The Indian Point Energy Center is seen from across the Hudson River
Posted on 03/16/2011 1:28:09 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Could it happen here? That's the question on everyone's mind as we watch the nuclear emergency unfold at Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. As it turns out, the U.S. government has long been asking the same question.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently provided MSNBC with an updated list of the American plants most at risk of core damage (which can lead to meltdowns and radiation release) in the event of an earthquake. What parts of the country are most at risk? You may be surprised.
Most people would assume California plants, built around the turbulent San Andreas fault line, might be in the most dangerous position. Actually, the most at-risk plant isn't even on the West Coast - it's on the Indian Point Energy Center Hudson River.
Indian Point, located in Buchanan, N.Y., has the highest risk of core damage in the event of an earthquake, according to NRC estimates reported by MSNBC. At a 1 in 10,000 chance of core breach, that's right on the verge of what the NRC calls "immediate concern regarding adequate protection."
The East Coast comes off much worse than other parts of the country. The second plant on the list is Pilgrim 1 in Massachusetts. Number three is in Pennsylvania. The only West Coast plant is Diablo Canyon in California at number nine.
What explains it?
The government's list considered how close the plants were to major fault lines and how well they were designed to handle an earthquake. Back in the 1960s and 70s, when most of the plants were built, the government knew about earthquake risks on the West Coast. Those plants were designed to withstand them. But new surveying technology revealed fault lines in the central and eastern states where plants were not designed for serious stresses of a large quake.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Of course it is.
when a 9.0 earthquake sends a 30 foot tsunami 24 miles up the hudson and wipes out all the electric power and water lines.... it could happen
yesirree, really, it could happen
This is insane. Nuclear is dirty, oil is dirty, coal is dirty. The US will be freezing in the dark in a few years.
Diablo Canyon is built to withstand a 7.5 and tsunamis, I think beyond 20 feet high. Far beyond what the underlying faults can produce. My wife has worked inside that plant, and she says it is extremely well guarded inside and out by guards with automatic weapons.
>My wife has worked inside that plant, and she says it is extremely well guarded inside and out by guards with automatic weapons.<
.
Hopefully none of the guards take time out 5 times per day to moon the sky.
Well, it looks like Mario Cuomo and company’s fear about nuclear contamination might have been right after all.
Most of you probably don’t remember or even know about the Shoreham Nuclear Plant that was built and mothballed in Long Island about 30 years ago ( I am a Long Islander so I should know ).
Long Island Lighting Company (LILCO) shareholders approved a deal between then-Gov. Mario Cuomo and the utility’s leadership to close the plant before it went into commercial operation, making it the first nuclear power plant in the nation to be decommissioned, and the first to be closed before being fully powered up.
Also, 30 years ago this month, more than 600 anti-nuclear power protestors were arrested as they scaled the fence at the plant’s east gate on North Country Road, in a local movement that first introduced us to some of our current leading environmentalists. But with so much time having passed, the saga has been largely forgotten.
Now all eyes are on the Indian Point Nuclear plant, whcih supplies close to a quarter of the power of New York City and suburbs.
We don’t even need an earthquake ( NY isn’t on the earthquake belt as far as I know ), all we need are two or three jumbo jets slamming head on to the nuclear plant like they did the World Trade Center.
Sure, it could happen. I just find it...amusing...that these studies almost always seem to conclude something in or near NYC or LA.
Well, then, all you Long Islanders just get about unplugging all your electrical stuff, and Manhattan too while your at it. Sit in the dark, maybe use windmills. Closing Shoreham was an atrocity.
yep you are right Shoreham had design and construction flaw and the NRC told them to fix them....it cost more to fix the flaws....union built
My fear is that if the NY plant goes haywire, all of those libs are gonna scurry like rats into real America and further the spread of their ideology.
maybe they ought to be looking at sites in Arkansas and Tennessee
http://energyfromthorium.com/tag/molten-salt/
Not a fat chance, you wish.....just sayin
Umm, I think you misunderstood. I think the hysteria is insane. I don’t think energy is dirty. What I meant was that if the hysteria continues and the enviros get their way, the US will be freezing in the dark. I’m not happy about that. It is crazy.
Actually, there IS a fault line in NYC; it’s called the 125th Street Fault. Apparently, it last went off in 1884, causing a 5.2 (more or less, of course). The website is: http://www.nyc24.org/2006/issue2/story03/index.html
A quick and interesting read. As for tsunamis, well, you just better hope that there’s never a run-out landslide from the Canary Islands; here’s a little excerpt from the good folks at Wikipedia:
Geologists S. Day and S. Ward consider that a megatsunami could be generated during a future eruption involving the Cumbre Vieja on the volcanic ocean island of La Palma, in the Canary Islands.
In 1949, the Cumbre Vieja volcano erupted at its Duraznero, Hoyo Negro and San Juan vents. During this eruption, an earthquake with an epicentre near the village of Jedy occurred. The following day Rubio Bonelli, a local geologist, visited the summit area and discovered that a fissure about 2.5 km long had opened on the eastern side of the summit. As a result, the western half of the Cumbre Vieja (which is the volcanically active arm of a triple-armed rift) had slipped about 2 m downwards and 1 m westwards towards the Atlantic Ocean.
The Cumbre Vieja volcano is currently in a dormant stage, but will almost certainly erupt again in the future. Day and Ward hypothesize that if such an eruption causes the western flank to fail, a megatsunami will be generated.
La Palma is currently the most volcanically active island in the Canary Islands Archipelago. It is likely that several eruptions would be required before failure would occur on Cumbre Vieja.[12][13] However, the western half of the volcano has an approximate volume of 500 km3 (5 x 1011 m3) and an estimated mass of 1.5 x 1015 kg. If it were to catastrophically slide into the ocean, it could generate a wave with an initial height of about 1,000 metres (3,281 ft) at the island, and a likely height of around 50 metres (164 ft) at the Caribbean and the Eastern North American seaboard when it runs ashore eight or more hours later. Tens of millions of lives would be lost as New York, Boston, Baltimore, Washington D.C., Miami, Havana, and many other cities near the Atlantic coast are leveled. The likelihood of this happening is a matter of vigorous debate.
The last Cumbre Vieja eruption occurred in 1971 at the southern end of the sub-aerial section without any movement. The section affected by the 1949 eruption is currently stationary and does not appear to have moved since the initial rupture.
Geologists and volcanologists also disagree about whether an eruption on the Cumbre Vieja would cause a single large gravitational landslide or a series of smaller landslides. (Source; wikipedia.org, under “megatsunamis”.
Just sayin’.
The guards are there because of the constant protests by whacky liberal environmentalists, these whackos would love to sabotage the plant.
I remember Shoreham.
The MSM ramped up the people until they were terrified of the thing. Lilco warned we wouldn’t like the consequences. For one, any time a plant like that is in the neighborhood its taxes practially pay for everything.
But the “people” got their way. I will say I didn’t think it was a great idea to have it on an island as populated as LI. If you get on the parkway at 4 in the afternoon, you are probably going to take a very long time to get anywhere.
There is a gaseous diffusion plant in Paducah KY. When the New Madrid finally ruptures it will crack the Kentucky Lake dam and destroy everything in Paducah.
TVA had a couple of reactors on the Tennessee River that made it easy for us to find fish...just follow the glowing bass. They cleaned up the leakages around 1981.
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