Japan Shows Us It Can Occur Here The probability that a specific reactor core at a U.S.

nuclear power plant will be damaged consequently of a blackout ranges from 6.5 in 100,000 to less than 1 in a million, according to a 2003 analysis by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Compared to many much more mundane technologies, like cars and airplanes, nuclear energy facilities are really safe. For the past half century, we have assumed they're secure enough. The disaster at Japans Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex demands that we rethink what safe enough means.(1) American scientists have pointed out that U.S. energy plants have nearly no opportunity of experiencing the type of earthquake and tsunami harm that the Japanese plants sustained. Whilst the United States does have some plants located in earthquake-prone regions, the fault lines near these plants are slipstrike faults, while the one that triggered the tsunami in Japan was a thrust fault. Slip-strike faults lack the potential to trigger catastrophic tsunamis, based on Per Peterson, a senior scientist with the Accelerator and Fusion Research Division in the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.(two) But the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan exactly three weeks ago merely precipitated the atomic plants crisis. What actually destroyed it was the mixture of an extended blackout and also the failure of its backup energy systems. The question we need to consider is not whether or not similar earthquakes and tsunamis can occur here; it is whether a plant could, for any combination of reasons, simultaneously suffer a failure of its outside electrical supply and its on-site backups. The answer, frighteningly but clearly, is yes. Such a mixture of failures, though unlikely, can certainly happen here. Nuclear energy plants need massive amounts of energy to prevent their reactor cores from melting down and releasing radiation. Given the very high power demands, battery power can sustain plants only for a very limited time. Of our nations 104 nuclear reactors, 93 can be kept cool utilizing batteries for only four hours. Because the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the NRC has needed power plant operators to create ways to keep plants cool longer when they are severed from the grid. But their abilities to function independently remain limited. Furthermore, the kinds of natural disasters that might knock out external power can also harm backup systems. Richard Denning, a professor of nuclear engineering at Ohio State University, stated in the aftermath of the Japanese accident that the actions numerous American power plants have taken certainly could have made all the distinction in this specific case, but only assuming you've stored these things in a place that would not have been swept away by tsunami. The Japanese plants were equipped with backup diesel generators, in addition to batteries, but they had been swamped by the tsunami inside an hour following the earthquake knocked the plants off the grid. Japanese engineers by no means allowed for the possibility that

their nation could suffer a magnitude 9.0 earthquake along with a 45foot-high tsunami until it actually happened. While scientists might think such events cant occur here, there is an element of risk small, but unquantifiable and definitely present that they are incorrect. An additional risk factor is that quakes of lesser but still unanticipated magnitude could affect regions like the East and Midwest, that are not ready for even California-scale temblors. Apart from earthquakes, there are other natural conditions that happen here that may cause the same sort of two-pronged harm to the external power grid and a plants on-site backups. Within the Northeast, ice storms pose this sort of risk. The catastrophic Great Ice Storm of 1998 left some parts of southern Quebec, western New Brunswick and eastern Ontario without power for an entire month. Ten years later, an additional severe storm turned off lights for 1.25 million individuals in New Hampshire and surrounding states. The Northeast is home to 26 nuclear reactors, including New Hampshires Seabrook Station and also the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station. A severe ice storm most likely would not knock out a plants diesel generators, if it has them. However it may delay fuel replenishment lengthy sufficient for the generators to fail. Or an accompanying flood, either from coastal storm surge or from ice jam flooding on a river, could do the same sort of harm to backup systems that Japans plants experienced. Elsewhere, ice storms might not be a threat, but hurricanes are. Additionally to causing the sort of destruction that might disable backup generators, Katrina disrupted electricity service for more than 1.7 million people. Louisiana has two nuclear power plants, including the Waterford Steam Electric Station, situated in Kilona, only 25 miles from New Orleans. A number of other power plants stretch along the Gulf Coast, in Texas, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. Still others dot the whole Atlantic seaboard. Many locations of the nation are potentially subject to windstorms, river flooding, dam failures, wildfires and other disasters that could pose a threat. What happened in Japan proved that safety measures there had been unacceptably weak. Our plants run similar risks, and we ought to acknowledge that our safety measures are equally unacceptable. A 6.5 in 100,000 risk is low, but when it comes to radioactive materials, it is too high, particularly given the margin of error in our own ability to estimate such risks. Nuclear meltdowns are far much less most likely than airplane crashes or car wrecks, but they are far more devastating, and the consequences stretch across generations. The magnitude with the possible harm demands that if we're going to use nuclear power at all, we need to backups for the backups, and most likely backups for those backups also. The plants should be safe below all conceivable circumstances and, as Japan showed, in some that are heretofore inconceivable. Natural disasters and diesel generator failures are by no means inconceivable. Japans disaster warns us that the risks they pose to nuclear power plants today are much more than we ought to be willing to accept. Sources: (1) The New York Times: Japanese Scramble To Avert Meltdowns As Nuclear Crisis Deepens After Quake (two) Berkeley Lab: Lab Scientists Allay Fears About

U.S. Wellness Risks From Crisis In Japan By on About Japan