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Subscribe to RSSThe General Electric-designed nuclear reactors involved in the Japanese emergency are very similar to 23 reactors in use in the United States, according to Nuclear Regulatory Commission records.
The NRC database of nuclear power plants shows that 23 of the 104 nuclear plants in the U.S. are GE boiling-water reactors with GE's Mark I systems for containing radioactivity, the same containment system used by the reactors in trouble at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant. The U.S. reactors are in Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Vermont.
In addition, 12 reactors in the U.S. have the later Mark II or Mark III containment system from GE. These 12 are in Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington state. See the full list below.
GE via NRC
GE's Mark I containment system.
(General Electric is a parent company of msnbc.com through GE's 49 percent stake in NBCUniversal. NBCUniversal and Microsoft are equal partners in msnbc.com.)
Msnbc.com sent questions Saturday to GE, asking whether the Japanese reactors differed from those of the same general design used in the U.S.
A GE spokesman, Michael Tetuan, referred all questions to the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade and lobbying group. Tetuan said GE nuclear staff members in Wilmington, N.C., are focused on assisting GE employees in Japan and standing by to help the Japanese authorities if asked to help. The NEI on Sunday confirmed that the figure of 23 is correct.
Updates:
- On Monday, GE Hitachi Nuclear sent the following statement, in full: "The BWR Mark 1 reactor is the industry’s workhorse with a proven track record of safety and reliability for more than 40 years. Today, there are 32 BWR Mark 1 reactors operating as designed worldwide. There has never been a breach of a Mark 1 containment system."
- On Friday, GE posted rebuttals to the most common criticisms of the Mark I containment system.
The six reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant, which had explosions on Saturday and Monday, are all GE-designed boiling-water reactors, known in the industry as BWRs. Five have containment systems of GE's Mark I design, and the sixth is of the Mark II type. They were placed in operation between 1971 and 1979.
A fact sheet from the anti-nuclear advocacy group Nuclear Information and Resource Service contends that the Mark I design has design problems, and that in 1972 an Atomic Energy Commission member, Dr. Stephen Hanuaer, recommended that this type of system be discontinued.
"Some modifications have been made to U.S. Mark I reactors since 1986, although the fundamental design deficiencies remain," NIRS said. The group has a commentary online describing what it says are hazards of boiling-water reactors: human invervention needed to vent radioactive steam in the case of a core meltdown, and problems with aging.
Since the earthquake struck Japan on Friday, the early statements by the industry's Nuclear Industry Institute have emphasized that only six plants in the U.S. have precisely the same generation of reactor design (GE boiling-water reactor model 3) as the first reactor to have trouble in Fukushima Daiichi. Problems then developed at different reactors of GE model 4.
But aside from the generation of reactor design, the following 23 U.S. plants have GE boiling-water reactors (GE models 2, 3 or 4) with the same Mark I containment design used at Fukushima, according to the NRC's online database:
• Browns Ferry 1, Athens, Alabama, operating license since 1973, reactor type GE 4.
• Browns Ferry 2, Athens, Alabama, 1974, GE 4.
• Browns Ferry 3, Athens, Alabama, 1976, GE 4.
• Brunswick 1, Southport, North Carolina, 1976, GE 4.
• Brunswick 2, Southport, North Carolina, 1974, GE 4.
• Cooper, Brownville, Nebraska, 1974, GE 4.
• Dresden 2, Morris, Illinois, 1970, GE 3.
• Dresden 3, Morris, Illinois, 1971, GE 3.
• Duane Arnold, Palo, Iowa, 1974, GE 4.
• Fermi 2, Monroe, Michigan, 1985, GE 4.
• FitzPatrick, Scriba, New York, 1974, GE 4.
• Hatch 1, Baxley, Georgia, 1974, GE 4.
• Hatch 2, Baxley, Georgia, 1978, GE 4.
• Hope Creek, Hancock's Bridge, New Jersey, 1986, GE 4.
• Monticello, Monticello, Minnesota, 1970, GE 3.
• Nine Mile Point 1, Scriba, New York, 1969, GE 2.
• Oyster Creek, Forked River, New Jersey, 1969, GE 2.
• Peach Bottom 2, Delta, Pennsylvania, 1973, GE 4.
• Peach Bottom 3, Delta, Pennsylvania, 1974, GE 4.
• Pilgrim, Plymouth, Massachusetts, 1972, GE 3.
• Quad Cities 1, Cordova, Illinois, 1972, GE 3.
• Quad Cities 2, Moline, Illinois, 1972, GE 3.
• Vermont Yankee, Vernon, Vermont, 1972, GE 4.
