Expert Calls for Nuke Plant Closure.

[elleng]

Source: nyt/ap

A senior federal nuclear expert is urging regulators to shut down California's last operating nuclear plant until they can determine whether the facility's twin reactors can withstand powerful shaking from any one of several nearby earthquake faults.

Michael Peck, who for five years was Diablo Canyon's lead on-site inspector, says in a 42-page, confidential report that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is not applying the safety rules it set out for the plant's operation.

The document, which was obtained and verified by The Associated Press, does not say the plant itself is unsafe. Instead, according to Peck's analysis, no one knows whether the facility's key equipment can withstand strong shaking from those faults — the potential for which was realized decades after the facility was built.

Continuing to run the reactors, Peck writes, "challenges the presumption of nuclear safety."

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2014/08/25/us/ap-us-nuclear-reactor-dispute.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=WireFeed&module=pocket-region&region=pocket-region&WT.nav=pocket-region&_r=0

[Cleita]

1. There is big opposition to that because Diablo is a major employer

in this area. (I live fifteen miles from the plant.) I have been arguing about closing it to anyone who will listen and run up against this wall about it causing a big unemployment problem. Also PG & E and El Diablo hire experts to bolster their claims of the safety of the plant. Most recently I was told to speak to an oceanographer who is employed by them. I said I would but have yet to be contacted.

Another problem is the energy companies doing or attempting to do fracking in this area. With all the earthquake faults here including two under Diablo and the San Andreas fault nearby...are they kidding!

Please cross post this in GD because I'm afraid the LBN hosts may lock it as being off topic.

[elleng]

3. Good luck!

and will XP.

[candelista]

7. Diablo Canyon employs 1400 workers with payroll of $202M

So I see why some people want to keep it open. But at what a risk!

http://www.pge.com/en/safety/systemworks/dcpp/index.page

[Cleita]

8. Yes, and I think there will be employment if we go to other

methods of rebuilding a power structure with renewable energy, solar, wind and wave, but the majority here can't wrap their imaginations around that concept. Not only that most people I talk to treat me like chicken little. Those "experts" hired by the industry have lulled the employees and greater population into believing we can't be Fukushima.

[roomtomove]

2. no let's wait

until the quake hits.

[Helen Borg]

4. My prediction: it won't close...

[Cleita]

5. It will close when we get that 8.0 predicted earthquake,

since it's only built to withstand 7.2. Then it will be too late.

[Helen Borg]

9. Righto!

[candelista]

6. From the article:

According to Peck's filing, PG&E research in 2011 determined that any of three nearby faults — the Shoreline, Los Osos and San Luis Bay — is capable of producing significantly more ground motion during an earthquake than was accounted for in the design of important plant equipment. In the case of San Luis Bay, it is as much as 75 percent more.