Preparing for a disaster? Think big, expert says
The crisis might be similar to Japan's, he said - a meltdown in nuclear reactors after some natural disaster bigger than what the nuclear plant builders planned for.
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One lesson of Japan's disaster is that disasters are apt to be much worse than we can predict, said Dallas, head of the University of Georgia's Institute for Health Management and Mass Destruction Defense.
The Japanese planned for the worst scale of disaster they thought possible, building Fukushima Daiichi to withstand a 25-foot tsunami and an earthquake measuring 7.5 on the Richter scale. Trouble was, the tsunami was 30 feet and the earthquake 9.0, Dallas said.
"You'd better prepare for much greater disaster than you think," said Dallas, who has been to the devastated Japanese region twice to study what happened and help as Japanese authorities manage the aftermath of the March 13 earthquake and tsunami.
Long before Fukushima, Dallas had spent time at another famous nuclear disaster, the Soviet Union's Chernobyl plant. And in the 1960s, he spent time at the Savannah River Site on the Georgia-South Carolina border, where nuclear waste in a cracked storage pool threatened to leak into the Savannah River.
He's also studied the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in the United States, minor compared to Fukushima and Chernobyl. Scientists estimate the nuclear release from Chernobyl was 20 times as great as Three Mile Island, and Fukushima may be even more.
So far, the Fukushima meltdown is playing out very differently than Chernobyl, he said.
At Chernobyl, the meltdown was fast and spewed massive amounts of radiation into the air. At Fukushima, most of the radiation is contaminating water, not air. The radiation released from Fukushima may be more than what came from Chernobyl, however.
The biggest problem engineers in Japan face is not the melted reactors but the spent fuel that was stored in a pool water before the earthquake cracked the vessel, letting the water drain out. The storage pool at Fukushima was designed for 400 rods but held 1,500 when the earthquake and tsunami struck.
Pools overloaded with spent fuel pools are scattered at nuclear plants across the United States, too, including plants in Georgia and neighboring states, Dallas said.
But the news from Japan is not all bad, he said.
Three Mile Island Disaster - News
He's also studied the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in the United States, minor compared to Fukushima and Chernobyl. Scientists estimate the nuclear release from Chernobyl was 20 times as great as Three Mile Island, and Fukushima may be even
“The meltdown at Three Mile Island was rated a 'Level 5' on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES),” he said. “For comparison purposes, the Fukushima accident has been rated 'Level 7.' To date, the only other nuclear accident to
And evacuation zones have remained frozen at a 10-mile radius from each plant since they were set in 1978 — despite all that has happened since, including the accidents at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima Dai-ichi in Japan.
The York County Emergency Management Agency advances its nuclear disaster plans, in light of the tragedy in Japan. By BILL LANDAUER and SEAN ADKINS If an accident occurs at Three Mile Island or Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station that requires
The Mercury News recently chatted with Goldhaber, 63, about Three Mile Island and how that experience compares to the ongoing disaster in Fukushima, Japan. Here's an edited transcript. Q: How'd you come to the energy job in Pennsylvania?
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RT : The world's worst nuclear disaster since Three Mile Island, Chernobyl has spewed out tons of radioactive material プルトニウム
RT : The world's worst nuclear disaster since Three Mile Island, Chernobyl has spewed out tons of radioactive material プルトニウム 
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