New York’s Nuclear Future That Might Have Been: a reactor less than 2 miles from Times Square

[PA Democrat]

Flashback to 1962:

A handful of atomic plants had opened across the country, with more in the pipeline. Across the ocean, a depressed coal town in the Japanese prefecture of Fukushima had welcomed overtures from Tokyo Electric to build a nuclear generating station, and the utility was surveying the site.

Thirty miles north of New York City, the Consolidated Edison Company’s Indian Point plant, the nation’s biggest, had just achieved a sustained chain reaction and was about to go online.

But Con Ed had more ambitious plans. On Dec. 10, it applied to the Atomic Energy Commission to build the world’s largest nuclear plant, with a capacity of a thousand megawatts, more power than all the other atomic plants in the United States put together.

The plant, Con Ed said, would rise on the East River waterfront in Long Island City, Queens, less than two miles from Times Square.


http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/13/when-con-ed-wanted-a-nuclear-plant-on-the-east-river/?src=mv

[SheilaT]

1. Oh, my.

Imagine if we someday have an earthquake there, or a tsunami from an earthquake elsewhere.

[RoccoR5955]

3. No earthquake, or tsunami.

Apparently you do not know the geography or geology of NYC.
Being from there, I can tell you that there will be no significant earthquakes, and any tsunami that would come that far into the East River would have to essentially devastate the Rockaways, a good portion of Long Island, including Brooklyn, and Queens, as well as Kennedy Airport, before it came.
Oh, and I also studied Geology at Brooklyn College for two years, so if anyone should know, it would be me!


HOWEVER, the East River is one of the busiest waterways in the nation. Look at a map of NYC. The river on the east side of Manhattan is the East River. See how it joins up with Long Island Sound and the Atlantic? Lots and lots of river traffic, and quite a dangerous waterway at that. One portion is called Hell's Gate, because of the eddys there. I have sailed those waters, and let me tell you it's as busy as the streets of NYC, only on water!

[markpkessinger]

5. You don't know that....

...I've lived here for 30 years. There IS a fault that crosses Manhattan from 125th Street on the West Side to 96th St. on the East Side. And we HAVE had small earthquakes here over the years. What's more there are undersea faults, particularly on the other side of the Atlantic, that could potentially cause a disastrous tsunami for NY.

[RoccoR5955]

10. Can you name any of the faults on the other side of the Atlantic?

that would cause a tsunami in NY that would devastate the East River?
There was one earthquake in 1884, that was about a 5 on the Richter Scale. That was a major earthquake, probably centered somewhere on one of the faults radiating from the Atlantic Ridge, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. It was felt from Virginia to Maine, so it was major. There are very few of these. This earthquake did not cause a tsunami, because of the formation, depth, and other geological factors.

The 125th St fault is minor. It lies above a formation that is 1.1 billion years old. Ever try breaking through Manhattan Schist? It's one of the toughest formations around. Then there's the Gneiss that's a bit north of there. That's Pre-Cambrian too!
The faults across the Hudson, in the Palisades are on a sill, that is over 200 million years old. It's part of a formation called the Newark Basin, and it is quite stable, in geologic terms.

Look, I am very much against nuclear power, but I find it rather foolish when people who don't know the difference between Devonian and Mesozoic, all of a sudden are paranoid about earthquakes. Please educate yourself for a few years, before you pretend to make expert opinions. I studied Geology in college, and have a little expertise in the field. Though it did not become my career, it is still a hobby of mine, and it really irks me when people speak foolishly about the dynamics of the planet that they know nothing about.

[markpkessinger]

11. I was writing from memory, and a bit hastily...

But, as I understand it, although tsunamis are rare in the Atlantic, they are not unheard of, typically resulting from undersea landslides. Check out this link: http://geology.com/noaa/atlantic-ocean-tsunami/

[SheilaT]

13. The last major earthquake there

was in 1732. There is pretty much no place in the world where an earthquake couldn't happen, just places that are less likely than others.

[defendandprotect]

15. Global Warming is changing "likelihood" and increasing likeliness ....

along with increasing number and severity of weather conditions from hurricanes

to cyclones/tornadoes -- GW is also increasing earthquake activity and the severity

of earthquakes --

Earthquakes in turn are creating more volcanic activity!


In other words there is no way to estimate how to protect a nuclear reactor from a

future earthquake because we have no idea how high the rating may be 4-5 years from now!

In Japan, they have suffered more than 300 aftershocks ranging from 4+ and 7+ --

[RoccoR5955]

2. 2 miles from Times Square is right in the middle of the City

It's actually 5, count 'em, 5 boroughs. That's in the middle of a very busy body of water, with tons of river, rail, and road traffic through and across it. I'm glad that they denied it, it's a stupid place for a nuke.
They SHOULD use the East River for tidal power. There's a 4.5 knot current there, and if they engineered it properly, they could harness much more renewable power than they ever could hope to get from any nuke.

[markpkessinger]

6. They tried installing turbines....

...a few years back. The problem is, the direction of the current changes with the tide, and so far they haven't been able to design a turbine that doesn't get ripped apart with the constantly changing direction of the flow.

[RoccoR5955]

8. The problem was

They installed the WRONG KIND OF TURBINES!
I proposed the proper turbines back in 1976, when I lived in Brooklyn, and they called me a nut! TO MY FACE!

The problem with the turbines were that they were modeled like windmills, and there was a lot of stress where the blades contacted the main shaft. Had they made small nacelles, like jets, and used the same idea that they use on jets, with a lot of little blades, it might have worked. Oh well, perhaps in another 30 years, they will retake up my design, and then I will no longer be a nut... When I'm dead!

[markpkessinger]

9. One can hope they'll try it a little sooner than that! n/t

[HockeyMom]

4. There is still Indian Point,

which is what 35 miles from NYC? They have been trying to shut it down for decades. Not long after 9/11 news reporters were able to break into it to show the lax security.

Then there was Shoreham on LI which WAS shut down decades ago. You can thank the locals for that one. Major uproar on LI back then. I can remember the rallying point of how are you going to evacuate a few million people from an island?

[markpkessinger]

7. And they've recently discovered it, too, sits along a fault.

So 30-35 miles isn't exactly a comfortable buffer zone.

[Renew Deal]

12. That would make Long Island a death trap.

I'm glad that didnt happen

[defendandprotect]

16. Actually they were also trying to build a nuclear reactor on Long Island at one point --

Then Gov. Mario Cuomo keep hitting them with wanting details of an evacuation plan --

that pretty much killed it!!

Thank heavens!!


Also, what kind of sense does it make to use nuclear energy to boil water for steam?

[RoccoR5955]

17. WRONG! It was WE THE PEOPLE who stood up against LILCO

To force them to come up with an evacuation plan. Only when the people demanded it, did Cuomo act
I know, because I helped organize the actions against Shoreham!

[defendandprotect]

18. I'm happy to be WRONG! Thanks for the correction -- !!!

Used to laugh when they would say "liberal" Gov. Cuomo -- !!!

Cuomo a liberal!!???

CONGRATULATIONS !!!

A super threat to everyone --- thank you for your efforts!!

I was a New Yorker at the time -- Greenwich Village!

[defendandprotect]

14. kr