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The report comes as concerns are rising over the safety of America's aging nuclear infrastructure after the catastrophic failure of the containment system at the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi plant in the Japanene earthquake. A similar containment system is used at about two dozen U.S, plants.
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The federal government's nuclear watchdog has faulted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for failing to follow through on safety agreements with nuclear facilities, saying its system for tracking corrective action raises questions about its oversight of nuclear safety and security.
After an eight-month audit, the NRC's Office of Inspector General concluded last week that the commission has no centralized way to oversee or follow up on documents confirming that a nuclear facility has committed itself to address "significant concerns regarding health and safety, the environment, safeguards or security."
The documents — known as Confirmatory Action Letters, or CALs — are one of the last measures before the NRC cracks down with a stringent binding order like suspension or revocation of a nuclear plant's license.
Because CALs are reserved for a small number of potentially serious cases — 15 to 20 of the hundreds of incident reports the NRC issues each year, according to its records — effective oversight of the confirmation process is of "utmost importance," the inspector general said. But in some cases, the action letters are so poorly drafted that they don't even make it clear who the intended recipients are, the report asserts.
Read the full inspector general's report (.pdf)
Bureaucracy to blame
The problem is one of red tape, not willful inaction or neglect, the report says. But the weaknesses — which include lack of consistent guidelines for regional NRC offices, regional offices' failure to comply with those guidelines and some offices' lack of any tracking system whatsoever — "degrade" the agency's accountability, it says.
A spokesman for the NRC said the agency believes "the CAL process has been effective" and that it would have a formal reply "in the near future." In an informal meeting last month, the NRC generally agreed with the inspector general's recommendations to update its main enforcement manual, centralize tracking and submit to occasional audits of the action letter system, the report said.
If the NRC is to do that, it won't be with added staff or much new money. In its fiscal 2013 budget request, the agency notes that it's asking for about $128 million less $15 million more than it got last year, a 1.4 percent increase, including what it called a "cost-conscious" reduction of 25 jobs.
And those cuts are coming as concerns are rising over the safety of America's aging nuclear infrastructure.
Until last week, the NRC hadn't licensed any new reactors for more than 30 years. Consequently, many of the nation's 104 nuclear plants are operating under licenses that the NRC has extended for up to 20 years beyond their original 40-year lifespans.
Nuclear renaissance? US OKs new reactor design
NRC panel: Bullying nuke chief damages agency
The need to keep those creaky plants running means many safety problems arise "because reactor owners, and often the NRC, tolerate known safety problems," the Union of Concerned Scientists — a nonprofit science watchdog at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — warned last year (.pdf).
About two dozen of those plants use the same containment system as the one that failed when a powerful earthquake and tsunami breached the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Station in Japan, msnbc.com reported last year.
(The containment system is manufactured by General Electric Co., which is a parent company of msnbc.com through its 49 percent stake in NBCUniversal.)
To date, the NRC has never rejected an application for a license extension.
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Just wait until we have a serious problem at a site and the finger pointing will be dizzying to watch.
Guess the bureaucracy is just too much to do anything to PREVENT a problem in the first place.
At least some can say "Well we tried to do something but the rules wouldn't allow it."
Sounds pretty damn weak to me!
Bureaucracy is what is screwing things up in the first place. Nobody had the balls to say, "Hey, we need new plants built, and we can't afford to screw around on the matter." Everyone was worried about re-election. The original reactor design was meant to have a nominal lifetime of about 40-50 years, and technology has advanced much further than that over the years. The "newest" reactor in the United States was finished in the 70's... that means that the youngest plant we have is at the end of its intended lifetime. Now we look at the plants built in the 50's and 60's... see where I'm going with this?
If we would stand by the designed operational parameters, and not screw around with "lease renewals" for obsolete plants because nobody's got the balls to say what needs to be said, blaming the technology for failing is foolish.
Here's a little analogy, and it's not too far off -- suppose you had a Ford F150 from 1994. Suppose you drove it for 24 hours a day, every day, up and down mountains and across rough terrain. Would you expect it to run perfectly now, 18 years later?
