Last weekend was the seventh anniversary of the disaster at the Japanese nuclear power plant located in Fukushima.\u00a0 On March 11, 2011, an earthquake occurred in the Pacific Ocean that spawned a huge tsunami.\u00a0 The quake itself caused considerable damage to the Japanese islands near the center of the quake, but the tsunami\u2019s impact was catastrophic.<\/p>\n
The waves caused by the earthquake hit the Fukushima area with such force that over one million buildings were partially or completely destroyed and about 19,000 residents were killed.<\/p>\n
At the same time, eleven reactors at four nuclear power plants in the region were forced to shut down.\u00a0 However, the tsunami disabled the emergency generators that would have provided power to control and operate the pumps necessary to cool the superheated reactors. \u00a0The\u00a0insufficient cooling\u00a0led to three\u00a0nuclear meltdowns,\u00a0hydrogen-air explosions, and the\u00a0release of radioactive material\u00a0during the next few days after the tsunami hit.<\/p>\n
The result of this disaster forced tens of thousands of Japanese to relocate from the area and the uncontrolled release of radioactive materials into the area and the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n
The power plants in Fukushima are of the same design as some in New York State, which are located on Lake Ontario.\u00a0 While no one would expect the same scenario to occur, those plants have been the focus of state policies in recent years.<\/p>\n
The plants, built in the 1960s, have exceeded their expected useful lifetimes.\u00a0 Generally, plants of that design and era are expected to be used for roughly 40 or so years.\u00a0 Yet those plants continue to operate under a deal negotiated largely outside of public view.<\/p>\n
In the summer of 2016, negotiators from the Cuomo Administration and the plant owners agreed to a multi-billion dollar bailout of the plants \u2013 which were slated for closure.\u00a0 At that time, the state did not reveal the estimated costs, but subsequent analyses estimated that the costs could run anywhere from $2.9 billion to $7.6 billion over a 12-year period.\u00a0 The negotiation contained no new safety requirements for the plants, just a guarantee that virtually all New Yorkers would be required to pay to make the nuke plants profitable \u2013 whether they received power from the plants or not \u2013 to keep them open.<\/p>\n