MASS EVACUATION: More than 180 million people live within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant in the U.S.--the radius the U.S. suggested be evacuated during the nuclear crisis at Fukushima Daiichi.
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On March 11, 2011, Japan suffered a massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami that destroyed roads, bridges, and buildings; killed nearly 16,000 people; and critically disabled three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. By March 12, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was already considering urging Americans within 50 miles of the stricken nuclear reactors to evacuate, given an explosion in Unit 1 that destroyed the reactor building and exposed spent nuclear fuel and other radioactive materials to the air.
"If this happened in the U.S., we would go out to 50 miles," said Bill Borchardt, NRC executive director for operations on March 17, according to transcripts of the days following the catastrophe. "That would be our evacuation recommendation."
In fact, in the U.S., more than four million Americans live within 10 miles of the 63 sites of nuclear power plants with at least one operating reactor, according to data compiled by the NRC based on the 2000 census. That number swells when the radius extends outward to 50 miles to affect more than 180 million Americans, and includes major metropolitan areas such as New York City, Philadelphia, San Diego and even West Palm Beach, Fla.
In the wake of the meltdowns in Japan and subsequent evacuations, could all these people in the U.S. be evacuated--or take some form of protective action--in time in similar circumstances?
Planning for the worst
Nuclear power plants are surrounded by two "emergency planning zones" developed out of accident analyses conducted in the 1960s and 1970s: a roughly 10-mile radius around the plant that must anticipate being exposed to a radioactive plume and a roughly 50-mile radius around the plant that must prepare for possibly being exposed to radioactive particles that drop out of a plume. "Neither are zones that are fixed and that is the absolute boundary," explains the NRC's Patricia Milligan, the senior technology advisor for preparedness and response in the Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response. "We don't expect that [nuclear power plant operators] would stop taking action because it's at 10.5 miles. The plans are built so that 10 miles provides a reasonable basis and, if you need to expand, you could."
That is exactly what happened in the case of Fukushima. Just hours after the tsunami on March 11 the Japanese government ordered an evacuation of those living within three kilometers of the stricken nuclear reactors and suggested those living within 10 kilometers stay indoors with the windows closed. As the situation progressively worsened--and radiation hot spots were discovered farther afield--the Japanese government expanded the evacuation order.
The goal in the zones prescribed by U.S. regulations is to avoid any radiation doses that exceed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's "protective action guidelines" for exposure to a plume of radioactive material being released from a nuclear power plant. The U.S. rules note that evacuation--or sometimes getting indoors--"should normally be initiated at one rem," or 10 millisieverts. (A rem is a dosage unit of x-ray and gamma-ray radiation exposure.)Workers within a nuclear power plant can receive doses of up to 50 millisieverts per year. It takes immediate exposure to as much as two sieverts of radiation to cause sickness straightaway.
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13 Comments
Add CommentA very possible solar storm can cause meltdowns at hundreds of nuclear plants.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSee 400 Chernobyls? on the Aesop Institute website.
Imagine the impact if we fail to take wise action to minimize the damage!
The solar flare will be dec 21. Sounds like a good plan . The nuclear war follows. The asteroid hit prediction may do the same....or worse.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@Mark...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes Mark, multiple meltdowns are a possible result of a massive solar flare as big as, or larger than, the Carrington Event in the 1800's. But they could also be triggered by a successful EMP attack.
The problem is that even if the reactors could be "shut down" by fully inserting the control rods after a complete loss of main and back up power sources their are nuclear elements created in an operating reactor core that will still generate heat for hours to days after the shut down.
That, and the residual heat, in the core will result in a melt down even after shut down because there will be no power to run the cooling pumps and even gravity fed water reserves will not last long enough to prevent the melt down since in a massive solar flare or EMP event the power will be off for far too long.
But that isn't the end of the problem. It will just add to the panic, rioting, looting and other insanities that would be the result of the loss of all transportation, communications, police and fire services for an extended period of time.
So, while a good plan for dealing with a single melt down could save many lives; the chaos caused by a flare or EMP event would render any plan useless since there would be no way to implement it.
Dec 21 Eh, Mayan calendar event?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere in Normandy we have twice seen freezing fog cause 4 inch thick black ice which weighs down everything, causing trees to fragment, and all power lines and pylons to collapse. No electricity, so no pumps, so no tapwater, and no telephones, no gas in filling stations, and impossible to travel or get supplies in.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe same thing happened to Quebec. Nuclear power plants would have gone into meltdown if there had been any during such weather. So no evacuation would have been possible...
Please, someone, make a list of all fatalities due to the U.S. nuclear industry (include mining). Now, compare that to a list of all fatalities due to the production of electricity by coal (include mining).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow, make a list of alternative power sources for base-load power? Okay.
A very good look at the topic. One issue briefly noted is that sometimes an evacuation isn't necessary to ensure public safety. However, given the public attitude toward radiation it is not difficult to picture a shelter order being ignored in favor of hopping in the car and speeding away. Then there is evacaution based on the future possibility of a nasty plume occuring. As noted, these can be slow-moving events. I'd bet the local officials (who make the final call on that sort of thing) would tend to lean toward the conservative run-away approach. But moving that many scared people has its own dangers. … So if there's a 30% chance of an event proceeding to meltdown and a 80% chance that evacuation will lead to injuries from car accidents, what is the right call? (That assumes, of course, the public pays attention to the order once they've learned of the emergency.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI've looked in detail at a (hypothetical) plant event in the US similar to Fukushima through my perspective as a longtime nuclear industry engineer. My novel "Rad Decision" is available free online. (Just google the title - its all there. No ads, no sponsors.) As this article makes clear, there's a lot more to these things on all sides of the argument than you might at first suppose. The more we understand, the better decisions we'll make.
