OT - Fall down on US Nuclear (Part 1)
- From: "Dirt At Your Face" <HandfulOfDirt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 10:58:19 +0800
FOR FEARLESS LEADER ONLY.
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http://www.commondreams.org/news2007/0718-14.htm
Concerns Rise Over Vulnerability of U.S. Atomic Facilities to Earthquakes After
World's Largest Nuclear Plant Damaged by Japanese Quake
MARYLAND - JULY 18- The extensive damage at a seven-reactor nuclear power plant
in Japan after an earthquake this week is stoking concern that U.S. reactors and
other nuclear facilities may also be vulnerable to releases of deadly
radioactivity into the environment due to earthquakes.
Tokyo Electric Power Company's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa atomic power plant, the
largest in the world in terms of electricity output, suffered 50 cases of
"malfunctioning and trouble" after a 6.7 tremor struck nearby two days ago.
Radioactively contaminated water, now calculated at more than 600 gallons,
leaked into the Pacific Ocean and an estimated 400 barrels containing
radioactive waste tipped over, with 10% of the lids falling off. Hazardous
radioactive isotopes, cobalt-60 and chromium-51, were emitted into the
atmosphere from an exhaust stack.
Concerns that a similar event could happen here are confirmed by an incident in
August 2004, when an earthquake in Illinois broke an underground pipe attached
to one of the Dresden nuclear power plant's radioactive waste condensate storage
tanks. The broken pipe was leaking tritium (a harmful, radioactive form of
hydrogen) into groundwater, creating an expanding underground plume of hazardous
radioactive contamination.
Several U.S. atomic reactors may be especially vulnerable to earthquakes. The
twin reactor Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant near San Luis Obispo, California
was already built before it was discovered that an earthquake fault line
associated with the infamous San Andreas Fault lay just offshore in the Pacific
Ocean.
Fires, such as the one that broke out in Japan, are also a legitimate U.S.
concern.
"Earthquakes are notorious for sparking fires, which could spell disaster at
U.S. nuclear power plants given that many are not in compliance with safety
regulations for fire protection and reactor shutdown systems," said Paul Gunter,
the nuclear industry watchdog at Beyond Nuclear, and an expert on nuclear plant
fire protection. "An earthquake-sparked inferno, or failure to safely shut down
a reactor, could lead to a meltdown, catastrophic release of radioactivity, and
deadly fallout hundreds of miles downwind and downstream," Gunter added.
A 1982 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) report, known as CRAC-2, shows
that a major accident at a U.S. atomic reactor could cause tens to hundreds of
thousands of radiation-related deaths and injuries, as well as hundreds of
billions of dollars of property damage.
Risks extend to the radioactive wastes stored on-site at U.S. reactors as well.
Environmental groups filed a federal lawsuit last month against the NRC for
failing to enforce its earthquake safety regulations for outdoor storage of
high-level radioactive wastes at the Palisades atomic reactor on the shores of
Lake Michigan. The lake supplies drinking water for Chicago and millions
downstream.
"An earthquake could bury the containers under sand causing the nuclear fuel
rods to overheat, or could even submerge them under the waters of Lake
Michigan," said Kevin Kamps, Radioactive Waste Watchdog at Beyond Nuclear.
"This could initiate a nuclear chain reaction in the wastes making emergency
response a suicide mission. In either case, it would amount to a radiological
disaster for Lake Michigan and the millions who depend on it for drinking
water."
Earthquake risks also plague the proposed Yucca Mountain, Nevada dumpsite for
commercial and military high-level radioactive wastes. Nearly three dozen
earthquake fault lines are in the vicinity, and two faults actually intersect
the proposed burial spot. Many hundreds of tremors larger than 2.5 on the
Richter scale have struck within 50 miles of Yucca Mountain since 1975. One
jolt, measuring 5.4 on the Richter scale, struck just ten miles from Yucca
Mountain in 1992, doing extensive damage to the U.S. Department of Energy's
field office at the site. Critics fear that a major earthquake at the dump site
could cause a radiological catastrophe by damaging waste handling surface
facilities planned for the site, or could cause tunnel collapses that would
breach waste burial containers, spilling their deadly contents into the drinking
water aquifer below.
"The risks of earthquakes alone are reason enough to stop the Yucca Mountain
dump proposal dead in its tracks right now," said Kamps.
###
The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Quake Chronology
Tokyo Electric Power Company's seven reactor Kashiwazaki-Kariwa atomic power
plant, the largest in the world in terms of electricity output, suffered 50
cases of "malfunctioning and trouble" after a 6.7 tremor struck nearby two days
ago. Radioactively contaminated water, at first estimated to be around 315
gallons but later raised by 50%, leaked into the Pacific Ocean. Barrels
containing radioactive waste tipped over, and 10% of their lids fell off; the
number of barrels was first estimated at 100, but later increased to 400.
Hazardous radioactive isotopes cobalt-60 and chromium-51 were emitted into the
atmosphere from an exhaust stack. The first sign of trouble was not an alert
issued by the company, but rather a column of black smoke pouring off a
transformer fire that took two hours to bring under control. The quake,
epi-centered on a previously unknown fault line just over five miles from the
nuclear plant, created forces 2.5 times stronger than the plant was designed to
withstand. Based upon data from the quake's aftershocks, Japanese authorities
now fear an extension of the fault line may pass very near to, or even directly
under, the atomic complex itself. The twelve hour delay before the company
announced the radioactive leak into the ocean, the day-long delay in discovering
the tipped over barrels, and the increasing magnitude of the spills and other
problems has caused consternation among environmental groups, local residents
and politicians, even with the Japanese Prime Minister himself.
.
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