And these 12 newer GE boiling-water reactors have a Mark II or Mark III design:
• Clinton, Clinton, Illinois, 1987, GE 6, Mark III.
• Columbia Generating Station, Richland, Washington, 1984, GE 5, Mark II.
• Grand Gulf, Port Gibson, Mississippi, 1984, GE 6, Mark III.
• LaSalle 1, Marseilles, Illinois, 1982, GE 5, Mark II.
• LaSalle 2, Marseilles, Illinois, 1983, GE 5, Mark II.
• Limerick 1, Limerick, Pennsylvania, 1985, GE 4, Mark II.
• Limerick 2, Limerick, Pennsylvania, 1989, GE 4, Mark II.
• Nine Mile Point 2, Scriba, New York, 1987, GE 5, Mark II.
• Perry, Perry, Ohio, 1986, GE 6, Mark III.
• River Bend, St. Francisville, Louisiana, 1985, GE 6, Mark III.
• Susquehanna 1, Salem Township, Pennsylvania, 1982, GE 4, Mark II.
• Susquehanna 2, Salem Township, Pennsylvania, 1984, GE 4, Mark II.
Other resources:
Details on each U.S. reactor are in the NRC list.
The NRC has an explainer on boiling-water reactors and the various GE containment designs.
Here's an earthquake hazard map of the lower 48 United States from the U.S. Geological Survey showing the areas with the greatest risks. More detailed state-by-state maps from the USGS are here.
Scientific American looks at the technical situation facing the engineers in Japan. And The Wall Street Journal describes how this emergency calls into question the redundancies that nuclear plant designers rely on.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Tokyo Electric tested the Fukushima plant to withstand an earthquake less severe than the one that struck last week:
Separately, company documents show that Tokyo Electric tested the Fukushima plant to withstand a maximum seismic jolt lower than Friday's 8.9 earthquake. Tepco's last safety test of nuclear power plant Number 1—one that is currently in danger of meltdown—was done at a seismic magnitude the company considered the highest possible, but in fact turned out to be lower than Friday's quake. The information comes from the company's "Fukushima No. 1 and No. 2 Updated Safety Measures" documents written in Japanese in 2010 and 2009. The documents were reviewed by Dow Jones.
The company said in the documents that 7.9 was the highest magnitude for which they tested the safety for their No. 1 and No. 2 nuclear power plants in Fukushima.
Simultaneous seismic activity along the three tectonic plates in the sea east of the plants—the epicenter of Friday's quake—wouldn't surpass 7.9, according to the company's presentation.
The company based its models partly on previous seismic activity in the area, including a 7.0 earthquake in May 1938 and two simultaneous earthquakes of 7.3 and 7.5 on November 5 of the same year.
Video from NBC Nightly News:
NBC's Lester Holt speaks with nuclear energy expert Joe Cirincione.
Leave a Comment:
A$$?@les, as an American serving my country overseas (not my choice), I should be able to view an NBC news clip - instead I get a message from you greedy moneygrubbers that "due to usage restrictions, we are unable to provide this video." The only usage restrictions is that you aren't getting paid............
Joe, the video on this story seems to play just fine. Which one are you having trouble with?
A$$?@les, as an American serving my country overseas (not my choice)
Funny I didn't know they started the draft again....
You accept the pay and benefits of serving in exchange for your service knowing going in you could be stationed anywhere including in combat yet you don't like that they can tell you what to do. Not a bright choice of occupation on your part! Your one member of the service I don't feel the need to thank or respect.....
Now for your education. Look at where you are, look at their governments Internet filtering and restrictions. Pssst... the military also filters what you have access too..... You don't even have to be in the military to know that and understand why...
Please do not reUp..... I rather you not have my back.....
Bill, the "Expert: Already 'one of the worst nuclear disasters' Nightly News. Thanks. Just a little frustrated at times.
Devlin - before you jump to conclusions, yes, I volunteered and have served 3 tours in Iraq as well as Kosovo in the last 18 years, but I'm not in SW Asia and my point had nothing to do with serving overseas. BTW, I have a masters in IT management - not the filters. As far as I can tell it's the at NBC end. Too bad we don't have the draft - idiots like you would learn what honest work is and appreciate the freedoms we have in our great nation. AMF.
The station blackout is about the first scenario you design a plant for. I think it safe to say the Japanese didn't design for a 30' wall of water flooding their backup diesel generators simultaneously with a 8.9 earthquake. In hind-sight, they should have.
Even without a concrete reinforced containment structure, the failure of these plants will be only an economic disaster and a huge inconvenience for an area that has enough to deal with.
