San Onofre trying to Imitate Fukushima

[Joe Neubarth]

Now, when it comes to faulty engineering, San Onofre in San Diego County is another disaster just waiting to happen.

For forty years, just like Fukushima, they have had their Emergency Diesel Generators at ground level or lower. Ground level is about 27 feet above the ocean. The inertia of a three meter tsunami could easily wash over the site, thus rendering those diesel generators inoperative. I brought that to the attention of Senator Diane Feinstein a year ago and she went down to the plant and inspected.

San Onofre agreed to move the Emergency Diesel Generators to higher ground. I doubt that they have done that yet but I have not looked. To think, they were designed by engineers to fail if there was a tsunami. They also had a single point of possible commercial electrical power from the South. Can anybody say FAILURE POINT?

What kind of engineers design these plants?

Idiots for certain!

Those problems have been there for four decades and no corrective action has been taken to correct them at all during this time. For forty years millions of people’s lives have been at risk in Orange, Riverside and San Diego Counties. Where are the inspections teams that should have found these points of failure? I'll give you one hint.

The regulatory agencies are controlled by the industry Big Wigs, and they are perfectly happy to risk the lives of millions in an accident at some point in time as long as they can make billions of Dollars today.

Industry Big Wigs also control our congressmen and senators. The only one that I know of who is not for sale is Diane Finestein. I have never voted for her, but I think I will in the future.

[Joe Neubarth]

Below is a photograph of San Onofre. I have placed some arrows showing you where a tsunami flowing in the direction of the arrows can run up on land and flood back down on San Onofre. To think that they had their Emergency Electrical Diesel Generators at ground level for forty years where they could be made inoperative by high tide and a three meter tsunami flowing from the northwest. Unbelievable! And nobody ever caught this before I wrote to Diane.

[Joe Neubarth]

Supposedly they are going to move the Emergency Diesel Generators back close to the Interstate where the ground is higher. They probably would be safer if they were placed on the other side of the Interstate.

The reactors (Pressurized Water Reactors instead of the Fukushima style BWR's) are under those two reinforced cement domes and should be reasonable safe from the impact of a three meter tsunami. There is still a lot of electrical circuitry at ground level and it can be flooded by the sea water and shorted out. Since I do not know their electrical schematics, I do not know what pumps and motors would be effected if they were shorted out by sea water. I hope and pray that the engineering for that is not as horrible as it was at Fukushima.

From the center of the photo running to the right is the Sea Wall. Its effective height is about 27 or so feet above ocean level. NOT ENOUGH!

Just like Fukushima the so called engineers who designed San Onofre put the emergency diesel generators where a tsunami can make them inoperative. For years San Onofre operated with commercial electrical power available from only the south. It never dawned on those engineers that if they lost that commercial power and a small tsunami hit that they would be in an Electrical Blackout situation, just like Fukushima which then melted down. San Onofre would melt down, too with no cooling pumps. If you have no electricity, you can not run the pumps.

San Onofre has designed failure built into their engineering all over the place and should never have been allowed to start up.