What were THEY THINKING?
I just saw video on RT Report of San Onofre Nuke Plant and it looks like something Hurricane Sandy could have taken out! What about a Tsunami on West Coast (there were some alerts with some of the earthquakes in South America in past years.) The video showed it right on the Pacific with some people walking dogs. (Full Disclosure..I'm an East Coaster...but we have a few on our side of the USA that need to be worried about, too)
Who would have ever thought this is where a Nuke Plant should be located. I know they need to use water for cooling but to risk despoiling our oceans and all that live in them had to be a miscalculation or expediency of financial interests. We knew enough after Hiroshima to know how dangerous Nuclear Power could be.
Anyway....given our seas rising already due to the ice melt ...and more violent storms forcasted...how long is it before Nuke Plants located on our Oceans will meet the fate of Fukishima?
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The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) is a nuclear power plant located on the Pacific coast of California, in the northwestern corner of San Diego County, south of San Clemente. The site is surrounded by the San Onofre State Park and sits next to Interstate 5. The landmark spherical containment buildings around the reactors are designed to prevent unexpected releases of radiation. The closest tectonic fault line is the Cristianitos fault, which is considered inactive or "dead".[5] The plant has been the site of many protests by anti-nuclear groups.
The facility is operated by Southern California Edison. Edison International, parent of SCE, holds 78.2% ownership in the plant; San Diego Gas & Electric Company, 20%; and the City of Riverside Utilities Department, 1.8%. The plant employs over 2,200 people.[6] The plant is located in Nuclear Regulatory Commission Region IV.
The plant's two reactors (Units 2 and 3) have been shut down since January 2012 due to premature wear found on tubes in steam generators, which apparently contributed to the accidental release of a small amount of radioactive steam.
2012 shutdown
Unit 2 shut in early January 2012 for refueling and replacement of the reactor vessel head.[15] Both reactors at San Onofre have been shut since January 2012 due to premature wear found on tubes in steam generators installed in 2010 and 2011. Plant officials have pledged not to restart the units until the cause of the tube leak and tube degradation are understood. Neither unit has yet been restarted.[15]
In March 2012, former nuclear power executive Arnold Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates prepared a report that argued that "design modifications in the newly installed steam generators, such as different alloy for the tubes, led to problems at the plant". According to Gundersen's report, the shutdown in 2012 was due to poor design of the replacement steam generators that included many design changes that were not reviewed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.[16]In April 2012, in a sign of mounting concern over the shutdown, NRC Chairman, Gregory Jaczko, toured the facility with Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, and U.S. Representative Darrell Issa, a Republican.[17]
In May 2012, two retired natural gas electrical generators were brought back online to help replace the lost power generation capacity. However, the Huntington Beach Power Station produces only 440MW of power.[18][19] Additionally the Encina Power Station has assisted in replacing the missing capacity, providing 965MW of power; coupled with new conservation measures, this has helped keep power available to San Diego and Riverside counties.[20]
As of July 2012, the cost related to the shutdown has reached $165 million, with $117 million of that being the purchasing of power from other sources to replace the output of the plant.[21] As a result, the Chairman of Edison International Ted Carver has stated that there is a possibility that reactor 3 may be scrapped as "It is not clear at this time whether Unit 3 will be able to restart without extensive additional repairs".[21] In August 2012, Southern California Edison announced plans to lay off one-third, or 730, of the plants employees; the company said that the downsizing of the plant staff was planned more than two years ago. Rochelle Becker, of the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility, said that the layoffs show that the company is not being honest about their plans for the power plant.[6][22] Due to the shutdown, the NRC ended requirements to monitor non operating systems.[14]
In September 2012, Allison Macfarlane, the NRC Chairwoman, said that plant will be down for a prolonged period, and that the fuel from Unit 3 will be removed in September 2012, due to significant damage to the unit; Southern California Edison stated, through its spokeswoman, that it is planning to send a restarting plan for NRC approval in October 2012.[23] As of November 2012, the cost of the outage has gone over $300 million,[24] and discussion of restarting Unit 2 has been postponed;[25] in December of 2012, the last of the four old steam generators were transported to Clive, Utah for proper disposal.[26]
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= new reply since forum marked as read
in the coming years in the USA. So far...we think we are immune from this...but think of the agricultural devastation if any one of our Coastal Plants went down and leaked.
What would that mean to the Population, Plant Life and all surroundings.
And the Nuke Plants are all up and down our Coastal Growing Areas...it would not be something to go "Down the Memory Hole" if that happened here.
But, everyone loves it because it "produces JOBS." 
