California Fukushima? West Coast Plant a ‘Ticking Time Bomb’
Greater scrutiny of Diablo Canyon’s twin nuclear reactors is needed, says Sam Blakeslee, a former California state senator. Blakeslee testifies to a Senate panel this week that makes determinations on public safety issues. He feels that the nuclear power plant poses a hazard should an earthquake happen in California, since the reactors are on fault lines.
The reactors are located near several faults on a seaside bluff midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Of course, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and owner of the plant, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) have vehemently defended the safety of the site – just as TEPCO assured the public that the Fukushima site was safe, and even after the Daiichi tragedy, that all radiation leaks were contained.
Blakeslee is particularly qualified to testify about the Diablo Canyon site, since he is also a geophysicist. He left the legislature in 2012. Included in his prepared remarks he states:
“The potential earthquakes affecting the plant have increased with each major study. But what’s equally striking is that the shaking predicted by PG&E for these increasing threats has systematically decreased.”
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is supposed to be re-evaluating U.S. nuclear plants to consider seismic risks, with studies due by March.
Read: 2 Nuclear Reactors to be Built in US Using Taxpayer Monies
In reference to Diablo Canyon, another scientists meant to testify states:
“The NRC must make safety its highest priority, because earthquakes don’t wait for endless studies and I am concerned the NRC is again dithering when action is called for.”
According to the Associated Press, a senior federal nuclear expert has urged the NRC to shut down the plant until it can determine whether the reactors can withstand shaking from any of several nearby faults not recognized when the plant was constructed decades ago.
Other Experts Warn of ‘Inevitable’ Fukushima Disaster in California
Top level nuclear experts, including a senior federal nuclear inspector turned whistleblower, are warning that the California-based plant is a sitting radioactive duck amid the nearby faults.
The whistleblower and former federal inspector of the plant, Michael Peck, has even presented his case highlighting the serious hazards of the plant he used to oversee to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in a highly confidential report. National organizations are already calling attention to Peck’s finding and reports, with senior strategist Damon Moglen of Friends of the Earth International stating:
“We agree with him that Diablo Canyon is vulnerable to earthquakes and must be shut down immediately. Rather than the NRC keeping this a secret, there must be a thorough investigation with public hearings to determine whether these reactors can operate safely.”
Read: Govt OK’s Growing Rice for Public Sale Within Fukushima Contamination Zone
But as usual, the general public is not being told about ways in which they can prepare themselves for a nuclear meltdown.
As of this writing in 2014, there are currently over 62 nuclear power plants in the US. According to the World Nuclear Association, the US is the world’s largest producer of nuclear power, accounting for more than 30% of worldwide nuclear generation of electricity. We don’t even list in the top 10 countries for solar power, though we are supposed to be a “super power.” Hopefully we can continue to change this.
Fukushima Radiation Continues As Experts Warn Of ‘American Fukushima’
Initially listed as a Level 4 incident on the International Nuclear Event Scale, pressure from scientists on an international level ultimately led to Fukushima’s classification as a maximum Level 7 accident within the INES system — with some suggesting an entirely new level was needed to describe the true impact and atrocity of the nuclear meltdown.
Even another earthquake affecting Japan could lead to the ‘evacuation of North America’, according to scientist David Suzuki.
In statements made during a presentation on water ecology at the University of Alberta, award winning scientist David Suzuki went on record in saying that in the event of another seven or above earthquake, which he says has about a 95% chance of occurring over the next three years, it would require a complete evacuation of North America and mean ‘bye bye Japan.’
“I have seen a paper which says that if in fact the fourth plant goes under in an earthquake and those rods are exposed, it’s bye bye Japan and everybody on the west coast of North America should evacuate,” he said.
Specifically speaking to the nature of Fukushima’s ticking time bomb, Suzuki began the breakdown of the plant’s numerous threats with stating the very real concept that Fukushima is perhaps the largest threat to both humanity and the planet that we face in the immediate future.
“Fukushima is the most terrifying situation I can imagine. Three out of the four plants were destroyed in the earthquake and in the tsunami. The fourth one has been so badly damaged that the fear is, if there’s another earthquake of a seven or above that, that building will go and then all hell breaks loose… And the probability of a seven or above earthquake in the next three years is over 95 per cent.”
And Suzuki is not the only one with major concerns. In fact, Suzuki is perhaps one of the very few who actually received media attention due to his celebrity status as a recipient of 16 significant academic awards and host of the popular CBC Television program entitled ‘The Nature of Things’.
Yale University professor Charles Perrow has voiced similar concerns in a telling piece entitled ‘Fukushima Forever’, which highlights the very serious threat of nuclear meltdown as a result of human error when it comes to removing the plant’s spent fuel rods.
A danger that the United States government certainly recognizes as legitimate based on the analysis of top experts, and undoubtedly is silently preparing for behind the scenes.
Perrow writes:
“Much more serious is the danger that the spent fuel rod pool at the top of the nuclear plant number four will collapse in a storm or an earthquake, or in a failed attempt to carefully remove each of the 1,535 rods and safely transport them to the common storage pool 50 meters away. Conditions in the unit 4 pool, 100 feet from the ground, are perilous, and if any two of the rods touch it could cause a nuclear reaction that would be uncontrollable. The radiation emitted from all these rods, if they are not continually cool and kept separate, would require the evacuation of surrounding areas including Tokyo. Because of the radiation at the site the 6,375 rods in the common storage pool could not be continuously cooled; they would fission and all of humanity will be threatened, for thousands of years.”
The Fukushima nuclear nightmare is far from over, and even now the disaster is being extremely mishandled and blatantly ignored by plant operator company TEPCO and the Japanese government.
In the event of an American Fukushima within California, which would in fact be much more devastating, there is truly no telling how much of a fatal blow would be dealt to humanity.
