======================================================================
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
======================================================================
On 3/11/11 8:09 PM, DW wrote:
Maybe you ought too since you can't even ask the question correctly. The
correct question...one that shows some acumen on what is happening is only
this: "What IS happening and how has it affected the reactor in question?"
What exactly did I say that "could never happen" that HAS happened? As it's
too early to tell what *has* happened...the question is way to premature. I
never said there couldn't be an earthquake big enough to damage a nuclear
power plant. In fact I reference that exact same issue in the link provided
by Louis.
Weekend Edition
March 11 - 13, 2011
CounterPunch Diary
Earthquakes, Waves and What Ifs
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
Here on the West Coast of the United States the Japanese earthquake was
swiftly domesticated in the early dawn hours of Friday as the possible
dimensions of the tsunami speeding States-ward across the Pacific.
On the coastal stretch of our local county road in Humboldt county,
northern California, perhaps the irksome signs installed a few years
ago alerting drivers and hikers that they were in a zone exposed to the
risk of tidal waves would at last be of some use, though what precise
use is hard to say. If there really was a tsunami of destructive size
racing towards the shore, by the time you saw the sign and looked out to
sea, you would be engulfed long before swerving uphill at McNutt and
inland towards CounterPunch’s southern HQ in Petrolia.
The whole tsunami signage is locally derided as either a boondoggle or
one more extrusion of the eco-panic convulsing the genteel classes,
stretching from the Mayan calendar Apocalypse to the menace of flies
flying into one’s latte, a pressing concern of the county Health
Department, and requiring my neighbor Joe Paff – a coffee roaster – to
install costly anti-fly barriers on his milk steamer machines. Of far
more use would be alerts on the coastal stretch for wandering cows.
So far as I could elicit from my current field HQ, in Indian Wells,
southern California, in our neighborhood the tsunami was of modest
dimension, even though coastal roads were blocked and the entire region
on high alert. The town worst affected in northern California was
Crescent City, which experienced an 8’ surge and considerable damage to
boats, jetties and so forth.
I dare some surfers furtively deployed, excitedly awaiting the Big One.
Not so long ago I was looking at youtube at some King of the Waves whose
idea of fun is to get pulled out by a Zodiac and then put in the path of
50’ waves, at night.
As for the impact of an 8.9 I can barely imagine. We had a 7.1 in
Petrolia in 1992, and that was a rolling surge through the ground that
went on for what seemed like 30 seconds. Concerning the proximity of
the large earthquake in Japan’s recorded history to nuclear reactors,
Bob Alvarez writes today on our site,
“In the aftermath of the largest earthquake to occur in Japan in
recorded history, 5,800 residents living within five miles of six
reactors at the Fukushima nuclear station have been advised to evacuate
and people living within 15 miles of the plant are advised to remain
indoors.
“Plant operators have not been able to cool down the core of one
reactor containing enormous amounts of radioactivity because of failed
back-up diesel generators required for the emergency cooling….Early on
Japanese nuclear officials provided reassurances that no radiation has
been released. However, because of the reactor remains at a very high
temperature, radiation levels are rising on the turbine building –
forcing to plant operators to vent radioactive steam into the environment.”
Perhaps the news that Japanese nuclear reactors have been damaged and
that clouds of official deception are already rising above them will
cool the revival of enthusiasm for building new nuclear plants here in
the US, spearheaded politically by President Obama and okayed by major
green groups using the cover of alleged AGW, as long ago planned by the
nuclear industry.
As Harvey Wasserman points out on this site today:
“Had the violent 8.9 Richter-scale earthquake that has just
savaged Japan hit off the California coast, it could have ripped apart
at least four coastal reactors and sent a lethal cloud of radiation
across the entire United States.
“The two huge reactors each at San Onofre and Diablo Canyon are not
designed to withstand such powerful shocks. All four are extremely close
to major faults.”
________________________________________________
Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at:
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
