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California Could Suffer a Fukushima-Style Meltdown
Scientists warned that an earthquake could take out Fukushima. The Japanese ignored the warning.
(The Fukushima reactors were damaged by the earthquake before the tsunami hit, because the design of the reactors was defective.)
But that couldn’t happen in the U.S. … right?
Well, the engineers who built the Fukushima reactors also built a nuclear reactor at Shoreham, New York … which is highly vulnerable to an earthquake:
The plant was riddled with problems that, no way on earth, could stand an earthquake. The team of engineers sent in to inspect found that most of these components could “completely and utterly fail” during an earthquake.
(1) the company fraudulently changed the seismic report to pretend the plant was earthquake-safe;
and
(2) the exact same thing was done at Fukushima.
And the same company that designed the failed Fukushima plants and the vulnerable Shoreham facility is:
the designated builder for every one of the four new nuclear plants that the Obama Administration has approved for billions in federal studies.
But surely the U.S. government agencies regulating nuclear plants are protecting us from earthquake danger?
Well, no …
U.S. regulators haven’t implemented any of the emergency measures which their staff urgently recommended in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, and have actually weakened safety standards for U.S. nuclear reactors after the Fukushima disaster.
Indeed, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is a pro-industry group which is largely funded by the nuclear companies. (This is true of all nuclear agencies).
The NRC is using obviously-faulty models to pretend that the ancient, crumbling reactors are safe.
David Lochbaum – Director of the Nuclear Safety Project for the Union of Concerned Scientists, who worked as a nuclear engineer for nearly two decades, and has written numerous articles and reports on various aspects of nuclear safety and published two books – says that 27 U.S. nuclear plants aren’t protected against earthquake risks. (He also says that half of all American reactors don’t meet the NRC’s fire protection regulations, a third aren’t protected against flooding if an upstream dam fails).
Indeed, NRC whistleblowers say that the risk of a nuclear meltdown is even higher in the U.S. than it was at Fukushima.
The former head of the NRC says:
- The current fleet of operating plants in the US should be phased out because regulators can’t guarantee against an accident causing widespread land contamination.
- The biggest problem with the NRC continues to be the heavy influence that the industry has in selecting the members of the commission. It is a very political process. There are few commissioners who ever get onto the commission who are not endorsed by the industry.
Moreover, regulators allow earthquake-causing fracking to be conducted within 500 feet of nuclear plants.
The NRC has repeatedly covered up for the nuclear industry. For example, NBC News reports:
In the tense days after a powerful earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan on March 11, 2011, staff at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission made a concerted effort to play down the risk of earthquakes and tsunamis to America’s aging nuclear plants ….
The emails, obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, show that the campaign to reassure the public about America’s nuclear industry came as the agency’s own experts were questioning U.S. safety standards and scrambling to determine whether new rules were needed to ensure that the meltdown occurring at the Japanese plant could not occur here.
***
There are numerous examples in the emails of apparent misdirection or concealment in the initial weeks after the Japanese plant was devastated … :
- Trying to distance the U.S. agency from the Japanese crisis, an NRC manager told staff to hide from reporters the presence of Japanese engineers in the NRC’s operations center in Maryland.
- If asked whether the Diablo Canyon Power Plant on the California coast could withstand the same size tsunami that had hit Japan, spokespeople were told not to reveal that NRC scientists were still studying that question. As for whether Diablo could survive an earthquake of the same magnitude, “We’re not so sure about, but again we are not talking about that,” said one email.
- When skeptical news articles appeared, the NRC dissuaded news organizations from using the NRC’s own data on earthquake risks at U.S. nuclear plants, including the Indian Point Energy Center near New York City.
Similarly, nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen and others pointed out in a roundtable discussion:
- The NRC purposely delayed starting its earthquake study for Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York until after relicensing was complete in 2013, because the NRC didn’t consider a big earthquake “a serious risk”
- Congressman Markey has said there is a cover up. Specifically, Markey alleges that the head of the NRC told everyone not to write down risks they find from an earthquake greater than 6.0 (the plant was only built to survive a 6.0 earthquake)
California: At Risk
But surely California – that environmental haven – has better nuclear safety standards?
Nope …
In 2011, the California Energy Commission held hearings concerning the state’s nuclear safety. During those hearings, the Chairman of the Commission asked government experts whether or not they felt the state’s nuclear facilities could withstand the maximum credible quake. The response was that they didn’t know.
