Mahoning Valley Forum

Why we need to say no to Nuke Reactors.....

On the Brink of a Meltdown
By ROBERT ALVAREZ

We shouldn't need yet another major nuclear power accident to wake up the public and decision-makers to the fact that there are better, much safer ways to make electricity.

In the aftermath of the largest earthquake to occur in Japan in recorded history, 5,800 residents living within five miles of six reactors at the Fukushima nuclear station have been advised to evacuate and people living within 15 miles of the plant are advised to remain indoors.

Plant operators have not been able to cool down the core of one reactor containing enormous amounts of radioactivity because of failed back-up diesel generators required for the emergency cooling. In a race against time, the power company and the Japanese military are flying in nine emergency generators. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton announced today that the U.S. Air Force has provided cooling water for the troubled reactor. Complicating matters, Japan's Meteorological Agency has declared the area to be at high risk of being hit by a tsunami.

The plant was operating at full power when the quake hit and even though control rods were automatically inserted to halt the nuclear reaction, the reactor core remains very hot. Even with a fully functioning emergency core cooling system, it would take several hours for the reactor core to cool and stabilize. If emergency cooling isn't restored, the risks of a core melt, and release of radioactivity into the environment is significantly increased. Also, it's not clear if piping and electrically distribution systems inside the plant have been damaged. If so, that would interfere with reactor cooling. A senior U.S. nuclear power technician tells me the window of time before serious problems arise is between 12 and 24 hours.

Early on Japanese nuclear officials provided reassurances that no radiation has been released. However, because of the reactor remains at a very high temperature, radiation levels are rising on the turbine building – forcing to plant operators to vent radioactive steam into the environment.

But the devastating Japanese quake and its outcome could generate a political tsunami here in the United States. For instance, in California it may become impossible for the owners of the San Onofre and Diablo Canyon reactors to extend their operating licenses with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The quake is also likely to further deflate the "nuclear renaissance" balloon.

These two reactors are sitting in high seismic risk zones near earthquake faults. Each is designed to withstand a quake as great as 7.5 on the Richter scale. According to many seismologists, the probability of a major earthquake in the California coastal zone in the foreseeable future is a near certainty. The U.S. Geological Survey reports the largest registering 8.3 on the Richter scale devastated San Francisco in 1906.

"There have been tremblers felt at U.S. plants over the past several
years, but nothing approaching the need for emergency action," Scott Burnell, a spokesman at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told Reuters today.

As the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe approaches next month, the earthquakes in Japan serve as a reminder that the risks of nuclear power, when things go seriously wrong. The Chernobyl accident required nearly a million emergency responders and cleanup workers. More than 100,000 residents from 187 settlements were permanently evacuated because of radioactive contamination. And area an equal to half of the State of New Jersey was rendered uninhabitable.

Fortunately, U.S. and Japanese reactors have extra measures of protection that were lacking at Chernobl, such as a secondary concrete containment structure over the reactor vessel to prevent escape of radioactivity. In 1979, the containment structure at the Three Mile Island reactor did prevent the escape of a catastrophic amount of radioactivity after the core melted. But, people living nearby were exposed to higher levels of radiation from the accident and deliberate venting to stabilize the reactor. Also, within one hour the multi-billion dollar investment in that plant went down the drain. In the meanwhile, let's hope that the core of the Japanese reactor can be cooled in time. We shouldn't need yet another major nuclear power accident to wake up the public and decision-makers to the fact that there are better, much safer ways to make electricity.

Here we go! The Luddites will start coming out of the woodwork.

What better, more safer ways?  the only other fuel that can match nuclear power in cost and constant power output is coal, and you don't like that either.  What about hydroelectric?  Not enough rivers around for that and even some of the dams that are in place the environmentalists want to have removed to restore the river to its "natural state".  I guess that only leaves solar and wind, and all I have to say about that is that night falls and the wind dies.

I really hate to think that environmentalists are so idealistic that they have shelved their cognitive ability to reason, but it appears that they have.  every viable source of energy they shoot down, and every source of energy they champion isn't up to the task.   So really what IS the environmentalists' solution? 

Dan and Ricky will only be truely satisfied when we all glow in the dark.....

The situation in Japan is serious....and if an earthquake of Japan's magnitude hit
California the 2 nuke reactors there could spread radiation across the entire US
if they were damaged enough to have a meltdown.....

NUKE POWER IS NOT SAFE>>>>>>>> No matter how you slice it or dice it.....

Dan and Ricky are out in right field on this issue......in fact, they are 2 neo-cons out playing in
'
right field all alone on a lot of issues.....(along with Shrimpybutt....)

TOKYO — Japan declared states of emergency for five nuclear reactors at two power plants after the units lost cooling ability in the aftermath of Friday's powerful earthquake. Thousands of residents were evacuated as workers struggled to get the reactors under control to prevent meltdowns.

Some 3,000 people within two miles (three kilometers) of the plant were urged to leave their homes, but the evacuation zone was more than tripled to 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) after authorities detected eight times the normal radiation levels outside the facility and 1,000 times normal inside Unit 1's control room.

The government declared a state of emergency at the Daiichi unit — the first at a nuclear plant in Japan's history. But hours later, the Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the six-reactor Daiichi site, announced that it had lost cooling ability at a second reactor there and three units at its nearby Fukushima Daini site.

The government quickly declared states of emergency for those units, too, and thousands of residents near Fukushima Daini also were told to leave.

Japan's nuclear safety agency said the situation was most dire at Fukushima Daiichi's Unit 1, where pressure had risen to twice what is consider the normal level. The International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement that diesel generators that normally would have kept cooling systems running at Fukushima Daiichi had been disabled by tsunami flooding.

Officials at the Daiichi facility began venting radioactive vapors from the unit to relieve pressure inside the reactor case. The loss of electricity had delayed that effort for several hours.

Plant workers there labored to cool down the reactor core, but there was no prospect for immediate success. They were temporarily cooling the reactor with a secondary system, but it wasn't working as well as the primary one, according to Yuji Kakizaki, an official at the Japanese nuclear safety agency.

TEPCO said the boiling water reactors shut down at about 2:46 p.m. local time following the earthquake due to the loss of offsite power and the malfunction of one of two off-site power systems. That triggered emergency diesel generators to startup and provide backup power for plant systems.

About an hour after the plant shut down, however, the emergency diesel generators stopped, leaving the units with no power for important cooling functions.

The race to restore the reactors' cooling systems before the radioactive fuel was damaged sent ripples of concern across Pacific, where scientists on both sides of the U.S. debate over the safety of nuclear power acknowledged that the company was facing a serious situation.

Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, which opposes nuclear energy, told msnbc.com that TEPCO was facing a potential catastrophe.

'It's just as bad as it sounds'

"It's just as bad as it sounds," he said. "What they have not been able to do is restore cooling of the radioactive core to prevent overheating and that's causing a variety of problems, including a rise in temperature and pressure with the containment (buildings).

"What's critical is, are they able to restore cooling and prevent fuel damage? If the fuel starts to get damaged, eventually it will melt through the reactor vessel and drop to the floor of the containment building," raising the odds that highly radioactive materials could be released into the environment.

Luckily, people like Dennis have little chance of ever becoming decision makers. Their lunacy is recognized long before they achieve power. And it's a good thing, because if they were ever given control, we'd all be living like the Amish.

The Amish don't glow Green like you want to Dan.....

You are a pro-nuke disaster waiting to happen............

When will you ever wake up and smell the roses, Dan?

Oh wait, they'll be destroyed by nuke fallout before you get to them......

See?

Have a Green and Nuke-Free Weekend, Dan....

Some type of explosion took place at one of the reactors in Japan.  The evacuation zone around the reactor has been expanded to 15 miles.  According to the news reporting agencies,  the possibility of a meltdown still exists.

SENDAI, Japan -- An explosion at a nuclear power station tore down the walls of one building Saturday as smoke poured out and Japanese officials said they feared the reactor could melt down following the failure of its cooling system in a powerful earthquake and tsunami.

It was not clear if the damaged building housed the reactor. Tokyo Power Electric Co., the utility that runs the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, said four workers were injured but details were not immediately available.

Footage on Japanese TV showed that the walls of one building had crumbled, leaving only a skeletal metal frame standing. Puffs of smoke were spewing out of the plant.

"We are now trying to analyze what is behind the explosion," said government spokesman Yukio Edano, stressing that people should quickly evacuate a six-mile (10-kilometer) radius. "We ask everyone to take action to secure safety."

The trouble began at the plant's Unit 1 after Friday's massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake and the tsunami it spawned knocked out power there. The disaster has killed hundreds of people and devastated the country's northeastern coast, where rescuers began slowly arriving Saturday.

The toll of destruction was still not known more than 24 hours after the quake since washed-out roads and shut airports have hindered access to the area. An untold number of bodies were believed to be buried in the rubble and debris.

The official death toll stood at 413, while 784 people were missing and 1,128 injured. In addition, police said between 200 and 300 bodies were found along the coast in Sendai, the biggest city in the area near the quake's epicenter. Local media reports said at least 1,300 people may have been killed.

Adding to worries was the fate of nuclear power plants in the region. Japan has declared states of emergency for five nuclear reactors at two power plants after the units lost cooling ability.

The most troubled one is facing meltdown, officials have said.

Story continues below
AdvertisementPressure has been building up in the reactor – it's now twice the normal level – and Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency told reporters Saturday that the plant was venting "radioactive vapors." Officials said they were measuring radiation levels in the area.

