re: #186 mracb

Make the generators safe from tsunami and things should work out. The tsunami took out the backup generators. That was a predictable is preventable issue with those reactors built on the ocean in earthquake area and known for large tsunami. It should have been planned for better. Risk management should have identified that long ago.

About 40 years ago, my class took a field trip to San Onofre. They told us nuclear power was absolutely guaranteed safe, there’s never been a fatal accident at a nuclear power plant, never been any radiation getting out into the world, couldn’t possibly ever happen (I’m sure they’ve changed the spiel since then, if they even still do class field trips), it could withstand earthquakes or plane crashes or anything that could ever ever happen. I was young enough to believe them.

That being said, please take note that the reactor core is cooled with circulating sea water, the beaches nearby are popular due to being significantly warmer than the entire rest of the Pacific Ocean. Surfers comes from miles around to enjoy the warm nuclear waters, where you don’t need a wetsuit and there aren’t any fish. And I’m sure it’s entirely coincidental that the researchers at Scripps Oceanography, a few miles downcurrent, have discovered in their tidepools any number of marvelous new mutations in their starfish and crabs and anemones.