The same year, KCET public television reported:
***
On Tuesday, The San Luis Obispo Tribune featured an article describing Diablo’s back-up cooling systems that are designed to function during an emergency similar to one experienced at Fukushima.
***
Controversy relating to the Diablo plant was also featured in the Huffington Post where it was pointed out that PG&E was not required to include earthquake procedure in its emergency response plan.
California State Senator Sam Blakeslee (R, San Luis Obispo, 15th District) is a geophysicist with a PhD in earthquake studies and is a member of the California State Senate Select Committee on Earthquake and Disaster Preparedness. During this week’s hearing, he repeatedly asked PG&E to withdraw its license renewal application and perform a new seismic study of the [Diablo Canyon nuclear site]. The known presence of the Hosgri earthquake fault, two and a half miles away, and the newly detected fault that runs within a mile of the plant should be thoroughly charted and studied before PG&E applies for a license renewal.
In August, CBS reported:
A senior federal nuclear expert is urging regulators to shut down California’s last operating nuclear plant until they can determine whether the facility’s twin reactors can withstand powerful shaking from any one of several nearby earthquake faults.
Michael Peck, who for five years was Diablo Canyon’s lead on-site inspector, says in a 42-page, confidential report that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is not applying the safety rules it set out for the plant’s operation.
***
What’s striking about Peck’s analysis is that it comes from within the NRC itself ….
The conflict between Peck and his superiors stems from the 2008 discovery of the Shoreline fault, which snakes offshore about 650 yards from the reactors. A larger crack, the Hosgri fault, had been discovered in the 1970s about 3 miles away, after the plant’s construction permits had been issued and work was underway. Surveys have mapped a network of other faults north and south of the reactors.
According to Peck’s filing, PG&E research in 2011 determined that any of three nearby faults – the Shoreline, Los Osos and San Luis Bay – is capable of producing significantly more ground motion during an earthquake than was accounted for in the design of important plant equipment. In the case of San Luis Bay, it is as much as 75 percent more.
Those findings involve estimates of what’s called peak ground acceleration, a measurement of how hard the earth could shake in a given location. The analysis says PG&E failed to demonstrate that the equipment would remain operable if exposed to the stronger shaking, violating its operating license.
***
Peck, who holds a doctorate in nuclear engineering and is now a senior instructor at the NRC’s Technical Training Center in Tennessee, declined to comment on the filing.
The Ecologist writes:
An earthquake on nearby geological faults could trigger a Fukushima-scale accident causing 10,000 early fatalities. The owner’s response? Apply to extend the site’s operation for another 20 years.
***
It’s apparent to any visitor to the stretch of California where the two Diablo Canyon plants are sited that it is geologically hot. A major tourist feature of the area: hot spas.
“Welcome to the Avila Hot Springs”, declares the website of one, noting how “historic Avila Hot Springs” was “discovered in 1907 by at the time unlucky oil drillers and established” as a “popular visitor-serving natural artesian mineral hot springs.”
Nevertheless, Pacific Gas & Electric had no problem in 1965 picking the area along the California coast, north of Avila Beach, as a location for two nuclear plants.
***
It was known that the San Andreas Fault was inland 45 miles away. But in 1971, with construction already under way, oil company geologists discovered another earthquake fault – the Hosgri Fault, just three miles out in the Pacific from the plant site and linked to the San Andreas Fault.
In 2008 yet another fault was discovered, the Shoreline Fault - just 650 yards from the Diablo Canyon plants.
***
Michael Mariotte, president of the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, commented Monday that in “plain English” what Peck’s report acknowledges is:
“The NRC does not know whether Diablo Canyon could survive an earthquake, within the realm of the possible, at any of the faults around Diablo Canyon. And the reactors should shut down until the NRC does know one way or the other.
And Friends of the Earth noted in October:
On September 10, PG&E released a long-awaited seismic study, the Central Coastal California Seismic Imaging Project, which revealed that earthquake faults surrounding Diablo Canyon are both larger and interconnected and therefore capable of far greater ground motion than had been known before. Nonetheless, PG&E claimed that the reactors could “withstand the ground motions that would be produced by potential earthquakes” from these nearby faults.
