Posted on 03/16/2011 8:34:33 PM PDT by porter_knorr
Pete Dietrich, chief nuclear officer at San Onofre, assured in a news conference this week that San Onofre is super safe. The twin reactors are encased in inner shells of steel that are 8 inches thick and outer shells of concrete that are 4 feet thick. However, there's an old saying in the news business: "If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out." I've ridden my bicycle past the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station a dozen times. In my mind's eye, there are gaps in the wall around the plant. Could a massive tsunami circle around the sea wall and breach the plant? I examine Google satellite images until I'm bleary eyed. I scour the Internet for photos. It appears there are driveways where millions of gallons of ocean water could flood the site. I ask to tour the plant. I don't receive permission.
(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...
And one more thing: I've grown to appreciate guards."
“Plus, no one is bothering the television station videotaping down the beach.
That would be al Jazeera. Al Jazeera’s smart and shows no identification.”
“As I head back to my car, al Jazeera asks my take. I decline, saving my thoughts for Register readers.”
I’m glad to know a reporter thinks it’s safe (/sarcasm)
I’m wondering how often Al Jazeera is really there video taping.
“” I’ve ridden my bicycle past the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station a dozen times.”
There lies the problem!!!
An ecojerk.
Even rockets couldn’t penetrate San Onofre.
“I’ve ridden my bicycle past the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station a dozen times. In my mind’s eye, there are gaps in the wall around the plant.”
Well, as a well qualified bicycle scientist you are entitled to your uneducated opinion. But I have to ask if your bike is capable of outrunning the tsunami?
If not, you should not worry about surviving excessive radiation exposure. You’ll be dead long before the walls are breached!
If we have learned anything from the situation in Japan it would be how safe are the back-up generators. The key is being able to keep the pumps going. Plus it looks like it would be easier to get back up generators to the plant on trucks.
I just thought it was an interesting article, even though I feel snarky about his attitude that he checked it out, so it’s ok.
I’ve lived within an hour of the power plant, for close to 20 years off and on...I had no idea you could get so close to it from the beach side. It would never occur to me to go look I suppose.
A display at the entrance to the Dahlgren, VA Naval facility has (had?) a large (16 inch?) naval artillery shell that hadn’t quite passed completely through the thick (12 inch?) steel armor that stopped it. I saw it in pre-missile days.
Here’s what I learned about the Tsunami. If you ride a bike near the coast, wondering about the nuclear power plant is a dumb waste of energy because you won’t be around to worry about it.
I just assumed that beach access was blocked. I'm surprised that it isn't.
The Containment Domes for the newer Reactors Two and Three are massive round structures, not the square box design used on older Nuclear Plants.
The Plant could be buried by a 100 foot Tsunami and it wouldn't make a dent on the Reactor Containment Domes.
We have a local minority of Envirowacks that hate the Plant and will look for any reason to try an shut it down. They even stopped a Toll Road extension that would alleviate traffic on the 5 Freeway because they said it would endanger the local Surfers Beach.
It was a bunch of hooey, but they had the Liberal Coastal Commission on their side so the Toll Road extension was canceled. If they could figure out a way to get rid of San Onofre, they would do it in a heartbeat. Facts mean nothing to Liberals.
Around here we call the Containment Domes the Perfect Pair.
Yes, I try to flip off every “save the Trestles” bumper sticker laden car I see especially in traffic.
lol, except there has to be an earthquake to trigger the tsunami. So in theory, you have 15 minutes to get to higher land (or cross the 5 somehow)
Thank you for the link. I’d never seen the chunk from the Yamato.
Here’s my favorite sentence from this blog: “However, there’s an old saying in the news business: ‘If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out.’”
LOL. Yeah, right, MSM.
they look like a pair of tuts from the SD freeway...
My folks lived a short distance from this plant, when it was being built. My sister and her husband worked there during construction. Bechtel was the contractor.
The Nixon Western White House is about a mile from the plant, or less. People camp, surf and use the beach nearby.
Electricity generation is an essential of our modern lives. Gotta make it somehow, from something.
Both up the coast in Huntington Beach, and down the coast in Carlsbad there are electric generating plants burning natural gas.
Nimbys everywhere want the output, but not the plants nearby.
I’ve been sensing the dems would concede we need nuclear plants, but this Japan thing suggests the dems’ environmental extremists will win them over.
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