Most near nuclear plants not ready for emergency

CNN Poll: Most near nuclear plants not ready for emergency

Washington (CNN) – Most Americans who live within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant aren't prepared for a nuclear emergency and don't think the police, hospitals and other emergency services in their community are prepared either, according to a new national poll.

Map: How close is your home to a nuclear power plant?

But a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday indicates that only four in ten believe it is likely that an accident or natural disaster at the nuclear plant near them will put their family in immediate danger, and only one in seven think that is very likely to happen.

Graphic: Are you prepared?

Full poll results [pdf]

As a result, only 18 percent of people who live within 50 miles of a nuclear plant have a disaster supplies kit ready, and six in ten are not familiar with the evacuation route they would need to use if the worst happened.

Radiation: What you need to know

"Staying put may also not be a good idea – nearly six in ten believe that the police, hospitals and first responders in their area are not prepared for a nuclear emergency," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

A 1982 study from Sandia National Laboratories, commissioned for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said the consequences of a nuclear meltdown in the United States would be catastrophic. The disaster could cause 50,000 fatalities and $314 billion in property damage. In today's money, that's $720 billion.

Cleanup: Who would pay for nuclear disaster cleanup?

Putting a number on a hypothetical scenario such as a full nuclear meltdown in the United States obviously leaves much room for guesswork. The NRC noted the age of the 1982 Sandia study, suggesting it's no longer accurate. The agency is working on a new study, said NRC spokesman Scott Burnell, but that study focuses on health impacts, not property damage.

Winfred Colbert, an energy attorney, said that in the only major disaster at a U.S. nuclear plant, the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979, the containment structure generally worked. Not much radiation is thought to have leaked into the atmosphere. The $70 million or so in evacuation, cleanup and other associated costs were easily paid for by the industry's $12.6 billion fund.

But with so many major U.S. cities so close to nuclear power plants - New York, Boston, Chicago, Washington D.C. and Philadelphia are all with a 50-mile fallout zone - it's hard to imagine a major disaster wouldn't result in damage far exceeding $12 billion.

The CNN Poll comes two weeks after a catastrophic earthquake in Japan triggered a tsunami that severely damaged a nuclear power plant, resulting in a possible meltdown of some of the reactors.

On Friday, authorities in Japan raised the prospect of a likely breach in the all-important containment vessel of the No. 3 reactor at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, a potentially ominous development in the race to prevent a large-scale release of radiation.

Traces of radioactive iodine tied to the plant have been detected as far away as Sweden and the United States. Authorities have said those levels are far below what's considered harmful to humans.

Nonetheless, the situation in Japan has caused Americans to reflect on a "what if?" scenario.

Just two months ago, California residents living near a controversial nuclear power plant grilled nuclear regulators over the reactor's safety at a public hearing. At issue was the 2008 discovery of a previously unknown earthquake fault located less than a half mile off shore from the plant.

Officials with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the owner of the plant, PG&E, told residents the plant could withstand the magnitude of quake that's likely to be triggered by the Shoreline Fault. A quake along the Shoreline Fault is predicted to reach magnitude 6.5, according to PG&E. The earthquake that hit Japan was a magnitude 9.0.

With PG&E wanting to extend the license, the 26-year-old Diablo Canyon plant near San Luis Obispo is likely to face more scrutiny in the aftermath of the nuclear crisis in Japan. The additional questions over the plant's safety come at a critical time for the U.S. nuclear industry.

Read more on California residents' concerns:

The NRC is reviewing applications for 19 new reactors across the country. Most of the new plants are slated for sites where reactors already exist. None are slated for California which has a moratorium on new nuclear power plants.

President Obama has proposed expanding nuclear power in the U.S. as a green energy source. In fact, the president touted Japan's push toward nuclear energy at a town hall meeting in 2009. The White House is showing no signs of backing away from nuclear energy now.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey was conducted March 18-20, with 1,012 people questioned by telephone. The survey's overall sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points.

