by Wyoming Liberty Group
When it comes to nuclear accidents, there are the big three. Many, if not most of us, have heard about the infamous trio of catastrophes: The Three Mile Island partial core meltdown in Pennsylvania in 1979. The Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine in 1986, which led to the release of radioactive material. And the Fukushima accident in Japan in 2011, when an earthquake and tsunami triggered a core meltdown and the release of radioactive material.
But those weren't the only accidents at nuclear power plants. Far from it. Indeed, there have been over a hundred nuclear incidents—more than half of which occurred after the disaster of Chernobyl, when you'd have thought that security features would have been tightened to the extreme. What happened at Chernobyl was so serious that it's estimated that about thirty people were killed as a result of the accident. Experts also say that as many as 4,000 people may ultimately die as a result of cancer linked to the accident's radiation levels. Other estimates put the number of deaths much higher. The financial toll has been estimated at $7 billion.
Perhaps equally concerning to us in the Cowboy State is that more than half of the nuclear accidents that have occurred throughout the world happened in our own nation.
And those facts alone shouldn't be overlooked, especially when forces in Wyoming are pushing to bring nuclear plants—and storage facilities for spent nuclear fuel, otherwise known as toxic waste that remains radioactive for thousands of years, if not tens of thousands of years.
In one part of the country, a nuclear facility experienced not one—but two incidents in a single year. That was at San Onofre on the West Coast in 2018. In the first instance, it came out that stainless steel storage canisters were scratched when they were placed into concrete vaults. The concern was that the gashes risked corrosion cracking, which could pose a serious threat if the toxic material was released so close to the Pacific Ocean.
In the other accident that same year, a massive canister with nuclear waste got stuck while it was being lowered into a storage vault. The canister, had it fallen, could have created a dangerous exposure to radiation.
Nuclear accidents know no borders. The first known nuclear accident stretches back to 1952 in Canada, and the accidents haven't stopped since. Many incidents have occurred in connection to nuclear submarines, dating back to the 1960s.
Nuclear accidents have occurred in Russia, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Spain, Hungary, Sweden and France.
In the United States alone, the list of nuclear incidents is even longer. An explosion occurred in 1961 in Idaho Falls, killing three people. In 1966, there was a meltdown of some fuel in Michigan. Safety problems and other issues forced a shutdown in 1984 in Alabama. A year later in the same state at the same facility, systems malfunctions prompted a suspension of operations. A year after that, in 1986, equipment issues prompted a shutdown in Massachusetts. That same year, in Virginia, a pipe accident killed four people. The following year, in 1987, a cooling malfunction occurred in Pennsylvania. That same year, a malfunction forced a shutdown in New York.
Two years later, in 1989, unit cracks forced a shutdown in Maryland. In 1996, various problems forced a shutdown in Connecticut. A shutdown also occurred that year in Florida. In 2002, there was an extended outage in Ohio.
How much of the country have we covered?
The short answer: A lot.
And now, forces are looking to build various nuclear power plants in Wyoming. They are also pushing the idea of making Wyoming a repository for spent nuclear fuel, or nuclear waste. Those advocates tout the economic benefits—the creation of many jobs and the creation of a new industry, not to mention potentially billions of dollars in much needed revenue for the state.
But, as the old saying goes, nothing is free. And one important question is: What is the cost, if Wyoming becomes a center for nuclear energy activity? What are the chances that a nuclear accident could occur within our borders? What would be the cost in human life? And what would the subsequent cleanup entail? These are vital questions that we need to consider before we barrel ahead.