earthquake

This began as an answer to one letter writer in Friends Journal, and grew. The information that surprised me most is the answer to this question: How does the danger from the Fukushima Daiichi reactors compare to other health dangers, such as Tokyo pollution? ************** There were a number of responses to Earthquake, Tsunami, and...[read more]

This is weird. Today at 1:51 pm Eastern time a 5.9 magnitude earthquake struck northwest of Richmond, VA. It was felt as far north as New York City.[read more]

A 5.8 magnitude earthquake (USGS data) shook much of the east coast at 1:51 PM eastern time today. Dominion’s North Anna reactors went off line safely and are on emergency power using four diesel generators.[read more]

Grief was our first reaction when a civilized nation so prepared for earthquakes was devastated. Those of us who live in earthquake country found it hard to tamp down the fear that we can't protect ourselves from nature. Japan, so much better prepared than the West Coast, actually did quite well with the once-in-a-millennium earthquake (the previous largest in that area was M8.3, in 869 CE), but the tsunami killed thousands, left hundreds of thousands homeless, and may have a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars.[read more]

TEPCO has detected radiation of up to 4,000 millisieverts per hour in the air at the building housing reactor unit 1 at the Fukushima nuclear facility. Readings were collected from a robot sent into reactor unit 1 on June 3rd. Heavy steam has also been observed rising from the floor of reactor unit 1.Record Radiation Levels at...[read more]

It was the tsunami that killed the reactor complex A report by an international team of nuclear energy experts has blamed Japan for failing to adequately protect the Fukushima Daiichi reactor complex from the effects of tsunami waves.  Despite a long history of horrific tidal events, it turns out TEPCO, the utility that built and...[read more]

Cowritten by Sara Mansur. On Tuesday, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan announced that the country would scrap its plans to increase nuclear power's contribution to electricity generation to 50 percent by 2030, in response to the crisis at Fukushima's Daiichi nuclear complex. Replacing nuclear power's sizable role in Japan's energy...[read more]

For the first time utility says fuel has "melted" and may be "crumbled" at bottom of the reactor pressure vessel for reactor 1 The fuel assemblies in Fukushima reactor unit 1 are only partially covered by water. A TEPCO spokesman, Junichi Matsumoto, told a press conference in Tokyo Thursday May 12 that plant workers have poured enough...[read more]

A review of what went wrong, why, and what should be done in the future Guest Blog Post by: Akira T. Tokuhiro Ph.D * Following a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and as high as ~14 meter tsunami, the Fukushima  Dai-ichi (D1) and Dai-ni (D2) Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs, Units 1-4[U1-4] at D1, U5-6-2 at D2i) experienced a series of multiple...[read more]

Worldwatch Institute has made the draft version of their report, “Nuclear Power in a Post-Fukushima World”, freely available. From the announcement page: The future of nuclear power was bleak even before the Fukushima disaster, said energy expert Mycle Schneider Wednesday at a press conference in Berlin, where he previewed an upcoming...[read more]

It surprises many that Fukushima has been reclassified as a Level 7 Accident under the guidelines of the International Nuclear and Radiological Event  (INES) Scale.  I wondered what was going on.  It turned out there is an INES User Manual. Quotes from this manual in what follows appear in italics...[read more]

The overreaction and stoked fears about the events at Fukushima continues. One month ago today, I wrote an article titled Nuclear plant issues in Japan are the least of their worries that exposed my ignorance of the differences between various kinds of containment designs and was a bit too optimistic about the eventual releases of...[read more]

Hot in the news is that the Fukushima Nuclear crisis has been upgraded from INES 5 to INES 7. Note that this is not due to some sudden escalation of events today (aftershocks etc.), but rather it is based on an assessment of the cumulative magnitude of the events that have occurred at the site over the past month (my most...[read more]

The real question about nuclear safety is not "can nuclear accidents be avoided," but "do we want to do what ever is required to avoid nuclear accidents." As it turns out avoiding and mitigating nuclear accidents is not terribly expensive, nor does it make nuclear power impractical, but does require the nuclear industry to change the...[read more]

The nuclear crisis at Fukushima Daiichi has, alas, now evolved into more of a saga. The last seven days of events has been acted out in slow motion compared to the first dramatic week (dating back to almost a month ago), but there continues to be plenty of headaches for TEPCO — and no clear sign of things being locked down any time soon...[read more]