The reactor in trouble has already leaked some radiation: Operators have detected eight times the normal radiation levels outside the facility and 1,000 times normal inside Unit 1's control room

The Amish heat their houses with wood.  Dennis, what would the quality of the environment be with forty thousand wood fires going at once in Youngstown?  How many houses would burn down when we all have to go back to lighting with candles?

Why can't you for once just explain to us how you would provide the country's electricity and energy needs without coal and nuclear?  PLEASE, I'M BEGGING YOU, EXPLAIN IT TO ME SO THAT I MAY UNDERSTAND.  I am a reasonable man.  if you have a plan that replaces coal and nuclear, kilowatt for kilowatt, with renewables and does so at a comparable price I may just come to your side and support you. 

If you don't I'm coming to your house and ripping your electric meter from its socket, as that electric you are using was produced by coal (Sammis, Cardinal, Niles) and nuclear (Davis Besse, Shippensport). Lead by example!

Rick:

1. You are not reasonable.....you call people who still live in Y-Town as subhumans

2. Come to my house and rip out my electricity? That sir, is a threat.....and if you do, I will beat you

like a dirty rug.....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk6q4stRY8Q

Radiation down at Japan nuke plant after blast
APNews

Japan's government spokesman says the metal container sheltering a nuclear reactor was not affected by an explosion that destroyed the building it's in.

Yukio Edano says the radiation around the plant did not rise after the blast but instead is decreasing. He added that pressure in the reactor was also decreasing.

Pressure and heat have been building at the nuclear reactor since an earthquake and tsunami Friday caused its cooling system to fail.

An explosion Saturday blew out the walls of the building housing the reactor. The government has ordered people within a 12-mile (20-kilometer) radius of the plant in Fukushima to evacuate the area.

And Ricky and Dan think this is all Ok and there's no problem with Nuke Power......

Grow up and get real you two neo-cons.....

take off your rose-colored radiarion glasses......

Oh so now I have exposed you for who you truly are! You want the rest of us to stop using coal and nuclear energy while YOU continue to enjoy its benefits!  You are the classic liberal, do as I say, not as I do!

Buy some candles now Denny boy!

(http://cdn3.wn.com/vp/i/83/693544688d12d4.jpg)

and you want to continue using nukes until the whole countryside glows green......
Continue to kill mankind, Ricky-poo.....or should I use your term, sub-humans?

This topic has been reported to the moderator.  Please be civil.

An 8.9 Quake Could Have Irradiated the Entire US

by Harvey Wasserman

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.



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.



San Onofre sits between San Diego and Los Angeles. A radioactive cloud spewing from one or both reactors there would do incalculable damage to either or both urban areas before carrying over the rest of southern and central California.



Diablo Canyon is at Avila Beach, on the coast just west of San Luis Obispo, between Los Angeles and San Francisco. A radioactive eruption there would pour into central California and, depending on the winds, up to the Bay Area or southeast into Santa Barbara and then to Los Angeles. The cloud would at very least permanently destroy much of the region on which most Americans rely for their winter supply of fresh vegetables.



By the federal Price-Anderson Act of 1957, the owners of the destroyed reactors---including Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison---would be covered by private insurance only up to $11 billion, a tiny fraction of the trillions of dollars worth of damage that would be done. The rest would become the responsibility of the federal taxpayer and the fallout victims. Virtually all homeowner insurance policies in the United States exempt the insurers from liability from a reactor disaster.



The most definitive recent study of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster puts the death toll at 985,000.  The accident irradiated a remote rural area. The nearest city, Kiev, is 80 kilometers away.



But San Luis Obispo is some ten miles directly downwind from Diablo Canyon. The region around San Onofre has become heavily suburbanized.

Heavy radioactive fallout spread from Chernobyl blanketed all of Europe within a matter of days. It covered an area far larger than the United States.

Fallout did hit the jet stream and then the coast of California, thousands of miles away, within ten days. It then carried all the way across the northern tier of the United States.

Chernobyl Unit Four was of comparable size to the two reactors at Diablo Canyon, and somewhat larger than the two at San Onofre.

But it was very new when it exploded. California's four coastal reactors have been operating since the 1970s and 1980s. Their accumulated internal radioactive burdens could exceed what was spewed at Chernobyl.



Japanese officials say all affected reactors automatically shut, with no radiation releases. But they are not reliable. In 2007 a smaller earthquake rocked the seven-reactor Kashiwazaki site and forced its lengthy shut-down.

Preliminary reports indicate at least one fire at a Japanese reactor hit by this quake and tsunami.

In 1986 the Perry nuclear plant, east of Cleveland, was rocked by a 5.5 Richter-scale shock, many orders of magnitude weaker than this one. That quake broke pipes and other key equipment within the plant. It took out nearby roads and bridges.

Thankfully, Perry had not yet opened. An official Ohio commission later warned that evacuation during such a quake would be impossible.

Numerous other American reactors sit on or near earthquake faults.



The Obama Administration is now asking Congress for $36 billion in new loan guarantees to build more commercial reactors.

And the neo-cons on this board want more nukes......

IWAKI, Japan - Cooling systems failed at a second nuclear reactor on Japan's devastated coast Sunday, hours after an explosion at a nearby unit made leaking radiation, or even outright meltdown, the central threat to the country following a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami.

The Japanese government said radiation emanating from the plant appeared to have decreased after Saturday's blast, which produced a cloud of white smoke that obscured the complex. But the danger was grave enough that officials pumped seawater into the reactor to avoid disaster and moved 170,000 people from the area.

Japan's nuclear safety agency then reported an emergency at a second reactor unit when its cooling systems malfunctioned.


Japan dealt with the nuclear threat as it struggled to determine the scope of the earthquake, the most powerful in its recorded history, and the tsunami that ravaged its northeast Friday with breathtaking speed and power. The official count of the dead was 686, but the government said the figure could far exceed 1,000.

Teams searched for the missing along hundreds of miles of the Japanese coast, and thousands of hungry survivors huddled in darkened emergency centers that were cut off from rescuers and aid. At least a million households had gone without water since the quake struck. Large areas of the countryside were surrounded by water and unreachable.

The explosion at the nuclear plant, Fukushima Dai-ichi, 170 miles (274 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo, appeared to be a consequence of steps taken to prevent a meltdown after the quake and tsunami knocked out power to the plant, crippling the system used to cool fuel rods there.


The blast destroyed the building housing the reactor, but not the reactor itself, which is enveloped by stainless steel 6 inches (15 centimeters) thick.

Inside that superheated steel vessel, water being poured over the fuel rods to cool them formed hydrogen. When officials released some of the hydrogen gas to relieve pressure inside the reactor, the hydrogen apparently reacted with oxygen, either in the air or the cooling water, and caused the explosion.

"They are working furiously to find a solution to cool the core," said Mark Hibbs, a senior associate at the Nuclear Policy Program for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Nuclear agency officials said Japan was injecting seawater into the core - an indication, Hibbs said, of "how serious the problem is and how the Japanese had to resort to unusual and improvised solutions to cool the reactor core."


Officials declined to say what the temperature was inside the troubled reactor, Unit 1. At 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit (1,200 degrees Celsius), the zirconium casings of the fuel rods can react with the cooling water and create hydrogen. At 4,000 F (2,200 C), the uranium fuel pellets inside the rods start to melt, the beginning of a meltdown.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said radiation around the plant had fallen, not risen, after the blast but did not offer an explanation. Virtually any increase in dispersed radiation can raise the risk of cancer, and authorities were planning to distribute iodine, which helps protect against thyroid cancer. Authorities moved 170,000 people out of the area within 12 miles (19 kilometers) of the reactor, said the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, citing information from Japanese officials.

Wind power would work just fine if we didn't have to turn lights on in our houses every day.

170,000 now evacuated from the reactors in Japan.....

And Dan thinks Nuke Power is still safe......

Keep Drinking the radioactive kool-aid, Dan.....

Well this will be a good test then Dennis. Let's just see how many casualties come about due to one of the world's biggest earthquakes. I guess if no one gets injured, you will admit that even under these circumstances "Nukes" are safe, correct?

Nukes are not safe, Dan........

get over it......

As one who experienced several AEC (Atomic Energy Commission) inspections, I am more qualified than Spisak to make a statement about nukes.  Nukes are not safe.  Neither is fracking or crapping as debated here,  the real issue here is the question that Spisak refuses over and over again to answer.  What is the alternative and lead us , show us by example?

"Spisak lead, follow, or get the #$%# out of the way!"

Shrimp, I am leading the way......

I am fighting you neo-cons on every corner so you don't turn our valley, state, and nation into an environmental disaster.....
You support nothing but a quick buck... at the expense of our environment and legacy we leave our children and grandchildren....

Shrimp, you just need to go away NOW!

KORIYAMA, Japan - Japan's nuclear crisis intensified Sunday as authorities raced to combat the threat of multiple reactor meltdowns and more than 170,000 people evacuated the quake- and tsunami-savaged northeastern coast where fears spread over possible radioactive contamination.

Nuclear plant operators were frantically trying to keep temperatures down in a series of nuclear reactors - including one where officials feared a partial meltdown could be happening Sunday - to prevent the disaster from growing worse.


Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano also said Sunday that a hydrogen explosion could occur at Unit 3 of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex, the latest reactor to face a possible meltdown. That follows a blast the day before in the power plant's Unit 1, as operators attempted to prevent a meltdown there by injecting sea water into it.

"At the risk of raising further public concern, we cannot rule out the possibility of an explosion," Edano said.

Governor Spisak what do we do for energy NOW , where is your Perpetual Motion Machine?

