Built to only survive a magnitude 7.0 earthquake the San Onofre nuclear plant MUST be IMMEDIATELY SHUT DOWN FOREVER.....
Built to only survive a magnitude 7.0 earthquake the San Onofre nuclear plant MUST be IMMEDIATELY SHUT DOWN FOREVER.....
"The science says that we could see about five miles from the plant an earthquake, perhaps equal to a magnitude 6.5, 6.6," said Gil Alexander of Southern California Edison. "So we designed the plant to exceed the maximum threat. It's designed to withstand a 7.0."
Read my post on the other thread. Why should an extreme event that might hurt a few dozen people (very strong earthquake a given level beyond expected maximum earthquake level, followed by a similar extreme tsunami) take precedence over probably a million other investments in safety that would save vastly more lives and economic damage.
That is, wasting many billions of dollars doing what you suggest would save vastly more lives if spent on shoring up earthquake-vulnerable buildings in the area.
In addition, while this is a guess, I think that the topography of the ocean would mean that a similarly extreme event would not create the extreme tsunami in that location. More importantly, I think that the problem in Japan is that they did not have more backup generation in a location that would be more secure from the double event. The backup generation at San Onofre has a different configuration and is only backing up two reactors.
Finally, the situation in Japan, for all of the extreme events, is not so much 'out of control' for the reason that they half life of the isotopes that are generating the heat are on the order of 8 hours, I think, so that the heat production drops in half every 8 hours. This is probably faster than it does drop because isotopes that contribute less to the initial heat production with longer half lives begin to have a larger portion of the remaining radioactivity level after a day or two.
It is clearly going to be a big mess and there is still danger of broader spread and more explosions of the secondary structures (not the containment vessel), but realistically, whatever happens is a drop in the bucket compared to the other consequences. At a wild-ass guess, an 8.9 magnitude quake close to San Onofre with the same tsunami would kill on the order of 100,000 to 1,000,000 in southern California and cause trillions of dollars in economic losses while the reactor might be damaged and one or two people might even get killed as a result. The likely deaths from even a very bad outcome from the reactor might be two orders of magnitude less than the error in counting the casualties from the other sources.
as we've seen from 911, katrina, rodney king riots, florida, the us society melts down and all hell breaks lose when there are catastrophes. riots. looting. mass rapes. police gangs go out and commit crimes. the public goes totally berserk.
News Flash:
Cars are only built to survive head-on collisions of about 30-40 miles per hour. Cars can be driven at over 100 miles per hour.
CARS MUST BE BANNED FROM DRIVING MORE THAN 30 MILES PER HOUR FOREVER, STARTING IMMEDIATELY.
If a 7.0 quake strikes and San Onofre blows it'll contaminate the entire So Cal area and make it inhabitable for hundreds of years like the Chernobyl disaster. Can we risk that ?
Yes, it is worth the risk.
You sir are a moron.
We have no choice but to shut down San Onofre now and design a modern reactor that can withstand a 9.0 and has a cooling system that can withstand a tsunami. L.A. and S.D. are essential to the U.S.A.
Big Risks wrote:
If a 7.0 quake strikes and San Onofre blows it'll contaminate the entire So Cal area and make it inhabitable for hundreds of years like the Chernobyl disaster. Can we risk that ?
I disagree with this statement simply because nothing could possibly make SoCal inhabitable. :)
Cam Pen wrote:
We have no choice but to shut down San Onofre now and design a modern reactor that can withstand a 9.0 and has a cooling system that can withstand a tsunami. L.A. and S.D. are essential to the U.S.A.
What about a 10.0 e-quake? What about a mega-tsunami with 100 foot waves? Nature can overcome anything you design for.
Lets shut down this plant....... lets set up 24/7/365 picket lines until we shut it down!!!! Too many lives are at stake to allow it to continue.
Lets shut down this plant....... lets set up 24/7/365 picket lines until we shut it down!!!! Too many lives are at stake to allow it to continue.
10.0 wrote:
Cam Pen wrote:We have no choice but to shut down San Onofre now and design a modern reactor that can withstand a 9.0 and has a cooling system that can withstand a tsunami. L.A. and S.D. are essential to the U.S.A.
What about a 10.0 e-quake? What about a mega-tsunami with 100 foot waves? Nature can overcome anything you design for.
