Re: [Phys-l] Eartquaque in Japan

[Hugh Haskell <haskellh@verizon.net>]

At 13:51 -0500 03/14/2011, Bill Nettles wrote:
> Unfortunately, all the news networks have broadcast the minimalist 
> "backup cooling systems failed to operate" which will most likely 
> become the mantra of anti-nuclear power people.  We don't often have 
> tsunami impacts in our nuclear zones in the US, but that fact won't 
> make much difference in the public relations wars.
I don't think Tsunamis are a serious issue in the US, although the 
operators of San Onofre and Diablo Canyon in CA might want to think a 
bit harder about their earthquake/tsunami preparedness.

I think that the issue is not what particular sort of problem we need 
to plan for--it should go without saying that anything that can 
reasonably happen needs to be at least thought about, and a plan to 
minimize the serious effects of that happening should be prepared. 
The real problem is that we simply cannot fully prepare to be able to 
handle any conceivable event, or especially those that no one has 
even thought of. But of all our industrial processes only the nuclear 
ones have the problem that a serious problem can have catastrophic 
consequences whose effects can be around for decades or longer. 
Things happened at Chernobyl that probably wouldn't happen anywhere 
else, but hadn't even been conceived of there, yet they happened and 
the consequences are still with us after 25 years. If it had been a 
natural gas plant, or some other kind of plant, a serious fire, or 
even an explosion might have happened as a result of reckless actions 
by the plant operators, but the results wouldn't have still been with 
us.

Only nuclear power plants (or weapons factories) have the capability 
of leaving whole swaths of land unihabitable for decades or even 
centuries. That should make a difference in our planning.

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
mailto:hugh@ieer.org
mailto:haskellh@verizon.net

It isn't easy being green.

		--Kermit Lagrenouille