Watching all the news from Japan causes those of us on the west coast to worry. Not so much about radiation reaching this far across the ocean, but rather because we have two similar plants here.
Diablo Canyon is a nuclear plant near San Luis Obispo (200 miles south of San Francisco). It's 26 years old & is above the ocean. And since it's in California, it's on a fault line. This is not a heavy populated area. San Luis has a population of around 30,000. But San Onofre is the other plant. It's located between LA & San Diego, also on the ocean & obviously on a fault. The San Jose Mercury says 6 million people, but that's not correct. There's at least 10 million in the LA basin & another 2 million is the San Diego area. Not even counting how many live across the border in Mexico(for those of you who don't read maps, SD is on the border directly next to Tijuana-who knows what it's pop. is).
Is this an issue? You bet it is. I live in Silicon Valley so I am 150 miles from Diablo Canyon & 400-450 miles from San Onofre in an area with 5½ million people. We are being told "the big one" is coming so be prepared, but we don't talk about those reactors. but with the disaster in Japan, now we do.
And now TV is talking about it, & politicians. CNN has a link on it's website to NHK World. That's their 24hr news channel. Their prime minister had a press conference yesterday & all he talked about was the power plants which have now had 3 explosions. So hopefully we are safe. There have been upgrades to our plants & because of the nature of our faults(slip-strike not subduction) there wouldn't be a tsunami.
Diablo Canyon is a nuclear plant near San Luis Obispo (200 miles south of San Francisco). It's 26 years old & is above the ocean. And since it's in California, it's on a fault line. This is not a heavy populated area. San Luis has a population of around 30,000. But San Onofre is the other plant. It's located between LA & San Diego, also on the ocean & obviously on a fault. The San Jose Mercury says 6 million people, but that's not correct. There's at least 10 million in the LA basin & another 2 million is the San Diego area. Not even counting how many live across the border in Mexico(for those of you who don't read maps, SD is on the border directly next to Tijuana-who knows what it's pop. is).
Is this an issue? You bet it is. I live in Silicon Valley so I am 150 miles from Diablo Canyon & 400-450 miles from San Onofre in an area with 5½ million people. We are being told "the big one" is coming so be prepared, but we don't talk about those reactors. but with the disaster in Japan, now we do.
And now TV is talking about it, & politicians. CNN has a link on it's website to NHK World. That's their 24hr news channel. Their prime minister had a press conference yesterday & all he talked about was the power plants which have now had 3 explosions. So hopefully we are safe. There have been upgrades to our plants & because of the nature of our faults(slip-strike not subduction) there wouldn't be a tsunami.
No comments:
Post a Comment