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Nuclear Plants Vulnerable to Earthquakes
The American government has officially stated that fracking can cause earthquakes. Some fracking companies now admit this fact The scientific community agrees. See this, this, this, this and this.
Earthquakes can – of course – damage nuclear power plants. For example, even the operator of Fukushima and the Japanese government now admit that the nuclear cores might have started melting down before the tsuanmi(sic) ever hit. More here.
Indeed, the fuel pools and rods at Fukushima appear to have “boiled”, caught fire and/or exploded soon after the earthquake knocked out power systems. See this, this, this, this and this. And fuel pools in the United States store an average of ten times more radioactive fuel than stored at Fukushima, have virtually no safety features, and are vulnerable to accidents and terrorist attacks. And see this.
Indeed, American reactors may be even more vulnerable to earthquakes than Fukushima.
But American nuclear “regulators” have allowed numerous nuclear power plants to be built in earthquake zones (represented by black triangles in the following diagram):
During this period, the water table dropped by 250 meters (274 yards) as farmers bored ever deeper wells to help produce the fruit, vegetables and meat that are exported from Lorca to the rest of Europe. In other words, the industry that propped up the local economy in southern Spain may have undermined the very ground on which Lorca is built.
The researchers noted that even without the strain caused by water extraction, a quake would likely have occurred at some point.
But the extra stress of pumping vast amounts of water from a nearby aquifer may have been enough to trigger a quake at that particular time and place, said lead researcher Pablo J. Gonzalez of the University of Western Ontario, Canada.
A seismic-hazard evaluation was then conducted, resulting in the cancellation of the project in December 2009. Basel, Switzerland sits atop a historically active fault and most of the city was destroyed in a magnitude 6.5 earthquake in 1356. But the Basel project, although it had established an operational approach for addressing induced earthquakes, had not performed a thorough seismic risk assessment before starting geothermal stimulation.
We keep sucking on that long straw in our milkshake. We've damned all the rivers, drained all the swamps and when we ran out of water sources on top of the land, we then bored straight down and found the stuff hidden away in the aquifers. We keeping pricking the pincushion and poking holes in the old apple pie's crust. And if you think we'd stop at sucking, you'd be wrong. Because now we're blowing. We're pushing all our dirty secrets back down those holes. Knowing they'll never come back to haunt us.
“In 2000 alone, civilian reactors produced enough plutonium to make more than 34,000 nuclear bombs,” writes Smith. [1]
This is what the nuclear energy industry is about – producing plutonium, tritium and other ingredients for nuclear bombs. [2]
One isotope of plutonium has a half-life of 24,000 years. That’s twice as long as the latest interglacial in which Homo sapiens developed agriculture, and thus modern civilization. Another – P-239 – has a 250,000-year half-life. That’s longer than Homo sapiens has been around. But then we have uranium-238 with a 4.5 billion-year half-life, the lifespan of Planet Earth. Tritium has a half life of 12 years; strontium 29 years, cesium – 30 years, and on for the hundreds of hot particles (radioactive isotopes) created by fission.
some may speculate that the quake could have been caused by hydraulic fracturing taking place in western North Dakota’s booming oil patch. Geology experts quickly shot down that theory, noting that Friday’s small quake would have happened at about 2,000 feet below the surface, too shallow to be caused by the fracking taking place much deeper in the ground. There is no proven link between fracking and earthquakes, they said.
Earthquakes can – of course – damage nuclear power plants.
No kidding!!!!
Say it ain't so....
Originally posted by PuterMan
reply to post by snarky412
No kidding!!!!
Say it ain't so....
Oh no in the case of Fukushima it was the tsunami. Nuclear reactors can be built on fault lines in areas prone to Mag 8+ earthquakes without any qualms at all. It is only the tsunami you need to worry about.
/sarc off
Earthquakes can – of course – damage nuclear power plants.For example, even the operator of Fukushima and the Japanese government now admit that the nuclear cores might have started melting down before the tsuanmi(sic) ever hit. More here.
