America's Nuclear Power Grid Is On Shaky Ground, Very Important Facts

Increasing Threats to Our Nuclear Power Stations

Japan marks 600th eruption of
the Sakurajima volcano this year

I find myself faced, today, with the incredibly unpleasant task of delivering some rather frightening news. Perhaps we can forgive humanity’s nuclear planners because they could not foresee a time where the world was going to suffer though increasingly violent earthquakes that would threaten nuclear instillations. The geological news and the nuclear news are on a collision course and there is nothing we can really do about it short of closing down every nuclear plant in the world. And even then, as we saw in Fukushima, with fuel pools and already shut-down reactors, there continues to be significant ongoing risk from the powered-down nuclear stations.

This past week we found out that the risk of an earthquake causing a severe accident at a U.S. nuclear plant is greater than previously thought, 24 times as high in one case, according to an Associated Press (AP) analysis of preliminary government data. The threat came into sharp focus last week, when shaking from the largest earthquake to hit Virginia in 117 years appeared to exceed what the North Anna nuclear power plant northwest of Richmond was built to sustain.

The two North Anna reactors are among 27 in the eastern and central U.S. that, according to a preliminary Nuclear Regulatory Commission review, may need upgrades that would take years and billions of dollars to implement. The recent quake in Virginia shifted about two dozen spent-fuel containers, but Dominion Virginia Power blew the all-clear sirens saying that thank God all the containers were intact. But lo and behold we find that based on the AP analysis of NRC data, the plant is 38 percent more likely to suffer core damage from a rare, massive earthquake than it appeared in an analysis 20 years ago.

We now have to ask ourselves: What if these rare massive earthquakes on which they are basing their numbers become more frequent and more intense then nuclear planners ever thought they would? At my Sanctuary in the interior highlands of Brazil, I built a walking bridge over our stream that turns into a strong river when it rains. Well the rains have been getting heavier and one day three years ago the river and rains just carried my beautiful bridge away. I should have built it higher and stronger! They should have built those sea walls higher at Fukushima as well.

Continue reading here.