Slashdot Mirror
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."
I could call myself The Hurricane!
We never get any excitement here in Maine. Storms always seem to dodge us.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
To publish an insanely sensationalistic FUD piece from the Anti-Nuclear crowd scaremongering the most densely populated area of the world over something that is a complete and utter non-issue.
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.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
These plants have NEVER been hit by a storm before! Whatever will we do??
Around here, the nuclear power plants are designed to survive a 747 flying into them. I'm sure a little bit of a breeze isn't going to be any trouble
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Human Error has caused more nuclear incidents than Weather. That said, I want one of those backyard mini nuclear plants. - HEX
Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
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.
So when the storm has passed, if nothing happens, will the fear mongering anti-nuke folks admit that nuclear power is safe?
*crickets*
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.
It is a cat 1 storm. Yawn.
http://saveie6.com/
>> Heck, a nuclear meltdown would be a much bigger problem.
Heck, a Godzilla attack would be a much bigger problem.
A) Sandy has average winds less that 80 mph so the major danger is heavy rainfall (or perhaps snow) only.
B) "Nuclear meltdown" is largely a media myth. Real nuclear plants do not melt down in the way the popular mythology claims.
C) Real nuclear plant are designed to push in the control rods if anything like a power drop happens.
So stop with the 70s anti-nuclear FUD.
The title is an interesting fact (previously unknown to me), but the article has no real point. It has a lot of fearful speech and reads like religious propaganda. If it were calling for increased preparedness, then that would be one thing. It doesn't do that, though -- it's just appears to sound scary by using scary bullet points.
TL;DR: Crap article.
I am sure they will melt down just like the Crystal River Nuclear Power Plant has done every time a tropical storm or hurricane has it it.... Oh wait... That has never happened.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
And they're all rated for much more severe storms than Sandy. Not sure why the fearmongering article, which goes out of its way to imply that meltdown is imminent...
if it knocks out power to any of the 26 nuclear power plants
I'm pretty sure the power plans have reliable sources of power, should they not be able to get any from the grid.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Nuclear Wind! Atomic Tide! Nukestorm! Windpocalypse! Radioactivecane! Frozen Meltdown! Atomic Hailstorm! Nukenami! Any other ideas for the inevitable SyFy movie?
I'm sorry... This is a bunch of FUD. These plants have all seen impact of large storms before. Other nuclear plants along the Atlantic coast have been impacted by larger storms than Sandy. Despite this, the U.S. Mid Atlantic coast is not a radioactive wasteland.
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?
That's not the only danger. That asteroid could be carrying mutagenic microbes from space, which could cause abnormal growth among local sea life, which could make all the fish and crustaceans into biological bombs, filled with microscopic cysts of nerve gas that will explode when ruptured, turning several thousand regional seafood restaurants into diners of death, crippling patrons and releasing airborne poisons into the jet stream to encircle the Earth with a toxic halo literally raining morbidity down on half the planet.
If you're gonna fearmonger, go big or go home.
...and have some imagination, please.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Is it just me or has anyone forgotten about all those hurricanes that hit the south every year? In 2005, some nuclear power plants in Florida, Texas, and Louisiana had to survive multiple blows from storms that leveled the cities they powered.
I mean... it's not like those of us from New Orleans are still working off of gas lamps and hamster wheels.
Mod me down, I shall become more off-topic than you could possibly imagine.
Shut up. Panic. Run Amok. We need footage.
Sincerely,
The Media
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
And now for the reality check. The power grid for the northeastern US is run by PJM, from a control center in Valley Forge, PA (and a backup center elsewhere). Their public PJM Dashboard shows what's going on in the generation system and high-voltage transmission grids. (Retail power distribution is handled by local power companies.)
So what's going on? Just normal stuff. Load right now is 89 gigawatts, just 1% above forecast. No storm-related emergencies. A few routine problems - the 138KV line between Jay and DeSoto is out, and system voltage is running slightly high, so some switching actions were taken. No alerts from FERC or DHS. Spinning and standby reserves are above normal, in case of trouble. Some substations that normally run unattended have been staffed and sandbagged. About 3 gigawatts of extra power plant capacity are idling on standby, just in case, with another 6GW standing by to start. Wind power is looking good today. Right now, there's far more generation capacity available than load to use it, which is typical for mid-day in fall. (The peak is during the summer air-conditioning season.)
PJM's public statement notes that some nuclear plants might shut down due to high winds, but they expect to have enough reserves to deal with that.
Most trouble is on the distribution side, from trees falling on power lines in residential areas. Tornadoes can take out high tension towers, but the wind speeds for this hurricane aren't high enough to do much of that. This is mostly a coastal flooding problem.
Nuke zealots actually think that their Magic Power Source has never killed anybody.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-07-17/fukushima-radiation-may-cause-1-300-cancer-deaths-study-finds
There's also the people who weren't hurt, but can never return to their homes or land:
http://www.japantoday.com/smartphone/view/opinions/pure-land-lost-for-fukushima-evacuees
And then there's the contamination issue:
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2012/10/2012102510561941251.html
According to the Department of Energy, the people living in the area will get 1 more cancer case per 500 people. The level of radiation in the area is still lower than the natural background radiation in parts of the world.
Stop crying wolf. When you actually have a point, people simply won't listen.
from Fukushima?
"Fukushima showed all you need to lose are the diesel generator building and the high-tension wires into the plant site, and it's all over melty like s'mores and Seascape and Chernobyl."
Unlike Japan, the US has ample military assets to move generators into place, and the military and commercial gensets themselves. (So many they are even available on Ebay.) Skycrane an ISO container genset or several into position with a crew and have at it.
Equipment is available throughout the US, and as "far away" as an order to load an airlifter, fly it to an airport, then load it on whatever you wish to transport to site. All major military bases have gas masks and NBC suits on hand ready to use. All servicefolk are trained in NBC ops and decontamination.
I have no idea why the Japanese weren't ready to deploy power units, but that's their epic fuckup.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."