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Simulation Fukushima Reactor 4-like Meltdown in a U.S. Nuclear Power Plant
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It has been proposed that there should be a serious game simulation of a Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant reactor 4-like accident in a U.S. power plant to test the U.S. public's preparedness and ability to utilize social media and government risk communication messaging to reduce health and human security concerns around U.S. nuclear plants. Many U.S. power plants, often close to major U.S. population centers like New York City and Omaha, Nebraska, share Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear power vulnerability of storing spent fuel rods on site. The U.S. has not prepared the American public in projected plume areas for sheltering in place and evacuations that would dramatically reduce their risk in a Fukushima-like accident.
This week's loss of power during flooding at the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant, near Omaha, Nebraska demonstrates that this problem is not theoretical. Although power was only cut to the plant for 90 minutes, if the power shortage had continued for over 28 hours or so, a catastrophic meltdown could have threatened Omaha, Nebraska with high-levels of radiation.
The question emerges again, if a simulated nuclear accident serious game should be run based upon a simulation running on top of the NLE 11's New Madrid fault earthquake scenario. There are 10 nuclear power plants in the New Madrid area that store their spent fuel rods on site in the Central U.S. in a manner similar to Fukushim Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, which continues to spread radiation in the water, soil, and air in Japan and beyond.
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Simulation approach
A key factor we could explore in the serious game is how communities could repurpose existing infrastructure and assets to better endure this type of scenario, and messages to elicit desired behavioral responses. Faced with a dire energy situation, communities will need to identify what local infrastructure, skills sets and community organization could be leverage to adapt and sustain during a crisis. The serious game could first identify the characteristics required to augment the resiliency of a community prior to the crisis, and social media messages and strategies required to bring these to bear. Second, stress test these strategies during the second move of the game to assess how social media could be used to accelerate and sustain community adaptation and resiliency. Third, run a facilitated session to map out what the high priority / low capability areas are at the community, state and federal levels. We would also want to assess what the ripple effects may be on the community over the following weeks and months, and even years. As Katrina and now Fukushima clearly demonstrate – recovery requires anticipating and mitigating adverse ripple effects from economic decline to community stress leading to long term population displacement.
While we would be focusing on the energy crisis (should this be the scenario of choice) we would ultimately look at identifying what frameworks could be repurposed to a series of man-made and natural disasters (self sufficiency, adaptability, social media strategy). If the energy crisis scenario was selected, we could have a combination of severe oil production shortage shortly followed by an extended freeze as Bob Ross suggested.
Ben Sheppard, PhD
Research Associate, University of Maryland
Senior Associate, Institute for Alternative Futures