According to The Chunichi Shinbun and other sources, a few hours after the earthquake extremely high levels of radiation were being measured within the reactor one building. The levels were so high that if you spent a full day exposed to them it would be fatal. The water levels of the reactor were already sinking. After the Japanese government forced TEPCO to release hundreds of pages of documents relating to the accident in May, Bloomberg reported on May 19 that a radiation alarm went off 1.5 kilometers from the number one reactor on March 11 at 3:29 p.m., minutes before the tsunami reached the plant. TEPCO would not deny the possibility that there was significant radiation leakage before the power went out. They did assert that the alarm might have simply malfunctioned. [Source: Jake Adelstein and David McNeill, The Atlantic, July 2, 2011]
Name removed- Drill baby drill! Hydro frac, is use for oil production as well not just gas.the oilfield is good all the neg comments about are just from people that don't know anything, #roughneck, north Dakota oilfield. October 16 at 5:08pm · Like · 2
Name removed- Yep! Drill it! IDK who these people are but they need to shut up and let the people who know what there doing do there job and get America back in business! Freakin idiots ! October 17 at 9:48am · Like · 1
“Hydraulic fracturing near a nuclear plant is probably not a concern under normal circumstances,” [Richard Hammack, a scientist at the Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory] said. “If there is a pre-stress fault that you happen to lubricate there (with fracking solution), that is the only thing that might result in something that is (seismically) measurable.”
That’s not very reassuring, given that “lubrication” of faults is the main mechanism by which fracking causes earthquakes. (Indeed, the point is illustrated by the analogous fact that leading Japanese seismologists say that the Fukushima earthquake “lubricated” nearby faults, making a giant earthquake more likely than ever.)
And as Akron Beacon Journal notes, fracking is allowed with 500 feet of nuclear plants:
“We’re not aware of any potential impacts and don’t expect any,” said FirstEnergy spokeswoman Jennifer Young today. “We see no reason to be particularly concerned.”
“Hydraulic fracturing near a nuclear plant is probably not a concern under normal circumstances,” [Richard Hammack, a scientist at the Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory] said. “If there is a pre-stress fault that you happen to lubricate there (with fracking solution), that is the only thing that might result in something that is (seismically) measurable.”
That’s not very reassuring, given that “lubrication” of faults is the main mechanism by which fracking causes earthquakes. (Indeed, the point is illustrated by the analogous fact that leading Japanese seismologists say that the Fukushima earthquake “lubricated” nearby faults, making a giant earthquake more likely than ever.)
And as Akron Beacon Journal notes, fracking is allowed with 500 feet of nuclear plants:
“We’re not aware of any potential impacts and don’t expect any,” said FirstEnergy spokeswoman Jennifer Young today. “We see no reason to be particularly concerned.”
www.onntv.com...
Residents Oppose Nuclear Plant Re-Opening
If there was any doubt in our mind that it was not safe, it would have not been allowed to resume operations and we came to that conclusion through an independent evaluation of First Energy's review and engineering assessment," explained James Cameron of the NRC.
"The restraint we placed on ourselves meant that we could not restart the plant until we knew that building was safe and we're very confident with that," said Jennifer Young, the First Energy spokeswoman.
Outer wall???? But she didn't say THAT!
www.northwestohio.com...~%5Cnews%5Clists%5Crecent&id=763169
OAK HARBOR -- A new leak has been found at the Davis Besse Nuclear Power Plant.
Radioactive coolant was spraying out of the pinhole sized leak. The plant's operator, First Energy, says the leaking coolant never got outside the building and posed no threat to the public. Workers discovered the leak Wednesday as they were getting ready to re-start the oak harbor plant after a month long maintenance shutdown.
It's unclear how much coolant was spilled out but operators say it was contained quickly.
Crews found cracks in the outer wall last year but the plant was allowed to re-start.