User:Jonathanwallace/Nuclear plants and earthquakes

Nuclear plants are designed to withstand the highest magnitude earthquake which previously occurred in their immediate area. In some cases, however, fault lines are not discovered until after a plant has been built, as in the case of the Diablo Canyon plant and the offshore Hongri fault, or Indian Point and the Westchester fault. The incidents at the nuclear plants in Japan after the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami have led to a renewed worldwide discussion about the safety of nuclear power plants built in earthquake zones.

Plants reported as built near fault lines
The Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant is designed to withstand a 7.5 magnitude earthquake from four faults, including the nearby San Andreas and Hosgri faults. Equipped with advanced seismic monitoring and safety systems, the plant is designed to shut down promptly in the event of significant ground motion. However, the offshore Hosgri fault was not discovered until the billion dollar plant was already underway, and the plant had to be re-engineered at that time.

A 1989 report posted on the Ralph Nader website, written the day after a 6.9 magnitude San Francisco earthquake caused the collapse of a freeway, and a shut down at Diablo Canyon,  quotes Ken Bossong of the Critical Mass Energy Project in 'Washington. D.C.: "Numerous U.S. nuclear reactors such as Diablo Canyon in California, Indian Point in New York, and Millstone in Connecticut are constructed perilously close to known fault lines." He sketches two scenarios, one in which the containment is breached and the core exposed, and another more likely one in which the temporary pools in which spent fuel is kept are exposed. Bossong observes: ""Whether any nuclear reactor could withstand a quake that registers as high as 7.5 on the Richter scale is purely hypothetical since the nuclear industry has no experience with a quake of that magnitude."

In a 2004 editorial on SFGate.com,Haydar Akbari notes that a 6.6 magnitude earthquake the prior month in the city of Bam, Iran, in which 40,000 people died,  illuminates "the potential danger of the nuclear power plant being constructed in the southern city of Bushehr, which is on the same geological fault line" as Bam. Bushehr itself "has been destroyed three times by earthquakes in recent history (1877, 1911 and 1962)." While Iranian officials and the company building the plant insist that it can withstand up to a 7.2 magnitude earthquake, "there is no guarantee that a temblor of greater magnitude will not strike. If that happens, the immediate and long-term consequences will be larger and more tragic than the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster in 1986." 

A 2007 article in New Scientist reports the siting of a new Russian-designed reactor at a site "rejected in the 1980s because it was prone to earthquakes.  The proposed site, at Belene, is near an active fault, according to Gueorgui Kastchiev, the former head of Bulgaria's nuclear plant at Kozloduy - where four of the six Russian reactors have been deemed unsafe and shut down....Also, Kastchiev says, the design is untested, and Bulgaria has a poor safety culture." 

Soon after the 2008 Chinese earthquake, the Telegraph reported "China has a research reactor, two nuclear fuel production sites and two atomic weapons sites in Sichuan province, where the quake struck, between 40 and 90 miles from the epicentre.... China's largest plutonium production reactor is also in the quake zone at Guangyuan." 

In the Phillipines in 2008, environmental groups opposed the recommissioning of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, built near fault lines at the orders of dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the 1970's but never operated. One of the organizers of a "no to BNPP" group says that "Tuesday morning’s earthquake near Iba, Zambales is a reminder of the hazards that await the BNPP and the community within the area". That one was 5.3 on the Richter scale.  A Canadian environmental lawyer states in a blog entry from June 2010: "Soon after our office stopped shaking in today’s second earthquake, I started to wonder again about Ontario’s nuclear plants. OPG says we shouldn’t worry: 'There have been no earthquakes greater than a Magnitude 4 within 50 km of the Pickering nuclear power station over the last 100 plus years.'  This morning’s earthquake is reported to have been a magnitude 3; the afternoon earthquake is now being reported as 5 or 5.5."  In January 2011, a Greenpeace blog post quoting an Indian thinktank report, said that the "Jaitapur nuclear power plant in the Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra [is] sitting on an earthquake zone". 