Orange County Register

Doesn’t that teeny weeny nuclear power plant on the bluff look like our very own San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station?!

This illustration, from a recent Nuclear Regulatory Commission report soberly titled “Tsunami Hazard Assessment at Nuclear Power Plant Sites in the United States of America,” says that those rogue waves most often caused by big earthquakes “can result in a severe hazard to safety-related cooling-water systems as well as other structures, systems and components important to safety of a nuclear power plant.”

• “The primary effect of the tsunami waves on a plant site is flooding …  and loss of cooling water (due to dry intakes during drawdown caused by receding tsunami waves).”
• “However, there are also several other effects, mainly from hydrodynamic forces that can cause severe damage to structures and the foundations of these structures.”

The NRC last updated its construction guidelines for this type of thing more than 30 years ago - in 1977. 

GEE, THANKS. ONE MORE THING TO WORRY ABOUT.

OK, so, the economy is crumbling beneath our feet and must we ponder a tsunami hitting the local nuclear power plant and sucking away cooling water and producing radioactive chaos?

“In the wake of the December 26, 2004, Sumatra earthquake and its accompanying tsunami that resulted in widespread loss of life and property in the Indian Ocean region, hazards posed by tsunamis have emerged as some of the most severe caused by natural phenomena,” the NRC’s report says. ”One operating nuclear power reactor was shut down during this tsunami, and, therefore, international nuclear power plant operators and reviewers felt the need to review the approach towards tsunami-hazard assessment for existing and proposed sites.”

Since dozens of new nuclear plants are in the pipeline to be built, the NRC is reworking regulations to be more confident plants can weather such rare but crippling crises. Like, specifically, making sure cooling water intake pipes are far enough off shore - and in deep enough water - that they won’t be left high and dry if water recedes.

WE’LL BE FINE

There’s not much to worry about here, says Gil Alexander, the very good-natured spokesman for Southern California Edison, which runs San Onofre.

“San Onofre was engineered to meet the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s stringent safety design standards plus provide a large margin of safety beyond those standards,” Alexander said in an email (on his day off, after reading through the report and contacting company mucky-mucks). “The plant’s two operating units are designed to safely shutdown during natural disasters including major earthquakes and tsunamis.”

The NRC is accepting comments on its draft report through Dec. 5, and new regulations are expected to emerge some time after that.

More Watchdog:

• Human error at San Onofre nuclear plant
• Vote: Is nuclear power safe?
• On watch at the nuclear plant: Zzzzzzzzzzzzz
• High-flying AIG subsidiary gets to play with Uncle Sam’s dough, too
• What does it cost to throw a presidential election?
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