Wow, amazing ignorance of nuclear physics, reactor design and operation!!!
It doesn't matter how big the storm is, it can't do any damage to a reactor. Reactors are designed to easily survive the whole structure falling on top of them. The only reason to idle them is because of the transformers and power lines, which are subject to wind damage. If your reactor is running at load, and that lead is removed, it still puts out electricity until they can shunt the steam away from the generator, and millions of watts of electricty can be pretty dangerous to neighboring people. The reactor itself suffers no damage.
The reactor vessel in Fukashima was breached because of a 9.1 earthquake, not the tsunami. It was also, as is the case of EVERY reactor failure, running in excess of 100% power at the time, was past due for a re-fueling, had the safety devices bypassed, and had not been operated properly for some time before that. When the containment vessel was breached while running in excess of full power, IE: Control rods fully withdrawn, the reactor was producing excessive heat, and excessive nasty byproducts. This made it hard to reinsert the rods, and those nasty byproducts blew out into the atmosphere. The automatic SCRAM had been bypassed for several months in order to produce power in excess of 100%. By the time they finally got most of the rods MANUALLY reinserted, too much time had gone by. Additionally, the old Westinghouse design has always been considered a very poor design for putting the fuel storage pool ABOVE the reactor. While it speeds build time, it is the only design still operating that uses this backwards design.
This is what happens when one runs a reactor at 130+% power, has disconnected the safety device, and a 9.1 earthquake hits.
Had it been running at normal power and had they not bypassed the auto SCRAM safety net, it wouldn't have made the news for very long. It should also be noted that it was long past due for a re-fueling, meaning most of the Uranium had been converted to more nasty forms of radioactive materials.
When a reactor is in low power or idle setting, it doesn't matter how big of an earthquake hits.
To play it extra safe, they did idle all the reactors in the storms path. That's why they cut off power to much of the East Coast prior to the storm hitting. A reactor at idle is only operating at 0.1%, just enough to keep it warm, because reactor start-up, and the preparation for it can take weeks.
An idling reactor poses zero threat to anybody, unless the containment vessel is breached and you happen to be standing right next to it.
A SCRAM'ed, or inactive reactor is just a bunch of un-reacting Uranium. The moderating rods must be withdrawn in order for slow Neutron fission to begin. Enrico Fermi ran the World's first reactor (un-shielded) by standing on top of it and pulling out the control rods by hand, and he lived happily to a ripe old age. The reactor was made of a 16 foot stack of Graphite blocks with holes in the filled with high grade, natural yellowcake Uranium. It was located in the squah courts under the University of Chicago.
Even old, poorly designed reactors are perfectly safe running at full power AS LONG AS THE SAFETY DEVICES HAVE NOT BEEN BYPASSED.
The reason Germany is getting rid of reactors is that they are old, Soviet designed and operated "Fast Breeder" reactors. They are replacing these with safe modern designs. The USSR, located most of their reactors in East Germany as a payback for WWII, and these were primarily fast breeders, meaning they were designed primarily to turn Uranium into Plutonium and other weapons grade fission materials as quickly and efficiently as possible. This is operating at the dangerous side of nuclear physics.
People fear nuclear power because it's generally beyond most people to understand the physics of it, and what people don't understand, they fear. So they look for like minded slanted opinions and hold them up to the light as great truths. Unfortunately what they are holding is a bag of crap. One can always find opinions that reinforce one's own opinion, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are factual.
The reactors they are replacing them with are safe modern designs. 90% of all of Europe's power is produced by reactors, and the Europeans have no problems with them.
We need to follow Europe's lead and build more modern reactors, for the very simple reason that they work and are perfectly safe.
What we should be doing is building Modular Pebble Bed Reactors. PBR's are impossible to melt down, by the passive safety of the physics involved. They are thermally throttled. Too cold and they can't react, too hot and they can't react, breach the containment vessel or hit them with a bomb and blow them apart, and they can't react, and will release no dangerous radioactivity. Additionally, they can use for fuel all those nasty byproducts we are storing and have no idea what to do with. The fuel is contained in the ceramic matrix of the "pebbles", and is safe enough to be used a a doorstop. When it is burned, it is transformed into a harmless byproduct you can use as a paperweight. They can be made small enough to carry on a rail car.
Until Fusion is made practical, they are the perfect working answer to power needs: Safe and relatively inexpensive to build and operate, and the modular design makes them easy to assemble or disassemble. All one needs is a building to house them (or not) and a power generating plant to hook them up to:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble...dular_reactor:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor
Solar is too expensive, wind is too expensive, wave power is too expensive, and all the research in the World isn't going to change this. You still have to build the thing, you still have to pay people to built the infrastructure. I have no idea why people didn't figure this out instead of listening to the lie, that if we invest in green energy it's a good investment. Nobody but the US Government is stupid enough to invest in these technologies.
Lets break it down:
Solar - Reflecting plants require a huge amount of manpower to build all those mirror assemblies, and the target tower. Panels don't last long, and are expensive to build because of all those rare earth minerals. Additionally mining and processing all those rare earth minerals in China, about the only place on Earth where they are abundant, is a dirty, polluting affair, costing a big carbon footprint that it takes years to balance out, right about when they are no longer effective and are basically un-recyclable.
Sort of like the Toyota Prius, the dirtiest vehicle on Earth when you take manufacturing into the equation. It takes 7 years of OPTIMAL operation to see a gain. 7 years of around town, stop and go operation, and then the car is ready to recycle, well except for all the electronics, they go in a landfill... Bet they didn't tell you this when you bought one...
Wind - Oh boy, the biggest joke of all! Each wind generator costs between $700,000 to $3 million to make and install. Additionally they need constant maintenance. Then you have a tower that will power from 3 to 20 homes. Do the math, it doesn't work without subsidies.
Wave power - All the problems of wind, plus corrosion.
All three are dependent upon the environment. When it's not sunny, or windy, you have to store energy in batteries. Back to China and the landfill you go...
The same mindset that thinks flourescent bulbs and paper bags are the way to go, LOL! (Hint: They aren't!).
Well there's coal, course Obama pretty much killed coal, green or not...
Are you getting the picture people?
Denial land, a nice, warm, feel-good place to live. Too bad it doesn't work...
If you really want nice green energy, support nuclear power. Done right it is THE answer.
I can't wait for all the misinformed opinions to start flying over this. NOT!
Educate yourselves people, stop looking for people who agree with your pet theories, and search out neutral, objective and factual information. If you want to hear what you want to hear, there will always be people waiting to enable you in it...