FOE has filed suit to shut down Diablo Canyon:
In a petition filed with the California Public Utilities Commission in late September, Friends of the Earth called for a ratemaking investigation into whether or not the expensive and aging Diablo Canyon power plant should be closed and replaced by cheaper, renewable energy and efficiency measure. In a statement, former TVA [Tennessee Valley Authority] head David Freeman called for an end to the “benefits of a sweetheart deal that forces consumers to pay whatever the [PG&E] spends plus a guaranteed return on investment.” [Indeed, nuclear power is a form of crony capitalism, where taxpayers fund an industry which would not even exist in a free market.]
***
Prompted by the seismic report, which found that the Shoreline Fault was twice as long as previously thought, Friends of the Earth filed a petition to the NRC on October 10, intervening in the process to allow the Diablo Canyon reactors to run another 20 years.
***
On October 28, Friends of the Earth petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals to overturn the NRC’s secret, illegal decision to alter the Diablo Canyon plant’s license, a move revealed one month earlier in the agency’s rejection of Dr. Peck’s DPO. The change, made without public notice in September 2013, altered the way the NRC assesses earthquake risks at the plant without following the agency’s own rules or the federal law
Like Fukushima, Diablo Canyon holds thousands of radioactive fuel rods in pools. If power is cut off, the fuel rods would release their radioactivity within a couple of days.
Brilliant ...
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any news update on the Tenessee Boone Dam sinkole? The last I read they were lowering the lake level to see wtf was happening at the foot of the Dam. My kid lives right downstream in murfreesboro..along with 7 nuclear sites..
http://enenews.com/sinkhole-develops-dam-water-starting-seep-base-7-nucl...
The largest supplier of electricity worldwide by 2050 will be solar. And mankind will spend the rest of its days cleaning up nuke plants and dealing with disease across the planet caused by radiation. if we survive the wars, plagues and CMEs that is.
We dont need New Clear, we need New Clean Energy.
I used to know an NRC inspector and he mentioned that when he and fellow inspectors found out about Diablo, they all thought it was a joke.
When they realized it wasn't his comment to me was ,"You Californians are fucking crazy".
Exceptional people
are going to commit a suicide.
Fine with me. But spare the other world please.
Further, I'm a believer in nuclear power, but I think we should have an informed scientific debate about the tyupes of reactor and containment structures which are appropriate today.
I have been reading about various typs of fail-safe pebble bed reactors that cannot melt down, and just need a good strong outer vessel to prevent leaks of radioactive materiel.
What if the right-sized network of small nuclear plants could eliminate the national grid with all its maintenance and EMP/Solar flare issues? Wouldn't that solve both energy and pollution problems?
Too cheap to meter!
Perhaps
I'm perfectly happy to believe that bureaucratic bungling and ass-coverfing have compromised safety policy, BUT, the sources for the information here is largely a coalition of anti-energy leftists.
UCS, FOE.....
Looking for a couple of better sources to be certain that it is not just the usual tyrannical Dark Ages crew, seeking to reduce and enslave the world's population.
@ rovingGrokster, check out Thorium reactors, which are safe from meltdown and produce no weaponisable spent fuel. Uranium was chosen as the military potential was paramount. Civilian electricity needs were a distant second. This was a big post ww2 influence of the MIC, and has had considerable consequences ever since.
No referendum was ever held anywhere.
there are about 50 inspectors in the IAEA , morthere ar more than 150,000 sites [where radioactive material is present] to 'check'. Civilian sites only though, [no military], and no recommendations are mandatory anyway.
This is as safe as it gets people.......
...get a grip George. You are starting to sound like the guy with the 'lists'...
Fuck California and that bald headed Moon Beam.
The global nuclear complex is inherently market distorting and fascistic. GW demonstrates that profits are prioritized over human health and welfare at Diablo Canyon NPP, as is the case at every NPP.
Imagine being forced to live in a radiation contaminated zone after an "accident" such as Fukushima. Imagine cesium detected in your pregnant spouse http://fukushima-diary.com/2014/10/cesium-137-detected-pregnant-woman-ma...
Don't expect anything different in CA. There were no warnings of Iodine-131 fallout in US west coast areas that exceeded the IAEA's limits for contamination until decaying in the spring of 2011. Likewise, there were no warnings when beta levels exceeded the EPA's ALRA in the fall of 2011 (as measured by EPA's Radnet).
Governments will respond to nuclear accidents by raising allowable exposure levels, ignoring long term effects. The real threat is bioaccumulation and biomagnification INSIDE living bodies.
Shut them all down! Decentralize energy production using alternatives!
