Thom Hartmann: Will NE & NM avoid a ''Fukushima-like'' disaster before it's too late?

[thomhartmann]

Run time: 10:05 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryhf5jtFTbE   Posted on YouTube: June 28, 2011 By YouTube Member: TheBigPictureRT Views on YouTube: 61   Posted on DU: June 28, 2011 By DU Member: thomhartmann Views on DU: 671

 
Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear, joins Thom Hartmann. The impending nuclear disaster in Nebraska just got worse. Over the weekend - a floodwall protecting the nuclear plant from the overflowing Missouri River gave way - inundating the facility in floodwater. The plant is less than 20 miles away from Omaha - Nebraska’s largest city - and is now cooling its reactors and spent fuel pools with back-up diesel powered generators. If those generators go - then only batteries with a few hours of life will stand between Omaha and nuclear catastrophe. It was a tsunami that triggered the world’s worst nuclear meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima plant a few months ago - and if floodwaters continue to rise and upstream dams can’t hold them in Nebraska - then the same thing will happen here - and we might lose Omaha. But that's not all - wildfires in New Mexico are threatening to take out another nuclear facility - the Los Alamos facility. Last night - winds kept a 68-square-mile wildfire at bay - about a mile away from nuclear facility. But those winds could change direction at any moment - and put the facility back in the path of the fire. And as we we all know - nuclear material and fire don't mix too well. So just how dangerous are these extreme weather threats against our nation's nuclear power plants?

The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann on RT TV & FSTV "live" 9pm and 11pm check
www.thomhartmann.com/tv for local listings

[AtheistCrusader]

1. I'll make no excuses for Los Alamos, given it's a weapons production facility.

But on the Omaha reactor, good grief, hyperbole much?

Close analogy to our floodwater situation is Fukushima Dai-ichi reactors 5 and 6. You know, the two that are cold shutdown, and both the cores and fuel pools are safe?

Reactors 1-3 went from running hot, full power, to immediate SCRAM, and then the cooling was cut. Bad times.

Omaha has been cold shutdown/off since April, just like reactors 5, 6 in Fukushima. The two that did not explode. Neither from core meltdown, nor from fuel pools boiling dry.

[freedom fighter jh]

2. One more consequence of climate change

Extreme weather events => conditions that were not anticipated when nuclear plants were designed => increased risk of nuclear accidents.

[dotymed]

4. It is going to get a lot worse.

we haven't slowed our destruction of our atmosphere. Even if we stopped polluting today, it will be generations before our climate stabilizes.

[dotymed]

3. IMO, even if nuclear power were our only source

of power, to use it is insanity.

In a scientific study, possibly a small amount of nuclear power may. be acceptable. Only in the name of knowledge. Like the splitting of the atom to gain more insight into quantum physics, etc.., Then the facilities should be very limited and knowledge shared.

At this point in our evolution, we are unable to harness nuclear power. There can be no excuse for commercially using it and creating the myriad of insurmountable disasters that we are doing. For GREED.

Even a small scale, for knowledge only, use of nuclear power is a large risk.