First of all, understand that nuclear power plants are not nuclear bombs. They are not designed to go "boom" any more than the engine in your car. Actually, the engine in your car DOES go "boom", several thousand times a minute, however these are carefully controlled and used to push your car along the road.
Second, the actual reactor building was designed to withstand a direct hit by a nuclear missile and not result in exposing the core. Again, reactors aren't designed to go "boom" even when hit with a missile. Hitting a reactor with a nuke would take out the other structures around it, and of course, take the reactor offline, causing widespread blackouts, but it's not going to cause widespread radiation or destruction.
In addition, there are multiple redundant safety systems to prevent the reactor from overheating. Most procedures result in "Shut it down". The worst case scenario - a complete melt down - does not mean "reactor go boom!" as the media would have us believe. No, it's called a meltdown because that's exactly what happens. The reactor literally melts. The fuel rods, the control rods, and even the housing itself, melts into a large molten pool of radioactive metal. This actually stops the runaway reaction because the fuel is no longer pure enough to sustain it. Although from an operational and financial standpoint, it's a disaster because now you have to somehow dispose of the old reactor and build a new one.
That doesn't mean accidents don't happen. The accident at Chernobyl was due to bad design and badly trained engineers running the plant. Since our plants weren't designed by communist bureaucrats, you shouldn't be worried about something like that.
The actual reactor itself isn't very large, and is enclosed inside many layers of lead and reinforced concrete to insulate the outside world from radiation. So most of the accidents or incidents involve things like radioactive water, which was used to cool the reactor, leaking out. Even the most serious of these - The Three Mile Island incident back in 1979 - was still very minor compared to Fukushima, let alone Chernobyl. Speaking of Fukushima, despite the double-whammy of one of the largest earthquakes and tsunamis in human history, the reactor itself was unharmed. Unfortunately the building housing the reactor was damaged to the point that radiation was able to leak out. In addition, the reactor's cooling systems were destroyed. As a result the reactor did exactly what it was designed to - it melted. Unfortunately that didn't solve the other problems.
So short of someone cracking open the reactor building, putting the reactor core through a metal grinder, and scattering the resulting bits at 30,000 feet, you're just not going to see another situation like Chernobyl.
honestly, there are far to many factors to consider when seeing how to be safe if a nuclear power plant has a meltdown, one thing to note however is that it is very rare for a nuclear power plant to have a catastrophic meltdown, mostly because the fail safes are reliable and usually work as designed. The government also has plans for this "Local and state governments, federal agencies, and the electric utilities have emergency response plans in the event of a nuclear power plant incident. The plans define two “emergency planning zones.” One zone covers an area within a 10-mile radius of the plant, where it is possible that people could be harmed by direct radiation exposure. The second zone covers a broader area, usually up to a 50-mile radius from the plant, where radioactive materials could contaminate water supplies, food crops, and livestock."
The safest move would be to sign up for the Mars 1 colony
Move.
I'm sorry if "politically correct" users of forum think my question is a rant but knowing that government treats us like children--on a need-to-know-basis--something tells me that anything major going on in that nuclear plant WILL NOT reach our ears on time.
By now in the last two months this South Florida nuclear plant has had multiple shutdowns and
"In April of last year, the NRC fined Florida Power & Light $140,000 for minor safety violations at Turkey Point's units 3 and 4. FPL's failure to properly maintain the plant's emergency response system is a violation of "low to moderate safety significance,"
Few years ago FBI investigated something "odd" which was going on there, but figured that it was just a disgruntled employee "playing games"!
Is there any way to keep safe if something happens at this nuclear plant? I read once radiation would expand to 300 miles either way, and Florida is an island--except for the extreme norther part!