Fukushima: Dispossession or Denuclearization NOW!
http://nuclearexhaust.wordpress.com/2014/09/10/fukushima-dispossession-o...
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/10/29/fukushima-and-the-privatization-...
Book proceeds go to Fukushima Evacuation Collective
http://www.amazon.com/Fukushima-Denuclearization-Nadesan-McKillop-Wilcox...
U.S. is ignoring ALL risks to nuclear plants.... There, fixed it for you....
Recall after Fukushima the flooding in Nebraska ALMOST caused a catastrophe at the nuclear power plant there. The amazing thing was that there were SEVERAL US power plants in jeopardy during the same time frame. And of course after Fukushima Obammy approved the creation of 9 new nuclear power plants, mainly in the South.
Two heartwarming stories:
Illegal immigrant working inside nuke plant arrested
KVOA Channel 4 NBC Tucson, Arizona
Posted: Jul 14, 2011 3:28 PM
Updated: Jul 14, 2011 5:02 PM
PHOENIX - Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's deputies arrested an illegal immigrant working inside the Palo Verde Nuclear Plant, the nation's largest nuclear plant and one of the most closely monitored in the country.
Cruz Loya Alvares was taken into custody by Sheriff Deputies Wednesday and interrogated by the Sheriff's Human Smuggling detectives.
Deputies determined that the worker is, in fact, here illegally. Cruz admitted he has been in the U.S. illegally for most of the past 15 years. He was detained and deported in 2000 but paid a coyote for re-entry into the U.S. And last month, Cruz admitted that in June 2011, Mesa Police cited him for driving with a suspended license.
According to Sheriff Arpaio, Cruz tried to gain access to the Nuclear power plant on Monday but was denied entrance because his Mexican Driver's license was expired.
He then returned on Tuesday, this time as a passenger in a contractor's vehicle. Cruz presented an Arizona Identification card and was permitted into the facility. When plant authorities more carefully examined the card some time later, officials thought it may be illegitimate and contacted the Sheriff's Office.
Arpaio Deputy Nabs Illegal Alien Worker at Nuclear Plant
Undocumented immigrant with fake ID arrested at AZ nuclear plant
Posted: Sep 26, 2012 2:24 PM PDT Updated: Sep 27, 2012 8:22 AM PDT
By Breann Bierman
By Lindsey Reiser
By Steve Stout
MARICOPA COUNTY, AZ (CBS5) -
Officials at the Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant are taking a closer look at their security measures after a suspected undocumented immigrant was caught at a checkpoint Wednesday.
Maricopa County Sheriff's deputies said Nestor Martinez-Ochoa, 40, tried to report to work at a construction site at the plant, but they stopped him because they said his driver's license looked suspicious.
APS spokesman Jim McDonald said the vehicle checkpoint where Ochoa was stopped is a mile away from the reactors, and his work site is a quarter-mile away from them.
US
nuke regulators weaken safety rules - BostonHerald.com
06-20-2011
Safety has taken a back seat to cost-cutting at most of the nation's
nuclear power plants, sparking fears that America could be facing
its own Fukushima disaster.
An investigation by the Associated Press has revealed federal
regulators are repeatedly weakening - or simply failing to impose -
strict rules.
Officials at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission have frequently
decided that original regulations were too strict, arguing that
safety margins could be eased without peril.
Standards
at nuclear power plants are in serious question as radioactive
leaks and cracked foundations go unpunished | Mail Online
Fukushima, Fukushima, get a dose of killer hot stuff from Fukushima
Don’t worry, be happy, says the government paid spokesman
It’s the same song they sang to the workers of 911 as they breathed in the poison air.
Scientist say we don’t know what killing the sea life in the Pacific Ocean but it’s not that hot stuff from Fukushima.
The Government don’t want to cause a panic. It need’s those fools paying their taxes, buying those stocks and bonds the citizens don’t need to know they are the walking dead.
Fukushima, Fukushima, get a dose of killer hot stuff from Fukushima
It’s a environmentalist wet dream save the planet kill the people.
Have you notice that the radical planet saving environmentalists like Al Gore and Green Peace are strangely absent and silence over this Extinction Level Event.
Arrest Diane Feinstein for treason.
Actually, GW, if power is cut off, they would run a garden hose to the pool and worry about overfilling it.
- Ned
They could inject water around them and freeze it to make like an impenetrable ice wall or sumpin!!!
Very green, ya know ;-)
Please do not worry.
Meh!
