{"id":4437,"date":"2015-05-08T11:23:52","date_gmt":"2015-05-08T04:23:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gctf.vncpc.org\/?p=4437"},"modified":"2015-05-08T11:23:52","modified_gmt":"2015-05-08T04:23:52","slug":"flood-risk-to-nuclear-sites-raises-meltdown-fears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gctf.vncpc.org\/en\/flood-risk-to-nuclear-sites-raises-meltdown-fears\/","title":{"rendered":"Flood risk to nuclear sites raises meltdown fears"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sea level rise, storm surges and bursting dams all pose an increasing danger to nuclear power stations as the climate\u00a0changes.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"fukushima_tanks_news_featured\"<\/p>\n

Radiation-contaminated water tanks at Tepco\u2019s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. There are currently 435 operating nuclear reactors in the world, many of them potentially vulnerable to flooding because of natural disasters. Image: Reuters<\/em><\/p>\n

Safety checks following the\u00a0Fukushima\u00a0disaster in Japan in March 2011, when a 10 metre-high sea wall was overtopped by a tsunami, have shown that nuclear plants are at greater risk of catastrophic flooding as a result of climate\u00a0change.<\/p>\n

All nuclear plants need large quantities of water for cooling so all must be built close to the sea, large rivers or lakes. This makes them vulnerable to sea level rise, storm surges and to the possible collapse of large dams upstream from poor construction, floodwater or seismic\u00a0activity.<\/p>\n

Since nuclear plants are designed to operate for as long as 60 years and need around a further century to decommission, accelerating sea level rise and more intense rainfall may present serious\u00a0problems.<\/p>\n

There are currently 435 operating nuclear reactors in the world, many of them potentially vulnerable to flooding because of natural disasters. Examples from the UK, Finland and the US show that the extent of the danger is not always being\u00a0disclosed.<\/p>\n

In Britain, after discovering in May 2013 that one of their reactors would be at risk during a storm of inundation by seawater, the owners,\u00a0EDF Energy, quietly shut it down. The reactor, at Dungeness and built on a shingle beach beside\u00a0the English Channel, supplies 750,000\u00a0homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe risk of a serious nuclear accident remains always above zero as a result of unexpected phenomena taking\u00a0place”\u00a0Christer Pursianen, professor of societal safety and environment at the\u00a0Arctic University of\u00a0Norway<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The company informed the\u00a0Office for Nuclear Regulation\u00a0that it was being shut down as a precaution. The reactor remained off-line until 15 October that year while a new sea wall was constructed \u2013 losing the company around \u00a3100 million in\u00a0revenue.<\/p>\n

Serious\u00a0problem<\/h4>\n

Although the company did announce the closure at the time, the extent of the problem and the length of the shutdown were not announced. Later EDF admitted that the emergency works had taken place following an assessment of the flooding danger after the Fukushima\u00a0disaster.<\/p>\n

Stephen Thomas, professor of energy policy at the\u00a0university of Greenwich\u00a0in London,\u00a0criticized EDF for its attitude. He was quoted by the UK\u2019s Independent newspaper as saying: \u201cIf a plant closes for five months it is not just fiddling about, it is something serious, and EDF can\u2019t pretend it is not\u2026we need to be told the\u00a0truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

The same fears were raised in the US by the Union of Concerned Scientists after\u00a0a report\u00a0was leaked about the danger to nuclear reactors from dams bursting. According to a report by the US\u00a0Nuclear Regulatory Authority\u00a0(NRC), which had been withheld, more than 30 nuclear installations were in danger from flooding. The Commission was later accused of using security concerns to mask embarrassing\u00a0information.<\/p>\n

Higher\u00a0odds<\/h4>\n

Among many revelations in the report was the fact that the authorities had known for a decade or more that the failure of a dam upstream from\u00a0the Oconee nuclear plant\u00a0in South Carolina would cause floodwater to overwhelm its three reactors, possibly causing a catastrophic meltdown. The odds of the dam bursting were far higher than the chances of the accident that devastated\u00a0Fukushima.<\/p>\n

Oconee is one of the largest nuclear plants in America and has been operating since 1983. Its owner, Duke Energy, remains confident that it could shut the plant down safely in an hour, before floodwaters from upstream could reach the reactors. The NRC has decided that this is sufficient\u00a0safeguard.<\/p>\n

Dave Lochbaum, director of the Nuclear Safety Project at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said: \u201cThe NRC knows \u2013 and has known for many years \u2013 that flooding from dam failures can disable the emergency equipment needed to prevent reactor core\u00a0meltdown.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe agency must require plants to address known flooding hazards and thoroughly investigate other plants that may be at risk and require them to resolve any potential\u00a0hazards.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf such a flooding accident occurred, the NRC would quickly determine which other plants were vulnerable and require them to strengthen their protection against similar events. Wouldn\u2019t it be smarter for the agency to do that before an accident\u00a0occurs?\u201d<\/p>\n

More open about its problems is Finland\u2019s\u00a0Loviisa nuclear power plant\u00a0on the Baltic Sea, which was flooded by a 1.73-metre storm surge in 2005. Since then four cooling towers have been built 10 metres above sea level to avoid inundation in a new storm surge, and new floodgates and waterproof doors have been installed to protect the reactor. A new road has been built above flood level so that emergency services can reach the plant to pump away\u00a0floodwater.<\/p>\n

Even so, the\u00a0Rain Project, a consortium of experts on safety and climate change, thinks more can be done to protect against potential disaster. Christer Pursianen is professor of societal safety and environment at the\u00a0Arctic University of Norway.<\/p>\n

He says that although Finland is in the forefront of nuclear safety, more needs to be done to train staff in emergencies and to develop\u00a0 links with neighbouring countries so as to gain experience in disaster prevention: \u201cThe risk of a serious nuclear accident remains always above zero as a result of unexpected phenomena taking\u00a0place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Source:\u00a0eco-business.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sea level rise, storm surges and bursting dams all pose an increasing danger to nuclear power stations as the climate\u00a0changes. Radiation-contaminated water tanks at Tepco\u2019s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. There are currently 435 operating nuclear reactors in the world, many of them potentially vulnerable to flooding because of natural disasters. Image: Reuters Safety checks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4438,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nFlood risk to nuclear sites raises meltdown fears - Qu\u1ef9 \u0110\u1ea7u T\u01b0- S\u1ea3n Xu\u1ea5t S\u1ea1ch - M\u00f4i Tr\u01b0\u1eddng Xanh - Vay V\u1ed1n<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/gctf.vncpc.org\/en\/flood-risk-to-nuclear-sites-raises-meltdown-fears\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Flood risk to nuclear sites raises meltdown fears - Qu\u1ef9 \u0110\u1ea7u T\u01b0- S\u1ea3n Xu\u1ea5t S\u1ea1ch - M\u00f4i Tr\u01b0\u1eddng Xanh - Vay V\u1ed1n\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sea level rise, storm surges and bursting dams all pose an increasing danger to nuclear power stations as the climate\u00a0changes. 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