Could San Diegos Oceanside Nuke Plant Survive A Tsunami
Posted by
JAC on 3/28/2011, 3:29 pm
http://blogs.forbes.com/christopherhelman/2011/03/14/could-san-diegos-oceanside-nuke-plant-survive-a-tsunami/
The San Onofre nuclear power plant is perched right on the San Diego beach and the reactor is cooled by ocean water. Southern California Edison says San Onofre's 25-foot tsunami wall should protect the plant from a rogue wave generated by the active fault 5 miles offshore. But the plant was designed only to withstand a 7.0 quake, not the 9.0 that hit Japan. This L.A. Times story describes the plant and its defenses.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/03/san-onofre-nuclear-plant-can-withstand-quakestsunamis-officials-say.html
There's less concern for PG&E's Diablo Canyon plant, which sits on an 85-foot-tall bluff above the beach near Santa Barbara. If a tsunami reached that high, California would have much bigger problems than a busted reactor. It's supposedly built to withstand a 7.5 quake.
It's important to note that in Japan it wasn't the earthquake that caused problems with the Fukushima reactors but the lack of adequate tsunami-proof back up power generation to keep the fuel cool after shutdown. San Onofre's operators should assure the public that they have redundant backup generators that they can prove would be able to weather a tsunami of the sort that hit Japan.
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