Summary: | The present study addresses briefly the safety and design requirements of nuclear power
plants from earthquakes and tsunamis that may affect the structure or cooling systems of
their reactors, and which may result in additionally and longer term destructive impacts on
nearby communities and marine life due to the additional release of radioctivity - as was the
case with the 11 March 2011 Fukushima Daichi nuclear plant in Japan, as well as with the
release of radioactivity by other nuclear power plants by tsunamigenic earthquakes in other
parts of the world.
The vulnerability of nuclear power plants to earthquakes and tsunamis was specifically
examined by the author in conducting a comprehensive study of historic earthquakes and
tsunamis, as well as by an extensive air and land field survey of Southern California,
undertaken under contract with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NRC), and the U. S.
Army Coastal Engineering Research Center (CERC), in connection with the licencing of
the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant near San Clemente in California, and of subsequent
attempts to licence the additional Units 2 and 3 of the same facility of the Southern
California Edison Company (the licensee).
The present evaluation is also based on historical records extended back in time for
determining earthquake and tsunami events when California was still under Spanish control
under Gaspar de Portolá, the Spanish military officer from Catalonia in Spain, the first
governor of Upper California, and founder of Monterey and San Diego, before California
was annexed by the United States as a State of its Union. Also researched were archives in
Seville, Spain.
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