We all know coal, nukes, gas, oil, are bad, bring out your secret energy that will FREE us from the shackles of the old energy.  We are from Missouri, the show me state.  All you do is rant and rave but you still drive a combustion engine machine.  All of us here will follow you right now if you can only produce.....................

ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- Harnessing off-shore wind power saves consumers money, helps clean up the environment and creates jobs, according to a study released Thursday by Environment Maryland and the United Steel Workers.

The report comes as the General Assembly considers legislation designed to jumpstart the industry.

Industry officials estimate a 500-megawatt wind park off the coast of Ocean City would create 2,000 manufacturing jobs over a five-year period, along with 400 permanent supply and maintenance positions.

"We are all hoping this wind energy industry creates a manufacturing hub for suppliers of off-shore wind farms throughout the Mid-Atlantic," said Brad Heavner of Environment Maryland.

Each wind turbine would contain up to 300 tons of steel. The cables that connect turbines to the grid are another piece of the manufacturing possibility.

Builders and steel workers said they see it as an opportunity to turn their industries around.

"Construction is the first to feel the pressures of an economic downturn, and we are the last to recover," said Rod Easter of the Baltimore Building Construction Trades Council.

"We no longer make things, not only here in Maryland but throughout the country. We no longer make things like we should," said Jim Strong of the United Steel Workers Union.

The O'Malley administration is sponsoring legislation directing the Public Service Commission to require state utilities to sign 20-year contracts to buy electricity from wind farms off Maryland's coast.

"The investors know that if they put in a $1 billion, $1.5 billion, they are going to have a commitment that their energy is going to be purchased for the next 20 to 25 years. Without that, it's hard to go ahead," said Sen. Paul Pinsky, D-Prince George's County.

AC Wind, a wind energy manufacturing and services firm, is partnering with a company called MFG to open a blade manufacturing facility in Salisbury. Company President John Congedo said he believes Maryland is well-positioned to take the lead in off-shore wind projects along the East Coast.

"We stand ready to take the truly skilled labor force that exists in the Salisbury area and to put them back to work and build these epic-sized composites," Congedo said.

The bill is meeting resistance in the Senate and is being referred back to the Finance Committee. A hearing is scheduled for Tuesday.

A House committee heard the bill last week.

Man, how disappointing, what a let down, I thought Governor Spisak had the holy grail of engineering, the discovery of over unity.  Man. I'm tired of leaving carbon footprints if only the Governor had the real McCoy, the machine to end all suffering, the machine that produced energy out of nothing, "The Spisak Perpetual Motion Machine", I have a dream!

To give you an idea of how much electrical power this area needs, here is a list of just some of the power plants within 100 miles of Youngstown.  Over 6,000 MW of power generation.

Sammis coal fired plant Stratton, OH  2,230 MW
Cardinal Power Plant Brilliant, OH  1,830 MW
Beaver Valley Nuclear Generating Station  Shippensport, PA 1,890 MW
Niles Power Plant 266 MW
New Castle Power Plant 348 MW

Unless Governor Spisak can set in motion a project, funded and can match the mega watt demand we have today, he is "The False Profit"

Nuke Power is dangerous, and getting worse in japan.....

The nuclear crisis in Japan has taken a turn for the worse this afternoon, as Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) has reported that six to ten feet of the core of its Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 reactor has been uncovered for a considerable period of time despite efforts to pump seawater into the reactor. Moreover, Tepco says it believes water may be leaking and preventing the water from covering the core. According to a translation of a Tepco statement by our Japanese colleagues, "The fuel's integrity has been considerably compromised. We are assessing a considerably serious situation." This unit uses plutonium-based MOX (mixed-oxide) fuel; accident consequences from a reactor that uses MOX fuel are even higher than for a more traditional uranium-fueled reactor.

At this point it is clear there has been some fuel melting at Fukushima Daiichi, probably at both Units 1 and 3. What we don't know yet is whether that will continue or whether utility workers will be successful at preventing any further melting. We hope they are successful and wish them our best. They are working under intolerable conditions and getting exposed to high levels of radiation in their ongoing effort to prevent a broader disaster. We believe that a catastrophic accident still can be prevented.

In all, there remain six reactors in various stages of trouble at two sites in Fukushima. Another three reactors, further north at Onagawa, are in a low-level state of emergency, although the utility there says they are under control.

Dennis, we all can read. We really don't need you to cut and paste the news that you think is relevant.

Most of the people on this forum are even smart enough to understand that the situation in Japan is bad and could get worse.

Fortunately we also understand that we can learn from the accident in Japan and make things even better.

Do you expect that Ohio will have a 9.0 earthquake followed by a tsunami?

SOMA, Japan - The second hydrogen explosion in three days rocked Japan's stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant Monday, sending a massive column of smoke into the air and wounding 6 workers. The plant's operator said radiation levels at the reactor were still within legal limits.


The explosion at the plant's Unit 3, which authorities have been frantically trying to cool following a system failure in the wake of a massive earthquake and tsunami, triggered an order for hundreds of people to stay indoors, said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano.

From the New York Times......

Bipartisan support for nuclear power weakens in wake of Japan crisis. NYT: "...even staunch supporters of nuclear power are now advocating a pause in licensing and building new reactors in the United States to make sure that proper safety and evacuation measures are in place. Environmental groups are reassessing their willingness to see nuclear power as a linchpin of any future climate change legislation. Mr. Obama still sees nuclear power as a major element of future American energy policy, but he is injecting a new tone of caution into his endorsement."

U.S. nuclear plants face risks from natural events. NYT: "...most of the nuclear plants in the United States share some or all of the risk factors that played a role at Fukushima Daiichi: locations on tsunami-prone coastlines or near earthquake faults, aging plants and backup electrical systems that rely on diesel generators and batteries that could fail in extreme circumstances."

I heard on the news that there was a third explosion at the power plant in Japan.

Here's the worse thing. Dennis and people like Dennis are hoping the "meltdown" happens so they can drive a stake through nuclear power.

Only in your dreams, Dan....... Yup, we all want a meltdown to glow Green.......

You are one sick puppy.......



SOMA, Japan -- A third explosion in four days rocked the earthquake-damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in northeast Japan early Tuesday, the country's nuclear safety agency said.

The blast at Dai-ichi Unit 2 followed two hydrogen explosions at the plant - the latest on Monday - as authorities struggle to prevent the catastrophic release of radiation in the area devastated by a tsunami.

The troubles at the Dai-ichi complex began when Friday's massive quake and tsunami in Japan's northeast knocked out power, crippling cooling systems needed to keep nuclear fuel from melting down.


The latest explosion was heard at 6:10 a.m. Tuesday (2110 GMT Monday), a spokesman for the Nuclear Safety Agency said at a news conference. The plant's owner, Tokyo Electric Power Co., said the explosion occurred near the suppression pool in the reactor's containment vessel. The pool was later found to have a defect.

Yup Dan......Nuke Power is safe.....in your dreams.......


SOMA, Japan -- High levels of radiation leaked from a crippled nuclear plant in tsunami-ravaged northeastern Japan after a third reactor was rocked by an explosion Tuesday and a fourth caught fire in a dramatic escalation of the 4-day-old catastrophe. The government warned 140,000 people nearby to stay indoors to avoid exposure.

Tokyo also reported slightly elevated radiation levels, but officials said the increase was too small to threaten the 39 million people in and around the capital, about 170 miles away.

In a nationally televised statement, Prime Minister Naoto Kan said radiation has spread from four reactors of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Fukushima state, one of the hardest-hit in Friday's 9.0-magnitude earthquake and the ensuing tsunami that has killed more than 10,000 people, plunged millions into misery and pummeled the world's third-largest economy.

Officials just south of Fukushima reported up to 100 times the normal levels of radiation Tuesday morning, Kyodo News agency reported. While those figures are worrying if there is prolonged exposure, they are far from fatal.

Kan and other officials warned there is danger of more leaks and told people living within 19 miles of the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex to stay indoors to avoid exposure that could make people sick.

Dennis,

My mother lives in Asia, I went to school in Japan, have a little respect and please keep your thoughts to yourself out of respect for these people.  You don't have to keep bombarding us with "I told you so."   We all agree nukes are bad, but we all turn on the lights everyday, if you have no alternative ready to go NOW, please spare us and just say a prayer for these people.

Just presenting the facts and the truth.....

Looks like you can't handle the truth, Shrimpy.....

Yep, secretly, Dennis is rooting for a meltdown.

Dan, you don't know me........

Quit spreading lies, you do yourself and your cause a disservice....

I know you very well Dennis, you're a "progressive" which is not substantially different than a socialist or communist. Your ideas are their ideas, fancied up with some hi tech windmill jargon.  You rail against the rich, and say your for the poor, and middle class, but have no ideas on how to help them other than to march the rest of us down the same path that has led to failure after failure for the last hundred years. You have no understanding of individual rights, free markets, and freedom. You are a Statist. Your motto is: "Communism only killed a hundred million people, let's give it another chance."

Again, Dan....you are one sick,misinformed puppy.....

you sir, are one misguided neo-con fascist.......

Dan...are nukes still safe......yes or no?


FUKUSHIMA, Japan -- Japan suspended operations to keep its stricken nuclear plant from melting down Wednesday after surging radiation made it too dangerous to stay.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the workers dousing the reactors in a frantic effort to cool them needed to withdraw.

"The workers cannot carry out even minimal work at the plant now," Edano said. "Because of the radiation risk we are on standby," he said.

