Discussion for article #226836
The Diablo Canyon plant sits basically on top of a fault. If I were the lead inspector I’d be nervous as well. And also that plant is right at the edge of the ocean which means any Tsunami that comes along of sufficient size and strength…
A potential double whammy.
Come on, what’s the worst that could happen, an earthquake destroys the grid power needed to support the cooling and containment of the nuclear pile and a tidal wave smashes the onsite backup power sources, causing the reactor to melt down and throws raidoactive isotopes into the land, air and water in the middle of the central California coast? Really? That is the worst that could happen? Ok, that’s kind of bad. Maybe we should think about this.
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You do recall Fukushima, don’t you? An earthquake followed by a tsunami.That plant is still leaking radiation into the ocean. And that tsunami happened in March of 2011. Most of Japan’s reactors are still off line and have been since that accident. Well, the Diablo Canyon reactor is on the coast and very near a fault. Now admittedly the reactor is a bit up the hill from the water but not so far that it’s completely out of range.
A 42 page report the day after the quake? Sounds to me like this was a report looking for an excuse to be used. But what the hell, who needs nuclear energy when we have the Koch brothers and their wonderful coal and petroleum.
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Pretty spot on comment.
You know there are lots of places in the US that aren’t on fault lines or are at risk of other natural disasters.
So whose great idea was it to build a plant there?
“Now admittedly the reactor is a bit up the hill”
Exactly, this is not even remotely anything like Fukushima. That plant withstood that much bigger earthquake with no problems whatsoever. Zero. What happened was that the power went down. Then the generators kicked on, no problem whatsoever. No danger whatsoever. BUT, then the tsunami came, and due to the idiotic design of the plant, the generators got flooded. Yes, the generators were at sea level right next to the ocean, and the cooling tanks were up high so water had to be pumped to them. Brilliant… Had the generators been high, not problem at all. And had the cooling tanks been at ground level, simple gravity could have been used to cool them with sea water.
In this case there is no chance of any such thing happening. Of much more danger is all the gas mains in the cities out there that can fracture in an earthquake. But nuke plants are built to withstand earthquakes much larger than this.
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That plant is very high up. No chance that any kind of tsunami could take out those generators. So first you would need a power outage, obviously conceivable. But then you would need about a 100 foot high tsunami to wipe out all the generators, and then no way to get additional generators to the site.
And if we have a 100 high tsunami, you have much more to worry about than a nuke plant. Anyone in a 50 mile radius would be dead.
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[quote=“musgrove, post:7, topic:9095, full:true”]
You know there are lots of places in the US that aren’t on fault lines or are at risk of other natural disasters.
So whose great idea was it to build a plant there?
[/quote] They need LOTS & LOTS of water just to operate. And they pond West of there is a pretty good source of lots of cool water.
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Am I reading the same article? What does it have to do with Tsunamis? Where does it talk about the report being relative to any specific quake?
Sounds to me like a nuclear regulator is unsatisfied with their information on how much shaking (from a quake, not from a Tsunami) the plant can’t withstand.
Mr. Comments, you seem pretty adamant that there’s absolutely no danger here due to quakes. Can you tell us why you disagree with the nuclear regulator who spent 5 years at the plant?
I can imagine that there have always been lots of people claiming that there was absolutely no danger and that there is no chance of something going wrong at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima. I don’t know if this report is correct, but I wouldn’t write it off just because “these things are safer than gas and coal!”
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I do hope you are right…
What’s the half life of a gas explosion?
I’m not saying you don’t check things out. But right now there is zero leakage detected, as you would expect in such an earthquake.
Just because one regulator says something, does not mean anything. Show me lots of them. There are scientists who don’t think global warming is man made. So I should listen to them?
Shutting the plant down with no evidence of leakage is dumb. Plus it will drive prices up for local consumers for no reason.
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You seem to know more about this than what’s here in the article. What quake is this in response to? When is the regulator calling for a shut down? I took it to be saying that it needs to be looked into by more regulators, but I realize now that the article isn’t clear and that was my assumption.
Perhaps again you know more than what’s in the article, or what I know ahead of time, but this part of the article makes me take it a little more seriously than if it was some random scientist somewhere: “Michael Peck, who for five years was Diablo Canyon’s lead on-site inspector…” It doesn’t seem the same as climate deniers analogy to me.
But I agree his word isn’t absolute. He could be doing it for payback, for fame, for any host of reasons that I have no idea about as I don’t know him or anybody nearly related to him or the situation. Just seems to me that if someone with those credentials is claiming something like this, it’s worth looking into instead of writing off as bullshit. I’d rather my power be safe, even if it’s more expensive. But as I said, I’m basing this off the article and admit there could be much more to it than I’m aware of.
Ooops found my mistake. Tried to edit but not sure it’s working. I see that it says they are calling for shut down. I still think it’s worth looking into if someone who was the lead regulator for 5 years is saying this.
Of course they want it shut down. Then, when the decision is made to restart it, it can be delayed endlessly with demands for studies, public opinion, environmental reports, more studies, cost-benefit analysis, etc…
Once this puppy is off, it’s not coming back on. See San Onofre, Humboldt Bay, and Rancho Seco.
Unlike many of my fellow progressives, I do not oppose nuclear power simply because it’s nuclear power.
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Fukishima had a much bigger quake, and it did no significant damage to the plant itself, not even remotely close to any kind of leak or meltdown from the quake.
I never said the quake caused the damage BY ITSELF. The combination of terminally bad design of the Fukushima plant and the Tsunami is what has caused the ongoing disaster. The plant had its critical electronics at a level in the plant below sea level and the cooling ponds for spent fuel rods on the second floor. When the tsunami happened the lower levels flooded ruining the batteries and the mechanisms that circulated water through the cooling ponds. You know the rest. The quake caused the tsunami which caused the disaster. OK?