Best of everything to the people of Japan.
This article seems more like trying to stir up fears here in the US, just because the design are similar doesn't mean the situations are.
Many media outlets restrict content viewing in other countries (this is blocked via IP address) due to copyright issues. It's not a matter of being paid necessarily, mostly it's a matter of retaining the rights to their content in other nations with different laws.
To avoid that problem you could use a VPN and connect to the content desired through a host in the approved viewing area.
So what is the moral of this story ?
US nukes Japan.... again ?
naahhh....japs nuked themselves.....
My husband work at the Davis Bessie plant in Ohio, in the 70s. He was an electrician and his work was following others who had started wiring, he and his crew finished. He told me there were so many wires that were not marked and no one seemed to know where or what, the wires were connected. In the last decade Davis Bessie had a severe crack in its containment cap, that had eroded, to the point of near calamity. I have learned to live with the fact Davis Bessie, may be the next "China Syndrome." The shame is how the Nuclear Regulation Agency and the contractors, who built Davis Bessie, were willing gamble on safety.
I remember when Three Mile Island began its melt down. When the "experts" where explaining to congress on what happen, they said a melt down is only considered a disaster, if you get killed. I am paraphrasing.I do believe it is this cavalier attitude and more importantly, corporate greed, that continues to breed contempt for the masses. Next time NRC or GE wants to build a nuclear power unit, let them build it were they live! I am not concerned about me but, my family is very precious to me! Any grandma worth her salt, would go looking for the SOB, responsible for harming her family. He/she would wish they would have died in the explosion! With my bare hands! I know I will be collapsed, See you in 24.
I've gotta agree with 'ex navy nuke' up there. This article seems more like fear mongering than any valuable information. The manufacturer of the reactor has nothing to do with the situation that they are finding themselves in over in Japan. Keith Olberman you are not.
I miss Keith too. Quite frankly, the hissy fit you appear to be having, makes you seem more like a child, holding his hands over his ears and saying la la la! You avoid hearing something you might not want to hear. If you do not want to discuss the issue, turn off your computer. I cope with stress by "expressing " my concerns and feelings, about the disaster in Japan. I see these people suffering and I want to help. It is in my nature. I am a nurse and I feel powerless. Sad and powerless.
How many of the 23 US reactors of the same variety as the Japanese ones are also in an area exposed to subduction zone earthquakes of the variety that struck Japan? Answer none of them thankfully. The reactors didn't spontaneously break down a massive earthquake and subsequent tidal wave caused a malfunction in their cooling system. Solution don't build reactor plant of this variety in subduction zones and secondly maybe try replace with CANDO reactors that use a completely different cooling system which has no history of ever failing....
While I strongly support the construction of new nuclear power plants, there has to be common sense applied to their locations. That doesn't seem to be the case in Japan, but it's easy to armchair on Monday morning and no amount of planning and preparation could have prepared them for this level of disaster wherever the reactors were located.
TakeThatBack - you should also know that Davis Besse did actually sustain the Midwest-US equivalent of this calamity, albeit not nearly as severe. Almost 13 years ago, it took a direct hit from a tornado (I think level 3 or 4), that took out all the power lines both from and to the plant. The reactor buildings, cooling tower and all were not severely damaged, and the back-up generator system worked as it should, providing power to shut the plant down and continue circulating the coolant.
I believe it still remains the worst tonado hit sustained by any US nuclear power plant.
Ohioian:
Thanks for the info. I do recall that incident as well. I am having difficulty watching any news because it is all bad. On the fifteenth Kasich plans to announce his middle class annihilating budget to his "subjects." I am going to a rally in Maumee, Ohio, tomorrow. If you have not already signed a petition, to amend Ohio's constitution, changing the law, regarding recalling Kasich's election, please consider it. I receive emails from moveon.org, who has been active, in acquiring signatures. As I have said in previous post, I am not afraid for me, but I am fearful for my family and other middle class Americans.
Japan does not have a whole lot of choice in siting nuke plants. We do have some complacency in the US. There is a major set of fault lines in the midwest and headed south that created a nice big 1800's disaster. So tornados are not the only issues. The reactors are only designed to last 30-50 years, but because the US essentially stopped building new plants in the 1980s we have to extend the lifespan of the existing plants where possible. Nuclear power is still the safest power source we have with the least ecological impact. Coal fired plants release daily more radiation that 3 mile Island did. (3 Mile Island is considered the 2nd worst reactor failure (until the aftermath of the Japanese disaster gets evaluated I'll wager) and at a hearing in Washington in the nice granite building the spokesman for the industry pointed out that the radiation emitted from the building itself was more than that of the release from 3 Mile Island measured at any residential area. Even at the plants perimeter fence the average was less than in the building. There are coal mining areas in Pennsylvania, where the background radiation is higher. BTW Kudos the Peach Bottom guys who spotted 3 Mile Islands problems on their sensor network, well before the 3 Mile Island crew caught them, and for pushing it upstream fast enough that someone finally noticed in 3 Mile Islands management.