The nuclear crisis has triggered international alarm and partly overshadowed the human tragedy caused by Friday's earthquake and tsunami, which pulverized Japan's northeastern coastline, killing an estimated 10,000 people and severely damaging the nuclear plant.

Since then authorities have tried frantically to avert an environmental catastrophe at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex in northeastern Japan, 170 miles north of Tokyo.

Edano said the government expects to ask the U.S. military for help. He did not elaborate. He said the government is still considering whether and how to take up the various offers of help from other countries.

Its not a question of safe or unsafe, but is one of tradeoffs.  Is the benefit of having electricity worth the potential risk of a nuclear accident?  If Japan did not have electricity, or limited amounts thereof, many of the people who are affected by the nuclear disaster would not even exist, or if they did exist they would live the life of a person in the third world.  Cheap abundant sources of energy is one of the main determining factors between a short, brutal life and a long, relatively easy life.  So really the question is, is it worth raising an entire population out of poverty if it means that at some point in the future a nuclear reactor may melt down? 

So far the containment systems have functioned as intended, and very little radiation has been escaping.  If there is any lesson to learn from this, it is that nuclear plants should not be sited in a location that is susceptible to tsunami damage. Even just siting the plant five miles further inland would have averted this catastrophe.  We will learn from this and the next generation of nuclear plants will not be affected by tsunamis.

Dennis,

I know that you won't actually open your mind to learn, but in case you do, please watch this starting at the 28 minute mark.  This explains precisely the choice we have to make if coal and nuclear energy is to be eliminated in the US.  This is exactly what Dan and i have been trying to impress on you for the past few months.  If coal and nuclear are removed from the equation, what replaces them?

http://www.watchglennbeck.com/video/2011/march/glenn-beck-show-march-15-2011-obamas-priorities/

Sorry, Rick....I don't want nuke acciedents to happen in the US.....

You may think it's alright to trade off nuke deaths to light a light bulb, I don't.....



Davis-Besse opponents, "It can happen here."

Two weeks ago, four citizens groups were in Port Clinton,Ohio arguing before a panel appointed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) that Davis-Besse should not be allowed to continue running for twenty years beyond its designed operating life. Today, in the wake of the nuclear disasters unfolding in Japan those groups had a stark warning for Ohio, Michigan and even Ontario. "It can happen here."

"It's ironic that in court, just two weeks ago, we were told repeatedly that we are not allowed to bring up the 'worst case scenario' of a plant meltdown because the NRC has decided that such a meltdown just can't happen," said Joseph DeMare member of the Wood County Green Party and long time nuclear foe. "Well, guess what? It's happened. It's important to point out that many of the people evacuated in Japan who are leaving behind their homes, clothes, even their pets, may never be able to return," said Mr. DeMare, "since some radioactive pollution, like Plutonium, stays deadly for tens of thousands of years."

"Just last week, all trains of the Davis-Besse Emergency Feedwater were knocked off line by the simple act of someone turning on a two-way radio," pointed out Michael J. Keegan of Don't Waste Michigan. Interference from a hand held radio disrupted the electronics in an incident reported to the NRC last week (Event Number 46653). The Emergency Feedwater was restored by First Energy. "But if that had happened during an emergency shut down, and those systems were needed and not available, the headlines today could be about the evacuation of Toledo, not Japan," said Mr. Keegan.

"There are many other triggers which could take a reactor into a Station Black Out (SBO) and loss of back up power such as Emergency Diesel Generators (EDG's). For example, in November of 1972, Davis-Besse was heavily flooded by a seiche event. In a seiche, strong winds cause large bodies of waters like Lake Erie to pour over their banks in a large wave. Fortunately, the plant had not yet started up. That same flood after start up could have been devastating.

"Other problems that have actually disrupted operations at local nuclear plants include:
tornadoes, which struck Davis-Besse 1998 and Fermi II in 2010;
an unexplained electrical explosion at Davis-Besse in 2010;
a stuck crane which dangled a 110 ton container full of highly radioactive waste mid-air directly over an irradiated fuel storage pool for 55 hours at Palisades nuclear plant on the Lake Michigan shoreline;
the electrical grid failure in August 2003; and
an Emergency Diesel Generator that was unavailable at Fermi for 20 years from 1986 through 2006 .

All nuclear reactors are also vulnerable to terrorist attack. On May 25, 2002, according to NORAD ( North American Aerospace Defense Command) a plane circled Fermi II and dipped close to the reactor.
There are many other examples.  So, while an earthquake may be unlikely, we have already experienced a multitude of near misses which could have triggered a major nuclear disaster in the Great Lakes."

"This is my home that I'm fighting for," added Anita Rios, Co-Chair of the Ohio Green Party and resident of Toledo. "I raised my family in the shadow of that plant, and I don't want them to have to live in fear of an accident as I have. To say that 'Oh it can never happen' in light of what is happening in Japan is just plain crazy. First Energy has down played and low balled the expense required to deal with a catastrophic event, and minimized the extent of the area that would be affected. We should point out that taxpayers would bear the responsibility of paying for a catastrophic event."

Terry Lodge, a long time opponent of a Davis-Besse and the lawyer representing the groups opposing the relicensing, had this to add, "Those of us who have been watching the nuclear industry have always known that a meltdown was only a matter of time. Regardless of reactor type, with aging comes pipe cracking, defects in zirconium cladding on the fuel rods, pump and valve failures, corrosion holes, rusting electrical switches and junctions, and failing backup diesel generators. The current Generic Environmental Impact Statement for relicensing US nukes is more than 14 years old. We are about to see huge areas of Japan made off-limits to human habitation for generations to come. The economic costs of this disaster are grossly understated. We, of course, prayed that it would never happen and our hearts go out to the people of Japan. But the question for us here in Ohio is are we willing to lose Toledo, Port Clinton, Bowling Green, Sandusky, and all the surrounding communities just so that First Energy can make more money?"

"We call for a moratorium on re-licensing of aged nuclear plants, and a moratorium on licensing of additional plants," concluded Ms. Rios, "and we ask that local governments and officials join us in calling for such a moratorium."

The four groups are Beyond Nuclear, Citizens' Environmental Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste Michigan, and the Green Party of Ohio.

NOT TO BE ARGUMENTIVE but 66 some years ago the United States dropped two nuclear bombs on two Japanese cities all but wiping them off the map, yet today they are thriving cities, and we haven't heard of any new cases of radiation poisoning in years.

Both cities have thriving economies ... so where did all that radiation go in 66 years.

Food is grown in gardens ... radiation free. People take baths and drink water with no ill effects from radiation.

I'll gladdly grant you that on the island where the U.S. did most of its tests there's quite another story but how many bombs were exploded there?

And what of Three Mile Island ... is it deserted today? Folks use that as an example but they neglect to mention its condition today.

how many people did die from radiation fallout years ago?

how many people do you want to die when one of our nuke plants fail?

if nuke power is so safe, please feel free to build a plant in your backyard.....

Have a glowing green day!

CAN'T YOU BE ADULT AND CIVIL IN YOUR RESPONSE. I WAS JUST ASKING QUESTIONS.

As far as I'm concerned I'd oppose new reactors UNTIL there could be ABSOLUTE PROOF that they could be operated SAFELY.

I've been reading a lot about nuclear reactors since Friday.

Some things I've learned:

The reactors in question in Japan were built nearly 40 years ago and were scheduled to be shut down this year or next.

They have been subjected to an earthquake beyond what they were designed to handle.

Shortly afterward they were subjected to a tsunami.

They did not, have not and are not expected to have catastophic failure.

The explosions in the reactors were hydrogen explosions from superheated water/steam being released to reduce pressure on the containment vessel.

The explosions damaged the buildings.

The buildings were only designed to keep weather out, not radiation in.

The containment vessel is designed to contain melted fuel rods (meltdown)

At Chernobyl the Russians did not use a containment vessel (surprised?) allowing their hydrogen expolsion to scatter radioactive fuel rod pieces over a fairly wide area.

There is radiation from different sources, Any radiation that is released in steam and pressure is very minor and short lived compared to radiation from fuel rods.

Most of this information came from a blog written by Josef Oehmen. It's about 1/2 way down this page http://mitnse.com/
I read it from a different link that no longer works and will be spending some time this evening reading the top half of this link that seems to have more specific up to date information.

I forgot to mention that any new reactors would surely be designed with 40 more years of real world experience compared to the Japanese reactors we are discussing.

just like cars and anything else, safety evolves.

YTown is very thorough in his quest to gain knowledge unlike the propagandist.  What you have learned is what we refered to back in my Nuclear weapon days as a low yield detonation.  Ever wonder what precautions exist for nuclear powered ships, salt water.

I watched the ABC News this evening.  The reports made it sound as though the workers at the plant were making a last ditch effort, without regard for their own lives, to prevent a catastrophe.

The U.S. government has asked Americans to evacuate an area 50 miles around the site.

Thousands of people are leaving the country by airplane.

This from CNN:

ALVAREZ: Well, I mean, this is a situation where people may be called in to sacrifice their lives, and I don't think that that's something that -- I mean, it's very difficult for me to contemplate that, but it's -- it may have reached that point.

BALDWIN: So we're talking, potentially -- you and I have talked about this before, about these 50 people, and I'm hearing it could be up to 180 people who are working, these emergency relief folks who know as they walk into any of these reactor sites that they would be risking their lives, and is that just part of the job? You know, when you sign up to work at a nuclear plant, in the case of a disaster, you could have to sacrifice your own life for the greater good.

