Prompts Questions about California's Nuclear Power Plants

Looking at the failure of three cooling systems at nuclear power reactors in Japan and a second

containment building explosion, I can’t help but wonder about the shortsightedness of building nuclear

plants near an earthquake fault. The question arises, are we at risk here in Southern California?

Southern California Edison proudly proclaims that the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant was built to

withstand a 7.0-magnitude quake and 25-foot-tall tsunami.

More problematic is the aptly named El Diablo Canyon Power Plant, about 160 miles up the coast from

Malibu in Avila Beach. It’s a good place to build a power plant, except for four earthquake faults in the

vicinity.

The design was considered safe enough to resist shaking from the nearby San Andreas Fault when

construction began in 1968. But in 1973, a new fault was discovered three miles offshore, the Hosgri

fault. In 1927, a few miles farther out, it had produced a 7.1-magnitude quake. Yet construction at El

Diablo continued.

In 1979, tens of thousands of protestors gathered to try to block the plant's construction. Two years

later, hundreds of activists were arrested. The plant was ultimately finished with a design intended to

withstand a 7.5-magnitude earthquake. It went online in the mid-'80s.

The nuclear power plant on the coast to the north of Malibu and the one to the south are designed to

resist a 7.5-magnitude and 7.0-magnitude quake, respectively. To put this in perspective, the plants

would be safe in a quake the size of the one that hit Haiti last year, but would not be in an earthquake

as big as the one that leveled San Francisco in 1906. That was a 7.8.

Because the Richter Scale is logarithmic, each whole number represents a change in earthquake

amplitude by a factor of ten, but that only tells part of the story. As an estimate of energy expended

by a quake, each whole number represents about 31 times more energy than the amount released by

the previous number.

Experts are predicting that the next quake on the San Andreas Fault could be up to an 8.1.

When? Thomas Jordan, director of the Southern California Earthquake Center, has said repeatedly that

the San Andreas fault is "locked and loaded. It's been a long time since an earthquake has occurred on

that fault—over 150 years."

We are being reassured that quakes of around 8-magnitude are the most we could expect in California

because the fault geology is different here than it is in Japan. In fact the biggest quake recorded in

California history was the 1857 Fort Tejon earthquake, on the San Andreas fault, which reached 7.9.

But Friday's 8.9-magnitude earthquake was the biggest in Japanese history. It is now estimated to have

killed 10,000 people, pushing Japan 13 feet closer to North America, shortening the earth's day and The new energy products - power ring - is on sale now.


tilting the planet off its axis.

President Obama has repeatedly mentioned that he supported new nuclear power plant construction to

help wean us off fossil fuel dependency, yet if we learn anything from the disaster in Japan, it should be

that if we built any additional nuclear plants, they should be in areas more seismically stable than El

Diablo Canyon.

My heartfelt good wishes go out the Japanese people. They have suffered a devastating blow and
Buy sports watch online at cheap price.

could use our help and prayers.

After quakes in close succession around the Pacific ring of fire, first in New Zealand and now Japan, I The fashion slap watches are very popular among young people.


hope that that California's faults remain quiescent.