We do have safer technology now. Much of it developed in the US and starting to be turned up online overseas. Pebble Bed reactors are inherently much safer, and there are possible plans for neighborhood power stations based on the same proven safe radio-thermal-generator technology used by spacecraft (safe enough that a RTG was on a satellite where the missile had blown up at launch and they recovered the RTG and reused it on another launch. The US oversight is also pretty good. Several US reactors are shutdown because of failed inspections, one of the advantages of a capitalistic system, the inspectors really don't care if the plants come back online. In government owned "umm somewhat restricted regimes" there is a stronger need to say that everything is OK and keep power flowing.
Learn from the mistakes in Japan, plan any needed retrofits worldwide for similar designs. Increase the onsite backup ability (really one of the Japanese cooling failures is because on site generator backup was only good for 5 hours, in the mountains near here the backup generator can run an old microwave relay station for the entire winter snow season if need be!)...
Hydrogen leaks will again pose a danger to the ozone layer, worse than CFCs, Solar on a large enough scale will severely damage the ecology and depends on scarce rare earths for the most efficient cells, or in thermal variations uses a lot of corrosive liquid metals (that's sort of OK, the area covered by the plants is more critical to worry about), tidal will hurt, well, tide lands, coal release huge amounts of acid and radiation, gas is somewhat OK, but we don't have the resources to implement it on a large scale to replace significant other methods, and geothermal is a likely winner, but the easiest sources to tap are in geologically unstable areas, so you need lots of diversity and redundancy. Of, and wind power has already eliminated one sub-species of migrating birds, and is hard to cost justify in the first place.
If I were planning where to site a nuclear plant, I park it near the geologically stable areas where we want to store nuclear waste. There are plenty of sites across the US, and although we'll have line losses from power distribution, most of these sites are away from major population centers as well.
Most important is everyone concerned need to read up on the alternatives.
No experience with boiling water reactors, only the very conservative USN pressurized 3 loop type. I have always felt that nuc reactors are dangerous/politically exploitive enough that they should never be under the control of entities with profit as a motive. Your thoughts that government inspectors would be adequate is food for thought. Good thoughts and insight. John
Why are the plants dubbed "sisters", they look more like 'brothers'?
More seriously, isn't the fundamental problem with the Japan current emergency that a "station blackout" was deemed unlikely and therefore the plant was unprepared. I am sure All Plants in the US are prepared for what looks to this layman to be such an Obvious problem scenario... ie, damage to overall power grid supply And simultaneous damage to onsite backup power supply. Any truly powerful disaster would damage both.
In this specific case, how could design engineers not have predicted and prepared for concurrent earthquake and tsunami?
Not trying to be a smart @$$ but.... has it ever happened before? I mean such a powerful earthquake (strongest to ever hit Japan) and with so many strong aftershocks then the ensuing unimaginable tsunami?
These plants were also built in the 70's. Our technology and knowledge of how earthquakes effect things including bodies of water have progressed dramatically in the years since.
Other news outlets have reported on warnings brought up during the design and construction phases of these reactors in Japan regarding seismic activity and the vulnerability of reactors to withstand larger quakes. They knew the risks and did not build the facilities to specs that could have avoided some of these issues. Even if they built the facilities to the best possible specs of 1971 they may not have avoided a disaster. Ultimately, if you build reactors in an earthquake zone on an ocean coast you are gambling with your investment and public safety.
Devlin7- Tsunamis are imaginable, especially in coastal areas of earthquake zones. That's not the second tsunami to ever hit a coastal region in modern times. Japanese officials were even warned by a notable Japanese seismologist in 2007 about the safety issues at the affected facilities. Check oogle News for multiple stories on Katsushiko Ishibashi, the seismologist.
Regardless of what is happening right now in Japan...This should be a wake-up call to Americans. For years we have been lied to. The nuclear advocates have been telling us for years that nuke plants in the US are built with heavy protective containment structures and there is no chance of radiation release. Now they tell us that there are 23 of these "Pinto's of nuke plants" operating in the US (two of which are pretty much in my backyard BTW). Gee (or should I say GE) once again strong corporate interests give the people a 'snow job' and nobody gives a *hit!
