{"id":394,"date":"2011-08-24T13:49:05","date_gmt":"2011-08-24T11:49:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/borkedcode.com\/wp\/?p=394"},"modified":"2011-09-02T10:19:28","modified_gmt":"2011-09-02T08:19:28","slug":"and-now-for-a-little-extra-caution-for-your-morning%e2%80%a6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/borkedcode.com\/wp\/?p=394","title":{"rendered":"And now for a little extra caution for your morning\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.inewsone.com\/2011\/08\/24\/quake-jolts-us-east-coast-n-plant-shut-down\/70987\" target=\"_blank\">5.8 quake that hit the East Coast of the US this morning<\/a> (happy homecoming, Todd!) was, thankfully, not a cause of major disaster.<\/p>\n<p>However, <em>it very well could have been.<\/em>\u00a0 How so?<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/dom.com\/about\/stations\/nuclear\/north-anna\/index.jsp\" target=\"_blank\">North Anna nuclear reactor<\/a>, 50 miles East of Charlottesville (and generally upwind), 50 miles NW of Richmond (and somewhat downwind), and 90 miles SW of <em>Washington DC <\/em>(which is definitely downwind), is located about eight miles to the West and four miles above the epicenter of yesterday\u2019s earthquake.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/maps.google.co.uk\/maps?q=north+anna+nuclear+reactor&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;hl=en&amp;hq=north+anna+nuclear+reactor&amp;hnear=&amp;ll=38.055155,-77.799551&amp;spn=0.006295,0.006295&amp;vpsrc=6&amp;output=embed\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"425\" height=\"350\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<small><a style=\"color: #0000ff; text-align: left;\" href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.co.uk\/maps?q=north+anna+nuclear+reactor&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;hl=en&amp;hq=north+anna+nuclear+reactor&amp;hnear=&amp;ll=38.055155,-77.799551&amp;spn=0.006295,0.006295&amp;vpsrc=6&amp;source=embed\">View Larger Map<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n<p>The North Anna plant was <a href=\"http:\/\/pogoblog.typepad.com\/pogo\/2011\/08\/north-anna-nuclear-reactors-designed-to-withstand-59-61-magnitude-earthquake.html\" target=\"_blank\">only built to withstand a quake of approximately 5.9-6.1 scale<\/a>.\u00a0 It has two reactors.\u00a0 A third was planned and committed to construction in February.<\/p>\n<p><em>During the 1990s, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dmme.virginia.gov\/DMR3\/earthquakes.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">all seismographs were taken offline at the North Anna plant<\/a> in response to budget cuts.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s most alarming, however, is that it possesses a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pogo.org\/pogo-files\/reports\/nuclear-security-safety\/spent-nuclear-fuel-pools\/nss-np-20110524.html\" target=\"_blank\">\u201chot\u201d spent-fuel pool<\/a> (hot fuel is stored in water for 5-10 years until it is cool enough to be kept dry without melting) suspended several stories above ground, in the same manner as the Fukushima reactor.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/42103936\/ns\/world_news-asiapacific\/\" target=\"_blank\">North Anna is considered the seventh most likely plant in the United States to suffer core damage as a result of an earthquake<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>During the quake, <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424053111903461304576526642400085456.html?mod=googlenews_wsj\" target=\"_blank\"><em>the plant lost all external power and was forced to go to its backup diesel generators<\/em>.<\/a>\u00a0 Of the four, one failed at startup.\u00a0 Not to be too much of a nit-picker, but a harsher earthquake would very likely have damaged or destroyed diesel generators.<\/p>\n<p>Do I really need to spell out the potential disaster of a core meltdown or spent-fuel meltdown and the resulting contamination of the entirety of the Richmond-DC corridor?\u00a0 Were you aware that the government of Japan has determined that every child under 18 living within about a 25-mile radius of Fukushima is <em><a href=\"http:\/\/mdn.mainichi.jp\/mdnnews\/news\/20110725p2a00m0na007000c.html\" target=\"_blank\">going to be tested for thyroid cancer regularly for the rest of their natural lives?<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Pardon me for pointing this out, but am I the only one who sees an opportunity here for well-paid jobs in the construction and renewal of reactor facilities, testing, and maintenance at the nuclear reactors in all fifty states?\u00a0 A little job-creation, anyone?<\/p>\n<p>Or are we still too concerned about the Republican-manufactured crisis of the debt ceiling?<\/p>\n<p><strong>UPDATE: <\/strong>I hate being right sometimes. \u00a0Seems the waste tanks were rattled quite a bit in their container &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article.cfm?id=east-coast-quake-rattled-nucle\" target=\"_blank\">as much as 4.5 inches each<\/a>. \u00a04.5 inches toward one another could have been&#8230;disastrous.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 5.8 quake that hit the East Coast of the US this morning (happy homecoming, Todd!) was, thankfully, not a cause of major disaster. However, it very well could have been.\u00a0 How so? The North Anna nuclear reactor, 50 miles &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/borkedcode.com\/wp\/?p=394\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/borkedcode.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/borkedcode.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/borkedcode.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/borkedcode.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/borkedcode.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=394"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/borkedcode.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":411,"href":"https:\/\/borkedcode.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394\/revisions\/411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/borkedcode.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/borkedcode.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/borkedcode.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}