The second emergency at Hanford within 10 days, emergency workers claimed the event could have spewed radioactive material across the site and well beyond and "this alarming incident at Hanford elevates the urgency of the federal government to prioritize and fund all critical cleanup at this aging nuclear reservation” according to Washington governor Jay Inslee.
Only days later, a fire broke out at a nuclear plant in Spain with large amounts of smoke released, causing the government to activate their emergency plan "to avoid a nuclear disaster".
Just the latest emergencies to take place at nuclear plants around the world, as we read in this recent story from the Daily Mail, the aging nuclear power plants across America and ignored risks associated with them could unleash a nuclear nightmare upon America worse than the Fukushima disaster according to scientific experts in a recent study.
The image seen above shows how radioactive material would spread from a hypothetical fire in a high-density spent-fuel pool at the Peach Bottom Nuclear Power Plant in Pennsylvania. People in areas shown in red and orange would have to relocate for years.
Possibly leading to 'trillion-dollar consequences' according to the Princeton University scientists who did the study, we're also told that such a disaster could lead to massive relocations here in America on a scale that is unimaginable. Possibly leading to 8 million Americans or more to need to find new homes, can you imagine the havoc that would be caused by needing to evacuate the areas seen in red and orange in the map above for many years?
Reporting within their study that the hypothetical fires at the plants could have been either accidentally set or the result of terrorism, they show quickly only one nuclear power plant having such an emergency could impact such a huge area of land and in this particular case, that huge area of land is home to millions and millons of people.
The US has underestimated the risks to its nuclear safety as a single nuclear fuel fire could lead to fallout “much greater than Fukushima,” according to a new study. Researches slammed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for ignoring the potential danger.
If spent fuel at one of the dozens of US nuclear sites sets alight, it “could dwarf the horrific consequences of the Fukushima accident [in Japan],” researchers from Princeton University and the Union of Concerned Scientists warned in their study published in the May 26 issue of Science magazine.
The disaster would lead to “trillion-dollar consequences,” as the hypothetical fire would result in contamination of an area larger than New Jersey and force mass relocations.
The scientists simulated a nightmare scenario in their ‘Nuclear safety regulation in the post-Fukushima era’ article. Supposing that an imagined fuel fire broke out at the Peach Bottom nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania at the beginning of 2015, and taking into account the weather conditions at that time, they showed the devastating extent of potential contamination in the area. The accident would have led to the relocation of around 8 million people and would have cost $2 trillion in damages, according to Science Daily, citing the article.
At first, it would mostly have affected a small part of Pennsylvania and Philadelphia, also touching on New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut. However, within three months almost all the East Coast from South Carolina to Maine would have become contaminated to a varying extent, the scientists said, with radiation going deeper into the land later on.
Researchers from Princeton University and the Union of Concerned Scientists warn that fires of this kind could be set off by a number of events, including an earthquake or terrorist attack. People in areas shown in yellow would likely relocate voluntarily, they say.
In the first video below our videographer breaks down this recent study that, if it does come true in such a worst-case scenario, would lead to utter havoc wherever the nuclear plant is. And keep in mind, there are 99 nuclear power reactors in 30 different states all across America as seen in the map below. How many more are in the same or similar condition to Hanford? And here now in 2017, might terrorists target these reactors for attacks?
And as we've previously reported on ANP, should a massive cyber attack or an EMP be unleashed upon America that takes down our electrical grid for an extended period of time, all of the nuclear power plants seen in the map below could melt down, leaving much of the entire country covered in red's and orange's and America a total mess.
And as we read in these closing comments from Science Daily, between the nuclear industry here in America and those in Congress who are supporting them, America is being set up for a major fall that could quickly change the world for most of us. Would such a scenario require martial law be imposed as argued in the 2nd video below? And why has Congress and the nuclear power industry ignored the endless warnings? From the Science Daily story.:
Published by researchers from Princeton University and the Union of Concerned Scientists, the article argues that NRC inaction leaves the public at high risk from fires in spent-nuclear-fuel cooling pools at reactor sites. The pools -- water-filled basins that store and cool used radioactive fuel rods -- are so densely packed with nuclear waste that a fire could release enough radioactive material to contaminate an area twice the size of New Jersey. On average, radioactivity from such an accident could force approximately 8 million people to relocate and result in $2 trillion in damages.
These catastrophic consequences, which could be triggered by a large earthquake or a terrorist attack, could be largely avoided by regulatory measures that the NRC refuses to implement. Using a biased regulatory analysis, the agency excluded the possibility of an act of terrorism as well as the potential for damage from a fire beyond 50 miles of a plant. Failing to account for these and other factors led the NRC to significantly underestimate the destruction such a disaster could cause.
"The NRC has been pressured by the nuclear industry, directly and through Congress, to low-ball the potential consequences of a fire because of concerns that increased costs could result in shutting down more nuclear power plants," said paper co-author Frank von Hippel, a senior research physicist at Princeton's Program on Science and Global Security (SGS), based at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. "Unfortunately, if there is no public outcry about this dangerous situation, the NRC will continue to bend to the industry's wishes."
