Consider Diablo Canyon, California's most earthquake-prone nuclear power plant. It was built — on the central coast near San Louis (sic) Obispo, half way between San Francisco and LA — to withstand a magnitude 7.5 earthquake. Which sounds reassuring — until you realize that Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant, now in partial meltdown, was engineered to stand up to a 7.9, only to be hit by a 8.9 quake.
And here's the latest on how that's going.
I've watched Diablo a long time, from protests in the 70's til today. It was a stupid idea then, it's a worse one now. I've run into folk who worked there over the years who had unflattering, frankly alarming things to say about plant security and maintenance. The fact that it's potentially literally sitting on a fault line hasn't slowed down anyone's enthusiasm for re-certifying it.
But hey, I'm sure if we all just keep whistling and trust the Big Important Men and the Deregulation & Free Market Faeries to work their magic everything will be cool....
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