Not to downplay the huge mess that is Fukushima, but let us remember that in the absence of nuclear power something else will need to be in operation to generate a massive power output. Coal, natural gas, even windmills and solar panels each have their own pros and cons - especially when scaled up to nuclear size.
There is a surprising possibility that a strong solar storm will change the energy and economic landscape in the near future.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe odds we will be spared such a nightmare are not good.
A solar megastorm can collapse critical power grids worldwide.
That opens the door to meltdowns of large numbers of nuclear plants.
See the Aesop Institute website for an overview.
Wise action to minimize the impact can sharply accelerate superseding fossil and nuclear fuels. It would also boost the economy and generate jobs.
New technologies can protect the grid and may be able to provide the missing long-term standby power at nuclear plants.
Black Swans, highly improbable energy innovations with incredible implications are being born. They can provide cheap green decentralized power - faster than might be imagined.
We may soon recognize we are in an unanticipated race for human survival.
If we wake up soon enough, there is a chance we can do what is necessary.
But, at the moment, lack of recognition of this mortal threat does not lead to optimism.
Such a storm would dwarf the impact of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
What is needed is a world-wide response equal to the challenge - which can be viewed as similar to an attack on all humanity.
We are playing Russian Roulette with the sun...and are bound to lose if we continue to ignore the problem.
Nonsense. Maintaining cooling during a loss of Grid Power is a MINIMUM acceptable standard for all Nuclear Power plants. You are being ridiculous. The problem in Fukushima came not from loss of Grid Power but the flooding of their Emergency Power Generators, which were stupidly located at a low level, and the associated switchgear.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe NRC has determined that all NPP's in the USA can withstand an EMP, Solar Flare or Geomagnetic event without loss of Emergency Power to maintain Cooling sufficiently.
But after the Fukushima incident, plans are being developed to establish a fast response International Agency that can quickly air drop containment/cooling equipment/generators/personal to any Nuclear LOCA event. This is a similar plan to the one drafted to contain a Mega-Oil-Spill, like the DeepWater Horizon one in the Gulf of Mexico, using specialized equipment, kept ready to move fast to any such disaster.
Events happen, planes crash, ships sink, pipelines explode, chemical plants release deadly toxic clouds. Morons respond by demanding complete shutdown of all facilities forever, sensible people examine what happened, why it happened and determined actions that can be done to prevent it, within an acceptable probability level.
You can't ignore probability:
http://bravenewclimate.com/2012/03/02/the-fukushima-question-how-close-did-japan-really-get-to-a-widespread-nuclear-disaster/
The Worst Possible Accident, there is no such thing. by Bernie Cohen:
"...imagine a gasoline spill causing a fire that would wipe out a whole city, killing most of its inhabitants. It might require a lot of improbable circumstances combining together, like water lines being frozen to prevent effective fire fighting, a traffic jam aggravated by street construction or traffic accidents limiting access to fire fighters, some substandard gas lines which the heat from the fire caused to leak, a high wind frequently shifting to spread the fire in all directions, a strong atmospheric temperature inversion after the whole city has become engulfed in flame to keep the smoke close to the ground, a lot of bridges and tunnels closed for various reasons, eliminating escape routes, some errors in advising the public, and so forth. Each of these situations is improbable, so a combination of many of them occurring in sequence is highly improbable, but it is certainly not impossible..."
dwbd : I doubt if you have ever seen the effects of massive freezing fog : Nuclear power station roofs would probably collapse under the weight of ice. This happened to the superphenix fast breeder reactor in france with just 40cm of snow! Black ice will jam solid any any electromecanical devices such as emergency pumps, sealed in six inches of hard crystalline ice. And piping bends and snaps under the weight which it was never designed to withstand. Personally I have lived through two ten day periods of freezing fog and everything was paralysed, with no water or food in shops and impossible to walk or drive, so no evacuation possible. If the freezing fog had lasted any longer there wouldn't have been a single tree or bush left standing. Everything collapses under the weight of the ice. Tell me which nuclear plants are designed to support that! And remember that the colling water source will have frozen up too...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYep I have, if Nuclear Power plant would collapse under the weight of ice, then EVERY - I repeat EVERY building in the effective area would be down - every one. And there wouldn't be a tree or power line left standing. And all city water lines would be broken. And NG & Oil supply lines would be broken causing massive fires that could not be extinguished because all the fire trucks would be dead.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are being ridiculous, Ice Storms are one of the first things Nuclear Risk Assessment planners take a hard look at, and if there is any chance - like 1 in one million reactor-years, they would order counter-measures - which wouldn't really be all that difficult.
dwbd : What were the odds of an earthquake and tsunami taking out the Fukushima plant? The planners got it wrong, including the french security experts. Have you never heard of Murphy's Law?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYeah, and you don't give a damn about the 3 million who die every year from your fossil fuel emissions - that's not might, possibly, some day, if there is a 1000 yr event possibly maybe a couple may day. That's WILL, DEFINITELY CERTAINLY DIE - a long with millions of acres of wildlife of plants. You don't care about that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd thousands that die from your deadly natural gas explosions and oil mega-fires and mega-spills. You don't care about that either. And Coal mountain top removal and 80,000 mine workers killed in the past 10 yrs. You don't care about them either. Or mega hydro disasters.