Califonia's San Onofre nuclear power plant can only withstand a 7.0 earthquake

So. California's San Onofre nuclear plant, near fault line and sea, built to withstand less than Japan plant

A spokesman for Southern California Edison, the operator of the San Onofre nuclear power generating station (between LA and San Diego, the big white dome-shaped thing off I-5) was trying to calm fearful Southern California residents today when he explained that the 84-acre generating station was built to withstand a magnitude 7.0 earthquake.

A 7.0 earthquake... Japan was hit by a 9.0... 100 times stronger.

He also told local media that a 25-foot-high "tsunami wall" of reinforced concrete stood between the plant and the immediately adjacent Pacific ocean.

Japan was hit by a 33 foot high tsunami...

And you know that if meltdown happens there, western US and central US, along with all the food grown in the area... is screwed. Not to mention what would happen to the CDS, the stock market and in the bond market.

i posted these links the othe day on this thread, i was stationed at camp pendleton,at camp onofre.


/www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread673155/pg9


this is socaledisom site about the sea water pumps.

www.edison.com/files/OCEAN_WATER_COOLING_SYSTEM.pdf


this one is about the power plant and it's problems/

mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/1465-a-miracle-or-a-meltdown-one-or-the- other.html

this talks about diablo canyon power plant and others

www.energy.ca.gov/nuclear/california.html

this one is a feel good story from the plant. orange county resister

/www.ocregister.com/news/plant-291963-alexander-onofre.html

If there is ANY sign of a potential huge earthquake the officials better power the plant down asap. Hopefully nothing happens, but maybe the US can learn from what happens in Japan as the week progresses.

reply to post by Vitchilo


This is a SERIOUS worry and I would'nt take light of it

We are stuck in between a rock and a hard place honestly.

On one hand, we DO need to DECOMMISSION these plants ASAP. We need to rebuild newer facilities that are designed to handle a 9.2 at the least!

But, on the other hand, bringing down one of these plants is going to cause major electrical disturbances. There will be rolling brownouts / blackouts.

We need to form a transition plan immediately.
It could take several years to finalize such a transition and pull it off correctly.

I highly suggest investing heavily in this transition to better designed facilities and safer mechanisms in the event of large scale tectonic disasters.

Hell if we are gonna waste all our $$$ on bs, we might as well put it into reshaping our infrastructure effectively and into a safety first paradigm.

Add an EMP as another vulnerability to all nuclear plants. Even in a normal grid down situation their back up systems will only keep the rods cool for so long.

I think that is strange how they can assume that only 7.0 quake is possible. From what I understand...this could be a potential spot for a megaquake.

reply to post by Flyzoid


the way i understood it, was at the time san onofre was built,the thinking was that that fault line would not produce
more than a 7.0 quake. i dont remember if it in on of the articles i post or not. any where ever i read didn't give a very good reason as to why they thought this. i'll have to scan thru them to see.

well it was any of these, but i did find this,

Fortunately, San Onofre was built to withstand a 7.0 earthquake. Nuclear power expert, Murray Jennex says, "At San Onofre we analyzed the faults in that region. We analyzed the soils and conditions of that territory and the worst case expected, earthquake, is a 6.4, so we built for a 7.0 earthquake."

here is a link for this story.

www.kusi.com/story/14250570/san-onofre-nuclear-plant-built-to -withstand-earthquakes

The nearest major fault capable of a earthquake above a 7.0 is in the imperial valley.

The ground effects of a major quake on that fault is only going to cause earth movement in the range of less then 6.0 at San Onofre.

Two other possibilities are a tsunami from part of Hawaii breaking off or a asteroid impact.

Unit 1 was a generation ! reactor and is no longer in service.

Units 2 and 3 are generation 2+ Pressurized water reactors (PWRs)

PWRs have very large heat exchangers that set above the reactor that hold about 6 times more water then the old boiling water reactors in japan.
www.global-greenhouse-warming.com...

My ex next door neighbor from the 1960s is a nuke plant operator at San Onofre.
He is a navy nuclear power veteran with 6 years as a nuclear power plant operator on a attack sub and 30 years at San Onofre.

Unlike japan most of the nuclear plants in the US are staffed by veterans from the US Navy Nuclear Power School.
usmilitary.about.com...

Back in 1972 I did hotwork at San Onofre unit 1 on a few weekends.
I was in the navy at the time stationed in San Diego.

Those weekend were great pay, I made two weeks navy pay in two days till the Navy found out and put a stop to them using navy personal.