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Earthquake risks for USA nuclear plants

The Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast figures the probability of an earthquake of 6.7 magnitude or higher is 67 per cent for Los Angeles, 63 per cent for San Francisco.

Another Fukushima? In America? Not if, but when, Alexander Cockburn on the shameful trade-off that keeps nuclear power on the agenda MARCH 17, 2011

Along much of California’s coastline runs the Ring of Fire which stretches round the Pacific plate from Australia, north past Japan, to Russia, round to Alaska, and down America’s west coast to Chile. Ninety per cent of the world’s earthquakes happen round the Ring.

The late great environmentalist David Brower used to tell audiences solemnly, “Nuclear plants are incredibly complex technological devices for locating earthquake faults.”

Apparently acting on this piece of sarcastic wisdom, the US has deployed four nuclear plants near the Ring of Fire faultline, including two active ones in my home state of California.

Forty miles up the road from me, in far northern California we had a boiling water reactor, closed in 1976 because – surprise! – there was an earthquake from a “previously unknown fault” just off the coast. Now all we have are spent nuclear fuel rods in ponds, right on the shoreline, a few feet above sea level, nicely situated for a tsunami, such as the one that disabled the relief diesel generators designed to pump emergency coolant in the Fukushima plant. Three plates meet a few miles west of where I write. We had a 7.1 earthquake in 1992. First moral in the nuclear business: Expect the unexpected.

Further south, halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles, is the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, planned in 1968 when no one knew about the Hosgri fault, part of the Ring of Fire, a few miles offshore. See moral number one.

Further inquiry established that there’d been a 7.1 earthquake 40 years earlier, offshore from the plant, completed in 1973. The power company – Pacific Gas and Electric – said it would beef up defences. In their haste, the site managers managed to reverse the blueprints for the new earthquake-proofing of the two reactors, and so the retro-fit wasn’t a total success. Second moral in the nuclear business: people do mess up.

Back to the first moral: they recently discovered yet another fault and are now worried about “ground liquefaction” in the event of a big quake. In 2008 there was a terrorist attack by jellyfish which blocked the cold water intake, and the plant was shut down for a couple of days…….

The Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast figures the probability of an earthquake of 6.7 magnitude or higher is 67 per cent for Los Angeles, 63 per cent for San Francisco. Up where I live, in the Cascadia subduction zone, we have a 10 per cent possibility of an 8.0 or 9.0 force quake….

Alexander Cockburn: Another Fukushima meltdown? In America? Not if, but when | News & Politics | News & Comment | The First Post

March 18, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, USA