Until When? Jobs are important but when your kids die because of the job...what legacy do you leave?
"Daddy and Mommy did GOOD for US...but, my "Sisters & Brothers are dying of cancer!" (Future Post on Democratic Underground if it survives that long or it's Aftermath in the NEWS of DYSTOPIA)
...called it Mothballing it until the Nuke stuff dissipates in 25 or so years. 
They can't afford to CLEAN IT OUT!
So...take a Big Hurrcane and the whole thing starts to leak into the ocean and the plumes go across Florida and up the East Coast...because it was MOTHBALLED and not CLEANED UP?
It defies the imagination even to read this kind of stuff...
but "BEWARE THE RADIATION" will be the sign posted there..."SURF AT YOUR OWN RISK!"
I worry that's what it will come to as absurd as what I posted sounds like.
to use filters that would block some of the fish...although it would maybe be hard with the eggs..and smaller. Still if fish and aquatic organisms are recirculating through and dying it would seem some solution could have been found to deal with this after all these years.
BTW...thanks for your replies on this thread about the technology.
Date
March 10, 2013
Helen Caldicott
Two years since the Fukushima nuclear disaster, physician Helen Caldicott says the health implications are only now beginning to show
Like asbestos and tobacco, we know nuclear radiation is a long-term silent killer.
For many years, the asbestos and tobacco industries spent huge amounts of money denying the truth about the health effects of their products. In the end, their lies were exposed. Now the nuclear industry is trying to do the same.
Monday marks two years since the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.
Piles of radiation-contaminated waste in the abandoned town of Iitate, near the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant.
Legacy: piles of radiation-contaminated waste in the abandoned town of Iitate, near the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. Photo: AP
As in the early days of the asbestos and tobacco industries, since the disaster there have been numerous studies of dubious credibility which suggested the health effects in Japan were negligible and there was therefore little cause for concern – despite the fact that the area struck by the earthquake and tsunami had pretty much become a ghost town. For those who chose to stay in the exclusion zone, it is now evident that the medical and environmental consequences of doing so have been profound.
There is a growing body of scientific evidence pointing to disturbing medium- and long-term effects on humans, animals and plants in Japan, caused by the reactor melt-downs, and the release of large amounts of radiation into the atmosphere and the sea.
These include mutations and abnormalities observed in birds, insects and plants in the exclusion zones of Fukushima similar to those found after the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown in 1986.
Scientists have documented an unprecedented increase in thyroid abnormalities, including cancer, in children living in the Fukushima prefecture.
There has been huge, continuing radioactive contamination of the Pacific Ocean (sea floor and fish), and of dangerously large areas, including Tokyo; and contamination of food harvested in Fukushima and beyond.
The truth is that the Fukushima accident is a global public health issue whose implications must be considered by all nations, including Australia. After all, it was our uranium that fuelled at least five of the six reactors.
The truth is the Fukushima accident is not over and will never end. The radioactive fallout, which remains toxic for hundreds to thousands of years and covers large swaths of Japan, will never be “cleaned up”. It will contaminate food, humans and animals forever. Despite Tokyo Electric Power Company's assertions, the three reactors which experienced total meltdowns will almost certainly never be disassembled or decommissioned, not least because of the enormous amount of radiation they will continue to emit.
Furthermore, if building four, which was severely damaged in the original earthquake, should collapse, the massive cooling pool on its roof containing 100 tonnes of extremely radioactive waste could fall to the ground and lose its cooling water. The radioactive rods would spontaneously ignite, releasing further massive amounts of radiation. This building, it is estimated, will take up to two years to repair.
It is crucial to understand that our senses – taste, smell, hearing and sight – cannot detect the biomedical effects of radiation. But we know that radioactive waste from the accident is being released into the biosphere, and is then absorbed by humans, animals and plants.
It then becomes what is known as internal emitters, which make their way into specific organs: radioactive iodine to the thyroid; caesium to muscle, heart and endocrine organs; strontium 90 to bones and teeth; and plutonium, the most toxic, to bones, liver, lung, testicles and the foetus.
There they silently irradiate surrounding cells over many years, causing mutations of the regulatory genes that control cell division. Years later one of these cells can begin dividing uncontrollably, producing a cancer that can spread throughout the body.
That is why the long-term incidence of cancer, since Fukushima, will almost certainly be considerable, although at present the number of cases is small. In other words, these cancers – like mesothelioma after exposure to asbestos – will take years to develop.
For the sake of global public health it is imperative that we shine the light of scientific scrutiny on Fukushima – just as we did at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.
I