Matt, Gen i and II reactors were actually meant to have a 25 year life span, not 45 to 50. Right not better then 80% of our reactors are running over capacity while being at least half a decade past their decommission date. It is only a matter of time before one of them breaks down, and not in a good way either.
As for who to blame when it does happen, anyone that said no to building a new plant for all of these years; it will be their fault that the event takes place.
Matt, the problem is you have to argue with people that dont know how a flashlight works, let alone a nuke plant...................
What a lie. If operators would pay as much attention to consumer and worker safety as they do the shareholders, there would be no need for a watchdog agency. While they speak of safety problems, they issue a license this week for a new reactor this week in Georgia.
The Ford pick-up truck analogy is not a good one. Equipment and infrastructure are replaced as needed at nuclear plants. The only thing that can't be replaced is the reactor vessel and that is monitored by surveillance capsules. Nukes have to get their operating license replaced every 10 years. A 20-30 year old nuke plant is nothing like an 18 year old truck being driven 24 hours a day on harsh terrain. A better analogy is a pick-up truck running 24 hours a day but it is constantly being serviced and parts replaced before they wear out. That truck could run indefinitely and so can a nuke plant until there are signs the reactor vessel is aging too much.
I understood the point Matt was trying to make....................Roodles, you actually made it even better.
Thank you Roodles, that is very true. But we do still need to work on getting more efficient and safe power plants. I wouldn't say it's a right here, right now issue though.
The reason why there were no new reactors built is because they are extremely expensive and as someone once stated no insurance company will provide insurance for it. Thus the new reactor that is to be built will be financed by a great degree by us the people and insured by us the people, who will still also continue to pay the increased/high cost of electricity with the deregulation that is in place.
What was amusingly amazing was the statement about the regulatory agency lowering it budget and laying off 25 people as if that was a great thing, when they can't even keep up with their paperwork/ doccumentation and inspections already....LOL I suppose they cut their budget instead of waiting for the 'no govt, no regulation, no oversight' folks to do it....with imput from the various companies who may be impacted by stricter oversight..
Not all downsizing or defunding of government agencies are good moves..... especially when it comes to oversight of nuclear reactors or the services of NOAA, EPA etc... LOL
A loud warning bell is ringing. This is one of the safest non-fossil fuel energy sources available. It is because of a strong NRC. Additional regulation is now necessary to continue this safety record. Please do not support any "deregulation candidate" unless he is very clear to do otherwise with nuclear power.
I may be a total non nuclear science type, but don't they make really easy to use Project Manager type software to track things. Some of the problem would be easy and inexpensive to fix...........
Oh wow, ok bold guy... Sheesh. You really think you're opinion is really so much important that you have to do that? My gosh. That government agency obviously wasn't doing their job. And frankly, speaking first hand, they probably couldn't due to the red tape fiasco.
However, what do you propose? I see lots of criticism but nothing helpful. If you want to complain about it, maybe do something positive and come up with a better way? Lots of complainers, very few fixers. Could always use more.
So, what do we do with the waste?? HA HA..."electric cars" what a joke. Oil is safer and available for at least the next 100 years.
Not that it will do any good....it is completely ignorant and arrogant to build nuclear power plants when we cannot control all factors. We cannot control the weather or earthquakes anymore than the Japanese could, not to mention human error. The wealthy don't care because they can move away, the politicians can also...it's the average person(s) and poor who will suffer.
If every home was equipped with a geothermal heating & cooling system, solar panels and/or wind turbines we could cut our energy needs, however since the greedy corporations can't make as much money off us, the government ignores this option. The government could also require new high rise office buildings and apartments be energy efficient and install solar panels or wind turbines on top, but oops where would the rich land their helicopters?
The government will not offer any kind of low interest loans (not grants) to enable the average homeowner to make these kinds of improvements, opting instead to back nuclear plants that will cost in the billions or even trillions, which they will force us to pay for and STILL raise our utility costs!
"Beaurocracy to blame." Oh, say it isn't so.
