Nuclear power emergencies

OK, I've had to endure hearing the Japanese nuke situation be compared to both Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. No. Just no.

The situation at Fukushima is already an order of magnitude worse than TMI was. It has yet to come within an order of magnitude of being as bad as Chernobyl was.

I've also heard people casually throwing around the term 'disaster' for all three. Chernobyl was certainly a disaster. TMI and (so far) Fukushima? Not so much. Perhaps it is just the paramedic in me, but I have a hard time labeling something as a disaster when no one dies.

Now, I'll grant Fukushima has the potential to become a disaster, but it hasn't yet. Radiation levels outside the plant have yet to reach dangerous levels. You really need to take a dose of about one (1) Sievert over the course of a day or less to have noticeable medical effects. While the rate has peaked above that level outside the plant, it has always (again, so far) been in brief spikes and has dropped back to low levels.

I've also heard people say lots of plants in the US are just like those at Fukushima. Well... yes and no. There are a few that are very similar and some that are somewhat similar. Of course, at this level of similarity ALL motor vehicles (including SUVs, minivans, sedans, compacts, etc.) are identical. Do you feel just as safe driving a 30 year old compact as a brand-new sedan? You probably shouldn't. You'd probably think comparing them didn't make much sense. Here's something you won't here in the news much: Fukushima? Built in the 1970's. That's right, the plant is 30-40 years old and the design is nearly 50 years old. Yes, they've upgraded over the years. So has every single US plant - I know, I've helped upgrade one of them.

Fukushima is an early-generation boiling water reactor. Most US powerplants are pressurized water reactors. Hey, those sound different! Because they are. PWRs are safer on the whole than BWRs. They're also more complex, which is why a lot of early reactors were BWRs.

What also isn't getting talked about much is that Fukushima is only having problems because their primary AND secondary backup systems were destroyed by the tsunami - and they'd actually forseen the possibility of a tsunami and built a barrier to withstand a small to medium one. If the plant had been further down the coast, it would have been enough. They, however, were almost right on top of one of the worst quakes in recorded history and THE worst in recorded Japanese history.

Thousands of people have died as a direct result of this quake and tsunami, but while the workers in the plant are certainly in jeopardy no one has died, yet, as a direct result of the situation at Fukushima. Note I said directly: these plants provided a lot of electrical power, and a lot of people are without power in near-freezing temperatures as a result. Of course, a coal plant would also have been damaged and quite likely knocked off line by the quake/tsunami combo, and the loss of the power lines to the plant would have prevented the plant from providing power from the quake until now (and however much longer it takes to restore power to Fukushima) even if it had survived.