How about we design to withstand a 25.0 e-quake and Ten million foot Tsnuamis while were at it? See if nature can overcome that.
We are not protected in the event of a massive meteorite crashing into the Atlantic or Pacific.
BUILD A BIG CONCRETE WALL AROUND NORTH AMERICAN IMMEDIATELY OR WE ARE ALL DOOMED!!!!
Big Risks wrote:
If a 7.0 quake strikes and San Onofre blows it'll contaminate the entire So Cal area and make it inhabitable for hundreds of years like the Chernobyl disaster. Can we risk that ?
You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!
26mi235 wrote:
Read my post on the other thread. Why should an extreme event ....
Confound you, writing something so coherent!
26mi235 wrote:
Read my post on the other thread. Why should an extreme event that might hurt a few dozen people (very strong earthquake a given level beyond expected maximum earthquake level, followed by a similar extreme tsunami) take precedence over probably a million other investments in safety that would save vastly more lives and economic damage.
That is, wasting many billions of dollars doing what you suggest would save vastly more lives if spent on shoring up earthquake-vulnerable buildings in the area.
In addition, while this is a guess, I think that the topography of the ocean would mean that a similarly extreme event would not create the extreme tsunami in that location. More importantly, I think that the problem in Japan is that they did not have more backup generation in a location that would be more secure from the double event. The backup generation at San Onofre has a different configuration and is only backing up two reactors.
Finally, the situation in Japan, for all of the extreme events, is not so much 'out of control' for the reason that they half life of the isotopes that are generating the heat are on the order of 8 hours, I think, so that the heat production drops in half every 8 hours. This is probably faster than it does drop because isotopes that contribute less to the initial heat production with longer half lives begin to have a larger portion of the remaining radioactivity level after a day or two.
It is clearly going to be a big mess and there is still danger of broader spread and more explosions of the secondary structures (not the containment vessel), but realistically, whatever happens is a drop in the bucket compared to the other consequences. At a wild-ass guess, an 8.9 magnitude quake close to San Onofre with the same tsunami would kill on the order of 100,000 to 1,000,000 in southern California and cause trillions of dollars in economic losses while the reactor might be damaged and one or two people might even get killed as a result. The likely deaths from even a very bad outcome from the reactor might be two orders of magnitude less than the error in counting the casualties from the other sources.
What is this? It's unlike anything I've ever seen around these parts. I don't know how to put it... It's like it makes some sort of...
...sense, or something.
actually, this entire thread is speculation. san onofre doesn't lie near that many major faults, the worst being the san andreas/san jacinto system to the east. these fracture zones, though dangerous, are never going to produce a 10.0 EQ - in fact, it's almost impossible any fault zone will create an earthquake this large, seeing how magnitude is proportional to the area of rock that slips; there is simply no fault large enough that, even if the entire thing ruptured, it would create a 10.0. to give you a sense of worst case scenario, the B4 project, Ariz. St. Univ, the USGS, and the San Diego Supercomputer Center, among other projects are looking at the San Andreas fault and have recognized that the most plausible one is what they call the "wall to wall rupture" would be a slip of the San Andreas from Parkfield to the Salton Sea, resulting in a M8.1 EQ.
That, however, is worst case. More likely is the slip of the southern San Andreas in a M7.8. Nonetheless, 8.1 and 7.8 are still both greater than 7.0, meaning San Onofre should take care. That said, this is where geology is still an imprecise science - though the energy released would cause a moment magnitude 7.8 earthquake, the local geology means the Richter magnitude, a measure of local ground shaking, could very well be less than the 7.0 mark demarcated by authorities overseeing the San Onofre plant.
But, for realz, no reason to worry about a 10.0. Or a tsunami for that matter, seeing how the faults mentioned are transform faults - that is, they slide past one another, sideways like. The faults that create tsunamis, as in Japan, are the ones where one tectonic plate is subducted, or sinks beneath, another in a sudden event, displacing the water above and as the water attempts to equilibrate, the energy propagates out in waves that grow as the sea floor shallows out near shore, leading to tsunami.
^ Science. <3 Bill Nye.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ wrote:
How about we design to withstand a 25.0 e-quake and Ten million foot Tsnuamis while were at it? See if nature can overcome that.
Yes, we can build it to be like the Sun. That should even withstand a 1,000.0 earthquake, or a billion foot high tsunami.