– CNN's Jim Acosta, Evan Glass, Ed Hornick, Paul Steinhauser and CNNMoney.com's Steve Hargreaves contributed to this report.

Filed under: CNN poll • Energy • Nuclear power • Polls

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Illinois senators question nuclear power experts about safety of state's reactors - WQAD

Illinois senators question nuclear power experts about safety of state's reactors - WQAD CHICAGO (AP) — U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk says the size of the evacuation zones around the six nuclear power plants in Illinois should be reviewed. Kirk and fellow U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin held a forum Friday with a panel of four nuclear experts that resembled a congressional hearing to talk about safety in Illinois in the wake of the disaster in Japan. Four of Illinois' 11 reactors are almost identical to those involved in Japan's nuclear crisis. Exelon Corp. owns the plants and says they're safe. Officials sought to assure the senators that Illinois plants are safe and have multiple layers of safeguards. Kirk and Durbin also were interested in making sure the state's stockpile of potassium iodide pills for people in evacuation zones is consistent with new 2010 census numbers.

What’s so scary about nuclear power plants? - Local / Metro - TheState.com

What’s so scary about nuclear power plants? - Local / Metro - TheState.com WASHINGTON — Nuclear radiation, invisible and insidious, gives us the creeps. Even before the Japanese nuclear crisis, Americans were bombarded with contradictory images and messages that frighten even when they try to reassure. It started with the awesome and deadly mushroom cloud rising from the atomic bomb, which led to fallout shelters and school duck-and-cover drills. The experts tell us to be logical and not to worry, that nuclear power is safer than most technologies we readily accept. But our perception of nuclear issues isn’t about logic. It’s about dread, magnified by arrogance in the nuclear industry, experts in risk and nuclear energy say. Japan Earthquake Nuclear Crisis In this image made off Japan's NTV/NNN Japan television footage, smoke ascends from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant's Unit 3 in Okumamachi, Fukushima Prefecture, northern Japan, Monday, March 14, 2011. The second hydrogen explosion in three days rocked Japan's stricken nuclear plant Monday, sending a massive column of smoke into the air and wounding 11 workers. (AP Photo/NTV/NNN Japan) “Whereas science is about analysis, risk resides in most of us as a gut feeling,” said University of Oregon psychology professor and risk expert Paul Slovic. “Radiation really creates very strong feelings of fear— not really fear, I would say more anxiety and unease.” Thirty years ago, before the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, Slovic took four groups of people and asked them to rate 30 risks. Two groups — the League of Women Voters and college students — put nuclear power as the biggest risk, ahead of things that are deadlier, such as cars, handguns and cigarettes. Business club members ranked nuclear power as the eighth risk out of 30. Risk experts put it at 20. The only fear that Slovic has seen as comparable in his studies to nuclear power is terrorism. A Pew Research Center poll after the Japanese nuclear crisis found support for increased nuclear power melting down. Last October the American public was evenly split over expanding nuclear power; now it’s 39 percent in favor, 52 percent opposed. “Nuclear radiation carries a very powerful stigma. It has automatic negative associations: cancer, bombs, catastrophes,” said David Ropeik who teaches risk communications at Harvard University. You can’t separate personal feelings from the discussion of actual risks, said Ropeik, author of the book “How Risky Is it, Really?” But Ropeik, who has consulted for the nuclear industry, said those fears aren’t nearly as justified as other public health concerns. He worries that the public will turn to other choices, such as fossil fuels, which are linked to more death and climate change than the nuclear industry is. He cites one government study that says 24,000 Americans die each year from air pollution and another that says fossil fuel power plants are responsible for about one-seventh of that. At the same time, health researchers have not tied any U.S. deaths to 1979’s Three Mile Island accident. United Nations agencies put the death toll from Chernobyl at 4,000 to 9,000, with anti-nuclear groups contending the number is much higher. Since 2000, more than 1,300 American workers have died in coal, oil and natural gas industry accidents, according to federal records. Radiological accidents have killed no one at U.S. nuclear plants during that time, and nuclear power has one of the lowest industrial accident rates in the country, the Nuclear Energy Institute said. Ropeik calls this mismatch between statistics and feelings “a classic example of how public policy gets made — not about the numbers alone, but how we feel about them, and it ends up doing us more harm.” Alan Kolaczkowski, a retired nuclear engineer, faulted his own industry. “Those in the industry believe it is so complex it cannot be explained to the general public, so, as a result, the industry has a trust-me attitude, and that only goes so far.” Read more: http://www.thestate.com/2011/03/25/1750503/whats-so-scary-about-nuclear-power.html#ixzz1Hdz9xenP

