Newsroom
Emerging Ethanol Regulations
In my previous blog post (Ethanol: The New HazMat?), it was inaccurate to suggest that ethanol is a completely unregulated chemical. While ethanol is not regulated under the EPA Risk Management Program (RMP) or Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) when used as a fuel (like gasoline), it is still regulated under the EPA “General Duty Clause,” […]
Ethanol: The New HAZMAT?
Is ethanol considered HazMat? This question continues to be debated as we use increasing amounts of this corn-based product to supplement our nation’s fuel supply. Ethanol is not a regulated chemical. Unlike MTBE, ethanol reportedly does not pollute ground water. However, ask a firefighter about ethanol and you will get a different answer. Whether blended […]
Updated Estimates for 2011 Tohoku Earthquake
Based on official information from March 22, 2011, showing an increasingly dire situation in Japan, we are revising the damage cost and fatality estimates published in an earlier post (The Estimated Costs of the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake). We are revising our estimates upward substantially to 12,000 – 14,720 deaths and damage costs of approximately $225 […]
Estimated Costs of Japan’s 2011 Tohoku Earthquake
The March 11, 2011, earthquake off the coast of Japan caused a tsunami with catastrophic impacts. Due to the scale of this combined disaster, we estimate damage costs of $150 billion (12 trillion yen). This 9.0 magnitude earthquake makes it the 4th largest in world history, and the largest in Japan’s history. The impact was […]
50 Mile Evacuation of Japan Nuclear Plant: Making Sense of Evacuation Distances
Since the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission recommended on March 16 that US residents who are within 50 miles of the damaged Japanese nuclear power plants should evacuate, there has been a lot of speculation as to why the NRC would recommend such a large evacuation zone when the guidance for the plume exposure pathway emergency […]
How Much of a Difference is there between Three Mile Island and the Fukushima Disaster?
In March/April 1979, I was part of a field team working for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in Pennsylvania gathering information on the emergency response effort in the area around the Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear power station as a result of the accident that occurred there. The elevation of the Fukushima Daishi incident […]
Japan’s radioactive worry: Is a pill for our prevention equal to a pound of cure?
Once again, the evening news has me scratching my head and wondering if it is time to call my healthcare provider to secure a prescription for Potassium Iodide or even Prussian Blue? As a nurse and healthsystem analyst, I want to protect my family. But wait! I have a shellfish allergy, and one television medical […]
Transportation Around Evacuation Areas of Fukushima Nuclear Plants
I have participated in over a dozen evacuation studies over the last several years, many of them focused on nuclear plants, so I have been closely following the protective actions being taken around the Fukushima nuclear power plants in Japan. I wanted an easy way to look at the towns affected and the road network […]
Transportation Infrastructure Damage in Japan
The damage inflicted on infrastructure by an earthquake or tsunami is is fundamentally different than that caused by a hurricane. In particular, while transportation following a hurricane is primarily inhibited by debris resulting from wind damage, an earthquake or tsunami causes substantial damage to infrastructure, including highways, railroads, airports and ferry terminals. Transportation infrastructure damage […]
What will we in the U.S. learn from the events in Japan?
I’ve been asked the question a couple of times over the past few days by family and friends, some who know I work in homeland security and emergency management, some who know I spent more than 12 years as an engineer at a nuclear power plant. My answers have generally started with “It’s a little […]