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The geological hazards of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant

The geological hazards of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (Third of a series)STAR SCIENCE By Kelvin S. Rodolfo, PhD Updated March 05, 2009

New earthquake data

Since 1973, many more earthquakes have occurred around and even under Mt. Natib; one on June 24, 1991 with a magnitude of 4.6 occurred directly under Napot Point. Since 1981, six have occurred within 25 kilometers of the BNPP. Note that the largest nuclear complex in the world, the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in Japan, was shut down by a magnitude 6.6 earthquake in July 2007 only 19 kilometers away. It is still inactive today.

The Lubao lineament

In 1997, Prof. Fernando Siringan, his students and I began to study land subsidence in coastal Bataan, Pampanga, Bulacan and Camanava. Very early, we noticed a sharp lineament in Lubao, Pampanga that trends southwest to Mt. Natib, where it abruptly disappears. Many earthquake epicenters plot along the lineament which, if extended farther, trends to Napot Point. The possibility that the lineament is a fault, and the possibility that it extends under Mt. Natib need urgently to be explored by scientists of Phivolcs and other institutions.

Professor Mahar Lagmay has established genetic relationships between faults and volcanoes, including Mt. Pinatubo and the volcanoes in Bicol.

Spent fuel pools

No country in the world has yet solved the problem of how to store nuclear waste permanently and safely for tens and hundreds of thousands of years. In the meantime, spent fuel is stored next to the plants, in pools of water that absorb the radiation and disperse the heat. The need for huge volumes of water to absorb excess heat from the reactor and from spent fuel is why the BNPP was built on the coast.

The geological hazards of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (Third of a series) | The Philippine Star >> Business Features >> Science and Technology

March 5, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Philippines, safety | antinuclear