ALVAREZ: Well, I don't think that this was in any way anticipated, and this certainly wasn't part of the job interview process when they were hired. But I think that as the accident unfolded, those people who are there clearly know that their lives are in jeopardy.

The news media ALWAYS makes everything out to be far worse than it usually turns out to be.  It also shows just how shallow these people are, to be surprised that there are people who would put the lives of others above their own. 

Can we now drop the opposition to coal now Dennis if we have to eliminate our nuke plants?  You may not think having light bulbs and electricity is important (I'm still planning to pull your meter BTW!),  :) but if you had been born in a country without electricity, at your age you would be dead as the life expectancy is not very long. 

Especially the 24/7 news channels such as CNN.

towntalk.....don't scream at me.....I asked you simple questions.....can't help it if the questions got your undies all messed up....

the bottom line is, nuke power is not safe....

USA nuke plants are approaching 40 years of age as well....how safe are they?

the use of nuke power is a disaster waiting to happen....which is what is now playing out in Japan.....fun huh?

How safe are our plants?


As the world's attention remains focused on the nuclear calamity unfolding in Japan, American nuclear regulators and industry lobbyists have been offering assurances that plants in the United States are designed to withstand major earthquakes.

But the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, which sits less than a mile from an offshore fault line, was not required to include earthquakes in its emergency response plan as a condition of being granted its license more than a quarter of a century ago. Though experts warned from the beginning that the plant would be vulnerable to an earthquake, asserting 25 years ago that it required an emergency plan as a condition of its license, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission fought against making such a provision mandatory as it allowed the facility to be built.

Officials at Pacific Gas and Electric Company, the utility that operates Diablo Canyon, did not respond to calls seeking comment before the story was published. After publication, a spokesman for the company said the plant does have an earthquake procedure that had been implemented during a 2003 earthquake near the facility, and that staff are trained to respond. The company did not provide further details upon request.

As Americans absorb the spectacle of a potential nuclear meltdown in Japan -- one of the world's most proficient engineering powers -- the regulatory review that ultimately enabled Diablo Canyon to be built without an earthquake response plan amplifies a gnawing question: Could the tragedy in Japan happen at home?

Experts who recall how the California plant came to be erected offer a disconcerting answer: Yes. And some are calling for more urgent government action to review safety at nuclear plants across the country.

"What they're displaying now is exactly what was wrong in the past with the nuclear establishment, which is that they didn't have their priorities right," said Victor Gilinsky, who served on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission during the Diablo Canyon debate and agreed with the call for greater attention to earthquakes in emergency plans. "They're more concerned about the protection of the plants, and installation of further plants, than they are about public safety. The president should be saying, 'I want every single plant reviewed.'"

Back when the California plant was being finalized in the mid-1980s, local activists and environmental lawyers sued the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in an effort to slow the project, arguing that the clear risks from earthquakes nearby required additional planning.

Story continues below
AdvertisementThe case made its way to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., where a 5-4 majority -- including current Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and former Clinton independent counsel Kenneth Starr -- ruled that earthquakes did not have to be included in the plant's emergency response plans.

The underlying theory was that the plant's design, which came after years of planning and geological studies, could withstand any foreseeable earthquake in the area -- the same assumption that guided thinking in Japan.

"What they're saying is that there could be an earthquake, but in no way could it ever cause a radioactive release at the same time," said Rochelle Becker, who led the San Luis Obispo, Calif., group that first sued the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over earthquake preparedness in the 1980s. "I'm pretty sure we now have evidence that it does."

A spokeswoman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission confirmed that the Diablo Canyon plant is not required to have an emergency response plan for earthquakes because the commission is satisfied that the plant's structure will be able to withstand an earthquake in the area -- calculated as a maximum magnitude of 7.5.

But officials at Tokyo Electric Co., the operator of Japan's stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant, said over the weekend that the strongest earthquake they had anticipated was much lower than the magnitude-9.0 quake that struck last Friday.

"That's a lesson that we ignore at our own peril, because we could be wrong, too," said Joel Reynolds, the attorney who originally brought the case against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and who is now a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council in California. "It is a story as old as science that we're always learning new things. We're always discovering the unexpected."

Critics have raised particular questions about how a standard emergency response to a nuclear disaster could be complicated if it had been caused by an earthquake, where roads and other surrounding infrastructure would also be impaired.

So far, the commission has not specifically recommended any changes to safety regulations or emergency response procedures at nuclear plants in the United States.

"All our plants are designed to withstand significant natural phenomena like earthquakes, tornadoes and tsunamis," the commission's chairman, Gregory B. Jaczko, said earlier this week. "We believe we have a very solid and strong regulatory infrastructure in place now." He added that the commission would "continue to take new information and see if there are changes that we need to make with our program."

Michael Mariotte, the executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, a group critical of the nuclear industry and the regulatory process, said the pushback on response planning reflects an environment where the industry is helped along by regulators.

"That's the logic behind a lot of our nuclear regulation, unfortunately, is that it's designed to accommodate the operation of a plant, and not necessarily the protection of the public," Mariotte said. "If they acknowledged that an earthquake occurred that damaged the plant, then they're also acknowledging that an earthquake has damaged the transportation infrastructure, that you can't get people out properly, that the plant doesn't work, and then it can't be approved."

At the time the Diablo Canyon case was being litigated in the mid-1980s, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the electric utility looking to build the plant had been dealing with more than a decade's worth of federal and state reviews for the facility. Federal regulators were comfortable with their seismic reviews of the remote coastal area between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Comments made during closed meetings, later released to the public, showed that some NRC commissioners were concerned that additional public hearings surrounding the emergency response plan and earthquakes would slow the process further.

"One of the things that I think makes me shy away often from hearings is because as soon as we hear the word 'hearing,' you see so much time elapse that it maybe over-influences one," then-NRC Chairman Nunzio J. Palladino, who has since passed away, said at the time. "I do feel that at this late stage, requiring a delay while we wait for a hearing is not in the best national interest."

When the case involving earthquake response was eventually litigated all the way to the federal appeals court in D.C., which ultimately sided with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the five-member majority noted that there had already been extensive review of seismic activity around the plant.

"We can think of no potential natural or unnatural hazards, regardless of their improbability, that the Commission would not be required to consider," failed Reagan Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork wrote in an opinion for the appellate court. "That is a prescription for licensing proceedings that never end and plants that never generate electricity."

The four dissenting judges, including current Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, noted: "The very purpose of the exercise is to plan for the unthinkable eventuality that the design safeguards will not prevent an accident."

"It defies common sense to exclude evidence about the complicating effects of earthquakes from a proceeding dealing with how to respond to a nuclear accident at a plant located three miles from an active fault, a plant in which seismic concerns dominated the design and construction proceedings for well over a decade," the justices wrote.

In recent years, the utility that operates Diablo Canyon, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, has recently found another fault line less than a mile from the plant after conducting research with the U.S. Geological Survey. The plant's original design had accounted for a fault that was farther offshore -- about three miles from the plant.

The spokeswoman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Lara Uselding, said the utility has not found evidence that the newly discovered fault line would pose a risk to the plant. The commission is currently reviewing the company's geological report.

Dennis,
    Please tell us what part of learn from experience is so difficult to understand?

You see,  we know that our Nuke plants are getting older, but people like you prevent us from building new, better, safer ones so that the older ones can be taken off line.

    It's almost rocket science but not quite.

what good are new nuke plants when we build them on fault lines? Even here in Ohio?

LOS ANGELES -- Two years before an immense coastal earthquake plunged Japan into a nuclear crisis, a geologic fault was discovered about a half-mile from a California seaside reactor - alarming regulators who say not enough has been done to gauge the threat to the nation's most populous state.

The situation of the Diablo Canyon plant is not unique. Across the country, a spider's web of faults in the Earth's crust raises questions about earthquakes and safety at aging nuclear plants, amplified by horrific images from Japan, where nuclear reactors were crippled by a tsunami caused by a 9-magnitude quake.

The Indian Point Energy Center, for example, lies near a fault line 35 miles north of Manhattan; on Wednesday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered a safety review at the plant.

But none of the questions are more pressing than in quake-prone California, where about 10 powerful shakers - stronger than magnitude 7 - have hit since 1900.

At issue at Diablo Canyon is not what is known, but what is not.

Preliminary research at the site, which sits on a wave-washed bluff above the Pacific, found its twin reactors could withstand a potential earthquake generated by the recently identified Shoreline Fault, just off the coast.

But that hasn't satisfied California regulators. Since late 2008, when the undersea crack was identified, they have pressed plant owner Pacific Gas & Electric Co. to conduct sophisticated, independently reviewed studies that they say are needed to fully assess the danger at a site within 200 miles of Los Angeles.

The recently discovered fault is close to, and might intersect with, another bigger crack three miles offshore, and the fear is the two faults could begin shaking in tandem, creating a larger quake than either fault would be capable of producing on its own.

"We don't yet have a firm idea of the hazard posed by the Shoreline Fault," says Thomas Brocher, director of the Earthquake Science Center at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif., who led the team that discovered the fault.

State Sen. Sam Blakeslee, a Republican who holds a doctorate in earthquake studies, wants PG&E to pull back an application to extend the plant's operating license for 20 years until more is known.

"Aging nuclear power plants and large, active fault systems should not be in close proximity. This isn't exactly rocket science," Blakeslee says. Because the Shoreline Fault is so close to the Diablo Canyon plant it "can produce shaking far in excess of what's expected."

