nuclear-news

Is nuclear power really safe? – explosion was too close for comfort

Energy analysts will tell you that nuclear power, …… is on the verge of a renaissance……….But an explosion at a power plant barely over a marathon’s distance away from NYC? That’s still scary.

New York Nuclear Power Plant Faces Emergency Shut Down -Is Nuclear Power Really Safe?, By: Eben Harrell 9 Nov 10, At Indian Point nuclear power plant—about 35 miles north of midtown Manhattan—a transformer exploded on reactor 2 just after 6:20 pm. Entergy Corp., which owns the plant, told AP that no radioactive materials leaked.

(Read TIME’s report on the nuclear renaissance)

The Vermont Yankee nuclear plant in Vernon shut down  about 30 minutes later, after workers detected radioactive water seeping from a leaky pipe in the complex. Plant officials say the radioactive water did not seep outside the complex into the environment, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission says the two shutdowns were “complete coincidence.”

Energy analysts will tell you that nuclear power, because it is carbon free and economically competitive when oil prices are high, is on the verge of a renaissance……….

Consider this statistic. In 1974, President Richard Nixon predicted that the U.S. would have 1,000 commercial reactors in operation by the end of the century. Then came the safety incident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979 and the partial meltdown in Chernobyl in 1986. By the turn of the millennium, only 104 plants were operating in the U.S.Nuclear energy advocates will tell you nuclear power has a better safety record than any other source of energy. But an explosion at a power plant barely over a marathon’s distance away from NYC? That’s still scary.

New York Nuclear Power Plant Faces Emergency Shut Down – TIME NewsFeed

November 10, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | general | antinuclear, nuclear renaissance, nuclear spin, nuclear weapons, radiation, radioactive, reactors