Yesterday evening, a short telop on TV told me there had been an earthquake of magnitude 7.7 along the west coast of North America 30 min. earlier. A few friends have come up in my mind. I rushed to the internet and googled about the news. Fortunately, it was far north along the coast of Alaska and no serious damage nor tsunami occurred, as it said. I was relieved to know that.
Alan AC2K in Seattle told me he could barely notice any quake at the time. I was concerned about the nuclear power plants there, which could be damaged by earthquakes. The recent news other than that last night told me there had been a few earthequeakes along the west coast for the past few months. Upon my inquiry, he let me know there are a number of nuclear power plants on the west coast. Two in WA, 1 in OR and 2 in CA. At least one of CAs is on the coast near to a big fault. No argument against such possible dangerous facilities along the fault area? Of course, it's not the matter with only the US but actually ours. There are 54 plants in this small islands. Our country has had many big earthquakes in the past. They say we are getting into the earthquake activated era now.
There are over 1500 nuclear fuels stored at the 4th reactor in the devastated Fukushima nuclear power plant. Its quatity of Cs 137 is comparable to 5000 times of that in the atomic bomb dropped in Hiroshima. 1300 of them are used ones, which are quite hazardous once they get out of the watered storage pool. The pool is right on the 5th floor of severely damaged rector building. If those used fuels are fell down and scattered by such as another earthquake, they could go critical again. It won't be managed by any means. It results in wide spread fallout all over our country. The mass media reports on the situationn of this reactor so often. We are still in hazard in this way.
I could not help considering of the same problem in the west coast where bunches of good friends are living. The internet news told me there had been a number of earthquakes occuring there for the past several months. I am afraid the earth itself is seismologically activated at present. We should quit the nuclear power generation all over the world now.
Eureka has an old nuclear power plant, called The Humboldt Bay Nuclear Power Plant. It is no longer operating, and will soon be decommissioned, the facility has been converted to propane generators.
ReplyDeleteThe HBN plant was the 7th built in the US, it was in operation when I lived in Eureka in the '70's, they constructed it on or very near the Little Salmon Fault. In the '70's I lived next to one of the engineers who worked at the plant, he told me that when they realized they built it on the fault, they buttressed the buildings so much that it was difficult for them to move about inside - it didn't make me feel very confident, and I was glad to learn that it is no longer in service. They do still store some spent rods there, however.
I agree, Shin, there are better ways to generate electricity.
Steve,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info. It is very good that nuclear plants were already decommisoned. There could be another problem how to maintain the used fuels for centuries. Nuclear debris is really negative inheritance to the generations upcoming.
I am sure the known faults are not all existing. Of course, we should avoid constructing such a nuclear power plant on or near to any fault. But there should be many unkown ones. There are heavy risks all over in Japan as well as the area along the west coast in North America. I hope people will notice this sooner.