Negative Energy

photo: Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, California coast

That the news concerning the Japanese nuclear power plants is not greatly worse today counts as a positive development, while nuclear power in the U.S. is becoming a real topic.

On Friday, it was learned that workers at the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant didn't know an emergency water pump to cool reactors wasn't working--for the past 18 months. This is only one of the known problems or "near-misses" at normally tight-lipped nuclear facilities. Diablo Canyon is also of concern because of its position on the California coast, in an earthquake prone zone. Especially since as Newsweek speculates, there have been major earthquakes recently on three corners of the Pacific plate--the only corner left is the San Andreas fault under San Francisco. But relationships between quakes are poorly understood. There are other places more or less due, including up here in far northern California, where the offshore triple junction of plates will someday produce a quake as powerful as the one in Japan. It may affect Pacific northwest cities like Seattle.

While the federal government is conducting some sort of review of nuclear plants, the Onion published one of its satirical articles that is nearly identical to the real thing: "Responding to the ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan, officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission sought Thursday to reassure nervous Americans that U.S. reactors were 100 percent safe and posed absolutely no threat to the public health as long as no unforeseeable system failure or sudden accident were to occur."

Meanwhile, assessment continues on the Japan situation, including these details that distinguish the Japan plant from the most catastrophic accident so far, Chernobyl. Meanwhile Climate Post reveals: According to a diplomatic cable leaked by WikiLeaks, the International Atomic Energy Agency had warned Japan more than two years ago its safety measures were out of date, and that strong earthquakes would pose “serious problems” for their nuclear reactors.

And while the earthquake and tsunami caused as yet unknown damage to these plants and set in motion the disaster now unfolding, Japan's wind power farms are doing just fine.

Finally, for those who thought bringing up the nuclear disinformation of the 50s was over the top--those bad old days when a U.S. official claimed that radiation sickness was a pleasant way to die, and pet scientists claimed fallout is harmless and even good for you, may I present Ann Coulter who refused to say that even any of the nuke plant workers in Japan were in danger, and asserted that radiation is good for you.