How many nuclear bombs are just waiting to happen?

How many nuclear power plants are in the U.S. and where are they located?

There are currently 65 commercially operating nuclear power plants with 104 nuclear reactors in 31 states around the country. Thirty-six of the plants have two or more reactors. These plants have generated about 20% of U.S. electricity each year since 1990. The Palo Verde plant in Arizona has 3 reactors and the largest combined generating capacity of 3,942 Megawatts (MW) in 2010. Fort Calhoun in Nebraska has the smallest capacity with a single reactor at 478 Megawatts (MW) in 2010.


If there was ever an event in the US similar to what happened in Japan the effects would be far more devastating; just stating the obvious.

I was looking at this map and the proliferation of nuclear reactors in very populated areas with the proximity to waterways, along with the earthquake hazards that surround all of them is scary.





I am not a nuclear expert by any means and I am way over my head trying to break down any of the actual information about the specifics concerning the safety protocols involved; I just feel we have been very fortunate to escape any major catastrophes concerning these reactors.

How long can we avoid having a major problem from one or several? If there was a way to create a breakdown of any reactors that would be all it took to throw the US into a complete state of chaos; man made or natural disasters could cause this.

Could they use this as a “False Flag” event in the future to instigate martial law? For the conspiracies theorists….notice the lack of reactors in the area of Colorado? Hasn’t there been a belief bandied about that Denver could be the new capital of the US in the future?


Either way the US and Japan are not the only countries with nuclear reactors so the ability for the problem in Japan to happen anywhere should be a lesson to us all...of course the dangers of nuclear explosions is well documented. Explosions and meltdowns are vastly different behavior wise, however both can be and are most definitely devastating to the the ecology of this planet; animal plant and human.

As with most of my posts there is an underlying meaning that I try to instill in all that read it; every day that you are able to enjoy the love of those around you in your human form is a blessing. Don't take anything for granted.

Soul

I think this and fukashema is why they're trying to scramble now to build a robot that is like a humanoid, so they can do damage control if one of ours melts down. They finaly realized during #ashema that it was imparative they have a droid for these type of events.

Originally posted by spartacus699
I think this and fukashema is why they're trying to scramble now to build a robot that is like a humanoid, so they can do damage control if one of ours melts down. They finaly realized during #ashema that it was imparative they have a droid for these type of events.

When Fukishima happened I kept wondering why in the hell the Japanese weren't sending in awesome robots. I mean, come on Japan! You have robots that'll dance and give guided tours but you don't have a construction bot that is hardened for radiation? Your country relies on nuclear energy!

I was disappointed I didn't see any Gundams or Voltron-like robots in there fixing the mess. No, really I was.

I have to take issue with your thread title. For a variety of reasons, it's not possible for a commercial nuclear plant to turn into a 'nuclear bomb'...so the strictly correct answer to the question is 'zero'.

There's also something a lot of people are overlooking about Fukushima and the disaster there. It certainly is a disaster, no two ways about it. On the other hand, it might also be looked at as a perverse testament to just how resilient nuclear power plants are. Yes, the plant did fail catastrophically. On the other hand, after being hit with an earthquake, a tsunami, severe persistent flooding, *and* the failure of several backup systems, what could you reasonably expect?

As for the scope of a nuclear accident, Three Mile Island is still our worst to date, and it's rather instructive. TMI's other reactor was back online within a year of the accident, cancer rates in the area around the plant are still within statistical norms, and the waste was contained and stored. Nuclear power isn't absolutely safe, but then again, nothing on Earth is. It has, however, proven to be remarkably safe as long as the plants are built and maintained to a decent standard. It's an interesting mental exercise to add up the number of deaths directly linked to nuclear power, and the environmental damage from same to the deaths and environmental damage from fossil fuel plants. Go green = go nuclear.

You might also look at the US Navy's track record...they've operated scores of reactors for around 60 years without a major accident, so it *is* possible to run them safely.

reply to post by Brother Stormhammer

There's also something a lot of people are overlooking about Fukushima and the disaster there. It certainly is a disaster, no two ways about it. On the other hand, it might also be looked at as a perverse testament to just how resilient nuclear power plants are. Yes, the plant did fail catastrophically. On the other hand, after being hit with an earthquake, a tsunami, severe persistent flooding, *and* the failure of several backup systems, what could you reasonably expect?

