Risk Identification and Assessment

Abstract

This summary is to the White House, FEMA, The Congress, US Nuclear and Regulatory Commission and US Army Corp of Engineers. Risk management is all about taking risks and minimizing threats or bad outcomes. (Borge, 2001 p.9) This year’s recent critical incident impacting Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station (Energy.gov, 2011) makes us ask are the nuclear plants in the U.S. failsafe? In the news this May 23, 2011 we heard that the end of the world would be May 22, 2011; which anyone who reads that bible knows that such a prediction is heresay therefore a fallacy. However, we have 15 nuclear plants located in the New Madrid Seismic Fault Zone located along the Mississippi River where levees are being blown up by the US Army Corp of Engineers. Induced seismic activity can destroy those nuclear plants like it did in Fukushima, Japan and destroy the entire North American Continent, meaning us.

Keywords: earthquakes, environment, nuclear reactors, seizmic zones, infrastructure, hazard

JEL Classification: D8, I18, J28, L74,Q48