Roodles,
A little thing called cycle life determines the life of ALL metal objects. Once the truck or Nuclear pressure vessel reaches this they will FAIL...
You can replace ALL the parts of the system, but the Pressure Vessel determines the over-all life of a PW system...
BTY - If you count only the REPORTED nuclear power facilities that have experienced core-meltdowns and the number of power plants ever constructed. The FAILURE rate is OVER 4+%, not counting the numerous incidents that have contaminated the environment and KILLED their operators/technicians...
France has a dozen or so decommissioned nuclear power plants. Germany is going to have a few dozen more during the next decade. The USA will have a hundred PLUS during the next decade.
And the WORLD does not have anywhere to place the tones of material that has become radioactive. Not counting the thousands of used fuel-rods, that can no longer be reprocessed...
we need to phase out the current generation of reactors and replace them with "passively safe" designs. passively safe designs can keep the core cool with no external pumps or power. the waste fuel rods can be addressed with pyroprocessing and reuse in fast burner breeder reactors. the pyroprocessing is far more efficient and can be done onsite with the reactors.
we also need to invest in solar, wind, geothermal energy, and in the shorter term start converting coal plants into natural gas burning plants. increased energy efficienvy is also needed.
nuclear is still going to be necessary for baseline industrial power generation, solar and wind simply do not have the continuous , steady power output needed for 24/7 power, but heavy investment will dramatically reduce the need for peak power generation and reduce the need for extra , large power plants
Yeah a tsunami could hit the nukes in the midwest any day now. Comparing this to Fukushima is a disgrace. Shame on you BSNBC.
Maybe you wish to look at the map of nuclear plants that are in costal areas. 22 reactors
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NRC_regions_and_plant_locations_2008.jpg
AND, how many are near fault zones/lines?????
Fault zones smault zones, as long as we emulate Indonesia in all things, we will become the Obama Dream.
"[President Obama] praised Indonesia - the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation - for a "spirit of tolerance that is written into your constitution, symbolized in your mosques and churches and temples, and embodied in your people," a quality worthy for all the world to emulate."
Wilson, S. (Nov. 10, 2010) "Obama praises Indonesia's 'spirit of tolerance' as a model" retrieved Feb. 10,
2012 from
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/09/AR2010110906579.html?wprss=rss_print
It doesn't matter what hits the plant-tsunami or human error, the devastation is the same. Nuclear is only "safe" until something happens and then cancer rates soar, land becomes inhabitable, the waste problem.....the list goes on....any one who favors nuclear is a gambler...gambling with our heath and prosperity.....with population only INCREASING, we cannot afford to risk loosing more land... A better way to go would be the solar, wind and geo-thermal route!
lilan,
so you are saying that tolerance is not a quality that everyone should have? That is what Obama said. Lisa, solar and wind are the next step but those are decades away from being viable at a national level. Panels are still too costly and too inefficient. Maybe in another five years we still start to see smaller, high powered cells that can convert UV rays either with 100% efficiency or maybe higher. Even then it could take another five years to a decade to fully integrate solar into the power grid and for the technology to grow enough to support a city on its own.
There are something like 900 reactors operating world wide and we only have had three major incidents during the entire history of nuclear energy. True those events were horrific, but it is not like one small 4.0 earth quake is going to make a reactor explode; they are built much stronger then that.
Plus we have no Generation III plants operating. Gen III is multitudes safer then Gen I and many times safer then Gen II. There are also the passive coolers and thorium reactors which cannot melt down under normal circumstances.
Right now and for at least the next decade, unless you want to buy 28% more oil and drive costs up another dollar at least, we have to rely on nuclear energy.
Funny in all the time the USA has used nuclear power we havent had a single death caused by a nuclear power plant.
http://www.atomicarchive.com/Reports/Japan/Accidents.shtml
Read about those American ones bro. You're full of sh!t.
I don't remember where, but a worker just fell into one last week.
And he was just fine..........................................seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Ranman87 is full of it. If you read that list there are no deaths there on a commercial US nuclear power plant. Those experimental reactors are all run by the DOE.
