Just a few miles north of Chattanooga, on our Tennessee River, the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Sequoyah Nuclear Plant uneventfully generates electricity for lighting and heating and cooling our homes, powering our businesses, and energizing our industries – all with hardly any unusual notice.
Other nuclear power-generating plants in the TVA area and throughout our country serve the people of our nation safely with much electricity.
In Tennessee, and the rest of the United States, we do not generally expect the huge earthquakes that often strike distant Japan.
But now we, and other people around the globe, are horrified as a Japanese earthquake and tsunami have caused damage at four of Japan’s nuclear power plants. The quake and tsunami have directly killed thousands, and the nuclear plant damage threatens to kill or sicken more if there is a complete meltdown and radiation escapes in large volume. At this writing, emergency personnel are working feverishly to prevent that.
Such disasters are far more likely to be encountered in horror movies than in real life. When such events do occur, it is natural to ask ourselves whether similar nuclear dangers could threaten “us” and “our” area.