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In nuclear accident, evacuation from Indian Point area would be impossible

Citing plants like the Indian Point nuclear site north of New York City, Mr. Lyman, a physicist and member of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, called it “utterly unrealistic” to expect that an effective evacuation could be undertaken should a disaster like the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan last week occur in this country.

Citing Near Misses, Report Faults Both Nuclear Regulators and Operators, – NYTimes.com,By TOM ZELLER JR. March 17, 2011,The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees the nuclear power industry in the United States, came under fire from critics on Thursday for recommending that Americans in Japan remain at least 50 miles away from the ailing Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant there. Continue reading →

March 18, 2011 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Earthquake risks for USA nuclear plants

The Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast figures the probability of an earthquake of 6.7 magnitude or higher is 67 per cent for Los Angeles, 63 per cent for San Francisco.

Another Fukushima? In America? Not if, but when, Alexander Cockburn on the shameful trade-off that keeps nuclear power on the agenda MARCH 17, 2011

Along much of California’s coastline runs the Ring of Fire which stretches round the Pacific plate from Australia, north past Japan, to Russia, round to Alaska, and down America’s west coast to Chile. Ninety per cent of the world’s earthquakes happen round the Ring.

The late great environmentalist David Brower used to tell audiences solemnly, “Nuclear plants are incredibly complex technological devices for locating earthquake faults.”

Apparently acting on this piece of sarcastic wisdom, the US has deployed four nuclear plants near the Ring of Fire faultline, including two active ones in my home state of California.

Forty miles up the road from me, in far northern California we had a boiling water reactor, closed in 1976 because – surprise! – there was an earthquake from a “previously unknown fault” just off the coast. Now all we have are spent nuclear fuel rods in ponds, right on the shoreline, a few feet above sea level, nicely situated for a tsunami, such as the one that disabled the relief diesel generators designed to pump emergency coolant in the Fukushima plant. Three plates meet a few miles west of where I write. We had a 7.1 earthquake in 1992. First moral in the nuclear business: Expect the unexpected.

Further south, halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles, is the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, planned in 1968 when no one knew about the Hosgri fault, part of the Ring of Fire, a few miles offshore. See moral number one.

Further inquiry established that there’d been a 7.1 earthquake 40 years earlier, offshore from the plant, completed in 1973. The power company – Pacific Gas and Electric – said it would beef up defences. In their haste, the site managers managed to reverse the blueprints for the new earthquake-proofing of the two reactors, and so the retro-fit wasn’t a total success. Second moral in the nuclear business: people do mess up.

Back to the first moral: they recently discovered yet another fault and are now worried about “ground liquefaction” in the event of a big quake. In 2008 there was a terrorist attack by jellyfish which blocked the cold water intake, and the plant was shut down for a couple of days…….

The Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast figures the probability of an earthquake of 6.7 magnitude or higher is 67 per cent for Los Angeles, 63 per cent for San Francisco. Up where I live, in the Cascadia subduction zone, we have a 10 per cent possibility of an 8.0 or 9.0 force quake….

Alexander Cockburn: Another Fukushima meltdown? In America? Not if, but when | News & Politics | News & Comment | The First Post

March 18, 2011 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear reactors at San Onofre and Diablo Canyon not designed to withstand earthquakes

VIDEO YouTube – Chernobyl Winds Over America Chernobyl Winds Over America. AceHoffman, 15 March 11, Had the massive 8.9 Richter-scale earthquake that has just savaged Japan hit off the California coast, it could have ripped apart at least four coastal reactors and sent a lethal cloud of radiation across the entire United States. (http://nukefree.org/ace-hoffman-computerized-graphic-what-if-chernobyl-h… )

The two huge reactors each at San Onofre and Diablo Canyon are not designed to withstand such powerful shocks. All four are extremely close to major faults.
All four reactors are located relatively low to the coast. They are vulnerable to tsunamis like those now expected to hit as many as fifty countries.  YouTube – Chernobyl Winds Over America

March 18, 2011 Posted by | Resources -audiovicual, safety, USA | Leave a comment

USA nuclear facilities in earthquake zones

Maps – Nuclear power and earthquake zones overlap in the U.S. | MNN – Mother Nature Network, 12 March 11, Earthquake in Japan raises concerns about what could happen in the U.S. Continue reading →

March 18, 2011 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Plutonium from spent nuclear fuel rods pouring into the sky

plutonium scattered into the atmosphere is even more dangerous that the combustion products of rods without plutonium,

Alert, Fushima coverup: forty years of spent nuclear fuel rods blown sky high,  PrisonPlanet TV, Paul Joseph Watson and Kurt Nimmo March 15, 2011 Infowars analysis: In addition to under reporting the fires at Fukushima, the Japanese government has not told the people about the ominous fact that the nuclear plant site is a hellish repository where a staggering number of spent fuel rods have accumulated for 40 years. Continue reading →

March 17, 2011 Posted by | Japan, safety, technology | 1 Comment

China halting new nuclear plants

China suspends approvals for new nuclear plants, Xinhua, March 16, 2011

China has suspended the approval process for nuclear power stations so that safety standards can be revised after explosions at a Japanese plant, according to Wednesday’s executive meeting of the State Council, or the Cabinet. Continue reading →

March 17, 2011 Posted by | China, safety | Leave a comment

Dangerous radioactivity released from damaged plant, says IAEA

Japanese authorities also today informed the IAEA at 04:50 CET that the spent fuel storage pond at the Unit 4 reactor of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is on fire and radioactivity is being released directly into the atmosphere.