Well, it could happen, potentially, I'm not so familiar with the east coast, but the west coast could have earthquake issues. When I say potentially, I mean it. These things have survived a lot of major quakes, and a chance of a tsunami getting to them is pretty much nill... If a tsunami that big came I'd be more worried about SD, LA and SF than the damn powerplant. If it gets to that, it's already killed everyone it serviced... Good news is, our fault lines don't produce tsunamis towards us.
Had a guy take a swim at San Onofre over the weekend in the reactor pool, but apparently he was just after an indoor tan. Where in hell do you get your stats? No deaths from nuclear material ever in the US? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
In all fairness he said powerplant... Which by all measures I can't disprove yet... Hehe
WANO keeps pretty goods stats on Nuclear Power Plant safety.
I think what Kama's post meant to say is that there have been no deaths in the US Commercial Nuclear Power Plant fleet, which I am pretty sure is a true statement.
You people have to quite acting like an accident could never happen here. It can and it will eventually...just because it hasn't happen yet just means were lucky!!!
it is a true statement
Considering the doccumentation and record keeping and probable lack of reporting or downplaying of incidents...how can anyone be really really really sure?
Remember the employee that fell in the pool went back to work the same day..... fit as a fiddle. LOL
Peace.... evolve
DG.....Unfortunately, the East Coast have earthquake issues too. Plus with the fracking.....and possible man made earthquakes....
Oh well.... sink or swim or whatev..... LOL
Peace.....evolution....
But there aren't CMEs (Coronal Mass Ejections) that could cripple the power grid for months (not hours, not days, not weeks .... MONTHS!) are there? Becuase a direct hit from a CME could fry the system including vehicles like your electronics in your cars and then how you gonna keep all those reactor cores cool? Is there a plan for this? I haven't heard of one or seen one. Have you? Go ahead, just Google CMEs and the power grid. Nothing like watching hundreds of reactors melt down all at once...
I see you are an expert in nuclear power, Computer, so, if you haven't seen or heard of any, either you are completely uneducated in nuclear power(I am a Navy Nuc, so I am.) Many Civilian plants have back ups that are shielded against EMPs, so I would assume that a CME will not phase the generators. That and many plants have natural circulation systems built in.
No - I'm no expert - only know what I read (from experts):
From this article (I'm sure you should be working at NASA since you are obviously more of an expert):
'While many utilities have taken steps to fortify their grids, the overall situation has only gotten worse. A 2009 report by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) and the US Department of Energy concluded that modern power systems have a "significantly enhance[d] vulnerability and exposure to effects of a severe geomagnetic storm."'
Jim, why even try, its just going to piss you off.........................
Jim, tell them what you had to go through to even get into nuke school! Not easy!
computer geek: I think your quote is referring to our power grid, not a nuke plant. Two different things.
geek,
each reactor has a back-up generator, and that generator, has a back-up generator, each capable of providing power to run all the coolant pumps that supply water to the reactors. each generator is supplied by fuel thats kept in sealed/watertight underground tanks that can keep that generator running for weeks.
so in the event of a grid failure, those generators can keep the reactor cool for as long as they're being supplied with fuel, and they have a source of water, which is why they're all built near a lake of the ocean.
geek,
each reactor has a back-up generator, and that generator, has a back-up generator, each capable of providing power to run all the coolant pumps that supply water to the reactors. each generator is supplied by fuel thats kept in sealed/watertight underground tanks that can keep that generator running for weeks.
so in the event of a grid failure, those generators can keep the reactor cool for as long as they're being supplied with fuel, and they have a source of water, which is why they're all built near a lake of the ocean.
Is there a lake of the ocean?
naah, getting in was easy, getting through it was hard.
@Jim: I always love seeing the pseudo-scientific blowhards creeping in to voice their useless opinions, because they heard from someone that talked to someone that read an op-ed once about how nuclear power is bad. You can't get too bothered by these people, it's just kind of comical to watch them spout off their non-evidential claims.
-Site Y employee
I strongly agree, with the watch dog i would not believe ANYTHING the Nuc Management says or states.
