🔋Tropical Apocalypse
Public perception of nuclear energy's safety is wide-ranging - reality is that nuclear power plants today are rated to withstand some of the worst natural disasters, something other sources cannot.
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Have you ever found yourself somewhere new and been wondering how the water, electricity, or sewage systems work there? No? Just me? My next thought as I sip a Piña Colada on my Florida vacation is naturally whether nuclear power plants can withstand the hurricanes like Ian that hit the region last fall. What about plants near fault lines susceptible to earthquakes? The safety of nuclear is one of the most contested issues revolving the technology and can give many hesitation so lets dive in and see how safe they really are.
It turns out Florida has two operating nuclear powerplants that supply around 10% of the States electricity (dominated by natural gas). Both are located on the eastern coast, one near Miami and the other north of Miami near Port St. Lucie. While not in the path of the storm, neither plant shut down due to Hurricane Ian. There were also protocols in place to safely shut down the reactor in any event where there was worry of damage. In this instance, the infrastructure surrounding the nuclear generation facility is of more concern that the facilities themselves due to the construction.
In general, nuclear powerplants are considered safe during hurricanes, however it is very dependent on the constriction criteria and operation. Fukushima is a famous example where an earthquake and tsunami caused power and cooling failure causing a meltdown at the facility. Today in the US (and to my comfort in Florida), there is little worry about meltdowns. There are systems in place to shut down and keep the reactor cool in any event where the storm passed over the facility. In 1992, Hurricane Andrew passed over the Turkey Point nuclear station near Miami Florida causing serious financial damages, but no meltdown since the plant was shut down in advance of the event. The NEI suggests the plants in the US are build to withstand hurricanes and have a long record of success. Here are some other nuclear plants that have survived.
2011, Hurricane Irene (category 3): 24 nuclear reactors in 15 sites located between North Carolina and New England safely resisted.
2005, Hurricane Katrina (category 5): Unit 3 of the Waterford nuclear power plant in Louisiana was shut off after the electricity supply was lost due to the hurricane. All emergency equipment functioned according to plan and operated the emergency diesel generators for 4.5 days,
2004, Hurricane Jeanne (category 3): The operator of the St. Lucie nuclear power plant in Florid shut off its two units after the hurricane caused an exterior loss of energy supply.
What about Earthquakes? Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant is located on the coast away from the San Andreas fault line. It was build in 1985 to withstand a 6.75 magnitude earthquake. It was upgraded to withstand 7.5. In 2008, a smaller parallel fault line was discovered within miles from the facility raising concern. This fault line is said to only be capable of generating quakes up to 6.5, however some theorize that other factors leave damage still a possibility. Plants are built with these requirements to be able to withstand extremely large events. France for instance requires plants to be be able to withstand twice as strong as the “1000yr event” for each location. In addition, plants have measures in place to automatically shut down and allow adequate emergency cooling when certain seismic measurements are reached.
Obviously shutting down before the event is not great and guaranteed to cause mass blackouts to people around the state and would be dangerous. However, little to no electricity sources are safe from these devastating events. Transmission infrastructure and other forms of energy are just as/if not more susceptible to damage and outage. Natural gas facilities also get shut down, renewables don’t work, and often powerlines are destroyed either way so little can be done about this. Building facilities like nuclear plants strong and that can last decades has proven to be a reliable and cost effective strategy as these plants continue running long after being hit by hurricanes for example.
That being said, obviously we don’t want to go out building them anywhere. Building on top of a major fault line or right in the common path of hurricanes may not be the best idea, especially with the added costs of making sure they are strong enough to fulfill the requirements in those more dangerous areas. Additional factors come into play like the cooling ability. Traditional water-cooled nuclear plants need to be near rivers or the ocean to have cheap water to cool. Draught ridden areas may not be adequate. This was seen in Europe and even China last year where draught caused nuclear powerplants to not run at there normal capacity.
The next logical “danger” pathway is naturally what happens if they are bombed? To wrap up the paragraph above it is not advisable building nuclear powerplants in warzones in case that wasn’t abundantly obvious. With that clarified, nuclear powerplants wouldn’t explode like a nuclear bomb would. Some are even rated to withstand being hit with an airplane. The risk of inadequate cooling and radiation to surrounding areas seems to me like a valid concern if this happened, however emergency measures to flood the reactor to cool it could mitigate or stop a meltdown. Then there’s the fact whoever did that would have to contend with the US military as consequence which is no small order. In that scenario which hopefully none of us ever experience, we would have other things to worry about than just some potential radiation.
Getting things back on the rails here. Overall certain places are definitely better than others for nuclear powerplants. They can be build to withstand pretty nasty natural disasters and attacks that other sources cannot handle. The safety risk of a nuclear meltdown, especially in the US is very small even in regions prone to natural disasters corroborated by history (and lessons learned from history). This safety and reliability supports my positive bias toward building nuclear energy capacity and is helpful to know since energy is such a hot topic these days. Until next week,
-Grayson
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Thanks for that. I guess the content is valid for “large” scale nuclear power plants but not for the new generation of supposedly small scale power plants around 100 MWh... right?
Also, my problem with arguments like “we learned from the past catastrophes” usually underestimates what can turn even worse in future catastrophes like more severe hurricanes, higher flooding etc... I think nuclear power plants are safe, but with that comes also higher costs and longer construction times...