From: Kim Noyes <kimnoyes@gmail.com>
To: californiadisasters@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sat, March 19, 2011 11:29:34 AM
Subject: Re: [californiadisasters] California's faults are not like Japan's
There is no obvious and problematic aging of Diablo Canyon's structural elements that I have heard from the myriad of people I know whom work there full-time or when they shut a unit down to reload it.
The plant would have in all likelihood been relicensed as it rightly ought to be as nuclear energy is the future and always has been. However, given the public ignorance and hysteria as promoted by the media and our political leaders as well as the anti-nuke community in the immediate aftermath of what has happened in Japan that might not happen now which is a crying shame.
It boggles the mind to see the transformation into timid Luddites that Liberals have undergone since the 1960's. During that era Classic Liberals like Jack Kennedy were heroes inspiring the world and leading the charge against Global Communist Hegemony. Kennedy challenged the scientific community to do something even it believed impossible: send a man safely to the moon and back by the end of that decade which of course happened.
Now the Classic Liberals have been replaced by the modern Neo-Liberals whom fear to engage the world with confidence, wallow in self-hatred about all real and imagined transgressions their country has made with no recognition of the reality of our national learning curve and growth as a society that we are indeed undergoing and view technology as more a bad thing than a good thing.
Now these Nattering Nabobs of Negativity somehow seem to believe that we can run a modern civilization on solar and wind and tidal power-generation while driving around in hybrid cars because they oppose fossils fuels due to the carbon issue (on that they are correct) but oppose nuclear energy (on that they are incorrect) because occasionally something can go wrong. This logic applied to any other endeavor such as commercial aviation would lead us to oppose it and seek its discontinuance following the first plane crash as opposed to seeking ways to improve commercial aviation safety standards.
There are simply not enough rare earth elements on our planet's surface to convert all our automobiles in the U.S., let alone upon the entire Earth into hybirds. The Chinese are going to have a Middle Class someday that is more populous than our entire nation and they will all have cars and it is the Chinese who possess most of the rare earth elements so guess what?
On a side-note: the enviros are split on the alternative energy sources: Audobon members and other bird people aren't too keen about the collections of dead birds beneath each wind mill. Desert-loving enviros aren't too keen on the mental image of vast swaths of the Mojave Desert covered in solar panels under which the desert tortoise and other species would have to amble about. Surfrider Foundation type folks who love the ocean don't get too excited about the idea of vast tidal power generation plants along the coast.
With global warming a scientific fact and the anthropogenic element of it more and more a probability with each study that comes out it seems fossil fuels, which aside from being possibly a contributing factor to global warming, are simply an old and outdated and primitive source of energy and the fact we are still fucking around with fossils fuels this late in the game is tangible evidence of technological laziness on the part of Modern Civilization.
Does anybody with an I.Q. above 80 really believe that we as a species cannot come up with some technological innovations to deal with spent fuel or that we as a species that has always employed technology as a means of altering our environment for purposes of survival are incapable of and unwilling to develop technologies and procedures that can make nuclear power generation safer with time? Really?
Patricia, inlets alone do not amplify tsunamis. Along the coast of Thailand in 2004 there were inlets and such adjacent to tsunami-stricken stretches of coast that were unaffected because the submarine topography leading up the coast in those locations was too steep and abrupt and instead of encouraging the tsunami to pile up it bounced it back out. Guess what the submarine topography is around Diablo Canyon? And yes, nothing notable happened there last week unlike right around the corner up and down the coast at Morro Bay and Avila Beach. You need to take a chill pill about Diablo Canyon.
There has been only one significant tsunami in California history from the standpoint of run-up height and that was the one in the Santa Barbara Channel in December 1812 which was caused by a quake under the Santa Barbara Channel and triggered a huge submarine landslide just offshore of the Gaviota Coast west of Santa Barbara.
Crescent City is an aberration and can have a significant tsunami from just about any big earthquake on the Pacific Rim.
Kimmer
Because of the cost of decommissioning, I doubt Diablo will be shut down, unless convincing evidence is found to refute PG&E's geologists about the fault lines, or massive aging of its structure and components is found.(Vodor, Has the plant reached this level of obsolescence?) However if Westinghouse or another competing corporate body stands to profit with decommissioning we may find that it is done.
Diablo cannot be used to make weapons grade materials.
I think the ultimate cost of nuclear power related to decommissioning the plants is far too high. That is primarily why I do not support this form of power.
Tsunamis over that 85 ft. rise in the inlet bay(among the bluffs, <KIM!>) up to Diablo's central plant are VERY unlikely, reiterating what I said before. Tsunamis along the California coast have been significant pretty much only during Alaskan earthquakes, unless our section of the "ring of fire" becomes more active with volcanoes and such. It is so unlikely, but not impossible. As our title says, California's faults are not like Japan's.
Patricia![]()
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