The NRC has calculated the odds of an earthquake causing a catastrophic failure that exposes the public to radiation at all US nuke plants. MSNBC helpfully has ranked them based on the official data:
70. Vermont Yankee, Vernon, Vt.: 1 in 123,457 chance each year. Old [1989] estimate: 1 in 434,783. Change in risk: 252 percent.
Compare to your odds of dying in a year from various mundane things:
- Fall on and from stairs and steps: 1 in 175,448
- Drowning and submersion while in or falling into natural water: 1 in 184,970
- Inhalation and ingestion of food causing obstruction of respiratory tract: 1 in 343,179
- Firearms discharge: 1 in 375,801
- Air and space transport accident: 1 in 502,554
I'm not sure if I feel better or not…
ntodd
Vermont State lottery webpage lists the chances of winning Powerball at 1:195,249,054.
So what would be interesting is to see who at the NRC buys powerball tickets and thinks they can win.
and more dangerous than walking down the stairs!
except when someone falls down the stairs, they usually do not take an entire region with them…
That was the trigger point in Japan; and those odds might be considerably higher.
What is the flood risk? I think I’m totally misreading the CDF-based risk stuff in VY’s application (http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applications/vermont-yankee/environ-report_attach-ef.pdf), but it looks like they peg it at 1 in 685k or so? That doesn’t make sense vis the NRC’s quake risk, so clearly I don’t get how this Probabilistic Safety Assessment stuff works, although maybe it makes sense since they appear to be making assumptions on components working perfectly.