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NRC Analyst Calls To Close Diablo Canyon, CA's Last Remaining Nuclear Plant
An anonymous reader writes Michael Peck, who for five years was Diablo Canyon's lead on-site inspector, says in a 42-page, confidential report that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is not applying the safety rules it set out for the plant's operation. The document, which was obtained and verified by The Associated Press, does not say the plant itself is unsafe. Instead, according to Peck's analysis, no one knows whether the facility's key equipment can withstand strong shaking from those faults — the potential for which was realized decades after the facility was built. Continuing to run the reactors, Peck writes, "challenges the presumption of nuclear safety."
This is not a new story, basically a reprint. With that said, if there is any indication the the plant cannot withstand postulated earthquake levels it should be shut down. This was not ignored, and the article does mention that an evaluation was performed based on the new information.
"In 2012, the agency endorsed preliminary findings that found shaking from the Shoreline fault would not pose any additional risk for the reactors. Those greater ground motions were “at or below those for which the plant was evaluated previously,” referring to the Hosgri fault, it concluded."
Given our experience with plants holding up extremely well to seismic events and the large margins that are included in seismic design of these plants, the finding is not surprising. Work continues, as it should, to look for anything that could possibly have been missed or not enveloped by the new data.
The basis for the inspectors complaint is, in large part, not that the plant is not capable of withstanding the quake, nor that the analsyis is faulty or incorrect, but rather that the licensing basis document has not been revised to require a higher peak acceleration design level. It is debateable whether such a would make any difference, since they are already required to analyze for the higher levels. Meanwhile, the concern is being handled through the appropriate processes.
Solar cells on every house is great as long as there is local storage in every house too.
Wind power is great as long as there is good power distribution infrastructure: It's always blowing somewhere.
Nuclear power is great as long as you address operational safety and waste storage, both of which are addressable if you do engineering rather than politics. Part of that is again, good infrastructure so you can build the nukes in good places for nukes.
It's easy to point at any single generation or harvesting technology and identify it's flaws as a sole solution. However there are many technologies and combined together they form a robust and comparatively clean solutions.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Germany is switching its baseload from nuclear to coal, which has meant digging the world's largest strip mine:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...
covering 48 square kilometers. Think of it as an anti-nuclear exclusion zone, like Fukushima but getting bigger instead of being cleaned up..
But when all the nukes are phased out, Garzweiler won't be enough. This even bigger lignite pit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...
will top out at 85 sq. km when fully developed. Lignite has the approximate energy value, and pollution profile, of damp firewood.
The real problem with Diablo Canyon, and the rest of the nuclear industry is managing the waste. There is no place to put nuclear waste in this country, so it's just stored on-site. That's crazy. You can't do that forever.
That being said, my expectation is that we'll continue to see tech advancements in solar and wind generation, and energy storage to the point where large central generation will be a thing of the past.