At California Nuclear Plant, Emergency Response Plans Don't Include Earthquakes

As the world's attention remains focused on the nuclear calamity unfolding in Japan, American nuclear regulators and industry lobbyists have been offering assurances that plants in the United States are designed to withstand major earthquakes.

But the emergency plan for the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant on the California coast, which sits less than a mile from an offshore fault line, does not include a ready response for an accident triggered by an earthquake. Though experts warned from the beginning that the plant would be vulnerable to an earthquake, asserting 25 years ago that it required an emergency plan as a condition of its license, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission fought against making such a provision mandatory as it allowed the facility to be built.

Full article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/16/california-nuclear-emergency-response_n_836751.html

nuclear plants.

regarding nuclear safety - it's that Japanese Gubmermint that isn't being transparent.

he sure gives a lot of slack to the corporation that is not relaying the right info to the government.

when shit goes wrong, blame the government - and save the corporate tush. Right on, Anderson. As always you are consistent in this.

There shouldn't be any nuke plants in a place vulnerable to earthquakes.

... how would the emergency response differ than if that same failure was caused by an electrical or mechanical issue not caused by an earthquake?
 

Does it go into detail if emergency equipment/crews need to get there along the 2 lane curvy road and that road is destroyed by either the earthquake or a tsunami?

What is the emergency plan if the road is closed due to flooding caused by extended heavy rainfall? Where is their emergency plan for a multi-vehicle accident on the road caused by fog preventing anyone from getting through?
 

There are plans for a whole host of different events, but none of them have a corollary version for event + earthquake. The assumption apparently being that, because the plant facilities are expected to weather a quake, there's no reason to expect that one of the planned-for events will happen to coincide with a region-crippling seismic event. Seems like a silly assumption to me, but perhaps the response plans to various events are only based on local resources and are so redundant that external connections aren't considered vital.

Still, I'd think that proper emergency response planning would include contingencies for all sorts of complications - like if the warehouse with all the spare parts collapsed or burned up, or if all the cranes fell over the bluff or something...

Transcribed from the original Japanese where it was copied from.

1. Yell, "We're Fucked"
2. Bend over
3. Kiss Your Ass goodbye

It can't happen here.

Still saying "unlikely" here up north for Columbia Generating Station (shhh, if we don't use Nuclear in the name, maybe no one will notice).
Oh wait, that's the part about dams failing upstream.

Putting earthquakes and dams together, "Wright admitted he did not know the dams' "design basis" for the maximum earthquake each could absorb without breaching."

And yeah, we're part of the ring of fire.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x653404

are chosen on the basis of let's play chicken.

:wtf:

Same article.

:wtf:

:banghead:

:kick: & Rec !!!

I was just talking with an engineering friend this morning about Diablo Canyon. He has all kinds of inside info on the place. I thought Rand had built it, but he said PG&E did it because they thought they could pull it off. And it doesn't sound like they were fully capable, from the sound of what this guy knows. I can find out more, if I pursue it. I'd love to hear more about just what transpired before and during the project.

since we are downwind... lets just say our plans were done with the UNAM and Laguna Verde personnel.

25% of the power used in northern CA.

:wtf:

:grr:

I'd like to confirm that it doesn't have earthquakes in it. I don't trust anything out of Huffpo.

Sid

Here's the author's email: kirkham@huffingtonpost.com