26 Nuclear Power Plants In Hurricane Sandy's Path

pigrabbitbear writes "Hurricane Sandy is about to ruin a bunch of people's Mondays. In New York City alone, the storm has already shut down public transportation, forced tens of thousands to relocate to higher ground and compelled even more office jockeys to work from home. (Okay, that last part might not be so bad, especially for the folks that don't actually have to work at all.) But if it knocks out power to any of the 26 nuclear power plants that lie directly in its path, the frankenstorm of the century will ruin Tuesday, too. Heck, a nuclear meltdown would be a much bigger problem."

Comments

Massively overbuilt, most reliable buildings.

[blind biker]

If you want to be as safe from the hurricane as possible, you should then find shelter in one of those nuclear plants. They\re the best built structures by a very large margin.

Only thing is, I don\t believe you'll be lucky enough to be let in.

Unsubstatiated Claim

[Jonah Hex]

Human Error has caused more nuclear incidents than Weather. That said, I want one of those backyard mini nuclear plants. - HEX

Doesn't even include Canadian reactors.

[Anonymous Coward]

Then again, Canadian reactors are CANDU - and in True Canadian Style, they're a bit less efficient, but vastly more safe when it comes to the possibility of meltdown.

Nuclear Technology

[Seeteufel]

In Germany the Federal government massively moved away from nuclear technology because they feel it is unsafe and you don't know what to do with the waste. Vorsprung durch Technik - be first in the next wave of technology innovation. We now have 5MW wind generators serial production and it looks like only the network is an issue. Progress in solar technology is also amazing, Chinese companies took over the lead. When US nuclear power plants would be affected by the storm (just remember Fukushima) that would be very dangerous to the densely populated area. I really wonder how many levees they build. Remember the WTC towers were "designed" to survive a 747 flying into them.

Re:Took you long enough, Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

I live 12 miles, doesn't bother me one bit, nor did it when I lived 5 miles, nor worked 1 mile. Heck, in my 20's I used to water ski just offshore from the plant. Hmmm, maybe that's why my hair got curly? chuckle

BTW, NONE of the evacuation plans take into account there being a bad storm while attempting an evacuation from a nuke plant...they just don't consider it likely.

And, btw, the original call for an evacuation plan was for 50 miles...I was at that meeting, but we all agreed that it would be impossible to evacuate 50 miles, as it includes all of NYC. Then we cut it down to 25 miles, and it still included too much of NYC to be doable. Finally, we went down to 10 miles, which everyone felt was more realistic to evacuate. But the 10 mile evacuation zone isn't based on science, it's based on what is doable in the NY area. 10 miles wasn't enough at Fukishima.

What about coal fired plants?

[MartinSchou]

How many of those are in the direct path? And how many of them store their coal supplies outdoors?

How much coal can be expected to be scattered across massive areas in the path?