...Yeah they got my vote to build more nuke plants in this country!
This country is definately headed to hell in a hand basket...
I agree with Joe. I am stationed overseas (my choice) and can't see this, or other NBC videos, for the same reason. I'll have to wait until someone uploads them to YouTube or LiveLeak. Thanks, MSNBC.
You I like to thank for your service... Even if no one says it we do appreciate it very much and have loads of respect for 99.7% of you.
I would look into the filtering aspect I mentioned in a earlier post. Possible military or government from the host country filtering your access. I could be wrong but I found even Canada does some filtering of newspaper and internet content.... I assume the US does too we just don't notice it.
Spend much time in Canada Devlin, like in the late 60's? Not filtering when all the other videos open. Anything else I can edumicate you on?
The US DoD has already stated that they have blocked certain high volume sites (youtube is one of them by the way) to ensure that there is bandwidth allocated to operational needs for the recovery/rescue efforts.
The issue with Canada is a licensing issue and it is MSNBC (in this case) that is filtering.
Guys, The fearmongering from this clip is nothing to get bent about. I should have wasted my time watching reruns of Charles in Charge dubbed into dogs barking christmas carols.
It's a two minute video, I'll transcribe for you. "L" =NBC's Less Holt reporter "G" = guy "nuclear energy expert Joe Cirincione"
L - Mr. Cirincione we appreciate you being with us, the problem, as we understand it, is this particular reactor - is an inability to cool it, they are putting sea water on it right now to try to cool the temperature. If they can't bring that temperature down, what's the worst case?
G- "The worst case is a meltdown which means that the fuel rods in the reactor heat to such a high temperature that they actually melt together, so you would see the core of the reactor turn into a 'moltent' mass that would burn right through the steel reactor vessel and drop into the concrete containment building surrounding that vessel. The very worst case is that the containment building, that concrete box, doesn't hold this radioactive moltent mass and the entire ah, ah, core then spews into the environment, putting radioactivity into the ground, the air and the water.
L - "Right now they are classifying this as a 4 on a scale of 0 to 7, apparently there is a scale to measure the extent of nuclear accidents, is that sound like a fair charactersition, ah, characterization that this is not, ah, higher on the scale?"
G- "It sounded like a fair characterization a few hours ago. I say this is easily going to be a 5 very soon which is the rating we gave Three Mile Island. and if there is an actual meltdown, this clearly goes into the category of 6 or even the Chernobyl incident which is a massive meltdown of 7. It depends how many reactors fail. As you noted [?], they are now telling us there is a second reactor, the latest news is that there is actually a third reactor, so all three nuclear reactors that were operating at this Dia-ichi facility, they announced that they have lost the ability to inject coolant into all of them and they are preparing various emergency measures, as we speak, for all three reactors. This is already - if it stops right now - one of the worst nuclear disasters, we have ever seen."
L - "Alright Mr. Cirincione thank you so much for your expertise, it was good having you on
Hurry and get home safely!
Thanks Black Kettle. Europeans are slowly getting rid of nuke power.........A freind grew up near TMI (3 mile island) in PA and that incident, I think, is not half as bad as this one will be. But hey, let's ask the expert, Delvin, who appears to have all the answers.
Joe L -- I have no idea why you (or anyone else, including myself) has experienced trouble viewing the video from this specific site (openchannel.msnbc.msn.com). I do know that as of 15 minutes ago, I could not view the video here, and I cannot currently view it here. However, as of 10 minutes ago, I could view the exact same video at a more direct msnbc site (sorry, new user restrictions will , seemingly, not let me embed the URL here).
So, my conclusion would be that there is some problem with the way the video is embedded in or linked to this site, not that msnbc is doing something "at the NBC end" to limit access to the video. BTY, the nuclear expert on this particular video is actually a expert on nuclear weapons policy and conflict resolution, not on nuclear power; he has degrees in psychology and foreign service, not in engineering or physics. Nonetheless, his statements appear to be reasonable.
I live in Thailand, many video's are blocked...
You can always go to other sites, especially the Japan news outlets, for more current news up-dates..
Sorry, Joe I was deleted for saying that I would transcribe videos that weren't working. I also said that I "friended" you on Newsvine.....
To MSNBC, I assumed that video failure overseas and CANADA was a glitch, the "video" was boring at best...; but you deleted me when I offered a fix to your problem? Guess it wasn't a problem and you decide who sees what and when and where... at least we all know now.
Sorry, Black Kettle. No, your comment wasn't deleted because you offered to help someone.
Your comment was deleted because you went on to call another commenter an ass. Leave that part out next time, perhaps?
