Report: Quake safety lacking at nuke plant

[unhappycamper]

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/nov/15/report-questions-diablo-safety/



Diablo Canyon, Unit 1

Report: Quake safety lacking at nuke plant
By Morgan Lee1
1:51 a.m.Nov. 15, 2013 Updated2:04 p.m.

Federal nuclear safety regulators are not holding the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in San Luis Obispo County to the same earthquake standards as other U.S. reactors, according to a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocate for stricter nuclear safety oversight.

The report, commissioned by the California-based Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility, alleges that the utility operator of Diablo Cayon notified regulators in 2008 of a previously unknown fault line about 3,000 feet offshore that might produce more ground motion during an earthquake than the plant was designed to withstand. But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not demonstrated that the plant's twin reactors meet agency safety regulations, according to David Lochbaum, director of the Union of Concerned Scientist's Nuclear Safety Program.

"PG&E believes the plant can withstand the ground motion caused by an earthquake on the Shoreline fault. But it has never performed a rigorous analysis," Lochbaum concluded in the report. "As a result, the NRC does not have the information it needs to determine that Diablo Canyon can operate safely."

In a response to the report, the nuclear commission said its independent assessment of the Shoreline fault -- issued in 2012 and discussed at a public meeting in San Luis Obispo -- supports the conclusion that Diablo Canyon was designed and licensed to safely withstand the largest seismic ground motions expected at the site.