Earthquakes and nukes
By Tim Redmond
Back in the early 1980s, San Francisco's Public Media Center did a campaign against PG&E's Diablo Canyon nuclear plant with a slogan that read:
"A nuclear plant on an earthquake fault? PG&E is making the mistake of our lives."
You see, Diablo's built right smack atop the active Hosgri Fault.
PG&E has always insisted that there's no problem, that the plant is perfectly safe, that even a severe quake wouldn't cause any problems.
I'm sure the folks at Tokyo Electric Power said the same thing.
Except that their nuke just spilled some radioactive shit into the ocean, had to be shut down and is sparking calls for better nuclear safety. In fact, Japan, which has invested heavily in nukes, is starting to have some second thoughts.
I wonder what all the pro-nukers will be saying after the inevitable big quake hits San Luis Obispo and Diablo becomes a massive safety hazard. Maybe they'll realize they made the mistake of our lives.
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Comments (1)
i agree that we need to be a lot smarter about locating the future nuke plants but we also need to accept that the only way to stop global warming is to replace all the fossil fuel burning power plants on this continent with nukes in our lifetime or the battle will be over and the earthquakes will be the least of our concern.
one coal burning power plant in the midwest generates as much pollution as all our cars every year in the entire country.
please help solve the problem by educating the masses not just scaring them.
Posted by james | July 26, 2007 07:48 PM