Sister reactor? Why the hell would they use a word designating females?
Danger of Overheating?
Danger of going crazy at the least provocation?
Danger of causing problems i you cut off their favorite liquid?
Nevermind, I just answered my own question
People should be talking about who owns and runs these plants and who is responsible for this problem.
Off hand I'd say the cause of the problem was the Earthquake, in this particular instance. If it weren't for that, no one would know or care who made that Reactor.
Hi all,
I would just like to add that I am also getting that same error messsage about restrictions and not able to view some of the videos. I am on a moderately new home computer in BC Canada with a great isp at high level speeds.
I think, (no IT techie here) that it is one of the following; bandwidth problems with the providers, too many people trying to view at the same time, or viewed too many times already, and have exceeded some sort of limit set by msnbc
only my .02
Damn folks! It was an 8.9 scale earthquake and it is still there! OK, there are problems, but these are 30yr plus systems that actually withstood the disaster. Like the last SanFran earthquake, there will be issues and we can now take these and learn, improve and move on.
Do you really think anything can completely survive the conditions there??? Really? Let's figger' out what we need to do to contain and improve....AND pray for those folks handling this with such dignity....
I appreciate those anti nuclear power folks. They are the best proponets for nuclear power. I thank them for giving us a list of all the similar plants that are producing power for us in the U.S. They have my permission to use their electric range to cook their food.
The problem was that their back up generator to circulate water depended on electricity which went out. Duh, get your electricity from a source farther away than next to your plant, like 30 miles away. It seems the containment is holding.
They had on site diesel generators for power back up. Not sure what or how they were taken out. There will now be a big push by the environmentalist to ban nuclear power back in the states. I wish them well on the containment efforts.
If successful we might look how nuclear power survived such a catastrophic event. Iguess we should ban natural gas that kills also.
I invented a bull@!$%# generator. It produces electricity around the clock from a constant fuel source. Every group in every corner of the Planet with an agenda, please sign up for your pickups. I'll pay you all 10 cents a ton. You'll all be rich in no time.
There's a power plant just like these in Omaha. If it gets hit by a tsunami, we're all going to die.
Yep and even with hours of warning some california person still got washed out to sea...humans will forever remained a flawed species incomparison to mother nature.
Unimaginable is probably a word that you would not use, since it is easily imaginable. It has happened before, many times throughout the history of Japan and all ocean coastlines. It is a well known phenomena and occurs frequently when earthquakes happen underwater, which, given the percentage of water on the planet, is also a high percentage. There is no opportunity for failure and learning here. These nuclear power plants, especially the plutonium plants, cannot overheat and experience a catastrophic melt down, ever. Redundancy of using the power grid, backup diesel and battery simply doesn't and didn't cut it when the diesel engines were socked by the Tsunami that accompanied the Earthquake. I have to say, from my armchair laptop, that was predictable. The backup generators should have been high and dry and protected...
Now the next question has to be, have design engineers in these United States made the same flawed assumption regarding "Station Blackouts" for all Mark 1 reactors and possibly all reactors in general?
...As an electrician I wouldn't be surprised if one or two of these US plants had B/U generators that have design flaws (cooling/vent systems, batteries charged from line power etc.) But hey why worry? Greedy corporations would never put the public in danger over profit right??
Just look at what ENRON did to the people in California and you'll sleep better at night!
In US nuclear power plants, the backup generators are in water tight buildings that can withstand hurricanes and being completely submerged by a flood.
Why the Japanese did not have their backup generators in water tight buildings is a mystery. This is especially true given that the plant was right on the ocean. If they had, then this whole crisis would have been averted.
Can no one remember what happened at TMI? Why do you need to see bodies in the streets to believe there is a very serious situation occurring in northeast Japan. We should all be very concerned.
People seem to be taking some comfort that "it's not in the US" or "it's the earthquake, not the nukes that are the problem."
Consider this: Peach Bottom 1 and 2 on the Susquehanna River in PA is the same type of reactor and are nearly 40 years old - antiques in terms of nukes. That part of PA has had earthquakes in living memory. It's run by a profit driven corporation. It's in the middle of fertile farmland and immediately upstream of Baltimore and Cheaspeake Bay.
Every one of the GE reactors listed in the article above has the same design flaws as Fukushima, plus they are OLD. No party of the US is immune from seismic activity. All of the reactors are managed by profit-driven corporations whose only concern is making money for shareholders, not public safety.
Google the Price-Anderson Act to see how much compensation is available for the aftermath of a nuclear accident in the US.
Do you feel safe now?
