them know they were going to face the construction barriers while attempting to lay hose, maneuver hose, and get the hose to a water source.
The South Fork Dam collapsed and unleashed 20 million tons of water from its reservoir. A wall of water, reaching up to 70 feet high, swept 14 miles down the Little Conemaugh River Valley, carrying away steel mills, houses, livestock and people. At 4:07 p.m., the floodwaters rushed into the industrial city of Johnstown, crushing houses and downtown businesses in a whirlpool that lasted 10 minutes. (New York Times, 1889).
Every so often workers have to go up the tower and unwind the wire that is located in the generator at the top of the tower (Campbell). The reason they have to unwind the wire is so the wind turbine can turn into the wind to create energy. These wind turbines only rotate one way, they don’t rotate both ways, so after a while the wire turning the wind turbine tightens and the wind turbine is unable to turn anymore. So the workers have to go up to the generator of the wind turbine and unwind the wire manually (Campbell). Also, with all the wiring and gears up in the generator, workers have to go up the ladder which is found on the inside of a turbine, and check to make sure everything is alright (Gipe).
This tragic accident was preventable by not only the flight crew, but maintenance and air traffic control personnel as well. On December 29, 1972, ninety-nine of the one hundred and seventy-six people onboard lost their lives needlessly. As is the case with most accidents, this one was certainly preventable. This accident is unique because of the different people that could have prevented it from happening. The NTSB determined that “the probable cause of this accident was the failure of the flightcrew.” This is true; the flight crew did fail, however, others share the responsibility for this accident. Equally responsible where maintenance personnel, an Air Traffic Controllers, the system, and a twenty cent light bulb. What continues is a discussion on, what happened, why it happened, what to do about it and what was done about it.
At the end I come to conclusion that BP was not properly prepared for any disaster like that there risk assessment related to project is very limited and even not considered seriously about it for their own progress and putting live of public and employees in danger by not following the standard SOP of particular project. Even after incident happened they try to close their eyes on reality. The company should take this incident as alarm and should implement proper risk assessment for future and also compensate damages on ethical ground and if they counter this situation in good way their loss of bad reputation will be lesser as it predicted to be they should considered their responsibility towards society as well by doing this they not only making other people lives better but also earning good will to their company.
It’s very hard to say what steps, if any, could have been taken to prevent the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster from occurring. When mankind continues to “push the envelope” in the interest of bettering humanity, there will always be risks. In the manned spaceflight business, we have always had to live with trade-offs. All programs do not carry equal risk nor do they offer the same benefits. The acceptable risk for a given program or operation should be worth the potential benefits to be gained. The goal should be a management system that puts safety first, but not safety at any price. As of Sept 7th, 2003, NASA has ordered extensive factory inspections of wing panels between flights that could add as much as three months to the time it takes to prepare a space shuttle orbiter for launch. NASA does all it can to safely bring its astronauts back to earth, but as stated earlier, risks are expected.
I. (Gain Attention and Interest): March 11, 2011. 2:45 pm. Operations at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant continued as usual. At 2:46 pm a massive 9.0 earthquake strikes the island of Japan. All nuclear reactors on the island shut down automatically as a response to the earthquake. At Fukushima, emergency procedures are automatically enabled to shut down reactors and cool spent nuclear fuel before it melts-down in a catastrophic explosion. The situation seems under control, emergency diesel generators located in the basement of the plant activate and workers breathe a sigh of relief that the reactors are stabilizing. Then 41 minutes later at 3:27 pm the unthinkable occurs. As workers monitored the situation from within the plant, citizens from the adjacent town ran from the coastline as a 49 foot tsunami approached. The tsunami came swiftly and flooded the coastline situated Fukushima plant. Emergency generators were destroyed and cooling systems failed. Within hours, a chain of events led to an explosion of reactor 1 of the plant. One by one in the subsequent days reactors 2, and 3 suffered similar fates as explosions destroyed containment cases and the structures surrounding the reactors (Fukushima Accident). Intense amount...
...t occurred because there were many mistakes. Eight results were found on how the oil well exploded, and one example is the “Well control response actions failed to regain control of the well” (BP Internal Investigation 5). This is just one example of how BP made a mistake, and seven more were found. BP already had a bad name because of their past, and this major disaster was just one more on the list.
After the accident, a full-scale investigation was launched by the United States National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). It concluded that the accident was caused by metal fatigue exacerbated by crevice corrosion, the corrosion is exacerbated by the salt water and the age of the aircraft was already 19 years old as the plane operated in a salt water environment.
Next, hydro-electricity is electricity produced by moving water, flowing past a turbine connected to a generator (“Hydropower”). According to Nationalgeographic.c...
This is a picture of a hydroelectric dam in Russia that hada 6G-watt power generation loss. This led to 75 deaths due to turbine failure.9
"Wind and Water Power Program: Hydropower Resource Potential." EERE: EERE Server Maintenance. U.S. Department of Energy, 13 Dec. 2010. Web. 04 Oct. 2011. .
Although workplace accidents are very common, the majority of them can be prevented. As a company, you are obliged by the law to protect your employees, so it is important to take the necessary actions that will minimize the risk of accidents (Intelligent HQ, 2015).
Hydroelectricity is a known renewable energy resource that provides substantial benefits for our wealth, our health, and for our global economy. There are five types of renewable energy we can use on a daily basis throughout our lives, but the most widely installed form of renewable energy is hydroelectricity. Hydroelectricity is electricity created by converting the kinetic energy of flowing water. Best thing about this source of energy is that it’s timeless and renewable, which means it will never run out, however we had to figure ways to store this energy. In order for them to harness this energy for other people, they had to build generators that convert all the potential energy of rapid moving water into electrical energy. (http://www.ems.psu.edu/~elsworth/courses/cause2003/finalprojects/vikingpaper.pdf)