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and PG&E say the plant is safe and built to withstand a magnitude 7.5 earthquake, the maximum considered possible for the site. Damage from a Japan-like tsunami is unlikely, because the reactors sit on an 85-foot cliff above the ocean and fault structure in the area differs from the Pacific Rim.

Critics around the United States say the government has moved too slowly to assess possible threats from earthquakes.

NRC spokeswoman Lara Uselding said she did not know of a single case in which a U.S. reactor was damaged by a quake. But this does not dispel concerns that may be unavoidable because the study of earthquakes remains an imprecise science. They cannot be predicted, and the damage - as witnessed in Japan - can be catastrophic.

The dangers of earthquakes have been raised repeatedly by opponents of nuclear energy. The Perry nuclear plant, east of Cleveland, lies within 40 miles of two faults; in 1986, a year before the plant opened, a 5.0 earthquake shook the area, but didn't damage the plant, said Todd Schneider, a FirstEnergy spokesman. There have since been less severe quakes.

A citizens group filed suit after the quake, trying to block the plant from opening. They argued that an earthquake greater than the plant was built to withstand was likely to occur in the future; U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia turned down their request.

The plant's design includes piping with shock absorbers intended to prevent breakage in a quake. "Before the plants are even built, there's research done by seismologists and geologists to determine what the maximum earthquake could be," Schneider said. "The plants are designed beyond that."

Indian Point, too, is safe and built to withstand earthquakes, says a spokesman for owner Entergy Nuclear. But earlier this week, Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., urged the NRC to look closely at the earthquake preparedness there. A 2008 analysis of earthquake activity around New York City found that many small faults that were believed to be inactive could contribute to a major temblor, and that a line of seismic activity comes within two miles of the plant on the Hudson River.

Another fault line near Indian Point was already known, so the findings suggest Indian Point is at an intersection of faults. The environmental group Riverkeeper says seismic studies used to assess safety are decades out of date.

Major earthquakes are rare in the southeast United States, although the region is crossed by the New Madrid fault in the west and a fault near Charleston, S.C. in the east. University of Georgia geologist Jim Wright said although the plate sitting under the southeast is stable it's also rigid, meaning the jolt from an earthquake would carry farther than in a region where the earth's crust has been fragmented by seismic activity.

The Atlanta-based Southern Co. has reviewed seismic activity in the area that could impact the Wayneboro, Ga., site where it has two operating reactors and hopes to build two more. Among the largest known regional earthquakes was an 1886 earthquake that struck Charleston, S.C., about 85 miles from the Plant Vogtle site, according to the company's regulatory filings.

To this day, geologists are divided on exactly which faults caused the earthquake. Southern Co. spokeswoman Beth Thomas said the company's reactors comply with federal requirements that they be able to safely withstand the strongest earthquake that could be expected in a 10,000-year period. Thomas said the company has not seen anything in Japan to make it alter its current operations.

The Tennessee Valley Authority's Browns Ferry plant, which is located near Athens, Ala., has boiling water reactors similar in design to the malfunctioning reactors in Japan. That plant was designed to withstand a 6.0-magnitude earthquake based on its proximity to the New Madrid fault, TVA spokesman Duncan Mansfield said.

The TVA's Watts Bar nuclear plant at Spring City, Tenn., and its Sequoyah plant at Soddy-Daisy, Tenn., are designed to withstand a 5.8-magnitude quake based on an 1897 tremor at Giles County, Va., Mansfield said. None of the TVA's reactors are seen as being vulnerable to tsunamis since they are so far inland.

Arkansas' only nuclear plant is located about 150 miles away from the New Madrid fault zone, which produced a series of large quakes in 1811 and 1812, including several over magnitude 7. The shaking was so strong that it reportedly caused the Mississippi River to flow backward and could be felt as far away as New England. Arkansas Nuclear One officials said the plant is designed to withstand natural disasters including quakes, has an emergency plan in place, and routinely trains for the worst-case scenario.

Using increasing sensitive technology, scientists are constantly identifying new faults in the country, sometimes after earthquakes are detected. In Southern California alone, there are an estimated 10,000 earthquakes a year, though most of them are too small to be noticed by residents.

The state's senators, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, on Wednesday sent a letter to Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko, asking that the agency "perform a thorough inspection" of the plants at Diablo Canyon and San Onofre.

A 30-foot concrete seawall surrounds San Onofre, built along the beach in northern San Diego County, where officials say it's strong enough to withstand major quakes and any potential tsunami.

Diablo Canyon, whose reactors began operating in the mid-1980s, has a long history of seismic issues. The discovery of the offshore Hosgri Fault in 1971, after the plant's construction permits were issued, forced a major, costly redesign.

Brocher, the USGS scientist, said scientists do not know how fast the adjacent sides of the Shoreline Fault are sliding, a key measurement to determine potential danger. A higher rate of slippage leads to increased pressure - and a greater chance for an earthquake.

With the two faults in proximity "the uncertainty is ... to what extent they might interact," says Barbara Byron, a senior nuclear policy adviser for the California Energy Commission. Since 2008, the commission has urged the plant to conduct three-dimensional mapping of the Shoreline Fault, using technology employed in oil exploration.

Funding has been approved for the study. In testimony to the NRC last year, she called the plant's seismic data "incomplete ... outdated" and urged a review of its evacuation plans.

Uselding, the NRC spokeswoman, said preliminary reviews found that it's unlikely an earthquake would take place directly under Diablo Canyon, but that potential shaking could cause minor damage to buried piping and conduits.

Diablo Canyon has an extensive seismic monitoring system, ready to detect any shifts in the area. "Potential impacts of the Shoreline Fault fall within all safety margins," company spokesman Kory Raftery said.

To University of Southern California professor Naj Meshkati, an expert on earthquakes and nuclear power plants, the risk is not the massive plant structures but the reliability of backup systems that failed in the Japanese tsunami.

While such a large quake and killer wave is unlikely in California, the plants face similar dangers in backup equipment.

"If someone says this cannot happen here, they should really ... take a very hard look at some of their assumptions," Meshkati said.

Quote
UPDATE AS OF 11:35 A.M. EDT, THURSDAY, MARCH 17:

Fukushima Daiichi
The reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant are in stable condition and are being cooled with seawater, but workers at the plant continue efforts to add cooling water to fuel pools at reactors 3 and 4.

The status of the reactors at the site is as follows:

Reactor 1's primary containment is believed to be intact and the reactor is in a stable condition. Seawater injection into the reactor is continuing.

Reactor 2 is in stable condition with seawater injection continuing. The reactor's primary containment may not have been breached, Tokyo Electric Power Co. and World Association of Nuclear Operators officials said on Thursday.

Access problems at the site have delayed connection of a temporary cable to restore off-site electricity. The connection will provide power to the control rod drive pump, instrumentation, batteries and the control room. Power has not been available at the site since the earthquake on March 11.

Reactor 3 is in stable condition with seawater injection continuing. The primary containment is believed to be intact. Pressure in the containment has fluctuated due to venting of the reactor containment structure.

TEPCO officials say that although one side of the concrete wall of the fuel pool structure has collapsed, the steel liner of the pool remains intact, based on aerial photos of the reactor taken on March 17. The pool still has water providing some cooling for the fuel; however, helicopters dropped water on the reactor four times during the morning (Japan time) on March 17. Water also was sprayed at reactor 4 using high-pressure water cannons.

Reactors 5 and 6 were both shut down before the quake occurred. Primary and secondary containments are intact at both reactors. Temperature instruments in the spent fuel pools at reactors 5 and 6 are operational, and temperatures are being maintained at about 62 degrees Celsius. TEPCO is continuing efforts to restore power at reactor 5.

Based on the design basis accidents they used in the 1950's, when the Daichii plant was being designed, in my opinion this is one of the greatest engineering successes of the last century. New nukes like our AP1000 won't even make the news in a 9.0 quake.

Be careful what you read!!

#########
Westinghouse Nuclear R&D
Small Modular Reactor Design

How close is your home to a nuke power plant?

You'll be surprised.....

better get your bottle water ready....

http://money.cnn.com/news/specials/nuclear_power_plants_locations/index.html

Japan Cites Unsafe Radiation Levels in Spinach, Milk Near Stricken PlantMar 19, 2011 – 6:53 AM .

AP FUKUSHIMA, Japan -- Japan said radiation levels in spinach and milk from farms near its tsunami-crippled nuclear complex exceeded government safety limits, as emergency teams scrambled Saturday to restore power to the plant so it could cool dangerously overheated fuel.

Firefighters also pumped tons of water directly from the ocean into one of the most troubled areas of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex, the cooling pool for used fuel rods at the plant's Unit 3, which are at risk of burning up and sending a broad release of radioactive material into the environment.

The first word on contaminated food in the crisis came as Japan continued to grapple with overwhelming consequences of the cascade of disasters unleashed by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake on March 11. The quake spawned a tsunami that ravaged Japan's northeast coast, killing more than 7,200 people, and knocked out backup cooling systems at the nuclear plant, which has been leaking radiation.

The tainted milk was found 20 miles (30 kilometers) from the plant while the spinach was collected between 50 miles (80 kilometers) and 65 miles (100 kilometers) to the south, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters in Tokyo.

Yes Dennis, we know. You see we can read and watch the news, same as you. But we aren't compelled to cut and paste it here for everyones enjoyment.

The good news is that they have re-established power to the control rooms.

The bad news is that they have found traces of radioactive iodine in the water in Tokyo.

And yes I am still in favor of building more (newer, better) Nuclear power plants.

Sarge, will you ever wake up and realize any type of nuke power plant  is not safe?

nope, cause you march to a twisted neo-con drum beat like Ricky, Dan and the mutant others.....