THe "vulnerable Shoreham" facility has been decommisioned for 25 years and never ran at more that 5% power,
Fear mongering
Remember Fort Calhoun? In Iowa.
If the flood had been just a little worse, it was poised to be another Fukushima.
You need not focus on one plant, somewhere, some time, note that is did not explode on that day, and call "fear mongering".
It's "fact mongering".
Humans do not have a 500-year attention span, and cannot build anything that is guaranteed secure over such a time span. Every one of these things will fail, one way or another. If the radwaste has not been buried in some stable rock formation by that time, it will be strewn across the land.
The article atates that the SHOREHAM plant is ill equipped to handle an earthquake.
We do not have many earthquakes on Long Island we are however considered close to the same fault that runs through the resy of New York
The plant is not active.
We have the highest electric rates in the lower 48 but we are nor concerned about an earthquake taking out a mothballed plant.
You have a funny interpretation of "facts"
If your saying NO Nuclear plant is safe then I agree
"On May 19, 1989, LILCO agreed not to operate the plant in a deal with the state under which most of the $6 billion cost of the unused plant was passed on to Long Island residents."
Boom! Talk about fallout. The only reason they ddin't fire it up were protests by area residents.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoreham_Nuclear_Power_Plant
As George said:
"And the same company that designed the failed Fukushima plants and the vulnerable Shoreham facility is:
That does not leave me with a feeling of confidence, and "do not worry" does not work for me.
ebworthen,
If GW weren't slanting the stories, he might be a skosh' entertaining.
Further, breathlessly:
Anyone of all y'all dealt with the IRS inspectors? Yep, they are self-funded through the various administrative law devices where you are guilty until you prove your innocence beyond a reasonable doubt.
- Ned
You can't get politicians to shut down dangerous nuclear plants because it will cost jobs, make energy more expensive, and hurt corporate profits.
It is a ticking time bomb just like bailouts, federal debt, and financialization of the economy; they will push the immoral and unethical behavior until disaster occurs at which point they will say "Who could have seen this coming!?" and no one will be held accountable.
Yup.
It's not "California could suffer", it's "California will suffer". A simple matter of probability, and a long enough time line. And maybe not the plant GW describes, or the mechanism, but others. Hard to predict centuries in advance, but easy to calculate probabilities. Earthquakes, wars, economic chaos. Fukushima demonstrated for the world to see (if it cares to look) that these plants are not walk-away safe. Merely placing them in "cold shutdown" and walking away is a virtual guarantee that they will fail in the worst way possible.
And while the useful life of these plants is measured in decades, the remains will be dangerous for centuries.
Criminal malfeasence at the very least. Our gubermint needs to be taken down now!! These bastards all need to be terminated with extreme predujice--as in maybe death along the lines of Joan of Arc. I am staggered by the pompus asses who would do something so incredibly stupid. Milestones
beyond incompetent. this boderline malevolent.
these agency officials should be either in jail or forced to live with their families in housing on the grounds of said nuclear plants, that they might feel the outcome of their decisions.
Must delete word "borderline."
Nah, this is just what always happens under Fascism. By "Fascism" I mean the merger of corporate and state power and finance. It always, and by always I mean "Every Single Time," leads to the ultimate devastation of everything it touches. But not before the Elites loot everything first. Then it all falls apart. The Elites figure they can get out with their takings before TSHTF, and sometimes they do. Sometimes they don't, though, and the survivors kill them and mutilate the corpses. That's the risk they take, and the possible gains look gaudy enough they're happy to take that risk.
Correct. There's no worry here because no actual politicians, bankers or CEOs will be harmed by a meltdown. In fact they will likely start up a decontamination company and really 'clean up'.
Nuclear Banking 101..........https://www.facebook.com/groups/nucleartracktown/
If I were a terrorist, I think it can't be that difficult to study the weak points of a nuclear plant and then send a fleet of cheap radio-controlled drones, each equipped with a few ounces of Semtex, into the plant and start blowing key bits of it apart.
I imagine they have armed guards in these places, with machine-gun nests, so the first few drones would be sent in to blow up these up. You could maybe destroy a few cars in the parking lot and set fires going to add to the general confusion, and then send in drone after drone to blow up anything that gets in the way of getting at the cooling pumps etc.
An operation like this would cost a few hundred thousand bucks at the most. The fact that no-one has done this seems to me just one more indication that 'the terrrrist threat' is manufactured bullshit.