San Onofre shutdown will mean tight electricity supplies

[wtmusic]

16. Nonsense

"Myth:

San Onofre isn't built for a Southern California big earthquake, and what happened at Fukushima Daiichi can happen here.

Fact

Every U.S. nuclear power plant – including San Onofre – is designed to withstand the maximum potential earthquake for its location without releasing radioactive materials. The commonly known Richter scale is not used to determine earthquake building safety for any building. Instead, building safety relies on a more accurate value known as "peak ground acceleration," which is based on the anticipated ground movement at the site during the largest potential earthquake, estimated by geologists. Additionally, the proximity of the fault and soil conditions must also be considered. So it is not accurate to simply say that San Onofre was only built to withstand a 7.0 earthquake.

As approved by the U.S. NRC, San Onofre was built to withstand a peak ground acceleration of at least 0.67g (g refers to the force of gravity). For comparison, the current California Building Code design requires any buildings built in the vicinity of San Onofre to be designed to withstand an earthquake motion that has peak ground acceleration of 0.38g."

http://www.songscommunity.com/earthquake-safety.asp#.UbdKn-ua3nA