Severe accident at a U.S. nuclear plant is 24 times greater than previously thought

USA and other countries risk their own Fukushima unless they secure their power plants further.

In the U.S., that catastrophe has triggered some to rethink the country's dependence on nuclear power. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has undertaken an extensive review of the nation's 104 nuclear power reactors in the wake of the Fukushima disaster.

Research shows that the chance for catastophies is a lot higher than previous estimated. The NRC still claim your plants is safe, but I'm not convinced after reading this article from Huffington post. Current regulations don't require the NRC to make sure nuclear reactors are still capable of dealing with a new understanding of threats.

The risk that an earthquake would cause a severe accident at a U.S. nuclear plant is greater than previously thought, 24 times as high in one case, according to an AP analysis of preliminary government data.

After the March earthquake in Japan that caused the biggest nuclear crisis since Chernobyl, NRC staffers fretted in emails that the agency's understanding of earthquake risk for existing reactors was out of date.

The U.S. nuclear industry may not be fully ready, either. Current regulations don't require the NRC to make sure nuclear reactors are still capable of dealing with a new understanding of the threats.

It's not just earthquakes. It is all types of events, including floods, tornadoes and hurricanes, said an NRC official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the agency's recent seismic work.

The earthquake in Virginia was some kind of wakeup call to the government, even thou there's a 11.000 page document that shows the experts has been worried for a longer period of time. I'm not crying wolf here or trying to spread fear, only wanted to show speculations in various threads about US power plants may be true.

The threat came into sharp focus last week, when shaking from the largest earthquake to hit Virginia in 117 years appeared to exceed what the North Anna nuclear power plant northwest of Richmond was built to sustain

Just how many nuclear power plants are more vulnerable won't be determined until all operators recalculate their own seismic risk based on new assessments by geologists, something the agency plans to request later this year.

The NRC and the industry say reactors are safe as they are, for now. But emails obtained in a more than 11,000-page records request by The Associated Press show that NRC experts were worried privately this year that plants needed stronger safeguards to account for the higher risk assessments.

*Removed video because it was not intended as a source but just to show another oppinion.*

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Huffington Post is not reputable. They are biased as is every news outlet is in one way or another but the issue deals with their incredible lack of ethics and ability to change stories in ways they see fit. Alec Baldwin = biased, HuffPo = biased liars.

Anyways, I think this is an overreaction. The media feeds on our fears so high risk areas like nuclear power plants are made to look even worse. They are certainly not good, but I do not see them killing us all.

reply to post by BrianC


True.

Atleast untill something goes wrong, then its useually to late to do anything when we talk about nuclear power plants.....(not that we have a lot of empiric material on this, you have Chernobyl and Fukushima).

If you couldent quote lieing media's 70% of ATS threads wouldn't exist, remeber its already proven that most msm is notorious liers in other threads.
Your job is to be aware that it could be disinformation instead of believing all you hear on msm and other sources, but total ignorance aint good either.

Other media's support the story:
Earthquake threat to nuclear reactors far higher than realized - msnbc.msn.com
Quake risk to reactors greater than thought - cron.com
Perry nuclear reactor's risk of severe earthquake damage is 24 times as high as previously thought - cleverland.com
Perry nuclear reactor’s risk of severe earthquake damage is 24 times as high as previously thought - ohiocitizen.org
And many others. Because so many posted it i bet one of the news bureaus like Reuters or AP posted it initially.

The NRC is so corrupt, they'll do nothing till it's too late.

They are just one notch less corrupted than Japan's NRC. I grade them as BS+++

Must read investigation : US nuke regulators weaken safety rules!

Corrupt bastards are gonna kill us all.

Alec Baldwin...really?

As a source of information on nuclear energy?

So um what was the severe accident?

Looks more like a what could happen not a what did happen issue.

reply to post by Azdraik


It shows how irresponsible the US government (and other governments) is.

IF a accident happens it is game over.

We already knew that, but thanks for illustrating it further.......
2nd

According to this thread the number of large earthquakes has increased a lot over the last years (as I claimed many times before).

Doesn't look like they added the increased amount of earthquakes to the algorithm. If they didn't its not 24 times greater risk every year, but more like 50 times. If they calculated with one catastrophy every 5000 years before, you can look forward to one every 100 years with the increased risk implemented in the algorithm.

It's not like Im saying catastophy is on your doorsteps, but 1/100 is kind of bad when we look at the potential concequence of a meltdown (5000 years was just a number without data to backup, but you get the idea).