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And please remember, that it is the tsunami that has caused most of the damage to the nuclear units in Japan, and not the earthquake.
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Our nuclear plants are not located in the same proximity to the ocean as Japan’s, so we can eliminate the tsunami effect . . .
Yeah, but if the Cowans Ford Dam ever failed, all of the water in Lake Norman would flood downstream into Lake Wylie, and there's your tsunami at the Catawba nuke plant.
There has been quite a bit of hysteria among some major media outlets in the past few days regarding the potential dangers of nuclear power. Some have even suggested that the benefits of nuclear energy do not outweigh its potential dangers to human life.
The dangers of nuclear power, while serious, need to be put in perspective.
Here's an interesting fact you won't be hearing from the mainstream press: wind energy has killed more Americans than nuclear energy.
You read that right. According to the Caithness Windfarm Information Forum, there were 35 fatalities associated with wind turbines in the United States from 1970 through 2010. Nuclear energy, by contrast, did not kill a single American in that time.
The meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979 did not kill or injure anyone, since the power plant's cement containment apparatus did its job - the safety measures put in place were effective.
Damage in Japan was tsunami knocking out the power. A hurricane, tornado,ice snow storms etc could the same happen here. Back up power last shorter than what we have in Japan. I would like to know if we are able to have alternatives for when the power is off for a considerable time.
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2000: Gov’t study (Sandia National Labs) finds one “dire if unlikely scenario” is more likely for McGuire than for other plants because it was more prone to power losses. NRC and Duke dispute the findings
The big problem at Fukushima is the storage of the spent fuel rods. When these assemblies are pulled from the reactor during refueling, they are still hot enough to melt, highly radioactive, and have to spend a decade or more in water pools to cool down enough to move to long term storage. They will be highly radioactive for 1000s of years. They have to have a constant pool of water circulated around them or they can melt down just like the reactor. It can be worse than a reactor meltdown because of the number of rods stored in these pools. They are not stored in containment domes. This is the very problem at the Fukushima plant in Japan. It's believed a great deal of the radiation is actually coming from the spent rod assembly pools, which have lost cooling water, instead of the actual reactors. The hydrogen explosions have blown the tops off the lightly built structures around these storage facilities which are now exposed to the environment.
In the USA there is a continuing controversy as to where the rods will be entombed for long term storage. (1000s of years) No state wants them and lawsuits have delayed where they will end up. Furthermore, power companies in the last decade or so have started to use re-processed weapons grade plutonium from retired nuclear bombs.
Not much information is available about this but here is an article that Creative Loafing wrote a few years ago (2005) about about the situation in Charlotte. Surrounded by Nukes | Charlotte | News | Cover
Clearly the answer is to blast them into outer space!
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The dangers of nuclear power, while serious, need to be put in perspective.
Here's an interesting fact you won't be hearing from the mainstream press: wind energy has killed more Americans than nuclear energy.
You read that right. According to the Caithness Windfarm Information Forum, there were 35 fatalities associated with wind turbines in the United States from 1970 through 2010. Nuclear energy, by contrast, did not kill a single American in that time.
I don't think this puts it into perspective because these are not comparable. Accidents with wind power don't have the potential to render a vast area inhabitable for 100s of years as it did with Chernobyl and spew out radiation which can cause cancers and tumors years after the accident. People don't go into panics if a propeller falls off a tower.
Nuclear energy has to be 100% perfect because the consequences of anything less are simply unimaginable. TMI didn't cause any deaths but it did cause widespread panic, even as far away as here in Charlotte, and it took a visit to the plant by then President Jimmy Carter to calm things down. (he was a nuclear engineer in the navy) Chernobyl did cause many 1000s of deaths and rendered a city and a vast area of the Ukraine uninhabitable for 100s of years to come. The present crisis in Fukisawa may have similar consequences.
All of these accidents happened not because of defects in design, but in failures of management to operate the plants correctly, simple complacency and not anticipating potential problems. It was these concerns that ended nuclear plant construction in the USA more than 20 years ago. I've watched with somewhat amusement at attempts (not you) to re-spin nuke plants as "green" energy for the future. Now that the current generation has been reminded how dangerous these plants can be, maybe they won't be so quick to jump on it again.
Last edited by yantosh22; 03-17-2011 at 05:08 PM..
I don't doubt their safety but I wish we could use more renewable sources for our power needs. I don't like the fact how much waste the plants leave (spent fuel rods) and the danger they can pose if damaged in other areas that they may not be as well maintained. ie Japan
The current designs, including the new generation are dinosaurs. They can be made much safer and more economical. The older plants are more robust than the next generation. They didn't have the design tools they have these days so they ended up over designing just about everything. That's why the japan plant, designed for a 7.9, took a 9.0...a quake that was 10x stronger than it was designed for....
The take away from Japan is how accurately can you establish a design basis....
Yeah, but if the Cowans Ford Dam ever failed, all of the water in Lake Norman would flood downstream into Lake Wylie, and there's your tsunami at the Catawba nuke plant.
That's more the concern I'd have is that the *dam* would fail, not the plant itself, during a earthquake of significance. If that happened, the lake drained, what cools the rods at that point?
I know these are events that are very unlikely to happen but events do happen. I'm not sure why they'd build a nuclear plant on the coast in the most seismic area of the world where tsunamis are a threat, but they did.
I do not think Japan has any other option for power- no coal, no oil unlike usa.
We do have nuclear power plant on a fault line, Charleston, S.C but good news is it not setup like the one in japan
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The pressurized system uses natural water flow instead of electrically driven flow and keeps the turbine-driving steam separate from the reactor itself, unlike the boiling water-driven turbines of the Japanese plants.
Thanks Davis! Yeah Duke!!!! As I said I am only a few miles away from one and I have not given it a second thought. I know Duke is great - thanks again for great energy that is SAFE
Does anyone think Duke would advertise a boo-boo should one happen? Buy yer iodine pills....
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