26 Nuclear Power Plants In Hurricane Sandy's Path 392
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."
Took you long enough, Slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
My god, this has never happened! (Score:5, Insightful)
These plants have NEVER been hit by a storm before! Whatever will we do??
Re:Took you long enough, Slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly. While people are dealing with the *real* effects of the storm right now, these people want to talk about nuclear meltdowns? Stupid ass hyperbole if you ask me...
And when the storm has passed... (Score:4, Insightful)
So when the storm has passed, if nothing happens, will the fear mongering anti-nuke folks admit that nuclear power is safe?
*crickets*
Re:Nuclear Technology (Score:4, Insightful)
The WTC towers did survive an aircraft flying into them.
What they didn't survive was the jet fuel fire after the crash knocked the insulation off the girders.
This is stupid fear-mongering, plain and simple.
Fukushima didn't fail until AFTER a catastrophic earthquake, AFTER a catastrophic tsunami, AFTER the reactor was run past its design lifetime, and AFTER the company in charge of it did not make the manufacturer's recommended safety upgrades. Do you have any evidence we're facing anything remotely similar to those circumstances with the 26 nuclear reactors in the storm's affected area?
Re:Nuclear Technology (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course, you do realize that the real winner with the nuclear switch off in Germany was coal, right? You might have more windmills, but you probably would have even with the nuclear plants.
Turning off nuclear based on a scare reaction to an accident puts Germany firmly in the luddite column, even with the movement on green sources. It's more like "OMG, nuclear is scary turn it off now!", and then suddenly realizing that people would eventually realize that the thing that everyone is not scared of is the thing they think they understand very well: burning stuff with carbon in it. So now, they have to do a crash build program on technologies that aren't even there yet.
So, much like the US subsidizes pharmaceuticals for the rest of the world, Germany is now subsidizing green tech for the rest of us. Thanks for that, but don't pretend it's because Germany is forward thinking.
Re:Around here (Score:3, Insightful)
Critical fact missing from TFA (Score:4, Insightful)
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...
Re:Took you long enough, Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh please. I've read both stories, and neither of them is the least bit sensationalistic. They present issues and facts, and neither of them is clearly anti-nuke. But of course anybody who suggests that there are safety issues with nuclear power must be "scaremongering".
What's weird to me is that people get all religious about nuclear power. At best, fission plants will never provide more than a fraction of the power we need. You may think that the benefit-versus-risk equation argues that we shoud build them (not that I agree) but is that really sufficient reason to treat nuclear power like the Second Coming?
Re:Took you long enough, Slashdot (Score:2, Insightful)
you do realize that it is attitudes just like yours that is part of the problem, right?
no, of course you don't
why don't you try educating yourself on a little world history about the true value of arrogance towards the common man like yours
FUD (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I hope it gives me super powers (Score:5, Insightful)
Will we get the same sensationalist headlines when nothing happens?
"The plants performed as designed! No meltdown!!!"
Re:Took you long enough, Slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Took you long enough, Slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
New York City isn't even in the top 50 by population density: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_proper_by_population_density [wikipedia.org]
And.. *gasp*... look at which country makes up 7 of the top 10 densest populations in the world...
That list needs a much higher minimum population threshold.
14 of the 50 have fewer than 100k people. Only 12 of them even crack 1M. One on the list (Union City, NJ) would get counted as part of NYC if you start looking at metro areas.
But all that aside, I wasn't trying to argue that NYC is the most densely populated part of the world, but rather took issue with the anonymous poster's assertion that New Delhi and Beijing were moreso. The instruction to look at a map followed by a pair of examples that didn't support the argument he was making got to me.
Re:Around here (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Took you long enough, Slashdot (Score:2, Insightful)
See, this is why nuclear safety gets a bad rep. I'm not necessarily saying the plant isn't safe, but look at your decision making:
BTW, NONE of the evacuation plans take into account there being a bad storm while attempting an evacuation from a nuke plant...they just don't consider it likely.
15m waves were not considered very likely either, but that gamble didn't turn out so well.
And, btw, the original call for an evacuation plan was for 50 miles...I was at that meeting, but we all agreed that it would be impossible to evacuate 50 miles, as it includes all of NYC. Then we cut it down to 25 miles, and it still included too much of NYC to be doable. Finally, we went down to 10 miles, which everyone felt was more realistic to evacuate. But the 10 mile evacuation zone isn't based on science, it's based on what is doable in the NY area. 10 miles wasn't enough at Fukishima.
So you are saying that a plant was built in a location where it is impossible to adequately evacuate the area science tells us should be evacuated, and that because of that just cutting the area down to 1/5th that size was deemed acceptable?
People don't trust those in charge of building and running nuclear plants. Perhaps you can see why.
Re:Took you long enough, Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
Ha, I was getting tired of all the pro-nuclear stuff on Slashdot as well. Every time there is a story about nuclear power, or even worse about any kind of non-nuclear power, the nuke-u-like brigade come out and accuse everyone of being irrational anti-nuke anti-technology anti-progress tree-hugging hippies.
Rational debate becomes impossible.
A nuclear station is built to withstand a hurricane with ease, including, loss of off-site power.
Fukushima was built to withstand a large earthquake and tsunami with ease, including, loss of off-site power. Turns out the design was flawed and contingency plans inadequate. If you would like to debate the actual, technical issues here I would be glad to.