{"id":1856,"date":"2011-03-25T14:35:05","date_gmt":"2011-03-25T20:35:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/?p=1856"},"modified":"2011-03-25T14:51:45","modified_gmt":"2011-03-25T20:51:45","slug":"worst-power-plant-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/index.php\/2011\/03\/worst-power-plant-disaster\/","title":{"rendered":"Worst Power Plant Disaster?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s <\/i>not<\/i> nuclear. Quoting Annalee Newitz, at i09<\/a>: <\/p>\n

“[W]hen accidents happen, the deadliest and costliest source of energy is water — especially when it’s held back by poorly-designed dams. The Chernobyl disaster doesn’t come close to the damage done when a dam at a hydroelectric plant bursts.”<\/p>\n

Here’s her rundown:<\/p>\n

1975: Shimantan\/Banqiao Dam Failure<\/b>
\nType of power: Hydroelectric
\nHuman lives lost: 171,000
\nCost: $8,700,000,000
\nWhat happened: Shimantan Dam in China’s Henan province fails and releases 15.738 billion tons of water, causing widespread flooding that destroys 18 villages and 1500 homes and induces disease epidemics and famine<\/p>\n

1979: Morvi Dam Failure<\/b>
\nType of power: Hydroelectric
\nHuman lives lost: 1500 (estimated)
\nCost: $1,024,000,000
\nWhat happened: Torrential rain and unprecidented flooding caused the Machchu-2 dam, situated on the Machhu river, to burst. This sent a wall of water through the town of Morvi in the Indian State of Gujarat.<\/p>\n

1998: Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Jess Oil Pipeline Explosion<\/b>
\nType of power: Oil
\nHuman lives lost: 1,078
\nCost: $54,000,000
\nWhat happened:Petroleum pipeline ruptures and explodes, destroying two villages and hundreds of villagers scavenging gasoline.<\/p>\n

1944: East Ohio Gas Company<\/b>
\nType of power: Liquified natural gas (LNG)
\nHuman lives lost: 130
\nCost: $890,000,000
\nWhat happened: Explosion at LNG facility destroys one square mile of Cleveland, OH.<\/p>\n

1907: Monongah Coal Mine<\/b>
\nType of power: Coal
\nHuman lives lost: 362
\nCost: $162,000,000
\nWhat happened: Underground explosion traps workers and destroys railroad bridges leading into the mine.<\/p>\n

Compare these to:<\/p>\n

1986: Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant<\/b>
\nType of power: Nuclear
\nHuman lives lost: 4,056 (Source for this number: United Nations Scientific Subcommittee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation)
\nCost: $6,700,000,000
\nWhat happened: Mishandled reactor safety test at Chernobyl nuclear reactor causes steam explosion and meltdown, necessitating the evacuation of 300,000 people from Kiev, Ukraine and dispersing radioactive materials across Europe.<\/p>\n

A lot of this research was based on public policy professor Andrew Sovacool’s extremely informative monograph “The Accidental Century<\/a>,” which looks at power plant disasters in the twentieth century in great detail.<\/p>\n

(Link<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s not nuclear. Quoting Annalee Newitz, at i09: “[W]hen accidents happen, the deadliest and costliest source of energy is water — especially when it’s held back by poorly-designed dams. The Chernobyl disaster doesn’t come close to the damage done when a dam at a hydroelectric plant bursts.” Here’s her rundown: 1975: Shimantan\/Banqiao Dam Failure Type … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Worst Power Plant Disaster?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[460,1456],"tags":[1464,1466,1461,1459,1463,1462,1457,1467,556,1460,284,1458,1465],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1856"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1856\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}