Earth Hour- Will Save Energy

TOMORROW NIGHT, AUSTRALIA will be among the world's first nations to turn off the lights for Earth Hour. Famous national landmarks such as the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Federation Square will be plunged into darkness along with hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses to draw attention to the climate crisis.

The massive challenge of climate change is driven largely by our dependence on fossil fuel energy. The coal, oil and gas the world burns each and every year produces billions of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. Securing a safe climate will require nothing less than an unparalleled restructuring of the global energy system.

With that in mind, many will wonder how switching off the lights for one hour a year helps. Is this approach really the best way to tackle climate change?

We must remember that a quarter of the globe's population is without access to electricity at all, and not because they choose to.

The world is fast approaching a population of nine billion people by 2050, and China and India are rapidly approaching super-power status. Does anyone really want to tell those who have experienced energy poverty that they must now restrict their usage?

Electricity has profited human civilisation beyond measure. When people lack access to electricity they are denied all of the benefits it brings, including - but not limited to - lighting, heating, transport, refrigeration, communication, and information. If such benefits sound like basic human rights, it is because they often are. Even if it were possible to argue that electricity is not essential for accommodating socioeconomic development, it is clearly impossible to prevent people using it at ever-increasing rates.

In any case, energy usage is not to blame for climate change; energy sources are. There would be no need to turn off our lights if they were powered by clean, renewable energy sources. That way we could both celebrate energy and its many rewards and be comfortable in the knowledge that we aren't jeopardising our climate and future generations.

Australia is rich with renewable energy resources. Powering our homes, schools, hospitals and industries entirely with the sun and wind is well within our reach.

Last year, my organisation Beyond Zero Emissions partnered with the University of Melbourne's Energy Research Institute to create the Zero Carbon Australia - Stationary Energy Plan. The Plan outlines a strategy to wean Australia off fossil fuels for good, using commercially available technology to harness the country's bountiful supply of clean energy. Such a strategy would cost households just eight dollars a week for ten years, and ensure a future less at the mercy of dwindling fossil fuel supplies and the adverse impacts of a changing climate.

Many people express concerns that solar and wind power is too variable to rely on for a constant source of energy. This concern is misplaced.

Concentrating solar thermal (CST) power plants operate differently to the solar panels commonly found on neighbourhood rooftops. They consist of thousands of mirrors that reflect sunlight onto a central receiver tower, which stores the sun's heat in tanks of molten salt. These solar power towers with storage can generate electricity for seventeen hours straight, without any sunlight at all. Our modeling shows that this game-changing technology coupled with geographically dispersed wind installations, existing hydro and a small amount of biomass can easily meet the nation's baseload electricity demands.

In contrast to Earth Hour's current focus, the energy future presented in the Zero Carbon Australia plan will not be achieved through simply reducing our electricity use. Of course increasing the energy efficiency of buildings and automobiles is important, but it is renewable energy substitutes for fossil fuels that will ultimately decouple our modern energy-intensive society from carbon emissions.

When we reconsider the problem of climate change as an energy challenge, human civilisation can turn its undivided attention to deploying the renewable energy technologies already at our disposal.

With renewable energy, every hour can be Earth Hour.

Mark Ogge is director of operations for Beyond Zero Emissions

Amazon Links for Earth Hour:
"Earth Hour 2009" Hoodie (dark)

Earth's Final Hour: Are We Really Running Out of Time?