OMG, Nuclear power isn't safe, hurry turn off the sun......

try to stay awake, Sarge, man-made nuke plants are dangerous, even here in the US....

The nuclear crisis in Japan has prompted a re-examination of the safety net for nuclear power in the United States, with former regulators and safety advocates warning that gaps in the nation's regulatory armor could leave Americans similarly vulnerable to disaster.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the federal oversight body tasked with licensing and inspecting civilian nuclear facilities, too frequently relies on reports from the industry itself in monitoring for trouble, and is too lenient in meting out sanctions when it encounters violations, these critics say.

Though the commission posts inspectors at every plant, several independent and government reports note that these on-site observers document only a fraction of the events they observe on a daily basis.

"This co-dependent relationship between the industry and the NRC is stronger than the SEC and their relationship with Wall Street," said Robert Alvarez, a former advisor in the Department of Energy, and now a senior scholar on nuclear policy at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington. The SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) is oft-blamed for failing to adequately police the financial system in the years before the recent banking crisis.

A report released Thursday by the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental safety group, documents a series of inconsistent approaches used by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission when encountering major problems at plants over the last year, making enforcement appear haphazard.

In one case, at the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant in New York, NRC inspectors allowed a leaking water containment system to persist for more than 15 years despite documentation of the problem, according to the report. A spokesman for Entergy, the utility that runs Indian Point, said the leaking is not "ideal," but that the water stays on site and does not pose a risk to the environment.

At the Calvert Cliffs plant in Maryland, a leaking roof that workers had known about for eight years caused an electrical short in 2010, forcing a shutdown of two reactors.

A spokeswoman for the NRC said that officials at the oversight agency were aware of the report, but had not been able to review it in depth because of attention to the events in Japan.

"The NRC remains confident that our Reactor Oversight Program, which includes both on-site and region-based inspectors, is effectively monitoring the safety of U.S. nuclear power plants," the spokeswoman wrote in an e-mailed statement.

The report from the Union of Concerned Scientists asserts that the NRC is only able to audit about 5 percent of activities at nuclear plants across the country in any given year, and that regulators are often too focused on the minutiae of individual violations instead of addressing systemic problems at a plant that may have led to deficiencies.

"The NRC must draw larger implications from narrow findings for the simple reason that it audits only about 5 percent of activities at every nuclear plant each year," wrote David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer who authored the report for the Union of Concerned Scientists. "Each NRC finding therefore has two important components: identifying a broken device or impaired procedure, and revealing deficient testing and inspection regimes that prevented workers from fixing a problem before the NRC found it."

The report looked at 14 "near-misses" over the past year - events that required a special investigations team from the NRC to do a detailed inspection after a problem occurred. Many of the issues involved electrical shorts or deficient equipment at various plants that led to fires or unplanned shutdowns of the reactors.

One of the more egregious examples cited involved the HB Robinson plant in South Carolina, operated by Progress Energy, which had to shut down reactors twice in six months due to mechanical failures and electrical shorts. In the first case, an electrical cable that was not up to standards and had been installed in 1986 caused the power shortage leading to the shutdown.

Nonetheless, the majority of the violations were classified as "green" - the lowest level of sanction - which typically do not result in any monetary fine and require only formal written responses.

At the Brunswick Nuclear Power Plant in North Carolina, also operated by Progress Energy, the NRC's report from the time documented confusion and delays in responses among the plant workers after a gas was inadvertently released at the plant. The release should have led workers to activate nearby emergency response shelters and issue warnings to local, state and federal government officials, but the personnel did not know how to activate such alarms.

Eventually plant managers had to step in, and the alarms were only triggered after the federally mandated deadline. Despite the major failure in emergency response, the company was cited with only one potential monetary violation.

A spokesman for Progress Energy said the company has since installed more modern notification systems and increased the number of drills to twice-a-year, up from once every two years.

"We have taken specific actions to address each of the events last year that led to special inspections," the spokesman said in a written statement.

At the Honeywell Specialty Materials plant in Metropolis, Ill., the sole U.S. refinery that processes uranium for use in nuclear power plants, a union lockout has left temporary workers in charge of the facility. The locked-out members of United Steelworkers have erected 42 crosses in front of the Honeywell plant in memory of coworkers who succumbed to cancer in the past decade. Twenty-seven smaller crosses represent colleagues who survived a brush with cancer.

When the plant began hiring replacement employees after the June lockout, the NRC found that management coached candidates on how to properly answer questions on a required examination to work there. According to the NRC, the temporary workers were given answers prior to questioning and were helped during the course of the evaluation process if they became confused.

"The labor force was locked out and the Honeywell facility was trying to qualify as many operators as they could to make sure the plant could operate," NRC inspector Joe Calle said. "The process got overwhelmed, so to speak."

The NRC slapped Honeywell with a violation, and stopped the hiring process. Last fall, the NRC noted in a report that all the temporary workers had been retrained at the plant. The commission expressed assurances that the plant is being safely run.

But the commission has also cited the Metropolis Honeywell plant for a series of other violations since the lockout began, including an uncontrolled furnace ignition resulting when "operating procedures were not followed," according to a letter from the NRC to Rep. Jerry Costello (D-Ill.)

The NRC says it has no definitive proof that temporary workers were at fault, and that the violations were similar to earlier problems that were present when Union workers were working on site. But the locked-out union members pin the troubles on an inexperienced work force that was never fully vetted by the required examinations.

"A lot of people could open up a manual and go by that manual, but in an actual emergency it takes knowledge and experience to be able to handle it correctly and quickly," said a spokesman for the Steelworkers Local 7-669, John Paul Smith.

So we have a worse case scenario that could happen to a nuclear plant, a large earthquake followed by a flood.  Out of that we get some tainted milk and spinach (not sure how high above the limits they are), and a few dozen workers (heroes) who may have been exposed to elevated radiation levels.  Seems pretty safe to me.

Send a note to Congress: Nuke Power is not safe.....

One thing remains certain: this crisis further proves that nuclear reactors are neither safe nor clean.

We must learn from this disaster. Tell your members of Congress that nuclear power should not be part of our energy future.

As the crisis has worsened, the nuclear industry's lobbying has, appallingly, become more and more aggressive. President Obama, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, and many members of Congress have said that it would be premature to halt the push for new reactors. Congressman Devin Nunes from California, where several reactors sit on seismic fault lines, actually asserted, "I believe this will make the case for nuclear power in the long run."

The United States is unfortunately no stranger to close calls and radioactive releases. Three Mile Island is only the most famous. Mechanical, electrical and human errors have rocked reactors in Ohio, Illinois, Alabama, Oregon, Massachusetts and elsewhere. And just last year, aging pipes at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant were found to be leaking radioactive tritium into the groundwater. On top of the threats posed by reactors, we still have no way to safely dispose of spent fuel and other nuclear waste, which can remain dangerously radioactive for tens of thousands of years.

No one ever says, "It could happen here." But nuclear accidents do happen -- and have catastrophic potential. Join Friends of the Earth's members and activists in calling on Congress to put the breaks on nuclear power.

As Americans watch the searing images from Japan, the nuclear industry knows it is losing public support -- 70 percent of Americans surveyed in a new USA Today/Gallup poll said they've grown more concerned about the industry's safety. And more Americans oppose than support the building of new nuclear reactors.

Financial analysts on Wall Street have said once again that nuclear reactors are not a viable investment. The only way the nuclear industry can build a new reactor is if you foot the bill. Unfortunately, President Obama has said he wants to press ahead with a $55 billion nuclear bailout guarantee that would put you on the hook for financing this dirty and dangerous source of energy.

Friends of the Earth has been leading the fight against new nuclear reactors in the Southeast -- and has been instrumental in stopping wasteful handouts to the nuclear industry. 

We have better alternatives. It's time to move into the 21st century with truly safe and renewable energy sources. Tell your congresspeople right now, America does not want nuclear power.

Really Dennis, instead of boring us with your cut and pastes why don't you just supply us with a link and we can look them up if we are interested.

At least you could give credit to the real authors of the articles. You know, instead of the probable copyright infringements....

Keep reading Sarge......From Ohio PIRG.....

The U.S. government just urged Americans within 50 miles of the stricken nuclear plant in Japan to evacuate. It's the same warning, they say, that would be issued in a comparable situation here in the United States.

The 50-mile evacuation warning came after the U.S. reviewed radiation levels, concluding that radiation levels were "extremely high," higher than Japanese officials were stating.

What if a comparable situation did take place here?  Across the country, more than 108 million Americans, including more than 4 million people in Ohio, live within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant. (including the Mahoning Valley)

That is a risk that is too big to take. For example, if a situation comparable to the Fukushima disaster happened at the Perry nuclear plant near Cleveland, that would force more than 2 million people to evacuate the area.

In spite of this, the president and others in his administration continue to renew their support for nuclear energy.

The events at Fukushima suggest that, if anything, we may have underestimated the dangers of nuclear power. Instead of responding to this crisis by staying the course, the president should at least ask the tough questions about the dangers of our existing nuclear plants here at home. Too many of those concerns have been downplayed for too long. The tragedy in Japan should be the event that gets us to finally address these important concerns about our safety.

Quote from: irishbobcat on March 19, 2011, 07:01:39 PM
Keep reading Sarge......From Ohio PIRG.....

The U.S. government just urged Americans within 50 miles of the stricken nuclear plant in Japan to evacuate. It's the same warning, they say, that would be issued in a comparable situation here in the United States.