Japanese Earthquake Update, International Atomic Energy Agency,    15 March 2011 Japanese authorities informed the IAEA that there has been an explosion at the Unit 2 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Continue reading →

March 15, 2011 Posted by | Japan, safety | Leave a comment

Scramble to prevent nuclear meltdowns in 3 Japanese reactors

Authorities are now scrambling to prevent meltdowns in three of the plant’s four nuclear reactors…..

Third blast at Japanese nuclear plant, ABC Radio, The World Today with Eleanor Hall, Hayden Cooper, 15 March 11-– This morning, there’s been another explosion at the Fukushima nuclear plant, which was badly damaged in last Friday’s powerful earthquake and tsunami. Continue reading →

March 15, 2011 Posted by | Japan, safety | Leave a comment

Dangerous radiation levels from TEPCO’s no 2 nuclear reactor

With radiation levels around the facility up, TEPCO suspects the core of the No.2 reactor has partially melted, a critical nuclear safety situation..

Stay indoors: Japanese PM’s order to residents beyond nuclear reactor evacuation zone after blast, Sydney Morning Herald, Glenda Kwek, March 15, 2011

Radiation levels near a quake-stricken nuclear plant are now harmful to human health, Japan’s government says after explosions and a fire at the facility. Continue reading →

March 15, 2011 Posted by | Japan, safety | Leave a comment

Nuclear plants likely to be shut in Germany, cancelled in Switzerland

Germany May Shut Nuclear Plants

WSJ, 14 March, By ANDREAS KISSLER And JAN HROMADKO

FRANKFURT—German Foreign Minister and Vice-Chancellor Guido Westerwelle said Monday that individual nuclear power plants could be shut down on safety grounds after accidents at Japanese reactors that followed a devastating earthquake and subsequent tsunami Friday.

If German reactors were found to have inadequate cooling systems the facilities need to be shut down and upgraded, Mr. Westerwelle told reporters at a press conference in Berlin.

His statement came as Switzerland suspended plans for new nuclear plants, pending a review of the emergency in Japan………http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704893604576200122562101848.html

March 14, 2011 Posted by | Germany, safety | Leave a comment

Possible meltdown of fuel rods inside the Fukushima Daiichi complex’s No.2 reactor

Water level near empty at Japan nuclear reactor

Reuters 03/14/2011 Water levels inside a quake-stricken Japanese nuclear reactor were almost empty on Monday night, said the power plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. The Yomiuri newspaper was reporting that the cooling system at the reactor has stopped, and additional reports said fuel rods were exposed.

News agency Jiji said a meltdown of fuel rods inside the Fukushima Daiichi complex’s No.2 reactor could not be ruled out.

March 14, 2011 Posted by | Japan, safety | Leave a comment

Nuclear crisis continues in Japan

there has been no word so far on the spent fuel at the site which would be kept in pools at the reactor. Any breakdown in the cooling system could cause the spent fuel to melt, with the risk of a significant release of radioactivity.

There is widespread uneasiness despite the reassuring noises coming from the authorities over the situation, in part because of the industry’s history of ignoring warnings and covering up safety problems.

Japan earthquake: the nuclear crisis is not over yet.  guardian.co.uk, Julian Borger5, 13 March 11, Japan says disaster has been averted at the Fukushima nuclear plant but serious questions remain. Continue reading →

March 13, 2011 Posted by | Japan, safety | Leave a comment

Rating the Fukushima damage on a nuclear danger scale

On Saturday, before emergency measures were announced at a second reactor at that plant, Japanese nuclear safety experts rated the accident a four, putting it just behind the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 near Harrisburg, Pa. That accident, the worst in United States history, was designated a five……..The government issued evacuation orders for about 170,000 people in the surrounding area……..

Nuclear Emergency Is Worst in Decades, NYTimes.com, By ANAHAD O’CONNOR  March 12, 2011 The earthquake and tsunami that battered northern Japan on Friday set in motion one of the worst nuclear accidents in over two decades. The International Atomic Energy Agency rates the severity of radiological events, with a scale starting at one, an “anomaly,” and rising to seven, a “major” accident. A six and seven designate full meltdown, where the nuclear fuel or core of a reactor overheats and melts. The scale of the ensuing uncontrolled release of radiation that follows differentiates the two. Partial meltdowns, in which the fuel is damaged, are rated a four or a five. Continue reading →

March 13, 2011 Posted by | Japan, safety | Leave a comment

Technical information on the Fukushima nuclear loss of coolant

Moreover, in the spent fuel pools usually situated next to nuclear power plants, there are large numbers of additional fuel rods, used ones, disposed of as waste. There must be constant water circulation in the spent fuel pools. In what is labeled a “loss-of-water’ accident in a spent fuel pool, the zirconium cladding of the fuel rods is projected as exploding—sending into the environment the lethal nuclear poisons in a spent fuel pool…….

Behind the Hydrogen Explosion at the Fukushima Nuclear Plant, Common Dreams, by Karl Grossman, 12 March 11, The explosion at the Fukushima nuclear power plant is being described as caused by a “hydrogen build-up” The situation harks back to the “hydrogen bubble” that was feared would explode when the Three Mile Island plant in 1979 underwent a partial meltdown…… Continue reading →

March 13, 2011 Posted by | Japan, safety, technology | 1 Comment

Japan could be the new Chernobyl, as nuclear radiation emergency continues

Given the large quantity of irradiated nuclear fuel in the pool, the radioactivity release could be worse than the Chernobyl nuclear reactor catastrophe of 25 years ago.”

Risk of Nuclear Catastrophe Escalates in Japan – ‘Worse than Chernobyl’, Forbes,  William Pentland -m Mar. 11 2011 The Institute for Public Accuracy issued the following statement by nuclear expert, Kevin Kamp, about the risk of nuclear disaster in post-Earthquake Japan:  Continue reading →

March 12, 2011 Posted by | Japan, safety | Leave a comment

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