The Japanese plants failed because they were hit by the fourth largest earthquake ever, and the 30m tsunami. Actually, the plant survived the earthquake with no problems. Everything went according to plan until the giant wall of water hit. Comparing this to Fukushima is just stupid. Stop with the nuclear fear-promoting propaganda!
When you build a nuclear plant on the coast in Japan, expect a tsunami. What people fear is not the engineering, but the political corruption that allows companies like TEPCO to continue avoid spending money on needed safety just to increase profits.
Hidden in the middle of the article is this statement:
Road Warrior nobody reads the articles, they see NUCLEAR and they run for the first stupid thing that pops into their head!
If only nuclear power plants were powered by Thorium, nearly all environmental and safety concerns would have been satisfied. The US - and therefore the world - went with Uranium based reactors because Nixon decided he wanted plutonium for nukes, and it's almost impossible to get plutonium from Thorium fueled reactors. And almost impossible to have a meltdown because thorium based reactors are walkaway safe (Los Alamos labs had one going for 6 years in the 60's and routinely shut off power to it to test the fail safe system). And Thorium fueled reactors only produce a fraction of the nuclear waste of uranium fueled reactors, with a much shorter half life.
Just wait a minute now. The nuke plants already started leaking radiation. Next thing you know one or more of them are going to be melting down.
"Shut the nukes down before they melt down!"
World Wide Doomsday Party 02/29/2012 Leap Day of Leap Year 2012. February 29th 2012
And if the world switched to thorium, there'd be no reason to deny countries access to nuclear technology (like Iran, for example). Because as it currently stands, the only reason for wanting nuclear power is to build bombs - electricity generation is just a nice by-product of the weapons manufacture. Thorium is power and power only. No bomb-making materials.
Whoa whoa whoa, now hold on a second. You understand how thorium reactors work, right? We would use them in conjunction with standard reactors, because thorium is a fertile, not fissile material. You need a source e.g. plutonium-239 to provide neutronic bombardment to transmute Th-232 into Th-233 which undergoes double beta decay in the form:
Th-232 + n -> Th-233 -> Pa-233 + b -> U-233 +b
You end up with uranium. U-233 is still a proliferation concern. It's a fissile uranium isotope, you make quite a lot of it, and it's exceptionally suitable for nuclear weapons. Maybe not as much as Pu-239, but it's still a concern.
This is called a thorium breeder reactor. Look up MSBR. I don't know who's been telling you what you think you know, but a little research goes a long way.
What is missing here is that we should ALL be impressed by the durability of systems that were designed to only last 25 to 40 years. Shows ALL of us that they were designed with 200% and greater safety margins. Name me one other complex system that is even close!!!
THREE MILE ISLAND. Plant BUILT 1968-1970, Started OPERATION 1974.
March 28, 1979 HAD THE WORST ACCIDENT IN U.S. COMMERCIAL NUCLEAR POWER PLANT HISTORY.
For those of you too young to remember or who ignore history-GOOGLE TMI ACCIDENT and get in touch with REALITY.
Plant Officials DOWNPLAYED the Seriousness of the accident.
Leaving our safety and health in the hands of some politicians & lobbyist is never a good idea! We must have watch dog groups to help protect us. This my opinion.
The Kooks are running the nukes. Shut them down be before they break down.
World Wide Doomsday Party on Leap Day of Leap Year 2012 February 29th 2012.
More nukes............................less kooks
Phil, you are right Thorium is much safer but you know government's like their by products of standard reactors and it would put a kink in profits of some mining concerns.makes you wonder who is funding who and for what.
Bring back Rickover to run the AEC, er I mean NRC.
I agree!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Can we do that in Indonesia too?
"[President Obama] praised Indonesia - the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation - for a
"spirit of tolerance that is written into your constitution, symbolized in your mosques and churches and temples, and embodied in your people," a quality worthy for all the world to emulate."