Yes, all reactors may have the same design flaw of not being able to withstand a 9.0 quake followed by a 30ft-high tsunami.
Or were you talking about the design flaw of containing radioactive material?
Also, there were no "bodies in the streets" from TMI.
Cheers!
media,
There was an investigtion and their report was published. At the back, they kindly also published the minority report. Worth reading. Free at public library.
Bodies in Pennsylvania did occur. My wifes cousin and her husband both died way too early. Thyroid cance shows up about 60 months after overexposure. Leukemia comes at varying times, may depend on one size, age, etc.
The horrific earthquake in Japan is giving the entire nuclear industry and all of it's scientists an opportunity to step forward and honestly speak to the potential threat from the demise of these nuclear power plants. We the people of the earth have a right to know the real risk factors of theses nuclear plants instead of having to learn about them during a natural disaster or man made break down. Radiation knows no boundaries and is equally damaging to all plants and animals.
To this day in Ukraine and Belarus the current generations of children born continue to suffer chromosomal damage perpetrated by the continuing high levels of radio active material-gamma, beta and alpha in their environment. The fallout from the Chernobyl disaster has polluted the aquafirs, rivers and soil in each country that the radiation clouds deposited their radiation by rain and wind. The radiation contaminated the soil,water, foodcrop, livestock and people in countries as far away as Scottland, England, Bavaria, Northern Italy, Macedonia, and Turkey as well as Finnland, Norway,Sweden and parts of the MIdwest in the US. Hundreds of thousands of lives prematurely lost or broken. Yet the industry has never been held to account. The radiation victims, soldiers and civilians have had to fight for decades to get our government to respond to the effects of 50 years of nuclear weapons testing in our country.
To date this industry has not bothered to fundamentally address the issue of nuclear waste generated by these dangerous power plants. Their solution is to put it off for future generations to deal with by burying it in the earth or submerging these toxic and highly volatile casks into the oceans. No one in their right mind would equate that to a responsible response. We need to hold our elected officials and our media's feet to the fire to be an effective check on the spread of these nuclear time bombs. The very nature of the future of our children and grandchildren hangs in the balance.
The nuclear industry continues to lie to us by proclaiming nuclear energy to be the safest and cleanest form of energy production. What they leave out is that a nuclear power plant breakdown can very rapidly disintegrate into a nuclear meltdown with catastrophic and decades long consequences to human health, plant life and animal life. Nuclear disasters do have a high risk to destroy life as we know it. It is when these catastrophes blow up that we are allowed to glimpse the shoddy/ cost cutting means that are used by this industry to safeguard these time bombs from blowing up.
"That type of plant could never be built in a democracy"..umm 'RN in Philly' did you happen to notice something missing from these 'Mark I' reactors...a little thing made from 3 foot thick concrete? These reactors are only a 'hair' better than Chernobyl...
These MARK I reactors have no containment structure...
It all comes down to risk assessment - how much risk are you going to accept? As part of that assessment, you have to factor in that no system can be engineered to be 100% fool proof. Despite all of the promises and sales pitches, we now have proof that these systems can fail, given the right circumstances. And, when they do fail, you have to accept the worst case scenario - an area with a 20 km radius, uninhabitable for many years, and a major source of power that you depended upon now gone. Bottom line - no company should ever claim infallibility in its products and no government officials should ever accept those claims and present them to the public as fact.
"no system can be engineered to be 100% fool proof." Freudian slip or the truth? A whole lot of both! (btw, the language is "full-proof")
You are a fool if you think we can tame Mother Nature or out-design anything she can throw at you. This is just another classic example of how arrogant and foolish mankind will be. We let other's assess the dangers of our livlihoods for their gain and our loss. We even pay big $'s for it just to be able to not have to pay attention of what is really happening around us, i.e. willfull ignorance. Only a fool would shut up and sit down to let that happen.
The Japanese reactors are just more proof, the NRC (and alike Corps) will take a mile when they shouldn't even be given an inch. This behavior isn't indicative of just Japanese, it's indicative of the mindset to profit at all costs.
Amen to that! Nuke energy has it's place...land based power generation is not one of them it's "piss in the wind"... Why spend billions of dollars to build a nuke plant when there are far cheaper alternatives?
I hope if they do build any new nuke plants that the corporation that owns them decides to call themselves "ENRON"
I've been waiting for this article....how can the media spin this NATURAL DISASTER to fit into their agenda? Well here you have it.....like a someone said in a previous comment, when a tsunami hits Omaha, then we should worry.
Maybe we should all go back to the days where we had no electricity and rode horseback....I think that will be the only thing that would appease the left.