Here is the problem. How did ALL of the safety systems happen to fail, including systems requiring no power? There was time to shut down with back up generators or battery power before the tsunami hit. And then hydrogen explosions when a venting system was in place to prevent hydrogen build up (again no power required)? Smells like the old wooden shoe ploy to me!

reply to post by Magister

Smells like the old wooden shoe ploy to me!

wat

I even Googled. I want to know what this means so I can use it too.

After seeing what happened in Japan we should make certain the same thing can't happen to our plants, but I don't want to see nuclear power go away.

reply to post by Domo1


From wikipedia:

That it derives from the Netherlands in the 15th century when workers would throw their sabots (wooden shoes) into the wooden gears of the textile looms to break the cogs, fearing the automated machines would render the human workers obsolete.[1]
That it derives from the French sabot (a wooden shoe or clog) via its derivative saboter (to knock with the foot, or work carelessly).[2]
That it derives from the late 19th-century French slang use of the word sabot to describe an unskilled worker, so called due to their wooden clogs or sabots; sabotage was used to describe the poor quality work of such workers.[3

reply to post by MystikMushroom


A lot of those robots sensitive circuits can also be damaged by the radiation released from a meltdown. Even "cheap" Drones they used were getting fried by the radiation trying to gauge information and get a better idea of what was going on.

reply to post by MystikMushroom


Would this make you feel better?

Originally posted by Magister
reply to post by Brother Stormhammer

 

There's also something a lot of people are overlooking about Fukushima and the disaster there. It certainly is a disaster, no two ways about it. On the other hand, it might also be looked at as a perverse testament to just how resilient nuclear power plants are. Yes, the plant did fail catastrophically. On the other hand, after being hit with an earthquake, a tsunami, severe persistent flooding, *and* the failure of several backup systems, what could you reasonably expect?

Here is the problem. How did ALL of the safety systems happen to fail, including systems requiring no power? There was time to shut down with back up generators or battery power before the tsunami hit. And then hydrogen explosions when a venting system was in place to prevent hydrogen build up (again no power required)? Smells like the old wooden shoe ploy to me!

edit on 14-8-2013 by Magister because: (no reason given)

Two quick disclaimers:
1) I haven't studied the blueprints of the Fukushima plant...I'm basing my comments on what I know (all open source) about US nuclear plant design.
2) I don't have access to any classified or confidential material.

One drawback to nuclear power plants is that they don't shut down well. Bringing a reactor down from full power operation to full shutdown can take hours, and until the shutdown is complete, you still have about the same odds of an accident as you do at full power. I don't know how much advance warning the operations staff at Fukushima had before the tsunami hit. More importantly, I don't know how long they had between someone with authority to do so ordered a shutdown and the tsunami's arrival. Given the reluctance most operators have to shut down any power plant (nuclear or conventional), I can make the educated guess that the bosses waited until well past what the engineers would've considered the 'last minute'.

As for the failure of the secondary systems, please bear in mind that I'm not saying that there weren't problems with the Fukushima plant. There were some, shall we say, interesting engineering decisions made with regard to backup systems and emergency generators in particular. On the other hand, how many cascading disasters can you expect engineers to plan for? After so many iterations of "If A fails, do B", you aren't writing an emergency plan, you're writing a fantasy novel, or the script for the next Airplane! sequel.

My intention wasn't really to discuss the specifics of Fukushima, though...the OP seems to feel that nuclear power plants are, in some way, threatening the human race simply by existing. My point (apparently not as clearly stated as I'd hoped) was that, while they can fail (any system can), said failures aren't exactly common or easily caused scenarios.

reply to post by MystikMushroom


I have a funny feeling were gonna see a first version of that irobot movie robot pretty soon now.

reply to post by Brother Stormhammer


All U.S. nuclear reactors vulnerable to terrorism, probe finds

Read more here: www.mcclatchydc.com...=cpy

WASHINGTON — All 107 nuclear reactors in the United States are inadequately protected from terrorist attacks, according to a Defense Department-commissioned report released Thursday. The report, by the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project at the University of Texas at Austin, warns that the current security required of civilian-operated reactors fails to safeguard against airplane attacks, rocket-propelled grenades and more than a small handful of attackers. Read more here: www.mcclatchydc.com...=cpy

reply to post by soulpowertothendegree

Bringing a reactor down from full power operation to full shutdown can take hours, and until the shutdown is complete, you still have about the same odds of an accident as you do at full power.

How do you know this?