Wilson, S. (Nov. 10, 2010) "Obama praises Indonesia's 'spirit of tolerance' as a model" retrieved Feb. 10, 2012 from
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/09/AR2010110906579.html?wprss=rss_print
Lilian. We all agree that Indonesia is a fine country. I am not sure what that has to do with this discussion. While I understand your admiration for Indonesia, I think you should know they have many problems just like every other country.
lilian101 just has the raging hots for Obama, she always throws something completely irrelevant about him on a thread that has nothing to do with him to prove how much she really wants to get him in the sack
Project X better pan out or one day will regret letting the genie out of the box.
I also hope those neutrinos are really superluminal, that will certainly be a positive breakthrough for nuclear power.
i read a lot of the comments and they seem sane for the most part. i am not opposed to nuclear power but the recent japan event is a cautionary tale. the Japanese are not known to be unprepared or dumb but you would never know based on the nuclear accident events that happened their. if that happened in the USA we could very well lose new york, for example.
New York City is at risk but much of the state is safe.
Don't worry, if there is an accident, NRC will take full responsibility. It's the American way.
This is why the brand new Obama Nuclear plants need to be built in Obama land--Chicago or Honolulu, where they will have the most Obama impact. And remember Our Obama wants the whoie world to emulate the wonderousness of Indonesia. ("[President Obama] praised Indonesia - the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation - for a "spirit of tolerance that is written into your constitution, symbolized in your mosques and churches and temples, and embodied in your people," a quality worthy for all the world to emulate." Wilson, S. (Nov. 10, 2010) "Obama praises Indonesia's 'spirit of tolerance' as a model" retrieved Feb. 10, 2012 from
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/09/AR2010110906579.html?wprss=rss_print
Do you not like Indonesia? If that's not it then I do not see what point you are making. You have posted this like 4 times. Shut the hell up
wonderousness?
like I said, lilian has the raging hots for Obama, sorry sweetheart, the Pres isn't going to go for you no matter how much you cry.
Japan built a nuclear reactor on top of a fault line and next to the ocean. Japan did something dumb, you can't limit everyone else because of someone doing something dumb. It's like if a class has a popsicle stick art competition and everyone builds their sculpture on top of cardboard, but some kids builds his on paper. Then the desk moves and his tips over and spills glue on everyone elses. Should the competition be cancelled because of that one kid?
GE built the reactor after the USA took control of Japan. WW2 was before your time.
Tony Jazcko, chairman of the NRC, voted no on licensing the two new reactors, based on the failures at Fukushima. The other four commissioners voted hell yes!, give 'em a license - don't worry about trivial crap like nuclear waste that never dies! Someone else will have to deal with that (Nevada). Other than Mr. Jazcko, the NRC has its collective hands dug deep into the nuclear power industry pockets. Keep the waste in the same state that produced it.
It's Gregory Jaczko, btw. But maybe you know him personally and he goes by Tony and changed the spelling of his last name?
I wish they stop saying the Japanese plant failed. The entire complex survived a 9 earthquake and a 30 foot tsunami intact and undamaged. What failed was the back up generation system that was at sea level and not protected from a flood. The generators shorted out and all power to the plant was out. Of course the containment failed when the cooling system pumps were without power. The only thing that needs to be done with current and future plants is to make sure the backup power is as protected from failure as the containment buildings and ensure the power to the pumps are backed up with backups.
Guess we all were wrong and the reason for abandoning a 100 mile radius around the NOT-FAILED Power Plant was ordered because of the tsunami and NOT the radiation. We now stand corrected. Lucky break, it is ONLY a few thousand years and those alive can move back to their old comfortable homes. Their "experts"t like ours represent the industry and lokk oout oNLY for their interest.
You can"t talk to an anti-nuke. Their philosophy is "Give me the facts, so I can make an emotional decision!"
I talked to a woman on the Capital Square in Madison, WI about a week after the TMI event. "SOMEONE" had told her that the nuclear industry "used so much plastic." And she'd seen pics of Pres. Carter in the TMI control room with his plastic booties on (not that he really needed them). This really had her upset, even though she had no clue how much plastic the industry uses. Of course, she told me all this with a straight face while standing in front of a MacDonalds. Remember those yellow foam containers you used to get a Big Mac in? (The ones still sitting in a landfill because they NEVER degrade?) Of course, when I pointed this out to her, she just closed her mouth and walked away.