The 50-mile evacuation warning came after the U.S. reviewed radiation levels, concluding that radiation levels were "extremely high," higher than Japanese officials were stating.

What if a comparable situation did take place here?  Across the country, more than 108 million Americans, including more than 4 million people in Ohio, live within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant. (including the Mahoning Valley)

That is a risk that is too big to take. For example, if a situation comparable to the Fukushima disaster happened at the Perry nuclear plant near Cleveland, that would force more than 2 million people to evacuate the area.

In spite of this, the president and others in his administration continue to renew their support for nuclear energy.

The events at Fukushima suggest that, if anything, we may have underestimated the dangers of nuclear power. Instead of responding to this crisis by staying the course, the president should at least ask the tough questions about the dangers of our existing nuclear plants here at home. Too many of those concerns have been downplayed for too long. The tragedy in Japan should be the event that gets us to finally address these important concerns about our safety.

Really? So the Perry plant is in danger of a 9.0 earthquake and a tsunami? Now that is news. the rest of this is at least 2 days old.....

The fact is a problem such as a terrorist attack on the Perry plant could result in as much of a danger as an earthquake.....
what army were you in again, Sarge?

Dennis, there is no reason to insult the Sarge, he sacrificed for us, he deserves a little bit more respect.  What sacrifice have you made?

I put up with your garbage, shrimpy.....that's worth at least two wars.....

It makes me laugh to see every other day how insignificant of a life you have, what a waste, aren't you sad that your existence is just an obscure post on a screen wherein most of the forum make fun of you?  Dennis, people are not laughing with you, they laugh at you.

Trust me Shrimp, more people laugh at you.....

they also laugh at your refusal to pay property taxes.....

they also laugh at you chopping down other people's trees illegally in boardman and Youngstown.....

they also laugh at your muddy, dirty, shrimp ponds......

when will you get a life, little man?

The views expressed in the following article may or may not express the views of the poster who may or may not agree with the contents of the article, the writer or the publication.

Nuclear POWER PLANTS — ARE WE IN DANGER?
http://www.vindy.com/news/2011/mar/20/by-karl-henkel/

If Nuke Power Plants are so safe, why does the East Liverpool, Ohio phone book devote 5-10 pages on
emergency information on what to do in case of a nuke accident?

The pages also include what emergency road exits residents should take out of East Liverpool in case of an
accident.....


Doesn't sound safe to me......

Quote from: irishbobcat on March 19, 2011, 08:20:52 PM
The fact is a problem such as a terrorist attack on the Perry plant could result in as much of a danger as an earthquake.....
what army were you in again, Sarge?

I was in the Army that makes sure you have the freedom to speak your rubbish in public.

And that's Sergeant to you.

Listen Sarge, it's not rubbish...it's called the truth......and you can't handle it.....

FUKUSHIMA, Japan -- An unexpected spike in pressure inside a troubled reactor set back efforts to bring Japan's overheating, leaking nuclear complex under control Sunday as concerns grew that as-yet minor contamination of food and water is spreading.

The pressure increase raised the possibility that plant operators may need to deliberately release radioactive gas, erasing some progress in a nuclear crisis as the government continued its halting response to a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami that savaged northeast Japan on March 11.

Trust me, at least 90%of your cut and pastes are rubbish.

Trust me Sarge, your posts are nothing but garbage as well......

From you I'll take that as a compliment.

WASHINGTON, DC -- US Green Party leaders urged a moratorium on nuclear power plants and cancellation of license renewals for 23 General Electric reactors in the US that have the same design as reactors in Japan.

Greens also called for a close monitoring by US agencies of radiation levels throughout the Pacific and along the west coast, with accurate information published about any radioactivity discovered in these areas, especially in farm produce and other food supplies. In the event of radioactive emissions from Japanese nuclear power plants damaged by the tsunami, Greens said President Obama must authorize public health agencies to make potassium iodide pills and filtering masks available for young people in Hawaii, Alaska, and the west coast of the contiguous states.

"After the Chernobyl disaster, cancer rates spiked in the Soviet Union and Europe when the radioactive plume from a nuclear reactor meltdown spread thousands of miles. Potassium iodide pills protect people from cancerous radiation and they're not expensive. If there is any hint of a threat to our children, this is a step worth taking," said Audrey Clement, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States.

According to the book "Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment," published by the New York Academy of Sciences in 2010, the Chernobyl radiation affected the entire northern hemisphere (http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2010/2010-04-26-01.html).

"The Fukushima power plant catastrophe should deflate the myth that nuclear energy is a safe, clean alternative to fossil fuels. In February 2010, President Obama announced a $5.4 billion loan -- really a subsidy -- for a nuclear plant in Burke County, Georgia, with taxpayers assuming 80% of the financial risk. Nuclear power plants are so expensive and inherently dangerous that private companies won't invest in them, so the nuclear industry forces the public to foot the bill and to guarantee their profits. We need a permanent moratorium on nuclear power plants and a deactivation of nuclear plants near earthquake faultlines and other unstable areas in the US and eventual decommissioning of all such facilities," said Michael Canney, co-chair of the Green Party of Florida, who has led efforts to stop a proposed new nuclear plant in Levy County, Florida (http://gp.org/greenpages-blog/?p=2143).

Greens noted further that insurance companies have acknowledged the dangers posed by nuclear power plants, including vulnerability to natural disaster and sabotage, and have been exempted from insuring such plants under the Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act. Hundreds of spent fuel pools across the US remain a serious danger to public health.

On Sunday, March 13, the US Green Party's International Committee (http://www.gp.org/committees/intl) sent a message of condolence and solidary to the Green Party of Japan. The message was addressed to Japanese Green leaders Shuji Imamoto and Satoko Watanabe and signed by International Committee co-chairs Marian Douglas-Ungaro and Justine McCabe and US representatives to the Global Green Network (Romi Elnagar, John Rensenbrink, and Bahram Zandi):

"On behalf of the Green Party of the United States, we extend our deepest sympathies and concern to the victims of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear power plant disaster in Japan. With great sorrow, we also acknowledge that Japanese Greens' warning against the dangers of nuclear power has now become a reality. We stand ready to aid our fellow Green Party members and the people of Japan in whatever way we can." (http://www.gp.org/committees/intl/statement-on-japan.html)

I am told that more people have died from wind power than nuclear power.

Quote from: Dan Moadus on March 20, 2011, 06:46:49 PM
I am told that more people have died from wind power than nuclear power.

I hadn't heard that, but I can bet birds have..... Not that I care about a few birds..... But the greenies might... Unless of course it interferes with their dream.

NO NUKES!!!!!!!!!

Germany suspends extensions for nuke power......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOMqZaUNNlU

Ohio's 2 nuclear plants face critics of safety
Critics cite Japan, Ohio's past flaws
Monday, March 21, 2011  03:05 AM
By Spencer Hunt

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
A little more than a year ago, power-industry officials promoted a new generation of nuclear reactors as a clean source of electricity that wouldn't contribute to climate change.

That was then. Today, as Japan's nuclear crisis grows, so has criticism of the United States' proposed "nuclear renaissance."

The nation's 104 nuclear-power stations, including two in Ohio, face more scrutiny and federal inspections.

Officials with Akron-based FirstEnergy said their Davis-Besse and Perry stations along Lake Erie are safe and secure.

"We will be reviewing our procedures, policies and seismic equipment to ensure that the plants will stay in a safe condition during an earthquake," said Todd Schneider, a FirstEnergy spokesman.

At the same time, officials of Cincinnati-based Duke Energy say they still plan to build Ohio's third plant, near Piketon in southern Ohio.

Critics are quick to bring up a string of safety issues that have plagued the Davis-Besse and Perry plants, and they contend that the crisis in Japan illustrates the danger of nuclear power.

"You cannot plan for every contingency," said Johanna Neumann, a safe-energy advocate with the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

In recent years, nuclear-power plants have been praised by some groups as a "green" power option because they emit no carbon dioxide, a key gas linked to climate change.

In 2007, when the No. 1 reactor at Browns Ferry near Athens, Ala., began producing electricity again after a 22-year shutdown, it was the first reactor to go online in the United States since 1996. The Energy Department estimated that as many as 50 new reactors might be needed by 2030.

Clean, however, is a relative term. Nuclear plants produce more than 2,200 tons of radioactive waste each year, including plutonium 239, which has a half-life of 24,000 years.

There is no one repository to put the waste. Plans for a permanent storage site under Yucca Mountain in Nevada have been stalled for years.

Schneider said spent fuel rods from reactors are stored in deep pools of water at Davis-Besse and Perry. Both pools are in concrete buildings "in the most-protected areas of the plants," Schneider said.

Davis-Besse also stores some of its spent rods in thick concrete "casks." Schneider said FirstEnergy will put rods in casks at Perry in 2013 after the water storage is full.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission ordered a shutdown at Davis-Besse in 2002 after inspectors found that acid had nearly eaten through a 6-inch steel cap on its reactor vessel. The plant reopened in 2004 after repairs.

Subsequent inspections of the replacement cap found signs of cracking in 24 of its 69 nozzles. Schneider said a third replacement cap will be installed in October.

The Perry plant was shut down in December 2004 and January 2005 after NRC inspections revealed problems with pumps that circulate coolant through the reactor's core.

Duke Energy spokeswoman Sally Thelen said it's too early to tell whether the crisis in Japan will create problems for its proposal to build a nuclear plant near Piketon. Company and state officials announced the project in June 2009.

Thelen said the application process is slow, and the company hopes to open the plant by 2024.