On the plus side, none of the US plants mentioned have any risk of needing to be able to survive a 9.0 earthquake followed by a 30ft-high tsunami.
This report is like saying that because a tree fell on an Audi, everyone who drives an Audi is at risk of having a tree fall on them.
Thanks anyway for the fear-mongering Mr. MSNBC "investigative journalist."
So is the point of the story, all GE Mark I reactors (and here is a list to see if one is in your hometown) at risk of this same disaster? This story eeeks of mouth piece of an Anti-Nuclear group.
This story fails to mention the Tsunami, which Japan should have been prepared for seeing as how this plant is on the shore line. I did not hear how high the tsunami was at the plant, but just 50 miles north of there, it was over 20ft high. It is my understanding that the tsunami was the cause of the diesel backup generators failure. Without these external power sources, they can not operate the pumps to keep coolant flowing until the fuel cools.
If that is the case, should we be scaring all the readers into believing that if one of these sister plants in the United States is subject to an earthquake alone, they shall suffer the same fate? Which of these plants are located in such an area that an earthquake followed by a tsunami would effect them?
I'm not surprised that GE forwarded your email onto the industry trade group, your inquiry likely sounded like a "GE Hit Piece" from the start. Lets wait for the scientists and engineers to sort through all the events before causing panic over all the simular designed plants.
ge is a crap company that is in bed with obama. both are trying to ruin America
the design of these reactors and their age have nothing to do with the problems the Japanese engineers are currently facing. it was a tsunami and an earthquake that led to current problems, not design flaws. what a stupid article to quote a nuclear opposition group
duh! do you think that group would have an opinion about nuclear power other than a negative one. that's like expecting Fox news to give the Obama administration a positive spin
Okay, what are the odds that a nuclear power plant in Illinois will be hit by a 9 + earthquake followed by a Tsunami? For that fact, except for California, it is pretty longs odds anywhere in the US.
Calvin, the nuclear industry does not claim that nuclear plants elsewhere are able to withstand the same sort of seismic pressures that were put on these reactors in Japan. Indeed, the industry says they are not. The claim is that each plant is able to withstand the disasters that it might face. The NRC is doing some study on that issue; there's been some thought that the earthquake risks designed into nuclear plants in the middle and eastern United States might not be sufficient -- thought at the NRC, that is; it's doing a study of that question.
Bill,
I think if your article dealt with that issue I'd be fine with it. However you are playing upon the recent events and throwing information out there in a way in which you know people will draw specific conclusions. That I think is misguided.
I'm all for having constructive conversations on a wide range of topics...but to write an article in which you steer people towards a specific conclusion and then sit back and say but I didn't say that those plants would behave in the same way is misguided.
Ex navy,
I don't think it's a stretch to think that nuclear plants in the U.S., designed by the same company as those having trouble in Japan, will come under increased scrutiny. Are there seismic estimates done correctly? Are there diesel backup generators also at ground level, subject to flooding? Not to mention the more technical issues of the design of the containment system.
Such issues are always raised after a disaster. We don't know yet what will be found. But we do know that plants of similar design are in the U.S. The industry itself was talking about this immediately on Friday.
If we at msnbc.com, partly owned by GE (GE owns about one-fourth of our company, and nearly half of the separate company MSNBC TV) had failed to write about the GE-designed reactors, then you'd have a valid complaint!
Thanks again for your comments.
Bill
Bill,
You made my point. I went back to your article and failed to see those questions being raised or answered. However you did a fine job identifying the locations of the plants, including anti-nuclear beliefs, and sprinkling in Japan as much as you could.
Once again if your article had a conversation regarding the questions you mentioned above...fine...but your article has very little meat to it or balance between anti and pro...for the record I dont think its enough to just say...we asked GE...
Now that article would be something worth reading and not just a qouta filling collection of google search results and wikiapedia knowledge.
When I was workingona reactor...I actually had to leave the radition measuring device I wore at work...why...because the radon exposure from the apartment I was living in was causing me to go over my monthly limits. I was actually receiving more exposure where I lived than I did while the reactor was fully up and running.
As I've mentioned before the human species is flawed in comparison to Mother Nature....just look at how many people die each year from skin cancer...brought on by laying in the sun for hours soaking up radiation without protection....nothing is perfect...and everything benefits from and intelligent discourse.
Illinois is in the New Madrid Seismic zone, so it's not out of the woods by any stretch.
Wow-nuclear plants built by GE that have a known design flaw which makes containment failure probability 90%! Maybe the Japanese should sue GE and fine the crap out of them like the US did with Toyota. I think it's only fair!