So don't even bother to mention that we've had 3 cores melt down in Japan and NO ONE IS DEAD because the containments did their job (maybe not as perfectly as one might like, but not bad considering they handled more than their design had intended.) The 20,000 to 25,000 (yes, that's THOUSANDS) of folks who ARE dead drowned in the tsunami. AND, I'd be willing to bet that within 5 years, people will be back living where the tsunami hit, and no anti-nuke will say one word about it. (If you disagree, just look at the idiots who rebuild along our Gulf coast after every hurricane. "But it's our HOME," they say.) If the Japanese were really concerned, they'd be moving out EVERYONE who lives within 100 ft of sea level on EVERY COAST IN JAPAN. But I guess a relatively high probablility of drowning in a tsunami is preferable to a tiny, tiny probability of dying due to a nuke plant. Facts vs emotion.
I think the only one emotional here is YOU!! Splitting the atom is a dangerous baby...given mankinds fantasies of being able to control his world.......I would still prefer energy options with less potential side effects that need "controlling".
THREE MILE ISLAND. Plant BUILT 1968-1970, Started OPERATION 1974.
March 28, 1979 HAD THE WORST ACCIDENT IN U.S. COMMERCIAL NUCLEAR POWER PLANT HISTORY.
For those of you too young to remember or who ignore history-GOOGLE TMI ACCIDENT and get in touch with REALITY.
Plant Officials DOWNPLAYED the Seriousness of the accident.
1 billion to clean up & 2.4 billion in property losses
An area the size of New Jersey is in need of decontamination because of the Fukushima plant. Much of that area will never be the same. Many areas where the tsunami hit will not be rebuilt. This is difficult because there is a shortage of habitable land in Japan. Nuke is wrong in many ways.
nuke,
and the psuedo "experts" ...lol...I'm also in the field, a quality specialist....I've worked up in your area, kewanne, nice area.
I'm so sick and tired of people using the disaster (a disaster that was avoided in the end, mind you) with the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant incident as a cause for concern. Nuclear power-plants are not 100% fail-proof, but neither are coal mines, rail-roads, gas plants, oil rigs or even hydro-electric plants.
The Fukushima Dai-ichi plant was struck by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake. How does a catastrophe like that measure up to every-day use in America with considerably fewer, serious natural disasters?
Betcha you live about a thousand miles from a "ThreeMile"-like facility. As far as deadly accidents, one ought not compare deaths caused by car accidents and airplane disasters. Same goes for coal and nuke comaparisons. Ask anybody what they would prefer? Once exposed to nuclear radiation, and I mean real large dose as could happen, it is asta la vista, NO HELP while one can move away with black lung and live for a long time. Or am I mistaken and you do have a small vegie garden next to those Nuke water-coolers. Sorry about that Dan :))
and lilian
Nope...no deaths ever, at a commercial nuke from a radilogical event...not even one !!!
but, its estimated that between 15,000 and 25,000 people a year die world wide from the use of fossil fuels,used to provide electricity. The US nuclear industry has a sterling safety record.
it just occurred to me, after reading all these posts, once you eliminate all the "psuedo experts", and conspiricy nuts, there's only about a half dozen posts even worth consideration.
just sayin'
Where are you getting that 15,000-20,000 figure...getting emotional-I mean desperate on here...anybody here remember Chernobyl???
lisa, do you know what "smog" is?
do you know what causes smog?
do you know what the effects of living in a smoggy area for a long period of time are?
franks numbers are quite accurate
maybe you should "give it up" until you get educated
Not counting the woman who was exposed with deadly radiation, came forward with her story, the "industry" denied it and actually killed her. Her overturned car was found in the dessert. There was a movie about is as I recall. One must NOT forget that people in the Regulatory Commission, (a govt. establishement) is staffed with former industry employees. Whose interest will they keep in sight? Industry's or the safety of the "We the people"?
Karen Silkwood. Played fantastically by Meryl Streep.