Originally posted by soulpowertothendegree
reply to post by Brother Stormhammer

 

All U.S. nuclear reactors vulnerable to terrorism, probe finds

Read more here: www.mcclatchydc.com...=cpy

WASHINGTON — All 107 nuclear reactors in the United States are inadequately protected from terrorist attacks, according to a Defense Department-commissioned report released Thursday. The report, by the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project at the University of Texas at Austin, warns that the current security required of civilian-operated reactors fails to safeguard against airplane attacks, rocket-propelled grenades and more than a small handful of attackers. Read more here: www.mcclatchydc.com...=cpy

And this is surprising?
I don't know of many things in the US (or anywhere else) outside of a very few super-hardened structures that aren't vulnerable to large numbers of attackers armed with RPGs. That's not so much an indictment of the safety of nuclear power plants as it is a statement of the obvious. Security could (and probably should) be better than it is, but given a large number of attackers with powerful weapons and the element of surprise, just about anything is vulnerable.

Originally posted by Domo1

but I don't want to see nuclear power go away.

I would...

SPOCK: 'If memory serves, there was a dubious flirtation with nuclear fission reactors resulting in toxic side effects'

Originally posted by totallackey
reply to post by soulpowertothendegree

 

Bringing a reactor down from full power operation to full shutdown can take hours, and until the shutdown is complete, you still have about the same odds of an accident as you do at full power.

How do you know this?

A couple of reasons.
The fission process itself will take seconds to minutes to die down after the control rods are dropped, simply because neutrons will still be flying until they're absorbed, and any fission they trigger will release more neutrons, which will repeat the process. With the control rods fully dropped, it's a downward-tending cycle, but it's not an abrupt halt like switching off a car's engine.

Once the fission process has damped down, the core remains physically hot. It's a large block of mostly metal (the nuclear fuel is metal, so is the cladding of the fuel rods) sealed up in a large vessel full of very hot water. Until the reactor core has time to shed a substantial portion of that heat, there's the potential for damage to parts of the core, should a 'hot spot' develop. Once the temperatures have dropped below the point where a meltdown isn't an issue, there's still a large vessel full of very hot water under very high pressure to deal with.

A lot of information about the dynamics of start-up and shutdown is open source, if obscure. The formal investigations into the Three Mile Island accident covered the topic in some detail. I also had a chance to talk with one of the plant operators aboard the USS Long Beach. I'm sure there are differences in detail between military and civilian reactor operating methods, but given the basic physics, I'd imagine the generalities are the same.

As usual, if anybody has better info, feel free to pass it along...any day I learn something new is a good one!

Originally posted by SLAYER69

Originally posted by Domo1

but I don't want to see nuclear power go away.

I would...

SPOCK: 'If memory serves, there was a dubious flirtation with nuclear fission reactors resulting in toxic side effects'

What would you suggest we replace nuclear power with? Any method of large-scale power generation (or storage) is going to have human and environmental costs.

Fossil fuel plants release more radioactivity during normal operation than nuclear plants are allowed to, just from natural radioactive isotopes found in coal, plus the carcinogens in normal exhaust.

Wind power isn't reliable, solar power is geographically limited, and both require battery banks to even out power delivery to the grid, which requires the mining and use of tons of toxic heavy metals.

Hydro-electric power requires dams and fair-sized rivers, and carries huge environmental impacts

I could keep going, but I think you see the point I'm trying to make? Modern civilization requires power, and power comes at a cost. Nuclear power isn't a perfect solution (there are no perfect solutions), but based on its track record, it's certainly a viable solution. In fact, the biggest problem with nuclear power isn't it's environmental impact, but the fact that it's almost impossible to discuss nuclear *anything* without someone having an attack of the hysterical vapors simply because the "N-word" was mentioned and we're all gonna die!!!!!!

reply to post by Brother Stormhammer


A concerted Global world wide effort on developing Fusion reactors.


Our Planet not mention our own survival may depend on it....

reply to post by SLAYER69


We're making an effort to develop fusion power...several of them, in fact.
ITER in Europe,
Sandia Labs is using the Z-Machine to research inertial confinement
The National Ignition Facility is also working on inertial confinement.

There are dozens of others, but as far as I know, those are the 'Big Three'. Unfortunately, until one or more of them makes fusion work, and until we can get enough fusion power plants built to pick up the load, we still need to keep the lights on.

I agree with you that fusion is probably the best overall solution in the long term. The problem with long term solutions is surviving the short term.